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"

CHURCH STEPS Jewelry EP (Dial) cdep 5.98
The Church Steps are Mike Donovan (on guitar and vocals) and Chris Douglas (electronic sound-meister aka OST). The duo's brilliance lies in their coming at the music from opposite directions, meeting in the middle where few dare tread. Mike writes and sings quietly pretty sometimes melancholic songs. Some so quiet and personal that it almost seems that he's singing them to himself more than anyone else. And while on his own releases Chris is a well documented eardrum shredder/pummeller, here he takes it down a few notches and applies a very nice counterpart to Mike's lo-fi meditative guitar lines. Lightly abrasive textures and occasional beats almost like a very fine metallic sandpaper swirl over and around the often murmured vocals.
The duo's artistic vision is completely realized, an irresistible mix of Smog-like loner vocals mixed with epic yet quiet electronica, like ambient-era Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada and Portishead. So good! Better than, yet similar to, Wisdom of Harry!
The Jewelry EP is five songs in all, a perfect "jewel" of a record and a fine intro to Church Steps. Released on Mike's own Dial label (home to releases by Blectum From Blechdom, Iran, OST, and Hot Fucking Jets).
RealAudio clip: "Mathematical Tongue"

CHURCH STEPS The Hand That Is The Wave (Dial) 10" 8.98
Local out-there electronica label Dial is the latest label to explore the lathe cut technology from the New Zealand lathe press run by Peter King. The Church Steps are Chris Douglas (aka O.S.T. and Rook Vallard) and Mike Donovan (label bossman of Dial) drifting rather sad melodies of electronic bells alongside downtempo beat skitter, not unlike Markant or Boards of Canada. As good as it is limited.

CHURCH STEPS / GANG WIZARD split 7" 7" 3.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This split release is between the wonderful SF-based, lo-fi melding of dreamy electronics and melancholic, sensitive boy strummery known as The Church Steps and the very mysterious group called Gang Wizard. A limited lathe-cut 7" pressing which - you may or may not know - is not the sturdiest of music formats. So we definitely recommend transferring the songs onto a more durable medium for extended listening enjoyment.

CHURCHILL'S s/t (The Records Manufacturing) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Israeli psychedelic rock band from the late '60s/early '70s who started off playing covers of Beatles and Led Zeppelin songs and then slowly worked original after original into their set. They became famous. The Churchill's peak was with their absolutely stunning, mandolin-fueled song "Subsequent Final" which alone is worth the price of this disc, one of Windy's favorite songs ever. Their first self-titled LP is now one of the rarest and most collectible albums from that period, so aren't we lucky to have this cd, which also has 4 bonus tracks (including the aforementioned Beatles and Zep covers). Back in stock after a long absence.
RealAudio clip: "Subsequent Final"

CHURCHILL'S / JERICHO JONES s/t / Junkies Monkeys & Donkies (Hed Arzi) 2cd 25.00
Israeli psychedelic rock band from the late '60s/early '70s who started off playing covers of Beatles and Led Zeppelin songs and then slowly worked original after original into their set. They became famous. The Churchill's peak was with their absolutely stunning, mandolin-fueled song "Subsequent Final" which alone is worth the price of this disc, one of Windy's favorite songs ever. Their first self-titled LP is now one of the rarest and most collectible albums from that period, so aren't we lucky to have this cd, which also has 4 bonus tracks (including the aforementioned Beatles and Zep covers). Now with the Jericho Jones (Churchill's successor band) album on a second disc. Here's our review of that: Late '60s Israeli psych rock group Churchill's is well liked here at AQ -- indeed, it's one of Windy's all time faves -- so we were quite curious about this band Jericho Jones, which was the hard rockin' '70s incarnation of the Churchill's line-up. Recorded in England, this is essentially the second Churchill's album, but with a new singer and a new name 'cause they didn't want to offend the Brits. And also, how could a record called "Junkies Monkeys and Donkeys" not be good? Released in 1972, it's very 'of the period', and pretty much what we expected. The Churchill's were into Led Zeppelin (they covered "Living Loving" after all), and this sort of bluesy hard rock psych is a logical progression of their pop psych sounds. "Junkies Monkeys and Donkeys" is nothing incredible, but manages to rock hard (they almost sound like Bad Company) as well as having mellower moments of melodic bliss. Some good songs, some forgettable ones. We'd say "get the Churchill's disc first" but you can only get the two together now it seems.

CIAO BELLA (100 Guitar Mania) 7" 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Local sweet pop featuring members of Henry's Dress.

CIBO MATTO Pom Pom: The Essential Cibo Matto (Warner / Rhino) cd 17.98
Many a Cibo Matto fan wept when Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori decided to go their separate musical ways back in 2001. Sure, each of their solo endeavors has been engaging and impressive in its own right, but there was a special groovy chemistry (not to mention a penchant for food obsessed song lyrics) between the two ladies that oomph'd their music into an irresistible confection. Very distinctly Japanese in both its meticulous craft and adorable, effervescent charm. With an appeal that reached far beyond the initial NYC art school / hipster Hello Kitty set, they could just as effortlessly disarm the big boys with a candy coated rap, bust out a shuffling jazz-inflected romp, 'love u down' with an r'n'b soul styled ballad, and lure the indie pop kids onto the dancefloor long before the dance-punk frenzy. Along the way, they also dabbled in Tropicalia, downtempo, lounge, Bacharachian dream pop among other things.
Super puffed with nineteen tracks including two previously unreleased ones ("Sword And A Paintbrush" and a Dan The Automator remix of "King Of Silence"), rarities and b-sides, Pom Pom is indeed an essential for CM fans, and it makes for a thoroughly cool CM primer for those that missed out the first time around. Yes, you get to have your "Birthday Cake", "Sugar Water". "Know Your Chicken", "Beef Jerky", "Artichoke", "Apple" and "White Pepper Ice Cream", and eat it too!
MPEG Stream: "Know Your Chicken"
MPEG Stream: "Swords And A Paintbrush"

CIBO MATTO Viva! La Woman (Warner Mothers) cd 14.98
Pronounced 'chee-boh mot-toh'. 2 Japanese expatriates living in NY make a tasty and very fun racket (that you can dance to) with synthesizers, numerous recognizable or tantalizingly familiar samples, and lyrics solely about food: white pepper, beef jerky, etc.

CICADASHRINE Crumpled Multiple Agonies (Battlecruiser / Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 3" cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Battlecruiser is a new label from AQ pal Campbell Kneale who runs the impeccable NZ cdr label Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Battlecruiser is basically an outlet for a bunch of New Zealand noise guys to fufill their secret desire to be metal gods! Who can argue with that? Cool band names, distorted guitars, demonic vocals and all that good stuff! Metalheads might have to stretch their definition of 'metal' to really get into this stuff, but the rest of us, metal and unmetal alike will find lots of beautiful crushing far out noisy weirdness on these evil lil' 3" cd-r's!
Cicadashrine's sonic world slowly reveals an epic ambience, with distant crushing chords over a rumbling bed of throbs and pulses. Eventually the ROCK kicks in, not so much metal as industrial sludge grind. Reminds us of Flipper or Prong or OLD or even the Melvins. Super slow motion riffs, downtuned so that the riffs themselves feel like they might crumble into pieces, inhuman vocals buried so far down in the mix that they just sound like another downtuned guitar, bass strings so loose they're slapping against the bass, adding even more rumble and sludge to the mix. Sheets of caustic feedback separate the riffs, but just barely. The whole thing is like a metallic bulldozer driving through a tarpit! One twenty minute pit of despair.
MPEG Stream: "Crumpled Multiple Agonies"

CICCONE YOUTH The Whitey Album (Geffen) cd 11.98
Ciccone Youth was a one-off Sonic Youth side project, in which the band was paying homage to their favorite pop icon of the day: Madonna. If memory serves correctly, The Whitey Album was originally supposed to be a full on collaboration between Mike Watt (Minutemen, Firehouse) and Sonic Youth, in which the band just did all Madonna covers. Tongue in cheek, stoned ideas may be good on the couch with a bong while mocking how bad MTV is, but executing them is a recipe for artistic failure. So, The Whitey Album evolved beyond the Madonna cover album and into a pretty darn good example of how Sonic Youth could beef up avant-trance rock with mack-truck riffs, propulsive rhythms, and cheeky drum machine programming. Released just before Sonic Youth's unquestionably brilliant Daydream Nation, The Whitey Album enjoys many of the dynamic atonal noise/drones and screwdriver-in-the-guitar-strings tricks employed elsewhere in their early catalogue. As adventurous as much of The Whitey Album is, it's most memorable for the covers: Mike Watt does make an appearance all by his lonesome in covering Madonna's "Burnin' Up," Kim Gordon takes the vocal duties in the purposefully flat karaoke cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love," and Thurston Moore gets the honor of singing Madonna's "Into The Groove." If only all joke bands sounded this good!
MPEG Stream: "Macbeth"
MPEG Stream: "Into The Groovey"

