BOARDS OF CANADA Trans Canada Highway - Extended Play (Warp) cd ep 10.98
Through their refined sensibility of unspecified nostalgia and willful obscurantism squeezed into a succinct form of ambient electronica, Boards Of Canada have been nothing if not consistent in what they've produced over the past decade. Even when there's been huge gaps between recordings when the currents of electronica may move this way or that, they still mine the same electric beatitudes cultivated on their still impressive album Music Has The Right To Children. So with the release of Trans Canada Highway EP, Boards Of Canada offer yet another facet of their signature sound -- you know, airy breakbeats swaddled in delicate warbles of hazy ambience and melodic interplay between synthetic patches and warm 'n' fuzzy acoustic guitars. The opening track, "Dayvan Cowboy," can also be found on the previous recording The Campfire Headphase and gets reprised at the conclusion of the EP by way of a pleasantly wandering Odd Nosdam remix.
MPEG Stream: "Left Side Drive"
MPEG Stream: "Skyliner"

BOARDS OF CANADA Trans Canada Highway - Extended Play (Warp) 12" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Through their refined sensibility of unspecified nostalgia and willful obscurantism squeezed into a succinct form of ambient electronica, Boards Of Canada have been nothing if not consistent in what they've produced over the past decade. Even when there's been huge gaps between recordings when the currents of electronica may move this way or that, they still mine the same electric beatitudes cultivated on their still impressive album Music Has The Right To Children. So with the release of Trans Canada Highway EP, Boards Of Canada offer yet another facet of their signature sound -- you know, airy breakbeats swaddled in delicate warbles of hazy ambience and melodic interplay between synthetic patches and warm 'n' fuzzy acoustic guitars. The opening track, "Dayvan Cowboy," can also be found on the previous recording The Campfire Headphase and gets reprised at the conclusion of the EP by way of a pleasantly wandering Odd Nosdam remix.
MPEG Stream: "Left Side Drive"
MPEG Stream: "Skyliner"

BOARDS OF CANADA Twoism (Warp) cd 15.98
Now that the world has fallen love with Boards of Canada's languid, pastoral instrumentals, 'tis high time for a re-release of their first ultralimited album Twoism, recorded in 1995. The original vinyl of this record goes for hundreds of dollars but you can have the disc for a normal price (and it comes with a sticker too). BoC's sound features warbly synth tones plucking out almost childishly simple melodies -- the duo's skill is more in conjuring up their trademark warm, organic fuzzy sound, a mix of shuffling arty breakbeats tapped out on the snare and mixed with early Mo-Wax-style doped out whooshing layers of atmospherics. It's really, really beatuiful, although after three full length releases I am begininng to find the melodies a trifle same-y, as if one keeps hearing the same three notes over and over, only slightly varied for each track. The Boards' peak remains their Music Has the Right to Children album, their least predictable ad most artistically inspired record. However Twoism is a fine, and previously virtually unheard by most of us, debut. Worth a listen.
RealAudio clip: "Sixtyniner"

BOARDS OF CANADA Twoism (Warp) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now that the world has fallen love with Boards of Canada's languid, pastoral instrumentals, 'tis high time for a re-release of their first ultralimited album Twoism, recorded in 1995. The original vinyl of this record goes for hundreds of dollars but you can have the disc for a normal price (and it comes with a sticker too). BoC's sound features warbly synth tones plucking out almost childishly simple melodies -- the duo's skill is more in conjuring up their trademark warm, organic fuzzy sound, a mix of shuffling arty breakbeats tapped out on the snare and mixed with early Mo-Wax-style doped out whooshing layers of atmospherics. It's really, really beatuiful, although after three full length releases I am begininng to find the melodies a trifle same-y, as if one keeps hearing the same three notes over and over, only slightly varied for each track. The Boards' peak remains their Music Has the Right to Children album, their least predictable ad most artistically inspired record. However Twoism is a fine, and previously virtually unheard by most of us, debut. Worth a listen.

BOATS, THE Songs By the Sea (Baked Goods) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If you were to think of a seafaring vessel while listening to this atmospheric instrumental album, methinks it would be more 'submarine' than 'boat'. Indeed the very aquatic sounds emitted by this band (which features members of Hood and Remote Viewer) evoke the echo-y, shadowy ocean depths with glinting fishies and swaying seaweed. Murky swirls of sonic blues and greens, electronic pulses, fuzzy subterranean drones and occasional laidback jazzy percussion, with breathy ethereal female vocals floating lazily amidst the audio acquatic. Think Mazzy Star meets Oval, or maybe Bjork transmitting minimal glitchscapes from the bottom of your swimming pool. Considering the overall tranquil tone of the album, the song titles (such as "A Volume Of Typefaces", I Only Missed By One Word" and "All Thumbs And Thumbs") are somewhat puzzling -- not at all keeping with the theme of the band's name and album title.
MPEG Stream: "And There Are Stars That Fell From The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "A Volume Of Typefaces"

BOATS, THE Tomorrow Time (Moteer) cd 15.98
The Boats come sailing back with their third full length, and their music is as lovely as ever. Tomorrow Time commences with an unfurling of soft droning veils embroidered with delicate glitch. Drowsy processed vocals slow drift along stepping gracefully around the raindrop chimes and piano keys. In stark contrast to all of this aural dreaminess are the surprisingly negative toned song titles. Geez, they're so downright harsh and jarring when taken in combination with the sweet sweet music that you might want to avert your eyes, and simply let your ears soak in the sounds.
MPEG Stream: "May Our Enemies Never Find Happiness"
MPEG Stream: "You're An Idiot"

BOATS, THE We Made It For You (Baked Goods) cd 16.98
Almost exactly a year later, The Boats (featuring members of Hood and The Remote Viewer) pick right up from where they left off on their previous full length Songs By the Sea... soothing, fluid loveliness albeit minus that album's veil of female vocals. If you're seeking a totally relaxing listen, please take the album's title as the truth. This was made for you... even if your name isn't one of the many that make up the track titles. Delicate shimmery glitches and dreamy melodic piano phrases echo through the slowly undulating ripples of bass tones. A stay inside with a good book on a rainy day kind of album.
MPEG Stream: "Jumble"
MPEG Stream: "Mum And Dad"

BOB & GENE If This World Were Mine... (Daptone) cd 16.98
Great sweet flowing smooth vintage soul from the late 60's. The vocal harmonies on here are stunning. A total gem that we're sure The Numero Group wish they had gotten their hands on.
MPEG Stream: "You Don't Need Me"
MPEG Stream: "Your Name"

BOB LOG III Log Bomb (Epitaph) cd 14.98
Nothing new here. More lo-fi, blues explosion style, good ol' boys singing into a vacuum cleaner, shouting and whooping it up, foot stomping, 80-year-old-delta-bluesman-trapped-in-a-30-year-old-white-man's-body, swampy, dirty, barroom brawling, pig fucking, wild rhythm and blues form one half of the long gone Doo Rag, the band that started it all. The best part (and we're assuming he's poking a little fun at some other overly-self-referencing white blooz groop) is, after continuously shouting out his name, and the label's name, when he announces the fact that he's a one man band, and then announces the band members one at a time: "Mr right foot on the ol' bass drum......"
RealAudio clip: "One Man Band Boom"

BOB MOOG ACTION FIGURE (PressPop) 'action' figure 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
AQ vintage-synthesizer-lovin', action-figure-collectin' shoppers, may we have your attention please! In Aisle Number... uhhhh... 1, we have a new addition to our small but delightful selection of music related 'toy' collectibles. We're usin' the term loosely here, but yup, this is a 6" tall vinyl 'action figure' of the kindly grandfather of analog synthesizers, the late Bob Moog (oh and by the way, to settle any out-standing bets/arguments you might have: the man himself pronounced it 'Mowg', not 'Mooog' -- watch the recent Moog documentary to hear it straight from his mouth). Anyways, back to describing this figurine: The head and arms turn... one with his index finger extended to point at (or to press one of the keys of) the accompanying 3" tall vinyl mini-moog synth. Both the eyeglasses and jacket with attached shirt'n'tie dickie can be removed (although we're not quite sure why you'd do that!). It was all lovingly designed by Archer Prewitt (man of many hats including solo artist, Sea & Cake member, former Coctails and illustrator/comic artist extraordinaire) who also designed the colorful box in which the doll is packaged. We noticed a couple of odd things tho'... 1) that in one of his illustrations of Moog, Prewitt gave him a facial expression and hand gesture that are remarkably like those of Sof'Boy (one of his comic characters), and 2) that they've myteriously dressed him up in Pee Wee Herman's red bow tie and grey blazer. Now, we've seen scads of photos of Mr. Moog, and there hasn't been a single one in which he's wearing a bowtie (red or otherwise). Odd, but pretty darn neat nonetheless, and not at all surprisingly 'Made In Japan' by PressPop Gallery! And of course EXTREMELY LIMITED!!

BOB TILTON Leading Hotels Of The World (Southern) cd 13.98
Lots of people have been talking about this fiesty British quintet for a while, and it's easy to see why. They have a unique take on the indie math rock thing, with some great melodies, weird arrangements, and with the youthful vigor of Repeater era Fugazi.

BOBA FETTUCINI Arcade Breaks (Mon Mothma) 2lp 12.98

BOBBY DIGITAL (RZA) Digi Snacks (Koch) cd 16.98

BOBBYTEENS Not So Sweet (Estrus) cd 14.98
Okay, I've gotta let you know that when this cd first started I totally thought it was Blondie's "One Way Or Another". Then once the vocals came in... I was transported to Rydell Highschool in the movie Grease. The Bobbyteens are definitely a band Ms Rizzo and the rest of the Pink Ladies would approve of or even be in. Ample amounts of sass and attitude that also sorta reminded me of the Donnas. From the purveyors of fine garage rock, Estrus Records.

BOBBYTEENS Young & Dumb (Just Add Water) cd 13.98
The third full-length from perpetual highschoolers the Bobbyteens. Another trashy rawk party with major emphasis on fun, (minor on proficiency and production). A word of historical note, if you liked the Mummies, the Phantom Surfers and the Count Backwards, you no doubt already know that Bobbyteen Russell Quan beat the tubs for those three extremely lo-fi garage outfits. Plus his BT bandmates Tina and Danielle were two thirds of the Trashwomen. A messy dogpile of beer, lipstick, and satin jackets.

