HEY COLOSSUS AND THE VAN HALEN TIME CAPSULE Eurogrumble Vol. 1 (Riot Season) lp 16.98
Latest Teutonic slab of colossal crunch from these slow motion UK sludge lords, and since we've last heard them, they have appended their already odd monicker with the even more confusional "And The Van Halen Time Capsule". But don't expect any drastic changes, or anything remotely Van Halen like, right out of the gate these guys throw down hard, demonstrating again, that even though they still tend to slip beneath most folks' radar, they might be one of the best slow and low heavy bands happening these days.
A boiling cauldron of sonic black tar is upended and so begins the first track, as the black sludge oooooozes from the speakers, glacial riffage, weird looped samples, crushing 16rpm black hole drum plod, all sorts of gnarled glitchy distortion and buzz, which gives way to something weirdly dramatic, vocals clean and crooned one second, processed and garbled the next, while the music gets downright pretty, before spiraling into jagged shards of hiss and howl, the rest of the band stumbling back to a funereal crawl, and that's just the first song.
The rest of the record is a dizzying assault of midtempo noiserock pound, drugged out abstract ambience, downtuned throbbing sludge, twisted crusty dooooom, and heavy heavy drones, but it's not just the sounds, it's what these guys do with them. The riffs don't just buzz, they drip and ooze and creep, the vocals are inhuman and alien, totally disturbing, the guitars chug and churn and rumble, the songs veer from total ultra dooooom to twisted post rock lumber, to abstract hypnorock stutter, to weird epic almost chamber sounding sludge, taking something filthy and foul and making it majestic. Not sure why these guys are not HUGE, but anyone into Harvey Milk, and other practitioners of slow low crush and dense doomic dronemusic, should definitely be freaking out over these guys, and this record.

HI-GOD PEOPLE / ZOND split (Spanish Magic) lp 29.00
The problem with a split lp featuring two bands who are somewhat unfamiliar, when there is no specific info on the record labels or cut into the grooves on the vinyl, is deciding which band is which, going on number of track (here both bands have three), instrumentation (HGP list no instruments, Zond have a guy credited with skateboard, which seemed like it would be a dead giveaway but sadly we could hear no skateboard), but then, usually we decide fuck it. It doesn't really matter until you decide you need more by either / both bands, which unfortunately (or fortunately!) you probably will after listening to this twisted slab of sonic weirdness.
We'll tackle the B side cuz that's what we threw on first, and we'll assume that this is actually Zond, who we have never heard before, but are digging BIG TIME. Super distorted and blown out, sludgey dirgey noise rock, howled vocals barely audible over the din of downtuned riffage and in-the-red psychrock squalls, the drums a buried muffled pound, the whole thing a churning, grinding, gloriously filthy trudge. Maybe imagine a more Dead C-ish Brainbombs and you'd be close. That is until the extended final track, the eschews all the damaged outrock that came before, and offers up a stretched out expanse of buzzing shimmering ambient drone, not really tranquil, still a bit noisy, a little off kilter, the sounds bathed in distortion, wrapped in feedback, but stretched out into a weirdly hypnotic noisescape.
So working under the assumption, that the B side is Zond, then the A side must be Hi-God People, who we have heard once before on a split with none other than the Dead C, but the sound here is dramatically different, which is probably what threw us off in the first place. The first and longest track, is a sort of fractured free folk, detuned acoustic guitar twang, sitar like buzz, crooned atonal vocals, wreathed in shimmery effects, swirling clouds of wah wah guitar, strange bleepy bloopy ambience, it almost sounds like some sixties hippy jam, but completely fried and fractured. A more spaced out, free folk, No Neck, or maybe a Sunburned Hand / Avarus musical summit. Until the track slips into something a little different, unleashing more of a krautrock vibe, a subtle pulsing propulsive jam, underneath all of the twisted twang and abstract strum.
The second track is much more abstract, a tripped out buzzy dronescape with random clattery percussion, wheezing organs, swooping melodies, fluttery woodwinds, all very creepy and somewhat cinematic, finally finishing off with the brief closer, a gorgeous, hazy, druggy buzz drenched psych jam, that begs for a whole 'nother side for it to drift and unwind.
Good stuff, from both bands, whichever is which. Super limited of course, and housed in super swank hand screened sleeves!

HIDALGO, JUAN Una Voz (un etcetera) (Alga Marghen) lp 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Una Voz", written by Spanish conceptual artist Juan Hidalgo, read by Javier Martinez Cuadrado and recorded by Walter Marchetti (who also added some extra sounds by opening the windows during the reading during an evening in Madrid on September 1967). As Juan Hidalgo wrote for the liner notes: "I spent about 10 years reading, hearing and meditating, outside, around and inside Zen Buddhism. Una Voz, this repetitive vocal music, couldn't have been conceived without these circumstances. This 'metaphysic' work developed in the years I was living in Italy; first in Milan and then in Rome. Walter Marchetti and John Cage supported all this with their knowledge and friendship. The final result is a reflection on life, non-life, pain and pleasure". The text read by Cuadardo is entirely in Spanish and this vinyl-only edition also includes a booklet with the complete Spanish text and an English translation. Edition of 323 copies.

HIGGS, DANIEL Armageddon Lullabye / Recitation (Endless Series) 10" lathe cut 33.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Amazing, and ultra limited, made to order, hand carved lathe cut from our favorite modern day musical shaman Dan Higgs, he of Lungfish and assorted amazing solo recordings. Two tracks, each exclusive to this disc, an ultra thick black lathe cut, with printed / hand written labels, and housed in a thick, old school green paper sleeve stamped with the label info and the tracks hand written on the sleeve. So gorgeous.
And the music is appropriately gorgeous as well. The A side is a long droney chunk of twisted Eastern raga tinged neo-Appalachia as only Higgs can do it. Tangled melodies, gnarled arrangements, droney and buzzy, haunting and minor key, the track always shifting from dreamy finger picked bliss to pulsing blown out raga to spaced out psychedelia, all on an acoustic guitar. So good.
The flipside is a "Recitation" by Mr. Higgs, and is a total mind blower. Obviously recorded on a handheld microcassette recorder, complete with the 'thunk' of the stop and record buttons, as well as lots of sibilance and background hiss. But the voice is immediately recognizable, and the words... confusingly brilliant, surreal, so evocative and vivid, sometimes beautiful and tender, sometimes horrific, and other times completely baffling, somehow as dreamy and easy to listen to as the guitar on the other side. But to understand it all, that's another story. Too much for mere mortals we're afraid, but so goddamn fascinating.
These are custom made to order, and are thus SUPER EXPENSIVE and SUPER LIMITED. We got a handful, we probably can get more when we run out, but it might take a while, so if you miss this first batch, be prepared to be patient...

HIGGS, DANIEL Plays The Mirror Of The Apocalypse And Other Songs (Open Mouth) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Way back when, years and years ago, before Mr. Daniel Higgs was a well established solo artist, and revered modern mystical musical troubadour, when he was still mostly known as the vocalist of Lungfish and offshoot the Pupils, we listed a super limited cassette containing some of the most amazing raga-drone guitar playing we had heard, and we knew then, that there was more to Higgs than just playing rock music. Every bit of that tape oozed with some cosmic light, as if he was using the guitar to travel between alternate universes and other worlds, the tales of those travels rendered in gorgeously warm and mysterious drone and buzz, strum and shimmer.
Higgs is one of the very few contemporary artists who we would absolutely consider a sort of modern day shaman. A musical alchemist, an artistic cypher, an abstract philosopher, a strangely charismatic, yet disarmingly humble master of any artistic endeavor he puts his mind to. For those new to the work of Daniel Higgs, he's a legendary (but now retired) tattoo artist, an incredible painter, whose paintings are at once hallucinatory and gorgeous (one painting adorns the cover of Leviathan's Tentacles Of Whorror record) and of course an incredible musician, whose sonic experiments range from the mesmeric riffrock of his band Lungfish, to an entire record of solo Jew's harp. But in addition to being an incredible lyricist, an amazing vocalist, and a master of the Jew's harp, Higgs is also a seriously mean guitar (and banjo) player, with a style and sound as familiar as it is totally alien. A gorgeous buzzing steel string drift through the cosmos. Lengthy droning ragas, that drift hypnotically from deconstructed Appalachia to John Cale like slow-shifting skree (joined on those tracks by violin), to moody melancholy crawls, to thick serpentine swirls of snake charmer melody and reverberating steel string shimmer. Raw and lo-fi for sure, but so darkly emotional, and dreamily hypnotic. This cd reissue reminded us of how smitten we were by the original tape release. It sounds just as powerful and intense as it did the first time we heard it. And even now, it continues to unfold more and more on each listen, gradually and subtly revealing mythical musical secrets and lost universal truths, and just like with the cassette, we're thinking seriously about grabbing a cd player, taking a ton of peyote, blasting this disc and laying in the thick grass, sprawled naked on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere, beneath a sparkling moonlit sky. In other words, WAY RECOMMENDED!
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 2"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 3"

HIGGS, DANIEL Plays The Mirror Of The Apocalypse And Other Songs (Open Mouth) cassette 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Daniel Higgs, of Lungfish and the Pupils, is one of the very few contemporary artists who we would absolutely consider a sort of modern day shaman. A musical alchemist, an artistic cypher, an abstract philosopher, a strangely charismatic, yet disarmingly humble master of any artistic endeavor he puts his mind to. A legendary (but now retired) tattoo artist, an incredible painter, whose paintings are at once hallucinatory and gorgeous (one painting adorns the cover of Leviathan's Tentacles Of Whorror record) and of course an incredible musician, whose sonic experiments range from the mesmeric riffrock of his band Lungfish, to an entire record of solo Jew's harp. But in addition to being an incredible lyricist, an amazing vocalist, and a master of the Jew's harp, Higgs is also a seriously mean guitar player, with a style and sound as familiar as it is totally alien. A gorgeous buzzing steel string drift through the cosmos. Lengthy droning ragas, that drift hypnotically from deconstructed Appalachia to John Cale like slow-shifting skree (joined on those tracks by violin), to moody melancholy crawls, to thick serpentine swirls of snake charmer melody and reverberating steel string shimmer. Raw and lo-fi for sure, but so darkly emotional, and dreamily hypnotic. We've been listening to this non stop since we got it and it continues to unfold more and more on each listen, we're thinking seriously about grabbing a boombox, taking a ton of peyote, blasting this tape and laying in the thick grass, sprawled naked on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere, beneath a sparkling moonlit sky. In other words, WAY RECOMMENDED!
SUPER LIMITED of course. In spiffy, ultra cryptic packaging.

