CYCLO Id (Raster-Noton) cd 17.98
The return of this minimal bleep-glitch super group, or maybe super duo would be more accurate. Cyclo is Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto), and for their second record, they've upped the ante conceptually, as the project was already focused on the visualization of sound, on Id, this is taken to its logical extreme, where the duo focused on the actual images of the sound, using stereo image monitoring equipment, and these pieces are the results of creating sounds, by manipulating their visual components, there is a forthcoming book of the images, but THIS is what those images SOUND LIKE. It's pretty awesome. We're fascinated by wave forms as well and had actually often wondered about reverse engineering sound, but these two have done it, and the results are pretty amazing. And as always, not that far removed from the Raster-Noton aesthetic, extreme lows, impossible highs, sine wave tones, rumbles so low you can almost feel them more than hear them, skittery glitches, and abstract squelches, rhythmic, but not seemingly purposefully so, just a result of crafting particular sonic shapes. Headphones are definitely required, but be careful, even at low volume, some of these sounds seem to bore right into your skull, especially the low tones, the opening few seconds is a field of static and barely there dog whistle tones, but when the bass comes in, it rattles your brain, and might hurt your ears if you have it cranked. We couldn't help but imagine blasting this in a lowrider with a massive booming system, it would probably level everything for blocks.
Minimal, austere, haunting, clinical, weirdly lovely, some of the tracks crafted into actual grooves, but strangely alien robotic hyperminimal clean-room click-buzz grooves, some of the sounds super thick and buzzy, these guys could definitely give Justice and Daft Punk some pointers, in fact, a few of these tracks are ready to be sampled, and transformed into dancefloor destroyers.
As always fantastic stuff, and simultaneously the most groovy, and most sonically extreme sounds we've heard from these two, and we're digging it like crazy.
MPEG Stream: "ID#00"
MPEG Stream: "ID#01"
MPEG Stream: "ID#02"

CYCLOBE Wounded Galaxies Tap At The Window (Phantom Code) cd 21.00

CZUKAY, HOLGER La Luna (Tone Casualties) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Holger Czukay (ex-Can, y'know) starts out "La Luna" on the right foot with Zoviet France-like dark ambient electronic loops, but to my ears missteps with the inclusion of new ageist female vocal incantations (from his wife, U-She) intended to draw from the power of the universe. Those who liked the long, ambient track at the end of his last solo album should check this out, however. And it's not deliberately wacky like some of his earlier solo work.

D!O!D!O!D! Ghost Temple (PSF) cd 17.98
The latest from Tokyo's PSF label isn't one of their usual offerings of free jazz, outsider improv folk, or garage psych... it's not even "Japanese noise". It's actually Chinese noise. Not that that sounds much different from the Japanese variety! The oddly named D!O!D!O!D! are a raucous n' rowdy guitar and drums duo hailing from Hangzhou, China. Guitarist Li-Jianhong and drummer Huang Jin lay it on thick here, freaking out with the best of 'em. Crashing, clattering drum battery versus scrabbling, feedback guitar overload. Non-stop madness. If loud n' noisy improv is your thing, if you dig Hijokaidan and Ascension and Rudolph Grey and Harry Pussy and suchlike skronk and skree, you'll be happy PSF hooked up with these two frenzied Chinese noisniks to bring you this disc. Includes liner notes in English translation.
MPEG Stream: " UnUnn?"
MPEG Stream: "Meen_Mo"

D'ANGELO, ANDREW & JAIME FENNELLY Duets: Terpsichorea #2 (Falcta-Galia / Transparency) cd 14.98
An improv duo from Brooklyn, New York. D'Angelo (who has several solo recordings to his credit) plays alto sax and bass clarinet, whilst Fennelly plays double-bass. But both guys also manipulate their acoustic sounds electronically. Doubtless they could stir up quite a racket with their instruments alone, but the PowerBook & electronic effects processing adds even more texture (spacey, rumbling) to their scraping, squealing interplay of horn and bass. We wouldn't try to sell this to anyone not already into the whole avant-skronk free jazz thing, but if that's your bag, give these guys a listen.
RealAudio clip: "Is #8"
RealAudio clip: "Improvisation #1"

D'EON Lp (Hippos In Tanks) 2lp 24.00

D. W. HOLIDAY Technical Difficulties, Under The Influence... (Three Ring) cd 8.98
An impressive third album! The trio known as D. W. Holiday (yes, they're a band not an individual!) have been around since 1992. For well over a dozen years, they've been crafting their particular brew of darkly brooding spacey rock. Brings to mind a cross between the Flaming Lips, Pink Floyd and maybe Animal Collective too. A novel side note: there will soon (if not already) be two versions of this band -- one here in SF (the local roster currently includes former members of two other Bay Area bands, ex-Slow Poisoners drummer Chris and Ex-Bother bassist/guitarist Djuna) and one in Minneapolis -- with different lineups playing the same set of songs and everything. The reason? Band member Craig recently moved east, and simply didn't want to sever his longstanding musical ties.


MPEG Stream: "No Diving"
MPEG Stream: "TDUTI"

D.A. Odeon (Olde English Spelling Bee) lp 22.00
Of all the dark, drone-y, druggy synthiness that's been popping up lately (and believe us, it's a LOT), this lp from mysterious Los Angeles duo D.A. is most definitely our favorite. A heady collection of dark and dreary, lush and spaced out sci-fi synth creep that tapes into classic Goblin soundtrack music, the best John Carpenter scores, and mixes in plenty of modern lysergic lo-fi experimentation, conjuring up some of the most tense and dramatic and hypnotic sounds we've heard in ages.
Like some strange mix of Zombi and Expo '70, but with a hint of new age-y drift that makes these songs sound like they could only be the music from some lost eighties film, only the visuals could never hope to match this haunting otherworldly music.
Looped synths are looped into slow shifting swells, pulsing over a bed of softly swirling minor key tension, alien tones, blurred buzz and dense shimmery drones, shot through with moody melodies, laced with super spare abstract percussion and everything wrapped in a gauzy warmth, total kraut drone new age soundtrack bliss.
The second side changes gear toward the end, evolving into a sound akin to Godspeed meets Zombi meets SUNNO))), a thick thick buzz wrapped around twisted looped melodies and all sorts of simulated haunted forest sound effects, growing ever more harrowing, ominous and dramatic, and surprisingly, yet subtly heavy.
The flipside is much more minimal and abstract than the A side, but no less intense and mysterious. Reverbed piano is sent drifting into blackness, tons and tons of space, softly wheezing organs, deep muted tones, that distinctly eighties sounding bass pulse, long thick swirls of softly distorted synth buzz, tinkling high end tones, all of that gives way to another thick, and surprisingly heavy space synth drone, a starlit slow motion swirl, abstract, super space-y, dark and emotional, tense and INtense, it still boggles the mind that filmmakers aren't constantly on the lookout for groups like this, whose cinematic soundtrack ambience is way more compelling and original and ruling than 90 percent of the music that actually ends up in movies. But who needs the movies, best to just throw this on, close your eyes, and let these sounds ooze into your consciousness, creating a fantastical and unreal world all for you, populated with far out sights, worthy of these far out sounds.
Incredible hand silk screened, ultra thick card stock sleeves, LIMITED TO 400 COPIES, each one hand numbered.

