ORTHRELM Asristir Veildrioxe (Troubleman Unlimited) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Second release from former Crom-Tech guitarist Mick Barr and Josh Blair (of ABCS) following their debut on Tolotta. Ninety-nine tracks fly by at a warp speed twelve-and-a-half minutes. Naked City meets Yngwie Malmsteen gone hardcore pretty much sums it up. Ridiculous, but I'm sure these guys are so dedicated and serious to this shit. Ridiculous, indeed.
RealAudio clip: "Track 99"
RealAudio clip: "Track 97"
RealAudio clip: "Track 79"
RealAudio clip: "Track 66"
RealAudio clip: "Track 4"

ORTHRELM Asristir Veildrioxe (Troubleman Unlimited) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Second release from former Crom-Tech guitarist Mick Barr and Josh Blair (of ABCS) following their debut on Tolotta. Ninety-nine tracks fly by at a warp speed twelve-and-a-half minutes. Naked City meets Yngwie Malmsteen gone hardcore pretty much sums it up. Ridiculous, but I'm sure these guys are so dedicated and serious to this shit. Ridiculous, indeed. Vinyl is one sided with an etching by Barr on the flip.

ORTHRELM Iorxhscimtor (Tolotta) 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.
Ok, we were wrong back on AQ-L 117 when we said that former Crom Tech guitarist Mick Barr's Octis project was "the polar opposite" of his other band, Orthrelm. For some reason we had gotten the idea that while Octis specializes in short, fast, squiggly guitar mayhem (over drum machine backing), Orthrelm was some sort of droney, doomy thing with super-long songs. Nope. Not at all. Now that Tolotta has released this 16 minute long, 12 track Orthrelm cd debut, we can't figure out what the distinction between Mick's two projects really is supposed to be (except that Orthrelm boasts an actual human drummer, Josh Blair). Mick's modus operandi is the same here: trebly, twisted guitar soloing over rapid-fire drum beats. A metallic fretboard frenzy. Spastic, spiraling, skronky stuff that's almost silly. These twelve tracks sound like segments of one sixteen minute long "song", with pauses for breath every minute or two. Just as insane as Octis, and thus pretty cool if you're into such stuff, kind of like a cross between Lightning Bolt and Necrophagist or something -- but we'd still like to hear the Orthrelm we'd imagined. (Can anyone clue us into the source of our misconception? Like, does Mr. Barr have yet another band, one that's slow and epic?)
RealAudio clip: "track 2"
RealAudio clip: "track 7"

ORTHRELM Ov (Ipecac) cd 15.98
Orthrelm spells...? Not relief from headache, that's for sure! Notorious guitarist Mick Barr (ex-Crom Tech, and of Octis and Flying Luttenbachers infamy also) and drummer Josh Blair continue their assault on musical sanity with Ov, newly released by Mike Patton's envelope-pushing Ipecac label. Ov leaves the envelope pretty much pushed beyond what most people can take -- it will be quite the endurance test for some, but pure bliss for a select few. By the end of this review you should know who you are if you don't already (owning other records involving Barr is one clue).
Way back when we reviewed Orthrelm's debut ep Iorxhscimtor, we admitted that we'd been under the mistaken impression that Orthrelm was supposed to be "some sort of droney, doomy thing with super-long songs". It wasn't... but now it is. Sort of. Unlike previous Orthrelm releases (and Barr's other project Octis), Ov isn't about a million trebly tracks of stop-start skronk. No, here the duo's frenetic drumming and insidious ADD guitar squiggle are harnessed into a single, 45 minute long track of intense, almost metallic, repetitive minimalism. A high-pitched, note-dense, trance-inducing (maybe seizures too?), insectoid symphony that slowly shifts gears and builds tension but offers little respite or resolution until its 45 minutes are up or your ears/speakers/the disc iself shatters from the stress. Yet, if you can take it, Ov's continuous rumble of drums and precision frenzies of tinny guitar shred also create a thing of static, maddening beauty. I think...or maybe I've lost it. Am I crazy when I think that some of the feedbackier parts remind me of moments of the Boredoms' Super Ae? Or that this is not entirely unlike something that Boris or SUNNO))) would do... but with a million times more emphasis on the high end, and the notion of motion on the micro if not macro level??
MPEG Stream: "Ov [excerpt 1]"
MPEG Stream: "Ov [excerpt 2]"

OS The Living (Sygil) cassette + bones + coffin box 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We have only 4 copies of this, a super limited cassette tape release from weirdo abstract blackened doomscapers OS, whose Twelve Truths lp we raved about a while back. Besides being another sick slab of crusty creepy crawly black filth, the packaging is to die for, small, black-painted wooden coffins, each with a brass plaque affixed to the front, and each of course NAILED SHUT, inside is the tape, and a handful of tiny BONES! Pretty awesome. And CRAZY limited. Already out of print. We managed to get a mere FOUR copies from the band, and will not be able to get more. So if you're in the market for some howling, atonal, sludge-y blackened doom sprawl and lumbering chaotic caterwauling abject detuned black ambient heaviness, or even if you just want a killer coffin-cloaked bone-surrounded blackdoom cassette, well better act fast, cuz odds are these will be gone in no time...

OSONE Passerelle (And/OAR) cd 13.98

OSSO EXOTICO Church Organ Works (Sonoris ) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We heard of the Portuguese duo Osso Exotico from the exceptional Drone Records 7" series (curated by Stefan of Troum / Maeror Tri). Their single was actually an out-take from the recording sessions for this album of lengthy church organ explorations. The sustained chords of the organs received no electronic treatment, showing Osso Exotico's ties to the phenomological compositions of Alvin Lucier or Pauline Oliveros. Very nice work!

OSSO EXOTICO & Z'EV s/t (Crouton) cd 16.98

OSTERTAG, BOB Like A Melody, No Bitterness (My Very Own Record Label) cd 14.98
SF sampling keyboard improviser and composer Ostertag's new, noisy solo disc (volume one).

OSTERTAG, BOB Sooner or Later (Seeland) cd 14.98

OSTERTAG, BOB Verbatim (Rastascan) cd 14.98
The third installment in Ostertag's "Say No More" series, where he takes the improvisations of players like Mark Dresser (bass), Gerry Hemingway (drums), Phil Minton (voice), and computer-samples them into complex compositions that they then must learn and play. With this release, he has constructed new sampling compositions out of the live results of the last go-round! Both interesting and insane stuff.

