V/A Tokyo Flashback 1 (PSF) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

V/A Tokyo Flashback 2 (PSF) cd 17.98

V/A Tokyo Flashback 3 (PSF) cd 17.98

V/A Tokyo Flashback 4 (PSF) cd 22.00
Keiji Haino, Musica Transonic, Shizuka, High Rise, Hikyo String Quartet, etc.

V/A Tokyo Flashback 5 (PSF) cd 22.00
Wow...not only is is ABOUT TIME we got another installment in this series of Japanese underground psych music (vol. 4 came out, like, five years ago!) but it's also perfect timing what with all the current excitement going 'round about bands from that scene, from newer ones like LSD-march, Doodles, and Up-Tight to long-time favorites Ghost and Acid Mothers Temple. And on top of all that (and most importantly), this new "PSF Psychedelic Sampler" is KILLER. Good stuff start to finish. You get previously unreleased tracks from these Toyko flashbackers:
Aural Fit (a very heavy, doomy, dirgey track that fans of Boris and Earth will dig, cacophonic and dense), White Heaven (downer-rock Quicksilver psych from these stalwarts, featuring current Ghost guitarist Michio Kurihara -- it doesn't say when this live version of their gentle "Mandrax Town" was was recorded, did they get back together?), Kyoaku No Intention (a brief and noisy live "blues" from High Rise guitarist Munehiro Narita and free jazz drummer Shoji Hano), Kabe Mimi (mysterious hiss, whoosh, drone, very nice), Suishio No Fune (bleak folk duo, very lovely, eventually overcome by space-out distortion), D.J Keiji Haino (YES!!! that IS what it says -- more on this one below), Hisato Higuchi (placid and beautiful voice/guitar with electronic stutter), Tsuru No Ko (duo doing the Rallize-worship thing, a la Fushitsusha, Up-Tight or LSD-march, taking that role over from Haino here 'cause he's busy DJing we guess), Overhang Party (the sometimes heavy psychsters being very gentle and pretty here), and Marble Sheep (a good one from another long-running psych outfit, rocking out to wrap things up).
There's quite a few names new to us that we'll have to investigate further (gotta find the rumored Aural Fit album for you Boris freaks, wethink!) alongside old faves reminding us why they're faves. Which brings us back to that D.J Keiji Haino track...we'd been waiting for this! We'd heard that Haino, not content with just guitar and voice and wave-drum and hurdy-gurdy and drumming and whatever other instruments through which he's channelled his demons in the past, had added vinyl and turntables to his repertoire, and from the sound of this epic, 11+ minute, live-mixed, multi-mood sound collage lives up to our imaginings of what that would sound like! He's seemingly playing his own records (or is that him doing live percussion accompaniment??) and a variety of interesting ethnic vocal and 20th century classical albums, near as we can tell. Sure would love to have had a look through his DJ crate. There's no wicky-wicky-wap scratching or quick cuts, just endless layering and mixing... so good. Enough fannish froth tho. Even if Haino on the wheels of steel doesn't excite you like it excites some of us here, this comp still comes quite recommended. Maybe it took those great Night Gallery comps from Osaka's Alchemy Records to get PSF to answer back for the Tokyo scene, but in any event, fans of the Japanese psych/folk/free thing have a lot to be happy about here.
MPEG Stream: AURAL FIT "Behind 20, Beyond 20k"
MPEG Stream: SUISHO NO FUNE "Black Phantom"
MPEG Stream: D.J KEIJI HAINO "(Japanese title)"
MPEG Stream: HISATO HIGUCHI "Cluster Of Lights"

V/A Tokyo Flashback 6 (PSF) cd 17.98
The venerable compilation series devoted to sampling the dark and demented delights of the Tokyo psychedelic underground returns! While the previous Tokyo Flashback number five (from 2005) included both quite a few veteran artists (Keiji Haino, Marble Sheep, Overhang Party, Kyoaku No Intention, White Out) as well as several hitherto unknown to us up-and-comers (Aural Fit, Hisato Higuchi, Suishou No Fune, etc.), this installment has only one or two acts among the dozen featured that we'd heard of before, so it's arguably all the more underground. Certainly the discerning folks at PSF must have done the rounds of the more obscure practice spaces and performance venues of Tokyo to find all these bands (or endured a lot of cd-r demo submissions).
First up is the quartet Ahousen, who, with dramatic vocals and agitated saxophone, sound something like a like a freaked out Maher Shalal Hash Baz. Next, things get a bit calmer and prettier with the accordion and trombone laced "The World Of Mirror" by Hanaoyouni, a outfit who like Ahousen have female vocals but use them in a more melodious fashion. Then, someone named Onna does the melancholic guitar/voice folk troubadour thing in the vein of Kan Mikami. That's followed by the spooky-but-lovely droning instrumental soundscape of the mysterious Yamashirube, entitled "Under Young Moon.Lost.". The next piece comes from a duo called S.A.R.O.D. (Safeness Audio Resource Of Dominant), featuring one of the guys from Aural Fit doing some heavy-duty "tone bending" alongside a drummer, and if you've heard Aural Fit, that we're telling you that is noisy, loud and grinding will be no surprise. Following that, there's a group called Retolt Mandala, who play a loose, skittering, abstract sort of psych-improv, and are a lot quieter than the S.A.R.O.D. guys. Next, the raggedly distorted guitar/guitar/drums trio Ainotamenishis lets loose with "Bad Dreams" and we can immediately hear the reason why they have an LP due out later this year on the Holy Mountain label, as they give us a Tokyo Flashback flashback. That brings us to something completely different: the plucking, squeaking, neo no wave of The Kinky Pigeon, who ask us to "EAT SHIT!!" as politely and artily as they can. Back into the more expected Flashback zone, the mellow (but for some serious bursts of distortion) sixties-ish psych-rock of the trio Yakouchu is quite nice, taking us on an extended 8 and a half minute trip... Ogikubo Connection are next, a "free style folk duo" with the Fukuoka Rinji of Overhang Party strumming and singing in anguished fashion accompanied by alto sax of Mochizuki Harutaka, doing a cover version of a song called "Staring At Blood" by the late Kaneko Jutok of Kousokuya. Then we get this disc's perhaps most properly Rallizes-y rockin' moment, with a blast from motorpsycho guitarist Kawaguchi Masami (ex-Miminokoto) and his power trio the New Rock Syndicate, called "Oblivion". And then finally this Flashback winds up with the gorgeous, plaintive acoustic folk track "A Moonlight Night" by singer/guitarist Genshi. Wow. Something here for everyone (well, everyone who would consider buying a Tokyo Flashback disc that is)! We imagine we'll be hearing more from many of these artists, and looking forward to it too.
As with all Tokyo Flashbacks, we're pretty sure all the tracks are exclusive to this disc. Info/photos/web addresses and suchlike stuff is included in the cd booklet for each artist.
MPEG Stream: AINOTAMENISHIS "Bad Dreams"
MPEG Stream: YAMASHIRUBE "Under Young Moon.Lost."
MPEG Stream: YAKOUCHU "Mugen"

V/A Tokyo Flashback 7 (PSF) cd 17.98
We've been enjoying PSF's series of "Tokyo Flashback" comps for almost two decades now, going all the way back to the first one in 1991! Every couple of years the Tokyo-based label puts out a fascinating new Flashback collection, documenting the most underground and otherworldly of psych units to mysteriously materialize in our plane of existence (er, specifically Tokyo, Japan) via seemingly occult means, perhaps called forth by the eternal vibrations of ancestral acts like High Rise, Fushitsusha, Ghost and White Heaven (all of whom appeared on early Tokyo Flashback volumes).
So here now is auspicious installment number seven, and it's conceived around the concept of live psychedelic improvisation, as put into practice (and recorded for posterity) one evening at the Koenji Show Boat club in Tokyo on May 31st, 2009. There's six lengthy tracks from six obscure acts, most of 'em totally new to us (all except for drone duo Hasegawa-Shizuo, whose new Utech album we reviewed last list). These improvs range from quiet droning blissouts to sheer ear-scraping skronk. Oh, and yes indeed, there's also one solid dose of amplifier-frying psychrock jamming, 'cause no Tokyo Flashback comp would be complete without some of THAT.
To get down to cases, on this Flashback you'll find squealing free jazz freakout from the energetic Derakushi; delicate and haunting organic drone by Le Son De L'Os, who unfurl the longest track here at close to 20 minutes, utilizing acoustic guitar, voice, and flute among other things; some onkyo styled skitter and silence, "whispered" by guitar/contrabass/percussion trio Bon No Kubo; avant garde exploration of traditional Japanese shakuhachi sounds, by the Sabu Orimo Unit; the unique spacious sonic ceremony of the aforementioned Hasegawa-Shizuo duo; and raging distortodelic garage rock in the grand tradition courtesy of power trio Touyounomajyo, chanelling the likes of Les Rallies.
The cd booklet includes info (in English as well as Japanese) on each artist, all of whom we'll be looking out for more music by, some of it no doubt to appear in future on PSF...
MPEG Stream: LE SON DE L'OS "Still Water"
MPEG Stream: SABU ORIMO UNIT "Inochi"
MPEG Stream: TOUYOUNOMAJYO "White Light Spear"

