BERNSTEIN, DAVID W. (EDITOR) San Francisco Tape Music Center: 1960s Counterculture And The Avant-Garde (UC Press) book+dvd 26.00
We apologize to tape music buffs near and far, but we shamefully snoozed on reviewing this awesome book about this music movement's seminal Bay Area based hub back in June of this year when it was first published. We thought that now would be a good time (what with the holiday gift-giving season just around the corner as well as the chillier stay-inside-with-a-good-book autumn and winter months) to give it a good ol' shout out! Better late than never, right?
Those already well acquainted will need no further explanation, but for those unfamiliar, in a nutshell, the San Francisco Tape Music Center was a vital cultural and educational meeting ground of adventurous pioneers in audio arts and science. The sonic explorations of composers Morton Subotnick (who performed an in-store presentation here a few years back), Steve Reich, Ramon Sender, Don Buchla, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley among others produced some of the most stunning and influential avant-garde sounds of the period in an utterly unassuming locale right here in SF. This creatively tangled web of tape-loop and tape-delay, analog synthesizers and various other electronic tentacles came into fruition back in the early '60s. These days, having been schooled by the wonderful reissued works of numerous seemingly like-minded audio renegade technicians of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire, John Baker to name a few), we still can't help but conjure images of the electronic music artists of that decade donning lab coats with pocket protectors and bespectacled consternated gazes, but this 344-page book reveals just as much the kaleidoscopic opening of minds induced by sound (and in some cases substances). In fact, for those of you who were captivated by the revelatory glimpse of the LA counterculture in the '60s courtesy of the recent Source Family book (The Source: The Untold Story Of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa And The Source Family), this serves to some degree as a Bay Area counterpart (albeit perhaps somewhat less Hollywood tabloid scandalous). It's the first ever first-person retrospective of the SFTMC. Many a fond memory and occasionally a hair-raising tale were unearthed for this tome. Our current favorites include one involving wild escapades to keep the center afloat on a less than shoestring budget as well as a desperate search across a floor/sea of tape edit detritus to find an errant single note snippet using a dismantled reel-to-reel playback head!
An inspiring, fascinating and often entertaining document of interviews with and essays by all the key figures and more. This 322-page softcover tome is also packed with color and black & white photos, diagrams, drawings, and a comprehensive chronology. But wait, there's still more! A dvd is tucked away in the back which features video documentation from the 2004 Wow & Flutter: The San Francisco Tape Music Center, 1961-Now festival / reunion of sorts that took place in Troy, NY.
Highly recommended!

BERROCAL, JACQUE / DOMINIQUE COSTER / ROGER FERLET Musiq Musik (Fractal) cd 16.98
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Originally released in 1973 in France by Futura Records via their SON series (which also included the wonderful "Tacet" by Jean Guerin. Futura also released otherworldly tripped-outness from the likes of Red Noise and Mahogany Brain). Recorded between '71 and '72, "Musiq Musik" saw Berrocal's introduction of his Musik Ensemble on record, combining gamelan and free jazz splendour with restraint and droneful grace. An amalgamation of eastern instrumentation (bells, Tibetan shells as well as various percussion and wind instruments), western instrumentation (just some horns), and just plain wacky instrumentation (ropes, balloons, explosives (!)), the music itself is an imaginative, lyrical journey into the landscape of the mind.

BERRY, KEITH A Strange Feather (Twenty Hertz) cd-r 16.98
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It's a mystery how we managed to miss the previous recordings from the British ultra-minimalist Keith Berry, because if there's any justice in the world, he should be mentioned alongside such blue-chip drone artists as William Basinski, Thomas Koner, Bernhard Gunter, and Akira Rabelais. Yeah, his work is that good! He's got the sublimely romantic melodicism of Basinski, the glacial pacing of Koner, the hushed restraint of Gunter, and, um well, he's got a copy of Rabelais' legendary Argeiphontes Lyre software in his repertoire. But Berry is no mere aggregate of previously mined aesthetics, there's plenty to his work that speaks of his own beliefs and agendas which all draw heavily from Zen philosophies. While Berry's previous work The Golden Boat (Trente Oiseaux, 2003) and The Ear That Was Sold To The Fish (Crouton, 2005) were both exceptional releases (with the Crouton album easily being the best smelling record of 2005!), each of Berry's albums makes small adjustments that add up to an improvement and refinement of his sound; thus A Strange Feather stands out a remarkable achievement. Like all of the previously cited composers, Berry's fundamental structure is the drone supreme into which he bends field recordings, subtle instrumental arrangements, and small tactile events. Like falling snow, his dreamy work drifts with a poetic chill and tranquil hypnosis through which peripheral elements tease the listener with subtle details. It's so damn beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "A Strange Feather (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "A Strange Feather (excerpt 2)"

BERRY, KEITH The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish (Crouton) cd 14.98
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In case such a declaration matters in the grand scheme of things, The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish is my (Jim's) Record of The Year for 2005.
That said, there is a unique facet to Keith Berry's impressionistic masterpiece that I cannot fully enjoy. You see, I have a very limited sense of smell. I've always blamed it on my pyrotechnic stunts during my college days when I would light my paintings on fire; and as grandiosely stupid as this made me look, the sensorial failings of my nose is more the result of genetics than anything I could have done to it. So when I opened the box for the first time to Keith Berry's The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish, I got a small tingle as something perfumed and pleasant drifted from the contents of the box, which contained not only a CD and booklet but also a delicate pile of dyed flower petals. Those of you who are not sensorially damaged might be able to place the scent; but I simply cannot. Regardless, Berry (with the help of the fine folks at Crouton Records) engineered an amazing feat: an album with a fragrance.
For very obvious reasons, the smell-o-rama trick is not what attracts me to the record; it's the seductively restrained compositions for quiet flickerings, muffled rumbles, and whispered reverberations that truly captured my imagination. Berry defines his work through the teachings of Zen Buddhism and Sufi poetry, striving for an artform that could "unlock the mechanisms inside one's mind that leads to enlightenment." In doing so, Berry begins with a series of unremarkable sounds which fall somewhere in the hushed white noise territories, possibly including the sound of a gentle spring shower or the empty spaces on shortwave bands. He molds these hisses, crackles, and shadows into subtle repeating forms which do, in fact, lend themselves to any number of images, metaphors, and ideas. Given that he landed his debut album on Trente Oiseaux, Berry's work falls in the lowercase school of ephemeral electronics alongside Steve Roden and Bernhard Gunter; but there is an antiquated tactility to his albums which hint at the same temporal netherworld as heard in Philip Jeck's avant-turntable melodramas.
Given the packaging constraints, The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish is strictly limited to 300 copies.
MPEG Stream: "The Sun Rays Of Another Pale Afternoon"
MPEG Stream: "Cars Keep Passing By"
MPEG Stream: "My Backward Voyage"

BERTOIA, HARRY Happy Spirit (Bertoia Studiio) cd 17.98
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Harry Bertoia's sound sculptures developed from years of work as both a commissioned furniture maker for Knoll and as an environmental sculptor who built large scale balancing kinetic pieces, usually out of bronze. But in the 1970s, Bertoia and his son Val began experimenting with resonant properties of metal itself with huge sculptures of vertical metal shafts that were affixed to a base. They discovered that at those lengths -- some upwards of 20' -- the metal was flexible enough to sustain an extended vibration that continued to resonate within the symphony of tiny strikes with the adjoining metal rods. Thus a slight brush against one of the Bertoia sculptures would trigger a massive swell of metallic drones. Bertoia made an incredible number of recordings in the barn that housed the majority of these sculptures, and produced 11 records from his favorite recordings. "Happy Spirit" features two tracks from the first record "Bellissima / Nova." If possible, it is highly recommended to try experience the Bertoia sculputures themselves. Val Bertoia does maintain the barn where his father kept these sculptures in Bally, Pennsylania... and I (Jim) got to play with one at the Cheekwood Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. But the recordings do make for a pretty good subsitute, and this is only the second Bertoia sculpture-music cd to be released (after one on Japan's PSF label some years ago).
Unfortunately, this reissue concludes with a folk-rock song from a member of the extended Bertoia family... it's really really awful. Why is it there? Val Bertoia should know better. Consider it a non-bonus bonus track and ignore, while enjoying the rest of this lovely disc.
RealAudio clip: "Nova"

BETWEEN THE BURIED Alaska (Victory) cd 13.98

BEYOND DAWN In Reverie (Eibon) cd 13.98
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Hell yeah! We were just doing a bit of cleaning, and found a little stash of these, an AQ record of the week from WAY back in June of 2000!!! We only found 10 copies, and we're pretty sure this is out of print now, so as soon as these are gone, that's it!
This record is sooooo amazing. So dark, and beautiful, creepy and mysterious. So much so that we just had to make it record of the week! Initially, our interest in Beyond Dawn was due mostly to the bizarre fact that they were a trombone-fronted black metal band!! But, in the space of one record (Revelry, the record preceding this one), their sound shifted completely, to something less metal, more experimental, a morose sort of "avant-pop" with a heavy heavy heavy Swans vibe. As well as a bit of Katatonia too. And thankfully, the trombone remained. The mostly acoustic follow-up "In Reverie" also could quite easily be a late period Swans record or an Angels Of Light disc. But for our money, it's even better than most of the later Swans records. The voice is a deep ringing baritone, a dead ringer for Michael Gira's, but the music is way more bizarre. Somehow managing to be both lush and spare, Beyond Dawn create rickety tales of loss and sorrow with plaintive trombone, simple minor key strumming, bizarre percussion, clouds of subtle glistening electronics and warm emotional swells, all wrapped in a creepy atmospheric intensity. Immediately following this disc, they then went on to explore a more electronica-influenced sound on their next record, the completely different but equally amazing Electric Sulking Machine, reviewed elsewhere on the site. Not sure what happened to these guys, they sort of just disappeared, which is an incredible shame as they are just such an amazing band, a perpetual AQ favorite for sure, and this is such a totally breathtaking disc. For everyone who somehow missed out on this 6 years ago, at least ten of you get a second chance. Don't blow it again! So recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Need"
MPEG Stream: "Rendezvous"
MPEG Stream: "Prey"

