BROTHERS OF THE OCCULT SISTERHOOD Enter The Cult Until The Dust To Represent The World Has Discovered The Hallucinogens And Bent Us To Their Use (Music Your Mind Will Love) 3cd-r 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest expansive excursion into the wild forests of sound and the unexplored sonic wilderness of this Australian outfit. We first heard Brothers Of The Occult Sisterhood back in 2005, when they released a disc on Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, and since then a slow but steady stream of releases have surfaced on other underground labels like Root Strata, Digitalis, Students Of Decay and now Music Your Mind Will Love. Fans of any or all of those labels will undoubtedly know what to expect, a ramshackle assemblage of fractured folk, abstract ambience, and rambling shambling free rock drift. Much like the title, Enter The Cult Until The Dust To Represent The World Has Discovered The Hallucinogens And Bent Us To Their Use, this musical missive is looooong, a massive triple disc sonic sprawl, the band's sound allowed to unfurl and spread out unchecked, and as with most bands of this ilk, it suits them, they definitely flourish given enough space, their music like weeds in a garden, getting all tangled up with everything, and then when you least expect it, blossoming with multi colored flowers and gorgeous foliage.
A dizzying swirl of stumbling acoustic guitar, fluttering flute. simple childlike rhythms, voices chanting and shouting as often as singing, primitive FX, analog synths, hand drums, shakers and chimes, handmade electronics, crumbling distortion, industrial clatter, psychrock guitars, all cobbled together into a super inventive, Rube Goldberg-esque musical contraption held together by vines and branches, sticks and twigs and stones, that emits, delicate spidery folk rock, intense damaged psychedelic freakout, wandering ambient clatter, percussive free noise, primitive tribalism and every variation in between.
No Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Avarus, Kemialliset Ystavat all travel a similarly shambolic and spiritual sonic path... so amazing.
Super limited, packaged in a massive eight panel handpainted fold out sleeve, every one unique, with two printed inserts and held shut by a textured paper obi.
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BROTHERS OF THE OCCULT SISTERHOOD Goodbye (Digitalis) cd 12.98
After a series of super limited cd-r releases, this Australian brother/sister duo return with their first actual proper real-cd full length. Don't expect any White Stripes or Carpenters or whatever brother/sister musical ensemble comes to mind. These siblings are high on PCP and armed with a wicked arsenal of psychfuzz guitar, and splattery tribal acid fried drumming. Wide open expanses of space rock drift, shimmery woodwinds and abstract guitar figures floating above a dense whirl of Amon Duul like rhythms, this is NNCK lost in the Australian outback desperately jamming in the hopes of some passing plane overhead hearing the ruckus and coming in for a closer look, or Sunburned Hand Of The Man gone native, trying to appease the Gods with their mysterious musical offering. Free forest folk hovering in a dense cloud of bong smoke, krautrocky jams that just sort of splintered into pieces and became a weightless jumble of chimes and clatter and guitar rumble and twang. The final track is a near twenty minute epic that begins life dense and jumbled, thick with buzz and growl before dissipating into a hazy shimmer of instrument buzz and warm ambient swells.
The first 500 copies come in hand screened sleeves printed by New Zealand art/music collective United Fairy Moons.
MPEG Stream: "Vrawarc"
MPEG Stream: "In The Corner Of Her Majik Vision"

BROTHERS OF THE OCCULT SISTERHOOD Odalisque At Secert Vortex (Akoustic Desease) cd-r 9.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
More mysterious and otherworldy sounds from our favorite Australian free folk brother / sister duo, and it sounds just as good as ever. Their sound is still like a down under cousin to the foresty folk of Finnish groups like Avarus and Anaksimandros, which makes a lot of sense since both groups end up releasing records on many of the same labels.
This is BOTOS's first release for Italian cd-r label Akoustic Desease (another AD release, Siddhi, is reviewed elsewhere on this list) and it's a beaut. Mixing soft shimmery strum, convoluted glitched out electronic stutter, dark ominous drones, tribal rhythms, abstract ambience into a sprawling exploration of lost sonic rituals and stumbling noise making free for alls.
The percussion is mostly found (at least it sounds that way), clanks and clunks, rattles and scrapes, here and there some actual drumming surface, but even then it's simple and muted, various strings buzz and creak and scrape, bits of twang, atonal strum, detuned chords, all wound into stretched out melodic tangles, above it all, flutes flutter, horns moan and whistle, it's all gloriously ramshackle, the vibe is a bunch of folks gathered around a pile of noisemakers, in the shade of a big tree beneath a blue sky and Summer sun. It's not at all dark or creepy or ominous, it's more festive and celebratory, voices drift in and out, chimes tinkle, bells ring, drums skitter, occasionally everything locks into a distinct groove, sounding almost like some skeletal krautrock, but for the most part, the sound meanders and drifts, lazy and lost, laid back and content, carefree and happy.
Housed in an oversized ultra thick fold over cardstock sleeve, the cd affixed to a nub inside, LIMITED TO 116 COPIES, each one hand numbered!!
MPEG Stream: "I See The Buddha In Your Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Humming Key"

BROTHERS OF THE OCCULT SISTERHOOD Preying In Circles (Root Strata) cd 12.98
This mysterious Australian free folk, abstract noise rock combo, once a brother/sister duo and recently expanded to include an ever shifting lineup of like minded noise makers, finally returns with a brand new cd, this time on Root Strata, the label of Tarentel head honcho Jefre Cantu-Ledesma. And everything we loved about these ramshackle noiseniks is still in full effect, but if anything, they sound better than ever, more polished, a bit weirder, the sound a lot more lush, but without losing any of their stumbling charm. Much of the record sound like it would have been just as at home in the Finnish forest, with it's slow motion Dead C kitchen sink clatter percussion, crackle and hiss production and detuned guitar strum, but the record is rife with distinctly Brotherhood moments, like the strangely tranquil wash of softly strummed angelic strings, slightly out of tune and warbling hypnotically in the first track, or the dueling alien FX and duck call drones of track two, the hushed falsetto vocals on track six, or the wild tribal free for all, with dense drumming and fluttering flute that finishes off the disc. Elsewhere it's lots of sonic elements we can't seem to get enough of, No Neck like jams stumbling drunkenly through shadowy glades, long shimmering stretches of whirring drones and muted melody, strange chimes and splattery abstract percussion, snippets of female vocals floating on swirling swells of gentle guitar thrum, dreamy twang flecked folk, moaning strings and swirls of low end rumble, and wide open expanses of slow burning dark ambience, shifting and drifting beneath delicate sonic glimmers and glistening layers of buzz and hiss.
We always complain about bands releasing a cd-r every few weeks, but to be totally honest, if we could afford it, we'd hire these guys to record a new disc for us every day, a fresh batch of beautiful abstract sounds, and one day, eventually, we'd have enough music so that we could play them all in a row, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, forever and ever and ever...
MPEG Stream: "Ornamentum Dust Raga"
MPEG Stream: "They're Riding A Cross Hare"
MPEG Stream: "Thought Flickering Eyes Swallow The Forest"

BROTHERS OF THE OCCULT SISTERHOOD Run From Your Honey Mind (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 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.
We finally managed to get a handful more of these back in stock. This will most likely be your last chance. Pretty sure we won't be able to get more!!!
Definitely one of the best band names ever, this Australian group channels much of the same sonic spirituality as the No Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, cobbling together four lengthy tracks of transcendent free folk, avant rock clatter. Creepy and sun dappled, like a furtive glimpse past the drawn shades in the window of the old creepy house on the hill, offering up the briefest peeks into past lives, creaking doors, distant footsteps, a rusty music box, all set to mysterious otherworldly musicks, nonsensical vocals coupled with detuned guitars, tiny xylophone melodies arranged haphazardly between shuffled snare drums and woozy acoustic guitars. Druggy and drowsy and dreamy, a stumbling musical meander through free folk, modern minimalism, DIY noise, and drunken indie jangle. SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!
MPEG Stream: "Our Minds Blow Like Prayers In The Wind"
MPEG Stream: "Temple Of The Sloth"

