SCHNITZLER, CONRAD Rot (Captain Trip) cd 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This album was the first true Conrad solo album -- in 1972 he bought an EMS Synthi A and began making dozens of sprawling, improvised recordings, which were then slowly composed into two side long pieces, "Meditation" and "Krautrock", and privately released as Rot in 1973. Whereas other electronic bands were already moving well into traditionally melodic realms by this point, Schnitzler stays uncompromisingly abstract. There are notes and drones held down by the organ, but they're all hand-tuned and fairly searing, with tons of utterly unnatural high end -- this is the pure stuff, looking ahead. Side one keeps a horrorshow organ chord floating in the background as the Synthi A lets loose with a landscape of pings, sweeps and drills, but it's all warm up for side two, which wastes no time in firing up the ring modulated drum machine and distorted organ for a freefall duel, as the Synthi Insect & Smartbomb Chorus slowly jacks up the volume and distortion. There's also an excellent 25 minute bonus track from the same year, "Red Dream", which culminates in an endlessly spiraling clockwork arpeggio that never quite repeats itself, looking forward to the sounds that Schnitzler would eventually master on his late period, out of print masterpiece Con (aka Ballet Statique). But this is the genesis, a fantastic, bent record. (guest review by AQ pal Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker)
MPEG Stream: "Krautrock"
MPEG Stream: "Red Dream"

SCHNITZLER, CONRAD Schwarz (Captain Trip) cd 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ten thousand cheers to Captain Trip Records for reissuing all five of Conrad Schnitzler's Color Albums. Originally available only in private pressings, and only sporadically available since then, this cycle included his first solo albums and his first forays into purely electronic music. Before these, Schnitzler had already been a founding member of Tangerine Dream and Kluster (who renamed themselves Cluster after Schnitzler's departure).
His first 'solo' album, Schwartz, is technically the third Kluster album, a trio improvisation by Schnitzler, Moebius and Roedelius -- and was actually reissued as such on cd in the '90s as Eruption. Similar in sound to the first two albums, we hear a variety of traditional instruments (cellos, drums, guitars, organs) played in the most rudimentary manner possible, treating them as raw sources that are then filtered, delayed, and otherwise processed into a bizarre and barely recognizable cavern of pure sound. There actually aren't any synthesizers on this record -- the sounds are all vaguely acoustic in nature, though transformed into something very alien. Whereas their first two albums were commissioned by a Church on the condition that the records also contain strangely religious spoken word texts, this album is purely instrumental -- but more than that, they just get much further out this time -- this is the best of their three records. Though not as compositionally refined as the astonishing Cluster '71 that Moebius and Roedelius would go on to create with Conny Plank, this gains points for audibly being a live performance. A very ahead of its time one at that -- bands are beginning to sound like these records again now, 35 years later -- if you've been spending quality time with Yellow Swans and Skaters cdr-rs recently, you will definitely dig this record from out of their mind Germans playing in a basement 35 years ago, and hitting the source.
This new edition adds a four minute soundcheck from a different trio -- Schnitzler, Freudigmann & Seidel. Otherwise it's identical to the 1997 CD reissue. (guest review by AQ pal Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker)
MPEG Stream: "Eruption 1"
MPEG Stream: "Eruption 2"

SCHNITZLER, CONRAD The Piano Works, Vol. 1 (Platelunch) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not really new, but I don't think we listed it before. Krautrock/electronica pioneer Schnitzler (original member of Kluster, with a long solo career) sets aside the synths and investigates actual piano sounds on this release. Of course, these compositions are not humanly playable--a computer has assisted with the process. Kind of an update on Conlon Nancarrow's player piano pieces, or doing for piano playing what drum and bass programming does for human drumming... Insane stuff, but not utterly chaotic--this is really melodic and quite musical. Schnitzler, indeed, remains a genius.

SCHNITZLER, CONRAD Trigger Trilogy (Important) 3cd 28.00

SCHULZE, KLAUS Irrlicht (Revisited) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wow! We are so excited that this has been put back into print. Klaus Schulze has an extremely extensive back catalog, and sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming as to how to navigate it and where you should begin. With Irrlicht once again available we say that answer becomes a little easier. This was his very first solo album which he recorded in 1972 shortly after he left his stint drumming for legendary Krautrockers Ash Ra Tempel (he was also was the drummer in the earliest and maybe greatest incarnation of Tangerine Dream.) After stepping away from the drum-kit Schulze found where he really was most comfortable, and that was behind his elaborate setup of keyboards. With the advent of the Moog, and his mastery of the organ, Schulze was interested in making a new kind of music. Electronic music that was oozing with atmosphere, tension and sensuality. When Schulze was making this record he was heavily under the influence of Musique Concrete along with some other things we are sure! He had a damaged amplifier at the time which would break out into internal feedback when he turned up its volume control. He also went to a large classical orchestra in Berlin where we was allowed to attend a rehearsal that he recorded and then played backwards throughout Irrlicht. For an artists who would go one to make so many more records this still stands as one of, if not his greatest (even though it actually pre-dates his adoption of the Moog synth as instrument of choice!). Along with Cluster, Eno and Kraftwerk, Schulze stands as one of the fathers of electronic music as we know it. What's also so amazing about this record is how you could imagine so many of our favorite black metal bands hearing this and it seeping its way into the more moody/damaged elements of their records. The eerie ambiance of many Burzum and Striborg records can be heard in the totally intense undertones of Irrlicht. Thanks in part to many of the limitations that he was facing back then, there is an eerie and majestic presence to this album. Sometimes beat up organs, messed up amplifiers, and youthful enthusiasm stand the test of time. Especially when the person behind the controls had this amazing knack for creating eerie, haunting otherworldly sounds.
This reissue comes in a nice digipack with liner notes in both German and English, some in the form of an interview with KS himself. And, there's a 24 minute long bonus track called "Dungeon"! It's not necessarily from the Irrlicht sessions, in fact no-one seems to know exactly when or where it's from (other than somwhere in Europe, early '70s), but it's agreed that it's more early Klaus Schulze dronework that needs to be heard...
MPEG Stream: "Satz: Ebene"
MPEG Stream: "Dungeon"

SCIENTIST Step It Up (Select Cuts) 10" 11.98
Limited edition 10" from the second volume of Select Cuts From Blood & Fire. Features extended dub versions of both Black Star Liner and Dan Donovan of Dub Cartel's mixes for the compilation.

