WOLFMANGLER Hungry Hungry Wolves (Short Forest) 7" 6.98
Yet another mysterious missive from the dark forests of Poland (via Texas of course) courtesy of doom folk trio Wolfmangler, featuring the one and only Smolken, aka Dead Raven Choir.
While Wolfmangler have been know to lay down some serious doom (c'mon, they shared a split with Moss!!) albeit in their own uniquely skewed fashion, these two tracks are not so much doom as they are doomy, the band embracing their foresty folk side, but shot through with a healthy dose of mourn and misery.
The sound here is some sort of funereal campfire folk, simple plodding percussion, moaning violin, fluttering flute, very tribal, and primitive, almost old timey, like some strange pirate sea shanty. Growled ghostly vocals crawl menacingly over what at times sounds like a very gnarled and twisted version of Peter And The Wolf.
The second side is a bit slower and creepier, even darker and more lugubrious, the flute, instead of flitting and fluttering is stretched into long drawn out melancholy melodies, the vocals a ragged whisper, the strings now weaving a surprisingly lush minor key backdrop.
A nice little slab of creepy crawly doom folk for sure.
Packaged in super swank silkscreened sleeves. he cover image, a wolf and what appears to be a river of blood, and a drowning body. Nice!

WOLFMANGLER They Call Us Naughty Wolves (God Is Myth) cd 11.98
Smolken has always been a confounding personality, the man behind both Wolfmangler and Dead Raven Choir, releasing records on proper metal labels, but also on weirdo avant free folk microlabel Jewelled Antler, mixing black metal, folk music, country, bluegrass, whatever the hell he feels like really, the results sometimes brilliant, often baffling, but always weird and wonderful in their own way.
They Call Us Naughty Wolves marks the return of Smolken as Wolfmangler after more than two years of relative inactivity, and to be honest, we were approaching this with a bit of trepidation. It was after all a record called They Call Us Naughty Wolves, and according to the label was blackened burlesque chamber music, a sort of channeling of pop from yesteryear, not to mention that some of the cds come with a pair of Wolfmangler undies (really! more on that in a second). But really, conceptually and sonically, this is no stranger than past Smolken projects, so we threw it on, and were pleasantly surprised, if one can find this sort of music simply 'pleasant'.
The sound is creepy, and dark, and creaky, and mysteriously ominous, strings moan and groan, a slow lugubrious chamber music, transformed into something much blacker and creepier, the melancholic gloom and string laden dirgery accompanied by a blackened croak, vokills that gurgle and growl, although they are sometimes accompanied by an angelic female counterpoint. The guitar or bass is more a fuzzy blur, a droney rumble, that underpins the strings, cellos or violins driving the tracks, creating the muted melodies, and it's that weird guttural vocal and string combination, that can't help but remind us of those groups like Xynfonica, Shevelreq, Gluttony, Thursar, the twisted metal vox with gnarled guitar synths emulating exotic instruments. So right off the bat, if that stuff is to your twisted taste, then this will definitely hit the spot. But Smolken's vision isn't so damaged or demented, it's definitely rooted in sounds more traditional, a sort of blackened doom chamber folk, which will appeal to fans of dark slow low moody weirdness. Although some of it is definitely WAY weird. The band occasionally slipping into some strangely jaunty jig like Renn Faire folk music, but for the most part, it's just some seriously brooding, surprisingly beautiful, freaked out and fucked up outsider darkness, like Tom Waits' Black Rider blurred and muddied and blackened into some woozy warped soundtrack to a filmic fable of wolves and woods.
Two lucky aQ customers who order this, will also get a companion pair of red (riding hood), women's panties, with a screenprinted image of a wolf dressed up like grandma on the butt, They Call Us Naughty Wolves after all, it'll be totally random, so cross your fingers...
MPEG Stream: "Flying Shoes"
MPEG Stream: "Lullaby Of The Leaves"
MPEG Stream: "House On The Ocean"
MPEG Stream: "Lili Marleen"
MPEG Stream: "Carry Me Urn To Ukraine"

WOLFSKIN Campos De Matanca (Essence Music) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the first release on Brazillian label Essence music, run by AQ pal Uirajara Resende, and is the second release from Portuguese dark ambient technicians Wolfskin. Campos De Matanca, literally translated as "Fields Of Slaughter" is actually a reworked/expanded version of a super limited and long out of print cd-r. Kudos to Uirajara for unearthing this utterly mesmerising and terrifying slab of dark dronology!
This is the kind of gorgeous and brutally abject dark ambient drone that only a chosen few can actually pull off. And you can add Wolfskin to that list. Voices and bells, rumbles and whirs all stretched into a thick blanket of inky blackness, a sonic black hole that sucks you in and buries you beneath tons of static thrum. Ominous and crushing, and truly frightening. Lustmord and Coleclough, Noisegate and Brighter Death Now, Band Of Pain and Troum. You get the picture. Wolfskin also occasionally haul out the drums and indulge in a little Der Blutharsch style miltarism, with static, battlefield percussion, Laibach-ish vocals, all over a crumbling industrial backdrop. This militarism surfaces occasionally throughout the record, but is always quickly subsumed and overtaken by the monstrous, magma-like flows of sound. This record thematically represents "forgotten Keltik fertilization rituals, honour and victories of ancient civilisations and a profound respect for the nature and its untamable forces" utilising an unlikely arsenal of sonic weaponry: carillion, bells, accordion, tin whistle, talara, ceramic box and a curious array of field recordings even including "the slaughter of pigs in winter." Woah. Pretty heavy stuff. But this whole record is heavy. And dense. And dark. And grim. And bone-chillingly, soul-crushingly, heart-breakingly brilliant.
MPEG Stream: "Dawn In Blood"
MPEG Stream: "Wheel Of Eight Spears"

WOLFSKULL Black Hole Rose (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!
Maybe the weirdest of the batch, the first track on Wolfskull's Black Hole Rose sounds a bit like Jandek metal. Guitars warbly and out of tune slathered in the most noxious distrotion possible, pained emotional vocals all sort of drunkenly wobbling along. Track two is an extended gong/cymbal workout, very hypnotic and sparse. And the final track is a dreamy bacwards guitar thing. Definitely a cool record, but probably the least 'metal' of the batch.
MPEG Stream: "Black Hole Rose"

WOLFSKULL Black Uhura (200mg) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's been nearly a year since we've heard from this mysterious black sonic beast from New Zealand, a shadowy entity which we just discovered is the dirgedronedoom shadow cast by the very dark side of Mr. CJA, Clayton Noone.
Black Uhura is four looooooooong tracks of gorgeous viscous murk. The opening track is a dreamy drift, if you dream of being dragged through thick tarpits in the very depths of the underworld. Riffs held over a flame and melted down into shimmering black puddles of sound, rippling gently, beneath, vocals mumble and warble, buried under a crushing slab of slow sinister sprawl, like some unholy collision between SUNNO))) and the Dead C, but with the bass cranked and the treble turned all the way down.
The second track is way more caustic, a blown out riffage rendered in violent squalls and smeared sheets of crumbling buzz and low end rumble. Prickly and chaotic and dirgey, almost more Merzbow noise, than any sort of dirgey drone, but closer listening reveals some buried riffage, some moaning walls of feedback, some corrosive metallic song structure, but sounding as if it were left outside to rust and decay and slowly crash to the ground.
The third track returns to the relative tranquility of the first, with the song elements even more noticeable, a barely there voice, a sing songy melody, some sort of desiccated melody, all washed out and indistinct, beneath the slow flowing river of molten hum and lo fi shimmer. Then the final track crashes back down, but not before slowly building up from a tolling church bell, a stuttering disembodied riff, thickening guitar growl, coruscating peals of feedback and machine like grinding buzz, all slowly sinking into a roiling black abyss, eventually morphing into a super hypnotic processed low end slither, and a surprising drum machine'd smoky coda...
Packaged in a super swank oversized dvd sized booklet, offset printed. The cover black on thick brown cardstock, the inside 8 pages of hellish black and white sketches, liner notes, the cd affixed to the back cover, and a 200mg sticker. Limited of course...
MPEG Stream: "Methuselah"
MPEG Stream: "Black Uhura"

WOLFSKULL Tannasg (Ruralfaune) 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.
BACK IN STOCK. Final copies!!
The last we heard from Wolfskull was a super limited cd-r on Campbell Kneale's avant metal label Battlecruiser, a stumbling slab of Jandekian doom metal drone. Since then, there's been a split with Polish (by way of Texas) black folk ensemble Wolfmangler, and not much else... until now.
Tannasg is the latest installment from this New Zealand based outfit (we're thinking there's a distinct possibility that Wolfskull is in fact either PseudoArcana's Anthony Milton, or BCM's Campbell Kneale... but nope, we just discovered it's Clayton Noone aka CJA!) and begins like a page out of SUNN)))'s doomdrone playbook. A very Black Boned slow motion downtuned riff-fuck, glacial and thick, huge moaning notes and chords crumbling into black rumbles...
Track two though harkens back to the Battlecruiser release, with shuffling abstract percussion, wide open reverby room sound, simple acoustic guitar strum, a sort of super super mellow Dead C jangle jam, that never really goes anywhere, just sort of drifts and eventually fades out.
But that's the only calm in this storm, the rest of the tracks are variations on a crushing minimal sludge theme. From muted throbbing pulses, to hissy lo-fi Skullfower guitarscapes over practice space drums, to the 16 minute sludge pummel of "Shred Your Axe", with pounding drums, shrieking feedback, all over a fuzzy rumbling riff so distorted it almost sounds like a streak of blacknoise, to the final 4 minute finale, a blown out guitar drone, muter feedback, twisted into stuttering rhythms and throbbing pulses. Some seriously heavy shit for sure. Essential listening for the doomdronedeathdirge obsessive among you...
LIMITED TO 79 COPIES!!! (these are the last few!)
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"

WOLLSCHEID, ACHIM Shifts (Ritornell) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Man, I wish I didn't know how this was done... because it takes all of the mystery out of the sounds and also that it appears to be the same trick that Steven Stapleton employed on the Nurse With Wound album "Thunder Perfect Mind."
Uber-conceptualist Achim Wollscheid broadcast a collage on Radio X in Frankfurt, Germany, using their three Denon DN C680 cd players. These can be operated at the same time and are equipped with scan/search data-wheels that allows one to start or stop a cd at any given point. When moved while playing a cd, the wheels send the disc into a locked groove, which can be shifted by constantly turning the wheel (about 60 shifts will scan one second of playing time). Essentially the cd players had been used to generate rapid fire pulsing clicks, which Wollscheid intuitively collaged to form a glistening digital elegance in "Shifts." Cool.

