LA CASA, ERIC The Stones Of The Threshold (Ground Fault) cd 9.99
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Eric La Casa (who has previously recorded as Syllyk) presents two collages of layered (and not really processed) field recordings that bookend a lengthy composition for wood, breath, and Tibetan bowls. La Casa may not have the Midas touch to field recordings that Chris Watson has been blessed with, but he has a remarkable ear that enables him to collage his textural recordings within an evocative context.

LA REPRODUCTION INTERDITE D'UNE PEINTURE DE CRISE s/t (Kids Eat Free) cd 9.98
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A dark, spartan work of sonic disintegrations and accumulations. At times, very much akin to Village of Savoonga or Godspeed. Metallic abrasions, clouds of hiss and static, field recordings (of birds and airplanes), and short purring loops surface, mingle and dissipate. The two lengthy tracks are punctuated by the occasional appearance of frail A haunting and lovely 24 minutes from the duo of Dorothy Geller and Douglas Wolf, recorded in 1999.
RealAudio clip: "Excerpt 1"

LA SOCIETE DES TIMIDES A LA PARADE DES OISEAUX Le Combat Occulte (Beta-Lactam Ring) cd 13.98

LA VAMPIRES GOES ITAL Streetwise (Not Not Fun) 12" 14.98
So interesting to see what new directions people take when faced with similar turning points. Out of the ashes of Pocahaunted, Bethany Cosentino embraced her love of pop and girl group garage glory, forming Best Coast. On the other hand, her former bandmate Amanda Brown went the other way, riffing off the layers of fractured/damaged sounds that Pocahaunted were creating into something more dubbed out and beat orientated. What's so cool is they both created such great music while taking utterly different paths.
LA Vampires seem to thrive on collaboration. Her record with Zola Jesus last year was a narcotic dubbed out slow burner and she also collaborated with Matrix Metals and shared a slice of vinyl with Psychic Reality. Ital is the new left-field dance project by former San Francisco resident Daniel McCormick (Mi Ami, Sex Worker). We were super excited when we heard McCormick was working on a new project focusing on weirdo electronic dance tracks. We knew he had such a great ear for the underworld of damaged dance sounds and damn does this collaboration between him and LA Vampires kill! Dubbed out, tripped out, swirling with infectious yet hazy melody and sensual rhythm. It's a 12" that merges the steaminess and sexiness of Throbbing Gristle's "Hot On The Heels Of Love" with the Chromatics "I Want Your Love." We've been playing this nonstop!

LABELLE, BRANDON Automatic Radio (Fringes) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Automatic Radio" is collection of three performances from LA sound artist Brandon LaBelle, which (as always) includes complete notes on the work at hand. The first piece is a series of closely mic-ed human utterances mimicking animal speech, with the intention of locating the tension inherent in "speaking as a body (sensuality)" and "speaking as an individual (social behavior)." The second piece starts out with a noisy recording of LaBelle walking through the streets of Vienna with contact microphones on the soles of his shoes, capturing a specific element of the social space and collaging it with the sounds found 5 to 6 feet higher, the crowd noise of those public spaces. The final track is the most interesting as it embraces two external aesthestics that LaBelle cannot control but tries to force into a specific conceptual context. This piece was recorded with his long standing collaborator Loren Chasse at 7hz in San Francisco while John Hudak was performing in the same room. With Chasse quietly rubbing contact microphones on the glass of the second floor mezzanine of 7hz's cavernous space, and with LaBelle literally sticking a metal funnel in his mouth to resonate Hudak's performance, the duo captured two parallel "translations" of the tonal drones that Hudak created below. Really nice.

LABELLE, BRANDON Music On A Short Thin Wire (Ground Fault ) cd 8.98
"Music On A Short Thin Wire" is another conceptual excercise from LA experimentalist Brandon LaBelle, who seems to have recently run into the problem of favoring intent over content. On this album, LaBelle has amplified the first eight releases on the experimental sound art label Ground Fault through a simple system of speaker cones, contact microphones, and thin copper wires, to create a "sympathetic translation" of the original's in the vibrations of the copper wire. As Ground Fault has an unfortunate custom of label each release based upon its intensity (this one finds itself in the 'quiet' catagory), Brandon's album is a well needed critique of Ground Fault's taxonomic bracketing. In running these records (some gentle like Eric LaCasa, some brutally noisy like Government Alpha) through a process which completely disguises the original, LaBelle dissolves the unneccesary categories imposed upon the original music. However, the album doesn't really explore much further. LaBelle's work does have a fantastic array of tonalities and textural details, from muffled oscillating drones to nervous metal striations, but LaBelle's leash on "Thin Wire" is far too short to allow for alternate readings or deeper investigations into this music.

LABELLE, BRANDON Shadow Of A Shadow (Selektion) cd 15.98
In the extended essay that accompanies his second album for Selektion, Brandon LaBelle offers a semantic argument about his work being located at the border between private and public, the real and the cultural modes of production, field recordings and composed music, the natural and the artificial. Even the title itself seems to imply the allegory of the real and the non-real as found in Plato's cave, but with the body (both as an objective and a subjective agent) as the site where the real and the non-real cross each other. The sounds found within "Shadow Of A Shadow" rumble through the crackling of textual grit alongside unwavering electric buzzes and quiet bell tones with distant metallic strikes, sounding much like a more static version of LaBelle's occasional work with Loren Chasse as Id Battery. It almost always seems to be that LaBelle is intentionally limiting his palette to only two sounds per composition, to force the issue of his border theory within "the slippery fold of meaning." Whew!
RealAudio clip: "The Body Is An Instrument"
RealAudio clip: "Buildings Are Bodies"

LABELLE, BRANDON / CHRISTOF MIGONE Writing Aloud: The Sonics of Language (Errant Bodies) book+cd 20.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Writing Aloud" is the second massive publication from experimental musician Brandon LaBelle's Errant Bodies Press, and is a collection of writings about the semiotic slippages between sound and language. His introduction states: "in speaking about language, grammatical codes undermine syntactical rules, vocalizing speaks through the sonicity of utterance, all extending and contracting against individual desire, memory and the urgencies of speaking, writing and hearing. Yet it is precisely this circling, this reflexivity that 'Writing Aloud' aims to enter, not with the intention of repeating indefinitely, but rather to locate the tension and volition inherent to language. 'Writing Aloud' as a project aims to 'enact' language -- and by extention the form of the book -- by scratching away at its surface, reflecting on histories of its usage, and by turning up the linguistic volume." Contributors for the written portion include Achim Wollscheid, Vito Acconci, Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier, David Dunn, Gregory Whitehead, Jocelyn Robert, and many others. The CD features some great work from Michel Chion, John Duncan, and Randy Yau, as well as contributions from Yasunao Tone, Gregory Whitehead, Achim Wollscheid, and many more. This is required reading for those who understand (or pretend to understand) why Semiotext(e) has a parenthetical clause within its name! In other words, not light reading, but if you're interested in the experimental musics and philosophies of any of the abovementioned contributors, you'll relish wrapping your brain around this.

