JAZZFINGER Autumn Engines (Rebis) cd 10.98
FINALLY!! The first proper non-cd-r actual cd release from these unsung heroes of the UK freenoise underground. In the past we've reviewed as many releases by these guys as we could get our hands on. Every one an absolute gem. Dark shimmering dronescapes and epic washes of sculpted sound. Sure we love us some Skaters and some Yellow Swans and some Sunroof! and some Vibracathedral Orchestra and some Double Leopards and some Starving Weirdos, but damn it if we don't have a special place in our hearts reserved just for Jazzfinger, and their twisted take on soundmaking. It must be going on a decade now AT LEAST, since these guys started making records. I can remember stumbling on some strangely packaged cd-r, and being fascinated by the name Jazzfinger, and then later being just as fascinated by the strange sounds inside. Autumn Engines finds Jazzfinger still exploring the same sonic universe they were 10 years ago, but it's a big place, and these guys have seriously honed their chops, so every track here is like a fresh glimpse into some still undiscovered soundworld. Like sonic archaeology. Jazzfinger, take the same instruments, the same recording techniques, and mine all manner of unique sounds that no one else is able to discover. Jazzfinger's world is definitely one of drones, and ambience, delicate and dreamlike, but it's somehow much more. These are not just simple drones. Each track is like taking a different drone, or found soundscape (foundscape?) and splitting it open and observing what happens inside. What seems like a simple slow moving whir, is in fact rife with millions of microscopic happenings. Layers and striations, a whole world of melodic wonder and sonic wonder lurks beneath and within every sound Jazzfinger discover or produce. Jazzfinger have again delivered a record full of dark and lovely, truly beautiful and incredibly mysterious music. And already we want more...
MPEG Stream: "Fishing In Wet Railways"
MPEG Stream: "Strong Cheese And Fish"
MPEG Stream: "Room"

PINK SPIDERS Teenage Graffiti (Suretone) cd 10.98
You always gotta have a kick ass summer pop record. Even better if it's totally insanely glammy and catchy and bouncy and just a little snotty. And this latest blast of pink and black clad teenage kix hits the spot in a big way. We first heard the Pink Spiders on the internet as seems to be the trend these days. Their WAY big budget video for the insanely catchy Weezer-esqe "Little Razorblade" was making the rounds. Hard to resist for sure, not only was it a killer slab of synth drenched BIG guitar power pop, but the video featured a bevy of scantily clad ladies on roller skates. Summer indeed!
Teenage Graffiti may be heavy, with crunchy, slightly new wave guitars n' lots of fuzzy squelchy synths, and glammy too, with lots of snotty swagger, references to Hollywood and hairspray (and the band has a goofy over the top fashion sense, sort of bubblegum Melrose, always clad in black and pink), but at it's heart this is POP. Big bouncy super catchy POWER pop. Definitely shades of AQ faves the Stereo and post Stereo outfit the Let Go. And like most power pop the 'Spiders owe quite a bit to Big Star, Queen, the Posies, Weezer, Jellyfish, Sloan. But the Pink Spiders take all that classic pop and filter it through their own distinctly teenage vibe. Lots of playful melodies, handclaps, harmonies, jangle guitar, lyrics about girls and crushes and girls and Hollywood and girls, oh and girls and most importantly, big crunchy riffs and killer hooks. Fun and carefree and super rocking. If we had a big pink convertible Cadillac you know we'd be cruising Valencia street blasting Teenage Graffiti at full volume!! Pop record of the summer!!
MPEG Stream: "Little Razorblade"
MPEG Stream: "Modern Swinger"
MPEG Stream: "Easy Way Out"

