DREADED Working Class Death (Waves Of Decay) cassette 8.98
Debut from this mysterious doom drone industrial noise outfit, one of FIVE new releases on Waves Of Decay (along with Wicked King Wicker, Demonologists, Skin Graft, and Robe.), and the sound of Dreaded fits pretty perfectly with those others, as well as outfits like Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Wolf Eyes, Colossloth, SUNNO))), Khanate, R.Y.N., Amort and other practitioners of the slow/low/grim black arts.
A slow build of creeping crumbling ambience opens things up, thick swirls of sludgey black drift, a caustic cloud of black ambience, shot through with slivers of buried feedback, truncated melodies, the sound slipping into hypnotic swells, threatening to explode but instead locked into a haunting, mesmerizing creep. Elsewhere electronics buzz and rumble, the sound minimal, but ominous and ever darkening, subtly cinematic, peppered with bits of industrial crunch, clipped bits of downtuned riffage, sent careening into the ether, strange tangles of tape decay stutter and corrosive low end crumble, the whole thing a sprawling, gut wrenching, soul stirring expanse of bleak, black dronedoom minimalism, blending the hushed minimal drift of all those Drone Records singles, with something far more abject and hateful. Killer stuff for sure. Absolutely recommended for any one into ANY of the above mentioned bands.
Super nice packaging, silver ink on black card stock, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, of which we have but a handful...

DREAMS (THE SKATERS) s/t (New Age Cassettes) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another super limited cd-r release of underground noisiness, this time from Dreams, a Skaters side project. We only managed to get a handful of these, so act fast, they'll be gone in no time.
Those of you familiar with the Skaters, already know they are masters of the free floating murk, a clattery chaos harnessed into dense smears of sound. A while back we reviewed a 7" by the Pan Dolphinic Dawn which definitely hints at what you can expect from Dreams, mostly because it's the same person, James Ferraro, one half of the Skaters, and Dreams is another example of the leaf not falling very far from the tree (and again raises the question, why make a solo record that sounds exactly like your band), but that's definitely okay, since we love basking in the murky muted shade of the Skaters' sound. If anything, Dreams is a bit murkier, less active, more of a drifting murmur. There's definitely lots going on sonically, but Ferraro renders all that action in subtle shades of grey and greyer, melodies, and voices, and riffs and whatever might be part of the overall sound, enter a whole new world once they're captured by Ferraro's four track. It's a bit like sitting at the foot of an empty well, watching storm clouds drift back and forth way above, constantly altering the ambient light, dusky, to dark, to darker, to pitch black and back again. Creepy and haunting and ominous but also strangely beautiful.
SUPER LIMITED. WE ONLY GOT A HANDFUL OF THESE, AND AS ALWAYS WE'RE NOT SURE IF WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

DREYBLATT, ARNOLD Point Source / Lapse (Table Of The Elements) 12" 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two tracks from New York Minimalist composer Arnold Dreyblatt, both sonically owe quite a debt to fellow New Yorkers Rhys Chatham and Glen Branca. The first track, Point Source, features Dreyblatt on "excited bass", Jim O'Rourke on drums (!), David Grubbs and Kevin Drumm on guitars and Maureen Loughnare on violin. A gorgeously hypnotic and metronomic post rock / downtown improv workout. Shades of Faust, Can and even Stereolab. Nice. Recorded live at Chicago's legendary Lounge Ax. The second track, Lapse, is performed by the Berlin version of Dreyblatt's Orchestra Of Excited Strings, performing on custom made instruments in unique tunings. The result is a playful, gypsy-ish romp, atonal and angular, with Eastern sounding melodies and shuffling active percussion. On clear vinyl, with antique cloud/weather charts printed in glow-in-the-dark ink.

DREYBLATT, ARNOLD Turntable History (Important ) cd 14.98
Musicians are an odd bunch. We used to joke that whenever you'd get a bunch of musicians together, if they ever went into some cool house, or a store, or a basement, or a bus, or a water tower, or an attic, or a yard, or a barn or really any sort of space, someone would always point out that said space "would be a great place to have shows". Similarly, as musicians discovered the musicality in everyday objects and everyday sounds, it seemed that everything and anything could be recorded and made into 'music'. Field recordings were no longer just the jurisdiction of naturalists and scientists. And it wasn't just the sound of frogs, or insects, suddenly it was melting ice, the beep of a respirator, the sound of drag racing, a zamboni, literally anything. It got to the point where we would hear something, and our first thought would immediately be "wow, if this was a record, we could totally sell a bunch of these".
Back to the odd musicians... composer Arnold Dreyblatt was faced with a serious illness, and went through a series of MRI scans, which stands for magnetic resonance imaging. You know, one of those big machines that a person is loaded into as a huge magnet swings around the body taking pictures, you've definitely seen people getting MRI's on House or Scrubs or St Elsewhere or about a million other hospital shows, and if you've ever had one, you realize it's pretty loud, a thick machinelike buzz. But if you're a musician, odd by nature, then you also think to yourself, as we most likely would, "wow, this machine makes an amazing sound, I need to record it". Which is precisely what Dreyblatt did, but this is not a straight recording, nope. Instead, he made multiple recordings of the machine, at different settings, thus creating different sounds, different tones, and then organized the recordings by pitch and rhythm and various other elements, and created a composition from these MRI recordings, and then used said composition as the sound component for an installation, which took place in a huge, resonant space, which is where this recording was captured.
And it's definitely a gorgeous set of sounds, warm metallic whirrings, pulsing rhythmically, the multiple recordings deftly layered creating fantastic overtones and subtle sonic shifts, from whirring minimal thrum, to dense swirling high end harmonies, the sound is actually remarkably psychedelic, and a little bit spacey, it's not hard to imagine something similar being created by some dude and his suitcase full of ring modulators and effects, but this, this is way more unique, the mechanical source occasionally revealing itself, but quickly disappearing into another layered pulsing cloud of machinedrone dreaminess, or throbbing metallic shimmer, the whole thing so lush and dense and fantastically mesmerizing.
MPEG Stream: "Turntable History (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Turntable History (excerpt 2)"

DRIPHOUSE Root 91 (Spectrum Spools) lp 24.00
Now available on vinyl, this mysterious recording which was originally released as a super limited cassette on the Root Strata label, hence the strange catlog number title, a cool, strange collection of sounds all created from piano, harpsichord and synths, and all woven into strangely cosmic sonic experiments, that range from swirling, electronic synthdrones that sounds almost like some crazy soundtrack to an alternate universe's planetarium show, to bizarre robotic electro, cobbled together from short bursts of static, bits of glitch and squelch, all wrapped around plink plonk piano melodies. There's also bleepy Radiophonic Workshop style analog electronic bloopscapes, minimal cinematic synthwave rife with shades of John Carpenter, but deconstructed into something much more abstract, super intense blasts of fuzzy shoegaze new age shimmer, this too peppered with starburst effects and sci-fi squiggles, haunting almost soundtracky sprawls of glitchy synth drones and processed minor key melodies, and some seriously creepy sing songy electro wrapped harpsichord, draped over softly swirling string like shimmer, and sounding a bit like the soundtrack to the unsung Halloween III. Cool, strange stuff for sure.
MPEG Stream: "Slow Sum Part One"
MPEG Stream: "Chompers World"
MPEG Stream: "In Peru"

DRIPHOUSE Root 91 (Root Strata) cassette 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another list, another batch of mysterious cassette sounds from Root Strata, check out the Father tape elsewhere on this week's list, which arrived alongside this, a clinically titled new release from a group/person called Driphouse, who like Father, we know next to nothing about, other than Root 91 is created from piano, harpsichord and synths, all woven into strangely cosmic sonic experiments, that range from swirling, electronic synthdrones that sounds almost like some crazy soundtrack to an alternate universe's planetarium show, to bizarre robotic electro, cobbled together from short bursts of static, bits of glitch and squelch, all wrapped around plink plonk piano melodies. There's also bleepy Radiophonic Workshop style analog electronic bloopscapes, minimal cinematic synthwave rife with shades of John Carpenter, but deconstructed into something much more abstract, super intense blasts of fuzzy shoegaze new age shimmer, this too peppered with starburst effects and sci-fi squiggles, haunting almost soundtracky sprawls of glitchy synth drones and processed minor key melodies, and some seriously creepy sing songy electro wrapped harpsichord, draped over softly swirling string like shimmer, and sounding a bit like the soundtrack to the unsung Halloween III. Cool, strange stuff for sure.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES! Housed in a super striking, embossed/debossed J-card, the cassette also strikingly printed white on white.
MPEG Stream: "Slow Sum Part One"
MPEG Stream: "Chompers World"
MPEG Stream: "In Peru"

