BURGALAT, BERTRAND The Genius Of Bertrand Burgalat (Bungalow) cd 15.98
Paying homage to French lounge pop maestro Bertrand Burgalat are such jaunty hipsters as April March, Louis Philippe, Etienne Charry, Mick Harvey, and Nick Cave. This is a compilation very much for the swoonsome, euro-cocktail set. Fans of such labels as Burgalat's own Tricatel or Le Magistery (home to Momus and Kahimi Karie), and of artists such as Air (who also contribute a track here), Pizzicato Five, and Charles Wilp...what are you waiting for? Ultra-stylish and playful music to spin in your swingin' space age pad.

BURGER/INK Las Vegas (Matador) cd 13.98
The label tells us: "The hypnotic sounds of 'Las Vegas are the products of a running collabortaion between Mike ink (Love Inc., Gas, Vinyl COuntdown, and the Profan and Studio Eins labels) and Jorg Burger (The Modernist, Bionaut, Burger Industries, the Eat Raw label), the two prominent figures of the burgeoning Cologne techno underground. Neither have dated Jerry Hall." Minimalist, subtle electronica. We're glad Matador is releasing good electronica, especially the forthcoming Boards of Canada record, which will please Aphex Twin fans everywhere.

BURGER/INK Las Vegas (Matador) lp 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The label tells us: "The hypnotic sounds of 'Las Vegas are the products of a running collabortaion between Mike ink (Love Inc., Gas, Vinyl COuntdown, and the Profan and Studio Eins labels) and Jorg Burger (The Modernist, Bionaut, Burger Industries, the Eat Raw label), the two prominent figures of the burgeoning Cologne techno underground. Neither have dated Jerry Hall." Minimalist, subtle electronica. We're glad Matador is releasing good electronica, especially the forthcoming Boards of Canada record, which will please Aphex Twin fans everywhere.

BURIAL Distant Lights (Hyperdub) 12" 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

BURIAL Ghost Hardware (Hyperdub) 12" 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

BURIAL s/t (Hyperdub / Cargo) cd 17.98
This record has totally knocked us for a loop. An impossible mix of grimy dubstep, murky triphop, and minimal spaced out dub. When we first threw this on we were immediately transported back to when we first heard Massive Attack, or Portishead, and a whole new world suddenly opened up to us. A creepy, muted world of barebones beats and haunting atmospheres that would go on to inform our musical tastes forever.
This is the first release on Hyperdub, a label run by grime/dubstep DJ Kode9, and we expected a blasting barrage of grimy beats, but instead, were sucked into a swirling vortex of late night groove and midnight stutter. Think those Rhythm And Sound Burial Mix eps, mixed with some Pole-like glitched out dub, and some slow burning Portishead smolder. Creepy and crawly, mysterious and moody. Beats suspended in a black shimmering fog, snippets of vocals, crooning, toasting, drenched in reverb, chopped up and let loose to drift over super dark, muffled dubscapes. Huge rumbling bass lines, like distant foghorns, dreamy ambience sort of drifting and ethereal but so so ominous. Tiny sonic sparkles glimmer like some alien sonar, drifting dreamily through fuzzy darkness. Drowned and submerged grooves, all muffled muted melody and shuffling minimal beats. Suffocating atmospheres of low end thrum, record crackle and shortwave interference. Some sort of slithering slinky dubstep shuffle slowed waaaaaaaaay down, into a blackened glacial dub jam. So fucking awesome. Our newest every night late night listen. A record of perfect dark and damaged dubbed out lullabies.
MPEG Stream: "Distant Lights"
MPEG Stream: "Spaceape"
MPEG Stream: "Wounder"

BURIAL s/t (Hyperdub / Cargo) 2lp 23.00
Finally, one of the murkiest, darkest, speaker crushing slabs of ultra ominous low slung spaced out dubstep is now available on vinyl. The beatless tracks have been nixed, and the record has been resequenced into one continuous, stuttering, slithering DJ / dancefloor friendly underwater slow motion dubbed out groove. Here's what we had to say about the cd when we first reviewed it last year:
This record has totally knocked us for a loop. An impossible mix of grimy dubstep, murky triphop, and minimal spaced out dub. When we first threw this on we were immediately transported back to when we first heard Massive Attack, or Portishead, and a whole new world suddenly opened up to us. A creepy, muted world of barebones beats and haunting atmospheres that would go on to inform our musical tastes forever.
This is the first release on Hyperdub, a label run by grime/dubstep DJ Kode9, and we expected a blasting barrage of grimy beats, but instead, were sucked into a swirling vortex of late night groove and midnight stutter. Think those Rhythm And Sound Burial Mix eps, mixed with some Pole-like glitched out dub, and some slow burning Portishead smolder. Creepy and crawly, mysterious and moody. Beats suspended in a black shimmering fog, snippets of vocals, crooning, toasting, drenched in reverb, chopped up and let loose to drift over super dark, muffled dubscapes. Huge rumbling bass lines, like distant foghorns, dreamy ambience sort of drifting and ethereal but so so ominous. Tiny sonic sparkles glimmer like some alien sonar, drifting dreamily through fuzzy darkness. Drowned and submerged grooves, all muffled muted melody and shuffling minimal beats. Suffocating atmospheres of low end thrum, record crackle and shortwave interference. Some sort of slithering slinky dubstep shuffle slowed waaaaaaaaay down, into a blackened glacial dub jam. So fucking awesome. Our newest every night late night listen. A record of perfect dark and damaged dubbed out lullabies.
MPEG Stream: "Distant Lights"
MPEG Stream: "Spaceape"
MPEG Stream: "Wounder"

BURIAL South London Boroughs ep (HyperDub) 12" 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A reissued 12" from one of this list's Record of the Week artists, Burial, who unleashes a lurching, shuffling, deep and dense mix of murky grimy dubstep. Equal parts minimal dub, slowed down grime, and super slow motion jungle.
This 12", originally released last year, features what sounds like an alternate version of one of the album tracks, sort of slowed down and more blissed out. The other track is WAY more drum and bass, a mumbled 16 rpm jungle stutter, with a definite grime vibe and a super dense chaotic rhythmic coda! So cool.

