BASINSKI, WILLIAM Variations For Piano And Tape (2062) cd 14.98
One of our absolute favorite minimalist composers pulls another lovely work from his bag of tricks. That bag of tricks being his seemingly endless collection of moldering tape loops initially recorded a couple of decades ago. This time around it's from a deceptively simple piano loop titled "Variation #9: Pantelleria". Pantelleria is a tiny volcanic island southwest of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea whose long and ancient history is steeped in bloodshed, due to its once strategic proximity to warring Christian and Muslim nations. The patina of time on Basinski's key material, coupled with a happy accident of the tape loop slipping off of the tape head, creates a beautifully decaying and lyrically submerged counterpoint effect. What at first seems like five simple notes repeated ends up sounding like Nature cleansing herself of mankind's bloody history. Gorgeous!
MPEG Stream: "Variation #9: Pantelleria"

DEAD C, THE Vain, Erudite And Stupid - Selected Works: 1987-2005 (Ba Da Bing!) 2cd 11.98
All right, while Andee is the biggest Dead C expert here at Aquarius, we're ALL fans of New Zealand's long-running noise rock geniuses. And since he took responsibility for writing the extensive and effusive reviews we've published in recent weeks for the repressings / warehouse finds of The Dead C's Harsh 70s Reality and Trapdoor Fucking Exit albums, I (Allan) thought I'd step up and take over reviewing this brand new release, which is in fact a sort of "best of" anthology selected and compiled by the band themselves, featuring 22 tracks spread over two compact discs, spanning their career to date. Not being as much of an expert as Andee, but still a fan (I've got a few of their albums, and would have more but missed out on some releases when I wasn't as 'hip' to this band as I am now), this 2cd is just what I needed: a primer of sorts on this sometimes confusional, confounding, and obscure-but-important band. And as far as reviewing goes, what's to review? THIS SHIT IS ESSENTIAL! End of story. It's an ideal introduction for newbies and even the most dedicated Dead C fanatic will want it as well. Even if you've collected every last rare tape or vinyl track from these guys it's still nice to have a few of 'em on cd.
You'll hear how The Dead C trio of Michael Morley, Robbie Yeats, and Bruce Russell blazed their own unique path through the down under underbelly of indie-rock experimentation, pushing the boundaries of (between?) noise and rock in their New Zealand laboratory. True originals, appreciated at first only by a hardy few (themselves, mainly, as well as the likes of Sonic Youth). Their deliberately lo-fi, song-subverting, willfully 'wrong' music-making was and is perhaps an acquired taste. We'd venture to guess though that at this point, few regular AQ customers would have less than positive reactions to The Dead C's seasick lurchings, to their sounds of droning flybys from UFOs made out of straw, and feedback stomp and damaged thrash. No complaints about caustic liquids somehow coursing through guitar strings, amps, and ears. Thumb up to their hazy hints of melodies, buried beneath solid static storms of guitar distortion, or their moments of quietly emotive indie-pop prettiness in the NZ tradition, left to rust and decay.
The tracks are arranged chronologically, from "Max Harris" off their 1988 Flying Nun album DR503 starting off the first disc, to the track "Truth" taken from The Damned released in 2003 that ends the second disc. Disc one might be considered a survey of their "songier" era, going up to about 1992's Harsh 70s Reality, while disc two deals with material from 1994 on that saw them becoming less of a particularly noisy indie-rock band and more of truly abstract, improvising noise band, still with some rock and pop elements weirdly woven in. The tracks selected comprise both some "greatest hits" (things we'd have picked too, for sure) and some total rarities from long-deleted cassettes and limited vinyl-only releases, like the Clyma Est Mort LP, The Operation Of The Sonne LP, the Xpressway Pile-Up cassette comp, and the Helen Said This mini-LP, among others. Actually most of these tracks are rarities, in the sense that a lot of their '90s cds on Siltbreeze like The White House and Repent, and even more recent albums like the incredible self-titled double disc on Language Recordings from 2000 are out of print now too. There's two tracks from Harsh 70s Reality, but strangely enough nothing from Trapdoor Fucking Exit, by the way.
The thick cd booklet contains essays, in ascending order of non-fictional detail, from Seymour Glass of Bananafish mag, Tom Lax of Siltbreeze, and Nick Cain of Opprobrium fanzine. And there's track-by-track commentary from Bruce Russell as well, adding to the "primer" value of this release. It may be true that this band's stuff takes a while to "get". Years maybe. But this crash course gives a great head start.
The blurb sticker on the front of this proclaims The Dead C as "the GREATEST noise/drone rock band of all time" and we really might not have any argument with that at all! It goes on to suggest that fans of Wolf Eyes, SUNNO))), Lightning Bolt and Growing would/should dig The Dead C quite heavily. Probably true as well. The implication being, though, that fans of those bands wouldn't have heard of The Dead C before. Perhaps -- and if that's the case, and that's you, you definitely should check this out!!! We'd probably go on to say that as much as we enjoy all those bands, The Dead C is much closer to our hearts for sure...
MPEG Stream: "Hell Is Now Love"
MPEG Stream: "3 Years"
MPEG Stream: "Tuba Is Funny (Slight Return)"
MPEG Stream: "Bitcher"

LES SAVY FAV 3/5 (Frenchkiss) cd 13.98
Reissue of one of our favorite indie rock records ever. Les Savy Fav don't really get their due, but back in the day, these guys were just about the most freaked out, chaotic noise-pop proposition going. An insane vocalist who spent as much time in the crowd, or dragging his mic into the parking lot as he did on stage. And a hyper kinetic band of dissonant, angular axemen and a seriously spastic drummer backing him up. This disc, their debut from 1999, finally gets the remastering/repackaging/reissuing it so deserves. A gloriously energetic blend of the Pixies and the Archers Of Loaf, but with loads of extra snotty swagger, plenty of metallic crunch, and a fistful of hooks most pop band's would kill for. And some of the best indie rock vocals ever, sometimes getting locked into long stretches of looped yelps, or wildman stream of consciousness ranting, all delivered in a distorted scrachy garage rock howl.
Worth it alone for the third track, a wholesale rip off of Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy", that instantly recognizable melody, but all twisted up into a chugging, propulsive chaotic slab of fuzzy pounding perfect pop throb. An all time mix tape staple for sure. But the rest of the record kicks just as much ass. Like the record the Pixies would have made if they were twenty something art school nerds from Rhode Island dosed on Red Bull and Robitussen. Fuck yeah!
Pssst: new record coming in 2007!
MPEG Stream: "Cut It Out"
MPEG Stream: "New Teen Anthem"

DIALING IN Cows In Lye (Pseudo Arcana) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're still perplexed how Dialing In, AKA Reita Piecuch manages to make such a gorgeously thick guitar drenched concoction WITHOUT any guitars. Ever since her first record on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, we've found ourselves returning to her music again and again. There's just so much to hear, and so many sounds to discover. It's definitely noise music, but a sort of noise music that we rarely encounter. Beautiful noise. Listenable noise. Mysterious noise. Thick and gritty, harsh but gently harsh. Cows In Lye continues on from where Ketalysergicmetha Mother left off. Each track a dense sonic journey rife with looped found sounds, voices and inadvertent rhythms, instruments and snippets of songs, all beautifully tangled up into absolutely breathtaking miniature worlds of sound. It's like Jeck and Basinski, Hecker and Marclay all playing at the same time. It can be that confusional, but can also be that compellingly complex.
Thick corrosive washes of crumbling sound that so distinctly resemble blown out downtuned guitars cover everything, beautiful looped melodies, strange disembodied vocals, rumbling bass lines, everything an abstract beautiful fragment doused in a crackling gritty patina. Like a supercharged, sludgier Oval, or some beautiful ambient record played on a broken old tape player, and broadcast through a set of busted up high school loudspeakers. echoing off the concrete walls until the natural reverb piles up into a whole 'nother layer of murk and hum.
We really can't think of anyone making music this weird and mysterious and so strangely beautiful.
There may be a future Dialing In release on Andee's tUMULt label, but for now luxuriate in the gorgeous soft cacophony that is Dialing In.
MPEG Stream: "He Just Fused Your Minds"
MPEG Stream: "Diamantes Call To Prayer"

ARMORED SAINT March Of The Saint (Rock Candy) cd 17.98
Some metal records truly stand the test of time. Sounding as good now as they did when you first heard them. And rare is the record that sounds as good at 36 as it did at 16. But if you ask the metalheads around here, we all agree that Armored Saint's March Of The Saint is one of those records. Part of the same L.A. scene that produced W.A.S.P., Quiet Riot, Dokken, Malice, Ratt, and Motley Crue (Tommy Lee was almost a member of Armored Saint), Armored Saint were somehow a whole lot heavier, blending the thrashy sound of Metallica with the melody and songwriting of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Plus you got John Bush, who has to have one of the best metal voices EVER, not one of those soaring high eighties metal voices, instead a super raspy, melodic croon, that managed to be both rough and melodic at the same time. It was hard not to love the Anthrax records that featured Bush on lead vocals (well, okay, not that hard) but in Armored Saint everything just clicked. A lot of it of course had to do with the songs. Every one packed with hooks, killer leads, amazing riffs, kick ass drumming, unforgettable choruses, one of the best metal records of the eighties for sure. Not sure what else to say. This is one of the few records that we've been listening to for basically the last 20 years. In fact, all of us have it on our iPods as well, and every time it comes on, it's sort of an unspoken truth, that it gets turned up so we can all revel in the metal majesty of March Of The Saint.
As with all the Rock Candy reissues (including the Billy Squier reviewed elsewhere on this list), there are tons of liner notes, interviews with the original band members (who strangely talk mostly about how disappointed they were with the album), rare photos, and three bonus tracks, 24 track demo versions of "March Of The Saint", "Mutiny On The World" and "Seducer" (one of Lars Ulrich from Metallica's favorite songs!).
MPEG Stream: "March Of The Saint"
MPEG Stream: "Can U Deliver"
MPEG Stream: "False Alarm"

DOC HOLLIDAY Doc Holliday Rides Again (Rock Candy) cd 17.98

MPEG Stream: "Last Ride"
MPEG Stream: "Good Boy Gone Bad"
MPEG Stream: "Whiskey Train"

FEAR OF ETERNITY Ancient Symbolism (Moribund) cd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Fragments Of Wisdom"
MPEG Stream: "Tale Of Prophecy"

KROHM Slayer Of Lost Martyrs / Crown Of The Ancients (Moribund) cd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Veneria's Call"
MPEG Stream: "Crown Of The Ancients"

RAM JAM Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Ram (Rock Candy) cd 17.98
We've been geeking out on, I mean rockin' out to, a bunch of the '70s and '80s hard rock/heavy metal reissues coming out on the UK's Rock Candy label... Plasmatics, Armored Saint, Billy Squier, Ted Nugent, Riot, a whole bunch of old favorites, done up all deluxe with nice packaging and copious liner notes. We've reviewed a few already. Here's another we like a lot.
First-time-on-cd for this 1978 album, the second and last from one-hit wonders Ram Jam. That one hit was their high octane cover of Leadbelly's "Black Betty" from their first album (do yourself a favor and look up the video on Youtube!!). So what has Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Ram got to offer? Well, though it didn't produce any hits, it's the better of their two records by far. With a revamped line-up, Ram Jam's hybrid bubblegum / biker blues roots are a thing of the past, the band now a lean, mean, polished, hard n' heavy rock outfit that fans of other, more popular commercial late '70s American rockers like Aerosmith, KISS, Foreigner, and Starz should dig... though at the time they apparently didn't, this record sales-wise spelling the end of Ram Jam's career. Dunno why, people must just not have heard it, as it's quite the party platter, full of kick ass lead guitar, powerful vocals, and energetic, catchy tuneage that would sound great blasting from your souped-up Camaro or custom-painted van...
But now here's a chance to hear this again (for the first time, if you're like us!) and give Ram Jam's swansong its due! Recommended to all rockers.
MPEG Stream: "Please, Please, Please (Please Me)"
MPEG Stream: "Hurricane Ride"

RIOT Narita (Rock Candy) cd 17.98
Holy grail second album from one of the best American metal bands EVER (who never get their due). While we'd say 1981's Fire Down Under (their third) is THE one to get, if you were to get only one, once you've heard that you're gonna want to hear more. And so mucho kudos to Rock Candy for at long last providing the world with a cd reish of Narita, originally released on LP by Capitol in 1979. New York's Riot were what the NWOBHM would have sounded like if it would have happened in the USA instead of the UK. A supercharged, metallized step up from the American '70s hard rock of the mid-seventies (bands like Starz, KISS, Ted Nugent, ZZ Top), definitely melodic, but much more rippin'. And also way more ass-kicking and streetwise than most of the Sunset Strip style hair metal that the US offered up a few years later, though Riot surely were an influence on the best of that bunch. They still exist today, by the way, releasing records (big in Japan!) but lots different from back when, in part due to the fact that their original lead singer, the amazing Guy Speranza, RIP, is long gone from the lineup. That guy shoulda been a famous rock star, just listen to him here.
MPEG Stream: "Narita"
MPEG Stream: "Waiting For The Taking"
MPEG Stream: "49er"

SEBADOH III (Domino) 2cd 14.98
Lots of claims could be made for best indie rock record ever. Pavement's Slanted And Enchanted is an obvious choice. But there are tons of other contenders, records by Dinosaur Jr., Galaxie 500, Seam, Archers Of Loaf, the Pixies, the Breeders, Unrest, Slint, Yo La Tengo, Superchunk...
But what about Sebadoh? Originally Lou Barlow's bedroom side project while he was playing bass in Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh went from soft 4-track sad boy ruminations to full on rambunctious indie rock without losing Barlow's tender hearted, mopey moodiness. This record, III, is where they really clicked. To be totally honest, the first two are our absolute favorites (c'mon, somebody reissue The Freed Weed!!!) but until those are available again, we'll just have to cast our lot with III. Not entirely fair to compare them though. The first two Sebadoh records were just Lou, in his bedroom, singing and strumming, a ramshackle collection of sweet sad songs and freaked out tape experiments, where as by the time of III, Sebadoh was a real rock band, with not just two other band members, but two other songwriters, Eric Gaffney and Jason Lowenstein. Giving Sebadoh a distinctly schizophrenic sound, veering from introspective to noisy and annoying depending on whose song it was. Years before Conor Oberst ascended to the weepy, slouchy indie throne, Sebadoh's Lou Barlow was already the king of the lo-fi tearjerker. He ruled the roost of unabashed romantics in his rumpled threadbare cardigan, spectacles and tousled mop of hair. However, as III proved beyond a doubt, Sebadoh wasn't confined to lovey-dovey bedroom balladry, nope they could tear shit up a-plenty providing both cathartic heartbaring sadsack sweetness and blistering noise rawk for indie kids near and far.
The copious liner notes are a bit confusing though. As far as we were concerned, Sebadoh WAS Lou Barlow, who was later joined by Eric and Jason. But the liner notes, especially Gaffney's, paint a quite different picture. Gaffney goes on and on about how it was basically his band and his songs. But a quick listen to the record (and a look at each member's subsequent sonic track record) reveals the truth, that Lou was still the quiet mastermind. Eric has some killer tracks for sure, and Jason's songs are wild and chaotic (this was before he would grow into a songwriter to rival Lou on later Sebadoh discs) but almost without exception the perfect pop gems here are penned by Lou. Just check out the opener "The Freed Pig", hard to imagine a more perfect indie rock song. Jangly and catchy, a little ramshackle, a teensy bit melancholy, but exuberant and hopeful. With a killer crunchy chorus.
III is peppered with sweet soft acoustic numbers that sound like they were plucked from old Sebadoh cassettes. Each one sad and lovely, perfect mix tape material way back in 1991 (Yeesh, has it really been fifteen years?!), the prototype for EVERY home recorded bedroom record since. Jason contributes some Minutemen sounding instrumental jams ("Sickles & Hammers"), some slow motion druggy stoner jams ("Smoke A Bowl"), a killer twangy acoustic hoedown ("Black Haired Girl") and most of the really esoteric tunes. Eric offers up some lilting minor key jangle ("Violet Execution"), some super fuzzed out jangly tribal psych rock ("Limb By Limb") and the super lengthy bizarre drugged out psych jam "As The World Dies The Eyes Of God Grow Bigger". Between all of these musical flights of fancy, Lou gives us perfect pop song after perfect pop song, whether it's in the form of a whispered mumbly song fragment, or a glorious rocked out jangly jam. Somehow these disparate elements mesh perfectly into a totally rollicking chaotic indie rock masterpiece. A reissue of III on its own would definitely merit record of the week status, but there's a whole extra disc of singles and outtakes that make this absolutely essential.
First up on the extras disc is "Gimme Indie Rock" a tongue in cheek slam on their more popular indie contemporaries, which inadvertently became a hit and somehow sounded like, but better than, all the bands it was poking fun at (check out the very Dinosaur-like leads!) Speaks volumes that a tossed off fuck around track can be this good. Next up is quite possibly the best Sebadoh song ever "Ride The Darker Wave" a loping groove, with a totally catchy guitar part and an instantly unforgettable melody. Heavy and sludgy but perfectly poppy. The rest of the disc is jam packed with outtakes and alternate versions, a whole bunch of Gaffney tracks, as good as anything on the record proper, as well as a few other Lou gems. Also, tacked on at the very end is "Showtape '91" a 12 minute experimental tape piece, the band used to play at shows before they came on stage. It features the band reading various reviews (positive and negative), repeating the various mispronunciations of the band name, all amidst a cacophonous soundscape of tape manipulation and guitar grind. Very annoying but very very funny.
As befits a classic record like III, the packaging and reissue extras are amazing. Besides the wealth of extra and unreleased tracks, there are extensive liner notes from all three band members, tons of photos, and the whole thing is housed in a snazzy slipcase with the band name and album title embossed in metallic gold ink. We feel like we're 21 again!!!
MPEG Stream: "The Freed Pig"
MPEG Stream: "Sickles And Hammers"
MPEG Stream: "Total Peace"
MPEG Stream: "Scars, Four Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Truly Great Thing"
MPEG Stream: "Gimme Indie Rock"
MPEG Stream: "Ride The Darker Wave"

SQUIER, BILLY Tale Of The Tape (Rock Candy) cd 17.98
When we were teenagers, we pretty much listened to nothing but Billy Squier's Don't Say No and Emotions In Motion. You know that scene in Wayne's World, when they're all singing along and head banging to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"? Well, we were like that with Billy Squier's "The Stroke" and "My Kinda Lover" (which we always though was "My Candelabra"!) Also, as young rockers, we were totally into Billy Squier cuz supposedly he had a rider in his contract that said if they misspelled his name as Squire on the marquee he was then entitled to 100 percent of the door receipts!! How bad ass is that?
All of that aside, those two records were practically perfect. Massive, super heavy power pop that managed to meld the heft of classic Led Zeppelin to perfect FM radio pop. Heavy and hooky as hell. It wasn't until way later though that we actually heard Squier's first record, the equally fantastic Tale Of The Tape, that just so happens to feature some of his best songs, as well as a couple classic drumlines (predating the ubiquitous drum part from "The Stroke") that have been heavily sampled over the years...
Anyway, this record is a blast. This is the sound of the top down, driving around, blasting fucking super guitar rock, singing at the top of your lungs, Super Big Gulps in the cup holders, full of sugar and youthful exuberance, later this was also probably the sound hanging in the 7-11 parking lot, scamming on chicks and all that, but for us, it was just the coolest rock we had ever heard.
"The Big Beat" is "The Stroke" a year earlier, big and dumb, super rocking, catchy as fuck, the perfect song to air guitar too, air drum to, whatever! Then there's the metallic stomp of "You Should Be High, Love" with its huge wall of backwards guitars. Total Zeppelin worship and it still sounds amazing. There's also the killer guitar pop of "Who's Your Boyfriend?", the minor key metallic pop angst of "Rich Kid", the organ heavy groove of "Calley Oh", the stadium sing along "The Music's All Right" and the album closer, the minor key dirge "Young Girls". Every song on here is packed with hooks, killer riffing, amazing drumming, Squier's soaring vocals. Should've been hits every one of 'em (and some of them were, rightfully so!)
A lot of eighties rock doesn't really stand up so well after 20 or 25 years, but this record sounds as fresh and catchy, as heavy and totally rocking as the first time we listened to the cassette when we were 13 or 14....
This super deluxe reissue (from the same folks who brought us the Plasmatics reissue a while back, and the Armored Saint reissue elsewhere on this list) contains tons of liner notes, loads of photos, as well as two bonus tracks, acoustic demos of two of the album tracks, which are super cool!
Andee sez ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED!!!
MPEG Stream: "You Should Be High, Love"
MPEG Stream: "Who's Your Boyfriend"
MPEG Stream: "The Big Beat"

DISEMBOWELMENT Discography (3XM Productions) 3lp 38.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The first (and LAST) diSEMBOWELMENT vinyl release EVER. Limited to 500 copies worldwide, only 200 copies in the US, of which we got 30 copies and may not ever be able to get more. Packaged in a black box with a black foil stamp. Includes a full color poster and a patch!!
Just the sight of that immediately recognizable underlined, lower case 'd' logo sends shivers up our spine. Some of you already know exactly what we're talking about, and just reading this far has probably got you all in a tizzy as well. For those of you who are new to the lower case 'd', prepare yourself for diSEMBOWELMENT!! Even the name, replete with mandatory case change, conjures up all sorts of bleak lifeforce snuffing, soul crushing sensations, at least for fans of mysterious otherworldly doom and bizarre slow motion grind!!
diSEMBOWELMENT were but a brief flash in the underground doom metal scene, existing for a scant three years in the early nineties, but in that time, they recorded one of the all time classic HEAVY records ever, Transcendence Into The Peripheral. A mind blowing record that somehow melded extreme brutality with delicate beauty, a record that totally changed the way some of us listened to heavy music. Referring to the music of diSEMBOWELMENT as doom might give folks the wrong impression. This is not regular old doom like Black Sabbath or My Dying Bride, it's not even funereal doom like Skepticism or Esoteric, although it definitely spends most of its time a lot closer to the slow motion sludge end of the spectrum. diSEMBOWELMENT most definitely inhabit their own unique sonic space. It's slow, sure, but not always, bursts of pounding blast beats will erupt from a bleak tranquil soundscape, guttural inhuman grunts, machine like percussion, buzzing riffs, all intertwined into a blazing near-death metal onslaught, but it's not long before big reverb drenched guitar melodies begin to fall like some sort of black rain, the metallic pummel sort of stumbling to a seasick lumber, turning the whole thing into a creepy crawl, lurching, plodding, downtuned guitars and spare, simple rhythms, a crushing slow motion dirge, with haunting atonal clean guitar parts and moaning melodies. And even during these vast expanses of atmospheric tranquility, you can never rule out a sudden blast beat, or a throat shredding vocal part, or a sudden crushing riff. The magic of diSEMBOWELMENT though is that somehow the metallic crush and the melancholic ambience are perfectly balanced. The whole thing is a dark and depressive, minor key and mournful masterpiece. But it's all so fucking heavy! Even the not-so-heavy parts manage to sound completely massive and totally crushing! So intense and emotional and just absolutely beautiful. Yep, beautiful. Lovely even. Like few records we can remember, and certainly one of the only records this heavy and brutal that manages to be absolutely beautiful. Sonically it's a bit like Napalm Death's Scum, and Carcass's Reek of Putrifaction, that classic Earache sound, a bit lo-fi, lots of reverb, big drums, buzzing guitars, all boiled down into a viscous blackened sludge, sprinkled throughout with brief melodic flares and occasional glistening guitars, like rays of sunlight just barely penetrating the suffocating atmosphere of thick low hanging riffs and bleak, brutal ambience.
This collection contains all of Transcendence Into the Peripheral, and hell, we would have been happy with just that, a long overdue reissue of one of our all time favorite discs. But also included is the quite rare Dusk ep, as well as a rare compilation track and the five track Mourning September demo, all of it suitably genius!
Obviously totally and completely essential.
MPEG Stream: "The Tree Of Life And Death"
MPEG Stream: "Your Prophetic Throne Of Ivory"
MPEG Stream: "Cerulian Transience Of All My Imagined Shores"

JENNY PICCOLO Discography (Three One G) cd 14.98
Oh how we love Jenny Piccolo. They were screamo before there was such a thing. Before screamo meant big hair and eyeliner. Jenny Piccolo were a whirling white hot ball of furious grinding power-violence. A live set would be 20 minutes long and feature 40 songs, not to mention a mess of broken guitars, smashed drums, sweat, blood and utter chaos. This disc collects pretty much everything, including splits and comps, and is a head crushing ear splitting anvil to the back of the head. 30 second bursts of black hole grindmetal mayhem, super dense, ultra complex blasts of dizzying blurry hypergrind. So fucking furious and so goddamn AWESOME! You like the Locust? Pig Destroyer? Man Is The Bastard? Mohinder? Agoraphobic Nosebleed? Drop Dead? Crossed Out? And somehow you missed out on Jenny Piccolo? It's time to make things right.
52 songs. 36 minutes.
MPEG Stream: "Joined At The Brain"
MPEG Stream: "Six"
MPEG Stream: "Wood Breaking Manifesto"
MPEG Stream: "One Watt"
MPEG Stream: "Product Of Power"
MPEG Stream: "Purity Control"

V/A Zanzibara 1: Ikhwani Safaa Musical Club (Buda Musique) cd 15.98
Back in stock!
We've been totally digging the always amazing Ethiopiques series, documenting the rich history of Ethiopian music, and it just keeps getting better and better with each volume. You think that would be plenty to keep the folks at Buda Musique busy, but apparently not, as they've gone ahead and launched a new series entitled Zanzibara, chronicling the Swahili popular music of the East African Coast. Future volumes will be more archival, but this first installment celebrates Ikhwani Safaa, Zanzibar's (and most likely Africa's too) oldest music club, which turned 100 in 2005. These recordings, captured in Zanzibar in 2004 and Dubai in 2005, feature some of the region's most revered singers and players, all gathered to play classic songs and celebrate the last 100 years. The music here is dramatically different than anything in the Ethiopiques series, much more moody and hypnotic, less festive and jubilant, but no less captivating. The interesting thing is that the music here sounds unlike any of the African music we are familiar with and instead sounds much more Indian or Arabic. The vocals especially, sound distinctly Indian, as well as the swooning soaring strings. Lush, moody, swirling, slightly saturnine, and absolutely wonderful.
MPEG Stream: "Vingaravyo Vyote Si Dhahabu"
MPEG Stream: "Cheo Chako"

RHYTHM & SOUND See Mi Yah Remixes (Burial Mix) cd 15.98
All hail Rhythm & Sound, our favorite German produced, blissed out murky reggae dub outfit ever. Simple and spare, dreamy and laid waaaaay back. Every track a druggy, dark and hypnotic jam. This disc gives R&S's recent See Mi Yah album the remix treatment, and who are we to argue with more looped digital dubbed out bliss?
The tracks that work best for us, are the ones that are stripped even further down, stretched farther out, and taken as far out as possible. Worth it for the Vainqueur remix alone, a looped reggae groove transformed into a fuzzy slab of 'heroin house', like some Gas dubplate being pumped out of some Jamaican sound system. So good. The opener, remixed by the Basic Channel guys, is a killer as well. Still spare and spacious, but a little more propulsive and a bit more techno. The Villalobos remix is cool too, a weird stuttery jam, with chopped up horns, falsetto vocals and bad ass toasting. The rest of the disc follows the same sort of pattern, the stripped down originals given a slight rhythmic overhaul, but with a definite dancefloor bent. Lots of techno mixes and four on the floor beats, but it works, since the originals were so sparse already and just begging to be reworked and remixed.
MPEG Stream: "See Mi Version (Basic Reshape)"
MPEG Stream: "Let We Go (Villalobos Remix) w/ Ras Donovan and Ras Perez"
MPEG Stream: "Rise And Praise (Vainqueur Remix) w/ Koki"

SHADOW HUNTAZ Valley Of The Shadows / Corrupt Data - Instrumentals (Skam) 2cd 19.98
One of our favorite modern electronic hip hop outfits offer up a super limited double disc instrumental version of both their previous albums.
Shadow Huntaz are the ultimate crazy crew of brain melting tongue twisting outer space hip hop visionaries. Disconnected rhymes, sputtering, glitched out beats, total mind melting confusional free funk freakouts. For a while there, Antipop Consortium were pushing the envelope, Anticon definitely had their own avant angle. But we had been hankering for someone like Kool Keith. Paging Dr. Octagon. We wanted some damaged stuttery beats, warped warbly synths and fuzzy glitched out grzzzzt. Most importantly, some maddening slurred, drug drenched, space age, conspiracy theory WHATTHEFUCK flows. Maybe that's why we've been leaning toward Grime so much lately. It just feels so much more dangerous and fucked up and unconcerned with hip hop convention. But now we've got the Shadowhuntaz. A rogue band of futuristic hip hop explorers, who mix the perplexing sci fi / high as fuck mush mouthed ramblings of Dr. Octagon with the glitched out hip hopped electronic squelch and thud, skitter and skid, slowed down IDM beatscapes of Antipop (they are on Skam after all) into a fucking killer trip hop skittery groove. On this double disc instrumental collection, the vocal tracks are stripped away allowing us to focus on the truly visionary sounds and HOLY FUCK, we didn't think we could dig this stuff any more but we do!!! The beats, hiccup and slither, bounce and bump, the music is a claustrophobic swirl of haunting loops, weird industrial clatter, moaning drones, and all sorts of production fuckery, effects swirl and shift, little vocal snippets are chopped and looped, skipping samples, warm washes of ambient whir. Phew! Plus there's some totally fucked up scratching, little snatches of DJ freakout, but those scratchfests are run through the Shadowhuntaz supercomputer and spit out the other side a careening chaotic crush of chopped up, impossibly complex textural collages of scratch detritus, like they dropped 3 or 4 DJ's, wildly scratching and tearing shit up, into a huge blender, and then sprayed the resulting funk flecked gore funk all over these tracks.
Funky, fucked up, freaked out, cool and creepy and quite possibly contender for INSTRUMENTAL hip hop record of the year!
Packaged Skam style in a clear jewel case with no artwork and a Braille sticker along the spine!
MPEG Stream: "2020 (Instrumental)"
MPEG Stream: "Massive (Instrumental)"

HEKEL De Dodenvaart (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
Another mysterious black metal horde, this time from the Netherlands, brought to our attention by the seemingly infallible Total Holocaust, who in the past have brought us discs by Heresi, Sortsind, Malcuidant, Hell Militia, Make A Change... Kill Yourself, Blodulv, The One and of course Nortt and Xasthur. That is one seriously brilliant black elite for sure. Hekel have no problem measuring up though. They too traffic in that Burzumic buzz punctuated by EXTREMELY tortured vocals, a la Weakling, Sortsind, Bethlehem, Silencer and the like. And like those bands, we're talking -seriously- tortured. Total Holocaust's website describes the singing here as "painfully performed vocals" and that pretty much nails it. Utterly anguished, damned and tormented, howling demonic screeches, like the sound of flesh being flayed, or of being burned alive. That tortured. All sprawled bruised and bloodied over a haunting sound world of minor key buzz. Mostly midtempo, everything wreathed in suffocating doom, lots of that mournful arpeggiated guitar, huge layers of fuzz and buzz, a loping, lurching depressive blackness. And those vocals. So intense and emotional. If there was some sort of designation for 'emo' black metal, this might qualify. You hear old stories about Rites of Spring rocking out, and getting so into it, that the band members actually broke down and cried. You can almost imagine Hekel doing the same. Blasting and buzzing in utter darkness, tears streaming down their faces, corpsepaint smeared into streaks of black and grey, guitars and drums drenched in blood.
The disc starts off strangely, with simple martial drumming, haunting forest sounds, wolves, owls, wind, while a raspy voiced demonic invocation is spewed out over the top. From then on, it's a super expansive seasick swirl swinging from buzzing blasts of black blur to plodding mournful doom drenched buzz.
A harsh and harrowing, super emotional, ultra depressive exploration of a truly tortured black metal soul.
MPEG Stream: "Ik Irilaz..."
MPEG Stream: "Bloed En Eer"
MPEG Stream: "Waar De Wind Fluistert In De Nacht Luister Ik"

BRONX, THE s/t (2006) (White Drugs / Island) cd 10.98
When we reviewed the debut full length from The Bronx way back in 2003, we described them as alternately sounding like a metalcore Strokes, a poppier Coalesce, or some bastard offspring of Rocket From The Crypt, Quicksand, and the Hives. And come record number two, not too much has changed. This is supercharged, sweat soaked, furious, foot stomping wild and wooly, heavy and groovy rock and roll. The only real difference is that their sonic palette has definitely expanded a bit. Some tracks are full on blown out near grind metalcore, others are all slithery swagger like some Aerosmith / Stooges mashup. Still others are some sort of stadium ready Southern rock all big choruses and plenty of distorted twang. A couple tracks actually remind us of long gone aggro rock faves Barkmarket, and once in a while we hear some At The Drive In, and the fact is, that the Bronx are a little bit of all of those things. But they take all of those bands, whip the various parts into a serious frenzy and go fucking nuts. And it's pretty damn irresistible. The songs are catchy and fun, heavy and fucked up, but like all the bands they borrow from, they're probably even more lethal live. But for now, if you're in need of some seriously freaked out RAWK, this should definitely hit the spot.
MPEG Stream: "Small Stone"
MPEG Stream: "Shitty Future"
MPEG Stream: "History's Stranglers"

KIRK, RAHSAAN ROLAND Brotherman In The Fatherland - Recorded "Live" In Germany, 1972 (Hyena) cd 15.98
As we may have mentioned in a review or two or five, RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK IS GOD!! We love us our Coltrane's and Ayler's and Sun Ra's sure, but Kirk holds a very special place in our heart. He's the ultimate outsider jazzbo, like the Moondog of jazz, blind since birth, later paralyzed from a stroke, could play sax, flute, you name it, eventually he even had to begin inventing his own instruments, often played three horns at once, an actual one man band, dressed in rags and carried around a huge wheeled staff with various musical instruments duct taped to it, was shunned for being a novelty act, live would spend half the set telling stories, interacting with the audience, playing back stuff he had recorded on his portable tape player, whooping, shouting, singing -- this man was possessed by jazz and exuded utter and absolute joy when he was playing. And the music reflected that, a dizzying mix of traditional and free, a complete disregard for genre, embracing bop, soul, gospel, whatever.
We can never get enough, and we're always excited when a new live record sees the light of day, because live, in front of an audience is where Kirk reigned supreme. This live set was recorded in Germany in 1972 and is a seriously aggressive, fiery and free set. Really intense and super kick ass. Kirk does his usual, depending on the track wielding the sax, the flute, the nose flute, the manzello, the stritch or the clarinet, sometimes more than one at a time. Not a whole lot of between song banter, but the songs speak volumes. A killer mix of Kirk classics, standards and some unlikely covers including a killer version of Bread's "Make It With You".
Really funny and bitter liner notes from long time Kirk confidante Joel Dorn, relaying a conversation between Dorn and his partner, talking shit about Dorn's always amusing liner notes, and how after years of ranting about Kirk's brilliance, he decided to just fuck the serious liner notes, since it isn't liner notes that would convince someone to dig Kirk, it's the music. And the music on Brotherman In The Fatherland should be enough to convince anyone.
MPEG Stream: "Intro / Like Sonny"
MPEG Stream: "Make It With You"
MPEG Stream: "Rahsaan's Spirit"

SPOON Telephono / Soft Effects (Merge) 2cd 14.98
It seems like there are a million bands these days doing their best Spoon impressions. And who can blame then? Spoon are awesome. It's no surprise bands want to sound like them. And who can complain really? We love their dour moody groove and propulsive indie jangle. So the more the merrier. As long as it is in some way acknowledged that they were the first, and remain probably the best at being, well, Spoon! But there was a time, when that dynamic was reversed, when Spoon were the ones cribbing their sound from another band. They weren't alone though. In fact some of your past and current faves were right there along with them. Crafting hauntingly oblique angular indie jangle, whispery loping verses and huge crunchy choruses. Sound familiar? You're thinking Nirvana maybe? Nope, but Nirvana were one of the those bands who also borrowed a critical element of their sound from one of the most influential indie rock bands of the nineties. We're of course talking about everyone's favorite outsider indie, loud/soft rockers the Pixies. The band who singlehandedly launched a million bands. And then of course tons of THOSE bands launched a million more.
Back in 1996/97, Spoon were offering up their own take on the Pixies sound. Sometimes it's uncanny actually, Spoon frontman Britt Daniel's crackly croon a dead ringer for Frank Black, the band's loping, muted guitar shuffle and bombastic choruses sounding like they could be some elusive Pixies B-side. In fact the Pixies worship on display here is almost too much for some. Even around here, a bastion of massive Spoon love, a few Spoon fans just can't handle how Pixie-ish these records sound. But heck, every band borrows, the key being to infuse the borrowed sounds with ideas and music that are distinctly your own. And in that respect these two discs are completely brilliant. The seeds of what would blossom into the Spoon we know and love, planted in the rich soil of all the Pixies bombast that came before. Personally, we didn't really notice the Pixies thing until it was pointed out to us. Instead, we dug these records, mostly because they happen to feature Spoon at their most rocking. Imagine Girls Can Tell or Kill The Moonlight supercharged, a little more chaotic and scrabbly, a bit more, dare we say, punk sounding. The guitars are more raw, Daniel's voice is a bit more scratchy and less croony, the arrangements are much more ROCK and a lot more dynamic. It's still Spoon, so there are hooks everywhere, but they're wrapped in big jagged guitars, the drums pound and the production is definitely a hint at Spoon's studio experimentation/mastery to come. On one of our favorite tracks, "All The Negatives Have Been Destroyed," voices and weird sounds careen all over the place in the background, while the band kick out the jams on a track with one of the catchiest choruses ever.
This double set collects the 1996 Telephono full length and the 1997 ep Soft Effects, which features one of our other favorite Spoon tracks "Waiting For The Kid To Come Out", a classic Spoon track for sure, but like the rest of the tunes here, much harder edged and just way more rocking. In fact a few of us here, if forced to pick, might just claim these discs as our favorite Spoon records ever.
Fans of Spoon who have yet to hear these discs will flip. And if there are somehow, inexplicably, some indie rockers out there who have yet to discover the glorious joy of Spoon's dark moody pop world, or for some reason, wish that Spoon would let loose a little more, well then, this here set should pretty much set you straight!
Packaged in cardboard gatefold, housed in a cool two sided slipcover.
MPEG Stream: "Don't Buy The Realistic"
MPEG Stream: "Not Turning Off"
MPEG Stream: "All The Negatives Have Been Destroyed"
MPEG Stream: "Waiting For The Kid To Come Out"

FLITTERMICE OF ELD s/t (self-released) cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Flittermice Of Eld are another band that, if were we not actually listening to it right now and holding the disc in our hands, we would be tempted to think that this was just made up -- one of those 'amazing' ideas you have that is just too nuts to actually bring to fruition. It's too perfect. One of those records, that were someone to ask, we would have to say epitomizes the perfect AQ record. Killer band name, amazingly bizarre concept, fucked up sound. Hard to believe it wasn't just some fever dream. But nope, here it is. Flittermice Of Eld, according to the band, "both a musical tribute to and critique of black metal." Sonically this is not at all black metal, but it is infused with the spirit of black metal. There are no riffs or vocals, no pounding drums, instead it's a strange concoction of noise and texture, drone and ambience, but with all the basic pitches for the guitar and bass parts generated from a few specific collections of notes from the Darkthrone song "As Flittermice as Satan's Spys" from their classic Transilvanian Hunger album. Whatthefuck? So basically we have this bizarre ambient dronoise record based on a handful of notes from a Darkthrone song?! Fuck yeah!
The first few minutes are a dense clattery improvised skree, clanging and grinding and super chaotic, but this gives way to a dark, slow shifting reverberant drone, that pulses and throbs beneath a smattering of high end twinkles and streaks of glistening feedback. The final 'movement' is a wild atonal no-wave tangle of angular guitar riffing and stumbling bass, an abstract progscape of buzz and twang, a sort of damaged shredfest, loosed from its metal moorings.
Darkthrone would be proud.
Packaged in a hand screened fold over card stock cover, with handwritten liner notes on the back cover. ULTRA LIMITED OBVIOUSLY!
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

PLASMATICS Coup D'Etat (Rock Candy) cd 17.98
For a lot of folks, the Plasmatics were a band that was more seen than actually heard. With Wendy O. Williams and her mohawk and duct tape covered nipples, nearly seven foot tall guitarist Richie Stotts, often clad in a mask and a French maid's outfit, the whole band was a motley crew of subversive imagery, punk, metal, bondage, sex and violence. When this record came out in 1983, a lot of us were just getting into metal, and the Plasmatics just seemed too PUNK. Sure, the young boys among us couldn't get enough of the near nude Williams destroying guitars with a chainsaw, or amps with a sledgehammer or even cars and buildings. But we just figured we wouldn't dig the music. When we finally did hear the band, this record specifically, we were blown away and kicking ourselves BIG TIME. This was indeed METAL. Sure it was punky in a lot of ways, but more than anything the Plasmatics were whipping up some serious heavy metal.
Described as "One part Grand Guignol, one part minimalist / kamikaze conceptual art and one part Texas Chainsaw Massacre," the Plasmatics also managed to be one part AC/DC, one part Motorhead, and one part New Wave Of American Heavy Metal (NWOAHM?). It was easy to forget that the Plasmatics were actually a band. A good one. Live shows were orgies of destruction, blowing up cars, smashing televisions, destroying instruments, in magazines and interviews, that's all anyone wanted to talk about. That and the nipples, but fuck if this isn't an absolutely killer metal record. Huge riffs, classic eighties metal hooks, and Williams' throaty growl/howl. Catchy and complex, head banging and fists in the air, like a female fronted AC/DC-Motorhead hybrid (and indeed, they cover Motorhead's "No Class"!), with strange little bits of glistening pop here and there, where Williams would really sing, delicate and lovely, before launching back into a vitriolic face smashing metallic pummel. Awesome!
Totally remastered, with extensive liner notes, tons of photos, and FOUR bonus tracks: two demos, a work-in-progress recording and a hilarious radio ad! This is the first release we've reviewed from a new line of eighties hard rock and metal reissues on the Rock Candy label. Other releases include records by Armored Saint, Icon, Ted Nugent, Billy Squier, Coney Hatch, Ram Jam, Helix, Riot and more!!!
MPEG Stream: "Put Your Love In Me"
MPEG Stream: "Stop"
MPEG Stream: "Lightning Breaks"