DRIVER, TOBY In the L..L..Library Loft (Tzadik) cd 16.98
Working in a record store I've learned that records released with merely someone's given name attached -- unless they're very famous -- often tend not to receive as much attention as something released under a more fanciful, made up "group" moniker. Maybe it's that a plain ol' person's name just doesn't fire the imagination. It seems wise that Jeff Mangum was Neutral Milk Hotel, that Chan Marshall calls herself Cat Power, that Campbell Kneale makes music as Birchville Cat Motel (and Black Boned Angel, etc.), and that Tara Burke is Fursaxa, amongst many other examples -- though we're not sure how Malefic recording as Xasthur, where you've got two made up names, fits into this. So, to anyone contemplating a solo project, we'd suggest making up a "band" name for it...
Which is our way of saying, don't ignore this cd, just 'cause it's being presented under the name of Toby Driver. He's actually the main guy from the avant-metal outfit Kayo Dot, whose debut album on John Zorn's Tzadik label has been quite a favorite 'round these parts since it was released in 2003. Heavy and weird and droney and strangely poppy too, all sorts of things we like.
In the L..L..Library Loft is a solo project from Toby, with some help from his friends -- there's eight other musicians credited, a remarkable number of 'em playing the lowly tuning fork, along with other things! Another unusual instrument credit is "remote snare drum". Plus there's a more conventional array of instruments like guitar, bass, piano, violin, cello, drums, trumpet, trombone, etc. That should give you the idea that this shares with Kayo Dot an interesting style of proggy chamber rock experimentation -- indeed, the four, fairly lengthy tracks here are kinda like Kayo Dot with most of the metal removed. Though, the rumbling waves of percussion, guitar distortion, and buried screams on the track "Kandu Vs. Corky (Horrorca)" still hint at Neurosis. But there's also many non-metallic elements here as well -- fragile singing and dark, quietly moody ambience. Definitely a disc worth exploring, especially if you're already a fan of Kayo Dot (or Kayo Dot's earlier formation as Maudlin Of The Well).
And look out for Kayo Dot's new album, just released on Crucial Blast, to be reviewed here next time, hopefully!
MPEG Stream: "Kandu Vs. Corky (Horrorca)"
MPEG Stream: "Eptaceros"

DROMMER Black Moon Float (E.E.E. Recordings) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another blast of un-blackness from the E.E.E. camp, the home to some of the most amazing un-black metal we've ever heard. What the heck is unblack metal you ask? In a nutshell, well, it's Christian black metal. And any avid readers of the AQ list will remember us raving about pretty much everything we've heard: Light Shall Previal, Agathothodion, Glaciial and this here band, Drommer.
Unlike the buzzing black hordes these guys call labelmates, Drommer is A. not buzzy, and B. not religious. So what we have is some serious secular black ambience. Or maybe still un-black ambience. Drommer unfurl two epic slabs of spaced out shimmer. The first is a gorgeously layered drone, lots of high end draped over deep resonant whirs, the sounds beating against each other like all the best minimal drone music, creating all manner of subtle tonal variations and gorgeous abstract overtones. Sixteen minutes, simple tones stretched all the way out, all the action and the color and the musical movement comes from the interaction between the various tones, subtle, but utterly hypnotic.
The second track, is more in the dark ambient vein, a nearly 30 minute trawl through some haunting mysterious landscapes. There's some definite Lustmord action going on, which is always a good thing, but where Lustmord is abject and utterly desolate, Drommer lace their dour drones with shimmers of glistening melody and stray beams of sunlight. But even with these brief glimpses of blue sky, for the most part, it's a gorgeous black cloud of sound, chimes are muted and spread into dreamy blurs and laid over a sluggishly flowing stream of mumbled murk and dark dolorous glimmer.
As with all E.E.E. stuff, this is ultra limited, usually only 50 copies, so once these are gone, that may very well be it.
MPEG Stream: "Den Lovet Fremtidig Aeons Av Evig Sporsmal"
MPEG Stream: "For Evig Er Enna Mournful For Det Noensinne Begynt"

DROMMER Channeling Natural Forces (E.E.E. Recordings) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
More from the unblack camp!! E.E.E. Recordings, the Christian black metal label that brought us some of the best (un)black metal of the last few years, Light Shall Prevail, Glaciial, Agathothodion, strike again, but this time displaying a whole new side and sound.
This latest release is from a band called Drommer, who the label describe as "non-religious dark ambient", and their debut Channeling Natural Forces is a "soundtrack to nature", and indeed, there is plenty of rain, thunder and found sounds, all woven into thick, reverby soundscapes, slow burning, glimmering murky crawls, stretched out melodies, some huge grinding almost industrial drones, crumbling distortion, soaring keyboards, very dramatic and super epic, but fuzzy and buzzy and lo-fi at the same time. Makes it sound very intimate and organic.
The opening track sets the tone, a slowly growing ambience bathed in strange digital distortion and reverb, making what might otherwise be simply a dreamy drone, more a bizarre textured buzzy pulse, a haunting swell, that is constantly shifting and shimmering, the various overtones creating minimal murky rhythms amidst the static buzz. These effects surface throughout the record, giving those tracks a very alien vibe, but managing to remain true to their purpose, reflecting the sounds around us, and creating dramatic sounds to accompany natural events. Most of the tracks sound like the music we hear in our heads when the sun finally breaks through the clouds after weeks of rain and black skies. Not happy so much as glowing and subtly effulgent. Other tracks let nature do the talking offering a simple minimal counterpoint to the sound of the surf, or dripping water, deep dramatic rumbles, raga like buzz, way in the background, while nature performs her particular brand of music making over the top.
A few of the tracks get downright heavy, one when Drommers drones are all tangled up in the sounds of a torrential downpour, which ends up sounding like a natural Sunn 0))), the other, where the tones become sharp and intense, a buzzing high end skree wrapped in hiss and static that eventually crackles and flares wildly before blinking out.
Pretty amazing. Definitely a unique angle on ambient music and a cool way of incorporating field recordings, almost like a black metal Jewelled Antler!!!
As with everything E.E.E., way recommended.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Winds Of The Mountain Deep"
MPEG Stream: "Returning To Liquid Form"

DRONAEMENT Cosmic Tapes (Dying For Bad Music) cd-r 11.98

MPEG Stream: "Organ I"
MPEG Stream: "Organ II"
MPEG Stream: "Organ III"

DRONAEMENT + MIRKO UHLIG Farewell Fields (Dying For Bad Music) cd 21.00

MPEG Stream: MIRKO UHLIG "Para Puri"
MPEG Stream: DRONAEMENT "Fields"

DRONE HILL s/t (Hot Air) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Richard Harrison (who spends the majority of his time as the drummer for the Spaceheads) went to drone hill (its actual name!) to collect field recordings of the telephone wires that converge there. Hints of Alan Lamb's wind organs can be heard in these drones, as well as a variety of clangs, haunting moans, thunderous rumbles, and microscopic chatter. An exceptional record that succeeds not only in concept but also in execution. It goes without saying that, we all dig this!

DROPP ENSEMBLE Safety (And/OAR) cd 13.98
Had this come out some 20 years ago, the Dropp Ensemble would have only been able to pull this off by the slow process of tape exchanges through the post, in other word: mail art. But through FTP and hefty upload sites, the principle authors / engineers for the Dropp Ensemble can be a bit more nimble and not have to wait for the mailman to deliver that tape from halfway 'round the world. Those two farflung protagonists in the project are Salvatore Dellaria and Adam Sonderberg. The former, we're not all that familiar with his work although he's stated that he's retired from the realm of sound art; and the latter has produced a handful of exceptional tactile-minded drone records under his own name and in the ensemble Haptic. The two had managed to rope together a world class collection of experimental musicians: avant-percussionist Jon Muller, former Anomalous Records bossman Eric Lanzillotta, feedback drone specialist Jason Kahn, the concrete / field recordist Olivia Block, one-time Andrew Chalk collaborator Brendan Walls, prepared guitarist Thomas Korber, and seven others. For such a huge cast of characters, each with their own particular take on the drone, the composition, the noise, the sound, whatever, Dellaria and Sonderberg had proven to be deft not only in coalescing all of these sounds into an exceptional composition but also coaxing sympathetic sounds from all of the contributors. Heavy subharmonic plods and scraping gestures open the album gradually harmonizing into a thrumming arc of sustained rumblings that bellow with the toxicity and pressurization of deep sea vents, accentuated by an agitated motorik clicktrack. Glistening tones emerge out of controlled feedback, and softened textures undulate in what sound like sand pushed around a surface to allude to wind, tidal flow, or any number of hypnotizing forms of white noise. Muted drones from what we're guessing is Olivia Block's trumpet elegantly wrap around some of the found object manipulation to offer somber melodic interludes to these already impressive compositions. If this seems not all dissimilar to the non-Jewelled Antler work of Loren Chasse or field recording manipulation of Tarab and Eric La Casa, those are pretty apt references. And considering how much we love all of those artists, Safety certainly gets a thumbs up here at Aquarius.
MPEG Stream: "Everywhere Present And Nowhere Visible"
MPEG Stream: "The Vernacular Rooms"

