FLYNT, HENRY You Are My Everlovin' / Celestial Power (Recorded) 2cd 21.00
First in this label's "New American Ethnic Music" series. "Avant-garde hillbilly and blues music" by violinist (and Fluxus conceptual artist) Henry Flynt.
Each disc documents a live improv session, the first from 1981 and the second from 1980, and both are quite lovely indeed. I guess it's "hillbilly" 'cause he's playing a fiddle, and there's echoes of Appalachian trad music amidst the drone.
For one concert/disc he's joined by a tambura player, and on the other by a guitarist (both strangely uncredited). Definitely in a Tony Conrad / fake Indian raga mode, and good at it. Fans of the aforementioned, as well as those into (Flynt associate) LaMonte Young, Ashtray Navigations and even the Dirty Three (it's actually VERY Dirty Three sounding at moments, with Flynt's melancholy, almost psychedelic violin being the dominant voice). More specifically, these are (we're told) "extended extemporizations on extended alpha-state ascension through excessive application of overtone-series note relationships/harmonics over a single chord/form". Check out www.henryflynt.org for more info on the man's art and writing (there's some strange essays to be found there). A very cool archival release, can't wait to hear more in the series.

FLYNT, HENRY & NOVA'BILLY Nova' Billy (Locust) cd 14.98
Out of all the various iterations of Henry Flynt's huge and wildly varied recorded output, we weren't sure what to expect with this release, the previously unreleased 1975 recording of Flynt's avant-punk hillbilly boogie outfit Nova'Billy. Wildly ecstatic and rhythmic, full of left-field honky-tonk idioms but never wonky, Nova'Billy is probably one of Flynt's most joyously rocking outings that we've heard. Different than the Velvet's-by-way-of-the-Fugs recordings of his early band incarnation, The Insurrections, Nova' Billy is tighter and much better produced. Flynt's singing is minimal but well-used and less grating than we've heard on other recordings. His vocal delivery on "I Was A Creep" is more like the Rev. Fred Lane than the Jandek-style realms it can sometimes enter on releases like Raga Electric. A fine reissue and one that should live towards the top of Flynt's surprisingly massive discography!
MPEG Stream: "Conga"
MPEG Stream: "Amphetamine Rhapsody"
MPEG Stream: "I Was A Creep"
MPEG Stream: "Double Spindizzy"

FLYNT, HENRY & THE INSURECTIONS I Don't Wanna (Bo Weevil) lp 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Available on lp (but very limited!!)
Wow. It's strange, after never having ever heard of this guy before like, 2 years ago, now I've practically got a whole shelf full of Henry Flynt cds -- all terrific stuff recorded at least two decades back, but only recently seeing the light of day. And they keep coming. This new one dates from way back in 1966, and is billed as a youthful Flynt's NYC art-punk garage rock band. That made us a little apprehensive (we've never really been Fugs fans, and that's what we thought it might sound like), but actually this turned out to be totally amazing! Most of the other Flynt recordings that have come out feature his violin playing, in a kind of '60s minimalism meets Appalachian folk style. But with The Insurrections (with Walter de Maria on drums, later famous for his Lightning Field scupture in the New Mexican desert) Flynt plays guitar instead of fiddle. It's weird country bluesy drone protest rock as only an academic hillbilly Fluxus artist could conceive. The Velvets meet a jug band at an acid test? Not quite, but close. No mere historical document, this is revelatory stuff, not sounding thirty years old but timeless instead. And the recording quality of this rehearsal tape is more than adequate. Somewhere betwixt hoedown and raga, these nine tracks represent a divergent strain of beat music not commonly associated with 1966 (though, that was the year of Black Monk Time, which this doesn't sound like, though you can imagine Flynt woulda liked that Monks LP, and for sure he shared their opinion of Uncle Sam). Again, a dusty tape from the vaults that puts today's crop of avant-blues-improv shitkickers to shame, whoever they are. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Go Down"
MPEG Stream: "Dreams Away"

FLYNT, HENRY & THE INSURRECTIONS I Don't Wanna (Locust Music) cd 14.98
Wow. It's strange, after never having ever heard of this guy before like, 2 years ago, now I've practically got a whole shelf full of Henry Flynt cds -- all terrific stuff recorded at least two decades back, but only recently seeing the light of day. And they keep coming. This new one dates from way back in 1966, and is billed as a youthful Flynt's NYC art-punk garage rock band. That made us a little apprehensive (we've never really been Fugs fans, and that's what we thought it might sound like), but actually this turned out to be totally amazing! Most of the other Flynt recordings that have come out feature his violin playing, in a kind of '60s minimalism meets Appalachian folk style. But with The Insurrections (with Walter de Maria on drums, later famous for his Lightning Field scupture in the New Mexican desert) Flynt plays guitar instead of fiddle. It's weird country bluesy drone protest rock as only an academic hillbilly Fluxus artist could conceive. The Velvets meet a jug band at an acid test? Not quite, but close. No mere historical document, this is revelatory stuff, not sounding thirty years old but timeless instead. And the recording quality of this rehearsal tape is more than adequate. Somewhere betwixt hoedown and raga, these nine tracks represent a divergent strain of beat music not commonly associated with 1966 (though, that was the year of Black Monk Time, which this doesn't sound like, though you can imagine Flynt woulda liked that Monks LP, and for sure he shared their opinion of Uncle Sam). Again, a dusty tape from the vaults that puts today's crop of avant-blues-improv shitkickers to shame, whoever they are. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Go Down"
MPEG Stream: "Dreams Away"

FM3 Buddha Machine (Staalplaat) battery powered soundbox 26.00
Oooooh, we got all in a tizzy when we saw this. As it seems did every one else. We're told The Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop bought 24, and Brian Eno bought 8! The first 'pressing' sold out in no time, and when we heard there was a second pressing, we got as many as we could so we could actually list it and give all of our like minded customers a chance to snatch up one of these amazing little machines before they were gone. Basically, the Buddha Machine is a little handheld soundbox, with a tiny speaker, a volume control and a line out so you can plug it into your stereo. Inside is a chip, which stores nine dreamy, drone-y, drifty, meditative loops, which can be switched using a little toggle on the side. The ultimate record nerd, collector geek, outsider music fetish object. SO COOL.
FM3 is Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian, and they are just the first group in what is meant to be a new series of different artists composing music specifically for these tiny handheld soundboxes. Comes sealed in a very generic looking box that doesn't even begin to hint at the joyous drones contained inside! Each Buddha Machine comes in a different color, purple, white, black, blue, red, yellow. The color you get will be completely random - although, if you are really, really keen on a specific color, we may be able to special-order it for you.
[Batteries are no longer included, sorry!]

FM3 Buddha Machine (Staalplaat) battery powered soundbox 26.00
Oooooh, we got all in a tizzy when we saw this. As it seems did every one else. We're told The Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop bought 24, and Brian Eno bought 8! The first 'pressing' sold out in no time, and when we heard there was a second pressing, we got as many as we could so we could actually list it and give all of our like minded customers a chance to snatch up one of these amazing little machines before they were gone. Basically, the Buddha Machine is a little handheld soundbox, with a tiny speaker, a volume control and a line out so you can plug it into your stereo. Inside is a chip, which stores nine dreamy, drone-y, drifty, meditative loops, which can be switched using a little toggle on the side. The ultimate record nerd, collector geek, outsider music fetish object. SO COOL.
FM3 is Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian, and they are just the first group in what is meant to be a new series of different artists composing music specifically for these tiny handheld soundboxes. Comes sealed in a very generic looking box that doesn't even begin to hint at the joyous drones contained inside! Each Buddha Machine comes in a different color, purple, white, black, blue, red, yellow. The color you get will be completely random - although, if you are really, really keen on a specific color, we may be able to special-order it for you.
[Batteries are no longer included, sorry!]