SILENCER Death - Pierce Me (Autopsy Kitchen) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It seems like a lot of the black metal we've been digging lately has been of the 'tortured anguished vocals' variety. Sterbend from last list is probably the most obvious. But Marblebog too. Also Hekel elsewhere on this list. But go back a ways and you can find plenty of black hordes who not only buzz grimly, but howl and wail as if their souls were trying to escape from their bodies, Bethlehem, SF cult legends Weakling, and of course Silencer. This record isn't really new, and actually we have been trying to track down copies of this forever. Silencer are spoken of with hushed reverence, and for good reason. Death - Pierce Me is dark and damaged, grim and suicidal miserablist doom-drenched black metal of the highest order. Talk to any of the current crop of the black metal elite, Wrest from Leviathan, Malefic from Xasthur, and they will fawn unabashedly over Silencer. Thankfully, Autopsy Kitchen have stepped up and rescued this all time black classic from oblivion. And now you can finally experience one of the original black cults who expressed their blackened misery through impossibly anguished vocals. Hysterical shrieks, frenzied and overwrought howls of absolute terror. Never has a band captured grief and misery and loneliness so perfectly and in such an utterly frightening way.
But it's not just the vocals, the music is completely intense and seething as well, with an unrestrained turbulence, dense and buzzing and so emotional and personal and overwhelming. Heart rending minor key melodies emeshed in black swirls of buzz, the riffing so intense and totally manic, exposing a tortured inner world wrought with drama and tension, a dark soul exposed, a damaged personal hell expressed through shriek and buzz. The anguished blasts of blackness are separated by dark doomy ambient passages, from simple mournful acoustic guitar to droney piano fugues to simple melodic doom metal minimalism, but when the riffs and the vocals kick in, a huge brutal blackness dropping on you from above, it's the sort of musical moment that gives you chills, makes your hair stand up on end, and in the right frame of mind makes you want to just break down. Which is precisely why Silencer and Death - Pierce Me are so revered, this record set the template for ALL depressive suicidal black metal to follow, and while some have come close, Xasthur and Nortt certainly, there is just something so special, and so utterly frightening about this record that keeps anyone from ever capturing the same black musical world of abject fear and unmitigated misery.
MPEG Stream: "Death - Pierce Me"
MPEG Stream: "Sterile Nails And Thunderbowels"
MPEG Stream: "Taklamakan"

STARVING WEIRDOS Seance At Luffenhulz (Sound & Fury) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
To be totally honest, when we first heard the name Starving Weirdos, we definitely weren't expecting to like it. It was a strange name, that didn't seem to suit their strange abstract sound. The name seemed goofy, while the music was dark, and ominous, and fucked up. But then something strange happened, like it has so many times in the past, the Flaming Lips is a prime example, something just clicked and suddenly they couldn't bee called anything BUT the Starving Weirdos. And that music, could not have been made by anyone BUT those same Weirdos. We never had any sort of qualms about the music though. From the very first note, we realized these guys were on to something. Something pretty, and something really strange and unique. This latest missive comes to us from the Sound & Fury label in Australia and demonstrates the Weirdos' continual quest to explore and get lost in their music. It's hard to sound totally unique, especially when you're trafficking in the overpopulated world of abstract free noise or whatever, but the more we listen to these guys, the more distinctive their sound becomes and the more fascinating their approach to making it seems. These three lengthy tracks show three distinct sides of the band, each one drastically different, but still inexorably linked to the others. The first track sounds a bit like the Dead C setting up and tuning up in some giant airplane hanger. Clatter and clanks, crashes and thumps, reverberate into the ether, every sound wrapped in thick layers of natural reverb, while floating delicately around these strange percussive occurrences are keening streaks of high end, that just sort of shift an shimmer, while all around chimes and bells ring out. Like walking though some big empty building made entirely of metal, while all around you the bits and pieces of the building spontaneously ring and chime and resound. The second track is less clattery and abstract, instead, thick thread of warm vibration runs through the track, some sort of buzzing bombinating string, that stretches into forever, while all around it, various other instruments vibrate sympathetically, building to a frenzied ur-drone, before the vibrations begin to taper off until it's a barely there afterimage, hovering in some nether world before blinking out completely. The final track is a return to the metallic land of the first track, but now that huge metal structure is crumbling all around you, like the sound of metal raindrops, clang and clatter, a percussive free for all, while beneath, a gentle lilting minor key melody is stretched into a longform drone, that continues to drift dreamlike even after the metallic clatter has died down, eventually becoming shimmering sheets of singing metal, ringing out brightly and then slowly fading away.
Packaged in a red textured paper sleeve, held shut with a black wax seal. The cd is housed in a printed inner sleeve, each disc with an individual piece of band made art. LIMITED TO 150 COPIES, each disc is hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Red Crescent Moon"
MPEG Stream: "Seance At Luffenhulz"

STUMM I (Blind Date) lp 15.98
We just realized we had a handful of these in stock and for some reason never actually listed the vinyl version when we listed the cd way back when. Be warned we only have a few of these and will most likely run out real quick...
We sure do love Finland. And boy do we love slow motion sludgy doom. So it makes perfect sense that this here disc would find its way into our grubby gloomy doom loving mitts. Stumm are a glacial power trio that traffic in that sort of harsh ugly crusty death doom dirge sludge we've come to dig so heavily. We just can't seem to get enough. It's metal sure, heavy and downtuned, but a lot of the appeal, very much like the blurry buzz of black metal, is it's proximity to pure drone! As the guitars get lower, and the songs get slower (or conversely faster and blurrier) riffs become stretches of slow shifting sound, hypnotic and dare we say soothing. Not entierely like a doom metal Steve Reich or a sludge Terry Riley. Most of us would just as likely fall asleep listening to the most recent Moss record as we would a Coleclough or Chalk record. And Stumm are carrying on that fine tradition. A harsh raw nihilistic doom metal that drones and buzzes and pulses, slithers and lurches more than it rocks.
There's got to be a way to designate sheer impossible dooominess. In the past we've just added more 'o's to the word doom, 20 'o's, 40 'o's, but where does it end. Eventually there will be a band so slow and sludgy, the whole review will be a single word, doom, but with 11,342 'o's. We're tempted to give Stumm a rating based on the multiple 'o' doom scale, but this this disc is not just a single sludgy smear of sound, it's definitely doooooooooom (let's stick with 10 'o's for now), with most of the record, stumbling and staggering, all druggy and dizzy, a 16rpm creep through a thick forest of buzzing E strings and drumming that sounds like it's being dumped out of the back of a cement mixer. But here and there, the clouds part, revealing a bit of sky through the dense canopy of oppressive heaviness, be it a bit of clean guitar or some warm warbly bass... hell, who are we kidding, those moments are so brief and fleeting they're only there to lure you in and set you up for a massive pumelling, frozen like a deer in the headlights, looking skyward, eyes reflecting that tiny glimmer of sunlight, before moments later Stumm take your head clean off with a spiked and sludgy iron bar, as a million 'o's begin to rain down from the sky, like metallic black hail, burying you beneath a crushing, suffocating mound of doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.............
4 songs. 35 minutes. Mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, Phantomsmasher / Atomsmasher, Flux, OLD, etc.)
MPEG Stream: "Chokehold Narcosis"
MPEG Stream: "Biting The Hand That Feeds"

MUSE Black Holes And Revelations (Warner Bros.) cd+dvd 21.00
Muse are probably best know for sounding EXACTLY like Radiohead, which is most definitely a shame, cuz they really are awesome. Unfortunately, the fact is they really DO sound exactly like Radiohead. What can you do though? The vocalist has a voice like Thom Yorke's and they have a thing for epic indieprog bombast, you do the math. BUT, and this is a very big but, where Radiohead have veered into mopey introspective misunderstood inward looking stadium rock, tortured geniuses who are exhausted by fame and who now find making music as painful as having teeth pulled or birthing a baby, Muse just fucking love to rock. The have big guitars, HUGE choruses, incredible harmonies and they write killer songs. Imagine the most rocking Radiohead tunes of old, maybe off of OK Computer or Pablo Honey, but even more supercharged and rocked up, then give the vocals a serious Queen-ing, and mix in a little new wave electronica, and you'll end up with something almost as badass as Muse. This new record finds them incorporating all sorts of various elements, Depeche Mode-ish new wave, Silver Sun / Supergrass style power pop, some proggy metal (check out the track "Assassin", WOAH!) all seamlessly blended into their kick ass, head banging, fist in the air superrock. They do have their sensitive side, they can craft some seriously moody mellowness (and in the process manage to sound even MORE like Queen) but their hearts are solid ROCK. Not sure why there guys aren't huge here, they sure are in the UK. Might be the Radiohead thing, could be the fact that they actually are pretty weird, maybe too weird for a lot of folks, like Radiohead's geeky new wave little brother, the one with spikey hair and a punk rock band. Either way, don't let any of that discourage you. If you're in the mood for some epic rocking electronic tinged super dramatic stadium rock majesty, check this out!
While supplies last, there's a bonus DVD, featuring their whole set at Glastonbury, playing in front off what looks like 100,000 freaking out fans! As well as a bunch of extra live and backstage footage including some pretty funny getting to the stage Spinal Tap silliness.
MPEG Stream: "Take A Bow"
MPEG Stream: "Starlight"
MPEG Stream: "Supermassive Black Hole"

ANDREWS, AMEN VS. SPAC HAND LUKE s/t (Rephlex) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "I Shot Killer Pussy"
MPEG Stream: "Screwface"
MPEG Stream: "Multiple Stab Wounds"

GORGOROTH Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam (Candlelight) cd 14.98
The return of the mighty Gorgoroth!!! With all the non musical drama surrounding these guys it's sometimes hard to remember that Gorgoroth remain one of the only TRUE Norwegian black metal bands still totally capable of utter blackened musical destruction. Vocalist Gaahl has had it tough, arrested, headed for prison, but as we've learned from Lords Of Chaos, if you're gonna commit a heinous crime, do it in Norway. 14 years for first degree murder. Gaahl only got a year or so for taking a man hostage and torturing him. But what this might tell you is that Gorgoroth are indeed still very very EVIL. And they sound like it.
There are seemingly two schools of thought on Gorgoroth. There are those who love OLD Gorgoroth, Under The Sign Of Hell being THE ONE, and there are those, like us who lean toward Destroyer, the band's most noisy and fucked up record. We actually love both, but as we're sure you know, we tend to lean toward the damaged and demented. Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam falls mostly on the side of the former, a TRUE buzzing and blasting blackness, that does sound fucking fantastic but is not really weird or noisy or fucked up. We still love it, cuz these guys can still basically do no wrong, ands if you are hankering for some blasting frosty fury, some true grim classic sounding black metal, this will definitely hit the spot. The production is better, the band is tighter, the songs are maybe catchier, but it basically sounds like a modernized version of Under The Sign Of Hell, which is a VERY good thing. Secretly we were hoping for the band to totally drop us in our tracks with the weirdest black metal record ever, cuz if anyone is capable of coming up with such a thing, it's Gorgoroth, but hell, we've been to busy banging our heads to really notice.
MPEG Stream: "Wound Upon Wound"
MPEG Stream: "Carving A Giant"

BUNKUR Bludgeon (Deserted Factory) cd 15.98
Here's what we had to say about this massive slab of hateful slow motion doom the first time around:
What is wrong with the world today? The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, babies are coo-ing, breezes are blowing, waves are lapping, clouds are drifting happily across a bright blue sky, but all everybody wants to listen to is hateful evil grim brutal downtuned miserable soul crushing anguished slow motion funereal death drone ultra doom. Not that we're complaining, but it is curious. There's been recent renewed interest in slow motion metal masters Earth, as well as a growing obsession with self-admitted Earth worshippers Sunn 0))), the massive ambient-metal explorations of Japan's Corrupted, the stomping garage psych meets doom drone of the mighty Boris, and a constantly growing roster of similar sonic sickos: Esoteric, Khanate, Asva, Fleshpress, Dot [.], Marzuraan, Ox, Rigor Sardonicus, Sons Of Otis, UFOmammut, Skepticism, Whitehorse, Planet Aids and now Bunkur. We've been trying to track down this cd for ages, and somehow ended up listing and reviewing the Planet Aids cd, a Bunkur side project, before we had even received the Bunkur discs. Well, now they're here and you won't be sorry. This Dutch outfit traffics in massive, miserable, impossibly lugubrious doom metal. This is a single 65 minute track, drenched in reverb and crackling amp buzz, crumbling distorted guitars howled vocals, very loose and spread out, the riffs exist in huge expanses of SPACE, a blackened vacuum of buzz and echo and the occasional trailing off of a vocal growl or a slowly dissipating feedback vapor trial. The kicker here though, and the thing that makes Bunkur so weird (and cool) is the drumming, stumbling lo-fi tripped out rhythms, that drift from plodding caveman pound, to spacious barely there accents, but most surprisingly hover in some strange alternate world of dub. Yep, you heard us, DUB. The drums often demarcate wide open spaces with a strange dubbed out, instantly recognizable: BAP BAP Bap bap bap bp bp bp bp .... a single snare hit that repeats, stuttering into oblivion. Giving the whole thing a weird hellish doom-dub vibe. Like Khanate recording with Lee Perry maybe? Okay, maybe not quite as extreme as that, but the dub is definitely there, whether purposeful or not. And it's really cool. Fans of dismal doom death drone and all things slow and sick will find this absolutely essential. Packaged in super cryptic metallic grey and black packaging with extensive liner notes in a completely unreadable rune font!
MPEG Stream: "Bludgeon (excerpt)"

MONARCH Speak Of The Sea (Throne) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We sure are going to miss Monarch. In a black and sludgy sonic world, they were a little ray of sunshine. Errr. Well, not really. But they did manage to infuse their tarpit doomdeathdronedirges with a goofy sense of humor, without turning Monarch into an ironic pisstake.
So here it is. The final missive from France's Monarch. Possibly the world's only female fronted deathdoomdronedirge outfit. Imagine Khanate or Corrupted or Bunkur or Moss, fronted by a slight young French woman, in a sensible skirt and blouse, hair pulled back in a pony tail, somehow emitting the sort of vulgar demonic yowls that usually come from some stooped hunchbacked axe wielding hairy beast. Thus is the magic of Monarch. their records are decorated with cute doodles, cartoons of burning churches, big eyed skulls, and hearts everywhere. They have an unhealthy obsession with Hello Kitty, their email name is sanriosabbath for chrissakes! How can you not help but be cuted-out by these cute little doomsters? Well, the massive pummeling wall of headsplitting ultra doom might be a start, the impossibly glacial plodding thud and the ear shredding sheets of corrosive feedback help too. However mislead you might be by the cuteness on the outside, be prepared to have your insides torn out and your ears filled with black tar by the caustic corrosive funereal doom on the inside. Easily one of the slowest heaviest dooooooooom bands in the world, this is quite a swansong. Two side long tracks. Each so slow it's almost ambient. It's a bit like listening to SUNNO))) or Earth 2 when some caveman drummer decides to crash the party and start drumming slowly along. Riffs stretched out into huge droning smears of black rumble, ringing and reverberating, pulsing and wavering unsteadily before the next ten ton riff drops. Both tracks are slow plodding ultradoomscapes, like the ultimate doom metal intro stretched into actual songs, smeared across both sides of the record. The vocals don't even come in until the song is almost over, a shrieking black coda, after twenty minutes of slow burning doom drone tension. The B-side features some distant Ozzy-like crooning way off in the distance before the scowling growl kicks in. So slow and heavy. On the AQ doooooomscale, Monarch rank more O's than we could possibly include in this review! So sad these doomlords (and doomlady!) are hanging it up. But what a way to go. Essential doom. If you like Esoteric, Boris, Moss, Bunkur, SUNNO))), Earth, Esoteric, Skepticism, Eyehategod, Marzuraan, Atavist, Catacombs, Khanate, Pale Horse, Monument Of Urns and you don't have any Monarch in your collection, get with the program! Or else we'll have Miss Monarch come over there and stomp you to death with her Hello Kitty Keds!
Beautifully packaged in thick black sleeves with red text, the cover is a doodle of a big eyed skull being stabbed by big knives, over a glowing heart. Includes a big poster, a Monarch calendar, marking the dates from 6/6/6 until 7/7/7, the year of the Monarch!! Each lp hand numbered in metallic marker.
LIMITED TO 666 COPIES. WE GOT 50!! It's already out of print so once these are gone they are gone for good.

V/A Beyond Istanbul: Underground Grooves Of Turkey (Trikont) cd 19.98
While only one of us here has actually been to Turkey (that would be Allan, the lucky bastard), we'll all pretty obsessed with Turkish psych/prog/folk music for quite a while now, as is evidenced by the fact that we review pretty much everything we can get our hands on. Edip Akbayram, Erkin Koray, 3 Hur-El, Mogollar, Bulent, Selda as well as comps galore, Love Peace And Poetry, Turkish Delights, Hava Narghile, we just can't get enough. The one aspect of Turkish music we haven't really explored is 'club' music. Could be that we generally don't even like American club music, as none of us are or ever were really what you might consider clubkids. Or it could be that there was never any really comprehensive collection of Turkish club music. Probably a little of both.
But leave it to Germany's mighty Trikont label to set us straight. With such a big Turkish population in Germany, the Istanbul music scene has a following there too, and Trikont asked popular DJ Ipek Ipekcioglu to put this collection together. Underground Grooves Of Turkey covers a wide expanse of Turkish sounds, from straight up dance floor pop, to weird guitar heavy grooves, to dub and hip hop, and pretty much every stop in between. While the sound veers dramatically all over the sonic map, there are definitely aspects that seem to be present in most, if not all of these tracks. We hear LOTS of Bollywood music stylings. The more playful upbeat tracks, the ones with big beats, wild rhythms and strings all over the place, it's hard not to imagine huge big budget dance scenes, dancers twirling, epic and massive and WILD. The more low key, laid back tracks alternately remind us of Muslimgauze, Dead Can Dance, and Jaz Coleman and Anne Dudley's Middle Eastern themed Songs From The Victorious City released several years back. As well as obviously all of the vintage Turkish music we have been digging.
Every single one of these songs is totally unique in its own way, and distinctly Turkish, incorporating all manner of other sounds while managing to sound fresh and original. The first track on the comp, The Night Session's "La Mirage" had us at hello. Imagine 50 Cent's "In Da Club" with its loping laid back swagger, mashed up with haunting minor key, Eastern tinged strings, fluttering flutes and soaring Arabesque vocals. Pretty kick ass. Could definitely be a club hit here. Surprised this track hasn't already been snapped up by that whole Sounds Of The Asian underground scene. With a comp this varied, probably the best way to approach it is track by track. Worth it for the opening song alone, but the rest of the disc is dense and dizzyingly wonderful as well:
-- A soundscape of dense swirls of playful, festive Bollywood exuberance, with amazing vocals from Sivan Perwer, one of the most famous Kurdish vocalists, now living in Germany.
-- Cay Taylan from Vienna, doing a more modern take, a downtempo triphopped version of a traditional Turkish dance, with lots of strings, Eastern percussion, lots of spacey FX and some groovy dubbed out rhythms.
-- A super pop gem from Nil Karaibrahimgil. A mix of drum and bass and hip hop, a childlike rhyme about the weaknesses of men, a sort of Eastern version of the Spice Girls or M.I.A., kind of sassy, and playful, fun, and funky,
-- Baba Zula mixes traditional jazz with Eastern psychedelia, a heady swirl of dreamlike vocals, traditional percussion and melodies, and plenty of late night jazzy shuffle. Some of his past recordings were produced by Mad Professor!
-- Orient Expressions are from Istanbul and carry on the musical tradition of Alevites, a religious minority of Turkish Islam, with a track based on a Kurdish folk song, taking traditional religious music and giving it a dubby electronic makeover, with washed out atmospheres, lilting vocals and super laid back beats, almost like a much more Eastern Enigma or Dead Can Dance
-- Ayhan Sicimoglu is the first Latin musician in the Turkish music scene and offers up a bad ass dancehall jam, a stuttery funky beat over a buzzing kazoo-like melody played on a Zurna, a traditional Turkish folk instrument with just a hint of the dreaded Reggaeton sound (which sounds KILLER here)!
-- dZihan & Kamien are a Swiss / Bosnian duo from Vienna, who craft epic trip hop dubscapes of shuffling slithering rhythms, minor key strings, strange vocal snippets, all wrapped into super catchy laid back grooves.
-- Ceza is one of the biggest names in the still developing Turkish rap scene. He gets compared to Eminem all the time, cuz of his rapid fire flow and whiney voice, and that's not far off the mark. If you can imagine Eminem rapping IN TURKISH over a killer bed of swooping Bollywood strings, fuzzy bass, and skittery almost dancehall rhythms... Wow!
-- The music of Burhan Ocal is really hard to describe, VERY Bollywood sounding, epic and dense, lots of funky rhythms, strings soaring and stirring, elements of Turkish traditional folk music, and some really strange female vocals from Emal Sayin, "the dame of Turkish art-music". She has a strangely strangled sounding mewl that goes from guttural growl to throaty croon, all over super dense and complex string parts and skittery electronic drums. Cool!
-- Baba Cay unfurls a groovy laid back ambient chillout groove, a sort of blissed out R+B, a little hint of new age swoosh, and plenty of Turkish filigree BUT it's not sung in Turkish, instead he sings in a made up language a la Magma or the Ruins.
-- The band with the very un-Turkish sounding name of Brooklyn Funk Essentials are all about super festive party music, equal parts USA and Turkey, with elements of Klezmer, ska, acid jazz, funk and hip hop, a wild block party groove, with loads of horns, that go from ska bounce to dizzying Klezmer swirl in the blink of an eye. Almost like a Turkish / Klezmer version of Jurassic 5!
-- Burhan Ocal is a famous Turkish percussionist, who weaves an intricate percussive backdrop over which traditional instruments like saz and oud buzz and swirl, a droning gorgeous rhythmic ritual, simultaneously ancient and modern, near the end a drum kit kicks in and then it sounds like some modernized Zakir Hussein jam. So good. Very reminiscent of Muslimgauze.
-- Goksel is a modern Turkish pop singer, with a breathy passionate voice, very melodramatic, performing here some sort of displaced modern American pop ballad, filtered through a distinctly Eastern vibe, reverbed guitars and traditional percussion mixed into soft focus Turkish moody pop, with a slight Western (as in country and western) twang. Her voice actually sounds remarkably like Nina Persson from the Cardigans!
-- Replikas are a guitar heavy underground rock band, who have been written up in the Wire and have even worked with Sonic Youth (and downtown NY) producer Wharton Tiers. Big distorted guitars, pounding drums, driving rhythms, sprinkled with distinctly Turkish bits here and there, soaring vocal melodies, moody strings, all makes for a gorgeous and strangely affecting track...
Not sure how this fits in with the rest of these "underground grooves" but pretty cool nonetheless.
-- Finally, the last track comes from Taner Demiralp, a young conductor / composer who delivers an almost liturgical sounding piece based on a traditional poem, praising the sultans, composed in the style of court music from the Ottoman Empire, including the lyrics and vocals, which are sung and composed in a traditional style no longer in use. Gorgeous crooned melodies over mournful minor key strings, all over a shuffling stuttering electronic beat. creepy and quite beautiful.
Absolutely essential for fans of Turkish music, and anyone who loved any of the Turkish psych compilations we've listed in the past. And all you folks who dig stuff like Kruder And Dorfmeister, Tosca, Peace Orchestra, Kid Loco and the like and just might be open to something a little more exotic, might really dig this stuff.
Like all Trikont releases, Beyond Istanbul is packaged in a full color digipak, and includes a massive set of liner notes, with a history of modern Turkish music, notes on each song and artist, as well as lots of photos!
MPEG Stream: THE NIGHT SESSION "La Mirage"
MPEG Stream: NIL KARAIBRAHIMGIL "Butun Kizlar Toplandik"
MPEG Stream: BURHAN OCAL & TRAKYA ALL STARS "Tekirdag Karsilasmasi"
MPEG Stream: REPLIKAS "Omur Sayaci"

STRIBORG Embittered Darkness / Isle De Morts (Southern Lord) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Also available for a limited time (of course) on vinyl, as a deluxe double lp, packaged in a swank gatefold. Clear vinyl while they last!!
Lovers of damaged demented bizarre baffling freaked out and fucked up black metal rejoice!! We couldn't be more excited if there was a brand new Benighted Leams record. FINALLY, we're able to review and list a record from one of our all time favorite outsider one man black metal bands, Striborg. Most folks have probably never actually heard Striborg, even though this will mark release #15 or thereabouts. But it wasn't for lack of trying on our part. We have been completely obsessed with Striborg since we first heard him a few years back and have been trying to get enough copies of ANY of his releases to list. Everytime we found someone who carried Striborg records, we would order 30 or 40 or 50, and would get 1 or 2. Or more likely none. We even resorted to writing letters to the band (he apparently lives in a shack in the woods with no phone and no computer!) And while most folks have never -heard- Striborg, you've probably at least heard OF him. Whether it was in an aQuarius review, we've referenced Striborg as the ultimate outsider black metal band in reviews of records by black metal weirdos Dead Reptile Shrine, Lugubrum, Draugar, Detsorgsekalf, Hidden and more, or on the recent black metallized SUNNO))) record Black One, which even had a track named for the dark mastermind behind Striborg Sin-Nanna.
But what is it exactly about Striborg that has everyone freaking out?
Five words for you: Tasmanian rain forest black metal! And it's just as grim and weird and as amazing as that might lead you to believe. We have Southern Lord to thank for this, the first readily available Striborg release, which continues his tradition of combining multiple releases on single cds, this one includes the brand new 2006 recording. Embittered Darkness, as well as the super rare Isle De Morts release recorded almost a decade ago, way back in 1997.
So what exactly does Tasmanian rain forest black metal sound like? Definitely grim, and lo-fi, ultra personal, demented and damaged, Benighted Leams, Abruptum, Dead Reptile Shrine, Necrofrost, Emit, Furze, Urfaust and all the rest of the baffling black metal hierarchy should give you a rough idea, but Striborg, is even further out, way more fucked up, more strangely psychedelic and freaked out, a doomy drone drenched black buzz, a growling fuzzy missive from the depths of some dark netherworld.
Haunting washes of gauzy synthesizer, mournful minor key acoustic guitars, dreary overcast swaths of depressive melancholia, and you think other black metal bands are buzzy?! Striborg take that black buzz and whip it into a furious freaked out frenzy, a guitar buzz like a million bumble bees, but sped WAY up, a prickly, fuzzy swirl, even at it's most doomy and plodding, Striborg drenches everything in that overblown buzz, a thick sandpapery ambience, that is the metal equivalent of walking through the pouring rain, under a full moon, through a graveyard at the edge of the world. Sin-Nanna growls and gurgles his obtuse black ravings in an impossibly creepy animalistic voice, somewhere between a rabid dog, a tiny demon, and a wicked old witch, often everything will drop out and all that will be left is a buzzing tangle of hissing harsh vocal and fuzzed out black riffing. Buried in the murk and mire are weird, rehearsal space drums, really flat and dry sounding, erupting in spastic and chaotic burts, not just blast beats, but instead bizarre blasts of percussive tangle amidst stretches of almost punk rock drumming, although most of Embittered Darkness is spent at a crawl, a buzzing midtempo dirge, as doomy as it is black, if not more so. Imagine an ultra lo-fi doom metal Xasthur, slow motion misery dotted with occasional barrages of black metal buzz and once in a while surges of slithering black ambience.
So totally creepy and beautiful, fucked up and gorgeous, a massive soul crushing slab of doom drenched black metal brilliance.
Isle De Morts, from 1997, is a lot more traditional, and a lot faster, almost every track a frenetic and frenzied burst of blackened and buzzing brutality, lo-fi but completely blown out and in the red, channeling Transylvanian Hunger era Darkthrone, but filtered through Striborg's cracked sonic kaleidoscope, rendering what might have been just some classic Norwegian BM worship, as a creepy and cracked world of ultrabuzz and overblown acidfried blackness, blast beats so fast they sound like radio static, guitars so buzzy and blurry they turn into thick washes of crumbling prickly sound, and croaking toadlike vocals so high in the mix it sounds like the band is in a different room. So gloriously fucked up and freaked out. One c
MPEG Stream: "Wrapped In A Cacoon Out Of Harm's Way"
MPEG Stream: "Race Of Apathy"
MPEG Stream: "Through The Veils Of Darkness"
MPEG Stream: "Descending From A Black Sky"

WEREWOLF The Temple Of Fullmoon (No Colours) cd 16.98
Finally back in stock!! Yet more buzzy, drone-y, murky, frosty grimnity!!
Werewolf are a mysterious Polish horde who specialize in murky, brittle, lo fi grimness a la their countrymen Graveland. Huge guitars swirl and buzz, the rhythms veer from seasick waltzes to buzzing blackened blasts, thick walls of guitarfuzz and swirls of chaotic ambience create a dense foresty murk, where drums pulse and throb way down in the mix, like tribal war chants barely heard drifting like the stench of death on the wind. The vocals are a growling gargle, another layer of buzz in Werewolf's chaotic sonic squall, the cymbals splash and shimmer like acid rain eating away at everything it touches. This is more of that glorious loping buzzy droning black metal we can never seem to get enough of. The mix is so thick and overblown that the riffs eventually blur and smear, the whole record becoming a super buzzy trancelike drone. Awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Wolfish Famine Of Blood"
MPEG Stream: "Return Of Black Ravens"

DEAD C, THE Harsh 70's Reality (Stillbreeze) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is IT. One of the most perfect slabs of abstract free rock ever set to tape. Yes, noise rockers, this is where it all started. Originally released way back in 1992, about five years into their recorded career. Long out of print and finally available again. We're of the mind that the Dead C never made a bad record, but of their entire recorded output, Harsh 70's Reality continues to be our all time favorite. Most of the vestiges of pop that showed up in their past records, the legacy of their NZ pop heritage, were jettisoned or at least transformed into something much harder, much weirder. The pop remained, but drastically altered, more often twisted and tangled, buried or burned, a soft glowing core barely visible through the Dead C's abstruse ambient noise. Truly hard to describe, there are guitars and drums, but Harsh 70s Reality never really rocks, it does however manage to be heavy and psychedelic and dense and droney all at once. Blissful, tranquil, harsh, jagged, dreamy, dark, atonal, an impossible collision of sounds and emotions. This may be noise rock, but it's not precisely noisy, nor rock. By this point, the Dead C were channeling Cale and Conrad and Maclise and the Taj Mahal Travellers as much as any rock or noise outfits.
This is immediately evident on the opening track here, the 22 minute "Driver U.F.O.", a massive dirgescapes of angular guitar, clanging and keening, a sound that hinted at the noise to come, their future trajectory, headed for sonic worlds even further out. A world first visited here, of strange little abstract chordal figures, not riffs per se, just strange smears of sound repeated over and over, totally mesmerizing, but completely alien, sheets of guitar noise, big slabs of metal percussive clang, creepy wheedly little melodies, lots of drone and drawn out streaks of feedback. Sounds almost like the first musicians ever, musical cavemen, suddenly stumbling upon a stage full of amps and drums, and curiously exploring, discovering all the strange ways the different instruments can be poked and prodded and struck to create an abstract and gorgeous primitive din. This is divine dronemusic. A clattery atonal dronescape. If you took this first track, stuck it on a crappy cd-r, made up some crazy name, Black Tomb Resurrect or something, added some xeroxed cover art, and sent out a handful to the Wire and Eclipse and Volcanic Tongue, made sure it was limited to 100 copies, you would have indie hipsters shitting themselves to get copies, buying copies on eBay for $100. It's that prescient. Either that or the current breed of noisemakers are not hiding their Dead C obsession AT ALL.
The shorter tracks here do actually 'rock'. Sort of. As much as a jagged smear of super distorted crumble and crunch can 'rock'. "Sky" sounds like the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" covered by Reynols, a stumbling rock drum beat beneath a white noise riff, all crumbly distortion and blown out fuzz, and some strange sort of crooned vocals drifting in and out. "Suffer Bomb Damage" is a haunting keyboard drone, all off key lo-fi casio wheeze and reverb spring percussion, very reminiscent of NZ legends Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos. "Love" sounds like the Velvet Underground fronted by Jandek, covering the MC5, lurching fuzzy garage stomp with damaged guitar and weary drawled vocals. "Constellation" is some long lost Velvet Monkeys joint, an East Village folkfuzz jam, throbbing and saturated in dense distortion and wrapped in thick sheets of druggy droney guitar swirl, all wrapped haphazardly around a cracked pop hook. The record ends on a truly strange note, a sort of fuzzy folk drift, warm acoustic guitars are picked and strummed, a mournful lament, crowd sounds and occasional bursts of distorted fuzz, as well as a brief stretch of wailed anguished vocals and a few splatters of snare drum, but for the majority of the nearly ten minutes of "Hope", we drift lazily through a murky world of soft muted guitars and sad, mumbled vocals. So lovely. A most perfect noisefolk elegy. It's hard to understand how the hell this record ended up here, drifting dreamlike and swathed in murky folk, especially after the 20+ minutes of face melting freaked out abstraction of "Driver U.F.O." Or the blown out deconstructed noiserock in between. But that's exactly what makes the Dead C so special. This is exactly where it had to end up. Where you were meant to emerge. It seems like an impossibly confusional journey, an improvised exploration. And it is. But taken as a whole, Harsh 70s Reality is exactly as it was meant to be. Perfect. Perfectly imperfect. A world of noise that slips from sound to sound, taking many forms, many guises, a world where letting fuzzy folk guitars and soft vocals wash over you is not all that different than letting a wall of crumbling guitar grind and feedback freakout collapse and bury you alive. Two different sides of the same glorious noise.
MPEG Stream: "Driver U.F.O."
MPEG Stream: "Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Love"

INFERI Shores Of Sorrow (Northern Heritage) cd 15.98
It's a funny thing, a lot of times, for us at least, as black metal bands get better, and tighter and more polished, they don't necessarily get better. Or more specifically, we don't actually like them any more than we did when they were struggling to realize some musical vision well beyond their technical grasp. I suppose that's true of any music maybe, but it seems more obvious with black metal in particular. When a band finally records in a studio, and has spent the last year honing their chops, it often sounds -amazing-, but just not as weird or personal or uniquely inspired. A good example is Behemoth, who we do love, still, but who are now a super tight technical, nearly overproduced, slick, fast, sharp and super complex black metal juggernaut. But in the beginning, they were making buzzing Burzumic black metal, with basically just acoustic guitars and drums. So they would be playing these classic sounding riffs, right there alongside stumbling blast beasts, but with some janky acoustic steel string guitar. And the results were totally inspired! It's that sort of inspiration and invention that can only come from absolute necessity. Which is precisely what is so appealing about so much black metal.
But there are exceptions, one obvious one being this new record from Inferi. Previous recordings (two tapes) found the band a stumbling, chaotic, mess, a glorious mess, but a mess nonetheless, lots of buzz and blackness, but terrible recording quality and some super stumbling performances, which in that case, kept the band from expressing the sounds they were hearing in their heads. But on Shores Of Sorrow, Inferi, have done everything right. The sound is loud and heavy, thick and clear, but without losing the grim buzz that so defined them. And the playing is better too, but instead of trying to become some super technical BM band, they continued to hone their gorgeously sorrowful, midtempo blackness, and the result is totally captivating. Quite possibly one of the saddest sounding black metal records ever. Each of the four lengthy tracks is a blurry, buzzing, minor key dirge, thick swirls of distortion wrapped around totally emotional and super sad sounding melodies, all draped over loping lurching midtempo rhythms. Occasionally some awesomely unexpected double kick drumming surfaces, but all it does is up the tension factor, and make the song seem even more sad and intense. The opening track sets the tone, 12 minutes of mournful acoustic guitar, a gently lilting minor key melody, drifting beneath sheets of raw blown out black buzz, sort of seasick and dreamlike, harsh vocals howl above the melancholy blackness. The drums don't even kick in until the last few minutes, and then this black near-ballad turns into a heartbreaking dirge. The next two tracks follow a similar pattern, epic and sorrowful, gloriously miserable droning buzz. It's everything we love about Burzum and Xasthur and Nortt and Make A Change... Kill Yourself, stripped to its very essence, the simplest buzzing black representation of utter misery, so completely mesmerizing and totally soul stirring. The final track is blazing fast, at least compared to the first three, a furious not quite blast beat, over dense drifts of swirling black buzz, and like the rest of the disc, still totally minor key, utterly doleful and despondent, austere and disconsolate, and so goddamned good.
Fans of any of the above mentioned bands, and any one into buzzing beautiful sad blackness might just have a new favorite disc to drown your sorrows in...
MPEG Stream: "To The Once So Sad World"
MPEG Stream: "Dance Of Shadows"

INFERI Shores Of Sorrow (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.
Available on vinyl for a limited time. Gorgeous, mournful and beautiful Burzumic black metal. Different artwork, limited to 500 copies and gone before you know it...
It's a funny thing, a lot of times, for us at least, as black metal bands get better, and tighter and more polished, they don't necessarily get better. Or more specifically, we don't actually like them any more than we did when they were struggling to realize some musical vision well beyond their technical grasp. I suppose that's true of any music maybe, but it seems more obvious with black metal in particular. When a band finally records in a studio, and has spent the last year honing their chops, it often sounds -amazing-, but just not as weird or personal or uniquely inspired. A good example is Behemoth, who we do love, still, but who are now a super tight technical, nearly overproduced, slick, fast, sharp and super complex black metal juggernaut. But in the beginning, they were making buzzing Burzumic black metal, with basically just acoustic guitars and drums. So they would be playing these classic sounding riffs, right there alongside stumbling blast beasts, but with some janky acoustic steel string guitar. And the results were totally inspired! It's that sort of inspiration and invention that can only come from absolute necessity. Which is precisely what is so appealing about so much black metal.
But there are exceptions, one obvious one being this new record from Inferi. Previous recordings (two tapes) found the band a stumbling, chaotic, mess, a glorious mess, but a mess nonetheless, lots of buzz and blackness, but terrible recording quality and some super stumbling performances, which in that case, kept the band from expressing the sounds they were hearing in their heads. But on Shores Of Sorrow, Inferi, have done everything right. The sound is loud and heavy, thick and clear, but without losing the grim buzz that so defined them. And the playing is better too, but instead of trying to become some super technical BM band, they continued to hone their gorgeously sorrowful, midtempo blackness, and the result is totally captivating. Quite possibly one of the saddest sounding black metal records ever. Each of the four lengthy tracks is a blurry, buzzing, minor key dirge, thick swirls of distortion wrapped around totally emotional and super sad sounding melodies, all draped over loping lurching midtempo rhythms. Occasionally some awesomely unexpected double kick drumming surfaces, but all it does is up the tension factor, and make the song seem even more sad and intense. The opening track sets the tone, 12 minutes of mournful acoustic guitar, a gently lilting minor key melody, drifting beneath sheets of raw blown out black buzz, sort of seasick and dreamlike, harsh vocals howl above the melancholy blackness. The drums don't even kick in until the last few minutes, and then this black near-ballad turns into a heartbreaking dirge. The next two tracks follow a similar pattern, epic and sorrowful, gloriously miserable droning buzz. It's everything we love about Burzum and Xasthur and Nortt and Make A Change... Kill Yourself, stripped to its very essence, the simplest buzzing black representation of utter misery, so completely mesmerizing and totally soul stirring. The final track is blazing fast, at least compared to the first three, a furious not quite blast beat, over dense drifts of swirling black buzz, and like the rest of the disc, still totally minor key, utterly doleful and despondent, austere and disconsolate, and so goddamned good.
Fans of any of the above mentioned bands, and any one into buzzing beautiful sad blackness might just have a new favorite disc to drown your sorrows in...
MPEG Stream: "To The Once So Sad World"
MPEG Stream: "Dance Of Shadows"