V/A Electro Grind Gore Compilation (Alarma Recs) cd 14.98
Back in stock! (And, also, when we reviewed this a few weeks ago, we spaced out and somehow listed it under the title of Electro Grind Holocaust, which is a totally different comp on the same label, whoops!)
For those of you who just flipped over our recent Record Of The Week selection the Drum>MachineGun compilation, and want MORE crazed drum machine grindcore insanity, this other collection entitled Electro Grind Gore Compilation should also be of interest! It's slanted a bit more toward the underground and obscure than the Drum>MachineGun comp, and also more towards the porno/gore obsessed side of this bizarre metal/punk subgenre -- a subgenre that features, as displayed here, razor sharp spastic guitar riffage, techno dance beats, belching death metal grunts and growls (some so subsonically extreme that they sound like bubblings from below the earth), non-sequitorial samples (often offensive and, um, humorous), and lots of bleepy bleepy bleargh distortion and noise. There's a unexpectedly high catchiness quotient, in spots, but these tracks are definitely utterly maddening at the same time. It's kind of a "chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter" deal with the electro danciness and the harsh splattermetalgrindnoise in collision. In fact, it's kind of unclear just who this sort of music is supposed to appeal to: we can't imagine techno fans digging all the noise and gore, and we didn't think so many metalheads liked techno-dance beats -- but I guess we were wrong! Of course we like it, so...
Electro Grind Gore contains 28 tracks from 17 bands, most of whom we'd never heard of before. Some names: Atomik Surfing, Shunt Incision, Basket Of Death, Vomitrone, Skrotum, 666.Porn.Star, SMES, Posthuman Worm, Absurd God, Tourette Syndrom, Firbrosarcoma... A very international line-up indeed, the bands hailing from Brazil, Japan, Mexico, France, Croatia, Holland, Germany, Panama, Spain, Australia, and Italy. It's a veritable World Cup of sick underground electro grind! While here at Aquarius we're better versed in black metal, doom, and "true" metal, if we ever do decide to turn this drum machine fueled electronic grindcore deviancy into an AQ specialty, we'd definitely start by tracking down more stuff by the bands on this comp!
MPEG Stream: TOURETTE SYNDROM "Giggle Geriatric Gypse Giggolo"
MPEG Stream: FIBROSARCOMA "Angiokeratoma"
MPEG Stream: SKROTUM "I Wanna Rock 'n' Roll"

KISS Ace Frehley (Lilith) picture disc lp 19.98
We can't really think of anything that more symbolizes our musical generation than the four Kiss solo records released way back in 1978. Well, okay, maybe if we tried we could think of a few things, BUT C'MON!!! KISS!!! ACE, PAUL, GENE and PETER!! Sure bands do solo records all the time. But it was never more of a production than when the biggest band in the world decided to simultaneously release 4 solo records, each adorned with a killer airbrushed painting of the artist, in full Kiss makeup and backlit with different colors. This was a huge deal when it happened, and while the records didn't sell nearly as well as the worst selling Kiss record, they still became instantly iconic and most folks we know, owned 'em, and listened to 'em and many of those same folks hung the covers on their walls!! Hell, even sludge masters the Melvins did their own version, even going so far as to emulate the original cheesy cover paintings. But now they are available as PICTURE DISCS!!! Holy shit!!! If there was ever a set of records more ripe for picture disc immortalization we sure as shit can't think of any. So the real question is which one to buy. C'mon. As if there was any other answer, ALL OF THEM. Seriously, what kind of doofus would only want one. They are a set. One at a time is okay, but you are gonna NEED all four. They have been on the wall at Aquarius facing the counter since they were released and they look SOOOO badass all in a row. Worth building a little Kiss shelf in your bedroom just to display these beauties for sure!
So Ace's solo record is pretty much univerally accepted as the best of the four. Pretty heavy and catchy, it definitely proved that maybe Paul and Gene could have let him write more songs for Kiss. "New York Groove" was an actual hit. But there were some killer hard rockers on there: "Rip It Out", "Snow Blind"... Definitely the only one of the four solo records that got heavy play (or any play at all actually). But who cares? You know you need all four!

KISS Gene Simmons (Lilith) picture disc lp 19.98
We can't really think of anything that more symbolizes our musical generation than the four Kiss solo records released way back in 1978. Well, okay, maybe if we tried we could think of a few things, BUT C'MON!!! KISS!!! ACE, PAUL, GENE and PETER!! Sure bands do solo records all the time. But it was never more of a production than when the biggest band in the world decided to simultaneously release 4 solo records, each adorned with a killer airbrushed painting of the artist, in full Kiss makeup and backlit with different colors. This was a huge deal when it happened, and while the records didn't sell nearly as well as the worst selling Kiss record, they still became instantly iconic and most folks we know, owned 'em, and listened to 'em and many of those same folks hung the covers on their walls!! Hell, even sludge masters the Melvins did their own version, even going so far as to emulate the original cheesy cover paintings. But now they are available as PICTURE DISCS!!! Holy shit!!! If there was ever a set of records more ripe for picture disc immortalization we sure as shit can't think of any. So the real question is which one to buy. C'mon. As if there was any other answer, ALL OF THEM. Seriously, what kind of doofus would only want one. They are a set. One at a time is okay, but you are gonna NEED all four. They have been on the wall at Aquarius facing the counter since they were released and they look SOOOO badass all in a row. Worth building a little Kiss shelf in your bedroom just to display these beauties for sure!
Gene's record was the biggest surprise. We all expected some serious heaviness from THE DEMON, but instead got Beatlesy jangle, funk and DISCO!! Weird. Maybe the most listened to disc for novelty value. Featured some serious guest star power: Joe Perry from Aerosmith, Bob Seger, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, Janis Ian and Donna Summer. Woah.
But who cares? You know you need all four!