FM3 Buddha Machine II : Brown (FM3) battery powered soundbox 26.00
That's right Buddha Machine II!!! As in a whole new machine. New design. New features. And all new sounds. Most aQ customers are probably quite familiar with the Buddha Machine by now, most of you probably own one, or more, and a bunch of you probably bought one or more as gifts for your music nerd friends or significant others. We freaked out over the Buddha Machine just like everyone else when we discovered it. Rumor was that the Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop bought 24, and Brian Eno bought 8! Just here at aQ we've sold HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS!!!
For those of you who missed out, the Buddha Machine is a little handheld soundbox, with a tiny speaker, a volume control and a line out so you can plug it into your stereo. Inside is a chip, which stores nine dreamy, drone-y, drifty, meditative loops, which can be switched using a little toggle on the side. It was designed by the group FM3, aka Christian Virant and Zhang Jian, who recorded nine loops specifically for the tiny handheld soundboxes. These boxes are ubiquitous in China ands all over Asia, where they are used in worship, with the boxes featuring recordings of chants and prayers. FM3 took that concept and expanded it, offering musical loops, to be used in meditation or relaxation, or perhaps even prayer, if one was so inclined. The boxes are very simple, the sound lo-fi, but as an object, especially a sound producing object, it was, and is fantastic, and totally mesmerizing. The original Buddha Machine is still available, and comes in multiple colors: purple, white, black, blue, red, yellow, but mover over old Buddha Machine....
There's a new Buddha Machine and it's a doozy, improving on various elements of the original, adding an awesome new control, and most importantly featuring nine new loops. So even if you have one of the old ones, you're probably gonna want one of these too. The sounds this time around, are much less meditative, a bit more active, ranging from deep swells laced with feedback and strange processed electronics, to pulsing minimal melodies, to what sounds like a distorted music box / piano duet, to a stripped down strummed metallic dirge wreathed in buzz, to single sustained notes draped over random bits of room sound, to dubbed out thumb piano, a few with an almost post rock vibe, albeit way more stripped down and spare, and some of the loops are really long, sounding much more like song fragments that loops, and even more than the first Buddha Machine, the new sounds definitely lend themselves to playing multiple boxes at once, creating your own Buddha Machine symphony. The big change besides the sounds, is the addition of a pitch control, which allows you to dramatically change the pitch of any or all of the loops, for us, everything sounds better slow, but you can speed it all up, or you can continuously adjust the pitch while the loops are playing, adding all manner of warble and pitch shift, creating your own woozy dizzy loops.
Definitely the perfect stocking stuffer for the music freak in your life, and totally worth getting, even if you have the old Buddha Machine. The new machine comes in three colors, brown, burgundy, or grey, and all of them come in a nice printed cardstock boxes. No batteries included this time, though, you'll have to provide your own (2xAA).

FM3 Buddha Machine II : Burgundy (FM3) battery powered soundbox 26.00
That's right Buddha Machine II!!! As in a whole new machine. New design. New features. And all new sounds. Most aQ customers are probably quite familiar with the Buddha Machine by now, most of you probably own one, or more, and a bunch of you probably bought one or more as gifts for your music nerd friends or significant others. We freaked out over the Buddha Machine just like everyone else when we discovered it. Rumor was that the Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop bought 24, and Brian Eno bought 8! Just here at aQ we've sold HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS!!!
For those of you who missed out, the Buddha Machine is a little handheld soundbox, with a tiny speaker, a volume control and a line out so you can plug it into your stereo. Inside is a chip, which stores nine dreamy, drone-y, drifty, meditative loops, which can be switched using a little toggle on the side. It was designed by the group FM3, aka Christian Virant and Zhang Jian, who recorded nine loops specifically for the tiny handheld soundboxes. These boxes are ubiquitous in China ands all over Asia, where they are used in worship, with the boxes featuring recordings of chants and prayers. FM3 took that concept and expanded it, offering musical loops, to be used in meditation or relaxation, or perhaps even prayer, if one was so inclined. The boxes are very simple, the sound lo-fi, but as an object, especially a sound producing object, it was, and is fantastic, and totally mesmerizing. The original Buddha Machine is still available, and comes in multiple colors: purple, white, black, blue, red, yellow, but mover over old Buddha Machine....
There's a new Buddha Machine and it's a doozy, improving on various elements of the original, adding an awesome new control, and most importantly featuring nine new loops. So even if you have one of the old ones, you're probably gonna want one of these too. The sounds this time around, are much less meditative, a bit more active, ranging from deep swells laced with feedback and strange processed electronics, to pulsing minimal melodies, to what sounds like a distorted music box / piano duet, to a stripped down strummed metallic dirge wreathed in buzz, to single sustained notes draped over random bits of room sound, to dubbed out thumb piano, a few with an almost post rock vibe, albeit way more stripped down and spare, and some of the loops are really long, sounding much more like song fragments that loops, and even more than the first Buddha Machine, the new sounds definitely lend themselves to playing multiple boxes at once, creating your own Buddha Machine symphony. The big change besides the sounds, is the addition of a pitch control, which allows you to dramatically change the pitch of any or all of the loops, for us, everything sounds better slow, but you can speed it all up, or you can continuously adjust the pitch while the loops are playing, adding all manner of warble and pitch shift, creating your own woozy dizzy loops.
Definitely the perfect stocking stuffer for the music freak in your life, and totally worth getting, even if you have the old Buddha Machine. The new machine comes in three colors, brown, burgundy, or grey, and all of them come in a nice printed cardstock boxes. No batteries included this time, though, you'll have to provide your own (2xAA).

FM3 Buddha Machine II : Grey (FM3) battery powered soundbox 26.00
That's right Buddha Machine II!!! As in a whole new machine. New design. New features. And all new sounds. Most aQ customers are probably quite familiar with the Buddha Machine by now, most of you probably own one, or more, and a bunch of you probably bought one or more as gifts for your music nerd friends or significant others. We freaked out over the Buddha Machine just like everyone else when we discovered it. Rumor was that the Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop bought 24, and Brian Eno bought 8! Just here at aQ we've sold HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS!!!
For those of you who missed out, the Buddha Machine is a little handheld soundbox, with a tiny speaker, a volume control and a line out so you can plug it into your stereo. Inside is a chip, which stores nine dreamy, drone-y, drifty, meditative loops, which can be switched using a little toggle on the side. It was designed by the group FM3, aka Christian Virant and Zhang Jian, who recorded nine loops specifically for the tiny handheld soundboxes. These boxes are ubiquitous in China ands all over Asia, where they are used in worship, with the boxes featuring recordings of chants and prayers. FM3 took that concept and expanded it, offering musical loops, to be used in meditation or relaxation, or perhaps even prayer, if one was so inclined. The boxes are very simple, the sound lo-fi, but as an object, especially a sound producing object, it was, and is fantastic, and totally mesmerizing. The original Buddha Machine is still available, and comes in multiple colors: purple, white, black, blue, red, yellow, but mover over old Buddha Machine....
There's a new Buddha Machine and it's a doozy, improving on various elements of the original, adding an awesome new control, and most importantly featuring nine new loops. So even if you have one of the old ones, you're probably gonna want one of these too. The sounds this time around, are much less meditative, a bit more active, ranging from deep swells laced with feedback and strange processed electronics, to pulsing minimal melodies, to what sounds like a distorted music box / piano duet, to a stripped down strummed metallic dirge wreathed in buzz, to single sustained notes draped over random bits of room sound, to dubbed out thumb piano, a few with an almost post rock vibe, albeit way more stripped down and spare, and some of the loops are really long, sounding much more like song fragments that loops, and even more than the first Buddha Machine, the new sounds definitely lend themselves to playing multiple boxes at once, creating your own Buddha Machine symphony. The big change besides the sounds, is the addition of a pitch control, which allows you to dramatically change the pitch of any or all of the loops, for us, everything sounds better slow, but you can speed it all up, or you can continuously adjust the pitch while the loops are playing, adding all manner of warble and pitch shift, creating your own woozy dizzy loops.
Definitely the perfect stocking stuffer for the music freak in your life, and totally worth getting, even if you have the old Buddha Machine. The new machine comes in three colors, brown, burgundy, or grey, and all of them come in a nice printed cardstock boxes. No batteries included this time, though, you'll have to provide your own (2xAA).

FM3 Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's possible that many of you may not know of FM3, but have been in love with one of thier pieces of work as Beijing's FM3 was responsible for the heavily applauded Buddha Machine, a self-contained device that played nine-loops of jubilant and meditative drones. The Buddha Machine is not the only thing that FM3 has been up to, as its members Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian have also been producing a similarly sublime form of abstract electronica. In 2004, FM3 took their Buddha Box loops and a couple of computers filled with samples distilled from traditional Chinese instruments on a six month tour of Europe and North America. During that tour, they recorded this session for VPRO Radio in the Netherlands which in turn has just been released on Staaplaat's Mort Aux Vaches series. The crystalline loops from their Buddha Machines make themselves known almost immediately with FM3 working these sounds into Feldman like clusters of tones and drones fluttering against passages of calm inactivity. This is a lovely record, proving that FM3 are not only exceptional conceptual art-fabricators but pretty darn good composers too!
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

FM3 / DOU WEI Hou Guan Yin (Lona) cd 16.98

FO A RM Issue no. 1 magazine 6.00
This is the first issue of FO A RM, a magazine dedicated to "resonances among diverse mediums," [sic] essentially meaning sound art and its conceptual neighbors. The first issue presents writings on the subject of 'utility' from a range of approaches, from anthropology, experimental poetry, sound theory, and cultural reportage as well as several cross-genre works. FO A RM no. 1 includes new writing by sound-artist and researcher Giancarlo Toniutti, essays by composer Matthew Marble, works by noisician GX Jupitter-Larsen and sound-artist Seth Nehil. In addition, an original ode by prolific master Robert Kelly, instructional poems by mARK oWEns, and investigational works by Alicia Cohen, Holley Blackwell and Ashley Edwards, among others.

