SKOGSBERG, JOAKIM Jola Rota (Tiliqua) cd 26.00
Even if we didn't make this Record of the Week, we'd probably still be selling quite a few of 'em, as we're sure we've got a lot of knowledgeable record-collector-type customers for whom adding this to cart will be but the work of a second, the second after their eyes bug out upon seeing the artist and title listed above. But since this reissue is not only of an incredible rarity but also of an incredible record, we wanted to make sure everybody heard about it, besides those for whom it's already a "holy grail". Yep, Joakim Skogberg's original 1972 Jola Rota LP definitely falls into the highly obscure "holy grail" category, a lost treasure for lovers of weird, wonderful acid-folk and underground psychedelia. The sort of thing that develops a legend that it can't possibly live up to... but then DOES, blowing minds when it's finally reissued. The sort of thing that's whispered about among connoisseurs of psych, written of in a few select fanzines and blogs, heard only by a lucky few who got an Nth generation cassette dub or cd-r burn from a friend, who got it from a friend, and so on. The sort of thing, that even a few years after a brief exposure to its wonders, will make you stop and think every once in a while, dang when is someone finally gonna reissue that amazing obscure album??? Some other recently excavated examples would include Moolah's Woe Ye Demons Possessed, Bobb Trimble's Harvest Of Dreams, and Gary Higgins's Red Hash... and before that, once upon a time Comus's First Utterance too would have fallen into that category. Bruce Haack's Electric Lucifer as well, though originals of that were and are much MUCH easier to come by. Whereas *this* album was originally pressed in an edition of around just one thousand copies -- of which only a few hundred were ever sold back in the day, with the remainder of the pressing being, gasp, melted down to be recycled into other LPs!
So, here it is, artist Joakim Skogsberg's lone album Jola Rota finally, officially reissued for the very first time! Our hearts went pitter pat when we found out. We first heard this when our friend Loren Chasse (of Of/Thuja/Jewelled Antler/etc. fame) floated us a cd-r burn he had gotten from a pal overseas a couple years ago, as per the scenario outlined above. He figured we'd like it, and of course he was right. What's not to like? Swedish-forest-folk hippie ritual mixed with droned-out psych guitar. Truly strange, and captivating, vocal mumble. And, get this, it was actually mostly recorded out in a forest, on portable reel-to-reel gear!! Once out of the woods, the raw recordings were overdubbed (Skogsberg being responsible for all sounds on this album) in studio, but remain quite raw, the mystery and majesty of northern landscapes, dark shadowy places, placid lakes, tall trees and moss-covered rocks utterly alive in the music of the nature-loving Skogsberg.
Side One starts off with "Jola Fran Ingbo", which introduces Joakim's unusual "Jola" singing style derived from Swedish trad folk, also heavily influenced by Buddhist chant, accompanied by staccato bowings of ominous violin. Immediately this is waaaay darker than most other Swedish folk/psych we've heard! Seriously droney and austere. That's followed by the more freaked out, rockier "Offer Rota", which finds Skogsberg singing whilst pounding away on percussion and unfurling a thick layer of distorted guitar murk, with what sounds like a Jew's Harp warbling in the background. The next piece, "Fridens Lijor", on the other hand, is an unaccompanied vocal piece, close-miced and intimate, all about Skogsberg's fragile Jola babble...
Beginning side two, "Besvarjelse Rota" builds up a dubby, bassy electronic rhythmic whomp-whomp throb beneath its damaged psych guitar wail, that (in our warped imagination) foreshadows modern minimal techno a la Chain Reaction, "heroin house" beats.... could almost be Pole jamming with Algarnas Tradgard or something! Later, the lengthy "Jola Fran Stensate" harkens back to the solemnity of the album's first track, and then "Jola Fran Leksand" winds up this unique, amazing trip with something of a pagan campfire dance piece, for folky fiddle and rattling hand percussion.
Overall, though, Jola Rota's mood is solitary and ceremonial. Skogsberg not a guru leading his followers, but rather one man, inspired, singing devotional songs to nature, in personal communion with the ancient deities of Sweden and the universe... it IS universal, probably why it sounds simultaneously like krautrock and Tibetan worship and Native American prayer-songs. The universality of the drone, and the human voice in spiritual reverence regardless of language. At its droniest, many moments here recall Parson Sound or the aforementioned Moolah. Totally, magically mesmeric. Wow... EVERYONE who's heard this since we got it in has been entranced.
And we're extra happy that not only has this been reissued, but that the reissue was done by our pal Johan's Tokyo-based Tiliqua Records (along with EM Records, one of our absolute favorite reissue labels from that part of the world, or anywhere else). Which means, it's done up deluxe, packaged in a swank miniature gatefold LP-style sleeve, and it's been remastered from the original tapes with the help of Skogsberg himself. There's also new liner notes and previously unpublished photos of the long haired and bearded (of course) Skogsberg included. Nice! Sadly, this too is limited to a one-time pressing of only 1,000 copies... and unlike the original vinyl edition, we doubt the label will be left with any unsold copies to recycle!
FYI there will also be a super, super limited (and expensive) vinyl version of this coming on on Tiliqua in May, not sure if we'll be able to get any of those at all or if they'll be a label-direct preorder thing only...
MPEG Stream: "Jola Fran Ingbo"
MPEG Stream: "Offer Rota "
MPEG Stream: "Besvarjelse Rota"

LURKER OF CHALICE s/t (Southern Lord) cd 14.98
Lurker Of Chalice, the slightly more twisted alter ego of Leviathan mainman Wrest. This, his one and only album, released in two different cd editions, both out of print for ages, and a 2lp edition, also out of print, has finally been reissued. Now in a deluxe digipak, and much to the chagrin of the folks who bought the cd the first time around, this new cd version includes the previously vinyl only bonus track! So it's time to either finally hear what you've been missing, or suck it up and buy it all over again for that extra track, it's worth it...
Here's our review of the Lurker record when we first listed it in 2005:
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 militaristic 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"

KOENJIHYAKKEI Hundred Sights of Koenji (Skin Graft) cd 14.98
At last!!! We knew we could count on the Skin Graft label. They've finally reissued the amazing, long-out-of-print debut album by Koenjihyakkei (aka Hundred Sights Of Koenji), a crucial "side project" of Japanese spazz-prog faves Ruins. Originally released by the Japanese God Mountain label back in 1994, this is one that any fan of Ruins, or heavy crazed Zeuhl-style prog rock action, MUST HEAR, NOW.
If you're familiar with the Magma-obssessed Tokyo bass and drums duo Ruins, imagine them becoming EVEN MORE Magma-obsessed and adding female vocalist/keyboardist and a guitar player (actually, adding a bass player, as the Ruins bass player nimbly switched to guitar for this). This uber-Ruins quartet then wrote a bunch of insane, gorgeous prog rock tunes (or, in one case, adapted a traditional Bulgarian one, on the track "Yagonahh", surely one of the most incredible reeling hoedowns ever recorded) and play them to dazzling perfection. The French '70s prog band we keep mentioning (Magma) are insane, but not quite this heavy or hyper. If you like Ruins and/or Magma and/or weird prog music, you want to get this if you haven't already. It's probably the best of Koenjikhyakkei's albums, which are all pretty cool... indeed if you've been following our updates and scanning our website, you probably have read our ravings about this band's other releases. And as good as they are, this is the one, that started it all. Sooooo bombastic, so energetic, so exotically catchy. You've likely never heard anything as majestically grandiose and yet as full of stop on a dime frenzies as opener "Ioss", ferinstance. And the whole album is full of that sort of thing. It makes us gleeful just to think about it. Definitely in the top two or three of of all Tatsuya Yoshida related non-Ruins releases sez our resident Japanophile, Allan (don't ask him what the others are though, he'll spend all day agonizing over it).
One kinda curious note to make about this reissue, though: mastermind Yoshida not only remixed it for this reish, but he apparently also RE-RECORDED all his drum tracks! We're pretty sure only he could tell the difference. We really wonder what inaudible-to-others flaws he felt he needed to correct! This new disc seems to be about 12 seconds longer than the original, too, but we couldn't tell ya where/why.
MPEG Stream: "Ioss"
MPEG Stream: "Zhess"
MPEG Stream: "Yagonahh"

V/A Bollywood Steel Guitar (Sublime Frequencies) cd 16.98
Just from the title alone, we knew that this latest installment in the always-amazing Sublime Frequencies series of unusual and under-documented "world music" recordings was gonna be the bomb! Indeed it is. The 'exotic' and infectious verve of vintage Bollywood film soundtrack music, performed with electric steel guitar as lead instrument for extra awesomeness, is hard to beat! The steel guitar, bringing with it the groovy twang of Western Swing and Hawaiian fret-sliding flavor, as well as a measure of classical Indian music, easily effects an emotive echo of the human voice that ordinarily fronts Bollywood themes. Compiler Stuart Ellis' informative liner notes describe these instrumental pop versions of Hindi film hits as the "elevator music of India" and if that's the case, we'd definitely rather be stuck in an elevator in Mumbai than anywhere else. There's 21 rare tracks by a half dozen masterful Bollywood steel string slingers: Van Shipley, Kazi Aniruddha, S. Hazarasingh, Sunil Ganguly, Charanjit Singh, and Guatam Dasgupta, recorded between 1962 and 1986.
A completely captivating collection, already one of our favorites among the many great Sublime Frequencies releases. And probably it should be no surprise that, for example, Van Shipley's "Jan Pahechan Ho" from the 1966 film Gunaam immediately gives us Sun City Girls flashbacks...
MPEG Stream: VAN SHIPLEY "Jan Pahechan Ho"
MPEG Stream: KAZI ANIRUDDHA "Piya Tu Ab To Aja"
MPEG Stream: SUNIL GANGULY "Are Diwano Mujhe Pehchano"

