WHILE Lock (Chocolate Industries) cd 14.98
While his brilliant debut single on Musik Aus Strom was a dark melodic take on old Autechre, While (the man) settles for atmosphere rather than melody on his first full album, sounding a lot more like Disjecta, Boards of Canada, and at times Coil.

WHITE LIGHT CIRCUS Break The Circuit (DC Recordings) 12" 13.98

WHITE LIGHT CIRCUS Rocket Ride (DC Recordings) 12" 11.98

WHITE MOTH s/t (Angel Oven) cd 13.98
Not one, but TWO brand new records, brand new BANDS in fact, from the man behind avant black metal weirdos Pyramids, Sailors With Wax Wings and thie one, White Moth, both heavy and weird in their own way, and both featuring incredible ensemble casts, not so much guests and collaborators. In some ways it does both of these records/groups a bit of a disservice to lump them together, as most reviewers (including this one) do, but it's sort of unavoidable, for as different as these two records may sound, there are quite a few similarities conceptually and even sonically.
For those unfamiliar with Pyramids, we've been pretty smitten with these guys ever since we first heard their double disc debut on Hydra Head, a dizzying sonic concoction that infused black metal blasts with washed out shoegaze glimmer, swirling dreamy ambience, blurred slowcore drift, actually it might be more accurate to describe Pyramids as some sort of blissed out shoegaze slowcore outfit that flecked their dreamy sound with bits of black metal buzz, but either way, the sound these guys cooked up was heady and psychedelic and pushed our buttons BIG TIME. Everything we could want in a weird heavy band seemed to be all smeared into this gorgeously indistinct entity called Pyramids. And the interesting thing about that debut, is that it already sort of foreshadowed the genesis of these two new projects, by including a discs of remixes/reworkings featuring Swans drummer Ted Parsons, Toby Driver of Kay Dot, Colin Marston of Behold the Arctopus, James Plotkin of OLD and Khanate, Justin Broadrick of Jesu / Godflesh and French industrial black metal crushers Blut Aus Nord. And the recent 5 cassette box seemed to be another sign pointing at Pyramids' mainman R Loren's restlessness, and need to keep creating and collaborating, featuring hours and hours of interpretations and reimaginings. Which brings us to Loren's latest projects, a simultaneous release of two different record, by two different groups, each sonically disparate, yet inexorably linked, Sailors With Wax Wings, whose sound is like a more abstracted shoegazey Pyramids, and White Moth, whose sound has been described by Loren as "digital hardcore", but also infuses its drill and bass and industrial crunch with plenty of Pyramidal blissed out black metalisms (including vocals from John Gossard of Weakling and Asunder!).
White Moth is just as awesomely tripped out and confusional as Pyramids, with a lineup of collaborators as similarly expansive and eclectic as Sailors With Wax Wings: Alec Empire (Atari Teenage Riot), Shelby Cinca of Frodus (!), Lydia Lunch, Ashley Scott Jones (Treasure Fingers, Evol Intent), Sam Hillmer (the Zs), Jacob Kirkegaard, Christoph Heeman (H.N.A.S.), Colin Marston (Krallice, BeholdÉThe Arctopus), Dalek and of course John Gossard (Weakling, Asunder)...
White Moth splits its focus between textures/atmospheres/ambience, and beats, BIG gnarled drill and bass beats, mean hard heavy, self described 'digital hardcore' beats, but the opening track is surprisingly lovely, with its shimmery dreamy droney intro, its lush cascading guitars, a blissed out beat-heavy chunk of electronic pop, which is pretty much how the next few tracks play out, and to a certain extent the whole record, for all its purported black metal and digital hardcore elements, the resulting sound is electronic, and shoegazey, lots of buzzing guitars, but the buzz is muted and dreamy, giving the songs a more sort of washed out hazy glow, a surface of prismatic shimmer under which, beats and riffs churn and roil. It's not until the third track, that things get HEAVY, and even then, it sounds less like digital hardcore, and more like some sort of electronic flecked noise rock, howled almost emo vocals, soaring guitars, all on a bed of relentlessly stuttering squalls of sputter and crunch, occasionally slowing down to a doomy lumber, before smoothing out into a thick stretch of droned out guitars, and then finally some hushed ambient shimmer. "Shoot The Clock" features Dalek, and is a thick noisy swirl of guitar heavy hip hop skitter, that's definitely a perfect match, but then after all, it's the guy from Pyramids making this record, so he throws in some blown out saxophone, and layer after layer of throbbing psychedelic guitar buzz. The next three tracks are all cut from the same cloth, soaring swirling squalls of epic black metal guitar, over frantic frenetic beats, hovering somewhere right between blissed out prettiness and blown out electronic chaos, definitely leaning toward the former, even at its most extreme and punishing, it's like Loren has some pop gene, that no matter how hard he tries to subvert it, manages to worm its way into everything he does, but hell we're not complaining, it's precisely what makes this stuff so compelling, and listenable. We're all for a blackened wall of grinding beats and buzzing guitars, but when they're deftly assembled into something laced with melody and texture, even better!
The final track "To The Cathedral" is the one that features something you probably never thought you'd hear, the vocalist from Weakling, shrieking and howling over a bed of spastic electronic beats, all wrapped in gauzy streaks of blurred melody. and laced with dreamy crooned clean vocals, all tangled and chaotic and wonderfully blown out, the guitars here again are sort of black metal, but the buzz is more dreamy than grim, and you gotta listen close, cuz Gossard's vocals are buried WAY down in the mix, almost just another layer of buzz, and then it's all over in 3 minutes, a gorgeous blown out blast of hazy blackened metallic bliss pop electronica, which dissipates leaving a softly shimmering cloud of soft whirring ambient dronemusic to finish things off.
On first listen, White Moth sounds like a huge departure from Pyramids, and well removed from sister project Sailors With Wax Wings, but it only takes a few more plays to reveal that perhaps the differences are not as great as they seem, both White Moth and SWWW are buzzy and blissy, freaky and far out, psychedelic and atmospheric, brutal and beautiful, and while like Pyramids, both are probably WAY too far out to appeal to the true grim hordes, for everyone else, this is some bafflingly brilliant and abstract heaviness.
MPEG Stream: "There Was A Man With Tongue Of Wood"
MPEG Stream: "Two Women, Knitting"
MPEG Stream: "Blood And Torn Grass"
MPEG Stream: "Smiles Warm Red Light"

WHITE RING Hey Hey, My My / Felt U (Handmade Birds) lp 16.98
White Ring are another witch house outfit who manage to gain a serious amount of notoriety, with very few proper releases, relying more on YouTube videos and limited cd-r's, as well as downloads and filesharing, but of the many groups of that ilk, they were definitely one of our favorites, so it's not that big a surprise that they would end up on Handmade Birds, even less so once you get an earful of their amazing cover of Neil Young's "Hey Hey My My", which transforms the original into a hazy ethereal bliss out, that is until the drop, when the drums come in, and the buzzing synths, very reminiscent of Salem obviously, but it's a sound we're still not tired of, Southern crunk style hip hop skitter, over fuzzed out low end, everything wreathed in a dense cloud of dreampop haze, the vocals an almost wordless croon, which soar skyward along with the synths/beats, only to bliss out once again in between. We've listened to that track so many times it was ages before we even made it to the flipside, but it's a good one too, much more downtempo and dark, woozy and wondrously warped, the track building to epic soaring Salem like crescendos, reminding us of the blissed out shoegaze of M83, but then retuning to the murky skitter that is so much a hallmark of witch house / drag. Fans of Salem, and all the other witch house we've reviewed are probably gonna want this, and everyone into shoegaze and dream pop, who have yet to check out anything like this, White Ring might just be your gateway... Sorry if we run out though; couldn't get very many of this limited release.

