DDAA Action And Japanese Demonstration (Fractal) cd 27.00

DE CARO, JULIO El Inolvidable Julio De Caro y su Sexteto Tipico (El Bandoneon) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

DE DEYSTER, EDMOND Selectie 02 (Ultra Eczema) lp 32.00
Volume two of these recently discovered long lost recordings of seventies synthesizer music from a mysterious Belgian musician named Edmond De Dyster. Like the first volume, these pieces were discovered on unmarked reel to reel tapes in a box marked simply with the year, 1975. Discovered by Ultra Eczema head honcho Dennis Tyfus, these recordings, along with those on the now out of print first volume, are only part of a trove of unreleased, and for the most part unheard recordings De Dyster made in private, who seemingly had no intention of releasing them, in fact, even his family didn't know he had been making recordings.
None of this mystery would be worth anything if it weren't for the music, which is weird and wonderful, raw and primitive, all analog synthesizers, almost like a lo-fi BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The sounds are tripped out and abstract, bleeps and bloops and beeps and sine wave tones, and crumbling distorted rhythms, plodding ominous low end melodies, spooky squalls of glitch and squelch, reverbed squiggles, ghostly tones, haunting and otherworldly like a Theremin, here and there some new age flutter, deep soft swells, fuzzy staticky streaks of buzz, muted rhythmic thumps, that low end creeping and slithering through clouds of swirling tones and shimmering textures, all set adrift in wide open expanses of distant rumble and soft fuzzy whir. Amazing stuff. Think Tangerine Dream, Conrad Schnitzler, Battiato, Schulze, Heldon. And you may as well add De Deyster to that list. Anyone into experimental electronic music, should absolutely check this out.
Who knows how many other lost boxes of tapes or mysterious music makers lurk in bedrooms and basements out there? Probably more than we might imagine...
Gorgeously packaged in a hand screened, extra thick jacket, with a full color printed insert. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.

DE DYSTER, EDMOND Selectie 01 (Ultra Eczema) lp 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ultra limited lp only reissue of long lost seventies analog synthesizer music from mysterious Belgian musical recluse Edmond De Dyster. These tracks were recovered from unmarked tapes recently discovered, recorded sometime in the early to mid seventies. De Dyster had been recording for years, not to release, just for himself, before his family even realized he was making music nearly a decade later. A sort of lo-fi, bedroom Conrad Schnitzler, De Deyster created dense and rich fuzzed out synthscapes, buzzy and fuzzy, with psychedelic outer space FX swooping all over the place, lots of tape hiss, instrument buzz, creepy alien melodies, like a much more abstract and damaged Tangerine Dream. Crumbling rumble, grimy grit, whirring distortion, birdlike trills, strange minor key melody fragments, long passages of dreamlike bloop and bleep. So cool.
Packaged in a beautiful full color sleeve, featuring washed out family photos of the artist as a young man. Also includes liner notes and a full sized insert.
Limited to 400 copies, already out of print, and we only managed to get about 20 so act fast!

DE FACTO How Do You Dub (ReSTART) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The second cd from De Facto (featuring Omar and Cedric formerly of At The Drive-In... not to be confused with Mars Volta which is their other current project) comes by way of ReStart Records in El Paso, TX. We should note that of the eight tracks included, two ("Coaxial" and "Thick Vinyl Plate") can also be found on their first album "Megaton Shotblast" released on Gold Standard Laboratories. Leaning a bit heavier on the electronics this time around. Continuing on in their twisted, dark and dubby sonic explorations.
RealAudio clip: "Nux Vomica / Coaxialreturn"

DE FACTO How Do You Dub (ReSTART) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The second cd from De Facto (featuring Omar and Cedric formerly of At The Drive-In... not to be confused with Mars Volta which is their other current project) comes by way of ReStart Records in El Paso, TX. We should note that of the eight tracks included, two ("Coaxial" and "Thick Vinyl Plate") can also be found on their first album "Megaton Shotblast" released on Gold Standard Laboratories. Leaning a bit heavier on the electronics this time around. Continuing on in their twisted, dark and dubby sonic explorations.

DE FACTO Megaton Shotblast (GSL) cd 13.98
Edgy, experimental dub directions from At The Drive-In's Omar and Cedric. I saw them perform early in January in L.A., and really dug them, but it didn't really prepare me for this their first album. Whereas that performance was much more straight-up old dub sounds, Megaton Shotblast -- which was recorded in March -- is something quite different and more expansive. Sinewy dub bass, '70s soul jams (sorta along the lines of Beastie Boys' Check Your Head), Latin-tinged excursions and an array of horn embellishments groove then contort in and out of more abstracted textural scapes. Fans of Ryan Moore and Twilight Circus Dub Sound System should fancy this.
RealAudio clip: "Coaxial"
RealAudio clip: "Fingertrap"

DE FACTO Megaton Shotblast (GSL) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Edgy, experimental dub directions from At The Drive-In's Omar and Cedric. I saw them perform early in January in L.A., and really dug them, but it didn't really prepare me for this their first album. Whereas that performance was much more straight-up old dub sounds, Megaton Shotblast -- which was recorded in March -- is something quite different and more expansive. Sinewy dub bass, '70s soul jams (sorta along the lines of Beastie Boys' Check Your Head), Latin-tinged excursions and an array of horn embellishments groove then contort in and out of more abstracted textural scapes. Fans of Ryan Moore and Twilight Circus Dub Sound System might fancy this.

DE GENNARO, MATTHEW A Guide For The Perplexed (Epigonic) cd 9.98
Another dose of dreamy acoustic guitar haze from Matt De Gennaro. We loved his last record, Humbled Down, and here he continues in a similar vein through a 5-piece suite of gently finger picked and slide guitar compositions. Although comparisons to the recent primitive guitar school of Fahey, Jack Rose, and Sir Richard Bishop will abound, we feel De Gennaro's airy and spacious compositions are more closely related to William Eaton's pastoral paean's to nature's lonely loveliness. Beautiful.
MPEG Stream: " Part One"
MPEG Stream: "Part Four"

DE GENNARO, MATTHEW Humbled Down (Last Visible Dog) cd 12.98
Some of you might remember De Gennaro from the amazing drone record he made a few years back with Alastair Galbraith, Long Wires In Dark Museums (Vol. 1), an exploration of, well, long wires in dark museums! A shimmering drone of subtle reverberations, tonal colorations and slow shifting ovetones. This lastest solo guitar record is a lot more structured and sort of more in line with the whole free-folk 'new weird america' outsider whatever scene, you know, Jack Rose, James Blackshaw, Pelt, No Neck Blues Band, Matt Valentine, etc. but even so, much of the subtle shimmer and delicate drone of the long wires record is still found on Humbled Down, just wrapped around De Gennaro's gorgeous and understated acoustic guitar. Fans of Rose and Fahey and the like will no doubt love this stuff, but it's a lot more subtle and dreamy, each note gauzy and suspended in a fine hazy mist, sort of smeary and indistinct, melodic yet sort of out of focus like an old photograph, or how you might imagine Philip Jeck would sound if he were a guitar player. Drifting and otherworldly and very very lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Candlestick Maker"
MPEG Stream: "Coal"

DE KIFT s/t (Mississippi) 7" 5.98
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
A companion release to accompany the MISSISSIPPI RECORDS reissue of De Kift's debut full length Yverzucht, this 7" was recorded the year before, and could very well be the first actual De Kift release, as we mentioned in the review of the lp, De kift's sound was classic Dutch crusty punk with a dash of cabaret, jagged and angular and tightly wound, fuzzed out bass, clattery percussion, dark and driving, but also frenzied and wild and over the top. Maybe imagine the Pogues, if they were crusty punks from Holland, jamming out in some crazy squat in the late eighties, and that's basically De Kift. Very cool, and pretty much unlike anything you've heard (except maybe The Ex, a little bit).
The packaging on this is fantastic, a printed 6 panel matte finish sleeve, with drawings and lyrics, the record pressed on nice thick vinyl as well.