V/A Drum>MachineGun (Relapse) cd 14.98
The humble drum machine. It's had a tumultuous existence, equally loathed and loved, no more so than in metal (where for the most part it tends to be loathed). Without it, there's be no techno, or hip hop, or grime or industrial music. Or maybe there would be, but it would sound drastically different. It opened up a whole new world of sound, allowing musicians to program beats and sounds that they couldn't necessarily play or make themselves. So it was only a matter of time before extreme musicians discovered the sort of speed and brutality one could wring from that little box. It's nothing new, metal bands, grind bands and the like have been using drum machines for ages, but as extreme music gets more aggressive, more fucked up, more complex and more extreme, folks making this sort of music are pushing the limits of what a drum machine can do. Before, a band couldn't be any faster than their drummer could play. Now there is no limit, 100 bpm, 200 bpm, 300 bpm or more, speed is now no longer an issue. Nor is arrangement. Now a deft drum machine programmer can fit millions of beats and an insane number of different rhythms into a one minute song. Faster, more furious, more freaked out, we love it. From the murky blackened dizzyingly complex mechanical drums of black metal outfits like Draugar, to the pounding industrial grooves of Godflesh, to the lightning fast blasts of Agoraphobic Nosebleed, we can't get enough, we love the sputtering stuttering pounding skittering drum machine. Not as a replacement for real drums, and a real drummer (lord knows that usually the best part of seeing a band live is seeing a kick ass drummer totally destroy) but as another tool in the already formidable arsenal.
So here we have Drum>MachineGun, an audio report on the current state of grind. And metal. And more specifically, just what these grindmetal freaks are doing with their drum machines. And what they're doing is totally fucking mind blowing and face melting and completely confounding. Forget about music you think is fast, or heavy, or complicated, or freaked out, or fucked up. Because whatever you think, these songs, and these bands are more. Much more. 20 bands playing 67 songs in 73 minutes. Average song length about a minute. Average number of parts per song? More than our puny minds can handle. If you could imagine the most insane, most complicated, heaviest weirdest grindmetal band in the world, this comp is the record they would make. Each band linked in some ways, sometimes obviously, sometimes not so. But it makes for an incredibly cohesive listen. Which is rare for comps in general, especially one with 20 bands and almost 70 songs.
Probably our favorite discovery amongst the bunch is Noism, who might possible be our new favorite band. Imagine a group that sounded like a skipping Pig Destroyer cd. Or like multiple Agoraphobic Nosebleed cds playing at the same time. A totally mind blowing freaked out shredfest, impossibly convoluted rhythms, bizarre and brutal riffage, splattered all over the place, but sometimes lopping and skipping into bizarre industrial metal breakdowns, like a death metal Oval or something. Drum patters that are mind blowingly complex, and chugging squiggly guitars that somehow sync up perfectly. It's like a super scratched up, skipping grindcore 45, played at 90 rpm. We are dying for more than these 5 minutes. Then there's Jet Jaguar Kr3 Kill Spree, maybe the weirdest of the bunch. Imagine any of the other bands on this comp, having their blasting grind picked apart, chopped into tiny pieces and then flung haphazardly into a swirling black froth by V/VM or someone equally demented. An industrialized black metal music concrete. There are riffs and harsh vocals and all that but they are scattered amidst all sorts of bizarre sounds, damaged FX, and random looped samples. Some familiar AQ faves are present as well as a whole bunch of bands we'd never even heard of but were immediately blown away by. On the familiar side, BIG faves Black Mayonnaise, who we hadn't really expected to find on this comp, but they do indeed employ the machine made drums, although BM use them much differently. A sludgy ambient freaked out drug dirge world of fucked up home recorded doom. Noxious ambience, dense clouds of grinding guitar grrr and swooping FX drenched synths, all over a relentlessly pounding simple machine made beat. Like Hawkwind with a drum machine, or a super blissed out on-the-nod Butthole Surfers, a deliriously dark lugubrious creepy crawl. And no drum machine grind comp would be complete without Agoraphobic Nosebleed, the patron saints of mechanical grind, the lords of drum machine destruction. A technical grind metal juggernaut, who choose to instead indulge their industrial techno jones here, spewing forth a thick wash of pounding doom drenched gabber, with creepy vocal snippets, whirling clouds of synth fuzz and lo-fi hiss, all over a relentless 4/4 pound. Then there's Nemo, who we last heard from years ago on a split cd released by the now defunct Rage Of Achilles label. And we went absolutely apeshit for their new wave video game death metal grind. Wishing for a full length that never came. Thankfully not much has changed. If anything, they've gotten weirder and faster and more fucked up. It's like classic eighties metal chopped up and sped up, splattered with drum machines, run through some 16 bit video game system, and then performed by some grind metal super group. Yowza!
On the new to us side of things, there's Mecha Bongzilla, who we're tempted to believe is Bongzilla's faster, less stoned alterego, but it's a bit hard to tell. One track is downtuned buzzing blurry techgrind, but with INSANE vocals, like some alien gargling with a mouthful of kazoos and croaking frogs. Although their other track is downright sludgy and doomy so who knows? Also, Mad Cow who spit out weird echoey blast beats and spastic rhythmic splatter underneath thick sheets of low end guitar grind and super fucked black vomit vocals. Oh and a bunch of bird calls, monkey sounds, and a totally bizarre sped up super affected Elizabeth Clare Prophet sample right in the middle!!!! Woah!
Ok, it'll probably be easier to go through the rest of the bands in list form:
Artificial Intelligence Agency: more of a strange series of interludes, mostly weird sound effects, movie snippets, found sounds, bizarre FX, and only the occasional bit of music, and it's NOT metal, more some sort of weird ambient porno funk.
Voltron: chugging super fast gurgling vocalled death metal grind, with guitars and vocals so indistinct they are just blurs of low end sound and of course lightning fast drum machine blasts.
Submachine Drum: murky lo-fi industrial grind, so fast it's all a dizzying blur of hyperspeed drums and looped processed guitar riffs.
Slough: Not related to the similarly named Slough Feg... and take away the Feg and you've got a guttural grindmetal shred fest. Impossibly downtuned guitars, all a growing gurgling blur.
Scumfusion: some seriously shredding grind, but with plenty of wheedily lead guitars, grinding sludge metal riffs over ridiculously fast rhythms and super weird processed vocals, that sound like some underwater alien. Surprisingly melodic, but still furious and fierce, pounding and pummeling.
Prosthetic Cunt: We reviewed these guys' full length ages ago, a gleefully perverse and sick sick sick take on ultragrossoutgrind. Super blown out guitars and a drummachine cranked to 11 and programmed at about 300 BPM. And of course lots of goofy movie samples.
Ocrilim: No comp of insanely technical grind would be complete without some Mick Barr madness. Ocrilim is Barr (Orthrelm, Octis, Crom Tech) shredding wildly to sputtering spastic machine drums. SO insanely inspired but incredibly hard on the ears. In a good way.
Nerve Not Found: Prog gone grind. Keyboards swoop in and out of super complicated arrangements. Like the Locust covering Magma.
Hellz Army: Pounding DHR style industrial gabber. Big static repeating guitar riffs and pounding four on the floor drum machine pummel with bizarre samples of fifties rock, Space Ghost and tons of other random weirdness.
Genghis Tron: We sure do love these guys. Imagine Slayer sped up to impossible speeds, a grinding super technical satanic death metal, then mix in a bunch of fuzzed out new wave synths, hip hop breakbeats, samples and prepare to have your mind melt.
Decomposing Serenity: These guys represent the old school. Super blow out death metal gore grind. Downtuned riffing, chugging guitars, machine made blast beats, and a vast array of gurgling, strangled, alien, monster growls. Bits of this are almost even funky, making them sound at times like a gore grind Chili Peppers.
Data Clast: Another grind new wave hybrid, but with a bit of a prog bent. Heavy and super pummeling but with plenty of thick fuzzy synths, and convoluted song structures, complex arrangements, and processed guitars that skip and stutter as much as they riff. And of course some huge slow and low grumbling monster gurgle vocals.
Cocoon: Stretched out industrial black ambience, one of the few tracks whose drum machines are more a part of their whole vibe than the driving focal point. Crackling, rumbling drones, clouds of drifting glitch, and shuffling stuttering rhythms, an ominous dreamlike subtly drum machined drift.
This is the kind of record that leaves you bruised and bloody, beaten and exhausted. Like having the musical shit kicked out of you. This is a seriously intense bout of heavy listening. Hard listening. Nothing easy about this at all. Super furious, totally relentless, loud as fuck, faster than a speeding bullet, grinding and gurgling and bellowing and blasting and skipping and looping and crushing and pulverizing and pummeling and shrieking and shredding and so goddamn amazing.
MPEG Stream: THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY "1"
MPEG Stream: DATA CLAST "2"
MPEG Stream: NOISM "11"
MPEG Stream: JET JAGUAR KR3 KILL SPREE "17"
MPEG Stream: PROSTHETIC CUNT "30"
MPEG Stream: NEMO "37"
MPEG Stream: DECOMPOSING SERENITY "40"
MPEG Stream: MECH BONGZILLA "42"

SCREW, DJ Screwed Up Vol. 2 (Smokin') cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Imagine your favorite hip hop jam slowed down to 3/4 the speed, or even 1/2 the speed. Well, you don't have to, cause here comes DJ Screw with his peculiar brand of remix, which as fas as we can tell just means slowing the records down, but damn it sounds good. All those radio hits dipped in molasses and dragging themselves through a tarpit beats and 'ugh's. The sexy songs sound sexier, the slamming songs sound, well, slower but somehow more powerful, and some of em just sound really really funny.
We can occasionally get volumes one through three of the Screwed Up remix series, but you can/should also check out Napster for some of the biggest hits (remixed we think without permission) and up until a few months ago, all the latest jams slooooowed waaay dooown. But Screw is dead now (R.I.P.) and the world just seems a little too fast.
RealAudio clip: "Pushin Rhymes Like Weight (Ice Cube)"

SCREW, DJ Screwed Up Vol. 3 (Smokin') cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Imagine your favorite hip hop jam slowed down to 3/4 the speed, or even 1/2 the speed. Well, you don't have to, cause here comes DJ Screw with his peculiar brand of remix, which as fas as we can tell just means slowing the records down, but damn it sounds good. All those radio hits dipped in molasses and dragging themselves through a tarpit beats and 'ugh's. The sexy songs sound sexier, the slamming songs sound, well, slower but somehow more powerful, and some of em just sound really really funny.
We can occasionally get volumes one through three of the Screwed Up remix series, but you can/should also check out Napster for some of the biggest hits (remixed we think without permission) and up until a few months ago, all the latest jams slooooowed waaay dooown. But Screw is dead now (R.I.P.) and the world just seems a little too fast.
RealAudio clip: "Pushin Rhymes Like Weight (Ice Cube)"

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE The Locust Years (Cruz Del Sur) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT, GET THE METAL BLADE VERSION INSTEAD!
People have been waiting a long time for this, the third opus from SF's own Hammers Of Misfortune, one of the most ambitious, audacious, bodacious, bombastic, maybe even slightly ludicrous bands in the metal realm...and metal this is, through and through, even as it pushes the envelope right over the edge into, I don't know, musical theater... 2003's The August Engine was pretty amazing, as was (our favorite) their year 2000 debut, The Bastard (released by Andee's tUMULt label we should note). The Locust Years has a lot to live up to.
And live it up they do here. Just check out the band photos for evidence of that (funnier if you know these folks). There's a shocking formal portrait on the back cover, everybody dressed up in tuxedos and evening gowns, hair pulled back. And then inside the cd booklet, you see 'em letting their hair down in a glammy, rock n' roll fantasy shot. It's nice to see that they don't take themselves too seriously, that should keep people guessing about this band. Not so pretentious as some might think, joking but no joke.
Quick intro first for those just tuning in/turning on to this band: Hammers is a rock-operatic heavy metal juggernaut with harmonizing lead guitars, pounding Hammond organ (new!), and majestic male and female vocal lines. The band features members of The Lord Weird Slough Feg past and present, and mainman John Cobbett is busy too with his other band black metallers Ludicra (new ep elsewhere on this list) plus he's been playing with the likes of Amber Asylum and even Jarboe of late... As you might imagine from all of this, Hammers is an especially eclectic mix of '70s prog, '80s metal, black metal (without the black metal vocals), classical music, avant-chamber-rock, Mary Poppinsy musical showtuneage, Opethian loud/soft, fast/slow dynamics...
Basically, everything (and more) that already earned mucho plaudits for the Hammers' first two albums is present here: the sweeping melodic grandeur, metallic excitement, complex arrangements, virtuoso playing, intelligent lyrics, many moods, and attention to idiosyncratic detail -- which is evident from the packaging, with its Thomas Woodruff cover painting and aforementioned photography, to the music, for instance the track "War Anthem" that features a whole hired drum line arranged by Hammers drummer Chewy. Or it's actually Chewy multitracking his own one man drum line. Either way, it's pretty darn Tusk!!
And lyrically, while it's not a storytelling narrative like The Bastard, it's somewhat more of a cohesive "concept album" than was August Engine... the concept being, near as we can tell, a very allegorical, cryptic protest against the awful person and policies of our president, George W. Bush!! Or at least that's what we get from lyrics like "Death - death to the infidels / sons of our servants shall serve and serve us well / and gifted with endless war / flags and fanatics forevermore" (from "War Anthem") or, "If people wonder at the suffering you cause / and your massive avarice has left them at a loss / if by chance they notice your bloody, snapping jaws / the blood upon your claws / your shifty eyes and laws / the nauseating flaws in all you've said / trot out the dead" (from "Trot Out The Dead") -- no that's not Satan they're singing about, not exactly. We're pretty sure that makes The Locust Years the world's first POLITICAL epic fantasy prog power metal album!!
Recommended of course.
MPEG Stream: "The Locust Years"
MPEG Stream: "We Are The Widows"
MPEG Stream: "War Anthem"

PENDRO Nocturne Convolute (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
The Fflint Central factories have slowed down a bit lately, having churned out right around 20 releases in the last 5 or 6 years. But even kicking out 3 or 4 releases a year, that's practically nothing compared to the 50 releases a month we get from all the billions of other cd-r labels we deal with, which is maybe part of why we love these guys so much. Fflint more than any other cd-r label, have definitely focused on quality over quantity. Instead of releasing every single jam, every practice, every get-together-fuck-around, these guys actually spend weeks and months working on music, on SONGS. Every single Fflint disc is totally unique, but still immediately recognizably Fflinty, but more importantly, each disc is good. Really good. Fucking great actually. In fact, we can't think of a single Fflint release that didn't immediately and totally kick our asses. And Nocturne Convolute is no different.
Pendro is the work of Tim Jones, one half of the TimJonesBarryWilliams core that IS Fflint Central, and Nocturne Convolute is Pendro number 5 by our count and carries on in Pendro's quest to reach some strange electronic Nirvana. The beats were almost entirely jettisoned a few records back, but resurface now and then here, less as beats per se, as much as muted pulses, or stuttering throbs, but more often the beats are just rhythmic smears in a larger overall soundfield. Ambient is definitely one word that comes to mind, but not cheesy or new age, more a malevolent, very active sort of ambience, sounds churn and roil, multilayered soundscapes of organic electronic minimalism. Drone is another obvious descriptor, but drones are just a small part of the whole. Almost every track here drones in some way, but all in dramatically different ways. Nocturne Convolute is a dizzying journey through some otherworld of sound...
A huge chaotic din, like Sunroof! vs. the Dead C, immediately chopped into bits, so each blast of skree is separated by murky electronic pulses, and thick waves of freight train rumble, blissed out Muslimgauze like jams, all raga like buzz and throbbing Eastern percussion, peppered with all sorts of little glitches and electronic twinkles, cavernous industrial soundscapes, dark ambient whirs beneath chaotic bits of clatter and crunch, all morphed into a swirling smear of sound, wild blasts of outerspace sonic freakout, swooshes and bleeps and bloops, whipped into an absolute frenzy that eventually blurs into a high end drone, slow burning gongs ring and reverberate like ripples in some huge black sea, some damaged jazz squeaks and skronks in a vast expanse of haunting late night murk, buried within a sweetly melancholic melody, beats and loops chopped and sliced and diced and haphazardly reassembled into blasts of digital splatter, and some almost drill and bass, but as with most tracks the beats sort of implode and become bits and pieces of a swirling electronic glitchscape, gorgeous thick whirring drones are assembled from stuttering tones and blurry notes, creepy but so lovely, building in intensity until the drone becomes a crackling lightning storm of clicks and glitches and bzzt and grrt. Harsh and harrowing, but somehow still totally mesmerizing and beautiful.
By the time Nocturne Convolute comes to an end, you feel exhausted, like you've just BEEN somewhere, experienced SOMETHING. This is not easy listening at all, most Fflint stuff requires some work on the listener's part, some deep listening, every play reveals more sounds and more secrets, each listen builds on the one before, and prepares you for the one after. Which is precisely Pendro's (and Fflint Central in general) blessing AND curse. The sounds here are amazing, the music intense and hypnotic, sounds that make your ears hum, the inside of your head ring like a struck bell, but the sounds are are also abstract, difficult, challenging, and maybe too much for the casual listener. But you know what? Fuck the casual listener, this is not casual music, this is music to luxuriate in, to dunk your head in until you run out of breath and start seeing all sorts of strange colors, this is music that gets inside of you, and suffuses all your senses with it's strange glow. This is not background music, this is music that makes everything around it fade into the background. As with all things Fflint, totally and wholeheartedly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Uncertain Flight Cycle"
MPEG Stream: "The Tammuz Tree"
MPEG Stream: "A Cellar Full Of Nightjars"

ISUNGSET, TERJE Igloo (All Ice) cd 19.98
Every year, in a remote part of Sweden, a group or artists and architects build a massive structure out of ice and snow, walls and arches and doorways and windows, a gorgeous glowing edifice that once completed becomes the famed Ice Hotel. A small complex of delicately crafted rooms, a bar, a chapel, every bit of which is made from ice. In some places the ice is extra thin, so light from the outside bursts through warm and brilliant, while elsewhere, the thick walls glow a burnished blue from the filtered sunlight or the soft pale moonlight. The beds are blocks of ice covered with animal pelts and arctic sleeping bags. The bar is ice, the glasses also ice, the only libations served are hard alcohol (vodka, etc.) due to the fact that they won't freeze. A totally amazing and overwhelming bit of adventurous lodging as well as being a piece of gorgeous conceptual art. In fact Andee and Heather had planned to have their wedding at the Ice Hotel, until both sides of the family refused, citing the idea of sleeping in a below zero room on a block of ice as a definite deal breaker.
Well, it gets even better: at the same time as the hotel is being planned and constructed, several of the same planners and ice artists are also designing and building musical instruments made entirely out of ice. Percussion, harps, and horns, all made from frozen water and little else. The sounds are muted and soft, strange and organic, haunting but imbued with a strange warmth totally unlike the cold and clinical sounds you might expect. All deftly intertwined with human voices, soft coos and trills, hushed and whispery, sounding not unlike a ghostlike gathering of disembodied, deconstructed Bjorks.
On Igloo, Isungset and and an assortment of performers, coax all manner of sounds from a strange phalanx of icy sound makers, ice harp, ice percussion, ice bass drum (!), iceofon, icehorn, all soft focused and dreamlike, all recorded live in the frosty interior of an igloo like ice-recording studio. From the icy scrape and shuffle of melted ice, to the deep resonant tones of the various frozen percussion instruments, sounding like vibes or chimes, sometimes even gongs, the overtones drifting and slowly fading. Dark dolorous melodies, warm and subdued, but impossibly resonant. After all, these are just chunks of ice! But obviously crafted with such care and precision to render them capable of making rich sonorous sound. Like some giant frosty thumb piano, a warm tumble of ghostlike notes, beneath the flittering flute-like sound of the icehorn, soft, delicate reedy melodies that sometimes morph into thick wheezes before dissipating back into gentle flutter. Beneath it all, thick and cavernous rumbles and whirs, deep and dense, layered with sonic subtleties, rich with tonal color, as if played on some giant cello made from ice (which we think is not far from the truth actually). Also present are a wide array of unobtrusive sonic events in and around each track, a tiny army of icicle percussion, clinking and clattering, chittering and scrabbling, a delicate crystalline backdrop for the warm wash and warble of the main ice instruments. And finally the vocals -- on first listen, at low volume, we almost didn't realize there were vocals at all, they tend toward the extremely abstract, strange little vocalizations as much about texture and timbre as tone and pitch, the sound perfectly blending into the icy landscape around them. Hints of Sigur Ros, Joan La Barbara, Sainkho Namchylak, but each voice unmoored, loosed from any sort of corporeal existence, left to flit and flicker ghostlike, almost like tiny droplets of water dripping delicately onto the already frozen landscape, allowed to seep into each and every melody, freezing into new and wonderful shapes.
At its most percussive, the music on Igloo sounds a bit like that breed of underground minimal free folk, sort of minimal and tribal, dreamy and slightly clattery, Finnish free folk ensembles Avarus and Anaksimandros definitely come to mind, while the strange underwater thumb piano sound reminds us of a much more minimal and abstract Konono No.1. For the most part though, Igloo is a dark dreamy drift, soft and meditative, warm and warbly, shimmering and sparkling and completely captivating.
And, it's mastered by AQ fave dronelord Deathprod!
Igloo also boasts some of the most amazing packaging we have ever seen. The booklet and tray card are semi-transparent vellum, printed images of ice in gorgeous deep blues, the whole thing wrapped in a thick slip cover made from a thick foggy semi transparent textured plastic, the front with strips cut out like icicles, the edge cut away to reveal the cd's spine, which is filled with water, with tiny bubbles drifting back and forth, and yes, we mean ACTUAL water, in a little custom made vial, so perfect it does indeed look like the cd tray is full of water, just waiting to be frozen and played! WOW!
MPEG Stream: "Igloo"
MPEG Stream: "Song"
MPEG Stream: "Morning"
MPEG Stream: "Floating"

SPACE NEEDLE Recordings 1994-97 (Eenie Meenie) cd 14.98
Space Needle were a strange bunch. Part of the mid-nineties indie rock scene, but only barely, something about them was just a little too weird, a complicated mix of pretty and creepy, a sonic world not immediately recognizable to the average Pavement fan or Yo La Tengo booster. Their sound was based not on guitar jangle but on strange rhythms and thick swaths of synthesizer. Probably had a lot to do with the fact that SN mainman Jud Ehrbar was a drummer. Vocals were appropriately indie sad boy style, from monotone Pavementy croon to reedy straining-to-hit-the-high-notes near falsetto, but they were dropped into totally alien landscapes. Those distinct vocals moped and dragged their feet amidst strange militaristic drum jams, thick washes of layered organs, serpentine low end synthbasslines, slithering and twisting chaotically beneath thick wheezing organ whir, strangely detuned guitars, strummed into hypnotic jangly jams over ultra simple motorik drumming, all the while, the vocals pushed WAY up in the mix, sort of languorous and deadpan, not so much drifting as sort of lazily shuffling. The melody almost entirely carried by the vocals (with occasional assistance from the synthesizer). The sound was definitely skeletal, often just vocals and drums, sometimes a simple throbbing bass line, but most of the tracks build to a massive climax, with guitars building into huge fuzzy drones, the synth lines getting more and more distorted, both swirling into thick squalls of blown out psychedelia.
At their heaviest, Space Needle almost sound like Loop or Spacemen 3, simple riffs repeated over and over, building a super hypnotic groove, while over the top, guitars and synths wrestle in a thick cloud of buzz and fuzz. But the rest of the time, they really sounded like no one else. Some tracks are just random sonic experiments, super washed out guitars or ultra distorted synths, locked into super hot, crumbling in-the-red, looped dirges. But the heart of Space Needle's sound was a hauntingly alien, lilting loping abstract indie rock, melancholy and super laid back, but also dark and slightly ominous. Phrases repeated over and over mantra like, the vocals almost sounding choral at moments, each track unfurling and taking its own sweet time as it ambles toward its inevitable end. A sonic allegory for the sadness and loss suffusing SN's whole sound.
This collection, gathers the best bits from Space Needle's two albums, and tacks on two live tracks, the best being a 15 minute long psych jam entitled "Where The Fucks My Wallet?", a live set staple that starts off all gentle guitar and builds into a wild sprawl of angular guitars and chaotic instrumental freakout, even a sort-of drum solo.
We sort of forgot how much we dug this band, but hearing these tracks again, man, they sound so fresh, and so fucking amazing, they've really held up well, unlike LOTS of their indie contemporaries. These tracks could just as easily be from some current experimental fucked up abstract noisepop cd-r band as a forgotten nineties indie rock outfit. Definitely enough jangle and sweet and sour melody to hit the spot for all you Blonde Redhead / Modest Mouse / Black Heart Procession / Yo La Tengo / Silver Jews indie rockers of today, but certainly fucked up enough to appeal to all you lovers of free noise and art rock weirdness as well, plus this is just the sort of record to give all those indierockphobes out there something to think about.
Includes liner notes, new artwork, and blurbs from the band about the recording of each track.
MPEG Stream: "Eyes To The World"
MPEG Stream: ""Dreams""
MPEG Stream: "Before I Lose My Style"

WOLOK Servum Pecus (Eerie Art) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've become a bit obsessed with French black metal. Who can blame us? France has been producing an inordinate number of furiously fucked up grim black metal outfits. Just off the top of our heads, Deathspell Omega, Spektr, Blut Aus Nord, Seth, Mutiilation, S.V.E.S.T., Eikenskaden, Ad Hominem, Glorior Belli, Arkhon Infaustus, but a quick look at Encyclopedia Metallium online shows almost 2,000 black metal hordes lurking throughout the French countryside.
And now we add to the list Wolok. Who follow in the damned and demented footsteps of their countrymen in Spektr and Blut Aus Nord, by taking a grim black metal buzz and turning it inside out, bending and distorting and tearing it apart only to put the pieces back together again, adding all sorts of non metal weirdness to come up with a truly twisted piece of black art.
The core of Wolok's sound is indeed a grim and harsh buzzing blackness. But that grimness is surrounded by a dizzying swirl of damaged drones, serene passages of dark ambience, strange choral hymns, chopped up and reassembled into stuttering vocal landscapes, everything drenched in all sorts of alien FX. But this is not just some buzzing black metal record with 'trippy' sound effects, no every single part that makes up the actual songs, is equally damaged and diseased, riffs twist and tangle, slippery and impossibly convoluted. Almost like black metal played on a slide guitar, strange notes float from within dark clouds of metallic blackness, over the top a glistening shimmer of sparkling electronics and jagged shards of feedback screech, a noisy, psychedelic sheen laid over the grim blackness below. Some riffs splinter into strange dirgey chugs, creeping doomscapes of downtuned crunch and haunting found sounds, deep drones swirl around processed vocals and mournful guitar figures. Some strange mix of Abruptum, Burzum and Blut Aus Nord, a murky, lo-fi buzzscape, peppered with cinematic ambience and caustic white noise fuzz, while buried in the mix, blurry blasting drum freakouts, and a motley collection of vocals and voices, screeching demons, gurgling monsters, rumbling spoken word, ultra distorted growls, all just more blurry swirl to mix into Wolok's chaotic black blast. Definitely a new favorite far out black metal around here.
And if the music wasn't enough, the Wolok manifesto let's you know what you're in for, in no uncertain terms:
"Wolok appeared in 2003 to unveil the truth about existence.
Wolok exclusively spreads hate and scorn towards human filth.
Wolok supports your depression and despair.
Wolok mocks your miserable way of living.
Wolok appreciates the smell of your putrefying carrion.
Wolok urges putrid scum to self-destruction.
Wolok is absurd.
Wolok never existed and will never exist.
Wolok deals with musical vermin.
Wolok is as futile as the sum of 6 billion lives.
Wolok wants you dead."
LIMITED TO 541 COPIES. Killer creepy artwork too!
MPEG Stream: "Memento Finis"
MPEG Stream: "Apex Of Mockery"

AN ALBATROSS Blessphemy (Of The Peace-Beast Feastgiver And The Bear Warp Kumite) (Ace Fu) cd 14.98
The Pitchfork blurb on the sticker proclaims this record to be "the trippiest record in the history of the world". While that might be a wee bit of an exaggeration, this most certainly is one of the weirdest wildest psychedelic spazz prog grind pop records EVER (C'mon, Pitchfork, at least when we spew some ridiculous hyperbole, it's absolutely true!! Haha)!! Not that there have been a whole lot of psychedelic spazz prog grind pop records, but there's a reason for that. This shit is NUTS. So freaked out and dense and complex and hard to pull of. Anyone can crank their keyboards and channel an inferior version of the Locust, but An Albatross seem to have some real link to classic prog, although it's filtered through some impossibly skewed, cracked and demented postpunk, grindcore sensibility. 18 songs, 26 minutes. One's even a three part epic clocking in at a whopping 4 minutes. Keyboards wiggle and slither, whipping wildly like a garden hose turned on full blast and let loose to swing like a mad cobra dosed with angel dust, striking at everyone within reach, drums are spastic, and hyperkinetic, like BB's fired from a cannon, a dizzying splatter, guitars grind and churn, melodic one second, harsh and screeching the next. ALl of these elements tangled up into hyper complex, ultra obtuse knots of super complicated, multi part mini grindprog epics, stop / starts, blazing bursts of hyper blast, brief stretches of serene acoustic dreaminess, warm washes of thick synth whir, blissed out drones and crunchy bouncy blasts of new wave, even some horns find their way into the chaos. Above it all, the vocalist screeches and growls, diving and twisting and turning, dodging and ducking, offering shrieked unintelligible platitudes tucked between jagged shards of post punk stutter and epic convoluted prog. This is like a spazzy, grindy, confusional 21st century Magma, mixed up with bits of Locusts and Lightning Bolts maybe, but with a truly unique sound, due perhaps to their prog rock heart of gold. One of our favorite new records. Furious and freaked out, fast and fucked up but still so goddamn catchy and listenable. And so so so great!!!
MPEG Stream: "In The Court Of The Bear King"
MPEG Stream: "Lysergically Yours, My Psychedelic Bride"
MPEG Stream: "Dimensional Gymnastics"
MPEG Stream: "Trust The Sun, The Symphonic Sunrise"

JAZZFINGER Winter's Shadow Between Two Worlds (Curor) cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally another sonic transmission from the mysterious and elusive Jazzfinger. The last we heard from these murky noisesmiths was a VERY expensive, super limited, gorgeously deluxe cd-r way back in 2004, and we, like you were absolutely smitten. We had long been fans, but that was the first release we were able to get enough copies of to reviews. Low profile or not, here was a band who had been lurking on the fringes of the underground, crafting their own dark and wondrous ambient drones and mumbled freerock explorations and who we wanted, nay NEEDED to hear more from. And is if in response to our prayers, what should suddenly appear? A brand new full length from this UK ensemble. And for those of you put off by the almost $30 price tag of their last release, or those of you who just missed out since it was so limited, well here's your chance to dive in.
Sonic brethren to folks like Sunroof! and Vibracathedral Orchestra, and often sharing a similar penchant for the ur-drone and various mighty swells of sound, Jazzfinger have managed to in fact carve their own, darker, more minimal path. Almost like a rock band covering Coleclough or Chalk. Jazzfinger are not so much ones for huge squalls of guitar or woodwinds, instead these guys creep and crawl, a low rumbling exploration of dark corners and shadowy otherworlds, of dusty forgotten trunks filled with old objects, abandoned buildings overgrown with foliage, and wide expanses of barren terrain, colored only by moonlight and the slow whirring drift of their gauzy sonic fog. Strings buzz and shimmer, long form drones stretch way out, while underneath subtle sounds shift and swell, percussion is minimal, a softly struck bell here, a brief clatter of tiny pipes there, only adding color, not rhythm. Melodies drift forth like distant foghorns barely audible through the clouds of a dark and stormy night, guitars are plucked, and strummed, but not to fashion riffs, more to unleash a series of reverberating waves, that build and build, layer upon layer, a thick, head spinning monochrome crawl, organs wheeze out delicate melodies over the omnipresent buzzing steel strings, creating a soft music box like raga, the sound here is definitely dark, and ominous, but suffused with warmth, and life, a subtle glow, an inner light that makes each stretch of slow shifting ambience feel alive and dense with emotion. A totally breathtaking journey through a mysterious universe of dark buzz and warm shimmer.
Super limited and so totally essential.
MPEG Stream: "Rabbit Wolf Reflection"
MPEG Stream: "Roman Tide"
MPEG Stream: "Chair"

NASH, GRAHAM Wild Tales (Atlantic) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We listed the Graham Nash record Songs For Beginners a few weeks back, having only just heard it for the first time recently. Not soon after we decided to check out this one as well and were just as blown away. Our introduction to Graham Nash came not via Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but by the soundtrack to Rob Zombie's Devil's Rejects movie. You can read all about it in our review of Nash's Songs For Beginners record elsewhere on the AQ site. But in a nutshell, no, Graham Nash wasn't on the soundtrack, but Terry Reid was, and the three Terry Reid tracks on the soundtrack were taken from his best record, Seed Of Memory. And while all the Terry Reid records rule, Seed Of Memory is the most beautiful, the most country, the most haunting, due in no small part to Graham Nash's arrangement and production work, which, along with a recommendation from AQ pal Shayde, was enough to get us to check out some Nash records. Those in the know, tell us that Songs For Beginners and this one, Wild Tales are his best, and are both essential, and we'd have to agree.
Don't be expecting any far out weirdness. Nope this is just gorgeous, dreamy, sunny, singer songwriter soft rock, but with a definite dark, minor key and melancholy dreaminess running through it.
If you're familiar with the Devil's Rejects soundtrack, and for chrissakes you should be, any of these songs would have fit on there perfectly alongside tracks by the Allman Brothers, Terry Reid, the James Gang, Elvin Bishop, Joe Walsh and Lynrd Skynyrd. Perfect seventies FM radio rock, you can just imagine sitting in the backseat, on the way to Death Valley or the Grand Canyon with your folks, watching the desert fly by outside, just sort of daydreaming and drifting off. Sun dappled and windblown and sweetly fuzzy and totally evocative of lost childhood. Each song somehow carries the listener off to a world of starry skies, grassy fields, dusty roads, broken down cars, slow moving trains, long highways, all conveyed through a deft arrangement of soft jangling riffs, slippery lap steel, tinkling piano, Dylan-esque harmonica, totally dreamy harmonies, plenty of twang, but some serious rocking mixed in there too. The Eagles obviously comes to mind (as Nash's voice is often a dead ringer for Joe Walsh), as does Elton John, but it IS weird and dark enough to make us think of more esoteric folk troubadours as well.
But the bottom line is this is just a perfect pop record. The songs are totally catchy, sweetly melancholy, they sort of lope and drift, occasionally rocking out, but for the most part, Wild Tales is hot summer day, back porch, radio playing through the open window music. Or music for driving aimlessly along rainslicked streets, the radio on low, the streetlights casting strange shadows, driving all night, no particular place to go. There is a definite sadness about all of these songs, even when they're wrapped in the sunniest of pop. And a lot of it has to do with the idea of this as 'radio' music. Reminiscent of a time where the radio was where we went to hear new music, to be emotionally moved, to rock out, to listen to while parked and making out, to feel sad about a breakup or get pumped for a rock show, and because most of us experienced most of our radio listening in a car, the music seems to have evolved into a sound that inherently evokes feelings of displacement, travel, wandering and being lost as much as it does a loose and free rock and roll world of hooks and drums and guitars. The perfect soundtrack to any sort of journey, physical or metaphorical. Which is what makes Wild Tales so appealing. A musical look back, that sounds as fresh coming out of this computer, or your stereo at home as it did blasting out of the radio with the blown speakers in that crappy old car you got when you turned sixteen, just you and your friends driving around, windows down without a care in the world, thinking that there is no place in the world you'd rather be than right there. Nothing you'd rather be listening to. Than this.
MPEG Stream: "Wild Tales"
MPEG Stream: "Hey You (Looking At The Moon)"
MPEG Stream: "Grave Concern"

SORIAH Chao Organica In A Minor (Beta-Lactam Ring) cd 14.98
The processes of the mysterious composer / sound sculptor Soriah are almost as interesting as the strange and otherworldly music he creates. The live performance, the setting, is often a spiritual complement to the composition itself, taking place in haunted tunnels, in treetops, in the deserts, in churches, all adding to the mysterious ceremonial aspect of each piece, as do the extensive costumes, head-dresses, totems, tribal garments, all combined with Soriah's background in Butoh, Yoga and other ritualistic practices, lend his music a timeless and mysterious air. A dark pagan dance of drones and dark ambience.
After numerous, super limited, self published and hand made art editions, this is Soriah's first proper release, and it's totally breathtaking. Two lengthy pieces, for vocals, pipe organ and effects, Soriah conjures up a haunting sonic otherworld, drifting, dreamy, menacing and malefic, a rumbling, whirring
dark ambient dronescape, thick with the natural timbre of the wheezing pipe organ, and dense with subtle overtones from the various vocals. A deft mash up of ancient classical musicks and modern experimental drone based minimalism, a heady blend of Messiaen, Mirror, Coleclough, Dead Can Dance, Jacula, Niblock, and Eastern ragas. A dusty old pipe organ, built in 1881, lays the groundwork, a rich, thick, multilayered bed, subtle overtones, rich swirling drones, notes and melodies shimmer and beat against each other, creating strange movements, a thick wash of chordal whir that pulses and breathes like it was alive.
The organ is intertwined with various vocals, sometimes crooning, alien and operatic, but more often an impossibly low-end rumble, a dense and deep Tuvan style throat singing, buzzing and multilayered, more like some strange long stringed instrument than a human voice. Crumbling and corrosive, but at the same time soothing and ethereal. The vocals drifting through various effects, become smears and stretches that blend and blur into the overall droneworld.
Definitely one of the darkest and dreamiest drone records in recent memory, and all the more compelling in that this is not just a simple tone or set of tones, slowly shifting, know this is a rich and vibrant live ritual, you can feel the organ vibrate, the vocals curl around you like some ripe exotic smoke, this music is alive, soft and inviting, but dangerous and dreamlike. A bit like SUNNO))) armed only with church organs, and accompanied by Huun-Huur-Tu, a massive physical drone, a huge deliriously suffocating wall of rumble, like laying at the bottom of a pit, eyes closed, and being buried alive by soft sound. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Exordium"
MPEG Stream: "Soliloquy And Epilogue"

LONSAI MAIKOV VS DISSONAANT ELEPHANT Thee Darkening Ov Powers (Old Europa Cafe) cd 14.98

AESTHETIC MEAT FRONT Embalmer Tapes (Dissected) (Old Europa Cafe) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As you probably well know by now, we here at AQ have long been fans of manipulated found sounds and field recordings -- dogs barking, ice melting, whatever -- either on their own, captured just as they were heard, or better yet, twisted and smeared into drones and soundscapes, reimagined as completely alien worlds of sound. And while the source material may not be obvious, just knowing where the sounds come from, can make the listening just that much more thrilling. And the creepier and more unlikely the source sound the better. And it sure doesn't get any creepier than this. Sure Matmos used the sounds of rhinoplasty and various other procedures to concoct their abstract electronica, but Aesthetic Meat Front used only the sounds of a corpse being embalmed for Embalmer Tapes. Every single sound, whether it's the casual whistling of the embalmer, the slow rumble of processed suction sounds or the clang of metal instruments dropped in bloody metal trays, each and every sound was captured deep in the sublevels of a funeral home, while an embalmer removed all the fluids from a corpse. Euuuw. But sonically, WOW!
Sometimes the sounds are instantly recognizable, the above mentioned whistling and clatter of surgical instruments, snippets of conversation heavy with the reverb of a small tiled room, small motorized pumps, footsteps, but more often, the sounds of suction, and the sounds of the machines pumping, are stretched out into warm whirring rumbles, or chopped up and reassembled into hissing blasts of fuzz and grrr. But mostly this is a weird warped world of drones, from dreamy and shimmery, to harsh and jagged, all imbued with the specter of mortality, life most fleeting, the great abyss, the sounds already sonically ominous and foreboding enough, but even more so on a psychological level, knowing the source of every sound, engendering a creepy dark ambient atmosphere thick with the heavy hanging shroud of death. So awesome.
SUPER LIMITED!!! WE GOT THE LAST 20 COPIES. ONCE THESE ARE GONE THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD!
MPEG Stream: "Post Mortem Sludge"
MPEG Stream: "Sectional Injection (Is Necessary)"

LVNVS 1993-1996 (Old Europa Cafe) cd-r 12.98

DAZZLING KILLMEN Face of Collapse (Skin Graft) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Staring Contest"
MPEG Stream: "Bone Fragments"
MPEG Stream: "In The Face Of Collapse"

DISSECTION Storm Of The Light's Bane (The End) 2cd 13.98
Long overdue, super deluxe double disc reissue of this long-time Aquarius favorite / black metal classic. After a not-so-great past few years for Dissection, including a lengthy jail sentence for frontman Jon Nodtveidt, and a recent disappointing 'comeback/reunion' record (not yet reviewed here), this black classic returns to remind us just how mindblowingly kick ass Dissection really were. And while of course this is a fave of all the metalheads around here, and our metal-lovin' customers, it's also loved by the less metal inclined -- for instance, former AQ staffer Byram, not normally a big metal consumer, ranks this as one of his favorites amongst the Nordic hordes. In fact, it's one of the few metal cds in his collection. It's that great. It came out originally in '94, reissued as a digipak a few years back, and now sees a super duper double disc re-release with a whole disc of bonus tracks (more on those later).
With Storm of the Light's Bane, Dissection perfected their melodic, blackened Swedish death metal approach -- that means TRUE, original metal, with elements of everything from Morbid Angel to Mayhem to Iron Maiden, suped-up and super-grim, with raspy vocals, wicked drumming (the guy is AMAZING), truly memorable, majestic melodies, and tons of cold winter atmosphere. They take long breaks to let their acoustic guitars gently weep, then tear back into the brutal, razor-edged rifferama. Serious stuff, seriously great. This was to be their last album, a mighty swan song, as Dissection called it quits soon after when their frontman ended up in jail as accessory to murder -- but their -very- tangential role in any of that over-sensationalized Scandinavian black metal true crime stuff has nothing to do with why you should be interested in this band. Like we said, the band reformed last year when Nodtveidt got out of jail, and just recently released a mediocre new record, but it couldn't hold a candle to Storm Of The Light's Bane, nor could most metal records actually. Dissection was a brilliant band, and Storm of the Light's Bane is an all time classic that belongs in every metal collection. If you haven't already gotten this album, here's your chance. And even if you already have one of the previous versions, the extra disc might make it a necessary repeat purchase.
The second disc is crammed with bonus tracks and unreleased material. First up, the Storm Of The Light's Bane unreleased alternative mix '95, which might have been for completist nerds only, but a closer look reveals an extra track not on the album proper. Then there's two tracks from an unreleased 1994 demo. And finally the Where Dead Angels Lie ep, also remastered. Lots of liner notes and packaged in a spiffy slipcover. SO RECOMMENDED!
MPEG Stream: "Night's Blood"
MPEG Stream: "Where Dead Angels Lie"
MPEG Stream: "Soulreaper"