BROTHERS OF THE OCCULT SISTERHOOD Suppress (Detached Orchestra) (Students Of Decay) lp 17.98
For this latest lp, the Australian brother/sister duo Brothers Of The Occult Sisterhood have expanded their ranks a bit (for one of the two tracks here) and it definitely sounds like it. Sprawling and expansive, this limited lp only release on Students Of Decay give the Brothers a chance to spread waaaay out over two sides of vinyl, one song per, each a gorgeous abstract drift, the sort you could imagine going on and on and on and on long after they pushed stop on the tape recorded. For those new to the Sisterhood, the sound falls somewhere between the natural ramblings of Jewelled Antler, the Finnish forest folk of Avarus and Anaksimandros and Kemialliset Ystavat, and the extended ur-drone of groups like Birchville Cat Motel and Vibracathedral Orchestra. And while they do in fact touch on elements of all those sounds, they tend to wander through their own special soundworld, unstructured and alien, drifty and dreamlike.
The A side, with the extended lineup, is all kitchen clatter and abstract drum circle shuffle, bits of guitar here and there, snatches of piano, melodies sometimes, but mostly melodic fragments. It almost sounds like Hototogisu or Sunroof! but instead of amps and guitars, the Brothers just used whatever they found lying around the house, random household debris, junk, whatever. The result is the same sort of transcendental raga like droning tribal drift, but much more unhinged and rhythmic, some sort of primitive sonic ritual.
The flipside finds the Brothers as a duo again, and is another epic, less clattery this time and way more soft focus and ethereal, chimes and delicate drifting melodies, warbling drones, the tape changing speed sloooooowing down and speeding up, it sounds like floating through some sea of alien wind chimes. So lovely.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!! Packaged in cool handscreened sleeve with a printed insert.

BROTHERS RAVEN VSS-30 (Digitalis) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

BROTZMANN, CASPAR Mute Massaker (Thirsty Ear) cd 16.98
This latest cd of Caspar Brotzmann's uber-heavy post-Hendrix guitar explorations is now released domestically, although that doesn't make it any cheaper (but it's in a jewel case now instead of a digipak, and if you're a digipack hater like Allan, that's a plus). Beautiful, psychedelic, very good, go Caspar!

BROTZMANN, PETER & HAN BENNINK Schwarzwaldfahrt (Atavistic / Unheard Music Series) 2cd 21.00
Who doesn't love Peter Brotzmann and/or Han Bennink? If you're into skronky European free jazz craziness that is. Saxophonist Brotzmann is a hard-blowin' legend, and Han Bennink is not only a percussion whiz but also a strong "pro" argument in the whole does-humor-belong-in-music? debate. Teamed up here on this expanded (meaning there's a whole bonus disc with ten previously unreleased tracks!) reissue of what those in the know, know as the 1977 Bro-Ben Black Forest recordings, Brotzmann and Bennink actually did the Jewelled Antler natureboy thing here and took their instruments out into the forest to improvise amid the trees and birds and small curious animals. Along with a supply of bread and wine they toted with them an assortment of clarinets and saxophones, a banjo, a viola, some toys, birdcalls, cymbals, and suchlike sundry instruments -- Han had to make do without his customary drum kit, playing instead on tree trunks and rocks with branches and stones. Their free music got all that much freer for being loosed in the great outdoors, and these Black Forest sessions certainly brought forth all the wildman whimsy you'd expect from this duo. In some ways a precursor to the field recording aesthetic practiced today by the Jewelled Antler gang and all those Finnish free-freak-forest-folk outfits we all love, Schwarzwaldfahrt is replete with the gurgling sounds of water, birds twittering, primal yelps from Han and/or Peter, and other things you wouldn't normally hear in more "civilized" jazz recording. At one point, Han pounds (or splashes) out a stacatto rhythm on the surface of a stream or pond, and you can for sure tell how much fun they were having! So much, that they recorded a lot more music/sound than they could release at the time. They had to edit down their tapes to just one LP's worth of material for the original edition of this on FMP, but now Atavistic's Unheard Music Series has given them two whole compact discs to fill up, and it's a joy.
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BROTZMANN, PETER & HAN BENNINK Schwarzwaldfahrt (Cien Fuegos) lp 32.00
Now this long out of print, utterly delightful FMP lp has been reissued as it was originally, on vinyl! Here's what we said when it was previously given an expanded compact disc reissue in the Atavistic Unheard Music series a while back:
Who doesn't love Peter Brotzmann and/or Han Bennink? If you're into skronky European free jazz craziness that is. Saxophonist Brotzmann is a hard-blowin' legend, and Han Bennink is not only a percussion whiz but also a strong "pro" argument in the whole does-humor-belong-in-music? debate. Teamed up here on this reissue of what those in the know, know as the 1977 Bro-Ben Black Forest recordings, Brotzmann and Bennink actually did the Jewelled Antler natureboy thing here and took their instruments out into the forest to improvise amid the trees and birds and small curious animals. Along with a supply of bread and wine they toted with them an assortment of clarinets and saxophones, a banjo, a viola, some toys, birdcalls, cymbals, and suchlike sundry instruments - Han had to make do without his customary drum kit, playing instead on tree trunks and rocks with branches and stones. Their free music got all that much freer for being loosed in the great outdoors, and these Black Forest sessions certainly brought forth all the wildman whimsy you'd expect from this duo. In some ways a precursor to the field recording aesthetic practiced today by the Jewelled Antler gang and all those Finnish free-freak-forest-folk outfits we all love, Schwarzwaldfahrt is replete with the gurgling sounds of water, birds twittering, primal yelps from Han and/or Peter, and other things you wouldn't normally hear in more "civilized" jazz recording. At one point, Han pounds (or splashes) out a staccato rhythm on the surface of a stream or pond, and you can for sure tell how much fun they were having!
So much, that they recorded a lot more music/sound than they could release at the time, and had to edit down their tapes to just one lp's worth of material, though the extra music did eventually see release via that aforementioned Atavistic cd, which was actually double cd... However, this nicely presented vinyl version, consists of the original lp's two sides only.
MPEG Stream: "NR.7"
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BROTZMANN, PETER / KEIJI HAINO / SHOJI HANO Shadows (DIW Records) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Year 2000 improv meeting betwixt European free-jazz titan Brotzmann (reeds) and Japanese improv veterans Haino (guitar) and Hano (percussion).

BROUGHTON, DAVID THOMAS It's In There Somewhere (Bird War) cd 16.98
Described as "One part Devendra Banhart and one part Daniel Johnston", David Thomas Broughton is like a nu-folk version of Ariel Pink. Earnest and heartfelt, but so so so damaged and strange. Incorporating detuned guitars, struggling malfunctioning drum machines, simple lo-fi organs, circusy keyboards, simple finger picked melodies, struggling Casio drum machines, all tangled up in expansive ultra personal folk songs, but folk bathed in lo-fi effects, backwards guitar loops, shimmering ambience, tape hiss, and pretty much whatever else Broughton could get his hands on or figure out how to get some interesting noise out of.
The opening track "The Circle Is Never Complete" is a gorgeous fractured folk fairy tale, a little cabaret, a little torch song, the vocals mumbled and dripping with reverb, the melody melancholy and lilting, the organ slowing down and speeding up, pitches constantly changing, the guitar unfurling delicate melodies, buzzing and scraping, the drums, a stumbling skitter, the vocals occasionally leap out as parts of the song suddenly attain high fidelity before slipping back into muted murk. So dreamy and sweetly sorrowful.
The whole record is an amazing, gorgeous, curious, damaged, child like, forward thinking slab of what-the-fuck folk, some tracks are drawn out and expansive, others are brief little fragments, all woven together into some twisted personal narrative, but the highlight has to be "Gracefully Silent" an 8+ minute drift of simple strum and gorgeous backwards guitar, so instantly warm and memorable, the sort of part in a song, that breaks your heart, especially when it ends and the song moves on to another part. Thankfully, that first backwards shimmer and strum continues throughout the whole track, with the addition of all sorts of mumbled vocals and random conversations, the track just drifts along as if it might continue on forever...
A cobbled together collection of old unearthed tracks, It's In There Somewhere plays as if it was composed to be this single suite of songs, every track perfectly flowing into the next, the record a gorgeous patchwork of dark and moody songsmithery, ramshackle but meticulously crafted, personal and private, a fascinating and lovely abstract bit of damaged folk dreaminess.
MPEG Stream: "Gracefully Silent"
MPEG Stream: "Circle Is Never Complete"
MPEG Stream: "I Don't Want To Believe You"