BOCHUM WELT R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) (Rephlex) cd 17.98

BODE, PETER / ANDREW DEUTSCH / PAULINE OLIVEROS Carrier (Neat) cd 14.98

BODIES IN THE GEARS OF THE APPARATUS / DESPISED ICON split (Relapse) cd 9.98

BODUF SONGS Lion Devours The Sun (Kranky) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Lord Of The Flies"
MPEG Stream: "That Angel Was Pretty Lame"

BODUF SONGS s/t (Kranky) cd 13.98
This mysterious release is the work of UK musician Mat Sweet, who sent a rough demo to the guys at Kranky, who in turn loved it so much they decided to release it without any tweaking or re-recording at all, for fear of sacrificing any of the intimacy or immediacy! A gorgeous chunk of neo folk, acoustic guitar, cymbals, percussion, violin bow, toy piano, manipulated field recordings and computer. At its heart though, this is just a simple and lovely folk record, reminiscent of Iron & Wine or Sentridoh, with its fingerpicked steel string guitar and hushed melancholy vocals, but unlike most of his folk brethren, Sweet adds all sorts of unlikely bits to his heartfelt songs, a swath of reverberating chimes, clanking cymbals, bells and woodblocks, occasional backwards melodies, dogs barking, shimmering drones, never so much that it detracts from the overall beauty, but more as a sort of filigree that adds depth and mystery to Sweet's gorgeously lilting folk. Fans of droney dreamy folk will dig this for sure, but Iron & Wine fans especially may find a new band to love!
MPEG Stream: "Puke A Pitch Black Rainbow To The Sun"
MPEG Stream: "Claimant Reclaimed"

BODY HAMMER Jigoku (The Path Less Traveled) cd 9.98
We're not entirely sure where we first heard about Body Hammer, and we're not really sure if it's a band or a guy, what we do know, is that this is some seriously fierce and fucked up hypergrind / math metal / black drone weirdness. 18 songs, all but 6 less than a minute long, some of those as short as a matter of seconds, every one an awesome chunk of sonic mayhem. The 1:41 opener is all creep and creak, moan and drift, downtuned guitars and tinkling melodies, some sort of Wolf Eyes / Goblin hybrid, which leads right into 31 seconds of ultra technical, super distorted, gnarled and chaotic noise drenched metallic grind that should hit the spot for Discordance Axis fans and anyone who digs all that drummachinegun grind. The 14 second follow up is a brief white hot squall of harmonized guitars and malfunctioning drum machines, which leads directly into another industrial drone drift.
The first 2/3 of the records pass in a blur, lurching from haunting droney ambience to chugging churning grinding metal madness and back again, stopping for brief forays into blacknoize, dreamy lo-fi ambient drift, as well as some under 20 second hypergrind workouts, all tweaked FX and lightspeed blast beats, high end feedback laced dronescapes, and rumbling guitardronebuzzandblur.
With 5 songs to go, Body Hammer lets the songs sprawl, and pushes the sound in even more fractured and fucked up directions, a super distorted in-the-red, lurching black doom trudge through a haze of glitched out distortion and howled vokills, thick crumbling post industrial dirgescapes, all reverbed clank and clatter, thud and pound and crunch, hypnotic static guitar drifts built from layered drones and laced with clean guitar twang, warped bass, and buried vox, until the final 7+ minute track, a harrowing blackened doomic dirge, groaning guitars, and distant vocals, which leaves 5 minutes of silence, before a minute or so of white noise hiss and intercepted voices from the ether.
Fucked up and fucking awesome. Packaged in a dvd case, with a printed insert, and while they last we have the super limited deluxe version that comes with a bunch of extra goodies and is wrapped in a sumo cloth and sealed with a sticker.
MPEG Stream: "Severe Aural Torture"
MPEG Stream: "The Bystander Effect"
MPEG Stream: "Red Pyramid"
MPEG Stream: "When Mental Anguish Exceeds the Physical Capability For Pain"

BODY LOVERS Number One Of Three (Atavistic) cd 15.98
The Body Lovers was the first project that Michael Gira established after dissolving his stalwart abject rock ensemble Swans. For this project (which presumably will be a trilogy of albums, if the title is an indication), Gira has chosen to concentrate on the production techniques which culminated so magnificantly on Swans "Great Annihilator" album - dominated by epic song structures built out of increasingly dense tape splices of archetypal Swans' rock grooves. Here, Gira has all but done away with the song (leaving that for his folk etherialism on Angels of Light) in favor of a beautifully ornate if nervously bleak drone album. Multiple layers of sustained organ chords resonate violently against each other as distant choruses of Branca like single note guitars and anguished non-linguistic chants build in intensity, sounding very much like a claustrophobic and highly controlled version of Hermann Nitsch's monumental Aktion pieces.

BODY LOVERS, THE / THE BODY HATERS s/t (Young God) 2cd 21.00
The Body Lovers was the first project that Michael Gira established after dissolving his stalwart abject rock ensemble Swans. For the Body Lovers, Gira had chosen to concentrate on the production techniques which culminated so magnificantly on Swans' Great Annihilator album -- dominated by epic song structures built out of increasingly dense tape splices of archetypal Swans' rock grooves. Here, Gira all but did away with the song (leaving that for his folk etherialism on Angels of Light) in favor of a beautifully ornate if nervously bleak drone album. Multiple layers of sustained organ chords resonate violently against each other as distant choruses of Branca like single note guitars and anguished non-linguistic chants build in intensity, sounding very much like a claustrophobic and highly controlled version of Hermann Nitsch's monumental Aktion pieces. When this record originally came out in 1998, Gira announced that the Body Lovers would produce a triology of recordings. Unfortunately, this never came to be. Instead, Gira produced a single second disc of malcontent noise as the Body Haters which was the result of 12 hour studio session fuelled by alcohol and amphetamines. Here they are together, as they should be.
MPEG Stream: THE BODY LOVERS "(13:56)"
MPEG Stream: THE BODY LOVERS "(5:07)"
MPEG Stream: THE BODY HATERS "(10:38)"

BODY VEHICLE Being Being (Black Horizons) 2xcassette 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Only got one of these, long out of print, LIMITED TO 50 COPIES, this one is inexplicably numbered #51. On the kick ass Black Horizons label, Body Vehicle offer up a sprawling collection of buzz and drone, of dark minimalism and creeping ambient shimmer, a little bit modern space synth abstraction, a little bit electro acoustic experimentation...
Housed in a super swank oversized vinyl case, with a full color printed cover insert, and pasted on linernotes inside printed on shimmery blue metallic paper.

BODY, THE 2008 Tour cd-r (self-released) cd-r 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally!!! New music from The Body, who at one time, might just have ranked as one of, if not THE, favorite heavy band around these parts. Their self titled debut is incredible (and sadly out of print), a dizzying mix of post rock, ultra doom, and sludge metal, with a penchant for mathy rhythms, lots of space, and some seriously anguished vocals.
They released a super limited cd-r a bit later (which we have more of for a very short time, see elsewhere on this list!) which was more of the same, and included a totally over the top Judas Priest cover, the original totally transformed, which then leads us to this, a brand new tour ep, ALL covers, and not the sort of covers you might expect from a band like the Body, which is precisely why we love these guys so much.
Crass, Danzig, Black Flag and, wait for it, Sinead O'Connor. Yep. Hard to believe but it works, and they don't just turn it into a pointless sludgefest, they have obvious affection for the original. But before we get to "Black Boys On Mopeds", let's run through the other covers first.
Crass's "Do They Owe Us A Living" is all buzzing low end, and tribal drumming. The vocals a processed feral bark, the whole thing lurching and lumbering and seriously harrowingly intense. Makes the original sound like a lullaby. The Danzig track is a loping low slung groove, with a fierce downtuned riff, and hysterical shrieking vocals, the band totally own it, and again, add untold heaviness and harshness to the original. Black Flag's "Police Story" is pulled apart and gutted, before exploding into a punk rock frenzy, who knew a sludge band could rock so hard? It's a muddy, murky free for all, not that far removed from the original other than the downtuned guitars and the insane vox.
And finally, "Black Boys On Mopeds", a gorgeous sprawling dirge, and wisely the band opted to get some help with the vocals, a gorgeous female voice, underpinned by howled shrieked back up vocals way off in the distance, the bulk of the song a single buzzing throbbing note stretched out into a thick undulating drone, the rhythm a metronome like clack buried in the mix, the end gets all trippy and dubbed out, but damn if this isn't creepier and prettier than the original.
The Body is back, and we couldn't be happier. Now someone just needs to sign these guys and give them tons of money so they can finally put out a new full length!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Tired Of Being Alive (Danzig)"
MPEG Stream: "Black Boys On Mopeds (Sinead O'Connor)"

