ASH POOL World Turns On Its Hinge (Hospital Productions) cd 12.98
Finally! The first proper full length from these NY based, ultra sick, primitive black metal noise merchants. Everything we've heard so far we've dug like crazy, a single and a tape, each filthy and dripping with blown out black buzz and pounding punkish riffing. This full length is more of the same, and if anything ups the ante sonically. 
Meaner, heavier, thrashier, filthier, more raw and primitive and blown out, and like the other records, still poppy and weirdly catchy. This is most definitely black metal, but a crushing primitive D-beat style BM, following a similar sonic path as fellow black hordes Bone Awl, Ancestors, Akitsa, Malveillance and the like. 
Ash Pool is one part blacknoise outfit Prurient, so you knew there was gonna be noise, but the noise here is deftly harnessed into roiling black riffs and blasting beats, woozy, dizzying seasick blasts of relentless pound, furious and fierce, the production thick and blown out, in the red, crumbling distortion and murky reverb everywhere. 
But this isn't just the same song over and over, set the instruments to blast and let the record play out. No these songs are varied and bizarre, occasionally epic and dramatic, sometimes so fast and brutal it borders on pure noise, sometimes a Brainbombs style caveman pound, sometimes a weird minor key mathrock jam, always appropriately blown out and noisy, but now and then the songs veer into strange, creepy, almost pretty territory, a slow and loping doomic lurch, with minor key melodies that manage to be mournful and funereal but still jagged and buzzy. Winding melancholic lopes that just sort of meander and chug abstractly. But it's never long before the tracks splinter into jagged shards, with the song exploding into another stretch of raw toxic pummel, the vocals doused in FX and convulsing wildly atop the relentless riffage. And every once in a while, the band lock into some crazy melodic groove, and for a brief moment you almost forget you're listening to some harsh and hateful black noise outfit. 
Hard to explain how great this stuff is, it all manages to be so visceral and intense, emotional and depressive, melodic with losing it's flesh-peeling edge, so sonically varied without losing its focus, the slow songs are perfect bridges between the speaker shredding streaks of black brutality, but even when things are chaotic and on the verge of collapse, the songs still manage to be catchy and melodic and heavy as fuck. 
MPEG Stream: "Sin Of Life"
MPEG Stream: "Crucifixion Fantasy"
MPEG Stream: "Vices Triumph Over Wisdom"

AUSTERITY PROGRAM, THE Black Madonna (Hydra Head) cd 13.98
It's hard to know exactly what to say about these guys, we have to fight our urge to just gush madly, and as you all probably realize by now, we can only put up so much of a fight... the last Austerity Program record was a bombastic homage to the drum machine fueled acerbic brutality of the late great Big Black, which we absolutely loved. But this record somehow manages to retain that sound (how could it not at least a little, especially considering the lineup is guitar, bass and drum machine?) while taking it so much further. Sure Big Black were amazing, as were the legion of drum machine driven behemoths that followed, but the Austerity Program are way more than the sum of their parts. Especially the drum machine part, which seems to define most bands that utilize one... The drum machine here doesn't always sound like a machine at all, which is the key, it's super tight, and precise, but could maybe be an actual drummer. Occasionally the band do take advantage of the machine's super human abilities, but for the most part, the drumming while crushing and brutal is also weirdly deft and subtle. The vocals also can't help but give a nod to Albini and Big Black, it's not a hellish howl or a guttural growl, it's more of an angry nerdy wail, a hyper literate, snarky rant delivered in a sung / spoken, regular guy shout. But the vocals are generally few and far between, which means it's mostly all about the bass and guitar...
And fuck if these aren't some of the heaviest, and thickest guitar sounds ever. It helps that the riffs totally destroy, super catchy, weirdly melodic, soaring and epic as often as they are metallic and pummeling. Sometimes super affected, but just as often a straight forward chest caving crunch, the bass throbbing and pulsing right along, often offering up some super unlikely melodic counterpoint, never content to just be a low end presence, the bass grinds and growls as intensely as the guitars. 
The overall sound ends up being some strange hybrid of Big Black (obviously), Harvey Milk, Jesu, a little bit of Fugazi and some hints here and there of black metal buzz, all tightly wound into an utterly intense crushing blast of beautiful brutality. From the first track, you'll be pretty much knocked the fuck out. It's a super complex mathy metallic workout, the guitars, swirl and soar, slither and shimmer, all the while pounding out some of the most bad ass riffs ever, and it's super dynamic, with the drums and guitar locked tight, stopping to emit little squalls of corrosive feedback before spiraling back into walls and washes of furious buzz. All the tracks are impossibly gorgeous and melodic, as well as being super ultra tight and clinical, guitars are massive, roiling and thick, the riffs warm and dense, but jagged and razor sharp, and the arrangements are mindblowing, super complex, but not to the point of destroying the flow of the songs, just perfectly obtuse and tangled, so much so that it sounds like one of these guys must have gotten some sort of calculus degree just to program the drum machine. But it's not all pound and crush, some tracks are slow and brooding, the guitars building and building, a haunting groovy Fugazi like percussive chug, that eventually builds to a completely catchy, massive grinding guitar / pummeling percussion battle that manages to take the shape of a crazy catchy song at the same time. 
We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the fact that these guys are also really fucking funny too. But in that all to rare way, where the music is absolutely NOT funny, the humor is subtle, and clever, and just a bit snarky, but it's all over the place, EVEN in the music, but subtly so. From the sticker and obi text on the outside, to the lyrics (especially the part where they scream "Here is my favorite part" before, well, what just might be their favorite part), to some of the clever arrangements, some of the strangely almost recognizable melodies, right down to the WTF liner notes, a chunk of pseudo-scientific data analyzing the various songs on the album, based on things like "distinct drum patterns", "average tempo", "vocal references to death", "abrupt pauses" and more. There are graphs and charts, and lengthy descriptions of how the "Divergence Index Value" of each song was calculated. Even the cover art, various swaths of old lady plastic flowers... these guys just totally rule. They're heavy and ultra brutal, but don't take themselves too seriously, they're funny, but the music is not, the humor is smart and funny, and somehow perfectly compliments the sheer epic intensity of the music...
They also had a contest celebrating the release of their new record with the grand prize being your very own customized song, and as if that weren't enough, have a peek at this amazing Austerity Program infomercial:
http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=1WcsV7hQ1V4
As if it weren't already painfully obvious, absolutely essential, totally recommended, one of our favorite new records, and a no brainer for record of the week!
MPEG Stream: "Song 12"
MPEG Stream: "Song 17B"
MPEG Stream: "Song 19"

FORGOTTEN WOODS As The Wolves Gather (No Colours) lp 17.98
Finally back in stock!
Oh how we love the mighty Forgotten Woods, supreme Norwegian black metal weirdos! Their new record, Race Of Cain, reviewed recently, was a mind blower, and their three cd collection of older stuff is an all time AQ best seller. For those of you vinyl freaks who have been holding off, well you are finally in luck, Forgotten Woods' As The Wolves Gather, their 1994 full length, and disc one in the Baklengs Mot Stupet triple cd set, has finally been reissued as an lp! It's super limited of course, we got a handful but they won't last long. Here's a slightly altered version of our review of As The Wolves Gather from the triple cd set:
So...what's the big deal you ask, why are these Forgotten Woods so unforgettable? Well, first off, and at first listen, this will definitely appeal to the whole raw, old-school, Nordic forest black metal necrocrowd. Really good grim stuff in the unholy spirit of classic Darkthrone and Burzum, but with that extra kinda inept, Benighted Leamsish fuckedupedness to it that of course makes us love it all the more. And, additionally and importantly, there's also always a strange, unexpected sort of poppiness underlying everything.
As a friend (who also likes this band, and is a member of Thuja, the Blithe Sons, Buried Civilizations, the Skygreen Leopards and a bunch of other Jewelled Antler acts) put it, "man it's good...completely inept, like they're barely pulling it off, total 13-year-old-metal-kid-in-the-basement drums."
A classic, but a 'damaged' outsider BM classic as far as we're concerned, this is definitely raw and necro and kvlt and grim, buzzing and black, but it also struggles and stumbles, is blown out, lo-fi and weird as fuck. As with all Forgotten Woods, WAY recommended.  
MPEG Stream: "Eclipsed"

FORGOTTEN WOODS Forgotten Woods / Through The Woods (No Colours) cd 16.98
For a band we had thought at one point to be dead and buried, Norway's legendary black metal weirdos Forgotten Woods have been pretty high profile lately, with an unexpected (and unexpectedly amazing) new album, a bunch of reissues, the ever popular 3cd box set Baklengs Mot Stupet, and now this, the first time on cd for both FW's 1993 demos, the self titled Forgotten Woods and the follow up Through The Woods, both primo slabs of ultra grim and kvlt lo fidelity buzz. 
It's easy to see, even in the early stages of the band, that they were one seriously cracked bunch, the sound not just lo-fi, but damaged and bizarre, the riffing is simple and old school, but super low in the mix, with the crashing thrashing pounding drums way more prominent, but not nearly as much as the croaked blackened growls, the strange Gollum-like growls, some seriously harsh and alien vocals, perfectly suited to the crumbling blackness in the background. Going from stumbling chaotic buzz, to lurching doomy pound, Forgotten Woods conjure up some seriously fucked up and freaked out black atmospheres...
The self titled demo is the more brittle of the two, all high end hiss and soul shearing buzz, whereas Through The Woods ups the production values just a bit, and the sound is definitely heavier, but also murkier and muddier, which again suits their skewed vision. Also things seem to get way weirder (if that were even possible), hinting once again at the bizarre blackened beast they were soon to become, with angular atonal melodies, damaged off kilter leads and even weirder vocals, from shrieks to shouts, all tangled up into dense black squalls of sound.
MPEG Stream: "Winterly Battle Over Northland"
MPEG Stream: "Inside The Witches Cave"