HIGGS, DANIEL Say God (Thrill Jockey) 2cd 16.98
Modern day shaman Daniel Higgs returns with a two disc collection of songs and poems recorded (mostly) in LA last year with production wizard David Andrew Sitek of TV On The Radio. Higgs has been blowing minds here in the Bay Area since his temporary relocation to Oakland, and we were even fortunate enough to have him grace us with a wonderful in store performance not too long ago. The material on Say God perfectly captures what a Daniel Higgs performance is, with minimal but highly effective musical accompaniment to go along with Higgs' unique brand of poetry delivered in his amazing, rich voice, an instrument unto itself. Some people may be confused by the direction Higgs has followed in recent years, after all, this might initially seem to be the farthest thing from Lungfish's dense psychedelic songcraft. But throughout his musical journey, Higgs has maintained a completely singular creative approach, and his solo work reflects this as much as anything he's ever done. The interesting thing is how his albums blur the lines between what Daniel Higgs is: musician, artist, poet, singer, soundmaker, Interdimensional Song-Seamstress, etc. The end results are pretty much unlike anything else, and it's not surprising how many people are moved by this stuff, especially after seeing the man perform.
Disc 1 opens with current best song title of all time, "Hoofprints On The Ceiling Of Your Mind," which actually was recorded at a live performance in Germany, with Higgs announcing, "Holy Bible time" to what we can imagine was a stunned crowd. His vocals are accompanied by simple drone and a slight shaker rhythm. His voice carries the melody to new heights as he assures listeners that he intends to appeal to their (and our) standards of songcraft. Not surprisingly, he succeeds. "Song For Azariah" features a mournful folky Appalachian melody played on a banjo that also hints at some eastern influences. The lucky few who were able to snap up Higgs' super limited Hymnprovisations banjo freakout lp can certainly attest his ability on the instrument, and this only reaffirms that. "Say God" features some awesome trademark melodies from Higgs Lungfish/Pupils cohort and underrated guitar hero Asa Osborne, who some of you might also know from his Zomes project. Listening to this, you will wonder when and where this stuff is coming from. It possesses a strange timeless appeal, even though it may not be for everyone. Either way, it's something totally unique, and Osborne's guitar sweeps majestically beneath Higgs' vocals with some amazing results before ending with "A Message From The Beautiful", another piece with just harmonium and voice.
The second disc begins with "Root & Bough", with Higgs sounding a bit like a manlier Devendra Banhart (or maybe it should be Banhart we are comparing to Higgs?) as he recites a lengthy poem with a simple shruti box accompaniment. One of the best things about Higgs as a performer is his spontaneity, and these recordings represent the actual moment, with Higgs even coughing here and there to clear his throat. The power of his voice defines the song, and while definitely droney at times, unlike super blown out electric guitar drones, things here are much more intimate as Higgs weaves out his own mythology which will certainly keep you wondering for a while. At around the 6 minute mark, things take a dramatic shift as a heavy synth drone sweeps in, sounding like what you might expect from Expo '70 or Emeralds. Little whispy melodies begin to flutter about for a few minutes before returning to the drone that characterized the song earlier. About 12 minutes in (uh, did we mention that these are some long songs?), Higgs begins repeating the word "Sing" in a rhythmic pace. Make no mistake, this takes some patience to listen to, but the results are well worth the wait. It's not like you would expect little 3 minute pop songs with this guy, and you have to pay attention to even begin to understand what's going on in his world. However, the next song, "Jewel Of The East" is actually quite brief, a nice folky number performed on what might be a pump organ, it sounds like something you might find on the Wicker Man soundtrack. The song is repetitive and performed with the same loop like attention of Lungfish and Pupils. "Tumble Down" features Higgs' voice with no instrumentation save the sounds of crickets chirping outside. His natural vibrato is in good form as he goes from singing to speaking, all the while keeping things nice and tuneful. "Christ Among Us" finds Higgs breaking out his banjo again, always a joy to listen to. He also tells us, "This song possesses portal power", and one can tell he means it, as this is some transcendental stuff for sure.
We may be going out on a limb here, but some of us feel this is Higgs' strongest solo endeavor as of yet and a great place to start for the uninitiated. Say God is weird, mystical, and beyond comprehension (in a good way of course), but Higgs is the kind of artist with rabidly devoted fans who will no doubt agree with this album's absolute majesty.
MPEG Stream: "Hoofprints On The Ceiling Of Your Mind"
RealAudio clip: "Say God"
MPEG Stream: "Root & Bough"
MPEG Stream: "Jewel Of The East"

HIGGS, DANIEL Say God (Thrill Jockey) 2lp 17.98
Modern day shaman Daniel Higgs returns with a two disc collection of songs and poems recorded (mostly) in LA last year with production wizard David Andrew Sitek of TV On The Radio. Higgs has been blowing minds here in the Bay Area since his temporary relocation to Oakland, and we were even fortunate enough to have him grace us with a wonderful in store performance not too long ago. The material on Say God perfectly captures what a Daniel Higgs performance is, with minimal but highly effective musical accompaniment to go along with Higgs' unique brand of poetry delivered in his amazing, rich voice, an instrument unto itself. Some people may be confused by the direction Higgs has followed in recent years, after all, this might initially seem to be the farthest thing from Lungfish's dense psychedelic songcraft. But throughout his musical journey, Higgs has maintained a completely singular creative approach, and his solo work reflects this as much as anything he's ever done. The interesting thing is how his albums blur the lines between what Daniel Higgs is: musician, artist, poet, singer, soundmaker, Interdimensional Song-Seamstress, etc. The end results are pretty much unlike anything else, and it's not surprising how many people are moved by this stuff, especially after seeing the man perform.
Disc 1 opens with current best song title of all time, "Hoofprints On The Ceiling Of Your Mind," which actually was recorded at a live performance in Germany, with Higgs announcing, "Holy Bible time" to what we can imagine was a stunned crowd. His vocals are accompanied by simple drone and a slight shaker rhythm. His voice carries the melody to new heights as he assures listeners that he intends to appeal to their (and our) standards of songcraft. Not surprisingly, he succeeds. "Song For Azariah" features a mournful folky Appalachian melody played on a banjo that also hints at some eastern influences. The lucky few who were able to snap up Higgs' super limited Hymnprovisations banjo freakout lp can certainly attest his ability on the instrument, and this only reaffirms that. "Say God" features some awesome trademark melodies from Higgs Lungfish/Pupils cohort and underrated guitar hero Asa Osborne, who some of you might also know from his Zomes project. Listening to this, you will wonder when and where this stuff is coming from. It possesses a strange timeless appeal, even though it may not be for everyone. Either way, it's something totally unique, and Osborne's guitar sweeps majestically beneath Higgs' vocals with some amazing results before ending with "A Message From The Beautiful", another piece with just harmonium and voice.
The second disc begins with "Root & Bough", with Higgs sounding a bit like a manlier Devendra Banhart (or maybe it should be Banhart we are comparing to Higgs?) as he recites a lengthy poem with a simple shruti box accompaniment. One of the best things about Higgs as a performer is his spontaneity, and these recordings represent the actual moment, with Higgs even coughing here and there to clear his throat. The power of his voice defines the song, and while definitely droney at times, unlike super blown out electric guitar drones, things here are much more intimate as Higgs weaves out his own mythology which will certainly keep you wondering for a while. At around the 6 minute mark, things take a dramatic shift as a heavy synth drone sweeps in, sounding like what you might expect from Expo '70 or Emeralds. Little whispy melodies begin to flutter about for a few minutes before returning to the drone that characterized the song earlier. About 12 minutes in (uh, did we mention that these are some long songs?), Higgs begins repeating the word "Sing" in a rhythmic pace. Make no mistake, this takes some patience to listen to, but the results are well worth the wait. It's not like you would expect little 3 minute pop songs with this guy, and you have to pay attention to even begin to understand what's going on in his world. However, the next song, "Jewel Of The East" is actually quite brief, a nice folky number performed on what might be a pump organ, it sounds like something you might find on the Wicker Man soundtrack. The song is repetitive and performed with the same loop like attention of Lungfish and Pupils. "Tumble Down" features Higgs' voice with no instrumentation save the sounds of crickets chirping outside. His natural vibrato is in good form as he goes from singing to speaking, all the while keeping things nice and tuneful. "Christ Among Us" finds Higgs breaking out his banjo again, always a joy to listen to. He also tells us, "This song possesses portal power", and one can tell he means it, as this is some transcendental stuff for sure.
We may be going out on a limb here, but some of us feel this is Higgs' strongest solo endeavor as of yet and a great place to start for the uninitiated. Say God is weird, mystical, and beyond comprehension (in a good way of course), but Higgs is the kind of artist with rabidly devoted fans who will no doubt agree with this album's absolute majesty.
MPEG Stream: "Hoofprints On The Ceiling Of Your Mind"
RealAudio clip: "Say God"
MPEG Stream: "Root & Bough"
MPEG Stream: "Jewel Of The East"

HIGGS, DANIEL Ultraterrestrial Harvest Hymns (Moon Glyph) cassette 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest collection of mysterious musical missives from this modern day musical shaman, Daniel Higgs, he of the late great Lungfish, who transformed that band's penchant for looped cyclical noise rock, into his own brand of haunting hymn-like spiritual ragas. The main instrument here is banjo, but not played like any banjo you've ever heard, plucked and strummed, Higgs coaxing from the instrument a gorgeous array of sounds both melodic and textural, the buzzing notes layered and woven into a droned out buzz, a gorgeously hypnotic Eastern tinged mesmer, laced with mysterious spoken word segments, strange vocalizations. All super low fidelity, the sound constantly shifting, the ker-chunk of the button on the tape machine as much a part of the sound as the jagged primitive edits, and the dreamily lovely melodies, the sound is intimate and urgent, hypnotic and dreamy, there's even some primitive drum machines, which transform the sound, however briefly, into a strange sort of lo-fi krautrock, reminiscent of German Oak's bunker explorations, but way more abstract and psychedelic.
We could go on and on, but by now, most readers of the aQ list are well familiar with Higgs, and won't need much coaxing to grab one of these, especially considering it's LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, which means once these are gone, it's not entirely clear if we'll be able to get more...