V/A Tomorrow's Achievements - Parry Music Library 1976-86 (Public Information) lp 26.00
Anyone who shops for orignal library records can testify that it can be a grueling, expensive and oftentimes unrewarding quest. Even libraries with good track records like DeWolfe or KPM can fall short if the themes are uninteresting (like Casino Royale or British Fanfare). Separating the wheat from the chaff takes lots of knowledge and research, and more often than not the good music is only likely found through high end-collectors or a connection with the library archives itself. Thankfully we have this superb compilation that takes out a lot of the guesswork and delivers some incredible sounds to boot. Hailing from Toronto, the Parry Music library was founded in 1974 by John Parry and Chris Stone. Parry's connections with the great UK library Chappell Music helped bring him incredible talent including Nino Nardini and Johnny Hawksworth among a host of others. Selected from a 10 year period, this is an absolutely incredible and essential collection of warm electronic majesty in the form of music for unrealized industrial films, kids' TV shows, commercial spots, radio broadcasts and B-movie cinematic soundtracks. From avant-garde soundscapes to cosmic proto-Balearic disco, sublime choral pieces, blithe autumnal warp and woozy abstracted kinderlieder, a beautifully realized compilation of pure joy!

V/A Tonalism (Pehr) cd 10.98
This compilation presents a striking visual effect, with a different Pantone color strip mounted on the front of each one (our initial copies display the yellow to ochre end of the color spectrum). Musically, "Tonalism" is a quiet affair of guitar and electronic based ambience. The three names that we recognize come from the West Coast. Phtalo label artist Dntel opens the album with a quietly flanging piece of analogue electronic ambience. Tarentel remixes their magnificent track "Steede Bonnet" (originally from their debut album) turning into a dreamy piece of tape delayed deep hypnosis. Timonium drones along nicely, with shimmering, slow motion washes of guitar that sounds quite similar to Troum. Languis swooshes and swells with delicate Klaus Schulze-esque electronic pulses. Nautical Movements, Meerschaum, Crownery, Eucalyptus, Anstey Station, and Sore & Steal round out this compilation, one that makes for a pleasantly dreamy, if a tad understated, listen.
RealAudio clip: TARENTEL "Steede Bonnet (Flood Remix)"
RealAudio clip: DNTEL "Open The Window And Let Me In"

V/A Tone Tales From Tomorrow Too (ntone) cd 20.00
In addition to the Ninjatune label, Coldcut/DJ Food release more experimental ambient/electronica on the -ntune- imprint. Neotropic, Joanna Lam, Spacetime Continuum (Jonah Sharp), Coldcut, etc. UK import.

V/A Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (Vagrant) cd 14.98
Not sure if this counts as a guilty pleasure, but it probably should. Anyone with a Playstation or an X-Box probably has all of these songs stuck permanently in their heads, unavoidable after hours and hours of grinding your way through Tony Hawk's American Wasteland we imagine. But fuck it, this comp is killer, some of our all time punk rock favorites covered by a bunch of the current crop of emo / metalcore heart throbs. And while the originals are pretty much perfect, it's kind of cool to hear some of these songs revamped and reworked, most of them more well produced and some of them a whole lot heavier. Emanuel does a killer version of the Stooges' "Search And Destroy", dangerously close to the original but with a thick layer of sludgy grit on top. Saves The Day tackle the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer", and for an ultra-wimpy emo band they manage some serious ass kickery. The Bled do a note perfect version of the Bad Brains' "House Of Suffering" and the Hot Snakes channel Government Issue with a sloppy noisy version of "Time To Escape." There's From Autumn To Ashes' killer metalized version of Fear's "Let's Have A War" and we can't forget Fall Out Boy and their AWESOME version of the Gorilla Biscuits' "Start Today". Other bands include Senses Fail, Taking Back Sunday, My Chemical Romance, Alkaline Trio, Rise Against, Thursday, Thrice and the Dropkick Murphys covering tracks by Suicidal Tendencies, Descendents, Misfits, Adolescents, T.S.O.L., Buzzcocks, Fear and of course Black Flag.
MPEG Stream: HOT SNAKES "Time To Escape (Government Issue)"
MPEG Stream: FALL OUT BOY "Start Today (Gorilla Biscuits)"
MPEG Stream: FROM AUTUMN TO ASHES "Let's Have A War (Fear)"

V/A Tool (Microwave / Staalplaat) 7" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
By its name, this 7" of hyperminimalist techno locked grooves is meant for consistant hypnosis and turntablist manipulation. Acid laiden Pan Sonic style techno is provided by /Slo-Fi. Richard Chartier offers a variety of chlorine soaked loops of electronic clicks, low-end tonalities, and flanged squiggles. Interspaced with a few caustic scrapes, Goem's solid monophunktrax are mirror images of Mike Ink's structural techno.

V/A Tool (Microwave / Staalplaat) cd-r 14.98
This is the cd-r version (for better or for worse Microwave only manufactures cdr's) of a 7" of locked grooved. The grooves are presented in short easily sampled sections. Acid laiden Pan Sonic style techno is provided by /Slo-Fi. Richard Chartier offers a variety of chlorine soaked loops of electronic clicks, low-end tonalities, and flanged squiggles. Interspaced with a few caustic scrapes, Goem's solid monophunktrax are mirror images of Mike Ink's structural techno.

V/A Top 40 Radio's Swingin' Soft Drink Spots of the 60s Vol 1 (1964-1965) (X-Static) 2cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The best way to describe these Top 40 Swingin' Soft Drink compilations is to imagine them as a part of the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequencies series of radio broadcast collages. We've had Radio Java, Radio Morocco, Radio Palestine, and most recently Radio India. So just imagine these as being Radio USA. Or more specifically, Radio USA 1960's. Or even more specifically Radio USA 1960's Soft Drinks! Because when you think about the appeal of those Sublime Frequencies collections, a lot it has to do with the fact that those are sounds and songs that most people have never been exposed to. Definitely beautiful, but also mysterious and puzzling. But you can imagine a person living in India would wonder what the big deal was, this record of music taped off of their radio? So discounting the USA's depressingly persuasive influence on the whole world, imagine someone residing elsewhere in the world, again not already innundated with American sights and sounds, discovering this collection, and hearing this dense collage of cheesy DJ patter, sweetly melodic morning music, commercials, news breaks, traffic reports, and most importantly an endless series of songs extolling the virtues of our national drink, SODA POP!! We carried a compilation of Coca Cola jingles a few years back, which was just an endless series of alternate versions of the same "Things Go Better With Coke" song, all sung by different stars, in their own inimitable style. It's just amazing how many stars were shilling for the soft drink companies (actually, it's not all that different now is it?) A lot of those tracks are included here as well as tons more. Whol loves coke you ask? How about the Bee Gees, the Moody Blues, the Troggs, Tom Jones, Marvin Gaye, Roy Orbison, the Box Tops, Nancy Sinatra, Vanilla Fudge, the Four Seasons, Jay and the Americans, Petula Clark, the Supremes, Ray Charles, Roy Orbison, Jan and Dean, Lesley Gore, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Tom Jones, the Coasters, the Drifters, the Shirelles and a bunch more, as well as loads of random jingles and songs for lesser know or completely unknown sodas. The best part of these collections though, is that it's not just the song, you get a big ol' chunk of radio on either side of the commercial, whether it be breaking news that Liza Minelli was admitted to rehab, or the Beatles forced to sing a made up on the spot song for some random radio station, or pop songs of the moment (that moment being 1964-1967) or whatever seemingly normal radio station jibber jabber seems to always be going on. Taken out of context though, this stuff is totally alien and not a little bit insane sounding, and is most definitely an amazing sonic and cultural artifact. And thank God that Coke song is a catchy one, 'cause over the course of two volumes (and four cds) you get to hear it about a gazillion times!
MPEG Stream: "Swingin' Soft Drink Spots of the 60s Vol 1"