OSTERTAG, BOB/OTOMO YOSHIHIDE Twins (Creativeman Disc) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
S.F. samplerist Ostertag & Japanese turntable wizard Otomo (known for their live performances with Mr. Bungle's Mike Patton as the trio "House of Discipline") take the music of "parents" Chris Cutler, Yagi Michiyo, and Herb Robertson and create "twins": diverse sampled progeny from the same source. An interesting study in nature vs. nurture!

OSWALD, JOHN Aparanthesi (Emperintes Digitales) cd 14.98

OSWALD, JOHN Chronophotic (Ohm Editions) dvd 17.98

OSWALD, JOHN Greyfolded (Swell Artifact) 2cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
John Oswald has been best known for his plunderphonic deconstruction of Michael Jackson, The Doors, and Metallica (to the ire of the major labels' legal departments). 'Greyfolded' has Oswald taking on the Greatful Dead's legenadry "Dark Star" live jams. While his previous work had taken on an irreverance to the orginal, Oswald's seamless collage is more or less an homage to the live track. Pretty much for Dead fans only.

OSWALD, JOHN Plexure Plunderphonic (Avant) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
John Oswald's piece de resistance. Twenty minutes of some of the most insane editing, cross-fading, beat matching, cultural name dropping and sampling. No other work even comes close to the intensity of Plexure. John Oswald proves he is a virtuoso of Pro Tools, over a thousand different artists edited, spliced and mixed together. Many of the sampled pieces are just long enough to be recognizeable and yet short enough that by the time you can consciously identify the track your ears have been pummled by another 15, and all matched up as seamlessly as humanly possible. One of the most beautiful and simultaneously insane and aggrovating experiences in audio ever produced. A must listen and a must have.

OSWALD, JOHN Plunderphonics 6996 (Seeland / Fony) 2cd 31.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In 1989 Canadian audio artist John Oswald released his tour de force of sound appropriation "Plunderphonic", a cd that was never intended for sale, and found himself face to face with The Canadian Recording Industry Association and their lawyers. Whether they were more upset with the "piracy" of their clients' music or the disc's cover art (which featured a picture of Michael Jackson as a naked white woman) can be argued -- according to Oswald the CRIA refused to allow it to be issued even with a cover change. Out of a thousand copies made, only a few hundred escaped destruction. The cd was certainly the most complex and exciting work of tape manipulation when it was made, and even today it stands far and above what anyone has done -- Oswald aside -- in terms of sample based music. Oswald applied his razors to tape with the precision of a surgeon cutting rococo swirls into the collective cultural funny bone. No one is spared, from Captain Beefheart to Carly Simon to Igor Stravinsky to Count Basie. Some tracks condense an entire album into 2 minutes (so Metallica becomes the most insanely tight metal band in existence), and others make bastardized duets in which an artist performs with another paying tribute to them (Carly Simon and Faster Pussycat do "You're So Vain") and some have so many different artists sampled in such short, yet precise snippets that you barely have time to recognize a sample before it's been replaced by fifteen others and seamlessly blended to pitch and rhythm.
Despite its extremely limited release "Plunderphonic" (reasonably) became something of a holy grail of tape manipulation and champions of its artistic validity have been making it available by making cassette copies for a small fee and even more recently the cd has been uploaded -- sans artwork -- for anyone with a fast connection to download (I, myself spent three days downloading it on a 28.8 dial up three years ago... nerd.) Now, over eleven years after its creation, for the first time ever "Plunderphonic" is now available, in somewhat steady supply and hopefully without legal interruptions... for sale. Initially Oswald had intended to see this edition released "legitimately" (in the eyes of publishing companies and major record labels) by clearing all the samples, but quickly ran into problems with music industry bean counters who have little patience for fair use (especially now, I suppose, that the disc is being offered up for sale.) As a way of bypassing the authorization process Seeland Records has thankfully stepped in and "stolen" the disc for, err... *from* Oswald and produced it themselves. And yet, saying that this is merely a reissue of "Plunderphonic" would be an extreme misnomer. Although all of the original tracks from Plunderphonic are here on this collection, many have been reworked -- some slightly, and some greatly -- and sequenced differently than on the original album. So those of you that have cdr's of the original might not want to start using them as coasters just yet. Also included on this anthology is Oswald's 1991 commissioned work for Elektra Records' anniversary (and previously only released as a promotional item), the five song ep "Elektrax" (Elektra chose to rename it "Rubaiyat") in which Oswald was given free reign to plunder anything in Elektra's vaults. On top of all that are several tracks from Oswald's 1991 release "Discosphere" (released by ReR / Cuneiform and consisting of tracks commissioned for dance), several miscellaneous cuts and tracks made for compilations dating as far back as 1975 and excerpts from Oswald's 1993 piece de resistance "Plexure" (Avant, Japan), a 20 minute opus featuring over 1,000 sampled artists.
Also included is a 46 page interview with John Oswald which alone is worth the cost of admission here. Along with going through all the tracks in the set and explaining the methodology behind each, Oswald details the events that led up to the cease and desist of the original cd. The two discs are packaged in a deluxe, hard bound long box and though the exterior artwork is much different than the original -- all of the original artwork is reproduced inside, along with additional plundervisuals by Oswald.
As a final note, many of you are probably wondering what the legal status & future longevity is of this edition. Well here's the scoop: this pressing has already been exhausted, we have 30 copies left as of this writing. However, we have been assured that this is NOT going to disappear or be a limited edition item. There are already 10,000 books made waiting for more cds to fill them, but that will probably be a month or two before that happens. So if you want your Plunderphonics now you should place an order ASAP, otherwise you will need to wait for the next batch of discs to be pressed.
RealAudio clip: "Angle"
RealAudio clip: "Anon"
RealAudio clip: "Cyfer"

OSWALD, JOHN + 1,001 VINTAGE POP STARS Perplexure (Fony) lp 14.98

OTHON Silky Hands Of A Rough Piano Boy (The Tapeworm) cassette 8.98
One of four new releases from UK weirdo tape label The Tapeworm (three this list, the 4th on the next), and as always, a baffling selection of sounds, this one from an entity/artist known as Othon, and the label description makes it seem like we should know Othon, this is in fact the first we've heard, and it's hard to tell if this is indicative of his usual sound or not. The A side, as the title might suggest, is solo piano, and is quite lovely, the original is dramatic and dynamic, slipping from lilting and melancholy to bombastic and intense. The side finishes off with two interpretations of pieces by Chopin and Mendelssohn.
The B side features Othon's oldest recordings, captured live during his final recital at London's Trinity College back in 2006, and features a super dramatic bit of operatic bombast, with Othon on the first track pounding away, unfurling dense flurries of notes on the piano, accompanied by fluttering flute, and all supporting some super intense operatic vocals, while the second track is more hushed and low key, but dramatic in its own way, but here you can hear the crowd, camera shutters clicking, feet shuffling, adding a strange bit of ambience to the very intense musical drama playing out before them.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!

