LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Amarok (Glacial Movements) cd 16.98
"The spookiest work I've ever done," states Francisco Lopez. His work very rarely embodies much in the way of emotional resonance, instead there's more often than not a manipulation of field recordings into stoic monuments of grey drone reflecting the physicality of sound. If there is a 'coldness' to his work, it's usually by way of his rather dry, often disembodied aesthetics which draw heavily from the conceptual models of musique concrete and acousmatic musics. So, it's quite unusual for Lopez to arrive (intentionally or otherwise) at this bleak recording on this isolationist label with this title (Amarok is the Inuit name of a monstrous wolf who destroys anyone foolish enough to hunt alone at night). The album is a single 64 minute piece, that like many a Lopez production begins in near silence for about two minutes; but slowly the first of three major movements begins through a slow acceleration of low-end rumblings that coalesce into an aerated growling that builds out of wind-whipped drones only to fade to black after a rather tense 18 minutes or so. The rest of the album is much quieter affair with the clatter of ice, metal, and distant voice hung in an evocatively black space of Lustmord / Koner shadow. A Promethean plod of slowly churning rhythmic subsonics introduces the slow finale of Amarok with distant moans and howls that could be human or lupine defaced by frigid Arctic winds. It's certainly spooky, and fortunately, Lopez is deft enough of a composer to avoid some of the ham-fisted theatrics that tend in many of the lesser dark ambient / isolationist practitioners. Recommended, for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Amarok 1"
MPEG Stream: "Amarok 2"
MPEG Stream: "Amarok 3"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Belle Confusion 969 (Sonoris) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The prolific ethnomusicologist / ultra-minimalist Francisco Lopez was commissioned to do this as a radio piece. "Belle Confusion 969" is powerful linear electroacoustic minimalism culled from crackling field recordings made from the tropical and sub-tropical forests of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Senegal, China, and Gambia. The end result is not your average field recording collage of festive birds and dreamy rainstorms, rather it is an ominous fluctuation of alien sounds recalling the likes of The Hafler Trio. It's been the long standing AQ policy to recommend all Lopez records that are audible. Thus, "Belle Confusion 969" is both audible and recommended!

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO La Selva (V2 Archief) cd 17.98
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Documenting the environmental sounds of a Costa Rican rainforest, Portuguese composer / ethnomusicologist Francisco Lopez has composed this continuous collage weaving the multitude of sounds from the forest: frogs, birds, rain, watrerfalls. The true feat of this album is the liner notes which features a lengthy taxonomy of the almost all of the species causing these sounds (i.e. at 29'09" there's the croak of Debdrobates pumulio - the Strawberry Dart-poison frog).

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Live In 'S-Hertogenbosch (Bottrop-Boy) cd 16.98
A few years back, Byram and I (Jim) had the preposterous idea of getting really drunk at a Francisco Lopez concert and then heckling him when he performed one of his infamous, nearly inaudible compositions, simply because, quite frankly, they really annoyed us. Having giddily consumed a bottle of whiskey and entered the gritty confines of the 7hz warehouse performance space, we were a bit surprised at Lopez' request that everyone in the audience be blindfolded. It wasn't enought to simply turn off all the lights and let the audience sit in the dark; Lopez requires more absolute sensory deprivation in order to listen to his work. Regardless of how you might interpret our perception of the show due to our sloppy intoxication, we both left elated and exhausted from his very impressive, phenomonological excursion into raw sound. Having very little definition within the reverb-happy warehouse of 7hz, Lopez' massive roar of sound steadily increased around us, before coming to an abrupt conclusion. I thought the performance was a little too quick for my tastes, until I checked my watch to discover that almost an hour and half had passed! In effect, Lopez had hypnotized me.
The cd documentation of "Live In 'S-Hertogenbosch" does its best to repeat the experience of a Francisco Lopez live show by including a blindfold along with the music itself! That said, this show is a mere 34 minutes, but it is nevertheless an impressive recording, and not at all inaudible!