WOLPE, STEFAN Berlin 1929 - 1931 (Subrosa) cd 16.98
Previously unpublished early works by this 20th-century avant-garde composer (who, later in life, was a professor to Morton Feldman). Radical, dadaist, agitprop songs for piano and voice.

WOLVSERPENT Gathering Strengths / Blood Seed (Crucial Blast) 2cd 14.98
We made Wolvserpent's Blood Seed lp our Record Of The Week on list #358 back in November of last year, Wolvserpent being the group previously known as Pussygutt, a male/female duo from Idaho capable of crafting grimly powerful blackened folk flecked dronescapes that defy easy categorization. And as we mentioned then, the name Pussygutt probably put off plenty of people, thus the shift to Wolvserpent, and while that name definitely better captures the group's ominous tone and black metal leanings, it still leaves much about the music, and its makers, quite mysterious.
This compact disc reissue combines both Blood Seed AND Gathering Strengths, an lp released under the name Pussygutt back in 2009, into a handsome double disc compendium, with BOTH lps appearing on cd for the very first time.
Blood Seed is two epic sprawls, the first a haunting bit of dirgey folk, laid over lush shimmery drones, a gorgeous funeral lament, that only hints at the abject brutality these two are capable of, instead, simply invoking a darkly melancholic mood, eventually guitars drift in, plucking out simple sad melodies, while the strings continue to swirl and soar, gorgeously tense and intense, cinematic and soundtracky. It's not until nearly the nine minute mark that the drums come in, as do the electric guitars, laying down a sort of skeletal doom framework, a different kind of downtuned slowbuild creep, pounding drums, muted riffage, the strings and Sunroof!-like drones growing in intensity, a super intense bit of droney tribal drift, but with an odd start stop arrangement, peppering the lush droning plod with little bits of more traditionally metallic riffage. Eventually some shrieked vocals swoop in, and the song stretches out into a strangley psychedelic epic, a bastardized mix of Godspeed like post rock, avant ur-drone drift, funeral doom, and glacial black metal buzz, all muted and blurred as if mixed by Tim Hecker.
The second 'movement' takes up right where the first left off, long layered high end tones, a lush undulating upper register dronescape, haunting and hypnotically shimmery, before finally lurching into some seriously metallic crunch, a lumbering doomy dirge, buzzing riffs, caveman drums, all wrapped in swirling swaths of reverbed vocals and superdistorted streaks of ambient melody, erupting into occasional blasts of uptempo chuggery, but always slipping back into that stuttery creep, and constantly wreathed in a lush otherworldly sonic haze.
Gathering Strengths, originally released on lp by Olde English Spelling Bee, like Blood Seed, is a single track split into two epic parts, the first, subtitled "Silence Within", begin with the chirping of crickets, which is soon joined by some haunting distant low end thrum, a dreamlike swell, which is soon joined by a more intense layer of buzzing tones, overlapping woodwinds, rife with mysterious overtones, a creepy harmony, the buzz and shimmer drifting in and out, the minimal drift gradually coalescing into an intense bit of dronemusic, like a blackened Phil Niblock, while off in the distance, barely there percussion surfaces, fragmented slo-mo rhythms, while more and more layers are piled on top, super intense and trancelike, until the woodwinds drift off, leaving a feedback laced stretch of blackdronedrift, softly clattery and corrosive, A wolf Eyes-ian industrial sprawl, that transforms into some hauntingly lovely gypsy like folk, driven by a mournful fiddle melody, the sound swells and smolders, all lilting melodies, and cinematic atmosphere, the vibe like a doom folk Astor Piazolla, that is until a MASSIVE avalanche of washed out downtuned doomcrush rolls in, that gorgeous fiddle now all tangled up in a heaving SUNNO)))-like churn, which manages to be both brutal and blackened, dreamy and so totally lovely. Impossibly pretty heaviness, this whole double disc worth it for that 5 or 6 minute stretch alone.
But there's still the second part, that one subtitled "Spirit Walker", this one starts off in seriously gorgeous drone-folk mode, the band laying down a lush, mesmerizing, hauntingly tense layered drone backdrop, over which the violin keens and cries, accompanied by simple shamanistic drumming, the result a darkly mesmerizing glimpse into some lost forest glade, where some shadowy priest like visages are gathered around dancing black flames, conjuring up spirits from another realm, but like the first track, this one too gradually grows heavier, with the addition of a slow thick dirge-y doomy riff, not super distorted or grumbly, but more softly buzzy, the chords ringing out and fading until they seem to bleed into the sounds around them, only to have the next chord take over, what we said about the last few minutes of the first track, well, we could say it about this whole track, worth the price of admission all on its own, a hazy tranced out chunk of heavy, heady, forest folk drone drift bliss.
Both records are incredible, and work amazingly well together, and like Pussygutt before, Wolvserpent continue to hone their unclassifiable sound, a melding together of dark hushed folk, minimal drone music, and blackened dooooooom. Their name change probably won't really make 'em much more commercially appealing, but who needs that, when you're ruling the darkened otherworld of psychedelic avant heaviness???
MPEG Stream: "Gathering Strengths (Silence Within)"
MPEG Stream: "Gathering Strengths (Spirit Walker)"
MPEG Stream: "Wolv"
MPEG Stream: "Serpent"

WONG, DUSTIN Infinite Love (Thrill Jockey) 2cd+dvd 17.98

WOOD, CAMERON s/t (Rhizome) 3" cd-r 8.98

WOODEN CUPBOARD (Nature Tape Limb) 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.

WOODEN CUPBOARD s/t (LTJ) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

WOODEN SHJIPS Phonograph (Thrill Jockey) 7" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Originally this two song 7" came bundled for free with the vinyl copies we had of the first pressing of Wooden Shjips' latest full length, West. But that lp+7" combo was crazy limited, and of course disappeared in a flash, but NOW, Thrill Jockey has made that 7" finally available on its own, and as you might imagine, it's still crazy limited, so if you missed out the first time around, grab one now while you can. The A side is a non-album track called "Photograph" which features some seriously heavy guitar crunch, and sounds like it could easily have been included on the record proper, while the flipside features a Peaking Lights remix of "Looking Out" from the album (re-titled "Lights Out"), which spaces out the original a bit, makes it a bit dubby, and cranks the druggy Spacemen 3 vibe way up, and in the process manages to make it even more dreamy and psychedelic. In a full color sleeve, the same packaging as the first press...
MPEG Stream: "Lights Out (Peaking Lights Remix)"

WOODEN SHJIPS West (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98
It's hard to believe that it's been five whole years since Wooden Shjips effortlessly materialized into the psychedelic musical landscape. Between then and now they have become semi-hugely successful, almost right under our noses, and taken on the identity of sage-like masters of their psychedelic craft. Indeed, at the beginning, the Shjips appeared to be on the cusp of something new, not quite a "revival", but perhaps a much needed re-imagining of hazed psychedelic rock that sounded just as good in revved-up motorik excursions as it did in slow, confusional wanderings. Perhaps the one thing that bound it all together so perfectly was the band's patience and their ability to really bring out hypnotic grooves, starting with a perfect riff and just taking it all the way into the ever after. Each band member has a specific role within the group, and they know exactly what needs to be done for the song. Sure, a lot of bands will talk that game, but not many people are able to so expertly strip this music to its minimal core as the Shjips, and the formula has changed little over the years - a simple drum pound with no fills, a rumbling low end anchor of bass, wandering organ grooves, and a fuzzed out guitar that inevitably leaves the world behind to venture into clouds of acid-fried soloing. Sitting perfectly within the swirling instrumentation are the low crooned vocals that bring to mind everyone from Alan Vega to a sedate Lizard King to, hell, Elvis? The remarkable thing is how Wooden Shjips have managed to bring about so many comparisons while sounding only like Wooden Shjips.
Album #3 comes to us from the highly esteemed Thrill Jockey label, maybe the most ideal home imaginable for this band in 2011. Unlike the band's previous outings recorded in their practice space, West marks the first time Wooden Shjips have gone into an actual recording studio. How does it sound, you ask? Well, REALLY FUCKING GOOD to put it mildly. We loved the lower-fi murkiness of those other records but the clarity of the recording here brings out an expansiveness that wasn't previously there while also working itself into the record's themes of relocation and expansion to the American West. Ya know, like, San Francisco man. Freedom. Exploration. Rebirth. That kind of deal.
The record opens portentously with "Black Smoke Rise" and sets the tone for what is to come. It rides out with a cool midtempo biker riff while describing the crazy allure of the unknown. "Crossing" moves forward in a warm fuzz blanket with a tambourine clink keeping things nice and steady. Unlike what you might expect from the title, "Lazy Bones" is a hyped up jaunt with ominous little organ melodies adding to the confusion, before the slow burning "Home" brings things down a notch with an organ that has a bit of a Southern swamp vibe. "Flight" kicks in with a nice... uh, "boogie-rock" inspired riff that works really well against the devil may care rhythm and a super catchy organ line. This is probably the closest the band will ever get to making a song to strut down the street to, and it's a motherfucker. "Looking Out" is another uptempo romp with percolating organ chords and the tremeloed guitar shifting hazily in the speakers. Strange, sitar-like guitar notes that could have been beamed in from Sandy Bull, wherever he is, come and go and present a lovely array of musical notes that expertly do as they please. The closing number "Rising" brings things full circle by reversing "Black Smoke Rise" and stretching out the ambience with the rhythm provided by that awesome backwards swooping sound we all love.
Making this Record Of The Week is a no brainer. We've loved watching Wooden Shjips' journey unfold over the years, and they have yet to disappoint. They are a quintessential San Francisco band, and wherever they go, we're along for the ride.
While supplies last (which might not be long), the vinyl lp version of this comes with an exclusive limited edition bonus 7" single. Non-album track "Photograph" b/w a Peaking Lights remix of "Looking Out" from the album (re-titled "Lights Out"). In sleeve with full-color artwork. Definitely a collector's item, only available from a very few lucky stores (like us) and super limited. Sorry cd folks, no bonus with that format...
MPEG Stream: "Black Smoke Rise"
MPEG Stream: "Lazy Bones"
MPEG Stream: "Home"