DACM Showroom Dummies (Mego) cd 16.98
"Showroom Dummies" is the latest performance piece developed by the Grenoble, France dance company Groupe DACM. The acclaimed organization is known for its maverick and unorthodox approach in their use of new media and radical experimentation. Don't know too much about the full story behind "Showroom Dummies", the images accompanying the Mego packaging bring to mind a macabre Vanessa Beecroft performance. In conceptual essence, it places characters -- based on icons of fiction Wanda Von Sacher-Masoch and Yvonne, Princess Of Burgundy -- in situations of submission and resistance, studying the fine line between desire and disgust. In their attempt to complement the confrontational nature within these themes of repulsion and erotism, Groupe DACM had employed the notoriously abrasive (and confrontational in his own right!) Peter Rehberg aka Pita. Unlike the full on scathing aural tornado prevalent in his solo recordings and with Ramon Bauer, Rehberg splices snippets of his aural shrapnel into rhythmic repetitive patterns of subtlety. Perhaps the involvement of Japanese musician Noriko Tujiko in early constructions of the pieces could explain the reserved intensity. However, this release does not credit her for any part of the production, though she is given an acknowledgement of gratitude. Having said that, Rehberg is still extremely effective in his own attempt to exploit the dichotomy of harshness within a docile and inviting arrangement, the pieces here subversively insert a sense of intemperance in a "safe" habitat. Somewhat suspicious of his intent in creating linear cosmopolitan "dance music" under the guise of performance art, some of these pieces could very well be mistaken for fluid dancefloor rhythm tracks, aesthetically resembling a chance meeting between Pan Sonic and Merzbow (like that hasn't happened before). At least one track is an obviously deconstructed trance techno track, pummeled out of its own melody into another dimension. Ultimately, Rehberg regurgitates these consummations into his own beast child. Frigid and austere, yet wholly engaging and seemingly harmless on its surface, "Showroom Dummies" lures you into its web only to chew you up and spit you back out. Lovely.
RealAudio clip: "04"
RealAudio clip: "07"
RealAudio clip: "09"
RealAudio clip: "11"

DADA LIVES s/t (Nil) 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.
For years, Darren Tate has made his way into Colin Potter's studio for help in reconstructing field recordings and improvised events for both the dronological investigations of Ora and Monos. Rarely would you find in those recordings much indication that Potter has amassed a huge battery of analogue synths, effects, and filters. This is the first document for the Potter / Tate project Dada Lives which focuses upon that collection of gear. The instrumentation has changed from manipulated field recordings to analogue synths, but the compositional tactics of slow hypnotic drones remains. Plastic bleeps fire through slow proccessions of aerated electronic sweeps, sounding a lot like the '70s era Conrad Schnitzler recordings. Limited to a whopping 50 copies.
RealAudio clip: "Untitled"

DAEDELUS Her's Is > [sic] (Phthalo) cd 12.98
L.A. native Alfred Weisberg-Roberts is Daedelus, and he apparently wasn't as sure about the success of this project as was Dimitri from the Phthalo label, who claims he had to pry this out of Weisberg-Roberts fingers in order to release it. "Her's Is> [sic]" is a dark electronic narrative riddled with strange answering machine recordings from a dosed-up raver girl who thinks she's a poet. Rapid rhythmic cuts and muddled electronic calliope melodies mutate into the harsh, almost industrial aesthetic of the early Rephlex catalogue. For an electronic record, this has the uncanny lo-fi feel, as if this album's originated on a 4-track rather than a computer. Odd to say the least. We haven't yet decided who (Alfred or Dimitri?) was right about the merits of this recording...

DAFELDECKER / KURZMANN / FENNESZ / O'ROURKE / DRUMM / SIEWERT (Charhizma ) cd 16.98
The improv electronics / laptops / horns trio of Christian Fennesz, Werner Dafeldecker, and Chistof Kurzmann has been joined by stalwarts Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm, and Martin Siewert. While this is not as annoying as it could be (something we always fear from the presence of Mr. O'Rourke and/or laptops), this sounds at times like far too many people working together who are best suited to working alone in front of the computer, getting carpal tunnel syndrome and losing all the pigment in skin and eyes. Then again, we have to encourage them getting out of the house and all. And there's plenty of darkness here anyway. Glitchy hiss rumble drone, like malevolent frogs croaking around a noisome sound bog. Quite pretty if you're in that "mood". Not jazzy in the slightest, so don't let the words "improv" and "horns" above mislead you.

DAFELDECKER, HAUTZINGER, TILBURY, SACHIKO M Absinth (Grob) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

DAFELDECKER.LANG Lichtgeschwindigkeit (Grob) cd 15.98
Bowed bass tones, sustained pipe organ chords. "Lichtgeschwindigkeit" is another attempt at attaining the drone supreme, and it's a good one, evocative of absolute darkness -or- blinding light, either way totally all-encompassing. This disc from Austrians Werner Dafeldecker (whom we've encountered before playing with the likes of Dean Roberts, Taku Sugimoto, Christian Fennesz, Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm and many others) and Klaus Lang (whom we haven't) is a slowly developing, moodily pulsating, hour-long dronescape broken into seven tracks. Blissful, yet haunting. Gently soothing, yet massively ominous. There's enough variation soundwise to hold one's interest for the full hour -- for instance, the foghorn sounds and whistling blips of track five stand apart from the depths-of-space hiss of track six. We're told this was recorded in a church, on a snowed-in winter night. That seems about right. Recommended to all drone/improv fans for sure!
MPEG Stream: "1000101"
MPEG Stream: "1000110"

DAHL, ANDERS Habitat (Kning Disk) 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.
Last list (#249) we reviewed the quite lovely Hundloka, Flockblomstriga 1 cd on Hapna by this Swedish sound artiste... in which we mentioned another release of his, devoted entirely to FAKE field recordings of nature sounds. That is, what sound remarkably like real bird calls and frog croakings and insect buzzings but are totally artificial constructs made by Dahl himself. No actual creatures involved. That's this 36 minute disc, Habitat. And it's fantastic, if you (like us) revel in the organic textures of outdoorsy soundscapes. Knowing how it was made -- at home with computer, electronics, accordion, recorder, speakers, toys, etc. -- is an interesting twist, but concept aside it's just a really nice listen. And (almost) totally convincing. If you didn't know better you'd imagine Dahl stalking critters in the wild with his microphone...but there'd be something strange, sorta plastic and brightly, wrongly colored about the landscape, enhanced with CGI animation perhaps. Very pleasant and somehow peculiar...
This cd-r release is limited to 100 numbered copies, of which we got the last ten of 'em!! The label is sold out, we won't be getting any more...
MPEG Stream: "Habitat (excerpt)"

DAHL, ANDERS Hundloka, Flockblomstriga 1 (Hapna) cd 16.98
Sweet! Hundloka (named for a flowering weed known in English as Cow Parsley) is another wonderful, textural, abstract release on Sweden's Hapna label, the first for field recordist/sound manipulator/visual artist Anders Dahl of Sweden, who is quite at home there (on Hapna, we mean, though he's also Swedish), alongside such artists as Tape, 3/4hadbeeneliminated, and Giuseppe Ielasi. At home in a realm of dreamy, twilit soundscapery full of snap, crackle, and drone. The three untitled tracks here, all but the middle one quite long (19:45, 6:22, and 12:37 respectively) are all performed (improvised? composed?) on stringed and wind instruments like guitar, bouzouki, violin, and recorder, also with the use on one track of computer and on another of "prepared speakers", plus percussion by Henrik Olsson. Yet the mysterious buzzingness of this sounds a lot like Dahl has woven in some field recording tapes as well. However, since he's apparently constructed *fake* nature sound recordings (digital birds!) in the past, we suspect that it's all Dahl here, no help from swarming insects or twittering birds or frolicking woodland creatures... It's all very gorgeous and glitchy, with guitar pluckings and gentle electronic hums, quiet and calm but for some moments of drone drama and surprise percussive attack.
MPEG Stream: "track 2"
MPEG Stream: "track 1"

DAHLEN, ERLAND Rolling Bomber (Hubro) cd 17.98
We just love solo percussion albums. Stomu Yamash'ta, Toshiaki Ishizuka, Glen Velez, Milford Graves, Christopher Tree, Keiji Haino, Christian Vander, Janne Tuomi.... We're suckers for 'em. Something about a drummer saying, "hey, I'm more than just the timekeeper, you other guys, with your guitars and stuff, I don't need you, get lost, I'm doing this all myself my own way", is just cool, and often quite creative. So already we were interested in this debut solo album from this hitherto unknown to us (but apparently prolific) Norwegian jazz drummer, Erland Dahlen.
And then there's the title, Rolling Bomber. Sound heavy, right? We're already thinking martial drum rolls, and, uh, Motorhead's Bomber. But, the title actually comes from the name of Dahlen's drum kit, it's a vintage Slingerland "Rollingbomber" model, from the '40s, mostly made of wood 'cause of wartime metal shortages. So this isn't heavy - aside from the thump of the bass drum upon occasion - it's more of an atmospheric, textural soundscape thing. Besides the Rollingbomber kit, Dahlen makes use of multiple other percussion instruments (gongs, logdrum, timpani, maracas, kalimba, temple blocks, bells, etc.), also electronics, and some custom built gadgets, and a "monkey drummer with battery"... AND, also close to our hearts here at aQ, he plays the musical saw! That's where a lot of the (eerie) melody comes from. Not a percussion instrument per se, but cool.
So, the seven tracks here are all quite moody, dramatic, and rhythmically interesting (naturally). The grand finale, "Germany", gets kinda krautrocky, thus the title perhaps, with the beats more insistent, and the musical saw used effectively, it's an energetic culmination to this fine album.
MPEG Stream: "Flower Power"
MPEG Stream: "Monkey"
MPEG Stream: "Germany"