RealAudio clip: "Excerpt"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Live In San Francisco (23five) cd 14.98
BACK IN STOCK!!! Live In San Francisco is a fantastic document of Francisco Lopez' pursuit of an 'absolute concrete music.' In previous recordings, Lopez has recontextualized the insects from rainforests, ambient din of the urban environment, human voices, the run-out grooves of vinyl, and even death metal blast beats in constructing his textural slabs of gray sound; and his live concerts rework similar themes and source material with compositional strategies that best fit the performance context. While he's performed in San Francisco numerous times, the two performances that found their way onto Live In San Francisco were the Hexaphonic show at the Lab in August 2000 and an intimate performance at 3feetofftheground in July 2001. The documentation from The Lab show opens with a noxious hiss that builds up to loud crash like a heavy steel plated door slamming shut in a cavernous warehouse. Slowly another hiss ramps out of the reverberation of his initial crescendo and becomes more and more volatile until the kill switch is cut some 25 minutes later. The second recording from 3feeofftheground resembles some of the leviathan plods from Daniel Menche as a monstrous mechanical rhythm increases in strength and ominously marches forward. As with the previous Live in 'S-Hertogenbosch document, Live in San Francisco comes with a blindfold so you too can replicate the experience of being blindfolded at a Francisco Lopez show.
MPEG Stream: "Live At The Lab"
MPEG Stream: "Live At 3feetofftheground"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Lopez Island (Elevator Bath) cd 14.98
Lopez Island is one of the many islands that dapple the Puget Sound of Washington state, located about 150 miles NW of Seattle. It seems an isolated environment that probably attracts a good deal of outdoorsy types in the summertime; yet for the field recordist / composer Francisco Lopez, he explored the island's soundscape during the winter of 1999-2000 when sleet, snow, wind, and rain perpetually fell upon the island. Lopez has always been a consummate phonographer, with his typical strategies being acousmatic in nature, whereby he would extract and filter particular sounds from his recordings and build monolithic slabs of grey sounds elegantly shifting from near silences to tumultuous crescendos. La Selva (and to a lesser extent Addy En Elpais De Las Frutas Y Los Chunches) remain the most highly regarded compositions through this strategy, with sounds becoming blurred into a miasma of turbulence, confusion, and intrigue. Here on Lopez Island, our man Lopez begins his composition with an extended passage of raw recordings, in particular there's the damp tactility of sleet sploshing amidst wet leaves and twigs. If anything, Lopez has set the stage for a very cold environment, followed by a brisk whistling of wind that Lopez slowly transforms into a thoroughly synthetic climax of sparkling drones and haunted siren songs that resemble the isolationism of BJ Nilsen, Stilluppsteypa, and the Hafler Trio much more than before. Since the release of his Live In San Francisco recording, we haven't been too keen on Francisco's output; but Lopez Island marks the inevitable return to excellence for Mr. Lopez.
MPEG Stream: "Lopez Island (extract 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Lopez Island (extract 2)"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Machines (Elevator Bath) 2cd 17.98
"Industrial Music for Industrial People," well that was a tagline that Monte Cazzazza used to 'brand' Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records, who intended the slogan to be an expression of going beyond the 'agricultural music' which came before. Some 30 years later, and the meaning of Industrial Music has gone through numerous permutations, some of which are quite reprehensible. Yet, that transition from the 'agricultural' into the 'industrial' ethos could be apt for this body of work from the self-proclaimed purveyor of 'absolute' music, Francisco Lopez. It's all machines, all the time for this 2cd set of recordings; and he's clearly building upon the techniques he had used during his seminal recordings of natural sounds such as La Selva or Wind. Yes, yes, yes, Lopez *has* used mechanical sounds throughout his body of work, so the Industrial Records metaphor might not be an exact fit. But it's close enough.
