MELT BANANA / BIG D AND THE KIDS TABLE split (Fork In Hand) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fans of Japan's Melt Banana know that they're always great at doing covers. On their side of this split 7" they do "Monkey Man" by Toots And The Maytals. Really. And of course they sound like they're on 45 even when they're on 33 like they always do, super hectic, the least-mellow reggae you've ever heard. Cup thought it was a cartoon theme or music from an ad for a kid's toy or something. There's also a Melt Banana original called "Operation: 3rd Attack" on here, with some turntable scratching, that's equally wild.
The flip side features US ska act Big D And The Kids Table, they do an original and a Ministry cover ("Thieves")...there's got to be some novelty value in that. Actually, we *think* they're a ska band. But even their original sounds more like a metal or hardcore band with a horn section than your typical ska stuff. So, kinda cool too.

MELT BANANA / CHUNG Split (Sounds of Subterrania) 10" 35.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Second chance on this, last copies EVER!!
We hate to do this to you, but there's not much we can do about it. THIS IS INCREDIBLY LIMITED!! WE ONLY GOT A HANDFUL OF COPIES, MOST LIKELY NEVER TO GET MORE! SO ACT FAST. This 10" is limited to a couple thousand worldwide, only 700 or so made it to the US and only 20 made it to AQ. So definitely don't dawdle. Yet another split from masters of the split record, Japanese ultra spaz rockers Melt-Banana, this time teamed up with another unlikely, but still quite cool band we've never heard of. The strangely monickered Chung offer up short sharp bursts of angular post punk on their side, kinetic new wave rhythms, fuzzy organs and yelped vocals. Like a punkier mix of the Fall, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand and all those sorts of bands. Melt-Banana counter with some of their most unlikely music to date, confounding and confusing with their three tracks (be sure to play their side on 45 -- we were WAY more confused when we mistakenly played it at 33 the first time). Strangely sparse, with a bouncy minimal rhythm, poundiing piano (!) and even some horns all sort of new wave-y and abstractly angular with lots of blooping space sound effects, rockabilly guitar and a trippy tweaked out production. Definitely MB's most melodic and least spastic record to date. But just to remind us who we're dealing with, they finish things off with a mega distorted blast of classic Melt-Banana style spaz-grind-pop weirdness. Comes packaged in an amazing sleeve, thick screened cardstock, and affixed to the front is one of those lenticular stereo 3D cards that moves when you shift the image, the image just in this case is a cartoon city and a giant fly and a madman with a flyswatter and an explosion.WOW. And once again, VERY LIMITED!

MELVINS / PATTON OSWALT Split (Chunklet) 7" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Boy, did we get lucky. We heard about this and at first wrongly assumed it was Mike Patton with the Melvins. And as much as we love Mike Patton, we were pretty tickled to discover that in was in fact, Patton Oswalt, one of our favorite comedians, sharing this split with the Melvins.
The thing is, this was never technically available to stores or distros. But we did manage to track a handful down for our AQ faithful. Unfortunately, because of the scarcity and the fact that technically they weren't available wholesale, the price ended up being a bit steep. But hey, $16 from us is is a whole heckuva lot better than $75 on eBay!
So act fast, these will disappear in a blink of an eye.
As with all Chunklet stuff, gorgeously packaged with killer (and hilarious) Jay Ryan cover art, screen printed onto thick cardstock sleeves.
And like with all ultra limited stuff, only one per customer please...

MERZBOW Ikebana: Merzbow's Amlux Rebuilt, Reused and Recycled (Important) 2cd 16.98
Although it says that this is not a remix record on the sticker, not sure what else you could call it. A bunch of folks incorporate bits of the Merzbow record Amlux into their original compositions. The sound is all over the place. From hip-hop instrumentals to crazy turntablism to glitched out big beats to all out noise to malfunctioning video game sounds to riot grrl-ish techno to droning soundscapes and beyond. Features: DJ Spooky, DJ/ Rupture, Plug, Alec Empire, Negativland, Hrvatski, Mouse On Mars, KK Null, Kim Cascone, Kim Hiorthoy, Nobukazu Takemura, E.A.R./Sonic Boom, Cornelius, Atom, Custom Drummer, Bola, Jack Dangers, Freiband and a bunch more. Two discs!

MERZBOW / AMM split (Fat Cat) 12" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The latest in this high profile series of split 12"s. Merzbow is at his most melodic, coming up with an almost hummable bit of white noise. The AMM side is all rhythm, primarily beautifully meandering chimes and bells.

MERZBOW / BASTARD NOISE (Release) cd 14.98
Split cd between Japan's prolific master of noise and the noiser side of California "power violence" heroes Man Is The Bastard. Very nice packaging, by the way.