DISSECTION The Somberlain (The End) 2cd 12.98
Long overdue, super deluxe double disc reissue of another long-time Aquarius favorite, the debut from Sweden's black/death metallers Dissection. While not as much of a stone cold classic as their Storm Of The Light's Bane album, this is still a totally kick ass, ultra essential slab of classic Swedish death metal. After a not-so-great past few years for Dissection, including a lengthy jail sentence for frontman Jon Nodtveidt, and a recent disappointing 'comeback/reunion' record, this black classic (along with the godlike Storm Of The Light's Bane) returns to remind us just how mindblowingly kick ass Dissection really were once upon a time. This came out originally in '93, was reissued as a digipak a few years back, and now sees a super duper double disc re-release with a whole disc of bonus tracks (more on those later).
This reissue of Dissection's debut long-player, recorded in 1993 at Dan Swano's studio definitely sets the template that the band would perfect with their second and arguably best record Storm Of The Light's Bane, but on its own is a gorgeously black, slightly rougher and rawer version of Dissection's soon to be classic sound. Epic and melodic, with majestic riffs and folky acoustic interludes, but also quite fast, heavy and brutal. Here Dissection established their "blackened" style of Swedish Melodic Death Metal, a sound that would be copied by many a band, but few would be able to come close to Dissection's black blazing fury. Storm Of The Light's Bane might be the one to get first, but both are essential for sure!
The bonus disc is jam packed with extra goodies: unreleased live recordings from 1995, the Into Infinite Obscurity 7", a 1992 demo, the Grief Prophecy demo from 1990, a rehearsal from 1990, and Satanized rehearsal also from 1990. All tracks remastered from the original mixes. Lots of liner notes and packaged in a spiffy slipcover.
MPEG Stream: "Black Horizons"
MPEG Stream: "The Somberlain"

STRIBORG Embittered Darkness / Isle De Morts (Southern Lord) cd 14.98
Lovers of damaged demented bizarre baffling freaked out and fucked up black metal rejoice!! We couldn't be more excited if there was a brand new Benighted Leams record. FINALLY, we're able to review and list a record from one of our all time favorite outsider one man black metal bands, Striborg. Most folks have probably never actually heard Striborg, even though this will mark release #15 or thereabouts. But it wasn't for lack of trying on our part. We have been completely obsessed with Striborg since we first heard him a few years back and have been trying to get enough copies of ANY of his releases to list. Everytime we found someone who carried Striborg records, we would order 30 or 40 or 50, and would get 1 or 2. Or more likely none. We even resorted to writing letters to the band (he apparently lives in a shack in the woods with no phone and no computer!) And while most folks have never -heard- Striborg, you've probably at least heard OF him. Whether it was in an aQuarius review, we've referenced Striborg as the ultimate outsider black metal band in reviews of records by black metal weirdos Dead Reptile Shrine, Lugubrum, Draugar, Detsorgsekalf, Hidden and more, or on the recent black metallized SUNNO))) record Black One, which even had a track named for the dark mastermind behind Striborg Sin-Nanna.
But what is it exactly about Striborg that has everyone freaking out?
Five words for you: Tasmanian rain forest black metal! And it's just as grim and weird and as amazing as that might lead you to believe. We have Southern Lord to thank for this, the first readily available Striborg release, which continues his tradition of combining multiple releases on single cds, this one includes the brand new 2006 recording. Embittered Darkness, as well as the super rare Isle De Morts release recorded almost a decade ago, way back in 1997.
So what exactly does Tasmanian rain forest black metal sound like? Definitely grim, and lo-fi, ultra personal, demented and damaged, Benighted Leams, Abruptum, Dead Reptile Shrine, Necrofrost, Emit, Furze, Urfaust and all the rest of the baffling black metal hierarchy should give you a rough idea, but Striborg, is even further out, way more fucked up, more strangely psychedelic and freaked out, a doomy drone drenched black buzz, a growling fuzzy missive from the depths of some dark netherworld.
Haunting washes of gauzy synthesizer, mournful minor key acoustic guitars, dreary overcast swaths of depressive melancholia, and you think other black metal bands are buzzy?! Striborg take that black buzz and whip it into a furious freaked out frenzy, a guitar buzz like a million bumble bees, but sped WAY up, a prickly, fuzzy swirl, even at it's most doomy and plodding, Striborg drenches everything in that overblown buzz, a thick sandpapery ambience, that is the metal equivalent of walking through the pouring rain, under a full moon, through a graveyard at the edge of the world. Sin-Nanna growls and gurgles his obtuse black ravings in an impossibly creepy animalistic voice, somewhere between a rabid dog, a tiny demon, and a wicked old witch, often everything will drop out and all that will be left is a buzzing tangle of hissing harsh vocal and fuzzed out black riffing. Buried in the murk and mire are weird, rehearsal space drums, really flat and dry sounding, erupting in spastic and chaotic burts, not just blast beats, but instead bizarre blasts of percussive tangle amidst stretches of almost punk rock drumming, although most of Embittered Darkness is spent at a crawl, a buzzing midtempo dirge, as doomy as it is black, if not more so. Imagine an ultra lo-fi doom metal Xasthur, slow motion misery dotted with occasional barrages of black metal buzz and once in a while surges of slithering black ambience.
So totally creepy and beautiful, fucked up and gorgeous, a massive soul crushing slab of doom drenched black metal brilliance.
Isle De Morts, from 1997, is a lot more traditional, and a lot faster, almost every track a frenetic and frenzied burst of blackened and buzzing brutality, lo-fi but completely blown out and in the red, channeling Transylvanian Hunger era Darkthrone, but filtered through Striborg's cracked sonic kaleidoscope, rendering what might have been just some classic Norwegian BM worship, as a creepy and cracked world of ultrabuzz and overblown acidfried blackness, blast beats so fast they sound like radio static, guitars so buzzy and blurry they turn into thick washes of crumbling prickly sound, and croaking toadlike vocals so high in the mix it sounds like the band is in a different room. So gloriously fucked up and freaked out. One listen is all it takes to see why Striborg towers above all his bizarre black metal contemporaries, ruling the doomed and damaged kingdom of ultrapersonal black metal dementia with an iron fist, a busted 4-track and a growing legion of buzz hungry minions!
MPEG Stream: "Wrapped In A Cacoon Out Of Harm's Way"
MPEG Stream: "Race Of Apathy"
MPEG Stream: "Through The Veils Of Darkness"
MPEG Stream: "Descending From A Black Sky"

PRIESTESS Hello Master (RCA) cd 13.98
I can tell you this about Priestess: they're one kick ass live rock n' roll band. I saw 'em on a bill not long ago with heavy metal revivalists The Sword -and- Early Man (both of those bands hotly tipped, and by us too!), and y'know what? Priestess simply DESTROYED both The Sword and Early Man, good as they were. Priestess were just the better live performers, working the crowd and wowing with musicianship and showmanship both. They had rock star swagger, and the skills to back it up -- guitar pyrotechnics, harmony vocals, and some darn catchy real riffy rock n' roll songs. Oh yeah, and a really frickin' good drummer, whose non-sucky *drum solo* definitely put Priestess over the top (in more ways than one) in competition with their tourmates that night.
I'd never heard of 'em before and was pretty darn impressed. Turns out they were from Montreal, and had an album out in Canada, not yet out in the States... well it's here now, this is it. I bought the Canadian version at the show, and didn't even listen to it for a long time 'cause I figured that they couldn't really live up to that live experience. And it's true to some extent, the album doesn't blow away Early Man's album, for instance, the way they did to the band in person. But it's definitely a good, honest-to-God hard rock album that you'd want to blare loudly from your (hypothetical, in all likelihood) Camaro as you put the pedal to the metal.
And having said that, get this: it's non-ironic too, near as we can tell, which also might explain why they had the advantage over those other two bands at that show (and by the way, it wasn't just that show, I saw 'em again opening for Dinosaur Jr. and Comets On Fire, and they were pretty good too, though suffering from the usual opener's lack of energetic crowd response, specifically due to the lack of a crowd at that early hour). Now how can a band like this be non-ironic, you ask? A band so partial to the cowbell, and clearly with visions of stadium-sized showmanship already hard-wired into their songwriting? Maybe 'cause they're Canadian? For whatever reason, their punchy and emotional three-minute pop hard rockin' songs are presented with more authentic feeling (to these ears) than, say, obvious comparison Wolfmother does it.
More about their sound: despite their name (which, unfortunately, conjures the image of an all-female Judas Priest cover band, doesn't it?) they're far from being an '80s retro metal band. More bluesy '70s, and less metal than that. The stoner/grunge thing is closer to the mark. Yeah, a bit White Stripesy at times like Wolfmother, also all AC/DC and QOTSA at others. Can't wait to see 'em again! In the meantime, we'll be spinning this...
MPEG Stream: "Lay Down"
MPEG Stream: "Time Will Cut You Down"
MPEG Stream: "Everything That You Are"

PRIESTESS Hello Master (Ace Fu) lp 11.98
NOW ON VINYL!
I can tell you this about Priestess: they're one kick ass live rock n' roll band. I saw 'em on a bill not long ago with heavy metal revivalists The Sword -and- Early Man (both of those bands hotly tipped, and by us too!), and y'know what? Priestess simply DESTROYED both The Sword and Early Man, good as they were. Priestess were just the better live performers, working the crowd and wowing with musicianship and showmanship both. They had rock star swagger, and the skills to back it up -- guitar pyrotechnics, harmony vocals, and some darn catchy real riffy rock n' roll songs. Oh yeah, and a really frickin' good drummer, whose non-sucky *drum solo* definitely put Priestess over the top (in more ways than one) in competition with their tourmates that night.
I'd never heard of 'em before and was pretty darn impressed. Turns out they were from Montreal, and had an album out in Canada, not yet out in the States... well it's here now, this is it. I bought the Canadian version at the show, and didn't even listen to it for a long time 'cause I figured that they couldn't really live up to that live experience. And it's true to some extent, the album doesn't blow away Early Man's album, for instance, the way they did to the band in person. But it's definitely a good, honest-to-God hard rock album that you'd want to blare loudly from your (hypothetical, in all likelihood) Camaro as you put the pedal to the metal.
And having said that, get this: it's non-ironic too, near as we can tell, which also might explain why they had the advantage over those other two bands at that show (and by the way, it wasn't just that show, I saw 'em again opening for Dinosaur Jr. and Comets On Fire, and they were pretty good too, though suffering from the usual opener's lack of energetic crowd response, specifically due to the lack of a crowd at that early hour). Now how can a band like this be non-ironic, you ask? A band so partial to the cowbell, and clearly with visions of stadium-sized showmanship already hard-wired into their songwriting? Maybe 'cause they're Canadian? For whatever reason, their punchy and emotional three-minute pop hard rockin' songs are presented with more authentic feeling (to these ears) than, say, obvious comparison Wolfmother does it.
More about their sound: despite their name (which, unfortunately, conjures the image of an all-female Judas Priest cover band, doesn't it?) they're far from being an '80s retro metal band. More bluesy '70s, and less metal than that. The stoner/grunge thing is closer to the mark. Yeah, a bit White Stripesy at times like Wolfmother, also all AC/DC and QOTSA at others. Can't wait to see 'em again! In the meantime, we'll be spinning this...
MPEG Stream: "Lay Down"
MPEG Stream: "Time Will Cut You Down"
MPEG Stream: "Everything That You Are"

ELECTRIC WIZARD Come My Fanatics (Rise Above) cd 13.98
Originally released as a double cd, teamed up with 1995's self titled debut, Electric Wizard's Come My Fanatics, originally released in 1997, gets its own digipak release, re-issued with expanded artwork, new liner notes, tons of photos, and most importantly two bonus tracks, "Demon Lung" and "Return To The Son Of Nothingness"!!! Here's what we had to say when this first came out (it's the same review for both self titled and Come My Fanatics, since they were paired together the first time we heard them and they still sound like parts one and two of the same record, which is a most definitely a good thing!) :
With a sickly sweet haze baked around half formed thoughts of science fictions and demonic mythologies, Electric Wizard's stoner metal has just enough intellect to roll out the gargantuan post-Sabbath riffs and burnt-out grooves. Dude. This shit is absolutely essential listening for the next time you decide to fire up that bong. (Or not, seeing as how Andee and Allan definitely seem to enjoy this quite a bit and neither have ever "fired up" a "bong" in their lives, "dude". Well, okay, Allan did smoke a joint once but he didn't "inhale"...very much at all.) Especially suitable for all fans of Sleep's immense Jerusalem opus and those AQ-record-of-the-week-winning Esoteric double cds!! Electric Wizard are in fact notorious rivals of Esoteric, as they compete for England's throne of ultimate heaviness. Anyone who's heard Electric Wizard's Supercoven ep (Andee's favorite EW joint for sure!) will know what they're in for: the ultimate bellbottoms doom trip, a Lovecraftian space sludge psych jam that'll do your head in right.
MPEG Stream: "Return Trip"
MPEG Stream: "Wizard In Black"

ELECTRIC WIZARD Dopethrone (Rise Above) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Originally released way back in 2000, now re-issued with expanded artwork, new liner notes, tons of photos, and most importantly a 15 minute bonus track!!! Here's what we were smoking when we first got this in way back when:
These British lads have the distinction of being, as far as we know, the first *metal* band ever reviewed in the hallowed pages of popular cutting-edge new music magazine The Wire. But if that makes you expect that the album in question, "Dopethrone" is some sort of pretentious electronica-leaning, intellectual-metallic curiosity worthy of much beard-stroking, you'd better think again! Take a look at the album title, dude! Electric Wizard play super-heavy sludge metal, taking the appellation "stoner rock" very seriously indeed. Satan's even seen smoking a bong on the album cover. Doomy sub-Sabbath riffs, toked-up vocals, spacey fx -- this is primal stuff. This band seems to just keep getting better and better (meaning, they don't change much!). The lyrics celebrate their interests in pulp fantasy fiction (HP Lovecraft and RE Howard both get referenced) and of course the Sweet Leaf: "Dopethrone in this land of sorcery/Dopethrone vision through T.H.C./Dopethrone feedback will free/Dopethrone three wizards crowned with weed." No, not brilliant literature, (and the music's not avant-garde composition for that matter, not intentionally anyway) but "Dopethrone" is still thoroughly enjoyable even by those of us (Andee and Allan for example) who aren't potsmokers (in fact, Andee and Allan are definitely the biggest fans of this record and other "stoner rock" at Aquarius anyways -- I wonder what that means?!). No, you just have to like the sheer heaviness and killer-hippie aura ("Legalize Drugs and Murder" is their slogan, and they're at least half serious)... But if we *were* ever to decide to take up pot-smoking as a casual hobby, we have promised several friends (& Electric Wizard fans) that this album will definitely be the soundtrack to our first "experience". We're tempted...
MPEG Stream: "Funeralopolis"
MPEG Stream: "Barbarian"

ELECTRIC WIZARD Let Us Prey (Rise Above) cd 16.98
Originally released way back in 2002, now re-issued with expanded artwork, new liner notes, tons of photos, and most importantly a 6 minute bonus track, "Mother Of Serpents"!!! Here's what we had to say when this first came out:
AQ-faves Electric Wizard return with the eagerly anticipated "Let Us Prey". After their totally wrecked, wretched performance here in San Francisco last year (which we still enjoyed, but as comedy), this excellent, totally competent new album can only raise the question: did they bring session musicians in to do this stuff, or what? I mean, the drummer is able to find his drumkit, the guitar solos include the correct notes, someone's even playing piano, how can this be the same band we saw? They must have recorded it during during a rare binge of not taking drugs and alcohol! (Horrors!) Of course, we already knew they had it in 'em, since their previous studio effort "Dopethrone" was so perfect. This doesn't surpass that album, but how could it? But it does explore some new directions while mainly providing more of what you want, and thus is certainly a worthy follow-up, recommended to all fans of stoner/doom metal. Doom metal doesn't have to be stoner rock, and stoner rock isn't always (or even often) doom metal, but the combination is natural -- and for that nobody beats the Wiz. Electric Wizard's spacey, metallic drug-punk (a mixture of Sabbath, Hawkwind, and Melvins) features lost, buried, hopeless vocals singing dirgey hymns to the God-Bong amidst bowel-rumbling, super-heavy, super-sludgey guitar and bass psychedelia. What's not to like?
This is the kind of album that lends itself to a track-by-track rundown (why? 'cause there's only six songs):
The disc starts with a classically slow n' massive Wizard song entitled "A Chosen Few", designed to bludgeon the listener into stuporific submission from riff one.
"We, The Undead" changes tactics, being fast and kinda punky (in an Eyehategod/Black Flag way), with a riff that's *very* Saint Vitus.
"Master Of Alchemy" is another slow crusher a la the first track, with a truly EVIL sounding main riff. This song is a relentless juggernaut that eventually morphs (it's a two-part suite nearly ten minutes long) into a mellower, but still quite EVIL, psychedelic drone jam.
"The Outsider" is, if possible, even lower, slower, and more drugged-out sounding, building into a wah wah propelled epic before its nine minutes are out.
Then, out of nowhere, the beautiful, melancholy "Night Of The Shape" (great title) kicks in -- noirish piano figures over busy, shuffling drumbeats that sound almost drum 'n' bass inspired. This could be on a Radiohead record, yet somehow it's totally doomy.
After that lovey interlude, the Wizard get back to their usual business on the epic album closer "Priestess Of Mars". More sludge, more wah, more pot smoke.
And then, three quarters of an hour after you put it on, "Let Us Prey" is over and you'll need another fix!
MPEG Stream: "...A Chosen Few"
MPEG Stream: "We The Undead"

ELECTRIC WIZARD Pre-Electric Wizard 1989-1994 (Eternal, Thy Grief Eternal, Lord Of Putrefaction) (Rise Above) cd 13.98
When we first heard Electric Wizard way back when, we were completely and totally blown away, but we were so filled with glorious doom and gloom, and druggy spaced out stoner rock, that it never occurred to us that anything might have come before. When in fact in one form or another, Electric Wizard had been developing their sound since 1989! This disc collects the two pre-Electric Wizard lps released a while back (and now out of print) as well as super rare recordings from the band that was the original seed for what would eventually become Electric Wizard.
Starting way back in 1989, there was a group of young metalheads fronted by future EW mainman Jus Oborn, who were totally obsessed with Carcass, Bolt Thrower and the like, and thus were appropriately named Lord Of Putrefaction. And their sound suited the name perfectly, a murky grind thrash doom, grunted death metal style vocals, psychedelic freakout guitar over pounding drums and sludgy riffing. Slow and heavy with bursts of not quite blasts and wild squalls of chaotic noise, but all rooted in dense, druggy, doomy sludge. They only ever released a split lp with Mortal Remains, and this here is it. Remastered and heavy as ever. Fans of Winter, diSEMBOWELMENT, Mordor and all that early Earache stuff will be so into this!
Not soon after the end of Lord Of Putrefaction, three of the four lords reconvened as Thy Grief Eternal, who recorded 2 lengthy tracks for a 12" in 1991 which was never actually released. By '91, Jus Oborn and his merry band of metalheads continued to get slower and heavier, hinting at what would come, but still sounding like they'd be right at home on Earache, alongside Carcass, Napalm Death, Godflesh and the like. Pounding industrial sludge doom, with grunted gutteral cookie monster vocals, pounding relentless drumming and BIG RIFFS, very sludgy and crusty, much more akin to the ultra slow, monochromatic dirge of funeral doom, as they had yet to discover the groove that would play such a crucial part in their later sound.
The same 3 members who started out together in Lords Of Putrefaction decided on another name change to represent their continued musical growth and thus was born the simpler Eternal. While Thy Grief Eternal were a crusty bunch of metalheads spitting out blurry blasts of Earache style industrial sludge, a couple years later, with a new name, a new love of mind altering chemicals, and the discovery of the all important GROOVE, Eternal was born, and the sound on their never released EP was only a hop skip and a drunken stumble from the sound of Electric Wizard. The doom and sludge is tempered on the Eternal tracks with a huge heaping pile of Hawkwindish swirling psychedelia and that oft purloined Sabbathy groove that pretty much defined Electric Wizard and the stoner rock movement that followed. Four tracks (one's a Sabbath cover!) including a 16 minute epic that would later become an Electric Wizard track.
Fucking awesome! Comes in a spiffy digipak, with a booklet packed with liner notes, photos, as well as old flyers and demo cover artwork.
MPEG Stream: ETERNAL "Lucifer's Children"
MPEG Stream: THY GRIEF ETERNAL "Swathed In Black"
MPEG Stream: LORD OF PUTREFACTION "Wings Over A Black Funeral"

ELECTRIC WIZARD s/t (Rise Above) cd 13.98
Originally released as a double cd, teamed up with 1997's Come My Fanatics, Electric Wizard's debut, originally released in 1995, gets its own digipak release, re-issued with expanded artwork, new liner notes, tons of photos, and most importantly two bonus tracks, "IIIimitable Nebulie" and Mourning Prayer Part 1" from the unreleased Doom Chapter Demo!!! Here's what we had to say when this first came out (it's the same review for both self titled and Come My Fanatics, since they were paired together the first time we heard them and they still sound like parts one and two of the same record, which is a most definitely a good thing!) :
With a sickly sweet haze baked around half formed thoughts of science fictions and demonic mythologies, Electric Wizard's stoner metal has just enough intellect to roll out the gargantuan post-Sabbath riffs and burnt-out grooves. Dude. This shit is absolutely essential listening for the next time you decide to fire up that bong. (Or not, seeing as how Andee and Allan definitely seem to enjoy this quite a bit and neither have ever "fired up" a "bong" in their lives, "dude". Well, okay, Allan did smoke a joint once but he didn't "inhale"...very much at all.) Especially suitable for all fans of Sleep's immense Jerusalem opus and those AQ-record-of-the-week-winning Esoteric double cds!! Electric Wizard are in fact notorious rivals of Esoteric, as they compete for England's throne of ultimate heaviness. Anyone who's heard Electric Wizard's Supercoven ep (Andee's favorite EW joint for sure!) will know what they're in for: the ultimate bellbottoms doom trip, a Lovecraftian space sludge psych jam that'll do your head in right.
MPEG Stream: "Stone Magnet"
MPEG Stream: "Mourning Prayer"

SPEKTR The Near Death Experience (Candlelight) cd 14.98
There's a certain strain of black metal, that concerns itself more with black than metal, more with texture than heaviness, more with mood than any sort of musical rules. Those are precisely the sorts of black metal bands that send us spinning. Bands that transcend their genre, or are seemingly oblivious to the fact that they might belong to any genre at all. Such is the case with mysterious black metal outift Spektr. We discovered their debut a couple years back and proudly proclaimed it THE WEIRDEST BLACK METAL RECORD EVER. Since then it's been practically raining bizarre black metal, Furze, Rehtaf Ruo, Dead Reptile Shrine, Hidden, Urfaust, Circle Of Ouroborus, all most definitely black, but each with their own take on what black metal means. And sounds like.
This new Spektr record, however, takes up right where the last one left off, and effortlessly outweirds them all. But their mission is not to be weird. This is not calculated, purposeful, ironic, or in any way untrue to their vision. And it's not that sort of damaged inept weirdness. The music is too dense, and complex and varied and lush and just too impossibly and truly weird to be anything but the musical expression of someone's twisted vision. It's like how truly insane people are the ones who don't realize they're insane. And Spektr are most definitely insane.
The cool thing about Spektr, is that they seem to be some sort of experimental ambient project, with occasional bursts of black metal, as opposed to the other way around. More than half the record seems to be made up of drones, and static and white noise and intercepted transmissions, short wave radio, found sounds, soft subtle rumbles and strange rhythmic interference. When the metal does kick in, it tends towards a seasick lurching midtempo buzz, a lumbering blackened beast, that sort of stumbles and careens wildly out of control, occasionally slipping into a galloping blast, but quickly settling back into a slow sort of lope. Their metal is just off kilter enough to balance their experimental tendencies, and Spektr don't shy away from busting out with a black blast for only a few second before getting back to the drone at hand. And oh the drones! The gloriously twisted ambience. So dense and multilayered. Creaking and crackling, swelling and slithering, often punctuated by industrial pounding, strange rhythms, glitchy hiccups and stutters, but just as often a smoldering warble, a low end dirge of glacial hum and creepy crawly gurgle and whir, voices drift up from the murk, as do strange song fragments and bits of malfunctioning electronics, it's like walking through some black skied wasteland, the ground strewn with all manner of debris, the air thick with smoke and ash, The view fuzzy and indistinct, distant tolling bells, cymbal sizzle that sounds like sprinklers in a moonlit field, all these bits of sound, these ambient fragments, woven together into a truly ominous world of dark sound, the background to a truly bleak and buzzy black metal framework. The more we listen to this, the less -weird- it seems, scary maybe, haunting, harrowing, dark, dreary, creepy, ominous, ghostly, unnerving, and mysterious most certainly, oh okay, and quite a little bit weird too.
A definite contender for our favorite new black metal record!
The disc also includes a video, playable on your computer, for a track not on the cd. And it's a strange one as you might expect. The music is all dark drones, with weirdly jazzy drums way up in the mix, shuffling over a fuzzed out Burzumic riff that sort of ebbs and flows, a fuzzy distorted wave. It never fully kicks in, but it never completely blisses out. It sort of teeters back and forth between dark jazz and glacial black fuzz. It's a little like a black metal post-bop Bohren, sort of. The track shifts partway through and becomes a strange sonic kaleidoscope of creepy orchestra music, garbled ambience and a haunting martial rhythm played on tympani's. The accompanying video is gorgeously grainy, all darkness and shadows, like some rare damaged print of a lost silent horror film, the film stock so degraded that various chunks of light and dark take on ominous shapes, the end result, the visual equivalent of an old crackly record. Totally mesmerizing.
MPEG Stream: "The Violent Stink Of Twitching Terror"
MPEG Stream: "His Mind Ravaged, His Memory Shattered"
MPEG Stream: "Whatever The Case May Be"

SPEKTR The Near Death Experience (Debemur Morti Productions) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally on vinyl, 2006's The Near Death Experience from French industrial black metal weirdos Spektr. Outrageously deluxe packaging, super thick gatefold sleeve, printed inner sleeve, a huge 12"x12" booklet of art and photos, pressed on incredibly heavy white vinyl and of course VERY VERY LIMITED!!!!
Here's our review of TNDE when it first came out:
There's a certain strain of black metal, that concerns itself more with black than metal, more with texture than heaviness, more with mood than any sort of musical rules. Those are precisely the sorts of black metal bands that send us spinning. Bands that transcend their genre, or are seemingly oblivious to the fact that they might belong to any genre at all. Such is the case with mysterious black metal outfit Spektr. We discovered their debut a couple years back and proudly proclaimed it THE WEIRDEST BLACK METAL RECORD EVER. Since then it's been practically raining bizarre black metal, Furze, Rehtaf Ruo, Dead Reptile Shrine, Hidden, Urfaust, Circle Of Ouroborus, all most definitely black, but each with their own take on what black metal means. And sounds like.
This new Spektr record, however, takes up right where the last one left off, and effortlessly out-weirds them all. But their mission is not to be weird. This is not calculated, purposeful, ironic, or in any way untrue to their vision. And it's not that sort of damaged inept weirdness. The music is too dense, and complex and varied and lush and just too impossibly and truly weird to be anything but the musical expression of someone's twisted vision. It's like how truly insane people are the ones who don't realize they're insane. And Spektr are most definitely insane.
The cool thing about Spektr, is that they seem to be some sort of experimental ambient project, with occasional bursts of black metal, as opposed to the other way around. More than half the record seems to be made up of drones, and static and white noise and intercepted transmissions, short wave radio, found sounds, soft subtle rumbles and strange rhythmic interference. When the metal does kick in, it tends towards a seasick lurching midtempo buzz, a lumbering blackened beast, that sort of stumbles and careens wildly out of control, occasionally slipping into a galloping blast, but quickly settling back into a slow sort of lope. Their metal is just off kilter enough to balance their experimental tendencies, and Spektr don't shy away from busting out with a black blast for only a few second before getting back to the drone at hand. And oh the drones! The gloriously twisted ambience. So dense and multilayered. Creaking and crackling, swelling and slithering, often punctuated by industrial pounding, strange rhythms, glitchy hiccups and stutters, but just as often a smoldering warble, a low end dirge of glacial hum and creepy crawly gurgle and whir, voices drift up from the murk, as do strange song fragments and bits of malfunctioning electronics, it's like walking through some black skied wasteland, the ground strewn with all manner of debris, the air thick with smoke and ash, The view fuzzy and indistinct, distant tolling bells, cymbal sizzle that sounds like sprinklers in a moonlit field, all these bits of sound, these ambient fragments, woven together into a truly ominous world of dark sound, the background to a truly bleak and buzzy black metal framework. The more we listen to this, the less -weird- it seems, scary maybe, haunting, harrowing, dark, dreary, creepy, ominous, ghostly, unnerving, and mysterious most certainly, oh okay, and quite a little bit weird too.
A definite contender for our favorite new black metal record!
MPEG Stream: "The Violent Stink Of Twitching Terror"
MPEG Stream: "His Mind Ravaged, His Memory Shattered"
MPEG Stream: "Whatever The Case May Be"

EYEHATEGOD Dopesick (Century Media) cd 12.98
We've referenced these drugged and ugly New Orleans masters of sludge-core in tons of reviews, as they're one of the ur-bands that established the rituals practiced by anyone heavy and feedback laden, like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, Dot [.], Cavity, Corrupted, Khanate, Iron Monkey, Grief, Wellington, Acid Bath, Garadama, etc.
So we were so psyched to discover that EHG's first three discs were getting the deluxe reissue treatment. Elsewhere on this list we review In The Name Of Suffering, most people's fave EHG record, their third, Take As Needed For Pain, Andee's favorite, and this, Dopesick, their third, and part three of final EHG's godlike sludge trilogy. They would continue to make records, great records in fact, but the first three remain untouchable to this day.
In The Name Of Suffering was a hateful, feedback drenched trawl through a world of sludge, creeping and slithering, uncompromisingly brutal and crushingly heavy. Pretty much defining the sound of ALL sludge to come. With record number 2, Take As Needed For Pain, they added a little bit of that NOLA groove (you know, Down, Superjoint Ritual, Acid Bath, Crowbar, Soilent Green, Goatwhore, etc.) to their sound, making their plodding shrieking sludge a tiny bit more melodic and dare we say, catchy at moments. But take that with a grain of salt, melodic and catchy for a band like Eyehategod is still about a million times more caustic and corrosive than almost any other -heavy- band.
So with Dopesick, the groove factor is cranked up a little bit more, making Eyehategod here sound like the scariest, heaviest, druggiest, sludgiest stoner rock band EVER. But again, EHG in stoner rock mode, still outsludges them all, a groove flecked avalanche of slow motion ultradoom, screeching feedback, shrieking throat ripping vocals, blackhole downtuned guitars, all churning in a black sea of sludgemetal tar, lurching, and trudging and so fucking awesome!
Three bonus tracks: two alternate versions and one the appropriately titled "Dopesick Jam", an epic, lengthy freaked out psychedelic slab of glorious drugsludgedoom! Includes revised artwork and new liner notes from EHG frontman Mike Williams.
MPEG Stream: "My Name Is God (I Hate You)"
MPEG Stream: "Ruptured Heart Theory"

EYEHATEGOD In The Name Of Suffering (Century Media) cd 12.98
We've referenced these drugged and ugly New Orleans masters of sludge-core in tons of reviews, as they're one of the ur-bands that established the rituals practiced by anyone heavy and feedback laden, like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, Dot [.], Cavity, Corrupted, Khanate, Iron Monkey, Grief, Wellington, Acid Bath, Garadama, etc.
So we were so psyched to discover that EHG's first three discs were getting the deluxe reissue treatment. Elsewhere on this list we review their second album, Take As Needed For Pain, and Dopesick, their third, and part three of final EHG's godlike sludge trilogy. They would continue to make records, great records in fact, but the first three remain untouchable to this day.
Here's Allan's favorite EHG album (Andee's favorite is Take As Needed For Pain, but this is a close second!), their dark and dirgey debut In The Name Of Suffering, first released in 1990 on the French Intellectual Convulsion label, later re-issued domestically by Century Media, with the original's gross medical cover pictures prudently tucked inside now reissued again, with new liner notes and bonus tracks. When this came out, EHG immediately joined the Melvins, Skullflower, and Hellhammer in the pantheon of the heaviest, most fucked up bands ever. Misanthropic metallic misery, complete with samples of Charles Manson's wisdom. Later EHG albums are good too, but this one was may quite possible be their finest moment. If you are one of Aquarius' "doom" customers and you don't have this disc, we urge you, in the name of suffering, get it!
Extra stuff: Four bonus tracks taken from an unreleased 1990 demo, revised artwork and new liner notes from EHG frontman Mike Williams.
MPEG Stream: "Depress"
MPEG Stream: "Children Of God"
MPEG Stream: "Hit A Girl"

EYEHATEGOD Take As Needed For Pain (Century Media) cd 12.98
We've referenced these drugged and ugly New Orleans masters of sludge-core in tons of reviews, as they're one of the ur-bands that established the rituals practiced by anyone heavy and feedback laden, like Moss, Bunkur, Boris, Dot [.], Cavity, Corrupted, Khanate, Iron Monkey, Grief, Wellington, Acid Bath, Garadama, etc.
So we were so psyched to discover that EHG's first three discs were getting the deluxe reissue treatment. Elsewhere on this list we review In The Name Of Suffering, most people's fave EHG record, their third, Dopesick, and this one, Andee's favorite Eyehategod record, Take As Needed For Pain.
Their debut was a hateful, feedback drenched trawl through a world of sludge, creeping and slithering, uncompromisingly brutal and crushingly heavy. Pretty much defining the sound of ALL sludge to come. With Take As Needed For Pain, they added a little bit of that NOLA groove (you know, Down, Superjoint Ritual, Acid Bath, Crowbar, Soilent Green, Goatwhore, etc.) to their sound, making their plodding shrieking sludge, a tiny bit more melodic and dare we say, catchy at moments. But take that with a grain of salt, melodic and catchy for a band like Eyehategod is still about a million times more caustic and corrosive than almost any other -heavy- band. It's really strange to revisit these EHG records and realize how many bands these days sound EXACTLY LIKE EYEHATEGOD!!! It's almost criminal. Sort of similar to the way SUNNO))) were basically an Earth tribute band, it's almost like EVERY one of the new breed of sludge bands is in fact an Eyehategod tribute band. But hey, who's complaining, it's a dark and disturbing sound we can never seem to get enough of. And as long as EHG are getting the props they deserve, then hell, bring on the sludge!!! Fans of ANY of the above mentioned bands who do not own this, are required by ALL THAT IS UNHOLY to pick this up immediately!!!!!!
As far as bonus tracks, Take As Needed For Pain is probably the best of bunch, 3 tracks from the long out of print Ruptured Heart Theory 7", a track from the also long OOP split 7" with 13, and two tracks from another long gone 7", another split with fellow sludge mavens 13.
Includes revised artwork and new liner notes from EHG frontman Mike Williams.
MPEG Stream: "Blank"
MPEG Stream: "Shoplift"
MPEG Stream: "Kill Your Boss"

MAGYAR POSSE Random Avenger (Verdura) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
FINNISH INSTRUMENTAL CINEMATIC EPIC PROGROCK ALERT!!!
Okay, now that we've got your attention. When Andee was in Finland a few years back, Jussi from Circle took him to a tiny club to see a friend's band play, and the band totally destroyed, they were so epic, so massive, it was like seeing Godspeed! You Black Emperor play in a broom closet. Huge glowing swells of sound, totally memorable melodies, gorgeous arrangements, all swirled into majestic sweeping soaring emotional epics. Even back then, before the band even had a record out. Not soon after, they did in fact release a record, and we were immediately in love. The band was Magyar Posse, and that first record totally captured the majestic might of the band, while at the same time adding all sorts of sonic subtleties and even more dense layers of sound. A second record followed and somehow the band managed to sound even bigger and better. We had been hearing about a brand new record for a while, and were thrilled when a big box showed up a few days ago from Finland and inside was Random Avenger, the newest release from Magyar Posse. We were almost ready to be disappointed considering how much we dug those other records, or at least preparing ourselves to just be happy for more of the same, but if anything, the band have expanded their sound even further, coming up with epic soundscapes even more intense and epic and emotional than before.
This record, even more than the others, sounds like it just has to be a real soundtrack. Pop music is not meant to be so dense and rife with emotion, painting pictures with wordless music as vibrant as if there were in fact lyrics telling a story. The sound is very prog, intensely cinematic and while it is dark and dreamy it can also be strangely playful. Some moments, we're transported to some lost Bond film, others we find ourselves in some dusty Leone Western, while still others we're lost on some moonlit street running for our lives in a mysterious Italian giallo. The first track, "Whirlpool Of Terror And Tension" is a lush and dense, multilayered world of sound, with a strange sort of Bolero staccato rhythm, with strange scrabbly guitars, abstract sixties style female vocals, minor key guitar twangs, chimes and bells, keening guitars feedback, and simple propulsive drumming. The main riff is very Morricone, but is backed up by a thick wash of soaring strings and gorgeous glockenspiel, it's almost impossible not to close your eyes and see a cool sixties Mondrian style credit sequence for some Danger Diabolik style caper movie. That vibe definitely permeates the whole record, but each track definitely has it's own feel and distinct emotion. A handful of the tracks take Magyar's progressive post-rock into definite Goblin / Zombi territory with minor key strings, relentless rhythms, pulsing drums and new wave synths locked into angular krautrock grooves, while spacey sound effects swoop and swirl, strings soar and sing, and again we're just transported to whole new worlds, but worlds with totally kick ass soundtracks!
This is definitely still post-rock, and thus will appeal to fans of Tortoise and Godspeed and Cerberus Shoal and Cyann & Ben and Explosions In The Sky and the like but Magyar Posse have something totally their own going on. A unique sonic vision, an alternate musical universe, where a pair of headphones and a walkman transform you into a super spy or a wily seductress or a hired killer, and turns your boring neighborhood into 1960's Paris, or a dusty ghost town or a secret base in the Arctic. This is music as dense and as rich and as much of an escape as any book or any film could ever be, and music that can have such an incredible effect on the listener, is way too rare. And so very precious.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
MPEG Stream: "Whirlpool Of Terror And Tension"
MPEG Stream: "Sudden Death"
MPEG Stream: "Popzag"

MISERY INDEX / BATHTUB SHITTER split (Emetic) 7" 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What the world needs now is... more BATHTUB SHITTER!!! And what the world needs, our shit obsessed grindmetal pals from the East are here to provide. Two brand new blasts of grinding freaked out, spazzy and shrieking grind metal, occupying some impossible musical space between Brutal Truth, the Boredoms, Cannibal Corpse, skate thrash and eighties hardcore. So weird and so fucking awesome!!! We kind of want to figure out a way to fly the guys in Bathtub Shitter to the US so they could be the AQ house band, blasting and bleating dissonant serenades to our customers 24 hours a day. Okay, maybe not, but we still love 'em!
The 'Shitter are teamed up here with Maryland's own grindmetal destruction crew Misery Index, who unleash one track of downtuned grinding nirvana as well as a blown out blast that is a Napalm Death cover.
Comes packaged in a super swank gatefold 7" sleeve, with BS's side a haunting airbrushed watercolor batwinged, horn headed child demon flipping us the ubiquitous peace sign hand gesture (although his hands sport huge demonic talons!). Cool!

DEAD REPTILE SHRINE / TORTURIUM split (Bestial Burst) lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Apolgies to all who fell under the spell of the beautiful and bizarre Dead Reptile Shrine. As we mentioned in our review of their cd a few lists back, we were only able to get 30 copies, and judging from the universal freakout we probably should have had 100 or so. We're still trying to track more of those down, thanks to the folks who have been waiting patiently. But to tide you over, we got a whole bunch of this brand new release, a super limited (of course, only 500 copies) split lp with their Finnish black metal brethren in Torturium.
Hard to describe Dead Reptile Shrine. Weird. Wonderfully weird, check the review of the DRS cd elsewhere on the AQ site for the full skinny, needless to say, fans of the demented damaged side of black metal a la Benighted Leams, Striborg, Furze, Urfaust and the like will fall hard for Dead Reptile Shrine.
On this 12", DRS fill their side to overflowing with what might be described as Jandekian black metal, super lo-fi, tortured riffing, howling anguished wails over mumbled sing songy vocals, the whole thing produced in this really strange way that makes it sound almost like Darkthrone recording in a submarine fronted by dueling vocalists Mark E. Smith and Blixa Bargeld. Woah. There's a brief interlude of creepy ambience, like the muffled sound from some forties news reel filmstrip, all crackly and antiquated, sounding a bit like Jeck or Basinski, but surrounded on every side by deep ravines of ultra personal black metal stumble and rrrroooaaar.
Fellow Finns Torturium are a bit more traditional, with a blown out super distorted Viking tinged old school thrash sound, with creepy stretches of reverb drenched ambience and completely INSANE shrieking vocals, somewhere between, Urfaust, Weakling and Bathtub Shitter (!). Occasionally proceedings stumble and slow to a drowsy druggy sludge, there's even a bit that sounds quite Eastern with weird modal guitar figures over warped and warbling riffs. Killer stuff.
Packaged in a cool black and white sleeve, with a full size insert / lyric sheet.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. WE GOT 30, AND WON'T BE ABLE TO GET MORE.

