COURTIS, ANLA Tape Works (Pogus) cd 14.98
It's hard to imagine that Anla Courtis had any time to dedicate to his own work throughout the '90s when he was the technical wizard for Reynols, the now defunct Argentine avant-rock project whose primal rock thud and conceptual oddities confounded many a listener across the globe. We'll admit to being huge fans of Reynols' more tripped out works, such as the 10,000 Chicken Symphony, their collaboration with Pauline Oliveros, and their infamous / brilliant album Blank Tapes. When Courtis and Reynols were cranking out recordings, we could hardly keep up with the output. There were hundreds of recordings popping up on every label imaginable, and hundreds more that only materialized in Reynols' mythological parallel universe Minecxio, never making themselves known to those of us on this side of the astral divide. Yet despite all of this activity, Courtis had been composing a number of tape pieces independent of his work in Reynols, many of which have been collected on this rather self-evidently titled collection Tape Works.
Dating from 1991 - 1998, Courtis' experiments with the tape deck are an exaggerated distortion of cassette mechanics, with magnetic storms of hiss and drone bristling with mechanoid thunder, drowning microphones, volatile screeches, sicktone minimalism, and mutated electronic splutter. There's even a piece which sounds as if Courtis is reclaiming Pierre Henry's "Variations For a Door and a Sigh" through his own rickety recordings. While in Reynols, Courtis certainly played the part of the mischief-maker very well; Tape Works proves that Courtis has long been a mighty fine sound-sculptor.
MPEG Stream: "Asma De Tia De Alga"
MPEG Stream: "Reducido A Hemorragia De Merluzas"

COURTIS, ANLA / SEIICHI YAMAMOTO / YOSHIMI Live At Kanadian (Public Eyesore) cd 10.98

COUSIN SILAS Lilliput (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
More electronic weirdness courtesy of our pals at the prolific and 'all hit and no miss' Fflint label. The mysterious Cousin Silas delivers some down tempo, almost dreamy electronica (especially considering the 'fucked-up-ness' of most of the stuff on Fflint). This is Boards Of Canada for the underground set, a chill out record for after that heavy bondage session, or that robot war, or that day spent taped naked to the side of a building. Not for the faint of heart, but pretty and tranquil enough that adventurous mainstreamers might try starting here if they have any fantasies of listening to 'underground electronica.' Gentle chimes and toy xylophones, modulated bird chirp-like warbles, humming buzz and whirring static are woven into a surreal sounscape dotted with weird downtuned melodies, chiming soaring synths, stabs of minor key piano, skipping and shufffling, clicking and hissing, and pastoral washes of cottony sound. Not a whole lot of rhythm, but when it comes in, it's perfect: heavily reverbed, stuttering understated loops that stretch out into late night excursions through dark and druggy landscapes. Can Fflint do no wrong? How can Warp and Matador and Lo claim to have their finger on the pulse of electronic music when all this crazy, amazing and creative shit is blowing up right under their noses? Too bad.
RealAudio clip: "Moorgate"
RealAudio clip: "View From a Room"

COUSIN SILAS Necropolis Line (Earthrid) cd-r 11.98
It's been almost 3 years since we last heard from Cousin Silas and back then he was slouching around dark electronic graveyards and dodgy ambient parts of town with the rest of the Fflint Records stable. For this most recent release, Silas may have relocated to Earthrid records, another upstart electronic cd-r label, but his Fflinty roots still show, and that Silas sound we love so much is still in full effect. That sound is a delicate shimmer, a blissed out ambience, chillout music for folks who hate chillout music. A warm, languid and luxurious pop ambience, like a Boards Of Canada record stripped of any trace of rhythm, all the beats removed leaving just a soft billowy cloud of sound. Thick washes of slow shifting swirl, beneath all sorts of subtle swoonsome melodies float and hover, spin and shift, like watching oil and water mix, dreamy and drone-y and rife with all manner of muted color. When rhythms do surface, they are mumbled and subtle, more like a soft pulse or a minimal murky throb. But always way down in the mix, beneath an expansive sparkling and twinkling ocean of sound. The record's title Necropolis Line sounds ominous, and the skull locomotive and train wreck imagery on the cd seem to reinforce that vibe, however, this disc really isn't as dark or dreary or ominous or evil as you might expect, instead it's way at the other end of the spectrum, slightly out of focus, fuzzy and rich with subtle melody, sun dappled, lazy and hazy and oh so dreamlike. In the past we've described Cousin Silas as Boards Of Canada or The Orb for the underground set. But this new record is so soft and shimmery and accessible, it might be more accurate to classify this as Fflint for the mainstream set. Either way, one of the dreamiest slabs of latenight / early morning ambience we've heard in ages. So lovely!
MPEG Stream: "Black Wurm"
MPEG Stream: "Entropy"
MPEG Stream: "Cluster 784"

COUSIN SILAS Portraits & Peelings (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
It's been a while, way too long actually. And we were starting to get the shakes, jonesing for some new noise from our pals at Fflint Central. And as if they heard our poor neglected ear drums calling out to them from across the sea, what should show up on our doorstep but a box of the new Fflint release by Cousin Silas! Where as Silas' last release was a demented downtempo masterpiece, a sort of more damaged Boards Of Canada, things on this new one get way more abstract and spaced out, maybe like The Orb for the fucked up, noise rock set. Burbling, acid tinged spacescapes, with sinister gurgles and swooping blooping Hawkwindiness, Goblin-esque doomscapes and chopped up, rhythmic throbs, searing sci-fi synth splatter, and alien, almost house-like four on the floor pulses, creepy Whitehouse-ish free noise and delicate spider webbed melodies all coalesce into a nightmarishly soothing, gorgeously creepy late night chill-out record. All hail Fflint!
MPEG Stream: "Bug Lady"
MPEG Stream: "Olympus Mons"
MPEG Stream: "Rossini Pump Device"

COUSINS OF REGGAE / MOUTHUS Split (Olde English Spelling Bee) lp 16.98
When Allan and Andee were in New York for CMJ they managed to catch Mouthus live (playing with Circle, Khanate and Coptic Light!!) and while the band were loud and the sound was thick and dense, it was hard really to get a feel for what they actually sounded like. Live, in a big room, it could have been ANY band making a huge grating noise. But on vinyl it's a whole different story. This Brooklyn Duo offer up two sidelong tracks of churning, thick and viscous freenoise, that is simultaneously corrosive and strangely soothing, long druggy dreamscapes of guitar grind and rumbling rooooaaaaar. A pretty killer chunk of cosmic free psych sludge for sure.
We had never heard Cousins Of Reggae before and figured with a name like that we were either gonna love them or loathe them. And we were pretty much figuring on loath. But surprise surprise, these Canadian noiseniks just might be our new favorite amongst the noisy elite. A huge swirling stew of abstract guitar noise, pounding percussive stomp, shrieking clouds of feedback, dirgey gut churning basslines, squiggly synths and garbled vocals buried way down in the mix. Hard to believe two guys can whip up such a glorious din. A stumbling and lurching freepsych freakout equal parts the Dead C, Harry Pussy and old Skullflower. Awesome!
Hand painted covers, each one different, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, includes a full color insert.