MERZBOW VS NORDVARGR Partikel (Cold Spring) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Merzbow may be prolific to the point of no return by now, and so you may scoff at yet another release (that makes what, 10 so far this year?) but don't pass this one up. All of us around here have been mildly obsessed with Swedish ambient / noise / drone technician Nordvargr, from his days in the dark-ambient-in black-metal's-clothing outfit MZ412 to his later militaristic folk ensembles Toroidh and Folkstorm. Strangely these two noiseniks make the perfect combination, Japanoise meets Scandanavian power electronics and the result is a crushing slab of low end doom drone dirge. Merzbow created the source material for Nordvargr to process in his inimitably grim fashion. Three lengthy tracks. The first is a spine tinglingly creepy and gut churningly, ominously oppresive rumbling glitchy throb, crumbling slabs of low end over sinister whir and brittle crackling skeletal beats like the scary parts of Tron, or the part in some demonic anime snuff film when you first discover the true face of evil. Track two turns crushing ambient sludge into HUGE crunchy stuttering beats, not just block rocking beats, but beats that flatten entire neighborhoods like Autechre or Aphex twin jamming with Sunn 0))), spare and skittery, wandering through a precarious landscape of hissing blasts of Japanoise and keening squalls of high end iridescence. The final track is clicky, glitchy, haunting almost-IDM filtered through the noxious fumes of demon's breath and dipped in boiling pitch. ominous and frighteningly lovely. One of the best noise / sludge / drone / slow-motion-dance-music-for-demons record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Tardyon Storm"

METROSCHIFTER / SHIPPING NEWS (Initial) split cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Post rock team up...the Shipping News half is live. Unusual packaging note: it's in a jewel case, but the "booklet" is actually a piece of metal, very nice.

MèKURYA, GéTATCHèW Ethiopiques Vol. 14 : (The Negus of Ethiopian Sax) (Buda Musique) cd 15.98
I'm sure that, by now, we're way passed that point that divides the completists with those that are content with two or three volumes of this series. And yet, though speaking partially from a completist's viewpoint, volume 14 might be one that anyone who's enjoyed previous Ethiopiques releases to take note of. Volume 14 is a re-release of a 1970 Philips Ethiopia recording of Gétatchèw Mèkurya. Mèkurya, a saxophonist, is apparently considered the Albert Ayler of Ethiopia. But before y'all non-free jazz aficionados get scared off by thoughts of atonal scree, you can rest assured that there's not a lick of that here. Probably what was most likely intended by such a comparison was either Ayler's propensity for using folk melodies in his works, or maybe even... marches. The cornerstone of Mèkurya's style is derived from a strictly vocal style associated with war known as "shellela". Apparently Mèkurya got the idea of transcribing this singing style to saxophone. Brash and insistent as it is, it's really nothing like even the tamest "sheets of sound" from Coltrane's pre-free jazz days. Entirely instrumental, the music of Gétatchèw Mèkurya is, while familiar in the scope of Ethiopian music we've come to know and love, also much different than all that's preceded it. It probably most resembles Ethiopiques Volume Four in respect to their both lacking in vocals, but there the similarities stop. The band is stripped down to organ, guitar, bass and drums and accompaniment usually consists of a steady, uptempo ostinato over which Mèkurya then plays his rapid and rococo melodic improvisations (often alternating with the squealing farfisa-like organ). Also included as a bonus track for this CD issue is a late fifties rarity from Mèkurya. Yet again, we highly recommend this newest Ethiopiques release for both sometimes fans and -- it goes without saying I suppose -- completists as well.
MPEG Stream: "Yegenet Muziqa"
MPEG Stream: "Shellela"

MIGHTY HANNIBAL, THE Hannibalism! (Norton) cd 14.98
Collected on cd for the first time, Norton unleases 75 minutes of classic R&B/soul/funk singles sides from turban-wearing singer, including such great cuts as "Big Chief Hug-Um An' Kiss-Um", "Jerkin' The Dog", "Fishin' Pole", "The Truth Shall Make You Free" and 24 others -- spanning Hannibal's output from 1958 to 1973. The rockin' earlier tracks would be great stuff for your next toga party (!) while the more soulful mid-sixties and funkifed later material gets into heavier subject matter, dealing with drugs and ghetto life. Indeed, the *extensive* liner notes (by Hannibal himself, speaking Iceberg Slim style) delve into the harsh details of his heroin addiction and recovery, as well as providing colorful anecdotes from his career in show biz about money, women, stealing an elephant from the circus, and contemporaries like Johnny Otis, Little Richard, Sam Cooke, and James Brown. One thing he doesn't discuss is what he's been up to since '73, although he does promise to get back into the studio soon, and he says "it'll be hotter than little sister's pussy with the clap. A chef knows the formula for making good food. I know the formula for making hit records. I'm giving you the Arnold Schwarzenegger here -- a total recall. That's how I am. I don't cut nobody no bullshit."
RealAudio clip: "Motha Goose Breaks Loose"
RealAudio clip: "Hymn No. 5"
RealAudio clip: "The Truth Shall Make You Free"