DAHLEN, ERLAND Rolling Bomber (Hubro) lp 24.00
We just love solo percussion albums. Stomu Yamash'ta, Toshiaki Ishizuka, Glen Velez, Milford Graves, Christopher Tree, Keiji Haino, Christian Vander, Janne Tuomi.... We're suckers for 'em. Something about a drummer saying, "hey, I'm more than just the timekeeper, you other guys, with your guitars and stuff, I don't need you, get lost, I'm doing this all myself my own way", is just cool, and often quite creative. So already we were interested in this debut solo album from this hitherto unknown to us (but apparently prolific) Norwegian jazz drummer, Erland Dahlen.
And then there's the title, Rolling Bomber. Sound heavy, right? We're already thinking martial drum rolls, and, uh, Motorhead's Bomber. But, the title actually comes from the name of Dahlen's drum kit, it's a vintage Slingerland "Rollingbomber" model, from the '40s, mostly made of wood 'cause of wartime metal shortages. So this isn't heavy - aside from the thump of the bass drum upon occasion - it's more of an atmospheric, textural soundscape thing. Besides the Rollingbomber kit, Dahlen makes use of multiple other percussion instruments (gongs, logdrum, timpani, maracas, kalimba, temple blocks, bells, etc.), also electronics, and some custom built gadgets, and a "monkey drummer with battery"... AND, also close to our hearts here at aQ, he plays the musical saw! That's where a lot of the (eerie) melody comes from. Not a percussion instrument per se, but cool.
So, the seven tracks here are all quite moody, dramatic, and rhythmically interesting (naturally). The grand finale, "Germany", gets kinda krautrocky, thus the title perhaps, with the beats more insistent, and the musical saw used effectively, it's an energetic culmination to this fine album.
MPEG Stream: "Flower Power"
MPEG Stream: "Monkey"
MPEG Stream: "Germany"

DAILY LIFE Necessary And Pathetic (Load) cd 14.98
When you hear the words Load Records, and then 'duo from Providence', you probably think of a certain sort of sound, blown out and super heavy, chaotic and noisy, the sort of sound that would be coming from a couple dudes rocking out wildly amidst a heaving sweat soaked crowd, and there could possibly be costumes involved, but odds are you wouldn't have thought of this - dark, brooding, moody, synthy coldwave, but that's precisely what you get with Daily Life, whose debut Necessary And Pathetic is indeed a Load anomaly, and we're digging it quite a bit!
Skeletal beats underpin crumbling distorted synths and lush chordal swells, the vocals deep and moody, weird processed whispery wraithlike vocals swirl around soaring melodramatic melodies, chiming guitars, strange glitchy crunches swoop from speaker to speaker, organs whir and warble, lovely female vocals offer melodic counterpoint, lots of metallic buzzing, deep bassy rumblings, all manner of keyboard and synth textures, electronic pulses, super dark and dreamy, surprisingly poppy and melodic, and all very lush and dense and really pretty great. For fans of Blessure Grave, Interpol, Cold Cave, Silk Flowers, and all that sort of stuff.
MPEG Stream: "Rogue Fate"
MPEG Stream: "My Time"
MPEG Stream: "Hall Of Mirrors"

DAILY LIFE Necessary And Pathetic (Load) lp 14.98
When you hear the words Load Records, and then 'duo from Providence', you probably think of a certain sort of sound, blown out and super heavy, chaotic and noisy, the sort of sound that would be coming from a couple dudes rocking out wildly amidst a heaving sweat soaked crowd, and there could possibly be costumes involved, but odds are you wouldn't have thought of this - dark, brooding, moody, synthy coldwave, but that's precisely what you get with Daily Life, whose debut Necessary And Pathetic is indeed a Load anomaly, and we're digging it quite a bit!
Skeletal beats underpin crumbling distorted synths and lush chordal swells, the vocals deep and moody, weird processed whispery wraithlike vocals swirl around soaring melodramatic melodies, chiming guitars, strange glitchy crunches swoop from speaker to speaker, organs whir and warble, lovely female vocals offer melodic counterpoint, lots of metallic buzzing, deep bassy rumblings, all manner of keyboard and synth textures, electronic pulses, super dark and dreamy, surprisingly poppy and melodic, and all very lush and dense and really pretty great. For fans of Blessure Grave, Interpol, Cold Cave, Silk Flowers, and all that sort of stuff.
MPEG Stream: "Rogue Fate"
MPEG Stream: "My Time"
MPEG Stream: "Hall Of Mirrors"

DALE, JON Rotten Sun (Rhizome) cd-r 12.98

DALE, JON Son d'Or (Rhizome) cd-r 7.98

DALT, LUCRECIA Commotus (Human Ear Music) cd 15.98
Commotus is the debut from Spanish songstress/soundscaper Lucrecia Dalt, and definitely positions her amongst some like minded soundmakers we love - Grouper, US Girls, Valet, Chelsea Wolfe. Dalt has the same sort of knack for weaving lustrous dark dreamscapes, mixing the gothic folk of Wolfe with the hazy soft focus psychedelic drift of Grouper, but adding her own twists, in the case of album opener it's a background of layered, pitch shifted voices, which forms the whole of the sonic backdrop, all harnessed to skittery, percolating rhythms, and laced with a surprising blurt of woozy wah guitar and an out of nowhere swell of bleating brass. The overall effect is ghostly, spectral, haunting and darkly lovely, and the rest of the record unfurls similarly. "Excopolamina" almost sounds like an extension of the opener, a bit more hazy and blurred, metallic riffs muted into a churning rhythm, the beats more skittery, the vocals even more ethereal. Then there's the playful synth solo, and what sounds like an old fashioned wurlitzer humming in the background.
There's definitely a woozy, washed out sort of Caretaker vibe to the proceedings here, the sounds and songs faded and worn, transmissions from some mysterious shadowy otherworld, dark ballads that drift ominously, only to collide with tracks that are downright playful ("Conversa"), which almost sound like a slightly darker, gloomier Liminanas, before slipping right back into another sprawl of abstract shimmer, twang flecked, bass-bloop peppered minimal murkiness, or some wispy slo-mo space blues, or some tripped out doomfolk new wave dirgery. But whatever strain of Dalt's dark sonic DNA drifts to the fore, she renders it haunting and heavenly, mysterious and murky, whether it's propulsive and groovy, or blissed out and barely there, it's always dreamlike and otherworldly.
Stick around for the 8+ minute closer "Batholith", which is fast becoming our favorite, a sprawling stretch of minimal country murk, woozy, ethereal, laced with whirring organs, panned sound swooping from speaker to speaker, and some near carnivalesque melodies, all woven into a strangely psychedelic spaced out bit of lysergic dream pop shimmer. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Saltacion"
MPEG Stream: "Escopolamina"
MPEG Stream: "Turmoil"
MPEG Stream: "Conversa"

DALT, LUCRECIA Commotus (Human Ear Music) lp 19.98
Commotus is the debut from Spanish songstress/soundscaper Lucrecia Dalt, and definitely positions her amongst some like minded soundmakers we love - Grouper, US Girls, Valet, Chelsea Wolfe. Dalt has the same sort of knack for weaving lustrous dark dreamscapes, mixing the gothic folk of Wolfe with the hazy soft focus psychedelic drift of Grouper, but adding her own twists, in the case of album opener it's a background of layered, pitch shifted voices, which forms the whole of the sonic backdrop, all harnessed to skittery, percolating rhythms, and laced with a surprising blurt of woozy wah guitar and an out of nowhere swell of bleating brass. The overall effect is ghostly, spectral, haunting and darkly lovely, and the rest of the record unfurls similarly. "Excopolamina" almost sounds like an extension of the opener, a bit more hazy and blurred, metallic riffs muted into a churning rhythm, the beats more skittery, the vocals even more ethereal. Then there's the playful synth solo, and what sounds like an old fashioned wurlitzer humming in the background.
There's definitely a woozy, washed out sort of Caretaker vibe to the proceedings here, the sounds and songs faded and worn, transmissions from some mysterious shadowy otherworld, dark ballads that drift ominously, only to collide with tracks that are downright playful ("Conversa"), which almost sound like a slightly darker, gloomier Liminanas, before slipping right back into another sprawl of abstract shimmer, twang flecked, bass-bloop peppered minimal murkiness, or some wispy slo-mo space blues, or some tripped out doomfolk new wave dirgery. But whatever strain of Dalt's dark sonic DNA drifts to the fore, she renders it haunting and heavenly, mysterious and murky, whether it's propulsive and groovy, or blissed out and barely there, it's always dreamlike and otherworldly.
Stick around for the 8+ minute closer "Batholith", which is fast becoming our favorite, a sprawling stretch of minimal country murk, woozy, ethereal, laced with whirring organs, panned sound swooping from speaker to speaker, and some near carnivalesque melodies, all woven into a strangely psychedelic spaced out bit of lysergic dream pop shimmer. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Saltacion"
MPEG Stream: "Escopolamina"
MPEG Stream: "Turmoil"
MPEG Stream: "Conversa"