BURIAL Street Halo (Hyper Dub) 12" 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The first new music from Burial in 4+ years, this one hardly needs a review at all, the master of dark moody soul inflected minimal dubstep does it again, with the murky melancholy "Street Halo", which ditches some of the more overt dubsteppiness of past records, for something a bit more techno flecked, the beat a muted four on the floor pulse, while the surrounding sounds remain appropriately washed out and dreamlike, some spectral soulful female vox just add to the vibe. We actually spun this at 33 the first few times, and holy shit, not sure if it's just us, but might sound even better that way, syrupy and witch house-y, total slo-mo cough syrup blackened dub electro drag. But even at the right speed of 45, it's pretty dang perfect, only a slight swerve from the dubbed out soul of Untrue.
"NYC" slows it way down, lacing some electro skitter and shuffling techno with a seriously dubbed out production and some sped up soul samples, spare and skeletal, wreathed in a late night, winding down, chill out haze. And finally "Stolen Dog" is a dubby downtempo electro soul ballad, with a super hooky main melody, warm swirling low end swells, a skittery beat buried in the mix, and still more vocal soul. So good.
Could be kinda limited, we're not sure, and the copies we got in this week have been going fast, so when/if we run out, be prepared. Hopefully we can get more sometime soon though.

BURIAL Untrue (Hyper Dub) cd 16.98
Record of the year, 2007. As far as some of us are concerned, there's no question. Burial's first album was an eponymous release on Kode 9's Hyperdub imprint and really came out of nowhere. Here was this amalgamation of British dance tropes (e.g. dubstep, 2-step garage, darkcore drum & bass, etc.) into a magnificent exercise in mood engineering. Even though an urban malaise echoes through the whollop bass-bin rattle of most dubstep, that first Burial record mined a melancholy whose dramatic power has never been heard in dubstep, and rarely matched even by such downbeat experts as Massive Attack, Boards of Canada, Slowdive, or even Joy Division.
So with his second album Untrue, the aesthetic framework for Burial remains intact; yet the anonymous figure behind Burial has admitted that he was seeking a "downcast euphoria." You know what, he fucking nailed it. All of the sounds retain the first album's urban dourness reverberating through each electron and washed drone. The hovering basslines which once stalked the darkest of jungle's rhythms are ghostly presences flickering around Burial's atypical drum programming, which by his own admission is done by hand without the aid of a sequencer. The clipped, 2-step breakbeats always appear as the cocking of a gun; but it doesn't seem like Burial is taking aim at his audience. Rather, it's metaphor for the cold, inhumane existence in the grimy parts of London, where violence is just another thing to shrug at and move beyond. All of these sounds are clearly present in Burial's debut album, but the "euphoric" part of Untrue's intention is found in Burial's use of voice. Taking a cappella tunes sung by his friends (sometimes, left as a voice mail on his cellphone), Burial has crafted an eerie cast of disembodied vocals, twisted into cybernetic R&B croons, all clipped and compressed in the same manner as his pistol-whipped snare cracks. It's as if the human voice alone can transcend the dire circumstances of our earthly confines, even when the songs reflected broken dreams and a dwindling hope. Burial seeks out the fleeting moments of beauty and raw emotion, codifying it through his impeccable craft on this very impressive and soon to be iconic recording. If you're not hearing it from us, you'll hear from somebody else: Burial's Untrue is the best record of 2007.
MPEG Stream: "Archangel"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Hardware"
MPEG Stream: "Untrue"

BURIAL Untrue (Cargo) lp 24.00
Finally, this unanimous AQ fave is available on vinyl!
Record of the year, 2007. As far as some of us are concerned, there's no question. Burial's first album was an eponymous release on Kode 9's Hyperdub imprint and really came out of nowhere. Here was this amalgamation of British dance tropes (e.g. dubstep, 2-step garage, darkcore drum & bass, etc.) into a magnificent exercise in mood engineering. Even though an urban malaise echoes through the whollop bass-bin rattle of most dubstep, that first Burial record mined a melancholy whose dramatic power has never been heard in dubstep, and rarely matched even by such downbeat experts as Massive Attack, Boards of Canada, Slowdive, or even Joy Division.
So with his second album Untrue, the aesthetic framework for Burial remains intact; yet the anonymous figure behind Burial has admitted that he was seeking a "downcast euphoria." You know what, he fucking nailed it. All of the sounds retain the first album's urban dourness reverberating through each electron and washed drone. The hovering basslines which once stalked the darkest of jungle's rhythms are ghostly presences flickering around Burial's atypical drum programming, which by his own admission is done by hand without the aid of a sequencer. The clipped, 2-step breakbeats always appear as the cocking of a gun; but it doesn't seem like Burial is taking aim at his audience. Rather, it's metaphor for the cold, inhumane existence in the grimy parts of London, where violence is just another thing to shrug at and move beyond. All of these sounds are clearly present in Burial's debut album, but the "euphoric" part of Untrue's intention is found in Burial's use of voice. Taking a cappella tunes sung by his friends (sometimes, left as a voice mail on his cellphone), Burial has crafted an eerie cast of disembodied vocals, twisted into cybernetic R&B croons, all clipped and compressed in the same manner as his pistol-whipped snare cracks. It's as if the human voice alone can transcend the dire circumstances of our earthly confines, even when the songs reflected broken dreams and a dwindling hope. Burial seeks out the fleeting moments of beauty and raw emotion, codifying it through his impeccable craft on this very impressive and soon to be iconic recording. If you're not hearing it from us, you'll hear from somebody else: Burial's Untrue is the best record of 2007.
MPEG Stream: "Archangel"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Hardware"
MPEG Stream: "Untrue"

BURIAL / FOUR TET / THOM YORKE Ego (Text) 12" 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

BURNING STAR CORE Let's Play Wild Like (RRR) cd 11.98

BYETONE 20' To 2000 : May (Noton/Raster) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Olaf Bender - founder of the Rastermusic label and member of Signal - provides us with Volume 5 of the 20 to 2000 series. As this series has been progressing, one gets the impression that each artist (or the curator of the series) is attempting to link these bursts of minimalist electronica into a cogent whole pieced together of disparate fragments. From the rhythmic shards of Ilpo Vaisainen & Komet violated by Ryoji Ikeda's blistering sine waves, the series took a pleasant shift into the minimalism of Coh and now Byetone, who has expanded the spaces of silence to wrap around warm hypnotic pulses which erraticly appear.

