GHOST B.C. Infestissumam (Rise Above / Republic) lp 19.98
NOW ON LP!! Pressed on red vinyl, includes a download code too...
Like most of you, we kinda flipped for the 2010 debut record from mysterious Swedish hard rockers / retro metallers Ghost. And some of our pals / customers went absolutely apeshit about 'em - going to every show, buying every possible permutation of the record, picture disc, import cd, along with shirts, hats, whatever. And while we were perhaps not as over the top nuts for Ghost as that, we definitely loved that record, a lot, and played it like crazy. The sound being a strange hybrid of Mercyful Fate like metal, and Blue Oyster Cult like classic heavy rock. The band fronted by a ghoulish Pope-like figure, wearing corpsepaint, and wearing papal robes, often carrying some sort of staff, while the rest of the group were a mystery, their identities hidden by robes and masks. A silly gimmick maybe, but it definitely kept everyone talking about these guys, trying to figure out who they were, which famous metal guys from other Swedish bands were actually involved. And plus, let's admit it, watching some super theatrical performance with costumes and characters, is way more satisfying than a bunch of dorky long haired dudes in jeans rocking out.
So anticipation was high for record number two. The band were rumored to have been given $750,000 to record. They flew to the US, and got a high profile producer, and the results are here, and well, the response has been divisive to say the least. Now re-christened Ghost B.C. due to to some legal difficulties, the new record finds the band almost completely ditching the metal, their sound even more firmly entrenched on the seventies hard rock side of their sound. Some of us were thrilled, as we dug that side of the band WAY more, while others, not so much. In fact one of the above mentioned superfans, hated the two songs he heard so much, he didn't even buy the record, and had no plans to do so. While that seems a bit dramatic, considering, minus the less metal, the sound is ultimately not that far removed from the first record, and in fact, the songs are way better, and way catchier, and the production, while to some ears sounded too slick and polished, ultimately sounds perfect for the songs, and with every listen, we become more and more obsessed. In fact two aQ staffers were really, really keen on making this a Record Of The Week. Certainly those two aQ-ers have listened to virtually nothing else since this came in. But there was some dissent, so we'll leave it up to you. The samples below say more than we ever could, but we'll try anyway.
While the first record was definitely a metal record, the most you could say about Infestissumam is that it's hard rock, but really it's almost more like hard pop. The songs are crazy catchy, the guitars are distorted, and a little bit buzzy, but the production is such that they don't sound heavy exactly, and the organs from the first record are all over the place here, giving some songs a very carnivalesque, circusy feel, and others a weirdly Partridge Family vibe. The songs so hook heavy, with huge choruses, and equally catchy bridges, the solos are simple, the sort that mirror the main melody, and stick in your head like the vocals, the vibe is actually kind of mellow, slightly ominous, a little bit sinister, but only a little bit. It's bouncy, almost power poppy, epic and lush and super detailed, headphone listening reveals so much sonic detail, that at times it's not hard to believe this record could have cost almost a million dollars. When we were all arguing about whether to make this a Record Of The Week, one aQ-er sent this text to another aQ-er: "Ghost is Satanic bubble gum. Total genius. I've listened to it like fifty times already!" And the aQ-er writing this review wouldn't deign to argue. Cuz it is like Satanic bubblegum. Catchy and bombastic and almost orchestral in places, pure pop in others, hard rock in others, but so far removed from the metal that popped up throughout the first record, it seems insane to call them a metal band at this point. But whatever you call them, and however you feel about their sonic progression from their debut to this new one, have a listen to those sound samples, and see if you can resist. We're guessing you won't be able to. And why fight it?? A glorious slab of Satanic bubblegum hard pop genius!
MPEG Stream: "Per Aspera Ad Inferi"
MPEG Stream: "Secular Haze"
MPEG Stream: "Jigolo Har Megiddo"
MPEG Stream: "Ghuleh / Zombie Queen"
MPEG Stream: "I'm A Marionette"

TWINK Think Pink (Sunbeam) lp+cd 29.00
THIS RECENT RECORD OF THE WEEK, NOW ON VINYL! First time we've had a vinyl reissue of this old fave, in fact. And, it comes with a free copy of the cd version tucked into the jacket, which means you do get all the bonus tracks described below, even though they didn't fit onto the vinyl itself. Here's what we said other other day when we listed the cd:
Along with the revamped Conet Project, here's another no-brainer for a Record Of The WeekÉ We've listed it before, years and years ago, when there was a cd version on Akarma, but this is a much nicer, expanded, official reissue and it's good to give it a proper review for the first time (back then, we merely quoted The Seth Man from Julian Cope's Head Heritage website, waxing rhapsodic about this record, now we'll do it ourselves).
Oh boy. Do you like psychedelia? DO YOU HAVE THIS ALBUM? If not, you're in for a treat, a mindblowing treat. Think Pink was the brilliant solo effort from former Pretty Things drummer John "Twink" Alder, and it's an all-time aQ fave, an all-time underground psychedelic masterpiece, right up there with the essentials from the likes of Amon Duul II, Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Sam Gopal, Kaleidoscope, and Tyrannosaurus Rex, and it's just been properly reissued on cd by the UK's Sunbeam label, with a whole bunch of bonus freakery added on. Not that this album NEEDS any bonus freakery, it's about as freaky as you can get to begin with, packed with droning chant, druidic prophecy, spaced-out psych jams, weird twisted pop, and acid-folk ramble. But, too much is never enough, right? So heck, we're happy to have the eight bonus tracks too. More on those later. First, let's discuss the original album itself. As we said, Twink played drums for The Pretty Things, but before that had his own sixties R&B outfit the Fairies. After that band, he was in Tomorrow ("My White Bicycle") with future Yes guitarist Steve Howe, around 1967. Twink then briefly formed a duo called The Aquarian Age, before joining up with The Pretty Things and appearing on their concept-album classic S.F. Sorrow in '68, another aQ fave. At that point, for some crazy reason (things were different/better back then) Twink was offered a deal by Sire to do a solo album, and Think Pink was the glorious, if at the time somewhat unheralded, result, recorded in 1969 with Mick Farren of The Deviants producing. Released in 1970 in the US & Europe, but not 'til '71 in the UK, it's been called the first Pink Fairies album, and in a way it is, as soon after making it, Twink did team up with several ex-members of The Deviants, most of whom played on this, to form that infamous proto-punk outfit. And several tracks here feature contributions from what's credited as "The Pink Fairies Motorcycle Club & All Star Rock & Roll Band".
Also participating are several of Twink's Pretty Things bandmates, his girlfriend Silver Darling, and Steve Peregrin Took, Marc Bolan's partner in Tyrannosaurus Rex and early T-Rex, who plays, among other things, "pixie horn". And one of the most crucial contributors to Think Pink, besides Twink himself, has to be guitarist Paul "Blackie" Rudolph, who really lets loose, earning a hallowed place in the annals of distortodelic guitar wrangling for his work on this album alone (though in the course of his career before and after, he also played with The Deviants, Pink Fairies, Hawkwind, Robert Calvert, and Brian Eno).
Eastern-tinged opener "The Coming Of The Other One" sets the scene, pulling us deep into its trippy Aquarian Age fantasy zone, with a solemn voice reciting Nostradamic verses ("In the year 1999 and seven months, from the skies shall come an alarming powerful king...") accompanied by tablas and sitar. Then comes Think Pink's biggest "hit" as far as we're concerned, an utterly perfect slice of stonery psych called "10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box", just listen to it! That's followed by "Dawn Of Magic" with its raga-like vocal ahhhaaaaahh sounds as if Pandit Pran Nath were on the mic, which suddenly segues into the space-out sike-pop of "Tiptoe On The Highest Hill", a lovely pastoral song that eventually builds into a howling guitar blow-out of the highest order. Then the trippy "Fluid" chimes into being, with its sexy heavy breathing and slinky, springy grooves, making us think of the acid-fried hippy orgasms of krautrockers Brainticket's classic Cottonwood Hill (released later on, in '71, we should also note).
Side two (track six here) opens with the martial fuzz-freakout of "Mexican Grass War", all chanting freaks and wild FX like early Amon Duul and Edgar Broughton Band. The freaky vibes continue, quite weird and wonderful, with the glammed up jam of "Rock An'Roll The Joint", the mellow morbid acoustic strum of "Suicide" and the maniacal "Three Little Piggies", before the album ends with the intense edgy psych pop of "The Sparrow Is A Sign", a song with a malevolent, sinister side to it that reminds us a little bit of Comus - and strangely too of the Sun City Girls, perhaps due to the vocals, provided by Steve Took.
Then, there's all those bonus tracks, the first two of which are actually from the lone 7" single released in '68 by The Aquarian Age, the immediate precursor to the Think Pink project. There's the A side, being the original version of "10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box", and the B side, an amusing number called "Good Wizard Meets Naughty Wizard", which displays just the sort of twee, hippie British humor the title suggests. It's great to hear both of those, and the bonus tracks proliferate further with unreleased, alternate versions of more Think Pink material, somewhat heavier or rawer or definitely different, including two takes of "Fluid" and another version of "10,000 Words...", which we can't get enough of anyway.
All in all, a nicely done reissue, as this deserves, with pages and pages of newly-written, informative liner notes, plus lyrics, credits, vintage photos & graphics. Plus, unlike that previous Akarma version, this is a fully-legit release, done with the participation of Twink himself ("issued under exclusive license from Mohammed Abdullah John Alder, February 2013" it says here, and there's even a picture of him today too - apparently he's become a Muslim, and looks quite happy).
By the way... Nobody here at aQ can think about Think Pink, though, and not also think about our "customer" whom we call The Twink Think Pink Guy. We don't believe he's ever actually bought anything, but he's this older guy that comes in once in a while (and has for years) and always, always, ONLY asks about Think Pink, whether we have it in stock or not, and then talks at great length to anyone who will listen about how great it is. It's his favorite record apparently, but don't let that dissuade you, if you get this you probably won't end up like him. Probably.
Message for The Twink Think Pink Guy, if you're reading this: we expect to see you soon!
MPEG Stream: "10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box"
MPEG Stream: "Tiptoe On The Highest Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Fluid"
MPEG Stream: "The Sparrow Is A Sign"
MPEG Stream: "Good Wizard Meets Naughty Wizard"

GHOST B.C. Infestissumam (Deluxe Version) (Rise Above / Republic) cd 15.98
Like most of you, we kinda flipped for the 2010 debut record from mysterious Swedish hard rockers / retro metallers Ghost. And some of our pals / customers went absolutely apeshit about 'em - going to every show, buying every possible permutation of the record, picture disc, import cd, along with shirts, hats, whatever. And while we were perhaps not as over the top nuts for Ghost as that, we definitely loved that record, a lot, and played it like crazy. The sound being a strange hybrid of Mercyful Fate like metal, and Blue Oyster Cult like classic heavy rock. The band fronted by a ghoulish Pope-like figure, wearing corpsepaint, and wearing papal robes, often carrying some sort of staff, while the rest of the group were a mystery, their identities hidden by robes and masks. A silly gimmick maybe, but it definitely kept everyone talking about these guys, trying to figure out who they were, which famous metal guys from other Swedish bands were actually involved. And plus, let's admit it, watching some super theatrical performance with costumes and characters, is way more satisfying than a bunch of dorky long haired dudes in jeans rocking out.
So anticipation was high for record number two. The band were rumored to have been given $750,000 to record. They flew to the US, and got a high profile producer, and the results are here, and well, the response has been divisive to say the least. Now re-christened Ghost B.C. due to to some legal difficulties, the new record finds the band almost completely ditching the metal, their sound even more firmly entrenched on the seventies hard rock side of their sound. Some of us were thrilled, as we dug that side of the band WAY more, while others, not so much. In fact one of the above mentioned superfans, hated the two songs he heard so much, he didn't even buy the record, and had no plans to do so. While that seems a bit dramatic, considering, minus the less metal, the sound is ultimately not that far removed from the first record, and in fact, the songs are way better, and way catchier, and the production, while to some ears sounded too slick and polished, ultimately sounds perfect for the songs, and with every listen, we become more and more obsessed. In fact two aQ staffers were really, really keen on making this a Record Of The Week. Certainly those two aQ-ers have listened to virtually nothing else since this came in. But there was some dissent, so we'll leave it up to you. The samples below say more than we ever could, but we'll try anyway.
While the first record was definitely a metal record, the most you could say about Infestissumam is that it's hard rock, but really it's almost more like hard pop. The songs are crazy catchy, the guitars are distorted, and a little bit buzzy, but the production is such that they don't sound heavy exactly, and the organs from the first record are all over the place here, giving some songs a very carnivalesque, circusy feel, and others a weirdly Partridge Family vibe. The songs so hook heavy, with huge choruses, and equally catchy bridges, the solos are simple, the sort that mirror the main melody, and stick in your head like the vocals, the vibe is actually kind of mellow, slightly ominous, a little bit sinister, but only a little bit. It's bouncy, almost power poppy, epic and lush and super detailed, headphone listening reveals so much sonic detail, that at times it's not hard to believe this record could have cost almost a million dollars. When we were all arguing about whether to make this a Record Of The Week, one aQ-er sent this text to another aQ-er: "Ghost is Satanic bubble gum. Total genius. I've listened to it like fifty times already!" And the aQ-er writing this review wouldn't deign to argue. Cuz it is like Satanic bubblegum. Catchy and bombastic and almost orchestral in places, pure pop in others, hard rock in others, but so far removed from the metal that popped up throughout the first record, it seems insane to call them a metal band at this point. But whatever you call them, and however you feel about their sonic progression from their debut to this new one, have a listen to those sound samples, and see if you can resist. We're guessing you won't be able to. And why fight it??
While they last, we have the deluxe version, which tacks on to bonus tracks, one of which is a hazy, strummy, psychedelic sixties sounding ballad, the other their kick ass cover of ABBA's "I'm A Marionette", which weirdly enough sounds more metal than ANYthing on the record proper, which should tell you all you need to know about this glorious slab of Satanic bubblegum hard pop genius!
MPEG Stream: "Per Aspera Ad Inferi"
MPEG Stream: "Secular Haze"
MPEG Stream: "Jigolo Har Megiddo"
MPEG Stream: "Ghuleh / Zombie Queen"
MPEG Stream: "I'm A Marionette"

VON HIMMEL Rock N Roll Animal / Traum Esel (Donkey Disk) lp 17.98
Within the last few years, the frequency of Von Himmel and related releases has picked up significantly, and thus, here we are with the band's long in the works follow up to their mighty Space Communion lp. Things have gotten even more insular with this two song monster, offering yet another glimpse into the band's strange and unique soundworld.
"Rock N Roll Animal", aka all of Side 1, comes across like some weird, warped Alice Coltrane number beamed in from another dimension, all woozy and queasy sounding. Stuttering drums merge with glorious cascades of jagged riffing to form a beautiful, strangely cohesive mess. We've mentioned legendary Texas psych pioneers the Red Krayola before when talking about Von Himmel, and the similarities are still evident in their expansive collage-like jams. Jams that manage to be hypnotic and quite lovely at times but also noisy as hell. Things are definitely chaotic, but it's a chaos with purpose, recalling previous VH releases but with what appears to be a new sense of direction, or at least forward momentum. Ramshackle bursts of melodic noise that sound a bit like an orchestra pit warming up, or fucking around, create a suspended dream state before switching gears at the midway point with some majestic cymbal washes and drones. Zoned out bits of German Oak style proto-industrial ambience appear, before things end in a swirling mass of pulsing noise that would make the Taj Mahal Travellers proud.
Side 2, "Traum Esel", begins with a sinister drone intro, heavy and sort of evil sounding, a bit like Harmonia at their most ominous. It's more meditative and subdued than the A side, maybe a little more "focused" than the freewheeling feel of the first track/side. As the song continues, things get seriously krauty with immersive, washed out melodies and sparse bits of looped percussion before ending in clouds of billowing GAS-styled bliss.
Another winner that somehow manages to top their previous release, pushing in new directions, but dragging much of what we loved about that record with them, this lp also marks the inaugural vinyl release for the band's Donkey Disc label. Grab it now!
MPEG Stream: "Rock N Roll Animal"
MPEG Stream: "Traum Esel"

ALTRES Archives (Dark Entries) lp 17.98
A couple years ago, we discovered a musical gem someone had dropped by the store which had sat unnoticed for awhile until it finally caught the eye of AQ staffer Andrew. It was a double cd-r set of coldly seductive improvised instrumental synthscapes called Tripping The Dark Fantastic, by a little known five member group from Scotland called Altres. Most of their music was recorded in 1983-84 and released in limited cassette runs. The band went on hiatus in '85 but has since reformed 17 years later! We described the group's sound like this: "Altres manage to recall some of the best things throughout the history of electronic music as well as some of the hazier realms of rock n' roll (their website lists Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Philip Glass, Throbbing Gristle, Faust, the Doors, and the Church as influences; at various times we also picked up on Cluster, Heldon, Popul Vuh, and Zombi's coked out disco side), but the end sound is clearly their own. The songs effortlessly ooze deep, krauty melodies with a sustained and cinematic ambience, and when they break out the drum machines things can head into high speed Moroder territory, always a good thing."
After we reviewed it, we ended up selling a ton of 'em. Well, that review was noticed by Dark Entries label head honcho and aQ pal Josh Cheon, who became a fan and got in contact with Altres, and now 30 years after the band was formed they finally have made their vinyl debut! Archives selects seven of the best tracks from their five cassette releases. For those thinking there may be a lot of overlap between this record and the 2cd-r set, fear not. There is in fact only one song, "Icefield" that's on both releases, which we initially described as a darkly unsettling interlude that makes you think of, yes, ice fields, and probably some foreboding windowless compound as well. Coming at the end of side one, it's a great connecting piece between the two sides, showcasing the rest of the killer new-to-us material. It's really quite special to see some attention being paid to this ambitious but short-lived group, who managed to sound both cold and melodic, cinematic and claustrophobic, robotic and utterly human.
The sheer array of equipment used on these recordings is staggering as well and enough to make any synth geek salivate: Casio MT40 Moog Prodigy, EDP Wasp, Roland SH-101, Casio VL-Tone, Korg MS20, MS50, SQ10 Poly-61, Ibanez guitar and vocoder. All of the instruments are fed through various effects and echo units and yet, amazingly everything is played and recorded live - there are no overdubs - which is pretty incredible to think about as so much of their work is so complex and rich that an extraordinary amount of musicianship seems to be at play to bring forth such strong compositions. The pieces here are less minimal wave than one would expect, but instead seem to come through as a hybrid of provocative pulsating kraut-inflected atmospheres, Moroderic overdrive, a futuristic foreboding and cinematic robotic woe. We're reminded at times, of Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury's recently rejected score for the new Judge Dredd reboot, which gets played a ton in the store, especially on the second track, "Panic". Of course there's been no shortage of synth-worshippers past and present that we could compare this to, but there is something so stirringly visual about Altres' music that makes it beautifully all its own, probably stemming from the fact that when this music was made, the members didn't have a quarter of the contextual relationships with similar music and movements that we can easily nowadays connect them with. We're proud to have been instrumental in the group's rediscovery, and we hope more folks discover them because of this record.
The vinyl comes housed in a neon green jacket featuring the original design from the "Rise" cassette by Mike Nelson. Each lp includes a photocopied clear acetate with unreleased photos and notes for each song. Fantastic!
MPEG Stream: "Everything Is"
MPEG Stream: "Panic"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost"

MAKO SICA Essence (La Societe Expeditionnaire) lp 14.98
Chicago's Mako Sica have been a longtime favorite here at aQuarius, and with their second full length (third if you count their live vinyl debut), we figured it was about time more people took note of this amazing band. The trio whips up a heady and unique noise that goes way beyond simple classification and remains blissfully in its own world. The main ingredients Ð two guitars, drums, and evocative wordless vocals Ð are augmented here and there with trumpet, thumb piano, and various percussive flourishes, but it's the way the musicians interact with each other that makes this band so special. And while they certainly do rock as they ascend to higher levels of psychedelia, calling Mako Sica a "rock band" or a "psychedelic band" doesn't quite hit the mark. The noise addled skronk of hometown labels like Skin Graft is certainly evident as well as plenty of free jazz and world music influences, but the band never tries to be anything other than themselves, and with those influences guiding the way they have arrived at a stellar sound that will be instantly accessible to adventurous listeners. At the same time, a level of mysteriousness remains constant, demanding repeated listens. As distinctive as it all is, we know this will appeal to fans of legendary groups like Trad Gras Och Stenar, Taj Mahal Travellers, and Les Rallizes Denudes, not to mention the current crop of San Francisco bands blowing the minds of the world like Barn Owl, 3 Leafs, and Carlton Melton. How could we not make this a Record Of The Week?
Essence opens with the monolithic sidelong "Fate Deals A Hand". A slow, eerie buildup gives the impression of a rising sun as the sounds bubble to life. Sustained, cello-like drones and bells accompany a voice that is itself another layer of beautiful sound. The mood gradually shifts and an underlying harmonic fuzz on one of the guitars indicates that things are finally gonna take off. The heaviness and unease of the guitars grows as the percussion becomes more insistent, and six and a half minutes in the sounds begin to merge into a more distinct form before launching into an ominous psych jam that is almost metal if it weren't for the way the drums hold it all in place. Queasy, discordant sounds kaleidoscopically swirl about as the vocals (which at times sound almost like Nina Simone if she were wordlessly chanting) add an awesome, somewhat disorienting vibe that makes it difficult to guess when and where this music could be coming from. It's amazing how the vocals illustrate a story without words and create drama, even if you aren't quite sure what it all means. Eventually a delayed trumpet glides into the maelstrom, at which point the band somehow still holds back and lets an atmosphere of spaciousness build - spaciousness being one of the key elements separating this band from the rest of the pack, who often try to cram as much as possible into the proceedings. Of course, Mako Sica launches into another distorted freakout before reaching a final and total silence. Fucking awesome.
Side two offers up two more lengthy jams, beginning with "On Cracked Sea". Cosmic chanting and guitars operate in unison, trading melodies freely without confining themselves to any traditional structure. Instead, it's just TOTAL music, melodic, jagged, beautiful, and noisy, all at once, with the drums clattering about creating just as much mood as the guitars. More of that awesome harmonically rich fuzz guitar comes cascading in, bringing the song to a new level of intensity before winding down into a woozy blissful fadeout. The final track here, "Chain Leg", begins with some low ominous rumblings and more bad ass vocal chants, reminding us a bit of a less metallic version of UK space/psych/drone collective Bong. Eventually the proceedings get a little more abstract even as some discernible riffing takes center stage. Everything sounds perfectly in place and open to whatever adventures appear to be happening in real time. Musical freedom, pretty much.
For a band that has continuously surprised and inspired, Essence stands as Mako Sica's greatest achievement so far. Their somewhat shadowy existence may mean they might not the first band that comes to mind when pondering the international resurgence in explorative, free form psychedelic music, but it's hard to imagine that not changing with this amazing record. Get it now!
MPEG Stream: "Fate Deals A Hand"
MPEG Stream: "On Cracked Sea"

TEITANBLOOD Woven Black Arteries (Ajna) cd ep 8.98
Brand new cd ep from this Spanish black metal duo, which pairs the single track from their one sided Purging Tongues 12" (which was so limited we only got 1 copy), along with a new unreleased track, just two songs, but they're long ones, the shorter just shy of 12 minutes, the longer 15+. And these guys waste no time, after a few seconds of creepy intro music, the band EXPLODE into a dense wall of pulverizing blacknoize, the riffs so frenzied and distorted they blur into thick streaks of filthy buzz, the drumming fast and furious, but also weirdly recorded, with the toms sounding like a drum machine, drifting to the surface amidst the group's blackened squalls, sounding like some weird eighties programmed rhythms, everything tangled up into a churning, roiling black hole of sound, dense and noisy and chaotic, freeform and seriously psychedelic. Without headphones, this might almost sound like some blackened Merzbow, or more metallic Masonna, but close listening reveals all sorts of crazy stuff going on beneath the surface, intricate arrangements, bellowed vokills, tripped out FX, the aforementioned drumming, it's not until nearly 5 minutes into the first track, that the blown out blacknoise abates, and the band switch gears, launching into a doomy, but equally noisy, death dirge, a chugging blast of doomnoise heaviness, that soon erupts right back into the frantic blackened noisiness of the first few minutes. And then the leads come in, it just adds a whole 'nother layer of psychedelic chaos to the proceedings.
The second track lets its intro stretch out a bit more, strange Spanish voices over haunting ominous cinematic drones, and when the band kicks in, they seem to just play over the intro, the result a super tripped out swirl of collaged noisiness, until the song coalesces into some of the densest black buzz we've heard in ages, the sort of furious blasting, that seems constantly on the verge of total collapse, a barely restrained chaos, channeled into fierce black energy, and somehow, midway through, the band crank it up even more, the sound growing MORE psychedelic, MORE noisy, almost like multiple songs playing at once, a swirling tangle of black buzz that devolves into another sprawl of chugging dirgey heaviness, accompanied by that mysterious voice from the beginning of the song, resulting in what sounds like the scariest, noisiest obscure horror movie soundtrack EVER, right down to the tolling bells and grimly cinematic outro.
MPEG Stream: "Sanctified Dysecdysis"
MPEG Stream: "Purging Tongues"