V/A Top 40 Radio's Swingin' Soft Drink Spots of the 60s Vol 2 (1966-1967) (X-Static) 2cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The best way to describe these Top 40 Swingin' Soft Drink compilations is to imagine them as a part of the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequencies series of radio broadcast collages. We've had Radio Java, Radio Morocco, Radio Palestine, and most recently Radio India. So just imagine these as being Radio USA. Or more specifically, Radio USA 1960's. Or even more specifically Radio USA 1960's Soft Drinks! Because when you think about the appeal of those Sublime Frequencies collections, a lot it has to do with the fact that those are sounds and songs that most people have never been exposed to. Definitely beautiful, but also mysterious and puzzling. But you can imagine a person living in India would wonder what the big deal was, this record of music taped off of their radio? So discounting the USA's depressingly persuasive influence on the whole world, imagine someone residing elsewhere in the world, again not already innundated with American sights and sounds, discovering this collection, and hearing this dense collage of cheesy DJ patter, sweetly melodic morning music, commercials, news breaks, traffic reports, and most importantly an endless series of songs extolling the virtues of our national drink, SODA POP!! We carried a compilation of Coca Cola jingles a few years back, which was just an endless series of alternate versions of the same "Things Go Better With Coke" song, all sung by different stars, in their own inimitable style. It's just amazing how many stars were shilling for the soft drink companies (actually, it's not all that different now is it?) A lot of those tracks are included here as well as tons more. Whol loves coke you ask? How about the Bee Gees, the Moody Blues, the Troggs, Tom Jones, Marvin Gaye, Roy Orbison, the Box Tops, Nancy Sinatra, Vanilla Fudge, the Four Seasons, Jay and the Americans, Petula Clark, the Supremes, Ray Charles, Roy Orbison, Jan and Dean, Lesley Gore, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Tom Jones, the Coasters, the Drifters, the Shirelles and a bunch more, as well as loads of random jingles and songs for lesser know or completely unknown sodas. The best part of these collections though, is that it's not just the song, you get a big ol' chunk of radio on either side of the commercial, whether it be breaking news that Liza Minelli was admitted to rehab, or the Beatles forced to sing a made up on the spot song for some random radio station, or pop songs of the moment (that moment being 1964-1967) or whatever seemingly normal radio station jibber jabber seems to always be going on. Taken out of context though, this stuff is totally alien and not a little bit insane sounding, and is most definitely an amazing sonic and cultural artifact. And thank God that Coke song is a catchy one, 'cause over the course of two volumes (and four cds) you get to hear it about a gazillion times!
MPEG Stream: "Swingin' Soft Drink Spots of the 60s Vol 2"

V/A Topography of Indefinite Impressions (Autopia ) lp 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While presented as a compilation, this is more of a collective in which each of the projects are various combinations of a rotating core of likeminded San Franicisco musicians. In the end, "Topography of Indefinite Impressions" enjoys a lush aesthetic link between the pastoral space-rock of Mirza, Stephen R. Smith, and Thuja with the alchemic dronolgy of id battery, L. Chasse, and Music For Tunnels (which happens to be the experimental / electronica pseudonym for Tim Green of The Champs). Limited to something like 300 copies and well worth it! And note, the obscure title is meant to poke fun at such titles, not to be understood...

V/A Torque (No U Turn Records) 2cd 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
These two discs represent the ultimate in "techstep"! An incredible, dark, hard and unrelenting drum 'n' bass collection from Ed Rush, Trace & Nico.

V/A Toshiba Express (Toshiba) cd 26.00
A great compilation of '70s Japanese psychedelic folk, loungey crooning, organ freakouts, wah wah guitars, and melodramatic pop from a variety of names you've probably never heard of, except perhaps for The Jacks, The Mops, and Cosmos Factory. No? Anyway, this is a collection of singles released by Japan's Toshiba label back when I, at least, was a little kid. Similar in spirit to the equally good "Love Peace And Poetry" comp of Latin American psychedelic music that we were always raving about.

V/A Total 10 (Kompakt) 2cd 17.98
Another killer collection of Kompakt techno, and while we may tend to lean toward the Pop Ambient side of the Kompakt roster, no label has done more to wear down our resistance to techno than the mighty Kompakt, so much so, that we now find ourselves looking forward to these Total comps nearly as much as the Pop Ambient comps.
And once again, Kompakt comes through with, a killer collection of artists, and tracks, expertly sequenced into over two hours of minimal techno bliss.
Just have a look at the names and you'll know what you're in for: Dj Koze, Justus Kohncke, Gui Boratto, Matias Aguayo, The Field, Burger/Voigt, Reinhard Voigt, Jurgen Paape and loads more, and along with the usual tight clipped, late night dancefloor grooves there are plenty of surprises. How about DJ Koze's "40 Love", with a rhythm track built around the sounds of a tennis match, including the crowds disappointed "Awwwww"s when someone misses a shot, birds chirping, squeaking shoes, grunts, all woven into a woozy bit of warm throb and skitter. Then there's Coma's awesomely murky midnight pulse and shimmer, and Jonas Bering's super fuzzed out synth jam that definitely reminds us of Justice or Daft Punk, and Matias Aguayo's sunshiney techno pop jam, that almost sounds like Phoenix or something, the warped and tweaked tropical wooziness of the Pachanga Boys and the circusy soundtrack weirdness of Jurgen Paape's oompah jam "Ofterschwang", and in between, plenty of that classic Kompakt sound that we can never seem to get enough of.
If you've got 1-9, you obviously need 10, and if you've yet to dip your toes into the Kompakt pool, this is as good a place to start as any...
MPEG Stream: JONAS BERING "Who Is Who"
MPEG Stream: DJ KOZE "40 Love"
MPEG Stream: ADA "Lovestoned"
MPEG Stream: SAM TAYLOR-WOOD "I'm In Love With A German Film Star (Gui Boratto Mix)"

V/A Total 11 (Kompakt) 2cd 17.98
Latest in the ongoing series of Kompakt's Total compilations of minimal techno, a series that runs concurrently with their other, more blissed out series under the Pop Ambient banner. And like we seem to always mention in these reviews, we definitely lean toward the pop ambient side of the sonic spectrum, although it seems that the chasm between the two sounds grows ever smaller. Not sure if that's indeed the case, or our tastes have just gradually mutated, but it hardly matters, we now find ourselves just as excited for a new Total collection as a new Pop Ambient one. And this one especially is totally hitting the spot, maybe the weirdest of the bunch so far. Right off the bat, DJ Koze, offers up a twisted bit of electronic cabaret, with some clipped synth warble, and what sounds like muttered vocal garbling of some Tom Waits / Louis Armstrong hybrid, gurgles and grumbles, before a pulsing modulated bass pulse comes in, then some crooning, can't imagine that this would go over well on the dancefloor, but it's pretty wacked out and weird and wonderful. And while the rest of the music here is maybe not SO far out, it is all pretty wonderfully weird, especially by techno standards. New music from The Field (a whirling swirl of kosmische synths and warbly low end buzz, hazy and dreamy and krautrocky), Wolfgang Voigt (a super minimal clipped beatscape, all murky and mysterious, but laced with some strange hazy jazziness), Matias Aguayo (a fantastically festive looped party jam, anchored to a solid 4 on the floor, but wrapped in creepy haunted house synths and funky basslines), Superpitcher (an awesomely "I'm Too Sexy" chunk of techno pop), Justus Kohncke (total eighties style electro pop) and on and on. Other new jams from recent aQ faves Walls, Jurgen Paape, Jorg Burger, Thomas Fehlmann, Michael Mayer, Gui Boratto, Jonas Bering and more more more. So great, and yeah, recommended even for those of you, like us, who claim to not be so into techno or electronic music. This is exactly the sort of record that will change your mind.
MPEG Stream: THE FIELD "Caroline"
MPEG Stream: WOLFGANG VOIGT "Robert Schumann / Clara Wieck"
MPEG Stream: DJ KOZE "Der Wallach"
MPEG Stream: JURGEN PAAPE "Mensch Und Maschine"

