FRAIL Brilliant Darkness (Rusty Axe) cassette 4.50
A friend of ours was telling us all about Frail, and the way he described it, we knew it was something we had to hear. Imagine a band that sounded exactly like the Cure, but with harsh black metal vokills!! Listening to it now he wasn't that far off the mark. This is some seriously strange stuff. Not heavy at all really, jangly, poppy, a little gothy and depressive, minor key, the drums simple and solid, soaring synths, guitar and bass locked into moody grooves, a little bit eighties new wave, all the while the vocalist howls his harsh demonic screech over the top, which turns it into something completely, well, fucked up really. But kind of genius. The music at times reminds us of Alcest or Amesoeurs but with all the metal removed, pretty and lilting and melancholy, drifting and jangling beneath those hellish howls. Not sure what else to say, if you're anything like us, you already added this to your cart, and it's going to fast become one of your favorite new records. Definitely an acquired taste, but then all the best tastes are...
Absolutely one of Andee's new favorite black metal recordings!!

BROBDINGNAGIAN TortureStainedDisaster (Rusty Axe) cd ep 5.98
By now, most metalheads know all bout Encyclopedia Metallum, pretty much the ultimate online resource for all things metal. Need to know what member of some band is in another band, what year some demo was released, what a band's particular lyrical themes are, it really is pretty amazing. Like a heavy metal Wikipedia. But unlike Wikipedia, bands and entries have to be approved by the moderators before they make it onto Encyclopedia Metallum, and there are some rules. Which ends up producing some pretty heated and amusing flame wars, mostly by bands who were rejected for one reason or another, usually for not being metal enough!
We stumbled on one such exchange regarding this record right here, but the strangely named Brobdingnagian. Who according to the Metallum head honchos were just not metal enough. Too noisy, too droney, to be honest, it all seems a bit arbitrary, cuz to our ears, this is pretty fucking black, and pretty goddamn heavy, and most definitely metal.
That said, much of this ep is pent not blasting or buzzing, but droning, and rumbling, and crashing industrially, which as far as we're concerned is pretty excellent. Think Abruptum, Emit, that sort of thing, but injected with the occasional blast of furiously blasting blackness. The opening track begins with soft sheets of feedback, rumbling downtuned doom guitar, mysterious voices buried in the mix, the feedback creating truly creepy textures over the lumbering plod, before the band launch into a frenzied blown out super raw black metal freakout, buzzing guitars, harsh vox, blasting drums, eventually petering out leaving another long stretch of deep droning ambience. The second track is way more abstract, and a bit industrial, a harsher Wolf Eyes, tons of feedback and high end buzzing, a crunchy machine like rhythm, that sounds like trucks being dropped from a crane, clouds of hiss and glitch, almost like a lo-fi noise rock Khanate. The title track offers up another sprawling expanse of doomy minimalism, buried beneath a sea of glistening crackles and campfire buzz, thick corrosive rumbles, and more harsh hellish vocals, until the track stumbles back into another raw blast of super primitive black metal fury, and the closer is almost all lasting buzz, off kilter and freaked out, heavy and black, and be sure to stick around for the hidden bonus track, where the band take on a cover that should for sure prove their metal meddle.
MPEG Stream: "Smeared Face In The Ruins"
MPEG Stream: "Harvester Of Disease"

ELM Bxogonoas (Digitalis) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Seems foolish to write that much about this even though it's AWESOME. It's limited to only 90 copies, it's already out of print, so all you need to know is it's Jon from Barn Owl solo, guitars, Fender Rhodes, harmonica, trumpet, harmonium and flute, all woven into a beautifully creepy expanse of slow burning twang flecked drone. Not all that far removed from more modern Earth, but much murkier and way more ominous.
Elm manages to be sweetly sinister, darkly brooding, and HEAVY without being heavy. It's all about the drone, and Elm manage to explore all sorts of dronemusick here, from soaring high end ragas, to glistening glimmering sun dappled shimmer, to crumbling downtuned buzz to spare spidery drift. This stuff is awesome. And beautiful. Seems like such a shame to make it so limited. So for now, at least a handful of you will get lucky enough to snag one of these. If you want to be one of those lucky ones, best act fast....
Gorgeous packaging, cool skeleton forest drawing, the cd and sleeve, in a silver paper outer pouch, each one hand stamped with Elm written beneath the stamp in cursive. So nice!
MPEG Stream: "Dawn Unveils The Golden Thread"
MPEG Stream: "Offerings"
MPEG Stream: "Arboreal Lace"

ROSE, JACK I Do Play Rock and Roll (Three Lobed) lp 21.00
Not sure what there is to say about Mr. Jack Rose that we haven't already. Most faithful readers of the aQ list are no doubt well versed in Rose's music, but for those who aren't, Rose is a practitioner of his own unique brand of modern Appalachia, a master of the steel string, whether finger picking or playing with a slide, Rose can coax amazing sounds from a guitar, and all by his lonesome create lush steel string guitarscapes, that range from haunting and mysterious to folky and familiar.
This super limited lp gathers up 3 long live tracks, all quite different. The first is a track from Kensington Blues, a big favorite around here, recorded live in Chicago, and is of course amazing. Swirling clouds of notes, tangled melodies, shimmering drones, almost like Lubomyr Melnyk on the guitar, incredibly fast finger picking, the notes whirling and piling up into blurred chords, all woven into a rich layered expanse of droning folk. So fantastic. The second track was recorded live by longtime aQ customer, Berry Kamer, for the VPRO radio show in Amsterdam, and demonstrates Rose's more traditional side, much more classic folk and Appalachian sounding, folky and wistful, dreamy and gorgeous and fluttery, but still plenty dense and deep, with more incredible fingerpicking, but much more subtle, the result some classic Fahey style pick and strum.
The whole of side two is taken up but a single looooong high end drone exploration, that harkens back to Rose's days in his old group Pelt. Previously released on the now WAY out of print vinyl only compilation By The Fruits..., this track finds Rose getting all Sunroof! with a gorgeous wavery field of high end drones, and metallic shimmer, buzzing pulsing layers, overtones and buried melodies, glistening and glimmering, all upper register tones blurred and smeared into effulgent streaks, moaning and scraping and singing, the various tones allowed to burn bright and blend into the surrounding tones, a serious chunk of divine ur-drone for sure.
Folks who have been going crazy for James Blackshaw, Ilyas Ahmed, Matt Baldwin and the like, will definitely dig this. Rose fans, well, you know you need this already. The drone track will definitely hit the spot for Sunroof! fans and anyone into otherworldly and transcendent drone music.
INCREDIBLY THICK VINYL, super heavy black and white sleeve, limited to less than 1000 copies, we have a bunch, but as always, they will probably disappear quick...
MPEG Stream: "Calais To Dover"
MPEG Stream: "Sundogs"

YEK KOO Psychic Atonement For Land Deaths (Digitalis) cd-r 9.98
Be warned. This is another one of those tiny, tiny, tiny editions from Digitalis; and it's undoubtedly out of print from the source. Yek Koo is the solo project of Helga Fassonaki, the Los Angeles half of the trans-Pacific duo Metal Rouge, who blew us away with their last record on Root Strata. She follows a similar path as Metal Rouge on Psychic Atonement For Land Deaths, mining a deconstructed post-Krautrock vein all the way down to its droning core. It's all voice and lapsteel on this album; and not surprisingly, she shares more than a few similarities to the freeform atmospherics of Heather Leigh Murray (Taurpis Tula, ex-Charalambides) or even to the earlier Grouper albums. Much to her advantage, Fassonaki uses her voice with a restrained panache when it comes to these distant siren songs bathed in thick clouds of reverb and delay. The lapsteel itself melts into magical cascades of bliss out drones, roughly swirled ambience, and sustained chords. Everything comes together into three gorgeous longform pieces of seductively creepy feral drone work. Fans of Fursaxa, Grouper, and Charalambides should not miss this one! LIMITED TO 81 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Holy Migration"
MPEG Stream: "Freedom Inside Her Clothes"

SLOMATICS Kalceanna (Spirit Of Division) cd 9.98
It's really crazy how many little scenes there are all over the world, scenes that could very well remain hidden forever, so many bands, some insanely amazing bands, who are perfectly happy to just play shows locally, release cd-r's now and again, never to be heard outside their little circle. Some scenes are particularly rich, bursting at the scenes with kick ass groups that deserve to be heard by folks all over. One such scene that we've been particularly smitten with, is over in the UK, Leeds we think. Their most famous export, at least around aQ, is Like A Kind Of Matdor, who released their first, and only record posthumously on Andee's tUMULt label. A crushing slab of flute flecked accordion laced doom prog. Which leads us to the Slomatics, another incredibly heavy, crushing and pummeling doom behemoth, hailing from the very same scene, and due to have a split 12" with LAKOM come out someday. Their sound is slooooow and doooomy and heavy, but unlike the prog tendencies of their LAKOM scenemates, the Slomatics traffic in a sound more Melvins-y, more sludgey, think Grief, Eyehategod, Bongzilla, Harvey Milk, Electric Wizard at 16rpm, that sort of thing, but a bit more abstract, a little more spaced out, repetitive, the sound layered and dense, a bit psychedelic, but still at its core, heavy, brutal, slow and sludgy. There are some brief moments of off kilter mellowness, clean guitars, loping drums, but those moments don't last long, quickly obliterated by another wall of lurching, lumbering crush. Some of the heavy parts are laced with almost buried wailing leads, and the vocals are howled and heavily reverbed, but not of that really matters as much as the riffs, and the riffs here are amazing, downtuned, blown out crumbling and MASSIVE.
Our favorite thing about the Slomatics besides their crushing heaviosity? The line in the liner notes that reads: "Middle-aged professionals by day, aggro-sludge losers by night"!
Heavy, heavy, heavy, and so very recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Griefhound"
MPEG Stream: "By Thor"

AQUARIUS T SHIRT Special Limited Artists Edition #1: Justin Bartlett (Size: 2XL) T-Shirt 22.00
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!

