GRAVITAR Freedom's Just Another Word For Never Getting Paid (Enterruption) cd 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Instrumental ferocity from this Michigan-based trio of feedbacking guitar, wild drums, and heavily processed brass that sound like a full on army of horns dumped underwater, struggling chaotically and desperately to get to the surface. Intense. Amusingly yet unsmilingly, the album and all the songs sport the same title: "Freedom's Just Another Word for Never Getting Paid".
RealAudio clip: "Freedom's Just Another Word for Never Getting Paid"

GRAVITY ADJUSTERS EXPANSION BAND One (Paradigm Discs) cd 16.98
It's pretty amazing, that the Gravity Adjusters Expansion Band have been making music since 1967, and we hadn't even heard of them until about a week ago. Part of the reason might be that their first lp, released in 1973, was an ultra limited pressing on a tiny label. And that the second, in 1981, was equally hard to come by. Which is a shame as this is some seriously Aquarius type stuff.
But better late than never, and boy are we digging this stuff like crazy. The whole concept and sound of GAEB was based around sculptor / musician Richard Waters and his hand made instruments, essentially sound making sculptures, many of which incorporated water filled resonators used to bend and tweak and twist the sounds. So cool.
Just check out the list of instruments: diatonic sound generator, bazooki, pipe drums, Aeolian space horn, synthesizer, waterphones, mytar, saws, bass violin, horizontal and upright phoniums, birdcalls, microtonal revolving sound generator, sgourd (?), superball mallets, water gong drums, log drums, springs, keyboards, assorted gourds, Princess oil can and more. Phew. From the list you can pretty much deduce that the sound of One is mainly percussive, but calling this a percussion record would be way too reductive. Instead, this is a sprawling exploration of ambient sound, very reminiscent of GAEB's sonic compatriots Taj Mahal Travellers and AMM. The Gravity Adjusters Expansion Band take percussive sounds and spread them way out, letting the overtones and reverberations shimmer and merge, so while these are still distinctly rhythmic arrangements, with plenty of tolling and chiming and ringing peppered with random bits of clatter and clang, the various sounds and their after affects create soft billows of background burble, muted melodic murmurs and all manner of sweetly sonorous and slow shifting soundscapes, each track a lush sonic explorartion of bowed metals and vibrating strings, of objects both struck and stroked, a potential cacophony smoothed into lengthy dreamlike shimmers. So completely mesmerizing.
You can of course hear traces of modern outfits like Avarus, No Neck, Sunburned Hand and the like, bands who obviously owe quite a debt to groups like The Taj Mahal Travellers and GAEB, but the sounds on One manage to sound completely unique, perhaps because of the time period, or maybe the music making process, or even the instruments themselves, hand made and impossible to duplicate, most likely all of those things. Whatever the reasons, One is fantastic, a simply gorgeous, an intimate collection of improvised ambient beauty.
Includes 15 minutes of unreleased bonus material, as well as a booklet with liner notes, original sleeve notes and lots of photos!
So recommended.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Eastern Lunarterranium"
MPEG Stream: "Autumnal Equinox Harvest Dance"

GRAY, DARIN St. Louis Shuffle (Family Vineyard) cd 14.98
Darin Gray presents his debut recording after years and years of working the Chicago noise-rock circuit (Dazzling Killmen, Brise Glace, You Fantastic, and Yona Kit, etc.). "St. Louis Shuffle" is a continuation away from those outfits of mutant hardcore muscularity towards improv noise splutter. Here, the central noise making means is through plugging and unplugging (guitars from amps, microphones from 4-tracks, etc.), resulting in an assortment of cracks, hums, scrapes, clicks, and pops disrupting a discordant din of gritty feedback. Unlike the electronica glitch aesthetic of Raster, Mego, Fennesz, etc. which purifies sounds, Gray's use of the glitch is a celebration of ugliness through dislocation.
RealAudio clip: "Get Rid Of This St. Louis!"
RealAudio clip: "Eugene B. Redmond"

GRAY, DARIN & LOREN MAZZACANE CONNORS This Past Spring (Family Vineyard) cd 14.98
The second collaborative effort from this guitar/bass duo. Loren Mazzacane Connors is of course known as a unique guitar improviser with a hauntingly beautiful style of "Venusian blues". Darin Gray you may know as the bassist from Chicago avant-noise-rock outfits Dazzlingkillmen, Brise-Glace, and You Fantastic! Together they explore lonely realms, both noisy and serene.
RealAudio clip: "Part 1"
RealAudio clip: "Part 5"

GREAT FENCES OF AUSTRALIA (Dynamo House) cd + barbed wire 33.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're discovering this a bit late in the game, it was originally released way back in 2002, but a customer only just turned us on to this, and we immediately knew this was definite AQ material. So we got every copy they had left, which ended up being about 30. It's already out of print, so odds are these might be the only copies we ever see.
Two violinists, Jon Rose and Hollis Taylor wandered the Australian outback, bows in hand, and proceeded to play various fences, of which there are thousands, running for miles and miles in all directions. And as it says in the liner notes, a fence with out barbs will carry sound for kilometers!! It's very reminiscent of Ellen Fullman's long stringed instrument or Alastair Galbraith and Matt De Gennaro's Long Wires In Dark Museums or even Alan Lamb's singing telephone wires, taut wires stretched out for feet, yards, miles even, each plucked and bowed, struck or rubbed, and each creating its own unique sound.
And the sounds!! It's nearly impossible to believe that some of these sounds are in fact just old rusty fences along the road somewhere in Australia. Some of the sounds are so musical, some so completely alien, all completely remarkable.
Each track is named for the fence being played, sometimes its location, or the condition of the fence ("Missing Fence Posts Fence"), the duo even play the infamous "Rabbit-proof fence" which alternately emits a high pitched creak or a low metallic rumble. The sounds of the other fences run the gamut, massive clanging, strange garbled alien sounding buzz, every variation of metallic shimmer, from glistening to grinding to throbbing, some fences when struck sound like laser blasts, others like muted bells, one fence in particular emits harmonic overtones that almost sound like Tuvan throat singing, some massive clanging a la Einsturzende Neubauten, and on and on and on. You might think too, that a compilation of various fences buzzing and clanging wouldn't make for a very consistent listen, but the opposite is true, each track perfectly links to the one before it, some fences surface briefly, while others drone on and on, part of it might be the surrounding ambience, birds, trucks driving past, foot steps, the crunch of gravel underfoot, the creak of old windmills, it all makes the disc seem like one long wide eyed and mysterious wander along highways and dirt roads, beneath a blazing sun or a glowing moon, all to the haunting siren song of the various fences, singing to you as you stroll...
Packaged in a deluxe oversized box with photos and some notes on the outside, and a little window so you can see an actual length of barbed wire fence mounted inside, and be sure to lift out the tray, beneath it there are extensive liner notes, loads more photos and a map of where each fence played on the disc is located! So cool.
MPEG Stream: "First Grid At The Dog Fence"
MPEG Stream: "Perimeter Femce Of Communications Site"
MPEG Stream: "Hits And Rumble, No 3"
MPEG Stream: "Electric Fence"
MPEG Stream: "No.2 Rabbit Proof Fence"
MPEG Stream: "Trumpet Fence"

GREAT INVISIBLES, THE You Left Me Haunted (Broken Sparrow) cd-r+dvd-r 12.98
From the same label that brought us two amazing records from Hotel AlexisÊ(aka Sidney Lindner who also played in Golden Hotel):ÊGoliath, I'm On Your Side andÊThe Shining Example Is Lying On The Floor, comes another captivating slab of dark moody twang.Ê
The Great Invisibles was recorded as part ofÊThe Record Production Month, styled after theÊNational Novel Writing Month, the challenge being to write and record a full album in 30 days. The Great Invisibles was the entry from folk / free jazz guitarist andÊprofessor of Surrealism in literature ,ÊMichael Deragon, and is a gorgeously dark and dreamy chunk of dark ambience and lilting abstract Appalachia.
Recorded on a 4 track, but surprisingly lush, these tracks are mini epics, rife with moaning minor key melancholia, strange distant rumbles and whirs, muted effects drifting in grey sonic skies, guitars that buzz and shimmer, ring out dreamily and unfurl mournful laments, the various tnagles of steel string strum, are strung withinÊmurky drifting cinematic smeas of sound, distant drifting harmonics, often over soft wheezing whirs and swirling seas of soft tape hiss. A few songs have vocals and are dark gems, sounding a bit like Califone or Red Red Meat or even Hotel Alexis, sultry and slithery, brutally beautiful back porch ballads, lovely and utterly heartbreaking.Ê
Deragon would perform live in galleries, accompanying short films by local film makers, and this set includes a bonus dvd featuring a short film used as the visuals for the Great Invisibles first performance, fromÊfilmmaker Michael Winters, a part-time truant officer. Truly striking, mostly black and white or sepia tone (a brief bit in color), scratchy film stock, old images of factories and children, flowers, old buildings, strange shadows, dolls and leaves, strange graphics of clocks, passing landscapes, haunting masks, the whole thing quite beautiful and mysterious, and really the prefect visual accompaniment toÊDeragon mournful twangscapes.Ê
The packaging is amazing as well, every single one unique, handmade by Deragon, a collaged fold over sleeve, so dense and covered with clipping and bits of paper it's almost 3-D, old newspaper clippins, drawings, blueprints, various bits of writing in pencil and pen, hand numbered, with a stapled and typed insert, the two discs affixed to the two inside panels of the gatefold. So nice.Ê
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! When we run out we won't be able to get more.
MPEG Stream: "At Once"
MPEG Stream: "Creeper"
MPEG Stream: "Just Before Waking"
MPEG Stream: "Laughter & Grace"