V/A Total 11 (Kompakt) 3lp 24.00
Latest in the ongoing series of Kompakt's Total compilations of minimal techno, a series that runs concurrently with their other, more blissed out series under the Pop Ambient banner. And like we seem to always mention in these reviews, we definitely lean toward the pop ambient side of the sonic spectrum, although it seems that the chasm between the two sounds grows ever smaller. Not sure if that's indeed the case, or our tastes have just gradually mutated, but it hardly matters, we now find ourselves just as excited for a new Total collection as a new Pop Ambient one. And this one especially is totally hitting the spot, maybe the weirdest of the bunch so far. Right off the bat, DJ Koze, offers up a twisted bit of electronic cabaret, with some clipped synth warble, and what sounds like muttered vocal garbling of some Tom Waits / Louis Armstrong hybrid, gurgles and grumbles, before a pulsing modulated bass pulse comes in, then some crooning, can't imagine that this would go over well on the dancefloor, but it's pretty wacked out and weird and wonderful. And while the rest of the music here is maybe not SO far out, it is all pretty wonderfully weird, especially by techno standards. New music from The Field (a whirling swirl of kosmische synths and warbly low end buzz, hazy and dreamy and krautrocky), Wolfgang Voigt (a super minimal clipped beatscape, all murky and mysterious, but laced with some strange hazy jazziness), Matias Aguayo (a fantastically festive looped party jam, anchored to a solid 4 on the floor, but wrapped in creepy haunted house synths and funky basslines), Superpitcher (an awesomely "I'm Too Sexy" chunk of techno pop), Justus Kohncke (total eighties style electro pop) and on and on. Other new jams from recent aQ faves Walls, Jurgen Paape, Jorg Burger, Thomas Fehlmann, Michael Mayer, Gui Boratto, Jonas Bering and more more more. So great, and yeah, recommended even for those of you, like us, who claim to not be so into techno or electronic music. This is exactly the sort of record that will change your mind.
MPEG Stream: THE FIELD "Caroline"
MPEG Stream: WOLFGANG VOIGT "Robert Schumann / Clara Wieck"
MPEG Stream: DJ KOZE "Der Wallach"
MPEG Stream: JURGAN PAAPE "Mensch Und Maschine"

V/A Total 12 (Kompakt) cd 16.98
With compilations, no matter how much we dig 'em, and no matter how great all the tracks are, there's always one that we get totally obsessed with, and end up playing over and over and over. And this latest Total compilation, #12, as it's almost 2012, from Kompakt is no different. We were already big fans of Gui Boratto, but holy shit, his track here, "The Drill" has to be the best thing we've heard from him. A heavy bassy low slung groove, all fuzzy and distorted, with a weird woozy synth melody and some cool handclap snares, the drums wreathed in effects, a little bit of backwards whhhhoooo, and then suddenly the bass gets even more distorted sounding crumbling and fuzzy and almost metallic, and then it does it AGAIN, getting more weirdly effected and distorted, only to slip right back into the more muted groove, and so it goes, that super catchy bassline synthgroove, constantly changing tone and timbre, the sound following suit, slipping from groovy and slithery, to super blown out and crackly, distorted and in-in-the-red, and right back to that moody sorts of housey skitter. Someone needs to make us an hour long mix of just this song, cuz we'd set out cd player on repeat and listen to nothing else. So good.
The rest of the comp is great too, but nothing nearly so dark and distorted and radical. A lot of the usual names are here, Superpitcher, Michael Mayer, Wolfgang Voigt, Matias Aguayo, Gus Gus, as well as a few new-to-us groups/artists: Kolombo, WhoMadeWho, Coma, Mohn, etc. Kolombo starts things off with another dark brooder, that starts out all pulsing minimal dark house, wreathed in swirls of soft buzz, before blossoming into a weird bit of washed out soul, only to slip right back into minimal skitter, the "choruses" sounding more like M83 than something on Kompakt, and from there on out, Kompakt Total 12 unfurls as an ever shifting collection of modern electronica, from pulsing minimal house, to blissed out Pop Ambient skitter, and abstract electro to looped fuzzy field recording flecked dubby drift. As always, super great, and worth it for the Boratto track alone!
MPEG Stream: GUI BORATTO "The Drill"
MPEG Stream: COMA "Playground Altona"
MPEG Stream: MOHN "Tiefental"
MPEG Stream: SUPERPITCHER "White Lightning"

V/A Total 12 (Abridged Vinyl Version) (Kompakt) 2lp 23.00
Weirdly enough, the lp version of this latest Total comp from the always awesome Kompakt label, contains only SOME of the songs that are on the cd. Leaving off all the tracks which were released recently as 12"s it seems, which also means leaving off what might be our favorite track, but that track, Gui Boratto's "The Drill" IS available on a 12" that we have in stock, so if you want that, just ask, and then you can enjoy the rest of this amazing comp without missing out on THAT TRACK. If you want to read about THAT TRACK, check the cd review, but in terms of the rest of Total 12, a lot of the usual names are here, Superpitcher, Michael Mayer, Wolfgang Voigt, Matias Aguayo, Gus Gus, as well as a few new-to-us groups/artists: Kolombo, WhoMadeWho, Coma, Mohn, etc. Kolombo starts things off with another dark brooder, that starts out all pulsing minimal dark house, wreathed in swirls of soft buzz, before blossoming into a weird bit of washed out soul, only to slip right back into minimal skitter, the "choruses" sounding more like M83 than something on Kompakt, and from there on out, Kompakt Total 12 unfurls as an ever shifting collection of modern electronica, from pulsing minimal house, to blissed out Pop Ambient skitter, and abstract electro to looped fuzzy field recording flecked dubby drift. As always, super great.
MPEG Stream: GUI BORATTO "The Drill"
MPEG Stream: COMA "Playground Altona"
MPEG Stream: MOHN "Tiefental"
MPEG Stream: SUPERPITCHER "White Lightning"

V/A Total 7 (Kompakt) 2cd 17.98
Kompakt is quite possibly our favorite techno label (who just so also happen to be responsible for the absolutely divine Pop Ambient series) and this is volume 7 in their sort-of-annual best singles of the past year collection, and as always it's pretty awesome. You probably already know if Kompakt's particular brand of minimal house and lush but skeletal techno hits the spot for you. if not, take into consideration, that most of the folks here are not all that into house or techno at all, but somehow, Kompakt stuff seem to always hit the spot. Not quite as murky and divine as Chain Reaction's heroin house, but still definitely more abstract and far out than most techno we hear. There are of course a few tracks of more straight ahead house music, and some breezy dreamy club anthems, but for the most part, this is some cool, tripped out, laid back Kompakt style techno, house, and space disco! Two disc featuring tracks from Triola, Justus Kohncke, The Modernist, DJ Koze, Mikkel Metal, Superpitcher, SCSI-9, Jurgan Pappe, Robert Babicz, Reinhard Voigt, Jonas Behring, Thomas Fehlmann and a bunch more.
MPEG Stream: DJ KOZE "Getreide-Phunk"
MPEG Stream: SUPERPITCHER "Tonite"
MPEG Stream: GUI BORATTO "Arquipelago"

V/A Total 7 (Kompakt) 3lp 21.00
Kompakt is quite possibly our favorite techno label (who just so also happen to be responsible for the absolutely divine Pop Ambient series) and this is volume 7 in their sort-of-annual best singles of the past year collection, and as always it's pretty awesome. You probably already know if Kompakt's particular brand of minimal house and lush but skeletal techno hits the spot for you. if not, take into consideration, that most of the folks here are not all that into house or techno at all, but somehow, Kompakt stuff seem to always hit the spot. Not quite as murky and divine as Chain Reaction's heroin house, but still definitely more abstract and far out than most techno we hear. There are of course a few tracks of more straight ahead house music, and some breezy dreamy club anthems, but for the most part, this is some cool, tripped out, laid back Kompakt style techno, house, and space disco! Two disc featuring tracks from Triola, Justus Kohncke, The Modernist, DJ Koze, Mikkel Metal, Superpitcher, SCSI-9, Jurgan Pappe, Robert Babicz, Reinhard Voigt, Jonas Behring, Thomas Fehlmann and a bunch more.
MPEG Stream: DJ KOZE "Getreide-Phunk"
MPEG Stream: SUPERPITCHER "Tonite"
MPEG Stream: GUI BORATTO "Arquipelago"