AQUARIUS T SHIRT Special Limited Artists Edition #1: Justin Bartlett (Size: Extra Large) T-Shirt 22.00
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!

AQUARIUS T SHIRT Special Limited Artists Edition #1: Justin Bartlett (Size: Large) T-Shirt 22.00
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!

AQUARIUS T SHIRT Special Limited Artists Edition #1: Justin Bartlett (Size: Medium) T-Shirt 22.00
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!

AQUARIUS T SHIRT Special Limited Artists Edition #1: Justin Bartlett (Size: Small) T-Shirt 22.00
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!

AQUARIUS T SHIRT Special Limited Artists Edition #1: Justin Bartlett (Size: Youth Large) T-Shirt 22.00
Finally! The first in a series of super limited, artist designed aQ T-Shirts, featuring original art by some of our favorite artists, who just so happen to be loyal aQ customers as well! Each one will be super special, totally unique, and will only be available for a limited time, as we're only making a finite amount of each.
The first shirt design is by aQ pal and infamous killustrator Justin Bartlett, whose style many of you no doubt will recognize. He's done tons of drawings for Oaken Throne black metal magazine, as well as record covers for grim groups like SUNNO))), Moss, Nadja, Pentemple and loads more. His style is incredible, super detailed, pen and ink with tons of stippling, lots of skulls and guts and demons and various crusty oozing offal. For aQ he's designed a super creepy and super evil mother and child, heads in bags, their rotten innards spilling out, skulls on spikes, and "Aquarius Records" carved into the stone archway in the background. It looks amazing, and will for sure get some eyes a popping as you wander through the grocery store or sit in church (heaven forbid).
The back features a small aQ logo up near the collar, the shirts are white on black, they are Hanes heavyweight T's, 100% preshrunk cotton, and we have sizes all the way from Youth Large (for kids and little ladies) all the way up to XXL (for the big guys).
We will only be selling these for a couple months, so don't miss out. Once they are gone, they won't be reprinted. EVER.
Future aQ Artist Edition T's will include designs by Savage Pencil, Stephen O'Malley, Aaron Turner and more more more!!!

BAKER, AIDAN & TIM HECKER Fantasma Parastasie (Alien8 Recordings) lp 22.00
Expectations were pretty high for this one. Two long time aQ favorites, both with similar yet distinctive sounds, but with incredibly different bodies of work. Aidan Baker, who releases records a mile a minute, averaging 1 or 2 a month, thankfully managing to hit the bullseye almost every time. And Tim Hecker, who has produced 5 or 6 full lengths in as many years, every one practically perfect. Both Baker and Hecker explore similar sonic spectrums, utilizing fuzz and buzz and shimmer, Baker taking it a step further with his doom duo Nadja, taking the lurch and lumber of the genre and adding swirls of gauze and haze and bliss, while solo, he tends toward the more ambient and abstract. Hecker on the other hand takes what appears to be pop music and subverts it, sublimates it, pulls it apart and recontextualizes the sound, which usually involves wrapping everything in washed out whirs and blurred hiss, and all manner of glitch and crackle, like listening to music through headphones made out of steel wool and insulation. But with two such strong sonic personalities, the potential for this collaboration to be a bit of a mess was fairly high, and then of course there was also the possibility that each would just do their own thing, allowing the other to add bits here and there. But somehow, the sounds on Fantasma Parastasie manage to transcend, allowing glimpses of familiar sounds, hints of each artist's own work, but woven into a whole that is unto itself, a gloriously abstract swirl of sound, longform landscapes of bliss and blur, of buzz and even roar, extended movements, in which the various elements drift and shimmer, overlap and intertwine, melodies and songcraft meet texture and soundscapery, guitars unfurl tangled melodies one second, bleary eyed chordal blurs the next, harmonics glisten and hover amidst deep soft swells, distortion and buzz build into fierce walls of blown out psychedelia, the sounds crumbling and decaying before our ears, threatening to collapse, and in this fragile state lies the beauty of those sounds, effulgent, incandescent, but at the same time, blackening, beginning some unnamable process of inevitable decay. And eventually it does decay, those thick roiling sounds dissipate, leaving something soft and shimmery, glistening on a bed of shed buzz and crumbled crush, floating heavenward, its notes and melodies catching the sunlight, and offering up prismatic reflections.
The strange thing about this record is that each song is separated into super short pieces, eleven in most cases, each part between 15 and 45 seconds (it's obviously much more noticeable on the cd). We tried listening to it on shuffle, presuming that was perhaps the intention, and while it still sounds cool, it was a bit too and took too much away from the overall effect. Instead, the various parts, played in order, slip seamlessly into one another, so much so that if you weren't watching the tracks tick by on player, you wouldn't even notice.
The two work amazingly well together, bits of guitar, fragments of riffs, looped and repeated, swathed in thick smears of digital crunch, of buzzing rumble, much of the record sounds like a heavier William Basinski, as if the two were experimenting with they own Disintegration Loops. A few of the tracks are quite tranquil, abstract and minimal, but for the most part, Baker and Hecker seem more interested in distressed sounds, in distortion, in pushing the limits, composing in the red, needles pegged, but taking what in other hands could be harsh and abrasive, and crafting those sounds into something simultaneously soft and dreamlike. Even the various movements, drift smoothly into one another the entire record almost like a single piece, expansive and varied and sprawling, epic and majestic, but inward looking, introspective, melancholy, imbuing the crumbling crunch and blown out minimalism, with emotion, with distinctive mood, at once dark and mysterious, but also strangely hopeful.
The album closer and title track, is the only one not split up into movements, and is easily the most abstract, the most minimal, a stretch of lugubrious low end, so soft, so weightless, a hushed musical murmur, no distortion, no buzz, just a simple swell and sway, drifting fading, and finally disappearing.
Absolutely breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "Phantom On A Pedestal IV"
MPEG Stream: "Hymn To The Idea Of Night V"
MPEG Stream: "Gallery Of The Invisible Woman VIII"
MPEG Stream: "Dream Of The Nightmare V"

T.O.M.B. Macabre Noize Royale (Todestrieb) cd 14.98
So many bands use periods like they use umlauts, just throwing them into to make their band name seem more fucked up or evil or grim. So we fully expected that T.O.M.B. were doing just that, until we discovered it does actually stand for something: Total, Occultic, Mechanical, Blasphemy.
Which is in fact a pretty good name for these guys. Cuz this is indeed some seriously occultic mechanical blasphemy. This one man band from Pennsylvania is one of the new breed of black metallers, with a healthy appetite for NOISE, but in T.O.M.B., that appetite is sated in a fairly unique way. Every song here was recorded in a different location, various places in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, all in some way spiritual, whether they were the location of some tragedy, or perhaps they are supposedly haunted, each one adding their vibe and spirit to the recordings, not to mention their bizarre acoustics.
The tracks here range from blown out blurred dronemusic, thick with distortion and buzzing guitars howled vocals, and tons of reverb from the huge concrete environs, while others are more straight ahead blackened buzz, but even those tracks are far from straight ahead, the two disparate sounds often getting all tangled up in one another, or even overlapping, the more metal parts slipping from loping mathy black metal to furious thrashing, cool start stop dynamics, haunting minor key melodies...
But the best tracks are definitely the ones that sounds like some fucked up grim metal band set up at the bottom of some cistern or on the wide open floor of some burnt out factory. The drums a machine like pulse, the guitars a howling cloud of droney buzz, the vocals just adding to the din, every once in a while bits of guitar drifting to the surface, some tracks it sounds like the band is playing in another room, very much like it sounds standing right outside the door of a club, but way more murky and washed out. Because of the field recording aspect, the sound quality varies dramatically, and tends toward the raw and lo-fi, but that's the point, it's the industrial city version of Nordic bands recording in the woods, this is band out in 'the wild', incorporating the surroundings into their sound, almost creating a new kind of USBM, this is definitely not for everyone. The sound is damaged and really strange, the metal here is plenty buzzing and blasting, but more often than not is wreathed in reverb, or buried in murk, or just plain fucked up, but awesomely fucked up. Headphones help for sure, there's so much to hear, so much going on beneath the noise and within the black buzz. Definitely one of the coolest weirdest black metal records so far this year...
MPEG Stream: "The Inauguration"
MPEG Stream: "Immitis"
MPEG Stream: "Shaare Moth"
MPEG Stream: "Brazen Endurance"