OTOMO / ROWE / SUGIMOTO Ajar (Alcohol) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
That's Otomo Yoshihide, Keith Rowe and Taku Sugimoto. Recorded at LMCSound in London, the three iconoclastic guitarists team up for an excruciatingly patient exercise in restraint and controlled ferocity. High volume static crackle, lo-fi rumbles and anonymous shortwave radio transmissions (broadcasted in the trademark Rowe fashion through the pickups of his tabletop guitar) are situated against frail bowed strings resembling a grouping of fractured hurdy-gurdys. Pair that with subtle, minimalist textures unheard in much of guitar based music, very similar in texture to the muted piano characteristics of, say for example, Morton Feldman's works. Not for impatient ears, "Ajar" can be quite engaging for those adventurous enough...
RealAudio clip: "The Street"

OTOMO YOSHIHIDE'S NEW JAZZ ENSEMBLE Dreams (Tzadik) cd 16.98
Avantgarde Japanese pop vocalists Jun Togawa and Phew join our favorite turntable experimentalist's jazz unit for their second release on John Zorn's Tzadik label. It's very different from the previous New Jazz Ensemble disc, and is really not readily identifiable as an Otomo Yoshihide album. Most of the tracks heavily feature singing, and it's only at the very end of the disc that the Ensemble breaks into any sort of "free jazz" cacophony. More of a Japanese vocal album then, than a jazz/electronic thing, so Otomo fans who aren't as eclectically adventurous as the man himself might want to pass on this one.
RealAudio clip: "Preach"
RealAudio clip: "Eureka"

OTOMO, YOSHIHIDE Ensemble Cathode (Improvised Music From Japan) cd 16.98
The latest from Japanese turntable/guitar experimentalist, composer, and sometimes jazz musician Otomo Yoshihide (if he needs an introduction, this isn't the place to start). "Ensemble Cathode" is a beautifully packaged cd -- anyone who's seen the Improvised Music From Japan box set knows about their nice cardboard mini-lp style cd sleeves -- featuring the works "Cathode #3", "Cathode #4" and "Cathode #5", all lengthy (14 to 22 minute) pieces composed by Otomo but allowing for much improvisation from the musicians. Otomo's Tzadik releases "Cathode" and "Anode" have already explored this idea -- small groups of musicans, some playing traditional Japanese instruments (in a modern context, as with Nishi Yoko's "prepared 17-string koto"), some with jazz instruments, others with electronics: samplers, contact mics, and turntables, in a structured improv setting. This Ensemble Cathode disc is as gorgeous and adventurous as those others, full of rumbling percussion, bowed cymbal drone, ethnic coloration, crackling noise, and piercing sine wave tones... The latter courtesy of frequent Otomo Yoshihide collaborator Sachiko M.
Also appearing are Taku Sugimoto (a wonderful, wonderful electric guitar abstractionist), percussionist Ichiraku Ysohimitsu (of the Acid Mothers Temple!), Andrea Neumann (playing "inside piano"), Akiyama Tetzui (who plays a turntable without records), and many others. A quiet, quite lovely listen, with many carefully wrought textures.
RealAudio clip: "Cathode #4"

OTOMO, YOSHIHIDE Re/Cycling Rectangle (Rectangle) 7" 5.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two short sides of sound collage from Tokyo's masterful sample artist and leader of the late great Ground Zero. These pieces are made up of short sound samples of almost any instrument imaginable: saxophone blasts, cello strokes, short metallic chord bursts, single plucks of the guitar as well as the noises made by hand movements all set to a metronomic sampled drumbeat. Quite interesting, but not a fully realized work. If Otomo chooses to continue this process, it could potentially have wonderful results.

OTOMO, YOSHIHIDE + NOBUKAZU TAKEMURA Turntables and Computers (Headz) cd 18.98
You'd almost like to think that with a title like Turntables and Computers, this would turn out to have been made with rocks and sticks. But no, the title is indeed a very literal labelling of this disc's musical contents. Otomo Yoshihide is one of Japan (and the world's) top turntable experimentalists, whilst his countryman Nobukazu Takemura is a laptop jockey of some reknown. Together they craft a humming, droning, pulsating, glitchy bleepathon. It sounds like a field recording from some sorta sci-fi birdhouse, with a radio on in the background. Voices from Otomo's vinyl records drift in and out of the mix, as if from persons lost amid the pleasantly noisy chaos being created. It's one long 46-minute track, the result of a live improv session. Apparently it was the first time these two had ever worked (or played) together. What they came up with is probably closer to the less pop, more abstract aspects of the Powerbook electronica that Nobukazu is known for, intersecting with the minimalist electronic rather than jazz side of Otomo's ouvre. By the end it gets into mindshredding noise territory, a real nice finale to a disc that visits much quiet beauty as well.
MPEG Stream: "Turntables and Computers (excerpt)"

OTOMO, YOSHIHIDE / PARK JE CHUN / MI YEON Loose Community (Improvised Music From Japan) cd 17.98