WHITE, PAUL Paul White And The Purple Brain (Now-Again / One-Handed Music) cd 17.98
First we've heard from sampledelic South London producer Paul White, whose new album for Now-Again ought to appeal to everyone who liked the Madlib Medicine Show No. 6 disc we listed last time (which was a crazy DJ mix of vintage psych/funk/prog from around the world). Paul White likewise takes a chopped-up, dial-spinning, hiphop approach to quite similar, psychedelic material coming from but ONE source: the records of cult Swedish psych purveyor ST Mikael (who records for the Subliminal Sounds label, same as Dungen). Sampling, editing, looping, and layering snippets of ST's stuff, Paul also contributes additional synth, percussion and vocals, constructing a veritable psychedelic fantasmagoria, 25 delirious and delightful tracks that mash n' meld hiphop beats, popsike melody, Eastern string zing, folky strum, freaky electric guitar, odd sound FX, head nodding funky grooves, mystical atmospheres, non sequitur spoken bits, etc.
While we must admit we were only passingly familiar with the work of ST Mikael (and what we'd heard, or maybe it was just his record covers, seemed a bit cheesy, in an aging New Agey hippie sort of way, he's from the '90s after all) but Mr. White's hiphop makeover of Mikael is definitely cool. The results are a bit like the aforementioned Madlib, also remind us of When albums like The Lobster Boys and Pearl Harvest, as well as the likes of DJ Shadow, BMSR, and Rockford Kabine. Dreamy and druggy and definitely A.D.D. Recommended for sure. YOUR brain will be purple by the time you're through listening.
The cd version comes in a cardboard wallet, the vinyl in deluxe "paste-on" jacket, and in addition, the vinyl version includes a bonus 12" (first 1000 copies only) featuring Paul White together with Guilty Simpson.
MPEG Stream: "Pride"
MPEG Stream: "Ancient Treasure"
MPEG Stream: "Marshen Signals"
MPEG Stream: "My Guitar Whales"
MPEG Stream: "Every Breath"

WHITE, PAUL Paul White And The Purple Brain (Now-Again / One-Handed Music) 2lp + 12" 30.00
First we've heard from sampledelic South London producer Paul White, whose new album for Now-Again ought to appeal to everyone who liked the Madlib Medicine Show No. 6 disc we listed last time (which was a crazy DJ mix of vintage psych/funk/prog from around the world). Paul White likewise takes a chopped-up, dial-spinning, hiphop approach to quite similar, psychedelic material coming from but ONE source: the records of cult Swedish psych purveyor ST Mikael (who records for the Subliminal Sounds label, same as Dungen). Sampling, editing, looping, and layering snippets of ST's stuff, Paul also contributes additional synth, percussion and vocals, constructing a veritable psychedelic fantasmagoria, 25 delirious and delightful tracks that mash n' meld hiphop beats, popsike melody, Eastern string zing, folky strum, freaky electric guitar, odd sound FX, head nodding funky grooves, mystical atmospheres, non sequitur spoken bits, etc.
While we must admit we were only passingly familiar with the work of ST Mikael (and what we'd heard, or maybe it was just his record covers, seemed a bit cheesy, in an aging New Agey hippie sort of way, he's from the '90s after all) but Mr. White's hiphop makeover of Mikael is definitely cool. The results are a bit like the aforementioned Madlib, also remind us of When albums like The Lobster Boys and Pearl Harvest, as well as the likes of DJ Shadow, BMSR, and Rockford Kabine. Dreamy and druggy and definitely A.D.D. Recommended for sure. YOUR brain will be purple by the time you're through listening.
The cd version comes in a cardboard wallet, the vinyl in deluxe "paste-on" jacket, and in addition, the vinyl version includes a bonus 12" (first 1000 copies only) featuring Paul White together with Guilty Simpson.
MPEG Stream: "Pride"
MPEG Stream: "Ancient Treasure"
MPEG Stream: "Marshen Signals"
MPEG Stream: "My Guitar Whales"
MPEG Stream: "Every Breath"

WHITETREE Cloudland (Ponderosa) cd 24.00
Maybe it's the encroaching autumn, but lately we can't get enough of solo piano music. Especially when it's all minimal clusters of wistful passages, lilting progressions and sustained overtones. While this isn't a solo piano record per se, the liquid piano playing of Italian classical composer, Ludovico Einaudi, collaborating with electronic artists Robert and Ronald Lippok (To Rococo Rot, Tarwater), is at the heart of every track here. The group works fluidly together as a single unit (they recorded this live, together in one room) with the electronic nuances and occasional, but never overpowering, rhythms interlocking with Einaudi's playfully lyrical compositions. It's a lovely album that reminds us of the Rune Grammofon label's prettiest releases, and is fast becoming one of our favorite late night / early morning records. Highly Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Ullysses And The Cats"
MPEG Stream: "Tangerine"
MPEG Stream: "Derek's Garden"

WHITMAN, KEITH FULLERTON 21:30 For Acoustic Guitar (Apartment B Records) cd ep 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
You know him as Hrvatski (Boston-based electronica maverick fond of long German words and 'Amen' breaks), we know him as Keith, our friendly sales rep at Forced Exposure distribution. With this new cdep release under his own name, Keith/Hrvatski combines his expertise in the digital realm with --yes-- his acoustic guitar playing. Using a "realtime playthrough" program he designed for his Mac G3 laptop, inspired by the "Timelag Accumulator" of Terry Riley and the phasing experiments of Steve Reich, he transformed his live acoustic guitar playing into 21 minutes of haunting, beautiful abstract drone-drift. So different from the Lesser-like electronic breaks n' beats of his Hrvatski persona, but equally great. We really like it!
RealAudio clip: "Untitled01"

WHITMAN, KEITH FULLERTON Antithesis (Kranky) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Keith Fullerton Whitman aka Hrvatski takes a break from glitching and skittering and breaks of all shapes and sizes to indulge his first loves, minimalism and Krautrock. This *lp only* release is 4 tracks of hypnotically blissed out drones and Sunroof! like shimmer. One track does start to pulse and almost rock, with booming percussion and a darkly propulsive riff, but for the most part these pieces fall more into the Reich, Riley, Flynt, etc. sonic realm. Beautifully droning and repetitive, dark and abstract ambience.

WHITMAN, KEITH FULLERTON Multiples (Kranky) cd 14.98
A few years back, Keith Fullerton Whitman wowed the students of the Harvard University Studio for Electro-Acoustic Composition with a few workshops that demonstrated his wizardry with the Max/MSP computing language. In exchange, he got access to the University's collection of antique synthesizers including the Buchla Music Box and Serge Modular Prototype with their massive banks of patch bays, knobs, and toggle switches. The images of these devices which grace the album artwork in taxonomic presentation immediate provide a cold, tonal air of paranoiac, bunker aesthetic that out of the early history of institutionally funded electronic music (i.e. Xenakis, Ussachevsky, Eliane Radigue, Arne Nordheim, etc.). Multiples far exceeds whatever expectations one might have when gazing upon the covers, as Whitman once again argues his case as one of the most gifted electronic musicians of the contemporary era. Each of the tracks honestly profess their source material as 'stereo music for acoustic, electric, and electronic instruments' including those aforementioned electronic devices from Harvard as well far more commonplace instruments such as a hi-hat cymbal, a drum kit, and acoustic and electric guitars. The album opens with glacial timbres that emerge from that hi-hat which Whitman transforms into a Mirror-like dronescape of murk, fog, and mystery. Next, the Serge Modular Synth buzzes with complex saw-blade waveforms of agitated electricity, phase pattern sweepings, and post-Dockstader pointilist spectroscopy. Harkening back to his early work with tape delay and guitar repetition, Whitman's work with a Yamaha Disklavier Prototype is sublime in its hypnotic prowess echoed with a lingering sense of melancholia. Whitman then shifts to a wonderful recreation of the vintage organ 'n' drum sound from Swedish icons Hansson and Karlsson, with baroque shifts in melody upon a simple drum propulsion. Altogether, Multiples showcases the many personalities of Mr. Whitman for a marvellous album!
MPEG Stream: "4)."
MPEG Stream: "5)."
MPEG Stream: "6)."

