CHOIR PRACTICE, THE s/t (Mint) cd 16.98
Ahhhh, here's one you can take home to mom. Heck, you could even play it at grandma's house too! The Choir Practice are ten Vancouverite voices raised in song. Their debut album on Mint Records sounds like equal parts highschool vocal class, The Free Design and maybe a bit of Langley Schools Music Project too. While there are indeed some luminaries of the city's indie music scene gussying up the roster -- namely choir leader Coco Culbertson (The Gay, A.C. Newman Band), Kurt Dahle (New Pornographers) and Larissa Loyva (P:ano) -- there are also some dulcet-piped members whose resumes do not boast anything of the tuneful sort. There's a fashion designer, a radio producer, a photographer, a filmmaker, and a florist even! We all know that Canadian songstresses and songsmiths have a history of abundant earnestness that can inadvertently dribble into syrup territory (maple-flavored?), and The Choir Practice are unabashedly miquetoast. But for the most part, their soft pop sleigh ride glides gracefully through the Rockies... as if the peaks were frosted with vanilla buttercream instead of snow. The group's sweet sense of naivete strikes notes of endearment rather than saccharine ickiness. Their debut album's highs soar up into the fluffy cloud laced baby blue sky ("Failsafe"). The few falterings however almost seem comical. Seriously, when you hear the lyrics to songs such as "Loose Lips" (yes, they "sink ships"), you can't believe they're singing with straight faces. Leaves you wondering if the lyricist has a serious irony addiction or what? Nonetheless if you like Lavender Diamond or perhaps are seeking a less energetic Polyphonic Spree, this is soooo for you!
MPEG Stream: "Failsafe"
MPEG Stream: "Loose Lips"

CHOMSKY, NOAM The New War On Terrorism (AK Press) cd 13.98
This is a recording of the speech Noam Chomsky gave at MIT one month after September 11th, dealing with the way that US foreign policy has contributed to terrorism in places like Turkey, the Middle East and Latin America. Chomsky clearly points out the absurdities of the American military action against Afghanistan as part of the "War on Terror," which has now morphed into an impending war on Iraq. While the situation in Afghanistan has dropped from the headlines (and even back pages for that matter), and this speech assumes some basic knowledge of US-led atrocities abroad and therefore takes on a bit of a preaching-to-the-choir tone, Chomsky provides some very interesting information on foreign policy matters (including many examples of the USA's total disregard for international law, even more examples of which, unfortunately, just may be cropping up in the near future). What's funny is that many of his examples are quoted from sources like the Wall Street Journal and Christian Science Monitor -- far from being an extreme voice, Chomsky simply reaches incredibly common-sense conclusions from readily available information, albeit information the power elite in our country happily ignore, comfortable in the knowledge that the American people will do the same. Scary stuff.

CHOP SHOP Oxide (23five) cd 14.98
Akita. Menche. Blankenship. Dilloway. These are the men of noise with discographies the size of small town phone books, proving their might in the international noise community by the sheer audaciousness of their output. But then again, you might really only need a single testament to stake your claim as one of the greatest noise musicians. Chop Shop has chosen the latter tactic, with Oxide being that sole document, after a relatively tiny back catalogue of cassette only releases, a couple of cdrs, and two infamous 10"s. Both released through RRR, the first was the Steel Plate 2x10" that was literally bound to a steel plate; and the second was a split 10" with Small Cruel Party that was literally cut in half, making playback a dangerous proposition for the needle on your record player. Both of those releases have long been out of print; and despite the hushed respect that those 10"s demand, Chop Shop has kept a low profile. A very low profile. Hence, after a career that has spanned nearly two decades, Oxide is his first proper CD. And it's stunning.
The sole proprietor of Chop Shop is New York based noise technician Scott Konzelmann, whose audio demolition revolves around speaker constructions forged out of hammered plate metal and disfigured commercial grade pipes, which focus particular frequencies and resonant overtones into swarming orchestras of rust, noise, drone, and static. Tape has long been Konzelmann's medium of choice for recording; and like William Basinski before him, Konzelmann endures the self-disintegration of the medium whilst transcribing the sounds of Oxide digitally. Where Basinski's vocabulary of decay is all romance and melancholy, Konzelmann's is muscular and urgently present. Oxide offers a metallurgist's din where compressed air strikes hard steel and machine vibrations generate noxious resonant frequencies in neighboring vents. Konzelmann composes the old school way, with a razor blade and pieces of tape, generating jump cut edits alongside the self-generated debris from the magnetic literally falling apart. These grey, dead-tech drones thus rupture and explode along the faultlines of those edits, and Oxide emerges as a forceful, dynamic album without resorting to purile shock tactics. This is a seriously great noise album for anybody with a passing interest in Broken Flag, Hansen Records, or early Hafler Trio.
MPEG Stream: "Oxide (extract 1) "
MPEG Stream: "Oxide (extract 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Oxide (extract 3)"

CHOPIN, HENRI Audiopoems (? Records) cd 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Collection of this premier French soundpoem artist's work from 1956 to 1980, including stereo voice/breathing pieces and very cool stuttering electronics. Definitely for fans of the San Francisco Tape Music Center all-stars (Oliveros, Subotnick, Reich). Recommended.

CHORD Flora (Neurot) cd 14.98
Avid readers of our blog probably already got a taste of Chord, a high concept super group, who craft longform compositions, each one the sonic realization of a single chord. Some folks might remember the group Physics from San Diego, a group who did something similar, with a revolving lineup, at one time or another featuring most famous or semi famous San Diego rockers among their ranks, and who typically featured multiple guitarists, all playing a single chord, quite often a C chord.
The group Chord, featuring one member of Pelican along with several other Chicago area musicians, are bit more highbrow with their 'Chords'. This record displaying four of them: Am, Am7, E9 and Gmaj(flat 13). As we mentioned in our blog post too, for an April Fool's Day a while back we imagined the ultimate doomdrone record where Earth, Boris and SUNNO))) would each play one not of a chord, and that chord would be the release. Well, how prescient were we?
Here the players are each assigned a note but are allowed to do whatever they like with that note, octave, timbre, playing style, effects, the various players letting their notes drift and intertwine with the other notes, the resulting chord a lush, cloud of sound, constantly shifting and transforming, changing shape, slipping from hushed shimmer to corrosive buzz and back again, sometimes building to a Sunroof!-like wall of sound, other times, so minimal it seems to be just particles and fragments floating in an expanse of soft focus whirs and whispers. Some parts are simple and strummed and sound like a proper song, but those parts soon blossom into something much more layered and abstract. A Minor is our favorite chord, and the Am track here just completely fries the chord, a cacophonous chaotic wall of crumbling churning super distorted buzz and skree, blurred into an almost hypnotic slab of corrosive pulsing noise. It's all quite dramatic and epic, quite beautiful, stately at certain moments, almost chaotic and crumbling at others, anyone into Conrad, Cale, Maclise, Flynt and especially Branca and Chatham will definitely dig this. As well as guitardrone freaks who count Fear Falls Burning, RST, Seconds In Formaldehyde, Elm, Continuum and the like among their favorites.
MPEG Stream: "Gmaj (flat13)"
MPEG Stream: "Am"

CHORD FORT, THE Smile Louder / Regions Of Memory (3 Acre Floor / Paha Porvari) cd ep 5.98
You can just imagine a bunch of rambunctious childlike outsider artists and freak folk musicians deciding to get all their old sofa cushions and broken instruments and stuffed animals to build a big old Chord Fort in the corner of their practice space / crash pad. And this is sort of the musical equivalent. Jason Honea (who you might remember from Jewelled Antler outfits The Child Readers, the Franciscan Hobbies, as well as the Knit Separates and Teenage Panzercorps) teams up with a couple of other musical miscreants to build their very own Chord Fort, a super lo-fi Steve Reich-ish meditation, a slowly shifting keyboard figure, swathed in tape hiss and fuzzy sonic detritus. Totally mesmerizing, the melody only barely wavering, the fuzz and hiss becoming more and more agitated in the background. The track is titled "Smile Louder" and you can almost imagine hear a face trying to sustain a huge smile for the whole 8 minutes, his muscles twitching, the strain showing on his face, beads of sweat dripping into his eyes, the genuine toothy smile slowly becoming more of a sneer as the corners of his mouth begin to droop. It's a gorgeously tense minimalist exploration. "Smile Louder" is followed up by an ultra brief, one minute long, dreamy ambient coda, a warm whir beneath simple chimes, children's voices and a creepy music box melody.
Another gorgeously packaged cd-r -- full color cover, an amazing painting, printed inside as well, a folded over, textured paper insert, and the disc is professionally printed and quite striking.
Only 9 minutes long, but also only six bucks!
MPEG Stream: "Smile Louder"