OM Advaitic Songs (Drag City) cd 14.98
We fully expected to dig this new Om record. After all, we've been fans of the band since their debut
hit back in 2004. Since then, Al Cisneros' ultra heavy bass vibrations and one of a kind stoned vocal delivery have remained pretty constant, and the main changes in the course of Om's history have revolved around two very distinct yet quite different drummers; while original skinsman Chris Hakius carried Om into territory that might well be viewed as the next step in the saga he and Cisneros developed in Sleep, current drummer Emil Amos (also of Grails and Holy Sons) brought a new, less overtly heavy approach that seemed to suit Om just as perfectly, and things have taken on a more meditative quality since his arrival. Still, some people like to joke that Om's variations on a theme have deviated little since Variations On A Theme. With that, we humbly admit that the greatness of Om's latest record, 9 years into their existence, has pretty much knocked us on our asses and led some of us to conclude that it is the best thing we've heard from them yet.
While there will be no mistaking who this is, there are in fact some of the biggest surprises on an Om record so far. Perhaps the most notable of these surprises come in the form of Robert AA Lowe, he of the 90 Day Men and Lichens, who has become a full fledged member of Om since the completion of Advaitic Songs. Indeed, Om sound more invigorated (but not *too* invigorated, for obvious reasons we would imagine) and more willing to venture into new mysterious realms. Along with additional contributions from Amber Asylum alum Jackie Perez Gratz (cello) and Lorraine Rath (flute), Advaitic Songs is by far the most diverse of Om's albums, bringing to mind everything from the Taj Mahal Travellers to Alice Coltrane to hints of early Pink Floyd and all manner of dubbed out atmospheres, while never abandoning the formula we've all come to love. In other words, shit DOES get heavy and rifftastic, but not before the introduction of female chanted vocals (which sound at times like a significantly less crazed/terrifying Elizabeth Clare Prophet, and yes, we mean that in a good way) and tamboura that open the album on the majestic "Addis". This track really absorbs you into the sound of the album and billows out steadily, with the vibe carrying on into "State Of Non Return" until the band abruptly shifts into one of the heaviest, most stoned out jams of Om's existence. And to return to the subject of drumming, kudos to Amos for his completely amazing work on this track. All we could do was bob our heads and let out a hearty "fuck yeah". Fuck yeah for sure. Interestingly, the track is monolithically heavy but still adheres to some sense of discipline and restraint. Quite simply, not many people could pull this off with these results. "Gethsemane" begins with a super heavy tamboura drone before some clean sounding Middle Eastern influenced bass and strings merge with a heavily focused drum pound with nice use of the ride. When Al's vocals come in, it sounds, well, how do we say this? Like a better version of Om. It's just so great, familiar but also exotic and surprising. "Sinai" begins as another heavy drone and makes brilliant use of distorted field recordings of some religious ceremony (sorry to be so non-specific) before ultra crisp drumming and bubbling bass create a foundation for the cello and tamboura to hover above. It's another great one to get lost in. "Haqq al-Yaqin" brings the album to its conclusion, with the memorable cello work giving the song a distinct feel and some typically awesome Cisneros vocal work. Instead of building to some predictable moment of catharsis where things get all heavy and everyone rocks out all "passionately", the song retains its focus and rides out with some beautiful acoustic guitar work before fading with some cool tabla rhythms. Wow.
At this point it's fair to say that Om are masters of their craft, and their desire to explore new worlds is made completely clear here. No one can touch them. We were going to make this a Record Of The Week, but our suppliers didn't have quite as many of the cds as we wanted in stock this week, so we had to demote it to Highlight status instead. Still, we encourage everyone to snap this one up.
MPEG Stream: "Addis"
MPEG Stream: "State Of Non-Return"
MPEG Stream: "Gethsemane"

OM Advaitic Songs (Drag City) 2lp 21.00
We fully expected to dig this new Om record. After all, we've been fans of the band since their debut
hit back in 2004. Since then, Al Cisneros' ultra heavy bass vibrations and one of a kind stoned vocal delivery have remained pretty constant, and the main changes in the course of Om's history have revolved around two very distinct yet quite different drummers; while original skinsman Chris Hakius carried Om into territory that might well be viewed as the next step in the saga he and Cisneros developed in Sleep, current drummer Emil Amos (also of Grails and Holy Sons) brought a new, less overtly heavy approach that seemed to suit Om just as perfectly, and things have taken on a more meditative quality since his arrival. Still, some people like to joke that Om's variations on a theme have deviated little since Variations On A Theme. With that, we humbly admit that the greatness of Om's latest record, 9 years into their existence, has pretty much knocked us on our asses and led some of us to conclude that it is the best thing we've heard from them yet.
While there will be no mistaking who this is, there are in fact some of the biggest surprises on an Om record so far. Perhaps the most notable of these surprises come in the form of Robert AA Lowe, he of the 90 Day Men and Lichens, who has become a full fledged member of Om since the completion of Advaitic Songs. Indeed, Om sound more invigorated (but not *too* invigorated, for obvious reasons we would imagine) and more willing to venture into new mysterious realms. Along with additional contributions from Amber Asylum alum Jackie Perez Gratz (cello) and Lorraine Rath (flute), Advaitic Songs is by far the most diverse of Om's albums, bringing to mind everything from the Taj Mahal Travellers to Alice Coltrane to hints of early Pink Floyd and all manner of dubbed out atmospheres, while never abandoning the formula we've all come to love. In other words, shit DOES get heavy and rifftastic, but not before the introduction of female chanted vocals (which sound at times like a significantly less crazed/terrifying Elizabeth Clare Prophet, and yes, we mean that in a good way) and tamboura that open the album on the majestic "Addis". This track really absorbs you into the sound of the album and billows out steadily, with the vibe carrying on into "State Of Non Return" until the band abruptly shifts into one of the heaviest, most stoned out jams of Om's existence. And to return to the subject of drumming, kudos to Amos for his completely amazing work on this track. All we could do was bob our heads and let out a hearty "fuck yeah". Fuck yeah for sure. Interestingly, the track is monolithically heavy but still adheres to some sense of discipline and restraint. Quite simply, not many people could pull this off with these results. "Gethsemane" begins with a super heavy tamboura drone before some clean sounding Middle Eastern influenced bass and strings merge with a heavily focused drum pound with nice use of the ride. When Al's vocals come in, it sounds, well, how do we say this? Like a better version of Om. It's just so great, familiar but also exotic and surprising. "Sinai" begins as another heavy drone and makes brilliant use of distorted field recordings of some religious ceremony (sorry to be so non-specific) before ultra crisp drumming and bubbling bass create a foundation for the cello and tamboura to hover above. It's another great one to get lost in. "Haqq al-Yaqin" brings the album to its conclusion, with the memorable cello work giving the song a distinct feel and some typically awesome Cisneros vocal work. Instead of building to some predictable moment of catharsis where things get all heavy and everyone rocks out all "passionately", the song retains its focus and rides out with some beautiful acoustic guitar work before fading with some cool tabla rhythms. Wow.
At this point it's fair to say that Om are masters of their craft, and their desire to explore new worlds is made completely clear here. No one can touch them. We were going to make this a Record Of The Week, but our suppliers didn't have quite as many of the cds as we wanted in stock this week, so we had to demote it to Highlight status instead. Still, we encourage everyone to snap this one up.
MPEG Stream: "Addis"
MPEG Stream: "State Of Non-Return"
MPEG Stream: "Gethsemane"

CARLTON MELTON aQ Hits (aQuarius recOrds) cd 12.98
aQ Hits is a new collection from beloved SF psychedelic space rock minimalists Carlton Melton, and is our second annual official aQuarius recOrds Record Store Day release. Last year's was a live disc called Black Valleys, a document of a killer aQuarius instore by NY psych rockers White Hills, and that one sold out in a flash. This year's looks to do the same - if you like White Hills, you like Carlton Melton, right?!
It's a super limited (just 300 copies) compact disc, collecting a handful of rare, and now out of print vinyl tracks, from various singles and split lps from the last couple years, including one super extended version.
Let's run through the various tracks... "Bottle Of Heat [Extended Version]", is, as you can probably tell from the title, the aforementioned alternate cut, which takes "Bottle Of Heat", originally released on the 2011 Agitated Records 12" comp I'm So Convoluted!, and offers up the unedited full-sprawl recording, stretching out to more than 19 minutes, thick smoldering clouds of soft focus psychedelia, drifting and blissed out, free form and abstract, a meandering epic of lush chordal swell and shimmery FX drenched swirl, all over a shuffling hypnotic and motorik kraut-psych beat. "Handling Snakes" is the A side from the group's Valley King 7" single, and is a jolt of heavy hypno-blues a la Wooden Shjips, but in the hands of Carlton Melton, somehow even heavier with wailing riffs and pummeling drums.
The next two tracks are from Carlton Melton's split 12" with Empty Shapes, originally released on Mid-To-Late Records in 2010: "Call and Response" is an epic (and originally nearly side-loooong) blowout, beginning with a heavy rumble of monolithic sludge eventually progressing into a slow wave of burnt-out blues riffage a la early Comets on Fire, that churns and steeps into a gnarly brew of molten fuzz. While "Purer", is more cosmic and dreamy, built on a layer of percolating synth drones that give way to a more uplifting space rock jam trajectory, total heart-of-the-sun zoner blissout.
And finally, the last two tracks are from CM's split 12" with Qumran Orphics, also originally released on Mid-To-Late Records, that one in the beginning of 2011. "March Of The Cicadas" is a glorious ten minute slab of psychedelic heaviness, that sounds exactly like the title implies, a slowmotion dirge over martial rhythms with buzzing electronic hisses and stratospheric guitar leads. And things finish off with "Murder Ridge", a noirish Bardo Pond-like spiral of burning sonic embers and sustained decay, a gorgeous hazy stretch of blurred lysergic drift, the perfect final movement, psych-drone comedown.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES, each one hand numbered, the artwork is printed on metallic silver cardstock, everything housed in a slim dvd style case, only available here!
MPEG Stream: "Bottle Of Heat [Extended Version]"
MPEG Stream: "Handling Snakes"
MPEG Stream: "March Of The Cicadas"

DISSEVELT, TOM / KID BALTAN Song Of The Second Moon (The Omni Recording Corporation) cd 17.98
Sometimes it's easy to see an aQ Record Of The Week staring you in the face before even hearing a note. Case in point, this here album. All the indicators were immediately present: it was put out by Omni, whose masterful grasp of obscure country music is equaled only by their masterful grasp of obscure electronic awesomeness; a vague but intriguing album cover with the words "Song Of The Second Moon: The Sonic Vibrations Of Tom Dissevelt / Kid Baltan"; and, a quick glance at the back cover with song titles like "Moon Maid", "Sonik Re-Entry", "Twilight Ozone", and "Night Train Blues", recorded between 1957-1961. So yeah, we were pretty much sold, but as we read on it was clear that this would be even more rad than we could have hoped for. Before getting started on this album itself, it helps to start with some historical background, so here goes:
Holland's Phillips Research Laboratories ("Natuurkundig Laboratorium") was founded in 1914 with the goal of furthering technological innovation. To make a long story short, they did just that, having invented the first artificial reverberation, modern loudspeaker design, early attempts at surround sound, the cassette tape, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, among many other things. All very nice and essential to the way music effects our lives, for sure. But damn if the creation of this album isn't the coolest thing on that long list of achievements, leading us to wonder how exactly something this amazing could have remained such a mystery - not a soul among us was even aware of its existence, despite being great enough for Stanley Kubrick to consider using it as the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey - ironic, as 2001 was the year Natuurkundig Laboratorium would go kaput. Perhaps not surprisingly given the way things often go Songs Of The Second Moon was a commercial failure, but we are thankful to have it presented here with the "rare" stereo mix, along with some outtakes and alternate versions.
The men responsible for this album, Tom Dissevelt and Dick Raaijmakers - aka Kid Baltan - were employed by the Natuurkundig Laboratorium to research acoustics, but eventually ventured into more exotic waters with some of the earliest synthesizer experiments. Using tone generators in addition to traditional instruments like a grand piano, the time consuming process of capturing and creating these strange and wondrous sounds was carried out over a period of about 3 years, during which time the composers experimented with tape loops (often for rhythmic purposes), delays, and filters to create something that went beyond just sound experimentation. Dissevelt himself had come to the job as a highly respected musician and arranger with an interest in Stockhausen's twelve-tone and serial compositions, while Raaijmakers is recognized as a pioneer in the field of electronic and tape based music. The greatest thing about the album is just how musical it is, with songcraft never taking a back seat to the all encompassing technological aspects of the project. Soundwise, things are on par with the majesty of Delia Derbyshire and other pioneers of BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, and anyone keeping up with recent reissues from Daphne Oram, F.C. Judd, and Bruce Haack (whose Electric Lucifer masterpiece was also rescued by Omni) will find plenty to obsess over. The 1950s idea of "The Future" is exactly what this sounds like, with adventurous electronic tones for the Cold War era. As such, there are the hints of the paranoia, tension, and fear that tend to accompany widespread technological innovation and a standoff between two trigger happy superpowers, with plenty of nightmarish melodies, electronic pulsing, and harrowing white noise. Of course, there are also moments that sound happy, fun, and quirky, like strange disembodied jazz music with heavy drones. This stuff could have (and probably did) inspire the electronic pop of Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley. The results are cinematic and elegant, while standing well on their own for a unique listening experience that STILL sounds light years ahead of us.
Kudos to Omni for introducing this lost classic to an unsuspecting but eternally grateful public. Record Of The Week indeed.
MPEG Stream: "Song Of The Second Moon"
MPEG Stream: "Moon Maid"
MPEG Stream: "The Ray Makers"

VON HIMMEL Space Communion (Humito) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's been a while since we last heard from Von Himmel, and this lp is actually a reissue of a now out of print cassette put out by Sloow Tapes a few years back. As was written on that label's website, Space Communion is "absolutely deserving of a vinyl reissue on some hopelessly obscure American private-press psych label." Thankfully the future is now, and if you weren't one of the 70 people to get a tape you'll want to do yourself a favor and pick this up NOW, and not only because the lp is itself limited to a mere 300 copies. You'll want it because Space Communion is a completely mesmerizing piece of multi-layered drifting free psychedelia and one of those records that seems to exist outside of time and location. That said, the major touchstones here are of a decidedly '70s German variety (the band's name no doubt a reference to the song "Von Himmel Hoch" from the first Kraftwerk lp), think Ash Ra Tempel, early Cluster, German Oak, NEU!, and all the other greats. Throw in some ESP-Disk styled experimentation and it only makes sense that we would make this a ROTW.
The album begins with "Moon Moss", where lush atmospheres merge to form an ambiguous, slightly disconcerting vibe not unlike that moment right before the drugs kick in. We were reminded of Sun Ra's wild Moog experiments from the Space Probe album we reviewed a while back, in addition to all the great library music collections we love from labels like Trunk and even more recent favorites like Anworth Kirk. It's not difficult to imagine this as some educational 1970s soundtrack whipped up by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and one can almost hear David Attenborough's mellow voice describing the living habits of leafcutter ants or something. "Astronomer" opens with what sounds like a flute (or maybe it's a synth?) and some sparse percussion, which slowly builds and shifts to a more aggressive rhythm while still maintaining a degree of restraint. You get an image of bearded longhairs recording in a field under the stars before the drums cease and you are left with pure buzzing bliss. The first song to utilize a more "rock" based structure is "Sun Spots" with its steady rhythm and hypnotic bass groove. Bits of electric guitar strum away in the background as the keyboards swirl their way into the mix. It's similar to something you might hear on a Wooden Shjips record, but even more skeletal. In other words, it's a good one to get lost in. "Mantra" works in some field recordings (we couldn't tell if they were played in reverse or not) of a man chanting as the band's melodies shimmer beautifully loose and free. You close your eyes and zone out, but then you gotta flip the record over to side 2 where Von Himmel ups their experimental tendencies even more with two lengthy tracks. "Strawberry Hill" opens with an evil buzz that sounds like it's seeping out of a medieval dungeon. This one definitely had us thinking of German Oak, as well as something you might here in a film like the Devils or anything else where witches are burnt at the stake, sorta like the snippets between Electric Wizard songs. At around 7 minutes, frantic free jazz drums enter followed by a bleating saxophone, spinning wildly before fading into a barely audible hiss. Closer "Country Bog" begins with a sitar drone and more nature sounds before a subsonic bass gets things rumbling into somewhat doomy territory. The sounds here blend in and out so perfectly before wrapping up with a moaning voice and more clattering percussion.
Space Communion is one of those rare records that exists in its own world, outside the notions of "psychedelic" or "experimental" music that most bands today adhere to. Things here are brilliantly presented on their own terms, not merely as some modern day interpretation of an old Krautrock record. Bold words indeed, but we ain't fucking around, and neither is Von Himmel.
MPEG Stream: "Astronomer"
MPEG Stream: "Strawberry Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Country Bog"

BOSSE-DE-NAGE s/t (II) (The Flenser) cd 9.98
Record number two from this mysterious Bay Area black metal horde, a group whose sound is as heavy on the Louisville math rock is it is on the black buzz, and on record number two, they stretch out even further, exploring their math/post rock tendencies in ways that were only hinted at on the first record. And as one might expect, the mix of black buzz and meandering post rockisms sounds much more organic this time around, where as the first time the separation between the two sounds was more jarring. The production is much improved too.
Just take the opening track, "Volume Two Chapter One", with its darkly dynamic opening, all start stop minor key minimalism, a melancholy minor key melody played out over a series of chords, left to ring out, the drums crashing in time, the only hint of the blackness to come is a howled vocals way way off in the distance, it's two minutes before this crashing moodiness segues fairly smoothly into some frantic blackened blasting, the drums not your typical blastbeat, instead offering up all manner of unlikely fills, the result a little off kilter, and a good balance to the otherwise more traditional back buzz guitar and shrieked vox. And then with about 2 minutes to go, the buzz seems to dissipate leaving just a churning, chuggy chunk of palm muted math rock, that sounds more like Don Cab than Darkthrone, pounding out the final minute in a tangle of mathy rhythms.
The post rockisms are much more subtle in "Marie In A Cage", which plays more like your standard buzzing blackness, but there are those wild chaotic drums, not to mention a killer part midsong where the band switch into a brief bit of proggy mathiness that KILLS, but it's brief and soon the band are galloping along again, never fully shedding that mathiness, but instead incorporating it into the black buzz. "The Lampless Hours" is another track that starts out sounding like some lost mid nineties Touch And Go record (minus the flurries of double kick drum), before launching into a stretch of 'proper' black metal. "The Death Posture" is a churning doomy plod, peppered with burst of blasting black metal, and again here, the band are much more subtle with their deployment of post and math rock elements, which ultimately makes for some truly idiosyncratic black metal. And finally, the record finishes off with the 11+ minute "Why Am I So Lovely? Because My Master Washes Me.", which again sounds on the surface traditionally blackened and buzzy, but the post rock undercurrent seems to seep through every chance it gets, finally shouldering the blackness out of the way at about the midway point for a stretch of gnarled mathiness, that manages to not sound out of place, instead, it's drawn in shades of black, that make it that much easier for the band to slip back into the furious buzz that finishes off the record, until the last minute when the recording seems to go haywire, everything blown out and distorted finishing off in a wild squall of Merzbowian white noise.
Definitely less post rocky than its predecessor, but again, the trade off is that the post rock element doesn't sound as much like a gimmick, instead sounding more an actual intrinsic part of BdN's sound, and while black metal dabblers may not be so inclined this time around (although they should be), true grim metalheads might just find their horizons being expanded, whether they realize it or not.
MPEG Stream: "Volume II Chapter I"
MPEG Stream: "Marie In A Cage"
MPEG Stream: "The Lampless Hours"

BOSSE-DE-NAGE s/t (II) (The Flenser) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Record number two from this mysterious Bay Area black metal horde, a group whose sound is as heavy on the Louisville math rock is it is on the black buzz, and on record number two, they stretch out even further, exploring their math/post rock tendencies in ways that were only hinted at on the first record. And as one might expect, the mix of black buzz and meandering post rockisms sounds much more organic this time around, where as the first time the separation between the two sounds was more jarring. The production is much improved too.
Just take the opening track, "Volume Two Chapter One", with its darkly dynamic opening, all start stop minor key minimalism, a melancholy minor key melody played out over a series of chords, left to ring out, the drums crashing in time, the only hint of the blackness to come is a howled vocals way way off in the distance, it's two minutes before this crashing moodiness segues fairly smoothly into some frantic blackened blasting, the drums not your typical blastbeat, instead offering up all manner of unlikely fills, the result a little off kilter, and a good balance to the otherwise more traditional back buzz guitar and shrieked vox. And then with about 2 minutes to go, the buzz seems to dissipate leaving just a churning, chuggy chunk of palm muted math rock, that sounds more like Don Cab than Darkthrone, pounding out the final minute in a tangle of mathy rhythms.
The post rockisms are much more subtle in "Marie In A Cage", which plays more like your standard buzzing blackness, but there are those wild chaotic drums, not to mention a killer part midsong where the band switch into a brief bit of proggy mathiness that KILLS, but it's brief and soon the band are galloping along again, never fully shedding that mathiness, but instead incorporating it into the black buzz. "The Lampless Hours" is another track that starts out sounding like some lost mid nineties Touch And Go record (minus the flurries of double kick drum), before launching into a stretch of 'proper' black metal. "The Death Posture" is a churning doomy plod, peppered with burst of blasting black metal, and again here, the band are much more subtle with their deployment of post and math rock elements, which ultimately makes for some truly idiosyncratic black metal. And finally, the record finishes off with the 11+ minute "Why Am I So Lovely? Because My Master Washes Me.", which again sounds on the surface traditionally blackened and buzzy, but the post rock undercurrent seems to seep through every chance it gets, finally shouldering the blackness out of the way at about the midway point for a stretch of gnarled mathiness, that manages to not sound out of place, instead, it's drawn in shades of black, that make it that much easier for the band to slip back into the furious buzz that finishes off the record, until the last minute when the recording seems to go haywire, everything blown out and distorted finishing off in a wild squall of Merzbowian white noise.
Definitely less post rocky than its predecessor, but again, the trade off is that the post rock element doesn't sound as much like a gimmick, instead sounding more an actual intrinsic part of BdN's sound, and while black metal dabblers may not be so inclined this time around (although they should be), true grim metalheads might just find their horizons being expanded, whether they realize it or not.
MPEG Stream: "Volume II Chapter I"
MPEG Stream: "Marie In A Cage"
MPEG Stream: "The Lampless Hours"

CRYSTAL STILTS In Love With Oblivion (Slumberland) lp 14.98
Most folks around here have been pretty obsessed with Crystal Stilts, since their self titled 2008 debut on Woodsist. But there's definitely a been holdout or two among us. Who, while appreciating that Crystal Stilts were a decent band, didn't necessarily understand what the fuss was all about. That all changes with In Love With Oblivion, and those folks are definitely gonna have to reassess their opinion on those older records too, cuz EVERYone here has gone totally nuts for this new record. Including the previous nonbelievers. Not sure what exactly it is, their sound hasn't changed so dramatically, but there's just something about this record that's totally magical. Dark and brooding, low slung slithery gloom pop, that while lumped in with the current crop of Sacred Bones / Captured Tracks outfits, to these ears are way more beholden to Aussie groups like the Celibate Rifles, the Lime Spiders, the Scientists, the Saints, Radio Birdman, even the Hoodoo Gurus, maybe especially the Hoodoo Gurus. Which is weird, cuz these guys are from Brooklyn. But they have that twangy surf guitar, the Fuzztones style wheezing garage rock organ, everything hazy and reverby, and of course the vox, that's what really does it, deep and dramatic, commanding and intense but still melodic. Opener "Sycamore Tree" is a perfect example, a dead ringer for some lost Celibate Rifles jam, a minimal woozy groove, the percussion a propulsive shuffle, the guitars thick with twang and reverb, the bass dense and driving, and the vocals, the sort of singing that would go on to define noise rock outfits from down under like Lubricated Goat and Kingsnakeroost, eyes closed it feels like being in some dingy club in Australia in the early eighties, packed in like sardines, the sound deafening, the crowd rapt and sweaty, moving to the music, total zoner gloom pop post punk bliss.
Then there's the other side of the band, like on "Through The Floor" where they channel classic girl group sounds, but add their own twist, those deep crooned vox, the whirring organ, lots of sweet back up harmonies, and of course plenty of buzz and reverb. And so it goes, the band switching from shimmery sixties jangle, to dark brooding eighties post punk gloom pop, often melding the two. And while we love both sides of the band, it's the darker side that we find the most mesmerizing. Like on "Alien Rivers", a creepy crawl, all thick undulating organs, shuffling snares, spidery guitars, the vocals especially heavy with reverb and echo, the sound droned out and druggy, divinely hypnotic. And there's the woozy groovy stomp of "Prometheus At Large", classic rock and roll wrapped in murk and grit and grime, a sort of classic fifties style pop transformed into something much more sinister. Elsewhere there's plenty of jangle and shimmer, shuffle and buzz, "Flying Into The Sun" sounds like a lo-fi indie pop Interpol, "Precarious Stair" sounds like some fantastic union of Thee Oh Sees and the Vivian Girls, but with those crooned post punk vox, all the songs buzzy and hooky and heavy in their own way, slipping easily from indie pop to new wave to indie jangle but always infused with the Stilts' dark brood, and fuzzy wall of sound reverby shimmer, and all held together by some impossibly great and catchy songs, and of course those fantastic vocals.
Definite contender for record of the year, and a new unanimous aQ fave for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Sycamore Tree"
MPEG Stream: "Through The Floor"
MPEG Stream: "Silver Sun"

