LEDESMA, JEFRE SEI GETSU Namu Kie Butsu (NNA Tapes) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest tape from Jefre Cantu Ledesma, a member of long running post rockers Tarentel, one of the head honchos of the Root Strata label, and a sublime crafter of divine dronemusic on his own, here rechristened 'Sei Getsu', Cantu utilizes "motorized electric guitar" to conjure up a lovely collection of blissful brooding evening ambience.
Like the Caboladies / Oneohtrix tape reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, Cantu's tape went through a whole pressing (albeit only 100 copies) before we got wind of it, and thankfully the label deigned to make another batch, which will no doubt disappear as quickly as the first.
Hushed and minimal, but more intense than much of what we've heard from Cantu, thick swells of rumbling low end, deep swaths of burnished buzz, glistening and glimmering, delicate sheets of shimmer draped over something much more dark and grim, a heaving roiling blackness, that swirls and pulses, its barbs muted and smoothed, but that darkness definitely infuses the proceedings with a ghostly, even ghastly vibe. Even so, the sounds manage to remain meditative and abstract, it's almost like SUNNO))) stripped down and mellowed out, still heavy, but more dense and intense than outwardly crushing. Gorgeous stuff, but sadly, crazy limited and maybe gone for good before you know it.

LEE MILLER The Futility Of Language (Musically Incorrect) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally back in stock!!
Finnophile alert!!! Yet another amazing post-Circle / Circle related project!! What the hell?!? Do those guys ever sleep? And if they do, have they figured out some way to record in their sleep? But who's complaining? Certainly not us. This time around, it's two Finns and one -American- doing the hypno-rock drone damage. Janne Peltomaki, former Circle drummer, current drummer for Paine and the recently reviewed Stalwart, Jyrki Laiho current guitar player for Circle and Stalwart, and Jordan Mamone, guitarist for NY artrockers Alger Hiss. While Circle continually flirt with metal, guitars always getting a little heavier, vocals that veer into serious Rob Halford territory, and of course the increasingly metallic imagery, it's this here Lee Miller outift that has finally pulled out the metal stops. Not that this is a "metal" record. It's just undeniably heavy, big jagged distorted guitars, pounding rhythms, and strange growling baritone vocals. In fact it has a bit of an industrial edge to it as well, with plenty of teutonic ponding a la Swans, Copshootcop, or fellow Finns Worms. Occasionally things do simmer down, and the result is a much more Circular sound, but a bit less krautrocky and more arty and angular, due in no small part we imagine to the presence of Mamone. But Lee Miller is all about that crush and pummel, and The Futility Of Language pounds that point home. Dark and distorted, heavy and hypnotic! This will definitely please Circle fans who have been digging their gradual shift into heavier territory, and just might tempt some metalheads into the vast and wondrous land of glorious hypnorock!!
MPEG Stream: "Mary Pentagram"
MPEG Stream: "Two Black Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Kiinalaiset"

LEE, THANIEL ION June (self-released) cd-r 7.98
Another new, EXTREMELY limited missive from soundscaper / noisemaker Thaniel Ion Lee, who here, over the course of 34 minutes, unfurls a gorgeous glimmering expanse of minimal drift, a smoldering landscape of slow shifting layers, of muted feedback, and hushed thrum. A softly swirling sprawl of deep resonant tones, and washed out chordal shimmer. The vibe is ethereal and dreamlike, almost Caretaker-ish at times, but way more minimal and abstract, lush tones and overtones drift through fields of disembodied shimmer, that at times sound like an orchestra string section, locked into a weird time loop, while at others, like smears of indistinct melodies bleeding over from another dimension, hearing only glimpses of the whole, the fragments all woven into a strangely otherworldly drone, rife with all manner of subtle sonic colorations, hushed and haunting and so lovely.
LIMITED TO ONLY 25 COPIES!!! Each one hand numbered and with a unique hand painted cover.
MPEG Stream: "June"

LEE, THANIEL ION White (self-released) cd-r 13.98
BACK IN STOCK!! LAST COPIES!! WE GOT 'EM ALL!!
The name Thaniel Ion Lee might not be immediately familiar to most folks, but avid readers of the aQ New Arrivals list might know him as the man behind blackdrone / ambient blacknoize outfit Black Escutcheon, whose cd-r we reviewed (and sold out of in a flash) and who shared a split tape with aQ faves weirdo outsider black metal one man band Cloak Of Displacement.
This latest missive, an outrageously limited (25 copies) and extravagantly hand made cd-r box collects a handful of material recorded over the last 3 years, and never released until now. And it seems that on these tracks, the blackness and noise are dialed back, leaving some lush layered dronemusic that will definitely appeal to the aQ dronelords (and droneladies), with its smoldering layered shimmers and buzzing SUNNO))) like glacial dirges, laced with bits of lazily strummed acoustic guitar, sweet soft swells of melody, swirling clouds of abstract effects, the sound slipping deftly from slowcore drift, to churning lowend heaviness, and from hazy spectral blur, to hushed almost shoegazey creep, often in the same song.
Folks who dug the blacker and noiser aspects of the two Blood Escutcheons, might still find much to dig here, it is still dark and droney and hauntingly atmospheric, but folks into dreamy dronemusic will be in heaven, although the last track, the nearly 16 minute "And You Will Know Him By His Deeds" does get grim and grisly and sonically sinister before blossoming into something much more glistening and celestial sounding.
LIMITED TO 25 COPIES!! Each one housed in a white cardboard reel to reel box, with a xeroxed insert and a white paper doily, each box hand numbered and titled, wrapped in twine.
MPEG Stream: "Things We Lost In The Shadows"
MPEG Stream: "Distant Stars"
MPEG Stream: "Bible Black Sabbath"

LEGENDARY PINK DOTS Stained Glass Soma Fountains (Soleilmoon) 2cd 21.00
The Legendary Pink Dots is an unusual crypto-pop collective whose expressive sonic adventures blur the well-demarcated subcultures of '60s psychedelia and '80s doom 'n' gloom. Stained Glass Soma Fountain, a collection of LPD rarities from the early '80s. Primitive keyboards and drum machines playfully march through baroque fusions of New Wave and psychedelia, hinting perhaps at the underappreciated pop of Brian Eno.

LEGION (LAGOWSKI) False Dawn (Zoharum) 2cd 24.00
Andrew Lagowski is a man of many hats, from his earliest post-punk work as Nagamatzu (reissued by Dark Entries) to brilliantly paranoid sci-fi concrete compositions as S.E.T.I. (the best of which came out on Ash International) and the muscular electronica under his own name from the early '90s that bridged the practices of Autechre and Clock DVA. Lagowski is not the first to use the name Legion, and there's no doubt somebody else will pick up the moniker somewhere along the way; but for this project, he propagates a dark ambient agenda similar to the one he helped Lustmord craft on the seminal Heresy record, through long-form electronic tones and undulations scattered with psychologically charged samples and bursts of white noise. Originally released in 1992 on the German imprint Hyperium, False Dawn was a grim parallel to much of the ambient techno offerings that were spawned from the post-rave culture, with a handful of other likeminded artists delving into the deep cosmology of an industrially minded ambience. The album's central tracks - "Colossus" and "The Plasma Pool" - are aptly named with a liquid gravity that ripples through echoing, abysmal drones, bookending a shorter rhythmic track akin to the sequenced techno that he produced under his own name.
This reissue of False Dawn is full of bonus material, much of it unreleased. There are two versions of "Tunnelvision" which was recorded about the same time, with one of the versions being released on a super limited 7" single, and the longer version making its first appearance on this collection. Both sport much of the same deep sound design with stretched / blurred / echoed liturgical chants that weave in and out of the shadowy electronics and buzzing static. "Komarov" loops a slow feedback pulse with synthetic orchestrations and snatched shortwave radio conversations, leaning a bit more towards the S.E.T.I. recordings. And Lagowski revists a handful of the original cassettes for two of the tracks which were produced in 2008 and 2012 respectively, with both keeping true to the deep dark extended gasping of Legion's earlier sounds. The collection ends with three remixes from other artists that feel tacked on, but certainly don't diminish the power from Lagowski's aesthetic.
MPEG Stream: "Colossus"
MPEG Stream: "The Plasma Pool"
MPEG Stream: "Komarov"
MPEG Stream: "The Midnight Illumination"

LEGION OF TWO Riffs (Planet Mu) cd 14.98
Of all the 'electronica' labels out there, we're beginning to think Planet Mu might be our favorite, certain the most relevant. For a while Warp were unbeatable, Aphex Twin, Boards Of Canada, Squarepusher, Plaid, Autechre, and while that stuff still rules, Warp definitely seems like old guard, whereas Planet Mu has been moving forward, pushing boundaries, even the old school artists on Planet Mu seem to be similarly progressive. So compare the Planet Mu roster to the above Warp one: Venetian Snares, Shitmat, Distance, Vex'd, Pinch, Boxcutter, Neil Landstrumm, Eero Johannes, Milanese, Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble... Planet Mu is always on the cusp of whatever new sound surfaces, the home to most of the kick ass dubstep released in the US, but still supporting it's older artists, who in turn support the label by changing and transforming and progressing. All that said, we still were totally blindsided by Legion Of Two.
With a record title like Riffs, we were already prepared for something different, and a record called Riffs on Planet Mu definitely had us intrigued, but still we would have never expected this. Imagine Neurosis doing dubstep, or some ambient doom band dabbling in electronica, or a heavier, more modern and avant Tortoise, thick sheets of distorted buzz, plenty of bleeps and bloops, that awesome hoovery dubstep bass buzz, but with REAL drums, big drums, pounding and punishing and massive, just take the opening one two punch. The first track, a sort of intro, is a swirling cloud of hiss and whir, streaks of feedback, layer upon layer of gauzy distorted thrum, peppered with bursts of big booming drums, until the song finally kicks in, and it's like Black Boned Angel or something, but a bit stripped down, and instead of downtuned riffage, it's a sea of undulating synths, and rumbling low end, and shards of melody and feedback swirling all around the pounding lumbering doomic crush. We almost wish that track was the whole of the record, but then we would have missed out on the second track, which is where we got the dubstep Neurosis thing, that's not quite accurate, but for an 'electronic' record it definitely doesn't get heavier than this, a loping drum part, over deep throbbing low end, laced with little space-y squelches, and some woodpecker clicks, as well as intense bursts of in-the-red bass fuzz, and finally some techno synths laced over the top, the sound getting thicker and thicker and heavier and heavier, eventually building to a full on glitched out effects drenched psychedelic electronic freakout, the rhythm never faltering, finishing off with a fierce almost metallic dirge. Holy shit. How did these guys end up on Planet Mu, and how the hell did they come up with this bizarre sonic hybrid?
The whole record is sort of a series of rhythmic workouts, from crushing metallic dubstep, to blissed out post rock, to mathy techno jams, to deep listening laid back grooves, but all anchored by the incredible drumming, and the sound of real drums, which is probably what makes this stuff sound so fresh and organic, live drums and electronics end up creating something dense and blown out, heavy and 'live' sounding.
"Palace (Dub)" isn't so much dub, as a tangled bit of complex looped drumming, beneath a repetitive synth line and some buzzing bass squelches, and diaphanous sheets of high end shimmer in the background, tense and dramatic and cinematic, almost like a more twisted avant mathy electronic Goblin or Zombi. "Legion Of Two", is a loping almost eighties sounding groove, with some of the buzziest heaviest synth sounds ever, and plenty of tweaked effects, and soaring faux strings, and tinkling late night glimmer. Much of the second half of the record is more laid back, soporific, almost jazzy, hence the Tortoise comparison, looped and hypnotic, the drums and bass locked into totally mesmerizing jams, while all around keyboards chime and ring out, the melodies haunting and minor key, occasionally slipping into jagged bursts of stuttery noise drenched stop start riff heavy math rock, before slipping back into the groove. The lengthy "Handling Noise" finds the band doing so just fine, crafting a long slow burning creepfest, all otherworldly swells, strange electronic sounds, creepy ambience, jazzy drum skitter, all wreathed in static and crackle and hiss, exploding in the last few minutes in a full on Nadja style shoegaze, noise rock psychdrone blow out. "It Really Does Take Time" is the most electronic of the bunch, a bit house-y, with dubbed out effects, weird loops of children's voices, haunting and trippy, but this track too finally exploding in a frenzy of tribal rhythms and wild psychedelic synths.
The record finishes off with the 10+ minute "Cast Out Your Demons", which is like a dubby space rock jam, big loping drums, sizzling space-y synths, whirling effects, but within all the blissedout stargazing mesmer, subtle bits of dubby guitar, the drums really driving the track, to a gorgeous hazy drone drenched outro, definitely reminds us of White Hills or one of those modern psych combos, but infused with some weirdly abstract space dub.
Really cool stuff, and even with the preceding lengthy review, hard to describe, or at least hard to do justice to. This record has been on repeat play since the day it showed up, in the store, at home, on the headphones, at once groovy and dark, hazy and heavy, druggy and psychedelic, electronic and metallic, a gorgeous confusional chunk of psych-dub space doom free jazz noise rock. Or something. Whatever you call it, most definitely one of our new favorites...
MPEG Stream: "(Intro) Starbound"
MPEG Stream: "And Now We Wait"
MPEG Stream: "Palace (Dub)"
MPEG Stream: "Legion Of Two"