GREATER THAN ONE Kill The Pedagogue (Brainwashed) cd 9.98
When this arrived in the shop, there was a collective cry,"Whoa, Greater Than One? What ever happened to them?" Well, it turns out that the once prolific industrial dance duo ceased to be after Lee Newman died of cancer in 1995. While the pairing of Lee Newman and Michael Wells had a handful of fantastic if agitated Greater Than One albums that graced the Wax Trax! catalogue throughout the late '80s and early '90s, they were also a leading proponent of the bleep techno sound that marked the early incarnation of Warp Records in recording as Tricky Disco. Needless to say, Kill The Pedagogue predates all of that stuff, having been originally released back in 1985 as a self-released cassette. Greater Than One had much more in common with the rhythm and noise collages of Throbbing Gristle and TG's many disciples (esp. Hunting Lodge, Portion Control, and Hula) through distorted tape loops, media samples disfigured through warbling varispeed tricks, and post-Cabaret Voltaire drum machines pushed toward exhaustion with their tumbling patterns of tribal rhythms. Given that the original cassette was a mere 28 minutes long, those fine folks at Brainwashed filled out the disc with MP3s including all of the material from another self-released cassette from back in the day called Lay Your Penis Down plus a bunch of photos and the like.
MPEG Stream: "Kill The Pedagogue 1"
MPEG Stream: "Lay Your Penis Down 1"

GREEN BLOSSOMS Whiskey Leaves (Digitalis) cd 12.98
As summer comes to an end, we're left with those lingering nights that offer up so much room for wandering reflection, and early mornings where all you want to do is gaze out the window and watch birds and butterflies fly free in the sky. This new outing from Green Blossoms is proving to be the absolute perfect soundtrack for those days of hazy daydreams, letting your memory and imagination flow so easily. The Green Blossoms' sound and aesthetic explores similar pastoral bliss as equally delicate and rewarding music makers like Tenniscoats, Eddie Marcon, Miko, Ethan Rose, Nagisa Ni Te, crafting a sound that has us imagining Mum, if they ditched the electronics and found a path to organic pastoral bliss.
Many wonderful sparse yet finely textured instrumentals here as well as a few stunningly beautiful tracks with Aiko Koga's vocals, that even those of us who don't understand Japanese can still totally understand, emotional and passionate, evoking the simple themes and understanding of nature and the life around us. The music of Green Blossoms is such a great reminder that sometimes the most powerful moments are conjured by the most delicate and quiet of creators. Beyond lovely! And rife with a richness that keeps us turning to this album for early afternoon naps in the park, the kind we wish we could have every single day of forever...
MPEG Stream: "White Noon"
MPEG Stream: "Red Cup"
MPEG Stream: "Slight Sun"

GREEN BLOSSOMS, THE Stones And Ecstasy (Pseudo Arcana) cd 13.98
Managed to get a few more of these dreamy gems back in stock...
The Green Blossoms are the duo of Anthony Guerra and Aiko Koga, and the two create gorgeously sun dappled little universes of droning ambient twang pop perfection. With just ukulele, guitar, harmonica, pitch pipes and vocals, these two stroll through some fantastical world of constant summery bliss, sometimes it's night, but even then, their world is brilliantly lit by sparkling stars, a full moon, and warm crackling campfires. Guitars and ukes play delicate little melodies, each melody then looped into an hypnotic swirl of blissed out mesmer, then each one is wreathed in some sort of diffused fuzz, a deep glowing halo of sound, be it tinkling chimes, warm processed vocal harmonies, or dense dreamy drones.
This is some absolutely gorgeous, late afternoon, early early morning, hammock swaying in the breeze, back porch sunset, late night crackling fire, staring at the stars, floating in the middle of the sea looking up at the clear blue sky, cool mountain stream, sleeping in the tree shade, closing your eyes and drifting off, sweet, soft, warm and wonderful blissful dreaminess!
MPEG Stream: "White Cup (Tiny Reeds)"
MPEG Stream: "Green Blossoms"
MPEG Stream: "Autumn Song"

GREEN LAUGHTER s/t (Jewelled Antler) 3" 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.
Frogs!!! Can AQ-customers resist frog recordings? We think not. Certainly we can't. This cute lil' 3" cd is the first in a series dubbed the "Jewelled Antler Library" from our fave SF cd-r label of the same name. The idea being to release stuff that stands alone in twenty-minute doses and doesn't need to be padded out to full-cd length. There'll be entries from Jewelled Antler regulars like Thuja, likeminded folks such as Dead Raven Choir and Antony Milton, and also odd, one-off quirky projects like this one, for instance. Green Laughter is primarily frog field recordings made and edited by Loren Chasse (Thuja, Id Battery, Of, Blithe Sons, etc.). It's twenty minutes of the call of the wild (featuring frogs, cicadas, and perhaps birds), starting off as a fairly straight documentary and then blending into a computer-processed drone-wash constructed by Chasse from his original recordings. It's like wandering in a dense creature-inhabited forest back East somewhere in the summertime, your ears overwhelmed by the natural sounds, you getting dizzy and almost passing out, the ribbitting and chirping and buzzing and tweeting taking over your mind. But it eventually dissolves back into a blissful background ambience. Real nice. And many of the sounds on here that sound insect-like or electronic Loren assures us are in fact frogs. It's nature's electronic music, the sound of a laptop computer overwhelmed by heat and long grasses and the green laughter. Just the thing for when I (Allan) get homesick for Pennsylvania.
MPEG Stream: "Green Laughter"

GREEN MINE Ultra Rainbow (Dokuro) 3" cd-r 4.98
Some of you may not be familiar with a short lived instrument called the Omnichord. But those of you that are, remember just how strange and magical it was. A kidney shaped Casio-keyboard style instrument, with lots of buttons representing chords (much like an accordion) and most thrilling of all, a strip of touch sensitive metal, that allowed the player to sort of strum, drawing out the chords like an electronic harp. For more details and a photo check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnichord
What's the point of this long lost instrument history lesson? Well, this here disc uses nothing but the good ol' Omnichord as it's sole sound source and the results are amazing. The warm electronic buzz, and strange chordal shimmer of the Omnichord is layered and run through all sorts of effects, making its already thick buzzing sound even more dense and crunchy. Huge swaths of distorted crumbling electronic whir, underpinning gorgeous glistening high end melodies, super distorted swirls of sound rife with all manner of glitch and gritty texture, bursts of high end skree smeared into fuzzy indistinct electronic soundscapes. all washing into each other, a constant sonic tide of hum and whir and deliriously blissed out electronic buzz. These textures wouldn't sound at all out of place on an M83 record or in a Tim Hecker track. That same sort of blown out, soft focus, dreamy ambient warmth... So nice.
LIMITED TO 74 COPIES. Each hand numbered, pressed on green cd-r's, and packaged in cool mini plastic cases with full color insert and a posted on photo of Green Mine rocking the Omnichord.
RealAudio clip: "Nadia 1972"
MPEG Stream: "Ultra Rainbow"

GREENHAM, LILY Lingual Music (Paradigm) 2cd 26.00

GREENLEE, SHAWN Nysa (Utech) cd 14.98
We're not entirely sure, but we think Shawn Greenlee was a member of Six Finger Satellite, if he wasn't this disc sure makes us think he would have been a perfect fit.
Cobbled together from various live performances, run through all sorts of filters and hand made electronics, Greenlee takes all manner of glitch and bleep, buzz and crackle, squeak and hiss, and renders it totally alien, creating shimmery squiggles, sheets of caustic high end skree, long streaks of textural whir and rumble, harsh white noise draped over creaking malfunctioning machinery, processed voices, fractured melodies, all sorts of grinding skitter and strangled buzz, essentially a field recording of a laboratory full of robots and machines, becoming sentient, and deciding to destroy their former masters.
This isn't harsh noise, but it's definitely noisy, and chaotic and freaked out and pretty dizzyingly over the top. Strictly for folks who find even the most damaged of electronic music too pedestrian.
We only have a few of these, it came out last year, and is packaged in a super gorgeous metallic gold die cut fold over paper sleeve. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES...
MPEG Stream: "Nysa"
MPEG Stream: "Extispicy"
MPEG Stream: "Haruspex"

GREENSPON, KEVIN Common Objects (Family Time Records) lp 10.98

GREENSPON, KEVIN Unveiling (Monorail Trespassing) cassette 6.98
A peripatetic and a workaholic, Kevin Greenspon is constantly touring around California and hocking a small library of post-noise / blistered ambient cassettes & cd-rs that he's been producing over the past couple of years. Having performed alongside the likes of Pedestrian Deposit and Infinite Body, his smoldering, sorta-shoegazing dronescapes make a lot of sense. The A-side of this tape begins with a creeping two-note guitar melody, accompanying a muffled crackle and occasional interruptions of short noise transmissions. Out of the compressed noise and overdriven distortion pedals, a summery lullaby emerges from the tape murk and grime that blossoms through harmonic clouds of organ/synth drones and guitar smear. Yeah, comparisons to Infinite Body's prickly noise-pop hybrids are definitely apt. The B-side continues with these same ideas, as serene washes of distorted noise allude to something sinister just seething below all of the shimmer, twinkle, and glisten. 25 minutes in duration, and another great tape released through Monorail Trespassing!

