OVRO Horizontal / Vertical (Drone Records) 7" 9.98
New on Drone Records! Ovro is a Finnish woman who has recorded a handful of dark, dark, dark electronic albums for the steel-eyed Some Place Else label. Her contribution to the Drone series curated by Stefan Knappe of Troum, features two tracks of underwater percolations and bubblings, not all of that far removed from the geothermal vent recordings that Jakob Kirkegaard presented through Touch a while back. On top of these thick, churning, low-end rumbles, Ovro musters an unsettled chorus of scraped guitars and found object manipulation that pushes what otherwise could have been a clinical investigation into geologic sound towards the sound esoterica of Cranioclast, Coil, and irr. app. (ext.). As with all Drone singles, this is limited to 300 copies; and for this edition, Ovro has hand mounted photo negatives to the covers.
MPEG Stream: "Horizontal"
MPEG Stream: "Vertical"

OWWL Dark Places (Utech) cd 14.98
We first discovered mysterious multiple w'd dronedrift outfit Owwl via a cd-r that showed up one day in the mail, and we were pretty much totally smitten on first listen. This German duo specializes in that sort of ultra minimal dronemusic we can't ever get enough of, blackened sprawls of obsidian thrum and softly pulsating rumbles, long tones spread way out and layered into lush landscapes of dark overtones and perceived rhythms. The thing that really made Owwl stand out was that they augmented their drones with a 19th century reed organ, giving the sound a haunting organic feel, and transforming it into something much more emotional and evocative than most the guitardrone records we hear.
So it makes perfect sense that they would end up on Utech, who seem to specialize in the sort of blackened minimalism and psychdrone mesmer that Owwl traffic in, and it is indeed a perfect match. This latest missive from Owwl is even darker and denser than the cd-r, the sounds impossibly lush, at times reminding us of some Phill Niblock piece slowed down to a crawl, but with the same sort of overtones, the sound deceivingly static, but alive with all manner of sonic subtleties. But it's not all pure dronemusic, the band do explore a more psychedelic sound, creating shimmery ragas, the harmonium unfurling a gorgeously warm thrum, that the group stretch waaaaay out, wreathing it in guitar buzz and pulsating swells of crumbling distortion, or wrapping it in sheets of muted feedback. The sound veers into an almost industrial black ambience, abject and corrosive, but still washed out and dreamlike, before settling into a long stretch of whirring chordal shimmer, a dense softnoise cloud that seems to ooze and expand, the sound growing more and more lush, the blackness revealing colors hidden within, a smoldering soundworld of blunted tones, blurred chords, and beautiful black drift.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Housed in a super striking oversized sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "44° 25' 39" N, 26° 5' 15" E"
MPEG Stream: "29° 15' 0" S, 70° 44' 0" W"

OWWL Tree Speaks To Stone, Stone Speaks To Water (self-released) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've mentioned it before, but we do find it sort of strange, the device of doubling a letter in a band name (Mutiilation, Celestiial) or even adding s superfluous one (Wooden Shjips), and now we have Owwl, and granted, Owwl is a way cooler name that Owl. This German duo sent us their cd-r, and like many things, there it sat, for way too long, cuz when we finally did throw it on, we were pretty captivated. Guitardrone records are no new thing, but these guys definitely offer their own take, the instrumentation to begin with, guitar feedback and a 19th century reed organ, and that's it, improvised live in the studio, these three long tracks are lush and dark and haunting and hypnotic. The guitar and the organ both trafficking mostly in low tones so it's often difficult to tell which is which, deep rumbles, and layered whirs, keening almost melodies, the sound so thick at times it almost sounds orchestral, often building to epic crescendos, the sound threatening to crumble, the feedback just this side of howling, instead pulsing and undulating and adding a subtle, almost rhythmic component.
The tracks slip easily from high end thrum, to deep sonorous shimmer, the various bits of buzz and rumble, often turning caustic, the sounds becoming crunchy and crumbly, the distortion seeming to transform the notes and chords into strange decaying textures, sometimes splintering into near chaos, other times slipping into more meditative drifts. The final track is a series of dense swells, the layered tones pulsing and beating against each others, the various overtones creating strange overlapping rhythms, the sound seemingly alive, an active expanse of droneguitar on the verge of blossoming into pure psychedelia, especially when a cascading avalanche of high end tones rains down on the churning black rumble below.
LIMITED TO 70 COPIES!!! Each one hand numbered. These are the last copies available. They come packaged in super swank hand made mini book-like sleeves, with an actual photo affixed to the front, while inside there's a nice printed vellum insert.
MPEG Stream: "I"
MPEG Stream: "II"

OX Aftermath (Kult Ov Nihilow) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For those of you unfamiliar with OX, a quick look at the cover should tell you all you need to know. The image on the front it a towering Orange amplifier, the back cover, a close up of some amplifier vacuum tubes. Two songs to a side, with titles like "Seismic", "Mass", "The Horror" and "Abyss". And hell, the record's called Aftermath. Plus, it's on Finnish label Kult Of Nihilow, who in the past have brought us records from Boris, , Dot [.], Church Of Misery, Fleshpress and Stumm. So if you guessed massive, pummeling, sloooooow, doooooom, dirge heaviness, you've definitely come to the right place.
We listed a 10" from OX years ago, and sadly we were only ever able to get about a dozen. We got a whole lot more this time, but these will probably still be gone before you know it. OX is the one man guitar doom project of Ken Baluke, who spends most of his time wielding his axe in Canadian doom groove outfit Sons Of Otis, but in OX, it's just him, and his guitar, and what sounds like lots and lots of really big amps. OX is definitely a practitioner of that sort of slow motion sludge guitar ambience, but definitely has his own unique angle. The core of OX's sound is a thick slithery Earth 2 style glacial riffing, a black liquid doom that sort of seeps out of your speakers, but above this dense low end is a gloriously fuzzed out effulgence, all glistening fuzz and radiant sparkle. Those two extremes all tangled up and constantly bleeding into one another. Haunting and heavy and so beautiful. Not sure whether it's supposed to play at 33 or 45, but sounds great either way. On 33 it's a sloooooooooooow crawl, at 45, it's still slow, but a little less murky and more luminous. Sort of like having two different, but equally heavy and kick ass records in one!
LIMITED TO 255 COPIES!! We got about 40 of those, and once they are gone we most likely won't be able to get more.

OXBOW King Of The Jews (Hydra Head) cd 17.98
If someone had never heard San Francisco's Oxbow before, and knew nothing about them - or for that matter knew nothing about Sammy Davis Jr. either - we wonder what they'd make of that album title/cover art? Definitely wouldn't help 'em guess what sort of music lies within, some of the earliest and insanest stuff by an AQ fave band we lovingly call "fucked rock geniuses". If you are one of those innocent souls who have never heard Oxbow before, well, dive in here and see if you can take it. And needless to say, if you are already an Oxbow fan, of course you NEED this if you don't have it already, which you might not, since until now Oxbow's 1991 sophomore album King Of The Jews has never been available as a domestic compact disc release. It has been paired previously with their 1989 debut Fuckfest as an abridged single cd, and then later as a double, both imports long out of print, as are of course the original vinyl lps on Oxbow's own label CFY Records. And this new Hydra Head reissue is the most deluxe and definitive, packaged in a nice paste-on mini lp-style sleeve, and enhanced with four bonus tracks, three of 'em previously unreleased.
Back when we reviewed Hydra Head's similarly presented, equally essential reissue of Fuckfest in 2009, we said that when they did King Of The Jews, we'd probably just write more or less the same review, that is, saying that this record also displays all the elements of Oxbow we appreciate: primal swampy skree and atmospheric loud-soft dynamics, lumbering slide guitar sickness and singer Eugene's regression therapy vocal histrionics... it's part Scratch Acid (or Jesus Lizard), part Butthole Surfers, part Birthday Party, part Cormac McCarthy novel, part primal psycho-sexual cabaret, part utterly alien WTF?!
This album's special guest star Lydia Lunch joins the madness on 2 of the cuts, "Daughter" and "Angel", utterly subsumed into the crazy, kecak-y, confusional handclap chaos of the former (what an album opener, damn!!), adding extra drama to the latter. Not that Oxbow needs much help in the drama department; Eugene's bedlamite mewlings and mutterings amidst the band's desolate atmospheres and sudden rock spasms are both bizarre and intense and go way beyond mere music-as-entertainment that's for sure.
Oxbow has been keeping rock weird for a long time now, and this is one of the most crucial documents in their entire discography. It'll clue you to the Oxbow formula of lots of tension, not so much release, though there's more of the latter here than on some other Oxbow outings... Highly, highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Daughter"
MPEG Stream: "Angel"
MPEG Stream: "Cat And Mouse"