FORGOTTEN WOODS Forgotten Woods / Through The Woods (No Colours) picture disc lp 18.98
This recent essential black metal reissue is now available on vinyl for a limited time! And not just vinyl, a super swank picture disc!!
For a band we had thought at one point to be dead and buried, Norway's legendary black metal weirdos Forgotten Woods have been pretty high profile lately, with an unexpected (and unexpectedly amazing) new album, a bunch of reissues, the ever popular 3cd box set Baklengs Mot Stupet, and now this, the first time on cd for both FW's 1993 demos, the self titled Forgotten Woods and the follow up Through The Woods, both primo slabs of ultra grim and kvlt lo fidelity buzz. 
It's easy to see, even in the early stages of the band, that they were one seriously cracked bunch, the sound not just lo-fi, but damaged and bizarre, the riffing is simple and old school, but super low in the mix, with the crashing thrashing pounding drums way more prominent, but not nearly as much as the croaked blackened growls, the strange Gollum-like growls, some seriously harsh and alien vocals, perfectly suited to the crumbling blackness in the background. Going from stumbling chaotic buzz, to lurching doomy pound, Forgotten Woods conjure up some seriously fucked up and freaked out black atmospheres...
The self titled demo is the more brittle of the two, all high end hiss and soul shearing buzz, whereas Through The Woods ups the production values just a bit, and the sound is definitely heavier, but also murkier and muddier, which again suits their skewed vision. Also things seem to get way weirder (if that were even possible), hinting once again at the bizarre blackened beast they were soon to become, with angular atonal melodies, damaged off kilter leads and even weirder vocals, from shrieks to shouts, all tangled up into dense black squalls of sound.
MPEG Stream: "Winterly Battle Over Northland"
MPEG Stream: "Inside The Witches Cave"

GOG / APPARATIA split (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting) cd-r 15.98
The return of the peculiarly monickered Gog, a one man practitioner of the dark musical arts, able to whip up huge swaths of drifting droney shimmer as easily as a crushing avalanche of corrosive slow motion riffage. More often than not some glorious grey area right in the middle. 
Here Gog is teamed up with the unknown to us Apparatia, who proves to be a worthy match up. 
Gog begins the proceedings with a 25 minute epic, blown out and buzzy, recorded SUPER hot and way in the red, a strange creepy soundscape of metallic clang, and huge reverbed guitar, not riffing, just sort of shimmering and vibrating, everything suspended amidst a barren sprawl of decay and delay, until everything explodes, and the track is transformed into an impossibly distorted, barely moving glacial wall of sound, the production so hot, the speakers seem on the verge of collapse, a massive spacious dirge that like other Gog stuff, manages to be lovely amidst all those jagged edges and crumbling chaos. Partway through, the guitars blur into just a long stretch of distorted whir, while beneath, the bass and drums continue to plod along, a strange slowed down groove buried beneath roiling clouds of fuzz. Gog finishes off his half the split with a little minute or so long chunk of random sound, peppered with vocals, a haunting little fragment of creepy ambience. 
Apparatia are in fact a grim buzzing black metal behemoth, who right out of the gate, first song, launch into some seriously grim blasting, super distorted and ultra sick, the vocals a demonic croak, the guitars a blurry buzz, the drums another static roar buried in the mix. But the band do mix it up, weaving haunting clean guitar interludes, with the harsh super affected vocals crooning hellishly over the top. Raw and primitive, and gloriously intense and brutal, the vocals and guitars in a constant battle of the buzz, the recording quality sort of damaged and lo-fi, making for some Faxed Head like audio damage. Pretty fucking cool for sure. Definitely need to hear more from these guys. But for now, this is a seriously killer one two punch, one part slow motion sludge, one part grim, buzzing fury. 
AMAZING PACKAGING. A printed sheet of metal, black on silver, super heavy, like the music inside, text and images affixed to the back, the cd housed in a black and silver metallic paper sleeve, with mysterious blurred images and liner notes. Sticker on the front, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!! Each one hand numbered. We got 40 and that's it. Once these are gone, we will not be able to get more...
MPEG Stream: GOG "The Fruition Of The Occult"
MPEG Stream: APPARATIA "I Devoured Her Black Soul"
MPEG Stream: APPARATIA "Chamber Of Silents"

ORENDA The Funeral (No Colours) cd 16.98
The welcome return of these Bulgarian black lords, after their Back In The Grave debut from last year. And of course, after Back In The Grave comes The Funeral, an equally bleak and buzzy masterpiece channeling the sound and spirit of classic Norwegian and Polish BM into a swirling, droning black mass, a funereal hymn as furious and fuzzy as it is relentless and harsh. 
Four long tracks, two black blasts, bookended by two midtempo buzzscapes, and as with Back In The Grave, the sounds on The Funeral are super dense and thick, the guitars a weird lush, lustrous shade of black, churning out a cursed lament, while above the fray, vocals gnash and howl, a cracked hellish croak, way up in the mix, like some monstrous beast soaring above the roiling blackness below. But this is not just raw kvlt black metal, the riffs here are strangely fluid and warm, emotional and intense, with an almost sort of gothy vibe, like a way more buzzy and blackened Khold. And within Orenda's black forest of buzz, cool melancholy melodies lurk everywhere, haunting arpeggiated guitars, and strangest of all, super dramatic, almost cinematic sonic swells, sounding a lot like some black metal Morricone. Even when the band is blasting at a furious clip, the chords are ultra complex and the various strands of melody tangle and intertwine in strange and unlikely ways, with the band often slipping back into a completely mesmerizing, seasick lurching black lope, but always lacing their blurry blackness with stretches of haunting ambience draped gauzelike over the black blasts and complex post rockisms buried within. 
MPEG Stream: "A Dead Colours"
MPEG Stream: "The Funeral"

RIGGS, DAX We Sing Of Only Blood Or Love (Fat Possum) cd 14.98
Acid Bath, Deadboy And The Elephant Men, Agents Of Oblivion, we love them all, due in no small part to frontman Dax Riggs. As we've mentioned before, in numerous reviews of the above mentioned bands, Riggs was and is a rockstar, even in the druggy sludge combo Acid Bath, his soaring super dramatic vocals, and twisted surreal lyrics helped transform that band into something much more than just another NOLA sludgerock outfit. With every new band, came progression, away from the heavy, the dirgey, the druggy, toward a sound much more bluesy, glammy, poppy, but always the focal part was Riggs brooding moody croon.
We recently made the reissued Deadboy And The Elephant Men record If This Is Hell Then I'm Lucky record of the week, reissued under Riggs' name, in a bid by the label, we're guessing, to finally push him toward the mainstream, which makes perfect sense. Even more sense once we heard this, Riggs' first proper solo record, from last year. Fans into stuff like the White Stripes, Wolfmother, the Black Keys, no reason they shouldn't be digging this just as much. The sound on We Sing Of Only Blood And Love is a weird slithery Southern bluesy drugrock, incorporating bits of glam pop, gospel, AC/DC groove, but most of all, lots and lots of blues. Makes sense that this came out on Fat Possum, same label as the Black Keys. In lots of ways, this actually sounds quite a bit like the Black Keys, only if they were raised on Eyehategod instead of Howlin Wolf. Supercharged metallic blues, with pounding drums and some awesome churning riffage. But like with everything Riggs does, it's all about THAT voice. As rich and lustrous and over the top as ever, so much so, that at times, it almost sounds like Jimmy from the Frogs, full of trills and soaring almost operatic drama. Which is not at all a bad thing, and that voice all tangled up with these sludgey blues riffs, it's tough to beat.
There's also a bunch of stripped down, more acoustic numbers, sprawling and skeletal. The vibe very Mark Lanegan, sinister and languorous, but where Lanegan's voice is a whiskey soaked baritone, ominous and haunting, Riggs voice again, is intense and almost over the top.
If you're fans of any of Riggs' other outfits, and lord knows you sure as shit should be, you'll definitely need this. But for the uninitiated, this just might be the Riggs record that's accessible enough to turn him into the rockstar he's always should have been.
MPEG Stream: "Demon Tied To A Chair In My Brain"
MPEG Stream: "Radiation Blues"
MPEG Stream: "Spinning Song"
MPEG Stream: "Truth In The Dark"

CONTINUUM Volume 2 (Soleilmoon) cd 16.98
We know what you're probably thinking: "Continuum 2? What the heck happened to Continuum 1?" Well, we're right there with you, number one seemed to have slipped right past us at some point, but fear not, we're doing some digging to see if we can't track some down for the store. In the meantime, rest assure, much like Die Hard 2, or Halloween 2 or any other famous part 2's, you don't really need to have experienced part one to appreciate the second part. But all of this talk about parts, why the hell should you care? What the heck is Continuum anyway?
Well, Continuum is the darkdronedriftdoom collaboration between Dirk Serries, aka Fear Falls Burning, and Steven Wilson, Opeth producer and leader of Porcupine Tree. Whereas their first collaboration was a much more tranquil affair, match up number two augments the duo's drifting dronescapes, with massive doom metal guitars, crumbling and downtuned, sprawled riffs spread out over epic soundscapes, imagine a DJ spinning Earth 2 on one deck and Oval on the other. A glistening glimmering sonic undercurrent, beneath a plodding rumbling behemoth.
The opener, "Construct IV", is nearly 23 minutes of the above, a massive riff, a gorgeous shimmering backdrop of distant whir and warm swell, peppered with little sparkling bits of FX and fragments of melody, that riff, endless and HEAVY, plodding and sort of melting into the sounds around it. Nirvana for the doomdrone obsessives.
"Construct V" is a bit more subtle, with nearly two thirds of its seventeen minutes, taken up by gorgeous black ambience, metallic shimmer, and muted melodies, whispered voices and distant effects, before the guitar takes over, after slowly building for almost the length of the track, less a riff as a huge glacial chunk of distorted sound, the voices growing to an urgent hiss, the track transformed into something sounding like some sort of ambient black metal, or some grim blasting buzz, with the drums removed and then slowed down to a barely moving crawl.
The final track, "Construct VI", is the dreamiest of the bunch, a loping sort of doomic post rock, a simple beat, the guitars strangely alien, drifting off in the distance, everything decayed and wrapped in distortion and delay, reverb and sonic grit, the melodies minor key and melancholy, it almost sounds what might be lurking under an Angelic Process track, once all that blown out distortion was removed, a murky muddy, Hawkwind outro as played by Low, run through Acid Mothers Temple's effects rack. Until the very end, where the track is engulfed by a wall of speaker shredding distortion, a dense cloud of damaged FX and thick squalls of crumbling sound, before drifting off into a swirling space-y fade out...
LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES. Gorgeously packaged in a full color oversized A5 book-style packaging with three full color postcards.
MPEG Stream: "Construct IV"
MPEG Stream: "Construct V"