HIGGS, DANIEL A.I.U. 08.11.2009 (Kukuruku Recordings) 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.
It's practically been raining super limited Daniel Higgs releases around here lately, first there were two different cassettes over the last few weeks, and now this live cd-r, recorded in Greece back in 2011, and released in an edition of 200 copies. And as always it's impossible to predict what exactly we're in for with a new Higgs record. Could be banjo, could be jaw harp, could be a strange spoken word sermon, could be some strange mix of all three. But for this particular performance, it's shruti box and vocals, a 34 minute excerpt from a sprawling two hour performance, the shruti box wheezing, unfurling a lush chordal whir, soon Higgs invites the audience to lay down, he introduces himself, and then proceeds to weave a magical sonic spell, his vocals soaring dramatically, chanting one second a wild trilling almost operatic howl the next, all over that droned out shimmery backdrop. The sound so mesmerizing and hypnotic, trancelike and very much like a psychedelic sonic sermon. As we've mentioned in the past, it's not hard to imagine Higgs as some sort of mysterious cult leader, and these recordings some strange series of rituals where the knowledge of the ancients is passed down to willing supplicants. So moving, emotional, and passionate, and yet another mysterious missive from our favorite modern day sonic shaman. Obviously, way recommended, but get one quick, cuz it's LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered. We got about 25 and most likely will not be able to get more. Housed in nice thick textured paper sleeves, with super striking Higgs-as-skull artwork.
MPEG Stream: "08.11.2009 (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "08.11.2009 (excerpt 2)"

HIGGS, DANIEL A.I.U. Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot (Thrill Jockey) lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The return of our favorite modern day shamen, Mr. Daniel Arcus Incus Ululat Higgs, maybe better known to some of you as Dan Higgs, the vocalist for the mighty Lungfish, or perhaps Higgs, the world renowned tattoo artist (now retired). A man who wears many hats: vocalist, painter, tattoo artist, poet, guitarist, master of the Jew's Harp, and who knows what else. We made Higgs' last full length Ancestral Songs record of the week last year, and since this one is just as good, if not better, we figured it deserved the same honor.
Truly one of the few modern day troubadours, Higgs is a mysterious traveling man, he'll occasionally show up at the store, looking as dapper and disheveled as ever, with tales of various explorations or experiences. The last time he stopped by, he had a little hand held tape recorder, and he had just returned from India, where he spent the whole time recording street musicians and crowds and animals and anything else that struck his fancy.
His music has the same quality, a sort of restless rootlessness, that is at once warm and familiar, but strangely alien and indescribable. On Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot, Higgs manages to weave all of his disparate sonic interests together into one seamless whole. Buzzing raga guitars, strange lo-fi field recordings, Jew's harp, all in varying states of fidelity, but the recording, the sound quality, the location and the background noise are as much a part of the music as the music itself.
Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot begins with a burst of static, like a strong wind on a microphone, before Higgs' guitar begins to buzz like some snake charming ritual, an Eastern tinged Appalachia, a rustic raga, the string buzzing, lots of distortion and shifting overtones creating all sorts of glorious tonal color. Ragged and ramshackle but completely mesmerizing. The second track is a dizzying seasick assemblage of wheezing harmonium and pounded chimes, atonal melodies and streaks of feedback, eventually fading out and leaving just Higgs' guitar to buzz and shimmer, a sprawling sun balked stretch of gorgeously pastoral Appalachia. "Spectral Hues" is a stuttering collage of manipulated tones, using just the record and stop buttons on a tape player, a primitive swirl of tones, transformed into a haunting melody, each note separated by the weird swoop and bbbzzzzt of the button being depressed. The title track is Higgs in full on electric guitar mode, or at least what sounds like an electric guitar, wailing and howling chaotically, unfurling some sort of old time jig, before again fading into a 'nother steel string workout, this one distinctly Indian sounding, a dense tangled raga, the notes overlapping and the strings' buzz smearing the sounds into thick swaths of sonic blur. "Creation Moan" is another tripped out psychguitar freakout. A buzzing overdriven squall of tangled upper register skree and low end rumble, what sounds like some traditional folk song transformed into snarling, squirming, grinding crumbling distorted buzz. And finally the nine minute final track, a swirling ambient drift, running water, some finger picked guitar, that suddenly winks out, leaving a wavering buzzscape, above which Higgs' Jew's Harp weaves haunting alien melodies, sometimes buzzing and reverberating, other times, speaking in tongues as Higgs sings into it. So haunting and unlike anything we've ever heard. Yet at the same time so strangely soothing, meditative and dreamlike.
It's always such a joy to step into Higgs' world, like traveling through the looking glass, or falling down the rabbit hole, and on the other side, in the mysterious world Higgs calls home, a world which we can only visit, and even in visiting, only see what hovers on the surface, we wander wide eyed and open eared, trying to take in everything we can before the record ends and we are pulled back into home, where we wait patiently for our next visit...
MPEG Stream: "Luminous Carcass Ornament"
MPEG Stream: "Cocoon On The Cross"
MPEG Stream: "Spectral Hues"

HIGGS, DANIEL A.I.U. Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot (Thrill Jockey) book + cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The return of our favorite modern day shamen, Mr. Daniel Arcus Incus Ululat Higgs, maybe better known to some of you as Dan Higgs, the vocalist for the mighty Lungfish, or perhaps Higgs, the world renowned tattoo artist (now retired). A man who wears many hats: vocalist, painter, tattoo artist, poet, guitarist, master of the Jew's Harp, and who knows what else. We made Higgs' last full length Ancestral Songs record of the week last year, and since this one is just as good, if not better, we figured it deserved the same honor.
Truly one of the few modern day troubadours, Higgs is a mysterious traveling man, he'll occasionally show up at the store, looking as dapper and disheveled as ever, with tales of various explorations or experiences. The last time he stopped by, he had a little hand held tape recorder, and he had just returned from India, where he spent the whole time recording street musicians and crowds and animals and anything else that struck his fancy.
His music has the same quality, a sort of restless rootlessness, that is at once warm and familiar, but strangely alien and indescribable. On Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot, Higgs manages to weave all of his disparate sonic interests together into one seamless whole. Buzzing raga guitars, strange lo-fi field recordings, Jew's harp, all in varying states of fidelity, but the recording, the sound quality, the location and the background noise are as much a part of the music as the music itself.
Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot begins with a burst of static, like a strong wind on a microphone, before Higgs' guitar begins to buzz like some snake charming ritual, an Eastern tinged Appalachia, a rustic raga, the string buzzing, lots of distortion and shifting overtones creating all sorts of glorious tonal color. Ragged and ramshackle but completely mesmerizing. The second track is a dizzying seasick assemblage of wheezing harmonium and pounded chimes, atonal melodies and streaks of feedback, eventually fading out and leaving just Higgs' guitar to buzz and shimmer, a sprawling sun balked stretch of gorgeously pastoral Appalachia. "Spectral Hues" is a stuttering collage of manipulated tones, using just the record and stop buttons on a tape player, a primitive swirl of tones, transformed into a haunting melody, each note separated by the weird swoop and bbbzzzzt of the button being depressed. The title track is Higgs in full on electric guitar mode, or at least what sounds like an electric guitar, wailing and howling chaotically, unfurling some sort of old time jig, before again fading into a 'nother steel string workout, this one distinctly Indian sounding, a dense tangled raga, the notes overlapping and the strings' buzz smearing the sounds into thick swaths of sonic blur. "Creation Moan" is another tripped out psychguitar freakout. A buzzing overdriven squall of tangled upper register skree and low end rumble, what sounds like some traditional folk song transformed into snarling, squirming, grinding crumbling distorted buzz. And finally the nine minute final track, a swirling ambient drift, running water, some finger picked guitar, that suddenly winks out, leaving a wavering buzzscape, above which Higgs' Jew's Harp weaves haunting alien melodies, sometimes buzzing and reverberating, other times, speaking in tongues as Higgs sings into it. So haunting and unlike anything we've ever heard. Yet at the same time so strangely soothing, meditative and dreamlike.
It's always such a joy to step into Higgs' world, like traveling through the looking glass, or falling down the rabbit hole, and on the other side, in the mysterious world Higgs calls home, a world which we can only visit, and even in visiting, only see what hovers on the surface, we wander wide eyed and open eared, trying to take in everything we can before the record ends and we are pulled back into home, where we wait patiently for our next visit...
As if that weren't enough, the cd version comes with a full color hardcover book of Higgs' paintings and 'poetry', a series of cryptic acrostics to be more accurate. The Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot series of paintings are all, like most of Higgs' work, strange and wondrous, here the focus is on enigmatic amorphous shapes, vividly colored, with all manner of textures and designs, stripes, polka dots, some of the shapes look like whales or fish, others like mushrooms, eyeballs, amoebas, shapeless heads, each filled with symbols, colors and patterns. The accompanying acrostics are cryptic and it's difficult to determine if they are related to the paintings they are beside, MUSIC, BIRDS, MIND, EDEN, PEACE, EMBRYO, BELOVED, COITUS... all offering up mysterious pearls of wisdom like "Always braid your silver serpents" or "Existence manifests between ravenous yellow orbs".
The perfect visual accompaniment to Higgs' raw and primitive musical rituals...
MPEG Stream: "Luminous Carcass Ornament"
MPEG Stream: "Cocoon On The Cross"
MPEG Stream: "Spectral Hues"

