MUSEE MECANIQUE The Zelinsky Collection Volume 3 (Mechanical Museum) cd 14.98
Everyone here at Aquarius was SO happy and relieved when the Musee Mechanique -- that wonderful place full of antique penny-aracade machines that's one of our favorite San Francisco cultural/fun spots -- found a new home at Fisherman's Wharf. Previously it had been a highlight to a trip out to the historic Cliff House next door to the ruined Sutro Baths up above Ocean Beach, but the Park Service decided the Cliff House needed a renovation and gave the Musee an eviction notice. Thankfully, rather than close up, they managed to make a move down to the Wharf, which while not as picturesque a location, still seems to have worked out well for 'em. You'll now find the Musee at pier 45, shed A, right alongside the Jeremiah O'Brien and that WWII submarine. Not only did the Musee find a new home, but now they've released a third volume of recordings documenting the player-piano-roll operated mechanical musical contraptions you'll find there. Vols. 1 and 2 were hits here at AQ and with good reason. Vol. 3 picks up where they left off, featuring more of the music made by their collection of lovingly preserved orchestras-in-a-box from decades and decades ago. For the first time ever, the machine pictured on the cover, the huge and impressive "Englehardth", finally appears in all its sonic glory on disc, as they finally got it fully restored into working order.
As with the other volumes, these are excellent recordings and each track starts with the coin drop, a nice touch. Musically, you can expect lotsa charming old timey tunes with titles like "Maurice's Irresistable Tango", "Grandpa's Spells", "There's A Shanti In Old Shantitown" and "My Song Of The Nile". Some you'll recognize, some won't be so familiar. All are quite quaint to modern ears, yet lively and spirited. There's 27 musical tracks here, from jaunty foot tappers to romantic melodies -- and then as always, the Musee's mascot, Laughing Sal, wraps things up with her disturbingly forced, truly hysterical laughter. Next best thing to actually visiting the Musee Mechanique, which we highly recommend.
MPEG Stream: "Maurice's Irresistable Tango"
MPEG Stream: "You Tell Me Your Dreams And I'll Tell You Mine"
MPEG Stream: "Grandpa's Spells"
MPEG Stream: "My Song Of The Nile"

MUTUAL BENEFIT / HOLY SPIRITS Mutual Spirits (Father / Daughter Records) lp 17.98
The first record we've reviewed from local label Father/Daughter (which also has another bass of operations in Miami) comes in the form of this split between Ohio/Boston based combo Mutual Benefit and Brooklyn combo Holy Spirits, who crossed paths on tour earlier this year and decided that sharing a record would be the logical next step.
Mutual Benefit offer up a sweetly melodic indie pop, and open up with a dreamy bit of thumb piano and handclap driven dreaminess, with lush vocals draped over a warm skeletal instrumental bed. The rest of MB's tracks are equally swoonsome, lush distorted guitar shimmer, wrapped around chiming melodies and softly reverbed vocals, simple acoustic guitar strum and squiggly sci-fi electronics, tinkling chimes, and music box like lullabies, whirring warbly organs and washed out sun dappled thrum a sort of hushed shimmery dream poppy indie folk, with some lilting sadboy vox and a warm layered production.
Holy Spirits are a good match, not nearly so twee, instead a bit darker and more contemplative, shuffling minimal percussion, lush steel string guitar, woozy weary vocals, a sort of Appalachian folk pop, with a lush orchestral vibe, and some cool strange percussion, not to mention some almost choral harmonies, and some thumb piano as well!
Our favorite HS track might have to be the lush and lovely "Handmade Sun", with its minimal melodic swells, spidery guitars, hushed almost whispered vox, and then a little bit of shoegazey bombast, only to slip right back into that whispery drift, laced with subtle electronics, slipping easily from delicate fluttery folk to a crashing almost chaotic climax, before a dreamy and delicate wind down. So nice.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, pressed on swirled cream vinyl, and includes a digital download.

MV, THE / EE MEDICINE SHOW (MATT VALENTINE / ERIKA ELDER) Moon Jook 12" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A super limited vinyl reissue of a long out of print cd-r from MV (Matt Valentine) and EE (Erika Elder) recorded live at the Glad Tree festival a few years back and released in a tiny edition on Valentine's Child Of Microtones label. Valentine And Elder also play in Tower Recordings, and while some of TR's free form psychedelia is present, Moon Jook, is much more of an abstract exploration of classic Appalachia filtered through a drone-folk sensibility. Quite similar to Jack Rose, in the way traditional sounding Appalachian bluegrass is stretched into slowly shifting extended ragas. The instrumentation here is mostly guitar (12 string, adapted silvertone) but with Elder contributing ukelele and tambura. The result is quite lovely, a drone-y drowsy stee string raga, hypnotic and repetitive with plenty of buzzing and lots of harmonic overtones. Haunting and otherworldly, slowly developing from simple melodic fingerpicking to dense layered folk flecked drones. The second side is mostly taken up by the epic "Megh Blues", a nearly side long soundscape of ambient swirl, distant swooshes and barely audible buzz, the whole thing a spare backdrop for lonesome atonal minor key slide guitar, slowly emitting strange voice like melodies, almost like an alien voice, speaking through a bizarrely tuned Jandekian guitar. Quite strange and beautiful. The record ends with a brief snippet of sepia toned ambience, bathed in warmth and crackle, like much of the record, giving Moon Jook the sound and feel of some dusty old 78. Lovely.

MY MORNING JACKET / SONGS: OHIA split (Jade Tree) cd 10.98
Four songs from My Morning Jacket and an almost ten minute long track by Songs: Ohia. The former includes a kinda dorky, messing-with-the-speed-control track called "The Year In Review" as well as a couple of numbers that fans of Sparklehorse might take a shine to - most notably the beautiful weeper "Come Closer". And as for Songs: Ohia's lengthy "Translation", it's completely on par with their recent efforts... that is, a brittle, lonely dolefulness that mainman Jason Molina has refined over his prolific career.
RealAudio clip: MY MORNING JACKET "Come Closer"
RealAudio clip: SONGS: OHIA "Translation"

MYSTERIOUS THAI LP (Mississippi / Exiled) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A while back we reviewed a cd called Siamese Temple Ball. A truly mysterious disc, with very little in the way of liner notes or any information really, but a record that we all became a little obsessed with and thus listened to it NONstop. We sold tons of copies too.
Then recently, we get a new batch of records from the always amazing Mississippi Records, and one of the records is entitled simply Mysterious Thai LP. So of course we're intrigued. We throw it on, and lo and behold, it's the very same record. Siamese Temple Ball, now on vinyl.
Not sure how this happened, if it was random, or if as we posited back in the day, that maybe Siamese Temple Ball was not actually music from Thailand, but an incredibly well played homage by some Sun City Girls-like worshippers of Eastern musical tradition. Hardly matters, the music is fantastic, wild, emotional, dense, joyous and yes, very very mysterious.
The cd version featured a sticker that proclaimed in faux pidgen English: "Flight comes to Thailand in the Year of the Rat. Siamese Temple Ball provide the lilting soundtrack for a chemical journey. Schoolgirls dance bashfully for the expectant throng. Life continues at a comparatively slow pace away from the rigours of fierce sun-light." Which was then followed by the (label's) description: "In the tradition of Sun City Girls, Ya Ho Wha 13, The Spacious Mind, Taj Mahal Travellers, Mu, Word of Life, Group 1850, and Ghost, Siamese Temple Ball give maximum pleasure for thirsty brains."
Quite a roster of comparisons, the most fitting of which is definitely the Sun City Girls. So while we assume that this record was recorded by a group of precocious, dilettante, ethnomusicologist hipsters, we like to suspend our disbelief and imagine this to be a genuine Folkways-style field recording, as the recording certainly has a genuine field recording presence - a single stereo microphone in a good location. The music itself is a catchy and mesmerizing steady pulse of various and sundry percussion instruments (metal, wood, skin), hollers, yelps, and rococo melodic lines spun out by tinny electric guitars, xylophones, flutes and Khan (mouth organ.) And besides all that, it's really pretty great!
The Mississippi lp version has all new artwork, even more mysterious than the cd, housed in a thick matte finish sleeve, with NO information at all, not even on the lp labels. We're not sure in what capacity, but it was apparently put out in conjunction with Exiled - also from Portland - another great record store. So recommended. And of course, probably WAY too limited...
MPEG Stream: "Track 1"
MPEG Stream: "Track 2"

MYSTERY BRINKMANN / PLEASUREHORSE split (Load) lp 10.98
Pleasurehorse is one Shawn Greenlee, rhythmic power electronics maestro with one previous disc on Vermiform as well as the excellent "Dropdead: Reconstructed" 12" on Load, currently on bass duties in the newly reformed Six Finger Satellite. Think Merzbow with beats. Mystery Brinkman aka Mr. Brinkman (duh) used to be in Providence duo Forcefield (remember their split 7" with Lightning Bolt?), here presenting similar cut-up sonic collages, albeit with a more playful, thrift store quality. Comparable to post-performance era Hanatarash. The first in a series of split 12"s from our friends at Load.