LEHTISALO, JUSSI Interludes For Prepared Beast (Full Contact / Svart) lp 22.00
NOW ON VINYL!! We raved about this a couple months ago when it first came out on cassette via the Sige imprint. That tape is now sold out, and we're not sure how long these lps will last, either...
Solo record number two from aQ pal Jussi Lehtisalo, frontman of Finnish hypnorockers Circle, Ektro / Full Contact label head honcho, and member of too many outfits to count, a few of which would include Ektroverde, Ratto Ja Lehtisalo, Doktor Kettu, Pharaoh Overlord, Rakhim, Grumbling Fur, Krypt Axeripper, Motorspandex, Split Cranium, Steel Mammoth...
Sadly, we haven't yet managed to get Jussi's first solo lp, by all accounts a surprisingly beautiful and subdued album, but we did manage to get a bunch of these, the tape version at least (there's a vinyl version as well, which we hope to have soon too), which is also beautiful, but about as far from subdued as you can get. Both side long tracks are dense and layered, and constantly shifting. In some ways taking all the disparate sounds of Jussi's other bands, and somehow mashing them all together, into something surprisingly cohesive.
The A side, "Caterpillars", starts off sounding like some sort of abstract deserty ambient experimental doom, with churning guitars, spurts of metallic crunch, clattery bicycle spoke like percussion, woozy Morricone-esque twang and spidery minor key melodies, peppered with occasional twisted little synth trills, all beneath some monstrous growled vokills, before the song transforms into something more woozy and jazzy, a little late night bluesy, with crooned distorted vox, and thick low end rib cage rattling thrum, only to then launch into some seriously twisted buzz drenched rock pound, which initially sounds like it might explode into full on black metal, but instead, the pounding and buzzing is joined by more twisted xylophone like synth melodies, booming sub bass throbs and cool blasts of rad classic metal style harmonized leads, before once again slipping back into a spacey sort of moody, woozy slowcore, driven by frenetic high hat cymbal stutter, and trippy dubbed out snare drums, still more crooned vox, the sound dreamy and washed out, laced with strange swoonsome faux horns and glistening spaced out FX before finally returning to that strange xylophone driven metallic stomp.
The flipside is equally schizophrenic, "Here March The Cranes" begins all grinding gnarled guitars in a cloud of cymbal sizzle, which is then joined by some Circle like hypnorock bass, the guitars coalescing into little soaring squalls of majestic fast picking, multiple guitars interwoven, those guitars growing more intense, unfurling wild psychedelic leads, everything getting noisier and noisier, until finally switching gears and mellowing out, into a twisted post rock sprawl, all ethereal guitar shimmer, wild jazzy drummy, and spaced out bass blurts. Soon those growled vox come back in, and the sound turns into some strange sinister epic prog rock, swirling synthy strings, a slow build, more and more intense and tense, before splintering into a stretch of cool droned out noise rock churn, that sound gradually growing more and more spacey and serene, dreamy melodies, more of those faux horns, all manner of strange percussion and swirling FX, as the noise recedes, the sound becomes a hazy, lilting bit of psychedelic dreamdrone raga like drift. Fantastic! Easily one of the coolest weirdest things we've heard from Jussi, which is saying a lot considering his whole career has basically been nothing BUT a series of cool weird releases!! WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Caterpillars (excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "Here Come The Cranes (excerpt)"

LEHTISALO, JUSSI Interludes For Prepared Beast (Sige / Full Contact) cassette 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Solo record number two from aQ pal Jussi Lehtisalo, frontman of Finnish hypnorockers Circle, Ektro / Full Contact label head honcho, and member of too many outfits to count, a few of which would include Ektroverde, Ratto Ja Lehtisalo, Doktor Kettu, Pharaoh Overlord, Rakhim, Grumbling Fur, Krypt Axeripper, Motorspandex, Split Cranium, Steel Mammoth...
Sadly, we haven't yet managed to get Jussi's first solo lp, by all accounts a surprisingly beautiful and subdued album, but we did manage to get a bunch of these, the tape version at least (there's a vinyl version as well, which we hope to have soon too), which is also beautiful, but about as far from subdued as you can get. Both side long tracks are dense and layered, and constantly shifting. In some ways taking all the disparate sounds of Jussi's other bands, and somehow mashing them all together, into something surprisingly cohesive.
The A side, "Caterpillars", starts off sounding like some sort of abstract deserty ambient experimental doom, with churning guitars, spurts of metallic crunch, clattery bicycle spoke like percussion, woozy Morricone-esque twang and spidery minor key melodies, peppered with occasional twisted little synth trills, all beneath some monstrous growled vokills, before the song transforms into something more woozy and jazzy, a little late night bluesy, with crooned distorted vox, and thick low end rib cage rattling thrum, only to then launch into some seriously twisted buzz drenched rock pound, which initially sounds like it might explode into full on black metal, but instead, the pounding and buzzing is joined by more twisted xylophone like synth melodies, booming sub bass throbs and cool blasts of rad classic metal style harmonized leads, before once again slipping back into a spacey sort of moody, woozy slowcore, driven by frenetic high hat cymbal stutter, and trippy dubbed out snare drums, still more crooned vox, the sound dreamy and washed out, laced with strange swoonsome faux horns and glistening spaced out FX before finally returning to that strange xylophone driven metallic stomp.
The flipside is equally schizophrenic, "Here March The Cranes" begins all grinding gnarled guitars in a cloud of cymbal sizzle, which is then joined by some Circle like hypnorock bass, the guitars coalescing into little soaring squalls of majestic fast picking, multiple guitars interwoven, those guitars growing more intense, unfurling wild psychedelic leads, everything getting noisier and noisier, until finally switching gears and mellowing out, into a twisted post rock sprawl, all ethereal guitar shimmer, wild jazzy drummy, and spaced out bass blurts. Soon those growled vox come back in, and the sound turns into some strange sinister epic prog rock, swirling synthy strings, a slow build, more and more intense and tense, before splintering into a stretch of cool droned out noise rock churn, that sound gradually growing more and more spacey and serene, dreamy melodies, more of those faux horns, all manner of strange percussion and swirling FX, as the noise recedes, the sound becomes a hazy, lilting bit of psychedelic dreamdrone raga like drift. Fantastic! Easily one of the coolest weirdest things we've heard from Jussi, which is saying a lot considering his whole career has basically been nothing BUT a series of cool weird releases!! WAY recommended. And limited, limited TO JUST 100 COPIES!!! The cassette comes sealed in a stickered little bag, inside a cool cd sized box, artwork affixed to the inside and outside, and sealed shut with another sticker.
MPEG Stream: "Caterpillars (excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "Here Come The Cranes (excerpt)"

LEONARD, CHERYL E. Chattermarks (All Ways North) cd 13.98
In January 2009, the Bay Area sound-artist and composer Cheryl Leonard embarked on a residency program at the Palmer Station in Antarctica. There, she took every opportunity to venture out into the summer's perpetual daylight to make as many field recordings as possible and to collect an array of penguin bones (with the permission of the Palmer Station, of course) to use in her rather elegant, beguiling compositions. In the past, Leonard had used a variety of branches, rocks, and other natural elements in these beautifully textured compositions whereby she would bow and clink those objects into masses of textures that came across somewhere between the work of Loren Chasse, Jeph Jerman, and Small Cruel Party. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that she actually released a split 7" with SMC's Key Ransome some 15 years ago.
While Chattermarks is a collection of pure field recordings, the use of those abraded sounds within a composed swarm points to what she was listening for in Antarctica. In hearing Leonard talk about her Antarctic adventure, she is quick to describe the brutality of the wind and the intensity of the cold, all of which wreaked havoc upon her binaural mics and hydraphones. Many of her recordings feature the noises of Antarctic animal life: adelie penguins, elephant seals, skuas, and gulls. The slumbering snore from a couple of the elephant seals is particularly striking as are their bellowing barks and guttural thrumbings. But the sounds of ice are probably the most intriguing recordings on Chattermarks, from the huge rumbles of a glacier that crumbles into the ocean with smaller tinklings of ice racing down an embankment to the searing hiss of millions of shards of ice clattering together next to a disintegrating wall of packed snow. The only document of the Antarctic wind was captured in a haunting recording of wind whipping around an antenna punctuated by the booms of a glacier splitting in two somewhere in the distance. An obvious treat for anyone keen on Douglas Quin's polar recordings, but Leonard has an excellent flair for subtle drama that's also heard in those impeccable Chris Watson field recordings. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Beach Adelie Penguins"
MPEG Stream: "Shore Brash Ice"
MPEG Stream: "Elephant Seal Nap"
MPEG Stream: "Storm At Gamage Point"