OTOMO, YOSHIHIDE NEW JAZZ QUINTET Live (DIW) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What serious jazz ensemble will you find playing versions of compositions by Wayne Shorter and Eric Dolphy, AND Otomo Yoshihide and Jim O'Rourke? Well, Otomo Yoshihide's own New Jazz Quintet of course. Far from the turntables-and-noise shock tactics of his seminal Ground Zero group, Otomo's New Jazz Quintet is much more on the "inside" of jazz tradition, and although you can expect some surprises, this disc, recorded live in Tokyo March 2002, is fairly straightforward compared to the Quintet's two previous releases on John Zorn's Tzadik label. No guest vocals from Phew, no electronics from Merzbow or Sachiko M. No, instrumentally this is indeed nothing but a jazz quintet: Otomo's on guitar, with four of the best and brightest from the Japanese underground jazz scene on saxophones, bass, and drums. The experimentation (with noise, with pop) of those two Tzadik albums gives way here to Otomo and co.'s abiding love for serious jazz, full of color, beauty, feeling, and powerful playing. Amid the two jazz standards assayed here, Otomo's compositions, and the O'Rourke piece, fare quite well. Otomo's twenty minute "Flutter" (from the Quintet's first Tzadik disc) is one of the disc's highlights, in fact, jumping off from its melodic, noirish motif into an electric build-up and blow-out of massive proportions. The Shorter and Dolphy pieces are handled with energy and respect, and then Otomo's NJQ winds up the disc with their 18 minute take on O'Rourke's "Eureka" -- achingly sad and pretty, reaching densely layered heights of group improv, then subsiding into a lonely finale. Very nice, actually!
RealAudio clip: "Flutter"
RealAudio clip: "Eureka"

OTOMO, YOSHIHIDE/ VOICE CRACK Bits, Bots and Signs (Erstwhile) cd 14.98
First ever collaboration between the long-running (since the '70s!) Swiss experimental duo Voice Crack and Japan's master of free-jazz turntablism, Otomo Yoshihide. Voice Crack specialize in the use of "cracked everyday electronics" (imagine raiding the local Radio Shack and turning your kitchen into a living nest of crackle and hum), and Otomo has been investigating minimalist electronic soundscapes of late. Together they've created a quiet, detailed sound-world of electro-acoustic improvisation. Quite nice, fans of both should be pleased.

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Beautiful Monolith Two (Quasi Pop) 7" 8.98
The handful of folks who recently experienced the blown out rhythmic dronebliss joy that is Our Love Will Destroy the World (aka Campbell Kneale formerly of Birchville Cat Motel) when he was in SF recently performing on THE BUS, will not soon forget that show: a diminutive, bearded New Zealander, on his knees, cradling his guitar in front of a bank of effects, eyes closed, swaying back and forth in a trance, unleashing some of the heaviest, most mesmerizing freenoise we've heard. A neverending avalanche of layered sound, pulsing and throbbing and churning, rhythms surfacing, splintering and then disappearing, a monstrous, yet totally warm and inviting cloud of sound, a sound which is perfectly captured on this two track slab of buzz and crunch and hum and hiss.
Guitars gurgle and grind, riffs pulled apart, a heaving swirl of constantly shifting layers, a chaotic cacophony that seems to slowly take shape, what was once noise becomes a sculpted soundscape, what was once a cloud of glitches and stutters, turns into rhythm, and the track sucks you in, totally entrancing, heavy, noisy, yeah, but completely and utterly hypnotic, little bits of melody pop up now and again, but are quickly subsumed by the moaning peals of downtuned crush, and once the rhythm locks in, you are powerless to resist.
The B-side is a little less intense, a constantly shifting and evolving cloud of hiss, barely obscuring a symphony of mechanical creaks which slowly coalesce into a strange sort of rickety rhythm, while all around voices hover, melodies tinkle, and finally a wash of buzzing guitar drone cloaks the all the other elements in a patina of blurred shimmer. So nice.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Blanket Universe Duo (Don't Fuck With Magic) 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.
MPEG Stream: "Blanket Universe Duo"

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Blondesummer Snowqueen (Don't Fuck With Magic) cd-r 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Brand new track from Mr. Campbell Kneale, formerly known as Birchville Cat Motel, now working under the monicker Our Love Will Destroy The World, and like the last few OLWDTW records, Blondesummer Snowqueen is a gorgeous nearly half hour noisedrone blow out, which on the surface sounds pretty cacophonous, with streaks of feedback all over the place, everything grinding and crunching and buzzing and howling, and it is a pretty serious chunk of chaos, but as we've learned over Kneale's many releases, there's definitely a method to his madness, but don't bother trying to figure out what it is, cuz it IS madness, just sit back and let these sounds envelop you, headphones help, and get lost in this swirling whirling dervish of sound. Imagine a huge cement mixer, filled with notes and drones and feedback, and fractured riffage, and disembodied voices, and buzzing synths and crumbling distortion, and now imagine that huge drum rotating, the various elements colliding and careening, now imagine getting that drum to spin fast, REALLY fast, then opening up the hatch, and plunging your head inside. It's like that. Sort of. But all filtered through Kneale's flair for taking noise and cacophony and skree and twisting them all up into one twisted warped whole, and getting the whole thing to sound, well, fucking AWESOME.
This is definitely on the difficult side, but fans of OLWDTW and Birchville, will feel right at home.
On Kneale's Don't Fuck With Magic label, ultra limited, and mostly only available at aQ!
MPEG Stream: "Blondesummer Snowqueen (Excerpt)"

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Blue Eyes Are My Reward (Krayon) lp 23.00
Latest blast of blown out, looped and lysergic psychedelia from Mr. Campbell Kneale, previously of the legendary Birchville Cat Motel, currently of the soon to be just as legendary Our Love Will Destroy The World. And like previous OLWDTW releases, Kneale continues to expand his sonic scope, seemingly building one gigantic and utterly epic songsuite, every record seemingly capable of flowing into the next, but each unique enough to be utterly listenable on its own.
Blue Eyes Are My Reward starts off with a bit of a curve ball, introducing some surprisingly tranquil soundscapery, dreamy looped percussion, the various bits of buzz and glitch smoothed and muted into rhythmic pulsations, very raga like, but sun dappled and laid back, very mediative and melodic, we were almost prepared for a new softer Kneale, when the second track swoops in with a kaleidoscopic explosion of upper register crunch, careening dramatically from speaker to speaker, grinding guitars, over pachinko machine percussion, and immediately we're again immersed in that sort of 'noise' only Kneale seems to conjure up, a distinctly UN-noisy noise, swirling and soothing, hypnotic and seriously tripped out. The rest of the record offers up more 'movements' in the Our Love songsuite, from super distorted strum laced drone, sounding like sixties folk woven into Skullflower skree, to glistening hazy folkdrone shimmer, lush and layered and so otherworldly, from muted percussion driven blurs, laced with snippets of voices chopped and reassembled into rhythms, to ritualistic cacophonies, glorious staring-straigh-at-the-sun FX-drenched high end next level drugdrone noise raga blowouts. As always, magical!
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl, and yeah, LIMITED.