BRUCE CARKISS Slaughter Haus Definitive Edition (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.
Found a little handful of these tucked away in the closet, way out of print, last copies ever of this chunk of heavy noisy weirdness...
A greatest hits of sorts from these Wisconsin noisemakers. After several outrageously limited self released albums, mostly given to friends over the course of 4 years, this psycho redneck power electronic duo have remained almost totally unheard until now.
You did see the words power electronics above, so you know this ain't gonna be no easy listening, in fact, this is some seriously difficult listening, but surprisingly enough not in a harsh noise sort of way, this isn't just a continuous wall of Merzbowian white noise, the sounds here are surprisingly listenable, warped and cracked and damaged and fucked up, but for the iron eared, surprisingly pleasant. Jagged shards of fractured synths, chopped into strange rhythms, radio broadcasts buried in effects, loops colliding and overlapping, dense clouds of detuned instruments, amp buzz and tape hiss, howled distorted vox, some almost songs, tons of melting tones, babies crying over throbbing low end rumbles, thick billowing sheets of pulsating distorted crunch, tangled melodies so dense and blurred they become one huge squirming amorphous lump, distorted percussion, damaged tape player rehearsal tapes, and whatever the hell else these guys could come up with, all pulled apart, and jammed back together into heaping piles of thick droning, fucked up free form percussive and FX laden noise.
Definitely cool stuff, and for folks averse to truly harsh noise, Bruce Carkiss might just be your entree into a filthy, grimy, crusty soundworld you only dreamed about.
MPEG Stream: "Track 1"
MPEG Stream: "Track 5"

BRUHIN, ANTON In Out (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Using very lo-fi technology (mostly just broken tape recorders), Anton Bruhin has constructed a stunning musique concrete album of geometric irregularities, natural delay effects, and spiralling acoustic layers. A great example of lo-fi creativity.

BRUHIN, ANTON Orax / Rotomotor (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
An archival release of '70s cassette-tape works by this odd Swiss sound artist, consisting of environmental sounds, ping-pong recording techniques, and other spatial / audio experimentation. Byram thinks most of this is the sound of good European arts funding gone to waste, except for the last piece, which is an absolute mindnumbing half-hour palindromic recitation of German words arranged by their similarity in sound. Makes the disc worth owning for this track alone. Allan agrees that "Rotomotor" is the best track, but he finds the rest of this at least intriguing, especially through earphones.
On a side note: If you come into AQ fairly frequently you may have observed this customer we have that is always knocking shit off the counter. We want to say something to him but we're too embarrassed to confront his hamfistedness, so we're passive-aggressively mentioning it here, for 6000 people to enjoy. Well, said customer has acquired a young apprentice now, and one night the two of them came in together to polish up their anti-social skills. Anyway, the younger fella comes up to the counter to ask about this cd, if we have two of them -- cuz of course these guys must be peas in a pod -- so they can both get one. Well, turns out that the nicely sealed copies we showed 'em both had ever so slight dimples on the upper right hand corner (like a light impression made by a pointed object, so slight as to be practically invisible). Because of this, annoying apprentice desired the display copy instead. But if YOU can deal with the "invisible dimple", we've still got a couple copies.
RealAudio clip: "Orax"
RealAudio clip: "Rotomotor"

BRUHIN, ANTON Vom Goldabfischer (Algamarghen) cd 21.00

BRUME & ARTIFICIAL MEMORY TRACE 1st Encounter (Alien8 Recordings) cd 14.98

BRUMIT, JON Vendetta Retreat: Motion Picture Soundtrack (Edgetone Records) cd 10.98
Jon Brumit's last audio outing was a a sonic tour through the city dump, a dark delirious soundscape of found sounds, rickety malfunctioning equipment, all manner of scratched records and discarded tape decks, broken down computers, all cleverly and gorgeously woven together into one of the coolest weirdest records we've heard. On Vendetta Retreat, the soundtrack to a yet to be released film, Brumit seems to have honed those already impressive organizational and compostitional skills, resulting in a record that had both Allan and Andee running to the front of the store to see what the heck was playing. In fact everytime we play this in the store everyone wants to know what we're playing as well. Vendetta Retreat starts off as a super minimal slab of "skipping cd" style plunderphonia, a super intense and spare soundscape of ultra brief fragments of found record, bursts of electric guitar, the briefest snatch of a vocal line, tiny frgaments of record crackle -- not sure if Brumit's sound source is still the junkyard, but it definitely sounds like maybe it is. These sparse musical fragments create a strange disembodied melody, jagged and compellingly imprecise. Eventually, the empty space behind these bursts and shards fills up with a darkly propulsive electronic framework, minimal and murky, a distant framework for the Brumit's strange Jeck-style broken turntable workout.
The second track takes the rough edit sound collage of the first track and fills it out with wild octopoidal tribal drumming, massive swells of cymbal sizzle and percussive bombast and wave after wave of layered drones, guitars thick with distortion and other effects, hiccupping loops buried beneath, barely audible, adding more texture than anything else, a huge swirl of rumble and whir like a noisier more abstract Growing, or Finnish hypnorockers Circle at their most unhinged and densely ambient. The final track is the logical extension of the track before, taking a dense swath of droney dirge as its fundamental loop, a repeating hypntotic stuttering krautrocky groove, that goes on and on and on (and if we had our way would keep going on and on forever). Imagine your favorite Circle record or some classic Faust track, with a scratch right in the middle, so it skips repeatedly, an unintentional loop, the perfect pulsing hypno riff, the best chunk of hazy repetitive riffing you can imagine, then over the top drape bits of gentle guitar filligree and clouds of disembodied notes. So amazing. One of those tracks that need never stop, we'd be happy to just drift off and bliss out until the end of time. The track evenutally falls apart, the riffs fade and dissipate, the jagged bursts of sound fragments return, this time even more strangely obtrusive, and wreathed in dense halos of echo and delay that send those shards reverberating into the ether, while underneath, the original minimal groove returns, also a bit more affected and damaged, until the whole thing fragments into its constituent parts before finally blinking out with one final blast of disembodied sound. Wow. Can't wait to see the film. And actually the film will be a compilation of clips and shorts collected over the next year, there's information on how to submit footage inside the cd. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
MPEG Stream: "Invisible / Hu / Man"
MPEG Stream: "Geography / Nowhere"

BRUSSELER PLATZ 10A-MUSIK/HAJSCH 1000 Fehler (Suppose) cd 16.98
"1000 Fehler" (translated as 1000 Errors) is a fusion of the spoken theory-fragments by Adilkno
(Foundation of the Advancement of Illegal Knowledge/Amsterdam) and gossamer electronica-concrete pulses by BrŸsseler Platz 10a-Musik - a Cologne collective with Georg Odijk, Jan St. Werner (Mouse On Mars), and Marcus Schmickler (Pluramon). Bored of academic culture pessimism, the authors of Adilkno are "dedicated to illegal knowledge and research degenerated tendencies of the roaring every day life in media." Along with the spoken text (which you should know is in German), the ghost of Thomas Brinkmann's phase patterned techno haunts the musical contribution.