FOLDALATTI ULATULAT Phobia (Gungnir Productions) cassette 4.50
We've yet to get our hands on any releases by the black ambient band Hunok to list and review, but ever since we heard them on a split with AQ faves, Hungarian black metal outfit Marblebog, we have been on a quest! And while this is not in fact Hunok, it is a band featuring folks from Hunok, and the sound is a similarly creepy and haunting ambient weirdness. Foldalatti Ulatulat are from Hungary and have a very distinct and unique take on ambient music. Beginning with some strange disembodied vocals and radio static, the band soon settles into some seriously scary soundtrack music, sounding a bit like an extra creepy, slowed down Peter And The Wolf at times, playful a little, but very ominous, tons of space, low end drones and rumbles, beneath dark swells and strange minor key melodies, mysterious pulses and thick waves of crumbling whir. Very cinematic, like the part in the horror movie when you first enter the abandoned house, and you're slowly creeping up the stairs, the shadows flickering making you think someone is watching... It's all very intense and dramatic and pretty fucking great. Now we just have to track down some Hunok for the store...

FOLK SPECTRE, THE The Blackest Medicine (Woodsist) lp 14.98
Not sure what exactly required the name to change from Spectre Folk, to the Folk Spectre, but fear not fans of all things folky and droney, fuzzy and drifty, this is still indeed the work of Mr. Pete Nolan, of the Double Leopards, GHQ, Wooden Wand and we're sure a handful more. At first we were tempted to think the name change had to do with a slight shift in sonics, as the first few tracks are totally stripped down lo-fi folk. No noise or drone or buzz to be found. At all. Just skeletal guitar, plaintive vocals, wrapped around sad sad melodies, and allowed to drift in wide open expanses of record crackle and tape hiss. But then the closer on side A finds some squealing feedback entering the fray, and simple Velvets like drumming, distant chanting, the main riff sort of wobbly and warbly, a gorgeous laid back stoned and droned drug jam, that while slightly noisier than the tracks preceding it, still falls well within the groovy hippy bliss we've come to expect from Nolan and his folky Spectre-d outfit.
The B side offers up more of the same, but varied a bit, a few tracks of hushed folkiness, but then a long stretch of high end hissiness draped over the lilting guitar beneath, a track of Middle Eastern style melody, with a distinct raga-like vibe, and the record finishes off with a gorgeous muted muddy slo-mo drone-jam, that sounds a bit like a much more mellow Wooden Shjips played at 16rpm, and a little bit like a folkier Spacemen 3. As usual, killer stuff.
Packaged in hand screened black and white sleeves with photocopied inserts, covered in drawings, lyrics and liner notes.

FOLKSTORM Folkmusik (Old Europa Cafe) cd 15.98
We've been blessed recently with multiple releases from the mysterious Nordvargr, whose dense dark ambience we can never get enough of. Nordvargr was a core member of legendary black ambient outfit MZ412, and has recorded as Toroidh, Hydra Head 9,Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, Nordvargr and of course Folkstorm. It's been far too long since the last Folkstorm record, Folkstorm being the guise Nordvargr takes on to produce his unique brand of tense, isolationist, dark and droning industrial music. Thick swells of minor key chords, hypnotic repetitive tribal drumming, all sorts of found sounds and snippets of speeches, traditional songs and old radio broadcasts, huge jagged distorted pulses (sounding almost like Techno Animal or Curse Of The Golden Vampire at times), haunting disembodied female vocals, radio static and amp buzz and all manner of sonic grit and crackle, pounding subterranean rhythms, warm warbly drones, disturbing minor key ambience, creaking industrial clatter, intense nightmarish melodies, all bathed in a thick swirl of fuzzed out distortion and crumbling machinelike whir. Super ominous and dark, intense and strangely beautiful.
Packaged in a gorgeous red, white and black digipak. And while they last we have the EXTREMELY LIMITED special edition (limited to 300 hand numbered copies) that includes a bonus 3" cd containing two unreleased tracks! Once those are gone, you'll receive the standard single disc version.
MPEG Stream: "Ty Han Ar Min Soldat"
MPEG Stream: "In All For All"

FOLKSTORM Hurtmusic (Old Europa Cafe) cd 17.98
Folkstrom is the solo project from MZ.412's Mr. Nordvargr, although it could be some lost leftfield recording from odd black metallers Abruptum or Vondur. It's a weird hyrbid of death industrial / power electronic brutality and Norwegian black metal misanthropy (though it only hints at that sound). Recorded live at Nar Mattaru, "Hurtmusic" is a punishing record loaded with landmine samples, electro-shock blasts of energy, and warbled megaphone shouts. The highlight of the album is a loose reinterpretation of the song "No Place" by notorious Swedish misanthropes the Brainbombs, complete with a slow grinding guitar chug perverted from the classic Stooges sound.

FOLKSTORM Information Blitzkreig (Old Europa Cafe) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

FON Proof (Werkzeug / Mego) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The ultra-electronic parasitic duo Fon regurgitates the technological mutilations of wired arrangements of broken televisions, microwaves, metal detectors, etc. within piercing electronic architectural rhythmic packages. Released in conjunction with the Viennese conceptual electronics thinktank Mego, mutant electronics and digital glitch worship abound.

FOOD Molecular Gastronomy (Rune Grammofon) cd 17.98
We liked the other Food discs, but this one's just a bit to wanky fusiony whatever for us, sorry.

FORBIDDEN PLANET s/t (self-released) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Bay Area improv dude and Rastascan label owner Gino Robair (drums, "materials") teams up with AQ-fave Bjoern Eichstaedt (keys, voice) and fellow Germans Pit Schmidt (sax, tapes) and Thomas Maos (guitar, "mts modulation" whatever that is) for this live session, recorded April 15th 2000 at Club Voltaire, Tuebingen Germany. If you read our lists closely, you'll know Eichstaedt as a very creative and eclectic musician, responsible for solo electronic recordings, the Bunglized jazz/rock of Bretzel Killing Machine, AND the utter black metal weirdness that is Caacrinolas! Eichstaedt's new Forbidden Planet project incorporates his pal Robair's improv jazz sensibilities into a crazy half-hour-plus stew of everything from mellow noir-jazz to full-on Hendrix-style distorted guitar skree to sizzling electronic scrape-scapes to Patton-esque abstract vocal blurt. Quite a trip. Must have been a great show, although of course this was edited down from the raw recordings. It's a cd-r, numbered and limited to 100, packaged in an ever-popular *sandpaper* cover!
RealAudio clip: "Track 2"

FORCEFIELD Lord of the Rings Modulator (Bulb) cd 14.98
The second album from Providence Rhode Island art darlings Forcefield (the band who knits sweaters that they sell in art galleries for thousands of dollars, apparently, and who also performed at the Whitney Biennial!) is the second Bulb release we've noticed after the Mind Flayer album bearing a logo saying "Bulb Underworld" and a crude drawing of a twenty-sided die. Allan's D&D senses are tingling. Thus the following conversation in our office...
Allan: Hey this new Forcefield is a pretty cool, textural electronic noise record! It sounds like angry rats, squeaky balloons and exploding synths. Very listenable though. Wasn't their other album a herky jerky arty rock punk kinda thing though?
Andee: Yeah, I think so.
Allan: Well, I like this album.
Andee: Uh, I think the world's seen enough noise records...
Allan: But this one's called Lord Of The Rings Modulator!!
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