DAMO SUZUKI'S NETWORK Seattle (Damo's Net Work) cd 29.00
Recorded live in Seattle, WA, last October near the end of an all too brief west coast tour, this is an artfully packaged double cd of improv conjured by former Can vocalist Damo Suzuki, his former Can-mate Michael Karoli, Mandjau Fati, Thomas Hopf, and Alex Schonert. Additional sounds and textures created by Mark Spybey (Zoviet France, Dead Voices on Air, Download) and Dustin Donaldson (I Am Spoonbender). Nine lengthy tracks including a version of CAN's "Mother Sky".

DAMSEL Distressed (Temporary Residence Ltd.) cd 14.98
Zach Hill (Hella, The Ladies, etc) and Nels Cline (Wilco, Geraldine Fibbers, etc) are probably two of the busiest and most prolific musicians in the 'underground' these days. They've been trying to find time for ages to make a record together, as their talents do seem to speak to a similar ecstatic aesthetic. But finding the time proved to be quite a feat. Luckily when Wilco had a day off in Chicago and Zach was also in Chicago, the two decided to have an improv jam together and Distressed is the result. Hill's trademark frantic drumming moves more towards avant jazz as Cline once again shows why he is such an in demand guitarist. What if in their prime Van Halen were cool enough to cover a Pharaoh Sanders record? Maybe it would sound something like this.
MPEG Stream: "Space Needle"
MPEG Stream: "Fork-Fed"

DANIELL, DAVID Coastal (Xeric) cd 16.98

DANIELL, DAVID I-IV-V-I (Table Of The Elements) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
David Daniell was the guitarist for WAY underrated post rock slowcore drifters San Augustin, whose records were ultra understated and hushed expanses of soft focus guitar filigree, whispered melody, and barely there percussion, and his past solo records were super minimal as well, microsound explorations that basically required headphones to truly appreciate. So we were sort of expecting Daniell, for his entry in TOTE's Guitar series of one sided 12"s, to offer up a disc of near silence, coaxing the gentlest of sounds from his guitar, but instead, I-IV-V-I, named for the basic blues progression, is anything but. The opening track is a monstrous slab of tectonic buzz, layers of rumbling and crumbling distorted guitar, blurred into a Niblockian drift, warm and wavery, smeared and dreamy, but suitably tense and dramatic. Which is followed by a sort of looped Appalachia, steel string guitar, locked into a mantra like progression, the main figure locked into endless repetition, while in the background, a second (and maybe third) guitar offer up pretty little counterpoint and extra steel string buzz, texture and melody that seems to swirl beneath that hypnotic main riff.
"V" is all new age-y drift, another bit of soft dronemusic, laced with subtle layers of hiss and crackle, the melody a distant swell, which all gives way to a sweet melancholy guitar line that is processed into a layer of warm buzzing dreaminess, and finally the record finishes with a mournful, almost funereal sounding steel string buzzscape, that sounds almost like bluegrass, if it was stretched way out into long streaks of metallic shimmer, but Daniell drapes some playful major key melodies over the top, and the two, while seemingly at odds, mesh into something both haunting and mysterious, soft and weirdly pretty.
Pressed on super thick, swirled green, yellow and white vinyl. One sided, the other side features an etching by Savage Pencil, housed in a thick PVC sleeve, and as always, VERY LIMITED!

DANIELL, DAVID Sem (Antiopic) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The guitarist from the understated post-rock / improv group San Augustin, David Daniell presents his first solo album of microsound compositions that have much more in common with lowercase artists like John Hudak and Richard Chartier than the skeletal rockisms of Loren Mazzacane Connors. Having treated field recordings from the southern regions of the US through a number digital processes (probably using Max / MSP to run treated samples at very slow speeds), Daniell arrives at a similar restraint as his San Agustin project; however, he's realized his music through muted errata of unspecified pops and clicks floating amidst gentle electrical tones, deep bass flickerings, and lots of silence. "Sem" certainly captures the sense of meditation and the methodological hermeticism that his more well known lowercase contemporaries have produced. Headphones required.
MPEG Stream: "Sem 2"
MPEG Stream: "Sem 1"

DANTE AUGUSTUS SCARLATTI Hemispheres Of Desolation (Auris Apothecary) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If you follow aQuarius on Facebook and Twitter, then you may have gotten a little taste of what is quickly becoming our new favorite label, Auris Apothercary. The first releases we got from them, was a tiny glass vial, with a single tape loop within, old Norwegian recordings of oceanographic instruments, the second was a series of NEC tapes, each with the original music from classic Nintendo games, with the packaging perfectly emulating the original designs. The vials sold out in a flash, we might have a couple of the tapes left (just ask), but we will henceforth endeavor to review anything and everything we can get from AA. A quick look at their other releases reveals an impossibly meticulous approach to packaging, everything in limited numbers, mostly because they are all hand designed and assembled, in fact, just take a look at this, a tape from someone (or something) called Dante Augustus Scarlatti, whose tape comes housed in a printed, clear plastic slipcover, with the tapecase itself also silkscreened, not to mention ANOTHER transparent insert, cool line drawings of mountains, and old maps, the two tape spools behind silver inked globes (the tapes cleverly not rewound, so each spool is a perfect planetoid sphere, the various layers perfectly blended into one elaborate almost 3 dimensional image, each one also numbered, limited to just 99 copies. With things like this, it almost doesn't even matter what it sounds like, it's a piece of art, that would look just as nice sitting on your shelf as it would jammed in your Walkman. But don't let its artiness keep you from enjoying the mysterious sounds inside, nearly two hours of rumbling drones and swirling atmospheric mystery, blurred industrial landscapes of dreamlike crumble, buried barely there rhythms, constantly shifting textures, guitars and oscillators woven into heaving swells of washed out decay and feedback wreathed glacial drift, each side a single slow burning expanse of tectonic creep and gauzy greyed out ambience, totally hypnotic and mesmerizing minimal dronemusic that should most definitely appeal to all the aQ shoppin' dronelords out there.
Again, LIMITED TO 99 COPIES, we got a handful, not sure we'll be able to get more when we run out...

DANTE AUGUSTUS SCARLATTI Recycled HNW (Auris Apothecary) cassette 5.98
It's like Christmas around here (we know, it is ACTUALLY like Christmas around here right now), whenever we get a new batch of tapes from Auris Apothecary, not only is it bound to sonically all over the map, without fail the packaging is totally stellar, often high (or low) concept, meticulously hand assembled, often involving organic matter, or broken glass, or sponges, or scrolls, or who knows what else. Needless to say, every AA release is special, and is often as much a work of sonic art, as it is a piece of music.
We reviewed a record by Dante Augustus Scarlatti (the group, not the person, we think) a while back, a fantastic collection of rumbling drones and blurred psychedelic soundscapery, and this latest one is sort of a continuation of that, utilizing 15 separate drones, culled from strings and voices and organs, in the form of buzz and hiss and skree and thrum and hum and whir, laid atop one another, bleeding and oozing into each other, the sound MASSIVE, and thick and layered, the sounds crumbling and constantly shifting, on the surface, this is a noise tape, but the noise is blurred and washed out, and more droney than noisy, thick billows of sound, textured and strangely lush (but still fairly low fidelity), dubbed onto recycled tapes, with the idea that any imperfections in the original tapes, be it bleed through of the original sounds or decay from worn magnetic tape, would all contribute to the sound, and those random imperfections only serve to add texture to the already heavily textured dronescapes. Fear of noise should not keep anyone from enjoying this stuff, cuz as we mentioned, it's a warm, thick, muted undulating noise, that washes over you like a glorious low end avalanche.
LIMITED TO 405 COPIES, each one hand printed, in ELEVEN different color variations, a printed insert along with the tape housed in a stickered and sealed plastic bag with a spray painted white printed label.