WOODEN SHJIPS West (Thrill Jockey) lp 16.98
BACK IN PRINT, THIRD PRESSING!!
It's hard to believe that it's been five whole years since Wooden Shjips effortlessly materialized into the psychedelic musical landscape. Between then and now they have become semi-hugely successful, almost right under our noses, and taken on the identity of sage-like masters of their psychedelic craft. Indeed, at the beginning, the Shjips appeared to be on the cusp of something new, not quite a "revival", but perhaps a much needed re-imagining of hazed psychedelic rock that sounded just as good in revved-up motorik excursions as it did in slow, confusional wanderings. Perhaps the one thing that bound it all together so perfectly was the band's patience and their ability to really bring out hypnotic grooves, starting with a perfect riff and just taking it all the way into the ever after. Each band member has a specific role within the group, and they know exactly what needs to be done for the song. Sure, a lot of bands will talk that game, but not many people are able to so expertly strip this music to its minimal core as the Shjips, and the formula has changed little over the years - a simple drum pound with no fills, a rumbling low end anchor of bass, wandering organ grooves, and a fuzzed out guitar that inevitably leaves the world behind to venture into clouds of acid-fried soloing. Sitting perfectly within the swirling instrumentation are the low crooned vocals that bring to mind everyone from Alan Vega to a sedate Lizard King to, hell, Elvis? The remarkable thing is how Wooden Shjips have managed to bring about so many comparisons while sounding only like Wooden Shjips.
Album #3 comes to us from the highly esteemed Thrill Jockey label, maybe the most ideal home imaginable for this band in 2011. Unlike the band's previous outings recorded in their practice space, West marks the first time Wooden Shjips have gone into an actual recording studio. How does it sound, you ask? Well, REALLY FUCKING GOOD to put it mildly. We loved the lower-fi murkiness of those other records but the clarity of the recording here brings out an expansiveness that wasn't previously there while also working itself into the record's themes of relocation and expansion to the American West. Ya know, like, San Francisco man. Freedom. Exploration. Rebirth. That kind of deal.
The record opens portentously with "Black Smoke Rise" and sets the tone for what is to come. It rides out with a cool midtempo biker riff while describing the crazy allure of the unknown. "Crossing" moves forward in a warm fuzz blanket with a tambourine clink keeping things nice and steady. Unlike what you might expect from the title, "Lazy Bones" is a hyped up jaunt with ominous little organ melodies adding to the confusion, before the slow burning "Home" brings things down a notch with an organ that has a bit of a Southern swamp vibe. "Flight" kicks in with a nice... uh, "boogie-rock" inspired riff that works really well against the devil may care rhythm and a super catchy organ line. This is probably the closest the band will ever get to making a song to strut down the street to, and it's a motherfucker. "Looking Out" is another uptempo romp with percolating organ chords and the tremeloed guitar shifting hazily in the speakers. Strange, sitar-like guitar notes that could have been beamed in from Sandy Bull, wherever he is, come and go and present a lovely array of musical notes that expertly do as they please. The closing number "Rising" brings things full circle by reversing "Black Smoke Rise" and stretching out the ambience with the rhythm provided by that awesome backwards swooping sound we all love.
Making this Record Of The Week is a no brainer. We've loved watching Wooden Shjips' journey unfold over the years, and they have yet to disappoint. They are a quintessential San Francisco band, and wherever they go, we're along for the ride.
MPEG Stream: "Black Smoke Rise"
MPEG Stream: "Lazy Bones"
MPEG Stream: "Home"

WOODEN SHJIPS West (Thrill Jockey) lp+7" 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's hard to believe that it's been five whole years since Wooden Shjips effortlessly materialized into the psychedelic musical landscape. Between then and now they have become semi-hugely successful, almost right under our noses, and taken on the identity of sage-like masters of their psychedelic craft. Indeed, at the beginning, the Shjips appeared to be on the cusp of something new, not quite a "revival", but perhaps a much needed re-imagining of hazed psychedelic rock that sounded just as good in revved-up motorik excursions as it did in slow, confusional wanderings. Perhaps the one thing that bound it all together so perfectly was the band's patience and their ability to really bring out hypnotic grooves, starting with a perfect riff and just taking it all the way into the ever after. Each band member has a specific role within the group, and they know exactly what needs to be done for the song. Sure, a lot of bands will talk that game, but not many people are able to so expertly strip this music to its minimal core as the Shjips, and the formula has changed little over the years - a simple drum pound with no fills, a rumbling low end anchor of bass, wandering organ grooves, and a fuzzed out guitar that inevitably leaves the world behind to venture into clouds of acid-fried soloing. Sitting perfectly within the swirling instrumentation are the low crooned vocals that bring to mind everyone from Alan Vega to a sedate Lizard King to, hell, Elvis? The remarkable thing is how Wooden Shjips have managed to bring about so many comparisons while sounding only like Wooden Shjips.
Album #3 comes to us from the highly esteemed Thrill Jockey label, maybe the most ideal home imaginable for this band in 2011. Unlike the band's previous outings recorded in their practice space, West marks the first time Wooden Shjips have gone into an actual recording studio. How does it sound, you ask? Well, REALLY FUCKING GOOD to put it mildly. We loved the lower-fi murkiness of those other records but the clarity of the recording here brings out an expansiveness that wasn't previously there while also working itself into the record's themes of relocation and expansion to the American West. Ya know, like, San Francisco man. Freedom. Exploration. Rebirth. That kind of deal.
The record opens portentously with "Black Smoke Rise" and sets the tone for what is to come. It rides out with a cool midtempo biker riff while describing the crazy allure of the unknown. "Crossing" moves forward in a warm fuzz blanket with a tambourine clink keeping things nice and steady. Unlike what you might expect from the title, "Lazy Bones" is a hyped up jaunt with ominous little organ melodies adding to the confusion, before the slow burning "Home" brings things down a notch with an organ that has a bit of a Southern swamp vibe. "Flight" kicks in with a nice... uh, "boogie-rock" inspired riff that works really well against the devil may care rhythm and a super catchy organ line. This is probably the closest the band will ever get to making a song to strut down the street to, and it's a motherfucker. "Looking Out" is another uptempo romp with percolating organ chords and the tremeloed guitar shifting hazily in the speakers. Strange, sitar-like guitar notes that could have been beamed in from Sandy Bull, wherever he is, come and go and present a lovely array of musical notes that expertly do as they please. The closing number "Rising" brings things full circle by reversing "Black Smoke Rise" and stretching out the ambience with the rhythm provided by that awesome backwards swooping sound we all love.
Making this Record Of The Week is a no brainer. We've loved watching Wooden Shjips' journey unfold over the years, and they have yet to disappoint. They are a quintessential San Francisco band, and wherever they go, we're along for the ride.
While supplies last (which might not be long), the vinyl lp version of this comes with an exclusive limited edition bonus 7" single. Non-album track "Photograph" b/w a Peaking Lights remix of "Looking Out" from the album (re-titled "Lights Out"). In sleeve with full-color artwork. Definitely a collector's item, only available from a very few lucky stores (like us) and super limited. Sorry cd folks, no bonus with that format...
MPEG Stream: "Black Smoke Rise"
MPEG Stream: "Lazy Bones"
MPEG Stream: "Home"

WOODEN WAND AND THE VANISHING VOICE From The Road Vol. 1 Born Free (self-released) cd-r 10.98
First in the series of live documents from a 2005 tour, made shortly after recording Gypsy Freedom. This one titled, "Born Free" is 40 minutes of psychedelic musings and mystic ramblings creating a mildly whirling cacophony of half-uttered voices, bells and shambling rhythms. Sustaining this feel without too much shift in dynamics, this set is more ghostly than freaky, but still a good introduction to their unique sound and how it is manifested in a live setting.
MPEG Stream: "Born Free I"
MPEG Stream: "Born Free II"