BIRDS OF AVALON Outer Upper Inner E.P. (Volcom) cd ep 7.98
This North Carolina band's debut last year, Bazaar Bazaar, we hailed as a brand new classic of, uh, classic rock. Super '70s yet super fresh too, with their kick ass combo of hard rock and power pop, fueled by killer twin guitar harmonies and fronted by a lead singer with the looks and the lungs of rock gods of daze past. Yep, if anyone's still making truly classic rock, these guys (and gal) are. They're on tour opening for the Raconteurs as we write this, a perfect match though we wouldn't be surprised if the Birds blow the headliners off the stage every night...
So, to tide us over 'til they've got a new full length, here's an ep, six new tracks, both badass and breezy, Birds Of Avalon always making it look easy... If anything, the blissful pop quota has been upped, with "Hazy 98" in particular sounding pretty darn Beatlesy. Elsewhere, they let the guitars lay it on thick and heavy, with "The Reeds" perhaps being the proggiest bit of asskickery (or vice versa) on this sweet lil' disc.
So again, we say check this out to anyone looking for a unique, modern day mix of (hints of) Cheap Trick, Led Zep, Big Star, Thin Lizzy, Southern rock, Rainbow, Raspberries, Nuggetsy garage psych, and other goodness... like maybe if somehow Drunk Horse and The Makes Nice were melded into one band, bathed in sunshine???
MPEG Stream: "Measure Of The Same"
MPEG Stream: "Earthbound"

WITCH Paralyzed (Tee Pee) cd 14.98
Witch's self-titled debut from 2006 was one of our absolute favorite "stoner/doom" metal releases of that year (or any year sez Allan!). An unlikely "supergroup" combo consisting in part of members of folk-pysch collective Feathers, with famed alt-rock guitar god J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. on drums (not guitar!), Witch exceeded all expectations with their slow and Sabbathy, heavier than thou, utterly righteous psychedelic doom mastery. OMG, oh my Iommi, the riffs!!
Perhaps aware that they couldn't really outdo (or outdoom?) themselves riff-wise, the debut being such a tough act to follow in that department, the Witchy ones have smartly decided to accentuate some other aspects of their sound on their sophomore slab. So while the first Witch had held hints of SST styled '80s punkishness, our first impression of Paralyzed is that it's definitely much more punked out than its illustrious predecessor. Perhaps Mascis, who used to keep time in hardcore/grind band Deep Wound way back when, wanted more of a workout on the drums. It's quite chaotically energetic and uptempo aggro a lot of the time, along with indulging in their usual lugubrious headbanging trancification. A little less Vitus, a little more Flag (is the song "Gone" a nod to Ginn's other band?). And maybe more Frost, less Sabbath.
Not that they don't bring the riffs, it's just that they don't quite match the 10 on a scale of 1-10 magnitude of those from the likes of "Changing" or "Rip Van Winkle" from the self titled album (how could they?). However, the speedier (in parts) Paralyzed does certainly boast a bonanza of snakey lead guitar action, liberally dosed in tripped out psychedelic FX. We gotta hand it to singer/lead axeman Kyle Thomas, he shows no signs of nervousness taking tangled solos with none other than (let's not forget) J. Mascis bashing away behind him. Nor is he shy on the mic, his vocals sometimes reminding us of the sneer/snarl of Blaine from The Accused... with, still, a bit of the Ozz. Other observations: sometimes we think we hear the cries of garagey pop jangle buried alive on some of these tracks, and at times we might (might) describe Witch as sounding like a way more badass Dead Meadow. Also the more lumbering tracks here ('cause they do slow it down) remind us of some early Melvins or Steel Pole Bathtub. It's a pretty rad, reverby mix altogether, an cool collision of heavy psychotic shambling psych and corroded crossover punk/metal. We're digging it. Comes in a black digipack adorned with the apocalyptic, druggy, melty-looking artwork of bros Luke and Kyle Thomas, which makes it even cooler.
MPEG Stream: "Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Sue"
MPEG Stream: "1000 Mph"

SKULL DEFEKTS, THE DFX (Cut Hands) cd-r 14.98
Another new one from Swedish noisemakers Skull Defekts, who like much of the new breed of cd-r underground outfits, have gone from unknown to prolific in the blink of an eye. This latest comes courtesy of the Cut Hands label, and is crazy limited, only a hundred copiesŠ
And while past Defekts records have been strongly rooted in rhythm, this two tracker is much more about texture and mood, timbre and ambience, with any rhythm merely a muted pulse, a submerged throb, or a bit of dizzying skipped looping. The opening track is 21 minutes of low end murk, soft shimmering drift, smeared pixilated glitch, moaning bass tones, a distant swirl of disembodied voices, croaks and creaks, blurred into another buzzy layer, the track building in intensity, the tones growing thicker and more corrosive, streaks of feedback draped over sonorous tones, all wrapped in a whirring cloud of soft insectoid buzz.
The second track, also 21 minutes, is much more chaotic and confusional, voices swirl dizzily, chunks of glitchy electronics suspended in a roiling sea of constant low end buzz, smears of malfunctioning effects, sine wave skree and crumbling distortion, all looped into some haunting post industrial collage, eventually smoothing out into a long stretch of layered rumble and whir, but still shot through with jagged shards of percussive clatter and sizzling electronic grind. Sort of Pan Sonic meets Wolf Eyes which is most definitely a good thing.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Packaged in cool oversized, textured paper, three color silkscreened gatefold sleeves, the disc attached to a nub on one of the panels, a printed black and white insert, each disc hand painted.
MPEG Stream: "DFX 1"
MPEG Stream: "DFX 2"

FUCK BUTTONS Street Horrrsing ( ATP) cd 15.98
Fuck Buttons? Please just ignore the name for a moment. We're glad WE did, and actually gave this band a listen... 'cause, fuck if they don't push our buttons. The pleasure ones, big fat buttons labeled massive super distorted heavy electronic drone fuzz pop damage. Really we were surprised, though maybe the colorful cover artwork that kinda makes this look like a Black Dice record should have been an indication that this Bristol UK duo was gonna be cool, despite their name. They're energetically exotic and hypnotically repetitive and just chock full of sheer noise fuzz bliss, bulldozering over buried melodies, tribal weirdness, and equally distorted screaming vocals, though this is mostly an instrumental, rhythmic throb. These six fairly lengthy songs wrap the listener's ears in a multihued steel wool blanket of abrasive warmth, made from such shimmering sonic elements as ambient piano, motorik machine beats, and thick spaced out synth. And just when you think it's already pretty darn fuzzed out, they flip a switch or step on a pedal or something and then the REAL fuzz kicks in.
Definitely for fans of Growing at their most SUNNO)))-y. Also we might say this sounds like Vulture Club doing the vacuuming over at Gang Gang Dance's house, playing Jesu and M83 albums real loud while they do so. A beautiful blend of noise and drone and bright shining eternal pop loveliness...
The very first track, "Sweet Love For Planet Earth" might be our favorite though we're crushed out on the whole album. But this song really sums it up, it IS the album the way the first song on the Mammal's Lonesome Drifter WAS that Mammal album too. This track has got the pretty, ringing piano part to start with, gloriously building up into the choppy fuzzed out throb we soon learn is Fuck Button's modus operandi. Damn this is good -- and there's even vocals amidst this heavenly buzz that sound like they could come off some cvlt black metal album.
So yeah Fuck Buttons, cool band, dunno about the name. Seems like Fuck is the new Super or Jesus or Black, as bandnaming trends go. There's been The Fucking Champs, Fuck I'm Dead, and of course, Fuck. But more recently, bands named Fucked Up, Holy Fuck, and now Fuck Buttons have made the scene... always hilarious when they get popular enough to be played on the radio or mentioned in the mainstream press. Not so hilarious when spam filters prevent AQ list subscribers from getting emails with our reviews. But whatever, we swear a lot ourselves anyway, sorry about that. Anyway, fucking recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Love For Planet Earth"
MPEG Stream: "Bright Tomorrow"

MASONNA Ultimate Collection Vol.1 (Alchemy) cd 21.00
There's noise, and then there's noise!!! And then, there's Masonna... and this, the Ultimate Masonna (volume one).
Never heard any Japanese noise? Well, there's always a first time, and this could be it. Maybe you'll love it (if not, you'll probably hate it... not much room for any reactions in-between). If you have heard Japanese noise, you probably already know Masonna. Along with Merzbow and Hijokaidan, he's probably the most (in)famous and most extreme of all the many Japanese noisicians. At AQ, he's also quite popular for his other sonic endeavors, the analog spaced out kosmiche electronic trips of Space Machine, the super psychedelic rhythmic synth grooves of Christine 23 Onna, and the fuzz-freaked garage rock of Acid Eater. Those outfits, to varying degrees, can be considered music, even pop music. But recording under the Masonna moniker, Maso Yamazaki makes sheer noise, no "music" involved at all. Just ultra dynamic, distorted screaming and electronic distortion, volume cranked to the max, an all-out expressive attack, acrobatic and energetic. Very similar to his famous "jumping" live performances.
In honor of Masonna's 20th anniversary of noisemaking, packaged with super swank graphics (we dig the elaborate Greatful Dead/Quicksilver looking logo) and liner notes in both English and Japanese, Ultimate Collection Vol.1 brings back two long out of print Masonna documents. It includes the oddly titled Masonna Vs. Bananamara LP, originally released on vinyl in 1989 by Japan's Vanilla Records in an edition of 290 copies, and the aptly titled 1996 album Hyper Chaotic, originally from tiny US label V Records. Reissued together on one compact disc, these two albums comprise 48 mostly short tracks (many of 'em under a minute each) of the most intense, shrieking shards of distortion with which you've ever abused your ears... you've been warned!!
The vs. Bananamara album (which was Masonna's debut LP after some self-released cassettes) perhaps features more high-end skree, while the later Hyper Chaotic is more about blown-out white noise... but there's plenty of both sounds throughout!
MPEG Stream: "Keckold"
MPEG Stream: "Baimn Lamx"
MPEG Stream: "Hyper Chaotic - Chapter 2"
MPEG Stream: "Hyper Chaotic - Chapter 13"