CICCONE YOUTH The Whitey Album (Goofin') lp 12.98
Ciccone Youth was a one-off Sonic Youth side project, in which the band was paying homage to their favorite pop icon of the day: Madonna. If memory serves correctly, The Whitey Album was originally supposed to be a full on collaboration between Mike Watt (Minutemen, Firehouse) and Sonic Youth, in which the band just did all Madonna covers. Tongue in cheek, stoned ideas may be good on the couch with a bong while mocking how bad MTV is, but executing them is a recipe for artistic failure. So, The Whitey Album evolved beyond the Madonna cover album and into a pretty darn good example of how Sonic Youth could beef up avant-trance rock with mack-truck riffs, propulsive rhythms, and cheeky drum machine programming. Released just before Sonic Youth's unquestionably brilliant Daydream Nation, The Whitey Album enjoys many of the dynamic atonal noise/drones and screwdriver-in-the-guitar-strings tricks employed elsewhere in their early catalogue. As adventurous as much of The Whitey Album is, it's most memorable for the covers: Mike Watt does make an appearance all by his lonesome in covering Madonna's "Burnin' Up," Kim Gordon takes the vocal duties in the purposefully flat karaoke cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love," and Thurston Moore gets the honor of singing Madonna's "Into The Groove." If only all joke bands sounded this good!
MPEG Stream: "Macbeth"
MPEG Stream: "Into The Groovey"

CILIBRINAS DO EDEN s/t (Philips (Brasil)) cd 25.00

CILIO, LUCIANO Dell'Universo Assente (Die Schachtel) cd 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yes! We're glad to have this back in stock. 'Twas originally limited to just 500 copies when it came out last year and thus quickly went out of print, but now due to demand the label has pressed more. So if you missed out, get it now. Highly recommended. Our review from the first time around on list #199:
We'd never heard of Luciano Cilio before, but of course Jim O'Rourke has. The ubiquitious O'Rourke (Wilco/Sonic Youth/you name it) contributes liner notes to this beautifully presented deluxe digipack cd reissue of what amounts to the collected works of Cilio, an Italian avantgarde composer from the '70s whose music is indeed experimental but less academic than you might expect. But even without O'Rourke's endorsement, a listen to the cd should reveal to you that Cilio was exquisitely talented, and maybe something of a genius. This disc is a simply fantastic document of what we might consider a hybrid of 20th century classical, minimalist psych-prog, and folk music, not entirely of this world. The all-white cover perfectly echoes Cilio's lovely, quietly haunting compositions for acoustic guitar, cello, piano and flute, sometimes visited by wordless female vocals. Achingly melancholic, immensely deep, truly beautiful. Limited to 500 copies [again], this cd consists of Cilio's sole album, Dialoghi del Presente, originally released on EMI in 1977, along with several previously unreleased tracks. Apparently he more or less abandoned music after the album's release, and sadly committed suicide in 1983. Allan's favorite new long-lost reissue after the Flamen Dialis disc reviewed on list #194...
MPEG Stream: "Primo Quadro..."
MPEG Stream: "Interludio..."

CINDYTALK Camoflage Heart (Wheesht / Scratch) cd 22.00
Longtime regular aQ customer Joshua Maremont commented that Cindytalk's Camoflage Heart is a record which was only really meant for about 30 people. Not that only 30 copies of this record were released, or that it is so terminally obscure and willfully difficult that it by design has a marketing ceiling of an elite few. What he's on about is that Camoflage Heart is such a personal document of self-realized torment, pain, and sorrow that when Cindytalk embarked on the project, it's hard to imagine that they had any delusions about the intensity of this album and the potential for these songs to alienate beyond a limited few.
At the helm of Cindytalk is transgendered vocalist Gordon Sharp, who to this day is probably still best known as one of the multitude of vocalists who appeared in This Mortal Coil. In many ways, Sharp is the masculine equal to the Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser in delivering expressionist falsettos, trills, and banshee wails in an eerie, yet heavenly fashion. He's one of those few vocalists who can make the lyrics embody their content by shaping the words into emotionally charged sound. In fact, Sharp and Fraser had come together for a duet back during the Cocteau Twins' Peel Sessions of 1983. In his 4AD lineage, Gordon Sharp's first band was the criminally overlooked punk-glam ensemble The Freeze, where his Marc Bolan strut matched the nightmarish lyrics on top of some truly fantastic Bowie / Buzzcocks sparkplug riffs. Sharp, alongside fellow Freeze band members John Byrne and David Clancey, found shortcomings in the glam punk agenda, and sought a wholly new direction that became Cindytalk.
While undeniably dark and theatrical, Cindytalk cannot be pigeonholed as an '80s goth band, even in comparison to such off-kilter groups like The Virgin Prunes, Princess Tinymeat, or Sex Gang Children. Camoflage Heart was Cindytalk's first album and originally came out in 1984; and it's an album like those This Heat albums which is quite unique in terms of production and aesthetic. The album opens with the militant drum machine of "It's Luxury" setting the stage for an explosion from a monotone guitar riff, coated in amplifier grit, distortion, and detuned heaviness that comes across as a mix between late-'80s Skullflower and The Cure's Pornography. At this moment, Sharp's voice also erupts into the mix crooning with a downtrod beauty to this industrial dirge, spitting and swooning at the same time. The next track "Instinct (Back To Sense)" is more of an ambient interlude with distant heartbeat rhythms, haunted with impressionist piano trickles and Sharp's siren song buried between an atmosphere of smoke and mirror. Two more explosive tracks -- "Under Glass" (featuring Mick Harvey from the Birthday Party for a disjointed stutter of abject rock) and "Memories of Skin and Snow" -- are examples of loud / quiet / loud dynamics, later embraced by the likes of Slint and Mogwai to equally profound effect. "Everybody Is Christ" is often viewed as the pinnacle of Camoflage Heart with its harsh arppegiation of electronics cast against Sharp's heavenly voice. Soon after, the album disintegrates in a cascade of delicate piano, voice, and grim drones.
As Cindytalk had suffered through the fate of several record companies going out of business (first Midnight Records then World Serpent), their work might have been forgotten had it not been for this reissue. Thankfully, that oversight can now be remedies with this long overdue reissue.
MPEG Stream: "It's Luxury"
MPEG Stream: "Memories Of Skin And Snow"
MPEG Stream: "Everybody Is Christ"

CINDYTALK Camoflage Heart (Wheesht / Scratch) lp 23.00
We listed the cd on the last list, but Camoflage Heart is also available on vinyl!
Longtime regular aQ customer Joshua Maremont commented that Cindytalk's Camoflage Heart is a record which was only really meant for about 30 people. Not that only 30 copies of this record were released, or that it is so terminally obscure and willfully difficult that it by design has a marketing ceiling of an elite few. What he's on about is that Camoflage Heart is such a personal document of self-realized torment, pain, and sorrow that when Cindytalk embarked on the project, it's hard to imagine that they had any delusions about the intensity of this album and the potential for these songs to alienate beyond a limited few.
At the helm of Cindytalk is transgendered vocalist Gordon Sharp, who to this day is probably still best known as one of the multitude of vocalists who appeared in This Mortal Coil. In many ways, Sharp is the masculine equal to the Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser in delivering expressionist falsettos, trills, and banshee wails in an eerie, yet heavenly fashion. He's one of those few vocalists who can make the lyrics embody their content by shaping the words into emotionally charged sound. In fact, Sharp and Fraser had come together for a duet back during the Cocteau Twins' Peel Sessions of 1983. In his 4AD lineage, Gordon Sharp's first band was the criminally overlooked punk-glam ensemble The Freeze, where his Marc Bolan strut matched the nightmarish lyrics on top of some truly fantastic Bowie / Buzzcocks sparkplug riffs. Sharp, alongside fellow Freeze band members John Byrne and David Clancey, found shortcomings in the glam punk agenda, and sought a wholly new direction that became Cindytalk.
While undeniably dark and theatrical, Cindytalk cannot be pigeonholed as an '80s goth band, even in comparision to such off-kilter groups like The Virgin Prunes, Princess Tinymeat, or Sex Gang Children. Camoflage Heart was Cindytalk's first album and originally came out in 1984; and it's an album like those This Heat albums which is quite unique in terms of production and aesthetic. The album opens with the militant drum machine of "It's Luxury" setting the stage for an explosion from a monotone guitar riff, coated in amplifier grit, distortion, and detuned heaviness that comes across as a mix between late-80s Skullflower and The Cure's Pornography. At this moment, Sharp's voice also erupts into the mix crooning with a downtrod beauty to this industrial dirge, spitting and swooning at the same time. The next track "Instinct (Back To Sense)" is more of an ambient interlude with distant heartbeat rhythms, haunted with impressionist piano trickles and Sharp's siren song buried between an atmosphere of smoke and mirror. Two more explosive tracks -- "Under Glass" (featuring Mick Harvey from the Birthday Party for a disjointed stutter of abject rock) and "Memories of Skin and Snow" -- are examples of loud / guiet / loud dynamics, later embraced by the likes of Slint and Mogwai to equally profound effect. "Everybody Is Christ" is often viewed as the pinnacle of Camoflage Heart with its harsh arppegiation of electronics cast against Sharp's heavenly voice. Soon after, the album disintegrates in a cascade of delicate piano, voice, and grim drones.
As Cindytalk had suffered through the fate of several record companies going out of business (first Midnight Records then World Serpent), their work might have been forgotten had it not been for this reissue. Thankfully, that oversight can now be remedies with this long overdue reissue.
MPEG Stream: "It's Luxury"
MPEG Stream: "Memories Of Skin And Snow"
MPEG Stream: "Everybody Is Christ"