BYETONE Symeta (Raster-Noton) lp 17.98
NOW ON VINYL!!
It doesn't happen very often, but occasionally, TWO aQ staffers accidentally review the same record, and usually, we try to just cram them together into one (sort of) cohesive single review, but this time we figured, screw it, here's two different aQ-er's takes on the latest from Byetone, a record we liked so much we reviewed it twice! See if you can guess who wrote which!!
Review one:
It's weird to say, but it seems like the most compellingly funky electronic music is coming from a camp that pretty much perfected the ultimate cold clinical electronic sound. Raster-Noton for years has been home to icy cold collections of bleep and click, him and hiss, taking music and seemingly reducing it to it's most elemental form, and arranging it into machine like rhythms. Don't get us wrong, we LOVE that stuff, and hearing pristine arrangements of ultra low, rib cage rattling lows, and dog whistle highs, rhythms created from clipped static and 1 bit bursts, total mad scientist genius. But all along, it seemed like something lurked just below the surface. A funkiness that the artists seemed to be combating, as if the whole thing was an elaborate sonic ploy to keep the funk at bay. And then suddenly, one of the brave ones, decided to let a little of the funk seep into his audio experiments, and it was good. Too good. Too good to not let more in. And soon, it was too late, and then against all odds, and in an ironic twist of sonic fate, people like Alva Noto were crafting some of THEE funkiest sounds we'd ever heard, all assembled from the same elements, beeps and clicks, 1 bit bursts and sine waves, culminating in the recently reviewed Univrs record.
But then along comes Byetone, not to be outdone, takes those same elements, and decides to not just let the funk seep into his sounds, but to go all out, and craft lush expansive soundscapes, epic and cinematic, proving that those same ingredients could be twisted up into all new shapes, which brings us to Symeta, a gorgeously lush collection of electronica, that slips easily from super clinical click and buzz, to warm lush chordal swells, often in the same song, the various elements arranged into killer grooves and funky beats, with some of the tracks sounding almost Pop Ambient, that lush and lovely, while others stayed more clinical, and still others found a middle ground, which strangely enough sounds like a weird take on the whole Goblin/Carpenter sci-fi future-retro synthscape thing, but somehow cooler, and more -actually- sci-fi sounding, and more hauntingly futuristic, with Byetone coaxing some seriously gristly buzz and tripped out psychedelia from his strange sonic laboratory.
Awesome!
Review two:
Olaf Bender's Byetone project is hardly prolific, but he has proven to be strongly consistent in his clinical electronica, which nudges the signature Raster-Noton sound of glitch 'n' tone on a trajectory that might not be all that averse to the dancefloor. Symeta comes three years after the much acclaimed Death Of A Typographer; and like that earlier record, this one also owes quite a bit to the formative work of Pan Sonic and Mika Vainio's solo album Metri. The hypnotic, adrenaline-pulsed piece of minimalist techno on "Opal" is right out of the Vainio playbook, slowly ramping a militant drum-roll from Bender's drum machine out of a throbbing basspulse radiating ominous hisses and x-ray frequencies. "Helix" and "Black Peace" nod toward the latter Pan Sonic works of gnarled, distorted electronica through an excellent track of grimy blocks of electronic riffage, caustic blasts of noise, and dubstepping electro backbeats, in the construction of some exceptional, high-pressure chamber electronica. Lest you think that it's all Vainio all the time, the first three blips from the album opening "Topas" are devilishly close to the robotic sequencing that Kraftwerk used to build their onomatopoeic "Boing Boom Tschak." Another great record from Raster-Noton.
MPEG Stream: "Topas"
MPEG Stream: "T-E-L-E-G-R-A-M-M"
MPEG Stream: "Neuschnee"

C., PATRIC The Horrible Plans of Flex Busterman (DHR) cd 19.98
Patric (Catani) is a member of DHR/Grand Royal recording artists EC8OR.

CABARET VOLTAIRE Methodology '74/'78. Attic Tapes; (Mute) 3cd 26.00

CABARET VOLTAIRE Mix-Up (Mute) cd 16.98
"Mix Up" was the first album from Cabaret Voltaire, the pioneering Industrial trio of Richard H. Kirk, Chris Watson, and Stephen Mallinder, and is qualitatively the best from that period for Cabaret Voltaire. Their sound centered around the dessication of rhythm with sinewy guitar lines, super primitive electronic synthesis (cheap drum machines, rapidly spirally tape loops, warbling effects), and monotonous vocals rasping through tons of electronics effects. This last trick became a staple of the '80s industrialists, perhaps more due to Skinny Puppy's Ogre than vocalist Kirk. "Mix Up" succeeds by keeping things creepy, dark, and monotonous, whereas the albums that immediately followed got a little too clever in trying to outsmart the audience with their rhetoric of paranoia.
RealAudio clip: "Kirlian Photography"
RealAudio clip: "On Every Other Street"

CABARET VOLTAIRE Nagnagnag + remixes (Novamute) cd ep 8.98
"Nag Nag Nag" was an early single for Cabaret Voltaire, recording it initially back in 1979 when they mere meshing a hollowed-out electro-punk sound with William S. Burroughs' notion of the cut-up. Along with the title track, this features three contemporary remixes from Montreal's Akufen, CV's mainman Richard H. Kirk, and Vice-approved electro bass-bin boomers Tiga &ÊZyntherius.
RealAudio clip: "Nag Nag Nag (original)"
RealAudio clip: "Nag Nag Nag (Tiga & Zyntherius Radio Mix)"

CABARET VOLTAIRE Red Mecca (Mute) cd 16.98
Originally released in 1981 through Rough Trade, Cabaret Voltaire's third album "Red Mecca" now gets another reissue courtesy of the fine folks at Mute! Having taken their name from the club started in Zurich by the principals of the Dada art movement during the First World War, Cabaret Voltaire has always been considered one of the pillars of Industrial Culture, along side Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Einsturzende Neubauten. That said, Cabaret Voltaire's sound was probably the weakest link in the Industrial lineage. This trio of Richard H. Kirk, Stephen Mallinder, and Chris Watson filtered disco grooves and afro-beat rhythms through paranoid constructions swelling with conspiracy theories, excessive drug use, and the politics of control, to arrive at a strangled funk, with all of the references to any sort of sensuality sucked dry. Often cited by their fans as the most horrific of the CV catalogue, "Red Mecca" had a lot of great ideas that don't seem as fully realised as their proponents would like us to believe. While many of the '80s bands have enjoyed recent renewed popularity due in part to a sudden spike of interest in all things 'new wave', time hasn't been all that kind to Cabaret Voltaire's early experiments (unlike contemporaries like 23 Skidoo, Suicide, This Heat, and even Throbbing Gristle) sounding very, very eighties (and not necessarily in a good way).
RealAudio clip: "A Thousand Ways"
RealAudio clip: "Red Mask"