FORDELL RESEARCH UNIT Repetition (Basses Frequences) cd-r 10.98

FOREST s/t (ISO666) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, one of our all time favorite black metal records, out of print forever, is available again for a limited time. For those of you who somehow missed out on Russian black metallers Forest the first time around, they struck a particularly AQ chord with their impossible Jewelled Antler meets Burzum sound, and if Burzum-meets-Jewelled-Antler is not enough to get your black metal knickers in a twist, then there is something seriously wrong with you. Absolutely at the top of AQ's essential black metal listening list. Here's what we had to say about Forest when we first reviewed it way back when...
Ok, this is a black metal band, but non-metallers into the improv-drone sounds of the Jewelled Antler collective, Richard Youngs/Simon Wickham-Smith and the like should keep reading!
Not to be confused with the other Forest we've raved about (the psychedelic British folk band from thirty years ago), *this* Forest is a Russian black metal outfit, and a pretty good one belonging to the raw, primitive, corpse-painted end of the genre. The first four tracks on here consist of blasting, frozen Darkthrone worship, keeping alive the cult spirit that so few bands today still possess -- maybe because those tracks were actually recorded in 1996. Malevolent, majestic pagan metal full of Burzumic mayhem. Fans of this vein of true, trancey black metal darkness will be pleased. And if that was all that was on this disc we'd think it was cool. But then comes the fifth and final track, a surprise twenty-minute opus called "Winter Howl" taken from a 1994 rehearsal tape. Suddenly Forest isn't so obviously black metal at all, they've entered a psych-drone realm that's more akin to the aforementioned Jewelled Antler stuff (Thuja, The Birdtree, etc.) or Taj Mahal Travellers or Reynols or Amon Duul's krautrock jams, still as forest-y and primitive as the preceding metal songs though. A wavering whispy wordless vocal winds over a bed of lost, primal percussion and haunting washes of mild feedback. Simple melody lines on guitar wander through the increasing haze, with deeper vocals providing additional layers of drone. If you really heard this in a forest you'd be mesmerized and scared, but it's really nice and pretty (in a damaged way) when heard at home...pretty to us anyway, dunno if Kaldrad and Dagorath meant it to be so! The vocals, until they get a little more metal-ly, totally remind us of the bliss-out singing by British folk experimentalist Richard Youngs or Jewelled Antler's pop soul Jason Honea. If Finnish avant-forest-folk folks like Avarus and Kemialliset Ystavat or the Jewelled Antler collective decided to make black metal, this is what's we'd imagine it would sound like! Meanwhile, on the black metal side, fans of Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra, Caacrinolas, Potentiam, and other weird ones should dig this track, along with Forest's other more typical black metal sounds. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Enburnst The Christians"
MPEG Stream: "Winter Howl (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Winter Howl (excerpt 2)"

FOREST s/t (Werewolf) 2lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of our all time favorite black metal records EVER, now available on vinyl, in a super deluxe, totally gorgeous gatefold sleeve.
For those of you who somehow missed out on Russian black metallers Forest the first time around, they struck a particularly AQ chord with their impossible Jewelled Antler meets Burzum sound, and if Burzum-meets-Jewelled-Antler is not enough to get your black metal knickers in a twist, then there is something seriously wrong with you. Absolutely at the top of AQ's essential black metal listening list. Here's what we had to say about Forest when we first reviewed it way back when...
Ok, this is a black metal band, but non-metallers into the improv-drone sounds of the Jewelled Antler collective, Richard Youngs/Simon Wickham-Smith and the like should keep reading!
Not to be confused with the other Forest we've raved about (the psychedelic British folk band from thirty years ago), *this* Forest is a Russian black metal outfit, and a pretty good one belonging to the raw, primitive, corpse-painted end of the genre. The first four tracks on here consist of blasting, frozen Darkthrone worship, keeping alive the cult spirit that so few bands today still possess -- maybe because those tracks were actually recorded in 1996. Malevolent, majestic pagan metal full of Burzumic mayhem. Fans of this vein of true, trancey black metal darkness will be pleased. And if that was all that was on this disc we'd think it was cool. But then comes the fifth and final track, a surprise twenty-minute opus called "Winter Howl" taken from a 1994 rehearsal tape. Suddenly Forest isn't so obviously black metal at all, they've entered a psych-drone realm that's more akin to the aforementioned Jewelled Antler stuff (Thuja, The Birdtree, etc.) or Taj Mahal Travellers or Reynols or Amon Duul's krautrock jams, still as forest-y and primitive as the preceding metal songs though. A wavering whispy wordless vocal winds over a bed of lost, primal percussion and haunting washes of mild feedback. Simple melody lines on guitar wander through the increasing haze, with deeper vocals providing additional layers of drone. If you really heard this in a forest you'd be mesmerized and scared, but it's really nice and pretty (in a damaged way) when heard at home...pretty to us anyway, dunno if Kaldrad and Dagorath meant it to be so! The vocals, until they get a little more metal-ly, totally remind us of the bliss-out singing by British folk experimentalist Richard Youngs or Jewelled Antler's pop soul Jason Honea. If Finnish avant-forest-folk folks like Avarus and Kemialliset Ystavat or the Jewelled Antler collective decided to make black metal, this is what's we'd imagine it would sound like! Meanwhile, on the black metal side, fans of Mistigo Varggoth Darkestra, Caacrinolas, Potentiam, and other weird ones should dig this track, along with Forest's other more typical black metal sounds. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Enburnst The Christians"
MPEG Stream: "Winter Howl (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Winter Howl (excerpt 2)"

FOREST CREATURE Frustrated Analogue - 7 Edits From 2009 (Blackest Rainbow) cd 16.98
Apparently, this UK duo, Ben Moon and Richard Sides, aka Forest Creature, have dabbled in all manner of noisemaking in their brief existence, creating huge crushing walls of speaker shredding brutality, or super glitched out psychedelic beat heavy crunch, or howling, live, drum driven psychnoise freakouts, and while traces of those sounds are still present, we have to say, we're pretty partial to the twisted noise captured here, a seeming distillation of those disparate sounds, into something much more refined and focused, perhaps equally varied sonically, but somehow still strangely cohesive, and epic 'song' suite, due in no small part to the editing and sequencing as the actual music making itself.
The label drops names like Black Dice, Fuck Buttons, Animal Collective, Autechre, and those all do pretty much apply, but to our ears, there seems to be much more to Forest Creature than just aping their influences, we hear the ominous cinematic synthiness of Goblin, the intense late night noir buzz of recent aQ faves D.A., the murky swirl and shimmery out-of-time new age-y drift of the recent crop of pop hypnogogists, but here, those influences, as well as a handful of purloined sounds, are all reimagined, reinterpreted and all tangled up into constantly squirming and unraveling soundscapes, that skitter from almost kraut-like mesmer, to nineties style IDM, to looped woozy minimal synth wave, to gorgeous haunting murky heroin house, but no matter what the sound, or where the songs seem to be headed, Forest Creature mold all those elements into something truly original, lush, and deep, and dark, sometime super chaotic and hyper rhythmic, other times hushed and ominous. "Edit 4" begins as a foreboding minimal slow burning drone, but eventually builds to a warped synth loop, that gets more and more crunchy and buzz, the low end billowing out like a black cloud, the effects eating away at the original loop, super intense and totally mesmerizing. "Edit 5" is all rumbling low end whir, a distant beat, buried way down in the murk, looped and skittery, hovers below a black ambience that seems to swirl and shimmer in slow motion. "Edit 3" might be the prettiest of the bunch, beginning with a skeletal high end looped rhythm, which is soon joined by some warm warbly synths way off in the distance, the rhythm remains steady, but that low end grows thicker, and buzzier, creating thick warm slabs of chordal hum, playing out a gorgeous melancholy slowcore melody, a haunting depressive slow pop crawl, run through with that skeletal skitter, until both the buzz and the beat, begin to crumble, and intensify, until the song is transformed into a noise drenched psychedelic swirl.
So awesome. And a little bit surprising coming from Blackest Rainbow, whose past releases have tended more toward groups like Jazzfinger, Barn Owl, Bong, Starving Weirdos and the like. Frustrated Analogue is some fantastically twisted, blissed out, synth heavy electronic psychedelia, repetitive, hypnotic, spaced out, warped and glitchy, drone-y and rhythmic, moody and mysterious, a dizzying melding of This Heat, Goblin, John Carpenter, old Warp Records 12"s, early Chain Reaction, modern synthdrone, early analogue synth music, and the groups we mentioned up top (Fuck Buttons, Black Dice, Animal Collective, etc.). Way way recommended. Easily one of our new favorites...
MPEG Stream: "Edit 1"
MPEG Stream: "Edit 2"
MPEG Stream: "Edit 3"

FORMATT Minor Curations - 17:55 (Pseudo Arcana) 3" cd-r 8.98
A second release from the mysterious Formatt, aka Belgian sound sculptor Peter Smeekins, we relisted a back-room find elsewhere on this list, a cd-r originally reviewed 2 years ago, that we dug big time, and in discovering extra copies of that release, we also found a little stash of these 3"cd-rs, released on Antony Milton's Pseudo Arcana label, a single 17 minute track featuring another brief glimpse into Smeekins' dreamy mad scientist sound world.
Much like the other disc, the root of Smeekins' sound is soft hushed shimmers and ethereal drones, a sky full of glimmering sonic stars, all smoothed out into gorgeously languid long-form slow motion drifts, which on their won would be plenty pretty, and would definitely hit the spot for deep ambient late night drift off music, but the sounds here are not so tranquil, over the top of these glacial low end murmurs, Smeekins drapes all sorts of other sounds, that manage to add all sorts of depth and color and activity, somehow without taking away from the track's soporific stasis. Showers of crystalline sparkle, swirling soft focus clouds of grit and static, bis of hiss and pop, more layers of thrum and rumble...
At low volume, Minor Curations exists simply as a gorgeous slice of minimal electronic ambience, but strap on some headphones and it's like that ride at Disneyland where you go through the microscope into a world of atoms and molecules, Formatt takes us on a similar ride, moving slowly through layer after layer after layer emerging finally in a strange microscopic world of inner sound.
SUPER LIMITED, ALREADY OUT OF PRINT, these are the last copies ever...
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