DANUBIANS s/t (Cuneiform) cd 13.98
The wonderful Seattle-based improviser Amy Denio (sax, accordion, guitars, voice) meets up with a group of folks from the Eastern European improv/rock scene, including Czech drummer Pavel Fajt (who you might know from his work with Iva Bittova) and the guitarist and violinist from Hungarian band Kampec Dolores. The results are predictably pleasant and quirky, melding jazz, rock, and folk music.

DARGE, MONIEK Crete Soundies (Kye) cd 15.98
Moniek Darge is a Belgian composer, performer, and artist with quite an extensive history, but she's probably one who hasn't really gained much of an audience outside of the European academic circles. That's a shame, as she's done some amazing, wild, and engaging work over the years. She runs the Logos Foundation, which is something of a thinktank for experimental practices with plenty of high-brow theory coating their post-Fluxus happenings, many of which seem to involve a whole lot of nudity! Throughout the three decades of work through the Logos Foundation, Darge has been involved in building strange variations on music boxes, various robots & automatons, and pneumatic devices that must have been an influence on Yoshi Wada's post-bagpipe installation pieces. On the compositional side for Darge's, there's a unique hybridization of musique concrete practices, avant-garde vocalization, and a dystopic / mystical realization of minimalism.
Beginning in 2006, Darge embarked on the first of several journey to the Isle of Crete, working with local artists, presenting intermedia events, and composing the three extended pieces on this album. While one idea purported through the sound work was to conjure the mystical atmospheres of an ancient cult and its utopian principles, Darge's work here, as it typically has been, is haunting, eerie, and disarming. Deep moaning vocals open the first piece, emerging as a lugubrious chorale of intertwining ululations and eerie utterances. A melancholy drone, maybe from a harmonium, settles into the background while Darge, brings recordings of cicadas and variously untuned bells into the mix. It's not unlike Fursaxa or Christina Carter as reinterpreted by Luc Ferrari. The second piece is dominate by an impressive display of field recording prowess of the whipping winds around one of the mountains on Crete, with various clanks, metal creaking, and bells breaking up a recurring narrative of spoken texts. The final piece is a collage of aquatic tumblings, more cicadas, and more swirls of wind with an interest in the sound ecology of the island, rather than the narrative properties mentioned above. This compelling album has been released on Kye, the label run by Graham Lambkin from The Shadow Ring. Now, there's a nice endorsement!
MPEG Stream: "Magnesia"
MPEG Stream: "Anemos"
MPEG Stream: "East Crete"

DARK AGES A Chronicle Of The Plague (Supernal) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The return of our favorite Medieval, Middle Ages, and plague obsessed ambient atmospheric dronescapers Dark Ages, who just so happens to be a member of Ukrainian black metal Hordes Drudkh and Hate Forest. No buzzing blackness here, instead Dark Ages is a sonic trip through, well, through the Dark Ages. Another Bosch / Breughel style painting on the cover, this time skeletons on horses, pulling a wagon full of skulls, driving through a town square littered with corpses and robed skeletons. The song titles are also appropriately grim: "Ships Full Of Blackened Corpses", "Rats", "Dead Desolate Villages", "The Doors With Scarlet Crosses" and of course "Black Death".
The sound this time around is even darker and scarier. This is ambient music, sure, but it's also a sonic travelogue, a weary wander through the plague ravaged villages of Middle Europe. The sky is choked with black smoke and the stench of burning flesh. Corpses lay stacked like firewood. Dead children litter the ground like leaves fallen from trees. The few survivors, walk zombie like, an endless death march with no destination other than the grave.
The music is sounds JUST LIKE THAT. It's totally evocative and ultra creepy. Thick washes of keyboard drones, chiming minor key melodies repeated mantra like, a deep churning dark ambience underpinning the melancholy ambience, stabs of atonal harpsichord add jagged shards of horror here and there. Long stretches of super dramatic cinematic shimmer definitely recall Goblin and Zombi, some tracks are super murky minimal rumbles, with the melodies muted and buried under a thick crumbling wash of mumbled whirs and swirling low end, others are majestic and grand, fanfares for the dead and dying. They're all quite grim, a bit black, super intense, and surprisingly emotional.
Sonically, Dark Ages almost sounds like a super dismal, way blacker Dead Can Dance, or like Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh covering Skepticism. Or even like some long lost Jacula album.
So gorgeously dark and creepy. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Ships Full Of Blackened Corpses"
MPEG Stream: "Rats"
MPEG Stream: "Blessed Be The Waters Of The Avignon River"

DARK AGES A Chronicle Of The Plague (Elegy) cd 13.98
Finally, this long time aQ fave is back in print and available again. And with swank new artwork! A Chronicle Of The Plague, in fact chronicled the return of our favorite Medieval, Middle Ages, and plague obsessed ambient atmospheric dronescaper Dark Ages, who just so happens to be a member of Ukrainian black metal Hordes Drudkh and Hate Forest. No buzzing blackness here, instead Dark Ages is a sonic trip through, well, through the Dark Ages. A grim Bosch / Breughel style painting on the cover, skeletons on horses, pulling a wagon full of skulls, driving through a town square littered with corpses and discarded robes and bones. The song titles are also appropriately grim as well: "Ships Full Of Blackened Corpses", "Rats", "Dead Desolate Villages", "The Doors With Scarlet Crosses" and of course "Black Death".
The sound itself is even darker and scarier. This is ambient music, sure, but it's also a sonic travelogue, a weary wander through the plague ravaged villages of Middle Europe. The sky is choked with black smoke and the stench of burning flesh. Corpses lay stacked like firewood. Dead children litter the ground like leaves fallen from trees. The few survivors, walk zombie like, an endless death march with no destination other than the grave.
The music sounds JUST LIKE THAT. It's totally evocative and ultra creepy. Thick washes of keyboard drones, chiming minor key melodies repeated mantra like, a deep churning dark ambience underpinning the melancholy ambience, stabs of atonal harpsichord add jagged shards of horror here and there. Long stretches of super dramatic cinematic shimmer definitely recall Goblin and Zombi, some tracks are super murky minimal rumbles, with the melodies muted and buried under a thick crumbling wash of mumbled whirs and swirling low end, others are majestic and grand, fanfares for the dead and dying. They're all quite grim, a bit black, super intense, and surprisingly emotional.
Sonically, Dark Ages almost sounds like a super dismal, way blacker Dead Can Dance, or like Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh covering Skepticism. Or even like some long lost Jacula album.
So gorgeously dark and creepy. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Ships Full Of Blackened Corpses"
MPEG Stream: "Rats"
MPEG Stream: "Blessed Be The Waters Of The Avignon River"

DARK AGES A Chronicle Of The Plague (Northern Heritage) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another AQ fave available on vinyl for a super limited time. A killer slab of black ambience from a member of Drudkh and Hate Forest. All new artwork, ONLY 250 COPIES PRESSED, so these will be gone before you know it.
The return of our favorite Medieval, Middle Ages, and plague obsessed ambient atmospheric dronescapers Dark Ages, who just so happens to be a member of Ukrainian black metal Hordes Drudkh and Hate Forest. No buzzing blackness here, instead Dark Ages is a sonic trip through, well, through the Dark Ages. Another Bosch / Breughel style painting on the cover, this time skeletons on horses, pulling a wagon full of skulls, driving through a town square littered with corpses and robed skeletons. The song titles are also appropriately grim: "Ships Full Of Blackened Corpses", "Rats", "Dead Desolate Villages", "The Doors With Scarlet Crosses" and of course "Black Death".
The sound this time around is even darker and scarier. This is ambient music, sure, but it's also a sonic travelogue, a weary wander through the plague ravaged villages of Middle Europe. The sky is choked with black smoke and the stench of burning flesh. Corpses lay stacked like firewood. Dead children litter the ground like leaves fallen from trees. The few survivors, walk zombie like, an endless death march with no destination other than the grave.
The music is sounds JUST LIKE THAT. It's totally evocative and ultra creepy. Thick washes of keyboard drones, chiming minor key melodies repeated mantra like, a deep churning dark ambience underpinning the melancholy ambience, stabs of atonal harpsichord add jagged shards of horror here and there. Long stretches of super dramatic cinematic shimmer definitely recall Goblin and Zombi, some tracks are super murky minimal rumbles, with the melodies muted and buried under a thick crumbling wash of mumbled whirs and swirling low end, others are majestic and grand, fanfares for the dead and dying. They're all quite grim, a bit black, super intense, and surprisingly emotional.
Sonically, Dark Ages almost sounds like a super dismal, way blacker Dead Can Dance, or like Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh covering Skepticism. Or even like some long lost Jacula album.
So gorgeously dark and creepy. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Ships Full Of Blackened Corpses"
MPEG Stream: "Rats"
MPEG Stream: "Blessed Be The Waters Of The Avignon River"