CABARET VOLTAIRE The Living Legends (Mute) cd 16.98
"The Living Legends" is a collection of the earliest Cabaret Voltaire singles recorded for Rough Trade between 1978 and 1981. While still lumped in with the Industrial family alongside Psychic TV, SPK, and Chris and Cosey, the Cabs' may have been the most overreaching in their attempt to subvert pop structures. Their ideas were quite clear in their attempt to mutate disco and jangle pop through a bombardment of electronic effects (lots of frequency shifting, flange, delay, etc.), but they didn't really do that much in terms of altering what the root song was. Take for example the singles included on "The Living Legends," which transcribe upbeat pop songs into insectoid mutations that still essentially speak as upbeat pop songs. Their best work is of course when they actually turn their pop structures into something dark and paranoid such as in the electronic wasteland dub of "Silent Command" and "Seconds Too Late," but even these were effortlessly done better by The Pop Group a couple of years later.
RealAudio clip: "Silent Command "
RealAudio clip: "Seconds Too Late"

CABARET VOLTAIRE The Original Sound Of Sheffield '83/'87. Best of; (Virgin) cd 17.98
The Northern industrialized town of Sheffield, England was home not only to Cabaret Voltaire, but also to Warp Records, which is probably where the notion of a 'sound of Sheffield' came from. The period in question found the 'Cabs' on EMI, thus providing the band with much better access to equipment and good studios. They (Stephen Mallinder and Richard H. Kirk, as Chris Watson had departed to form The Hafler Trio with Andrew McKenzie) took the opportunity to further investigate the William S. Burroughs idea of the cut-up within a system of organized repitition. At the center of the Cabs' slice-n-dice funk, gritty beat-box repititions, and media samples was a urgency that club culture was a viable political atmosphere standing in opposition to mainstream control tactics. The sound that Cabaret Voltaire produced during this period was an incredibly influential one, inspiring Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb, the early incarnations of Wax Trax / Ministry, and the ubiquitous presence of Adrian Sherwood's production work throughout the '80s. This influence ended up becoming a double-edged sword for the Cabs, as many of their innovations - the paranoid repititions of arpeggiating synths and their stuttering use of media samples (as in "Sensoria," with the constant declaration: "Do Right, D-D-Do Right") - have become incredibly tired, vapid signifiers of where Industrial Music was going to end up. There was of course a reason why so many artists had taken the ideas from this period of Cabaret Voltaire: it worked on the dance floor.
RealAudio clip: "Crackdown"
RealAudio clip: "Sensoria"

CABOLADIES Renewable Destination (Students Of Decay) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest analog onslaught from this Midwestern duo who add a distinctly kitchen sink aesthetic to their brand of guitar/synth/effects soundscapery. After a brief bit of simulated field recording, cricket like electronic chitter and deep low end thrum, the record slips right into a swirling soft cacophony of warm whirring tones, wild electronics careening every which way, fragmented rhythms, clatter and crunch and bloop and bleep, spidery guitar melodies, on the surface it's a big old swirling mess, but there does seem to be a method to their madness as the various and disparate sounds seem to coalesce into something that does in fact have design, and ends up somehow listenable and not a little bit dreamy. The record continues on, shifting into something a bit more blissed out, a hazy smoldery shimmer peppered with tinkling chiming melodies, and a blurred gauzy drift, before finishing off the side with a weird bit of cartoony sonic chaos.
The B side begins with what sound like it could have been a prime slab of heroin house or minimal dub, but here it's gone totally haywire, all robotic glitch and sputter, everything reverby and echoey, clicks and pulses swooping to and fro, simultaneously dizzyingly disorienting and mesmerizingly hypnotic. The rest of the side plays out as a hazy, druggy, blurred soft psych drift, everything woozy and washed out, before finishing off with another brief bit of twisted electronic faux field recording.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Already sold out from the label, these could very well be the last copies we're able to getÉ
Includes a download coupon as well.
MPEG Stream: "Counterfeit Reflection"
MPEG Stream: "Collector"
MPEG Stream: "Woodn"

CABOLADIES s/t (DNT Records) lp 12.98
Caboladies specialize in ecstatic electrical jams that have been making the rounds of the various psychedelic-post-noise-zonked tape and cd-r labels (Arbor, Gneiss, Peasant Magik, Digitalis, etc.). And at one time, these two Kentucky ex-pats (now living in Chicago) shared a tape release with Oneohtrix Point Never. They've always been a bit loopier and more shambolic than Oneohtrix, elevating their work to the druggiest plateau of spiralling bloop and eyes-dilated sparkle that you might expect from an Astral Social Club reworking of J.D. Emmanuel. Many of those tape and cd-r releases had disappeared from physical distribution, although some less than stunning sounding mp3s are making their way around the blogosphere. So, it's really great to hear Caboladies on wax, which is certainly the best medium for these celestial crystallizations blossoming from piles of analogue gear. Taken separately, each piece of electronic gear is dialed to a twitchy spasmodic set of bleeps and swoops, that would be ungainly had Caboladies not playfully situated five, six, eight, ten complementary sets of tones that smear together into an ambient shimmer that's anything but static. These irregular vibrations and delirious patterns are alive with psychedelic energy, that you could almost see fitting into some freak-folk nature jam session... but then again, everything needs to be plugged rather heavily into the grid. Great stuff!

