GHOST TO FALCO Like This Forever (Below PDX) cd 12.98
Anyone remotely familiar with aQ knows we've long had a soft spot for earthy, psych-tinged music that weaves its way along beautiful shadowy paths through the dewy glimmers and murky sludge. Well, here's something new that fits the bill and has been pleasing many an ear around here! We actually put a call out to these Portland, OR folks back in October to send some of their music down the coast. A few months have passed and here we are finally with cds in hand, and we think it was worth the wait! Heck, in the short time we've had Like This Forever in stock, in-store play has already been stirring up many many queries with at least one purchased each time it's spun.
Stormy waves of electric guitar distortion and reedy woodwinds crash upon one another, then melt into clear smooth bell chimes. Horns and piano also enter the fray that ebbs and flows around mainman Eric Crespo's emotive vocals that have been compared to those of Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes. As you listen you get a sense that Crespo and co. may have been raised on a balanced diet of Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac as well as Pavement and Slint. Yes, all the most nutritious and tastiest food groups! Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Hopeless Or Not"
MPEG Stream: "The End"

GHOST TO FALCO Like This Forever (Below PDX) lp 12.98
Anyone remotely familiar with aQ knows we've long had a soft spot for earthy, psych-tinged music that weaves its way along beautiful shadowy paths through the dewy glimmers and murky sludge. Well, here's something new that fits the bill and has been pleasing many an ear around here! We actually put a call out to these Portland, OR folks back in October to send some of their music down the coast. A few months have passed and here we are finally with cds in hand, and we think it was worth the wait! Heck, in the short time we've had Like This Forever in stock, in-store play has already been stirring up many many queries with at least one purchased each time it's spun.
Stormy waves of electric guitar distortion and reedy woodwinds crash upon one another, then melt into clear smooth bell chimes. Horns and piano also enter the fray that ebbs and flows around mainman Eric Crespo's emotive vocals that have been compared to those of Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes. As you listen you get a sense that Crespo and co. may have been raised on a balanced diet of Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac as well as Pavement and Slint. Yes, all the most nutritious and tastiest food groups! Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Hopeless Or Not"
MPEG Stream: "The End"

GHOSTING Cloudburst (Students Of Decay) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another gorgeous and mysterious sonic document from these until recently WAY under the radar sound sculptors from Portland. And yes, this is another way too limited cd-r, but rest assured it's another absolute abstract freedrone gem.
One 33 minute track, a ghostly dreamlike shuffle through a fuzzy indistinct world of softly surging swells, smeared guitar ambience, shimmering high end short wave interference, distant almost-melodies, sonar like blips and bleeps, and thick washes of rumbling chordal swirl, all deftly woven into a fuzzed out, slow shifting dreamdrone. So good.
Includes a full color poster/insert
Limited to 100 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Cloudburst (excerpt)"

GHOSTING Fox Glove (Digitalis Industries) cd-r 7.98

MPEG Stream: "Fox Glove"

GHOSTING s/t (Onomato) cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This mysterious three piece ensemble from Portland couldn't have chosen a more appropriate monicker for their deep listening inner space explorations. Everything about this single 40 minute track is ghostlike, from the drifting shimmer of the opening few minutes, where guitars hover and haunting keening faraway sounds drift past like stormclouds, to the stretch about halfway through, of warm white noise over muted melodies and hauntingly harmonious drones, to the final few minutes of muted murky creeping broken music box like lilt, all twisted and warped, slowed down and slithery. A dark fog blurring all the edges and laying down a fuzzy drift. So darkly lovely.
Limited to 100 copies, each copy hand numbered and all the covers are hand painted, each slightly different!
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

GHOSTING Why Not Be Utterly Changed Into Fire (Jyrk) 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.
This is the second disc we've had from these North Western sonic explorationists, the first was an appropriately ghostlike dronescape and while this new one is similar, it is also a lot more active and varied, and quite a bit weirder. Where the first one was dreamy and drifty, easy to get lost in, music to float away to, Why Not Be Utterly Changed Into Fire is much more dense, with a nonstop series of sonic events manifesting themselves in subtle ways, each sound and each layer and each element is quickly absorbed into the whole, adding to the richness of sound, but not completely losing their unique sonic footprint. The sound is still soothing and mesmerizing, but definitely begs to be listened to closely, to be explored and enjoyed actively. Drone is still the order of the day, but these drones are not so simple, there are layers and layers of disparate sound, that have been deftly assembled into this half hour sonic swirl. A fuzzy staticky pulse is underpinned by warm monochromatic tones, a very simple melody almost rendered unmelodic by its arrangement, the different tones beat against each other and create strange overtones, which become yet another layer. The static builds and builds until the original drone, the original melodies are barely visible beneath a sea of fuzzy prickly staticky hiss. The rest of the record plays out as a constant battle between the soft shimmering drone and the thick billowing clouds of static, the result is quite beautiful, a noisy yet melodic soundscape, a drone swallowed whole by the sounds around it, a dense and detailed rare glimpse into the secret life of sound.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Why Not Be Utterly Changed Into Fire"

GHOSTING / BONECLOUD Catch Waves / Campfire (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.
How awesome is the name Yarn Lazer?! If it wasn't already the name of this killer cd-r label, it would definitely be the name of my band, or my restaurant, or maybe my first born!! This is a super limited split between Portland drone ensemble Ghosting, a band AQ folks just can't seem to get enough of, and Irish stoned drone ensemble Bonecloud (also a possible name for the first born btw!).
Ghosting pretty much sound like their name. Their sound is a drone based wander through a ghost town, or better yet, a ghost world, the sound of floating wraithlike through a moonlit landscape, dreamlike and indistinct. Lovely but slightly ominous. Completely mesmerizing.
Bonecloud offer up their own sonic ghostworld, beginning as a shimmery high end drone, before slowly devolving into a murky subterranean crawl, muted voices, buzzing strings, thick whirs and pulsing white noise, all wrapped in a druggy fug and left to drift through along some Stygian stream, a dense murky fog, wrapping your head in muted fuzz and filling your ears with a warm thick sonic syrup. A bit like a modern day, lo-fi, cd-r Taj Mahal Travellers!
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!! Packaged in screen
printed and spray painted sleeves with a photocopied insert.
MPEG Stream: GHOSTING "Catch Waves"
MPEG Stream: BONECLOUD "Campfire"

GHOSTING / ROBEDOOR Split (Not Not Fun) 7" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two AQ faves together for the first time: Portland Oregon's Ghosting and L.A.'s Robedoor.
Been a little while since we've heard from Ghosting and it's mighty fine to have them back. Their half of the split begins with warm whirring drones beneath buzzing and scraping steel strings, intense and dramatic, and maybe a bit more aggressive than their usual sound. The track grows in intensity, the drones becoming thicker and thicker, eventually becoming an almost Sunroof! style roar, swallowing up any of the drifting melodies completely.
Robedoor, a recent discovery, and a new favorite for sure, counter with what might be their -prettiest- track yet. Very serene, warm swells in the distance, strange submerged rhythms, silver streaks of muted feedback, moaned melodies way down in the mix, the whole thing crawling and slithering darkly through buzzy blurry murky cloud of sound.
Gorgeous packaging, hand screened, one side artfully torn, limited to 325 copies, each sleeve hand numbered, pressed on black streaked white vinyl. Nice!

GHOSTS BRAMES OF THE CERF'S MAGICKAL For Every Hang Thy Dreamy Spell, Round Mountain Star And Heather Bell (Ruralfaune) 3" cd-r 8.98
Wow, is that a mouthful. The band is called Ghosts Brames Of The Cerf's Magickal and the record's called For Every Hang Thy Dreamy Spell, Round Mountain Star And Heather Bell. WTF? Nothing there could possibly prepare you for he dreamy drift contained within. GBOTCM is another project of French outfit the Reggaee, who have teamed up with some like minded musical alchemists for a late night ritual of simple guitar strum and strange disembodied percussion. Minor key buzz and twang, stretched out over a murky low end throb, with bits of fluttery flute, a bit of dark and drifting campfire forestfolk, ominous and melancholy, laid back and shadow lit. Eventually, this flickering folks is joined by soft swells of subterranean drone and brief burbles of spacey FX, adding to the dreamy drift but never disrupting the tranquil ambience.
LIMITED TO 49 COPIES!!! Already out of print so act fast...
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1 "
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

GHOSTS ON WATER s/t (Faraway Press) cd 33.00

GHOUL Raping Soul (Battlecruiser / Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another 'metallic' masterpiece from the Battlecruiser label, the side label of Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, specializing in all things metal or sort of metal. However the metal found on Battlecrusier releases is not the metal of Maiden or Priest, nor is it the metal of Carcass or Napalm, instead, this is the metal that occurs when drone obsessed minimalist noisemakers take a stab at invoking the beast: everything from from ultra-repetitive riffing, to blissed out expanses of slow motion dooooooom, to smeary stabs of grind, to pounding industrial metal pummel.
The couldn't-be-more-aptly-named Ghoul hit us which just might be the creepiest BC release yet. A haunting plodding doomscape constructed from slowed down Krautrock and Skinny Puppy scraps, with rumbling bass thuds and a skeletal rhythm cobbled together from chopped and clipped vocals, malfunctioning synths, and a distant swirl of Earth-en guitars. Imagine an electro Skepticism, or Red Lorry Yellow Lorry jamming with Sunn 0))). Weird and weirdly hypnotic. Not heavy per se, but quite dark and evil and grim and spare and spooky. As with all things Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, this is VERY VERY LIMITED!!!
MPEG Stream: "Raping Soul (excerpt)"

GHQ California Night Burning Dreams (Not Not Fun) LP + 3"cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest from this underground super group. Featuring folks from the Magik Markers, Hototogisu and Double Leopards among others. This is probably the most laid back and mellow thing we've heard from these folks. The whole first side is a spare and spacious stretch of raga like drone and disembodied Appalachia. Guitars buzz way off in the distance, drifting amidst clouds of folky flutter, wheezing harmonicas, an almost Morricone Western vibe, desert-y and desolate, but mysteriously lush and lovely. The sounds grow in intensity here and there, getting more raucous and abrasive, the guitars scraped and metallic, all bathed in thick swells of whirring shimmer, but always seeming to settle back down into another dreamy drift.
The flip side is split into two movements, the first is a longform slab of chaotic free folk skree, the instruments all blurred and smeared into a constantly evolving and shifting swirl of sound, dense and layered and lovely, the second half a rumbling wall of thick guitar ambience, a whirling buzz that manages to be epic and majestic, while remaining minimal and mysterious.
All recorded live apparently, but also comes with a bonus 3" cd-r, of the band live in Seattle, in its own little full color minisleeve.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!