BODY, THE All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood (At A Loss) cd 13.98
We made the vinyl version of this incredible avant outsider doom opus a Record Of The Week a little while back, and figured that since a bunch of folks had been anxiously awaiting the cd version, it made sense to bestow Record Of The Week honors on the compact disc version as well, it's definitely good enough to warrant another spotlight on what is quite possibly one of the coolest and heaviest records of the year...
We've long been fans of burly bearded post doom crushers The Body, their sound like the classic two man pummel of godheadSilo expanded into something even more majestic and sprawling, black hole heavy, infusing their ultra doom glacial sludge with plenty of post and rock mathisms, the cinematic tension of groups like Godspeed, and heck, they even cover songs by folks like Crass, Danzig, Black Flag and Sinead O'Connor! For a two piece, these guys pretty much transcend and obliterate any sort of limitations that lineup would pose to most mere musical mortals, but that said, plenty of two pieces have seen fit to expand, say to a trio or a quartet, maybe just to record, get a few guests, or even permanently, ditching the duo which sometimes gets focused on more than the music. But few bands (dare we say, practically none) expand further than that, say from 2 members to THIRTY TWO! But that's exactly what The Body has done for All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood, their second proper full length in ages, one that marks ten years as a band, and more importantly, marks a serious sonic shift. No longer are they scrappy DIY punk rock noisemakers, setting their sites above and beyond, these guys have gone for it, meticulously crafting an album of extreme heaviness, of sonic mystery, haunting, and epic, metal for sure, even going so far as to include an actual 13 member choir, and not just for little random bits here and there, nearly seven minutes of the ten minute opening track, is just choir, lilting and angelic, lovely and otherworldly, only making the sudden shift from ethereal vocal harmony to crushing downtuned ultra doom all the more jarring. But the coolest part, is that the parts aren't clearly delineated. The choir continues on into the heaviness, so the howling churning crush, is peppered with gorgeous hymn like vocals, creating some sort of strangely liturgical sounding swirly sludge. And it's not just the vocals, there's saxophone, samples, piano, plenty of noise. And that pretty much sets the template for the whole record.
Besides the Assembly Of Light Choir, who are featured on almost every song here, the record also features Robert Lowe of Lichens offering up some additional vocals, not to mention the other 15 or 16 guests who contribute, beyond the core Body duo of drums, guitar, samples and vocals, a pretty crazy array of soundmakers, more vocals, saxophone, sousaphone, guitar, piano, keyboards, Moog, baritone saxophone and more drums. LOTS more drums. In fact, on the final track, "Lathspell I Name You" drummer Lee Buford is joined by EIGHT extra drummers!!! More on that in a moment.
The second track "A Curse" begins with a loping post rock beat, swirling synths, a melancholy melody, soaring chiming guitars, very moody and slow burning, before the band explodes into full doom, the sound shifts too, the crystalline clearness, becomes big and booming, the sound blown out, but more sort of warm and muted than in the red, the drums massive and pounding, while the guitars swirl in little chordal clouds, and the anguished vocals howl and wail, which gives way to "Empty Hearth", which sounds like some abstract experimental Swans style track, looped sample of what sounds like speaking in tongues, lurching mechanical crunch, glitched out electronics, shrieking vox, the whole song occasionally stuttering to a halt, as if the song was being remixed or was gloriously malfunctioning, there's also some awesome guttural throat singing, laced underneath the start stop, sample skitter, and super distorted bass buzz.
"Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss" starts with tarpit riffery and blurred hiss, strangely atmospheric, the drums skeletal but subtly mathy, the choir adding their gorgeous harmonies, an epic spiritual doom, tolling bells, everything dropping out, leaving just the booming drums, the shrieked vox, those bells, until a thick layer of low end washes over everything, and the track unwinds as some classic funereal doom.
"Song Of Sarin The Brave" begins all blown out and tangled up, sheets of feedback, huge heaving bursts of titanic metallic crunch, mysterious voices, finally the band launches into the song proper, and things get really weird, the drums stripped way down, the whole track slathered in strange murky blur and melting effects, while underneath, a strange sampled voice drifts, through clouds of other voices and mysterious sounds, totally creepy, and beautiful, and so mesmerizing, it goes on forever, and could have gone on way longer, but instead finishes off in a minute long blaze of shrieking black doom sludge crush.
"Ruiner" is another smoldering slow starter, haunting, downtuned minor key riffs ring out, doomic drums pound out a barely there rhythm, again, all underpinned by a strange staticky cloud of hiss and gauzy atmospheric hum, the track starting out super spare, but gradually growing more and more dense, more and more doomy, gathering momentum, not rhythmically so much as sonically, the progression laced subtly with strings and horns, little streaks of psychedelic guitars, until finally exploding into a lumbering dirge, the instruments blackened and crumbling, less riffy than a throbbing organic black buzz, pounding and pummeling before blinking out abruptly.
Which leads us to the final track, the 14 minute, multiple drummer-ed side long "Lathspell I Name You", a heaving, expansive ultra doom epic, a churning looped riff and some busy drumming start the track off, not doomy at all really, more noise rock or post rock, with some gorgeous folky melodies woven in, the choir offering up their lovely harmonies, but in this context, they sound less angelic and slightly demonic, locked into their own looped pattern mirroring, the motorik metal loop underneath, which gives way to a weirdly records, noise drum blowout, voices and instruments hissing and buzzing while a cacophony of drums pound and crash, mesmerizing and hypnotic, before the glacial chug resurfaces, along with the choir, and the band lock into a seriously slow motion, abrasive cathartic doom sludge crawl, the sound growing more and more blown out until every drum hit pegs the needles and distorts everything, making the sound that much more caustic and emotional and intense.
The roots of The Body's sound may be in doom or sludge, or even simply metal, but All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood has taken that sound so far beyond, transforming sludge and doom into something way more transcendent, way more difficult to immediately categorize, it's melodic, and poppy, and mathy, and drone-y, and electronic, and experimental, epic and majestic and mysterious, while somehow still remaining brutal, and pummeling and heavy as fuck. Fans of the usual suspects will probably dig this big time, Moss, Bunkur, Khanate, Monarch, Nihill, Otesanek (in fact the liner notes read: "All Praise To Otesanek And Man Is The Bastard"), Eyehategod, Habsyll, Fleshpress, but be prepared to look beyond the realms of traditional doom, or of conventional heaviness, because The Body are anything but traditional or conventional, and All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood just might be the coolest, weirdest, most original doom record EVER.
MPEG Stream: "A Body"
MPEG Stream: "A Curse"
MPEG Stream: "Empty Hearth"
MPEG Stream: "Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss"

BODY, THE All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood (Aum War) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've long been fans of burly bearded post doom crushers The Body, their sound like the classic two man pummel of godheadSilo expanded into something even more majestic and sprawling, black hole heavy, infusing their ultra doom glacial sludge with plenty of post and rock mathisms, the cinematic tension of groups like Godspeed, and heck, they even cover songs by folks like Crass, Danzig, Black Flag and Sinead O'Connor! For a two piece, these guys pretty much transcend and obliterate any sort of limitations that lineup would pose to most mere musical mortals, but that said, plenty of two pieces have seen fit to expand, say to a trio or a quartet, maybe just to record, get a few guests, or even permanently, ditching the duo which sometimes gets focused on more than the music. But few bands (dare we say, practically none) expand further than that, say from 2 members to THIRTY TWO! But that's exactly what The Body has done for All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood, their second proper full length in ages, one that marks ten years as a band, and more importantly, marks a serious sonic shift. No longer are they scrappy DIY punk rock noisemakers, setting their sites above and beyond, these guys have gone for it, meticulously crafting an album of extreme heaviness, of sonic mystery, haunting, and epic, metal for sure, even going so far as to include an actual 13 member choir, and not just for little random bits here and there, nearly seven minutes of the ten minute opening track, is just choir, lilting and angelic, lovely and otherworldly, only making the sudden shift from ethereal vocal harmony to crushing downtuned ultra doom all the more jarring. But the coolest part, is that the parts aren't clearly delineated. The choir continues on into the heaviness, so the howling churning crush, is peppered with gorgeous hymn like vocals, creating some sort of strangely liturgical sounding swirly sludge. And it's not just the vocals, there's saxophone, samples, piano, plenty of noise. And that pretty much sets the template for the whole record.
Besides the Assembly Of Light Choir, who are featured on almost every song here, the record also features Robert Lowe of Lichens offering up some additional vocals, not to mention the other 15 or 16 guests who contribute, beyond the core Body duo of drums, guitar, samples and vocals, a pretty crazy array of soundmakers, more vocals, saxophone, sousaphone, guitar, piano, keyboards, Moog, baritone saxophone and more drums. LOTS more drums. In fact, on the final track, "Lathspell I Name You" drummer Lee Buford is joined by EIGHT extra drummers!!! More on that in a moment.
The second track "A Curse" begins with a loping post rock beat, swirling synths, a melancholy melody, soaring chiming guitars, very moody and slow burning, before the band explodes into full doom, the sound shifts too, the crystalline clearness, becomes big and booming, the sound blown out, but more sort of warm and muted than in the red, the drums massive and pounding, while the guitars swirl in little chordal clouds, and the anguished vocals howl and wail, which gives way to "Empty Hearth", which sounds like some abstract experimental Swans style track, looped sample of what sounds like speaking in tongues, lurching mechanical crunch, glitched out electronics, shrieking vox, the whole song occasionally stuttering to a halt, as if the song was being remixed or was gloriously malfunctioning, there's also some awesome guttural throat singing, laced underneath the start stop, sample skitter, and super distorted bass buzz.
"Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss" starts with tarpit riffery and blurred hiss, strangely atmospheric, the drums skeletal but subtly mathy, the choir adding their gorgeous harmonies, an epic spiritual doom, tolling bells, everything dropping out, leaving just the booming drums, the shrieked vox, those bells, until a thick layer of low end washes over everything, and the track unwinds as some classic funereal doom.
"Song Of Sarin The Brave" begins all blown out and tangled up, sheets of feedback, huge heaving bursts of titanic metallic crunch, mysterious voices, finally the band launches into the song proper, and things get really weird, the drums stripped way down, the whole track slathered in strange murky blur and melting effects, while underneath, a strange sampled voice drifts, through clouds of other voices and mysterious sounds, totally creepy, and beautiful, and so mesmerizing, it goes on forever, and could have gone on way longer, but instead finishes off in a minute long blaze of shrieking black doom sludge crush.
"Ruiner" is another smoldering slow starter, haunting, downtuned minor key riffs ring out, doomic drums pound out a barely there rhythm, again, all underpinned by a strange staticky cloud of hiss and gauzy atmospheric hum, the track starting out super spare, but gradually growing more and more dense, more and more doomy, gathering momentum, not rhythmically so much as sonically, the progression laced subtly with strings and horns, little streaks of psychedelic guitars, until finally exploding into a lumbering dirge, the instruments blackened and crumbling, less riffy than a throbbing organic black buzz, pounding and pummeling before blinking out abruptly.
Which leads us to the final track, the 14 minute, multiple drummer-ed side long "Lathspell I Name You", a heaving, expansive ultra doom epic, a churning looped riff and some busy drumming start the track off, not doomy at all really, more noise rock or post rock, with some gorgeous folky melodies woven in, the choir offering up their lovely harmonies, but in this context, they sound less angelic and slightly demonic, locked into their own looped pattern mirroring, the motorik metal loop underneath, which gives way to a weirdly records, noise drum blowout, voices and instruments hissing and buzzing while a cacophony of drums pound and crash, mesmerizing and hypnotic, before the glacial chug resurfaces, along with the choir, and the band lock into a seriously slow motion, abrasive cathartic doom sludge crawl, the sound growing more and more blown out until every drum hit pegs the needles and distorts everything, making the sound that much more caustic and emotional and intense.
The roots of The Body's sound may be in doom or sludge, or even simply metal, but All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood has taken that sound so far beyond, transforming sludge and doom into something way more transcendent, way more difficult to immediately categorize, it's melodic, and poppy, and mathy, and drone-y, and electronic, and experimental, epic and majestic and mysterious, while somehow still remaining brutal, and pummeling and heavy as fuck. Fans of the usual suspects will probably dig this big time, Moss, Bunkur, Khanate, Monarch, Nihill, Otesanek (in fact the liner notes read: "All Praise To Otesanek And Man Is The Bastard"), Eyehategod, Habsyll, Fleshpress, but be prepared to look beyond the realms of traditional doom, or of conventional heaviness, because The Body are anything but traditional or conventional, and All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood just might be the coolest, weirdest, most original doom record EVER.
Incredible packaging too, heavy vinyl (3 sided, the 4th side is blank), thick, gatefold sleeve, with some chillingly striking artwork, a printed 12" x 12" insert silver reflective ink printed on black cardstock, liner notes and lineup on one side, lyrics on the other...
MPEG Stream: "A Body"
MPEG Stream: "A Curse"
MPEG Stream: "Empty Hearth"
MPEG Stream: "Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss"