FORMATT Re:Take_Repeat (Audiobot) cd-r 13.98
Found a stash of these, and they are WAY out of print, thus these are the last copies we'll see...
Latest release from Belgian sound manipulator Peter Smeekins aka Formatt. A dense mix of soft droney shimmer and all manner of glitch and crunch. Imagine hearing Low or some other slow motion band through a concrete wall so thick that just the bare essence makes it through, a sort of ghostly outline, a dreamy, barely audible hum, then stretch it into a gauzy soft sound blanket and spread it out over the whole record. This soft, shimmery bed is the foundation for all of Re:Take_Repeat. Over the top of this Formatt fiddles and fidgets, like some tinkering mad scientist, glitches and crackle, bursts of shortwave interference, white noise, industrial machinery, haunting EVP-like transmissions, pops and creaks, amp buzz and distant feedback, it's like some giant mysterious soundmaker upended his rusty old tool box full of sounds and dumped all of those strange sharp metallic shapes, all over the thick velvety background, like stars sparkling chaotically in the black night sky.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: "Keramiek"
MPEG Stream: "Kristal"

FORMS OF THINGS UNKNOWN Black Trenchcoats & Swastikas 'n Shit (Panaxis) cd-r 12.98
Regarding the title and the cover art here, Ferrara Brain Pan - the lone pilot of San Francisco's obscurant project Forms Of Things Unknown - is taking the piss out of the perennial flirtations of Nazi culture found in experimental and post-punk musics over the past 30 or 40 years. It's an odd form of humor, but one that stops at the cover art, never to be brought up within these eccentric and disparate tracks that harken back to the early days of United Daires. Whimsical collages, complete with bongo-boy rhythms and cut-up vocal samples (which really could be an extract from Nurse With Wound's Funeral Music For Perez Prado), are juxtaposed against icy cold electronic tone workouts that draw from the precisely constructed, psychoacoustic experiments of Ryoji Ikeda or John Duncan. Ferrara also interjects his favorite instrument, the bass clarinet, on a few somber pieces that warp the brassy notes of a maudlin funereal passage into air raid sirens. As beautiful as some of these pieces can be, Ferrara's deft use of electronics and the digital razor blade is all the better. All of these tracks are demos, outtakes, or compilation rarities, including the Forms Of Things Unknown contribution to the Nurse With Wound remix album of Two Shaves And A Shine. While there is a disjointed quality to the album, this is a well needed investigation into this music of this seldom heard musician.
MPEG Stream: "Interrupted by Interior Design, Part 1: Speculum (for Marcel Duchamp)"
MPEG Stream: "Interrupted by Interior Design, Part II: From Here to Parker Posey"
MPEG Stream: "Quadrilateral"
MPEG Stream: "Elegy"

FORMS OF THINGS UNKNOWN Cross Purposes (Panaxis) cd ep 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Cross Purposes" is an half-hour of weird, spooky music from longtime AQ patron and obscure music-maker Ferrara Brain Pan. Yes, that's his name -- but here he goes by the Forms Of Things Unknown moniker, a suitably vague and creepy name for this disc of Gothic dark ambient experimentation, that seems to be vying for retroactive inclusion on the famed "Nurse With Wound list". Indeed, NWW's Stephen "Babs Santini" Stapleton makes a guest appearance somewhere on here (see if you can find it)!
The first track, evocatively named "Black Candles & Pentagrams 'n Shit", is sixteen minutes of sinister drone and wind instrument dolefulness. On this album, Ferrara plays bass clarinet, flutes, recorders, saxophones, along with various other mostly archaic and/or ethnic instruments -- and electronics too of course. Perhaps to illustrate that FoTU's influences are eclectic and extend back further than the goth/industrial heyday, "Black Candles..." is followed by an anonymous 14th century composition in both instrumental and vocal versions -- the vocal by lovely soprano Shannon Wolfe, not Ferrara. It's somewhat sombre, but not scary like the first piece. Rather beautiful. Then, again shifting gears and displaying esoteric influence, this disc's final cut turns out to be a moody cover of "Stupid Blood", a song from the Beast Box album by Howard Devoto's post-Buzzcocks band Luxuria. With one Bob Ayres handling the portentous baritone vox, and Ferrara's horns and flutes, this track could just as easily be taken as a tribute to Peter Hammill's Van Der Graaf Generator!
MPEG Stream: "Black Candles & Pentagrams 'n Shit"
MPEG Stream: "Stupid Blood"

FORMS OF THINGS UNKNOWN Cross Purposes (Panaxis) cd-r 12.98
BACK IN PRINT!
Cross Purposes is chock full of weird, spooky music from longtime AQ patron and obscure music-maker Ferrara Brain Pan. Yes, that's his name - but here he goes by the Forms Of Things Unknown moniker, a suitably vague and creepy name for this disc of Gothic dark ambient experimentation, that seems to be vying for retroactive inclusion on the famed Nurse With Wound list.
The first track, evocatively named "Black Candles & Pentagrams 'n Shit", is sixteen minutes of sinister drone and wind instrument dolefulness. On this album, Ferrara plays bass clarinet, flutes, recorders, saxophones, along with various other mostly archaic and/or ethnic instruments - and electronics too of course. Perhaps to illustrate that FoTU's influences are eclectic and extend back further than the goth/industrial heyday, "Black Candles..." is followed by an anonymous 14th century composition in both instrumental and vocal versions - the vocal by lovely soprano Shannon Wolfe, not Ferrara. It's somewhat sombre, but not scary like the first piece. Rather beautiful. Then, again shifting gears and displaying esoteric influence, this disc's next cut turns out to be a moody cover of "Stupid Blood", a song from the Beast Box album by Howard Devoto's post-Buzzcocks band Luxuria. With one Bob Ayres handling the portentous baritone vox, and Ferrara's horns and flutes, this track could just as easily be taken as a tribute to Peter Hammill's Van Der Graaf Generator! Ferrara concludes Cross Purposes with an unreleased track of elegaic dark ambience with haunted flute melodies floating on top of deep, slow motion thuds upon a drum and windswept atmospherics. Gone is the inclusion of Steve Stapleton leaving a message on Ferrara's answering machine, but that was probably an unneccessary trifle from the first edition anyway. The bonus track on this version is a much stronger, albeit less star-studded, attraction.
MPEG Stream: "Black Candles & Pentagrams 'n Shit, Part I: Risen, The Judas Moon"
MPEG Stream: "Mariam Matrem, Part II (Vocal Version)"
MPEG Stream: "Mesozoica [bonus track]"

FORREST, JASON The Unrelenting Songs Of The 1979 Post-Disco Crash (Sonig) cd 13.98
The return of Donna Summer! Er. well, not that Donna Summer, the disco diva. We're talking about the WFMU disc jockey / electronic musician who went by the name Donna Summer and who we can only assume no longer does due to legal issues with the -actual- Donna Summer. Whatever. Just wanted to clear up any confusion, since we initially didn't make that Forrest-Summer connection. But since so many of us dug the last Donna Summer record, This Needs To Be Your Style (unfortunately now out of print) we wouldn't want anyone to miss out on this one due to some confusing name change. So what Donna Summer, I mean Jason Forrest, specializes in, is making some serious glitched out spastic plunderphonia with lots of ultra-recognizable pop, from Zeppelin to the Who to all sorts of top 40 schlock. He cuts them up, rearranges them, distorts and disguises them, and creates entirely new songs and new melodies. This mashup shit is getting a bit tiresome we'll admit, as anyone with a computer and a decent record collection can make their own record, but Forrest is really talented, and has a great ear for recontextualising pop ephemera into something much harder and weirder and sometimes even dancable. This record is a lot less abrasive and over the top than the last Donna Summer record, which is actually a good thing as the arrangements and subtleties this time around don't get obfuscated and obliterated by super distorted wooaaarrrggggghh! At least not all the time. Worth it alone for the amazing final track, a reworking of the Who's "Who Are You?" complete with re-done drum solo!
MPEG Stream: "Spectacle To Refute All Judgements"
MPEG Stream: "Satan Cries Again"