CRANDELL, RICHARD Mbira Magic (Tzadik) cd 16.98
Our experience with the mbira (the thumb piano) is pretty limited. As much as I'd like to go on and on about the history of the instrument and other essential mbira recordings, I just can't. But what I can tell you, is that this is one of the dreamiest, floatiest, head in the clouds records ever, and has been our main going to sleep record these last few weeks. And 'going to sleep music' is in no way a criticism. In fact, if anything, it's the opposite. I don't care what anyone tells you, few times in one's music listening day are as important or as sacred as the time before you fall asleep, when whatever music you put on soothes you and lulls you to sleep, and obviously some of those sounds you take with you into your dreams. Crandell's mbira is the perfect soundtrack to your dreams, as long as you dream of lush green glades, huge pools of crystal clear water, blue skies and slowly drifting clouds. Mbira Magic, while light and airy and very very dreamy and mellow, remains just on the right side of new age, with sweetly lyrical muted melodies that drift lazily into subtly complex patterns and drift apart into abstract soundscapes of soft plink plonk, rich with reverb and all warm and langorous. So so nice.
MPEG Stream: "Double Dose"
MPEG Stream: "The Island"

CRANDELL, RICHARD Spring Steel (Tzadik) cd 15.98
As much weird, loud, obtuse, and left of the margin music that we love and champion here, we also never shy away from music that we know is undeniably beautiful. Whether it's the majestic West African Kora music of Djibril Diabate and Lanaya or the evocative piano compositions of Lucian Cilio or the sweeping elegance of The Rachels. There is a long list of music that we cherish that manages to be both so beautiful and filled with soul. Richard Crandell deserves a spot right on the top of our all time beautiful music list. Playing the mbira (the thumb piano) to mesmerizing perfection, his last record was one of our favorites of 2004. Three years in the making and Spring Steel is another batch of stellar minimalist compositions that make us melt every time we hear them. There is a tenderness and focus to Crandell's playing that has the ability to make everything else in the world just fade away as you let his soft hypnotic sounds entrance you. Crandell is a rare performer, with such a delicate touch and impeccable taste.
Spring Steel sounds almost like Colleen paying homage to Steve Reich. Methodical and skilled yet so filled with soul and soothing power.
MPEG Stream: "Inner Circle"
MPEG Stream: "Japanese Lullaby"
MPEG Stream: "Spring Steel (A.K.A Ichiro 51)"

CRAWL UNIT Everyone Gets What They Deserve (C.I.P.) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Colley is a self-taught sound artist from Sacramento, where he has slowly been building an extensive (if underappreciated) catalogue of dissonant rumbles and threatening drones out of lo-fi electronics (piezo microphones, malfunctioning speaker cones, buzzing wires). I admit a skepticism about Colley and the industrial bent of his earliest work. Yet, he, more than a lot of California noise artists, has stepped beyond the 'noise for noise' purism for an expressive and at times gentle broad band of electro-acoustic drones that have demonstrated the potential to parallel the awe-inspiring absolute concrete work of Francisco Lopez. "Everybody Gets What They Deserve" is Colley's fifth album which begins with demonstrations of the aforementioned lo-fi electronics and ends with an assortment of Hafler Trio-esque media collage cut ups.

CRAWL UNIT Stop Listening (Ground Fault) cd 11.98
Stop Listening is an older release from Joe Colley who has in the past worked under the grim moniker Crawl Unit and specialised in the internal feedback loop, always showing masterful restraint, in keeping his simple sound generation technique from exploding into Merzbow style purposeful ugliness. Where fellow quiet feedback artist Arcane Device builds complex banks of electronic gear to transform and modulate these tones within controlled parameters, Crawl Unit plays fast and loose with his electronics, often interlocking speaker constructions into said internal feedback loops. The resulting sounds are grainy, lo-tech equivalents to the drone work of Francisco Lopez or John Duncan, and just as effective. Joe has always been consistently good, and this is no exception.
MPEG Stream: "Overload Harmonics"
MPEG Stream: "Study For 3 Speakers"

CRAWL UNIT Trans History - Works 95-99 (Ignis) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Trans History - Works 95-99" is a collection of singles and compilation tracks drawn from Crawl Unit's electroacoustic / noise 'n' drone work. A specialist in internal feedback systems, Crawl Unit sets up lo-tech / post-industrial looping patterns of granular textures and white hot electrical buzz. As all of this work had been commissioned as rather short pieces (a seven inch or a compilation track or shortest of all - Crawl Unit's locked groove from the RRR 500 locked groove compilation), this album holds much more variation than his full albums and also a surprising abundance of field recordings -- mostly amplifications of rain striking metallic objects. Nice.

CRAWLING WITH TARTS I Am Telephoning A Star (ASP) cd 11.98

CREATION IS CRUCIFIXION / UUM Laboratory Series Volume 1 (Hactivist) cd 3.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Split 3" cd-r of two hardcore technical grind outfits in extreme power electronics mode. Uum features Travis Ryan of San Diego's Cattle Decapitation. Three short tracks, one small price...

CREATURE s/t (Basses Frequences) cd-r 12.98

CREEL, WALT Shooting / Loading: An Audio Companion For The Visual Series Deweaponizing The Gun (self-released) lp 15.98
We've carried some strange sounds in our shop. We've listed them in other reviews, but it definitely bears repeating, ice melting, drag racing, life support machines, bats, lots of frogs, insects in stored foodstuffs, EVP voices from beyond the grave, chanting cults, arcade ambience, applause, silence, purring kittens, shortwave broadcasts, the sounds of Symphony intermissions, deer in heat, singing power lines, guitars dragged behind trucks, the aurora borealis, blank tapes, monkeys, crackling fires, the ocean, elephants playing gamelans, vibrating docks and bridges, hollerin' and so much more. The one thing we've yet to carry is the sounds of a gun being fired. Until now.
But this isn't just some random sniper fire, or some yahoos firing their shotguns out in the woods. No these gunshots have a purpose. And that purpose is art. The shooter is a man called Walt Creel, who uses a rifle to perforate big pieces of sheet metal, and in doing so creates huge images from the bullet holes. Cool huh? The works are part of a concept called Deweaponizing The Gun, wherein the gun's destructive power is transformed into the power to create. In conjunction with the visual works, Creel decided to deweaponize the gun in another way, by capturing the sound, one that usually invokes panic and terror and recontextualizing it into something while maybe not musical, something distinctively sonic, and textural, percussive and strange.
And that it is. A one sided 12", featuring recordings of Creel firing his gun into metal, an auditory glimpse into the process of creating his art. Sonically, it's reminiscent of pop guns, or firecrackers, or a screen door slamming, not the huge roar and bang you hear in movies or on TV, instead, the sound is actually slight, tinny, high end, the shots fired create a strange spare soundscape of not quite rhythms, the recording hissy and lo-fi, adding texture and grit, not the easiest listening, but still pretty fascinating, in both concept and execution. Found sound and field recording enthusiasts will definitely dig.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES! Beautiful one sided black and white sleeves, each one hand numbered and signed by the artist, and each with a small cardstock antlered insert.