OAKEN THRONE Number Five - Summer 2007 magazine + cd 7.00
The same people who have been going on and on about the death of the record store, have also been heralding the end of print media. But you know what, screw them. Who wants to spend their whole life sitting in front of a computer? Listen to music at your desk, shop for mp3's, read that article on the laptop... whatever. Sure that stuff is convenient, and we all partake a bit, but nothing will ever replace your local record store, thumbing through bins of lps or digging through stacks of cds, just like a gorgeously designed and laid out magazine will never be replaced by a website. Especially a magazine as gorgeous and jam packed with black metal weirdness as Oaken Throne. 
Beginning life as a super strange, WAY oversized zine, impossible to ship, and difficult to display, but brilliant in its obstinacy, Oaken Throne has just gotten better and better, easily the best magazine devoted to underground black metal and strange heavy musicks. With amazing writing, great art, and some of the most stylish, but subtle layout and design of any magazine we can think of. The cover is always metallic silver on black, inside, the ads are often as striking as the illustrations accompanying the articles (which makes sense considering one of the two OT head honchos designs many of the ads as well). But Oaken Throne is not just another pretty corpse painted face. Nope, it's packed with articles and interviews on and with some of the most infamous artists in the black metal (and generally heavy) underground. 
This time around, a bunch of AQ faves: Asunder (featuring John from Weakling), Harvey Milk, Wold, Portal, Moss, Coffins, Caina, as well as some other amazing groups who have yet to get reviewed on the AQ site: Acrimonious, Adorior, Archgoat, Blacklodge, Cult Of Daath, Dapnom and Necromorbus...
Tons of killer photos and yet another amazing illustration from AQ pal Justin Bartlett (whose art has also adorned a bunch of SUNNO))) and SUNNO))) related records). In addition to all that, there are a bunch of record reviews too... easily one of the best mags, metal or otherwise going today...
This is the first issue that includes comes with a cd, containing tracks from each of the bands featured in the magazine, none of them exclusive or rare really (except maybe the Asunder track, recorded live on KFJC) but a pretty killer metal mixtape (er... cd) for sure... As always, totally recommended and essential. 

V/A ROCK IS HELL - 7" Club Box Set (Rock Is Hell) 8 x 7" / box / 2 buttons 64.00
So we listed this a while ago as a preorder, and everyone who already ordered it, they are in the queue, ready to ship out in the next day or two. But, we just happened to be able to get an extra handful of boxes, thanks to the sweet folks at Rock Is Hell, so for those of you who didn't preorder, this is your chance to pick one of these sweet babies up (and all the copies we got have the bonus 7"!!).
Here's what the heck we're talking about:
Everyone around here is a huge fan of weirdo music label Rock Is Hell, as are most of you judging from how fast we sell out of their stuff and how quickly it all goes out of print. Pretty much everything on Rock Is Hell has blown us away, the Dig That Body Up It's Alive lp, the crazy Nate Denver's Neck etched one sided lp box set thing, the super limited Octis lathe cuts, the XbXrX / Total Shutdown double 5", all gorgeously packaged and jam packed with mind melting sounds. With that in mind we worked out a special deal with Rock Is Hell, which will give AQ customers first (and maybe only) crack at this ULTRA limited 7" box set!!!
The set is limited to only 400 copies, it was almost completely sold out on preorders, minus the 8 or 9 we just got, so this will be your last and only chance to get one of these, if you didn't already preorder one. All the records are on white vinyl with white labels, and the records are housed in a silkscreened cardboard box with an inlay and 2 buttons designed by BONGOUT (http://frre.fr.freee.frfr.e.free.fr/). And all the copies we got have the secret bonus 7"!!! Only 50 or so of those! The singles included are:
Foot Village (USA)
Z's (USA)
Sasqrotch (USA)
Child Abuse (USA)
Death Sentence: Panda! (USA) / Fugu & The Cosmic Mumu (AUT)
Bulbul (AUT)
Bug (AUT) / Reflector (AUT)
Rokko Anal (AUT)
So if you want to be one of the lucky few to own this crazy chunk of sonic and visual weirdness, click the buy button and you'll be all set! So there you go, don't blow it!!!
And remember, ROCK IS HELL!!!!!

TULUS Cold Core Collection (Indie Recordings) 2cd 17.98
We totally dig Norwegian black metallers Khold, whose records we have raved about on the list again and again. Besides sounding a bit like a black metal Nirvana, with more hooks and groove than blast and buzz, they also had an amazing image, their frontman, shaved head, all clad in black, huge fur animal-leg-like pants, long sleeved turtleneck, and black corpsepaint covering JUST the bottom half of his head, leaving the top half white, a strange vision indeed, the other band members more randomly smeared with white and black, the demonic legions to their leaders mysterious dark prince.
But none of this was without precedent. Before Khold were Khold, they were Tulus, a different black metal band, with a different sound, a different image, but as far as we know all the same members. Strangely enough, Tulus recently reunited, thus rendering Khold on hold, or defunct, with a new album (Biography Obscene, which we'll review soon!) just released, but we're here to talk about the might Tulus, so let's, shall we?
Cold Core Collection gathers up the first two Tulus discs, Pure Black Energy and Mysterion, both on the first disc, the second disc made up of rarities, demos, unreleased tracks, as well as two covers, David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and Obituary's "Slowly We Rot". The first thing that struck us about Tulus, was the singer, he of the now half black half white shaved head, who in Tulus sported Pippi Longstocking style pigtails, lots of lipstick, and what seems to be a dress or some sort of strange tunic, the rest of the band look just as unlikely, especially the one who looks like a wizened demonic old man. Wow. And the music is just as impressive, plenty of what would find its way to the forefront in Khold is already here, strangely catchy grooves, totally hypnotic guitar melodies, lurching tempos, but here, it's in a much more grim and buzzing black context, lots of blasting beats, insectoid riffing, harsh vocals, BUT, just like in the image department, there's lots of weird stuff going on, creepy little girl / King Diamond falsetto vocals here and there, chunky almost punk rock sounding riffing, stretches of loping almost post rock, but Tulus is definitely a black metal band, just with a twisted aesthetic, sonically and visually, making their music both grim and kvlt, black and brutal AND fucked up and demented, catchy and bizarre.
The second disc is all over the map, the early demo stuff sounds like Striborg, ULTRA lo-fi, ALL drums, the guitar a weedy little background buzz, plenty of tape hiss and blackened murk. The later demos are more polished but still unequivocally black and buzzy. The covers are awesome, especially the Bowie, the verses heavy and harsh, with black metal vocals, but the refrains soaring and dang close to the original, shimmering steel string guitars and lush harmony vocals, a weird mix, but it sort of works.
Definitely recommended for anyone who dug those Khold discs, but this stuff is definitely grim and buzzy and fucked up enough to appeal to all the weirdo black metal fans out there. The booklet has the track info and some of the amazing photos (unfortunately not in full color) from the original releases. And for what it's worth, one of Andee and Allan's favorite black metal bands...
MPEG Stream: "Samlerens Kammer"
MPEG Stream: "Tjern"
MPEG Stream: "Dommens Fugl"
MPEG Stream: "Skuggeskip"