L/R When I Lift I Can Feel My Sunburn Singing (Paha Porvari) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're so excited to finally be holding this long in the works release in our grubby little paws. A long term collaboration between Loren Chasse and Ray Guillette, When I Lift I Can Feel My Sunburn Singing was originally intended to be released as a picture disc on tUMULt, but through a series of strange circumstances, the picture disc series was put on hold indefinitely, and the L/R record just sort of languished on a dusty shelf somewhere, which was an absolute shame as this is a beautiful piece of work. Thankfully, the folks at Paha Porvari tracked this record down and decided to give it a proper release. While we sort of wish they had pressed this as a real cd, the cd-r format's transitive nature is perfectly suited to the record's sound and theme.
Culled from a series of field recordings collected at the site of a ruined factory in South San Francisco way back in 1996, When I Lift I Can Feel My Sunburn Singing is the document of several live performances in 1997 and 1998 assembled from those sounds.
L/R explore a world of thick washed out drones, swirling seas of whir, gorgeously shimmery expanses of sun dappled sound, all peppered with crackle and glitch, cavernous windblown soundscapes, haunting metallic chimes and muted percussive events, jagged shards of sound, recontextualized into haunting rhythmic grooves, a constantly shifting soundworld of mystery and magic, alternately jagged and caustic, soothing and dreamlike. Incredible stuff!
Gorgeously packaged in an oversized black on black cardstock sleeve, inside lots of beautiful full color inserts, drawings and etchings and paintings reproduced on super nice paper, as well as two delicate vellum inserts with liner notes and credits.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"

THIS HEAT Out Of Cold Storage (This Is / ReR) 6cd box 102.00
Trying to explain why this band is so good is sort of like trying to explain why ice cream is so delicious. Or why Bush is such a terrible president.
Or maybe it's kind of like writing an introduction for the new Pynchon novel. Or telling a few jokes before Richard Pryor comes on stage. Or throwing a couple quick passes before Joe Montana comes on the field. It's that daunting, that overwhelming, that impossible.
The trio of Charles Hayward, Charles Bullen and Gareth Williams known collectively as This Heat were one of the few bands that literally changed people's lives. Changed the way folks thought about music. I (Andee) couldn't believe music like this actually existed. It was everything I wanted to listen to before I knew that THIS was exactly what I wanted to listen to. Hit It Or Quit It publisher / rock critic / indie scenestress Jessica Hopper once wrote that she literally pee'd her pants the first time she heard This Heat. And it's not hard to see why. Without This Heat, modern, alternative, avant-garde music as we know it would be a whole different beast. Post-rock, math-rock, avant rock are hugely indebted to the genre shattering experimentalism of This Heat. Tortoise, You Fantastic, Yona Kit, Brise Glace, Psychic Paramount, Laddio Bollocko, Radian, Village Of Savoonga, Larsen, Starfuckers, Circle, Salvatore, I Am Spoonbender -- none of those bands would even exist if it weren't for This Heat, or if they still did you can bet they would sound a whole lot different. And that's just off the top of our heads, AND that's -just- bands whose sound directly reflects the influence of This Heat. Imagine how many performers and artists were influenced by This Heat but who let that influence manifest itself in not so obvious ways.
We once described This Heat as "Krautrock-ish hyper rhythmic tape-looped prog." Which comes close to succinctly describing the magical musical alchemy of This Heat, but still only scratches the surface. The sound of This Heat is rhythm and texture and dynamics. The recording studio as instrument. Every sound and every song is based on rhythm and texture. There are hooks, and melodies, but they exist to serve the rhythm and are often born from the deft manipulation of sound and tempo. Even the most static and repetitive parts manage to sound -musical-. There are vocals, but they are minimal and otherworldly, weary and sing songy and completely mesmerizing. A droning musical accompaniment to the haunting whirs and clanging percussion in the background.
Their entire catalog has gone in and out of print over the years, mostly out, with all of these records pretty much completely unavailable for the last 7 or 8 years. Rumors of a complete box set began to circulate a few years back and it has finally surfaced and it's everything we could have hoped for and more. Every single release, remastered, repackaged in swank digipaks, including a bonus live disc, a huge booklet, amazing archival photos, extensive liner notes, all packed in a gorgeous box. It's a testament to the power this band holds over their fans that pretty much everyone who owns all of these records already will buy the box without a second thought. We're almost jealous of folks who have never even heard This Heat. The thought of entering into this box set completely blind, is almost frightening, as the world of This Heat is so singular, so powerful, it will be difficult to ever listen to music the same way again.
This Heat's self titled debut, originally released in 1978 (which is almost impossible to believe, that people were making music this progressive, this intense, this fucked up and forward thinking) is such a totally immersive and strangely lovely musical environment. From the machinelike krautrock of "Horizontal Hold" to the dreamy contemplative "Twilight Furniture" with its simple chiming guitars, muted tribal percussion and keening vocals, to the bizarre affected drum workout of "24 Track Loop", it's like wandering through some alien musical world. A sky full of greys and blues, smeary drones floating gently by, haunting quavering vocals drifting below, like tendrils of smoke, the barren landscape littered with all manner of rhythmic outcroppings, harsh jagged crashes and booms, as well as low rolling thumps and stutters, off in the distance simple spare melodies float and hover, each note a glowing spot on the horizon. Absolutely and utterly overwhelmingly brilliant.
The Health And Efficiency ep followed in early 1981 and took their sound in a strangely pop (for them at least) direction, sounding like some tweaked and twisted version of Wire, the title track all angular new wave guitars, monotone vocals, driving drums, strange convoluted arrangements and creepy background sound effects before the whole thing splinters into super abstract rhythmic experimentalism, looped grooves, played over and over, while sounds float and careen in the background, so incredibly hypnotic and repetitive. The second track on Health And Efficiency (which runs a brief twenty minutes) is "Graphic/Varispeed (45rpm)", a lengthy drone, a warm synth whir that surfaces within other This Heat tracks, recontextualized and often chopped up and reassembled, but here, it's a slow shifting slow motion single tone soundscape, with the tone occasionally being pitched up or down, very simple but quite haunting, and a cool glimpse at how This Heat managed to mix and match, use and reuse, without ever treading water.
Later that same year came Deceit, with the band continuing to expand and explore. Deceit consisted of shorter songs, but that didn't mean their process, or disdain for convention was altered. If anything, they managed to subvert pop music in a way never thought possible. Imagine Brian Eno circa Taking Tiger Mountain, but filter that through some avant industrialism, angular new wave and hyper rhythmic krautrock and you'll begin to get the picture. The songs on Deceit are impossibly catchy, especially when examined closely. Abstract, obtuse, angular, convoluted, tangled up but without ever losing that thread, that melodic sensibility that grounded the songs, kept them from falling apart completely, instead, the perilous arrangements only added tension and emotion. An incredibly explosive sound that somehow hybridized all of the countercultural fury of punk and situationism, within a sonic context informed by the technological advances of musique concrete and electro-acoustic experimentation. The sound was definitely punk in its own way, but certainly wasn't expressed through three chord song structures or snarling postures, instead This Heat injected their own complex pop agendas with a jittery nervous tension always building to a dramatic and cathartic release. Deceit was sadly the band's final release disbanding soon after.
In 1993, a disc of unearthed This Heat recordings was released and consisted of three lengthy tracks of tape loop experiments and random rhythmic explorations. Repeat has come to be This Heat's defining work even though it is essentially a record of outtakes and pieces meant to be incorporated into other songs. But it's hard to argue with the 20 minute title track, and endless, almost funky groove, punctuated by weird electronic swells, sprinkles of woodblock percussion and occasional handclaps but held together by one of the most amazing drum parts ever. A relentless pound and shuffle, drenched in effects, sound very dubby, but also very krautrock, a tripped out blissed out drone drenched rhythmic space jam never matched to this day. Every time this is played for a friend, musician or not, the listener is inevitably confused, perplexed and then quickly obsessed with hearing more. The second track, appropriately titled "Metal" is an abstract soundscape of, well, metal, clanging, clinking, like some ancient junkyard gamelan, almost like the previous piece transcribed for sheet metal, garbage can, metal pipe and dumpster. The metallic symphony shifts and sways, melodies surface, rhythms twist and turn, all very hypnotic and quite lovely. The final track revisits a song on Health and Efficiency, but slows it down a bit to become "Graphic/Varispeed (45rpm)", the same sort of slow, murky drone, just made even slower, so more tonal colors surface, and the subtle shit is much more noticeable, a gloriously dreamlike warm warbly whir.
In 1996, This Heat's 1977 Peel Sessions were finally released and demonstrated once again that This Heat were untouchable, effortlessly unfurling a sound equal parts avant pop, krautrock, progrock, musique concrete and a handful of parts that defied easy classification. Every track here a jaw dropping, mind blowing performance. Especially the new version of "Horizontal Hold", one of This Heat's finest moments already, played here with much more verve and vigor and with a sound quality so much clearer, a recording so incredibly hot, that the song is reborn and completely confounds and amazes. The whole session is rhythmically dense, rife with bastardized pop, incredibly complex arrangements all rendered again in such a way that they are emotional and moving, instead of just intellectual musical exercises. And the sound is so crystal clear, that you can hear a band at the top of their game, taking over the BBC studio and using it like they would a second guitar or another drummer. The Peel Sessions also include a handful of songs that never made it onto records proper. All as good as anything on their official releases.
The bonus disc included in the box is a compilation of live tracks recorded between 1980 and 1981 all over Europe and sequenced to resemble the set list the band used on tour in the eighties. Recorded using a single stereo mic, the sound is less that crystal clear, but captures the band in their element at the top of their game. The songs are amazing, it's awesome to hear the band recreate pieces that on record relied so heavily on the studio, more evidence as to the genius of This Heat.
Our only complaint about this box was that there is definitely more This Heat material out there, and anyone picking up this box, would have gladly paid a few bucks more for one or two more discs of lost rare material. But then we spied this in the liner notes of the live cd: "Further CD's from other stages in This Heat's music to follow, including collaborations, improvisations and site-specific work as well as other live cds."
We can hardly wait!
There are plenty of places on the web and in magazines to read more about the history of the band, the band members, various versions, releases and re-releases and past reissues, but none of that ultimately matters as much as the sound. And oh the glorious sound. Just take a listen to the sound samples and no words will be necessary.
MPEG Stream: "Horizontal Hold (Peel Session)"
MPEG Stream: "Repeat"
MPEG Stream: "Paper Hats"
MPEG Stream: "Health And Efficiency"

BURIAL s/t (Hyperdub / Cargo) cd 17.98
This record has totally knocked us for a loop. An impossible mix of grimy dubstep, murky triphop, and minimal spaced out dub. When we first threw this on we were immediately transported back to when we first heard Massive Attack, or Portishead, and a whole new world suddenly opened up to us. A creepy, muted world of barebones beats and haunting atmospheres that would go on to inform our musical tastes forever.
This is the first release on Hyperdub, a label run by grime/dubstep DJ Kode9, and we expected a blasting barrage of grimy beats, but instead, were sucked into a swirling vortex of late night groove and midnight stutter. Think those Rhythm And Sound Burial Mix eps, mixed with some Pole-like glitched out dub, and some slow burning Portishead smolder. Creepy and crawly, mysterious and moody. Beats suspended in a black shimmering fog, snippets of vocals, crooning, toasting, drenched in reverb, chopped up and let loose to drift over super dark, muffled dubscapes. Huge rumbling bass lines, like distant foghorns, dreamy ambience sort of drifting and ethereal but so so ominous. Tiny sonic sparkles glimmer like some alien sonar, drifting dreamily through fuzzy darkness. Drowned and submerged grooves, all muffled muted melody and shuffling minimal beats. Suffocating atmospheres of low end thrum, record crackle and shortwave interference. Some sort of slithering slinky dubstep shuffle slowed waaaaaaaaay down, into a blackened glacial dub jam. So fucking awesome. Our newest every night late night listen. A record of perfect dark and damaged dubbed out lullabies.
MPEG Stream: "Distant Lights"
MPEG Stream: "Spaceape"
MPEG Stream: "Wounder"

MARBLEBOG Csendhajnal (Turanian Honor) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
MARBLEBOG!! BACK IN STOCK!!
What's in a name? Well, when the name of your band is Marblebog, and the name of your record is Csendhajnal, pretty much everything is in the name. We were sold before we'd even laid ears on it. But we're happy to report, the dark sorrowful sounds within more than live up to the bizarre monicker.
Marblebog specialize in that super fuzzy mournful black metal, midtempos and blurry hypnotic guitars, every track a slowly swinging seasick waltz, so completely droning and mesmerizing. The metal buried within churning clouds of thick murky ambience. The guitars not always sharp and jagged and buzzing, but sometimes just distant grumbles and whirs, buried beneath dense swirls of swooshing Tangerine Dream synths, while the drums sort of plod along waaaaaaaay back in the murk. And the vocals, woah, some of the most anguished, tortured, howling, damned-soul sort of howls we've ever heard, think Weakling, Silencer, Bethlehem, Sterbend, a near hysterical shrieking. But in Marblebog the vocals sound almost out of place, making them that much more harrowing and depressive. Imagine a lonely overgrown graveyard, weeds, flowers, ivy tangled in the bars of the wrought iron gates, the sky a dim grey, overcast, pregnant with the possibility of storm, the sound is not wind or birds or passing cars, instead it's a depressive dirge, not harsh or super aggressive, not even really buzzing, more a thick blanket of grey fuzz smothering everything in gorgeously miserable murkiness, then right in the middle of the graveyard, a mysterious figure is pushing his way through the dirt, a rotting creature of the night, crawling up from the grave, emitting a fowl hellish shriek of utter and absolute terror, while thick tendrils of graveyard mist swirl up around him, the vocals a glaring and harrowing blight on the otherwise peaceful (yet still dark and depressing) world of the dead.
The vocal-less tracks on Csendhajnal are downright lovely, slow, meandering synthscapes, of low end melodic miserablism, and slow drifting dark shimmer, like a more ambient Skepticism or Burzum, some haunting, otherworldly new age dooooom. But even the more properly metal tracks here are imbued with the same sort of new age dreaminess and slow motion, end of the world doominess. So awesome.
This disc collects the debut cd (from back in 2003) from this Hungarian horde and tacks on a whole bunch of killer extra tracks including the Nostalgic Moods In Grimwoods demo from 2002, the Arhat promo from 2002, and the rehearsal track "Hatefullmoon" from 2003, most of which were released as super limited tapes and/or splits. Killer cover art too!!!
SUPER LIMITED! 555 copies, each disc hand numbered!
MPEG Stream: "The Breath Of Emptiness"
MPEG Stream: "A Broken Circle"
MPEG Stream: "Eternal Silence Within"

BRAINBOMBS Obey (Releasing Eskimo & Slow Dance) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Don't let the jaunty little Lawrence Welk ditty that opens Obey lull you into any sort of peaceful state, you'd best be prepared for the hateful murderous mayhem that Obey has in store for you. Then again, that's probably precisely what the Brainbombs had in mind. A gentle voice luring you into a dark alley, a shiny trinket distracting you while the burlap sack goes over your head and you're dragged kicking and screaming into the woods, a sweet piece of candy draws you just close enough so you can be knocked unconscious, tied up, and stuffed in the trunk. Those of you familiar with the brutal musical world of Brainbombs will know exactly what we're going on about. The rest of you, be very very careful. They traffic in a sludgey, jazzy garage rock scuzz stomp, repeated riffs, simple pounding drums, a lurching leering fuzzed out psychedelic dirge underpinning tales of murder and mayhem, murder and rape, death and dismemberment. This is probably their most overtly harsh record. Mostly because unlike the rest of their releases you can actually hear what these Swedes are singing about. All delivered in a sort of fey, heavily accented English. As if the song titles weren't enough,"Kill Them All", "Die You Fuck", "Anal Desire", "Lipstick On My Dick", "Fuckmeat", the lyrics are misogynistic, misanthropic and just plain messed up. The sound is like Melvins meets Whitehouse filtered through the fuzzy garage stomp of the Stooges but with a maniacally repetitive looped quality, that cranks up the tension, while the vocalist slowly unravels and gets meaner and meaner, more and more insane. And let's not forget the occasional warbly warped trumpet (!). What can we say? We love Brainbombs.
We've never listed this one before, as it has been seemingly out of print for ages. Thankfully a distributor managed to scrape up a bunch, but we can't be sure how long we'll have these.
MPEG Stream: "Die You Fuck"
MPEG Stream: "Anal Desire"
MPEG Stream: "Lipstick On My Dick"

F/I Space Mantra (Lexicon Devil) cd 15.98

F/I Paradise Out Here (Lexicon Devil) cd 16.98
Maybe the most anxiously awaited release in Lexicon Devil's comprehensive series of F/i reissues. Paradise Out Here, originally released in 1989, might just be the heaviest, most freaked out, most spaced out of all the F/i records. All it takes is about one minute of opener "From Poppy With Love", an acid fried, ultra freaked out, swirling psychrock blowout to understand why. A chugging scuzzy garage rock riff scratches out a relentless spacey stomp beneath a massive roiling cloud of FX that make Acid Mothers Temple's arsenal look like a broken down collection of Casio distortion boxes and Fisher-Price keyboards. So heavy and so spacey. Monster Magnet, Hawkwind, AMT, Colour Haze, UFOmammut, White Hills, Comets On Fire, the Heads, the Telescopes, Atomic Bitchwax, Loop. If those are the kind of bands that get your blood boiling and your bong bubbling then this record is definitely for you. Extended excursions into the outer reaches of deep deep deep space, where the stars blink and twinkle in dizzyingly psychedelic colors, everywhere you look guitars are all twisted and distorted, thick slabs of rumbling bass plow through reverbed swirls of shimmer, melodies explode and splinter into jagged bits in gloriously incendiary bursts, everything is blurry and swathed in a thick drug rock haze, and everywhere you look huge slabs of blown out wah guitar drift past, like fluffy prismatic clouds, underneath it all, drums pound a never ending rhythm, while being endlessly pelted with synth squiggles and a veritable hail storm of bleeps and bloops and beeps. Woah. This record is so relentless and about as tripped out and psychedelic as a record can get without completely collapsing in on itself.
If there was ever a record that made us want to get super high, turn off all the lights, rock the fuck out and drift WAY WAY WAY OUT.... it's this one.
MPEG Stream: "From Poppy With Love"
MPEG Stream: "The House Of The Pharoah's Daughter"

FURZE Necromanzee Cogent (Apocalyptic Empire) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We haven't had these in ages, but since Furze is some of our favorite far-out black metal EVER, we figured we oughta relist it since we just now managed to get some more copies (and we might not be able to get any more after this as the label is pretty much sold out!). Here's how much we love this stuff (from when we listed it the first time a few years back):
We've been trying to track down music from this mysterious Norwegian black metal one man band for ages now and finally managed to get enough to list. We're constantly extolling the virtues of retarded / damaged / fucked / outsider black metal (see the Benighted Leams review elsewhere on this site) and we're always on the lookout for more. And Furze definitely fits the bill. In fact, we've been touting Benighted Leams as "perhaps the most retarded black metal band ever" for years now, but it seems like Furze might be just sneak in and steal that 'honor' for themselves. Let's talk about the packaging first. The cover is all black except for some weeds laid out next to each other. The back is all white (!) with a photo of what appears to be two young trick or treaters, one dressed like a witch, the other like a ghost. The Furze logo on the back is printed over three witches brooms. the back of the booklet has a very South Park-like painting of a white sign under a blood dripping sky, The sign reads: "Come, come sit listen to our cogent black metal necrosis". Inside the booklet, Mr Furze is carrying a lantern through a snowy forest.
While Necromanzee Cogent is black metal, sonically it sounds way more like a doom record, slow doomy riffs, one track even sounds exactly Black Sabbath, but played by a grade school music class. The whole record starts off with haunting Jandekian mumbling before erupting into clumsy, mid tempo doooooom. Totally random drumming, fuzzed out atonal organ melodies and anguished heavily reverbed moaning, not really metal so much as some strange Scott Walker / Jandek / Nick Cave caterwaul occasionally whispering ominously but more often gurgling and squealing and yelping. There are occasional blasts of -actual- black metal, but it's almost as if he can't manage to play that fast for that long and is forced to slow down and often abandon song structure all together, resulting in lots of creepy ambient bits, with scraping reverbed guitar strings and all sort of weird sounds. Most of the record is a sludgy doomy, plodding thud rock, almost like some long lost Amrep band, but filtered through the frosty blackened mind of some Norwegian black metal troll. Also, somewhat surprisingly there are some really gorgeous blissed out post-rocky guitar ambience, keening guitar melodies suspended in a massive blackened emptiness. Everything up until this point has only served to get you ready for the massive 20+ minute final track "Sathanas' Megalomania". From high end chiming shimmer, to slow building droning creepiness, to church-like organ and plodding drum with deep chanting and scary demonic screeches, to full on epic black metal with REALLY loud monster vocals, to haunting funereal doom until the end of the song where levels and song structure and vocals all seem to go haywire. As the metal maelstrom dissipates, the song becomes a chaotic swirl of weird sped up disembodied voices, snippets of crappy AM radio, snatches of distorted orchestra, squealing feedback and groaning downtuned guitars. Phew. Yikes. After listening to this record we feel like we've been dragged naked over rocks and thistles, through a snowy forest, into a fiery pit where we were quickly eaten by a huge demon, and promptly shat out. You know what we're talking about: tired, filthy, demoralized, violated, bruised and battered. But surprisingly really really good.
MPEG Stream: "Seance"
MPEG Stream: "Necrosaint Black Metal"
MPEG Stream: "Silver Starlight"

FURZE Trident Autocrat (Apocalyptic Empire) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We haven't had these in ages, but since Furze is some of our favorite far out black metal EVER, we figured we oughta relist it since we just now managed to get some more copies (and we might not be able to get any more after this as the label is pretty much sold out!). Here's how much we love this stuff (from when we listed it the first time a few years back):
Everybody went so nuts for the newest Furze record we listed recently we figured we oughta track down the first one as well. And it's just as freaked out and damaged and totally brilliant. Unlike the weird droning doom of Necromanzee Cogent, Trident Autocrat is all black metal. But that doesn't mean it's not as bizarre, because it most definitely is. The song titles again are totally perplexing: "Zaredoo Knives Endows Thy Sight", "Devacamo Possessed Black", "Witchboundator", "Scolopendraarise" and the lyrics and imagery are quite ridiculous as well. The logo, which features three witches brooms and the slogan: "Trident Black Metal Feast", the back of the record that features a long exposure swirl of light in a spooky hallway, and lines like "The overall vibration of the preacher, The way of sneaking teeth and hypocrisy, It's the destruction ritual of the holy trinity" all combine to form the perfect framework for one of the coolest weirdest black metal records ever. All the BM hallmarks are present, buzzing riffs, growled vocals, chaotic lightning speed bast beats, but the black metal of Furze turns these seemingly typical elements into completely insane musical madness. The growling vocals squirm and morph from demonic growl, to howled distant anguish, heavily reverbed as if they were being recorded at the bottom of a well, to maniacal gremlin like chatter, and creepy cartoony chanting. The riffs, are super affected and sometimes sound totally heavy, sometimes completely brittle, lo-fi and tinny one minute, buzzing and snarling the next. The most surprising thing is how damn catchy some of these riffs are. The first song has been stuck in my head like crazy, and unlike most black metal, you'll no doubt find yourself humming along. Only a half hour long, but so much wonderful weirdness is crammed into those 30 minutes you definitely won't be left wanting.
MPEG Stream: "Zaredoo Knives Endows Thy Sight"
MPEG Stream: "Devacamo Possessed Black"

WARHAMMER 48K Uber Om (Rodenburg / Apop) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The vinyl version of this AQ fave back in stock!
A few months ago, Andee received a cd-r in the mail. In a spray painted DVD case, with a photo of Patrick Swayze inside. Hmmm. The band was called Warhammer 48K (the name of a sci-fi miniatures wargame as Allan would later inform us) and the record was KILLER. So killer in fact that Andee had already begun trying to figure out a way to put it out, and Jason (having heard it from Andee) was even considering starting his own label to put it out. Well, before either of those things could happen, the band already had gotten a friend's label to press them up and suddenly showed up in our store with a box of cds. Well, for a record to have that much of an effect on Andee and Jason, you can just imagine what a serious slab of kick ass rock this must be. Falling somewhere between the indie mathy metallic crush of bands like Unwound, Lync, the Narrows, and Karp and the post rock sludge metal of bands like Conifer, Baroness, and Tides, but with their own unique sense of dynamics and some strange and strangely original riffs. From loping minor key slowcore, to super dense complex dual guitar riffing, to pounding full on metal, to lurching sludge rock, to noisy indie mathrock, to massive squalls of downtuned riffing and squealing feedback, this is heavy and epic, catchy and weird, noisy and freaked out, super dynamic and totally original.
MPEG Stream: "Get Bodacious"
MPEG Stream: "Citizen Pain"

FEAR FALLS BURNING The Amplifier Drone (Ikon / Tonefloat) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've had some Fear Falls Burning cds in the past, but this is the first release we've been able to get enough of to list, and it is quite simply amazing. Utilizing several guitars as well as an ensemble of Crate, Bahringer, Peavey, Laney and of course Marshall amplifiers, FFB have captured their own take on the glacial dirge. And it's quite unlike the majority of practitioners, in that it is strangely melodic and dreamlike. Very reminiscent of past record of the week Hjarnidaudi, in its ability to drip sunlight and warmth on a sound both dark and dreary. But unlike the band arrangements of Hjarnidaudi, FFB is nothing but guitars, amps, and effects, all deftly woven into a washed out deep ambient whole. Imagine Earth 2 or Sunn 0))) but lighter, and dreamier, less caustic and more soft and billowy. A soft bed of crumbling distortion, a swirl of grit and grrrr, but over the top lie sweet swoons of glistening feedback and thick swells of melody. It sounds almost like one guitarist playing soft and sweet through the biggest loudest most distorted amp ever, while another guitarist plays harsh buzzing drone, but through the tiniest, lowest wattage amp ever. the two mixed together create the perfect dreamlike heaviness. From huge walls of sound to soft humming shimmery buzz, My Bloody Valentine-ish blown out bliss to raga like buzz, this is absolutely gorgeous. A truly unique and surprisingly melodic take on doom and drone.
Amazingly packaged on gorgeous thick sparkly blue sleeve, with an actual photo of one of the amps used to make the record affixed to the front. Pressed on 180 gram white vinyl.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. ONCE THESE ARE GONE THEY ARE GONE FOREVER!

WRIGHT, PETER Desolation Beauty Violence (Ikuisuus) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've said it before, over and over and over, but we don't mind saying it again, in fact we'll shout it from the rooftops, and print up t-shirts or even write it in review after review until everyone listens and understands. Peter Wright is one of the most compelling soundmakers we have ever heard. And his lustrous soundscapes and dark dreamlike drones are every bit as lovely and mysterious, and as carefully crafted and breathtaking as any of the work from bigger names like Chalk, Colelcough, Mirror, Maeror Tri, Organum, Basinski or any of the flavor of the month limited cd-r drone rockers.
Record after record of completely mesmerizing sound. Gorgeous gauzy smears of fuzzy guitar, lilting ghostlike melodies, soft focus ethereal drifts and dense swirls of abstract melancholia.
This cd, originally released as a super limited cd-r on Foxglove, is no different. The title Desolation Beauty Violence describes the music more succinctly than we ever could.
A gauzy glimpse into a microscopic alternate universe, where everything is broken into their base elements, the sky is a woven tapestry of smoky languid guitar lines, tiny glistening sonic molecules drift like snowflakes against a fuzzy slate grey sky, while in the distance, shimmering molecules reverberate, sending deep cavernous whirs drifting skyward. Melodies are tiny bits of sound, stretched out into minute long smears. Bits of percussion offer up some muted underwater click and clack like stones in a mountain stream, everything spread out into dreamy slabs of trembling sonic gauze.
So goddamn lovely. If asked, we'd probably insist that you buy EVERY SINGLE PETER WRIGHT RECORD you can get your hands on, but for now, start with Desolation Beauty Violence, and be prepared to fall hopelessly under his dreamdrone spell...
MPEG Stream: "Above Lewis Pass"
MPEG Stream: "Adrift At 30,000 Ft."

NASH, GRAHAM Songs For Beginners (Atlantic) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is not new, wasn't just reissued, but was just discovered. And sometimes the process of discovery with music, or movies or whatever, can be just as interesting and strange as the music itself. And sometimes that process enables you to discover music you might not give a second listen to otherwise, and lets you be more objective, lets you disregard your normal musical biases. Thus... we've never been that big into Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young. And yeah, before you email all in a tizzy, we've already gotten plenty of suggestions for CSN+Y records we NEED to hear, but for the most part we were just never really big fans. Consequently, we tended to ignore the various members' solo records (not counting Mr, Young of course) as well.Ê
We recently (re)discovered Terry Reid via the soundtrack to Rob Zombie's killer 'killer' flick The Devil's Rejects, which is already sort of a random way of getting turned on to an artist we had at least known about for ages. But there was something special about those specific tracks Zombie chose for the soundtrack. Further exploration of Terry Reid's various releases, revealed that those three tracks were all from the same album, Seed Of Memory, and while we love pretty much all the Terry Reid records, Seed Of Memory is by far our favorite. The dreamiest, the catchiest, the most country (and somewhat frustratingly, the most difficult to get). So what was it exactly that made that record so special? Well, and here's where it connects, it was produced by Graham Nash, who also played and contributed various parts and pieces. So, recently an aQ customer suggested we check out Songs For Beginners, which they told us was Nash's best solo record, and while we haven't heard enough of Nash's releases to say for sure, we can at least say we really really like it! A LOT!
To begin with Songs For Beginners was originally released in the mystical magical year of 1971, a year when pretty much every great record was released (at least according to Allan) from Black Sabbath to Flower Travellin Band to Van Der Graaf Generator to Comus and on and on. While Nash's record is obviously not as weird or heavy or psychedelic as any of those, it's still pretty fucking awesome. Sunny, sweet, singer songwriter soft rock dream pop. With a streak of dark melancholy moodiness. Think Billy Joel, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Bread, America, Donovan and even more esoteric folk folks like Bill Fay, Terry Reid, Fred Neil and the like.
Each track is a gorgeously simple folky pop gem, with harmony vocals, lilting melodies, gentle piano, lush strings, soaring lap steel, a little bit of twang, a little bit of swoonsome sweetness, all dreamily draped over minor key Beatlesque pop or soft shimmery folkpop ballads, While the sound is immediately recognizable, that ubiquitous seventies FM radio soft rock from our childhoods, it's just weird enough, and the songs are just so goddamn good, that it totally transcends the seventies schlock that surrounded it. And by now we've all been blessed with a healthy diet of modern psychedelic folk, bizarre Finnish forest folk, neo-Appalachia, folky droney pop weirdness, plenty of Six Organs and Current 93's and Vetivers and Banharts and Newsoms and Feathers and Wooden Wands that we can look back with wide eyes at the sort of folky pop that was the seed for the dense folky foliage we love rolling around in these days...
MPEG Stream: "I Used To Be King"
MPEG Stream: "Wounded Bird"
MPEG Stream: "Military Madness"

EARTH Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons (Sub Pop) lp 10.98
Finally, all of the legendary and long out of print Earth records are available again on vinyl (including the classic Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions also just reissued on cd)!!! It was only a matter of time really with the recent explosion of deathdoomdronesludge mania, SUNNO))), Corrupted, Boris and of course Earth, the forefathers and undisputed masters of all things slow and sludgey.
Y'know, we had never ever listed this Earth album until it was re-issued on cd a little while back, and now it's here on vinyl for the first time in ages. It's the last one they recorded for Sub Pop, way back in 1996, and until pretty recently seemed likely to be this seminal sludge-drone band's swansong. One that wasn't even all that well-regarded at the time when it came out, either. (Not that any of Earth's albums were all that popular back in the day -- they're definitely much more appreciated now!) And so perhaps it's time to re-evaluate Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons. Especially since we've been selling a ton of the recent Earth remixes album on both cd and vinyl, and chances are a few of you'll also want/need this, seeing as how one of those remixes (Autechre's) was of a song from this here record. Silly to have the remix but not the original, eh? Plus we figure a lot of you Earth fans might have overlooked this one, or simply thought it was out of print or something.
Back in '96, Pentastar was kinda regarded as Earth's "sell-out" album, the one where Earth mainman Dylan Carlson got himself a real band and attempted to make some honest to goodness rock n' roll music, with, y'know, vocals and melodies and songs and everything. They even do a Hendrix cover! But of course being Earth this was still (kinda) super heavy and (mostly) droned-out. Let's take a closer look, track-by-track...
"Introduction" certainly sounds like Earth of olde, a doomful commencement to the proceedings that could just as easily be the work of Boris. But then track two, "High Command", is more like some sort of slowed-down psych-grunge with the haunted by the ghosts of the Velvet Underground. A real nod scene, sure, but not exactly the Earth we knew and loved. Listening to it now, though, it's not bad at all. Sounds a bit like Steel Pole Bathtub. Then there's "Crooked Axis For String Quartet" that takes us into spaced-out krautrock territory... not heavy, but nice! The blown-out rumble of "Tallahassee" returns us to the realm of heaviness but again rocks more than Earth is or was "supposed" to. That's then followed by the rather lovely interlude of "Charioteer (Temple Song)", before the heavy Hendrix worship of Earth's take on Jimi's "Peace In Mississippi" stomps into view. Seems pretty cool now. The experimental side of Earth then surfaces with a seven-minute minimalist piece for *piano* entitled "Sonar And Depth Charge". The many moods of Dylan Carlson, eh? Lastly, the album closes with the epic instrumental "Coda Maestoso In F (flat) Minor" that finds what we might term Earth-y riffage (same as the "Introduction") graced with an honest-to-God heavy metal style melodic guitar solo!!
We can understand how some folks (some of us!) were disappointed when this album first came out. The extremity of old Earth was tamed. A lot of this was at least twice as fast and/or half as heavy as we'd expected (or wanted) from them. But giving it another chance and taking it on its own terms, this is a fine album of stoner rock indeed, sounding not unliked AQ faves Los Natas at times. Or the "heavy rocks" side of Boris. Or the Melvins, who of course have made fucking with their fans expectations a big part of their career. And if we'd heard this *before* hearing Earth's previous albums, we'd probably have loved it right away! Indeed, if you got into this album first (as assuredly some folks did) and then went back to Earth 2 or Extra-Capsular Extraction, whew! that would be a interesting/confounding experience.
We're now convinced that the underrated Pentastar does indeed proudly belong in any Earth fan's collection!
MPEG Stream: "Introduction"
MPEG Stream: "High Command"
MPEG Stream: "Crooked Axis For String Quartet"

EARTH Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions (Sub Pop) cd 11.98
This essential and pioneering slab of ambient doom back in stock again! To coincide with its vinyl counterpart...
Used to be that Earth was best known for their appearance in the Kurt and Courtney documentary. But those days are long gone. Even your Mom probably knows who Earth is (okay, probably only if you have a super hip Mom, but still, you get the point). These are indeed the days of Earth. Reissues, reunions, remixes...and of course that great new album, Hex. Sub Pop has finally figured out that there's a demand for this stuff, so they've repressed all the Earth albums on vinyl and finally reissued the cd of Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions (the vinyl is actually delayed a bit on this one).
When Phase 3 first came out, we were already BIG Earth fans, totally obsessed with the godlike Earth 2, and were a trifle disappointed by Phase 3, shorter songs, cleaner guitar tone, riffs that were actual riffs and not just slow motion smears of distorted rumble. But more recently we were reminded that Phase 3 really was a pretty darn good record by that Legacy Of Dissolution remix album, when several of the best tracks on there turned out to be sourced from songs from this record!
This still has plenty in common with its predecessor, the lugubrious tempos, the sludgy riffage, the whole Melvins on Thorazine sound, but as mentioned above, the songs are shorter and there's a whole lot more variety in sound and texture and instrumentation. Which at the time, chomping at the bit for Earth 2.5, was a bit of a bummer, but returning to it now, it's really amazing. In fact we're beginning to think track two "Tibetan Quaaludes" is one of our all time favorite Earth songs.
It's easy to see how the band ended up with Pentastar, the record that followed Phase 3, a pretty straight ahead stoner rock record with drums and piano and songs, even a Hendrix cover. This is definitely the transition record, and as such, is a little awkward, but still weird and wonderful. With the riffs more fully formed, we sometimes find ourselves expecting the drums to kick in, we can almost picture the huge fill, BOOM, BAP, BUM BUM BUM BOOM BAP and then the killer metallicized krautrock rhythm that would perfectly fit some of these riffs, but without the drums, it adds all sorts of tension. It's still droney for sure, but it's more like a blissed out guitar experiment than full on sludge. The extra melody makes for some strange referents. The opening track "Harvey" sounds like someone took just the guitar track out of a Queen song, and then slowed it down a tiny bit. Strange but cool. Track three, "Lullaby" sounds like some alternative take on Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner". Song 6, appropriately entitled "Song 6" is acoustic guitar strum under electric guitar melody with twinkling chimes, a sort of folkdrone hoedown. It's the longer tracks that keep the drone dream of Earth 2 alive though, the aforementioned "Tibetan Quaaludes", the ambient windblown desolation of "Phase 3: Agni Detonating Over The Thar Desert..." the damaged psych drone guitar strangle of "Thrones And Dominions", it all makes for a killer slab of droning guitar weirdness and definitely qualifies as one of our favorite chunks of low end guitar grrr ever. While not as relentlessly monochromatic as 2, it's still pretty dang heavy and droney and sort of pretty too. So, to recap, Earth 2 and their debut, the amazing Extra-Capsular Extraction are both way heavier. Pentastar is way groovier and more like a regular rock band, but Phase 3 is still kinda heavy but groovy as well which maybe makes it a good introduction for the Earth novice, depending on which way you lean, drone or groove, you can decide which Earth to get next. The rest of you weird rock obsessives just assume this is absolutely essential.
Too bad they didn't spring for the deluxe packaging of the original with its sheet of red transparent plastic and multiple inserts, on the reissue it's just replicated on the digipak, funny too as the original packaging must have been pretty pricey for a band who at the time probably wasn't selling a whole lot of records, but now with the world in a sludge drone frenzy, and Earth practically a household name (well, in our house hold at least) that sort of packaging would pay for itself in no time...
MPEG Stream: "Tibetan Quaaludes"
MPEG Stream: "Phase 3: Agni Detonating Over The Thar Desert..."
MPEG Stream: "Thrones And Dominions"

EARTH Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions (Sub Pop) lp 13.98
After a slight delay, the vinyl is now finally here!
Used to be that Earth was best known for their appearance in the Kurt and Courtney documentary. But those days are long gone. Even your Mom probably knows who Earth is (okay, probably only if you have a super hip Mom, but still, you get the point). These are indeed the days of Earth. Reissues, reunions, remixes...and of course that great new album, Hex. Sub Pop has finally figured out that there's a demand for this stuff, so they've repressed all the Earth albums on vinyl and finally reissued the cd of Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions.
When Phase 3 first came out, we were already BIG Earth fans, totally obsessed with the godlike Earth 2, and were a trifle disappointed by Phase 3, shorter songs, cleaner guitar tone, riffs that were actual riffs and not just slow motion smears of distorted rumble. But more recently we were reminded that 3 really was a pretty darn good record by that Legacy Of Dissolution remix album, when several of the best tracks on there turned out to be sourced from songs from this record!
This still has plenty in common with its predecessor, the lugubrious tempos, the sludgy riffage, the whole Melvins on Thorazine sound, but as mentioned above, the songs are shorter and there's a whole lot more variety in sound and texture and instrumentation. Which at the time, chomping at the bit for Earth 2.5, was a bit of a bummer, but returning to it now, it's really amazing. In fact we're beginning to think track two "Tibetan Quaaludes" is one of our all time favorite Earth songs.
It's easy to see how the band ended up with Pentastar, the record that followed Phase 3, a pretty straight ahead stoner rock record with drums and piano and songs, even a Hendrix cover. This is definitely the transition record, and as such, is a little awkward, but still weird and wonderful. With the riffs more fully formed, we sometimes find ourselves expecting the drums to kick in, we can almost picture the huge fill, BOOM, BAP, BUM BUM BUM BOOM BAP and then the killer metallicized krautrock rhythm that would perfectly fit some of these riffs, but without the drums, it adds all sorts of tension. It's still droney for sure, but it's more like a blissed out guitar experiment than full on sludge. The extra melody makes for some strange referents. The opening track "Harvey" sounds like someone took just the guitar track out of a Queen song, and then slowed it down a tiny bit. Strange but cool. Track three, "Lullaby" sounds like some alternative take on Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner". Song 6, appropriately entitled "Song 6" is acoustic guitar strum under electric guitar melody with twinkling chimes, a sort of folkdrone hoedown. It's the longer tracks that keep the drone dream of Earth 2 alive though, the aforementioned "Tibetan Quaaludes", the ambient windblown desolation of "Phase 3: Agni Detonating Over The Thar Desert..." the damaged psych drone guitar strangle of "Thrones And Dominions", it all makes for a killer slab of droning guitar weirdness and definitely qualifies as one of our favorite chunks of low end guitar grrr ever. While not as relentlessly monochromatic as 2, it's still pretty dang heavy and droney and sort of pretty too. So, to recap, Earth 2 and their debut, the amazing "Extra-Capsular Extraction are both way heavier. Pentastar is way groovier and more like a regular rock band, but Phase 3 is still kinda heavy but groovy as well which maybe makes it a good introduction for the Earth novice, depending on which way you lean, drone or groove, you can decide which Earth to get next. The rest of you weird rock obsessives just assume this is absolutely essential.
Too bad they didn't spring for the deluxe packaging of the original with its sheet of red transparent plastic and multiple inserts, on the reissue it's just replicated on the digipak, funny too as the original packaging must have been pretty pricey for a band who at the time probably wasn't selling a whole lot of records, but now with the world in a sludge drone frenzy, and Earth practically a household name (well, in our house hold at least) that sort of packaging would pay for itself in no time...
MPEG Stream: "Tibetan Quaaludes"
MPEG Stream: "Phase 3: Agni Detonating Over The Thar Desert..."
MPEG Stream: "Thrones And Dominions"

