V/A Skull Disco: Soundboy Punishments (Skull Disco) 2cd 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Dub is all about the bass. The darker and more cavernous the better. The more you feel it, the more your fillings rattle, the better. So it makes sense that the same would hold true for dubstep, but maybe to an even greater degree, as the sound of dubstep is even more spare and skeletal than dub, leaving nearly nothing except for the rhythm and the bass.
Soundboy Punishments collects the first 5 vinyl releases from UK label Skull Disco on cd for the first time, and while ostensibly this stuff is dubstep, it almost sounds more like Muslimgauze or old On-U sound stuff or even Spectre at times, but way more stripped down, way heavier, and with the sort of massive undulating bass that washes over everything like a thick black wave.
The first 5 12"s on Skull Disco, split pretty evenly between the artists Shackleton and Appleblim (with one track from Gatekeeper) are all epic slabs of blown out bass heavy skitter, with blurry distant synth and little Eastern flourishes, as well as the occasional dubbed out vocal, smeared into blurred ripples of reverb. Super abstract and minimal, hypnotic and groovy, the beats and shuffling and subtle, not the huge pounding of 'traditional' dubstep, or the manic grind of jungle, instead, the sound is laid waaaaaaay back. A sort of more modern digi-dub, varied percussion, tablas, hand drums, all woven into simple rhythmic frameworks, always with a rumbling low end pulse lurking right beneath the surface, until part way in, the bass DROPS, and suddenly everything has changed, what was a lazy lope is transformed into a throbbing lurch, a wall of gut churning low end, fuzzy and distorted and blown out, sounding almost like the hardest jungle track ever, slooooooooowed way down. The first disc is pretty blissed out, hard to imagine these tracks filling dancefloors, although they have been, it sounds more like music to get wasted, and sort of just lounge about, head nodding, the vibrations washing over you. With all the hype about this disc and these tracks, initially we were a bit let down, but gradually, this has grown on us like crazy to the point where we pretty much don't ever want to listen to anything else.
The second disc is where it gets weirder, and a bit harder, featuring unreleased cuts as well as non-Skull Disco tracks, including the long anticipated nearly twenty minute mix of Shackleton's "Blood On My Hands" by Ricardo Villalobos. Anyone who dug that last Villalobos disc, Fizheuer Zieheuer will definitely dig this. Simple shuffling and ultra minimal pulses, stretched out endlessly, so dark and hypnotic, with slow shifting synths in the background. Our only complaint are the vocals, a slowed down mysterious voice intoning apocryphal lyrics over almost the whole song, a la Spectre or the last Plastikman record, it's a little distracting, and we have to say we probably would have liked it without, but even so, it's beginning to growing on us too. The rest of the second disc is like a supercharged version of disc one, more synths, thicker bass, stranger arrangements and creepier melodies, a lot more like slowed down jungle, with heavy beats and reverb and delay everywhere, the more laid back abstract cuts definitely remind us of the Bush Chemists, a totally druggy and dreamy outerspace dub. So good. And based solely on how much this gets played in the shop, this just might be a brand new unanimous AQ fave.
Packaged in a cool, creepy black and white cardboard sleeve that looks way more metal that electronica...
WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: SHACKLETON "Blood On My Hands (R. Villalobos Apocalypso Now Mix)"
MPEG Stream: SHACKLETON "Stalker"
MPEG Stream: APPLEBLIM "Girder"

V/A Skull Disco: Soundboy Punishments (Skull Disco / Rough Trade) 2cd 14.98
Originally a pricey import, now available domestically WAY cheaper ($8 less!), one of our favorite recent collections of kick ass, bass heavy dubstep.
Dub is all about the bass. The darker and more cavernous the better. The more you feel it, the more your fillings rattle, the better. So it makes sense that the same would hold true for dubstep, but maybe to an even greater degree, as the sound of dubstep is even more spare and skeletal than dub, leaving nearly nothing except for the rhythm and the bass.
Soundboy Punishments collects the first 5 vinyl releases from UK label Skull Disco on cd for the first time, and while ostensibly this stuff is dubstep, it almost sounds more like Muslimgauze or old On-U sound stuff or even Spectre at times, but way more stripped down, way heavier, and with the sort of massive undulating bass that washes over everything like a thick black wave.
The first 5 12"s on Skull Disco, split pretty evenly between the artists Shackleton and Appleblim (with one track from Gatekeeper) are all epic slabs of blown out bass heavy skitter, with blurry distant synth and little Eastern flourishes, as well as the occasional dubbed out vocal, smeared into blurred ripples of reverb. Super abstract and minimal, hypnotic and groovy, the beats and shuffling and subtle, not the huge pounding of 'traditional' dubstep, or the manic grind of jungle, instead, the sound is laid waaaaaaay back. A sort of more modern digi-dub, varied percussion, tablas, hand drums, all woven into simple rhythmic frameworks, always with a rumbling low end pulse lurking right beneath the surface, until part way in, the bass DROPS, and suddenly everything has changed, what was a lazy lope is transformed into a throbbing lurch, a wall of gut churning low end, fuzzy and distorted and blown out, sounding almost like the hardest jungle track ever, slooooooooowed way down. The first disc is pretty blissed out, hard to imagine these tracks filling dancefloors, although they have been, it sounds more like music to get wasted, and sort of just lounge about, head nodding, the vibrations washing over you. With all the hype about this disc and these tracks, initially we were a bit let down, but gradually, this has grown on us like crazy to the point where we pretty much don't ever want to listen to anything else.
The second disc is where it gets weirder, and a bit harder, featuring unreleased cuts as well as non-Skull Disco tracks, including the long anticipated nearly twenty minute mix of Shackleton's "Blood On My Hands" by Ricardo Villalobos. Anyone who dug that last Villalobos disc, Fizheuer Zieheuer will definitely dig this. Simple shuffling and ultra minimal pulses, stretched out endlessly, so dark and hypnotic, with slow shifting synths in the background. Our only complaint are the vocals, a slowed down mysterious voice intoning apocryphal lyrics over almost the whole song, a la Spectre or the last Plastikman record, it's a little distracting, and we have to say we probably would have liked it without, but even so, it's beginning to growing on us too. The rest of the second disc is like a supercharged version of disc one, more synths, thicker bass, stranger arrangements and creepier melodies, a lot more like slowed down jungle, with heavy beats and reverb and delay everywhere, the more laid back abstract cuts definitely remind us of the Bush Chemists, a totally druggy and dreamy outerspace dub. So good. And based solely on how much this gets played in the shop, this just might be a brand new unanimous AQ fave.
Packaged in a cool, creepy black and white cardboard sleeve that looks way more metal that electronica...
WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: SHACKLETON "Blood On My Hands (R. Villalobos Apocalypso Now Mix)"
MPEG Stream: SHACKLETON "Stalker"
MPEG Stream: APPLEBLIM "Girder"

V/A Nordic Metal: A Tribute To Euronymous (Karmageddon Media) cd 16.98
There are a handful of compilations, so well thought out, so well put together, with just the perfect artists and the best songs, that function like an impossibly perfect record. If you could somehow imagine that said compilation was in fact, a record by some band it would be absolutely the greatest record ever. Never has that been more true than in the case of a couple of black metal comps from back in the nineties. One is the amazing Darkthrone tribute, Darkthrone Holy Darkthrone, an absolutely stellar comp featuring Satyricon, Enslaved, Marduk, Thorns, Emperor, Dodheimsgard, Gorgoroth. So it should come as no surprise that another 'perfect record' comp is this one right here, Nordic Metal: A Tribute To Euronymous. While we're still waiting for that Darkthrone comp to be reissued, it's no small consolation that this one has been resurrected, to demonstrate once again, that no matter how amazing bands are now and how far black metal has come, it really was never better than in 1995.
A tribute to Euronymous, the fallen leader of Mayhem, who was murdered by Count Grishnack aka Burzum, beginning the non-musical 'Lords Of Chaos' saga of Norwegian black metal that would become tabloid fodder for the next decade, this compilation was actually already in the works as a showcase for the Scandinavian bands of the time, but Euronymous ended up dying before he could release it on his own label Deathlike Silence. So it was completed by his allies at Necropolis Records (RIP) as a tribute to their fallen 'leader'.
Like that Darkthrone comp, a look at the bands should be enough to tell you that this is something special: Abruptum, Mayhem, Dissection, Emperor, Mysticum, Marduk, Thorns, Opthalamia, Enslaved, Mortiis and Arcturus. Basically every band that mattered, the bands that defined Nordic black metal. Plus these aren't just any tracks, these are almost all some of these bands' best tracks.
Abruptum's "De Profundis Mors Vas Cousumet" is still a tweaked and damaged BM classic, completely unhinged, with angelic female vocals, warbly pitch shifts, blackened blasts, and those vocals... the perfect way to start things off. Next up "The Freezing Moon" by Euronymous and Mayhem, frosty and grim, but melodic and catchy and an all time classic. The reverb drenched blasts sandwiched between gorgeously melancholy melodies. And then Disssection's "Where Dead Angels Lie", maybe one of the greatest black metal songs of all time, with a killer fucking hook and some of the most amazing guitar playing EVER. And it just goes on from there, most serious black metal fans will most likely have all of these tracks, but it's like the ultimate BM primer. If they taught a class in black metal, this would absolutely be essential listening. (And it was indeed studied intently by those of us who were working here at Aquarius back during our big black metal discovery phase in the mid-nineties, we have fond memories of this album!).
Other highlights include Thorns' "Aerie Descends", a lurching slow motion blackened trudge, with creepy circusy keyboards and weird whispered vocals, a very cabaret vibe mixed in with seriously grim blackness. Then there's a killer rehearsal version of Emperor's "Moon Over Kata-Shehr" which proves it wasn't the production or the recordings that made them so good, it's the songs. Epic and complex and fucking fantastic. There's some classic Enslaved, and even back then at their grimmest and most buzzy, they still demonstrated all sorts of prog tendencies.
Pretty much every track on here is essential. Even if you have most of these, it's like the ultimate classic black metal mixtape, and like we mentioned before, if you've been hesitant to explore black metal, this is probably the best possible place to start!
MPEG Stream: ABRUPTUM "De Profundis Mors Vas Cousumet"
MPEG Stream: THORNS "Aeire Descends"
MPEG Stream: ENSLAVED "Loke"
MPEG Stream: EMPEROR "The Ancient Queen"