DE KIFT Yverzucht (Mississippi) lp 12.98
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
Another strange cool release from the mighty MISSISSIPPI RECORDS!! Who besides being obsessed with old time country, blues and gospel, also seem to have a thing for European punk rock, a la The Ex, who have had a couple records reissued on Mississippi, and now the label has released on vinyl (of course) the very first record from De Kift, a Dutch ensemble with links to The Ex, and with whom they share some sonic similarities, although De Kift are definitely their own strange and mysterious beast.
The sound of Yverzucht (originally released in 1989) is a blast of classic Dutch crusty punk with a dash of cabaret, jagged and angular and tightly wound, fuzzed out bass, clattery percussion, dark and driving, but also frenzied and wild and over the top. Maybe imagine the Pogues, if they were crusty punks from Holland, jamming out in some crazy squat in the late eighties, and that's basically De Kift. Very cool, and pretty much unlike anything you've heard (except maybe the Ex, a little bit).
Killer packaging too, it is Mississippi after all. Thick vinyl, old looking black and white sleeves, and a printed lyric insert.

DE LA SOUL 3 Feet High And Rising (reissue - limited edition 2cd version) (Tommy Boy) 2cd 17.98
Reissue of one of the few hip hop records everyone can agree on (another is probably PE's 'A Nation Of Millions...'). This record is so clever, so catchy and so kick ass, that even the heads who can't stand 'positive hop-hop' (like me) love this record. Unless you were living in a cave during the late eighties/early nineties you know and love a bunch of these songs already. It's nice to have this classic finally back in print. For those not familiar, De La Soul mixed up all sorts of weird samples (Hall and Oates anyone?) with super funky beats and the three unique flows of Mase, Posdnuos, and Trugoy and their psoitive hippie vibe, along with a stellar Prince Paul production, to come up with one of the greatest hip hop records of all time. This version comes with a bonus cd of unreleased mixes, 12" versions, extra skits and all sorts of cool stuff. The two sound samples are from the bonus disc (both tracks unreleased).
RealAudio clip: "Me, Myself and I (Oblapos Mode)"
RealAudio clip: "Brain Washed Follower"

DE LA SOUL AOI:BIONIX (Tommy Boy) cd 17.98
The less said about this album the better. Unless you're saying, "It ain't no 3 Feet High and Rising."

DE LA SOUL Art Official Intelligence: Mosiac Thump (Tommy Boy) cd 16.98
Xzibit, Redman, Busta Rhymes, Chaka Khan (whom you may have seen at the Republican National Convention), Mike D & Ad Rock, Busy Bee, Freddie Foxx, others all guest on this new De La Soul album. So it's a party.

DE LA SOUL De La Soul Is Dead (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98

DE LA SOUL Stakes Is High (again, some large corporation who De La righteously takes to task) cd 15.98

DE LA SOUL The Grind Date (BMG) cd 17.98
De La Soul are down off their '90s Nubian high. Can they can still play collegiate Spring Flings with this stuff? Probably not. But who cares! Holy crap, this is good fucking hip-hop! Production on The Grind Date is pretty organic albeit star-studded, with beats often steeping before getting all heavy and crazed. I can't stress how good this album is straight through from beginning to end. If this is De La's last record it'll be one of their best, by far their strongest.
MPEG Stream: "Verbal Clap"
MPEG Stream: "The Grind Date"

DE LLARIO, DOMENICO Shaker Road (Nonplace Urban Field) cd 16.98

DE MA VAERE BELGIERE s/t (Tryghed & Tristesse) cd 14.98
De Ma Vaere Belgiere was a black-clad Danish post-punk act, who kicked out a single in 1983 and played a couple of shows before calling it quits. That single has been reissued as a split lp with fellow Danes End Of Your Garden on Dark Entries, and yes, that single is featured on this disc followed by a pretty great live set also recorded in 1983. "Cirkler" is a deadringer for what Interpol had been producing at the beginning of their career with this impassioned, darkly tainted post-punk with death disco rhythms, galloping basslines, and spiky guitars. Siglo XX and Crispy Ambulance also pop up as a reference through the monotone vocals and the downcast mood set throughout the rest of the tracks, and a less obscure citation is made on "Synsforstyrrelse" which lifts Robert Smith's riff from "M" of Seventeen Seconds. Not a bad thing at all! On the live recordings, The Cure's influence is even more evident through the interplay between Jakob Leth's bass, which leads the songs much in the way that Simon Gallup drives so many of The Cure's greatest tracks girded by chiming rhythmic guitars. As is evident through so many of the live songs, De Ma Vaere Belgiere were gifted songwriters for urgent, moody songs that were on par if not better which any given post-punk ensemble circa 1982. The live recordings are pretty good as far as live recordings go, but had Martin Hannett gotten a hold of this band, things would have gone very differently.
MPEG Stream: "Cirkler"
MPEG Stream: "Synsforstyrrelse"
MPEG Stream: "Den Forste Strale"

DE MAGIA VETERUM Migdal Bavel (Transcendental Creations) cd 16.98

DE MASI, FRANCESCO India (OST) (Hexacord) cd 16.98
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! "India" was a documentary produced for Italian TV in 1966, and the music on this disc was the audio interpretation composed to accompany it by composer Francesco De Masi. That's the straight forward, factual explanation of this disc. However, the music itself is not what most of us would probably expect to find accompanying such a documentary. We have to give Francesco De Masi some credit for his creative license though. After all, it was 1966 and Ravi Shankar was yet to become a household name. I imagine that the director gave Francesco a silent print for him to view and score the compositions for the film. Having never been to India and having no concept of what the music there sounded like and additionally being encouraged to come up with something as exotic and mysterious as the images on the screen, he did the best he could. The results: fucking brilliant! De Masi definitely has skills as a scorer of soundtracks. He not only has a gift for writing evocative melodic motifs, but also in arranging and rearranging the motifs with different instrumentation, tempos, and even musical genres -- something essential to all classic soundtracks. His execution in these areas is superb. And yet, when we listen to this soundtrack today and try to imagine it accompanying a documentary about India, we sense that something is not quite right. Listening to this score with no prior information about the film it supports one might more likely guess that it was for a classic Western fused with Cold War intrigue film (though there is one giddy fife & drum reel that must have slipped in from another project on the American Revolution!) I imagine Michael Caine as an English spy in America trying to infiltrate the Navajo nation and falling in love with a beautiful Native American woman along the way. Many of the arrangements here are reminiscent of the gems of paranoid cinema (think The Ipcress File, or The Parallax View, but also Mutual of Omaha's Wild World of Animals) while also sounding like the most cliched Native American war path tune ripped from a John Wayne flick. Seems like Francesco, like Christopher Columbus before him, got his Indians mixed up. This soundtrack has it all: tension, suspense, romantic instrumentals, pensive reflections and jazzy uptempo workouts. It really is an amazing soundtrack that, were it to have been attached to a feature length film, may have been a classic by now. Not only is it fully orchestrated and creatively arranged with vibes, guitars, keyboards, flutes, horns, strings and assorted percussion, but it features sitar playing by Italian guitar and whistle virtuoso (and Ennio Morricone right hand man) Alessandro Alessandroni -- who'd apparantly never played the instrument before. Beautifully recorded and excellently remastered, this is an absolute must for all soundtrack buffs!
MPEG Stream: "In Nome di Maometto"
MPEG Stream: "Budda"
MPEG Stream: "La Carestia"

DE PORTABLES Topless is More (Stilll) cd 16.98

DE ROCHER, ETIENNE s/t (Fog City) cd 12.98
If you didn't guess from this SF gent's fabulous name, Etienne De Rocher is one smooth operator. Graced with such easygoing charm and flair, his years-in-the-making debut self-titled album only confirms this. Although this is indeed his first full length cd, he's certainly no rookie. He's been honing his songcraft from a very early age. De Rocher's well-crafted soft rock stylings are embellished with subtle strings that add that extra air of elegance. Imagine a less flamboyant Rufus Wainwright or a slightly more flamboyant Elliott Smith, Nick Drake or Buckley Jr. and Sr. (r.i.p.) and you might get a sense of Monsieur De Rocher. He saves one of his best songs for last, the sweetly romantic "Goodnight". Nice!
MPEG Stream: "The Lizard Song"
MPEG Stream: "Goodnight"