DARK AGES Twilight Of Europe (Supernal) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What would you expect from a band called Dark Ages? With cover art from some Bosch / Breughel style painting depciting hell and misery and war and famine? With song titles like "Breath Of The Black Plague" and "Birth Of The Antichrist" and "Formulas Written In Blood"? A disc released on Supernal, the label that brought us Benighted Leams, Drudkh, Meads Of Asphodel, Hate Forest and the rest? What would you expect? Well, definitely not this. Dark Ages are not metal, are not even heavy actually, instead they offer up a series of dark ambient medieval dronescapes, beautifully creepy, dark and haunting and endlessly mesmerizing. There are definite sonic similarities to our favorite drone artists: Chalk, Coleclough, Mirror, Maeror Tri and the like, but Twilight Of Europe has a sort of looped hypnotic quality lending the sound a much more Jeck, Basinski vibe. But always cloaked in the tattered black cloak of the dark ages, a lonely sonic stroll through the ruins of a long gone Rennaisance Faire, a stroll that slowly shifts to an actual wander through a ruined post plague, European village, of grey stone walls, lit blue by the moonlight, casting shadows that dart and dance in the glow of torchlight, the blackened remains of fires long since burnt out, colorful tents faded by the sun now lay in ruined heaps, the stench of death and decay in the air. The sound is rich with resonant church organs, bells and buzzing strings, haunting chant like vocals all wrapped in gauzy fuzzy drones and subterranean rumbles, each track a dreamy repetition of a haunting, ghostly medieval loop. Over and over and over as you drift off, as the city around you crumbles and the sky above you darkens.
MPEG Stream: "Breath Of The Black Plague"
MPEG Stream: "Birth Of The Antichrist"
MPEG Stream: "Dungeons"

DARK AGES Twilight Of Europe (Inferna Profundus / Primitive Reaction) cd 14.98
Finally available again, the gorgeously dark debut of mesmerizing blackened ambient dronemusic from Dark Ages, the solo project of Roman Saenko, who plays in a whole bunch of black metal bands we love, Hate Forest, Drudkh, Blood Of Kingu, Lucifugum, but Dark Ages is a whole 'nother beast. This new version is in a super swank digipak, and includes a bonus track not on the original release, which we described like this:
What would you expect from a band called Dark Ages? With cover art from some Bosch / Breughel style painting depicting hell and misery and war and famine? With song titles like "Breath Of The Black Plague" and "Birth Of The Antichrist" and "Formulas Written In Blood"? A disc released on Supernal, the label that brought us Benighted Leams, Drudkh, Meads Of Asphodel, Hate Forest and the rest? What would you expect? Well, definitely not this. Dark Ages are not metal, are not even heavy actually, instead they offer up a series of dark ambient medieval dronescapes, beautifully creepy, dark and haunting and endlessly mesmerizing. There are definite sonic similarities to our favorite drone artists: Chalk, Coleclough, Mirror, Maeror Tri and the like, but Twilight Of Europe has a sort of looped hypnotic quality lending the sound a much more Jeck, Basinski vibe. But always cloaked in the tattered black cloak of the dark ages, a lonely sonic stroll through the ruins of a long gone Renaissance Faire, a stroll that slowly shifts to an actual wander through a ruined post plague, European village, of grey stone walls, lit blue by the moonlight, casting shadows that dart and dance in the glow of torchlight, the blackened remains of fires long since burnt out, colorful tents faded by the sun now lay in ruined heaps, the stench of death and decay in the air. The sound is rich with resonant church organs, bells and buzzing strings, haunting chant like vocals all wrapped in gauzy fuzzy drones and subterranean rumbles, each track a dreamy repetition of a haunting, ghostly medieval loop. Over and over and over as you drift off, as the city around you crumbles and the sky above you darkens.
MPEG Stream: "Breath Of The Black Plague"
MPEG Stream: "Birth Of The Antichrist"
MPEG Stream: "Dungeons"

DARK DAY (R.L. CRUTCHFIELD'S) Exterminating Angel (Dark Entries) lp 14.98
Synth punk at its best! Here is the long overdue reissue of Dark Day's homage to the Luis Bunuel film of the same name. Dark Day was the project spearheaded by R.L. Crutchfield who first worked with Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori in the earliest incarnation of the seminal No Wave band DNA in the mid '70s. By 1979, Crutchfield was striking out on his own as Dark Day; and at first, this band was an intentional reversal of roles within the trad-rock band with two women playing guitars and drums and a man behind the keyboards. The ladies for that incarnation were Nancy Arlen of Mars and Nina Canal of Ut; and they managed a few gigs and one hell of a great single - "Hands In The Dark" - which appeared many years later on a Soul Jazz No Wave compilation and has been covered spectacularly by the Chromatics. Canal and Arlen weren't terribly interested in continuing in the project, leaving Crutchfield to find likeminded folks to work with.
On Exterminating Angel (originally released in 1980 on the Lust/Unlust imprint Infidelity), Crutchfield recruited Phil Kline and Barry Friar to flesh out the Dark Day sound. At the time, Kline was an emerging composer who had worked with Glenn Branca and at least here, he styles himself after Mark Ribot or Arto Lindsay with his expressive shards and bends of guitar melody; and Friar follows the tom-heavy patter that Nancy Arlen brought to Dark Day on the "Hands In The Dark" single. But Dark Day is truly Crutchfield's vision, with his heavily syncopated synth chords, elliptical repetitions, and spiral staircase ascensions in lieu of the traditional verse-chorus song. Crutchfield preferred to keep a very restrictive use of synth tones and filters, all the while crafting a very claustrophobic, horror-laden atmosphere. The inventiveness of his minimalist melodies and twisted lullaby-like structures are all the more impressive, perhaps only matched by Young Marble Giants or Suicide. Motorik yet stumbling, Dark Day's songs are stark and bold in their poetry about freaks, suffocating anxiety, and the toxic life of contemporary society circa 1980. "Trapped" was a strange song to be the single for the album, as it's an epic, spiralling number with those ominous synths and siren-like blurts from a distant saxophone. Many of the other songs on the album were short and condensed, jabbing the grimly simple melodies deep into the ear-canal and then moving on. Like "Trapped" the album's finale - "No, Never, Nothing" - is another lengthy track, appropriating a Moroder like disco-syncopation to a sinister, nihilistic collage of texts taken from a children's book about raising unusual pets such as squirrels and chimpanzees. The more the song spins through it's punchy chords the creepier it becomes.
Exterminating Angel is the high-point of Crutchfield's recorded works, and stands also as one of lost gems of the No Wave era. This should have been released long ago, so we have to commend Dark Entries once again for their reissue campaign.
MPEG Stream: "Chameleon"
MPEG Stream: "Flightless Birds"
MPEG Stream: "No, Never, Nothing"

DARK MATTER HALO The Hermetic Drone Volume 1 (CD Over Vinyl) cd-r 8.98
The Hermetic Drone is the first release from Dark Matter Halo, the most recent project of Monte Cimino, aQ pal, and head honcho of brooding twang flecked heavies Burial Tree, as well as the man behind BT ambient offshoot Time Spent. Dark Matter Halo has more in common with Time Spent, but pushes the sound even further into the kosmische drift, ditching all of the rhythmic elements that drove Time Spent, barring the subtle pulsations caused by the ever shifting overtones, these two lengthy tracks, sprawling expanses of dreamlike shimmer, lush layered tones infused with a warm energy, softly undulating chordal swells, wreathed in a soft halo of gauze-y blissed out blur. The first track, "A.M.", definitely has a sun dappled morning vibe, bleary slowly unfurling melodies, a time lapse exploration of tonal color, a grey landscape gradually taking on color, the tones here seeming to fill the sky with a prismatic palette of warm sonic hues, gorgeously mesmerizing and dreamily meditative.
The second track, appropriately titled "P.M." reverse engineers the first, effortlessly conjuring up a world in hibernation, a sky full of darkened blue, casting lengthening shadows, a lush crystalline expanse of low tones, woven into a gloriously textured backdrop, for the glimmering, glistening ghostlike melodies that hover above, spectral streaks of somnambulant mesmer, gliding lazily toward the dark, a soundtrack for drifting off, a sonic gateway to what lays beyond the veil. So lovely.
MPEG Stream: "The Hermetic Drone A.M."
MPEG Stream: "The Hermetic Drone P.M."