CACCIAPAGLIA, ROBERTO The Ann Steel Album (Half Machine) lp 25.00
Few records in recent memory have brought us as much unbridled joy as this one. We've heard inklings here and there about this record over the years and when we heard it was being reissued several months ago, our excitement grew with each new report. Straddling the lines between post-disco and new wave electronica without quite being either, The Ann Steel Album from 1979 is the product of avant-classical composer Roberto Cacciapaglia, a multi-instrumentalist that performed on Franco Battiato's Pollution (a unanimous aQ favorite!) and who is mostly known for composing works of progressive classical minimalism (Wah Wah recently reissued his debut Sonanze from 1975, and Sei Note in Logica from the same year as this, is also worth seeking out). But The Ann Steel Album is an entirely different animal, not only because of its skewed electronic dance-pop leanings but because it features the beautifully strange and charming vocal presence of American model Ann Steel, who obviously is the real star of this record. She sings like a warm bodied android in clipped chirps and strange phrasings like a machine with english language programming for public interaction. Think Siri with a higher register. In the awesome opening song, "My Time", she's ready to sell you on the artificial wonders of modern society, where consciousness is akin to commodification: "My Life runs smooth like a highway/ Billboards show me the way" (Belgian synth trio, Telex covered this in a smoother, more well known version on their debut a year later). Every song on here fully rejoices in the positive joys of the synthetic present, making this an infectiously grooving pop art statement with any trace of irony fully camouflaged under layers of glossy surface. It's easy to tell, that retro-futurist bands like Stereolab and Sweden's Komeda were influenced heavily by this record, and it fits right in with the brilliant like-minded eccentric synthesis of Bruce Haack and Giorgio Moroder. Not sold yet? Go here to see an awesome clip from Italian dance show, Tilt. from 1980 and just try and remain unconvinced that this is awesome!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu2ESLpe-rE
Thank you Half-Machine for bringing this record back to life! Might just be reissue of the year!
and apologies to you non-vinyl folks as this looks like for the present to be vinyl only!
FYI, despite our fulsome praise for this, we chose not to highlight it - simply because we're down to our last 4 copies, and the first pressing has already gone out of print. It's gonna be repressed, apparently, but not for a few months. So, if you order this, be warned we might be out already, but let us know if you'd like us to put you down as a pre-order for the repress, though!
MPEG Stream: "My Time"
MPEG Stream: "Sport et Divertissement"
MPEG Stream: "Portrait"

CALIX, MIRA Eyes Set Against The Sun (Warp ) cd 25.00
In the opening moments of detached vocals doubled into an eerie chorus and collaged against scraped violin and lengthy field recordings of water, Eyes Set Against The Sun holds more in common with the avant-folk splatter of Islaja or even the Dada delirium of Diana Rogerson's Chrystal Belle Scrodd recordings than what we might have expected. Mira Calix (nee Chantal Passamonte) has always been one of Warp's more oblique electronica artists; but here, the connections to anything Autechre or Aphex are completely removed. Drifting orchestral passages that would easily fit into the Type Records catalogue of languid post-classical composition sit next to whimsically clunky kitchen utensil gamelan suites of intertwining rhythms, and plenty of eccentric juxtapositions in these off-the-rocker folktronica tunes. An intriguing record to say the least!
MPEG Stream: "Because To Why"
MPEG Stream: "Umbra / Penumbra"

CALIX, MIRA One On One (Warp) cd 13.98
Mira Calix's debut album on Warp is quite a nice surprise from this South African transplant to London, creating lazy looping grooves of downtempo house beats, dark electro thuds, more-Skam-than-Warp digital skitter, and more than a few nods to Mouse On Mars within sweeping arid desert ambience. Quite good!

CALIX, MIRA Prickle (Warp) cd ep 6.98
Chantal Passamonte was at one time (and may still be) Warp's publicist, but has certainly come into her own as one of the label's most interesting artists as Mira Calix, celebrating and augmenting the advanced electronics that Warp has always championed. "Prickle" is a five track ep, although the first four cuts are unindexed as one track, followed by a remix from Andrea Parker. The Mira Calix tracks are moody and disjointed, with an unapologetically synthetic keyboard patch proceeding like the Joy Division funeral dirge "Atmosphere," but plenty of oblique Black Dog-esque rhythms to mark this as contemporary. Andrea Parker's remix tends to heighten the alienation of Mira Calix, with a paranoid / bad-ass electro remix of "Skin With Me" originally from Calix's "One On One" album.
RealAudio clip: "Skin With Me (Andrea Parker Remix)"
RealAudio clip: "Miliaria"

CALIX, MIRA Skimskitta (Warp) cd 17.98
This album sounds like it was snatched straight out of the late '90s. Textbook darktronica which is certainly pleasant enough, if somewhat faceless and uneven. The synth strings melodies on the 15th track "Shadenfreunde" sound as though they're being played through a factory pre-set patch, and being performed by a complete novice no less (or perhaps they were programmed quite messily)! As a result, the track comes off as clumsy... and the album as a whole? File under 'h' for Ho hum.
MPEG Stream: "Shadenfreunde"

CALL BACK THE GIANTS s/t (Kye) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is indeed a weird one, even from the already extra weird Shadow Ring camp. Call Back The Giants is the solo project of SR keyboardist Tim Goss, and on this, the debut lp from Goss and his CBTG, he weaves an ever shifting landscape of warped keyboard drones, twisted new age drift, fractured late night ambience, creepy processed vocals, and blissed out psychedelia.
Gloomy and otherworldly, some sort of soundtrack for another world, another time, another dimension, low tones wheeze and creep and slither, blossoming into Technicolor expanses of hazy, gauzy ambience, rife with fragmented melodies, slowed down voices, swirling FX and heart-of-the-sun kosmische solar shimmer.
The title track takes the retro futuristic sci-fi synthscapes of Zombi and Majeure and pulls them apart until they sound like a melting VHS tape of some seventies British science program, and of course, that's not counting the bizarre male and female vocals, both drawled and druggy, and distorted, mostly blotting out the sounds beneath them.
The rest of the record unfurls similarly, slipping from woozy, Dr. Who style synthscapery, all warbly and woozy, to hazy, almost shoegazy glitched out rainbowy shimmer, to murky underwater electronica, laced with sing songy synth pulses, to ominous electronic flecked faux string lofi MIDI sounding dirges, to 8 bit style primitive keyboard majesty, all of those various shades of fantastical whatthefuck, made even more twisted by the various vocals, mush mouthed mumble one second, deep moody croon the next, almost falsetto sounding warble the next, and eventually to that very recognizable Shadow Ring style spoken word.
Weird record for sure, but Shadow Ring fans will be in heaven, and folks who like tripped out electronic dronemusic and otherworldly new age avant ambience, or hell, just plain far out (but still mysterious and melodic) weirdness, then this is definitely worth checking out!
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Reaching In"
MPEG Stream: "Call Back The Giants"
MPEG Stream: "Shadows"