BODY, THE All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood (At A Loss) 2lp 23.00
This mind blowing chunk of crushing, psychedelic, multi drummer-ed, choir laden avant ultra doom /sludge, a former aQ Record Of The Week, is finally available on (three-sided) vinyl once more, this time on nice colored wax via At A Loss (previously it was on Aum War). This new pressing is limited to 1100 copies, and the heavy duty gatefold is pretty swank, with embossed "Euro-style" inner sleeves. Comes with a download coupon as well!
We've long been fans of burly bearded post doom crushers The Body, their sound like the classic two man pummel of godheadSilo expanded into something even more majestic and sprawling, black hole heavy, infusing their ultra doom glacial sludge with plenty of post and rock mathisms, the cinematic tension of groups like Godspeed, and heck, they even cover songs by folks like Crass, Danzig, Black Flag and Sinead O'Connor! For a two piece, these guys pretty much transcend and obliterate any sort of limitations that lineup would pose to most mere musical mortals, but that said, plenty of two pieces have seen fit to expand, say to a trio or a quartet, maybe just to record, get a few guests, or even permanently, ditching the duo which sometimes gets focused on more than the music. But few bands (dare we say, practically none) expand further than that, say from 2 members to THIRTY TWO! But that's exactly what The Body has done for All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood, their second proper full length in ages, one that marks ten years as a band, and more importantly, marks a serious sonic shift. No longer are they scrappy DIY punk rock noisemakers, setting their sites above and beyond, these guys have gone for it, meticulously crafting an album of extreme heaviness, of sonic mystery, haunting, and epic, metal for sure, even going so far as to include an actual 13 member choir, and not just for little random bits here and there, nearly seven minutes of the ten minute opening track, is just choir, lilting and angelic, lovely and otherworldly, only making the sudden shift from ethereal vocal harmony to crushing downtuned ultra doom all the more jarring. But the coolest part, is that the parts aren't clearly delineated. The choir continues on into the heaviness, so the howling churning crush, is peppered with gorgeous hymn like vocals, creating some sort of strangely liturgical sounding swirly sludge. And it's not just the vocals, there's saxophone, samples, piano, plenty of noise. And that pretty much sets the template for the whole record.
Besides the Assembly Of Light Choir, who are featured on almost every song here, the record also features Robert Lowe of Lichens offering up some additional vocals, not to mention the other 15 or 16 guests who contribute, beyond the core Body duo of drums, guitar, samples and vocals, a pretty crazy array of soundmakers, more vocals, saxophone, sousaphone, guitar, piano, keyboards, Moog, baritone saxophone and more drums. LOTS more drums. In fact, on the final track, "Lathspell I Name You" drummer Lee Buford is joined by EIGHT extra drummers!!! More on that in a moment.
The second track "A Curse" begins with a loping post rock beat, swirling synths, a melancholy melody, soaring chiming guitars, very moody and slow burning, before the band explodes into full doom, the sound shifts too, the crystalline clearness, becomes big and booming, the sound blown out, but more sort of warm and muted than in the red, the drums massive and pounding, while the guitars swirl in little chordal clouds, and the anguished vocals howl and wail, which gives way to "Empty Hearth", which sounds like some abstract experimental Swans style track, looped sample of what sounds like speaking in tongues, lurching mechanical crunch, glitched out electronics, shrieking vox, the whole song occasionally stuttering to a halt, as if the song was being remixed or was gloriously malfunctioning, there's also some awesome guttural throat singing, laced underneath the start stop, sample skitter, and super distorted bass buzz.
"Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss" starts with tarpit riffery and blurred hiss, strangely atmospheric, the drums skeletal but subtly mathy, the choir adding their gorgeous harmonies, an epic spiritual doom, tolling bells, everything dropping out, leaving just the booming drums, the shrieked vox, those bells, until a thick layer of low end washes over everything, and the track unwinds as some classic funereal doom.
"Song Of Sarin The Brave" begins all blown out and tangled up, sheets of feedback, huge heaving bursts of titanic metallic crunch, mysterious voices, finally the band launches into the song proper, and things get really weird, the drums stripped way down, the whole track slathered in strange murky blur and melting effects, while underneath, a strange sampled voice drifts, through clouds of other voices and mysterious sounds, totally creepy, and beautiful, and so mesmerizing, it goes on forever, and could have gone on way longer, but instead finishes off in a minute long blaze of shrieking black doom sludge crush.
"Ruiner" is another smoldering slow starter, haunting, downtuned minor key riffs ring out, doomic drums pound out a barely there rhythm, again, all underpinned by a strange staticky cloud of hiss and gauzy atmospheric hum, the track starting out super spare, but gradually growing more and more dense, more and more doomy, gathering momentum, not rhythmically so much as sonically, the progression laced subtly with strings and horns, little streaks of psychedelic guitars, until finally exploding into a lumbering dirge, the instruments blackened and crumbling, less riffy than a throbbing organic black buzz, pounding and pummeling before blinking out abruptly.
Which leads us to the final track, the 14 minute, multiple drummer-ed side long "Lathspell I Name You", a heaving, expansive ultra doom epic, a churning looped riff and some busy drumming start the track off, not doomy at all really, more noise rock or post rock, with some gorgeous folky melodies woven in, the choir offering up their lovely harmonies, but in this context, they sound less angelic and slightly demonic, locked into their own looped pattern mirroring, the motorik metal loop underneath, which gives way to a weirdly records, noise drum blowout, voices and instruments hissing and buzzing while a cacophony of drums pound and crash, mesmerizing and hypnotic, before the glacial chug resurfaces, along with the choir, and the band lock into a seriously slow motion, abrasive cathartic doom sludge crawl, the sound growing more and more blown out until every drum hit pegs the needles and distorts everything, making the sound that much more caustic and emotional and intense.
The roots of The Body's sound may be in doom or sludge, or even simply metal, but All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood has taken that sound so far beyond, transforming sludge and doom into something way more transcendent, way more difficult to immediately categorize, it's melodic, and poppy, and mathy, and drone-y, and electronic, and experimental, epic and majestic and mysterious, while somehow still remaining brutal, and pummeling and heavy as fuck. Fans of the usual suspects will probably dig this big time, Moss, Bunkur, Khanate, Monarch, Nihill, Otesanek (in fact the liner notes read: "All Praise To Otesanek And Man Is The Bastard"), Eyehategod, Habsyll, Fleshpress, but be prepared to look beyond the realms of traditional doom, or of conventional heaviness, because The Body are anything but traditional or conventional, and All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood just might be the coolest, weirdest, most original doom record EVER.
Incredible packaging too, heavy vinyl (3 sided, the 4th side is blank), thick, gatefold sleeve, with some chillingly striking artwork, printed and embossed inner sleeves, with lyrics and liner notes...
MPEG Stream: "A Body"
MPEG Stream: "A Curse"
MPEG Stream: "Empty Hearth"
MPEG Stream: "Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss"