OXBOW Love That's Last (Hydra Head) cd + dvd 14.98
Rock and roll as a raw nerve art form, that's the intense Oxbow aethetic... a band that dares you to listen, much less attend one of their shows. Avant garde yet drawn to swampy roots, Oxbow's approach is both intellectual and primal at the same time, these men channeling psychic and physical distress into their music, so much tension and release it's disturbing to behold... This brilliant and unique Bay Area outfit has been going strong against all odds for almost two decades now (!) and with each passing year seem to gain a wider audience, despite never ever being a part of any scene or trend. Not one that would help them, anyway. Except maybe now, that they've seemingly been accepted into the Neurosis/Isis axis of arty post-metal noisecore, releasing their last full-length An Evil Heat 4 or 5 years ago on the Neurot label and now (finally!) reappearing on Hydra Head with this cd+dvd package. Love That's Last isn't exactly the new Oxbow opus we've being waiting for, since it's not an all-new album but rather a collection, complete with commentary and lyrics in the booklet, of unreleased live cuts, improv tracks, compilation rarities, and a few "greatest hits" from their hard to find early albums. You'll certainly get a representative serving of their cathartic ugly/pretty rock action here, with all of Oxbow's characteristic Bonham beats, slide guitar skronk, droning ambience, and of course the distinctive mewling/screaming baby monster vocalizations of scary front man/fighting man Eugene Robinson. Highlights (and that's what all this is, really) range from their infamous "Insylum" duet with Marianne Faithful from 1996's Serenade In Red to the 1998 live recording "Glimmer Bird" to the prototypical expression of Oxbow anguish that is "Yoke" from their 1989 Fuckfest debut. Ten tracks in all... you too might be crying like a baby when it's over. Oxbow would be happy about that.
The DVD portion includes 5.1 mixes of a handful of Oxbow classics, plus filmmaker Christian Anthony's Oxbow documentary Music For Adults (previously available here at AQ when it was a dvd-r release) with outtakes too, AND a bunch of additional live footage of the band in Belgium and San Francisco. Here's what we said about Music For Adults before: "Now you can vicariously join Oxbow for their summer 2002 European tour. Even better than actually being there, you can enjoy their shows and tour hijinx without running any risk of Oxbow singer Eugene getting you in a headlock (and pulling down your pants, as happens to at least one unhappy Scotsman in this film). The live footage captures the Oxbow rock machine in all their twisted, bawling glory, while the 'behind-the-scenes' stuff will show you that they're actually all really nice guys!"
So, Oxbow fans NEED this. And it's obviously the first thing the prospective Oxbow fan needs to pick up as well. Hopefully that's just what's gonna happen. Recommended as always with all Oxbow product!
MPEG Stream: "Insylum"
MPEG Stream: "Is That What Sleep Looks Like?"
MPEG Stream: "Pretty Bird"

OXLEY, TONY The Advocate (Tzadik) cd 16.98

OZMADAWN Rise Of The Moth (Chambara) cd-r 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've been raving about krautdronedrifters Expo 70 quite a bit around these parts, and you all have been equally smitten it seems. Their blissful spaced out meditations, looped guitars and thick washes of outerspace shimmer pushing all our krautrock and doomdrone buttons.
But imagine Expo 70 with a bit more muscle, more grit, more guitars, more synths, just... MORE. A bit darker, a bit heavier, more buzz and more layers, less blissy and more propulsive. Imagine almost if you can, a more metal Expo 70, and maybe you'd end up with something like Ozmadawn.
We highlighted a disc by an SF band called Horseflesh a short while ago, a killer slab of post industrial krautdrone, channeling the German masters, but also more recent floorcore like Wolf Eyes, Yellow Swans, Skaters, etc. Well, the man behind Horseflesh just so happens to be half of the duo known as Ozmadawn, and on Rise Of The Moth, he and his partner take up from where Horseflesh left off, jettisoning some of the washed out shimmer and industrial crunch for something much more thick and corrosive, blown out and druggy, dense throbbing pulsing blasts of buzzing snarling layered krautdrone nirvana. Falling somewhere between Popol Vuh and SUNNO))), Hawkwind and Vulture Club, gloriously trance inducing outerspace hypno-heaviness. Not to say there aren't blissed out moments, there definitely are, the band unfurls super dreamy synthscapes, that drift and pulse, that feel like they trail off into forever, but those tranquil stretches always eventually seem to build into something equally hypnotic but way more fierce, soon overtaken by coruscating blackdrone guitars, and all manner of thick buzz and oscillating whir, somehow retaining the same sense of mesmer, but within a much more dense and aggressive framework. Simultaneously thick and heavy, soft and space-y, murky and metallic, drone-y and dreamy.
Packaged in cool hand screenprinted digipaks, pressed on black cd-r's, with a screen printed cardstock insert, and each with a unique 'recycled' Ozmadawn sticker.
MPEG Stream: "Entering The Atmosphere"
MPEG Stream: "Planet Forbidden"

OZMADAWN The Deepest Sleep (Chambara) 2 x cassette 8.98
Latest release from Bay Area blissdronespacedrift duo Ozmadawn, this one a gorgeously and elaborately packaged double cassette of music for sleep, separated into two sections, "For Sleep Or Meditation" and "For Smoke And Spirits".
The first tape is designed as the title suggests, for meditation and sleep, and is indeed a dark, dolorous bit of drifting low end, slow motion rhythmic swells, shimmering drifts of soft buzz and delicately crumbling distortion, lots of space, distant hiss, a softly swirling bit of minimal ambience, but with a dash of grimnity, this is not totally blissful and dreamy, the sounds here are dark and haunting, the mood harrowing, the overall vibe cinematic, the soundtrack to late nights and lost caves, to grey clouds drifting in front of a blood red moon, the various bits of electronic glitch, sound like they could be field recordings, insects, small creatures exploring their nocturnal landscape, all quite beautiful, but simultaneously quite dark.
The flipside gets even more evocative, with a layer of hiss that makes the record sound like it's wreathed in a rainstorm, or at the very least a late afternoon shower, the rumbling and buzzing drifting way back behind a sheet of processed hiss, the whole thing a softly shimmering bit of deep blackened late night moodmusic. So nice.
The second tape, the one designated "For Smoke + Spirits" is indeed a much more stirring bit of soundscapery, right out of the gate, creepy and tense, long tones wrapped around repeated motifs, total scary soundtrack stuff, a slow build from haunting to downright freaked out, streaks of feedback, a low lumbering melody, but right up in front a bit of sustained chordal soft focus skree that will most definitely have your hairs standing on end. Still pretty and mesmerizing, but seriously and cinematically harrowing, eventually building to a full on swarm-of-insects frenzy, a buzzing, swirling, convulsing wall of sound, while underneath, the original creep and drift continues to hover, the mix of the two disparate elements creating something gorgeously noisy, and/or noisily gorgeous.
ULTRA limited, as in 50 copies, we got about a dozen, they come housed in those oversized plastic clamshell cases, the kind that usually contain language tapes or instructional cassettes, the sleeve is hand stamped, hand numbered, and assembled one at a time, featuring a cool reflective front cover, includes a printed insert, and again, will probably be gone in no time...

