PEACHES The Teaches Of Peaches (XL / Kitty-Yo) lp 34.00
Reissued on hella expensive vinyl. What we said 'bout it some years ago, originally, and we doubt anyone's opinions have changed much over the years...
You are hereby forewarned that five AQ staffers totally hate this record, while two others like it a lot. AQ fistfight!
We'd heard a lot from various customers recently about this female rapper with a disc on German indie-electronica label Kitty-Yo, so we finally had to order some in, and it's proved to be very controversial indeed.
Here's what the thumbs-downers have to say:
Yuck! Someone take that groovebox away from her, and wash her pottymouth out with soap. This is... really stupid and bad. Sheer aural annoyance. I could go on, but don't want to waste the space. File under: Chicks On Speed (no, actually it's worse than that).
And here's the other side of the coin:
Sure, Peaches is shallow ear candy, but we all need sugar sometime. With songtitles like "Fuck the Pain Away" and "Lovertits," Peaches far surpasses Li'l Kim in raunchiness, and her cool vocal delivery is equal parts coked-out ice-queen, white girl trying out hip hop a la Debbie Harry, and fierce punk yowler on the level of PJ Harvey and Kathleen Hanna. The music is super simple freeze-dried disco / wannabe electro / digital hardcore complete with stark drum programming and disembodied armies of handclaps. The whole package is slightly tongue in cheek - Peaches has got the Sandra Bernhard-style parody / pathetic reality thing down cold. Those who would spend their money on Chicks on Speed should really check this out instead. Peaches delivers.

PEAKING LIGHTS Lucifer (Mexican Summer) cd 10.98
With their latest record, these long time faves, psychedelic psych-kraut space-dub husband and wife duo Peaking Lights, continue in their trajectory, away from the warped drugginess and abstract noisiness that defined their early records towards something WAY more blissed out and laid back, still druggy most certainly, but less 'bad trip' druggy and more woozily wasted on some lost sun dappled tropical isle under a warm deep blue summer sky.
Like their previous record 936, which was a HUGE hit around here, Lucifer gradually unfurls as a another heady sprawl of blissy dubby psychedelia that relies heavily on looped, cyclical rhythms, cascading layers, and bleary blurry loops. The opening intro is the perfect introduction, a soft cacophony of what sounds like murky muddy marimbas and steel drums and xylophones all tangled up into a glorious swirl. But "Beautiful Son" starts off the record proper, with doleful piano under a skyful of strange glitchy electronics, and reverby swirls and swoops, bloops and trills, all beneath some lush angelic female vox, the result sounding like a more tropical, dubby and abstract take on Stereolab, droney, pulsating and percolating, a little bit sci-fi, but the sort of seventies version of sci-fi, that retro futurism filtered through sixties dub pop.
"Live Love" lays down another backdrop of loops and cascading rhythms, this time driven by what sounds like a Casio on 'calypso' setting, reminding us a bit of James Ferraro, but with the 'dub' cranked, most notably, the woozy bassline, and the vocals dubbed into soft echo drenched swirls.
"Cosmic Tides" is the first full on dub, the duo offering up their own electro-dub version of the classics, the beat, heavily reverbed, the organ, the upstroke guitar, but this is Peaking Lights, not King Tubby, so soon, the song splinters into some dreamy space pop, and over the course of the song drifts dreamily between the two.
And so it goes for the record of the record, the sound veering from reggae like grooves, to warped lo-fi reverby slo-mo eighties pop-dub that sounds like Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" slowed way down, and finally a hazy ambient coda, all dreamlike piano wreathed in reverb, strange backwards swoops and squiggles, all smeared into a strange bit of haunting psychedelia, which had us hankering for more of that sort of thing along with all the dubby dreaminess next time around.
Cool La Dusseldorf homage cover art. LP is limited to 2000 copies and includes poster and a digital download!
MPEG Stream: "Moonrise"
MPEG Stream: "Live Love"
MPEG Stream: "Cosmic Tides"
MPEG Stream: "Morning Star"

PEARSON, EWAN We Are Proud Of Our Choices (Kompakt) cd 15.98
If there's one thing that has helped some of us here get over our fear of techno, it's the amazing mixes on Kompakt. Sure we're a sucker for blissed out dreamy pop ambience, or murky throbbing heroin house, or heck even big block rockin beats, but with techno, we sometimes have to be coaxed, lured in, a little pop ambient sugar to sweeten the otherwise straight up techno pot.
Of the recent Kompakt mixes, this latest from Ewan Pearson has turned out to be one of our favorites, barring one or two, most of the records he's mixing we've never hard of, and heck, we hadn't even heard of Pearson himself before this, but this mix is a killer, dark and groovy, laid back, but plenty danceable, the opener is a trippy bit of muted four on the floor and squiggly electronics, leading us right into this eclectic mix, that moves through sunshiney, hiss drenched, stuttery vocal downtempo groove, to dubby late night pulse, to rad retro futurist funk, to hazy rave-y buzz, to post Depeche Mode house flecked new wave, to cool Euro electro, to stuttery looped softly pulsing collaged dreamscapes, to smoldering total soft pop, to cool clipped, angular Daft Punk-ish indie pop laced electronica and on and on.
Kompakt fans will love this of course, but if you were waiting for a techno record to lure you to the dancefloor, this might just be it...
MPEG Stream: LEMONADE / PITCH & HOLD "Bliss Out (Gold Panda Remix) / We've Come To Bless Dave Smith"
MPEG Stream: LUSINE "Cirrus"
MPEG Stream: TARON TREKKA "Shiroi"
MPEG Stream: XENIA BELIAYEVA "Analog Effekt"
MPEG Stream: BOT'OX "Blue Steel"