CHRIST ON PARADE Sounds Of Nature (Neurot) cd 10.98

MPEG Stream: "Drop Out"
MPEG Stream: "The Plague - Mirror Image"
MPEG Stream: "Thoughts Of War"

CHRISTA PFANGEN Watch Me Getting Back The End (Die Schachtel) cd 17.98
The Die Schachtel label's "Zeit" series devoted to current acts from the Italian avant-garde/indie-rock underground has a couple new releases out now -- discs by Christa Pfangen (reviewed here) and Angelo Petronella (which we'll try to get to next time). The Zeit series started off with the fabulous self-titled album by a band simply named A, hopefully you've checked that one out already (we highlighted it on list 248). This cd is almost just as good. Their fragmented, abstract electro-acoustics, and use of silence as well as sound, definitely puts Christa Pfangen in the same experimental ballpark as A, 3/4hadbeeneliminated, Giuseppe Ielasi, Stefano Pilia, Renato Rinaldi, Larsen, Sinistri/Starfuckers, and other artists from this happenin' scene. Playing "guitars, drums, voices, objects, electroacoustic devices", Christa Pfangen is in fact a duo, comprised of Andrea Belfi (who also has a new solo album out on Hapna by the way) and Mattia Coletti. These ladies have named their band Christa PFANGEN in some sort of odd tribute to Nico, whose real name was Christa PAFFGEN...but beyond that we don't think this has much to do with Nico or her music, though maybe there's some harmonium on here somewhere!
A tangle of nervous drumming and ambient drones, all staticky and stuttery, Watch Me Getting Back The End is both challenging and pretty... they've got a moody melodiousness to 'em not unlike 3/4hadbeeneliminated, or Jewelled Antler projects such as Thuja and the Blithe Sons. Certainly there's a lot here for even the not-so-experimental indie pop fan to mellow out to. String-born notes fall like leaves from a tree, melodies blow away in a gentle wind of drone, whispering voices caress the ear... so nice!
As with all Die Schachtel stuff, the packaging is super spiffy -- a digipak with embossed cover art.
MPEG Stream: "I'm Leaving"
MPEG Stream: "The Nail, The Eye"

CHRISTIE, SUSAN Paint A Lady (B-Music / Finders Keepers) cd 15.98
The latest jewel unearthed by the B-Music Collective for Finders Keepers is so obscure it was actually never released. Only a small number of privately pressed vanity copies were made of this 1970 Philly-based folk-beat head trip. Using Philly studio session musicians, Axelrod-style breaks, spaghetti-western guitar, A&M strings and the "legendary" production of John Hill, who is dubiously credited in the liner notes as the inventor of both Trip Hop and Heavy Metal for his production work with Margo Guryan and The Riders of the Mark (a heavy psych predecessor to Black Sabbath, supposedly?!). Don't know about that, but the trip hop mystique of Susan Christie is definitely apparent by the opening riff of the title track begging to be sampled a million times over if it hasn't already. But it isn't just the sample potential that makes this a worthy listen. Just about every song is full of hooks and unique arrangements and darkly-tinged songwriting. Check out the nine-minute centerpiece "Yesterday, Where's My Mind?" with its spoken recitations of a bad trip culminating in a damning freak-out, before slipping into a fuzzy downbeat rocker. Freak-folk indeed!
MPEG Stream: "Paint A Lady"
MPEG Stream: "Yesterday, Where's My Mind?"

CHRISTIE, SUSAN Paint A Lady (Finders Keepers) lp 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL!!!!
Here's what we said about the CD:
The latest jewel unearthed by the B-Music Collective for Finders Keepers is so obscure it was actually never released. Only a small number of privately pressed vanity copies were made of this 1970 Philly-based folk-beat head trip. Using Philly studio session musicians, Axelrod-style breaks, spaghetti-western guitar, A&M strings and the "legendary" production of John Hill, who is dubiously credited in the liner notes as the inventor of both Trip Hop and Heavy Metal for his production work with Margo Guryan and The Riders of the Mark (a heavy psych predecessor to Black Sabbath, supposedly?!). Don't know about that, but the trip hop mystique of Susan Christie is definitely apparent by the opening riff of the title track begging to be sampled a million times over if it hasn't already. But it isn't just the sample potential that makes this a worthy listen. Just about every song is full of hooks and unique arrangements and darkly-tinged songwriting. Check out the nine-minute centerpiece "Yesterday, Where's My Mind?" with its spoken recitations of a bad trip culminating in a damning freak-out, before slipping into a fuzzy downbeat rocker. Freak-folk indeed!
MPEG Stream: "Paint A Lady"
MPEG Stream: "Yesterday, Where's My Mind?"

CHRISTINE 23 ONNA Acid Eater (MIDI Creative) cd 27.00
One of aQ's all-time steady-sellers is definitely the debut cd on Alchemy from Japanese super-psychedelic-space-synth instrumental groove outfit Christine 23 Onna, entitled Shiny Crystal Planet. It's been a big fave around here ever since we reviewed it on list #103 back in 2000. A duo featuring Maso Yamazaki (Masonna, Space Machine, Acid Eater) and Fusao Toda (Angel 'In Heavy Syrup), the wild analog electronics of Christine 23 Onna are a retro-delic delight. In 2002, as part of a special Maso Yamazaki "15th Anniversary Freakout Triplex" series (which also included a disc each from Masonna and Space Machine), Christine 23 Onna released their second album, Acid Eater (not to be confused with Maso's freakbeat garage band of the same name). It had ten new, energetic tracks with titles like "Acid Now!" and "Space Mondo Topless". We totally wanted to get some for the store, but had no luck at all finding import copies at any sort of reasonable wholesale price...
Well at long last we've finally got some -- and yeah, it's still pretty expensive. But that's Japanese imports for you. We trust that any fan of Shiny Crystal Planet cd would want this though, it's another monstrous onslaught of swirling '60s styled go-go disco and krautrocky kitsch, awash in FX, drenched in distortion, to the point that some of this is spaced-out enough to sound like Hawkwind and Klaus Schulze together playing funk at a LSD-party hosted by the Vampyros Lesbos and Austin Powers!! Or imagine taking tracks from one of the best old "library music" comps and running 'em all through a mad-scientist's laboratory full of synths! From fun and freaky dancefloor numbers to totally out there sci-fi soundtrackiness, we're lovin' this. Play it LOUD.
NB. We've also got the other two cds in the Freakout Triplex, and will be reviewing those soon too!
MPEG Stream: "Fantastico"
MPEG Stream: "Planet Unknown"
MPEG Stream: "Wild Private"

CHRISTINE 23 ONNA Shiny Crystal Planet (Alchemy) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Christine 23 Onna is a collaborative effort between Fusao Toda and Maso Yamazaki, better known as Masonna. While the presence of one of Japan's most frightening noisicians should be enough the scare away all of the too-hip-and-too-stoned kids who only care about 'rare grooves,' Christine 23 Onna's "Shiny Chrystal Planet" is actually a pretty damn funky record. Yeah, it's noisy, but in a swirling, synth-overload, super psychedelic way, not like Masonna's usual electronic scream-skree. And really uptempo breakbeats set the rhythmic backbone for some awesome trance-rock much like the latest grooves from their countrymen the Boredoms (a la "Super Are" and "Vision Creation Newsun)". The phase shifting fuzz guitar and cosmic space dusted synthesizers get jammy, but fortunately never too wanky. Those of you familiar with the '60s spy thrillers of Jerry Van Rooyen may recognize one of his tempestous songs covered by Christine 23 Onna (we think we do, anyways, although it's not credited as such...). Wild, spacey groov-adelia. All around great stuff! Amazing cover art recreating Ash Ra Temple's "New Age Of Earth"!
RealAudio clip: "Christine Hop #1"

