BAKER, AIDAN & BRANDON VALDIVIA Live 2008-14-11 (Universal Tongue) 3"cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another killer release From Universal Tongue, and the first Aidan Baker / Nadja release in THREE New Arrivals lists! That might be a record, hope nobody was going through withdrawals! And fear not, we should be back on our biweekly schedule of Nadja and/or Baker releases, we'll have the Nadja collaboration with Pyramids on the next list, and now, we have this super limited Aidan Baker jam, another collaboration, this one with drummer Brandon Valdivia, a way spacier jazzier direction that most of what we've heard from Baker, but still blissed out and dreamy enough to appeal to folks who dig the usual Baker action.
The drums here shuffle and skitter, lots of sizzling cymbals, the guitars moan, the thrum, drift and shimmer, the single minute track here, recorded live in 2008 at a festival in Germany, twists and turns, going from minimal bliss out, to gnarled jazzy crunch, to moaning abstract drift to heavy avant pound. Cool stuff for sure.
This one is a proper cd, NOT a cd-r, but still limited to only 323 copies. Like the other UT releases, packaged in a cool 5" mini dvd case, with a full color cover/insert, with artwork by Mories aka Gnaw Their Tongues!!
MPEG Stream: "Live 2008-14-11"

BAKER, AIDAN & THISQUIETARMY A Picture of A Picture (Killer Pimp) cd 11.98
Long overdue rematch between Mr. Aidan Baker, who is as you probably know also of Nadja, and Thisquietarmy, whose previous collaboration, Orange, cause quite a stir around here. And it still gets a lot of play at home, it's the perfect hazy moonlight drifting off to never never land sort of dreamy drone record. Almost like M83 with everything removed but that glorious soft buzz. Sorry if you missed out that one, it was limited to 200 copies and is long gone, but the good news is, that A Picture Of A Picture sounds like it could be part two. In fact it sounds like it could very well have been culled from the same sessions that produced Orange.
Four long long tracks, each a slow swirling amorphous cloud of gauzy half melodies and thick layered textures, the sound slips from gritty and pixilated, to glistening and soft focus in a heartbeat. These two soundscapers are a fantastic match, it's really impossible to tell who's doing what, and where the work of one ends and the other begins, and it hardly matters, as the two together have created something ethereal and ephemeral, a sun dappled drift, equal parts minimal new age hush, and warm languid dreamdrone shimmer. A few moments find the duo ramping it up, but even then, it's only loud or heavy or intense, relative to the rest of this record, which does in fact spend most of its time hovering, whispering, floating lazing, gradually changing color and shape, it's the musical version of watching clouds drift across a brilliant blue sky, so tranquil and mesmerizing and meditative, even the occasional storm cloud, only serves to infuse the afternoon's siesta with some greys and browns, which perfectly balance the rest of the record's endlessly prismatic palette. So gorgeous. Definitely a new nighttime sonic soporific. Released on Killer Pimp, who also released the Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words cd, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list (psst... it's one of the Records Of The Week!).
MPEG Stream: "Imagistic Continuity"
MPEG Stream: "Loss Of Perspective"

BAKER, AIDAN & TIM HECKER Fantasma Parastasie (Alien8 Recordings) cd 15.98
Expectations were pretty high for this one. Two long time aQ favorites, both with similar yet distinctive sounds, but with incredibly different bodies of work. Aidan Baker, who releases records a mile a minute, averaging 1 or 2 a month, thankfully managing to hit the bullseye almost every time. And Tim Hecker, who has produced 5 or 6 full lengths in as many years, every one practically perfect. Both Baker and Hecker explore similar sonic spectrums, utilizing fuzz and buzz and shimmer, Baker taking it a step further with his doom duo Nadja, taking the lurch and lumber of the genre and adding swirls of gauze and haze and bliss, while solo, he tends toward the more ambient and abstract. Hecker on the other hand takes what appears to be pop music and subverts it, sublimates it, pulls it apart and recontextualizes the sound, which usually involves wrapping everything in washed out whirs and blurred hiss, and all manner of glitch and crackle, like listening to music through headphones made out of steel wool and insulation. But with two such strong sonic personalities, the potential for this collaboration to be a bit of a mess was fairly high, and then of course there was also the possibility that each would just do their own thing, allowing the other to add bits here and there. But somehow, the sounds on Fantasma Parastasie manage to transcend, allowing glimpses of familiar sounds, hints of each artist's own work, but woven into a whole that is unto itself, a gloriously abstract swirl of sound, longform landscapes of bliss and blur, of buzz and even roar, extended movements, in which the various elements drift and shimmer, overlap and intertwine, melodies and songcraft meet texture and soundscapery, guitars unfurl tangled melodies one second, bleary eyed chordal blurs the next, harmonics glisten and hover amidst deep soft swells, distortion and buzz build into fierce walls of blown out psychedelia, the sounds crumbling and decaying before our ears, threatening to collapse, and in this fragile state lies the beauty of those sounds, effulgent, incandescent, but at the same time, blackening, beginning some unnamable process of inevitable decay. And eventually it does decay, those thick roiling sounds dissipate, leaving something soft and shimmery, glistening on a bed of shed buzz and crumbled crush, floating heavenward, its notes and melodies catching the sunlight, and offering up prismatic reflections.
The strange thing about this record is that each song is separated into super short pieces, eleven in most cases, each part between 15 and 45 seconds (it's obviously much more noticeable on the cd). We tried listening to it on shuffle, presuming that was perhaps the intention, and while it still sounds cool, it was a bit too and took too much away from the overall effect. Instead, the various parts, played in order, slip seamlessly into one another, so much so that if you weren't watching the tracks tick by on player, you wouldn't even notice.
The two work amazingly well together, bits of guitar, fragments of riffs, looped and repeated, swathed in thick smears of digital crunch, of buzzing rumble, much of the record sounds like a heavier William Basinski, as if the two were experimenting with they own Disintegration Loops. A few of the tracks are quite tranquil, abstract and minimal, but for the most part, Baker and Hecker seem more interested in distressed sounds, in distortion, in pushing the limits, composing in the red, needles pegged, but taking what in other hands could be harsh and abrasive, and crafting those sounds into something simultaneously soft and dreamlike. Even the various movements, drift smoothly into one another the entire record almost like a single piece, expansive and varied and sprawling, epic and majestic, but inward looking, introspective, melancholy, imbuing the crumbling crunch and blown out minimalism, with emotion, with distinctive mood, at once dark and mysterious, but also strangely hopeful.
The album closer and title track, is the only one not split up into movements, and is easily the most abstract, the most minimal, a stretch of lugubrious low end, so soft, so weightless, a hushed musical murmur, no distortion, no buzz, just a simple swell and sway, drifting fading, and finally disappearing.
Absolutely breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "Phantom On A Pedestal IV"
MPEG Stream: "Hymn To The Idea Of Night V"
MPEG Stream: "Gallery Of The Invisible Woman VIII"
MPEG Stream: "Dream Of The Nightmare V"

BAKER, AIDAN & TIM HECKER Fantasma Parastasie (Alien8 Recordings) lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Expectations were pretty high for this one. Two long time aQ favorites, both with similar yet distinctive sounds, but with incredibly different bodies of work. Aidan Baker, who releases records a mile a minute, averaging 1 or 2 a month, thankfully managing to hit the bullseye almost every time. And Tim Hecker, who has produced 5 or 6 full lengths in as many years, every one practically perfect. Both Baker and Hecker explore similar sonic spectrums, utilizing fuzz and buzz and shimmer, Baker taking it a step further with his doom duo Nadja, taking the lurch and lumber of the genre and adding swirls of gauze and haze and bliss, while solo, he tends toward the more ambient and abstract. Hecker on the other hand takes what appears to be pop music and subverts it, sublimates it, pulls it apart and recontextualizes the sound, which usually involves wrapping everything in washed out whirs and blurred hiss, and all manner of glitch and crackle, like listening to music through headphones made out of steel wool and insulation. But with two such strong sonic personalities, the potential for this collaboration to be a bit of a mess was fairly high, and then of course there was also the possibility that each would just do their own thing, allowing the other to add bits here and there. But somehow, the sounds on Fantasma Parastasie manage to transcend, allowing glimpses of familiar sounds, hints of each artist's own work, but woven into a whole that is unto itself, a gloriously abstract swirl of sound, longform landscapes of bliss and blur, of buzz and even roar, extended movements, in which the various elements drift and shimmer, overlap and intertwine, melodies and songcraft meet texture and soundscapery, guitars unfurl tangled melodies one second, bleary eyed chordal blurs the next, harmonics glisten and hover amidst deep soft swells, distortion and buzz build into fierce walls of blown out psychedelia, the sounds crumbling and decaying before our ears, threatening to collapse, and in this fragile state lies the beauty of those sounds, effulgent, incandescent, but at the same time, blackening, beginning some unnamable process of inevitable decay. And eventually it does decay, those thick roiling sounds dissipate, leaving something soft and shimmery, glistening on a bed of shed buzz and crumbled crush, floating heavenward, its notes and melodies catching the sunlight, and offering up prismatic reflections.
The strange thing about this record is that each song is separated into super short pieces, eleven in most cases, each part between 15 and 45 seconds (it's obviously much more noticeable on the cd). We tried listening to it on shuffle, presuming that was perhaps the intention, and while it still sounds cool, it was a bit too and took too much away from the overall effect. Instead, the various parts, played in order, slip seamlessly into one another, so much so that if you weren't watching the tracks tick by on player, you wouldn't even notice.
The two work amazingly well together, bits of guitar, fragments of riffs, looped and repeated, swathed in thick smears of digital crunch, of buzzing rumble, much of the record sounds like a heavier William Basinski, as if the two were experimenting with they own Disintegration Loops. A few of the tracks are quite tranquil, abstract and minimal, but for the most part, Baker and Hecker seem more interested in distressed sounds, in distortion, in pushing the limits, composing in the red, needles pegged, but taking what in other hands could be harsh and abrasive, and crafting those sounds into something simultaneously soft and dreamlike. Even the various movements, drift smoothly into one another the entire record almost like a single piece, expansive and varied and sprawling, epic and majestic, but inward looking, introspective, melancholy, imbuing the crumbling crunch and blown out minimalism, with emotion, with distinctive mood, at once dark and mysterious, but also strangely hopeful.
The album closer and title track, is the only one not split up into movements, and is easily the most abstract, the most minimal, a stretch of lugubrious low end, so soft, so weightless, a hushed musical murmur, no distortion, no buzz, just a simple swell and sway, drifting fading, and finally disappearing.
Absolutely breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "Phantom On A Pedestal IV"
MPEG Stream: "Hymn To The Idea Of Night V"
MPEG Stream: "Gallery Of The Invisible Woman VIII"
MPEG Stream: "Dream Of The Nightmare V"

