WICKED KING WICKER The Serpent's Psalm (Magnetica Nocturnus) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Brand new slab of extreme ultra low end slow motion doom-ed brutality from this NY outfit, whose last few records have left us beaten and bloodied and jonesing for more.
These guys have been around for a while apparently, but we only discovered their beautifully caustic downtuned din last year, with two records, their s/t debut (re-listed elsewhere on this week's update) and their second record Flydust. Both pushed all the right buttons, SUNNO))), Skullflower, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Khanate, Bunkur, Moss, just unbelievable heavy and sludgy, blackened and glacial, dripping and oozing with atmosphere, textures and drones, not just run of the mill sludge, or boring, lean-the-guitar-against-the-amp guitardrones, no, this was a band, rocking out full force, albeit insanely slow, and crushingly intense. So here comes record number three, another super limited lp only release, two sidelong tracks, and hell, if it doesn't leave the other two in the dust.
We're listening to it at 33, which sounds perfect, but it sounds pretty bad ass at 45 too, and still slow and sludgey, EVEN at 45, but slower is better, and this is slow and thick and viscous and so so so heavy. All built on a super stripped down bass riff, the bass super distorted and crumbling, unfurling an impossibly slow doom-ic anti-groove, over and over and over, cyclical and hypnotic and trance like, ultra minimal, but in no way boring or simple, just mesmerizing, while all around that riff, the rest of the band fills up whatever empty space is left with, massive sheets of buzz and whir, distorted effects everywhere, layers upon layers, drones and textures, feedback and incidental melodies, all being dragged along in the wake of that main bass riff behemoth. Not sure how they do it, but the sound, beyond heavy, and drone-y, is super musical, and while not quite melodic, there is some melody buried under all that murk and grime, it's like super blown out space rock, slowed down to 3 or 4 rpm, still retaining some of it's blissed out spaciness, but setting it amidst a roiling sea of black sonic tar and creeping, lurching, lumbering heaviness.
The flipside, another side long black drone sludge doom epic, seems to have been birthed out of the same grim black sound hole that produced the first side, the same lugubrious creep, the same grim blackened atmosphere, but here that riff has been pulled apart, whatever black beasts lurk in the shadows has torn it to pieces, leaving just shards and fragments, a swirling churning chaos of dense processed low end, crumbling distortion, deep fractured drones, more atmospheric and ambient than the first side, but just as harsh and hellish and heavy. Imagine building a massive roaring fire, then taking a load of guitars and amps, all plugged in, cranked, and howling and moaning and feeding back, and tossing them into the fire, letting them twist and ooze and smoke, recording the sound of the guitars and amps dying, melting, slowly fusing into one charred blackened heap of blistered and blown out buzz. It's kind of like that.
Awesome packaging too, thick clear plastic sleeves, silkscreened in white, over a red slab of vinyl with no labels, and a printed single panel insert, with three tiny Dore woodcut cards bearing the band's initials. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON A Seventh Persimmon (Tape Drift) cd-r 8.98
It's been ages since we've reviewed anything from aQ beloved soundmaker Simon Wickham-Smith, but A Seventh Persimmon is the perfect way to get reacquainted. Three long tracks, totalling over 60 minutes, all three minimal and delicate, the first mostly piano, gently and barely effected, the notes allowed plenty of time to drift and hover and decay, very Eno-esque for sure, but filtered through that distinctly DIY, underground cd-r filter, adding grit and texture, some lo-fi whir and hiss, to an otherwise gorgeously ephemeral drift. The second track is even more minimal, a symphony of barely there buzz, processed and sculpted into strange abstract shapes, as if W-S composed the track using just the buzz of various household appliances, the fridge, the computer, the heater, all emanating that whispery hiss, but then, strange glitchy almost-vocals surface, burbling up from below, peppering the otherwise microscopic landscape of muted buzz.
The closing track is epic, a tumbling multicolored array of warm glowing tones, underwater textures, tangled dizzying melodies, like a symphony of calliopes playing on the ocean floor, or that first track looped and layered over and over and over, skittery, warped, warbly, woozy, streaks and blurs and smears, processed and looped, shimmering and swooping backwards and forwards, soft focus, a meticulously jumbled bit of underwater psychedelica, nods to Oval for sure, rendered in a slow sifting stasis, a waking dreamstate, where sounds and colors and shapes merge into sweet sweet music.
MPEG Stream: "Ursa Minor"
MPEG Stream: "A Seventh Persimmon"

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Buckminsterfullerene / Pange Lingua Gloriosi (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 2cd-r 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yet another earful from Campbell Kneale's always impressive Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. This double cd-r is a companion of sorts to an earlier Wickham-Smith release, Twofordancin', which was a strange ambien ethnic rhtymic workout als Muslimgauze. It seems that Twofordancin' was in fact two separate pieces put together, so what we've got here is the two original pieces pulled apart and presented independently. One disc sounds quite similar to the Twofordancin' combo, albeit a tad more stripped down. A simple shuffling rhythm, nestled in random ambien detritus with occasional backward swoops and studio twiddles. The other disc is much more abstract, offering up a series of glitches and creaks and stutters, as well as some distant chordal swells and even more distant tribal vocalizing. Pretty cool listen even if you don't have the Twofordancin' combo, in fact they might even work better on their own.
MPEG Stream: "Buckminsterfullerene"

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Butterfly Dust (VHF) cd 14.98
Three lengthy droning pieces from Richard Young's collaborative partner that were composed respectively for Korg synthesizer, Peruvian recorder, and didjeridu. The first two pieces are hypnotically beautiful and somehow incorporate the straining of effort which is a Wickham-Smith trademark. However, I hate to say it; but Wickham-Smith, a Scotsman whose previous work has always been interesting and often challenging, made a questionable decision to record with didjeridu - the now tepid sound of advertisers who insist on something 'exotic' to describe the Subaru Outback wagon.

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Dyro (Pseudo Arcana) 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.
What would a cd-r label be without a contribution from AQ fave Simon Wickham-Smith? And it seems like he can do no wrong. Two 35 minute tracks of shimmering, crystalline, high end tinkle, keening synth melodies, and warbly low-end pulses. Track one sounds like Sunroof! playing Ravi Shankar, or a raga version of Tubular Bells played by the Dead C. or something. A static, drone ritual with superdistorted vocals that wail otherworldly spirituals over the gorgeous din.
There's that kind of song / piece that I never get tired of, those epic, endless high end modern ragas, all wailing feedback ans upper register shimmer. That thing that Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Sunroof!), Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel), Neil Campbell (Vibracathedral Orchestra), and a few others seem to be able to unleash effortlessly. Well, if you hadn't already, add Wickham-Smith to this exclusive group of noisemakers and use the second track on Dyro to make your case. This has everything you could want. Gorgeous, droning, gauze-y, otherworldly, transcendental and just fucking perfect.
RealAudio clip: "What Makes Me Dive In Headfirst (excerpt)"

