PLURAMON Pick Up Canyon (Mille Plateaux) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For an album that definitely IS the missing link between Krautrock and Postrock, "Pick Up Canyon" has been horribly under-rated. Combining the studio skills of Markus Schmickler and the percussive talents of Jaki Liebzeit (drummer for Can) Pluramon's sound perfectly fuses electronic technology and well executed live instrumentation.

PLURAMON Render Bandits (Mille Plateaux) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Markus Schmickler's second album as Pluramon features ex-Can percussionist Jaki Leibezeit chugging away on all of the tracks for a propulsive / trance inducing album of prog-electronica. Certainly for fans of Kreidler and the recent Deutscher Funk compilation (which actually featured Pluramon).

PLURAMON The Monstrous Surplus (Karaoke Kalk) cd 16.98
We've been waiting a long time for this one. The follow up to Pluramon's 2003 outing Dream Top Rock, which is a classic AQ favorite at this point. These days Pluramon sound almost nothing like their earliest incarnation when Markus Scmickler was making somewhat abstract electronics with stunning results. But luckily Schmickler is one of those great musicians that changes his palette often but whose results always soar to great heights. This outing finds him exploring somewhat similar terrain as was found on Dream Top Rock, with Julee Cruise on board once again on several tracks with her blissed out and enigmatic vocals. With even more upfront and unadulterated pop in these tracks this has had us thinking lots of Mojave 3 and even the Broken Social Scene as well as My Bloody Valentine and Swervedriver. Such perfect shoegaze songs for the crisp cold days we've been having in San Francisco. The Monstrous Surplus is one of those great records that weaves itself into your subconscious with repeated listens. Minus one dud (we could have gone without the spoken vocal delivery of "Fresh Aufhebung") the album is pretty close to daydream pop perfection. We're pretty surprised that the last Pluramon release didn't make bigger waves as we think it was just as amazing as releases by folks like M83 and Mum which did get to a wider audience. In a year with a nice resurgence of shoegaze influenced records from folks like Ulrich Schnaus and Trembling Blue Stars we hope that Pluramon finally gets the wide appreciation and respect they so rightfully deserve!
MPEG Stream: "Turn In"
MPEG Stream: "Drowning In You"

PLURAMON The Monstrous Surplus (Karaoke Kalk) lp 16.98
Now available on vinyl!
We've been waiting a long time for this one. The follow up to Pluramon's 2003 outing Dream Top Rock, which is a classic AQ favorite at this point. These days Pluramon sound almost nothing like their earliest incarnation when Markus Scmickler was making somewhat abstract electronics with stunning results. But luckily Schmickler is one of those great musicians that changes his palette often but whose results always soar to great heights. This outing finds him exploring somewhat similar terrain as was found on Dream Top Rock, with Julee Cruise on board once again on several tracks with her blissed out and enigmatic vocals. With even more upfront and unadulterated pop in these tracks this has had us thinking lots of Mojave 3 and even the Broken Social Scene as well as My Bloody Valentine and Swervedriver. Such perfect shoegaze songs for the crisp cold days we've been having in San Francisco. The Monstrous Surplus is one of those great records that weaves itself into your subconscious with repeated listens. Minus one dud (we could have gone without the spoken vocal delivery of "Fresh Aufhebung") the album is pretty close to daydream pop perfection. We're pretty surprised that the last Pluramon release didn't make bigger waves as we think it was just as amazing as releases by folks like M83 and Mum which did get to a wider audience. In a year with a nice resurgence of shoegaze influenced records from folks like Ulrich Schnaus and Trembling Blue Stars we hope that Pluramon finally gets the wide appreciation and respect they so rightfully deserve!
MPEG Stream: "Turn In"
MPEG Stream: "Drowning In You"

PLUXUS Solid State (Kompakt) cd 16.98

PLVS VLTRA Parthenon (Spectrum Spools) lp 22.00

POIRIER, GHISLAIN Beats As Politics (Chocolate Industries) cd 14.98

POIRIER, GHISLAIN Sous Le Monguier (intr_version) cd 14.98
Ambient music can be a tricky proposition. At times, it can be beautiful and sublime through its ability to control an aural context (i.e. Jonathan Coleclough, Thomas Koner, Troum, etc.), yet at others, it can appear as the watered down version of some other form of music, where the strengths of that particular genre have been neutered as an homage to Brian Eno or Erik Satie. Such bland new-ageist tendencies have consistently appeared in electronica since the KLF officially fused ambient and techno with their pseudo-joke record "Chill Out" nearly a decade ago. Montreal knob twiddler Ghislain Poirier is the latest to fall into this aesthetic death trap. He has claimed allegiance to the masters of dub in King Tubby, Augustus Pablo, and the Basic Channel heroin house sound; but nothing of any substance from those influences has been translated into music. Instead, non-placed ethnic instrumentation aimlessly piddles through thin drones and an absence of anything remotely engaging. A truly boring album.

POLE 1 (Matador) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pole's first album was released on the Berlin electronica label Kiff SM to immediate critical acclaim. Extending Oval's ability to control chaos, Pole manipulated the granular synthesis that made listening to Chain Reaction records more than just another techno single, within the contexts of dub schizophrenia. Just as Lee 'Scratch' Perry reprocessed tape hiss through EQ and excessive reverb, Pole reprocessed the Chain Reaction sound into dynamic skittering dirty blips and huge dubbed out thundercracks of drum kicks.
Pole's first album has just been released in America in conjunction with his second album, an even more skeletal and more Jamaican sounding variant of the first, through Matador, whose editorial selection in licensing electronica has so far been exemplary!

POLE 1 (Matador) 2lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pole's first album was released about eight months ago on the Berlin electronica label Kiff SM to immediate critical acclaim. Extending Oval's ability to control chaos, Pole manipulated the granular synthesis that made listening to Chain Reaction records more than just another techno single, within the contexts of dub schizophrenia. Just as Lee 'Scratch' Perry reprocessed tape hiss through EQ and excessive reverb, Pole reprocessed the Chain Reaction sound into dynamic skittering dirty blips and huge dubbed out thundercracks of drum kicks.
Pole's first album has just been released in America in conjunction with his second album, an even more skeletal and more Jamaican sounding variant of the first, through Matador, whose editorial selection in licensing electronica has so far been exemplary!