GREGORIO, GUILLERMO Otra Musica (Atavistic / Unheard Music Series) cd 14.98
Recordings of Argentinian Guillermo Gregorio made between 1963 and 1970. Part of Atavistic's "Unheard Music Series", Guillermo Gregorio's improvised pieces and tape experiments fit nicely next to the best works of the Fluxus artists. The disk starts off with several home taped experiments utilizing various sources for manipulation: the first piece, "On the piano, inside the piano, around the piano...", is exactly as one might expect from its title. Following this, there are more recordings that use the tape deck as a means for effects -- bells are recorded and played backwards as Gregorio overdubs other sounds. Another piece using voices and the pause button produces a nice effect. Later pieces on the cd are mostly duet and ensemble improv pieces of Gregorio with fellow avant jazz/classical musicians of Buenos Aires.
RealAudio clip: "Voces"

GRENAGER, LENE, HARALD FETVEIT, LASSE MARHAUG, LUCIO CAPECE & MATTIN cdr (Seedy R! / Pseudo Arcana) cd-r 12.98
This is one serious assemblage of European electronic noisemakers. We're pretty familiar with Mr. Lasse Marhaug, but the rest of these sonic terrorists are new names to us: Lene Grenager, Harald Fetveit, Lucio Capece and Mattin. Armed with a mighty arsenal of soundmaking implements: electric cello, turntables, microphones, effect boxes, sax, mixing board and some computer feedback, these guys weave two epic, wide open soundscapes of hiss and fuzz, glitch and hum, a lowercase soundworld of buzzy electronic fuckery, huge thick swaths of pink noise whir that quickly subsides into a distant topographical map of barely there sound, tiny bursts of hiss or warble dot a spare plain of muted creak and bird cheep squeak, a sea of shortwave drift, and minimal shift that morphs into a corrosive flow of psychedelic sine wave freakout and grinding industrial grit. Instrument cable buzz and caustic distorted whitenoise hiss hover in a weightless field of scattered sonic debris, mostly space, but along with the bursts of sonic turbulence, create some sort of super stretched out impossible to define non-rhythm. Like a sweetly drifting slab of dark ambience being constantly interfered with by Merzbowian transmissions from some alternate universe. Nice!
MPEG Stream: "1 (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "1 (excerpt 2)"

GREY DATURAS All I See Is Nothing (Black Mountain / Diagnosis...Don't) 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.
Someone in the Grey Daturas camp did a little housecleaning and discovered a box of these now out of print discs, so we immediately laid claim to the whole box. So, for a very limited time we have about 25 more of these, so if you missed out last time act fast!
Here's what we had to say about it first time around:
Not too long ago we made Austalia's Grey Daturas record of the week with their killer Dead In The Woods record (now available again for a limited time, we got the last copies! See elsewhere on this list), a perfect mix of churning metallic rock, New Zealand style free noise, freaked out psychedelic space rock and buzzing rumbling drone rock. So so good. We knew there were other Daturas recordings floating around but we couldn't figure out how to track 'em down. Finally the band returned from tour and managed to dig up their last copies of their two previous releases, their debut record and a 30 minute ep, so we took all of 'em and they finally showed up. So act fast as these will be gone in no time.
This is a single song, 30 minute ep from last year, and is half an hour of drifting abstract ambient guitar bliss. Really pretty, with melodies floating to and fro, while other guitars sort of spread out a warm fuzzy blanket beneath, you can also hear voices and people talking, hard to tell if the voices were placed there or if this was a live set and that's the sound of the crowd, but either way it adds another subtle layer to the track. There is a sense of building and intensity, but before it really takes off, everything just sort of drifts back to earth and blisses out. A gorgeously druggy late night swirl of otherworldy guitars and subtle strummy ambience.
SUPER LIMITED. THESE ARE OUT OF PRINT AND LONG GONE. THESE ARE LAST 25 COPIES. ONCE THESE ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD.
MPEG Stream: "All I See Is Nothing (Excerpt)"

GREY DATURAS Australian Tour Pack (Large T-shirt) T-shirt, pin, poster 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Okay, we only got a handful of these in, and in very limited sizes, but we figured we oughta grab as many as we can since so many AQ fans are such huge Wolf Eyes and Grey Daturas freaks. That means act fast, and don't be too bummed if we've already sold out. We took every single one the bands had left.
So this pack includes a killer red on black Grey Daturas t-shirt, a Grey Daturas pin, and a gorgeous full color poster. Super limited, and of the sets with large t-shirts we only got 4!!!
The shirt/poster/button combo has to ship in a tube, so if you order this with other items it will have to ship separately and thus there will be an extra shipping charge.

GREY DATURAS Australian Tour Pack (Medium T-shirt) T-shirt, pin, poster 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
LAST 2 PACKS!!!
Okay, we only got a handful of these in, and in very limited sizes, but we figured we oughta grab as many as we can since so many AQ fans are such huge Wolf Eyes and Grey Daturas freaks. That means act fast, and don't be too bummed if we've already sold out. We took every single one the bands had left.
So this pack includes a killer red on black Grey Daturas t-shirt, a Grey Daturas pin, and a gorgeous full color poster. Super limited, and of the sets with medium t-shirts we only got 4 left!!!
The shirt/poster/button combo has to ship in a tube, so if you order this with other items it will have to ship separately and thus there will be an extra shipping charge.

GREY DATURAS Australian Tour Pack (Small T-shirt) T-shirt, pin, poster 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
LAST 4 PACKS!!!
Okay, we only got a handful of these in, and in very limited sizes, but we figured we oughta grab as many as we can since so many AQ fans are such huge Wolf Eyes and Grey Daturas freaks. That means act fast, and don't be too bummed if we've already sold out. We took every single one the bands had left.
So this pack includes a killer red on black Grey Daturas t-shirt, a Grey Daturas pin, and a gorgeous full color poster. Super limited, and of the sets with small t-shirts we only got 6 left!!!
The shirt/poster/button combo has to ship in a tube, so if you order this with other items it will have to ship separately and thus there will be an extra shipping charge.

GREY DATURAS Blood Trail (Heathen Skulls) cd-r 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Daturas showed up a week or so back at the beginning of their current US tour and brought a big ol' box of cds to sell on tour. We somehow convinced them to part with a big batch so we could relist their new tour only ep Blood Trail that we reviewed on the last list and sold out before we knew it. So we grabbed their last 40 copies (all told we took about 75 percent of the 150 copies they pressed!!) and they're all yours! Just act fast as we imagine this second batch will disappear just as quickly.
The more we listen to the Grey Daturas, the more we see them play live, the more times we hear and their records and the more they perform and interact with other musicians and performers, the more we realize the Daturas aren't really a band. Or more specifically aren't -just- a band. They are music makers certainly, but they seem to approach music from a distinctly non rock band perspective. There are drums and synths and bass and guitars, oh! are there guitars, but the sounds they make and the 'songs' they craft have as much in common with the Dead C or SUNNO))) as they do with the drone of Sunroof! or Jonathan Coleclough or the abstract minimalism of Morton Feldman or Steve Reich. This two song live ep demonstrates that yet again. The first track is a swirling snarling tangle of slowly shifting guitar feedback, distorted waves of sonic rumble and squeal unfurl and just sort of drift and sway, slipping under and over and around each other, dense and active, but subtly so, almost tranquil, a dreamy drift of electric guitar thrum. The drums begin as just some sort of sonic garnish, a little splash here or there, before kicking into a fully rocking, totally propulsive pounding spacerock groove, the guitar and bass following suit, the track now a distorted prickly static throb, wrapped in squalls of Hendrixian guitar freakout and huge slabs of bass, lumbering skyward like a more minimal and more metal Hawkwind. The second track follows a similar path, but this time the drums are more of a chaotic presence, spitting fills in every direction, cymbal sizzle drenching everything within earshot, the guitars whipped into an impossible frenzy, so loud and recorded so hot, that the sound itself begins to crumble, a blown out blast of space rock psych fuzz sludge.
Two 14 minute tracks. Hand numbered and limited to 150 copies (of which we took almost 1/3 of the pressing!). Packaged in a cool hand painted faux blood splattered digipak.
And as much as we hate to belabor the point, this is SUPER LIMITED! Once these are gone they are gone gone gone.
MPEG Stream: "Six Foot Ditch"

GREY DATURAS Live At Emo's In Austin Texas (Diagnosis... Don't!) cd-r 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As we've mentioned before, Australia's Grey Daturas are an amazing live band. And no matter how great their records are (and they are great), they can't compare the the furious improvised heavy-as-fuck spectacle of the live Daturas experience. Bonnie is a seriously formidable axemaster, emitting the unholiest of heaviness from her guitar, pealing washes of coruscating distortion, dreamy swaths of washed out chordal blur, while the two Rob's do their own brand of damage, throbbing pulsing low end bass, and bombastic drum fury...
So any chance to see these guys live, or even hear them live is one to not be passed up. Here we have a document from their 2006 tour, recorded live in Austin at Emo's, 35 minutes or primo Daturas beautiful brutality.
Beginning with a blown out wall of guitar and freaked out feedback, crumbling and distorted, roiling and billowing, the drums kick in around minute 6 and the band launch into some serious sub-Stooges stomp, plowing through dense washes of downtuned buzz, the band plod and pound, the guitar not so much riffing as freaking out, huge clouds of psychedelic skree, the bass holding down the central riff, this is Dead C meets the Brainbombs, furious and heavy and brutal as fuck. But after about 10 minutes the drums peter out, and we're back in abstract free noise guitarscape territory and it's awesome. Glorious and epic. But before too long, the drums gradually return, the guitar slowly transforming into some sort of mid tempo riffage, and before you know it, the band are pounding out another garage-y noise rock psych drone barrage, and again the guitar seems dead set on getting away, squealing and flailing and freaking out over the relentless metallic trudge beneath it. As always, so fucking awesome. Can't wait to see these guys again...
Limited as all get out, just like always, packaged in plain brown sleeves, the artwork a torn scrap of paper with the liner notes, in the style of all the Diagnosis... Don't! releases.
MPEG Stream: "Live At Emo's In Austin Texas"