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Broken Spine Fantasia (Tape Drift) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The second of two new releases from Mr. Campbell Kneale, formerly aka Birchville Cat Motel, now aka Our Love Will Destroy The World. And with more letters and words in the band name, comes more elements and instruments in the sounds, or so it sounds.
Two live sets, one from New Zealand, one From Australia, both finding Kneale and his love in full frontal assault mode. Endless drones cobbled together from multiple layers of buzz and skree and shriek and grind, the sounds flutter and flicker and skitter and stutter, and howl and moan and whir and even shimmer here and there, but for the most part this is OLWDTW at it's most dense and most aggressive. The sounds are thick and dense, effects all over the place, melodies, they're there somewhere, usually wrapped around some other sound, the various elements twisting and thrashing and transforming, but these are no mere noise jams, these are jams constructed from noises sure, but beyond that those noises are sculpted into nuanced shapes, into mesmerizing textures, into Kneale's peculiar idea of songsmithery, blown out noise drenched dronescapes, and damn if our favorite part of the first set isn't cribbed from Bastro's "Shoot Me A Deer"!
Needles to say, WAY recommended, whether noise is your thing or not. And equally needless to say, this is LIMITED!

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Cursegoback (Don't Fuck With Magic) lathe cut 12" 67.00
This thing is SO cool, but super limited and insanely expensive, so we only got THREE copies. Thus, we shall be brief. By now most of you should know what to expect from Campbell Kneale's new project, like a trippier more blessed out noise drenched less drone-y Birchville Cat Motel or something? Whatever it is, it's awesome. This two sided monster features epic slabs of fragmented jangle, symphonies of transistor radios, looped whirs and liquid low end, thick drones and glistening shimmer, looped minimal rhythms and wheezing heaving ragas laced with delicate melodies, all woven into a dizzying expanse of tripped out sound.
It's a custom made lathe cut picture disc, insanely thick (3 mm, like three records stacked on top of each other and glued together, cut one at a time by Peter King in New Zealand, which means they are each subtly unique, they wear down the more you play them, eventually sounding WAY different, they smell amazing, it's more than a record, it's an item, an artifact, a piece of soundart. Kneale freaks will definitely need these. We only have three, we might be able to get more, but since they only made 80 these puppies are scarce, so grab one while you can.

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Dogstar White Ka-pow! (Don't Fuck With Magic) 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.
MPEG Stream: "Dogstar White Ka-pow!"

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Fucking Dracula Clouds (Blackest Rainbow) lp 21.00
Another explosive slab of world destroying sonic love from Campbell Kneale and his new one man wrecking machine known as Our Love Will Destroy The World. Taking up right where the now defunct Birchville Cat Motel left off, Kneale is a master of constructing impossible dense assemblages of sound and noise and rhythm, layer upon layer upon layer, a one man band that sounds like 5 or 6 bands playing at once.
Infusing a droney drift, with industrial rhythms, metallic riffs, textural buzz, blown out crunch, all manner of hum and howl and skree and clatter and clang, which like many things, in the hands of someone less deft, could be and most likely would be a massive sonic clusterfuck, but Kneale, like some insane sonic juggler, manages to herd all these sounds into a constantly evolving shape, not that it's not a struggle, part of the joy comes from listening to the various sounds and elements and layers do battle, the magic happens when what sounds like pure noise, suddenly reveals itself as a lumbering doomic drone, or a weirdly melodic drift, what sounds like random bits of crunch, suddenly take shape and become rhythm, what sounds like a wall of heaving low end, becomes melodic, and suddenly things seem strangely songlike, and dare we say, sort of pretty.
Fucking Dracula Clouds is the perfect representation of what Kneale can do seemingly so easily, and so many others find difficult bordering on impossible, turning noise into music, but without losing any of the noise, creating sounds that are caustic and abrasive, but weaving them together into something that is neither, like building a warm roaring fire out of shards of ice, or assembling a warm secure shelter out of wet leaves and cold mud, it's some kind of magic for sure, and we are definitely under its spell.

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Goddess Of Ten (Don't Fuck With Magic) cd-r 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, a full length (sort of) from Campbell Kneale's post Birchville Cat Motel outfit Our Love Will Destroy The World. Limited to 50 copies, exclusively available direct from Kneale, or right here at aQ.
A single 40 minute jam, it's been a bit hard to figure out just where Birchville ended and Our Love began, there was after all a kick ass Birchville disc TITLED Our Love Will Destroy The World. The biggest difference seems to be rhythm, where as BCM was loose and free and amorphous, so far everything we've heard from Our Love, while still plenty free, has featured some sort of rhythm. Verging on the dance-able, but not regular old dance-able, we're talking twisted psychedelic alien disco sort of dance music, imagine only droning tones, undulating and pulsing and wrapped around strange motorik grooves and some fractured anti-funk, that's basically how this disc starts off, it's gorgeously blissed out and mesmerizing, but then right when you lock into the groove, losing yourself in Kneale's looped noisescape, the song explodes in a cacophony of ACTUAL explosions, breaking glass, barking dogs, total and utter chaos, it's like a field recording of the end of the world, but then you notice some tablas surfacing from beneath this crazy disasterscape, then some jagged shards of feedback, the whole sound growing more caustic and abrasive by the second, the tablas eventually buried beneath a million pounds of hiss and buzz and rumble and skree, a weirdly rhythmic slab of pink noise psychedelia, relentless and nearly overpowering.
As the track progresses though, the sound begins to smooth out, gradually, until all the noise drops out, leaving just the drums, surrounded by all sorts of haunting sounds, a bit like a more out-there Muslimgauze. Then things shift back to more familiar territory, roiling warm buzzing shimmer, over strange lopped and stuttering rhythms, barely audible through the woozy swirling heaviness, various buzzes and glitches coalescing into still more layers of sound, everything getting louder and heavier and more chaotic, a sort of Total / BCM / Skullflower mashup, soaring epic ur-drone majesty, before all the low end drops out suddenly, leaving just some brittle shimmer, some buried riffage, and some looped melody buried in the mix, a gorgeously hypnotic tangle that ends way too soon, even though it goes on for 5 minutes or so, wouldn't have minded an hour of just that one part, but then it finally fades out, and it's over.
Pretty intense, and epic, a multi movement soft noise symphony, which besides filling our ears with honey, has us hankering for more more MORE!
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES, we got 30, grab 'em while you can.
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 3"