LERMAN, RICHARD Music Of Richard Lerman 1964-1987 - Featuring Travelon Gamelon (Music For Bicycles) (EM Records) cd 29.00
Japan's EM records strikes again. Without a doubt, the coolest, weirdest, most amazing re-issue label EVER!! We could list again all the killer reissues we've carried and reviewed and raved about over the past year or two, but we've done that in pretty much every other EM review, so do a label search for EM Records on the AQ website, and prepare to have your mind blown!
Another long lost, long sought after holy grail of sorts, dug up and dusted off and beautifully presented by EM, Travelon Gamelon, a piece by Richard Lerman for amplified bicycles! Performed on stage with upturned bikes, but also, performed on the streets, the bikes mic'ed and each with it's own tiny amplifier broadcasting the various sounds of the bike rolling along streets, the metallic flutter of spokes, the sounds of passing cars, squeaking brakes, whipping wind, all woven into the organic whole. A piece of moving music, constantly shifting, obviously improvised and random, and so totally wonderful.
There are two versions of the piece, which has been performed for years all over the world, one is the concert version, which features musicians on stage, with upside down bikes, using various implements with which to strike, rub and bow the different parts of the bicycles, these are the versions that are the most gamelan like, a gorgeous assemblage of metallic clangs and percussive clamor. From dreamy and spare, to cacophonous and wildly chaotic. A sort of junkyard gamelan, definitely clattery but also strangely melodic.
But it's the other versions, the Promenade versions, that are the most exciting. These pieces are basically field recordings of cyclists on mic'ed and amplified bicycles, every sound their riding creates being broadcast through little speakers affixed to the bikes, and recorded by Lerman! So not only is this group of bikes creating this gorgeous whirring mechanical ambience, that sound is also travelling through city streets, a self contained performance of sorts, a strange little cloud of metallic shimmer and buzzing mechanical ambience performed for all passersby. It's also cool to hear the organizers' instructions, children laughing and playing, running alongside, ringing their own bike bells, you can hear Lerman giving orders to the cyclists as they prepare to begin the piece, and various warnings like "Watch out for the metal!" Street cleaners, random cars, voices and footsteps, all a sort of organic backdrop to the divine slow shifting whir the bicycles produce. Constantly shifting, and changing, depending on the speed of the bikes, the direction of the amplifiers the placement of the mics, the people or cars, amazing. It reminds us a bit of the Taj Mahal Travellers in fact, TMT's method of broadcasting their sounds out of loudspeakers, and then recapturing them with microphones placed at various distances, well, Travelon Gamelon is almost like a mobile Taj Mahal Travellers. So cool!
This collection would be well worth it for disc one alone, 5 lengthy excerpts from various performances of Travelon Gamelon, but also included is a second disc, of various other pieces Lerman composed and performed over the years spanning 1964-1986.
"For Two Of Them" is a soundscape of old records, a spring reverb, and manipulated tapes, very dark and dreamy, a fuzzy, multilayered drone shot through with streaks of metallic shimmer and sounding not all that different than contemporary noismakers like the Starving Weirdos, the Skaters and the like. In fact, most of the pieces on disc two, could just as easily come from some super limited cd-r we just managed to track down. "Sections For Screen, Performers And Audience" features the score presented as a film projected on a screen, the performers face the screen with their backs to the audience, and their improvisations are electronically modified into a gorgeous bit of twisted Twentieth Century. "End Of The Line" is a very dramatic tape piece based on the deaths of close friends, and is another piece that sounds presciently modern, huge dramatic swells, very melancholic and resonant, huge fields of drone and buzz. Even tracks like "Soundspot", a piece for amplified 40 foot Slinky, with its gorgeously resonant creaking and moaning and whistling metallic buzz, and "Music For Plinky And Straw", a piece for bendy straw and reverb, creating a dense field of abstract melodies, crystalline shimmer and percussive chimes, sound less Twentieth Century and more like any number of modern free noise abstract drone releases! This is the sort of collection we wish had been expanded to 4 discs, or 8 discs!! We want more.
But even with two discs there is plenty here to keep you busy and your ears full and happy for sure. Two hours plus of remarkable sound, a massive booklet, with tons of photos, liner notes in both English and Japanese, as well as notes on each individual piece, but also included are a rare video of a Trevelon Gamelon performance, as well as one of Lerman performing his piece for bendy straw, plus scores for several pieces, and a killer photo guide to building a tape delay out of two walkmans!! SO SO SO RECOMMENDED!
The perfect record to bring music nerds and bike nerds together (most of us here are both!)...
MPEG Stream: "Promenade Version [Boston, MA, July 2, 1979]"
MPEG Stream: "Concert Version [Pittsburg, PA, June 6, 1981]"
MPEG Stream: "For Two Of Them [1964]"
MPEG Stream: "Sections For Screen, Performers And Audience [1975]"

LESCALLEET, JASON The Pilgrim (Glistening Examples) picture disc + cd 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
With an artist as prolific as Jason Lescalleet, we're a little ashamed that we've only ever managed to list two of his releases. And both of those were fantastic. One a super limited cd-r on Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, the other a collaboration with fellow sound artist and long time AQ fave John Hudak. We'll try to remedy that, beginning with this most recent release, an epic and incredibly lovingly assembled sonic tribute to Lescalleet's father who passed away in 2005.
A lot of drone music, minimal experimental music, while sounding cool, often amazingly cool, doesn't always resonate emotionally. A lot of it is dark and mysterious, moody or melancholy, but without lyrics, and with minimal melody, it's hard to convey much emotion. A select few, those with a deft hand at sculpting sound, are able to infuse even the most minimal of musics with feeling and emotion, but lots of music is simply an assemblage of interesting sounds, which truth be told is often enough.
For The Pilgrim, Lescalleet has created an incredibly emotional and moving tribute in sound, to his father, who found a strange and surprising appreciation for his son's music. A combination of field recordings, old tape recordings and live performance, this set is both musically ambitious, and sweetly personal. A combination that in less capable hands could have turned into something maudlin and schmaltzy, instead, The Pilgrim is simply beautiful.
The picture disc features two recordings, both moving in their own way. The first is a live performance recorded shortly after the discovery that his Father's cancer was terminal. Lescalleet begins the set by reading an email from his father, where he explains how much he liked his son's music, and how it reminded him of being young and laying on the floor of the car and feeling the vibrations rumble through his body. And the sounds of bells. Both rich memories for his father. So Lescalleet performs a piece incorporating those elements, the parts of his music that so moved his father. And it is indeed lovely. Deep rumbles, subtle whirs, slowly drifting from barely there shimmer to cavernous roar, but usually hovering dreamily somewhere in between. Toward the end, the sound grows more corrosive, with subtle rhythms surfacing amidst the crackle and buzz, before winding down to silence.
The second recording is a little difficult to listen to, and is extremely intense and personal. While Lescalleet's father was in the hospital, he gave him a hand held recorder, thinking it might lift his spirits to be able to record messages and his thoughts. But his father was incapable of having long conversations, so the whole side is a recording of a hospital room, with bits of mumbled speech, footsteps, snatches of conversations in the hall, very stark and lonely sounding, the room giving the recording a strange natural reverb. Incredibly moving...
The cd is a new 70 minute piece based on those same sounds Lescalleet's father found so appealing: bells, chimes, rumbling vibrations. And it's a gorgeous piece of minimal dronemusic. Murky and bleary eyed, a slow almost funereal drift, the low end sometimes throbbing like the engine of a car, but just as often glistening in abstract smears. Part way through, more and more melody surfaces amidst the dreamy drones, before the track devolves into some serious, and very cathartic noise, crumbling, ultra distorted howls of white noise and blown out buzz, eventually fading out, leaving just the voice of Jason's daughter singing to her grandfather while he was in the hospital, an old Irish folk song. As her song ends, the record drifts off with a dark and barely audible coda of softly struck bells. So intense and poignant and absolutely gorgeous to listen to.
The packaging is divine as well, a deluxe gatefold sleeve, a rich blue on the outside, inside a painting by Lescalleet's brother of their Dad, as well as the printed out email. The lp is a picture disc, one side an old fashioned tape reel, the other a photo of Lescaleeet's Dad eating cake. Inside is a deluxe booklet, with the cd in a pouch on the inside of the cover, lots of liner notes, photos, notes on each track and the whole story of this record.
MPEG Stream: "The Pilgrim CD (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "The Pilgrim CD (excerpt 2)"

LESCALLEET, JASON To The Teeth (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 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.
Mr. Lescalleet, besides being a loyal aQ customer, is also quite an amazing experimental musician with loads of releases on labels like RRR, Chloe, Cut, Erstwhile and others. To The Teeth is his first release on Campbell Kneale's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label, and it's a pretty darn good match. Lescalleet definitely traffics in NOISE, but he has a deft touch and his noise is filled with all sorts of subtle shadings and strange dynamics. The first track on To The Teeth starts off with a subtle rumble, which grows into a hiss, and then builds into a thick wall of whirring which finally transforms into a churning pulsing battering ram of white hot staticky fuzz. Track two is a harsh expanse of overloaded circuits and rumbles, all turned into full on rrrroooaaarrrs, the whole track sounds like a trip to hell (if hell was a bottomless pit filled with white hot crackle and analog synthesizers set on fire), where a game of Pong is slowed way down and played for eternity, every blip so distorted they sound like pokes in the eye. The final track is another beast, a bit like laying on a bed of nails while tons of grinding circuitry and huge sonic black holes are dropped on you from above, until eventually a huge barrel of molten white noise is upended and dumped over your bruised and bloody body. Not for the faint of ear!
SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!
MPEG Stream: "Reception"
MPEG Stream: "Light Shines Through Perforations As I Stretch The Fabric"