GHQ Cosmology Of Eye (Time Lag) cd 15.98
GHQ is a name new to us, but apparently this free drone raga outfit has been lurking on the firnges of the new weird underground for a while now. GHQ just so happens to feature Marcia Bassett (Double leopards, Hototogisu, etc.) and Pete Nolan (Magik Markers, Vanishing Voice) so it's a little surprising this is their first proper release, but it's a good one. This is druggy, dreamy, shoegazey bliss folk, vocals are fuzzy and indistinct, guitar strum is strident and loop-like, even the proper songs devolve into raga like mesmerism, simple percussion, tamborine, shaker, does nothing but shuffle drowsily alongside the subtle pulse beneath the thick swaths of psych guitar and shimmery drone. Steel strings vibrate and the waves drift echolike across vast expanses of hovering tones and slow shifting overtones, warm and languid, a total dream drone drift. The sound on Cosmology Of Eye is completely unlike Bassett's full on free noise assaults as Hototogisu with Matthew Bower, and equally unlike Nolan's avant rock spazz splatter in the Magik Markers, instead it sounds like these two just turned off all the lights, smoked until the room was dense with drifting clouds of smoke, turned on their amps, laid down their guitars, spread their wings and just drifted heavenward. Surprisingly lilting and lovely.
Packaged with loving care, as are all things on Time Lag, in a cool two color screened black fold over letterpress sleeve, with an insert photo taken by Charalambides' Tom Carter.
MPEG Stream: "Drink The Good Moon"
MPEG Stream: "Cosmology Of The Eye"

GHQ Cosmology Of Eye (Time Lag) lp 21.00
GHQ is a name new to us, but apparently this free drone raga outfit has been lurking on the firnges of the new weird underground for a while now. GHQ just so happens to feature Marcia Bassett (Double leopards, Hototogisu, etc.) and Pete Nolan (Magik Markers, Vanishing Voice) so it's a little surprising this is their first proper release, but it's a good one. This is druggy, dreamy, shoegazey bliss folk, vocals are fuzzy and indistinct, guitar strum is strident and loop-like, even the proper songs devolve into raga like mesmerism, simple percussion, tamborine, shaker, does nothing but shuffle drowsily alongside the subtle pulse beneath the thick swaths of psych guitar and shimmery drone. Steel strings vibrate and the waves drift echolike across vast expanses of hovering tones and slow shifting overtones, warm and languid, a total dream drone drift. The sound on Cosmology Of Eye is completely unlike Bassett's full on free noise assaults as Hototogisu with Matthew Bower, and equally unlike Nolan's avant rock spazz splatter in the Magik Markers, instead it sounds like these two just turned off all the lights, smoked until the room was dense with drifting clouds of smoke, turned on their amps, laid down their guitars, spread their wings and just drifted heavenward. Surprisingly lilting and lovely.
Packaged with loving care, as are all things on Time Lag, in a two color letterpress printed heavy black artboard cover, with photo insert shot by Charalambides' Tom Carter. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl and hand numbered in an edition of 850 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Drink The Good Moon"
MPEG Stream: "Cosmology Of The Eye"

GHQ Crystal Healing (Three Lobed Recordings) lp + cd 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another gorgeous missive from GHQ, an outfit featuring Marcia from Hototogisu and Double Leopards and Pete from the Magik Markers and Wooden Wand, who combine drone-y noise with raga-like buzz, and never more perfectly than on Crystal Healing. Beginning with some swooshing backwards ambience, muted guitar and what sounds like harmonica, very dreamy and pretty, the record quickly settles into a haunting disembodied Appalachia, clouds of insect buzz and distant chantlike vocals woven into a lush backdrop for simple mournful steel string guitar, very dark, very wistful, gets a bit aggro toward the end but without losing any of it's drama or emotion. Imagine Jack Rose's Mr. Hyde and you'll get an idea. The rest of the record wanders from similarly dark acoustic dronefolk to wide open expanses of raga like drift, the former even introduces some actual vocals, an almost atonal stoned country drawl hovering over seasick fiddle and lazy strum, while the latter goes from dense swirls of guitar crumble and siren like melodies (sounding quite a bit like Vibracathedral or Sunroof!), to Jandekian sprawl, with distorted vocals, caveman percussion, detuned guitars all wrapped in plenty of grind and rumble and buzz, to the record's epic final track, a lengthy blissed out new age-y drift, a swirl of weightless melodies and long drawn out buzz.
LIMITED TO 855 COPIES! Pressed on ultra thick vinyl, and housed in a super heavy gatefold sleeve (hand numbered). While they last, the first 212 copies come with a bonus cd, 2 tracks, about 13 minutes, featuring more atonal Appalachia, raga-buzz, drifty drone and haunting vocals. The perfect coda to the record's expansive rambling drift. Once those are gone, they are GONE, and you'll receive the normal lp version.

GHQ Heavy Elements (Three Lobed Recordings) cd 13.98
We have to admit, we're not the biggest Magik Markers fans. But get MM's Pete Nolan in a room with Marcia Bassett (Double Leopards, Hototogisu) and the results are divine. A gloriously expansive free-drone raga, a swirling wall of buzz and squeal and keening high end guitars and roaring amps, thick washes of buzzing strings and wild streaks of upper register skree. Huge drifts of abstract sound, that manage to move and drive, within their almost static clouds of drone and shimmer lurk dreamy melodies, strange sonic whorls, and super simple percussion. Ultra divine drug drenched raga drone bliss out of the highest order. Not sure what else to say. This is like the best parts of Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Jazzfinger, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, boiled down to its utter essence, packed into pipes made out of monkey skulls and smoked. A potent blend of mysterious musicks, hidden in a cave at the top of some perilous peak, reachable by only the bravest of souls. Once in the cave, follow the light, and observe as the cave opens up into a star filled sky, a small spot where one can watch the light of the universe shift and shimmer. This is that sound. Essential.
MPEG Stream: "Lost In The Blinding Sheen Of Moonlight Mirrored"
MPEG Stream: "Twelve Events"

GHQ La Poesia Visiva (Heavy Blossom) 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.
Another mind expanding slab of raga like Ur-drone from Marcia Double Leopards and Pete Majik Markers and company. GHQ again channel the spirt of Henry Flynt and Angus Maclise, harnessing a slippery melodic buzz into a warm soundscape of sonic solar flares and a vast symphony of warm whir and creaking groaning magnificence. Like some shadowy cloaked figure standing at a podium like mound of dirt in the middle of a field, conducting nature: crickets and frogs and all of mother nature's noisemakers into a slow moving swirl of sound. And that's just the first track. The rest of the disc explores hippy krautrocky jams with muted buzzy steel string guitars, hand drums, drifting ethereal vocals, moody melancholy melodies, sitar-like buzz all cloaked in a gauzy timeless haze, like some long lost ESP freak folk classic.
Released on Hototogisu's Heavy Blossom label. As always, SUPER LIMITED. Packaged in a cool mini hard plastic DVD case with very crusty metal looking black and white artwork.
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 2"

GHQ / EX-COCAINE split (Not Not Fun) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

GIBSON, JON Criss X Cross (Tzadik) cd 16.98

GIDEON LEECHES, THE Blessed Is The Noise (Fflint Central) cd-r 9.98
The return of Fflint!! The first release in almost a year from our hands down, favorite fucked outsider electronic label. Avid readers of the AQ list need only see the names Berkowitz Lake And Dahmer, Cavendish Sanguine, Pendro, Cousin Silas and of course the Gideon Leeches, to know what sort of mind bending, ear shredding electronic fuckery these freaks have in store for us.
The Gideon Leeches, aka Steve Nuttall, was the first group on Fflint, not in some way made up of one (or both) of the two shadowy souls behind the Fflint curtain. But hearing this (and the previous disc, The Freezing Point) one would be forgiven for assuming that it was actually a like minded trio responsible for all of these sounds. Some sort of freakish three headed calf, plopped down behind some busted up turntables, an old sampler and a mixing desk, kept alive with a steady diet of crisps and beer. The results are suitably damaged and off kilter. And glorious!!!
So here we have Blessed Is The Noise, the work of one of those three heads, and what a piece of work it is too. Like most Fflint discs, it's a very fine balance between droning beauty and complete chaos, and as we might expect (and hope), the Leeches have no problem diving headfirst into either. Or both. It's electronic music, but it's sure as heel not 'danceable', it's dark and droney, but not really soothing and tranquil. But then again, it sort of is. Both. Soothing AND tranquil. And danceable. OK, not really danceable.
Vocals are chopped and sliced and diced and reassembled into some sort of damaged robotic Portishead thing, and set adrift amidst a soft shimmery backdrop, before the backdrop revolts and becomes dense and corrosive, moaning like bowed sheets of metal, but remaining still somehow droney and dreamy. Thick swaths of sparkling sunbaked sound are wrapped around a relentlessly catchy nursery rhyme melody, like an ice cream truck driving directly into the center of the sun. A vast expanse of vibrating rods, all shimmering and quivering and letting off soft metallic whirs, is submerged beneath 6 inches of muddy water, while a row of parked cars honks along, the whole thing recorded on a wax cylinder and played back through a hearing aid. Elsewhere, an orchestra of keening high end tones is wrapped around a throbbing rumbling whir, the sound of a crying child is subsumed by a million skipping cds, their skipping creating a warm womb like whir, while also unleashing inadvertent subtly rhythmic pulses. Gorgeous blurry drifts of muted melody are stretched into gauzy sheets and draped over ghostly vocals. A Sunroof! like din is channelled through the spirit of a player piano, resulting in a strange old timey abstract free noise Ur-drone, and so much more...
Blessed Is The Noise is nearly indescribable, or more precisely seems to be more easily described in terms of rods and player pianos and honking horns and ice cream trucks, than tone and timbre, but that's precisely what makes it so magical. Like all of the Fflint stuff, it's gorgeous and confusional, lovely, yet cracked, far out, but completely catchy at the same time. And also, as with all of the Fflint stuff, so wholeheartedly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Blessed Is The Noise"
MPEG Stream: "City Of Dreadful Night"
MPEG Stream: "Windmills Dwindled Into A Nutcracker"
MPEG Stream: "On The Fidgets"