BRUTAL SNAKE Tiny Stubborn Lights Vs. Clustering Darkness (Diagnosis...Don't!) 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.
Not only do the Grey Daturas kick up a serious noiserock ruckus, they also run their own cd-r label, the mysteriously titled Diagnosis... Don't! There are three new releases, and we managed to get a handful of each.
These guys have a soft spot in their little black hearts for NOISE with a capital N, as do we, and here comes Brutal Snake to give it to us. BUT, this isn't shrieking hissing facemelting noise, no, this is dark and ominous, creepy crawly, rumbling dronelike noise, which just happens to be our favorite. Lengthy expanses of black ambience, slow burning swells of muted guitar fuzz, deep cavernous tremors rumbling in the background, like watching black clouds drift by, each a gauzy wisp of low end shimmer, slowly changing shapes and spreading out across the sky. Totally and gorgeous and foreboding.
SUPER LIMITED cd-r (aren't they all?) ONLY 50 COPIES!!! Packaged in a cool stiff textured paper sleeve, with a complicated folded over Japanese style obi holding the disc in place, with the liner notes printed on the inside.
MPEG Stream: "Tiny Stubborn Lights Vs. Clustering Darkness Pt. 1"
MPEG Stream: "Arrows/Decades"

BRUTE HEART The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Moon Glyph) cassette 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The latest from (now) local label Moon Glyph, comes from Minneapolis trio Brute Heart, who were commissioned by Walker Art Center to perform a new score for the legendary German expressionist film The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. Their usual arrangement of bass, drums, viola and keyboard, expanded here to include analog synth and cello, which makes for something spectacularly spectral and spacey, the new score begins with a shuffling minimal pop, that slowly blossoms into something much more ethereal and ambient, swirling voices and shimmering synths, all wedded to a slither bass pulse and a hypnotic rhythm of kick drum and brushed snare, all wreathed in soft billows of space-y FX. That pretty much sets the scene as it were, BH weaving lush, smoldering soundscapes, haunting and moody, delicate keyboard melodies swathed in swoonsome strings, many of the tracks with a sort of chamber jazz feel, appropriately old timey, but others sounding surprisingly modern, futuristic even, giving the music and mood of the film a nice tweak.
Some of the tracks here sound almost like weird hybrids of Stereolab and Portishead, a sort of downtempo shuffle here, a creepy crawly shuffle there. Swoonsome ballads, unwind languorously alongside ominous buzzing spaced out dronescapes, replete with ghostly female vox and dreamlike strings, while other tracks get downright noise, and a little chaotic, shuffling dark jazziness wreathed in clouds of crackle, and field of glitch and glimmer, all blurring into a woozy soft focus psychedelia. And still others have a classic baroque pop vibe, think the New Lines or even a more minimal abstract Beach Boys. Even (especially?) removed from the images, Brute Heart's score is a dark gem, one that we've been listening to like crazy, and which has us really wanting to see the film with the groups gorgeous new accompaniment.
MPEG Stream: "There Are Spirits"
MPEG Stream: "Alan, My Friend"
MPEG Stream: "Fairgrounds"
MPEG Stream: "There Are Spirits (Finale)"

BRYARS, GAVIN / PHILIP JECK / ALTER EGO The Sinking Of The Titanic (Touch Tone) cd 16.98
Not sure we remember much about Gavin Bryars original Sinking Of The Titanic, or at least past recordings and performances. We do remember digging it. A dark elegiac meditation on the sinking of that ship obviously, but also a musical metaphor for the failure of modern technology, the piece is open, and can be as short as 15 minutes, and as long as an hour plus, lots of low end, Bryars is a bass player after all, lots of samples and spoken text. That is one thing we do remember, that there tended to be way too much sampling and spoken text.
This latest performance, finds Bryars reimagining his pieces with two new collaborators, who help give the piece a whole new sound and feel. One is Italian avant chamber outfit Alter Ego, the other is long time AQ fave Philip Jeck. It's difficult to determine what Alter Ego contribute, much of the atmosphere and ambient sound and classical instrumentation we would assume, but it's not hard at all to hear what Jeck brings to the table, records and record players, hiss and crackle. It's perfect really, his gauzy dusty sonic smears, help transform the piece into a haunting snapshot from the past, an old yellowed newspaper clipping, a faded memory.
Right from the start, the piece begins with a thick layer of staticky crackle, laid over a murky throbbing bass, eventually, the crackles moving to the background, letting the soft drifting passages come to the surface, like sonic glaciers floating on a sea of hiss and fuzz, fragments of melody, and bowed strings lurk just below the surface. There's plenty of text in this version too, samples, sounds, voices, but they too are blurred and smeared and become more like voices from the past, calling out from the beyond, the thoughts and fears of ghosts and spirits. Throughout, the mood and timbre shifts, from deep murky minimalism, to soaring dramatic majesty, always slightly uneasy, subtly ominous, a gorgeously dark and mysterious trip into the past.
Not knowing better, you could definitely mistake this for a new Jeck solo record, a roomful of turntables with records by Arvo Part spinning at 16rpm, but it's more than a sonic collage, The Sinking Of The Titanic is a stunning composition, the melodies and movements, the mood and mystery, carry as much meaning as the players and their sound.
Housed in a deluxe oversized cardstock gatefold, with lots of liner notes in lieu of cover art. Cool.
MPEG Stream: "The Sinking Of The Titanic (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "The Sinking Of The Titanic (excerpt 2)"

BRYSON, P. MILES Alejandro's Carneceria (Illegal Art) cd 14.98
From the label that brought you Corporal Blossom, Mutated Christmas, etc. is this puzzling audio work from P Miles Bryson. Ostensibly inspired by the films of Jodorowsky, it borrows from said movies and also adds lots of ambient sounds of children at play, street music, gunshots, etc. On the whole a gentle listen, except for a few noisy parts, but just not all that interesting, even knowing the Jodorowsky connection.
Packaging includes a Mexican spice packet with some chiles.
RealAudio clip: "The empty dress that swung in the breeze like a memory of lost love"

BUCKETRIDER Le Baphomet (Dr. Jim's Records) cd 14.98

BUDD, HAROLD Avalon Sutra (Samadhisound) 2cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The last record we listened to by Harold Budd was his collaboration with Brian Eno from 1980, reissued late last year. To Eno's shimmering ambient soundtrack world, Budd added his maudlin, melodic, sometimes syrupy piano figures. Not sure what Budd has been up to these last 25 years, but here we are in 2005 and we find ourselves with a new Harold Budd record. While we're sure he has indeed been busy these last two and a half decades, this release sort of caught our attention for two reasons, it was released on David Sylvian's Samadhisound label, and it's two discs, with the second disc being a seventy minute reworking of one of the tracks on the first disc. We love that kind of stuff!
So we're happy to report that this is an absolutely glorious, dreamy otherworldly listen. Constructed mostly from piano, synthesizer, strings, saxophone, bass flute and minimal percussion (mostly chimes and bells), Avalon Sutra is a slow moving, somber and contemplative dream world, New Age ambience smeared into a drifting world of indistinct blurs. Melancholy piano lines drift beneath warm chordal swells and distant twinkling chimes. New Age might actually be the sticking point in the above description for a lot of folks, but when you get right down to it, this is indeed New Age music. It's soft and mellow and could definitely pass as massage or meditation music, but that said, it's also lush and tranquil and hypnotic, the perfect drifting off and drifting away music. The soundtrack to a series of images, floating by on the periphery, subtle, simple and smooth. Then there's disc two, an hour plus extended bliss out. Like William Basinski, Oval, the Necks and the Balanescu Quartet all smeared and stretched into a dreamy, gauzy, slowly shifting, hypnotically looped cycle of minor key melancholia. Co-produced by David Sylvian and Akira Rabelais (who also helped mix and perform it). So gorgeous. Even if the first disc borders on being too New Agey for you (which it shouldn't necessarily), the second disc is most definitely an essential chunk of moody, mesmerizing, tranced out instrumental ambience!
MPEG Stream: "Arabesque 3"
MPEG Stream: "Arabesque 2"
MPEG Stream: "As Long As I Can Hold My Breath"

BUDD, HAROLD In The Mist (Darla Records) cd 17.98
Forget about the Pop Ambient series, and other modern dreamy music makers, when it comes to simply stunning, calming and beautiful sounds it just doesn't get better than Harold Budd. Now 75 years old, and showing no signs of losing his immaculate touch, In The Mist is quickly becoming one of our favorite Budd records ever. This is how we like his music the best, just Budd and a piano, so stripped down and minimal, yet able to conjure up such a majestic and otherworldly soundworld. Slowly drifting and gliding with an ease and emotional warmth that allows you to tune out the noise of the outside world and return to a place of peaceful surrender. What makes Budd's music so special is that in any other hands the sounds would just be pleasant but not much more, but Budd has this amazing knack for masterful phrasing that injects soft melancholy and real bliss into his compositions.
It makes such great sense that in so many ways Harold Budd is an artist's music maker. We know so many great visual artists who play Budd's music in their studio as it really does give you a clean slate to work from, erasing the clutter and annoyances of everyday life and softly guiding you into places that are filled with spirit and soul. Beyond beautiful!
MPEG Stream: "The Foundry (For Mika Vainio)"
MPEG Stream: "Greek George"
MPEG Stream: "Haru Spring"
MPEG Stream: "The Art Of Mirrors (After Derek Jarman)"