CINDYTALK In This World (Wheesht / Scratch) cd 22.00
So the rumor goes that Gordon Sharp was invited to join Duran Duran after Sharp dissolved his Edinburgh glam-punk band The Freeze in the late '70s. He turned them down. Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie also put out the request for Sharp to join the Cocteau Twins. After a brief stint accompanying the Cocteau Twins for a Peel Session in 1982 and a guest spot on This Mortal Coil's It'll End In Tears, he opted for his own project -- the obscure, yet majestic Cindytalk.
In This World is an opus in every sense of the word. Originally, In This World came out in 1988 as two separate albums under the same name, each with slightly different artwork. One album, a masterpiece of abject post-punk that in all honesty is the closest parallel to Swans' Children Of God; the other, a delicate ambient construct of melancholy piano scarred with surface noice prognosticating pretty much everything that Type Records has released (e.g Machinefabriek, Jasper TX, etc.). It's very good thing that both of these albums have been repackaged into one self-contained object, as the only half of In This World that seemed to be floating around was the piano-laced ambient one. As good as that half is, you need the grit and dirge of its companion album to complete Cindytalk's ideas of grand dualities: heaven / hell, pleasure / pain, holiness / transgression, etc.
While billed by Sharp as the 'disgusting' part of the In This World diptych, the first half begins with a lovely tonefloat of scratched violin drones and painterly piano notes. Yet, with the crushing rhythm and noise attack of "Janey's Love," Sharp does not disappoint with his disgusting tag. This is a monstrous industrial dirge with huge monotone slabs of distortion and atonal drones counterpointing Sharp's soaring falsetto. The punk poet Kathy Acker supplies a brief spoken word interlude as the coda to this incendiary number. Immediately hereafter, Cindytalk continue their turgid rhythmic marches with an angular distorted rhythm, slippery bassline mired in audio rust, and twin guitars spitting acid, fire, and brimstone on such tracks as "Gift Of A Knife" and "Circle Of Shit." As the first half of the album progresses, the songs steadily disintegrate as rhythm, song structure, and noise all collapse into a blur of smeared grey that is eerily reflective of William Basinski's Disintegration Loops. The piano which opened In This World becomes the dominant sound in Cindytalk's soundscapes, also marking the delineation between the two halves of In This World. Yes, this is the beautiful side of Cindytalk, coated in ash, snow, bruises, and rust. Gordon Sharp's piano playing comes from Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon, which in turn came from Erik Satie; and that impressionist sentiment continues forward amidst subterranean drones and field recordings of barren spaces. Sharp's voice is mostly absent from these tracks, although the eponymous finale to the album showcases one of Sharp's most emotive croons. They really don't make albums like this any more, with such attention to detail and dynamics between rage and beauty.
Fortunately, both of these records were concise enough that they could both fit onto one CD; and if you've not had the opportunity to hear Cindytalk, please do not let this album and its predecessor Camoflage Heart pass you by!
MPEG Stream: "Janey's Love"
MPEG Stream: "Circle Of Shit"
MPEG Stream: "The Beginning Of Wisdom"
MPEG Stream: "Sight After Sight"

CINDYTALK In This World (Wheesht / Scratch) 2lp 33.00
We listed the cd on the last list, but In This World is also available on vinyl!
So the rumor goes that Gordon Sharp was invited to join Duran Duran after Sharp dissolved his Edinburgh glam-punk band The Freeze in the late '70s. He turned them down. Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie also put out the request for Sharp to join the Cocteau Twins. After a brief stint accompanying the Cocteau Twins for a Peel Session in 1982 and a guest spot on This Mortal Coil's It'll End In Tears, he opted for his own project -- the obscure, yet majestic Cindytalk.
In This World is an opus in every sense of the word. Originally, In This World came out in 1988 as two separate albums under the same name, each with slightly different artwork. One album, a masterpiece of abject post-punk that in all honesty is the closest parallel to Swans' Children Of God; the other, a delicate ambient construct of melancholy piano scarred with surface noice prognosticating pretty much everything that Type Records has released (e.g Machinefabriek, Jasper TX, etc.). It's very good thing that both of these albums have been repackaged into one self-contained object, as the only half of In This World that seemed to be floating around was the piano-laced ambient one. As good as that half is, you need the grit and dirge of its companion album to complete Cindytalk's ideas of grand dualities: heaven / hell, pleasure / pain, holiness / transgression, etc.
While billed by Sharp as the 'disgusting' part of the In This World diptych, the first half begins with a lovely tonefloat of scratched violin drones and painterly piano notes. Yet, with the crushing rhythm and noise attack of "Janey's Love," Sharp does not disappoint with his disgusting tag. This is a monstrous industrial dirge with huge monotone slabs of distortion and atonal drones counterpointing Sharp's soaring falsetto. The punk poet Kathy Acker supplies a brief spoken word interlude as the coda to this incendiary number. Immediately hereafter, Cindytalk continue their turgid rhythmic marches with an angular distorted rhythm, slippery bassline mired in audio rust, and twin guitars spitting acid, fire, and brimstone on such tracks as "Gift Of A Knife" and "Circle Of Shit." As the first half of the album progresses, the songs steadily disintegrate as rhythm, song structure, and noise all collapse into a blur of smeared grey that is eerily reflective of William Basinski's Disintegration Loops. The piano which opened In This World becomes the dominant sound in Cindytalk's soundscapes, also marking the delineation between the two halves of In This World. Yes, this is the beautiful side of Cindytalk, coated in ash, snow, bruises, and rust. Gordon Sharp's piano playing comes from Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon, which in turn came from Erik Satie; and that impressionist sentiment continues forward amidst subterranean drones and field recordings of barren spaces. Sharp's voice is mostly absent from these tracks, although the eponymous finale to the album showcases one of Sharp's most emotive croons. They really don't make albums like this any more, with such attention to detail and dynamics between rage and beauty.
Fortunately, both of these records were concise enough that they could both fit onto one CD; and if you've not had the opportunity to hear Cindytalk, please do not let this album and its predecessor Camoflage Heart pass you by!
MPEG Stream: "Janey's Love"
MPEG Stream: "Circle Of Shit"
MPEG Stream: "The Beginning Of Wisdom"
MPEG Stream: "Sight After Sight"

CINDYTALK Silver Shoals Of Light (Bluesanct) 10" 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

CINDYTALK The Crackle Of My Soul (Editions Mego) cd 17.98
Cindytalk on Mego? It was a shock to see that pairing. Cindytalk has been the sporadic project of Gordon Sharp with a shifting ensemble over the past two and half decades. At first, Sharp's abject post-punk took a gritty, almost industrial growling to the ethereally dark tunes of the Cocteau Twins. Sharp's voice in many ways is the masculine equivalent to Liz Fraser's, just as beautiful and haunting; and the two had paired up on a few tracks through This Mortal Coil and the Cocteau Twins. Cindytalk's two releases in the '80s - Camoflage Heart and In This World - have been secret gems to all those who had uncovered that work, with Cindytalk only emerging a few times since. There was the impressionist Ambient piano record The Wind Is Strong and 1994's underwhelming Wappinschaw. Then, a decade of silence followed by a limited edition single from 2003 and a brilliant one-sided 10" of drone-rock beauty in 2008. So, it was hard to know what to expect with a 2009 full album from Cindytalk, especially from the digi-centric label Mego.
Here, Cindytalk is just the work of Gordon Sharp; and The Crackle Of My Soul certainly sounds like a Mego record on par with the likes of Pita, Kevin Drumm, and BJ Nilsen, as shards of digital noise are looped and phased into building compositions that glow with a very intense high-end piercing. Not quite Whitehouse territory, it's actually far more glacial and icy in tone. Nevertheless, Sharp's electronics have a way of drilling into your skull. Voice and piano occasionally creep into the mix, but not to the extent that you would hear on any of the earlier records, even the aforementioned album The Wind Is Strong. We have to admit that we didn't love this record as much as Camoflage Heart and In This World; but it's sort of a different beast, and there's a lot of very strong electro-acoustic renderings to be found here...
MPEG Stream: "Feathers Burn"
MPEG Stream: "One Hundred Years Tomorrow"
MPEG Stream: "Debris Of A Smile"

CINDYTALK / ROBERT HAMPSON Five Mountains Of Fire / Antarctica Ends Here (Editions Mego) 10" 16.98
Sure, Cindytalk's The Crackle Of My Soul for Mego was an interesting diversion into laptop electricity; but that album would have been way better off had Cindytalk's Gordon Sharp steered the album toward the direction of this split 10" with Robert Hampson. Cindytalk gravitates towards the dissonant drones of bowed cymbals, foggy electronics, skittered percussion, and growling guitars, which all enjoy much more of a recorded-in-a-concrete-bunker vibe with all of the sounds dripping with heavy reverb, giving the pieces the feel of Organum, Thuja, or RV Paintings. Pretty amazing stuff, in fact. The Robert Hampson piece seemed to have Cindytalk in mind when he composed it (even though it's dedicated to John Cale), as it's very reminiscent of the Cindytalk piano / ambient pieces from In This World. Hampson also doesn't rely upon the concrete juxtapositions of his Touch output, instead settling upon a drone from a harmonium to buttress a lilting series of repeating piano clusters that spiral around deep ringing bell tones and washes of hiss and static. Again, we think Hampson should be producing more music like this, which is probably the best piece he's done since the Main album Motion Pool.