PELLARIN Gundso (Statler & Waldorf) cd 17.98
'Tis the third album from Denmark's Lars Pellarin, but the first we've heard, and is a nice introduction to his austere yet hypnotic world of minimalistic, muted beats, simple melodies and pleasing drone. Pellarin makes calm, crackly (we love crackle!) electronic music in a dubby, Chain Reaction vein, that fans of Pole and Vladislav Delay and recent Dopplereffekt should certainly check out. In fact, Gundso is such relaxed, gorgeous, atmospheric stuff, that we really hope it finds an audience outside of the utterly techno-centric who are most likely to encounter it.
It's mostly instrumental, but there's some hushed, whispery singing on track 2, "Whistle Like You're 56", giving it more of a Tarwatery feel... and again on the song "Iran" there's some vocals, this time suggestive of Middle Eastern or African chant, to go along with that track's more ethnic infected beats. A bit Muslimgauzey, that one. It's also the longest piece on the album, at 13:42, and by the end builds into something almost psychedelically krautrocky, yet techno. Elsewhere, Gundso is mostly much more minimal.
This cd also includes a Quicktime video, a slowly-shifting computer graphics animation based on the track "Over Faellenden" that compliments the music perfectly, a fly-over of a ghostly, virtual landscape / seascape in shades of grey, black and white, the "camera" smoothly gliding ever forward, past icebergs and over mountain crags and curving freeways, towards some continuously receding vanishing point.
MPEG Stream: "Over Faellenden"
MPEG Stream: "Iran"
MPEG Stream: "Bolund"

PENDRO Infusorium (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fflint Central is a U.K. label run by two extraordinarily nice guys and darn fine hosts (good enough to befriend a sick and bedraggled on-tour Andee and buy him Cokes). Fflint specializes in experimental electronics and harsh abstract noise. One would think that there's enough, or too much of both, but the men from Fflint have that something special (fuck-you attitude? undefinable sound? sense of humor?) that makes these records way better and way more interesting than the majority of the 'electronica' we hear these days. Fans of VV/M, Lesser and other 'troublesome' electonica will dig this stuff. Affordable CD-Rs. Go ahead and take a chance. You may regret it...
Album number two from the one man Pendro. A demented odyssey of warped records, chiming atmospherics, and hiccupping robot armies. Squiggly atoms of sound careen wildly between waves of what sounds like groaning bowed metal. Nice.
RealAudio clip: "Restless Crescent"

PENDRO Nocturne Convolute (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Fflint Central factories have slowed down a bit lately, having churned out right around 20 releases in the last 5 or 6 years. But even kicking out 3 or 4 releases a year, that's practically nothing compared to the 50 releases a month we get from all the billions of other cd-r labels we deal with, which is maybe part of why we love these guys so much. Fflint more than any other cd-r label, have definitely focused on quality over quantity. Instead of releasing every single jam, every practice, every get-together-fuck-around, these guys actually spend weeks and months working on music, on SONGS. Every single Fflint disc is totally unique, but still immediately recognizably Fflinty, but more importantly, each disc is good. Really good. Fucking great actually. In fact, we can't think of a single Fflint release that didn't immediately and totally kick our asses. And Nocturne Convolute is no different.
Pendro is the work of Tim Jones, one half of the TimJonesBarryWilliams core that IS Fflint Central, and Nocturne Convolute is Pendro number 5 by our count and carries on in Pendro's quest to reach some strange electronic Nirvana. The beats were almost entirely jettisoned a few records back, but resurface now and then here, less as beats per se, as much as muted pulses, or stuttering throbs, but more often the beats are just rhythmic smears in a larger overall soundfield. Ambient is definitely one word that comes to mind, but not cheesy or new age, more a malevolent, very active sort of ambience, sounds churn and roil, multilayered soundscapes of organic electronic minimalism. Drone is another obvious descriptor, but drones are just a small part of the whole. Almost every track here drones in some way, but all in dramatically different ways. Nocturne Convolute is a dizzying journey through some otherworld of sound...
A huge chaotic din, like Sunroof! vs. the Dead C, immediately chopped into bits, so each blast of skree is separated by murky electronic pulses, and thick waves of freight train rumble, blissed out Muslimgauze like jams, all raga like buzz and throbbing Eastern percussion, peppered with all sorts of little glitches and electronic twinkles, cavernous industrial soundscapes, dark ambient whirs beneath chaotic bits of clatter and crunch, all morphed into a swirling smear of sound, wild blasts of outerspace sonic freakout, swooshes and bleeps and bloops, whipped into an absolute frenzy that eventually blurs into a high end drone, slow burning gongs ring and reverberate like ripples in some huge black sea, some damaged jazz squeaks and skronks in a vast expanse of haunting late night murk, buried within a sweetly melancholic melody, beats and loops chopped and sliced and diced and haphazardly reassembled into blasts of digital splatter, and some almost drill and bass, but as with most tracks the beats sort of implode and become bits and pieces of a swirling electronic glitchscape, gorgeous thick whirring drones are assembled from stuttering tones and blurry notes, creepy but so lovely, building in intensity until the drone becomes a crackling lightning storm of clicks and glitches and bzzt and grrt. Harsh and harrowing, but somehow still totally mesmerizing and beautiful.
By the time Nocturne Convolute comes to an end, you feel exhausted, like you've just BEEN somewhere, experienced SOMETHING. This is not easy listening at all, most Fflint stuff requires some work on the listener's part, some deep listening, every play reveals more sounds and more secrets, each listen builds on the one before, and prepares you for the one after. Which is precisely Pendro's (and Fflint Central in general) blessing AND curse. The sounds here are amazing, the music intense and hypnotic, sounds that make your ears hum, the inside of your head ring like a struck bell, but the sounds are are also abstract, difficult, challenging, and maybe too much for the casual listener. But you know what? Fuck the casual listener, this is not casual music, this is music to luxuriate in, to dunk your head in until you run out of breath and start seeing all sorts of strange colors, this is music that gets inside of you, and suffuses all your senses with it's strange glow. This is not background music, this is music that makes everything around it fade into the background. As with all things Fflint, totally and wholeheartedly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Uncertain Flight Cycle"
MPEG Stream: "The Tammuz Tree"
MPEG Stream: "A Cellar Full Of Nightjars"