SCION Arrange and Process Basic Channel Tracks (Tresor) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Basic Channel -- the Berlin-based techno label run by Mortiz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus from 1993 - 1995 -- released only 9 singles and 1 retrospective cd; yet, the impact that Basic Channel had upon the global techno and electronica communities has been tremendous. It's probably safe to say that any self-respecting techno DJ has a couple of the Basic Channel 12"s thoroughly smeared with grimy fingerprints from years of use. Jerome Maunsell in describing Basic Channel for The Wire rightly qualified it as "the Holy Grail of Techno." The sound of Basic Channel ripples with precedents from Lee Perry's schizoid rewiring of tape through his delay pedals to the cocaine-induced mania / paranoia of late 80's Acid House to the skeletal vacancy of Detroit Techno; however, Basic Channel (like its contemporary descendent Chain Reaction) has an unmistakeable signature. Monochromatic, metallic synth stabs cascade through rhythmically precise delay patterns alongside the unrelenting force of a very simple 909 four on the floor techno stomp - often just a huge basskick and an off-beat ride cymbal or hi-hat.
For this album, Chain Reactionists Scion (Pete Kuschnereit aka Substance and Rene Loewe aka Vainqueur) were given free access to the Basic Channel back catalogue to create a continuous mixed cd with the help of Ableton's 'live' audio software. The results do not stray far from the original sound, even though multiple Basic Channel tracks have been woven into various sections of the album. And even almost a decade after their original inception, these cuts still sound amazing and fresh!
RealAudio clip: "Part 3"
RealAudio clip: "Part 6"
RealAudio clip: "Part 7"

SCORN Anamnesis (1994-1997) (Invisible) cd 15.98
With so many Mick Harris projects out as Scorn, Lull, E.O.E., Painkiller, and all of the collaborations with Bill Laswell, it is hard to keep them straight and also to know which are the best to get. This collection of unreleased and hard-to-find material is one of those really great Scorn records... Heavy apocalyptic dub compounding the already dark hip-hop breaks that made Scorn's reputation on "Evanescence" and "Ellipsis".

SCORN Ellipsis (Earache) cd 15.98
Scorn is Mick Harris of Painkiller and I don't know who else. Remixes by Bill Laswell, Autechre, Meat Beat Manifesto, Scanner, etc.

SCORN Greetings From Birmingham (Hymen) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SCORN List Of Takers (Vivo) cd 16.98

SCORN Stealth (OHM Resistance) cd 17.98
Mick Harris has been operating his dub-electronica project Scorn for over 15 years now, with his first forays being released through Earache and later through the industrial minded Hymen Records. Throughout his career, his goal has been devastation through dub, taking plenty of cues from contemporary contexts, whether that be the Pathological label from the early '90s (e.g. Terminal Cheesecake, Ice, God, etc.) with their post-Public Image Limited heaviness, or from the Illbient dark-dark-dark hip-hop of Spectre and the Wordsound crew, or as is the case on this album, the dubstep of Kode 9 and Burial. A threatening, malcontent atmosphere has always been at the heart of Harris' work, even if you were to go back to his early days in Napalm Death; yeah, you'll find that here creeping around the modulated sub-bass riffs that wow & flutter in most every dubstep track. The tracks themselves are nowhere nearly as memorable as anything that the aforementioned Kode 9 or Burial have concocted; but Harris does have a knack for keeping things dark. And if the dark, the dubby, and the devastating is what you are after, look no further.
MPEG Stream: "Stripped Black Hinge"
MPEG Stream: "Glugged"

SCORN Zander (Invisible) cd 14.98
Another Mick Harris scary dub-industrial disc, just in time for your next deep sleep nightmare.

SCOTCH EGG, DJ Drumized (Load) cd 15.98
Another manic blast of freaked out 8-bit jams from this curiously monickered purveyor of blown out video game gabber. The sound of Scotch Egg is a bit hard to describe, the closest we can get is, maybe imagine being in an arcade, playing your favorite eighties video game, when inexplicably, lightning strikes the arcade, and the electricity surges through the wiring and right into the video game you're playing, suddenly, the machine freaks out, shooting sparks, the characters on the screen transform into weird shapes and start doing unspeakable things, and the sounds, oh the sounds, that music you grew up with, the soothing lullaby of primitive computer melodies, gone totally haywire, exploding into squalls of utter 8-bit chaos, the rhythms fast and furious tangled and chaotic, flurries of tones, melodies become gnarled and dizzying.
You know that part in Galaga where the mother ship comes down and captures one of your men so you can shoot id down later and have a dual shooter? The sound it makes when it sends out its green and blue tractor beam? Now imagine that sound stretched into a whole song, with the dude from Hella going apeshit on the drums in the background. That perfectly describes one of the songs here. Some of the other tracks sound like the Boredoms if they were transported back to the eighties and tapped to do music for Dig Dug and Mr. Do. Or maybe imagine Venetian Snares, zapped Tron style and beamed into a video game, and these are his desperate musical cries for help. Sound wacked? Well, it is, WAY wacked.
The sounds are all over the map, many you'll recognize as being purloined from some of your favorite video games, but here, they're just tiny parts of a ear pummeling barrage of sound, from Melt Banana style video game grind, to weirdly intense 8-bit drones, all the 'death' music from video games stretched out into actual songs, There are some real drums here and there, some guitar, some fucked up vocals, some tracks even sound like damaged video game free jazz, while others sound like creepy computer math rock, but for the most part it's just frenzied electronic gabber video game lo-fi 8-bit freak out dancefloor destroying mayhem and we LOVE it. Be sure and stick around for the final track, a weird looped groove assembled from what sounds like a tape recorded video game, all lo fi and muddy, but here looped and assembled into some druggy repetitive almost krautrocky drone jam.
MPEG Stream: "Wwwww"
MPEG Stream: "Drumized"
MPEG Stream: "Scotch Stoner"