ALPS, THE III (Type) cd 15.98
Already available as a super limited lp (we may still have a few left), now finally available on cd, the latest from Bay Area new-kraut-folk-age combo Alps, which finds the band sounding more high fidelity than ever, and more kraut than folk, which in both cases suits them big time.
For those new to Alps, a rundown of several members should help give you an idea of where their sound is coming from: our very own Scott Hewicker (Troll), Alexis Georgopoulos (Arp, formerly of Tussle) and Jefre Cantu (Tarentel, Colophon, J.C. Ledesma). But Alps is definitely more than the sum of its parts, their sound is quite varied, expansive, even epic at times, but simultaneously, they manage to craft a sound simple and solid, based as much on rhythm and texture as on song and melody.
On past releases, Alps were a much more ramshackle concern, which at the time was definitely a big part of their sound, and thus set them firmly amongst the lo-fi cd-r drone folks scene, their sound a sort of ghostly Appalachia, mixed with longform drone music, muddy muted ambience, minimal soundscaping and plenty of lo-fi buzz and hiss much of the record mired in a corrosive murk, that only added to their dark dronelike vibe. The move to Type Records, coincides, perhaps not coincidentally, with a sonic shift, where once was abstract and low fidelity, is now rhythmic, and propulsive, looped and repetitive, and most importantly, glistening and glimmering, the sound crystal clear, and this time the dreaminess doesn't come from poor recording, it comes from the compositions, and the arrangements, and a super nice sounding recording courtesy of Phil Manley of the Champs and Trans Am. The core members of Alps also have a keen interest in new age music. Not the Deep Breakfast sort of schlock that most seem to equate with the genre, but instead more the sort of inner space, dreamy drift of Tangerine Dream, Deuter, Steve Hillage and the like. And those sounds are all over III as well.
The opener is a gorgeous looped soundscape of repetitive guitar figures, and glistening chimes, almost like a dreamfolk Steve Reich, bits of Appalachia, big buzzing synths, strummed zithers, a gorgeous melancholy melody played out over the course of five and a half minutes. The second track finds the band getting their kraut on, channeling Neu! Or Agitation Free but through a much more washed out and weary space rock, like Hawkwind gone new age. Distant drifting vocals, all manner of layered buzz, distorted guitars buried in the mix, space-y FX, very tranquil and mesmerizing. The follow up "Cloud One" finds Alps revisiting their folk roots, taking strummed acoustic guitars, and simple piano, and draping them over a woozy melody and a super spare abstract rhythm. "Trem Fantasma" is a barely there whisper of spaced out dronemusic, Gloriously wreathed in musical mystery, drifting piano, fragmented guitars, some soft sixties 'ladada' vocals, another dreamy drifter that threatens to spirit the listener away to some sun dappled green grassed knoll. "Labyrinths" is another new age / krautrock meander, washed out and shimmery, the drums the only thing keeping the rest of the song from just floating away, playful melodies, that sound like Perry and Kingsley rendered in shades of grey. The next few tracks are more abstract, sounds swooping in and out, rhythms, if there are any, buried beneath soft layers of sound, everything hushed and minimal, until album closer, "Into The Breeze", which sounds just like the title would have you imagine, breezy, soft focus, the drums, simple and stripped down, shimmering steel string guitar, that ever present piano, the melody wistful, the production hazy and a little woozy, effects swirling in the background, the drums gradually becoming more and more tripped out, before fading out completely, leaving just the guitar and the piano to drift heavenward, through a field of soft shimmer and the glistening afterglow of the sounds that came before.
The more we listen to III, the more obvious the new age-isms become, which is not a bad thing at all, it wraps the proceedings, no matter how krautrocky or folky or droney, in a sweet swirl of moonlit dreaminess, turning each song into its own sort of otherworldly mesmer.
MPEG Stream: "A Manha Na Praia"
MPEG Stream: "Hallucinations"
MPEG Stream: "Cloud One"

V/A 1970's Algerian Proto-Rai Underground (Sublime Frequencies) lp 25.00
Another winner from Sublime Frequencies. And while we made sure to stress that past "vinyl-only" were indeed vinyl only, lately, those vinyl releases have been slowly making it to cd. BUT, for the vinyl folks out there, these do disappear fast, and fetch big bucks on eBay once they're gone, so you're not gonna want to snooze on this one. Listening to this again, now, for maybe the 20th time in 2 days, it's becoming clear we'll probably have to make this a Record Of The Week as soon as it comes out on cd, but for now, even though it's only a highlight, it really couldn't be more of a MUST OWN.
And like many of the Sublime Frequencies before it, we find it hard to not think that maybe folks don't need to be making so much music, releasing so many records, when so much amazing outrageously creative music is already being and has been made all over the world, for so long, much of it never heard outside of a very few people. Maybe we should have some sort of national policy, where bands can turn in their instruments, and in exchange get a recorder, a plane ticket, and an expense account, with which they can roam the world bringing back some of that unheard and lost music. Heck, sign us up right now!
Anyway, this new release is a collection of Rai music from the early seventies, from Algeria, and these particular cuts are samples of some of the sort of "outlaw" Rai performers, a modern strain that has been neglected and ignored, and takes this classic Algerian music form, and adds electric guitar, trumpets, wah wah pedal, and whips it all up into an infectious brew equal parts Ethiopiques, Bollywood and garage rock. Or something close to that. This stuff is truly hard to describe, and the liner notes, while informative, are printed on an eye popping blue on red old school 3-D colored background which makes the text swim and sway before your eyes. And offer more on the history and the players than what Rai music actually is (there's a good description on Wikipedia). But for the purpose of this review, as it should be, we'll just focus on the sound. And what a sound!
Warm whirring organ drones, trumpets EVERYWHERE, really the defining sound, wild chaotic tribal drumming, crooned dramatic vocals, groovy, soulful, funky, raw and lo-fi, like a garage rock Ethiopiques, but with a strangely raw Bollywood vibe, the trumpets peppering the murky grooves with strange fanfares and jazzy melodies, here and there distorted guitars surface, wrapped in wah wah, reverb and echo all over the place, some songs super frenzied, others laid back and dreamy, Indian melodies draped over almost surfy grooves, really pretty fantastic. Hard to imagine that folks who have been digging all the Sublime Frequencies releases, or the Yaala Yaala reissues won't go crazy for this stuff.
Group Doueh, Group Inerane, and now this, a pretty mind blowing, near perfect, far out world music three-fer, and that's not even counting the 30+ release that came before. ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED.
LIMITED TO 1500 COPIES, 180 gram vinyl, super thick gatefold sleeve, full color, with tons of photos and liner notes inside.

GRAILS Interpretations Of Three Psychedelic Rock Songs From Around The World (Latitudes 0:00) (Southern) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The cd version of this limited Grails disc has been out of print for ages, the lp gone for almost as long, but we recently managed to get our hands on a handful more, a warehouse find by our distributor, so if you missed out, here's one more chance, almost for sure your last...
One of our favorite records by longtime aQ faves the Grails. Where as the title suggests, The Grails cover and reinterpret "Three Psychedelic Rock Songs From Around The World", including one of our favorites from the Flower Travellin' Band. And since this is part of Southern's Latitudes series, it is indeed EXTREMELY limited. Packaged in that now immediately recognizable black and white woodcut style Latitudes sleeve. Pressed on obscenely thick white vinyl (with bits of black swirl in some of them), one sided, the flipside featuring one of the most intricate and striking etchings we've seen so far. Also includes the same insert that came with the cd.
We already loved the Grails. Then they have to go and cover Flower Travellin' Band. What the hell are we supposed to do now? Love them more?? Okay, fine. We love them more. Any band that has the balls to take on "Satori" deserves all the respect you can give them.
So, "Satori"! What a completely amazing song, those of you who for some reason don't already own Satori by the Flower Travellin Band, please remedy that immediately, you will not be sorry. And the Grails do an amazing job of turning "Satori" into a Grails song, it's still heavy, and it's still got that Eastern vibe, In fact it sounds a little bit Sun City Girls with its fiddle parts, but it's a little more mellowed out, and post rocky, and they wisely forgo the vocals which would be pretty darn hard to emulate.
The second track they take on is the Byrds' "Space Odyssey", a brooding twangy dirge, with dubbed out drums and absolutely dreamy lapsteel and slow building washes of cymbal sizzle, gloriously dark and hypnotic.
Finally, it's on to the UK (remember, this record is titled Interpretations Of Three Psychedelic Rock Songs From Around The World) to tackle "Master Builder" by Gong. The first half is a creeping crawling fog of shimmering guitar overtones and rich chordal swells, eventually building to a full on wild and woolly prog attack with wild drumming, mad fiddle sawing and major guitar freakout. SO AWESOME!
MPEG Stream: "Satori"
MPEG Stream: "Space Odyssey"