CINEMASOPHIA Whole Ghosts (self-released) cd 11.98
Mushrooming from a one-man band (Landis Wine) into a full-fledged five piece, Richmond, VA's Cinemasophia self-release their sophomore album Whole Ghosts. It's quite reminiscent of the remarkably multipersonalitied Philadelphia band The Lilys, but also akin to more recent bands such as Grizzly Bear -- both with whom Cinemasophia have shared the rock stage. It's a lush, yet loosely woven tapestry of dream pop, shoegaze, and post rock. In turn, the band can be all warm and fuzzy, robust and driving, introspective and intimate, fiery and dissonant. Yes, Whole Ghosts has many facets which makes for a very varied listen, but not jarringly so. Cinemasophia move easily from one persona to the next and back again. Cool.
MPEG Stream: "Buried In Blooms"
MPEG Stream: "Hall Of Black Eyes"

CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA Man With A Movie Camera (Ninja Tune) cd 15.98
I may have to go back and check out some of the older Cinematic Orchestra releases now, 'cause I really dig this new one. I had sort of written them off as yuppie cocktail makeout music (a la Kruder and Dorfmeister), and maybe it still is, but it sure sounds a whole lot better than I remember. Dark and moody and sexy and creepy, but also playful and fun. A newly recorded soundtrack for Tziga Vertov's famous 1920's silent film Man With A Movie Camera. The music is very reminiscent of Portishead with its lugubrious smoke-y and murky downtempo dirges but with some shuffling acid jazz and wild and wooly funk mixed in as well. Goes from super sinister, dangerous dark alley, late night cinematic soundscapes to almost-wacky twenties slapstick caper music to skittery Mission Impossible style spy music to fuzzed out Hammond organ funk to dreamy, melancholy instrumentals. Really cool. We also have the DVD that includes a restored version of the film with the new soundtrack, as well as live footage and interviews!
RealAudio clip: "Melody/Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "Evolution"

CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA Man With A Movie Camera (Ninja Tune) dvd 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the DVD version of the most recent Cinematic Orchestra album, a score for the famous Russian silent film Man With A Movie Camera made by Tziga Vertov in 1920. It's a great movie, part social documentary, part pure visual artistry. If you haven't ever seen it, it's well worth a viewing! This new DVD version contains the original film with the newly recorded score, as well as live footage and interviews.
Here's what we had to say about the score:
I may have to go back and check out some of the older Cinematic Orchstra releases now, 'cause I really dig this new one. I had sort of written them off as yuppie cocktail makeout music (a la Kruder and Dorfmeister), and maybe it still is, but it sure sounds a whole lot better than I remember. Dark and moody and sexy and creepy, but also playful and fun. Very reminiscent of Portishead with its lugubrious smoke-y and murky downtempo dirges but with some shuffling acid jazz and wild and wooly funk mixed in as well. Goes from super sinister, dangerous dark alley, late night cinematic soundscapes to almost-wacky twenties slapstick caper music to skittery Mission Impossible style spy music to fuzzed out Hammond organ funk to dreamy, melancholy instrumentals. Really cool.

CINERAMA Disco Volante (Manifesto) cd 17.98
I'm ashamed to admit that I completely missed Cinerama's wonderful first album when it came out a couple of years ago. I will not make the same mistake twice. No way! We will forgive them for using the same title as that of Mr. Bungle's very different (but very excellent) second album. And comparisons to Dave Gedge's other band the Wedding Present? Well, in my humble opinion this is equally if not more wonderful... and I'm a huge Wedding Present fan. Mr. Gedge sings with a much more melodic Merrit (that is, the less monotone side of Magnetic Fields' Stephin) style, than his more familiar Muppet-esque (hello, Grover?) tone. And Sally Murrell's sweet voice provides the pretty counterpart. Super polished dream pop like a swirling carousel in shades of Bacharach and Morricone. Flutes, strings, french horns. Oh, I just might swoon and weep. Quite fabulous.
RealAudio clip: "Lollobrigida"

CINERAMA This Is... (Spin Art) cd 14.98
The second release from Cinerama, starring the amazing David Gedge and Sally Murrell of The Wedding Present, compiles the first four singles from their '98 debut album along with a remix of "Ears". Quite splendid retro-pop with hints of Bacharach, Gainsbourg, and maybe even some Morricone.

CINERAMA Torino (Scopitones) cd 16.98
Cinerama's David Gedge and co. follow up the grand, swirling dream pop of their second full length Disco Volante with another album overflowing with romance and loveliness. The music continues to be flowery, lush and very Bacharach-esque, but this time around it sounds like the love affair's gone a little sour. The lyrics, weighted with a dose of scorn, are much less poetic than what we've come to expect from Mr. Gedge's pen. This is particularly noticeable on the ninth track called "Close Up". His words are rather...uhh... blunt -- definitely not the usual clever metaphors and dainty euphemisms. Almost cringeworthy actually. Fortunately the rest of Torino generally steers clear of this listening discomfort.
RealAudio clip: "And When She Was Bad"
RealAudio clip: "Close Up"
RealAudio clip: "Starry Eyed"

CINERAMA Va Va Voom (Spin Art) cd 14.98
The debut release from David Gedge and Sally Murrell of Wedding Present fame. Pop of the lush, grandiose kind.

CIRCA SURVIVE Juturna (Equal Vision) cd 13.98
We've been super into that new strain of epic, super complex emo prog lately (well, Andee has at least), bands like Chiodos, Coheed And Cambria. Groups that combine killer metal riffing, super dense and complicated prog arrangements, with super emotive wailing vocals. Like a whole new breed of punk rockers re-discovered Yes and King Crimson and managed to create some impossible hybrid bridging the gap between classic progressive rock and modern emo metalcore. There are about a million bands doing their own version these days, and admittedly most of them suck, but we'll still stick by Chiodos, and the first two Coheed records, and now we have the latest by Circa Survive, a dreamy, epic, psychedelic, dramatic emo prog outfit, who actually eschew the more metal elements that define most of their sonic brethren, focusing instead on texture and melody and mood. There is definitely a Mars Volta vibe, a lot of that has to do with the vocalist's impossibly high voice, on first listen it's hard to believe it's not actually a woman singing, clear and crystalline, a soaring near falsetto, the vocals drifting above dense harmonies, gorgeous melodies, a thick sonic tapestry of shoegazer guitars, angular riffs, complicated rhythms, all woven into haunting and strangely catchy mini epics. None of the songs are outright 'pop song' catchy, but they all manage to suck you in and make it virtually impossible to avoid repeat listens. Heavy, but not in a metal way, just deep and emotional, darkly dramatic, with layers of sound that are continually shifting to reveal hidden parts and recombining into unexpected surprises. Probably won't be that much of a surprise, but this is one of Andee's favorite records of the last few years. And actually, this came out last year, but who cares, here it is 2006 and we're still spinning it like crazy...
MPEG Stream: "Holding Someone's Hair Back"
MPEG Stream: "Act Apalled"
MPEG Stream: "Wish Resign"

CIRCLE Alotus (Klangbad) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Right on schedule, the prolific band that The Wire insists on referring to as "Finnish Metal Minimalists" and who of course are all-time AQ faves, have come out with another disc (they're in the double digits now!) of the mantric, repetitive space-rock music that's our addiction. Granted, their previous album, the amazing "Sunrise", did dabble in the devil's music. But while on this one Teemu and Jyrki's guitars do get heavy at times, and vocalist Mika does an Udo Dirkschnieder impression at least once, "Alotus" is primarily about plenty of late-night rhythmic slow-burn stuff that references prior Circle discs like "Hissi" and "Pori" -- recalling as well their krautrock forebears Neu! and Can, as always. Circle's grooves simmer here, brooding yet pretty, only exploding with heavy prog/psych power towards the conclusion of a track, if at all. With Mika whispering and crooning weirdly more than screaming, "Altous" is driven by ticking clock tension provided by drummer Janne's metronoymic pulse. Some songs are dark and spooky (though Mika's vocals to some might verge on silly, which is ok with us), instrumentally relentless and ominous, while others have a more gleeful exuberance, as captured (for instance) by the repeating Magmoid bass riff from Jussi as the title track percolates along... The tension is resolved when "Potto" ends things with the disc's most potent eruption of "metal" (actually just loud rock) mayhem. Both of the tracks just mentioned might actually sound a little familiar to Circle fans, for they've been aired before in live form on their recent "Raunio" disc!
Released on Faust's label Klangbad (and produced by Faust's Hans Joachim Irmler, who had a hand in the arrangements as well), this boasts liner notes in German and English by Rolf Jaeger that highlight the connection 'twixt classic Krautrock and Circle's modern day take off on the form. Comes in a digipak with purple-tinted photo of a wall and a hedge or tree to puzzle over.
MPEG Stream: "Tyolaisten Laulu"
MPEG Stream: "Potto"