"Klokken" is the first piece on Machines, built out of recordings collected from large collections of clocks from the Netherlands. His piece is a bright collage that overlays the precise motors and machinations found within each of those machines. As these flywheels spin and gears click, the regularity of these repetitions is surprisingly uneven, perhaps as a metaphoric explanation as why time can be a relative construct with the machines pushing time forwards and backwards ever so slightly. Whether intentional or not, this piece has a considerable aesthetic similarity to Ligeti's Poeme Symphonique, composed strictly through metronomes. It ends with 6 minutes of silence, just because that's the way Lopez is. "Fahstuhle" is more of a typical Lopez construction with the sources culled from various elevators in Germany, as the elliptical hisses and tension-based drones from the elevator cables emerge as the fundamental sound construction that Lopez punctuates with various resonant clangs and motorized ruptures. The source material to "Labs" should be somewhat self-evident, with resonant frequencies captured from large-scale institutional devices of unknown origin and pressurized aerations. Compositionally, this is again a signature Lopez piece, focussed upon the gradual acceleration and occultation of his sounds, with grandiose bursts of sustained energy. "Fabrikas" finds Lopez indulging in the fineries of chocolate and beer factories, all the while taking time to make some field recordings. At first, it seems like a reprise of the mechanical whirlings of the clock piece, but as he builds the layers with greater density, this piece grows into a huge mass of rasping buzz and accreted white noise. Excellent!
After so many years at the turn of the millennium of high caliber records, Lopez has been floundering recently. Machines is a welcome exception finding Lopez once again at the height of his game.
MPEG Stream: "Klokken"
MPEG Stream: "Fahstuhle"
MPEG Stream: "Labs"
MPEG Stream: "Fabrikas"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Qal'at Abd'al-Salam / O Parladoiro Desamortuxado (Asellus) cd 14.98
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Francisco Lopez's monumental catalogue of field recordings, ultra minimalism, and Zen-like barely modulating pure tone recordings is a daunting one to step into. This cd collects two distinct bodies of Lopez' work with "Qal'at Abd'Al-Salam" (a loosely connected collection of field recordings of public spaces) and "O Parladoiro Desamortuxado" (fragments of highly textured noise pieces set against ultra quiet passages).

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Technocalyps (Alien8) cd 14.98

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Temizlemek (Linea Alternativa) 2cd 22.00
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In answer to the first question... yes, you can hear this Lopez record. When the often inaudible Francisco Lopez gets audible, the results are some of more interesting manipulations of field recordings (along with L. Chasse, John Hudak, and Giancarlo Toniutti). And this double cd may be the best work that we have encountered. Slow burning drones layered from undefined yet organic source material lull beautifully within all of the disperate textures. Recommended.

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Untitled #180 (Alien8 Recordings) cd 13.98
For well over two decades now, Francisco Lopez has defined his impressive body of electro-acoustic composition and manipulated field recordings as "absolute concrete." Through the bulk of his recordings, he has so thoroughly abstracted the source materials (some of which he has named, some of which is unspecified) that it often realizes itself as monumental slabs of imposing rumbles and grey static steadily progressing through effectively simple compositions. In many ways, Lopez' "absolute concrete" parallels the definition of acousmatic compositions, whereby the source material is hidden from the audience to present sound in its pure form away from any visual distractions. Curiously enough, this recontexualization away from the original object is pretty much the strategy employed by Hollywood sound designers; and this course of logic is one that must have crossed Lopez' mind, as Untitled #180 culls its sound from a dozen or so Hollywood blockbusters. Given that those blockbusters so thoroughly enhance each and every sound to maximize the dramatic impact of the scene, the sounds from Untitled #180 are monstrously loud crashes often quickly cutting to yet another sound. It ends up much more of a cavalcade of thrum and crush as if Pierre Henry were to hand over some scores to Brian Lustmord (a Hollywood sound designer by day FYI). A bit of an detour for Lopez, but well worth the trip.
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 180"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Untitled (1981-83) (Staalplaat) cd 7.98
This 3" cd represents the field earliest recordings from Francisco Lopez, although Lopez did remaster them in 1998 - pushing original tapes (which probably found the recordings well within the audible range) into incredibly quiet volumes. Water, radiators, and air ducts appear to have been his earliest fascinations (and ones that I believe he still seeks out, although his recording techniques have certainly improved to capture a lot of the low end from such sources). This may certainly be indicative of his earliest work, but it isn't nearly as expressive as his latest outut.