DE SALVO Mood Poisoner (Rock Action) cd 21.00
This twisted heavy fucked up masterpiece, one of Andee's favorite recordsof last year, available again...
Not sure how many folks remember the late great Stretchheads, a Scottish quartet who kicked up a serious din back in the early nineties, fast heavy and so fucked up, culminating in the genus Pish In Your Sleazebag album, a record of total percussive grinding chopped up, dubbed out heavy heavy weirdness. Not sure what those guys have been doing for the last couple decades, but at least a few of them have resurfaced in De Salvo, whose first disc Mood Poisoner has just come out on Mogwai's Rock Action label. But don't let the Mogwai connection mislead you, this is not any sort of brooding post rock shoe gazey shit, this is super abrasive, ultra technical, harsh and brutal, grinding, chugging metallic post punk hardcore heaviness. Imagine Black Flag, Converge, Coalesce, Butthole Surfers and of course the aforementioned Stretchheads, all pulled apart and tangled up into a whole new whirling dervish of hardcore metallic fury.
But it's not just heavy for heavy's sake, there are melodies all over the place, the arrangements are tight, and super complex. Some tracks slip into slithery almost stoner rock, others into lurching doom, but for the most part the sound here is jagged and relentless, stuttery start stop riffage, freaked out drumming, the vocals a harsh high yelp slipping from Jesus Lizard howl to Cradle Of Filth shriek, more often some impossible mix of the two, and yeah, cool guitar harmonics lacing the churning chug, the drums and bass locked tight into super staccato bursts, flurries of double kick, brief stretches of woozy prettiness, but always quickly swallowed up by a wall of crumbling corrosive blown out rrroooaaar. There are hooks, everywhere, the more you listen the deeper they sink, and the more those wounds bleed and fester. The opener is like a super charged tech metal Halo Of Flies, or like Converge's Jane Doe and Brutal Truth's Need To Control melted down and covered by the Refused. Just listen to the sound samples. Heavy record of the year, easy. And another fearsome export from Scotland (see Black Sun on the last list!), that has us dying to hear more.
MPEG Stream: "Brown Flag"
MPEG Stream: "Tonguescraper L & Li"
MPEG Stream: "Ripper Situation"

DE WILDE, AUTUMN Elliott Smith (Chronicle Books) book + cd 29.95
It's been a bit of a Elliott Smith revival time here at AQ for the last several weeks. With the vinyl reissues of XO and Figure 8, we've been spending lots of QT with one of our favorite singer songwriters of all time. This new book of Elliott Smith photographs by Autumn De Wilde is helping fuel our revival fire. The beautiful hardcover book is not only filled with De Wilde's great photos of Smith from over the years but some great interviews and conversations with many of Elliott's friends and colleagues (Beck, Chris Walla, Ben Gibbard, Jon Brion, etc.). The book also comes with a cd of five live tracks of Smith playing a solo show at Largo in LA, where he often would hang out and play unannounced shows while he was living down there. A really cool document for Elliott Smith enthusiasts.

DEACON, DAN Bromst (Carpark) cd 14.98
Review courtesy of aQ pal Forrest:
Bromst wasn't what I expected next from Dan Deacon. Over the last couple years, broheim's spent a lot of time on the road, cajoling kefiya'd hipsters around North America into throwing their hands in the air and dancing like they just do not care. Dan Deacon shows are cheerfully riotous, thanks in no small part to Deacon's maniacal, good-naturedly foulmouthed chivvying of the crowd into helping create the show. (Dude is very big on crowd participation, which, given the apathy of the usual crowd at indie shows, is one of the many reasons we love him so much.) On first listen, however, Bromst is a much more contemplative, conventional record than his previous, Spider of the Rings, and seems to share little in common with Deacon's live show. Where Spider of the Rings was a jabberjawed, neon-encrusted box of whooping, circuit-bent deliriousness, Bromst seems much more sedate and nowhere near as immediate.
Having experienced a good portion of Bromst live, we can tell you that impression of subtlety lasts about 2.5 seconds under the hammering assault of Deacon's new 10-person live ensemble, after which it becomes abundantly clear that the new songs are tooled for the road and the dancefloor is going to be lucky to withstand the frenetic heaving of the crowd. This music is absolutely monstrous live and Deacon leaves audiences with no option but to respond. Given his background in academic electronic composition, Deacon's reference points are not exactly what you'd expect. There's some understandable early Kraftwerkian motorik prog in places (think Autobahn, not Man-Machine), and there are lovely (that's the only word that fits) ornaments decorating the edges of most of the songs that are obviously in the lineage of Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Philip Glass. There's also a pretty clear affinity with the yahoo freak folk of Akron/Family, with the vague exhortations to universal consciousness and tribal, rolling drums and triumphant chords shouting through the mix. Much less obvious is the clear debt to full-on 50s rock and roll in all its two-(major-)chord glory, with an ironic self-awareness situated somewhere between the New York Dolls and Roxy Music. This all leaves Bromst sounding like an alien refugee from the '70s, albeit one fully conversant with 21st century electronic trickery - never fear, Deacon's ridiculous chipmunked / phased / vocodered vocals are fully intact.
That said, it's a slow grower, taking many listens to fully reveal itself, but once it's burnt itself in, the high points are plentiful. The three highest points are the swooning, Meredith Monk-meets-Appalachia looped vocal drone of "Wet Wings", the chiming, woozy and gentle slow build of "Snookered", and the flatly uncategorizable closer "Get Older", with its fusion of marimba with some of Deacon's itchiest electronics, all over a lumbering rock'n'roll beat and overlaid with thick layers of Reich/Riley/Glass-esque cellular composition. Minimalism has rarely sounded so heavy. On record, it's not the hammer straight to the adrenal gland that it is live, but it's still pretty damn impressive. Like Spiderman of the Rings' "Wham City", it ties everything there is to love about Dan Deacon up in a tidy package: deceptively sophisticated songwriting, a deep awareness of and respect for musical history, earworm electronics, layers upon layers of sound, and a total commitment to wanton excess. It's a brilliant way to end a brilliant record, and is all the advertisement Dan Deacon needs. Get this record and get yourself to one of Deacon's loopy, amazing live shows. Both are good times.
MPEG Stream: "Snookered"
MPEG Stream: "Wet Wings"
MPEG Stream: "Get Older"

DEACON, DAN Spiderman Of The Rings (Carpark) cd 14.98
By golly, we've received a bunch of tweaked pop releases this week -- Black Moth Super Rainbow, Shaky Hands, Welcome, Bonde Do Role -- but Baltimore's Dan Deacon and his merry melody makers (read: an assortment of well-worn effects pedals and electronic gizmos -- yup, he's a one-man band!) definitely take the daffy cake! That is, if the cake is a dizzying candy-jewelled sparkler inferno of vintage video game melodies and processed kiddie gang vocals. Having played a couple shows with Deacon, our own Matt Wildlife has attested to the live awesomeness of this fellow. However, despite the loosey-goosey frolicking nature of this album and his live show, he ain't no musical neophyte amateur. He's got some serious skills to pay the bills (i.e, classical training and a Masters degree in electro-acoustic composition!). Deacon's self-released seven albums to date, and this is his first for Carpark Records (home of quirkulicious releases by Ariel Pink, Ecstatic Sunshine, Animal Collective, Kit Clayton & Safety Scissors). Spiderman Of The Rings sounds like a sugar-coated battle royale between Arcade Fire and HR Pufnstuf. You want party? Here it is!
MPEG Stream: "Wooody Woodpecker"
MPEG Stream: "Wham City"

DEAD 60S s/t (Epic) cd 13.98

DEAD AND GONE The Beautician (GSL) cd 10.98
From right out of the starting blocks, Dead And Gone's comin' at ya full force - whether it be at a sinisterly creeping pace or a raging hardcore pummel-fest. Angry, festering vocals hoarsely growl over a thick, grumbling rhythm section and jaggedly angular guitars. Whereas their past releases have been marred by slipshod loose ends and murky rough edges, "The Beautician" contains some of Dead And Gone's most focused tracks to date. Fans of the GSL roster will certainly not be disappointed. Barrelling and beefy.
RealAudio clip: "Leave The Dead To Bury The Dead"
RealAudio clip: "Black Hole Heart"