FORREST, JASON The Unrelenting Songs Of The 1979 Post-Disco Crash (Sonig) lp 13.98
The return of Donna Summer! Er. well, not that Donna Summer, the disco diva. We're talking about the WFMU disc jockey / electronic musician who went by the name Donna Summer and who we can only assume no longer does due to legal issues with the -actual- Donna Summer. Whatever. Just wanted to clear up any confusion, since we initially didn't make that Forrest-Summer connection. But since so many of us dug the last Donna Summer record, This Needs To Be Your Style (unfortunately now out of print) we wouldn't want anyone to miss out on this one due to some confusing name change. So what Donna Summer, I mean Jason Forrest, specializes in, is making some serious glitched out spastic plunderphonia with lots of ultra-recognizable pop, from Zeppelin to the Who to all sorts of top 40 schlock. He cuts them up, rearranges them, distorts and disguises them, and creates entirely new songs and new melodies. This mashup shit is getting a bit tiresome we'll admit, as anyone with a computer and a decent record collection can make their own record, but Forrest is really talented, and has a great ear for recontextualising pop ephemera into something much harder and weirder and sometimes even dancable. This record is a lot less abrasive and over the top than the last Donna Summer record, which is actually a good thing as the arrangements and subtleties this time around don't get obfuscated and obliterated by super distorted wooaaarrrggggghh! At least not all the time. Worth it alone for the amazing final track, a reworking of the Who's "Who Are You?" complete with re-done drum solo!
MPEG Stream: "Spectacle To Refute All Judgements"
MPEG Stream: "Satan Cries Again"

FORSYTH, CHRIS Live Journal at The Mice Machine VIP Dance Floor (Incunabulum) cd 14.98
What a title! Don't know what the heck it means, but we love the sounds contained inside. Released on Jozef Van Wissem's Incunabulum imprint, this is a beautiful solo 12-string record by Chris Forsyth, Brooklynite multi-instrumentalist and founding member of Peeesseye (PSI). But this has a different approach to the solo guitar genre than we've heard before. Focusing on a restless back-porch style minimalism, Forsyth layers overlapping and slow repetitive cascades of mandala-like rhythms and patterns with subtly shifting melodic changes. Often undercut with organ drones, cymbal washes, and minimal percussion, the sounds unfold like intricate patterns of Oriental tapestry or Tibetan sand-paintings, captivating and mesmerizing us into circling and swirling trance-like states. Quite lovely and very limited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Anxious"
MPEG Stream: "Wind Machine"
MPEG Stream: "Contrarian's Lament"

FOSEN s/t (nnc) cd 14.98
The mysterious Norwegian outfit Fosen provides little to no context for us to describe their music, leaving it much harder to position this set of dronescapes against the next batch. It appears that Fosen's source material is acoustic in nature, possibly being flutes and bells; the group then renders each sound dronological with considerable care via basic loopings, sonar depth reverb, and vast pitchshifting manipulations. The first track entertains a looping passage from a breathy flute stretched into a wonderfully hypnogogic drone that favorably compares with Biosphere's more minimal ambience or the Hafler Trio's fluttering drones. Other tracks flicker with feedback oscillations and attack-modified bell tones, some pitter and clank like some mutant tape construction derived from water dripping in a cavernous warehouse. Altogether, Fosen offers a very evocative if equally mysterious album.
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 2"

FOUNTAIN, JUDSON Completely In The Dark (Innova) cd-r 14.98
We never understood why this disc was ever allowed to go out of print. Fortunately Innova finally decided to print up some more (it's still a cd-r, alas) and we're happy to have this amazing weird insane release to sell to y'all again. Here's what we said when we originally reviewed it back on list 184:
Oh man. If you are a faithful Aquarius list reader and lover of musical oddities, just stop right here, and push the buy button because you need this record. Judson Fountain was born in 1952 and was obsessed with radio dramas since he was old enough to talk. In fact as soon as he was able to talk he began doing impressions of cackling hags, wicked witches and all sorts of animals. All of which would come to play a big part in these radio dramas right here. Recorded between the ages of 17 and 22, these eight dramas are only a drop in the bucket of the hundreds of radio plays Judson wrote and performed. All of them primitive and simple, but amazingly creative and entertaining, and all featuring Judson's unique vocalizations along with his partner/foil Sandor Weisberger. But there's no way to describe them, you just have to hear them. Judson has a crazy East Coast accent, and he talks like a hyper school boy who thinks faster than he can get the words out, which you can hear in a handful of interviews preceding some of the radio dramas. Using crude sound effects and sometimes painfully deliberate plot exposition, these dramas all rely on Judson and Sandor's crazy array of voices, from Irish Brogue, to old Thai man, to teenage gangster to tuneless singing grandma, to British detective to various witches and demonic women, all with distinctly hysterical and completely bizarre cackles. The plots are all very simple, good vs. Evil, haunted houses and witches and stuff. But they are all done so sort-of-professionally and so earnestly that they're just completely irresistible. Listen to "Garbage Can From Thailand" and you'll immediately know what we mean. Judson is just so cute. And so is Sandor who introduces each drama (which he pronounces drahmmer) and also reads the credits afterwards. I've had a Judson Fountain cassette for years now thanks to AQ pal Jay Lesser so you can imagine how excited we were that some of this stuff was actually finally getting released. Our only complaint is why did Innova make it a cd-r??! It's got a professionally printed booklet and everything, so how hard would it have been to press up real cds?! It costs as much as a real cd after all. Cd-r or not, this is so good, and so funny, and so cute, and so weirdly brilliant, that it definitely needs to be in your collection!
MPEG Stream: "The Garbage Can From Thailand"
MPEG Stream: "Two Boys In A Haunted House"

FOUST! Jungle Fever (Swill Radio) cd 14.98
Not to be confused with the legendary krautrock band (notice the spelling, and the punctuation), Foust! is in fact Scott Foust, member of experimental soundmaking combo Idea Fire Company, who share a label and an aesthetic to a certain degree with the Shadow Ring.
For Foust's first solo record, he's conjured up a nearly 80 minute soundscape of lo-fi loped rhythms and drones. The first 35+ minutes are slowly shifting, barely changing bit of stutter and thump, wreathed in hiss and set atop a soft bed of static, super mesmerizing and hypnotic, while the rhythm remains virtually unchanged, the sounds around it, softly and slowly shift, growing more and more murky, the tone and timbre gradually transforming until finally the rhythms drops out, leaving long shimmering tones, stretched out over what sounds like field recordings, the various tones are layered into almost-harmonies, the low tones thick and undulating in slow motion way up in the mix, higher tones way off in the distance, a soft tangle of warm languid dronemusic, until with about twenty minutes left, the drones fade out leaving mostly just ambient sounds, birdcalls, rainfall, running water, the crackle of leaves and branches, while way off in the distance, remnants of the first half of the record hang on until they too finally disappear, the sound building to a hiss until the track ends with the storm disappearing in a little swirl of effects.
So nice. An awesome combination of soundscaping, dronemusic and field recordings, definitely for fans of all three!
MPEG Stream: "Jungle Fever (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Jungle Fever (excerpt 2)"

FOVEA HEX Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent 3: Allure (Die Stadt) cd 16.98
The third and final installment in a series of short-form but jewel-like eps from this ethereal and esoteric collective project. Centered by Clodagh Simond's (Mellow Candle, Current 93) magisterial vocals and featuring a superstar roster of players, which this time around includes Robert Fripp, John Contreras, Steven Wilson, Michael Begg, and Percy Jones with overall production overseen by Colin Potter. Subtitled "Allure" (the first was "Bloom", the second "Huge"), the arrangements are still haunting and cathedral-like but at the start tethered in more traditional structures with harmonium, zither and strings setting up the mood before dissipating into the gossamer of treated guitars, tonal harmonics and ambient drones. The appearance of Robert Fripp's beguiling guitar theatrics on "Long Distance" nicely underscores Simond's climactic vocal incantations and treated bohdran percussive rhythms before settling into the third and final act, a beautifully charged and vocal-less epiphany of melancholy and fragility that like its title is neither spoken nor silent, but exists in that rarified space of being satisfyingly unsolved.
MPEG Stream: "Allure"
MPEG Stream: "Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent"

FOVEA HEX Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent : One (Die Stadt / Janet) cd 17.98
Fovea Hex is the brainchild of Clodagh Simonds, the Irish singer whose work in the early '70s with Mellow Candle earned her a solid reputation amongst avid fans of British folk music. Her recent work as Fovea Hex has found her collaborating with some serious heavyhitters in the electronic composition world including Brian Eno, Roger Eno, and Andrew M. McKenzie (aka The Hafler Trio) as well as film composer Carter Burwell. Simonds' voice is at the center of this shortened program, with many of her contributing cast singing spectral chorales around her emotionally charged siren songs which emerge as Irish folk hybrids of Marble Index period Nico. These are haunted, ancient sounding songs, with almost all of their arrangements stripped away, leaving behind spare fragments of desaturated piano, bass, and harmonium. It's no surprise that in very small type in the liner notes, there's a text that reads "all material lit from within by A.M. McKenzie," as the music itself has McKenzie's fingerprints all over it. Even the fact that this is this first part of trilogy and is an expensive short form ep of about 17 minutes is evidence of McKenzie's meddling. Nevertheless, Simonds remains steadfast in her control over the project, not allowing McKenzie to interfere with the beauty of her own voice.
MPEG Stream: "Don't These Windows Open?"
MPEG Stream: "We Sleep You Bloom"