BUDD, HAROLD Pavilion Of Dreams (Editions EG) cd 12.98
We've never listed this ambient, avante-garde masterpiece before and when we realized it was Harold Budd's 75th birthday last week, we figured it was the perfect time to honor the man, and the amazing dreamy sounds he has given us over the years.
While best known to some for his collaborations with Brian Eno, and Cocteau Twins, there is also the deep well to explore of his vast solo catalog. But for many, Pavilion Of Dreams originally released in 1978, ranks as one of his best, a perfect melding of 20th century composition and warm, weightless shimmery ambience, creating pieces fragile and prismatic, as if they were suspended in glistening, glimmering bubbles.
While piano is at the center of Pavilion Of Dreams, there is some of the most sensual and dreamy sax we've ever heard, played by Marion Brown, a wildly under-appreciated free jazz artist who played with everyone from John Coltrane to Anthony Braxton, as well as an extensive catalog of his own recordings that deserve to be explored.
The album opens with the 18 minute "Bismillahi 'Rrahmani 'Rrahim", a track that feels like a passage from one of Alice Coltrane's most majestic tracks taken to a new age inside a mystical castle looking over the ocean. Then there's the mezzo-soprano classical vocals of Lynda Richardson are featured in the second and third tracks of the album. Don't let them scare you away. Even if you are not usually a fan of opera or classical vocals, Budd uses them in such drifting and compelling ways. They would have been perfect for a chilling scene in a Stanley Kubrick film. The album closes with "Juno", one of the most perfect ambient daydreams of all time. We realized we've said the word 'dreamy' a ton of times in this review, and well the album is called Pavilion of Dreams, and even though the term dreamy is so often overused, this is a record that really does take you to another state of consciousness. We hear the influence of this recording on so many of our favorite artists like William Basinski, Circle (on Miljard), Colleen, Seefeel, Johan Johansson, Sigur Ros, The Knife, The Durutti Column, Michael Harrison, Koss, Klimek and more... Absolutely essential!
MPEG Stream: "Bismillahi 'Rrahmani 'Rrahim"
MPEG Stream: "Juno"
MPEG Stream: "Let Us Go Into The House Of The Lord/Butterfly Sunday"

BUGAJ, ADAM Telegraphed (Deep Water) cd-r 6.98
Tape hiss, simple melodies, mechanical rhythms, dubby reverb... Nice! We're diggin' on the 16 tracks, 33 minutes of blissful, bedroom-recorded Casio-dub instrumental music here, this cd-r being the second solo joint from Oakland's Adam Bugaj, a Pennsylvania transplant who played "lysergic barn rock" with underground psych acts Peacefeather and Clear Spots back in PA. Rather than rockin' out, though, this is lazy Sunday stoned music from the man, lo-fi DIY mesmerism, like a Jewelled Antler production of home-brewed Kompakt techno, shimmering with hiss and distortion. 'Tis spacey and mellow, sometimes subverted by sudden manual tape edits... Throw in a bit of Fahey folky guitar ramble here or there, and broken electronics that get accidentally cosmic and Cluster-like, with echoey keys, heartbeat drum machine pulses, minimal drones, fractured rhythms... Imagine, maybe, a more outsider version of Pantha Du Prince, recorded on, like, $15 worth of yard sale equipment and cheap cassette tapes. Yes it's pretty nice!
MPEG Stream: "The New Nod"
MPEG Stream: "Hawthorne Blues"
MPEG Stream: "No Lavender"
MPEG Stream: "Play It Pretty"

BUKE AND GASS Riposte (Brassland) cd 13.98
We first discovered this band on our favorite radio show, Radiolab (like a way nerdier, science focused, Negativland produced This American Life), Buke and Gass being a boy/girl duo who made a sort of chaotic ramshackle folk flecked noise pop on homemade instruments, pretty sure Buke was shorthand for a baritone ukulele and Gass is a weird guitar bass hybrid, but regardless, these two make a seriously big noise, crunchy jagged riffage, over simple percussion, usually just a bass drum boom, or a tambourine jangle, a sort of two man (woman) version of a one man band, each handling their stringed instruments, while pounding out the rhythm with their feet, then there's the homemade speakers and amplifiers, it all makes for a curious sight, and an even curiouser sound, a sort of wild and loose folky swampy blues / indie rock hybrid, the vocals powerful, the instruments surprisingly lush, the rhythms simple and hypnotic, the melodies all over the place, some weird Thinking Fellers / PJ Harvey / Sixteen Horsepower / Decemberists hybrid, a bit of a backwoods steampunk vibe too, but all filtered through a killer indie pop sense that makes every song here a dark unforgettable gem.
MPEG Stream: "Medulla Oblongata"
MPEG Stream: "Medicina"
MPEG Stream: "Your Face Left Before You"
MPEG Stream: "Naked Cities"

BULBS Infirmary Of Dream cassette 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
LAST COPIES!!! Got a few more of these in, but once these are gone, then this is gone for good!
Besides being so damn cool to look at, these see through cassettes are embedded with some of the most entrancing and drift worthy music ever, courtesy of Bulbs!
Made for an art show at 381 Projects in Toronto with visual artist Tracy Maurice, Bulbs tapped into a much more dreamlike and effervescent sound then we've heard from them previously. Using drums, oscillator, Arp, guitar and a one string talker (!), the duo of Bulbs create some serious magical alchemy akin to early '70s Klaus Schulze and the inter-dimensional music of Iasos, if those sounds were floating underwater alongside exotic sea creatures and mystical aquatic plants. We've liked everything we've heard from Bulbs up to this point, including William Sabiston's great and sadly out of print Jyrk release as Ball Lightning and his contributions to recordings by Axolotl. But this just might be our favorite Bulbs recording yet. We get the feeling that Sabiston and the other half of Bulbs, Jon Almaraz, had lots of fantastical thoughts in their heads while recording Infirmary Of Dream, as this really taps into some magical landscapes, making us imagine what this duo could create if they were tapped to produce soundtracks for surreal nature films on some sort of alternate Discovery Channel. Imagine if Seefeel were stripped to its most minimal and merged with the most dreamy aspects of Popul Vuh. Only 50 of these were made and we only have a handful so you know what that means....
MPEG Stream: "Ooryllium"
MPEG Stream: "Fish Glue"
MPEG Stream: "Hotel Hysperia"

BULBS Light Ships (Freedom To Spend) cd 14.98
Basic Channel. Jyrk. Free jazz. Put those things together and you've got an idea of what's in store with Light Ships, the band's first release on Pete Swanson's new label Freedom to Spend. Fellow noiseniks out there will definitely remember Swanson's old label Jyrk, but whereas that label seemed to revolve mostly around his Yellow Swans related releases, this seems more of a label proper. Getting back to the record at hand, Bulbs is a two man collaboration between former Axolotl member William Sabiston (some of you might have been lucky enough to get a copy of his super limited release under the name Ball Lightning) and John Almaraz, who left San Francisco earlier this year to embark on some backpacking across the globe. We checked out what a few people had to say about the record, and the one thing that keeps coming up is techno, techno, techno. Well, to be fair, there is a propulsive element to this record, which may be the only truly linear thing present. And yes, sometimes it is an electronic kick drum. Still, it seems that the greatest influences here are free jazz and African polyrhythms and syncopation. Those who checked out any of the recent Monopoly Child Star Searchers albums, then you're maybe understanding what we're talking about, though Light Ships features significantly higher production quality. Still, if this record is any indication as to what's in store for Freedom to Spend, then we're confident that we will be recommending a healthy dose of their bands and/or projects.
MPEG Stream: "Gold Ropes"
MPEG Stream: "Strickfadfins"