MILLIS, ROBERT Leaf Music Drunks Distant Drums: Recordings From Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar (Anomalous) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It seems like field recordings from southeast Asia have become one of the most popular emergent genres here at Aquarius Records. And while we're not sure if just 'cause you took a trip and recorded stuff you should really get your name on record (like you're some sort of hoity-toity 'sound artist'), we still appreciate the efforts of such recordists as Loren Nerell, the Bishop brothers, and now Robert Millis. The truth is, ambient sound from some street in Thailand or Indonesia can be a lot more fascinating than yet another disc of computerized feedback or lowercase glitch! Never a substitute for going places yourself and using your ears (and other senses) but certainly a valid listening option at home. So no complaints, we'll continue to sing the praises of quality releases in the 'field recordings' genre like those on the Sublime Frequencies label. And certainly if you liked the recent Princess Nicotine disc on Sublime Freq, you'll probably also want to check out Leaf Music Drunks Distant Drums. Actually Millis (a member of American experimentalists Climax Golden Twins) had some involvement in the production of the Sublime Frequencies' dvd release Nat Pwe: Burma's Carnival Of Spirit Soul, and portions of this release were recorded on the same 'expedition'. Listening to this artfully edited distillation of the hours and hours of recordings that this disc represents, you'll be able to tell that Millis obviously spent a lot of time on the ground in SE Asia, ears alert for interesting sonics (musical and otherwise). It'll transport you into an environment that includes the following and more: "improvisation performed by an elephant mahout using only a leaf, ethereal temple orchestras, blind street musicians, insect choruses, stagecoach rides, singing cabbies, drunken spirit orchestras performing Leo Sayer songs..." Byram was especially taken with the track that sounds like a guy sobbing through a bullhorn! A great listen thats very well mixed, segueing nicely, and at a nice pace, from track to track.
MPEG Stream: "Blue Jeans Salesman, Thailand / Morning Sermon, Cambodia"
MPEG Stream: "Blind Street Singer, Thailand"
MPEG Stream: "Distant Drums, Cambodia"

MISERY INDEX / BATHTUB SHITTER split (Emetic) 7" 4.98
What the world needs now is... more BATHTUB SHITTER!!! And what the world needs, our shit obsessed grindmetal pals from the East are here to provide. Two brand new blasts of grinding freaked out, spazzy and shrieking grind metal, occupying some impossible musical space between Brutal Truth, the Boredoms, Cannibal Corpse, skate thrash and eighties hardcore. So weird and so fucking awesome!!! We kind of want to figure out a way to fly the guys in Bathtub Shitter to the US so they could be the AQ house band, blasting and bleating dissonant serenades to our customers 24 hours a day. Okay, maybe not, but we still love 'em!
The 'Shitter are teamed up here with Maryland's own grindmetal destruction crew Misery Index, who unleash one track of downtuned grinding nirvana as well as a blown out blast that is a Napalm Death cover.
Comes packaged in a super swank gatefold 7" sleeve, with BS's side a haunting airbrushed watercolor batwinged, horn headed child demon flipping us the ubiquitous peace sign hand gesture (although his hands sport huge demonic talons!). Cool!

MODULATIONS Cinema for the Ear (OST) (Caipirihna) cd 14.98
Aside from the many problems which arose from the movie that accompanies this 'soundtrack', it should be noted that Metamkine - the brilliant musique concrete label from Paris - began a series called "Cinema for the Ear" about eight years ago. Unfortunately for Jerome (the man behind Metamkine), this movie did not even come close to acknowledging Metamkine and only gave namechecking references to Stockhausen and Cage.
As a compilation that documents the history of populist electronic music from the past 20 years, it hits on some important players but acts more as a canonizing agent than as a collection of 'fresh' sounds. The drum & bass representatives of Panacea, Aphrodite, and Goldie sound unimpressively dated, the one unifying problem for all of electronica with a few exceptions. Fortunately, two of those exceptions are present - Giorgio Moroder's production on the diva-disco classic Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" and "No UFOs" by Model 500, the track which spawned the Detroit sound of techno.
At best this is a mixed bag of tracks, and we certainly recommend that you check out the full albums by some of the artists present (i.e. Giorgio Moroder, Afrika Bambaataa, Model 500 / Juan Atkins, LFO, Derrick May, Panacea, Ryoji Ikeda, Coldcut, and To Rococo Rot...) and the singles from Metalheadz (cos Goldie's full length albums have been utter crap) and Aphrodite (ditto).