HIGH DEPENDENCY UNIT Tunguska cd 7.98

HIGH MOUNTAIN TEMPEL A Screaming Comes Across The Sky - The Faultline Scriptures (Lotus House) cd-r 7.98
Record number two from this mysterious drone-kraut styled duo. Their last disc was a huge hit around here, so we were pretty thrilled to get our hands on this one, a logical sonic extension of the first, delving deeper into some murky tripped out twilit soundworld.
The disc opens with shimmering clouds of gongs and cymbals, whirring and sizzling, suspended over a deep distant rumble, a delicate intro to a record at once hypnotic and lovely, dark and dense.
The record is arranged into three epic tracks, interspersed with short sonic interludes, ranging from field recordings of crickets, looped chants (Elizabeth Clare Prophet if we're not mistaken), spirituals and mysterious liturgical songs, whirring drones, and backwards percussion, but it's the long tracks where the duo get to spread out, let their dense soundscapes sprawl.
The three long tracks sounds like movements of a greater whole, clocking in at 15 minutes, 11 minutes and nearly 17 minutes respectively, each rife with creepy delayed vocals, churning guitars and smeared chords, roiling muddy whirls, which often dissipate leaving streaks of fragmented melody and haunting slowed down voices. Buried amidst the drones and whirs, are lullaby-like melodies, skittery percussion, streaks of grinding distortion, hidden voices, more field recordings, thick swaths of cavernous rumbles, little bits of electronic glitch and lots and lots of low end buzz.
Packaged in a fancy navy blue fold over sleeve, screenprinted in white ink, with a photocopied insert with liner notes and song credits.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES! Each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Mektoub"
MPEG Stream: "Dispatch 23 From He Kali Yuga"

HIGH MOUNTAIN TEMPEL Pacific Sky Burial (Axaxaxas Mlo) (Lotus House) cd-r 7.98
This is our first exposure to the High Mountain Tempel duo, and everything, from the design, to the name, to the sound, is very ritualistic indeed, like the sounds of some dark ceremony performed in some ancient temple atop, well, some high mountain.
Strange and haunting monk-like chants recur throughout the record, usually, wrapped in deep resonant drones, moaning foghorn like rumbles everything drenched in reverb and delay, like hearing everything through the sacrificial smoke of the most recent sacrifice.
Elsewhere bird calls mirror disembodied guitar melodies, the various sound fragments allowed to drift and then settle on the ground, the proceedings all wrapped in a thick murky ambience, as if suddenly the treble knob was turned all the way down and the bass knob all the way up, the melodies muted and muddy, like some dark slow moving stream, flowing gently beneath a black sky, and trees alive with small and mysterious creatures. In fact this whole record is rife with the sounds (manufactured or sampled, not always easy to tell) of various beasts and fowl, a very 'lost in the jungle' vibe permeating the proceedings.
The last chunk of the record is a gloriously glistening, lugubrious crawl, thick swells of sparkling sound wrapped around twisted low end shapes, all drifting lazily into some mysterious dark wood...
Packaged in a swank black fold over sleeve, screenprinted in gold metallic ink, with a photocopied insert with liner notes and song credits.
MPEG Stream: "Tempel Walk"
MPEG Stream: "Harkonen Veda"
MPEG Stream: "drugsmeditationhypnosis"

HIGH MOUNTAIN TEMPEL The Glass Bead Game (Lotus House) cd-r 7.98
Part three in the ongoing series of limited cd-r explorations from mysterious drone combo High Mountain Tempel, and like the two before it, the band continue to delve into some murky sonic underworld, again presenting loooong songs, each separated by brief sonic interludes, this disc seems feature more actual vocals, the opening track features a processed voice, that sounds a bit like throat singing, or a Speak And Spell, intoning some arcane message, interwoven with long drawn out tones, and a thick ropy buzz, super dark and intense and atmospheric. Elsewhere sampled voices surface, there are bits of chanting here and there, all peppered throughout the disc. But even with the extra voices, the focus here is still on dark, lugubrious, extended dronescapes.
The sound of High Mountain Tempel is probably closest to Expo '70, as their various permutations of dronemusic seem to have a definite krautrock vibe, that gives the sound a sort of spaced out quality, and a subtle propulsion, but unlike Expo '70, HMT seem to have a distinct Eastern influence, much of the music is meditative and subtly dramatic, a bit soundtracky, and some of it sounds like it could be Japanese. Especially the way field recordings are incorporated into the sounds. Giving everything a definite texture, some of it sounding like it was perhaps recorded live in some hilltop temple. Which we would imagine is the idea.
Not sure what else to say actually. This is indeed fantastic, brooding and malefic, but also shimmery and dreamy, sonically it has much in common with the first two installments, so definitely check out those reviews to read more about their 'sound'.
Needless to say, fans of the drone and folks into the current crop of cd-r soundscapers will for sure dig this, but like the other HMT discs, this is more than simple drone music, this is ritualistic alchemical soundwork, one can almost imagine stumbling across a group of cloaked figures huddled around a fire in a forest clearing, tossing various powders into the flames, causing the fire to change color and cast beastlike shadows on the branches above, and this is the sound filtering through the forest like a black moonlit fog...
SUPER LIMITED of course, packaged beautifully in a foldover silkscreened sleeve, gold metallic on red on the outside, black on red on the inside.
MPEG Stream: "Humming In The Night's Skull"

HIGH WOLF Atlas Nation (Holy Mountain) lp 15.98
French one man psychedelic loopscaper High Wolf finds his way onto our pal JW's Holy Mountain label, and offers up another mesmerizing collection of collaged soundscapes and rhythmic mesmer, but unlike on past records where the High Wolf sound was dense, and noisy, a little chaotic, a Birchville Cat Motel like slow build to a dense layered soft cacophony, the sounds here are much more blissed out and dubby, very rhythmic with a bit of an Eastern vibe, the opening track especially sounds like a more lysergic Muslimgauze, with some sitar like buzz and tribal hand drums woven into the song's blurred soft swells and spidery melodies, it's easily the dreamiest thing we've heard from HW, and we definitely wish it had gone one way longer. The second track offers up more of the same, with a bit more effects, muted percussion, some warm fuzzed out shimmer, all in a haze of washed out effects, until the low end swoops in, thick and dense, synthy and warbly, a strange fuzzy pulse laid over that initial rhythm, a dark raga like kosmische sound that drifts and shimmers hypnotically until the song finally winds down.
Track three, "Raagini" begins all raga buzz, layered high end tones, but quickly blossoms into a sound more like the High Wolf of old, a gauzy expanse of mesmerizing buzz, but here the drones are laid over a strange sonar like pulse, which gives the otherwise nearly static buzz an otherworldly propulsion. "Kenya Sunset" is another one that starts off all Muslimgauze-y, looped and darkly rhythmic, ominous and cinematic, the surrounding sounds in constant motion, totally tranced out, the sort of thing we could listen to forever, but instead of going on forever, the song erupts into a wild psychedelic squall, that wraps itself around that pulsing rhythm, and rides it for the length of the track. And then finally, the nearly 14 minute "Haiti" smooths the looped rhythms into something much more abstract and droney, some spaced out psychedelic drift, that builds slowly into a warm washed out celestial swirl, all bleary and blurry and dreamy, but still shot through with some smoldering psychedelic guitar, the perfect closer to one of our favorite High Wolf records yet.
Includes a download coupon as well!
MPEG Stream: "Fuji Descent"
MPEG Stream: "The Dawn Of Man"

HIGH WOLF Incapulco (Segent Masscre) lp 28.00
Latest from this French psychedelic loopscaper, hot on the heels of his Ascension lp, which we loved (and still have a few copies of, just ask!). Like Ascension, Incapulco finds Mr. Wolf, assembling sprawling landscapes of layered loops, of swirling psychedelic atmospheres, mesmerizing, hypnotic, repetitive, cyclical, total tranced out zoner bliss. Wah guitars are wreathed in effects and wrapped around stuttering percussions and whorls of tinkling melody, wild tangles of African rhythms wound tight over soft moody swells and shoegazey shimmer, hushed hazy atmospheric drift shot through with tendrils of glitched out electronics, a sort of industrial flecked new age dronescape, fracture eighties pop, lopped and looped into a Ferraro-esque bit of lysergic Tropicalia, soft swirls of prismatic analog synth give way to woozy Casiocore lounge drift, pulsing motorik churn underpinning flecks of psychedelic wah and heaving crumbling thrum.
Another fantastic collection of consciousness altering sonic shimmer and bongsmoke fueled ur-drone dream loop mesmer, for anyone into Skaters, James Ferraro, Monopoly Child Star Searchers, Avarus, Natural Snow Buildings, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Starving Weirdos, etc...
MPEG Stream: "Do You Have A Moustache?"
MPEG Stream: "Bizarre Moonlight"