POLE 1 2 3 (Indigo) 3cd 32.00
Between 1998 and 2000, Stefan Betke released three albums as Pole, producing some of the most influential electronica of that era. Emerging from Berlin where he worked as an engineer under Robert Henke (aka Monolake), Betke proposed a fragmented post-techno aesthetic that broke from the Chain Reaction sound which had been so prominent in Berlin at that time. Essentially, he reassessed one of the major influences upon Chain Reaction, that being Lee Perry, furthering the ghost in the machine echo and tape hiss accumulation, but through a novel digital synthesis upon a handful of malfunctioning electronic modules. Here, dynamic skittering blips, pinpricks of digital errata, and a perpetual cloud of simulated vinyl static fluttered amongst sporadic yet dubbed out thundercracks of drum kicks and a constant thrumb of digi-dub basslines. When Pole's first album came out (simply designated 1), no one was doing anything close to this; even Vladislav Delay's abstracted electro-dub had yet to be formed. By his second album (just called 2), the night-time digidub structures of Pole sharpened in focus, and the fragments of post-acid bleep and his static-cling grains of sound snapped in place against the dub. Melodies flickered in the distant space well behind the throbbing bass and crackling small noises, often times sounding eerily prescient of what Kode 9 and Burial would transmogrify into dubstep nearly a decade later. His third album (yup, it's 3) had become self-aware of the impact that Pole was having upon the global electronic scene, with the downbeat rhythmic stabs and delay-impacted sounds having been more aerosolized but no less convoluted. These three records are clearly the best work that Betke has produced, and they are now back in print as a triple cd set. Oh yeah, 4 bonus tracks. We like that.
MPEG Stream: "Fragen"
MPEG Stream: "Fahren"
MPEG Stream: "Uberfahrt"

POLE 2 (Matador) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pole's first album was released on the Berlin electronica label Kiff SM to immediate critical acclaim. Extending Oval's ability to control chaos, Pole manipulated the granular synthesis that made listening to Chain Reaction records more than just another techno single, within the contexts of dub schizophrenia. Just as Lee 'Scratch' Perry reprocessed tape hiss through EQ and excessive reverb, Pole reprocessed the Chain Reaction sound into dynamic skittering dirty blips and huge dubbed out thundercracks of drum kicks.
Pole's first album has just been released in America in conjunction with his second album, an even more skeletal and more Jamaican sounding variant of the first, through Matador, whose editorial selection in licensing electronica has so far been exemplary!

POLE 2 (Matador) 2lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pole's first album was released on the Berlin electronica label Kiff SM to immediate critical acclaim. Extending Oval's ability to control chaos, Pole manipulated the granular synthesis that made listening to Chain Reaction records more than just another techno single, within the contexts of dub schizophrenia. Just as Lee 'Scratch' Perry reprocessed tape hiss through EQ and excessive reverb, Pole reprocessed the Chain Reaction sound into dynamic skittering dirty blips and huge dubbed out thundercracks of drum kicks.
Pole's first album has just been released in America in conjunction with his second album, an even more skeletal and more Jamaican sounding variant of the first, through Matador, whose editorial selection in licensing electronica has so far been exemplary!

POLE 3 (Matador) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Stefan Betke's newest album of austere, German "pop & click" dub. Still quite beautiful but, like Oval, this release doesn't break any new ground the first two had already broken. If those weren't enough for you, pick this one up. (The biggest change is probably the cover art... This time it's all yellow and has a number 3 on it.)

POLE 3 (Matador) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Stefan Betke's newest album of austere, German "pop & click" dub. Still quite beautiful but, like Oval, this release doesn't break any new ground the first two had already broken. If those weren't enough for you, pick this one up. (The biggest change is probably the cover art... This time it's all yellow and has a number 3 on it.)

POLE R (Scape-Music) cd 17.98
In keeping true to Pole's self-referential titles, "R" is the re-issue of his first single "Raum" along with a handful of reworkings of the tracks off of that single and some remixes by Pole's associates, Burnt Friedman and Kit Clayton. While the original "Raum" tracks featured his signature style of skeletal digi-dub, constructed out of faux-PiL basslines, tinker-toy electronics, and lots of synthetic grit, Pole's newer reworkings of the tracks are a startling departure. Working with guitarist D. Meteo as well as a warmer tone from a Rhodes organ and synthesized horns, Pole offers a new sound that is somewhat angular in its construction, with stumbling counterpoint rhythms and erratic emergences of sound elements. Even Friedman and Clayton's remixes are strangely obtuse.
RealAudio clip: "Raum 2"
RealAudio clip: "Raum 2 Variation"
RealAudio clip: "Raum 2 Kit Clayton"

POLE R (Scape-Music) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl. In keeping true to Pole's self-referential titles, "R" is the re-issue of his first single "Raum" along with a handful of reworkings of the tracks off of that single and some remixes by Pole's associates, Burnt Friedman and Kit Clayton. While the original "Raum" tracks featured his signature style of skeletal digi-dub, constructed out of faux-PiL basslines, tinker-toy electronics, and lots of synthetic grit, Pole's newer reworkings of the tracks are a startling departure. Working with guitarist D. Meteo as well as a warmer tone from a Rhodes organ and synthesized horns, Pole offers a new sound that is somewhat angular in its construction, with stumbling counterpoint rhythms and erratic emergences of sound elements. Even Friedman and Clayton's remixes are strangely obtuse.
RealAudio clip: "Raum 2"
RealAudio clip: "Raum 2 Variation"
RealAudio clip: "Raum 2 Kit Clayton"

POLE s/t (Scape-Music) cd 16.98

POLE Steingarten (Scape) cd 16.98
If memory serves us correctly, the previous Pole album (which was the eponymous 2003 release) was a complete dud, as it ventured into clunky jazz tropes that didn't meld with Pole's murky dubbed electronica. Steingarten arrives four years later; and while it's a vast improvement upon that aforementioned album, it can't be said that this is a 'return to form' necessarily. No, the days of druggy Chain Reactive soundscapes are gone for Pole. Stefan Betke (the German artist behind the Pole moniker) still sees the merit in bringing an organic ethos to digital produced electronica, and frosts his downtempo breakbeats with acoustic basslines, playful vibraphones, and fizzing psychedelic guitar noise, all of which have been sampled and framed tightly into place. If this sounds like a digitized version of early Tortoise or a more tight-laced Fridge recording, that's because it does.
MPEG Stream: "Warum"
MPEG Stream: "Pferd"

POLE Steingarten (Scape) lp 17.98
If memory serves us correctly, the previous Pole album (which was the eponymous 2003 release) was a complete dud, as it ventured into clunky jazz tropes that didn't meld with Pole's murky dubbed electronica. Steingarten arrives four years later; and while it's a vast improvement upon that aforementioned album, it can't be said that this is a 'return to form' necessarily. No, the days of druggy Chain Reactive soundscapes are gone for Pole. Stefan Betke (the German artist behind the Pole moniker) still sees the merit in bringing an organic ethos to digital produced electronica, and frosts his downtempo breakbeats with acoustic basslines, playful vibraphones, and fizzing psychedelic guitar noise, all of which have been sampled and framed tightly into place. If this sounds like a digitized version of early Tortoise or a more tight-laced Fridge recording, that's because it does.