V/A Total 8 (Kompakt) 2cd 17.98
Here we have the eighth installment of the Kompakt compilation series. And it completely kicks ass. As we've mentioned before, and received a bunch of flak for it, a bunch of us don't really dig straight up techno that much. Leaning toward the murky pulse of Chain Reaction, or the shoe gaze-y bliss of Kompakt's Pop Ambient side. But damn, if there was ever a label, or a collection of artists, or just a SOUND, that might change our minds, it would be Kompakt. Even the most technophobic among us, find ourselves loving pretty much everything these guys have released. The Total series, now on number 8, is consistently killer, offering up tracks that cover Kompakt's expansive sonic universe, from pounding club bangers, classic dancefloor destroyers, murky minimal pulses, strangely straight ahead techno pop, and everything in between, all sharing a special something, a vibe that runs through everything Kompakt. More warm and emotional that it is clinical and robotic, but still so mysteriously groovy and futuristic. Every time this plays in the store, folks are constantly coming out from the back to see what's playing.
Total 8 might just be the best yet, certainly the most varied, with not a stinker in the bunch, which is saying a lot for a double cd compilation. From the cool space age skitter of Superpitcher's "Rainy Nights In Georgia" to the Nightcats' Justice via Fischerspooner, bass heavy, fuzz drenched throb, to the dreamy Euro pop of Rex The Dog, to the alien Kraftwerk worship of Steadycam and that's just to name a few. Anyone who loved the recent record by The Field as much as we did, will go nuts for this stuff, two discs packed with so many new (and not so new) bands to check out and records to track down.
This is the kind of music that makes us want to do a ton of drugs, rent a motorcycle in Berlin, jam down the Autobahn at 200 miles per hour, blasting this shit at 10, all the way to the airport where we will board a private plane, filled with foam and Gui Boratto on the decks, more drugs, and slow strobes everywhere, headed to Ibiza, where we will continue to jam this shit, and not sleep for 5 days. Or maybe forever. WAY recomended.
MPEG Stream: REX THE DOG "Every Day"
MPEG Stream: THOMAS/MAYER "Uber Wiesen"
MPEG Stream: STEADYCAM "In The Moog For Love"

V/A Total 9 (Kompakt) 2cd 17.98
We've been seeing a bunch or reviews, harshing on this, the latest in Kompakt's ongoing Total series, number 9, complaining that it's more of the same old, but hell, we love the same old Kompakt, it's the one modern techno label that has managed to sway the techno naysayers around here, and to our ears, this Total sounds just as good as any of the others. The Kompakt sound is so immediately recognizable yet on Total 9, the sounds are all over the place, it's the usual suspects, sure: Justus Kohncke, DJ Koze, Superpitcher, Thomas Fehlman, Jurgen Paape, Gui Boratto, Kaito, and a bunch more, but a few new names tossed in here and there. And the sound is glorious, less minimal than some past installments, and much more effusive, sun dappled, feel good... this could sound so good to us cuz some of the pop ambient vibe of Kompakt's other long running series might be seeping into these Total comps, but whatever, this stuff is fantastic, muted minimal beats, warm synths everywhere, bubbly loops, all woven and blurred and smeared into woozy beatscapes. Kaito's "Everlasting Dub" is one of our new favorite tracks, a gorgeous blend of Pop Ambience, modern dub, and minimal techno, SCSI-9's track is like dubstep gone Kompakt, the Gui Boratto is some awesome eighties style soundtrack techno, Superpitcher chops up some lady vocals and makes a loop that sounds like a calliope, over a soft skittery beat, Burger / Voigt do a sort of Kompakt post rock, all strummed acoustic guitars and swirling ambience, over a loping simple beat, DJ Koze employs some serious stereo panning to send your headphones spinning, we could go through track by track, but you probably already know you need this. Kompakt fans, Pop Ambient heads not averse to some beats, you'll want this for sure, and for folks thinking about getting into techno, or at least curious about modern minimal techno, this would most definitely be a great place to start.
MPEG Stream: JUSTUS KOHNCKE "No Thanks For The Add"
MPEG Stream: DJ KOZE "Zouzou"
MPEG Stream: SUPERPITCHER "Disko (You Don't Care)"
MPEG Stream: BURGER / VOIGT "Wand Aus Klang"

V/A Total 9 (Kompakt) 3lp 24.00
We've been seeing a bunch or reviews, harshing on this, the latest in Kompakt's ongoing Total series, number 9, complaining that it's more of the same old, but hell, we love the same old Kompakt, it's the one modern techno label that has managed to sway the techno naysayers around here, and to our ears, this Total sounds just as good as any of the others. The Kompakt sound is so immediately recognizable yet on Total 9, the sounds are all over the place, it's the usual suspects, sure: Justus Kohncke, DJ Koze, Superpitcher, Thomas Fehlman, Jurgen Paape, Gui Boratto, Kaito, and a bunch more, but a few new names tossed in here and there. And the sound is glorious, less minimal than some past installments, and much more effusive, sun dappled, feel good... this could sound so good to us cuz some of the pop ambient vibe of Kompakt's other long running series might be seeping into these Total comps, but whatever, this stuff is fantastic, muted minimal beats, warm synths everywhere, bubbly loops, all woven and blurred and smeared into woozy beatscapes. Kaito's "Everlasting Dub" is one of our new favorite tracks, a gorgeous blend of Pop Ambience, modern dub, and minimal techno, SCSI-9's track is like dubstep gone Kompakt, the Gui Boratto is some awesome eighties style soundtrack techno, Superpitcher chops up some lady vocals and makes a loop that sounds like a calliope, over a soft skittery beat, Burger / Voigt do a sort of Kompakt post rock, all strummed acoustic guitars and swirling ambience, over a loping simple beat, DJ Koze employs some serious stereo panning to send your headphones spinning, we could go through track by track, but you probably already know you need this. Kompakt fans, Pop Ambient heads not averse to some beats, you'll want this for sure, and for folks thinking about getting into techno, or at least curious about modern minimal techno, this would most definitely be a great place to start.
MPEG Stream: JUSTUS KOHNCKE "No Thanks For The Add"
MPEG Stream: DJ KOZE "Zouzou"
MPEG Stream: SUPERPITCHER "Disko (You Don't Care)"
MPEG Stream: BURGER / VOIGT "Wand Aus Klang"

V/A Total Freakout Vol. 3 (Mucho Gusto) cd 15.98
This great comp disappeared quickly right after we first listed it back in December, but now at last it's been repressed and is back in stock again!
How can you argue with a comp of totally obscure, French and Belgian and French Canadian, late sixties / early seventies psychedelic rock? Especially when you most likely haven't heard of a single one of these artists, and the cover features people in bear suits IN space suits hanging out on the moon and the disc art features a band dressed up like psychedelic Indians and the songs are so completely whacked and weird? Well, you can't. Nor should you. Why deny yourself the drugged out damaged beauty contained herein? Eighteen tracks of completely out-there psych rock, rife with all sort of wild and wooly outerspace effects, funky horns, fuzzy lead guitars, hooks galore and sung mostly in French!
The opening track by P.B. + 3 1/2 is a funky soft porn soundtrack (well, sounds like it, the liner notes assure us it is not even though the artist did indeed to porn sountracks) slowly loping bassline and the melody played by a kazoo. Yep, a kazoo. Complete with summery feel-good background vocals and bizarre Perrey And Kingsley sound effects. Apparently P.B moved to L.A. and recorded music for Star Trek: The Next Generation! Track two is just as wacked with a total head nodding groove, the main riff played on a violin and booming Morricone choral style men's choir background vocals, swirling cinematic strings and a wailing Scott Walker-ish vocal, super dramatic and WAY over the top. The third track is a fuzzy, psychedelic girl-group-groove from Sixties French pop idol Stella, a totally guitar heavy workout, with a super Hendrixy 'scuse me.. type riff, kick ass horns and her throaty, over affected vocals, but totally catchy and wonderful. And the whole record continues in the same fashion, Just when you think it couldn't get weirder or cooler, it does. Big time! Partridge Family style Sixties summer pop, dipped in acid and left to fry in the sun, keyboard heavy ? And The Mysterians style repeating grooves dissembled and put together again like some psych rock Frankenstein and on and on and on...We get flooded with comps of 'lost classics', but this one definitely holds up as one of our favorites (and definitely one of the most bizarre). All the tracks were collected by some guy named Satan Belanger, a legendary underground musician and record collector in Quebec. Really funny liner notes too, in both French and English, though we could have used even more info. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: P.B + 3 1/2 "Gazou, Gazou"
MPEG Stream: CHRIS GALLBERT "Sing-Sing"
MPEG Stream: STELLA "L'idole Des Jaunes"

V/A Total Freakout Vol. 33 (Mucho Gusto) lp 21.00
The first Total Freakout comp from years ago (which was in fact purportedly the third, although we've never been able to find the first two, if they even exist) has become an all time AQ favorite. An amazing collection of totally obscure French, Belgian, and French Canadian late sixties/early seventies psychedelia. So many cuts from that record have been mainstays on every mix we've made and DJ sets we've played. It's where we first heard what has become an all-time favorite song of ours, "Ani Kuni" by Madeleine Chartrand.
We've been waiting for a long time to see if there would ever be a follow up to that classic comp and now finally there is! But before we go on and gush about how great it is, we should warn you that they only pressed 500 of these and it won't be coming out on cd or any digital format. So it's probably best just to get this asap, because who knows, by the time you finish reading this it could already be out of print!
We had great faith that the same folks who brought us that first collection wouldn't put out another one unless it could pack the same thrilling punch, and we have definitely been proven right. This time out we get fourteen tracks spanning 1967-1973 filled with one mind blowing slice of French/French-Canadian psych after another. Besides another track by Madeleine Chartrand, it's a completely different roster then the first collection which means we now have thirteen artists we never knew about before who are totally blowing our minds.
The music is a lot grittier, spacier, and more damaged then the ye-ye side of French pop, but it still maintains such amazing melodies and songs that totally intoxicate. One of our favorite collections of the year!