NADJA / ARMCHAIR MIGRAINE JOURNEY Transmit Acoustique Abstraction (Beta-Lactam Ring) lp 37.00
You think by now, that after a million or so releases, we'd be sick of Nadja, and could nor possibly need/want another record to add to our already overflowing Nadja collection, but somehow, we just never get sick of it, and love pretty much everything we hear, and still get excited when we hear about a new record, and every one seems to sound better than the last, what's not to love? Heavy, spacey, doomy, droney, shoegazey...
This latest sonic missive is another gem, a sidelong epic of hazy, druggy, rhythmic, almost krautrocky minimal post rock doom drift, but the thing is, it never gets loud, or heavy, whereas most Nadja jams eventually explode into a roiling crushing blissed out wall of heaviness, this one refrains, instead, loping, and drifting, and shimmering, and pulsing hypnotically, while all around the main riff and the simple motorik rhythm, backwards sounds swoop and swirl, guitar drones are layered and blurred, the bass sticks close to the drum machine, a solid anchor for the various other sounds to hover and float, the whole thing an endlessly mesmerizing chunk of softly shoegazey krautdrone slowcore. So good.
Nadja get teamed up here with someone called Armchair Migraine Journey, who counter Nadja's sidelong epic with one of their own, a field of glimmering, chiming, shimmering guitars, melodies and chords and notes swirl and shift and merge and tangle, all over a bed of low end hum, peppered with occasional echo drenched, deep and dramatic vocals, giving the sound a bit of a cold wave / gothic vibe, but only briefly, as the vocals drift off, and the tangle of guitars take over again. The side finishes off with a coda of minimal metallic buzz and haunting music box melodies. Pretty great stuff, and a good match for the Nadja track, which definitely ranks among their best.
And the packaging, WOW. A super fancy, super heavy black sleeve, printed in metallic silver, with a printed insert and pressed on thick thick vinyl. LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, each one hand numbered.

NADJA / ATAVIST / SATORI Infernal Procession... And Then Everything Dies (Cold Spring) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This record was pretty much custom made for most of you. A three way split of extreme heavy bliss out dream doom, featuring the WAY too prolific Nadja, who continue to get a pass, because we STILL can't get enough of -that- sound, the not nearly prolific enough Atavist, and a new name to add to the list of bands to obsess over, Satori, a duo featuring the head honcho of the always awesome Cold Spring label who made this disc happen.
Not sure if there was a reason for this three way split, a tour or something, or maybe it's just cuz the three bands fit pretty nicely together, whatever the reason for this happening, we're glad it did.
Starting with Nadja, who again offer up a gorgeously gauzy sprawl of Jesu meets M83, all super distorted crumbling melodies, lurching buried in the mix drum machine, weary ethereal vocals, melancholy minor key melodies, wrapped into an awesome chunk of doomed metallic slowcore, lots of dynamics and texture, a loooooong slow build a la Godspeed, with an epic and triumphant climax. So good. One of the best Nadja track yet maybe.
Atavist do their own sort of doom thing, this time a skeletal mathy post rock, clean guitars spread out over spare drumming, very Slint-ish, all spidery and delicate, until a minute or so in, when the hammer falls, shrieked blackened vox, super distorted crumbling guitars, pounding percussion, a strange flurry of off kilter jagged mathiness, before it's back to the moody Slinty sprawl. Eventually, the track becomes blown out and so in-the-red all the instruments seem to melt together, until the band unfurl a blackened post metal jam that might sound more at home on a Deathspell Omega record, culminating in a gorgeous almost symphonic sounding high end coda.
Finally, Satori, who have a lot to prove in such esteemed company, take an entirely different tack, with processed garbled vocals, over distant whirring drones, a creepy hellish machinelike soundscape of post industrial hiss and grind, deep rumbling swells, thick hissing walls of muted buzz, buried melodies, disembodied voices and buried melodies, all very grim and apocalyptic, think MZ412, Lustmord or Wolf Eyes, some seriously haunting and harrowing black ambience.
Packaged in a multi paneled black and white jacked and housed in a plastic sleeve. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: NADJA "Time Is Our Disease"
MPEG Stream: ATAVIST "Certitude"

NAHUM / FLASKAVSAE split (E.E.E. Recordings) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another killer match-up between two different UN-black warriors, and yep, that means Christian black metal, a genre we've become pretty dang obsessed with. This one slipped through the cracks, we've had it for a while, bit for some reason never got around listing it until now.
Flaskavsae is one of our favorite of the UN-black hordes (another Flaskavsae split is reviewed elsewhere on this list, teamed with our other favorite, Light Shall Prevail), and these three tracks definite demonstrate why once again. Three murky blasts furious black buzz, the guitars blurred into heaving droney slabs, the programmed drums relentless and machinelike, with awesome off kilter fills, and the vocals a buried monstrous growl, the melodies are epic, the sound sweeping and majestic, there must be keyboards cuz guitars just don't swell like that, or maybe they do, the EEE folks can do fucked up things with sound, the production always as much a part of the sound as the sound itself.
This is the first we've heard from Nahum though, but their sound is a perfect compliment to Flaskavsae's, a furious relentless droned out buzz, the drums chaotic and frenzied, the cymbals awesomely loud in the mix, but it's the vocals that turn this into something fucked up and amazing, a howled falsetto screech, doused in reverb and delay, which results in the vocals careening all over the place, overlapping and getting all tangled up, very dubbed out, which makes the whole track sound sort of psychedelic. Nahum also offer up some gorgeous washed out keyboard-heavy breakdowns, all woozy and dreamy, and some super squiggly leads, all draped over the super distorted murky UN-blackened chaos below. Awesome stuff.
MPEG Stream: NAHUM "Mighty God"
MPEG Stream: FLASKAVSAE "Playing The Harlot"

NAKED ON THE VAGUE / WET HAIR split (Night People) lp 16.98
Another unlikely match up, one that sounds a lot less unlikely once you hear it. Wet Hair, formerly known as Raccoo-oo-oon, and Aussie gloomy noise rockers Naked On The Vague, both mixing it up a little for this split (released on Wet Hair's Night People label), expanding their sounds, and dipping toes into new sonic territory.
Wet Hair start their side out with some Tangerine Dream style synths, which drift dronily throughout all the tracks, before giving way to a loping bit of psychedelic drift, equal parts minimal psych rock and keyboard heavy krautrock. Layered synths, softly reverbed distorted vocals, spacey FX, all over a simple post rock-ish real drumming, mesmerizing and hypnotic and reminding us a bit of a more blissed out synth heavy Wooden Shjips. The other tracks follow a similar pattern, but gradually grow more abstract and chaotic, tangles of keyboard melodies, spidery guitars, wheezing chordal drifts, tripped out deep dramatic vocals, swirls and whirls and sixties style sci-fi electronics, everything warped and warbly and fantastically spaced out and bizarre.
Naked On The Vague don't necessarily veer too far from their minimal gloom/drone noisepop, but the sound drifts a bit more toward the psychedelic drift of the Wet Hair tracks, a sort of Velvets vibe for sure, blurry muted guitars, simple programmed beats, bleating trumpet like melodies, swaths of hazy keyboards, boy girl vocal harmonies buried in the murk and the mire, a minimal psychedelic krautdrone drift, super reverbed, the electronics and various background sounds growing more and more frenzied, more atonal, before eventually mutating into a brooding electronic laced doomfolk flecked bit of slowly decaying psychedelic dronemusic.
Pressed on clear vinyl, housed with a nice thick printed insert, silkscreened, purple on yellow, all housed in a thick PVC sleeve, and of course, quite limited...
MPEG Stream: NAKED ON THE VAGUE "Making Enemies"
MPEG Stream: WET HAIR "In The Garden Of The Pharaohs"

NATAS / DRAGONAUTA split (Icarus) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Stoner rock split cd from these two South American bands, both falling somewhere in the Kyuss/Sabbath realm.

NEGATIVE REACTION / RAMESSES split (psycheDOOMelic) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Negative Reaction is the New York sludge combo. Ramesses is the band formed by the (drunk, stoned) guys that quit Electric Wizard.

NEGATIVLAND / CHUMBAWAMBA The ABC's Of Anarchism (Seeland) cdep 8.98
Listen and learn, kiddies.

NEKRASOV / ADERLATING split (Chrome Leaf) lp 14.98
A pretty strange, but in many ways pretty perfect pairing, cult Aussie black metal / black noize horde Nekrasov, and industrial cinematic black doom project Aderlating, which just so happens to be an offshoot of the mighty Gnaw Their Tongues.
Both blackened, both noisy, here the two drift together and end up meeting somewhere right in the middle, floating in the hellish black abyss, heavier on the ambient than the black metal, more abstract and atmospheric than harsh and harrowing.
Nekrasov offers up a side long stunner, which begins as a roiling minimal dronescape of textured blackness, muted streaks of submerged melody, buried vocals, creeping slow motion pulses, constantly shifting layers, deep dense overtones, creaks and scrapes, utterly haunting and otherworldly, occasionally building to a SUNNO)))-like wall of sound, before slipping back into something more slithery and cinematic. By The end, the sound has reached a fever pitch, a swirling, caterwauling cacophony of inhuman vocalizations, tangled black tendrils of buzz and skree, all woven into an organic, heaving blackened ambient drone driven sonic beast, before finishing off with a stretch of hushed minimal shimmer.
Aderlating, aka Gnaw Their Tongues, otherwise known as Mories, counters with a set of three interlocking soundscapes, abject and industrial, set amidst a sea of softly swirling black tones, shapes and sounds seem to creak and groan, like some hellish machine, churning away just below the surface, spewing gouts of feedback, and sinking ever deeper into the vile black void that somehow keeps it afloat. Fragments of voice, melody, surface here and there, only to be swallowed up again. Occasionally the proceedings seems to almost coalesce into some sort of garish subterranean cabaret, but still cloaked in swirling swaths of hellish hiss and black buzz, and epic rumbling low end that threatens to devour all the other sounds. Fragmented barely there rhythms lead into an avalanche of crumbling distortion and in-the-red psychedelic blacknoize, which roils and churns and explodes in a frenzy of sonic chaos, before returning again, to its more tranquil state, which even itself is rife with industrial clatter and swaths of muted caustic noise, finishing off in a blaze of brilliant bristling blackness.
Gorgeous packaging, stunning cover art, black inner sleeve and pressed on sick green, white and black splattered vinyl.
LIMITED TO 300!!!