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Greychant Glitter Seven (Don't Fuck With Magic) 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.
MPEG Stream: "Greychant Glitter Seven"

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Limbless Soldiers Flight (Don't Fuck With Magic) cd-r 15.98
Latest sonic missive from Mr. Campbell Kneale, he formerly of Birchville Cat Motel, now of the much wordier Our Love Will Destroy The World. Released on Kneale's own Don't Fuck With Magic label, Limbless Soldiers Flight offers up another epic half hour plus of Kneale's dizzying kitchen sink composition, assuming Kneale's kitchen sink comes equipped with electric sitars, and malfunctioning distortion pedals, and twisted tape loops, and various mixers and soundmakers and well, you get the picture. We've seen OLWDTW and not only do we have no idea how he makes this stuff, we have no idea what that stuff is he uses to make it. It hardly matter, cuz like all the best sounds, their provenance, while entertaining, and often baffling, are trumped by the pure physical (and spiritual) pleasure of the sounds themselves, letting the music wash over you, and carry you off. And Kneale has proven himself most adept at conjuring up those sorts of sounds, which he does again here, although much of Limbless Soldiers Flight is surprisingly subdued, percussive and rhythmic, almost like the track was constructed from a malfunctioning cd player spinning cracked Muslimgauze discs, that same sort of almost-ethnic sounding rhythmic base, tribal and skittery, looped and hypnotic, those rhythmic tangles are then doused in long streaks of high end skree and percolating sci-fi FX, the whole first ten minutes is super meditative and while certainly a wee bit noisy, more a soft noise. But soon enough the surrounding sounds are cranked up, and the percussion becomes more chaotic, the sound dense and chaotic and noisy, and if we're not mistaken, some fractured metal riffing seems to surface here and there, albeit heavily effected and quickly all twisted up, the sound seems to gradually fracture and blur, the various sounds bleeding into one another, and an underpinning rhythmic stutter / electronic skitter, battling for control, eventually taking over completely with a few minutes remaining, transformed into a strange droned out symphony of cicada like buzz, blown out synth thrum, keening distant high end, and buried percussive skitter, the last minute or two a fantastic and fantastically thick electronic synth drone/dirge/buzz that could/should have gone on for another half hour.
Awesome stuff as always. And as always, super limited, we're the only place in the US selling these, and while we got a BUNCH, if past OLWDTW's are any indication, they won't be around for long.
MPEG Stream: "Limbless Soldiers Flight (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Limbless Soldiers Flight (excerpt 2)"

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Polished Glass Autobahn / Galactic Masada (Dirty Knobby) 7" 4.50
For those of you who haven't heard, Birchville Cat Motel is no more. Similarly, BCM mainman Campbell Kneale has also decided to close up shop on his long running Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. But fear not, 'tis not the end, merely a new beginning.
Taking on the name of a recent Birchville record, Kneale will be henceforth known as Our Love Will Destroy The World. Quite emo actually, but then BCM was always pretty emo stuff, especially in the drone / dirge / noise field. And if you throw on the B side of this the debut offering from the newly christened OLWDTW, it may seem to you like has changed. Another glorious BCM style sprawl of looped guitars and processed melodies, layered textures, swooping backwards pulsations, tangled bits of guitar and fragmented chunks of soft noise all blurred and smeared into a gorgeous woozy dreamy expanse of soft focus free noise bliss, would have fit just fine on any of the recent BCM records, if anything, it's slightly more pretty.
But flip the record over, and you'll see that maybe everything has changed after all. A weird nineties style Warp Records groove, all skittery robotic funk, with warped gurgly basslines, but also some weirdly out of place strummed acoustic guitars, all buried beneath constantly shifting layers of looped and processed sounds. A bizarre mashup of blissy free folk and alien dancefloor groove that sort of works. Will definitely hit the spot for folks who have been digging the dancier sounds coming out of the Astral Social Club camp. Curious to hear where Kneale takes his Love next.
And as is the case with many a 7" single, no indication as to whether it's meant to be played on 33 rpm or 45, we're going with 33, sound a bit more 'right' that way, but you never know, at 45, one side gets all high end and Sunroof!-y, while the other gets manic and spastic and almost skweee-like. Pick your poison.

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Ships Cloud Mascara (Don't Fuck With Magic) 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.
One of four new super limited releases from Campbell Kneale's post Birchville Cat Motel Combo, Our Love Will Destroy The World, released on his own Don't Fuck With Magic label, and limited to a mere 50 copies. We're the only source for these in the US, and we got 20 of those 50, which means that most likely these will disappear pretty dang quick. You know what that means if you want one.
Ships Cloud Mascara is a half hour psychedelic loopscape, lush and layered, gorgeously textured and subtly melodic, the opening salvo here is a swirling cloud of insectoid buzz, chiming shimmer, fragmented industrial crunch, all manner of mechanical whir and buzz, woven into a softly undulating organic swirl, the sort of thing that we could definitely listen to forever, but the various layers begin to fade away, leaving just a couple, a spare sparkling stretch of glimmery drift, which is quickly swallowed up by thick black buzz, and spread out over a simple plonked piano, and some strange deep voiced mumblings, the black buzz remains super active, constantly shifting and morphing and transforming, changing tone and timbre, drenched in feedback, it swirls around that sonorous voice and that spare piano, before eventually changing shape again, becoming more glitchy, the piano/voice now accompanied by a strange shuffling rhythm, and that squelchy black buzz, haunting and darkly mysterious, mesmerizing and hypnotic, before shifting once more into a lush shimmering dronescape of soft focus layered tones, muted percussion and buried tinkling chimes, all blurred and smeared into a washed out whorl of dreamlike sound. So great.
And again, LIMITED TO 50 COPIES, we have 20, and once those are gone, that's really it...
Oh, and we do have the other three titles in stock (to be reviewed on upcoming lists): Greychant Glitter Seven, Dogstar White Ka-pow!, and Blanket Universe Duo, so if you want to purchase any of those too, just let us know, they're in the "instock, not yet reviewed" section of this week's list...
MPEG Stream: "Ships Cloud Mascara"