HWYL NOFIO Hounded By Fury (Hwyl Nofio) cd 15.98
There are always gonna be special bands, the ones that hold a unique place in your heart. That band you heard when you were on a trip. The band you have loved since the first time you heard them. The band whose songs featured heavily on that mix tape. And then any variation of the 'first' band, the band whose show you were at the first time you got drunk, laid, high, the night you met 'the one', then there's the band whose songs are always stuck in your head, the first -any genre here- band you ever liked, the band that helped you make it through that breakup / rehab / depression / that tough time in your life. But then there's the sort of band you have that weird protective proprietary selfish love for. The band only you like. The band you don't want everyone else listening to. The band you discovered and only you truly love. You know what we mean. It's a rare band that can inspire that sort of love and dedication. Well, we're a little embarrassed to admit it, but we sort of felt that way about Hwyl Nofio. A friend in the UK turned us on to them years back, and from the moment we first laid ears on them, we were smitten, obsessed even. This mysterious outfit crafting these dark and ominous worlds of strange and beautiful sound. It was hard to not keep it all to ourselves, this dark cave of sound that we could explore and call our own. But we like to think we've outgrown that sort of stuff, since we get as much satisfaction from turning other folks on to new music as we do discovering it for ourselves. More so in most cases. But it definitely speaks to the power of Hwyl Nofio, and the effect of their murky and mysterious music has on our ears, and brains, and hearts and souls.
Hounded By Fury is record number four from this UK drone outfit. The band is mostly the work of one man, Steve Parry, who handles the bulk of the sound making, utilizing all manner of guitars: strummed, plucked, bowed, adapted and otherwise, ukulele, piano, organs: church and otherwise, viola, bass and electronics, while a series of guests add their two cents with saxophone, Chinese guzheng, acoustic guitar processing, imagined banjo (?) and midi fractal image converter (!). Recorded at various locations including an old church Hounded By Fury is a definitely a drone record at its heart, but it's what the band do with those drones that makes Hwyl Nofio so special.
The sound this time around is a bit more ominous than on past outings. There's more scraping and scrabbling steel strings, a sort of grinding industrial screech that surfaces in some form or another on many of the tracks, sometimes right up front, a keening high end wail, sometimes just another element in a multilayered droneworld, subtly blended into a slow sleepy swirl with thee rest of the sounds.
The opening track is the former, with steel strings singing as they are scraped and scratched, a shrill screech stretched taut over a warm reverberant low end, strange tinkling wooden chimes and twinkling music box melodies, while in the background a moaning mournful melody, strummed softly so that the strums blend together. From that point on, it's a slow journey through a nighttime world of slow burn jazz minimalism a la Bohren, buzzing raga like rumble, and abstract ambient flutter. Layers of bowed strings sit atop minimal pulsing rhythms, a minimal throb usually constructed from one or two notes, long sustaining tones are stretched out side by side, the overtones shimmering and shifting, the resulting soundfield like drifting along some alien river, staring at a sky full of different stars, a head full of strange and unrecognizable sounds. Bizarre disembodied jangle is stripped of melody, until it's just a warm ridged texture, atonal Jandekian guitar figures warped and twisted, slowed down and sped up, sprinkled with cymbal sizzle and muted reverb ricochets, all stretched and twisted into various forms of drone.
One of the most intense tracks is "Child Woman", a choral sounding minor key lament, deep dark strings and mournful melodies, almost traditional settled as it is amidst an album of abstract experimental drone music., but very emotional and cinematic. It seems like a turning point for the record too as the next few tracks sound downright sunny, bright colors replace the dark, guitars twang, a trippy tangled slow motion free folk, the melodies not so dour, but the sunshine soon dims as black clouds fill the sky and timestretched metallic reverberations fill our ears like a million alarm clocks going off at once and then slowed down into a wall of alien trills, the mood shift is further enforced by some super sharp atonal guitars, swooping dizzily about, sounding a bit like the guitars on the Butthole Surfers' Hairway To Steven record, sort of damaged and deranged. But then the record's coda brings us back to Hwyl's soft shimmer, the delicate drone, a haunting ghostlike swoon, fuzzy and gauzey, obscured by falling rain, a dreamy drift into the void, a slow sad slide into the bright white, the pitch black left far behind.
MPEG Stream: "Living In Shadows"
MPEG Stream: "Sanctify"
MPEG Stream: "Riding The Echoes Of A Strange Situation"

MRTYU Blood Tantra (20 Buck Spin) 2cd 14.98
We've had some cd-r evidence a while backÊpointing to the existence of some mighty black beast, trolling the midnight forests of the New Zealand wilds, the thing they call Mrtyu, some say it's a man, but what kind of man can spew forth such a noxious cacophony? Some say it is a demon from the depths of hell, unleashed after centuries of incarceration in some hellish underground lair, but how did a demon learn to play a guitar and use a 4 track? We've been led to believe however that Mrtyu is actually the musical Mr. Hyde to one Antony Milton's Dr. Jeckyll. What proof do we have? The cd-r label Pseudo Arcana, run by an entity known as Antony Milton, Nether Dawn, a group fronted by a shadowy figure possibly also Mr. Milton, and then there are of course a couple previous cd-r releases, which are now known to be the work of one Antony Milton. This double disc collection gathers up all existing evidence, including previous releases as well as a brand new previously unreleased sonic document. Why the hubbub? Well, friends, it could be that Mrtyu offer up some of the darkest, blackest, heaviest sounds south of Heaven? That to trudge through Mrtyu's sonic world is a journey to the brink of madness? Perhaps, but the best way to truly understand the fury and glory of the mighty Mrtyu is to listen. Each track a blast of primitive power, each with it's own unique sonic energy.ÊSheets of shimmering feedback drift over crumbly rumbling super distorted guitar background noise. Very static and raga-like, quite reminiscent of Total or Skullflower. A lo-fi doom dirge, with jagged brittle guitars, distorted vocals (not howls or shrieks, but like indie crooning, all 'distorted' up). A brief blast of Melvins-y sludge but with the high end pushed into the red. Almost like a indie pop song, but deconstructed and dipped in stoner sludge. A bitÊof Sunroof!, a bit of Angus Maclise, a lush shimmering drone, with peals of feedback and throbbing smears of downtuned guitar, all tangled into a gorgeously static thrum. Drones cloaked in black, damaged and druggy, ultra distorted guitars, so downtuned and blown out it sounds like some sort of tectonic event, the guitars form the framework for a truly oppressive atmosphere, a swirl of black clouds and Butthole Surfers-esque feedback, while atop it all, a demonic voice intones and howls and squeals like a rusted hinge. Think Khanate meets Abruptum, but filtered through than NZ noize aesthetic. A howling hellish musical journey through the fires of hell, trudging across pits of black pitch, being dragged bloody and screaming through dark demon infested forests. So harsh and beautifully bilious, drones become dirges, dirges become drones, everything cloaked in black and swathed in buzz.
Bow supplicant, pray for forgiveness, wish for survival, bathe in the blood from your ringing ears. All hail Mrtyu.
These musical missives come housed in a hand screened green and blue, three panel cardstock sleeve, adorned with all manner of pagan and tribal imagery, quite striking!
(Psst... the artwork on the discs got swapped at the plant, so the disc marked DISC 1 actually contains the music from disc 2 and vice versa. Just the demon Mrtyu messing with our heads wethink!)
MPEG Stream: "Monk Eats Children"
MPEG Stream: "Fecundity"
MPEG Stream: "Rites Of Death In Body Temple"

SERENA-MANEESH s/t (Play Louder) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Everybody's been flipping out about the Black Angels and their take on druggy drone-y space rock. But if you ask us, Norwegian blissrockers Serena-Maneesh is the band people should be freaking out about. If the Black Angels areÊchanneling Spacemen 3 via the Velvet Underground, Serena-Maneesh take their Spacemen 3 obsession and drag it kicking and screaming through the detuned murk of classic Sonic Youth, the psychedelic freakout of Hawkwind and the slow build cinematic roar of Mogwai and Godspeed. This is spaced out psychedelic drug rock of the highest order for sure, but Serena-Maneesh add their own special slant to the proceedings, twisting these tracks intoÊall sorts of dronier and dreamier shapes, cool boy / girl harmonies, hushed whispery sadboy vocals backed up by delicate dreamy female coo's and ooh's, both woven together into still more layers of sweet warm gauze, BIG guitars, not wispy or delicate, okay maybe once in a while, but mostly thick, crunchy and HEAVY riffs that just churn and grind, and then there's the hypnotic drone aspect, when Serena-Maneesh eventually build to a frenzied climax, they keep it going, endlessly, the riffs loop and loop, mesmerizing and completely spellbinding, effects swirl, guitar FX explode and careen wildly, wah wah's everywhere, warm washes of distorted swoooosh, the ambient sounds grow more and more dense, but the riffs plow forward, like there's no end in sight, our heads crack open spilling blinding light into the sky, as we drift and shimmer and are lifted into some blissed out drone rock nirvana like we haven't experienced since the heyday of bands like the Telescopes, Sundial, Loop, and of course Hawkwind and Spacement 3. So awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Drain Cosmetics"
MPEG Stream: "Selina's Melodie Fountain"

CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS Shores (Northern Sky) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not any black metal band can share a split with the mighty and mighty bizarre Urfaust, with their blustery buzz and crazy crooning. But Finland's Circle Of Ouroborus were well up to the task. In fact they actually sound quite bit like Urfaust, albeit in a way more damaged way, which is saying a lot.
On the split with Urfaust we reviewed recently, Circle Of Ouroborus offered up their own cracked take on buzzing black metal, murky almost punky, super lo-fi, practice space production, mumble warbly guitars, drums tinny and buried in the mix, and a totally demented vocalist wailing in a growling cracked croon, WAY up in the mix, shouting and howling. We thought they sounded a bit like a grim black metal Fall.
On Shores, the band stretch out a bit, but still hew close to the sound they share with their sonic brethren in Urfaust, a loping lurching, midtempo buzz, sing songy melodies, a murky black swirl, downtuned and droney, but stumblingly propulsive. Seasick and swaying drunkenly, these tracks sound more like blackened versions of some eighties British post punk band than some cult black metal band. And when the vocals kick in it pretty much seals the deal. When Mark E. Smith dies, and the Fall are no more, he'll strike a deal with the devil, come back from the dead, and this is where he'll end up. Crooning, in that nasally whine, sing/speaking for some mysterious jangly black metal post punk rock band. And if there was any doubt, Circle Of Ouroborus cover "She's Lost Control" by Joy Division. It's not particularly black either, it's gloomy and gothy and propulsively punky, guitars slide and slither, the vocals a dark croon. It almost sounds like a lo-fi live recording of Interpol or some long lost Damned track. Which is a very good thing for sure. It's just weird that these guys exist as a underground, grim and cult black metal band, when sonically, they owe as much to punk rock, and goth rock, and new wave as they do Darkthrone or Mayhem. Sure there's plenty of buzz and suffocating black atmosphere, but to truly dig this you'll definitely need either a love of totally bizarre and not entirely black metal, or a soft spot for classic newwavepostpunk (Fall, Wire, Gang Of Four, Joy Division) or preferably BOTH! And we definitely have both in spades, so as you might imagine this is WAY recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Nothingness"
MPEG Stream: "She's Lost Control (Joy Division)"
MPEG Stream: "Invocation"

OLIVE, DJ Sleep (Room40) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We have to admit we were never that into DJ Olive, he always seemed to be the token turntablist on records by NY based rock ensembles trying to be 'edgy' or wanting to 'experiment', either that or the go to guy if Spooky was already booked. We're not trying to be harsh, we'd definitely take Olive over Spooky ANY day, but that's just the impression we got, but this record, boy did it shut us up good. Real good! This is definitely one of the most beautiful turntable drone records in recent memory. Really. One epic 50 minute track, a murky underwater drift, equal parts Oval, Jeck, Basinski, Marclay and Hecker. Gauzy and slightly warbly, loops seemlessly integrated into a single glacial drone. Fans of any of the above mentioned turntablists should just stop right now and buy this immediately.
It's not just a drone record either. The first half of the disc is thick and warm, a slow moving slab of rich multi timbral sound, but partway through, the smooth dreaminess begins to peel back, revealing little bits of guitar, or strange rhythmic clicking, brief glimpses of the inner workings, that reveals a strange skeletal system beneath Sleep's seemingly deep organic surface. Which only adds to the deep listening, feeling strange shapes moving just below the surface, the drone interrupted to skip and skitter before resuming its glacial pace.
I know we say this about a lot of records, but Sleep truly is dreamy.
MPEG Stream: "Sleep (excerpt)"

PYRAMIDS, THE Birth / Speed / Merging (EM Records) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're getting to the point now where EM Records could sell us pretty much anything. We've come to trust them that much. Whether it's singing saws, some lost psych oddity, sixties symphonies made entirely from bird calls, space age bachelor pad music, or lost jazz funk artifacts, they have such a knack for unearthing true gems, and then lovingly compiling liner notes and photos and extra track so that the final product is almost as impressive an -object- as it is a piece of music.
The newset mysterious missive from EM is this long lost mysterious jazz record, originally released in 1976. We haven't been able to glean too much about The Pyramids, there are no liner notes (if that tells you how obscure this recording was/is) and a Google search turned up almost exclusively Japanese language sites. But don't let the lack of background keep you from enjoying this record, cuz it's definitely one of the most amazing rediscovered free jazz gems we've heard in ages. And it's not just free jazz, all wild swirl and skronk. Instead it's an exotic blend of Don Cherry's Orient, Funkadelic's Maggot Brian, some Art Ensemble Of Chicago, with wild Eastern sounding tribal rhythms, shuffling jazzy post bop, fluttering flutes and skronking horns, chanted vocals, droning buzzing ragas, seventies psychedelic free folk, propulsive krautfunk jams, some totally chaotic free jazz here and there, octopoidal drumming and wild shrieking sax, haunting percussive soundscapes, replete with strange creaks and whistles, and then before you know it transforming before your ears into what sounds like traditional African music with warm muted thumb piano melodies, chanted harmonies, bird calls, and sweetly melodic flute, rollicking bass heavy grooves under wild hand drums and carnivalesquee noisemaking. The final track, the 16 minute long "Black Man And Woman Of The Nile", is a mellow slow burning groove, with a throbbing bass riff, warm rich sax runs, shuffling percussion, the whole thing a laidback, sun drenched, barefoot funkjazz jam, warm and dreamy and hypnotic, with a short break in the middle for a brief skronky freakout, and then straight back into it, eventually drifting off into abstract ambience, softly moaning horns, dreamy melodies and barely there percussive chatter. Awesome!
NB. After listing this, we found out that there are plans for a forthcoming (2007) domestic Pyramids *box set* on the Locust side label Ikef, that will include this album and more! FYI.
MPEG Stream: "Aomawa"
MPEG Stream: "Birth Speed Merging"

SAWAKOT Omnibus (Community Library) cd 12.98
Omnibus is a gorgeous collage of donated sound. Various contributors (Polmo Polpo, Tu'M, Hypo, Yuichiro Fujimoto, Birds in Tokyo and more) each presented various bits and pieces of sound: songs, found recordings, misplaced melodies, snippets of vocals, little chunks of rhythm, all of which were twisted and tangled and stretched and smeared into a gorgeous droney soundscape. The resulting pieces seemingly bear no relation to the original sounds. Instead, they managed to be pretty cohesive suite of soft shimmery sort-of-songs, all cobbled together from looped hiccupping warbles, damaged music box melodies, tape hiss, lo-fi recording detritus, detuned guitars, muted percussive thump, skittery shuffle, blooping bleeping video game sounds, skipping cds, little bursts of some disco-y techno chopped up and reassembled, and loads more impossible to pick out source sounds. But the final product really is more than the sum of its parts. A deliriously dreamy weird and wonderful world of sound.
MPEG Stream: "O R G"
MPEG Stream: "Aykmin"
MPEG Stream: "Datam"

HERESI Psalm II - Infusco Ignis (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
The first thing you'll notice about the newest from Swedish black metallers Heresi is the amazing artwork, a dark shadowy tangle of demon parts, gnashing teeth, sharp claws, desiccated flesh, all with that awesome oil on canvas texture from the original painting. Flip it over and feast your eyes on a baby head in the grips of a taloned claw, its blood emptying into a blood filled dish held by the very same demon, his teeth flashing in the corner. Ugh. Why does the art look so familiar? It just so happens to be from a painting by Wrest from Leviathan and is totally striking and super creepy. Perfect for this newest release from Skamfer, and his one man black horde Heresi. This is the sequel to last years Psalm I and is even heavier, faster, more grim and more darkly depressive. Skamfer is an ex member of the mighty Ondskopt and it sounds like it. Furious blazing black metal fuzz, a thick wash of mosquito buzz riffage, pounding blast beats, howled guttural vocals, but like with Ondskapt, a surprisingly melodic flair. A soaring mournful majesty buried beneath the swirling wall of blackness. Think Deathspell Omega, Onskapt obviously, Ofermod, Funeral Mist, and you'll get an idea of where Heresi fall. Very Swedish sounding, with lots of death metal elements, but also plenty of weird psychedelic guitar leads, creepy harmonies and dense tangled arrangements, all doused in black blood and wrapped in spiked fury. Heavy and hypnotic and so fucking great.
MPEG Stream: "Liothe"
MPEG Stream: "Bevingad Och Forledd Med Horn"

HERESI Psalm II - Infusco Ignis (Hydra Head) cd 14.98
This killer slab of furious black grimness, formerly an import on Total Holocaust, now reissued domestically by the getting-blacker-and-grimmer-everyday heathens at Hydra Head!
The first thing you'll notice about the newest from Swedish black metallers Heresi is the amazing artwork, a dark shadowy tangle of demon parts, gnashing teeth, sharp claws, desiccated flesh, all with that awesome oil on canvas texture from the original painting. Flip it over and feast your eyes on a baby head in the grips of a taloned claw, its blood emptying into a blood filled dish held by the very same demon, his teeth flashing in the corner. Ugh. Why does the art look so familiar? It just so happens to be from a painting by Wrest from Leviathan and is totally striking and super creepy. Perfect for this newest release from Skamfer, and his one man black horde Heresi. This is the sequel to last years Psalm I and is even heavier, faster, more grim and more darkly depressive. Skamfer is an ex member of the mighty Ondskapt and it sounds like it. Furious blazing black metal fuzz, a thick wash of mosquito buzz riffage, pounding blast beats, howled guttural vocals, but like with Ondskapt, a surprisingly melodic flair. A soaring mournful majesty buried beneath the swirling wall of blackness. Think Deathspell Omega, Onskapt obviously, Ofermod, Funeral Mist, and you'll get an idea of where Heresi fall. Very Swedish sounding, with lots of death metal elements, but also plenty of weird psychedelic guitar leads, creepy harmonies and dense tangled arrangements, all doused in black blood and wrapped in spiked fury. Heavy and hypnotic and so fucking great.
MPEG Stream: "Liothe"
MPEG Stream: "Bevingad Och Forledd Med Horn"

EARTH 2 (Special Low Frequency Version) (Sub Pop) 2lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY. IT'S JUST BETWEEN PRESSINGS, SO HOPEFULLY WE'LL RELIST IT SOON.
Finally, all of the legendary and long out of print Earth records are available again on vinyl (including the classic Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions also just reissued on cd)!!! It was only a matter of time really with the recent explosion of deathdoomdronesludge mania, SUNNO))), Corrupted, Boris and of course Earth, the forefathers and undisputed masters of all things slow and sludgey.
Earth. The band that launched a thousand drones. The band that started it all. The heaviest band ever (maybe). Earth was the singular vision of only-permanent-member Dylan Carlson, the long haired guy pictured on the back cover wearing the Morbid Angel longsleeve (whom you might remember from the Kurt & Courtney movie). For 1993's Earth 2, Dylan's guitar was joined by the bass of Dave Harwell, who is pictured holding a cup of coffee on the back cover (and who would go on to disappear completely).
All you kids who thrive on an unhealthy diet of the Corrupted, Boris (who even borrowed the Earth 2 tagline "Special Low Frequency Version" for the Southern Lord version of their Absolutego album), the Melvins, Thrones, and sludge like that, as well as you avant-art rockers who enjoy 'dronology' and stuff like Mirror and Jonathan Coleclough and even those of you who sit at home in front of your dream machines and wallow in the historical drones of Angus Maclise and Tony Conrad, need look no further than Earth 2 to experience the drone the way it was meant to be heard: huge downtuned guitars playing riffs so slow that each one lasts forever, LOW END that slides and lurches like a blackened glacier of fuzz and hiss, slow motion notes stretched so far that they become a single note washing over you like a sticky wave of tar and molasses, melodies that are indistinguishable because the notes are pulled so far apart they threaten to come apart completely. When we tell someone that a record is heavy, Earth 2 is the barometer by which all other supposedly 'heavy' music is measured. Even recent AQ faves Sunn 0))) began life as an Earth tribute band (they will even say as much) named for Earth's amp of choice. There are very few records that are 'classics', that stand the test of time, that remain as vital now, as when they originally came out, ten, twenty, or even thirty years earlier, that have influenced so many bands so much, or that have been unequalled, even with so many people trying so hard to be the heaviest or most extreme. The drug addled, accidental brilliance that is Earth 2, to this day remains a complete and utter classic.
MPEG Stream: "Seven Angels"
MPEG Stream: "Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine"
MPEG Stream: "Like Gold And Faceted"

EARTH Extra - Capsular Extraction (Sub Pop) lp 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, all of the legendary and long out of print Earth records are available again on vinyl (including the classic Phase 3: Thrones And Dominions also just reissued on cd)!!! It was only a matter of time really with the recent explosion of deathdoomdronesludge mania, SUNNO))), Corrupted, Boris and of course Earth, the forefathers and undisputed masters of all things slow and sludgey.
Extra - Capsular Extraction is definitely an all time sludge / doom holy grail, having spent the majority of the last almost 20 years out of print. But the cd was reissued a little while back and now the vinyl is back in print too! Originally released in 1991, Extra - Capsular Extraction was the debut cd by Pacific Northwest drone/doom masters Earth, who were thought by most folks to be defunct before resurfacing recently with a new lineup and a new twangier sound and an amazing record in the form of the breathtaking Hex.
So, Extra - Capsular Extraction! Needless to say we all love this record, it's Allan and Jason's favorite Earth record for sure, Andee's third, maybe even second (behind '2' and sometimes 'Phase 3'), but we are so psyched for this to be available again, especially on vinyl.
The artwork is the same: the medical-text inspired "Postgraduate Seminars: Eye Surgery - Concepts and Problems" graphics. There's no extra tracks or anything, but the original three tracks ("A Bureaucratic Desire For Revenge Parts 1 & 2", "Ouroboros Is Broken") are more than enough: 32 minutes of downtuned dirge, metallic slow-motion sludge riffery that goes to extremes of low, slow heaviness that even the mighty Melvins never achieved. The lengthier, airier follow-up "Earth 2" might be Earth's masterpiece, but "Extra-Capsular" was their devastating opening act, sounding like the grand, ominous martial music meant to accompany an invasion by malevolent Underearth Dwellers. I remember when I first got this, most of my friends thought it was the most retarded record ever. Now they know better. Well, actually, they probably don't, but WE know. So recommended.
Earth on this disc consisted of mastermind Dylan Carlson (guitar/vocals) plus Dave Harwell (bass) and Joe Preston (bass/percussion). Joe of course later went on to fame and fortune in the Melvins, and later, his one man band Thrones.
Oh, and this is the Earth record that one Kurt Cobain plays on as well, which I know confused and dismayed a lot of frat/jock guys back in the day!
MPEG Stream: "Ouroboros Is Broken"

MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT / KENOMA split (Translation Loss) cd 13.98
New release from one of our favorites of this new breed of sludgy metallic post rock, the strangely named Mouth Of The Architect. Their sound, unlike many of their sonic brethren leans much more toward the melodic as is evidenced here on the opening of "Sleepwalk Powder" a lilting, melancholy guitar line, hovering above warm swells of high end feedback, mournful and so so pretty. But don't be fooled, or lulled into thinking this is some sort of post rock dreampop record, oh no, moments later, the drums enter the fray, all tribal and chaotic, until finally the guitars drop. And drop HARD. Suddenly we're in churning, roiling sludge doom country, big riffs roll and rumble, vocals are howled and the whole band lurches like some rampaging behemoth. But beneath it all, remains the melody, the sweetness, the light. It's like Godspeed or Explosions In The Sky, being overtaken by Conifer or Minsk, a huge ugly growling monstrous sound barely concealing glistening harmonies and majestic melodies. A pretty killer combination. The second MOTA track follows a similar path, drawing out its post rock dreaminess nearly to the 10 minute mark before kicking out the jams, this time it's a lurching stumbling groove, minor key and massive.
Kenoma are up next, we'd heard of them but never actually heard them, but they do occupy a similar sonic space as their pals MOTA (and plus they indeed are, in the liner notes, there is an extremely heartfelt note about, the two bands being friends since childhood, and both having had a rough time lately, and how this release was very cathartic, bringing the two bands, these two sets of friends closer than ever before, pretty dang sweet actually). But again don't be distracted by the sweetness, where there is light there is most definitely also dark. Kenoma are more postrock than metal never really unfurling any sort of massive sludginess, rather stretching out in a heavy hypnotic groove, dense tangled guitar lines, killer propulsive drumming, minor key melodies and a big wall of thick rich headspinning sound. Reminiscent of the recently reviewed Shora record but with a bit of that post sludge vibe we can't get enough of. This almost sounds like a super charged Godspeed or a metal Tortoise. Epic and meandering, droney and hypnotic and so killer. Definitely a new band to keep our eyes on. And a perfect match for their pals in Mouth Of The Architect. Definitely recommended. Killer octopoidal artwork too!
MPEG Stream: MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT "Sleepwalk Powder"
MPEG Stream: KENOMA "The Nature Of Empire"

RACONTEURS, THE Broken Boy Soldiers (V2) cd 14.98
We hardly need to write anything about this disc, as it's a band that features the White Stripes' Jack White. For most folks that seems to be enough. If you've even glanced at Rolling Stone or Spin or any music video channel, you're probably sick to death of this band already, without hearing note one. And White has been ubiquitous in publications like Star and Us Weekly, his breakups and dating habits, right there alongside Brad and Angelina, Vince and Jen, and all the baby Apples and Shiloh's. But all that stuff serves to do is to distract from what is in fact a fucking killer pop record. And while White's voice features prominently, as do his songwriting and guitar playing, all completely killer by the way, this record is all about his bandmate Brendan Benson and his perfect pop pen. This is no White Stripes side project, instead this sounds more like the latest and greatest Brendan Benson record, that just so happens to feature Jack White. Benson has been making perfect pop records for years, quietly outdoing all of his pop rivals. Benson's One Mississippi is probably one of the greatest pop records you never heard. As was the follow up Lapalco. Benson's got a killer voice, a great ear for melody, and a seemingly effortless knack for spitting out ultra perfect pop, but with plenty of loud guitars. An unsung power pop hero for sure. So it's a bit sad that it takes teaming up with his longtime pal White to get heard by more than a handful of indie pop hipsters, but so be it. And the fact is that the combination of White's voice and guitar teamed up with Benson's is pretty much unbeatable.
This record is great. Ignore all the press bullshit, all the photo shoots and all the hype and just dig in. The opener, "Steady As She Goes" might just be the pop song of the year (and peep the killer video featuring the band racing soapbox derby style featuring Pee Wee Herman as a nefarious race saboteur!). Awesome harmonies, strange studio FX, crunchy guitars, all wrapped around a hook that will get stuck in your head FOREVER. The rest of the record, while never quite reaching the pop perfection of the opening track, is still pretty dang great. Leaning strangely toward some lost seventies radio rock, a hard rockin' pop sound, Zeppelin III, Steve Miller Band, Beatles, etc., but with a serious hard pop sheen. Fans of the Posies, Sloan, Silver Sun, Apples In Stereo and all things glistening Beatles-esque Big Star-ish, big guitar, soaring harmony, foot stomping, hand clapping, kick ass power pop!!
MPEG Stream: "Steady As She Goes"
MPEG Stream: "Hands"

GOSLINGS, THE Spaceheater / Perfectinterior (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
We were first turned on to The Goslings, a husband and wife duo from Florida, by a couple of our more Sunn 0))) / Earth obsessed customers, so imagine our surprise when we discovered The Goslings to be in fact, a gloriously unlikely, sun dappled, fog shrouded, druggy, murky space pop combo. Sure they had certain elements in common with those dronedirge lords, but The Goslings were a much gentler, much more introspective beast. Taking their thick fuzz and spreading it out over their minimal blisspop like dew on blades of grass, each drop a sparkling, shimmering, glistening swirl of abstract color.
This disc collects two long out of print cd-r's and is the portrait of the artist as a young band, their burgeoning expansiveness only just beginning to take form, but already blindingly beautiful to the ears. The opening track is an endless landscape of hiss and fuzz, rife with random room sounds, the glitch of instrument cables, the feeding back rumble of crappy old amps with unplayed guitars plugged into them, sounds a little like an audience recording of the random sounds between songs at a Dead C show, some drifting vocals surface every once in a while, as do creepy little chimes, and near the end the swirling fog begins to take shape and becomes a warbly organ melody. But such a harrowing, slow moving journey for such little reward. Such is the way of The Goslings. Once you realize that, you realize that every second of hiss, and every minute of near motionless hum are rewards in and of themselves. The rest is easy. The next track is more representative, a Harvey Milk-ish dirge, drifting blurry eyed dopelike dreampop, huge swaths of fuzz drenched melody, soft ethereal vocals buried beneath the fuzz, a strangely lo-fi doomier version of My Bloody Valentine. Elsewhere, guitars unfurl tendrils of simple indie jangle, floating weightless beneath crooning female vocals, all over a rumbling slow motion bass groove, later an almost country ballad, slurred vocals lounged lugubriously over a dusty ghost town of downtuned twang. Each track is its own subtle shade of dopesick and doom drenched, some sinister, some glowing, some crawling broken and buried, some floating heavenward, some cracked and crackly, some lush and dense with soft shimmer. But all of them gorgeous and mysterious.
MPEG Stream: "Statuette"
MPEG Stream: "Lillian"
MPEG Stream: "Celestine"

GREGOR SAMSA / RED SPAROWES split (Robotic Empire) cd 12.98
This split is a super interesting match up, pairing two bands who ostensibly play the same sort of music, but who have dramatically different approaches to their sound.
Up first are the Red Sparowes, who take the metallic post rock angle, stretching their tracks out into loping epics, that loop and repeat hypnotically building to a massive crescendo, all soaring guitars and keening melodies. Eventually breaking back down into mesmerizingly mathy rhythms and melancholy ambience. The drumming is awesome, Simple but so powerful and propulsive, definitely driving the band, helping shape these aggressive epics.
Gregor Samsa, come at their post rock from a whole 'nother direction, choosing to drift instead of pummel, to float and hover instead of pound and wail. In addition to the typical rock band instrumentation, GS are augmented by cello, violin and upright bass, which adds to their simple understated majesty. Both tracks here are spacious near ambient affairs. Simple, spare reverbed guitars, tons of glistening reverb, hushed, near whispered vocals, sounding very much Low or Galaxie 500. So dreamy and lush and laid back. Eventually the first track builds into a super dramatic sweep of soaring strings and crashing drums, not heavy, just intense and emotional. So nice. The second track starts with a blissed out drone, shimmering and sparkling, before the drums and guitars kick in, turning the track into something more Loop or Spacemen 3 or Swervedriver than any sort of metallic post rock. Again the strings swoop in to add all sorts of emotion and urgency, turning the track into a fuzzy minor key dreamdrone fuzz rock epic! Man, we love this band. In fact we love BOTH these bands. An absolutely killer split.
MPEG Stream: RED SPARROWES "I Saw The Sky In The North Open To The Ground And Fire Poured Out"
MPEG Stream: GREGOR SAMSA "Young & Old / Divine Longing"

DAWNFALL Drei Raume (Supernal) cd 15.98
Pretty much everything Supernal puts out is pretty weird, so the fact that this might be one of the weirdest Supernal releases we've heard should tell you something. We managed to get a few more of these in for the folks who may have missed out last time. Equal parts black metal buzz, electronic weirdness and total what-the-fuck. Here's our review from when we first listed it:
This is not really new, but we've never been able to get enough of these to list until now. From the label that brought us Benighted Leams, Contra Ignem Fatuum, Dark Ages and Meads Of Asphodel comes another confounding blast of black metal, this time from a mysterious group called Dawnfall. The first three tracks are 11+ minutes each, every one a convoluted, twisted swirl of stumbling midtempo black metal weirdness and swooshing keyboardy ambience, with some of the most tortured vocals we've ever heard. Somewhere between the anguished shriek of Weakling and the inhuman howl of Rehtaf Ruo. Each prickly spikey tangle of blackness is peppered with squirrelly Greg Ginn like guitar freakouts, random tinkling chimes and warm wooshes of synthesizer. Dizzying and totally brilliantly confusional. Warm fuzzed out guitars wrapped loosely over a framework of thudding pounding drums, while maddeningly slippery guitar squiggles slip and slide in and around the blackness colliding with the harsh vocal wails. Amazing. But that's just three tracks in. Track four is some sort of faux harpsichord driven electronic ambient soundscape, like Benighted Leams playing Dead Can Dance covering Autchre or something? Skittery beats and a dense wash of thick metallic string strum. As if it couldn't get weirder, the next track is mostly sped up and slowed down vocals, mixed with strange spacey effects, swooshes, and beeps and a hiccupping dsrum machine. Weird! But it's not over yet, the second to last track is a ten minute soundscape of skittery synthesizers, warbly keyboard squiggles, all smothered in reverb and other space-y ambience. A creepy, splattery minimal crawl through some outer space fun house. Finally, the record finishes with a weird one minute blast of synthesized circus music, maybe like a lite Killing Joke, with wooshy synth stabs and casio style drum beats. Woah, not sure what to make of this. We love it. For sure. Just not sure why. Definitely too weird for most metalheads, you all can quit after the first three tracks, that is if -those- aren't already too weird for you. But folks who have been digging all the crazy shit Supernal puts out, and anyone up to trying to wrap their brains around something amazingly weird and wonderfully obtuse, definitely check this out!
MPEG Stream: "Drei RaumeI"
MPEG Stream: "Drei Raume II"

SKULLFLOWER IIIrd Gatekeeper (HeadDirt) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Before Skullflower became a blissed out free drone, psychedelic raga outfit which would eventually morph into the ultra dreamy Sunroof!, they were trolling much darker, much harsher waters. When IIIrd Gatekeeper first came out way back in 1992, it fell right in alongside its sonic brethren, Swans, Godflesh, Pitchshifter, Terminal Cheesecake, Ramleh and all of those industrial dirge rockers. Originally released on Justin Broadrick's hEADdIRT label, IIIrd Gatekeeper is definitely one of Skullflower's finest moments (and quite possibly both Andee and Allan's favorite SF record EVER), a slow murky trudge through a blinding squall of psychedelic guitar freakout, dense swirls of which lurk behind a lurching slow motion bass dirge and pounding near industrial drumming. Each track picks a riff and pounds it into the ground, repeating and repeating until you can't help but be drawn in, while white hot streaks of guitar skree and low end rumble spin around the relentless plodding. SO much heavier and scarier than almost any other record. A bit like a heavy metal Whitehouse, or a more psychedelic Swans. A muddy, filthy, drug drenched metal club to the side of the head. So fucking awesome.
THIS WAS A WAREHOUSE FIND. THIS RECORD IS SOOOO OUT OF PRINT, BUT ONE OF OUR DISTRIBUTORS FOUND A BOX SO WE TOOK AS MANY AS THEY HAD. ONCE THESE ARE GONE IT'S BACK TO eBAY WITH YOU...
MPEG Stream: "Can You Feel It?"
MPEG Stream: "Saturnalia"
MPEG Stream: "Rotten Sun"

XASTHUR / LEVIATHAN split (Battle Kommand) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This kick ass record of the week from a few months ago is again back in stock:
We normally don't make "now available on cd" releases Record Of The Week. But there are plenty of reasons to do just that with this one! First off, C'MON! It's LEVIATHAN and XASTHUR! On the same disc! Two of the most important, and musically creative black metal one-man-hordes in the new wave of west coast black metal (NWOWCBM?) teamed up for the ultimate NWOWCBM one two punch. Singlehandedly (doublehandedly?) putting USBM back on the black metal map, and completely redefining the genre, grim and brutal and black for sure, but also totally bizarre and avant and experimental. Plus even you folks who picked up the vinyl versions will need this, as there are 4 bonus tracks, three of them are from Xasthur, a brand new unreleased track, a rehearsal track from 2004, and a Katatonia cover! The other bonus track is Leviathan's amazing version of Judas Iscariot's "Where The Winter Beals Incessant"! But even without the bonus tracks, this clash of the black titans is totally essential, some of the most beautifully blackened and furiously fucked up black metal you are ever likely to hear. Xasthur from Southern California and Leviathan from right here in SF are blackened brothers, both exploring similar themes of hate and misery, darkness and death, but coming at 'em from completely different sonic angles. Xasthur is more about mood and atmosphere, with thick swaths of fuzzy riffery, galloping drums, rumbling bass and agonised howls of despair, all dense and dark and claustrophobic. Leviathan is much more technical and a lot weirder, but no less moody, with ultra complex and bizarrely arranged parts, insane drumming, buzzing riffery, and hints of doom and progrock mixed into his bleak and blackened metalscapes. ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!!
MPEG Stream: XASTHUR "The Eerie Bliss And Torture (Of Solitude)"
MPEG Stream: XASTHUR "Palace Of Frost (Katatonia cover)"
MPEG Stream: LEVIATHAN "Unfailing Fall Into Naught"

MACHINEFABRIEK Marijn (Lampse) cd 15.98
We love noise. Not the face melting super nova amp destroying ear shredding noise of Merzbow and Wolf Eyes, although we do dig that too. No, we're in love with -noises-, the sounds of sound, from the warm whisper of nature, the whoosh of the wind, the roar of the surf, the chirping of crickets and the croaking of frogs, to the clattery clang of industry, the roar of cars, the grind of machinery, the whir of air conditioning and and the thrum of vacuum cleaners, to the subtle sonic byproducts of sound reproduction and music making, the hiss of old cassette tapes, the warm warble of old 78's, the pops and crackle of lps, the digital glitch and fuzz of more modern musical malfunctions. On their own sure, we could listen to a symphony of frogs or the gentle hum of an air conditioner for hours, but preferably wrapped around some haunting otherworldly music, creating a glorious hybrid of subtle murky mystery.
We've sung the praises of Philip Jeck and his creaking antique turntablescapes, the murky looped loveliness of William Basinski, the strange warm fuzzy pixelated guitarscapes of Fennesz, the dreamy electronic droneworlds of Tim Hecker, and most recently, the gorgeous post-rock dreampop haze of Swedish bedroom soundscaper Jasper TX. It's no coincidence that this record, the latest from Dutch sonic explorer (and former doom metal guitarist) Machinefabriek is on the same label as the Jasper TX. Both share a similar approach, burying gorgeous melancholy sounds beneath all manner of sonic disturbances and musical interference. After discovering the Jasper TX record, we looked a little deeper at the Lampse label and decided that we just may have found ourselves a new favorite label. Murky and pretty and fuzzy and so so so pretty. Everything we've heard so far. Instead of looking at Lampse as just the label, one can almost picture Lampse as the actual artist, and each release an epic track from some massive hours long murky muted masterpiece Each of those tracks dense with subtly varied parts and movements, each its own entity for sure, but at the same time one piece of a larger and indescribable puzzle.
Where Jasper TX was deeply rooted in soft indie rock jangle and sleepy bedroom pop (albeit swathed in a thick cloak of blur and grit), Machinefabriek approaches the same sound from a slightly different direction, each piece a lengthy slowburn epic, brooding gradually building ambience, grandiose washes of sound, the cinematic dynamicism of Mogwai or Earth, filtered through the looped hypnosis of Basinski, pianos and guitars rendered as abstract sounds, smeared and swirled into buried minor key melodies and and slow shifting chunks of sonic mood music. Marijn is Machinefabriek's sonic travelogue of a journey through the abyss, a soundworld cloaked in fog and draped in constant darkness.
Our first glimpse of the other side is a gorgeous echoey world of record crackle and pop, of thick reverb and crunching creaking ambience.
Like a beat up old record player stuck in the run out groove of an old 78, recorded at the bottom of an enormous cavern, eventually soft warm swells surface beneath the rainlike crackle, a mournful melody of delicate piano and whirring drone, the notes of the piano blown out so they distort and waver a bit like bad radio reception or some strange atmospheric interference. Some antique piano recital recorded on a wax cylinder and then broadcast from tiny blown out speakers in a huge empty warehouse, then broadcast over shortwave radio and finally heard through a battered pair of old headphones.
The rest of the record, while not as obviously damaged (in terms of crackle and distortion and fuzz) is rife with sounds equally obscured and obfuscated, lilting lonely pianos and haunting music box melodies drift beneath some strange sonic murk, occasionally interrupted by strange crumbled digital interference and all manner of stuttery hiccuping glitch and skitter, as if some other piece of music is trying desperately to claw its way through. Eventually, the distortion and audio damage recedes just enough to allow a simple piano motif to drift softly and subtly across a soundscape of barely there drone and hushed melody. From far off in the distance, warm warbles and shimmering sheets of sparkling muted sound appear, glimmering softly, like the reflection of light in some undersea cavern, lit only by the glow of indirect sunlight, waves and ripples and strange patterns shiver and shimmy subtly. Then, a piano begins unfurling a funereal crawl, mournful and melancholy, before being slowly enveloped by a digital swarm, a swirling dizzying drone, until it's almost like a blinding white wave of fuzz and hiss, but beneath it all, a sad melody still lurks, just an echo, a shadow, a warm rich whisper behind a blinding roar. The final passage is a near 20 minute piano meditation, soft and smooth, notes drift and shimmer, simple but stately and sweetly sorrowful, nestled in a tangled bed of digital hiss, slowly swelling chordal hum and whispery keening drones, all beneath a distant whir like some alien orchestra tuning up, the soft cacophony building slowly into the thick wash of static and distortion slowly swallows the melody whole, until all that remains is a ghostly afterimage, a shimmery outline, a fuzzy faded memory...
MPEG Stream: "Kreukeltape"
MPEG Stream: "Somerset"