POLMO POLPO Kiss Me Again And Again (Intr Version) cd ep 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
After two previous outings of cello laced electronica (including the marvellous heroin house album The Science of Breath), Polmo Polpo covers "Kiss Me Again and Again" by Arthur Russell's avant-disco-funk thing Dinosaur L back from 1981. This 22 minute track opens quite awkwardly with a basic disco groove and some jittery-junk-jive guitar riff that begins like an out-of-tune Marc Ribot chicken scratch. But slowly, the guitars mellow their contortionist twisting and open into a rather attractive disco jangle. File next to LCD Soundsystem in late '70s / early '80s disco-punk worship.
MPEG Stream: "Kiss Me Again And Again"

POLMO POLPO Like Hearts Swelling (Constellation) cd 14.98
The previous outing for Polmo Polpo (aka the Toronto based musician Sandro Perri) was a collection of very hard to find 12" singles, encapsulating a sound that merged hazy organic melodies from slide guitar and cello with the minimalist techno archetypal of Chain Reaction. It was, quite simply, a gorgeous sound. Here on "Like Hearts Swelling," the rich orchestration remains while the pronounced techno rhythms settle quietly into the background or are completely avoided on most tracks. That said, the undergirdings of techno are still Perri's basis for sound organization. Compact blocks of sound denoted by synthetic bass lines and tightly looped samples repeat themselves in hypnotic phrases, following the same patterns established by Gas on the majestic "Konigsforst" album and its more playful cousin "Pop." The strength of "Like Hearts Swelling" is found in the counterpoints between these subdued structures and the expressive melodies of cello, slide guitar, glockenspiel, accordion, and ambient passages culled from these instruments. The jubilant melodies from the album's second track "Requiem For A Fox" slide up and down the guitar frets, returning to a simple descending melodic fragment that is remarkably similar to the chorus from Blondie's "Dreaming." While this is probably an unintentional appropriation, the timbres and moods of this album reflect many of the sounds proferred by likeminded canucks Godspeed! You Black Emperor and their side projects. In other words, it's beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Romeo Heart"
MPEG Stream: "Requiem For A Fox"

POLMO POLPO Like Hearts Swelling (Constellation) lp 14.98
The previous outing for Polmo Polpo (aka the Toronto based musician Sandro Perri) was a collection of very hard to find 12" singles, encapsulating a sound that merged hazy organic melodies from slide guitar and cello with the minimalist techno archetypal of Chain Reaction. It was, quite simply, a gorgeous sound. Here on "Like Hearts Swelling," the rich orchestration remains while the pronounced techno rhythms settle quietly into the background or are completely avoided on most tracks. That said, the undergirdings of techno are still Perri's basis for sound organization. Compact blocks of sound denoted by synthetic bass lines and tightly looped samples repeat themselves in hypnotic phrases, following the same patterns established by Gas on the majestic "Konigsforst" album and its more playful cousin "Pop." The strength of "Like Hearts Swelling" is found in the counterpoints between these subdued structures and the expressive melodies of cello, slide guitar, glockenspeil, accordion, and ambient passages culled from these instruments. The jubilant melodies from the album's second track "Requiem For A Fox" slide up and down the guitar frets, returning to a simple descending melodic fragment that is remarkably similar to the chorus from Blondie's "Dreaming." While this is probably an unintentional appropriation, the timbres and moods of this album reflect many of the sounds proferred by likeminded canucks Godspeed! You Black Emperor and their side projects. In other words, it's beautiful.

POLMO POLPO The Science Of Breath (Substractif) cd 14.98
When working in such a restrictive environment as Chain Reactive microhouse, the success and failure of a piece of music usually comes down to the basics of writing good music in generating a punchy rhythm out of Reactor and filtering ghostly remnants of melody out of synthetic / metallic atmospheres. Microhouse pioneers like Vladislav Delay have faltered when trying to get too clever in their textural programming while forgetting that the core to heroin house is dance music. But like Plastikman and Gas before him, Toronto producer Sandro Perri (aka Polmo Polpo) understands where minimalist techno has succeeded with an unrelentingly throbbing, Kompakt-monophunk rhythms and slowly filtered aerated reverberations. The murky hiss and thick white noise common to the early Chain Reaction records are present in Polmo Polpo's exceptional debut "The Science Of Breath," but have been sculpted out of heavily digitized lap steel, cello, and slide guitar. Very nicely done!
RealAudio clip: "Acqua"
RealAudio clip: "Rottura"
RealAudio clip: "Riva"

POLYGON WINDOW Surfing On Sinewaves (Warp) cd 13.98
Richard D. James is better known as The Aphex Twin, yet his first recording for Warp Records was under his Polygon Window moniker. At the time of this recording in 1992, Warp started the legendary Artificial Intelligence series (which is the origin for the dubious genre title Intelligent Dance Music) to encapsulate the mutant techno sounds of Autechre, Black Dog, F.U.S.E., B12, and Aphex Twin. For better or for worse, Warp signed a deal with Wax Trax in the US for this series. At the time, a certain logic can be seen in the Artificial Intelligence series as a futuristic extension of the Wax Trax industrial sound. Yet when Wax Trax ended up getting absorbed / dissolved into TVT, a few of the Artificial Intelligence recordings (including "Surfing On Sinewaves") were lost in the legal mires of licensing deals gone awry.
Finally, Warp has reissued "Surfing On Sinewaves" for the US (the UK pressings have still been in print, but unavailable for sale in North America due to that piece of paper with Wax Trax). Most clearly inspired by the claustrophobia of Chicago Acid House and Detroit Techno, James coaxed an arpeggiating barrage of metallic clangs and hammered rhythms out of his broken samplers and rewired drum machines. The alien melodies and warm dreamlike tonalities which dominated his epic "Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2" first found their way onto these records as ghost like afterimages surrounding the electronic rhythms. Even after nearly a decade, this album is still mindblowing.
While today's contemporary discourse of the glitch / click have their clear roots in the malfuctioning sounds of computers, Richard James' early pioneering productions spoke of technological errors occuring within his broken synthesizers and Midi plug-ins. If it weren't for records like "Surfing on Sinewaves," there would be no Kid 606, Lesser, or Hrvatski.
RealAudio clip: "Polygon Window"
RealAudio clip: "Quoth"
RealAudio clip: "Ut1 - Dot"