LITTLEJOHN, HERBERT STANLEY 17th And 18th Century Works Of Funerary Violin (The Guild Of Funerary Violinists) cd-r 12.98
Another installment in the convoluted and lost history of the Funerary Violin. A mysterious body of work, attributed to the equally mysterious Guild Of Funerary Violinists, all of which was lost to history until quite recently. A book has been published, and a handful of recordings were discovered, illuminating this amazing, and surprisingly, entirely fictitious movement.
We've reviewed two other unearthed recordings from this historically valuable series, one a compilation called Babcotte, Sudbury And Eaton: The English School Of Funerary Origin, the other by Wilhelm Kleinbach called The Funerary Notebooks Of Herr Gratchenfleiss. Check those reviews more a more detailed description of the Guild and its contentious history. Both were recorded before the advent of modern recording, preserved with the fuzz and whir and scratchiness of old wax cylinder recordings, gorgeous, mournful, beautiful, delicate and wistful, each a heart wrenching funereal lament, but all of it a massive hoax.
Not that it takes away from the brilliance of the music, or the incredibly detailed liner notes, if anything it makes it even more amazing. That someone could create what is essentially an entire alternate history, complete with sound.
These recordings, supposedly performed Herbert Stanley Littlejohn in 1956, were taken from a book of music discovered in a dusty corner of a church in 1954, dating back to the late 1600's! In the process of recording the pieces, Littlejohn tripped on a cat, fell down a flight of stairs and smashed his skull dying instantly. This disc collects the finished pieces from that session.
As with all the Funerary Violin releases, the liner notes are extensive, names, dates, events, the notes to this disc are particularly humorous commenting on, among other things, "the poor technical performance standard amongst guild members in what remains one of our darkest periods." And like the other discs, the music is exquisite, genuine or not, utterly lovely, the melodies are mournful and sad, the playing smooth and refined, the notes drifting dreamlike into the starry night, the recording lo-fi, but warm and shimmery. Even without the amazing backstory and fabricated history, this would still be entirely recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Grave (Addleston)"
MPEG Stream: "Pompe I (Meunier)"
MPEG Stream: "Intrada (Faustmann)"

STIELAS STORHETT Vandrer... (Northern Silence) cd 14.98
Instead of leaving it for the end of the review like we usually do, we'll come right out and say it right at the beginning.
BLACK METAL RECORD OF THE YEAR.
Without a doubt, the debut release from Russian one man band Stielas Storhett, has stormed past all the other black hordes, and secured the number one spot on our best metal records of the year list. Even though technically it came out last year, we only just discovered it a few weeks ago, so as far as we're concerned this is IT. List rules be damned! And it seems very unlikely that any record will be able to top it.
What is it exactly, that makes Vandrer... so amazing then? At first, we thought it was one of those BM records AQ seems to love so much, you know, the sort of damaged and demented, stumbling and fucked up, weirdo outsider black metal. But the more we listened, the less 'weird' it sounded, and the more it seemed to transcend the usual descriptors. In many ways it is fucked up and demented, but instead of being blatantly weird or experimental, the weirdness was part and parcel of a super personal, carefully crafted sound. A blown out wintry buzz, furious and fuzzy, relentless and over the top, but infused with mournful melodies and strange sonic layers. Lots of killer guitar harmonies, but buried in seas of sizzling cymbals, in the red drums, and some of the most gloriously distorted guitars EVER.
The opener is a majestic epic, as sorrowful and melancholy as it is frosty and grim, with sweeping guitar melodies, and a loping, sort of stumbling rhythm, complete with long stretches of gorgeously bleak clean guitars over simple shuffling drumming. The second track counters with some of the most intense and furiously fuzzed out blackness ever set to tape. A killer riff that is immediately swallowed up by a swirling cloud of black buzz and chaotic drum damage. But even within this dense squall of mayhemic fury, lurk all sorts of haunting melodies and unlikely sounds, an army of ghostly shapes and sonic spectres, the musical version of wandering through bleak landscapes and fog enshrouded graveyards...
The rest of the record veers between those two sonic sides, the blown out buzz, and the lilting depressive moodiness, from the weird depressive Katatonia like dirge of the instrumental "Nymane" (instrumental that is, except for some strange buried-in-the-mix, moaning and heavy breathing) that reminds us of a super tense emotional scene from some Dario Argento film, to the closing number "Dieses Eis Wird Niemals Schmelzen", which begins like some SUNNO))) style downtuned guitar buzzscape, before the drums kick in and the guitar splinters into strange syncopated chugging, while over the top drifts a gorgeous creepy guitar melody, eventually coalescing into a midtempo Burzumic trawl through some miserable sonic world of lost souls and damned spirits, to the epic seasick lurch of "Stille Weisse Wildnis", with its swords being unsheathed sound (a la Satyricon), its strange Fripp-like guitar interlude, and its stumbling stop start arrangement, and all blackened points in between.
There are even a couple of covers, Darkthrone's "Unholy Black Metal", which is pretty true to the original but supercharged and doused with even more grim buzz than the original, and Burzum's "Erblicket Die Tochter Des Firmaments" which is an all time classic, but given Stielas Storhett's sonic makeover, insanely distorted and heavily affected vocals, and a million more layers of buzz, and a production that noises it up so much that minus the drums, it could be some killer Merzbow black metal track.
MPEG Stream: "Der Letzte November"
MPEG Stream: "Vandrer..."
MPEG Stream: "Grafin Dammerlicht"
MPEG Stream: "Schmerzerfullter Zorn"

MEADS OF ASPHODEL, THE The Excommunication of Christ (Supernal) cd 15.98
A UK black metal troupe unlikely to become the next Cradle of Filth, if only because people are always scratching their heads and asking "What the heck are meads?"
Regardless of their prospects for wide success, *we've* been eagerly anticipating this release, ever since reading about The Meads in a Terrorizer article on unsigned British metal bands. A mysterious band with esoteric interests, inspired by the shamanic use of psychedelic drugs, and always clad in medieval armor, The Meads of Asphodel immediately intrigued us... and others too, as they've caused quite a buzz with their several demo releases. Now here's their compact disc debut, brought to us by the same label responsible for the ungodly Benighted Leams (THEE most ridiculous and fucked one-man black metal band EVER, remember?) as well as the most recent and also quite fucked Fleurety disc. That ratcheted up our anticipation another few notches. And we have to say that while as it turns out The Meads *aren't* quite as utterly strange as we were expecting, not as insane as Sigh or as ridiculous as fellow Brits Bal-Sagoth, they're still pretty strange, lacing their super-heavy doom-riffed black metal with "medieval" keyboard melodies that seem inspired by King Arthur by way of Return To Forever's "Romantic Warrior"... Silly and tongue-in-cheek they may be (one of the booklet photos depicts the band in full armor, lined up along a wall, apparently urinating), but they seem oddly serious too in the occult details of their lyrics and their elaborate presentation, thereby keeping us guessing. The list of guests who contributed to this disc also is indicative of their unusual approach to black metal: they get help from A.C. Wild of '80s Italian Venom-clones Bulldozer, ex-Hawkwind guitarist Huw Lloyd Langton, vocalist Kobold of fellow UK black metallers Old Forest, and an electro-goth act called History of Guns...weird! The Meads of Asphodel come across as certainly smarter and more eccentric than your average black metal band. Heavy, catchy, and possibly crazed -- recommended!
RealAudio clip: "The Watchers Of Catal Huyuk"
RealAudio clip: "Falling With Lightning Rays Beamed..."

JESU Sun Down / Sun Rise (Aurora Borealis) 12" 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The long awaited Jesu 12" Sun Down / Sun Rise is finally here. Might be a tad bit anticlimactic for Aquarius customers, as these two epic tracks populated the bonus disc that came with the Japanese version of Jesu's latest and greatest, The Conqueror. Not sure what the hold up was, and pretty sure, the vinyl was meant to surface before the cd, but so what?! Jesu fanatics and vinyl nerds, it was well worth the wait. Two long tracks, more in keeping with the more aggressive sound of the first couple Jesu records, that the more recent shift to dreamy fuzzy bliss pop. Not to say we don't love the new sound, we do, but we still dig hearing Justin Broadrick and company unleash the Godflesh pound, which they do in a big way on these two loooooooong tracks.
Thirty three minutes, of epic and majestic, huge throbbing fuzzed out guitars, pounding rhythms, drifting minor key melodies, thick washes of blissy psychedelia, soft processed vocals, the first track a crushing dreampop dirge harkening back to the first Jesu record (albeit a bit poppier), the second an almost ambient guitarscape of layered melodies, murky vocals and shimmery rhythms, so good. So worth it. Even if you already have the cd. Cuz like all the Aurora Borealis releases, the sound is pristine, the vinyl is thick and the packaging is beautiful.
Pressed on super striking grey and clear swirled vinyl (looks like storm clouds) in a gorgeous hazy full color sleeve (with photographs by Seldon Hunt) that is the perfect visual analogue to the blissy droney buzz inside. LIMITED TO 900 COPIES!!! Got a bunch, but not sure how long they'll last...