BEYOND SENSORY EXPERIENCE Korrelations (Old Europa Cafe) cd 15.98
We finally managed to get a few more of these in, so if you missed out last time don't dawdle!
Not long after we reviewed the recent collaboration between dark ambient drone legends, Nordvargr and Drakh (who started out as partners in the legendary black industrial drone outfit MZ412), we received an email from Drakh, thanking us for the review, and letting us know about his main project Beyond Sensory Experience. What a weird coincidence. Some of us around here were already huge fans of BSE, but had no idea who was behind it. Although sonically it makes perfect sense. Beyond Sensory Experience is an exploration into bleak sonic darkness, vast expanses of suffocating drones and desiccated melodies, haunting disembodied voices and ghostly glimpses into the dark soul. Korrelations is a remix record of sorts. Four original tracks, seven re-interpretations. One from ex-partner Nordvargr, the rest from like minded isolationists Alexxx, Doshaka, P3, Zdan and Alko. While occasionally the new versions introduce Muslimgauze-like tribal percussion, traditional drum kit and electric guitars, the bulk of the record is dark and dreary and rumblingly minimal. Muted pulses underscore streaks of black and grey, distant throbs beat out funereal rhythms beneath huge swaths of thick fuzzy drone, all flecked with bizarre sonic bits of lost dialogue, cracked and creaking flutters, and a completely claustrophobic and creepy ambience.
MPEG Stream: "Korrelations"
MPEG Stream: "The Two-Trace Problem (Alexxx)"
MPEG Stream: "Tortuna (Henriknordvargrbjorkk)"

BEYOND SENSORY EXPERIENCE Pursuit Of Pleasure (Cold Meat Industry) cd 21.00
As we've mentioned before, we have all been huge fans of the black metal ambient outfit MZ412, as well as the work that followed from Nordvargr and Drakh, the two masterminds behind MZ412, Folkstorm, Toroidh, BSE and the recent Nordvargr / Drakh collaboration. Well suddenly, for some reason, it's gotten a whole lot easier to get a hold of all their records so we're finally able to share yet another of our musical obsessions with the AQ faithful. This is release number five from Beyond Sensory Experience, aka Drakh. The first three BSE records (all released in 2003) were ritualistic dark ambient experiments, examining through sound, the affect of and the correlation between numbers, music and life. Pretty heady stuff, but somehow the dense drones and ambient explorations found on those records seemed like they could in fact explain and expose, if one was just willing to let go and let the music carry them away. This newest record is much more active, and alive sounding, perhaps because now the focus is on life and sexuality. Ultimately this is still a drone record, or a dark ambient record if you prefer, but the shading is more distinct, and the sonic pallet much more broad, from the dirgey plucked guitar of "Pursuit Of Pleasure", almost like a minimal, distortion-free Earth, to the soaring strings and cinematic grandiosity of "Affection / Devotion", to the staticky submarine rumble and subtle sepia shadings of "Hold Your Breath And Close Your Eyes". Sure to satisfy drone obsessives and dark ambient freaks, but close listening reveals so much more than those broad descriptors would lead you to expect. Layer after layer to gradually unwrap, sounds that sneak up on you where you swear there weren't sounds before, and so many details that lay hidden, only to surface after repeated exposure...
MPEG Stream: "Pursuit Of Pleasure"
MPEG Stream: "Affection / Devotion"
MPEG Stream: "Hold Your Breath And Close Your Eyes"

BEYOND SENSORY EXPERIENCE The Dull Routine Of Existence (Cold Meat Industry) cd 17.98

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO A M.B. Iehn Tale (Small Voices) cd 15.98
A while back we raved about Maurizio Bianchi's collaboration with Land Use as being a legitimate return to form for the Italian post-industrialist. Bianchi had begun making music in the late '70s first recording under the moniker Sacher-Pelz; but it was the dozen or so MB records from the early '80s that really brought notoriety to Bianchi. On the MB recordings, Bianchi applied extremely grim sonic metaphors to the electronic impressionist templates of Klaus Schulze, Conrad Schnitzler, and Cluster. Even to this day the MB dyptic of Endometrio and Carsinosi stands as some of the most devistating and claustrophobic recordings. Ever. Period.
Jump forward almost 20 years and a major existential shift in thinking (Bianchi's now a Jehovah's Witness), and Bianchi's recordings have undoubtably changed. While the Land Use collaboration did explore many of the same bleak metaphors of his MB recordings, A M.B. Iehn Tale shifts away from the heavier ideas, focusing upon a sound that is quite elegiac in nature. Self-described as "piano decompositions," the eight tracks of A M.B. Iehn Tale dissolve the hammered tones of Bianchi's piano into spiralling post-Terry Riley / post-Eno kaleidoscopes of vibrating sound and cosmic Ur-droning. Bianchi is at his best when he thoroughly buries the piano in a thick soup of electronics and effects, echoing his heroes from the '70s once again. Thoroughly mesmerising work from Mr. Bianchi!
MPEG Stream: "Nucleus"
MPEG Stream: "Hormone"

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO Antarctic Mosaic (EEs'T / Alga Marghen) cd-r 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO Frammenti (EEs'T / Alga Marghen) cd-r 16.98
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During the late '70s and early '80s, Maurizio Bianchi was responsible for some of the most expressive manifestations of Industrial Culture, recording under the monikers MB and Sacher Pelz. Those albums, in particular "Endometrio" and "Symphany For A Genocide" were overwhelmingly dark orchestrations for mechanical rhythms, ominous synthetic drones, and abject metaphors for grand epistomological conflicts. But in 1984 much to the dismay of his contemporaries, Bianchi suddenly stopped making music and became a Jehovah's Witness. It took 13 years for Bianchi to return to making music. While his return incited the re-issue program of all of those older, impossible to find records, the recent albums haven't been all that good. "Frammenti" - released merely as a cd-r - may be the strongest of his recent work, but it's still not even close to the intensity and execution of those early albums. Here, Bianchi has sharply collaged shortwave static, white noise from a record needle scraping across a label, and snippets from the orchestral finales from a number of classical compositions. Yup, that's it. Even the die-hard Bianchi fans here at Aquarius had to wonder about this one.

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO NH/HN (n/a) cd-r 9.98
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"NH/HN" is evidently a bootleg of an old cassette-only recording release originally self-released in 1982 (???) by the pioneering Italian Industrialist Maurizio Bianchi (who sometimes referred to himself simply as MB), yet strangely none of this work found its way into the ArcheoMB reissue campaign. Despite there being very little information to be found about this recording, it shares much in common with the last works Bianchi made from 81-83 including his masterpieces of carcinogenic electronics "Endometrio" and "Carcinosi." Dense layers of Bianchi's archetypal fibrillations of grimy electronics and electro-shock dronings crawl ominously through endlesslessly cycling variations, punctuated with frigid divebomb squeals. While the albums reissued on the ArcheoMB series only hinted at such a theory, "NH/HN" appears to be an improvisation with slabs of flickering melodies erupting from Bianchi's abused Korg synth. These improvisational models are far from playful, but do offer extra readings to Bianchi's work outside of the clinical calculation of misanthropic metaphors and deadly, corrosive atmospheres. Well worth it if you've gotten into those aforementioned Bianchi albums.
RealAudio clip: "NH"

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO & LAND USE Psychoneurose (Manifold) cd 13.98
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The last time we remember Maurizio Bianchi (who often referred to himself as MB) producing a good record was back in 1984 when the Italian industrialist produced Armaghedon. After he released that cold cold record of neurally fused electronics, Bianchi infamously quit making music and declared himself a Jehovah's Witness. The transition for a man who produced records alongside Whitehouse and Nurse With Wound toward a fringe contingent of Christianity certainly draws one's attention to the work that he made immediately before this conversion, as the bleakness of the sounds take on grand epistomological references. It was assumed that he was never going to make any music ever again; however in the late '90s, Bianchi returned to music, only to produce some of the worst New Age ambient drivel we'd ever heard. These records were so incredibly bad that when labels ballyhooed one of his records as something as good as Carcinosi or Endometrio (universally considered his best and most devastating recordings), we were more than a little skeptical, thinking back to the lame New Age outings.
Thank God, we gave Psychoneurose a listen, as this record is so spectacular that perhaps we will be searching out some of those other records to see if they are as good as they were claimed to be! Is Psychoneurose as good as the aforementioned Carcinosi / Endometrio dyptic? Well to be perfectly honest, no; but Bianchi and whoever the hell Land Use is have really done well in returning to the all-encompassing, utterly blackened, subterraneanly frigid, nightmarishly grim, soul-crushingly bleak, death-shroud ambience that Bianchi had produced back in the day. Expansive, Frankensteinian drones constanly broadcast a black energy, marred with tactile corrosive noises and synthetic twitches which could only be made by the same anaglog technology of Bianchi's classic recordings. So until those aforementioned albums come back in print yet again, Psychoneurose holds its own as a worthy substitute.
MPEG Stream: "Cerebrum"
MPEG Stream: "Neurotropismo"