CRESHEVSKY, NOAH The Tape Music Of... 1971-1992 (EM Records) cd 23.00
Digging ever deeper into the EM back-catalog (just like this wonderful Japanese label digs ever deeper and deeper into the realm of obscure and out-of-print LPs, looking for weird gems like this to reissue), we are so psyched to finally review this disc, devoted to the music of Noah Creshevsky. Like the recently reviewed EM releases by Barton Smith and David Rosenberg, this Creshevsky guy is another eccentric electronic music pioneer -- just look at him on the cover, with his bald head, mustache, and little sweater vest! But appearances aside, the eight tracks of audio found on this cd definitely live up to the EM standard of wonderful weirdness as well. What you've got to know about Creshevsky is that he was totally into the gospel of ol' JC -- no, not Jesus Christ, we're talking about 20th century avant-garde composer John Cage. Chance and randomness! The thick cd booklet (pretty much all in Japanese, but heavily illustrated with pictures and graphics) includes a color photo of Creshevsky hanging out with his hero in 1986, and there's also a track here, 1976's "In Other Words (Portrait Of John Cage)", that consists of nine minutes of quietly ominous electronic drone backing some words from JC. That's probably the "calmest" cut on this disc, though, as the rest are much more in the mode of tape-spliced mayhem. You get a display of musique concrete as chop socky boom-bap on the cut-up, percussive first track, "Strategic Defense Initiative" (which with a title like that you won't be surprised to learn dates from 1986). Puts us in mind of early Boredoms, almost! The next track, "Highway" from 1979, brings in more snippets of speech, a collage of non-sequiturs sampled from TV and records. But track three, 1971's "Circuit", sources its sounds, layered and looped, from the chiming strings of the harpsichord only. It's a mesmerizing, maddening bit of music that verges on suspense movie spookiness (with sudden jarring jumps in volume). Other cuts here include "Drummer" (1985), a choppy battery of drumming, of course, plus ambient street sounds and screwy tape garble; the amusing "Great Performances" (1978), a cartoonish concert of sampled symphonic sounds and more spoken non-sequiturs; "Sonata" (1980) which continues the classical theme but adds drum machine blasts and a dose of Nyquil to the verbal component. And then things wind up with the last and latest piece found here, 1992's "Cantiga", another jagged "classical" piece that sounds like the work of an ADD-afflicted Carl Stalling, that manages to establish a nicely moody effect in the end. Overall, The Tape Music Of Noah Creshevsky is damaged, deranged, and full of a lot of detail to delve into. Today's breed of digital Plunderphonicans perhaps could claim Creshevsky as an ancestor, and certainly the pop-culture element here posits Noah Creshevsky as a precursor to the (pioneering themselves) Tape Beatles, for instance. Neat.
MPEG Stream: "Strategic Defense Initiative"
MPEG Stream: "Circuit"

CRIB Remnant (True Classical / Transparency) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Low-end ambient bassist Devin Sarno is Crib, helped on his new (third, we think) disc "Remnant" by AQ-fave guitarist Nels Cline (who did a pretty great duo album with Sarno a few years back) and other LA avant scenesters. There's three tracks, the first being the airy, prettily droning 20-minute long title track, which mixes in the sounds of seagulls and surf and Jeff Gauthier's violin...very relaxing. Track two, "The Abstract Truth", is similar, with some spacey guitar playing courtesy G.E. Stinson. Track three, "Eve (Part 1)" is a bit different, more ominous and scary and noisier (that's Nels' guitar, eh?).
RealAudio clip: "The Abstract Truth"

CRISPY AMBULANCE The Plateau Phase (LTM Compact Discs) cd 18.98
Thanks to a fateful Joy Division gig, where Crispy Ambulance singer Alan Hempsal successfully and secretly subbed for a missing Ian Curtis, The Ambulance seemed to be cursed with a reputation as pale imitatiors of Joy Division. But while at moments, Crispy Ambulance *are* dead ringers for Joy Division's post-punk pop, they were even more adept at crafting truly creepy gloom and haunting sound sculptures. At their best, they could create unsettling almost sci-fi soundscapes, and at their worst they could hold their own with their early 80's cronies Joy Division, In Camera, Wolfgang Press, etc. Totally excellent.

CRISTAL Re-Ups (Flingco Sound System) lp 23.00
Not sure about you, but Cristal for us conjures up images of MTV Cribs and Jay-Z and 50 Cent partying at some exclusive club, or hot babes in bikinis sipping drinks on a yacht moored right off Miami Beach, but most definitely evoke the dark blackened sonic abyss that is this, the first release from the oddly monickered Cristal, a trio that just so happens to feature one member of long time aQ faves Labradford.
And Labradford is a good jumping off point for Cristal, there's a definitely sonic connection, but where Labradford built on the most minimal of sounds, this trio seems to break the sound down into the smallest possible parts, creating, hyper detailed microscopic droneworlds that virtually REQUIRE headphones.
Lots of blurbs have referenced SUNNO))) but the sound of Cristal is less about power and force, more about texture and timbre, whereas SUNNO))) explode outward, Cristal collapse inward, like that ride at Disneyland, where you travel into the microscope. This is minimal microscopic, but incredibly rich and detailed sound.
Ultra deep ambience, a sound both subterranean and subaquatic, metallic shimmering high end washes over everything like some sort of alien sheen, fields of glistening cricket like chitter adds texture to otherwise slow shifting smooth expanses of warm soft swirl, dreamy and ethereal, fields of high tones surface here and there like a symphony of gently rubbed wine glasses, the only real jarring moment is at the beginning of side 2, the opening track an ear splitting burst of super hot white noise hiss, almost Merzbowian in its intensity, all chaotic and crumbling and buzzy, but the disc quickly returns to it's more tranquil drift for the remainder of side 2, a wash of low end whispers, of textured blurred melodies, sounding quite a bit like some Ligeti choral piece sloooooowed way down. Really quite lovely. Just be prepared for that brief blast, otherwise, a gorgeously deep dark minimal dronescape that will for sure hit the spot for the slow and low obsessed.
LIMITED ONE TIME PRESSING OF 500 COPIES. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Housed in a super swank gatefold sleeve, printed black on black!

CROMAGNON Orgasm (ESP-Disk) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yet another gem we somehow managed to miss, thankfully newly reissued to give us a second chance. (Well, not all of us missed it. Allan had the previously reissued version at one point, and got rid of it somehow. He just wasn't ready for it back then. Now he owns it again!) And a few of our customers have responded with the customary "Oh that record! I love that record. I've had that record for years." So for those of you, like us, managed to somehow miss it, we present to you Cromagnon.
An anomaly, even on the always far out ESP label, Cromagnon was the result of two top 40 songwriters (accustomed to producing bubblegum pop) who seemed to have completely lost their minds. I mean they must have, to produce something as wacked as this record. Austin Grasmere, Brian Elliot, and their mysterious 'Connecticut Tribe' spewed forth 50 minutes of primitive dada-ist folk psych.
Chanting, tribal percussion, short wave radio, maniacal, almost black metal vocals, hysterical laughter, bagpipes all coalesce into something ridiculous and amazing.
Track one "Caledonia" sounds like a strange hybrid of Comus and In Extremo, with bagpipes, jaw harp, crickets, raspy chants and teutonic percussion ("Caledonia" was even covered later by industrialists Test Department). Later on in the record is an alternate version of "Caledonia" from the b-side of the original lp, slowed down to a third of the speed, producing an impenetratable swampy murk. "Ritual Feast of The Libido" features a groaning and moaning vocal over whirring and rumbling machinery. Then comes "Fantasy", where a faux Beach Boys intro almost convinces us that Grasmere and Elliot have returned to their bubblegum roots, that is until it devolves into a messy seven minutes of garbled laughter and clattering percussion. Today this all still seems pretty damn crazy, so back in 1968 when it was recorded it must have really freaked people out, even despite the pervasive drug culture of the time...
So for those of you who aren't already veterans of the Cromagnon experience, and definitely for those of you who were blown away by the Comus, and for everyone who is in need of a new favorite fucked record, this is it. Now a unanimous AQ fave.
MPEG Stream: "Caledonia"
MPEG Stream: "First World Of Bronze"