DEAD AS DREAMS Their Steps Become Unbearable (Goatowarex) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Naming your black metal band after the only record by arguably one of the most important USBM bands ever, and around here definitely one of the most revered, is most certainly setting the bar pretty high, but then as we mentioned in the review of Dead As Dreams debut, you could do a lot worse than look to Weakling for inspiration.
We dug the first DaD release big time, a split tape with another Weaking obsessed outfit called Aurvandil, and on that split, DaD definitely did their best Weakling impression, a sprawling epic single track, rife with wild blasting beats, frenzied riffing and hysterical shrieks, but in the process, did manage to infuse enough of their own vibe to keep it on the homage side of hero worship.
So here we are, a year later, and Dead As Dreams have returned, and if anything, the Weakling worship has only intensified, not only did the band travel to San Francisco to record with Tim Green, who recorded Weakling's Dead As Dreams, the credits on the inside of the booklet are also in that weird, impossible to read vertical font, and are a dead ringer for the Weakling record, but musically, some things have definitely changed.
The template is similar, one single massive multi-movement 25 minute track, long swaths of frantic insectoid buzzing, wild chaotic blasting, but unlike the trancelike mesmer of Weakling, Dead As Dreams have crafted something much more multifaceted, those stretches of frenzied blasts are tempered by lumbering bits of black doom, the guitars tangled into gnarled harmonies, long drawn out expanses of murky buzz and spidery melody, the arrangement much more mathy and dynamic, relying less on repetition, and instead creating what is essentially a songsuite blurred into a single 'track'. Loping mid tempo Burzumic buzz gives way to gnarled Deathspell style riffery, which blossoms into blackened pound, laced with almost NWOBHM style melodies, as well as lots of cool woozy almost psychedelic sounding slow parts, not doomy so much as just droned out and seasick sounding. The blasting buzzy bits are definitely still beholden to Weakling in some ways, but hell, how is that any different than the millions of other bands following in the footsteps of Mayhem, or Immortal, or Satyricon. Weakling seems like a way more obscure and inspiring influence. And it definitely sounds like these guys were inspired, Their Steps Become Unbearable is a huge leap forward from that split cassette, which besides the songwriting, is also probably thanks to Tim Green's production, and the fact that the band that recorded this was made up of SF black metal veterans including members of Horn Of Dagoth, Elk and Palace Of Worms.
Removed from the shadow of Weakling, Dead As Dreams are most definitely an awesome band, but even acknowledging the group's unfettered love for their sonic forbears, these guys totally shred, and anyone who digs epic tranced out black buzz, should definitely check this out. And even though technically this is only an ep, it feels like a full length, a black expanse of parts and textures and layers and movements all spun into a glorious black epic.
MPEG Stream: "Their Steps Become Unbearable (exceprt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Their Steps Become Unbearable (exceprt 2)"

DEAD AS DREAMS / AURVANDIL Adrift (Tour De Garde) cassette 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What hath the mighty Weakling wrought? Surely that legendary SF black metal band spawned a legion of followers and worshippers, but few underground bands have had such a noticeable impact, spawning bands blatantly and openly paying homage to the masters.
First there was Jabladav, who began basically as a tribute, even releasing a couple records called Dead As Duck and Drunk As Duck, both references to Weakling's only album, Dead As Dreams which came out on tUMULt way back in 2000. Now there's the BAND Dead As Dreams, a USBM band who apparently loved Weakling enough to name their band after the group's seminal record. And as if that weren't enough, Dead As Dreams are paired up on this split with a band called Aurvandil, who have a song called "As Dead As Dreams". But you know, bands could do a lot worse for inspiration than Weakling, and if you ask us, and since you're reading this review you sort of are, a band could hardly do better.
So Dead As Dreams, offer up a single looooong song, carving out their own sound, which is definitely heavily influenced by Weakling, but manages to be pretty unique and most assuredly their own. The fast bits are the most Weakling inspired, with similarly hysterical shrieks, drone infused blackened riffing, relentless drumming, but then the band whip out these really awesome depressive slow parts, all mournful and a bit abstract, plodding and melancholic, with some long slow decays and awesome wailing keening high tones, that almost sound like guitar and voice harmonizing, however they do it, it's really dramatic and makes the song!
Aurvandil are from France but sound like they're from Norway, very Buzumic, gloriously buzzy, midtempo, drum machine, but not distractedly so, some awesome riffs for sure, the sound not as murky or muted as Dead As Dreams, more chaotic, but still melodic, definitely need to hear more from both these bands, but especially Dead As Dreams, we find ourselves returning to that track again and again, THAT one part burned into our brains.
Released on the always kick ass Tour De Garde label!!

DEAD BEGINNERS Sinners' Rebellion (Spikefarm) cd 14.98
Been trying to list this for a while but we were never able to get enough. This is easily one of my favorite metal records of the past couple of years. Sort of doom metal, sort of black metal, but completely epic and gorgeous and totally captivating. Not to mention heavy as fuck. Lots of keyboards under thick guitars playing huge minor key riffs while sorrowful melodies weave in and out. Mostly midtempo, but with the occasional burst of lightning speed, Finland's Dead Beginners craft timeless metal epics (with a definite medieval vibe), melancholy and sorrowful, dark and doomy. The sound reminds me of some strange mix of old Paradise Lost, Old Cathedral, Skepticism, Cradle Of Filth, Candlemass, and Burzum. Or something like that. Some of the best dark depressing doom / black-bleak metal. SO recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Calling Ruby"
RealAudio clip: "Treason Via Magdelene"
RealAudio clip: "The Wounderable One"

DEAD C Future Artists (Ba Da Bing!) cd 10.98
Best song title ever?: "The AMM Of Punk Rock". And what's funny is, if there was ever a band that could rightfully claim that title as their own, it NZ's Dead C. Much like how Nirvana spawned a million shitty wannabe's, the Dead C basically did the same for the noise rock underground. Anyone with a piece of shit guitar and a beat up four-track got to thinking they could be a band, not realizing that the match up of Bruce Russell, Michael Morley and Robbie Yeats was a magical once in a lifetime sort of lucky draw.Ê
It's been four years since the last Dead C record, The Damned, a killer slab of classic Dead C -ROCK- that we dug like crazy. From full on rock to moody ambience, it was a serious return to form. So what did this noise rock power decide to do as a follow up (besides wait four long years)? Well, as being contrary seems second nature to them, they decided to be difficult. To make a hard to listen to, abstract record filled with amazing sounds assembled in amazing and perplexing shapes and letting us figure out how to enjoy them. And enjoying them is exactly what we're doing. If drastic stylistic shifts and difficult listening are things that send you packing then odds are you gave up on these guys long ago.Ê
Starting off with the above mentionedÊ"The AMM Of Punk Rock", the Dead C reclaim the noise rock throne from Wolf EyesÊor whoever happens to be parked there this week. These guys are legends for a reason, they can take seemingly unmusical sounds, caustic, abrasive, minimal and harsh, and weave them into something beautiful. This is no exception. Wheezing chords, tape hiss, amp buzz, strange disjointed melodies, huge billowing rubbery low end ooze, plenty of electronic glitch and squiggle, bits of buzz and beep, until about halfway through when a riff enters the fray,Êa gorgeously SUNNO)))-y wash of distorted guitar rumble over simple spare percussion, like classic Dead C slowed waaaaaaay down. Not sure if it's the sound of punk rock AMM, but it sure as hell could be.
Elsewhere, the band dip into dissonant mumbly noise rock, complete with crooned vocals, clattery junk yard percussion, VU style riffing, a shuffling beat and a hidden hook that once unearthed will stick in your head like crazy, long drawn out buzzscapes of sputtering distortion, weird processed drums, digital skitter, and thick rumbling whir, super spaced out reverbed kraut jams, not all that unlike some lost German Oak jam, simple plodding percussion, metallic crunch, squalls of angular guitar, sheets of feedback, some downright groovy riffing and some seriously propulsive drumming, and for the final 20 minute track, a creepy lo-fi junkyard noise rock Appalachia, with raga like steel string guitar and wavery chordal warble, some blown out synth weirdness, and strange alien melodies, all wrapped in tons of reverb and delay, like it was recorded in a huge underground cavern, giving the whole track an awesomely subterranean vibe, casting the 'C as some clan of bearded beasties, with blind eyes, pale skin, and hair down to the ground, who have spent the last thousand years holed up in their cave, with nothing but some old amps and janky synths, busted up drums and a single crappy microphone...
And that's kind of what the whole record sounds like really, that Dead C classic deconstructed primitivism, begrudgingly dragged into the future (hence the record title? Ironic? Not?), the murky stumbling sonic chaos we know and love augmented with strange modern flourishes and unexpected modern production fuckery, which actually quite becomes them...
MPEG Stream: "The AMM Of Punk Rock"
MPEG Stream: "The Magicians"