HIGUCHI, HISATO Butterfly Horse Street (Family Vineyard) cd 14.98
Been meaning to get to this one for a while... and then we reviewed it and our supplier was out of stock... but now they've got 'em again and here you go: Japanese guitarist Hisato Higuchi's previous disc on the Family Vineyard label, Dialogue, was all about the almost motionless, mysterious spare strum, a lonely n' lovely abstract guitar meditation. This newer disc starts off that way, with the quietly beautiful "A Hundred Signs Of Light"... but then, when track two, "Grow", kicks in, Higuchi's guitar playing suddenly, surprisingly takes a thrilling turn into amped up electric skree territory. It still sounds lonely and lovely - just WAY more loud and distorted. "Blood And Leaves" follows in the same vein. But then "Melody In The Mud" takes us back to the hushed, minimal moodiness of the first track... though 'tis only a brief (1:39) interlude before the next track, "Electric Guitar Light", erupts in full speaker shredding glory. It's a bit like Loren Connors sharing an album with Keiji Haino (hmmm, actually, those two have done that, but it's been a while and we can't say for sure that's what this sounds like...).
This album continues like this, Higuchi's somnolent, near-ambient songs (with some breathy, barely-there vocals), abutting others that aren't nearly so mellow... one of those is album-ender "Cry Baby Flowers", which sounds something like Eddie Hazel's "Maggot Brain" with a Merzbow makeover. Actually these crinkly-cranked distorted guitar solos -are- still sorta mellow, or at least mesmeric, but only if you're used to enjoying noisier stuff. Certainly they share the same slo-mo suggestions of melody and melancholia with the quieter pieces on here...
Definitely for fans of Neil Youngish fuzz freakout feedback side of Nagisa Ni Te, or Hjiokaidan noise guitar maven Jojo Hiroshige's more "musical" solo efforts. We really, really like it.
MPEG Stream: "A Hundred Signs Of Light"
MPEG Stream: "Grow"
MPEG Stream: "Blood And Leaves"

HIGUCHI, HISATO / ZELIENOPLE Tsuki No Seika Volume Four (Root Strata) 7" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

HIGUMA Den Of The Spirits (Digitalis Recordings) lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the second bit of gorgeous ambient folk drone we've heard from Higuma, the duo of Barn Owl's Evan Caminiti and his musical partner Lisa McGee, after a criminally limited cd-r on Root Strata, sadly this lp is nearly as limited, only 250 copies total, already sold out and out of print, except maybe for the 25 copies we have right now, which as you know means, be quick or be dead (dead as in, no Higuma for you, you won't actually die, maybe).
The sounds is much like you might expect from the Barn Owl / Elm / Caminiti and now Higuma axis, looooong tracks of dark windswept shimmer, dense brooding drones and epic abstract folk flecked drift.
Clouds of processed guitar swirl ghostlike above buried rhythms, chant like vox, skeletal melodies, the sounds sprawl and smolder, occasionally building to drugged out Spacemen 3-like soft cacophonies, but just as often melting into something more delicate and space-y with spidery psychedelic guitars blurred into distant swells, gongs and chimes, adding mysterious textures and overtones to the already gloriously murky and moody proceedings.
The whole record is a delicate assemblage of whir and buzz and rumble, the sounds intertwined, smeared, layered into spectral space drone, but always remaining earthy and organic, not OF the stars, but earthbound and staring up INTO the stars, the sound of deep black night, dusted with starlight, all held at bay by the flicker and crackle of Higuma's slow burning dreamlike blurscapes.
So gorgeous. Cool handscreened sleeves, original art by Caminiti, and again, 250 copies, out of print, and unavailable once these final copies are gone...

HIGUMA Haze Velley (Root Strata) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wholly enveloping, river soaked, fog piercing drone. Barn Owl's Evan Caminiti and a previously unknown-to-us artist named Lisa McGee collaborate to bring forth cathartic ruminations in the form of ghostly guitar, softly sparring vocals, various percussive devices and an unnamable, innumerable catalog of various other instruments. The collaboration was a live improvisational affair, which the liner notes claim was recorded "in the valley." The appropriately and cleverly named album, Haze Valley, name checks one of our own neighborhoods here in San Francisco, Hayes Valley. Anyone who checked out and enjoyed any of the releases by Cloaks, White Rainbow (particularly the more sedate side), Barn Owl (obviously), or La Monte Young will be pleased with what they'll find here. Make no mistake about it, this is definitive dronemusic. While it is beautiful and has some structured elements, this is for the true trippers. Those looking for hummable hooks and such may find more satisfaction looking elsewhere, but for an immersive, spiritual headphones experience, this is your destination. It is also worth noting that the cover art was made by Evan, and its burgeoning crystal pyramid couldn't be more lovely or more perfectly suited to the sounds found herein. Drone freaks beware, this could easily take over your stereo.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!! These are the only ones we'll ever have...
MPEG Stream: "Crimson Cloud Ascension"
MPEG Stream: "Winter Bloom"

HIGUMA Pacific Fog Dreams (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.
Pacific Fog Dreams is the latest missive of abstract droned out psychedelia from Higuma, the duo of Evan Caminiti (of Barn Owl) and Lisa McGee, a logical extension of Caminiti's twang drone doom folk soundscaping in Barn Owl, Higuma finds Caminiti and McGee crafting epic, roiling expanses of smoldering slow burn shimmer and hushed apocalyptic minimalism, heaving sheets of distorted sound swirl like black clouds in a grey sky, lit from within by a distant sun, that glow a constant source of deep divine melody, each track an ancient ritual depicted in sound, a journey from some deep lost other world to some future unknowable self, the various instruments woven into undulating sonic tapestries, McGee's reverbed disembodied voice a glowing thread running throughout, the sound shifting from shoegazey to hazy, warm and whispery to dark and droney, occasionally erupting into gouts of grinding super distorted psychedelic effulgence, the vocals following right along soaring into the stratosphere, a keening high end melody held aloft by the burnished blackened guitar thrum.
Elsewhere, the guitars hover and drift, a swirling hum, a spectral presence, the various melodies blurred and smeared into the background, becoming a strange prismatic ever shifting landscape of chordal fragments, each like the ghost of some lost song, soon to be swallowed up by a wave of crumbling corrosive buzz, a strangely melodious bit of SUNNO))) blasted crush, the edges smoothed, the grit worn away, leaving a thick undulating swell of bleary, blissed out shimmer, laced with tendrils of steel string buzz, and wreathed in garlands of whir and blur and rumble.
The final movement begins as steel grey streaks of chordal corrosion peel away, leaving nothing but swirling shadows and barely there billows of echo drenched drone, before blossoming into a strum laden slow build, a sea of sympathetic vibrations and lush overtones, keening high end shimmers off in the distance, and a dense melodic center, pulsing, the melody threatening to break free, but held in check by swaths of whirling buzz, the various sounds slowly loosing their bonds, and becoming one, the colors running together, creating a dark black buzz, that trails off into the night sky.
So gorgeous. Beautiful packaging too, and of course, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Pacific Temple"
MPEG Stream: "Burning Colors"
MPEG Stream: "The Veiled Lamp"

HIJOKAIDAN Polar Nights Live (Pica Disk) cd 14.98
Japanese noise aficionados, this highlight's for you... nope it's not another Merzbow album, but something quite a bit less common: new Hijokaidan! The facts in the case of this newest Hijokaidan noise atrocity as are follows: three tracks, approximately 25-27 minutes each, all recorded live at the 2006 All Ears Festival in Oslo, Norway. Actually only the first track is Hijokaidan proper, the other two being variant line-ups featuring a guest Norwegian musician dueting with one or the other of the two core Hijokaidan members. Track one, "No Oslo No Harm", is classic Hijokaidan howl, from the duo of Jojo (guitar) and Junko (voice). An ear melting white noise screech n' screamathon, natch. Track two, "Book Of Changes", featuring Jojo teamed up with another guitarist, the Norwegian Per Gisle Galaen, is just a bit more, er, "musical" and dynamic, with even some moments of relative peace and calm amidst this psychedelic (a la Keiji Haino) storm of droning, exploding, feedbacking "out" guitar destruction... while Jojo is a master of the art, Per Gisle Galaen more than holds his own. With all its vacuum cleaner violence and low end clangor and buried hints of fragile melody, we'd pick this as our fave selection on this heavy duty disc.
Third up is "Le Rayon Verte", a track performed by the duo of vocalist Junko and one Sten Ove Toft on electronics. The electronics are a grinding, crumpled distortion pile-up, the vocals an endless squeaky wheel shriek. It's harrowing to say the least, like hearing the sounds emanating from a torture chamber/wind tunnel combination!
This is one of the first three releases we've had on the new Pica Disk label run by Norwegian noise dude Lasse Marhaug (Jazzkammer, Jazkamer, etc.) along with the new disc from New Zealand's Birchville Cat Motel also highlighted this list, and another Japanese noise entry from Hijokaidan compatriots the Incapacitants. Clearly Pica Disk means business!
MPEG Stream: "No Oslo No Harm"
MPEG Stream: "Book Of Changes"

HILDEBRAND, GUSTAF Primordial Resonance (Cyclic Law) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "Omega Continuum"
MPEG Stream: "Post Oblivion Fields"