PENDRO Portals (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're running out of superlatives ffor those ffuckers ar Fflint. Just to be decent, you think they'd drop a stinker here and there. Give us a breather. But no, every single release has to be ffantastic. And this new one from Pendro is no different. Still ffucking weird, and still ffucking brilliant. Pendro is seemingly becoming less and less concerned with beats and ffocusing more on atmosphere which is just ffine with us. The sounds of children playing and staticky radio broadcasts are transmitted sporadically through a dense haze of reverb into the Twilight Zone, steel string guitars are bombarded by swoops and bleeps and other assorted sonic detritus purchased from Acid Mothers Temple at a London swap meet, dreamy kraut-prog ambience is rhythmically enhanced by lasers and phaser fire, electronic crickets are stuffed into trumpets and fflugel horns and dropped down a well, a malfuctioning player piano is lowered into a cave ffull of locusts and barbed wire. And so it goes. One indescribable sonic adventure after another. Beautiful sounds. Perplexing sounds. Ugly sounds. All masterfully woven into dense, dark swaths of confounding ambience. Once again the boys at Fflint give the old middle ffinger to the established electronica community by making yet another record that is so good, nobody knows what to do with it. Except us. And of course you.
MPEG Stream: "Apertures"
MPEG Stream: "Anglesey Night Shapes"
MPEG Stream: "Dusk Dwellers"

PENDRO The Oxide Heresies (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fflint Central is a U.K. label run by two extraordinarily nice guys and darn fine hosts (good enough to befriend a sick and bedraggled on-tour Andee and buy him Cokes). Fflint specializes in experimental electronics and harsh abstract noise. One would think that there's enough, or too much of both, but the men from Fflint have that something special (fuck-you attitude? undefinable sound? sense of humor?) that makes these records way better and way more interesting than the majority of the 'electronica' we hear these days. Fans of VV/M, Lesser and other 'troublesome' electonica will dig this stuff. Affordable CD-Rs. Go ahead and take a chance. You may regret it...
Pendro (aka Tim Jones, the second half of the FFlint dynamic duo) describe this record as 'psychedelic', but God knows what he must have taken to come up with this. Things start off with a cascade of blips and bleeps that seem quite menacing (that's quite a feat for blips and bleeps, mind you) and slowly evolve into a more psychotic Boards of Canada. The rest of the record is a crazy mix of chopped and mutilated classical samples, found sound, hyper-distorted melodies, malfunctioning cd-player rhythms and gurgling computer glitchery, all of which eventually coalesce into a droning, buzzing coda. Really great.

RealAudio clip: "Anybody Just Yet..."

PEOPLE LIKE US A Fistful Of Knuckles (Caciocavallo) cd 16.98
People Like Us is the work of UK plunderphonician Vicki Bennett, whose previous albums mined the UK radio talkshows to construct brutally hilarious collages loaded with sexual innuendo and scatalogical humor. "A Fistful Of Knuckles" is her Americana record, taking the dredges of thrift store vinyl to their most surreal end. Way out on the open range of After School Special soundtracks and cowboy adventure records, Bennett had compiled a wacky album of twangy looped samples, lone harmonicas, decontextualized spoken words elements which make us Americans sound down right stupid, and a very very naughty version of "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain." People Like Us have been joined in the 'Happy Valley Ranch' by Mr. Wobbly, The Jet Black Hair People (Peter of Negativland / Wetgate / Monopause), M.C. Schmerz (aka Martin from Matmos), etc... All in all, this may very well be her best record.

PEOPLE LIKE US Hate People Like Us (Soleilmoon) cd 15.98
A 'remix' album of plunderphonic/sonic dadaist People Like Us by a handful of experimentalists such as Negativland, Coil, Stock Hausen & Walkman, Mika Vainio, Dummy Run, Boyd Rice, Bruce Gilbert, Farmer's Manual, Death In June, Christoph Heemann (Nurse With Wound/H.N.A.S.), Rehberg & Bauer, and Sons of Silence. So this may be a stupid semantic argument...but is a remix album of somebody who pilfers everything anyway merely a compilation of tracks (to be catagorized with 'Various Artists') or is the conceptualization of culling these 'remixes' together fall under the catagory of being the intellectual property of the original artist (and thus is to be filed under the original artist's name)? Does it really matter?

PEOPLE LIKE US Recyclopaedia Britannica (Mess Media) cd 15.98
"Recyclopaedia Britannica" could be seen as a 'greatest hits' compilation for Vicky Bennett's People Like Us; however, she is not content to merely pick tracks from her comic cavalcade of plunderphonic recordings from the past decade. Rather, this album rewires, recontextualizes, and reconfigures various snippets that have previously made their way onto all of her records, and stands as something that's almost new. Thus, this makes for an excellent introduction to her work, but will certainly be enough to warm the hearts of her fans. The opening burst (ehm) of collaged farts on "Recyclopaedia" sets the stage for the scatalogical humor that runs rampant throughout all of Bennett's work. Sampling liberally from various thrift store finds, Bennett generates an arsenal of wacky loopings from yodeling Alpine polkas, high-lonesome moseys from Cowboys and Indians childrens' adventures, and Fellini-esque blasts of circus music. Splattered throughout these musical interludes, People Like Us rearrange garden variety narratives from radio dramas and talk radio into bumbling, sexualized farces (often punctuated by more farting). In these spoken word elements, Bennett often emphasizes the breathes, umms, ahhs, and slurred pauses from her unsuspecting victims to turn their speach into wickedly funny collages of broken stumblings. This work - like the profound art joke of Piero Manzoni's can of Artist's Shit - isn't merely toilet humor, nor is it smug irony, but an uncomfortable juxtaposition of audio perversion guided by an incredibly sharp intellect and deadly comic timing. Required listening for fans of Wobbly, Negativland, and John Oswald.
RealAudio clip: "T424PLU"
RealAudio clip: "If Someone Touches You"
RealAudio clip: "My Son Jim"