POM POM s/t (aka 32) (Pom Pom / Kompakt) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Black digipak. Black disc (both sides!). No art, no text, anywhere. Just a sticker on the shrinkwrap with the name Pom Pom, a bar code, and the Kompakt logo. Apparently this is distributed by our favorite techno label Kompakt, but is actually on the mysterious Pom Pom's own imprint, who have previously released at least thirty two 12" vinyl only Pom Pom records!
Where are Pom Pom from? Berlin of course. Making throbbing minimal so-called "psychedelic" techno since 2001. As their press release puts it: "Pom Pom reflects the monotone and hypnotic essence of techno." True dat. And here's their first compact disk, whose stark, minimal packaging more or less accurately describes its musical content. 14 tracks that originally appeared on Pom Pom's double 12" entitled 32, full of percussive pulses, hum and hiss, repetitive bass thump, Morse code-y clicks and beeps, little melodic robot riffs. Pom Pom often have a bit of poppiness to 'em, like the uptempo track #6. Other cuts are more about (Echo)spacey ambient drift from out in Dopplereffekt's orbit. Pom Pom are definitely our sort of "dance music", aligned with other faves from the Kompakt realm.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 6"
MPEG Stream: "track 7"

POPUL VUH Remixes (Editions Mego) 12" 17.98

POREST Prude Juice For the Heritage Swinger (Seeland / Electro Motive) cd 14.98
In the great tradition of Negativland, People Like Us, Tape Beatles, Evolution Control Committee and Stock, Hausen & Walkman comes Porest (a.k.a. Mark Gergis of Mono Pause). Porest dis-assembles the world, leaving no cultural and musical stone unturned, to create a twisted, irreverant, post-folk ethnography. We visit a psycho-sexual homicidal Austrian engaged in making "fist dumplings", reciting his quaint and surreal story a la Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant". We're taken on a journey into a world where plastic sheep have been raised the same way for thousands of years, a world where Dan Fogelberg is an avant garde yodeller and where our heroes died for our syrup. Sprinkled throughout are instrumental numbers of equally dis-membered cultural origin, on par with Stock, Hausen & Walkman. Brew yourself a hot cup of Oolan tea, slam several shots of hard NyQuil and let Porest lead you on a journey through musical un-history.
MPEG Stream: "Fist Dumplings"
MPEG Stream: "Pasture Pressure"
MPEG Stream: "Happening"

POREST Tourrorists! (Abduction) cd 14.98
Let it be known, that Tourrorists! is a difficult record, and those with a stubborn lack of cultural objectivity will be wise to avoid this album. You have been warned!
Up until this album, Mark Gergis, the man behind Porest (as well as Mono Pause / Neung Phak), has been quietly mapping out his own course of ethnomusicology that hinges upon the complex layers of cultural perception between the US and the third world. Neung Phak stands as his Thai Pop ensemble, in which he exquisitely explores the particulars of SE Asian pop music complete with re-creations of radio dramas and the eccentric hybridizations of eastern and western idioms; he's also been responsible for some for some of the best collections from the Sublime Frequencies series (i.e. Choubi Choubi and Cambodian Cassette Archives). Porest is Gergis' media-manipulation project, and Tourrorists! will undoubtably go down as his most inflamatory and most provocative work. Tourrorists is a scathing political record that unabashedly takes on the themes of 9/11, Guantanamo, Arabic conspiracy theories about Israeli secret police (Mossad), and Christian missionaries. However, unlike the politically charged works of Negativland, Gergis refuses to center the album from a particular political or cultural institution (whether that be atheism, socialism, anarchism, etc.); instead, he challenges the listener to question his or her own politics and cultural perspective about any of the topics. Case in point, "Let's Roll" recontextualizes various media snippets from the 9/11 hearings as well as Jihadist rhetoric through computerized voices that emulate the inflection of an American woman, an American man, and an African-American man. There's something intrinsically disturbing about these dispassionate spoken texts, not to mention the wildly contradictory banter between these three characters. Similarly, Gergis collages a particularlly banal public service announcement into a matter of fact "Soilent Green is people!" declaration. Gergis also gives an English translation to the classic collaboration between Aaviko and Kabar on "Eye of the Leopard" originally sung by the only known escapee from Guantanamo. Alan Bishop from the Sun City Girls also makes a stunning cameo on the summery groove of "Hoyda." None of this speaks of the intricacy of Gergis' musical productions which run from mangled electronics, plenty post-SCG Syrian pop numbers, and canned bossanova rhythms; but, it's the ideological content that renders this album a pipe bomb. Tourrorists! is bound to piss you off or offend you in some way shape or form; and we mean that as a very high compliment.
MPEG Stream: "Let's Roll"
MPEG Stream: "Hoyda"
MPEG Stream: "Meat Supply"

PORT-ROYAL Flares (Resonant) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Joining the likes of AQ fave M-bands Mogwai, M83, and Magyar Posse (and they've also even been compared to a few S-artists Ulrich Schnauss, Stafraenn Hakon and Sigur Ros), This Italian group ever so gallantly and gracefully toss their finely crafted musical hat into the ever-expanding global atmospheric postrock arena. Port-Royal's sprawling 78-minute long Flares is a soft, hazy blissed-out dream of an album filled with shimmery ambient washes of glacial guitars peppered with occasional wisps of electronics and samples. Each and every time we've played this in the store, it draws many enthused queries. Really really calming and really really pretty. Positively sigh-inducing.
MPEG Stream: "Jeka"
MPEG Stream: "Flares Pt.1"

PORTER RICKS Biokinetics (Type) cd 16.98
Recently reissued on vinyl (which sadly, went quickly out of print), now available again on cd!!
Techno is a genre of self-quotation and unrepentant appropriation, always looking in the rearview mirror at what just happened to predict what will be the hot-shit trend on the dancefloor tomorrow. So to be able to trace an entire strain within techno's taxonomy to a specific record is quite rare. The 1996 album Biokinetics by Porter Ricks is one such record, setting the stage for pretty much every electronic artist who would flock to the banner of Chain Reaction through a stylized hypnotic, narcotizing techno haunted with deep atmospherics, dub murkiness, and subaquatic allusions. Porter Ricks was the duo of Andy Mellwig and Thomas Koner, who pursued "techno as a nautical sound experience." By the time the first Porter Ricks single emerged in '96, Koner had already developed his signature isolationist approach to slow-motion sound-design blustering with arctic metaphors through the dronemuzik classics of Nunatak Gongamur (1990) and Permafrost (1993). So when Koner began exploring techno with Mellwig, the approach to techno was less about 64-bar measures and more about constructing an evolving atmosphere girded to quintessentially German techno engineering that could be taken for a sonic portrait of tidal flows, map coordinates, sonar blips, and the vastness of the deep blue sea.
Biokinetics opens with the magnificent "Port Gentil" whose steady techno pulse coalesces through overlapping patterns from muffled pulsations of white noise and distant locomotive rhythms, later topped by a radiant metallic drone. The somatic oscillations of "Biokinetics 1" hardly makes for a techno track at all despite the insistent rhythms, but the eerie heartpulse dub of "Biokinetics 2" takes an isolationist reproach to everything adding its own desolate pulse and some subterranean reverb. Granulated hiss and slippery drone shimmer blossom through the final tracks "Nautical Nuba" and "Nautical Zone" that look forward to what Wolfgang Voigt would produce on his seminal Gas albums Zauberberg and Konigsforst. It sounded awesome in 1996, and it sounds awesome today.
MPEG Stream: "Port Gentil"
MPEG Stream: "Biokinetics 2"
MPEG Stream: "Nautical Zone"