LESLIE, DESMOND Music Of The Future (Trunk) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The weird and wonderful Trunk records who in the past has brought us unreleased soundtrack music from Dawn Of The Dead, the Psychomania soundtrack, the Flexi-Sex compilation of X-rated flexi discs as well as a handful of archival recordings from the amazing Basil Kirchin, returns with another amazing, and totally bizarre collection, this time it's all sorts of creeped out ambience, demented sound effects, chopped and spliced mood music, haunting drones and all manner of spooky swirly spacey soundtrack music. Originally issued as super limited acetates just for friends, later licensed and re-released on 78rpm library discs, these recordings remained mostly unheard, outside a few science fiction and mystery programs, including Dr. Who!
The story of Leslie's life was about as weird and fascinating as his music: grew up in an Irish castle, became a fighter pilot, wrote one of the earliest new age / UFO books, recorded this here music, quit music, opened a nightclub in a castle, punched out a reviewer who gave a scathing review to his wife's one woman show, wrote some spoof science fiction, finally developed a huge interest in meditation and spirtualism, pursuing both until his death in 2001.
These tracks recorded between 1955 and 1959 are so demented and ahead of their time, they could very well be some dada-ist sound collage from Nurse With Wound or some modern experimental music concrete. Being as this is taken from one of the original acetates, the whole thing sounds warm and fuzzy and slightly distorted, adding to its alien otherworldliness. Lots of primitive tape manipulation, strange found sounds, sped up and slowed down, bathed in reverb and echo, the sounds of flies and wind and whatever else he could get his hands on, all jumbled together into slow moving slabs of ominous creep and freaked out buzz and scuttle, droning and haunting and dark and demented. It's a bit hard to believe music this dense and weird and wonderful could remain lost for so long, or that it could be the product of a man dabbling in music, rather than a musician who had dedicated his whole life and being to sound. Includes Leslie's music for Music Of The Voids Of Outer Space, The Day The Sky Fell In, Death Of Satan and Sacrifice B.C. 5,000, as well as Leslie's original notes on each, and a brief overview of his life and history.
MPEG Stream: "Destruction of The Flies (from The Day The Sky Fell In)"
MPEG Stream: "Asteroid Belt (from Music Of The Voids Of Outerspace)"
MPEG Stream: "Dawn, Invocation (from Sacrifice B.C. 5,000)"

LESLIE, DESMOND Music Of The Future (Trunk) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The weird and wonderful Trunk records who in the past has brought us unreleased soundtrack music from Dawn Of The Dead, the Psychomania soundtrack, the Flexi-Sex compilation of X-rated flexi discs as well as a handful of archival recordings from the amazing Basil Kirchin, returns with another amazing, and totally bizarre collection, this time it's all sorts of creeped out ambience, demented sound effects, chopped and spliced mood music, haunting drones and all manner of spooky swirly spacey soundtrack music. Originally issued as super limited acetates just for friends, later licensed and re-released on 78rpm library discs, these recordings remained mostly unheard, outside a few science fiction and mystery programs, including Dr. Who!
The story of Leslie's life was about as weird and fascinating as his music: grew up in an Irish castle, became a fighter pilot, wrote one of the earliest new age / UFO books, recorded this here music, quit music, opened a nightclub in a castle, punched out a reviewer who gave a scathing review to his wife's one woman show, wrote some spoof science fiction, finally developed a huge interest in meditation and spirtualism, pursuing both until his death in 2001.
These tracks recorded between 1955 and 1959 are so demented and ahead of their time, they could very well be some dada-ist sound collage from Nurse With Wound or some modern experimental music concrete. Being as this is taken from one of the original acetates, the whole thing sounds warm and fuzzy and slightly distorted, adding to its alien otherworldliness. Lots of primitive tape manipulation, strange found sounds, sped up and slowed down, bathed in reverb and echo, the sounds of flies and wind and whatever else he could get his hands on, all jumbled together into slow moving slabs of ominous creep and freaked out buzz and scuttle, droning and haunting and dark and demented. It's a bit hard to believe music this dense and weird and wonderful could remain lost for so long, or that it could be the product of a man dabbling in music, rather than a musician who had dedicated his whole life and being to sound. Includes Leslie's music for Music Of The Voids Of Outer Space, The Day The Sky Fell In, Death Of Satan and Sacrifice B.C. 5,000, as well as Leslie's original notes on each, and a brief overview of his life and history.
MPEG Stream: "Destruction of The Flies (from The Day The Sky Fell In)"
MPEG Stream: "Asteroid Belt (from Music Of The Voids Of Outerspace)"
MPEG Stream: "Dawn, Invocation (from Sacrifice B.C. 5,000)"

LESSER LS-MP3CD-R_1990-2000 (Tigerbeat6) cd 13.98
Everyone knows Aquarius loves Lesser. I mean, Andee even has a Lesser tattoo!!! And how could you not love him. He's a musical madman/genius, turning everything he touches into some mutated, 6 headed, 3 dicked, spastic, unpredictable crazy mixed up masterpiece. Jungle? Lesser tries the ol' jungle and turns it into a sputtering, speaker shredding 'detriment to humanity' (to quote a recent review) all his own. Hip hop? In Lesser's hands it becomes some slippery, spazzy big beated beast. And without naming names, it seems like lots of high profile electronica superstars have borrowed/learned/stolen a lot from our self deprecating underdog. But here's another chance to make things right and put the recent electonica explosion into historical perspective. This MP3 cd, PLAYABLE ONLY ON YOUR COMPUTER, contains EVERY SINGLE THING Lesser recorded between the years 1990-2000. Over 12 hours!! Includes the legendary and incriminating 'I Hate Me' cassette that started it all, the split with Rob Crow (Pinback, Thingy, etc...), the 'Gigolo Cop' cd in its entirety, the 'Welcome To The American Experience' cd in its entirety, the split with Kid606, as well as every compilation track, every single track, and tons of unreleased stuff. Everything up to, and not including, the Matador albums. So if you've yet to take the Lesser plunge, here's your chance to cram ten years of aural punishment and audio pleasure into 5 inches of aluminum. And for only fourteen bucks!
RealAudio clip: "Markus Popp Can Kiss My Redneck Ass"
RealAudio clip: "Cyclical Flu Epidemic"
RealAudio clip: "4th Level Dwarf Fighter"
RealAudio clip: "2nd Level Gnome Illusion"

LESSER / MATMOS / WOBBLY Simultaneous Quodlibet (Important Records) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

LETHE Catastrophe Point #5 (Intransitive Recordings) cd 14.98
Metgumbnerbone is not a reference that pops up all that much, nor is it one that would mean much to anyone who isn't a complete dork about British esoteric experimental musics. But that's where we'll start for this review because that's the reference that one such dork had to make here at aQuarius (it was Jim if you must know). Metgumbnerbone was a shadowy collection of dour Brits (including Richard Rupenus of The New Blockaders) who took up residence in an abandoned factory somewhere in Newcastle and constructed a bleak ritualist music out of the refuse found within. Scraping metal and atonal horns crafted out of plumbing material abound in the Metgumbnerbone vocabulary. Such is the case for Lethe as well, the found-space project of Japanese improviser Kuwayama Kiyoharu. However, as Metgumbernone's post-electrical scrabblings were the result of a collective effort, Lethe's spatializations emerge from an orchestra of one. It seems impossible that he did not overdub many of these sounds, but the production so fully embraces the cavernous space of his choosing that Lethe's pieces sound as if they were constructed in a single take.
For Catastrophe Point #5, Lethe used an abandoned grain warehouse located on the outskirts of Nagoya, Japan. Much more than an ambivalent shuffling or wandering scattering of clunky sounds, Lethe amasses sympathetic scrapings from pieces of metal, large and small, as they are dragged, bowed, and beaten throughout the space. Long form drones emerge throughout the performance as if he's triggering a resonant frequency of the space, echoing against itself. It's true that many of these sounds resemble those found on the impossible to find Metgumberbone records, but other references would be Organum's Vacant Lights album, Z'ev's finer moments, the recent John Grzinich constructions, and even Yoshi Wada's bellowing recordings of his Earth Horns. Excellent!
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 2"

LETHE Catastrophe Point 7 & 8 (Invisible Birds) 2cd 63.00
It's hard not to jump right into discussing the packaging that Invisible Birds has crafted for this opus by the peripatetic Japanese experimentalist Lethe (aka Kuwayama Kiyoharu), but that will have to wait for later on in the review as it's the incredible, occluded sounds that Lethe generates that are of true import here.
For many years now, Kuwayama had been recording the resonance of various abandoned spaces, first around his native Japan and more recently from sites far far away. He seeks out an old warehouse, airplane hanger, the hull of a ship, or any massive slab of architecture shaped by concrete and/or steel which happens to have an open door (or broken window) and a choice amount of natural reverb and resonance. There he collects whatever he can find within the space to use as source material to resonate those industrial spaces: slabs of metal, empty water tanks, sodden wood, broken glass, small bones, and the flotsam that had collected on the floors after years of neglect. Out of these found objects, Kuwayama has an uncanny knack for producing natural, acoustic drones which hold a haunted aesthetic amplified through the cavernous reverb of those crumbled cathedrals to industry. Given the seemingly surreptitious nature of Kuwayama's wanderings, these recordings are swaddled in the darkness of night with only candles or a bonfire somewhere in the far corner of the building as his illumination. It has to be said that Kuwayama does overlay and edit all of his recordings into composition, following liked minded artists such as Tarab, Eric La Casa, or John Grzinich.
Catastrophe Point 7 begins with this process at a site deliciously referred to as Arsenic in Lausanne, Switzerland. Well, it turns out that Arsenic is a contemporary theater space in current use, and despite his non-feral residence, Kuwayama offers an incredible assortment of acoustic drones, noises, and textures. Bellowing tones emanate from a variety of long plumbing pipes, replicating the circular breathing strategies of Yoshi Wada; and around these leaden flutterings, he scrapes uneasy textures and builds clattering crescendos. The point about Arsenic not being a totally disused space comes to the forefront about halfway through Catastrophe Point 7 as he rolls a piano into the empty theater space and sets forth a melancholy series of clustered piano tones, much like his one time collaborator Jonathan Coleclough produced on his signature album Period.
Catastrophe Point 8 was recorded in an abandoned space. This time, it's a former power station in Scotland. A mournful acoustic drone, perhaps from a similar set of plumbing pipes heard in the Swiss recordings opens this disc, with small crumblings of wood, glass, and concrete positioned close to the microphone. Set in spatialized contrast to these closely miced sounds, Kuwayama captures various clanks, thumps, and other bumps in the night all decaying in the prolonged reverb of that power station. It's a much more Spartan affair than the first disc, but just as effective in its haunted sensibility. Highly recommended listening!
And yes, the packaging. The discs themselves are housed in a beautifully printed letterpress folio, with a lengthy booklet written by fellow industrial shadow-master Giancarlo Toniutti. For this small art-edition, Invisible Birds has housed the two discs in an archival, embossed box with another booklet of photographs from Kuwayama and a snippet of 8mm film. The art edition is beautifully done and well worth the expense. Needless to say, they made just 100 of the art edition!
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 7.2"
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 8.1"
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 8.3"