BODY, THE Anthology (Corleone) cd 13.98
We've been huge fans of Rhode Island two piece sludge doom duo The Body for years now, and have raved about every recording we could get our hands on, at one point even lamenting the fact that we were dying for a proper full length, and then BAM. Their self titled full length debut hit, and it DESTROYED. Then a few years later, and the band unleashed their epic, and seemingly universally acclaimed All The Waters Of The Earth Turned To Blood. A chunk of sludgy doom unlike anything we'd heard before, sure there was massive downtuned riffs, and bellowed and shrieked vox, pummeling drums, but there also happened to be a full choir, not to mention multiple drummers, strange electronics, programmed rhythms, strange samples, all wound into a bizarre and brilliant collection of avant heaviness, and finally it seemed the world caught on, and The Body began to get the love they so obviously deserved.
The bummer is, that while All The Waters IS incredible, so are all the weird and super limited cd-r's and singles that came before, so folks who discovered The Body via that record, were missing out on a whole world of heart stopping head caving sound, that is until now. This little collection, compiles pretty much everything the band has ever recorded minus their two full lengths (the older of which is sadly out of print), including split singles, tour cd-r's and even tacks on some unreleased stuff to boot.
Their 2008 tour cd-r might be one of our favorite recordings from these guys, and definitely displayed the band's dizzying mix of post rock, ultra doom, and sludge metal, as well as their penchant for mathy rhythms, lots of space, and seriously anguished vocals.ĘThe coolest part was that it was in the context of cover songs, and maybe not the sort of covers you'd expect from a sludge/doom outfit. Crass, Danzig, Black Flag and, wait for it, Sinead O'Connor. Yep. Hard to believe that last one works, but it does, and they don't just turn it into a pointless sludgefest, they have obvious affection for the original. But before we get to "Black Boys On Mopeds", let's run through the other covers first.
Crass's "Do They Owe Us A Living" is all buzzing low end, and tribal drumming. The vocals a processed feral bark, the whole thing lurching and lumbering and seriously harrowingly intense. Makes the original sound like a lullaby. The Danzig track is a loping low slung groove, with a fierce downtuned riff, and hysterical shrieking vocals, the band totally own it, and again, add untold heaviness and harshness to the original. Black Flag's "Police Story" is pulled apart and gutted, before exploding into a punk rock frenzy, who knew a sludge band could rock so hard? It's a muddy, murky free for all, not that far removed from the original other than the downtuned guitars and the insane vox.Ę
And finally, "Black Boys On Mopeds", a gorgeous sprawling dirge, and wisely the band opted to get some help with the vocals, a gorgeous female voice, underpinned by howled shrieked back up vocals way off in the distance, the bulk of the song a single buzzing throbbing note stretched out into a thick undulating drone, the rhythm a metronome like clack buried in the mix, the end gets all trippy and dubbed out, but damn if this isn't creepier and prettier than the original.Ę
Also included in this collection is Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss, another killer cd-r of that immediately recognizable Body style abstract sludge doom. Think a more skeletal Khanate, with dubbed out drums, but replace Alan Dubin's vocals with a even more hysterical shriek bordering on Bathtub Shitter territory. Weird but so fucking cool and creepy. Massive sheets of blacktar guitars, sometimes a grinding trudge through a viscous cloud of noxious grime, at others, a slow motion stumble through stark post rock territory, one track features a doom dub breakdown, where the snare sort of careens lazily in a wide open space before eventually being stomped flat by a wall of anvil guitars, another track is peppered with creepy soundbites, adding to the paranoid creepiness. And they tackle another cover, "Here Come The Tears" by Judas Priest, and turn it into a blown out white noise drenched dirge, crumbling and crushing.
These guys love their covers, as is evidenced by their Cop Killer / Dead Cops single also included here, a double dose of dead cops. The Body dump their sludgy doom all over "Cop Killer" by Body Count and "Dead Cops" by M.D.C.! The originals are barely recognizable, the original riffs, transformed into cesspools of filthy sludge. Again, comparisons to Khanate and Moss and are apt, but they definitely twist these jams all up into their very own blackened shapes.
As if that weren't enough, the collection is filled out with their track from a split 7" with Get Killed, and another unreleased track from 2004, as well as their very first demo, originally released as a super limited cassette on Armageddon, which displays the band, even in the early stages, capable of unleashing thick torrents of shrieking, lurching, avant doom, the sound a dizzying mix of slo-mo mathiness, low slung sludge, and blackened post rock, all blurred into epic swaths of black hole heaviness and skull caving crush, without losing their sense of melody or mood. Awesome.
Super striking visuals/packaging as always, spare and austere, with the liner notes printed on a cool white on black mini poster insert.
MPEG Stream: "Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss"
MPEG Stream: "Ruiner"
MPEG Stream: "Tired Of Being Alive (Danzig)"
MPEG Stream: "Black Boys On Mopeds (Sinead O'Connor)"

BODY, THE Cop Killer Dead Cops (Corleone) 7" 3.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A two barrel blast from these slow motion sludge merchants. A double dose of dead cops. The Body dump their sludgy doom all over "Cop Killer" by Body Count and "Dead Cops" by M.D.C.! The originals are barely recognizable, the original riffs, transformed into cesspools of filthy sludge. If you love Khanate and Moss and other masters of the ultra slow doom, The Body is more of what you need.
Cool packaging, transparent silkscreened sleeve with machine guns obi insert.

BODY, THE Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss (self-released) cd-r 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Man, have we missed these guys. One of our favorite doom / sludge outfits ever, who just seemed to disappear, but we recently got back in touch, and not only did they send us a bunch of their new, all covers tour cd-r (reviewed elsewhere on this list), but also sent us a handful of copies of this long out of print cd-r, that we raved about way back when. So one more chance if you missed out, or for folks who had yet to discover the list, let us introduce you to one of our favorite bands...
The return of the Body! We'd been chomping at the bit, waiting for these sludgelords to come up with record number two, might still be a while, but in the meantime we've got this super limited 20 minute cd-r ep to tide us over. Four tracks of abstract sludge doom. Think a more skeletal Khanate, with dubbed out drums, and replace Alan Dubin's vocals, with a hysterical shriek bordering on Bathtub Shitter territory. Weird but so fucking cool and creepy. Massive sheets of blacktar guitars, sometimes a grinding trudge through a viscous cloud of noxious grime, at others, a slow motion stumble through stark post rock territory, one track features a doom dub breakdown, where the snare sort of careens lazily in a wide open space before eventually being stomped flat by a wall of anvil guitars, another track is peppered with creepy soundbites, adding to the paranoid creepiness. The final track, a Judas Priest cover (!) is a blown out white noise drenched dirge, crumbling and crushing. Fuck yeah.
Packaged in a cool hand stamped cardboard sleeve. SUPER LIMITED still!
MPEG Stream: "Even The Saints Knew Their Hour Of Failure And Loss"
MPEG Stream: "Ruiner"

BODY, THE s/t (Moganono) cd 9.98
This is where it all started. By now must everybody has heard of and most likely heard Rhode Island doom duo The Body, with their twisted take on crushing avant experimental doomsludgedrondirge, replete with multiple drummers and full choirs. But this record is how we first discovered these guys, and while it's been out of print and unavailable for a while now, one of our distributors discovered a small stash, and we took as many as they'd let us have. Here's what we first had to say about this record way back when...
A while back we reviewed an amazing record by a band called Tides. What was equally amazing was the circuitous route it took to get to Aquarius. In a nutshell, it was sent to a certain publication who deemed it too punk to review, a friend at said publication grabbed it from the reject box thinking we'd like it. We did. And well you can read that review on the AQ site. And that record ended up being a huge hit around here. The thing is, that record wasn't alone on its perilous journey. No, another record was right there along side the Tides cd making its way to AQ. That record, was this record. The Body. But The Body had a bit farther to go, before making it to the list you have right here in your hands. First, many emails with the label, then much waiting. Then finally a box of cds arrived, but somehow they had all become unglued and ruined in the mail. More emails followed, and still more waiting. Finally we had pretty much just given up. Then just a few days ago, a couple of big bearded guys with tattoos were sort of lurking around the store. You guessed it, they were The Body. Phew. So was it worth it? Hell yeah it was. That is if you like massive, pummeling, downtuned slow motion sludge metal with little bits of ultra doom and lots of post rock in there. And you know we do.
So yeah, The Body. This will definitely hit the spot for all you folks into Conifer, Pelican, Isis, The Ocean, Mouth Of The Architect, Tides and all that metallic post rock doom stuff. The first track is a crusher, a plodding doom riff spread out over eight minutes, with freaky garbled vocal samples and the whole thing building in intensity and slowly becoming more and more blown out until it's a fuzzy slab of white noise doom drone. Woah. The rest of the record trudges alternately between slow motion chugging and pounding, moody mathy rhythmic workouts, and some truly dense tangles of chaotic riff rhythm mashup. All strung together with some seriously harrowing shrieked black metal style vocals buried WAY down in the mix. The final track is a fifteen minute long, relentless midtempo pipe to the skull, with a main riff that is repeated over and over, almost looped sounding, completely mesmerizing, before it all breaks down into a spacious plodding doom coda. So awesome.
Packaged in hand glued cardstock digipaks.
MPEG Stream: "()"
MPEG Stream: "The City Of The Magnificent Jewel"
MPEG Stream: "Hearts Ache, Even In Dreams (City Eater)"

BODY, THE s/t (Moganono) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A while back we reviewed an amazing record by a band called Tides. What was equally amazing was the circuitous route it took to get to Aquarius. In a nutshell, it was sent to a certain publication who deemed it too punk to review, a friend at said publication grabbed it from the reject box thinking we'd like it. We did. And well you can read that review on the AQ site. And that record ended up being a huge hit around here. The thing is, that record wasn't alone on its perilous journey. No, another record was right there along side the Tides cd making its way to AQ. That record, was this record. The Body. But The Body had a bit farther to go, before making it to the list you have right here in your hands. First, many emails with the label, then much waiting. Then finally a box of cds arrived, but somehow they had all become unglued and ruined in the mail. More emails followed, and still more waiting. FInally we had pretty much just given up. Then just a few days ago, a couple of big bearded guys with tattoos were sort of lurking around the store. You guessed it, they were The Body. Phew. So was it worth it? Hell yeah it was. That is if you like massive, pummeling, downtuned slow motion sludge metal with little bits of ultra doom and lots of post rock in there. And you know we do.
So yeah, The Body. This will definitely hit the spot for all you folks into Conifer, Pelican, Isis, The Ocean, Mouth Of The Architect, Tides and all that metallic post rock doom stuff. The first track is a crusher, a plodding doom riff spread out over eight minutes, with freaky garbled vocal samples and the whole thing building in intensity and slowly becoming more and more blown out until it's a fuzzy slab of white noise doom drone. Woah. The rest of the record trudges alternately between slow motion chugging and poundiing, moody mathy rhythmic workouts, and some truly dense tangles of chaotic riff rhythm mashup. All strung together with some seriously harrowing shrieked black metal style vocals buried WAY down in the mix. The final track is a fifteen minute long, relentless midtempo pipe to the skull, with a main riff that is repeated over and over, almost looped sounding, completely mesmerizing, before it all breaks down into a spacious plodding doom coda. So awesome.
Packaged in hand glued cardstock digipaks. This came out a while ago and was limited to 1000 copies so we can't be entirely sure how long we'll have these.
MPEG Stream: "()"
MPEG Stream: "The City Of The Magnificent Jewel"
MPEG Stream: "Hearts Ache, Even In Dreams (City Eater)"