SCOTCH EGG, DJ Drumized (Load) lp 15.98
NOW ON VINYL!
Another manic blast of freaked out 8-bit jams from this curiously monickered purveyor of blown out video game gabber. The sound of Scotch Egg is a bit hard to describe, the closest we can get is, maybe imagine being in an arcade, playing your favorite eighties video game, when inexplicably, lightning strikes the arcade, and the electricity surges through the wiring and right into the video game you're playing, suddenly, the machine freaks out, shooting sparks, the characters on the screen transform into weird shapes and start doing unspeakable things, and the sounds, oh the sounds, that music you grew up with, the soothing lullaby of primitive computer melodies, gone totally haywire, exploding into squalls of utter 8-bit chaos, the rhythms fast and furious tangled and chaotic, flurries of tones, melodies become gnarled and dizzying.
You know that part in Galaga where the mother ship comes down and captures one of your men so you can shoot id down later and have a dual shooter? The sound it makes when it sends out its green and blue tractor beam? Now imagine that sound stretched into a whole song, with the dude from Hella going apeshit on the drums in the background. That perfectly describes one of the songs here. Some of the other tracks sound like the Boredoms if they were transported back to the eighties and tapped to do music for Dig Dug and Mr. Do. Or maybe imagine Venetian Snares, zapped Tron style and beamed into a video game, and these are his desperate musical cries for help. Sound wacked? Well, it is, WAY wacked.
The sounds are all over the map, many you'll recognize as being purloined from some of your favorite video games, but here, they're just tiny parts of a ear pummeling barrage of sound, from Melt Banana style video game grind, to weirdly intense 8-bit drones, all the 'death' music from video games stretched out into actual songs, There are some real drums here and there, some guitar, some fucked up vocals, some tracks even sound like damaged video game free jazz, while others sound like creepy computer math rock, but for the most part it's just frenzied electronic gabber video game lo-fi 8-bit freak out dancefloor destroying mayhem and we LOVE it. Be sure and stick around for the final track, a weird looped groove assembled from what sounds like a tape recorded video game, all lo fi and muddy, but here looped and assembled into some druggy repetitive almost krautrocky drone jam.
MPEG Stream: "Wwwww"
MPEG Stream: "Drumized"
MPEG Stream: "Scotch Stoner"

SCOTCH EGG, DJ Scotch Hausen (Very Friendly) cd 14.98
Like a modern Switched On Bach, DJ Scotch Egg, armed with modified game boys, and a serious arsenal of 8 bit noisemakers, takes all your favorite Bach tunes and turns them inside out, tangles them all up, slathers them in overloaded electronic buzz and glitch and all sorts of squiggly video game music, and creates some glorious bastard classical gabber electronic classical knee-to-the-nuts techno. And it's a blast. Wild and goofy, funny and sort of funky, but completely brilliantly baffling.
Lots of the pieces are ones you'd recognize, but they are quickly transformed into blown out lo-fi blasts of damaged dance music. Some tracks feature garbled super distorted vocals, and end up sounding like some toy version of Atari Teenage Riot. Allan thinks a lot of this sounds like the video game version of the theme from Bad News Bears or maybe an 8-bit Virgil Fox trapped in a haunted video arcade. However it strikes you, odds are you won't hear a record this weird and this much fun anytime soon. Imagine playing some insane futuristic version of Dance Dance Revolution on a crappy old Atari 2600, but with the sound patched through 1,000 Marshall stacks. Fucking awesome!
If you're anything like us (at least two of us have the sounds of Rastan on our iPods and we have a full size Tron machine in the back room of AQ!) this is so deliriously damaged and absolutely essential!!
MPEG Stream: "Scotch Bach II"
MPEG Stream: "Scotch Ruins"
MPEG Stream: "Scotch Bach"
MPEG Stream: "No Beats"

SCOTCH EGG, DJ Scotch Hausen (Adaadat) lp 14.98
Like a modern Switched On Bach, DJ Scotch Egg, armed with modified game boys, and a serious arsenal of 8 bit noisemakers, takes all your favorite Bach tunes and turns them inside out, tangles them all up, slathers them in overloaded electronic buzz and glitch and all sorts of squiggly video game music, and creates some glorious bastard classical gabber electronic classical knee-to-the-nuts techno. And it's a blast. Wild and goofy, funny and sort of funky, but completely brilliantly baffling.
Lots of the pieces are ones you'd recognize, but they are quickly transformed into blown out lo-fi blasts of damaged dance music. Some tracks feature garbled super distorted vocals, and end up sounding like some toy version of Atari Teenage Riot. Allan thinks a lot of this sounds like the video game version of the theme from Bad News Bears or maybe an 8-bit Virgil Fox trapped in a haunted video arcade. However it strikes you, odds are you won't hear a record this weird and this much fun anytime soon. Imagine playing some insane futuristic version of Dance Dance Revolution on a crappy old Atari 2600, but with the sound patched through 1,000 Marshall stacks. Fucking awesome!
If you're anything like us (at least two of us have the sounds of Rastan on our iPods and we have a full size Tron machine in the back room of AQ!) this is so deliriously damaged and absolutely essential!!
MPEG Stream: "Scotch Bach II"
MPEG Stream: "Scotch Ruins"
MPEG Stream: "Scotch Bach"
MPEG Stream: "No Beats"