PORTER RICKS Biokinetics (Type) 2lp 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN PRINT!!! THIS TIME ON BLUE TRANSPARENT VINYL (or so we've been told, didn't open 'em)...
Techno is a genre of self-quotation and unrepentant appropriation, always looking in the rearview mirror at what just happened to predict what will be the hot-shit trend on the dancefloor tomorrow. So to be able to trace an entire strain within techno's taxonomy to a specific record is quite rare. The 1996 album Biokinetics by Porter Ricks is one such record, setting the stage for pretty much every electronic artist who would flock to the banner of Chain Reaction through a stylized hypnotic, narcotizing techno haunted with deep atmospherics, dub murkiness, and subaquatic allusions. Porter Ricks was the duo of Andy Mellwig and Thomas Koner, who pursued "techno as a nautical sound experience." By the time the first Porter Ricks single emerged in '96, Koner had already developed his signature isolationist approach to slow-motion sound-design blustering with arctic metaphors through the dronemuzik classics of Nunatak Gongamur (1990) and Permafrost (1993). So when Koner began exploring techno with Mellwig, the approach to techno was less about 64-bar measures and more about constructing an evolving atmosphere girded to quintessentially German techno engineering that could be taken for a sonic portrait of tidal flows, map coordinates, sonar blips, and the vastness of the deep blue sea.
Biokinetics opens with the magnificent "Port Gentil" whose steady techno pulse coalesces through overlapping patterns from muffled pulsations of white noise and distant locomotive rhythms, later topped by a radiant metallic drone. The somatic oscillations of "Biokinetics 1" hardly makes for a techno track at all despite the insistent rhythms, but the eerie heartpulse dub of "Biokinetics 2" takes an isolationist reproach to everything adding its own desolate pulse and some subterranean reverb. Granulated hiss and slippery drone shimmer blossom through the final tracks "Nautical Nuba" and "Nautical Zone" that look forward to what Wolfgang Voigt would produce on his seminal Gas albums Zauberberg and Konigsforst. It sounded awesome in 1996, and it sounds awesome today.
MPEG Stream: "Port Gentil"
MPEG Stream: "Biokinetics 2"
MPEG Stream: "Nautical Zone"

PORTER RICKS : TECHNO ANIMAL Symbiotic (Force Inc. ) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Symbiotic" is a split release between stalwart bleak technicians Porter Ricks and Techno Animal, in which the tracks of each are presented in alternating fashion. While Porter Ricks has made the best Chain Reaction records for the label, Thomas Koner and Andy Melweg have moved away from the heroin house aethestic for a sound that complements the oppressively dark hip hop futurism of Techno Animal. Surprisingly cohesive for an album that could easily fall apart in lesser hands.

PORTER RICKS : TECHNO ANIMAL Symbiotic (Force Inc. ) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Symbiotic" is a split release between stalwart bleak technicians Porter Ricks and Techno Animal, in which the tracks of each are presented in alternating fashion. While Porter Ricks has made the best Chain Reaction records for the label, Thomas Koner and Andy Melweg have moved away from the heroin house aethestic for a sound that complements the oppressively dark hip hop futurism of Techno Animal. Surprisingly cohesive for an album that could easily fall apart in lesser hands.

PORTER, ROLY Aftertime (Subtext Recordings) cd 17.98
When we first got an earful of Aftertime, the debut solo release from Roly Porter, who was/is one half of the dubstep duo Vex'd, we were pretty surprised. We had been expecting something more along the lines of that duo's lush dark beatscapes and swirling skeletal stutters but instead were treated to something entirely different. The beats almost entirely jettisoned, bar the occasional squall of rhythmic splatter, or super spare muted pulsations. The vibe is much more abstract, and droned out, a sort of dark cosmic mimimal modern classical? But somehow filtered through the grim industrial crunch and crumble of groups like Wolf Eyes. The sounds at times caustic and grimly grinding, but more often then not, woven into a sprawl of sweeping musical melodrama, lush, soaring string like shimmers, underpinned by gristly buzz, and dubstep style bass warbles, but sans the 'step'. The dub vibe too, minimal, but still pervasive, imagine if you can, the lush, hushed, cinematic ambience of Stars Of The Lid crossed with the blackened industrial crush and sculpted noise of past Record Of The Weekers Cloaks, it's almost like the most dense, and bleak, sonically sinister intros to the darkest dubstep jams, expanded into whole tracks.
But these are not just glorified extended intros, Porter crafts roiling landscapes of abstract ambience, a series of sonically harrowing epics, the opener sets the stage, all moaning tones and extended drones, very symphonic, but again, rough around the edges, as if the sounds are slowly decaying, the soundtrack to some otherworldly post apocalyptic wasteland, which leads right into the first track proper, which sounds like an alternate soundtrack to The Conversation as imagined by Organum. Dense sprawls of metallic rumble, laced with buried electronic squiggles, sonar like pings, all wreathed in a layer of gauzy, crackly, washed out sonic grime, and the whole thing wrapped around a weirdly dreamlike melody, drifting hauntingly through this heaving cloud of soft black noise. Eventually, the sound blossoms into something even more intense, blasts of electronics, shards of noise, all somehow fashioned into a dizzying barrage of almost beat-like buzz.
The record gradually introduce more and more melody, Porter's dense electronic blurscapes balanced by lushly melodic stretches of layered string like shimmer, a definitely modern minimalist vibe, but then of course, those bits of melodic tranquility, seem to sink into Porter's crumbling distorted electronic morass, sometimes completely, leaving just roiling expanses of buzz and hiss, glitched out crunch and keening electronic bleat, but just as often, striking some seemingly impossible balance, lacing this heaving sonic hostility with something totally at odds, soaring strings, lush chordal swells, which transforms the sound into something else entirely. Later huge demonic foghorn like low end rumbles moan ominously, adding a weird almost demonic drama to otherwise near tranquil drift, that low end constantly expanding, into black, gristled drones, woven into the aforementioned string sweeps, but often drifting into the background, leaving gorgeous bits of hazy minimal drift, mournful piano, swaddled in soft swirls of lush thrum, even at one point bursting into what might be the most moving moment on the record, with a soaring minor key melody, achingly melancholic, driven by a strange super distorted, crumbling almost metallic sounding 'riff' that mostly adds texture and heft, and reminds us of another longtime aQ fave Tim Hecker, as well as the recent record from Seirom, a more blissed out offshoot of Gnaw Their Tongues.
An utterly gorgeous collection of minimal electronic soundscapes, grim buzz laden modern chamber music, and black drone ambience, a record we've been wanting to make our Record Of The Week for over a year now. So glad we finally can. Absolutely recommended, and of course, most definitely for fans of Ben Frost, Stars Of The Lid, Tim Hecker, Cloaks, etc...
MPEG Stream: "Atar"
MPEG Stream: "Tleilax"
MPEG Stream: "Corrin"
MPEG Stream: "Giedi Prime"
MPEG Stream: "Hessra"