KEMIALLISET YSTAVAT Untitled (Fonal) cd 17.98
Finland's Kemialliset Ystavat (and Avarus, and Anaksimandros, and Uton, and Lau Nau, and Doktor Kettu, etc.) are often referred to as "forest-folk", implying some sort of quiet, gentle rustling mystery amidst the trees, and sometimes that's quite the case. But the first few tracks here, on Kemialliset's latest, would certainly scare off any friendly small animals -and- wake up the sleeping forest trolls. It's woozy woodsy cacophony unleashed. This be outsider "folk" at its most abstract and noisy and "free". But, by track four or five things have calmed down a bit, the sounds have gotten more organized. Some charismatic, long-haired, bearded guru has obviously taken charge of the previously wild music-makers, their pagan energy now channelled down paths previously trod unshod by the likes of Parson Sound and Amon Duul... more mellow and musical, still druggy and damaged. Track six, "Superhimmeli", comes off like something by cult '60s ESP tribe Cromagnon!! (Perhaps due to having the same keening horn cry as heard in Cromagnon's "Caledonia".) There's a hippy chant drone density to a lot of this that's VERY satisfying. It's like an ancient celebration underway, wooden space rock rituals, accompanied by electronic squiggles or birds atwitter, burbling and gurgling sounds in the margins... sunshiney yet strange, very strange. Fonal thinks this is one of their best yet and we wouldn't argue.
NB. There IS vinyl of this, but unfortunately the copies we got were damaged -- we're expecting replacements from Finland soon, though.
MPEG Stream: "Tulinen Kiihdytys"
MPEG Stream: "Superhimmeli"
MPEG Stream: "Himmeli Kutsuu Minua"

PESTE NOIRE Lorraine Rehearsal + Phalenes Et Pestilence 2005 (Northern Heritage) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ever since we listed the Amesoeurs record a while back (and actually even before) we've been trying to track down records by two related bands, the equally blissed out black bliss combo Alcest, and the much more primitive and black Peste Noire. While we've been unable to track down either cd, we did manage to get a bunch of copies of this brand new Peste Noire lp, one side featuring 4 songs from a rehearsal, the actual versions of which will be on the upcoming full length, while the B-side is a sidelong black buzz epic recorded a couple years ago.
Nothing about Amesoeurs will prepare you for Peste Noire. There is a similar melodic sensibility, but beyond that, it's a whole different beast. The four new tracks are killers, and for rehearsal tracks sound amazing, so much so that most bands would be pretty happy with the versions here, loud and heavy and recorded super hot. The forthcoming full length on which these songs will appear is to be titled Folkfuck Folie just for a brief glimpse into the twisted minds behind the music. Things begin with a weirdly majestic and martial intro, with complex drums and strange arrangements, almost like some medieval carnival music, before bursting into full on furious blackness, buzzy and relentless, but even in the blasting things are slightly off kilter, damaged and demented sounding, and very very melodic, mathy and complex, super harsh vocals over the top but they can hardly disguise how utterly hooky these songs are. In fact, after hearing Amesoeurs and Peste Noire and Alcest, it seems to be these guys' M.O., write killer pop songs, amazing hooks, unforgettable melodies, then try to disguise them as best they can as buzzing black metal. It never works completely, which is why this stuff is so remarkable. Some of the songs have tons of syncopated chug, giving the songs an almost proggy vibe, almost like some weird mix of Emperor and Voivod. Blooping bass, cascading sheets of guitar and gorgeous minor key melodies. Can't wait for the new record. If these are only sketches, we can hardly fathom how freaked out and amazing the actual songs are gonna be.
The B-side is an older recording and is much more rough and lo-fi, raw and blown out. Lots of reverb and effects, but still rife with plenty of surprising melodic breakdowns, impossible catchy and lovely for something this black and raw. It gets even weirder near the end, with a long stretch of scratchy record crackle and monklike chants, and then a super pretty laid back acoustic outro. So amazing. Everything these guys touch turns to black gold!
Packaged in a super striking black and white sleeve, band photos and liner notes on the back, including the legend 'Hooligan Black Metal' that seems to make almost no sense when paired with the music inside...
Vinyl only, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!

RIDE FOR REVENGE King Of Snakes (Northern Heritage) cd 15.98
We talk a lot about how weird Finland is, so before we go any further, let us apologize to the majority of Finland who to be fair are probably not weird at all. Now that we've got that out of the way, HOLY SHIT! Is there no end to the amazing and damaged and demented music coming out of Finland. We're beginning to think not.
The latest evidence comes in the form of the brand new full length from Ride For Revenge, who we first heard a while back on a split with fellow countrymen Torturium, their half of the split a downtuned black trudge, like Winter or diSEMBOWELMENT but with that impossible to describe Finnish something that transforms everything into some special sort of what-the-fuck. Creepy synths, plodding drums, grinding guitar and harsh vocals, not exactly black metal, not in the traditional sense at least, but most definitely metal.
On King Of Snakes however, the band have gotten even weirder, and distinctly less metal, but no less heavy. Supposedly there are guitars, but to our ears it just sounds like just drums and lots and lots of bass. Each song a plodding doomic lurch, the drums pounding out a simple rhythm, the riff repeating over and over, most songs with just a single part, very mesmerizing and hypnotic. Like a caveman Circle or a guitarless Gore, these guys just bash out endlessly cycling looped low end and killer crushing doom drum pound. The vocals are a super affected gurgling growl, not in the death metal sense, instead, super dramatic, intoning unspeakable evils, a rumbling demonic baritone, peppered with the occasional super delay drenched goat metal grunt.
Some tracks also have cool creepy keyboards as well, that add all sort of mood and texture, and it's not cheesy metal synth either, it's all strange analog buzz, a sort of krautrocky blur draped over the endlessly pounding groove.
Ride For Revenge are another one of those black metal bands, who seem to be black metal more out of pedigree than sound, but even though this doesn't sound like metal, it is most definitely black. It sounds a bit like Godheadsilo jamming with Finnish alchemical dronelords Tiermes, with the occasional injection of Hawkwinded FX and SUNN-drenched rumble, mysterious and murky swaths of throbbing low end thrum wrapped around the drums like some evil warlock's cloak.
Imagine if Amphetamine Reptile was a black metal label... then these guys would be Halo Of Flies... Most definitely one of our new favorite 'black metal' records...
MPEG Stream: "Erotic Needs In Emotional Void"
MPEG Stream: "Disturbed By Spiritual Tormentors"
MPEG Stream: "Death Of The Feeble Masses"

MACHINEFABRIEK Weleer (Lampse) 2cd 22.00
It had to happen, even if only to be fair to those of us without lightning fast reflexes and supernatural senses regarding tracking down ultra limited, barely available cd-r's. Over the last 4 years or so, Machinefabriek, aka Rutger Zuydervelt, in addition to releasing several amazing 'proper' records, a cd, a 7" and maybe a few other things, has unleashed an impossible amount of self released ultra limited cd-r's, all in micro editions, 100 copies, 50 copies, some even less, and while we've done our very best to grab as many as we could of every single one, we missed a bunch! And of the ones we did get, they sold out in the blink of an eye. So here's your chance, a massive sprawling double disc collection, gathering up bits and pieces, the best tracks from an armload of releases, all sequenced and woven together, into what could very well have been actual Machinefabriek albums.
It's hard to tell exactly which cd-r's are included, and since only certain songs were selected, even those of you who nabbed every cd-r in sight, odds are there is plenty here that you haven't heard. Definitely lots of stuff we didn't recognize, and all of it, as we've come to expect, simply amazing. Long drawn out stretches of warm fuzzy ambience, muted glitchery, melancholy melodies, soft sweeping epics, wreathed in dense FX and thick swirls of shimmery whir and whirl. One of the masters of our new favorite sound, that sort of foggy buzzy dreamy drone thing we can't seem to get enough of. Fans obviously absolutely need this, and folks who were daunted by the limited nature of past releases, or just have a thing against cd-r's, this is the perfect introduction, a chance to hear what you've been missing.
And there -are- plenty of surprises. While both discs do flow beautifully, there are some strange sonic moments, the dreamy wheezy Eastern tinged post rock drift of "Oi Polloi", the ultra gristly and crackle infused glacial crawl of "Chinese Unpopular Song", the almost Merzbowian intensity of "Hieperdepiep", the THX-theme-stretched-into-gorgeous-metallic-drone of "Wintervacht", all seemingly strangely out of character for Zuydervelt, but in the bigger sonic picture that is Weleer, they sound perfect, all nestled comfortably amidst rich, thick sonic swells and smears. So great!
MPEG Stream: "Oi Polloi"
MPEG Stream: "Onweer"
MPEG Stream: "Wintervacht"

NADJA Corrasion (Foreshadow) cd 16.98
For a while, every band wanted to sound like SUNNO))), and the bands that didn't usually had side projects that did, each offering up their own take on the slow motion barely moving glacial doom drone we all love so much. But pretty soon, those massive slabs of barely shifting buzz, the huge chunks of rumble that sounded like nothing but a guitar leaned against an amp, started to soften, get more melodic, almost dreamy, and thus a new genre was born. Not sure what it's really called. Some sort of blown out bliss pop. Still heavy, the tempos still lugubrious and plodding, everything drenched in distortion and blurry shimmery fuzz, but the songs now had a melancholy pop center, a glimmery glowing core. At the forefront of this new sound there were two, Jesu of course, Justin Broadrick's post-Godflesh project, and Nadja, the doomy side of a Canadian crafter of drones by the name of Aidan Baker. There are plenty of comers, the Angelic Process, Gog, and a handful of others, but it seems to be a race between Baker and his Nadja, and Broadrick and his Jesu. Broadrick probably has Baker beat in terms of songs, Jesu is a bonafide pop group at this point, verses, choruses, and HOOKS everywhere, but in most other ways, Baker has the upper hand. Certainly in terms of sheer number of releases, but also, Baker works more with texture and timbre, creating songs, but only in the most abstract sense, riffs repeat, each one a gorgeous cyclical trudge through dense clouds of swirling buzz, vocals drift, another layer of sound, everything bathed in effervescent reverb, and sun dappled delay. The distortion thick and soft, not harsh or jagged, the rhythms pulsing and throbbing as much as pounding.
On Corrasion, very little has changed. Which is a good thing. More of what we already love. The record is rife with sonic subtleties though, enough so that Nadja obsessives will have much to explore and discover, and thus Corrasion is far from redundant, instead functioning as another integral piece in Baker's seemingly never ending sonic puzzle, and beyond that, it just sounds so goddamn good. Hard to imagine ever getting sick of these endless gorgeous metallic dronescapes.
And while pretty much any of these records would be perfect for the Nadja newbie, Corrasion might just be the perfect place to start...
MPEG Stream: "Base Fluid"
MPEG Stream: "You Are As Dust"
MPEG Stream: "Corrasion"