EPIDEMIA MORTALIIS When The Epidemic Arrived... / Worst Afflicted Rapture (Legion Blotan) cd 10.98
First proper release from this French blackmetal horde, released on a new black metal label run by the guy who runs Turgid Animal, home to Skullflower and various other noiseniks. But this is not some noise / black metal hybrid, no Epidemia Mortaliis are grim and true and raw, and as with most black buzzers, owe much to their mighty Scandinavian forbears, but the cool thing about EM is they have their own distinct and slightly skewed take on black metal, which results in a sound both buzzing and brutal, but also stumbling and weirdly lo-fi.
The newest demo, has the band slipping from frenzied blast, to loping dirge, and back again, the vocals hysterical and over the top, the drums super loud in the mix, the arrangements convoluted and complex, the guitars mournful and thick, but sort of low in the mix, which gives the songs a sort of off kilter, damaged vibe, the drum fills and the cymbals drowning out the rest of the musicians when ever they kick in, but the riffing is awesome, weirdly woozy, also adding their own seasick vibe to the proceedings, and there is some really fucked up stop start parts, that sound almost like black math rock. It's not full on fucked up enough to appeal to the folks only into damaged freaked out blackness, but it is plenty weird enough to keep it from sounding like every other BM band.
The second half, which is the older demo, has weirdly enough a much better production, the guitars way higher in the mix, the songs too are much faster and more furious, the guitars wild and dense and layered, but the band still does all kinds of cool weird shit, slipping some Ved Buens Ende sort of mathiness into their black buzz, and the guitars again, all over the place, buzzing, sliding slippery and tangled, crunchy and crumbling, the vocals too, even more freaked out than on the newer demo, thick with distortion and reverb, a howling hellish falsetto, another layer of creepiness over an already creepy buzzscape. Definitely wild and weird enough to appeal to the black metal crowd into insane tortured vox. Much more melody on the older demo too, but woven subtly into the band's grim black assault. Nice droning haunting intros and outros on both demos, some backwards weirdness and some dense dark ambience. Definitely kicked our ass right away, but every listen has us digging this more and more...
MPEG Stream: "Profane"
MPEG Stream: "Epidemia Mortaliis"
MPEG Stream: "A Shadow Face Of Reality"

EMPIRE, ALEC The Golden Foretaste of Heaven (Eat Your Heart Out) cd 14.98
Most people probably remember Alec Empire best as the head of Digital Hardcore Recordings, or as the front man of Atari Teenage Riot, or for his various solo records, but here at aQ he's probably best know for the LOUDEST instore ever. It was pretty insane, not sure how we even got away with it. Folks were coming down from stores 4 or 5 doors down to see what the heck was going on. There was as big a crowd of lookie-loos as there was people to see the show. He was DJing with Merzbow albums or something.
But it's been years, and Empire has gone through a bit of a transformation since then, he's not so much into the super distorted jungle anymore, his more recent records have been more industrial, sounding like Nine Inch Nails or Ministry, but actually good. We dug his last, The Futurist, a slab of metal riffs and drum machine beats, of howled vocals and stomping garage rock. A weird mix, but one that definitely suited him. But this most recent disc is different all over again. First there's the glamour shot in the booklet, all bleached bangs and aviator shades, and the legend underneath the disc that says "This is an indie rock noise record...", and it is, sort of. But we'd also say it's a sort of industrial synth pop new wave record, borrowing HEAVILY from prime era Gary Numan, and a little from Suicide too. It may be derivative, but it's still awesome. The opener is worth the price of admission alone. A killer hook, total new wave goth-industrial dream pop, equal parts Interpol and Gary Numan (the synth line is criminally Numan), the vocals a bit robotic, a weird atonal bridge, but the whole song so fierce and catchy, and the sort of thing that would destroy a dancefloor filled with silver booted, multi-scarved glam pirates for sure.
There is some weird shit here too, robotic proto-funk, angular electro, murky ballads, groovy garagey buzz, it's all good, we're also reminded of the Mark E. Smith + Mouse On Mars project Von Sudenfed at times too. But the best parts are definitely rife with thick fuzzy synths, and killer beats, all wound up into groovy late night, strobe lit, stilleto heeled, funky, sexy blasts of buzzing new wave. Way cool.
MPEG Stream: "New Man"
MPEG Stream: "If You Live Or Die"
MPEG Stream: "Ice (As If She Could Steal a Piece of My Glamour)"

BAKER, AIDAN & TIM HECKER Fantasma Parastasie (Alien8 Recordings) cd 15.98
Expectations were pretty high for this one. Two long time aQ favorites, both with similar yet distinctive sounds, but with incredibly different bodies of work. Aidan Baker, who releases records a mile a minute, averaging 1 or 2 a month, thankfully managing to hit the bullseye almost every time. And Tim Hecker, who has produced 5 or 6 full lengths in as many years, every one practically perfect. Both Baker and Hecker explore similar sonic spectrums, utilizing fuzz and buzz and shimmer, Baker taking it a step further with his doom duo Nadja, taking the lurch and lumber of the genre and adding swirls of gauze and haze and bliss, while solo, he tends toward the more ambient and abstract. Hecker on the other hand takes what appears to be pop music and subverts it, sublimates it, pulls it apart and recontextualizes the sound, which usually involves wrapping everything in washed out whirs and blurred hiss, and all manner of glitch and crackle, like listening to music through headphones made out of steel wool and insulation. But with two such strong sonic personalities, the potential for this collaboration to be a bit of a mess was fairly high, and then of course there was also the possibility that each would just do their own thing, allowing the other to add bits here and there. But somehow, the sounds on Fantasma Parastasie manage to transcend, allowing glimpses of familiar sounds, hints of each artist's own work, but woven into a whole that is unto itself, a gloriously abstract swirl of sound, longform landscapes of bliss and blur, of buzz and even roar, extended movements, in which the various elements drift and shimmer, overlap and intertwine, melodies and songcraft meet texture and soundscapery, guitars unfurl tangled melodies one second, bleary eyed chordal blurs the next, harmonics glisten and hover amidst deep soft swells, distortion and buzz build into fierce walls of blown out psychedelia, the sounds crumbling and decaying before our ears, threatening to collapse, and in this fragile state lies the beauty of those sounds, effulgent, incandescent, but at the same time, blackening, beginning some unnamable process of inevitable decay. And eventually it does decay, those thick roiling sounds dissipate, leaving something soft and shimmery, glistening on a bed of shed buzz and crumbled crush, floating heavenward, its notes and melodies catching the sunlight, and offering up prismatic reflections.
The strange thing about this record is that each song is separated into super short pieces, eleven in most cases, each part between 15 and 45 seconds (it's obviously much more noticeable on the cd). We tried listening to it on shuffle, presuming that was perhaps the intention, and while it still sounds cool, it was a bit too and took too much away from the overall effect. Instead, the various parts, played in order, slip seamlessly into one another, so much so that if you weren't watching the tracks tick by on player, you wouldn't even notice.
The two work amazingly well together, bits of guitar, fragments of riffs, looped and repeated, swathed in thick smears of digital crunch, of buzzing rumble, much of the record sounds like a heavier William Basinski, as if the two were experimenting with they own Disintegration Loops. A few of the tracks are quite tranquil, abstract and minimal, but for the most part, Baker and Hecker seem more interested in distressed sounds, in distortion, in pushing the limits, composing in the red, needles pegged, but taking what in other hands could be harsh and abrasive, and crafting those sounds into something simultaneously soft and dreamlike. Even the various movements, drift smoothly into one another the entire record almost like a single piece, expansive and varied and sprawling, epic and majestic, but inward looking, introspective, melancholy, imbuing the crumbling crunch and blown out minimalism, with emotion, with distinctive mood, at once dark and mysterious, but also strangely hopeful.
The album closer and title track, is the only one not split up into movements, and is easily the most abstract, the most minimal, a stretch of lugubrious low end, so soft, so weightless, a hushed musical murmur, no distortion, no buzz, just a simple swell and sway, drifting fading, and finally disappearing.
Absolutely breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "Phantom On A Pedestal IV"
MPEG Stream: "Hymn To The Idea Of Night V"
MPEG Stream: "Gallery Of The Invisible Woman VIII"
MPEG Stream: "Dream Of The Nightmare V"