NEKRASOV / HUMILIATION split (New Scream Industry) cd 12.98
This is not actually brand new, it's from last year, but we've been doing our best to track down enough copies to list for ages now, and were finally able to get some direct from NEKRASOV HQ. And holy shit was it worth the wait. Nekrasov, the one man Aussie blacknoize wrecking crew who have long terrorized aQ with epic blasts of furious blackness, teamed up with Canadian black metal misanthropes Humiliation, for a seriously malformed chunk of audial evil. And while it's a split, it's also a partial collaboration, each band contributing three tracks, one of which has been augmented and fucked with by the other.
The proceedings begin with Nekrasov unfurling drifting clouds of muted murk, which give way to a barrage of blurred riffage, then blown out tumbling blast beats, all gnarled and blurred, weirdly pretty and washed out, Humiliation adding various sounds to the already dense racket. For the next two tracks, Nekrasov goes it alone, first the epic (and epically titled) "From Where I Sit The Sky Was Full Of Wrath And Ill Will", a sprawling 11 minutes of tangled spidery guitar melody, creeping droned out drift, hushed industrial ambience, ominous orchestral swells, harsh howled vokills, a brief blast of black metal crush, and then a tripped out squall of twisted effects drenched blackened noise. Finally, things finish off with a a super abstract final jam, all lumbering machine like lurch, rumbles and creaks, clatter and processed grinds and buzzes, eventually smoothing out into a deep subterranean sounding low end thrum.
The first Humiliation track begins as a haunting whirl of strange processed winds and voices, almost like some sort of EVP style field recording. Soon the voices become more pronounced, wreathed in effects, the ambience peppered with disembodied riffs, bits of chug, soaring bits of minor key melody, all suspended in a field of hiss and whir and buzz, eventually exploding into some seriously filthy and damaged black doom, harsh vokills, lo-fi drum damage, thick black chugs, a strange bit of Khanate-meets-Abruptum-meets-Burzum-meets-Wolf Eyes, a spaced out bit of grimness, eventually fading into a soft swirl of music box like melody and distant rumble, before exploding into the follow up, another chunk of lumbering hateful black stumble, which over the course of the next 8 minutes drifts from abject industrial pound, to tripped out Gnaw Their Tongues style almost orchestral minimal doom, to clattery creepy soundtracky ambience, to Swans like Teutonic pound, to almost dreamy otherworldly drift.
The final track, begins like another slab of industrial flecked doomic plod and crush, wreathed in a corrosive halo of crumbling distortion and malfunctioning effects, before the riffing drops out completely, leaving a roiling expanse of fractured feedback, strange samples, grinding scrape and howl, all wrapped in wildly explosive layers of blown out buzz.
More necessary Nekrasov, and something serious to whet your appetite for more fucked up filth from the mysterious Humiliation...
MPEG Stream: NEKRASOV "From Where I Sit The Sky Was Full Of Wrath And Ill Will (w/Humiliation)"
MPEG Stream: HUMILIATION "Barbarians (w/Nekrasov)"

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

NETHER DAWN, THE / 1/3 OCTAVE BAND Live At Sound & Fury (Sound & Fury) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK!! FINAL COPIES!!
Another killer (and super limited, argh) release from Sound & Fury, a killer record store / label in Australia, who recently decided to close down the shop, but will continue to book tours, have shows and release records, lucky for us! This disc is a live to minidisc recording from a massive New Zealand freenoise show featuring a who's who of AQ faves and kick ass NZ underground legends: Birchville Cat Motel, 6Majik9, James Kirk from Sandoz Lab Technicians, and of course the Nether Dawn and 1/3 Octave band.
The Nether Dawn are Antony Milton (PseudoArcana, Mrtyu, etc.) and AQ pal Jon Dale, who teamed up for this 15+ minute set of soaring drone and dense thick hum and shimmer. Big low pulses of sound tangled up with sparkling high end, glistening melodies and mumbled heavily affected vocals. A blast of cosmic space out along the same lines as Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof! and the like but with a softer, more dreamlike focus. Nice.
1/3 Octave Band follow up with their own lengthy jam, a near 17 minute slab of chiming metal, clanging percussion, super reverbed pipefight, little swirls of high end feedback, reverberating chimes, and a soft shimmery skree, that about halfway sort of slow down and stretch out, into a languid, sunbaked guitar/electronics free jam drift. A shimmering cascading flow of warm reverberant chords, flickering feedback, and subtle but distinct minor key melancholia. So nice.
Packaged in really nice brown paper, sealed with a black stamped wax seal, each copy hand numbered with a printed inner sleeve and a unique full color, actual photo.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

NEVER PRESENCE FOREVER / UNGEROMIMIZU split (Lyderhorn) 7" 4.50
Super bizarre 7" match up, that will have weirdo music freeks flipping out. Two bands, with essentially nothing in common, each exploring extreme and opposite ends of the sonic spectrum, both completely ruling. And in one case, completely baffling.
The A side is a band from Virginia called Never Presence Forever. Never heard of em? We hadn't either, but all it took was this brief 7" sampling to have us wanting to hear way more. We were sort of expecting some furious black metal, or damaged noise, but instead, NPF offer up some gorgeous creeping dark ambience, low rumbling strings, deep metallic reverberations, all mournful and melancholy, cinematic and haunting.
The flipside is a whole other something. A band, or a guy, called Ungeromimizu, whose sound is a sort of lo-fi black metal Whitehouse, a square wave damaged synth blown out psychnoise screamo, that is so intense and noisy and freaked out, we weren't sure if we were loving it or hating it. But it only took a few second for us to go with love.
Imagine full on white noise chaos, all hiss and squeal and speaker shredding skree, like Faxed Head with no bass and all the treble your stereo can('t) handle, super processed vocals Masonna style, squiggly FX addled synths, total ear punishing insanity. The second track is toned down, but only a little, a weird warbly techno synth pulse beneath howling black metal vox, and all sorts of squiggly high end streaks and squeals.
Due to a pressing mistake, pressed not on black, or bloody red, or trippy swirled vinyl, but various shades of pink!

NEW BAND Playing On The Original Harry Partch Instruments (Innova) cd 14.98
New Band is a group spearheaded by Dean Drummond, custodian of Harry Partch's collection of unique micro-tonal instruments. The group's mission includes both performing the works of Harry Partch (which can only be played on Partch's own instruments for the most part) and premiering new works composed for the instruments, primarily Drummond's own. This disc has two compositions by Harry Partch -- "Eleven Intrusions" and "Dark Brother" -- and two by Dean Drummond -- "Before the Last Laugh" and "Congressional Record". "Eleven Intrusions" (1950) is a suite of nine texts set to music by Partch and two instrumentals, while "Dark Brother" (1943) is a 10 minute piece based on the final paragraphs of Thomas Wolfe's "God's Lonely Man." Drummond's "Before the Last Laugh" is a reworking of a larger work that Drummond had composed for the 1925 silent film "The Last Laugh". "Congressional Record" is a satirical piece which utilizing the United States' Congressional Record as a source for its libretto, including: Jesse Helms' arguments for the abolishment of the N.E.A., Kenneth Starr's Independant Counsel Report on hanky panky in the White House and something from The Plumbing Standards Improvement Act of 1999. Drummond's pieces both feature new instruments built by Drummond in the spirit of Partch.
RealAudio clip: PARTCH, HARRY "The Rose"
RealAudio clip: DRUMMOND, DEAN "Congressional Record"

NEW LINES, THE / STILL CORNERS Off Axis / History Of Love (Great Pop Supplement) 7" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If sometimes we get a bit overwhelmed, by how much music there is out there, or how many reviews we have to write, all it takes is one record, hell, even one song, to remind us of how lucky we are, and how much we still love music like crazy. Thankfully, those records are not as few and far between as you might think. And this time around, it just might be this one, the first we've heard from either of these bands, both specializing in a sort of retro pop that we love. Still Corners are apparently super hyped, having just signed a deal with Sub Pop, and as much as we dig their track here, it's the New Lines whose song has us freaking out, and wondering why Sub Pop didn't just sign them too while they were at it.
Their track starts off all fuzzy analog synths, and swoonsome organs, and big booming Beach Boys percussion, everything wreathed in a warm layer of fuzzy reverb, a sound that to our ears sounds so genuinely vintage it's uncanny, the sound, the instrumentation, and we would have been just as happy if this intro stretched out and made up the whole song, but then the song proper does kick in, the bass thick and warm and and liquid, the drums propulsive and powerful, a sort of sixties Stereolab, darkly psychedelic, and then when the vocals come in, it's total Zombies classic pop heaven, definitely exploring similar territory as the High Llamas and aQ faves the Rollo Treadway, a hazy sixties psychedelic pop that manages to be catchy and a little trippy, but also super melodic and in its own way true to the era that inspired it, while taking that sound and subtly updating it for the now. We can't tell you how many times we've listened to this track, but many times every day would not be an exaggeration. And The New Lines' side of this split will be well worn out by the time we finally get our hands on their full length. We can hardly wait.
But let's not sell the Still Corners short, their side of the split is pretty dang awesome too. A dreamy reverby waltz, ethereal female vox draped over spidery guitar melodies, and a simple shuffling rhythm, the sound is glimmering, glistening, chiming, the hushed verses giving way to a gorgeous, warm expansive chorus, all slippery slide guitar wrapped around an almost orchestral bombast, everything anchored by a warm wandering bassline. The song grows ever more lush, as pizzicato strings pluck out the melody, only to be replaced by soaring synths, the sound dense and layered and impossibly gossamer, it's easy to see why Sub Pop snatched them up, their full length is bound to be fantastic.
A pretty perfect split for sure, the rare sort of split that not only has you listening to both sides over and over, but has you hankering like crazy for more from both groups. Probably pretty limited, so grab one before they're gone.
MPEG Stream: THE NEW LINES "Off Axis"
MPEG Stream: STILL CORNERS "History Of Love"