MAXIMO PARK Our Earthly Pleasures (Warp) cd 12.98
We made the first Maximo Park record of the week and here we are two years later and it still gets daily plays. An impossible hooky combination of new wave swagger and classic dour pop, Interpol meets XTC is how we described it, and that was pretty much spot on. Maybe a bit more modern and a lot more caffeinated. So we were counting the days until this here disc dropped, and it's everything we had hoped for. Not as immediately as catchy, and a little bit more introspective, but after repeated listens, Our Earthly Pleasures has blossomed into THE POP RECORD OF THE YEAR. We sort of gushed endlessly about the first record, so you might just want to head over to that review (A Certain Trigger) and see what we had to say, and heck, while you're there, if you don't already own it, you might was well add it to your cart. All the folks who flip over stuff like the Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand and the Killers will probably love this too. But the rest of you, who couldn't quite get into the whole new wave revival (like us) might just find yourself digging this anyway. It's more classic pop sounding than the current wannabe Gang Of Four sound... Smart pop, with killer hooks, crunchy guitars, playful piano, and some super clever / funny / wry lyrics. Epic sweeping melodies, killer chunks of fuzzy synths, some electronic squiggles here and there, but ultimately perfect pop through and through.
From the super anthemic "Girls Who Play Guitars", to the lilting minor key new wave miserablism of "Books From Boxes", to the sweeping dramatic epic-ness of "Karaoke Plays" to the surprise gem of the record "Nosebleed", tucked away in the second half of the record, featuring the unforgettable line "Did we go too far? Is that why your nose is bleeding?" that you'll find yourself humming to yourself all the time. Every track here is impossibly catchy, packed with hook after hook, amazing harmonies, clever turns of phrase, all wrapped up tight into some of the catchiest, most perfect kick ass pop we've ever heard. And if it even needed to be said again: POP RECORD OF THE YEAR!
MPEG Stream: "Girls Who Play Guitars"
MPEG Stream: "Our Velocity"
MPEG Stream: "Books From Boxes"
MPEG Stream: "Karaoke Plays"

V/A Ed Rec Vol. 2 (Ed Banger) cd 14.98
We often feel like we're totally out of the loop when it comes to dance music. And as if to prove that point, every once in a while we'll randomly stumble across a disc that totally kicks our ass, only to realize, that the world at large had already been hyping said disc to death. Such is the case with this second comp of far out futuristic electro weirdness from Ed Banger Records. We sort of just picked it up on a whim (some AQ folks were already hip to it, we're not all dance music squares) and were immediately smitten. Wild and fun, funky and funny, heavy and fuzzy and if the person writing this review actually danced, this disc would have had him out of his seat like a shot.
No need to do a total track by track run down, as every single song here is a killer, a few names we knew, most we didn't, but the sound is crazy. And fucking awesome. It's like the music of LCD Soundsystem, Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, but supercharged, injected with youthful energy and punk rock snottiness, peppered with more distortion and buzz, fucked up beats, off kilter loops and samples, but remaining totally hooky and danceable.
Some of the best tracks:
The killer dis track "Dismissed" from Uffie, a killer slab of seriously foul mouthed electro nastiness using a bastardized version of what sounds like Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" as the main loop, but it's all about the vitriolic invective, what sounds like a nasty teenage white girl awkwardly rapping and spitting all sorts of goofy playground insults.
Ultra hyped next big things Justice who do their best Daft Punk, and offer up a super damaged cop-show block rockin' beat workout with machine like rhythms and cool crumbling synthy bass lines and awesome glitched out buzz drenched synthesized riffage.
Krazy Baldhead who come closest to Jones Machine for sheer mindless electronic bliss, throbbing synths, bouncing bass, another track that sounds like some futuristic chase scene.
Sebastian, who offers up a blast of ultra distorted beats, weird blown out fuzzy loops, the whole thing chopped and hiccuping like some radio with bad reception or a turntable with fuzz all over the needle.
We could go on and on. Needless to say, every time we play this in the store folks go nuts for it, and even some of the dance music phobic we know have been rocking this like crazy! Some of the other folks on the comp: Mr. Oizo, DJ Mehdi, Mr. Flash, Feadz, Busy P, Klaxons, Fancy and Vicarious Bliss.
Way recommended.
MPEG Stream: UFFIE "Dismissed"
MPEG Stream: JUSTICE "Phantom"
MPEG Stream: KRAZY BALDHEAD "Strings Of Death"

V/A Rumble In The Jungle (Soul Jazz) cd 21.00
When we first got wind of this comp, for some reason, we just assumed it was gonna be another amazing Soul Jazz reggae comp, it didn't even occur to us that it would be a collection of killer classic jungle jams from the early nineties. But we threw it on, and were just knocked on our asses, transported back to '93/'94 when we first discovered jungle, particularly, ragga-dancehall-jungle or whatever you wanted to call it, a killer blend of traditional Jamaican dancehall, and this new breed of sped up hip hop that had grown out of the rave scene in the UK.
The history and genealogy is complex, but there's been plenty written about it, the liner notes here are particularly informative, tracing the development of ragga-jungle from the early Reggae sound systems, through the rave scene, UK hardcore hip hop, and beyond. Ragga jungle was a flash in the pan, existing for 3 or 4 years before most of the folks making it moved on to two-step, garage, drum and bass and on an on. But for our money, this was it. This was THE music we had been waiting for. We have loved dancehall forever, the harder and faster the better, so here was the toasting and melody of dancehall, draped over chopped up stuttering and pounding hip hop beats, all sped up into a rhythmic frenzy.
If there's one track that sums it up for us, it's DJ Zinc's "Super Sharp Shooter", with its interminable vocal and squelchy synth intro, the loping creeping reggae groove, the buzzing melody, the simple shuffling drum beat, the slowed down Method Man sample, and that's all before the track actually even drops, and when it does... Whoooowheee. We remember hearing this for the first time in one of the few clubs in SF that played jungle back in the day, and it nearly knocked us out of our seats. We ended up buying a DJ mix tape from one of the DJs spinning, and thankfully it had "Super Sharp Shooter" on it, and from that point on, we listened to it over and over every day, in the car, cranked as loud as it would go, bass pumping (as much as the bass could be said to pump in a crappy old van). So fucking heavy and hooky and funky. When the track finally kicks in, it's massive, relentless serpentine pass line, ultra complex drums, funky and groovy but so tangled and dense, every once in a while the bass line locks on a single not and just hooooooooolds steady until it drops, hard, and we're off on another junglistic jam. As far as we're concerned this would be worth it just for this track, but thankfully, the rest of the disc is just as kick ass.
Lots of familiar reggae and dancehall names, Ninjaman, Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Cutty Ranks, and for those in the know, the rest of the names read like an early nineties jungle all star lineup: Ragga Twins, Poison Chang, Ragga Twins, DJ Zinc, Shy FX... but even if you don't know any of these names, the music speaks for itself. Check out "Original Nuttah" by UK Apachi & Shy FX, beginning with some super hooky sing songy reggae vocals before the track launches into a maddeningly dense rapid fire snare workout underpinning a raw and tongue twisting flow. Furious and intense and so goddamn good. Then there's tracks like Ragga Twins' "Illegal Gunshot", with its playful and circusy melodic loop, but juxtaposed with some seriously aggro toasting, some Bomb Squad like production, and some outrageously funky drumming.
Pretty much every track on here is a killer, never has a record so much made even us non-dancers want to head for the dancefloor and go fucking nuts. The cool thing about this stuff, is even if you're dancefloor phobic, is that these tracks are so dense and multi layered, full of convoluted rhythms and mad drumming and rapid fire rhymes and wild toasting and strange melodies and killer grooves, that they're almost as fun to listen to as they are to dance to. Almost.
Like all Soul Jazz stuff, gorgeously packaged and extensively researched. Tons of liner notes, track notes, photos, all wrapped up in a full color slipcase.
MPEG Stream: DJ ZINC "Super Sharp Shooter"
MPEG Stream: RAGGA TWINS "Illegal Gunshot"
MPEG Stream: ASHER SENATOR "One Bible"
MPEG Stream: POISON CHANG "Press The Trigger"