CALL BACK THE GIANTS The Rising (Kye) lp 17.98
Record number two from this Shadow Ring offshoot, and it's another strange sonic trip, the framework in some ways similar to the Shadow Ring, in that the songs here are droned out and drifty, with the occasional vocals delivered in a haunting deep spoken word (or occasionally a hushed female croon), but the sounds in CBTG are much more dreamy and drifty, still a bit twisted and atonal in places, but the record starts with a surprisingly lush and warm bit of almost new agey soundscapery, before slipping into a short stretch of kosmische synth shimmer, it's not until a few tracks in that things begin to darken, the sound turning a bit more grim, a gurgling electronic dronescape, rumbling beneath those aforementioned hauntingly intoned spoken vocals, the whole thing peppered with sci-fi squiggles and shards of synth buzz, the A side finishing off with a sonic bookend, a reprise of the opener, another bit of warm ambient swirl, which quickly gives way to a bit of hazy synth-folk drift, that sounds a bit like Fastest / Xynfonica, the sounds slightly atonal, the melodies subtly sour, which is balanced by the sweetly crooned female vox that hover ghostlike above.
The flipside flits restlessly from epic synth prog to murky droney creep, occasionally slipping into long sprawls of low end shimmer, laced with overlapping voices, and hazy washed out melodies, bits of skittery IDM electronics surfacing here and there, and still more hauntingly intoned vox, culminating in what has to be the strangest track on the record, the weirdly riffy, dirgey, droney closer, "Passage Of Arms", a muddy stretch of muted tinny riffage, like some sort of transistor radio alien doom, the vocals sung (at least compare to the rest of the record), and while this might be the most 'rock' thing CBTG have ever done, fear not, it's still appropriately weirdly twisted and woozily warped into the perfect coda for what was already and beautifully baffling collection of sound.

CALLA Custom (Quatermass) cd 15.98

CAM, DJ Loa Project (Volume II) (Six Degrees) cd 15.98
Latest from this well-known French DJ. Jazzy, beat heavy mixology. Samples, scratches, live playing, guest vox...definitely more on the DJ Shadow side of things than the DJ Q-bert side (in the easy listenability vs. turntable acrobatics spectrum). Downtempo cinematic noir-ish hip hop grooves rub shoulders with more dance-floor oriented material.

CAN Sacrilege (Mute) 2cd 15.98
Why mess with a good thing? Seminal krautrockers Can are downright inspiring, apparently, and short of adding four-on-floor-beats to make an insta-dance track, you be hardpressed to ruin a Can song. 15 classic tracks are remixed by the likes of Brian Eno, Sonic Youth, The Orb, A Guy Called Gerald, Pete Shelley, U.N.K.L.E., Bruce Gilbert and others. Some drum'n'bass, some weirdo techno noodling, and more than a few quite interesting interpretations. Double cd for the price of one.

CANAVARRO, NUNO Plux Quba (Moikai) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Gentle, melodic, electronic minimalism from this obscure Portuguese composer who originally recorded this album in 1988. It sounds so much like Jim O'Rourke's electronic experiments that O'Rourke had to release it on his new label - Moikai.

CANAVARRO, NUNO Plux Quba (Moikai) lp 9.99
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Gentle, melodic, electronic minimalism from this obscure Portuguese composer who originally recorded this album in 1988. It sounds so much like Jim O'Rourke's electronic experiments that O'Rourke had to release it on his new label - Moikai.

CANEY, MORGAN & KAMAL JOORY Magic Radios (City Centre Offices) cd 14.98
Magic Radios opens with a gathering of electronics that buzz and crackle over the ebb and flow of a ghostly drone, but swiftly moves into the realm of warm horns and shufflin' drums ("3000 Miles"), then continues to melt into a range of other sonic terrains -- some more successfully than others. There's the beautiful, serene, acoustic song "Take My Light" rich with strings and almost choral voices, followed by a soothing, swaying downtempo track, then an exotica-tinged spacy number "Flyaway" with murmured vocals that fans of Air might find rather fetching. Overall, a somber, glimmering journey. Quite nice.
RealAudio clip: "Take My Light"
RealAudio clip: "3000 Miles"

CAPRICORNUS Halation (Infraction) cd 15.98
Halation is the debut release from Japanese dronologist Hiroshi Tanaka, aka Capricornus, and is two tracks and 41 minutes of gorgeously minimal, hazy, gauzy, ethereal, free floating, hushed ambient drift. Long tones are layered into gently undulating sonic swells woven into a blurred, meditative new age, melodies playing out over minutes instead of seconds, the overtones, creating subtly kaleidoscopic shades amidst the glacially unfolding drowsy tranquility, occasionally what sounds like guitars surface, but all the edges are worn away, transforming the chordal steel string whir into yet another layer of soft sound. The second track is a bit more moody, slightly darker, the sounds interacting similarly, muted and murmuring, drifting dreamily, but the tones have a melancholic cast, as if clouds had drifted over the opening track, still warm and lush and dreamlike, but more rainy day than sun dappled summer afternoon. Both equally lovely, a fantastic debut of washed out ambient dreamdronedrift.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "Cubes In Stereo"

CARDINI, JENNIFER Feeling Strange (Kompakt) cd 15.98
Feeling Strange is a fluid mixed set from Parisian minimalist proponent Jennifer Cardini. Yes, the minimalist techno gestures abound, with plenty of bleeps, bloops, and acid squiggles grafted onto that insistent technotic pulse; but Ms. Cardini doesn't just adhere to the Detroit / Berlin axis of electronica with some very nice transitions into some Moroder-esque arpeggiating disco and leftfield electro-pop. Static, Maurizio, The Hacker, Reinhard Voigt, Apparat, and Luisine are but a few of the selections. Adorned with the Kompakt seal of approval.
MPEG Stream: STATIC "Sometimes I'm Sad For A Few Seconds"
MPEG Stream: REWORK "Love Love Love Yeah"

CARETAKER, THE A Stairway To The Stars (V/VM Test) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While V/VM has been unrelentingly releasing the dumbest, least funny jokes in electronica, the arrival of an album from The Caretaker is a welcome respite. This project -- which may or may not have anything to do with the members of V/VM -- has been the ONLY listenable thing released on the V/VM label since day 1! Like the aptly named debut "Selected Memories From The Haunted Ballroom," The Caretaker's "A Stairway To The Stars" digitally manipulates 1930's ballroom waltzes into occasionally dreamy, occasionally creepy atmospheres that blur the edges of the original vinyl tracks into somnambulant dronings. Aesthetically speaking, the only connection between V/VM and The Caretaker is found in the limited palette of effects cranked all the way up. While V/VM would use just a ring modulator on a Lionel Richie song for a really boring piece of post-irony, The Caretaker's overblown use of cathedral reverb turns those waltzes into something much closer to Troum. That said, there are a couple of tracks in which the ring modulator warbles far too often. Nevertheless, this is another album that will surely invoke references to those eerie ballroom scenes from "The Shining."
RealAudio clip: "Emptiness"
RealAudio clip: "Malign Forces Of The Occult"
RealAudio clip: "A Stairway To The Stars"