BAKER, AIDAN & ULTRA MILKMAIDS At Home With (Infraction) cd 14.98

BAKER, AIDAN (PREORDER) Noise Of Silence (Essence Music) cd+cd-r+handmade box 52.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
By now, long time readers of the aQ list know how much we dig Aidan Baker and all his various projects, and it seems that you all do too, based on how many of his records we sell. The sad thing is that so many of his most amazing records were released as super limited cd-r's, often so limited that we were never able to get any for the shop at all. Such was the case with 2007's Noise Of Silence. Originally released on Hyperblasted, the amazing Essence Music in Brazil has stepped into re-release it, and as with all their releases, they've pulled out all the stops. This is in fact a PRE-ORDER!! For the super deluxe, boxset version of Baker's reissued Noise Of Silence. We will have the regular single cd non-boxset version, but this right here, this is for the Baker obsessives, like us, like YOU, limited to 122 copies, almost entirely sold out from the label, Essence has graciously set aside about 20 boxes, the LAST 20, for aQ customers, so if you want one, order it now, we'll get them in sometime in the next few weeks, and they can either ship with your current order, or on their own. You will be charged for the box now, but then the shipping will be sorted out when we actually send the box (and it'll ship by weight, not as 1 item).
So what's the big deal about Noise Of Silence. And this fancy box? Well, more on the packaging (and the bonus cd-r) further down, but Noise of Silence, is a doozy, a gorgeous, haunting, 50 minute abstract drone/drift, super cinematic, rife with dark chordal swells, layered shimmer, mysterious disembodied voices, a strange bit of processed sibilance, that could be the vocals processed, but instead becomes weird little shards of soft focus white noise peppering the hushed soundscape, almost like the sonic equivalent of white caps on a blackened sea. It doesn't take long for the track to blossom into something far from tranquil and drifty, the sound growing more agitated, the vibe more noisy, the atmosphere more dense, the voices more strident, a swirling cacophony, that manages to build to an almost white noise squall, but even them the edges are smoothed out, and the sound, while harsh and heavy, still manages to be darkly droney and weirdly hypnotic, the sounds grinding and crunching, the various tones splintering and crumbling, a heady blown out wildly looped collage that gradually settles into something much more mellow, the last 20 minutes a slowly decaying stretch of ambient dronemusic, the whispery shadows of that cacophony still present, hissing and swirling just below the surface, seriously and surprisingly haunting and demonic Baker, we can definitely imaging this as the score for some experimental foreign horror / art film. Gorgeous stuff for sure, but definitely on the dark side of Baker's sound, a side we don't get to her so much any more.
This new version of Noise Of Silence, is presented as a super deluxe, hand made and hand assembled box, painted in blacks and blues, nicely textured, with what appears to be branches or veins, inside the cd is housed in a gorgeous full color digipak, and held in place by black elastic bands, while right next to it, unfold black triangular flaps, and pull out the accordion like set of cards, each one hand painted like the outside of the box, all unique and surprisingly tactile, to reveal the bonus cd-r, a collection of early works and demos, many of which would in fact show up on later releases in altered forms, all culled from the period spanning 1991-1995, and an eclectic collection of early works, that tend toward the raw, the noisy, the aggressive, but still beautiful and lush and droney, some acoustic ballads, some droned out noisescapes, some hushed minimal acoustic drift as well as some darkly psychedelic and dreamy guitar ragas, incredible stuff for sure, and well worth a proper release on their own, but ONLY available as part of this super limited box.
As we mentioned above, we'll be able to get about 20 copies of this box, and that's IT. So if you want one, order it now. We'll charge you and let you know when it arrives. If you're after the normal version, let us know and we can put you down for one of those, but this listing is for folks who want to nab one of these before they are gone for good.

BAKER, AIDAN / LEAH BUCKAREFF / NADJA Trinitarian (Important ) lp 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Much like the Trinity cd we listed a while back, Trinitarian, finds the Canadian doomdronebliss duo Nadja offering up a whole lp of new material, including a solo piece by each member as well as a brand new massive sidelong dreamdirge.
Baker's contribution is a gorgeous expanse of breathless shimmer, all billowy and dreamlike, soft swirls of muted chimes and bell-like tones, woven into almost choral sounding passages, warm and hushed and reverent, but with a slightly ominous tinge that only grows more pronounced as the track progresses.
Buckareff balances Baker's more tranquil contribution, with a piece much more sinister, a deep, dark and creepy soundscape of crumbling distorted buzz and shimmering metallic whir, lots and lots of space creating a bottomless black ambience rife with minor key melodic fragments and undulating layers of textured drone. Intense and intensely haunting.
The Nadja track takes up all of side 2, and begins with blissed out harmonized guitars, super spare drums, a digitally treated, slightly glitchy soft minimalism that drifts delicately until the inevitable crush, but this time the crush is not only massive, it's weirdly warped and warm and soft, processed and distorted making it sound a bit alien and otherworldly, almost more warm and washed out than heavy, a bit like a doom metal Galaxie 500, sun dappled and multihued, dreamy and ethereal, while somehow managing to remain incredibly heavy. The song grows slightly less blissy and more intense and ominous by the end of the side, but even then, the sound is still mysteriously transcendent.
LIMITED TO ONLY 200 COPIES!!! These are probably the only copies we'll ever get!

BAKER, AIDAN / LEAH BUCKAREFF / NADJA Trinity (Die Stadt) cd 24.00
You read that right, this is indeed another new Nadja AND another new Aidan Baker, at the same time! Even after the world record FIVE Nadja's on a recent list. And while we joke about how prolific this guy is, even we're a bit overwhelmed by what is basically, counting reissues, maybe the 10th or 11th new release in a matter of a month or two. Sure we can whip out reviews like nobody's business, but even we're run a little ragged. But we'll do our best.
Obviously fans will need this, lots of us bought copies, after all, we've yet to hear a bad record from Baker or Nadja, and this one is no different. However it is special for two reasons, one, it's crazy limited, only 500 copies, hand numbered. When we run out of the ones we have it will be gone for good. And two, it features the first (as far as we know) solo jam from the non Aidan Baker half of Nadja, Leah Buckareff.
Three long tracks, released to coincide with a German live performance in April. The Baker solo track is a pretty glistening drift, a bit more dense and thick than past solo efforts, a surprisingly busy sonic swirl, ethereal effects, murky drones, fragments of melodies, bits of feedback and rumble and twinkle, all set in a warm whirring expanse of soft sound.
The Nadja track begins all dark and serene, but quickly builds to an incendiary blown out doom trudge, quite possibly the heaviest and most distorted we've heard the duo, the guitar thick and crumbling and so distorted it almost obscures any melody, the drum machine a chaotic splatter, the last few minutes so intense and heavy and freaked out, the squall of swirling black psych and drum machine sputter almost completely obscures the churning riffage below.
The big surprise here, although we suppose it shouldn't really be a surprise, is Buckareff's contribution. We're tempted to suggest that she start releasing her own records, but that's just what we need! More kick ass records to buy. Anyway, Buckareff's track, is all low end whir, whispery static, and barely there percussion, that builds to a caustic dirgedrone as heavy and intense as anything Nadja has released, but the cool thing is that even when the sound is a wall of heaving roiling black buzz, beneath it lurks that opening bass melody, the strange pit pat percussion, a mournful lope, slowly being swallowed by a massive swell of muted murky washed out heaviness, that quickly fades out, leaving that minimal bassy shuffle to fade out into silence.
Ok, fine, fuck it, bring it on, more Buckareff solo stuff! We can take it. Even if we can't afford more musical obsessions. But after this we need to hear more. Once again, three for three. Nadja, Baker, Buckareff, essential listening for the doomdronedirge inclined.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, hand numbered, in a cool matte paper fold over sleeve.
MPEG Stream: LEAH BUCKAREFF "Socorro"
MPEG Stream: NADJA "Jornada Del Muerto"

BAKER, AIDAN / NOVELLER Colorful Disturbances (Divorce) lp 17.98
A pretty perfect matchup, Aidan Baker, 1/2 of doom drone duo Nadja, and avant-drone guitarist / filmmaker Sarah Lipstate aka Noveller, who both offer up some of their prettiest sounds for this collection of Colorful Disturbances.
Lipstate starts things off with a gorgeous smoldering driftscape, a sea of tinkling chiming high end melodies draped over soft swells of buzz and crunch, while within a pulsing blur holds it all together. Dreamy and divine, definitely the sort of track that could have been double or triple the length. Her second contribution is just as good, a bit more minimal, slightly glitchier and buzzier, but still serene and dreamlike, with a slightly ominous vibe, reverbed guitars are left to float in a constantly swirling cloud of sonic grit and soft focus hiss, that hiss constantly changing shapes and revealing partially obscured sounds and voices and melodies. So nice, this too could have filled up the whole side and we would have been perfectly happy.
Baker contributes a single 20 minute sidelong drift, all washed out glimmery tones, long and blurred and smeary and indistinct, creating a slow shifting layered landscape of gauzy soft focus colors, sun dappled and prismatic, warm and muted and totally lovely. Easily one of the prettiest tracks we've heard from AB for sure. Like we said, a perfect match!
Vinyl only and limited, so grab one before they disappear...