CHRISTINE 23 ONNA Space Age Bachelor Pad Psychedelic Music (Insignificant) 12" 14.98
Fans of Japanese noise master Masonna might not be aware that he's fully into 70's cosmic rock music. This 12" is the proof, as "Maso" Yamazaki and friend pay homage to their krautrock faves of yore. There's even a track called "Space Hippie." Really great ambient/psych weirdness, and handsomely presented, from the colorful cover to the transparent blood-shot-cotton-candy colored vinyl, resplendent in a clear plastic sleeve.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS Communal Rust (Community Library) cd 16.98
Ok, so this has been passed around the store for a little while with a rotation of different people assigned to review it. Why the hesitation? It seems the folks around here who had no idea who Christmas Decorations are, took a look at the cover and thought it was perhaps another Christian psych-folk reissue from the seventies or some twee homey Americana and kept putting it below their priority list. And the folks around here who DID know who Christmas Decorations are, from their Kranky debut a few years ago, didn't like that album very much at all, mainly due to its atonal vocalizing over quirky electronica. Well, when we finally put this on, we were pleasantly surprised, if not out and out AMAZED at what we heard. First of all, there are thankfully no vocals, and while this is not the Christian folk or Americana record some of us thought it to be, there is a strain of, er rustic folkiness through the presence of slide guitar as it barely permeates through the murky minimal ambience of shifting electronics. It seems that Christmas Decorations have cleaned house since their debut, removing all the unnecessary elements of song-forms from their compositions, and reducing their sound to layers of decayed and drifting abstractions barely hinting at the melodies beneath them. Think the winter equivalent to Fennesz's Endless Summer. Like the sounds of oxidation on old and rotting wood, subtle and melancholy with the textures of wet dirt and leaves burbling under slowly melting ice. So beautiful! We think fans of Jasper TX and Machinefabriek and similar outfits of dreamy drift would dig this a lot. What a surprise!!
MPEG Stream: "Closer To the Carpet"
MPEG Stream: "Twig Harpoon"
MPEG Stream: "Aphid Text"

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS Far Flung Hum (Wodger) lp 17.98
Christmas Decorations are a tough band to pin down. Which just might be why we like them so much. In fact more and more with every record. Their latest, the vinyl only Far Flung Hum, might be the most confusing, the most difficult to describe, and consequently, very likely their best yet.
On their last record, they began to introduce a sort of folky twang into their soundscapes, nothing dramatic, but enough to give the proceedings a rustic vibe, to temper their electronics, helping to create a sound both modern and timeless, alien yet warm and familiar. FFH begins with a sort of disembodied alien folk, strings creak, instruments buzz and rumble, melodies are seemingly digitized and released to drift like pixilated clouds, in some places it sounds like a field recording of a hoedown on some ranch, frozen, then played back incredibly slow, allowing the listener to wander science fiction style amidst all these peoples and happenings that seem to be moving a hundred times slower than us. Drones buzz softly, bits of abstract percussion tinkle and chime, organs (or accordions?) wheeze and warble, there's a Finnish folk vibe for sure but with more twang, and somehow filtered through a much more modern, if slightly cracked approach. Some tracks have a distinct No Neck Blues Band or Sunburned Hand Of The Man feel, very tribal and jammy, but with the sounds of machines, and what sounds like folks laboring in the field, digging, water being bailed, it could all be manufactured, but it does sound like processed field recordings rendered musically. Deep resonant drones, insect like chitter, tons of ambient sound, almost as if all the recording had taken place on farms and in people's homes or on street corners, allowing all the various sounds of every day life to subtly blend into the music being made. And where the electronic aspect in the past sounded more, well, electronic, now the Decorations have mastered it so the bits of electronics and glitchery, sound less like some electronic band making weird sounds, and more like electronics are in fact some living thing, that just happens to occasionally flit by, its natural sounds and calls a part of the every day soundscape, which again helps make FFH sound so organic and alive.
Elsewhere the sounds dip back into tribal rumble, sounds are processed and released back into the wild to interact with natural sounds, there are long stretches of Morricone-ish cinematic ambience, deep growling swells, little flurries of electronics and fractured melodies, but all arranged into one constantly evolving soundworld, an ever shifting space the listener is forced to navigate, and is left to wander in freely, enjoying the sounds, returning to familiar areas, or better yet, getting completely and utterly lost.
Incredible packaging, and oversized gatefold matchbook style fold over sleeve, letter pressed on thick textured cardstock, with the inner sleeve sealed to the inside of the outer sleeve. Can't remember exactly HOW, but as you might well imagine, probably pretty dang limited.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS Model 91 (Kranky) cd 14.98
Sometimes droll, atonal singing can work really well (think Beat Happening, Reynols or Magnetic Fields), but unfortunately not on the Christmas Decorations' debut album. Seriously, this is some painfully out of tune singing. It distracts from the rest of the music which taken without the vocals is quite pleasant, if somewhat underwhelming - moody chiming soundscapes comprised of some highly effected guitars, bass, melodica and sequencers. This comes as an enormous disappointment following Revolve the one and only album from the fantastic but crushingly short-lived band that was Beautiful Skin whose nucleus was Nick Forte and Ross Totino. There was an unquestionable musical chemistry between them that propelled their music beyond simplistic new wave references and the Wire / Gang Of Four / New Order worship of Forte's previous bands. This new group however does not draw such glowing praise, instead it truly bummed out a few of us.
RealAudio clip: "A Random Hill"
RealAudio clip: "Tables And Chair "

CHRISTOPHE HEEMANN Magnetic Tape Splicing lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Rumours have it that Christophe was clocked at over 500 splices per second for this record. Regardless of the truth to this, his brilliant cut-up collage done entirely on an old reel-to-reel sounds very similar to recent digital collages of Stock, Hausen, and Walkman!

CHROMA KEY Graveyard Mountain Home (InsideOut) cd 17.98
The following is taken from the Chroma Key website, but was in fact written by our own Andee Connors! ...
Graveyard Mountain Home is a filmic, expansive musical exploration from Kevin Moore AKA Chroma Key, founding member of progressive metal legends Dream Theater. Recorded in Istanbul, Turkey, where he now lives, this third release from Chroma Key is an entirely different musical beast than Moore's previous musical work, and -- created as an alternate audio track to a surreal educational film from the '50s -- the result of quite a unique approach to album making.
All three Chroma Key releases to date have been self-produced recorded in Moore's home studios, the location of which changes album to album. After leaving Dream Theater in 1996, Moore relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where much of the first album, 1998's Dead Air for Radios was written. 2000's You Go Now was written and recorded in Los Angeles, right before another move to Costa Rica, where Moore lived for 3 years. In Costa Rica he began writing and recording ideas for a new Chroma Key album, during the day producing a bi-weekly, activist, musical radio program for Radio for Peace International, a shortwave station based in San Jose. Last year Moore released a compilation of the program -- a mix of original music and politically volatile spoken word recordings -- as a downloadable album on chromakey.com as The Memory Hole 1.
Long distance Memory Hole collaborator (and fellow CalArts graduate) Theron Patterson was teaching film and doing his own radio show in Istanbul when he invited Moore to visit and collaborate on a show last year. Soon after, Moore relocated to Istanbul and the pair began collaborating on new material for the weekly radio show Music Lab. Moore was also commissioned to score Turkey's first horror film, and the resulting soundtrack Ghost Book was released by InsideOut earlier this year.
The experience of scoring a film inspired Moore to take a new approach to composing the next Chroma Key album. "Instead of just developing song ideas out of nowhere and trying to make them all relate somehow," he explains, "I thought I could find an old film that already had a particular mood and texture to it, and then let that film dictate the songs' themes and structures, and even the song lengths. I eventually found this gem called 'Age 13' in an online archive of public domain films."
One of the many "social guidance" films produced in the 50's and early 60's for schools and police departments, Age 13 proves the perfect subject for Moore's musical ministrations. It is a strangely surreal moral tale of a boy who loses his mother and is convinced that if he can repair the radio she always listened to, he will somehow be able to bring her back. The film is beautifully distressed, on fuzzy film stock, with all sorts of chemical degradation and staticky imperfections caused by aging and exposure. Like a grade school filmstrip or an unearthed home movie, Age 13 is a mysterious glimpse into another life and another time.
"The subject matter and the look of the film was really suited to the kind of music I usually find myself writing," recalls Moore, "and I knew as soon as I watched the opening scene -- which is a burial scene -- that I wanted to get under the surface of those images and play against them."
Moore slowed the film down to half speed, stripped away the sound and crafted an alternative audio track, which is Graveyard Mountain Home. The film's original dialogue and score occasionally bubble up through the songs, playing off and against them, and hinting at the unseen film's space and conflicts.
The Chroma Key accompanied version of the film is included as a DVD in the Special Edition of the CD release, and as a Quicktime file on the standard edition CD. Watching the hybrid version of the film, the songs alternately support, upset, and recast the accompanying scenes. Occasionally, character's dialogues are replaced with unlikely sources -- for example deep south AM radio samples (in Give Up) and a darkly comical Krishnamurti parody (in Human Love).
By design though, Graveyard Mountain Home is just as sonically compelling when removed from its visual element, a slowly seeping, darkly dramatic, series of epic musical vignettes: Sweet, sun-dappled vibraphone melodies over fuzzy, glitchy throbs; a dreamy, Tortoise-y post rock filtered through the Eastern rhythms of Muslimgauze and layered over a rumbling drone; ambient street sounds and muted minor key melodies obscure distant vocals, ethereal and indistinct; Sparklehorse-like melancholia, with tinny shortwave vocals and arid desert twang; displaced, lost and lonely voices, snatched from the ether, a warm jazzy shuffle, revisiting earlier sonic themes -- all a framework for Moore's world weary vocals.
In addition to writing with the film in mind, the album was also written to be played in front of an audience, and Chroma Key expect to stage an European and American tour for the first time this winter.