POWERS COURT Red Mist Of Endenmore (Dragonheart) cd 21.00
RESTOCKED!! You know how we're always talkin' cult this, cult that, with regard to black metal? Well heck if your black metal band *isn't* considered cult you may as well hang it up. But in other genres, the term can still have some actual meaning. Power metal ferinstance. Lots of not-cult bands of that ilk crowding the scene. And then the occasional one that truly is "cult", has a cult, or deserves a cult (following)... we'll leave it to black metal bands to potentially BE cults in the religious sense.
In any event, all this is preliminarily in aid of saying, bow down, a new Powers Court album (only their third in 18 years of existence!) has finally materialized on our shared plane of existence!! We've reviewed and raved about their others, longtime AQ customers may remember. Basic info: Powers Court is a power metal trio from Illinois (yep, American metal!) whose cult quality is pretty much owed to the persona of the talented Danie Powers, guitarist/vocalist. Females are rare enough in metal bands, especially as leaders, making Ms. Powers immediately notable. She's notable too for her amazing, nearly 5-octave range. She'd be a unique and formidable vocalist alone, but she's also the main songwriter, shredder, and riffmaster (mistress?) of the band. Go, girl!
And while it's been quite a few years since the last Powers Court album back in 2001, Danie & Co. seem to have put that time to good use, crafting a meticulous and magnificent display of 21st century true metal mastery... We'll recommend this immediately to Hammers Of Misfortune fans for a couple reasons, first you probably like operatic female metal vocals, and secondly, this is a concept album, a narrative based on some dark Italian folktale about doomed lovers and occult happenings. This sinister story is set against a relentless, surging backdrop of proggy, pyrotechnic power metal. And we do mean power. Full of explosive, galloping double bass drumming, chunky buzzsaw guitar riffage, harmonic squeals, herky-jerk rhythmic complexities, and, soaring melodically o'er it all, that haunting, weird voice. Theatrical, commanding, sorta like a power metal version of Grace Slick or Pat Benatar, also comparable to Kind Diamond. She sings like a woman possessed, sometimes a crystal clear delicate songbird (as on finale "Vain Regrets") in the upper range, sometimes descending to a much throatier, lower register that's definitely medievally monkish, or even akin to a black metal rasp. Often doubled, multitracked for extra eerie effect, Powers warbles and holds notes in weird ways, her phrasing always adding as much preternatural personality to the proceedings as does her wide range.
Recommended! Definitely for Hammers fans, also for anyone into the dark, thrashy eccentricity of another American metal cult, Manilla Road.
MPEG Stream: "A Somber Day"
MPEG Stream: "Outrage"
MPEG Stream: "Darkness Calls"

VINCENT BLACK SHADOW More Deeper (Heartbreakbeat) cd 14.98
It's a good week for rock n' roll. Uh huh, look out, Baltimore (or as they prefer, "Baltamont") psychpunk badasses Vincent Black Shadow (the REAL Vincent Black Shadow) are back! If you heard their AQ (and Julian Cope) recommended debut, you know exactly what to expect. If you're new to the VBS, well, think wretched rawk action and psychotic reaction. Simply put, this is trashy Stooges worship at its uber-distorto, heavy-ass best!!! Just take a listen... that vocalist is a streetwalking cheetah with a heart fulla napalm, am I right?! Goddamn right I am. He's backed up by reckless riffing, the guitar strangulation plenty raw and primal. You're not gonna need to be told that this is obviously meant to be played loud. It's a throbbing testament to bouncing off the walls and breaking shit (and maybe rolling in broken glass and peanut butter). Ah, life's simple pleasures. File with such outwardly bound jams-kickers as The Heads, Cope's Brain Donor band, and Boris (circa Pink). But with more of an ugly attitude. Like maybe the Pissed Jeans wrestling with Plastic Crimewave.
Nine tracks, a little over a half hour. On the short side maybe, but that still means the cops are gonna show up to tell you to turn it down (and stop stomping around, jumping off the furniture, disturbing the neighbors, etc.) long before the record's over. Which means...fuck the neighbors, fuck the cops... you're going to jail.
MPEG Stream: "Dome City"
MPEG Stream: "Wooden Kimono"

CAVITY Laid Insignificant (Hydra Head) cd 14.98
They just don't make bands like Florida's Cavity anymore. Or I guess maybe they do, but now they just make 5 or six bands out of the ingredients that made up Cavity back in the day. Not to sound like an old man, but these days most bands have 'A SOUND' and they stick to it. Cavity on the other hand were pretty tough to pigeonhole. Sure they were heavy. And they were metal. But also punk. Sorta grindy too. They tended toward the sludge-y end of the sonic spectrum, but in the middle of some sub Sabbath dirge they'd explode into a furious thrashing grind only to immediately slow back down to some impossibly glacial Khanate like crawl, complete with tortured shrieks, and buzzing droneguitar.
This record, originally recorded way back in 1997, sounds as fresh as it did a decade ago. Someone joked recently that super hyped duo No Age were punk rock for people who had never heard punk rock before. Which is not entirely fair to No Age as they are an awesome band, but there is some truth to the fact that lots of bands these days borrow pretty heavily from the past, without a lot of fans realizing it. No Age are kick ass and wild and fun, but they're not necessarily reinventing the wheel. That's also true with a lot of heavy bands these days. If Cavity were bunch of kids and Laid Insignificant was a super limited cd-r, or a one sided etched 12", labels would be lined up around the block to put something out by these guys, kids would be losing their shit. But just because this record is ten years old is no reason they still shouldn't. This is epic mindblowing heaviness. Furious and freaked out, sweaty and brutal and visceral. Elsewhere on this list Allan talks about Vincent Black Shadow in terms of sheer blown out sweat soaked pure rock and roll power. The same could be said about these guys, just leaning a little more toward the extreme side of the sonic spectrum. Back in the day, no band could touch Cavity live OR on record, and listening to them again, it seems like nothing has changed. The guitars are massive, the riffs incredible, heavy and melodic and thick as shit, the drums HUGE and pummeling, the songs super catchy, even when they're all tangled into buzzing blasts, or sprawled out in huge black oozing pools, the hooks remain intact. And vocalist Rene Barge has the wickedest raspy howl this side of Eyehategod. About as EMO as that kind of voice can get. Which also keeps these songs from turning into wanky riff fests. These are SONGS, dark and dense, complex and hypnotic, groovy and crushing, utterly headbangable for sure, certain to fill a pit in the blink of an eye, but at the same time, musical enough to be serious headphone bliss for the hard and heavy.
Not sure what else to say. These guys ruled. And still rule. This just proves it all over again.
MPEG Stream: "Laid Insignificant"
MPEG Stream: "The Woods"
MPEG Stream: "9 Fingers On The Spider"

EAST OF EDEN Mercator Projected (Esoteric Recordings) cd 23.00
Of the many, many prog rock reissues out there, here's a recent one we HAD to list, the 1969 debut album from this UK band. Why? Well, track two "Isadora" reminds us a bit of the flute-laced pastoral pagan-folk ceremony of AQ faves Comus! Elsewhere this band unleash psychedelic freakouts amidst jazz-inflected grooves, wielding electric violin, distorted guitar, and "Sumerian saxophones" in a mixture of rocked out fiddle frenzies, tricky time signatures, folky vocal melodies, and moody Eastern atmospheres. It's a mystical-Mingus hybrid, as played by a rock band, their wide ranging non-rock inspirations also allowing for one track, "Communion", to be based on a Bartok string quartet.
We'd compare 'em to contemporaneous acts like early King Crimson, and violin heavies High Tide, though these guys seem a bit more, uh, playful than either of those groups. Despite (or because of) such songs as "In The Stable Of The Sphinx", East of Eden's Ancient Egypt schtick has got to be a little tongue in cheek - check out the band photos, they simply can't be serious in that King Tut drag they're wearing! Their music certainly sounds like it comes from Swinging Sixties London, rather than out of a dusty sarcophagus. It's groovy, baby. Ferinstance, the riffy "Centaur Woman" is like Cream with bluesy harp seguing into an eruption of full on free improv horns, and also boasts an extensive bass solo (hence the tagline for that one: "half-woman, half-beast, half bass-guitar"). If they had let themselves go much further out, maybe they'd have started sounding like Japan's Food Brain from around the same time. But instead East Of Eden stick with what might play in the pop scene of the day, being exotic but not overindulgently experimental.
This nice new reish includes three previously unreleased bonus tracks - two demo versions and a cover of "Eight Miles High"!
MPEG Stream: "Northern Hemisphere"
MPEG Stream: "Isadora"