DROWNING THE VIRGIN SILENCE Tone (Goat Eater Arts) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A mysterious new release from Goat Eater Recordings, who in the past have brought us exclusively recordings from ambient drone technicians Hoor-Paar-Kraat. But this one comes from one man band Drowning The Virgin Silence. Like all the Goat Eater stuff we've seen, this too is presented in a beautifully hand crafted artful sleeve, and the music inside is not all that far removed from the sounds of Hoor-Paar-Kraat, but where HPK is dark and desolate, heavy and often on the verge of being abrasive, the music of DTVS is much more soft and shimmery, the opening track almost sounds like it could have come straight off a Pop Ambient collection. Looped murky melodies, set adrift on a rippling sea of whir and rumble, drowsy and hypnotic.Ê
None of the rest of the record is nearly so poppy or melodic, but it is all super engaging and mysterious, each song, a strange and haunting assemblage of voices and unnamable instruments, snippets of sound, looped samples and all sorts of subtle effects. "Hummingbird" is a disembodied conversation all tangled up in dark swirls of echoey sound, the 10+ minute "Untitled" is a long stretch of mumbled ambience, dotted with cricket like skitter and haunting melodic shadows. "A Pair Of Scales Stripped Bare, Even" is a dense blur of industrial sound, high end scrape and skree blended into a churning low end undercurrent, static but somehow with a bit of forward momentum at the same time. The record finishes with the epic "Phaedra", a gorgeous smear of chordal whir and shimmery drone, all washed out and indistinct, melodies buried beneath the murky surface, all occasionally coalescing into soft swells and long stretches of blurred fuzz. So nice.Ê
Packaged in a beautiful hand screened cardstock sleeve, super minimal and striking.Ê
LIMITED TO ONLY 70 COPIES! Each one hand numbered of course...
MPEG Stream: "Thread"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"

DRUMM, KEVIN Comedy (Moikai) cd 13.98
Chicago experimentalist Kevin Drumm (and on a few tracks Jim O'Rourke) document feedback generating organs, bass rumblings, hi-end squealing, and metallic droning all set within orderly patterns. On O'Rourke's Moikai label.

DRUMM, KEVIN Imperial Distortion (Hospital) 2cd 19.98
Back in stock! This was out of print for a bit, but now repressed. Here's what we said about it originally:
In recent years, Chicago's Kevin Drumm has unleashed an impressive cacophony through a handful of recordings of gnarled distortion and tempestuous noise. Having collaborated with the black-clad noisemonger Prurient and the power electronic technician Lasse Marhaug, having released an album for Hanson Records, and having composed a kick-ass disc called Sheer Hellish Miasma should be enough to let you know what the man is capable of. But listen closely to each of those albums, you'll find hints of glinted melody and a subtle beauty just below the surface of the chainsaw buzz. Here on Imperial Distortion, Drumm focuses entirely upon the contemplative and introspective gestures in the form of the huge longform drones similarly embraced by Eliane Radigue, Andrew Chalk, BJ Nilsen, etc. Gone are the attack, the aggression, and the noise; but the dark, the doom, and the hellishness are what remains in these icy drones. His strategy is pure hypnosis through slippery layers of elongated electronic drones and bell-tone like resonance. On first listening to disc one, the subterranean gong clatter soaked in reverberation could easily tear themselves apart into digital chaos, but Drumm molds the gritty klank into an ominous dronedirge. This softening of potentially destructive sounds becomes Drumm's modus operandi throughout the first disc, with each modulation toward excess pregnant with malcontent energy reigned in for a severely dark moodscaping. On disc two, Drumm sets up soft transmissions from controlled feedback undulate with a slow moving rhythmic pulse, which gradually doubles upon itself into a topographical drone with the all of the same-but-different patterns of wind swept sand. Here, Drumm most recalls the unnerving minimalism through refined feedback manipulation that Nurse With Wound concocted on Soliloquy For Lilith. By the end of the record, the shadow and disease which could be read into some of the tracks on the first disc dissolve into a shimmering ambience that's just damn pretty.
Let it be known, Imperial Distortion was one of the best drone records of 2008.
MPEG Stream: "Guillain-Barre"
MPEG Stream: "More Blood And Guts"
MPEG Stream: "Snow (Part Two)"

DRUMM, KEVIN Imperial Distortion (Hospital) 3lp 47.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There had been rumors this album would get reissued on vinyl; thankfully, those rumors have proven true, as Kevin Drumm's epic Imperial Distortion is now on wax, pressed as a thick triple LP! Here's what we had to say about the album a while back...
In recent years, Chicago's Kevin Drumm has unleashed an impressive cacophony through a handful of recordings of gnarled distortion and tempestuous noise. Having collaborated with the black-clad noisemonger Prurient and the power electronic technician Lasse Marhaug, having released an album for Hanson Records, and having composed a kick-ass disc called Sheer Hellish Miasma should be enough to let you know what the man is capable of. But listen closely to each of those albums, you'll find hints of glinted melody and a subtle beauty just below the surface of the chainsaw buzz. Here on Imperial Distortion, Drumm focuses entirely upon the contemplative and introspective gestures in the form of the huge longform drones similarly embraced by Eliane Radigue, Andrew Chalk, BJ Nilsen, etc. Gone are the attack, the aggression, and the noise; but the dark, the doom, and the hellishness are what remains in these icy drones. His strategy is pure hypnosis through slippery layers of elongated electronic drones and bell-tone like resonance. On "Guillain-Barre," the subterranean gong clatter soaked in reverberation could easily tear themselves apart into digital chaos, but Drumm molds the gritty klank into an ominous dronedirge. This softening of potentially destructive sounds becomes Drumm's modus operandi, with each modulation toward excess pregnant with malcontent energy reigned in for a severely dark moodscaping. With the two parts of "Snow," Drumm sets up soft transmissions from controlled feedback undulating with a slow moving rhythmic pulse, which gradually doubles upon itself into a topographical drone with all of the same-but-different patterns of wind swept sand. Here, Drumm most recalls the unnerving minimalism through refined feedback manipulation that Nurse With Wound concocted on Soliloquy For Lilith. By the end of the record, the shadow and disease which could be read into some of the tracks at the front end of the album dissolve into a shimmering ambience that's just damn pretty.
Imperial Distortion was easily one of the best drone records of 2008.
MPEG Stream: "Guillain-Barre"
MPEG Stream: "More Blood And Guts"
MPEG Stream: "Snow (Part Two)"

DRUMM, KEVIN Imperial Horizon (Hospital) cd 15.98
The 2008 opus Imperial Distortion took a lot of people by surprise, as that album signaled an abrupt shift in Kevin Drumm's aesthetic trajectory. For many years, Drumm had been embracing a full tilt noise agenda on such self-evident albums as Sheer Hellish Miasma; but with Imperial Distortion, he steered into the cold waters of an impeccable, glacial doom-ambient sound. That album was much more in line with the disgorged ambience, bleak isolationism, and perfected minimalism of Eliane Radigue, Thomas Koner, and Andrew Chalk. Imperial Horizon is the suitable follow-up to that earlier album, and it clearly shows that Drumm's success on Distortion was no fluke.
While coming from the same train of thought, Imperial Horizon isn't a mere redux of Imperial Distortion. Drumm opens the album with a brighter, silvery set of sinewaves, looped feedback, or maybe just a refined set of synth patches. Gradually, the layers of sound separate to allow for a subtle two note melody to push out of the background. Deeper subterranean tones eventually overtake those silvery tones at the beginning, with another complementary pairing of harmonic notes an octave or so lower than before. This compositional rotation of drone, revelation of melody, and collapse into drone continues over very long stretches, several times throughout the duration of the piece. In the brighter tones on Imperial Horizon, this album sparkles and shines like the glistens of frost and ice from a wintery sun, as opposed to the nuclear fall-out deposits from Imperial Distortion's far bleaker aspirations. Nevertheless, Imperial Horizon is a stunning piece of dronescaping.
For those of you out there who embrace Drumm's screaming noise recordings too, don't despair. He's still working quite diligently in this vein as well. Check out the electro-terminus cacophony of his recent album Impish Tyrant!
MPEG Stream: "Just Lay Down And Forget It"