PEOPLE LIKE US Stifled Love (Soleilmoon) lp 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In a career that has spanned almost a decade, People Like Us (aka Vicki Bennett) has specialized in reconfiguring the audio detritus of BBC talk radio, instructional recordings, Italian exotica, and country/western kitsch. Her rhythmically tinged audio collages rip apart the conventional perceptions of these sounds and expose them as sexually explicit or scatalogical punchlines to absurdist jokes. It's not uncommon for People Like Us to recontextualize a talk show guest gleefully rambling about gardening into a frenzied yet bumbling vocalization of sexual ecstacy. "Stifled Love" is a limited edition, vinyl only release that is her 'love record'. Yet, this is as much of an album about love as Wobbly's "Wild Why" is about hip hop. In other words, People Like Us deconstructs the archetypes of the love song in such a way as to extract a vibrant sense of slapstick humor without devolving into an self-reflexive ironic posture of smart-ass appropriation (i.e. the "Bootleg" phenomenon that was the craze in England during the summer of 2002). At first, Bennett mines the same territory heard in the "Wide Open Spaces" collaboration with Matmos and Wobbly, where clipped samples from various country-western tunes evolved into simple riffs of cowpoke swagger. Yet, jazz crooners and Hawaiian romantica also find their way into Bennett's variety show of plundered material. The highlight of the album is definitely another country reference, as Bennett chops up vocal samples of Dolly Parton and amasses them into a dramatic crescendo of Dolly's unmistakable drawl. Nicely done.
MPEG Stream: "Stifled Love"
MPEG Stream: "Dolly Pardon"

PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ Perpetuum Mobile (Soleilmoon) cd 16.98

PEOPLE LIKE US & ERGO PHIZMIZ Withers In The Waking (Touch) 7" 8.98
The latest entry in Touch's ongoing series of limited 7"s from People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz is by far the biggest surprise of bunch so far, in that you'll find no deep drones or abstract minimalism or delicate soundscapery, instead, as it states plainly right there on the sleeve, we get "Two new rolls of woozy dream circus lovingly cooked by two bakers of antiquity. Recorded in the ice and snow, in clay ovens, by broken down carousels."
Which is pretty much what it sounds like. Lilting sunshine-y melodies, circusy calliopes, gentle summery strum, and lushy boy girl vocal harmonies, all spun into some sweet pop confection. Sort of like Belle And Sebastian run through The Decemberists, and indeed all woozy and warbly, playful and pretty, old timey pop. But that's just the A side. The B side begins with a rhythm straight out of Perrey And Kingsley's songbook, but it's not long before the vocals come in, and again offer up a sing songy fractured doo wop duet, while the strange honk and skronk continues on beneath, along with some warm record crackle and some warped off kilter keyboards.
Definitely a weird one, and will likely rub some of the more striaghtlaced minimalist Touch music fanatics the wrong way, but it's a pretty darn giddy chunk of high art gone low brow, which is mos definitely a good thing.

PEOPLE LIKE US & KENNY G Nothing Special (Soleilmoon) cd 15.98

PEOPLE LIKE US & WOBBLY Music For The Fire (Illegal Art) cd 16.98

PEPITO Migrante (This Record Label) cd 9.98
A delightful local surprise from the Bay Area's ridiculously-talented pool of avant electronicists, Pepito is Jose and Ana, augmented with the production and musicianly talents of Chris Palmatier (of AQ-staff-and-customer fave Brian & Chris). Pepito play a charming blend of lighthearted electronica -- digital clicks and bleeps cavort around delicately strummed guitar, so melodic and serene that it reminds me of the Sea & Cake or Tortoise, and sometimes so fragmented it reminds me of Gastr del Sol. Jose and Ana's vocals (half in English, half in Spanish) are clear 'n hushed but not too breathy (thank heavens), bringing to mind emo pop faves such as P.E.E. or Rainer Maria. There's also fuzzed-out garage guitar and distorted almost-grind(pop) guitar -- both acting nicely to break up the otherwise loping, loopy playfulness. This is certainly post rock done right, just enough indie rock, just enough electronica. Recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Terapia"
RealAudio clip: "Salyut"
RealAudio clip: "Ardilla"

PER MISSION A Ritual Loop (Monitor) cd 14.98
Where would indie rock be today if the Rachels and Rodan had never existed. The kids would probably still be listening to the Dead Milkmen. Which to me doesn't seem like such a bad thing, but I digress.
Per Mission is Jason Noble of the Rachels doing his ambient electronica thing. Spoken word snippets whirring ambient noise, simple stuttering drum loops, smooth fuzzed out spacy trip hop. A little bland and mediocre, and a bit too hippy dippy with all the 'spiritual' spoken word stuff and the website all about how he fed his baby -- nobody would care probably if this didn't 'feature a member of the Rachels'.