CROMAGNON Orgasm (Get Back) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Thought we should mention that we have this slab of classic weirdness on vinyl now too... a favorite old ESP release, not a free jazz session but a freaky hippie jam that couldn't be replicated in this day and age. Here's some of what we had to say about one of the previous cd editions (and it is still in stock in that format, btw):
An anomaly, even on the always far out ESP label, Cromagnon was the result of two top 40 songwriters (accustomed to producing bubblegum pop) who seemed to have completely lost their minds. I mean they must have, to produce something as wacked as this record. Austin Grasmere, Brian Elliot, and their mysterious 'Connecticut Tribe' spewed forth 50 minutes of primitive dada-ist folk psych.
Chanting, tribal percussion, short wave radio, maniacal, almost black metal vocals, hysterical laughter, bagpipes all coalesce into something ridiculous and amazing.
Track one "Caledonia" sounds like a strange hybrid of Comus and In Extremo, with bagpipes, jaw harp, crickets, raspy chants and teutonic percussion ("Caledonia" was even covered later by industrialists Test Department). Later on in the record is an alternate version of "Caledonia" from the b-side of the original lp, slowed down to a third of the speed, producing an impenetratable swampy murk. "Ritual Feast of The Libido" features a groaning and moaning vocal over whirring and rumbling machinery. Then comes "Fantasy", where a faux Beach Boys intro almost convinces us that Grasmere and Elliot have returned to their bubblegum roots, that is until it devolves into a messy seven minutes of garbled laughter and clattering percussion. Today this all still seems pretty damn crazy, so back in 1968 when it was recorded it must have really freaked people out, even despite the pervasive drug culture of the time... definitely for those of you who were blown away by the Comus, and for everyone who is in need of a new favorite fucked record, this is it. Now a unanimous AQ fave.
MPEG Stream: "Caledonia"
MPEG Stream: "First World Of Bronze"

CROWN OF AMARANTH, A Love.Lies.Bleeding (Crucial Bliss) cd-r 11.98
Crucial Bliss is an offshoot of the Crucial Blast label, who normally specialize in all things heavy, sludgy, grinding, brutal... well, you get the idea. In the past we've reviewed Crucial Blast titles from Burmese, Genghis Tron, The Goslings, Skullflower and a bunch more. Crucial Bliss focuses on stuff that is more... well, blissful. But not always blissful in the strictest sense. Sure we reviewed Aidan Baker's Periodic a few lists back and that was indeed blissful. But now we've got the latest from Crown Of Amaranth, which while still blissful, is hardly peaceful or dreamy or any of the other descriptors you might associate with bliss.
Amaranth, is a grain, but not just any grain. It was used by the Aztecs, mixed with other ingredients to form edible idols that were consumed before human sacrifices. When the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, they banned the evil grain thinking it would stop the human sacrifice. Quite a lot of historical baggage for a little old grain. But that bloody bit of history is somehow appropriate considering Crown Of Amaranth's sound, a harsh and harrowing, ominous and foreboding set of drones. Miniature epic soundscapes of disembodied guitar fragments set adrift amidst a sea of hissing white noise and muted industrial scrape, fuzzy indistinct broadcasts from the ether, mumbled scratchy abstract missives rendered in crumbling melodies and washes of swirling static, church organs drift and dissipate into haunting junglescapes tangled up with bits of crooned vocals and processed slabs of grinding droning crunch. The last few tracks up the ante aggression-wise, and dip bruised and bloodied toes into a black pool of serious noise, emitting bursts of full on shriek and hiss, but almost always tempered by stretches of dark tranquility and brutal bliss.
SUPER LIMITED. We got these direct from the band. Not sure how long they will last or if we'll ever be able to get more...
MPEG Stream: "The Untapped Resources Of A Dead Planet"
MPEG Stream: "Kefuhachi Tract"
MPEG Stream: "To Be Silent, To Be Sure"

CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE, THE Witnesseth (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From the folks behind Gog and Servile Sect, both big time faves around here, comes another curious bit of abstract heaviness, the curiously monickered Crowned Heads Of Europe. A CRAZY limited lp, only 100 copies, and for a quick idea of what you're in for, have a look at the legend on the back of the sleeve: "dROne. aRT/dOOM. experiMENTAL. sataniC/celestial." Indeed. We're sold already. Helps too that the packaging is pretty elaborate and trippy too, a thick gold metallic fold over sleeve, printed in black ink, the back side is only a half sleeve, revealing the black vinyl lp within, but also revealing a layer of textured prismatic holographic plastic.
So what exactly are The Crowned Heads Of Europe all about. Is it art doom drone satanic celestial experimental? Yeah, pretty much. Deep drones, recorded so hot and in the red, that the sound crumbles, wrapped in hiss and distortion, wreathed in soft edged feedback, the melodies abstract, a reverb drenched chiming blur, that gives way to a thick caustic downtuned crumbling sonic churn, a black ambience equal parts MZ412 and Wolf Eyes, a subtle industrial vibe, and plenty of shimmer surrounding the heavy grinding core. As the record progresses, no matter how heavy and corrosive the sound, it also manages to be weirdly pretty, a little psychedelic too. The record offers up brief squalls of squiggly distorted high end, only to follow with a lurching slow motion bass dirge, trudging through a creepscape rife with ghostly voices and melodies, processed vocals drown beneath slabs of FX drenched crush, super minimal doomic drones a la Trollmann, blossom into shimmery stretches of soft swirl and dreamy ambience, finishing off with a longform blast of crumbling in-the-red dronedirgedoom, the sounds so blown out, the overtones seem to add a whole layer of accidental melody, and the tones beating against one another create strange stuttering rhythms, everything buried beneath layers of filthy distorted murk and buzz, before slipping into something soft and hauntingly pretty, fading out in a blur of minimal cinematic creep.
LIMITED TO 100!!! Each lp comes with a cd-r containing all the music on the record.
MPEG Stream: "Processional (The Four Faces)"
MPEG Stream: "Vena Amoris"
MPEG Stream: "Bluebonnets"

CRYSTAL FIST FEAT. UNIVERSAL INDIANS Live at Liquid Room 2.22.1997 (Zero Gravity) cd 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We love pretty much everything on Japanese label Zero Gravity, including this recent disc. But unlike the abstract electronics found on most Zero Gravity releases, Crystal Fist's album is an electro-acoustic hippie jam that owes more to the No Neck Blues Band, Amon Duul, and the Taj Mahal Travellers than to Ryoji Ikeda. Featuring the stumbling, 'free' drumming of Merzbow's Masami Akita (here leaving his noise persona behind for his first love, psychedelic rock), this single thirty three minute piece is a druggy, spacey, hypnotic masterpiece, that starts as a murky, otherworldly soundscape; all chirping crickets and ambient murmur. The sound is soon bolstered by the drone of Huun Huur Tu -like faux throat singing, whirring feedback, and the hum of rumbling turntables and abused cd players. This pagan ritual reaches a fever pitch as various percussion elements are introduced, and Akita's style of brain-damaged-Jaki Leibezeit drumming builds a rickety framework around the whole ceremony.
What's amazing is that this sounds so much like it was recorded in the seventies....not in 1997. And it most certainly doesn't sound like turntables and cd players, it sounds more like rickety old amps, and bowed metal, and the vocalizations of lysergically enhanced druids. So recommended!
RealAudio clip: "Live At Liquid Room"

CSECTION s/t (Malleable) cd-r 10.98
There are plenty of ways to make noise with a guitar. Lord knows the aQ list is proof of that. Whether it's running a guitar through a computer the spews out soft pixelated hum, or leaning a guitar against an amp and letting huge waves of black buzz pour out, or strapping one to a table and attacking it with all manner of toys and implements resulting in plenty of scrape and scrabble, or just running a guitar through a million effects pedals until what comes out the other side is nothing but streaks and blurs and rumbles and roars and barely retains any guitarness at all.
Then there's whatever the hell Alex Nagle does to his guitar that transforms it into Csection. Nagle's name might be familiar to you as the man behind the genius Flittermice Of Eld, a 'group' who took a handful of notes from a Darkthrone song and turned them into a heaving mass of dark drones and fractured buzz. Csection finds Nagle again doing unspeakable and confusional things to his guitar, and again the results are pretty fantastic.
A single 25 minute track, beginning with some weirdly digitized distortion drenched guitar shredding, that sounds a bit like it's been run through a Commodore 64, sheets of high spread out over all manner of strange crumbling low end, detuned riffage, that high end spiraling into squiggly clusters of rapid fire notes one second, sprawling out into a shimmering stretch of soft noise the next. Over the course of the track, the guitar becomes less and less recognizable, at one point shifting into a gloriously burnished field of high end streaks, all assembled into some strange alien melody, while within, various overtones clash and collide, blend and beat feverishly against one another. Imagine Phil Niblock composing for high end shred guitar, or a droned out more static version of one of Mick Barr's maniacal projects (Orthrelm, Octis, Orcrilim).
There are moments here and there, when the high end drops out, and the sound briefly becoming more of a gnarled angular drift, with Marc Ribot like guitars floating in spaced out fields of reverb, atonal, and haltingly melodic, but those interludes are usually quite fleeting, quickly subsumed by still more squalls of Nagle's frazzled and fucked up digital buzz.
This is a super limited cd-r, we've had them a while, so there's a good chance that when we sell out we won't be able to get more. Packaged in cool hand screened red and silver digipacks...
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"