NIGHT TROLL / TREMOR OF THE BLACK MANX Circle Of Witches / Armor (Jeshimoth) 3"cd-r 4.98
We're a sucker for a band name, you should definitely know that about us by now. And a lot of you are the same. The thinking is, if you're that creative with just the name of your band, imagine how nuts the music must be?? Sure, that doesn't always hold true, but in the case of the awesomely monickered Tremor Of The Black Manx, the name couldn't suit the music more.
On the same label as last week's record of the week, the bizarre black metal weirdness of Jute Gyte, comes TOTBM, who we know NOTHING about, but it hardly matters, what does matter is that this is some awesomely confusional and fucked up stuff, like some sort of fractured electronic hyper grind, or maybe we could call it grindtronica, or something like that. The structure is definitely grind, the songs are short, the arrangements are head spinning, but all of the sounds seem to be synths and not guitars, although sometimes the sounds DO seem to resemble guitars, maybe they're just super processed, regardless, the result is a strangely synthesized bit of frantic buzz, tangled melody, moody murky drift, all wrapped around skittering, stuttering programmed drums, that go from plod to pound to inhuman blast in the blink of an eye, dragging the rest of the sounds along with it. Really rad, and WAY weird.
TOTBM are teamed up here with Night Troll, who sound like a slightly electronic, WAY fucked up, ultra lo-fi raw primitive black metal. Ildjarn, Bone Awl, Akitsa, if you love that stuff but wish it was WEIRDER, more damaged and demented, with throbbing sub bass, tangled atonal guitars, processed death metal grunts, and all sort of other random fuckery, then this is for you. Total lo-fi stumbling ultra raw outsider electronic black metal. Which to us reads: SUPER RAD.
MPEG Stream: NIGHT TROLL "Circle Of Witches"
MPEG Stream: NIGHT TROLL "Dungeon Forest"
MPEG Stream: TREMOR OF THE BLACK MANX "Opal Blondes"
MPEG Stream: TREMOR OF THE BLACK MANX "Carving Sea Altars"

NIGHTBRINGER / TEMPLE OF NOT Rex Ex Ordine Throni (Full Moon Productions) cd 11.98
What better way to find a band to release a split with than to just pick a band that features essentially the same members? Such is the case with this two way split between buzzing black hordes Nightbringer and ritualistic dark ambient ensemble Temple Of Not. Most bands would probably just combine the two, and have a black metal band with long drone passages, or vice versa, but these are two entirely different sonic entities, and both are amazing. Hailing from Colorado, these groups were brought to our attention by Wrest from Leviathan, who is VERY selective about the metal he listens to, so much so that when he repeatedly sang (growled?) the praises of both these bands we knew we had to check it out.
Nightbringer buzz darkly through a thick black void, with loping midtempo tempos over furiously fast riffing, and some completely insane drumming, not just blast beats, but wild fills and strange unlikely rhythms. Occasionally the band slows down, at which point the music takes on a creepy majestic air, like court music for some hellish black temple, but it's not long before the band bursts back into full speed blackness. Super atmospheric with bizarre blasts of hyper speed buzz as well as stretches of dense droning riffage. Heavy and dense and evil. These guys definitely wouldn't sound out of place on NED alongside Deathspell and Antaeus.
Nightbringer's occultic ambient alter ego Temple Of Not is just as dark and heavy, but realizes their evil through drone not buzz, with two lengthy glacial crawls, thick soundscapes of whirring rumble and dreamlike shimmer. But be prepared, this is not normal ambient music. Part way through the first track, the song is disrupted by huge speaker shredding bursts of what sounds like a garbled black metal transmission from an alternate universe, repeated over and over building into a strange fuzzed out super distorted rhythm before drifting off again, allowing the song to wind down into blackness. The second ToN track is even more spare, but still haunting and ominous, disembodied vocals drift above a slowly shifting, layered landscape of throb and thrum, warble and whir, guitars and synths intertwined and tangled up in a slow drift skyward, the last few minutes punctuated by a simple distant pulse-like distant drum beat. Very primal and ritualistic. And the perfect compliment to Nightbringer's hellborne onslaught.
Recommended by AQ and Wrest endorsed!! You know what that means...
MPEG Stream: NIGHTBRINGER "The Void"
MPEG Stream: NIGHTBRINGER "Mors Philosphorum"
MPEG Stream: TEMPLE OF NOT "Temple Of Not"

NIGHTBRINGER / TEMPLE OF NOT Rex Ex Ordine Throni (Forever Plagued ) 2lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What better way to find a band to release a split with than to just pick a band that features essentially the same members? Such is the case with this two way split between buzzing black horder Nightbringer and ritualistic dark ambient ensemble Temple Of Not. Most bands would probably just combine the two, and have a black metal band with long drone passages, or vice versa, but these are two entirely different sonic entities, and both are amazing. Hailing from Colorado, these groups were brought to our attention by Wrest from Leviathan, who is VERY selective about the metal he listens to, so much so that when he repeatedly sang (growled?) the praises of both these bands we knew we had to check it out.
Nightbringer buzz darkly through a thick black void, with loping midtempo tempos over furiously fast riffing, and some completely insane drumming, not just blast beats, but wild fills and strange unlikely rhythms. Occasionally the band slows down, at which point the music takes on a creepy majestic air, like court music for some hellish black temple, but it's not long before the band bursts back into full speed blackness. Super atmospheric with bizarre blasts of hyper speed buzz as well as stretches of dense droning riffage. Heavy and dense and evil. These guys definitely wouldn't sound out of place on NED alongside Deathspell and Antaeus.
Nightbringer's occultic ambient alter ego Temple Of Not is just as dark and heavy, but realizes their evil through drone not buzz, with two lengthy glacial crawls, thick soundscapes of whirring rumble and dreamlike shimmer. But be prepared, this is not normal ambient music. Part way through the first track, the song is disrupted by huge speaker shredding bursts of what sounds like a garbled black metal transmission from an alternate universe, repeated over and over building into a strange fuzzed out super distorted rhythm before drifting off again, allowing the song to wind down into blackness. The second ToN track is even more spare, but still haunting and ominous, disembodied vocals drift above a slowly shifting, layered landscape of throb and thrum, warble and whir, guitars and synths intertwined and tangled up in a slow drift skyward, the last few minutes punctuated by a simple distant pulse-like distant drum beat. Very primal and ritualistic. And the perfect compliment to Nightbringer's hellborne onslaught.
Recommended by AQ and Wrest endorsed!! You know what that means...
MPEG Stream: NIGHTBRINGER "The Void"
MPEG Stream: NIGHTBRINGER "Mors Philosphorum"
MPEG Stream: TEMPLE OF NOT "Temple Of Not"

NILSEN BJ & Z'EV 22'22 (Ideal) cd 14.98
Three tracks. Two artists. One solo track each. One collaboration. Each 22 minutes and 22 seconds long. Benny Nilsen provides the first track, and it's a signature piece for him with a long slow ascent of skull-cracked drones. The icy sounds of this piece, its spectral, shadowy allusions are more keeping with his earlier work as Hazard, a grim, post-industrial production of steely ambience. Very nicely done. The same can be said for Z'ev's track, as he's become far more adept with digital production in recent years. His arsenal of percussive strikes is at the core of his solo track, yet Z'ev has deftly smeared much of the metallic reverb and sustained magnetic vibrations into a monstrous low end composition of slow motion explosions crossing paths with Lustmord's Heresy or The Monstrous Soul, minus the death-obsessed imagery. These two tracks are clearly worth the price of admission, but it should be noted that the third collaborative track is pretty pointless. After 17 minutes of silence, the two merely present a room mix of the two of them playing drones and percussion. Eh.
MPEG Stream: BJ NILSEN "1"
MPEG Stream: Z'EV "2"
MPEG Stream: BJ NILSEN & Z'EV "3"

NILSEN, BJ & STILLUPPSTEYPA Space Finale (Mego Editions) cassette 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
At the end of the 'alcohol trilogy' that BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa released via Helen Scarsdale, the dark isolationist rumble which dominated the previous two and half records was shattered by a robotic sequence of bleeping analog synth tones which spiralled deep into the void of the arctic night sky. Such a dramatic juxtaposition is not uncommon within the realm of Stilluppsteypa, but less so for Mr. Nilsen. And those Derbyshire / Dockstader / Oneohtrix like tones found on Passing Out (the finale mentioned above) is clearly the jumping off point for Space Finale - an epic 90 minute cassette of analog synthesis, captured, spliced, and cut, all on a Revox 2-channel tape machine. Amidst the vintage synth blips and sustained tones, Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa offer another narrative composition that moves from the vacant space station overrun by some unknown alien virus into the lair of the mad scientist who meanders dabbles on his Wurlizter (or some kind of organ, if it's not an actual Wurlizter) in minor key melancholy when not toiling away on an abomination that will somehow destroy the world. Shadowy ambience, fuzzed out tape hiss aggregation, weird dropouts and glitches on the tape that would make Leif Elggren proud, and much much more. With so many cassette releases being issued as 10-15 minute programs, it's very welcome to come across a full 90 minute tape! Limited to 200 copies!!! We got 20 and they're going fast...