BODY, THE & BRAVEYOUNG Nothing Passes (At A Loss) cd 13.98
Rhode Island avant doom duo The Body just swung through town, with their pals in Braveyoung in tow, the two groups touring as a single unit, the increased firepower of this newly formed two headed beast harnessing some serious black energy. And for those who were unable to witness said energy in the flesh, comes this, an audial document of the collaboration, and while we'd never heard Braveyoung before, the resulting sonic onslaught speaks to the two groups' compatibility, the result a sprawling blackened soft cacophony, a series of surprisingly melodic and impossibly lush blackened doomscapes replete with a choir (the very same choir from The Body's epic All The Waters Of The Earth Turn To Blood), and an unlikely cover of a song by sixties voodoo groovers Exuma!!
The opening track explodes with black gouts of crumbling low end, murky blurred riffage, and churning black hole crush, but as the song unfolds, all manner of melodic subtleties blossom, what sounds like soaring strings, muted tangled melodies, moaning low end rumbles, the buzz and crunch peeling way right at the end revealing the swirl of melodies that lurked underneath all along.
The factually titled "Song Two" seems to be the centerpiece, a massive epic clocking in at 15+ minutes, a brooding slow build, long droning tones over a bed of hiss and crackle, the sound quickly growing more melodic, laced with deep throaty cello, tinkling chimes, and lush female vocal harmonies, the sound downright liturgical, hints of Godspeed and other brooding post rockers, eventually the drums kick in, the guitars begin to buzz, and the song is transformed into a fantastic dirge, peppered with long stretches of crumbling low end, keening guitar tones, more ethereal voices, finally building to a massive coda, the drums cranked WAY up in the mix, the guitars too, the sound so in-the-red, you can almost hear all the meters peaking, everything wreathed in clouds of feedback, until finally disappearing in a haze of crumbling buzz.
The title track is the prettiest of the bunch, the two groups laying down a thick fog of blackdrone and hiss drenched rumble, muted streaks of feedback, all blurred into one heaving undulating stretch of corrosive low end, while over the top, Christmas carol like melodies drift and shimmer, the crystalline tones hovering weightless above the black sonic chasm below.
And then finally, the band finish off with their Exuma cover, trading the over-the-top swamp shaman vocals of the original with some gorgeous folky female vox, transforming the sound into a weird sort of dirgey atmospheric doom folk, the sound woozy and warm, washed out and dreamy, the main vox backed up by the lush harmonies of the choir, while The Body and Brave Young, wrap everything in a thick coruscating black haze, a blackened background that more than anything, adds a bit of dreamily sinister texture to the proceedings.
Fantastic stuff, and well worth experiencing live too if you get the chance...
MPEG Stream: "Song Two"
MPEG Stream: "Nothing Passes"

BODY, THE / WHITEHORSE split (Aum War / Sweatlung) 7" 6.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Surprised this one didn't happen sooner. Hell, if it hadn't, we probably would have suggested it. Providence, Rhode Island's two piece doom sludge wrecking crew The Body, and Aussie slow and low heavies Whitehorse. A seemingly perfect match, but the weird thing is, they both offer up something out of the ordinary here.
The Body start things off with what could be their most metal jam yet, sounding like some grim black metal slowed way down, there are even some almost-blasts, the vocals shrieked and maniacal, the song collapsing part way through into a super thick doomed out sprawl, laced with bursts of blown out buzz, the vocals hovering over a thick undulating almost ambient layer of downtuned guitar buzz and dense tribal drum pound, that every once in a while sounds like Lightning Bolt slowed to a crawl.
Whitehorse counter with a booming, echoe-y chunk of churning doom-ed noise rock, about as groovy as these guys get, and we're talking Eyehategod style groove, which is to say, barely a groove at all, occasional blasts of thick low end creep up from below, shrieking feedback and squalls of glitched out noise pepper some surprisingly black metal riffing, the vocals here veering fro, shrieked to cookie monster grunted, a massive, lumbering, lurching sonic slab of doom sludge crush.
SUPER LIMITED. In fact, already mostly out of print. We got some of the last copies direct from Whitehorse before they headed back to Australia. Packaged in super swank screen printed jackets.

BODYCHOKE Cold River Songs (Relapse) cd 14.98
You might not expect a band featuring former members of Whitehouse and Sutcliffe Jugend to sound a bit like some twisted noiserock hybrid of old Today is The Day, the crushing bombast of the Swans, and the ominous brooding doom and gloom of Joy Division, but that's precisely what Bodychoke conjure up on this, their long out of print final album, circa 1998, now reissued by Relapse.
We always assumed we didn't like Bodychoke all that much, the other records we heard we really not that good, and their version of "Painted Black" was even left off the tUMULt comp featuring multiple version of that iconic song, but holy shit has this record knocked our fucking blocks off. There's plenty of noise for sure, jagged and processed and crumbling and crunchy and blown out, but noise is just one element here, the band in full on noise rock / post rock. Unfurling low slung bass lines, jagged riffing, some cool complex drumming, the arrangements super dynamic, the vocals slipping from ominous deep Michael Gira like croon, to strangled punkish wail.
Opener "Control" pretty much has it all, beginning with a weird cacophony of fractured fragmented noise, the band soon slip into a minimal bass groove, before the guitars kick in and lock in with the snares, the song transformed into a brooding almost Angels Of Light sounding jam, until the chorus, which EXPLODES, and the noise from the beginning returns, wrapping the churning loping crush in a swirling field of feedback and crumbling grit and grime. It's just so intense and heavy and weirdly catchy, and so much better than we ever remember Bodychoke being.
And so it goes, the rest of the record continues to display a sound that's almost more slow building post rock than noise, but most of the tracks are laced with heaping doses of caustic crunch. There's also a cello player in the band, who offers up some gorgeously moaning ambience, and subtle strings here and there. Many of the tracks spread way out, sprawling lugubriously, expansive minimal post punk soundcapes, skitter and whisper, burning slowly until the song is engulfed in tangled riffage and wild tribal pounding, and even the noise, it's so deftly crafted and well placed, it's hard to imagine anyone into heavy music being put off at all, it's just like another layer of heaviness, another level of dynamicism, it's weird, we all had the exact same response when this record came on. "Oh I don't like Bodychoke", but gradually, it seemed everyone was listening to this, ALL the time, even now, as this is being written, not only is it playing on the stereo in the back room, but also in the store, this record just slays. So dark and heavy and brutal and melodic and epic and AMAZING. Based on nothing but how often this gets played in the store and how often we've listened to this since it came in, we're beginning to think maybe we should have made this Record Of The Week, so consider this an EXTREME highlight, and thus overwhelmingly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Control"
MPEG Stream: "Cold River Song"
MPEG Stream: "Your Submission"

BOGGS, DOCK False Hearted Lovers (Monk) lp 25.00
We're pretty excited about this new vintage reissue label, Monk, that's releasing these nice deluxe vinyl versions of early recorded music that are hard to come by these days: blues, folk, country, bluegrass, Western swing and early jazz. Sure there's Mississippi records, but these have nicer packaging, are well researched, and compiled, and just a bit more, well, deluxe. Plus Monk also seems to be focusing on the veritable stars of these genres like Charley Patton, Charlie Poole, Dock Boggs and Django Reinhardt, providing a fine selection of their best early recordings.
Dock Boggs, if you aren't familiar, was a singer and banjo player, discovered playing in mining camps as he worked the mines all over the Appalachian Mountains. A contract from Brunswick Records in 1927 got him out of the mining camps to record these 12 songs after which he had the start of a fine career, touring extensively and playing parties before the Great Depression hit and he was forced to give up professional music. It wasn't until the folk revival of the sixties where he was re-discovered and recorded three more records for Smithsonian Folkways. This record represents his complete recordings for the Brunswick label made between 1927 and 1929, and a more sadly intense and beautiful document of early Appalachia may nary be found!

BOGGS, DOCK Legendary Singer & Banjo Player (Smithsonian Folkways) lp 16.98
A few lists back we reviewed Dock Boggs' False Hearted Lovers on the ever reliable Monk reissue label. That slab focused on Boggs' initial recordings on the Brunswick label dating back to the late 1920s. In the ensuing years, the financial setbacks of the Great Depression forced Boggs to retire from music, and most of the world failed to take note of his work. With the growing interest in folk music in the '50s and '60s (Boggs was included on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music back in 1951), Boggs was rediscovered by Mike Seeger in 1963 and given another chance to show people a thing or two. These recordings were first released in 1964 by Smithsonian Folkways, who have thankfully re-released them on vinyl (definitely the most appropriate format for this kind of thing) for a new generation of music obsessives. By this point, Boggs was an old man, but it's more than apparent that he's still got it. Though Boggs' voice obviously shows signs of age, his nasally croak is still full of energy, passion, and humor, and the songs here, including reworked versions of classics like "Oh Death" and "Pretty Polly", are the work of a man who grew wise with age and had no difficulty maintaining his remarkable style of banjo playing. The songs display a nice hillbilly sort of sound, a raw and no frills approach that Boggs delivers with everything he's got. The recordings are clear and powerful, and even though the songs themselves are relatively simple - after all, it's just an old man and a banjo - they take on a higher level of intensity than anyone would expect.
This handsome reissue comes with a cool pasted on image of Boggs in his early days and includes detailed liner notes with explanations for the songs and even some banjo tunings!

BOGGS, DOCK When My Worldly Trials Are Over (Monk) lp 16.98
Italy's Monk Records delivers the goods once again with this amazing ep collecting alternate takes from legendary banjo player Dock Boggs' New Brunswick catalog. With only three songs, two of which are presented twice, this may not be the place to start if you are new to Boggs (for that you are advised to check out False Hearted Lover's Blues, also on Monk, where the final cuts for these songs appear, or the Folkways collection of an older but still vital Boggs from the early 1960s), but obsessives will want to snap this one up for sure. Side One features alternates of "Lost Love Blues", "Will Sweethearts Know Each Other There?", and "Old Rub Alcohol Blues". Boggs pretty much gives us what we would expect, with his nasally voice cutting through his percussive banjo melodies. It is a voice from a world that is long gone, like some distant broadcast from a type of person who no longer exists. And while it burns with heartache and self deprecation, these songs are catchy and even kind of upbeat, save "Old Rub Alcohol Blues", which shares some of the ominous melodies from Boggs' famous "Sugar Baby". Additional alternates for "Lost Love Blues" and "Will Sweethearts Know Each Other There?" compose side 2, again providing some fascinating insight into Boggs musical approach.
Packaged in Monk's handsome cardboard disco sleeve, this is some serious music that will no doubt be a reason to celebrate for fans of Boggs and Appalachian music in general.