HILL, MATT / DUANE PITRE / JUSTIN WRIGHT (EXPO '70) Live At The Pistol Social Club+ (Kill Shaman) 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.
***Expo '70 alert*** ***Expo '70 alert*** ***Expo '70 alert***
That's right, we're sounding that alert 'cause you might not know these names... suffice to say though that Justin Wright is better known (to AQ customers) as the guy behind Expo '70, whose new full-length cd Black Ohms happens to be our Record Of The Week this list. And Matt Hill is his touring partner, whom you've seen together with Wright if you caught 'em recently in SF at the Hemlock with Wooden Shjips, or elsewhere on tour. Also, their pal Duane Pitre is another guitar-wielding dronester with tendencies in line with the cosmic Expo '70 aesthetic. The prolific Expo '70 being an outfit we've continually championed as they constantly amaze us with their sooooo gorgeous, '70s krautrock inspired, spaced out instrumental drone musick.
There's four tracks here on this solid black cd-r. The seventeen minute long track one, finds Wright, Hill and Pitre playing together, droning out mightily, live at someplace called The Pistol Social Club. The credits have 'em all playing guitar, all responsible for "textures, drones", with Pitre also on "prepared percussion, disjointed lines" and Wright handling "melodic lines" as well. It starts as a hushed ambient soundscape, at once spacious and intimate, hesitantly melodic and repetitiously trancelike; raw, rough edges softened by gentle whirr, their guitars' volume gradually increasing, eventually building into a quite dense, distorted finale.
Then there's one track apiece from Hill, Pitre, and Wright. Hill's seven minute contribution is all acoustic guitar and field recordings, sparse pickings and pluckings, sounding like a broken music box, crank turned at half-speed, backwards, amidst nighttime insect buzz. Unidentifiable crackle, rustle, and hiss infuse the plinking proceedings, which could be a mellowed out Derek Bailey with Jewelled Antler production. Pitre's piece, "Motorized Music for Electric Guitar (live)" is what that says: a live performance, at a church in Brooklyn, with Pitre applying a "handheld high-speed rotary tool" to the strings of his electric guitar. The result is a twelve minute Niblockian drone divine, slow-building and shimmery. Wonderful. And then Wright bats cleanup, ending the disc with a live improv guitar piece featuring the use of two amps, and, we're told, a squeaky chair. It's ten and a half minutes of dreamy, subtle cosmic throb and drift, with sci-fi electronic FX whispering from outer space to swirl around this piece's glowing meditative center. So nice.
For Expo '70 fans and anyone into the guitar-drone-zone, this here's a varied four-part treat indeed!
MPEG Stream: HILL / PITRE / WRIGHT "Live At The Pistol Social Club April 29th, 2007"
MPEG Stream: DUANE PITRE "Motorized Music For Electric Guitar (live)"

HILL, ZACH + MICK BARR ZH/MB Volume 2 (Rock Is Hell) lp 22.00
Who could possibly be a match for Mick Barr's (Crom-Tech, Orthrelm, Octis, Ocrilm) insane avant sci-fi guitar shredding? We would have thought no one... But it makes sense, that the only true match for Barr's fretboard wiggery would be Zach Hill, a sort of Yngwie Malmsteen of the drum kit. A spastic octopoidal drum freak, who can cram a million more beats into a song than the busiest drummer you can think of. Not sure why no one thought of getting these guys together sooner. Their first meeting took place on last year's Shred Earthship, and now we have ZH/MB Volume 2.
And the results, much like on Shred Earthship are just what you would have expected. A mind blowing, ear shredding, speaker melting squiggle and noodle shredfest. Dense squalls of wildly dueling drum splatter and guitar freakout. Often note for note. Is it free jazz? Is it avant metal? Is it outrageous instrumental wankery? Well yeah, it sort of is, ALL of those. Ultra complex, incredibly convoluted, might be a stretch to call these songs, instead they seem to be exercises in instrumental dexterity, each one an over the top psychedelic metal freakout that has the listener panting and about to pass out after only thirty seconds, lord knows how these guys can keep it up for a whole record. The opener is the jazziest, due in no small part to some surprisingly melodic sax, but after that, it's one on one, drums vs. guitar, each wrapped around the other in some sort of insane ultimate fighting chokehold, a non stop barrage of notes and beats... imagine that someone had been collecting every note ever played, and every drum beat, and just piling them up in a huge dumpster, they're tiny, they don't take up that much room, but a trillion, or a million billion trillion, have that dumpster just about full. Now imagine being strapped down to a huge slab of black concrete, with strange metallic implements holding your ears wide open, then imagine that entire dumpster being upended and all of those notes and beats showering down on you like some sort of musical avalanche or metallic hailstorm. Sound good? Well then, my friend, this is indeed the record for you...
Packaged in killer white cloud on bright yellow sleeves, most are on black vinyl, a few are on yellow, so you might just get lucky. But don't ask, we said: YOU. MIGHT. GET. LUCKY.
Limited to 303 copies!!! We got a handful, and will NOT be able to get more.

HILLAGE, STEVE Rainbow Dome Musick (Caroline) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Like Robert Fripp and Manuel Gottsching, the UK's Steve Hillage is a stellar guitarist who came out of the prog era (Arzachel, Khan, Gong) to mine his own unique cosmic territory that could be the blueprint for latter day ambient techno. His amazing guitar work on Gong's Radio Invisible trilogy, especially the epically spacious "You", was just the first stepping stone toward this 1979 avant-new age masterpiece, Rainbow Dome Musick, originally recorded for an on-site installation at an actual Rainbow Dome in London.
While it must have been -really- an experience inside the Dome, it's even now a fantastic listen at home on headphones. Two 20-minute, side-long tracks built from the sequenced filtering of guitars, piano, synths and bells, that organically glide from phased rhythmic passages to expansive cloud-like washes of sound. It's definitely much more ambient than Hillage's other albums up to that point, but as blissed out and new agey as it is, with the sounds of gurgling water (starting side one) and shimmering drones, you won't forget he's a killer electric guitarist either. Obviously, a heavy influence on The Orb, who later collaborated with Hillage, after they met in an club where to Hillage's surprise, Alex Patterson of the Orb was spinning Rainbow Dome Musick in the chill-out lounge, so the story goes! Another essential entry of cosmic proto-new age sounds for fans of Fripp and Eno, Cluster, Ariel Kalma, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Eberhard Schoener and Ashra. We recently got into this album, ordered it for the store on cd, and heartily recommend it - though it seems to sell itself anyway when people see the cover, something about that hypnotic vibrating rainbow dome image...
MPEG Stream: "Four Ever Rainbow"
MPEG Stream: "Garden of Paradise"

HILLER, WILFRIED Book Of Stars (Celestial Harmonies) 2cd 28.00

HINTERDING, JOYCE Spectral (Antioptic / Sigma) cd 13.98
You don't even have to hear this to know this is another perfect Aquarius disc: A work for magnetic fields, weather satellites, custom built antennae and force fields. Whoo yeah! Force fields! Lucky for us, it sounds as good as we hoped it would. Very reminiscent of Stephen P. McGreevy's Auroral Chorus II: The Music of the Magnetosphere and Electric Enigma discs of VLF recordings of the Aurora Borealis and other atomospheric electronic phenomena. But Hinterding's recordings are even better, which is saying a lot, considering how much we LOVED those McGreevy discs! The elements are quite similar: staticky buzz, squeaks and whistles, rumbling whirs, clicking and chirping, buzzing hiss and warbly white noise, but on Spectral, those sounds drift and shift, causing all sorts of rhythmic variations and almost-melodies to emerge. There are moments where throbbing pulses and random clicks coalesce into minutely propulsive little micro-rhythms, that chug along until they slowly disipate into the ether. Also the overall sound is thicker, with a solid, warm, whirring drone, underpinning all of the various sonic activities, making this a little less harsh and a lot more dreamy and way more substantial. There's still lots of upper register skree, but it's nestled in a churning roiling bed of fuzzy, humming whir. Beautiful stuff. Proving once again, that no matter how hard we try to make strange and original music, nature was there first, doing it better.
MPEG Stream: "Spectral 1"
MPEG Stream: "Spectral 2"

HIRSCHE NICHT AUFS SOFA Im Schatten Der Mohre (Streamline / Drag City) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Im Schatten Der Mohre", originally released in 1987 on Dom Records, was the fourth album from the collected bent minds of Christoph Heeman, Achim P. Li Khan and Andreas Martin. Long deleted, unavailable for years, and thus highly sought after, this classic post-Faustian surrrealist assemblage is finally available again for the first time on cd via Heeman's Streamline label. Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa (literally "Moose Without A Sofa") originated in 1983 as a collaboration between Khan and a then eighteen year old Christoph Heeman. Inspired, no doubt, by Nurse With Wound and Stephen Stapleton's exuberant list of influences, the experiments of H.N.A.S. had come to an apex with the inclusion of Andreas Martin and in 1987, the record in question. "Im Schatten..." is highly reminiscent of the aforementioned NWW, early period Coil and, though Heeman would strongly disagree, the sound collage work of German rock-experimentalist pioneers Faust. Meditative, trance-inducing drones and gorgeous melancholic soundscapes collide with dissonant sonic abstractions while lulling piano breaks are juxtaposed amongst frail, inquisitive field recordings, spoken dadaist fragments and appropriations from early contemporary avant garde records. Very ahead of its time, and though more scattered and surrealist, foreshadows the dense, expansive soundscapes Heeman would later conjure with Andrew Chalk as Mirror.
RealAudio clip: "Im Schatten Der Mohre 1"
RealAudio clip: "Im Schatten Der Mohre 2"

HIRSCHE NICHT AUFS SOFA Kuttel Im Frost (Dom) cd 17.98
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"Kuttel Im Frost" -- the third album for the German avant-collage-rock ensemble Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa -- situates itself between with the idiosyncratic experiments of Nurse With Wound (admittedly HNAS' biggest influence) and the art-damaged strategies from Die Todliche Doris. Essentially HNAS was the duo of Achim P. Li Khan and Christoph Heemann working with a number of likeminded audio oddballs. As heard on their other records, this album features sprawlingly sparse improvisations for noddling guitars, piano, harmonica, bass rumble, and tons of oscillating, spiralling, and otherwise lysergic studio effects, recalling the early Nurse With Wound album "Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella." Yet scattered throughout this album, HNAS places seasick ditties that point to their "Im Schatten Der Mohre" record, as Heemann and Khan set up off-kilter loops (or possibly misaligned vinyl spinning on a turntable) and then awkwardly attempt to play around those loops with standard rock instrumenation. Quite odd indeed.
RealAudio clip: "Widerlicher Mitttelpunkt Der Abendgesellschaft"
RealAudio clip: "Mutter, Von Kunst Versteh' Ich Einen Dreck"
RealAudio clip: "Man Warf 2 Stunden Mobel Aus Dem Fenster"