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Extreme Bukake (VHF) cd 13.98
Purportedly Wickham-Smith's 'religious music' record, 'Extreme Bukake' (named for a style of problematic Japanese porn, the sleeve even has a barely disguised example) is an expansive, rich and captivating exploration into WS's past and present experiences with Buddhism, Catholicism and Hare Krishna. The first track starts off with hyper-distorted, splintered, lap-top-chopped chanting, with bursts of static and white noise. About four minutes in, the intensity tapers off a bit, and what's left really sounds like some sort of 22nd century spiritual music. Track two is based on the life and death of Thich Quang Duc, the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk who set him self afire to protest the activities of the Vietnamese government in the sixties, and is a sputtering Raster/Noton style glitchscape over a sinister wash of hissing static. The final track is an epic, 2 part 40 minute track meant to be a piece for meditation, based on a Catholic hymn to Mary: part one is an intense barrage of haunted moaning, glitched into abstract rhythms and speaker-rattling low-end rumbles, while part two revisits the chopped and processed chanting of the first track. Intense and quite beautiful.
RealAudio clip: "Ave Regina Celorum Part 1"
RealAudio clip: "The Self-Immolation of Thich Quang Duc"
RealAudio clip: "Sri Guru-Vandana"

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Giladji (Giardia) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Sometime partner of Richard Youngs, Simon Wickham-Smith has created fo 'Giladji' an obliquely beautiful record for glass harmonica. High-end shimmering drones creep particularly close to the threshold beyond which adjectives like piercing and painful would be applied, but Wickham-Smith's restraint is the key to the success of this record. Giladji is one of those records that seems a perfect complement to the majority of releases from the Table of the Elements label.

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Love & Lamentation (Pogus Productions) cd 14.98

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Murrinh Kulerrkkurrk (Rhizome) 2cd-r 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Rapt (Disposable Thumb) cd 14.98
Housed in a simple but very earthy-styley brown cardboard sleeve, Rapt is one of the latest solo offerings from Simon Wickham-Smith. He's an experimental musician perhaps best known for his collaborations with fellow UK eccentric Richard Youngs. Rapt would seem to be another example of Wickham-Smith's embrace of computer technology. But this isn't yr ordinary laptop electronica. No sir. A former Buddhist monk (or something like that), Wickham-Smith has devoted much of this disc to what sounds like an Eastern religious chant or prayer, chopped up and looped and layered into a cacophonous, yet mesmerizing 35 minute piece entitled "Heaven's Gate Sankirtan". At least two voices, male and female, become a multitude. Now with most 'experimental' music, this could be an end in itself, a sonic concept only, but in Wickham-Smith's case, his obvious religious interests/beliefs compel us to wonder what does he mean this to mean? What had his looping and editing added to the original source material? We can't answer that...but for all we know the original wasn't a prayer, but just someone yelling in a market, and now it's a mantra... Moving on to track two, we get more voices but they're buried in an entirely different sort of static-y drone. That's another really nice sixteen minutes. And this being a Wickham-Smith record, each subsequent track (there's four more) is quite different as well, exploring other mixtures of noise, drone, and speech.
MPEG Stream: "Heaven's Gate Sankirtan"
MPEG Stream: "Meiji13"

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Three4listnin (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 3cd-r 14.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
The label is no more, all the CPsiP eleases are sadly now out of print, but we discovered a handful of these stashed in the back room, long out of print, never to be repressed, last copies EVER!
Some of you must remember the Simon Wickham-Smith disc Twofordancin', a sort of out of left field blast of house-y trip hop electronica. Which threw us for a loop at first, but ended up getting crazy play in the store.
So when we heard about this new collection, a triple disc spanning 8 years, because of the title we were maybe expecting more of the same. And we got it. The opening track here, from way back in 1999, is a nearly half hour jam, all simple percussion, and house music whistle, looped and hypnotic, again it takes a second, but once you get into it, you're hooked. In the background is a thick distorted whir, there are occasional bits of strange effects and processed vocals, but for the most part it's a killer stripped down groove.
But surprisingly, that's it for the groove, the rest of disc one jumps to the 2000s, and we're back on more familiar ground. "Sealight", from 2000, is a barely moving shimmering whisper of a song, high end streaks smoothed into oceanic swells, everything glimmering and glistening, muted and minimal. Quite lovely. "The Horizontality Of Saskatchewan" (2202) is a strange gnarled guiatarscape, the riffs distorted and crumbling, sounding a bit like damaged bagpipes, or some lost Daniel Higgs jam, melodies lurching and threatening to fall apart, lots of whir and buzz, on closer listening maybe that's not a guitar but a pump organ, minimal percussion, very haunting and hypnotic. Track 4 is brand new, recorded this year, and is another super minimal dronescape, lots of glitch and click and whir, but all muted into a subtly pulsing melody, eventually building into a distorted blown out swirl of processed vocals, Eastern melodies, and thick grinding buzz.
The second disc begins with the warped warble of "Cool Memories" from 2004. a seasick backwards dreamworld of subtle buzz, mumbled voices, and a gorgeously woozy main melody. "Angels And Birds And The Coming Of Night" is the centerpiece of the second disc, recorded in 2004 as well, and clocking in at 45 minutes, an epic expanse of soft focus fuzz and billowing metallic drones, dense and lustrous, dark and dreamlike. The disc closes with 2005's "Cool Memories II", a sonic addendum to part one, the mumbled backwards swoon, now peppered with bits of glitch and smears of static.
The final disc in the set is a live set recorded earlier this year in Paris, a 48 minute stretch of high end minimalism, a flickering fluttering upper register electronic trill, oscillating endlessly, is spread out over almost the entire length of the entire performance, with subtle sonar like overtones and subtle low end throbs, until the flutter begins to fluctuate, and suddenly the track is a twisting and tangled squall of warped synth, blurred effects and processed vocals.
As always, packaged in that instantly recognizable Celebrate Psi Phenomenon wallpaper packaging. Inserts and liner notes for each disc, and as always, EXTREMELY LIMITED.
MPEG Stream: "Sealight"
MPEG Stream: "The Horizontality Of Saskatchewan"

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON Twofordancin' (Celebrate Psi Phemoenon) cd 9.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Now this was a bit of a surprise. Especially coming from Simon Wickham-Smith, although by now we should maybe expect the unexpected from W-S. One single seventy five minute track, an endlessly looped tripped out hip hop beat, with stuttery vocal samples in the background, chanting and tribal, but low enough in the mix that they just sounds like random warbling and rumbling. Had trouble getting our heads around this at first, but after a few minutes, it sort of grabs hold of you, with its strangely hypnotic repetition, and you sort of drift away on a slowly shifting current of tribal percussion and strange ambient sounds. Very reminiscent of Muslimgauze. As always, limited too!

MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON & RICHARD YOUNGS Lammergeier (VHF) cd 13.98
Recorded 3 years ago and only now finally being released, this is Wickham-Smith and Young's umpteenth record together and bears quite a few similarities to their last, 'Metallic Sonatas'. The main similarity being the use of the laptop to effect their organic sounds. W + S/Y employ all kinds of exotic instruments and bits of singing and on most of the tracks run it all through that laptop, rendering the sources unrecognizable. Track one sounds like a skipping Skullflower cd, or a really insane Oval outtake. Track 2 is a lengthy jam on what sounds like pots and pans and shrieking reeds, electronic or otherwise. Track 3 sounds like that skipping Skullflower cd again, only this time it's underwater, or someone has turned the bass all the way up and the treble all the way down. And for the rest of the record it sort of vaccilates between the two, shrieking processed noise, and murky rhythmic exploration. Another really cool record from the UK's experimental dynamic duo.