BELL, NATHAN Banjo (West Main Development) cd-r 9.98
Another solo outing from a member of the mighty Lungfish, and another disc of looped repetitive transcendental mesmer. First Daniel Higgs, then Asa Osborne's Zomes, and now Nathan Bell, how these guys ever put together an actual ROCK band we'll never know, we'll blame it on the drummer for now, at least until he comes out with some insane raga drone solo record, then we just give up.
It makes sense though as Lungfish songs weren't like normal songs, they were like minimal loops writ large, expanded into hypnotic epics, the band locked into an incredible groove, while Higgs does his thing over the top. But it becomes more and more apparent, that all the various members of Lungfish had a thing for minimalism, for drones, ragas, for repetition, and thus we have Nathan Bell's Banjo. Recorded in a massive crumbling old cathedral, plugged into a blown out amplifier, these four tracks, while played on the banjo, don't sound country, or bluegrass, or even remotely twangy, in fact they don't really sound like they were played on a banjo. The notes have a sharp attack and a quick decay, but the massive space helps them stay afloat a bit longer than normal, Bell's arrangements and compositions offering nods to Reich and Riley, the pieces nearly static, a simple melody wound up within the endless repetition. So simple and gorgeous and absolutely mesmerizing. If you dug the Higgs solo records and the Zomes, you pretty much need this too.
Limited cd-r, in a hand screened fold over cardstock sleeve with a printed insert. And of course, as always LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Moonsblood"
MPEG Stream: "Devil's Breath"

BLACK TO COMM Fractal Hair Geometry (Dekorder) cd 16.98
A brand new record from this weirdo German drone combo (or maybe it's a one man band), and it's a doozy. We have been pretty into everything we've heard from BTC, so we were pretty excited to get out hands on this new one.
In the past, we, and other folks have compares Black To Comm to groups like Oval, Pimmon, Fennesz, Earth and Merzbow, but the truth is in fact much stranger, and much more difficult to describe. This is definitely drone music, but it's so mysterious sounding, not all low end rumbles or shimmering high end skree, instead, it's a seemingly haphazard assemblage of sounds and musical fragments, looped and processed and chopped up, then woven into looooong undulating dronescapes, that churn and shimmer and buzz and whir, but also twist themselves into strange shapes, offering up incidental melodic overtones and subtle rhythms. And the strange thing is the parts really don't matter so much, in that they are eventually transformed into something entirely new. It reminds us of an exhibit at the museum, where a voice would repeat a single word or phrase over and over, and you would try to pick out the word, but it was practically impossible, the looped speech immediately turned into something sonically mysterious and impenetrable. Fractal Hair Geometry is similar in that the source sounds are super varied, but within minutes, even seconds, the source becomes meaningless, instead it is simple an element in a swooning and swaying and woozily hypnotic whole. Chanted vocals, whirring organs, mysterious shimmers, squiggly melodies, buzzing Theremins, electronic glitches, analog synths, wheezing harmoniums, and those are just guesses, cuz just like that museum exhibit, it's difficult to tell what the source sounds are. We also didn't try that hard. It's like trying to peek under the table to see how a magician does a trick. We don't want to know. It's more fun to get lost in these mysterious sounds. One track even introduces a muted techno throb, and for a brief second it sounds like the weirdest record Kompakt never released. It's really hard to describe this stuff, which is probably why we like it so much, check out the sound samples, and hear for yourself!
MPEG Stream: "Negative Volumes"
MPEG Stream: "Orange Record"
MPEG Stream: "Play Eggchess 3"

ELYSIUM / MONARCH s/t (Shifty / Amanita / (((Parade))) / 213 / Throne / Amertume-Corruption #2 / Fidelio / Murder / Wee Wee / Solitude) cd 14.98
Back in stock. Might just be your final chance to pick one of these up!!
When we first heard about this record, a split release between some unknown band and ultradoom AQ crushworthy sludgelords Monarch, whose track was an hour long, we wondered how the heck that was fair to the other band. We then discovered that the other band was in fact French grinders Elysium, whose songs average around the one minute mark (one song here clocks in at a whopping 8 seconds) it started to make sense. And what an awesome idea, what a great combo, the two extremes, blazing buzzing hyperspeed grindcore and slow motion sludge. Two great tastes... er, sounds... So here we have 4 tracks from Elysium, total time 5:55, and one track from the mighty Monarch, total time 58:27. Fucking awesome!
So first up Elysium, fast and furious, guitars like squiggles of white hot lightning, the drums like rhythms being fired from a machine gun into your head at point blank range, vocals that screech and gurgle, everything a head spinning blur. Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Nasum, Rotten Sound, you might as well add Elysium to that elite list. 
But they're just the warm up, the appetizer, Monarch's "Amplifire Death March" is why we're here, and they do not disappoint.
So Monarch, for those who don't already know, are one of the slowest, heaviest bands in existence, whose artwork consists of weird Hello Kitty like crosses, skulls and burning churches, as is fronted by a very cute, non-tattooed, non-pierced, spikeless, leatherless, young lady in a sensible skirt and top, who howls like a banshee from the depths of hell and who write in the liner notes "Listen To Judas Priest"? How rad is that? RIDICULOUSLY RAD! And sure we'd be crushed out on Monarch just based on their lugubrious tarpit sonic sludge, we're just like that, but having an adorable frontperson just pushes it over the edge.
So yes, this rules, and is suitably funereal, appropriately slow and somber, so slow in fact it makes Khanate sound like speed metal. Okay, maybe that's stretching  it a bit, but this is some seriously slow motion shit. The riffs stretch out for ages, the drum hits are MILES apart, the vocals a screech / howl / moan, a mouthful of dirt and broken glass, a voice so harsh and hatefilled it seems impossible that it could come from Monarch's diminutive sensibly dressed leader. There are huge stretches of near ambience where it's just the hum of the amplifier, some soft lilting chords, a pounding single drum rhythm, vocals screeched across wide expanses of space, draped across fading riffs like flayed skin before the next chunk of sludge drops. It's almost as if some leather winged demon was flying above, soaring through the black night sky, hurling huge hundred ton chunks of sludge at the ground every few seconds, or few minutes, where they splinter into a million pieces, filling our ears with shards of searing sludge. A pounding ultra-dirge, a tempo well below 16rpm, the sort of creepy crawl that were it to slow down any more would be just a single tone, albeit a crushing pummeling one. So heavy, and so slow it's almost stops being sludge and simply becomes some abstract heaviness. By now you should know what we're getting at. This is doom, ultramegadoom, doom with a page full of 'o's, wallowing in the same murk as Moss, Rigor Sardonicous, Stumm, Catacombs, Esoteric, and all who bow before the power of dooooooooom.
This is a split release between TEN labels (count 'em: Shifty / Amanita / (((Parade))) / 213 / Throne / Amertume-Corruption #2 / Fidelio / Murder / Wee Wee / Solitude) which is kinda cool, but also kinda dumb, as each label only gets a handful of copies and therefore it goes out of print before you know it. We got 50 copies originally and those disappeared in a flash, and only now finally managed to get a handful more from one of the labels' secret stash! Probably the last copies ever.
MPEG Stream: ELYSIUM "Amen Jesus Je T'Aime"
MPEG Stream: ELYSIUM "Menteurs"
MPEG Stream: MONARCH "Amplifire Death March (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: MONARCH "Amplifire Death March (excerpt 2)"

EMIT Abortions (Autumn Wind Productions) cd 12.98
We go on and on at length about all the fucked up and damaged, weird as fuck black metal bands we love so much, but we don't really mention Emit usually, which, as we listen to this final Emit release seems just plain wrong. Might be due to the dearth of recordings, only 3 proper releases, one a split, now mostly unavailable, this latest is another collection, gathering up all manner of unreleased tracks as well as a handful from various demos. And holy shit is this stuff amazing. We absolutely loved A Sword Of Death For The Prince, but Abortions makes that one seem downright tame in comparison. This is a tough one to describe, but we'll do our best.
Emit exist somewhere between raw black metal buzz, and creepy black ambience, but their take on both is absolutely tweaked and damaged and pretty insane. The opener here is a thick wall of buzzing guitars, layers of feedback, and what could be analog synths, some serious drone, but all draped over a VERY un-metal rhythm, a weird jaunty shuffle, all offbeat high-hat, like a calypso or something, the beat changing tempo wildly and randomly throughout, speeding WAY up, then right back down again, while the track continues to undulate and buzz fiercely. Right after that the sound shifts to something much more abstract, a dark and brooding drift, laced with strange ambient sounds, warbly low end melodies, bits of crackle and hiss, only to immediately transform into a blast of caustic noise, before slipping back into minimal drone, and finally a haunting reverb drenched spoken word invocation. And we're only 4 tracks in. The rest of the record is equally and gloriously schizophrenic, some highlights: super spare drums over a thick whirring organ drone, and what sounds like a super high pitched harmonica melody, super angular and slightly off key black metal buzz, with an organ or a synth, making the whole thing sound super sinister like a busted metal music box and the drums still doing some sort of UN-metal beat, a totally bizarre, processed buzzscape, all stuttery and staticky, like a skipping cd, but shaped into something weirdly metal and very twisted, swirling thick clouds of black drone and chanted vocals, lots of quite beautiful dark ambience, all very creepy and haunting and ethereal, finally finishing off with the 13 minute epic "Visions Of Timeless Nought", a super obtuse sort of black metal jam, more of those fractured fucked up drums, vocals wrapped in reverb and careening wildly all over the place, guitars that moan and groan and squeal, everything weirdly dubbed out, the drums bouncing wildly, the high-hat loud and sizzling all over the place, the entire song sounding like it's being reflected in a funhouse mirror, warped and warbly and woozy, just listening makes your head spin, which is pretty fantastic actually.
The band has recently ceased to be, reinventing itself as Hammemit, with a new sound and new direction, so for those of you who have yet to discover the warped joys of Emit, and have been hankering for some new blackened weirdness, freaky and fucked up, druggy and confusional and so so so strange, this is probably your last chance...
MPEG Stream: "Behind These Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "An Empty Room & A Mysterious Sermon"
MPEG Stream: "Visions Of Timeless Nought"