BAKER, AIDAN / THISQUIETARMY Orange (Thisquietarmy) 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.
Managed to get a final handful of these back in, but once they are gone, it will be out of print forever, so probably your last chance...
Another super limited release from Mr. Aidan Baker, the first since, well, since the last list in fact, but as with that disc, Figures, this one too holds up just as well as any of his other numerous releases, and as usual the more we listen to it, the more we discover and dig about it. Unlike Figures, which was Baker in slowcore band mode, this is the slow languorous drone sound we originally fell in love with way back when. Orange finds Baker hooking up with another sonically like minded individual, Eric Quach, who records as Thisquietarmy. It seems both have a thing for the dark and drone-y, the lush and laid back, a world of expansive slowly shimmering deep ambience, as Orange demonstrates. Four tracks clocking in at 30 minutes, Orange is a darkly gorgeous drift in four movements, shifting lazily from dense rumbling reverberant low end explorations, to airy soft focus flutter, to lumbering slow motion whir, to subtly melodic epic cinematic ambience. It's hard to know what else to say about this stuff, other than it's gorgeous, dreamy, serene, haunting and so so so beautiful. As if there was anything else you needed to know.Ê
Packaged in anÊorange, yellow, red and white sleeve and pressed on a cool matching silver/orange cd-r.Ê
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Agent"
MPEG Stream: "Mandarin"

BAKER, JOHN The John Baker Tapes (Trunk) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If 79 tracks over two volumes was a little too much to digest of John Baker's strange and jazzy electronique miniatures, than this vinyl version might be just the thing for you, as it condenses the most interesting 25 tracks from both volumes.
Delia Derbyshire may embody the otherworldly beauty and mystique behind the sounds of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, but John Baker was its alchemical heart. Who else could take a simple tone from air being blown over a bottle and make it into a warm and electrifying panorama of melodious sound? In this LP, we find TV adverts, library pieces, jazzy soundtracks, radiophonic pieces and home recordings as well as an interview on how he made the sounds contained here, and his broadcast obituary. Baker had a knack for melody, and often imbued his mechanically made recordings with a warmth and playfulness that his more mathematically-inclined contemporaries lacked. The jazz and library compositions (made for the Southern and Peer International organizations) are similar in form and sound to Basil Kirchin and Michael Garrick (two other Trunk luminaries), urgently spright and pastoral, sometimes soft and spacey. Yet he could also establish veils of mystery and drawn out suspense in his carefully composed themes. Our favorite in particular is "Jazz Advert" a track we suspect Broadcast or Stereolab must have been very aware of. However, Baker's real talent is brevity. With most of the tracks contained here lasting under a minute, he evokes a complex and engaging sound world that is perfectly encapsulated within its miniscule timeframe.
Covering his entire musical career from 1954 up until his death in 1985, and exhaustively culled from boxes and boxes of often unmarked tapes, this is a great and essential purchase for anyone interested in early British electronic music.
MPEG Stream: "Codename"
MPEG Stream: "Vendetta: The Sugar Man"
MPEG Stream: "Jazz Advert"
MPEG Stream: "Piano Strokes"

BAKER, JOHN The John Baker Tapes, Volume 1 (Trunk) cd 16.98
Delia Derbyshire may embody the otherworldly beauty and mystique behind the sounds of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, but John Baker was its alchemical heart. Who else could take a simple tone from air being blown over a bottle and make it into a warm and electrifying panorama of melodious sound? This is the first of two volumes of rare and unreleased pieces from the heyday of the BBC; this one covering the years 1963-1969. In it we find TV adverts, library pieces, jazzy soundtracks, radiophonic pieces and home recordings as well as interviews on how he made the sounds contained here. Baker had a knack for melody, and often imbibed his mechanically made recordings with a warmth and playfulness that his more mathematically inclined contemporaries lacked. Yet he could also establish veils of mystery and drawn out suspense in his carefully composed themes. But Baker's real talent is brevity. With most of the 49(!) tracks contained here lasting under a minute, he evokes a complex and engaging sound world that is perfectly encapsulated within its minute long timeframe. Baker is the first of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop composers to get such a retrospective overview. Hopefully this means we'll see more individual overviews from this important laboratory of recorded sound very soon.
MPEG Stream: "Big Ben News Theme"
MPEG Stream: "Codename"
MPEG Stream: "John Baker Interview"
MPEG Stream: "Tom Tom (Theme)"
MPEG Stream: "Vendetta: The Sugar Man"

BALAM ACAB See Birds (Tri Angle) 12" 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another 'witch house' luminary gets their first proper (non cd-r or download) release in the form of this gorgeous 5 song ep. For those who have somehow missed out on the whole witch house thing, it's sort of hard to describe, a new self proclaimed genre that seems to mix electronic music with dark creepy samples, everything slowed down and murky and witchy, ethereal vocals, distorted production, there's already a serious backlash because of the ridiculous witch house hype, which is pretty funny, considering probably all but the very hippest folks have barely even heard any witch house.
We reviewed the debut 12" from oOoOO a few lists back (all the witch house bands tend to have names that borrow heavily from the zapf dingbats font and the special keys on your keyboard), a fantastically dreamy chunk of electronic ghostly minimal dream pop, we also made Salem's King Night our Record of the Week, with its bombastic shoegaze bliss meets chopped and screwed Southern style crunk, but Balam Acab definitely tends toward the former, the two part title track a fuzzy, almost dubsteppy bit of gently glitchy gauziness, angelic vocals, wreathed in reverb, drifting over swirling industrial loops and shimmering synths, the second part totally blissed out and otherworldly, the beats spare and skeletal, the vocals floating on clouds of whirling effects and blurred melody, while in between, basslines buzz ominously, beats careen in slow motion, voices loop and hover, melodies fragment and drift apart, the sound like some eighties MTV pop slowed way down and dipped in drugs and left in the afternoon sun to warm, fuzzy streaks of sound wrapped around stuttery glacial beats, "Big Boy" offering up a hook on par with "See Birds", while "Dream Out" sounds like a warped Kate Bush record playing at 16rpm, while kids play video games in the next room.
Awesome stuff. And we could care less really if the hipster intelligentsia has decided witch house is dead, cuz we're definitely dying to hear more...
MPEG Stream: "See Birds"

BALDWIN, MATT / NICO GEORIS Year Of The Dog (Psychic Arts) cd-r 7.98
After falling so deeply in love with Matt Baldwin's recent cd-r release, Imaginary Psychology, earlier this year, we knew that this bay area guitar wizard had really come into his own, exploring exciting new terrain in reaching epic psychedelic bliss.
This new outing finds Baldwin collaborating with multi-instrumentalist Nico Georgis, as they create two long form pieces that explore a more textured and layered sort of kosmische drift. The first track, "Year Of The Dog", finds Baldwin employing guitar, guitar-synth, as well as loops and delay, while Georis contributes clavinet, Wurlitzer piano, percussion, a Prophet 600, and a MicroKorg to create a meditative movement that's like some pulsating dreamscape conjured up by Robert Fripp, Michael Rother, Ash Ra Tempel, Manuel Gottsching, and/or John Cale. It taps into a sound that folks like Mark McGuire/Emeralds, White Rainbow, Bitchin Bajas, and Arp have been exploring, but with a much more organic and warm approach.
"Juan Carlos" is the other massive track here, an improv psych-jam, that features Juan Carlos Morales Tablada on congas and percussion. It starts with a slow build that immediately entrances as its sounds are both so connected to the earth, yet do such an amazing job of taking you to another dimension. In some ways the vibe makes us think of another one of our favorite cd-r releases from this year, Eat The Earth, by fellow San Francisco psych improv masters 3 Leafs.
Hand numbered and limited to 50 copies, this one is a no brainer. Don't miss out!
MPEG Stream: "Year Of The Dog"
MPEG Stream: "Juan Carlos"

BALL LIGHTNING s/t (Jyrk) cd-r 7.98
Seems like all we have to do is blink and voila! Another batch of freaky and far out Jyrk cd-r releases materializes. We're not complaining, we're just saying is all. So here's the first of this installment's threesome, by the very mysterious Ball Lightning, who just so happens to be William Sabiston, the percussionist for Axolotl. 18 tracks in 20 minutes, brief little snippets of sound, a sound that is pretty dang tough to describe. Some weird mix of Sunburned Hand Of The Man tribalism, some skittery percussive free jazz and some sort-of-electronics, a super listenable hodge podge of rhythmic exploration. Clicking, shuffling, squeaking, pulsing, pounding mini soundscapes of glitch and click and buzz and throb and stutter and clang and clatter. This disc almost sounds like someone took a twenty minute This Heat outtake, chopped it up into minute long pieces, mixed them all up and reassembled the tape. Cool and hypnotic and very very weird.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES. WE GOT 30 COPIES, ONCE THESE ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD, IT'S ALREADY OUT OF PRINT AT THE LABEL!
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "3"
MPEG Stream: "4"
MPEG Stream: "6"

BALTYCKIE SZEPTY s/t (Plus GSM) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Members of Polish avant-hippy collective Atman (aka Magic Carpathians) are involved with this project, the title of which we think translates into English as "Baltic Whisperings". Recordings of seals swimming in the Baltic Sea are augmented with moog, guitar, woodwinds, plus various other instruments and electronics. They've created an aquatic musical document of bathing, breathing creatures and drifting, gorgeous, and sometimes sinister, shimmering soundscapes. This is the kind of "new age" music we can like. Very limited availability.

BANABILA, MICHEL / HANNES VENNIK / BOBBY Cards On The Table (Staalplaat) cd 10.98
Just like all of the productions for Fallt's "Invallid Object Series," Cards On The Table is a 3"CD that is meant to be played through the random function on your CD player. In fact, the entire process of this album revolves around chance, with the artists making their sampling decision solely on the basis of a shuffled deck of cards. So smooth jazz gets a dot-matrix printer intertwined with its soulful sax, musique concrete and '60s lounge samples are slammed together, and contemporary DSP glitch manipulations fuse with ethno electronics, simply because the cards said so. File under: surrealism to think about, not listen to.