KISS Kissology: The Ultimate Collection - Vol. 2 1978-1991 (VH1 Classic) 3dvd 40.00
Finally, volume two in what seems to be an ongoing series of amazing archival dvd releases from "the hottest band in the world", Kiss, and as awesome as this set is, and it is, we're sort of hoping it's the last, cuz it spans the years 1978 to 1991, and by then, Kiss was a whole different, way less appealing proposition. Obviously, EVERY Kiss fanatic is absolutely gonna NEED this (and at least a few of us here would count ourselves as such), but only the truly diehard (and dare we say, ummm... misguided) will make it all the way to disc 3, as that's the way later stuff, but up until then it's a total blast. It's probably best to just give a run down of all the amazing stuff included, beginning with:
1979's Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park! Worth the price of admission alone for this legendary made for TV movie, presented here, on dvd for the first time, with the slightly altered title (not sure why) of Kiss In Attack Of The Phantoms. Maybe the altered title is due to the fact that it now includes additional and alternate Kiss concert footage as well as music from the various members' solo albums. Huh? But who cares?! What a prime slice of killer hard rock history. Filmed at Magic Mountain in Valencia California, the band take on a mad inventor who has created a legion of robotic phantoms who kidnap patrons of the park with the ultimate goal of destroying Kiss or stealing their secret amulets or something. Most notable for the fact that this was the first time most of us had ever seen Kiss -not- rocking on stage, sitting, talking, and hanging out and hamming it up BIG TIME. We get to hear Ace Frehley's maniacal laugh, observe Paul Stanley's queen-y swish, and Gene Simmons barely speaks at all, mostly delivering his lines in an overdubbed monster roar/growl. But the band look amazing, and are goofy and funny and engaging, the live performances are killer. Made us feel like we were 9 years old again...
Also on the first disc, the band are interviewed by a very grumpy Edwin Newman on the short lived show Land Of Hype And Glory, with some cool interviews and some amazing live footage. And then disc one finishes off with a bang, featuring an excerpt of the band on The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. It's a crime that it's only an excerpt. Super funny and animated, Ace Frehley is on fire (and seriously wasted) cackling like a madman, sparring with Snyder, the whole band collapsing into uproarious laughter every few minutes, in jokes and barbs flying every which way, so casual and relaxed and super fun, they break for commercial and never come back... arrrghhh!!! Hopefully the rest will be included in a future Snyder/Tomorrow Show dvd release.
Disc two starts off pretty rough, with the music video for "Shandi" from 1980, remember that song? Neither do we. But it's brutal, Night Ranger ballady pap, with the super cheesy eighties style video, bad, but still kinda fun. Next up a CNN interview with Peter Criss after leaving the band, And for some reason, he keeps his face hidden the whole time, as he discusses his future plans and  his frustrations after writing a number one smash for Kiss ("Beth"). Then some amazing outtakes as the band attempt to film a promo for their upcoming trip to Australia, and to introduce new drummer Eric Carr. The band blow take after take, mainly because Frehley seems to be utterly wasted. Pretty funny stuff though. After that some killer footage of Kiss live on German TV doing two more random songs ("She's So European" and "Talk To Me") and then an amazing documentary about the band's first trip down under. Streets mobbed with Aussie youths in full Kiss makeup, and much like in the first volume, various public officials greeting the band with open arms. The rest of the disc is mostly live stuff, a long set in Australia in 1980, lots of hits, including the band doing some of our favorite tracks from Ace's solo record (the only truly great solo record of the four). 
Then a real treat (well, sort of) for the truly obsessed. A three song live performance of tracks form Kiss's concept record The Elder!!! The band have really short hair, and the songs are bizarre and proggy, but The Elder truly is weirdly cool for being one of the most hated Kiss discs. Finally, the band kick ass on a killer lip synched version of one of their better later songs "I Love It Loud", featuring new guitarist Vinnie Vincent.
Disc three is the weak link, but there are still some moments worth checking out. Mostly live footage, the best of it being the band performing in front of a huge crowd in Rio, doing some old Kiss classics, cuz up next is the legendary MTV special where the band were shown without makeup for the very first time. Hosted by MTV veejay J.J. Jackson, the show begins by showing awesome glamor shots of each member in full makeup, then dissolving to the haggard pasty makeupless dudes -behind- the masks. I remember even back in the day it being fairly anticlimactic. But seeing it again immediately transported us back to the living room of our childhood homes, Cheetos in one hand, coke in the other, DYING to find out what Kiss REALLY LOOKED LIKE. The rest of the disc is mostly live stuff, some pretty good, the band sans makeup, some awesome moments, the giant tank drum riser, some problematically glam costumes, and some really bad songs. There's a brief clip of the MTV news segment where it was announced that drummer Eric Carr had died from cancer at the age of 41. Still really sad. And it finishes off with the video for maybe one of the cheesiest Kiss songs ever, "God Gave Rock And Roll To You"....
Beautifully packaged as before, massive multi panel fold out dvd digipak style cover, with killer photos, a reproduction of a ticket to see Kiss And The Phantom Of The Park, a bonus dvd featuring Kiss live at Budokan in Japan on the Crazy Nights tour (of interest only to the most fanatic of the Kiss Army, like our friend Josh maybe...) and a huge booklet, with liner notes, and photos, and anecdotes regarding each segment, including our favorite, a bit about Eric Carr's original makeup before he became the Fox, when he was some sort of bird, with a ruffled feathered jumpsuit, padded in the front like a penguin and a yellow beak painted on his face! Wish there were photos of that. 
According to the booklet, volume three is coming soon, which would cover 1992 and beyond it would seem, although it's hard to imagine that being very interesting, but at least they could include footage from 11 farewell tours, and 5 or 6 last-tours-ever as well as 3 more unmaskings and 2 re-make-upings... but whatever, this volume and the first are absolutely well worth owning. 
Now we're gonna go make some popcorn, and watch Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park for about the millionth time....

EDITORS, THE An End Has A Start (Epic) cd 14.98
We've mentioned this before, probably in a bunch of reviews, as much as we love us out black metal buzz, and strange animal sounds, deep dark drones and whatever other sonic weirdness that is tickling our ear drums, it's hard not to always come back to pop music. And certain records in particular. And there are all sorts of processes we go through to pick AQ highlights ands records of the week. But sometimes, you just have to go with the record you listened to the most. Even if it's not the weirdest, or the coolest (and it's usually not), and for me (Andee) that record is without a doubt, the new one from The Editors, a disc I found myself listening to 4 or 5 times a day (maybe much to the chagrin of coworkers) but screw it, An End Has A Start is pretty much perfect as far as I'm concerned, poppy, hooky, moody, rocking, catchy, dramatic, just so so good. 
Though often accused of being an Interpol ripoff band (and sure their sounds, especially the vocals, are dangerously similar) the Editors always seemed to have some important things that Interpol didn't. And don't get us wrong, we love Interpol, even the new one, but the Editors, somehow always seem less concerned with the cool factor, the tight suits, and the sort of emotionless sheen, instead, they revel in their emotions, they may be as dapper on the surface as their Interpol brethren, but inside, their hearts are broken, they have butterflies in their stomachs, they're willing to open up and be vulnerable, to loosen up that tie and to crawl, to weep, to wail, and that's sort of the magic of these songs. 
Their sound has gotten even more polished since the last record (positioning them closer to Coldplay probably than Interpol), but the songs have followed suit, getting even more razor sharp, the hooks impossible to resist, the melodies big and melancholy, the riffs kick ass, and the vocals, epic and throaty and super dramatic, emotional and sort of emo actually. None of that laid back cool that Interpol traffics in, this is heart on the sleeve stuff. 
And it's not just the songs, the lyrics are amazing as well, clever and sharp, emotionally resonant, and it helps that they're delivered in that irresistible croon. 
Shit, just listen to the opener, "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors", easily the best song Interpol never wrote (or could write), simple and loping, with an amazing epic soaring bridge, and a chorus that manages to be super moving in its simplicity, the sort of progression, music and lyrics together, that totally gives you a lump in the throat, and then the super crazy hook of the second half of the chorus.... 
The the second song, the title track, might be even better, more new wave, with a propulsive groove and practically perfect lyrics, jangling guitars and throbbing bass, and a chorus that KILLS...
Every track on An End Has A Start is a gem, dark and brooding, buzzy and propulsive, catchy as all get out. "The Weight of The World" is another song Interpol should have written, but in the hands of the Editors it become a super soaring minor key lament, and then there's the "Escape The Nest" with one of the most bad ass guitar riffs ever, a weird processed angular grind surrounded on all sides by muted gloom, making it seem even more epic and intense. 
After listening to this for the hundredth time or so, it became obvious that it would just get harder and harder to explain why it was so great. One of those records that just makes you want to review it with a single sentence: "Just buy it! It's amazing. Been listening to it nonstop. My record of the year without a doubt!!!" And while for a few people that might actually be enough, for the rest of you, read the above, listen to the sound samples, and decide for yourself, but yeah, pop record of the year without a doubt. 
MPEG Stream: "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors"
MPEG Stream: "An End Has A Start"
MPEG Stream: "Escape The Nest"

TORCHE s/t (reissued, remastered version) (Robotic Empire) cd 10.98
Okay, so this disc was one of our favorite releases of 2005. A massive, pummeling ultra catchy slab of hook filled sludge pop. Or something. Like Nirvana but a million times heavier. Anyway, we played the shit out of this disc, and still do.
Recently, the band decided to re-record the record, not completely, but they were unhappy with the mix, especially the vocals, so this here, as the title explains, is reissued, remastered, and partially re-recorded. Hard to say how different it is without doing a side by side comparison. It does sound a bit louder, maybe a little clearer, the vocals sound pretty much the same, maybe a teensy bit more in tune, but so what. The record was already perfect the way it was. If anything, now it's just a little bit more perfect-er!! Probably not worth buying again if you already have it, but if you somehow missed out on the divine slab of sludgy pop brilliance, the gods have chosen to bless you with one more chance...
This is totally kick ass stoner sludge pop! So right up our alley! Not surprising, as Torche is fronted by the main guy from equally heavy / poppy AQ faves Floor and also features one of the guys from AQ faves Cavity as well. Try to imagine the Melvins mixed with the the Foo Fighters and you'll get a rough idea. Massive downtuned metal riffs, stoner rock slowed waaaay dooown, and then wrapped in pop hooks and perfect harmonies. Ultra catchy sing songy melodies draped over pummelling dirges, like Christmas lights strung over a tarpit. AQ pal Josh was touting this as record of the year. And who are we to argue?! We dream about the day that this is the top forty we see on MTV and hear on the radio. It's as catchy if not catchier than most of the crap that gets shoved down kids' throats. And we're all for that 'your chocolate in my peanut butter' sort of unlikely combo, and you don't get much more unlikely than this. Sludge pop? Dirge pop? Stoner pop? Hardly matters. This is the record of the summer, the one you'll be blasting with the top down as you cruise along the beach. Assuming of course that it's the dead of night, and your car is black with bones hanging from the rearview mirror, and the stickshift has a human skull on it, and there's a corpse in your trunk, and your car is engulfed in a cloud of vampire bats, and all the windows are tinted blood red and you run down every one in your path. Exactly. Now there's no excuse for the metalhead in your life not to indulge his or her musical sweet tooth!
MPEG Stream: "Charge Of The Brown Recluse"
MPEG Stream: "Safe"
MPEG Stream: "Mentor"