DARK YOGA Breath Of Life (Yarnlazer) cd-r 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We remember AQ pal John Gossard, from doom-mongers Asunder and defunct SF black metallers Weakling, talking about one of his favorite pastimes, black metal tennis! It was tough to discern exactly what was involved, but we do know it included a couple rackets, LOTS of wine, and typically took place in the middle of the night. We can only assume, after some black metal tennis, those guys would unwind with some dark yoga, and we're not even gonna guess what that might entail, but judging from this disc from Northwestern drone psych fuzz groove ensemble Dark Yoga, it most likely included an entire pharmacy of drugs, a suitcase full of FX, and amps and guitars galore.
So yep, another winner from the Yarnlazer label (Acre, Valet, Ghosting, Bonecloud), a live recording from 2006 featuring a whole posse of Portland noisemakers including Yarnlazer head honcho Honey Owens (who also records as Valet). Dark Yoga is a sprawling psychedelic krautrock free fuzz jam, simple throbbing basslines, slowed down vocals, shimmering clouds of buzzing effects and swirling disembodied guitar fuzz, blown out guitar leads, simple tribal drumming, propulsive and motorik, with long stretches of tinkling effervescence and spaced out ambience. The sound is super heavy on the Can, even down to some of the very (infrequent) Damo like vocals. Or imagine No Neck Blues Band and Sunburned Hand Of The Man in full on psych jam mode, less tribal and clattery and more druggy and space-y and languidly rocking. There are some groovy stretches of fuzzy funk too, like some tarpit demonic dance jams, but even those parts are dense with fuzzy murk and spacepsych swirl.
Packaged in cool hand screened sleeves, so heavy with paint and intense smelling, that all you really need is to toss the sleeve into a paper bag while you're listening and huff your way into the perfect Dark Yoga mind space. Also contains a little full color metallic insert.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "One "
MPEG Stream: "Two"

DARSOMBRA Ecdysis (At A Loss) cd 12.98
Low-end drones, mysterious field recordings, sitar, haunting melody... and crushing electric guitar heaviness? If your tastes are at all similiar to ours regarding this sort of thing, then Darsombra's Ecdysis is already sounding pretty intriguing! This 34 minute, six-track debut cd from Baltimore's Brian Daniloski (a member of metal mongers Meatjack) is right up our alley, and yours too if you dig the more abstract, arty, ambient sides of, say, Thrones, Melvins, Harvey Milk, Earth, and Fantomas. Ecdysis is just a bit scary, and full of super-heavy moments, so it could be taken as some kind of nightmare soundtrack. But there's much beauty and gentleness here too. You'll hear some major-key melodies, surprising in such a context, and a plethora of sampled sounds, from sinister voices to religious testifyin'. Anytime we find a disc where, y'know, one track sounds like 20th century classical meets Melvins and another like the labored, ritualistic breathing of some sort of demonic creature, and it's metal but not really, and kinda pretty too, well, there's only one way to end the review: recommended.
MPEG Stream: "My House"
MPEG Stream: "Drag The Carcass"

DARSOMBRA Eternal Jewel (Public Guilt) cd 8.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Break out the headphones, relax the body, and close the eyes, it's another one from the devastatingly droney and dark Darsombra, whose debut Ecdysis disc we really liked a couple years back. We like this just as much, maybe more. There's a great deal of melancholic, mesmeric beauty in Darsombra's isolationist grinding and evil ambient shimmer. We can imagine Darsombra's human operator, Brian Daniloski from the Maryland metalcore band Meatjack, up late at night alone in his home studio, lights dim, wreathed in smoke, hunched over his guitar and synth and effects and whatever else he uses to conjure this music, willing himself off into another place, out into the void of space, riding the dense waves of his own creation, returning only at dawn with another track for this album finished.
Let's discuss these tracks, but not in order... The echoey minimalism of "Drops Of Sorrow" is simply glorious, it's Riley or Reich from a psychdronedoom perspective. Or perhaps krautrock's Achim Reichel & The Machines playing Black Boned Angel!? Elsewhere, there's more gloom and glory, from the hushed sinister soundtrack melodies of opener "Auguries" to the haunting, spacey drone-whispers of "Night's Black Agents" - this disc's longest track at 17:34, reminding us of the 'Vox Insecta' work of old AQ fave Q.R. Ghazala. Then, with an intro of ommming voices (or synth) there's "Lamentings / Auguries", featuring sparse melodic guitar weepery buried beneath fuzzed out layers of deep, electronic drone and distortion. Again, this definitely sounds like it would make good soundtrack material for some eerie, arty Italian horror flick. And further cementing our love affair with the abstract attractions of Eternal Jewel, the calmly vibrating "Incarnadine" brings some rays of light to this disc at its very end, with its peacefully repetitive clusters of gentle chimings over a quiet drone.
Packaged by Public Guilt in a nice black, gothically graceful gatefold sleeve, this is definitely recommended. Imagine Expo '70 cloaked in black, performing a seance with Tony Conrad and Lustmord, and you'll have an idea of how much we must like this!
MPEG Stream: "Night's Black Agents"
MPEG Stream: "Drops Of Sorrow"
MPEG Stream: "Lamentings / Auguries"

DARSOMBRA + VARIOUS ARTISTS Nymphaea (Public Guilt) cd-r 9.98
Hopefully you already know Darsombra, seeing as we made their last Public Guilt release, Eternal Jewel, a Record Of The Week not too many moons ago. Atmospheric dark doom-drone experimentation not unlike a more sinister Expo '70 or a proggier Nadja. If you don't know 'em, get this and you'll get to know at least one of their songs really really well, in a way.
Track one here, "Nymphaea", is a head-nodding exercise in bass heavy, slow-building psychedelic instrumental throb. It starts out with plenty of distortion, and only gets heavier and more blown-out as it plods forth, adding a snakily melodic guitar line to further entrance the listener. It originally appeared as Darsombra's contribution to the "untitled" 3cd comp PG help put out last year, and now it has spawned this collection of remixes, a dozen of them, tracks 2-13!
It's pretty fascinating to hear this single song morph from track to track, 'cause they're all very different, the each remixer definitely making it their own, from blissed out vocal pop (Max Bondi & Bleeding Heart Narrative's "Hyena Amp mix") to big-beat crash-boom electro (Pulsoc's "True Love Never Dies remix") to creepy drone-noise ambience (Guilty Connector's "Dotonburi Neonnights") and that's just the first three mixes on here! Elsewhere, Ala Muerte adds eerie female voice doing Latin chant, Destructo Swarmbots strip the track down to a minimal low-end hum, The Heirs Of Rockefeller crank up the fuzz, focussing on the song's incessant hypnotic plod... all these and the rest of the remixers generally fucking with this track in many compelling and often unexpected ways. Darsombra have every reason to proudly approve what's been done with, or done to, their "Nymphaea" here. Remixers not already mentioned above also include Perfekt Teeth, Magicicada, Strotter Inst., Decimation Blvd. & Darla Hood, Blood Fountains, and le knell.
LIMITED EDITION! 250 COPIES ONLY! We only got 20! On a black cd-r in a slim, screen printed sleeve with vellum obi.
MPEG Stream: DARSOMBRA "Nymphaea"
MPEG Stream: BLOOD FOUNTAINS "Nymphaea Seance remix"
MPEG Stream: PULSOC "Nymphaea True Love Never Dies remix"
MPEG Stream: THE HEIRS OF ROCKEFELLER "Nymphaea The Drugs Won The Drug War Mix"