BANANA CREW Tickles (Banana Crew) 7" 7.98
We often get mysterious packages in the mail. Sometimes a tape, or a handful of 7"s, often surprisingly, with no info whatsoever, no note, no nothing. Which in some ways is cool, nothing to go on but the music itself, and the packaging. But unfortunately, sometimes it takes us a while to listen to everything, which means once in a while, we hear something we dig, and realize we have no way of tracking the band or the label down.
So a while back, we got a little package of 7"s in the mail, and they looked amazing. Transparent vellum sleeves, clear vinyl, the word 'Tickles' printed on the front in a cool font, a weird painting/picture of a stoplight pasted on the front, and a manga style drawing of a diner on the back, with a sad lonely girl sitting by herself underneath a sign for vegetable burgers and beans. Very strange.
It wasn't until a few days ago, months and months after the 7"s showed up at the store, that someone from the band finally contacted us and gave is the lowdown. We never noticed, but printed in tiny letters on the back is the name of the band, The Banana Crew, which is apparently the name of the group, but it's not just a group, it's also a sort of arts collective, and this, "Tickles" is their first musical document. If you're anything like us, a band called Banana Crew with a record called Tickles might not have sounded all that promising, but we were pleasantly surprised to discover, the music of BC was a sort of Gary Numan / Kraftwerk style krautwave machinemusic electro pop, all fuzzy synths, shuffling snares, tinkling melodies and moody dramatic new wave vocals. A definite eighties vibe, one that positions BC amongst many other contemporary acts mining that much maligned decade, taking a sort of Daft Punk thing, stripping it way down, and slowing it down, a sci-fi retro electronic future pop that's hazy, and dreamy, and softly propulsive, definitely with a little of that Carpenter soundtrack feel, but the vocals turn it into the sort of futuristic electro pop that groups like Soft Metals, White Car, Blank Dogs, Gary War, Greatest Hits and Autre Ne Veut and the like have been exploring lately as well...

BANANAFISH MAGAZINE Issue #12 magazine+cd 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Hallelujah, another issue of the most esoteric music magazine out there. Neil Hamburger (hilarious tour diary), Monde Bruits, Climax Golden Twins, Iancu Dumitrescu, Sufi Mind Game, Crank Sturgeon, Stillupsteypa, etc... all featured in the mag as well as on the accompanying cd.

BANANAFISH MAGAZINE Issue #14 magazine+cd 10.98
Reynols (yay!), Vote Robot, Jazzfinger, Panicsville, Polar Goldie Cats, Octavian Nemescu, Margaret Murray, and many other even more obscure artists/musicians are featured either in the pages of, and/or on the bonus cd that comes with with, this latest installment of one of 'zinedoms most eccentric institutions. Paradoxically, Bananafish has always been both an enlightening and confusing read, and these new 164 pages maintain that reputation.

BANANAFISH MAGAZINE Issue #15 magazine+cd 10.98
Yay, another issue of Bananafish, repository for the weird, wonderful and noisy. We like.
"All tracks on CD are exclusive (or virtually so) and directly related to the content of the magazine: Christine Shields (interview with this issue's cover artist, the author behind surreal, dreamlike Blue Hole comic book, and banjo-player for Appalachia-influenced Grouse Mountain Skyride). Mal Sharpe (Interview with author, jazz musician, and Man-on-the-Street interviewer most well known as half of '60s prankster duo Coyle and Sharpe, whose legendary put-ons have been released on CD by the 21361 and Thirsty Ear labels). Ana-Maria Avram (translation of an interview by Costin Cazaban with Romanian acousmatic composer and Editions Modern recording artist whose uncompromising, demanding music gives heavyweights like Dumitrescu and Fernando Grillo a run for the money). Volcano the Bear (interview by Neil Campbell with this mind-expanding UK surrealist quartet whose music straddles 'a strange, ambiguous line between comforting and terrifying') mad-cow.org (interview with Dr. Thomas Pringle, webmaster of the Sperling Biomedical Foundation's site containing almost 8,000 articles on mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prions, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, scrapie, and numerous other crimes against nature)."

BANANAFISH MAGAZINE Issue #18 (Tedium House) magazine + cd 10.98
Sadly, the last ever ish (so we're told) of this long-running avantgarde music n' art magazine... And it remains entertainingly dense with confusion to the last. Obscure isn't obscure until it's been celebrated (and futher obscured) in the pages of Bananafish. This final issue leaves us with info and interviews with Jim Leftwich ("experimental writer, visual poet..."), Burning Star Core ("violin/electronics/voice iconoclast"), Nelson Gastaldi ("Argentinean psych-spatial composer"), Montract ("group of beach-blanket acidheads"), and Joe Colley ("ex-Crawl Unit noise mumbler"). There's also "surreal, interdisiplinary" comics from Mecca Normal guitarist David Lester and of course pages and pages of reviews of all kinds of noisy, fucked up music -- reviews that quite often are more interesting than the music itself, we sometimes suspect. Plus the requisite bonus cd that comes with the magazine, with stuff from all the above mentioned artists, including lots of excerpts from cassettes found by Joe Colley. Ah Bananfish, we'll miss ya.

BAND OF PAIN Reculver (Dirtier Promotions) cd 16.98
Band of Pain straddles the fence between the austere deep listening isolationism of Andrew Chalk and the nightmarish dark ambient of Lustmord. Ghastly drones creep along with microscopic textures and hypnotic pudding rhythms. Stefan Jaworzyn - of Ascension - makes a guest appearance. Very, very good.

BANJO OR FREAKOUT Upside Down (Half Machine Records) lp 10.98
The funny thing about Banjo Or Freakout, is you'll find neither on their records. Okay, well maybe a -little- freakout. But mostly, BoFO traffic in some seriously buzzy, warm and warbly fuzz drenched indie folk noise pop, acoustic guitars, vocal harmonies, some almost programmed sounding drums, total power pop hooks, think Neutral Milk Hotel, the Comas, Apples In Stereo, but filtered through the new breed of pop deconstructionists like Ducktails, Thee Oh Sees and the like.
The A side is all jangle and buzz and croon and will totally hit the spot and fill that Neutral Milk Hotel shaped hole in your heart, the B side though is totally blown out, absolute woozy shoegazy bliss, everything looped and hypnotic and buried under a haze of guitars and buzzy effects. And then there's the trippy rhythmic closer, equal parts Avarus style tribal clatter and drum circle kraut jam and Animal Collective outsider pop bliss. This record rules. Need to hear more bad!!

BANNON, J. The Blood Of Thine Enemies (Deathwish) 7" 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Very first solo record from one Mr. J. Bannon, who most of you might know better as the frontman for the mighty Converge, as well as the head honcho of Deathwish Records. But don't let the whole Deathwish / Converge angle mislead you, Bannon also did time in a group called Supermachiner, a more abstract project exploring drones, and blissed out post rock and epic cinematic ambience, and while this 7" is a bit closer to Supermachiner than it is to Converge, it's actually very little like either.
A single track, beginning with a slow whispered shimmer, a simple throbbing distorted bass, very spare and spacious, pulsing amidst soft sonic swells, a creepy minor key melody, a soft dirge. Eventually the vocals come in, mirrored by plinking piano, underpinned by simple percussion, the vocals plaintive and melancholy, a mournful croon, the piano adding some instrumental gravitas, a slow slow slow build, only truly exploding near the very end, and even then it's not so much an explosion as a culmination, a sort of Godspeed like pinnacle, which quickly fades back into the record's opening shimmer. Very reminiscent of Low actually, a dark, dreamy, drifting, abstract slow core. A tempting teaser for the forth coming full length.
And most folks know that beyond playing in Converge, Bannon is also an amazing graphic designer, and that becomes plainly obvious when you see the over the top packaging. The records are pressed on various colors of vinyl, silver, gold, creme, it's a one sided 7", the flip side features a super intricate etching, a winged skull, flowers, and tiny text, all housed in a gorgeous screen printed card stock sleeve that folds together origami style. Each record also includes a download coupon so you can get these analog sounds on your digital player of choice.

BARACLOUGH The Lampshade Is Not A Past Tense (The Tapeworm) cassette 7.98
Another weird one from The Tapeworm, a UK tape only label, who specialize in, well, it's hard to say what they specialize in. Past releases gave included tapes from Philip Jeck, Simon Fisher Turner, a recording of interviews with Derek Jarman, some amazing psych jazz from a group called the Van Patterson Quartet among other strange offerings. So considering all of those, this record from Baraclough, a London trio of abstract noisemakers, sounds right at home.
Described by the label as being made up of a "classically trained musician, a self taught musician and a non musician", the trio exist somewhere between abstract minimal drone music, and the sort of stumbling anti-folk of No Neck or Sunburned Hand, but doused in electronics and a healthy bit of Nurse With Wound style industrial noise. Simple delicate melodies and bursts of percussion, drift dreamily over a caustic sea of black buzz, roiling and crumbling in a cloud of blurred distortion, squalls of grinding electronic glitch throb and envelop hushed vocals, and splatters of minimal looped percussion, sometimes locking into an almost This Heat sounding mesmer, the sound slipping from rhythmic hypno-lurch to blown out crumbling murmur, to delicate shimmery smearscape.
Unlike much of what comes out on The Tapeworm, these guys are a going concern, with actual records on other labels, and after hearing this, odds are you're gonna want to track those down too.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!