SCOTT, RAYMOND Figurine And Clavivox (PressPop) figurine + cd 44.00
We're listing this again this week 'cause we have just a few left, and it's definitely a very special Christmas present-y kind of thing you might have missed on our last list...
We rarely carry toys, not cuz we don't all love toys, but we already have our hands full with just music. But every once in a while, a toy comes along that speaks directly to music nerds like us. And you presumably. And the folks at PressPop in Japan definitely seem to have our number!
Way back in 2005, they released a Bob Moog action figure, wearing a sportcoat, red bowtie and glasses, finger extended to depress a key on his trusty analog Mini-Moog synthesizer. As we proclaimed back then, the perfect gift for "AQ vintage-synthesizer-lovin', action-figure-collectin' shoppers", and we were right, those Moog dolls flew out of here like you wouldn't believe. So here we are 3 years later, and just in time for Christmas, it's time for the second in PressPop's series of electronic music innovators, this time none other than Raymond Scott!
By now, Raymond Scott should need no introduction, if you need to know more, do a search on the aQ site and read all about this electronic music pioneer,, his life, his music, and his legacy. Needless to say, like Moog, with out Scott, a whole lot of your favorite bands would sound a whole lot different. Not to mention the fact that he's responsible for some of our favorite cartoon music ever.
Anyway, if you're like us, your music room or computer or wherever it is that you spend all your music listening time, deserves to be blessed by Saint Scott, his visage overlooking you sanctuary, as he reaches out to add his own synthesizer buzz to whatever it is you're listening to. The body is the same as Mr. Moog's, so he's got the same magic finger outstretched, but Mr. Scott is dressed in a natty grey suit (with a Raymond Scott 100 year anniversary silkscreened on the back) with a black tie, accompanied by his keyboard of choice, the Clavivox, which he invented and patented in 1956 (and which featured a sub assembly constructed by a young Bob Moog who would design the first Moog synthesizer a decade later!). The doll and the keyboard are housed in an eye popping full color box designed by Mr. Archer Prewitt (of the Sea & Cake), and the back of the box features a killer illustration of another Scott invention, the Electronium, a keyboardless automatic composition and performance machine!
And as if that weren't enough, also included is a cd, with more killer Archer Prewitt artwork, which includes: "Powerhouse", probably Scott's most famous bit of cartoon music, a track from Scott's Soothing Sounds For Baby, his collection of electronic music for infants, really beautiful and strange, alien and hypnotic, and coolest of all, three archival tracks of Scott talking about and then demonstrating his various inventions, the Clavivox, the Electronium and the Rhythm Modulator. Holy Cow!!!
As with the Moog doll (now long gone), these are indeed super limited, and a little pricey with overseas shipping, but have a read, a look, a listen, so worth it, the perfect gift for the synthesizer nerd or music obsessive in your life, or heck, buy it for your own geek self, we did!
(Counts as 3 items for shipping purposes, not one or two, as per our usual 'box set rule'.)

SCRATCH PET LAND Solo Soli ii iiiii (Sonig) cd 13.98
Scratch Pet Land is a Belgian electronica outfit specializing in plink plonk electronica whimsy that aims to be cartoon music for the future, with lots of cute mechanical knocks, pings, whirs, and springs, as well as simple (often 8-bit sounding) silly melodies. It makes perfect sense that this is on Sonig, and sounds like Microstoria remixing Matmos.

SCSI 9 Easy As Down (Kompakt) cd 16.98

SCSI-9 The Line Of Nie (Kompakt) cd 151.98

MPEG Stream: "Teplyi Dym"
MPEG Stream: "Elegia"

SCUBA A Mural Antipathy (Hoflush) cd 17.98

SCUBA Frisco (Hotflush) 12" 12.98

SEA AND CAKE One Bedroom (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98
For their sixth full length, those Sea & Cakes are venturing even deeper into the groovy electronic chillroom and away from their former sunkissed and breezy acoustic path. Super spacious and dreamy, but with considerably more euro jetset flair. Fluid organ tones, wispy string sounds, jazzy shuffling beats. Sam Prekop's voice is still as mellow and as effortless as ever, but this time there's the added eleganza vocal depth of the Navin brothers from the Aluminum Group -- certainly no slouches themselves in the charm'n'croon department. They're joined by Archer Prewitt and Prekop's subtle guitar interplay and the solid-as-ever rhythm section of bassist Erik Claridge and John McEntire on drums. Oh yes, and to top it all off, they do a cover of Bowie's "Sound And Vision". A blissful beauty!
RealAudio clip: "Four Corners"
RealAudio clip: "Le Baron"

SEABEAR The Ghost That Carried Us Away (Morr Music) cd 16.98
If your dream musical date would be with Postal Service and Pernice Brothers, well, the sweet sounds of Seabear come pretty darn close. Shufflin', soft and breezy pop tunes with shy boy lead vocals and angelic girly backing ones. Sure to please devotees of the Morr Music label, and anyone else whose ears need a snuggle!
MPEG Stream: "Good Morning Scarecrow"
MPEG Stream: "Libraries"

SEBASTIAN Motor Momy Army (Because Music) 12" 13.98
Ed Banger producer, Sebastian, really "revs" things up with this 12". The title track "Motor" is the epitome of rude! If you're tired of wimpy dance music and need something to put some hair on your chest, this is probably the biggest, hardest, grinding, pumping, and almost unbearable (in a good way) tune you could hope for. The jist of it is a sample of a motor revving faster and faster, chopped up, pitched in different ways, and arranged over some pretty sinister drum slappage. You'll either hate it or love it and we here at AQ are eating it up. The other 2 B-side tracks are definitely much more endurable and just as good if not better. "Momy" is actually more of a quintessential disco track compared to Sebastian's common production style, filled with strings, trills, and the normal choppery of course. "Army" sums everything up with Sebastian displaying his usual yet crafty beat trickery, throwing pounding drums mixed with more of that gritty, churning, distorted bass synth that we've always loved from him and the rest of the French Ed Banger family. Awesome!