CRYSTAL STILTS In Love With Oblivion (Slumberland) cd 12.98
Most folks around here have been pretty obsessed with Crystal Stilts, since their self titled 2008 debut on Woodsist. But there's definitely a been holdout or two among us. Who, while appreciating that Crystal Stilts were a decent band, didn't necessarily understand what the fuss was all about. That all changes with In Love With Oblivion, and those folks are definitely gonna have to reassess their opinion on those older records too, cuz EVERYone here has gone totally nuts for this new record. Including the previous nonbelievers. Not sure what exactly it is, their sound hasn't changed so dramatically, but there's just something about this record that's totally magical. Dark and brooding, low slung slithery gloom pop, that while lumped in with the current crop of Sacred Bones / Captured Tracks outfits, to these ears are way more beholden to Aussie groups like the Celibate Rifles, the Lime Spiders, the Scientists, the Saints, Radio Birdman, even the Hoodoo Gurus, maybe especially the Hoodoo Gurus. Which is weird, cuz these guys are from Brooklyn. But they have that twangy surf guitar, the Fuzztones style wheezing garage rock organ, everything hazy and reverby, and of course the vox, that's what really does it, deep and dramatic, commanding and intense but still melodic. Opener "Sycamore Tree" is a perfect example, a dead ringer for some lost Celibate Rifles jam, a minimal woozy groove, the percussion a propulsive shuffle, the guitars thick with twang and reverb, the bass dense and driving, and the vocals, the sort of singing that would go on to define noise rock outfits from down under like Lubricated Goat and Kingsnakeroost, eyes closed it feels like being in some dingy club in Australia in the early eighties, packed in like sardines, the sound deafening, the crowd rapt and sweaty, moving to the music, total zoner gloom pop post punk bliss.
Then there's the other side of the band, like on "Through The Floor" where they channel classic girl group sounds, but add their own twist, those deep crooned vox, the whirring organ, lots of sweet back up harmonies, and of course plenty of buzz and reverb. And so it goes, the band switching from shimmery sixties jangle, to dark brooding eighties post punk gloom pop, often melding the two. And while we love both sides of the band, it's the darker side that we find the most mesmerizing. Like on "Alien Rivers", a creepy crawl, all thick undulating organs, shuffling snares, spidery guitars, the vocals especially heavy with reverb and echo, the sound droned out and druggy, divinely hypnotic. And there's the woozy groovy stomp of "Prometheus At Large", classic rock and roll wrapped in murk and grit and grime, a sort of classic fifties style pop transformed into something much more sinister. Elsewhere there's plenty of jangle and shimmer, shuffle and buzz, "Flying Into The Sun" sounds like a lo-fi indie pop Interpol, "Precarious Stair" sounds like some fantastic union of Thee Oh Sees and the Vivian Girls, but with those crooned post punk vox, all the songs buzzy and hooky and heavy in their own way, slipping easily from indie pop to new wave to indie jangle but always infused with the Stilts' dark brood, and fuzzy wall of sound reverby shimmer, and all held together by some impossibly great and catchy songs, and of course those fantastic vocals.
Definite contender for record of the year, and a new unanimous aQ fave for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Sycamore Tree"
MPEG Stream: "Through The Floor"
MPEG Stream: "Silver Sun"

SPACEMEN 3 Take Me To The Other Side (Fire) 12" 13.98
The Spacemen 3 vinyl reissue campaign continues, with the Glass Records eps now getting their due. Considering the amount of repetition in this band's catalog, many may be asking themselves whether or not they need another record with the same songs on it, and it may come down to just how obsessed you are... wait, scratch that, OF COURSE YOU NEED IT! It's awesome to have these eps available to us again individually (having been previously compiled together on cd via Taang! Records, and who knows, probably by someone else as well) because it lets you really get into the drugged out mindset of the band. Listening to these as they were intended, you can get a better idea of how Spacemen 3 established themes within their music. Rather than release mere 7" singles, they instead developed and reinterpreted certain songs on the 12" format. Which makes sense, as the band was certainly in no rush to adhere to 3 minute pop songs if they weren't up to it. In fact, calling these "eps" is a little misleading, as the boys stretch things out to album lengths.
Take Me To The Other Side was the companion ep to the band's mighty - nay, GODLY - Perfect Prescription lp. In other words, this ep represents the band at the height of their unified powers, and the title song itself (taking up side 1 at 45 rpm; side 2 goes at 33) is no doubt one of their strongest pieces. Kicking off the second side is "Soul 1", a slow burning soul-inspired (duh) number with blaring, sleepy horns given the Spacemen 3 treatment, followed by "That's Just Fine", which has appeared tacked onto various editions of the Perfect Prescription. No matter how you weigh it, it's awesome having the bulk of the Spacemen 3 discography available as these handsome vinyl reissues. Playing this stuff alongside so much of what we carry, it's obvious that this band has seeped into underground consciousness like the legends they were always destined to become. But you know what? There's only one Spacemen 3.

SPACEMEN 3 Transparent Radiation (Fire) 12" 13.98
The Spacemen 3 vinyl reissue campaign continues, with the Glass Records eps now getting their due . Considering the amount of repetition in this band's catalog, many may be asking themselves whether or not they need another record with the same songs on it, and it may come down to just how obsessed you are... wait, scratch that, OF COURSE YOU NEED IT! It's awesome to have these eps available to us again individually (having been previously compiled together on cd via Taang! Records, and who knows, probably by someone else as well) because it lets you really get into the drugged out mindset of the band. Listening to these as they were intended, you can get a better idea of how Spacemen 3 established themes within their music. Rather than release mere 7" singles, they instead developed and reinterpreted certain songs on the 12" format. Which makes sense, as the band was certainly in no rush to adhere to 3 minute pop songs if they weren't up to it. In fact, calling these "eps" is a little misleading, as the boys stretch things out to album lengths.
Transparent Radiation (last seen going for $600) is undoubtedly one of Spacemen 3's finest moments. Originally a herky jerky outsider jam by legendary Austin weirdos the Red Crayola, in the hands of Sonic and Jason the song became something undeniably greater, reaching unsurpassed heights of spiritually drugged out grandeur. If nothing else, the song is testament to the power of the electric guitar and human voice. And best of all, two versions of the song are included here, the first featuring the two singers sharing a ragged vocal harmony that sounds, well, like a couple guys trippin on some heavy shit but still holding things down like the experts they are. Next up is the complete version of "Ecstasy Symphony", which couldn't be more hypnotic with its strobing organ pulling you in deeper. No wonder they used this as their live intro. Following this is the definitive version of "Transparent Radiation" (appropriately enough, the "Flashback" version) which is so good we won't even bother trying to explain it.
Side 2 opens with the snarling "Things'll Never Be The Same", presented in complete unedited form, before going into a triumphant take on the Sun Ra / MC5 jam of "Starship", ending the record on a perfect note. Fuck yeah.

SPACEMEN 3 Walkin' With Jesus (Fire) 12" 13.98
The Spacemen 3 vinyl reissue campaign continues, with the Glass Records eps now getting their due . Considering the amount of repetition in this band's catalog, many may be asking themselves whether or not they need another record with the same songs on it, and it may come down to just how obsessed you are... wait, scratch that, OF COURSE YOU NEED IT! It's awesome to have these eps available to us again individually (having been previously compiled together on cd via Taang! Records, and who knows, probably by someone else as well) because it lets you really get into the drugged out mindset of the band. Listening to these as they were intended, you can get a better idea of how Spacemen 3 established themes within their music. Rather than release mere 7" singles, they instead developed and reinterpreted certain songs on the 12" format. Which makes sense, as the band was certainly in no rush to adhere to 3 minute pop songs if they weren't up to it. In fact, calling these "eps" is a little misleading, as the boys stretch things out to album lengths.
The Walkin' With Jesus ep kicks off with the song of the same name, which itself was an early title for the song "Sound Of Confusion", off the... uh... Sound Of Confusion ALBUM. Confusion, as we all know, being an integral part of the Spacemen 3 discography. Perhaps the most striking number here is the band's insane cover of the 13th Floor Elevators' famous ode to tripping balls-as-philosophy, "Rollercoaster". While a version of this song also appeared on Sound Of Confusion, the band's dissatisfaction with that take spurred the idea of recording the song live and stretching it out to a monolithic 17 minutes. Gotta say, the 13th Floor Elevators are a band that most band's simply shouldn't/can't cover, but Spacemen 3 earned themselves a pass, for obvious reasons, and in the end they make the song their own. Amazing. After your mind tries to piece together what the fuck just happened for 17 minutes, the mellow "Feel So Good" takes you down nice and easy. Best band (of this sort) of the '80s, no question.

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM Malevolent Grain (self-released) cd ep 9.98
Olympia, Washington's black metal titans Wolves In The Throne Room followed up their acclaimed 2007 Two Hunters album, after a long wait, with this lengthy two song, 23+ minute ep, originally a deluxe vinyl-only release on Southern Lord in early 2009. That quickly went out of print, but now the band has pressed up a compact disc version, in a lovely digipack, which we're so glad to have, as this recording was the not only the first to feature their current guitarist, but was also the band's most focused and hypnotic creation up 'til then (foreshadowing the awesome album Black Cascades, their most recent, that followed not long after).
Here's what we said when this came out on vinyl:
The formula has not changed, it's just sounding, well, better than ever before. More insular. While Wolves in the Throne Room has always possessed a talent for wrapping majestic melodies within relentless black metal riffing, Malevolent Grain most successfully blurs the distinction between blissed out beauty and brutality. The band is shrouded in an ever present haze of melancholy and despair that is just so much more genuine and effective than guys prancing around in corpse paint like some sort of old school black metal tribute act. They speak as a unique voice in an international scene where so many bands are preoccupied with their bullshit fairy tale take on satanism. All the while, they are heavy as fuck. A Wolves In The Throne Room song plays out as an expansive journey of multiple chapters before fading away into eternity. There is tons of ambience and atmosphere along the way, complete with gorgeous, clearly sung female vocals (courtesy once again of Jamie Meyers, formerly of Hammers of Misfortune), somber melodies, and warm waves of creeping distortion, but ultimately this is total BLACK METAL. Yes, all caps. "METAL" being the key word, the band never falls short on the blazing riffs, unstoppable drumming, and rasping vocals that they built their name on.
Like the vinyl version, this new edition comes housed in an appropriately hallucinatory sleeve featuring blurry images of lush dark forest untouched by humanity, adorned with band's new candelabra-esque logo.
MPEG Stream: "A Looming Resonance"
MPEG Stream: "Hate Crystal"

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM Malevolent Grain (self-released) cd ep 9.98
We made this a Record Of The Week on our special Halloween in-between list last week, here it is again in case you were out trick-or-treating and missed it:
Olympia, Washington's black metal titans Wolves In The Throne Room followed up their acclaimed 2007 Two Hunters album, after a long wait, with this lengthy two song, 23+ minute ep, originally a deluxe vinyl-only release on Southern Lord in early 2009. That quickly went out of print, but now the band has pressed up a compact disc version, in a lovely digipack, which we're so glad to have, as this recording was the not only the first to feature their current guitarist, but was also the band's most focused and hypnotic creation up 'til then (foreshadowing the awesome album Black Cascades, their most recent, that followed not long after).
Here's what we said when this came out on vinyl:
The formula has not changed, it's just sounding, well, better than ever before. More insular. While Wolves in the Throne Room has always possessed a talent for wrapping majestic melodies within relentless black metal riffing, Malevolent Grain most successfully blurs the distinction between blissed out beauty and brutality. The band is shrouded in an ever present haze of melancholy and despair that is just so much more genuine and effective than guys prancing around in corpse paint like some sort of old school black metal tribute act. They speak as a unique voice in an international scene where so many bands are preoccupied with their bullshit fairy tale take on satanism. All the while, they are heavy as fuck. A Wolves In The Throne Room song plays out as an expansive journey of multiple chapters before fading away into eternity. There is tons of ambience and atmosphere along the way, complete with gorgeous, clearly sung female vocals (courtesy once again of Jamie Myers, formerly of Hammers of Misfortune), somber melodies, and warm waves of creeping distortion, but ultimately this is total BLACK METAL. Yes, all caps. "METAL" being the key word, the band never falls short on the blazing riffs, unstoppable drumming, and rasping vocals that they built their name on.
Like the vinyl version, this new edition comes housed in an appropriately hallucinatory sleeve featuring blurry images of lush dark forest untouched by humanity, adorned with band's new candelabra-esque logo.
MPEG Stream: "A Looming Resonance"
MPEG Stream: "Hate Crystal"

HARPER, TWIG & DANIEL HIGGS Clairaudience Fellowship (Thrill Jockey) lp 16.98
Unanimous aQ favorite Daniel Higgs, he of the mighty Lungfish and more recently a prolific solo artist, returns with a collaboration featuring fellow Baltimore noisenik Twig Harper, best known for his work in Nautical Almanac. Anyone keeping up with Higgs' output is undoubtedly aware of his brilliant grasp of minimalism, and with a voice like that, few people are complaining. While his recent solo work has included instruments like banjo, a shruti box, Jew's harp, and some spacey electronics, the emphasis here is on Higgs' voice and his words. Harper's sparse electronic accompaniment works perfectly on these performances, adding subtle layers of sound that never venture too far into full on noise territory while adding some necessary dimensions to Higgs' spiritual narratives.
Comprised of seven pieces, Clairaudience Fellowship represents another evolutionary step for these two artists, utilizing spaciousness to a new effect. Higgs' voice is the one constant, mutating electronically throughout the record and sounding kind of like an alien delivering a religious sermon underwater. We're not entirely sure how Harper's sounds are made, but they often come off like field recordings of watery drips and breathy repetitions that soon change into clipped electronic noises, causing you to wonder what it is you are really hearing. Musically, one can detect similarities to the experiments of a wide range of groups like Cromagnon, the Red Krayola, Yahowha 13, and more recently, Amps For Christ. It might be misleading to call this "folk music", but then you have to wonder what such a term even means in 2010, and in a more abstract way, it seems pretty apt for this stuff. By the end of the record, Higgs' voice is warped beyond comprehension with only the occasional decipherable word popping up. Still, you know whatever it is he's saying, Higgs is speaking the truth steadily and surely. While it's hardly the feel good hit of the year, Clairaudience Fellowship is an amazing and engaging listen to anyone willing to sit down and pay attention. By now we can always count on Daniel Higgs to keep things surprising and interesting. Harper ain't no slouch either. Highest possible recommendation.

GRINDERMAN Grinderman 2 (Anti) cd 21.00
Testosterone.
Yep, Grinderman are back with their self-explanatory second album, and it's a motherfucker. Just like the first one. If for some reason you've been living under a rock, Grinderman is a supergroup, if you will, comprised of Nick Cave, and his Bad Seeds cohorts Warren Ellis (also of Dirty Three), Jim Sclavunos and Martyn Casey. True to that pedigree, this record RULES. The best thing about this is how it bypasses the curse of the side project in ways that few records can (the same could be said of the recent Shrinebuilder and Twilight records). So yeah, the first record was no fluke, and this one is even BETTER. Punked out blues with a dirty mind, muscular riffage, pounding rhythms, and of course, Cave's psycho-sexual vocals delivered with just enough restraint to keep things nice and tense. Every song is totally dirty and sleazed out in the best way imaginable, and the album moves forward with an unstoppable swagger that just reeks of sexxx, sweat, and blasphemy. The production is top notch and perhaps the only thing "tasteful" about this record. It simply SOUNDS amazing, huge swirling psychedelic atmospheres for the band to immerse themselves in. Grinderman 2 is already sounding like a classic after only a few weeks on the shelf.
After a few seconds of pleasantly melodic reverse guitar, the album gets right to the point with opener "Mickey Mouse And The Goodbye Man", with some burly bass keeping Cave from completely losing his shit as he spits out memorable lines like "And he sucked her and he sucked her and he sucked her dry". Things soon morph into an aggressive stomp that simply rocks. "Heathen Child" sort of continues this theme with its psych blues vibe and more lyrics that involve some literal sucking. The boys know how to switch things up as well, like on "What I Know", the closest thing to a ballad that you get here. Of course, it's still creepy and weird as fuck before leading into the raucous "Evil", one of the album's most aggressive numbers. "Places Of Montezuma" sounds a bit like classic late '60s/early '70s Rolling Stones interpreted by Nick Cave. So in other words, it's pretty rad, setting things up for the perfect closing song "Bellringer Blues", a midtempo dirge with all kinds of psychedelic haziness thrown in with the cool group vocals.
If you dug the first record, this is a no brainer. Not sure if anyone was ever skeptical about Grinderman, but if they were, this should put all fears to rest. Accompanying this kick ass record is some equally kick ass packaging, with shiny blue foil lettering and a super thick booklet overflowing with amazing artwork from Ilinica Hopfner.
MPEG Stream: "Mickey Mouse And The Goodbye Man"
MPEG Stream: "Heathen Child"
MPEG Stream: "What I Know"

GRINDERMAN Grinderman 2 (Anti) lp 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Testosterone.
Yep, Grinderman are back with their self-explanatory second album, and it's a motherfucker. Just like the first one. If for some reason you've been living under a rock, Grinderman is a supergroup, if you will, comprised of Nick Cave, and his Bad Seeds cohorts Warren Ellis (also of Dirty Three), Jim Sclavunos and Martyn Casey. True to that pedigree, this record RULES. The best thing about this is how it bypasses the curse of the side project in ways that few records can (the same could be said of the recent Shrinebuilder and Twilight records). So yeah, the first record was no fluke, and this one is even BETTER. Punked out blues with a dirty mind, muscular riffage, pounding rhythms, and of course, Cave's psycho-sexual vocals delivered with just enough restraint to keep things nice and tense. Every song is totally dirty and sleazed out in the best way imaginable, and the album moves forward with an unstoppable swagger that just reeks of sexxx, sweat, and blasphemy. The production is top notch and perhaps the only thing "tasteful" about this record. It simply SOUNDS amazing, huge swirling psychedelic atmospheres for the band to immerse themselves in. Grinderman 2 is already sounding like a classic after only a few weeks on the shelf.
After a few seconds of pleasantly melodic reverse guitar, the album gets right to the point with opener "Mickey Mouse And The Goodbye Man", with some burly bass keeping Cave from completely losing his shit as he spits out memorable lines like "And he sucked her and he sucked her and he sucked her dry". Things soon morph into an aggressive stomp that simply rocks. "Heathen Child" sort of continues this theme with its psych blues vibe and more lyrics that involve some literal sucking. The boys know how to switch things up as well, like on "What I Know", the closest thing to a ballad that you get here. Of course, it's still creepy and weird as fuck before leading into the raucous "Evil", one of the album's most aggressive numbers. "Places Of Montezuma" sounds a bit like classic late '60s/early '70s Rolling Stones interpreted by Nick Cave. So in other words, it's pretty rad, setting things up for the perfect closing song "Bellringer Blues", a midtempo dirge with all kinds of psychedelic haziness thrown in with the cool group vocals.
If you dug the first record, this is a no brainer. Not sure if anyone was ever skeptical about Grinderman, but if they were, this should put all fears to rest. Accompanying this kick ass record is some equally kick ass packaging, with shiny blue foil lettering and a super thick booklet overflowing with amazing artwork from Ilinica Hopfner.
MPEG Stream: "Mickey Mouse And The Goodbye Man"
MPEG Stream: "Heathen Child"
MPEG Stream: "What I Know"

ANGEL FACE Wolf City Blues (ApacheFilm / TransLoveEnergy) 3cd 49.00
Woah. Just when you thought all the "long lost" bands have already been unearthed, something like this comes along and knocks you flat on your ass. Most of us first read about Angel Face in a great article in Ugly Things a few issues back. Other than that and a piece on the band on Julian Cope's Head Heritage site, the only other meager info that we could find about these guys was in French. Which makes sense, as Angel Face were indeed French. The band's confusing history began in 1974 with the core lineup of the Regoli brothers, Pascal (bass) and Julian (guitar), as well as one Riton Angel Face on guitar. Their biggest inspiration is undoubtedly the Stooges, but unlike every other band to rip off Ann Arbor's finest, Angel Face were in fact swimming in the same primordial waters as their heroes. It makes sense to assume that these guys probably dug "L.A. Blues" and "We Will Fall" as much as any of the Stooges' tunes, because Angel Face clearly understood that "heavy" isn't just about volume and power chords (not that those aren't here in spades), but also about pure noise and total chaos. In addition to this, one can detect a considerable Hawkwind influence, as well as heavy doses of krautrock. While other bands at this time were more likely to incorporate the latest sounds of punk's first wave, Angel Face kept things sounding firmly pre-1977. The end results are pretty mindblowing, tense and aggressive pieces that lock into a groove and pound the hell out of it for the entirety of the song with guitars that sound like sonic flamethrowers. Trying to piece together a timeline here is quite difficult (the liner notes are in French), and the band never even released anything in their lifetime, so what you have here on the first disc are demos and live tracks from sometime between 1975 and 1978 (originally released in 1984 on lp as A Wild Odyssey), strung together to form one surprisingly cohesive whole. We're pretty sure the first tracks feature the singer named Eric Tendz, who was described by the other band members as nothing more than a disreputable Iggy clone. And yes, there will be no mistaking Iggy's influence, but Tendz delivers things so perfectly and frantically that we can't complain one bit. His vocals are often punctuated by shrill little shrieks which seem humanly impossible, and his drunk sounding delivery makes it impossible to tell what language he's singing in (though we think it's English). Other tracks on the first disc are comprised of live recordings which predate the Tendz songs, pieced together in a very Faust-ian way with the band's preferred vocalist Henri Flesh (again, we think). These songs are more loose and unhinged, no doubt due to the guitar prowess of Julian Regoli, whose early presence in the band kept things psychedelic to the highest order. There are also a few tracks that feature just Riton Angel Face and Pascal, on guitar/vocals and synth, respectively. While stripped to their bare essence, these songs come off as strangely powerful and complete sounding. One can only wonder what possibilities might have existed for this amazing band. Unfortunately, there was little working in their favor, and it is easy to imagine scores of idiot punk rockers not knowing what to make of a band of long haired guys with aviator sunglasses.
The story didn't end there, however, and in the '80s Angel Face reformed under the leadership of Riton and Pascal. The biggest change was the decision to add a female vocalist, Kim Nguyen. Truthfully, these songs are a bit of a letdown after the pure rock n' roll fury of the first disc, but mainly in comparison. The songs are pretty good, but just a little more straightforward, and the '80s production certainly doesn't help anything. Likewise, disc 3 is made up of some shoddily recorded live tracks and radio stuff from different eras. Some of this stuff appears to be from the first era and is quite good, but the songs don't benefit from the unfortunate sound quality.
So, you have no doubt noticed the hefty price tag on this beast, and we realize the above paragraph may hold some people back.... BUT we seriously can't recommend the stuff on disc 1 enough, for folks into the likes of Soggy (anther long lost French band of Stooges worshippers) and of course The Stooges themselves. Check out the first four sound clips to see what we mean, and just keep in mind only 1,000 of these were pressed up - and of the dozen we ordered, we've already sold 10 on account of "tweeting" about it, so right now we've got 2, yes TWO - and we may not be seeing them again any time soon...
MPEG Stream: "Wolf City Blues"
MPEG Stream: "12 1/2"
MPEG Stream: "Endless Road (Cut Up Songs)"
MPEG Stream: "I Don't Care"
MPEG Stream: "Secret Town"
MPEG Stream: "Precious Urban Nasty Kid"