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON & RICHARD YOUNGS Veil (For Greg) (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98

WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON / YOUNGS, RICHARD Metallic Sonatas 1-15 (March 1998) (VHF) cd 13.98
Shimmering sheets of guitar feedback and other lovely sounds. A strong statement and a pretty recording.

WIESE, JOHN Collected Tracks (Helicopter) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
John Wiese (half of Bastard Noise) has collected a number of super limited seven inches and unreleased radio broadcasts on this CD of experimental noise tracks. Four of the tracks have been programmed for 'easy listening' - which sound like incredibly tense versions of Crawl Unit or John Duncan. While neither Crawl Unit or John Duncan make for particularly easy listening, in comparison to the ungodly noise assaults on the other four tracks, these tracks certainly make for a far a less stressful listening experience. Extreme to say the least.

WIESE, JOHN Live At Mon Ton Son: August 28, 2000 Sapporo Japan TT 17:19 (Helicopter) 3"cd-r 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Live recording of the man who is one half of Bastard Noise. Seventeen minutes of downpitched low frequency rumblings akin to CCCC or mid-period Solmania. Less dynamic and abusive as most of his output, here he searches for more droning, meditative spaces amidst the cacophony.

WIESE, JOHN Magical Crystal Blah vol. 3 (Kitty Play) cd 8.98
Still another lost warehouse stash discovered, found a handful of the third volume in the ongoing Magical Crystal Blah recycled music series by noise freak John Wiese (Bastard Noise, occasionally SUNNO)))), wherein Wiese remixes the REmixes from volume 2, done by KK Null, Panicsville, Zbignew Karkowski, Gerritt, Joe Colley, Damien Romero, Mike Shiflet and others, -those- remixes being versions of original music from Magical Crystal Blah volume ONE. Phew, this is the third time around for these sounds, and as far as we can tell, they do actually keep getting better, all crushed and compacted this time around into 37 tracks in just 17 minutes.
We're not huge fans of noise, and our love for Bastard Noise really blossomed when they began to infuse their Merzbowian din with more texture and melody and dynamics, and now, BN are a force to be reckoned with, and the sounds here demonstrate just why. We're way too far removed to have any idea what the originals sounded like, or the remixes, and frankly who cares, these miniature bursts of noise play out like a proper record, some moments are indeed caustic and brutal, but those moments are seamlessly woven into the whole aligned with long stretches of stereo panned shimmer, of mysterious industrial whir, of crunchy rhythmic lumber, of bleeps and bloops and rumbles and grinds, many of these songs are less than 10 seconds, so it really does seem to be conceived as a whole, and as a whole, it's pretty fantastic. Definitely recommended for folks into creative and far out noisemusic, but it's also the sort of noise that just might appeal to the normally noise averse. Just sayin'...
Only have 5 or 6 copies of this, and pretty sure once these are gone, they are GONE.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "5"
MPEG Stream: "37"

WIESE, JOHN Magical Crystal Blah Volume 3 (Kitty Play) cd 8.98

MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "5"
MPEG Stream: "37"

WIGGWAUM s/t (Freak Out) cd-r 10.98
These SF noiseniks kick up a serious skree, originally intended to be improvised soundtracks, for friends' films, these jams need no visual component to drag your brain from your head, via destroyed eardrums, and hurl it into the heart of the sun, jamming out while it sizzles and eventually melts into a puddle of grey goo.
Super abstract psychedelic space jams, removed from any of that pesky rocking, and instead allowed to just hover and swirl, and crash and howl, moan and creak, crumble and oooooooze. The guitars are tangled and atonal, the melodies angular and jagged, the drums don't so much propel as offer up spatters of rhythmic interference, swirling clouds of cymbal shimmer, flurries of rapid fire snare, all beneath a continuous avalanche of free-psych-noise. The vocals moan and mumble, organs spew in-the-red wheeze, lots of feedback everywhere, the sound sinister and alien, psych rock with all the rock removed, twisted and tripped out and definitely for those with a taste for sonic whatthefuck and difficult psychedelia.
Packaged in a bright pink fold over Xeroxed sleeve. And probably pretty dang limited (especially considering this was a bit of a warehouse find)...
MPEG Stream: "II"

WIGGWAUM / POOR SCHOOL s/t (Killer Tree) lp+cd-r 14.98

WILD CLASSICAL MUSIC ENSEMBLE, THE s/t (Sub Rosa) cd 14.98
Sometimes Belgium's Sub Rosa label comes up with really unusual, unpredictable releases. This one's a good example. Which by the way is NOT classical music, but IS pretty wild. It's full-on, loud, noisy, partly improvised rock music, but with an extra extreme, um, "outsider" element. Sort of in the "special" tradition of The Kids Of Widney High and the Children Of Ala Costa, but much much more rockin'! We didn't bother to read the notes yet to learn all the background details, but we do know that the basic deal here is that the band is comprised of four developmentally disabled (to use a PC term) and untrained musicians, Johan Geenens, Linh Pham, Kim Verbeke, and Rudy Callant, organized by a fifth member, the ensemble's drummer and "artistic mentor" Damien Magnette, who himself is not differently-abled and has more musical schooling. He helps direct the group's activity and keeps the resulting energetic freakouts somewhat reigned and structured in with his tight rhythmic propulsion. Meanwhile, the other four (plus a couple guests) do their thing, whatever it may be, with all kinds of instruments, obviously enjoying expressing themselves. Proving that while they may be "mentally challenged", they are in fact musically challengING. It's pretty far out and in a way, glorious. There's what can only be described as crazy wailing vocals, freer than free jazz horn blats, distorted electric guitar skree, off-kilter keyboards, sampling, and krauty tribal beats... Imagine the primitive psychedelic jams of Ya Ho Wha 13 mixed with the most abstract avant garde efforts of electro-acoustic improvisers Supersilent. Definitely something for fans of Reynols, too.
A lot of it is surprisingly heavy, almost metal-brutal, but without grim intent, instead done with a spirited feeling of joyful abandon. There's also a few mellower moments too, of flute twitter and eerie wordless vocal choruses (as on track 6, which reminds us of Pocahaunted). And briefly, they come close to Maher Shalal Hash Baz style damaged "pop" territory (though we don't think MSHB has ever done any rapping, which MIGHT be what's happening on track 8). Yep, this sure beats a lot of the "normal" underground psych noise rock weirdo bands we sell here at their own game.
In various reviews here at AQ, we have described lots of music (mainly black metal) as "retarded", in a good way. Always in a good way. It probably would be uncool to say precisely that about this... but if we did, it again would be meant as a compliment, a very positive thing meaning that these are unique, primal, creative sounds not bound by boring conventions of genre or technique, played for the sheer, universal love of music-making. Not self-consciously trying to be hip or anything in particular beyond what it simply IS.
MPEG Stream: "Eentwee"
MPEG Stream: "Rien de Rien"
MPEG Stream: "Jaws"