V/A Rumble In The Jungle (Soul Jazz) 2lp 24.00
When we first got wind of this comp, for some reason, we just assumed it was gonna be another amazing Soul Jazz reggae comp, it didn't even occur to us that it would be a collection of killer classic jungle jams from the early nineties. But we threw it on, and were just knocked on our asses, transported back to '93/'94 when we first discovered jungle, particularly, ragga-dancehall-jungle or whatever you wanted to call it, a killer blend of traditional Jamaican dancehall, and this new breed of sped up hip hop that had grown out of the rave scene in the UK.
The history and genealogy is complex, but there's been plenty written about it, the liner notes here are particularly informative, tracing the development of ragga-jungle from the early Reggae sound systems, through the rave scene, UK hardcore hip hop, and beyond. Ragga jungle was a flash in the pan, existing for 3 or 4 years before most of the folks making it moved on to two-step, garage, drum and bass and on an on. But for our money, this was it. This was THE music we had been waiting for. We have loved dancehall forever, the harder and faster the better, so here was the toasting and melody of dancehall, draped over chopped up stuttering and pounding hip hop beats, all sped up into a rhythmic frenzy.
If there's one track that sums it up for us, it's DJ Zinc's "Super Sharp Shooter", with its interminable vocal and squelchy synth intro, the loping creeping reggae groove, the buzzing melody, the simple shuffling drum beat, the slowed down Method Man sample, and that's all before the track actually even drops, and when it does... Whoooowheee. We remember hearing this for the first time in one of the few clubs in SF that played jungle back in the day, and it nearly knocked us out of our seats. We ended up buying a DJ mix tape from one of the DJs spinning, and thankfully it had "Super Sharp Shooter" on it, and from that point on, we listened to it over and over every day, in the car, cranked as loud as it would go, bass pumping (as much as the bass could be said to pump in a crappy old van). So fucking heavy and hooky and funky. When the track finally kicks in, it's massive, relentless serpentine pass line, ultra complex drums, funky and groovy but so tangled and dense, every once in a while the bass line locks on a single not and just hooooooooolds steady until it drops, hard, and we're off on another junglistic jam. As far as we're concerned this would be worth it just for this track, but thankfully, the rest of the disc is just as kick ass.
Lots of familiar reggae and dancehall names, Ninjaman, Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Cutty Ranks, and for those in the know, the rest of the names read like an early nineties jungle all star lineup: Ragga Twins, Poison Chang, Ragga Twins, DJ Zinc, Shy FX... but even if you don't know any of these names, the music speaks for itself. Check out "Original Nuttah" by UK Apachi & Shy FX, beginning with some super hooky sing songy reggae vocals before the track launches into a maddeningly dense rapid fire snare workout underpinning a raw and tongue twisting flow. Furious and intense and so goddamn good. Then there's tracks like Ragga Twins' "Illegal Gunshot", with its playful and circusy melodic loop, but juxtaposed with some seriously aggro toasting, some Bomb Squad like production, and some outrageously funky drumming.
Pretty much every track on here is a killer, never has a record so much made even us non-dancers want to head for the dancefloor and go fucking nuts. The cool thing about this stuff, is even if you're dancefloor phobic, is that these tracks are so dense and multi layered, full of convoluted rhythms and mad drumming and rapid fire rhymes and wild toasting and strange melodies and killer grooves, that they're almost as fun to listen to as they are to dance to. Almost.
Like all Soul Jazz stuff, gorgeously packaged and extensively researched. Tons of liner notes, track notes, photos...
MPEG Stream: DJ ZINC "Super Sharp Shooter"
MPEG Stream: RAGGA TWINS "Illegal Gunshot"
MPEG Stream: ASHER SENATOR "One Bible"
MPEG Stream: POISON CHANG "Press The Trigger"

JODOROWSKY, ALEJANDRO The Films Of Alejandro Jodorowsky: Fando Y Lis, El Topo, The Holy Mountain (Anchor Bay) 4dvd/2cd 49.00
Visionary cult cinephiles get ready to drool! If you were as excited as we were about the recent reissue of Kenneth Anger's early films, then this incredibly packaged and affordable 4dvd+2cd box set of the early films of Chilean theatrical genius Alejandro Jodorowsky will surely make your head explode!!! Fando Y Lis! El Topo!!, HOLY MOUNTAIN!!!! Marvelously restored and beautifully remastered, there is so much amazing material here that has either never been available before, or only available previously as extremely hard to find poor quality transfers from mediocre prints.
AND there's more! This set also includes the absolutely killer SOUNDTRACKS to both El Topo and yes, Holy Mountain!!! The Holy Mountain Soundtrack has never been released before and it so totally kills, and why wouldn't it, Don Cherry is all over it! But more about that in a minute, there's also bonus features, interviews, deleted scenes, audio commentary, a documentary and a short film from 1957 that was presumed lost until it was found early last year.
So for those who may be unfamiliar with Jodorowsky's films, a bit of back story:
Born in Chile and struggling to become an actor, Jodorowsky became fed up with the idea of scripted theatre and moved to Paris to study mime. Working with the great mime, Marcel Marceau while at the same time influenced by the Surrealists, Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, Jean Cocteau's mythical fantasias, and the European Art House cinema of Fellini and Bunuel, Jodorowsky relocated to Mexico to form the theatre troupe, The Panic Movement, which would stage early happenings (involving lots of nudity and rotting food) and existentialist plays by Ionesco, Beckett and Fernando Arrabel. It was Arrabel's play, "Fando Y Lis" that would inspire him to move away from the theatre into cinema, but far from any structured or direct form of filmmaking. Jodorowsky wanted to re-interpret Arrabel's play by filming it completely from memory and in a remote and ruggedly extreme locale. Here he would bring together all the soul-baring psyche of experimental theatre, the role-playing excess of costumes, props and pageantry, the ritualistic entanglements of violence and beauty as catalysts of transformation, and most importantly the notion of existence as a journey through all kinds of personal and mystical revelations both sacred and profane. All of these qualities permeate each of the three films here.
Ok, you get the idea. So let's just break it down for you, what you get from this awesome box set:
--Fando Y Lis (1968): Jodorowsky's first full length black and white feature started riots at its premiere at the Acapulco Film Festival and was banned in Mexico due to its violent sexual imagery and ritualistic mocking of church beliefs. Based on Arrabel's play about a pair of dysfunctional lovers (one impotent, the other paralyzed) in a Fellini-esque quest for the spiritual city of Tar.
Extras on this disc include the 1994 French documentary, La Constellation which features interviews with Marcel Marceau, Peter Gabriel (who was inspired by El Topo, when he wrote The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway), and the French sci-fi illustrator, Moebius, who began working with Jodorowsky on the failed attempt to film Frank Herbert's Dune, which sparked Jodorowsky's interest in graphic novels.
--El Topo (1970): The bloody surreal western that spawned the Midnight Movie. Funded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, this film is like a Sergio Leone film on a serious dose of brown acid.
Extras include an interview with Jodorowsky about the Midnight Movie phenomenon.
--Holy Mountain (1973): The ultimate spiritual quest film. Jodorowsky takes us through every imaginable belief system only to completely shatter our preconceptions about spiritual enlightenment.
Extras include deleted scenes and commentary about Jodorowsky's continuing interest in the Tarot.
--La Cravate (1957): A 35 minute silent film in color based on Thomas Mann's The Transposed Heads about a girl who sells heads and the men who are her customers. This film was presumed lost until its discovery last year in someone's attic in Germany!
--El Topo Soundtrack: 18 tracks composed by Jodorowsky and John Barham inspired by both the soundtrack work of Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota. Full of flutes and droning horns, accordions and organs and twisted Mariachi styles.
--Holy Mountain Soundtrack: 24 tracks composed by Jodorowsky, Don Cherry and Ronald Frangipane. Ranging from spiritual free drones to acid rock to Moroccan desert jams to pensive marches to soft jazz and everywhere in between. There are even themes for each of the nine planetary characters. Such a wild, weird, and wonderful soundtrack and it alone is worth the price of admission.
Phew! So can you guess, that this is totally and absolutely recommended!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "La Catedral De Los Puercos (The Pigs Monastery)"
MPEG Stream: "Vals Fantasma"
MPEG Stream: "Las Flores Nacen En El Barro (Flowers Born In the Mud)"
MPEG Stream: "Trance Mutation"
MPEG Stream: "Psychedelic Weapons"
MPEG Stream: "Baby Snakes"

HALA STRANA Heave The Gambrel Roof (Music Fellowship) cd 14.98
Finally available on cd!!
Pretty much every Hala Strana release has been a unanimous AQ favorite, most finding their way on to many of our year end top ten lists, and this new one looks to follow suit. Hala Strana is the work of Steven R. Smith, who many of you might recognize as a member of AQ faves Thuja as well as from a handful of solo records that have been heaped with praise on this here very list. Hala Strana is a vehicle for Smith to explore, cover, rework and reinterpret Eastern European folk music. Each record contains a handful of cover songs, some straight, some completely reinvented, and originals informed by Smith's love of that musical tradition.
The originals on Heave The Gambrel Roof are dark and drone-y, plenty of steel string buzz, all stretched out into moody psychedelic free folk drone drift divinity. Subtle melodies, simple strumming, over lush backdrops of shimmery ambience, woven together from all manner of traditional and homemade instruments. A dark moody Appalachia with an Eastern sensibility, folky for sure, but with a definite raga component. One in particular, "Marl", introduces drums and sounds almost like country rock, albeit with a decidedly lo-fi production and a distinctively un-poppy vibe, but it's propulsive with mandolin and acoustic guitars, simple shuffling drumming, moaning distant ambience, it's maybe the most out of place song on the record, but it's a testament to Smith's skill that somehow it fits just fine amidst all the drone and buzz and drift.
The covers here, of which there are a handful, Smith makes his own, gorgeous bits of traditional strummy folk become mesmerizing and hypnotic, figures and melodies looped and repeated, sympathetic notes allowed to buzz and wash into one another. A few of the covers sound pretty straight, with just a tiny bit more buzz or drone, but a few are completely transformed, becoming extended atmospheric dreamscapes, like on "Wedding Of The Blind" which sounds like seventies Japanese psych drone ensemble Taj Mahal Travellers jamming with Jack Rose. Absolutely gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "Returning"
MPEG Stream: "Motra Dhe Vellai"
MPEG Stream: "Marl"