GIDEON LEECHES, THE The Freezing Point Of Sound (FFlint Central) cd-r 9.98
Finally!!! More skull cracking, mind bending, feelings hurting, shin kicking, hair pulling, back stabbing, ass kicking, ribcage rattling, ear piercing, eye gouging, bowel loosening electronic mayhem from our favorite lovable miscreants FFlint Central! This time from the mysterious entity known as The Gideon Leeches. We heard a little bit from the Leeches on the amazing Unholy Trinity compilation reviewed a few lists back and could hardly wait for the full length. And we are not disappointed. In fact I might go so far as to proclaim this one of the best releases on Fflint so far. And that's saying a lot, knowing, as you do, how much we LOVE Berkowitz, Lake and Dahmer, Pendro, Cavendish Sanguine, and the whole lot. But the proof's in the pudding. And the pudding here is a thick, miasmic pool of shimmers and rumbles, buzzing and tinkling, howling and keening. We are suckers for this stuff, at least when it's done right. And believe me, this is done so right. Huge expanses of static sound, with swirling, ever-shifting layers of feedback, buzzing electronic drones, throbbing low end pulses, warbly melodies, creaking machinery and what sounds like swarms of sitars, careening madly above a warm and tranquil blanket of gauzy dreaminess. But with a dark and ominous edge. This has AQ favorite written all over it. Think Sunroof!, Skullflower, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Birchville Cat Motel, Pelt, Peter Wright, and all of those other folks who traffic in deep, dark, organic' free-drone. Fans of the above will definitely LOVE this! And again, our pals at Fflint continue to impress, and we're beginning to think that Fflint just may be one of the only labels we know of with a perfect record (except for tUMULt of course!! - Andee). Can't wait to hear what they come up with next. But in the meantime, BUY THIS!
MPEG Stream: "The Freezing Point Of Sound"
MPEG Stream: "Scowring And Flux"
MPEG Stream: "Rising Of The Lights"

GIFFONI, CARLOS Adult Life (No Fun Productions) cd 12.98
On Adult Life, Brooklyn's noise king Carlos Giffoni has made a purposeful shift away from the clobbering sound assaults and sustained concrete block explosions. This is his pure analog synth record; and despite the shift in source material, Adult Life cannot and should not be taken lightly. Giffoni has cited Cluster, Tangerine Dream, and Eno as his inspiration for this album; but these references are not really close to how this album ends up. The kosmische electronics of those pioneering composers has been injected with steroids or blasted with high doses of x-rays or anything really that would give these sounds diabolical super powers. In actuality, Giffoni's industrial-grade lazer blasts and heavily compressed LFO sweeps aren't too far from where Whitehouse started out, but without the blessing and curse of William Bennett. Adult Life begins with a terse police siren which noxiously ping-pongs against mercurial electronic tones and metallic flanges, setting the stage for a head-pounding excursion into the hypnotic and relentless. Throughout the album, Giffoni rotates sawtooth LFO patterns of blistering electricity, rudimentary structuralist patterns adrift on a magnetic sea, and buzzing squigglings from brain-frying modulations.
MPEG Stream: "The Endless Mirror"
MPEG Stream: "A Permanent Choice"

GIFFONI, CARLOS & LASSE MARHAUG Lesbian Brunch (aRCHIVE) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not sure how we managed to miss this one. Only just realized we had a batch of these stashed in the store, and somehow they never got listed. Needless to say these are probably the last copies EVER as this came out on aRCHIVE and was of course crazy limited, and since that stuff routinely sells out in NO TIME, and according to the aRCHIVE website this is indeed out of print, this may very well be it for these, but at least a handful of lucky folks, who enjoy ruining their hearing, punishing their poor speakers, and of course annoying their neighbors, will be in N.O.I.S.E. heaven.
A pretty serious match up, noiseniks should know both these guys by now, NY noise legend Carlos Giffoni, and Scandinavian speaker shredder Lasse Marhaug. So you might expect a punishing blast of Merzbowian white noise, but in fact this is pretty listenable, and really strange and wondrous. There are definitely brutal moments, but there are gorgeous, almost tranquil moments as well.
From a crunchy thump that sounds like a fetal heartbeat run through a busted amp, to a field of decaying glitch and hiss, beneath which, strange metallic melodies drift and shimmer, to washed out crunchy almost Oval like digital skitter, to huge tangled streaks of detuned guitar and full on blown out black buzz, to dense fields of electromagnetic disturbance and malfunctioning machinery, howled voices and glitchy squiggles, grinding industrial clatter and fuzzy swaths of corrosive blacknoise, but all deftly arranged into what sound like actual songs. Melodies mysterious surface here and there, rhythms coalesce out of seemingly abstract sounds, it's pretty dang cool. But be warned, it most certainly is still NOISY. So if you have an aversion to noise, this might be too much for you, otherwise, a wicked slab of gorgeous grinding corrosion and lurching chaotic crunch. More musical manna for the iron eared.
Packaged in a cool 6 panel aRCHIVE style gatefold. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Already out of print. We have a handful left...
MPEG Stream: "Frisk Varruller"
MPEG Stream: "Stekte Gronnsakker og Tofu Tilsmakt Med Sotchillisaus"

GIFFONI, CARLOS / THE RITA Two On A Match (No Fun Productions) 2lp 25.00
By all accounts, this double LP of pure brutality finds the Canadian noise outfit The Rita remixing source sounds from Brooklyn noise king Carlos Giffoni and vice versa. In the press release for this album, The Rita's Sam McKinlay offers a cogent argument about the aesthetic differences which stem from The Rita's 'dirty' methods of overdriving sound through daisy-chains of pedals contrasted against Carlos Giffoni's pulsing synths which cruise beneath the turbulent noise surfaces. While there are some notable differences on both of these pieces of vinyl, they are secondary to the overwhelmingly harsh noise which persists throughout. This is all about the noise, and this noise is an abject, blackened sound which has the feeling of particulate soot from a very dirty coal power plant given to the force of a sandblaster used not on a brickwall, but your eardrums to penetrate as a viral agent. On occasion, thicker chunks enter this jet-powered stream of sound, smashing against each other like massive sheets of shattering glass. The first of the two LPs uses these sounds within a series of erratic compositions that gradually build to cut-the-power conclusions. The second LP unleashes the flood gates from beginning to end with very little variation to the punishment. In both cases, it's still all about the quality of that noise, as an extremely aggressive tool of harsh, ugly, vile blackness. Limited to 300 copies!

GILBERT, B.C. Ordier (Table Of The Elements) cd 16.98
Table Of The Elements is a label that tends to provoke strong reactions in lots of folks, for here is a label that consistently offers great ideas that sometimes fall short of their grandiose expectations when finally realized. Typically, these shortcomings are the result of a systemic lack of organizational skills, an inability to follow through on those ideas, and occasional pandering to the institutionality of the stodgy contingents of the avant-garde. A case in point would be the two year gap in between the 2nd and 3rd volumes of the TOTE Captain Beefheart vinyl. Another example is the Lanthinides series unwisely packaged in brittle plastic sleeves that inevitably wore through and cracked as well as being a rather narrow exploration of the incredibly rich history of avant-garde music.
Then comes Ordier, an album that causes us to suspend our criticisms of Table of the Elements... at least for this release. I (Jim) should offer the humble preamble that I believe Bruce Gilbert to be an artist whose failures are better than most of his contemporaries' successes. Gilbert is best known for his work in Wire, whose Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 154 albums are essential punk listening. He also authored a handful of post-punk / proto-electronica gems in collaboration with fellow Wire-man Graham Lewis in Dome and He Said. Ordier is the documentation of Gilbert's minimalist side, which he has occasionally expressed in the past, on his solo Ab Ovo album as well as a number of ballet scores throughout the last three decades. This album was recorded back in 1996 during a Table of the Elements festival and subsequently lost by the label (way to go, guys!). Gilbert runs primitive electronic tones through a series of effects and guitar pedals which provide him with a remarkable amount of finetuning and filtering. With a monochromatic composition of variable buzzings and fluttering chimes which rumble beautifully for over an hour, Ordier emerges as a hot-wired variation on the aesthetic ideas of the Hafler Trio, and stands out as yet another great record for B.C. Gilbert.
Packaged elaborately in a silkscreened wooden box, this will undoubtably cause problems when it's time for a repress so buy it now before the first pressing runs out.
MPEG Stream: "Ordier"
MPEG Stream: "Message Received"
MPEG Stream: "Slot Andalou"

GINNUNGAGAP Crashed Like Wretched Moth (Conspiracy) lp 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Our pals at Conspiracy Records, a label/distro based in Belgium, who in the past have brought us records by Boris, Jesu, Shora and more, are this year celebrating their 10 year anniversary. A decade of amazing music. From a bedroom based punk rock label, to one of Europe's most important and influential labels and distros, all we can say is HURRAY! And HUZZAH! It's always so exciting, when a bunch of folks get together to spread the word about great music, great WEIRD music, and survive, even thrive. Such is the case with Conspiracy. And as if that weren't already enough, just knowing that some great people were selling some amazing music, those sweeties at Conspiracy have decided to share the love with us. And you.
To celebrate their 10th anniversary, they've decided to do a super limited subscription series, 12 records over 12 months, each limited to somewhere between 200-500 copies, ONLY available to series subscribers. EXCEPT, they've decided to let AQ have 20 copies of each, we're the only store with copies of these subscriber only lps, and for a brief moment, we can offer them to you, our loyal AQ customers. Needless to say we are thrilled, as the series lineup reads like a who's who of AQ faves, as well as including a handful of lesser knowns. All pressed on super thick vinyl, and packaged in killer hand screened original art sleeves. But be warned, we only got 20 of each, and we will run out fast and we will not be able to get more. When we do run out, there is a chance you can still get one from Conspiracy direct, but what that means is act fast and prepare to leave empty handed.
Almost not worth listing this one at all. We only got 20, almost 10 were gone almost before they hit the shelves. This latest GInnungagap is Mr. Stephen O'Malley of SUNNO))), Khanate and assorted other outfits. This one sided 12" is mostly solo piano, heavily reverbed, dense clouds of overtones, drifting and shimmery, with abstract bits of percussion and haunting barely there melodies. It actually sounds a bit like a Lubomyr Melnyk piece, played at 16rpm, little slow motion flurries of notes like snowflakes falling through a pitch black sky. Originally the sound component of an art show featuring O'Malley and Seldon Hunt, who also took the gorgeous cover photos, and who's crazy drawing is silkscreened in silver ink on the B side of this 12" Limited to 500 copies. Gone before you know it...