DEAD C Future Artists (Ba Da Bing!) 2lp 17.98
NOW ON VINYL!!!
Best song title ever?: "The AMM Of Punk Rock". And what's funny is, if there was ever a band that could rightfully claim that title as their own, it NZ's Dead C. Much like how Nirvana spawned a million shitty wannabe's, the Dead C basically did the same for the noise rock underground. Anyone with a piece of shit guitar and a beat up four-track got to thinking they could be a band, not realizing that the match up of Bruce Russell, Michael Morley and Robbie Yeats was a magical once in a lifetime sort of lucky draw.Ê
It's been four years since the last Dead C record, The Damned, a killer slab of classic Dead C -ROCK- that we dug like crazy. From full on rock to moody ambience, it was a serious return to form. So what did this noise rock power decide to do as a follow up (besides wait four long years)? Well, as being contrary seems second nature to them, they decided to be difficult. To make a hard to listen to, abstract record filled with amazing sounds assembled in amazing and perplexing shapes and letting us figure out how to enjoy them. And enjoying them is exactly what we're doing. If drastic stylistic shifts and difficult listening are things that send you packing then odds are you gave up on these guys long ago.Ê
Starting off with the above mentionedÊ"The AMM Of Punk Rock", the Dead C reclaim the noise rock throne from Wolf EyesÊor whoever happens to be parked there this week. These guys are legends for a reason, they can take seemingly unmusical sounds, caustic, abrasive, minimal and harsh, and weave them into something beautiful. This is no exception. Wheezing chords, tape hiss, amp buzz, strange disjointed melodies, huge billowing rubbery low end ooze, plenty of electronic glitch and squiggle, bits of buzz and beep, until about halfway through when a riff enters the fray,Êa gorgeously SUNNO)))-y wash of distorted guitar rumble over simple spare percussion, like classic Dead C slowed waaaaaaay down. Not sure if it's the sound of punk rock AMM, but it sure as hell could be.
Elsewhere, the band dip into dissonant mumbly noise rock, complete with crooned vocals, clattery junk yard percussion, VU style riffing, a shuffling beat and a hidden hook that once unearthed will stick in your head like crazy, long drawn out buzzscapes of sputtering distortion, weird processed drums, digital skitter, and thick rumbling whir, super spaced out reverbed kraut jams, not all that unlike some lost German Oak jam, simple plodding percussion, metallic crunch, squalls of angular guitar, sheets of feedback, some downright groovy riffing and some seriously propulsive drumming, and for the final 20 minute track, a creepy lo-fi junkyard noise rock Appalachia, with raga like steel string guitar and wavery chordal warble, some blown out synth weirdness, and strange alien melodies, all wrapped in tons of reverb and delay, like it was recorded in a huge underground cavern, giving the whole track an awesomely subterranean vibe, casting the 'C as some clan of bearded beasties, with blind eyes, pale skin, and hair down to the ground, who have spent the last thousand years holed up in their cave, with nothing but some old amps and janky synths, busted up drums and a single crappy microphone...
And that's kind of what the whole record sounds like really, that Dead C classic deconstructed primitivism, begrudgingly dragged into the future (hence the record title? Ironic? Not?), the murky stumbling sonic chaos we know and love augmented with strange modern flourishes and unexpected modern production fuckery, which actually quite becomes them...
MPEG Stream: "The AMM Of Punk Rock"
MPEG Stream: "The Magicians"

DEAD C Golden Canine (Ba Da Bing) 12" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NZ noise rockers the Dead C were just here, and they had a little stash of super limited tour 12"s, of which we managed to get a big handful, 25 or 30, but that's it. Once these are gone, they are gone gone gone.
The recordings are live, no info on when or where, but the sound is murky and lo-fi and muddy and washed out and with any other band that would be a bummer, but that's the sort of production that perfectly suits Dead C's particular sound, especially live.
The A side begins with a thick throbbing distorted guitar drone, for minutes, before the drums finally kick in, a propulsive krautrock beat that lasts all of 20 seconds before slowing down and dropping out. Hmm, false start? Sounds cool regardless, as the guitar drone continues on and the drums once again join the fray, and the band locks into a loose but groovy psychedelic New Zealand krautjam, the guitars so muddy and indistinct, they sound almost like a static drone, a constant buzz beneath the drums, before those drums drop off and the track finishes with a woozy shimmery drone.
The B side is a gorgeous haunting creep, a black sonic fury, all pulsating guitars, growling low end and muted abstract drumming, with stuttery feedback spread out over the heavy detuned sprawl. The whole side so minimal and hypnotic and ominous and beautiful.
SUPER LIMITED. Packaged in plain black 12" sleeves.

DEAD C Relax Fallujah -- Hell Has Come (Ba Da Bing) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Released to coincide with the recent double disc retrospective, this 7" features two tracks that should have Dead C fans drooling. One side features an unreleased version of "Power" rescued from the band's vast archives, a gorgeous slab of blown out noise rock, distortion drenched indie jangle, simple drumming, wild squalls of psychnoise guitar, sing songy vocals, dense and noisy but surprisingly catchy. The B side is one of their most popular songs (according to some), having been covered by loads of folks including Yo La Tengo, a driving almost new wave sounding punk rocker, with fuzzed out riffs, and some seriously Mark E. Smith vocals, shouting "Bad Politics... Baby". Maybe the poppiest thing they've ever done.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. ONE TIME PRESSING!!!

DEAD C Secret Earth (Ba Da Bing) cd 10.98
So, this is the quote-unquote rockin' Dead C album? So we were told, that was the supposed spin on this one, the twenty-somethingth album from these veteran NZ "free-rock" heroes. But maybe we got that wrong, 'cause aren't they all equally (free-) rockin'? Probably what was meant was that this was more "song-y", in comparison to their previous album, last year's Future Artists, 'cause there's more singing... but otherwise, not such a huge departure. And their album before that, 2003's The Damned, was WAY rock on tracks like "Truth". It's always kinda funny getting into discussions about just how rock or noise or whatever the Dead C are, anyway, since the thing about them is that they're playing Dead C music exclusively, forging into otherwise uncharted, unnamed sonic territory with each release even after 20 years in the "biz", leaving all other underground noise/drone/rock/experimental/floorcore acts to play catch-up. As we said in our review of Future Artists, the Dead C have an amazing ability to take "unmusical sounds, caustic, abrasive, minimal and harsh, and weave them into something beautiful." That they surely do here. If you've never heard 'em before, this could be a fairly accessible starting point.
Certainly, you can't argue that lead off track "Mansions" (the 1st of 4 songs on this 45 minute disc) does not, underneath its avant-garde, noisily shambolic exterior, have a rock n' roll heart that's a-beatin'. As well, there's melody amidst the murk, with mumbly, half-whispered vocals rising to the fore. But really it's more moanin' than it's rockin', the whole album moaning and droning, full of shrill feedback textures and an eventually hypnotic sheen of percussive clangor (on the lengthy track 2 "Stations", and track 3 "Plains" especially). They stir up quite a dense din on the latter, leaving more space on album closer "Waves" for Michael Morely's plaintive vocals to wend thro' the distortion, showing the kinder, gentler side of the Dead C... Such a fine blend of immediate emotional impact and unsettling, unfamiliar audio explorations. As "song-y" as we say this is, who else writes songs that at each and every moment seem maybe like they are finishing, and/or beginning anew? Standard song structures and instrumental roles are abandoned or deprioritized in favor of an alien Dead C agenda of experimental, improvised (yet to their own logic disciplined) expressiveness that really does justify the "free" in the free-rock tag. As essential as ever. (And if you can, don't miss 'em on their first US tour in ages - they played SF last night and it was great.)
MPEG Stream: "Mansions"
MPEG Stream: "Stations"

DEAD C Secret Earth (Ba Da Bing) lp 14.98
NOW ON VINYL!
So, this is the quote-unquote rockin' Dead C album? So we were told, that was the supposed spin on this one, the twenty-somethingth album from these veteran NZ "free-rock" heroes. But maybe we got that wrong, 'cause aren't they all equally (free-) rockin'? Probably what was meant was that this was more "song-y", in comparison to their previous album, last year's Future Artists, 'cause there's more singing... but otherwise, not such a huge departure. And their album before that, 2003's The Damned, was WAY rock on tracks like "Truth". It's always kinda funny getting into discussions about just how rock or noise or whatever the Dead C are, anyway, since the thing about them is that they're playing Dead C music exclusively, forging into otherwise uncharted, unnamed sonic territory with each release even after 20 years in the "biz", leaving all other underground noise/drone/rock/experimental/floorcore acts to play catch-up. As we said in our review of Future Artists, the Dead C have an amazing ability to take "unmusical sounds, caustic, abrasive, minimal and harsh, and weave them into something beautiful." That they surely do here. If you've never heard 'em before, this could be a fairly accessible starting point.
Certainly, you can't argue that lead off track "Mansions" (the 1st of 4 songs on this 45 minute disc) does not, underneath its avant-garde, noisily shambolic exterior, have a rock n' roll heart that's a-beatin'. As well, there's melody amidst the murk, with mumbly, half-whispered vocals rising to the fore. But really it's more moanin' than it's rockin', the whole album moaning and droning, full of shrill feedback textures and an eventually hypnotic sheen of percussive clangor (on the lengthy track 2 "Stations", and track 3 "Plains" especially). They stir up quite a dense din on the latter, leaving more space on album closer "Waves" for Michael Morely's plaintive vocals to wend thro' the distortion, showing the kinder, gentler side of the Dead C... Such a fine blend of immediate emotional impact and unsettling, unfamiliar audio explorations. As "song-y" as we say this is, who else writes songs that at each and every moment seem maybe like they are finishing, and/or beginning anew? Standard song structures and instrumental roles are abandoned or deprioritized in favor of an alien Dead C agenda of experimental, improvised (yet to their own logic disciplined) expressiveness that really does justify the "free" in the free-rock tag. As essential as ever.
MPEG Stream: "Mansions"
MPEG Stream: "Stations"