WHITMAN, KEITH FULLERTON Recorded In Lisbon (Kranky) cd 10.98
Keith Fullerton Whitman has been globetrotting over the past couple years, presenting his Max/MSP patch wizardry at pretty much every major electronic music festival, venue, and institution that the world has to offer. The self-evidently titled Recorded In Lisbon found Whitman returning to an old infatuation with '60s minimalist / process oriented strategies like the sort found in Alvin Lucier's strongest work, as Whitman situated a feedback system of speakers, fm receivers, and speakers at Galeria Ze Dos Bois. In turn he augmented this system with recordings of "static sine-tone harmonics, squared-off electric guitar haze, clangorous room-tone eruptions, and high-end synth freakouts," to quote Hrvatski himself. From the onset of this album, Whitman introduces pristine tones with all of the timbral clarity of bells and church organs, which he slowly circulated into a sonic architecture of revolving chirps and stately loops. There's plenty of similarities between these sounds and the weightless particles which comprised his acclaimed Playthroughs album from a few years back; but a heavier set of low end pulses stochastically as a bass counterpoint but not really as a rhythmic structure. Eventually, sweeping siren tones broach the celestial minimalism amidst a cloud of pixelated glitches. The single track gradually extends to an amazing crescendo of jagged saw-tooth pink noise slowly cycling through a plainsong melody for the 21st Century. As the melody falls apart in a ring-modulated freefall of tape deceleration, Whitman concludes the album with a skitter of percussive blows and granular synthesis. Immaculate.
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

WHITMAN, KEITH FULLERTON Track 4 (2waysuperimposed) (Room 40) cd 16.98
Keith Fullerton Whitman made his way down to Australia in early 2006, showcasing his DSP-folklore collision of pastorally painted ambience, jump-cut drill 'n' bass rhythms, electronic esoterica, and a knack for Swedish prog riffs just for kicks. As a treat for his Antipodean audience, Whitman composed a piece which reworked an older track which clocked in at 10:32, doubling it to 21:04 and also re-composing the source material to be what Whitman qualifies as "bi-directional, meaning that it plays the same forwards as backwards," in other words, a palindrome (and what a fun word that is!). This plaintive reworking of drone-poetry for drifting bass rattle, rounded percolations of modular tone, and whisps of timbral trickery would have been a tour-only cd had it not been for Lawrence English convincing Whitman to release it through his Room 40 imprint. An elegant and thoughtful abstraction of digital post-ambience that more than lives up to the high standards of Whitman's previous albums!
MPEG Stream: "Track 4"

WHITMAN, KEITH FULLERTON / GREG DAVIS Yearlong (Carpark) cd 14.98
Back in 2002, Keith Fullerton Whitman and Greg Davis stopped by Aquarius during their cross-country tour to do an instore performance. If memory serves us correctly, Keith had just had his laptop stolen and was working off of a brand-spankin' new PowerBook. Unfortunately, he hadn't worked out all of the bugs as his machine continuously crashed during the performance. Not that anybody in attendance would have noticed, as he never broke his stoic game face and Davis proved to be more than capable of being able to fill in the blank spaces with digital splutter and post-Mego pixelated abstraction. Alas, none of the material from the Aquarius instore made their way onto this condensation of a year's worth of live laptop improvisations. From that year's worth of performances in New York, Cologne, Utrecht, San Francisco, Marsailles, etc. Whitman and Davis jitter, jink, and jive with their fizzing digi-chunks of sound that pass through the duo's constant manipulation of Max/MSP patches from source material that includes twinkling bells, deep gongs, erratic hammond organs, motorcycle engine blasts, metallic scrapes, etc.
MPEG Stream: "WNYU-FM Radio Session"
MPEG Stream: "Knitting Factory"

WHO IS IT? Shooting Stars (Rephlex) 12" 10.98
It's Bjork! And Bogdan Raczinski!

WHO MADE WHO Knee Deep (Kompakt) lp+cd 15.98

WILEY My Mistake (Big Dada) 12" 13.98

WILEY Treddin' On Thin Ice (XL Recordings) cd 23.00
Domestic version is now out of print, this is the more expensive import...
The whole UK grime scene / movement seems to have fizzled in terms of blowing up in the US. Which is too bad 'cause what we've heard so far has been awesome. We all totally dug the Dizzee Rascal record, and the Wiley single from a few months back hit the spot as well. With stuttering, un-funky two step garage (pronounced gare-ij), fuzzed out monster synths, and a convulted cockney flow. So Wiley's full length is finally here (beating Dizzee's sophmore effort by a matter of weeks) and it totally delivers. Funky and funny with massive beats, ridiculous flows and totally alien, squiggly synth melodies. Relentlessly funky and fucking awesome. The real question is with stuff this weird and amazing coming out of the UK, why the fuck does anyone give a shit about the massively boring Streets?? We'll never understand.
MPEG Stream: "The Game"
MPEG Stream: "Pick U R Self Up"

WILEY Treddin' On Thin Ice (XL Recordings) lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The whole UK grime scene / movement seems to have fizzled in terms of blowing up in the US. Which is too bad 'cause what we've heard so far has been awesome. We all totally dug the Dizzee Rascal record, and the Wiley single from a few months back hit the spot as well. With stuttering, un-funky two step garage (pronounced gare-ij), fuzzed out monster synths, and a convulted cockney flow. So Wiley's full length is finally here (beating Dizzee's sophmore effort by a matter of weeks) and it totally delivers. Funky and funny with massive beats, ridiculous flows and totally alien, squiggly synth melodies. Relentlessly funky and fucking awesome. The real question is with stuff this weird and amazing coming out of the UK, why the fuck does anyone give a shit about the massively boring Streets?? We'll never understand.
MPEG Stream: "The Game"
MPEG Stream: "Pick U R Self Up"

WILEY Wot Do U Call It? (XL Recordings) cd single 3.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
You know once Dizzee Rascal exploded over here, it was only a matter of time before everyone went looking for more of the same. And they found it in Wiley. Another export from the UK's grime scene, the same scene that spawned Dizzee and a handful of other folks who decided to add a bunch of fuzzy synths, buzzing basslines, and tongue twisting toasting to their two-step garage (pronounced gare-ij), a simple and repetitive offshoot of drum and bass. So if you loved the Dizzee Rascal record, you'll probably dig this, especially as the single is a dig at the whole garage scene. And those of you who are new to this stuff and haven't heard that Dizzee Rascal record, imagine a jungle record, stripped to its very framework, all extraneous beats removed, leaving just the kick and snare (two step, geddit?), and a big ol' farting burping bassline, and some Jamaican style toasting/rapping and you've got an idea of Wiley / Dizzee and the grime/garage sound. Also contains a video viewable on your computer!
MPEG Stream: "Wot Do U Call It?"