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Untitled (1993) (Staalplaat) cd 15.98
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Some time back, AQ prankster Andee thought it funny to put a empty jewel case out on the shelves with a tag stating that the audio content was so minimal that it didn't even exist. Little did we know that this high art/bad joke concept was paralleled by the very first Reynols record -- which was a 'dematerialized' cd. With that lengthy precursor, we are happy to say that this Francisco Lopez record is NOT another in the continuum of sub-audible recordings. Rather "Untitled (1993)" is a collection of live collaborations between Lopez and a handful of guests (John Hudak, Michael Gendreau, Michale Northam, Gen Ken Montgomery, Steve Peters, and Zan Hoffmann). Lopez manages to corral all of the diverse aesthetics of these artists into the more audible spectrum of his own sound of lengthy environmental drones. Like all of the records you actually can hear by Lopez, "Untitled (1993)" is pretty fantastic.

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Untitled (2006-2007) (Monochrome Vision) 2cd 17.98
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The first published work in Francisco Lopez' ongoing Untitled series was Untitled 74, released on Table Of The Elements in 1998; and in less than a decade that number of untitled compositions has bloated to well above 200. With this Russian release, Lopez collects many of the Untitled recordings, dated from 2006 and 2007, giving some credence to his numbering systems. Perhaps, he didn't just start with #74 and jump around; rather he's constantly making field recordings, composing new works, and considering raw material from various collaborators, with too much work to get everything released.
It's been a while since we had to cautiously approach the work of Francisco Lopez with the concern that he might be issuing an inaudible or near-inaudible record, and even those long periods of silence which do pop up on some of his records are completely done away with on this collection. The reason for this is that each track is a discrete composition of repurposed environmental sound, stretched, blurred, occluded into magnified hiss, aerated drone, grotesquely exaggerated texture, and industrial hum snapped against the sounds of the Amazon and the Costa Rica rainforests, whose rich bird and insect life chatter in polyphonic choruses. Source material on a couple of tracks was provided by Rapoon and Lawrence English; and there's a piece that Lopez composed for an avant-garde chamber ensemble, that certainly presents an ominous atmosphere of piano stabs against agitated strings and rumbling double bass, very Zeitkratzer. As a whole, this 2cd set is Absolute Lopez near his absolute best!
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 193"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 194"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 202"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 203"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Untitled 104 (Alien8 Recordings) cd 14.98
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I kid you not. This is the album where Lopez goes metal. Not the recording of sheet metal resonance, not the amplified vibrations of metal molecules, not even the inactivity of two pieces of sheet metal thoughtfully sitting alone in a room with nothing to ponder but their own existential (in)audibility. The normally sedate Lopez goes metal like Emperor, Slayer, or Cradle of Filth.
If anybody has recently witnessed the cascading power of Lopez's recent live shows, then "Untitled 104" is certainly not a surprise. Of course, Lopez sets everything up with 4 minutes of his usual silence, before a tumultuous assault of sampled metal blast beats destroys any semblence of serenity. Lopez layers wave after wave of rhythmic clatter that reveals an incredible amount of textural noise. One blast beat takes the aural center stage, and you find yourself asking "Huh? Is this Cannibal Corpse? Or was that last one from Morbid Angel? I don't know." (Actually, we suspect that all the samples are from one band, but even the metal minds here at AQ haven't confidently guessed which one.) Lopez could have unwittingly devised the ultimate trivia contest for metalheads to name the sample. 35 minutes pass (35 head spinning, if not head banging minutes) and then the metal rhythms stop. Ten more minutes of silence provide the coda.
While this record is really fucking good (indeed, it's one of Jim's favorites of the year along with Reynols' "Blank Tapes"), it is also another example of the academic / art world colonization of metal. Like Matthew Barney's awe-inspiring image in "Cremaster 2" of Dave Lombardo hammering at his drum kit behind the sound of swarming bees, Lopez's "Untitled 104" effectively translates the pure masculine power of metal to an audience who may not care for the, uh, aesthetics of metal. Fortunately, it appears that Lopez and Barney do not approach metal with a snobbish irony (like Harmony Korine's reprehensible photo-enlargements of black metal album covers that sold for tens of thousands of dollars), but such appropriation nevertheless marginalizes metal as nothing more than a texture or an attitude, far from the vibrant and deviant culture that it is.