WILDENHAUS, BEN Great Melodies From Around (Globos Recordings) cassette 8.98
Formerly the guitarist for Northwestern garage rockers Federation X, and occasional collaborator with members of the Reeks And The Wrecks, Ben Wildenhaus has since transformed into a bit of an avant guitarist, now living on the east coast, and managing the Instrumental Quaalude blog, on which he weekly posts new recordings, always instrumental, always under 5 minutes.
Great Melodies From Around seems to be an extension of Instrumental Quaalude, as it is a cassette collection of similarly dark, gorgeously instrumental excursions, assembled from lush layered drones, Appalachian style steel string guitars, woozy twangy slide guitar, strange murky percussion, bits of vocals (NOT singing) employed as more texture, wheezing organ, sinewaves, minimal drumming, subtle electronics, bits of glitch and hiss, amp buzz, a little noise here and there, the occasional sample... The sound is smokey and dark and ominous, dreamy and hauntingly lovely, a distinctly Lynchian soundtrack vibe for sure, late night, lights low, everything dusty, and dark, and lonely, and lit by the streetlights outside, hazy, gauzy, fuzzy, and totally and fantastically lovely.
SUPER LIMITED of course. Full color photograph covers, blue cases, hand decorated tapes.
MPEG Stream: "The Orientalist"
MPEG Stream: "Geebz"
MPEG Stream: "The Limping Axeman"
MPEG Stream: "Only Fool"

WILDILDLIFE Give In To Live (Volcom) lp 14.98
Warped druggy psychedelic metallic noise rock trio Wildildlife, who just so happen to features a former aQuarian amongst their ranks, always had a bit of pop in their sound, even at their most tripped out and damaged, when they were channeling Butthole Surfers and Gaye Bykers On Acid and God Bullies and Lubricated Goat, their wild rhythmic blowouts were always laced with primo hooks and loads of melody, and it was that subtle poppy undercurrent, that kept them from being just another noisy rock band. But the thing was, before now, it seemed that it was mostly about the heaviness, and they were indeed heavy, sidling up alongside outfits like Harvey Milk, spitting out churning elephantine riffage and skull caving flurries of drum damage, if we had our way, we wouldn't have changed anything about Wildildlife. That is until we heard this.
It's like they're a whole different band. Not sure if it's a natural progression or if it's the influence of their new producer, Jennifer Herema of Royal Trux, but the new sound is downright GLAMMY, swaggery, and power poppy, the vocals, which used to be distorted and sped up and processed into strange chipmunk squeals, is now actual and proper singing, and as if to drive that whole glam thing home, there's sax now, and we generally HATE sax, but this is like Stooges / Hanoi Rocks sax, which means it rules, and it somehow just makes things sound even cooler.
The opening track might just be our new favorite jam, right out of the gate, it's total soaring fuzzy pop, chiming guitar melodies, warm synth swells, and then when the main riff kicks in, we're in classic Kiss territory, suddenly the picture on the back of the lp, that has the band all in white, the lens all vaselined, looking like seventies rockers Angel, makes WAY more sense. And actually, after more listens, it sounds less like Kiss, and more like Redd Kross cover Kiss, which is even better, slithery and swaggery an snotty and hooky but still heavy, but so glammy, right down to the little sexy exhalation of breath in the super short break. And somehow it seems appropriately self defeating that their catchiest and most accessible song is titled "Fuck That".
The follow up "I Want You Out" even furthers the whole Redd Kross / Kiss thing, but we're talking old Redd Kross, circa Teen Babes From Monsanto, when they were still heavy and a little dark, and way drugged out and psychedelic, "I Want You Out" is all big tribal drumming, downtuned riffs, even some handclaps, and more of those new vocals, and lots of bleating/skronking sax, that once the song gets going sounds like a glam metal version of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk". Not sure what the hell happened, but we most definitely want some of what they're having.
And the rest of the record unfurls in a similar fashion, classic rock riffs, are all wound up in a glittery haze, hooks are doused in fuzz and buzz and sent spinning into the space rock ether, but the band continue to mix it up, to confuse and confound. "Sometimes" is a folk ballad, dubbed out and drenched in low end synth buzz, acoustic guitars wrapped in reverb, the result a sort of apocalyptic doom folk, glitter style, only to lurch right into "Give In To Live", another Kiss/Thin Lizzy style glamrock groover, but here underpinned by some serious double kick drumming. "Stormbringer" (possibly a Deep Purple cover?) is an epic slow build of distorted vocals, gurgling synths, big drums, but instead of launching into full on glammed out noise rock mode, they lay back, and groove out, a sort of old school Hawkwind style space rock brooder that KILLS, and should have gone on for another 6 minutes. "Shiv" is a low slung, super distorted fuzz heavy churning creep, laced with glammy filigree, and finally, "Permanent Vacation" is the ultimate send off, you can almost imagine these guys on a huge stage, lit from behind with blinding showers of pyro, the drummer standing on his seat, winding up the crowd to clap along, the vocals gnarled and twisted, the guitars chiming and soaring, but instead of launching into the song proper, these guys stretch it out, adding weird rhythmic shifts, bits of mathy weirdness, all the while building and building, totally epic and majestic, before all the sounds are stripped away, leaving a weird warped melody, and some twisted drum machine skitter.
Remember about 1000 words ago we said something about never wanting these guys to change? What the hell were we thinking, sure we might miss the sheer heaviness and drugged out crush of the old Wildildlife, but it seems like a more than fair trade for the new, glammed out, super catchy, weirdo noisepop Wildildlife. Fuck yeah.
While they last, we have the super limited version on AMAZING colored vinyl, they are mostly clear, with weird spurts of color in the middle, mine looks like a bloody egg or something, and all the lps include a download coupon for a digital copy of the record as well!
MPEG Stream: "Fuck That"
MPEG Stream: "I Want You Out"
MPEG Stream: "Permanent Vacation"