LABELLE, BRANDON / STEVE RODEN The Opening Of The Field (Digital Narcis) cd 17.98
The latest from LA sound artists Labelle (of id battery) and Steve Roden (aka in.betweeen.noise), sees them collaborating with the care and intellect that they are both known for in their work. "'The Opening Of The Field' presents a series of live studio improvisations that move quietly through the intimate surfaces of objects to the fragmented landscapes of field recordings. In this movement, from textured scrapings to electronic manipulations, the distinctness of objects and the processes of recordings clouds over to create a highly detailed sonic flow. The spaces of sounds and their origin are transposed onto an imaginary space where listening leads to many openings." -- from the liner notes. Need we say more? No? Good.

LABRADFORD Prazision LP (Kranky) cd 14.98
The one frustrating thing about the list, and the AQ website in general, that sometimes drives us crazy, is that it only really began in earnest in the mid nineties, thus there are SO many records that we love, and that we reference all the time, that we just always assume MUST be on the list, but aren't, so we try to review those records anyway once in a while, if they're still available, but even better is when one of those discs gets reissued, giving us the opportunity to shower it with the praise we would have back in the day. Which brings us to the gorgeous debut from Labradford (which was also the very first release on Kranky!).
Originally released in 1993, the sound of Prazision LP was so prescient, the current crop of cd-r noisemakers have nothing on these guys, in fact, almost anything you hear now on some super limited cd-r, you could hear on Prazision LP more than a decade earlier. A gorgeous blend of shimmering ambience, fractured folk, minimal pop, sculpted noise and experimental soundscapes that seems to be constantly in flux, a fluid, organic collection of sounds and songs, a murky melancholy mood music rendered in soft strummed shimmer and haunting abstract ambience.
The opening track is the perfect send off, as we depart on our journey, dark billowy drones, keening distant high end streaks, a strange almost mechanical non-rhythm hovering in the foreground, beneath it all deep dark sonic swells, a muted mysterious melody, everything seemingly drifting weightless in a hazy expanse of underwater sunlight. But before we can settle in and float weightlessly into the ether, the second track introduces an actual song, simple strummed steel string guitar, melancholy Jandekian sadboy vocals, over a haunting multilayered drone. The next track is more pop, but even more druggy and unhinged, vocals buried in a murky muddy swirl of effected guitars and sprawling minor key melodies, reminding us of an even less propulsive Spacemen 3 or a way druggier Galaxie 500, no beats, just the voice and the various smeared sounds floating heavenward. In fact the whole record has that vibe, sort of wasted, bleary eyed, druggy, dreamy, drifting, on the verge of simply fading away, or floating into the sun to be consumed and turned to ash.
The rest of the record is balanced pretty evenly between Velvets style lo-fi downer pop, lazy and languorous and laid waaaay back, guitars glistening and glimmering, and thick mesmerizing slabs of slow shifting glacial whir, often a breathtaking combination of the two. Absolutely gorgeous and so forward thinking. One of our favorite records ever, a dark and doleful experimental abstract ambient pop masterpiece.
For the reissue, both tracks from Labradford's first 7" are included, and both tracks are just more of that haunting mysterious beauty. Totally recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Listening In Depth"
MPEG Stream: "Accelerating On A Smoother Road"
MPEG Stream: "Splash Down"

LADDIO BOLOCKO Strange Warmings Of (Hungarian) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This record is one of the most amazing we have ever heard, and of course, it's been practically impossible to get back in stock. But now we have it, and you should buy it. It's pummelling and heavy and beautiful. Not sure how long we'll have this in stock.
An ex-Dazzling Killmen (Blake Fleming) takes his penchant for angular discordance a step further, forgoing the ferocious heaviosity of his former outfit, and instead, explores lengthy semi-improvisational psychedelic freakouts and repetetive hypno-krautrock instrumentals ala Circle. Post rock jamscapes littered with shrieking and droning Albert Ayler-ish sax, jabs of no wave guitar, an overwhelming over-saturated super-distorted production and absolutely crushing drumming. Totally essential.
RealAudio clip: "Nurser"

LAGAN TAPES, THE s/t (Heart & Crossbone) 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.
Back in stock, pretty sure these are the last copis we'll be able to get!
More amazing sonic weirdness from Israel, from the always amazing Heart & Crossbone label, who in the past have given us releases from Barbara, Lietterschpich, Cadaver Eyes, Grave In The Sky and Mildew. Lagan Tapes is the work of a duo who between the two of them are members of most of the above mentioned bands as well as Panda Porn whose disc is reviewed elsewhere on this list. One half of the duo bangs on on stuff, the other half captures it on tape, and the result is really fantastic. Not as noisy and clattery as you might expect, instead, it's rhythmic and hypnotic, a sort of junkyard Gamelan, recorded in Belfast Ireland, while walking across the Lagan River... metallic clank and rapid fire skitter, thumping on fences and garbage cans and anything else within reach, bare hands on metal, a constantly shifting set of rhythms, all captured on a broken cassette recorder, wrapping the rhythms in all sorts of lo-fi hiss and distorted buzz. Some tracks are hissy and high end, a relentless blast of clank and clatter, others are much more subdued, mellow and meandering, some tracks sound like straight up field recordings, chiming bells, the crash of metal fences, others sound like full on blown out lo-fi krautrock jams. Behind the percussive patter, you can hear all sorts of ambient sounds, voices, birds, running water, it's almost like some strange blend of avant percussion and nature recording.
The label compares the sound to MCMS, Crash Worship, Pain Teens, early 80's Sonic Youth, 23 Skidoo, Gamelan Son of Lion, but for us, the most obvious and accurate references are probably Gamelan Son Of Lion and Crash Worship, as this is all about the rhythms, the pound and pulse, the shuffle and skitter, the clang and the clatter. Hyper rhythmic and abstract, intense and mesmerizing, an incredible chunk of experimental percussion, that should of course appeal to the rhythm obsessed, but also manages to sound surprisingly musical.
Packaged in an oversized envelope with the imprint of a cassette tape pressed into the paper, inside, three oversized printed cards with photos and liner notes...
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Three"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

LAIBACH Anthems (Mute) 2cd 25.00
The art of Laibach can be found in their precise engineering of context, as they specialize in the cross-pollenization of musical archetypes and political rhetoric in an effort to undermine the totalitarian forces at work within consumer culture. The Laibach iconography emerges as a complex and purposefully contradictory concoction of Nazi-kunst, Wagnerian pomp, and Teutonic disco. When Laibach gets their hands on them, these forms become especially absurd, as they fuse such industrialized, miltaristic aesthetics to the songs of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Queen, Pink Floyd, Europe, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Yes, some of these Frankensteinian marches are a little clumsy; if you've heard their infamous reinterpretation of the Beatles' Let It Be, and particularly the comically fumbled version of "Get Back", then you know that Laibach's iron fist has the potential to crack a pretty bad joke from time to time.
Anthems is the self-explanitory anthology of Laibach's most bombastic, and well, anthemic work. In many ways, Anthems is a "best of" compilation for Laibach, dating back to such classics as "Brat Moj" a turgid, solemn oath delivered with the sanguine baritone voice that has become a trademark for Laibach. But the bulk of Anthems feature the jackhammered, post-Wax Trax rhythms, incendiary guitar riffs, and claustrophobic electronics which Rammstein shamelessly stole on their way to MTV domination. Laibach probably didn't care, as they obviously did it much better and with a smug intelligence that Rammstein wholly lacks. Along with a great retrospective of this self-proclaimed retro-garde band, Anthems also features a second disc of remixes which apply a greater dancefloor sheen to Laibach's sound.
MPEG Stream: "Die Liebe"
MPEG Stream: "Panorama"
MPEG Stream: "Sympathy For The Devil"
MPEG Stream: "Wirtschaft Is Tot"