P.A.R.A. Mermalien (Olde Engish Spelling Bee) lp 17.98

P.H.O.B.O.S. Anoedipal (Megaton) cd 28.00

PAAVOHARJU Yha Hamaraa (Fonal) lp 21.00
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Oh how we adore the Finnish label Fonal Records -- home to the likes of Kemialliset Ystavat, Islaja, Kiila and Es. And now, won't you please kindly welcome the newest addition to the Fonal roster, Paavoharju! We can say that that welcoming 'em is not such a difficult thing to do 'cause they sure do make some wonderful music! In fact, Cup and Jim have both listened to it almost every day since its release. It's true!
Note: We don't want to deny anyone the pristine 'first listen' magic that we experienced. We can attest that it was a sheer delight packed with many surprises, and our fondness has only grown with each listen. So if you want your introductory spin to be 'pure', please be forewarned that this review contains what some might call spoilers... that means stop reading now!
In many ways Paavoharju can be likened to fellow enchanting Finnish artists Lau Nau and Fonal labelmates Islaja, but their finely detailed yet loosely strung music is considerably more melted and collaged and electronic. Listening to Yha Hamaraa is almost like eavesdropping on a dream... or having someone else's heartbreaking memories come back to hazily haunt you. Sounds, voices and melodies drift in and out of focus, occasionally overlapping and seeping into one another. Sometimes it seems like you're listening to a rickety old radio with the dial set between stations so that the sounds somehow magically fit together. Odd faintly familiar elements make their presence felt such as in the ninth song where the male vocal melody brought to mind a twisted folk (and of course very Finnish) version of "Stairway To Heaven". The swooping, trebly female vocals find their own special place between Indian film music singers and the Southeast Asian voices that surface on the similarly (un)structured Sublime Frequencies travelogue field recording compilations. And reference must be made to Bjork as well! Now after having read this far in our review, you might find the very first track with its swell of distorted static-y noise to be somewhat unexpected, disorienting even, but we encourage you to go with it (and with us). Allow the wash of sounds to transport you into Paavoharju's intoxicating world. Completely and utterly breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "Aamunuringon Tuntuinen"
MPEG Stream: "Vitivalkoinen"
MPEG Stream: "Kuljin Kauas"

PACIFIC RATE TEMPLE BAND / MONOPOLY CHILD STAR SEARCHERS split (Pacific City) cassette 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We only have a dozen or so of these, and it's unclear whether we can get more of these, so we won't bother going into too much detail. A split release, from the Skaters' Pacific City label, this one featuring new aQ faves the Monopoly Child Star Searchers on one side, the new to us Pacific Rate Temple Band, who we will assume is another Skaters side project.
The MCSS are in fine form as always, creating a sound so fantastically alien, we're still unable to pinpoint how much of it is played, how much is sampled, what instruments are used. Regardless, it's a gorgeously tripped out tribal dronejam. With way more guitar (?) this time around keening and waiting over that distinctive Monopoly murky tribal rhythm. The sound sometimes hiccup when the tape jogs, but it only adds to the weirdness. Warbly and dizzying and another recording towards convincing us we just might dig MCSS more than the Skaters!
Pacific Rate Temple Band have a similarly hazy sound, but the percussion is more distant or buried, instead the focus is on long drawn out high end tones, a sort of upper register skree, layered notes, overlapping tones, all shifting and beating subtly against each other, very primal and tribal, sun dappled and shimmering. It almost sounds like a high end remix of the other side, or if it were possible, the two sides played simultaneously would probably sound amazing.
Either way, this is some gorgeous stuff, and is of course limited, and again we only have a dozen, so be warned...

PACIONE, ADAM Dobranoc (Elevator Bath) picture disc 17.98
Adam Pacione's blissed ambience has quietly enthralled us over many years now; and he continues his relationship with the exceptional Elevator Bath label, who has issued this wondrous album through an ongoing series of picture discs that previously included work by Rick Reed, our own Jim Haynes, and Dale Lloyd. Pacione claims a bunch of sources for Dobranoc, including guitar, field recordings, analogue synth, Moog filters, and shortwave radio. He seems intent on extracting particular, harmonious colors from each of those materials and working them into a monochromatic blur of softened dronescaping and hushed ambience. The faintest of half-melodies work through Pacione's stately compositions; and it's easy to become lost in these extended moments on Dobranoc. Throughout, Pacione streams a series of delicate textures that could be snow coming through the radio, or it could be a light shower of rain that settles behind much of Pacione's sustained tonal flutterings. No matter the source, the slight abrasions of these sounds act as a ghostly counterpoint to the purity that Pacione gets out of his drones. The resulting wanderings through his radiant soundfields have much of the sense of mystery that Zoviet France managed on Shadow Thief Of The Sun or that emerged from the more minimal explorations of Stars Of The Lid. The picture disc features two blurred macro-lens images sporting oversaturated colors abstracted through the lens; these are suitable visuals to accompany Pacione's ethereal work. Limited to 268 copies.

PACIONE, ADAM From Stills To Motion (Infraction) cd + 3"cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

PACIONE, ADAM Sisyphus (Elevator Bath) cd 14.98
After a handful of amazing, and of course super limited cd-r's comes the debut real cd full length from Adam Pacione, a modern day practitioner of ambient alchemy, realized in the form of luxuriously understated dreamdrone music. Still limited (329 copies) of course, and still amazing, Pacione channels the spirit of Brian Eno, William Basinksi and other like minded explorers of musical inner space through lengthy drifts of super soft focus abstract sound. Each track is an impossibly spacious underwater world of murk and murmur, muted rumbles, smoothed out expanses of shimmering fuzz, gentle lilting smears of sound, all subtly looped into incredibly hypnotic barely shifting soundscapes.
Ultra minimal for sure, but so dense and layered that the songs and sounds seem to change shape and color with every listen. Smooth and darkly glistening, Pacione crafts a deep lush sound, while somehow managing to retain bits of lo-fi sonic grit that help add all sorts of unlikely texture and timbre to Pacione's otherwise ultra serene drift. A perfect dreamlike blend of dark glacial glide and warm glistening glimmer. Another absolutely essential disc of gorgeous late night drift.
Packaged in lovely screen printed, recycled paper jackets, with printed inner sleeves. And again LIMITED TO 329 COPIES!!! So not sure how long these will last.
MPEG Stream: "Joelma's Burning"
MPEG Stream: "An Evening's Pursuit"
MPEG Stream: "Groves, Springs & Hilltops"

PACIONE, ADAM With Wakened Eyes (Bee Eater) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Like fellow Texan mesmerists Stars Of The Lid, Adam Pacione's sounds are utterly timeless with only the barest gesture of movement to deliver a beautiful arc of sublime driftwork impressionism. Similarly, Pacione is quite the craftsman for these utterly beautiful surfaces of subtle sonic reflections and refractions, choosing to spend many years on a set of recordings instead of churning out the cd-rs. This ambient alchemist had issued a variation of With Wakened Eyes back in 2005, with the material dating back a few years earlier. We've not heard the earlier version (although some of the sources mutated into his impeccable Sisyphus CD), but this sounds damn good to us. The aforementioned Stars Of The Lid, William Basinski, and the best of Brian Eno's ambient compositions come to mind when trolling through the expansive wash of drift and drone of With Wakened Eyes. Pacione's blurred soundfield actively engages in softened vibration, aerosolized melodies, sunbleached drones, and sustained tones that glimmer with a blinding sunbeam shot through a dense thicket of leaves, making for a gorgeous, late night drone album. Limited edition of 100 copies.
MPEG Stream: "This New Ocean"
MPEG Stream: "Ways Of Telling"