SEVEN MILE JOURNEY The Metamorphorsis Project (Pumpkin Seeds In The Sand) cd 11.98
Ambient post rock bands are a dime a dozen these days, and bands who sound more like Godspeed that Godspeed ever did at this point probably outweigh the legions of Neur-Isis clones. But every once in a while, bands manage to remind us just why we fell in love with that sound in the first place. Danish quartet Seven Mile Journey definitely take that sound to whole 'nother level, brooding, epic, cinematic, like post rock without the rock, a sort of abstract filmic chamber music constructed from rock instrumentation.
Slow building, slow burning, so tense and intense, moody and mysterious. The drums are kept to a minimum much of the time, more for propulsion and flourish than actual beat making, but when the drums do come in, they come in hard and then drive the song, while the other instruments weave lush tapestries of sound, minor key swells, lilting overcast melodies, buzzing strings, simple piano parts draped over keening moaning minimal soundscapes, jangly guitars drifting amidst warm whirring lowercase drones, in some cases the songs build to incredible climaxes, like staring into the sun, everything blinding and chaotic and exploding like some sonic supernova, others just smolder, glowing from within, never quite easing up on the built up tension.
Fans of the usual post rock culprits - Godspeed, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky - will have very likely just found their new favorite bands, although for us, the band are at their best when they mix it up, removing the drums, spreading out the sound into impossibly emotional and moving imaginary soundtracks, ratcheting up the tension, building and building and building. Epic, transcendent and beautifully cathartic.
MPEG Stream: "Theme For The Elthenbury Massacre"
MPEG Stream: "The Catharsis Session"

TOBACCO Fucked Up Friends (Anticon) cd 14.98
Tobacco would definitely be a strange name for a group. But it's an even stranger name for a -person-, except when you realize, that person is in fact the twisted mastermind behind the cracked electro pop of aQ faves Black Moth Super Rainbow. In our review of the most recent BMSR record, we compared their sound to Air covering Daft Punk, but with a bunch of junky old equipment, busted up amps and rickety swap meet synths. What's not to love?!?!
For Mr. Tobacco's first solo foray, he actually sticks pretty close to the Black Moth template he created, but does manage to give that sound a little twist. The instantly recognizable fuzzed out gritty synths, the stuttery crunchy crumbling beats, the chopped up vocodered vocals, the blissy eighties sheen, all in full effect, but up the hip hop vibe a bit, mix in some ethereal female vocals, some borderline cheesy (but still kick ass) cop show theme song groove, handclaps, fluttering flutes, soaring cinematic faux strings, even some rapping at one point (courtesy of Aesop Rock, who took BMSR on tour earlier this year), and we're slipping into Fucked Up Friends territory. A few of the tracks are instant classics, sounding sometimes like a more sunshine-y hip-hop flecked Goblin, other times like a more lo-fi synth heavy Boards Of Canada, and once in a while like an LSD dosed Daft Punk doing the soundtrack for a nature special on Yo MTV Raps all about jellyfish or mountain goats or those weird fish that glow in the dark. WTF?! But par for the course with Tobacco and his Black Moth Super Rainbow. And while there does seem to be a bit more hip hop happening here, it's essentially another gloriously fractured and fucked up BMSR record, which is just fine with us!
MPEG Stream: "Street Trash"
MPEG Stream: "Truck Sweat"
MPEG Stream: "Hairy Candy"
MPEG Stream: "Hawker Boat"

WINDY & CARL Songs For The Broken Hearted (Kranky) 2lp 16.98
Dream-drone, slow-slowcore uberwunder duo Windy & Carl are long-time favorites of Aquarius, and by long we mean looooong. As in, we've been with them the whole way, and this fall marks 19 years for the project. So anyway, we were plenty excited when we finally got a copy of this, their newest record. Hot on the heels of Windy's lovely (and haunting) solo record, these tracks were actually started at the same time and nearly went unfinished. Thankfully they were saved! Press releases mentioned vocals, vocals, vocals. Those who know W&C probably understand that "lots of vocals" is relative. Two or three songs a record with Windy singing is kind of a lot! Yeah, so when we got this we were totally blown away. Again! Man, there's definitely a reason we hold them in such high regard: they never fail to take us exactly where we want to go. If you're a fan, you already know that W&C can conjure up the dreamiest six-string drones, never, ever drums, and the sweetest daydream vocals, employed sparingly and pretty damn perfectly. Fans of Labradford, Stars of the Lid, maybe even the quietest Low, this is already - or soon to be - your favorite band! We love Windy & Carl, and we want you to have the chance to love them, too. This is definitely a great place to start. Oh, and check out "Snow Covers Everything," it might be our favorite track on here. If you couldn't tell already, recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Btwn You + Me"
MPEG Stream: "La Douleur"
MPEG Stream: "My Love"

DEAD C Secret Earth (Ba Da Bing) cd 10.98
So, this is the quote-unquote rockin' Dead C album? So we were told, that was the supposed spin on this one, the twenty-somethingth album from these veteran NZ "free-rock" heroes. But maybe we got that wrong, 'cause aren't they all equally (free-) rockin'? Probably what was meant was that this was more "song-y", in comparison to their previous album, last year's Future Artists, 'cause there's more singing... but otherwise, not such a huge departure. And their album before that, 2003's The Damned, was WAY rock on tracks like "Truth". It's always kinda funny getting into discussions about just how rock or noise or whatever the Dead C are, anyway, since the thing about them is that they're playing Dead C music exclusively, forging into otherwise uncharted, unnamed sonic territory with each release even after 20 years in the "biz", leaving all other underground noise/drone/rock/experimental/floorcore acts to play catch-up. As we said in our review of Future Artists, the Dead C have an amazing ability to take "unmusical sounds, caustic, abrasive, minimal and harsh, and weave them into something beautiful." That they surely do here. If you've never heard 'em before, this could be a fairly accessible starting point.
Certainly, you can't argue that lead off track "Mansions" (the 1st of 4 songs on this 45 minute disc) does not, underneath its avant-garde, noisily shambolic exterior, have a rock n' roll heart that's a-beatin'. As well, there's melody amidst the murk, with mumbly, half-whispered vocals rising to the fore. But really it's more moanin' than it's rockin', the whole album moaning and droning, full of shrill feedback textures and an eventually hypnotic sheen of percussive clangor (on the lengthy track 2 "Stations", and track 3 "Plains" especially). They stir up quite a dense din on the latter, leaving more space on album closer "Waves" for Michael Morely's plaintive vocals to wend thro' the distortion, showing the kinder, gentler side of the Dead C... Such a fine blend of immediate emotional impact and unsettling, unfamiliar audio explorations. As "song-y" as we say this is, who else writes songs that at each and every moment seem maybe like they are finishing, and/or beginning anew? Standard song structures and instrumental roles are abandoned or deprioritized in favor of an alien Dead C agenda of experimental, improvised (yet to their own logic disciplined) expressiveness that really does justify the "free" in the free-rock tag. As essential as ever. (And if you can, don't miss 'em on their first US tour in ages - they played SF last night and it was great.)
MPEG Stream: "Mansions"
MPEG Stream: "Stations"