LAIBACH Neu Konservatiw (Cold Spring) cd 14.98
From their very earliest audio documents and live performances, the Slovenian avant-industrial ensemble Laibach had developed an incredibly focused mythology around themselves as a provocative force acting upon the extremes of art and politics. Working particularly with the aesthetics of totalitarianism (which as a political institution had long been hammered into the psyche of the Slovenian people from the left, right, East, and West), Laibach reconstituted any number of myths which invoked both fear and fascination in their audience. They wrote manifestos calling for a depersonalization through their music; they cross-pollinated Stalinist and Nazi imagery (alongside occultish symbolism and increasingly absurdist pop-cultural references); and they qualified their concerts as presentations of "systematic psycho-physical terror as a principle of social organization." In 1985 when Laibach ventured out upon their Occupied Europe Tour, they were a truly scary band with nobody really knowing how to analyze what they were doing. Was it an ugly resurgence of fascism? Was it psychological warfare conducted in the public arena? Was it a post-modern strategy reconnecting signifiers of hollowed ideologies? It was probably all of those things and more.
In the live recordings from that tour that made their way onto Neu Konservatiw, Laibach's sound was a punishing collision of martial rhythms and megaphone vocal broadcasts, exhibiting none of the black humour found later in their Beatles covers or their take on Jesus Christ Superstar. With the insistent plod of the multiple drums and monochord bass thumps, Laibach paralleled the abject stomp that the Swans were producing at that time, even though both projects had vastly different artistic intentions. As their studio albums in the mid-'80s were mostly sample based and had a clipped rigidity that make some of their songs a little clumsy, the live setting forced Laibach to strip their music to the most essential stabs of anthemic bombast; and on Neu Konservatiw, Laibach pull it off with an executioner's cold stoicism. Forcefully blunt and uncompromisingly brilliant.
MPEG Stream: "Nova Akropola (live)"
MPEG Stream: "Die Liebe (live)"

LAIBACH Rekapitulacija 1980 + 1984 (NSK / EFA) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If one were to take the logic of appropriative artists like Warhol or Rauschenberg, to the extremities of absurdity and dehumanization through the procress of mechanical reproduction, you would have Laibach. Perhaps the most misunderstood post-modern project to infiltrate pop culture, Laibach has often been associated with the proliferation of totalitarianism and Nazi culture, simply because they used those higly charged symbols and images and projected them back into the mass culture. However, Laibach's intent is to reinvest not just those symbols, but any symbol of authority and power, with the question of why is this symbol important to our culture. In many ways, Laibach was continuing in the same paths of inquiry found in their British compatriots Throbbing Gristle and The Hafler Trio; however, Laibach never cracked a smile, an attitude exemplified in their triumphant reinterpretations of the Beatles "Let It Be" as a series of miliaristic dirges and patriotic medleys.
"Rekapitulacija 1980 + 1984" was their first album, released as a double LP set with a beautiful series of reproduced woodcuts, offering portraits of the noble spirit from the agrarian worker married to the industrial landscapes, mirroring the same totalitarian artforms that had been thrust upon their native Slovenia during the Nazi occupation and later behind the Iron Curtain, when Yugoslavia was a Communist country. Despite this being their earliest set of recordings, Laibach's skill in the studio is tremendous, as heard in their epic piece 'Ti, Ki Izzivas' transforming Bernhard Hermann's soundtrack for "Psycho" into a punishing uber-motif coupled with a relentless drum machine pound and discordant organ blasts. Other tracks such as 'Brat Moj' or 'Smrt Za Smrt' are brooding no wave constructions, taking the best and most haunting elements of early Swans and early Cabaret Voltaire and fusing them into a skeletal anti-groove laced with growling vocals and commanding basslines.
But Laibach themselves have said it best in their early masterpiece 'Perspektive' : "By darkening the consumers' mind, it drives them into a state of humble contrition and total obedience and self-sacrifice, by destroying every track of individuality, it melts the individuals into a mass and a mass into a humble collective body... Our basic inspiration (ideals which are not ideals through their form but the material of Laibach manipulation itself) remains an industrial production, the art of the third Reich, totalitarianism, taylorism, bruitism, disco... The disco rhythm as a regular repetition, is the purest / the most radical form of the militantly organized rhythmicity of technicist production, and as such the most appropriate means of media manipulation." To hear this recited in the style of a Russian propagandist over a ominous thud of drum machines and triumphant Wagnerian horns, one can't help but laugh at the absurdity of such a statement; however, the logic quickly sinks in that Laibach are 100% correct. A brilliant album.
Perhaps the greatest and most challenging pieces of conceptual art disguised as a pop album. Truly awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Brat Moj"
MPEG Stream: "Slovenska Zena"
MPEG Stream: "Ti, Ki Izzivas"

LAINHART, RICHARD Ten Thousand Shades Of Blue (IX) 2cd 14.98
Another winner from AQ fave Phil Niblock's always eclectic and engaging IX label. While sometimes stuff on IX tends a little too much toward the academic (and maybe this one is no different), the music on 'Ten Thousand Shades Of Blue' sounds much more organic, pure and intense and dreamy. Monochromatic dronescapes built from multi-tracked and processed bowed tam-tams, bowed Japanese temple bells, voices, bowed and struck vibraphones, and a realtime interactive computer music system. Expansive and soothing washes of humming low end. One of the best late night/sleeping/chillout records of the year.
RealAudio clip: "Bronze Cloud Disk"

LAKE MILLIONS, THE Sea Of Stories (self-released) cd-r 7.98
Originally going by the ill chosen moniker, Bananas, this solo ambient project from 3 Leafs' Josh Pollock (aka DJ Female Convict Scorpion) was wisely rechristened The Lake Millions, a name much more in keeping with the sound, a sound that actually surprised us. Pollock's 'ambient' record is not so much ambient, as it is a sort of serene, tranquil, dreamlike psychedelia, we were expecting a simple minimal landscape of drones and tones, but instead, the sound here is luish and lovely, spare aching guitar melodies, wreathed in reverb, soft tangles gradually unfurling, blossoming lazily, sun dapped and soft focus. The slide guitar adds a subtle twang to the proceedings. Imagine Barn Owl, if instead of trafficking in dark brooding droned out doom folk, they set up in a meadow, under the late afternoon sun, gorgeous blue sky overhead, soft billowy white clouds drifting by, the grass waving softly in the warm breeze. The vibe is definitely back porch-y and dreamlike. Some tracks sound like a lost, more blissed out strain of classic Americana, others drift drowsily through a hazy, old timey, faded memory, reverb drenched shimmer. And here and there tucked away amidst all this sunshiney dreamfolk drift, there are some subtle haunting minor key melodies, the cinematic vibe that runs throughout, growing shadowy and a bit sinister, it's mostly a subtle melodic shift here and there, but then check out the title track, which closes things with an epic sprawl of brooding abstract drift, somehow weaving the warm melodious vibe of the previous tracks into something distinctly darker, but with a warm glow that seems to infuse the sound, however dark, with a lush glowing loveliness, the song unfolding as a tense sonic sprawl, that over the course of its 13 minutes, finds sonic shadows gradually being overtaken by the light. Gorgeous!
MPEG Stream: "The Ocean Of Notions"
MPEG Stream: "The Twilight Strip"
MPEG Stream: "Sea Of Stories"