V/A Total Lee!: The Songs Of Lee Hazlewood (Astralwerks / City Slang) cd 21.00
Ah, tribute albums -- an inherently questionable genre. Here we have a tribute to the inimitable Lee Hazlewood, as interpreted by a British press fave (past and present) selection of artists: Tindersticks, Jarvis Cocker, Erland Oye (of Kings of Convenience), St Etienne, Calexico and Lambchop bringing the Americana to the party, Kid Loco, Calvin Johnson, also Stephen Jones and Luke Scott of Babybird (this is Windy's favorite track and now she has to go hunt down some Babybird records), and Evan Dando (UK music press motto: once relevant, always relevant) among others. Absent, of course, are all the covers of Lee Hazlewood songs that have been recorded over the years by artists motivated not by a label putting together a comp but by their love of the songs -- Roland S. Howard and Lydia Lunch's lovely version of "Some Velvet Morning" comes to mind. The best tracks come from artists who are great on their own, and whose sound allows for a seamless translation of Hazlewood's unique take on drifter pop: the Tindersticks doing "My Autumn's Done Come," Calexico with Valerie Leulliiot's "Sundown, Sundown." At worst, the groups' attempts at Hazlewood classics serve as a reminder that you could be spending your time listening to "Cowboy in Sweden" or "Nancy & Lee" instead of, say, sitting through Evan Dando's brilliant idea to put a phaser on his weak ass voice in what I guess is some kind of attempt to live up to Hazlewood's trademark whiskey soaked baritone for "Summer Wine." The most interesting part of this collection comes from the liner notes -- they are comments on what the man himself has to say while listening to these covers. A few times he questions the choice of songs: "it's just the intro to an album.. It's another unfinished song...They chose all the moody things, didn't they?" About the Tindersticks: "Is English his first language?" Overall, he seems pretty pleased with the results and intrigued by what the bands chose to do with the songs: "They all put something interesting into these songs, which I like," even if sometimes he is just being polite: "Yeah, allright, it's interesting. That trumpet sound makes it... interesting," and several times he comments that specific tracks are superior to his own recordings. And well, who's opinion is most important here, anyway? Added bonus: the booklet contains choice photos of Hazlewood flanked by faux mustache sporting children.
RealAudio clip: STEPHEN JONES & LUKE SCOTT "we all make the little flowers grow"
RealAudio clip: WEBB BROTHERS "some velvet morning"

V/A Touch 25 (Touch) cd 15.98
Touch began in 1982 with the publication of Feature Mist, a cassette magazine which featured some very early New Order tracks, snippets from Shostakovich, a poem or two, and a couple of other obscure musical interludes. Over the next 25 years, Touch has developed into what every independent record label should be, an organization dedicated to their own agendas, ideologies, and aesthetics. During that time, Touch has been responsible for releasing records by some of the most influential electronic musicians and sound artists from the past few decades: Chris Watson, Christian Fennesz, Mika Vainio, BJ Nilsen, Biosphere, Ryoji Ikeda, and Philip Jeck. It must also be noted that the history of Touch is also inexorably linked to that of The Hafler Trio, although the two entities terminated their relationship with a particularly chilly separation. Needless to say, Jon Wozencroft and Mike Harding (the current proprietors of Touch) have always been fond of the compilation as a means of constructing a broader narrative about the current state of the label's aesthetics and philosophies. Touch 25 is the celebratory compilation, toasting Touch's silver anniversary, featuring 25 tracks from their current roster of artists with interludes of various field recordings. BJ Nilsen opens the compilation with a majestic field recordings of the Baltic Sea on a cold winter's night. This is followed by Oren Ambarchi's tense interplay between grizzled cable buzz and softly rounded guitar tones. Christian Fennezs pulls another gem of summer-has-gone abstraction from his whipsy guitar strum and DSP effects. Pan Sonic offers a rare bit of cacophony in this mostly sedate compilation with a crack of static and drum machine acceleration. We could prattle on, but it should be obvious that Touch again has produced another quality compilation. Wozencroft himself described Touch 25 thusly: "What seems to have taken place, is a sequence of 25 tracks (in itself an accident of numbers) that each in their own space are quite obscure and 'of a refined sense of taste,' but together, build a very emotional journey through the emotional conditions brought on by the lack of emotion in everyday life, and its replacement by extremities."
MPEG Stream: FENNESZ "Tree"
MPEG Stream: PAN SONIC "Slovakian Rauta"
MPEG Stream: PHILIP JECK "Hindquarters"

V/A Touch Sampler 00 (Touch) cd 15.98
Compilations are not usually things that warrant strong recommendations. The constant colon-blow of "United States of Trance, Ambient, Jungle, Techno, Techhouse, House, Deep House, Speed Garage, Divas, and / or Gabba" compilations from the electronica marketing majors make anybody with a critical ear a little uncertain when picking up that next item from the compilation section.
However, Touch Records has now released 4 "Touch Samplers," all of them defying the usual ineptitude found on market glut of compilations.
"Touch 00" - the fourth in this series from Touch - is a curatorial masterpiece that was fashioned entirely from exclusive tracks. If you're not familiar with but curious to learn about the mimialist electronica subgenres included here, this comp is a wonderfully accessible place to start. Bookended with the subatomic particle warbles from Ryoji Ikeda and Mika Vainio, the undisclosed narrative of the compilation hits a number of crucial signposts with Thomas Brinkmann's downer monophunk grooves, Locust's halcyon electronica, Hazard's dronological investigations into the Swedish forests, Philip Jeck's beautiful collages of vinyl antiquity, and the whimsy of People Like Us / The Jet Black Hair People / Wobbly. Field recordings of scanned celphone calls, air traffic control announcements, and passages from Chris Watson's worldly adventures break up the musical proceedings, but forge emotive connections throughout the whole album.

V/A TOUCH: Islands In Between (Touch) lp 15.98
The first in a new series of vinyl only releases from Touch, this is an amazing document of Javanese and Balinese sounds, originally released as a cassette in 1983. A seamless collage of sounds edited into a dizzying sonic travelogue by Touch head honcho Jon Wozencroft, along with BJ Nilsen of Hazard, this collection is essential for fans of Sublime Frequencies and Mississippi Records. Heavy on the gamelan, obviously, the record flits from clanging metallic percussion, to buzzing burbling jaw harp, from super intense vocals, featuring some deeply moving, almost liturgical sounding call and response, in the background of many of these recordings, you can hear children laughing and playing, bustling markets, cars driving by, shouting and various voices, the music in the foreground is wild and chaotic one second, dark and contemplative the next, slowly bleating horns, unfurl a playful melody, before the sound eventually slips into something more modern, still gamelan driven, but in the form of some wistful Indonesian balladry, before finally finishing off in a blaze of super distorted almost free jazz sounding near psychedelic gamelan freakout, the sounds super saturated, and buzzing and crumbling around the lilting melodies, and hypnotic rhythms. Fantastic!
Housed in an orange-stickered plain white sleeve, and most likely fairly limited.

V/A Toywar (Etoy) cd 12.98
Comp of weird electronic/experimental stuff with Wobbly, People Like Us, the Jet Black Hair People, Monopause, etc... interestingly, released by the Etoy art-group folks who infamously got into a big hooha with the corporate internet bozos at eToys.com last year.