NILSEN, BJ & STILLUPPSTEYPA / MILAN SANDBLEISTIFT split (Licht-Ung) lp 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Holy shit! Is this fucking cool, or what? First of all, it's got a fucking piece of tile mounted to the cover. Second of all, it's limited to a mere 276 copies. Thirdly, some of the copies we got enjoy a delightful bouquet from the industrial strength adhesive used to bind the tile to cardboard sleeve, that may give an additionally psychoactive property to the album. And fourthly it's another brilliant collaboration between our favorite Scandinavian sound artists BJ Nilsen (from Sweden) and Stilluppsteypa (from Iceland), who had blown us away on their previous duets Vikinga Brennivin and Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna.
We're not really sure who Milan Sandbleistift is, but he's authored the other side of this split LP. His contribution is a teethgrinding piece of dirty drone wandering from lonely 8-bit electronic tones like a random piece of gear yanked from one of the Wolf Eyes' suitcases and allowed to growl in futility amidst a cloud of hiss and crackle pushed towards a radioactive self-immolation. It's pretty fucking cool, but even better is the glacial, grim drones from BJ Nilsen and Stilluppsteypa. They've long mastered a twisted, rumbling ambience that's dark and dense, mysterious and haunting, deep and rich, that always straddles the precision of laptop jockeys like Fennesz, Tim Hecker, Stefan Mathieu, etc. and the blackened atmospheres of Corrupted, Earth, SUNNO))), etc.; and their two sprawling tracks on this split LP are marvelous additions to their catalogues of drones that drift across the Arctic Sea on a massive rusted ship between Sweden and Iceland.
STRICTLY LIMITED to 276 copies of which we only got a handful. So once these are gone, they're gone forever.

NO COPPER / TROPICAL TRASH split (self-released) cassette 5.00
Latest releases from blackened soundscaper Thaniel Ion Lee, who we first heard in his guise as Blood Escutcheon, who split a tape with black metal weirdos Cloak Of Displacement, and then released a cd-r (both sadly out of print). He then released a cool boxed cd-r called White (which we just got back in and you'll find listed elsewhere on this week's list), and is back again, now in a duo called No Copper, whose sounds is less droned out and blackened than Blood Escutcheon or his solo record, and more abstract, ritualistic soundscaping, inhabiting a soundworld more along the lines of say No Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand Of The Man or Avarus, long buzzing tones, pounding abstract drums, scrapes and creaks, lush layered drones, raw and lo-fi, minimal, but gorgeously thick and washed out, caustic in places, noisy in others, but all blurred and smeared into a dark landscape of echo drenched reverberations, melodic fragments, rhythmic experiments and black ambient shimmer, all flecked with bits of folky flutter and strange abstract sonic filigree. Fans of Lee's other projects will definitely dig.
The flipside is occupied by an outfit called Tropical Trash, who may or may not also be called the Coconut Crimewave Big Band, but who prove themselves worthy foils for No Copper, with a sound that pushed even further into avant rock territory, a sort of free jazz / avant noise, heavy rhythmic, twisted electronic freakout heavy rock crush (!), the group fusing pounding drums to clouds of swirling glitched out swoops and swirls, before launching into some seriously blown out heaviness, thick churning riffage, pounding drums, all peppered with some bleeping electronics, and a sheen of hazy buzzy soft focus noise, a killer slab of classic electronic flecked noise rock, that definitely has us wanting to hear more! The band soon return to scrabbling and abstract skitter, the rock crush ditched in favor of some experimental abstraction, which is bombarded over the course of the rest of their side with some seriously fierce drum damage,
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Housed in cool hand screened origami style cardstock boxes, each one hand numbered, with a printed insert.

NO DOUBT Everything In Time (B-Sides, Rarities, Remixes) (Interscope) cd 14.98

NORDVARGR / DRAKH Infinitas In Aeternum (Cyclic Law) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For now, the AQ list / site may not reflect it, but we have been MASSIVE, almost obsessive fans of the work of one Nordvargr, who we first discovered as the driving force behind the mysterious black metal dark ambient outift MZ412. He would later go on to record some of the most gorgeously bleak, martial ambient / drone musick as Folkstorm, Toroidh, and under his given name Henrik N Bjorkk. He is a modern master of dark ambient death drone. Most of his records have been really tough to track down, so we were super excited to be able to get enough of these to list. The name Drakh may be even less familiar to you than Nordvargr, but some of you may immediately recognize him as Nordvargr's partner in MZ412! So the hopes were quite high for what basically amounts to a new MZ412 record. And thankfully, you dark ambient death drone doom fanatics will not be disappointed. This is a crushing black souled threnody. Massive sheets of dark sound, shift and shimmer, disembodied voices crumble into sonic shards, oppressive walls of suffocating rumble, roll endlessly into the dark oblivion. But what sets this apart from other dark ambient / drone records is the guitars. Yep, guitars. About halfway in, bookended on either side by bleak shimmering lowend ambience, sirens wail, and drones creep slowly onward, as huge downtuned guitars unfurl slow motion riffs, lugubrious and lumbering, so distorted, and tuned so low you can hear the chords crumbling into pieces, while the whole thing lurches forward, through a cloud of black tar mist. It's like a Sunn 0))) track stuck in the middle of a Lustmord record. Like endless blackness being painted even more black. Like dropping a black hole into another even blacker hole...
MPEG Stream: "Black Emitting Oven"
MPEG Stream: "Scotopic Vision"

NORTT / XASTHUR A Curse For The Lifeless (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.
This went out of print almost as soon as we got the original Total Holocaust import version in four or five months ago but has now been resurrected and re-pressed domestically thanks to the dark souls at Southern Lord, who apparently like this stuff as much as we do. Here's what we had to say about it first time around:
We barely even have to review this. Just the names of the two artists should be enough. Nortt, whose "Pure Depressive Black Funeral Doom Metal" was a massive favorite around here, and of course Xasthur, who rivals Leviathan as perhaps the most brilliant and important of the modern USBM hordes. Nortt offer up four tracks of miserable drone dirge, with mournful piano over a swirling abyss of black riffs and simple drumming, each chord slowly dissipating into nothingness before the next chord hits. Depressingly gorgeous and wrist slittingly sorrowful. Reminiscent of Corrupted's Llenandose, albeit way more grim and dismal!
Xasthur gives us three tracks, equally depressive, but here, instead of tarpit tempos and drone-like dirges, the depression and misery is communicated through creepy minor key riffing, mournful melodies and what sounds like clean chant-like singing, almost choral, but buried so low in the mix it almost sounds like just another instrument. Xasthur has totally perfected the swaying seasickly black metal waltz, with relentless double kicks, anguished vocals struggling to communicate from beyond, and warm and woozy, arpeggiated guitars. So good.
MPEG Stream: NORTT "Glemt"
MPEG Stream: XASTHUR "A Curse For The Lifeless"

NORTT / XASTHUR Hedengang / A Curse For the Lifeless (Southern Lord) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
You're probably getting as tired of hearing this as we are saying it, but it has to be done. THIS IS SUPER LIMITED!! IN FACT, IT'S ALREADY OUT OF PRINT!! (Arghhh. Why lablels just don't press more when they know they can sell them still makes no sense to us...) SO, ONCE THESE ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD!! SO ACT FAST!
Here's what we had to say about the cd version a while back:
We barely even have to review this. Just the names of the two artists should be enough. Nortt, whose "Pure Depressive Black Funeral Doom Metal" was a massive favorite around here, and of course Xasthur, who rivals Leviathan as perhaps the most brilliant and important of the modern USBM hordes. Nortt offer up four tracks of miserable drone dirge, with mournful piano over a swirling abyss of black riffs and simple drumming, each chord slowly dissipating into nothingness before the next chord hits. Depressingly gorgeous and wrist slittingly sorrowful. Reminiscent of Corrupted's Llenandose, albeit way more grim and dismal!
Xasthur gives us three tracks, equally depressive, but here, instead of tarpit tempos and drone-like dirges, the depression and misery is communicated through creepy minor key riffing, mournful melodies and what sounds like clean chant-like singing, almost choral, but buried so low in the mix it almost sounds like just another instrument. Xasthur has totally perfected the swaying seasickly black metal waltz, with relentless double kicks, anguished vocals struggling to communicate from beyond, and warm and woozy, arpeggiated guitars. So good.
MPEG Stream: NORTT "Glemt"
MPEG Stream: XASTHUR "A Curse For The Lifeless"