BARBARA Peger (Heart & Crossbone) cd 11.98
Finally! A brand new record from Israel's Barbara. A band we fell in love with before we even heard them. Why? Well, they're called Barbara to start with, they're from Israel, Barbara is written in olde English with the first 'b' extending into a crucifix, and they're a bass and drums duo. We were completely sold before we even discovered how amazing they sounded. But with all that going for them, if they didn't rule, we would have seriously lost faith in the universe.
The sound on Peger is not all that far removed from their 1999 debut A Blessing From The Angel Of Death, the biggest difference being that where the first disc was a live record, this is recorded in a studio, so it sounds heavier, noisier and more intense. A sloppy, ultra loose doomy prog jam of the highest order. It's like a confusional mix of Godheadsilo, Hella, Burmese, Lightning Bolt and the Ruins, but dipped in molten metal and rolled around in filthy gritty grimy dooooom. The guitars buzz and moan, chugging and grinding, weaving elaborate layered fuzzscapes and jagged melodies, a seriously sludgy downtuned blast of sonic chaos, feedback and amp buzz everywhere, shrieked vocals and blown out rumbles... but it's the drums holding it all together, a relentless ultra complex pound, drums splattered everywhere and cymbals crashing all over the place, like someone was firing a machine gun into a room stuffed with old drum kits. But this isn't just noise rock, the songs are weirdly catchy, underneath all the throb and pummel, thrash and grind, lurk some killer hooks and some super memorable riffs. And interspersed throughout the record are washed out extended drones, long stretches of buzzing fuzzed out guitar, and rumbling low end, punctuated by occasional bursts of aggro drum crush. Some super abstract ambient doom, that always seems to collapse back into another blast of stumbling low end punishment. So good!
MPEG Stream: "Schnell"
MPEG Stream: "The Philosopher Under Pressure"
MPEG Stream: "Pray To Black"
MPEG Stream: "The Feedbacker"

BARDO POND Archive 24 (aRCHIVE) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
An awesome live recording from these psych rock astral travelers, this lengthy two track performance recorded live in the living room of a house somewhere in Philadelphia finds the Pond at their driftiest and dreamiest. The opening track is a 34 minute psychbliss epic, guitars swirl and shimmer, drifting lazily across a gauzy sun dappled sonic sky, violins float by occasionally as do snatches of fluttering flute, the background dense with chimes and distant bells, muted melodies and slow undulating waves of guitar groan and ambient rumble, colored here and there by some scrape and hiss, as well as voices and sounds from the partygoers seated around the band. It's a sloooooow build and when it finally does reach it's peak, it's not a blow out as much as a heavy drone. Totally mesmerizing and tranceworthy! The second track, clocking in at a much more brief 12 minutes or so, is an even more mellow affair, simple drifting acoustic guitar, hand drums, flutes and ethereal female vocals, while in the background, thick billowing clouds of distorted psychedelic guitar pulse and swell, like some mysterious sonic Northern lights. So nice. Hard to imagine these sounds emanating from a house in some suburb, unless that house suddenly became unmoored and began drifting through alternate universes, or through some unexplored corner of the galaxy. So perfect!
LIMITED TO 600 COPIES!! Two different covers, each one super striking, no need to ask for a specific cover, they'll be pulled at random, and you'll be pleased as punch either way!
MPEG Stream: "Amur"
MPEG Stream: "Walkingclouds"

BARDO POND Batholith (Three Lobed) lp + cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If we had to pick our favorite modern psych rock band, it might be tough. There are so many groups who have mastered the fine art of druggy soundscapes, tripped out space rock, and in-the-red avantpsych drone jams. But if push comes to shove, most of us would probably pick Bardo Pond.
Release after release, every single one of their records manages to push all our musical buttons, be it droney krautrockishness, damaged freaked out noise rock, trippy stoned drift, fluttering psych folk, heavy riffrock, or all of the above! These guys have mastered their craft, but remain unafraid to just wing it, jamming wildly, almost always resulting in something truly transcendent.
Batholith, while ostensibly an actual album, is in fact, a collection of some of Bardo's favorite songs that for whatever reason have never been released until now. Some live tracks, Peel sessions, and the opener "A Tune", that the band began their legendary Terrastock II set with, a laid back stoned groove, all warm washed out guitars and shuffling drums, until over the top, in swoop the Gibbons brothers, to tear it up, unfurling fiery sun baked leads over the top, wrapped around the vocals, a buried murmur, ghostly and gauzy, the whole track a glorious acid drenched, fuzzy buzzy drone-y jam.
In fact most of Batholith sounds like that, super hazy, lazy, drawn out, sprawling riffs, dreamy and definitely WAY druggy.
But that all changes about halfway through.
"Splint" begins as a post rocky meander, barely any guitars, just little trills and flourishes here and there, amidst a cloud of bass thrum and shuffling drums, which rev up about half way through into a dense churning wall of sound, crumbling and massive, before drifting back to the track's opening drift. "Slip Away" is total nineties shoegaze, somewhere between the Swirlies and Swervedriver, the vocals ethereal and dreamlike, the drums a driving pound, but guitars EVERYWHERE, thick and fuzzed out, layers upon layers, one guitar soaring above the rest, skywriting buzzing minor key melodies over the top, sometimes exploding into wahwah drenched squalls, other times just adding to the overall buzz.
The final track, the longest at 10 minutes, is all Eastern raga, with some steel string buzz that sounds a bit like a sitar, a loping sea sick main riff, a hypnotic pulse like drum beat, and again the guitars take over, snarling and growling and glowing, a super intense tangle of downtuned buzz, draped over the steady motorik jam beneath, until the band launch into space, and unload an incredibly fierce and furious space rock outro, the drums dense and complex, the bass thick and fuzzy, the guitars all wound up in a glorious psychdrone battle to the death.
Incredibly deluxe packaging. Heavy heavy gatefold. The record pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Included with the lp is a cd of the same music. LIMITED TO 1049 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "A Tune"
MPEG Stream: "Push Your Head"

BARDO POND Gazing At Shilla (Important) lp 17.98
No one does stoned and blissed out deep-in-the-forest jams better than Bardo Pond. For over fifteen years now this Philly outfit have been kicking out some of the most gorgeous organic spaced out rock EVER. Bardo Pond have so many different sides to their sound, from more song based tracks, to full on psychedelia, to dirgey space rock, and of course there's the sprawling tripped out and totally dreamy epic jams.
Gazing At Shilla finds the Pond in the latter mode, which is just fine as we can't get enough of that sound, when the band somehow bring earth and sky together in gloriously cataclysmic ways, allowing us to get so totally and fantastically lost in their sound. Recorded between 2003-2006, each side is a single, fantastic, sprawling twenty minute instrumental. "Eight - Thousanders" finds the band soaring and floating and gliding with such ease and fluidity. While "Kali" gets a little buzzier and darker, gritty space-y sonics transmitted from another dimension. Imagine if Roy Montgomery and Sonic Youth joined forces, or those special moments when Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mothers Temple set their trajectory for cosmic spheres unknown. Ultimately though, it sounds like Bardo Pond (albeit only one of their many sides), a band who continue to grow, evolve and rule!
This the first of a new four part Bardo Pond related series of limited edition vinyl only releases on Important, we also just got the others in, one each by Bardo side projects Alasehir, Alumbrados, and Moon Phantoms - the latter a collaboration with Japan's Suishu No Fune!

BARDO POND Peri (Three Lobed) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Peri is a companion of sorts to the earlier Bardo Pond release Batholith, which itself was a compilation of rare and unreleased tracks. The wealth of material compiled for Batholith resulted in this, a second volume of rarities, culled from the last almost 15 years. It includes some old fan favorites, and we have to say this is the sort of Bardo Pond we love, so sludgey and murky and psychedelic and raw, the band seriously HEAVY, their psychedelia dark and drone-y and intense, the guitars thick and gnarled, the vocals ghostlike and buried in the mix, lots of fluttering flutes, thick squalls of wild guitar freakout, the drums a pounding thud. Just check out the opener "Karwan", a slithery sprawling sludgey groove, the guitars thick and cloudy, the drums more of a slow motion tribal pulse than a rhythm, the main riff loping and woozy and druggy, the vocals laid back and weary, the whole thing sounding like it's being broadcast through a haze of pot smoke.
"The Path" is short and more delicate, the vocals and flutes way up front, but fiery guitars buzz just below the surface, the vibe almost folky, which perfectly segues into "Libation" a way more laid back space jam, the drums skittery and spare, the guitars spidery and crystalline, the vocals again buried in the mix, and a wicked psych blowout outro.
"Chicken Gun" was a live staple from the nineties, and features a bad ass main riff, lots of wah wah, thick distorted guitars, cool chanteuse like vocals, strange atonal flute freakouts, and a sound that just gets heavier and heavier and more dense as the track progresses. Finally, the record closes with "Silver Pavillion", another classic Bardo oldie, tripped out and dreamy and druggy, more krautrocky than anything, the guitars unfurling soft shimmery buzz, but again with an explosive climax, wild intense drumming, and some intense tangled psych guitar dueling. Total space rock / drone rock / krautrock nirvana.
Weirdly, the vinyl is limited to 1640 copies, while the cd-only version is limited to a mere 350 copies, so those will most likely be gone before the lps. But heck, you might as well buy the lp, since not only does it ALSO come with a cd anyway, it comes in a gorgeous ultra heavy, super swank and super deluxe gatefold jacket!
MPEG Stream: "Karwan"
MPEG Stream: "Silver Pavilion"

BARDO POND Peri (Three Lobed) lp + cd 25.00
Peri is a companion of sorts to the earlier Bardo Pond release Batholith, which itself was a compilation of rare and unreleased tracks. The wealth of material compiled for Batholith resulted in this, a second volume of rarities, culled from the last almost 15 years. It includes some old fan favorites, and we have to say this is the sort of Bardo Pond we love, so sludgey and murky and psychedelic and raw, the band seriously HEAVY, their psychedelia dark and drone-y and intense, the guitars thick and gnarled, the vocals ghostlike and buried in the mix, lots of fluttering flutes, thick squalls of wild guitar freakout, the drums a pounding thud. Just check out the opener "Karwan", a slithery sprawling sludgey groove, the guitars thick and cloudy, the drums more of a slow motion tribal pulse than a rhythm, the main riff loping and woozy and druggy, the vocals laid back and weary, the whole thing sounding like it's being broadcast through a haze of pot smoke.
"The Path" is short and more delicate, the vocals and flutes way up front, but fiery guitars buzz just below the surface, the vibe almost folky, which perfectly segues into "Libation" a way more laid back space jam, the drums skittery and spare, the guitars spidery and crystalline, the vocals again buried in the mix, and a wicked psych blowout outro.
"Chicken Gun" was a live staple from the nineties, and features a bad ass main riff, lots of wah wah, thick distorted guitars, cool chanteuse like vocals, strange atonal flute freakouts, and a sound that just gets heavier and heavier and more dense as the track progresses. Finally, the record closes with "Silver Pavillion", another classic Bardo oldie, tripped out and dreamy and druggy, more krautrocky than anything, the guitars unfurling soft shimmery buzz, but again with an explosive climax, wild intense drumming, and some intense tangled psych guitar dueling. Total space rock / drone rock / krautrock nirvana.
Weirdly, the vinyl is limited to 1640 copies, while the cd-only version is limited to a mere 350 copies, so those will most likely be gone before the lps. But heck, you might as well buy the lp, since not only does it ALSO come with a cd anyway, it comes in a gorgeous ultra heavy, super swank and super deluxe gatefold jacket!
MPEG Stream: "Karwan"
MPEG Stream: "Silver Pavilion"