MONO / PELICAN split (Temporary Residence Ltd.) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As some of you already probably know, this limited 12" is a split release on both NYC based post rock label Temprorary Residence, and now-L.A. based thinking man's metal label Hydra Head. Accordingly there are about 7 or 8 different versions, some on Hydra Head, some on TRL, some with different colored labels, but you know what? That's just tough. We have to draw the line somewhere, and it's now right here. We have about 30 copies of the Temporary Residence version, which is already out of print. When we run out of these, we might get some of the HH version(s). Not sure which ones. This collectable vinyl business is beginning to obscure the whole reason we all buy records, because we love music, and we love to hear amazing music, and this record is absolutely fantastic. So try to stop worrying about the color of the vinyl or the number pressed or any of that stuff and just pick this up because it's so damn beautiful. Pelican deliver a massive slice of gorgeously grandiose post rock, sweeping and emotional, melancholy and but weirdly hopeful with its minor key arrangement. Not a trace of 'metal' to be found here. Which is fine by us. Imagine a slightly heavier version of the song that plays during the final scene at the end of the movie, after the boy has gotten the girl and we finally realize everything is going to be okay. It sounds a little like that. Really beautiful. The second track makes up for it though, as James Plotkin (Khanate, Joy of Disease) takes Pelican at their dirgiest / sludgiest and adds tons of extra grind and grit and grrr and effects and crumbling distortion and malfunctioning electronics. Like your favorite Pelican song dipped in blood and rolled in the dirt. Wow.
Mono, who are often touted as being metal, stick closer to their mighty epic post rock sound with a sidelong track that is as Godspeed You Black Emperor as a non-Godspeed band is likely to get. Brooding and melancholy, building to a huge explosive coda, before drifting back into a creeping maudlin dirge, that sort of drifts and fades into the dark. So nice. And as we mentioned before, far too limited.

MONO / PELICAN split (Hydra Head Industries) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As some of you already probably know, this limited 12" is a split release on both NYC based post rock label Temprorary Residence, and L.A. based "thinking man's metal" label Hydra Head. Accordingly there are multiple versions, different colored vinyl, some on Hydra Head, some on TRL, some with different colored labels, etc. But you know what? That's just tough. We have to draw the line somewhere, and it's now right here. We sold out of the Temporary Residence version, which is now out of print. We now have about 25 copies of the Hydra Head version, which we would imagine is also out of print by now. We have all different colors: white, green, gold, and black. We have so few that these are limited to one per customer, and it will be totally random which color you get (we'll go through the colored vinyl copies first). This collectable vinyl business is beginning to obscure the whole reason we all buy records, because we love music, and we love to hear amazing music, and this record is absolutely fantastic. So try to stop worrying about the color of the vinyl or the number pressed or any of that stuff and just pick this up because it's so damn beautiful. Pelican deliver a massive slice of gorgeously grandiose post rock, sweeping and emotional, melancholy and but weirdly hopeful with its minor key arrangement. Not a trace of 'metal' to be found here. Which is fine by us. Imagine a slightly heavier version of the song that plays during the final scene at the end of the movie, after the boy has gotten the girl and we finally realize everything is going to be okay. It sounds a little like that. Really beautiful. The second track makes up for it though, as James Plotkin (Khanate, Joy of Disease) takes Pelican at their dirgiest / sludgiest and adds tons of extra grind and grit and grrr and effects and crumbling distortion and malfunctioning electronics. Like your favorite Pelican song dipped in blood and rolled in the dirt. Wow.
Mono, who are often touted as being metal, stick closer to their mighty epic post rock sound with a sidelong track that is as Godspeed You Black Emperor as a non-Godspeed band is likely to get. Brooding and melancholy, building to a huge explosive coda, before drifting back into a creeping maudlin dirge, that sort of drifts and fades into the dark. So nice. And as we mentioned before, far too limited.