BURNING STAR CORE Operator Dead... Post Abandoned (No Quarter) cd 13.98
Normally the solo project of 'noise violinist' C. Spencer Yeh, on Operator Dead... Post Abandoned, Burning Star Core has been expanded to a four piece, with Yeh on violin, voice, electronics, junkbox and trumpet, Trevor Tremaine on drums, percussion and objects, AQ fave Mike Shiflet on computer, electronics and voice, and Robert Beatty on electronics, who is also credited with being "acoustic appraiser."
As much as we've dug past BSC records, this one is definitely shaping up to be our favorite. This Burning Star Core Quartet thing really suits them. The opening track alone, "When The Tripods Came" is a serious contender for best 'noise rock' track of the year. Maybe ever. Calling it noise rock is hardly fair though. It's a rambling sprawling slow moving driftscape of buzz and distortion. It's almost how you might imagine a modern, noisier Taj Mahal Travellers to sound. In fact the whole record sort of has that same sort of spiritual organic vibe. Taking bits and pieces from other purveyors of longform drone noise, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Total, Sunroof!, mixing in some ultra-free jazz, some raga like buzz, some old school improvised ambience, then running it all through a battery of modern effects and unleashing this thick viscous, incredibly heavy, yet impossibly beautiful (especially for a 'noise' record) sound.
A lot of it has to do with the drums, a relentless chaotic octopoidal rhythmic frenzy, skittering as often as pounding, giving the thick snarling ambience direction and propulsion. Turning a record of drifts and shimmers, into something aggressive, something fierce... but the drums are just the framework, supporting the massive sonic weight of the swirling, churning lush noisiness above, beneath and around them.
The first two tracks, nearly 40 minutes, are some of the finest drone-dirge-space-improv EVER. Some impossible dream jam, The Taj Mahal Travellers vs. Crystal Fist vs. Wolf Eyes, mix in some strange disembodied horns, some Tim Hecker like blurred melancholia, add copious amounts of extra buzz and distorted crumble, wrap everything in a bleary eyed crystalline shimmer, and let the whole thing just ooze out of the speakers.
The third and fourth tracks are much more brief and less dense, balancing the bristling buzz of the first two, in the third, a muted warble underpins shimmering high end harmonics, strange muted mechanical whirs and creaks underneath, as well as burbling underwater bass, random bits of percussion, metallic thrum and long streaks of feedback, eventually building into a sort of an abstract tribal space drift, like the members of No Neck and Sunburned Hand jettisoned from the airlock into deep space mid-jam. The fourth is a rhythmic free for all, the drums a constant splatter and shimmer, spreading out like percussive ripples, the cymbals sizzling out a thick layer of constant buzzing whir to compliment the groaning blown out shimmer and reverb drenched washes of sound, everything growing gradually more distorted until it reaches a fever pitch, a lumbering swirl of crumbling low end and pounding drum damage.
MPEG Stream: "When The Tripods Came"
MPEG Stream: "Operator Dead... Post Abandoned"

CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS Streams (True Face Of Evil) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've said it before, we'll say it again, pretty much all good things come from Finland. Okay, maybe that's us being all hyperbolic again, but c'mon, Finland blows our minds, STILL! Especially with music. Let us count the ways: Skepticism, Mieskuoro Huutajat, Vladislav Delay, Thergothon, Tiermes, Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, Shape Of Despair, Kiila, Children Of Bodom, Es, Hanoi Rocks, Smack, Kroko, Kemialliset Ystavat, Anaksimandros, Avarus, Uton, Doktor Kettu, Islaja, Clandestine Blaze, Horna, Ride For Revenge, Baptizm, Cleaning Women, Paavoharju, Stumm, Chainsmoker, Tivol, Reverend Bizarre, Dead Reptile Shrine, Loinen, Magyar Posse, Itavayla, Exordium, Aaviko... Phew! We could go on and on, but what other region has produced so much weird and wonderful music, from damaged outsider black metal to dreamy foresty folk, to clattery free noise to droning sludge rock and pretty much every strange stop in between. 
But even amidst this veritable who's who of AQ faves, this lineup of damaged and demented, dreamy and brilliant and beautiful music makers, another Finnish band still manages to stand out. Circle Of Ouroborus. Ostensibly a black metal band, but the more we hear and with every successive record, we begin to wonder why any one ever considered them a metal band at all. But that only makes us love them all the more. 
As we've mentioned in the past, it takes some serious weirdness to share a split with the buzz croon blackness of Urfaust, but CoO pulled it off easy, even managing to outweird the already impossibly weird Urfaust pretty much across the board. Their debut full length was a ramshackle stumbling blackened mess, all atonal guitars, and haphazard percussion, wailed, crooned and spoken vocals, detuned acoustic guitars, some black buzz, but for the most part it was some strange slightly metallic mix of Jandek and the Fall, the vocals constantly switching from Mark E. Smith whine to Jandek drawl, the music beneath following suit, going from fractured folk to hyperkinetic almost new wave black pop. And we dug it. A lot. It was difficult listening certainly, but it grew on us like crazy and became a daily listen. 
So we've been waiting and waiting for the new record. We were warned by the band that it was really strange and that there was some seriously not-metal-at-all moments, so we were pretty excited, but damn if it isn't weirder and way better than we expected. 
On Shores, the band sounded constantly on the verge of falling apart, blasting was an iffy proposition as they sounded like they might derail at any moment, the vocals were definitely tough to listen to at moments, and the guitars were tangled and mangled in gloriously messy clumps. And while some of that remains on streams, it's almost like a different band. The vocals are so much better, still weird and haunting and not always in key, but stronger, and more evocative, more emotional, often buried amidst buzzing guitars or crashing drums, allowed to croon and howl and the results make them sound like a real band. But what sort of real band is the real question. Certainly not a black metal band, although a few songs do have brief blasts of buzzing blackness, instead, they seem to have taken that Fall like sound and stretched it out into some weird gnarled gothy doom pop, at some points they sound like damaged atonal psych pop like Times New Viking maybe, but most of the time, they sound a bit like a super lo-fi live recording of Joy Division or Crispy Ambulance, albeit slightly blacker, or maybe some buzzy gothy modern doppelganger of Alien Sex Fiend or Specimen. Sounds weird, and it definitely is, but it's also pretty awesome. It's the sort of not entirely black, black metal record that will definitely appeal to folks just looking for something dark and moody and buzzy and far out. That said, the sound of Streams is about as black metal as CoO have ever gotten, some serious blasting buzz and some grimly buzzing blackness. But that blackness is always muted or smeared into shades of grey, draped over and amidst a collection of haunting and mysterious songs that while strangely connected and cohesive, range from the gloomy fuzzy drama of "Streams Of Depression" to the gorgeous acoustic Sentridoh-like "Anonym".
Definitely for fans of Urfaust, Nuit Noire, Lifelover and all of those peripherally black musical experimentalists...
Super striking and bizarre cover art, black and white pencil drawings of an old man's bald head sporting the CoO ouroborus symbol, the snake eating its own tail, as well as cool pencil sketches of the two band members inside, detailed down to one guy's Isengard t-shirt!
MPEG Stream: "Wounds Are So Indifferent"
MPEG Stream: "Streams To Depression"
MPEG Stream: "The Rotten Temple"
MPEG Stream: "The End"

CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS Streams (Northern Sky Productions) cassette 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're once again convinced that all good things come from Finland
MPEG Stream: "Wounds Are So Indifferent"
MPEG Stream: "Streams To Depression"
MPEG Stream: "The Rotten Temple"
MPEG Stream: "The End"

FLOWER TRAVELLIN' BAND Satori (WEA Japan) cd 26.00
ALL RIGHT! BACK IN STOCK!! An all-time AQ fave here, that we've been unable to get for much too long. At last, we've got a Japanese import which, while more expensive than the version on defunct UK label Radioactive, is much nicer lookin' and undoubtedly more legit. So if you missed it before, we absolutely recommend that you pick it up now! Here's our original enthused review of this classic:
This is an album (and a band) that are not celebrated nearly enough -- possibly out of misguided notions of their being another bad psych knock-off among the many crowding the record racks in the early seventies. But Japan's Flower Travellin' Band were no mere cheesy imitators of occidental rock 'n roll, they were in actual fact a full-fledged, pioneering tour de force of psychedelic progressive hard rock, equaling the krautrock heavies of the era. FTB can be compared favorably to Amon Duul's better efforts with their experimental meandering (think Yeti), and the best trancey spaceouts from Can. Yet there's never a sense that FTB lose track of their compositions no matter how far out they take a track. Perhaps because even more than these experimental Krautrockers, FTB's heavy (fucking ominously heavy) sound points to a major Sabbath, Purple, and Crimson influence. Released in 1971, Satori is the band's second and arguably best album. From the first screech/howl at the beginning of track one -- "Satori Part I" (the tracks on the album are all "Satori", parts I-V) -- from vocalist Joe, who inhabits a zone somewhere between Can's Damo Suzuki and Deep Purple's Ian Gillan, the album gets straight down to business. Joe's scream is followed by a foreboding bass, guitar and drum dirge that's straight up collision between Cream and Black Sabbath in which no one survives. It's got so much more teeth than either, it's not even funny, predating punk by a good many years. "Satori Part II" however is quintessential FTB Over a pounding tribal drumbeat, alternating between a buzzing sitar-esque guitar drone and a melody line that curls ripples and lilts like a plume of burning incense smoke, guitarist Hideki Ishima lays out one of the creepiest, coolest guitar leads ever. If that ain't enough, vocalist Joe's singing is like that of Axl Rose being channelled by the Sun City Girls! Even if the rest of the album were total shit -- which it ain't -- the cost of this cd would still be well worth it for this song alone! "Part III" -- an instrumental -- picks up where II leaves off but slows the tempo down to a deathly pace, which makes it even heavier. This is the Sabbath influence on FTB writ large. Replete with an improv freakout before returning to the original riff and building into a frenzied crescendo. Needless to say, if you weren't bobbing your head at the beginning of the song, you will be by its end. "Part IV" could be considered FTB's "blues" number, with Joe picking up the harmonica instead of singing. But instead of churning out the expected twelve bar formula, FTB truncate the form and construct a minimalist jam around a short riff instead. "Part V" shows yet another facet of FTB's seemingly infinite potential with Hideki (?) playing some kick ass, spooky koto-like guitar overdubbed on top of some heavy psych. Damn! They could have done ten fucking albums around this schtick alone and probably never lost our interest... sigh... Absolutely, fucking recommended!!!!
That's what we said then, and we still mean it now -- to this day, almost any time you come into the store, you might well hear the Flower Travellin' Band blaring. Well, especially now that it's back in stock. YEAH!!!
MPEG Stream: "Satori Part II"
MPEG Stream: "Satori Part III"