CIRCLE Andexelt (tUMULt) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
AVAILABLE AGAIN!!!
Finally one of our all time favorite Circle records back in print! We first listed this way back in 1999, and it was for many people their first exposure to this amazing and mysterious, dreamy and hypnotic, modern spaced out krautrock band from Finland. By now, Circle is practically a household name, at least for those of you living in a seriously cool music household, having released about 15 or 16 records since Andexelt. But way back in 1999, Circle were a a brand new discovery for most American weird rock fans, and Andexelt knocked everyone on their asses.
A delirious dose of droning, hypnotic neo-kraut rock that effortlessly managed to out-post most post rock bands and out-space most spacerock bands. Circle were (and are) the northernmost heirs to the Krautrock tradition. On Andexelt, the band were taking basic riffs, stretching and reshaping them, twisting them into brand new shapes, creating bleak, ever shifting underwater grooves and dizzyingly repetitive rhythms, sounding like an otherworldly This Heat or a more damaged Can. A mesmerising wall of sound delivered with the sheer force of Loop or Godflesh, but with dark precision and melodic restraint. Mellow, delicate jazzy passages intersected with crushing Bonham-esque beats. Fans of Circle's other great records, past and present, can already guess that this is completely amazing and absolutely essential!!! While fans of Salvatore and Tortoise and Mogwai and TransAm and all other practitioners of epic bombastic hypno-rock, mesmeric math rock and even the current crop of sludgy metallic post rock, would do well to pick this up if they missed it the first time around. Andexelt is the perfect mix of their current more metallic drone rock pummel and their older more mesmerizing krautrock groove bliss. So absolutely brilliant and completely and utterly essential.
Exactly the same as the original tUMULt pressing, including the 10 minute bonus track and kick ass secret song not included on the import version, originally released on Finnish weird-prog label Metamorphos. SO AWESOME!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Andexelt"
MPEG Stream: "Odultept"
MPEG Stream: "Humusaar"
MPEG Stream: "Lisaapui"

CIRCLE Arkades (Fourth Dimension) 2cd 19.98
BACK IN STOCK! At last... not sure if this actually got repressed, or if our supplier just found a few in a misplaced box or something, but we've got about a dozen of these now, and may or may not be able to get more. Probably not, actually. So if you missed it before, don't sleep on it now. Here's our review from back last summer....
Finland's mighty masters of metallic hypno drone rock, Circle, have slowly transformed into a sort of musical Jeckyll and Hyde. Beginning life with a twisted take on motorik murk, hypnotic riffing, relentless rhythms, and circular song structures, the band gradually became obsessed with metal, and thus Circle records got heavier and riffier, with more wild vocals and metallic bombast, resulting recently in a wildly productive explosion of Circle releases and Circle related side projects, the sludgey rifflords Pharaoh Overlord, the forthcoming Steel Mammoth records, and the most recent Circle release, Panic, perfectly reflecting their split personality split evenly between ambient whoooosh and grinding old skool punk rock. Confusing sure, but also wild and glorious and completely and totally kick ass.
But as Circle records generally got heavier and riffier, they were balanced by a series of lp only releases, all of which seemed to be meditative and droney and dreamy. But for listeners sans turntables, a whole side of Circle must have seemed like it was simply fading way. Well, now one of our favorite vinyl only releases from Circle has gotten re-released on cd, and with a bonus disc to boot (3 tracks, 40+ minutes). So those of you who were wondering what was going on over in Circle lp land, now's your chance to get a glimpse, and obviously all you Circle obsessives who have the lp already, will probably have to pick it up for the extra disc, essentially an entire new (live!) Circle record!
Here's a retooled version of our review of the lp when it first came out (folks who already own the lp, skip down to the end to read about the bonus disc):
Finland's mighty masters of metallic hypno drone rock return, with yes, another brand new record (previously lp only, now on cd), and their obsession (one of their many strange obsessions) with Southern Rock has finally reached critical mass. Not so much musically, although there are subtle hints here and there, as visually and conceptually. This set, recorded live on Brian Turner's radio show on WFMU when Circle were in the states a year or two back is a monster. Two epic and massively long tracks, combining the metallic leanings of their later records (albeit subtly), with the murky propulsiveness of their earlier records, as well as their droney improvised abstract side (most noticeable on the lp only Mountain). It's kind of remarkable how all of Circle's disparate musical personalities fit so well together. But before we get to the music, let's talk about the sleeve. And the Southern Rock. The cover features a knotty pine background, riddled with bullet holes, two crossed pistols above the band name. Very Sergio Leone... The tray card features a band photo seemingly branded into the wood, with Circle donning cowboy hats and sombreros, whooping it up like that last freeze frame in an episode of Bonanza (maybe it was CHiPs, but Bonanza makes more sense here). Then there's Brian Turner's eyewitness account of the musical showdown that occurred when Circle showed up at WFMU to record their set printed like an old weathered Western town wanted poster. Woe was the pasty British garage band that felt Circle's wrath. Broken glass and tobacco spit figure prominently. And let's not forget the Confederate flag on one cd, and the crossed bandoleers on the other (the discs are labeled Rebel Platter and Bullet Platter after all).
Thankfully (or maybe not, some might be thinking) this Southern Rock doesn't filter all the way down to the music. Instead we've got more of that Circular genius we just can't get enough of.
The first track, "The Greatest Kingdom", begins as an abstract soundscape of spacey effected riffs, sort of blurry and drifty, above strange mumbled mutterings and what sounds like alien scat singing. The vibe is strangely dubby and Middle Eastern sounding. Eventually a warm wash of woozy distorted guitars builds into a monstrous swell of sound, warm and thick and sort of heavy, while buried beneath is a burbling cauldron of electronic squiggles and gurgling vocal sputters. Out of nowhere, like a beam of sunlight with a small flock of faeiries flitting about, comes a strange dreamy drift of almost renaissance faire sounding festive folk, which dissipates quickly into a swirl of speaking-in-tongues vocals and insect like electronics before drifting off.
Track two, "The Ghost Of The Highway", is a bit darker, with faux throat singing over ominous psych sludge riffing like classic Circle but slowed way down. Groovy and dark, peppered with subtle tribal percussion. Weirdly enough, that weird dreamy stretch of faerie flecked folk sunniness that surfaced briefly on side A, shows up again here in a slightly different form, and disappears just as quickly, returning to a VERY Circular propulsive groove. Drums skitter instead of pound, while a guitar drifts and stutters, sounding a bit like the guitar line from the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now" but way more druggy and psychedelic!
This double disc reissue tacks on a whole 'nother record, three more loooong tracks, the shortest ten minutes, the longest sixteen plus, and starts off sounding as Western as the artwork would have led us to believe. Lots of random shuffling, crowd noise, recorded live, a murky haze, like smoke in an old West barroom, then the riff kicks in, somewhere between classic spacey krautrock and Morricone spaghetti Western twang, the drums simple and propulsive, the riff slowly drifting and changing shape, while the vocals growl over the top, things like "Sixxxxxx, sixxxx, sixxxx" or "Kaaaaaaay, kaaaaaaay, kaaaaaay" and assorted other mumblings and guttural whispers. Very ominous and evocative. Right smack in the middle, the riff gives way to a strange chaotic interlude of sustained chords, simple rhythmic pulses, swooping synths, and wild nearly operatic vocals, before giving way to a simple drums only coda.
The second track begins with some strange rave-y synthesizers, wrapped around the same growled vocalizations, building and building, but never completely rocking out, instead, lingering in some endlessly repeating world of tension and no release, the synths looping, the drums mirroring the synths, and a wild array of vocals, some breathy and earnest, some wild and over the top, and of course plenty of mysterious grunting and growling.
And they close out the record with one of the highlights from their live sets, not the song necessarily, but the RIFF, a super kick ass, super rocking MEGA-riff, can't remember what record it's from, but what a riff, live it's the sort of riff that induces immediate headbanging, with a killer dynamic stop start "DAH DAH.... DAH DAH.... DAAAAAAHHHH", it's the kind of part in a song, you NEVER want to end, but leave it to Circle to confound, and after a few run throughs, the band pulls back and blisses out, into some strange, super extended FX drenched free floating jam, guitars hover and swirl, the drums a distant shuffle and skitter, the keyboards tinkling abstractly, vocals crooning dramatically throughout, like some theater production gone well off the rails, all culminating in a dense cloud of drum splatter, FX chaos, super affected vocals, and thick swooshes of instrumental buzz and blur. But just as you think it's over, in true Circle fashion, they explode back into action, and finish off with a blistering blast of THAT riff. Awesome.
So it seems that maybe we'll all have to keep waiting for the inevitable, that record they keep threatening us with, when Circle finally become a bizarre krautrock psychrock dronemetal version of the Marshall Tucker Band, but for now, just crack open that Jack Daniels, throw those boots up on the desk (careful with those spurs!), pull the brim of your ten gallon down over your eyes, put a little pinch between your teeth and gums, turn it up and drift off...
MPEG Stream: "The Greatest Kingdom"
MPEG Stream: "The Ghost Of The Highway"