PADANG FOOD TIGERS Born Music (Blackest Rainbow) lp 21.00
Brand new full length of hushed minimal pastoral psychedelia from the duo of Spencer Grady and Steven Lewis, who also do time in aQ fave Rameses III, and like we mentioned in the review of the cd ep we listed a while back, the sound of Padang Food Tigers is like a more minimal version of the sound of their main group, the songs lush layered expanses of hushed folky drift, laced with field recordings, the sound of rainfall seems to run throughout, as if the listener was eavesdropping on some intimate back porch rainy day jam.
Most of the songs here feature just a couple instruments, usually guitar, banjo, lapsteel, piano, even harmonica, the song a gradual unfurling of some lazy woozy melody, the sound rich with room sound, a lush natural reverb, a dream like echo, the opener introduces the record with the sound of rain, over which a haunting piano plays a funereal lament, accompanied by banjo, the two playing out a skeletal harmony, often making it difficult to tell which is which, the perfect intro to such an introspective record.
Much of the record is like some sort of abstract, Appalachia, subtle strum, slippery slide, all spread way out, letting notes flutter and fade, spinning surprisingly lush streaks of warm whirring buzz, the tracks with banjo sound like slow motion bluegrass, other tracks introduce more natural sounds, rushing rivers, chirping crickets, and suddenly the jam seems to have moved creekside, the notes bouncing off the porch and joining the sounds of the woods and water, a few of the tracks build and become epic and emotional, like the soaring majesty of "Right Up Rooster", a lush swirl of strummed high end steel strings and warm piano chords, the sound almost liturgical, but so dreamy and divine.
And the record finishes with a bit of music box like melody, woven into some spare late night folk, all warm and lit by flickering firelight, a darkly dreamy finish to a darkly dreamy record. So nice.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, already sold out at the label!
MPEG Stream: "Born Music"
MPEG Stream: "Rise Before The Rain"
MPEG Stream: "Every Heaven I've Ever Seen"

PADANG FOOD TIGERS Go Down Moses (Under The Spire) 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.
The strangely named Padang Food Tigers, are actually an offshoot of blissed out pastoral dream drone folk outfit Rameses III, and it sounds like it.
A short three track ep of sun dappled folky drift, sounding like three movements of a single piece, all hazy and hushed and delicate and lovely, the simple strummed melodies drift above field recordings of wind and water, wrapped in lush gauzy swells of soft focus whir, laced with tinkling chimes and distant bells, a slowly unfurling landscape of abstract folk drone meditative mesmer, eventually the instruments fade, leaving just the chimes and the sound of the world outside. Only to have the simple strumming reemerge over a brief stretch of crackle and pop, the sounds presumably of a warm fire in the hearth, this time there's piano as well, a delicate counterpoint to the crystalline guitar, which drifts lazily into the final track, the piano more pronounced, this time everything underpinned by the thick liquid buzz of a bowed cello, the deep resonant rumble wrapping warmly around melancholy pointilist piano, a sonic rendering of a lazy summer afternoon, the trees waving in the breeze, a stream burbling nearby, a glimmering world of tranquil bliss and washed out dreamlike folk drone ambience. So lovely. Sad it's so short.
Packaged in a stamped cardstock sleeve, LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Go Down, Moses"
MPEG Stream: "Corn Stem King"

PADDEN, DANIEL Pause For The Jet (Dekorder) cd 16.98
Another back room discovery, a little stash of these until-now-unreviewed discs, 2008's Pause For The Jet, from aQ fave Daniel Padden, whose solo records we ended up digging way more than his day job in Volcano The Bear. Not to slag VtB, but Padden on his own, manages to create gorgeously head spinning, fractured and fantastical worlds of sound, schizophrenic and chaotic for sure, leaping willynilly from all out noise assault to lilting folk, from murky drone to twangy ethereal drift, which in other hands could definitely be jarring and disorienting, and, well... hell, it still is in Padden's hands, but there's just something about the way he strings all those disparate sounds together that works. Although works in a way that will most likely not be obvious to the casual listener, but by now, anyone into weird homebrewed sounds, will no doubt find much to dig here (and anyone whole loved Padden's other discs, you're probably gonna want this too!).
Pause For The Jet seems to tend toward the drone and the drift, sort of, 17 songs most of them pretty short, some as short as 30 seconds, the longest almost 5 minutes, but the rest hovering between 1 and 3 minutes, which might frustrate some, looking for long, slowly unfurling dronescapes, but taken as brief bits of droning sound and twisted melodic weirdness, PFTJ is a pretty appealing listen. Stretches of ethereal shimmer, underpinned by plonking piano and low slung bass, slip into maddeningly fractured collages of varispeed tape manipulation, hazy blurred drift and disembodied pump organ, detuned twang flecked campfire folk gives way to hushed melancholic thrum, Tow Waits-ish back alley cabaret is peppered with Ribot like guitar buzz and still more tape weirdness, elsewhere strings keen and buzz and bombinate, Padden croons beautifully over skeletal melodies, dark swells of thumping upright bass pulse beneath Herrmann like strings and noisy percussion, the record lumbering back and forth between atonal skronk, and haunting avant lo-fi folk, psychedelic shimmer, and disembodied ghostlike creep.
Another one we have VERY few copies of, so act fast...
MPEG Stream: "Those Troats"
MPEG Stream: "Marseille Tape"
MPEG Stream: "Our Earthly Balloon"

PADDEN, DANIEL Pause For The Jet (Dekorder) lp 14.98
Another back room discovery, a little stash of these until-now-unreviewed discs, 2008's Pause For The Jet, from aQ fave Daniel Padden, whose solo records we ended up digging way more than his day job in Volcano The Bear. Not to slag VtB, but Padden on his own, manages to create gorgeously head spinning, fractured and fantastical worlds of sound, schizophrenic and chaotic for sure, leaping willynilly from all out noise assault to lilting folk, from murky drone to twangy ethereal drift, which in other hands could definitely be jarring and disorienting, and, well... hell, it still is in Padden's hands, but there's just something about the way he strings all those disparate sounds together that works. Although works in a way that will most likely not be obvious to the casual listener, but by now, anyone into weird homebrewed sounds, will no doubt find much to dig here (and anyone whole loved Padden's other discs, you're probably gonna want this too!).
Pause For The Jet seems to tend toward the drone and the drift, sort of, 17 songs most of them pretty short, some as short as 30 seconds, the longest almost 5 minutes, but the rest hovering between 1 and 3 minutes, which might frustrate some, looking for long, slowly unfurling dronescapes, but taken as brief bits of droning sound and twisted melodic weirdness, PFTJ is a pretty appealing listen. Stretches of ethereal shimmer, underpinned by plonking piano and low slung bass, slip into maddeningly fractured collages of varispeed tape manipulation, hazy blurred drift and disembodied pump organ, detuned twang flecked campfire folk gives way to hushed melancholic thrum, Tow Waits-ish back alley cabaret is peppered with Ribot like guitar buzz and still more tape weirdness, elsewhere strings keen and buzz and bombinate, Padden croons beautifully over skeletal melodies, dark swells of thumping upright bass pulse beneath Herrmann like strings and noisy percussion, the record lumbering back and forth between atonal skronk, and haunting avant lo-fi folk, psychedelic shimmer, and disembodied ghostlike creep.
Another one we have VERY few copies of, so act fast...
MPEG Stream: "Those Troats"
MPEG Stream: "Marseille Tape"
MPEG Stream: "Our Earthly Balloon"