Rant aside, if this record causes one fan of Bernhard Gunter to get into Burzum, then, as far as Aquarius Records is concerned, Lopez has succeeded. Recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Untitled 104 (excerpt)"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Untitled 123 (Alien8 Recordings) cd 14.98
Like almost all of the Francisco Lopez recordings, silence introduces the album, with the intention of forcing the listener into a state of mind for attentive listening. Of course, with a couple of his records being so barely audible as to render them practically empty, the staging of silence can makes us nervous that this record too is practically empty. Thankfully, we can announce that "Untitled 123" is not silence, and like those Lopez records that are audible, this one too is worth checking out!
In 2000, [the user] undertook an daunting installation of transforming an abandoned grain silo in Montreal into a gigantic instrument that could be accessed by anyone around the world via the internet. Since anybody could play the Silophone (by sending real audio files to a computer which broadcast those sounds into the huge resonatings space of the silo, which in turn were bounced back in the form streaming digital audio), it's a little unclear if the sounds that Lopez used were his own or if they included random elements from other people using the Silophone. But it does appear that Lopez was actually recording these sounds while in the space itself, and not just pulling off the net.
Anyway, I mentioned that Lopez began this album with silence, but this is disturbed by a distant grey sound which gradually increases in volume. It is not a stationary sound, but one that whips and fluctuates as if caused by moving air, but these do not sound like wind recordings. Lopez then unexpectedly jolts his composition with a series of rhythmic static bursts that are quite unusual for the normal Lopez recording and sound somewhat like the Hafler Trio's early '90s dyptic of sexually explicit recordings, "Fuck" and "Masturbatorium." These tones abruptly stop and the process begins again with another set of grey sounds emerging from the distance; these slightly more nervous with several tightly modulating vibrations extending outward from the silence. This in turn gets louder and louder, with lots of overdubbing sounds of hurricane force blasts of white noise that has all of the transcendent energy of Keiji Haino, but with none of the chords being audible. Again, this comes to an abrupt stop and the album concludes where it started with an extended period of silence.

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Untitled 150 (Antifrost) cd 15.98

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Warszawa Restaurant (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
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"Warszawa Restaurant" was one of the first albums to be released from the ultra-minimalist Francisco Lopez back in 1995, though he provides hints that he has an immense amount of work that predates this album and has yet to be released. This is mostly from his ongoing "Untitled" series which begins with "Untitled 74" (one of his most unsuccessful works which happened to be released on Table of the Elements). Anyway, "Warszawa Restaurant" fits into Lopez' ideas of manipulated any given acoustic space with the intrusion of increasingly powerful drones culled from environmental recordings. Air conditioning ducts, wind, the ambient din of a city, rainforests, run out grooves for vinyl, and of course death metal blast beats ("Untitled 108") have been some of sources for the textural recordings that Lopez has manipulated into his dynamic compositions that blur the boundaries between silence and sound. For the most part, Lopez doesn't wish his source material to be known... and "Warzawa Restaurant" delivers in the mystery department. Bleak swells of grey sounds slowly breathe and fluctuate out of periods of silence, with very little direct references to the world around us. Instead, this album forces the listener to concentrate on their auricular surroundings in an attempt to make us aware of his belief that the world itself is the most extravagant instrument known to man.
RealAudio clip: "Warszawa Restaurant 4"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO Wind [Patagonia] (And/OAR) cd 13.98
Wind [Patagonia] is the third in a series of recordings from Francisco Lopez which also included Building [New York] and the universally acclaimed La Selva, all three of which are raw field recordings in the Chris Watson vein of sleight edits rather than Lopez' typical strategies for acoustmatics. As you can imagine, Wind is a collection of wind recordings; and as you could probably also gather, Lopez captured these sounds in the southern regions of Argentina. Lopez himself describes this as "relentless environment of sonic strength;" and yeah, these field recordings do hold a dynamic abrasion heard in most noise records, yet the sounds are all of winds whipping across the Patagonian landscape.