WILDILDLIFE Six (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
We dug the first ep from SF transplants Wildlife, who just so happened to feature our very own Matt in mailorder on guitar and vocals. A blown out tripped out heavy as fuck space rock psychedelic freakout of the highest order. Since then, not only have the band changed their name, to the much weirder and somehow more appropriate Wildildlife but also honed their sound into something somehow more blown out, more tripped out, heavier, weirder, but more importantly, WAY catchier. Hooks and melodies that most bands would kill for, but Wildildlife play it like it's no big thing, burying that stuff under avalanches of processed guitars, throbbing howling bass pedals, metallic Iron Maiden like riffing, insane chaotic drumming, and a fierce white hot wall of sound.
We were pretty much sold from the first track. Beginning with some simple Adam Ant drumming, tribal and pounding, before the glistening reverbed Big Country guitars come in, all swathed in delay and drifting over the tangled rhythmic chaos below. The guitars build into a serious chordal frenzy, and then a strange haunting, and very eighties sounding hook, and that's when the vocals come in. Distorted but melodic, a dangerously catchy hook, that somehow reminds us of Gaye Bykers On Acid. Druggy and tripped out, with a cool guitar/vocal "laÉ lalalalalaaaaaaa" refrain that sticks in your head FOREVER. Wildildlife are usually described as Butthole Surfers meets Black Sabbath, which while flattering, and maybe to a certain extent accurate, hardly do justice to Wildildlife's cracked pop flecked noise rock heaviness.
Yeah, they're heavy, but there's no massive doom riffing or downtuned metallic pummel, and they are definitely trippy, but not in the same way as the Buttholes.
Take the second track, beginning with a wicked tangle of distorted guitar, when the drums kick in, and the band locks into an angular almost new wave melody, and those vocals return, sort of raspy and crooned, echoed by either a high wavery guitar or a falsetto vocal, and they repeat, mantra like, mesmerizing and hypnotic, relentless and seriously tripped out. The drums a constant rhythmic lock beneath the strange poppiness of the vocals and the guitar, before the whole thing splinters into a Hawkwind free rock noise jam, all super effected vocals, total drum mayhem, and thick washes of crumbling guitars and throbbing buzzing bass, eventually petering out into a gorgeous metallic slowcore dirge, everything still wrapped in thick layers of reverb and delay, a gorgeous mournful doomic sonic deathmarch. While some may hear the Buttholes, we're hearing stuff like the God Bullies, the Cows, Lubricated Goat for sure and still plenty of Gaye Bykers, although all even more souped up and super charged.
The two halves of the record are separated by the longest track, the 18+ minute "Magic Jordan", which begins as a washed out post rock dirge, all shimmery strummed guitars, echoey Jim Morrison vocals, and a simple stripped down rhythm, Eventually, the band erupts into a massive roiling bout of slow heaviness, that sounds like a way more psychedelic Harvey Milk, with killer angular riffs surfacing amidst the endless black sonic swirl, eventually giving way to 10 minutes of tripped out free folkiness, all warped backwards guitars, abstract percussion, fluttering melodies, haunting disembodied vocals, all sorts of random creaks and chimes and whir and hiss. Which is quickly followed by what is easily the catchiest track on the record. The relatively brief seven minute long "Feed", with its abstract delayed guitar harmonic feedback intro, giving way to probably the most Buttholes sounding bit on the record, a tense and intense bit of furious drumming, and throbbing bass beneath little flurries of metallic guitar leads, doused in FX and sent swirling over the abyss, while the vocals croon from WAY down in the mix, finishing off with a cool thick chunk of melancholy riffage, massive low end throbs playing out a gorgeous melody beneath the squiggly guitar chaos above.
The disc finishes off with a massive sonic one two punch, two fourteen minute tracks, the first, a super abstract slow motion noise doom lurch, with anguished vocals, sung from the bottom of a well, the guitars and drums offering up jagged little stabs, before locking into a relentless Swans like crush, nearly suffocating the vocals, until the band again lock into an impossible blissed out drone, where the guitar and bass mesh into a nearly M83 sounding wash of fuzzed out psychdrone, before reverting to full on glacial plod until the end.
While the final track, begins with a thick bit of bassy buzz, weaving a hard to define slow motion melody, the buzzing rich and thick and rife with overtones, metallic, electric and lush all at once, eventually joined by a downtuned guitar mirroring that same slow motion melody, eventually joined by dramatic almost gothic vocals, the drums dropping in like brass knuckled fists to the sternum, the band again almost slipping into some intense Swans like doom, before the riffing slips away leaving nearly six minutes of soaring guitar noise, and cymbal sizzle, eventually building to a super dramatic major key coda, all soaring chords and falsetto crooning, like some sort of alien metallic "Star Spangled Banner" (again reminding us a bit of Harvey Milk), before drifting off into a meandering morning after guitar bass post rock fade out.
Way recommended. Noisy and heavy and poppy and psychedelic and fucked up and catchy in a way few bands can pull of. And the one time we caught them live, we were hanging in a hammock, above the stage, IN A BUS, getting rammed repeatedly by the headstock of the guitar as the two axemen dueled wildly in the outrageous confines of the space below. Barring that sort of intimate and surprisingly painful interaction with Wildildlife, this record will definitely serve as an ideal introduction to their damaged and druggy fucked up metallic noise rock space pop, at least until you too can be battered and bruised by these guys in the flesh!
Recorded by Aaron from Mammatus, released on the always awesome Crucial Blast, and in some seriously amazing packaging, a super fancy mini gatefold sleeve, thick and full color, with an intense bejeweled turquoise skull on the cover, a fucked up masked dirt faced hatchet flag duel photo inside, as well as a full color booklet with liner notes and a bunch more freaky blurry creepy masked wild(ild)life photos...
MPEG Stream: "Things Will Grow"
MPEG Stream: "Tungsten Steel / Epilogue"
MPEG Stream: "Magic Jordan"

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

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

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

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

WILLENBRING, WES Somewhere Someone Else (Hidden Shoal) cd-r 11.98
Another dreamy slab of sonic loveliness from Australian label Hidden Shoal (along with the Sankt Otten reviewed elsewhere on this list). We're so psyched to finally have copies of this to list, but it wasn't as simple as just ordering 'em, it took a lot of doing to get these into AQ (or to get them to physically exist at all), what are we talking about? Just read on...
So this has actually happened to us a few times, which either speaks to our naivete, or as we prefer to think a dogged belief in the record album as object, to be held, listened to and loved, and an inability to understand any thoughts to the contrary. Australia's Hidden Shoal Records got in touch with us and was hoping we would check out some of their bands, we did, and got all excited about carrying them at AQ. Until, after we emailed and tried to order some, we were regretfully informed that Hidden Shoal was in fact a digital only label, no lps, no cds, no cassettes, just MP3's. Too bad we thought, as far as we were concerned, though of course we know there are those perfectly happy to download some MP3's. But over the course of many months, and lots of emails back and forth, the label admitted to being interested in actually pressing up cds. We of course encouraged them, because we wanted all our customers to be able to buy and hear this music, but also, because, there's something about the object, the cd or the lp or the 7", the liner notes, looking through the booklet while listening to the music, the feel, even the smell. And sure, it IS all about the music, but that other stuff is part of it too, no matter how much iTunes wants us to think otherwise. Obviously most of you don't need to be told that, otherwise you'd probably not be reading this.
Well, the upshot is, two of our favorite recordings on Hidden Shoal, are now finally available on cd, well, cd-r actually. But they are professionally pressed, with full color artwork, printed artwork on the disc, and heck, we'll take cd-r's over MP3s any day. And lots of you seem to prefer cd-r's anyway...
It's strange that we went through all that, and convinced a label in a far away land, to press cds, so we could finally get copies of a cd by a performer who lives RIGHT DOWN THE STREET from aQuarius, but that's precisely what happened. This disc, and the other Hidden Shoal release by German outfit Sankt Otten, reviewed elsewhere on the list, were hand delivered, by our neighbor, Mr. Willenbring himself. But so what if it wasn't the most direct route, all that work was well worth it.
Willenbring employs a piano and a guitar, but for the most part you'd never know it, as most of the tracks here are huge slow moving sheets of pure sound, blurred and abstract. Even the ones that do start with bits of piano, or offer up bits of strum and twang, gradually become more and more washed out, gorgeous wet windshield smears, sparkling with muted colors, glistening and glimmering, it's the music of light reflecting off wet pavement, the sound of trees heavy with snow and ice, of home movies of long car trips, of out of focus landscapes from the past. Melodies that creep and drift, gradually growing heavier and heavier, the clouds gathering, until it's a slow drive through thick fog, shapes and sounds barely visible. But it's those glimpses of piano, or fragments of guitar that ground the music on Somewhere Someone Else, keep it from being "dronemusic", imbue it with warmth, emotion, hidden melody, dark secrets, the songs may end up adrift on a glimmering black sea, but they began on the shore, within site of home and family, gradually moving farther and farther away, the familiar fading away, slipping slowly into the unknown.
Absolutely gorgeous. Dreamy dark meandering melancholia for fans of Stars Of The Lid, Eluvium, Dead Texan, Tim Hecker, Godspeed and other purveyors of darkly dramatic, abstract moody minimalism...
MPEG Stream: "Correspondence"
MPEG Stream: "Sometimes"
MPEG Stream: "Lost Illusions"