DEAD C Stealth / The Factory (Sub Pop) 7" 4.50

DEAD C / HI GOD PEOPLE split (Nervous Jerk) 12" 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For most of you, all you'll need to hear is "BRAND NEW DEAD C RECORD". And maybe also "VINYL ONLY." And let's not forget the ubiquitous "EXTREMELY LIMITED." At this point, about 33 words into what will undoubtedly be a 400 word review, most of you already have this in your cart and have moved on. But just in case...
Super limited lp only split, featuring noise rock deities the Dead C and Australian surreal space rockers Hi God People. The Dead C offer up two tracks, recorded live in 2002 at All Tomorrows Parties and on first listen is the Dead C at their most blissful and laid back. The first track opens with a sort of minimal Velvet Underground style groove, simple drums, muted melodies, but the whole thing is swathed in squealing, shrieking, creaking, stuttering shards of feedback. Eventually that feedback takes over, creating a new rhythm of its own, the drums spazz and sputter out, and suddenly we're in classic dark and dangerous Dead C territory again. Fuzzed out, blown out, overdriven, psychedelic NOISE rock, somehow free and abstract, but totally propulsive and groovy, with strangely super melodic vocals buried WAY down in the mix. The second track is another blissy drone out, that by the end of the side breaks down into some seriously noisy freakout action, sounding almost like some bootleg Stooges jam, pulled apart, jacked up and blown wide open! Fuzzy and murky but still strangely (noise) rocking!
The three tracks on the flipside from Australia's Hi God People, are still noise rock, but much less abrasive and more melodic. The opener is super abstract, with bits of sample conversation, warbly organs, shimmering feedback, a lazy glimmering drift. The second track kicks in with some almost Sonic Youth like grooves, simple drumming and tangled up atonal guitars, and some awesome, out of the blue snarling tigers (!). They finish things off with a super moody laid back blown out psych jam, with weird Patty Waters like vocals. Cool.
Packaged in a hand silkscreened sleeve, with a two sided printed insert, all adorned with some super cool, very Devendra Banhart looking geometric artwork. And need we say, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!

DEAD C, THE Clyma Est Mort / Tentative Power (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) 2lp 23.00
One of two new installments in Ba Da Bing and Jagjaguwar's ongoing vinyl reissue campaign of perhaps one of THE greatest noise rock bands ever, New Zealand's Dead C, who unlike many (most?) of their contemporaries, were perfectly capable of mixing stumbling downer pop with full on room clearing cacophony, muted minimal sonic abstractions and crunchy riff heavy drone rock, without sounding like anyone but themselves.
And as far as oft referenced bands around aQ, it's no surprise that Dead C gets name dropped in so many reviews, in many ways, they are the archetype for modern noise rock, for subversive outsider post rock, whatever you want to call it, Dead C were and are the masters, and these reissues should make that abundantly and utterly clear. And just might put into perspective how 'original' and 'groundbreaking' a lot of the current flavors of the noise rock month really are.
Clyma Est Mort was recorded live in the band's practice space in 1992, was released as a purported 'bootleg' (even going so far as to dub in crowd sounds from a Renderers gig, creating the illusion of a live record, sort of) and is an incredible, and awe inspiring ultra expansive slab of outsider experimental post noise, noise pop, avant rock abstraction. Sounds hyperbolic, but these sounds, ESPECIALLY in 1992, but even today, sound so unique, so idiosyncratic, slipping nimbly from clouds of swirling skree, to stumbling krautrock, to glacial abstract pop, spoken vocals drifting in a sea of rumbling crumbling guitars, held together by sporadic and gloriously inconsistent rhythms, and that's just the very first song, the fractured and ebullient "Sunshine / Dirt For Harry". And it doesn't let up. From full on driving noise drenched punk rock, the guitars grinding and blown out, the recording in the red and oozing distortion and feedback, all unable to disguise the pure pop at its core, to woozy almost doomy dirges, laced with clouds of sizzling cymbals, sitar like guitar buzz, warped weary vox, bursts of shrieking crunch, like some sort of Velvet Underground gone haywire, to noisy, atonal, super heavy noise pop, that sounds a bit like a New Zealand Sebadoh, but doused in distortion and with the guitars detuned, and recorded in an underground bunker.
The record closes with a pretty devastating one two punch. "World" a gorgeously melancholy almost balladic noise dirge, with some sweetly heartfelt vocals over a dense tangle of jagged guitars, the drums chaotic and LOUD, everything hazy and murky, but somehow super tense and emotional and beautiful. And finally, "Das Fluten" a sprawling abstract creep, all deep rumbles, and random abstract room sounds, creaking, thumps, detuned acoustic guitars, bits of percussion, streaks of feedback, little slivers of melody, fluttery flutes, a stumbling bit of super minimal noise folk, all held together by a thick rumbling bass drone, which also makes the whole thing strangely haunting and ominous.
And as if that weren't enough, this reissue includes a whole extra record, "Tentative Power" a collection compiling the band's 1991 singles, originally released on Siltbreeze, Forced Exposure, Ba Da Bing and Hermeticum Corp. "Hell Is Now Love" might be one of the greatest pop songs EVER, done in the Dead C's inimitable UNpop style, "Bone" is a strange faux world music drone pop mini epic, with some super strange guitar action. The "Power" / "Peace" / "Mighty" trilogy from the Forced Exposure single, is still MORE poppy, giving us a hint of what could have been if these guys weren't so noise inclined, and finally, the 7" version of "Power", a track rescued from the band's vast archives, a gorgeous slab of blown out noise pop, distortion drenched indie jangle, simple drumming, wild squalls of psychnoise guitar, sing songy vocals, dense and noisy but surprisingly catchy. So goddamn good.
This should be required listening for every new band. It'll either inspire them to do great things, or convince them to hang it up.
Pressed on super thick vinyl, in a deluxe heavy gatefold sleeve, and includes a proper cd version of the record too seeing as none of this stuff has ever been on cd before!