BORIS Pink (Southern Lord) cd 14.98
Alright!! Finally, the most recent release from Japan's mighty masters of Orange Amped sludge groove drone rawk 'n' roll gets a more affordable, domestic release, but don't fret Boris nerds! There are plenty of reasons to hang on to your Japanese version, or heck, even own both. The new version does NOT replicate the mindblowing pink-plastic-see-through artwork of the import version, but the -new- design, courtesy of the ubiquitous Stephen O'Malley, ain't so shabby either, with some washed out pink and white imagery, some of his distinctive repeating shapes collages and a cool art deco font. The nicest part, is probably the sheets of 'acid tabs' inside, three of 'em, each printed on one side with that same pink and white geometric motif, the other sides with cool old fashioned woodcuts and oil paintings. Wow.
The one big difference (why must they always do this?!?!) is that -this- version, is about 8 or 9 minutes LONGER than the import version -- one track's got some extra drone tacked on. The music is the exact same as the super limited and now out of print double lp version. Hard to keep track of Boris sometimes, what with all their different releases and versions and limited editions, but we have to say, Boris are so good it just might be worth it.
Here's what we had to say about Pink first time we laid ears on it:
Some of us are still reeling from the mighty ass kicking delivered by Boris on their recent US tour. And before our ears have even stopped ringing, it's time for yet another new blast of ultra hyper space psych sludge rock n' roll in the form of Pink. Continuing to hone their rock chops, having shed their doom sludge past for the most part now, Boris continue to sound like some MC5 / Hendrix hybrid, albeit supercharged and drenched in LSD and lit on fire and launched into space. Big old fuzzy riffs, churning basslines, and wild spastic drumming underneath Wata's wailing sixties styled leads. You can almost imagine these strange Japanese rockers wandering into the Fillmore in the sixties, like some bell bottomed aliens and proceeding to melt the minds and ear drums of everyone in attendance. Pink starts off with some fuzzed out ultra distorted post rock (reminiscent of some of the stuff on Mabuta No Ura) wrapped in a spacy psychedelic haze, but then it's immediately back to the full on, overblown distorto RAWK that has become THE SOUND of Boris. This is easily their most lo-fi, most blown out recording yet, almost like Boris is channelling Guitar Wolf or something. The drums and cymbals sizzle as the needle goes into the red on almost every track, and the guitars are so drenched in distortion they become huge squirming smears of fuzz. A couple tracks harken back to the slow motion sludge of Flood or Amplifier Worship, and there is the dreamy ambient drift of the second to last track "My Machine", but those are just brief respites, time to catch your breath before hurling yourself back into the fray, an endless maelstrom of head banging, fist pumping, guitar smashing, drumset destroying, hair swirling, sweating, bouncing, pounding pummeling ROCK AND ROLL.
MPEG Stream: "Song One"
MPEG Stream: "Pink"
MPEG Stream: "Song Two"

FASSETT, JIM Symphony Of The Birds (EM Records) cd 25.00
We recently discovered a completely amazing Japanese label called EM Records. Pretty hard to pin down what exactly it is that they specialize in but that's precisely why we're so smitten. From not one, but -several- singing saw records, to acid psych reissues, long lost singer songwriters, early experimental tape music, bizarre robot disco, fifties rock and roll, Australian dub, Isophonic boogie woogie (?) and tons more. We've only begun to dip into the wonderful world of EM, but we're going to start listing them one at a time. This record was initially the release that convinced us to get in touch with EM. Jim Fassett's Symphony Of The Birds is bizarre and beautiful and had AQ written all over it. The liner notes are mostly in Japanese so it's hard to know too many of the details, but Symphony Of The Birds is an amazing example of early tape music, it just so happens that all the tapes used were recordings of songbirds, which Fassett chopped, and cut, spliced and sequenced into a totally unique symphony of bird calls.
The record opens with Fassett's explanatory comments featuring our favorite line: "But keep in mind, as you listen, that nothing has been added. If you think you hear something that sounds like a particular musical instrument, or a human voice, or anything else other than birdcalls, YOU'RE WRONG." The first movement is definitely the best, whistles and chirps, chopped and stretched into dense swirls of psychedelic sound, if you weren't paying close attention, you'd be hard pressed to hear that it was birds making these sounds. Very trippy and spacey and alien sounding, like some crazy analog synthesizer freakout. The second movement involves a lot more itch shifting and changes in tape speed, resulting in sort of clunky purposeful melodies, the same bird call in different pitches to assemble very simple sing songy melodies. The third movement gets back on track, with some of the bird call slowed WAY down so they becomes rumbling drones, while others are sped up and repeated rapidly making impossible trills that almost sound like some blast of Sunroof!-y skree.
The last three tracks feature Fassett narrating an imaginary trip through a meadow, allowing us to study closely the bird song of each different bird isolated from the others, with some deft mixing and stereo panning, and the affect is actually quite stunning, with each bird getting 30 seconds to a minute right up on the mic! Cool!
The whole thing comes packaged in a super tough oversized (to accommodate the massive booklet) jewel case. The booklet contains lots of great photos, liner notes in Japanese, transcriptions of Fassett's spoken word segments on the disc, the album's original liner notes, and strangest of all, a pictorial guide to various and random birdcall records, separated by theme it seems: whistling accompaniment of instruments or big band, field recordings, canary training, instrumental, experimental happening (?) etc. Weird!
MPEG Stream: "Explanatory Comments"
MPEG Stream: "First Movement"
MPEG Stream: "Second Movement"

IASOS Inter-Dimensional Music (EM Records) cd 23.00
New age. Pretty much the ultimate diss when you want to put down someone's musical taste. Or harsh on some band, or record. Tough to think of a more purely musical putdown. Sellout? Maybe. Poser? Definitely, but not necessarily musical. But New Age. Oof. Moms and Grandmas listen to new age. Yanni ferchrissakes! And with all the ambient music we love so much here at AQ, we're extra conscious of negative New Age connotations, cuz it's always a fine line between shimmery droney dreaminess and whooshy New Age schmaltz. But c'mon, trust us, trust the folks at EM Records, and take our word that if you're only ever gonna buy one unabashed actual New Age album (and Andee hasn't already forced you to get some George Winston or Kitaro), then this should absolutely be the one.
Iasos was born in Greece and moved to America when he was 4, began playing piano at 8, then flute at 10. In the late sixties, he began to hear a 'new' music in his head and moved to California to try and realize this "heavenly music". And finally in 1975, he did it! Iasos 'invented' new age music with the release of 1975's Inter-Dimensional Music Through IASOS, which has now been reissued by the fine folks at EM, and has stood the test of time pretty darn well.
It's all here, tinkling piano, swooshing synthesizers, running water sounds, bird calls, maudlin melodies, fluttering flutes, crickets chirping, lots of nature sounds, thunderstorms, strange sound effects, gentle keening drones, whirling sonic washes and sweet swirls of soft focus sound. Even the song titles: "The Bubble Massage", "Rainbow Canyon", "Crystal Petals", "Clouds Prayer", Libra Sunrise." Yep, this is definitely New Age, there's no two ways about it, but if you can look past that 'stigma', this record is actually quite beautiful. And mysterious. And delicately lovely. It has lots of elements that plenty of AQ faves share, strange production, lots of fuzzy airy drones, plenty of insect sounds, bird calls, all wrapped into sweet expanses of dreamy sound. In fact if we listed this as some super limited cd-r on some upstart microlabel in Tasmania, and it had some murky forest photo on the cover, we'd sell tons, and no one would be the wiser. It's easy to forget that the modern crop of drifting ambient experimentalists owe quite a bit to new age pioneers. And let's not forget about all the pretty cool bands who either WERE new age, became new age, or incorporated elements of new age into their sound: Popol Vuh, Ashra, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Deuter, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Vangelis.
But Inter-Dimensional Music, regardless of pedigree, or genre classification, is just a dang good record. A little cheesy in places maybe but so what, hasn't stopped us from listening to this practically every day!!
Like all EM releases, the packaging is amazing. But the Iasos has a truly striking cover, even by the already impossibly high EM Records standards. Metallic gold embossed printing on glossy white paper. the cover image a man's torso, emerging from a cloud, arm upraised holding a flute, which is being struck by lightning. Some of you may recognize the image as it was stolen for a record cover many years back by Canadian noiserock guitarmy Superconductor. And of course there's also gold and white obi, as well as a massive booklet full of liner notes (all in Japanese, sorry) and loads of photos. As with all EM releases, SO RECOMMENDED!!!!
MPEG Stream: " Libra Sunshine"
MPEG Stream: "Formentera Sunset Clouds"
MPEG Stream: "Lueena Coast"
MPEG Stream: "Rainbow Canyon"

MOORE, SAM MOOOHIEEE! (EM Records) cd 21.00
Subtitled: Musical Saw And Hawaiian Guitar Soli Recorded In Early 1920s. That's what it is, and it's SO GOOD! We're in love with this sepia-toned collection of old time tunes, some of them lively rags, others sad slowed-down ballads made even sadder by the unique sound of the saw.
If Japan's EM Records (the same label responsible for reissuing both the "Symphony of the Birds" and the Moolah records we raved about last list) has anything to do with it, pretty soon we'll have a whole little "musical saw" section here at Aquarius! It's one of their several weird, wonderful obsessions (along with thrift-store exotica LPs, obscure '70s New Age psych, pioneering electronic experiments, etc.) and so there's a slew of releases on EM featuring the gorgeous, if sometimes gimmicky (but not here!) sound of the musical saw.
We're gonna start you out with this, music by Sam Moore, an early 20th century master of the musical saw ... who also plays a mean guitar too, and who is accompanied on most of these tracks by another talent of the era, Horace Davis. (Roy Smeck and Frank Banta also make appearances.) You'll get to hear Moore's "Octo-chord" (an 8-string steel guitar) alongside the "harp-guitar" (a guitar outfitted with extra, resonating strings) of Davis on their hit, the "Laughing Rag". But it's the tracks with the musical saw that grab us the most. Listening to those, you'll understand why this instrument, steel bent and bowed, is also often called the "singing saw". It's got a definite vocal timbre, maybe also a bit like the electronic Theremin in that regard. Wavering, wordlessly moaning, haunting and eerie. MOOOHIEEE! (Man, we'd love to hear John Jacob Niles accompanied by a singing saw, if such a recording were to exist. That would be perfect.)
Some background: Sam Moore (1887-1959), was a child musical prodigy who, having quickly mastered the violin, guitar and banjo, soon developed an interest in playing more eccentric, unconventional "instruments" as well. He'd been doing so from a young age -- Moore's father once claimed that Sam, as a child, had been able to "get music out of a pitchfork" (!) although sadly, no recordings exist to prove it... But we do know that at one point Sam Moore was part of a vaudeville act called "Spooning And Ballooning" in which he played an inflated rubber balloon, dueting with another fellow who played the spoons (of course). Another of his unusual instrumental specialties was (as documented on much of this fantastic cd) the carpenter's steel hand saw, which is something of a Southern folk music-making tradition. 'Round about 1918 Moore had taken to playing the saw, and was able to capitalize on the fad for the instrument in the early '20s, bringing his sawing skills to New York City's famed Ziegfeld's Follies for a successful stint on stage circa 1920-21. Although that fad soon faded, Sam Moore never abandoned the saw, keeping it in his instrumental repertoire as his career stretched into the '40s and '50s.
All the recordings found here date from Sam's sawing heyday in the Twenties... 13 tracks all taken from rare old 78 rpm records treasured by collectors. That these vintage recordings, warm and crackly, are so burnished with the patina of the past only makes sound all the better to our ears. EM has fitted this out in handsome digipack, the only disappointment being that the extensive liner notes are pretty much all in Japanese...
MPEG Stream: "Mother Machree"
MPEG Stream: "My Old Hawaiian Home"
MPEG Stream: "Old Black Joe"

RIGOR SARDONICOUS Risus Ex Mortus (Endless Desperation) cd-r 10.98
Ah, nothing like a glacially slooooooooow blast of ultra mega doooooooooooooom to calm the nerves, at least that's the way it seems to work around the mail order department for the boys (and girls!) who work back in "the Tombs" of AQ. Rigor Sardonicous - one of our all-time favorite "apocalyptic doom" bands - sent a package recently containing their latest CD, "Risus Ex Mortuus" along with some stickers and a hat...we all fought over the hat a bit, but Andee doesn't like to mess up his "drummer hair" and Jason already sports a bitchin' Rigor Sardonicous glow-in-the-dark print T-shirt, so Allan scored the new lid. Besides, we see him wearing that hunter's orange/camo cap a bit too often lately and - where were we - oh yeah - Risus Ex Mortuus!!!
Once again, Rigor Sardonicous is back, and on this CD we get a bunch of re-recorded versions of early tracks from long out-of-print releases, an unreleased track, and even a Kiss cover! You haven't heard "God Of Thunder" until you've heard it Rigor-ized, a thick syrupy sludge-y Sunn-y crawl, with the vocals belched out in impossible guttural grunts. The CD even somehow sports some beautiful "Rigor Sardonicous" Old English script printed on the UNDERSIDE of the CD - SICK !!!
Also back again is the signature drum machine (who has occupied the throne since 1991) and the return of 'the most evil cymbal in the world', tha clanged-out trash can lid of a cymbal that we have been totally obsessed with and completely transfixed by since we first heard RS. It's like nothing you've ever heard in the realms of dark murky doomy sludge-pyre music (except on the other RS records obviously). It is back and better (and louder) than ever - way out in front where it constantly rears its ugly head again and again, crashing forth with a clanging clattery crash, before quickly fading back into the sludge. Sounds like Sunn 0))) playing Moss covers at the bottom of a giant sewer pipe while someone drops metal garbage cans from above... a strange kind of beautiful.
Mr. drum machine also seems to be taking it up a notch rhythmically with more blast beats, faster and louder, while somehow not actually making the music sound any faster, just weirder and heavier. And there's no mistaking the downtuned, strings-so-slack-they-touch-the-floor, buzzed-out slow sludge rumbling roar coming from the guitar. Like the sound of low-flying aircraft "strumming" overhead power lines... And again those vocals, spread all over the proceedings like some viscous black paste, a subsonic curdle / gurgle that is hardly human. If you close your eyes, you can't help but picture some goo spewing giant lizard ready to consume you whole, or some creepy Hellraiser / Pinhead style hellbeast declaring your doooom. WE LOVE IT.
The AQ dark lords, sit upon their throne of skulls, surrounded by fire and burning flesh, demons swooping through the murky skies, the earth trembling, the ground littered with the dead, gazing cooly at the scorched landscape that stretches forever in all directions, before looking to the sky and letting out a blood curdling cry of "MORE EVIL CYMBAL !!!"
(The band claim that these are indeed actual cd's, although, we're pretty sure they're cd-r's, but who the hell cares, you can't go wrong for $10.98, and you can't print bitchin' olde English band logos on the playing side of a real cd... or can you?)
MPEG Stream: "Prooemium"
MPEG Stream: "Rigor Sardonicous"
MPEG Stream: "God Of Thunder"

LANSING-DREIDEN The Dividing Island (Kemado) cd 14.98
At first we weren't sure what to make of this band, with their awkward name, their super spare black and white artwork, their well crafted mystery, a seemingly complete lack of any sort of pertinent information, no photos, no real liner notes, no mention of individual band members. All very alluring most certainly. We had heard them described as "dreamy space rock... with a psychedelic metal twist" which definitely sounds good. And as some sort of heavy metal / new wave hybrid, which as good as -that- sounds, it most definitely seems like something that would work better in theory than in practice. In actuality, Lansing-Dreiden are neither of those, and end up being way more interesting than any of that would have led us to believe.
Lansing-Dreiden are not just a band either, no, they're a sort of arts collective: musicians, sculptors, artists, writers, film makers, replete with the requisite gallery showings, Artforum writeups, film premiers and rock shows. The lines between each of these disciplines are so blurry they might as well not exist. Their vibe, both visually and sonically is warm and washed out, a gauzy soft focus shapshot of pop culture past, the sound on The Dividing Island is both dizzyingly bizarre and dreamily overwhelming, a pastiche of all sorts of disparate pop elements, loads of instantly recognizable hooks, sweet harmony vocals, squiggly synths, horns, soft whispery crooning, bi arena rock drums, jangling guitars, huge sheets of fuzzy reverb, hand claps, cheesy electronic drums, It's almost like it's 1985 and we're watching MTV in some alternate universe. This is definitely some sort of (old) new wave, no trace of metal to be found (well mostly, more on that in a minute), no space rock really either, although there is plenty of spaced out trippiness. But even with bits of spaciness, and some space rock swirl here and there, that stuff is just window dressing for L-D's passion, which seems to be cracked eighties pop. Lansing-Dreiden is some sort of weird musical time machine, skipping lazily from 1982 to 1985 to 1989 and back again. Where Ariel Pink took seventies AM radio, and turned it into his own disheveled, cracked demented pop vision, Lansing-Dreiden instead take eighties FM radio and classic eighties MTV and gives them their own warm and warped, precious and polished spin. Imagine a hip NY art rock band channeling everything you loved and loathed about ABC, Style Council, Talk Talk, Spandau Ballet, the Fixx, Kajagoogoo, Thompson Twins, Culture Club, Fun Boy Three, Naked Eyes, Psychedelic Furs, The Call, Modern English, etc. There are some moments where the band dips its toes into the more rollicking contemporary NY new wave redux sound of bands like Interpol and the Strokes, and there are stretches of moody near ambient post rock, but for the most part this is a dead ringer for some lost eighties 'classic'. Mix tapes, John Cusack, Say Anything, Breakfast Club, it's like our teenage years revisited, albeit with a slightly more twisted and sinister bent.
There may seemingly be nary a trace of any metal on The Dividing Island, but best stick around for the final track, metallically titled "Dethroning The Optimyth", quite possibly the greatest (only) song ever to mix eighties MTV pop and crushing death metal! As much as we dig the rest of the record, we almost wish the whole record sounded like "Dethroning The Optimyth", although to be totally honest, the thought of a whole album of eighties pop death metal is almost too much to bear! Pounding double bass drumming, and chugging downtuned riffs collide with soft sweetly swoony pop, soaring synthesizers, airy breathless vocals, like laying on your bed, beneath your Kiss and Slayer posters, listening to your favorite metal record while your sister is in the next room BLASTING the soundtrack to the Breakfast Club through your thin walls. SO weird but SO COOL!
Comes in a gorgeously designed black and white cardboard sleeve that opens like a gatefold, the inside a series of alternating black and white triangles, and then the gatefold opens again with two more triangular panels, one black and and one white, all very austere and mysterious looking.
MPEG Stream: "Dividing Island"
MPEG Stream: "Cement To Stone"
MPEG Stream: "A Line You Can Cross"
MPEG Stream: "Dethroning The Optimyth"

V/A Ho!: Roady Music from Vietnam (Trikont) cd 17.98
We can not tell you how psyched we are to have this back in stock. We've been listening to this like crazy. We had almost forgotten how totally far out and mind blowing this collection was. Since we first carried this years ago, there have been tons of diverse and eclectic collections of musics from all over the world, psych rock compilations (Love, Peace & Poetry, Thai Beat A Go Go, etc.), the Sublime Frequencies series, and loads more, but as good as those are, they can't hold a candle to Ho!: Roady Music From Vietnam! So completely fascinating and fun, wild and so so weird! Everytime this gets played in the store, customers and employees alike have to check to see what the heck it is we're listening to!
Ho! is an amazing collection of pieces from Vietnamese street musicians. The folks that travelled to Vietnam and recorded these pieces gave themselves the tongue-in-cheek name Nuoc Mam Dirndl'n, evidence of their humor in the light of collecting the sort of music they suspect the Vietnamese government would perhaps NOT appreciate as a representation of Vietnam. Ho! ranges from raucous, percussion-heavy funeral songs played at midnight by 'young people provided with drugs' to traditional material played on the one-stringed dan bau to melodramatic love songs favored by the son of the owner of the hotel the folks stayed at. There's even a 'tasteful schmaltzy song' which is what the Vietnamese record-store saleswoman played for them when they asked for some traditional Vietnamese music! Check out the following excerpt from the fascinating liner notes, and, like us, marvel at the freshness inherent in the refusal to adopt the omniscient voice-of-authority tone taken by so many ethno-compilers: "We are stunned by the Vietnamese 'Lebensgefuhl' actually corresponding to our western idea of 'subculture': lively, anarchic, loud, dense, hearty; the people are living working, eating, sleeping, and holding their funeral ceremonies between house and street. We don't know yet if there is any subculture in Vietnam; if there is e.g. (organized) political counterforces to the one-party regime -- nobody talks about politics (with us) -- maybe there is no need for it, because everybody can do whatever he/she wants: though street trading is prohibited everybody does it -- under the hardly vigilant eyes of the law -- raids are very rare, then the stands are carried away quickly and when the mischief is gone it goes on... What matters is that people LOVE TO SING which, like in our part of the world, hide in gloomy basements and play till the ears/souls are ringing: every band in Vietnam needs a license for its existence, for every gig, every song. And because there is no basements in Vietnam, people like to use the karaoke machines in their homes, bars and special karaoke houses. Saigon's street musicians are rather despised by the yuppies of Vietnam: 'shit music.' The yuppies prefer Sting and western style in general." Highly highly highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: DAN BAU VIETNAM "Rider In The Sky"
MPEG Stream: DEAD MEN'S ORCHESTRA "Totencombo"
MPEG Stream: EO SINH + NAMH HAO "VC Love Song"
MPEG Stream: THU HIEN "Hoa Cau Vuon Trau"

BLACK FUNERAL Ordog (Behemoth) cd 14.98
We like to think we have pretty good taste in music, but lately we've discovered something pretty strange. Many of our favorite records we discovered, even pursued, after being told that they were terrible. Not sure what it is, but when a review of some record is so completely harsh, sometimes we think the reviewer just missed the point, or that the work being reviewed was just too strange to be properly described by the average review. In one instance, we read a review of a record by a black metal band we already really liked, and the reviewer gave it a ONE out of a possible TEN, going on at great length about why the record was so bad. But strangely, all of his complaints about the songs and sounds did nothing but make us more and more intrigued. After months of trying to track this record down (the label had folded and it was never properly released) we did finally get our hands on a cd-r copy, and you know what? It was absolutely amazing. Fucked up, sure. Retarded? Maybe. But by now, you know that's the sort of stuff we love (it was Old Forest if you must know, but we have had no luck tracking down the band or the label, and we'd be more than willing to put it out ourselves! Old Forest, if you're reading this get in touch!).
A similar thing happened with this, the latest from USBM outfit Black Funeral. A review we read complained that their otherwise kick ass grim and cult black metal, had morphed into a noisy, almost industrial sound, a buzzy blurry blast that was apparently too weird and not really 'black metal' enough. We were immediately envisioning a band that sounded like Spektr or Blut Aus Nord. Which would be a very good thing for sure. Other reviews described Ordog as "tuneful white noise", "Nargaroth or Graveland combined with Einsturzende Neubaten", another compared them to Benighted Leams (!!!). But it was the review that described Ordog as sounding like an untuned AM radio that really pushed us over the edge.
And you know what? It sounds a little like ALL of those things!!
This is definitely black metal. Appropriately harsh and buzzy. But from there all bets are off. A disturbing exploration of some mysterious fog enshrouded pit of despair. The vocals are harsh and way up in the mix, over weirdly atonal riffing and machinelike programmed drums. The melodies drift and drone, some almost sound like the most melancholy Depeche Mode song bits transplanted into a way more creepy and harrowing black metal wasteland. But the path through each track is a meandering circuitous journey, one fraught with peril. Wide expanses of fuzzy haunted mansion keyboard, jagged shards of metallic what-the-fuck laid over monster like growls and thick drones, rippling sheets of warped black noise, and a gritty and dense wall of fuzz draped over EVERYTHING. You can definitely here Spektr, Blut Aus Nord, Benighted Leams, but the twisted and looped buzzdrone aspect really reminds us of Wold, but where Wold were more spacey and ambient, Black Funeral apply the same sonic approach to a more blackened buzz. So fucking awesome!
The whole record is thematically based on the occult, Persian mythology, Satanism and especially vampirism, two tracks actually feature lyrics written by convicted serial killer / cannibal Nico Claur, to whom the record is also dedicated. Weird.
And non-music related tidbit. Black Funeral is in fact 2/3 female, which is most definitely an anomaly in black metal (and the band photos inside definitely had the AQ metal boys swooning. Black Funeral's Lux Ferro and Dana Dark are some seriously ultrafoxy, gloomy, gothy raven haired black metal queens of the underworld!)
MPEG Stream: "Harbingers Of Pestilence"
MPEG Stream: "Hymn To Ahriman"
MPEG Stream: "Mummu Chaos"

V/A Basic Channel (Basic Channel) cd 15.98
Finally re-pressed and back in stock!
Basic Channel had a short existence, but was incredibly influential on the future of techno. Between 1993 and 1995, Basic Channel released nine singles that infused the jack hammering acid tracks of Detroit Techno with the ghostly hiss that accumulated on Lee Perry's dub productions in the '70s. However, this was not the electronic dub of Pole or Kit Clayton, although both were obviously huge fans of Basic Channel. Rather, Basic Channel offered a hyper-abstract vision of techno that never sacrificed the integrity of the rhythm. Amidst the aerosolized sounds, gray modulations, and purposefully murky timbres, the Basic Channel producers Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus (who would later go on to form Rhythm And Sound) always centered their work along the skeleton of a propulsive techno beat.
This Basic Channel compilation is now in its FOURTH pressing; the original came out in 1995 in a fittingly non-descript cardboard sleeve and later in the metal tin designs that were used for their later Chain Reaction series. This compiled the more ambient and abstract and blissed out cuts on those singles while some of the heavier Chain Reaction tracks were compiled on the "Scion Arrange and Process Basic Channel Tracks" cd (now unfortunately out of print).
But if you just want to bliss out and drift off and be narcoticized by throbbing pulses and fuzzy grit, you can't do much better than this.
MPEG Stream: "G Loop"
MPEG Stream: "E2E4 Basic (Reshape)"
MPEG Stream: "Mutism"

GROUPER Way Their Crept (Free Porcupine Society) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
FINALLY REPRESSED and BACK IN STOCK! And now this former AQ Record Of The Week comes in a sturdier sleeve with a little book of drawings too, value added for those who missed it before... hardly fair for those who picked it up back when but nice if you're just getting it now.
Imagine Arvo Part if he was a punk rock woman from Oakland. Or imagine an ultra lo-fi Morton Feldman jamming with Matthew Bower of Skullflower, backed up by a ghostly choir. This is one of those records that is so perfectly aQuarius it sounds like it was composed and recorded just for us. And you. A perfect blend of warm textured ambience and thick corrosive drones, delicate melodies wrapped in a gorgeously crunchy gritty hissy production. The whole record is a ghostly shimmer, warm washes of otherworldly vibrations swirling in a thick morass of processed vocals, murky keyboards and guitars rendered so unguitarlike they more resemble warm wiggles of sound, like slinky's stretched as far as they will go, slightly vibrating, barely disturbing the air around them, small waves of sound like ripples in a pond building and building and piled atop one another until it's a massive, thick blanket of sound. Imagine the saddest slowest band you've ever heard playing at absolutely deafening volume, then imagine stuffing your ears full of cotton, and listening from behind a closed door, through a wall of mud and straw, warm wispy tendrils of sound creeping and crawling through the cracks, wrapping themselves in thick coils around your arms and legs, the whole room slowly filling with sound, until soon you're totally ensconced, submerged, surrounded by thick billows of slow shifting sound. Melodies become indistinct whispers stretched across minutes instead of seconds, guitars and keyboards become blissed out blurs, like floating weightless in a warm dark mysterious place made entirely of soft sound. Wow. Totally haunting and captivating.
MPEG Stream: "Way Their Crept"
MPEG Stream: "Hold A Desert, Feel Its Hand"
MPEG Stream: "Sang Their Way"

CELESTIIAL Desolate North (Bindrune) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There was a time where all you had to do was add umlauts to every vowel (heck how about a few consonants too?) to make your band name more evil. More mysterious. For glam rockers it simply meant changing s's to z's, BOYZ, TOYZ, NOYZE... oh and changing i's to y's, and double o's always helped... Bad Noose. But recently, there have been several examples of grim black and doom metal bands adding an extra 'i' for no apparent reason. When it was just French black metallers Mutiilation, we thought, okay, they're just French and little bit strange, or maybe it was a typo but they thought it was cool. We can dig that. But now with Minnesotan funereal doom lords Celestiial jumping on the double 'i' bandwagon, we're beginning to think something is going on. Something sinister. Er... siiniister we mean.
Anyway, we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for more of the evil double 'i' but in the meantime, Celestiial has more than just the 2 i's going for them. They also have a gaggle of o's. that's right. Celestiial are definitely one of those bands who have earned the multiple o'd doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. They're in the tradition of bands like Skepticism, Thergothon, Disembowelment, Evoken, Winter and more modern practitioners of the ultradoom like Catacombs, Esoteric and the like, but Celestiial are no ordinary doom band, sure their songs are lengthy and glacial, guitars are nothing but black smears in a starless sky, the plodding drums are dropped reverently amidst a bleak and barren sonic landscape. Vocals growl and gurgle and float weightless like some dark wind. Celestiial's doom is even more spacey and blissed out than any of their influences. The guitars are thick and dense and tuned impossibly low, but they sound soft, like someone shaking out a huge black blanket and letting it settle over you, blocking out all light. The programmed drums are so dense with reverb, and the cymbals seem to sizzle endlessly, the percussion just turns into a wash of hiss and whir, that adds a strange fuzzy glow to the already murky and blissy sound. The other thing you can't help but notice, is the sound of nature, everywhere, in every song, crickets, wind blowing through the trees, frogs, whippoorwills, thunder, rain falling on leaves. You know how Skepticism sounds like it was recorded in a forest? This is like that too but it's not metaphorical, it really has forest sounds. It's almost like their is some black doom funeral procession, trudging through the forest, lit only by torchlight, the creatures of the night, gathered just outside the circle of fire. So intense and strangely serene, especially for a 'doom metal' record.
And the thing is it's not just for effect. Celestiial are from Minnesota and are quite possibly the first reflective, isolationist, naturist doom band ever. From the band's website: "Celestiial was created to mirror mysticism in nature. Its heart lies not in its medium but in its dreams. It is a reflection of astral light shown upon the earth--sinking into its soil--waiting and dreaming. It wishes to be the pulse of woodlands and water. Nothing more? Understand that funeral doom isn't always slow for the sake of being slow. It is slower than the beat of the human heart. Its pulse is dead. The pulse of CELESTIIAL aims at being completely parallel to continual motion in everything of this earth. From the seasonal changes to representations of myth."
Woah. But if you really listen, Celestiial's slow motion doom does sound perfectly at home amidst the sounds of nature. Like some living breathing shadowy doomic creature living among the insects and wild birds, lurking in tree tops and curled up upon soft piles of wet leaves. It's almost like a doom metal version of recent record of the week Osmose, by Ariel Kalma, but instead of synths and rainforests, it's doom and dark forests. And as if to further tie the music to the land, and the peoples of the land, Celestiial incorporate an unlikely selection of traditional instruments into their slow motion dirges, such as Celtic harp and Native American flutes.
All of that, strange instrumentation, nature sounds, the two i's, combine to make this wonderfully weird, hauntingly mysterious and quite possibly one of the dreamiest and most blissed out doom records ever!
MPEG Stream: "Haunting Cries Beneath The Lake Where Our Queen Once Walked"
MPEG Stream: "Lamentations In The Citadel Of God"

CELESTIIAL Desolate North ( Handmade Birds) lp 16.98
This crushing avant doooooom epic, finally available on vinyl, the latest release on new boutique vinyl label Handmade Birds, run by R. Loren of Pyramids, White Moth and Sailors With Wax Wings, and like the other HmB releases, some of which are already out of print, EXTREMELY LIMITED...
There was a time where all you had to do was add umlauts to every vowel (heck how about a few consonants too?) to make your band name more evil. More mysterious. For glam rockers it simply meant changing s's to z's, BOYZ, TOYZ, NOYZE... oh and changing i's to y's, and double o's always helped... Bad Noose. But recently, there have been several examples of grim black and doom metal bands adding an extra 'i' for no apparent reason. When it was just French black metallers Mutiilation, we thought, okay, they're just French and little bit strange, or maybe it was a typo but they thought it was cool. We can dig that. But now with Minnesotan funereal doom lords Celestiial jumping on the double 'i' bandwagon, we're beginning to think something is going on. Something sinister. Er... siiniister we mean.
Anyway, we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for more of the evil double 'i' but in the meantime, Celestiial has more than just the 2 i's going for them. They also have a gaggle of o's. that's right. Celestiial are definitely one of those bands who have earned the multiple o'd doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. They're in the tradition of bands like Skepticism, Thergothon, Disembowelment, Evoken, Winter and more modern practitioners of the ultradoom like Catacombs, Esoteric and the like, but Celestiial are no ordinary doom band, sure their songs are lengthy and glacial, guitars are nothing but black smears in a starless sky, the plodding drums are dropped reverently amidst a bleak and barren sonic landscape. Vocals growl and gurgle and float weightless like some dark wind. Celestiial's doom is even more spacey and blissed out than any of their influences. The guitars are thick and dense and tuned impossibly low, but they sound soft, like someone shaking out a huge black blanket and letting it settle over you, blocking out all light. The programmed drums are so dense with reverb, and the cymbals seem to sizzle endlessly, the percussion just turns into a wash of hiss and whir, that adds a strange fuzzy glow to the already murky and blissy sound. The other thing you can't help but notice, is the sound of nature, everywhere, in every song, crickets, wind blowing through the trees, frogs, whippoorwills, thunder, rain falling on leaves. You know how Skepticism sounds like it was recorded in a forest? This is like that too but it's not metaphorical, it really has forest sounds. It's almost like their is some black doom funeral procession, trudging through the forest, lit only by torchlight, the creatures of the night, gathered just outside the circle of fire. So intense and strangely serene, especially for a 'doom metal' record.
And the thing is it's not just for effect. Celestiial are from Minnesota and are quite possibly the first reflective, isolationist, naturist doom band ever. From the band's website: "Celestiial was created to mirror mysticism in nature. Its heart lies not in its medium but in its dreams. It is a reflection of astral light shown upon the earth--sinking into its soil--waiting and dreaming. It wishes to be the pulse of woodlands and water. Nothing more? Understand that funeral doom isn't always slow for the sake of being slow. It is slower than the beat of the human heart. Its pulse is dead. The pulse of CELESTIIAL aims at being completely parallel to continual motion in everything of this earth. From the seasonal changes to representations of myth."
Woah. But if you really listen, Celestiial's slow motion doom does sound perfectly at home amidst the sounds of nature. Like some living breathing shadowy doomic creature living among the insects and wild birds, lurking in tree tops and curled up upon soft piles of wet leaves. It's almost like a doom metal version of recent record of the week Osmose, by Ariel Kalma, but instead of synths and rainforests, it's doom and dark forests. And as if to further tie the music to the land, and the peoples of the land, Celestiial incorporate an unlikely selection of traditional instruments into their slow motion dirges, such as Celtic harp and Native American flutes.
All of that, strange instrumentation, nature sounds, the two i's, combine to make this wonderfully weird, hauntingly mysterious and quite possibly one of the dreamiest and most blissed out doom records ever!
MPEG Stream: "Haunting Cries Beneath The Lake Where Our Queen Once Walked"
MPEG Stream: "Lamentations In The Citadel Of God"

SKEPTICISM Ethere (Red Stream) cdep 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN PRINT, and re-listed for those whose funereal doom collections are lacking this crucial entry. Twenty-seven minutes of pure depression from the cold dark woods of Finland.Ê
Skepticism are the masters of ultra doom. Their sound we once described as sitting in a stone church, surrounded by the warm sounds of an old pipe organ, while a doom metal band practices in the basement, their funereal crawl barely audible through the floor, the two sounds mixed into a slow slthery doomish creep. Here on theÊsequel to Skepticism's brilliant, black-metal-meets-Labradford "Stormcrowfleet" album, these doomic depressives up the production values without losing that distinctive sound. The 12 minute first track starts off with nothing but big booming drums, or actually drum singular, pounding out a simple funereal beat, something like 16 bpm, with chiming church bells and a thick organ drone threatening to drown the listener in a thick black pitch of misery and horror, with the occasional burst of downtuned guitar, only to have it quickly subside and slip back beneath the black drones. This is exactly what you would expect to hear in the underworld, a death march stretchingÊ off into infinity, fire pits on every side, demons wielding big drums stretched tight with human skin. So creepy and hauntingly beautiful. There's even some piano, adding an emotional depth not found in most ultra doom. Like a way heavier Low or a doom metal Codeine. The second track is more guitar heavy, with chords unfurled and allowed to slowly dissipate before the next one drops, there are vocals here too, monstrous chest rattling growls, that almost sound like another guitar, swirling keyboards, faux strings, very dramatic and cinematic. The final track, "Chorale" is epic and infused with a sort of pomp. Huge pipe organs unleash thick vibrant chords that whir and drone, the melodies are sort of festive, or at least as festive as doom can get, it's almost like one would expect to hear in the court of some king of the underworld, sitting at huge tables, watching a procession of doomed souls trudge wearily by. So totally intense. It's been a while since we revisited Skepticism, but we're reminded why there's not a doom band alive (or dead) who can touch the doomic might and glory of Skepticism!
MPEG Stream: "The March And The Stream"
MPEG Stream: "Aether"

LONGMONT POTION CASTLE Longbox Option Package (D.U.) 4 x cd-r, 3 x cd, 1 x DVD-r (7 discs!) 60.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Holy shit! This is the crank call mother lode. By now if you don't immediately start to giggle at the mere mention of Longmont Potion Castle, you are truly missing out. This one man prank call juggernaut has spent almost the last 20 years torturing unsuspecting folks, shop keepers, Radio Shack employees, old ladies, testosterone fueled jerks and pretty much everybody else with his totally surreal, unbelievably hilarious phone calls. This box set collects EVERY Longmont recording ever, including a whole disc of unreleased stuff, as well as the long out of print and barely available VHS tape on DVD for the first time! You think the calls are crazy, you should see the havoc this man can wreak on a call in talk show. This is absolutely essential for any one onto bizarre recordings, found sounds, prank calls, all around weirdness.
Included in this box set is LONGMONT POTION CASTLE (originally released in 1988), LONGMONT POTION CASTLE II (originally released in 1992), LONGMONT POTION CASTLE III (originally released in 1995), LONGMONT POTION CASTLE 4 (originally released in 2002), LATE EIGHTIES-VEIN (originally released in 2003), LONGMONT POTION CASTLE 5 (originally released in 2005), a bonus disc that includes a lot of the metal interludes that were cut when the original cassettes were transferred to cd, and the original LONGMONT POTION CASTLE VHS tape, now on DVD(-r) for the first time with tons of extra footage. Also includes a massive set of liner notes, with detailed track listings and the story behind each disc, as well as a custom LPC magnet. Each one personally signed by Mr. LPC himself!
Here's some of our past raves about all things LPC:
How can you not love a guy who gets off on torturing the clerks at radio shack and is obsessed with Tandy products?! A guy who spits out the most retarded and baffling products/names/etc: gugliata, voltor, leprechanjulius!! And on one disc, he continually harasses a foul mouthed cantakerous old man, but by the end of the disc, they become buddies, with the old man asking how the tape was going and LPC promising to send him a copy. FUCKING HEARTWARMING! How often do you get that on a crank call record?!!? Stupid and silly and once in a while totally inspired. This is still to this day constantly in the stereo on all of our road trips and so much Longmmont verbiage has become vernacular for us and all of our friends.
Longmont Potion Castle is the master of deadpan confusional telephone terror. Mr. Longmont no longer practices his art, having hung up his phone (hee hee... sorry) several years ago. But we can still listen and laugh. This stuff never stops being funny. The cool thing about LPC, is he's not an asshole, and he doesn't necessarily set out to piss people off, even though it's obviously inevitable. And when he does get in a tough guy "I'll kick your ass" sort of verbal sparring match, his choice of threats are so ridiculous and nonsensical, you find yourself almost embarassed for him, like the little tiny kid who is oblivious to his mortality and insists on standing up to the bully and always gets his ass whupped. Then add in his obsession with squid meat and an amazing litany of bizarre items / objects / names / services he invokes or offers or pretends to be looking for: Spencer Zebra, Aqualamb, Chowder Julius, Wovenloaf, Frickey Weaver, Chimp Giraffe Loop (making us laugh just typing those!). Wow! It really is amazingly funny. And bizarre. I
Easily the best, funniest, most bizarre series of crank calls ever. There's the always popular picking fights with strangers, but Mr. LPC does it so much better than most with his Steven Wright deadpan and his ridiculous non-sequiters. Constant references to deliveries of peacocks from Lithuania, offers of free manure, and an endless litany of nonsensical recommendations, bizarre suggestions, and problematic overtures, all delivered in that likeable guy-next-door deadpan. Always does raise the question WHY DON'T PEOPLE JUST HANG UP?!?! Lucky for us they don't. We also get a dose of Longmont's metal obsession with the occasional freaked out death metal interludes. So dumb and funny and brilliant. Be sure and keep your ears peeled for a truly distrubing call, that goes from funny to really fucking sad in a matter of minutes, between LPC, a depressed suicidal goth teen and his overbearing fucked up dad. Wow. these discs are full of magic moments like that, a few sad, lots of them just plain demented, but most of them so completely bust a gut hilarious!!
So buy this or we'll start talkin' whip, and may even bring a tennis racket toyaleyup!!!
MPEG Stream: "Syop Playing Harmonica"
MPEG Stream: "Goat"
MPEG Stream: "Levi"
MPEG Stream: "Peacock"
MPEG Stream: "UPS Freakout 1"
MPEG Stream: "Spencer Zebra"
MPEG Stream: "Aqualamb"
MPEG Stream: "Loud Tones"