PERICH, TRISTAN 1-Bit Symphony (Cantaloupe Music) jewel case 1-bit electronic music generator 30.00
Music nerds may get obsessed with records all the time, but they also get pretty into musical gadgets, as evidenced most recently by FM3's Buddha Machine, which we've sold about a billion of, and most folks we know own more than one. And heck, that's just a little plastic box that plays short little loops. We didn't think anything would be able to trump the coolness of the Buddha Machine, which appealed to music geeks and tech nerds in equal measure, but then along came 1-Bit Music from a composer named Tristan Perich. Not only was 1-Bit Music Perich's debut record, it wasn't a record at all, instead it was simultaneously a piece of sound art and a miniature sound producing gadget, a collection of tiny wires and chips and switches and a watch battery, all affixed to the inside of a plain old cd jewel case. The result, a super striking looking little gizmo, but one that produced some weird and amazing 1 bit sounds. But what exactly are 1 bit sounds?
Well, most folks are familiar with 8 bit sounds, all your favorite vintage arcade game music is 8 bit, and all the modern purveyor of Casio core or Nintendo core, they're using those crunchy lo-fi 8 bit sounds to make awesomely retro music. So one bit, is the smallest increment of memory and sound, and Perich composed his music using just 1 bit sounds, the result, beyond being small enough to fit on a tiny chip, and that chip along with some switches and wires in a jewel case, it also made for some alien sounds, like video game music, but as if imagined by the roster of Raster-Noton, a series of clicks and beeps and tangled squiggles of squelches and primitive melodies, almost like some ultra minimal toy techno or something. And while in headphones the sounds were intense and loud and raw, through speakers, they were INTENSE, super destructive and brutal, the sort of sounds, no matter how playful and simple, that DESTROY speakers. So awesome.
Sadly, Perich and his crew had trouble keeping up with demand, as each of the releases, were hand made, every wire and switch, glued into each jewel case one at a time. So eventually that 'record' was discontinued. But now, we have Perich's latest release, no longer simply 1-Bit Music, now, it's a 1-Bit Symphony! And it is in fact more complex, with the various tones and beeps and squelches woven into lush tapestries of sound, rhythmically complex, and harmonically lush, at times sounding almost like M83, sometimes like Steve Reich or Terry Riley composing on a primitive toy Casio keyboard, other times like some lost old school video game, the sounds panning wildly from speaker to speaker, the melodies tangled and intricate, the overall sound so hypnotic and mesmerizing, the compositions sprawling and epic, ranging from 5 minutes, to nearly ten minutes to infinite, the final track a gorgeously lush chunk of distorted fuzzed out minimal buzz, that manages to sound all moody and shoegazey, warm and woozy and crunchy, an endless loop, that we really could imagine listening to endlessly.
But like 1-Bit Music before it, the music is really only half the equation with 1-Bit Symphony, the packaging, which IS the record, is so striking, a gorgeously arranged series of wires and switches, a battery, a volume knob, a button to switch tracks, an on/off switch, a headphone jack, all affixed to a clear jewel case, with a simple stick on the front, and the booklet in the plastic sleeve on the outside of the jewel case, adding a spare white background to the visuals, but also including liner notes, not to mention an intense and fantastically confusional poster featuring what appears to be the composition presented as it was programmed, which also manages to be visually striking and a work of art in its own right.
This one is not so nearly limited as the last one, but probably safer to not risk it, cuz if you're at all into weird music, and weird music related thingies, you are definitely gonna want one of these, and you'll probably want to give one to all the music nerds in your life as well. And like the first Perich 1-Bit release, this one too, is no doubt destined to be the cool music gadget, and minimal lo-fi 1-bit glitch crunch shoegaze squelch symphony record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Movement 1"
MPEG Stream: "Movement 2"
MPEG Stream: "Movement 3"

PERREY, JEAN JACQUES AND LUKE VIBERT PRESENT: Moog Acid (Lo) cd 14.98
Don't know if this match-up is heaven-sent, but it sure is fun. Acid-hop Maestro Luke Vibert teams up with Moog Master Elder Stateman Jean-Jacques Perrey for a wild romp of Moog-filled delerium. While it's hard to say who is doing what, many of the tracks are encased in Vibert's bouncy rhythms and hip-hop beats while Perrey provides the spoken word passages and classic Moog "In Sound From Way Out" squelches. While Vibert's production can sometime slip into cliche (there needs to be a moratorium on James Brown grunts), the bulk of the record is exuberance par excellence!
MPEG Stream: "Schwing"
MPEG Stream: "Messy Hop"
MPEG Stream: "Dream 106"

PERREY, JEAN JACQUES AND LUKE VIBERT PRESENT: Moog Acid (Lo) 2lp 34.00
ALSO AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Don't know if this match-up is heaven-sent, but it sure is fun. Acid-hop Maestro Luke Vibert teams up with Moog Master Elder Stateman Jean-Jacques Perrey for a wild romp of Moog-filled delerium. While it's hard to say who is doing what, many of the tracks are encased in Vibert's bouncy rhythms and hip-hop beats while Perrey provides the spoken word passages and classic Moog "In Sound From Way Out" squelches. While Vibert's production can sometime slip into cliche (there needs to be a moratorium on James Brown grunts), the bulk of the record is exuberance par excellence!
MPEG Stream: "Schwing"
MPEG Stream: "Messy Hop"
MPEG Stream: "Dream 106"

PERSONA Fencesitter (self-released) cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In the wake of the Gravitar boxsets, Eric Cook - the drummer from the Michigan powerhouse of hypno-ferocity - offers a couple more CD-Rs of his Persona electronica side project, not included in those sets. "Fencesitter" calms down the manic Lesser / Kid 606 drill 'n' bass workouts that Cook has previously offered; rather, interlocking drum programming loops form an abstract electronica more suited towards the chemically imbalanced work of OST and Rook Vallard on Phthalo.
RealAudio clip: "Fencesitter 10"

PERSONA Maximal (Vinyl Communications) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Eric Cook, the drummer from Michigan noisemongers Gravitar, goes on an unlikely excursion into broken electronica rhythms not unlike Aphex Twin's "Digeridoo" with a slew of more traditional drum 'n' bass breaks, all crunched together with a white-hot electric distortion. Remixes courtesy of AQ-fave Lesser, the ubiquitous Kid 606, Warn DeFever, Totemplow, and Marumari. Excellent.