LETHE Catastrophe Point 7 & 8 (Invisible Birds) 2cd 19.98
Here's the regular (and much more reasonably priced!) edition of the ultra deluxe Lethe 2cd set we reviewed a few weeks ago.
For many years now, Kuwayama Kiyoharu (aka Lethe) had been recording the resonance of various abandoned spaces, first around his native Japan and more recently from sites far far away. He seeks out an old warehouse, airplane hanger, the hull of a ship, or any massive slab of architecture shaped by concrete and/or steel which happens to have an open door (or broken window) and a choice amount of natural reverb and resonance. There he collects whatever he can find within the space to use as source material to resonate those industrial spaces: slabs of metal, empty water tanks, sodden wood, broken glass, small bones, and the flotsam that had collected on the floors after years of neglect. Out of these found objects, Kuwayama has an uncanny knack for producing natural, acoustic drones which hold a haunted aesthetic amplified through the cavernous reverb of those crumbled cathedrals to industry. Given the seemingly surreptitious nature of Kuwayama's wanderings, these recordings are swaddled in the darkness of night with only candles or a bonfire somewhere in the far corner of the building as his illumination. It has to be said that Kuwayama does overlay and edit all of his recordings into composition, following liked minded artists such as Tarab, Eric La Casa, or John Grzinich.
Catastrophe Point 7 begins with this process at a site deliciously referred to as Arsenic in Lausanne, Switzerland. Well, it turns out that Arsenic is a contemporary theater space in current use, and despite his non-feral residence, Kuwayama offers an incredible assortment of acoustic drones, noises, and textures. Bellowing tones emanate from a variety of long plumbing pipes, replicating the circular breathing strategies of Yoshi Wada; and around these leaden flutterings, he scrapes uneasy textures and builds clattering crescendos. The point about Arsenic not being a totally disused space comes to the forefront about halfway through Catastrophe Point 7 as he rolls a piano into the empty theater space and sets forth a melancholy series of clustered piano tones, much like his one time collaborator Jonathan Coleclough produced on his signature album Period.
Catastrophe Point 8 was recorded in an abandoned space. This time, it's a former power station in Scotland. A mournful acoustic drone, perhaps from a similar set of plumbing pipes heard in the Swiss recordings opens this disc, with small crumblings of wood, glass, and concrete positioned close to the microphone. Set in spatialized contrast to these closely miced sounds, Kuwayama captures various clanks, thumps, and other bumps in the night all decaying in the prolonged reverb of that power station. It's a much more Spartan affair than the first disc, but just as effective in its haunted sensibility. Highly recommended listening!
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 7.2"
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 8.1"
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 8.3"

LETHE Dry Ice On Steel Tables (And/OAR) cd 13.98
If you were to touch a piece of metal to dry ice, an incredible squeal bursts forth at a caustic frequency and high volume. This phenomenon of sonic alchemy is the result of the temperature change between the metal and the dry ice. When the dry ice jumps in temperature from 60 degrees below zero, the molecules rapidly sublimate from solid to gas. Since the metal is quite rigid, the carbon dioxide gas bursts outward and the two surfaces of the solid dry ice and the metal act akin to a reed on a sax played by a six year old. We first saw this trick employed by Matmos at their Yerba Buena Center for the Arts residency many years ago; and Lethe - the Japanese acoustic experimentalist Kuwayama Kiyoharu - took this up on a much large scale with large steel tables heated by candles and situated in a massive industrial warehouse. The protracted squeals, sonorous buzzing, and shrill drones aren't too dissimilar to how Kuwayama would bow metal, wood, and other found objects within abandoned warehouses, especially with the cavernous reverb that spills around every sound. As with pretty much all of his other recordings, Kuwayama takes great care in the amount space he uses between each of the highly variable shrieks and bellows produced by such incredibly simple means. It's a fantastic post-Fluxus performative gesture presented on a grand scale.
MPEG Stream: "Dry Ice On Steel Tables"

LEUKERS, ANTONIA Hasenlove (Dekorder) picture disc 17.98

LEVIATHAN A Silhouette In Splinters (Moribund) cd 14.98
Probably very little needs to be said about this. Previously available as a super limited lp, we sold out in a heartbeat, now long out of print, and finally available on cd, for the multitudes who missed out first time around, and all you turntableless holdout heathens.
A Silhouette In Splinters was the long in the works "ambient" record from Leviathan, originally released on Canadian label Profound Lore, which offered a glimpse into a side of Leviathan, that while an integral part of his sound, was often relegated to intros or outros or interludes, but here Wrest got to prove that he was as deft with long swaths of black ambience and haunting drones as he was with buzzing riffs and blasting beats. Which is probably obvious to anyone who considers themselves a fan, as a huge part of what makes Leviathan records so powerful and mesmerizing is Wrest's mastery of mood and ambience, and Silhouette is an entire album of bleak and depressive atmospheres. All as haunting and mysterious as anything we've heard from Wrest. But this is not pure ambient music, its ambience is only obvious when compared to the dense complex sound world of other Leviathan releases. This is not static ambience, not in the least, these are actual songs, not just creepy swooshings and simple drones. Silhouette is like an entire record made up of the best black metal intros ever, but here, each one is fleshed out into actual musical narratives. Skeletal guitar figures, drift and shimmer darkly over ominous swells of mournful minor key lament. What little percussion there is, hovers ghostlike beneath a wash of blackened swirl. The entire record is wrapped in a foggy cloak of starlit skies and murky underground passages. A haunting soundtrack to misery and horror, death and dying. Fucking genius.
MPEG Stream: "It Comes In Whispers Part: 2"
MPEG Stream: "A Silhouette In Splinters"

LEVIATHAN A Silhouette In Splinters (Profound Lore) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
These warnings are beginning to sound like mantras: THIS IS VERY LIMITED. THIS WILL MOST LIKELY ALREADY BE OUT OF PRINT BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS. WE GOT THE LAST 50 COPIES AND WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GET MORE!! LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED!!! But like all good mantras, it pays to heed the sage advice contained within, and in this case the advice would be pick one of these up quick like before they're gone for good. A Silhouette In Splinters is the long in the works "ambient" record from Leviathan, released on Canadian label Profound Lore, lp only, pressed on thick red vinyl and as you may have surmised EXTREMELY LIMITED. Part of what makes Leviathan records so powerful and mesmerizing is Wrest's mastery of mood and ambience, so here he gets to explore an entire album of bleak and depressive atmospheres. But this is not pure ambient music, its ambience is only obvious when compared to the dense complex sound world of other Leviathan releases. This is not static ambience, not in the least, these are actual songs, not just creepy swooshings and simple drones. Silhouette is like an entire record made up of the best black metal intros ever, but here, each one is fleshed out into actual musical narratives. Skeletal guitar figures, drift and shimmer darkly over ominous swells of mournful minor key lament. What little percussion there is, hovers ghostlike beneath a wash of blackened swirl. The entire record is wrapped in a foggy cloak of starlit skies and murky underground passages. A haunting soundtrack to misery and horror, death and dying.

LEXIE MOUNTAIN / LICHENS split (Hoss) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

LHASA SHORE LEAVE Dancehall Sugar (Lollyfonix) cd 4.98
The last time we heard from Lhasa Shore Leave (and the only time come to think of it) was way back in August of 2005, when we had a super limited 3" cd-r, that sold out in no time and had everybody clamoring for more. Finally a year later, we have the just as amazing follow up. Still limited but not as prohibitively limited as the 3".
The sound is similar to the first release, just stretched out, those extra 2 cd inches allowing for plenty of space to stretch out, more space for LSL's buzzing minimal sprawl.
Epic droning ragas assembled from multiple layers of grinding guitar buzz, give way to spacious stretches of ambient tranquility, with distant shimmers and minimal percussive clatter. A mournful melody woven into the slow shifting soundscape before building back into a crackling static hum, pulsing with buzzing static. Elsewhere, gorgeous acoustic guitars drift apart into blurry breathy drifts, and wide expanses of sparkling ambience waver and warble like a desert mirage. So nice. A near perfect batch of blissed out dronedream raga.
Each sleeve hand painted in pink and hand stamped, then treated with sand paper. Every copy is different and each includes a printed color insert.
MPEG Stream: "Shrimpton"
MPEG Stream: "Orange Sherpa"
MPEG Stream: "Dancehall Sugar"

LHASA SHORE LEAVE s/t (Housepig) 3" cd-r 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is a gorgeous little slab of droning free rock shimmer, twenty minutes of keening, pealing, warm and warbling, fuzzy foggy dream like bliss, Three lengthy tracks of slow moving, slower buliding, barely shifting swirls of warm chordal hum, simple stretched out melodies and trancelike Ur-drone. As good as anything we've heard from Sunroof!, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Pelt, Birchville Cat Motel and the like. Each 3" cd-r comes in a unique hand made fabric sleeve sewn from real Japanese obi's. EXTREMELY LIMITED. HAND NUMBERED. ONLY 50 COPIES MADE. WE GOT A WHOLE BUNCH BUT WILL MOST LIKELY BE UNABLE TO GET MORE!
MPEG Stream: "Tinsel Ration"
MPEG Stream: "Dikku"

LI JIANHONG San Sheng Shi (aRCHIVE) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
51 minutes, 1 track. 1 guitar, 1 guy: Li Jianhong. No, we didn't think we'd ever heard of him, either. But this is an aRCHIVE release, super limited and super swank, which means that we HAD to order a bunch in. We trust those guys, aRCHIVE. And we're glad we did, this is great! That is, if you're into distortion and feedback and heavy drone guitar like we are. This is extremely droney, very vast and very physical, sheets of glorious amped up fuzz. What's not to like? It moves forward with energy, building, swelling, keening, billowing. Rising and falling, at about 30 minutes in, subsiding from a dense, intense drone-tone into a mellower respite, before Li Jianhong leans on his amps/pedals/volume knob/etc. and dials up the distortion yet again.
He's the Chinese Keiji Haino perhaps, but without any of the shrieking vocals. Yep, this is some nice, thick, bleak psychedelia (it says so on the sleeve, "bleak" and "psychedelia" being some of the only text not in Chinese, and it's true).
Turns out Li's a member of PSF label noise band D!O!D!O!D!, reviewed here a while back, and has some other solo works out on his own label... we'll definitely look out for more from him in future... While D!O!O!O!D! was one for improv skree-lovin' noiseniks only, we wouldn't hesitate to recommend THIS to fans of, say, Boris's Feedbacker. And the likes of Suishou No Fune and LSD-march. Also Nadja, Fear Falls Burning, Birchville Cat Motel...
LIMITED TO ONLY 500 copies. Packaged in a tri-fold sleeve featuring live photos of an impassioned performance by Li, inside a tri-fold vellum wrapper bearing a image of a craggy mountain peak.
MPEG Stream: "San Sheng Shi (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "San Sheng Shi (excerpt 2)"