EIKO, ISHIBASHI & TATSUYA YOSHIDA Slip Beneath The Distant Tree (Rhythm Tracks) cd 15.98
Ok, if you're a fan of the Japanese prog-core duo Ruins and their amazing drummer and musical mastermind Tatsuya Yoshida, you already know he's a big fan of '70s progressive rock. Of course. It's pretty obvious, even if you've never experienced the Ruins' infamous "Prog Rock Medley". Ruins wouldn't be Ruins without the influence of classic '70s bands like Magma, Area, and Henry Cow. Here, Yoshida -really- gets proggy, though, paying tribute to some of his inspirations in that genre (and, classical music too) with both a batch of worthy originals and several exquisite cover versions as well.
At home in yet another duo situation, Tatsuya Yoshida (vocals, drums, programming, keys, acoustic guitar) teams up with Eiko Ishibashi (vocals, piano, keys, flute), to turn in 14 tracks of utter prog nirvana, stuff that's gorgeously melodic and mathematically mindboggling, both.
Fans of Ruins, Koenjihyakkei, Tairikuotoko vs. Sanmaykuonna, and other manifestations of Yoshida's prog-obsession will be drooling, from the sweet female vocals and quirky hectic changes of "Festival Of Teeth" to the amusing, impressive ADD-antics of the quite clever "Classic Medley" (all 1 minute, 21 seconds of it), from the dizzying "The Invention Of A Parachute" to the thickly synth-buzzed, heavy and haunting "Planet Of Reverberation" which ends the disc... Wow.
While that "Classic Medley" has a tongue-in-cheek, showoffish element we're sure, this duo also respectfully give props to a few of their influences with some other covers, including songs by This Heat ("Twilight Furniture"), Soft Machine ("As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still"), Genesis ("Time Table"), and Debussy ("Doctor Gradus Ad Pernassum")! You know what? Even if you've never ever heard Ruins before, we would still recommend this to the curious, who could just as easily as any old school prog diehard be thrilled by this elegant, intricate music. Especially since, with both the covers and originals, these two manage to strike a stellar balance between the technical, excitingly indulgent side of prog, and truly lovely, uh, songishness. So nice!
And now we're curious to hear more from Ms. Eiko...
MPEG Stream: "Sanctuary"
MPEG Stream: "The Invention Of A Parachute"
MPEG Stream: "Classic Medley"
MPEG Stream: "Planet Of Reverberation"

FLACK, ROBERTA First Take (Atlantic) cd 10.98
This is Roberta Flack's debut from 1969 and it's not only one of the best soul debuts of all time but one of our all-time favorite records. Many of us didn't even know there had been a cd version of this, but were excited to discover there was considering we've worn out our cherished lp versions, which we've cherished and always kept close to our turntable, even amongst the piles of our ever growing record collections.
But since there is indeed a cd version (not new or nothin') we had to take a moment to rave about it. First Take is an album brewing with such strong emotional weight, when Roberta sings it she means it, and while the word 'soul' has been reduced to a meaningless tag-name of a genre this reminds us what true soul is really all about. Elegant and moody string and horn arrangements by William Fischer, impeccable playing from a band that included the amazing Ron Carter on bass, and the stunning and often covered album opener "Compared To What" penned for Roberta by the enigmatic Gene (Eugene) McDaniels. First Take shares a special place next to records like Sam Cooke's Night Beat, Nina Simone's High Priestess Of Soul and Roy Orbison's In Dreams, another record that you can turn to time after time when you really need to check in with sounds that are filled with honesty and core conviction. There is no doubt that it's this record that has influenced everyone from Cat Power to Erykah Badu. First Take is as sexy as it is spiritual. Raw and unpolished yet so sensual and the closest thing you can get to trying to find any real peace of mind in this world. Absolutely recommended, a record that will always be close to our hearts!
MPEG Stream: "Compared To What"
MPEG Stream: "Tryin' Time"
MPEG Stream: "Angelitos Negros"

MENACE RUINE Cult Of Ruins (Alien8 Recordings) cd 15.98
What to make of a black metal band that has releases on both the Alien8 (Nadja, Merzbow, Acid Mothers Temple) and Tour De Garde (Ash Pool, Marblebog, Tomb Of..., Uno Actu) labels? That they're probably pretty weird? They are. And intense too. This is some sick stuff. Also beautiful, if you, like us, have fallen under the spell of this most extreme aesthetic, if you're someone whose eyes/imagination can scan the soot-blackend skies of an apocalyptic otherworld, and still spy flights of swans and stars beyond.
Menace Ruine, from the "frozen north" of Quebec, are the mysterious male/female duo of S. de La Moth and Genevieve. This James Plotkin-mastered Alien8 release is their debut album, after one demo (being reissued as a cassette on Tour De Garde). MR's original black metal art really made an immediate impression upon us despite how easily jaded we can be with the glut of black metal out there. It's the unholy layering of sometimes melodic feedback-sculpted ambient drone howl, with machine gun blasting... long stretches of atmospheric synth heavily infiltrated with sheer noise and distortion, scattered further with clanging industrial raw rhythms. There's almost 20th c. avant-garde moments of majesty, like some Romanian electronic composer gone insane in his or her sound laboratory, and others that with the occasional female vox bring to mind Wolves In The Throne Room wandering in another dimension. Or simply blaze with the burning black metal fires of not mere churches but whole civilizations.
For Alien8's first foray into the troo cvlt world of black metal, they couldn't have done much better, with a release that's indeed (oc)cult and true but also experimental, and not something that we've heard already a thousand times before, a rarity indeed! Fiercely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Process Of Bestialization"
MPEG Stream: "Sky As A Reversed Abyss"
MPEG Stream: "Bonded By Wyrd"

RENDERIZORS Submarine (Last Visible Dog) cd 13.98
Funny name, Renderizors. But it makes sense when you know that this New Zealand outfit is actually a conglomeration/collaboration of two AQ faves: The Renderers (NZ underground downer pop) and the Sandoz Lab Technicians (NZ underground freeform drone)!!
To quote from a previous review of ours, "Sandoz Lab Technicians may be the most fucked-up and most freeform out of all of the mind-expanding, free noise New Zealanders that we have championed in the past (i.e. Birchville Cat Motel, Dead C, Omit, Anthony Milton, etc.)." Meanwhile, The Renderers are much more in the indie-pop, song-oriented camp, combining post-punk dissonance with bleak depressive melody. Together, you get something that's a very very lovely best of both worlds. Haunted howling winds of gentle feedback quietly accompany the so sweet and so weary female singing from The Renderers' chanteuse Maryrose Crook. Spooky drones both threaten and cajole. Lethargic balladry struggles stoically amidst storms of psychedelic electric distortion, with nihilistic, nasal male mumbling also sharing the mic with the more breathy vox of Ms. Crook. At times we're reminded, maybe mysteriously, of everything from the Velvet Underground to Bardo Pond, Slap Happy Humphrey to Richard Youngs, Pumice to Doodles... and even the echoey '60s dark psych pop of obscure AQ faves Gandalf... though really we'd hope that saying "imagine a mix of The Renderers and Sandoz Lab Technicans" would do the trick! Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Under The Wheels"
MPEG Stream: "The Places We Walk (To Put Down Our Dead)"

GUAPO Elixirs (Neurot) cd 14.98
Prog nutters? These guys are, definitely. And be prepared to go prog nuts yourself for this new release from AQ-faves Guapo. This British band is now on Neurosis' Neurot label, after releases for (among others) Mike Patton's Ipecac and our own Andee's tUMULt. We've been fans of 'em for a long time, obviously, and are in good company! This new one is everything we'd expect from Guapo: extended, mostly instrumental cinematic symphonics, dark and moody, played with the virtuosity and verve of their '70s prog rock ancestors. Heck, I (Allan) played a 15 minute track from this, "King Lindorm", on my prog / krautrock radio show last night, Klaus To The Edge (www.westaddradio.com/klaus), and it fit right in perfectly alongside the '70s likes of Cornucopia and Gnidrolog!! Droning strings. Eastern melodies. Bombastic battery. Elegant eeriness.
Yet at this point, Guapo have developed their own sound to a degree where you can't just tag them as a retro proposition. Creatively, they're bringing their old school prog rock inspirations into the 21st century, and have refined their approach to a point where they have as much in common with modern post rock soundscapers as they do with the eccentricities of hoary prog heroes Magma.
As always, the duo of Daniel O'Sullivan (Fender Rhodes, piano, bass, guitars, harmonium, modular synthesizers, autoharp, voice, electronics -- whew!) and David J. Smith (drumkit, percussion) are their own veritable prog rock orchestra, though they do have occasional help from guests, including vocalist Jarboe from the Swans on one song. That'd be "The Selenotrope", one of two tracks originally from Guapo's tour-only Twisted Stems cdep, both of which are included here, and which we previously described as sounding something like a horror movie soundtracks scored by The Necks. (To Guapo fans who happen to already have Twisted Stems, we say no worries, you'll still be getting well over 40 minutes of brand new music on Elixirs too.)
All this proggy goodness comes wrapped up in a snazzy black & white artwork, packaged in a jewelcase with cardstock slipcase.
MPEG Stream: "Jewelled Turtle"
MPEG Stream: "Arthur, Elise, and Frances"