GINNUNGAGAP Remeindre (Aurora Borealis) lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We shouldn't really have to say anything about this SUNNO))) SIDE PROJECT!!!! But we will, because it's pretty different that the various members' other bands, and it's really fucking great.
There have been a handful of Ginnungagap releases over the last few years, all of them featuring various lineups, and all of them invariably WAY too limited and selling for a fortune on eBay. We imagine this super limited lp won't be any different. Which is funny since this is actually a vinyl reissue of one of those long out of print and selling for way too much on eBay releases. Originally an installment in Southern's Latitudes series, this incarnation of Ginnungagap features SUNNO)))'s Stephen O'Malley, Tony Sylvester (Dukes Of Nothing) and Alexander Tucker. A pretty cool group for sure, which is why the music on this disc is all the more surprising. A laid back, outer space, drifting buzzing abstract raga. Droney, dreamy and so hypnotic. Eclectic instrumentation (tamboura, harmonium, mandolin) helps the band weave a dense swirling drone from layers of buzzing steel strings, and wheezing chords, while above and throughout and within float tiny melodic fragments, a bit of buzz here, a little detuned twang there, all adding to the overall mesmeric drone. Eastern melodies materialize once in a while, only to drift into the ether as subtly as they appeared. SO NICE.
As with all Aurora Borealis lps, this is gorgeously packaged, gold ink on a vellum sleeve, packed in a thick clear sleeve, the vinyl is a glow in the dark looking milky white, the whole thing quite striking. And as always. VERY VERY LIMITED. ONLY 700 COPIES MADE! We got 40 copies, most likely never to get more.

GINNUNGAGAP Remeindre (Latitudes 0:02) (Southern) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

GINNUNGAGAP Return To Nothing (Misanthropic Agenda) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Managed to get a final batch of these. So one more chance to pick this up and then they really are gone for good. A little more expensive this time around as well. Ginnungagap is a term from Norse mythology that means something like "seeming emptiness" and that's a great name for this project, which sounds like it emanates from some abyssal void or abandoned cave or something. Ambient sinister drone improv, reminding us a little bit of House of Low Culture or even Thuja, if they were more creepy and liquid-sounding. Ginnungagap is a trio consisting of Khanate / SUNNO))) dude Stephen O'Malley on guitar, Khanate's Tim Wyskida on gong and tympani, and Gerritt Wittmer (who runs the Misanthopic Agenda label, and records solo as Gerritt) on computer. Packaged in a gold-printed, flat oversized cardstock sleeve, this disc consists of two tracks: "Return To Nothing" being a live recording about a half-hour in length, followed by Gerritt's remix "Nothing To Return" for about 20 minutes more. Like so much Khanate / SUNNO))) related stuff, it's of course a limited edition release...in fact, it's already out of print. We supposedly have the last copies. So...act fast if you want one. Sorry!
MPEG Stream: "Return To Nothing"

GINNUNGAGAP Return To Nothing (Misanthropic Agenda) lp 25.00
The music from Ginnungagap's long out of print Return To Nothing cd is available again, however briefly, on vinyl, super swank swirled yellow vinyl in fact, and limited to 500 copies...
Ginnungagap is a term from Norse mythology that means something like "seeming emptiness" and that's a great name for this project, which sounds like it emanates from some abyssal void or abandoned cave or something. Ambient sinister drone improv, reminding us a little bit of House of Low Culture or even Thuja, if they were more creepy and liquid-sounding. Ginnungagap is a trio consisting of Khanate / SUNNO))) dude Stephen O'Malley on guitar, Khanate's Tim Wyskida on gong and tympani, and Gerritt Wittmer (who runs the Misanthropic Agenda label, and records solo as Gerritt) on computer. Packaged in a gold-printed, flat oversized cardstock sleeve, this disc consists of two tracks: "Return To Nothing" being a live recording about a half-hour in length, followed by Gerritt's remix "Nothing To Return" for about 20 minutes more. Like so much Khanate / SUNNO))) related stuff, it's of course a limited edition release...
We originally said that about the cd, but in fact, by the time you read this, the lp too will probably already be out of print. So...act fast if you want one.
MPEG Stream: "Return To Nothing"

GLASS CAGE s/t (Paratactile) cd 16.98
Fuzzed, flanged fusion fireballs, blowing shit up! Mentioned last list in our review of Gary Smith and Aufgehoben No Process's distorted death match "Magnetic Mountain", here's the Glass Cage cd: the instrumental improv trio of guitarist Smith, former Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper, and famed Japanese free jazz/rock percussionist Shoji Hano (you might know from collaborations with Keiji Haino, or his stint drumming with Nanjo Asahito's High Rise). The family tree that brought these three together must have some tangled roots indeed, but we're glad they found each other (actually, Smith and Hano have played together before, in a trio with Nanjo in fact, and presumably Hopper and Smith know each other from the UK avant-garde scene). The music they play is chaotic, but beautiful; noodly, but heavy (Hopper's thick fuzz bass sounds like that of the Ruins circa "Stonehenge"). Smith's "stereo" guitar veers wildly though the flak thrown about by the Hopper-Hano rhythm section. "Out" rock enthusiasts, like Nels Cline or even Lightning Bolt fans for instance, ought to investigate. Earplugs required.
RealAudio clip: "Crash 2"
RealAudio clip: "Text"
RealAudio clip: "Crash 3"

GLASS ORGAN Our (Students Of Decay) cd 12.98
First proper full length from this mysterious ambient drone noise ensemble. After a super limited cd-r and an also quite limited lp, this cd offers up 33 minutes of Glass Organ's crumbling corrosive drones, ambient, but -active- ambience, bordering on speaker shredding noise at moments, but spending much of its time drifting through dark and murky landscapes of minimal shimmer and subterranean rumble. 
Three tracks, each 11:11 long, this Devillock side project is ultimately a drone record, but GO's drones are twisted into all sorts of different shapes and sounds. The opening track begins with a dense hot static white noise keening feedback burst of blinding grind and roar, before suddenly transforming into burbling underwater whirs, before the corrosive noise of the opening returns, only this time looped into some almost melodies, making it sounds like some sort of damaged My Bloody Valentine outtake. 
The second chunk of 11 minutes and 11 seconds begins in moody mumble minimal mode, before bits of crumbling distortion begin to surface, eventually taking over completely turning the tranquil ambience into some serious blown out guitar drone a la Sunroof! / Hototogisu, all keening high end and grinding abrasive guitar growl. The final 11 minutes (and ii seconds!) is like part two of the second track, the same sort of ultra skree starting out, this time way lower in the mix, a sort of low level rumble and scrape, which is soon joined by some super distorted psychedelic guitars, noodling and slithering and generally wrapping the low end rumble in sparkling tendrils of white hot guitar buzz. Surprisingly melodic and blissed out. 
Definitely for fans of Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Hototogisu, Burning Star Core, Wolf Eyes and similar practitioners of high end raga skree...
Packaged in a gorgeous and ultra minimal fold together cardstock sleeve, embossed design and text on a white sleeve, very white on white and quite striking. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "O"
MPEG Stream: "U"

GLASS ORGAN s/t (Twonicorn) cassette 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Dreamdrone side project of Panther Skull folks. A haunting drift of fluttering synths, soft and wispy. Slow moving, washes of bleak ambience, creaking splintered abstract sound, dotted with bursts of acid fried corrosive synth meltdown, all heated up and poured tar like into your ears, a gurgling, burbling cauldren of warm murk and drooling grime. Filthy, fuzzy, freaked out innerspace ambience.
2ND EDITION, LIMITED TO 25 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"

GLASS ORGAN Two Tapes (Tone Filth / Twonicorn) lp 14.98
For those of you who missed out on the amazing Glass Organ cassette (released on bad ass tape label Twonicorn) that we reviewed a while back, which we're guessing is probably most of you since it was limited to 45 copies and we only got about half, that amazing chunk of dreamy drifting droning weirdness is now available on vinyl! Just to refresh your memory, Glass Organ traffic in "slow moving washes of bleak ambience, creaking splintered abstract sound, dotted with bursts of acid fried corrosive synth meltdown, all heated up and poured tar like into your ears, a gurgling, burbling cauldron of warm murk and drooling grime. Filthy, fuzzy, freaked out innerspace ambience." Indeed! And that tape only takes up one side of this here lp, so on the other side, you get another long out of print Glass Organ tape, originally released on Tone Filth in a run of 100 copies (of which we got precisely NONE). It too is a gorgeous slab of corroded drones and fried song fragments. A crumbling mass of degraded sound, pretty little music box melodies drenched in static and hiss, blown out and in the red, constantly drifting from muddy and murky to super hot and fuzzed out, and the whole while slowly falling to pieces. So amazing.
And while these two tapes are finally available again, it doesn't mean they'll be around for long. Of course not. LIMITED TO 365 COPIES!! We got a bunch but odds are we won't be able to get more.
Packaged in super spare hand screened covers with printed black and white inserts.
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"

GLASS ORGAN Untitled II (Black Horizons) cassette 5.98
It's hard to know exactly what to say about Glass Organ, an offshoot of noise combo Devillock (who we have yet to review on the list, we're working on it). We've had a handful of releases, all of them amazing, and all offering up subtle variations on Glass Organ's peculiar sound. And it's that sound that's a bit hard to describe. Which is maybe why we like it so much. 
Imagine a tiny room stuffed full of malfunctioning synthesizers, the din from inside seeping through the cracks, a white hot, overblown soundscapes of synth damage and melting keyboard murk. Grinding and furious, blinding flurries of overblown glitch and squelch and squiggle. Corroded bits of melodies, and jagged chunks of what might have been songs in some other reality, all careening wildly Against, into, and around each other. It almost sounds like that point when you're listening to the car radio and you drive past a radio tower or something, and suddenly the radio goes haywire, the music becomes jumbled and distorted and unrecognizable, all sorts of random electronic interference starts jumping and skittering and streaking through the speakers, the sound is dizzying and intense, one of the things that convinces folks they made contact with aliens. It sounds a bit like that, if you then ran it through a distortion pedal and broadcast it through a million damaged speakers. But Glass Organ also takes those freaked out synths and smears them into muted stretches of ultra creepy dark ambience, intense roiling low end whirs, crumbling and burbling, doused in static and glitch, but strangely pretty, almost like an ultra minimal Goblin. And the sound weaves back and forth between these two extremes, often straddling the two resulting in some seriously creepy, pretty, glitchy noise!
Packaged in gorgeous thick shimmery paper, metallic printing, trippy psychedelic design. Recorded live, and...
LIMITED TO 130 COPIES!!!