HARVEY MILK My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be (Chunklet) 2lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The first Harvey Milk album, available on vinyl for the first time EVER. Nice thick jacket, 180 gram black vinyl. Of course these will not be around for long. ONLY 680 COPIES AVAILABLE, we got a huge chunk of those, but as you might imagine, people have been freaking out and these are gonna fly out of here.
So... ONLY ONE PER CUSTOMER!!!
Here's our review of My Love when we first reviewed the cd a while back:
My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be. What an awesome title. And the record cover, a bull and a rooster and an ornate candle, the words Harvey Milk in tiny blue type over the rooster. On the cd, the text: "Harvey Milk is Cronos, Mantis, Abadon". Song titles like "Where The Bee Sucks, There Suck I", "The Anvil Will Fall" and "Merlin Is Magic". By now most avid AQ customers are very familiar with the mysterious sludge rock power trio Harvey Milk, but when we first laid hands on this disc, back in 1994, we had no idea what to think. As if the artwork wasn't enough to have us scratching our heads, the music inside was even more willfully difficult. And still is. Obviously borne of some serious Melvins worship, Harvey Milk, took the already difficult sound of the Melvins to new heights, or depths, crafting lengthy sludge jams, packed with as much space as riffs, long expanses of spastic John Bonham like drumming, vocals a whiskey soaked gravelly bellow, guitars thick black sheets. This was without a doubt some of the strangest music we had ever heard. But at the same time, somehow the most beautiful. The sound of Harvey Milk was some impossible blend of noise rock, math rock, post rock, punk rock, twentieth century composition and METAL. All tangled into one huge gnarled black hole of sound. A sound that crawls more than it rocks, but when it does rock, it blows away pretty much any other band in the land. 
Lots of you no doubt already own Courtesy And Goodwill Toward Men, arguably one of the greatest records EVER, heavy, sludgy or otherwise. If you don't you need to stop reading for a second and go buy it right now. We'll wait...........
Okay, Courtesy was HM record number two, and found the band 'tightening' up their sound, taking the chaos of My Love, and crafting it into, well, more chaos. It's hard to say how they changed between these two records. My Love is a tiny bit faster. The best way to describe it is like this: My Love is to Courtesy, the way Nirvana's Bleach is to Nevermind, more immediate and raw, but with some of the best songs the band ever wrote, and like Bleach, it's a record that tons of fans continue to insist is the best thing they've ever done. And while we are of the mind that Courtesy is in fact the best Harvey Milk record ever (unless you ask Allan, who would probably say The Pleaser, the -other- HM reissue this week, a killer disc of Harvey Milked ZZ Top worship) returning to My Love has us maybe reconsidering. We can't actually decide. There are so many amazing songs on My Love that we had forgotten about, as good as anything on Courtesy. It would probably be more realistic to proclaim My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be / Courtesy And Goodwill Toward Men as the ultimate math-sludge-slow-motion-dirge-doom-whatever one-two punch EVER. Maybe the greatest first and second record combo of all time. Needless to say, if you're at all into the current crop of slow motion doom mongers, and have somehow missed out on these records, you will lose your fucking mind (and odds are loads of you have never heard My Love as it's been out of print for ages). It's no exaggeration when we say every song on My Love is darn near perfect. But a few of our favorites:
"A Small Turn Of Human Kindness" was the absolute first peep we ever heard out of HM, and it's brutal and beautiful, so utterly confusing and unlike anything ever. A frustratingly obtuse abstract jam, even calling it a jam is stretching the definition of the word jam, there's LOTS of space, the track begins with a minute of weird electronic noodling, a huge wash of cymbals and guitar scrape, a killer BIG drum fill, and then... nothing... a weird barely there buzz, some cymbal dings, a moaning cello.... How amazing is that?!?!? It isn't until halfway through the song before the riff finally kicks in, and even then, it's like pulling teeth to get these guys to let loose and rock. In fact, it's not until the last two minutes that the band really go for it. And it was worth the wait, but before you know it comes "Women Dig it", slowing everything waaaaaaaaay back down. A super drawn out exercise in tension and release, with long stretches of just drums, big Zeppelin style drums, accompanied by mewled vocal, but which features one of the most awesome riffs EVER, so much so, that when it kicks in, it makes you want to rock the fuck out, which you could do if it wasn't just played once every couple minutes.... oh the glorious frustration!!! It's the sort of riff most bands would not only kill for, but that most bands would repeat over and over and over and base a whole song around, whereas the Milk kick out that riff maybe twenty times, in the whole song, and all clumped together, with the rest of the song spent plodding and drifting and doing anything but locking into a killer groove. But that's what makes Harvey Milk so great, when that riff DOES drop, it's a ridiculous release, like an orgasm, this unbelievable rock-out relief, but like with most things it's the wait, the build up, that is the best part. Or at least the 'other' best part.
Another classic Milk track is "The Anvil Will Fall", a moody drifting whispery ballad, peppered by huge bursts of downtuned pummel, when out of nowhere, in come the strings, some patriotic hymn, an almost recognizable tune that Creston sings along too in his warbly raspy croon, even kicking it up into a wicked falsetto, before petering back out into the original hushed crawl, eventually launching into a super moving moody goddamned ANTHEM. The sort of song that should have sludge fans teary eyed with hat in hand, and hand over heart. And finally...
"Where The Bee Sucks, There Suck I", besides being the best song title maybe EVER, it's also one of the greatest songs ever, a really really fucking weird song, howled tortured vocals over a relentless tribal drum fill with occasional bursts of Zeppelin like riffage, before the guitar transforms into a static rumbling drone, and the drums just sort of do whatever the hell they want, for ever it feels like... and then the band launches back into it and it's some relentless bastardized groovy Southern sludge jam, but like all HM songs, they stop not long after to just sort of wander, and plod and wait, and pause, before doing it all over again....
We could go one and on, and get all mushy and fanboy about every single song on My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be, but you get the drift. This record is magical. Majestic. Freaked out. Furious. Heavy as anything you've ever heard. Strangely pretty. Mind meltingly difficult. Crushing. Confusing. Baffling. Brutal. And pretty much one of our favorite records ever...
MPEG Stream: "A Small Turn Of Human Kindness"
MPEG Stream: "Women Dig It"
MPEG Stream: "The Anvil Will Fall"
MPEG Stream: "Where The Bee Sucks, There Suck I"

MOUNT EERIE WITH JULIE DOIRON & FRED SQUIRE Lost Wisdom (P.W. Elverum & Sun, Destroyers & Releasers Of Music & Worlds) cd 12.98
Mount Eerie has always been a bit hit or miss for us, same with the Microphones, both musical projects of the quite prolific Phil Elverum. The sound tends towards a hushed downer bedroom folk, simple instrumentation, heartfelt lyrics, vocals almost whispered, but various record have twisted that sound into different shapes, especially in the Microphones, where Elverum would add bursts of distorted psychedelic rock, jagged guitars, or horns, or Stereolab style Moog buzz, but the thing with the Microphones was that the sound was always better than the songs it was wrapped around. With Mount Eerie, it seemed Elverum was exploring a more intimate side to his sound, his Sentridoh to the Microphones' Sebadoh. But even then, we were never totally taken with any of the Mount Eerie releases. At least until now.
Lost Wisdom is absolutely gorgeous. We're tempted to credit the addition of Eric's Trip's Julie Doiron, but while that's a HUGE part of it, the songs here are fantastic. Recorded beautifully, wonderfully arranged. At times it sounds like an acoustic Built To Spill covering the first Iron & Wine record, if that makes any sense. Acoustic guitars, some subtle distorted crunch, simple barely there percussion, it's mostly about the vocals, Elverum and Doiron creating amazing harmonies, each wandering off on their own here and there, before returning once again only to get all wrapped up in each others' melodies. Sweet and sorrowful and sad, dreamy and melancholy, Elverum slips from warm soft croon to fluttery falsetto, Doiron's voice is fantastic as always, so melodic and rich, but also raw and rough around the edges, passionate and the perfect foil to Elverum's sad boy swoon. And the songs are gorgeous. Minor key and strangely lush for being so stripped down. The opening title track is worth the price of admission alone, just listen to the sound sample, so dark and beautiful, so wistful and haunting, a strange arrangement, full of tension and release, and some gorgeously obtuse melodies, even some strange room clatter in the background that ends up sounding like as much a part of the song as any of the instruments. We've been playing this whole record like crazy, but that first track, wow, just might be one of our favorite songs of the year.
WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Lost Wisdom"
MPEG Stream: "Voice In Headphones"
MPEG Stream: "You Swan Go On"

JAMES DIN A4 Fistel Rose (Pingipung) cd 21.00
The name James Din A4 is a new one to us, but most likely not for longtime fans of minimal techno and leftfield electronic music. This disc collects a whole mess of previously released tracks, all culled from super limited self released vinyl lps, on cd for the very first time, and is really pretty difficult to describe. Opener "The Seaside" is quite possible our electronic jam of the year, and pretty much displays the best of what James Din A4 has to offer, crammed into a single track. From the opening fuzzed out loop, which could have been yanked wholesale from a Field B-side, to the skittery super minimal click track, to the spaced out electro groove that follows, various strange chopped samples and vocal bits, over the course of the first few minutes, the track gets less and less minimal and more and more playful, all sorts of beep and buzz, the melodies all sunshiney and bubbly, but still all wrapped around that warm whirring intro, finishing off with a snippet of the sea shanty that gives the track its name.
This is definitely lo-fi minimal techno, but there's some electro going on, some definite nod to the 8-bit side of electronica, that opening track is so warm and whirry, especially the main loop, that we can't help but think of The Field, but the rest of the record not so much, more sort of playful and goofy, definitely plenty of dancefloor silliness here and there, the sort of sounds that could easily spawn their own ill-advised dance, but for the dancefloor averse (like some of us) this is total headphone ear candy, that slips from wild and wooly and weird to muted moody and minimal, some tracks sound like fractured exotica, others like skittery Oval mashups, still others are just gorgeously minimal and dark, while still others are groovy and playful. Maybe our favorite track is "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me", a way too brief song constructed from chopped and looped fragments of sixties jangle pop, reminding us a bit of Terry Riley's "You're No Good", and similarly would have sounded amazing expanded to fill up a whole disc.
This year has been crammed with amazing electronic music, and with less than two months to go, Fistel Rose has surfaced just in time to join our list of 2008 favorites...
Packaged in a 6 panel black and white digipak, with a huge booklet filled with all sorts of crazy artwork, from back and white line drawings to eye popping full color collages, all done by Mr. James Din A4 himself!
MPEG Stream: "The Seaside"
MPEG Stream: "Der Frosch Mit Der Maske"
MPEG Stream: "Rudolf Scharping"
MPEG Stream: "Er Hatte Ihr Keinen Trip Gegeben, Ihr Aber Bedeutet Dass Er Sie Heiraten Will"