V/A Tracks & Fields (Kill Rock Stars) 2cd 15.98
Y'know you can count on the folks at Kill Rock Stars to offer up one or two jumbo action-packed compilations each year, and they've hit the ground running in 2004 (pun intended)! Tracks & Fields is the second installment in the label's compilation trilogy -- the first was 2002's Fields And Streams, the third will be Roads And Tracks due out in a couple more years. This double cd set features a whoppin' 41 fresh, previously unreleased songs from the old and the new, the well known and the lesser known, from many walks of life. The participants are (in running order - ha ha!): The Legend, Antietam, His Name Is Alive, Superchunk, Bro. Danielson, Dos, Gas Huffer, John Wilkes Booze, the Capricorns, Cynthia Dall, Lovers, Xiu Xiu, Gravy Train!!!! (their exclamation points, not ours), The Buff Medways, The Charades, The Wiretaps, Brooke, Young People, Jucifer, Total Sound Group Direct Action Committee, The King Cobra, Semiautomatic, Alaska! (again, their punctuation, not ours), Shoplifting, Biography Of Ferns, Radio Berlin, Measles Mumps Rubella, Slumber Party, Sleetmute Nightmute, Need New Body, Male Slut, The Paper Chase, Devendra Banhart, Laura Veirs, Thanksgiving, Nedelle, Sahara Hotnights, Sweet Heat, C Average, Dead Meadow, and The Decemberists. Whew!
MPEG Stream: BANHART, DEVENDRA "Poughkeepsi"
MPEG Stream: DECEMBERISTS "Everything I Try To Do, Nothing Seems To Turn Out Right"

V/A Tradi-Mods Vs. Rockers (Crammed Discs) 2cd 16.98
Not sure why we had reservations about this to begin with, maybe we love the sound of Konono and Congotronics so much and hold it to an almost holy height that we were afraid of its bastardization. Luckily those fears couldn't have been more unfounded, as all the artists on this compilation, hand picked by Crammed Discs to do interpretations of various Congotronics bands like Konono No. 1 and Kasai Allstars, all do such a magnificent job of respecting the roots of the tracks they create, totally capturing the spirit of the originals while adding their own distinct flavor and vision. The track listing reads like a who's who of awesome indie music of the last several years: Animal Collective, Deerhoof, Juana Molina, Tussle, Glen Kotche, Sylvain Chauveau, Jolie Holland, Oneida, Shackleton, the Boredoms' Eye, etc.
Crammed did a really great job of curating this collection as the whole thing really flows perfectly from start to finish. Bringing you into the hypnotizing world of Congotronics through the eyes and ears of artists who have been deeply influenced by their incredible sounds.
MPEG Stream: DEERHOOF VS KASAI ALLSTARS "Travels Broaden The Mind"
MPEG Stream: EYE VS KONONO NĦ1 "Konono Wa Wa Wa (Rework)"
MPEG Stream: TUSSLE VS KONONO NĦ1 "Soft Crush"
MPEG Stream: OPTIMO VS KONONO NĦ1 "Wumbanzanga (Rework)"

V/A Trainspotting (Capitol) cd 16.98
Soundtrack to the film. Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, Blur, New Order, Lou Reed, Pulp, Elastica etc. All the hotties!

V/A Translation Music (Don Lee Records) cd 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Cool compilation of local (and not so local) post rock / punk rock bands: Caesura. Fort Erie, Roots of Orchis and a bunch more. Packaged in a cool hand stamped sleeve.

V/A Transmission One: Tea At The Palaz of Hoon (Cosmodemonic Telegraph) 2cd box 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In this nice black box, with thick booklet and sticker, you'll also find a folder containing two cds. The cds feature Cerberus Shoal, 33.3, Moe Tucker, Retsin, Bright Eyes, Mary Lou Lord, Harvey Sid Fisher, Two Dollar Guitar, Bevis Frond, Hakim Bey, and many more. All of whom performed at the performance space called T>A>Z (aka Temporary>Autonomous>Zone) in New London, Connecticut. Inspired by Hakim Bey's book of the same name, T>A>Z is a venue dedicated to the ideas (ideals?) of Chaos.

V/A Transmissions From Sinai (Arthur) cd 13.98

V/A Trap Door (Dis-Joint) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest in the recent spate of killer international funk / soul / psych reissue collections. The trick here being that these tracks are SO obscure (and so densely mixed together), that the folks at Dis-Joint are counting on most folks not knowing ANY of these. SO much so that there is no track listing on the disc at all, and they are having a contest on their website, the first one who can name all the tracks will get a nice cash prize!!! We've got to admit it, we're stumped for the most part (although we did recognize part of one track, it's San Ul Lim from Korea!). But that doesn't mean we aren't loving all this fun and funky and bizarre music. A chaotic blend of sixties and seventies psych rock, funky soul, soulful psych, and funky rock from all over the world, Turkey, Korea, Italy, Israel, China, Spain and loads more. Any one who has been loving the Love Peace & Poetry comps, the Steam Kodok collection, the In-Kraut compilation or, especially, any of the Andy Votel mixes definitely NEED this. From groovy laid back porno movie / action adventure funk, with lots of bolero guitars, and sound effects, like a Morricone Western mixed with some Euro sleaze flick soundtrack, to fluttering folk with super distorted psych rock guitar and everything in between, with plenty of borrowed hooks from popular songs, fuzzy organs, lots of James Brown style yelping and whooping, squiggly little guitar licks, funky drumming, carnivalesque analog synthesizers, tons of breaks hip hop headz would kill for, a bunch of bizarre movie snippets pertaining to hippies, wiggly wavy spaced out ambient warble, jazzy horns, skronky and otherwise, wheezing harmonicas, tablas and sitars, wild Santana-like leads, cocktail pianos and tons and tons of very strange sound effects. A wickedly wild, mind blowing, head spinning party record if there ever was one!
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

V/A Trap Door (Dis-Joint) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest in the recent spate of killer international funk / soul / psych reissue collections. The trick here being that these tracks are SO obscure (and so densely mixed together), that the folks at Dis-Joint are counting on most folks not knowing ANY of these. SO much so that there is no track listing on the disc at all, and they are having a contest on their website, the first one who can name all the tracks will get a nice cash prize!!! We've got to admit it, we're stumped for the most part (although we did recognize part of one track, it's San Ul Lim from Korea!). But that doesn't mean we aren't loving all this fun and funky and bizarre music. A chaotic blend of sixties and seventies psych rock, funky soul, soulful psych, and funky rock from all over the world, Turkey, Korea, Italy, Israel, China, Spain and loads more. Any one who has been loving the Love Peace & Poetry comps, the Steam Kodok collection, the In-Kraut compilation or, especially, any of the Andy Votel mixes definitely NEED this. From groovy laid back porno movie / action adventure funk, with lots of bolero guitars, and sound effects, like a Morricone Western mixed with some Euro sleaze flick soundtrack, to fluttering folk with super distorted psych rock guitar and everything in between, with plenty of borrowed hooks from popular songs, fuzzy organs, lots of James Brown style yelping and whooping, squiggly little guitar licks, funky drumming, carnivalesque analog synthesizers, tons of breaks hip hop headz would kill for, a bunch of bizarre movie snippets pertaining to hippies, wiggly wavy spaced out ambient warble, jazzy horns, skronky and otherwise, wheezing harmonicas, tablas and sitars, wild Santana-like leads, cocktail pianos and tons and tons of very strange sound effects. A wickedly wild, mind blowing, head spinning party record if there ever was one!
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

V/A Trash Companion #01 (End Recordings & Palare) cd 16.98
This may seem to be a very confusing compilation if you haven't been privy to its theme/intent. For those unfamiliar, Trash is an infamous London nightclub and this cd documents the hip, eclectic acts who've performed there. The first six tracks, tagged "Part One - Live At Trash", are indeed live cuts by Gold Chains, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Peaches, Moldy Peaches, Peaches and Stereo Total. The second six are titled "Part Two - Club Classics" - and they certainly are. This diverse gathering includes Duran Duran (an early one! "My Own Way"), Kylie Minogue, Nancy Sinatra, Felix Da Housecat, The Slits (doing "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"!) and Huggy Bear. If the club Trash holds little significance for you, this may just seem like a glorified, home mix tape. For hipsters in the know, you probably already own all of these records.
RealAudio clip: PEACHES "Rockshow"
RealAudio clip: SLITS "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"

V/A Trash Companion #01 (End Recordings Ltd. ) 2lp 19.98
This may seem to be a very confusing compilation if you haven't been privy to its theme/intent. For those unfamiliar, Trash is an infamous London nightclub and this cd documents the hip, eclectic acts who've performed there. The first six tracks, tagged "Part One - Live At Trash", are indeed live cuts by Gold Chains, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Peaches, Moldy Peaches, Peaches and Stereo Total. The second six are titled "Part Two - Club Classics" - and they certainly are. This diverse gathering includes Duran Duran (an early one! "My Own Way"), Kylie Minogue, Nancy Sinatra, Felix Da Housecat, The Slits (doing "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"!) and Huggy Bear. If the club Trash holds little significance for you, this may just seem like a glorified, home mix tape. For hipsters in the know, you probably already own all of these records.