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO & LAND USE TSE-K (Small Voices) lp 16.98
We raved about the last sonic meeting between these two dronelords, the legendary Maurizio Bianchi aka MB, and soundscaper Land Use, that record, Psychoneurose, was a return to form for Bianchi, after a string of very disappointing recordings, which we couldn't help but attribute to Land Use. Whatever sort of magic the two were able to conjure up on Psychoneurose, it wasn't an isolated event thankfully as TSE-K find the two teamed up again in 2005 with similarly fantastic results.
Best to begin probably by simple quoting the two quotes from the back of the lp describing the music within, or at least the ideas behind said music. First: "Electro-neural mitosis for hypochondriac neurotonic waves and farraginous tone emissions, achieved during the decline of the 2005". Indeed. And then: "The tabular discovery of the infectious scent is unseating the undelayable grinding of an extremistic property. In The rancid combination of 'Bionic Music' and 'Musique Conrete', the virological zoning renders some synthetic and respectable optograms to the marginal intractability. TSE-K oppresses the phototherabeutic egotism with its pre-recorded electronic sources and deranged acoustic samples. It's the sharp and insignificant scream melted together with mutated voices... Physiological disinfestation and some treatment for the hypochondriac listener." Phew, um... Okay. Let's be honest, we have no idea what any of that means, but it is clouded in mystery, and in that way definitely represents the sounds contained on TSE-K, which at its very core is a minimal drone record, a gorgeous one at that. nothing really harsh or heavy, more dark and soothing and dreamy, but within the swirling low end tones and softly whirring rumbles lurk all manner of melody, and of texture, overtones create strange rhythmic pulses, the sounds occasionally coalesce into thick shimmering throbs, before slipping back into the drifting blackness below. In the case of TSE-K, headphones are most definitely like a diving bell, letting the listener sink into the inky blackness, and observe the various sonic elements and subtle melodic activities that are all tangled up in the blackened layers of warm ominous murk.
The flip side offers up more of the same, but the drone element is a bit more subtle, more of a backdrop for slivers of feedback, and grinding bits of textural buzz, more colors, the shades of black bleeding into browns and reds, not quite as abject and cold, streaks of glowing warmth shooting through a wide open expanse of greyed ambience and abstract post industrial minimalist drift.
We only got a dozen of these, and we're not sure we'll be able to get more when we run out. Fair warning...

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO & TELEPHERIQUE The House Of Mourning (Radiotarab) cd 14.98
Some collaborations find a way to strike a balance between two strong aesthetics, and others resolve themselves with one aesthetic absorbing the other. Maurizio Bianchi has been a force to be reckoned with in recent years, thanks to his return to powerful, cold electronics featured on an avalanche of recent releases; yet, it's a little difficult to discern where he is on The House Of Mourning. Ostensibly, this is his collaboration with the German industrial project Telepherique; and from the sounds of the album, it's Telepherique who clearly are in the driver's seat. The looping MIDI-synth electronics, the life-support system rhythms, and the heavy use of sampled Arabic media lend themselves towards the realms of Cabaret Voltaire and Muslimgauze; and it's hardly the all consuming swarm of Bianchi drone that we've come to expect. That said, Telepherique's industrialist klank and threatening atmospheres are well articulated and quite pleasing in their own right. Limited to 500 copies, and supposedly out of print by now.
MPEG Stream: "Sad News"
MPEG Stream: "Shock"
MPEG Stream: "Sorrow"

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO & TH26 Arkaeo Planum (Small Voices) cd 16.98
It seems that Maurizio Bianchi will collaborate with anybody these days. We can recall the Italian Industrial pioneer working with the likes of Aube, Telepherique, Land Use, Telepherique, Hitoshi Kojo (whose M.B. collaboration Epidemic Symphony was definitely one the forgotten gems of 2006), and now TH26, an Italian project with only a handful of obscure recordings dating back to the mid-'90s. Many of Bianchi's contemporary collaborations have resulted in teeth-gnashing drones reflecting the existentially torn metaphors of Bianchi's work from the early '80s (which for our money is miles above the work of Whitehouse, Merzbow, and Ramleh back in the day). But in working with TH26, Bianchi appears to be expressing an entirely new facet of his musical vocabulary, that of rhythm. Arkaeo Planum begins with a skittering post-Autechre breakbeat augmented with fragments of smoldering noise strewn about its rhythmic underbelly. Bianchi and TH26 slowly dive into subterranean depths on the next track which features a much more lugubrious crawl for rhythm, drenched in a reverb that expands into an eerie network of Schniztler drones, thudding piano, and fizzing pixilations channelled into focused beams of searing noise. If anything, the tracks on Arkaeo Planum might parallel the final works of Coil with their synthetic sourced sidereal, dark overtures...
MPEG Stream: "Aereo Planum"
MPEG Stream: "Arkaeo Planum"

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO (M.B.) Men's True Hated (Menstrual Recordings) cd 14.98

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO (M.B.) + M.D.T. Psalmodiam (Menstrual Recordings) cd-r 14.98
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Psalmodiam is yet another in the ceaseless output from Italian industrialist Maurizio Bianchi; and this time, he's collaborating with the mysterious project M.D.T for a limited edition CD-R that expands upon Psalm 63. Bianchi is a devout Jehovah's Witness and has attempted to bring his spiritual beliefs into the bleak realm of his suffocating electronics to limited success. That poor track record of bad ambient records with sugary new age sensibilities is turned around on Psalmodiam, which seeks to expand upon the poetry of Psalm 63. That particular Psalm finds David singing to the glory of God all the while asking that those who seek to harm David be "given over to the sword and become food for jackals." It seems that this latter poetry of divine vindication is where Bianchi and M.D.T. begin. The central structure of this album is a series of very cold passages for cavernous drones, upon which tiny electrical glitches sparkle and crinkle alongside churning, mechanical pulses. At times, these expansive sounds resemble the finer moments of Lustmord or at times have some of the smeared fluidity of Troum's dual guitar attacks. This fine entry from Mr. Bianchi is limited to 199 copies and comes with hand painted covers.
MPEG Stream: "In A Dry And Exhausted Land"
MPEG Stream: "During The Night Watches"

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO / M.B. Das Platinzeitalter (Incuna Bulum) cd 17.98

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO, NOBU KASAHARA & HITOSHI KOJO The Epidemic Symphony No. 9 (Octpia) cd 17.98
BACK IN STOCK!!! We've long championed the work of Maurizio Bianchi, the grim electronic sculptor whose work in the early '80s paralleled the likes of Whitehouse, Ramleh, and Matthew Bower's early power electronics project Total. As much as we would like to ramble on about Bianchi's intriguing musical and existential history in reference to this record, it's almost a moot point as it's really hard to discern any sounds that bear the signature of Mr. Bianchi. Don't let that caveat scare you off from checking out this thoroughly amazing blur of noise, drone, acoustic tumult and electronics; but we have to be completely honest. No, it doesn't sound much like a Bianchi record; instead, the real author of the final mix of The Epidemic Symphony No. 9 is the little known Japanese sound artist Hitosji Kojo (who also records as Spiracle). If there's any justice, Hitoshi / Spiracle shouldn't be "little known" for very long. In fact, he should be heralded as the viable contender to replace David Jackman / Organum as the king of the droning acoustics. And no, none of the guttural drone expressionists who splatter cd-rs with quickly rendered cosmic exasperations come close to the power that Jackman was capable of in the '80s. But Hitoshi Kojo does.
Like Jackman, Hitoshi's work is a dense compounding of layered acoustic textures, each of which are impeccably recorded and carefully positioned within the stereo field. In working with the source material presented by Bianchi and Nobu Kasahara (another obscure Japanese sound artist who has collaborated once before with The New Blockaders, giving some clue as the cacophony he's capable of), Hitoshi continues this strategy of precisely placed sounds which are then given plenty of opportunity to growl, rumble, vibrate, and bristle however they see fit. Where the first lengthy track steadily builds up to a crashing crescendo that abruptly cuts to silence, the second track exhibits some of what may be Bianchi's sounds -- a return to the Sacher Pelz techniques of varispeed tape and crushed turntable clatter which Hitoshi compounds into rippled acoustic shimmer. For the finale, Hitoshi blurs the source material into an industrial chorale marked by a surprisingly elegant two-note melody. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "First Day"
MPEG Stream: "Second Day"
MPEG Stream: "Flaming Rose"

BIBLE, JEREMY & JASON HENRY Shpwrck (Experimedia) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've picked up another title from the Ohio based field recordists / audio collagists Jeremy Bible and Jason Henry, after being suitably impressed by their earlier album Vectors. The title alone to Shpwrck offers unsettled maritime references, and the lulling pace of lugubrious half melodies and creaking metal does little to alter the course down to the bottom of the ocean. The opening track is effectively simple repetition of a haunted melody, with all of the tape oxidization and murk that makes for a successful Disintegration Loop for William Basinski. Bible and Henry introduce quiet cracklings which sporadically make themselves known, sort of like embers popping in the aftermath of a fire. This combination is so effective, immediately other sublime works with seaworthy themes come to mind: Nurse With Wound's Salt Marie Celeste, Elegi's Sistereis, or the Philip Jeck / Gavin Bryars / Alter Ego redux of The Sinking Of The Titanic. More recognizable instrumentation comes to the forefront throughout the rest of the album, with twinkling bells and flutes contrasting next to a dystopian blurt of a post-Cosey Fanny Tutti trumpet with matching bellows from huge metallic objects being struck and then twisted into a deep, dark ambient smear. There's even some piano which alternates between maudlin impressionist gestures and angry minor key strikes. For all of the baroque objects which litter the descent way way down, Bible and Henry coax an even surface of atmospheric shadow and tactile grit into the mix. A very fine collection of work that is also quite limited. 150 copies, we believe.
MPEG Stream: "Shpwrck1"
MPEG Stream: "Luupn"