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD Thousands Raised To The Sixth (Handmade Birds) 2cd 16.98
The first proper cd (non cd-r) release from Campbell Kneale's post Birchville Cat Motel project Our Love Will Destroy The World, after a whole mess of lps, 7"s and cd-r's, comes in the form of this sprawling two disc collection on Handmade Birds, and it's precisely the sort of format that best suits Kneale's longform compositions, with any one of these tracks capable of being stretched out into a whole record proper, but instead, Thousands Raised To The Sixth, is more like a sampler, as if every one of these tracks was an edit, culled from a much longer piece, with the tracks lurching into action, as if someone just happened to push record on the machine capturing a bit of whatever perpetual sound making machine Kneale had cooked up, and set running. Like past OLWDTW records, the sounds here find Kneale melding the noisy freeform bliss out ur-drone of his Birchville project, with something decidedly more rhythmic. Not necessarily rhythmic in the standard sense, but more using rhythms to create layers and textures, whether it's the tabla like splatter on "Calculate Unknown Angels", skittering beneath a sky full of groaning buzz and grinding clouds of thrum and whir, or the almost tribal sounding looped drums on "Early Scrawl Like Fuck Academy", that sounds like old school hip hop via African folk, all wreathed in a cloud of glitchy static, and wound around an almost funky looped bassline, and if you stick around, the song eventually transforms into a sort of blissed out krautgaze new age, all propulsive skitter and soaring ur-drone shimmer.
"Lime Glacier" is a heady slab of looped and layered almost industrial sounding machinemusic, that manages to make a robotic insect symphony into a dreamlike swirl, while "Forgotten Stormbringer" seems to merge time stretched black metal creep and soaring super distorted shoegaze drift into something simultaneously heavy and psychedelic, a birdsong wreathed sprawl of muted crunch and gristly bliss. "Blindness Black Battalion" pairs martial drumming buried way in the mix with swirling clouds of insectoid buzz, and squelchy electronic skitter, "Ice Reptile Swastikas" slices and dices sounds and samples and piles them atop one another into some sort of super drugged out, weirdly mesmerizing slab of fluttering almost orchestral sounding freeform dreamnoise, and "Cloud Water Assembly mixes dreamlike dolorous piano with thick swaths of heavily flanged and phased white noise, as well as a strange deep voice, and some chittering percussion into what might be the most stately and hauntingly lovely track of the bunch.
And that's only a sampling. Odds are if you're already a fan, of OLWDTW or Birchville, you're gonna dig/want this big time. And if somehow, you've been reading the aQ list all this time and managed to avoid Kneale and his glorious din, well, you are in for a treat.
MPEG Stream: "Calculate Uknown Angels"
MPEG Stream: "Early Scrawl Like Fuck Academy"
MPEG Stream: "Icy Reptile Swastikas"
MPEG Stream: "Cloud Water Assembly"

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD & TOMUTONTTU s/t (Don't Fuck With Magic) cd-r 14.98
We thought these were out of print, but managed to get about ten more of these in, grab one quick before they're gone for good. Again! Here's our review when we first listed this earlier this year:
Here's a brand new release on Campbell Kneale's Don't Fuck With Magic label (born of the late great and aQ beloved Celebrate Psi Phenomenon), which finds Kneale, in his new guise as Our Love Will Destroy The World, teaming up with weirdo Finnish noisemakers Tomutonttu, the one man band of Jan Anderzen, a member of aQ Finnish faves Avarus, Anaksimandros, Kemialliset Ystavat among others.
This collaboration is a fantastically hazy bit of tripped out kosmische drift, all long droning tones, strange electronics that sound like alien field recordings, effects simulating a burbling brook (unless that is indeed an actual brook burbling), a lush layered dronescape, druggy and dreamy and hypnotic, but that's only the first few minutes. The track that splinters into something much more distinctly Tomutonttu, a jagged bit of buzz drenched tribalism, processed vox, tangled buzzy melodies, distorted percussion, very ritualistic and dreamily damaged, all wreathed in pulsing feedback and confuisonal clouds of swirling sonic squiggles. The hazy backdrop gradually moves to the foreground, burying the rhythm beneath a wash of groaning melodic buzz, the percussion transformed into a muted industrial crunch, all fading out to a bizarre bit of percolating electronic bloopage, haunting lopped melodies fractured into a dizzying array of swoon and sway, the bloops and bleeps sounding almost like some alien language, all underpinned by constantly shifting whirs and shimmers, only to finally ditch the skree and bloop and transform into a thick droned out drift, all pulsing partial riffage, woozy synths, barely there rhythmic skitter, washed out high end and weird buried sonic mystery, a murky and muddy final movement, gorgeously tranquil and strangely meditative...
MPEG Stream: "Untitled (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled (excerpt 2)"

OUR LOVE WILL DESTROY THE WORLD / BARK HAZE split (Krayon Recordings) 7" 7.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another killer 7" we just discovered tucked away, blowing out these last copies at a reduced price!! Grab one quick...
One of two new mini-missives from Our Love Will Destroy The World, the project of ex-Birchville Cat Motel kingpin Campbell Kneale, who it seems might be positioning his OLWDTW project to eventually be as prolific as the sadly defunct BCM. Elsewhere on this list you'll find a new cd-r from Our Love, but this 7" matches up Kneale with Bark Haze, the duo of Gown's Andrew McGregor and Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth.
The Bark Haze side is pretty fantastic, noisy, but soft noise, and more drone-y than anything, warm processed guitars, looped and layered, thick and textured, wrapped in warped and warbly effects, pretty mesmerizing and dreamlike, at least until the very end, where the duo shut it down with a bit of high end tangled psych guitar skree.
Our Love Will Destroy The World have crafted a sound, that takes the divine ur-drone of Birchville, and tosses in more of everything, a maximal swirling assemblage of sound upon sound upon sound, drone-y and noisy, but also space-y and groovy, and tripped out and psychedelic. The track begins with buzzing backwards sitars, stuttering acoustic guitars, keening high end riffage, plenty of muted crunch, a super spare abstract 'beat', definitely employing OLWDTW's more is more compositional strategy, adding layer after layer, which in other hands might end up being too much, but the cacophony is softened by Kneale's deft arrangement. The result is like sticking your hand in a sonic supercollider, your ears being bombarded by a million musical particles, an atomic shower of shards and fragments of amps and guitars and samples and synths and effects. So good!