WOODEN WAND AND THE VANISHING VOICE Xiao (Troubleman Unlimited) cd 13.98
Previously only available as a limited vinyl pressing of 300 from De Stijl Records, now reissued on CD by those kind folks at Troubleman Unlimited.
If we were gonna be lazy-asses and just toss off some current reference points, we might say that Wooden Wand album sounds a lot like what you might imagine the avant-folk bastard offspring of Devendra Banhart and Jandek would conjure up, but with absentminded spoken-sung male vocals and somber, resonant female vocals that occasionally draw comparisons to Jarboe (particularly on the song "Caribou Christ In The Great Void"). However, there's so much more to be said about the splendidly off-center sounds of Wooden Wand And The Vanishing Voice. Fans of Vibracathedral Orchestra, No Neck Blues Band, not to mention the assorted twigs and branches of both Animal Collective and Jewelled Antler Collective should definitely check this out (if they haven't already!). Smatterings of flute toots, stringy plink plunks, rattlings, rustlings and other random sounds rummaged from various knic-knacs, shrubbery, loosely strung strings and earthen wares. Apparently there's many many more Wooden Wand releases on the horizon. So if you dig this, you've got plenty more to look forward to! Liner notes by some dude called Thurston Moore.
MPEG Stream: "Caribou Christ In The Great Void"
MPEG Stream: "Lions In Love"

WOODEN WAND AND THE VANISHING VOICE Xiao (Troubleman Unlimited) lp 11.98
Previously only available as a limited vinyl pressing of 300 from De Stijl Records, now reissued on both CD and LP by those kind folks at Troubleman Unlimited.
If we were gonna be lazy-asses and just toss off some current reference points, we might say that Wooden Wand album sounds a lot like what you might imagine the avant-folk bastard offspring of Devendra Banhart and Jandek would conjure up, but with absentminded spoken-sung male vocals and somber, resonant female vocals that occasionally draw comparisons to Jarboe (particularly on the song "Caribou Christ In The Great Void"). However, there's so much more to be said about the splendidly off-center sounds of Wooden Wand And The Vanishing Voice. Fans of Vibracathedral Orchestra, No Neck Blues Band, not to mention the assorted twigs and branches of both Animal Collective and Jewelled Antler Collective should definitely check this out (if they haven't already!). Smatterings of flute toots, stringy plink plunks, rattlings, rustlings and other random sounds rummaged from various knic-knacs, shrubbery, loosely strung strings and earthen wares. Apparently there's many many more Wooden Wand releases on the horizon. So if you dig this, you've got plenty more to look forward to! Liner notes by some dude called Thurston Moore.
MPEG Stream: "Caribou Christ In The Great Void"
MPEG Stream: "Lions In Love"

WOODS Songs Of Shame (Woodsist) lp 14.98
Just in case you haven't quite got your fix for lackadaisical, lo-fi pop, here's a folky dose of strummy daydreaming from East Coasters Woods. Songs of Shame, their fourth full-length, basks in the same sunny day euphoria that radiates from other Woods records, complete with falsetto vocals, clumsy percussion and reverb on -everything-. Dense layers of woozy vocals and weird Casio sounds busy the songs as small details and hidden instruments reveal themselves in a sea of psychedelic clatter. Super warped and drugged out, Songs of Shame sulks in pools of hazy acoustic guitars, ultra catchy 'ooohs and aahs', and soaringly damaged fuzzzzzzz guitar, all loosely compiled into some analog relic found on the shore of Coney Island in the blaring summer heat. Housed in a sharp lookin sleeve with a grainy mountainous landscape on the front and what looks like a drawing by a kindergardener on acid on the back, very nice and very typical of the Woodsist fellows. Not sure how limited this puppy is, but take our advice and don't miss out.

WOODS / AMPS FOR CHRIST split (Shrimper) cd 13.98
Maybe not a match made in heaven, but definitely a match made in some twisted sonic otherverse where we want to spend the rest of forever, this brand new split finds East Coast psych folk combo Woods teaming up with ex- Man Is The Bastard weirdo psych noise SoCal shaman Henry Barnes aka Amps For Christ for a record of heady psychedelic drift and cosmic lo-fi sonic experimentation, that sounds just about as good as we figured it would. The track listing is a little bit confusing. Opener "Sleep" while credited to Woods, definitely sounds like a collaboration, the music itself is lilting sun dappled folk, all chiming and sweetly melodic, but underneath, a crazy distorted droned out guitar like buzz undulates and pulses, adding a strange sort of raga like vibe, and for folks new to Amps For Christ, definitely sounds like one of Barnes' gorgeous and gorgeously ramshackle homemade noise generators, which often look like some old kitchen cabinet you might find by the side of the road, all warped plywood, and strange nails, often screwdrivers and wild tangles of wires, and more often than not, everything decorated with strange drawings of winged guitars and bits of twisted bible verse. However, once we get to a track we know is a collaboration, we realize maybe that first track was just Woods paying homage to the twisted genius of AfC, "From Oatmeal To Buttermilk" a wild glitched out buzzing droney electronic raga, that squelches and chitters, a field of hazy electronic interference over mysterious electronic bagpipe like melodies. Soon after, we return to the tranquil dream folk of Woods, who seem to have infused all their songs with some mysterious psychedelic buzz, buried way down in the mix, a raga-like buzz underpinning the folky flutter, the campfire twang, and the abstract Appalachia, all before we get to the final three song suite, which finds Barnes and his Amps For Christ unfurling some surprisingly dreamy folk of his own (if the track listing is to be believed), acoustic guitars, simple hand drums, shakers and percussion, distant buzz and warm atmospheric shimmer, falsetto vox, and while we were expecting some crazy electronic freakout from the oddly named final jam, the nearly ten minute "Roto Koto In C Major", instead we're treated to a darkly hypnotic, brooding expanse of bas driven psychedelia, laced with bits of twang, flurries of acoustic guitar, more percussion, all very spare and spaced out, hauntingly mesmerizing, and dreamily trippy and druggy and woozily soft focus.
Fans of both bands will definitely dig, and this may just be the most easy to digest Amps For Christ record yet, certainly the perfect place to start for the uninitiated, and we can hope the perfect gateway record to all the weird electronic darkness that lurks beyond.
MPEG Stream: AMPS FOR CHRIST "When"
MPEG Stream: AMPS FOR CHRIST "Roto Koto In C Major"
MPEG Stream: WOODS "Sleep"
MPEG Stream: WOODS "Wind Was The Wine"

WORK / DEATH Tender Comrades (Semata Productions) cd 12.98
A stark half-toned reproduction of two idealized proletariat workers graces the cover of Work / Death's debut full length album. This along with the stencil text of the album's title gives the impression of this being somewhere not too far from the anarcho-punk of Crass or the sadistic noise of Con-Dom or Grey Wolves. In fact, Work / Death's fizzing synth-drones are far from these grim signifiers. At one time, this Rhode Island one-man band might have abused his audience with sheer hellish miasma. But even though he still uses the self deprecating slogan "garbage in, garbage out" to describe his working process, Tender Comrades is nothing at all of a noise record, creating mesmerizing assemblages of layered static, soft blurry orchestrations of electronics, and sustained drones which come together much closer to the likes of Tim Hecker or Lawrence English than anything previously mentioned.
The album opens with a wispy swirl of aerosolized hiss situated above a Charlemagne Palestine style church organ drone, slipping into an Oneohtrix Point Never melody on the synth presets for horns by the end of this uncannily gorgeous piece. The second track may be more in keeping with Work / Death's earlier compacted noise, with motorized clickings and dampened alarm bells perched upon a carcinogenic hum of MB style sonic rumbling and electro-acoustic brutalism. But the gauzy approach returns on the third through a quiet set of guitar strummings behind another engulfing mass of thickened grey/white noises, with all of the sharp edges burnished off, like a shoegazed approach to noise construction, matching the mood of the plaintive guitar strums. By the album's finale, Work / Death offers something of a post-noise homage to Brian Eno's Thursday Afternoon or Jonathan Coleclough's Period, with small clusters of piano hanging on a smoldering backdrop of rasping Brendan Murray-like minimalism. Very nicely done and a quite a nice surprise.
MPEG Stream: "The Grey Elk Plummets To Earth..."
MPEG Stream: "Ascension Of The Many Steps To Porter Square"

WORK / DEATH To The Hills Of Altadena (Jugular Forest) cassette 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

WORK/DEATH Teenage Heavy Metal Revisionism (I Just Live Here) cassette 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There's some sort of competition going on in the cassette tape underground. There's nothing new about elaborate packaging, the weirder and wilder and more extravagant the better, but things are getting, well... dangerous.
Recently we reviewed a tape by UK doomlords Moss, each one packaged in a huge metal sculpture, most adorned with nails and chains and gears and all manner of sharp metal bits (don't ask, those are LONG GONE). Somehow though, the packaging fit the music perfectly.
Now we have the latest from the strangely monickered Work/Death, the brilliantly titled Teenage Heavy Metal Revisionism, and the packaging, well, it manages to outdo the Moss in one important way, it's MUCH SHARPER. We mean it, the first time we picked one of these up, we sort of started and dropped it, unprepared were we for the strange sensation of nails on the soft skin of our hands. It's a regular old tape, in a plain old tape case, but each side has a little mini-bed of nails, really sharp nails, tied up tight with twine. Very imposing and threatening looking. And again, somehow, the sharp and twine-y outer shell suits the music within.
A dark, rumbling, scraping and creaking cavernous journey through some post industrial low end wasteland. Sort of ambient, but also brutal, and aggressive, harsh and harrowing. Metallic percussion peppers a snarling swirling black soundscape, streaked with shards of feedback and crumbling black melodies. Thick blown out fuzz churns and roils, as if Wolf Eyes and Black Boned Angel were boiled down and placed in a huge black iron pot to simmer. Or like some sort of caveman Einsturzende... a million black suns slowly dying and spreading out, coating everything in thick, viscous blackness...
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! We got about 15, and be warned, it's VERY SHARP, so if you do damage to yourself, we are not responsible, and if you order this with other stuff, it will have to be properly padded and secured to keep it from damaging any of the other items in your order, and in some cases that might bump up you shipping a tiny bit, but it's so worth it!