BURIAL s/t (Hyperdub / Cargo) cd 17.98
This record has totally knocked us for a loop. An impossible mix of grimy dubstep, murky triphop, and minimal spaced out dub. When we first threw this on we were immediately transported back to when we first heard Massive Attack, or Portishead, and a whole new world suddenly opened up to us. A creepy, muted world of barebones beats and haunting atmospheres that would go on to inform our musical tastes forever.
This is the first release on Hyperdub, a label run by grime/dubstep DJ Kode9, and we expected a blasting barrage of grimy beats, but instead, were sucked into a swirling vortex of late night groove and midnight stutter. Think those Rhythm And Sound Burial Mix eps, mixed with some Pole-like glitched out dub, and some slow burning Portishead smolder. Creepy and crawly, mysterious and moody. Beats suspended in a black shimmering fog, snippets of vocals, crooning, toasting, drenched in reverb, chopped up and let loose to drift over super dark, muffled dubscapes. Huge rumbling bass lines, like distant foghorns, dreamy ambience sort of drifting and ethereal but so so ominous. Tiny sonic sparkles glimmer like some alien sonar, drifting dreamily through fuzzy darkness. Drowned and submerged grooves, all muffled muted melody and shuffling minimal beats. Suffocating atmospheres of low end thrum, record crackle and shortwave interference. Some sort of slithering slinky dubstep shuffle slowed waaaaaaaaay down, into a blackened glacial dub jam. So fucking awesome. Our newest every night late night listen. A record of perfect dark and damaged dubbed out lullabies.
MPEG Stream: "Distant Lights"
MPEG Stream: "Spaceape"
MPEG Stream: "Wounder"

BURIAL South London Boroughs ep (Hyperdub) 12" 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A reissued 12" from one of this list's Record of the Week artists, Burial, who unleashes a lurching, shuffling, deep and dense mix of murky grimy dubstep. Equal parts minimal dub, slowed down grime, and super slow motion jungle.
This 12", originally released last year, features what sounds like an alternate version of one of the album tracks, sort of slowed down and more blissed out. The other track is WAY more drum and bass, a mumbled 16 rpm jungle stutter, with a definite grime vibe and a super dense chaotic rhythmic coda! So cool.

BURIAL CHAMBER TRIO s/t (Southern Lord) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not to be confused with the recently listed Grave Temple cd we reviewed, The Burial Chamber Trio is basically exactly the same as Grave Temple, just swap out one SUNNO))) for another. So it's still Oren Ambarchi and Attila Csihar, but this time it's Southern (Over)Lord Greg Anderson instead Of Stephen O'Malley, and where as the Grave Temple was a cd, this is VINYL ONLY. And while in some ways there are sonic similarities, the sound of the Burial Chamber Trio is much more aligned with the sounds of the mothership (aka SUNNO)))) than Grave Temple.
Two sidelong tracks, vocals, guitars, bass, and electronics, with Anderson trading in his axe for a bass guitar, Side A begins with swirling clouds of FX, electronics, weird processed vocals, before Ambarchi's guitars roll in, sounding not at all unlike SUNNO))), huge and buzzing, left to drone and rumble and pulse, a blackened mysterious slow motion riff, dripping and crumbling over the black abyss. Speaking of black, this wouldn't have sounded at all out of place on Black One, strangled vocals, the churning riffage, the black ambience, near the end of the side, everything erupts into a furious melee of processed guitarnoise, swooping electronics, damaged voices, everything hissing and whirring and rumbling and shrieking before fading out completely.
The B side is much more tranquil, almost no vocals, even more SUNNO)))-like, the same basic ingredients as the first side, but more spread out and blissed out, the guitar a slow motion wall of sound, cutting a huge swath through a sea of buzz and drone, an endlessly hypnotic ur-drone, that ends up sounding more spacey and psychedelic but still plenty heavy...
LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES. Vinyl only. Amazing black gloss on black matte artwork by Seldon Hunt.

BURIAL CHAMBER TRIO WVRM (Southern Lord) 10" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Second vinyl only offering from this low end subsonic super group, made up of Greg Anderson (SUNNO))), Southern Lord head honcho), Oren Ambarchi, and legendary black metal vocalist Attila Csihar (Mayhem, Tormentor, Aborym)É
For this outing, Ambarchi and Anderson are credited with sub bass death throb, while Attila is responsible for undead voices. And that's pretty much what it sounds like, sub bass throbs with haunting undead vocals woven into the heaving roiling mass. There seem to be some guitars in there too, maybe some electronics, but it's hard to tell, it's all smeared into a single swirling blackened mass. When we first listened to it, we played it at 33 (which we're assuming now is NOT the right speed, so hard to tell sometimes), and we thought, wow, this is even slower and sludgier than ever, but once we figured out it was meant to be 45, the sound reverted back, closer to the sound of SUNNO))) or the older records of their forbears Earth. Slow motion riffage, glacial and thick, massive and blown out and super distorted, muffled and murky, a sluggish sprawl of caustic crumbling guitars, the vocals barely audible, a haunting raspy growl way down in the mix, often just sounding like another buzzing bassline, hum and fuzz, dense and intense, all melted down into a viscous black crawl. Occasionally, the random bits of riffage and low end rumble coalesce into truly gorgeous harmonies, lovely and chordal, like some blackened church organ, but for the most part, this is the sound of guitar tones allowed to ring out forever and beat against each other, the air filled with oscillating overtones and strange tonal colorations, all beneath a patina of thick black buzz.
Amazing cover art as well, a gross out gutted worm picture disc, with a transparent skull and bugs insert on one side, and another sick silkscreened artwork overlay on the thick plastic sleeve, all courtesy of Mr. Seldon Hunt.
Recorded live, in January of this year, in Holland. And of course, you had to know this part was coming:
LIMITED TO 3000 COPIES!! And if it's anything like the other Burial Chamber record, it will sell out FAST.

BURIAL HEX Bagirwa Hymn (Von) lp 28.00

BURIAL HEX Bagirwa Hymn (Von) lp 28.00

BURIAL HEX Book Of Delusions (Cold Spring) cd 17.98

BURIAL HEX Initiations (Aurora Borealis) cd 15.98
Clay Ruby is one busy guy. He runs the awesome Skulls Of Heaven label. He fronts free folk weirdos Davenport. He also does time in Jex Thoth (aka Totem), albeit under a different name, and he produces his own brand or ritual musical blackness as Burial Hex.
The last record from Burial Hex we listed was an lp that bore the legend, "OPPRESSIVE NECRO ELECTRONICS!" which in fact that record was, buzzy and blurry and grinding and grim, but the opening of this disc is anything but, ominous strings, very cinematic, moan and drift, melodies abstract and spare, stretch out and sprawl like a graveyard fog. Slowly, other sounds enter the mix, percussion, rumbling drones, strange beastly growls, eventually, the tranquility is shattered by what sounds like a descent into hell, anguished wails, squalls of strings, screams and shrieks, more growling and grunting, which soon give way to an avalanche of crumbling distorted noise, feedback, and amp buzz, whirs and grinding glitch, a serious wall of intense blown out fury, but the track finishes off like it began, haunting strings, ominous melodies, dark and dramatic.
The rest of the disc (4 tracks total, all 18 minutes or more) slips between super minimal crumbling drone, murky buzz, throbbing industrial whirs, medieval sounding dark ambience, simple muted percussion, chanted voices, processed guitar, creepy carnivalesque keyboards, buzzing raga-like drones, swampy faux field recordings, skittery electronics, insect like chirps and twitters, shortwave radio broadcasts, shimmering fuzz drenched drifts, all very scary and filmic, in fact much of this, especially the more musical bits, sound like they could have been pulled from some lost Argento movie, or some lost Italian horror classic. Which is indeed a very good thing.
Packaged in a cool origami style folded and silkscreened sleeve, with multiple printed inserts.
MPEG Stream: "Will To The Chapel"
MPEG Stream: "8 Pentacles"