GLASS, PHILIP & THE KRONOS QUARTET Dracula (Nonesuch) cd 15.98
Music by Mr. Glass composed as a new soundtrack to the Bela Lugosi vampire classic, as performed by Kronos. Did you know that the 'Bela Lugosi' and 'Bela Lugosi as Dracula' characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of one Bela G. Lugosi, presumably a descendant of the actor?

GLORY FCKN SUN Spectra (Tipped Bowler Tapes) lp 16.98
There really is something about music from New Zealand. We used to think it was sort of shorthand cheapshot music journalism, comparing everything to the Dead C, and lumping all these disparate sounding bands together based entirely on locale, but dammit if the more we listen to this stuff, the more it does seem to be true. Take this Glory Fckn Sun lp, the latest chunk of sweet dreamy noise from New Zealanders Antony Milton, Ben Spiers and Simon O'Rorke. As we were listening to this, all sorts of other bands came to mind, but when we thought about it more than a second, and listened really closely, we realized that this music could not have come from anywhere else. A blind listening, and we're fairly sure, even if we couldn't name the band, we would have immediately known New Zealand.
None of that is to say this record isn't unique or its own entity, or that it sounds like everything else from NZ, it most certainly doesn't, but it does share much sonically, and texturally, and there's just something ineffable that makes the music of GFS distinctly New Zealand.
Regardless, it's a big glorious fucking soft noise explosion, beginning with soft cymbal swirls and rumbling low wend, lots of effects, and deep buried melodies. Long streaks of buzzing metallic skree skitters over bits of clatter and clang, all held in place by a field of creaking metal on metal shimmer, murky vocals swimming in swirling pools of crumbling distortion. If you need references, think of some lost record on Corpus Hermeticum in the nineties, Surface Of The Earth maybe, a softened Dead C, muted and swathed in electric crackle, the whole thing a glorious whirling abyss of sound peppered with the clank and clunk of mini pipe fights, and twisted atonal chords, chiming harmonies, all layered and spread out into gritty streaks of droning abstract, slightly noisy beauty.
Pressed on clear red vinyl, housed in a striking chipboard sleeve hand screened, two color, and of course LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!

GLORY FCKN SUN Vision Scorched (Pseudo Aracana) cd + book 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest chunk of noisy bliss from Antony Milton, head honcho of the Pseudo Arcana label, the man behind Mrtyu, the Nether Dawn and others, as well as a member of The Stumps, With Throats As Fine As Needles, Street, Claypipe and about a million others. Glory Frckn Sun finds Milton teamed up with Ben Spiers (from Empty Mirror) and improv percussionist Simon O'Rorke. The three form a phalanx of sonic solar warriors, wielding an arsenal of noisemakers including gutars, violins, electronics, percussion and gongs...
Beginning life in 2003, this disc has been over two years in the making, and sounds like it, in that it sounds like a super saturated slooooooooooow burn, the sound of the birth of a universe, a blinding glistening supernova of sound, the guitars are white hot, blinding sonic glares, that just drift in long solar flares, woven into huge expanses of constantly shifting soft drone, over the top, shimmering billows of reverberating melodies crash like waves, this is some impossible drift through alien skies, navigating black holes and clouds of whirring glimmering particles. Cacophonous squalls pepper the mostly tranquil stretches, with the occasional jagged streak of feedback or spatters of metallic percussion. The opening track is massive, a 30 minute trawl though the heart of the sun, everything melting into buzzing smears all around you. Imagine SUNNO))) of Fushitsusha set up on the surface of the sun, now imagine a field recording of those bands being consumed by fire, amps melting into thick viscous black puddles, guitar strings becoming strange serpentine shadows, flesh and bone fusing into twisted shapes before transforming into thick clouds of living sound. 
Track two sounds like the recording of whatever infernal machinery lies below the surface of the sun, the mysterious factory that keeps it burning, feeding the flames, a grinding cacophony laced with long low slow stretches of buzz and whir. The final track a gorgeous languorous outro, a bit of shuffling percussion strewn atop a long soft stretch of blown out ambience, minor key melodies buried in the murk, giving the strange sleepy shimmer a warm ominous glow. Epic, intense and beautiful.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Packaged in a hand screened, cd-sized, perfect bound book, the cover, thick textured paper, very spare and striking, the booklet inside, a series of photos, graphics and diagrams of the sun, from super technical to completely abstract, the cd in a sleeve affixed to the back cover, each copy hand numbered. 
MPEG Stream: "Swells"
MPEG Stream: "Fire Thereof"

GLUTTONY Collapse Of The Roman Republic (Liber Primus) (Hekaloth / Cyclops) cd 15.98
Fans of the damaged and deranged, the truly warped and mindbending, the freaky, fucked up and plain baffling, by now should be well acquainted with the mysterious master of the guitar synth, and his bevy of bewildering outfits, two of which we've reviewed on past AQ lists, this being the third, in what we can only imagine is some sort of insane trilogy. Xynfonica came first. A "classical" record, completely composed and performed on the guitar synthesizer. A tripped out, outsider slab of post Peter And The Wolf classical deconstructed, atonal and so so so difficult, oh and did we mention that the other part of the equation was seemingly incongruous raspy evil metal vocals? A totally not-right combination, but for those of us who dig that sort of stuff, it was pretty unbeatable. Then there was the HUGE booklet of lyrics, complete with FOOTNOTES!!!
Then came Shevalreq, part two in the "trilogy", his 'world music' record, where the same atonal angular tones and notes, the howled raspy vocals, were this time wrapped around faux tablas and various other ethnic percussion instruments. If anything, it was even more fucked and amazing. Not to mention the over the top cover art, with miniature jousting knights on horseback ON TOP OF various dat machines and other studio gear. WTF?
So while we anxiously awaited part three, we were fairly sure nothing could top Shevalreq. But oh were we wrong.
The new one is called Gluttony, the name of the record: Collapse Of The Roman Republic, another epic tale of war and death and love and betrayal, this one being his quote unquote jazz record, and fuck if it's not the most amazingly fucked up record EVER. Now in addition to the metallic rasp, the stumbling angular melodies, are lots of synthesized horn stabs, crooning synthesizers, faux vibes and marimbas, synth oboes, synth bassoons, all peppered with some serious twisted tangles of Greg Ginn-esque guitar squall, usually draped over some woozy, smoky dive bar synthjazz. It still sort of sounds like Peter And The Wolf, but it also sounds like the score for some mystery noir z-movie thriller, ripe for some sort of Sam Spade voice over, but instead you get a voice over from some growling bile spewing demon, and the tracks lope on endlessly, the melodies, maniacally off kilter, the whole thing so brilliantly baffling it's almost impossible to listen to the whole thing, but we've come close. Very very close.
Absolutely recommended, but ONLY for those who can handle stuff like this. You know who you are.
MPEG Stream: "Marius Engages The Teutons"
MPEG Stream: "Teutonic Invasion"
MPEG Stream: "Marius Engages The Cimbri"
MPEG Stream: "The Rise Of Sulla"

GNAW This Face (Conspiracy) cd 16.98
Thee extreme/experimental/industrial metal scene has a potential new ruler here, with the doomic and disturbing debut of Gnaw. If you put this disc in your computer's iTunes, you'll see some joker has categorized their genre as "children's music". Ha, don't think so! Unless you want your kids to grow up to be like Alan Dubin, of OLD/Khanate infamy, who provides the blood curdling vokills here, ranging from throat-shredding yowls to creepy stage whispers. He's joined by former members of doomlords Burning Witch, psychfolk weirdos Enos Slaughter and cold, early '80s NYC post-punk Factory Records band Ike Yard (!) for this new project, which seems to take up where Dubin's previous bands left off, but in a direction much more deviant & eccentric.
The claustrophobic chaos of track one, "Haven Vault", ought to determine pretty quick if this is for you or not. Imagine a sped-up Khanate struggling through a windstorm, Dubin bawling wretchedly amidst the buzzing murk and the splatter of improv percussion... then distant, pretty piano notes fade in eerily, one by one... it's like Khanate meets Hazard meets Supersilent, in a nightmare. Extreme indeed, and all right with us! That leads to the next track, one that's calmer and more song-like, yet perhaps even more sinister-sounding, with Dubin's negative vibe lyrics more intelligible, everything backed by a springy-sprongy electronic rhythm. More of a tribal drumming pattern is exhibited on the deep rumble of the third song.
Each track seems to delve further and further into weirdness and woe, with drone and distortion and feedback given free range of the album. The jittery percussion effects a trance-like vibe at times, perhaps allowing Dubin's words deeper, subliminal access to your subconscious (uh oh). But as big fans of both OLD and Khanate, we're all for it, glad to now have Gnaw to push those same buttons, along with other ones we hadn't expected, like the way the singing on "Watcher" sounds almost like Eugene from Oxbow. Or how it sounds like maybe Dubin & Co. have been into some dubstep lately. Or how Gnaw's crunching head nodding heaviness is cracked like Humpty D. Yep, if you like some strange surprises in your grim glitchtronic avant-metal music, and moreover enjoy the varied vokill stylings of Mr. Dubin, you'll want Gnaw's Your Face at your place.
The Conspiracy label has released this on cd (digipack) and of course LIMITED EDITION gatefold vinyl of various colors (we've got any color you want, as long as it's black). They had to leave 2 tracks off the vinyl version, but it does come with a free mp3 download card so you can get the entire album on your computer.
MPEG Stream: "Haven Vault"
MPEG Stream: "Vacant"
MPEG Stream: "Shard"