ROLLO TREADWAY, THE s/t (Rollosound) cd 14.98
Pop music definitely seems more and more like a lost art every day. For every hundred bands that can whip up a chaotic noise rock racket, or every thousand bands who tune down and unfurl walls of crumbling low end sludge, there are maybe only one or two bands, who are creating true, timeless, amazing pop music. Rife with amazing production, incredible songwriting, lush harmonies, clever lyrics, mind blowing hooks, maybe even horns and strings, and out of those bands, maybe only a fraction are doing something truly original. Aping the Beach Boys or the Zombies or the Beatles can only take you so far. And to be totally honest, way too many bands claim the Beach Boys or the Zombies as an inspiration, most taking just the surface stuff, which was only part of the musical magic involved.
So thus we have the strangely named Rollo Treadway, from Brooklyn, although on first listen we would have sworn they were from sixties London, or perhaps sixties Los Angeles. This disc showed up out of the blue in the mail one day, and on first listen we were already proclaiming this pop record of the year. How could we not, this is everything we love. Retro pop so good, that if you didn't know better, you might assume this was the real thing. And heck, it IS the real thing, just 40 years later. The strangest thing about this band is the fact that the drummer is Blake Fleming, formerly of the Mars Volta, and before that, the godlike Laddio Bolocko! But don't be expecting any of that sort of stuff, this is pure pop. Lush, string laden, harmony drenched pop. Mellotrons, warm organs, jangly guitars, and some of the most gorgeous breathy vocals harmonies we've heard in ages. The other amazing thing about this disc, is that it's a concept record of sorts, the first song, "Kidnapped" is sung by the male half of a couple of siblings who have been kidnapped, it's strangely moving, and super creepy. Later in the record, a track begins with the sound of a typewriter, and the song reveals itself as a letter from the kidnapper to the kids' family. The high concept never derails the songs though, and the songs are damn near perfect.
The opener, is quite possible THE pop song of the year. Quite reminiscent of Belle And Sebastian's "Step Into My Office, Baby" from their Dear Catastrophe Waitress (a record even the B&S hating Andee LOVES), beginning with twangy Western guitar, some cool percussion, maracas, shakers, a woozy guitar melody, all beneath a super effected stuttering main riff, then a circusy bridge, with gorgeous falsetto vocals, soaring strings, even some horns, a very Zombies like string break, there's even a flute solo. It manages to be dreamy and ethereal, but also surprisingly rocking. We've probably listened to this song a hundred times since we first got this in. Thankfully, the rest of the record is just as gorgeous, borrowing heavily from the above mentioned influences, but wrapping those influences in their own distinct song writing, some incredible intricate guitars, super varied drumming and percussion, horns and strings everywhere, whirring organs, but the focal point is definitely the vocals, lush and whispery and soft, the harmonies rich and layered and seemingly effortless.
"Dear Mr. Doe" continues the kidnapping plotline, the typewriter leading into a jaunty organ riff, and a simple propulsive rhythm, wandering bassline, and the vocals, multi tracked, each one complimenting the other, vibes, more organs, a shimmery sixties groove, almost dreamlike, while the lyrics instruct the parents not to call the police and where to leave the money if they ever hope to see the kids alive again.
It's really hard to explain what exactly is so magical about this record, other than the sound is amazing, and the songs are fantastic. Just listen to the sound samples, if "Kidnapped" doesn't immediately send you into paroxysms of pop bliss, then you need to march right down to your local Pop Music headquarters and turn in your membership. Pop kids of any stripe will dig this like crazy. If you love the Zombies, Beach Boys, Badfinger, Beatles, Kinks, or more modern pop revivalists like Jellyfish, the Three O'Clock, the Wondermints, Silver Sun, Redd Kross, Belle And Sebastian you will definitely love getting lost in the Rollo Treadway's lush baroque pop wonderland.
MPEG Stream: "Kidnapped"
MPEG Stream: "Dear Mr. Doe"
MPEG Stream: "Rua Gararu 188"
MPEG Stream: "You Laugh, I Cry"

CAVE Butthash (Trensmat) 7" + cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally! Some new music from Chicago drone kraut post everything combo, Cave, whose now sadly out of print Hunt Like Devil record was one of favorite jams of the last however many years. The funny thing too, was that Cave was sort of an accidental discovery, as we were way into the related band Warhammer 48k, whose sound was a confusional crush of noise rock, space rock, and psych rock. So is really shouldn't have been that surprising that some of those guys would split to from another somewhat confusing, but no less appealing hybrid - Cave's sound a sort of post krautrock, looped guitars, tribal percussion, almost funky, definitely groovy, wild and energetic, mesmerizing and totally hypnotic, falling somewhere between the blown out swirl of Hawkwind, the looped mesmer of Circle, but with groovier, almost alien dancefloor vibe, or better yet, some cosmic ritual, like a spaced out drug drenched drum circle, but with heavy guitars.
For this ep, the band launch into action with the weird protofunk of "Butthash", a bouncy groover, with swirly synths, caffeinated rhythms, and buried vocals, a bit angular, a little new wave, equal parts krautrock, and spaced out shimmer, but all tangled up and kaleidoscopic, which leads directly into "Machines & Muscles" with its Circle-like guitar groove, some hand drums, very tribal and looped sounding, suspended in a field of space streakings and smears of soft effects in the background, the drums get a little more obtuse, a bit busier, but that main riff stays LOCKED in, until it begins to get ALL tripped out, distorted, effects drenched, swinging from speaker to speaker, dizzyingly tripped out, and then finally, the drums kick in proper, and we're in total hynorock bliss, little bits of keyboard pepper, the stuttery rhythm, the main riff staying solid and unwavering, while all around it various other sounds swoop and shimmer. Fucking awesome. Live they must stretch that out for ages, at least we hope so, in fact we sort of wish that this wasn't only a 7". Thankfully, it's NOT only a 7", as it comes with a cd-r, that includes the two tracks from the 7", and also an awesome even more blissed out version of "Machines & Muscles", the keyboards much more prominent, the vibe much more electronic and new wave, almost like Circle meets Stereolab, with plenty of buzz and glitch, lacing the propulsive groove. As well, there's a brief 85 second closer, that sounds like it was yanked from the middle of an hours-long live drug jam, with tripped out keyboards, buzzing bass, looped drums. Such a tease to only give us a 85 seconds!
And as if that weren't enough, the cd-r also includes a super abstract prismatic video / light show, to accompany, Cave's relentless space-y groove, all rainbowed blur and staticky colors, swirling and shimmery and a perfect visual complement.
Comes in a full color sleeve, pressed on swirled green vinyl, with a proper printed cd-r, and of course CRAZY LIMITED!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Butthash"
MPEG Stream: "Machines And Muscles"

GROUP INERANE Guitars From Agadez (Sublime Frequencies) cd 16.98
Originally released exclusively as a super limited lp (which is now out of print), this amazing chunk of brain melting, heart wrenching, psychedelic guitar gorgeousness is finally available on cd! The only reason we didn't make this Record Of The Week first time around was because a bunch of you still don't have turntables (shame on you!) but now it's on cd, so it pretty much had to be ROTW!
Another winner from Sublime Frequencies! We're beginning to think with all this hidden music to be discovered and lost classics to be recovered, there's definitely no point in having so many new bands, we oughta just have some of them swap their gear in and just join the hunt for all these amazing hidden sonic gems...
But until then we've got the Sublime Frequencies fellas on the case, and this latest discovery has definitely got to be one of the best yet. Group Inerane are spearheading the Tureg Guitar movement, inspired by the musicians who used this music as a political weapon in the Libyan refugee camps in the late eighties, early nineties. This is how the blues should sound. Groovy, intense, funky, emotional, dark, gorgeous, the guitars grinding and crunching and wailing, slithering and soaring, accompanied by chanted and sung vocals, that are perfectly woven into the lush fabric of the various guitar parts. The riffing is fluid, but also bit jagged and rough. The opening track is a killer. One of the most amazing and intense songs we've ever heard, worth the price of admission alone. Just guitar and vocals, chunky and propulsive, but also weirdly slippery and sinewy, the melody swaying back and forth from major key to minor key, an incredible hook and the riff, well, one of THE best riffs ever.
Most of the rest of the record is more a sort of African surf rock, fuzzy and twangy, with surfy guitar, soaring vocals, the whole thing wild and festive, jubilant and celebratory, but hold up, the final track on side one, "Nadan Al Kazawnin", is something else entirely, with its super distorted grimy guitars, a totally blown out in the red production, the riff looped and hypnotic, the vocals intense and heartfelt, the whole song howling and buzzing, sounding as gorgeously fucked up and raw as some experimental indie avant noise group, the guitar is indescribable, incendiary and white hot