GREY DATURAS Path Of Niners (Heathen Skulls) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Australia's Grey Daturas are like our very own noise rock Santa Claus. They come about once a year, and every time they show up, they have a huge bag of sonic goodies. And while Santa probably doesn't come to punish our ear drums and pummel us to within an inch of our lives, crammed into some smokey sweaty little club, we'd probably have to take the Daturas over Santa any day!!! Unless this year is the year we finally get that pony...
This time, the band brought with them a brand new record, technically an EP, but at nearly 40 minutes it's plenty long enough to be a record proper. And as always it's a corker. Somehow, it seems to be their most structured and least chaotic, which in no way is a bad thing, nor does it mean that it still isn't packed freaked out noise rock or vast expanses of abstract psych guitar because it is. And then some.
The opener is definitely the Daturas at their most rock. Simple driving drums beneath an impossible dense swirl of HEAVY guitars, drenched in FX and churning wildly. It's like the blown out psych rock endless jam outro of every Hawkwind song jacked up and compressed into seven minutes. The rest of the record is a bit less rock, returning to their abstract noise rock ambience, like a heaver, more psychedelic Dead C, from abstract guitar jangle drift wrapped around random bits of drum flutter to an explosive noisrockmindfuck halfway through the disc, thick peals of distorted guitar that crash and crush but are almost immediately turned inside out and become a strange backwards guitar squall, all warped and warbly My Bloody Valentine / Teenage Filmstars blowout, with strange rhythms created from the ssssshhhhhht sound of the guitars being sucked through time in reverse. After that it gets a bit more minimal for a stretch, with some dark rumbling dronescapes, more snippets of backward guitar, distant swirling FX, some angular Sonic Youth style guitar rock until the final track, a massive and ultra dense guitarscape, rife with acidic riffs and distorted melodies, thick clouds of clang and rrrooooaaar, each guitar piled atop one another, layer after layer of rumbling, reverberating, shrieking, shimmering, coruscating steel string skree, a bit like Skullflower at their riffiest mashed up with Acid Mothers Temple at their least. Amazing.
MPEG Stream: "The New Neuralgia"
MPEG Stream: "Cretinism"

GREY DATURAS Path Of Niners (Rocket Recordings) cd 15.98
One of our favorite discs from one of our favorite purveyors of improvised psychedelic heaviness, the out of print Path Of Niners, from Aussie trio the Grey Daturas, originally released on their own Heathen Skulls label, has now been reissued by Rocket Records in the UK, now in a jewel case and with an extra track!
Australia's Grey Daturas are like our very own noise rock Santa Claus. They come about once a year, and every time they show up, they have a huge bag of sonic goodies. And while Santa probably doesn't come to punish our ear drums and pummel us to within an inch of our lives, crammed into some smokey sweaty little club, we'd probably have to take the Daturas over Santa any day!!! Unless this year is the year we finally get that pony...
A visit or two ago, the band brought with them Path Of Niners, a brand new record, technically an EP, but at nearly 40 minutes it's plenty long enough to be a record proper. We ran out quick like, but then what happens? The band show up again on their next visit with this here UK reissue version. And as we said before, it's a KILLER. Somehow, it seems to be their most structured and least chaotic, which in no way is a bad thing, nor does it mean that it still isn't packed freaked out noise rock or vast expanses of abstract psych guitar because it is. And then some.
The opener is definitely the Daturas at their most rock. Simple driving drums beneath an impossible dense swirl of HEAVY guitars, drenched in FX and churning wildly. It's like the blown out psych rock endless jam outro of every Hawkwind song jacked up and compressed into seven minutes. The rest of the record is a bit less rock, returning to their abstract noise rock ambience, like a heaver, more psychedelic Dead C, from abstract guitar jangle drift wrapped around random bits of drum flutter to an explosive noisrockmindfuck halfway through the disc, thick peals of distorted guitar that crash and crush but are almost immediately turned inside out and become a strange backwards guitar squall, all warped and warbly My Bloody Valentine / Teenage Filmstars blowout, with strange rhythms created from the ssssshhhhhht sound of the guitars being sucked through time in reverse. After that it gets a bit more minimal for a stretch, with some dark rumbling dronescapes, more snippets of backward guitar, distant swirling FX, some angular Sonic Youth style guitar rock until the final track, a massive and ultra dense guitarscape, rife with acidic riffs and distorted melodies, thick clouds of clang and rrrooooaaar, each guitar piled atop one another, layer after layer of rumbling, reverberating, shrieking, shimmering, coruscating steel string skree, a bit like Skullflower at their riffiest mashed up with Acid Mothers Temple at their least. The bonus track is brief and understated, sounding more like some strange Chris Watson field recording or something, all mumbled and muted, distorted and blurred, musical, but only subtly so, more sort of abstract and ambient. But really quite cool. Not sure if it's worth buying all over again for a single track (although for some of us it is), it's definitely a good chance for those who missed out first time around to finally pick this up.
MPEG Stream: "The New Neuralgia"
MPEG Stream: "Cretinism"

GREY DATURAS Return to Disruption (Neurot) cd 14.98
Huzzah! Our favorite instrumental down-under doom-bringers return (to disruption) with this new
full-length, the prolific Melbourne trio's debut for Neurosis' Neurot label. It's a good fit, of course, this should go over well with the whole post-rock/metal crowd, this album often grindingly hypnotic, the Grey Daturas' lumbering sheets of distorto-drone skullflowering forth over a roiling bed of precision percussive clangor right from the get-go! Their threatening waves of pure heaviness, sharpened into a drill-drone of an attack, also occasionally take detours into areas of abstract ambience, the guitars of Bonnie Mercer and Rob MacManus carving psychedelic feedback sculptures, then tightening again back into full metallic impact, driven by the skittering drums of Robert Manson.
As heavy as they are (which is HEAVY) you can't really call the Grey Dats a metal band. They're in that quasi-metal realm with the likes of SUNNO))), Boris, Harvey Milk, and Nadja, perhaps, with a certain amount of experimental lo-fi fuckery going on that reminds us of many of their freenoise comrades over in nearby New Zealand... The title track itself is a clattering, pottering about, like something the Dead C would come up with, while the track called "Undisturbed" is anything but, sounding like a violin or creaking door hinge dying a slow and dismal death. And the high-end scraping skree of "Balance Of Convenience" should peel some paint. And then, as already mentioned, there's all the juggernaut, trance-inducing, spaced-out, instrumental doom rock post rock surging through tracks like "Beyond And Into The Ulimate" and "Neuralgia".
The Grey Daturas definitely like all the varieties of drone! And fans of, what should we call it, avant-doom, or drone-doom, or whatever, should like all varieties of the Grey Daturas, starting with this disc if you haven't already made their acquaintance, covering all the bases as it does!
MPEG Stream: "Beyond And Into The Ultimate"
MPEG Stream: "Answered In The Negative"
MPEG Stream: "Undisturbed"

GREY DATURAS s/t (Black Mountain / Sonic Advisor) 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.
Not too long ago we made Austalia's Grey Daturas record of the week with their killer Dead In The Woods record (now available again for a limited time, we got the last copies! See elsewhere on this list), a perfect mix of churning metallic rock, New Zealand style free noise, freaked out psychedelic space rock and buzzing rumbling drone rock. So so good. We knew there were other Daturas recordings floating around but we couldn't figure out how to track 'em down. Finally the band returned from tour and managed to dig up their last copies of their two previous releases, their debut record and a 30 minute ep, so we took all of 'em and they finally showed up. So act fast as these will be gone in no time.
This is the band's first full length from way back in 2002, and finds the band in a much driftier dronier place. The first two tracks are extended guitar workouts, slow shifting waves of distorted guitar and rumbling bass, alternately ominous and atonal, and lilting and lovely, it's not until track three when the drums kick in, just sort of offering a bare bones framework for the super saturated sludge guitar, a SUNNO))) worthy guitar drone indeed. Not long after that the band gets seriously revved and kicks out the drug addled psych space jams, with wild super nova guitars, acid fried riffs and pounding relentless drumming. The last two tracks, clocking in at 20 minutes each, are pretty much the core of the record. The second to last track "I Talk To The Voices" is a haunting soundscape of heavily affected guitars, simple percussion, that builds and builds and builds into a swirl of psychedelic fuzz, before splintering into a sixties freakout of delay and splattery free drumming. The final track "Bloodcloth", is about as heavy and harsh as the Daturas get, a full on freaked out ultra noise deconstructed Dead C sort of racket, strangled squealing guitars, weirdly atonal piano, layer after layer of fuzz and feedback and noise and hiss, all mixed up into a dizzyingly chaotic swirl.
SUPER LIMITED. THESE ARE OUT OF PRINT AND LONG GONE. WE HAVE THE LAST 30 COPIES. ONCE THESE ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD.
MPEG Stream: "When Planes Attack"
MPEG Stream: "Bleeding Bleeding Zodiac"