MONO PAUSE / AAVIKKO El Cebo / Of Stomping Men (Seeland) 7" 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Split between east-bay ethno-rockers Mono Pause and Icelandic organ power-trio Aavikko, with each band covering the other's work. Mono Pause takes a mighty fine stab at "El Cebo", slowing down the tempo and filling out the arrangement with guitar, ud (mandolin? other ethnic-lute-thingy?), whacked synths, drums, bass, trumpet and more. After a Kraftwerk style vocoder intro, Aavikko, for their part, do almost the opposite with their arrangement of their chosen Mono Pause tune: stripping it down to fit their organ, organ and drum format and speeding up the tempo to a lively jaunt. Very purdy cover art on this Seeland release, makes it worth the slightly steep 7" price. We wonder if Seeland has designs on possibly reissuing some of that out of print Aavikko stuff.
RealAudio clip: MONO PAUSE "El Cebo"
RealAudio clip: AAVIKKO "Of Stomping Men"

MONTGOMERY, ROY / AZUSA PLANE split 7" 3.99
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Azusa Plane song takes its title from the Belle & Sebastian record: "She Was Into S&M and Bible Studies, Not Everyone's Cup of Tea She Would Admit to Me, Her Cup of Tea She Would Admit to No One."

MONTGOMERY, ROY / CONNORS, LOREN MAZZACANE (Gyttja) 7" 3.99
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Split single in an edition of 600. Montgomery's track is entitled "Sterling Morrison, Corner 10th & First, 1966."

MONTGOMERY, ROY / LAKE, KIRK London is Swinging by His Neck (Rocket Girl) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
New label by the brains behind Che has issued this UK single featuring Roy's rainy day guitar strum joined with the dead pan vocals of Kirk Lake.

MOOG (OST) (Hollywood) cd 17.98
Where would we be without the Moog synthesizer? Well, we'd be missing a whole lot of our favorite artists that's for sure. In fact Stereolab would just disappear in the blink of an eye. Thankfully, the Moog is still everywhere, and for years has shaped the sounds and songs of tons of our favorite bands. None of us have seen the movie yet (by filmmaker/musician Hans Fjellestad), but the soundtrack is a doozy! Featuring tracks from Stereolab (obviously), Jean-Jaques Perrey, Luke Vibert, Meat Beat Manifesto, Tortoise, Money Mark, The Album Leaf, Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins and loads more. But it's the bonus disc that hits the spot and offers up some of our favoritest classic Moog moments: Emerson, Lake And Palmer, Gary Numan, Devo, New Order, They Might Be Giants and of course Yes!
MPEG Stream: STEREOLAB "Variation One"
MPEG Stream: TORTOISE "Beautiful Love"

MOON DARK / HARASSOR split (Universal Consciousness) 7" 4.50
It doesn't get more kvlt than this. Two of the grimmest black metal bands California has to offer. One from SF, one from LA, each rumored to include members of some other more well known black metal bands, the sound of both bands, raw and primitive, stripped down, furious and buzzy, simple and pounding.
The true measure of a black metal band these days is their MySpace presence. The truly grim and kvlt, still somehow manage to whip up a Myspace page, even though that's probably the last kvlt activity imaginable. We like to imagine bands in the forest, or in a cave recording, or covered in blood and corpsepaint wandering through the snowy mountains, not hunched over a laptop writing html. But still a quick look at both bands' MySpace pages reveal that Moon Dark are truly the most hateful and grim band in the land, read as they defend their shitty logo, and their stupid band name, while still managing to accuse all other bands of being false metal and lame poseurs and call for the death of all Christians. While we discover that Harassor are pretty badass looking, fronted by a HUGE bearded bald dude, with corpsepaint and a big upside down cross on his forehead that stretches all the way up to his bare pate. Excellent.
Sonically, both bands tread similar ground. Pounding buzz drenched stripped down black metal. Think Akitsa, Ildjarn, Bone Awl and the like. Moon Dark is the more lo-fi of the two, a furious super distorted rehearsal space sound, the vocals a hysterical shriek over chugging midtempo riffage and barely audible drums (assuming there are drums at all). Occasionally, the riff slips into a bizarre almost circusy sing-song melody which is fucked up but actually awesome, before slipping back into grim buzz mode.
The Harassor side is not so lo-fi but still plenty grim and buzzy, total d-beat style heaviness, Akitsa, Malveillance, pounding drums, SUPER buzzed out guitars, killer gurgly demonic vox, and even some strange scrappy guitar parts which are super cool. Creepy and almost Misfits-y at times, but buzzy and black enough to hold their own with Moon Dark.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Each numbered in human blood. Black and white printed sleeves, and pressed on white vinyl!