FOVEA HEX Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent : Two / Huge (Die Stadt / Janet) cd ep 16.98
The Second chapter of Clodagh Simonds experimental voice project trilogy continues to explore the tenuous boundaries of traditional songforms while collaborating with some heavyweight electronic composers such as Brian Eno, Andrew McKenzie (The Hafler Trio) and Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound). Simonds is best known for her early '70s work with British Folk outfit Mellow Candle (she also appears on Current 93's new record), and her voice here remains tethered as pulsating sounds of harmonium and glass instruments, trumpets, and electronics float like ghosts through the ether-like arrangements. Like the previous chapter, it's very short, clocking in about 19 minutes, which may call into question the expense. But this project is not about casual listening. Like reading an Emily Dickinson poem (as the sticker on the front compares this to), you are meant to ponder and drink in every nuance, turn of phrase and weight of breath. Put your player on repeat, and you will not hear the same song twice.
MPEG Stream: "Huge (The Joy of Trouble)"
MPEG Stream: "While You're Away"

FOXDYE M4g1c47 G71mm3r1ng R41nb0w (Fukdup Records) cd 7.98
Total slice and dice, chop and loop, skitter and stutter, bleep and bloop, head spinning, dancefloor destroying, 8-bit, video game, electro pop sonic mayhem, not that you'd be able to tell from the first couple tracks, a gently swirling bit of dreamy shimmer, with muted buried rhythms, slowly building to a poppy playful bit of processed skitter, that almost sounds like a Hello Kitty version of Venetian Snares. The same sort of rhythmic drill and bass, but way cuter and poppier, lots of video game sounds, little snippets of voices, bits of glitch and crunch, for all its density and complexity, it's also pretty dang hooky, reminding us a lot of Aphex Twin's classic "Girl / Boy".
The rest of the record is a non stop barrage of hyperspeed jungle beats, buzzing synths, woozy warped melodies, twisted samples, big beats, pounding techno rhythms, bits of throbbing dubstep, tangled electronic squiggles, all wound into super fun, and funky, booty shaking, rib cage rattling, high energy electro spazz groove. The record finishes the way it began, all washed out and dreamy, electronic ambient pop drift and shimmer, but between those two tranquil bookends, is a nonstop Technicolor explosion of tangled and twisted freaked out sounds and spastic beats!!
MPEG Stream: "Navigating Geography (Part 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Rainbow Dolphins"
MPEG Stream: "What Is Toot-Toot In French"
MPEG Stream: "Martha's Mega-Meowssive"
MPEG Stream: "Dub Poo-Lease RInse Out The Paddywagon"

FRAGMENT. s/t (ConSOULing Sounds) cd-r 10.98
Killer debut from this French one man post rock outfit, whose sound definitely leans toward Jesu and Nadja and that sort of fuzz drenched dirginess. From the first few second of the opening track, the 'band' launches into a blissed out hazy drift, programmed drums pound out a hypnotic beat, the guitars swirl, wreathed in thick crumbling fuzz, and then the vocals, holy cow, they sort of seal the deal as far as Jesu-ness is concerned, a dead ringer for Justin Broadrick's reverb drenched soft croon.
If anything, imagine a more laid back, driftier dreamier Jesu, which sounds like a very good thing, and it is. The songs to get chunky and riffy launching into stretches of muscled metallic pound, and just as often the sound slips into super minimal drones, whether it's synths or guitars, it's difficult to tell, but the end result is the same, warm fuzzy rumbles and blissed out murky whir. Then the drums kick in, then the vocals, and the sound is squarely back in Jesu / Nadja territory.
Folks looking for something totally original, that they've never ever heard before, might fight Fragment a little frustrating, but for anyone who loves THAT sound, the blissed out shoegazey metallic post rock shimmer of Jesu, or the distorted drenched dream doom of Nadja, and wants more more more, and might even like that sound even more if it were softer and prettier, well then Fragment will definitely hit the spot.
A perfect collection of late night drifting-off soft metallic drift. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Probably the last copies we'll be able to get...
MPEG Stream: "Empire"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost"

FRAGMENT. Towards The Surface (ConSOULing Sounds) cd-r 10.98
We listed another record by this French one man band a few lists back, sold out of them in a flash, so when we restocked, we managed to get the remaining copies of this second release, Towards The Surface, we got less than a dozen though, and once they're gone they are GONE for good, as it's out of print.
We mentioned in that other review that Fragment. (the period IS part of the name) was mining a sound not all that removed from Jesu and Nadja, but listening to this now, it's really driving home just how much this stuff sounds EXACTLY like Jesu, it's almost criminal actually, but hell, if you're hankering for some heavy blissed out dreamy chugging shoegazey post metal, and can't wait for the next Jesu record, then heck, grab one of these.
The sound is of course fantastic, epic and majestic and bleary eyed, a little bit more mellow and laid back than Jesu proper, but quite similar in most other respects, the industrial pound, the layered warm guitar shimmer, the muted metallic chug, the mumbled sad boy vocals, all woven into a gorgeously blown out drone drenched epic dream metal drift. Listening to it again right now, and it sounds so fantastic, it just also happens to sound so fantastically like Jesu.
Cool packaging too, a cd sized dvd case with the full color artwork on a narrow strip along the center of the case, leaving the rest of the case transparent and the disc revealed.
MPEG Stream: "Towards The Surface..."
MPEG Stream: "Burn (Version II)"

FRAIL Brilliant Darkness (Rusty Axe) cassette 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A friend of ours was telling us all about Frail, and the way he described it, we knew it was something we had to hear. Imagine a band that sounded exactly like the Cure, but with harsh black metal vokills!! Listening to it now he wasn't that far off the mark. This is some seriously strange stuff. Not heavy at all really, jangly, poppy, a little gothy and depressive, minor key, the drums simple and solid, soaring synths, guitar and bass locked into moody grooves, a little bit eighties new wave, all the while the vocalist howls his harsh demonic screech over the top, which turns it into something completely, well, fucked up really. But kind of genius. The music at times reminds us of Alcest or Amesoeurs but with all the metal removed, pretty and lilting and melancholy, drifting and jangling beneath those hellish howls. Not sure what else to say, if you're anything like us, you already added this to your cart, and it's going to fast become one of your favorite new records. Definitely an acquired taste, but then all the best tastes are...
Absolutely one of Andee's new favorite black metal recordings!!

FRANCIS, RICHARD Together Alone, Together Apart (CMR) cd 11.98
Sound artists like Matt Shoemaker, Loren Chasse, and Steve Roden are some of the very few who are successful in turning found objects and field recordings into thoroughly engaging compositions that don't rely upon the flashiness of techniques to make their work successful. Add New Zealand's Richard Francis to that gaggle as well. It's been a while since any solo work has been available from Francis, who has previously recorded under the moniker Eso Steel; and more recently, he's been entertaining many a collaboration with his fellow NZ noiseniks such as Campbell Kneale and Michael Morley.
On Together Alone, Together Apart, Francis turns to the miniscule events of daily life whose peculiar sounds capture his imagination. It could be a crackle from rain falling or the distant surf of the Pacific Ocean or a creaking electric radiator or the hissing static from television snow. It's these small sounds which Francis has recorded and stretched into relatively longer compositions. These rattling, crackling streams of softened white noise move in a synchronous fashion, much like the way that a huge flock of starlings can gracefully circle in the sky without bumping into each other, all moving organically in three dimensions. Think Loren Chasse, as if he were reworking any of Bernhard Gunter's compositions, making them rougher, in line with Chasse's Hedge Of Nerves disc. Headphones are certainly recommended for this album, as the last track is awfully quiet... at least, it is when there's a record store full of people. Very well done!
MPEG Stream: "Track 1"
MPEG Stream: "Track 2"
MPEG Stream: "Track 3"

FRANCISCAN HOBBIES, THE At The World's End (Pseudo Arcana) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Franciscan Hobbies are one of the more anarchistic manifestations of the Jewelled Antler 'collective', The Hobbies themselves being a free-form, free-wheeling group of variable membership that turns idyllic nature excursions into documents of magical, improv folk psych. At The World's End comes by way of New Zealand cd-r label PseudoArcana, and this time around The Hobbies include 3 of the 4 members of Thuja, plus a bunch of their friends, including Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards), Greg Bianchini (The Muons), and Cole Palme (Factrix). However, whoever's present on this recording isn't all that important, as they meld into a very relaxed communal music-making clan. Furthermore, discussion of instruments and techniques would seemingly convey less of a sense of what the Hobbies sound like than more poetic allusions to damp moss and dry leaves. Imagine napping in the undergrowth of a forest, dreaming drones and fractured melodies. Theirs is a drifting, indirect music, more hints and haunts than songs per se. And, we ask, how can you not love a record with a track entitled "The Unicorn Murders"??
MPEG Stream: "The Black Chimes "
MPEG Stream: "Seekers In Darkness"