GREY DATURAS & YELLOW SWANS Copper / Silver (Olde English Spelling Bee) 2lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW AVAILABLE AS A SUPER DELUXE, ULTRA LIMITED DOUBLE LP!!!!
You may remember a while back, we made the new record from The Grey Daturas, Dead In The Woods, our record of the week. And how could we not? We described their sound as: "blown out fuzzy psych rock. A blurry druggy mix of Hawkwind, the Dead C, Comets On Fire, Residual Echoes, Dead Meadow and Bardo Pond. From churning, throbbing fuzzdrug churn, with squealing feedback and choppy uneven riffing, to drifting dreamy stripped down post rock, all careening wildly between thick swaths of super overdriven psych fuzz, and drenched in crumbly distortion and all manner of wah!" Heck, that sounds so good, it makes us want to pull out Dead In The Woods and throw it on right now!! Well, the Daturas spent a couple months touring the US last year, and while they were in the Bay Area, they crashed with the guys in local free noise ensemble the Yellow Swans (now relocated to Portland). And what do two bands do when they have a week to kill together? Record a record! Or in the case of these guys, record a super limited double cd-r, now a fancy double lp! So what do you get when you mix the druggy free noise psych rock of the Daturas and the noisy clattery skree of the Yellow Swans? Well obviously noise is gonna play a big part of it. No real song structures to speak of, although occasionally a brooding bass line or a simple strummed riff will surface, this is mostly freaked out and free, ambient and abstract. Expansive swaths of guitar noise, amp buzz and electronic glitch and grit. Melodies drift and disintegrate while guitar and bass slowly unfurl all manner of rumble and drone. Definitely reminiscent of Skullflower, Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, and all that sort of shimmery noisy goodness. Beautiful and droning and so so so good! Packaged in a super cool hand screened sleeves with pasted on artwork, with a creepy spike through the skull image screened on the front in metallic silver! This is a vinyl reissue of the long out of print double cd-r originally released in an edition of 200 copies on Jyrk. This 2lp version is also of course limited, to 525 copies this time, and those probably won't last long!
MPEG Stream: "Two"

GREY DATURAS / YELLOW SWANS s/t (JYRK) 2cd-r 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As always, let's get this out of the way first. This is EXTREMELY LIMITED. Only 200 copies were made, and we took about a quarter of 'em. By the time you read this it will already be out of print, so as always, act fast if you want one of these!
You may remember a few lists back, we made the new record from The Grey Daturas, Dead In The Woods, our record of the week. And how could we not? We described their sound as: "blown out fuzzy psych rock. A blurry druggy mix of Hawkwind, the Dead C, Comets On Fire, Residual Echoes, Dead Meadow and Bardo Pond. From churning, throbbing fuzzdrug churn, with squealing feedback and choppy uneven riffing, to drifting dreamy stripped down post rock, all careening wildly between thick swaths of super overdriven psych fuzz, and drenched in crumbly distortion and all manner of wah!" Heck, that sounds so good, it makes us want to pull out Dead In The Woods and throw it on right now!! Well, the Daturas spent a couple months touring the US recently, and while they were in the Bay Area, they crashed with the guys in local free noise ensemble the Yellow Swans. And what do two bands do when they have a week to kill together? Record a record! Or in the case of these guys, record a super limited double cd-r! So what do you get when you mix the druggy free noise psych rock of the Daturas and the noisy clattery skree of the Yellow Swans? Well obviously noise is gonna play a big part of it. No real song structures to speak of, although occasionally a brooding bass line or a simple strummed riff will surface, this is mostly freaked out and free, ambient and abstract. Expansive swaths of guitar noise, amp buzz and electronic glitch and grit. Melodies drift and disintegrate while guitar and bass slowly unfurl all manner of rumble and drone. Definitely reminiscent of Skullflower, Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, and all that sort of shimmery noisy goodness. Beautiful and droning and so so so good! Packaged in a super cool hand screened cardboard gatefold sleeve, with a creepy spike through the skull image screened on the front in metallic silver!
And in case you missed that bit at the beginning, SUPER SUPER LIMITED!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Two"

GREY MACHINE Disconnected (Hydra Head) cd 13.98
Finally, the full length has landed, a killer collection of industrial, electronic flecked, dubbed out metallic pummel from Grey Machine, three parts Jesu, one part Isis, the long anticipated team up of Justin Broadrick and Aaron Turner. We were treated to a teaser in the form of a super limited 12". We still have a few copies left, actually, with an exclusive super rad dubby remix B-side. The A-side, "Vultures Descend" is found on Disconnected as well, we described it thusly:
"A wild cacophonous chaotic noise jam, that features crunchy post industrial rhythms wrapped around a thick blown out blast of dubstep style bass, the vocals fuzzy and lo-fi buried way down in the mix, some woozy dark descending riffage, the timbre prickly and abrasive, but beneath all the churning and roiling heaviness (and it IS heavy) are some awesomely melodic guitar lines and some tripped out spacerock FX draped over the almost jungle bass and drums (or should we say drum + bass)."
Sounds good huh? Cuz it IS good. Really good. Although the whole record isn't quite as chaotic and abrasive, every song is pretty dense and sprawling, much of it sounding quite a bit like Broadrick's former outfit Godflesh, but with way more weirdness mixed in, be it extra programmed beats, layered guitars, explosions of thick oozing psych buzz, whatever. The opening track is the perfect example, with its low slung bass and industrial drumming, weaving trancelike through clouds of electronic hiss, mysterious creaks and groans, the vocals processed and chopped up, the song a lurching, unstoppable beast, but all around it, strange sounds are surfacing, transforming, becoming tangled up in that lumbering crush, as the guitars get thicker and more distorted, but seem to be twisting and warping... Eventually the drums drop out leaving just a sky full of high end streaks and a feedback skree drone drift.
So yeah, the sound here is Godfleshy, definitely not as blissy as Jesu, although some of those elements still remain, wrapped around a dense rigid industrial framework, with some surprising bits of modern electronic music (dubstep!) deftly woven into GM's sound without sticking out or sounding forced.
"When Attention Just Isn't Enough" begins life as another gloriously plodding dirge, but chiming guitars and fat fuzzy dubby bass transform it into something much more moody and groovy. "Wasted" begins with that sort of super heavy synth bass that defines most dubstep jams, but here it's laced over skittery metallic percussion and squiggly psychedelic leads, and lots and lots of noise. But it does rear up and buzz wildly every few measures, making it almost feel like some sort of industrial metal dubstep. But the wah guitars and squalls of freaked out FX also give it a distinctly Loop / Hawkwind sort of drug jam vibe as well. A killer combination for sure.
"Sweatshop" is the only really electronic sounding track, still thick ropy basslines, but with a killer loping programmed beat, super distorted and sort-of-funky, the whole thing super skeletal and dubby, with tons of texture and ambience, before giving way to the final track, probably the most blissed out of the bunch, still industrial and murky and washed out sounding, but everything is wreathed in a warm haze, the guitars muted, the drums minimal, the bass rumbling and fuzzy, lots of tape hiss and amp buzz, almost dreamy, but still appropriately ominous and intense.
Killer packaging too, blacks and greys and metallic silvers, printed on transparent vellum, with the other pages of the booklet visible through the cover, inside all sorts of high contrast video stills, a look both modern and reminiscent of the old Earache / Godflesh days. Cool.
MPEG Stream: "Wolf At The Door"
MPEG Stream: "Vultures Descend"
MPEG Stream: "...Just Isn't Enough"

GREY MACHINE Disconnected (Hydra Head) 2lp 23.00
And super swank packaging too...
Finally, the full length has landed, a killer collection of industrial, electronic flecked, dubbed out metallic pummel from Grey Machine, three parts Jesu, one part Isis, the long anticipated team up of Justin Broadrick and Aaron Turner. We were treated to a teaser in the form of a super limited 12". We still have a few copies left, actually, with an exclusive super rad dubby remix B-side. The A-side, "Vultures Descend" is found on Disconnected as well, we described it thusly:
"A wild cacophonous chaotic noise jam, that features crunchy post industrial rhythms wrapped around a thick blown out blast of dubstep style bass, the vocals fuzzy and lo-fi buried way down in the mix, some woozy dark descending riffage, the timbre prickly and abrasive, but beneath all the churning and roiling heaviness (and it IS heavy) are some awesomely melodic guitar lines and some tripped out spacerock FX draped over the almost jungle bass and drums (or should we say drum + bass)."
Sounds good huh? Cuz it IS good. Really good. Although the whole record isn't quite as chaotic and abrasive, every song is pretty dense and sprawling, much of it sounding quite a bit like Broadrick's former outfit Godflesh, but with way more weirdness mixed in, be it extra programmed beats, layered guitars, explosions of thick oozing psych buzz, whatever. The opening track is the perfect example, with its low slung bass and industrial drumming, weaving trancelike through clouds of electronic hiss, mysterious creaks and groans, the vocals processed and chopped up, the song a lurching, unstoppable beast, but all around it, strange sounds are surfacing, transforming, becoming tangled up in that lumbering crush, as the guitars get thicker and more distorted, but seem to be twisting and warping... Eventually the drums drop out leaving just a sky full of high end streaks and a feedback skree drone drift.
So yeah, the sound here is Godfleshy, definitely not as blissy as Jesu, although some of those elements still remain, wrapped around a dense rigid industrial framework, with some surprising bits of modern electronic music (dubstep!) deftly woven into GM's sound without sticking out or sounding forced.
"When Attention Just Isn't Enough" begins life as another gloriously plodding dirge, but chiming guitars and fat fuzzy dubby bass transform it into something much more moody and groovy. "Wasted" begins with that sort of super heavy synth bass that defines most dubstep jams, but here it's laced over skittery metallic percussion and squiggly psychedelic leads, and lots and lots of noise. But it does rear up and buzz wildly every few measures, making it almost feel like some sort of industrial metal dubstep. But the wah guitars and squalls of freaked out FX also give it a distinctly Loop / Hawkwind sort of drug jam vibe as well. A killer combination for sure.
"Sweatshop" is the only really electronic sounding track, still thick ropy basslines, but with a killer loping programmed beat, super distorted and sort-of-funky, the whole thing super skeletal and dubby, with tons of texture and ambience, before giving way to the final track, probably the most blissed out of the bunch, still industrial and murky and washed out sounding, but everything is wreathed in a warm haze, the guitars muted, the drums minimal, the bass rumbling and fuzzy, lots of tape hiss and amp buzz, almost dreamy, but still appropriately ominous and intense.
And again, killer packaging, blacks and greys and metallic silvers, much like the cd, a look both modern, and classic, reminiscent of the old Earache / Godflesh days. Cool.
MPEG Stream: "Wolf At The Door"
MPEG Stream: "Vultures Descend"
MPEG Stream: "...Just Isn't Enough"