V/A Traveling Through The Jungle: Negro Fife And Drum Band Music From The Deep South (Sutro Park) lp 16.98
The always awesome Sutro Park label strikes again with another impeccable reissue, this one focusing on a type of music that, sadly, too often slips through the cracks of history when discussing blues or early modern styles. Not because it isn't awesome - oh, it is - but because the stuff on this platter resists easy categorization. As indicated by the title, the focus here is on "Negro Fife And Drum Music From The Deep South". This unique hybrid style brought together African polyrhythms and syncopation with fife and drum routines from the American and British militaries, resulting in a sound that wasn't quite modern OR antiquated. Rather, it was both... or maybe neither. The liner notes bring up the fact that most of the songs "conform roughly to the 'Bo Diddley' beat", which is apt for music that seems both primal and ready to stomp through the twentieth century. One thing is certain, the heavy rhythms presented here can be seen as a spiritual and literal precursor not only to blues and eventually rock n roll, but also jazz, disco, and hip hop just to name a few. And we certainly couldn't neglect to mention the priceless reaction of one customer who came in and wondered if we were listening to Einsturzende Neubauten! Which, actually does make sense if you were just wandering into a record store with incessant militaristic marching rhythms blasting out of the speakers.
The fifes (and some Sonny Terry-styled vocal whoops) are generally the only accompaniment to the rhythms, adding a vocal quality that carries the majority of the melodies, though the drumming itself is also strangely melodic and enveloping. Some of the earliest songs here were recorded in 1942 while the majority are from 1970, and it's interesting to note a strict adherence to the form with very little, maybe even nothing changing in those years. A few of the names here are familiar to us - Otha Turner, R.L. Boyce, and the legendary Sid Hemphill - and the recording sessions took place locally in Mississippi and Georgia, though some of the musicians made their home in Tennessee, making this a uniquely regional phenomenon. The music represents a distinct fusion of African and African-American cultures, with the emphasis obviously on rhythm, even when handling traditional folk songs. As many of the musicians were old enough to remember life in the late 1800s, they were basically the lone adherents of what might have been perceived as a lost or dying art which had never been recorded commercially, having been performed mostly at picnics, dances, and parties. The notes make mention of how the younger drummers preferred playing instrumental pieces as they allowed for greater improvisation than the older minstrel pieces with their fairly rigid patterns, which in a way sounds like the beginnings of modern music as we know it, where tradition and style are used as a springboard to something else entirely. The results are not only interesting from a historical standpoint, but also a pleasure to listen to and an excellent tutorial on the progression of rhythmic music in the twentieth century.

V/A Traveling With My Portable Electric Phonograph : Vol. 1 (Monk) lp 22.00
Known primarily for their American blues reissues, Monk now joins the ranks of Dust To Digital, Honest Jon's and Mississippi Records in the international field with this amazing vinyl compilation featuring music from Africa and India recorded during the 1940s and '50s. While the title and cover art would suggest this was the work of a singular traveller/collector who either had a portable record cutter or player and recorded or collected recordings of many of the hotel bands on his travels through Africa and India, we could find no such actual accreditation. Instead these tracks seemed to be pulled from the vast EMI archives, mostly from their South Asian bureau.
A little online research tells us that many of the African songs are the work of the Zulu, South Africa's largest ethnic group. The songs tend to incorporate traditional Zulu choral vocals into a sound heavily influenced by the western jazz many Africans were absorbing in the wake of British colonial rule. The songs from India likewise show a cross cultural blend of styles, showing at least one positive thing to come out of the generally brutal nature of imperialism. One of the band leaders, Teddy Weatherford, was a veteran of the Chicago jazz scene in the 1940s, while scores of refugees came over following the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942, so this really is representative of the rapidly changing world of the day. Despite international turmoil, the artists here prove that the transcendent power of music can always shine through no matter where things are going. Bravo.

V/A Travelling Record Man, the: Historic Down South Recording Trips of Joe Bihari & Ike Turner (Ace) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Collection of archived recordings, many of them never before released, of Delta area blues musicians recorded between 1947 and 1953 by Joe Bihari for Modern Records. Accompanied by Ike Turner, then a talent scout for his label (who was responsible for discovering some of Modern Records best artists, including Elmore James) Bihari and his brothers recorded an impressive roster of R&B and blues. 24 tracks by the likes of Baby Face Turner, Howling Wolf, Elmore James, Joe Hill Louis, Charlie Booker, Pinetop Slim, Jesse Thomas and much more are included here.

V/A Trax Reprint 2: Notterossa / Rednight (Small Voices) 2cd 10.98
We managed to get a small handful of these from a distributor, they're priced super cheap, as the label has since folded, so these are the very last copies we'll ever be able to get, and we have only TWO of these, so be quickÉ
Like many of the other releases we've been featuring from the now defunct Small Voices label, there seems to be very little in the way of NON academic descriptions of this stuff for lay people, folks like us who might just be interested in the sound, and don't need a lecture on sonic semiotics or whatever. So we'll skip the confusional history, and the academic jargon, what we could glean is that this is a cd reissue of tape release from 1982, called TRAX, and maybe this is the one place we should quote the label who describes TRAX thusly:
"This is the first in a series of reprint programme of the most representative titles from the TRAX catalogue, one for each letter of the name: T for Traxman, the comics series created for Frigidaire magazine by Massimo Giacon and Vittore Baroni; R for Rednight, a collective homage to the work of William S. Burroughs; A for Anthems, alternative national hymns for real and imaginary countries; X for Xtra, audio works composed at distance through a process of crossed interferences"
Not sure if that helped or not, but it's definitely interesting. This reprint comes in a huge oversized magazine style packaging, with liner notes in Italian and English, as well as tons of cool illustrations and graphics. Culled from what we can tell was some sort of zine or art project? Anyway, the first disc here is the actual 1982 tape, a compilation of noise/experimental/avant sonic art from a whole bunch of different artists and musicians from all over the world, it's a pretty fantastic listen, strange field recordings, industrial clatter, reverbed piano accompanied by strange mechancical buzz, swirly deconstructed drone pop, processed vocal loops, effects drenched sci-fi spoken word, noisy abstract avant electro-jazz, collaged porn soundtracks, strange detuned folk mash ups, primitive electronics, static drenched music box lullabies, splattery rhythmic improv, and so much more. All presented as one seamless hour long track, it's a heady, psychedelic listen for sure, definitely academic, but sonically more naive sounding, there's a distinctive joy in sound making on display, which is pretty refreshing, and for every chunk of atonal skree, there's another stretch of melodic loveliness.
The second disc, is a new recording from composer / soundscaper / audio alchemist / modern minimalist Gianluca Becuzzi, whose Memory Makes Noise disc we review elsewhere on this week's list, and whose Kinetix double disc we listed a while back. At first we were under the impression that Becuzzi's pieces was a reworking of the first disc, but on closer listening, and a closer reading of the confusing liner notes, it seems that maybe it was INSPIRED by, as sonically it's quite different, opening with a strange spoken word, delivered over a hazy industrial thrum, a fuzzy distant drone, laced with deep distant low end bellows, and like everything we've heard from Becuzzi, his pieces constantly shifting, here flitting from ominous cinematic drone punctuated by bursts of static and random clang and clatter, to warm softly whirling subterranean warble, and from strange circus like garble, to hazy, glitchy crumble, before returning to the opening spoken word drone, further testament to Becuzzi's penchant for panlindromic composition.
MPEG Stream: "Notterossa (excerpt)"

V/A Treble Revolution Volume 2 (Kindercore) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fab comp with an unavailable-elsewhere Olivia Tremor Control track that sounds like Tortoise on 45. If that weren't enough, other contributors include Servotron, Man...Or Astroman?, and Elf Power.