CUJO Adventures In Foam (Shadow Records) cd 15.98
Third re-issue (first in a jewel case) of this seminal release of Amon Tobin's under the moniker of "Cujo." Very mo-waxy, down-tempo drum and bass with lots of lifted jazz breaks. An excellent album that has aged much finer than most of its contemporaries from 1997.

CUL DE SAC Ecim (Strange Attractors Audio House) cd 14.98
Damn, it's hard to believe this album is fourteen years old! Back in print after many years, Cul De Sac's ambitious debut sounds fresher than ever. One of the first bands to directly reference the rhythmic propulsions of Can, while at the same time expanding their musical arsenal to include surf music, psychedelic post-rock, Mediterranean trance music and folk, Cul De Sac have been faves here forever. Ecim reads like a drug-induced travelogue through non-linear time with each song setting up a unique feel distinct from each other yet oddly connected. Covers of Tim Buckley's "Song of the Siren" and "The Portland Cement Factory, at Monolith, California" by John Fahey (with whom they would subsequently collaborate) provide some familiar ground while at the same time offering something completely unexpected. Recommended! And oh yeah, this remastered reissue's got three previously unreleased bonus tracks from 1991, and brand new liner notes!
MPEG Stream: "Death Kit Train"
MPEG Stream: "Stranger At Coney Island"
MPEG Stream: "Nico's Dream"

CULPER RING 355 (Neurot) cd 14.98
Named, for some reason, after a Revolutionary War spy cell, Culper Ring is an experimental collaborative side project from three Bay Area underground music notables: Steve Von Till of Neurosis/Tribes Of Neurot, Kris Force of Amber Asylum, and Mason Jones of Subarachnoid Space. There's none of Neurosis's crusty metal grind to be found here, so this might appeal more to fans of Subarachnoid's space rock and Amber Asylum's gothic chamber strings, with the spacey folky vibe these three conjure up. Apparently inspired by the likes of Coil, Nurse With Wound and Current 93, Culper Ring utilize violin, effects-laden guitars, haunting female vocals and some electronic noises to generate a soundworld that's melancholic, dark, a bit droney and "psych". It's actually quite pretty and mellow, with eight untitled tracks to wander through your ears. Not bad at all for a project that we suspect got its start just 'cause the principals all happened to share a practice space.
MPEG Stream: "track eight"

CULTURAL AMNESIA Enormous Savages Enlarged (Klanggalerie) cd 21.00
Cultural Amnesia would have certainly disappeared entirely, but one of the band's earliest supporters was an 18 year old kid named Geoff Rushton, who later changed his name to John Balance when he formed Coil in 1983 (the same year that Cultural Amnesia ceased activities). Cultural Amnesia managed three cassettes, some compilation tracks, and a half-finished album during that time period, with one of those cassettes being released through Rushton's Hearsay And Heresy label. In all likelihood, Coil completists had come across these cassettes and brought them to light over two decades later. Vinyl On Demand was responsible for one of the anthologies of Cultural Amnesia material, but the better collection was Enormous Savages first released on vinyl by Anna Logue in 2006. This cd version through Klanggalerie flushes out the comp with five tracks recorded in recent years, now that they've gotten back together.
Had it not been for their early demise, this was a band that could have followed in the footsteps of Throbbing Gristle, Clock DVA, Dome, and Cabaret Voltaire circa 1981, as a blank austerity followed through the eccentric darkness grafted onto post-punk songs bristling with inventive if cheap electronics. Choppy sparkplug guitars influenced by Keith Levene's work on PiL's Metal Box punctuate the synthetic melodies, drum machinations, and motorik electronics. Lyrically, these are abject tales of blood, scars, alienation, and British misery, with some of the lyrics penned by Rushton himself. Those painfully eloquent songs are prescient of what Rushton was to bring to Coil's early work on Scatology, but they serve Cultural Amnesia very well on their own. The band had reformed in 2000, and offered 5 new tracks, which actually seem to pick up right where they left off, moving more towards the Pop Group's muscular grooves and fidgety funk, with the same Spartan tape recording which dominated their early work. A very welcome document from Britain's cassette culture.
MPEG Stream: "Repetition For This World"
MPEG Stream: "Blind Rag"
MPEG Stream: "Fetish For Today"

CULVER Hand Of Ice (Basses Frequences) cd-r 12.98

CULVER Lora Draws Blood (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest blast of abstract sounds from the murky and mysterious musical world of Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, this one from UK dronelord Culver, who tries his hand, according to the blurb on the website, at some atmospheric ambient 'metal', there's even an Abruptum namedrop which obviously sets the bar pretty dang high. It is true, Abruptum, among others, has definitely proven that mood and atmosphere can be just as heavy and grim as riffs and shrieks, although we're not so sure this is -quite- as evil as that Abruptum reference would have led us to believe. That said, this may not be -evil- but it's still incredibly dark and ominous and droney. And that's definitely enough for us. The first track is all acoustic guitar, plucking out a funereal threnody, a creeping mournful melody, droney and dirgey in an atmospherically acoustic way, over the course of 14 minutes the notes buzz a little more and the melody blurs slightly into an even more fuzzy and haunting acoustic dirge. Not heavy perhaps, but really fucking awesome. And subtly scary in its own way. The second track is a keening shimmering buzz, a nine minute exercise in building tension, sounding like some sort of minimalist horror movie music, tense and gorgeously static, while under the surface lurk subtle sonic shits and distant droning rumble. The final track is a 20+ minute whir, warm and thick and layered, like a super super lo-fi SUNNO)), a churning metallic riff, slowed waaaaaaay down and sort of blurred into a swirling sea of black buzz. Super hypnotic and mesmerizingly seasick, a slow neverending ebb and flow of crumbling fuzz drenched drone. The kind of song/sound you wish would play forever. The ultimate minimalist dronemetal trance jam!
SUPER LIMITED! WE GOT ABOUT 30 COPIES, WHEN THOSE ARE GONE THAT'S IT. ALREADY SOLD OUT AT THE LABEL!
MPEG Stream: "Where The Wolfbane Falls"
MPEG Stream: "Something Vulture Lost"