CARETAKER, THE A Stairway To The Stars (V/VM Test) 2lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While V/VM has been unrelentingly releasing the dumbest, least funny jokes in electronica, the arrival of an album from The Caretaker is a welcome respite. This project -- which may or may not have anything to do with the members of V/VM -- has been the ONLY listenable thing released on the V/VM label since day 1! Like the aptly named debut "Selected Memories From The Haunted Ballroom," The Caretaker's "A Stairway To The Stars" digitally manipulates 1930's ballroom waltzes into occasionally dreamy, occasionally creepy atmospheres that blur the edges of the original vinyl tracks into somnambulant dronings. Aesthetically speaking, the only connection between V/VM and The Caretaker is found in the limited palette of effects cranked all the way up. While V/VM would use just a ring modulator on a Lionel Richie song for a really boring piece of post-irony, The Caretaker's overblown use of cathedral reverb, turns those waltzes into something much closer to Troum. That said, there are a couple of tracks in which the ring modulator warbles far too often. Nevertheless, this is another album that will surely invoke references to those eerie ballroom scenes from "The Shining."

CARETAKER, THE An Empty Bliss Beyond The World (History Always Favors The Winners) cd 15.98
Now available on cd, record number two from Leyland Kirby's Caretaker project, whose last record, Persistent Repetition Of Phrases, was a unanimous aQ fave, and was of course one of Wire magazine's top 10 albums of 2008, and was, and still is, one of our best sellers, and it looks like this one is likely to follow suit.
A sonic meditation on memory and loss, The Caretaker, takes old jazz records, various effects, and what sounds like a battery of old beat up Victrolas, and weaves Philip Jeck like soundscapes, but unlike Jeck, the source sounds here are not obfuscated, in fact, in some respects, The Caretaker records are almost like spectral spiritual otherworldly mix tapes, especially on this new one, which sounds like old 78s left to play in a big old auditorium, the room's reverb lovingly wreathing the music in a gauzy old timey haze, the surface noise, hiss and crackle and pop, somehow accentuated by the cavernous space. Better yet, replace the auditorium with an old abandoned mansion. Imagine the great room, animal heads on the walls, old oil paintings, a massive fireplace, charred black, old decaying rugs, all the furniture covered in white cloths, looking like ghosts, cobwebs in all the corners, the floor beneath a layer of dust, and in the corner, an old record player, lit up, its turntable spinning slowly, some old dusty record, to a room full of spirits, a sonic requiem for a time that once was, the music seeming to reflect the ever fading memories, and that's what these songs sound like, some sort of haunted house jazz, old timey seance blues, mournful melodies played on an old piano, muted trumpet, swoonsome strings, shuffling drums, a slow motion big band performing live in the ether, a spectral band playing lament after lament, dedicating it to their lost loves, and loves lost.
An Empty Bliss Beyond This World plays like some archival collection of lost 78's, but where the records' provenance is unknown, timeless music that could have come from anytime, and anywhere, the imperfections and inconsistencies as much a part of the sound as the music itself, all of that hiss and crackle a warm wreath of time-transformed-into-sound detritus, the passing of time mad physical, a sonic memorial to the past. So utterly gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "All You're Going To Want To Do Is Get Back There"
MPEG Stream: "Moments Of Sufficient Lucidity"
MPEG Stream: "The Great Hidden Sea Of The Unconscious"
MPEG Stream: "Libet's Delay"

CARETAKER, THE An Empty Bliss Beyond The World (History Always Favours The Winners) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Repressed and back in print.
Record number two from Leyland Kirby's Caretaker project, whose last record, Persistent Repetition Of Phrases, was a unanimous aQ fave, and was of course one of Wire magazine's top 10 albums of 2008, and was, and still is, one of our best sellers, and it looks like this one is likely to follow suit.
A sonic meditation on memory and loss, The Caretaker, takes old jazz records, various effects, and what sounds like a battery of old beat up Victrolas, and weaves Philip Jeck like soundscapes, but unlike Jeck, the source sounds here are not obfuscated, in fact, in some respects, The Caretaker records are almost like spectral spiritual otherworldly mix tapes, especially on this new one, which sounds like old 78s left to play in a big old auditorium, the room's reverb lovingly wreathing the music in a gauzy old timey haze, the surface noise, hiss and crackle and pop, somehow accentuated by the cavernous space. Better yet, replace the auditorium with an old abandoned mansion. Imagine the great room, animal heads on the walls, old oil paintings, a massive fireplace, charred black, old decaying rugs, all the furniture covered in white cloths, looking like ghosts, cobwebs in all the corners, the floor beneath a layer of dust, and in the corner, an old record player, lit up, its turntable spinning slowly, some old dusty record, to a room full of spirits, a sonic requiem for a time that once was, the music seeming to reflect the ever fading memories, and that's what these songs sound like, some sort of haunted house jazz, old timey seance blues, mournful melodies played on an old piano, muted trumpet, swoonsome strings, shuffling drums, a slow motion big band performing live in the ether, a spectral band playing lament after lament, dedicating it to their lost loves, and loves lost.
An Empty Bliss Beyond This World plays like some archival collection of lost 78's, but where the records' provenance is unknown, timeless music that could have come from anytime, and anywhere, the imperfections and inconsistencies as much a part of the sound as the music itself, all of that hiss and crackle a warm wreath of time-transformed-into-sound detritus, the passing of time mad physical, a sonic memorial to the past. So utterly gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "All You're Going To Want To Do Is Get Back There"
MPEG Stream: "Moments Of Sufficient Lucidity"
MPEG Stream: "The Great Hidden Sea Of The Unconscious"
MPEG Stream: "Libet's Delay"