LIAM Journey... Two Years and a Fragment (Pest Productions) cd 14.98
Another awesome discovery from Chinese black metal label Pest Productions. A few lists back we reviewed the bafflingly brilliant depressive black metal outfit Heartless, with its over the top vocals, and surprisingly twisted blackened sound, as well as the killer outsider blackness of Icelandic horde Dysthymia, and now we have the oddly named Liam, a German post rock / black metal outfit whose washed out shoegazey depressive drift should definitely hit the spot for anyone into Alcest, Ameseours, Les Discrets, Lifelover and other pop minded blackened outfits.
Journey... Two Years and a Fragment collects two long out of print eps, 2007's My Journey To The Sky and 2008's Two Years And A Fragment. My Journey To The Sky is all instrumental, and plays out much more like a metallic post rock record, the blackness mostly implied, the chords ring out, the arrangements are epic and slow building, the crescendos massive, the sound mathy and mesmerizing, the vibe melancholy, washed out and dreamy, definitely super shoegazey, more Mogwai than Mutiilation for sure, the songs are so majestic and melodic, in fact, if these guys didn't simply consider themselves a black metal band, odds are no one would even know.
Two Years And A Fragment is a very slightly blacker beast, kicking off with some harsh vokills, but they quickly fade into the background, leaving just a darkly buzzy gloom pop, the vocals WAY down in the mix, the sound lush, and buzzy, but so melodic and minor key, and with plenty of clean vocals, definitely reminding us of a more depressive Lifelover, or a way less melodic Katatonia. The arrangements are awesome though, the stop start chug, the clean vocal harmonies, and the swoonsome melodic miserablism. Long stretches of buzzy prettiness, three songs clocking in at about 28 minutes, but it sort of sounds like three movements of one single epic track, heavy for sure, and there are harsh vox, but overall this is just some fantastically melodic, hook filled epic shoegazey gloom pop, and we love it. Definitely not heavy enough for the grim throng, but fans of this sort of thing will maybe have a new favorite band, and all you metallic post rock obsessives, here's your chance to dabble in something a bit blacker. But only a bit.
MPEG Stream: "Born"
MPEG Stream: "Wide"
MPEG Stream: "A Decision"

LIAR BALL Now Even If You Are A Dolphin You Can Have Long, Beautiful Lashes (self-released ) 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.
Liar Ball is a dandy collaborative project by AQ pal Wobbly and Ball 2000! Right from the get go, it's made perfectly clear that they're not gonna let you get all comfy listenin' to this disc. No, just when you think they might be settling into a followable rhythm or playful melody, a sonic bump in the road pops to toss you out of your smooth head-bobbin' roll, and sometimes they even derail completely. Sorta the musical equivalent of a shopping cart with a gimpy wheel... in the best possible way! But things aren't all off-kilter kookiness, by the fifth track "You Are A Dolphin", Liar Ball has transported the listener into darker, more mysterious territory, only to re-surface in funland for the closing two tracks. Note: don't be alarmed by the packaging... it appears that they recycled cut-out jewelcases (hence the melted nick in the spine) and festooned them with assorted stickers and labels.
MPEG Stream: "Long"
MPEG Stream: "You Are A Dolphin"

LICHENS Omns (Kranky) cd + dvd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Vevor Of Agassou"
MPEG Stream: "Faeries"
MPEG Stream: "Bune"

LICHENS The Psychic Nature Of Being (Kranky) cd 14.98
Robert Lowe, of the now defunct 90 Day Men, as well as part time member of TV On The Radio, delivers his first solo record, using the name Lichens, and creates a ghostly otherworld, using primarily his voice. That's right. An acapella record. Well, mostly. Lowe's haunting impressionistic vocals are drenched in reverb and sent drifitng into the ether, a soft fluttering falsetto most of the time, a low monk like chant at others, swooping through ominous minor key melodies, over simple sparkling guitar lines, wrapped in a warm and shimmery haze, over a bed of rumbling drones and occasional chiming percussion. Delicate crystalline soundscapes equal parts Pelt, Sigur Ros, Scott Tuma and Jewelled Antler. All three tracks recorded live with no overdubs, all completely otherworldly and breathtakingly lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Kirilian Auras"
MPEG Stream: "Shore Line Scoring"

LICHENS The Psychic Nature Of Being (Holy Mountain) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Robert Lowe, of the now defunct 90 Day Men, as well as part time member of TV On The Radio, delivers his first solo record, using the name Lichens, and creates a ghostly otherworld, using primarily his voice. That's right. An acapella record. Well, mostly. Lowe's haunting impressionistic vocals are drenched in reverb and sent drifitng into the ether, a soft fluttering falsetto most of the time, a low monk like chant at others, swooping through ominous minor key melodies, over simple sparkling guitar lines, wrapped in a warm and shimmery haze, over a bed of rumbling drones and occasional chiming percussion. Delicate crystalline soundscapes equal parts Pelt, Sigur Ros, Scott Tuma and Jewelled Antler. All three tracks recorded live with no overdubs, all completely otherworldly and breathtakingly lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Kirilian Auras"
MPEG Stream: "Shore Line Scoring"

LICHT, ALAN A New York Minute (XI) 2cd 14.98
The usually academic-oriented XI label ventures into the "underground" with this release from the singular New York guitarist/critic/sometime indie-rocker Alan Licht. A New York Minute sees Licht exploring two muscial approaches, with one of these two discs revolving around studio-only projects and the other documenting live work. The studio compositions are, we must confess, a mixed bag of conceptualism, opening with the title track, a tape collage of weather reports broadcast by a NYC radio station during the month of January 2001. Licht's intent was to reveal that these weather reports are mediated experiences far removed from the actuality of the weather. Perhaps too obvious an idea, and it really just sounds like you've got the radio on. But things get much better for the remainder of the disc, as Licht ventures into a more satisfyingly "musical" zone of fragmented minimalism scribed from multi-tracked guitar, organ, and bass drones.
Disc two is where Licht really shines, live with no overdubs. Here he presents a series of guitar based compositions/improvisations that suggest the maturation of indie-rock into minimalist mantras. Unlike the guitar symphonies of Rhys Chatham or Glenn Branca, Licht's pieces are incredibly intimate and quiet meditations, with repeated phrases from his chiming guitar occasionally accompanied by a dissonant fuzz or a whistful minor chord tone. These two very long pieces are pleasant recapitulations of the drone-rock godhead prowess of Thurston Moore (as per his "Psychic Hearts" avant-jangle mode, not his big muff improv freak out mode), the monochromatism of Henry Flynt, and even the spartan blues solos of Loren Mazzacane Connors, with whom Licht has collaborated on a number of occasions. These transcendent drones of jangliness more than make up for the conceptual inadequacies found on disc one. Really nice.
MPEG Stream: "A New York Minute"
MPEG Stream: "14, Second, Fifth"

LICHT, ALAN Plays Well (Crank Automotive) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Guitarist Licht (ex-Love Child, Run On, etc) indeed plays well (and then weirdly) on this new solo effort. Two long, half-hour-plus tracks, the first, "Remington Khan", is a dexterous display of hypnotic note-pickin' (and building backing drone) that Licht intends as a tribute to both Fluxus hillbilly drone violinist Henry Flynt and Licht's old pal and fellow guitar-meister Jim O'Rourke, and it is certainly evocative of both. The second track, "The Old Victrola" is quite different, taking Captain Beefheart's "Wel" as a starting point and subjecting it to layers of distorted guitar skree, before (bizarrely) a lengthy sampled disco-diva segment begins. That then mutates into fucked up organ-drone. Shades of Terry Riley's "You're No Good"? Anway, it's a pretty weird track. No wonder Licht suggests that the two pieces on "Plays Well" need not be listened to consecutively. All in all, pretty great stuff from Mr. Licht, probably one of his best releases to date.
RealAudio clip: "Remington Khan"
RealAudio clip: "The Old Victrola"

LICHT, ALAN / CONNERS, LOREN MAZZACANE Hoffmann Estates (Drag City) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
An impressive line-up accompanies this 'duet' between Alan Licht and Loren Mazzacane Connors with production by Jim O'Rourke and contributions from Darin Gray (ex-Dazzling Killmen), Rob Mazurak (Isotope 217), Ken Vandermark, amongst others. Slow lugubrious guitar solos with minimal jazz structures.

LICHTENBERGER, GRISCHA Treigbut (Raster-Noton) 12" 14.98

LIETTERSCHPICH I Cum Blood In The Think Tank (Heart & Crossbone) cd 11.98
Another gorgeously abrasive wall of caustic crushing pounding noise from Israel's answer to Whitehouse. I Cum Blood In The Think Tank! is the first full length from these speaker brutalizing miscreants, and it's just as amazing as the 3" cd-r teaser we reviewed a while back. Like we said in that review, as much as we love Whitehouse, this is what we WISH Whitehouse sounded like. Dizzying swirls of blown out synth buzz, jagged shards of industrial crunch, massive slabs of fuzzed out low end, stumbling lurching rhythmic plod. It's almost like doom metal pulled apart until its noisy splattery insides spill out. The tempos are glacial, the drums are monstrous and sloooooow, the vocals are a glass gargling roar, the soundfield is constantly shifting, layer upon layer upon layer, distant beeps and swooshing FX, massive swells of digital glitch and low end fuzz, electronics glitch and slither, everything is doused in effects and allowed to get all tangled up with all the other sounds. The thing about Lietterschpich is that somehow they make this all SOUND GOOD. This is beautiful noise, there are hooks, melodies, actual parts, they're sort of like real songs, not just long stretches of noisiness, and even at its most abrasive and harsh, it's totally amazing and listenable. Hard to explain why, it's like Bunkur and the Dead C being remixed by Throbbing Gristle. Some tracks have gentle lilting acoustic guitars, but they're doused in white hot streaks of malfunctioning synths and sputtering electronics, others are straight face melting noise, but have hooks buried underneath all the murk and mire, others are buzzy blurry walls of warm sound, but even those tracks eventually transform into prickly icepick in the ear brutality.
It's definitely an intense and punishing listen, fierce and freaked out, druggy and seriously fucking scary, but within that body of blood and bile, lurks a heart of luminous radiance... Noise record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Stockfish!!"
MPEG Stream: "Mud And Fun!!"
MPEG Stream: "I Cum Blood In The Fish Tank!"
MPEG Stream: "Cookies Downtown!!!"