CHROMATICS In The City (Italians Do It Better) 12" 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With a new perfectly delivered sound, Chromatics have become a huge favorite here in aQ land over the last couple months as we've been playing their new album IV: Night Drive over and over and still not even getting close to burning out on its seductive and steamy sounds. This 12" contains one of their great selections from the scene defining After Dark compilation which will for sure find its way on to many 2007 best of lists. Along with that comes an extended mix, an instrumental version, the haunting vocal only mix and a hot take on Springsteen's "I'm On Fire." We're not sure if the Boss would approve, but we sure do!
MPEG Stream: "In The City"

CHROMATICS IV: Night Drive Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Italians Do It Better) cd 13.98
Ooooh Ahhhhh! This one has been sizzling in our ears pretty much on endless repeat since it showed up at the store. Chromatics have undergone a pretty radical change from their early herky-jerky no-wave inspired beginnings, as showcased on the amazing and scene defining After Dark comp that we recently listed, and are still so in love with. Chromatics now have a sound that is much more sensual, subdued and spaced out. And we have to say we are loving this new direction. I definitely suits them so much more naturally than their noisier punky past.
With a sound much more rooted in early drugged out disco and '80s Euro-pop, Night Drive is sparse and melancholic enough to reel in folks whose taste usually falls on the darker end of the spectrum yet with songs so damn sexy and enticing that those of us with dance and pop leanings are seduced by their sound as well. With Ruth Radalet's vocals sounding like they are being delivered in a dark room filled with fog and smoke, there is such an intoxicating late night vibe that Chromatics tap into which feels so vacant and so sexy in the best possible way. They take on the daunting task of covering Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" and manage to make it their own, no small feat as that is a song with such deep meaning for so many of us. So damn good!
MPEG Stream: "Night Drive"
MPEG Stream: "The Killing Spree"
MPEG Stream: "Running Up That Hill"

CHROMATICS / MONITOR BATS split (GSL) 7" 4.98
So short! Four raw spurts of noise-alicious herky-jerk. We barely caught a glimpse of these two new members of the Gold Standard Laboratories clan . Certainly not the black sheeps in this family, they seat themselves quite comfortably in the recently vacated, overturned chairs of spaz-punks LeShok and XBXRX. So who are these mysterious newcomers? Well, arty postpunkers the Chromatics rose from the ashes of Seattle, WA's underappreciated The Vogue (and you might have also heard of another of their incarnations, The Soiled Doves). Like-minded Monitor Bats just happen to be the jazz-punk side project of blues-rockin' kids The Gossip. Word has it that a Chromatics full length is in the works, so keep those ears to the ground. Until then, you might just have to make do with this brief encounter.

CHROME Alien Soundtracks (Noiseville) cd 16.98
Get out the tinfoil, draw the blinds, turn the television to static and brace yourself for the amphetamine-fueled paranoid mind-fuck of San Francisco's industrial wastoids, Chrome!
Their three seminal albums from the late seventies/early eighties, Alien Soundtracks, Half Machine Lip Moves, and 3rd From The Sun have thankfully been re-issued by the Noiseville label who have brought us stellar releases from Skullflower and Wicked King Wicker among others. Led by Damon Edge and Helios Creed, Chrome channeled The Stooges raw garage energy with Hawkwind's mindmelting space rock acid-psych and the electronic proto-art-punk of bands like Debris' and The Styrenes into a spazzy amalgam of sci-fi distortion, glam-punk chaos, and all manner of machine fuckery including television samples, bizarre tape manipulations and random fuzz-filled noise. Inspired by the future-shock visionary writings of J.G Ballard and Philip K. Dick, Chrome were cyber-punk before the term had even been popularized! In fact, they were one of those bands who became much more popular after their demise, when bands like The Butthole Surfers, Big Black and other Touch and Go bands started gaining notoriety in the mid-eighties college rock scene.
Alien Soundtracks from 1978 was Chrome's second album after the relatively straight forward rock of their debut The Visitation. But by then Helios Creed joined the band and Chrome's signature sound, centering on Creed's grinding pitch-shifting guitar attack and Edge's aggro drumming and damaged tape manipulations, were firmly in place. Supposedly recorded as a soundtrack for a live sex show, songs like, "Magnetic Dwarf Reptile" and "Slip It To The Android", display a sleazy suggestiveness with scuzzy rhythms and odd wailed crooning. While their fascination with science fiction's darker side (especially involving man-machine biologies and mind-controlling robots in a techno-industrial wasteland) manifested itself in vicious electronics and disturbing drones over the layers of buried vocals and speed-driven guitar riffage.
MPEG Stream: "Chromosome Damge"
MPEG Stream: "Pygmies In Zee Dark"
MPEG Stream: "Slip It To The Android"

CHROME Half Machine Lip Moves (Noiseville) cd 16.98
Get out the tinfoil, draw the blinds, turn the television to static and brace yourself for the amphetamine-fueled paranoid mind-fuck of San Francisco's industrial wastoids, Chrome!
Their three seminal albums from the late seventies/early eighties, Alien Soundtracks, Half Machine Lip Moves, and 3rd From The Sun have thankfully been re-issued by the Noiseville label who have brought us stellar releases from Skullflower and Wicked King Wicker among others. Led by Damon Edge and Helios Creed, Chrome channeled The Stooges raw garage energy with Hawkwind's mindmelting space rock acid-psych and the electronic proto-art-punk of bands like Debris' and The Styrenes into a spazzy amalgam of sci-fi distortion, glam-punk chaos, and all manner of machine fuckery including television samples, bizarre tape manipulations and random fuzz-filled noise. Inspired by the future-shock visionary writings of J.G Ballard and Philip K. Dick, Chrome were cyber-punk before the term had even been popularized! In fact, they were one of those bands who became much more popular after their demise, when bands like The Butthole Surfers, Big Black and other Touch and Go bands started gaining notoriety in the mid-eighties college rock scene.
Half Machine Lip Moves was the 1979 follow-up to Alien Soundtracks and it's definitely our favorite! The songwriting is completely fucked, with aggressively manic jump-cuts in and between songs. Sounding like the music analog machines would make if they just became sentient drug-taking monsters, the paranoid mind-control trip is full throttle, with nightmarish conspiratorial songs about the government and the media in cahoots with aliens to enslave the public ("TV As Eyes" "Zombie Warfare" and "You've Been Duplicated"). Rife with layers of sinister lo-fi electronic noises and television samples, over fast riff-heavy rhythm hooks and lysergic face-eating vocal effects. So awesomely damaged!! If you were to get only one Chrome album, this would be the one!
MPEG Stream: "TV As Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "You've Been Duplicated"
MPEG Stream: "Turned Around"

CHROME Retro Transmission (Cleopatra) cd 15.98
Helios Creed is back under the Chrome name with a new studio album. Is Chrome's sci-fi punk retro yet?