WORKMAN, DION / ROHAN THOMAS K (Sigma) cd 14.98
Using a MiniDisc player feeding back upon itself as the sole source, Dion Workman (formerly of the Sonic Youthish avant-rock ensemble Thela with Dean Roberts and Rosy Parlene) and Australian sound artist Rohan Thomas have constructed an incredibly austere piece of digital minimalism that sounds very much like the Bernhard Gunter album "Details Agrandis." An album that tries very hard to not be heard.

WORLD Can You Feel It Coming In The Air Tonight? (Onomato) 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.
Honey Owens is one busy woman. Besides her vocal based drone outfit Valet (whose gorgeous new 7" we reviewed last list), she is also a sometime member of Jackie O Motherfucker, Nudge, Dark Yoga and others, as well as running the kick ass Yarn Lazer cd-r label. Somehow she also manages to record in the duo World, with Adam Forkner, who plays in Yume Bitsu, White Rainbow and with Owens in Dark Yoga. This is the last World release ever apparently, which is sort of too bad since this is the first one we've managed to get a hold of.
Can You Feel It Coming In The Air Tonight? is a collection of sorts, gather up two tracksÊoriginally meant to come out as part of a box set of Portland bands that was eventually scrapped, a 30 minute collaborations with another Portland band called Tres Gone, as well as a handful of unreleased track and remixes. But it hardly matters that this is a collection, as all the tracks here are ghostly and haunting, and all flow together perfectly as if they were written and recorded to be this single suite of music.Ê
Every track is mysterious and murky, lots of dark shimmer, and fuzzy druggy twang, when there are vocals, theyÊare smokey and ghostly, or cooed and creepily sexy, the percussion is minimal and as muted and mumbly as the rest of the sounds. Our favorite songs are the ones where the band sound sort of country, incorporating bits of abstract twang into their glacial drift. LikeÊa way more stoned, spaced out and cough syrupy Red Red Meat allÊlanguid and languorous, stoned and sleepy sounding, or imagineÊtaking a Souled American record, and spinning it manually on the turntable with your finger as slooooooow as possible,Êa gorgeous, dreamlike warble.
Elsewhere the rhythms become more active, and the songs begin to resemble a more soft focus No Neck or Sunburned Hand, all spare and sparse, reverb drenched and, drunken melodies stumble through wide open fields of choral voices, distant drones, everything swirling dizzily, whileÊin the background crumbling melodies drift in crunchy distorted soundscapes of buzzing and crackling drones, all smeared into traffic-light-through-rainy-windshield blurs. So gorgeous.Ê
The record finishes off with that 30 minute collaboration with Tres Gone, and combined, the two bands are way more propulsive, adding some more distinct angular distorted guitar and wild skittery free jazz drumming, all tangled and abstract, over a roiling bed of distant industrial whir, and rumbling low end shimmer, the result being some sort super druggy, stumbling outsider free folk acid jazz jam. Cool.
Packaged in an oversized photocopied and hand painted sleeve, with a full color photo. LIMITED TO 120 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Way Down"
MPEG Stream: "Time For Heat"

WORMS Pelican Songs (tUMULt) cd 11.98
We realize that lots of folks might have only recently discovered aQuarius, and may have missed out on lots of past favorites we consider essential listening. Many of those same people may not realize that our very own Andee runs the tUMULt label, on which some of our all time favorite records have been released. Since the world has finally caught on, caught up and plain old caught a serious case of Finnish fever (Circle, Avarus, Anaksimandros, Islaja, Kemiallisett Ystevat, etc.) we figured it was high time to re-list this slab of beautiful brutality, from mighty and mysterious outfit, Worms:
Will Finland never cease to surprise us? How can one tiny country continue to produce so much progressive, transgressive, creative and fucking perfect experimental rock? Circle, Keuhkot, Avarus, Anaksimandros, Mieskuoro Huutajaat, Pharoah Overlord, Ektroverde, Skepticism, Kemialliset Ystavat, and now Worms!
The Worms may be new to us (and actually to most people in Finland, surprisingly) but they have been a fixture of the Finnish underground for over a decade. And even after a decade, their entire recorded output consisted of three 7" singles and a few compilation tracks. So Andee's tUMULt label managed to track down the band, and discovered that they actually recorded a full length a few years back, but the label that was supposed to release it dropped the ball.
So here it is finally and man is it something. Five tracks of beautiful brutality. A dark and wintry, more motorik My Bloody Valentine, mixed with a little Circle and a little Filth-era Swans. Or some Frankensteinian dirge rock band, equal parts Godflesh, My Bloody Valentine, the Shadow Ring, and the Swans.
The disc starts off with a massive 30 minute medley, a droning hypnotic dirge, like Terry Riley composing for Godflesh or the Melvins and not a little reminiscent of Dutch riff gods Gore. Endless and hypnotic, crushing and brutal. The next three tracks display Worms more melodic side, letting a little pop shine through, with lilting vocals and darkly melancholic melodies and frontman Veli Pesonen's deep Michael Gira like drawl intoning simple mantra-like lyrics, over jangly strummed riffs, more melodic maybe, but still drone-y and hypnotic and dreamy. Think late era Swans, or maybe the Terminals, or the Clean, that sort of dreary, jangly New Zealand rock. The twenty minute 'Border' closes proceedings with a glorious din of shimmering but harrowing guitars, buried melodies and relentlessly propulsive rhythms. This was a long time coming, but once you hear it you'll agree it was well worth the wait. Definitely for fans of all the above mentioned bands as well as connoisseurs of drone/dirge/doom. Crushingly beautiful. And of course essential.
MPEG Stream: "Medley"
MPEG Stream: "Border"
MPEG Stream: "Early In The Evening"

WORMSBLOOD In The Stars (Aurora Borealis) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The cd-r is long out of print, but for a limited time we've got a super deluxe vinyl version of this bizarre bit of grim, fractured blackness...
It doesn't really get any more METAL than this. Wormsblood. Killer name. Wicked illegible logo, the band name written out in the black roots of some hellish plant. Over a black and white photocopied canyonscape. Epic and windswept, snow covered and GRIM. The man behind Wormsblood is Wyrdskull, and to the black cause he contributes "common ritual tools, heavy-handed electro-overblood, vibrations of the unsilent dark tomes and the crossing of song and siege." Guests include Crimson Maaritkitaka who delivers "cryptwyrm bloodlet and akashic magnet", Vragknacht The Two-Handed, who offers up "battle-ready bloodsong", then the song titles: "Thundercall", "The First Dim Shinings (Of Those About To Awaken", "Ritual Of Bone And Horn", "Tolling Beyond Our Lunar Trance", plus they do a Manilla Road cover, "Street Jammer" and they even offer up a hearty "Hails to the fucking Mad Street Hammers".
But for all the pure troo metal action, the sound is anything but, which is most likely due to the fact that Wormsblood is very likely made up of folks from the free noise / freak folk scene, who in Wormsblood finally get the opportunity to indulge in their darker musical side, to touch that blackened part of their music soul, to unleash all those pent up demonic forces, and the result is a dizzying confusional blast of chaotic, lo-fi, muddled and muddy, freaked out and blown out, damaged what-the-fuck blackened METAL.
The closest comparison we could come up with is probably a black metal Faxed Head, which is pretty much all we'd need to hear. The vibe is definitely similar, the riffs a garbled buzzing mess, thick swaths of weird keyboard, the drums splattery and stumbling and blasting, the tape hiss, and random instrument buzz as much a part of the sound as the bands damaged black roar, then there are the vocals, hysterical shrieks, rumbling grunting moans, haunted howling, the tracks often crumbling into utter disarray, or coalescing into epic doomy pound, everything drenched in malfunctioning electronics and fried FX.
An absolutely dementedly genius fucked up black metal noiserock melt down....

WORMSBLOOD In The Stars (Skulls Of Heaven) 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.
It doesn't really get any more METAL than this. Wormsblood. Killer name. Wicked illegible logo, the band name written out in the black roots of some hellish plant. Over a black and white photocopied canyonscape. Epic and windswept, snow covered and GRIM. The man behind Wormsblood is Wyrdskull, and to the black cause he contributes "common ritual tools, heavy-handed electro-overblood, vibrations of the unsilent dark tomes and the crossing of song and siege." Guests include Crimson Maaritkitaka who delivers "cryptwyrm bloodlet and akashic magnet", Vragknacht The Two-Handed, who offers up "battle-ready bloodsong", then the song titles: "Thundercall", "The First Dim Shinings (Of Those About To Awaken", "Ritual Of Bone And Horn", "Tolling Beyond Our Lunar Trance", plus they do a Manilla Road cover, "Street Jammer" and they even offer up a hearty "Hails to the fucking Mad Street Hammers".
But for all the pure troo metal action, the sound is anything but, which is most likely due to the fact that Wormsblood is very likely made up of folks from the free noise / freak folk scene, who in Wormsblood finally get the opportunity to indulge in their darker musical side, to touch that blackened part of their music soul, to unleash all those pent up demonic forces, and the result is a dizzying confusional blast of chaotic, lo-fi, muddled and muddy, freaked out and blown out, damaged what-the-fuck blackened METAL.
The closest comparison we could come up with is probably a black metal Faxed Head, which is pretty much all we'd need to hear. The vibe is definitely similar, the riffs a garbled buzzing mess, thick swaths of weird keyboard, the drums splattery and stumbling and blasting, the tape hiss, and random instrument buzz as much a part of the sound as the bands damaged black roar, then there are the vocals, hysterical shrieks, rumbling grunting moans, haunted howling, the tracks often crumbling into utter disarray, or coalescing into epic doomy pound, everything drenched in malfunctioning electronics and fried FX.
An absolutely dementedly genius fucked up black metal noiserock melt down. Packaged in a super strange fold over plastic sleeve, with multiple printed inserts, and most likely crazy limited...