NUIT NOIRE / CIRCLE OF OUROBORUS split (Insikt) 7" 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Every once in a while, someone out there is thinking just like us. It's a little scary, sure, but we gotta love it. Of course -WE- think that the buzzing blackwave of French outfit Nuit Noire is the perfect match for the confusional acoustic depressive black metal of Finnish duo Circle Of Ouroborus. But to see it finally happen. It's the metal music nerd version of fantasy baseball, when that team that you made up but could never happen in real life does...
And so it is with our league of fantasy black metal. These two bands have very little in common, except for the fact that they are about as unconventional as black metal can get, so much so that most "true" black metallers probably wouldn't consider either to actually be black metal, or metal at all for that matter, and the fact that both bands completely and utterly rule.
It's a pricey one, this 7", due to high manufacturing costs, and the ever worsening dollar, but this is most definitely a $12 single. We've shelled out $2 for singles in the past and felt ripped off, but once we got our ears on these tracks, money was no object!
Nuit Noire return with their bizarre blackened new wave buzz, a sort of Darkthrone meets Rudimentary Peni, or Immortal covering the Toy Dolls, a killer snarling hook filled blast of whiney vocals, queer guitar melodies, furious blast beats, all swaddled in loads and loads of buzz. Recorded during the same sessions that yielded the AQ fave Infantile Espieglery, these two tracks are blinding blasts of punk rock sped up and painted black, thrashy, and blasting, simple and hypnotic, with stretches of just guitar and drums and some outrageously melodic bits nestled right there amidst the furious fuzz, all peppered with strange squiggly licks and clouds of spacey FX and those perfect wailing about-to-crack vocals. So goddamn good.
And as if that weren't enough, Finland's Circle Of Ouroborus just keep getting better and better and more musical and melodic, which would normally spell doom for most of the bands we love (and we don't mean the good kind of doom), but these guys manage to retain all the fucked up-ness that made them so special, while continuing to forge ahead. A plodding depressive buzz, moody and melancholic, loping rhythms, and super weird Joy Division-esque vocals. Swooping majestic guitar leads and spidery guitar lines sprawling everywhere. They still sound a bit like a black metal Fall, but here they sort of sound like a more lo-fi, slightly less melodic Katatonia, which is of course a very good thing.
Has us chomping at the bit for new records from both bands. But for now, repeated plays of this seven inch will have to hold us over.
Nice thick full color jacket, thick cardstock inner sleeve, printed liner notes / lyric sheet. Not sure how limited, but with stuff like this, it's usually safe to assume VERY VERY!

NUIT NOIRE / HIS ELECTRO BLUE VOICE split (Avant!) 7" 7.98
The return of our favorite masters of faerical blasting punk! Who else could it be but Nuit Noire? We just raved about their most recent disc, the brilliantly titled Fantomatic Plentitude, and were already hankering for more when what should show up, but MORE!
This split 7" matches up Nuit Noire with Italian noisy new wavers His Electro Blue Voice, who end up being a perfect match for the Nuit Noire.
What can we say about Nuit Noire that we haven't said before. A blackened buzz wrapped around spiky crusty new wave-d punk rock. A blackened Rudimentary Peni. The guitars kinetic and buzzy, the drums rapid fire and frenetic, the vocals a wild caterwaul. These two new tracks are awesome. Crusty and catchy, lo-fi and super rocking. The opener is mostly instrumental, an epic extended intro, leading up to what could very well be the NN theme song: "Faerie Punk", ultra catchy and with some of the best lyrics EVER:
Stardust all around the drums
Stardust all around the guitar
Stardust blown away from the high speakers
Stardust everywhere on stage
Faerie punk in the moonlight
Faerie punk in the starlight
Faerie punk far in the night
Faerie punk on stage tonight
Hell yeah! The lyrics just reaffirm what the music is already saying. Wild forest faerie freaked out black new wave crusty punk pop madness.
So who could possible share a split with these guys? His Electro Blue Voice are up to the challenge, and are a pretty good match, their moody bass heavy new wave post punk, perfectly balancing NN's high end howl. Their sound is very 45 Grave, like some band you might have seen play the Scream in LA in 1985. Murky Joy Division riffing, wrapped around lugubrious Cure rhythms, the vocals a throaty gothy croon, the first track playing out lie a more metal Smiths, the second, some sort of dark doleful surf rock, with a Dick Dale riff stretched across and expanse of moody melancholia.

NUMBERS + ADULT. Numbers + Adult. = This Seven Inch (Kill Rock Stars) 7" 3.98
If this split 7" had come out a few years ago, it would've probably seemed like a bit of an odd pairing, but these days SF's (formerly much more no-wave influenced) Numbers and Detroit's (formerly very singularly electro-botic) Adult. are soundin' pretty chummy. Where they've found their common ground is in the raw, retro punky pit. Both songs in this split 7" equation feature snarky female vocals and underlying herky-jerk rhythms. Adult. percolates a dark, itchy "Monologue" and Numbers proclaim at a slower tempo "Me Me" punctuated by choppy guitars. Sure to please fans of both bands.

NURSE WITH WOUND / CYCLOBE / IRR. APP. (EXT.) / JIM O'ROURKE Angry Eelectric Finger (Spitch' Cock One) (United Dairies) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Given the subtitle Spitch' Cock One, this first release in the Angry Eelectric Finger series of reworked Nurse With Wound material may or may not have anything in common with a forthcoming release also entitled Angry Eelectric Finger, which might be a triple disc set. Regardless of the ambigous status of any future releases, for this one Nurse With Wound's mad scientist Steven Stapleton solicited Cyclobe, irr. app. (ext.), and Jim O'Rourke to rework what we've been told was "an entire album of material." Presumably these are not remixes of older NWW tracks, but something of a parlour game with new material.
Stapleton himself produces the first track, interlocking varispeed warbles of some prepared piano recordings. Eventually, these settle into something of a seasick rhythm that is accompanied by a variety of metallic crashes and slashing cymbals, most of which are being played backwards. In the end, it sounds somewhat like a revisitation of the ideas found on Homotopie for Marie.
Cyclobe, a World Serpent staple comprised of two former Coil members, offer a bunch of ominous synth tones that do better than the recent batch of Coil recordings but don't extend much beyond that.
irr. app. (ext.) is AQ's beloved Matt Waldron, who contributes the best track on the album with an incredibly bleak take on the NWW vision of surrealism. Much like the stunning NWW album Salt Marie Celeste, Waldron's track rumbles with a sustained droning mantra; this time, it's from a muffled funereal bell while broken springs, distant mechanical engines, and washboard scrapes bounce throughout the stereofield as an aggregate of sonic detritus suspended against a black hole of sound.
Jim O'Rourke offers a soft kaleidoscope of DSP-impacted organ drones upon which he sprinkles tiny bells and some of the same mechanical springiness that Waldron also used. Obviously this is a teaser for that supposed upcoming triple disc set which is rumored to also feature Xhol Caravan; but considering the possibility that some of this material may not be there, it's advisable that you consider picking it up. Either way, this is fantastic.
MPEG Stream: NURSE WITH WOUND "Root Canal Splinter (Penetration Mix)"
MPEG Stream: IRR. APP. (EXT.) / NURSE WITH WOUND "Mute Bell Extinction Process"

OAKEATER / MAMIFFER split (Sige) lp 17.98
One of two new releases on Sige Records, the new imprint run by Aaron Turner of Hydra Head / Isis fame and his partner Faith Coloccia of Mamiffer, the other is the formerly-on-cd House Of Low Culture / Mamiffer split, and this, another Mamiffer split, this time teamed up with mysterious power electronics ambient drone trio Oakeater.
Oakeater, whose Molech lp on Nihilist we dug big time, return again, with their usual UNusually arsenal of noisemaking devices: guitar, voice, percussion, tapes, modular synthesizers, feedback, electric piano and oscillators. Here they take their ritualistic dronescaping even further, ditching their noiserock background/pedigree almost entirely (Oakeater is members of the Coughs and Panicsville), to delve deeeeeeep into dark drifting drones and sprawling expanses of cinematic shift and shimmer. Slow and smoldering, lushly layered, hushed muted whirs and high end chimes, haunting melodies, all very dramatic and soundtracky sounding, before slipping into something else entirely, a long stretch of shimmering cymbals, lots of space, streaks of feedback, a weirdly meditative, subtly rhythmic, metallic dronescape, which is quickly subsumed by SUPER distorted synths, fuzzy and buzzy and blown out, the sort of low tones some dubstepper would KILL for, transforming the track completely into something way more spacey and tripped out.
Mamiffer counters with one of the heaviest, noisiest tracks we've heard from her (aka Faith Coloccia), using just guitars, pianos, tapes and apparently jars, Coloccia weaves together and chaotic but strangely lovely bit of heavy, abstract guitar noise, some strange mix of SUNNO))) and Skullflower, chugging churning looped guitars, swooping backwards production, a thick corrosive buzz, a sort of static riffage, but those stretches of glacial buzz and howl and keen are stretched out into more avant drone directions, loads of overtones, subtle rhythmic shadings, still buzzy and heavy and metallic for sure, but wrangled into something impossibly melodic and meditative and downright pretty. There's hiss and static and crunch and buzz, and on the surface it's noisy and quite chaotic, but Colaccia manages to shape it all into a soft tangled swirl of psychedelic guitar noise, that is easily as entrancing as it is abrasive.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Each one hand numbered, packaged in super swank, ultra heavy silk screened sleeves.