UNDER SATAN'S SUN s/t (self-released) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Back in stock, could be the last copies...
Hammers Of Misfortune fans strap yourselves in and get ready to bask Under Satan's Sun!
A while back, drummer and leader of the No Neck Blues Band, Dave Nuss, emailed us wanting to send us a copy of his new band's first record. He thought it was definitely something we would dig. We got it, threw it on, and were blown away. Big time! Classic, epic, blackened TRUE METAL, that definitely sounded a bit like local operatic metal heroes Hammers Of Misfortune. Well, we would later discover that not only did the band indeed LOVE and draw some of their inspiration from Hammers (one band member even sports a HoM shirt in the band photo), but they were in fact fronted by singing sisters from right here in San Francisco. Weird. But it sort of makes sense. SF's fertile metal scene has not only spawned Hammers, but helped nurture East Coast transplants Slough Feg, as well as spawning a whole bunch of bad ass metal bands like Weakling, Ludicra, Leviathan, Horn Of Dagoth, Asunder, we could go on and on. Needless to say, there is no wanting for metal around these parts. SO it makes perfect sense that two sisters from SF might go digging for likeminded metalheads in NYC. Who would have thought that some of those kindred spirits would be Nuss of No Neck and legendary underground painter Arik Mooonhawk Roper among others...?
Regardless of who or why or how, this is simply some seriously epic blackened true metal. Plenty of Sabbathisms abound, the riffs go from buzzing and blasting, to classic eighties crunch, with leads soaring, and some awesomely tangled Maidenesque harmonies, the drumming is powerful but simple. The songs are subtly catchy, epic and majestic, mysterious and classic. But as with most metal bands, it comes down to two things, the riffs, which here pretty much rule, and the vocals, which Under Satan's Sun have down cold, how could they not? Two female metalheads, one able to emit a hellish demonic screech, both able to croon in perfect harmony, occasionally weaving haunting Comus-y parts that totally captivate. 
The best tracks are the ones that sort of push the boundaries, taking the obvious Maiden / Sabbath / Hammers influences, and adding weird proggy workouts and haunting seventies folkiness, "Stand Up And Fight" and "Confessing A Murder" being the best examples, both total classics, the perfect blend of classic eighties metal, seventies style British electric folk, and modern blackened buzz. 
This should definitely hold you over until the next Hammers disc. Or at least until the next Under Satan's Sun record...
MPEG Stream: "The Fiery Angel Of Desire"
MPEG Stream: "Only You"
MPEG Stream: "Stand Up And Fight"

WAGONER, PORTER The Rubber Room: The Haunting Poetic Songs of Porter Wagoner 1966-1977 (The Omni Recording Corporation) cd 16.98
Well Dang! Why it seems we're in the midst of a full-on Porter Wagoner revival. Not only has the man just released one of the best country albums of the year (Wagonmaster, which we reviewed last list), but at the ripe old age of 80, just played to a sell-out audience at Madison Square Garden opening for The White Stripes. While for a time, he seemed to epitomize everything that was old-fashioned about Nashville, from his vintage glittering suits to his often overtly pained and sentimental delivery on many a song about love and The Lord. No truer did that image seem to be when Dolly Parton, who first debuted on Wagoner's TV show before becoming his most popular singing and song-writing partner for nearly ten years, decided to part ways for a solo career in the mid-seventies. Surely a low point in his career, but the man never went away, quietly releasing records and remaining an ambassadorial presence on the Grand Ole Opry circuit ever since.
Yet, it also looks like all that flash and kitsch so present in Wagoner's performances and recordings have inspired a hip cult following through the years after all. But not because of his more popular hits. We mentioned in the Wagonmaster review about an early seventies song that was a bit of a novelty hit, called "The Rubber Room", a dark, wrenching, reverb-soaked ode to mental illness. Well, most of his records from the mid-sixties onward had a track or two that delved similarly into the darkest of themes: revenge, murder, murder-suicide, insanity, prison, parental abuse, neglect, drinking, punishment, and redemption. The album covers similarly shared his fondness for theatricality, sometimes dressing up as a hobo, wino, prisoner, or shown walking in on his unfaithful wife. These songs weren't always his biggest hits but they had the highest Nashville production values with strings, choirs and dramatic special effects, and put together they create a bizarrely surreal patchwork of the Southern Gothic. So what better way to celebrate Porter Wagoner's big career revival with this mighty anthology put out by the awesome folks at Omni (who also brought us the Bruce Haack Electric Lucifer reissue we made record of the week, a couple lists back). Instead of focusing on charted singles and successes, this anthology compiles together 29 left-field tracks recorded between 1966 and 1977 (with the exception of only one charted single, "The Carroll County Accident") that cover all the dark themes mentioned above, many in poetical song-story form and loosely sequenced in themes.
So let's give a brief summary here of the main themes, after "The Rubber Room", there are some country-crossover songs, reminiscent in style to Lee Hazlewood and Jimmy Webb, that deal with the savage life of Native Americans outlaws ("George Leroy Chickashea", "Indian Creek"). Then, there are the achingly lonely tear-in-your-beer songs ("Lonely Comin' Down", "Lonelyville"), which then segue into the cheating songs, ("My Many Hurried Southern Trips", "Woman Hungry") then the wife-killing and wife/other man-killing songs ("First Mrs. Jones", "The Cold Hard Facts of Life" "Julie"). After that there are some tear-in-your-BOTTLE songs ("Wino", "Bottom of The Bottle") then the hobo songs ("Life Rides The Train", "My Last Two Tens"), then a prison song sung from the point of view of the prisoner's only son ("Let Me In"). Then the devastating Dolly Parton duet, "The Party" about a couple's children who die tragically while the parents were out partying. And finally a couple of songs about prayer and redemption ("Little Boy's Prayer" and "Moments of Meditation") just to give a slight semblence of hope to things. Phew! and there's so much more!
Surely not the happiest of records, but one that will still undoubtedly put a smile on your face. It's definitely one of the most well curated, intriguing and exciting country collections to be put to disc from a man who is finally getting his due. Absolutely Essential!!!!!!!!!!!
Please note: The first pressing is currently out of print. We've got a bunch of these, but it may take a while to get the next batch, so please be patient if and when we run out.
MPEG Stream: "Rubber Room"
MPEG Stream: "Cassie"
MPEG Stream: "First Mrs. Jones"
MPEG Stream: "The Party"

JABLADAV Black As Pitch (self-released) cassette 4.50
Record number two from this strangely monickered black metal one man outfit, borne out of a mighty love for dead and gone SF black metallers Weakling. And who can blame Mr. Jabladav? Of the modern breed of black metal, Weakling hewed closest to the spirit of the legendary Norwegian BM royalty, while still managing to create something completely unique, off kilter and beautifully and brilliantly fucked. Pity they only managed one record, but what a record it was...
Where as the first Jabladav disc, Dead As Duck (note the Dead As Dreams like title) mixed outright Weakling worship, frosty grim riffage, furious blast beats, epic arrangements, with a distinct post rock / math rock vibe and some seriously twisted and damaged Greg Ginn-ish Black Flag like gnarled guitars, the new one Black As Pitch (hmmm...) while still rooted in the epic buzz of Weakling and the bands that came before, expands the scope and the sound of the first one, in a big way. The core is still a grim black buzz, but even at its most black metal, the arrangements are completely convoluted and confusional, with long stretches of abstract riffing, bursts of chaotic free-black-metal, if there is such a thing (and if there's not there sure as hell should be), but the BM here is still troo and completely amazing, the guitars are super hot, in the red, blown out and WAY up in the mix, the drums too, loud as fuck, the double kick sounds (and feels) like someone pounding on your chest with both fists. Thick swaths of creepy alien keyboard sometimes drift over the black blasts, and often the blackness dissipates leaving gorgeous stretches of rumbling drone or shimmering ambience, the vocals are reverbed and sound like they must be samples or snippets from some movie, giving the songs an even creepier vibe.
Then there's the 14+ minute "Vinter Meditation", an extended chunk of cinematic ambience, all strange synths and creepy sounds, mysterious voices, and random abstract sonic disturbances, but the whole song is peppered with furious bursts of black metal, the engulf everything, saturating all the surrounding sounds with thick viscous blackness, before drifting off just as suddenly, leaving more haunting ambience, minor key melodies, the sounds of wind and thunder, soft billowing bits of chordal drift.... The rest of the record is filled out with more conventional length black blasts, except for the 31 minute drone epic "St. Philip Episcopal Church", which begins as a muted whir, a distant drone, layers shifting and overlapping, until thick grinding crumbling guitars swoop in, adding a caustic layer of fuzz over the top, and the track continues like that, sort of seesawing back and forth, from minimal shimmer, to corrosive drone, that distorted guitar changing shape constantly, from prickly buzz, to pulsing Spacemen 3 like whir to FX drenched outer space swirl, to brutal black drone. That piece alone would constitute a whole release on any one of our favorite modern abstract noise cd-r labels, but here it's just part of the bigger sonic picture, the songs short and long, black and beautiful, are all tangled up, sonically and thematically, the ambience balances the buzzing blackness and vice versa.
The record closes with an Ildjarn cover, a brief blown out black stomp, relentless and furious, the guitar still way blown out, the vocals louder than ever, the riff simple and almost punk rock, primitive and furious and fierce. Somehow it seems like the perfect way to finish off, after all the extended experimental ambience and super mathy black metal weirdness, a good old fashioned, primitive, old school, spiked, leather clad, corpse painted, church burning bloody axe attack!!
The cds are limited to 100 copies, each one hand numbered, the cassettes are numbered to 150 copies, each of those hand numbered as well.
MPEG Stream: "Ater Sicut Nox"
MPEG Stream: "Darling "Filia Noctiluca""
MPEG Stream: "Vinter Meditation"