CULVER / SEPPUKU split (At War With False Noise) cd 10.98
First proper cd release from either of these bands. Culver you may know by name, and years of limited cd-r and hard to find vinyl releases, but maybe you don't realize that Culver is in fact Lee Stokoe, who also plays in long time faves Marzuraan, as well as being a member of the most recent version of the mighty Skullflower! Holy shit, that is one serioius noise rock underground cred resume if we've ever seen one.
We listed a Culver cd-r years ago, on the now defunct Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label (we actually have 3 or 4 left, if you're interested, just ask!), but haven't really managed to get anything else in since, at least until now. For his half of the split, Stokoe offers up a 31 minute, crushing, ultra heavy, super dense DRONE, corrosive and crunchy, crumbling and bristling with energy, thick slabs of teutonic low end suspended in a field of sonic tar, it almost sounds like black metal riffs blurred into thick streaks of sound, a near static crush, that seems to heave as if at any minute the whole thing could just crumble to pieces. About halfway through the sharp edges beging to wear away, the sound growing smoother, cleaner, yet somehow ever more harrowing and ominous. The track finishing off with a long stretch of near black shimmer, all smeared and woven into ropy tendrils of rumble and hum.
Seppuku counter with something much heavier, and way more metallic, their first joint, begins with a squall of electronics, some looped industrial thrum, soon gives way to a thick cloud of swirling glitch and buzz and hum, eventually dissipating leaving some seriously glacial ultradoom, left to lumber and lurch and pound its way through nearly ten minutes of amp shredding ear drum destroying glacial crawl, monstrous vocals, caveman drums, and all sorts of strange effects and electronics swirling and whirling... So slooooow and so so heavy.
The second Seppuku jam is much more of a power electronics sort of thing, tons of crumbling distortion, heavily processed vocals, all of staitc guitar buzz, loads of feedback, the sound growing ever blacker and more frantic, a grim industrial noisescape that seems to occasionally explode into flurries of murky blown out grind, before splintering back into caustic free noise. Phew.
Some serious heaviness, and some equally serious noise. In some very saucy packaging. Very little in the way of liner notes, but page after page after page, of scantily clad and mostly bare breasted euro babes!
MPEG Stream: CULVER "Traces Of The Woman By The Lake"
MPEG Stream: SEPPUKU "Inga"

CULVER-COURTIS Culver-Courtis (Riot Season) lp 17.98
Super limited lp from Anla Courtis, of AQ faves Reynols, teamed up here with UK noisemaker Culver, for a disc of surprisingly serene shimmer, all rumblig shifting sonic swells and gently dulcet drones, drifitng and hazy and gorgeously indistinct. Four tracks, almost an hour of sweet sweet bliss out. This is a reissue of a very limited and long out of print self-released cassette!
MPEG Stream: "Aurraei Ravena Part One"

CURIA s/t (Fire Museum) cd 13.98

CURRAN, ALVIN Canti Illuminati (Fringes Archive) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

CURRENT 93 A Little Menstrual Night Music (United Durtro / Anomalous) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"A Little Menstrual Night Music" is a remix of Current 93's "In Menstrual Night," a record that has long been thought of as the most oblique of Current 93's pre-folk recordings, dominated by liturgical choral loops and clunking rhythmic couplings of piano and drums. The original album was produced back in 1986, as an exploration of the question of where dreams go when they die; yet this remix, produced by Steven Stapleton and Colin Potter for Current 93's recent San Francisco performances, emphasize the dreaminess of the recordings, having filtered out most of the percussive aspects and allowing only a few vocal snippets from Ruby Wallis and Rose McDowell to emerge from the thick cloud of reverb that swallowed the original. And, the usually omnipresent voice of C93's David Tibet is surprisingly absent in this fantastic piece of sonic hypnogogia.
MPEG Stream: "A Little Menstrual Night Music (1)"

CURRENT 93 Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain (Coptic Cat) cd 14.98
It's always a challenge to delve into the polyglot mythologies of David Tibet, as the visions in his lyrics reference a host of esoteric subjects: the gnostic Christian texts of the early 2nd Century, Thelemic citations from Aleister Crowley, snippets of Coptic, and plenty of Tibet's feverish dislocations of images delivered in stream of consciousness. The central protagonist here is Aleph, a character with a slippery persona, one that may be acting before God set the universe in order, one that may be acting as a dopplerganger to Adam, one that may be the murderous precursor of Cain, one that may spell out an alternate origin of Lucifer, or one that is unique to Current 93. To avid Current 93 fans, these mysteries and contradictions are commonplace; but the biggest shift for Current 93 is in the musical arrangements. Gone are the fairy-dusted madrigals for just piano, 12-string guitar, and violin. Tibet has now grasped onto a blistering, occasionally sprawling psychedelia centered upon heavy, proto-metal riffs. Amon Duul's Yeti, the psychedelic moments of Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, and certainly early Alice Cooper all factor into Current 93's arrangements. Given the '70s laden heaviness of this album, it's a little hard to believe that Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep) who had previously collaborated with Tibet isn't present. Instead, Tibet has brought on board Alex Neilson, Andrew WK, Keith Wood, Matt Sweeney, Rickey Lee Jones, James Blackshaw, porn-star Sasha Gray, and a host of others. Once again, Steven Stapleton is at the helm of the production with Andrew Liles adding his deft hand in the mix as well. Alex Neilson's presence on drums is of particular note, as his heavy-handed fills and lumbering gate does away with the taut precision which gave some Current 93 albums an anal retentive quality. Neilson in conjunction with the army of guitarists churning through these heavy, psychedelic riffs makes this album as good as it is.
MPEG Stream: "Invocation Of Almost"
MPEG Stream: "On Docetic Mountain"
MPEG Stream: "Not Because The Fox Barks"

CURRENT 93 Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain (Coptic Cat) 2lp 22.00
NOW ON VINYL!!! It's always a challenge to delve into the polyglot mythologies of David Tibet, as the visions in his lyrics reference a host of esoteric subjects: the gnostic Christian texts of the early 2nd Century, Thelemic citations from Aleister Crowley, snippets of Coptic, and plenty of Tibet's feverish dislocations of images delivered in stream of consciousness. The central protagonist here is Aleph, a character with a slippery persona, one that may be acting before God set the universe in order, one that may be acting as a dopplerganger to Adam, one that may be the murderous precursor of Cain, one that may spell out an alternate origin of Lucifer, or one that is unique to Current 93. To avid Current 93 fans, these mysteries and contradictions are commonplace; but the biggest shift for Current 93 is in the musical arrangements. Gone are the fairy-dusted madrigals for just piano, 12-string guitar, and violin. Tibet has now grasped onto a blistering, occasionally sprawling psychedelia centered upon heavy, proto-metal riffs. Amon Duul's Yeti, the psychedelic moments of Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, and certainly early Alice Cooper all factor into Current 93's arrangements. Given the '70s laden heaviness of this album, it's a little hard to believe that Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep) who had previously collaborated with Tibet isn't present. Instead, Tibet has brought on board Alex Neilson, Andrew WK, Keith Wood, Matt Sweeney, Rickey Lee Jones, James Blackshaw, porn-star Sasha Gray, and a host of others. Once again, Steven Stapleton is at the helm of the production with Andrew Liles adding his deft hand in the mix as well. Alex Neilson's presence on drums is of particular note, as his heavy-handed fills and lumbering gate does away with the taut precision which gave some Current 93 albums an anal retentive quality. Neilson in conjunction with the army of guitarists churning through these heavy, psychedelic riffs makes this album as good as it is.
MPEG Stream: "Invocation Of Almost"
MPEG Stream: "On Docetic Mountain"
MPEG Stream: "Not Because The Fox Barks"