CHROME Third From The Sun (Noiseville) cd 16.98
Get out the tinfoil, draw the blinds, turn the television to static and brace yourself for the amphetamine-fueled paranoid mind-fuck of San Francisco's industrial wastoids, Chrome!
Their three seminal albums from the late seventies/early eighties, Alien Soundtracks, Half Machine Lip Moves, and 3rd From The Sun have thankfully been re-issued by the Noiseville label who have brought us stellar releases from Skullflower and Wicked King Wicker among others. Led by Damon Edge and Helios Creed, Chrome channeled The Stooges raw garage energy with Hawkwind's mindmelting space rock acid-psych and the electronic proto-art-punk of bands like Debris' and The Styrenes into a spazzy amalgam of sci-fi distortion, glam-punk chaos, and all manner of machine fuckery including television samples, bizarre tape manipulations and random fuzz-filled noise. Inspired by the future-shock visionary writings of J.G Ballard and Philip K. Dick, Chrome were cyber-punk before the term had even been popularized! In fact, they were one of those bands who became much more popular after their demise, when bands like The Butthole Surfers, Big Black and other Touch and Go bands started gaining notoriety in the mid-eighties college rock scene.
3rd From The Sun from 1982 was the band's final outing, after a couple years in the wilderness of label and line-up changes. More accessible songwise then the previous two records we reviewed, 3rd From The Sun still displays the sonic weirdness and alien paranoia that is classic Chrome! Dirge-y and brooding but with a new and crisper sounding rhythm section, this is heavier and more feedback laden with a greater emphasis on Creed's psych guitar than Edge's tape manipulations. They're definitely building the darker atmosphere here, rather than aggressively filling the space, on some tracks feeling like they're going in a more Zodiac Mindwarp direction (read: black leather and sunglasses) that Helios Creed would pursue more fully on his solo records. Definitely the type of sleazy sinister vibe that would fit right in at a strip club owned by David Lynch!
MPEG Stream: "Armageddon"
MPEG Stream: "Off The Line"
MPEG Stream: "3rd From The Sun"

CHROME CRANKS Dead Cool (Crypt) cd 13.98

CHROME CRANKS Dead Cool (CHROME CRANKS) lp 11.98
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CHROME HOOF Beyond Zade (Rise Above) cd 12.98

MPEG Stream: "Krunching Down"
MPEG Stream: "Year Ram"

CHROMEO Fancy Footwork (Vice) cd 14.98
Much like the vibrant clothes of eras past that twenty-somethings are currently sporting to wild nights at dive bar dance parties, the soundtrack to those dance parties has become vibrant and '80s-esque, with a '00s spin. It's what you could call synth-wave with a digital flare. In fact, Chromeo's Fancy Footwork is the third ultra-Moogy album we've reviewed for this list -- check out our reviews of Justice and Digitalism... While those two tip their hats to the '80s with uber-synths and samples, they also combine more modern sounds (Daft Punk, Faint, and Fatboy Slim come to mind) to give an overall feel that the Deathstar has just descended on the sweaty dance party. Chromeo, however, has taken a more pure approach in their nod to the '80s, and it isn't the '80s that never stopped being 'cool' (Cure, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, etc). Oh no, Chromeo have managed to create the the sound of Don Johnson walking into the room and eyein' your girlfriend, that kind of '80s vibe in the year 2007. We're talking Rockwell and Ray Parker Jr. kind of '80s folks. We figure this balls-to-the-wall synth resurgence might go as fast as it's come, but will no doubt shape what comes next and will be remembered fondly by many as they look back when the decade has passed reflecting fondly on the raging party they attended when the world was so close to the edge.
MPEG Stream: "Fancy Footwork"
MPEG Stream: "Call Me Up"

CHROMEO She's In Control (Vice / Atlantic) cd 13.98
A friend played me the song, "Me And My Man", a while ago and I was instantly addicted to one of Canada's best current electro exports, Chromeo. Shockingly, we haven't carried it until now. Well, reminiscent of Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue", Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" and Egyptian Lover (minus some nasty freakiness), She's In Control features analog synths, some rockin guitar, 808, rhodes and lots of talk-box... yeah! That it's on Vice's label should tell you something on how it rates on the hipster scale, but it's definitely an album for delightfully uncool people too. It's chock full of party tracks like "Needy Girl", "Woman Friend" and "Ah Oui Comme Ca". The production is just good enough not to sound too polished, leaving the songs sounding fresh, like they were put together by two inspired best friends - which is true. It is also true that they are pulling from such a specific type of nostalgic sound, it will easily date itself now... but it's just soooo fun! If you plan on having a kick ass dance-party soon... invite me. If you want to listen to something fresh and totally awesome, you must must must have this!!
MPEG Stream: "Me & My Man"
MPEG Stream: "Needy Girl"

CHRYSTAL BELLE SCRODD Belle de Jour (Klang Galerie) cd 17.98
While this is the reissue of the second Chrystal Belle Scrodd record which was originally released in 1986, Belle De Jour features some of the earliest recordings that Diana Rogerson produced with her husband Steven Stapleton (aka Nurse With Wound). Belle De Jour opens with three short pieces of bowed cymbal scrapes and metallic screeches bathed in variable layers of reverb sounding not too far off from the early Nurse With Wound album Homotopie For Marie. However, things get really going later on in the disc when Rogerson and Stapleton present "Deadroads / A Gothic Western," which gets off to a groovy start with an infinitely looped '60s go-go rock riff twisted into something that Brainticket would have been proud to have birthed, complete with hallucinogenic guitar freak-outs and Diana ranting in a cavalcade of voices through an impossible to follow stream of consciousness narrative. The thunderous "Riding The Red Rag" follows this piece with Diana's cold-stare vocals haunting above a thick atmosphere of drones and heavily reverbed cracks from a kick drum. Unfortunately, this reissue confuses some of the names of the tracks, as "Riding The Red Rag" is misnamed as "The Demon Flower," and the equally impressive creepfest "Black Mother Mountain" is listed as "Riding The Red Rag." This may probably only upset the die-hard NWW completists; but it certainly does not distract from this amazing reissue of damaged art-rock / post-industrial mantras. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Deadroads / A Gothic Western"
MPEG Stream: "Riding The Red Rag"
MPEG Stream: "Immanence"

CHRYSTAL BELLE SCRODD The Inevitable Chrystal Belle Scrodd Record (Klang Galerie) cd 17.98
Diana Rogerson began her art career in the early '80s collaborating with Jill Westwood in Fistfuck, which has long been referred to as the "female Whitehouse" because of their infamously humilitating performances, intense sonic actions, and degrading films. Some of soundtracks to those films were actually not scored by Fistfuck but by Chrystal Belle Scrodd, the moniker of Rogerson and her future husband Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound. Throughout the early Nurse With Wound recordings, Rogerson made her presence known, thanks mostly to her eeriely zombified vocal delivery which blended perfectly within NWW's surrealist collages of decontextualized sounds and darkly lysergic atmospheres. By 1985, the two conspired to release the first Chrystal Belle Scrodd record as a separate entity from Nurse With Wound. While Stapleton's fingerprints are all over the Chrystal Belle Scrodd recordings, the direction and peculiarties of the debut recording speak much more of Diana Rogerson's sensibility, that's only slightly more indebted to psych-art-rock structuralism than Nurse With Wound. The Inevitable Chrystal Belle Scrodd Record opens with an oblique rhythmic tumble of Egyptian reeds, cat-scratch guitar feedback, and all-thumbs bass fumbling that dissolves into a quiet rumble on top of which Rogerson offers one of her trademark, emotionally detached mantras with plenty of double entendres and overt sexual declarations. Later on, Rogerson and Stapleton get a bit more abstract with nightmarishly kaleidoscopic twists of children's voices, twinkling bells, throbbing ritual drums, and discordant horns soaked in a metallic reverb and haunted drones.
MPEG Stream: "Cradle Your Snatch"
MPEG Stream: "Relax"
MPEG Stream: "Unknown"