JABLADAV Black As Pitch (self-released) cd-r 9.98
Record number two from this strangely monickered black metal one man outfit, borne out of a mighty love for dead and gone SF black metallers Weakling. And who can blame Mr. Jabladav? Of the modern breed of black metal, Weakling hewed closest to the spirit of the legendary Norwegian BM royalty, while still managing to create something completely unique, off kilter and beautifully and brilliantly fucked. Pity they only managed one record, but what a record it was...
Where as the first Jabladav disc, Dead As Duck (note the Dead As Dreams like title) mixed outright Weakling worship, frosty grim riffage, furious blast beats, epic arrangements, with a distinct post rock / math rock vibe and some seriously twisted and damaged Greg Ginn-ish Black Flag like gnarled guitars, the new one Black As Pitch (hmmm...) while still rooted in the epic buzz of Weakling and the bands that came before, expands the scope and the sound of the first one, in a big way. The core is still a grim black buzz, but even at its most black metal, the arrangements are completely convoluted and confusional, with long stretches of abstract riffing, bursts of chaotic free-black-metal, if there is such a thing (and if there's not there sure as hell should be), but the BM here is still troo and completely amazing, the guitars are super hot, in the red, blown out and WAY up in the mix, the drums too, loud as fuck, the double kick sounds (and feels) like someone pounding on your chest with both fists. Thick swaths of creepy alien keyboard sometimes drift over the black blasts, and often the blackness dissipates leaving gorgeous stretches of rumbling drone or shimmering ambience, the vocals are reverbed and sound like they must be samples or snippets from some movie, giving the songs an even creepier vibe.
Then there's the 14+ minute "Vinter Meditation", an extended chunk of cinematic ambience, all strange synths and creepy sounds, mysterious voices, and random abstract sonic disturbances, but the whole song is peppered with furious bursts of black metal, the engulf everything, saturating all the surrounding sounds with thick viscous blackness, before drifting off just as suddenly, leaving more haunting ambience, minor key melodies, the sounds of wind and thunder, soft billowing bits of chordal drift.... The rest of the record is filled out with more conventional length black blasts, except for the 31 minute drone epic "St. Philip Episcopal Church", which begins as a muted whir, a distant drone, layers shifting and overlapping, until thick grinding crumbling guitars swoop in, adding a caustic layer of fuzz over the top, and the track continues like that, sort of seesawing back and forth, from minimal shimmer, to corrosive drone, that distorted guitar changing shape constantly, from prickly buzz, to pulsing Spacemen 3 like whir to FX drenched outer space swirl, to brutal black drone. That piece alone would constitute a whole release on any one of our favorite modern abstract noise cd-r labels, but here it's just part of the bigger sonic picture, the songs short and long, black and beautiful, are all tangled up, sonically and thematically, the ambience balances the buzzing blackness and vice versa.
The record closes with an Ildjarn cover, a brief blown out black stomp, relentless and furious, the guitar still way blown out, the vocals louder than ever, the riff simple and almost punk rock, primitive and furious and fierce. Somehow it seems like the perfect way to finish off, after all the extended experimental ambience and super mathy black metal weirdness, a good old fashioned, primitive, old school, spiked, leather clad, corpse painted, church burning bloody axe attack!!
The cds are limited to 100 copies, each one hand numbered, the cassettes are numbered to 150 copies, each of those hand numbered as well.
MPEG Stream: "Ater Sicut Nox"
MPEG Stream: "Darling "Filia Noctiluca""
MPEG Stream: "Vinter Meditation"

FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS The Distant Future (Sub Pop) cd ep 3.98
First thing you gotta do to truly enjoy Flight Of The Conchords, is to pretend you've never heard or seen Tenacious D, and if for some crazy reason you -haven't- seen Tenacious D, and we're talking about the HBO show not the movie, then for chrissakes go get it now. You will not see a funnier, more totally wacked show, or hear more amazing metal tinged acoustic rock songs EVER. So once you've seen, and enjoyed Tenacious D, and then immediately begun to pretend that you haven't, then it's okay to dig into Flight Of The Conchords, a similarly damaged acoustic comedy duo.
But FOTC are a lot more feel good than Tenacious D. The D had a serious sinister edge, with songs rooted in HEAVY METAL, swearing and screaming,  blood and chaos and mayhem, where as the Conchords are more friendly, more deadpan, like the TV show, a more sort of Napoleon Dynamite vibe, long pauses, non sequiturs, a sort of rumpled discomfort instead of the D's in your face full frontal comedic pummel. And while we love the D, there is definitely a place for the Conchords. And while they don't seem as inspired as the D, the show is pretty dang funny, and some of their songs are awesome, "Robots" being the most obvious, a tale of the distant future, the year 2000, complete with a kick ass 'binary solo', the band rapidly reciting ones and zeros over madly strummed guitars. "Business Time" is pretty funny too, sexy and silly, and more of that deadpan style.
The live tracks are the best, mostly cuz the duo have killer chemistry, and are able to riff endlessly on the stupidest and most minute things, but the upshot is it leaves you wanting to see a whole set of their stand up, or at least the show (which is peppered with homemade videos for all of their songs), but for now, until you get a chance to see them live, or finally get HBO, this little chunk of goofy toonage should hold you over nicely.
MPEG Stream: "Robots (live)"
MPEG Stream: "Business Time"
MPEG Stream: "If You're Into It"

QUETZOLCOATL Sleeping Within The Sun (Phantom Limb) cd-r 9.98
Over the last few months we've been systematically going through our warehouse (read: not very big back room) and unearthing all manner of gems, limited cd-r's misplaced box sets, long out of print lps, and getting them back in the store, or if there are enough, getting them reviewed and onto the list. That way, even though we'd normally try to have 30 or 40 of something, at least a handful of you can get your hands on something instead of it sitting neglected on some shelf.
So here's another recent discovery, a cd-r from a long time aQ fave, Quetzolcoatl, aka Timothy Hurley, who also does time in Taj Mahal Travellers worshipping outfit Bonecloud, both hailing from Ireland. Released on Phantom Limb a while back, and limited, to, oof, 90 COPIES! Which of course means WAY out of print, and these are the very last copies.
The sound of Quetzolcoatl is dreamy delicate stuff, Warm washed out landscapes of high end tones, blurred into cloudy streaks, spread out over angelic voices and tinkling chimes, gritty buzz over distant percussion, and haunting ghostlike melodies, gentle swells of fuzz and hiss, sun dappled and ethereal, murky stretches of low end crawl, and majestic lo-fi chorales, smeared into long indistinct stretches of stained glass sound, glimmering and prismatic and so gorgeous.
Amazing packaging, a full color insert, with printed vellum sheets on either side, a small printed vellum insert, each one hand numbered, limited to only 90 copies. Again, already out of print, last copies everŠ
MPEG Stream: "Sleeping Within The Sun"

TIC CODE Fbccade (Sickroom) cd 13.98
Back in stock! Mind melting mathrock madness, kick ass and catchy as hell, cheeck it out again:
At the risk of alienating some of the other amazing records we've been loving and listening to non-stop, we might just have to proclaim this disc our new favorite. Cuz, man, do we miss the good ol' math rock days. Or post rock days, whatever you want to call them. That brief period, when there were instrumental (or mostly instrumental) bands everywhere, each offering up super complex tangled chunks of calculus-rhythmed indie jangle. Guitars intertwined into gorgeous harmonies and splintering into jagged melodic shards. Drums battering out impossibly intricate beats, the bass slithering around and within, supporting and propelling, but always laced with killer pop hooks and amazing minor key melodies. Bands like Polvo, Pitchblende, Table, Breadwinner, Dazzling Killmen, Bitch Magnet, Rodan, Crain, June Of 44, they just don't make bands like that anymore... or do they?
Tic Code, from Portland Oregon sound like they just got sucked up from 1995 and transplanted in 2007, with all their mathy chops intact. Every song here is dense and catchy and weird and rocking. The opener is all Don Caballero ultra complex spazz out. The guitars super dizzying and slippery, over a relentlessly chugging groove, that at one point slips into an almost jig, and then it's back into a hyper rhythmic math jam. The second track is more moody and propulsive, more post than math, the guitars lilting and ringing out, the drums loping lazily, super summer afternoon...
The rest of the record is all over the math map, leaning heavily on the heavy, more chaotic side of things, the drummer destroying, the guitars tangled up wildly around the drums, every song a gorgeous avalanche of sound...
Some of our other favorites are the weird melancholy almost Goblin-esque "The Second Stanza Of The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza" with its epic sweeping chords and haunting melodies, and the Yes-on-steroids of "Swedish Fish", with more killer dual guitar dueling culminating in an explosive freaked out free for all sonic squall... fuck it, they're all amazing. This band is just so great, and sound so modern and old school at the same time.
Screw this whole post rock metal hybrid movement everyone is so hot for, we say: bring back the MATH!!!
MPEG Stream: "Exembox"
MPEG Stream: "Sweedish Fish"
MPEG Stream: "Skeletons"