PORTISHEAD Dummy (London) cd 16.98
A brilliant, compelling album.

PORTISHEAD Portishead (London) cd 16.98

PORTISHEAD Roseland NYC Live (London) cd 15.98
A lush and breathtaking live document of Portishead's amazing live performances. Gorgeous versions of all of the favourites backed by a full string section with oboes, flugel horns, trumpets, saxophones, flutes, trombones, Geoff Barrows' economic turntablism, and Beth Gibbons' spirited vocals.

POSTAL SERVICE Give Up (Sub Pop) 2lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now, at long last, this extremely popular album is available on vinyl! Indie darlings Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie join forces in The Postal Service. Apparently these collaborations did indeed take shape via tapes mailed back and forth between the two. Each track is subtle variation of the following: bashfully boyish vocals, chiming music box melodies and soft jangly guitars that play off one another over a simple thumping or clicking programmed beat. Gibbard sings oh so sweetly in his melted ice cream voice while Tamborello delivers the delightfully pretty electronics and bounding rhythms. Just what you might expect from a project starring these two fellows. Plus there's an added aural delight here and there in the form of lovely vocals by Jen Wood and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis. It's easy to draw comparisons to Kings Of Convenience vocalist Erlend Oye's new solo album which also sets a gentle male voice -- more familiarly heard with soft guitars and drums - singing atop light electronic dancey tracks. However unlike Oye's Unrest on which music and voice sound somewhat detached from each other, Postal Service's Give Up has a wonderful chemistry that swirls everything together perfectly. Recommended!
Includes an extra lp filled with remixes, and b-sides.

MPEG Stream: "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight"
MPEG Stream: "Nothing Better"

POSTAL SERVICE The District Sleeps Tonight (Sub Pop) cd ep 3.98
Arguably the second best song on Jimmy Tamborello and Benjamin Gibbard's Postal Service Give Up album, "The District Sleeps Tonight" is featured on this new cdep along with an alternate, much more percolated'n'squidgy mix by DJ Downfall, as well as a much more languid yet still thumpin' John Tejada remix of the aforementioned album's *best* track "Such Great Heights", plus... this cd version includes a very mellow cover of the Flaming Lips' "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"!
MPEG Stream: "The District Sleeps Tonight"
MPEG Stream: "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"

POSTAL SERVICE The District Sleeps Tonight (Sub Pop) 12" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Arguably the second best song on Jimmy Tamborello and Benjamin Gibbard's Postal Service Give Up full length, "The District Sleeps Tonight (album version)" is featured on this new cdep along with an alternate, much more percolated'n'squidgy mix by DJ Downfall. On the flipside, there's the album version of the aforementioned album's *best* track "Such Great Heights" along with a much more languid yet still thumpin' John Tejada remix. This all makes for a little quandary tho'... whether to sigh and bliss out or get up and shake yer thang!
RealAudio clip: " "

POSTAL SERVICE, THE Give Up (Sub Pop) cd 14.98
Indie darlings Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie join forces in The Postal Service. Apparently these collaborations did indeed take shape via tapes mailed back and forth between the two. Each track is subtle variation of the following: bashfully boyish vocals, chiming music box melodies and soft jangly guitars that play off one another over a simple thumping or clicking programmed beat. Gibbard sings oh so sweetly in his melted ice cream voice while Tamborello delivers the delightfully pretty electronics and bounding rhythms. Just what you might expect from a project starring these two fellows. Plus there's an added aural delight here and there in the form of lovely vocals by Jen Wood and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis. It's easy to draw comparisons to Kings Of Convenience vocalist Erlend Oye's new solo album which also sets a gentle male voice -- more familiarly heard with soft guitars and drums - singing atop light electronic dancey tracks. However unlike Oye's Unrest on which music and voice sound somewhat detached from each other, Postal Service's Give Up has a wonderful chemistry that swirls everything together perfectly. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight"
MPEG Stream: "Nothing Better"