PADDEN, DANIEL The Isaac Storm (Ultra Eczema) lp 16.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
As much as we all dig Volcano The Bear, we've actually been loving VtB member Daniel Padden's One Ensemble project even more. While Volcano are more of a surreal dadaist experimental sound outfit, for the One Ensemble, Padden takes those same Dadaist tendencies but tempers them a bit, wrapping them around pretty pop or lilting folk and creating some truly alien sounding prettiness.
But on this ultra limited lp, Padden takes his One Ensemble and wanders back into some serious Volcano The Bear territory. Demented music box melodies drift amidst soaring strings, clinking clanking percussion, deep moaning cellos, bursts of staticky field recordings and manipulated field recordings, while over the top float haunting mysterious melodies. Sounds a bit like a more druggy demented Tom Waits.
Elsewhere, thick washes of fuzzed out ambient whir wrap themselves around damaged pitch shifted guitar warble, junk yard percussion marches through thick clouds of ominous drones, detuned acoustic guitars shimmer beneath heavily reverbed scrapes and squeaks and wheezing harmonica melodies. A totally mesmerizing, dizzying and damaged trawl through some surreal junk yard filled with broken musical instruments and ghost musicians, jamming in the middle of the night to an audience of beat up stuffed animals and rusted out appliances. So cool!
Packaged in a super spiffy crayon colored owl, coloring book collage cover.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!

PADDEN, DANIEL (THE ONE ENSEMBLE OF) Live at VPRO Radio (Brainwashed) cd-r 11.98

MPEG Stream: "Clown Flinging"
MPEG Stream: "Mustard Mustard"

PADDEN, DANIEL (THE ONE ENSEMBLE OF) The Owl Of Fives (Textile) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As much as we dig UK musical experimentalists Volcano The Bear and their disjointed sonic surrealism, VtB member Daniel Padden has always managed to take that sound of theirs even further, somewhere else entirely, to a place where his juxtapositions coalesce into a dark and highly personal, mostly instrumental melancholia. Meandering and thoughtful, like a twilight walk through a musical forest, just wandering, laying down on the ground when the mood strikes you, gazing at patches of sky through the dense canopy of leaves, feeling the wet earth soak through your clothes, shivering as small insects crawl all over you tickling your skin, squinting as you're blinded by a brilliant shaft of sunlight that breaks through the trees, then melts into the forest floor beneath while you're sprinkled with a fine mist as the wind looses the condensation from the branches. This not-so-precise effect is achieved with reverby pianos in vast expanses of space, slippery slide guitar, plinkety plonk keyboards, soaring minor key strings, Appalachian guitar picking over squirming beds of bombinating drones. Padden's dense buzzing ragas are all dreamy and melancholy and super intimate and personal sounding, but somehow at the same time are grandiose and epic, with occasional waltz-like marches, like chamber music for some outer space / otherworldly king and his court. Occasionally delicate and haunting, occasionally rambunctious and a little chaotic. But always totally beautiful and mesmerising and truly mysterious. Think somewhere between Eyvind Kang, the Sun City Girls, Kronos Quartet, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and Jack Rose. All that and more is filtered through Padden's slightly skewed musical mind's eye.
MPEG Stream: "Farewell My Porcupine"
MPEG Stream: "Gong Farm"
MPEG Stream: "Singing Norway To Sleep"

PAIK, NAM JUNE Works 1958-1979 (Sub Rosa) cd 16.98
Five compositions by video artist Nam June Paik. Long before he became famous for his work in the visual arts, Paik had travelled to both Japan and later to Germany (along side Karlheinz Stockhausen at the Westdeutsche Rundfunk's Studio For Electronic Music) to study composition. This cd is the first time these works have been released outside of extremely limited cassette and lp issues and date from as early as 1959 to as late as 1979. The tracks themselves are as varied as one might expect from such an extended period. The first piece "Prepared Piano For Merce Cunningham" (1977) is a solemn 28 minute improvisation on a detuned piano. This piece was originally released in an edited form but is presented here as it was recorded, in its entirety. Three of the pieces were unearthed in Paik's apartment in 1999 while searching through uncataloged films and videos. "Hommage A John Cage" (1959), "Simple" (1961), and "Etude For Pianoforte" (1960) are tape experiments using crude splicings of recorded music, Paik screaming, various recorded noises, all sped up, slowed down, scrambled and otherwise mutilated. "Duett" (1979) is a 25 minute improvised collaboration between Paik on piano and Takis on metal sculpture. Paik drifts between various baroque and classical themes before settling into a slow dirge while humming mournfully as Takis intermittently strikes on large chunks of metal. The piece has a beautifully melancholic yet absurd quality that approaches self-mockery but somehow remains sincere.
RealAudio clip: "Hommage A John Cage"
RealAudio clip: "Duett"

PAINE, ANDREW & RICHARD YOUNGS Mauve Dawn (Fusetron) lp 14.98

PAINFORGED / GNAW THEIR TONGUES A Confession Of Worshipping The Depraved And Perverse Human Psyche (Shadowgraph) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We won't go into too much detail with this one, it was limited to 100 copies, is already sold out, and we got a mere 10, sold 3 or 4, so by the time you read this we'll have 5 or 6 left, and will NOT be able to get more. Gnaw Their Tongues obsessives will NEED this, three new tracks of GTT's fucked up and brilliantly brutal industrial symphonic cinematic black doom, all buzzing guitars, crashing percussion, twisted strings, warped vocals, twisted samples, black ambience, all woven into something freaky and creepy and unlike anything else you've heard.
We had never heard Painforged before, but they are most definitely a worthy matchup for GTT, a similarly abject bit of abstract blacknoize and metallic ambience, processed sounds throb and skitter and pulse over monstrous vocals, strange samples laced with super spare programmed doom-ed drumcrush, swirling black ambience and thick swells of rumbling buzzing doomdronedirge low end, laced with deconstructed and decaying riffage, slowed down cookie monster vox, and spidery atonal guitar squiggles, all melted down into a noxious and black sonic stew.
Packaged in a dvd style case, nice printed covers, almost sold out, so cross your fingers and add to cart...
MPEG Stream: PAINFORGED "A Confession Of Worshipping The Depraved..."
MPEG Stream: GNAW THEIR TONGUES "Kaolo"

PAINKILLER Collected Works (Tzadik) 4cd 44.00
4 cds collecting the almost-complete works (plus some previously unreleased pieces) of the collaboration among 3 of the biggest egos in contemporary music: John Zorn, Mick Harris, and big bad Bill Laswell. Nicely presented, with all the original (banned-in-England in one instance) artwork. Includes "Guts Of A Virgin," "Buried Secrets," and "Execution Ground" (with the bonus live in Osaka disc from the import Japanese version, featuring guest Eye Yamantaka of Boredoms). And then there's the previously unreleased track with Keiji Haino on guitar (doing a Jacks cover!). Makigami Koichi also guests on vocals.