HIRSCHE NICHT AUFS SOFA Melchior (Dom) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
HNAS's fourth album "Im Schatten Der Mohre" has often been cited as the best work from these '80s German eccentrics, following a longstanding opinion from HNAS's Christoph Heemann supporting such a statement. Yet a reissue campaign of four other HNAS recordings (dubiously released by Heemann's estranged HNAS collaborator Achim P. Li Khan) may challenge Heemann's claims. "Melchior" (in my opinion, the best of the HNAS recordings) was the 2nd official album for Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa (translated as Moose Without A Sofa), originally released back in 1986 through Steven Stapleton's United Dairies. The presence of Stapleton and his wife Diana Rogerson (aka Chrystal Belle Scrodd) certainly slants "Melchior" into the paratactic Dada and post-Faust idiosyncrasy of mid-'80s Nurse With Wound (especially "Sylvie and Babs"). Just as NWW has always been the studio-driven vehicle for Stapleton's absurd audio experiments, HNAS -- in 1986 the duo of P. Li Khan and Heemann -- used the studio as an alchemical means to recontextualize Krautrock's experimentalism, cheeseball disco, Teutonic chants, and Eastern European prog rock into an aesthetic collision, that always teetered between working brilliantly and collapsing into a mess of delay ridden effects. When Stapleton's freak-out guitar and Rogerson's eeriely disembodied / disaffected voice appear (which I've always been partial to), HNAS gets noticeably better in their monochord guitar blurts, plodding percussion, bleeding 23 Skidoo horns, and unnerving atmospherres. That said, I'll admit my bias in favor of NWW over HNAS. Regardless, "Melchior" should be required 'out-there' listening!
RealAudio clip: "Im Sommer Gibt's Nix Zu Essen"
RealAudio clip: "Mastvieh Ohne Socken"
RealAudio clip: "Tonnenschwer Im Abendkleid"
RealAudio clip: "Speck Des Jahres"

HIRSCHE NICHT AUFS SOFA The Book Of Dingenskirchen (Dom) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Possibly the rarest of all of the HNAS recordings to be re-issued by Achim P. Li Khan's Dom Recordings (much to the disapproval of fellow HNAS collaborator Christoph Heemann), "The Book Of Dingenskirchen" was originally pressed in an edition of a whopping 90 copies (20 black, 70 clear). It's unclear what the vinyl featured in terms of artwork, but Khan has 'restored' the original artwork for this CD reissue, since that tiny vinyl pressing couldn't justify the high costs of a full-color sleeve. It has to be stated that I've always felt HNAS has never risen above their desire to be the German equivalent of Nurse With Wound. This should only be taken as a minor criticism, as NWW is admittedly a synthesis of uncompromisingly vangarde artists as Pierre Henry, Robert Ashley, Sun Ra, and everybody else from the "Nurse With Wound list." Yet HNAS is less about the Dadaist recombinations of previous ideas into newly authored sounds, and more about recreating the idiosyncratic elements that run through Stapleton's recordings. "The Book Of Dingenskirchen" follows many of the ideas that Stapleton put forward on the first NWW record, "Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella" with indifferent guitar noodlings and piano tinklings amidst a variable density of collaged splatter for filtered voices, crashing metallic objects, and loads of studio effects. As with all of these reissues, "The Book of Dingenskirchen" fills up the full 70+ CD with bonus tracks, out-takes, live cuts, etc.
RealAudio clip: "Ich Hatte Im Falschen Moment Die Schnauze Voll"
RealAudio clip: "Gurka"

HIRSCHE NICHT AUFS SOFA / MIESES GEGONGE Abwassermusik (Dom) cd 17.98
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This is the CD reissue of the first HNAS album, "Abwassermusik" which was a collaboration with the equally obtuse Mieses Gegonge - a German outfit that produced a few compilation tracks and cassettes in the mid-'80s and not much else. Of all of recordings that have recently been re-released, "Abwassermusik" is the most primitive album for HNAS both in terms of production techniques and sound quality. Furthermore, it's the album that least sounds like Nurse With Wound - the most common comparison for the group. Here, HNAS and Mieses Gegonge bury almost every sound - low end drones, vocal mumblings, two note rock plod, Keith Rowe guitar plucks, indeterminant radio samples, violin squiggles, and various non-specific clatters - within a thick field of tape delay and echo effects. Sometimes it works quite well when both groups allow the sounds space to breathe amidst the cascading delay patterns; other times, it becomes a sloppy heap of cross-phasing, tremolo pulsations. As there are three bonus tracks on this disc attributed to Mieses Gegonge which prominently feature those delay tricks, it's possible to that Mieses Gegone is responsible for the folly of the delay.
RealAudio clip: HNAS / MIESE GEGONGE "Sumpfkuh"
RealAudio clip: HNAS / MIESE GEGONGE "Guenters Rache"
RealAudio clip: MIESE GEGONGE "Gem Himmel"

HISE, STEEV Original (Illegal Art) cd 8.98
Twelve compositions by local boy Steev Hise, ten of which were realized at Cal Arts when he was in graduate school there. Very competent plunderphonica ranging in style from droning soundscapes to a delightfully underwater-esque Ferrante & Teicher cutup to Tape Beatles-styled digital outbursts. Comes handsomely packaged in a glycene parchment envelope with printed cardstock liner notes. From the label that brought us "Deconstructing Beck" and "Extracted Celluloid".

HISS & HUM Psychic Death (self-released) cassette 4.98

HIVE MIND Death Tone (Hanson) cd 14.98

HIVE MIND Elemental Disgrace (Spectrum Spools) lp 22.00

HJARNIDAUDI Pain:Noise:March (Paradigms) cd 12.98
Way back in 2002 we listed a record by Norway's Hlidolf, who whipped up (or, er... down) a slow motion swirl of spacey, dark, drifty, deep, and droney doom sludge. Channelling Earth 2, SUNNO))), Lustmord, Klaus Schulze and the like. Obviously it was a huge AQ fave. Unfortunately that release seems to have faded and disappeared into the ether, but thankfully we now have this epic three track disc from Hjarnidaudi, who are the rightful sonic heirs to the space doom drone throne once occupied by Hlidolf (due in no small part to this being the new project of Hlidolf's Vidar Ermesjo). But where Hlidolf was all darkness and doom, winter and wastelands, Hjarnidaudi is white hot light and blinding bursts of fuzz and sparkle, like the impossible birth of a new universe. Sure it's still slow and doomy, but much like the recent Fleshpress III record, this is a doom band moving beyond the confines of pure doom. Huge expansive stretches of majestic slow moving melody, a sort of doom certainly, but instead of murky downtuned gurgling sludge, these doomscapes are constructed from jagged buzzy brittle slabs of crystalline guitars, brief explosive smears of almost ambient fuzz, held together by an impossibly glacial rhythm section. Sunroof! by way of Esoteric, a shoegazer SUNNO))), a WAY less propulsive Jesu, or Skepticism broadcast through the M83 soundsystem. A gloriously thick and rich, warm and shimmering expanse of stretched out buzzing guitars, dreamy melodies, minor key and melancholy, but with a strangely warm embrace. If most sludge-doom-death-drone is like dunking your head in a tarpit, the world a dripping black dirge, Hjarnidaudi is like falling into the Sunn, hot and blinding, the world splintering into a million tiny sparkling pieces.
Limited to 750 copies, packaged in a mini lp style sleeve wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

HJARNIDAUDI Psykostarevoid (MusicFearSatan) cd 16.98
We first discovered Hjarnidaudi via the always amazing Paradigms label, but at the time we were even more excited by the fact that the man behind Hjarnidaudi was one Hlidolf, who was responsible for one of our all time favorite (and sadly now out of print) doomdronedirge records, a massive slab of slow motion spaced out sludge that was the perfect combination of SUNNO))) slow motion sludge and blissed out psychedelic space drift a la Klaus Schulze. So we were surprised to learn Hjarnidaudi was a full on band, still heavy and doomy and slow, but a band, who didn't traffic exclusively in slow motion sludge, but created glimmering shimmering doomscapes, that took the slow and low and wreathed it in fuzz and warmth and shimmer, on Paradigms' Pain:Noise:March.
And now it's 3+ years later, and we discover there's a NEW Hjarnidaudi, so we order a bunch cuz we loved the last one (made it a Record Of The Week!), and whattayaknow, we're surprised once again. The band is barely even doomy anymore it seems, instead offering up some looped, hypnotic heaviness, the guitars dense and heavy, the drums big and booming, the sound a sort of epic post metal mathiness, guitars moaning and keening, while another offers up weird high end tangles, super propulsive, downright rocking and a little proggy.
But hold off, that's only the first song, the other three tracks are definitely a lot doomier and darker, pounding and plodding, with guitars ringing out, chiming and shimmering, wreathed in crumbling distortion, woozy and washed out, but definitely dark and depressive and dreamily doomy, however, also strangely clean, the guitars more loud and effected than downtuned and distorted, some moments this actually sounds like a more blissed out less gloom pop Katatonia... and by track three the distortion becomes totally blown out and the band slips into full on metallic Jesu / Nadja territory offering up a deafening blown out coda.
MPEG Stream: "Part I"
MPEG Stream: "Part II"