OCEAN, THE / BURST split (Garden Of Exile) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Super limited split between these two heavyweights. In this corner, Burst, with their Meshuggah-like stop start riffing, super precise and machinelike, downtuned guitar chugs like pipes to the side of the head, all getting more and more tangled until it's a dizzying metallic swirl. There's also some weird warped melodies, the guitars and vocals doing something bizarre together, making it sound like the record is warped or something. Cool. And in the other corner, Germany's Ocean, not to be confused with THE Ocean, a massive metallic collective, who tone back the metal just a bit this time around and explore some post rock weirdness. Serene stretches of sweet blissed out prettiness, finger picked guitars and angelic female vocals, before a monstrous sledgehammer groove kicks in, all HUGE riff and harsh demonic vocals. Killer!
Packaged in a gorgeous fold out sleeve designed by Seldon Hunt and pressed on blue vinyl. Super limited and we only got a few.

OF / GREG DAVIS split (Ache) 7" 6.98
Brand new Of full length coming on the next list, but while we're waiting, we managed to get a few more of this amazing split with Of and Greg Davis! Two sides of home brewed minimalism. Of, aka Loren Chasse (Thuja, Coelacanth, etc) takes a slight detour into a dark mysterious world of disembodied free folk. Some sort of country music, deconstructed, just whisps and afterimages left to drift wraithlike. It's like the skeleton of a banjo, was left to wander aimlessly along some lonely seashore, the sound of the surf a shimmery hiss, the banjo's footsteps a spacious barely there twang. All under a murky grey sky, soft melodies like warm breezes.
Greg Davis counters with a swirl of zinging strings, a complex web melodies, the harps' shimmering strings intertwined and overlapping, all over the distant soft splashing of water. Almost like an orchestra made up entirely of harps, performing playfully in a giant bathtub. With the harps tangled sonics being subtly glitched up and processed, making the end result all the more dense and dreamy.

OH SEES / PAUL CARY split (Stank House) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Do John Dwyer and his Oh Sees comrades ever sleep??!! In the last year it seems like they are either playing a show in town, on tour (by the way they are sooooo on fire live right now!) or putting out records. But hey we ain't complaining cause the less they sleep the more rad music we get. This new split with Paul Cary (we don't know much about him), finds Oh Sees (what happened to the THEE?) sounding more slowed down and slightly stoned, which is a side of the band we do really dig, but don't get to hear that often.
Paul Cary reminds us a bit of The Entrance Band all stripped down and playing on someone's front porch, sort of a rustic bluesy lo-fi folk. But like us you are probably here for (Thee) Oh Sees side of this split which finds them doing two covers, "Hey Buddy" by Iran and "Coma" by Trio. Both tracks were included on the now out of print cd that came with the Zork's Tape Bruise LP release a few months back. And we're stoked that more people will finally get a chance to here these covers as they were two of our favorite tracks from that collection. No matter what incarnation or direction (Thee) Oh Sees take they seem to be able to do no wrong as of late, and we have to say we feel pretty lucky to get to see them play as much as we do!

OH SEES, THEE / THE INTELLIGENCE s/t (Mt. St. Mtn.) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Sounds like our buddy, Thee Ohsees mastermind and man about town Jon Dwyer, has fallen in love all over again with the sound of raw garage rock. The last Ohsees album was way more punchy and rocking than previous releases, and now this split finds Dwyer sounding almost as fierce as he did in his Coachwhips days! Yet, he's still managed to find awesome ways to add a little something extra n' arty to that Ohsees sound.
The two Ohsees songs end before you know it but they're so good and infectious that we've just been playing them over and over and over.
Meanwhile, The Intelligence make a great foil for Thee Ohsees as they know a thing or two about how much more rad garage rock sounds when it's doused in reverb, crumbling keyboards and lo-fi vocals. Lars Finberg, the mastermind of The Intelligence (and a former member of the A-Frames) has had a bunch of records on In The Red which makes perfect sense as they have become THE label for bands with true raw garage spirit. Their three songs on this split, including a Vulvettes cover are such perfect blasts of haunting and infectious lo-fi garage rock ass kickery.
Features awesome artwork by Jay Howell and Joe Roberts and is already out of print at the label so you better act fast if you want one of these.

OH SEES, THEE / TOTAL CONTROL split (Castle Face) lp 14.98
This one hardly needs much of a description. SF garage pop darlings Thee Oh Sees teamed up with Aussie gloom poppers Total Control, 4 songs each, all pretty dang great! Thee Oh Sees side is appropriately rambunctious and chaotic, wild and noisy and jangly with plenty of surfy twang, dollops of reverb, John Dwyer's almost cartoonish high pitched echo drenched yelp, super melodic and catchy, and with Thee Oh Sees, you have to know that there's much more going on than what's just on the surface, sure it's sweaty and wild and invokes much shaking and bouncing, but the band are tight as fuck and weave intricate layers and strange harmonies, and the songs are surprisingly complex, slipping from frenzied avalanche of noisy sound to almost fifties sounding reverby shuffles, but just check out the last few minutes of the final track, "Blood In Your Ear", with its swirling falsetto vox and soaring melodies all suspended amidst lush swirls and shimmers, pretty goddamn divine.
Total Control counter with their own brand of gloomy garage pop, another clutch of songs that ranks up their with their best, dirgey, droney, minor key, haunting and moody, peppered with blasts of full on distorto punk garage crunch, culminating in their last track, a gorgeous minimal low slung slither of layered guitar drones, rumbling bassline, laid back weary vox, a darkly depressive broody ballad that explodes in the second half into tense angular soft cacophony, that ends way too soon.
Cool cover art. Includes a download card too.
MPEG Stream: THEE OH SEES "Blood In Your Ear"
MPEG Stream: TOTAL CONTROL "Sweaty"

OH SEES, THEE / TY SEGALL split (Castle Face) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall cover each other on this brand new smokin' seven inch. We really don't need to say anything more. Anyone who's been listening to the current wave of charged, blown out garage pop these days knows that these are two of the most potent forces in the game. Thee Oh Sees are coming off what we think may be one of the best records of the year, Help, and Ty Segall's debut was one of our favorites of '08. So rad to hear them tackle each other's songs. Thee Oh Sees do "The Drag" with a deep-in-the-void reverb filled flair that suits the song so well. Ty does "Maria Stacks" from The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In, a song which might just be Andee's favorite Oh Sees jam, not just cuz it's hooky and catchy, but it also immortalizes AQ pal and amazing artist/zine-maker Maria Forde. Ty finds a way to make the song a bit more lo-fi and fucked up sounding while still holding on to the great melody that makes the original stick like it does. Pretty much a no-brainer, best grab one of these while you can!

OM / CURRENT 93 Inerrant Rays Of Infallible Sun (Blackship Shrinebuilder) (Durtro Jnana) cd ep 10.98
Previously only on 10" vinyl via Neurot, now finally available to compact disc users! David Tibet is an obsessive man, amassing a huge collection of books, records, paintings, and ephemera from his favorite artists, religious leaders, and cultural icons; and he often incorporates bits and pieces from that collection into the apocalyptic hymns of his band Current 93. A couple years ago, Tibet found himself awestruck by Om's first album Variations On A Theme and approached the stoned-metal mesmerists about working together. Through their correspondence, Om's bassist Al Cisneros found himself a contributor to the Current 93 opus Black Ships Ate The Sky, and then the two projects decided to produce this split release. What you get from Om is exactly what you would expect: heavy-as-fuck bass lines, lumbering drum propulsion, and tranced-out vocal incantations very much along the psychedelic vein of Sabbath and the druggy side of Hawkwind. Normally Tibet outsources the guitar work on his Current 93 records to the likes of Ben Chasny, Michael Cashmore, or Tony Wakeford, but here he's picked up the guitar, the bass, and a ton of distortion to match what Om does on the other side. He proves that he too can muster a heavy doom-drone riff laced with caustic waves of distortion and feedback. Of course, his revelatory vocals emerge from the cyclical riffs as does a caterwaul of droning bagpipes.
MPEG Stream: OM "Rays Of The Sun / To The Shrinebuilder"
MPEG Stream: CURRENT 93 "Inerrant Infallible (Black Ship At Nineveh Or Edom)"

OM / CURRENT 93 Inerrant Rays of Infallible Sun (Blackship Shrinebuilder) (Neurot) 10" 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
David Tibet is an obsessive man, amassing a huge collection of books, records, paintings, and ephemera from his favorite artists, religious leaders, and cultural icons; and he often incorporates bits and pieces from that collection into the apocalyptic hymns of his band Current 93. A couple years ago, Tibet found himself awestruck by Om's first album Variations On A Theme and approached the stoned-metal mesmerists about working together. Through their correspondence, Om's bassist Al Cisneros found himself a contributor to the Current 93 opus Black Ships Ate The Sky, and then the two projects decided to produce this split 10". What you get from Om is exactly what you would expect: heavy-as-fuck bass lines, lumbering drum propulsion, and tranced-out vocal incantations very much along the psychedelic vein of Sabbath and the druggy side of Hawkwind. Normally Tibet sources out the guitar work on his Current 93 records to the likes of Ben Chasny, Michael Cashmore, or Tony Wakeford, but here he's picked up the guitar, the bass, and a ton of distortion to match what Om does on the other side. He proves that he too can muster a heavy doom-drone riff laced with caustic waves of distortion and feedback. Of course, his revelatory vocals emerge from the cyclical riffs as does a caterwaul of droning bagpipes. There have been a couple of different pressings of this single; and what we have is the domestic, blue translucent vinyl version.