YA HO WA 13 Penetration: An Aquarian Symphony (Cold Sweat) cd 15.98
Cool. A truly cult band begins to get its due. If you read our list or are otherwise hip to out-there '70s communal psych rock then you already know all about the amazing Ya Ho Wa 13, house band of Father Yod's Source Family, uh, commune. It was just a few months ago that we hosted a book signing with Isis and Electricity Aquarian and other original members of the Source Family, in conjunction with which the reunited Ya Ho Wa 13 played a show here in San Francisco. Wow. That was something.
So, what with the book (The Source: The Untold Story Of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 And The Source Family) and associated publicity, now the Cold Sweat label has done a domestic digipack cd reissue of what might be the best of the Ya Ho Wa's many albums. A domestic vinyl release is soon to follow on the Tee Pee label as well.
Here's more or less what we said about this big AQ fave when we listed the previously available UK import cd edition a few years ago:
Whoah, man. A seriously trippy, dark and clangorous document here from the (very literally) cult group of early '70s rockers called Ya Ho Wha 13. Of all the many albums that the legendary Father Yod and his band of freaky communal-living hippies made back in the day (most but not all of 'em compiled into the massive Aquarius-beloved 13-disc God And Hair box set that came out in Japan some years back), it's always been THIS one that we at AQ (and pretty much every other reputable source too) have heralded as the absolute heaviest and best of the bunch. An essential item for anyone into far-out freeform '70s psych weirdness. And it's got an unbeatable title, eh? Penetration: An Aquarian Symphony. How can we not dig that? So we're quite stoked to have it reissued by itself on cd for those who haven't got and/or aren't ready for the box set. The four tracks here (including one entitled simply "Ya Ho Wha 13") venture from droneing spacey effects laden soundscapes with eerie Eastern-sounding vocal wailing to full-tilt throbbing, percussive tribal lift-off frenzies complete with stabs of heavy guitar distortion. Throw in some whistling to add an off-kilter spaghetti western soundtrack vibe and you've got Penetration. A damaged, dense, intense, quasi-religious psychedelic California-krautrock experience. Even the mellowest parts are still pretty edgy. This 1974 recording is definitely to be considered a cosmic precursor to everything from the drum circle discs of the Boredoms to the improv rock of Reynols to the neo-hippy clank of the No Neck Blues Band. Amazing. And totally utterly AQ-recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "Yod He Vau He"
MPEG Stream: "Journey Through An Elemental Kingdom"

SUN CITY GIRLS You're Never Alone With A Cigarette (Abduction) cd 16.98
In recent months, we've seen several interestin' Sun City Girls reissues come out on cd via the Abduction label, like such previously vinyl-only rarities as the (supposed) soundtrack recordings to Piasa The Devourer Of Men, Dulce, and Juggernaut. Along with the shaggy dog hillbilly joke that is Jacks Creek. So fans of the now sadly defunct Sun City Girls, that cultish, psych-punk, faux-ethnic, WTF? trio, have had some welcome listening of late. However, this new disc, a collection (volume one!) of Sun City Girls singles, has us the most excited yet. That's cause these nine tracks, mostly released as singles on the Majora label back in the day, were actually all recorded during the same sessions that resulted in the acclaimed 1989 SCG album Torch Of The Mystics. That album, now out of print, is almost universally regarded as the band's best, and most popular. We'd agree, it's definitely the unanimous fave here at AQ (well, along with the equally long gone 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda). Too bad Torch Of The Mystics is out of print!! But of course that makes these tracks, cousins to those on Torch, all the more covetable!
Apparently, originally Torch was meant to be a double LP, and most of these tracks were instrumentals that would have been sequenced in amongst the songs that appeared on the final version of Torch. Plans for a double LP were eventually scrapped, and much of the extra material was then released by Majora on the You're Never Alone With A Cigarette 7" and Three Fake Female Orgasms 2x7". However, three of the tracks here are previously unreleased studio recordings, and another track, "The Fine-Tuned Machines Of Lemuria", is restored to its full 12 minute length for the first time (having been edited down for 7" release).
On of the reasons we (and everybody) likes Torch so much is that the songs, sounding much like some sort of alien, Southeast Asian surf rock, were unhindered by the unhinged eccentric excesses that make so many other, more confusional SCG recordings something of an acquired taste. Their unique take on "world music" was at its most accessible on Torch, with some of their most memorable, melodic moments and evocative atmospheres. You're Never Alone..., while not quite Torch part II, is certainly in that ballpark, with the ringing, exotic electric guitar skree of Richard Bishop taking center stage on much of this, ably supported by the drums and percussion of Charles Gocher and the bass playing of Alan Bishop (with sundry other, often ethnic, instrumentation from all). There's glorious folky riffing and moody improvs and plenty of prime SCG wonderful weirdness. Definitely an essential disc for all SCG fans!!
MPEG Stream: "Amazon One"
MPEG Stream: "Wild World Of Animals"

MECKI MARK MEN s/t (Mellotronen / Universal) cd 23.00
The folks at the Mellotronen label (who brought us Solid Ground, Life, Charlie & Esdor and other Scandinavian 'progg' treats) told us we'd want to get a bunch of these and boy they were right! It's the long-awaited reissue of the eponymous 1967 debut album from Swedish swingin' sixties psych-pop combo the Mecki Mark Men... We've had Mellotronen's other couple of MMM reissues, especially liking Running In The Summer Night, but this is even better. It's got the original MMM lineup, featuring of course band leader Mecki Bodemark and also drummer Thomas Mera Gartz, later of International Harvester and Trad Gras Och Stenar. Definitely influenced by the heavy psychedelic excesses of Jimi Hendrix (with whom they toured, briefly), Mecki Mark Men also conjure a groovy hipster nightclub vibe, with Gartz's jazzy drumming, and Bodemark's woozy organ jamming. Woozy too are his wasted, druggy vox, which sound a bit like Hendrix too. There's also doses of buzzing sitar, shimmering vibraphone, flute, and some fat sax blat. It's a wild, wonderful blend of fuzzy freaky drone and finger snapping, toe tapping catchy pop songwriting, wrapped into one psychedelic, shambolic whole. There's just something indefinably genius about this. Recommended, definitely for fans of Baby Grandmothers and Hansson and Karlsson and today's retro Swedish psych-pop sensations Dungen as well. This reissue is remixed and remastered, presented in a digipack with four bonus tracks.
MPEG Stream: "Free"
MPEG Stream: "Scream"
MPEG Stream: "Get Up"

IMAHORI TSUNEO YOSHIDA TATSUYA Dots (Doubtmusic) cd 16.98
Japan's Ruins are/were a bass and drums prog-spazz duo lead by octopoidal drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. Ruins have been longtime faves 'round here for their manic precision and complex catchiness, kind of a cross between Melt-Banana and Magma, played by a two-piece. Hopefully, you know all about Ruins already. And if you're a fan, then you're reading the right review!
Goddamn, if you thought that Ruins were crazy... believe it or not, Yoshida's latest duo project has upped the ante quite a bit. Teaming with guitarist Imahori Tsueno, and further augmented by computer processing, this takes Yoshida's brand of frenzied prog palpitations into hyperdrive. Considering what we know Yoshida can do live with no overdubs (and even all by himself) it's positively dangerous to allow him and his collaborator to crank up the craziness with technology. Yet the Doubtmusic label has allowed them to do it, twice -- this is their second disc. As you may recall, we already raved about the first one, Territory, last year. This one is equally awesome, if you're at all inclined towards this sort of technical musical mania. It will leave you breathless, staring at your stereo, jaw on floor. There's 17 tracks, ranging from one minute four seconds to eight minutes fifty seconds. All of 'em action packed, constructed through a partially improvised creative process that incorporates malfunctioning video game sounds one nano second, virtuoso jazz fusion licks the next... kecak-like vocal parts, blasting rhythms, heavy guitar rippage. And there's also artificial speed manipulations, pitch shifting, and jump-cut electronic edits -- yeah just when you thought it couldn't get any more dense or intense, it's like they flip a switch and suddenly achieve superhuman levels of prog rock performance (beyond even what the Ruins are known for!).
It's not all speedy spasmodicism, as they also delve into some momentary moody, much calmer atmospherics... always ready to turn a corner into utter ADD insanity, however. While still always retaining a knack for ear-catching riffage, as per the Ruins at their best. And this IS the most Ruins-y thing we've heard in a while!! Of course. Boy this makes us happy.
MPEG Stream: "Quantum"
MPEG Stream: "Expiry"
MPEG Stream: "Gene"

LI JIANHONG San Sheng Shi (aRCHIVE) cd 15.98
51 minutes, 1 track. 1 guitar, 1 guy: Li Jianhong. No, we didn't think we'd ever heard of him, either. But this is an aRCHIVE release, super limited and super swank, which means that we HAD to order a bunch in. We trust those guys, aRCHIVE. And we're glad we did, this is great! That is, if you're into distortion and feedback and heavy drone guitar like we are. This is extremely droney, very vast and very physical, sheets of glorious amped up fuzz. What's not to like? It moves forward with energy, building, swelling, keening, billowing. Rising and falling, at about 30 minutes in, subsiding from a dense, intense drone-tone into a mellower respite, before Li Jianhong leans on his amps/pedals/volume knob/etc. and dials up the distortion yet again.
He's the Chinese Keiji Haino perhaps, but without any of the shrieking vocals. Yep, this is some nice, thick, bleak psychedelia (it says so on the sleeve, "bleak" and "psychedelia" being some of the only text not in Chinese, and it's true).
Turns out Li's a member of PSF label noise band D!O!D!O!D!, reviewed here a while back, and has some other solo works out on his own label... we'll definitely look out for more from him in future... While D!O!O!O!D! was one for improv skree-lovin' noiseniks only, we wouldn't hesitate to recommend THIS to fans of, say, Boris's Feedbacker. And the likes of Suishou No Fune and LSD-march. Also Nadja, Fear Falls Burning, Birchville Cat Motel...
LIMITED TO ONLY 500 copies. Packaged in a tri-fold sleeve featuring live photos of an impassioned performance by Li, inside a tri-fold vellum wrapper bearing a image of a craggy mountain peak.
MPEG Stream: "San Sheng Shi (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "San Sheng Shi (excerpt 2)"