LAMB, ALAN Night Passage (Dorobo) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

LAMB, ALAN Night Passage & Demixed (Dorobo) 2cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, we've managed to restock Alan Lamb's Night Passage, one of the most evocative and sonically engaging dronescaping records that has ever passed through these doors. This Australian composer's sole source material is the sound of wind blowing against telephone wires. In recording the raw material, Lamb simply attaches contact microphones to telephone poles, sits back, and lets the weather blow through the wires how it sees fit. The resultant drones are sublimely rich in their metallic timbres and amazingly complex reverberations, that is not all that far off from Harry Bertoia's sound sculptures. I (Jim) actually had a very hard time believing that they were what Lamb said they were: unprocessed wire music. That is until one cold, blustery summer afternoon on the craggy coastline near Point Reyes north of San Francisco, I heard those exact same sounds from the wind raking across the telephone wires that extended out to a distant lighthouse. These sounds were eeriely beautiful, yet unsettling as they vibrated the air with such ubiquity that their origin was impossible to pinpoint.
For Night Passage, Lamb's recordings originate with the Faraway Wind Organ, a half mile of abandoned telegraph wires in the outback of Western Australia. Unfortunately, this network of wires has collapsed due to lightning and termites, making Lamb's recordings a very rare documentation of an amazing naturally occuring sonic phenomenon.
Also included with this double disc package is the Demixed album, in which Thomas Koner, Lustmord, Ryoji Ikeda, and Bernhard Gunter were given Lamb's raw recordings to treat and compose with. Where Lamb's compositional sensibility privledges the intrinsic qualities of his recordings with just crossfades and equilization, these four blurred the source material that reflected their own signature sounds. Koner leans to expansive gaping drones; Lustmord collapses everything within a bleak catacomb of oppressive ambience; Ikeda ruptures the sound into a subtle piece of minimalism; and Gunter stretches the boundaries of perception. This is one of the best all around remix albums, completing what is otherwise an already impeccable document.
MPEG Stream: "Night Passage"
MPEG Stream: "Kyros (demixed by Thomas Koner)"
MPEG Stream: "Fragmented (demixed by Lustmord)"

LAMB, ALAN Primal Image / Beauty (Dorobo) cd 15.98
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Alan Lamb is a biologist who entered the realm of music after discovering the complex choral harmonics of the telephone wires that span his native Australia. Lamb's allegiance to both biology and the spectral sounds of the frequencies of a long thin wire reacting to natural events isn't that odd as Lamb himself explains, "that these principles (in wire frequencies) have much in common conceptually with those underlying the generation of coherent patterns in biological systems... and it is probably not too far fetched to suggest that wire music is an aural embodiment of some of the most fundamental dynamic laws of the universe."
"Primal Image / Beauty" is the culmination of 7 years of field recordings, during which Lamb discovered the best meterological situations for certain timbres, the best wires that emanated these harmonics, and good microphones to capture the sounds (for this phenomenon is externally ampified by the wires under the right circumstances). Even in listening to the incredible textural dronework from Organum or Xenakis, it is pretty awe-inspiring that this is simply the sound of the wind resonating a wire.
For those who live around the Bay Area, this phenomenon can be heard on occasion at Point Reyes, especially when the wind is coming straight down the coast from the north and strikes the wires which run east-west along the barren peninsula.
RealAudio clip: "Beauty"

LAMBKIN, GRAHAM Amateur Doubles (Kye) lp 0.00

LAMBKIN, GRAHAM Millows (Penultimate Press) book+cd 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK!!
This is a gorgeous and confusional archival release from Graham Lambkin, leader of weirdo outsider 'rock' combo Shadow Ring, this recording, from 2004, features just voice, tapes and piano, and is a curious landscape of spoken word, distant swirls of tape hiss, and haunting funereal piano, not to mention all manner of creaks and buzzes, cobbled together from what sounds like some strange spoken word diary, recorded on a hand held tape player, various fragments strung together, peppered with the 'kthunk' of the buttons on the tape player being depressed, the track shifting haphazardly from some strange description of random goings on, weird bits of random tape sounds, pulsing non-rhythms, static and rumbles, quacking ducks, bits of orchestra, snippets from programs, other voices, always returning to that creepy echo drenched piano, while Lambkin/Shadow Ring newbies might be a bit put off by the sounds here, fans of either or both will definitely feel right at home, a strangely intimate glimpse inside strange and twisted musical mind, one that unfurls soundscapes like this as an entreaty to the brave to wander in and get lost. Very cool, and very bizarre.
But that's really only half of Millows, the other is a strange, dizzying photographic project, that according to the liner notes, is a "series of 450 photographic combinations documenting a solitary drunken non-event", which in reality appears to be a series of combined photos / photo collages, of Lambkin in what appears to be a festive mood, laughing, and smiling, drinking, and conversing, but knowing that said photos were culled from a solitary event, makes the project a bit creepy, and the way the photos have been manipulated, often multiple faces layered into one, colors bleeding, strange projections, textures and overexposures, some like ordinary snapshots, others like wild impressionistic splashes of colors and shapes, and all presented one after the other, nine to a page, almost make it seem like someone took a short bit of filmstrip and laid it out one frame at a time, offering a visual analogue to the strange sounds on the accompanying cd.
All presented in a super striking full color hard cover book, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered, with the cd affixed to the inside back cover.
MPEG Stream: "Millows"

LAMBKIN, GRAHAM Salmon Run (KYE) cd 15.98
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LAMBKIN, GRAHAM Softly Softly Copy Copy (KYE) cd 14.98

LAMBSBREAD King Of The Crop (Skulltones) 7" 5.50

LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE Arc Of Ascent (Astral Projection) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another backroom discovery, this time, a super limited (only 100 copies, and now almost for sure out of print) cd-r from New Zealand space raga outfit Lamp Of The Universe. Each one of these packaged in a gorgeous swirled hand painted sleeve, with a printed insert. Two long songs, and this is LOTU at their most drone out, way more raga than space rock, longform drones, extended tones, shimmering buzz stretched out into minutes long melodies, bits of percussive shimmer surface here and there, but for the most part this is all about the mighty DRONE. The opening track introduces some high end snake charmer style horns, and some buried hand drums, but those really only add to the undulating layered drone.
The second, slightly shorter track (22 minutes) is a slowly shifting thick tangle of layered tones, wound into one huge slithering reverberating drone, deep and resonant, thick and dark and shimmery, plenty of buzz and fuzz and whir, intoxicatingly mesmeric, a drone so dense and intense it nearly sucks the air out of the room when it finally ends.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Each hand numbered, we have the last copies ever, so please don't be disappointed if these disappear quick...
MPEG Stream: "Levitation Orchestra"

LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE Earth Spirit & Sky (Cranium) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
LAST COPIES EVER!!
We discovered Lamp Of The Universe, aka New Zealander Craig Williamson, via his recent cd-r on Barl Fire, a gorgeously blissed out drone rock space raga that we just couldn't get enough of. And you all apparently agreed as those puppies flew out of here (don't order them now though! they are gone). So we got in touch with Williamson and managed to get a few more of his releases. A couple cds which we'll review in upcoming lists, but we figure we should list this lp first as we only got a handful and it's super limited.
More of that warm Eastern raga tinged space rock, dreamy and drifting and drowsy. Sitar strings buzz and vibrate, tablas sputter rhythmically beneath layers of swooshing fuzz, vocals are soft and lilting, drifting lazily above the dizzying psych swirl, each track a slow growing soundscape that starts as a drone, becomes a sort of droney raga, and in some cases morphs into a propulsive Krautrocky / post rock groove. Sounds a bit like an Eastern Spacemen 3 most of the time, guitars are druggy and psychedelic, rhythms are simple but hypnotic, making each track, even the 'rockers', totally meditative and mesmerizing.
Packaged in hand made sleeves, with a metallic silkscreened image on cardstock affixed to the front. Limited to 320 copies, each one hand numbered.

LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE Echo In Light (Cranium) 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 managed to get enough copies of this 2001 release from New Zealand space raga rockers Lamp Of The Universe to list it. And just in time too as folks have been freaking out over this group, mainly the work of New Zealander Craig Williamson. A gorgeously laid back blissed out sonic exploration of Eastern melody, buzzing ur-drone and psychedelic space rock. Dense tangles of steel strings, both acoustic guitar and sitar, whir and shimmer, spread out into sun baked expanses of transcendental mesmer. Each track a swoonsome raga, this disc more than any of the other Lamp releases, is heavy on the vocals, with Williamson's voice a monotone chant like invocation, adding another layer to the already dense sonic swirl. Drums shuffle and skitter, wah wah guitar swoops in and out, leads twist and turn and get all tangled up in thick clouds of druggy atmosphere, everything wrapped in billowy outer space FX. The final track, a sixteen minute slow burn called "Dream Sequence" sounds just like that. Eyes closed, drifting off on a lighter than air whorl of disembodied psych guitar, intricate little tangles of melodies, simple muted drumming, all smeared into a long streak of slow shifting colors, stretching from here into infinity....
Druggy and dreamlike and so nice...
MPEG Stream: "Freedom To Godliness"
MPEG Stream: "Resonance"

LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE Heru (Astral Projection) cd 14.98
Originally released as a super limited cd-r by the sadly now defunct Barl Fire label, this fantastic slice of tripped out space drone psychedelia is finally available again, now as a real cd, with improved sound and all new artwork...
What we initially took to be a fantastic drone record, is indeed that, but actually becomes something entirely different about halfway through. Lamp Of The Universe is the work of New Zealander Craig Williamson, and is indeed a truly gorgeous drone bliss outfit. Extended wide open expanses of buzzing sitars, swooning synths, simple layered drones, minimal tabla rhythms, very soothing and raga like, slowly swirling soundscapes, dreamily druggy and sleepily spaced out. So lovely. And trust us, that would definitely be enough to get us to set the cd player on repeat and just drift off, but the last 25 minutes, while still being blissful and serene, introduce drums, which changes the whole vibe. Those last three tracks are dark and meandering, a lazily propulsive post rock / krautrock hybrid, druggy and spacey and jammy, with affected guitar noodling over simple shuffling drumming and groovy minimal basslines. Pink Floyd, Band Of Gypsies, Hawkwind, a very very very mellow Acid Mothers Temple, eventually winding down and returning for a brief buzzy free drone coda.
MPEG Stream: "Heru Pt. 1"
MPEG Stream: "Heru Pt. 2"

LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE Heru (Barl Fire) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What we initially took to be a fantastic drone record, is indeed that, but actually becomes something entirely different about halfway through. Lamp Of The Universe is the work of New Zealander Craig Williamson, and is indeed a truly gorgeous drone bliss outift. Extended wide open expanses of buzzing sitars, swooning sythns, simple layered drones, minimal tabla rhythms, very soothing and raga like, slowly swirling soundscapes, dreamily druggy and sleepily spaced out. So lovely. And trust us, that would definitely be enough to get us to set the cd player on repeat and just drift off, but the last 25 minutes, while still being blissful and serene, introduce drums, which changes the whole vibe. Those last three tracks are dark and meandering, a lazily propulsive post rock / krautrock hybrid, druggy and spacey and jammy, with affected guitar noodling over simple shuffling drumming and groovy minimal basslines. Pink Floyd, Band Of Gypsies, Hawkwind, a very very very mellow Acid Mothers Temple, eventually winding down and returning for a brief buzzy free drone coda.
Packaged in beautiful hand glued digipaks. VERY LIMITED. Once we run out, we're not sure we'll be able to get more.
MPEG Stream: "Heru Pt. 1"
MPEG Stream: "Heru Pt. 2"

LAMP OF THE UNIVERSE The Cosmic Union (Cranium) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With everyone around here going gaga for records from New Zealand space raga outfit Lamp Of The Universe, we have been trying to track down some of their older, more difficult to get titles. We managed to get a whole bunch of Echo In Light (reviewed elsewhere on this list) but could only get 5 copies of The Cosmic Union, direct from the band, which means when these 5 are gone this is REALLY gone for good.
All the elements are here, thick swaths of sitar buzz, steel string guitars, simple percussion, swirls of spacey FX, blissed out hypnotic repetition, chant like vocals, all wrapped up into slow burning, psychedelic space rock majesty. Druggy and divine!
Only 5 copies so prepare to be disappointed. Or just order Echo In Light when we run out of this one...
MPEG Stream: "Born In The Rays Of The Third Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Lotus Of A Thousand Petals"

LANDING Gravitational IV (Equation) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Recorded during the same sessions that yielded Landing's Sphere album from 2004, Gravitational IV is a much more tripped out and experimental beast. OK, maybe not -much- more, as Landing are generally pretty trippy and far out, but this disc still manages to take it to a whole 'nother level. And we love it!
Dubby grooves, reverb drenched ethereal female vocals, slippery underwater bass lines, blissed out deconstructed krautrocky jams, thick coruscating sheets of psychedelic guitar flare, full on space rock blow outs, gentle lilting otherworldly dreamfolk, the parts are all over the sonic map, but somehow they all sound so totally perfect together. It's almost like someone took all the leftover bits from the Sphere sessions, dumped them in a huge pot, added tons of reverb and delay, and then set it on the stove to shimmer, but forgot all about it until hours, maybe days later, only to realize the concoction had become something else entirely, a mind bending druggy swirl of abstract psychedelia and experimental free fuzz ambience. The kitchen filled with thick clouds of fuzzy gauzy guitars, the floor sticky with gooey puddles of acid drenched trippiness. Equal parts Mazzy Star, M83, My Bloody Valentine, but all stripped down and then built back up with layer after layer of guitars and effects and strange studio fuckery. A gloriously blissed out psych rock head trip! Quite possibly our favorite Landing record yet!
Super limited, LP only. LIMITED TO 450 COPIES. Packaged in an ultra thick gatefold sleeve with super striking psychedelic artwork. Pressed on massively thick 180 gram vinyl, each copy stickered and numbered.