DRUMM, KEVIN Impish Tyrant (Dagda) cd 14.98
Holy shit! Drumm's back with the noise! The last two releases we had from Chicago's Kevin Drumm had shifted focus toward an introspectively bleak set of drone recordings on Imperial Distortion and Imperial Horizon; but with this redux of a 2004 cassette, the full-blown excess of noise abrasion returns. Yeah, those watershed noise albums, Sheer Hellish Miasma and Land Of Lurches, are the clear comparisons in Drumm's noise assaults. The album has a pedal driven quality that seeks a constant series of explosions, not in the continuous jet engine roar that you would get from a Zbigniew Karkowski construct or even the psychedelic excess of Merzbow; no, this is constantly pounding against the ear with short, sharp blasts that never let up, nor do they leave any breathing room whatsoever. Whew!
MPEG Stream: "Impish Tyrant 1"
MPEG Stream: "Impish Tyrant 2"

DRUMM, KEVIN Land Of Lurches (Hanson) 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 Hanson label (home to Wolf Eyes) brings us some heavy duty electronic noise hijinks from Chicago guitar experimentalist Kevin Drumm. Basically, if you just can't wait (five minutes) for the next Merzbow release, you'll be more than satisfied with this one from Drumm. He's really left behind the abstract avant-improv silences of his earlier recordings for the sheer hellish miasma of grinding drone chaos (as typified by his Mego album from last year entitled "Sheer Hellish Miasma"). That's what you get here, the sort of electronic music that non-fans will deride as 'vacuum cleaner' or 'lawnmower' or 'low-flying plane crashing into my house' music while those of us into this stuff say 'heck yeah!'.
The first of the this disc's three tracks moves in sixteen minutes from pleasantly distorted drone-destruction (your stereo speakers or headphones will sound like they are continuously blowing up) into more chaotic, violent territory that's harder to zone out to, before Kevin steamrollers everything heard previously with some REALLY hardcore noise. After than, the screaming clanking howling mayhem of the six-and-a-half minute second track is practically dancefloor material. Actually this one's got industrial sounds of a nightmare factory thing going on that's almost silly. Next up is the 13+ minute third and final track, which just happens to be our favorite here, a slowly swirling, swooping symphony of insectoid drone sound. Dense, yet smooth, and like all the cuts on "Land of Lurches", definitely dangerous at high volumes (though not so much as track 1 or 2). A good one for fans of Koji Asano's drones. All in all, noisebuffs will find this Kevin Drumm album a bit like Merzbow's "Hard Lovin' Man" intercut with slices of Masonna. Heavy drone noise meets maniac freak noise.
MPEG Stream: "track 3"

DRUMM, KEVIN s/t (Thin Wrist) 2lp 31.00
The debut album from KD, reissued on vinyl for the first time and expanded with previously unreleased bonus material! Gorgeous cover (with embossed lettering), super heavy gatefold packaging, 180 gram vinyl, comes with digital download.

DRUMM, KEVIN Sheer Hellish Miasma (Mego) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A miasma is defined as a heavy, vaporous emanation or atmosphere, also used to describe a corrupting influence (thank you, dictionary dot com!). So obviously, Chicagoan Kevin Drumm has been hanging around miscreants Peter Rehberg and Masami Akita and has decided to drop a nasty, pungent aural fart on all of us. Normally, guitarist Drumm crafts near inaudible soundscapes which leave much to be imagined. But "Sheer Hellish Miasma", his first recording for the stalwart experimental electronic jetset label Mego, is just FUCKING LOUD!!!! As to be expected from Mego, there's an abundance of clicks and whirrs, digital chirps and skitters, but I repeat, it is FUCKING LOUD!!!! (!) This'll probably be up for Prix Ars Electronica against Whitehouse. Or not. Who knows what those Ars Electronica people are thinking? The closing "Cloudy", in contrast, builds a simplistic, yet wonderful shimmering drone that ends the disc quite gorgeously. Well done. A necessity for all you pure noise freaks out there. Epic and apocalyptic, much like the work of Zbigniew Karkowski, Boyd Rice as NON, the overdriven sonic capacities of Whitehouse or the more hellish punishments of Merzbow (it's a bit like "Hard Lovin' Man" in its trance-inducing aspects).
RealAudio clip: "Inferno"
RealAudio clip: "Pavement"

DRUMM, KEVIN Sheer Hellish Miasma (Editions Mego) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This out of print, speaker shredding gem, gets revamped and reissued. With all new artwork courtesy of SUNNO)))'s Stephen O'Malley (a VERY subtle and minimal black-on-one-side, gold-on-the-other digipak variation of the original) AND a massive 13 minute bonus track, the digitaldirgedrone epic "Impotent Hummer", a gorgeously heavy, thick ropy rrrrrroooooaaaar, buzzing and blown out, sounding a bit like Kevin Drumm remixing Sunn 0))) or Boris, a low end buzz, broken down into its constituent parts and then reassembled into a glitch drenched chest rattling ur-drone. Maybe not worth it for the 'new' artwork, but definitely worth it for the new music. And if you missed out on it the first time around, here's what we had to say about the rest of the disc.
A miasma is defined as a heavy, vaporous emanation or atmosphere, also used to describe a corrupting influence (thank you, dictionary dot com!). So obviously, Chicagoan Kevin Drumm has been hanging around miscreants Peter Rehberg and Masami Akita and has decided to drop a nasty, pungent aural fart on all of us. Normally, guitarist Drumm crafts near inaudible soundscapes which leave much to be imagined. But "Sheer Hellish Miasma", his first recording for the stalwart experimental electronic jetset label Mego (now known as Editions Mego), is just FUCKING LOUD!!!! As to be expected from Mego, there's an abundance of clicks and whirrs, digital chirps and skitters, but I repeat, it is FUCKING LOUD!!!! (!) This'll probably be up for Prix Ars Electronica against Whitehouse. Or not. Who knows what those Ars Electronica people are thinking? The closing "Cloudy", in contrast, builds a simplistic, yet wonderful shimmering drone that ends the disc quite gorgeously. Well done. A necessity for all you pure noise freaks out there. And for all you folks into the epic dirgedrone buzz of acts like Boris and Sunn 0))). Epic and apocalyptic, much like the work of Zbigniew Karkowski, Boyd Rice as NON, the overdriven sonic capacities of Whitehouse or the more hellish punishments of Merzbow (it's a bit like "Hard Lovin' Man" in its trance-inducing aspects). Hellish!
MPEG Stream: "The Inferno"
MPEG Stream: "Hitting The Pavement"

DRUMM, KEVIN Sheer Hellish Miasma (Editions Mego) 2lp 27.00
A miasma is defined as a heavy, vaporous emanation or atmosphere, also used to describe a corrupting influence (thank you, dictionary dot com!). So obviously, Chicagoan Kevin Drumm has been hanging around miscreants Peter Rehberg and Masami Akita and has decided to drop a nasty, pungent aural fart on all of us. Normally, guitarist Drumm crafts near inaudible soundscapes which leave much to be imagined. But Sheer Hellish Miasma, his first recording for the stalwart experimental electronic jetset label Mego (now known as Editions Mego, who have just reissued this on vinyl), is just FUCKING LOUD!!!! As to be expected from Mego, there's an abundance of clicks and whirrs, digital chirps and skitters, but we repeat, it is FUCKING LOUD!!!! (!) This'll probably be up for Prix Ars Electronica against Whitehouse. Or not. Who knows what those Ars Electronica people are thinking? The opening number "Impotent Hummer" is a the digitaldirgedrone epic - a gorgeously heavy, thick ropy rrrrrroooooaaaar, buzzing and blown out, sounding a bit like Kevin Drumm remixing SUNNO))) or Boris, a low end buzz, broken down into its constituent parts and then reassembled into a glitch drenched chest rattling ur-drone."Cloudy", in contrast, builds a simplistic, yet wonderful shimmering drone that ends the disc quite gorgeously. Well done. A necessity for all you pure noise freaks out there. And for all you folks into the epic dirgedrone buzz of acts like Boris and SUNNO))). Epic and apocalyptic, much like the work of Zbigniew Karkowski, Boyd Rice as NON, the overdriven sonic capacities of Whitehouse or the more hellish punishments of Merzbow (it's a bit like "Hard Lovin' Man" in its trance-inducing aspects).
While the first edition of this recording came out in 2002, a second with that awesome "Impotent Hummer" bonus track followed in 2007. The vinyl edition of Sheer Hellish Miasma has all of the material from the 2007 edition with the 24 minute track "The Inferno" split over two sides of wax. Hellish? Hell, yeah!

DRUMM, KEVIN & TAKU SUGIMOTO Duo (meme) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Quiet and sparse guitar improvisations akin to Derek Bailey's more contemplative moments.