V/A Saigon Rock & Soul - Vietnamese Classic Tracks 1968-1974 (Sublime Frequencies) cd 16.98
We made this our Record Of The Week when it first came out on vinyl back in 2010, and that's been out of print for a while now, but has just been reissued, this time on cd, so we figured it oughta be ROTW again...
It seems like of all the Sublime Frequencies releases, all of which are incredible, many so incredible we felt compelled to make them aQ Records Of The Week, none has been as hotly anticipated as this one, ever since word of this release first surfaced, we would constantly get requests and inquiries, folks DYING to get their hands on a copy, and we'd be lying if we said we weren't pretty excited ourselves. So finally, here it is, Saigon Rock & Soul, a collection of fuzzy psychedelic Western influenced Vietnamese garage rock and pop, from the late sixties to the early seventies, heavily influenced by Western music of the time of course, but still somehow so totally and uniquely Southeast Asian.
And like most of these collections, the sounds vary greatly, from super distorted acid drenched psychedelia, to fuzz guitar funk, to wild ramshackle garage rock, to dark smoky soul ballads and pretty much every stop in between.
The history of this music, and the story of its creation, is as amazing as the music itself, as all of these tracks were recorded while the Vietnam war raged, recorded in makeshift studios, sometimes in US Army, camps, released as super limited 45's and tapes, the sounds constantly evolving as local musicians were exposed to the music American G.I.'s would bring over with them, from the surf rock of the Ventures and the Shadows, to stuff like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, James Brown, Santana, Deep Purple, Blue Cheer, Jimi Hendrix, hence the heaviness of some of these tracks, with bands emulating that super distorted guitar tone and that druggy sixties psychedelic vibe.
And some of this stuff really is heavy, the record opens with CBC Band's "Tinh Tuyet Voi", which explodes out of the gate with some seriously fuzzed out caustic guitar riffing, and then there's the "yeah yeah yeah" chorus, that almost sounds like the record is skipping, totally psychedelic and mesmerizing, wild drumming, lysergic leads - here's hoping Sublime Frequencies has a CBC Band reissue in the works!
The rest of the tracks, while maybe not quite as heavy, are still super fuzzy and rocking and groovy, from wild horn drenched exotica, to organ driven garage rock grooves, to funky psychedelic soul, horns all over the place, wild psych guitar leads, super distorted fuzz basslines, pounded piano, loose chaotic drumming, lots of distortion and reverb, even some sampled birdsong (!), the vocals wailed and howled and growled, some of the tracks getting all dark and soulful and smoky, no doubt a nod to the Motown sound, also a huge influence on Vietnamese music of the time, but for the most part, the sound of Saigon at the time was fuzzy and buzzy, wild and rambunctious, rocking and totally psychedelic. Fantastic stuff, and while many of the groups featured here are some of the most popular artists in Vietnam at the time, most of them have remained pretty much entirely unheard by Western ears, until now.
As always, extensive liner notes on the music, the musicians, and the era, as well as some amazing photos.
MPEG Stream: CBC BAND "Tinh Yeu Tuyet Voi "
MPEG Stream: CAROL KIM "Noi Buon Con Gai (The Sadness Of Being A Girl)"
MPEG Stream: LE THU "Sao Bien (Etoile Des Neiges)"
MPEG Stream: ELVIS PHUONG "Kho Tang Cua Chung Ta (Our Treasures)"

WOODS At Echo Lake (Woodsist) lp 14.98
Ah, Woods. It seems like maybe some of us here haven't given these guys as much attention as they deserve. Of course, some of that has to do with the difficulty in getting very many of their singles, and maybe we were just blasted with so many releases on the Woodsist label (which, you guessed it, Woods own and operate) that we overlooked them... not too sure, maybe we're just quibbling. But we will quibble no more, because At Echo Lake has our undivided attention.
This album exhibits an effortless but impeccable attention to songcraft, and even though it clocks in at under 30 minutes, its all encompassing greatness causes you to lose track of time and space, just like a good album should. While Woodsist has earned a reputation for blown out garage pop, Woods themselves are more on the folk side of the spectrum. Words like "lo-fi" will undoubtedly be thrown around, and not without good reason. This IS lo-fi, but instead of hiding behind tape hiss and distortion, the songs make perfect use of the recording quality for an album that is lush, dreamy, and above all, BEAUTIFUL. Singer Jeremy Earl's falsetto croon has earned many comparisons to Neil Young, but we're still trying to figure out who else he reminds us of. Some sort of Jad Fair/Elliott Smith hybrid on helium? Chris Gunst from Beachwood Sparks? Eh, why bother, because we imagine before long it will be Earl other people are being compared to when everyone is ripping his band off. This stuff is just so great that we can't imagine Woods NOT ascending to the next level in the indie world.
Lightly psychedelic opener "Blood Dries Darker" gives off a hazed summery feeling, its warm acoustic (we think) bass recalling the sounds of groups like Dead Milkmen or even Violent Femmes, but also sounding very appropriate for 2010. "Suffering Season" finds Earl and Woods' other half Jarvis Taveniere sounding a bit more like a ramshackle Beachwood Sparks with a ridiculously catchy chorus asking "Who knows what tomorrow might bring?"
The instrumentation on this one should appeal to anyone who dug other recent aQ favorites the Smith Westerns, as both bands seem to inhabit a world where the whole lo-fi thing is not just an excuse for not going to a real studio. Many numbers, like "Time Fading Lines" aren't necessarily "sad", but definitely a bit melancholy. A lot of these songs give off a sense of longing, not in a super defined way or anything... ultimately, though, the vibe here is pretty triumphant, some real feel good kind of stuff. Woods also know how to shake things up a bit, like on the instrumental "From The Horn", hands down the most rocking song here. Skittery guitars and some more aggressive than usual drumming have the band letting loose, and the addition of the cool backwards tape sounds actually reminded us a bit of Faust, as strange as that may sound.
Woods have created their own magical world, perfectly captured in Earl's awesome artwork, which adorns all Woodsist releases but not surprisingly make most sense on his own record sleeves. It's strange, but also very intriguing, a perfect visual accompaniment. The best thing about Woods is how they manage to be mysterious but inclusive, making tunes that will surely please all types of music lovers. It's always great when an album unexpectedly knocks you on your ass. At Echo Lake is one of those albums.
MPEG Stream: "Blood Dries Darker"
MPEG Stream: "Pick Up"
MPEG Stream: "Suffering Season"
MPEG Stream: "Time Fading Lines"

V/A Deutsche Elektronische Musik: Experimental German Rock & Electronic Music 1972-83 (Soul Jazz) 2cd 21.00
Leave it to the fine folks at the Soul Jazz Label to bring us a stellar Krautrock compilation that is as heavy on obscurities as it is on classics. Don't let the fact that the Neu!, Faust and Amon Duul tracks will probably be familiar to the most casual krautrock listener, or that pretty much all the classic bands in the canon (save for Kraftwerk and Klaus Schulze) are represented, deter you from this well-researched and beautifully sequenced compilation. Why? Well, because this compilation does a great job of showcasing the many diverse facets of the music that defined krautrock: Kosmishe electronica, hippie commune folk, motorik rhythms, proggy jazz-funk and lysergic cinematographic soundscapes. There are plenty of rarities from bands we've barely heard of such as Between, E.M.A.K., Michael Bundt, and Ibliss, as well as bands and artists we love like Kollectiv (aka Kollektiv), Conrad Schnitzler, Deuter and Gila that perhaps casual fans may not know much about. Plus many of the more well known groups are represented by less well known tracks or later periods. The Can tracks, for example. "Aspectacle" and "I Want More" are from later records, while the great Tangerine Dream track "No Man's Land" is from an early eighties record, a less seminal period for most classic Krautrock, but one filled with plenty of amazing discoveries for those brave enough to wade through some crud. Thankfully Soul Jazz did that work for us! Here is the full listing of bands: Can (2 tracks), Between, Harmonia (2 tracks) Gila, Kollectiv, Michael Bundt, E.M.A.K., Popol Vuh (2 tracks), Conrad Schnitzler, La Dusseldorf, Faust, Neu!, Cluster, Ibliss, Moebius, Roedelius, Amon Duul II (2 tracks) Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, and Deuter.
Comes with a full color booklet showcasing the history of the bands and music. Perfect for both newbies and longtime fans! Awesome!
MPEG Stream: BETWEEN "Devotion"
MPEG Stream: KOLLECTIV "Rambo Zambo"
MPEG Stream: MICHAEL BUNDT "La Chasse Aux Microbes"
MPEG Stream: CONRAD SCHNITZLER "Auf Dem Schwarzen Canal"
MPEG Stream: IBLISS "High Life"
MPEG Stream: TANGERINE DREAM "No Man's Land"
MPEG Stream: ASH RA TEMPEL "Daydream"

WOODS At Echo Lake (Woodsist) cd 13.98
Ah, Woods. It seems like maybe some of us here haven't given these guys as much attention as they deserve. Of course, some of that has to do with the difficulty in getting very many of their singles, and maybe we were just blasted with so many releases on the Woodsist label (which, you guessed it, Woods own and operate) that we overlooked them... not too sure, maybe we're just quibbling. But we will quibble no more, because At Echo Lake has our undivided attention.
This album exhibits an effortless but impeccable attention to songcraft, and even though it clocks in at under 30 minutes, its all encompassing greatness causes you to lose track of time and space, just like a good album should. While Woodsist has earned a reputation for blown out garage pop, Woods themselves are more on the folk side of the spectrum. Words like "lo-fi" will undoubtedly be thrown around, and not without good reason. This IS lo-fi, but instead of hiding behind tape hiss and distortion, the songs make perfect use of the recording quality for an album that is lush, dreamy, and above all, BEAUTIFUL. Singer Jeremy Earl's falsetto croon has earned many comparisons to Neil Young, but we're still trying to figure out who else he reminds us of. Some sort of Jad Fair/Elliott Smith hybrid on helium? Chris Gunst from Beachwood Sparks? Eh, why bother, because we imagine before long it will be Earl other people are being compared to when everyone is ripping his band off. This stuff is just so great that we can't imagine Woods NOT ascending to the next level in the indie world.
Lightly psychedelic opener "Blood Dries Darker" gives off a hazed summery feeling, its warm acoustic (we think) bass recalling the sounds of groups like Dead Milkmen or even Violent Femmes, but also sounding very appropriate for 2010. "Suffering Season" finds Earl and Woods' other half Jarvis Taveniere sounding a bit more like a ramshackle Beachwood Sparks with a ridiculously catchy chorus asking "Who knows what tomorrow might bring?"
The instrumentation on this one should appeal to anyone who dug other recent aQ favorites the Smith Westerns, as both bands seem to inhabit a world where the whole lo-fi thing is not just an excuse for not going to a real studio. Many numbers, like "Time Fading Lines" aren't necessarily "sad", but definitely a bit melancholy. A lot of these songs give off a sense of longing, not in a super defined way or anything... ultimately, though, the vibe here is pretty triumphant, some real feel good kind of stuff. Woods also know how to shake things up a bit, like on the instrumental "From The Horn", hands down the most rocking song here. Skittery guitars and some more aggressive than usual drumming have the band letting loose, and the addition of the cool backwards tape sounds actually reminded us a bit of Faust, as strange as that may sound.
Woods have created their own magical world, perfectly captured in Earl's awesome artwork, which adorns all Woodsist releases but not surprisingly make most sense on his own record sleeves. It's strange, but also very intriguing, a perfect visual accompaniment. The best thing about Woods is how they manage to be mysterious but inclusive, making tunes that will surely please all types of music lovers. It's always great when an album unexpectedly knocks you on your ass. At Echo Lake is one of those albums.
MPEG Stream: "Blood Dries Darker"
MPEG Stream: "Pick Up"
MPEG Stream: "Suffering Season"
MPEG Stream: "Time Fading Lines"

MOON DUO Killing Time EP (Sacred Bones) cd 11.98
FINALLY AVAILABLE ON CD! Here's what we said when we reviewed the now out of print vinyl 12" version:
All right! Moon Duo returns with another hazed out transmission from some lost dimension (otherwise known as San Francisco), this one courtesy of the always cool Sacred Bones label. The duo (obviously) features Ripley Johnson from local heroes Wooden Shjips, and their sound is not too far removed from Ripley's main band, maybe a little more ethereal and not quite as overtly "rocking", but definitely following a similar path of hypnotic, fuzzy repetition that we can't get enough of.
Moon Duo are capable of creating powerful songs from very little and they obviously understand the power of simplicity. Each of the four songs on this ep utilize the same hypnotic drum machine groove, altered to various pitches and speeds to accommodate each individual song. The result is like a mechanical heartbeat, throbbing relentlessly with krauty precision, and almost serving as some sort of chain to link each of the songs together. The record begins with "Killing Time", which sounds a bit like a Joy Division part looped forever as the soft, distorted vocals lurk beneath melodic guitars and fuzzy background static. With its buzzing organ and controlled feedback, "Speed" rocks a bit like Suicide augmented by shrieking guitar pulses and, uh, harmonica? Maybe. The cool thing here is how sounds blend together in a cyclone of warm, pulsating analog goodness. At times you are unaware of what you're hearing, and even though it gets noisy and overblown, the results are always catchy and super melodic.
Side 2 begins with "Dead West", which has a cool underwater feel. The song fucks with your perception of time and place, as it could have been recorded 40 years ago or 40 years from now. Sonically, it is a bit reminiscent of fellow California space travelers Sun Araw with its percussive guitar strumming and shimmering psychedelic feel, as a little keyboard melody stands at the center of things while the rest of the sounds oscillate all over the place. "Ripples" gives off a Spacemen 3 vibe as the drumbeat is slowed significantly. The guitars have a nice bit of twang to them, and the sounds once again appear to get caught in some sort of musical whirlpool as they merge together before a cool fadeout.
Picking up where the last ep left off, Killing Time finds Moon Duo descending even deeper into a state of super rhythmic, dreamy psychedelia. Just the way we like it.
MPEG Stream: "Killing Time"
MPEG Stream: "Ripples"

CHERRY, DON Brown Rice (A&M / Jazz Heritage) cd 17.98
We don't believe this is a new reissue, but it's one of our favorite jazz records ever, a real classic, and this is the first time we've been able to get a bunch to list. Perhaps it's even our most favorite Don Cherry album, which is saying a lot since there are so many of his records we love (this is the third we've made a Record of the Week) and there's been much spirited discussion around here between this one and Orient, a former record of the week from, egad, eight years ago! But hell, they're both really amazing so if you dug Orient, or the collaboration with Latif Khan we made Record of the Week a year ago, you'll definitely want to get this, and if you have no Don Cherry in your collection, you might as well start right here. Why we've never been able to list this before is a huge mystery, but let's just make up for lost time and tell you why this is so great.
Released in 1975 on the A&M label, Brown Rice is just 4 songs clocking at about 39 minutes. It's as focussed as Orient was sprawling, mining the same African, Indian, and Arabic influences, but in much tighter and dynamic, almost rock-oriented arrangements. Penetratingly deep on a spiritual level but also engaging and propulsive in its accessibility, Brown Rice is a record that gets right to the point the second the opening electric piano riff and female wordless singing of the title track begin. With wah'd out guitars and electric bongos building up into a groove, this is Cherry at his funkiest with ghostly trumpet shrieks off in the background, vocalised rhythm syncopations and Charlie Haden's underscoring bass swirling around Cherry's whispered chanting. "Malkauns", the longest track at 14 minutes lays down a lackadaisical vibe with tamboura and bass slowly unfolding a wide ground for Cherry's plaintive trumpet to eventually arrive and build up momentum with Billy Higgins' drumming pushing the proceedings upward and outward, eventually floating down back to earth. The third track "Chenrezig" begins deep and solemn with bass rumbles, chimes and Cherry's low and shaman-like vocals sometimes delving into Tuvan throat level buzz and whispering, augmented by high piano tones and lilting trumpet trills before the energy unleashes, not so much in a blind fury as it is a concentrated and feverish ritual extraction of sound. The final track, "Degi-Degi" brings us back to the driving rhythms and grooves of "Brown Rice", with Cherry's whispered chants and some of his brightest and most lyrical trumpet playing really feeling the space.
We can't help but wonder how much of Cherry's soundtrack work for the film Holy Mountain had an influence on his direction for this record, as Brown Rice is that rare hybrid of jazz, rock and film score, one we could easily see visualized on film. In the same line as Bitches Brew, Herbie Hancock's Sextant, or the recent Love Cry Want reissue, but also with the same sort of deep spiritual core we treasure so much in records by Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra. Essential!
MPEG Stream: "Brown Rice"
MPEG Stream: "Malkauns"

MOON DUO Escape (Woodsist) cd 13.98
Right on. Moon Duo are back with another four song blast of spaced out, super rhythmic psychedelic goodness. Escape arrives on the heels of two 12" eps, and it is by far their best effort yet. Of course we loved those previous releases, but Escape is the sound of a band who has really hit their stride now, and the songs are more mysterious, more relentless, and just more rocking than anything up to this point. We're not sure if there are real drums on this release (yes?) instead of a drum machine, but whatever the case, the rhythms here just grab hold and throttle you, while Ripley Johnson, he of local favorites Wooden Shjips, takes things beyond the stratosphere with his trademark fuzz solos, which are among the best you will currently hear on planet Earth.
"Motorcycle, I Love You" opens the album in perfect fashion with a vaguely evil two note riff, murky vocals bubbling out of the haze, swirling keyboard drones, and yeah, an awesome extended solo that kicks in and stays there. Goddamn. "In The Trees" is a steady rocker, like a hyped up Velvet Underground jam simplified and done west coast style. A nice tambourine hit accents the pounding drums, while the spacey guitar builds an impenetrable wall of beautiful, melodic white noise. "Stumbling 22nd St" - hey, that sounds familiar - is driven by a simple keyboard melody riding above subsonic fuzz guitar and a tight rhythm. When the riff switches to riff #2 (there aren't really choruses or any of that unnecessary shit here), you will know why we think this is the best stuff Moon Duo has produced so far. The changes in their songs, subtle as they may often be, are what make it clear that this isn't just stupid psychedelic rambling. There is some awesome songcraft going on, and we love it. The title track brings the album to its end. "Escape" is by far the poppiest and most upbeat song on the album, sounding like an extended take of the best pop song in the world working its way through some phased out vortex. The recording quality, lo-fi but perfectly appropriate, definitely gives this a nice timeless quality. It sounds like this stuff could have been recorded at any point within the last 40 years, while never sounding anything but current. Good stuff for sure.
Yeah, it's easy to see why people are digging Moon Duo so much. There is nothing not to like, and while this type of music can be rendered totally boring in the wrong hands, some people just know what's up. Moon Duo knows what's up.
MPEG Stream: "Motorcycle, I Love You"
MPEG Stream: "Escape"

SPACEMEN 3 The Perfect Prescription (Fire Records) cd 15.98
Nice, now we have these essential albums available on cd too!
For some people, it's Playing With Fire. For others, probably most, it's The Perfect Prescription, Spacemen 3's ultimate statement and the record where everything was working together in absolute harmony. The record cover itself seems to completely capture the essence of Spacemen 3, with Sonic Boom and Jason Pierce holding their guitars, eyes closed, no doubt concentrating deeply on the contents of their minds. It seems fair to call this their pinnacle, as things would become increasingly more split between the group's mainmen from this point on. The Perfect Prescription is one of those rare albums that is completely beyond criticism. Don't even try. Beginning in classic Spacemen 3 style with "Take Me To The Other Side", the album subsequently incorporates a wide array of influences and styles, from soul to gospel to country, making it clear that, even though they did it better than anyone else, there was far more to this band than just walls of fuzzed out drones. Even with this diversity, everything on the album belongs to Spacemen 3 - especially their cover of the Red Crayola's "Transparent Radiation" - and they were able to harness all their powers into something which is, yeah, pretty fuckin' definitive. We could go on forever, but we won't.
MPEG Stream: "Take Me To The Other Side"
MPEG Stream: "Walkin' With Jesus"
MPEG Stream: "Feel So Good"

MARDUK Wormwood (Regain) cd 14.98
In the beginning, Swedish black metal horde Marduk were a special breed, a sonic panzer division onslaught, that mostly consisted of locking into a riff, dropping in an insanely fast blast beat, and then letting rip, rarely veering from their course. Fast and furious and heavy. Lots of folks thought they were boring, but for us, the sound of Marduk was transcendent, mesmerizing, hypnotic, cyclical, it was trancelike, and we loved it.
The something changed, and Marduk began to morph into something new, something much less one dimensional (even though it was a great dimension), their sound began to drift more toward the avant garde side of BM, becoming more gnarled and convoluted and fucked up, where was once old school classic Swedish blackness, aligned with the Scandinavian pantheon, was now some strange modern avant black weirdness, now more in line with groups like Deathspell Omega, Funeral Mist and the like, which make sense considering Funeral Mist vocalist Mortuus joined the group right around this shift.
And while we still hold the old Marduk records near and dear to our hearts, it's hard to deny the twisted beast Marduk has become, especially considering how much the BM envelope has been pushed lately, Marduk may be old guard, but they've stepped up and put most of the new guard to shame.
2007's Rom 5:12 was a totally twisted game changer, bumming out lots of old time fans, but reinvigorating the group, and turning on a whole new legion of fans enmeshed in the more progressive side of BM, which has all lead to this, easily the best Marduk record yet. Certainly the weirdest, and catchiest, the same folks who hated Rom 5:12 will probably hate this one too, unless they've finally come to their senses, for the rest of us, it's a chance to dig in to an incredibly dense and bizarre record by a band at the top of their game.
There's plenty of furious blasting blackness on Wormwood, it's just that there's so much more, and even when the band is blasting blackly, they're still twisting it all up. After a creepy intro the band explode into a frenzy of super complex convoluted thrashing, the riffs are strange, atonal, warped, the arrangement is incredible, with the band stopping and starting, lurching wildly, slipping into a doomy creep, only to launch right back into it, the sound is MASSIVE, there's bass all over the place (in a notoriously bass-less genre), Mortuus' vocals are SICK, an inhuman gurgling rasp, and the riffs amazing, wild and tangled and melodic, it's 3 minutes for Marduk, but for other bands it would be a whole record. Which leads right into the seasick lumber of "Funeral Dawn", with an almost industrial martial vibe, soaring epic and melodic, the main melody impossibly catchy, while streaks of noise swirl around the riffs, there's even a breakdown where Mortuus's sick vox are laid over a thick undulating bassline, the resulting sound is like a blackened Laibach.
"The Fleshy Void" is a 3 minute hyperblast of black intensity, still tangled and warped, but impossibly heavy and fast, giving way to the super creepy "Unclosing The Curse", all tolling bells and pulsing bass, abstract guitar chords, and hateful vokills, spare and spaced out and super ominous.
Wormwood is not inherently a 'weird record', it's not fucked up and freaky the way Furze or Necrofrost are - the weirdness here, the strange song structures, the freaked out non black parts, the fucked up samples, the drones, the doomy breakdowns, they're all seamlessly integrated into Marduk's sound, for every blast of Swedish blackness, there's some soaring melodic almost NWOBHM sounding melody, for every stretch of doomy pound, there's some gurgly bass heavy creep, the whole record is twisted, but subtly so, it's not about being weird or fucked up, it's about making a truly original piece of black art, which by its very nature IS both fucked up and weird. But the fact that's not the be all end all, keeps Wormwood from being gimmicky, instead it's a fierce and furious ultra heavy black metal record, with lots of twists and turns, which in a nutshell, means quite possible black metal record of the year for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Nowhere, No-One, Nothing"
MPEG Stream: "Funeral Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "To Redirect Perdition"

VELVET CACOON P aa opal poere pr.33 (Starlight Temple Society) cd 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two weeks ago when we made Velvet Cacoon's stellar Atropine one of our Records Of The Week, we mentioned the possibility of yet ANOTHER VC release in the not too distant future. Well here it is, way sooner than we had initially predicted.
While Atropine may have baffled some fans of this already baffling band with its total ambience and a complete absence of the blown out black metal they made their name on, it also managed to perfectly convey the drugged out isolation and dissociative bliss that has always been central to their music. Atropine is an intense piece of work, very rewarding when listened to with patience, BUT... we'd be lying if we said we didn't miss the metal. Thankfully, P aa opal poere pr.33 (good grief, what a title!) arrives right on the heels of Atropine, and more than anything, it seems to be the perfect companion piece to that previous album, delivering almost 40 minutes of murky, blissful as fuck METAL, heavy on the nautical themes that have commonly been part of Velvet Cacoon's M.O. Yet even as we write the word "METAL," we are faced with the already obvious realization that Velvet Cacoon pretty much defies any simple classification. Call it shoegaze, ambient, metal, hell, even pop... their sound is unique, and even though scores of imitators have popped up in recent years, the second we put this on we knew who we were listening to (unless they completely stole these recordings like some of their other albums supposedly...) While it does share some certain sonic similarities to the band's previous work, it would be lazy to write off P aa opal poere pr.33 as merely the successor to the band's now classic Genevieve, and here Velvet Cacoon seem to have arrived at the most realized encapsulation of their sound to date. So yes, it's REALLY fucking good. And thus also a Record Of The Week!
According to the notes, vocals here are handled by one Cain of a band called Snowfall. His style falls into a more traditional style of black metal shrieking, acting as the perfect foil to Velvet Cacoon's melodic fuzzed out dirges, but we are also fairly certain that VC mainman SGL (or "Josh" if you want to demystify things) is handling a lot of the vocal duties here. What the fuck? Whatever. The album opens with "2.", with the trademark Velvet Cacoon "dieselharp" guitar sound accompanied by a lumbering drum machine rhythm and a sound that gains momentum as it appears to bubble up from the bottom of the sea. "Claverie" is huge sounding with a nice lazy groove and a hazy narcotic feel, sort of like sleepwalking. As distant drones swirl about, the riff remains steady until changing at the 6 minute mark, with a guitar that is so sustained it almost sounds like a keyboard. The standout track here is "Marylux", with an awesome and unique riff that pretty much sounds like a psychedelic black metal sea shanty. At the same time, it gives off a sort of a '90s indie vibe. What doesn't make sense on paper, however, KILLS in reality. It's catchy, amazing, and dreamy in the sense that a band like, say, Windy and Carl is dreamy... but also "dreamy" in the way that being fucked out of your mind of psychotropic drugs is dreamy, so you really get the best of all kinds of different worlds with this song. With "Grevona", the melodies lie hidden below layers of murky guitar fuzz, everything is so hazy and distant sounding, like a slow moving ship going nowhere while the vocals float around helplessly. On "Oviamoire," a soothing riff wraps you up in its fuzzy majesty while the abject vocals croak below the surface. There is a certain spectral quality to it, all gauzy and whatnot, with krauty keyboard drones adding even more ambience to the affair. The last song on the album, "Sovarine" sways rhythmically back and forth with the vocals sounding like some sort of nefarious bottom dwelling ocean minion. Or something. While the guitars are all warm and fuzzy, the overall vibe here is of coldness and isolation. Not to belabor the point, but it's kind of like being lost at sea, though no one could have predicted it would sound this awesome. The album closes with a brief piece entitled "Flouvonne," with two voices, one male and the other female, speaking in French as the wind blows amid crackling sounds, a weird and somehow totally appropriate end to the journey.
In a music world where few mysteries truly exist, it's always nice to know that Velvet Cacoon will never be making things easy for us. Whether or not they are "true", some sort of pseudo-intellectual performance art, or maybe even a complete fucking joke, their music is never anything less than amazing. If you hated them before, it's unlikely that this album will change any of that. But for those of us who have patiently waited for the last five years wondering if P aa opal poere pr.33 would ever become a reality, you will find much to look forward to.
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "Claverie"
MPEG Stream: "Marylux"