WOVEN HAND Blush Music (Sounds Familyre) cd 14.98
Seems like only moments ago, my favorite record of last year came out. Maybe that's just because I still listen to it almost every day!! It's that good. If you read the AQ list you know I'm talking about the totally amazing Woven Hand record, a solo project of David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower. Let's quickly recap for those who don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Sixteen Horsepower make weird backwoods gypsy folk, augmenting normal instrumentation with fiddles, accordions and mandolins. Dark and swampy tales, campfire stumps and lugubrious dirge folk crawls. Sound good? Well that's 'cause it is!! A huge AQ favorite. We weren't sure what to expect from Edwards solo record. We certainly weren't expecting it to surpass 16HP in every way, but it did!! Darker and creepier, tales of apocalyptic doom and Biblical salvation rendered in dreary, droney folk, lit by the fire of a bayou campfire. SO SO SO GOOD!!! One of the few records that really moved me. Seriously, like to tears. It's so gorgeous and passionate and sinister and perfect. Yes, PERFECT. So here we are a year later and a new record from the Woven Hand. Blush Music is music composed for a modern dance performance by the Belgian dance troupe Ultima Vez. It's about half re-worked songs from the first record and half new material. At first I was a little disappointed that it was different versions of old songs, until I heard the new versions. GOD!! This record perfectly complements the songs on the first record. One of the highlights from the first record was the cover of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine", a perfectly gut wrenching, tear jerking slow motion valentine to lost love. On Blush Music, "Ain't No Sunshine" reappears as the 12+ minute "Animalitos", with the original stretched out into an entirely new shape, complete with dark, mornful ambient passages, wheezing organs, bombastic percussion, rumbling drones, bird calls, and forest sounds, with the vocals and melody occasionally surfacing only to be immediately overwhelmed by the turbulent soundscape. A couple songs from the first record get this treatment and the results are sublime. The new tracks, while not as immediately catchy as a lot of the tracks on the first record, still capture the same dread and dark hope. A good way to imagine this record in relation to the first, is imagine the first record as the -soundtrack- to an epic biblical southern love story equal parts Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Southern Comfort and All The Pretty Horses. Now imagine that Blush Music is the -score-, all the incidental music, the theme reworked and stretched out to hover emotionally beneath dialogue, or to guide the viewers emotions. I think this record works better if you already own the first one (thankfully the first one was just released domestically), but that isn't to say Blush Music is not a perfect slice of dark and droney, fire and brimstone, forlorn and forgotten, gorgeously damaged, gypsy psych-folk. 'Cause it is!
MPEG Stream: "Cripplegate"
MPEG Stream: "Animalitos (Aint No Sunshine)"
MPEG Stream: "Snake Bite"
MPEG Stream: "Another White Bird"

WOVOKA II (Holy Room) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another gloriously sun baked, drug drenched slab of psychedelic free folk splendor, this time from the mysterious Wovoka. Occupying a sonic space smack dab between Matt Valentine and his Tower Recordings, and the more abstract forest folk of Avarus and Davenport, but with bits of Jewelled Antler clatter and No Neck / Sunburned Hand abstract drone rock mixed in, it sounds like this could end up being a mess. And it sort of is, but it's a fantastic, stumbling, perfectly ramshackle, hippy jam sort of mess. Simple tribal drumming, chanted vocals, spidery psychrock guitars, long stretches of blissful Appalachia and buzzing drone-like raga. A totally tripped out late afternoon drift through a skeletal world of folky twang and abstract rhythmic shuffle, super laid back and totally hypnotic.
ULTRA LIMITED. ONLY 100 COPIES! We got 20 and we won't be able to get more as it's already out of print.
Pressed on cool faux-vinyl cd-r's (with grooves and everything, housed in a simple cardboard sleeve with paste on artwork, and color acid tab insert.
MPEG Stream: "To Jesus Acedo With Love"
MPEG Stream: "The Angels Have Flown Mada Away To Glory... Rejoice"

WOVOKA Paiste De (Holy Room) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The return of psychedelic drugfolk alchemists Wovoka. We heavily dug their last disc, and this one is more of the same. A super tripped out, blissy drone-y raga like buzz, drifting through some Autumnal wonderland, the sky full of falling orange leaves, the ground muddy and moist, the sky a burnt copper, the wind warm and smelling of smoke and burning wood. And on the wind drifts a lazily unfurling web of skeletal acoustic guitar strum, little bits of muted guitar leads, silvery strands of banjo, lots of warm warble and tape hiss. It's not until a few tracks in that the band begins to rock, hand drums, electric guitar, some wailing psych leads, but even at their rockiest, these guys are still laid back and stoned, drifting and swaying, letting night fall on their campfire jams. Looped and cyclical, dreamlike and mesmerizing, the strummed steel strings and the sporadic bongo drums turning everything into some warped alien drum circle. You can almost envision this wandering tribe of buzz-and-strum minstrels wandering through some dark Finnish forest, where they stumble upon Avarus or Anaksimandros, who of course welcome them with open arms, for once having heard the sounds coming from the woods, they knew it must be like minded spirits. Who else but musical brethren could be making such hazy, fuzzy, dreamy, druggy forestfolk...
No Neck, Sunburned, Tower Recordings, Avarus, you know you the names, add Wovoka to the list if you haven't already....
LIMITED TO 199 COPIES. Already sold out, we seem to have the very last copies. Packaged in a super thick old fashioned mini-lp stylee gatefold sleeve, with the pasted on inside image, and pressed on faux-vinyl cd-r's (complete with inside label and fake grooves!).
MPEG Stream: "Octopus Latitudes"
MPEG Stream: "Knotty Pine Rag"

WRAITHS Dust In Our Mouths (Aurora Borealis) cd 10.98
Dust In Our Mouths from Scottish black ambient dronelords Wraiths, is the final installment in the group's extended blackdrone trilogy/triptych which started with Oriflamme released on Aurora Borealis, continued with The Grey Emperor, released on At War With False Noise and finally finds its resolution here, in a nearly hour long track the label describes as "a crushing noise ritual from the dark realms of plague and grim death", which perhaps paints to noisy a picture, as anyone whose been following Wraiths over the last two records, have watched the band transform into something much more abstract and ambient, shedding much of the harsh noise that defined their early sound in favor of gorgeous grim atmospherics. Dust In Our Mouths, in fact, opens with some haunting blackened drift, lush chordal swells, all anchored by a hypnotic, looped, almost dubbed out rhythm, just a simple softly stuttery snare, and gently tinkling chimes. In the background, there lurks all manner of sonic misery, heaving slabs of corrosive low end, disembodied spectral howls, sheets of jagged feedback, but those are relegated to background ambience, the first few minutes gorgeously hypnotic, spare and skeletal, almost like some black metal band doing their best minimal abstract dub, a hushed sort of industrial ambience, it's not really until about 20 minutes in, that the song shifts dramatically, not necessarily noisier, but that dubby rhythm is replaced by lush dreamily distorted shimmers, and blurred melodic drift, it's almost Caretaker-ish in fact, woozy and washed out, but here that wistfulness is underpinned by an ominous grimness that manifests itself as a dense spectral hum, roiling with shadows of black noise, but that noise is definitely obscured by the woozy wash of smeared surf-like shimmer.
The drums return, more of an ominous sort of death march, still buried in the murk, that murk growing ever more intense, blossoming into a blown out black buzz, and eventually splintering into squalls of muted feedback, only achieving full on noise about 40 minutes in, where things become chaotic and dense and intense, but even here, the sound is infused with all manner of hidden melody and swirling textures, the sharp edges smoothed out, resulting in a heaving crumbling wall of blurred blackness, churning its way through clouds of hiss and hum and howl, until finally disappearing in a cloud of swirling FX heavy white noise, emerging on the other side, to play out its last few seconds as a skeletal sprawl of loping reverbed drift. Awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Dust In Our Mouths (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Dust In Our Mouths (excerpt 2)"

WRAITHS Edinburgh / Glasgow (Land Of Decay) cassette 7.98
The latest sonic assault from UK black ambient drone/noisescapers Wraiths, the perfect continuation of their Dust In Out Mouths record, which we reviewed here recently, starting off with some haunting monk like chants, before immediately launching into a smeared soundscape of abject feedback, and groaning industrial crunch, the sound murky and muddy, as if recorded beneath the surface of the earth, the sounds a slow moving avalanche of rumble and whir, or screech and howl, all sort of blurred into black and grey swirls, the sound surprisingly dynamic, shifting from black noise crunch, to a more woozy washed out low end rumble and back again. Not nearly as washed out and Caretaker-ish as Dust, this is definitely a noisier companion, exploring much of the same territory, but delving way deeper, the earth rent asunder, as Wraiths descend into the hellish depths, the high end tones almost sounding like the wails of lost souls, the rumbling roiling grinding buzz, a sonic representation of the earth crumbling beneath our feet, the sound of everything disappearing into a black abyss, and yet amidst all this grim black malevolence, and harrowing musical misery, lurk buried melodies, accidental rhythms, the surface here and there, but for the most part, churn beneath the surface, adding more layers and extra texture to the already dense tectonic blackness of Wraiths' sinister soundworld. Fans of Wolf Eyes, MZ412 and other practitioners of the sonic dark arts will definitely dig.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!