BOGHOSSIAN, HERVE Mouvements (Raster-Noton) cd 15.98

BOGNER, URSULA Pluto Hat Einen Mond (Mass Media Verlag) 7" 14.98
Another archival bit of lost sixties synthesizer music from the very mysterious Urusula Bogner. Or is it? We made the Ursula Bogner full length our Record Of The Week a while back, a collection that purported to be the music of a British housewife, who was basically a secret one woman BBC Radiophonic Workshop, spending her time at home during the day, collecting and building analog synthesizers, constructing soundproofed recording studios, inventing strange instruments, and most importantly, creating some incredible spaced out, subtly psychedelic electronic music. But the catch is, she just might not be real, and in fact, might just be the construct of Jan Jelinek, whose Faitiche label 'discovered' Bogner and assembled that collection. You can read more about Mrs. Bogner in our review of the full length, but as far as we were concerned, it hardly mattered, if she was in fact real, it's an amazing discovery, if it is actually a hoax, then it's an incredibly and meticulously pulled off hoax indeed, and after all, it all comes down to the music, which in either case, is absolutely fantastic.
This super limited 7", was released to coincide with a show / exhibit of music and drawings by the mysterious Mrs. Bogner, the sleeve features what we would assume is a photo of the lady herself, as well as a drawing of hers on the backside, as well as some postcards, the music though, is again, awesome, sci fi new age, primitive space music, analog synth explorations, a gorgeous starscape of squiggly high end shimmer, flurries of warbly black hole muted melodies, streaks of hiss, everything wreathed in reverb and echo, primitive FX, even some super stripped down robotic drum machine, total Lost In Space otherworldly cinematic sixties sci fi space wave bliss. So whether it's archival and historical, or modern and a bit cheeky, we'll still happily proclaim Mrs. Ursula Bogner our favorite sixties sci fi synth pioneer!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!

BOGNER, URSULA Recordings 1969-1988 (Faitiche) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
So when you were a kid, what do you think your Mom got up to while you were at school, or out playing with your pals? Doing laundry? Cleaning the house? Doing the dishes? A little gardening? Or maybe playing bridge? Canasta? Going to the grocery store? How about collecting and building analog synthesizers? Building a soundproof recording studio in the extra room? Recording strange space-y minimal electronic music on reel to reel tapes? Or building an 'orgon accumulator' in the backyard? Such were the activities of a mild mannered housewife named Ursula Bogner, who in addition to being a pharmacist, as well as a loving wife and mother, just so happened to also be obsessed with electronic music and analog synthesizers, but unlike others with similar interests (were there other 30 something housewives so obsessed?), Bogner didn't just read about electronic music, she attended seminars, followed the activities of various groups and musicians (even apparently sharing her children's enthusiasm for new wave pop!) eventually deciding to create music herself.
She never released any recordings, didn't even really make public her hobby, instead, she simply spent her free time, creating, composing, recording, experimenting, for over 20 years, amassing an incredible body of work. All of that wouldn't merit anything but a cursory glance and maybe a chuckle, if the music weren't amazing, but it is, fantastical and inspired, primitive and raw, playful and childlike, but also, haunting and mysterious, otherworldly, and so incredibly varied, from spare academic sounding minimalism, to Perrey & Kingsley style playfulness, to super stark click and skitter that would be right at home on Raster-Noton, to swirling fantastical spaced out soundscapes that could have been sixties sci-fi soundtracks. The sounds are so evocative, so mysterious, it almost seems impossible that they were recorded by a Mom in a spare room in a house in the suburbs.
The collection opens with "Begleitung Fur Tuba", which indeed features tuba-like tones, locked into a playful grove with a bleepy bloopy rhythm, which is eventually joined by streaks of static, and a warbly main melody. From there, highlights include "Proto" which is kaleidoscopic and groovy with a super minimal click-track rhythm. "2 Ton" is almost like space age lounge music, with it's reverbed guitar like shimmer, and slithery tempo. "Speichen" is another playful number, the burbles and bloops, and definitely predicts groups like James Bong, Luke Vibert, Boards Of Canada and the like. "Punkte" is another minimal groover, with a hissy static rhythm, a bloopy bassline, and all manner of descending and ascending electronic tones, as well as pizzicato bleeps that almost sound like an alien thumb piano. The longest track is "Soloresonanzen" and is maybe the dreamiest, taking the minimal click of Raster-Noton, and draping it over slowly shifting layers of electronic whir and buzz, peppered with bits of click and glitch, textural hiss, woozy melodic fragments, very dreamlike and meditative. And finally the record finishes with a brief burst of tangly scribbly electronic whir and skree, all mad scientist machines gone haywire, but deftly arranged into a pretty alien lullaby, weird and wonderful.
Bogner's music was discovered via some pretty incredible happenstance, Jan Jelinek, who runs the Faitiche label, met Bogner's son on a plane and the two got to talking, Jelinek was an electronic musician, so was Bogner's deceased Mother weirdly enough, and well, the rest is history. Or is it? There has been much talk that this is all a massive hoax, or more correctly, the ultimate concept album. Carefully crafted down to the tiniest details, photos, back story, Bogner's artwork, everything. In some ways it doesn't really matter, in fact, it's almost more impressive if the whole thing was in fact fabricated, but you know what, fuck it, it's so much more fun to just go along with it...
The cd is gorgeously packaged in a thick book-like digipak, with extensive liner notes from Jan Jelinek, notes on each song, lots of photos, as well as various reproductions of Bogner's various outer space linocuts.
MPEG Stream: "Begelitung Fur Tuba"
MPEG Stream: "Inversion"
MPEG Stream: "Metazoon"
MPEG Stream: "Atmosphare 1"
MPEG Stream: "Punkte"

BOGNER, URSULA Recordings 1969-1988 (Faitiche) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
So when you were a kid, what do you think your Mom got up to while you were at school, or out playing with your pals? Doing laundry? Cleaning the house? Doing the dishes? A little gardening? Or maybe playing bridge? Canasta? Going to the grocery store? How about collecting and building analog synthesizers? Building a soundproof recording studio in the extra room? Recording strange space-y minimal electronic music on reel to reel tapes? Or building an 'orgon accumulator' in the backyard? Such were the activities of a mild mannered housewife named Ursula Bogner, who in addition to being a pharmacist, as well as a loving wife and mother, just so happened to also be obsessed with electronic music and analog synthesizers, but unlike others with similar interests (were there other 30 something housewives so obsessed?), Bogner didn't just read about electronic music, she attended seminars, followed the activities of various groups and musicians (even apparently sharing her children's enthusiasm for new wave pop!) eventually deciding to create music herself.
She never released any recordings, didn't even really make public her hobby, instead, she simply spent her free time, creating, composing, recording, experimenting, for over 20 years, amassing an incredible body of work. All of that wouldn't merit anything but a cursory glance and maybe a chuckle, if the music weren't amazing, but it is, fantastical and inspired, primitive and raw, playful and childlike, but also, haunting and mysterious, otherworldly, and so incredibly varied, from spare academic sounding minimalism, to Perrey & Kingsley style playfulness, to super stark click and skitter that would be right at home on Raster-Noton, to swirling fantastical spaced out soundscapes that could have been sixties sci-fi soundtracks. The sounds are so evocative, so mysterious, it almost seems impossible that they were recorded by a Mom in a spare room in a house in the suburbs.
The collection opens with "Begleitung Fur Tuba", which indeed features tuba-like tones, locked into a playful grove with a bleepy bloopy rhythm, which is eventually joined by streaks of static, and a warbly main melody. From there, highlights include "Proto" which is kaleidoscopic and groovy with a super minimal click-track rhythm. "2 Ton" is almost like space age lounge music, with it's reverbed guitar like shimmer, and slithery tempo. "Speichen" is another playful number, the burbles and bloops, and definitely predicts groups like James Bong, Luke Vibert, Boards Of Canada and the like. "Punkte" is another minimal groover, with a hissy static rhythm, a bloopy bassline, and all manner of descending and ascending electronic tones, as well as pizzicato bleeps that almost sound like an alien thumb piano. The longest track is "Soloresonanzen" and is maybe the dreamiest, taking the minimal click of Raster-Noton, and draping it over slowly shifting layers of electronic whir and buzz, peppered with bits of click and glitch, textural hiss, woozy melodic fragments, very dreamlike and meditative. And finally the record finishes with a brief burst of tangly scribbly electronic whir and skree, all mad scientist machines gone haywire, but deftly arranged into a pretty alien lullaby, weird and wonderful.
Bogner's music was discovered via some pretty incredible happenstance, Jan Jelinek, who runs the Faitiche label, met Bogner's son on a plane and the two got to talking, Jelinek was an electronic musician, so was Bogner's deceased Mother weirdly enough, and well, the rest is history. Or is it? There has been much talk that this is all a massive hoax, or more correctly, the ultimate concept album. Carefully crafted down to the tiniest details, photos, back story, Bogner's artwork, everything. In some ways it doesn't really matter, in fact, it's almost more impressive if the whole thing was in fact fabricated, but you know what, fuck it, it's so much more fun to just go along with it...
The cd is gorgeously packaged in a thick book-like digipak, with extensive liner notes from Jan Jelinek, notes on each song, lots of photos, as well as various reproductions of Bogner's various outer space linocuts.
MPEG Stream: "Begelitung Fur Tuba"
MPEG Stream: "Inversion"
MPEG Stream: "Metazoon"
MPEG Stream: "Atmosphare 1"
MPEG Stream: "Punkte"