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Die Festung (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 24.00
Black metal may be all about the buzz and the blast, the insane insectoid riffing, the furious blast beats, the howled hateful shrieks, the epic arrangements and grim production, but it's also about drama, and mystery. Lots of folks scoff at the corpsepaint, and the forest photos, the spikes and the fire, but it's all part of the magic, the mood, it may seem played out and overdone, and often a little silly, but it is part of what makes black metal so weird and wonderful. And for us the weirder and more mysterious the better. 
There is Immortal, the Blizzard Beasts, strange pro wrestling looking dudes tromping around in the snow. There is Absu, alchemical musical warlocks, conjuring up all sorts of demons. And there are about a million other corpsepainted ghouls lurking in black forests and staring out from blurry black and white photos. The thing is, with most of those guys, you can imagine them donning their corpsepaint after a pint down at the pub. You can imagine them lounging around in jeans, ordering Chinese food. The corpsepaint and their character in the band are things they put on like a costume. It's a little like when you realize one of your favorite artists is a normal person, you see them at the laundromat or the grocery store and some of the mystery is lost. 
Thus, we seem to find ourselves drawn to the weirdest, most mysterious, most bizarre black metallers we can track down. Necrofrost is one. We know nothing about them, other than their strange blackened sounds, their demented corpsepainted visages staring out at us from the back of the record covers, their fucked song titles. It all helps create some alternate reality where those guys lurk in some primeval forest and create that impossible damaged and brilliantly fucked up music. 
Such is also the case with Paysage D'Hiver, a one man band from Switzerland, who in addition to recording by himself as Paysage D'Hiver, is also a member of the equally mysterious black horde Darkspace in which PD'H mainman Wintherr is called Wroth and is one of three creepy corpsepainted wraiths who all look strangely like Pinhead from Hellraiser (we're doing our best to track down the Darkspace discs for the store too). Where Darkspace is some sort of science fiction cosmic black metal weirdness, Paysage is more of a blown out buzzy ode to nature and spirituality, to winter and of course to darkness. Paysage D'Hiver have, over the last 8 or 9 years, released eight cassettes. That's it. Almost no one we know had ever heard them, or had owned one of those cassettes. But the mystery had everyone curious. And when we did finally hear the music, it was just as magical and mysterious as we had hoped.
Recorded back in 1999, Die Festung was one of three Paysage demo tapes released that year, and the second in this comprehensive reissue campaign, which will find all 8 tapes being reissued on cd, each packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 book style sleeves, adorned with amazing wintry art and sealed in super subtle black on black printed envelopes.
Unlike the other Paysage D'Hiver reissue reviewed elsewhere on this list (Schattengang), Die Festung is an epic and expansive series of ambient soundscapes, and not specifically black ambience, instead, the sound is much more along the lines of classic Krautrock a la Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh or Cluster. Some folks here also heard some Gooomy trancelike bliss, like Cyann And Ben or M83, but way more minimal and spacey. All glistening soundscapes of looped synthesizers, simple keyboard figures repeated over and over and slowly shifting, layers of minor key whir, and vocal like melodies, epic and grand, smooth shimmery swells and majestic sweeps, sparkling clouds of electronic twinkles all glimmering and sparkling. Paysage D'Hiver translates to landscape of winter, and Die Festung sounds precisely like that. It's hard not to imagine long tracking shots of soft blue glaciers, of snowy peaks and forests that go on forever. A view from above of frosty landscapes and endless fields of snow and ice. So totally mesmerizing and lovely. The perfect companion to the buzzing black murk of Schattengang.
Packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, a gorgeous snowy forest and mysterious distant castle drawing adorning the front, inside a booklet full of drawings and photos, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. And as with most things, super limited, not sure how long these will be around....
MPEG Stream: "Eishalle"
MPEG Stream: "Koenig Winter"
MPEG Stream: "Prinz Frost"

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Schattengang (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 24.00
Black metal may be all about the buzz and the blast, the insane insectoid riffing, the furious blast beats, the howled hateful shrieks, the epic arrangements and grim production, but it's also about drama, and mystery. Lots of folks scoff at the corpsepaint, and the forest photos, the spikes and the fire, but it's all part of the magic, the mood, it may seem played out and overdone, and often a little silly, but it is part of what makes black metal so weird and wonderful. And for us the weirder and more mysterious the better. 
There is Immortal, the Blizzard Beasts, strange pro wrestling looking dudes tromping around in the snow. The is Absu, alchemical musical warlocks, conjuring up all sorts of demons. And there are about a million other corpsepainted ghouls lurking in black forests and staring out from blurry black and white photos. The thing is, with most of those guys, you can imagine them donning their corpsepaint after a pint down at the pub. You can imagine them lounging around in jeans, ordering Chinese food. The corpsepaint and their character in the band are things they put on like a costume. It's a little like when you realize one of your favorite artists is a normal person, you see them at the laundromat or the grocery store and some of the mystery is lost. 
Thus, we seem to find ourselves drawn to the weirdest, most mysterious, most bizarre black metallers we can track down. Necrofrost is one. We know nothing about them, other than their strange blackened sounds, their demented corpsepainted visages staring out at us from the back of the record covers, their fucked song titles. It all helps create some alternate reality where those guys lurk in some primeval forest and create that impossible damaged and brilliantly fucked up music. 
Such is also the case with Paysage D'Hiver, a one man band from Switzerland, who in addition to recording by himself as Paysage D'Hiver, is also a member of the equally mysterious black horde Darkspace in which PD'H mainman Wintherr is called Wroth and is one of three creepy corpsepainted wraiths who all look strangely like Pinhead from Hellraiser (we're doing our best to track down the Darkspace discs for the store too). Where Darkspace is some sort of science fiction cosmic black metal weirdness, Paysage is more of a blown out buzzy ode to nature and spirituality, to winter and of course to darkness. Paysage D'Hiver have, over the last 8 or 9 years, released eight cassettes. That's it. Almost no one we know had ever heard them, or had owned one of those cassettes. But the mystery had everyone curious. And when we did finally hear the music, it was just as magical and mysterious as we had hoped. 
Recorded back in 1999, Schattengang was one of three Paysage demo tapes released that year, and the first in this comprehensive reissue campaign, which will find all 8 tapes being reissued on cd, each packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 book style sleeves, adorned with amazing wintry art and sealed in super subtle black on black printed envelopes.
Schattengang is three long tracks, the longest almost 21 minutes, the shortest just under 7. Forty one minutes of haunting ambient foresty buzz. The opening track begins with some gorgeous shimmery tranquil ambience, which soon gives way to a murky muddy black buzzing smear, super blown out, and washed out, thick swaths of epic keyboards, over barely audible riffing, buried drumming, and vocals that are another murky layer of sound. Occasionally, the clouds part and you can hear some grim primitive riffing, but soon they are sucked back into a swirl of whirling blackness and dense FX, it's so fuzzy, and droney, it's almost more hypnotic and mesmerizing than blasting, but listen close and there is some serious black fury within Paysage's thick wash of whirled sound. The buzz eventually shifts gears to a lugubrious, glacial funereal doom, plodding and monstrous, with huge simple drums, and long drawn out crumbling chords, guttural vocals, all stretched into a slithery blackened crawl. It's difficult to explain precisely why this stuff is so compelling, but it's just so dark and murky, and buzzy and dreamy, but not really like some of the other buzzy dreamy blackness we have championed in the past. 
The second track begins with more drifting surreal ambience, tinkling sleigh bells, before a huge wave of fuzzy guitar drone, and swirling spaced out keyboards engulfs everything, a dense black blur, all the parts so fast and furious, so tangled up and smeared together, it sounds almost like some strange buzzing drone underpinned by sweeping cinematic keyboards, laced with bits of dialogue and found sounds... About halfway through the song winds down into a dark droning interlude all dreary synths, strange thumps and creaks, disembodied voices, the distant cry of wolves, the whir of the night winds, but it's not long before it's back to full on droneblast, before finally slowly blissing out into a very mournful Xasthur like arpeggiated minor key coda, a loping almost sea sick waltz that loops and loops hypnotically before fading out. So epic. So black yet so strangely beautiful. 
The final track is all ambient, shimmering swaths of keyboard, glistening and glimmering, very Tangerine Dream or maybe Popol Vuh, while beneath the surface, voices whisper and groan quietly, haunting hiss and bits of wind-like whir drift by, quite haunting and again very cinematic. Our new favorite blast of freezing grim black mystery for sure. 
Packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, a gorgeous snowy forest drawing adorning the front, inside a booklet full of drawings and photos, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. And as with most things, super limited, not sure how long these will be around....
MPEG Stream: "Moloch"
MPEG Stream: "Atmosphaere"