MPEG Stream: "excerpt"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO & XABIER ERKIZIA Elektra Bidasoa (Ferns) cd 15.98
So, Andee just asked the perennially valid question, when it comes to Lopez recordings at least, after coming up to the front of the shop and seeing this new cd on the counter, yet hearing 'nothing' coming from the speakers: "Are you actually listening to this right now?" With a sizable portion of Lopez' nearly 300 compositions being sub-audible at best, it is in fact not always a bad idea to pose that question. It should be stated that the above query was made between tracks one and two, when Lopez was enjoying some downtime; but aside from this brief moment, Lopez is much more forthright in presenting a goodly amount of immersive sound.
For Elektra Bidasoa, he and Xabier Erkizia (better known as half of the AQ-endorsed noise-rock outfit Billy Bao!) slogged down the Bidasoa River in Spain, making recordings from the various hydroelectric plants located on that waterway. Earlier in 2011, the two presented an installation of their findings intermeshing the two sets of recordings; but here, their findings are presented in parallel. While both Lopez and Erkizia were drawing from the same source material - industrial hum, hiss, drone, and klank - they arrive at considerably different compositions. For Lopez, the whorl of the turbine, the hum of the circuit board, and the hiss of the cooling unit all become sustained elements in a gradually evolving composition of dehumanized activity. Such pneumatic and automated systems can function rightly on their own, seemingly independent of the human hand; and Lopez speaks to the engineered functionality as an aestheticized language - a poetry of the sterile and antiseptic.
Erkizia is far more in awe of those machines than Lopez', presenting his recordings with considerable dynamic force. Along with the machined drones that Lopez uses, Erkizia occasionally turns his microphones to the water which drives those dams, at times sloshing at the riverbank and at times roaring through the massive concrete sluices that guide the water through the turbines themselves. This contrast from the bursts of activity from either source, poses a threat of electrocution. Coupled with the intense explosions that Erkizia uses in his concrete-styled composition, this work can be downright scary at times.
MPEG Stream: FRANCISCO LOPEZ "Untitled 226"
MPEG Stream: XABIER ERKIZIA "Bidasoa, Presak"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO & ZAN HOFFMAN Concert For 300 Magnetic Tapes (The Tapeworm) cassette 8.98
Yet another chunk of awesome audio weirdness from UK cassette label The Tapeworm (along with three other releases reviewed elsewhere on this week's list). They had us with the title, Concert For 300 Magnetic Tapes. We were maybe envisioning something more like Reynols' Blank Tapes, a composition of the hiss and noise from playing back unrecorded audio tapes, this is Francisco Lopez after all, whose compositions offer border on the absolutely inaudible. But instead, Lopez and Zan Hoffmann solicited tapes from various musicians and artists in the international home recording 4 track cassette tape underground, and embarked on a tour, during which the two would add some of their own sounds, to a glorious cacophonous collage of the various contributions. In this wall of taped sound, impossible to tell what is pre-recorded, or what is being performed live (this recording was culled from various performances in 1994), but a hazy, washed out, softly noisy swirl of voices, and sonic snippets, truncated melodies, lots of grinding and buzzing and hissing, everything layered and tangles, often a confusional mess, but just as often coalescing into something strangely composed sounding, tinkling melodies over a heaving wall of crumbling distortion, or some distant lilting dreaminess, underpinned by jagged shards of chaotic crunch, fuzzy radio broadcast like voices swathed in gritty swirls of static, bits of guitar twang surface occasionally, before slipping back into the grey wash of constantly shifting sound. Really cool. And maybe one of the coolest compositions/performances we've heard from Lopez!