BIBLE, JEREMY & JASON HENRY Vectors (Experimedia) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Jeremy Bible and Jason Henry are two Ohio based sound artists, who draw heavily from field recordings from the rust belt and obfuscate them into seductive, occasionally dark pieces of fizzing ambience. The details of decaying leaves from the artwork of Vectors immediately translates into the opening passages of Vectors, as a tactile crackling nestles into a womblike drone. The soft crunch could easily come from Loren Chasse's meditations on broken earth and crumbled leaves, but they could be confused for the vintage turntable collages of Philip Jeck. But as the passages for layered tones and variable loops begin to articulate themselves against the tactile grit of those aforementioned sounds, Bible and Henry showcase themselves more as digital sculptors closer to Aidan Baker and Tim Hecker. Their looping repetitions progressively appear as a slowly generative kaleidoscope with cross-hatched smears, refracted distortions, and slightly eerie abstracted noises, all set against a static electrical hum. Flickered haunted melodies appear and disappear amidst
thobbing metallic drones, 8-bit distortion and post-Fennesz fizzing ring modulation before seamlessly shifting into an obfuscated field recording. On one occasion, a blustery chorus of blackbirds breaks through the shimmer and pixelation; on another, the two include the modulated Doppler effect of cars roaring past along a freeway, recalling the Hafler Trio's revelation that God told him to record the sound of cars passing by. Limited edition to 150 copies, or thereabouts.
MPEG Stream: "Alska"
MPEG Stream: "Flck2"
MPEG Stream: "Lmp"