CURRENT 93 Black Ships Ate The Sky (Durtro / Jnana) cd 14.98
Current 93's David Tibgris gris
et is an apocalyptic poet in the truest definition, as his work hinges upon his obsessive desire to transcribe and translate the revelations, visions, nightmares, and dreams that have come to him over the past two decades. The apocalyptic genres of art have come to define the possibilities of how the world as we know it might come to an end (e.g. astrophysical disasters, nuclear war, zombies, fire-ants, etc.); however, in the earliest manifestations of apocalyptic art, it was simply the chronicling of revelations given from the heavens to man below. Throughout his numerous recordings in Current 93, Tibet has embodied the whole apocalyptic tradition, all the while strengthening his admittedly heretical belief in a Patripassianist Christ, who suffers beyond the crucifixion of Jesus throughout the aeons until his second coming (NB. this is but a brief synopsis of Tibet's complicated, Gnostic, and poetic theology).
Black Ships Ate The Sky has been in the works for almost four years, with Tibet's great friend and long-time collaborator Steven Stapleton proclaiming this to be a fantastic recording. Lo and behold, Black Ships Ate The Sky *is* a magnificent album, returning to the somber acid folk stylings haunted by the shadows and smoke last heard on the earlier masterpieces Thunder Perfect Mind and Earth Covers Earth. As on all of the Current 93 albums, Tibet surrounds himself with an impressive battery of musicians that reads like a who's who of alt-folk-avant-rock greats: Will Oldham, Ben Chasny, Antony (as in .. And The Johnsons), Shirley Collins, Cosey Fanni Tutti, William Basinski, Al Cisneros (from Om), and the aforementioned Steven Stapleton. Black Ships Ate The Sky is thematically based upon Tibet's vision aptly described in the title as it relates to a Christian hymn by Charles Wesley called "Idumae" which repeats itself seven times (eight if you count "Black Ships Were Sinking Into Idumae" sung by Cosey Fanni Tutti), as sung by Tibet's numerous guest vocalists. As strong as many of the versions of "Idumae" are, Tibet and his peculiar voice are central to Black Ships. He's impassioned throughout, occasionally possessed with an infernal rage as on the second version of the title track, and elsewhere adopting a gentle delicacy. The music swirls around simple guitar arrangements, laced with Chasny's acidic guitar leads and Stapleton's sidereal productions... and it's stunningly good together. Time will tell if this will be the greatest Current 93 record Tibet has produced (as many have already claimed); but it's clearly in the running.
MPEG Stream: "This Autistic Imperium Is Nihil Reich"
MPEG Stream: "Black Ships Ate The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Idumae (featuring Shirley Collins)"

CURRENT 93 Black Ships Ate The Sky (Durtro / Jnana) 2lp 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl!!
Current 93's David Tibet is an apocalyptic poet in the truest definition, as his work hinges upon his obsessive desire to transcribe and translate the revelations, visions, nightmares, and dreams that have come to him over the past two decades. The apocalyptic genres of art have come to define the possibilities of how the world as we know it might come to an end (e.g. astrophysical disasters, nuclear war, zombies, fire-ants, etc.); however, in the earliest manifestations of apocalyptic art, it was simply the chronicling of revelations given from the heavens to man below. Throughout his numerous recordings in Current 93, Tibet has embodied the whole apocalyptic tradition, all the while strengthening his admittedly heretical belief in a Patripassianist Christ, who suffers beyond the crucifixion of Jesus throughout the aeons until his second coming (NB. this is but a brief synopsis of Tibet's complicated, Gnostic, and poetic theology).
Black Ships Ate The Sky has been in the works for almost four years, with Tibet's great friend and longtime collaborator Steven Stapleton proclaiming this to be a fantastic recording. Lo and behold, Black Ships Ate The Sky *is* a magnificent album, returning to the somber acid folk stylings haunted by the shadows and smoke last heard on the earlier masterpieces Thunder Perfect Mind and Earth Covers Earth. As on all of the Current 93 albums, Tibet surrounds himself with an impressive battery of musicians that reads like a who's who of alt-folk-avant-rock greats: Will Oldham, Ben Chasny, Antony (as in .. And The Johnsons), Shirley Collins, Cosey Fanni Tutti, William Basinski, Al Cisneros (from Om), and the aforementioned Steven Stapleton. Black Ships Ate The Sky is thematically based upon Tibet's vision aptly described in the title as it relates to a Christian hymn by Charles Wesley called "Idumae" which repeats itself seven times (eight if you count "Black Ships Were Sinking Into Idumae" sung by Cosey Fanni Tutti), as sung by Tibet's numerous guest vocalists. As strong as many of the versions of "Idumae" are, Tibet and his peculiar voice are central to Black Ships. He's impassioned throughout, occasionally possessed with an infernal rage as on the second version of the title track, and elsewhere adopting a gentle delicacy. The music swirls around simple guitar arrangements, laced with Chasny's acidic guitar leads and Stapleton's sidereal productions... and it's stunningly good together. Time will tell if this will be the greatest Current 93 record Tibet has produced (as many have already claimed); but it's clearly in the running.
MPEG Stream: "This Autistic Imperium Is Nihil Reich"
MPEG Stream: "Black Ships Ate The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Idumae (featuring Shirley Collins)"

CURRENT 93 Black Ships Heat The Dancefloor (Durtro) cd + dvd 13.98
Dance mixes of Current 93? Really? Yup, this is a dual disc CD/DVD combo with remixes of the Current 93 epic Black Ships Ate The Sky. JG Thirlwell (aka Foetus) offers up two industrial strength remixes, which are pretty much identical in terms of sound although one is a couple of minutes longer. The hammering drum machines and dense electronic overdrive recall the Al Jourgensen / Paul Barker productions of the Wax Trax! sound, with David Tibet ominously reciting the title of that aforementioned album. Matmos delivers a remix of that same track giving it a slippery funk that David Tibet's voice has never experienced before. The Matmos duo also rework Antony's contribution to that very same album. The DVD features two videos produced by Cam Archer.
MPEG Stream: "Black Ships Ate The Sky II (remixed by JG Thirlwell)"
MPEG Stream: "Black Ships Ate The Sky (remixed by Matmos)"

CURRENT 93 Courtyard / Jerusalem (Durtro / Jnana) cd ep 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two songs from Current 93, and both are covers of Simon Finn songs, neither of which are as good as the epic acid folk originals but maybe still worth checking out for C93 fans!
MPEG Stream: "The Courtyard"

CURRENT 93 Dawn (World Serpent) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The exact history behind this record is vague as no one from the recording sessions can remember when it was recorded more specifically than sometime between 1985 and 1986, placing "Dawn" nebulously as the fourth, fifth, or sixth album from Current 93. Yet, one thing remains very clear about this album, "Dawn" was the final Current 93 document that featured David Tibet's blood curdling sermons of nightmarish imagery, fronting the C93's gnarled collages of noise, tape loops, and studio effects. After this album, Current 93 pursued and refined the style that they are known for now: "menstrual minstrals and apocalyptic folk songs," where the history of UK folk was infused with pantheistic mythologies, that expanded beyond the apocalyptic prophecies of Current 93's early work. David Tibet has previously scoffed at "Dawn" because of the relative ease at which he, Steven Stapleton, and company produced this record, through the use of looping collages. While such a dismissal indicates Tibet's belief that Current 93 would be best as a UK folk vehicle, it doesn't acknowledge how powerful Current 93 had become in using this medium to convey Tibet's drug addled visions of the apocalypse. Almost all of the images of "Dawn" are recontextualizations of Catholic imagery or inverted bastardizations of Catholicism. Snippets of liturgical chants, medieval vocal chorales, and rounds of carillon bells phase in and out of loops from Aleister Crowley incantations, funeral dirges, and the ubiquitous voice of Tibet, whose snarling voice has been processed into wraith like slashes of malevolent noise. The opening track "Great Black Time" -- which appears in two slightly different versions on this CD reissue -- also features the odd intrusion of "California Dreaming" amidst crashing waves of church bells.
The recently reissued "Dawn" is certainly not as stong as Current 93's early masterpieces "Dogs Blood Rising" and "Nature Unveiled," yet it remains an solid document of post-industrial / nightmare culture from the early to mid '80s.
RealAudio clip: "Great Black Time (version 1)"
RealAudio clip: "Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus"

CURRENT 93 Dogs Blood Rising (Durtro) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Dogs Blood Rising" marks the pinnacle of the earliest Current 93 sound, before the band changed its sound to the recent 'apocalyptic folk and menstrual minstrals.' Current 93's ringleader David Tibet has orchestrated a horrific collage of looping Crowleyian chants, slashing noises, and deep reverberating low end rumbles. On top of these dark hallucinatory recordings, he and a number of vocalists (including Steve Ignorant from Crass and John Balance from Coil) recite nightmarish epistles proclaiming the apocalypse is upon us. The fifth track is a strange foreshadowing to the later folk sound of Current 93, as Tibet weaves an acapella chorus of "Scarborough Fair" as sung by Nick Rogers and evil recitation of "Sounds of Silence" from Tibet who affects his most gravel throated voice. Covering Simon & Garfunkel may not seem very evil, but Current 93 had a way (at least during this album) to make folk music very threatening.