HLIDOLF V01d (DFR Doom) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Does spacey, dark, drifty, deep, and droney sound good to you? Then pay attention: "Darkwave" (i.e. industrial, ambient) label Dragonflight Recordings (who last brought us the experimental black metal of Proscriptor) has just established a sub-label for, well, the sub-sonic specialty that can be described as 'doom' (metal or otherwise), and their first release is the debut cd from Hlidolf.
Not sure what the name means, or how you're supposed to say it, and actually we don't know much of anything else about Hlidolf except that it's the project of one fellow from Norway, Vidar Ermesjo. He recorded this in "Hlidolf Studios" (his home, we presume) in the dark and cold of last winter. It's one loooooong instrumental track (70min!), sorta somewhere betwixt Earth "2" and Maeror Tri or Lustmord. SUNNO))) and Skepticism also come to mind, and especially the obscure and defunct Neptune Towers project of Darkthrone's Fenriz, which this release pays tribute to in its liner notes ("Not for collective listening...recommended listening with headphones, or large, black stereos...").
Like Neptune Towers, this sounds like Krautrock electronics maestro Klause Schulze gone over to the dark side, all evil and ominous, yet soothing -- good late night, creepy going-to-sleep music, if you like that sort of thing (which I do, though unfortunately it's not the preference of my girlfriend...) Glacial, bass-heavy, beautiful. It's almost religious.
RealAudio clip: "V01d (excerpt)"

HNY Here You Can Touch The Sky (Amethyst Sunset) lp 19.98

HOAHIO Ohayo! Hoahio! (Tzadik) cd 16.98
Fantastic 2nd (first US) release from this all-female Japanese avant-pop group. Yagi Michiyo on the koto (veteran of a Tzadik solo release), Haco on vocals and other instruments, and sinewave sampler virtuoso Sachiko M (known for her work with Otomo Yoshihide in Ground Zero and ISO). Includes a couple of reworked tracks from the import debut on Sachiko's Amoebic label, and more, new wonderful electronic/experimental pop songs in the same vein, strange and lovely. Recommended.

HODAG s/t (first album) (Heule) 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 haven't managed to catch Hodag live yet, but it sounds like it must be a bit like having someone fire ice picks right into your ear canal from a high powered rifle. Or imagine being stripped naked and rubbed raw with some free jazz sand paper. CMJ wrote that Hodag's debut "doodles corpsepaint on Albert Ayler, sounding like jazz-spazzes trying to claw their way out of Xasthur's murky coffin." Hard to come up with anything better than that. This is definitely some sort of free jazz, or some sort of ambient noise, there is no black metal per se, but it does sound very black, with swirls of damaged synth, sputtering drum kit spazzouts, lots of space, but lots just as many bursts of ultra dense brutality. For the pure souled and strong eared amongst you!
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Each disc packaged in a cool hand screened cardboard sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Elcho"
MPEG Stream: "Flylknegl"

HOFFMAN, KAY Floret Silva (Robot Records) cd 16.98
RennFaire gone Rock In Opposition? Italian prog meets medieval madrigals?? We're still puzzling about how to describe this wonderful, wonderful disc, a remastered cd reissue of a rare LP (long awaited by some, totally new to us but very welcome -- thanks Robot!) which was recorded by composer Kay Hoffman in Florence, Italy in 1977, though not released until 1985, on vinyl in Japan only! On Floret Silva, Hoffman and her collaborators, including members of the very excellent and arty Italian prog band Pierrot Lunaire, took a trove of medieval Latin poetry known as the Carmina Burana -- poems written by anonymous authors around 1200AD that are both religious in nature as well as very earthy and real, about such subjects as love and money -- and set them to music. The settings are diverse (as befits the variety of these texts), and the results are often eerie and pretty and even a little bit groovy, with quirky chamber ensemble/prog rock backing and even the use of field recordings. Utterly magical for the most part, most especially due to the delicate vocals of Jacquline Darby. One song reminds us strongly of Stereolab, others call to mind (rather more obscurely) that Flamen Dialis album we've raved about before. This should appeal to experimental psych-folk fans for sure, even if this unique treasure is really something outside almost any genre designation you'd care to come up with!
MPEG Stream: "Iste Mundus"
MPEG Stream: "Tempus Instat"

HOLLEY, LONNIE Just Before Music (Dust-To-Digital) cd 14.98
What a crazy release! Imagine a drug-addled Doug Blunt turning his outsider RnB synth grooves into something even more strange and rarefied, as if he somehow discovered a primitive synthesized folk-blues through ritual sculpture building and obsessive, constantly shifting meta-narratives about space and technology.
Lonnie Holley has quite the backstory. Born in 1950 in Alabama, the seventh of twenty-seven children (!) and the byproduct of the state's poorly regulated foster care system, Holley had a difficult childhood that he overcame through art and music which he developed on his own, his creative output manifesting itself through drawing, painting, sculpture and performance (examples of his artwork are included in the booklet that comes with this cd). Holley had never recorded his music previous to this release, which marks the first time that the Dust-To-Digital label has brought an artist into the studio and it's unlike anything we've heard on the label before. While Holley may look like a Sun Ra type eccentric, and this record was in fact recommended as being very 'Sun Ra-ish', there really isn't a whole lot of that kind of instrumentation or jazz sound, instead, the minimalistic music is mostly layered and woozy psychedelic synth washes and percussion. What's most noticeable and remarkable is Holley's vocals, which come across as a shamanistic Arthur Russell as he sings a primitive-futuristic brew of blues mantras that twist into strange abstracted vocalizations, evoking at first an old-world sound until he starts going off about cellphones and other modern technology. This is a pretty amazing release for folks with a penchant for bizarre outsider figures such as Ariel Pink, Doug Blunt and Jandek. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it is definitely wholly original!
MPEG Stream: "Here I Stand Knocking On Your Door"
MPEG Stream: "The End of The Film Era"
MPEG Stream: "Earthly Things"

HOLLOWAY, IAN A Lonely Place (Quiet World) 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.
Ian Holloway has thoughtfully repressed this exceptional release, in a second edition. There's still only a handful of these in stock, but hopefully, we'll have enough for those who didn't get this the first time around!!!
Earlier in 2008, we received a fantastic collaborative project from Darren Tate, Ian Holloway, and Banks Bailey. At the time, we were well acquainted with the work of Darren Tate, thanks to his ongoing British drone eccentricities as Monos and his former Ora project with Andrew Chalk, Colin Potter, and others; but Ian Holloway and Banks Bailey were two whose work we didn't know anything about. Thanks to a suggestion from a long time customer here at the shop, we looked into the solo projects from Mr. Holloway; and damn if that tip didn't pay off with this fantastic cd-r (with more to come from Holloway in the coming weeks!). Self-released in a tiny edition of 50 copies, A Lonely Place is a breathtaking composition for time-stop dronemusik, achieving a similar stasis and similar dark beauty as Andrew Chalk did on his masterpiece East Of The Sun. It's hard to say what Holloway used as a source material for the album -- maybe guitar, maybe long-thin wire constructions, maybe field recordings, or maybe not. Like plenty of dronemusik before, it's the production that guides Holloway's success, as his deft manipulation of acoustics and electronics generates smoke, fog, and mirrors through sound that result in this amazing piece of long-form drone-smear. There's billowing swells of deep architectural space. Kosmiche electronics, rasping gong tones stretched toward infinity, and subharmonic thrumb swaddled in soft focus reverb. Think Expo '70 gone ashen black or Aidan Baker's ambient work at his most somber. Altogether wonderful, altogether very limited. Very highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "A Lonely Place (extract 1)"
MPEG Stream: "A Lonely Place (extracy 2)"

HOLLOWAY, IAN She Loves Looking At The Sky (Quiet World) 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.
From the onset of this choice release, British drone-centrist Ian Holloway engages in a long-staring contest upon the horizon. Through his undulating sustained tones that gradually contort and shift in timbre and clarity, Holloway sets his attention on sun-flecked hazes upon faraway vistas, watery mirages, and sunblind hallucinations. These tones are more on par with the best work from the Ora / Monos axis, which is not surprising considering that Holloway has worked with Darren Tate on a number of occasions in the past. But not before long, he plunges this piece deep into the center of the earth, with cavernous reverberations of actionist gestures that have some of the acoustic doom properties that we have come to expect from Svarte Greiner and Xela. The sinewy tones give way to these heavy clanks and jarring noises swaddled in the long-decay reverb of what we could imagine to be a subterranean sewer, or perhaps a massive cave chamber, or some abandoned industrial warehouse. As Holloway puts aside his bricks and chunks of metal, the earlier gilded tones make their reprise amidst a distant set of bird songs and softly struck hand bells. One of the better pieces to emerge from Holloway's own Quiet World imprint, and this one is limited to just 80 copies.
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"

HOLLOWAY, IAN Where Have We Been In The World Today? (Quiet World) 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.
One of three new releases from the Quiet World label, focusing on soft drone, tempered field recording, and quizzical ambience, and it comes by way of the figurehead of the label, Ian Holloway. Where Have We Been In The World Today? follows up his Summerland collaboration with Banks Bailey and Darren Tate as well as his exceptional solo album In A Lonely Place. The dark slumbering drones that open the album allude to much of the same sounds from that aforementioned solo project, yet the second track breaks into a curious electronic shimmer. Here, a seasick rhythm tapped out on something like a metallophone and laced with occasional static emerges out of thin air only to disappear next to apparitions of squelchy synthetic noises. Such electronics are more Heldon and Schnzitler than the Chalk and Colin Potter references of his other work, but certainly no less interesting. Throughout the rest of the album, Holloway grounds much of his crystal powered synthesis upon hypnotic, low-end vibrations whose radiant ambience glows from within. Brighter tones shimmer and sparkle against the curtains of subharmonics with some choice moments from dissonant surges of distorted guitars agitating the background. The final cut is a reprise of the first with those tectonic frequencies slowly crawling to a just conclusion. Limited to a mere 75 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Froodles"
MPEG Stream: "Alpha Riddle"
MPEG Stream: "Wherewithall"