DEAD C, THE DR503 / The Sun Stabbed EP (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) 2lp 22.00
It's a bit hard to believe that it's been just over 20 years since New Zealand's Dead C first unleashed their unique brand of 'noise rock' on our unsuspecting ears, but 'tis true, and while the band have gone through many sonic permutations over their two decades, their sound somehow has always remained distinctly their own. There have been long stretches of inactivity too, with the various members pursuing their own projects, Gate, A Handful Of Dust, etc. but they always seemed to find their way back. A new record, and a recent US tour, has upped the band's profile of late, but what better time to look back, at their first two proper full lengths, available on vinyl in the US for the first time, with all sorts of extras.
While the Dead C are generally considered to be a 'noise rock band', to many THEE 'noise rock' band, it's easy to forget that at their heart, they are a pop band. With songs, and verses and choruses and crooned vocals, and strummed acoustic guitars, and all of that stuff. Never was that more apparent than on their first two records, Eusa Kills and Dr 503, which found the band sort of straddling two worlds of sound, the prevailing 'New Zealand' sound, a sort of lo-fi bedroom pop, and their own peculiar trajectory, a loose ramshackle assemblage of guitarnoise, fractured FX, noisy ambience, and a general clang and clatter. A pretty heady mix for sure, which probably had more conservative listeners reeling, but had the rest of us clamoring for more.
Dr 503, was their first proper full length (3rd actual, depending on who's keeping track), and opens up with what many consider the penultimate Dead C track "Max Harris", and if a single song could indeed be a microcosm for the Dead C sound, it's probably "Max Harris". Woozy rhythms, stumbling off kilter rhythms, the middle part sounds like a lo-fi This Heat crossed with Geronimo, all abstract distorted crunch, and muted squalls of tribal drumming, streaks of clipped effects, murky processed vocals, slivers of feedback, even a mere seconds-long acoustic guitar outro. The record veers and careens all over the place, spoken word over splattery percussion and clipped minimal strum, thick doomy dirges of heavily reverbed guitar, gloomy Joy Division basslines, and hushed muttered vocals, skipping phonographs draped over stripped down slowcore, Sebadoh style lo-fi bedroom folk, primitive tape experiments, pounding almost garage-y jams that transform into spare Jandekian sprawls, but all held together by some nearly impossible to define Dead C aesthetic.
The record finishes off with a devastating one-two punch, the 9 minute Dead C classic sort-of-ballad "Polio", which begins all folky and strummy, gradually the guitars warp and warble, the drums stumble in, and the song just sort of drifts and skitters, the guitars weirdly effected, the vocals heartfelt and buried way down in the mix, the drums almost Can-like in their motorik simplicity, there are some moments of chaos, but for the most part "Polio" is dark and dreamy and murky and softly buzzy, a little jangly, and sort of pretty. And then it's on to the 13+ minute "Max Harris 2" which does seem to contain some sonic elements of the original, but the sound here is repetitive and clangorous, the guitars buzz and whir, the riffs angular and jagged, the sound washed out and lo-fi, the vocals another buried mumble, until the song shifts gear part way through, and it's just a single guitar, plucking out that same main riff, accompanied by super spare percussion, and wreathed in tape hiss, after a sudden burst of crash and crunch, the track jams on and on and on, becoming slowly unhinged, the sounds slowly detuning, everything getting more and more warped and warbly before stuttering to a halt.
This reissue tacks on the Sun Stabbed ep (originally released as a 7"), from right around the same time, which is pretty impossible to find at all, on vinyl or otherwise. Offering up more of the same, a handful of gorgeous and confusional tracks offering up still more of the Dead C's unique clash of classic New Zealand songsmithery and noise drenched, abstract, sonic deconstruction.
Absolutely and utterly essential listening. Gorgeously repackaged in a super heavy gatefold sleeve, reproducing much of the original art, and pressed on super thick vinyl. And as you might have guessed, VERY VERY LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Polio"
MPEG Stream: "I Love This"
MPEG Stream: "Angel"

DEAD C, THE DR503C (Flying Nun) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The second reissue of "DR503C" is actually quite a bit different than the reissue on Feels Good All Over, with unreleased & rare tracks. Before, Bruce, Michael, & Robbie got obsessed with "free noise", their sound of lo-fi production on acoustic guitars, crappy amplifiers, and that "cardboard box" drum sound was channelled into bitter songs predating Sebadoh & Charalambides by a good 5 years. Highly recommended document of NZ rock!

DEAD C, THE Eusa Kills (Flying Nun) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

DEAD C, THE Eusa Kills / Helen Said This (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) 2lp 22.00
It's a bit hard to believe that it's been just over 20 years since New Zealand's Dead C first unleashed their unique brand of 'noise rock' on our unsuspecting ears, but 'tis true, and while the band have gone through many sonic permutations over their two decades, their sound somehow has always remained distinctly their own. There have been long stretches of inactivity too, with the various members pursuing their own projects, Gate, A Handful Of Dust, etc. but they always seemed to find their way back. A new record, and a recent US tour, has upped the band's profile of late, but what better time to look back, at their first two proper full lengths, available on vinyl in the US for the first time, with all sorts of extras.
While the Dead C are generally considered to be a 'noise rock band', to many THEE 'noise rock' band, it's easy to forget that at their heart, they are a pop band. With songs, and verses and choruses and crooned vocals, and strummed acoustic guitars, and all of that stuff. Never was that more apparent than on their first two records, Eusa Kills and Dr 503, which found the band sort of straddling two worlds of sound, the prevailing 'New Zealand' sound, a sort of lo-fi bedroom pop, and their own peculiar trajectory, a loose ramshackle assemblage of guitarnoise, fractured FX, noisy ambience, and a general clang and clatter. A pretty heady mix for sure, which probably had more conservative listeners reeling, but had the rest of us clamoring for more.
Eusa Kills originally came out in 1989, and makes it the Dead C's fourth proper full length (maybe 6th, hard to tell with the band's convoluted discography) and finds the band in full on song mode, with a somewhat improved production, which definitely suits them. Years later, the band would release a single called The Dead C. Vs. Sebadoh, the title a joke obviously, but even 5 years early, when Eusa Kills came out, the band did in fact sound quite a bit like Sebadoh at moments, dark and brooding, sort of rocking, melodic but a bit off kilter, especially on record opener "Scarey Nest", which is a dead ringer for some lost Sebadoh B-side, with a killer main hook, simple solid drumming, wistful sort of sad boy vocals, the guitars alternatingly jangly and corrosive. After a 43 second Butthole Surfers style abstract drum / guitar crunch jam with distorted vocals and a lumbering tempo, the band slip right back into more dark jangle, a minor key guitar unfurling, a shuffling military snare, more weary crooned vocals, it is easy to see why lots of folks refer to Eusa Kills as the Dead C's 'songs' record. Most of the tracks are 2 or 3 minutes, poppy and jangly, the whole record clocking in at a lean 36 minutes, the exceptions being the 6 minute "Phantom Power" which begins as an extended abstract jam, all simple solid drumming and jagged guitar, but then the vocals drift in all ghostlike and the sound is transformed into something much poppier, and the 7 minute "Maggot", which is probably the heaviest of the bunch, with its grinding guitars, it's lurching drum part, and the super distorted Buttholes style processed vox, but even then, there's a definite pop sensibility at work, although a bit obscured. The rest of the shorter tracks tend toward the pop-ish, whether it be pounding noise drenched indie rock, moaning slow motion Jandek style sprawl or the gorgeously languid hushed folky jangle that finishes off the disc.
Also included is the Helen Said This 12" originally released around the same time. Not quite as songy as Eusa Kills, but enough that the two fit together perfectly, an extension of Eusa's twisted jangle, muddled pop smithery, warm wooziness, and occasional cracked heaviness.
Totally recommended, and essential for all fans of fucked up music. And heck, even fans of not-so-fucked up music. This just might be the Dead C record you can handle. Gorgeously repackaged in a super heavy gatefold sleeve, reproducing much of the original art, and pressed on super thick vinyl. And as you might have guessed, VERY VERY LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Scarey Nest"
MPEG Stream: "Alien To Be"
MPEG Stream: "Phantom Power"