PERSONA Splinter (self-released) cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In the wake of the Gravitar boxsets, Eric Cook - the drummer from the Michigan powerhouse of hypno-ferocity - offers a couple more CD-Rs of his Persona electronica side project, not included in those sets. "Splinter" is even further removed from the drill 'n' bass workouts of previous Persona releases, concentrating on metallic tonalities. Scraped and hammered percussion (gongs, pots, pipes, etc) have been sampled into looping electronic patterns, amidst warbling tape speed effects and lots of delay, sounding like updated versions of the industrial trance broadcast at Temple of Psychick Youth rallies.
RealAudio clip: "Splinter 7"

PETALS Away EP (Chaos Of The Stars) cassette 5.98
Petals is the long germinating shoegaze electronica project of former aQ-er Cameron "Edge Of Sanity" Octigan, a dark, dolorous set of songs that owe as much to the blown out noise pop of groups like My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus And Mary Chain as it does to the blurred bliss pop ambience of Gas and other minimal electronic technicians. The opening track here is very reminiscent of Gas, all hushed minimal melodies, a heartbeat like techno pulse, a muted throb buried in the murk, everything wrapped in a thick patina of gauzy whir and bleary shimmer, which quickly gives way to the first song proper, a warm murky dirge, thick swaths of crunchy low end, buried melancholy melodies, like a shoegaze jam stripped down to its bare components and recast as minimal electronica. Eventually the drums get a little bit busier, the melodies emerge from the murk, the sound seeming to crystallize and coalesce into an almost proper pop, and then the song splinters into a weird bits of synth pop, all careening dubbed out rhythms, squiggly synths, and those spectral voices, epic and so beautiful.
The rest of the tape is surprisingly varied, while managing to all link together as a strangely cohesive whole, "In Gathering" is a bit of blissed out woozy IDM, given a sort of dream pop makeover, those haunting vocals making a but here processed into haunting high end melodies, all over a whirling soft focus almost house music rhythm, "The Longest Mirror" is the first really beat heavy jam, with a hand clap rhythm draped over a thick buzzing bass, and some hazy dreamy synths, a twisted bit of house-y electro pop, that leads directly into the brief "Only A Thought", which also has a bit of a witch house feel, echoey handclaps hovering in fields if warped synths and electronic glimmer, the sound just drifting and gradually slowing down to a warbly dreamlike drag, until the tape closes with "Everyone's Longest Summer", another primo slab of washed out electro-gaze, but with a haunting ominous undercurrent, strange disembodied voices, a super skeletal high hat rhythm, the whole thing bleary and blissy, and gradually shedding various elements, until just that minimal beat, and then finally, that slowly fading low end buzz...
So great! We really can't imagine Petals will remain a secret for long, in fact, we're sort of shocked this tape is the first anyone will hear, and it's a bit of a tease at 17 minutes, but it has been getting massive repeat plays and definitely has us hankering for more!
MPEG Stream: "Always Far"
MPEG Stream: "Disappear In Every Way"
MPEG Stream: "Everyone's Longest Summer"

PFFR United We Doth (Birdman) cd 12.98

PHILUS Tetra (Sahko) cd 24.00
One of the many pseudonyms for Mika Vainio (Pan Sonic, ¯, Tekonivel, etc) is Philus, which is his outlet for a very clinical display of pure electronic pulses which he intended to parallel the charged signifiers of hospital life support equipment within an electronica framework. Another excellent release by the Finnish label Sahko.

PHIZMIZ, ERGO The Music Of Ergo Phizmiz (Mukow) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The best radio station in the world, WFMU, turned us on to young Mr. Phizmiz, a multi instrumentalist, writer, inventor, musician and all around crazy guy who makes some really weird cool music. Only 23, Ergo has already written several operas, recorded 20 albums, almost all of them unreleased, invented tons of musical instruments, created a 12 hour multi media project, done radio programs for Resonance FM and WFMU, recorded tons of soundtracks for TV and the stage as well as made hundreds of animated films and numerous sculptures and installations. Phew. So here it is. The first of those 20 albums to see the light of day. It's weird -- that's the first thing you'll notice. The opening track is a demented toy instrument cabaret, with mumbling vocals buried in the mix, wailing kazoos, warbling music box melodies and lots of maniacal shouting! The record unfolds a little more subtly after that, shifting from stuttery, hiccupping rhythms under toy xylophones and programmed beats to moody, almost Boards Of Canada-ish melancholy electronica to creepy crawly Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones-esque late night loungy murk, to strummy, whispery Brit rock balladeering. Weird but quite cool.
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "3"
MPEG Stream: "4"

PHOENECIA Brownout (Schematic) cd 14.98
The highly anticipated, long overdue, new full length from Miami, Florida's cinematic IDM duo Phoenecia was well worth the wait. Finely crafted and mood-altering, it achieves a successful melding of seeming opposites: claustrophobia and expanse. Fragmented, angular and insectile, yet oddly fluid and gorgeously mellow. Flowing from dream to nightmare seamlessly. Actually, the darker stretches of this kinetic release descends into quite similar unsettling, ominous mood-territory as that of the Nic Endo cd listed here too. Palpitating beats smoothly perforate your eardrums. Very very recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Eyebrow"
RealAudio clip: "Oriaca"
RealAudio clip: "Biorepo"
RealAudio clip: "Non-Specific Acoustic Stimulation"

PHOENECIA Odd Job Discrimination (Schematic) cd 12.98
Not to be confused with the "Odd Jobs" remix cd, this new 12" of remixes sees Florida's IDM wunderkind Phoenecia get tackled by the likes of Adult., Matmos, Prefuse 73, Dino Felipe, Otto Von Schirach, and Jeswa. Nicola of Adult. replicates the vocal samples that Phoenecia took from "Me And My Rhythm Box" (from the film soundtrack of Liquid Sky) with icy determination.
RealAudio clip: MATMOS "The Climactic Battle Scene With Rom & Josh Version"
RealAudio clip: ADULT. "Compurhythm"

PHOENECIA Odd Job Discrimination (Schematic) 12" 11.98
Not to be confused with the "Odd Jobs" remix cd, this new 12" of remixes sees Florida's IDM wunderkind Phoenecia get tackled by the likes of Adult., Matmos, Prefuse 73, Dino Felipe, Otto Von Schirach, and Jeswa. Nicola of Adult. replicates the vocal samples that Phoenecia took from "Me And My Rhythm Box" (from the film soundtrack of Liquid Sky) with icy determination.