BARDO POND / 500MG / DECHEMIA / TAKEDA Sublimation (Three Lobed Recordings) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is not a Bardo Pond record proper (although this disc does include one lengthy Bardo Pond track), but instead is a cd collecting some Bardo Pond related outings by various members and offshoots of this Philly psych rock combo, released as a special limited edition to celebrate the recent Terrastock 6 festival held in April in Rhode Island. Sublimation features all new music from Bardo Pond and Bardo satellites 500mg, Dechemia and Takeda.
We can't get enough of fuzzy soft focus druggy spacescapes and Bardo Pond as always deliver just that with the epic 17 minute long "Dual States", a slow burn, blissed out meander, shuffling rhythms, and all sorts of tangled effects-drenched guitars, a warm wash of tripped out loveliness. 500mg, who you might remember from a super limited 12" we carried a while back, is Michael Gibbons on guitars and effects, and explores a much more abstract world of sound, here it's a thick wall of crumbling distorted guitars, fuzzy intercepted radio broadcasts that drifts and breaks apart into soft tendrils of dreamy sunbaked guitar sparkle and warm warbly low end, a washed out shimmery swirl of Sonny Sharrock, Kyuss and Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain". Dechemia is Isobel Sollenberger and John Gibbons and their 4 minute track is a brief gypsy raga, shuffling percussion, simple Eastern guitars, and droning Tony Conrad like violins (played impressively by Sollenberger who usually handles the flute in BP!). So lovely. Finally, a twenty minute track from BP guitarist Clint Takeda, a massive, lumbering, rumbling slow burn, thick distorted guitar, spread out in a thick layer of barely shifting, resonating shimmer, peppered with brief stretches of soft melodic whisper, but for the most part a thick flow of throb and crunch, rumble and keen, mumbled vocals and murky riffs surface, but are quickly dismantled, and stretched out to become more layers, in Takeda's tarpit symphony. Awesome.
Limited to 500 copies, most of which were sold at Terrastock, but we managed to get a bunch for the store, although it's unlikely we'll be able to get more.
MPEG Stream: 500MG "Descent"
MPEG Stream: BARDO POND "Dual States (For HST)"

BARDO POND / PRE Keep Mother Split (Fire) 10" 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

BARK! Contraption (PSI) cd 21.00

BARK! Swing (Matchless) cd 17.98
Bark! is an electoacoustic improv trio from the UK featuring guitar, percussion and electronics. The players are really good at generating cool noises (not just plain old noise) with their instruments, and create an enjoyable interplay of these sounds, sometimes resembling a rhythmic, wild, alien conversation. This stuff reminds us a bit of Supersilent, or the Shaking Ray Levis, minus the glossolalia. At other points they turn moodier but still remain quite musically active. This seems to be improv music made by good listeners, and meant (succesfully) to be a good listen.

BARN OWL Ancestral Star (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98
Ancestral Star is the latest batch of brooding, epic, twang flecked darkness from this local duo (now trio with the seemingly permanent addition of a drummer), their first for Thrill Jockey, and easily their most fully realized record yet, and while we were expecting it to maybe be their heaviest, based on the last few releases and the duo's individual solo recordings, it seems the band have dialed back the crunch, opting more for moodiness and atmosphere. The group's development from hushed psychedelic droners to brooding epic soundscapers has been a gradual and natural one, which is most likely what accounts for the seamless melding of whispery psychedelic ambience and lumbering doom-ed country drift.
The record opens up with a wild squall of superdistorted guitar buzz and howling feedback, a slowly unfurling melody, the notes crumbling and blown out, it had us expecting some serious crush right off the bat, but instead, the thick peals of smoldering psychdrone give way to some smokey Morricone-ish drift, haunting and abstract, the drums giving the sound a definite slowcore vibe, vocals hovering way off in the distance, more about adding texture than delivering lyrics.
After a brief twangscape, another spare skeletal bit of haunting countrydoomdrift, the band launch into the 10+ minute title track, a gauzy bit of slow building dronemusic, lushly layered, gradually expanding like a timelapse film of a supernova, a slowly blossoming burst of white hot buzz, expanding in every direction, a massive cloud of roiling distorted sound, that begins to fade almost immediately eventually becoming another stretch of hushed haunting ambience.
The rest of the record is rich with short sonic vignettes, a brief bit of echo drenched Appalachia, a heavily reverbed stretch of lush droney piano, a gorgeous bit of desert-y drift, all brooding twang and sitar like buzz, even some wheezing harmonium and choral like chants, these short form soundscapes separating the record's other two lengthy soundscapes, the first "Flatlands" begins all singing strings, and droned out vocals, lots of layers, and incredible overtones, the sounds constantly shifting, so dark and dramatic rife with some sort of melodic inner glow that infuses the rest of the sounds, the drone eventually fading out, leaving a bit of distorted twang, to gradually unravel to song's end. and then there's the closer, the nearly 7 minute "Light From The Mesa" another sprawling bit of dark dronemusic, washed out and whirring, the band's murky twang buried beneath the muted drift, everything wreathed in an ethereal haze, the drone finally dissipating leaving more spidery western twang, this time with percussion that sound like the clink of spurs on the wooden floor of the saloon, until those spidery guitars blossom into thick warm waves of chordal hum, backed up by soaring falsetto vocals, a gorgeous dirge to lead Barn Owl out of the valley, the record winding down as they disappear into the distance.
Yet another gorgeous collection of darkly epic doomfolk dronedrift dreaminess.
The cd version comes in a 4 panel mini lp style gatefold sleeve, the lp comes in a full color gatefold jacket and includes a download coupon as well.
MPEG Stream: "Visions In Dust"
MPEG Stream: "Ancestral Star"
MPEG Stream: "Light From The Mesa"

BARN OWL Ancestral Star (Thrill Jockey) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Vinyl repressed, and back in stock!!
Ancestral Star is the latest batch of brooding, epic, twang flecked darkness from this local duo (now trio with the seemingly permanent addition of a drummer), their first for Thrill Jockey, and easily their most fully realized record yet, and while we were expecting it to maybe be their heaviest, based on the last few releases and the duo's individual solo recordings, it seems the band have dialed back the crunch, opting more for moodiness and atmosphere. The group's development from hushed psychedelic droners to brooding epic soundscapers has been a gradual and natural one, which is most likely what accounts for the seamless melding of whispery psychedelic ambience and lumbering doom-ed country drift.
The record opens up with a wild squall of superdistorted guitar buzz and howling feedback, a slowly unfurling melody, the notes crumbling and blown out, it had us expecting some serious crush right off the bat, but instead, the thick peals of smoldering psychdrone give way to some smokey Morricone-ish drift, haunting and abstract, the drums giving the sound a definite slowcore vibe, vocals hovering way off in the distance, more about adding texture than delivering lyrics.
After a brief twangscape, another spare skeletal bit of haunting countrydoomdrift, the band launch into the 10+ minute title track, a gauzy bit of slow building dronemusic, lushly layered, gradually expanding like a timelapse film of a supernova, a slowly blossoming burst of white hot buzz, expanding in every direction, a massive cloud of roiling distorted sound, that begins to fade almost immediately eventually becoming another stretch of hushed haunting ambience.
The rest of the record is rich with short sonic vignettes, a brief bit of echo drenched Appalachia, a heavily reverbed stretch of lush droney piano, a gorgeous bit of desert-y drift, all brooding twang and sitar like buzz, even some wheezing harmonium and choral like chants, these short form soundscapes separating the record's other two lengthy soundscapes, the first "Flatlands" begins all singing strings, and droned out vocals, lots of layers, and incredible overtones, the sounds constantly shifting, so dark and dramatic rife with some sort of melodic inner glow that infuses the rest of the sounds, the drone eventually fading out, leaving a bit of distorted twang, to gradually unravel to song's end. and then there's the closer, the nearly 7 minute "Light From The Mesa" another sprawling bit of dark dronemusic, washed out and whirring, the band's murky twang buried beneath the muted drift, everything wreathed in an ethereal haze, the drone finally dissipating leaving more spidery western twang, this time with percussion that sound like the clink of spurs on the wooden floor of the saloon, until those spidery guitars blossom into thick warm waves of chordal hum, backed up by soaring falsetto vocals, a gorgeous dirge to lead Barn Owl out of the valley, the record winding down as they disappear into the distance.
Yet another gorgeous collection of darkly epic doomfolk dronedrift dreaminess.
MPEG Stream: "Visions In Dust"
MPEG Stream: "Ancestral Star"
MPEG Stream: "Light From The Mesa"