SECOND DECAY La Decadence Electronique (Dark Entries) lp 17.98
Dark Entries made their debut as a label several months ago with the awesome reissue of the Eleven Pond LP and with that single release we knew we were witnessing the birth of a an awesome reissue label, one with its heart set on finding obscure synth-pop and darkwave and and shining the spotlight on records that never got the love, attention or distribution they deserved the first time around.
Second Decay were a German electronic-pop group who formed in the late 1980's dedicated to the sound of analog synthisizers, the album's back cover proudly remarks 'This album was produced without MIDI. It is dedicated to our beloved synthesizers.' And there is no doubt these guys had deep love for the sounds of synthesizers as they used them to craft very infectious, dark new wave with full on pop chops. While there have been tons of reissues and attention paid to the amazing music that was made in Germany in the 70's it's really cool to see someone digging up some of the gold in a post-Kraftwerk Germany as Second Decay have a sound that brings Neue Deutsche Welle to mind (e.g. Grauzone, Liaisons Dangereuses, etc.) and the more dark tinged blasts of electro-pop that folks like Depeche Mode and The Human League were making on their early records, or even early 80's Cabaret Voilatire, and of course you can tell they were WAY influenced by the mighty Kraftwerk. We also hear a cool similarity to the recently reissued Patrick Cowley & Jorge Socarras record Catholic, which kind of makes perfect sense as the man behind Dark Entries was instrumental in saving and preserving the cache of Cowley tapes from which that record was culled.
With new bands like Cold Cave and Xeno & Oaklander grabbing our attention lately with their awesome updated version of that classic vintage synthwave sound, it's pretty rad and perfect timing to hear a lost classic from folks who were making that sound almost twenty years ago. Limited to just 500 copies all screen printed and with an amazing remastered sound thanks to the work of the legendary George Horn at Fantasy Studios. This will make you want to wear all black and dance all night. Minimal wave/gothpop at its best!
MPEG Stream: "Poisonned Water"
MPEG Stream: "Enclose My Heart"
MPEG Stream: "Laboratorium"

SECONDO A Matter Of Scale (Soul Jazz) cd 21.00

SEEFEEL Quique (Redux Edition) (Too Pure) 2cd 14.98
We made this reissue a Record Of The Week back on list 265... then Too Pure let it go out of print again! But now, wisely, they've just repressed it and we happily have it back in stock. If you missed it before, please read on to find out why picked it as a ROTW:
God, we love this record! We've never stopped loving it. In its fourteen years of existence, it's never sounded tired or dated. Can't say that for a whole lot of other electronica records. So we are really glad to see our good old friend back in print again with this super nice 2cd deluxe re-issue. If you missed this the first time around, then you are in for a real treat, and if you bought this the first time around, you may just need to buy it again to get the whole extra disc of unreleased tracks and alternate mixes. We have been playing this daily since we got it, and we're surprised how many folks have never heard of Seefeel or experienced their incredible ocean of sound.
So what is all the fuss about, you say?
Well, Seefeel at their peak were one of the main players that spawned the nineties electronica genre, at a time when there were only Dance and Rock sections in most music stores. Their sound was a delirious mash-up between the shoe-gazing swirl of My Bloody Valentine, the machinic rhythm programming of Autechre, the ambient chill of Aphex Twin and the driving pulse of Stereolab, with an early hint toward the looping repetitions of William Basinski. They bridged ambient techno and indie rock by foregoing rock music's verse and chorus structures in favor of beats and loops wrapped inside icy motorik rhythms, industrial whirs, blurbs of female vocals and dubby bass lines. Like the best work of minimal composers, Seefeel's long-form compositions create a warmly hypnotic form of static movement that refused to fit neatly into music for either dance floors or chill out lounges.
Quique was their head-turning debut following two EP releases featuring remixes by Aphex Twin. That connection surely gained them a bigger following, but Seefeel was always one of those bands that should have been bigger. Of course such a potent and influential debut would lead to many of their contemporaries, bands such as Bowery Electric, Labradford, Boards Of Canada and Flying Saucer Attack, to take Seefeel's initial explorations in sound further into Post-Rock, Trip Hop, IDM and Neo-Psych territories, leaving Seefeel at a bit of a loss for a follow-up. Signing to Warp, they delved further into a dark ambient direction in the vein of groups like Main, Ice and Scorn, that was just too stark for a wider audience to appreciate. They put out two more albums before splintering off into various side projects such as Scala, Disjecta and Sneakster.
The bonus disc contains six previously unreleased tracks, and three alternate mixes from a limited white label 12" and two ambient compilations. Out of the unreleased tracks, "Clique" sounds like it just barely missed the cut from the original album line-up while "Silent Pool" is a longer version of Quique's closing track "Signals". "My Super 20" and "Is It Now?" are long beat-less swims that are a warmer hint at their future direction and the two other unreleased tracks are versions of opening track "Climatic Phase #3, and "Time to Find Me" from their first EP. It might sound like at first listen that there is some repetition between the two discs, but it's really more in line with classic ambient music's infatuation with the Dub tradition of versioning, the adding or removing of various elements in a song to give it a totally different spin. Each version really does give a different feel even if the basic structures seem similar. Seriously, the second disc is just more of what you love already, and gives us a little more of the stuff we've been missing for ages.
Listening to Quique fourteen years later, it has lost none of its powerful splendor and warmly chilled charm. Add this to the list of favorite one record bands like My Bloody Valentine and Stone Roses. So Amazingly Awesome!!!! Reissue of the year so far and so totally recommended!!!!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Climatic Phase #3"
MPEG Stream: "Plainsong"
MPEG Stream: "Filter Dub "
MPEG Stream: "Signals"