WILL OVER MATTER 9 To The Moon (Bestial Burst) cd 14.98
As hopefully you fondly recall, just a few weeks back, we made a double cd entitled Might Of The Planet Eater, by this eccentric Finnish outsider blackened industrial / electronica act, our freakin' Record Of The Week. 'Twas a sprawling and utterly bizarre set, part Pan Sonic, part power electronics, part (ir-)rhythmic occult ritual, apparently what happens when a Finnish black metal weirdo does DIY industrial experimentation. Weird and primitive and (to us) utterly awesome.
While we absolutely LOVE Will Over Matter, we'll readily admit they're, uh, possibly a difficult listen (but then, compared to some other things we sell, maybe not really). And fortunately a lot of you folks seemed to dig it! So, of course, we thought you'd want us to list this one too, an earlier album from Will Over Matter, also on Bestial Burst.
This disc is actually the first WOM we ever heard, preceding Might Of The Planet Eater by a couple years. What happened, is not long ago one of us came across a Will Over Matter track on the internet somewhere, got kind of obsessed, and was happy (and amused) to find that we actually already had one of their albums in stock!! That was this one, 9 To The Moon, which we'd apparently ordered from Bestial Burst a couple years ago (2009) when it came out, but never reviewed. The next time we did a Bestial Burst order, we also got the newer double cd, and, our obsession growing, decided to make it Record Of The Week. So all of you who liked that one, you want this too!
Again, outsider electronic electro-dirge, chock a block with squeaky squelchy static-y sounds, stuttering irregular rhythms, noisy glitchy distortion damage. Bloop zwoop zip zap. Buzzing electricity. Sinister analog synth. Computers gone haywire. The occasional disembodied, drugged out voice buried in the mix (heard on the plodding "No Waste Of Sorrow" and elsewhere). Yes, the blown out, black and white, lunar landscape (?) cover art is so appropriate for these alien, bleak, brutal sci-fi sounds, that are both confusional and compelling.
To recap, WOM is a one-man band, a project of Harald Mentor from equally insane AQ faves Ride For Revenge, allegedly a "black metal" act. WOM is not black metal (though Beherit did dabble in this direction once upon a time) but anyone who really appreciates Ride For Revenge, as well as anything totally fucked up, ought to enjoy it. And the esoteric themes of these songs (they ARE songs) are as out there as any black metal weirdness ever. The song titles aren't even provided, but the internet knows what they are.
While it's not a double disc like the other one we listed, there's 9 tracks, all of 'em long... with grand finale "The Burning Logic" building and building for over 8 minutes of crinkum crankum, industrial electro-dirge hypnosis. The whole thing is possibly dangerous headphone listening all right!
MPEG Stream: "No Waste Of Sorrow"
MPEG Stream: "Geometric Law Of The Psyche"
MPEG Stream: "The Burning Logic"

WILL OVER MATTER Lust For Knowledge (Freak Animal) cd 13.98
We got this in on the day we sent out our last list, the latest from weirdo Finnish avant electronic surreal industrial outfit Will Over Matter, the solo project of the maniac behind damaged sort-of-black-metal avant rhythmic alchemists Ride For Revenge, and we were totally tempted to just list it then, with a review that simply said "This is so much better than anything on this week's list" and leave it at that. We wussed out at the last minute, thinking it a bit too flip, and like all records we love, we really wanted the chance to gush and get a bit more in depth, but it seriously only took a day or two of listening, before we were very nearly incapable of listening to anything else.
The music of Will Over Matter, whose Might Of The Planet Eater double cd we made our Record Of The Week a few months back, is simultaneously infuriating and addictive, baffling and beautiful, a dizzying collage of primitive electronics, of abstract spaced out synths, of bizarre spoken word vocals and sprawling pulsing glitchy malfunctioning buzzscapes, like an Emeralds record if it was crafted by some strange tribe of interstellar cave dwellers, or Daniel Higgs creating primitive spiritual rituals post frontal lobotomy. There's definitely an Amps For Christ vibe too, the same sort of controlled chaos, disparate sounds and tones woven into songs both textural and strangely melodic. The opening track here is the perfect example, a 12+ minute of warped lo-fi kosmische exploration, sounding a bit like it was culled from samples of the Starship Enterprise, recorded on a handheld microcassette recorder, and then played back on a busted up old Casio sampler, a sort of spaced out industrial power electronics, but with the power rendered not so much in volume and intensity, but in depth and mystery, a hazy sort of pulsating rhythmic ambience, one that takes on more and more hiss and buzz as it goes, and it's not until about 9 minutes in, when all of the noise abates, leaving a jagged throbbing synth pulse, beneath which a strange voice intones some mysterious manifesto, the sounds gradually blurring until finally blinking out.
Even though the above paragraph would seem to point to the opposite, this stuff is actually insanely difficult to describe, because it is so unlike anything else we've heard, a compelling bit of modern electronic industrial minimalism, with touches of cold wave, of classic old school industrial, hints of course of the rhythmic weirdness of Ride For Revenge, but here stripped way down, and presented as something much more austere and cold, the voice a Teutonic bellow, that only occasionally erupts unto a more black metal growl, while the music does all the heavy lifting, creating undulating stretches of analog synth, blown out bursts of gristly glitchy crunch, rhythms cobbled together from bits of hiss and thrum, skies full of skittery bleep, of old modem high end flutter, of white noise and pink noise and brown noise all sculpted into sort-of-shapes and almost-melodies, creating again, something that to many ears might be perceived as damaged and difficult and borderline unlistenable, but to us, and presumably many of you, that's part of what makes this so amazing, the fact that it IS completely and utterly whatthefuck bizarre, while somehow managing to be totally mesmerizing, and impossibly listenable, a warped chunk of avant outsider electronic industrial weirdness that has quickly become some of our favorite music ever, and even now, we're still fighting the urge to erase this whole review and just write "this is so much better than anything/everything else EVER"...
MPEG Stream: "The Enemy Collector"
MPEG Stream: "Blades Sharpened Again"
MPEG Stream: "The Risk"
MPEG Stream: "From The Form"