DRUMM, KEVIN & LASSE MARHAUG Frozen By Blizzard Winds (Smalltown Supersound) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With an album title that sounds like it could be the name of the next Immortal record, this new release from Chicago guitar experimentalist Kevin Drumm takes the inspired-by-black-metal aesthetic of his recent Mego-label cd "Sheer Hellish Miasma" even further (what's he been doing, hanging out with Weasel Walter?). In fact, he teams up here with an actual Norwegian! Lasse Marhaug of noisy electronica act Jazzkammer joins Drumm for this live-in-Oslo session, his laptop computer vs. Drumm's guitar and analog synth. Their collaboration/clash results in some dark and droney sounds that are semi-appropriate to the apparent black metal concept, being generally quiet and creepy rather than massive or mayhemic. The guitar, when you can tell it's a guitar, is more Derek Bailey than Burzum. And the arctic winds evoked on here hiss rather than howl. But, there's no mistaking the simulation of the sinister crackling of burning churches, and perhaps even the twittering of malicious goblins in dark forests, via Drumm and Marhaug's electronics. So, of course, we love this. Leaving aside the black metal business, this is atmospheric ambient glitch drone improv at its best -- and most eeveeiil.
RealAudio clip: "track 2"

DRUMM, KEVIN & MARTIN TETREAULT Particles and Smears (Erstwhile) cd 16.98
Chicago experimentalist Kevin Drumm has teamed up with Quebecois turntablist Martin Tetreault for spartan duet for delicate pings, plucks, whirs, scrapes, and other particulate matter that have all been recorded as dryly as possible with a deadening silence surrounding each and every sound. If Bernhard Gunter tried to make a record of his ultra-quietness using live instruments, it might sound like this.

DRUMM, KEVIN / 2673 split (Kitty Play) lp 14.98
We imagine it's quite a rare occurrence when Kevin Drumm gets outnoised on a record. By anyone! But it looks like it's finally happened on this here split. That's not to say Mr. Drumm is not noisy here, he most certainly is, it's just that in this case, 2673 are a bit noisier. Drumm's side of this lp is a thick slab of buzzing rhythmic insectoid electronics, chopped and shuffled and assembled in such a way that it sounds almost techno-like, pounding and stuttering out an impossibly complex rhythm, before a suffocating swarm of high pitched squeals and beeps descend like some sort of seventies computer gone completely haywire. Unlike the first twenty minute blast of screech and stutter, the final few minutes are downright serene, an abstract soundscape of greys, distorted white noise smeared into blurry barely there melodies. Quite nice. 2673, who you may remember from their split with Unicorn a few lists back, definitely bring the noise here, with an opening salvo of shrieking squealing high pitched skree that had dogs down the block barking as we were listening to this. The rest of the side is less high end, but no less noisy, with massive slabs of crumbling distorted electronics and overblown loops of prickly feedback and speaker shredding crunch. Woah! In a beautiful sleeve designed by Steven O'Malley (of SUNN O))), Khanate, Burning Witch, etc.) that is even printed on the inside!

DRUMM, KEVIN / PITA drumm/pita (BOXmedia) 12" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not a collaboration but a split between Chicago's experimental guitarist Kevin Drumm and Vienna's powerbook cruncher Pita. As far as the Kevin Drumm side, this is the most accomplished piece that this Jim O'Rourke protege has released so far. Behind a muffled yet spartan clatter of metallic objects, Drumm situates a simple melancholic melody (perhaps a french horn, but more likely just a basic synth patch) that gently sets a very sombre tone for the duration of the piece. Mego's Pita splits his contribution in two distinct pieces, with the first half being a warm digitized drone topped with scratchy vinyl pops. and the second half being more abrasive with lots of spiked granules of digital errata.

DRUNJUS On The Heels Of Sleipnir (Twonicorn) 2 x cassette 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Massive double cassette from Drunjus, a mystical magical offshoot of free noise folk outfit Davenport. Monstrous, thick, reverberating tones, like dragging a horsehair bow across the roof of the Astrodome, a dark deeply felt vibration, a subterranean string section, playing a single low low note, balanced by sections of full on chaotic skree, grinding warped guitars, blown out acid drenched psychedelic squalls, crunchy abstract clatter, a buzzy, blurry, speaker shredding sheet of corrosive trancelike urdrone. Double cassette wrapped in a hand screeened Japanese style obi.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!!!
MPEG Stream: "On The Heels Of Sleipnir (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "On The Heels Of Sleipnir (excerpt 2)"

DRYER / HEULE / LINDSAY Idea Of West (Creative Sources) cd 13.98
When we first got this record in, we thought we had it totally figured out. Just take a look at the lineup: Tony Dryer, an accomplished double bassist and former touring member of the Flying Luttenbachers, Jacob Lindsay, local clarinet free-jazz virtuoso, and last but not least, Jacob Heule, a member of SF's only acoustic free/death/grind duo Ettrick! So naturally we figured this record would be a chaotic frenzy of fierce free jazzy madness. And while it is definitely loosely composed and rather abstract, the trio delve into some unexpected territory here. We checked out Heule's website and he describes the Idea of West as an album of "quiet and static acoustic musical territories explored through the pragmatic application of compositional and improvisational structures". Damn, and we thought we had this one figured out!
"In Order to Reroute the Wind" starts things off on a rather minimal note. Rickety scratching and scraping that sound like creaking boats swaying in a harbor of sizzling electric waste. Quiet industrial, barely there type of sound meanderings, a reserved and delicate sound for these ferocious free jazz contemporaries. On first listen, the jazz aesthetic of Idea of West is a bit hidden underneath a more ambient guise. Don't get us wrong, this sounds more like a jazz collaboration than a drone/ambient record, but it defiantly lacks the smack you in the face ferocity of other releases put out by these dudes. But that doesn't mean Idea of the West isn't an awesome piece of work in its own right. On the contrary, the trio confidently evolve Idea of West into a beautifully arranged aural invitation into a strange world of alchemic precision and skilled musicianship. Like a sorcerer who meticulously adds ingredients to a potion, paying careful attention to every detail in hopes of casting the perfect spell, these dudes play with close attention to detail. The record builds up and dissipates as the trio feed off each other's playing, letting chance determination sculpt their meditations into a hauntingly beautiful sonic narrative. Perfect for those of you aQ-addicts open to the weirder, more mystical side of free jazz!! And most certainly recommended by us!
MPEG Stream: "Before There Was Mass"
MPEG Stream: "Light From Another Light"
MPEG Stream: "Meant And Memory"

DSICO Fool (Spasticated) cd 7.98

DSICO You Fight Like A Girl (Spasticated) cd 7.98

DUBUISSON, PIERRE Sept Regards Sur L'Esprit De La Mort (The Guild Of Funerary Violinists) cd-r 12.98
Another strange and mysterious collection of lost and forgotten musicks, perhaps the last volume (of four) in this series of archival recordings, collecting the very few existing performances and recordings that fall under the umbrella of a mysterious movement of musicians and composers known asÊThe Guild Of Funerary Violinists.Ê
Pierre Dubuisson was France's foremost Funerary Violinist, having made his name in the great funerary duels that became a bit of a fashion for a brief spell, where the deceased would leave a bit of melody to be performed after his death, two violinists would then improvise on the theme doing their best to wring more tragedy from the notes than their opponent, the winner of course was the one who drew the most tears from onlookers. Dubuisson eventually became president of the French branch of the Guild Of Funerary Violinists, and helped to integrate Funerary Violin into the Catholic ritual before disappearing under dubious circumstances during the infamous Funerary purges.Ê
These recordings were made by Pierre's grandson Jacques, who after running away from an abusive home and an overbearing father, was discovered playing some of his grandfather's pieces at a concert in 1913, by an archivist from the Biblioteque Nationale De France, who convinced Jacques to make wax cylinder recordings of some of his grandfather's recordings. Jacques is of course not the player his father was, or his grandfather before him, but the pieces carry their own powerful emotion which easily overcomes any sort of deficiencies in the performances.Ê
Oh, right, we always seem to forget the most important part, none of the above is true? Not a bit. Or is it? Hard to say. Or so a few of us think. Some here choose to believe (Mulder?) since the mythology is almost as fascinating and nuanced as the recordings, and imagining this lost art is so much more fun, while others are just happy to listen to this amazing music. And amazing it is. Perfectly and beautifully rendered to sound as old and antique as it most likely is not. Wailing, plaintive funereal laments on solo violin, sad and morose, lilting and so completely lovely, bathed in all manner of grit and hiss, fuzz and antique distortion, sounding like the old wax cylinders these recordings purport to be. Imagine some old timey violin music treated by Tim Hecker, and spunÊ in some ultra morose DJ set by Philip Jeck...
The music is so evocative, of dark clouds at dusk, rain swept fields, huge brooding stone houses, lush gardens beneath grey skies, and of course, funerals, and the slow stately trudge of the funeral procession to the grave site. We've gushed about pretty much every volume so far, and by now are probably just repeating ourselves, but we just love these discs, read the other Funerary Violinist reviews for more on the music and the mythology, and you'll realize just why it seems impossible to us to not fall totally in love with such a well executed piece of what ultimately amounts to performance art. The music, dark and delicate, creepy and so beautiful, even removed from the mythology is totally amazing, the story and the text is as well (there's even a book you can track down, detailing the entire recorded history of the Guild) but the two together, are simply magical....
MPEG Stream: "Marche Funebre - Lent Pose Et Majestueux"
MPEG Stream: "Vol - Magnanime Et Degage"
MPEG Stream: "Marche Funebre - Sombre, Pourtant Ouvert Sur L'Avenir"