DEAD C, THE Harsh 70's Reality (Stillbreeze) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is IT. One of the most perfect slabs of abstract free rock ever set to tape. Yes, noise rockers, this is where it all started. Originally released way back in 1992, about five years into their recorded career. Long out of print and finally available again. We're of the mind that the Dead C never made a bad record, but of their entire recorded output, Harsh 70's Reality continues to be our all time favorite. Most of the vestiges of pop that showed up in their past records, the legacy of their NZ pop heritage, were jettisoned or at least transformed into something much harder, much weirder. The pop remained, but drastically altered, more often twisted and tangled, buried or burned, a soft glowing core barely visible through the Dead C's abstruse ambient noise. Truly hard to describe, there are guitars and drums, but Harsh 70s Reality never really rocks, it does however manage to be heavy and psychedelic and dense and droney all at once. Blissful, tranquil, harsh, jagged, dreamy, dark, atonal, an impossible collision of sounds and emotions. This may be noise rock, but it's not precisely noisy, nor rock. By this point, the Dead C were channeling Cale and Conrad and Maclise and the Taj Mahal Travellers as much as any rock or noise outfits.
This is immediately evident on the opening track here, the 22 minute "Driver U.F.O.", a massive dirgescapes of angular guitar, clanging and keening, a sound that hinted at the noise to come, their future trajectory, headed for sonic worlds even further out. A world first visited here, of strange little abstract chordal figures, not riffs per se, just strange smears of sound repeated over and over, totally mesmerizing, but completely alien, sheets of guitar noise, big slabs of metal percussive clang, creepy wheedly little melodies, lots of drone and drawn out streaks of feedback. Sounds almost like the first musicians ever, musical cavemen, suddenly stumbling upon a stage full of amps and drums, and curiously exploring, discovering all the strange ways the different instruments can be poked and prodded and struck to create an abstract and gorgeous primitive din. This is divine dronemusic. A clattery atonal dronescape. If you took this first track, stuck it on a crappy cd-r, made up some crazy name, Black Tomb Resurrect or something, added some xeroxed cover art, and sent out a handful to the Wire and Eclipse and Volcanic Tongue, made sure it was limited to 100 copies, you would have indie hipsters shitting themselves to get copies, buying copies on eBay for $100. It's that prescient. Either that or the current breed of noisemakers are not hiding their Dead C obsession AT ALL.
The shorter tracks here do actually 'rock'. Sort of. As much as a jagged smear of super distorted crumble and crunch can 'rock'. "Sky" sounds like the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" covered by Reynols, a stumbling rock drum beat beneath a white noise riff, all crumbly distortion and blown out fuzz, and some strange sort of crooned vocals drifting in and out. "Suffer Bomb Damage" is a haunting keyboard drone, all off key lo-fi casio wheeze and reverb spring percussion, very reminiscent of NZ legends Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos. "Love" sounds like the Velvet Underground fronted by Jandek, covering the MC5, lurching fuzzy garage stomp with damaged guitar and weary drawled vocals. "Constellation" is some long lost Velvet Monkeys joint, an East Village folkfuzz jam, throbbing and saturated in dense distortion and wrapped in thick sheets of druggy droney guitar swirl, all wrapped haphazardly around a cracked pop hook. The record ends on a truly strange note, a sort of fuzzy folk drift, warm acoustic guitars are picked and strummed, a mournful lament, crowd sounds and occasional bursts of distorted fuzz, as well as a brief stretch of wailed anguished vocals and a few splatters of snare drum, but for the majority of the nearly ten minutes of "Hope", we drift lazily through a murky world of soft muted guitars and sad, mumbled vocals. So lovely. A most perfect noisefolk elegy. It's hard to understand how the hell this record ended up here, drifting dreamlike and swathed in murky folk, especially after the 20+ minutes of face melting freaked out abstraction of "Driver U.F.O." Or the blown out deconstructed noiserock in between. But that's exactly what makes the Dead C so special. This is exactly where it had to end up. Where you were meant to emerge. It seems like an impossibly confusional journey, an improvised exploration. And it is. But taken as a whole, Harsh 70s Reality is exactly as it was meant to be. Perfect. Perfectly imperfect. A world of noise that slips from sound to sound, taking many forms, many guises, a world where letting fuzzy folk guitars and soft vocals wash over you is not all that different than letting a wall of crumbling guitar grind and feedback freakout collapse and bury you alive. Two different sides of the same glorious noise.
MPEG Stream: "Driver U.F.O."
MPEG Stream: "Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Love"

DEAD C, THE Harsh Seventies Reality (Siltbreeze) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Long overdue reissue of one of this Kiwi band's best albums, but there's one track missing that was on the original vinyl, so don't go selling your lp just yet...

DEAD C, THE New Electric Music (Language Recordings Three) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Newest Dead C record released on their own Language Recordings label and expectations are HIGH since that last double Dead C cd was so amazing. We all went to see the Dead C live a few months ago, many of us for the first time, which is actually when we first discovered this new Dead C record, and to be honest we were WAAAAAY disappointed. Some didn't even stay for the whole set [although some did and actually dug the concert quite a bit!] Rambling, scattershot, clumsy percussion, noisy but not really all that inspired. Lots of aimless on stage wandering and interband discussions MID-SET!!! But you gotta cut them some slack, improvised music is really hit or miss, and relies as much on the audience's perception as it does the band's performance, and that's what makes it so exciting. So we weren't sure what to expect from the new record. A couple of folks had expressed their diappointment with 'New Electric Music', but we are happy to report, while it's a lot different than the self titled double cd, it's still a GREAT Dead C record. 'NEM' starts off with six minutes of burbling barely audible low end, pulsing and creeping, like a thick fog. Track two launches into a primitive rock and roll cave-stomp, simple propulsive drumming pins down whirls of white noise and chaotic rumble. The next two tracks veer more towards the traditional Dead C sound with track three a crumbling avalanche of guitar skronk and fluttery percussion, squalls of noise and waves of rumbling drone, and track 4 a sort of Jandek of the South Seas, with mumbled distant vocals over a loose free-twang framework. The final 30 minute track is gorgeous and if you ever had any doubts about the 'C being at the top of their game, this track should silence non believers. A rumbling, low end drone-scape with a metronomic burst of feedback that sets the whole thing into an hypnotic , almost-industrial rhythm. While in the background, electronics and unrecognizable guitar creaks and swells, rumble and soar and wrap the relentless one-beat rhythm in a coarse blanket of grit. As the track progresses, the background sounds intensify, threatening the rhythm but never quite overtaking it. So gorgeous. Probably one of the best things they've ever recorded. Dead C fans will not be disappointed and those unfamiliar could do worse than starting their education here!
RealAudio clip: "Repulsion"
RealAudio clip: "Killer "
RealAudio clip: "Hush"

DEAD C, THE Patience (Ba Da Bing) cd 13.98
We always have trouble knowing what to say about a new record from legendary New Zealand noise rockers the Dead C. They don't come very often, but when they do, it's kind of a big deal. We know it will be amazing. We just don't know how. Which is probably what's kept this band so exciting and vital for so many years.
Equally adept at crafting strange muted noise drenched pop songs, as they are sprawling expanses of chaotic abstract sonic experimentalism, we really can't think of a Dead C record that we don't love. And with most bands, nearly 25 years into their career, the later era records, no matter how good, almost always pale in comparison to the early ones, the ones made when the band were hungry, and young, and full of piss and vinegar, rebellious and angry, wanting to make us much noise as possible, and piss off as many people as possible. But somehow, with the Dead C, while their sound has definitely changed, in some ways dramatically, we have to say, we actually do like the new records just as much as the old ones. They're still noisy, occasionally poppy, rhythmic, dense and intense, they're just different, as they should be, 30 releases and 2 decades on, and Patience is no different, a sprawling fantastical songsuite of hypnotic rhythms, swirling ambient noise, murky melodic drift, album opener, the 16 minute Empire, is a gorgeous hazy psych jam, meandering mesmerizing, the drums pounding away through an ever shifting cloud of grinding super distorted heavily effected guitarnoise, the result is a sort of psychedelic krautrock, a weird mash up of German Oak and High Rise maybe, the sound appropriately lo-fi, but still somehow lush and loud, about midway through, the band pulls apart the various elements of the first half, the guitars unfurling in hazy streaks of burnished melody, the drums even more minimal, offering up strange scattershot bits of cymbal crash and snare shuffle, before stumbling back into forward motion, like a blissier more mellowed out version of what came before, the drums again motorik, but the noisy guitar squalls a bit softened, a little dreamier, as the song marches lazily to its conclusion.
There are two shorter tracks next, the brief interlude of "Federation", with its swirling cymbal sizzle, and murky churning guitar thrum, and then the more proper song lengthed "Shaft", which tempers some intense blown out guitar damage, with a beat that almost sounds electronic, thumping and jittery and surprisingly groovy, a perfect foil for the roiling crunch and rumble and screech all around, but for a band with a record called Patience, they've been known to not have much, and in that spirit, terminate the strangely groovy jam and transform it into something way more loose and free, a huge billowing wall of tangled guitar, of swirling feedback, and grinding scraping amp punishment, which somehow, doesn't sound harsh or noisy, just hypnotic and far out.
Finally, the band bliss out into the smoldering epic closer "South", loping mumbled low end melodies, wreathed in everpresent amp buzz, while over the top, guitars pulse, and streak, and shimmer, the guitars growing more restless and animated, offering up gorgeous chunks of fragmented melody, of truncated riffage, textures and overtones, whirs and crunches and howls, all the while the track pulses along hypnotically. Eventually the drums lurch into the fray, offering a chaotic, unpredictable rhythm, with which the rest of the band counters an incredible array of freaked out psychedelic guitar weirdness, finally, the drums lock in, and it's like a crumbling noiserock This Heat, strange high end squiggles, thick blasts of chordal rumble, plenty of static and hiss, the track pounding away, until finally the drums retire, leaving a sky full of squiggly super distorted high end, which then too dissipates, leaving, a churning minimal riffscape, pulsing, and heaving, and still surrounded by that ever present amp buzz, before just ending abruptly. Incredible as always.
Okay, so maybe we DO know what to say.
MPEG Stream: "Empire"
MPEG Stream: "South"