WILL OVER MATTER Might Of The Planet Eater (Bestial Burst) 2cd 14.98
The awesomely titled Might Of The Planet Eater is the latest from mysterious Finnish one man band Will Over Matter, which just so happens to be the work of a fella by the name of Harald Mentor, who you might know better as the maniac behind avant outsider not-quite-black-metal weirdos Ride For Revenge. So if the low end rhythmic weirdness that is Ride For Revenge is one step removed from black metal, imagine Will Over Matter as about 5 or 6 steps past that. Not black metal at all, but more like some sort of outsider electronica.
Our obsession with Ride For Revenge stems from the fact that over the course of their career, their sound has changed to the point where they are now totally subverting and transforming the idea of black metal into something much more primal and rhythmic, forgoing the buzz and blast and replacing those obvious BM tropes with looped mesmer and tribal pound, stripping the sound down to its essence, and then slowing it down as well, sounding more to us like Aluk Todolo than Beherit. Although the mention of Beherit, another Finnish black metal institution seems particularly apt here, in that Beherit are infamous for their non-black metal output, their experimental electronics, which is precisely what Will Over Matter is. If Ride For Revenge is Mentor's twisted take on black metal, well then Will Over Matter is his skewed attempt at power electronics, or industrial music, channeling the spirit of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Whitehouse, and all the rest, but filtered through some sort of cracked and damaged blackened Finnish lens.
Will Over Matter combines the stripped down rhythmic minimalism of Ride For Revenge with experimental industrialism, melding lumbering beats to fields of spaced out static, wrapping sheets of Merzbowian noise around shuffling low end thrum and machinelike beats, adding distorted alien vox to squalls of glitched out electronics, or winding multiple streams of electronic information into strangely twisted sonic barrages.
The opening track here is a bizarre soundscape of chittery electronics, of twisted feedback and growled super distorted vocals, pelted by grinding crunch and skittering squelches, a strange array of bleeps and bloops, and buried within, a sort of almost rhythmic bit of ever shifting static, which leads directly into the next track, a droned out stretch of pulsing electronic shimmer, which manages to sound spaced out and sinister at the same time, the tone and timbre switching constantly creating, again, it's own sort of psychedelic rhythm. It's not until "Read The Signs", track number three, that the various elements coalesce into what is really the core of WoM's sound, another fluctuating field of static, of strange space-y electronics, bits of glitch and hiss, but wound around a lumbering, skeletal beat, some sort of alien krautrock, before switching gears, and becoming a weirdly propulsive throbbing electronica, but with elements of kraut/post/space rock, at it's most propulsive sounding a bit like Bastard Noise offshoot and former Record Of The Week-ers Geronimo, and at its least, like nothing you've ever heard before. The track offers up strange electronic squiggles, sinister high end buzz, all in the surface of trailing behind that motorik beat, which itself is in constant flux, cymbals popping out of the mix, processed and all dubby, while the various electronics get more and more tangled and frantic.
Then there's the sprawling 24 minute "Stone Cold Heart", a super spare and abstract stretch of blackened rhythms, and distant buzz and shimmer, that buzz, growing ever more insistent, the vocals here not so distorted, more ominous and intense, intoning some sort of ritual, over what almost sounds like a black metal Pole, minus the barrage of wildly buzzing synths, and primitive analog electronic tones.
One of our favorite tracks is the gorgeously droned out and hypnotic "Forever Nameless" that seems to inadvertently channel John Carpenter and Goblin, into something much more dark and sinister, a totally mesmerizing rhythm, wound up in a thick, corrosive buzzing low end melody, while way off in the distance, a Burzum like synth melody plays out, again reminding us of a less noisy Aluk Todolo, totally hypnotic, the vocals here are almost sung, wrapped in a weird warped distortion, the end result like some sort of doomy drone pop slowcore or something.
Throughout the remainder of these two discs, WoM stretch out strangely stiff rhythms, or pull apart robotic electro beats into weirdly metallic anti-grooves, which unwind lazily beneath hazy streaks of static, creating a series of tarpit crawls, often swallowed whole by heaving walls of electronic sound, that seem to emulate the sheer crumbling power of SUNNO))-like doomdronedirge, but are more often left to pulse, and pound, and throb, a strange alien death march, as the label describes these rituals, each ritual an "epic journey through inner knowledge, lunar madness and cosmic superpowers of satanic possession", the twisted bastard child of some dark forest, outer space ritualized mating of industrial music, black metal, power electronics and krautrock, brilliantly baffling and maddeningly mesmerizing, by now, it should be easy for you to tell if this is your cup of seriously spiked tea or not, and for most of you, we imagine it must be. Fans of Ride For Revenge, Aluk Todolo, Geronimo, Mammal, Bastard Noise, This Heat, spaced out ritualistic blackened electronics and fucked up Finnish weirdness, this one's for you...
MPEG Stream: "Precautions"
MPEG Stream: "Read The Signs"
MPEG Stream: "Superficial Solutions Collapse"
MPEG Stream: "Led By Instincts Alone"
MPEG Stream: "Forever Nameless"

WILLENBRING, WES Close, But Not Too Close (Hidden Shoal) cd-r 11.98
It's been a while since we've heard from Australian label Hidden Shoal, and just as long since we've heard from SF sound sculptor and dreamdronedrift composer Wes Willenbring, but now that we're all reunited, we can go ahead and gush over yet another fantastic Hidden Shoal release, and another gorgeous disc of ethereal ambience from Mr. Willenbring.
Willenbring is an accomplished pianist and guitarist, and those instruments form the basis of these songs, in some places that's obvious, but in others, the piano and the guitar, or any semblance of either, are blurred, or smeared, or pixelated into hazy clouds of sound, of softly shifting streaks of crystalline shimmer, the guitar often transformed into a buried pulse, the piano into soft focus flurries of barely there melody, at its most diffused and abstract, this is total bleary eyed starlight pop ambience, the sort of hushed orchestral drift that would appeal to fans of other sonic abstractionists like Stars Of The Lid or Tim Hecker or Fennesz. But Willenbring doesn't rely entirely on effects or processing, much of the music here is darkly delicate chamber music, shimmering strings, over pointillist piano, buzzing steel strings unfurling melancholic melodies in slow motion, one note at a time, a sound that's lush and haunting, cinematic and subtly epic.
Totally sublime moody minimalism, a late night moonlit, slip-into-the-ether sort of dreamdrift dronemusic, equal parts gauzy abstraction and languid whispery post rock drift, that is as divine as it is dreamy.
MPEG Stream: "I'm Looking Forward To Your Funeral"
MPEG Stream: "Oh, Most"
MPEG Stream: "The Anti-Social Aesthetic"

WILLITS, CHRISTOPHER Folding And The Tea (12K) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Like many of the 'lowercase' and 'microsound' artists, the Berkeley digital technician Christopher Willits defines his interests in an electronic music "that is generated spontaneously, non predetermined... with a focus on the the material implications of self-organizing systems." What is often left out of contemporary methodologies such as Willits' (or Taylor Deupree, Kim Cascone, Carsten Nicolai, or even Autechre) is a seemingly paradoxical requirement for these autonomous, generative systems to unilaterally contextualize the aesthetic output within the parameters of the glitch. The persistence of this glitched aesthetic is running the risk of becoming a cliche, in which the simple invocation of a fractured sample will no longer have any cultural value beyond a one-way reference to generative systems.
That said, Willits finds himself in an increasing subset of the glitched aesthetic whose practitioners have been manipulating the guitar (particularly the rich warm sounds of an acoustic guitar) through such digitized systems to add an extra-dimension to the music. Amidst the geometrically jagged sounds, aerosol dispersals of terse clicks, and random fluctuations in sonic densities, Willits' debut "Folding And The Tea" reveals itself more as Derek Bailey guitar improvisation with all of those gritty, spidery texures replaced with a very clean, very polite set of semi-structured harmonics. It neither has the density nor the shameless pop sensibility of Fennesz, nor does it have Keith Fullerton Whitman's interest in the transcendence of Minimalism; its focus is somewhat ambiguous, but the plasticity of surface found within "Folding And The Tea" rivals either of those artists in terms of craftsmanship.
RealAudio clip: "Scrims"
RealAudio clip: "Mesh, Then"

WILLITS, CHRISTOPHER Pollen (Fallt) cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We loved Willits' last full length so were were pretty excited for this one. Not nearly as abstract and 'academic', Pollen insted focuses much more on melody and song structure, approaching these pieces more like a songwriter than a composer. And while a few folks have been disappointed by the poppier results, we think fans of Oval, B. Fleischman, Ekhard Ehlers and the like will definitely find this hits the spot, a sun dappled, sweet and super warm, totally organic, chilled out glitchscape.

WILLITS, CHRISTOPHER + RYUICHI SAKAMOTO Ocean Fire (12K) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Toward Water"
MPEG Stream: "Chi-Yu"

WILP, CHARLES Michaelangelo In Space: The Bunny Remixes (Ata Tak) cd 15.98
Mr. Wilp, a strange German fellow who in the '60s composed crazy playful pop cocktail soundtracks and advertising jingles for among other products Mad. Ave. Perfume and AfriCola, gets the remix treatment by such equally sharp, stylish and fluffy artists as StereoTotal, To Rococo Rot, Tipsy, and Yasuharu Konishi (of Pizzicato 5). Very light and super fun.