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO & ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI Whint (.absolute.) 2cd 19.98
Another of Zbigniew's many projects, this time recorded in cahoots with the equally prolific minimal (often barely audible!) composer Francisco Lopez. On "Whint" these two experimental electronic superstars collaborated in creating shared "sound materials" and then produced separate pieces (Lopez on one disc, Karkowski on the other) that draw on these same sound sources -- what was originally plain old white noise before this duo got their hands on it. Now it's dynamic, whooshing, rumbling, hissing white noise, punctuated with stretches of near-silence on the Lopez disc. The extremes of volume alone make this a scary listen. Note: packaged in a clear jewelcase with no booklet or other artwork, just the cds, a la so many other experimental/electronic discs these days. What is it with that aesthetic? For $20 you ought to get some packaging!

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO / AMY DENIO Belle Confusion 00 (Absolute) cd 14.98
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Even through his collaborations (as seen here on Belle Confusion 00 with Amy Denio), Francisco Lopez has successfully resisted procedures, craftsmanship, and semantics. What's left behind are paradoxically both ominous and serene compositions of open ended droning mysteries to be researched and investigated by the audience as they see fit. While Belle Confusion 00 uses Denio's voice (no saxophone) as the basic sound material, Lopez and Denio have built a haunted gray drone from the complex harmonics of a human voice that never utters anything except its own somatic textures. Their collaboration begins with a mirage-like sound of undefinable yet delicate fluctuations, then a silence, followed by a slow rumble of similar sounds as the first interlude but much less friendly, and then another silence. I find myself thinking that Lopez has stretched out two brief syllables from Denio's voice over the course of an hour.
RealAudio clip: "Belle Confusion 00"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO / MICHAEL NORTHAM Belle Confusion 0247 (Absolute) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Francisco Lopez's Belle Confusion 0247 with fellow field recording artist Michael Northam is certainly one of the strongest recordings to come from Lopez's encyclopedia of 'absolute concrete music' which in the past, has included investigations of the physicality of silence, the swarming sonic tapestries of South American rainforests, and the textural intricacies of death metal blastbeats. Northam and Lopez began an exchange five years which resulted in Northam's appearance on Staalplaat's release of Untitled (1993). For this album, the two apply a considerable amount of pressure to their processed field recordings which gradually increase from near silence to roaring floods of metallic noise and gives way to a hovering buzz from an indeterminant timestretched echo, striated by almost imperceptible tinklings of wooden objects. Very nice.
RealAudio clip: "Belle Confusion 0247"

LOPEZ, FRANCISCO / SCOTT ARFORD Solid State Flesh / Solid State Sex (Low Impedence) 2cd 16.98
Perhaps it took Scott Arford winning honorable mention at the 2005 Ars Electronica to get this split release with Francisco Lopez to come out. These two pieces were originally recorded back in 2002 and had been slated for release by a couple of different labels, until Low Impedence had the sense to finally just do it. Curiously enough, this is one of several releases to come pouring out of Arford's 7hz studios after a couple of years of silence. Electricity appears to the source material and subject matter for the two composers on Solid State Flesh & Solid State Sex. The latter is the work of Mr. Arford who has always had a penchant for hard, blistered noises and cacophonic feedback squallor; and those sounds are heavily featured here punctuating the deadened buzz of smoldering electricity. It's hard to think of this as being sexy music or even sexual music given the electrocutionist throb of Arford's sounds, thus lending to plenty of transgressive readings if you're so inclined. On the slightly more voluptuous Solid State Flesh, Lopez expands the monotone of 60 cycle hums and the hissing buzz of electrical static through his signature compositional strategy of slow-burning tumult which abruptly halt and annouce a prolonged passage of inactivity. Unlike some of his Belle Confusion pieces, Solid State Flesh adds a considerable menace to his self-professed absolute concrete, but nevertheless is very well done and an excellent companion to Arford's work.