LANDING Wave Lair (These Are Not Records) lp 14.98
It's been ages since we've heard from psychedelic space drifters Landing, and we DEFINITELY don't remember them sounding like this. The swirling spaciness is still present, as is the group's dreamlike electronic psychedelia, but here, it's delivered in a much different form, one that's more sort of new wave electro synth pop! Yup, sequencers, drum machines, ethereal female vox, The first track might have you thinking you're listening to some new record on Captured Tracks or Sacred Bones, which if you're a fan of either, snag this right now. Crystalline guitars wound around loping rhythmic skitter, and low slung bass thrum, chiming and dreamy, the song more than just retro leaning electro-pop, at one point the guitars and vocals drop out, revealing the tripped out psychedelic electronic experimentation that lurks below/within, which the band has deftly crafted into something incredibly poppy and blissed out, equal parts 4AD, M83, and the new wave of, er, new wave. In fact the whole A side is made up of this sort of swirling prismatic kraut-pop, looped and mesmeric, trance-y and super hypnotic, the sounds pulsing and shimmering, loads of echo and reverb, the last track on the A side is all cool loping downer electro pop, crooned male vox, over a driving, but still laid back, twinkling harmonics, reverby jangle, a total throwback, but with a modern, more experimental sheen.
It's on the B-side that we get a little taste of the Landing of old, a sprawling epic that sounds like it could/should have been on Kranky, all blurred drifts and murky melodies, bass thrum and synthy swirl, but some of the group's new elements are still present, a fractured, minimal glitchy rhythm, some of the sounds blown out, and glowing with a muted intensity, before being smeared into the softly undulating backdrop, over this slo-mo groove, drifts flurries of tangled synth, mysterious percussive fragments. About halfway through, the song seems to blossom into some swirling electronic dream pop, the female vocals rejoining, before as quickly as the sound changes, it changes once again, and spends the rest of the side's 8 minutes gradually unwinding and unfurling, a heady dreampop psych-drift headtrip that definitely proves that the whipper snappers these days, trafficking in similar sounds, have NOTHING on their sonic elders. Dreamy, droney, poppy, psychedelic, electronic perfection!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!! Includes a download coupon as well.
MPEG Stream: "Wave Lair"
MPEG Stream: "Patterns"
MPEG Stream: "Resonance"

LANGILLE, SUSAN & LOREN MAZZACANE CONNORS 1987-1989 (Secretly Canadian) cd 13.98

LAPLANTINE, ANNE Nordheim (Gooom Disques) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

LAPORTE, JEAN-FRANCOIS Mantra (Metamkine) 3" cd 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
When one of our friends told us about this little cd containing an experimental piece using the sounds of a Zamboni, we got very very excited. A Zamboni! (That's that unusual machine that resurfaces the ice in hockey rinks.) Upon hearing it, we were even more thrilled, 'cause it's an amazing 20 minute drone work! And practically everyone who works here has bought one by now...
This cute 3" cd, released through Metamkine's esteemed 'Cinema Pour L'Oreille' series of electro-acoustics and musique concrete, contains one track, "Mantra", which opens with a trio of motors starting up and emitting a gentle purr. As these engines warm up and shift through various perfunctory cycles, a wide spectrum of metallic vibrations slowly spins through the stereo field. While it would be nice to believe that these movements coincide with a Zamboni circling a really nice binaural microphone, it's more likely that Laporte exercised his artistic license with a judicious use of crossfading and stereo panning upon his field recordings. As the disc draws near its end, it sounds as if a screw or bolt is loosened by the vibrations and two pieces of metal begin a clamorous bell-ringing arrhythmia. When these motors finally are shut down, those pieces of metal still resonate for a beautifully sustained coda.
Back to the Zamboni issue: we'd been told by 'reliable' informants (Loren Chasse who heard about it from Ferarra Pan who heard it on Scot Jenerik's radio show) that the source material for Jean-Francois Laporte's "Mantra" was a Zamboni. As the liner-notes (all in French mind you) indicate that Laporte incorporated the sound of an air compressor from an ice-skating rink, it didn't rule out the possibility that indeed that air compressor could belong to a Zamboni, but it didn't actually say anything about Zambonis. (Are they even called Zambonis in France, anyway?) As you can tell, we Aquarians like the Zamboni and would really like to believe that the Zamboni was responsible for this album. Thus, we contacted the label, who merely sent us an English translation of the original liner notes, which again stated the source material to be an air compressor. Thus, we are left to ponder the quandary: is it or is it not a Zamboni?
Putting this grand existential question aside and the true origin of the source material out of sight for the moment, what's true is that Laporte has indeed sculpted one of the most compelling drone compositions that we've encountered in quite some time. For loyal readers of these lists, that's no idle comment as artists like Oragnum, Jonathan Coleclough, Mirror, John Duncan, and Francisco Lopez still rank highly for us in the pantheon of dronescapers. Not only as working model but also as a something of belief system, Jean-Francoise Laporte applies the ideals of the mantra to the urban landscape. To him, the hypnotic audio elements of refrigerators, motorcycle engines, and in this case the Zamboni / air compressor rise above their mundane properties to become something that can be meditated upon and hold transcendent properties.
A very, very nice recording, Zamboni or not. Even if you don't normally buy all the weird, droney experimental stuff we recommend, you might want to take a chance and try this out. After all, it's only 20 minutes out of your day and eight bucks. And, maybe it's a Zamboni!
RealAudio clip: "Mantra (Excerpt 1)"
RealAudio clip: "Mantra (Excerpt 2)"
RealAudio clip: "Mantra (Excerpt 3)"