CHUCK D Autobiography of Mistachuck (Mercury) cd 15.98

CHUNKLET #15 (Chunklet) magazine 5.95
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If you're in the mood for newsy, chatty indierock gossip with a capital G, then you can do no better than Chunklet. We love it. The featured article in this issue is the "Asshole Top 100". First place: the Butthole Surfers; second place: Courtney Love; third place: the guys who ran Cargo Records/Distribution into the ground. Accompanied by extensive and catty explanatory footnotes, the thing is hilarious and no-holds-barred. Steve Albini is also interviewed on how he feels about showing up on the list (doesn't care at all). Other things Steve has to say:
"People are now concerned about how they are perceived by others far more than they used to be. Part of being in a band used to mean that you were self defining, and now it seems there's much more emphasis on being part of an economic base and being part of a scene or movement or whatever. That makes people sensitive to what other people have to say about them. People see this as sort of a career path and want to maintain a profile within that community. There are fucking punk rock publicists now."
Other articles on emo, Will Hart of Olivia Tremor Control, David Cross (Mr. Show), John Reis (Rocket from the Crypt), the infamous Band-A-Minute list (short band reviews a la: "A Minor Forest: We're only getting away with this because we're on Thrill Jockey" and "Modest Mouse: See a retarded boy singing Pixies songs"), and a big thing on Charles Bronson written by AQ-fave Andy Earles of the wonderful Cimarron Weekend zine (and when's a new issue of THAT coming out, we wonder with baited breath?)
Note: in great demand and selling super quick, consider buying this now before we run out forever.

CHUNKLET #16 (Chunklet) magazine 6.95
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yet another amazingly alienating, mildly offensive, totally hilarious issue of the mighty CHUNKLET magazine. You may remember the last Chunklet and it's 'biggest assholes in rock' theme, well there's even more shit-slinging this time around as Henry Chunklet compiles 'The Shit List', a random assortment of shitty shows, shitty bands, and shitty people. And some bands contribute their shittiest shows as well. In the decidedly un-shitty category of this issue are a number of things near and dear to us here at AQ in some shape or form... An amazing look at Don Caballero's last tour, dark and depressing and completely fascinating. Interviews with AQ faves (not)funnyman Neil Hamburger and the Fucking Champs. An article about insane Finnish one man band Keukhot. Our very own Jim Haynes' absolutely complete and practically illegible fold-out review of the MERZBOX - all 50 cds! And on the other end of the spectrum, Cup's comic strip 'Glim & Pog' (she's also a hefty contributor to the 'Spot The Crotch' quiz, oh my!). A peek at the jaw-dropping, on-going driver's license art project by AQ pal and sound engineer extraordinaire Kurt Schlegel. Plus tons of miscellaneous silliness including Andy Kaufman, Mr. Show's David Cross, Bob Crane (sex maniac and star of Hogan's Heroes), shitty rock poses, the unknown comic, novelty rap, THE MAN HUG (simply not to be missed! - as inspired by Cup's I Am Spoonbender bandmate Dustin), extensive letters to the editor (a tome unto themselves) and so much more. Still one of the funniest magazines around.

CHUNKLET #17 (Chunklet) magazine 7.95
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Here it is, the next in Henry Owings' line of increasingly hard-act-to-follow Chunklets (issues 15 and 16 were The Shit List and The Biggest Asshole). The cover story this time? Pay To Not Play. An unbelievably complex, stipulation-laden, sliding scale offer to pay bands to break up. Not in a band? No problem 'cause Chunklet's got an offer for you too. It's the Tattoo Challenge - select a band name from the long list they've provided, and they will custom design a tattoo for that band AND pay for it to be inked onto your body. Note: you *really* need to see some of their samples. But wait! There's more... truckloads! An extensive Mr. Show tour diary. An even more extensive Mission Of Burma feature (a whompin' 18 pages). Interviews with comedians Patton Oswalt, Janeane Garafalo, Dave Attell and Fred Armisen. All written with Chunklet's irrepressible biting wit. Whew! Hold your horses, we're not done yet. A full-color rock club safety fold-out - amazingly replicating those airlines pamphlets that you find in the seat pocket in front of you. Musings on punk rock action figures and hipster handshakes, a crossword puzzle, old faves Jaded Robot, Letters To The Editor and Whatever Dude, plus comics from Cup and her I Am Spoonbender bandmate Dustin. This hefty mag is even more astonishing with the knowledge that the entire issue vanished just prior to its completion when Henry's home was broken into and his computer stolen. An immensely engrossing and highly entertaining read.

CHUNKLET #18 (Chunklet) magazine 6.95
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Is there any better bathroom reading for indie-rockers? Chunklet's wise-ass mixture of music and comedy is always welcome in our WC. This ish is has "Overrated" stuff as its theme, which means you get lists of overrated musicans, bands, albums, trends, drummers, and other completely random things complete with snarky commentary. Now hopefully they don't really mean it when they say that [insert your favorite, canonically-accepted record here] sucks, but it's still funny. Or just turn the page, there's lots more in here: Rock sniglets. Bob Odenkirk. Sarah Silverman. Adopt-a-Gutter-Punk. Why student loans are for suckers. Chunklet's pie chart of potential major label droppings. Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Pen Rollings. The Chunklet Guide To Open Mic Comics. 10 Ways The Beatles Differ From Fountains Of Wayne. Offensive Bumper Stickers part 1. And so much more.

CHUNKLET Issue Twenty - The Last Magazine Ever Printed magazine 9.99
Hard to believe it's been THREE YEARS since the last issue of Chunklet. Since then Chunklet has expanded its rock empire to include all manner of comedy, sludge rock, releasing lps, hosting events, all that jazz, so it's no big surprise it took as long as it did, but hell, it's here now, so no more whinging. Just a quick run down of what you'll find in this lastest issue of the snarkiest, snottiest, band hating, hipster crushing music mag in the land!!!
An interview with Mr. Show's Paul F. Tompkins, hirsute comedian Zach Galifianakis, a drug awareness chart, so all you druggies can figure out what the heck you're taking and why, the online music journalist application form, an article on prank calls, the sport of gods, WHIRLYBALL!, comedian Jon Glaser, a Sublime Frequencies interview, and finally, page after page after pager after page of ridiculous shit, a brief list to follow now: How To Read This Issue Of Chunklet, Rocktoids, Rock Sniglets, Dear Rock Star..., Bro-Cabulary, Ten Things All Suicide Girls Have In Common, Silver Jews Lyrics I've Used As Pick-Up Lines, Know Your Rock Girlfriend Stereotypes, Yesterday's Southern Rock Today, Actual Protest Signs We've Seen, Nine Things About Canada We Politely Shun, Glad You're Dead!, We Will Not Listen To Bands That..., Things To Tell A Band Instead Of The Truth, Record Store Names, Music Mag Mix 'n' Match, Local For Life, Your City Really Stinks, Rockopoly and on and on and on and on, millions of tiny lists and jokes and disses crammed into every corner of every page, basically the ultimate bathroom reading for the hip rock household. We've had our copies for weeks now, and have barely cracked the surface. As always, funny as fuck, sure to piss people off and eminently re-readable...