LIETTERSCHPICH Quasi (Something On The Road) 3" cd 10.98
All I can think when I hear Lietterschpich, is man, this is exactly what I always wished Whitehouse sounded like. Don't get me wrong. We love Whitehouse, and while they are definitely harsh and brutal and caustic, they just aren't very heavy. The sound is brittle and shrieking, which yeah, is probably the point, but oh how we longed for a crushingly heavy Whitehouse. Local boys Burmese sort of took that role, with their stripped down slow motion grindcore, so slow motion in fact that the music would become a sheet of white noise, through which the various members would wail and shout, howl and testify. But then we heard Lietterschpich, and it was as if someone had been listening to us and granted our wish. This Israeli combo are seriously one of the heaviest, scariest bands we have ever heard. The opening track, recorded live is a vast expanse of ear shredding high end, sheets of acrid feedback, layer after layer of shrieking skree, underneath a gritty fuzzy buzz of tape hiss and instrument crackle, over which a super distorted voice, drenched in FX, spits out a frightening sounding litany of ROOOOAAAR's and GRRRRRGHGHGHGHGHG's. Each time the vocals come in, they are recorded so hot, that it forces the screeching white noise to recoil, as if it were deathly afraid of THIS VOICE. Holy fuck. SO fierce and totally scary. But impossibly, downright listenable too. Probably the finest (but freakiest) moment, is an all but unrecognizable cover of the Pixies' "Monkey Gone To Heaven", an epic, super abstract dirge, with killer live drums, pounding away some super spare glacial rhythm, while weird creaking keening drones shimmer in the background, and the vocals, harsh and so so brutal, channel the spirit of Frank Black, turning him into some sort of hellish demon, gargling blood and broken glass. Throughout the track, thick electronic fuzz and grind, warbles and pulses, creating all kinds of again, impossibly catchy, alien melodies. Definite contender for best cover version EVER. The final track is a brief, mathy instrumental jam, just drums, pounding and shuffling through a creepy cloud of moaning drones and wailing sirens, disembodied vocals, spastic synths and creepy little glitchy bleeps and bloops. Wow. Only three songs, leaves us DYING for more, but at the same time, after just three songs you feel brutalized, beaten and bloodied, we're not sure we could handle any more than that. But we can't wait to try...
MPEG Stream: "You Tried To Poison Me, Brother!"
MPEG Stream: "Monkey Gone To Heaven"

LIGHT A Million Dead Beneath The Ice (self-released) 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.
From its humble beginnings as a genre, black metal has changed dramatically, transformed into something style and sound based rather than belief based. And where black metal was once strictly the province of the grim and kvlt, and yes, the actual metalheads, it's now gained a certain cache, a definite hip factor, where any band, metal or not, is likely to feature one member with his or her own solo black metal project. We're not complaining, not in the least, it's these fresh injections into black metal's sonic gene pool that keep it interesting, that produce more and more strange and wonderful variations, a great many perpetrated by folks new to metal completely, who were lured to the darkside by black metal specifically, its mystery and unique sound, the sonic possibilities offered by its murky symphony of buzz and blast, rumble and shriek, sounds easily twisted into all manner of shapes.
We got this particular cd-r in the mail a few weeks ago, and as we've mentioned before we do get quite a few. Our first impression was that it would most likely be some sort of minimal drone record, very stark white packaging, hand made, the band is called Light, with song titles like "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down", and "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In", the packaging unfolds to reveal nothing but the song titles, rendered in a flowery script, but on the disc, there was what appears to be a smear of actual blood (which we later discovered was in fact menstrual blood!). The first clue as to what sort of mysterious darkness lurked inside...
Once we threw it on, we knew this was something else entirely, there is plenty of drone indeed, but the drone is only one element of Light's mysterious lugubrious buzz drenched blackened crawl. Almost like a more lo-fi Skepticism, Light trudge along at tarpit tempos, the guitars not so much riffing as unfurling thick swirls of soft fuzz, the vocals howled and wailed, but way off in the distance, the drums strangely un-drumlike, more like pots and pans, a clattery, skeletal percussion, the whole thing held together by the warm dramatic keyboards, that sound like the Haunted Mansion soundtrack played at 16rpm, all smeared and blurred together into something only barely black metal, only barely doom, a thick lurching slow motion black doomdrone, evocative and cinematic, at once epic and sprawling, lo-fi and ultra personal. Creepy and haunting, but strangely melodic and beautiful. Think Trollmann, Abruptum, Celestiial, Catacombs, Monument of Urns and again Skepticism, but filtered through the cracked lo-fi filter of underground cd-r dronemusic. If one was unfamiliar with black metal, one might be reminded of Lustmord, or some other sort of deathambient, but with the confusional addition of actual riffs, and those hellish vox, and the strange primitive percussion, the end result a sort of metallicized slowcore, or a washed out ultradoom, or a blurred bleary black metal, however you describe it, Light have crafted some truly original, gorgeously bleak, warm and almost dreamy, slow motion buzzing black beauty.
Hand folded, hand assembled, stark white sleeves, with a Japanese style obi, and an extra inner sleeve, crazy limited to maybe 50 copies or so.
MPEG Stream: "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down"
MPEG Stream: "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In"

LIGHT Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever (self-released) 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.
Earlier this year, we reviewed a super limited avant outsider blackened doom record called A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, by a duo called Light. Which was anything but light, in fact, it was one of the darkest and most harrowing discs we'd heard in a long time, a slow motion drone drenched funereal crawl, with a lush almost orchestrated feel that definitely reminded us of Skepticism. And if anything, record number two, the awesomely titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever is even more! More black, more doomy, more droney, more beautiful, more harsh and more bizarre.
One long hour long track, which begins with a slowly cycling piano figure, draped over a wash of reverbed tones, distant rumbles, the sound gorgeous, slightly atonal, ominous and sinister, and then there are the vocals, a nearly impossible to describe high pitched shriek, that almost sounds like someone screaming as they breathe in, a twisted strangled howl, totally at odds with the music underneath, reminding us a bit of Tomb Of..., who also paired up piano and black metal vokills, but Light seems borne more of a free noise aesthetic. Minus the vocals, the sound on Life Is Meaningless, is a sort of abstract slowcore crawl, a little post rocky, a little doomy, a bit of black ambient drift, but the vocals are just SOOOO creepy, it definitely pushes it into a whole other realm. And suddenly what could have been something darkly pretty, becomes something fucked up and grimly gorgeous.
Like the first release (which is long out of print so don't ask), the packaging is a hand folded, hand assembled, plain grey origami style sleeve, with a Japanese style obi, and an extra inner sleeve, as well as a hand written insert, and again crazy limited to less than 50 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever (excerpt 2)"

LIGHT s/t (Crucial Blaze) 3xcd-r 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Three out of print cd-r's from this outsider blackened doom duo, A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever and Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected, all available again, now repackaged and offered together as a single triple cd-r boxset, with all new art, additional inserts, and two buttons, released on Crucial Blast sublabel Crucial Blaze. Here's what we had to say about each of the records when we first reviewed them individually:
A Million Dead Beneath The Ice:
From its humble beginnings as a genre, black metal has changed dramatically, transformed into something style and sound based rather than belief based. And where black metal was once strictly the province of the grim and kvlt, and yes, the actual metalheads, it's now gained a certain cache, a definite hip factor, where any band, metal or not, is likely to feature one member with his or her own solo black metal project. We're not complaining, not in the least, it's these fresh injections into black metal's sonic gene pool that keep it interesting, that produce more and more strange and wonderful variations, a great many perpetrated by folks new to metal completely, who were lured to the darkside by black metal specifically, its mystery and unique sound, the sonic possibilities offered by its murky symphony of buzz and blast, rumble and shriek, sounds easily twisted into all manner of shapes.
We got this particular cd-r in the mail a few weeks ago, and as we've mentioned before we do get quite a few. Our first impression was that it would most likely be some sort of minimal drone record, very stark white packaging, hand made, the band is called Light, with song titles like "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down", and "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In", the packaging unfolds to reveal nothing but the song titles, rendered in a flowery script, but on the disc, there was what appears to be a smear of actual blood (which we later discovered was in fact menstrual blood!). The first clue as to what sort of mysterious darkness lurked inside...
Once we threw it on, we knew this was something else entirely, there is plenty of drone indeed, but the drone is only one element of Light's mysterious lugubrious buzz drenched blackened crawl. Almost like a more lo-fi Skepticism, Light trudge along at tarpit tempos, the guitars not so much riffing as unfurling thick swirls of soft fuzz, the vocals howled and wailed, but way off in the distance, the drums strangely un-drumlike, more like pots and pans, a clattery, skeletal percussion, the whole thing held together by the warm dramatic keyboards, that sound like the Haunted Mansion soundtrack played at 16rpm, all smeared and blurred together into something only barely black metal, only barely doom, a thick lurching slow motion black doomdrone, evocative and cinematic, at once epic and sprawling, lo-fi and ultra personal. Creepy and haunting, but strangely melodic and beautiful. Think Trollmann, Abruptum, Celestiial, Catacombs, Monument of Urns and again Skepticism, but filtered through the cracked lo-fi filter of underground cd-r dronemusic. If one was unfamiliar with black metal, one might be reminded of Lustmord, or some other sort of deathambient, but with the confusional addition of actual riffs, and those hellish vox, and the strange primitive percussion, the end result a sort of metallicized slowcore, or a washed out ultradoom, or a blurred bleary black metal, however you describe it, Light have crafted some truly original, gorgeously bleak, warm and almost dreamy, slow motion buzzing black beauty.
Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever:
Earlier this year, we reviewed a super limited avant outsider blackened doom record called A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, by a duo called Light. Which was anything but light, in fact, it was one of the darkest and most harrowing discs we'd heard in a long time, a slow motion drone drenched funereal crawl, with a lush almost orchestrated feel that definitely reminded us of Skepticism. And if anything, record number two, the awesomely titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever is even more! More black, more doomy, more droney, more beautiful, more harsh and more bizarre.
One hour long track, which begins with a slowly cycling piano figure, draped over a wash of reverbed tones, distant rumbles, the sound gorgeous, slightly atonal, ominous and sinister, and then there are the vocals, a nearly impossible to describe high pitched shriek, that almost sounds like someone screaming as they breathe in, a twisted strangled howl, totally at odds with the music underneath, reminding us a bit of Tomb Of..., who also paired up piano and black metal vokills, but Light seems borne more of a free noise aesthetic. Minus the vocals, the sound on Life Is Meaningless, is a sort of abstract slowcore crawl, a little post rocky, a little doomy, a bit of black ambient drift, but the vocals are just SOOOO creepy, it definitely pushes it into a whole other realm. And suddenly what could have been something darkly pretty, becomes something fucked up and grimly gorgeous.
Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected:
Third and final release from this depressive black doom duo, and it's a fitting epitaph to a short but brilliant streak. Three super limited cd-r's, less than 200 all told, each one overflowing with blackened misery and gorgeous harrowing sonic blackness, the first, titled A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, gave way to the second, titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever, which brings us to Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected, which should give you a decent impression of the overall vibe and tone of Light's distinctly UN-light sound.
Three looooooong tracks, thick caustic layers of buzzing low end drone, sparsely strummed acoustic guitar, shrieked vocals way down in the mix, funereal, glacial, miserable, not even plodding as there seems to be no drums, or if they are there, they're practically inaudible. The melodies are lilting and melancholic, there's some piano, the rumbling buzzing backdrop seems to coalesce into some sort of melody, the whole thing lurching in slow motion, grim, and dense, and miserably and mournfully lovely. Totally hypnotic .
The second track offers up more of the same, another lovely black expanse of pointillist piano, harrowing screams, and slow swells of black buzz, before finally segueing into the epic closing track, a formula similar to the first two, but somehow even slower, more abject, more ambient, so slow and spaced out and minimal, that it nearly ceases being metal or doom and is transformed into some sort of black ambient slowcore, a haunting doomic creep, that to these ears is as pretty as it is grim and harsh.
This reissue is also limited, only 200 copies, each one hand numbered!
MPEG Stream: "When The Green Midwestern Sky Comes Crashing Down"
MPEG Stream: "When The Flood Waters Come Rushing In"
MPEG Stream: "Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "The City"
MPEG Stream: "Again"