BOGNER, URSULA Sonne = Black Box (Faitiche) lp 17.98
Several years ago, we made the first archival release from housewife turned experimental electronic musician Ursula Bogner our Record Of The Week, even knowing full well, that there probably is no Ursula Bogner. On the surface it definitely seemed like the find of a lifetime. The story involved someone's casual interaction with a man on a plane, discovering that this man was the son of a virtually unheard experimental electronic musician, a mom and pharmacist, who had built a recording studio in their home, and who had recorded for twenty years, those recordings proving to be impossibly prescient, the sort of sounds that would stand up to similar recordings at the time by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. That initial release was filled with all manner of documentation, photos, notes, like we said, it seemed like the real deal. But it also seemed like an ingeniously perpetrated hoax. The man in question who supposedly ran into Bogner's son on a plane, was none other than Jan Jelinek, whose music is not all that dissimilar to Bogner's. Perhaps we're just the suspicious types, but there seems to be little or no information about Bogner, other than that provided by the label, which could just speak to her absolute obscurity, but could also speak to the fact that it's all a put on. To be honest, we want to believe it. How cool is that story? But that said, as we mentioned in the review of that first release, if it IS a hoax, we like it even more. So meticulously planned, photos, hand written notes, then the musicÉ Similar to those funereal violin cds we carried a while back (that guy not only recorded all the cds, he also wrote a whole book about the history of funereal violin!), it would require a whole other level of creativity, but enough about all that, it is ultimately about the music, as much as we love the story, true or not, and like the first record, this is another fantastic collection of 'early' primitive recordings, these newly unearthed tapes featuring a focus on the voice, which was not present before, and our first actual exposure to the voice of Bogner, who supposedly passed away in 1994. Opening with piano and vox, the sound fluctuates as the tape speed falters, the sound is murky and definitely sounds old, plenty of spaced out effects, female voices processed into mysterious melodies, percolating rhythms, primitive and very low fidelity. Some of the tracks feature kitschy sounding organs and snippets of looped pop music, but they are transformed into cool sixties style tape music, occasionally lush and lovely, other timeshaunting and austere, there's one track in particular which finds Bogner reciting numbers over a backdrop of hiss and static and blurred melody, that most definitely is a nod, intentional or not, to the perennial aQ fave The Conet Project.
As with the other record, there are expertly penned liner notes, translations of original texts that Bogner wrote to accompany the pieces (especially the boxed cd version which features a massive 100+ page book of liner notes and artwork), all very cryptic and Eno-esque, tons of photos, of installations, of the reel of tape these tracks were discovered on as well as Bogner herself (again, especially in the book that accompanies the cd!). Very recommended of course, for fans of vintage sixties experimental music, of Jan Jelinek, and of impeccably crafted musical hoaxes.
MPEG Stream: "Sonne = Black Box"
MPEG Stream: "Jubilaux"
MPEG Stream: "Nach Europa"
MPEG Stream: "Trabant"

BOGNER, URSULA Sonne = Black Box (Faitiche) cd + book 42.00
Several years ago, we made the first archival release from housewife turned experimental electronic musician Ursula Bogner our Record Of The Week, even knowing full well, that there probably is no Ursula Bogner. On the surface it definitely seemed like the find of a lifetime. The story involved someone's casual interaction with a man on a plane, discovering that this man was the son of a virtually unheard experimental electronic musician, a mom and pharmacist, who had built a recording studio in their home, and who had recorded for twenty years, those recordings proving to be impossibly prescient, the sort of sounds that would stand up to similar recordings at the time by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. That initial release was filled with all manner of documentation, photos, notes, like we said, it seemed like the real deal. But it also seemed like an ingeniously perpetrated hoax. The man in question who supposedly ran into Bogner's son on a plane, was none other than Jan Jelinek, whose music is not all that dissimilar to Bogner's. Perhaps we're just the suspicious types, but there seems to be little or no information about Bogner, other than that provided by the label, which could just speak to her absolute obscurity, but could also speak to the fact that it's all a put on. To be honest, we want to believe it. How cool is that story? But that said, as we mentioned in the review of that first release, if it IS a hoax, we like it even more. So meticulously planned, photos, hand written notes, then the musicÉ Similar to those funereal violin cds we carried a while back (that guy not only recorded all the cds, he also wrote a whole book about the history of funereal violin!), it would require a whole other level of creativity, but enough about all that, it is ultimately about the music, as much as we love the story, true or not, and like the first record, this is another fantastic collection of 'early' primitive recordings, these newly unearthed tapes featuring a focus on the voice, which was not present before, and our first actual exposure to the voice of Bogner, who supposedly passed away in 1994. Opening with piano and vox, the sound fluctuates as the tape speed falters, the sound is murky and definitely sounds old, plenty of spaced out effects, female voices processed into mysterious melodies, percolating rhythms, primitive and very low fidelity. Some of the tracks feature kitschy sounding organs and snippets of looped pop music, but they are transformed into cool sixties style tape music, occasionally lush and lovely, other timeshaunting and austere, there's one track in particular which finds Bogner reciting numbers over a backdrop of hiss and static and blurred melody, that most definitely is a nod, intentional or not, to the perennial aQ fave The Conet Project.
As with the other record, there are expertly penned liner notes, translations of original texts that Bogner wrote to accompany the pieces (especially the boxed cd version which features a massive 100+ page book of liner notes and artwork), all very cryptic and Eno-esque, tons of photos, of installations, of the reel of tape these tracks were discovered on as well as Bogner herself (again, especially in the book that accompanies the cd!). Very recommended of course, for fans of vintage sixties experimental music, of Jan Jelinek, and of impeccably crafted musical hoaxes.
MPEG Stream: "Sonne = Black Box"
MPEG Stream: "Jubilaux"
MPEG Stream: "Nach Europa"
MPEG Stream: "Trabant"

BOGUS BLIMP Cords. Wires (Jester) cd 14.98
Bogus Blimp were nothing like we expected. I mean, they're from Norway. They release records on Garm's (from black metallers Ulver) label Jester. Who could have guessed that they would sound like circus music, or gipsy music, or sort of like Tom Waits. No one. But it is pretty cool! 'Cords. Wires' is Bogus Blimp's second record of dark carnivalesque / horror movie mini-epics with lots of samples, bizarre muttering, raspy vocals and strange sounds galore.
RealAudio clip: "Brothers of Space"
RealAudio clip: "No Cords"

BOGUS BLIMP Men-Mic (Jester) cd 13.98
We were told this was supposed to sound like circus music, and it sorta does--like really, really demented circus music. Another quite strange release on the quite strange Jester label (see also Esperanza and When, below). Jester is run by Garm of Norwegian black metal avantgardists Ulver and Arcturus, and it could be said that this band is a bit reminiscent of the more cabaret-styled material on Arcturus' last uberweird opus. Bogus Blimp seem to be an ensemble of evil clowns who have combined carnivalesque themes with the theatrical fury of Cradle of Filth, all within an hallucinatory electronic realm close to that of The Young Gods. Fans of Nina Rota, Mr. Bungle, Arcturus, etc. should check this out.

BOGUS BLIMP Rdtr (Jester) cd 14.98
From what weird Norwegian experimental electronica label do we always expect the unexpected? Well there's the excellent Rune Grammofon...and Smalltown Supersound...but it's Kristoffer "Garm of Ulver" Rygg's label Jester that really knows how to throw us for a loop, time and again. And having heard from Bogus Blimp before, the anticipation here is high... On their two previous Jester releases, Bogus Blimp were what we had to call "circus music"... quirky not-quite-metal, partly electronic bombastic carnivalesque stuff that lived up to their puzzling but oddly pleasing name. Now on Rdtr we get something just a little different. Here Bogus Blimp operate in a realm of glitchy soundtrack noir (actually Rdtr IS a soundtrack, maybe, or at least pretends to be) meant to evoke a futuristic dystopia with a sinister sci-fi feel. So not so circusy as before, more serious...it's electronic post-rock that reminds us a bit of Goblin soundtracks, always a good thing.
MPEG Stream: "Police Chasing Police"
MPEG Stream: "track 11"

BOGUS RENDITION #8 magazine 9.98
We were blown away by this, the most recent issue of this totally DIY travel / music / metal magazine. It's their 8th issue, and it's overflowing with amazing stories and killer interviews and reviews, with plenty of aQ faves. Metalheads will probably want to check this out for the interview with Erik from Watain, or John Gossard from Dispirit / Weakling / The Gault / Asunder, and there's also a bunch of killer in depth reviews of records by Necrite, Dispirit, Barn Owl, Walknut, Horna and others. Which on it's own would probably be enough. But the bulk of the magazine is about travel, specifically of the DIY type, even more specifically, with a focus on train hopping. From Traveling on freight trains in Mexico, to various expeditions throughout China, Mongolia, Finland, Norway and Nepal, there's a history of railroads and railroad operations in Maine, where the author is from, and there's tons of crazy stories, encounters with other travellers, loads of photos, it's pretty incredible, and besides getting a vicarious thrill from reading about all of these amazing places, and the amazing journeys to and through and back, it definitely gives us the bug, to tour, travel, explore, get lost, the sort of thing that the best travel writing does. We've been reading this like crazy, but it's HUGE, so are only partway through, but you'll find yourself riveted, and probably will have trouble putting it down. Also has us hankering to check out past issues as well! Total photocopied, cut and paste old school zine radness, and obviously WAY WAY recommended.

BOHEMIAN GROVE Age Of Retrogression (Hyperblasted Recordings) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK!!
Debut record from these Greek avant black metal warriors, oddly named after a redwoods retreat near here that should be familiar to the conspiracy-minded, whose sound is equal parts midtempo Burzumic buzz, furious blackened blast and gnarled experimental blackness, which means, awesome!
Five long tracks that slip from pounding primitive crush to insectoid frenzy and back again, with a sound that definitely harkens back to the Norwegian elite, the riffs epic and majestic, the vocals a gravelly demonic howl, the drumming crushing and intricate, the band deftly balancing their two sides. Pounding away relentlessly, before launching into a blazing blast at the drop of a dime, only to screech to a halt, and lurch right back into the pound, often shifting gears even more, slipping into some seriously doomy plod, or sprawling out into some weirdly melodic post-BM meander, but always finding their way back to the trancelike buzz.
The record finishes with the Deathspell-ish "Drowning In The Roar Of A Sinking World", a 12+ minute, post rock, black metal hybrid, loping and lurching, the riffs angular and atonal, the song a woozy waltz, the band spitting out intense little squalls of rapid fire double kick and grinding buzz, the track slows down even further eventually, becoming downright doomy, the vocals getting full on Popeye / Immortal, a hellish croak, the guitars getting more and more seasick and psychedelic, until they launch into an epic, blasting, midtempo, melodic outro.
Super swank packaging, 6 panel black on gold digipak, featuring super creepy evil artwork from Justin Bartlett, who among other things, designed an aQ t-shirt not too long ago. LIMITED TO 1000 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Wretched Men"
MPEG Stream: "Drowning In The Roar Of A Sinking World"