URFAUST / CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS Auerauege Raa Verduistering (Target:Earth) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In our neverending quest to unearth the weirdest and wildest, most evil and grim, most damaged and baffling black metal there is, we not too long ago stumbled upon Urfaust. And we were immediately smitten, as were all of you judging from how difficult it was to keep those discs in stock. Well, all bow down and thank the dark lord, for now we have the latest offering from the strange hunting world of Urfaust! And if that wasn't enough, on this split they're teamed up with an outfit called Circle Of Ouroborous, who are even stranger than Urfaust, if that's even possible.
What is it about Urfaust that has us so in a tizzy. Well, imagine a loping buzzing midtempo black metal, raw, and thick and fuzzed out, but then add in a vocalist that croons and wails and sounds quite a bit like Ethel Merman, his vocals drenched in reverb, a huge thick cloud of croon, so weird but so goddamn amazing! These new tracks find Urfaust getting... you guessed it, even stranger. The first track is a whirl of huge blown out synths or guitars, big swells, distorted and warm and fuzzy, with a strange almost bouncy drum beat. By track two, the old Urfaust is back in effect, a huge wall of Burzumic guitar, a galloping midtempo drum beat, and those ridiculously remarkable vocals. We get so used to shrieking and howling vocals, that we were completely taken aback byt Urfaust's vocals, so much more emotional and passionate, strange indeed, but strange and mysterious and absolutely unlike anything you've heard in black metal. The third track is a creaking industrial soundscape, footsteps, breathing, clattering metal, atonal strings, very 20th century music concret. Really cool. The final ten minutes is a fuzzed out seasick waltz, huge guitars, super dramatic vocals, the guitars a thick whirring drone, the melody so melancholy and intense. Awesome. Definitely still one of our favorite metal bands for sure.
But wait. We've also got the mysterious Circle Of Ouroborus to contend with, and wooh boy, is this one cracked outfit. Half of CoO's six tracks are murky almost punky black metal blasts, super lo-fi, practice space production, the guitar a mumbly warble, the drums tinny and buried in the mix, and as you might expect for a band paired up with Urfaust, the vocalist is totally demented, a growling cracked croon, WAY up in the mix, shouting and howling, almost talking sometimes, making CoO sound a bit like a black metal Fall. The rest of the tracks are even more unlikely, all acoustic, with atonally strummed acoustic guitars and menacing sung / spoke vocals, even some harmonica! Some hellish campfire sing along, Bob Dylan channelled through some musical demon. It sounds a bit like a blackened Jandek, or the black metal folk of Dead Raven Choir, and actually quite a bit like AQ faves Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat (albeit much more low fidelity) or even a little like a more garage-y Current 93. But WOW! Not at all what we were expecting at all. This is something that could definitely pass for some freaky outsider folk record with passages of black buzz instead of the other way around. We never though any band could hold their own agains the mighty Urfaust, but Circle Of Ouroborus pull it off big time. Another damaged and demented black metal (sort of) band to keep an eye on for sure!
MPEG Stream: URFAUST "Der Halbtoten Dichters Schein-Existenz"
MPEG Stream: URFAUST "Zur Winter-Wanderschaft Verflucht"
MPEG Stream: CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS "Dream Of Death"
MPEG Stream: CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS "Mouldering Leaves"

IMMORTAL At The Heart Of The Winter (Osmose) cd 13.98
The return of Immortal!!! These frosty warriors may have hung up their spiked gauntlets, but their legacy still looms large. Easily one of our favorite black metal hordes EVER, these records have been frustratingly tough to keep in stock over the years. Thankfully, they've all been reissued, in all their frostbitten black blurred glory!
At The Heart Of Winter is from way back in 1999, but is one of the later albums by these blizzard beasts. You might be disappointed by the lack of blurred blast beats and blazing Arctic riffs but you certainly won't be disappointed with the results of these corpsepainted Norwegians' last photo shoot! A newfound obsession with pro wrestling and a new, very large and perpetually shirtless drummer (sporting a black metal belly girdle!) make this cd great to look at, but it's actually a great listen as well. As mentioned, gone is the speed of their previous effort Blizzard Beasts --in it's place is a stripped-down, more midtempo, straight-ahead heavy metal sound. Better, more professional production than in the past, plus catchier riffs combined with stumbling, propulsive drumming make this a record that Andee and Allan both love (while big Immortal fan Josh from The Champs votes this as the *worst* metal album of the year--go figure).
Note: in the years since this album came out (1999) ol' Josh has had a change of heart and now admits that it's a pretty good record! And Allan rates it as his favorite Immortal opus ever. Andee places it at number two, right behind the classic Blizzard Beasts!
MPEG Stream: "Withstand The Fall Of Time"
MPEG Stream: "Tragedies Blows At Horizon"

IMMORTAL Blizzard Beasts (Osmose) cd 13.98
The return of Immortal!!! These frosty warriors may have hung up their spiked gauntlets, but their legacy still looms large. Easily one of our favorite black metal hordes EVER, these records have been frustratingly tough to keep in stock over the years. Thankfully, they've all been reissued, in all their frostbitten black blurred glory!
This is absolutely the best Immortal record (sez Andee!) and easily one of the most important and most essential black metal releases ever. Released in 1997, Blizzard Beasts find Immortal hovering between the total grim primitive chaos of their earlier records and the sharp tight black metal majesty of their later releases, which kind of makes sense when you realize this is their final record as Blizzard Beasts, after this they would proceed to slow down, write longer songs, massive midtempo epics filled with classic metal riffing as well as more traditional metal song structures. It's almost as if they knew this was their last hurrah, so they went all out, made the tempos faster, the arrangements more complex, the guitars that much more buzzy and blown out, the vocals as inhuman as humanly possible, without losing their uncanny knack for hiding hooks amidst all that black buzz, or their distinctly classic Norwegian sound. The ultimate blast of forsty, wintery black metal, a furiously frigid barrage, an amazingly trance-inducing, complex blur of drums, rasping howls and icicle guitars, stopping and starting but at never less than 100mph! So totally amazing. Up there for sure with Burzum's Filosefem and Darkthrone's Transylvanian Hunger as far as absolutely essential black metal is concerned.
MPEG Stream: "Blizzard Beast"
MPEG Stream: "Nebular Ravens Winter"
MPEG Stream: "Frostdemonstorm"

IMMORTAL Battles In The North (Osmose) cd 13.98
The final installment in the recent long overdue campaign of Immortal reissues (the rest of which we reviewed a few lists back).
The return of Immortal!!! These frosty warriors may have hung up their spiked gauntlets, but their legacy still looms large. Easily one of our favorite black metal hordes EVER, these records have been frustratingly tough to keep in stock over the years. Thankfully, they've all been reissued, in all their frostbitten black blurred glory!
As we've said before, you just can't go wrong with Immortal. It's like a big cold hug. For grim black metalheads that is! Everyone has their favorite Immortal. The raw early records, the slow more melodic later releases... and while we definitely love both, our hearts were originally captured by the brief two album black blizzard of buzz that was Blizzard Beasts (1997) and this here slab of frosty grimness Battles In The North. Originally released in 1995, BITN was the record that found Immortal finally unleashing their inner frost giant, from the album art, images of the band members crouching in the snow in full corpse paint with their instruments, to the much more explicit themes of winter and frost and blizzards and ice and snow, to the much frostier sound, a black metal white out, flurries of impossibly fast drumming, blinding swirls of buzzing riffage, the raspy winterdemon like vocals, Battles In The North is fastfastfast, a buzzy blinding blur, brief moments of folky guitar or droney ambience surface here and there, but for the most part this is a black metal avalanche, a huge white wall of black sound. Blizzard Beasts would up the fast and frosty ante a couple years later, but Battles In The North remains a pure and primal explosion of gloriously ultragrim Northern darkness!
MPEG Stream: "Battles In The North"
MPEG Stream: "Throned By Blackstorms"
MPEG Stream: "Grim And Frostbitten Kingdoms"

IMMORTAL Damned In Black (Osmose) cd 13.98
The return of Immortal!!! These frosty warriors may have hung up their spiked gauntlets, but their legacy still looms large. Easily one of our favorite black metal hordes EVER, these records have been frustratingly tough to keep in stock over the years. Thankfully, they've all been reissued, in all their frostbitten black blurred glory!
Damned In Black was originally released in 2000, and was the second to last release before the band called it quits. Immortal, by the time Damned In Black was released, were THE elder black metal statesmen, true members of the Norwegian black metal elite, Abbath (not as in "please take..."!) on guitars and Popeye vox, big ol' drummer Horgh, and new guy Iscariah on bass, (with the sidelined Demonaz still writing lyrics) return after their groundbreaking "At The Heart of Winter", the disc that slowed down (a bit) the previously way FAAASSSTTT tempos characteristic of their speedy-demon classics "Battles In The North" and "Blizzard Beasts" and added more melody, more trad metal riffing, and mo' better production courtesy of Peter Tagtgren & his Abyss studio. "Damned In Black" follows the "Winter" blueprint, being kind of like a "At The Heart of Winter Part II" but without the amusing wanna-be WWF wrestler band photos that garnered so much attention/ridicule last time around. And while the title might suggest some sort of Satanic theme, the Immortal boys stick with their personal mythology of a frosty Northern dimension full of ice, wind, and cold. Immortal fans everywhere (even the ones here in San Francisco who got dissed by the band when they didn't show up to play and went to Mexico instead) should put on some mittens and enjoy this evil icecapade. AGAIN!
MPEG Stream: "Triumph"
MPEG Stream: "Damned In Black"

SHORA Malval (Conspiracy) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's been a struggle to figure out what to write about this record. It's a gorgeous moody slab of blissed out mathy post rock. We love that stuff. A lot. But it's really difficult to explain exactly why this record is somehow WAY more than just a post-rock record. It's maybe MORE, more moody, more mathy, more blissed out, but there's still some ineffable thing that turns Shora into a whole other proposition. Similar to the way that Fuehler and Turing Machine in the past took the sound of their post rock forefathers to whole new realms, Shora, breathe new life, breathe fire even, into what has become the sound du riguer of the indie underground. How exactly is a bit tougher to pin down. It's very repetitive, some riffs practically become loops, repeating over and over, inducing some serious mesmeric listening, each looped post-rock-scape is underpinned by dense but complex krautrocky rhythms, that occasionally explode into spikey tangles of free jazz mathrock octopoidal polyrhythms before settling back into dreamy head nodding grooves. The guitars are like chameleons, snakey smokey tendrils one second, huge jagged metallic shards the next, turning from bell like chimes into slinky slippery smears of sound all within a matter of seconds. Majestic, haunting, repetitive and completely fascinating. That's just the first three tracks too, 24 minutes of dense, layered, experimental instrumental rock music perfection. Then there's the very strange final track, which starts out as a soft focused dreamscape, all gauzy and shimmery, before out of the blue, down comees a blast of bizarre pounding Gary Glitter sounding glam rock stomp, right there in the middle of the song! The stomp quickly gives way to some organ drenched Goblin worship before slipping softly back into dark droney ambience. But that's not all, suddenly there are female vocals, and not wispy soft ones, no we're talking a throaty belt, more PJ Harvey than Grouper or Paavoharju, at first it's a little bit jarring, but after a few moments it makes perfect sense. But it only lasts a few moments. Which is maybe indicative of why this band is so great. Putting that much thought into a tiny part, and finding a vocalist, coming up with melodies, lyrics, all for the last minute or two of the last song on your record. Few bands would bother. Which is precisely the point wethinks. It's easy to tell that the same sort of meticulous preparation and deep thought went into every part of this record. But without sacrificing any of the passion or immediacy that makes music so vital. Which is a rare thing indeed.
MPEG Stream: "Parhelion"
MPEG Stream: "Arch & Hum"

TOOL 10,000 Days (Volcano / Zomba / Sony BMG) cd 17.98
We just looked back on past Tool reviews, and it seems like we're always defending them, or defending ourselves for loving them so much, but the more we've thought about it, the more it's become obvious that there's no need. Not at all. Not only does Tool not need us to defend them, they have tons of fans, sell millions of records, but they hardly qualify as a guilty pleasure at this point, other than for the fact that a bunch of dicks with backwards baseball caps and jacked up trucks love them. But those same dicks love Slayer too, but you don't see people embarrassed to love Slayer. And what's not to love here, lengthy epics, sludgy crunchy guitars, impossibly complex drumming, lurching and grooving, moody and so intense, creepy crawly vocals, this is some seriously dark and heavy shit. Maybe more so than a lot of 'heavy underground' bands. Plus Tool just seem super cool. They refuse to sell their tracks on iTunes, they spend years crafting epic sort-of-concept records, totally elaborate and complex, right down to the packaging. And holy shit, the packaging this time around is mind blowing. And mind you Tool have long championed the ultra deluxe packaging for their records, but this one is definitely the most outrageous. In fact it just might be the most amazing packaging we've ever see. When we cracked open the box we all gathered around and ooh'ed and aah'ed like kids on Christmas. What it is, is a super thick black plastic folder type sleeve, with two lenses embedded in the flap. When you open the sleeve, and check out the full color booklet each photo is split in two, two images side by side, and then you realize that it's a stereoscope and as you look through the lenses at the photos, they become strange 3-D tableau's, band photos are rife with tiny little details, ghosts in the background, strange items on the desk in the foreground, fire and smoke, other images are strange surreal juxtapositions and creepy Eastern psychedelic images, even the song titles are in 3-D!Ê
It's funny, but Tool are one of the few bands that almost everyone we know loves, customers, band members, folks who run labels, over the last week or two, lots of our 'underground music' pals have emailed or called to opine on the new Tool, as if that made perfect sense, and it kind of does. it's a little bit like somehow one of our own managed to crack the code and miraculously made it to the big time, and in their own way are subverting from within. When Opiate came out years back, we never would have thought that a band that dark and that weird would one day be mentioned in the same breath as Coldplay or U2. But it's gotta happen once in a while. And it's pretty great that if anything, Tool have not softened or mainstreamed at all, but maybe gotten more strange and more obstinate with age. Just like us.Ê
MPEG Stream: "Vicarious"
MPEG Stream: "Jambi"
MPEG Stream: "Wings For Marie (Part 1)"

ANAAL NATHRAKH The Codex Necro (Earache) cd 15.98
Available again! And now with 4 bonus tracks from Anaal Nathrakh's Peel Sessions, recorded on John Peel's show in December of 2003, with members of Napalm Death in the band!
Thank God (or Satan) that this record is as good as it is, because of all the trouble we had to go through to get it (this was several years ago mind you, when this disc first came out way back near the millennium)! We became aware of British black metal act Anaal Nathrakh from first seeing ads for this album in Terrorizer magazine (the UK's metal version of The Wire), then Terrorizer named it record of the month, and then one of the top 40 records of 2001! Yet no metal distributors in the United States had ever even heard of Anaal Nathrakh. Not even the band themselves could help us out, and the one distributor that did offer the album only had TEN COPIES. Our tiny little store wanted at least twice that many.
But, many frustrating conversations and unproductive emails later, we finally got The Codex Necro in stock and are happy to report that it is as heavy, as weird and as completely cool as we had hoped. And now several years later, the world is finally hip to Anaal Nathrakh, enough that this here disc finally got a deluxe reissue with bonus tracks. The formula is blasting black metal mayhem of course, but A.N. up the intensity a notch as well as mixing in all sorts of fucked weirdness: bizarre ambient electronic soundscapes, creepy cloying melodies buried in the mix, strangely hypnotic vocal chants, light speed fuzzed out blast beats, found sound interludes, and totally processed and INSANE vocals, from growling guttural bowel-shaking grunts to maniacal high pitched, electronically fucked-with shrieks. Plus the riffs are ultra catchy, and the guitars are so distorted and recorded so hot, it feels like demonic claws are being scraped across your ear drums. Take the raw, "necro" sounds of Nordic black metal pioneers Darkthrone and give them the bombastic force of the best-produced, over-the-top Cradle of Filth stuff, and you're thinking Anaal Nathrakh. When they say necro, they mean it. And they say it a lot. Like in the liner notes: "Anaal Nathrakh plays Fucking Necro Exclusively!...Fuck Everything".
MPEG Stream: "The Supreme Necrotic Audnance"
MPEG Stream: "When Humanity Is Cancer"
MPEG Stream: "Submission Is For The Weak"

ANAAL NATHRAKH When Fire Rains Down From the Sky, Mankind Will Reap As It Has Sown (Earache) cd ep 12.98
Available again! And now with 3 bonus tracks from AN's BBC Rock Show Session, recorded in March 2005!
A new half hour, six-song blast of total fucking necro mayhem from these UK metal maniacs. A blast it is, a worthy follow up to their godlike The Codex Necro album that was one of our favorite records from way back in 2002. On this ep, the duo of VITRIOL and Irrumator seem to have shed the overtly weird bits that made The Codex Necro so instantly distinctive, production-wise. No studio fuckery, no space-y ambience, no found sounds, no samples. Just 100%, furious, lightspeed, grim black metal. Which is just fine -- the songs and performances speak for themselves in sinister tongues, without the need for sound fx to tweak things further. This is simply some seriously sick, blazing fast, dark and damaged black metal indeed, with insane blast beats, all sorts of off-kilter stops and starts, maniacal leads, and last but not least, a litany of ghostly howls, anguished screams and cries of utter and abject fury -- some of which are provided by guest cult black metal vocalist Attila Csihar (of Mayhem, Aboyrm, and Tormentor infamy)! We also like the fact that there are photos of the band members on the inside and they look like librarians! Necro librarians that is.
MPEG Stream: "Cataclysmic Nihilism"
MPEG Stream: "Never Fucking Again"

EMIT / VROLOK Musikalisches Opfer / Pestilence 1440 (Christcrusher) picture disc lp 10.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Managed to get a very few of these in on vinyl (think FIVE), direct from the band HIMself. But fair warning, these records seemed to have a harrowing journey across the sea, so some of them have split seams (since they're picture discs and are packaged in those brittle plastic sleeves), but other than that, perfect. Plus they're picture discs! And come with a printed insert and odds are we probably won't be able to get these back in ever again.
Back in 2005, in our neverending quest for the weirdest black metal ever, we discovered the mysterious and perplexing Emit. And while technically they may in fact be black metal, realistically, they are more of some sort of ambient, ethereal, damaged drone outfit, spewing a deconstructed, abstract whatthefuck crash, clang and creep. Definitely black, but more in mood than sound. Either way, we were totally taken and were super psyched to discover a new record from these freaks, a split with Vrolok, more on them later. On their half of this split, Emit start off the proceedings with all vocals, the first track a soft shimmery swirl of ghostly reverbed vocals, floating and drifting, the second track is more vocals, this time some sort of monkish chant, low and liturgical, over a whirring distant drone. It's only by track three, that any sort of 'metal' becomes evident, but even then, it's metal of the most abstract fucked up kind. A buzzing blasting burst of lo-fi blackness, that starts of blazing but as it forges forward it falls apart more and more, each separate element becoming more distorted and more twisted and tweaked, until it's like listening to Darkthrone on a transistor radio through an endless series of funhouse mirrors. Woah! The rest of the tracks delve deeply into a dark realm of medieval ambient drones, a sort of more damaged Abruptum, with haunting atonal detuned guitars, and creepy tiny monster vocals, occasional bursts of super distorted black buzz and sonic shrapnel, but for the most part, a dizzying onslaught of chaotic creepiness and bizarre blackness.
Vrolok are not nearly as weird as Emit, definitely a bit more overtly black metal, but are the perfect match for Emit with their furious and fucked up black buzz. From the tumultuous blast of blazing lo-fi blackness of the first track "Hellchoir (Pestilence 1440)", a snarling, squirming riff, tangled up with lightspeed blast beats and buried under all sorts of suffocating sonic sludge, to the weird martial soundscape of "Black Chemical Waltz", a super blown out simple drum beat, amidst swirls of subsonic drones and buzzing weirdness peppered with creepy distorted snatches of found sound and bits of conversation, to the epic blackness of "Inverse Devotion" sounding like a glorious collision between Xasthur and Immortal, albeit recorded on a busted 4-track, to the epic closer "Between The Astral Shades", which starts off as a shimmering creeped out ambient soundscape, turns into what sounds like Bathory recorded in a high school gymnasium, and finally morphs into an ultra distorted seasick black dirge, replete with anguished howls and washed out black drone guitars, the whole thing blurring into a glorious blackened dronedrenched waltz.
More absolutely essential bizarre blackness for sure!
MPEG Stream: EMIT "Death's Black Diadem"
MPEG Stream: EMIT "Infinite Lucidity"
MPEG Stream: VROLOK "Hellchoir (Pestilence 1440)"
MPEG Stream: VROLOK "Black Chemical Waltz"

KATATONIA The Great Cold Distance (Peaceville) cd 16.98
We've said it before but it bears repeating, whenever we hear metal bands cover their teenage influences, especially Depeche Mode or the Cure (why do all metal bands LOVE those two bands?), we always secretly wish there would be a band who just actually sounded like that. Not a metal band being ironic or retro, but a heavy heavy band who made incredibly dark and depressing emotional music. Ultra personal and epically miserable. Thus we are massive fans of Katatonia.
Imagine a doom metal Cure, or a metallized Depeche Mode. Katatonia may have started life as a serious doom/death metal band, channeling Paradise Lost, with thick downtuned grinding buzzing guitars, and harsh black metal vocals, but with the release of their classic Discouraged Ones record, they switched to clean vocals and the sound of the band followed suit. A massive, gloomy and dreamy doompop. Exactly what we had been wishing for. Catchy as heck, heavy as hell, but totally morose and melancholy. Since then the band has continued to polish and hone their epic commercial doom, with each record finding them moving closer and closer to MTV rock, but without losing their edge, managing to stay creepy and heavy. But shit, their songs are so good and so catchy, and intense and emotional, it was only a matter of time before these guys blew up. It hasn't happened yet, but listening to The Great Cold Distance, it can't be long now. Lots of moody expanses of bass and drum groove, sprinkled with minor key guitar jangle, bookended by massive chugging metallic choruses, hooks everywhere, gorgeous crooned vocals, dark depressing lyrics, really moody and evocative and so so heavy. There is no reason these guys shouldn't be up there with Tool and the Deftones. They definitely travel the same sonic path, although Katatonia definitely display more of a true doom heritage. But c'mon, all that moody heavy rock that the oh-so-depressed generation Z lap up like Prozac, how have they not discovered Katatonia? If we were 15 again, and hated school and just broke up with our girlfriend, and were always fighting with our parents, we can guarantee you we'd be dressed all in black, wandering around our neighborhood late at night, after everyone was asleep, with The Great Cold Distance blasting in our headphones. And pretty much every track on here would sure as hell make it on all the mix tapes we ever made. But since we're not, we'll just have to make do, luxuriating in these lush depressive epics, wallowing in each glorious wash of miserable metallic doom pop!
Very recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "Leaders"
MPEG Stream: "Deliberation"
MPEG Stream: "My Twin"

EARL SHILTON Two Rooms (Full Of Insects) (Invisible Spies) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This all time AQ fave and former record of the week continues to be super difficult to restock for some reason. But it's here once again, and any one who has yet to discover this disc, for chrissakes, pick it up. Definite contender for our lifetime top ten!! Also, there's a new Earl Shilton expected in the next little while so be prepared! Here's what we had to say about Earl Shilton when it was Record of the Week a long time back:
We somehow knew this was an Aquarius Record of the Week the minute we first laid eyes on it. Well, okay, maybe that's not entirely true. But it had the potential, that much we knew for sure, just from the cover: a huge double bass drumkit, set up in the middle of the forest with the name 'Earl' scrawled on one of the bass drums. A very evocative image, combining our love of heavy rock (the kit), with my personal thing for drums (the kit again) and our love of all things forest-y: nature sounds, field recordings, animal sounds and all that. My mind was reeling. Was it a drummer just playing solos out in the woods? Was it some sort of Jewelled Antler style rock band / field recording hybrid? Or something else entirely? Stranger yet, the song titles were all in German while the label was British. Intriguing. Better give it a listen... Well, the first track revealed very little. A weird minimal rhythmic workout composed entirely of backwards drums and cymbals. Thhwwp....thhhwwwwip...sssssssp.... Very cool, but was that the gist of it? After a minute or so of that, the record exploded into something entirely unexpected -- a crushing metal riff, with weird syncopated drumming, a sort of chunky Pantera / Prong meets the Fucking Champs vibe, with whispered vocals. Then it shifted gears again and entered into a super melodic Carcass-style death metal breakdown with howled black metal vocals before it shifted back to the machine-like opening riff. And then I knew for sure. Record of the Week!
Only later, with some Internet research, did we figure out what the heck was going on. The dedication on the inside to UK death metal crusties Bolt Thrower should have been our first clue, as it turns out that Earl Shilton is a pseudonym for Alex Thomas, former drummer for those very same metalheads. For some unknown reason, Earl Shilton is the name he has assumed for this project "of crushing death metal brutality and total corpse raping necro-blast carnage" as his website puts it. Indeed!
Furthermore, that website tells us that on tour, the band features a quite young, brother and sister rhythm section! Live, Earl steps from behind the kit to handle the guitars and vocals, while the brother plays bass, and the 16 year old sister mans the drums!!! Fuck yeah! This is getting more Record of the Week by the minute, we're thinking! And the music is well worthy too, lest we forget -- Two Rooms (Full Of Insects) is a blasting, hyper complex, super varied blast of metallic mayhem. From motorik, ultra-precise technical riffery, to stop/start math-metal complexity, from grooving, galloping death metal fury, to screeching blasting black metal, from eighties Earache style thrash to modern metallic fury, with all sorts of tripped out breakdowns, fucked up production and some really really weird parts, like the breakdown a little more than halfway through the album where everything drops out except for a simple, quietly played hypnotic tom tom rhythm, joined by backwards, super creepy Orcish vocals, and the hissing backwards drumming that started the record, before the whole thing bursts back into motion, in an explosion of grandioise Maiden-ish metal. Whew, so good. And while it may not be the best (or truest) metal record on this list, it certainly is the weirdest. And the coolest. And certainly the one most suited to being Record of the Week!
MPEG Stream: "Infrarot / European Kanone"
MPEG Stream: "Zwei Raume (Voller Insekten)"
MPEG Stream: "Schlachthaus Rock"
MPEG Stream: "Tu Es.../Entscheidungskampf"

CLANDESTINE BLAZE / DEATHSPELL OMEGA split (Northern Heritage) cd 15.98
Finally back in stock!
Even though one band is from France, and the other is from Finland, you couldn't ask for a more perfect pairing. This split was originally released in 2001, and only recently was repressed so we could get enough to list, unfortunately it seems to already be out of print again so the 30 or so we got will most likely be the last for a while.
Finland's Clandestine Blaze specialize in ultra primitive black metal, paying homage to Bathory, Beherit, Darkthrone and the like, with buzzy sludgy riffs, thrashing and blasting mostly, but occasionally slowing down to a near doomy crawl. Their sound a buzzing murky blur, so much so that when they're not plodding along like Celtic Frost at 16rpm their black metal bombast smears into a gloriously hypnotic blur.
Clandestine Blaze are paired up here with Deathspell Omega in (appropriately) their earlier, more raw incarantion. DSO spew forth their buzzing blackened thrash, very much like the other DSO reissues, raw and grim on the surface, but with plenty of subtle compositional and sonic irregularites right below the surface, adding a definite depth not found in lots of similar musics and a hauntingingly unlikely catchiness very rarely (if at all) found in any black metal.
So good!!
MPEG Stream: CLANDESTINE BLAZE "Will To Kill"
MPEG Stream: DEATHSPELL OMEGA "The Suicide Curse"

DEATHSPELL OMEGA Infernal Battles (Northern Heritage) cd 15.98
Finally back in stock!
The two most recent Deathspell Omega records, Kenose and Si Monvmentvm Reqvires Circvmspice, immediately became all time AQ favorites, due in no small part to their strange hybrid of classic thrashy black metal, and strange serpentine post rock. Grim enough to satisfy all the true black metal warriors out there, but weird and avant enough to please fans of strange music, metalhead or not. But as with most groups with a strange progressive sonic bent, that sound didn't just happen overnight, they had to grow into it, feeling their way as they went and DSO is no exception. While now they are this ultra mysterious avant garde black metal outift, they started out as an ultra grim, thrashy black metal band, as is evidenced on Infernal Battles, a disc that collects two of DSO's demos (2000 / 2003). This was released a while ago but quickly went out of print and has only been repressed recently so we've finally gotten enough to list!
So while this isn't as far out or weirdly progressive as the more recent releases, in no way does that mean this isn't essential stuff. And even that far back, there were hints as to what the future held for DSO sonically. Overall, this is simple and true and grim thrashy buzzing black metal, furious blast beats and droning riffs, howled vocals, but even in this more traditional classic BM framework, DSO manage to imbue each song with subtly strange melodies and unlikely riffing, surprisingly complex and catchy arrangements, all fitted snugly in that classic BM structure, subverting subtly from within. This one is definitely not for the dabblers who dug later DSO records but for whom the BM angle was more of a novelty -- this is harsh, heavy, grim, brutal stuff, fans of Darkthrone, old Immortal, Mayhem and the like will be in utter hell (which they like), and will gladly wallow in the bleak blackness of Infernal Battles for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Drink The Devil's Blood"
MPEG Stream: "The Ancient Presence Revealed"

DEATHSPELL OMEGA Inquisitors Of Satan (Northern Heritage) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally back in stock!
Inquisitors Of Satan was the second album from Deathspell Omega, originally released in 2002 and intended to be vinyl only until a slew of spotty bootleg cds convinced the band to release a cd version. Much like Infernal Battles, IoS finds Deathspell still firmly ensconced in a more traditional grim and true black metal sound, channelling the spirit of Darkthrone and Immortal and Mayhem, but twisting that classic BM sound into their own subtly strange shapes.
A cursory listen reveals all the sonic hallmarks you might expect from any classic black metal record: buzzing blurry riffs, furious blast beats, haunting minor key melodies, gutteral growled demonic vocals, but as on Infernal Battles, DSO seem to be growing tired of just blasting away, and inject all sorts of subtleties that slowly reveal themselves upon repeated listens, riffs are twisted and convoluted, melodies are totally unlikely but in being so, manage to also be completely and extraordinarily catchy. Granted this is still at it's core, pure and evil and furiously brutal black metal, but this definitely hinted even more at the mysterious blackened beast DSO would one day become.
MPEG Stream: "From Unknown Lands Of Desolation"
MPEG Stream: "Torture And Death"

AVARUS Vesikansi (Secret Eye) cd 14.98
Once again these wide eyed Finnish forest freaks crawl out from under their mossy stones, from inside their firelit caves, out of their huts made of pine needles and sticks and twigs, set up around a campfire, under a full moon, dressed only in fur and animal bones, and conjure up the woodland spirits with their tribal free folk juju. Okay, so maybe it's actually just a bunch of music nerds like you or me with killer record collections and a bunch of old amps and guitars, but to us, it sure sounds like the glorious din these folks whip up could only be the product of some drug fueled ancient forest ritual. Which is precisely why we love Avarus and their Finnish underground rock brethren (and sistren!). The music they make sound not of this world. And we don't mean "Oh Finland's like a whole other world!" we mean, space, or an alternate dimension or even that huge hollow area at the center of the earth. The music of Avarus is that unique and that strange, exactly what we picture one might hear, stepping off of an interstellar transport, realizing for the first time that the atmosphere is breathable, and the vegetation is strangely lush and very Earth-like, that sound, "like music?" that lures us and our team deep into the alien forest. Or in the heart of South America, at an archaeological dig, strange markings on the rocks we've been unearthing from the very lowest levels of the lost temple, finally there's some sort of portal, a huge iron door, and... wait, is that... music? But what is it? It's like nothing we've ever heard, those sound like guitars, and voices, but so... strange....
For those of you who need more musical references, imagine a little Dead C, a little No Neck Blues Band, some Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Faust, Can, The Wickerman, all sorts of tribal musics, Parson Sound, Tower Recordings, Taj Mahal Travellers, even fellow countrymen Circle, Keukhot, Uton, Tivol and of course lots of drugs and lots and lots of space. This newest Avarus is a bit heavier on the guitar than previous outings, almost like they dug up a couple ancient fuzzboxes and ran their dang whole freaked out jam through 'em. There are lots of creepy krautrock bits, some blown out near noise parts, and lots of fuzzy disembodied psych, gurgling synths, splattery percussion, thick washes of feedback, primitive electronics, and loads of grungey guitar grit, it's all woven together into a crazy perfect psychedelic patchwork.
More crazy random collage artwork, this time no Garfield, but plenty of walruses, a map and an octopus. Half the record was recorded live in Dublin with Tara Burke of Fursaxa as a special guest!Ê
MPEG Stream: "Lapsivesi"
MPEG Stream: "Loylyvesi"

STARLIGHT MINTS Drowaton (Barsuk) cd 14.98
We had never cared much about the Starlight Mints in the past but after listening to Drowaton for about the MILLIONTH time, we are kicking ourselves big time. In fact we're not just kicking, we're hitting and punching and just generally beating the crap out of ourselves. How could we have missed a band this cool and this weird? Even Allan, who has VERY particular pop tastes, just came over to see what was playing.
As with all great pop records, it's sort of difficult to describe exactly what makes Drowaton so goddamned good. Sure it's catchy, but not obviously so, it takes a few listens before the hooks really catch, but when they do, you'll NEVER get 'em out. Almost every single person who works here hears something different: David Bowie, the Kinks, the Monkees, Bread, but it doesn't sound that retro at all, there are bits of Iron And Wine, Neutral Milk Hotel, New Pornographers, Arcade Fire, Nada Surf and stuff like that too.
Probably if we had to come up with a concise description, or find a genre that best describes Starlight Mints it would be something like psychedelic indie pop. Or dark poppy jangle psych. Something like that. Cuz it really is pretty darn psychedelic, lots of fuzzy synths, warped backwards electric guitar, strange falsetto trills, cool little sonic filigree, plenty of strange instrumentation, "tralalala" vocals, soaring strings, horns, heavily strummed acoustic guitars, some whistling, hand claps, all wrapped up into bursting-at-the-seams perfect pop songs. It's mostly the vocals that remind us of Bowie, a lazy sexy drawl that can swing smoothly into a wild croon before swinging right back again, but the heady psychpop stomp beneath already had us swooning. Hooky guitar crunch collides with effervescent keyboards, sixties pop shimmer gets all tangled up with indie downer bedroom folk, huge swaths of jubilant pop pomp hovers just above slithering swirls of moody piano and warm washes of synthesizer, pounding piano rides atop an unlikely horn section, simple shuffling drums pulse and pound underneath squalls of FX-drenched guitars and clouds of sweet vocal swoon. Wow. So so so good. All of you who dug the Nada Surf we made record of the week a while back will probably love this too. And anyone into ANY sort of killer off kilter pop should for sure give Drowaton a listen!
MPEG Stream: "Pumpkin"
MPEG Stream: "Torts"
MPEG Stream: "What's Inside Of Me?"

DEADBOY & THE ELEPHANTMEN If This Is Hell Then I'm Lucky (Elephantmen Recording Co.) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Three years ago, the big rock n' roll sleeper hit here at Aquarius had to be the awesome Agents Of Oblivion album, featuring two crucial ex-members of the late lamented cult band Acid Bath. Heavy, poppy, psychedelic rock with vocalist Dax Riggs crooning beautifully over it all. We shoulda made it record of the week, we all thought in retrospect. Windy had it in heavy rotation in her Trans Am for ages! We were really bummed to hear that the Agents, like Acid Bath before 'em, broke up not long after the album's release. But, fortunately, there's more to the story. Rumors filtered in that Dax and a new crew of New Orleans n'er-do-wells had formed a new band with the unlikely name of Deadboy and the Elephantmen to carry on where the Agents left off. Allan confirmed this when he happened to visit N.O. two years ago and was lucky enough to catch a live performance from this new band. They had a demo out then, and we anticipated a full album release on some big label to appear soon...we waited...and waited...and now, *finally*, here's the Deadboy debut, a self-released cd 'cause those big labels dropped the ball apparently. Mystifiying, 'cause Dax is a rock star if ever there was one, and these guys should be HUGE. Totally accessible yet morbidly underground, we hear everything from some voodoo Alice Cooper darkness and drama, to a little Aerosmith swagger, to the heaviness and angst of Alice In Chains of course -- Acid Bath was always a AIC meets EHG (Eyehategod) hybrid, in a really good way. Radiohead's "Ok Computer" is hinted at too, and Jeff Buckley, as the music combines weirdly sensitive melodicism and dark atmosphere inspired by their hometown's swamps and cemeteries. Dax is as impressive as ever, he really *sings*, drawing out vowels over a dozen notes. His vocals are oddly warm and comforting but also anguished and intense. While the songwriting on this album does not quite match the relatively flowery yet heavy tunesmithery of the Agents of Oblivion album, and neither does the instrumentation call attention to itself, that's not necessarily a bad thing as it lets Dax' voice take center stage and he... just... wails. Sometimes despairing, sometimes incantatory. Oh the angst! For fans of Alice in Chains, Acid Bath/Agents of Oblivion (of course), Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees, and Woven Hand.

CAMBODIA Weight Of Ages (self-released) cd-r 12.98
It's been a while since we were knocked on our asses by a random cd-r that just showed up in the mail. But this debut disc from a band called Cambodia did just that. We got a copy of this disc almost six months ago and it's take the band until now to get us enough copies to list, but holy fuck was it worth it!
Huge mournful riffs, that manage to be heavy and sludgy, but super emotional and minor key. Almost like someone took some sadcore moperock riff and dipped it in some SUNNO))) then rolled it in some Boris. The riff just hovers, all by it's lonesome, for almost three minutes before the drums kick in, and then the vocals. Woah, the vocals, an insane menagerie of growls and hysterical shrieks, sort of reminiscent of Bathtub Shitter. Dueling howls and screeches. But it's all about the loping metallic mope. Massive, lumbering, and intense. You can almost imagine some sort of Katatonia style clean vocals happening, but this is a whole different beast, a much harsher and brutal beast. But it's that main melodic refrain that makes this such a keeper. No matter who's howling, or what the drums are doing, or if there's ten tracks of chugging guitars, when that melody surfaces in a sea of sludge, it immediately grabs you and gives you that weird hairs standing on end feeling. If only most heavy bands could come up with these kinds of melodies.
Just to be clear, this is definitely some sort of slow motion sludgy doom, but it's got that special something that keeps it from being just another boring doom metal band. Instead it's almost more like the heaviest harshest indie slowcore band ever. Only more metal. VERY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Weight Of Ages"

DEAD REPTILE SHRINE A Journey Through The Darkest Of Forests (Werewolf) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
When it comes to black metal, our tastes most definitely runÊ toward the damaged, the demented, the fried and freaked out, the totally baffing, the weirder the better. And there's no shortage of black metal misanthropes, holed up in their caves, or their cabins, or their flats, or their grandfathers' basements, meticulously crafting, ultra personal, maddeningly idiosyncratic outsider black metal. And we are constantly digging for more. The bar has been set pretty high, Benighted Leams obviously, the reigning champions of damaged outsider black metal, then there's Furze and hisÊ'cogent black metal necrosis', let's not forget Emit, Rehtaf Ruo, Necrofrost, Hidden, Vorak, Contra Ignem Fatuum and the elusive Striborg, whose releases have been so difficult to track down we have yet to list a single one. Phew. That's a pretty heady constellation of bizarre black metal royalty, for sure. So