LSD POND (LSD MARCH + BARDO POND) s/t (aRCHIVE) 2cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This one hardly needs a review. Space rockers Bardo Pond, jamming with Japanese psych-rockers LSD-March! Two discs, looooooooong songs, plenty of sprawling druggy psychedelia, throbbing serpentine basslines, busy groovy drumming, and lots and lots and lots of guitars, buzzing and whirring, grinding and roaring, wailing and howling.
Culled from two stoned, late-night recording sessions on days off from the 2006 Bardo Pond / LSD-March / Masami Kawaguchi's New Rock Syndicate East Coast tour, these tracks were edited together by Bardo Pond-er Michael Gibbons with no overdubs, just a document of epic, swirling, lurching, grooving spaced out psych rock.
Incredible recording, super clear, almost studio quality, multiple drummers, multiple guitar players, the sound is loud, and intense, sometimes blissing out into laid back stretches of near ambient tranquility, but always building back up into howling squalls of freaked out psychrock nirvana. The first disc is the more jammy of the two, more loose and improvised sounding, even the opening track fades in with the track already in full swing, like they had already been jamming for a while before we even got to the part.
The second disc introduces flute, and some electronics, and begins with a looped lick, over some skittery drumming, and some serious grinding growling low end, it goes on for ages, and we never really wanted it to stop. It does eventually, which is okay as the band has already moved on, locking into some new looped rhythm, the guitars fiery arcs of sound, that low end continuing to grind and buzz, the multiple guitars and guitar parts careening wildly over a roiling backdrop of howling moaning distorted buzz.
The second track on disc two is almost entirely ambient, sounding more like Toho Sara or something, the guitars smeared and blurred, everything buzzy and rumbling, clouds of tinkling shimmer and random percussive clatter, hand drums, glitchy electronics, streaks of feedback, thick swaths of distorted abstract riffing, culminating in a soaring blown out multiple guitar-ed Ur-drone. The disc finishes off with a 20 minute scorcher that goes from furious psych skree meltdown, to stumbling abstract freeform flutter and back, the players locked in a battle to the death, full freakout, ultra-noise mode, vocals scrambling over a dogpile of grinding electronics, a sea of shrieking feedback, an avalanche of drum chaos, and about a ton of blown out guitar damage. Phew.
Every time we play this in the store, someone buys one, or someone comes out from the back to see what the heck is playing. This might just be one of the most played discs in the store recently. And rightfully so.
As always, aRCHIVE spares no expense on the packaging, but they may have outdone themselves this time. A thick textured black ink on cream cardstock gatefold sleeve, the words LSD and POND embossed and printed in reflective silver ink, inside an 8 page black and white booklet affixed to the sleeve, with live photos and liner notes, each disc in it's own black sleeve, printed in silver ink, Japanese characters, the two discs held together by a Japanese style obi, in the same style as the cover. WOW.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. A one time pressing, so don't miss outŠ
MPEG Stream: "We Are LSDPOND (2nd Version)"
MPEG Stream: "Sugatanaki Kyofu"

ULAAN KHOL I (Soft Abuse) cd 14.98
By now, we should be able to safely assume that most AQ list-readers know who Steven R. Smith is. Not only that, but we know a lot of you are in fact big S.R.S. fans, of his solo projects under his own name and as Hala Strana, as well as for his participation in such outfits as Mirza and Jewelled Antler flagship Thuja. Certainly this should be the case after the last few S.R.S. releases. First there was his Owl album that came out a month or two ago, with his first ever vocal performance to go along with his lovely psych-drone guitar. Then two lists ago we had the cd reissue of his Anchorite album, which we made Record Of The Week in fact. And now there's Ulaan Khol. On it you can almost imagine that Steven has donned the black shades and leather jacket of the Tokyo psych underground scene, as this sounds like something that LSD-march, Up-Tight or even Keiji Haino himself might conjure. Acid Mothers Temple's Kawabata Makoto too. But even then, it probably wouldn't be this cosmic and bleakly beautiful.
Suitably majestic sounding, as part of a proposed three album trilogy, Ulaan Khol I consists of nine untitled, instrumental tracks made with guitar and organ. It's a spacious drift of big fuzzy distortion and fragile drone bliss... utterly entrancing. The sort of thing that you just want to keep going, and going... well thank god there's another two volumes of Ulaan Khol yet to come! Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "track 3"
MPEG Stream: "track 9"

GUAPO Elixirs (Neurot) cd 14.98
Prog nutters? These guys are, definitely. And be prepared to go prog nuts yourself for this new release from AQ-faves Guapo. This British band is now on Neurosis' Neurot label, after releases for (among others) Mike Patton's Ipecac and our own Andee's tUMULt. We've been fans of 'em for a long time, obviously, and are in good company! This new one is everything we'd expect from Guapo: extended, mostly instrumental cinematic symphonics, dark and moody, played with the virtuosity and verve of their '70s prog rock ancestors. Heck, I (Allan) played a 15 minute track from this, "King Lindorm", on my prog / krautrock radio show last night, Klaus To The Edge (www.westaddradio.com/klaus), and it fit right in perfectly alongside the '70s likes of Cornucopia and Gnidrolog!! Droning strings. Eastern melodies. Bombastic battery. Elegant eeriness.
Yet at this point, Guapo have developed their own sound to a degree where you can't just tag them as a retro proposition. Creatively, they're bringing their old school prog rock inspirations into the 21st century, and have refined their approach to a point where they have as much in common with modern post rock soundscapers as they do with the eccentricities of hoary prog heroes Magma.
As always, the duo of Daniel O'Sullivan (Fender Rhodes, piano, bass, guitars, harmonium, modular synthesizers, autoharp, voice, electronics -- whew!) and David J. Smith (drumkit, percussion) are their own veritable prog rock orchestra, though they do have occasional help from guests, including vocalist Jarboe from the Swans on one song. That'd be "The Selenotrope", one of two tracks originally from Guapo's tour-only Twisted Stems cdep, both of which are included here, and which we previously described as sounding something like a horror movie soundtracks scored by The Necks. (To Guapo fans who happen to already have Twisted Stems, we say no worries, you'll still be getting well over 40 minutes of brand new music on Elixirs too.)
All this proggy goodness comes wrapped up in a snazzy black & white artwork, packaged in a jewelcase with cardstock slipcase.
MPEG Stream: "Jewelled Turtle"
MPEG Stream: "Arthur, Elise, and Frances"

5IVE Hesperus (Tortuga) cd 14.98
The cover photo on this digipack release shows placid waters, probably some sheltered harbor near Boston, from whence this guitar-drums two-piece hail. The photo on the interior gatefold also depicts relatively calm seas. But the sonic waves that 5ive stir up are something else, bigger and meaner! 5ive's relentless and riff-repetitive, mostly-instrumental music is HEAVY all right. And thus, floats our boat, even as it tosses said boat about upon its stormy waves.
We've been waiting for some new 5ive for quite some time. This is their first full-length of new material in forever. 2006's Versus ep, featuring a couple remixes by Justin Broadrick (Jesu), only left us hankering for more... so we're glad to report that this new 5ive is finally here and it's got what we want. Thick n' distorted stoner rock meets post rock jams, full of loud soft dynamics for maximum sludgecore beauty and power. Tracks like "Heel" and "Big Sea" have plenty of rollicking psychedelic swing to 'em, after the pretty parts that set you up for the heavier hitting... and while the likes of "News II" gets up into the 12 minute range, even the shorter tunes here manage some epic, hypnotic heft. Fans of 5ive won't be disappointed, and if you haven't heard 'em before check this out if stuff like Pelican, Kinski, godheadsilo, Isis, Old Man Gloom, etc. is on your personal playlist.
MPEG Stream: "Gulls"
MPEG Stream: "Big Sea"

JOLY, RENE Chimene (Magic) cd 19.98
One of our favorite reissues and new/old discoveries of last year was the passionate and powerful work of Gerard Manset. We immediately fell hard for his rich and textured songs which showed the more intense side of '60s and early '70s French Pop. So we were immediately intrigued by this collection of songs by Rene Joly when we saw that the orchestration was credited in part to Gerard Manset. But once we listened, it turned out to be Joly's voice that grabbed our attention right away. Full of drama, fire and beauty we couldn't believe that this was the first time his amazing voice had made it into our ears. It made us think of what Antony & The Johnsons might have sounded like if they were from France in 1970, or maybe Bryan Ferry doing Edith Piaf covers.
Even some of our friends who grew up in France had not heard of Joly so we don't feel quite as bad for not hearing him until now. How glad we are that this gem of French orchestral psychedelic pop has finally risen to the surface, brought to us by the same label that brought us the great Pop Made In France compilation highlighted last time. Prog fans will even want to check this out for the great King Crimson cover "La Cour Du Roi Musicien" (The Court Of The Crimson King). Majestic sounds filled with cinematic flair, and bubbling with grandeur and rich color. Joly's commanding voice sweeps us off our feet every time we listen. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Chimene"
MPEG Stream: "La Cour Du Roi Musicien"
MPEG Stream: "L'Amour Fut Doux"