BIBLE, JEREMY & JASON HENRY Vryashn (Gears Of Sand) cd-r 11.98
Here be the sad sounds of drowning. This Ohio-based pair has quietly amassed an intriguing catalogue of digitally treated dronemusic and manipulated field recordings, with Vryashn being maybe the best so far, oozing with a gorgeous subaquatic melancholia. Aside from all of their sound design tricks, the piano is the central instrument on Vryashn with its notes stretched and elongated into sinewy tones. While the treatments are quite similar to what Brian Eno did on Thursday Afternoon and to what Jonathan Coleclough achieved on Period, Bible and Henry attack the piano with much greater force through their heavy handed arpeggiations on the lower register keys. When wrapped into the slow-motion whirlpool of oceanic reverb and and cyclical drone construction, the brooding notes of the piano sound as if they are the last notes being played by some madman trapped on the ship slowly sinking into the depths of the Black Sea. Tactile bits of organic scrapes and cracklings sweep across the stereo field and dissolve into the ever deeper and blacker void of the waters below. Like Gavin Bryars' similar opus on oceanic collapse, The Sinking Of The Titanic, there is a sublime beauty to these sinking sounds. Recommended, for sure!
RealAudio clip: "jbjhvryashn1.mp3"
RealAudio clip: "jbjhvryashn2.mp3"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Astro Catastrophies (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 3xcd-r 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The opening track on Astro Catastrophies, this brand new triple disc set from Birchville Cat Motel, finds BCM tackling the RIFF, the static drone and blurred soundscape of past releases converted into a sort of druggy stoner rock, a hypnotic metallic krautrock. Think some minimal blissed out version of Kyuss, Circle, Pharoah Overlord, Gore, and Skullflower at their riffiest. In fact the sound here is similar to the transformation Skullflower went through when they released Exquisite Fucking Boredom. Harnessing all that free noise into churning spaced out riffage.
"Sublime Prince Of The Royal Secret" begins like any other BCM record, drifting black clouds of low end churn, leaning toward the more overt heaviness of BCM offshoot Black Boned Angel, but then the drums drop, and the riff unfurls, a huge sun baked, blown out, glacial crush, looped and mesmerizing, repeated and robotic, the drums pounding, a gorgeously heavy and hypnotic dirge. In the background though is an epic expanse of grinding murk, and glistening shimmer, keening coruscating sheets of bassy rrrroooaaar, haunting chimes, and howling feedback, building until the riff and the rhythms are swallowed up completely.
The rest of disc one follows a similar pattern, long drawn out smears of processed guitar, dense and roiling, muddy percussion and downtuned melodies, that seems as if they might drift on and on forever, before once again, the rhythm and the riff kick in, on "Driving Golden Dopamine", it's some unlikely splatter of clapping, that gives way to a strange stuttering Spacemen Three like riff over a motorik drum machine rhythm, and on "Divinity Soldiers", the washed out high end ur-drone becomes a chugging Hawkwind style doper up outer space exploration, relentless and intense, once again wreathed in glistening, glimmering shimmers of sound.
The other two discs are just as heavy, and riffy and kick ass, each track subverting the riff, turning it into some blissed out BCM cloud of sound, but rocking in a way Birchville never really did before. Andee had been bugging Kneale to record a record next time he was in SF, with him playing BIG LOUD drums, thinking it would be an amazing combo, a crushing rhythm section sunk into a dense black hole of buzz and drone, and damn if this doesn't come pretty close.
From stuttering single notes peppering a shuffling rhythm, the whole thing processed into machinelike loops, to almost My Bloody Valentine style blown out metallic bliss pop, to almost choral sounding streaks of glimmering high end sparkles over blurred guitars and fluttering melodies, to super chaotic kitchen sink clatter demarcated by a blooping bleeping drum machine, to the truly bizarre "Hells Silver Titans", that begins as a glorious chime flecked drone, but suddenly erupts into straight up AC/DC riffage (so much so that we're still not entirely convince It's not just a sample, and actually, after more listens we're convinced it absolutely is, a single riff, the clicking hi-hat, chopped and looped into a simple, head nodding jam, like Philip Glass composing with classic rock riffs, and finally, "Damn Infinity Hairtie", which closes the set with a slab of buzzing black noise, going from grim funereal low end, to amp destroying FX drenched stun guitar psychnoise freakout.
As with all Celebrate Psi Phenomenon releases, packaged in that immediately recognizable wall paper sleeve, with three printed inserts, one for each disc...
MPEG Stream: "Sublime Prince Of The Royal Secret"
MPEG Stream: "Driving Golden Dopamine"
MPEG Stream: "Divinity Soldiers"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Beautiful Speck Triumph (Last Visible Dog) 2cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another release from the oh-so-prolific Campbell Kneale aka Birchville Cat Motel. And as much as we scoff occasionally at musicians who seem to release a record a week, Campbell's output has managed to remain relatively dud-free, even being one of the most prolific. The difference this time is it's a real cd, not a cd-r, and not just a cd, but a double cd! Exactly the way this sort of stuff was meant to be heard, stretched out forever with plenty of time to develop and expand, burn brightly and fade away. Two discs, six tracks, all but one twenty minutes plus. Drone nirvana my friends. A low rumbling drone that over the course of 30 minutes swells to a keening resonant whine with clicking and chirping (think crickets, pebbles, geiger counters) splattered throughout. Shakers, chimes, rattles, and bells manage to be clattery and distinct, but at the same time become a meditative and sonorous whole. Warm chords stretch langorously into the ether, while instrument crackle and amp buzz provide rhythmic support before spreading into a gauzy, indistinct raga. Chords and notes are smeared into a noir-ish cinematic blur-scape. A warm fuzzy expanse of late night swoosh, bookended by creaking springs and ambient clatter. A forty minute coda of clatter and croon and creak and crunch and click and calm. So goddamn good. Employing an unlikely arsenal of electric, acoustic and fake guitars, synth, cheap organ, recorder, clarinet, contact mics, wired turntables, violin, bells, baby rattles, firecrackers, piano, cymbals, melodica, steel pot lid, drums, space phone, tape loops and floorboards, Kneale may have sealed BCM's fate with an all but unbeatably perfect two plus hours of divine Ur-drone.
MPEG Stream: "White Ground Elder"
MPEG Stream: "Trembling Forest Spires"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Bird Sister Blasphemy (Battlecruiser / Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Bird Sister Blasphemy is the most recent release on Battlecruiser, the outsider metal sublabel of the mighty Celebrate Psi Phenomenon which in the past has birthed such hellish AQ faves as Black Boned Angel, Mirag, Mrtyu, Wardagger, Wings Of Vengeance, Wolfskull, You Should Have Slain Me, Ghoul, Ming, Cicadashrine and The Cops among others. This is the first time a Birchville disc has found its way onto Battlecruiser, but once you hear it you'll understand why. A sort of a dark side addendum to the also just released (and reviewed elsewhere on this list) full length Birds Call Home Their Dead. Four songs, twenty six minutes, a no brainer if you're a BCM fan obviously, and especially if you just bought Birds Call Home Their Dead. The first track begins a dark meandering drone before the band launches into what sounds remarkably like a blown out version of the intro to Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher", and the song just sort of locks into step right there, turning that sort-of-intro, into a looped free-rock space jam, relentless drum pound, swirling clouds of freaked out FX, throbbing rumbling bass, and squiggly guitars and synths all over the place. The second track is like the harshest buzziest black metal record, made somehow even more harsh and buzzy, a relentless blast of blown out white noise fury, with some semblance of rock, buried way way way way down in the mix. Track three is some sort of tribal ur-drone free-skree raga workout, with layers of buzz and drone, what sounds like guitars and bagpipes and clouds of feedback and amp buzz and thick swells of screech and shimmer, all underpinned by a relentless drum corps krautrock rhythm jam. The title track finishes things off, and manages to take all the sounds from the first three songs and blow them to smithereens, whatever color comes after red as in "in-the-red", that's where this track is, pegged WAY beyond the red, a wall of vacuum cleaner guitar and squealing horn skree and some wild tribal drumming, relentless and circular, threatening to shred ear drums and speakers, before drifting off in a soft swirl coda of chants and mumbled percussive flutter. Phew. Maybe not as metallic as many  of the Battlecruiser releases, but in no way is this the softest or the easiest on the ears. Fierce and furious and dense and harsh, but as with most BCM stuff with plenty of melody lurking within the chaos. 
Bird Sister Blasphemy definitely holds up on its own, and is as good as anything in the series, but once you dive in, it's easy to hear the sonic connection to its Birds Call Home Their Dead big brother, and it's equally easy to see that you probably need both!
MPEG Stream: "Powder Slave"
MPEG Stream: "Tonal Fire Antichrist"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Birds Call Home Their Dead (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest blast of brutal beauty from the Kiwi king of soft noise, Campbell Kneale, aka Birchville Cat Motel. Birds Call Home Their Dead is a three track epic, packaged in new ultra fancy packaging (more on that in a sec) and as always as lovely and dreamy as it is harsh and heavy. The opener, the title track, is nearly a half hour, beginning with layers of slowly shifting keyboard swells, little clouds of glitch and buzz, and a slowly developing krautrock beat. The keyboards sound like some damaged loop, yanked out of "Baba O'Reilley" and turned inside out, allowed to shimmer and shake, and to eventually erupt into a thick coruscating wash of jagged buzz and swirling noise. The drums remain an incessant pulse, like a Can rhythm track dropped into a Dead C b-side, and everything run through Kneale's magical bank of special FX. Like a supercharged outerspace noiserock Godspeed or something, that builds and builds and builds until the whole thing explodes into a full on in the red space rock free jam, like Monster Magnet, Hawkwind, F/i, Mugstar, the Telescopes, Circle and the Heads all jamming simultaneously. A dense cloud of FX, psych guitar, clouds of swirl and shimmer, streaks of feedback, walls of amp buzz and high end skree, all hovering over that unstoppable motorik beat. Eventually, the guitars drift off leaving just some strange random clattery and the sound of birds and insects and nature. 
The second track is a brief burst of gorgeously languid high end shimmer, layers of guitar and tangled melodies as well as deep reverberant swells all woven into a swaying static sound field of notes beating against one another amidst a dreamlike raga drift. A pretty killer one two punch. 
And as if that wasn't enough, for those of you who snoozed and losed on the recent ridiculously limited tour only cd-r Her Anger Is Limitless, well, you're in luck, cuz that whole disc is tacked on here as track number three. A single half hour track, created out of what sounds like manipulate samples of voices, is transformed into a massive glistening technicolor shower of sound. You know how when it's crazy hot, kids open up the hydrants and just run around in the street as tons of cool water rains down on them. Imagine a similar situation, except when the hydrant is cracked, out comes thick torrents of billowy fuzz and grinding whir, all sparkling and dense and warm and thick, and you just close your eyes and let the sounds wash over you and fill your ears. It sounds like a million guitars, and guys outside cutting down trees and tossing them in the wood chipper and some sort of futuristic synth battle and thousands of little bells and chimes and a roomful of amps turned on and buzzing with no instruments plugged into them, all smeared into one gorgeous glimmering sonic deluge.
As always, so absolutely amazing. And as we mentioned before, this is the first release in the swank new Celebrate Psi packaging, a full color, eight paneled digipak style sleeve, the outside retaining the CPsiP wallpaper motif, but the inside offering all sorts of gorgeous photos and some minimal liner notes, with the cd affixed to a little foam nub on one of the panels. Nice!
MPEG Stream: "Birds Call Home Their Dead (excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "Her Anger Is Limitless (excerpt)"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Blankangelspace (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We at AQ have long been fans of Campbell Kneale and his project Birchville Cat Motel who along with the Dead C, Omit, Gate and a handful of others have helped to define one of the richest free-rock-noise-drone scenes in the world. For years Kneale has been releasing cds, lps and cassettes (most of them quite limited) of noisy electronic soundscapes and gorgeous organic drones. So when we discovered Kneale also ran a label, we figured it was definitely worth checking out. And how right we were. Not only is all of the music on Celebrate Psi Phenomena amazing, but the packaging is perfectly and stunningly designed as well (quite nice considering this is a cd-r label. See our crappy cd-r packaging rants in the last three or four lists) with each cd in a plastic sleeve nestled between two sheets of old fashioned textured wallpaper, printed, and sealed with a gold star.
Two extended tracks from label overlord and sole member of the very prolific Birchville Cat Motel. The first track is 20 minutes of growling modulated wheeze, thick and low and rumbling, with subtly shifting melodies suspended jsut below the surface. Over the course of the track, the sound gets more urgent and more aggressive with swooping upper register scrapes and wails. Track two is an epic at 40 minutes. A primal drone built from instrument buzz, that beats and slowly shifts as the tones overlap and intermingle. This minimal hum and whirr builds in intensity until the low end threatens to shake your stereo from its now-precarious perch. Melodies crystallize from the cosmic slop, becoming a lush and spaced out epic drone ala Taj Mahal Travellers, with sparse (very occasional) percussion and keening high end explorations. Totally mesmerising.
RealAudio clip: "Blankangelspace 1"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Chaos Steel Skeletons: One (Celebrate Psi Phenomena) 2cd-r 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Long in the works 'career retrospective' from one man free noise avant rock doom drone wrecking crew Campbell Kneale and his long running Birchville Cat Motel. Six discs, spanning the life of BCM, unreleased tracks, rarities, long out of print lathe cuts, lps and cassettes, a mighty impressive and awe inspiring overview of a project that as far as we're concerned has yet to release a bad record. Which is sort of mind blowing considering the sheer volume of material Kneale has released over the last however many years.
So Chaos Steel Skeletons is definitely essential for all of you BCM fanatics. No matter how on the ball you were, how much of a constant eBay lurker you've been, there's no way in hell anyone, except the man himself, has all of these tracks. And the crazy thing is, this six disc set, is just a -selection- of tracks, a true comprehensive retrospective would have required some sort of box set of Merzboxian proportions. Not that we would have complained, in fact, just like most of you, we wouldn't hesitate to sign up for a 50 cd Birchbox RIGHT NOW. Just say the word.
For BCM newbies, we would probably recommend Chi Vampires or Our Love Will Destroy The World, as Chaos Steel Skeletons might be a bit much, or a bit expensive, but hell, it's all fucking great, and the more we think about it, the more we realize that maybe there might not be any better place to start that a 6cd set. But now those unfamiliar with the Birch are probably wondering, okay then, but what the hell does it sound like? Well, as stated above, Birchville hovers in some amorphous musical area we'd have to label 'free noise avant rock doom drone' or something like that. Imagine Sunroof! and the Dead C and Reynols and Hototogisu and Vibracathedral Orchestra and SUNNO))) and Wolf Eyes and the disparate sound worlds each inhabits, now imagine one little man who can flit effortlessly between them all, going from grinding chaos to soothing drone in the blink of an eye. From huge buzzy fuzzed out ragas to grinding downtuned pummel to blissy ambience to plinkplonk and clattery mayhem to shrieking high end skree and everything in between. The stuff on these discs tends toward the noisy (there's even a sort of Sabbath cover on volume three) as these are what might be referred to as 'the early years', but even at his noisiest, Kneale manages to sneak in some wondrous melody or soothing sound, even if it does often get totally obliterated moments later. You can by these double discs separately, but c'mon, you're not fooling anybody, buying two discs of a six disc set is sort of like petting half a kitten, or playing half a guitar, or watching half a movie, it just isn't right!!!
As always, SUPER LIMITED, handsomely packaged in cool wallpaper sleeves, and each disc comes with liner notes about each song, not always entirely informative, but usually pretty darn funny!
VERY RECOMMENDED!!!
MPEG Stream: "White Alpha Matte"
MPEG Stream: "Dog Pus Halo"
MPEG Stream: "Trinity High Water Mark 2"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Chaos Steel Skeletons: Three (Celebrate Psi Phenomena) 2cd-r 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Long in the works 'career retrospective' from one man free noise avant rock doom drone wrecking crew Campbell Kneale and his long running Birchville Cat Motel. Six discs, spanning the life of BCM, unreleased tracks, rarities, long out of print lathe cuts, lps and cassettes, a mighty impressive and awe inspiring overview of a project that as far as we're concerned has yet to release a bad record. Which is sort of mind blowing considering the sheer volume of material Kneale has released over the last however many years.
So Chaos Steel Skeletons is definitely essential for all of you BCM fanatics. No matter how on the ball you were, how much of a constant eBay lurker you've been, there's no way in hell anyone, except the man himself, has all of these tracks. And the crazy thing is, this six disc set, is just a -selection- of tracks, a true comprehensive retrospective would have required some sort of box set of Merzboxian proportions. Not that we would have complained, in fact, just like most of you, we wouldn't hesitate to sign up for a 50 cd Birchbox RIGHT NOW. Just say the word.
For BCM newbies, we would probably recommend Chi Vampires or Our Love Will Destroy The World, as Chaos Steel Skeletons might be a bit much, or a bit expensive, but hell, it's all fucking great, and the more we think about it, the more we realize that maybe there might not be any better place to start that a 6cd set. But now those unfamiliar with the Birch are probably wondering, okay then, but what the hell does it sound like? Well, as stated above, Birchville hovers in some amorphous musical area we'd have to label 'free noise avant rock doom drone' or something like that. Imagine Sunroof! and the Dead C and Reynols and Hototogisu and Vibracathedral Orchestra and SUNNO))) and Wolf Eyes and the disparate sound worlds each inhabits, now imagine one little man who can flit effortlessly between them all, going from grinding chaos to soothing drone in the blink of an eye. From huge buzzy fuzzed out ragas to grinding downtuned pummel to blissy ambience to plinkplonk and clattery mayhem to shrieking high end skree and everything in between. The stuff on these discs tends toward the noisy (there's even a sort of Sabbath cover on volume three) as these are what might be referred to as 'the early years', but even at his noisiest, Kneale manages to sneak in some wondrous melody or soothing sound, even if it does often get totally obliterated moments later. You can by these double discs separately, but c'mon, you're not fooling anybody, buying two discs of a six disc set is sort of like petting half a kitten, or playing half a guitar, or watching half a movie; it just isn't right!!!
As always, SUPER LIMITED, handsomely packaged in cool wallpaper sleeves, and each disc comes with liner notes about each song, not always entirely informative, but usually pretty darn funny!
VERY RECOMMENDED!!!
MPEG Stream: "Chinese Automotive Dimantler"
MPEG Stream: "Mercury Vapour Lamp"
MPEG Stream: "Tinfoilteeth"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Chaos Steel Skeletons: Two (Celebrate Psi Phenomena) 2cd-r 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Long in the works 'career retrospective' from one man free noise avant rock doom drone wrecking crew Campbell Kneale and his long running Birchville Cat Motel. Six discs, spanning the life of BCM, unreleased tracks, rarities, long out of print lathe cuts, lps and cassettes, a mighty impressive and awe inspiring overview of a project that as far as we're concerned has yet to release a bad record. Which is sort of mind blowing considering the sheer volume of material Kneale has released over the last however many years.
So Chaos Steel Skeletons is definitely essential for all of you BCM fanatics. No matter how on the ball you were, how much of a constant eBay lurker you've been, there's no way in hell anyone, except the man himself, has all of these tracks. And the crazy thing is, this six disc set, is just a -selection- of tracks, a true comprehensive retrospective would have required some sort of box set of Merzboxian proportions. Not that we would have complained, in fact, just like most of you, we wouldn't hesitate to sign up for a 50 cd Birchbox RIGHT NOW. Just say the word.
For BCM newbies, we would probably recommend Chi Vampires or Our Love Will Destroy The World, as Chaos Steel Skeletons might be a bit much, or a bit expensive, but hell, it's all fucking great, and the more we think about it, the more we realize that maybe there might not be any better place to start that a 6cd set. But now those unfamiliar with the Birch are probably wondering, okay then, but what the hell does it sound like? Well, as stated above, Birchville hovers in some amorphous musical area we'd have to label 'free noise avant rock doom drone' or something like that. Imagine Sunroof! and the Dead C and Reynols and Hototogisu and Vibracathedral Orchestra and SUNNO))) and Wolf Eyes and the disparate sound worlds each inhabits, now imagine one little man who can flit effortlessly between them all, going from grinding chaos to soothing drone in the blink of an eye. From huge buzzy fuzzed out ragas to grinding downtuned pummel to blissy ambience to plinkplonk and clattery mayhem to shrieking high end skree and everything in between. The stuff on these discs tends toward the noisy (there's even a sort of Sabbath cover on volume three) as these are what might be referred to as 'the early years', but even at his noisiest, Kneale manages to sneak in some wondrous melody or soothing sound, even if it does often get totally obliterated moments later. You can by these double discs separately, but c'mon, you're not fooling anybody, buying two discs of a six disc set is sort of like petting half a kitten, or playing half a guitar, or watching half a movie, it just isn't right!!!
As always, SUPER LIMITED, handsomely packaged in cool wallpaper sleeves, and each disc comes with liner notes about each song, not always entirely informative, but usually pretty darn funny!
VERY RECOMMENDED!!!
MPEG Stream: "Beekeeper"
MPEG Stream: "Airlike MetalWeb"
MPEG Stream: "The Immaculate Perfume Of Freshly Sawn Timber"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Copenhagen (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A single track, recorded live during Birchville Cat Motel's last European tour, in January, at a place called The Church in Copenhagen, Denmark. Things start off with what sounds like someone sliding the pews (if it is indeed a real church) over the rough stone floor, before those sounds are joined by tinlking, chiming clatter and a distant whir of compressed melody that slowly and subtly shifts and shimmers, hums and glistens, turning the jarring opening into dreamy, sleepy droning warmth.
MPEG Stream: "Copenhagen"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Cranes Are Sleeping (Ecstatic Peace) lp 14.98