MACHINEFABRIEK (V/A) Kruimeldief: Machinefabriek Remixed (self-released) 2cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This massive remix disc from AQ dronedrift fave Machinefabriek, is composed entirely of remixes of the out of print Stofstuk cd, the shortest Machinefabriek release but quite possibly our favorite. Originally released as a little rectangular business card shaped 3" cd and clocking in at an impressive 5:31, Stofstuk was recorded with only a singing bowl, a contact mic, a vinyl record and a laptop, and originally created as a private pressing, and is easily one of the most gorgeous slabs of shimmery minimalism we've ever heard. It was also crazy limited and went out of print in no time. Thankfully, since all of these remixes are based on that same track, it's included here for those of you who missed out. So before we get to the remixes, best to probably quickly describe the source. For five glorious minutes, deeeeeeeep notes are loosed, lush and resonant, allowed to billow out like sonic ripples, every once in a while, some massive bass kicks in and washes over the listener like a huge slow motion wave, it's strangely transcendent, rich with intense emotion and sonic impact. Around these cavernous swells, various drawn out notes drift and shift, soft focus layers laid upon one another, gauzy and ephemeral, all hovering blissfully over a gorgeously muted field of barely there record crackle. Wow. Like a warm and dreamy Jeckian take on Raster-Noton, or some cosmic minimal meditation music. So totally beautiful. It almost seems a shame to remix something so nearly perfect to begin with, but thankfully, the majority of these mixes manage to subtly tweak the original, retaining much of the magic, while managing to imbue the revamped version with a bit of their own subtle style. 
If you loved the original version as much as us, this double disc is pretty much a no brainer. We complained in the first one about the 5 minute playing time, and how we just set the cd player on repeat and listened to it over and over and over, and that's almost what this is, but with each repeated play subtly and slightly altered (and a few dramatically different), but it's pretty tough to argue with 2+ hours of variations on Stofstuk. Plus check out the list of remixers: Alva Noto, Mitchell Akiyama, Xela, Svarte Greiner, Lesser, Freiband, Kim Cascone, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Luigi Archetti, Julien Neto, Pita, Adam Paccione, Henrik Rylander, Gert-jan Prins and loads more. As we mentioned, most of the versions are subtle variations, you might not even be able to tell the difference if you weren't paying close attention, but a few folks mix it up, Freiband adds a thick layer of caustic buzz and grind to the then barely audible original, Aaron Martin adds some glitch and microphone noise, Xela brings out the original's muted melodies and adds voices, Lesser adds a bit of grind and crunch, Henrik Rylander buries the original beneath layers of warm whirring fuzz, Julien Neto gives his version a soft focus, easy listening sheen and Gert-Jan Prins transforms the tones of the original into gritty buzzing grinding low end and piercing sine wave tones, but these are the exceptions, and even though the above descriptions make it seem like those tracks must stick out like crazy, in the context of a massive double disc set, they sound just perfect, nestled as they are amongst song after song of whispery droney drift. So gorgeous. 
Packaged in a soft cottony pouches, housed in a folded cardstock jacket and a thick vinyl outer sleeve. 
MPEG Stream: XELA "Stofstuk"
MPEG Stream: ALVA NOTO "Stofstuk"
MPEG Stream: SVARTE GREINER "Stofstuk"
MPEG Stream: LESSER "Stofstuk"

SILVESTER ANFANG Kosmies Slachtafval (Aurora Borealis) cd 14.98
Belgian funeral folk avant ambient doom troop Silvester Anfang sure have a way with images. Their first full length featured the band in white hoods, shirtless, with sticks and clubs and axes and goats on chains, now this one, the band's first proper cd release, sports a foxy raven haired lass licking a skull, and elsewhere in the booklet and on the sleeve, posing with said licked skull, as well as plenty of goats still, upside down ladies in bikinis in the shape of an upside down crucifix, as well as a full color fold out poster of the babe-licking-skull album cover....
And while that all may seem a bit over the top, somehow, it suits Silvester Anfang's dark and demented music. They're like a grim, blackened, metallic version of all those freaky forest neo folkies. Imagine Avarus or Feathers or Kemialliset, just hanging out beneath the trees, weaving their stumbling free folk magic, when all of a sudden, they're pulled into some pit in the middle of the forest, only to emerge days later, with a blank dead eyed stare, emotionless, eyes black as obsidian, their hair tangled and matted, their skin covered in mysterious tattoos, and the sounds they make, like some some primitive musical ritual...
That's sort of what Silvester Anfang sound like. The parts are all familiar, the shuffling rhythms, the junkyard percussion, the haunting vocals, the detuned guitars, but somehow twisted, dark, and so black, and like they also somehow dragged some big ass amps as well as at least one full drum kit out into the woods, and the results are seriously scary (and amazing).
The first track unfurls a web of jagged distorted guitar melodies over a simple motorik pound, surrounded by all sorts of chants and distant drones, above a constantly shifting landscape of grinding whirs and swirling clouds of tinkling melodies, occasionally overtaken by thick washes of super distorted guitar buzz, everything culminating in an orgiastic musical free for all, with wild feral female vocals, dense tribal drumming, epic cinematic swells... an immense sonic squall the lights the black forest with some burnished red glow...
The second track, the nearly half hour long "Konfituur Voor De Satanjeugd" is much more subtle and stretched out, some sort of German Oak krautrock style slow burner, all shuffling drums and whirling ambience, spidery guitars and glistening barely there melodies, until about the 20 minute mark, when a riff finally coalesces, a killer riff, a sort of Viking dirge, a bit metallic, grinding away over thick sheets of blown out guitar drone, a dense wash of amp buzz and guitar growl, the riff looped and cyclical, while in the background lurk streaks of high end guitar and warm whirring synths, gorgeous and not a little bit frightening.
Magickal and mystickal, dark and diabolical, just the sort of musick that might very well have you too licking skulls after repeated listens, and there's certainly not a better recommendation than that...
MPEG Stream: "Mijn Vader Was Een Wolf En Mijn Moeder Was Een Hoer"
MPEG Stream: "Konfituur Voor De Satanjeugd"

WOODEN SHJIPS s/t (Holy Mountain) 2cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Whoo-hoo! We thought these bonus disc havin' Wooden Shjips cds were all gone, gone, gone... but there was a serendipitous "warehouse find" and now we have a few more for anyone who missed out! Act fast, though!
From right here in our sunny San Francisco neighborhood, comes an eagerly anticipated new release that clinches its Record Of The Week status not only by comprising a fantastic debut full-length album of hypnotically searing garagey psych jams, but also by including a BONUS disc (limited edition, first 2000 copies only) in a cardboard sleeve shrinkwrapped to the jewel case, featuring all the tracks from the now-out-of-print 10" and 7" vinyl records released last year that first made us -- and so many others, foremost among 'em Tom Lax of Siltbreeze/Siltblog fame, and Byron Coley at The Wire -- into drooling Wooden Shjips fanatics.
And yes, if you haven't run into them before, it's Wooden ShJips with a J, that's not a typo, just a way we guess of making their moniker more psychedelic (and easier to Google, too). They've garnered a lot of deserved attention from folks into minimalistic psych throb, that's for sure, and further whetted everyone's appetites for this album with the "Summer Of Love" 7" single that came out a couple weeks ago and has already sold out (2nd pressing in the works, be patient).
So, this new self-titled album follows on from that single with five more fuzzy, super groovy, guitar/organ/bass/drums slowburners, somewhere between Comets On Fire and Circle, with a definite Doors-y vibe as well, in part due to the keys which give this an almost loungey relaxed feel at times, and in part due to the occasional laidback Morrison-ish vocals of guitarist Erik Johnson. Erik also makes us think of Neil Young as well, as his more "out" guitar solos -- some if 'em SCORCHING -- could be off of Young's feedback-filled Arc. Or a Les Rallizes Denudes record! Track four, "Blue Sky Bends", having the best Rallizes-ish drone-factor of the disc. Overall, we'd say that these tracks, as a development from their earlier material, exhibits more and more of a throwback to the ballroom Frisco style of the sixties... now they just need to get a light show happening! But something tells us they'd be all about stark bright white strobes and dark black shadows only, maybe some b&w op art spirals, if their monochrome packaging aesthetic and the general heavy lidded mood of the music is anything to go by...
And then there's the limited bonus disc. Don't dawdle, you don't want to miss it (particularly if you didn't score the original vinyl releases). It's got the three tracks from their debut Shrinking Moon For You 10" (the one that they didn't even tell us about even though we see these guys on the street every day, we had to find out about it from Mr. Lax's blog!) and both cuts from their Dance, California / Clouds Over Earthquake 7". We'll try to summarize what we said about these songs before. The music from the 10" starts off with the title cut, a fuzzy garagey stomp, a groove that locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laidback and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing. The third track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
The two tracks from the 7" are also quite sonically similar to the 10" cuts. First up, surprise surprise a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake. "Clouds Over Earthquake" is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10" resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay. Awesome!
So those tracks are all here (not in that order though) along with a radio edit of "Dance, California" for completists. These are the songs that had us jonesing for a full length, which you've just read about up above, and now all this music is together in one crucial package, while they last.
FYI, a vinyl version of the full-length is to follow in a month or two we're told... and maybe Holy Mountain can come up with some better cover art for it too? We were a bit underwhelmed by the blurry black & white photo of the band sitting around on the steps to someone's house, but then again their vinyl releases were in clear sleeves with no art to speak of, so I guess elaborate packaging ain't their thing. But motorik minimalist krautrocky pulsations, mellow Doorsy '60s groove, and out and out geetar psych-splosions are, so we can't complain!!
MPEG Stream: "We Ask You To Ride"
MPEG Stream: "Blue Sky Bends"
MPEG Stream: "Clouds Over Earthquake"

GODHEADSCOPE A City Out Of Sight (God Is Myth) cd 10.98
Some of you may know the name Matt Rosin from past collaborations with AQ faves Dead Raven Choir, but here, as Godheadscope, he is now called M. Kolophonium, and is single handedly attempting to craft a sort of classical black ambience, the label suggests Arvo Part conducting and arranging a performance by Corrupted, which sounds amazing, and while we see what they're getting at, we're not sure that's wholly accurate. The label also suggests that Godheadscope is for fans of Wolfmangler, Boris, Jesu, Dead Raven Choir among others, and that really just sort of sounds like it would be for most aQuarius customers then, eh?
But this is indeed an epic and gorgeous chunk of experimental ambience. And unlike most offerings falling under the same banner, this is not simple or really minimal, not guitars against the amps SUNNO))) style drone, not lo-fi single note drones, no this is dense and layered, composed and arranged. The songs are set up in gradually developing movements, strings and synths woven into delicate frameworks, allowed to breath, to expand and contract, to swell and pulse.
The record seems to be separated into two movements, the first two tracks, are like a sonic wave pool set in motion, then slowed down and stretched out, dark languorous waves of sound, that ebb and flow, gorgeous and glacial, with extended spaces between the notes, a truly majestic and cinematic sprawl, but within the swells, there seems to be a lot going on, synths and guitars, even voices, all smeared into strangely lush organic drones, twisted into strange lovely shapes. 
The second half of the record is much more tranquil, still adhering to that swell and shimmer pattern, but everything softer and more spare, an ambience to balance the first half's energy, culminating in the moody drift of the final number, lush pianos laid over a haunting field of electrical crackle and anguished distant wails, woven into a jazzy shuffle, sounding like a super abstract tribal Necks, some freaked out kosmiche free jazz that unwinds into a gorgeous piano / feedback coda, trailing off into nothingness...
MPEG Stream: "Room Of Light"
MPEG Stream: "Joy/Grime"