CARETAKER, THE Persistent Repetition Of Phrases (History Always Favours The Winners) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of Wire magazine's records of 2008, the Caretaker's Persistent Repetition Of Phrases was in fact, when we finally got to hear it, incredible. Gorgeous, hazy, mysterious, destined to be one of OUR favorites as well. Unfortunately, when we tried to order it, intending to feature it prominently on the list, we discovered that it was in fact so limited that it was already out of print, not to be repressed. Argghhh.
Thankfully, the vinyl version showed up recently, so we grabbed as many as we could, so we could shower it with the praise it most definitely deserves. CD only folks are shit out of luck, but for now (and we mean NOW, these are crazy limited too) we have the vinyl, so grab one before they disappear.
The Caretaker has two modes, slow shimmery gauzy ambience, and slowed down warped and blurred big band and jazz. Often combing the two into some sort of otherworldly slow motion spectral dream jazz. We've been joking that the Caretaker is sort of like the DJ Screw of the avant underground, seeing as he takes scratchy old jazz records and reworks them Philip Jeck style into, woozy buried drifts of jazz shadows and haunting otherworldly vocals. Most of the jazzier tracks, sound like the soundtrack to some super creepy dream sequence, a la the Shining, like when Nicholson finds himself in that bar filled with ghosts, you can almost imagine, a dusty old saloon, broken mirrors, cigarette burned tables, sawdust floors, a lone figure sitting alone, hunched over in a dark corner, while all around him, nearly transparent figures move about as if still alive, a ballet of phantom familiarity, spirits unaware that they've moved on, going on with the machinations of daily life, their essence flickery and indistinct, like an old filmstrip. And a filmstrip soundtrack is exactly what the music of the Caretaker evokes, warm, effusive, burnished, old timey, antiquated, the sounds are dark and woozy and and bleed together, blurring into fuzzy stretches of lost memory, of suspended time. The music here is the sound of faded old photographs, of old super 8 movies projected on a wall in a dark and dusty old room, of abandoned skating rinks, of boarded up windows, of black clouds filling a slate grey sky, of life slowing to a crawl, before ven more slowly fading away. Absolutely and utterly breathtaking.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.

CARETAKER, THE Selected Memories From The Haunted Ballroom (V/VM Test Records) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Caretaker spins really old vinyl for the most part much slower than intended and affects the lugubrious pace with assorted warbly effects. This collage of slo-mo waltzes and antique crackles is punctuated by a spartan use of distorto-breakbeat-crunch. Released on V/VM's label and certainly follows the V/VM - Speedranch - Janski Noise aethetic of neo-dada electronica, yet presented with a very sad overtone. In the end this could easily be some gossamer soundtrack to a deep sea nature show or an alternate score to the ballroom scenes in "The Shining".

CARIBOU Start Breaking My Heart (reissue) (Domino / Leaf) 2cd 13.98
The Torontonian artist Dan Snaith who now goes by the professional moniker Caribou used to prefer to be addressed by the name of a Canadian prairie province. Minor legal battles ensued with the elder musical artist Handsome Dick Manitoba claiming the name, and the rest is history. While Snaith was Manitoba, he released two terrific albums 2003's Up In Flames and 2001's Start Breaking My Heart which have now been reissued under his 'new' name, each with a bonus disc packed with extra material. Snaith has amassed quite an impressive body of work to date culminating in last year's very warmly received The Milk Of Human Kindness. Draws comparisons to fellow electronic popsters such as Jimmy Tamborello's select projects (Dntel, James Figurine, Postal Service) and the whole Morr Music roster (LaliPuna, Isan, Styrofoam), but incorporates a broader palette of more defined styles and influences. Swirling dreaminess occasionally drifting into jazzy and shoegazer territory. Always a pleasure!
MPEG Stream: "People Eating Fruit"
MPEG Stream: "Air Doom"

CARIBOU The Milk Of Human Kindness (Leaf / Domino) cd 16.98
If you dug the recent Yeti ep from this Canadian fella (Dan Snaith formerly aka Manitoba), you might be cravin' more Caribou right about now. Well, whad'ya know? His new full length just came a-flutterin' in. Dreamy electronic indie pop with plenty of nature themes -- lots of buzzy, chirpy, insect-y sounds and song titles include "Bees", "Barnowl", "Lord Leopard", "Hello Hammerheads" "Pelican Narrows" and of course the "Yeti". Amid the wildlife, he also fits in a respectful nod to the great electronic music innovator Morton Subotnick on the album's second track "Subotnick". Overall, he creates a soft, smudgey pastel hued scene in which he dabbles with dreamy shoegazer and cyclical krautrock influences to good effect.
MPEG Stream: "Subotnick"
MPEG Stream: "Hello Hammerheads"

CARIBOU Up In Flames (reissue) (Domino / Leaf) 2cd 13.98
The Torontonian artist Dan Snaith who now goes by the professional moniker Caribou used to prefer to be addressed by the name of a Canadian prairie province. Minor legal battles ensued with the elder musical artist Handsome Dick Manitoba claiming the name, and the rest is history. While Snaith was Manitoba, he released two terrific albums 2003's Up In Flames and 2001's Start Breaking My Heart which have now been reissued under his 'new' name, each with a bonus disc packed with extra material. Snaith has amassed quite an impressive body of work to date culminating in last year's very warmly received The Milk Of Human Kindness. Draws comparisons to fellow electronic popsters such as Jimmy Tamborello's select projects (Dntel, James Figurine, Postal Service) and the whole Morr Music roster (LaliPuna, Isan, Styrofoam), but incorporates a broader palette of more defined styles and influences. Swirling dreaminess occasionally drifting into jazzy shoegazer territory. Always a pleasure!
MPEG Stream: "Jacknuggeted"
MPEG Stream: "Cherrybomb Part II"

CARIBOU Yeti (Leaf / Domino) cd ep 6.98
For a few releases this fellow (given name Dan Snaith) formerly went by the moniker Manitoba -- geography lesson: that's the Canadian province located between Saskatchewan and Ontario -- but he's recently switched over to the name of both a heavily antlered wilderness creature and a mountainous region in another province, British Columbia. Okay, now that classtime is over, let's move on to the music... this electronic-pop-trician has crafted a trio of tracks from playful but not excessively twee sounds that make you think he's been rummaging around in the toybox. But don't worry, none of the toys... oops, we mean sounds are gonna spring out and sock you in the nose. I mean, yeah, the live drums get a little rambunctious near the end of the title track as well as the third, but then it sinks back into his more typical mellowness with acoustic guitar plucking, and rounds from a lil' flute or recorder that's sorta like a mini ode to Wickerman. Furthermore, let it also be known that this has nothing to do with Amon Duul II's classic kraut-psych album of the same name. No, this is a much gentler beast. Dreamy, softly pulsing, gauzy and almost Christmas-y in its shimmery frosted chimey-ness! A promising prelude to his forthcoming album, The Milk Of Human Kindness (due out very very soon).
MPEG Stream: "Yeti"
MPEG Stream: "Boreal Forest Opper"

CARLOFASHION I Am The Crazy Hooverman (Hausmusik) cd 16.98