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Creeping Frost Onset (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We at AQ have long been fans of Campbell Kneale and his project Birchville Cat Motel who along with the Dead C, Omit, Gate and a handful of others have helped to define one of the richest free-rock-noise-drone scenes in the world. For years Kneale has been releasing cds, lps and cassettes (most of them quite limited) of noisy electronic soundscapes and gorgeous organic drones. So when we discovered Kneale also ran a label, we figured it was definitely worth checking out. And how right we were. Not only is all of the music on Celebrate Psi Phenomena amazing, but the packaging is perfectly and stunningly designed as well (quite nice considering this is a cd-r label. See our crappy cd-r packaging rants in the last three or four lists) with each cd in a plastic sleeve nestled between two sheets of old fashioned textured wallpaper, printed, and sealed with a gold star.
Another slab of prime drone from CPP main man Campbell Kneale, this time enlisting the help of two Kneale family members and utilising oscillators, turntables, clarinet, violin, motorized acoustic guitar, bowed roof (!) and various toy instruments. Starting with a dog whistle range sine wave that wavers and flutters on its way to your eardrum, it's soon joined by complementary (but no less piercing) harmonics as well as a barely audible low end pulse. You gotta be patient with this one. After about ten minutes, the high end shimmer becomes the foundation for a cacophony of clang and strum and feedback and clatter eventually breaking down into what sounds like a primitive preschool free jazz jam session. Toy pianos, caveman percussion, with spurts of beeping and squeaking and lots of noodling that eventually works its way back up to a shrieking, skronky free jazz drone ending in a meditative jazzy free rock shimmer...Nice.
RealAudio clip: "Creeping Frost Onset"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Crop Circle Empires (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We at AQ have long been fans of Campbell Kneale and his project Birchville Cat Motel who along with the Dead C, Omit, Gate and a handful of others have helped to define one of the richest free-rock-noise-drone scenes in the world. For years Kneale has been releasing cds, lps and cassettes (most of them quite limited) of noisy electronic soundscapes and gorgeous organic drones. So when we discovered Kneale also ran a label, we figured it was definitely worth checking out. And how right we were. Not only is all of the music on Celebrate Psi Phenomena amazing, but the packaging is perfectly and stunningly designed as well (quite nice considering this is a cd-r label. See our crappy cd-r packaging rants in the last three or four lists) with each cd in a plastic sleeve nestled between two sheets of old fashioned textured wallpaper, printed, and sealed with a gold star.
Birchville mainman (only man) and CPP head honcho releases another gem. One 40 minute, delicate and crystalline drone. Quiet and slowly shifiting, like the sound of ice melting or a black hole forming or both. So gorgeous.
RealAudio clip: "Crop Circle Empires"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Curved Surface Destroyer (Last Visible Dog) 3cd 19.98
At first we figured this massive triple cd was a collection of long out of print cassettes and cd-r's, which in a way it sort of is. In fact this three disc set is a collection of live performances, recorded all over the world, featuring different live versions of many classic BCM recordings, tracing the development of Campbell Kneale's Birchville Cat Motel, and the growth of BCM's sound from swirling found sound ambience to more aggressive free noise exploration (dipping his toes into the metal that would come to define his project Black Boned Angel).
The first disc features two tracks, both near 30 minutes, recorded in 1998 and 2000 in New Zealand. The first is a soft shifting shimmering soundscape of gentle whirs and distant percussive actions. Quite dreamy and tranquil. The second features a lot more buzz, a sort of extended raga, tones are stretched out into thick layers of sound, one atop the other, a hypnotic meditative dronescape of bombinating strings and glistening high end tones.
The second disc jumps ahead to 2001 and 2003, for two shows one recorded in a temple in Japan the other in Denmark. The Japanese show is a half hour of distant drones, behind ambient recordings of rain and wind, the music building and building until the drones sound almost like a rainstorm themselves. Very reminiscent of the sadly now out of print Kougezan Koukiji record, also performed live in a temple during a rainstorm. The Danish show clocks in at 40 minutes and is another abstract exploration, starting out very spare, with plenty of random clatter and found sound detritus, but eventually building into a thick heady drone before eventually breaking down into strange buzzes and reverbed whirs.
The third disc features two tracks from quite recently, one from last year, one from earlier this year. The first recorded in Scotland, is incredibly lush, a soft buzzing drone grows in intensity until it is a massive wall of vibrating strings, layers of thick whir and rumbling low end, near the end, in comes a killer drum and metal guitar riff, that sounds strangely like a loop pulled from "Number Of The Beast" but could, we suppose be the guys actually rocking out. Either way, it makes for an amazingly epic jam, this instantly recognizable metal snippet, repeated over and over beneath an ocean of glistening sonic shimmer. The final track, recorded in Japan, earlier this year, finds Kneale returning to his ambient roots, a soft shimmering soundworld, swirls of vibrating metal, loops of subtle sound smeared into silvery streaks, lots of metallic reverberation, somehow harnessed into a dark dolorous drift. So goddamn lovely.
Essential for ALL Birchville fans. Even if you have some of these tracks on a cd-r or cassette, these versions are distinctly different so you'll probably want them anyway. And for BCM newbies, this would make for a darn fine introduction (the price is right too for a triple cd!). Six breathtakingly gorgeous longform free drone epics, it doesn't get much better than this.
Once again, packaged in one of those now ubiquitous three-pocket plastic sleeves that's nice and slim but more or less ensures that all the discs will wind up with some minor cosmetic scratches on their playing surfaces.
MPEG Stream: "Reversing Spiral Galaxies"
MPEG Stream: "Fairy Teeth"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Four Freckle Constellation (Conspiracy) lp 30.00
Another new record from AQ's patron saint of buzz and drone and epic soundscapery, New Zealand's Mr. Campbell Kneale, aka Birchville Cat Motel. Every new BCM record is full of new sonic directions, new discoveries, Kneale deftly managing to forge ahead musically, while somehow infusing whatever it is he's doing with a distinct Birchville sound, that while difficult to describe, is not at all difficult to hear.
This lp only release comes from Belgium's Conspiracy records, hence the hefty price tag, but like all BCM records it's well worth it.
This one starts out with a bang. Or rather a grinding dirgey rrrrooooar. Sounding more and more like a full band, right out of the gate Kneale is spewing an avalanche of super chaotic and noisy doooooom, squalls of distortion, sheets of feedback, pounding drums, a seriously brutal chunk of heaviness, but that eventually gives way to a drones out bagpipe jam (an electric bagpipe, part of Kneale's unique sonic arsenal), sounding almost like a heavier more epic Amps For Christ. Drone-y and raga-like, the long drawn out upper register tones eventually bliss out into a whirring tranquil outro laced with deep soft swells and dreamlike whirs.
The flipside begins with tangle of thick buzz and streaks of rumbling low end, underpinning a garbled downtuned angular melody, strangely and sort of impossibly noisy and pretty simultaneously. The track lurches into full forward motion, as if we were in for another doomic dirge, but instead, the track transforms into a glistening bliss out, all sputtery percussion and twinkling high end, eventually finishing off in the same manner as side A, but here the outro is a bit more intense, the tranquility disrupted by muted shards of atonal chaos, finally drifting off to silence.
LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!!! With super intense four panel, fold out, full color cover, with artwork by Seldon Hunt.