SOROR DOLOROSA Severance (Todestrieb) cd 14.98
Soror Dolorosa is a band that will confound many of those trolling the internet for any number of '80s deathrock / darkwave obscurities. You could easily slip Soror Dolorosa - with its Goth name, its monochromatic artwork, the theatrical vocals, the rhythmic savagery - next to the likes of Christian Death, Specimen, The March Violets, and The Virgin Prunes, and none would be the wiser. Of all the '80s references to make, Clair Obscure (while very well, obscure) is probably the closest, if that French band had been much better in grafting songs to match the ritualistic deathrock throb.
The biggest surprise here might not in fact be that this is new and not some archival eighties lost gem, but that it is in fact the project of Nuit Noire drummer Andy Julia, who has also played in Peste Noire, Mutiilation and other grim black combos. None of which would at all prepare you for the glorious cold wave miserablism found here, Julia has such a distinctive croon, and the band conjure up such an amazing batcave new wave gloom, it sounds like it has to be from the eighties.
The guitars shimmer and chime, the bass is thick and throbbing, the drums are simple and propulsive, the sounds is spacious, lots of reverb and delay, but it's all about the vocals, a mournful dramatic croon, somewhere between Ian Curtis and Andrew Eldritch. In fact, this totally channels the spirit of the Sisters Of Mercy, as well as the Virgin Prunes, the Fields Of The Nephilim, the Cure all that awesomely epic gothic darkness we grew up on.
But as we know, it's easy to just emulate a sound, any band can sound like their favorite band of old, that phenomenon is responsible for at least several scenes and sounds. But that music, that classic sound, is as much about songs as it is about sounds. We often lament, that songwriting seems to have been supplanted by the mere act of being in a band, of making the right noises.
And it's in that way that Soror Dolorosa stand out from all the other cold wave wannabes, they write amazing songs, filled with incredible melodies, hooks galore, the basslines as memorable as the vocal lines, dramatic, intense, personal, emotional, the vocals oozing with pathos, the songs themselves rife with parts and pieces that are incredibly catchy, when the vocals drop out, you're still hearing them in your head, you find yourself humming along to the bass, or slipping away from the vocals and getting lost in the shimmering reverbed riffage.
The whole record is fantastic, but opener "Beau Suicide" is maybe one of our favorite cold wave jams ever, past or present, so dark and driving, with a main riff to die for (the sort of riff Interpol has spent their whole career trying to come up with), a cool jagged angular guitar freakout midway through, an incredible and impossibly melodic bassline, and one of the coolest, most intense, and unforgettable vocal lines, so good. Just this track gets played so much in the store it's beginning to feel like the aQ theme song. Then there's the nearly 12 minute closing track "American Chronicle", a lilting, super dramatic gloom pop epic, with long stretches of dour drift, the guitar unfurling gorgeous echoey melodies, the vocals more emotional and anguished than anywhere on the record, which is strange, since the music is perhaps the prettiest and most melodic.
Needless to say, absolutely required listening for folks who like their pop gloomy, their eighties revivalists depressive and dark, and who count any of the above mentioned bands in their personal pantheon. And while we love the current revival of lo-fi new wave goth garage pop, Cold Cave, Blank Dogs, Gary War, Zola Jesus, etc... Soror Dolorosa has supplanted them all and now seems to be the record we can NOT stop listening to.
MPEG Stream: "Beau Suicide"
MPEG Stream: "43 Degrees"
MPEG Stream: "Dare Me"

VELVET CACOON Atropine (Full Moon Productions) 2cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK!!
It takes a lot to be "controversial" these days, even if you are a black metal band, and it's unlikely at this point that we would have to be the ones to tell you about all the craziness that has shrouded Velvet Cacoon since God knows when, so we're just not going to bother. What we can tell you is this: Atropine actually does exist, we got it, and while it may not be exactly what anyone was prepared for, it is no doubt an intense piece of work, one that cannot be listened to as mere background noise and instead requires lots of focus and patience for the full, um, "experience". The biggest surprise here is the absolute, 100 percent absence of any actual metal, with Velvet Cacoon's droning ambient side taking over for a colossal two hour suite of dissociative, druggy as fuck BLISS. Atropine's subtleties are also its greatest qualities (though to be fair, they are its only qualities), because this is only going to make even the slightest amount of sense if you stick around for the whole trip, and there's no way that will happen if you're blasting it in your car on the way to work. You're probably gonna want to turn off the lights, break out some sort of mind altering substance, close your eyes, let the tones take over, and contemplate your complete nothingness in the universe. It's difficult to imagine what exactly is influencing Velvet Cacoon (other than a whole lot of drugs), because this stuff is clearly coming from somewhere else, and whatever bullshit may or may not be true, at the end of the day it only really makes sense to judge them by their music, which is powerful and evocative in ways so many other bands will never achieve. Then you realize that the mysteries surrounding the duo are pretty much legitimized by the strangeness of their music alone.
"To find out how, insert." With these words printed on disc 1, we did just that, and we were off. Opener "Candlesmoke" kicks off the long journey, beginning with a low rumbling and semi-rhythmic white noise followed by a slowly creeping spectral ambience. Things are calm, but dark, and possibly a bit sinister. Your mind conjures thoughts perfectly captured in Velvet Cacoon's artwork: hazy images of lonely trees in unfathomable wildernesses, bits of nature peering out of grey expanses. It's hard to discern what instruments are actually making the noise, but none of that really matters, because before long it's like your floating in a mountain lake looking up at the stars. The piece is murky and majestic, and just as you begin to detect a pattern resembling an actual "song", things simply fade away into eternity. With "Funeral Noir," we were expecting Velvet Cacoon to rip our faces off like in the good old days, but nope. The song begins to bloom out of the cavernous ambience with static-y background crackles and super slow fuzzed out heaviness way off in the distance. The emphasis, however, is on the blankets of atmosphere, and though the song is pretty much formless, it manages to sound incredibly sad and evoke feelings of loneliness and separation from the world. "Graveside Sonnet," writhes with movement, but definitely not within the traditional methods of songcraft. Rather than trying to control the music and color it with any traces of human personality, the band instead appears to accept the will of its subconscious and let the song simply go where it will. The first disc closes with "Dreaming In A Hemlock Patch," which begins the first moments of its 37 minute (damn!) existence with almost total silence. Then, true to its title, you fall into a trance and journey deep into thought, as stuttering sounds, uh, stutter about, moving you forward and sending you way off into the atmosphere. A barely noticeable pulsing rhythm comes in around the six minute mark, but you are now totally lost and removed from time and location. And guess what? No one else exists. Crackling sounds continue, and a foggy drone takes over everything in its path. The song is a bit reminiscent of the minimalism of Wolfgang Voigt's Gas, but even more minimal. Even so, it's scope is massive and sleep inducing, and if for some reason you wanted to stop a 37 minute track, say, 20 minutes in, you can't, you can only accept it. The noises change shape and shift to other directions, and an undefinable but very psychedelic sound takes over, moving like a heartbeat before slipping away. Pretty cosmic stuff. And, holy fuck, that's only disc 1!
The second disc begins with "Nightvines," which perfectly exhibits Velvet Cacoon's ability to establish a sound that would best be described as "nautical." With a vaguely bell like drone and a sound that seems to emerge out of a thick mist, you get the feeling of drifting evenly along in unknown waters. A definite coldness prevails, and the sound has a quality that is almost like breathing. "Nocturnal Carriage" is the sound of being lost, its catatonic drones sounding like a ghostly choir buried deep under layers of fog. It brings to mind Popul Vuh's "Aguirre," only stripped of all its melodic definition with just the ambience intact. It's like that last moment of consciousness before sleep sets in, with that last moment being prolonged for 27 minutes, like walking around in total blackness, and it fades out like a dream that will continue forever. The shortest track, "Earth And Dark Petals," makes you think of forces from within the earth trying to make their way out of the ground and into the world, struggling to define themselves within the overwhelming hugeness of nature, only briefly before the final track, "Autumn Burial Victoria," which seeks to sustain the drones all the way to infinity. At around the 10:30 mark, there is a muted percussive crash, just once, but that's really the only other thing that manages to seep out. The album concludes very softly with sounds that are almost not there. When it ends, maybe you'll wake up, or maybe you won't.
Whew. Listening to Atropine, as in "really" listening to it, takes some dedication, but the results are rewarding enough for anyone up to the task. There will most likely be a serious bitchfest in the works from those expecting the blown out shoegazing fury Velvet Cacoon built their name on. But crying over something like that overlooks just how essential the more subdued sounds of Velvet Cacoon have been since the beginning, and in the event that it's not a total hoax, the band should be delivering an actual "metal" album in the near future. Until then, zone out and give yourself up to the unexplored regions of your mind with Atropine.
MPEG Stream: "Candlesmoke"
MPEG Stream: "Funeral Noir"
MPEG Stream: "Nightvines"
MPEG Stream: "Autumn Burial Victoria"

MEADS OF ASPHODEL, THE The Early Years (Godreah) cd 11.98
The Meads of Asphodel have been a longtime favorite around these parts, not surprisingly, since they've been pushing the boundaries of how black metal is defined with their bizarre, often hilarious brand of nutso, super anti-Christian metal with notable medieval and Middle Eastern influences. Though you will find it impossible to stifle (nervous?) laughter at various moments, the Meads, however, are no joke. In fact, one could argue that their highly unorthodox stance is actually WAY more real and bad ass than the plethora of groups all adopting the same boring, pseudo-Satanic bullshit pose. Maybe some find it difficult to take seriously a band with a penchant for dressing up in medieval armor, but why not? It's certainly no less ridiculous than corpsepaint. The notes in this collection of demos from the band's first phase (1998-2002), penned by group leader Metatron, make it clear that sucking up to record labels and metal fans in general was never part of the agenda. Instead, the Meads have been, and continue to be, true to only themselves. Fuck yeah.
With this anything goes mentality, the Meads have delivered some of the weirdest, most incomprehensible metal maybe ever. The influence of NWOBHM greats, notably Venom, shines bright, but how many other black metal groups would you expect to punctuate their evil riffage with parts that sound like drunken medieval wedding parties, disco breakdowns, and country western hoedowns? Not too many. The strangest part about all of these is how randomly they will pop up, when you're never expecting it.
Symphonic keyboards are also pretty central to the Meads' sound, with heavy as fuck church organs and harpsichord-styled synths adding a decidedly atmospheric element to it all. There are even some moments of strummed 4AD style jangle, but take note of the covers by GBH and Italian thrashers Bulldozer to get an idea of the band's more aggressive influences. Heavy D-Beats, punkish power chords, and harsh bellowing (in addition to some nice black metal croaking, of course) exist in the mix in pretty much equal measure to everything else.
We would be lying if we said this band was for everyone. But for those who like their metal adventurous, totally fucked, and pretty much without precedent, we couldn't recommend this highly enough!
MPEG Stream: "Just Another Time To Kill"
MPEG Stream: "Rise In Godless Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Another God In Another Place"

COLD CAVE Love Comes Close (Heartworm Press) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Cold Cave have really been making the rounds as of late, but unless you were one of the lucky few to obtain some of their super limited vinyl only platters or their recent Cremations collection (which is still available), you may have been left out in the... cold. HAHA! But anyway, Love Comes Close is the first official Cold Cave record, though it does include the three songs (re-recorded?) off the band's disgustingly limited Etsel and Ruby 12" which we had for about 5 minutes, as well as the song "The Trees Grew Emotions And Died" from the ep of the same name, all of them winners. We are happy to report that this baby more than ably lives up to all the hype. It's not that the sound of Cold Cave is revolutionary or progressive... nay, in far less skilled hands, this could easily be filed under the "derivative shit" category, but Cold Cave's remarkable melodic sense and keen understanding of songcraft are so expertly handled that their tunes come off more like lost synth pop classics. It's actually a bit unbelievable just how darkly catchy these songs are, and how they will just pop into your head at random moments like they've been there for ages. Cold Cave's music is the perfect combination of everything that is great about '80s synth based music with none of the dated cheesiness, or maybe more appropriately, just the right amount of dated cheesiness. OMD styled melodies and uber dramatic vocals from the school of Ian Curtis meld with throbbing rhythms, awesome life denying lyrics, and a pronounced gothic element, but goth as interpreted by hardcore kids. All of these combined are enough to make Cold Cave stand out from the rest of the pack. Plus, you know it's gotta be good when various folks may *want* to dislike something but can't muster the hate in their hearts simply because it's so great.
The album kicks off with "Cebe And Me", with super minimal percussion and murky, distorted female vocals that weave around a repetitive synth buzz. This sets things up perfectly for the next track, "Love Comes Close," with CC mainman Wes Eisold's deadpan vocals and music that manages to be both upbeat and melancholy as hell. The real kicker with this one, however, is the fact that it is a DEAD RINGER for the melody in the infamous mirror dance scene in Silence Of The Lambs. So now all you dudes can fashion a mangina and prance naked in front of your mirror within the comfort of your own home, just like Buffalo Bill. "Life Magazine" utilizes a blown out buzzy keyboard to hold the foundation while more down to earth programming and amazing female vocals courtesy of one time Xiu Xiu collaborator Caralee McElroy help to make this maybe our favorite track on the album. A reedy little synth melody sits atop everything else, and the dreaminess of it all sends things way off into the clouds... Goddamn, it's so good.
Naming a song "Heaven Was Full" definitely sets the bar pretty high, you're pretty much obligated to make it awesome, and that's just what Cold Cave did with this one. Subsonic oscillations swirl below what sounds like wispy winds made by a synthesizer, accompanied by Eisold's low croon and some of the catchiest and most beautiful melodies on the album. The slow movement of this piece really strikes an emotional chord, it's a real downer, but it's so irresistible it hurts. "The Tree Grew Emotions And Died" features some cool clanky drum machines with staccato boy/girl vocals and an ever present layer of super blown out guitars (we think), with a nice, slightly bouncy keyboard melody carrying the song forward. Album closer "I.C.D.K." is a quirky yet slightly ominous dance number that will certainly keep many an ass shaking all night long, and when it's all over, you first instinct will be to put Love Comes Close on for another round.
Undoubtedly Cold Cave will have trouble escaping comparisons to bands like the Cure, Joy Division, and even the Magnetic Fields at times, and not without good reason. But the band's greatest strength is its ability to go beyond their influences and deliver music that is too amazing and well written to be ignored. If you don't dig it, it doesn't mean people will respect your supposed impeccable taste and appreciation for groundbreaking music... it means you're missing out.
MPEG Stream: "Love Comes Close"
MPEG Stream: "Life Magazine"
MPEG Stream: "Heaven Was Full"

ONEIDA Rated O (Jagjaguwar) 3cd 15.98
Here it finally is. Oneida's loooooong promised TRIPLE album, itself part two in a trilogy of releases that appear to chronicle the long and epic history of Oneida itself. We're still trying to piece together a narrative, but judging by song titles like "Story Of O" and "O", not to mention the album title, the fact that the previous record was called Preteen Weaponry, and artwork that seems to imply the chronicling of said long and epic history, we're just going with our gut on this one. Either way, with a decade plus of mostly ups, Oneida have delivered what is arguably their best record yet, or at least since 2001's psychedelic mind fuck Anthem Of The Moon, and it's really one of the most challenging, out there, and overwhelmingly rad albums of the year. The greatest thing about this band is how they use psychedelia as a blueprint, reinterpreting it in the process, and twisting their tunes into something beyond simple classification. There's heaps of krauty goodness, ominous electro groove, strange dubbed out hellscapes, and bluesy psychedelic squall, but in the end Oneida sound unlike anyone else, not even themselves on their other records (though we won't neglect to mention that anyone digging the recent works of groups like Circle and Cave will find plenty to go crazy for with this one).
One of the most noteworthy things about Rated O is the truly astounding precision playing that keeps everything in place. Everyone in the band (now augmented by Shahin Motia of Ex-Models and long time collaborator Barry London) is an ace performer, but GODDAMN is drummer Kid Millions' sense of pure rhythm mind boggling. The patterns Kid creates are essential to holding it all together, and his cyclical drumbeats are definitely the kind of next level shit that we should all aspire to. Coupled with literally some of the best fuzzed out organ tones ever committed to tape (EVER) and plenty of amazing psych guitar work, Rated O rocks and sways in all kinds of different directions, and it goes without saying that over the course of almost two hours, Oneida have given themselves plenty of time to seer their super repetitive jams deep into every nook and cranny of your brain. Throughout it all, they never cease to surprise, amaze, and with one song in particular, completely terrify (more on that in a bit).
Rated O plays out like a long journey, with each disc representing specific elements of the diverse sound Oneida has forged over the years. The album begins with the uncharacteristic yet somehow totally appropriate "Brownout In Lagos," an electro-dub sort of number with a constant sub bass presence providing much of the movement as atmospheric noises swoosh about. When the awesome guest vocalist comes in you have to remind yourself that you are listening to Oneida as your eardrums are pounded into supplication. "What's Up Jackal?" sounds more like what you might expect from these guys, with feral, distorted howls and a bubbling, percussive organ accompanied by all kinds of synthy ambience and what sounds like an electric sitar. While they have no difficulty pounding out expansive drugged out numbers, this song perfectly displays Oneida's unique talent at creating tense, claustrophobic psych pieces that seem much more focused than anything that could be produced with mindless jamming. No doubt, the big surprise here is "The Human Factor," which pretty much succeeds at redefining "heavy". We almost couldn't believe what or who we were listening to, since this number is more what you might expect from Khanate of Fleshpress. The song begins with an impossibly slow, yet super tight drum pattern, which remains throughout the 13 minute song. The only other sound is provided by an electronic hum, and eventually creepy siren noises and the most HELLISH, completely out of control screaming we have heard in ages. We're still trying to figure out just how Oneida managed to create such an unsettling and awesome piece with so little, making most doom bands sound like Dan Fogelberg in comparison. This song obviously tested the limits of many folks, but if you are able to sit back and focus, you will find yourself marveling at the almost comedic yet totally fucked up intensity of it all.
Disc 2 is the most typically Oneida-sounding of the three, starting with the epic jam "The River." This song is very much in the vein of the material from "Each One Teach One," with awesome repetitive organ pulses and fuzzy guitars that are both heavy and beautiful. Things really take off with this song, as the majestic sustained guitar chords and somewhat mournful vocals add a good amount of emotion. "I Will Haunt You" follows into similar psychedelic territory with big MC5 guitars and a generally mountainous sound.
The final disc is the loosest and seemingly most improvised of the album, its three songs venturing farthest into the drug zone with their lumbering improvisational feel. Closing number "Folk Wisdom" is a huge 20 minute piece, perfectly sounding like the culmination of the entire record with its epic, growing intensity before ending with a queasy organ blip. If you've gone about things the right way, you will have listened to all of Rated O straight through, and you will wonder just what the hell hit you.
Double albums are often enough to scare the shit out of any discerning music fan, and triple albums are generally unheard of. But Oneida cannot be generalized in terms of what is going on now or in the past. They are one of the few bands that truly has found its own unique voice and has taken things into realms most bands would never consider. Rated O is a serious piece of work, maybe a little too intimidating for the casual listener, but enough to keep Oneida's rabid fanbase jonesing for part three of the trilogy.
MPEG Stream: "Brownout In Lagos"
MPEG Stream: "The Human Factor"
MPEG Stream: "The River"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost In The Room"
MPEG Stream: "Folk Wisdom"

RUSTED SHUT Dead (Load) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What would you think if someone described a band to you, as sounding like a mix of Butthole Surfers, Black Flag, the Brainbombs and black metal? Want if they went on to describe the band's sound in more detail, and they came up with something like "thick oozing ultra distorted, totally chaotic, drone drenched, drugged out, noisy as fuck, weirdly hypnotic, punishing and pulverizing, scuzz drenched doomic plod"? Well your first thought, if you were anything like us, would be "could such a band actually exist?" It does sound too good to be true. Your next thought might be "well okay, if a band like that did exist, not only would they be scary as shit, they'd also probably be my favorite band EVER."
Thus we have Rusted Shut. Going on 20 years now, these Texan noisemakers have somehow only managed two proper records and a single or two, each one of those jammed to overflowing with the abovementioned thick oozing ultra distorted, totally chaotic, pulverizing scuzz drenched plod. When we reviewed their Hot Sex ep, we alluded to the fact that if said ep wasn't an ep, wasn't vinyl only, wasn't over a decade old, and wasn't WAY too fucked up for most normal ears, it would have not only been out Record Of The Week, but our Record Of The YEAR. Of our EVER! Well, it's as if whatever God enjoys inflicting sonic torture on his children heard our prayers and conjured up this festering bit of blackened noise punk brilliance from whatever pit these guys call home.
It's rare that a band 20+ years old makes a record on the tail end of 20 years even half as good as the record that started it all, but we're tempted to say, this just might be the heaviest, freakiest, most brutally brilliant thing we've heard from these guys so far. Which is indeed saying a whole hell of a lot.
The opener "Home", is 5 minutes of blown out punk-drone, the guitars unwinding in thick gnarled tangles, moaning and rumbling and howling, a dense undulating layered swell of roiling sonic filth, fragmented riffs, squiggly downtuned Greg Ginn-ish guitar scrabble, the drums skittery and abstract clouds of cymbal sizzle, bursts of free rock splatter, while over the top, some sort of harsh, whiskey soaked punk rock testifying, spouting all sorts of misanthropic misinformation, like a post punk noise rock gutter scum Whitehouse. The music grows more and more frantic, faster, more freaked out, the various streaks of sound coalescing into riffs, that blur into still more smears of sound, the song an exercise in droned out filth caked tension.
Then there's "Heart Of Hell", total old school punk rock, but filtered through a sort of washed out lo-fi Brainbombs dirginess, the main riff, total classic punk rock, but locked and looped, and played over and over and over and over, totally trancelike, the vocals just as sneeringly scowly as on the first track, but once they drop out, the song locks into a total droned out punked up krautrock groove, that sounds a bit like Circle covering the Brainbombs, albeit doused in crumbling distortion and blurred reverb and delay.
Then comes "Intellect", 15 minutes of total blown out garage dirge bliss, the sound so in the red, that every time a cymbal hits, it swallows up the rest of the sound, the vocals so loud it sounds like the singer grabbed you by the head and locked his lips around your ears, you can feel his hot hellish breath and the spray of spittle. But all the while the music underneath, grows more and more distorted and somehow more and more hypnotic, so damaged and fractured that it sounds like the song might crumble into pieces at any moment. But that's just the first few minutes. Soon the band switch gear and the bass EXPLODES, like suddenly while the band was playing, the bass player went out to his truck and got 3 or 4 more amps and just let fucking loose, low end overload, everything acid drenched and psychedelic, the sound of speakers frying, of headphones melting, the vocals garbled like speaking in tongues, the bass unleashing a sludgey doomy groove, the song an endless noise rock blown out druggy musical brawl that makes the Butthole Surfers at their fiercest sound practically tame.
This song more than anything here reminds us of our first live run in with these weirdos. At SXSW this year, they played an instore, everyone was waiting to see the Mayyors, but Rusted Shut were just destroying the place, super noisy and scuzzy and awesome, and they just NEVER STOPPED PLAYING. The homeless-looking singer/guitarist guy kept getting shocked by the mic, so eventually he simply walked outside, after leaning his guitar up against his amp... some punk dude in the audience then picked up the mic, and freestyled some "I hate SXSW" lyrics... when he was done and threw the mic down, it seemed like the drummer and bassist would wrap it up, but instead they kept on jamming... and jamming... and jammingÉ then the guitarist came back in after being outside for what felt like (and pretty much WAS) ages, picked up his guitar, and then it seemed like, OK, this must be the grande finale... but that was only the beginning!! They literally kept on playing for another half hour at least. After a while, most of the crowd had gone outside to wait for the Mayyors, driven away by the bands wall of harsh vibes and skull stomping crush, and someone even joked that they should shut the doors of the shop and lock Rusted Shut inside...
These guys are lifers, they're insane, a total mess, which is the only way a piece of glorious sonic filth like this could ever happen. This is not music made by nice guys slumming it, by punk rockers getting their hands dirty, no, this is the sound of old guys pissed and insane, hell bent on punishing the rest of the world, a furious plod and pound fueled by hate, and misery, and drugs. Lots and lots and LOTS of drugs. And that instore, for all of it's confusional chaos, is pretty much the exact same vibe captured here. That is what this band is all about. About relentless endless riffing, hypnotic crustpunk dirges, wild damaged Neanderthal noise rock. The sick sick energy of Rusted Shut is an anomaly. This is not music, this is the sound these guys conjure up from their dead souls and black hearts, a fucked up noise drenched hardcore psychedelic space sludge whathtefuck that's just about the greatest thing we've ever heard.
MPEG Stream: "Home"
MPEG Stream: "Heart Of Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Intellect"