DUCHAMP, MARCEL Entire Musical Work Of... (Ampersand) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Predating the inclusion of chance operations into modern composition by almost fifty years, these compositions by Marcel Duchamp (written in 1913) were recorded in 1976 by the S.E.M. Ensemble of New York.
Duchamp was a household word in art circles, and music seemed the least important of his various interests, yet he managed to create a small, but highly innovative body of work. Included here are two interpretations of Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even". One utilizes a chance system in which notes are represented by numbers written on balls which are selected as they pass through a funnel into the open cars of a toy train. The other is based on a a random selection of numbers, transcribed into notes and performed by player piano.
That's all well and good, but what does it sound like? Pretty amazing actually. This disc is worth buying for the first track alone, a gorgeous 25 minute piece, spacious and elegant, a dreamy sleepy swirl of chimes and their shimmering overtones. Absolutely gorgeous.

DUCHAMP, MARCEL The Creative Act (Sub Rosa) cd 14.98

DUCHAMP, MARCEL The Entire Musical Work Of (Dog W/A Bone) cd 17.98
Predating the inclusion of chance operations into modern composition by almost fifty years, these compositions by Marcel Duchamp (written in 1913) were recorded in 1976 by the S.E.M. Ensemble of New York.
Duchamp was a household word in art circles, and music seemed the least important of his various interests, yet he managed to create a small, but highly innovative body of work. Included here are two interpretations of Duchamp's "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even". One utilizes a chance system in which notes are represented by numbers written on balls which are selected as they pass through a funnel into the open cars of a toy train. The other is based on a a random selection of numbers, transcribed into notes and performed by player piano.
That's all well and good, but what does it sound like? Pretty amazing actually. This disc is worth buying for the first track alone, a gorgeous 25 minute piece, spacious and elegant, a dreamy sleepy swirl of chimes and their shimmering overtones. Absolutely gorgeous.

DUCKTAILS Backyard (Release The Bats) cd 14.98
Another missive of gloriously murky tropical lo-fi garage surf pop from Ducktails, aka Matt Mondanile, this cd collecting tons of older out of print material from cassettes: the '1992' demo, recorded in 2007, a split tape from a little later on and the way out of print Ducktails II.
Even more warped and warbly than the Not Not Fun full length, these tracks drift and float through a hazy sonic dreamworld, slipping from looped cassette tape psychedelic calypso, to moody, sludgey bedroom balladry, to fuzzy proto garage rock, to dizzying super distorted sonic collages, to far out glistening new wave sparkle, to disembodied otherworldly Appalachia, to lonely sun dappled country twang, to lush lo-fi drum machine driven power pop, to dark brooding minimal indie jangle, to cinematic, almost Morricone sounding soundscapery, to super distorted GBV sounding fractured fragmented ADD pop, to hushed spaced out new age shimmer, all held together by that weird warped production, which wreathes everything in a washed out muted glow, like someone turned down the treble, or cut up the tweeters in your speakers with an exacto knife, the result is muddy and blurry and smeary and so gorgeous.
And be sure to stick around for the 12+ minute closing track, merely an excerpt of a much longer track, but it could be our favorite, an extended slow burning space drone, layered and textured, super distorted and effected, growing more so as it unfurls, eventually the sound begins to blow out, the notes begin to crumble, revealing a warm glowing center, surrounded by slowly decaying buzz and crunch!
MPEG Stream: "Crystal Vision"
MPEG Stream: "Why Am I Here?"
MPEG Stream: "Tropical Heat"

DUELL, XANDER Experimental Tape No. 2, Vol. 1 (Mexican Summer) lp 17.98
We had never heard of Xander Duell before, but we were definitely intrigued by a record on Mexican Summer titled Experimental Tape No. 2 Vol. 1, but it's not necessarily what you might expect. Or what we were expecting. Based on the title, we had imagined some actual musique concrete tape experiments, all academic and avant, but then that didn't really jibe with Mexican Summer. And then you hear the first track, the ultra brief fifteen second lone "-", with its dramatic piano and crooned pop, and sampled strings, and the whole tape experiment makes more sense, and the second track just drives that home, acoustic guitar, lush multi tracked vocals, murky percussion, sounding a bit like the Frogs, although the label describes this record as a tribute of sorts to Scott Walker's Scott 1-4, which also makes sense. At its core, the music of Duell is a sort of old fashioned baroque pop, but in its presentation and execution, it's anything but old fashioned. Slathered in noise, warped production, slipping from piano ballad, to dark gloom pop, to a sort of new wave-y RnB, to shuffling groovy jangle, and pretty much every stop in between.
The vocals deep and dreamy one track, wavery and falsetto the next, and then a weird sped up and processed warble the next, making Duell sound almost like Ween, which is in no way a bad thing. In fact, Duell is sort of like a strange fractured mix of Scott Walker, The Frogs, Ween, and you could probably mix in some Ariel Pink, and Emitt Rhodes, and any of a number of idiosyncratic pop geniuses.
It's not an easy listen, some of the songs are dark and dolorous, moody and haunting, others are goofy and bizarre, still others are completely bizarre, and then others practically perfect pop. But the magic of Duell's experiments, is that rarely do they stick to just one of those. A perfect pop song, will have some bafflingly bizarre vox, some twisted avalanche of lo-fi clatter, will be shot through with a gorgeous timeless melody, or some lush vocal harmonies will be doused in effects and wrapped in a collage of twisted samples. But it works, and to these ears this is some seriously amazing stuff. It really makes us wonder what Duell could come up with in a real studio, but at the same time, why mess with what ain't broke, or in Duell's case is exactly as broke as it should be.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES! Each one hand numbered. Comes with a download coupon as well.
MPEG Stream: "Live & Learn"
MPEG Stream: "Diamonds Are Dizzy"
MPEG Stream: "Emma Baby"
MPEG Stream: "Good Morning Rhode Island"

DUKKHA Grim Disco (Frequency Thirteen) cd-r 7.98
One of two new blasts of "True Sheffield Black Psychedelia" from one of our favorite labels, UK weirdo sound stronghold Frequency 13, the True Sheffield Black Psychedelia descriptor covering a whole lot of sonic territory, from groups as varied as Black Vomit (whose new record is reviewed elsewhere on this week's list), Ice Bound Majesty, Rape Rack, Skultroll, not to mention these guys right here, Dukkha, whose latest, the awesomely titled Grim Disco, is a single, 70 minute sprawl, that merges Butthole Surfers like atonal guitar melodies, with thick swaths of churning low-end, and looped propulsive programmed rhythms, into something heavy, hypnotic and WAY tripped out.
A dirgey, murky, krauty groove, submerged in a sea of chug and buzz and crunch, wound up with all manner of spidery melodies, the 'riff's a sort of blurred black metal, tangled up with something much dirgier and noise rockier, the sound slipping from caustic distorted buzz to weirdly tranced out cyclical churn, but that's only the first 6 or so minutes, the rhythmic pound and chug fading out into a cloud of glitched out digital shimmer, a bit like Oval, hazy and hypnotic, before splintering into something much more ominous, a whirling cinematic stretch of buzzing epic synthscapery, all soaring low end buzz and haunting majestic melody, thick and lush and layered, seriously dark and creepy, before it too fades out, this time into a field of glitch and glimmer, which gives way to some Melvins-y detuned dirge-y pound, the guitars gradually growing more and more chaotic, streaks of feedback, shards of fragmented riffage, moaning melodies, jagged atonal crunch, swirling low end murk, all wound around some tribal rhythmic pound, a doomy, downtuned final sludgey, weirdly groovy coda.
Killer stuff, as always. CRAZY LIMITED too, ONLY 40 COPIES!! we got 20 of those, which are bound to go fast...
MPEG Stream: "Grim Disco (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Grim Disco (excerpt 2)"