GNAW This Face (Conspiracy) lp 15.98
Thee extreme/experimental/industrial metal scene has a potential new ruler here, with the doomic and disturbing debut of Gnaw. If you put this disc in your computer's iTunes, you'll see some joker has categorized their genre as "children's music". Ha, don't think so! Unless you want your kids to grow up to be like Alan Dubin, of OLD/Khanate infamy, who provides the blood curdling vokills here, ranging from throat-shredding yowls to creepy stage whispers. He's joined by former members of doomlords Burning Witch, psychfolk weirdos Enos Slaughter and cold, early '80s NYC post-punk Factory Records band Ike Yard (!) for this new project, which seems to take up where Dubin's previous bands left off, but in a direction much more deviant & eccentric.
The claustrophobic chaos of track one, "Haven Vault", ought to determine pretty quick if this is for you or not. Imagine a sped-up Khanate struggling through a windstorm, Dubin bawling wretchedly amidst the buzzing murk and the splatter of improv percussion... then distant, pretty piano notes fade in eerily, one by one... it's like Khanate meets Hazard meets Supersilent, in a nightmare. Extreme indeed, and all right with us! That leads to the next track, one that's calmer and more song-like, yet perhaps even more sinister-sounding, with Dubin's negative vibe lyrics more intelligible, everything backed by a springy-sprongy electronic rhythm. More of a tribal drumming pattern is exhibited on the deep rumble of the third song.
Each track seems to delve further and further into weirdness and woe, with drone and distortion and feedback given free range of the album. The jittery percussion effects a trance-like vibe at times, perhaps allowing Dubin's words deeper, subliminal access to your subconscious (uh oh). But as big fans of both OLD and Khanate, we're all for it, glad to now have Gnaw to push those same buttons, along with other ones we hadn't expected, like the way the singing on "Watcher" sounds almost like Eugene from Oxbow. Or how it sounds like maybe Dubin & Co. have been into some dubstep lately. Or how Gnaw's crunching head nodding heaviness is cracked like Humpty D. Yep, if you like some strange surprises in your grim glitchtronic avant-metal music, and moreover enjoy the varied vokill stylings of Mr. Dubin, you'll want Gnaw's Your Face at your place.
The Conspiracy label has released this on cd (digipack) and of course LIMITED EDITION gatefold vinyl of various colors (we've got any color you want, as long as it's black). They had to leave 2 tracks off the vinyl version, but it does come with a free mp3 download card so you can get the entire album on your computer.
MPEG Stream: "Haven Vault"
MPEG Stream: "Vacant"
MPEG Stream: "Shard"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
We listed the vinyl version of this amazing chunk of sinister sonics a while back, and as you'll see below, gushed epiphanically, like a crimson fountain of black blood, all about how much this record utterly destroys. Easily our fucked-up, heavy record of the year! Finally, we have the cd version, in a fancy gatefold style mini lp sleeve, and most importantly, with a bonus track not on the vinyl!! So for those of you sans turntable, and those of you who somehow just missed out first time around, and of course those of you who, even though you bought the vinyl, NEED that extra track (and trust us you do, you need everything you can get your bloodsoaked weirdo music obsessed hands on), well here ya go:
You can definitely tell a lot about a band by the names of records and song titles. Case in point: Gnaw Their Tongues. Some song titles: "My Body is Not a Vessel, Nor a Temple. It's a Repulsive Pile of Sickness", "And There Will Be More of Your Children Dead Tomorrow", "Blood Spills Out Of Everything I Touch", "Sound the Horns, the Water is Poisoned". Some album titles: Spit at Me and Wreak Havoc on My Flesh, Preferring Human Skin Over Animal Fur, Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh, Spasming and Howling, Bowels Loosening and Bladders Emptying, Vomiting, and now this, An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood. But then what is it exactly that we can glean from these titles? That the men in Gnaw Their tongues are demented? Sick? Depraved? Probably. But where titles like this might lead one to assume the music attached to the above words would be some sort of hateful harsh white noise, or some sort of near unlistenable Whitehouse worship, the truth is, Gnaw Their Tongues is one of the few bands with an utterly distinctive and recognizable sound. There are very few bands we can think of, even amongst our favorites. You will absolutely never confuse the music of Gnaw Their Tongues with any other outfit. And conversely, you will never hear something that is not them, and assume it is, because NOTHING sounds anything like Gnaw Their Tongues.
So much so that even explaining their sound in a review is fairly difficult. The last GTT review, we resorted to a tale of hell and hellbound journeys, of total annihilation and utter destruction, of death and decay and misery, all in a bid to evoke the same sort of images and visions, thoughts and feelings that are evoked by the sounds these guys produce.
It's definitely not black metal, but it is most certainly black. If forced to describe their sound in some succinct, and non-rambling manner, it might be cinematic operatic orchestral avant industrial doom. But since we can ramble, it might be easier to dig a little deeper.
Every song is epic, like little films, sounds evoking images, evoking thoughts and emotions, horns and orchestral stabs, flutes and strings, are as much a part of the sound as guitars. Probably more so. Thick gristly slabs of buzzing low end, crawl beneath pummeling percussive plod, operatic vocals soar and wail, bits of electronic glitch and whir drift in and out, guitars are downtuned and allowed to spread like toxic oil spills, tracks are peppered with bits of dialogue, and snippets of films, found sounds and mysterious textures, occasionally, harsh hellish blackened shrieks join the fray, as do bits of dark ambience. There is plenty of space, the sound managing to be expansive and open, as well as claustrophobic and suffocating.
It's a bit like a black metal Arvo Part, scoring a lost Hitchcock thriller, so totally intense and emotional and epic, rife with nervous tension and extreme dread. Whenever the sound verges on white noise, or total implosion, the sound abates, leaving Bernard Hermann-ish strings, or some bit of cryptic dialogue, or some strange disembodied rhythm, before spilling forth again like black vomit. The layers of blasphemous sound piling up like blackened bodies, buzzy and filthy and grime-y but so composed, not really that chaotic at all, a controlled chaos perhaps, each sound painstakingly placed to help paint that blood red picture.
An impossible blend of metal, choral, industrial, electronic, ambient, drone, noise and blackness, a gorgeous, and gorgeously infernal concoction, every record, another chapter in some sick saga, hell swallowing the surface dwellers, misery and mayhem overtaking humanity, death and pestilence, the world a graveyard for humanity, such utter depravity conveyed in such epic and dementedly brilliant sounds, which is precisely why Gnaw Their Tongues is quickly becoming one of our favorite bands goingŠ
MPEG Stream: "My Body Is Not A Vessel, Nor A Temple, It's A Repulsive Pile Of Sickness"
MPEG Stream: "Teeth That Leer Like Open Graves"
MPEG Stream: "An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood (Senor Hernandez / Roadburn) lp 21.00
You can definitely tell a lot about a band by the names of records and song titles. Case in point: Gnaw Their Tongues. Some song titles: "My Body is Not a Vessel, Nor a Temple. It's a Repulsive Pile of Sickness", "And There Will Be More of Your Children Dead Tomorrow", "Blood Spills Out Of Everything I Touch", "Sound the Horns, the Water is Poisoned". Some album titles: Spit at Me and Wreak Havoc on My Flesh, Preferring Human Skin Over Animal Fur, Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh, Spasming and Howling, Bowels Loosening and Bladders Emptying, Vomiting, and now this, An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood. But then what is it exactly that we can glean from these titles? That the men in Gnaw Their tongues are demented? Sick? Depraved? Probably. But where titles like this might lead one to assume the music attached to the above words would be some sort of hateful harsh white noise, or some sort of near unlistenable Whitehouse worship, the truth is, Gnaw Their Tongues is one of the few bands with an utterly distinctive and recognizable sound. There are very few bands we can think of, even amongst our favorites. You will absolutely never confuse the music of Gnaw Their Tongues with any other outfit. And conversely, you will never hear something that is not them, and assume it is, because NOTHING sounds anything like Gnaw Their Tongues.
So much so that even explaining their sound in a review is fairly difficult. The last GTT review, we resorted to a tale of hell and hellbound journeys, of total annihilation and utter destruction, of death and decay and misery, all in a bid to evoke the same sort of images and visions, thoughts and feelings that are evoked by the sounds these guys produce.
It's definitely not black metal, but it is most certainly black. If forced to describe their sound in some succinct, and non-rambling manner, it might be cinematic operatic orchestral avant industrial doom. But since we can ramble, it might be easier to dig a little deeper.
Every song is epic, like little films, sounds evoking images, evoking thoughts and emotions, horns and orchestral stabs, flutes and strings, are as much a part of the sound as guitars. Probably more so. Thick gristly slabs of buzzing low end, crawl beneath pummeling percussive plod, operatic vocals soar and wail, bits of electronic glitch and whir drift in and out, guitars are downtuned and allowed to spread like toxic oil spills, tracks are peppered with bits of dialogue, and snippets of films, found sounds and mysterious textures, occasionally, harsh hellish blackened shrieks join the fray, as do bits of dark ambience. There is plenty of space, the sound managing to be expansive and open, as well as claustrophobic and suffocating.
It's a bit like a black metal Arvo Part, scoring a lost Hitchcock thriller, so totally intense and emotional and epic, rife with nervous tension and extreme dread. Whenever the sound verges on white noise, or total implosion, the sound abates, leaving Bernard Hermann-ish strings, or some bit of cryptic dialogue, or some strange disembodied rhythm, before spilling forth again like black vomit. The layers of blasphemous sound piling up like blackened bodies, buzzy and filthy and grime-y but so composed, not really that chaotic at all, a controlled chaos perhaps, each sound painstakingly placed to help paint that blood red picture.
An impossible blend of metal, choral, industrial, electronic, ambient, drone, noise and blackness, a gorgeous, and gorgeously infernal concoction, every record, another chapter in some sick saga, hell swallowing the surface dwellers, misery and mayhem overtaking humanity, death and pestilence, the world a graveyard for humanity, such utter depravity conveyed in such epic and dementedly brilliant sounds, which is precisely why Gnaw Their Tongues is quickly becoming one of our favorite bands goingŠ