RUSTED SHUT Dead (Load) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What would you think if someone described a band to you, as sounding like a mix of Butthole Surfers, Black Flag, the Brainbombs and black metal? Want if they went on to describe the band's sound in more detail, and they came up with something like "thick oozing ultra distorted, totally chaotic, drone drenched, drugged out, noisy as fuck, weirdly hypnotic, punishing and pulverizing, scuzz drenched doomic plod"? Well your first thought, if you were anything like us, would be "could such a band actually exist?" It does sound too good to be true. Your next thought might be "well okay, if a band like that did exist, not only would they be scary as shit, they'd also probably be my favorite band EVER."
Thus we have Rusted Shut. Going on 20 years now, these Texan noisemakers have somehow only managed two proper records and a single or two, each one of those jammed to overflowing with the abovementioned thick oozing ultra distorted, totally chaotic, pulverizing scuzz drenched plod. When we reviewed their Hot Sex ep, we alluded to the fact that if said ep wasn't an ep, wasn't vinyl only, wasn't over a decade old, and wasn't WAY too fucked up for most normal ears, it would have not only been out Record Of The Week, but our Record Of The YEAR. Of our EVER! Well, it's as if whatever God enjoys inflicting sonic torture on his children heard our prayers and conjured up this festering bit of blackened noise punk brilliance from whatever pit these guys call home.
It's rare that a band 20+ years old makes a record on the tail end of 20 years even half as good as the record that started it all, but we're tempted to say, this just might be the heaviest, freakiest, most brutally brilliant thing we've heard from these guys so far. Which is indeed saying a whole hell of a lot.
The opener "Home", is 5 minutes of blown out punk-drone, the guitars unwinding in thick gnarled tangles, moaning and rumbling and howling, a dense undulating layered swell of roiling sonic filth, fragmented riffs, squiggly downtuned Greg Ginn-ish guitar scrabble, the drums skittery and abstract clouds of cymbal sizzle, bursts of free rock splatter, while over the top, some sort of harsh, whiskey soaked punk rock testifying, spouting all sorts of misanthropic misinformation, like a post punk noise rock gutter scum Whitehouse. The music grows more and more frantic, faster, more freaked out, the various streaks of sound coalescing into riffs, that blur into still more smears of sound, the song an exercise in droned out filth caked tension.
Then there's "Heart Of Hell", total old school punk rock, but filtered through a sort of washed out lo-fi Brainbombs dirginess, the main riff, total classic punk rock, but locked and looped, and played over and over and over and over, totally trancelike, the vocals just as sneeringly scowly as on the first track, but once they drop out, the song locks into a total droned out punked up krautrock groove, that sounds a bit like Circle covering the Brainbombs, albeit doused in crumbling distortion and blurred reverb and delay.
Then comes "Intellect", 15 minutes of total blown out garage dirge bliss, the sound so in the red, that every time a cymbal hits, it swallows up the rest of the sound, the vocals so loud it sounds like the singer grabbed you by the head and locked his lips around your ears, you can feel his hot hellish breath and the spray of spittle. But all the while the music underneath, grows more and more distorted and somehow more and more hypnotic, so damaged and fractured that it sounds like the song might crumble into pieces at any moment. But that's just the first few minutes. Soon the band switch gear and the bass EXPLODES, like suddenly while the band was playing, the bass player went out to his truck and got 3 or 4 more amps and just let fucking loose, low end overload, everything acid drenched and psychedelic, the sound of speakers frying, of headphones melting, the vocals garbled like speaking in tongues, the bass unleashing a sludgey doomy groove, the song an endless noise rock blown out druggy musical brawl that makes the Butthole Surfers at their fiercest sound practically tame.
This song more than anything here reminds us of our first live run in with these weirdos. At SXSW this year, they played an instore, everyone was waiting to see the Mayyors, but Rusted Shut were just destroying the place, super noisy and scuzzy and awesome, and they just NEVER STOPPED PLAYING. The homeless-looking singer/guitarist guy kept getting shocked by the mic, so eventually he simply walked outside, after leaning his guitar up against his amp... some punk dude in the audience then picked up the mic, and freestyled some "I hate SXSW" lyrics... when he was done and threw the mic down, it seemed like the drummer and bassist would wrap it up, but instead they kept on jamming... and jamming... and jammingÉ then the guitarist came back in after being outside for what felt like (and pretty much WAS) ages, picked up his guitar, and then it seemed like, OK, this must be the grande finale... but that was only the beginning!! They literally kept on playing for another half hour at least. After a while, most of the crowd had gone outside to wait for the Mayyors, driven away by the bands wall of harsh vibes and skull stomping crush, and someone even joked that they should shut the doors of the shop and lock Rusted Shut inside...
These guys are lifers, they're insane, a total mess, which is the only way a piece of glorious sonic filth like this could ever happen. This is not music made by nice guys slumming it, by punk rockers getting their hands dirty, no, this is the sound of old guys pissed and insane, hell bent on punishing the rest of the world, a furious plod and pound fueled by hate, and misery, and drugs. Lots and lots and LOTS of drugs. And that instore, for all of it's confusional chaos, is pretty much the exact same vibe captured here. That is what this band is all about. About relentless endless riffing, hypnotic crustpunk dirges, wild damaged Neanderthal noise rock. The sick sick energy of Rusted Shut is an anomaly. This is not music, this is the sound these guys conjure up from their dead souls and black hearts, a fucked up noise drenched hardcore psychedelic space sludge whathtefuck that's just about the greatest thing we've ever heard.
MPEG Stream: "Home"
MPEG Stream: "Heart Of Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Intellect"

SLEEP Holy Mountain (Earache) cd 15.98
What more needs to be said about this stoner doom classic from 1992? Heavy, hooky, groovy, Sabbathy, a classic slab of metallic drugginess that launched a million pale imitators (not that Sleep were all-original either, being Sabbathy as we said!). Reissued now with, natch, a bonus Black Sabbath cover ("Snowblind" from the Masters Of Misery tribute comp) and the video for "Dragonaut", so completists might just have to buy it again, but even without those extras, anyone who somehow managed make it this far without hearing Sleep's Holy Mountain, well, now's the time to remedy that for sure...
Needless to say, this shit is HEAVY! Dirge-y, cannabis fueled excursions into the dark realm, swinging Sabbathy riffs, pounding devil drum percussion, and a wailing howl over it all. Fans of Corrupted, Boris, stoner rock, sludge, doom, and all that sort of stuff, catch the hell up!! Sleep's Holy Mountain was this so-Sabbathy bands MOST Sabbath-like release, almost too close for comfort - we're not convinced that Tony and Geezer didn't actually write this stuff!! Which in it's own twisted way is a very very good thing indeed. Wow. ESSENTIAL!
MPEG Stream: "Dragonaut"
MPEG Stream: "The Druid"

KATHARSIS Fourth Reich (Norma Evangelium Diaboli) cd 13.98
The 2009 return of Germany's completely unhinged Katharsis has proven to be one of the year's best and most evil surprises. The awesome recent split with Antaeus had metalheads wondering what Katharsis had been up to since their essential VVorld VVithout End album from 2006, but like the return of the similarly amazing Funeral Mist with Maranatha, folks everywhere were getting ready to shit all over Fourth Reich based on some vague initial responses from people who obviously have no clue what they are talking about. The big griping point seems to be that Fourth Reich is not as frantic and universe destroying as its predecessor, and there's no denying that the boys from Saxony had their work cut out for them. But after two spins of Fourth Reich it is clear that what we have here is one of the best metal records of the year, no question. Perhaps it is *slightly* less insane than VVorld, but more than anything it seems like the logical extension of that unruly beast, sounding exactly like what you would expect from something recorded at "Rape of Harmonies".
Three of the five songs here clock in at over 10 minutes, giving Katharsis plenty of time to sear your face off with their furious, unrelenting attack. Things kick off as out of control as you could ever hope for in a record with "So Nail The Hearts". In classic Katharsis fashion, the song is blazingly fast and like a tornado taking in everything in its path. And then of course there are those vocals... Try to imagine the general approximation of a demon clawing its way out of Hell, punctuated by moments that sound like a hysterical witch being tortured with some sharpened medieval object. Lyrically, the song tells a tale of blasphemous, Satanic destruction with choice couplets like "Our throats becometh an open grayve; vve'll use our sperm to deceive/the venom of asps is to be under our lipps; vve'll be armed vvith lyonne teethe." Woah. There is a brutal midtempo part halfway in, but even as the band slows for a brief moment, the super windy ambience of the recording keeps you firmly aware of Katharsis' cosmically blackened powers. Most unexpected with this song are the female vocals towards the end. STOP: we already know what you're thinking, and just be aware that this is nothing like what you generally find screwing up lots of black metal. Instead, the presence of the undeniably beautiful voice does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change the vile tone of this number, in fact, as Katharsis buzzes their way to the song's conclusion, it almost seems like the female vocals are simply there as some sort of religious mockery. Which, you know, is totally fucking awesome.
Next up we have "Eucharistick Funereall", beginning with a punkish riff and more unbelievable shrieking. It's so rad, and impossible to ignore, as we observed with customers desperately trying to focus on which record to buy as this beast buzzed all around them. The guitars are like napalm, and things eventually lead into a super thrashy groove with an uber-heavy D-beat brutalizing your skull. There is a gloomy breakdown with surprisingly melodic guitar melodies wrapped in the non-stop riffing before an awesome rock n' roll ending.
"Reckoning" is pretty much the sound of the black metal holocaust, an unwavering, hypnotic buzz of psychedelic proportions followed by the unexpected synthscape of "Emeralde Graves". Strangely majestic, but also ominous as hell and just plain creepy, this piece is quite cinematic and plausible enough reason to believe that the dudes in Katharsis may own a Goblin record or two. It serves as a cool segue before the final song, "Sinn Koronation", a perfect closer that is slower, dirgier, and maybe even heavier than anything else on the record. Of course, things do reach lightspeed eventually with a very METAL guitar solo, but after a few minutes, Katharsis go back into their hateful lurch. Interestingly, their slower moments are incredibly powerful, not only on their own, but especially in contrast to the majority of the record. When Katharsis get all doomy toward the end of the song, it's like they've decided to just leave your mangled body in the wreckage they created, and then synths take over for a beautiful ending to an ugly, ugly record.
You get the impression that this band is unstoppable. They certainly sound like it. When one thinks about how reactionary parents have responded to metal over the past four decades, it usually turns out to be a whole lot of concern over nothing; Katharsis is exactly what they *thought* you were listening to all these years. So basically, we're giving this one our highest possible recommendation.
MPEG Stream: "So Nail The Hearts"
MPEG Stream: "Eucharistick Funereall"

KATHARSIS Fourth Reich (Norma Evangelium Diaboli) lp 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The 2009 return of Germany's completely unhinged Katharsis has proven to be one of the year's best and most evil surprises. The awesome recent split with Antaeus had metalheads wondering what Katharsis had been up to since their essential VVorld VVithout End album from 2006, but like the return of the similarly amazing Funeral Mist with Maranatha, folks everywhere were getting ready to shit all over Fourth Reich based on some vague initial responses from people who obviously have no clue what they are talking about. The big griping point seems to be that Fourth Reich is not as frantic and universe destroying as its predecessor, and there's no denying that the boys from Saxony had their work cut out for them. But after two spins of Fourth Reich it is clear that what we have here is one of the best metal records of the year, no question. Perhaps it is *slightly* less insane than VVorld, but more than anything it seems like the logical extension of that unruly beast, sounding exactly like what you would expect from something recorded at "Rape of Harmonies".
Three of the five songs here clock in at over 10 minutes, giving Katharsis plenty of time to sear your face off with their furious, unrelenting attack. Things kick off as out of control as you could ever hope for in a record with "So Nail The Hearts". In classic Katharsis fashion, the song is blazingly fast and like a tornado taking in everything in its path. And then of course there are those vocals... Try to imagine the general approximation of a demon clawing its way out of Hell, punctuated by moments that sound like a hysterical witch being tortured with some sharpened medieval object. Lyrically, the song tells a tale of blasphemous, Satanic destruction with choice couplets like "Our throats becometh an open grayve; vve'll use our sperm to deceive/the venom of asps is to be under our lipps; vve'll be armed vvith lyonne teethe." Woah. There is a brutal midtempo part halfway in, but even as the band slows for a brief moment, the super windy ambience of the recording keeps you firmly aware of Katharsis' cosmically blackened powers. Most unexpected with this song are the female vocals towards the end. STOP: we already know what you're thinking, and just be aware that this is nothing like what you generally find screwing up lots of black metal. Instead, the presence of the undeniably beautiful voice does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change the vile tone of this number, in fact, as Katharsis buzzes their way to the song's conclusion, it almost seems like the female vocals are simply there as some sort of religious mockery. Which, you know, is totally fucking awesome.
Next up we have "Eucharistick Funereall", beginning with a punkish riff and more unbelievable shrieking. It's so rad, and impossible to ignore, as we observed with customers desperately trying to focus on which record to buy as this beast buzzed all around them. The guitars are like napalm, and things eventually lead into a super thrashy groove with an uber-heavy D-beat brutalizing your skull. There is a gloomy breakdown with surprisingly melodic guitar melodies wrapped in the non-stop riffing before an awesome rock n' roll ending.
"Reckoning" is pretty much the sound of the black metal holocaust, an unwavering, hypnotic buzz of psychedelic proportions followed by the unexpected synthscape of "Emeralde Graves". Strangely majestic, but also ominous as hell and just plain creepy, this piece is quite cinematic and plausible enough reason to believe that the dudes in Katharsis may own a Goblin record or two. It serves as a cool segue before the final song, "Sinn Koronation", a perfect closer that is slower, dirgier, and maybe even heavier than anything else on the record. Of course, things do reach lightspeed eventually with a very METAL guitar solo, but after a few minutes, Katharsis go back into their hateful lurch. Interestingly, their slower moments are incredibly powerful, not only on their own, but especially in contrast to the majority of the record. When Katharsis get all doomy toward the end of the song, it's like they've decided to just leave your mangled body in the wreckage they created, and then synths take over for a beautiful ending to an ugly, ugly record.
You get the impression that this band is unstoppable. They certainly sound like it. When one thinks about how reactionary parents have responded to metal over the past four decades, it usually turns out to be a whole lot of concern over nothing; Katharsis is exactly what they *thought* you were listening to all these years. So basically, we're giving this one our highest possible recommendation.
MPEG Stream: "So Nail The Hearts"
MPEG Stream: "Eucharistick Funereall"

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM Black Cascade (Southern Lord) 2lp 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This gorgeous slab of Cascadian black buzz, now available on ultra limited, super deluxe double vinyl...
By now, Wolves in the Throne Room have established themselves as one of America's most gifted and awesomely dependable black metal bands, and their third long player, Black Cascade, picks up right where their recent Malevolent Grain ep left off. All the elements of their expansive, blackened psychedelic approach are here: sprawling songs with a methodical attention to song structure, relentless drumming, perfectly interlocking dual guitars, tortured raspy vocals, and an ability to seamlessly merge synthy ambience with a furious but often very melancholy black metal onslaught. There seems to be a legion of haters out there, ready to label the band as a bunch of PC hippies who aren't adhering to whatever rules they assume apply to a style of music that is pretty nihilistic and iconoclastic by nature. But fuck those people. This band is great and truly deserves whatever accolades come its way.
The ever-present density of WITTR's sound is further heightened on Black Cascade, their bio proudly emphasizing the old school analog sound they have achieved through vintage recording gear and classic tube amps. While we don't want to ramble on about various pieces of musical equipment, it should be noted that these devices have certainly helped the band to capture a sound music nerds might refer to as "organic". Sure, we at aQuarius love all the homemade bedroom black metal that sounds as if it was recorded in a blender during a tornado... The sound on Black Cascade, however, is clear and upfront, though hardly refined or polished. It is quite rock n' roll in a classic sense, which works great when the band breaks out some Thin Lizzy-esque guitar harmonies on the first track "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog". Mossy, ultra distorted guitars hang like a thick black cloud (or a sea of fog, if you will) in the atmosphere as the drums create the necessary propulsion that make a Wolves in the Throne Room song sound like it could, and should, carry on FOREVER. Song #2, "Ahrimanic Trance" is, true to its title, a hypnotic, trancelike black metal trip into some long forgotten wilderness. The song gives one a feeling of being transported at high speeds across the landscape while watching from the back of some primitive vehicle, a sense that is carried on in the next track, "Ex Cathedra". The final song, "Crystal Ammunition", starts life as a dizzying, hyperspeed slab of pure black metal before morphing into a beautiful lament that may (or may not) reference the melody from Malevolent Grain's "A Looming Resonance". It's seems like things will culminate in the ultimate fadeout. But, uh, what happens after the fade out? As everything gallops off into the distance, otherworldly guitar chords and tambourine are the only sounds evident. Eventually these too recede as they are overtaken by a phased out synthscape. Fucking awesome.
While this album was great from the moment we first put it on, repeated listens have been revealing more and more. To say this is a huge departure from what Wolves in the Throne Room have accomplished in the past would be inaccurate. It is, instead, the sound of a group who, with each record, becomes a more realized version of itself.
MPEG Stream: "Ex Cathedra"
MPEG Stream: "Ahrimanic Trance"

GOG Mist From The Random More (Utech Records) cd 14.98
In a world (our world at least) full to overflowing with drone records, dirge records, doom records, and yes, dirgedoomdrone records, the mysterious Gog have somehow always managed to transcend. From their very first release, the subtly spectacular Noriah Mills, Gog have continued to mine similar territory as so many other soundmakers, but with the resultant whole so much more than its constituent parts.
The music of Gog, while on the surface, perhaps seemingly simple, minimal, abstract, is the sort of sound that requires deep listening, upon which, the guitars then reveal themselves as so much more than electronic tone generators, the long strands of feedback and the layers of dense billowy buzz, so much more than just texture and timbre. And while on past releases, the band hinted at something a bit more black, their occasionally blissed out ambience drifting into darker and darker greys, on Mist From The Random More, the band have fully committed, creating what for them is a haunting otherworldly black metal suite, a droned out, blissed out, buzz drenched, almost static expanse of smoldering grimness, shot through with glimmering glistening effulgence, a bit like wrapping a black gauze around an exploding sun, the results, again, transcendent.
The record begins with a gorgeous, slow burning bit of guitar drone, that owes more to the kosmiche sounds of krautdrone than the downtuned glacial fug of more doom-ed entities. These guitars soar and shimmer, warm gouts of feedback enfolded by deep rich sheets of coruscating soft focus heaviness, any other band would stretch this out to fill up a whole album, and rightfully so, we'd probably be gushing just as much if Gog chose to do the same thing, but these Sunroof-ian solar sonics are only part of Gog's grand vision for Mist From The Random More.
The title track, taking up the bulk of the record, finds Gog fully immersing themselves in black metal, or at least their (very) loose approximation of what black metal is, or could be. The sound is grim, and frosty, but only in the sense that it reflects much of the black metal that came before, in every other way, it's anything but, the guitars glow, the riffs are fluid, organic, wrapped in a soft burnished buzz, that reminds us a bit of Jesu or Nadja, but the arrangement is more Necks. In fact, a shorthand descriptor might be "a black metal Necks", which if you're anything like us, would be all it would take. Simple skittery minimal drumming, almost looped sounding if it weren't so abstract, beneath a roiling cloud of layered guitars, grinding and whirring and hissing, and within that cloud, some gorgeously melancholic low end melodies, difficult to describe the strange blend of loveliness and heaviness, but there it is, a distinctly lovely heaviness, washed out and blurry, and hypnotic and epic and melodic, within this seemingly static structure, the sound swings and slips through various incarnations, moving from total blurred buzz, to a more slowcore lope, always wreathed in swirling clouds of blackened shimmer, until the end, when the track explodes in climax of effects drenched psychedelic churn.
The closing track offers a chance to decompress, a strange assemblage of soothing tones, shot through with streaks of feedback, very cool and clinical, almost a Raster-Noton sort of sound, there's a brief burst of super distorted crumbling sonic chaos, almost Merzbowian in its intensity, transforming into a haunting post industrial doomscape, before again returning to the relative tranquility of the first few minutes, eventually leaving just a single upper register tone, which also finally fades into the shadows.
Another fantastic record from Utech (after a whole mess of incredible releases, including last list's Aluk Todolo Record Of The Week), gorgeous packaging, an abstract skull, rendered in some kind of white dust (cocaine?), on a spare black background, a gatefold with printed liner notes inside, and yes, probably limited...
MPEG Stream: "Night Zoe"
MPEG Stream: "Mist From The Random More"

ONNA s/t (Holy Mountain) cd 14.98
Tons of folks were sufficiently wowed by Onna's lone 1983 7", thankfully reissued from oblivion and drooled over a few lists back. There was just something about Onna, we couldn't quite put our finger on it, but that record was just so mysterious, a completely mesmerizing slice of lost history. Out of nowhere came this highly evocative work of melancholy psych rock with pulsing drum machines and floating Japanese vocals, sounding like nothing else you might hear from 1983, or 2009 for that matter. Adding to the confusion was almost zero information about Onna, leading listeners to make their conclusions free from any tangible facts. That changes with the arrival of this mindblowing 10 song retrospective, but just barely.
Included are the two tracks from the 7", with an additional song from the same sessions, some live material featuring the guitar skills of a very young Michio Kurihara (White Heaven/Ghost, frequent Boris collaborator), as well as outtakes plus one song from the album Katawa, recorded in 2007.
Though we were relying on the minimal information found on the 7" when we reviewed it, and listed the group as a duo, Onna was in fact the brainchild of Keizo Miyanishi, a noted Japanese Manga artist who also held a highly iconoclastic outlook on rock music, influenced by the usual suspects like the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls. Even then, these groups only serve as the most basic starting point for Onna's sound, and Miyanishi's detached yet somewhat nihilistic liner notes lead to more questions than answers. Said notes include awesomely vague anecdotes like "[The tour] was packed with enough incidents; nothing was easy. Enough weird shit happened to fill a book. . . I will say that around the time we returned, I received aggressively threatening telephone messages," (with none of these things actually described), and "It was around this period that I began to lose my concept of time." Hey, we'll take it, as timelessness certainly applies to Onna's musical approach.
For folks without turntables, or anyone who missed our review of the 7" or anyone who just happens to want the cd version as well as the vinyl, the two tracks from the 7" are worth the price of admission alone. The most obvious point of reference soundwise would be legendary psych/noise enigma Les Rallizes Denudes, especially in the vocal department. This is a very good thing for anyone who loves those somewhat lazy, partially detached, Japanese sung vocals of groups like LRD and LSD-March. The use of a drum machine keeps these songs pulsing like a mechanical heartbeat, which when combined with the fairly free form guitars, definitely gives this record its own vibe. The first track begins with a meditative two chord lament before noisy, white hot guitar squalls begin creeping about in the distance as simple and repetitive bass lines keep the foundation strong and focused. The second track introduces catchy psych guitar chords with a machine modified quasi girl group drumbeat, the bass again holding things down nice and steady. The heavily reverberated strummed guitars bubble about as fake cymbal explosions recede and return over and over again, until the prolonged fade to black.
"Were You To Become A Mother", the 7" outtake, flows pretty similarly to the other songs from that session. It is certainly just as awesome, with warm bass and a super bouncy drum machine which works in perfect contrast to the somewhat ominous nature of the melody. Above it all are Miyanishi's mournful vocals, which give the impression of being lost in the darkness of the song itself.
Next up are the outtakes from Katawa. Oddly enough, the liner notes are dated to 1999, ending with the seemingly definitive proclamation that "Onna lies here, dead." But as mentioned earlier, Katawa dates to 2007, and with three songs appearing from that time, you are confusingly forced to reevaluate everything you just read and wonder what the current status is on Onna. Anyway, enough rambling, you all really want to know what these songs sound like... Strangely enough, not much like the single in any way. The honest truth is that liking the 7" may not necessarily mean you will go crazy over the rest of this stuff. It is difficult listening, but in the most rewarding way. First off, there is no drum machine; there are no drums at all. In place of the scorching fuzz guitar on the single are percussively strummed acoustic guitars, sometimes kind of folky, sometimes bluesier. Miyanishi's voice is noticeably deeper, sounding weathered and more vulnerable after 24 more years of living. The unifying thread between these songs and the single is their overwhelming sadness, but in place of the drum machine's mechanical precision is Miyanishi's internalized sense of rhythm. Unlike the ever present density on the 7", these songs are able to convey a sense of loneliness and pain through all the open space on the recording. Strangest off all, however, is how hypnotic they manage to be. As crazy as it may sound, the result is similar to that of a drone record, not in your typical way with sustained electric guitars screaming through tons of amplification, but more so in its focus and repetition. It is hardly the kind of music you'll want to play at your next keg bash, but what the songs lack in accessibility and structure, they more than make up for in genuine emotion.
Like the 7", the live tracks also date to 1983, but they are also drum-free and super minimalist. There is a weird hum that may come from the recording, or possibly from the room itself. Either way, it works its way into the songs just like the instruments, adding a nice creepy atmosphere to the proceedings. Discordant slide guitars and piano are accompanied by heavily sustained fuzz guitar, as Miyanishi delivers another wrenching vocal performance. At various points, as Kurihara whips up squalls of feedback-laden psych guitar, you assume the plucked acoustic guitars will be overtaken by noise, but Miyanishi keeps his focus and never falters from the tone he sets. After the final live track, there is some sparse and uncomfortable clapping, then silence, as the audience was no doubt wondering what the hell they just witnessed. You might even react the same way.
Accompanying the album are a few photos of the androgynous looking band members and some examples of Miyanishi's astounding, grotesquely erotic art. These images seem just as integral to Onna as their music, but unless you speak Japanese, you will probably be left scratching your head. There is no doubt that Onna created some challenging music, but what you get out of this album depends on how much you are willing to put into the listening experience. There may be no easy answers, but some things are better left as is, and in the end Onna's music is powerful enough to live on, in spite of its obscurity.
MPEG Stream: "Cortigiana Dal Velo"
MPEG Stream: "Were You To Become A Mother"
MPEG Stream: "The Swan Song"
MPEG Stream: "Salamandra, Salander (The Three Sisters)"