CHUNKLET MAGAZINE #19 (Chunklet) magazine 7.95
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Holy shit, this is a rare occasion indeed! A new issue of the beloved, wickedly irreverent Chunklet Magazine has arrived less than a year after the previous one! Normally a single issue might take years to make -- no exaggeration! C'mon, humor this scathing and subject matter this obsessively reported doesn't happen overnight! Henry Owings, Brian Teasley and co. have been busy lil' beavers honing their 'taking the piss' skills to new heights. The few occasions where their acerbic fount o' witty take-downs falters though is when they open up the floor to the bulk contributors forum (i.e, folks who don't quite get that there's more to the Chunklet magic than aggressive mean-spirited bile-spewing a la Vice Mag), then it has a tendency to come across as a bitch session. No, much like the late comedian Bill Hicks (whose dvd is also reviewed in this week's AQ List and whom we're sure is an old fave around the magazine's headquarters), the thing to take note of is that the core of the material is not just about negativity and shock value -- yes, there's a dismay and disgust towards the state of things, but there's also underpinings of hope and positivity lurking underneath it all. Aww, shucks.
Anyways, for the faint-hearted, the overwhelming Issue #19 might be too much too soon, but for the steely hardcore fans of the mag, #19 is simply Part Two of Chunklet's exploration of all things over-rated. So, who and what are the crosshairs this time? Records that were released after 1991 (fyi: Issue #18 skewered pre-'91 releases), guitarists, drummers, music production techniques, record cover art, cities, actors, filmmakers and film genres. Elsewhere in the issue you get Chunklet's ever-loyal coverage of current comedians (Eugene Mirman, The Naked Trucker aka Dave "Gruber" Allen from the Freaks & Geeks tv series and David Koechner also from F&G as well as the movie Anchorman, and the comedy troupe Stella), a great article on the 'King Of Record Collectors' Joe Bussard (if you've checked out the awesome Down In The Basement compilation of selections from his rare record collection, you know who we're talkin' about!), the truly ear-punishing/spirit-crushing Torture Tapes Experiment, articles on Tim Kerr and his stuff, "Seven Degrees of Winona Ryder", "real" offensive bumper stickers, rock venue bathroom graffiti and unintentionally funny people. Oh yes, and Chunkleteer Cup contributed her illustrated interpretation of a play written by Henry's eight year old niece Mary! Plus you get all the mag's regulars (Rocktoids, Whatever Dude, Rock Sniglets), as well as Chunkie's unconventional versions of conventional magazine sections such as Crossword and Letters To The Editor. Sometimes shocking, sometimes fucked up, sometimes downright caustic, but almost always hiiiilaaaariioooous! Another hearty fun addition to your bathroom library!

CHUNKLET PRESENTS: THE OVERRATED BOOK (Chunklet) book 24.95
What happens when the world's bitchiest, pissiest, iron(y)clad dork/hipster contingent put their two-bits worth in?! You might say, "Vice Magazine!" Close, but no cigar, bucko! Chunklet is where it's at -- magazine, website, record label, all around ne'er-do-well, and now book publisher! The Overrated Book features oh so much negativity vented in one spot, in often gut-busting hilarious fashion. Consider this to be the overflowing toilet from whence came Chunklet Magazine's 'Overrated' Issue Parts 1 and 2. Once they opened the flood gates, they just couldn't stop the outpouring of smartass barbs against bands, albums, and assorted other stuff. A verbal and pictorial shitstorm.
We're sort of glad that these folks have this outlet to release all their pent-up misanthropic hostility. That is, hopefully it's diverted a few violent outbursts or clashes, but then again maybe it might also trigger a few retaliatory attacks from the subjects/victims. Hmmm, all in good fun?

CHURCH OF MISERY Boston Strangler (Kult Ov Nihilow) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Since we're listing the brand new Church Of Misery record, we thought we'd also mention that we managed to get a few more of this rarity back in stock, from the same label that brought us that new Boris 12"...
Cool 5 song collection from Japan's serial killer obsessed stoner sludge rockers Church Of Misery. The first four tracks were recorded over the last few years and of course concern all your favorites, the Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, the Candy Man, and El Topo. Crunchy and fuzzed out loping stoner rock ala Fu Manchu, Nebula, Heavy Rocks-era Boris. Fucking great stuff. The fifth track is tagged on to track four and is ostensibly an improvisation, titled "Invocation Of My Demon Brother". Not sure if it's some sort of homage to Kenneth Anger, but to these ears it just sounds like more of that sweet sweet crushing tarpit sludge.
MPEG Stream: "Boston Strangler - Albert Deslavo"
MPEG Stream: "El Topo"

CHURCH OF MISERY Dennis Nilsen (Kult Of Nihilow) lp 22.00
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Okay stoner metal serial killer obsessives, you know who you are, even if you're loathe to admit it, time to rejoice as the masters of SKSR (serial killer stoner rock) return, Japan's Church Of Misery.
This ep focuses on UK killer Dennis Nilsen, a serial pedophile and killer, which prompted a conversation about what these guys would do when they ran out of killers to immortalize, but we were saddened to realize that it's pretty unlikely that will ever happen no matter how many records these guys put out.
But fuck it, you don't need to be obsessed with killers to dig this shit, just killer riffs. And the riffs as always are indeed killer. Huge bassy, sludgey, groovy, in fact the opening track on this 12" is so groovy it almost sounds like a more metal ZZ Top. Sabbathy to the Nth degree, lumbering rhythms that either plod or swing depending on the track, the vocals a growly croak buried way down in the mix, sounding not unlike Michael Gerald from Killdozer, super dynamic and stoned. Lots of break downs where just the bass and drums groove, before the riff swoops back in. Wild leads, lurching stop start bits,wild almost space rock outros, and of course, plenty of clips of Dennis Nilsen talking as well as various news reports. Technically this is a full length, even though the B-side is a single super extended stoner metal drug jam, and thus is only three tracks. Sabbath, Kyuss, Green Machine, Acrimony, Solar Anus, Ox, Bongzilla, if that stuff is your cup of THC laced tea, then you are definitely gonna want this.
Beautiful matte finish gatefold sleeves, and of course super limited, only 500 or 600 copies, and CoM records always go crazy fast.

CHURCH OF MISERY Early Works Compilation (Leaf Hound) 2cd 22.00
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Will the Japanese stoner sludge serial killer onslaught never end?? We sure hope not. We're finally able to list this double cd collection of old, rare, unreleased and out of print tracks from one of the heaviest bands in Japan. Corrupted may have the market cornered on sludge, and Boris definitely has the drone-dirge segment all sewn up, but that leaves Church Of Misery to duke it out with the equally brutal Green Machine for the groovy, druggy, sludge-y stonery BIG RIFF contingent. Early Works definitely helps the cause, with two discs bursting with splattery serial killer soundbites, plague-of-locusts riffery, skull crushing drumming, and a truly hellish howl of a lead vocalist. Plus unlike many of their metallic brethren, CoM can indeed SHRED, and whip out squiggly acid soaked leads at the drop of a hat, giving the proceedings a classic psych-rock / drug-rock feel, on top of the already suffocatingly heavy sludge already oozing from every crack. Disc one collects the long out of print split with sHEAVY, featuring odes to Manson, Charles Whiteman, and Jim Jones, as well as the Taste The Pain mini-album with songs about Dahmer, Graham Young, and Ed Gein, as well as an insane version of Iron Butterfly's "In A Gadda Da Vidda." Disc two collects lots of random compilation tracks including a Trouble cover, a Black Widow cover, a Death SS cover and an unreleased track. Church Of Misery are so amazing, it's too bad that their singleminded obsession with serial killers, and their continued use of serial killer soundbites keeps them from appealing to a wider audience. It is too bad, but who can argue? The music is strangely and perfectly suited to CoM's tales of murder and mayhem, victims and killers.
We still have a handful of other CoM releases, their latest The Second Coming and the limited The Boston Strangler, but not for long!!
MPEG Stream: "Spahn Ranch (Charles Manson)"
MPEG Stream: "Room 213 (Jeffrey Dahmer)"