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

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

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

WILT Dark Meadows (Ad Noiseam) cd 18.98

MPEG Stream: "Dark Meadows"
MPEG Stream: "Amerikan Zombie"

WILT Radio 1940 (Ad Noiseam) 2cd 25.00

MPEG Stream: "Radio Tower"
MPEG Stream: "Noise Musique: Metal Assemblage #1"

WINDEREN, JANA Debris (Touch) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Field recordists Douglas Quin and Cheryl Leonard have gone to great lengths to capture their Arctic and Antarctic field recordings, spending countless frigid days with frozen fingers trying to hold tightly to hydrophones dangling amidst the ice floes and slushy waters. It's no wonder those two present their work in such an unadulterated fashion when the work came at such cost and at such peril. But Jana Winderen is far more creative in her approach to field recordings, only too happy to transform a watery burble she captured in some obscure fjord in her native Norway into a thickened isolationist dronescape dappled with elemental textures, creating something sonorously as frightening, cold, or desolate as the sound sources would imply. As with the work of BJ Nilsen or Jonathan Coleclough, none of Winderen's field recordings are too precious to be manipulated, compacted, augmented, or simply fucked with. The two sides of Debris were both extracted from a couple of her sound installations, the longer of which is entitled "Drying Out In The Sun", based on recordings made at / near / beneath the surface of the ocean, which plunge into the nether regions of the deep-sea trenches and alluvial plains, amassed into pressurized low-frequency drones. "Scuttling Around The Shallows" returns to her fascination with shrimp which she first displayed on her Tapeworm cassette The Noisiest Guys On The Planet, with erratic snaps, clicks, and crunches made by those small crustaceans amidst deep-ocean ambience. The fourth in Touch's ongoing 'white label' series of super limited vinyl productions.

WINDEREN, JANA Energy Field (Touch) cd 15.98
Paralleling what the Australian sound artist Tarab achieves through his magnificent albums, Jana Winderen collects an impressive array of field recordings and edits them into her compositions without much (if anything) in the way of digital processing. For Energy Field, Winderen traveled to the barren land-and-seascapes of Greenland, Norway, and the Barents Sea, using high-end parabolic microphones for the above ground recordings and hydrophones for the seaborne sounds, capturing creaks from massive glaciers, the slippery resonance of ice crevasses, the sounds of crustaceans (remember her cassette for the Ash International label, The Noisiest Guys On The Planet?), the chatter of summertime birds, and huge passages of windswept vibration that sound more like one of BJ Nilsen's swarms of drone than anything produced via natural means. Winderen presents three extended pieces that steadily undulate and crest, much like the patterns of the ocean when viewed from a considerable distance, and have been pocked with various tactile recordings of ice cracking, water dripping, the strange bellows from mating fish, and whatnot. Hypnotic, beautiful, and wholly compelling, Winderen's Energy Field is another exemplary entry in the Touch catalog, and totally up our alley here at AQ.
MPEG Stream: "Aquaculture"
MPEG Stream: "Isolation/Measurement"
MPEG Stream: "Sense Of Latent Power"

WINDEREN, JANA Surface Runoff (Autofact) 7" 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
At first glance, it's easy to assume this is part of Touch's recent series of seven inches, and on first listen, there's nothing to dissuade us, but in fact, this is the latest release from Autofact, who does indeed have a deal with Touch to do their vinyl, but this is not a Touch record, although as we mentioned it might as well be, and will no doubt appeal to the same folks.
Processed field recordings, recorded using hydrophones (underwater mics). The A side is a swirl of textured gurgles, almost a straight field recording of a pastoral creekside (birds, splashes, wind) but as the track progresses the sounds become more textural, almost rhythmic at times, sounding much more like Tim Hecker or Oval.
The flipside features a collage of underwater recordings from rivers in Norway, Iceland, England and Germany, deep rumbles, soft creaks, occasional insects, the sound of a stream, water lapping on the shore, the sound shifting to more of a warm whirring very dreamy and abstract, slipping back and forth, above water, below water, crystalline and spacious, murky and muddy and indistinct, woozy and swoony and quite pleasing.
Beautiful Jon Wozencroft style full color photo cover, and limited to only 500 copies.

WINDY & CARL Instrumentals For The Broken Hearted - 2009 Tour LP (Blue Flea) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
So Windy and Carl just rolled through our neck of the woods (we had the pleasure of sponsoring their show here in SF!!) and aside from unleashing an absolutely gorgeous set of dreamy pop-ambience, they dropped off a few hand painted, special edition tour lps for our lucky aQ W&C worshipers. This cool little lp comes complete with unreleased instrumental versions of songs from their latest Kranky full length, Songs For the Broken Hearted. There's even one track we've never heard or seen before called "I Won't", that could be one of our favorite instrumental tracks from this Michigan husband and wife dream duo.
These tracks are so spacious and beautiful in the usual Windy and Carl way, it's easy to tell they've been perfecting their dreamy sound long before the drone was even in style. Daydream inducing and wondrous, the album immediately provides a distant, cloudy headspace to get lost in. Housed in hand-painted, hand-stenciled, hand-numbered recycled LP sleeves, each with it's own unique design and look, these will be gone super super quick, so act fast if you want one. Limited to an edition of 500 on translucent green vinyl, so nice and so essential!!

WINDY & CARL Songs For The Broken Hearted (Kranky) cd 14.98
Dream-drone, slow-slowcore uberwunder duo Windy & Carl are long-time favorites of Aquarius, and by long we mean looooong. As in, we've been with them the whole way, and this fall marks 19 years for the project. So anyway, we were plenty excited when we finally got a copy of this, their newest record. Hot on the heels of Windy's lovely (and haunting) solo record, these tracks were actually started at the same time and nearly went unfinished. Thankfully they were saved! Press releases mentioned vocals, vocals, vocals. Those who know W&C probably understand that "lots of vocals" is relative. Two or three songs a record with Windy singing is kind of a lot! Yeah, so when we got this we were totally blown away. Again! Man, there's definitely a reason we hold them in such high regard: they never fail to take us exactly where we want to go. If you're a fan, you already know that W&C can conjure up the dreamiest six-string drones, never, ever drums, and the sweetest daydream vocals, employed sparingly and pretty damn perfectly. Fans of Labradford, Stars of the Lid, maybe even the quietest Low, this is already - or soon to be - your favorite band! We love Windy & Carl, and we want you to have the chance to love them, too. This is definitely a great place to start. Oh, and check out "Snow Covers Everything," it might be our favorite track on here. If you couldn't tell already, recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Btwn You + Me"
MPEG Stream: "La Douleur"
MPEG Stream: "My Love"