DUKKHA / BLACK VOMIT Be My Second (Frequency Thirteen / Night Angels Serve) cd-r 8.98
The return of TRUE SHEFFIELD BLACK PSYCHEDELIA!!!
A few lists back we listed two discs of mysterious blackened post rock ambient epic weirdness, one from a band called Skultroll, the other from a group called Ice Bound Majesty, both offering up tangled sounds not easily to pin down. The hypno krautrock of Circle, the dirgey black doom of Bunkur, mixed with epic space prog, damaged drones, and whatever the fuck else those weirdos could cram in.
So as we continue to fly through copies of both, it seemed like maybe it was time to dig deeper into this bizarre black scene of freaky fucked up musical madness, dubbed by these outfits True Sheffield Black Psychedelia, and needless to say, it is indeed black, most definitely psychedelic and oddly enough, also from Sheffield!
So this time around we picked up a split, two more mysterious Sheffield combos, Dukkha, and the appetizingly named Black Vomit.
The odd tracks are Black Vomit, three long ones, culminating with a nearly 20 minute closer. But what the heck does Black Vomit sound like? Not as black as you might think. The opening track is a gorgeous drum heavy krautjam, the drums plugging along, with little double kick drum flourishes, relentless and motorik, as a huge warm washed out black cloud of swirling fuzz and hissy shimmer drifts in, a bit like Tim Hecker, dense and layered and constantly shifting, thickening as the song progresses, shot through with streaks of feedback and speaker rattling low end pulses, little flurries of effects and grinding industrial whir, sounds like a dronemetal Necks or a way more blessed out and dreamy Pharaoh Overlord. The second Black Vomit track, clocking in at nearly eleven minutes, is a much blacker beats, the middle portion a chaotic psychedronemetal freakout, the drums a blurry blast, the guitars tangled and angular, all wrapped up in a throbbing low end buzz, eventually mellowing out and stretching out into a hissy buzz drenched static drone, beneath which the sounds of frogs and crickets, bits of TV or radio broadcasts, a drifting barely there bit of simple guitar strum, super intense and creepy and cinematic. The final track, The Black Vomit's closer, a bruising 19 minute jam is a long form ambient sprawl, beginning with some epic tribal drumming, some industrial clatter, and thick corrosive drones, before the drums drop out leaving just the low end to drift and throb, swell and shift, a gorgeous dreamy thrum, until the drums kick back in near the end, finishing off with a flurry of mathy chaos, the drones and buzz building in tandem, a corrosive final moments prog psych blowout.
Then there's Dukkha, who sound like Black Vomit's kissing cousins. Their opener is nearly 23 minutes long, and is a loping post rock dirge, the drums a simple pound, the bass looping and loping in the background, the guitar in thick sheets buzzing dronelike, and occasionally locking into weirdly groovy stoner jams and then unwinding again into static sheets, the vocals a demonic distant wail, the riffs surfacing and locking into endless loops and super hypnotic hypno metal jams, like a crusty black metal Gore. The second track sounds like the first one, with the drums pulled out, the whole thing dipped in a bucket of busted effects pedals, and dumped over a wall of feeding back amplifiers. Maybe the 'dub' version of the first track, a Dense cloud of fucked up electronics, jagged melodic fragments, freaked out FX, and massive groaning walls of crumbling ultra distorted slow motion riffing.
Fucking awesome. Black enough for the true grim kvlt, but rhythmic enough to appeal to folks who dig Circle, This Heat, Aluk Todolo and the like and who aren't averse to something equally rhythmic, but way more blackened and brutal.
MPEG Stream: BLACK VOMIT "Squalltomb"
MPEG Stream: DUKKHA "Clod"
MPEG Stream: BLACK VOMIT "Eblis, Laced On Herba Sacra"

DUMB AND THE UGLY Atmospheres of Metal (Dr Jim's) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In our experience a lot of the best (and, of course, worst) cds released end up languishing in a forgotten corner of some distributor's warehouse, or under the label owner's bed... It's quite possible for something great but obscure to get released in an edition of 1,000 and then ten years later there's still 700+ copies gathering dust in a closet somewhere. We suspect that this Dumb And The Ugly cd is an example of this (though that's just a guess, maybe it sold well and has been re-pressed). What we do know is that this came out in 1992 in Australia and we liked it then and it's still great and we somehow just got a hold of a few copies. Despite the title, this isn't a "metal" album per se. It IS quite atmospheric, its eight tracks almost alternating between sheer sinister ambience (shortwave sounds, distorted operatic singing, underwatery drones) and heavy-duty guitar riffage a la Helmet or Circle. It's lumbering thud-rock with definite weird arty dark psychedelic pretensions, successfully so. We've only got a few but presumably there's more where these came from...
MPEG Stream: "I Feel Free"
MPEG Stream: "Lazy Eight"

DUMB TYPE Memorandum (CCI Recordings) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Dumb Type is a performance / conceptual art group comprised of Ryoji Ikeda and Toru Yamanaka and has been active since 1984, producing a number of multi-media spectacles. "Memorandum" combines their audiovisual architechtronics to explore memory as the semiotic sum of the elliptical orbits of emotion, instinct, and intellect, utilising dance, translucent scrims, and rapid fire video collages. Dumb Type saw fit to release just the audio from "Memorandum", and it's certainly strong enough to stand on its own, even without all of the visuals. In working with Yamanaka, Ikeda's clinical pulses of pure sinewave tones are flushed out with extended drones, making this simultaneously sound like early Klaus Schulze or Pan Sonic. Dumb Type breaks up the piece with snippets of spoken texts that are accompanied by delicate synth patterns, emulating the sappiness of daytime soap operas. While the intent of these musical interludes is unclear, it is the only flaw in an otherwise fantastic post-techno score.

DUMONT, OLIVIER Living In Holes And Disused Shafts (Utech Records) cd 14.98
The always intriguing and aesthetically striking Utech label is on a rumbling roll! Of their three newest releases, we made Aluk Todolo's Finsternis a Record Of The Week last week. Gog's Mist From The Random More is one of this week's Records Of The Week too. And then there's this, which is pretty awesome too, if you're into the more extreme end of textural abstract electric drone-groan. Three-for-three for Utech as far as we're concerned!
You might expect "holes and disused shafts" to be quiet places. Not so, if the ominously noisy soundscapes of French experimentalist Olivier Dumont are any indication. The holes where he goes are alive with chaotic crackling electric intensity, densely detailed distortion. Utterly satisfying stuff for those of us into this sort of sonic grit.
Dumont's Utech debut consists of five tracks, about 44 minutes total, all varied in approach and relative levels of "noisiness". It starts off with perhaps the most menacing cut, "Room 237", recorded solely with "buzz cable" (probably a patch cord connected to an amplifier, though we also could imagine something more massive and industrial, like some sort of repurposed undersea telecommunications cable). Switching to tape recorder and then feedback guitar for his sound sourcing, Dumont conjures sounds like buzzing airplane motors and swarming mechanical bees as this disc progresses. The final two lengthy tracks, the 16 minute "R-Grey" and the especially atmospheric album ending title track (9:30), are on the more subdued side, being mysterious organic improvs that draw the listener in rather than grind them underfoot. More beautiful than brutal in the end, this disc is quite recommended for noiseniks.
Nicely packaged in a slender, slightly oversized sleeve typical of Utech releases, with the usual black & white (mostly black) graphics, this is limited to just 500 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Room 237"
MPEG Stream: "Living In Holes And Disused Shafts"

DUNCAN, JOHN Da Sich Die Machtgier... (Die Stadt) cd 19.98
2003 has been a very busy year for John Duncan, having released 5 full albums along with creating two rather impressive sound installations in Sweden and his current base of operations Italy. Many of these projects have simply been the culmination of projects that began quite some time ago; and fortunately, Mr. Duncan has steered clear of many of the failings of hyper-prolific artists who simply fall back upon signature styles. As always, Duncan seeks out new challenges for himself and nakedly asserts them upon his audience, whether they want it or not.
Da Sich Die Machtgier... began as a collaborative project between Duncan and Asmus Tietchens. To begin, Tietchens sent Duncan recordings of Tietchens reading texts from E.M. Cioran, the early 20th century skeptic whose quotes are featured on almost all of the Tietchens back catalogue releases. In turn, Duncan processed those recordings, sent them back to Tietchens, and awaited further instructions. Instead of receiving another round of recordings to work with, Duncan received a note from Tietchens that his initial recordings were sufficiently complete and that Tietchens would refuse any credit for his contribution. To this day, Duncan still disagrees with Tietchens about the credit issue, but went ahead and released the results as is.
An unnervingly digital construction, Da Sich Die Machtgier... relies heavily on the maniacal hammering of the DSP / timestretching filters. For the first half of the album, these agitated, rapid-fire noises approximate Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music and strongly reference the process of a thoroughly disembodied voice as the content to the work. However, the caustic abstraction completely dissolves in the album's epic, 30 minute finale. Much closer to the subtle power of Phantom Broadcast and Infrasound - Tidal, this track smears Tietchens voice into an electronic windstorm, sweeping with an elegant majesty.
As with Duncan's entire body of work, Da Sich Die Machtgier... is a very strong release.
MPEG Stream: "Freih Zein Hoern Macht..."
MPEG Stream: "Aber"