BARN OWL From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light (Digitalis) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We sold out of the deluxe version of the new Barn Owl lickety split, so now we have the regular version, much cheaper, the only difference is it doesn't come with the live cassette, same packaging, same two bonus tracks, just tapeless and cheaper!!!!
Here's our review from before:
Finally, From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light, originally released as an lp on Not Not Fun, now long out of print, is available again as a cd. And to make it worth your while, or bum out the folks who already bought the lp, there are indeed TWO extra tracks!!
Not only have Barn Owl become one of our favorite musical projects right here in SF, but they are now serious contenders to the throne of best purveyors of deep and emotional and soul satisfying drone music anywhere in the world. While just about everything they've released up to this point has been way too limited and thus are now all sadly out of print, this record included, we finally have a cd version, that while still limited will at least reach a lot more ears than previous releases. These sounds deserve to be heard by anyone with an appreciation for all things droney, stoney and drifty, all done so totally right.
While drone-folk bands have become a somewhat common entity in the last couple years, it's actually rare to discover one whose music exudes soul and spirited passion. From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light finds Barn Owl striking a perfect balance between sparkling sonics and commanding doom. Imagine Sleep/OM running in the mud with sticks and stones and then meeting up with Windy & Carl, Bardo Pond and Tom Carter. The songs are filled with deep and slowly swirling grooves. We just keep listening to this record over and over and over, every listen revealing something new, layers peeling back, revealing subtle melodies, and hidden textures, each song shifting and transforming before our very ears. There is much reward in patient listening to the music of Barn Owl. Their sound entrances and enthralls, but without letting go the melodies, or forgoing actual songwriting, these are not just chunks of droning sound, these are songs, dark, haunting, lovely mysterious songs.
Beautiful silkscreened cardstock sleeves, the two extra songs more of same, divine and otherworldly twang flecked doom folk drift, And as if we even needed to tell you, absolutely and wholeheartedly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Voice Of The Other"
MPEG Stream: "Lotus Cloud"
MPEG Stream: "The White Mountain Filled With Light"

BARN OWL From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light (Not Not Fun) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
2008 album repressed on vinyl once again, and back in stock, we'll see how long they last this time...
Not only have Barn Owl become one of our favorite musical projects right here in SF, but they are now serious contenders to the throne of best purveyors of deep hitting and soul satisfying drone anywhere in the world. While just about everything they've released up to this point has been way too limited and thus are now all sadly out of print, they finally have a release that while still limited will at least get to reach a lot more ears then anything they've put out so far. These are sounds that deserve to be heard by anyone with an appreciation for all things droney, stoney and drifty, done so totally right.
While drone-folk bands have become a somewhat common entity in the last couple years, it's actually rare when you hear one that you really feel true soul and spirited passion from. From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light finds Barn Owl striking a perfect balance between sparkling sonics and commanding doom. Imagine Sleep/OM running in the mud with sticks and stones and then meeting up with Windy & Carl, Bardo Pond and Tom Carter. The lp format suits the duo so well, as their songs are filled with deep and slowly swirling grooves. We just listened to one side over and over and over before we even moved on to the second side with which we then did the same. There is both patience and payoff in Barn Owl's sound. Music that makes you want to close your eyes because you know you are entranced by artists that know so well what they are doing. While they pressed up way more lps than anything else they've released (and this is the second pressing!), it's all relative, meaning these LP's are still limited and are most likely not going to be around too long
Highly recommended, but act fast!

BARN OWL From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light (Digitalis) cd + cassette 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light, originally released as an lp on Not Not Fun, now long out of print, is available again as a cd. And to make it worth your while, or bum out the folks who already bought the lp, there are indeed TWO extra tracks!! And as if that weren't enough, while they last (which will NOT be long), we have the super limited version, which comes with a bonus cassette (much like the OF record we reviewed a while back), and that contains a live set recorded earlier this year. We only got about 30 of these, so once these are gone, unless you specifically request otherwise, you'll get the normal cd version (sans tape).
Not only have Barn Owl become one of our favorite musical projects right here in SF, but they are now serious contenders to the throne of best purveyors of deep and emotional and soul satisfying drone music anywhere in the world. While just about everything they've released up to this point has been way too limited and thus are now all sadly out of print, this record included, we finally have a cd version, that while still limited will at least reach a lot more ears than previous releases. These sounds deserve to be heard by anyone with an appreciation for all things droney, stoney and drifty, all done so totally right.
While drone-folk bands have become a somewhat common entity in the last couple years, it's actually rare to discover one whose music exudes soul and spirited passion. From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light finds Barn Owl striking a perfect balance between sparkling sonics and commanding doom. Imagine Sleep/OM running in the mud with sticks and stones and then meeting up with Windy & Carl, Bardo Pond and Tom Carter. The songs are filled with deep and slowly swirling grooves. We just keep listening to this record over and over and over, every listen revealing something new, layers peeling back, revealing subtle melodies, and hidden textures, each song shifting and transforming before our very ears. There is much reward in patient listening to the music of Barn Owl. Their sound entrances and enthralls, but without letting go the melodies, or forgoing actual songwriting, these are not just chunks of droning sound, these are songs, dark, haunting, lovely mysterious songs.
Beautiful silkscreened cardstock sleeves, the two extra songs more of same, divine and otherworldly twang flecked doom folk drift, And as if we even needed to tell you, absolutely and wholeheartedly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Voice Of The Other"
MPEG Stream: "Lotus Cloud"
MPEG Stream: "The White Mountain Filled With Light"

BARN OWL Lost In The Glare (Thrill Jockey) cd 14.98
Seems like only yesterday Barn Owl had a new record on Thrill Jockey, and in fact this, Lost In The Glare, is their third for TJ in about a year, coming hot on the heels of their Shadowland 12" which ranks up there as one of our favorites. Lost In The Glare doesn't radically reinvent their sound, just further stretches it out, and refines it, the opening track as fierce as anything we've heard from them, lush tangles of guitar, over swirling droned out shimmer, culminating in a wild squall of jagged psychedelic feedback. And that jagged psychedelia definitely seeps into the rest of the record, with the duo seeming to crank up their guitars for the first time in a while.
Past records have been all about the dusty deserty twang, the slow burn, the smoldering ambience, and while all of that is still present, the band seem supercharged. "Turiya" finds the duo stomping on the fuzz box and unfurling peals of thick distorted guitar that almost sounds like Neil Young at times, gorgeous streaks of melody suspended over an Earth like dirge, it's a potent combo and definitely has the band sounding aggressive and HEAVY. "Devotion 1" brings it all back down, letting slow smokey melodies drift over vast expanses of space, eventually joined by a thick insectoid buzz, the sound transformed into a blissed out celestial raga. The longest track here, is also the heaviest, "The Darkest Night Since 1683" opens with a crackly haze of amp buzz and slow build chordal thrum, before erupting into some seriously blown out, downtuned blackened doomdronedirge guitar, a slow motion riff, all tarpit ooze as it buzzes and crumbles, eventually leaving a stretch of hazy twangy, psychedelic shimmer.
The rest of the record takes Barn Owl's ever shifting sound and runs with it, exploring Appalachian raga folk, all steel string buzz and lush soaring psychedelic swirl, murky moody late night crawl, rife with streaks of whirling melodies driven by a muted pulse and some washed out twang, gauzy Sunroof!-like ur-drone, all upper register skree wreathed in lush swells of bassy hum, and finally a closer that finds the band revisiting their dusty twang, but again, giving it some extra crunch, the guitars super distorted, the drums a blown out pound, all woven into a swoonsome mournful desert doom creep.
MPEG Stream: "Pale Star"
MPEG Stream: "Turiya"
MPEG Stream: "Devotion II"

BARN OWL Lost In The Glare (Thrill Jockey) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Seems like only yesterday Barn Owl had a new record on Thrill Jockey, and in fact this, Lost In The Glare, is their third for TJ in about a year, coming hot on the heels of their Shadowland 12" which ranks up there as one of our favorites. Lost In The Glare doesn't radically reinvent their sound, just further stretches it out, and refines it, the opening track as fierce as anything we've heard from them, lush tangles of guitar, over swirling droned out shimmer, culminating in a wild squall of jagged psychedelic feedback. And that jagged psychedelia definitely seeps into the rest of the record, with the duo seeming to crank up their guitars for the first time in a while.
Past records have been all about the dusty deserty twang, the slow burn, the smoldering ambience, and while all of that is still present, the band seem supercharged. "Turiya" finds the duo stomping on the fuzz box and unfurling peals of thick distorted guitar that almost sounds like Neil Young at times, gorgeous streaks of melody suspended over an Earth like dirge, it's a potent combo and definitely has the band sounding aggressive and HEAVY. "Devotion 1" brings it all back down, letting slow smokey melodies drift over vast expanses of space, eventually joined by a thick insectoid buzz, the sound transformed into a blissed out celestial raga. The longest track here, is also the heaviest, "The Darkest Night Since 1683" opens with a crackly haze of amp buzz and slow build chordal thrum, before erupting into some seriously blown out, downtuned blackened doomdronedirge guitar, a slow motion riff, all tarpit ooze as it buzzes and crumbles, eventually leaving a stretch of hazy twangy, psychedelic shimmer.
The rest of the record takes Barn Owl's ever shifting sound and runs with it, exploring Appalachian raga folk, all steel string buzz and lush soaring psychedelic swirl, murky moody late night crawl, rife with streaks of whirling melodies driven by a muted pulse and some washed out twang, gauzy Sunroof!-like ur-drone, all upper register skree wreathed in lush swells of bassy hum, and finally a closer that finds the band revisiting their dusty twang, but again, giving it some extra crunch, the guitars super distorted, the drums a blown out pound, all woven into a swoonsome mournful desert doom creep.
MPEG Stream: "Pale Star"
MPEG Stream: "Turiya"
MPEG Stream: "Devotion II"