WINER, LESLIE & That Dead Horse (The Tapeworm) cassette 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another list, and another batch of obscure tapes from UK tape label The Tapeworm, this one from someone called Leslie Winer, a mysterious former model, a pal of William Burroughs and Jean-Michael Basquiat, a sometime guest vocalist on records by groups like Bomb The Bass, who ditched modeling, dropped off the map, but not before making a record called Witch, considered to be an essential early chunk of proto trip hop, and this batch of tracks, dating just a year or so after Witch, does indeed offer up a gorgeous murky bit of skittery, downtempo weirdness. Obvious references are Tricky, Massive Attack, even Portishead, the same sort of creepy crawly late night shimmer, dark and dubbed out, the rhythms skeletal, the vocals, hushed and whispered, a sort of slow motion toasting, dark croons over billowing clouds of thrum and whir, loping rubbery basslines, slowed down samples, bits of reggae guitar, druggy and dubby, woozy and warbly, everything wrapped in a gauzy haze of record crackle, tape hiss, blurred ambience.
Here and there the drums are cranked up into something more block rocking, but even then Winer transforms it into something more murky and surreal, the bass gets super distorted and fuzzed out (some dubstep foreshadowing for sure), everything wrapped around effected acoustic guitars, more sampled vox, strange little flurries of percussive filigree, all smeared into a mesmerizing bit of shuffling tripped out, psychedelic downtempo moody muddy groove.
LIMITED TO ONLY 250 COPIES!

WINGS OF VENGEANCE Miseryguts (Battlecruiser / Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 3" cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Battlecruiser is a new label from AQ pal Campbell Kneale who runs the impeccable NZ label Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Battlecruiser is basically an outlet for a bunch of New Zealand noise guys to fufill their secret desire to be metal gods! Who can argue with that? Cool band names, distorted guitars, demonic vocals and all that good stuff! Metalheads might have to stretch their definition of 'metal' to really get into this stuff, but the rest of us, metal and unmetal alike will find lots of beautiful crushing far out noisy weirdness on these evil 'lil 3" cd-r's!
The majestically monickered Wings Of Vengeance offers up gentle chiming harmonics that are slowly overtaken by creaking, moaning waves of slow motion riffs that eventually erupt into hyperspeed death metal, with thick slabs of bass guitar, grunted vocals and spastic drum machines. Less metal per se, more sort of stuttery, throbbing grind sludge. Like the Flipper catalog played by Corrupted. Or something. 9 tracks in 9 minutes! And we also ought to note: this band is named after a Hammers of Misfortune song, oddly enough!
MPEG Stream: "Wings Of Vengeance"
MPEG Stream: "Necrobehmothra"

WINSTON, GEORGE Autumn (Windham Hill/BMG) cd 16.98

WINTER FAMILY Red Sugar (Sub Rosa) cd 16.98
This came highly recommended from one of our distributors, but we were wary at first, as we've generally had bad luck with the whole spoken word / band combo. There are of course exceptions, and this is definitely one, Winter Family whipping up a gorgeous expanse of brooding, smoldering, slow building post rock ambience, heavy on the harmonium and organ, seeing as one half of the WF duo is keyboardist Xavier Klaine, who has partnered with 'vocalist' Ruth Rosenthal, for this haunting series of songscapes, that as the label suggest, do in fact harken back to groups like Godspeed You Black Emperor and A Silver Mount Zion. Mournful and melancholy, haunting and ethereal, just check out the opening track, the oddly named "Searching Donkeys", with its thick layered minor key organ, the sound rich and lustrous, Rosenthal's vocals settled down in the mix, her mysterious intonations peppered with brief bits of proper singing, lush little bits of harmonized vocalizing, the sound almost chorale, perfectly matching the ever intensifying music, the vibe strangely liturgical.
The title track unwinds a thick, slowly pulsing sprawl of crumbling buzz, warped and a little bit seasick, throbbing ominously, Rosenthal's mush mouthed lyrics delivered in a creepy deadpan, the track peppered with bits of abstract ambience, field recordings of crowds and tolling church bells, distorted voices, broadcast through what sounds like a bullhorn, always returning to that thick ominous buzz, creepy and so sonically unnerving.
The record is super varied, a few moments definitely veer dangerously close to 'spoken word' for us, but Rosenthal pulls it off, her delivery intense and moving, and quite lyrical, even slipping into actual singing now and again, the music in those moments is darkly delicate, with elegiac pianos, chirping birds, hazy and ethereal, the sound occasionally jazzy, other times more post rocky, but our favorite moments are definitely the more drone based tracks, Klaine layering sound upon sound, weaving lush, slow building, ultra tense soundscapes, cinematic and mysterious, Rosenthal's voice, drifting atop, within and beneath Klaine's lush otherworldly drones, the two conjuring up something so much more than its constituent parts, mysterious and eerie and lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Searching Donkeys"
MPEG Stream: "Red Sugar"
MPEG Stream: "Y"

WINTER IS COMING s/t (self-released) cd-r 9.98
This definitely has to be the first record ever inspired by a t-shirt. We shit you not. And just to get in the spirit, I'm actually wearing said shirt as I type. But it must be noted it is a really cool shirt! A friend of aQ who used to make t-shirts, whipped up this badass Winter Is Coming shirt a while back, a stark design of leafless branches against a grey sky. Only a handful made it off the press and onto people's back, one of which ended up on a fella by the name of Tom who then started Winter Is Coming, the group, not to be confused with the shirt. And you know what? It's just as cool as the shirt if not cooler. The cd sleeve is an homage to the shirt's design, winter branches against a grey sky, the words Winter Is Coming in olde English letters, but from that point on the shirt comes off and we're into some sort of mysteriously wintery drone sludge ambient shit that is fierce and frightening, and is exactly the sort of thing we can never seem to get enough of. It's like the musical version of a cold grim winter, the sound of icy winds and dying leaves, five massive tracks of slow moving whir and rumble. Sometimes delicate and crystalline, sometimes thick and viscous and almost black in its heaviness. The instrumentation is as unlikely as the band's inspiration, homemade washtub doodle bass with nylon weed whacker strings, dulcimer, dinner bell, creaking chair, jew's harp as well as guitar, synth and vocals. Winter Is Coming is not just a shirt, it's a metaphor for death, as the man behind WiC works in the emergency room and this recording is the musical expression of his experiences with death. The coming winter, the inevitable end. Life like seasons. Heavy stuff. As is the music. A huge glacial crawl, rife with strange sonic irregularities, like a mudslide picking up corpses and random detritus as it lays waste to everything in its path. The bringer of death, but strangely serene and beautiful. Definitely for fans of the sludge and the drone, Boris, Corrupted, Moss, Marzuraan, SUNNO))) as well as the heavier side of the drone, Nadja, Abruptum and the like. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Winter Is Coming indeed...
For more on the inspiration behind the coming winter check this out: http://conceptualart.dreamhosters.com/npr/archives/102
MPEG Stream: "Dwellers In The Mound"
MPEG Stream: "Death Blue"