DUNCAN, JOHN Fresh (Podewil) cd 17.98
Sonic provocateur John Duncan has said he prefers the use of shortwave radio signals over any musical instrument in his pursuit into the pure physicality of noise. "Fresh," however, finds Duncan stepping back from that proclamation, as this album documents his collaboration with Zeitkratzer, a German avant-garde ensemble that specializes in the translation of electronic and noise compositions into scores for classical instrumentation. Under the guidance of Reinhold Friedl, Zeitkratzer's refreshing attitude is that "the opening to multi-disciplinarity isn't new any more, but artistic normality." In addition to this disc with Duncan, they've also worked with Merzbow, Zbigniew Karkowski, Phill Niblock, Christina Kubisch, and most recently Lou Reed in reworking his pioneering '70s noise opus "Metal Machine Music", if you can believe that!
"Fresh" features two Duncan compositions, "Nav-Flex" and "Trinity", as performed by Zeitratzer. Initially released as a collaboration with Francisco Lopez, "Nav-Flex" -- which happens to be one of my (Jim's) favorite Duncan pieces -- translates very nicely from original composition for shortwave, datastreams, and voice. Opening with a very loud, discordant blast of horns, strings, piano, percussion and electronics, Zeitkratzer vigilantly maintains Duncan's course of action by quickly fading the notes to a near silence that nervously persists for several minutes. The rumblings of those interwoven orchestral tones re-appear as a resurgent mirror reflection of that first incarnation of sound on the record and maintain a plateau-level of sustained, droning tones which accurately mimic the sounds that Duncan originally recorded. Zeitkratzer's version of "Trinity," on the other hand, sounds remarkably different than the original Duncan piece, a caustic composition that investigated the electric buzzings of shortwave radio static. It does follow Duncan's pattern of varying shortwave-like fluctuations, but the tonal colors of the two "Trinities" exhibit a much greater distance between the original and the orchestrated version than with "Nav-Flex." It's interesting to wonder how Duncan/Zeitkratzer scored these pieces (perhaps as a graphical score a la Cornelius Cardew?), but whatever the method, the results are nonetheless amazing.
RealAudio clip: "nav-flex [excerpt 1]"
RealAudio clip: "nav-flex [excerpt 2]"

DUNCAN, JOHN Infrasound - Tidal (All Questions) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In 1998, the American expatriot sound artist John Duncan made contact with Australian sound archivist Densil Cabrera, in hopes of arranging a project based on oceanic, seismic, and atmospheric measurements. While his resume points towards an academic background in electroacoustics and sound installation, Cabera presented these recordings to Duncan as raw scientific data, having translated three centuries (yes, centuries!) of the tidal spectra published by the Australian National Tide Tables into a far more digestible recording that compressed one year of data down to one second. Further recordings transposed barometric pressure recordings from two Australian air force bases and others used seismometers to produce images from a number of earthquakes and nuclear tests. In researching how he wanted to proceed with these recordings, Duncan was also hoping to form an impression of Densil's personality. However, during the five years it took for this collaboration to be completed, Duncan came to the realisation that he knew nothing more about Densil then when he started. Thus, he applied this detachment of scientific rigor to the production of Densil's recordings. "Infrasound - Tidal" emerges as a stark album of subtle tonal shifts, mostly low rattling frequencies that transition into gray static flutterings, resulting in an album not unlike the best of Francisco Lopez' "Belle Confusion" series. Like all of Duncan's recordings, "Infrasound - Tidal" seeks wisdom and knowledge through the process of sound construction and metaphoric conceptualization. While he may not have found what he wanted, Duncan wonderfully took what was given to him and realized a fantastic atmosphere of stark desolation.
MPEG Stream: "Infrasound - Tidal (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Infrasound - Tidal (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Infrasound - Tidal (excerpt 3)"

DUNCAN, JOHN John See Soundtracks (RRR) cd 14.98
In the early '80s, John Duncan moved from Los Angeles to Tokyo where he began a number of very interesting works with grandiose agendas of destabilization and transgression. One facet of his Toyko period was his pirate radio station using the frequency of NHK 1 after that station signed off at night. But perhaps the most infamous work was the pornography that Duncan produced under the pseudonym John See. Part of the intention of the John See series was for this work to be used by the viewer as source material for any video collage work; of course, Duncan was also going for sexual titillation as well. During that time Duncan shot five films for the adult film company Kuki -- Doll, Fallen Angel, Inka, Aidayuki Passion, and Power Love. There are some distinctly unconventional aspects to these films, as Duncan often layered multiple images and early video effects during the build up to the money shot. But most of the sex and the "scripting" around those sex scenes tended to be pretty standard fare. What's most bizarre about Duncan's porn is the soundtrack that he uses. Instead of the funk grooves and wah-wah guitar workouts, he recontextualizes the ecstatic gasps and moans from his own footage alongside sterile drones culled from shortwave. If anything his use of sound is the most provocative element to the John See films.
In 1994, Duncan returned to the John See series, remastering several of the scores as well as remixing others in new compositions (which fit into his original idea that this work should be recycled for the viewer's use). The John See Soundtracks is a quintessential document of Duncan's early styles which ruptured violently with shortwave static and sexual outbursts in direct contrast to the cauldron of somatic fluctuations and electrical drones.
MPEG Stream: "Breathchoir Mix"
MPEG Stream: "Power Love"
MPEG Stream: "Move Forward"

DUNCAN, JOHN Phantom Broadcast (All Questions) cd 19.98
BACK IN STOCK!!! It's been a while since we've had this one in stock, but it's certainly one of Duncan's best. Originally out in 2002, Phantom Broadcast marked the beginning of a surge of activity. Here's what we had to say about the album a few years back:
While attending Cal Arts in the mid '70s, John Duncan discovered the transient frequencies of shortwave, and made it his tool of choice in transferring his knowledge about the psychological implications for specific colors to the realm of sound construction. Instead of merely rehashing the Marshall McLuhan's 'medium is the message' tropes, Duncan's use of the shortwave is marked by his ability to transform the sound device into an externalization of profound (and sometimes disturbing) psychological states. Throughout his impressive back catalogue of recordings, the textural grit and grim electrical tonality of shortwave has repeatedly surfaced in any number of contexts, whether that be the poisonous aggression of River Of Flames or the architectural hauntings of Palace of Mind. The same can be said for this album, as Duncan used nothing but a single shortwave transmission augmented by minimal amount of processing in composing the 47 minutes found within Phantom Broadcast. Instead of the darkened references mentioned earlier, Duncan has extracted a sublimely powerful and uniquely transcendent series of sounds from what is just a utility signal containing something banal like air traffic controller data but could be something sort of shadowy like a RTTY radioteletype (a fairly sophisticated form of encryption; although not impossible to crack like Numbers Stations). These electrical sounds -- originally noxious striations of aural code -- have been smeared into quasi-harmonic, gaseous states and articulated as gasping reverberating drones. Right from the beginning of the album, these sounds do appear as from shortwave but as an epic piece of '60s Minimalism or Ligeti choral and caralon composition. Such references do not disappear over the Phantom Broadcast composition as organic cycles and fluctuations move throughout. It's simply breathtaking and beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Phantom Broadcast (excerpt)"

DUNCAN, JOHN Seek (Mort Aux Vaches) (Staalplaat) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A recent document from the outstanding Mort Aux Vaches series of commissions for the Dutch radio station VRPO is as with all from the series quite limited. Here Duncan's deep bellowing gasps of shortwave radio noise and distant furnaces are delicately processed into tense soundscapes.
In the Jan 1999 issue of the Wire, Jim O'Rourke was the Invisible Jukebox victim who successfully identified all of the records which were played for him without any prior indication of what was to be heard. All of his answers were coupled with "fuck, yeah!" or "that fuckin' rules" - odd explications for Fennesz, Luc Ferrari, and John Duncan, whom Jim O'Rourke talks about further:
"John's awesome, insanely underrated. He did this one piece called 'Scare', where he basically got a gun filled with blanks and wore a mask, went up to friends' house, knocked on the door, and shot them. And then ran. Getting to know him, I understood that he has an absolute sincerity to learn about his existence. He's actually very influential on me... When I was playing a lot in Europe, I was doing these shows where I was getting to the point of annihilating myself. Playing one note or whatever - I would not allow myself to do the same thing again at all. Just going on stage and trying to find the thing that would make me the most incredibly uncomfortable, and forcing myself to do it."