GREY PARK Gradient Descent Of My Collective Mind (Nature Tape Limb) 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.

GREY WOLVES, THE Judgement (Hospital) cd 14.98
The Grey Wolves, a British industrial, provocateur duo, has been in operation since the mid-'80s, presenting themselves with a patchwork of antisocial, right-wing images under the pretense of a critique against contemporary cultural paradigms. They make the case that if they can get anyone in their audience to "think" about the political implications that run amok through daily life, then their antagonism through Nazi imagery, Osama Bin Laden t-shirts, poses of sexual domination, and even their name (a Turkish right-wing political movement responsible for hundreds of murders in the '70s and '80s) are justified. Unlike Throbbing Gristle and Laibach whose irony and wit are self-evident in their darkened theatrics, The Grey Wolves play fast and loose with all of these allusions; and more often than not, they stand as sympathizers to right-wing causes rather than as cultural critics.
Given how much of black metal aligns itself with the far right and how some of those bands can kick-ass in spite of their politics, we can't wholly denigrate The Grey Wolves on their questionable politics attempting to disguise themselves as art. This is doubly so considering that the reissue of Judgement is a pretty great document of tape damaged, lo-fi murk and rumbling noise. Hospital merely states that Judgement was originally released "in the late 20th Century," but given that the Grey Wolves had yet to adopt the post-Whitehouse aesthetic of power electronics found on their '90s recordings, we can safely say this was one of their earliest documents from the mid-'80s. The blown out 4-track recordings enjoy a crackling, ominous hiss which accompanies plenty of lo-fi crumpled rhythms and minor-key melodies sculpted out of feedback. While certainly snarling and nasty, many of these sounds could easily transition into any of more abrasive moments from turntablists like Philip Jeck or Gum. The Grey Wolves were gifted in terms of sound construction; and this album is thankfully devoid of any overt political statement. If only the rest of their catalog had such foresight.
MPEG Stream: "Restraint"
MPEG Stream: "Judgement"

GREY, NICK & NICHOLAS DAVIS Les Eaux Territoriales (Milk And Moon) cd 12.98
A dark and dreamy drift through a late night world of moonlit sound from this UK driftrock slowcore duo. Silky serpentine guitar lines, moody meandering dreaminess, hushed whispery vocals, simple brooding dark ambient swirl, disembodied melodies. So so lovely. Like your favorite Low songs, set adrift in outer space, reflecting the twinkle of distant stars, shimmering in the soft vacuum of space. So absolutely gorgeous and otherworldly.
Packaged in a hand numbered black digipak with a tiny square piece of mirror affixed to the front.
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"

GREY, RUDOLPH The Real Evelyn McHale? (Foreign Frequency) 7" 6.50

GREYS, THE s/t (Slave Records) cassette 6.98
What may unfortunately be a one-off project, The Greys are (were?) a trio featuring Jed Bindeman, Barbara Kinzle, and Birch Cooper. Bindeman is a man-about-town in Portland, Oregon, having his avant-rock fingers in Eternal Tapestry, Heavy Winged, Operative, and Jackie-O Motherfucker; while Kinzle and Cooper had been recording as the heavy-dream-pop duo The Slaves. Unfortunately, Kinzle and Cooper broke off their romantic relationship, leading to the likelihood that their creative relationship may have also terminated. Meaning that The Greys (and The Slaves for that matter) may be just a brilliant flash of dissonant beauty which will offer the world this one and only recording. In The Greys, Kinzle and Cooper build off what they had done in The Slaves with those oceanic, engulfing song-drifts and crank that through a fucking huge wall of noise. On the first side of this tape, if Bindeman is supposed to be behind the drumkit, he's clearly been knocked on the floor by the heavy-as-fuck guitar churn that is somewhere between the industrial sludge of early Skullflower or Terminal Cheesecake and the accelerant buzz of Cascadian black metal. We suspect that Bindeman is actually adding to the frenzy of guitars. Kinzle's voice does flicker through the overblown mix, but it's hardly the ethereal beauty one hears from The Slaves. Here, she's uttering more of a shrieking caterwaul to complement the torrent of discordant noise. Side two opens with something closer to an unhinged Nadja with a slow-crawling riff that blisters with noise, distortion, and multiple lines of feedback squalor rising from below. Here, Bindeman is definitely heard bashing away at his kit, but even so, he's way buried in the mix, which has been recorded Les Rallizes Denudes style, with just a mic in a room, all oversaturated and overdriven. Seriously, SOMEBODY has got to convince this band to continue recording and making more of this awesome soft-doom-noise-blur-rock. Yup, this tape is pretty limited, too.

GRIPPERS NOTHER ONESERS At Simmer Beach (Olde English Spelling Bee) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another new release, and another incomprehensibly confusional band name from James Ferraro, formerly one half of warped soft noise duo the Skaters, now a bonified solo phenom, with about a million cd-r's and tapes and lps under various monikers, including his very own actual mom and dad approved name
For Grippers Nother Onesers, Ferraro does more than loop and sample, there seems to be some actual riffing going on, as well as lots of singing, a warbly warped reverb drenched falsetto, over fuzzy fractured riffage, even some drumming, but all the instruments are smeared and blurred and muddied, so instead of coming even remotely close to sounding like a proper rock record, it still sounds like a Ferraro jam, but this time it's got more of a Ariel Pink meets Prince vibe (mostly cuz of the vox), the music tweaked and twisted, the fact that it's actually being played and then buried under a patina of muted hiss and hum, makes it all the more compelling. We're sure there was actual playing on other records, but this one sounds the most like a band, albeit a damaged drugged out band from another dimension, where all communication takes place via busted up old transistor radios, and all record players shift from 33 to 45 constantly, so all sounds seem to twist and melt before your very ears.
The soulful falsetto crooning is the high point here, turning even the most disjointed fucked up Jeck-ian jam into a dizzying slab of alien soul pop. Fans of Ariel Pink and other warped poppers, if you're not already hip to Ferraro's groove, now's the time...

GRISATRE Esthaetique (Dusktone) cd 13.98
Latest from this French one man depressive black metal band, whose name means 'greyish', which is actually not a bad description of Grisatre's washed out minor key buzz and blast, definitely a sort of 'grey metal', very melodic and melancholic, reminding us of Happy Days and Hypothermia, being yet another group whose shrieked vokills are mostly what keeps the sound firmly entrenched in the black metal world. And yeah, the guitars buzz, the drums blast, the recording is murky and lo-fi, but even at full blast, the guitars chime and ring out mournfully, and the songs evolve continuously (the three tracks here are all between 13-16 minutes long), so the sound slips into woozy midtempo melancholia as often, if not MORE often, than it explodes into blasting black buzz. Three long stretches of loping buzz soaked mesmer, peppered with bursts of more overt blackness, but also creepy shimmery drones, there even seems to be some warm swirls of softly psychedelic synthesizer in the mix, and amidst everything, there are some truly divine moments of melodic bliss, gorgeous bits of pop songsmithery buried in the murk, as well as twisted bits of production, that turn what could have been something more more generic, into something a little bit more far out and weirdly warped. It's also one of the rare BM records where you can actually hear the bass, and not JUST hear it, as it's a sinewy melodic driving force in the sound, giving much of this a gloomy post punk vibe as well. We're digging this big time, and we're guessing if you like buzzy melancholia and hauntingly melodic 'grey' metal (and really why wouldn't you?), then you will too.
MPEG Stream: "L'Abstrait"
MPEG Stream: "L'Impression"