LIGHT Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected (self-released) 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.
Third and final release from this depressive black doom duo, and it's a fitting epitaph to a short but brilliant streak. Three super limited cd-r's, less than 200 all told, each one overflowing with blackened misery and gorgeous harrowing sonic blackness, the first, titled A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, gave way to the second, titled Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever, which brings us to Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected, which should give you a decent impression of the overall vibe and tone of Light's distinctly UN-light sound.
Three looooooong tracks, thick caustic layers of buzzing low end drone, sparsely strummed acoustic guitar, shrieked vocals way down in the mix, funereal, glacial, miserable, not even plodding as there seems to be no drums, or if they are there, they're practically inaudible. The melodies are lilting and melancholic, there's some piano, the rumbling buzzing backdrop seems to coalesce into some sort of melody, the whole thing lurching in slow motion, grim, and dense, and miserably and mournfully lovely. Totally hypnotic .
The second track offers up more of the same, another lovely black expanse of pointillist piano, harrowing screams, and slow swells of black buzz, before finally segueing into the epic closing track, a formula similar to the first two, but somehow even slower, more abject, more ambient, so slow and spaced out and minimal, that it nearly ceases being metal or doom and is transformed into some sort of black ambient slowcore, a haunting doomic creep, that to these ears is as pretty as it is grim and harsh.
LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES. Gorgeous packaging, black on black, black disc, elaborately folded sleeve with a black on black printed obi, super fancy, and most likely gone before you know it...
MPEG Stream: "The City"
MPEG Stream: "Again"

LIGHT OF SHIPWRECK From The Idle Cylinders (Crucial Bliss) cd-r 8.98
Finally, a new batch of releases from the always kick ass Crucial Bliss label, the limited cd-r experimental ambient sublabel of the mighty Crucial Blast. This first one comes from Light Of Shipwreck, a one man power ambient drone outfit that is the work of Ben Fleury-Steiner who runs the also quite awesome Gears Of Sand label (Aidan Baker, Encomiast, Seconds In Formeldahyde) and who for From The Idle Cylinders has woven guitars, percussion and programming into a darkly organic soundworld. The label compares the sound here to some swirly mix of Steve Reich, Brian Eno, Can, and Earth, which is definitely not that far off the mark, but we also hear some This Heat, some Wolf Eyes and lots of Necks in these extended shimmery and serpentine sprawls.
Haunting super rhythmic industrial soundscapes laced with a propulsive locomotive shuffle of programmed percussion, keening high end and hissing whirs of smeared almost jazziness, looped and cyclical, some sort of disembodied krautrock/spacerock like a more mechanical Necks jamming in a thick cloud of Birchville Cat Motel fug. A groaning creaking percussive framework beneath a sky full of shimmering black clouds.
All three tracks begin all abstract and drifty, the first "I Rode And Am Riding On An Ocean Of Violent Lights", quickly explodes into a fog of jagged edges and swirling squalls of chaotic percussion and overlapping drones, while the second, "I Watched And Am Watching A Cold Dead Sun Rise Then Explode" coalesces into a serious chunk of glorious Ur-kraut, a simple stripped down rhythm spread out over a massive expanse of low end whir and phantom drone drift, gorgeous and mesmerizing, with a dark dreamy melody, both ominous and lovely, think a super mellow druggy Circle, or a slightly more noise rock Necks...
The final track begins with subtle Eastern sounding percussion, before giving way to some Fear Falls Burning massive glacial guitar drone, eventually splintering into glimmering harmonics, the rest of the twenty minute track, a tangle of the two, shuffling skittering rhythms wrapped around slow burning solar flare guitar. So good.
As with all Crucial Bliss releases, the packaging is gorgeous, a dvd sized fold over thick cardstock sleeve, full color inside and out, the cd attached to a plastic hub affixed to the sleeve... and LIMITED TO ONLY 200 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "I Rode And Am Riding On An Ocean Of Violent Lights"
MPEG Stream: "I Watched And Am Watching A Cold Dead Sun Rise Then Explode"

LIGHT OF SHIPWRECK In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream (Gears Of Sand) 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.
Light Of Shipwreck, while a long time favorite around here, has always been a tough outfit to describe. In the past we've compared the sound of LoS to Wolf Eyes, This Heat and the Necks, but that only scratches the surface. There was all sorts of blurred digital shimmer, dubby beats, lurching almost metallic heaviness, it really was a wild assemblage of sounds, but they were somehow woven into something listenable, heck, more than listenable, something pretty fucked up and far out.
So finally, another full length, and as we might have expected, while some of those references still apply, In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream is a whole 'nother beast.
Two loooong songs, the first clocking in at nearly half an hour, and beginning with a strange cacophony of industrial clatter, warm low end pulsations, a sort of muted noisescape, that manages to be heavy, but strangely soothing, until the drums come in, and then it's just chaos, programmed beats careen all over the place, skittering and pulsing beneath a suddenly active swirling squall of moaning feedback, of grinding metallic crunch, a dark billowing cloud shot through with bits of melody, chunks of throbbing bass, but for the most part the sounds is an ever shifting cloud of hiss and buzz and blur surrounding a looped skeletal beat. Eventually all of the skitter and pound, the skree and crunch slough off, leaving a gorgeous heaving river of low end drones and layered buzz, thick and dense and blackened, slowly drifting like some sonic black tar, until the sound again shifts, more of the low end falling away, leaving a gleaming and glistening shimmer, all soft edged high end that is swallowed up by the darkness almost as quickly as it emerged. The track buzzes and crawls, a moaning drone behemoth, before it finally dissipates leaving nothing but a spectral whisper.
The second track, slightly shorter at 21 minutes, is another multi part epic. This one a gloomy gothic sprawl, again, a sky full of dark clouds, wrapped around more off kilter programmed skitter. The tones thick and heavy, moaning and groaning, like the sound of hellish beasts letting out their final wails of anguish, or some blackened city crumbling to dust, with nothing but the drums to play it out. Weirdly tribal and raw, it could almost be some super obscure eighties goth rock combo, jamming out, drugged out of their gourds, unfurling some impossibly otherworldly murk jam, but it too gives way to something more ethereal and ephemeral, the drums still present, more as echoes, eventually dropping out completely, leaving nothing but shadowy tones to drift weightless in a sky full of FX. Weird as hell, even for a band who already traffic in the weird, but if you're into droney heavy fucked up ambient drum heavy noise drenched weirdness, then In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream should definitely hit the spot.
MPEG Stream: "In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream I"
MPEG Stream: "In The Empty Wreckage Of A Dream II"

LIGHT OF SHIPWRECK Through The Bilge Lies A Calm And Bloodless Sea (Waterscape) 3"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.
We were totally blown away by the Light Of Shipwreck cd-r released on Crucial Bliss a while back, and have been anxiously waiting for more. That disc was compared to Steve Reich, Brian Eno, Can and Earth by the label, but we were hearing Wolf Eyes, This Heat and The Necks.
We still hear all of that here to a certain degree, but LoS's whole sound has been reimagined and the results are pretty mindblowing. The record begins with a swirling sea of shimmering tones, of deep resonant rumbles and skittery processed rhythms, more textural really than rhythmic, melodies drawn out into long streaks of sound, a strange whirring slow motion driftscape, wrapped around a stuttering almost-rhythm, which eventually explodes into a dubbed out brittle beat, the beat heavily effected and allowed to slip into a sea of churning guitar growl and blurred soft noise, until those dubbed out drums return, and the track is transformed into some off kilter post rock, free noise, free jazz krautrock jam. But even that doesn't last, as the track quickly shifts into something much more tranquil, a haunting confluence of various layers and textures, the tones seem to glow and pulse, overlapping and intermingling, a less digital more lo-fi Oval perhaps, a Tim Hecker-ish dronescape, all bleary and blurry and washed out and dreamlike, but rough around the edges, a bit raw, the sounds organic and deep, woven into creeping minor key melodies and long expanses of crumbling shimmer. So awesome.
Packaged in a full color cover, housed in a mini vinyl sleeve, with a full color printed insert, each copy hand numbered. Pressed on cool blue cd-r's. And LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!!!
RealAudio clip: "Through The Bilge Lies A Calm And Bloodless Sea 1"

LIGHT SHALL PREVAIL Goatcrush (E.E.E. Recordings) cd-r ep 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We talk about black metal all the time. Cuz, we love it. A lot. The blacker and more evil the better. Harsh and hateful, nihilistic and brutal, true evil rendered in sound!
But why exactly are the black metal hordes so angry? What exactly are they fighting against? God? The Christians? The powers of Good? Themselves? Well if we've learned anything, it's that good can not exist without evil. Dark can not exist without light, and black metal can not exist without white metal.
What?
That's right, it's time for the darkness to be pushed back a bit. It's time for that age old battle to be fought with buzzing riffs and thrashing blast beats, howled anguished vocals and rumbling low end. And at the front lines are Light Shall Prevail, masters of their own bizarre black metal buzz. That's right, it's still black metal, in fact, this white metal is more black and fucked up and awesomely weird than most of the more 'true' and 'grim' stuff we hear all the time.
Strange off kilter riffing, insanely fast blasts (either a drum machine, or an unbelievable drummer), super damaged start stop arrangements, weirdly catchy melodies, all prickly and tangled up in the fuzzy black ambience. A super heavy, but still lo-fi production. And the vocals. SO nuts, From monstrous growls, to Urfaust like croon, to shrieked howl. Such an awesome combination. Lots of midtempo chug mixed in with the buzzing blasts too. In fact just listen to the title track, probably the weirdest, catchiest black metal song EVER, with it's convoluted stop start gallop. So fucking cool.
Absolutely essential black metal listening. Even for the grim and evil amongst you. Once you hear this buzzing brilliance you won't be able to resist the power of the light. Just don't get too close, lest your black soul be cleansed and redeemed!
MPEG Stream: "Goatcrush"
MPEG Stream: "Refusal Of Damnation"
MPEG Stream: "The Call To Repentance"

LIGOTTI, THOMAS AND BRANDON TRENZ Crampton (Durtro) book + cd 32.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

LIL UGLY MANE Mista Thug Isolation (Ormolycka) cassette 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We love twisted underground hip hop. As does our pal Jason who runs the Ormolycka tape label, which was the original home of Death Grips' Exmilitary tape (relisted elsewhere on this week's list). There's tons of weirdo hip hop on Ormolycka, including this tape, by Lil Ugly Mane, a Southern rapper, with a killer drawl and a ridiculous flow, who busts over looped jazziness, creepy horror movie clips, woozy off kilter slow-mo creeps, cinematic symphonic stabs and sped-up soul, this is the sort of shit that already sounds chopped and screwed, skittery, stuttery dopesmoke grooves, rife with saxophone (!), strings, clipped vox, all driven by some crunked out beats, but really it's all about LUM's flow, which is seriously bad ass, mush mouthed and WAY laid back, but surprisingly nimble, which manages to be the perfect match for the twisted music underneath!

LILES, ANDREW All Closed Doors (Infraction) cd 13.98