MOORE, THURSTON / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN From The Earth To The Spheres Vol.1 (Very Friendly) cd 14.98
All we can say is we hope none of you were duped into buying the super limited lp version of this here record, at the very unfriendly cost of $100!!! What the fuck?!? Okay, sure it had an original piece of artwork, but that's a bit ridiculous, ESPECIALLY considering they are all coming out on cd. Anyway, this is the first in My Cat Is An Alien's series of limited lp / now cd collaborations with other band they dig and respect. Volume one sees the Italian psychspacefolk duo teaming up with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. Moore's track is, to be quite honest, super annoying. It may have morphed into something appropriately dreamy or soothing, but we didn't make it that far, the first half is an endlessly ear piercing plinking on the high keys of a piano. Brutal. The MCIAA track is much more appealing, a shimmery, blooping bleeping journey through outer space, instruments are rendered indistinct in crafting a soundscape of swooshes and whirs, dark and moody and expansive. Quite beautiful. Worth it for the MCIAA track alone. Perhaps the Moore track does merit further investigation, but it will have to be for one with ears made of stronger stuff.
MPEG Stream: MY CAT IS AN ALIEN "Brilliance In The Outer Space"

MORDAEHOTH / MYSELF Gates Of Helheim / A New Beginning cd 14.98

MORIMOTO, YASUGI San Pedro (mix tape) (self-released) cassette 14.98

MOSS / MONARCH split (Rise Above) 7" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally back in stock! The ultimate dooooooom tag team matchup. If they gave out Nobel prizes for doom metal, whoever it was that managed to get UK doomsludge combo Moss together with French Sanrio doomsters Monarch, would be a shoe in. And it's not just the killer combo, or the alliterative band names, it's the song choice. As if Moss doing Discharge weren't enough for you, Monarch tackle Turbonegro's all time classic "I Got Erection"!
Moss transform Discharge's punky stomp into a barely moving morass of sludgy pound. Sounding very much like Eyehategod, with simple pummeling drums, howled vocals, and of course guitars tuned as low as they can go before the strings drop off like wet noodles. On top of all the murk, drift weird high end streaks of surprisingly melodic feedback, giving the whole track a haunting and ominous vibe.
Where Moss, turned their song inside out and basically made it their own, Monarch, after a misleading ultra slow count in, do "Erection" pretty straight (ahem), the riff immediately recognizable, same with the "woooooah ooooh" background vocals, so it's up to vocalist Emilie, to make "Erection" her own, and she does, delivering the goofiest, most brilliant lines ever, in a raspy feminine snarl "When I dig a hole... Erection!" It's definitely Monarch at their speediest, and certainly most melodic, and we have to say it sort of suits them. Maybe even better than when black metallers Satyricon covered the same track on a Turbonegro tribute disc some years back, and that was pretty killer too.
And of course, SUPER LIMITED!

MOSS / WOLFMANGLER Split (Aurora Borealis) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
ULTRADOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. Or MEGADOOOOOOM. Whatever you want to call it, this is DOOM. Capital D. Lot's of o's. Lots of incredibly slow motion downtuned guitar sludge, pounding caveman drums, and a rumbling bowel churning low-end. This is the first recording we've been able to get enough of to list after a ton of super limited releases and demos. And if this doesn't hit the doom spot something good, then nothing will. Bunkur, Skepticism, Catacombs, Rigor Sardonicous, Esoteric, Planet Aids, Thergothon. And now Moss. The first track is a 15 minute slab of classic funereal doom. Soooooo sloooooow. Sooooooo heavy, crushing, pounding, chugging drone drenched sludge. Recorded live in 2004. The second track is taken from their long out of print split with Nadja, but here, the track is "fucked up and buried", and the result is a massive and abstract ambient soundscape, downtuned guitars are pushed way back into the distance, while in the foreground all sorts of rumble and crackle and what sounds like the burbling of a bong. A druggy, space-y ambient excursion through the massive decaying skeleton of what was once a doom metal beast.
Moss is joined by the brilliantly monickered Wolfmangler. Wolfmangler just happens to be the work of one Smolken who you might know as the man behind Dead Raven Choir! Weird but true. For all his Jewelled Antler folkiness, Smolken made no secret of his black metal obsession. As Wolfmangler, Smolken takes that love of metal and doom and tempers it with his love of folk and country, and the results are truly weird and wonderful. Best exemplified on the track "Survive" a doom-ed version of a Hank Williams Jr. song. Fuzzed out drone guitar, random percussion, weird rubbery bass lines, and growled raspy vocals. Like a black metal Souled American? Johnny Cash covering Skepticism. Something like that. The rest of the WM tracks are weird, slow motion, fuzz drone dirges, with strange barely there melodies, occasional guitar twang, and lots of ominous ambience!
Amazingly packaged in a vellum sleeve, printed in black on the outside, so the inside has a weird x-ray negative effect. Includes an insert for each band printed on thick vellum. SO NICE!
Limited to 500 copies. We got 50 of those and will not be able to get more! So act fast!
MPEG Stream: MOSS "Abortion Clinic"
MPEG Stream: WOLFMANGLER "Survive"