WINDSOR FOR THE DERBY The Awkwardness (Aesthetics) cd ep 9.98
"The Awkwardness" is an EP of remixes by Carnival Wave, Pulseprogramming, I-Sound, Calla, and Windsor For The Derby themselves. Very few of these remixes bear much resemblance to the original downer, math-rock sound of Windsor For The Derby. Only Calla incoporates Windsor's taut rhythms and rigid structures into their remix, while everyone else takes an electronica bliss-out approach with Pulseprogramming doing a pretty good Kit Clayton impression and I-Sound fragmenting Windsor into digitally abused drill 'n' bass plod. Certainly more for fans of the remixers than the original artist.
RealAudio clip: PULSEPROGRAMMING "I Change.C?"
RealAudio clip: I-SOUND "Ice Age Blues"

WINDSURF Coastlines (Internasjonal) cd 17.98
Couldn't be a more perfect name for this bay area duo who craft such breezy cosmic delights. Samuel Grawe who also plays in Hatchback and Daniel Judd whose record as Sorcerer last year was one of our favorite electronic releases of '07 have created the perfect sounds for a beachside disco party at sunset. Released on a new label run by Prins Thomas, they inject such a refreshing and easy approach to creating cosmic flowing sounds that really do bring images of waves, sand and shimmering coastlines to mind.
There are a couple tracks with vocals that kind of make us think of the Sea & Cake collaborating with Lindstrom, but they are at their best when they let their warm orbiting sounds find that perfect wave to ride into infinity. While most of the current crop of neo-disco cosmic peddlers tend to project a more cold and late-night vibe we think much more about how rad it would be to get to hear Windsurf play in the afternoon as we sprawl out on the warm sand and let their mellow grooves carry us off in daydreams with such delight.
MPEG Stream: "Pocket Check"
MPEG Stream: "Future Warriors"
MPEG Stream: "Light As Daylight"

WISDOM OF HARRY Coney Island of Your Mind (Matador) 7" 3.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
New 7" from these AQ favorites. Side one is a peculiar pop concoction of Beck-ish funky drummer and Sparklehorse-style distorto vocal, while the B side is the real winner, a dreamy desert travelogue, as if Boards of Canada were from Arizona and neighbors of Giant Sand or Scenic. Really nice.

WISDOM OF HARRY Torch Division (Matador) cd 14.98
Whoa, as the first track begins on this new Wisdom Of Harry full length, we're hit with the thought that somewhere along the line Wisdom Of Harry got some even more raucous funkiness in their formerly sweet, sensitive folk-tronic sounds. They've certainly gone through their fair share of stylistic shifts in the time between their albums, the lovely 1999 collection called Stars Of Super 8 (an AQ fave) and the somewhat jarring House of Binary released in 2000 (not an AQ fave) and this their third full length. But hang on a sec, it seems mainman Pete Astor and co. have fused elements of their past two divergent releases into something new, both intimate, earthy and groovy, revealing a greater depth to Wisdom Of Harry. Lo-fi programmed beats, raw acoustic percussion, folksy acoustic guitars, slinky electric guitars, and shifty electronic textural layers along with Astor's smoky return to the sensitive guy vocals all fall into place with seeming ease. The much more confident and cohesive Torch Division definitely brings to mind shades of Beta Band, Badly Drawn Boy and The The.
MPEG Stream: "Joe The Astronaut"
MPEG Stream: "Neon Suit"

WOBBLE / LASWELL Radioaxiom (Axiom) cd 16.98

WOBBLY Live 99>00 (Phthalo) cd 12.98
Wobbly (aka Jon Leidecker) cites Dilated Peoples, Goran Bregovic, Julio Iglesias, Stilluppsteypa, Dr. Dre, Montell Jordan, and Daniel Miller as the most 'blatant' samples found within this documentation of his mutated electronica live performances around the Bay Area during the past couple of years. To him, this is an apology to the audience for using such obvious source material; but even to these ears at Aquarius, such citations are far from obvious and do more to compound the densely layered puzzles of plunderphonia. Just where the hell is that Stilluppsteypa sample in "Stillupsample Birds"? I sure can't hear anything related to those Icelandic weirdos, other than the common revelry of being over-stimulated by mediated sounds / images and trying to articulate that hyperactivity in the form of sound.
Wobbly's plunderphonics were born out of his work on Negativland's weekly "Over The Edge" radio show on KPFA; and have developed into a distinctive sound fitting roughly in the Negativland comedy / commentary style of media cut ups. His work never smacks of provocation, as he has been very keen on disfiguring his pop culture references to stand clearly within the parameters of "fair use." As can be inferred from a couple of those aforementioned references, Wobbly's recent work has been venturing into hip hop, but not as another whiteboy ironic appropriation. Rather, it's an exuberant decontextualization of all of hip hop's hyperboles: scratching becomes so excessively technical as to lose all recognition of the rhythm, diva vocals wail and wander through impossible notes for an eternity, breakbeats are decimated into ungroovy robotic anti-funk. Wobbly's closest comparison is in how Matmos performs surgery on house music, sewing everything back together with ample semantic and compositional counterpoints.
What is also amazing about Wobbly's live shows is that they involve no laptops, no sequencers, no midi. He edits in real time using just a mixer, a couple of cd players, and several cheap samplers. With an album coming soon on Tigerbeat 6, Wobbly's definitely one to watch!!!
RealAudio clip: "d fave / ww21x"
RealAudio clip: "stillupsample birds"

WOBBLY Multiple Peady (Boniato) 12" 7.98
Multiple Peady features four remixes from two of the tracks from Wobbly's Playlist EP, which recontextualized the intrinsically idiotic marketing babel of the corporate music world into a cut 'n' paste collage of clunky electronic jigs and deconstructed vocal samples. For this 12", the remixing artists -- Sutekh, People Like Us, Blevin Blectum, and Wobbly himself -- drew from the damaged electronic rhythms of the EP and stayed clear of the media plunderphonia. Sutekh provides the most structured remix with a dance-floor friendly number of his inimitable goof-ball techno. Blevin Blechtum's jiggly remix smashes the original into tiny maniacal fragments and spiralling time-stretched events. For his own remix, Wobbly turns the damaged hip-hop found on Wild Why with all of the quick tempo changes and erratic jump cuts. People Like Us takes us back to the open range of mutated Americana, much like her collaboration with Wobbly and Matmos on Wide Open Spaces. Limited to 440 and pressed on translucent green vinyl.

WOBBLY Playlist (Illegal Art) 3"cd 9.98
Disguising itself as a demonstrational disc from Broadcast Programming, a corporate music marketing and programming group developed to "help you stay on top of your market", the latest ep from Jon Leidecker presents itself as a conceptual piece (complete with introductory salespitches from "friendly" announcers) which restructures everything we have conventionally come to understand as popular music and radically recontexualizes it into what we understand as "electronic" music. From C&W to R&B, AOR to hip hop, Leidecker's deconstructional sampling methods as Wobbly destroys the contexts in which those genres lie, crafting a new environment where what was once unbearably intolerable becomes highly addictive. A self attesting fan of Top 40 radio, Wobbly splices the essential pop element of a song and exploits the hell out of it. And then it becomes another pop song! Just a little teaser for the Wobbly's upcoming plunderphonic hit album "Wild Why".
RealAudio clip: "Do Not Milk Or Touch Me"
RealAudio clip: "Reoutsourcer"
RealAudio clip: "Vertical Peady"

WOBBLY Wild Why (Tigerbeat6) cd 13.98
Aquarius favorite Wobbly's first release for Kid 606's Tigerbeat6 label and it's possibly his best yet! Taking source material solely from S.F. Bay Area radio broadcasts, Wild Why is the end result of over two years worth of work which began originally as a live set before being slowly and painstakenly honed and sharpened into a carefully rendered studio project. Those who were fortunate enough to catch Wobbly's instore here early this year got a sneak peak at some of the insane plunderphuckery already. Given the nature of the source material (Destiny's Child, Eminem, y'know the type), and the artist's intention that they remain completely recognizable it's logical to expect that this would be a party pleasing mix a la the Kid's "Action Packed Mentallist...", but such a conclusion would be wrong. Wild Why is like a condensed and expanded homage to John Oswald's seminal "Black" or "Brown". Wobbly twists and turns the cliched utterances of contemporary hip hop in upon themselves rendering even the most macho posturing utterly slapstick. And if that's not enough to show Wobbly's dedication to the art of plunderphonics, then one needs only to open up the accompanying booklet to reveal a transcript of the entire vocal contents of the CD. Take and excerpt of track #18 for instance: "come buy, yo play radishes part (bola bo) judgement day (uh huh) I, I, I, I, quit. hey yo, me. Now now, now, now, lust two two three, back, you know what I'm sayin', we about to give you need y'all, jack d with the key, bounce, die peeps..." etc. So you can even read along with the disc. We asked Jon how long it took him to transcribe all this, but he merely chuckled, sighed and changed the subject. Highly recommended!
RealAudio clip: "Track 13"
RealAudio clip: "Track 22"
RealAudio clip: "Track 24"