PAINKILLER John Zorn's 50th Birthday Celebration Vol. 12 (Tzadik) cd 16.98
JZ's 50th was/is a never-ending party it seems. The cds just keep on coming. We haven't managed to keep up at all with 'em all. But we did have to take a moment to check out this, a new Painkiller document! Painkiller being one of our favorite John Zorn ensembles, wherein he teamed up with grindcore drummer Mick Harris (Napalm Death/Scorn) and ubiquitous bassist Bill Laswell for several extreme explorations of heavy-duty, jazz metal improvcore back in the early '90s. The "Collected Works" four-cd box set on Tzadik remains quite recommended (especially for the band's best work, the dubby death ambient double disc set called Execution Ground), and includes guest appearances from the likes of Eye Yamantaka and Keiji Haino.
So what's the deal with this live, September 2003 birthday Painkiller reunion, then? Well, first off, although Laswell is (of course) on board, Mick Harris isn't. Does he even still play drums? His replacement is Chicago jazz percussionist Hamid Drake. And, the special guest at this show was Mike Patton, always a suitable stand-in for Eye. So this isn't quite the same Painkiller, being rather, um, "funkier" than we remember 'em being. It's also certainly exuberantly noisy. Well, maybe the darkest Painkiller stuff wouldn't really be right for a birthday party, after all! The three tracks here, two of 'em quite lengthy, were all composed and/or improvised by the Zorn/Drake/Laswell/Patton unit. Patton contributes plenty of distorted screams and jib-jabbery glitched out electonics n' vocals, while the Laswell/Drake rhythm section generally grooves along, and Zorn switches back and forth between both camps, blowing like crazy to keep Patton company or playing "jazzier" stuff to swing with Laswell and Drake. Zorn, Patton and yes indeed old Painkiller fans will all find this of interest. It's not quite the Painkiller of the Mick Harris days, but there's still plenty of dubby, mayhemic skronk here that's at least really "Painkillerish".
MPEG Stream: "Your Inviolable Freedoms"
MPEG Stream: "DPM"

PAINTED CAVES Not Here Not There (Dust Editions) cassette 9.98
It's here! Not Here Not There is the first release from Painted Caves, aka Evan Caminiti, one half of psychedelic dronefolk duo Barn Owl, and while Painted Caves, like many of the Barn Owl offshoots, definitely exists in a similar sonic plane, one of sprawling smoldering guitar thrum, and shimmering soft focus guitar ambience, Not Here Not There finds Caminiti getting way more abstract, mixing some ethereal synth drift into the dense swells of chordal thrum, a gorgeous expanse of guitar/synth exploration, with subtle electronic manipulations, all blurred into a gauzy softly billowing whole. The tape begins very much like past Barn Owl outings, a sort of twang flecked, sun dappled whirring cloud of warm guitar swirl, but after a spell, the sound grows downright malevolent, expanding into churning sonic stormclouds before dissipating into another hazy washed out ethereal atmosphere, underpinned by a
smoldering chordal fog, wreathed in a murky shimmer that soon gives way to a brooding softly undulating soft-psych thrum, and eventually finishes with the dreamily wistful final track, a hauntingly melancholic smear of muted prismatic buzz and hum, almost like a more psychedelic dronedrift version of the Caretaker, with buried lost memory like melodies, and a glimmering field of soft focus crackle and cosmic haze.
This is the first release on Caminiti's Dust Editions imprint and is LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Includes a digital download as well.

PAINTING PETALS ON PLANET GHOST Fallen Camellias (A Silent Place) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We love, love, loved the cd that Japan's PSF label released by Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, 2009's Haru No Omi, a disc of hushed hazy psychedelic semi-acoustic drones backing delicate female vocals, themselves often gently looped and layered. Although on PSF, and despite those vocals being in fluent Japanese, PPOPG is the work of Italy's Ramona Ponzini, joined by the ever-industrious Opalio brothers from My Cat Is An Alien, and is probably our favorite thing the Oplaio's have been involved with.
Now, we knew of an earlier Painting Petals album on Time-Lag, the vinyl long out of print, but had somehow missed out on this one, a 2008 release from the A Silent Place label. Well, as you may have noticed elsewhere on this week's list, we just managed to acquire an assorted quantity of A Silent Place "product", at a "nice price" too, including (yay!) a handful of these lovely discs. It's totally along the lines of the PSF release, being another album of gorgeous, near-ambient driftworks, apparently recorded in "mystic locations" in the Italian Alps, with Ponzini's dreamy vocals once again set amidst melodious shimmering drone, and tinkling bells... there's both wind chimes, and what sounds like field recordings of actual wind, along with guitars, glockenspiel, antique accordion, mini-keyboard, and harmonica. Utterly entrancing and relaxing.
So, if you liked the more recent Haru No Omi as much as we did, you should act fast and try to grab one of these. We won't be able to get more, and only have a few...
MPEG Stream: "Kari"
MPEG Stream: "Yume No Hanashi"
MPEG Stream: "Kyoto No Mizu"

PAINTING PETALS ON PLANET GHOST Haru No Omoi (PSF) cd 17.98
It'd be easy to mistake this beautiful, beautiful album for being Japanese... the title is in Japanese, the singing is in Japanese, and it's on the great Japanese psych label PSF after all, with an obi and everything! But actually, it's the work of Italian experimental chanteuse Ramona Ponzini, who is an associate of the My Cat Is An Alien collective (members of whom also being part of this project), and is obviously fluent in Japanese. Totally belongs on PSF though, worthy of being of the rare albums of Western origin appearing on that label, and we think it's one of the loveliest, regardless of where it's from. And it also lives up to its evocative name Painting Petals On The Planet Ghost, whatever that phrase might mean...
On the seven hushed tracks here, Ponzini's gentle vocals hover amidst even gentler hum and hiss, accompanied by sun-dappled, slow motion acoustic guitar melodies, minimalistic and melancholic, and droning synth. These songs are sometimes visited by chiming bells, or restrained, ceremonial-sounding percussion. There's an intimate, yet mysterious vibe to it all, one that's dreamy and drifting, Ponzini's singing at the center of these songs, the focus of the listener's attention, but at the same time, the soft-focus nature of these tracks as a whole also being the attraction, the delicate interplay of vocals, melody, and drone almost becoming a haunting, holistic oneness. Pleasantly haunting that is, a hypnotic late night listen, somnolent folkish lullabies given gorgeous drone treatment.
Doused in mild echo effects, with overdubs her sweet singing is vaguely layered and looped, or at least some ghostly suggestion is made in that direction, where she starts one vocal line, then it fades into a wordless hmmmmmm, as another one of her vocals is layered over what has become part of the warm background hum...
For fans of Fursaxa, Grouper, Valet, and other female-fronted loner psych-folk-drone stuff, as well as of course certain Japanese artists, like AQ faves Nagisa Ti Te for sure, or Ai Aso with her cooing waifish vocals. Or, remember female Japanese duo Eddie Marcon's Shining On Graveposts disc (soon to be available again, at long last, by the way!)? This reminds us a lot of that wonderful album, but 'tis even more gauzy and droned-out... Packaged in a miniature LP-style gatefold sleeve, and highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Honoho No Ko"
MPEG Stream: "Yume No Hanashi"
MPEG Stream: "Akatsuki No Hoshi"

PAIVANSADE Puhalluspelto (Eclipse) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Attention Finnophiles!! Another missive of forest-y free folk from far away Finland. This time in the form of a super limited lp from the group Paivansade, who happen to be made up of folks from Kiila, Rauhan Orkesteri and Lauhkeat Lampat who some of you may be familiar with. The sound is everything we've come to expect and love, plucked strings, wheezing squeezebox, chimes and rattles, very spare and spacious, like a Fahey record stretched out as far as it will go, with ambient bowed strings, very haunting. Once in a while the sound erupts into squealing, clattery, whistling frivolity, with deep throaty hand drums providing a clumsy rhythmic framework for a wild tribal gypsy folk workout. Fans of Anaksimandros, Kemialliset Ystavat and Avarus will obviously find this essential. Limited to 500 copies!