OM / SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE split (Holy Mountain) 7" 5.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
FINALLY THE REPRESS IS HERE! These split singles went out of print in a flash soon after we first reviewed 'em on list 244. But more were promised, and now at last they're here, for now...
Most of you have already smashed the add to cart button to bits before even getting to reading the review, so we'll keep this brief. A monumental match up of modern psychedelic masters from the NorCal locale. On one side is the mighty post-Sleep behemoth known as Om, a bass and drums duo who churn out extended sludge mantras, and on this track it's no different. A super fuzzed out doomy plod and groove. When we first threw this one, we accidentally had it on 45 and it sounded pretty dang killer and super blown out and weird, until the vocals came in and went all doom chipmunk on us. But at 33 it was even slower and heavier and dirgier just the way it was meant to be. Note: the track on this 7" is the bonus track from the Japanese version of Conference Of The Birds that we listed recently, so a few of you may already have this song! On the other side we have Ben Chasny and his Six Organs Of Admittance, who seem to be upping their own personal dirge quotient in order to compete with the sheer heaviness of Om. There is still some lilting folk, but it's buried beneath wild squalls of psych guitar freakout that sounds VERY Japanese (High Rise, Mainliner, Fushitsusha).
Definitely essential.

ON (REWORKED BY FENNESZ) Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not (Type) cd 15.98
Record number three from the duo known simply as On, made up of composer / producer Sylvain Chauveau and percussionist Steven Hess, a member of both Pan American and Haptic, all favorites around here, so it's no surprise that we dig On as well. And their recording technique has always been pretty cool, capturing various improvisations, song fragments, completed songs, various textures and sound experiments, and the handing the whole thing over to another musician to shape into whatever sort of record he or she imagined. Deathprod was the guest arranger/producer/assembler on the last album, and this time around, it's none other than long time aQ fave, experimental guitarist and soundscaper Christian Fennesz, and Fennesz definitely works his magic, assembling the various parts into sweeping smoldering minimal epics, gorgeous dronescapes and wide swaths of glimmering ambience. The record opens with a cloud of layered feedback, all high end skree, before gradually dissipating into something more delicate and tranquil, hushed chiming melodies, and crystalline overtones, give way to a much more soothing stretch of throb and thrum, wreathed in gentle static and subtle glitch, dark tones glide and shift, drifting through clouds of cymbal shimmer, fields of click and skitter, but all smeared into a slowly unwinding spiral of smoldering lysergic swells.
The record switches gears part way through, and becomes much more woozy and soft focus, muted tones, a warm washed out haze, and finally some stripped down skeletal drumming, the vibe almost krautrocky, simple and spare and propulsive, the background ever swirling and whirling, a softly lopped melody drifting in and out of earshot, the whole thing mesmerizing and hypnotic, before the drums eventually fade out, leaving a bleary landscape of slowly melting tones, and gently collapsing melodies, a hushed abstract, dreambliss outro.
Which makes the darkness of the next track that much more dramatic, churning buzzing muted riffage, looped and layered, wrapped in a cloud of delicate cymbal sizzle, subtly rhythmic, locked in an awesome groove, WAY too short at a little over 4 minutes, but that leads right into the epic 20 minute closer, mirroring the opening track, with another field of hushed and muted feedback, tangled buried melodies, the various bits of guitar, and barely there percussion woven into a slowly shifting gradually mutating dreamscape, sounding more and more like a proper Fennesz record, prismatic, kaleidoscopic, warm and lustrous, lush and fantastically abstract, very reminiscent of Oval, that sort of looped glitchery, but here, it's much more organic, much more soothing and entrancing, totally captivating and utterly lovely.
MPEG Stream: "The Inconsolable Polymath"
MPEG Stream: "Blank Space"
MPEG Stream: "Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not"

ON (REWORKED BY FENNESZ) Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not (Type) lp 19.98
Record number three from the duo known simply as On, made up of composer / producer Sylvain Chauveau and percussionist Steven Hess, a member of both Pan American and Haptic, all favorites around here, so it's no surprise that we dig On as well. And their recording technique has always been pretty cool, capturing various improvisations, song fragments, completed songs, various textures and sound experiments, and the handing the whole thing over to another musician to shape into whatever sort of record he or she imagined. Deathprod was the guest arranger/producer/assembler on the last album, and this time around, it's none other than long time aQ fave, experimental guitarist and soundscaper Christian Fennesz, and Fennesz definitely works his magic, assembling the various parts into sweeping smoldering minimal epics, gorgeous dronescapes and wide swaths of glimmering ambience. The record opens with a cloud of layered feedback, all high end skree, before gradually dissipating into something more delicate and tranquil, hushed chiming melodies, and crystalline overtones, give way to a much more soothing stretch of throb and thrum, wreathed in gentle static and subtle glitch, dark tones glide and shift, drifting through clouds of cymbal shimmer, fields of click and skitter, but all smeared into a slowly unwinding spiral of smoldering lysergic swells.
The record switches gears part way through, and becomes much more woozy and soft focus, muted tones, a warm washed out haze, and finally some stripped down skeletal drumming, the vibe almost krautrocky, simple and spare and propulsive, the background ever swirling and whirling, a softly lopped melody drifting in and out of earshot, the whole thing mesmerizing and hypnotic, before the drums eventually fade out, leaving a bleary landscape of slowly melting tones, and gently collapsing melodies, a hushed abstract, dreambliss outro.
Which makes the darkness of the next track that much more dramatic, churning buzzing muted riffage, looped and layered, wrapped in a cloud of delicate cymbal sizzle, subtly rhythmic, locked in an awesome groove, WAY too short at a little over 4 minutes, but that leads right into the epic 20 minute closer, mirroring the opening track, with another field of hushed and muted feedback, tangled buried melodies, the various bits of guitar, and barely there percussion woven into a slowly shifting gradually mutating dreamscape, sounding more and more like a proper Fennesz record, prismatic, kaleidoscopic, warm and lustrous, lush and fantastically abstract, very reminiscent of Oval, that sort of looped glitchery, but here, it's much more organic, much more soothing and entrancing, totally captivating and utterly lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Blank Space"
MPEG Stream: "Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not"
MPEG Stream: "A Tardy Adminssion That The Crisis Is Serious"

ONE MILE NORTH / COLOPHON / THE WIND-UP BIRD Conduction. Convection. Radiation. (Music Fellowship) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Although this cd is credited to the individual talents of three artists -- Colophon aka Jefre Cantu of Tarentel, the guitar and synthesizer duo 1 Mile North and The Wind-Up Bird aka multi-instrumentalist Joe Grimm -- you really can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Indeed, Conduction. Convection. Radiation. as a whole is a cohesive, near-seamless work. Very spacious, drifting and atmospheric, the first three tracks are by 1 Mile North, and the following three are by Colophon. Gauzy drones cloud the skies with occasional austere guitar melodies coming in and out of focus. The latter four tracks are by The Wind-Up Bird and they're crafted from delicate elements such as violin strings that softly wheeze, and piano keys that sound as if they're being struck as if by random raindrops. Beautiful and haunting.
MPEG Stream: COLOPHON "Texas Heat"
MPEG Stream: THE WIND-UP BIRD "Violin & Trumpet"

ONEIDA / PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE SOUND split (Jagjaguwar) 12" 11.98
This vinyl-only split 12" from Oneida and Plastic Crimewave Sound is pretty darn rulin'. Recorded during their Thank Your Parents session, Oneida's "Psychedelic Maze" is an eerie and homespun late-night jam which sparsely used ukuleles, hexoleles, a lute and homemade drums to conjure a sorta hokey but amazing self-conscious folk sound that's almost more Sun City Girls-ish than Oneida-y. PCS's side is a fuzz-soaked drone-rock opus. "End of Cloud" utilizes some production tricks, motorik drumming and various waves and blasts that creates a pulsing frenzy to which a very stoned person could "meditate".

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER / KEITH FULLERTON WHITMAN / NO FUN ACID / PREHISTORIC BLACKOUT 4-way split (Protracted View) 2 x cassette 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
These two tapes, housed in a soft-plastic case a la RRRecords, offer documentation of four live, and very nice electronic sets from one evening at the Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn, featuring the 2009 darling of outro-electronics Oneohtrix Point Never, the ever impressive Keith Fullerton Whitman, No Fun Acid (aka Carlos Giffoni in his 'acid' guise), and Prehistoric Blackout (aka Taylor Richardson of Infinity Window).
Oneohtrix Point Never begins his set with a lugubrious plodding synth melody before nestling into those stratospheric arcs of Juno-synth tones found on his recent Russian Mind LP. Keith Fullerton Whitman kicks out squiggles and step-patterned melodic phrases via a C64 emulator on his iPhone (no shit!) which gradually explode into a kaleidoscopic supernova after lifting out of a thick set of modulated tones 'n' drones. Giffoni has been talking up his love of acid techno with No Fun Acid being the project to act upon that infatuation. He sets down a simple breakbeat and begins a set that would make Phuture proud, in a pretty straight forward, but wholly effective techno workout. Prehistoric Blackout offers a four-note synth melody that drifts with counterpointed arpeggiations, tremolo lazer beams of sound, and tripped out, looping electronics. It should be noted that this is a room recording, and not a board mix. But as a result, there is some very amusing banter that Whitman provides at the end of his set with two enthusiastic women describing his set as a being akin to achieving multiple orgasms. Ahem. Throughout most of the sets, the audience politely stays quiet with the exception for the beginning of the Prehistoric Blackout set. Super limited, we've got less than a dozen of these.