WRAITHS Grey Emperor (At War With False Noise) cd 14.98
After records on Aurora Borealis and Paradigms, Scottish black drone alchemists Wraiths have found their way to At War With False Noise, yet another ideal home for their grim black noise. This time it takes the form of a single hour-long track, that drifts through an endlessly and ever shifting landscape of hushed bleak minimalism, strange otherworldly percussion, deep dronemusic and caustic black noise.
The Grey Emperor begins as a strangely looped glitchscape, a tribal rhythm over undulating stretches of distorted rumble, growing ever more ominous, the low end getting more and more jagged and buzzy, a black cloud of sound threatening to swallow the rest of the sounds whole, surrounded on all sides by a slow shifting layer of swirling blackened whir, shot through with streaks of muted feedback. The track pulses and undulates, slipping from caustic crunch to hushed throb, strange little rhythmic flurries careening below the surface, the textures constantly changing and shifting, like watching the surface of some grim black sea, barely able to discern the shadowy shapes underneath.
Eventually, the low end is pulled back, allowing layers of hiss and buzz to pile atop one another, just barely holding the feedback at bay, only to have the blackness begin to crumble, while black bells peal, thick shards of sound plummeting into the swirling blackness, the track building and building to chaotic frenzy, the sounds blown out and on the verge of utter collapse, weirdly melodic while impossibly dense and destructive, finally exploding in a supernova of Merzbowian grind and crunch, that manages to be strangely textural and musical, while on the surface appearing as a dying black sun.
Gorgeous oversized packaging, a gatefold sleeve, printed woodcut style design on textured paper, and held shut with a stamped wax seal. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "Grey Emperor (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Grey Emperor (excerpt 2)"

WRAITHS Oriflamme (Aurora Borealis) lp 13.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
The last we heard from Scottish ambient doomlords Wraiths, was their amazing full length Plaguebearer on UK label Paradigms. That disc was a caustic collection of deep ominous black ambience, light on the ambience, heavy on the, well, heavy. If anything, Oriflamme is even moreso, as it predates Plaguebearer, originally released as a super limited cd-r, now available again, however briefly, as a limited lp.
These are the roots of Plaguebearer, in fact, it sounds like it was definitely cut from the same mouldering black cloth. There is nothing serene or soothing about this sort of ambience, it's harsh and chaotic, corrosive, roiling, ominous and thick, heavy for sure, but more than anything, it's incredibly dense.
Layer upon layer upon layer. Huge chunks of industrial grind, massive pounding, and bursts of corrosive crunch, super processed vocals, synths and streaks of feedback, deep rumbling drones, whirring and hissing, it's the sound of wandering through the pits of hell. Huge demonic machinery, massive gears and pistons, caked with black soot, and unspeakable grime, churning away endlessly, shadowy figures toiling behind the flames, the sounds of hammer on stone, of gnashing teeth, and hopeless wails, all seeming to come together into some hellish symphony. A glorious and gloriously abysmal industrial black noise drone, a sound not unfamiliar to fans of MZ412, Merzbow, Wolf Eyes and other proponents of caustic low end explorations and buzzing sonic filth.
The second half of Oriflamme is much less dense, and more spacious, as if after barely making it through the industrial wasteland of part one, the listener has emerged in a massive cavern, so high, the rock walls just disappear into blackness, the only things visible are those illuminated by the guttering flame of your lantern, your mind left to decipher the strange and mysterious soundworld lurking just out of sight. Distant moans and shimmering black murmurs, bits of glitch and crunch, smeared into swirling black shadows, heaving swells of blackness, streaks of electrical interference, billows of earth shaking rumbles, hissed voices, deep creaks and monstrous gurgles, wind like whirs, wavering electrostatic buzz, all spread out into a harrowing and bleak doomscape, as disturbingly (and impossibly) beautiful, and it is absolutely grim and brutalizing.
Gorgeous super striking covers, like some old lost dust covered tome, and don't be fooled by the frayed and tattered edges, they're printed on the sleeves. And as if we even needed to tell you, EXTREMELY LIMITED!

WRAITHS Plaguebearer (Paradigms) cd 12.98
The second of two new releases from the Uk's amazing Paradigms label (who in the past have brought us records by Titan, Hjarnidaudi, The Angelic Process, Throne Of Katarsis, Amber Asylum, Woburn House and more), the first, the moody dramatic post rock smolder of Seattle's Snowdrift, reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this here slab of bleak black brutality, Plaguebearer by Wraiths.
Paradigms began as a sort of metal / drone label, having dipped into decidedly less heavy musical waters lately with the psychfolk of Plants, the post rock pummel of Woburn House, the ambient classical of Hallvardur Asgeirsson, and the aforementioned Snowdrift.
So for those of you who have played your Angelic Process and Hjarnidaudi and Utlagr and Throne of Katarsis discs to death, we bring you salvation, in the form of Wraiths. This has very little in common with any of the above mentioned bands, other that it is dark, heavy, noisy and strangely pretty.
Five tracks clocking in at nearly an hour, Wraiths are some sort of black ambient outfit, unfurling epic swaths of grinding crumbling distortion, thick sheets of squealing feedback, long stretches of cavernous rumble and all bleak black stops in between. Imagine some strange mash up, equal parts Wolf Eyes, Merzbow, MZ412 and Birchville Cat Motel. But all tucked within a spiky, black and brooding carapace.
An expansive drift through bleak landscapes of dubbed out rhythms, and shimmering industrial whir, black swells beneath, grey swirls above, often building to full on cacophonous noise-psych freakouts. Murky worlds of drone and distortion, smeared into soothing and serene drones. Haunting vocals and anguished howls drifting way down in the mix. Full on wall of keening sound, high end harmonies of corrosive downtuned buzz and ear splitting upper register skree, harsh and heavy but completely mesmerizing in that crumbling wasteland, edge of the black abyss, doom drenched blackened ur-drone sort of way. Killer stuff.
Unlike most of the Paradigms releases, which come in cardboard sleeves wrapped in hand stamped, brown paper, this disc is in a white DVD case, with black and white printed insert (like the Hallvardur Asgeirsson) and LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Plaguebearer"
MPEG Stream: "Bone-Flutes And Skull-Drums"

WRECK AND REFERENCE Black Cassette (The Flenser) lp 14.98
This record has been floating around in various forms, all insanely limited, and as the title suggests, it was initially a cassette, then a cd-r, then a download, and is only now finally available as a slightly less limited lp, still titled Black Cassette of course, and regardless of format, it's a serious slab of mathy doomy electronics laced sludge, a bit of an odd one for The Flenser, who traffic mostly in metal of the blacker variety, but Wreck And Reference have a sound that is most definitely blackened, and in some ways just as grim and kult and bleak as most black metal. The sound is a wild almost industrial sounding chaotic lurching heavy sludge, with clean vox, thick blown out bass, tons of effects and loads of swirling electronics, a heaping dose of pop liberally applied too, with much of the record playing out like a sort of slowcore indie rock.
The first track was all it took to convince us, a jagged lumbering chunk of dirge pop, with crumbling super distorted guitars, pounding drums, crooned clean vocals, a killer main hook, everything wreathed in buzz and glitch, rife with long stretches of droned out shimmer, and rumbling detuned buzz, and wild squalls of psychedelic feedback, the drums growing more and more chaotic, eventually the guitars following suit, stuttering, all clipped stops and starts before grinding to a halt. So ruling. The following track is more of a moody brooder, a bass driven chunk of slowcore, with clean vocals delivered way back from the microphone, giving the proceedings a definite nineties math rock vibe, think Shellac or Slint, and when the band does finally kick in, the guitars crunch, the drums pound, this time everything is beneath thick sheets of heavily effected synths, making everything deliriously spacey and dreamy. The rest of the tracks offer more of the same, a variation on doom we've never heard before, a Torche like approach to metal, definitely heavily influenced by indie rock, pop and post punk, sung/spoken vox over tribal drumming and grinding muddied riffage, big drumming over muted buzz and what sounds like haunting piano, not to mention deep dramatic crooning, a strangely blurred blast transformed into something much poppier and prettier, long stretches of shimmery spaciness and still more surprisingly poppy vox, and finally, a killer chunk of slow building post rock epicness that sounds a bit like a doomier, more post punky take on Godspeed. A pretty weird, and pretty awesome band, and definitely one of the coolest things The Flenser has put out, which is definitely saying a lot.
MPEG Stream: "All the Ships Have Been Abandoned"
MPEG Stream: "Surrendering"
MPEG Stream: "In Chains, Awakening"

WRIGHT, NIGEL Alleluya (Diagnosis...Don't!) 3"cd-r 10.98
Another triple shot of sonic weirdness from Diagnosis... Don't!, the label run by AQ faves the Grey Daturas, this one comes courtesy of NZ guitarist Nigel Wright, whose two previous cd-r's were huge hits around here (and are gone gone gone so don't ask).
With a delicate combination of minimal guitar drones and subtle laptop manipulation, Wright weaves dark rhythmic soundworlds of creaking cricket like chitter, thick syrupy swells, ominous shimmer and rumbling guitar groan. Spare and desolate, with an underlying loveliness, but so very grim and austere. It's a lot like a Wolf Eyes record, with its suffocating oppressive atmosphere and dark dark ambience, but with all the clang and clatter and roar removed, leaving a more skeletal, mysterious and muted drift, all wrapped up in a strange otherworldly warmth. So nice.
Packaged in thick textured black paper mini 3" sleeves, with a printed (band name, label info, liner notes) Japanese style obi. Nice.
And as always, these are SUPER LIMITED, and odds are we won't be able to get more...
MPEG Stream: "Alleluya (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Alleluya (excerpt 2)"