OUTER SPACE Akashic Record (Events: 1986-1990) (Spectrum Spools) lp 22.00
The impressive Spectrum Spools imprint has been churning out a fantastic array of progressive electronics both modern and vintage, tracing a similar aesthetic thread regardless of time-period. We have John Elliott to thank for all of this expert sound selection. In years past, he might have been best known for his membership in the brilliant kosmische trio Emeralds, but that project has inexplicably been dormant since their 2010 masterpiece Does It Look Like I'm Here. For the previous 18 releases on Spectrum Spools, Elliott himself has been conspicuously absent from his own curatorial vision for the label. That is, until now. Outer Space was once a solo moniker for Elliott to work out various synthmusik permutations that might have detoured from the Emeralds general vibe. Sometimes that detour has been pretty radical (the glorping velocity of an eponymous album on Arbor), others less so (the sprawling zoner trax of Lightyear Demonstrations); and here, Elliott is proudly bellowing "EMERALDS!" in the synth arpeggiation and nebula extrapolation of Akashic Record. Elliott has also roped in a few like-minded types under the Outer Space banner, including Drew McDowell (a former satellite member of Coil!), Philip Whiteside, and Jeff Hatfield. While much of the album tends towards the kirlian glow of the Schulze / Schnitzler axis, the dark-minded chords and arpeggiations found on "October 27, 1989: Bay Village, Ohio" is much more indebted to the Carpenter / Goblin models of '80s horror soundtrack design. This date and place refers to the kidnapping and subsequent murder of a 10-year old girl in Elliott's hometown, warranting the much more bleak vibe of the Outer Space sound. The album's finale "February 8th, 1990: Ashland, Ohio" refers to the time and place that girl's body was later found. Throughout the album, Elliott and crew are in fine form, making this pretty much required listening, especially for those of you who who were smitten by that aforementioned Emeralds record Does It Look Like I'm Here.
MPEG Stream: "Ellipse"
MPEG Stream: "The Fifth Column"
MPEG Stream: "October 27th, 1989 - Bay Village, Ohio"

OUTER SPACE Demonstrations (Deception Island) 2 x cassette 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If you didn't know already, Emeralds synth-advocate John Elliott is one hell of a busy man. Yeah, there's a ton of Emeralds cd-r's and tapes that disappear before we even know about them, and the same goes for a bunch of Elliott's side projects. Outer Space is one of those projects, which has been hailed at times as a solo venture of Elliott's, but sometimes he's wrangling fellow Cleveland jammers to zone out on the electronics with him. Needless to say, this double cassette from Deception Island is the first time we've heard the sounds of Elliott's Outer Space, but it's certainly a very different animal from his Mist project, whose eponymous LP we've managed to stock from time to time. Where the Mist recordings tend toward the airy, effervescent, brighter end of the kosmische electronic spectrum, Outer Space swings toward the darker, grey smears of industrial din through electronic means. Long filter sweeps push the spectral tones and static laced synthesis towards a leaden oblivion via a turgid application of twin Moogs (with Elliott being joined by Jeff Hatfield).
Smartly packaged in a jumbo double cassette case... but be careful with it, we have no idea where you'd be able to find another, if it were to slip out of your hand and smash upon the floor. Super limited to 200 copies, and destined to be out of print shortly after we type these words.

OUTER SPACE Eastern Veil (Wagon) Cassette 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

OUTER SPACE II (Blast First Petite) lp 24.00

OUTER SPACE Pyramids On Mars (Wagon) Cassette 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

OUTERDRIVE Hallucinations (Mar/ino) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In the same limited (to 150 copies) edition series as the Kawabata Makoto disc reviewed last list, comes this improvised psychedelic excursion by Gravitar guitarist Geoff Walker and friends. It was recorded live "in 'The Roosevelt National Forest' on a beautiful sunny day under the influence of abnormally high amounts of hallucinogens", or so we're told -- certainly the drug part is believable, as this is very much in the mold of '70s cosmic krautrock jamming (a la Ash Ra Tempel, Agitation Free) with lots of spacey effects. Mellow, flowing, pretty much the definition of "trippy"! Nice.
RealAudio clip: "Side Show"

OV Noctilucent Valleys (Soft Abuse) cd 14.98
Another Of, or rather, Ov album from AQ fave/friend Loren Chasse, known to most of you as one of main movers in the Jewelled Antler cd-r psych folk scene. His solo project Of has turned into Ov now that he's been joined by his wife, who is also probably known to a lot of you as Christine, the person who used to be in charge of all the mailorder correspondence shenanigans here at Aquarius! Small world, eh? She also has long-time Jewelled Antler credentials, was formerly a member of Skygreen Leopards, and currently jams with Whysp. And like we said in our review of the debut Ov cd-r that came out on Jewelled Antler last year, if you're a mailorder customer it couldn't hurt to make her happy by ordering one of these... just kidding, really she's very professional. But, we DO recommend it anyway to all you folks into droning, drifting, field recording/psych/improv stuff in the Jewelled Antler vein, of course. Noctilucent Valleys carries on the slowly-moving kinetic sculpture sound of its predecessor The Moon Is Down, sleepy, darkly dreamy, glimmering (that's the radiated, glow-in-the-dark "noctilucent" part) and chiming and rumbling. Some moments achieve a disorienting dissonance that brings to mind some old Simon Wickham-Smith / Richard Youngs collaborations... which one of this couple gets to be RY and which is SW-S we wonder? Or maybe we shouldn't. And as well, Loren Chasse admits to indulging in some heavy Fripp/Eno worship here, and indeed we can hear the entrancement of Evening Star as filtered through the lo-fi, home-recorded, Jewelled Antler aesthetic on some of these nine tracks... so nice, if you're in the mood for these moody abstract glacial instrumental (what instruments??) lullabies. Kudos to Soft Abuse for putting this out (so it didn't have to be a cd-r like the debut) but we must make one minor complaint: the one page cd "booklet" (not a booklet), though adorned with nice artwork, is just a bit flimsy, y'know. Whereas this music is much more substantial in nature.
MPEG Stream: "Bone Of The Bone Scholar / Moon Of The Moon Scholar"
MPEG Stream: "Soul Of Swan"