GRIVF Sortenlund (Demo 2005) (NOTHingness) 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.
We reviewed a record by Canadian drone combo Ashtorath a few lists back, an amazing disc of dark and harrowing, cinematic dronescapes. Released on one of our favorite labels, NOTHingness. As we mentioned in that review, NOTHingness closed up shop, and in its place was born Consouling Sounds. We proclaimed Ashtorath the last NOTHingness release, when in fact there was one more, this, the 2005 demo from Grivf, a mysterious funeral folk metal one man band from Denmark. Reissued as a super limited cd-r last year, this is in fact the first we've heard from Grivf, and we have to say we're pretty into it.
Falling sonically somewhere between Skepticism and Make A Change Kill Yourself, but with long stretches of spacey dark ambience, no drums to speak of, so even at its heaviest, the record sprawls and oozes, the vocals a rumbling demonic gurgle, the guitars mournful and so so depressive, everything swathed in distortion, the melodies minor key and miserable, the tracks crawling and slithering, through black clouds and even blacker fields of sonic misery.
Some tracks lace acoustic guitars over pounded piano, unfurling a creepy funereal folk, that broods intensely, only to be swallowed up by a wave of crumbling distorted buzz, and harsh blackened vokills, but the guitar and the piano never stop. Instead infusing the black metallic drone with a super creepy vibe, elsewhere strings and synths play the same part, spreading out into long grey streaks, everything washed out and lit by a dying black sun, this is some of the most fantastically and gorgeously depressive music we've heard in ages. A few of the tracks take distorted riffage, steel string guitars, and piano, and let them get all tangled up, weaving a heartbreaking doomic black lament, weirdly melodic but still oh so melancholy.
Dark and depressive, heavy and slow, ambient and abstract, drone-y and sludge-y, miserable and mournful, drone-y and utterly haunting, some seriously essential listening for the black hearted.
SUPER LIMITED. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. We did get a bunch, but these are the last copies, the label is defunct, so once these are gone, they are gone forever.
MPEG Stream: "Midgaard"
MPEG Stream: "Hvad Isen Skjuler"

GROSSKOPF, HARALD + VARIOUS ARTISTS Synthesist / Re-Synthesist (RVNG) lp+cd 23.00
We've been wanting to list this for awhile, but the first pressing went out of print rather quickly that it took us awhile to get enough to list from the second pressing. And you can see why it's been so popular, what with all the love for rare kosmische music, and this one is a stunner!
Before 1979, Harald Grosskopf was mostly known as a percussionist for Ash Ra Tempel, Cosmic Jokers and Klaus Schulze. But during one bleak summer where his girlfriend left him, he fortuitously met up with two musicians who he would later collaborate with in the band You (whose 2 releases are soon to be reissued on Bureau B!). One of them lent Grosskopf his flat for the summer and a mini-Moog and sequencers to work on a solo record. With a reel to reel and eight track recorder he received from Schulze as compensation for his contribution on some recordings, Grosskopf then had to teach himself how to use all the new equipment, which was no easy task. But his perseverance paid off as the result is one of the finer synth outings we've heard from the era. There is a nice percolating exuberance to the tracks aided with the forwarding momentum of percussion that keeps things moving along, while other tracks show a deep space ambient side. Definitely a precursor for what much of what Jonas Reinhardt and Zombi are doing nowadays. In fact, included with the lp is a cd of 11 reworkings of Synthesist by the newer vanguard of electronic artists including: Oneohtrix Point Never, Arp, James Ferraro, Pink Skull, Bronze and Stellar Om Source. Highly Recommended!!!!

GROUND ZERO Plays Standards (DIW) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yay! After being out of print for the last couple of years, this fantastic album has finally been reissued! Unfortunately it's not a domestic reissue, so the price tag is still import-high. But it's well worth the $, being one of our very favorite discs by Otomo Yoshihide's amazing sampling/noise/jazz outfit Ground Zero. This one's all covers, Ground Zero interpretations of tunes as far ranging as Massacre's "Bones" to John Philip Sousa's "Washington Post March", Omoide Hatoba to Burt Bacharach... Includes liner notes in both English and Japanese explaining Otomo's reasons for doing each song. Great album, great band. If you missed it the first time, get it now!!
RealAudio clip: "A Better Tomorrow + I Say A Little Prayer "

GROUND ZERO Revolutionary Pekinese Opera Ver.1.28 (ReR) cd 16.98
The second record by Otomo Yoshihide's Ground Zero is an expansion of a concept started by German artists Heiner Goebbels and Alfred 23 Harth, and is modestly accredited as a "remix of the Peking Oper" by the aforementioned duo. The Revolutionary Pekinese Opera is an amazing aural collage, where Otomo deconstructs a recording of a traditional Chinese opera in the '60s, rearranging the bits into new forms as well as recomposing within the gaps for his Ground Zero group. The group is augmented with many sampled "guests" including Goebbels and Harth, Steve Beresford, Compostela (mysterious street band from Japan who had an incredible disc on Tzadik!), Christian Marclay and Jon Rose (whose violin work here is incredible!) among many others. A dense, exciting and cinematic listening experience.

GROUPER A I A: Alien Observer (Yellow Electric) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Just as ghostly and mystical as her music is, so is the availability of Grouper's records. One moment they're here, but before you can even blink they're out of print. Lately Liz Harris (Grouper) has been releasing her own recordings, but not pressing that many of them when she does. We know she doesn't do so out of a desire to keep things 'limited' but instead it's her humble nature which tends to keep her scope small, even when the truth is there are thousands of people across the globe who have become huge fans of her dreamlike sounds.
The first pressing of these two new Grouper lp's "A I A: Alien Observer" and "A I A: Dream Loss" went out of print so quickly we weren't even able to review them. The thing about these small pressings that bother us is that the only folks really winning, are the eBay speculators selling copies for ridiculous amounts, none of that money ends up in Grouper's hands. So we do hope that in the future she (and the labels she works with) will start pressing more copies as she is the one who deserves to reap the reward of her beautiful creation.
OK, now that our rant is out of the way, we should let you know that although this is a repressing we're not sure how many, if any, more of these we're going to be able to get. What we got, So before we start going on and on about the music you probably should just add this to your cart asap to better your chances of actually ending up with these.
Now on to what really matters - the music on these records. We've gushed and gushed about Grouper so much in the past, and we're going to do it once again because these lp's are utterly gorgeous! While Dragging A Dead Dear, found her starting to really embrace the idea of songs, we love how these lp's blur that focus once again. They're much more about mood, soft focus, hazy dreams, and ethereal exploration. Her voice swirling in and out, and every sound and tone she uses and manipulates with such a mastered ease. We've been listening to these records late at night and early in the morning and whenever we need to come down from the craziness of the world around us. Somehow whenever we play these lp's, everything else just fades away and for a little while all that matters is the soft narcotic rush we feel as the records spin. We can't imagine only getting one of these, as they really do work as companion pieces. Totally beautiful! And sadly, AGAIN, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!!

GROUPER A I A: Dream Loss (Yellow Electric) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Just as ghostly and mystical as her music is, so is the availability of Grouper's records. One moment they're here, but before you can even blink they're out of print. Lately Liz Harris (Grouper) has been releasing her own recordings, but not pressing that many of them when she does. We know she doesn't do so out of a desire to keep things 'limited' but instead it's her humble nature which tends to keep her scope small, even when the truth is there are thousands of people across the globe who have become huge fans of her dreamlike sounds.
The first pressing of these two new Grouper lp's "A I A: Alien Observer" and "A I A: Dream Loss" went out of print so quickly we weren't even able to review them. The thing about these small pressings that bother us is that the only folks really winning, are the eBay speculators selling copies for ridiculous amounts, none of that money ends up in Grouper's hands. So we do hope that in the future she (and the labels she works with) will start pressing more copies as she is the one who deserves to reap the reward of her beautiful creation.
OK, now that our rant is out of the way, we should let you know that although this is a repressing we're not sure how many, if any, more of these we're going to be able to get. What we got, So before we start going on and on about the music you probably should just add this to your cart asap to better your chances of actually ending up with these.
Now on to what really matters - the music on these records. We've gushed and gushed about Grouper so much in the past, and we're going to do it once again because these lp's are utterly gorgeous! While Dragging A Dead Dear, found her starting to really embrace the idea of songs, we love how these lp's blur that focus once again. They're much more about mood, soft focus, hazy dreams, and ethereal exploration. Her voice swirling in and out, and every sound and tone she uses and manipulates with such a mastered ease. We've been listening to these records late at night and early in the morning and whenever we need to come down from the craziness of the world around us. Somehow whenever we play these lp's, everything else just fades away and for a little while all that matters is the soft narcotic rush we feel as the records spin. We can't imagine only getting one of these, as they really do work as companion pieces. Totally beautiful! And sadly, AGAIN, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!!!