SEEFEEL Quique (Redux Edition) (Too Pure) 2cd 14.98
We made this reissue a Record Of The Week back on list 265... then Too Pure let it go out of print again! But now, wisely, they've just repressed it and we happily have it back in stock. If you missed it before, please read on to find out why picked it as a ROTW:
God, we love this record! We've never stopped loving it. In its fourteen years of existence, it's never sounded tired or dated. Can't say that for a whole lot of other electronica records. So we are really glad to see our good old friend back in print again with this super nice 2cd deluxe re-issue. If you missed this the first time around, then you are in for a real treat, and if you bought this the first time around, you may just need to buy it again to get the whole extra disc of unreleased tracks and alternate mixes. We have been playing this daily since we got it, and we're surprised how many folks have never heard of Seefeel or experienced their incredible ocean of sound.
So what is all the fuss about, you say?
Well, Seefeel at their peak were one of the main players that spawned the nineties electronica genre, at a time when there were only Dance and Rock sections in most music stores. Their sound was a delirious mash-up between the shoe-gazing swirl of My Bloody Valentine, the machinic rhythm programming of Autechre, the ambient chill of Aphex Twin and the driving pulse of Stereolab, with an early hint toward the looping repetitions of William Basinski. They bridged ambient techno and indie rock by foregoing rock music's verse and chorus structures in favor of beats and loops wrapped inside icy motorik rhythms, industrial whirs, blurbs of female vocals and dubby bass lines. Like the best work of minimal composers, Seefeel's long-form compositions create a warmly hypnotic form of static movement that refused to fit neatly into music for either dance floors or chill out lounges.
Quique was their head-turning debut following two EP releases featuring remixes by Aphex Twin. That connection surely gained them a bigger following, but Seefeel was always one of those bands that should have been bigger. Of course such a potent and influential debut would lead to many of their contemporaries, bands such as Bowery Electric, Labradford, Boards Of Canada and Flying Saucer Attack, to take Seefeel's initial explorations in sound further into Post-Rock, Trip Hop, IDM and Neo-Psych territories, leaving Seefeel at a bit of a loss for a follow-up. Signing to Warp, they delved further into a dark ambient direction in the vein of groups like Main, Ice and Scorn, that was just too stark for a wider audience to appreciate. They put out two more albums before splintering off into various side projects such as Scala, Disjecta and Sneakster.
The bonus disc contains six previously unreleased tracks, and three alternate mixes from a limited white label 12" and two ambient compilations. Out of the unreleased tracks, "Clique" sounds like it just barely missed the cut from the original album line-up while "Silent Pool" is a longer version of Quique's closing track "Signals". "My Super 20" and "Is It Now?" are long beat-less swims that are a warmer hint at their future direction and the two other unreleased tracks are versions of opening track "Climatic Phase #3, and "Time to Find Me" from their first EP. It might sound like at first listen that there is some repetition between the two discs, but it's really more in line with classic ambient music's infatuation with the Dub tradition of versioning, the adding or removing of various elements in a song to give it a totally different spin. Each version really does give a different feel even if the basic structures seem similar. Seriously, the second disc is just more of what you love already, and gives us a little more of the stuff we've been missing for ages.
Listening to Quique fourteen years later, it has lost none of its powerful splendor and warmly chilled charm. Add this to the list of favorite one record bands like My Bloody Valentine and Stone Roses. So Amazingly Awesome!!!! Reissue of the year so far and so totally recommended!!!!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Climatic Phase #3"
MPEG Stream: "Plainsong"
MPEG Stream: "Filter Dub "
MPEG Stream: "Signals"

VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA Wisdom Thunderbolt (VHF) cd 13.98
First proper full length in a while from these ur-drone space explorers, which is long overdue, considering the protracted near silence of VCO, and Matthew Bower all but abandoning his Sunroof! in favor of the noisier Hototogisu. Whatever you call that sort of music that Sunroof!/VCO traffic in, very few other outfits have managed to channel the same sort of ferocious guitar freakout and blissy ambient swirl into the magical metallic drift that those two groups did.
So here we have Wisdom Thunderbolt, featuring the VCO usual suspects (Neil Campbell, Mick Flower, Bridget Hayden, Adam Davenport) with a whole mess of special guests, underground drumlord Chris Corsano, the aforementioned Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Sunroof!, Hototogisu, etc.), Pete Nolan of the Magik Markers and John Godbert (Skullflower, Total) and the sound is exactly as we remember it.
Thick and dense, swirling and blissed out, druggy and blurry, smeared and shimmering. There is percussion, it mostly tinkles and skitters, but occasionally pounds and swings, organs and synths are woven into weird little buzzing soundscapes, horns wail and skronk, guitars growl and jangle...
While the opening track is a ramshackle stumble, all over the place, but in a very good way, the second track is where the band locks into that perfect groove they've always been capable of. A blown out stretch of raga like buzz, tribal drums underpinning a simple riff, a spacey sea sick shimmer, all wrapped up in layers of guitar buzz and hissy synth, rich and thick and totally mesmerizing.
The rest of the record is more of the same, longform buzz drenched krautrocky drone jams, with some notable exceptions. The 12+ minute "Rainbow Whirlwind, which sounds like some lost Spacemen 3 jam, the guitars pulsing and throbbing, tones beating against other tones, the synths and guitars creating constantly shifting rhythms, interrupted in the middle by a blown out free noise fest, before slipping back into spaced out pulse and dreamy drift.
And, the uncharacteristically 'rock'-y intro to "Sway-Sage" that sounds like the Guess Who's "American Woman", before quickly slipping back into some super distorted space jam, with a glitchy buzz laid over a relentless rhythm, and with thick ropy swirls of guitar and synth buzz burying everything in that distinctly VCO warm washed out sonic blur.
MPEG Stream: "Wisdom Thunderbolt"
MPEG Stream: "A Natural Fact"

COFFINS / OTESANEK s/t (Parasitic) cd 15.98
We listed the lp version of this a list or two back, another killer slow and low matchup, this time it's Japan's doom sludge crustlords Coffins, versus Philadelphia's masters of doomic ultra slow motion trudge, Otesanek, but now we've got it on cd, so for those of you sans turntable, or those who prefer your brutality digitized, now's your chance...
Coffins blow through three tracks, spending most of their time pounding out downtuned nineties Earache style crust, like Carcass or Napalm Death or Discharge only at 16rpm, thick sludgy guitars seriously scary ultra low guttural vocals, blasting chaotic drumming, with all three tracks occasionally bursting into full on furious pummeling black thrash, but those blasts usually settle right back down into more lurching and pounding brutality (with a bunch of killer old school leads tossed in as well!). They even finish off with a Goatlord cover! How cult is that?
Otesanek counter with a seriously looooooooooong stretch of 3 rpm slow motion, glacial ultra doooooooooom. Think Khanate, Bunkur, Moss, but then think slower, meaner, maybe even weirder...
Guitars roar and then ring out forever, the buzzing crumbling riffage drawn out until the next crushing blow, huge drum plods are spaced miles apart, the vocals are sick and super harsh (one of the vocalists is a woman too, both sound demonic and fucking frightening!), angular grinding guitars, occasional stumbling chaotic drum fills, haunted tortured voices way off in the distance, bits of scrape and hiss, squealing feedback, all draped over Otesanek's grim bleak sonic landscape. This is about as slow and low, harsh and hateful, crushing and brutal as ultra doom can get before it just grinds to a complete halt. Awesome.
MPEG Stream: COFFINS "Evil Infection"
MPEG Stream: OTESANEK "Narcotic Hues"

DISKORD Doomscapes (Edgerunner Music) cd 15.98
We must have mentioned before that we're suckers for electric pink on an album cover. Dunno why, it's just a thing with us. Especially when it's a METAL album. How did Boris know? And now Diskord. The shocking pink hues on the cover of this album are part of a garish, trippy painting that's deliberately indicative of the unusual, lysergic-sounding technical death metal these Norwegian guys play. Spaced out, definitely Voivod influenced, grinding weirdness... they're an alien metal machine with lots of cold, sharp edges and many moving parts. And though they're crazy technical and blasting a lot of the time, let's not forget the album is aptly titled Doomscapes, which means they can break it down from the hyperactive heaviness to sheer crushing slabs of sludge, and ooze ambient atmospheric interludes too. Definitely for fans of fellow demented deathsters like Cephalic Carnage and Canvas Solaris, and older bands running the extreme death metal spectrum from Autopsy to Pestilence to Disharmonic Orchestra...
MPEG Stream: "An Architectonic Manifestation Of Death"
MPEG Stream: "Public Static Void"
MPEG Stream: "Harbinger"

INQUISITION Nefarious Dismal Orations (No Colours) picture disc lp 27.00
Finally availabe on vinyl! And not just any vinyl, super evil full color picture disc vinyl! Packged in a full color gatefold sleeve, the picture disc an eye popping detail of the bizarre oil painting on the cover. Sorta pricey cuz of the bad exchange rate and overseas shipping, but well worth it, after all, how else will all you vinyl obsessives be able to TOUCH THE MAGIC HOOF?!
Two years ago, we just about sold our souls to Satan in tribute to the glorious magnificence of this band's Magnificent Glorification Of Lucifer album. Allan's favorite black metal record of 2005 by far. Now this two-man cult is back with a new album for No Colours and we're sacrificing babies over here in celebration. Well not really but guitarist Dagon and drummer Incubus would probably like to hear that. And if anyone was gonna convince us through the power of stabbing riffage, flashing battery, and croaking vox that Satanism is the way to go, these are the dudes to do it!!
What makes the storming black metal of this Seattle duo so special? Certainly not just their love of Satan, though they do seem more sincerely devoted than most. No, they're just -different- from the hordes of hordes out there. For one thing, Dagon's vocals aren't the usual high-pitched anguished rasps, nor are they deathly grunts. They're more like droning crypt-creakings, layered and insidious, truly "nefarious dismal orations", an integral part of Inquisition's trance-inducing doomic atmospheres -- along with the varispeed velocity of their attack, seemingly simultaneously plodding yet blurred with speed. Then there's the RIFFS. You can't argue there. Inquisition understand old school heavy metal hookiness without being overtly retro, y'know? And this stuff oozes METAL as much as it gives off a sinister shine of actual originality and serious Satanic faith. Pure metalness plus weirdness (in the arcane, occult sense of "the weird"), yeah! We're spellbound. And what the heck is going on with the buried, backwards masked munchkinisms we think we're hearing at the end of the amazing title track?
Clearly Germany's No Colours, a label with lots of staggeringly excellent, evil bands, is well aware that Inquisition is indeed a cut above and deserving of special treatment. They've produced a limited edition initial run of this cd, a thousand copies packaged inside a black cardboard slipcase with a die-cut pentagram!! If that wasn't enough, there's also a full-colour poster folded up and inserted inside the slipcase too. We got a bunch of 'em but don't know how long these will last.
It would be wrong and misleading to say that this sounds like Om meets Watain, but somehow it we think it has the EFFECT of what such a indescribable hybrid would sound like. But if we did have to compare Inquisition on this album to anybody, we're reminded the most of good ol' Immortal. Recommended as if you couldn't tell already.
MPEG Stream: "Ancient Monumental War Hymn"
MPEG Stream: "Where Darkness Is Lord And Death The Beginnning"

LUGUBRUM Bruyne Troon (Skramasax) cd 13.98
BACK IN STOCK!