CIRCLE Arkades (Fourth Dimension) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finalnd's mighty masters of metallic hypno drone rock return, with yes, another limited LP only release, and their obsession (one of many obsessions they have) with Southern Rock has finally reached critical mass. Not so much musically, although there are subtle hints here and there, as visually and conceptually. This set, recorded live on Brian Turner's radio show on WFMU when Circle were in the states last time is a monster. Two side long tracks, combining the metallic leanings of their later records, with the murky propulsiveness of their earlier records, as well as their droney improvised abstract side (most noticable on the LP only Mountain). It's kind of remarkable how all of Circle's disparate musical personalities fit so well together. But before we get to the music, let's talk about the sleeve. And the Southern Rock. The cover features a knotty pine background, riddled with bullet holes, two crossed pistols above the band name. Very Sergio Leone... The reverse side features a band photo seemingly branded into the wood, with Circle donning cowboy hats and sombreros, whooping it up like that last freeze frame in an episode of Bonanza (maybe it was CHiPs, but Bonanza makes more sense here). Then there's Brian Turner's eyewitness account of the musical showdown that occurred when Circle showed up at WFMU to record their set. Woe was the pasty British garage band that felt Circle's wrath. Broken glass and tobacco spit figure prominently. And let's not forget the Confederate flag on the LP label.
Thankfully (or maybe not, some might be thinking) this Southern Rock doesn't filter all the way down to the music. Instead we've got more of that Circular genius we just can't get enough of.
Side one begins as an abstract soundscape of spacey effected riffs, sort of blurry and drifty, above strange mumbled mutterings and what sounds like alien scat singing. The vibe is strangely dubby and Middle Eastern sounding. Eventually a warm wash of woozy distorted guitars builds into a monstrous swell of sound, warm and thick and sort of heavy, while buried beneath is a burbling cauldron of electronic squiggles and gurgling vocal sputters. Out of nowhere, like a beam of sunlight with a small flock of faeiries flitting about, comes a strange dreamy drift of almost rennaisance faire sounding festive folk, which dissipates quickly into a swirl of speaking-in-tongues vocals and insect like electronics before drifting off.
Side two is a bit darker, with faux throat singing over ominous psych sludge riffing like classic Circle but slowed way down. Groovy and dark, peppered with subtle tribal percussion. Weirdly enough, that weird dreamy stretch of faerie flecked folk sunniness that surfaced briefly on side A, shows up again here in a slightly different form, and disappears just as quickly, returning to a VERY Circular propulsive groove. Drums skitter instead of pound, while a guitar drifts and stutters, sounding a bit like the guitar line from the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now" but way more druggy and psychedelic!
So we'll all have to keep waiting for the inevitable, that record they keep threatening us with, when Circle finally become a bizarre krautrock psychrock dronemetal version of the Marshall Tucker Band, but for now, just crack open that Jack Daniels, throw those boots up on the desk (careful with those spurs!), pull the brim of your ten gallon down over your eyes, put a little pinch between your teeth and gums, turn it up and drift off...

CIRCLE Circle b/w Elcric (Fonal) 7" 6.66
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
New 7" from our favorite Finnish masters of hypnotic rock groove, that's right, Circle! Two tracks that find the circlular ones continuing in their more rocking trajectory with side A being a bouncy groover, like a smoothed out AC/DC riff, that slowly builds into a psychedelic squall. Side B is a bit sludgier, a sort of MC5 / Stooges dirge with muttered spaced-out vocals and dirty distorted guitar. A good teaser for their upcoming Guillotine album which we should have soon!

CIRCLE Earthworm (No Quarter) cd ep 8.98
Four new songs from AQ faves Circle! Maybe that's all we need to say... but perhaps foolishly we'll go further. After many years of cultish obscurity in this country, Circle are at last beginning to get some wider recognition. They've managed to briefly tour in the States twice in the last year or so, most recently playing a handful of dates (not in San Francisco, unfortunately) centered around their appearance at the South By Southwest music convention in Austin, Texas just a few weeks ago. So more and more people are getting to see and hear 'em, and that means more and more converts to Circle fandom. They're an amazing live spectacle -- a hypnotic, headbanging, minimalist metallic post-krautrock juggernaut that doesn't stint on the hair and the sweat. And their many albums are equally incredible. We'd always wondered why they weren't the latest post-rock big thing...well maybe it's 'cause they're so dang weird! Which, of course, we like. Bands that sing in their own made-up languages (a la Magma) and do other unashamedly "prog rock" and sometime metal things too are definitely cool with us. But does that get them signed to Thrill Jockey or Matador? No. Not yet anyway. And as popular as they've become in recent years, Circle (you know) are still weirdos. Just take a look at the cover of the live LP we listed here last time! So, what do you suppose they decided to do for the cdep that was intended to be released to coincide with (though, it got delayed) their SXSW appearance and surrounding tour? Unsurprisingly, something strange. But very Circle. You see, Jussi from Circle is a HUGE fan of a band from LA in the '80s called Jesters Of Destiny. As are Andee and Allan. Chances are, if you're an AQ customer who's heard of them, it's because Jussi reissued an album of theirs on his label Ektro a few years ago. Crazy, catchy alternative metal/new wave/punk/pop music. Jussi loves Jesters of Destiny so much that, having met up with their former singer Bruce Duff in LA when Circle played the Arthurfest last year, Jussi got Duff to sing on this here ep! Since we're fans of Jesters too, we were stoked, and hoping for a 30 minute jam on the JoD's big hit (not really) "Diggin' That Grave"! But that's not what they did. What you get here are four tracks, three of 'em featuring Duff on vocals, one an instrumental. It definitely sounds like Circle, but the usual mock-operatics sung in Meronian by Circle keyboardist Mikka Ratto have been replaced by Duff's equally unique vocal stylings. It's maybe a bit like the 3 Dead People After The Performance album that Circle recorded with Can's Damo Suzuki, except that these are real songs with lyrics (written by Duff) in English, not improvs. We're not really used to understanding the words in a Circle song, so it's all very strange. Musically, though, it's the repetitive hypno-rock these guys do so well. First track "Earthworm" is hectic and heavy, the second one "Connection" is almost more of a pop tune, and the third track "Taking It Back" is calmer and more Can-like, with Duff delivering his lines in a whisper. And then the instrumental "Coda" wraps things up in fine Circle fashion. Because of Duff's vocals, this is definitely one of the odder Circle documents. But not a bad concept for an ep, just the sort of thing an ep is for!
MPEG Stream: "Earthworm"
MPEG Stream: "Connection"

CIRCLE Empire (Riot Season) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This went out of print not long after we first listed it in October of '04. And it's still out of print. But one of our suppliers somehow found 15 copies. Which we promptly snatched up. So... our previous review gets a one-time-only-rerun:
Vinyl Only. Limited. 750 copies. Circle. Did you get that? Circle. Vinyl Only. Limited. 750 copies. And we only have 15. That said, here follows a possibly superfluous review... Anyone who liked the last cd we listed by our Finnish friends Circle, Forest, ought to also like this live recording. It's all new material -- two side-long cuts, "Dragon" and "Empire" -- but they are definitely in the hippified, semi-acoustic jamming vein of Forest, all dark and psychedelic and Can-like. Both tracks are epics, with peaks and valleys, the second side eventually building up into a guitar riff-repetition thing that's classic Circle indeed. Frickin' gorgeous and hypnotic.
MPEG Stream: "Dragon"

CIRCLE Forest (Ektro) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY. BUT WE SHOULD HAVE THE DOMESTIC NO QUARTER VERSION, SEE NEARBY!
It's incredible how AQ's Finnish faves n' friends Circle always manage to maintain their trademark sound -- repetitive, hypnotic post-prog grooves -- even as they produce new albums with such distinct, different identities. Their latest disc, Forest, is another great, unique Circle effort. This time around, they've gone semi-acoustic, kinda folky. Also spooky and sinisterly-synthed. In a way, Forest is perhaps Circle's most "hippie" album. We know Jussi's a big Dead fan after all. And the krautrock stuff they've obviously always been inspired by was hippie rock too. But there's a back-to-the-land, pot smokin' jam vibe here, although night-shrouded and mysterious, NOT rainbow-colored and dippy. This a Forest of nightmares, with whispering and groaning in the trees. Maybe Jussi and Co. have been listening to the likes of Kalacakra and Siloah and Amon Duul... and Goblin, and early Tangerine Dream... For sure it seems that the four lengthy tracks on here (shortest six+ minutes, one nine, the other two in the double digits) owe a lot to Can (maybe moreso than other Circle albums do) and also to...the blues! That's the biggest shock. Vocalist Mika Ratto's love 'em or hate 'em operatic vocals are shucked in favor of a mumbling, moaning, singin' the blues style. And, equally shocking, he's singing in English this time! Not that you can make sense of much of what's coming out of his mouth. And of course most of the time Forest is all-instrumental, spacious, suspenseful, grooved-out, darkness. The final, longest track dabbles in ambient, experimental witch-project drone before those Circle rhythms return and Mika moans his last. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Havuportti"
MPEG Stream: "Luikertelevat Lahoavat"

CIRCLE Forest (No Quarter / Ektro) cd 14.98
This 2004 Circle album is now available domestically on the No Quarter label (who've recently also brought us Psychic Paramount's debut and the Earth remixes cd)! Same tracks as the Finnish import version on Ektro that we previously stocked, and very similar (but modified) artwork -- the cover now boasts a "flame job" that wasn't there on the original. So, here's our review from before of this quite recommended Circle album:
It's incredible how AQ's Finnish faves 'n' friends Circle always manage to maintain their trademark sound -- repetitive, hypnotic post-prog grooves -- even as they produce new albums with such distinct, different identities. Their latest disc, Forest, is another great, unique Circle effort. This time around, they've gone semi-acoustic, kinda folky. Also spooky and sinisterly-synthed. In a way, Forest is perhaps Circle's most "hippie" album. We know Jussi's a big Dead fan after all. And the krautrock stuff they've obviously always been inspired by was hippie rock too. But there's a back-to-the-land, pot smokin' jam vibe here, although night-shrouded and mysterious, NOT rainbow-colored and dippy. This a Forest of nightmares, with whispering and groaning in the trees. Maybe Jussi and Co. have been listening to the likes of Kalacakra and Siloah and Amon Duul... and Goblin, and early Tangerine Dream... For sure it seems that the four lengthy tracks on here (shortest six+ minutes, one nine, the other two in the double digits) owe a lot to Can (maybe moreso than other Circle albums do) and also to...the blues! That's the biggest shock. Vocalist Mika Ratto's love 'em or hate 'em operatic vocals are shucked in favor of a mumbling, moaning, singin' the blues style. And, equally shocking, he's singing in English this time! Not that you can make sense of much of what's coming out of his mouth. And of course most of the time Forest is all-instrumental, spacious, suspenseful, grooved-out, darkness. The final, longest track dabbles in ambient, experimental witch-project drone before those Circle rhythms return and Mika moans his last. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Havuportti"
MPEG Stream: "Luikertelevat Lahoavat"

CIRCLE Fraten (Metamorphos) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fourth album of beautiful repetition from these Finnish innovators. Not quite so heavy or dark as previous releases, Fraten explores (somewhat) mellower territory with equally hypnotic results as before.