DARWINSBITCH Ore (Digitalis) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Attention all blackened drone heads!!! We've managed to get a few copies of the new Digitalis release from Darwinsbitch, and it's super dark and super gorgeous! Ore is a slow burring monumental slab of post-apocalyptic dooooomy ambience. Using violin and oscillators, Mills graduate Marielle Jakobsons creates a dim world where Eastern folk melodies meet damaged textures and desolate atmospheres. Not too far off from anything on the Miasmah label, we're hearing strong similarities to the recent Elegy release, but Ore takes a different more melodic route through smoldering layers of buzzing drone and washed out haze. A nice balance between industrial filth and organic beauty, Ore is quite the accomplishment and should definitely not be missed! Limited to an edition of 500, don't be left in the smoldering ruins without it!
MPEG Stream: "Iron Lake"
MPEG Stream: "Shadow Leaves"

DARWINSBITCH Steel Hum (Digitalis Ltd.) cassette 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A member of Myrmyr and Date Palms, Marielle V. Jakobsons has been a busy bee lately. Since graduating from the prestigious Mills College where she was involved in various sound art installations (including building a self-oscillating violin!!) she's been recording constantly, and honestly we can't get enough of what we've heard so far. Steel Hums is her debut tape release on Digitalis Ltd. under the name Dawrwinsbitch, and it's a mystical venture to unknown crossroads where Indian classical music meets modern composition. Combining the ever-growing possibilities of tape manipulation with long tone violin composition, Steel Hums is dark, dim, and somehow lush and beautiful. Kinda sounds like a lost recording of some ancient violinist, dug up in midst of some industrial ruins, or if Henry Flynt went gothic. Really awesome stuff!! AND Darwinsbitch has also just released a debut cd on Digitalis, much more on that once we get a hold of it. But for now, feast your ears on this little slab of gorgeously dark ambient beauty. And as usual for stuff on Digitalis Ltd., this shit is super super limited. Like, so limited we only have four. So if ya got your heart set on this little gem, we suggest you act fast. Oh and also, this tape ain't cheap, but trust us, the music on here is totally worth it!! Don't miss out this limited release from one of Oakland's finest female artists!!

DATE PALMS Honey Devash (Mexican Summer) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Date Palms debut lp on Root Strata, Of Psalms (now sadly out of print) was one of our standout favorite records from last year. A blissful combo of Eastern drone classicism and hypnotic psych fluidity. Now the core Oakland-based duo of Gregg Kowalsky and Marielle Jakobsons follow their debut up with this stunning, no doubt limited, vinyl-only release on Mexican Summer (which comes with a download card).
Composed of two side-loooooong tracks, the structure of Honey Devash is set up in the form of two ragas as their basic foundation but open wide enough to allow a number of key compositional elements to play through. The title track is the morning raga stirring softly at first with slowly energizing phase shifts and bowed violin drones setting up the mood before the heavy bass riff bursts forth into a forward moving momentum aided by percussive elements and all sorts of sonic layering: oscillating bloops, arc-ing violin loops and modal electric piano phrases. Slowly-burning upward toward a white hot light, the gorgeously smoldering momentum breaks off into a purifying hypnotic cosmic bliss punctuated by spacy violin figures before a long slow fade.
The second side track, "Honey Dune" is the evening raga and it cools down with a wide drifting expansiveness lke the end of a long desert heat just before twilight. The mood is less propulsive, more contemplative but beautifully rich with added instrumentation of bass clarinet, tampura and cascading piano motifs. Melodically pretty and explorative, the track gives ample room for each instrument to stretch out and play yet remain tethered to a unifying whole by the grounation vibes of Trevor Montgomery's basslines.
Like some heady hybrid of spiritual Eastern jazz and rockish psych extrapolation, fans of Bruce Palmer, Dadawah, L. Shankar, Brightblack Morning Light, and Spacemen 3 should definitely scoop this up.
This is the perfect soundtrack for hot desert nights, staring at the stars. Sooooooo gooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DATE PALMS Of Psalms (Root Strata) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Date Palms is the new project of heavy electronic / cassette tape manipulator Gregg Kowalsky and Marielle Jakobsons (Myrmyr, Darwinsbitch) and is a strange, yet fantastic fusing of Eastern style raga drones, and hypnotic Spacemen 3 style bass buzz, which seems like a weird combo, but it definitely works, situating the Oakland duo right between those two not so disparate (as you might think) sounds, the music almost like some sort of slowcore spacerock dronedrift, writ abstract and minimal and Eastern, if that makes any sense. Sure it's on Root Strata, and both Date Palms are individually involved in the avant garde, but this could have easily come out on Kranky, or some other similarly outrock label, and these two could totally tour with a band like Low, or Stars Of The Lid, their slow smoldering drift a perfect fit, but the exotic array of Eastern instruments, and the duo's deft arrangements, and meticulous crafting of this hushed meditative minimal dronemusic, most definitely positions this just as easily outside the realm of 'rock music', and firmly in the world of the 'experimental'.
The opener is a perfect example, beginning with layered drones, the sound is immediately recognizable as some sort of Eastern raga, but the minute the bass comes in, the sound is transformed, and we can't help but hear Spacemen 3, at their most blissed out, and heck, they did make a record called An Evening Of Contemporary Sitar Music after all, which if we're not mistaken contained no sitar at all, the point is, Date Palms are channeling the same sort of druggy psychedelic minimalism, but adding that distinctly Eastern element, this opening track sounds like a way slowed down Moon Duo, with the keyboard swapped for some mysterious Indian instrument, and the guitar swapped for a bass, the groove is glacial, and is the perfect anchor for the more abstract buzz and drift. The bass does dissipate briefly, and at that point it sounds like Indian classical music, but then when the bass comes back in, along with some gorgeous melodic guitar counterpoint, the sound is brought right back to something more Western. The push and pull is dizzying, but subtly so, a fantastic hybrid, that works perfectly, combining to musics that both traffic in repetition and drone, the resulting hybrid is absolutely mesmerizing, the sort of rare sound that would appeal to the space rock bliss out crowd as much as the abstract minimal dronemusic crowd.
The rest of the record follows suit, the warm liquid basslines introducing a looped style mesmer, while all around, the duo introduce various bits of percussion, tinkling chimes, processed tape loops, sympathetic overtones and harmonics, on at least one track, the sound grows particularly fierce, the drone and drift wrapped in a squall of tangled psychedelic guitar, but that leads directly into the most blissed out of the bunch, the nearly 14 minute centerpiece, a smoldering drift where the bass part is so slow it almost sinks right into the background buzz like another layer, this time the processed guitar shimmer definitely evokes Sound Of Confusion era Spacemen 3, a gorgeous blurred dronescape that is utterly hypnotic, and 14 minutes is not even nearly long enough. The record closes though with what to us is the strangest of the bunch, definitely the most traditionally melodic, with a proper 'riff', the bass pronounced and fuzzy, and the melody played on an organ, the vibe almost classic rock, weirdly enough, but again, slowed waaaaaaay down and stretched waaaaaaay out, resulting in another gloriously abstract bit of raga drone slowcore drift.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Psalm 7"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm 3 Intro"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm 5"

DATURA Visions For The Celestial (Astral Projection) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Some druggy downer stoner rock from the man behind space rock outfit Lamp Of The Universe, only a few in stock...
We're huge fans of NZ guitarist Craig Williamson and his space raga rock outfit Lamp Of The Universe, whose sound is actually light on the rock, and heavy on the space and the raga, with buzzing sitars, and loping krautrock grooves, blissed out ambience and wispy clouds of spaced out FX. But way back in 1999, before the birth of LOTU, Williamson was doing time in a little band called Datura, who shared some sonic sensibilities with his later outfit, spacey, groovy, buzzy, but Datura rocked, we mean ROCKED, some serious stoner rock Hawkwind / Monster Magnet worship for sure. Big ol' wah wah guitar riffs, pounding drums, downtuned fuzz guitars, BIG BIG amps unleashing thick walls of sun baked drug drenched sound. The kind of sound we could gladly listen to forever. But...
...It's the vocals that will make it or break it for you. Super throaty rock croon, very reminiscent of Kyuss, some folks here thought it sounded a little too bar rock, or like the one rock guy on every season of American Idol, channelling some Eddie Vedder with that "yyyyuuuuuaaaayy" sort of classic rock yowl. But if you were into Kyuss, or any of the first wave of stoner rock bands (Beaver, Dozer, tons of other Man's Ruin bands) or any bands on the Small Stone label, this will definitely push those space rock, desert rock, stoner rock, slow groove, blown out guitar, beer and pot laced laid back groove buttons for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Magnetise"
MPEG Stream: "Sunshine In Purple"

DAUBY, YANNICK Alisen (Cloud Of Static) cd ep 13.98