PHOENECIA Odd Jobs (Schematic) cd 12.98
Back in stock! Seven outstanding remixes mutating Phoenecia's super-rubbery beats into even more rhythmically complex IDM from Autechre, Richard Devine, Push Button Objects, Ectomorphm Takeshi Muto, Soul Oddity (actually, this is one of their alter egos... of which they have many). A particular highlight? The awesome track utilizing samples of the song "Rhythm Box" from the film Liquid Sky. Ooooh!

PHOENIX Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Glass Note) cd 14.98
You probably already heard a lot of the hype surrounding this record, and you know what? It's all totally true! Phoenix have created one of the best and most infectious pop records to come around in a very long time. We're talking start to finish every single song having hooks and melodies that sound so fucking great and are both breezy and catchy as well as so totally immaculately crafted.
This is one of those rare pop records that is both so smart and so fun. Imagine Saturdays=Youth era M83 covering the Strokes!!! Although comparisons seem a bit silly here as Phoenix have really made a super unique record, that kind of perfect summer pop jam that most bands only dream of and often spend their whole lives trying to make, only to fall flat over and over again. No matter where you are or what you're doing, when you listen to this record you're totally transported, it's a refreshing rush, the world seems sunshinier, the skies bluer, everything just sparkles and glistens. So cool and suave and slick in the best way, it's impossible to not fall in love with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. So many folks we know, who are into experimental music or electronica or other branches of more esoteric minded sounds, have just fallen head over heels for this new Phoenix record which is truly a testament to its undeniable universal appeal.
While past Phoenix records always had at least a few totally standout tracks, none of those records can possibly compare. Some of us here, pop fanatics for sure, were pretty skeptical, having not been that impressed with past record, and not believing the hype, but after hearing just the opening track, naysayers were silenced, and almost immediately transformed into rabid fans, playing this to death, in the store AND at home. Sparkling, hook laden, well produced power pop bliss. This one's gonna be a bigtime contender for pop record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Lisztomania"
MPEG Stream: "Fences"
MPEG Stream: "Lasso"

PHOENIX Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Glass Note) lp 21.00
Now available on vinyl!
You probably already heard a lot of the hype surrounding this record, and you know what? It's all totally true! Phoenix have created one of the best and most infectious pop records to come around in a very long time. We're talking start to finish every single song having hooks and melodies that sound so fucking great and are both breezy and catchy as well as so totally immaculately crafted.
This is one of those rare pop records that is both so smart and so fun. Imagine Saturdays=Youth era M83 covering the Strokes!!! Although comparisons seem a bit silly here as Phoenix have really made a super unique record, that kind of perfect summer pop jam that most bands only dream of and often spend their whole lives trying to make, only to fall flat over and over again. No matter where you are or what you're doing, when you listen to this record you're totally transported, it's a refreshing rush, the world seems sunshinier, the skies bluer, everything just sparkles and glistens. So cool and suave and slick in the best way, it's impossible to not fall in love with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. So many folks we know, who are into experimental music or electronica or other branches of more esoteric minded sounds, have just fallen head over heels for this new Phoenix record which is truly a testament to its undeniable universal appeal.
While past Phoenix records always had at least a few totally standout tracks, none of those records can possibly compare. Some of us here, pop fanatics for sure, were pretty skeptical, having not been that impressed with past record, and not believing the hype, but after hearing just the opening track, naysayers were silenced, and almost immediately transformed into rabid fans, playing this to death, in the store AND at home. Sparkling, hook laden, well produced power pop bliss. This one's gonna be a bigtime contender for pop record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Lisztomania"
MPEG Stream: "Fences"
MPEG Stream: "Lasso"

PHONEM Ilisu (Morr Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Like the aforementioned Bola album Fyuti, Phonem's Ilisu represents one of the finer moments of IDM based electronica from the past couple of years. Ilisu finds Phonem remembering what made Autechre, Mu-Ziq, and Reload so special when they first hit the scene nearly a decade ago, in balancing the basic principles of harmony and rhythm within a distinctly cybernetic, sci-fi approach toward electronic music and techno in particular. Here, crystalline melodic lullabies have been cast as trembling vibrations against the gristled crunch of deconstructed hip-hop breakbeats. Easily the best thing that Morr Music has put out to date.
RealAudio clip: "Ilisu"
RealAudio clip: "Euphrates"

PHONIA Disco Operating Systems (Blanc Mange Communications) 12" 9.98
Phonia's recapitulation of IDM brings together the persistant phase-shifting & flanging of Pan Sonic with stocatic breakbeats built out of a clatter of compressed metallic percussion found on the likes of Autechre, Funkstorung, and the Schematic people.

PHONOPHANI Genetic Engineering (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98
Espen Sommer Eide of Rune Grammofon-label post-rock-electronica act Alog presents his second solo disc of sampled live instruments and electronic manipulations. Mostly a non-beat-oriented mellow, moody, soupy soundscape, with gentle loops and Tarwater-ish mystery. Abstract, distorted tones and drones mesh with fragments of guitar and voice, sometimes with a Middle Eastern vibe. Nice.
RealAudio clip: "Cook Islands"
RealAudio clip: "Saltwater"
RealAudio clip: "End of All Things II"

PHOTEK Form & Function (Astralwerks) cd 17.98
Certainly a misnomer of a title, as the name of the first two Photek singles were called "Form & Function" vol 1 & 2, yet none of those tracks appear on this album. Instead, this album collects tracks from the following three singles "Water Margin", "Seventh Samurai", "UFO / Rings Around Saturn" (one of Marc's favorite 12"s ever), two new tracks, and remixes from J Majik, Digital, Peshay, Decoder, and Doc Scott. Sparse yet tense drum & bass with occasional Pharoah Sanders samples.