CHURCH OF MISERY Houses Of The Unholy (Rise Above) cd 15.98
How much you love Church Of Misery depends on two things, how you feel about massive super rocking ultra crushing downtuned stoner sludge, and how you feel about serial killers. Cuz with Church Of Misery, you get a blown out, in-the-red, druggy, metallic mix of the two. The serial killer aspect is probably easier to overlook, it manifests itself mostly as artwork and song titles, although most of the tracks also have samples of newscasts, or radio broadcasts, detailing the exploits of whichever killer is the focus of the song. For some of us, those samples are cool and creepy, and just add to the band's riff rocking menace, but for others, it's a just a dumb distraction.
We obviously fall into the former camp, especially considering that element is nothing compared to the MUSIC, which just continues to get heavier and heavier and groovier and groovier with every record. Incredible riffs, a guitar sound that devours everything in its path, pounding drums, and some of the gnarliest howled throat shredding vocals EVER. Not to mention plenty of twisted blues, wild shredding leads, groovy wah guitars. We mentioned in the review of the last CoM record, that the sound reminded us a bit of ZZ Top, albeit a supercharged ultra metal version, and that sort of groovy Southern fried vibe pervades everything here, but Houses is even more intense, more aggressive, especially the vocals, the best comparison we could come up with is equal parts ZZ Top, Eyehategod, Black Sabbath (of course) and Boris at their most wildly psychedelic and hard rocking, with some sort of Demonic Phil Anselmo on vocals. And Boris fans, Church Of Misery rock out big time here, trading in much of the sluggish sludge for blown out amp destroying full rock action, so fans of later Boris, if you can imagine them a bit more sloppy, a lot more furious and frenzied, and WAY more heavy, then this stuff will definitely hit the spot.
But fear not, those who yearn for sludge, there's still plenty of lurching, lumbering doomy groove, a la Acrimony, Bongzilla, Buzzov-en, Sourvein, but all tangled up with the more rocking parts, and wild freaked out guitar jams. PLUS, for all you proto metal obsessives, they even do a killer version of "Master Heartache" by Sir Lord Baltimore!
The more we listen to it the better it sounds. The riffs kill, the songs rule, total headbanger bliss.
And for those who DO care, the killers this time around are: Charles Starkweather & Caril Ann Fugate, Richard Speck, Richard Trenton Chase, Albert Fish, James Oliver Huberty and Adolfo De Jesus Constanzo. And as always, awesome packaging. Each song/killer gets its own page in the booklet, every one designed like an old worn Blue Note album cover, and the cd itself, printed to look like a dusty old slab of vinyl.
Totally and utterly recommended. One of our favorite metal records of the year so far for sure.
MPEG Stream: "El Padrino (Adolpho Constanzo)"
MPEG Stream: "Shotgun Boogie (James Oliver Huberty)"
MPEG Stream: "The Gray Man (Albert Fish)"

CHURCH OF MISERY Houses Of The Unholy (DIWPhalanx) dvd 30.00
A killer live DVD from our favorite Japanese, serial killer obsessed, stoner groove doom lords, Church Of Misery. We've gone on and on in the past (and elsewhere on this list, their debut was just reissued) about how much we love these guys. Some impossible mix of Sabbath, Electric Wizard, Eyehategod, Antiseen and Boris. Heavy as fuck, groovy and spacey, blown out and super psychedelic. Live it's everything we would have hoped for. A band of crazy Japanese hippies in ripped concert shirts, bell bottoms, berets, dreadlocks, furry coats, big ol' silver rings on every finger, flying V's, on a tiny stage, heads banging, hair swirling, in a closet sized dark club, packed to the gills with a heaving, sweaty, head banging crowd. The sound is amazing. A truly MASSIVE guitar sound, huge blown out crumbling riffs, the band a whirlwind of lurching groove, and a bass player who wears his bass lower than anyone we've ever seen (even the Ramones!). SO low in fact, that the body of the bass is at shin level and he ends up sort of playing way up on the neck. Awesome! Three live shows filmed over the last two years, a handful of CoM classics as well as some free form freaked out space jams. Also included are videos for "Filth Bitch Boogie" and "I, Motherfucker" (best song title ever maybe), both look quite similar, filmed in creepy black and white, on fuzzy degraded film stock, haunting shots of two emotionless girls making out, dead bodies in forests, plenty of violence and gore (mostly perpetrated on the band themselves) and of course the band trudging through mysterious woods all very Sabbath-like. So cool.
Packaged in a blood red Japanese style DVD case. NTSC and ALL REGION!

CHURCH OF MISERY Master of Brutality (Southern Lord) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The first actual full-length from these serial-killer fixated Japanese doom-mongers. Super sludgy psychedelic doom metal like a sloppy Sabbath with samples from documentaries about John Wayne Gacy and other famous murderers mixed into the musical mayhem. They actually sound less like Sabbath than a cross between Antiseen and Electric Wizard, as there's a garage punk element to this as well. There's only two songs on here not dedicated by name to a serial killer: "Green River" ('cause they never caught the guy, I guess) and "Cities On Flame" (an incongruous Blue Oyster Cult cover). Lastly, one must take note of the band's words on the back cover: "We hate the trend. We hate corporate attitude. We hate the word 'stoner'. Death to false stoners!! Let there be doom!!" Oh, one other thing: does EVERY metal band from Japan have to be compared to an atom bomb (like on the cover sticker here)??

CHURCH OF MISERY Master of Brutality (DIWPhalanx) cd 22.00
Long overdue reissue of the debut full-length from Japan's serial-killer fixated Japanese doom-mongers, Church Of Misery. And when we say 'fixated' we mean OBSESSED. Almost every song either starts with or contains some kind of a soundbite from the evening news regaling the most recent atrocities committed by some killer, or an actual tape of an infamous murderer's wild rants and messianic ramblings. Each song is about (or at least based on) a specific serial killer, "Killfornia (Ed Kemper)", "Ripping Into Pieces (Peter Sutcliffe)", "Master Of Brutality (John Wayne Gacy)". Some folks (like Allan) find the serial killer angle a bit cheesy, but it's actually weirdly and perfectly aligned with the band's peculiar brand of downer doom. And as far as we're concerned, when we're talking epic stoner doom, few bands can touch Church Of Misery. Super sludgy psychedelic doom metal a bit like a sloppy Sabbath, heavy on the groove, HUGE riffs, raspy voiced vocals way down in the mix, a lurching drug drenched crunch, with blown out psychedelic leads, lots of wah wah, spaced out stretches of Hawkwindy ambience, super distorted bass rumble, and pounding furious drum dirge pummel. They actually sound less like Sabbath than a cross between Antiseen and Electric Wizard, as there's a garage punk element to this as well. There's only two songs on here not dedicated by name to a serial killer: "Green River" ('cause they never caught the guy, we guess) and "Cities On Flame", a killer (pun intended) if incongruous Blue Oyster Cult cover.
Plus who can argue with the band's credo, printed in big bold letters on the back cover:
"We hate trend. We hate corporate attitude. We hate the word 'stoner'. Death to false stoners!! Let there be doom!!"
Anyone who digs the rockier side of Boris (Heavy Rocks, Pink) owes it to themselves to check out Church Of Misery's massive, downtuned and druggy, sludgy and spacey, grinding and groovy, downer drenched DOOOOOM!!!
MPEG Stream: "Killfornia (Ed Kemper)"
MPEG Stream: "Ripping Into Pieces (Peter Sutcliffe)"

CHURCH OF MISERY The Second Coming (DIWPhalanx) cd 22.00
For all you Boris freaks and everyone who has been digging heavily on the recent Green Machine record, you may now prepare thyself for the return of Japan's stoner sludge, serial killer obsessed masters of crushing downtuned riffery Church Of Misery. Seven massive slabs of pounding, pummelling ultra heavy stoner groove. Crunchy and throbbing, pummelling and MASSIVELY HEAVY rock and roll. Fuzzed out, drugged out, super distorted and punishingly heavy. Quite possibly, you will have your stoner / doom metal credentials REVOKED if you don't pick this up. This time around, the subjects of CoM's worshipful sludge are Ted Bundy, Mark Essex, Andrei Chikatilo, Aileen Wuornos and more!
MPEG Stream: "I, Mother Fucker (Ted Bundy)"
MPEG Stream: "Soul Discharge (Mark Essex)"

CHURCH STEPS Brisbane Cats (Static Caravan) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Don't miss out on this very limited UK import. Only 500 were pressed. Three songs from this San Francisco duo. Chris and Mike create layer upon layer of electronic textures, thoughtful, hushed vocals and lovely, tentative guitar melodies. We should note that this record has a much more aggressive electronic presence from Chris (alias OST/Rook Vallard) than the fragile, pretty Jewelry cd-ep.

CHURCH STEPS Criticism (Flapping Jet / Dial) cd ep 9.98
Sounding a lot like indie rock fave Smog (if Bill Callahan would only keep up with the state of music today, instead of sounding more and more dated with each release), Church Steps cloak the most heartfelt sensitive-guy vocals in a shimmer of melancholy. However, this second EP from the group reveals a subtle shift. On their previous outings the "Jewelry" cd-ep and "Brisbane Cats" 7", two seeming incongruities were successfully melded: the mellow guitar strum and murmured vocals of Mike Donovan and the considerably more aggressive digital abrasions of OST. Perhaps a foreshadowing of the departure of OST from the CSteps roster, gone are his trademark bursts of chilly caustic circuitry, to be replaced by gentler hums and warm whirrs. A *very* pleasant record. We can't wait 'til there's a full album!
Cover art by beloved local artist Jo Jackson.
RealAudio clip: "Meismine"