V/A Pop Made In France (Magic) cd 19.98
Subtitled Les Plus Grands Groupes De Rock Des Annees 70 En France, here's a 23 track collection of, indeed, swinging '70s French rock n' pop... we imported 'em directly from France just about as soon as we found out about this and scoped the track list. It's on the same label that brought us those Sixties Girls comps, as well as the now out of print Les Variations and Triangle anthologies, amongst other goodies.
Styles here vary, and not every track is a killer, but that's how comps go. We certainly found enough tres bon poppy psych, prog rock bombast, AM radio sunshine, melancholic balladry, glam production and fat beats and flutes and grooves and blues and more to enjoy, for sure! Some of it's seriously cookin', some of it's on the softer side, and either way for the most part we're falling for the combination of Gallic charm and '70 kitsch on display here.
There's some groups here we'd heard of and many more we hadn't. Here's the line-up: Triangle, Time Machine, Les Variations, Dynastie Crisis, Jupiter Sunset, Ange, Alan Jack Civilization, Zoo, Costa-Yared-Costa, Trust, Tai Phong, Presence, Doc Dail, Martin Circus, Alice, Ilous & Decuyper, Labyrinthe, Trianglophone, Starshooter, Pop Tops, Total Issue, and two "bonus instrumentaux" from Le System Crapoutchik and Pachyderm. Too bad there's not much info given in the cd booklet about all these.
MPEG Stream: TIME MACHINE "Turn Back Time"
MPEG Stream: ZOO "City Break Down"
MPEG Stream: ALICE "Le Roseau"
MPEG Stream: TOTAL ISSUE "Les Marins"

DANAVA Unonou (Kemado) cd 13.98
A rockin' return (of course!) from Portland's finest, the mighty Danava. Retro stoner rock melodic metallic garage prog psych heaviness. Whew that's a mouthful. What did we say about 'em when reviewing their recent 7"? "A band whose ripping '70s style metallic power trio action is augmented by a dusting of trippy space rock synthesizer soundz from fourth member Rockwell."
The deal with Danava is that, bottom line, they rip. Metal or indie or retro or hipster or whatever, we don't really care, we just know that they obviously love the same sort of '70s prog excess we dig (a la Sabbath's Sabotage), with flamboyant keyboard flourishes (check out the last minute of "Where Beauty And Terror Dance" ferinstance), write actual songs, sing 'em too, and totally kick ass live. Maybe that's not much to ask from a band, but these days, such real deal rock n' roll acts are few and far between. Likewise with kick ass albums like this one. Who else might we cite? Birds Of Avalon are one of 'em. Also recent Danava tour mates Witchcraft. And Oakland's Drunk Horse (imagine them in cahoots with SF's Crime In Choir perhaps, to approach the boogie prog shred you get with Danava).
Unonou brings fans another seven songs sprung from the bulging collective Danava forehead, in the manner to which we have become accustomed. Which means, they feature virtuosic guitar (and bass) solo action, frenzied drumming, Ozzish vocals (very much so, up to and including some snippets of the lyrics), and the aforementioned eccentric electronic embellishments. Plus, this time 'round, there's a frickin' horn section throwing down in several songs! The album ends with the 13+ minute "Mind Gone Separate Ways", wherein the band manage to kick out the jams whilst making melodic space rock fusion, wow. Yep Unonou has got its share of sinister moodiness and spaceouts but consists mostly of REALLY energetic rollercoaster, uh, rippage (to use that term once more). Danava's '70s era references/influences would seem to include proggy Black Sabbath, early Blue Oyster Cult, lashings of Gobin (like the disco-ish groove that starts off "The Emerald Snow Of Sleep"), very early Alice Cooper, maybe even Jobraith... If that sounds good to you, get this, and definitely don't miss 'em live whenever that chance presents itself.
MPEG Stream: "Where Beauty And Terror Dance"
MPEG Stream: "Spinning Temple Shifting"

TABATA, MITSURU Lumrapideco ( Utech) cd 16.98
Yay, here's another new solo album by Acid Mothers Temple member Tabata Mitsuru (who also has Zeni Geva and the Boredoms on his heavyweight Japanese underground musician resume). We mentioned this one in our review of his other recent solo disc We All Gonna Face The Rising Sun not long ago, and it's pretty similar, again getting the thumbs up from us, for it's gorgeous, droning blend of guitar, loops, backwards tapes, and noisy (but not too noisy) glitch. The tracks Mahhagogo parts 1 and 2 (with their cute little vocal intros) bookend this disc, being the hissingest, harshest dronewerks here. In between them you'll find four other pieces that are mostly much mellower, prettier and placid... mostly. All instrumentals, made from bits of simple guitar melody and swooshing pulses of gentle psychedelic electronics. The likes of "Hydrozoa" are a lazy drift of ambient abstraction, for a sundappled afternoon nap... So nice! Feedback and distortion transformed into utter, sweet blissfulness.
So, it's been two Tabata Mitsuru albums in a fairly short span of time, but we've been fans of him for forever and by Acid Mothers Temple standards, he's not really that prolific. So, if he keeps doing what he's been doing on these, we'd be happy with a few more this year please!!
MPEG Stream: "Mahhagogo Part 1."
MPEG Stream: "Dust To Dust "

ANGEL Kalmukia (Editions Mego) cd 17.98
Oooh, moody. Ilpo Vaisanen of Pan Sonic and Dirk Dresselhaus (aka Schneider TM) have recorded as Angel before, exploring the realms of noise and drone with discs on the Bip-Hop and Oral labels, bringing in guest cellist Hildur Guonadottir for the latter. Now they're officially a trio, and offer up a fantastic third album, released on Editions Mego, where this four part, hour long, totally epic album fits in nicely alongside the digitaldoomdrone likes of O'Malley and Rehberg's KTL.
Kalmukia opens with the evocative "Bones In The Sand" which definitely has a desert-y feel, the wide open spaces, barren badlands. Desolation. Dunno about you, but it had us immediately thinking Earth (Hex-era and after Earth), with cavernous slide guitar riffs echoing forth across the wastes...
The tremulous electric humming of the title track is next, nearly 20 quietly mysterious minutes long, graced with droning cello on the edge of feedback. The creepy loveliness continues on through "Effect Of Discovery", which builds up into a shimmering drone laced with metallic electronic whip-cracks and waverings. Full on distorted rumble is kept in reserve, hinted at throughout the thick buzzing beauty of album-closer "Aftermath: The Mutation", which is also filled with delicate percussive chimings and some of this album's most melodic moments.
Packaged all fancy-like in an oversized rectangular sleeve, this is definitely one that fans of the most abstract/ambient side of Southern Lord's output (Oren Ambarchi for instance) should appreciate, along with those into Pan Sonic, KTL, etc.
Satan was an angel, once, too.
MPEG Stream: "Bones In The Sand"
MPEG Stream: "Aftermath: The Mutation"

BRETHREN OF THE FREE SPIRIT All Things Are From Him, Through Him And In Him (Audiomer) cd 14.98
Brethren indeed. This is the work of two consummate stringed instrument manipulators working in the improvised avant-folk idiom... Brother #1, from England, AQ fave James Blackshaw (who just blew us away with an amazing solo instore performance two weeks ago!), a dexterous master of the 12 string guitar. Brother #2, from Belgium, Renaissance lute player Jozef Van Wissem (who was also recently scheduled for an AQ instore alongside his pal Tetuzi Akiyama but unfortunately had to cancel due to a bad cold or flu). Van Wissem has received acclaim from us and others for his solo recordings incorporating electronics and field recordings alongside his innovations on classical lute improvisation.
Together, it's a perfect pairing, Blackshaw and Van Wissem conjuring a delicately dense intertwining of forward-flowing fingerpicked minimalist melodies... stately spiritual praises that are all instrumental but for a brief Current 93ish spoken coda to track one, "...The Lifting Of The Veil". And track three, "How The Unencumbered Soul Advises That One Not Refuse The Calls Of A Good Spirit", is more of an electrically-charged, expansive soundscape of moody string-strike. Electronics, "tennis edits" (??) and the "feline vocals" of one Bun Bun are also woven into the mix with Blackshaw's 12 string and Van Wissem's baroque lute.
To sum up: alchemical loveliness, utterly mesmeric! Really our only complaint about this is also a compliment: at just under a half hour total (28:39), we wish it were longer! The trance-like reveries this induces are too soon interrupted unless we set our cd player on repeat... (not an option with the super-limited vinyl version of this of course.) That's right, the lp version is LIMITED TO 330 COPIES. Whereas the cd is limited to a mere 1000. And we only have a few of the vinyl...
MPEG Stream: "...The Lifting Of The Veil"
MPEG Stream: "All Things Are From Him, Through Him And In Him"

CAN Ege Bamyasi (Spoon/Mute) cd 12.98
These two essential krautrock classics from Can (Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi) have been reissued yet again, nothin' different except they're a little cheaper, always a good thing. Though, whatever you'd pay for 'em (even if they were twice this price!) would be money well spent, these are so good.
Here's our review: Ege Bamyasi! Can's fourth album features their second and most fantastical vocalist, Damo Suzuki. Ege is one of our faves from Can, especially of Allan's, though we think he just envies Suzuki's amazing hair! Let us just say that if you don't own this already, what are you waiting for?? The reissues contain extra liner notes and candid photos that some earlier cd editions lacked. But unless you're totally obsessed with the band and are certain of your ability to appreciate the remastering note-for-note, there's not too much else about these reissues that would require buying 'em again. If you've happy with your older copies, you'd probably do well to just keep them and sleep soundly at night.
But if you don't have a copy of this record at all... well let's say once more, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?? Can's Ege Bamyasi is absolutely brilliant. Can of course were one of the most important 'krautrock' bands, along with Amon Duul II, Kraftwerk, Cluster, Faust and a few others. With Japanese singer Damo Suzuki at the mic on this he sings some of their best songs, like "Sing Swan Song" and "Vitamin C" and "I'm So Green". Actually EVERY song on here is wonderful. Languid and laidback, yet rhythmically insistent. Mellow and gorgeous and deep. Right on. Fans already know how good this is, everybody else should trust us and pick up one of these, you won't be sorry!
MPEG Stream: "Sing Swan Song"
MPEG Stream: "Vitamin C"