LAPORTE, JEAN-FRANCOIS Soundmatters (23five) cd 14.98
Those artists, musicians, misanthropes, and just plain weirdos who not only exist musically on the fringes but have planted their entire existence on the edge have long been the greatest inspirations of Aquarius Records. For proof, you could scroll through oddball recordings that have earned the honor of Aquarius Record Of The Week. There was the Finnish sound artist Terje Isungset who crafted not just one album, but two from untreated percussive instruments entirely made of ice. Hans Edler thrilled us with his 1970s transformation from teen idol into short-circuited electronic composer. The protracted ululations of the profoundly cracked Elizabeth Clare Prophet and the Church Universal and Triumphant were as transcendent as anything that Lamonte Young had to offer, yet also had that creepy cult of personality vibe to boot. And who could forget Kathy McGinty? But one of the earliest recordings that truly made our collective jaw drop was the 3" cd from French-Canadian composer Jean-Francois Laporte called Mantra. Here was a mighty fine 20 minute composition of delicious vibrations, rattles, mechanical hum, and industrial drones that came with a particularly alluring back story: the source material to Mantra was a Zamboni -- the unusual machine only found at hockey rinks responsible for resurfacing its ice.
The one catch to Laporte's Zamboni sourced masterpiece was that we could never verify that a Zamboni was the actual source material. We heard from 'reliable sources' that Mantra is the sound of a Zamboni; and we wanted so desperately to believe that this was the case, just because the Zamboni is such an amazing and eccentric beast of industrial engineering. Before this turns into a dialectic on epistemology, we here at Aquarius discovered that we had been duped by a couple of mischievous DJs on KPFA without the knowledge or consent of Jean-Francois Laporte. It turns out that Laporte used nothing but a common air-compressor in composing Mantra. This factual unveiling should not in any way take away from the splendor of that piece. Here's what we had to say about Mantra many moons ago:
"Mantra opens with a trio of motors starting up and emitting a gentle purr. As these engines warm up and shift through various perfunctory cycles, a wide spectrum of metallic vibrations slowly spins through the stereo field. After a marvelous set of transitions between drones, there is the rattling sound as if a screw or bolt had been loosened by the vibrations, with two pieces of metal beginning a clamorous bell-ringing arrhythmia. When these motors finally are shut down, those pieces of metal still resonate for a beautifully sustained coda."
That 3" cd came out almost a decade ago, became a classic, and went out of print. Thankfully, 23five Incorporated has rescued Mantra from the dustbin by issuing the first major compendium of Laporte's work in the form of Soundmatters. While we've already sung the praises of Mantra, the remainder of Soundmatters is well worth investigating on its own. The opening track "Electro-Prana" is a pristine set of field recordings of a wind that ripped through Montreal, when the city was silenced by a winter time blackout. It's a pure, chilling sound of whistling wind overtaking the urban landscape. The next piece is the only digitally rendered composition on Soundmatters, yet Laporte brings his intuitive expressionism to a series of spiraling drones that easily rival those of your favorite minimalist (e.g. Niblock, Chalk, Hafler Trio, Xenakis, etc.). For those of you who have had the pleasure of experiencing Laporte's live concerts, the third piece will certainly be familiar. He's built an instrument with a series of car horns and elongated trumpet bells attached to an air compressor with each of the valves controlled by foot pedals. This instrument can generate infinitely sustainable, blaring drones from each of the horns; and Laporte craftily layers these sounds for incredible, dynamic results. Well, for this recording, Laporte lugged this instrument into the hull of a giant cargo ship and recorded this composition using the massive reverb of that space and the results are simply jaw-dropping. Imagine the most Nordic bellow from a Wagner symphony stretched out into its melancholic, raw sound and allowed to decay in space and time. Wow!
Following this is the aforementioned Mantra; and then Soundmatters' final piece which explores a quiet, yet thoroughly rich harmonic tapestry produced by a quartet of saxophones that could be Laporte's imagined summit between Evan Parker and Morton Feldman with rasping breaths of sound breaking across a silent event horizon with the ghostly energy of subatomic particles flickering and dissolving in a cloud chamber before amassing into a delirious swarm of Tony Conrad-esque acoustic dissonance. It's all utterly magnificent and one of finest collections of 'serious' composition that we've come across.
MPEG Stream: "Electro-Prana"
MPEG Stream: "Boule qui roule..."
MPEG Stream: "Danse le ventre du dragon"
MPEG Stream: "Mantra"

LAPPETITES, THE Before The Libretto (Quecksilber) cd 15.98
Before the Libretto is like some sort of neo-futuristic pseudo-Pagan ritual in which these four women from four countries (Elaine Radigue (France), Kaffe Matthews (UK), Ryoko Kuwajima (Japan), and AGF (Germany) hold hands (or connect laptops) and invoke the forces of nature....but instead of the earth and wind and sea answering the call, a bunch of little aliens show up and start dancing a jig. No one knows what the hell is going on, but it's pretty awesome all the same. Part operatic play, part experimental poetry, glistening, organic, feminine, and weird. Ryoko Kuwajima sounds a bit like Tujiko Noriko....wafting in and out with spoken bits and scraps of private song. Whenever it strikes her fancy, while the others weave a playful prickly and peculiar musical bed for all of the strange vocalisations. Very hard to describe what's going on, totally alien sounding but at the same time, so inviting you just want to touch and fold and feel and try to figure out what the heck is going on. The sounds are gentle, but not soft, crunchy, but not hard, like diving into a swiming pool full of autumn leaves, then running through the forest naked. The separate parts sound a little like puzzle pieces forced into the wrong places, a curious hodgepodge of ill fitting pieces, but together thay have some strange poetry, it's what makes this all sound so charming. The parts and pieces and sonic fragments don't mesh, but somehow....that's what makes it work. The cover is quite striking as well, a creepy fleshy tongue flower that inspires lot of "hmms" and "eeews" from customers when it's in the 'Now Playing' slot on our counter. Highly recommended, a curious and curiously appealing record.
MPEG Stream: "My Within"
MPEG Stream: "Disaster"
MPEG Stream: "Funeral"

LARSEN Cool Cruel Mouth (Important) cd 14.98

LARSEN Seies (Important) cd 14.98
Larsen is an enigmatic post-rock ensemble who have been responsible for some interesting conceptual projects all of which have been immaculately executed. For their highly acclaimed album Rever, the ensemble hired Michael Gira (Swans, Angels of Light) as the producer, but never allowed him to actually see the band as they played behind a curtain. Larsen followed this album with a breathtaking record reconstructing the melodic phrasing of Autechre through their own repetitive patterns for guitar, bass, vibraphone, accordion, and drums. Seies doesn't enjoy any of the conceptual agendas of the previous record; or rather if there are any concepts to the record, Larsen has shrouded them from their audience. The hymnal post-rock hypnosis from the previous records is certainly present, conjuring a spaghetti western swagger heard in the more bad-ass Morricone soundtracks. In these looping dirges, Larsen also call to mind the desolate soundtracks composed by Calla and some of the late period work of Swans; this is especially true for the tracks in which former Swans singer Jarboe appears! There's guest appearances a plenty on Seies as Current 93's cellist Julia Kent appears on some early tracks, and the dark ambient overlord Lustmord conjures his own black clouds on some of the later cuts.
MPEG Stream: "The Snow"
MPEG Stream: "Mother"
MPEG Stream: "Marzia"

LARSEN & NURSE WITH WOUND Erroneous: A Selection Of Errors (Important Records) cd 14.98
There's actually a third entity who makes an appearance on this collaborative record, certainly at the behest of Steven Stapleton. That would be Eberhard Kranemann (aka Fritz Muller) who had been an early member of both Neu! and Kraftwerk way back when, but had taken much more of a damaged freeform experimental approach during the next three decades. Nurse With Wound is represented by the longstanding coupling of Stapleton and Colin Potter, spinning a psychotropic cloud of disfigured tones and mangled rhythms. Larsen is the Italian occultish-leaning post-rock outfit with quite an interesting history behind them of Autechre covers and an odd and hardly believable story of once working with Michael Gira. That said, it's hard to really qualify this as a collaborative album, since the tracks at the front-end of the record really sound like Nurse With Wound and those in the latter half like Larsen.
The album opens with a Kranemann penned song of guitar scribbling very much on par with the NWW classic Chance Meeting On An Operating Table with an almost 23 Skidoo / Hula groove of electronic-bhangra with all of the distant screams and weirdo sounds you would expect from a wacked NWW tune. A more introspective, but kaleidoscopically dark ambient track follows. Again, this is a signature NWW production, harkening to A Sadness Of Things or Thunder Perfect Mind. As the tables turn towards Larsen's end of the spectrum, elliptical basslines, melodic bells, and propulsive drums move to the foreground, proceeding toward their trademarked layered builds and soaring crescendos.
MPEG Stream: "Tickety-Boo"
MPEG Stream: "Driftin' By"
MPEG Stream: "Call Me. Tell Me"