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Gunpowder Temple Of Heaven (Pica Disk) cd 14.98
Noisemaker Lasse Marhaug's Pica Disk label offers us three brand new blasts of delightful noisiness. Two discs of SERIOUS noise from Incapacitants and Hijokaidan, and this one of softer prettier noise, from long time aQ favorite Campbell Kneale, aka Birchville Cat Motel.
And even by BCM standards, Gunpowder Temple of Heaven is pretty pretty noise. One long meditative ur-drone, shimmering, glistening layers of reverberating sound, like Spacemen 3 played Phill Niblock. The sort of dense dronemusic, that becomes alive when listened to closely. The various sounds sprawling and twisting, changing shapes, timbres shifting, overtones beating, subtle rhythms, ghostly melodies, all this going on just below the surface. The surface being long thick, rich tones, each drifting subtly, tonal colors gradually changing.
What begins as soft and shimmery, soon builds to something more gritty and dense, glistening sonic flares smeared into roiling swirls of blinding sound. Eventually, the rough edges are worn away, and the tone becomes more and more pure, smoother and more rich, the sound of organs, and lilting melodies surfacing, the sounds gentler, their interactions with each other more complimentary, soothing, dreamlike, mesmerizing, various notes and tones gradually sloughing off, leaving less and less sound, the drone becoming more fine, more simple, until finally, a single note wavers and then blinks out. Divine!
Super deluxe gorgeous packaging. Gatefold digipak, with thick velvet backing for the cd, and a booklet with an awesome BCM essay from the Dead C's Bruce Russell.
MPEG Stream: "Gunpowder Temple Of Heaven (excerpt)"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Her Anger Is Limitless (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 11.98
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 to much detail with this one, other than to say, boy are we lucky. This is a tour only cd-r release, available exclusively on BCM's 2006/7 European tour, and thankfully, since most of us couldn't make it to any of those shows, Mr. Campbell Kneale, aka Birchville Cat Motel, stashed us a whole half of the pressing! That's right, 25 of the 50 are here, and if those numbers don't make it obvious, these will be gone before you know it. And as if we even need to tell you, it's a killer. So act fast if you want one of these.
A single half hour track, created out of what sounds like manipulate samples of voices, is transformed into a massive glistening technicolor shower of sound. You know how when it's crazy hot, kids open up the hydrants and just run around in the street as tons of cool water rains down on them. Imagine a similar situation, except when the hydrant is cracked, out comes thick torrents of billowy fuzz and grinding whir, all sparkling and dense and warm and thick, and you just close your eyes and let the sounds wash over you and fill your ears. It sounds like a million guitars, and guys outside cutting down trees and tossing them in the wood chipper and some sort of futuristic synth battle and thousands of little bells and chimes and a roomful of amps turned on and buzzing with no instruments plugged into them, all smeared into one gorgeous glimmering sonic deluge. So good. And again, 25 copies and then they are gone. For good.
Packaged in the classic, CPsiP wall paper sleeve with brown and black liner note insert.
MPEG Stream: "Her Anger Is Limitless (excerpt)"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Home (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's really amazing how I never get tired of this BCM stuff. I think a lot of that is due to the fact that all of these records are completely different, and while the differences are subtle, you are rewarded for active listening, digging deep into the layers of sound and focusing on different patterns and rhythms, different sounds and instruments. Campbell Kneale, like Matthew Bower before him, seems to have a direct line to the primordial drone, able to summon it at a moments notice, and then channel it through all sorts of strange instrumentation. 'Home' is definitely UR-DRONE of the highest order, a very Eastern tinged raga, with plucked and bowed strings, subtle feedback and barely-there percussion woven into a seamless tapestry of head expanding sound.
RealAudio clip: "Home (excerpt)"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Jewelled Wings (Freedom Form) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another under the bed find from Campbell Kneale. We should get this guy to clean house more often. Not only did he unearth a handful of the long out of print debut Birchville Cat Motel cd on Insample (see elsewhere on this list) he also managed to scrape up the last 20 of these EVER. Released way back at the beginning of this century, Jewelled Wings was lp only, and features an all acoustic, no overdubs, no effects Birchville Cat Motel. You might be thinking BCM Unplugged or something, but even sans electronics, Kneale can kick up a serious fuss. A dense swirl of Dead C style free rock clatter with chimes and bells and various percussive bits all mixed into the thick sonic stew that is the BCM wall of droning sound, each and every bit constructed from an unusual array of non instruments, household implements, bits of this, some of that. You can almost imagine Kneale spending weeks placing microphones all over his house, in the garage, the bathroom, the office, outside on the roof, by the kids' swingset, in the shower, all over the kitchen, and then just going apeshit and essentially playing his whole house. And we're pretty sure that's not all that far off the mark.
LONG OUT OF PRINT. ROUTINELY SELLS FOR WAY TOO MUCH ON eBAY!!! We have 20 copies and then they are gone for good. And try to be a sport and not buy these to just re-sell on eBay. Let folks who actually enjoy listening to music give these lps nice homes! One per customer, naturally.