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh (Universal Tongue) 3"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.
We almost missed out on this one completely. Limited to 100 copies or so, we tried to order 40 and were informed they only had a handful left. So we begged and pleaded, and the label agreed to press up 40 more copies just for us, and thus for you. Whew! Since we discovered this band we've become pretty obsessed. As have you all, judging from how quick we sell out of Gnaw records. They're heavy, they're super fucked up, it's not just black metal or sludge, it's some head spinning hybrid equal parts abstract industrial, ambient collageblasting blackness, hyperspeed grind, blackdrone, harsh and hellish, but strangely musical, their last record, the recently reviewed An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood (they have a knack for titles too) is pretty much a shoe in for record of the year. Have a look at that review for some serious gushing.
This 3 song ep, is GTT at their most black metal. The first two tracks, while laced with bits of orchestral grandeur, and blown out crumbling bliss, spend most of their time blasting away, but even then, there are bits of melodic flair here and there, the distortion is so thick and intense, the whole thing threatens to blur into some thick whirring drone, the opener has a killer breakdown groove, utterly majestic and epic, before flitting back to the black blast. The second track is another blackened monster, furiously thrashing and convulsing wildly, but it too is peppered with bits of glimmering effulgence, and a middle breakdown where distorted guitars are pitched up and allowed to shimmer ominously like some Bernard Hermann score, before the metal drops back in, transforming the track into a pummeling slow motion Godflesh style industrial dirge that eventually launches itself back into a furious burst of grim brutality.
The final track is the creepiest of the bunch, long drawn out synth drones, wavering ominously, wrapped in bis of whir and metallic buzz, samples distorted and effected drifting amidst the swirling black ambience, the moodiness eventually overtaken by a thick wave of white noise distortion and what sounds like voices screaming in terror, finally splintering into a hellish black frenzy.
Packaged in a mini 3" dvd-style case, with full color artwork, and pressed on a black cd-r. Limited to these 40 copies, once they're gone, might be tough to convince them to make us more again...
MPEG Stream: "Blood Drenched Altars"
MPEG Stream: "Knife... Martyr... Despair"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Devotion (At War With False Noise) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It seems almost criminal to release something so limited by a band as hyped as these guys (or this guy) are lately. But there you go. 100 copies. Already sold out. We got almost half of them, but even just in the store they've been flying out of here. So you should know what that means by now. Thankfully, all the hype is well deserved and then some. Gnaw Their Tongues is one of the grimmest, sickest, darkest, most gloriously fucked up outfits going, mixing black ambient drones, dirgey sludge, buzzing black metal, abstract industrial, even mixing in bits of dialogue and snippets of opera and random other weirdness, the result a totally baffling and bewildering headfuck, that manages to creep the shit out of us, but somehow keep us listening over and over and over and over.
Devotion though is a departure, ditching much of the metal of past releases, as well as most of the song structure, and opts for something much more static and ambient, but no less heavy, these four tracks are thick swaths of dark torturous throb and groan, creaks and shimmers, rendered in crumbling greys and hoarse ghostlike wheezes. It's like an aural tour of some mysterious catacombs, built from skulls and rotting flesh, the bleak atmosphere rife with the sounds of strange machinery, the tortured cries of the doomed, a veritable symphony of cacophonous crashes and deafening blasts of blown out buzz, boiled down into a primordial ooze and smeared into gorgeously lush waves of corrosive grinding crush, a bristly brutal blur that slithers and undulates like a pit full of black snakes.
The packaging is appropriately grim and black and bleak, and fancy, as are most At War With False Noise releases, printed cd-r's housed in a two sided washed out black and white gatefold sleeve, decorated with goats and candles and bloodshed and naked women, tucked in an oversized A5 sized black cardstock gatefold jacket, with a barely legible black on black vellum cover, all in a plastic outer sleeve.
And again, limited to 100 copies, already out of print, blah blah blah...
MPEG Stream: "Devotion"
MPEG Stream: "Canibalis"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen (Universal Consciousness) cd 11.98
Two long out of print cd-r's from our favorite symphonic black doom noize combo, gets the ultra deluxe reissue treatment. Both Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen, originally released on Corps-Morts (the first thing we ever heard from GTT), and Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh originally released on Universal Tongue, are both represented here in full, and on top of that, there are THREE unreleased bonus tracks, so even folks who have those original cds will probably want this, not just for the bonus tracks (although that might be enough), but to have those two out of print cd-r's on a proper cd!! Gorgeous packaging too, super striking 6 panel digipak, comes with a GTT sticker too.
Not sure how we first heard about Gnaw Their Tongues, pretty sure a customer recommended them, but believe us when we say that the words Gnaw Their Tongues had barely left their lips (or maybe more accurately, the words had barely left the email and reached our cerebral cortex) and we were already smitten. How could they not rule with a name like that? The question was merely HOW they would rule, dark and creepy? Heavy and harsh? Doom? Blacknoise? Drone? Howabout all of those?! Oh yeah, it's almost like someone snuck into the AQ barracks in the middle of the night to scan our minds and see what kind of bands we dreamed about, the bands our subconscious really wished existed. 
They took all the data back to their lair, the one hidden beneath that big scary mountain, and spent years analyzing it, and creating equations, chemicals, compounds, months in an underground lab, until eventually the whole project was forgotten. 
Until years later, when a record store employee was hiking and discovered the ruins of some old, well, it looked like a fortress, maybe a lair, and decided, against all the wisdom gleaned from a million after school specials, to explore. Way down deep in the dusty recesses of this old forgotten lair, this record store feller discovered some sort of portal, rusted shut it seemed, and adorned with messages in some strange language, an alien tongue if you will, they looked like warnings, but what the heck, shit like that only happens in horror movies, so the feller went about trying to unlock the portal, and after what seemed like ages, the lock clicked, and the rusty metal swung open, and suddenly all was blackness, and dripping red, and agony and misery, and hell embodied on earth, in the form of this filthy black musick. 
That filthy black musick was in fact these two musical documents by these mysterious black beasties known as Gnaw Their Tongues. Who on Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen, spew forth a caustic noxious ultradoom. A black metallized lurch and stumble, harsh, hellish vocals buried beneath an avalanche of corrosive guitar, strange alien ambience, and mechanical monster drumming. Horrible and grotesque and dizzyingly brutal, but with tiny vestiges of beauty and melody, occasionally visible through the dense black sonic fog. Stretches of distorted doom verging on the beautiful, separating gut wrenching squalls of utter black chaos. And that's just the first track. 
The second is like the first, only fast. Really fast. Like sticking your head into the middle of a lightning storm. Like Velvet Caccoon and Wold and AmacomA all playing simultaneously, at full volume, broadcast through Konono's PA, until your ears bleed, but it's not all pain and suffering, this  whirling world of sound is again strangely melodic, twisted into some almost pop like shapes, but always quickly bathed in blackness and sent spinning back into the fray. 
"29 Needles" is a step away from the end, and is some sort of industrial plod, a garish landscape of bleak brutality, sparse ultradistorted percussion, clouds of caustic whir, creepy ghostlike voices, the sort of sounds that make Wolf Eyes sound like the Carpenters. A musical death march through a world of fire and death and destruction, of keening musical misery and downtuned sonic punishment. 
Finally, the prophecy is complete with once the sounds of "Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen" reach the ears of mortal man. The plants wither and the sky grows dim, our hearts beat slower and our blood begins to boil, the earth begins to crack, and slowly we sink into the depths of the underworld, and this is the sound that the end of all things makes. A lonely slowed down low end caterwaul, a rumbling whir peppered with jagged streaks of harsh noise, thick swells of coruscating sonic malevolence, storm clouds of hiss and buzz, a pounding skull splitting din from the heavens, an electrical storm that singes every nerve in your body, leaving you paralyzed, supine, blind, and mute, with only your ears ringing painfully, just barely able to make out the dying gasps of life as we know it.
Then came Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh. We almost missed out on it completely. The original version limited to 100 copies or so, we tried to order 40 and were informed they only had a handful left. So we begged and pleaded, and the label agreed to press up 40 more copies just for us, and thus for you. But those were gone before we knew it. Which is why this reissue is such a godsend (satansend?) Since we first discovered this band we had become pretty obsessed. As have the aQ blacknoize minions, judging from how quick we sell out of Gnaw records. They're heavy, they're super fucked up, it's not just black metal or sludge, it's some head spinning hybrid equal parts abstract industrial, ambient collageblasting blackness, hyperspeed grind, blackdrone, harsh and hellish, but strangely musical.
Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh finds GTT at their most black metal. The first two tracks, while laced with bits of orchestral grandeur, and blown out crumbling bliss, spend most of their time blasting away, but even then, there are bits of melodic flair here and there, the distortion is so thick and intense, the whole thing threatens to blur into some thick whirring drone, the opener has a killer breakdown groove, utterly majestic and epic, before flitting back to the black blast. The second track is another blackened monster, furiously thrashing and convulsing wildly, but it too is peppered with bits of glimmering effulgence, and a middle breakdown where distorted guitars are pitched up and allowed to shimmer ominously like some Bernard Hermann score, before the metal drops back in, transforming the track into a pummeling slow motion Godflesh style industrial dirge that eventually launches itself back into a furious burst of grim brutality.
The final track is the creepiest of the bunch, long drawn out synth drones, wavering ominously, wrapped in bis of whir and metallic buzz, samples distorted and effected drifting amidst the swirling black ambience, the moodiness eventually overtaken by a thick wave of white noise distortion and what sounds like voices screaming in terror, finally splintering into a hellish black frenzy.
As mentioned in the introduction to this review, in addition to the reissued tracks, this version of Die Mutter also includes three new, unreleased tracks. The first is a gorgeous post industrial orchestral crawl, heaving horns, crunching metallic percussion, guttural vocalizations, blasting beats, exotic strings, long stretches of haunting cinematic ambience, heavy and harrowing, the production fucked up and fractured, the sound woozy and wonderfully grim. The second is more of the same, a lumbering death march painted in broad swaths of majestic strings, buzz drenched guitars, all wrapped around a super spare machinelike pound, fuzzed out Goblin like synths, like a Bernard Hermann score gone haywire. And finally, the awesomely titled closer "I Am The Lord And There Is No Other; I Make The Light, I Create Darkness" (GTT definitely have a way with song and album titles), a slow burning bit of black ambient drift, distant drones, creepy keyboard shimmers, dark layered waves of low end rumble, epic swells of soundtracky creepiness, while all throughout, the track drifts through sprawling fields of mysterious creaks and groans, clatter and crunch. Occasional squalls of orchestral percussion tangle with blurred bits of otherworldly whir, all streaked with sweetly sorrowful strings. So good.