WOBBLY / PEOPLE LIKE US / MATMOS Wide Open Spaces (Tigerbeat6) cd 15.98
Not gonna spend a lot of time on this one, not because this isn't a good record; rather it's just that by the time you've finished reading about this record, it might already be gone. We have limited stock on this collaborative album of plunderphonia from People Like Us, Matmos, and Wobbly, and it's apparently already gone out of print, without any plan for future repressings. All in all "Wide Open Spaces" sounds an awful lot like People Like Us' previous album "Fistful of Knuckles," a cavalcade of bawdy jokes culled from Western storybook records, but that isn't to say that neither Matmos nor Wobbly can be heard. On the contrary, there's plenty of Maymos' twisted rhythms and Wobbly's mutant samples splattered throughout the album. Recorded live at the San Francisco Art Institute on October 5, 2002.
MPEG Stream: "Clawing Your Eyes Out Down To Your Throat"
MPEG Stream: "Cattle Call"

WOLF EYES Burned Mind (Sub Pop) cd 13.98
Wolf Eyes really tend to divide folks right down the middle. Love 'em or can't stand 'em. And in typical Wolf Eyes fashion, they're going to do their very best to annoy the fuck out of everybody with their 'big break' Sub Pop debut. Quite possibly the harshest Wolf Eyes record, which is saying a lot, Burned Mind is a caustic mouthful of acid, spit right in your eyes (ears?). A head melting electronic throb, equal parts damaged malfunctioning synths, squealing feedback, ultra distorted howls, skittering skipping sort-of-rhythms. Wolf Eyes, more than almost any other band, definitely sound damaged and fucked and seriously messed up. But what keeps Burned Mind from being a boring old straight up noise record? Hard to say. But something definitely does. Some mysterious intangible something. Burned Mind is definitely harsh, bit in no way unlistenable. In fact it's strangely beautiful and subtly (VERY subtly) melodic. Equal parts Factrix, Merzbow, Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse but all warped and twisted into the uniquely fucked sonic world of Wolf Eyes.
MPEG Stream: "Stabbed In The Face"
MPEG Stream: "Village Oblivia"
MPEG Stream: "Rattlesnake Shake"

WOLFE, CHELSEA Apokalypsis (Pendu Sound) cd 11.98
NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!!
The apocalypse has come to mean 'the end of the world' but its original Greek definition is that of 'revelation,' albeit a really fucking heavy revelation of how the world is going to end. The differences between the pop-cultural definition and the biblical definition are somewhat semantic, but it's apt to mention in regards to Chelsea Wolfe's second record which situates the title in the context of the Greek alphabet. It's pretty clear that the revelations that Chelsea Wolfe spills across her brilliant doom-folk album don't aspire to the allegories and mystical visions pronounced by David Tibet, rather she seems to be clamoring about the conditions leading up to the end of the world. With demonic possession, toxic wastelands, and haunted sexuality being so prevalent in her ghastly world view, it's no wonder she's bellowing that the end is near.
Wolfe's first record - The Grime And The Glow - was a home-recorded affair, whose tape murk added to the choking-on-smog atmosphere of the dour songs. The sparse arrangements aggressively strummed on acoustic guitar shot all of the attention back on Wolfe's beguiling voice which takes cues from PJ Harvey, but way darker and witchier. The songs did liken themselves to the early apocalyptic folk aesthetics of Sol Invictus and Current 93; and that's still the case for Apokalypsis, although she has fleshed out her sound with a full band, capable of delivering minimalist Goth ballads, swamp-rock menace, and harrowing bursts of distortion to match the mood of her songs. Wolfe twists the fairytale beginning of "Tracks (Tall Bodies)" into gritty depressive dirges, reflective of the goth sound of her native LA some two decades ago (e.g. Abecedarians, Kommunity FK, etc.). She also reprises two songs from The Grime And The Glow, including the infernal barnburner "Demons" and the antebellum blues number "Moses" which retains its minor-key mope and slavehouse misery. The stalking-in-the snow pace of "Pale On Pale" lurches at a pace even slower than that of True Widow, with Wolfe's mournful voice lifting above the churning, blackened guitars. There's a grit and a severity to Chelsea Wolfe that makes her a very compelling figure in contemporary music, almost like a musical reincarnation of The Process Church in neo-goth form. Very highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Mer"
MPEG Stream: "Tracks (Tall Bodies)"
MPEG Stream: "Demons"
MPEG Stream: "Pale On Pale"

WOLFE, CHELSEA Apokalypsis (Pendu Sound) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The apocalypse has come to mean 'the end of the world' but its original Greek definition is that of 'revelation,' albeit a really fucking heavy revelation of how the world is going to end. The differences between the pop-cultural definition and the biblical definition are somewhat semantic, but it's apt to mention in regards to Chelsea Wolfe's second record which situates the title in the context of the Greek alphabet. It's pretty clear that the revelations that Chelsea Wolfe spills across her brilliant doom-folk album don't aspire to the allegories and mystical visions pronounced by David Tibet, rather she seems to be clamoring about the conditions leading up to the end of the world. With demonic possession, toxic wastelands, and haunted sexuality being so prevalent in her ghastly world view, it's no wonder she's bellowing that the end is near.
Wolfe's first record - The Grime And The Glow - was a home-recorded affair, whose tape murk added to the choking-on-smog atmosphere of the dour songs. The sparse arrangements aggressively strummed on acoustic guitar shot all of the attention back on Wolfe's beguiling voice which takes cues from PJ Harvey, but way darker and witchier. The songs did liken themselves to the early apocalyptic folk aesthetics of Sol Invictus and Current 93; and that's still the case for Apokalypsis, although she has fleshed out her sound with a full band, capable of delivering minimalist Goth ballads, swamp-rock menace, and harrowing bursts of distortion to match the mood of her songs. Wolfe twists the fairytail beginning of "Tracks (Tall Bodies)" into gritty depressive dirges, reflective of the goth sound of her native LA some two decades ago (e.g. Abecedarians, Kommunity FK, etc.). She also reprises two songs from The Grime And The Glow, including the infernal barnburner "Demons" and the antebellum blues number "Moses" which retains its minor-key mope and slavehouse misery. The stalking-in-the snow pace of "Pale On Pale" lurches at a pace even slower than that of True Widow, with Wolfe's mournful voice lifting above the churning, blackened guitars. There's a grit and a severity to Chelsea Wolfe that makes her a very compelling figure in contemporary music, almost like a musical reincarnation of The Process Church in neo-goth form. Very highly recommended.