FRANCISCAN HOBBIES, THE Caterpillars Of The Oak Beauty (Jewelled Antler) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY. IF YOU WANT TO PUT IT OUT AS A REAL CD, PLEASE CONTACT JEWELLED ANTLER!
Ah, the Jewelled Antler 'collective'! The Franciscan Hobbies is yet another facet of the same opiated psych-improv collective that has evolved into a number of projects including Thuja, The Blithe Sons, The Birdtree, The Skygreen Leopards, The Child Readers, The Knit Separates, etc. Usual suspects Glenn Donaldson, Rob Reger, Loren Chasse, and Jason Honea all appear on this -- perhaps the largest and loosest of the Jewelled Antler projects -- alongside relative newcomers to the collective: Greg Bianchini (of SF folksters The Muons), Kerry McLaughlin, Buffy Vice Sick, Dylan Brock, Christine Boepple, and Aquarius' own Dungeon Master Jeremiah Allan Horrocks (singing into an electronic toy while lying on his back somewhere in Golden Gate Park one sunny day, he tells us, but bets you won't be able to pick that out while listening to this). In working with such a large citizenship, The Franciscan Hobbies wisely eschews structure, favoring the psych-improv equivalent of front porch noodling that ends up sounding like a more sedate version of Birchville Cat Motel, the Vibracathedral Orchestra, or the hillbilly minimalism of Henry Flynt. Yet the druggy, murky atmosphere that dominates so much of Thuja's recordings takes a backstage to the quiet sound of semi-strummed, semi-plucked banjos, ouds, guitars, and occasional Tom Waits-esque tossin' junk in the kitchen sink percussion. Beautiful and mysterious, "Caterpillars Of The Oak Beauty" makes for another very nice cd-r release from Jewelled Antler!
RealAudio clip: "The Secret Forces"
RealAudio clip: "Festival Of Sticks And Grasses"

FRANCISCAN HOBBIES, THE Masks & Meanings (Soft Abuse) cd 10.98
Courtesy of new Florida-based label Soft Abuse, "Masks And Meanings" is the first full-length "real" cd from San Francisco's wonderfully dreamy improvisors The Franciscan Hobbies, following the "Caterpillars Of The Oak Beauty" cd-r on their own Jewelled Antler label. Featuring members of Thuja (Loren Chasse, Glenn Donaldson, Rob Reger) and others, including Greg Bianchini from SF folk troubadours The Muons, you can perhaps guess what this sounds like. Somewhere between the psychedelic forest drones of Thuja and the folkiness of Glenn and Loren's Blithe Sons project. Abstract, droney, relaxing. Gently plucked guitar strings, rattling and rustling noises of indeterminate origin, very organic and natural sounding. Field recordings and non-instrument sound making fill sonic spaces alongside what might be mellow kraut/hippy jams on guitars and percussion, if they weren't so damaged and sparse and loosely structured. It's music, like sunlight, filtering down through the leafy branches of the forest canopy, into a grassy nest the Hobbies have burrowed out and furnished with antiques. Afternoon light, and shadowed darkness and dust. Indeed, like most of the J.A. projects, The Hobbies often record out-of-doors, in meadows in Golden Gate Park for instance. They came up with their name, actually, from a piece of wood they randomly found on the site of one of their recording sessions, upon which the words "Franciscan Hobbies" were printed. Their music's mysterious yet oddly whimsical vibe is carried through the collage artwork and song titles ("Wasp Embodiment", "Plough Drawn By Toads"). Very nice. That some tracks end with abrupt edits would be about our only complaint... Definitely for fans of Tower Recordings, Kemialliset Ystavat, the whole Jewelled Antler "collective" and suchlike. You know who you are/what this is.
MPEG Stream: "A Preordained Sequence"
MPEG Stream: "The Matchless Phenomenon"

FRANCISCAN HOBBIES, THE Walls Are Stuck (Music Fellowship) cd 14.98
Jewelled Antler picnic-party The Franciscan Hobbies are certainly the biggest and vaguest, most free-form collective in the "collective". The Hobbies' albums are where Thujans and Muons and Blithe Sons and Skygreen Leopards and Child Readers and Buried Civilizations and all of 'em go to let it hang loose...or looser than usual. Even moreso than the other "bands" found under the umbrella of the San Francisco experimental-improv-folk-psych Jewelled Antler family, The Franciscan Hobbies have a indeterminate, open-ended membership, and make suitably organic, sprawling, abstract music... much of it quite as lovely as anything in the Jewelled Antler canon: dark and dreamy, with noise-textures and fragmented melodies played on acoustic and electric instruments both drifting in and out of these pieces like nature-sounds in the forest, in a manner perhaps akin to their Finnish brethren and sistren (?) Kemialliset Ystavat and Avarus and Uton. This new Hobbies cd, their fourth disc, was recorded over the past three years in various places with various persons participating -- among those persons, members of all the aforementioned groups. And AQ's own Allan even shows up singing on "Goat With The Dolphin Face", recorded in a wooden teepee on a beach up in Point Reyes. (Not that you can tell that it's him...or in a teepee.) And that's also got nothing to do with why we're going to tell you that this is highly recommended, particularily to those of you for whom the more abstract edges of the Jewelled Antler thing appeal. Intimate, hushed and full of quiet clankings and fragile drones...meandering, mesmerizing guitar-plucked lullabies...bowed strings and rustling sticks...indistinct vocalizations...all carefully edited and mixed by Glenn Donaldson (the track "Satan Crystals" by Loren Chasse). So nice.
MPEG Stream: "Elijah The Stone"
MPEG Stream: "Asmodeus"

FRANKLIN, MARTIN & MICHAEL NORTHAM (MNORTHAM) An Opening Of The Earth: Recovered (Faria) cd 12.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Martin Franklin and Michael Northam began communicating in the early '90s, both engrossed with the realm of possibilities extant in the laboratory that was the experimental cassette culture. At the time, Northam was beginning a career of sound-art globetrotting by way of festivals, residencies, and the generosity of others, having emerged from the Austin, Texas sound community that spawned the likes of John Grzinich, Olivia Block, Rick Reed, and Seth Nehil. Martin Franklin had gone on to form the British ambient ensemble Tuu, with releases through Beyond, Hic Sunt Leones, and Amplexus. It seems that Franklin and Martin enjoyed a single three hour session back in 1991, and out of that session came the original set of recordings which made their way on to a cassette, released by Sounds For Consciousness Rape, and later onto cd by SDV Tontrager. As both the cd and the tape have been long out of print, we can't comment on the differences between the original recording and this 'recovered' remix of the original source material.
Franklin and Northam settle organic textures from metal, dirt, and wood clattering against each other and building softened drones amidst the aggregated sounds. It makes perfect sense that Northam would later work with Darren Tate in one of the final Ora recordings, as these sodden ambient passages and quietly gritty noises share plenty of similarities. Northam had also brought to the session a cassette deck rewired to generate feedback systems, and Franklin had a handheld dictaphone with static and white noise broadcasting through the hypercompressed speakers. These elements give the recordings a rough hewn edge which counterpoint Franklin's sinewy ambience and ghostly half-melodies which are evidence of the contemporary remix work. Altogether, this redux has a darkly ritualized feel of isolationist drones divining something tactile out of the void, much like one would expect from the occluded sounds of the recent Drone Records catalog.
MPEG Stream: "Tape 1, Pt. 2"
MPEG Stream: "Tape 1, Pt. 3"
MPEG Stream: "Tape 3, Pt. 2"

FREDE, J Unprepared Piano (Current Recordings) cd 11.98
To make this album, Los Angeles 'lowercase' artist J Frede tagged along with professional piano tuner David Nereson during one his jobs and recorded part of the session. Frede then took those recordings back to the studio, running them through what appears to be several Max/MSP patches to arrive at a series of digitized sketches. As a polite gesture to Nereson's trade, Unprepared Piano begins with an unprocessed recording of the piano tuning, which sounds exactly like one would expect: a methodical plinking of the clustered notes that gradually come into key, marked by periodic creaks and hammerings upon the piano's inner workings. Quite honestly, these are not all that interesting; but once Frede gets going with all of his effects, the album really takes a turn for the better. Often working from a single sample culled from those recordings, Frede's compositions work best with a modest amount of processing as heard in the ominous plod of "Low Pres Non" with its simple demonstrations of pitchshifting and timestretching, and the thick sonic decay of haunted drones from "Un Pre N." Frede's Unprepared Piano resembles much of the same ideas that Akira Rabelais brought to his exceptional album Eisoptrophobia of digitally aerosolized piano pieces by Satie and Bartok. Where Rabelais sought a surreal version of dreamy romance, Frede imparts a far more sinister shadow upon his recordings.
Handpackaged in a fragile brown envelope and wrapped in string.
MPEG Stream: "Low Pres Non"
MPEG Stream: "Un Pre N"