PALACE OF WORMS The Forgotten (The Flenser) cd 8.98
For a while, San Francisco seemed like some sort of black metal mecca, record after record and shows galore, all sorts of grim and kvlt hordes, Leviathan, Draugar, Crebain, Horn Of Dagoth, Elk, Necrite and more. And while some of those bands are still active, the recordings have seemed to dry up, more a trickle than a torrent. We know there is a Crebain record in the works, there's the forthcoming Mastery 2cd on tUMULt, a rumored Leviathan, but there are lots of new bands too, Botanist, Kerasphorus, and these guys, or rather this guy, Palace Of Worms, and finally a new slab of fucked up freaked out blackness from SF to obsess over, and believe us, this is well worth obsessing over.
Anyone into any of the above mentioned bands will dig PoW for sure, a dizzying blend of troo black metal buzz, and experimental post rock, which is evident from the first few seconds of the record, beginning with haunting majestic synths, then a brittle lo-fi blast of metal, that sounds like it was played on a mandolin, or pitched up, before the song proper kicks in with a wall of frenzied super saturated black buzz, croaked vokills, and buried in the mix blast beats, switching gears multiple times throughout the song, chugging doomic sprawl, to gnarled Deathspell style blackprog, with plenty of tangly guitar lines and lurching tempo changes, clean guitar, very reminiscent of another aQ BM fave Woe, the same sort of melodic sensibility fused into a seriously harrowing chunk of grim black aggression.
The rest of the record follow suit, dipping occasionally into ultra raw, old school black metal pound, weird almost industrial shoegazey ambience (sounding a bit like Nadja or Jesu), classic midtempo Burzumy blackness, awesomely creepy Eastern tinged black ambience, almost Katatonia moody sounding melodic blackness, but always returning to that furious heaviness, all lightning speed riffage, hellish vox, dizzying complex rhythms, soaring synths, but all infused with that strange, and subtle pop element that turns grim and black into something much more interesting, and makes Palace Of Worms another band to add to SF's black pantheon.
MPEG Stream: "Far From The Light"
MPEG Stream: "The Antagonist"
MPEG Stream: "As I Slumber Amongst The Cold Thoughtless Stars"

PALADINO, FRANCESCO & OPUM Nosesoul (Hic Sunt Leones) cd 7.98
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Some of our favorite records over the last few years have come from our customers. As in, recorded and released by, not just recommended by. I mean, it makes perfect sense, that folks into cool weird music, would be making cool weird music themselves, but nevertheless it's always a nice surprise. Whether it's the delicate dreamy folk of Ilyas Ahmed, or the crushing doom of Monument of Urns, it's always exciting to discover that the guy who buys all the weird cd-r's, or the customer who is always ordering super limited vinyl is in fact, making some strange and wondrous sounds themselves.
Such is the case with our Italian mailorder customer Francesco Paladino, who has teamed up with Opum (Paladino seems to prefer the collaboration, having joined forces with lots of folks in the past including dronesters Alio Die) for a record of epic and hauntingly cinematic low end explorations. Field recordings are deftly woven into huge sprawling drones, strangled falsetto vocals and growling grumbled voices drift ominously amidst the slowly swirling low end ambience. Chimes tinkle and random bits of percussion float restlessly above thick fuzzy synthesizers, all the while more and more strange animalistic vocalisations enter the mix. Birdsong and simple percussion are the framework of one track, while a pulsing synthesized throb another, FX swirl effortlessly over the sound of scraping stones, whispering wind, distant chanting. The vibe is strangely liturgical, one can imagine this disc as the soundtrack to some slow moving Italian giallo, Goblin handling the freaked out progged up horror parts, while Paladino and Opum handle the suspense, the dark shadowy corridors, a long walk through a moonlit park, the foreboding feeling that death lurks around every corner. Creepy and sinister and ominously beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Preghiere"
MPEG Stream: "Light"

PALE BLUE SKY Shades Of Grey (Arbor) lp 14.98

PALE SKETCHER Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed (Ghostly International) cd 13.98
Pale Sketcher finds Justin Broadrick taking his post Godflesh project Jesu in an entirely new direction. Named for Pale Sketches, a collection of early Jesu demos and song fragments, unused parts and unfinished songs, which were presented on Pale Sketches as a collection of odds and ends, but here are reworked into a mysteriously minimal electronica. And to be totally fair, the sound, while on the surface seems radically different, really doesn't sound all that far removed from the sound of Jesu proper, sure the thick metalgaze guitars are stripped away, and the beats are a bit more skeletal and overtly electronic, but the lush shoegazey drift is still what it's all about. Thick swells of melancholy minor key shimmer, spidery melodies, hushed gauzey production haze, everything sun dappled and washed out and prismatic, it's not that hard to imagine that instead of this being a one time excursion, that this is in fact the direction Jesu was, or is, headed. Every record since the debut, Heartache, has consistently gotten less heavy, more and more mellow and dreamy, drifting ever closer to a sort of M83 style retro eighties shoegaze doom pop, so it would make perfect sense for Jesu to gradually be transformed into something warm and dark and electronic.
The sound here suits the songs perfectly, dreamy and minimal, moody and hushed, a little bit dubby, the heaviest parts are the swaths of buzzing dubsteppy bass that surface here and there, but otherwise this is like some spaced out soundtrack composed by Jesu, very cinematic, haunting and lovely, stripped down and abstract, the vocals ghostly and ethereal, in fact most all of the sounds here are ghostly and ethereal, allowed to drift and shimmer, held in place by muted pulses, and streaks of soft skitter, the whole thing ends up sounding so dreamlike, so otherworldly, the perfect next step in Jesu's constant evolution.
MPEG Stream: "Don't Dream It (Mirage Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Wash It All Away (Cleansed Dub)"
MPEG Stream: "The Playgrounds Are Empty (Slumber Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Plans That Fade (Faded Dub)"

PALE SKETCHER Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed (Ghostly International) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pale Sketcher finds Justin Broadrick taking his post Godflesh project Jesu in an entirely new direction. Named for Pale Sketches, a collection of early Jesu demos and song fragments, unused parts and unfinished songs, which were presented on Pale Sketches as a collection of odds and ends, but here are reworked into a mysteriously minimal electronica. And to be totally fair, the sound, while on the surface seems radically different, really doesn't sound all that far removed from the sound of Jesu proper, sure the thick metalgaze guitars are stripped away, and the beats are a bit more skeletal and overtly electronic, but the lush shoegazey drift is still what it's all about. Thick swells of melancholy minor key shimmer, spidery melodies, hushed gauzey production haze, everything sun dappled and washed out and prismatic, it's not that hard to imagine that instead of this being a one time excursion, that this is in fact the direction Jesu was, or is, headed. Every record since the debut, Heartache, has consistently gotten less heavy, more and more mellow and dreamy, drifting ever closer to a sort of M83 style retro eighties shoegaze doom pop, so it would make perfect sense for Jesu to gradually be transformed into something warm and dark and electronic.
The sound here suits the songs perfectly, dreamy and minimal, moody and hushed, a little bit dubby, the heaviest parts are the swaths of buzzing dubsteppy bass that surface here and there, but otherwise this is like some spaced out soundtrack composed by Jesu, very cinematic, haunting and lovely, stripped down and abstract, the vocals ghostly and ethereal, in fact most all of the sounds here are ghostly and ethereal, allowed to drift and shimmer, held in place by muted pulses, and streaks of soft skitter, the whole thing ends up sounding so dreamlike, so otherworldly, the perfect next step in Jesu's constant evolution.
MPEG Stream: "Don't Dream It (Mirage Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Wash It All Away (Cleansed Dub)"
MPEG Stream: "The Playgrounds Are Empty (Slumber Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Plans That Fade (Faded Dub)"