SIX FINGER SATELLITE Half Control (Load) cd 15.98
In the '90s, there were two bands on the Sub Pop roster that, to anyone looking for their grunge or indie fix, made absolutely zero sense. One of those bands was the mighty Earth, who in the past few years have thankfully been reevaluated and recognized as the pioneers they were and are. Then there was Six Finger Satellite, spoken of with godlike reverence by their small but rabid fanbase, but still unjustly neglected by the majority of the human population. The big question here: WHY?!?! Six Finger Satellite was one of the great nihilistic rock bands of the '90s, the strange and unholy union of the Stooges, the Birthday Party, and Kraftwerk that turned into something else entirely. Their sound was hateful, tense, and disturbingly druggy, but most of all, they fucking ROCKED. While the synthesizer at this point in indie history seemed relegated to making cute little bleeping noises, 6FS wielded their Moogs like weapons of mass chaos, releasing 4 ESSENTIAL full lengths and a slew of equally awesome eps and singles before vanishing. Their provocative themes included a sinister but smartass referencing of, shall we say, "recent" German history, primates, and a Kraftwerkian synthesis of man and machine tailored to better suit a bunch of guys from Rhode Island. Their history is long, confusing, and even tragic (original bassist Kurt Niemand died of a drug overdose), eventually culminating in the departure of guitarist John Maclean - along with the band's synth arsenal - and his transformation into electro-dance act the Juan Maclean. Though they apparently soldiered on after their final full length, Law Of Ruins, that was pretty much it for Six Finger Satellite...
UNTIL NOW!!!
While the band has reconvened on a few occasions and are currently active, Half Control actually dates back to 2001. Surprisingly, the band's unstoppable drummer Rick Pelletier switched to bass for the reformed 6FS (and now he's playing guitar!), while the rhythm section was reconstituted from members of fellow Rhode Island noise rockers Landed. The resultant sound emphasizes the group's more pissed off, punkish edge - try to imagine the four-headed bastard offspring of Black Flag and the Jesus Lizard beating the shit out of itself - while downplaying their more meditative (relatively speaking for this band, of course) electro-kraut influences. For this reason, the initial reaction of many aQ staffers was that Half Control doesn't really sound like the Six Finger Satellite we all knew - remember that part about John Maclean and the band's collection of vintage synthesizers? Closer inspection, however, reveals otherwise, at least to the nerds in possession of the band's entire discography. While synths were and continue to remain integral to the 6FS sound, many people tend to overlook how guitar-centric they always were. Slashing and densely hypnotic riffing, throbbing basslines, and ridiculously tight drumming were just as important as their quirky but ominous synthlines. Singer/Moogist J. Ryan's feral vocals are as mean-spirited and distorted as they always were and the band still throbs and pulsates like a merciless machine that refuses to shut down. 6FS's sound was frantic but controlled, often verging on complete chaos, yet they managed to keep things together in a way only they could. With that in mind, it's clear to see that things are really just as great as they always were. The reality is that little has changed, it's just pretty mindblowing to think that we are hearing new sounds from a band that sadly *seemed* to drop off the map.
It should go without saying for anyone familiar with this fantastic band, that Load Records (who released their obscure but awe inspiring Clone Theory ep waaaaay back), is a much better home for them. It's not coincidental that much of that label's lineup and a great deal of the current noise rock scene is heavily indebted to 6FS, and while some of today's indie rockers may have unknowingly tapped into what these guys were about in the form of other bands, Six Finger Satellite has yet to be surpassed in ferocity, dark humor, and overall rockingness. Longtime fans should find plenty of reasons to rejoice, while newbies will freak out and have to accept mp3 versions of their out of print Sub Pop albums. To the rest of the world: WAKE THE FUCK UP. Six Finger Satellite is immortal, and even if this is their final statement (we sure hope not), it's more than we could have ever hoped for.
MPEG Stream: "Thrown Out"
MPEG Stream: "Artificial Light"
MPEG Stream: "Bored Oracle"

BLACK VOMIT Jungle Death (Rusty Axe) cd 9.98
It's been a while, more than a year in fact, since we last got a batch of TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA, but it's finally that time once again. We were beginning to jones pretty hard. For those of you who can't quite figure it out from the name of the genre, this stuff is black metal, and psychedelic, and most (if not all) of the bands hail from Sheffield in the UK. Beyond that, this stuff is pretty hard to describe, from blown out grinding blackened psychedelic post rock to chugging in-the-red blacknoise to glistening soft focus krautdrone to pounding distorted sludge to processed machinelike buzz and stutter, and we're not even just describing the genre, most of the bands somehow manage to incorporate all of those elements into one fractured fucked up and seriously and gloriously schizophrenic sound.
We'd been waiting for a proper real cd (non cd-r) release from any of these guys, and while there have been rumors of a new Ice Bound Majesty full length on tUMULt (!), it was Black Vomit who were ultimately immortalized in aluminum and plastic first, thanks to those twisted freaks at Rusty Axe. But even by Rusty Axe's already freaky standards, Jungle Death is some seriously twisted avant heavy black weirdness. The sort of stuff that will have your standard black metal knuckle dragger scratching his head and reaching for the nearest Dimmu Borgir cd.
The metal component of black vomit is a sort of metal that sounds like it was cooked up by Tim Hecker, Philip Jeck, Aidan Baker and Justin Broadrick would have conjured up in some underground lair, with no small amount of black magic. Guitars that roar and howl, piled on top of one another until they're so thick, they threaten to collapse your stereo speakers like miniature black holes, the riffs grind and buzz, blurred and smeared into huge heaving walls of blown out white hot sound, usually weirdly processed too, so buried beneath the roiling surface, lurk all manner of electronics and glitch and hiss and static. Sometimes the heaviness stumbles into streaks of sonic black tar, slowing the sound down into some blown out glacial trudge, and even then, it's no ordinary doom, the sound glistens and glows, it's heaviness more a function of staring into some alien sun, the beams of light transformed into sound, wrapping you in thick sheets of effulgent buzz and black hued shimmer.
The various bits of skull crushing heaviness are balanced by some of the coolest drone and ambient music we've heard, from the rumbling, muted and melodic low end intro, that sounds like some creepy krautrock bassline slowed waaaaay down, to the glistening glitched out sun dappled shimmer of "Conderlint5", with it's mysterious alien voices and skittery crystalline textures, to the moaning lonely spidery guitar drift of "Last Cries Of The Lost".
The record starts out damaged, and just gets more and more fucked and freaked out as it progresses, looped tribal drumming wreathed in swirling static, laced with strange samples, gives way to stuttering processed electronic grind, which slowly transforms into a sea of warped drones and Oval like glitches, all smoothed out into an undulating underwater soundscape, wrapped in jagged shards of distorted crunch and sonar like beeps. A brief bit of indie jangle, all minor key strum and sad lilting melody, explodes in a flurry of crumbling stumbling ultra distorted post rock pound, before slipping into some almost Pop Ambient sounding drift, only to again transform into some impossibly twisted bit of cinematic mood music, complete with haunting strings, and dubbed out drums, finally opening up into "Dark Beloved Cloud", the longest track on the record, all Burzumy and murky and buzzy and blackened, woozy and off kilter, with more processed vocals, tons of effects, long stretches of tripped out psychedelic minimalism, before the pounding D-beat climax, and then a soft focus shimmery fade out, which leads directly into the record closer, a warm warped swirl of deeeeeep thrum, and slow moving melodic murk, again shot through with echo drenched voices and bits of electronic twinkle and glimmer, fading out into nearly 5 minutes of near silence. Weird.
But so fucking mind blowing. Totally wiping out any boundaries between drone music and black metal and ambient noise and electronic grind and whatever other fucked up sounds these freaks fuse into their totally genius and totally unique TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA!!
MPEG Stream: "A Premonition Of Inevitable Doom"
MPEG Stream: "Deluge From Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Vigilance Night"
MPEG Stream: "Constdernt"

NEKRASOV / MOON / NEKROS MANTEIA The Haunting Resonance (Fall Of Nature) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
So, apparently Australia is more than just adorable animals and funny accents. No, many bands from Australia are simply scary as shit! And what better way to throw yourself headfirst into the maelstrom than with this KILLER 3 way split, featuring some of the island continent's most depressive and unsettling blackened exports?
The Haunting Resonance is, as the liner notes briefly explain, a conceptual album "regarding the matter of ghosts, spirits, and phantoms" and what role, if any, they would play if the earth was wiped clean of all humanity. Pretty upbeat stuff, huh? And while it is impossible to discern just what is being sung, the music more than ably conveys this dark subject matter.
Nekrasov, whose awesome Tramp And Void ep is reviewed elsewhere on this list, inaugurates the affair with "That Which Hunts...", a burly juggernaut of a song combining Wolf Eyes-styled electronic terrorism with esoteric black metal. This song is like a continuously swirling black hole, constantly turning on and devouring itself. The song shifts, without a moments notice, from creepy, slow moving ambience to full on black metal fury, with gothy keyboards smeared across the landscape. The end result is like the soundtrack to dying alone in the wilderness, where instead of finding some source of divine strength, you simply realize that this is it. The last half of this psychedelically informed piece is a haunting, droney loop with all kinds of high end to make you nice and uncomfortable. Its repetition is its unsuspecting source of power, and before long, you are lulled into a trance where you are powerless to do anything but adjust your body to the ominous rhythms of your dying breaths.
The middle part of the trilogy is represented by Moon, who follow a similar approach to merging black metal atmospheres with more contemplative noise elements. "Forgotten Spirits" drones about as labored pulses carry the piece to a more metal (but still really weird and avant-garde) second half. While not quite as furious as Nekrasov, Moon's contribution is equally creepy and unsettling, with what may or may not be a human voice howling incessantly until the song just stops.
Bringing The Haunting Resonance to its grim conclusion is Nekros Manteia with the song "The Final Ghost". Slow, focused drums hold the foundation while delayed guitars float amongst rumbling drones. Stylistically, it makes sense when you realize the song features guitar work from Bonnie Mercer of Grey Daturas. Both bands follow a psychedelic approach that manages to sound both expansive and concentrated within its own realm of noise. Eventually, the band locks into a crusty, doom laden groove before switching to a sparse, post-rock dirge with weird, croaking vocals.
While not exactly the feel good hit of the summer, The Haunting Resonance is a worthwhile listen in its own right, and sure to appeal to those willing to explore the darker realms of noise and the more insular, lonely aspects of outsider black metal. Recommended. And apparently quite limited as well. We got a bunch of these, not sure we can get more when we run out...
MPEG Stream: NEKRASOV "That Which Hunts..."
MPEG Stream: MOON "Forgotten Spirits"

NEKRASOV Tramp And Void EP (self-released) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We just got in a handful of these super limited cd-rs from Australia's Nekrasov, the project of one Bob Nekrasov (no, really), formerly of Melbourne based doomsters Whitehorse, and current purveyor of abject post-industrial blackness. Tramp And Void is, as we like to say in the business, a real motherfucker. This ep is just teeming with filth and despair, the sounds within melding noisy as hell blackened ambience with super heavy black METAL. The first song is an awesome slab of crumbling electronics abuse with hateful vocals gurgling about in the slowly rumbling chaos, very cool and somewhat reminiscent of that Cities Last Broadcast cd we reviewed a while back. But when track two kicks in, it's like being launched out of an abandoned high rise and into a waiting hurricane. The sound is like a more traditionally metal WOLD meeting up with Australia's psychedelic doom/grind lords diSEMBOWELMENT. In a dog fight. Or something. Pretty intense stuff, regardless, the non-stop double kick drum gives you the impression that you ain't coming out of this one alive. Track 3 sounds like the last day of existence, with windy electronics dominating as Mr. Nekrasov spews out anguished, hateful musings until everything is overwhelmed by electronic skree. Following another vignette of slowly moving ambience, Tramp And Void concludes with an ultra depressive, mid-tempo dirge, the relentless kick drums once again letting you know there is nowhere to hide. The piece is brutal but melancholy, not to mention quite beautiful, and one of those perfect songs to end a record as you assume the fetal position and wonder what horrors await. Though brief, this ep is an intense and demanding piece of work, refusing to confine itself to any one genre in particular. That said, forward thinking metalheads will be scrambling to get their grimey hands on this one.
Again, this thing is insanely limited, not sure how many were made, but you're gonna want to act fast. Comes packaged in an awesome black and red mini-poster with an image of a forest dwelling black winged angel staring right into your soul.
MPEG Stream: "Track 1"
MPEG Stream: "Track 2"
MPEG Stream: "Track 5"

GAINSBOURG, SERGE Histoire De Melody Nelson (Light In The Attic) lp 22.00
Well it's about time!!!!!! After years of wallowing in the hazy convoluted mists of legend, hearsay, and hipster influence, only to be obtained through ultra expensive imports, rare bootlegs, or ripped vinyl blogs, this long unavailable but hugely influential work by Serge Gainsbourg finally sees its first domestic reissue almost forty years after its scandalous release.
You won't need a translator to understand the sublime perversity at the heart of this concept record, arguably Gainsbourg's most accomplished full studio album. Released in 1971, Histoire De Melody Nelson is a seven song suite about an underage English nymphet (the titular Melody Nelson) and the wealthy lecherous older Frenchman who, after nearly running over her in his Rolls Royce, takes her in, falls in love and eventually deflowers her. And of course, like most love stories, there is a tragic climax. While the story is largely lifted from Kubrick's cinematic version of Lolita, the concept was undertaken in actuality as a symphonic love letter to Jane Birken, the British actress and singer (she sings the part of Melody). Though, not underage when they began their affair, she was twenty years younger than Serge, and their relationship became controversial with the release of their 1969 duet "Je t'aime....mon non plus" (originally recorded with Brigitte Bardot) with its sounds of a simulated female orgasm.
But Melody Nelson is not only Gainsbourg's finest moment, its musical reputation would be nothing without the orchestral arrangements and progressive grooves of Jean-Claude Vannier (see our review of L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, to get some highly praised background). The underlying score is less obviously song-oriented and more atmospheric than previous Gainsbourg outings, yet deceptively simple. The opening and closing tracks each at nearly eight minutes mirror each other with a sinewy descending bass groove and classic drum breaks (sampled heavily by De La Soul, David Holmes and Dan The Automator), which set the stage for acid-y guitar fills, swooning strings and Serge's own seductive speak-singing. The closing track ("Cargo Culte") ups the transcendent quality of the climax by adding a mass choir and full orchestra to the swirling tower of sound. In between these two tracks are shorter but artfully arranged pieces of folk-groove, French chanson, acid rock, and cinematic sonic bliss that move the story forward. It's one of those records that slowly grabs you, lures you into its spell, and eventually hooks you, so you'll want to keep listening to it over and over.
Though it was a flop on its initial release - Gainsbourg was largely a singles artist before this point, and the leap from that to concept album, especially one of this perverse nature, was perhaps too wide for French audiences - Histoire De Melody Nelson has gained a significant cult following over the years, perhaps reaching its greatest influence in the nineties with bands like Portishead (Dummy), Pulp (This is Hardcore), Massive Attack (Protection), Radiohead (The Bends), Air (Moon Safari), Blonde Redhead (Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons) and Beck (Sea Change), nearly lifting the basic sonic template of this album wholesale. Reissue of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Melody"
MPEG Stream: "Ballade De Melody Nelson"
MPEG Stream: "En Melody"

WOODEN SHJIPS Dos (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98
FINALLY AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!!
Wooden Shjips are the kind of band that inspire rabid devotion, and not without good reason. They are, in their own distinct way, a perfect band, stripping psychedelia of all its unnecessary flourishes and focusing, REALLY focusing on the fundamental elements that make your favorite songs your favorite songs. No verses, no choruses, no frills, and no bullshit. Just an endless, hypnotic groove that allows the listener to tune out everything else and let the music take them where they need to be. This simplicity is also the band's greatest source of power. While other groups will work desperately to cultivate an image as a "psychedelic" band, Wooden Shjips bypass all that and instead let their music speak for itself. The results are always mesmerizing, not to mention somewhat strange and mysterious, the only logical outcome from four guys who must know exactly what they are doing and understand the importance of working together as a unit instead of showing off their individual musical chops, save the abundance of perfectly timed, ripping fuzz guitar solos. The songs on the band's self-titled debut and their collection of early singles are at once classic and modern, seeming as if they had existed forever and simply needed to be unlocked and revealed by the right musicians. In that respect, we should consider ourselves very lucky that Wooden Shjips exist NOW.
When news of a new Shjips record hit the streets, we aQuarians were foaming at the mouth wondering what might lie ahead. Then one day, without warning, Dos was here, the four disembodied heads on the cover staring forward like totem poles floating in silver space. While the first album featured a hazy image of the band sitting on a stairwell, their faces are the focal point here, almost as if Wooden Shjips are gradually revealing more to the mystery that is their existence. But what does it sound like? Well, hopefully our review can convince you of this album's absolute majesty... but since words could never properly explain how much this has struck some of us, you should probably check out the sound samples, and above all, trust us.
The album opens perfectly with "Motorbike", possibly the most joyous Wooden Shjips song to date. Swirling guitar chords and oscillating swooshes give one the feeling of traveling at high speeds through some glorious psychedelic vortex, throttling you about in the best way imaginable. It's the sort of song that makes you feel great to be alive, with catchy keyboard melodies recalling a more frantic version of the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" as the UNSTOPPABLE rhythm section lays down a steady rhythmic framework that doesn't let up for the next 38 minutes. Next up is "For So Long", maybe our favorite song on the record. Driven by a bass line that is both spooky and relentlessly catchy, sparse, percussive guitar and organ creep about, as singer Ripley's deep croon wavers in the atmosphere. The somewhat ambivalent vibe of this song makes it the ideal soundtrack to pretty much any moment in your day, whether strolling down the street without a care in the world OR walking home late at night in some paranoid daze. "Down By The Sea" utilizes an appropriate underwater effect on the organ as the bass and drums give you the impression of, well, walking down by the sea. About three minutes in, a classic Wooden Shjips guitar solo enters and eventually morphs into squalls of heavenly white noise. This wonderful psych excursion is followed by the more down tempo "Aquarian Time", featuring a cool tremeloed organ (or maybe it's a piano?) and a devastating fuzz guitar groove that locks in with the bass before another rad guitar solo takes you way up into the clouds. The closing number, "Fallin'", kicks off with a simple two note groove, accented by a reedy organ accompanying the bass and a glistening, cleanly strummed guitar while a simple snare hit keeps the percussive flow going, the work of a man who must surely be in a trance - seriously, how the hell does this guy play so steady for so long?!?! It puts you deep under the band's spell, and then, at the 4 minute mark, you are introduced to the CATCHIEST BASS LINE OF THE YEAR!!! It will stick in your head for ages. After 11 minutes, the song ends with an organ chord and amp hum, reminding you that, yes, Wooden Shjips are human beings and not just a psychedelic rock machine. It's like the band is stopping to breathe for a moment before the next adventure, which hopefully will come very soon. You are left wondering what just happened, and if you're like us, you'll immediately put Dos on for another spin (or, if you're like a certain AQ staffer, 9 or 10 more spins!).
The overall sound on Dos is more upfront and less murky than on past releases. This slightly higher fidelity suits Wooden Shjips splendidly, as these five songs are generally tighter and more snappingly rhythmic than anything they have produced before. Each instrument is represented perfectly in the mix, with nothing taking precedence. The nonstop propulsion of this group is undoubtedly the result of four people operating on another level of psychedelic comprehension, a level many other bands simply don't understand. At the same time, their music is highly enjoyable and not difficult to "get". We certainly get it...
To call Dos "essential" wouldn't be enough. We can tell you that this album exceeded any expectations we may have had. We can tell you how if anyone interrupts you while listening to this, you will be pretty pissed and will most likely ignore them and crank up the volume even more. We can tell you that it will remain one of our favorite records for 2009. But you probably just need to close your eyes and experience it for yourself.
MPEG Stream: "Motorbike"
MPEG Stream: "For So Long"

PESTE NOIRE Ballade Cuntre Lo Anemi Francor (De Profundis / Rosenkrantz) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pretty much as soon as we heard this, we knew it was going to be Record Of The Week, and not just black metal record of the week. In the past, Peste Noire seems to have always been unfairly categorized as an Amesoeurs / Alcest sideproject (we plead guilty of that as well) due not only to the presence of Neige, the mastermind behind both Amesoeurs and Alcest, but the seemingly shared membership between all three bands, and while Neige did no doubt contribute much to Peste Noire's sound, it seems Peste Noire was much more the brainchild of only remaining original member, Famine, whose other main musical outlet is the almost equally twisted Valfunde, and as if to prove the validity of the above claim, has assembled an almost entirely new lineup (although Audrey from Amesoeurs contributes some vocals) and cobbled together the most damaged, most fucked up, most gloriously bizarre Peste Noire record yet. Which if you've heard any of the other records is definitely saying something!
The record is weirdly arranged, five proper songs, with 2 minute or shorter song fragments and interludes, some that play like proper songs themselves, only truncated, others that act as intros or just totally tweaked unhinged sound experiments, but somehow, songs and non-songs alike hold together beautifully, and bafflingly, the band having created some sort of crusty, blackened, melancholy, depressive French folk flecked classic metal.
The intro begins with sizzling shimmering cymbals, simple percussion, eventually joined by beautiful ethereal female vocals, as well as some raspy blackened not-really-harmony vocals, then the riff comes in, and damn if it isn't a riff from Star Wars, but super distorted and blown out, pounding, crusty, epic and majestic, the rasped vocals over a haunting military sounding speech. And then straight into the first 'proper' track, which begins as some sort of sea shanty like French folk song, but with the addition of some hellish black vokills, you can almost imagine a table full of French soldiers, and one dripping slimy otherworldy beast, all singing along, glasses raised to the sky. Then in comes a very classic sounding metal riff, but the guitars muted and woozy, the tempo lurching and seasick, all manner of different vocals, crooning, shrieking, howling, then an awesomely weird squiggly bit of low end, super tripped out and psychedelic but somehow subtle and buried in the mix. Guitars soar and sing and jangle, wrapped around equally dramatic vocals, a total French folk crust anthem.
The follow up track begins all dark acoustic guitars and birdsong, martial percussion, eventually exploding into a super buzzy distorted march, pounding away, midtemp and melancholy, before returning to a super gorgeous, hauntingly depressive gothic crust almost-ballad, blackened and distorted, but also post rocky and strangely emotional and moving.
The 'interludes' include some warped and warbly haunted house piano, doused in hiss and crackle, ghostly female vocals drifting amidst the warm whir, sinister laughter, squalls of maniacal shrieks, dueling male / female vocals, almost operatic, soon joined again by that monstrous blackened croak, warm woozy calliopes, soundtracky keyboards and the sound of storms, tons of reverb and delay, tape hiss and softly crumbling distortion, all creating perfect segues between loping depressive midtempo blackened post metal lurch, super blown out in the red almost D-beat pounding buzz, those vocals transforming from hellish howl to deep moan, there's even some wheezing harmonica, all leading up to the final track, "Soleils Couchants", which begins with birdsong again, and an awesomely angular and beautifully twisted guitar part, paired up with a gorgeous minor key harmony, before slipping into a moody downtuned creep, complete with weird frog like vocals, and a looped bit of beeps and chirps, total post-doom weirdness, literally like nothing you've ever heard, it sounds a little like that first part of the Pirates Of The Caribbean ride at Disneyland, where you're just floating through the dark bayou, lit only but slivers of moonlight and the flickering light of fireflies, it's like a soundtrack to that, swampy and doomy and mysterious, until the band launches into a strangely melodic black doom midtempo jam, the guitars minor key, multiple vocals merging into raspy otherworldly harmonies, before breaking down into a long stretch of just guitars and vocals, the guitars twisted and spidery but still melodic, the voices tortured but super passionate, yet again infusing the fucked up twisted blackness with pathos and emotion, keeping it from being weird for weird's sake, this is something else entirely. What sounds like a child's voice joins in, twisted around that hellish vokill, all draped over a gorgeously catchy riff, reminding us a bit of Katatonia or Lifelover, before spiraling and sprawling into a seriously melodic blackened post rock jam, and then finally returning to the doomy lurch that began the song some seven minutes earlier.
Peste Noire have (again) managed the seemingly impossible, creating a record both totally twisted and damaged, but also lovely and moving and melodic, a record that ranks up there in our pantheon of most bizarre and fucked up black metal records ever, while somehow appealing to even the not so metal inclined, a confusional mix of black and crust and pop and folk, all twisted and tangled up and forced through Peste Noire's cracked musical sensibilities, the result, a record fucked up and fantastical, and this review not withstanding, almost impossible to describe.
MPEG Stream: "Neire Peste"
MPEG Stream: "La Mesniee Mordrissoire"
MPEG Stream: "Ballade Cuntre Les Anemis De La France"
MPEG Stream: "Soleils Couchants"