PHOTEK Form & Function (Astralwerks) 2lp 23.00
Certainly a misnomer of a title, as the name of the first two Photek singles were called "Form & Function" vol 1 & 2, yet none of those tracks appear on this album. Instead, this album collects tracks from the following three singles "Water Margin", "Seventh Samurai", "UFO / Rings Around Saturn" (one of Marc's favorite 12"s ever), two new tracks, and remixes from J Majik, Digital, Peshay, Decoder, and Doc Scott. Sparse yet tense drum & bass with occasional Pharoah Sanders samples.

PHOTEK Form & Function Vol. 2 (Sanctuary) cd 17.98

PHOTEK Modus Operandi (Astralwerks/Caroline) cd 15.98

PHOTEK Solaris (Astralwerks) cd 15.98
"Oh boy, new Photek!" we thought. But, sad as it is to report...there's just about NO WAY a fan of Photek is going to like this album. Sure, there's some decent moments of his dark tech-noir self, but mostly this is a bad house record, with vocals! And I'm sorry, but if this guy Photek hired is really a "legendary house singer", well...dunno about house music then. He's awful, and this record is a big, big disappointment. Painful. Maybe Virgin Megastore will do well with this. We've already got 4 or 5 used copies brought in, and that's before it even came out! Avoid.

PHTHALOCYANINE Navy Worship (Phthalo) cd 14.98
Phthalocyanine is Dimitri K. Fergadis, who also runs the Phthalo label, known as cdr label of some of the most abstract electronica to come from America. "Navy Worship", pressed as a regular cd, attains a 'somewhat improvised' feel through the spastik drum programming clustered around dark electronic noodlings that harmonically sound all 'wrong.' Pretty unbelievable stuff.

PHTHALOCYANINE No One Said You Didn't (Planet Mu) cd 14.98
Dimitri Fergadis' Phthalo label has developed from a pioneer of DIY electronica as one of the first CD-R labels into a proponent of the most forward thinking electronica that America has to offer in releasing records by the likes of Wobbly, OST, and his own Phthalocyanine project. Furthermore, he encouraged artists like Dntel and Daedelus by putting out their earliest works before they jumped into more populist waters. No One Said You Didn't is the second album that Fergadis has outsourced from Phthalo to the venerable Planet Mu, another label not especially known for its sensible take on electronica. Intentional or otherwise, Fergadis seems to take much of the metallic melodies from Mu-Ziq's Tango N' Vectif (which happens to be an early record from Mu Planet label boss Mike Paradinas); and he forces these melodic clusters onto double-time Rotterdam techno stabs of big dum-dum 909 beats and splattered electronics. As cacophonous as this might sound, this is actually the most well-rounded and enjoyable record he's produced to date!
MPEG Stream: "Living With Lightning In Your Body"
MPEG Stream: "Ethiopian Runner"

PHTHALOCYANINE Viridian EP (Phthalo) cd 12.98
Originally released on vinyl in 1995 on Plug Research and then again as a super limited CDR on Phthalo, this early work from Phthalocyanine is now available as a pressed CD! Strains of the romantic electron-pulse dreams of Aphex Twin (Polygon Window-era) are common in Dimitri's early work before heavy drum-machine-gun fire erupted on his messy and confrontational recent output.

PHTHALOCYANINE Zacks Ep (Phthalo) cd 9.98
If the Aphex Twin is too sensible a sound and Mouse On Mars is too melodic, then the mad scientist ethos of Phthalocyanine is what you are looking for. This is the electronica sound of a tooth extraction. This early Phthalo release is economically packaged without any artwork or information to distract you from enjoying the spasmodic clatter of dense walls of arrhythmic drill speed breakbeats.

PIANO MAGIC Panic Amigo - Piano Magic Remixed (Morr Music) 12" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The British outfit Piano Magic have always walked the fine line between post-rock and electronica. With this 4-track 12", they receive the remix treatment courtesy Isan, Future 3, Ensemble, and Opiate, thus demonstrating how PM might sound if they went full steam in that e-music direction. It's burbly, delicate and serene like a Boards Of Canada or To Rococo Rot record.

PIANO MAGIC Seasonally Affective 1996-2000 (Rocket Girl) 2cd 21.00
Falling somewhere between a best of and a rarities collection, "Seasonally Affective" is a diverse sampling of the Piano Magic back catalogue, capturing both the gems (i.e. their magnifciently Victorian "Low Birth Weight" album) and duds (i.e. their hopelessly pretentious "Artists' Rifles") from this melodramatically inclined outfit that specializes in an '80s ethereal revivalism hybridized with contemporary post-rock. Certainly worthwhile to get if you missed all of those super limited split singles and vinyl only releases, but if you're looking for a great Piano Magic album, "Low Birth Weight" is still their strongest release to date.
RealAudio clip: "French Mittens"
RealAudio clip: "Fun Of The Century"
RealAudio clip: "I Am The Sub-Librarian"
RealAudio clip: "Winter Sport"

PIANO MAGIC The Fun of the Ocean (Piao!) 12" ep 9.99
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Unanimous AQ-favorite! The next best thing to the Young Marble Giants, and that is saying a lot. Delicate, bittersweet electronica-pop that updates the aforementioned Giants with subtle dinginess reminiscent of Third Eye Foundation. This is one of the groups that beautifully bridges the ever-closing gap between indierock and electronica. We highly recommend you give this taster, or their full length, a try.

PIANO OVERLORD Singles Collection 03-05 (Money Studies) cd 13.98
Piano Overlord is a Prefuse 73 "low key 'side-project'" originally formulated by Mr. Herren as a means to pay back the Money Studies label for losing the pieces of a Diplo 7" he was intending to remix. This may be going out on a limb, but "Singles Collection" sounds a bit like Prefuse 73 done with a piano, also incorporating the more mellow elements of Savath & Savalas. Pleasant stuff. Cool milky beats, no rough edges. Womby and insular listening techno.
MPEG Stream: "Spring's Arrival"
MPEG Stream: "Recuerdas?"