GROUPER Cover The Windows And The Walls (Root Strata) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally available on cd!
It doesn't really seem possible that the music of Grouper could get any more beautiful, any more majestic and epic, or any more mysterious and dreamlike. No, but what it can do is change, and grow, expand, and subtly alter its shape and timbre, it's coloring and shading, which is what it has been doing, on every single outing, but never so much as on Cover The Windows And Walls. The core of Grouper's sound remains unchanged, dense bleary eyed fields of druggy reverb, thick swirls of blurred vocals, smeared into indistinct melodies, all abstract and shimmery, soft focus and billowy, the musical version of those soft fuzzy grey clouds that fill the sky at twilight. It's still an impossible blend of Arvo Part, Morton Feldman and Skullflower, but the new record sounds a little bit more, well, folky maybe, or perhaps slightly less tripped out. A lot of it has to do with the vocals, which have attained an until now unheard of clarity. Which in no way means you can actually hear the vocals, they are still another gauzy layer in Grouper's blown out soundscape, but, sometimes, they -are- a bit clearer, you can actually pick out words here and there, sometimes even whole lines. Before, if we hadn't been told, we wouldn't necessarily have even known that the main element of Grouper's sound was in fact vocals. They were that indistinct and that drenched in FX. But here, it actually sounds like a singer, singing songs, but just barely, it's almost like listening to some super lonesome stripped down folk, recorded onto a wax cylinder, and then broadcast through a huge speaker mounted at the very bottom of an elaborate cave system, the songs careening back and forth and picking up more and more reverb and echo with every bounce, until they become this blissed out beautiful blur. Thick buzzing single guitar notes spread out into wavery fields of murky muted twang, which wrap themselves serpent like around the equally disembodied vocals. Imagine a field recording of ghosts performing ancient folk songs, a whispery thrum, so barely audible, that it's nearly impossible to capture, but once it is, and the sound is turned up enough to be audible to the human ear, it becomes this gorgeously distorted smear of sound.
What else can we say about Liz Harris and her Grouper project? We've hardly heard anything this beautiful and mysterious ever. EVER!
Absolutely and emphatically recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Cover The Windows And Walls"
MPEG Stream: "Opened Space"
MPEG Stream: "Down To The Ocean"

GROUPER Cover The Windows And Walls (Root Strata) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It doesn't really seem possible that the music of Grouper could get any more beautiful, any more majestic and epic, or any more mysterious and dreamlike. No, but what it can do is change, and grow, expand, and subtly alter its shape and timbre, it's coloring and shading, which is what it has been doing, on every single outing, but never so much as on Cover The Windows And Walls. The core of Grouper's sound remains unchanged, dense bleary eyed fields of druggy reverb, thick swirls of blurred vocals, smeared into indistinct melodies, all abstract and shimmery, soft focus and billowy, the musical version of those soft fuzzy grey clouds that fill the sky at twilight. It's still an impossible blend of Arvo Part, Morton Feldman and Skullfower, but the new record sounds a little bit more, well, folky maybe, or perhaps slightly less tripped out. A lot of it has to do with the vocals, which have attained an until now unheard of clarity. Which in no way means you can actually hear the vocals, they are still another gauzy layer in Grouper's blown out soundscape, but, sometimes, they -are- a bit clearer, you can actually pick out words here and there, sometimes even whole lines. Before, if we hadn't been told, we wouldn't necessarily have even known that the main element of Grouper's sound was in fact vocals. They were that indistinct and that drenched in FX. But here, it actually sounds like a singer, singing songs, but just barely, it's almost like listening to some super lonesome stripped down folk, recorded onto a wax cylinder, and then broadcast through a huge speaker mounted at the very bottom of an elaborate cave system, the songs careening back and forth and picking up more and more reverb and echo with every bounce, until they become this blissed out beautiful blur. Thick buzzing single guitar notes spread out into wavery fields of murky muted twang, which wrap themselves serpent like around the equally disembodied vocals. Imagine a field recording of ghosts performing ancient folk songs, a whispery thrum, so barely audible, that it's nearly impossible to capture, but once it is, and the sound is turned up enough to be audible to the human ear, it becomes this gorgeously distorted smear of sound.
What else can we say about Liz Harris and her Grouper project? We've hardly heard anything this beautiful and mysterious ever. EVER!
Absolutely and emphatically recommended.
This second pressing is WAY limited and already out of print! We got 30 copies, and once these are gone, that'll be it! Pressed on gorgeous swirled black and white vinyl.
MPEG Stream: "Cover The Windows And Walls"
MPEG Stream: "Opened Space"
MPEG Stream: "Down To The Ocean"

GROUPER He Knows (Jyrk) 3" 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.
We were totally gaga for Grouper's Way Their Crept cd from last year. So much so we made it Record of the Week. A more aQ record we couldn't have imagined, a gloriously thick and fuzzy swirl, equal parts Arvo Part, Morton Feldman, Skullfower and all manner of drift and drone. Dense smears of processed vocals and mubled guitars, all so heavily affected they became indistinct blurs, drifting fuzzy drones. We've been anxiously awaiting more, and were thrilled to discover this new 3" cd-r on the Yellow Swans' Jyrk label. The good news is that it takes everything we loved about Way Their Crept and made it more, daker, denser, thicker, prettier. The bad news is it was limited to 130 copies of which we only managed to get 20. And the rest are sold out, so after these are gone we won't be getting any more.
He Knows is very short, three songs, ten minutes. But what it lacks in lenght, it makes up for in depth. The first track could of come straight off of Way Their Crept. Disembodied vocals hover and drift, guitars (are they guitars?) rumble and murmur and shimmer and hover, not so much an instrument as some sort of musical spirit. The vocals, the guitars, the sounds Grouper produce are like wraiths, floating like whisps of smoke, drifting in and around and through each other, a thick cloudy soundscape, warm and enveloping, pusling and reverberating, an indistnict blur, lovely but ineffable.
The second track is like chamber music recorded at the bottom of the sea, listening to it after it has bubblrd up to the surface, warm and warbly and murky and so lovely. Melodies are nothing but streaks of barely there sound, like sunbeams filtered through the prism of swirling seawater. The final track sounds like a hymn, but muffled and indistinct. Imagine laying in a field outside a smalll stone chapel, blankets wrapped tight around your head to stave off the cold, the warm sounds of the church drift across the icy ground, the sounds barely making it through your wool shroud and into your ears, but what does make it, sounds warm and safe and beautiful. So good.
Limited to 130 copies and already OUT OF PRINT! We have the last 20, once these are gone they are GONE!
MPEG Stream: "One"

GROUPER Hold / Sick (Room40) 7" 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This one definitely doesn't need much of a review, it's a super limited tour single from Liz Harris, aka Grouper, it features two brand new and EXCLUSIVE tracks, it's lovely and ethereal and spacey and dreamy (of course), it's already sold out and out of print, and we got less than 10 copies, and will NOT ever be able to get more. Odds are you don't need much of a description, fans will definitely want this, even with the steep price tag, but rest assured, it's another fantastic collection of hazy guitar swirl, lush atmospheric shimmer, disembodied reverbed vocal coo, shoegazey sonic swirl, a little bit of extra buzz and distortion all but obscuring the fragile vox on the second, track, but for the most part it's all gauzy and ethereal and ephemeral and abstract and hauntingly gorgeous, and for Grouper obsessives, most likely essential. Too bad we got so few...
Housed in nice thick covers with super striking black and white artwork, includes a Xeroxed insert with a download code too.

GROUPER Tried (Type) 7" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest in Type Records' 7" singles series (past releases included Machinefabriek, Goldmund, Paavoharju, Benoit Piolard and Tarentel) comes from local vocal soundscaper Liz Harris, aka Grouper, and it's another beauty. Not sure if she just keeps getting better, or it's just that we love here records so much that every new one just reminds us why and how much we dig here deliriously dreamy sounds.
The A side just might be the closest to a proper pop song Grouper has ever recorded, but it's still appropriately buried in soft murky fuzz, making the notes mushy and indistinct, her breathy vocals shimmering streaks of melody, the whole thing a warm, melancholy blur of soft pop abstraction. Absolutely stunning. In the time it's taken to review just the A side, we've listened to it three times in a row! In fact we would have gone for a fourth had we not moved on to the other side...
If the A side is a glimpse of Grouper's perfect pop, then the B side is her torch song, a gorgeous moody ballad, and it's like the dense clouds of reverb have finally parted, revealing what lurked behind all that shimmer and buzz, delicate sensual vocals, drifting minor key piano, a stripped down late night dark nightclub on the edge of town sort of stormclouds and roaring fire, folk flecked ballad. Still a bit of reverb and delay, but they merely drift by, or hover in the background. Totally gorgeous.

GROUPER Way Their Crept (Free Porcupine Society) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
FINALLY REPRESSED and BACK IN STOCK! And now this former AQ Record Of The Week comes in a sturdier sleeve with a little book of drawings too, value added for those who missed it before... hardly fair for those who picked it up back when but nice if you're just getting it now.
Imagine Arvo Part if he was a punk rock woman from Oakland. Or imagine an ultra lo-fi Morton Feldman jamming with Matthew Bower of Skullflower, backed up by a ghostly choir. This is one of those records that is so perfectly aQuarius it sounds like it was composed and recorded just for us. And you. A perfect blend of warm textured ambience and thick corrosive drones, delicate melodies wrapped in a gorgeously crunchy gritty hissy production. The whole record is a ghostly shimmer, warm washes of otherworldly vibrations swirling in a thick morass of processed vocals, murky keyboards and guitars rendered so unguitarlike they more resemble warm wiggles of sound, like slinky's stretched as far as they will go, slightly vibrating, barely disturbing the air around them, small waves of sound like ripples in a pond building and building and piled atop one another until it's a massive, thick blanket of sound. Imagine the saddest slowest band you've ever heard playing at absolutely deafening volume, then imagine stuffing your ears full of cotton, and listening from behind a closed door, through a wall of mud and straw, warm wispy tendrils of sound creeping and crawling through the cracks, wrapping themselves in thick coils around your arms and legs, the whole room slowly filling with sound, until soon you're totally ensconced, submerged, surrounded by thick billows of slow shifting sound. Melodies become indistinct whispers stretched across minutes instead of seconds, guitars and keyboards become blissed out blurs, like floating weightless in a warm dark mysterious place made entirely of soft sound. Wow. Totally haunting and captivating.
MPEG Stream: "Way Their Crept"
MPEG Stream: "Hold A Desert, Feel Its Hand"
MPEG Stream: "Sang Their Way"