WOODEN SHJIPS Dos (Holy Mountain) cd 14.98
Wooden Shjips are the kind of band that inspire rabid devotion, and not without good reason. They are, in their own distinct way, a perfect band, stripping psychedelia of all its unnecessary flourishes and focusing, REALLY focusing on the fundamental elements that make your favorite songs your favorite songs. No verses, no choruses, no frills, and no bullshit. Just an endless, hypnotic groove that allows the listener to tune out everything else and let the music take them where they need to be. This simplicity is also the band's greatest source of power. While other groups will work desperately to cultivate an image as a "psychedelic" band, Wooden Shjips bypass all that and instead let their music speak for itself. The results are always mesmerizing, not to mention somewhat strange and mysterious, the only logical outcome from four guys who must know exactly what they are doing and understand the importance of working together as a unit instead of showing off their individual musical chops, save the abundance of perfectly timed, ripping fuzz guitar solos. The songs on the band's self-titled debut and their collection of early singles are at once classic and modern, seeming as if they had existed forever and simply needed to be unlocked and revealed by the right musicians. In that respect, we should consider ourselves very lucky that Wooden Shjips exist NOW.
When news of a new Shjips record hit the streets, we aQuarians were foaming at the mouth wondering what might lie ahead. Then one day, without warning, Dos was here, the four disembodied heads on the cover staring forward like totem poles floating in silver space. While the first album featured a hazy image of the band sitting on a stairwell, their faces are the focal point here, almost as if Wooden Shjips are gradually revealing more to the mystery that is their existence. But what does it sound like? Well, hopefully our review can convince you of this album's absolute majesty... but since words could never properly explain how much this has struck some of us, you should probably check out the sound samples, and above all, trust us.
The album opens perfectly with "Motorbike", possibly the most joyous Wooden Shjips song to date. Swirling guitar chords and oscillating swooshes give one the feeling of traveling at high speeds through some glorious psychedelic vortex, throttling you about in the best way imaginable. It's the sort of song that makes you feel great to be alive, with catchy keyboard melodies recalling a more frantic version of the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" as the UNSTOPPABLE rhythm section lays down a steady rhythmic framework that doesn't let up for the next 38 minutes. Next up is "For So Long", maybe our favorite song on the record. Driven by a bass line that is both spooky and relentlessly catchy, sparse, percussive guitar and organ creep about, as singer Ripley's deep croon wavers in the atmosphere. The somewhat ambivalent vibe of this song makes it the ideal soundtrack to pretty much any moment in your day, whether strolling down the street without a care in the world OR walking home late at night in some paranoid daze. "Down By The Sea" utilizes an appropriate underwater effect on the organ as the bass and drums give you the impression of, well, walking down by the sea. About three minutes in, a classic Wooden Shjips guitar solo enters and eventually morphs into squalls of heavenly white noise. This wonderful psych excursion is followed by the more down tempo "Aquarian Time", featuring a cool tremeloed organ (or maybe it's a piano?) and a devastating fuzz guitar groove that locks in with the bass before another rad guitar solo takes you way up into the clouds. The closing number, "Fallin'", kicks off with a simple two note groove, accented by a reedy organ accompanying the bass and a glistening, cleanly strummed guitar while a simple snare hit keeps the percussive flow going, the work of a man who must surely be in a trance - seriously, how the hell does this guy play so steady for so long?!?! It puts you deep under the band's spell, and then, at the 4 minute mark, you are introduced to the CATCHIEST BASS LINE OF THE YEAR!!! It will stick in your head for ages. After 11 minutes, the song ends with an organ chord and amp hum, reminding you that, yes, Wooden Shjips are human beings and not just a psychedelic rock machine. It's like the band is stopping to breathe for a moment before the next adventure, which hopefully will come very soon. You are left wondering what just happened, and if you're like us, you'll immediately put Dos on for another spin (or, if you're like a certain AQ staffer, 9 or 10 more spins!).
The overall sound on Dos is more upfront and less murky than on past releases. This slightly higher fidelity suits Wooden Shjips splendidly, as these five songs are generally tighter and more snappingly rhythmic than anything they have produced before. Each instrument is represented perfectly in the mix, with nothing taking precedence. The nonstop propulsion of this group is undoubtedly the result of four people operating on another level of psychedelic comprehension, a level many other bands simply don't understand. At the same time, their music is highly enjoyable and not difficult to "get". We certainly get it...
To call Dos "essential" wouldn't be enough. We can tell you that this album exceeded any expectations we may have had. We can tell you how if anyone interrupts you while listening to this, you will be pretty pissed and will most likely ignore them and crank up the volume even more. We can tell you that it will remain one of our favorite records for 2009. But you probably just need to close your eyes and experience it for yourself.
MPEG Stream: "Motorbike"
MPEG Stream: "For So Long"

ZOROASTER Voice Of Saturn (Terminal Doom) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Anyone who has happened to catch Atlanta's Zoroaster in a live setting will more than likely mention the same few details: walls of multiple full stacked amplifiers, strobe lights with no apparent "off" switch, and three dudes bringing the DOOM like nobody's business. But most of all, massive, MASSIVE volume. And while Zoroaster effortlessly lay waste on stage, their albums manage to retain this monolithic heaviness while also revealing a method of songwriting that probably wouldn't be described as "nuanced", but nonetheless brings more than a few surprises. Unlike many doom bands, Zoroaster display a notable melodic presence, which makes for one hell of a combination with their metallic tendencies toward sloooooooooow, lumbering riffs, powerful caveman drumming, and vocals that sometimes venture into guttural black metal territory. Without fail, any time we put on a Zoroaster disc, someone in the store, be it aQ staffer or customer, will come up with a slightly confused look on their face and ask what we're listening to. After all, you could probably count on one hand the number of doom bands who manage to incorporate French horns and Theremins into the mix while still coming across as uncompromisingly heavy. Atmospherics are another staple of Zoroaster's psychedelicized approach, with strange bursts of oscillated fuckery worming into the mix but never taking over to the point of distraction. AND everyone in the band is credited with playing Moog, which is just fucking awesome...
On Voice of Saturn, the band's second full length, things start with a brief ambient intro that leads right into the first song, "Seeing the Dark". Rather than trying to explain "stoner rock" to someone, it might be more advantageous to simply put on a song like this, a plodding burst of fuzzed out heaviness that rocks ridiculously hard with gigantic guitars and sandpaper vocals. But then, in maybe the biggest what-the-fuck moment in Zoroaster's career, a simple repeated piano note takes over as everything else dwindles away before returning with cleanly hummed vocals for a beautifully mind-melting slowcore jam. Bravo guys. "Spirit Molecule" clocks in at a lengthy 13 minutes, allowing the band time to brew up a heavier than thou dirge with bits of otherworldly noise before heading into "Undying", an ominous downtempo groove accented by strange witchlike vocals that sound like they were beamed in from some unknown galaxy. "White Dwarf" is a decaying soundscape made up of white noise and underlying synth pulses that segues into the title track, where the band sparks up another doomed out blast of negative energy as the appropriate mantra of "Chaos" brings the song to its conclusion. "Lamen of the Master Therion" closes the album with a familiar sound that you quickly realize is the aforementioned beautifully mind-melting slowcore jam, the piano now accompanied by a strummed acoustic guitar! FUCK YES! Even after that, you can stick around a bit for the secret track, a cool drumcentric moment that we will not describe as "tribal".
Hopefully this new disc will bring Zoroaster to the attention of more people, since they are obviously choice candidates to the current throne of doom. Anyone digging Sleep, Electric Wizard, and UFOmammut will do themselves a real favor by picking up Voice of Saturn, and adventurous non-metalheads might find something to like as well. Needless to say, this one is coming to you highly recommended.
CHAOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Seeing The Dark"
MPEG Stream: "Undying"

ZOROASTER Voice Of Saturn (Kreation ) lp 16.98
NOW ON VINYL, via the always helpful in that department Kreation label!
Anyone who has happened to catch Atlanta's Zoroaster in a live setting will more than likely mention the same few details: walls of multiple full stacked amplifiers, strobe lights with no apparent "off" switch, and three dudes bringing the DOOM like nobody's business. But most of all, massive, MASSIVE volume. And while Zoroaster effortlessly lay waste on stage, their albums manage to retain this monolithic heaviness while also revealing a method of songwriting that probably wouldn't be described as "nuanced", but nonetheless brings more than a few surprises. Unlike many doom bands, Zoroaster display a notable melodic presence, which makes for one hell of a combination with their metallic tendencies toward sloooooooooow, lumbering riffs, powerful caveman drumming, and vocals that sometimes venture into guttural black metal territory. Without fail, any time we put on a Zoroaster disc, someone in the store, be it aQ staffer or customer, will come up with a slightly confused look on their face and ask what we're listening to. After all, you could probably count on one hand the number of doom bands who manage to incorporate French horns and Theremins into the mix while still coming across as uncompromisingly heavy. Atmospherics are another staple of Zoroaster's psychedelicized approach, with strange bursts of oscillated fuckery worming into the mix but never taking over to the point of distraction. AND everyone in the band is credited with playing Moog, which is just fucking awesome...
On Voice of Saturn, the band's second full length, things start with a brief ambient intro that leads right into the first song, "Seeing the Dark". Rather than trying to explain "stoner rock" to someone, it might be more advantageous to simply put on a song like this, a plodding burst of fuzzed out heaviness that rocks ridiculously hard with gigantic guitars and sandpaper vocals. But then, in maybe the biggest what-the-fuck moment in Zoroaster's career, a simple repeated piano note takes over as everything else dwindles away before returning with cleanly hummed vocals for a beautifully mind-melting slowcore jam. Bravo guys. "Spirit Molecule" clocks in at a lengthy 13 minutes, allowing the band time to brew up a heavier than thou dirge with bits of otherworldly noise before heading into "Undying", an ominous downtempo groove accented by strange witchlike vocals that sound like they were beamed in from some unknown galaxy. "White Dwarf" is a decaying soundscape made up of white noise and underlying synth pulses that segues into the title track, where the band sparks up another doomed out blast of negative energy as the appropriate mantra of "Chaos" brings the song to its conclusion. "Lamen of the Master Therion" closes the album with a familiar sound that you quickly realize is the aforementioned beautifully mind-melting slowcore jam, the piano now accompanied by a strummed acoustic guitar! FUCK YES! Even after that, you can stick around a bit for the secret track, a cool drumcentric moment that we will not describe as "tribal".
Hopefully this new disc will bring Zoroaster to the attention of more people, since they are obviously choice candidates to the current throne of doom. Anyone digging Sleep, Electric Wizard, and UFOmammut will do themselves a real favor by picking up Voice of Saturn, and adventurous non-metalheads might find something to like as well. Needless to say, this one is coming to you highly recommended.
CHAOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Seeing The Dark"
MPEG Stream: "Undying"

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM Black Cascade (Southern Lord) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
By now, Wolves in the Throne Room have established themselves as one of America's most gifted and awesomely dependable black metal bands, and their third long player, Black Cascade, picks up right where their recent Malevolent Grain ep left off. All the elements of their expansive, blackened psychedelic approach are here: sprawling songs with a methodical attention to song structure, relentless drumming, perfectly interlocking dual guitars, tortured raspy vocals, and an ability to seamlessly merge synthy ambience with a furious but often very melancholy black metal onslaught. There seems to be a legion of haters out there, ready to label the band as a bunch of PC hippies who aren't adhering to whatever rules they assume apply to a style of music that is pretty nihilistic and iconoclastic by nature. But fuck those people. This band is great and truly deserves whatever accolades come its way.
The ever-present density of WITTR's sound is further heightened on Black Cascade, their bio proudly emphasizing the old school analog sound they have achieved through vintage recording gear and classic tube amps. While we don't want to ramble on about various pieces of musical equipment, it should be noted that these devices have certainly helped the band to capture a sound music nerds might refer to as "organic". Sure, we at aQuarius love all the homemade bedroom black metal that sounds as if it was recorded in a blender during a tornado... The sound on Black Cascade, however, is clear and upfront, though hardly refined or polished. It is quite rock n' roll in a classic sense, which works great when the band breaks out some Thin Lizzy-esque guitar harmonies on the first track "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog". Mossy, ultra distorted guitars hang like a thick black cloud (or a sea of fog, if you will) in the atmosphere as the drums create the necessary propulsion that make a Wolves in the Throne Room song sound like it could, and should, carry on FOREVER. Song #2, "Ahrimanic Trance" is, true to its title, a hypnotic, trancelike black metal trip into some long forgotten wilderness. The song gives one a feeling of being transported at high speeds across the landscape while watching from the back of some primitive vehicle, a sense that is carried on in the next track, "Ex Cathedra". The final song, "Crystal Ammunition", starts life as a dizzying, hyperspeed slab of pure black metal before morphing into a beautiful lament that may (or may not) reference the melody from Malevolent Grain's "A Looming Resonance". It's seems like things will culminate in the ultimate fadeout. But, uh, what happens after the fade out? As everything gallops off into the distance, otherworldly guitar chords and tambourine are the only sounds evident. Eventually these too recede as they are overtaken by a phased out synthscape. Fucking awesome.
While this album was great from the moment we first put it on, repeated listens have been revealing more and more. To say this is a huge departure from what Wolves in the Throne Room have accomplished in the past would be inaccurate. It is, instead, the sound of a group who, with each record, becomes a more realized version of itself.
MPEG Stream: "Ex Cathedra"
MPEG Stream: "Ahrimanic Trance"

MAKO SICA Noise Attic Session 2 (PlusTapes) cassette 5.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Recorded by the band in an old attic with creaky floor boards, rusty pipes, stained rugs, a hot water heater, and a borrowed 8-track reel-to-reel."
So state the liner notes to the PlusTapes re-release of this excellent Chicago band's recorded debut. And after one listen, such a description certainly makes sense, as the music exhibits a sort or urban rusticity, a sound that is as pleasantly detached as it is connected to life in a big city.
Comprised of players from Chicago's experimental and metal scenes (and featuring Przemyslaw K. Drazek of longtime Aquarius favorites Rope), Mako Sica exists as its own island within a city generally known for post rock and heavier sounds. A dreamy haze of gently strummed melodies floats above free form percussion with chantlike vocals that aren't as much sung as they are summoned, occasional bursts of trumpet punctuating the atmosphere. At every moment, a beautiful and softly sustained drone permeates the recording like an additional member of the band. And then, right when you've happily fallen into Mako Sica's trancelike psychedelia, the band snaps into a rhythmic groove that is focused but never forced. The beautifully textured songs walk along the border of experimentation while never losing themselves to mindless abstraction. And when the tape finally runs out, your first impulse will be to flip it over, walk into Mako Sica's world once again, and stay there.
As we mentioned above, this gem comes to us from the good people at the ever reliable PlusTapes, which also means it's ultra limited. 100 copies... we received 20, so you know those won't last long

GAINSBOURG, SERGE Histoire De Melody Nelson (Light In The Attic) cd 14.98
Well it's about time!!!!!! After years of wallowing in the hazy convoluted mists of legend, hearsay, and hipster influence, only to be obtained through ultra expensive imports, rare bootlegs, or ripped vinyl blogs, this long unavailable but hugely influential work by Serge Gainsbourg finally sees its first domestic reissue almost forty years after its scandalous release.
You won't need a translator to understand the sublime perversity at the heart of this concept record, arguably Gainsbourg's most accomplished full studio album. Released in 1971, Histoire De Melody Nelson is a seven song suite about an underage English nymphet (the titular Melody Nelson) and the wealthy lecherous older Frenchman who, after nearly running over her in his Rolls Royce, takes her in, falls in love and eventually deflowers her. And of course, like most love stories, there is a tragic climax. While the story is largely lifted from Kubrick's cinematic version of Lolita, the concept was undertaken in actuality as a symphonic love letter to Jane Birken, the British actress and singer (she sings the part of Melody). Though, not underage when they began their affair, she was twenty years younger than Serge, and their relationship became controversial with the release of their 1969 duet "Je t'aime....mon non plus" (originally recorded with Brigitte Bardot) with its sounds of a simulated female orgasm.
But Melody Nelson is not only Gainsbourg's finest moment, its musical reputation would be nothing without the orchestral arrangements and progressive grooves of Jean-Claude Vannier (see our review of L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, to get some highly praised background). The underlying score is less obviously song-oriented and more atmospheric than previous Gainsbourg outings, yet deceptively simple. The opening and closing tracks each at nearly eight minutes mirror each other with a sinewy descending bass groove and classic drum breaks (sampled heavily by De La Soul, David Holmes and Dan The Automator), which set the stage for acid-y guitar fills, swooning strings and Serge's own seductive speak-singing. The closing track ("Cargo Culte") ups the transcendent quality of the climax by adding a mass choir and full orchestra to the swirling tower of sound. In between these two tracks are shorter but artfully arranged pieces of folk-groove, French chanson, acid rock, and cinematic sonic bliss that move the story forward. It's one of those records that slowly grabs you, lures you into its spell, and eventually hooks you, so you'll want to keep listening to it over and over.
Though it was a flop on its initial release - Gainsbourg was largely a singles artist before this point, and the leap from that to concept album, especially one of this perverse nature, was perhaps too wide for French audiences - Histoire De Melody Nelson has gained a significant cult following over the years, perhaps reaching its greatest influence in the nineties with bands like Portishead (Dummy), Pulp (This is Hardcore), Massive Attack (Protection), Radiohead (The Bends), Air (Moon Safari), Blonde Redhead (Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons) and Beck (Sea Change), nearly lifting the basic sonic template of this album wholesale.
This awesome, nicely packaged reissue comes with a beautiful booklet of drawings, essays and interviews, outlining not only the full extent of the making of this amazing work, but charting its larger cultural impact as well.
Reissue of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Melody"
MPEG Stream: "Ballade De Melody Nelson"
MPEG Stream: "En Melody"

BLANK DOGS The Fields (Woodsist) cd ep 11.98
Everyone at aQ is super open minded when it comes to music, we all love all kinds of sounds, but each of us definitely has our favorite, our specialties, whether it be black metal, or indie rock or drone or post rock or power pop or whatever. So when a record shows up that has *everybody* freaking out, that's usually a sign that said record is something special, and in those cases we definitely try to mark the occasion by making that record our Record Of The Week.
Such is the case with The Fields by Blank Dogs, or should we say Blank Dog singular as this is a one man operation, some cat named Mike Sniper who for the last few years has been practically gushing limited cd-r's and tapes and short run releases, most so limited that for most of us, The Fields is our first real exposure to Sniper's gorgeous woozy lo-fi new wave, and new wave is really what this is, whereas a lot of the other Blank Dogs releases were super noisy and abrasive, The Fields is hooky and catchy and jangly, total perfect gloom pop, albeit drenched in plenty of tape hiss and amp buzz. Equal parts The Cure and Joy Division, huge fuzzed out downer basslines, simple drum rhythms or programmed beats, all wreathed in thick swirls of murky effects, fuzzy clouds of bloop and bleep, synthesizers spewing squiggly melodies, or unfurling thick undulating ribbons of warm buzz, and then the vocals, deep and drowsy, weary and worn, a mournful croon, super emotional and darkly evocative, all of those parts stitched together into haphazard perfect pop gems.
It's a super short record, seven songs in twenty minutes, but it's darn near perfect, the opening bass line and drum part are total Cure worship, all gothy and gloomy, with an irresistible hook buried in the mix, the deep main croon balanced by a weird processed almost falsetto, fucked up effects careening all over the place in the background, smoothly segueing into "Now Signals" the indie mixtape hit of the year if there ever was one, a sort of Interpol meets Magnetic Fields by way of Sebadoh, a simple guitar jangle over woozy synths, and a sweet sad boy vocal, until it shifts gear into a killer super rocking, heavy guitar bridge, that slips into a warm, almost heavy chorus, before returning to that lo-fi jangle and shimmer of the verse.
"Passing The Light" has a wicked blown out buzzy bass line, that would shame Interpol, the Joy Division melody strung between a constellation of glistening effects, the vocals dripping with delay and reverb and distortion, and again, all wrapped around a wicked hook. The last few tracks get almost frenetic, and mix in some classic pop era Eno into the moody new wave gloom, finishing things off with the weirdly ebullient "Spinning", that manages to glow and pulse with energy while retaining plenty of the rest of the record's glorious downer doompop vibe.
Of course this is on Woodsist, which has been on a roll lately releasing one amazing gem after another: Crystal Stilts, Wavves, Pocahaunted, Meneguar, and now Blank Dogs!! Even though we're only a few weeks into 2009, there's no doubt this disc will find its way onto lots of folks year end lists!
MPEG Stream: "Now Signals"
MPEG Stream: "Before The Hours"
MPEG Stream: "The Other Way"

BLANK DOGS The Fields (Woodsist) lp 14.98
Everyone at aQ is super open minded when it comes to music, we all love all kinds of sounds, but each of us definitely has our favorite, our specialties, whether it be black metal, or indie rock or drone or post rock or power pop or whatever. So when a record shows up that has *everybody* freaking out, that's usually a sign that said record is something special, and in those cases we definitely try to mark the occasion by making that record our Record Of The Week.
Such is the case with The Fields by Blank Dogs, or should we say Blank Dog singular as this is a one man operation, some cat named Mike Sniper who for the last few years has been practically gushing limited cd-r's and tapes and short run releases, most so limited that for most of us, The Fields is our first real exposure to Sniper's gorgeous woozy lo-fi new wave, and new wave is really what this is, whereas a lot of the other Blank Dogs releases were super noisy and abrasive, The Fields is hooky and catchy and jangly, total perfect gloom pop, albeit drenched in plenty of tape hiss and amp buzz. Equal parts The Cure and Joy Division, huge fuzzed out downer basslines, simple drum rhythms or programmed beats, all wreathed in thick swirls of murky effects, fuzzy clouds of bloop and bleep, synthesizers spewing squiggly melodies, or unfurling thick undulating ribbons of warm buzz, and then the vocals, deep and drowsy, weary and worn, a mournful croon, super emotional and darkly evocative, all of those parts stitched together into haphazard perfect pop gems.
It's a super short record, seven songs in twenty minutes, but it's darn near perfect, the opening bass line and drum part are total Cure worship, all gothy and gloomy, with an irresistible hook buried in the mix, the deep main croon balanced by a weird processed almost falsetto, fucked up effects careening all over the place in the background, smoothly segueing into "Now Signals" the indie mixtape hit of the year if there ever was one, a sort of Interpol meets Magnetic Fields by way of Sebadoh, a simple guitar jangle over woozy synths, and a sweet sad boy vocal, until it shifts gear into a killer super rocking, heavy guitar bridge, that slips into a warm, almost heavy chorus, before returning to that lo-fi jangle and shimmer of the verse.
"Passing The Light" has a wicked blown out buzzy bass line, that would shame Interpol, the Joy Division melody strung between a constellation of glistening effects, the vocals dripping with delay and reverb and distortion, and again, all wrapped around a wicked hook. The last few tracks get almost frenetic, and mix in some classic pop era Eno into the moody new wave gloom, finishing things off with the weirdly ebullient "Spinning", that manages to glow and pulse with energy while retaining plenty of the rest of the record's glorious downer doompop vibe.
Of course this is on Woodsist, which has been on a roll lately releasing one amazing gem after another: Crystal Stilts, Wavves, Pocahaunted, Meneguar, and now Blank Dogs!! Even though we're only a few weeks into 2009, there's no doubt this disc will find its way onto lots of folks year end lists!
MPEG Stream: "Now Signals"
MPEG Stream: "Before The Hours"
MPEG Stream: "The Other Way"