MOTORPSYCHO + JAGA JAZZIST HORNS In The Fishtank 10 (Konkurrent) cd 11.98
Another installment in Konkurrent's In The Fishtank series. So far there's been collaborations from Tortoise with The Ex, Low with Dirty Three, Willard Grant Conspiracy with Telefunk as well as Sonic Youth, I.C.P. and The Ex. Individual efforts have included June Of 44. This time it was a Norwegian experimental get-together with Motorpsycho and the horn section from Jaga Jazzist. The results are an impressive slow groovin' jazzy postrock affair.
MPEG Stream: "Bombay Brassiere"

MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT / KENOMA Split (Translation Loss) cd 13.98
New release from one of our favorites of this new breed of sludgy metallic post rock, the strangely named Mouth Of The Architect. Their sound, unlike many of their sonic brethren leans much more toward the melodic as is evidenced here on the opening of "Sleepwalk Powder" a lilting, melancholy guitar line, hovering above warm swells of high end feedback, mournful and so so pretty. But don't be fooled, or lulled into thinking this is some sort of post rock dreampop record, oh no, moments later, the drums enter the fray, all tribal and chaotic, until finally the guitars drop. And drop HARD. Suddenly we're in churning, roiling sludge doom country, big riffs roll and rumble, vocals are howled and the whole band lurches like some rampaging behemoth. But beneath it all, remains the melody, the sweetness, the light. It's like Godspeed or Explosions In The Sky, being overtaken by Conifer or Minsk, a huge ugly growling monstrous sound barely concealing glistening harmonies and majestic melodies. A pretty killer combination. The second MOTA track follows a similar path, drawing out its post rock dreaminess nearly to the 10 minute mark before kicking out the jams, this time it's a lurching stumbling groove, minor key and massive.
Kenoma are up next, we'd heard of them but never actually heard them, but they do occupy a similar sonic space as their pals MOTA (and plus they indeed are, in the liner notes, there is an extremely heartfelt note about, the two bands being friends since childhood, and both having had a rough time lately, and how this release was very cathartic, bringing the two bands, these two sets of friends closer than ever before, pretty dang sweet actually). But again don't be distracted by the sweetness, where there is light there is most definitely also dark. Kenoma are more postrock than metal never really unfurling any sort of massive sludginess, rather stretching out in a heavy hypnotic groove, dense tangled guitar lines, killer propulsive drumming, minor key melodies and a big wall of thick rich headspinning sound. Reminiscent of the recently reviewed Shora record but with a bit of that post sludge vibe we can't get enough of. This almost sounds like a super charged Godspeed or a metal Tortoise. Epic and meandering, droney and hypnotic and so killer. Definitely a new band to keep our eyes on. And a perfect match for their pals in Mouth Of The Architect. Definitely recommended. Killer octopoidal artwork too!
MPEG Stream: MOUTH OF THE ARCHITECT "Sleepwalk Powder"
MPEG Stream: KENOMA "The Nature Of Empire"

MUDHONEY / MUGSTAR Sonic Attack (Motorheads) (Trensmat) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Where to even start... HAWKWIND. The mighty lords of drugged out space rock, without whom, most of the bands we love might not even exist. These four Hawkwind records: Doremi Fasol Latido, Hall Of The Mountain Grill, In Search Of Space, and Space Ritual, are pretty much all anyone needs to know about space rock. Or whatever it is that Hawkwind do, long sprawling jams, extended psychedelic workouts, heavy and trippy, totally drugged out and divine, while at the same time, surprisingly catchy. But yeah, aQ folks probably already know how much we love Hawkwind.
So if we were to pick six bands to cover classic Hawkwind tunes, we might not have picked these six, but then again, we very well might have: Mudhoney, Mugstar, Acid Mothers Tempo And The Cosmic Inferno, White Hills, Kinski, Bardo Pond. Holy hell! If this were just a comp with those bands, we'd be all over it, but the fact that they're covering Hawkwind seems like it was made just for the aQ faithful, and who knows, maybe it was. Spread out over three 7"s, we almost didn't list these separately, but as a set, 'cause to our minds, who the heck would only want one or two of these? But you never know, so for those of you who didn't already freak out and toss all three into your cart, here's a brief bit about each specific 7":
The first of the three, subtitled "Motorheads", features two aQ favorites (as do they all), Mudhoney and Mugstar. Mudhoney tackle "Urban Guerilla" and totally make it their own, so much so, that minus a little chunk of extended droney space rocking in the middle, those not well versed in Hawkwind would certainly be forgiven for thinking it was a Mudhoney original. Mugstar on the other hand are a DEAD ringer for Hawkwind, their sound murky and muddy, squalls of psych guitar, clouds of swirling spaced out FX, droned out jams, all tangled up and slowly unwinding into a long sprawling space rock jamscape. Hawkwind would be proud.
The packaging is brilliant, perfectly tripped out psychedelic acid flashback, with naked lady, geometric design, cribbed from the original Hawkwind artwork (or at the very least, an incredible simulation), the sleeves are printed complete with shelf wear and corner creases (so don't complain, they're meant to look like they've been on your shelf for decades), each one SUPER LIMITED, and already sold out at the label, we have a bunch, but these will be the only copies we'll ever have!!