POSTAL SERVICE, THE Give Up (Deluxe Tenth Anniversary Edition) (Sub Pop) 2cd 14.98
It's hard to believe it's now been more than a decade since the original release of this fantastic little slice of indie electronica, a collaboration between Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello (the electronics and production) and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie (the bitter sweet indie jangle and that voice!) a project they called at the time The Postal Service (with a little bit of protest from the actual USPS!). Since then, their sound has served as a template for a million other bands, mining much of the same territory, sad boy, mix tape break up indie jangle pop, but all wound up in percolating beats, and warm lustrous electronic shimmer, not indie club music by any stretch, it still had that sort of homebrewed 4-track bedroom vibe that made (and makes) music like this so relatable, but it expanded the typical indie pop sonic palette, and resulted in a serious of glistening, dreamily propulsive, nearly anthemic electronic pop, that does indeed sound just as good now as it did when everyone was freaking out about it the first time around. This tenth anniversary collection, gathers up the Give Up album in its entirety, along with two of the eps from around the same time, as well as some unreleased gems and rarities, and houses it all it a big fancy package, that incorporates the various iconic album art as well as lyrics, liner notes etc. Here's our slightly updated/revised review of these records from the first time around.
The Give Up record originally took shape via tapes mailed back and forth between Tamborello and Gibbard. Each track is subtle variation of the following: bashfully boyish vocals, chiming music box melodies and soft jangly guitars that play off one another over a simple thumping or clicking programmed beat. Gibbard sings oh so sweetly in his melted ice cream voice while Tamborello delivers the delightfully pretty electronics and bounding rhythms. Pretty much exactly what you might expect from a project starring these two fellows. Plus there's an added aural delight here and there in the form of occasional lovely vocals by Jen Wood and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis. The Postal Service's Give Up has a wonderful chemistry that swirls everything together perfectly.
The first single from that record, also included in this anniversary collection, is another gorgeous display of the Postal Service's effortlessly effervescent crushworthy tunes. And ah, such a sweet peep it is! A perfect accessory to the full length. The title track "Such Great Heights" is an instantly catchy gem that's sure to find its way onto friends' mixtapes everywhere (even still) and is most definitely the best song on Give Up. The rest of the ep is filled out actually by PS songs performed by two other bands - fellow Sub Poppers The Shins and Iron And Wine. The brief cover love ends with Iron And Wine's drowsy acoustic rendition of "Such Great Heights". And y'know what? It's definitely different, but in its own way just as good as the original. Beautiful! Each version is strong on its own and great in concert with one another.
Also included is the second ep, The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, the title track, arguably the SECOND best song on Tamborello and Gibbard's Give Up album, "The District Sleeps Tonight" is accompanied by an alternate, much more percolated'n'squidgy mix by DJ Downfall, as well as a much more languid yet still thumpin' John Tejada remix of the aforementioned album's *best* track, the previously mentioned "Such Great Heights", plus... there's also a very mellow cover of the Flaming Lips' "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"!
Single number three is here as well, which in addition to the album track, includes two dreamy mixes from Styrofoam and Matthew Dear. And in addition to all that this new version tacks on a bunch of unreleased and rare tracks as well, including more collaborations with vocalist Jenny Lewis, their awesome Phil Collins cover, which was originally released on the soundtrack to the movie Wicker Park, there's also a John Lennon cover, originally from an Amnesty International benefit compilation, a Nobody remix, originally an iTunes only exclusive, and finally a live on the radio track from 2003.
And as mentioned above, the cd is gorgeous packaged in an oversized booklike package, 8 full color panels, multiple pockets, two booklets, tons of rare photos and more!! The vinyl too, in a similarly over the top multi paneled / pocketed jacket, and while they last we have the Loser Edition (i.e. colored vinyl!)
MPEG Stream: "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight"
MPEG Stream: "Nothing Better"
MPEG Stream: "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"

POSTAL SERVICE, THE Give Up (Deluxe Tenth Anniversary Edition) (Sub Pop) 3lp 34.00
It's hard to believe it's now been more than a decade since the original release of this fantastic little slice of indie electronica, a collaboration between Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello (the electronics and production) and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie (the bitter sweet indie jangle and that voice!) a project they called at the time The Postal Service (with a little bit of protest from the actual USPS!). Since then, their sound has served as a template for a million other bands, mining much of the same territory, sad boy, mix tape break up indie jangle pop, but all wound up in percolating beats, and warm lustrous electronic shimmer, not indie club music by any stretch, it still had that sort of homebrewed 4-track bedroom vibe that made (and makes) music like this so relatable, but it expanded the typical indie pop sonic palette, and resulted in a serious of glistening, dreamily propulsive, nearly anthemic electronic pop, that does indeed sound just as good now as it did when everyone was freaking out about it the first time around. This tenth anniversary collection, gathers up the Give Up album in its entirety, along with two of the eps from around the same time, as well as some unreleased gems and rarities, and houses it all it a big fancy package, that incorporates the various iconic album art as well as lyrics, liner notes etc. Here's our slightly updated/revised review of these records from the first time around.
The Give Up record originally took shape via tapes mailed back and forth between Tamborello and Gibbard. Each track is subtle variation of the following: bashfully boyish vocals, chiming music box melodies and soft jangly guitars that play off one another over a simple thumping or clicking programmed beat. Gibbard sings oh so sweetly in his melted ice cream voice while Tamborello delivers the delightfully pretty electronics and bounding rhythms. Pretty much exactly what you might expect from a project starring these two fellows. Plus there's an added aural delight here and there in the form of occasional lovely vocals by Jen Wood and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis. The Postal Service's Give Up has a wonderful chemistry that swirls everything together perfectly.
The first single from that record, also included in this anniversary collection, is another gorgeous display of the Postal Service's effortlessly effervescent crushworthy tunes. And ah, such a sweet peep it is! A perfect accessory to the full length. The title track "Such Great Heights" is an instantly catchy gem that's sure to find its way onto friends' mixtapes everywhere (even still) and is most definitely the best song on Give Up. The rest of the ep is filled out actually by PS songs performed by two other bands - fellow Sub Poppers The Shins and Iron And Wine. The brief cover love ends with Iron And Wine's drowsy acoustic rendition of "Such Great Heights". And y'know what? It's definitely different, but in its own way just as good as the original. Beautiful! Each version is strong on its own and great in concert with one another.
Also included is the second ep, The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, the title track, arguably the SECOND best song on Tamborello and Gibbard's Give Up album, "The District Sleeps Tonight" is accompanied by an alternate, much more percolated'n'squidgy mix by DJ Downfall, as well as a much more languid yet still thumpin' John Tejada remix of the aforementioned album's *best* track, the previously mentioned "Such Great Heights", plus... there's also a very mellow cover of the Flaming Lips' "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"!
Single number three is here as well, which in addition to the album track, includes two dreamy mixes from Styrofoam and Matthew Dear. And in addition to all that this new version tacks on a bunch of unreleased and rare tracks as well, including more collaborations with vocalist Jenny Lewis, their awesome Phil Collins cover, which was originally released on the soundtrack to the movie Wicker Park, there's also a John Lennon cover, originally from an Amnesty International benefit compilation, a Nobody remix, originally an iTunes only exclusive, and finally a live on the radio track from 2003.
And as mentioned above, the cd is gorgeous packaged in an oversized booklike package, 8 full color panels, multiple pockets, two booklets, tons of rare photos and more!! The vinyl too, in a similarly over the top multi paneled / pocketed jacket, and while they last we have the Loser Edition (i.e. colored vinyl!)
MPEG Stream: "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight"
MPEG Stream: "Nothing Better"
MPEG Stream: "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"

POSTHUMAN s/t (Seed) cd 12.98
Sounding like Lesser circa "Welcome To The American Experience", but with a slightly more commercial bent, Posthuman take AQ favorites Lesser, Dark Noerd and the Tigerbeat 6 stable of noiseniks, add a little Boards Of Canada and mix in a heaping spoonful of mainstream techtronica ala Prodigy or KMFDM and come up with some cool, slightly dated, too weird for the dance floor, too dance-y for the weirdos. Out-there electronica.