PROCER VENEFICUS A Summerhaze Array For August Nights (God Is Myth) 2cd 14.98
Procer Veneficus is a one man master of deep drone and black buzz hailing from Santa Cruz of all places, and unlike other groups who weave their black ambience into and throughout their metal, Night, the man behind PV, chooses more often than not, to switch back and forth, creating alternating records of buzzing black metal, OR abstract ambience. Equally adept at both, each strain of PV's sound manages to hew close to the heart of the man, and the band and the sound. 
This long in the works double cd is the perfect encapsulation of that sound, capturing both sides, and laying them out side by side, two discs, in a homemade box, packaged with incense (he is from Santa Cruz after all) and a dried leaf, one a massive throbbing snarling smear of blurry blackened buzzing metal, the other, a slow crawl of ultra creepy and cavernous low end exploration. Both magnificent.
The ambient disc, titled Lunar Transit, with song titles like "Icelight Glitter" and "Dust From Frozen Seafloors" sounds just like the titles would lead you to believe. A dark slow motion trawl along the moonlit ocean floor, or the starlit barren surface of some alien planet, completely gorgeous expanses of deep shimmering low end, simultaneously warm and enveloping, and slightly alien and frosty. Epic and massive and cavernous, but still intimate and darkly beautiful, tones that ebb and flow like some lunar tide, totally hypnotic and dreamlike, and just a little bit ominous. They even do a Dead Can Dance cover (!) but manage to transform it into something a bit blacker. Definitely some of the most amazing black ambience we've heard in ages. Think Lustmord, Thomas Koner and the like, but with a bit more melody, and a bit more dramatic melancholia. So good. 
The metal disc, titled Duskworlds, and with titles like "Gloamlight" and "Beneath Horizonfire" and Frostwreath Moon", begins with a brief bit of ambient drift (that does surface briefly again here and there), but soon, it's a hailstorm of soft focus buzz. The amazing thing about the metal side of Procer Veneficus is just how warm it sounds, not brittle or harsh or chaotic, instead it's just warm and thick and dense, a continuous drone woven from thick sheets of blackened guitar, the vocals a distorted whisper, just another layer of shimmery black haze. There are drums and other things going on, but they become totally lost in the murk, in the gloriously fuzzy haze, it's like staring at the stars through swirling clouds of smoke, everything shifting and changing shape and color, the stars winking in and out, sparkling and glistening, or like some thick black tide washing over you, filling up your eyes and ears, drawing you further down, sucking you under, replacing your sense with a glorious never ending buzz...
The cds are packaged in full color sleeves adorned with striking moonlit landscapes, also included is a full color postcard, image on one side, text on the other, a dried leaf, a pouch of incense (labeled: Unending Voluptuous Summer Eves), all on a downy bed of white cotton, packaged in a brown cardstock box, with a sticker affixed to the front.
MPEG Stream: "Cytherean Wine (Blood From The Sun)"
MPEG Stream: "Frostwreath Moon"
MPEG Stream: "Icelight Glitter"

JASPER TX In A Cool Monsoon (Pumpkin Seeds In The Sand) cd 11.98
For a while there it was a pretty even race, Machinefabriek versus Jasper TX. Both bands offering up releases after releases, super limited, 3"s, whatever, it just seemed like it would never stop, and we didn't want it to, everything we heard was fantastic. Then suddenly it seemed like Jasper TX dropped out of the race, leaving Machinefabriek to keep us sated with disc after disc of dreamy fuzzy blissed out sound.
Well, if In A Cool Monsoon is why we were waiting to hear from Jasper TX, it was well worth the wait. And the wait ended up being even longer than planned, as this disc was recorded and released months and months back, but there was some problem with the mastering and the discs were trashed, and the record was remastered and now, finally, it's here, sounding just the way it was intended to.
And it's divine, and more of what we love about Jasper TX. Not at all lo-fi or minimal, this is a lush, expansive song cycle, sounding like it was recorded and performed by a full band, guitars drums, strings, squalls of feedback, languid and long form stretches of moody cinematic instrumental slowcore, dreamy and spacious, laced with drones but not a drone recordŠ
The opening track is the first sign things have changed, a brief minute and a half chunk of super distorted crumbling electric guitar, chopped up bits of acoustic guitar, thick corrosive sonic swells, really pretty bur intense and noisy. But then the second track is just the opposite. A simple spare tribal drum line, a languorous bass line, chiming guitar harmonics, and a warm wheezing organ melody over the top. It sounds like Scenic or Low or Bjorn Olsson or something, meandering and wide open, subtly epic and cinematic.
There are some drone tracks, but even those are rife with texture and melody, "Summer" is all layered organs, the layers shifting and beating against one another, all sorts of overtones drifting in and out of earshot, but one of the organs is always working through a sweet sad melody, while the others drone on in the background.
"Waking Up" is one of the highlights, with it's delayed reverbed Spacemen 3 like guitar line, drifting in an expanse of soft space, the guitar joined by another, and then another, each offering a complimentary melody, the song is briefly interrupted by a thick swath of My Bloody Valentine style blissed out buzz, before slipping back into it's shimmering drift. The final track, "Falling From The Sky Like A Flock Of Burning Birds" is all smeared blurs of indistinct melody, tinkling chimes, soft swells of backwards guitar, distant whirs and drones, climaxing with a dense flurry of low end piano, epic and grandiose, before slowing down and darkly droning until the end, the chiming melodies, fading like the last light of the day.
MPEG Stream: "Still A Tiny Light"
MPEG Stream: "Bending Spoons"
MPEG Stream: "Summer"

NADJA Guilted By The Sun (Elevation) cd 8.98
We didn't realize it when we first listed the Residual Echoes ep a short while back, but Elevation Records, the label that released that, and this here new Nadja ep, is co-run by professional hockey player Boyd Devereaux, who plays for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Wow. Story goes something like this: Hockey player into weird underground sounds, meets an ex-member of the Dirtbombs at a Dead Meadow gig. The Dirtbombs guy (let's call him Joe Greenwald) just so happened to also work for Warner Brothers. The two became fast friends and decided to start a label and voila! Elevation Records. Pretty cool. Well, we already told you all about the Residual Echoes ep (and if you missed that we still have a few in stock), so now let's talk about the new Nadja record...
A brand new 28 minute ep, from one of the originators of this new bred of blissful brutality, Canadian duo, Nadja, featuring AQ favorite, the crazy prolific Aidan Baker. While this ep starts off tranquil and drifty, it doesn't take long for things to get down to business, with a sudden onslaught of super corrosive downtuned sludge guitar and simple doomic plod. Now Nadja have always been heavy, but it's always been sort of shimmery and blown out, heavy in a drifting soft focus sort of way, but the opening track here sounds almost black metal, still with a sort of slow core pop heart, but wrapped in blackened buzz and super damaged crumbling distortion, seriously intense and ominous. Pretty amazing actually. The song fades out into a glimmering pool of distant buzz laced with dreamlike melodies, only to be clobbered by the second track, the most straight up riffy song Nadja has ever recorded wethinks, some wierd sort of slow motion stoner doom metal, but being Nadja, still wrapped in fuzzy sparkles and warm whir. All four tracks, minus brief interludes of whispery tranquility, are massive lumbering distorted dreamdoom beasts, that could definitely hold their own in a room full of hellboun heavies and devastating doomlords. While somehow managing to also sound pretty the whole damn time...
MPEG Stream: "Guilted"
MPEG Stream: "By"

CIRCLE Arkades (Fourth Dimension) 2cd 19.98
BACK IN STOCK! At last... not sure if this actually got repressed, or if our supplier just found a few in a misplaced box or something, but we've got about a dozen of these now, and may or may not be able to get more. Probably not, actually. So if you missed it before, don't sleep on it now. Here's our review from back last summer....
Finland's mighty masters of metallic hypno drone rock, Circle, have slowly transformed into a sort of musical Jeckyll and Hyde. Beginning life with a twisted take on motorik murk, hypnotic riffing, relentless rhythms, and circular song structures, the band gradually became obsessed with metal, and thus Circle records got heavier and riffier, with more wild vocals and metallic bombast, resulting recently in a wildly productive explosion of Circle releases and Circle related side projects, the sludgey rifflords Pharaoh Overlord, the forthcoming Steel Mammoth records, and the most recent Circle release, Panic, perfectly reflecting their split personality split evenly between ambient whoooosh and grinding old skool punk rock. Confusing sure, but also wild and glorious and completely and totally kick ass.
But as Circle records generally got heavier and riffier, they were balanced by a series of lp only releases, all of which seemed to be meditative and droney and dreamy. But for listeners sans turntables, a whole side of Circle must have seemed like it was simply fading way. Well, now one of our favorite vinyl only releases from Circle has gotten re-released on cd, and with a bonus disc to boot (3 tracks, 40+ minutes). So those of you who were wondering what was going on over in Circle lp land, now's your chance to get a glimpse, and obviously all you Circle obsessives who have the lp already, will probably have to pick it up for the extra disc, essentially an entire new (live!) Circle record!<