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Long Vanished Spirals (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We at AQ have long been fans of Campbell Kneale and his project Birchville Cat Motel who along with the Dead C, Omit, Gate and a handful of others have helped to define one of the richest free-rock-noise-drone scenes in the world. For years Kneale has been releasing cds, lps and cassettes (most of them quite limited) of noisy electronic soundscapes and gorgeous organic drones. So when we discovered Kneale also ran a label, we figured it was definitely worth checking out. And how right we were. Not only is all of the music on Celebrate Psi Phenomena amazing, but the packaging is perfectly and stunningly designed as well (quite nice considering this is a cd-r label. See our crappy cd-r packaging rants in the last three or four lists) with each cd in a plastic sleeve nestled between two sheets of old fashioned textured wallpaper, printed, and sealed with a gold star.
This is a compilation of the a-sides of most of Birchville's super limited lathe cut singles. From roaring blasts of distorted guitar, buzzing and squealing to gentle bowed Middle Eastern melodies to shimmering blissed out dronescapes to crackling clatter and clang, rattle and scrape to speaker melting almost-power-electronics. An awesome compilation of Kneale's many different sonic personalities.
RealAudio clip: "Long Vanished Spirals"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Mighty Spine Catcher (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is a collection of random recordings from 200-2002, but even as a collection of outtakes and leftovers, it functions quite nicely as a proper record, or even as an excellent introduction to the mighty (and mighty prolific) Birchville Cat Motel. This is that sublime NZ drone, with occasional bursts of dog whistle skree and cascading feedback. Lush and rich and dreamy. Fans of Sunrrof!, Total, Vibracathedral Orchestra and drone in general should really, if they haven't already, invest in a serious BCM collection!
RealAudio clip: "These Darkening Orbits"
RealAudio clip: "Mighty Spine Catcher"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Our Love Will Destroy The World (Pseudo Arcana) cd 14.98
There was a time when Campbell Kneale and his Birchville Cat Motel were all about the drone. Channelling classic minimalists and modern skree merchants, offering up drifting droning soundscapes, tranquil and freeeeee. But then something happened. Not sure if it was some sort of regression to his teenage years, or hanging with the wrong crowd, but suddenly Kneale started becoming mildly obsessed with metal. And the sound of BCM began to reflect that. The drones were still in place, but now they were constructed from screaming guitars and huge slabs of ultra distorted slow motion riffs. This new direction, which would later result in the formation of post-BCM outfit Black Boned Angel, first surfaced on the appropriately titled Screamformelongbeach which we originally referred to as BCM's quote unquote rock record, and whose cover art featured a Campbell-Kneale-as-rock-god-in-action blurred photo. Our Love Will Destroy The World is actually a reissue of Screamformelongbeach with almost a half hour of extra music from the same time period. Here's what we had to say about Screamformelongbeach when we first had it:
While this is certainly BCM's most rock record to date, it's be no means -that- sort of rock record. A groovy seventies rock riff gets looped and repeated FOREVER, while Kneale sprays grinding skree, viscous fuzz and squealing feedback all over. Before a strange purposeful stadium rock drum beat emerges from the chaos, and the sonic deluge eventually abates, skipping and skittering into a spare and abstract rhythmscape. Very reminiscent of the most recent Skullflower, whose Sabbath-hypno-Hawkwind-mantra turned 'the riff' into psychotropic drone rock nirvana.
The bonus tracks pretty much follow the same sort of course, some riff is blown out and buried in sheets of corrosive feedback and sludge guitars, drums are buried and nearly swallowed whole by the din. A beautifully pumelling guitar on fire to the face! Essential for fans of the last few Skullflower records, the last Vibracathedral Orchestra, as well as stuff like SUNNO))), Boris and the like, although BCM on this recording at least is less slow and low and more high and dry!
MPEG Stream: "Heavens Flaming Horse"
MPEG Stream: "55,000 Flowers For The Hero"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL s/t (Insample) cd 14.98
We managed to get a handful of this, the very first Birchville Cat Motel recording, direct from the man himself, after discovering a pile hidden away in his house. But those flew out of here in no time and seemed gone for good. But a few weeks ago, the man behind Insample got in touch to let us know he had his own little stash of discs he'd be willing to part with, so we got a bunch, not sure how long they'll last, but if you missed out before, you got another chance...
It's a bit hard to believe that Campbell Kneale's Birchville Cat Motel has been around for almost a decade, although when you take a look at just how many releases the man has produced over the last decade, it becomes a little bit easier. This here self titled cd (yeah, it's a cd, just packaged in a weird 7" style sleeve) is the very first Birchville recording from way back in 1997. So, what's it doing on the AQ list circa 2007 you ask? Well, it hasn't been repressed, nope this is still seems to be stone cold out of print, but Mr. Kneale just happened to be doing a little house cleaning when he discovered a long forgotten stash of these gems and offered them to us. We took all of 'em and sold 'em. Now we've got another batch direct from the label, but like before, not sure how long these will be around...
We're not really sure what Kneale did before BCM, but this caustic blast of NZ noise announced loud and clear that it didn't matter one bit. Kneale has taken BCM sonically from one end of the spectrum to the other, soft shimmery ambience, massive metallic drones, blissed out free rock weirdness, but when he was just starting out, Birchville was a seriously mean machine. Hard and harsh and not a little bit scary! There are hints of the deft crafter of droney sonic worlds that Kneale would become, but here, Kneale is a warrior of noise, head down, hunkered behind his gear ready to do battle, bathed in a halo of white hot fury, exploring a world of caustic industrial grind, walls of shrieking feedback and thick swells of buzz and hiss, bells and clattery percussion, simple melodies and subtle sonic sparkles are all drenched in a viscous shower of coruscating crunch. There are bits of tranquility here and there, but they are fraught with peril, cuz there's always some noisy beast just out of earshot ready to pounce. A gorgeously chaotic caterwaul!
Packaged in an oversized 7" sleeve with a little cd pocket. And again, this is already and still OUT OF PRINT, has been for years. These last copies might just be the last ever!
MPEG Stream: "Cast Iron Tether"
MPEG Stream: "So Sad Doll"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Screamformelongbeach (Pseudo Arcana) 3" cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This purports to be BCM's 'rock record', hence the title and the Campbell-Kneale-as-rock-god-in-action blurred cover photo. And while this is certainly BCM's most rock record to date, it's be no means -that- sort of rock record. A groovy seventies rock riff gets looped and repeated FOREVER, while Kneale sprays grinding skree, viscous fuzz and squealing feedback all over. Before a strange purposeful stadium rock drum beat emerges from the chaos, and the sonic deluge eventually abates, skipping and skittering into a spare and abstract rhythmscape. Very reminiscent of the most recent Skullflower, whose Sabbath-hypno-Hawkwind-mantra turned 'the riff' into psychotropic drone rock nirvana.
MPEG Stream: "55,000 Flowers For The Hero"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Second Curved Earth Destroyer (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 3cd-r 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The first Curved Earth Destroyer collected a handful of live Birchville performances, from all over the world, spanning enough years, that we were able to hear the gradual development of BCM, from more ethereal tripped out ambient drones, to something much more aggressive and almost metallic.
This second installment doesn't offer the same development, or such a wide breadth of sound. It's simply a collection of various stellar performances, culled from the last three years. Seven long sets, spread out over three discs, recorded all over, New Zealand, France, Australia, Hong Kong and a couple from the USA, some of the song titles sound familiar enough that they seem like variations of songs from other discs ("Dead Call Home Their Birds" instead of the other way around, "Gunpowder Church Of Satan", etc.) but it hardly matters, the sound of BCM is so gorgeous, so epic and organic, whether it's a glistening sheet of high end shimmer, or a corrosive slab of crumbling blistering crunch, the sounds are deftly stretched into expansive sonic vistas, some sun dappled and dreamy, others blackened and harrowing.
Disc 3 (no need to go in numerical order right?) features the above mentioned tracks, recorded in France and NZ, and finds BCM, aka Campbell Kneale, doing the epic Ur-drone, long tones held forever, layered and layered, both tracks washed out and shimmery, the second, almost orchestral, both completely mesmerizing, like an even more epic Sunroof!
Disc 2 begins with the 29 minute "Junkshop Rainbow Superserpent", a live collaboration with 1/3 Octave Band, the first half of the track, much more folky and abstract than usual, before building to a super dramatic crescendo of bowed metals and feeding back guitars, before unwinding into a field of bell like tones, and swooping backwards FX. Tripped out and haunting. The other two tracks, recorded in Hong Kong and NZ respectively, feature still more static ambience, the first like a cd-r minimal drone version of Arvo Part, glimmering, glistening, shimmering stretches of slow drifting sounds, soft overtones, gentle buried barely-there melodies, the second, much more lo-fi, lots of static and buzz and hiss and fuzz, but beneath it all lurk little warbly melodies, wheezing layers of whir and whisper, and a deep droning rumble.
Disc 1 is all USA, recorded in Rochester and Chicago, the Rochester track is nearly 25 minutes of slow building ambient clatter, blurred and smeared into long tones, a warm whirring drone over the top, all tangled up with low end melodies that creep in gradually, the percussive clatter transforming into a cloud of tinkling chimes wreathed by the increasingly corrosive buzz. The Chicago track is another wall of static buzz, this one spends its first half murky and muted, before blossoming into a flurry of whirling buzz and more distant tinkling chimes, before finally fading out into a super minimal lo-fi drift.
Packaged in that instantly recognizable CPSIP wallpaper style sleeve, with three inserts containing minimal liner notes for each disc, and of course SUPER LIMITED! We did get a bunch of these, but as always, these very well might be the last copies we can get, so grab one while you can...
MPEG Stream: "Dead Call Home Their Birds Live"
MPEG Stream: "Gunpowder Church Of Satan"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL September (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We at AQ have long been fans of Campbell Kneale and his project Birchville Cat Motel who along with the Dead C, Omit, Gate and a handful of others have helped to define one of the richest free-rock-noise-drone scenes in the world. For years Kneale has been releasing cds, lps and cassettes (most of them quite limited) of noisy electronic soundscapes and gorgeous organic drones. So when we discovered Kneale also ran a label, we figured it was definitely worth checking out. And how right we were. Not only is all of the music on Celebrate Psi Phenomena amazing, but the packaging is perfectly and stunningly designed as well (quite nice considering this is a cd-r label. See our crappy cd-r packaging rants in the last three or four lists) with each cd in a plastic sleeve nestled between two sheets of old fashioned textured wallpaper, printed, and sealed with a gold star.
This is a super limited tour-only release for Birchville's recent Japanese tour. One hour long track. There's something about a piece of improvised music, when everything just clicks and the result is transcendent, spectacular, and becomes almost a living thing, instead of a piece of music played by some guys. And 'September' is a perfect example. This hour long, static drone is a lush chaotic mix of guitars, squealing and feeding back, layer upon layer, woven into gossamer washes of rough (pleasingly so) sound. Like My Bloody Valentine with all of the rhythmic/rock band elements removed. Just the very essence of sound, drone, music. So beautiful.
RealAudio clip: "September"