SEESSELBERG Synthetik 1 (Plate Lunch) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Obscure reissues like this really make our day. This disc brings to light German brothers Eckhart und Wolf-J.'s experiments in instrumental electronic music circa 1971-73, a la early Kraftwerk, Kluster, Conrad Schnitzler, and the Silver Apples... Short, freeky pieces done with home-built synths in some Dusseldorf basement. Give me weirdo D.I.Y. krautrock electronics like this over the output of today's laptop dorks any day!
MPEG Stream: "Overture - Jeder Ist Heutzutage Glucklich"
MPEG Stream: "Speedy Achmed"

SEMIAUTOMATIC s/t (5 Rue Christine) cd 11.98
Rop, ex-Peechees member, has moved to New York where he hones his DJ and turntablist skills as DJ Ropstyle. Semiautomatic features the additional talents of Akiko. Fans of Kid Koala's funny style and ICU/IQU's lo-fi d'n'b will enjoy this.

SENKING 20' to 2000: June (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.
Definitely the 'summer album' for the stellar monthly series of minimalist electronica counting down to the year 2000. Bubbling pulses from banks of little black boxes build sounds that move from pretty drones into dense if rather sedate electronic dub. Senking's twenty minutes share a lot of the same tonalities and structures as Aphex Twin's monumental Selected Ambient Works Volume 2.

SENKING Forge (Raster-Noton) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Continuing his reconstructions of electro found on his previous releases from Raster and Karaoke Kalk, Jens Massel (aka Senking) digitally sanitizes what could easily be vinyl surface noise into elegant post-techno pulsations that are not unlike Pan Sonic's pioneering "Vakio" album. These rhythms with their clusters of pinprick glitchiness relentlessly clatter through out the short 26 minute program, whilst Massel builds feedback tones that shift in density, aggressiveness, and volume. As a whole, the shortened 26 minute program screeches up to a tense crescendo, plunges down to static minimalims, and rebounds through submariner ambience, all the while maintaining a continuous mix of variable rhythms. Quite nice.
Released as a part of the new "Raster-Post" series housed in nice silkscreened, fold-out cardstock folder and bound with an elastic band.

RealAudio clip: "Forge 1"
RealAudio clip: "Forge 2"

SENKING Ping Thaw (Karaoke Kalk) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Senking hails from Cologne, yet has developed an unusual electro-dub technique which is quite the detour from the usual Cologne fair of A-Musik's dadaist humor or Kompakt's techno minimalism. Starting off with rolling bass loops and sleek black ambience, Senking's dub goes so deep as to never really have a bottom, just an enveloping stroboscopic pulsation of bass tones. Jens Massel (aka Senking) has claimed his influences to be both the Aphex Twin's early work and 'Laughing Stock' by Talk Talk, and has left his sound with a spartan abstract way of constructing his pieces. This work culls two vinyl only EPs ("Ping" and "Thaw") on one CD, and predates his amazing "Trial" album for Raster-Noton.

SENKING Tap (Raster-Noton) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yet another installment in Raster-Noton's similarly sleeved (simple black and silver diecut digipaks, quite nice) and sonically consistent Raster.Post series. Voulme four is the work of Senking and is another beauty (like the Komet elsewhere on this list), helping restore our faith in modern electronica, a genre that has been getting less and less fascinating with every compilation and same-sounding record. Unlike the warm dreaminess of the Komet, this is a much colder beast altogether, more ghostly and spare, chilly and skeletal, with skittery rhythms, glitching and shuffling across an epic expanse of blackness, and rhythmic pulses and ribcage-rattling swells of bass throb supporting almost-melodies that are barely there. Think a more clinical, more abstract, less dub-obsessed Pole, and you start to get the idea. Hard to say why this is so pleasing, but it really is. Quite possibly my favorite electronica record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Stand"
MPEG Stream: "Settle"

SENKING Trial (Raster-Noton) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Raster's conceptualism of electronic, almost utopian purity has some interesting theoretical leanings, but the cold minimalism of Raster/Noton succeeds more often than not through the novelty of subtle melodies and interesting rhythmic patterns. While most of the critical acclaim for Raster / Noton is deserved, they are undoubtably purveyors of The New; and Senking's "Trial" is no different.
With techno and dub each getting the digital deconstruction in the respective work of Thomas Brinkmann and Pole, Senking's work has been emerging as the reductivist reclamation of electro, sounding much like a clinical atomization of Andrea Parker or Depth Charge. Senking's deep grooves of thudding sub-bass plod boldly through the Raster / Noton signature sound of skittering digital errata. Certainly recommended to the already converted... and definitely a good start for any one interested in such things.

SENOR COCONUT Around The World (Nacional Records) cd 13.98
Senor Coconut is back with a new set of party favorites. His endearing covers over the years have included everyone from Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Sade. This time out he's on a trip around the globe with each song being a cover of an artist from somewhere different in the world. But his eye is clearly on catchy and mostly familiar pop music (Eurythmics, Daft Punk, Telex, etc). Still totally fun and playful but not quite at the level of pure joy and innovative reinterpreting that his prior releases demonstrated. It kind of feels a little phoned in, but still filled with enough winners to keep us smiling.
MPEG Stream: "Around the World (Intro)"
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Dreams"
MPEG Stream: "Moscow Discow"