PALESTINE / COULTER / MATHOUL Maximin (Young God) cd 14.98
Charlemagne Palestine has long been one of the pioneers of American Minimalism, tracing back to his '60s performances that rivalled Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, and Tony Conrad in duration, intensity, and transcendent potential. "Maximin" finds Palestine working with David Coulter and Jean-Marie Mathoul to re-intepret / re-mix / re-iterate (or how ever you care to catagorize it). For the most part, Palestine contributed material from his albums "Jamaica Heinekens In Brooklyn," "Schlongo!!!daLUVdrone," and "Karenina," while Coutler and Mathoul added additional drones, found sound textures, illbient breakbeats, and ethnic instrumentation.
RealAudio clip: "Schlongo!!!daLuvdrone Revisted 1"
RealAudio clip: "Schlongo!!!daLuvdrone Revisted 2"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Continuous Sound Forms (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
Volume 2 in Alga Marghen's "The Golden Research" series of Charlemagne recordings from the late '60s to mid '70s. The self-explanatory "Continuous Sound Forms" features two works from Palestine's archives. "Duo Strumming for Two Harpsichords" (1978) is broken into three excerpted duets between Palestine and Elisabeth Freeman who hammer out a continuous tight arpeggiation on two harpsichords. At predetermined times, the duo altered their tight rhythmic patterns to play indeterminant notes, giving a very playful feel to the piece. The title of "Piano Drone" (1972) is a little misleading as the entire piece doesn't exactly coalesce into an extended drone, rather this is a painterly composition of whimsical piano patterns that are washed out with acoustic effects using the piano's sustain pedal.

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE From Etudes To Cataclysms For The Doppio Borgato (Sub Rosa) 2cd 18.98

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Holy 1 & Holy 2 (Alga Marghen) 2lp 37.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"The Golden Research" series of previously unpublished works from the Charlemagne Palestine vaults so far comprises two cd volumes and this expensive vinyl item, which features an expanded version of what you get on half of the first cd volume (reviewed elsewhere). The 'late night electronic sonorities' of 1967's "Holy" are here presented in four subtle variations (instead of the two found on the cd version, where the piece is pared with "Alloy"). This piece was based upon creating a drone that harmonized with the din of New York's late night ambience. Using a battery of oscillators that were altered to emit varying degrees of white noise, Palestine generated an effective electric drone device which fluctuates ever so slowly across the two 20 minute variations. Palestine himself described his sound generators as "immense sacred machines humming like gargantuan Tibertan bees." Palestine presents two version of "Holy 1," one version of "Holy 2," and a sound-collage between was commissioned by Gus Solomons for a dance piece at New York University.

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Holy 1 & Holy 2 / Alloy (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
"The Golden Research" series of previously unpublished works from the Charlemagne Palestine vaults begins with this volume that documents two distinct bodies of Palestine's work. The first being the 'late night electronic sonorities' of 1967's "Holy" which are presented in two subtle variations. This piece was based upon the creating a drone that harmonized with the din of New York's late night ambience. Using a battery of oscillators that were altered to emit varying degrees of white noise, Palestine generated an effective electric drone device which fluctuates ever so slowly across the two 20 minute variations. Palestine himself described his sound generators as "immense sacred machines humming like gargantuan Tibertan bees." The second half of the cd features "Alloy", which is one of those pieces that qualified Palestine as one of great minimalists from the 1960s. Working with Tony Conrad, Bob Feldman, and Deborah Glaser, Palestine accompanies the electric drones from "Holy" with extended glossalalic vocals, the clatter of various chimes, and Conrad bowing one very long amplified string. An excellent historical document.

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE In-Mid-Air (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is one of three separate shards of electronic music history (Ashley, Neuhaus, and Palestine) recently unearthed by Italian audio archaeologists Alga Marghen.
The disc of early Charlemagne Palestine electronic works ("late night recordings" at the NYU Intermedia center on the Buchla 100 and 200 analog synths, done between 1965 and 1970) is probably the most "listenable" of these three reissues. It's also volume 3 in Alga Marghen's "The Golden Research" Palestine archive series. Listenable, yet certainly scarily dark and droney and hissy, conjuring fear and sudden violence, far from the pretty, hypnotic bliss of some of the man's later work. Inspired by everyday refrigerator hum and race car motors, but way more "late night", this material must predate his obsession with cute stuffed animals!
MPEG Stream: "Tymbral For Pran Nath"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Schlingen-Blangen (New World) cd 15.98
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NYC drone-pioneer Palestine takes us on a 71-minute trip of shimmering bliss, utilizing not his usual Bosendorfer piano but rather a baroque organ. First realized in 1979, recorded in 1988, and finally now released. "Schlingen-Blangen" is a sustained organ drone in which Palestine manipulates the timbre subtly throughout the piece. Very reminscent of the works of Palestine's contemporary La Monte Young. To be filed under "disembodied organ sonority"!

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Schlongo!daLUVdrone (Cortical Foundation) cd 16.98
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"Schlongo!daLUVdrone" was a Valentine's Day performance that Palestine gave as a part of the Beyond The Pink performance festival held in LA in 1998. His contribution was a pipe organ solo concert at the Hollywood Methodist Church. While Palestine's liner notes do well to explain the process, his grammar sucks: "I began my investigation pipe by pipe creating sonorities putting small folded paper nuggets between the keys a continuous sound object starting with a fundamental then a perfect fifth then the octave above and gradually building enormous sonorities over several hours with tens then hundreds then thousands of overtones interacting with the beats creating a rhythmic fabric of overwhelming complexity." Of course our grammar often leaves something to be desired too... but what are you gonna do?

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Sharing A Sonority with Terry Jennings, Bob Feldman, Rhys Chatham, Tony Conrad (Algamarghen) cd 21.00

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE / TONY CONRAD An Aural Symbiotic Mystery (Subrosa) cd 14.98
We think the mystery suggested in the title is why this is the first ever recorded collaboration between these two giants of improvised left-field minimalist drone. Both Tony Conrad and Charlemagne Palestine, key figures in early American minimalism and the New York avant-garde of the early seventies had only performed three times together previously and since reuniting in Belgium in 2001, hadn't even seen each other in three decades. What's equally amazing is that neither one fully dominates this extended performance. Palestine's multiple crystalline organ drones graft neatly with Conrad's bowed pulsations from his modified 5 string violin, eventually intensifying with blistering shimmers and burning organic keyboard crescendos before falling into subdued space and void. There the two sweep the dust off and begin to spar with each other all over again, getting into some heated free-music territory culminating in Palestine's delayed vocal drones and Conrad's blissful undulating vibrations. Gorgeous!
MPEG Stream: "An Aural Symbiotic Mystery 1"
MPEG Stream: "An Aural Symbiotic Mystery 2"

PAMELA Z A Delay Is Better (Starkland) cd 15.98

PAN DOLPHINIC DAWN (SKATERS) s/t 7" 9.98
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First things first. SKATERS. 100 COPIES. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. You know the drill. Anyway, James from the Skaters steps out on his own for this brief blast of free drone loveliness. Under the name Pan Dolphinic Dawn (thus the Dolphin on the cover, although not sure how the swastika on the other side figures into things), James wanders through murky tunnels of muted noise, thick, and dense, with mumbled rumbles and whirs piled up into near melodic waves of sound. Lots of reverb makes the whole thing sound pliable and soft like a pillow dipped in tar, like you could just dunk your head right into the middle of this 7", but the murk is thick and viscous enough that you would most likely be unable to pull yourself free and would end up suffocating, ears full of molten goo. But what a way to go.