WOLFE, CHELSEA The Grime And The Glow (Pendu Sound) cd 11.98
NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!!
Yeah, she covered a Burzum song before releasing this album, but there's a hell of lot more to Chelsea Wolfe than copping a few moves from Mr. Vikernes. This Los Angeles minstrel has quipped she writes "spiritual realm funeral songs," and that's a pretty apt description given the acoustic guitar dourness, doom-laden atmospheres, grimy production values, and witchy goth-folk vocals that come together as the perfect hybridization of Zola Jesus and PJ Harvey. Her arrangements are pretty stripped down with little more than acoustic and / or electric guitar occasionally fleshed out with a rhythm section. She puts an outsider folk spin on her songwriting, as if she were penning acoustic black metal songs channeled through the freak-folk mysticism of Topanga Canyon. This also has a lot of similarities to the apocalyptic folk stylings of Death In June / Sol Invictus / Current 93 circa 1992 although Chelsea Wolfe is far less precious with the song and is not afraid to let some blood spill as she violently scrapes her knuckles on the guitar strings. In so many ways, what she does is so much better than what Douglas P and Tony Wakeford could conjure through their cryptic folk songs. The haunting "Cousins Of The Antichrist" is one track that effortlessly exceeds the songwriting achievements of those aforementioned British esoteric musicians, with the urgency of the violent strum on her acoustic guitar stuck in minor chords buttressing the soaring vocals.
Similarly, "Deep Talks" works its blown out 4-track recording of her grab-every-string-on-the-guitar-and-pull method of playing along with her wordless vocal delivery that's as impressionistic as Grouper, but with Grouper's narcolepsy replaced by night terrors. "Moses" (a track which interestingly follows "Cousins Of The Antichrist") plays on stomping Southern spirituals but turned ashen and turgid in pace and demeanor. And the album's closing number "Widow" is a bleak, half-whispered song mired in morose atmospheres and just the right amount of narcotic smoke and exhumed-from-a-swamp 4 track production values, sounding a lot like the criminally underappreciated Corpses As Bedmates (whose sole album was reissued under an entirely different band name - Venus Handcuffs, probably worsening things for the band, but we digress). The short of it is that Chelsea Wolfe's The Grime And The Glow is fucking great and marks another killer release in the growing catalogue of witchy releases by Pendu Sound, following an lp from Sasha Grey's Atelecine and a single from witch house maven Mater Suspiria Vision. Highly Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Advice & Vices"
MPEG Stream: "Cousins of the Antichrist"
MPEG Stream: "Moses"

WOLFE, CHELSEA The Grime And The Glow (Pendu Sound) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Back in stock, just a few last copies!!
Yeah, she covered a Burzum song before releasing this album, but there's a hell of lot more to Chelsea Wolfe than copping a few moves from Mr. Vikernes. This Los Angeles minstrel has quipped she writes "spiritual realm funeral songs," and that's a pretty apt description given the acoustic guitar dourness, doom-laden atmospheres, grimy production values, and witchy goth-folk vocals that come together as the perfect hybridization of Zola Jesus and PJ Harvey. Her arrangements are pretty stripped down with little more than acoustic and / or electric guitar occasionally fleshed out with a rhythm section. She puts an outsider folk spin on her songwriting, as if she were penning acoustic black metal songs channeled through the freak-folk mysticism of Topanga Canyon. This also has a lot of similarities to the apocalyptic folk stylings of Death In June / Sol Invictus / Current 93 circa 1992 although Chelsea Wolfe is far less precious with the song and is not afraid to let some blood spill as she violently scrapes her knuckles on the guitar strings. In so many ways, what she does is so much better than what Douglas P and Tony Wakeford could conjure through their cryptic folk songs. The haunting "Cousins Of The Antichrist" is one track that effortlessly exceeds the songwriting achievements of those aforementioned British esoteric musicians, with the urgency of the violent strum on her acoustic guitar stuck in minor chords buttressing the soaring vocals.
Similarly, "Deep Talks" works its blown out 4-track recording of her grab-every-string-on-the-guitar-and-pull method of playing along with her wordless vocal delivery that's as impressionistic as Grouper, but with Grouper's narcolepsy replaced by night terrors. "Moses" (a track which interestingly follows "Cousins Of The Antichrist") plays on stomping Southern spirituals but turned ashen and turgid in pace and demeanor. And the album's closing number "Widow" is a bleak, half-whispered song mired in morose atmospheres and just the right amount of narcotic smoke and exhumed-from-a-swamp 4 track production values, sounding a lot like the criminally underappreciated Corpses As Bedmates (whose sole album was reissued under an entirely different band name - Venus Handcuffs, probably worsening things for the band, but we digress). The short of it is that Chelsea Wolfe's The Grime And The Glow is fucking great and marks another killer release in the growing catalogue of witchy releases by Pendu Sound, following an lp from Sasha Grey's Atelecine and a single from witch house maven Mater Suspiria Vision. Highly Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Advice & Vices"
MPEG Stream: "Cousins of the Antichrist"
MPEG Stream: "Moses"

WOLLSCHEID, ACHIM Shifts (Ritornell) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Man, I wish I didn't know how this was done... because it takes all of the mystery out of the sounds and also that it appears to be the same trick that Steven Stapleton employed on the Nurse With Wound album "Thunder Perfect Mind."
Uber-conceptualist Achim Wollscheid broadcast a collage on Radio X in Frankfurt, Germany, using their three Denon DN C680 cd players. These can be operated at the same time and are equipped with scan/search data-wheels that allows one to start or stop a cd at any given point. When moved while playing a cd, the wheels send the disc into a locked groove, which can be shifted by constantly turning the wheel (about 60 shifts will scan one second of playing time). Essentially the cd players had been used to generate rapid fire pulsing clicks, which Wollscheid intuitively collaged to form a glistening digital elegance in "Shifts." Cool.

WONDER Can't Stand It 12" (Dumpvalve) 12" 11.98

WONDER Swamp Meet / Full Metal Jacket (Wonderland) 12" 12.98

WONDER Welcome To Wonderland (Dumpvalve) cd 17.98

MPEG Stream: "Chi Flute"
MPEG Stream: "Can't Stand It"
MPEG Stream: "Call My Name"

WONDER & SWAY Call My 12" (Dumpvalve) 12" 11.98

WOODEN SHJIPS Remixes (Thrill Jockey) 12" 14.98
Ultra limited 12" single from these SF psychedelic space rockers, featuring three tracks, reworked, reimagined and remixed, by Sonic Boom from Spacemen 3/Spectrum, Kandodo (aka Simon from heavy psych rockers The Heads!) and strangest of all electronica artists Andrew Weatherall, and if past WS records are any indication, even though we got a whole mess of these, odds are they'll sell out in a flash, and it's very likely that we will NOT be able to get more. Just fair warning.
Andrew Weatherall does seem like an odd choice, but his version is pretty cool nonetheless, he strips it way down, leaving just the bass, and some reverby vocals to drift over a slo-mo house music shuffle, chopping up the vocals into a cool skittery melody, laced with some Synsonics styled eighties Miami Vice drumming, and space age synth pulses, the result is edgy and tense, and definitely ends up sounding like something all the folks into that current wave of retro-futuristic faux eighties Carpenter / Goblin style soundtrackery (a la Zombi, Umberto, Majeure, etc.) would most definitely dig.
Sonic Boom from the late great Spacemen 3, whose band pretty much set the template for the Shjips, offers up the heaviest remix of the bunch, beginning all woozy and washed out, lots of sweeping backwards effects, dense tangled guitars, building to a serious psychedelic space rock blowout that almost sounds like multiple copies of the original all playing simultaneously, all slightly off, with one spinning backwards, a little like what we would hope a Teenage Filmstars / Wooden Shjips remix might sound like, which means it RULES.
The whole of the B side is taken up by Kandodo's mix, which begins with the basic tracks recorded by the Shjips and then sent overseas to be transformed into a spacey slow motion drug rock dirge, a gorgeous stoned drag, lazy and laid back, spacious and spaced out, the guitars liquid and fluid, the sound swoonsome and super hypnotic, the sound is pretty much locked in, a sprawl of psychedelic hypnorock, laced with all manner of squiggly guitars, and murky blurred melody, the perfect, nodding off drifting off comedown space-drug-psych jam for sure!
LIMITED TO 2500 COPIES! Which does seem like a lot, but see above, you have been warned...

WORLD STANDARD Country Gazette (Asphodel) cd 14.98
Haruomi Hosono (Yellow Magic Orchestra) produced this "virtual country" album, that name-checks John Fahey, Leo Kottke, Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Mississippi John Hurt, Hank Williams and others. Ambient banjo? Another really nice addition to the always-surprising Asphodel roster.