CAN Tago Mago (Spoon/Mute) cd 12.98
These two essential krautrock classics from Can (Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi) have been reissued yet again, nothin' different except they're a little cheaper, always a good thing. Though, whatever you'd pay for 'em (even if they were twice this price!) would be money well spent, these are so good.
Tago Mago! Let us just say that if you don't own this already, what are you waiting for?? The reissues contain extra liner notes and candid photos that some earlier cd editions lacked. But unless you're totally obsessed with the band and are certain of your ability to appreciate the remastering note-for-note, there's not too much else about these reissues that would require buying 'em again. If you've happy with your older copies, you'd probably do well to just keep them and sleep soundly at night.
Furthermore, for those that don't have and haven't heard Tago Mago, here's what we said last time it was reissued:
1971's Tago Mago double album was Can's third full-length release, and their first with expatriate Japanese singer Damo Suzuki (whom they discovered busking on the street outside a club). It's truly a sprawling masterpiece of krautrock. Witness the weird noise/drone stuff on the 17 minute "Aumgn", or the totally hypnotic rhythmic psych groove of the equally side-long "Halleluwah". Again, we probably don't have to say much more, you already have this, right? But if Can's new to you, we'd recommend this (as well as Monster Movie and Ege Bamyasi and Soundtracks) as among their best efforts. PS: If you like Circle and you don't have this record, get it!!
MPEG Stream: "Mushroom"
MPEG Stream: "Oh Yeah"

MURPHY BLEND First Loss (Kuckuck) cd 15.98
A lot of our favorite krautrock, like this, is really nothing more than what you might call super duper "heavy progressive" rock that happens to be from Germany. Not really eccentric or electronic or "kosmiche" like some of the more famous, innovative krautrock acts, but still darn good if you're into psych, prog and proto-metal and just want to hear some kickass longhaired jams -- often with flute! Though, sadly, there's no flute in this particular case.
Berlin's Murphy Blend (named after a pipe tobacco, and featuring future members of similar acts Blackwater Park and Hanuman) made just one album, back in that magical year of 1971. Now reissued on cd, their album is a solid one, rocking bombastically. There's plenty of powerful guitar riffing, and even more in the way of Hammond organ jamming from their classically trained keyboardist, capably pumping out both rock n' roll grooves and neo-classical flourishes (as on "Praludium/Use Your Feet", before the track gets into breakbeat mining territory). Meanwhile, the sometimes goofy lyrics are delivered in heavily accented English, but the album's strength isn't the vocal melodies, but in the compelling, propulsive instrumental passages. Definitely a "heavy progressive" gem. Oh, and it's kinda cool that, despite all the prog excesses earlier, the final track ("Happiness") is less than three seconds long!
MPEG Stream: "At First"
MPEG Stream: "First Loss"

RIGGS, DAX If This Is Hell, Then I'm Lucky (Fat Possum) cd 14.98
As always, we were way ahead of the curve. You were too, right there with us. Going all the way back to Acid Bath, that seminal NOLA rock band, that somehow combined Eyehategod style sludge, and groovy dramatic emotional rock a la Alice In Chains or Katatonia or Jeff Buckley, we were proclaiming that not only should Acid Bath have been HUGE, but AB frontman Dax Riggs should be a rock star. So here we are over ten years later, and all that time, Riggs has continued on, first with Agents Of Oblivion, then Deadboy And The Elephantmen, all groups and records we LOVED, and played incessantly, but still, Dax and co. lurked way underground, barely even making a ripple in the mainstream music world.
But come last year, Riggs resurfaced, performing live and releasing a pretty decent disc (that we've yet to review), and suddenly being pushed hard, his sound, not all that different from Agents Of Oblivion, but now with some promotional real label muscle behind him. Unfortunately, not much happened with his solo record, so it was time for plan B, the first Deadboy And The Elephantmen record, re-released as a Riggs sort-of-solo record. Fair enough. We proclaimed it genius way way back when, and time has done nothing but demonstrate what a killer slab of dark grooviness and intensely emotional heaviness this record is, was and continues to be. So since lots of folks may not have been around when we first gushed about this disc, figured this was the perfect time to gush again.
Years and years ago, the big rock n' roll sleeper hit here at Aquarius had to be the awesome Agents Of Oblivion album, featuring two crucial ex-members of the late lamented cult band Acid Bath. Heavy, poppy, psychedelic rock with vocalist Dax Riggs crooning beautifully over it all. We shoulda made it record of the week, we all thought in retrospect. It became one of our favorite records EVER. We were really bummed then to hear that the Agents, like Acid Bath before 'em, broke up not long after the album's release. But, rumors filtered in that Dax and a new crew of New Orleans n'er-do-wells had formed a new band with the unlikely name of Deadboy and the Elephantmen to carry on where the Agents left off. Allan confirmed this when he happened to visit N.O. and was lucky enough to catch a live performance from this new band. They had a demo out then, and we anticipated a full album release on some big label to appear soon...we waited...and waited... and eventually a Deadboy record did come out, but the band had to release it themselves, since once again, the big labels had no idea and dropped the ball big time. Mystifiying, 'cause Dax is a rock star if ever there was one, and these guys should have been HUGE. This record is epic and darkly dramatic, heavy and groovy and weird as fuck, but also catchy and beautiful. Totally accessible yet morbidly underground, we hear everything from some voodoo Alice Cooper darkness and drama, to a little Aerosmith swagger, to the heaviness and angst of Alice In Chains of course -- Acid Bath was always an AIC meets EHG (Eyehategod) hybrid, in a really good way. Radiohead's "Ok Computer" is hinted at too, and Jeff Buckley, as the music combines weirdly sensitive melodicism and dark atmosphere inspired by their hometown's swamps and cemeteries. Dax is as impressive as ever, he really *sings*, drawing out vowels over a dozen notes. His vocals are oddly warm and comforting but also anguished and intense. While the songwriting on this album does not quite match the relatively flowery yet heavy tunesmithery of the Agents of Oblivion album, and neither does the instrumentation call attention to itself, that's not necessarily a bad thing here as it lets Dax' voice take center stage and he... just... wails. He's like a sludge metal Bowie, flamboyant, and dramatic, his vocals impossibly emotive and intense. Sometimes despairing, sometimes incantatory. Oh the angst! And the music is a perfect match, going from brooding and minor key, to explosive and space-y. For fans of Alice in Chains, Acid Bath/Agents of Oblivion (of course), Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees, and Woven Hand. It may have taken a decade, but finally the rest of the world can discover what some of us knew all alongŠ
MPEG Stream: "Strange Television"
MPEG Stream: "Waking Up Insane"
MPEG Stream: "Song With No Name"
MPEG Stream: "Grave Beyond Windows"

SORE THROAT Death To Capitalist Halmshaw (Area Death Productions) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Okay, Sore Throat are one of our favorite bands. EVER. But for ages their shit has been impossible to track down. Crusty, heavy, fast and furious, stupid, goofy, political, pissy, snarky, clever, wasted, and musically unbeatable. They were cramming hundreds of songs on to 7"s before Anal Cunt was even a bad idea. BUT, and this is the big but here, we tried to get a ton of these to list, and managed to only get 5. But we wanted to give at least a few folks on the list a chance to experience the fucked up grindcrust joy of the mighty Sore Throat. So be prepared to be disappointed. Only the crazy dudes up at 2am on Friday maniacally watching the aQ site for the update will probably be able to snag these, but you never know. Fear not though. There are some upcoming reissues, which we'll be able to get plenty of, enough for everybody. But for now, 5 of you are in luck, get ready, get set go...
Oh yeah, the record. A cd compilation of some super rare demos, 83 songs in all, furious crusty metallic anarcho grind. Comes with an extensive booklet, some inserts and a Sore Throat patch!

WITCHCRAFT The Alchemist (Rise Above) lp 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL! Super limited import though, and we only were able to get a mere handful. Please be prepared to be disappointed, since we'll probably run out in about five seconds, sorry.
In case it's needed, here's our review...
Oh man. The third album from the Swedish prog/psych/doom wizards Witchcraft is finally here. We can barely contain ourselves. They say third time's the charm, and of course with Witchcraft it can't help but being so, since the first two times were charmed as well. This band's debut destroyed us with its incredibly authentic retro Pentagram/Sabbath stylings, with lashings of flute and folkiness too. Their second album, Firewood, captivated us with an equally early '70s heavy progressive vibe. Now The Alchemist succeeds at giving us what we want from Witchcraft -and- pushing further into the realm of melodic, folky proggy rock that stands on its own far beyond being a mere tribute to its '70s ancestors.
Guitarist/singer Magnus Pelander and his band Witchcraft have pretty much proved that the old adage "they don't make 'em like they used to" isn't always true. Witchcraft sure as hell does. That it's 2007 not 1972 isn't evident from anything on here, though it sounds as fresh as a daisy at the same time. These guys are so old school analog you halfway expect that their cd would be made out of black plastic and have visible grooves in it. We certainly could imagine some DJ's looking for breaks wanting this on vinyl real bad, you could do some badass hiphop mix with parts of "Remembered" ferinstance. Bet Andy Votel digs this band. Totally sounds like they could have gotten a deal with his favorite progressive record label back in the day (that'd be the famed Vertigo) had Witchcraft really existed in th