SENOR COCONUT El Baile Aleman (Multicolor) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Few artists' music can guarantee to brighten your days and nights the way Atom Heart (and his numerous aliases) can. Any new release from this fella is received with a huge aQ grin! If you dug the recent Yellow Magic Fever tribute from the always deliriously delightful Senor Coconut and Los Negritos' Speed-Merengue Mega-Mix, you know what we're talking about and you definitely won't wanna miss these freshly reissued earlier Senor Coconut releases including this, his awesome Kraftwerk tribute! Even if you got 'em the first time around, heck, we're sure you know somebody who'd benefit from this festive treat!
Back in 2000, we had this to say about El Baile Aleman: Senor Coconut is actually the guy better known as techno/electronica artist Atom Heart. He's moved to Chile and gone all Latin and groovy on us. However, all the songs on this (high-) concept album are Kraftwerk covers! So this joins a long line of weird and wonderful tributes to Kraftwerk. Soon we'll be able to have a whole bin at Aquarius dedicated to such endeavors: the Balenescu Quartet one, the Terre Thaemlitz one, the one with all the Slovenian acts, the Japanese import one, the Miami Bass one, etc. etc. Anyways, so incredibly executed down to the tiniest detail, this one will sit at the top of the heap! Super duper fun.
MPEG Stream: "The Robots (Cha-Cha-Cha)"
MPEG Stream: "Neon Lights (Cha-Cha-Cha)"

SENOR COCONUT Electrolatino (Emperor Norton) 12" 7.98
It's been awhile since we last heard from Uwe Schmidt's latin playboy alter ego Senor Coconut. Not at all surprising with all of his other personas and projects in the works - Atom Heart, Mambotur, Los Samplers, Geeez'n'Gosh, Roger Tubesound, Disk Orchestra, Midisport and the list goes on! But at long last, here's a small vinyl dose. No Kraftwerk covers here, these are three versions of his effervescent track "Electrolatino" (one of them a DJ Rodriguez remix). Nice.

SENOR COCONUT Gran Baile Con Senor Coconut (Rather Interesting) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We finally got some of the first Senor Coconut cd back in stock: mambo-electronica-fuckery from German cum Chilean Atom Heart. Much more skittery and abrasive than his more recent Kraftwerk covers record, really innovative work that has more staying power without that gimmick. Think V/VM meets Stock, Hausen & Walkman, meets Rancho Relaxo All-Stars. Heavily entrenched in the drill & bass laptop / breakbeat damage employed by Aphex Twin and early Squarepusher, but using samples culled from the rich Cuban traditions of Cha Cha and Mambo. Highly recommended, but be forewarned as we're not sure how many of these are still available.

SENOR COCONUT Gran Baile Con Senor Coconut (Multicolor) cd 16.98
Few artists' music can guarantee to brighten your days and nights the way Atom Heart (and his numerous aliases) can. Any new release from this fella is received with a huge aQ grin! If you dug the recent Yellow Magic Fever tribute from the always deliriously delightful Senor Coconut and Los Negritos' Speed-Merengue Mega-Mix, you know what we're talking about and you definitely won't wanna miss these freshly reissued earlier Senor Coconut releases including his awesome Kraftwerk tribute El Baile Aleman! Even if you got 'em the first time around, heck, we're sure you know somebody who'd benefit from this festive treat!
Back in 2000, we had this to say about Gran Baile Con Senor Coconut: Mambo-electronica-fuckery from German cum Chilean Atom Heart. Much more skittery and abrasive than his more recent Kraftwerk covers record, really innovative work that has more staying power without that gimmick. Think V/VM meets Stock, Hausen & Walkman, meets Rancho Relaxo All-Stars. Heavily entrenched in the drill & bass laptop / breakbeat damage employed by Aphex Twin and early Squarepusher, but using samples culled from the rich Cuban traditions of Cha Cha and Mambo. Highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Chocolatina (Guaguanco Libre)"
MPEG Stream: "Suavito (Jive Eclectico)"

SENOR COCONUT Yellow Fever (Essay Recordings) cd 16.98
A German electronic artist living in Chile doing samba versions of Japanese electro-pop pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra. Well it would only sound absurd if it were anyone else but the ever so loveable Senor Coconut. With him, it's a no brainer. After paying homage to Kraftwerk on the now classic and sadly out of print disc El Baile Aleman, and exploring all sorts of covers on his instant party hit "Fiesta Songs". This carries on in the same fun samba-with-a-twist spirit of those recordings while actually featuring all three members of Yellow Magic Orchestra at different points throughout the record. Also making appearances are members of Mouse on Mars, Deee-Lite and Nouvelle Vague. Senor Coconut has proven himself to be some sort of a hipster Les Baxter for his generation. Appropriating other musical cultures, with tongue in cheek and earnest respect living side by side. Most of all he continues to provide some playful fun to a world that is often all too serious for its own good.
MPEG Stream: "Yellow Magic"
MPEG Stream: "The Madmen"

SENOR COCONUT AND HIS ORCHESTRA Fiesta Songs (Emperor Norton) cd 17.98
Uwe Schmidt returns with another Senor Coconut record to tickle our ears. If you're not familiar with the chameleonlike Schmidt, these are just a few of the other aliases he's recorded as: Los Samplers (Perez Prado drill n' bass), XXX (Atom with Chilean rapper Tea Time), Midisport (Brazilian samba gets the midi hatchet), Bund Deutscher Programmierer (refried laptops a la Mille Plateaux), The Roger Tubesound Ensemble ("digital jazz" in Atom's own words). Wow!
Senor Coconut is where Schmidt works out his love for samba, the cha cha cha, merengue, etc, and to make it more fun for him, he likes to cover the most unlikely tracks. Here we've got tracks by Sade, the Doors, Elton John, even Jean Michel Jarre. Unfortunately there's also a Michael Jackson cover ("Beat It") which, of course, instantly calls to mind Weird Al and now I can't seem to listen to this record anymore without picturing the videos for 'Eat It', 'Fat' or 'Another One Rides The Bus'. Very fun, but you might want to start with the Senor's Kraftwerk tribute, El Baile Aleman. That one we can recommend start to finish.
MPEG Stream: "Riders on the Storm"
MPEG Stream: "Oxygene (Part III)"