BURIAL HEX Initiations (Aurora Borealis) 2lp 21.00
Also now on vinyl!
Clay Ruby is one busy guy. He runs the awesome Skulls Of Heaven label. He fronts free folk weirdos Davenport. He also does time in Jex Thoth (aka Totem), albeit under a different name, and he produces his own brand or ritual musical blackness as Burial Hex.
The last record from Burial Hex we listed was an lp, that bore the legend, "OPPRESSIVE NECRO ELECTRONICS!" which in fact that record was, buzzy and blurry and grinding and grim, but the opening of this disc is anything but, ominous strings, very cinematic, moan and drift, melodies abstract and spare, stretch out and sprawl like a graveyard fog. Slowly, other sounds enter the mix, percussion, rumbling drones, strange beastly growls, eventually, the tranquility is shattered by what sounds like a descent into hell, anguished wails, squalls of strings, screams and shrieks, more growling and grunting, which soon give way to an avalanche of crumbling distorted noise, feedback, and amp buzz, whirs and grinding glitch, a serious wall of intense blonw out fury, but the track finishes off like it began, haunting strings, ominous melodies, dark and dramatic.
The rest of the disc (4 tracks total, all 18 minutes or more) slips between super minimal crumbling drone, murky buzz, throbbing industrial whirs, medieval sounding dark ambience, simple muted percussion, chanted voices, processed guitar, creepy carnivalesque keyboards, buzzing raga-like drones, swampy faux field recordings, skittery electronics, insect like chirps and twitters, shortwave radio broadcasts, shimmering fuzz drenched drifts, all very scary and filmic, in fact much of this, especially the more musical bits, sound like they could have been pulled from some lost Argento movie, or some lost Italian horror classic. Which is indeed a very good thing.
Packaged in a cool origami style folded and silkscreened sleeve, with multiple printed inserts.
MPEG Stream: "Will To The Chapel"
MPEG Stream: "8 Pentacles"

BURIAL HEX s/t (Snse) lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
On first glance, one might assume this would be some seriously grim black metal. The cover is skeletal branches against a washed out sky. All of the text is in a distressed olde English font. On the insert lurks a strange cloaked skull figure hidden in the darkness. The songs have titles like "Nightstalking The Unsilent Boneyard", "The Storm Of Ancient Nightcrawler", "Feasting The Nightsoil Communion".
But lo and behold, this is anything but black metal. According to the legend inside, this is OPPRESSIVE NECRO ELECTRONICS! Which indeed it is.
The opening track does in fact sound like nightstalking an unsilent boneyard, foot steps, crunching gravel (bones underfoot?), electronic rumbles, harsh demonic whispers, streaks of fuzzed out high end, and corrosive rumbling drones underneath. Strange pulsing riffs seem to be smeared into indistinct blurs, all wrapped in spikey caustic buzz and lots of rumble and crackle.
Elsewhere, grinding electronics drift amidst dense industrial whirs, fragmented melodies bob on the surface like corpses, the background a roiling black sea of thrum and buzz, constantly swirling and changing shape. Seriously dark and demonic. A killer slab of black ambience. OPPRESSIVE NECRO ELECTRONICS indeed!

BURIAL HEX / IRON FIST OF THE SUN Split (Cold Spring) lp 25.00

BURIAL HEX / KINIT HER Vedic Hymns (Alt.vinyl) lp 19.98
A tour only lp from long time faves Burial Hex, aka Clay Ruby who also ran the amazing Skulls Of Heaven label, and who here has joined up with the mysterious Kinit Her for a twisted collection of psychedelic ritualistic acid folk, but laced with bits of industrial crunch and electronic buzz, strange almost black metal vocals, and mysterious field recordings.
Haunting, and ominous, long streaks of feedback and buzzing electronics are blurred into extended drones, peppered with minimal martial percussion, steel string guitar buzz, bits of avant Appalachia, bits of twang, soft swirls of effects, and strange strident vocals, that are definitely reminiscent of Comus (!), a little demented and frenzied and intense. Murky crumbling soundscapes drift beneath clouds of frantic psychedelic leads, simple motorik drumming locked into simple hypnotic grooves, underpinned by flurries of bombinating guitars, then a second set of vocals, even more strange, howled and hellish, almost sampled sounding, struggling to be heard through the mix, only making them sound more hysterical.
The flip side offers up another side of this collaborative ritualistic folk, this time, it's just piano, picking out a mournful melody over a field recording of crickets, the piano occasionally erupting into manic dense bursts of notes, over the whole thing some super freaky, gurgled demonic vox, a strange juxtaposition for sure, made even strange by soaring strings, and mysterious bits of industrial crunch, of twisted electronic percussion, and the vocals, howled and shrieked and even more intense than before, all over that creeping minor key piano.
So disturbing and fantastically bizarre, haunting and in its own twisted way, quite lovely, a warped modern more industrial take on Comus style seventies freak folk, which totally manages to capture the same sort of witchy occultic vibe via these satanically sinister ritualistic sounds...
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!! We have less than 15!

BURIAL TREE Black Magic Trance / The Mysterious Stranger (self-released) cassette 2.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While we wait for the impending full length from local droned out cinematic psychedelic heavies Burial Tree, we've got this two song 'cassingle' teaser to hold us over, and to give us a taste of what's coming. This nice priced tape features one song from the upcoming album, and a live in the studio version of a song from the first album. The new track is a beast, an effects drenched psychedelic space rock blow out, heavy and blissed out, an extended trance-y psych jam that should have fans of the current crop of space-psych warriors wondering why they hadn't heard Burial Tree before. The reworked older track is a more brooding and laid back affair, lo-fi and blissed out, a twang flecked post rock that builds to a churning metallic dirge, before getting all spaced out and slipping tight back into that post rock lope and eventually finishing off with some abstract ambient drift. Can't wait for the new record!

BURIAL TREE Outer Dark (self-released) 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.
We've said it before, we love when our friends make amazing music. The sort of music that transcends the bonds of friendship, that requires none of the obligation that usually accompanies 'friend rock', the sort of music that had you just discovered it, unaware of its provenance, you wouldn't think twice about proclaiming its virtues, blasting it on your iPod nonstop, or if you're us, raving about it on the New Arrivals list.
Burial Tree is the realization of several years of intense work, and is the project of aQ pal Monte and his wife Lauren, along with a few other contributors, and is a mysterious, drone rock epic, a blissed out and darkly brooding record of haunting heaviness and abstract moodiness. A collection of subtly crafted cinematic soundscapes, equal parts Barn Owl psychedelic drift, Neurosis riff heavy crush, Three Mile Pilot post rock lope, and various stops in between.
The record begins with a haunting solo cello rendition of Hank Williams' "Ramblin' Man', transformed into an achingly mournful lament, the perfect lead in to "Secret Arts", a sprawling stretch of minimal black ambience, a lush, layered expanse of layered low end, and softly pulsing synth swells, laced with bits of melody, and warn swirls of sonic sunlight, a slow shifting scene setter for the sounds to come. "The Mysterious Stranger" is a dark twang flecked bit of Earth-y post rock, the guitars spidery and minor key, the drums busy and intricate, the strings soaring and swirling, all over a bed of subtle synth shimmer, eventually big riffs swoop in, and things get a bit metallic, with some killer stop/start dynamics, rife with synth squiggles and spaced out FX. A driving, hypnotic, subtly proggy, spaced out dirge rock, that shifts from dense distorted crunch to minimal lope and back again. And it's during those loping minimal bits that the sound reminds us of vintage Three Mile Pilot, the thick bass suspended over deep swirling space, paranoid and hauntingly ominous.
"The Bringer Of Light" mirrors the melodies from the song before it, making it feel like a sort of second movement, it's reverby contemplative drift sounding like some nineties slowcore combo via desert rockers Scenic, very evocative, barren landscapes, wide open skies, shadows moving slowly across the ground, here too, the strings do the heavy melodic lifting, while the drums and guitar weave a skeletal framework, sounding like something that wouldn't have been out of place on Thrill Jockey back in the day. The track builds to a swirling psychedelic climax, all pounding drums and swirling synths, before fading into another bit of smoldering dronemusic, a spacey effects heavy stretch of whirring Moogs and looped FX, blurred into gauzy bits of fragmented melody, and thick, softly undulating layers of washed out blackness.
"Conjuring Demons" is another post rocker that takes the spare bass heavy, spidery melodies of 3MP and weds them to some more arid spacious desert rock, another haunting excursion into abstract instrumental meander, the stings here adding color and texture, the main guitar riff memorable enough to stay lodged in your head, the drums eventually dropping off, leaving just the strings over a barely there bit of deep rumbling shimmer. The record finally winds down with the gorgeous title track, the cello played so lyrically, the melodies melancholy and mournful, wrapped around muted chiming melodies, and a strange distant insectoid buzz, a dark, emotional threnody, the sound of the sun disappearing beneath the horizon, the moon vanishing behind the clouds, the fire dying to embers in the hearth, the stars fading into the blackness of space. So nice.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. And each one with a printed cover, and a screen printed insert, printed by a real live WIZARD!
MPEG Stream: "Secret Arts"
MPEG Stream: "The Mysterious Stranger"
MPEG Stream: "The Bringer Of Light"
MPEG Stream: "Conjuring Demons"