MULHOLLAND DRIVE (OST) (Milan / BMG) cd 16.98
Have you seen this film yet? It's so amazing! Worth the price of this disc alone is Rebekah del Rio's version of Roy Orbison's "Crying", sung in Spanish and totally spine-chillingly good. You also get several tracks of Angelo Badalamenti's score, creepy and atmospheric, plus Sonny Boy Williamson doing a Willie Dixon track, Linda Scott performing a Hammerstein / Kern tune (the '50s pop number the actresses audition for in the film), and 3 tracks written and performed by Lynch himself. Bravo.
RealAudio clip: "Llorando (Crying)"

MUSEE MECANIQUE The Zelinsky Collection Volume 1 (Mechanical Museum) cd 14.98
Long, long ago we stocked an LP of recordings from San Francisco's own Cliff House-based Musee Mechanique. Sadly this album went out of print a few years back, leaving many sad customers who'd found out about it too late. Well weep no longer, as AQ now has an all new disc (the first of several, we're told) of recordings made of the machines at the museum.
The Musee Mechanique, for those who've never been, is a hands-on museum of early penny arcade machines (some over a century old) kept in their original working order for the public's enjoyment by the determined work of curator Edward Galland Zelinsky. Every time we have visitors from out of town, we take' em here. Stereoscopic peep shows, moralising fortune tellers, old baseball game machines, nickelodeons, prisoner art made out of toothpicks, music boxes, player pianos, "test your strength" challenges, animated dioramas, and more are constantly kept in tune -- it's both historic and entertaining. (Including everyone's favorite -- Laughing Sal, a larger than life size doll who just laughs and laughs and laughs. Wonderful.) The 27 tracks found here are all new recordings of the various machines (mostly player pianos playing assorted rags), captured after museum hours, so it's free of unwanted tourist chatter (although they nicely left the sounds of the coins falling into the slot as lead ins to each track.)
RealAudio clip: "Cancione"
RealAudio clip: "Laughing Sal"
RealAudio clip: "Roses From The South"

MUSEE MECANIQUE The Zelinsky Collection Volume 2 (Mechanical Museum) cd 14.98
The Musee Mecanique at San Francisco's historic Cliff House is one of our favorite things in the whole city. We *always* take visitors from out of town there, and they always love it. The Musee is a collection of antique coin-operated arcade machines, lovingly restored and cared for, including animated dioramas ("The Opium Den" is a favorite), crank-operated racing games, mechanical strength-testing devices, boxing and baseball games, fortune tellers, and many automated musical instruments (player pianos, music boxes, and the like), which fill the place with great old ragtime tunes. They've been recording the machines (complete with the sound of coins dropping in to start 'em) and have plans to release a whole series of cds documenting this delightful old-timey music. Volume One came out last year (and we sold quite a few), and now we've got Volume Two! Yay! These 27 tracks are similar to the stuff on the first volume, perhaps "more bouncy" though. And the famous Laughing Sal (the giant, manaically whooping automaton who dominates the entrance to the Musee) makes another appearance, closing out the disc with one of her always-disturbing outbursts of hilarity... A nice way to keep some of the spirit of the Musee Mecanique in your home, and to help support their preservation endeavors!
RealAudio clip: "Dizzy Fingers"
RealAudio clip: "Don't Give Up the Ship"
RealAudio clip: "Goofus"
RealAudio clip: "Piano Roll Blues"
RealAudio clip: "Temptation"

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"

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 cd (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 10.98
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.

NAHUM / FLASKAVSAE split (E.E.E Recordings) cd-r 8.98
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"

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.

NETHER DAWN, THE / 1/3 OCTAVE BAND Live At Sound & Fury (Sound & Fury) cd-r 12.98
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"

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) lp 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 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 / MILAN SANDBLEISTIFT split (Licht-Ung) lp 24.00
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 DOUBT Everything In Time (B-Sides, Rarities, Remixes) (Interscope) cd 14.98

NORDVARGR / DRAKH Infinitas In Aeternum (Cyclic Law) cd 15.98
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"