SENOR COCONUT Y SU CONJUNTO El Baile Aleman (Emperor Norton) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Senor Coconut is actually the guy better known as techno/electronica artist Atom Heart. He's moved to Chile and gone all Latin and groovy on us. However, all the songs on this (high-) concept album are Kraftwerk covers! So this joins a long line of weird and wonderful tributes to Kraftwerk. Soon we'll be able to have a whole bin at Aquarius dedicated to such endeavors: the Balenescu Quartet one, the Terre Thaemlitz one, the one with all the Slovenian acts, the Japanese import one, the Miami Bass one, etc. etc. Anyways, so incredibly executed down to the tiniest detail, this one will sit at the top of the heap! Super duper fun.
RealAudio clip: "Tour de France"

SENSATIONAL & SPECTRE Acid & Bass (Wordsound) cd 11.98
We first got a teaser for this long promised full length matchup way back in 2002 on the Spectre record Parts Unknown, which featured super stoned rapper Sensational on 4 tracks, and it was solid gold, Spectre's creepy ominous dubscapes, and Sensational's mushmouthed mumble, twisted, druggy, off kilter and so good.
So who should come by Aquarius just now, but Spectre himself, dropping off this latest disc, a full length showdown / match up / tag team, and it's just as good as those 4 tracks from way back when. Seems like Spectre has dialed back the sinister, instead crafting some very Sensational appropriate tracks, loopy and loping, twisted and stuttery, muted and abstract, clipped and cracking, the perfect bed for Sensational to lay down his drugged out stream of consciousness fffffflow, woozy, warped and warbly, strings sing, horns bleat, a skeletal beat skitters, weaving an almost Hitchcock sounding backdrop for some drawled genius. Slowed down vocals, demonic and growly (remember those from Spectre records?) ooze over some crunchy stabs and some hiccupping beats, lazer fire from some sci-fi movie wraps around a hazy Wu-worthy should sample, looped Led Zep gives way to pizzicatto strings and looped birdsong, Spectre has always been a beat master, and this disc proves he's only gotten better, how come he's not doing beats for the big guys, if we were Kanye or Jay-Z or 50 Cent and heard this shit, we'd get Spectre up to the compound and get him crafting beats PRONTO. And along those same lines, why does everyone want T-Pain and Lil' Wayne to guest on their records? Hell, can you imagine some MTV hip hop jam breaking down into a cough syrup trudge and Sensational strolling out rapping some unintelligable weirdness into a pair of headphones? If only...
MPEG Stream: "The Way I Like"
MPEG Stream: "The Boom"
MPEG Stream: "Rip Like This"
MPEG Stream: "Boom Bash Shit"

SENSATIONAL MEETS KOUHEI s/t (Wordsound Recordings) cd 14.98
Dunno why we've taken so long to get around to listing this... not 'cause it's not cool. It is! Our favorite stoned (really stoned) sounding rapper teams up with a Japanese electronic noise dude!!

SHABOTINSKI (b)ypass (k)ill (Plag Dich Nicht / Charhiszma) cd 16.98
Shabotinski is the oddball Viennese electronica work from Christoph Kurzmann (from Orchestra 33 1/3) and Dafeldecker. Oval like digital skittering produce subtle melodic episodes linking irony laden jazz-electronica-pop medleys ususally found on Cheap Records. The song fragments sound remarkably similar to the electronic facets of Six Finger Satellite, if they had a sultry trumpet player meandering over the post Kraftwerk / Section 25 drum machines.

SHABOTINSKI Stenimals (Plag Dich Nicht) cd 16.98
Working from a similar blueprint as Tortoise, Shabotinski uses the studio as an instrument to warp and mutate the basic rock/jazz structure. Yet, the dissonant grinding tones so familiar to Mego's brand of electronica saves this from sounding like Tortoise, their offshoots or their disciples.

SHACKLETON Three EPs (Perlon) cd 17.98
For the dubstep obsessed among us, especially those of us who aren't scouring DJ shops for white labels and limited 12"s, this collection is a godsend. Gathering up, as the title suggests, 3 eps from one of our favorite dubsteppers, Shackleton, who faithful aQ-ers probably remember from the Skull Disco collections, the Steppas' Delight comps and the recent split with Mordant Music. The music of Shackleton is not just your regular old dubstep, it's super lush and expansive, skittery and groovy, dark and haunting, and these jams are no different.
Spare and skeletal, yet impossibly full and dense, minimal on the melodies as well as the beats, these eps are super stripped down, even by Shackleton standards, these tracks are not as bass heavy as you might imagine, more light and ethereal, not light in spirit, but in sound, the vibe is still dark and mysterious.
The strange vocal snippets in "(No More) Negative Thoughts", the twisted woozy melodies and stuttery hand claps on "It's Time For Love", the cool tabla laced drift of "Mountains Of Ashes", the super dark and noisy droniness of "There's A Slow Train Coming", which is about as sinister as it gets here, the record is jam packed with cool stark beats, and all sorts of moody melody and bleak ambience, culminating in the closer "Something Has Got To Give", with it's chopped up vox, creepy processed laughter, koto style strings, shimmering minor key drones and the brittle barely there beat, it's almost like a dubstep soundtrack for a lost giallo, malevolent and cinematic and seriously sinister!
MPEG Stream: "(No More) Negative Thoughts"
MPEG Stream: "Mountains Of Ashes"
MPEG Stream: "Asha In The Tabernacle"

SHACKLETON / HEADHUNTERS / T++ The Unofficial Mixes Of Moderat Pt #1 (50 Weapons) 12" 14.98