BURIED CIVILIZATIONS, THE Tunnels To Other Chambers (267 Lattajja / Jewelled Antler) 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.
Allan's D&D sensibilities were most pleased with the name and title of this new Jewelled Antler cd-r! Tunnels To Other Chambers is the debut of a new project from the JA camp, featuring the duo of Kerry McLaughlin (Franciscan Hobbies) and the ubiquitous Glenn Donaldson (FH, Thuja, Skygreen Leopards, The Ivytree, Teenage Panzerkorps, etc.). Guesting on a few tracks you'll also find Rob Reger (Thuja) and Christine Boepple (Skygreen Leopards Skyband). These guys do indeed have a knack for titles to match their evocative folk-psych-improv music. No review is really needed if we cite such track names as "Gallery Of Ancient Birds", "Ghosts In The Tunnel", "Moss Banjo" or "Vacation Route For Emperors". I mean, sounds good already, right? And it does for sure sound good if you're attuned to the sort of spacious, abstract sound-delving these folks do so well. It's wonderfully fragile, sleepy, and melodic. Droning harmonium, bowed strings...electronic detritus...plucked acoustic guitar...simple, ritual percussion...tinkling bells...and occasional frail whispery vocals. It's like listening in to some mellow krautrock being played on an Applachian back porch, or to monkish ceremonies from the lost Plateau of Leng, or perhaps a somnolent subterranean hobbit-hole jamboree. In other words, so nice!! Definitely get this is you like Jewelled Anter stuff like The Birdtree and Hala Strana. Also we could reference Espers, Amon Duul, Tower Recordings, Harvester, Algarnas Tradgrad, Siloah...
MPEG Stream: "As Cold As The Clay"
MPEG Stream: "Moss Banjo"

BURKE, DAN & THOMAS DIMUZIO Upcoming Events (No Fun Productions) cd 12.98
It's a little strange that there are only two collaborative albums from Dan Burke and Thomas Dimuzio, despite their long-standing working relationship which dates back well over a decade. On his numerous travels to California touring as Illusion Of Safety, Dan Burke has often found himself in the Bay Area to perform outside the Illusion Of Safety guise. Instead, Burke's dystopian electro-acoustic techniques have joined forces with the engineering prowess of Thomas Dimuzio (who is responsible for mastering many an IOS record); and during those performances, they've proven to be quite an amazing duo, avoiding many of the follies of on-again / off-again projects or open-up-the-laptop-and-go live collaborations. Dimuzio has an excellent ear and he manages to keep Burke from diving off into the cybernetic rhythms which can make some of the lesser Illusion Of Safety records so dodgy. At the same time, Burke's perpetual audio nihilism provides a solid framework for Dimuzio to add his talents.
Upcoming Events was in fact edited and reconstituted from three of their Bay Area performances from 2004. These recordings consist of electronically mangled drones, mechanoid field recordings agitated through digital means, pure tone manipulation, and unsettled noise culled from tactile crunches, all of which build to discordant crescendos that have the psychological intensity of David Lynch's sound design, certainly rivalling the best work that either Illusion of Safety or Thomas have done on their own.
Steadily increasing drones become a hellish orchestral hum punctuated by metallic screeches which sound like a belt fan on a motor that's just ready to snap off its fly wheel. Elsewhere, unsettling electronics bleat against the tactile rattling of sand crunched against the head of a mic condenser whilst a subharmonic tone ominously rumbles in the distance. With the cover photograph of the armed barricade outside the 2004 Republican National Convention, the album takes on the aura of the soundtrack of a police state. Burke founded Illusion Of Safety in 1983, inspired by the industrial attitudes and aesthetics of Throbbing Gristle. While TG's prescient insights of culture as the death factory may seem commonplace to the media savvy, Burke and Dimuzio render their take on the conspiratorial and paranoiac with remarkable success. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Deregulation"
MPEG Stream: "Upcoming Events"
MPEG Stream: "Operative"

BURKE, DAN / DRUMM, KEVIN Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
During the past 15 years, Chicago's experimental ensemble Illusion of Safety has revolved around the activitities of Dan Burke and a rotating core of like-minded avant-garde musicians including Jim O'Rourke, Thymme Jones, Kurt Griesch, and dozens more. Yet during a tour across Europe collaborating with Kevin Drumm (who is effectively the doppelganger of O'Rourke's non-pop aesthetic), Burke and Drumm have chosen not to invoke the IOS moniker. This is strange only in the fact that the Burke / Drumm contribution to the Mort Aux Vaches series (which have all been commissioned for VPRO radio in the Netherlands) is not far removed from some of the Illusion of Safety albums (in particular the early '90s album "Probe"). The Burke / Drumm "Mort Aux Vaches" is a very well constructed electro-acoustic improvisation that opens with tiny microscopic events and upper register frequencies. These erratic squiggles steadily flesh themselves out into ominous drones, bristling with toxic white noise. Nicely done.
RealAudio clip: "excerpt 1"
RealAudio clip: "excerpt 2"

BURMESE Men (Load) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From their first release, a chaotic, club destoying blast of downtuned pummel, Burmese have slowly been gravitating, at least sonically, toward what can only be described as a state of Whitehouse. Shedding musical elements one at a time until they were on the verge of becoming pure violent energy. Each song an endless stretch of brutal sound, a barbed bed of uneasy ambience for the ultra distorted ranting and raving vocals. We all though it couldn't get any meaner, any creepier or any heavier. We were so wrong. Burmese's Men is the musical equivalent of the heart stopping pants shitting terror you experience when faced with a spittle spraying, wildly snarling pitbull, hackles raised and teeth bared lunging at you from behind a chainlink fence, you realize that the fence ends a few yards away and there is no gate. This band is fucking scary. On Men, the dual bass, dual drummer lineup manages to compartmentalize, and their Whitehouse obsession becomes just one element in what is a totally devastating doom sludge monstrosity. Shrieked black metal vocals over pounding super distorted downtuned riffs and crushing double drummer pummel. Maybe one of the best band the Bay Area has to offer these days. Certainly the scariest.
MPEG Stream: "Rapewar"
MPEG Stream: "Thumbsucker"

BURMESE Men (Load) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From their first release, a chaotic, club destoying blast of downtuned pummel, Burmese have slowly been gravitating, at least sonically, toward what can only be described as a state of Whitehouse. Shedding musical elements one at a time until they were on the verge of becoming pure violent energy. Each song an endless stretch of brutal sound, a barbed bed of uneasy ambience for the ultra distorted ranting and raving vocals. We all though it couldn't get any meaner, any creepier or any heavier. We were so wrong. Burmese's Men is the musical equivalent of the heart stopping pants shitting terror you experience when faced with a spittle spraying, wildly snarling pitbull, hackles raised and teeth bared lunging at you from behind a chainlink fence, you realize that the fence ends a few yards away and there is no gate. This band is fucking scary. On Men, the dual bass, dual drummer lineup manages to compartmentalize, and their Whitehouse obsession becomes just one element in what is a totally devastating doom sludge monstrosity. Shrieked black metal vocals over pounding super distorted downtuned riffs and crushing double drummer pummel. Maybe one of the best band the Bay Area has to offer these days. Certainly the scariest.
MPEG Stream: "Rapewar"
MPEG Stream: "Thumbsucker"