CIRCLE General (Kevyt Nostalgia) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What really needs to be said by now. Other than... A NEW CIRCLE RECORD!! And a live one to boot. And ask anyone who saw Circle live on their recent tour, and they'll berate you first for missing it, and then go on and on and on about how fucking great Circle are live. Which as we can most definitely attest to is the absolute truth! So for those of you who missed out, or those of you who didn't but can't stand the thought of missing out now, we present to you General! On vinyl only, and already sold out at the label, we have 50 copies and then that is it!
The first track(s) is a weird one, starting off with a bit of noodly electric piano, over a thick staticky haze of backgroud whir, segueing quickly into a strange lite prog, like Gentle Giant or Gong maybe, but unlike those bands, Circle's lite prog is buried in effects, the vocals are freaked out and splinter into mad echos, the drums careen wildly into the ether, the whole thing a swirling prog rock acid-drenched freakout. Eventually things settle into that instantly recognizable Circle groove, a throbbing hypnotic krautrocky workout. Then Circle pulls a Skynrd on us by fading out a track on side one and then fading back into it on side two. So awesome. Haven't really noticed anyone pulling that one off in ages.
Most of side two is taken up by a much heavier Circle, with a thick fuzzy serpentine bass line underpinning simple repeated guitar riffs, the drums pounding out a basic, impossible to resist rhythm, everything building in intensity, eventually melting down into a full on low-end freakout, a wall of distortion and splattered drums, super effected wailing vocals all burning bright before drifting back to black. Woah.
And let's not forget to mention the amazing cover art featuring a blurry 3-D style photo of a shirtless Jussi flexing with chains in his hands, Janne in some sort of bondage gear, and Mika and Tomi in spikes and helmets. NWOFHM! Fuck yeah!

CIRCLE Golem / Vesiliirto (Kevyt Nostalgia / Super Metsa) 2lp 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Circle. Vinyl. Limited. Those three words ought to be enough for many of you. But for the sticklers who want a bit more from us, read on: AQ faves and Finnish friends Circle present a brand new vinyl-only (as yet) double album, one disc entitled Golem and the other Vesiliirto. Golem's got titles in English ("Salamander Sword", "At War With Mercy", "Forbidden Steel Patriot", "True Incubus From Beyond" and "Destination Thunder"!!!) that are all very metal-sounding, though in actuality these two sides are quite far from metal (even Circle's previous stab at metal on their Sunrise cd). Golem is all recorded live, and is the most free-form, ambient, fucked up, droned-out, abstract Circle document we've yet heard, unique in their catalog though hinted at by parts of their previous album Guillotine (and possible Circle side-project Doktor Kettu). Whereas, the second LP in this set, with all-Finnish titles, is a studio session, and is much more in Circle's tradition of tight, rhythmic, repetitive rock riffage. Of course, we like 'em both. In a glossy, beautiful gatefold sleeve with attractive yet macabre collage graphics. Nice!

CIRCLE Guillotine (Ektro / Scratch) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Our favorite Finns are back, again. After a dozen or so albums, this one is perhaps their tribute to entropy, wherein Circle's characteristic clockwork mechanisms wind down into uncharacteristic disorder. Their last album on Ektro was the phenomenal headbanging hard rock production Sunrise, an album that got The Wire to somewhat misleading refer to Circle as "Finnish metal minimalists". The metal stylings of Sunrise are not to be found on Guillotine (despite this new album's much more metal title) but our friends Jussi & co. continue to innovate while remaining true to their trademark "circular" sound. A good portion of Guillotine finds them venturing in a hazy, oft-noisy primitive psych direction (hinted at by the few tracks on Sunrise that didn't rock you like a hurricane). But it's a varied album, equally likely to offer up 'classic' Circle repetitive-rock pulsations and noodly fusion. So, quite different in parts, yet with enough of the same Circle of yore to satisfy stogy old fans as well.
Guillotine starts off with the incredibly authentically '70s sounding kraut/fusion of "Metsan Henget". A very very Can-like ten minutes right there. Soon the listener's ears are graced by Mika Ratto's absurdly amazing, amazingly absurd vocals. Babbling goofily operatic, probably a love 'em or hate 'em component of the current Circle sound. Then, Guillotine takes a low-fi turn into what we might consider Circle's version of Jewelled Antler's psych-folk. Perhaps they've been influenced by countryfolk like Avarus, Kemialliset Ystavat, and Doktor Kettu (the latter being a likely source of cross-contamination, as their recordings appear on Jussi's cd-r label). Circle create a mellow caveman hippy jam of sorts, followed by an example of twangy acoustic psych that leaves Circle's classic motorik machine stylings far behind. Except that then "Teraskylpy" kicks in with a totally Circle krautrock beat, shuffling like David Shire's Taking Of Pelham One-Two-Three noir funk soundtrack. It's a 12-minute-plus build-up that devolves into some maniacal noise drone. Surprises continue, with "Saapuvat Ne Merelta" being waaay more spastic and chaotic than we'd ever expect from Circle. Normally they're so mechanically precise and repetitive, but so much of this sounds improvised and unpredictable. There's even a track that could be an ambient version of a rap record intro, complete with police siren. Weird. So Guillotine is quite possibly the most 'organic' and 'free' sounding Circle ever, clanking and primitive. And the '70s vibe is palpable, our obscure music geek peanut butter/chocolate analogy being: like Captain Beyond meets Neu! stoner prog kraut.
MPEG Stream: "Paaton Mies"
MPEG Stream: "Teraskylpy"

CIRCLE Hissi (Metamorphos) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Following their two records on Bad Vugum, this amazing Finnish band release their third hypnotic opus for a new label. If their first full-length could be described as AmRep grunge-meets-Gregorian chants, and if the second entered into a Kraut-rocky realm with cellos etc., then "Hissi" is Circle's stab at post-rock electronica...The vocals are gone on all but one track, and Cirle's trademark repetitive sound is less about riffs on this record than beats. Still like nothing else. Recommended.