KISS Paul Stanley (Lilith) picture disc lp 19.98
We can't really think of anything that more symbolizes our musical generation than the four Kiss solo records released way back in 1978. Well, okay, maybe if we tried we could think of a few things, BUT C'MON!!! KISS!!! ACE, PAUL, GENE and PETER!! Sure bands do solo records all the time. But it was never more of a production than when the biggest band in the world decided to simultaneously release 4 solo records, each adorned with a killer airbrushed painting of the artist, in full Kiss makeup and backlit with different colors. This was a huge deal when it happened, and while the records didn't sell nearly as well as the worst selling Kiss record, they still became instantly iconic and most folks we know, owned 'em, and listened to 'em and many of those same folks hung the covers on their walls!! Hell, even sludge masters the Melvins did their own version, even going so far as to emulate the original cheesy cover paintings. But now they are available as PICTURE DISCS!!! Holy shit!!! If there was ever a set of records more ripe for picture disc immortalization we sure as shit can't think of any. So the real question is which one to buy. C'mon. As if there was any other answer, ALL OF THEM. Seriously, what kind of doofus would only want one. They are a set. One at a time is okay, but you are gonna NEED all four. They have been on the wall at Aquarius facing the counter since they were released and they look SOOOO badass all in a row. Worth building a little Kiss shelf in your bedroom just to display these beauties for sure!
Paul's record sounded the most like a straight up Kiss record since he was the principal songwriter anyway. While it lacked the spark of a lot of the Kiss material it was still pretty decent. Hard rocking and catchy. Also featured legendary drummer Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, Rod Stewart, King Kobra, Blue Murder!) on the skins!
But who cares? You know you need all four!

KISS Peter Criss (Lilith) picture disc lp 19.98
We can't really think of anything that more symbolizes our musical generation than the four Kiss solo records released way back in 1978. Well, okay, maybe if we tried we could think of a few things, BUT C'MON!!! KISS!!! ACE, PAUL, GENE and PETER!! Sure bands do solo records all the time. But it was never more of a production than when the biggest band in the world decided to simultaneously release 4 solo records, each adorned with a killer airbrushed painting of the artist, in full Kiss makeup and backlit with different colors. This was a huge deal when it happened, and while the records didn't sell nearly as well as the worst selling Kiss record, they still became instantly iconic and most folks we know, owned 'em, and listened to 'em and many of those same folks hung the covers on their walls!! Hell, even sludge masters the Melvins did their own version, even going so far as to emulate the original cheesy cover paintings. But now they are available as PICTURE DISCS!!! Holy shit!!! If there was ever a set of records more ripe for picture disc immortalization we sure as shit can't think of any. So the real question is which one to buy. C'mon. As if there was any other answer, ALL OF THEM. Seriously, what kind of doofus would only want one. They are a set. One at a time is okay, but you are gonna NEED all four. They have been on the wall at Aquarius facing the counter since they were released and they look SOOOO badass all in a row. Worth building a little Kiss shelf in your bedroom just to display these beauties for sure!
Peter's record was considered by pretty much everybody to be the worst of the bunch. Some of us tried extra hard to like it, cuz, c'mon he was the DRUMMER. Of Kiss!!!! Peter leaned more toward the ballad end of the spectrum which should have boded well since most of his Kiss contributions were ballads, and were also some of the band's biggest hits! But his solo record, even in the ballad department tended to be a bit, well, weak. There are definite moments. And there might have been a minor hit or two, but mostly this disc exists to complete the set. And who cares anyway? You know you need all four!

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 10.98
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
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"

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"

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
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!!
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"