If you're new to Gnaw Their Tongues, and you're into sounds blackened and brutal and bizarre and fucked up and noisy and creepy and epic, then you couldn't find a better place to start than this, and yeah, GTT fanatics, you're definitely gonna want this, even if you have the cd-r's, as we mentioned above, this is some of the best GTT material, finally on a proper cd, but even more importantly, this would be well worth $12 even if it was just a 20 minute / 3 song ep containing only the bonus tracks.
MPEG Stream: "Leichenbergen"
MPEG Stream: "And The Waters Shall Prevail Upon The Earth"
MPEG Stream: "Blood Drenched Altars"
MPEG Stream: "Knife... Martyr... Despair"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen (Corps-Morts) 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.
Not sure how we first heard about Gnaw Their Tongues, pretty sure a customer recommended them, but believe us when we say that the words Gnaw Their Tongues had barely left their lips (or maybe more accurately, the words had barely left the email and reached our cerebral cortex) and we were already smitten. How could they not rule with a name like that? The question was merely HOW they would rule, dark and creepy? Heavy and harsh? Doom? Blacknoise? Drone? Howabout all of those?! Oh yeah, it's almost like someone snuck into the AQ barracks in the middle of the night to scan our minds and see what kind of bands we dreamed about, the bands our subconscious really wished existed. 
They took all the data back to their lair, the one hidden beneath that big scary mountain, and spent years analyzing it, and creating equations, chemicals, compounds, months in an underground lab, until eventually the whole project was forgotten. 
Until years later, when a record store employee was hiking and discovered the ruins of some old, well, it looked like a fortress, maybe a lair, and decided, against all the wisdom gleaned from a million after school specials, to explore. Way down deep in the dusty recesses of this old forgotten lair, this record store feller discovered some sort of portal, rusted shut it seemed, and adorned with messages in some strange language, an alien tongue if you will, they looked like warnings, but what the heck, shit like that only happens in horror movies, so the feller went about trying to unlock the portal, and after what seemed like ages, the lock clicked, and the rusty metal swung open, and suddenly all was blackness, and dripping red, and agony and misery, and hell embodied on earth, in the form of this filthy black musick. 
That filthy black musick was this, the first recorded document by these mysterious black beasties known as Gnaw Their Tongues. Who spew forth a caustic noxious ultradoom. A black metallized lurch and stumble, harsh, hellish vocals buried beneath an avalanche of corrosive guitar, strange alien ambience, and mechanical monster drumming. Horrible and grotesque and dizzyingly brutal, but with tiny vestiges of beauty and melody, occasionally visible through the dense black sonic fog. Stretches of distorted doom verging on the beautiful, separating gut wrenching squalls of utter black chaos. And that's just the first track. 
The second is like the first, only fast. Really fast. Like sticking your head into the middle of a lightning storm. Like Velvet Caccoon and Wold and Amacoma all playing simultaneously, at full volume, broadcast through Konono's PA, untiil your ears bleed, but it's not all pain and suffering, this  whirling world of sound is again strangely melodic, twisted into some almost pop like shapes, but always quickly bathed in blackness and sent spinning  back into the fray. 
"29 Needles" is a step away from the end, and is some sort of industrial plod, a garish landscape of bleak brutality, sparse ultradistorted percussion, clouds of caustic whir, creepy ghostlike voices, the sort of sounds that make Wolf Eyes sound like the Carpenters. A musical death march through a world of fire and death and destruction, of keening musical misery and downtuned sonic punishment. 
Finally, the prophecy is complete with once the sounds of "Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen" reach the ears of mortal man. The plants wither and the sky grows dim, our hearts beat slower and our blood begins to boil, the earth begins to crack, and slowly we sink into the depths of the underworld, and this is the sound that the end of all things makes. A lonely slowed down low end caterwaul, a rumbling whir peppered with jagged streaks of harsh noise, thick swells of coruscating sonic malevolence, storm clouds of hiss and buzz, a pounding skull splitting din from the heavens, an electrical storm that singes every nerve in your body, leaving you paralyzed, supine, blind, and mute, with only your ears ringing painfully, just barely able to make out the dying gasps of life as we know it.
MPEG Stream: "Leichenbergen"
MPEG Stream: "And The Waters Shall Prevail Upon The Earth"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES For All Slaves A Song Of False Hope (Burning World) cd ep 13.98
Latest ep of cinematic doom dirge black ambience from this freaky one man band, and like past missives, this stuff is gorgeous, sick, confusing, heavy, fucked up, noisy, mysterious, cinematic, epic, disturbing and totally brilliant.
It's supposedly an ep, but it's almost an hour long, and for most folks an hour of this punishment is all you could take.
Check out some of our other Gnaw reviews, to read our gushing descriptions of the super evocative sound world GTT is able to conjure up, we wrote endlessly about bleak barren wastelands, charred bodies, horrific site and sounds, it's almost easier to describe the images and ideas that this music evokes that it is to describe the sounds themselves. But we'll have a go.
Imagine Abruptum scoring films and you might have a rough idea: strings soar, horns moan and bleat, industrial percussion is laced throughout, vocals are disembodied guttural howls, melodies creep through blackened soundscapes of buzz and pound, opening up into expanses of creak and clatter, laced with samples and found sounds, all floating above a sea of tense dronemusic, everything wrapped in swirling clouds of black sludge, and doomic rumbles. The clouds occasionally part, revealing some intimate moment, whether musical and dramatic, agonized wailing, or some strange dialogue, usually tangled up with some gloomy melody, some stumbling rhythm, before exploding again into a cacophonous blast of epic cinematic blacknoize.
This record doesn't deviate too much from past releases, which is just fine with us, it sounds like we're just digging deeper into the scarred psyche behind Gnaw Their Tongues, the most notable difference might be the presence of more sampled strings, and the record's closer which is a gorgeous buzzing midtempo black metal dirge, that manages to sound grim and raw, but also weirdly melodic and emotional.
GTT is one of the few bands who manages to create an absolutely unique sound, an impossible doom / black metal / ambient hybrid that fuses all of those various sounds perfectly into something that is both all and none of those. And as always, garish artwork, this time a topless woman preparing to emasculate a supine nude man, and of course song titles like "The Uncomfortable Silence In Between Beatings" and "My Womb Is Barren And I Want Revenge".
Fucked up and genius and thus absolutely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "For All Slaves A Song Of False Hope I"
MPEG Stream: "The Uncomfortable Silence In Between Beatings"
MPEG Stream: "A Fiery Deluge"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Reeking Pained And Shuddering (Paradigms) cd 12.98
If for some reason you missed out on the last Gnaw Their Tongues release, a super limited cd-r now unfortunately out of print, and aren't yet as ridiculously obsessed with these guys as we are, we can get you up to speed pretty easily. Beyond the evocative name, there's the record title: Reeking Pained and Shuddering, and how about the song titles: "Blood Spills Out Of Everything I Touch", "Destroying Is Creating" or "Nihilism; Tied Up And Burning". And if you still don't have even a rough idea of what you're in for, there's always the music itself, a roiling sonic cesspool of unfettered abject brutality and buzzing murky malevolence. A sort of black metal doom noise hybrid, like Abruptum jamming with Wolf Eyes but slowed way dooooooown, dipped in tar, rolled in dirt and shoved staggering and bloody out of your speakers.
But this isn't just noisy, or heavy or brutal, each song is strangely nuanced, and manages to veer wildly all over the sonic map without losing cohesiveness, each track is like a mini epic, with movements, moods, a convoluted song structure that is tangled and serpentine but that has some alien logic.
Take the 8+ minute opening track "Blood Spills Out Of Everything I Touch", which begins with a lurching industrial plod, all lo-fi Godflesh pound and pummel, in a swirling cloud of grey fog FX, but then, the riffs take on some horror movie like cinematic ambience, somehow sounding orchestral and majestic, before falling apart into some strange shuffling skittering krautdoom, peppered with what sounds like horns, snippets of dialogue, and huge booming downtuned crashes, until everything peels back, just leaving a weird smear of rumbling drones and smeared carnival music, beneath a super creepy monologue from some film, appropriately gruesome, the music in the background looping and more and more ominous, eventually building to a near static symphony of vacuum cleaner whir, above a skeletal framework of skittery percussion, and moaning creaking collapsing-building downtuned riffage. And that's just one song.
"Utter Futility Of Creation" begins with super sinister soundtracky strings, before the hammer falls and the record resumes its monstrous lurch, but the strings never go away, they trill and soar and scrape in the background, adding super dramatic tension and furthering the idea that this record might be the soundtrack to the scariest movie ever made. Here and there the band bow out, leaving the strings to weave an ominous swirl of sonic terror and panic, the band pulsing in the background, as if waiting to pounce, again what sound like horns join the fray. It's like what Goblin might have sounded like had they grown up on a steady diet of grindcore and black metal. "Nihilism; Tied Up And Burning" begins as another chunk of lost cinematic black ambience with female operatic vocals over a dark black whirl of thrum and throb, before a grinding looped riff surfaces and the band launch into a blasting slab of black metal, but all tangled up with those haunting vocals, and bathed in a fuzz so thick it sounds like it was recorded by Tim Hecker or Christian Fennesz, but so much more harsh and harrowing. Much of the rest of the record leans toward the ambient, with the buzzing guitars washed out into dense drones, more fucked up field recordings and samples, processed vocals, whirring alien loops, howled moaned voices, but still with the occasional stretch of pounding percussion, or wall of impossibly detuned guitar, everything crumbling and filthy, frightening and seriously fucked up. Definitely one of our new favorite bands.
Some of this stuff is previously released, mostly on outrageously limited cd-r's and cassette releases, so while some of you collector fiends might have one or two of these tracks, as far as the rest of us are concerned, this fresh musical meat!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Housed in a white dvd case, with full color artwork and printed heavy paper insert.
MPEG Stream: "Blood Spills Out Of Everything I Touch"
MPEG Stream: "Utter Futility Of Creation"
MPEG Stream: "Nihilism; Tied Up And Burning"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES The Genocideal Deliverance (At War With False Noise) 7" 5.98
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 one man blackened noise drenched cinematic doomscape wrecking crew, with a super limited single, only 300 copies, of which we got about 40. Already sold out and out of print, so act fast if you want one of these filthy little black slabs.
And filthy they are, and heavy, and noisy, and most definitely the most metal thing we've heard from GTT to date. Two tracks, both sound cut from the same blood soaked cloth, relentless blast beats and drum machine splatter buried beneath thick oozing layers of churning downtuned black buzz, underpinned by tripped out keyboards, and some super harsh processed vokills. Occasionally moaning slabs of woozy drone surface, or the vocals become even more garbled, but the pace remains frenetic. Both sides feature a breakdown of sorts, the A side finds the sound slipping into some weird sort of soundtracky Goblin territory, all queasy synths and creepy minor key melodies, epic and cinematic, but still filthy and grimy and lo-fi, while the B-side introduces some haunting spoken word, over a dense swirl of drones and hums and buzzing, before exploding again into a guitar drenched blacknoise outro.
Awesome as always, and again, already OUT OF PRINT. These are the last copies, we, you or anyone else will ever see.