POSTHUMAN s/t (Seed) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Sounding like Lesser circa "Welcome To The American Experience", but with a slightly more commercial bent, Posthuman take AQ favorites Lesser, Dark Noerd and the Tigerbeat 6 stable of noiseniks, add a little Boards Of Canada and mix in a heaping spoonful of mainstream techtronica ala Prodigy or KMFDM and come up with some cool, slightly dated, too weird for the dance floor, too dance-y for the weirdos. Out-there electronica.

POTRATZ, JASON Transfer (Phthalo) cd 12.98
For the first Acid record on the obtuse electronica label Phthalo, Jason Potratz admits that this record was made by a trainspotter for a trainspotter. This is a seemless mix of 29 very short tracks of Acid loops - with hammering four-on-the-floor techno bass kicks, hand claps, percolating pinging tones and militantly simple basslines, mostly constructed on a Roland 303 drum machine. Quite similar to Richie Hawtin's "DE9: Closer To The Edit" with all of the quick edits woven together through a singular steady rhythm.
RealAudio clip: "Transfer 12"

POTTER, COLIN Ancient History (Ultra-Mail Productions) 4cd 48.00
We discovered Colin Potter many years ago, through his heady production and sound design in Nurse With Wound, Ora, and Monos; yet like so many pioneering electronic musicians in the '80s, he released a slew of cassettes overflowing with various sonic experiments and audio excursions. Ancient History collects four of Potter's tapes charting his output from 1979 to 1989, including A Gain, Two Nights, and Recent History Volumes 1 & 2. Back in this time period, Potter was working in a post-kosmische aesthetic with a small arsenal of synths, step sequencers, drum machines, guitars, and effects. He had yet to incorporate the heavy-lidded drone and field recording component which he's been associated with as of late; but those tapes positioned his sound not too far from the Moebius / Schnitzler / Schulze axis of progressive electronics with a healthy dose of Chris Carter's DIY aesthetic tossed in for good measure.
A Gain was released in 1982 through his ICR imprint and is a culmination of work dating back to 1979. The opening number to this album is a bright hypnotic piece for glockenspiel and synthesizer, which builds upon elliptical phrases on those instruments with greater and greater density and kaleidoscopic fervor, snugly situated between Terry Riley's A Rainbow In Curved Air and Cluster's percolating motorik electron-pop. Elsewhere on A Gain, Potter pulls out the guitar to augment the synth blorp and drive with some fine Manuel Gottsching-esque explorations. Two Nights from 1981 is probably the cream of the crop here, not to belittle anything else on the set; but this is a great piece of futuristic electronics that is a must have for anyone keen on John Carpenter and Goblin soundtracks! The two original side long pieces both extend from the cosmic swoosh into dynamic kraut-disco jams with incremental sequences accelerating through drum machine, neon-lit synth cascades, and more heavily phased guitar solos. Potter adds a third lengthy bonus track of similar material to round out this fantastic disc.
The Recent History discs compile various Potter projects from 1986-1989, and find him in more of a darker, somber mood with ritualized ambience drifting about his more earthen sounding sequences and sodden acoustic guitar melodies. While there's much of the same instrumentation, Potter's production also becomes far more complex with more of the shadowy, occluded techniques that he would later master during his tenure in Nurse With Wound. As such, these tracks tend to parallel some of the work of Coil and O Yuki Conjugate, and even predates some of the melodic aspects of the ambient side of IDM that would emerge five or six years later.
This is quite different from the song-based minimal wave album of early Colin Potter material released on Vinyl On Demand; but certainly showcases just how great all of those early tapes of his were and how well they hold up today!
MPEG Stream: "You Tell Me"
MPEG Stream: "All Reel"
MPEG Stream: "8th June 1982"
MPEG Stream: "Ships That Pass In The Night"

POTTER, COLIN The Fights Of The Sound Cable (The Tapeworm) cassette 9.98
The latest from this long time aQ fave, comes in the form of a super limited tapes from the UK cassette label The Tapeworm, and features two sidelong tracks displaying two sides of Potter's sonic personality. The A side is a dizzying field of mathematically complex loopage, rendered in a seemingly perpetual state of decay and gradual disarray, beginning with fields of looped cascading electronic bleeps over distant pounded piano, and bleary smears of background shimmer, the piano becoming more insistent and jagged, almost maddeningly mesmerizing, all underpinned by a throbbing murky pulse, over which shifting rhythms collide and careen, sounds glitch and crunch, layers undulate, drones drift and swirl, the sound lurches and hiccups, lopes and churns, locking into weird sprawls of robotic hypno-groove, laced with what sound like cartoon bite sounds, and heaving black clouds of ominous rumble, a dizzying collision of black cinematic ambience, and kinetic, rhythmic skitter. The twisted backgrounds and the delirious dada-ist surrounding soundscapery, definitely point to Potter's longstanding collaboration with Nurse With Wound, but here those sounds are wound up tight, and let loose in a noisy, chaotic, carnivalesque funhouse, that at it's most intense sounds like a robot orchestra come to life, and running rampant, a barrage of buzz and hum, torrents of tangled rhythms, all bleeding and oozing into one thick viscous wall of pulsing pulsating sound, the eventually melts down to a cool droned out field of staticky skitter, and softly percolating grey noise drift,
The B side is a live recording of a rehearsal for a performance, and in some ways sounds like a more minimal, deconstructed, and sort of underwater version of the A side, softly noisy cascade pour down over beeps and bloops, splattery percussion is wreathed in warm swirls of echo and hum, the vibe murky and washed out, but building to occasional white noise squalls, the sounds a slow undulation, prickly and caustic in places, warm and shimmery in others, a field of slow moving drones, that splinter into shard of jagged sound, before sinking to the bottom, replaced by another thick layer of syrupy swirl. Dense and tense, but darkly dreamy, the sound eventually settling into something akin to old Oval, but replacing the muted shadowy swirl, with something a bit more abrasive, heavin swaths of industrial crunch, and jagged spears of high end skree, all wound up into slithery, prickly tangles, that eventually begin to unwind, the edges wearing off, the harsh surfaces burnished and glowing, the sound melting into a softly shimmering sprawl of hushed haunting thrum.
As with all Tapeworm tapes, extremely limited, this one featuring original cover art by noneother than Savage Pencil.

POTTER, JAMES 13 Drones (Crawling Wind) cd 13.98
Final documentation of Potter's synth drone experiments, done before he sold his Moogs to concentrate on his real love, the sitar.