LARSEN & Z'EV In V. Tro (Important) cd 14.98

LARVAL HAIRS Aedes Flashback (Monorail Trespassing) 2 x cassette 14.98
This sort of rarefied minimalism is not entirely expected from the likes of Monorail Trespassing, although the Larval Hairs project does live up to the high caliber releases which the label has been steadily releasing. Ades Flashback is a double cassette intended to be played at the same time on separate systems. While similarly minded excursions have been demonstrated throughout the sound-art world with multi-channel transmissions, there's something wholly unpretentious about Larval Hairs' production. Little more than two boom boxes are required, although we'd suggest taking those two boom boxes to one of those huge resonant concrete bunkers in the Headlands and seeing how everything bounces. Side A aggregates sinewaves, small swells from rapidly splashing saw-tooth waves, a soft extension of pink noise, and other synthesized oscillations that suggests the longform feedback works of Jason Kahn or a rougher version of Eliane Radigue's early minimalism. The corresponding Side C (which we're assuming is what's to go with Side A, although you could probably switch it all around and it would still sound really cool), contains similarly-minded elements tuned to slight different pitches. Side B broadcasts another series of synthesized tones which hit some skull-drilling harmonic convergences through ever slight oscillations and phase shifts. Side D takes a grittier approach to the synth pulse drone with grinding saw-tooth patterns situated just below the surface of rumbling vibrational tones. Both tapes are 45 minutes in length and are housed in a really nice double tape case, something we've not seen in ages. Limited to 100 copies and certainly recommended.

LATARTARA, JOHN & KHRISTIAN WEEKS With For Intoned (Sachimay) cd 13.98
Drone-obsessive experiments from new music composers John Latartara and Khristain Weeks use repeating sonic figures from Tibetal bowls, string quartet, flute, and tape manipulation of differing lengths to create cyclical repetitions.

LAU NAU Valohiukkanen (Fonal Records) cd 17.98
So our beloved Finnish singer, Lau Nau (also of Kiila, Paivansade, the Anaksimandros, Avarus, Maailma, and the trio Hertta Lussu Assa - basically most of Finland's underground foresty free folk scene), has moved far away from the drone prevalent on her previous releases, and drifted off into a more spare psych-folk scape. These songs really breathe. Lau's cool and airy vocals fall gently on the mostly piano, jouhikko (a traditional Finnish lyre), and drum arrangements like snow - all the while singing about darkness and death like she's Emily Dickinson. Of particular note is "Run, My Horsey, Run", which has a Gypsy folk influence. Lau's known for her eccentric and vast instrumentation, and this release is no disappointment in that regard. "Conqueror's Song" includes Lau's own beat-boxing (yeah, you read that right), and "Paperthin" credits someone on "seagulls". We're not sure how you play a seagull, but we enjoyed their appearance on this wistful, gloomy, and very pretty release!
MPEG Stream: "Valloittajan Laulu (Conqueror's Song)"
MPEG Stream: "Juokse Sina Humma (Run, My Horsey, Run)"
MPEG Stream: "Kuoleman Tappajan Kuolema"

LAU NAU Valohiukkanen (Fonal Records) lp 23.00
So our beloved Finnish singer, Lau Nau (also of Kiila, Paivansade, the Anaksimandros, Avarus, Maailma, and the trio Hertta Lussu Assa - basically most of Finland's underground foresty free folk scene), has moved far away from the drone prevalent on her previous releases, and drifted off into a more spare psych-folk scape. These songs really breathe. Lau's cool and airy vocals fall gently on the mostly piano, jouhikko (a traditional Finnish lyre), and drum arrangements like snow - all the while singing about darkness and death like she's Emily Dickinson. Of particular note is "Run, My Horsey, Run", which has a Gypsy folk influence. Lau's known for her eccentric and vast instrumentation, and this release is no disappointment in that regard. "Conqueror's Song" includes Lau's own beat-boxing (yeah, you read that right), and "Paperthin" credits someone on "seagulls". We're not sure how you play a seagull, but we enjoyed their appearance on this wistful, gloomy, and very pretty release!
MPEG Stream: "Valloittajan Laulu (Conqueror's Song)"
MPEG Stream: "Juokse Sina Humma (Run, My Horsey, Run)"
MPEG Stream: "Kuoleman Tappajan Kuolema"

LAUREL HALO Antenna (NNA Tapes) cassette 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

LAWLER, R. KEENAN Music For the Bluegrass States (Xeric) cd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "That Train Has Already Left The Station"
MPEG Stream: "Wall Climbing Spirit"

LAY, JOSH Asphyxiation Worship (Black Horizons) 7" 8.98
Everybody except a tiny handful of folks missed out on that Josh Lay cd-r on the last list, sold out in a flash, but for those of you who missed out, here's a brand new 7" from Mr. Lay, drummer for aQ faves Cadaver In Drag. But of course the sound here is a bit different than the cd-r. The first side begins with a noisy drone, but soft noise, an undulating layer of deep gurgly rumble and highend whir that gradually grows thicker and more ominous, until it explodes into a blast of chaotic blackness, a weird abstract black ambience with howled demonic vokills, a bit like a black metal track with the guitars and drums removed, haunting and evil and black, but more a sort of blackdrone. The flipside is all drone however, never exploding into any sort of evil blackness, instead opting to lurk in shades of grey, slithering and shimmering and whirring.
Super fancy trifold gold ink on thick black cardstock sleeve, and LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!

LAY, JOSH Poison Drinker (Sentient Recognition Archive) cd-r 9.98
LAST COPIES!!!
We totally blew through these the first time around, selling out before most folks got a chance to snag one, well here's another chance, another super limited pressing, we got a whole bunch but odds are these will fly out of here lickety split again!
This just might be our favorite new 'noise' record. The key to that statement being those little marks around the word noise. This is most definitely noisy. But it's not pure noise. It's textural. It's droney. Somehow it's weirdly melodic too. Hard to explain, it's a big ol' massive slab of grinding guitar drone, laced with shards of static, and streaks of high end skree, the low end undulates and pulses, creating a distinct, but super subtle melody, a dense rumbling support for all the high end weirdness happening o'er the top.
Josh Lay for those who may not know, is in fact the drummer for fucked up avant noise doom combo Cadaver In Drag, and this here is what happens when you let THAT kind of drummer make his own record. Not sure what he's using, guitar, synth, 4-track, shortwave radio, effects. We like to think the cover of the cd is an actual photo of the recording taking place, a beat up old console turntable, two old blown speakers, a cow skull, a half drunk bottle of booze, and an upside down cross. Cuz, c'mon, put all that stuff together, it would have to sound a little something like this, At least we'd hope so.
Two tracks, the first, the title track is the above mentioned 'noise', a gloriously heavy blown out crumbling damaged stretch of coruscating sound, weird that something so obviously harsh could be so listenable, but it really is. At one point some creepy horn comes in, maybe it's a synth, but it sounds like a horn, it blats for a second, then just lays down and forms another layer of buzz, tones warble and wail, almost like some radio shack built siren, and gets all tangled up in that thick viscous buzz. We literally can't stop listening to it. So much so, that it's only right now, that we actually made it to the second track, which is kick ass also, but much more subdued, a weird stuttery loop, locked into an endless rhythm, while beneath, the same deep ominous low end from the opening track buzzed and reverberates, as the track progresses, more and more sounds enter the mix, a microscopic symphony of beeps and buzzes, squeaks and squiggles, all just adding to the general dreamy noise drenched din. AWESOME!
MPEG Stream: "Poison Drinker"