BARN OWL Raft Of Serpents (Root Strata) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Hot on the heels of their recent From Our Mouths A Perpetual Light lp, comes this super limited (only 120 copies) repress of a tour only cd-r, available again briefly on Jef from Tarentel's Root Strata label.
This SF duo (featuring new aQ employee Jon!) brew up dark swirling druggy drifts, the guitars languid, hovering and buzzing in wide open expanses of slow slithery ambience. Bands like this usually revel in loooooooong songs, but here, 5 of the 6 tracks are just over two minutes, the longest, the 6 minute opener is the most fully realized and song-like, guitars shimmering and wet with effects, the result is like some incorporeal 16rpm Spacemen 3, drumless, and with the propulsion-level set to near zero, leaving just weightless clouds of haunting metallic reverberation, steel stings vibrating in a gorgeously washed out blur. A track like this should take up all four sides of a double lp, druggy and deliriously dreamy, a soft fuzzy musical opium den.
The rest of the disc are brief little glimpses into some fuzzy alternate universe, where guitars glimmer like stars is a blueblack sky, long tones weep and moan like wind winding through desert canyons, melodies surface and fragment, sink into the murky abyss, rhythms coalesce out of creaks and thumps, voices materialize into ghostlike melodies, keening and mysterious, krautrock like grooves fall to pieces, bits of steel string Appalachia give way to barely there minimal guitar mumble, the shards and tendrils slowly grow into some languorous disembodied ghostly blue grass, a sea of soft slow motion twang, finishing off with a brief spate of sun dappled drone and warm melodious forestfolk drift, all smeared chimes and blurred tones.
Gorgeous stuff. But almost frustratingly brief, every one of these tracks would sound fantastic expanded to 10, 20, even 60 minutes, so for now, we'll just have to make do with these way too brief glimpses of the druggy dreamy sounds these guys are capable of...
LIMITED TO 120 COPIES! Packaged in a super striking metallic gold ink on black tri-fold sleeve!
MPEG Stream: "Eternal Tower"
MPEG Stream: "Dunes"

BARN OWL s/t (Foxglove / Digitalis) cd-r 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Barn Owl are Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras, a new duo following in the experimental folk tradition of Sir Richard Bishop, Tom Carter and Steffen Basho-Junghans, and more recently Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice and Headdress. Their music roams freely with no concrete destination in sight. The ten loosely constructed instrumental compositions that comprise their debut album are crafted from acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, banjo, harmonica, synthesizer, organ, and drums. A few slow strums across guitar strings give way to a cycles of short picked melodic phrases. Almost imperceptibly vaporous drones and murmured vocals creep in. A perfect new addition to the Digitalis label (which has featured releases by Tom Carter, Christina Carter, Seht, James Blackshaw, and Steven R. Smith).
MPEG Stream: "The Buffalo Queen"
MPEG Stream: "Driftwood"

BARN OWL Shadowland (Thrill Jockey) 12" 14.98
A brand new musical missive from the psychedelic drone duo Barn Owl, an ep length follow up to their recent Ancestral Star album, which finds them expanding their sound even further, taking the dusky twang into realms more cinematic, with an opening track that is both haunting and ominous, allowing synths to play as big a role as the guitars, creating a sort of kosmische devotional music, unfurling a mesmerizing melodic motif, looped and hypnotic, while all around, deep swells rumble and whir, clouds of effects swirl and shimmer, it might just be one of our favorite Barn Owl jams yet, like the soundtrack to some obscure European art film, that synth melody also has a little bit of a Tim Burton vibe, playfully sinister? Regardless, the song broods and oozes like and inky black cloud, while that melody shine through like blinking lights on a stormy night. The label references Popol Vuh and Alice Coltrane, which we definitely hear, but all the usual suspects are present as well, Earth, SUNNO))), Morricone, but on the opening track, all of the influences, new and old, are transformed into something magical and new, a sound that by the end of its nearly eight minutes, has blossomed into something simultaneously thick and corrosive, but spiritual and transcendent.
The title track finds Barn Owl returning to more sonically familiar territory, a slowly unfurling landscape of spidery twang, of softly reverbed ambience, this time laced with subtle piano, not to mention some more distorted riffage, as the song progresses, more melodies surface, and become tangled in a slow swirl of minor key mesmer, while the final track, the 10+ minute "Infinite Reach" begins as a bit of sun dappled celestial drift, all hazy tones and disembodied melodies, before clouds pass over the sun, cloaking the sounds in shadow, everything becoming much more ominous, the previously ethereal drift, now infused with blurry buzz and jagged shards of high end skree, building to a pulsing soft focus squall of bleary blackened psychedelia, before slipping back into a slow, smoldering outro, all windswept and barren, droney and twangy.
As always, fantastic stuff, and well worth it for that opening track alone, a sound we hope Barn Owl will explore a bit more on future outings!
LIMITED TO 1500 COPIES. Includes a download coupon.
MPEG Stream: "Void And Devotion"
MPEG Stream: "Shadowland"

BARN OWL Smoke Loom Ceremony (Blackestrainbow) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Barn Owl have become quite the talk of the psych/drone/folk scene in the last year and for very good reason. The duo have released some great limited edition cd-r's on Digitalis and on their own, and their intense and trance inducing live shows have reeled in many believers, including us! Tapping into ritual drone and spiritual psychedelia this two song cassette recorded at a festival in Echo Park a few months ago is further proof that this is one of the most promising bands roaming the underground at the moment. While there are no shortage of psych drone acts these days, there is something so concrete and real about the sounds Barn Owl conjure up. Kind of like if newer Earth was less spaghetti western and more engaged in exploring LaMonte Young's dreamhouse. There is a patience and subtlety in Barn Owl's music that is way beyond their young years. They use guitars, drums, banjo, harmonium and voice to travel upwards to some magical place filled with dust, dirt and delight. This one is super limited too, so it'll be gone in the blink of an eye.
MPEG Stream: "I"
MPEG Stream: "II"

BARN OWL The Conjurer (Root Strata) cd 12.98
Back in print! We had thought this one was gone for good, but then Root Strata found a cache of mysteriously mislaid copies. So get 'em (again) while you can...
Barn Owl, the local duo of Jon Porras (aka Elm) and Evan Caminiti (aka Higuma), have always tread a similar path to later era Earth, a sort of blackened twang, Morricone by way of the Melvins, slow motion soundscapes as evocative and slow burning as they are epic and heavy, dark and delicate. With the addition of a drummer, Barn Owl move even closer to their sonic brethren creating a gorgeous songsuite of Western tinged, slow motion psychedelia, dark, dolorous, warm and haunting, heavily reverbed, a sort of dark skeletal doom, rife with warm chordal clusters, gauzy clouds of muted feedback, and epic expanses of effected guitars that sound almost choral.
The mood is both warm and inviting, haunting and tense, emotional and intense. The various bits of steel string guitar are draped over dense swells of roiling downtuned drone, everything wreathed in streaks of high end shimmer, all blurred into a burnished black guitar blur, washed out and hazy, yet surprisingly lush and heavy. The second half of the record gets a bit more Appalachian, with delicate finger picked guitars drifting over deep layered drones, stately melodies unfurling like the black tendrils of smoke from a recently extinguished candle, or the fuzzy fog of late afternoon, painted deep blues and reds by the fading daylight. The record builds to a soaring finale, that revisits that choral sound, and infuses it with an hypnotic ur-drone vibe, like some glorious hybrid of Sunroof! and Arvo Part. Hypnotic and transcendent.
MPEG Stream: "Into The Red Horizon"
MPEG Stream: "Across The Deserts Of Ash"

BARN OWL The Conjurer (Root Strata) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Barn Owl, the local duo of Jon Porras (aka Elm) and Evan Caminiti (aka Higuma), have always tread a similar path to later era Earth, a sort of blackened twang, Morricone by way of the Melvins, slow motion soundscapes as evocative and slow burning as they are epic and heavy, dark and delicate. With the addition of a drummer, Barn Owl move even closer to their sonic brethren creating a gorgeous songsuite of Western tinged, slow motion psychedelia, dark, dolorous, warm and haunting, heavily reverbed, a sort of dark skeletal doom, rife with warm chordal clusters, gauzy clouds of muted feedback, and epic expanses of effected guitars that sound almost choral.
The mood is both warm and inviting, haunting and tense, emotional and intense. The various bits of steel string guitar are draped over dense swells of roiling downtuned drone, everything wreathed in streaks of high end shimmer, all blurred into a burnished black guitar blur, washed out and hazy, yet surprisingly lush and heavy. The second half of the record gets a bit more Appalachian, with delicate finger picked guitars drifting over deep layered drones, stately melodies unfurling like the black tendrils of smoke from a recently extinguished candle, or the fuzzy fog of late afternoon, painted deep blues and reds by the fading daylight. The record builds to a soaring finale, that revisits that choral sound, and infuses it with an hypnotic ur-drone vibe, like some glorious hybrid of Sunroof! and Arvo Part. Hypnotic and transcendent.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. We got the super limited fancy maroon vinyl mailorder version too. And as you might imagine, these won't be around for long...

BARN OWL Transfiguration (Electric Totem) 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.
San Francisco's dronelords Barn Owl (featuring our very own Jon!) return with Transfiguration, an awe inspiring slab of expansive psychedelia that is both heavy and beautiful. Recorded live on tour in Vancouver in summer 2008, Transfiguration clocks in at a massive 21 minutes, giving the duo plenty of time to put together a sprawling slow burning expanse that manages to retain a high degree of focus while also flowing freely.
Beginning with high pitched, bell like drones and a slowly creeping guitar note, it is hard to tell whether the vibes are good or evil, and before long the piece begins to move forward cinematically. It's like things are ascending way up to the heavens, and as the bells create a hypnotic flow, massive guitar drones take over everything. The sound is truly mountainous, with bits of molten feedback punctuating the atmosphere, and just when you think everything is going to be taken over by total noise, you realize that even though the music appears to be alive and of its own will, things are kept very much in control by the band. Amazingly, there seems to be a sense of implied rhythm, not in the sense of a traditional pop song, but the rhythm of the drone, taking things into a more realized form of existence. The white hot squalls of heavily distorted bliss swirl about but never decay, instead its like they are alive and breathing... and then, the piece is separated into its second half, by a lone voice. The low chant creates its own sort of spacious cavern, and the surrounding silence creates its own tension as more chants enter the atmosphere while higher voices float ethereally at the top. Giant cyclones of droned voices rise and recede, creating their own unique style of movement. The way the voices merge creates a cool disorienting effect where you lose all sense of direction in a state of suspended consciousness. Awesome.
Limited to a scant 200 copies, Transfiguration comes beautifully packaged in a thick cardstock sleeve with a professionally printed cd-r and serves as a nice teaser to the duo's upcoming full length on Root Strata!
MPEG Stream: "Transfiguration"