CIRCLE Hollywood (Ektro / Southern) cd 14.98
Reviewing new Circle albums is one of the very very pleasant tasks to crop up regularly here at Aquarius. 'Cause the ever hypnotic, always weird Finnish band is one of our all time faves as we're sure you already know. Although, it's difficult too, after writing umpteen different Circle and Circle side project reviews, what's left to say but "buy it"!? Well, this time, we might have to qualify that recommendation just a bit.
There's a definite 'your mileage may vary' element to this new Circle, due to the presence of a certain Bruce Duff on vocals. (He also plays lead guitar, and dulcimer on here too!) Duff's the guy from the '80s alt-metal band Jesters Of Destiny, who had their album reissued on Circle's Ektro label some years ago (a fantastic disc, sadly now out of print again). He also sang on Circle's 2006 Earthworm ep, the first two tracks of which inexplicably also reappear here, hmm, why? And presumably Duff's participation is why they called this album Hollywood, as he lives in LA. Of course, Circle's WFT?! factor is always pretty high, so with Duff on board it's just bumped up a few notches more. Let's examine...
The disc starts of with the energetic and remarkably melodic "Connection", also on Earthworm, where we noted it was "almost a pop tune". Well heck it IS a pop tune. Though backed with Circle's usual hypno-rock and some indecipherable grumble-mumble from regular Circle vocalist Mika Ratto. Pretty cool, but we're not sure we'd want a whole album of that... and we're in luck, as Hollywood is a REALLY diverse (and thus hard to grok) platter, although we won't know it until after the second track, "Mercy And Tuesday". Again it's a pop tune (with a lovely, jangly all-instrumental second half). However, the first half has Duff spinning a rhyming tale of sex drugs and rock n' roll, and sorry we might just have to hit skip on this more often than not, the vocals/lyrics just aren't what we think when we think Circle. Instead, they make us think Tom Petty, sort of! But maybe we'll come back around on this one if give it a chance... Next is the other Earthworm track, "Earthworm" itself. If you haven't heard it before, we'll tell you it's frantic and metallic and certainly strange, in the eccentric "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" style that Circle has been championing. If you like side project Steel Mammoth, you'll like it.
But better yet for NWOFHM is the following track, "Sacrifice". Definitely Hollywood's most metal moment. A catchy, chunky gallop with fierce vocals and fleet fingered guitar shred soloing. It sounds something like Swedish retro-metallers Wolf, actually. Horns up from us! Maybe Circle's most successful stab at true metal yet. Of course, there's a sudden change of pace with the very next song, the much moodier and mellower "Spam Folder". Is Duff actually singing lyrics taken from the subject lines of junk emails? Yes, it sounds like he is, but somehow the conceit actually works, they're like 'ambient lyrics'. And then, this disc gets even further from the metal, with the semi-acoustic, ramshackle backporch country-ish ramble "Hard To Realize", some Lee Hazlewood gravel creeping into Duff's voice, cool!
After that, yet another stylistic shift occurs, as we come to the final two tracks on the album, lengthy epics both of 'em. Penultimate track "Madman" is a sort of suspenseful kraut/prog/metal jam, stretching out for 15+ minutes, with Duff doing a sort of Iggy Pop or Leonard Cohen spoken-singing-whispering. Keyboards hover in the background over a repetitive guitar lick and chugging, gear-shifting rhythms. And then finally the disc reaches a glorious climax with "Suddenly" (clocking in at a not so sudden 11:33). It's a massive, melodic, powerful prog masterpiece, a reworking of "Murheenkryyni" that appeared previously only on Circle's live album Rakennus. So much multitracked guitar, that solo and harmonize to the heavens as this track builds and builds. Duff's vocals are also quite effective here, adding to the melancholic, MAJESTIC mood. Wow!
By the end of this, we're quite convinced, and we'll say it for sure: "Buy it!!" Heck we'd get this just for "Suddenly" alone, but there's plenty else on here that makes the all-over-the-place Hollywood a worthy, weird addition to the Circle discography, despite a few missteps.
MPEG Stream: "Sacrifice"
MPEG Stream: "Suddenly"
MPEG Stream: "Spam Folder"

CIRCLE Katapult (No Quarter) cd 14.98
As regular readers of the AQ New Arrivals list might guess, we're pretty much always in a state of simmering enthusiasm for Finland's Circle here at AQ. But our fannish obsession has gotten even more feverish this month, as our favorite band of far-out Finns is taking their amazing hypno-kraut, repetitive pseudo-metallic space rock on a rare US tour and will be playing here in San Francisco on September the 27th! And if all goes according to plan, they may also be doing an Aquarius in-store performance (we'll keep you posted). So naturally we're excited, it's always great to see them, and also it's gonna be cool to hear material from this amazing new album of theirs live and in person. New album? Yes indeedy. Their fourth this year, or fifth if you count the recent compact disc reissue of Arkades too. Prolific they are, but have yet to disappoint. So, what's the deal with Katapult? (Assuming you need to know and didn't already just "add to cart" like we guess most folks will.)
The press material that the label has been circulating makes reference to influence from the likes of seminal black metallers Venom and Celtic Frost. And we know that these boys do like their metal, witness the Steel Mammoth side project reviewed last list. But while they've always championed their own so-called New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal, they're always far from being an actual metal band (even in the case of Steel Mammoth). And Katapult brings them no closer, even as it displays a definite ease with metal idioms. Sure it's got heavy guitars and the eccentric vocals sometimes approximate a black metal rasp -- there's even a few trademark Tom G. Warrior style death grunt "unghs!" in there -- but the only people who would think this really sounds like Venom and Celtic Frost are those who've never actually heard those bands. Opener "Saturnus Reality" does start with riffing that Norwegians churchburners wouldn't turn up their corpsepainted noses at, but the use of keyboards is much more Tangerine Dream than Dimmu Borgir. Later on, you'll hear as much Can and Goblin as anything Frosty. Song titles like "Torpedo Star Throne" and "Skeletor Highway" also seem a bit metal, don't they? But what about "Snow Olympics" and "Understanding New Age"? It's Circle being Circle, the NWOFHM an unserious moniker for their own, uniquely Circle style, that here takes what they were doing on Tower and Miljard and goes evil hard rock with it. Or not even hard rock, just evil -- ferinstance, track six, "Four Points Of The Compass" is a throbbing, suspenseful instrumental totally in the John Carpenter/Zombi vein, with stabs of guitar, spooky synths, and burbling rhythms like a diabolic version of the tracks on Circle's Tower album.
Circle bassist and bandleader Jussi Lehtisalo had told us in an email that Katapult was "sixties black metal"... which he followed up with a characteristic "hahahahahaha". Sixties black metal? After hearing it, what we think he meant is that it's a mix of psychedelic space rock effects (as usual, and especially in the vein of the synthy ambient zoneouts on their recent Panic album) with a dark, heavy, maybe mystical moodiness. The rhythms have all the usual mesmerizing motorik Circle urgency, moreso than usual even. And the spiked fist of metallic chug is always gloved within an astral ambience of shimmering trippy bliss, sinister bliss. Part of the proggy psych / Nordic black metal crossover here can be ascribed to the primitive recording conditions -- they tracked it at a summer cabin in the Finnish countryside -- for an especially raw and live feel.
No other band in the realms of post-rock, modern day psych, and/or NWO-anyplace-HM sparks our imagination and instills such a gleeful response in us as much as does Circle. They've always got a left-field, extra-dimensional, conceptual something that makes us shake our heads and wonder what next? even as we press repeat again and again on their current disc. Again, can't wait to hear this live!
MPEG Stream: "Saturnus Reality"
MPEG Stream: "Four Points Of The Compass"
MPEG Stream: "Understanding New Age"

CIRCLE Katapult (No Quarter) lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As regular readers of the AQ New Arrivals list might guess, we're pretty much always in a state of simmering enthusiasm for Finland's Circle here at AQ. But our fannish obsession has gotten even more feverish this month, as our favorite band of far-out Finns is taking their amazing hypno-kraut, repetitive pseudo-metallic space rock on a rare US tour and will be playing here in San Francisco on September the 27th! And if all goes according to plan, they may also be doing an Aquarius in-store performance (we'll keep you posted). So naturally we're excited, it's always great to see them, and also it's gonna be cool to hear material from this amazing new album of theirs live and in person. New album? Yes indeedy. Their fourth this year, or fifth if you count the recent compact disc reissue of Arkades too. Prolific they are, but have yet to disappoint. So, what's the deal with Katapult? (Assuming you need to know and didn't already just "add to cart" like we guess most folks will.)
The press material that the label has been circulating makes reference to influence from the likes of seminal black metallers Venom and Celtic Frost. And we know that these boys do like their metal, witness the Steel Mammoth side project reviewed last list. But while they've always championed their own so-called New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal, they're always far from being an actual metal band (even in the case of Steel Mammoth). And Katapult brings them no closer, even as it displays a definite ease with metal idioms. Sure it's got heavy guitars and the eccentric vocals sometimes approximate a black metal rasp -- there's even a few trademark Tom G. Warrior style death grunt "unghs!" in there -- but the only people who would think this really sounds like Venom and Celtic Frost are those who've never actually heard those bands. Opener "Saturnus Reality" does start with riffing that Norwegians churchburners wouldn't turn up their corpsepainted noses at, but the use of keyboards is much more Tangerine Dream than Dimmu Borgir. Later on, you'll hear as much Can and Goblin as anything Frosty. Song titles like "Torpedo Star Throne" and "Skeletor Highway" also seem a bit metal, don't they? But what about "Snow Olympics" and "Understanding New Age"? It's Circle being Circle, the NWOFHM an unserious moniker for their own, uniquely Circle style, that here takes what they were doing on Tower and Miljard and goes evil hard rock with it. Or not even hard rock, just evil -- ferinstance, track six, "Four Points Of The Compass" is a throbbing, suspenseful instrumental totally in the John Carpenter/Zombi vein, with stabs of guitar, spooky synths, and burbling rhythms like a diabolic version of the tracks on Circle's Tower album.
Circle bassist and bandleader Jussi Lehtisalo had told us in an email that Katapult was "sixties black metal"... which he followed up with a characteristic "hahahahahaha". Sixties black metal? After hearing it, what we think he meant is that it's a mix of psychedelic space rock effects (as usual, and especially in the vein of the synthy ambient zoneouts on their recent Panic album) with a dark, heavy, maybe mystical moodiness. The rhythms have all the usual mesmerizing motorik Circle urgency, moreso than usual even. And the spiked fist of metallic chug is always gloved within an astral ambience of shimmering trippy bliss, sinister bliss. Part of the proggy psych / Nordic black metal crossover here can be ascribed to the primitive recording conditions -- they tracked it at a summer cabin in the Finnish countryside -- for an especially raw and live feel.
No other band in the realms of post-rock, modern day psych, and/or NWO-anyplace-HM sparks our imagination and instills such a gleeful response in us as much as does Circle. They've always got a left-field, extra-dimensional, conceptual something that makes us shake our heads and wonder what next? even as we press repeat again and again on their current disc. Again, can't wait to hear this live!
MPEG Stream: "Saturnus Reality"
MPEG Stream: "Four Points Of The Compass"
MPEG Stream: "Understanding New Age"

CIRCLE Meronia (Bad Vugum) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.