WINTERS IN OSAKA Molded To Crawl (Haunted Hotel) cd 8.98
Got a few more of these back in stock...
Latest from these Midwestern noiseniks, this time with a full complement of assistant noisemakers, including Rich Hoak (Brutal Truth, Total Fucking Destruction) as well as folks from Fuck The Facts, The Endless Blockade and 7000 Dying Rats! Sounds like a seriously noisy nasty party indeed.
The last Winters In Osaka we reviewed was Orchids, and unlike a lot of noise music, it was way more rhythmic and textural, offering up a series of sort of fractured skitters and looped grooves, all liberally doused with plenty of noisiNESS.
But we knew these guys were capable of kicking up a serious din and they do just that on Molded To Crawl. Opening with a 17 minute epic, that begins with muted percussion, samples, buzzing electronics, which quickly builds to a full on face melting skree, but within that skree, synths squiggle, vocals howl, guitars feedback, sirens wail, the chaotic blowout does seem to occasionally almost slip into something drone-y or almost riff like, but for the most part, it's a thick dense wall of sound that is not for the faint of ear.
The other three tracks are shorter, and tend toward the darker and the dronier, again rooted around plodding percussion, and layered buzz, the sound veers from lurching machine like industrial lumber, to Godfleshy stomp, to haunting Eastern music box over roiling blacknoise, to thick whirring buzzscape, to wildly careening and crumbling wave of low end crush, to skittery crunch and glitch, to thick windblown wasteland sountrack, to chopped up plunderphonia, to haunting hushed drift.
Cool stuff, but definitely be warned, this is some seriously noisy shit!
MPEG Stream: "Triumph Of Wolves"
MPEG Stream: "Fungus Throne"

WINTERS IN OSAKA Orchids (One Sock / Kunaki) cd-r 4.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
We begin so many reviews of noise records, with disclaimers like "we don't typically like noise music" that we're beginning to think we actually DO like noise music. Although to be fair, the noise music that mostly appeals to us, is not the speaker shredding white noise, but rather the carefully crafted, dynamic soundscape sort of noise. With rhythms, however subtle, melody, mood and definitely dynamics. So it might be more fair to say we enjoy noiserock. Or noisy music. (all of this said, knowing full well, that many of us DO in fact like NOISE music, Masonna, Incapacitants, etcÉ)
Semantics aside, we do love our music noisy, and we love plenty of noise in whatever rock it is we're rocking, kraut, space, post, garage, a little noise goes a long way, especially when wielded deftly and applied sparingly.
We got this disc in the mail a few months ago. Self professed noise music, so it took us a while to hunker down and throw it on, and what do you know? It was awesome. A strange soundscape of fragmented rhythms and electronic whir, of crumbling drones and spaced out ambience. A more minimal take on a sort of krautrocky noise rock, not all that far removed from recent AQ records of the week by Geronimo and Aluk Todolo. In fact, anyone who bought either of those would do well to check out Orchids by Winters In Osaka.
Orchids would be worth it alone for the opening track, a ten plus minute jam that could go on forever as far as we're concerned. A spacious rhythmic noise jam, reminiscent of This Heat's Repeat. A strange electronic trill, the heart of the track, repeating throughout, sometimes panned to the right, sometimes to the left, right up front, then buried in the mix, while underneath, a rhythm skitters and shuffles, locking into a groove, and then fragmenting into strange stuttering hiccups, before settling back in again. Swirling all around are sheets of feedback, minor key synthesized basslines, crumbling static, other bits of percussive clatter, but the main rhythm keeps resurfacing, and that strangely soothing little electronic trill, the whole thing impossibly soothing and hypnotic.
And like we said above, that track would be enough, but the rest of the disc echoes that first track, as if the various songs were just movements of a bigger expansive piece, and it works. In fact the second track, is like a more percussive version of the first, the drums more pronounced, that trill still present, but the rhythm distorted and thick, with extra bits of disembodied guitar drifting in here and there. The third too is a part of that first suite, the drums growing even more distorted and insistent, the layers of noise growing more and more corrosive as well.
But from that point on the record, while still referencing the opening suite, seems much more varied, little bursts of staccato percussion, thick swaths of downtuned drone, melodies scrawled in squiggles of feedback, moody murky melodic thrums drifting nearly static and almost out of earshot, sprays of hiss, like one of those sprinklers, hooked up to an amplifier, fields of distorted chimes and resonant shimmer. But the magic being that the various songs keep revisiting themes from the song right before it, or hinting at some sonic element no yet introduced. Creating a sprawling rhythmic soundscape of buzz and hiss and skitter, of fuzz and skree and thud, that unfolds and unfurls and fills your ears with glorious glorious noise.
MPEG Stream: "Orchids Part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Orchids Part 2"
MPEG Stream: "Orchids Part 5"

WINTERS IN OSAKA Rise...Rise! (self-released) 3"cd-r 5.98

WIRE THICKET Dust, Static (Students Of Decay) 3" cd-r 7.98
Wire Thicket is the duo of Alex Cobb, aka Taiga Remains and Students Of Decay head honcho, and field recorder and musician David Kirby (whose Inside, It Is Ringing cd-r we just discovered a few more copies of, it's relisted elsewhere on this list!) and this is as far as we know their only release.
Self avowed practitioners of "power drone", the main track here is a single 15 minute chunk of slow burning low end smolder, that thickens as the track progresses, layer upon layer, the tones shimmering and burning white hot, soaring, moaning, almost a symphony of deep resonant tones, by the final few minutes, the tone has shifted from corrosive and ominous to effulgent and sun dappled, serious Sunroof! ur-drone territory, massive and epic and heavy, yet mesmerizing and meditative. The sort of track that deserves to drone on forever and ever. There's a second shorter track, a minimal hushed coda of sorts, a glimmering whisper drifting ghostlike over a vast black expanse, a little bit new age-y, a bit black ambience, the perfect comedown chill out after the exhaustive and cathartic first track.
Packaged in a mini 3" jewel case with a printed full color cover. Limited to 100 copies, but looong out of print, we have only a handful left, and you know what that means...
MPEG Stream: "Dust, Static"
MPEG Stream: "Brilliant Dead Highways: Revisited"

WIRKUS, PAUL Deformation Professionnelle (Staubgold) cd 15.98
Wirkus, Wirkus, Wirkus. We like that name. 'Specially since we now associate it with some great, rainy day glitchtronica music! Subdued, abstract yet melodic drones n' glitch here from Poland-born, Cologne-based electronica artist Paul Wirkus -- a former improv jazz drummer, who has also played in punk and post-rock bands. His calm, clip-clip-clippy electro-acoustical dronological methodology is very lo-fi "live" and melodic, Wirkus creating shimmering, pulsating soundscapes with microphones, minidiscs, samples, loops, effects, and crackly vinyl. Buried in these densely textured tracks you'll hear (what might be) jazz piano, classical strings, and raw electronic noises...it's all layered and distorted and so so lovely. Track five adds a mysterious French (?) male vocal that works quite well. And track eight sounds like Philip Jeck teamed up with Ryoji Ikeda! Highly recommended. We hadn't heard Wirkus' music until now, and we've totally fallen in love. Turns out that this album, while his first for Staubgold, is his fourth solo effort, and he's also done a lot of collaborating as well, so we'll have to look for more of those Wirkus works...
MPEG Stream: "View Finder"
MPEG Stream: "Valore Energetico"

WISHART, TREVOR Machine (Paradigm) cd 16.98