WRIGHT, NIGEL Flotter (Gest) cd-r 9.98
There are so many tiny cd-r labels, and so many releases, it's basically impossible to keep up. We do what we can, sort of pick and choose the best we can find, and one of our favorites is NZ guitarist Nigel Wright. Unlike the legions of overproducers out there, we've only managed three Wright releases in 3 years. This one makes it four, and it's absolutely gorgeous. Gauzy and hazy, woozy and washed out, dense and dreamlike. Fennesz, Jeck, Tim Hecker, Wright travels a similar sonic path, creating gorgeous sun dappled soundscapes of softly blurred melodies, of buried notes, his guitar not so much expelling notes and chords, as much as unfurling lush sonic tapestries, soft focus, bleary eyed beauty, peppered with clouds of crumbling distortion, shards of delay, streaks of muted whir, but all deftly incorporated into Wright's constantly shifting soundworld.
Somehow the world at large needs to discover what Wright is capable of. C'mon Touch, swoop in and snatch this man up and give him some resources to make the record we know he's capable of. If he can make records this pretty with a guitar and a 4-track, the mind boggles...
MPEG Stream: "Widths"
MPEG Stream: "Killing Time"

WRIGHT, NIGEL Mossopolis (The High Seas) 7" 7.98
Brand new record from NZ guitarist/dronescaper Nigel Wright, who at this point definitely has to be one of our favorite sonic conjurers of minimal drones and gorgeous abstract soundscapes, and the two tracks here do nothing to convince us otherwise.
The A side is a hushed meditative drift, warm layered whorls, slow motion melancholy melodies, all draped over a strange haunting urgent tension, the imbues the whole track with a fantastic dark drama, very minimal, and slow moving, it's almost the darker, more shadowy side of Pop Ambience, ominous and haunting but so lovely.
The B side plays like a more washed out dreamlike version of the the A side, hazy, gauzy, a bleary blurred shimmer rich with buried melodies and slow shifting layers, reminding us of The Caretaker without all that crackle and hum, the same sort of faded memory timeless melancholia. So nice.
Includes a download coupon as well!
MPEG Stream: "Mossopolis"

WRIGHT, NIGEL s/t (CMR) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Fuck, first there was Celebrate Psi Phenemona, and then Pseudoarcana jumped into the fray, and now CMR is the latest label to start releasing super limited edition cd-r's from the New Zealand underground of improv free-noise, lo-fi drone scraping, and damaged sound art. Not to be confused with the Andrew Lloyd Webber associate of the same name, the Auckland based Nigel Wright focuses on loop-based systems which he transforms into miasmic drones. It's hard to say if those looping systems refer to feedbacking loops (which is possible as there is a cyclical sine-wave feel to many of Wright's sounds) or to a Terry Riley time-lag accumulation (which is also possible with all of the crystaline percolations that ripple through the dronescaping); regardless of the process, Wright's eponymous debut recording alternates between deadened electrical atmospherics and beautifully blissed out driftscapes. Fans of BJ Nilsen, Oren Ambarchi, and Jonathan Coleclough should take note! Limited to 100 copies only!
MPEG Stream: "01"
MPEG Stream: "13:40 (live at Canary Gallery 05/04/05)"

WRIGHT, NIGEL Tapir (self-released) 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.
We were first introduced to Mr. Nigel Wright (not to be confused with fellow dronester Peter Wright) via a super limited cd-r on the CMR label. A gorgeous assemblage of mysterious loop based systems. Totally hit the spot for fans of Coleclough, Ambarchi, Nilsen, Chalk and the like (like us!). Well, recently Wright got in touch with us to see if we wanted to carry his latest release, another super limited cd-r, this time a 15 minute 3" in crafty hand made packaging. Well, the answer was obviously "Hell yeah!" and thus we have this, another completely mesmerizing slab of warm fuzzy looped and drone drenched goodness. The first track comes on like some My Bloody Valentine William Basinski mash up. Thick gauzy waves of distortion wrapped around delicate glistening melodies, layered and looped into a haunting ebb and flow of pulsing drone and slow shifting buzz. The sound is very organic, rich and thick and multi-hued, almost like a warmer fuzzier SUNNO))). The second track pushes even further out in the same fuzzed out blown out ambient direction, the guitars (?) are even more corrosive, channeling the wall of skree sound of bands like Sunroof! but filtered through the doe-eyed innocence and romantic moodiness of bands like M83 or any of their like minded Gooom labelmates. Dreamy and ambient enough to be perfect for the drone obsessed, but enough like some avant rockdrone outfit to appeal to folks who have been digging Nadja, The Angelic Process, Hjarnidaudi, Jesu and the like. Awesome!
Not sure how limited these are but we're guessing VERY, so act fast. Packaged in tiny little plastic sleeves with colored paper covers and simple typed insert.
MPEG Stream: "All Talk"
MPEG Stream: "Cardboard"

WRIGHT, PETER A Tiny Camp In The Wilderness (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We at AQ have long been fans of Campbell Kneale and his project Birchville Cat Motel who along with the Dead C, Omit, Gate and a handful of others have helped to define one of the richest free-rock-noise-drone scenes in the world. For years Kneale has been releasing cds, lps and cassettes (most of them quite limited) of noisy electronic soundscapes and gorgeous organic drones. So when we discovered Kneale also ran a label, we figured it was definitely worth checking out. And how right we were. Not only is all of the music on Celebrate Psi Phenomena amazing, but the packaging is perfectly and stunningly designed as well (quite nice considering this is a cd-r label. See our crappy cd-r packaging rants in the last three or four lists) with each cd in a plastic sleeve nestled between two sheets of old fashioned textured wallpaper, printed, and sealed with a gold star.
This is a gorgeously sublime drone record reminiscent of Maeror Tri/Troum or Organum at times. Lots of bowed guitars, bowed cymbals, random found sounds (markets, rain, church), and guitars all looped into thick velvety drones, with clanging percussion and singing cymbals. Rumbling, wheezing, whirring.
RealAudio clip: "5 Minutes 17 Seconds"
RealAudio clip: "7 Minutes 20 Seconds"

WRIGHT, PETER Air Guitar (Drone Records) 7" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The amazing Drone Records label, run by Stefan Knappe of Maeror Tri / Troum, has been quietly releasing super limited, hand made slabs of gorgeous drone music for years now. Mostly 7", always vinyl, some of which were recently collected and released as a 2cd on Andee's tUMULt label), each record an ultra personal exploration of the drone, sometimes soft and dreamlike, sometimes harsh and noisy, but always beautiful. The most recent 7" in the ongoing series is Air Guitar, a three song single from New Zealander Peter Wright, an absolutely gorgeous collision of field recordings and guitar exploration. It also just might be the loudest and most active of the Drone singles so far!
The record starts with subtle bits of clatter, like someone in the kitchen or the practice space, just sort of moving stuff about. Those random ambient sounds are soon swallowed up by dense moody mesmerizing guitarscapes, gentle sweet insistent melodies over a slow building drone. Like a heavier dronier Roy Montgomery maybe...
The second track is a lush tapestry of tangled melody woven from sheets of super distorted guitar and streaks of incandescent feedback, that Wright deftly controls and harnesses into something more moody and lovely than freaked out and ferocious. The final track takes up all of the B side and is a single sonorous side-long drone, humming low end slowly and languorously drifts beneath a night sky lit by glistening streaks of high end glimmer. So nice.
Packaged in cool, hand painted orange sleeves, pressed on swirled orange vinyl, with a printed orange insert.
This is the first pressing and is limited to 300 copies!

WRIGHT, PETER At Last A New Dawn (Students Of Decay) 2cd 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
WAREHOUSE FIND! Just discovered a little stash of these, 6 or 7, not sure how they slipped through the cracks, but this came out a few years back, is as far as we can tell now out of print, but this way at least a handful of folks out there can nab one of these, an incredible double disc of dark shimmery dronemusic and mysterious processed field recordings. We've raved on and on about New Zealand soundscaper Wright on past lists, so long time aQ folks are probably already quite familiar, but for those who aren't, this is a great introduction. Two whole discs, lengthy sprawling minimal epics, warm washed out whirs drifting into clouds of bird song, seagulls float above burnished streaks of coppery sun dappled blurs, delicate bell like tones are smeared into gauzy impressionistic soundscapes of muted melody and hushed slow motion hum, heaving crumbling distorted crunch blown out into blistering shards of ur-drone, traffic noise fades into hazy fields of delicately reverbed guitar, which fades into the sounds of a forest stream, dreamy druggy shoegazey guitardrones rumble and build before dissipating into clouds of indistinct otherworldly barely there grey gauzey ambience. So so so good. Last copies ever, essential listening for drone obsessives, and anyone into Jasper TX, Machinefabriek, Svarte Greiner, Aidan Baker, the Fun Years, Xela, and other crafters of dark dronelike mystery...
MPEG Stream: "Urban Wolves"
MPEG Stream: "The Big Fight"
MPEG Stream: "The Whole Facade Will Come Crumbling Down"

WRIGHT, PETER Bright Falling Star (Release The Bats) lp 16.98

WRIGHT, PETER Catch A Spear As It Flies (Celebrate Psi Pheomenon) cd-r 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another batch of super limited and beautifully packaged cd-r's from Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. The finest in underground free noise / drone, culled mostly from New Zealand but all around the world as well. For those of you new to the CpsiP label, imagine classic Siltbreeze (Dead C, etc.) mixed with Jewelled Antler (Thuja, Blithe Sons etc.), dark and deep listening that sometimes verges on all out noise, but more often than not remains subtle experiments in avant drone and abstract sound. And when we say limited we mean LIMITED. These babies come in pressings of 30-80, out of which we get a whopping 10 copies!!
Peter Wright returns with what may be his most fully realised release yet. A lush soundscape of barely-there field recordings, subtle shadings of grey rumbles and black ambience, keening chimes smeared into lengthened sonic shadows, shifting overtones and subtle shimmers, all very melancholy and emotional, dreamy and otherworldly.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"

WRIGHT, PETER Clavius (20 City) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.