CURRENT 93 Dogs Blood Rising (Durtro / Jnana) lp 22.00
"In a foreign town, in a foreign land, reaping time has come." Thus spake David Tibet on the 2nd album from his heretically-minded project Current 93. Those words became commonplace within the Current 93 pantheon of poetic allusions toward Tibet's horrifying visions of the end of the world. While his tireless research and spiritual development has found Tibet nowadays with a self-constructed theology that includes elements of Christian doctrine, Coptic Gnosticism, Crowley's magick, Buddhist transcendentalism, and far more esoteric subjects, the apocalyptic visions for Tibet in 1985 were centered firmly between dual, conflicting personalities: Christ and Crowley. These two play out in the Current 93 drama built not upon the taut acoustic folk as found on Tibet's more well known constructions, but through a darkly hallucinatory collage of monastic chanting looped against thudding percussive blows that are less structural and more of a protracted stomp of corporeal punishment. Tibet has always relied upon musical accompaniments for his visionary work, and Dogs Blood Rising is no different as Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound deftly shapes the slashing feedback and growling utterances into a hellish orchestration for Tibet's bellowing not only for the Antichrist but also for the weeping Christ who suffers till the end of time in his own theological reasoning. As commonplace as Tibet's voice is on all of the Current 93 albums, he has recruited a number of guest vocalists, including Steve Ignorant of Crass and Diana Rogerson, serving to de-center the album further. The five disquieting collages of Dogs Blood Rising are totally the stuff of nightmares, long standing as one of the pinnacles of industrial culture. Now back in print on vinyl with reproductions of the original fliers from the first edition of the album, but probably not for long!
MPEG Stream: "Falling Back In Fields Of Rape"

CURRENT 93 Earth Covers Earth (Free Porcupine Society) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Run by the former Deerhoof bassist Rob Fisk, the Free Porcupine Society has specialized in packaging all of their releases in msyterious paper sleeves that he's hand decorated with random paint streaks splattered across silkscreened illustrations of clunky anthropomorphic figures. Musically, the label defines their releases as "no wave hermit folk" and "eco-terrorist hobbit rock," with releases by Tom Carter, Scorces, Xiu Xiu, Badgerlore, and others. So at least when it comes to the music, a reissue of the pagan-folk classic Earth Covers Earth by Current 93 is a logical one. But when it comes to the meticulously construsted imagery of Current 93, the craft-cornered artwork of the Free Porcupine Society is a slightly mismatched pairing. That said, Fisk has certainly adjusted the idosyncratic design style of the FPS in repackaging the original artwork -- with its homage to the Incredible String Band as the cover photo and a plethora of drawings from Current 93's David Tibet. And considering that this is the first time that Earth Covers Earth has been in print for many years, vinyl or otherwise; this is a very welcome reissue.
Originally released in 1988, Earth Covers Earth was the second album in which Tibet ventured down the path of "apocalyptic folk", after numerous records of frightening hallucinations and occultish chants. Languid and mournful, Earth Covers Earth taps into the eccentricities and shadows that haunt the traditions of British folk music, best typified in the work of Shirley Collins and the soundtrack to the Wicker Man. Tibet's own fascination with Christian Gnosticism (at the time, a fascination just in its infancy) and his ability to surround himself with very talented musicians provided an exceptional framework for this Earth Covers Earth, which ranks as one of the most well developed albums of Current 93's death-folk facade. Tony Wakeford (Sol Invictus) and Douglas P (Death In June) provided the melancholic acoustic guitar strum, while Rose MacDowell occasionally delivers her creepy sing-song vocals alongside the ubiqitous Tibet waxing poetic about the existential collapse around him. There are reasons why Current 93 has such an iconic status, and Earth Covers Earth is one of them.

CURRENT 93 Faust (World Serpent) cd 19.98
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With their two recent collaborations with horror novelist Thomas Ligotti, Current 93 has made a few detours from their magickal folk music to get back to the style of apocalyptic collage which marked their first and best records. "Faust" is another return to those terror-filled dadaist sonic assemblages, and like those Ligotti-inspired recordings, it is based on a literary text. This interpretation of "Faust" was written by the decadent Count Eric Stenbock at the end of the 19th Century. In working with texts other than his own, Current 93's ringleader David Tibet tends to keep his voice and ego out of the process. Rather, Tibet & Stapleton have collaborated to build mostly instrumental creepy hypnotic drones. "Faust" is 35 minute piece composed of the constant chatter of voices muttering, chanting, and whispering with a lulling rhythmic plod of heavy chimes. It is as if one is eavesdropping on some Crowleian incantation. Evil stuff.

CURRENT 93 Halo (Durtro Records) cd 21.00
Live in London, October 2003.

CURRENT 93 How He Loved The Moon (Moonsongs For Jhonn Balance) (Beta-Lactam Ring) 2lp 40.00
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How He Loved The Moon is Current 93's tribute to the late Jhonn Balance of Coil who died in December of 2004. Balance and Current 93's David Tibet had been longtime friends, dating back to their time in the revolving door membership of Psychic TV back in the early '80s. Despite the elegaic poem that Tibet inscribed as liner notes, Tibet has stepped back into the shadows of this album, giving the helm to longtime collaborator Steven Stapleton who was given the task of reworking the early Current 93 album In Menstrual Night in honor of Balance. Given that In Menstrual Night was an exploration into the question as to where dreams go when they die, it's a fitting source material; although it has to be asked why the need to remix the album twice, as Stapleton has already remixed In Menstrual Night back in 2003 for A Little Menstrual Night Music. Anyway, the densely reverberated vocalizations, cloudy drones, and blunt post-Faust percussion from the original remain, smeared across 2LPs.

CURRENT 93 How I Devoured Apocalypse Balloon (Durtro Jhana) 2cd 17.98
Over the past decade or so, Current 93 has steadily simplified their arrangements, moving from an impassioned psychedelic death-folk to a delicately scored sound for piano, guitar, violin, and the occasional tape loop. This transition obviously has focused the attention of Current 93 upon David Tibet, his voice, and his lyrics which become even more pronounced during their live performances. How I Devoured Apocalypse Balloon is a double disc set of the two Toronto performances that Current 93 delivered in June 2004, and showcase the radical simplicity of Current 93's music set against the complexities of Tibet's mythological revelations. For these performances, Tibet brought on board Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance) and Simon Finn along with Michael Cashmore, John Contreras, and Graham Jeffery. Many of the tracks from these two sets return to earlier work by Current 93, with a number of tracks from Earth Covers Earth and Thunder Perfect Mind, as well as revisitation of "Falling Back in Fields of Rape," which David Tibet wrote for both Current 93 and Death In June back in the mid-'80s. Unfortunately, there's no tracklisting for these two performances, although if you need to know a quick Google search will solve this dilemna. Regardless, these live performances are immaculated played, very well recorded, and certainly reflect the overall aesthetic of Current 93, making this a worthwhile document for all C93 fans.
MPEG Stream: "They Returned To Their Earth (June 19, 2004)"
MPEG Stream: "This Shining Shining World (June 19, 2004)"
MPEG Stream: "Earth Cover Earth (June 18, 2004)"