MPEG Stream: SCOTT ARFORD "Discharge"
MPEG Stream: SCOTT ARFORD "Strange Attractor"
MPEG Stream: FRANCISCO LOPEZ "Solid State Flesh"

LORD TANG s/t (Gigante Sound) cassette 5.98
Live performance and touring (especially internationally) does much to sharpen the chops, expand the scopes and get the creative juices flowing for most artists, and it certainly appears so in the case for one Mr. Dominic Cramp. It seems the many journeys on the road performing as keyboardist and sound shaper for Carla Bozulich's group Evangelista have spurred him - already a very prolific music maker for many years - to stretch his limbs a bit, and push the boundaries of his music-making comfort zone into some fresh but not altogether foreign territory.
Lord Tang is definitely the brethren of Cramp's other musical personas (particularly Borful Tang, but also Vulcanus 68, Qulfus et al), and those familiar and fond of his Bay Area indie label Gigante Sound will surely geek to this too, but what sets Lord Tang apart are the new influences and inspirations Cramp has drawn upon, and the incorporation of more conventional song foundations (at least comparably so when placed next to his alter egos' more loosely structured soundscapes). However, he does not remain within those confines. As always, his music is free roaming. His soundscapes creep along, build, dissipate, and shapeshift like the cloud formations referred to in the opener. At once, both dense and vaporous, the tracks may linger on a note sequence or beat pattern for a spell then moving on, occasionally returning to revisit a theme in cyclical fashion.
In previous works and incarnations, Cramp scavenged, sculpted and collaged together the structures and narratives from existing samples (field recordings, tapes, and such). In Lord Tang, the elements (most notably melodies and rhythmic passages) are much more composed from scratch, and the sounds are built, shaped and performed on instruments (we detect a gaggle of analog synths, drum machines and digital effects processors among them). That said, although his creative processes may have diverged somewhat from his usual path, the resulting tracks aren't too alienatingly different to the ear. As with many of his instrumental recordings, this one oozes, lurches and seeps its way into your ear canals. Moody with a dark whimsy. We envision a subterranean being clawing its way up to the Earth's surface to eavesdrop on the city dwellers. Curiosity piqued by their daily routines and mundane dialogues, the churning rhythms of traffic reverberating down into his dank sunless world.
MPEG Stream: "Fog"
MPEG Stream: "Slumberer"

LORD TANG s/t (Gigante Sound) cd-r 7.98
Live performance and touring (especially internationally) does much to sharpen the chops, expand the scopes and get the creative juices flowing for most artists, and it certainly appears so in the case for one Mr. Dominic Cramp. It seems the many journeys on the road performing as keyboardist and sound shaper for Carla Bozulich's group Evangelista have spurred him - already a very prolific music maker for many years - to stretch his limbs a bit, and push the boundaries of his music-making comfort zone into some fresh but not altogether foreign territory.
Lord Tang is definitely the brethren of Cramp's other musical personas (particularly Borful Tang, but also Vulcanus 68, Qulfus et al), and those familiar and fond of his Bay Area indie label Gigante Sound will surely geek to this too, but what sets Lord Tang apart are the new influences and inspirations Cramp has drawn upon, and the incorporation of more conventional song foundations (at least comparably so when placed next to his alter egos' more loosely structured soundscapes). However, he does not remain within those confines. As always, his music is free roaming. His soundscapes creep along, build, dissipate, and shapeshift like the cloud formations referred to in the opener. At once, both dense and vaporous, the tracks may linger on a note sequence or beat pattern for a spell then moving on, occasionally returning to revisit a theme in cyclical fashion.
In previous works and incarnations, Cramp scavenged, sculpted and collaged together the structures and narratives from existing samples (field recordings, tapes, and such). In Lord Tang, the elements (most notably melodies and rhythmic passages) are much more composed from scratch, and the sounds are built, shaped and performed on instruments (we detect a gaggle of analog synths, drum machines and digital effects processors among them). That said, although his creative processes may have diverged somewhat from his usual path, the resulting tracks aren't too alienatingly different to the ear. As with many of his instrumental recordings, this one oozes, lurches and seeps its way into your ear canals. Moody with a dark whimsy. We envision a subterranean being clawing its way up to the Earth's surface to eavesdrop on the city dwellers. Curiosity piqued by their daily routines and mundane dialogues, the churning rhythms of traffic reverberating down into his dank sunless world.
MPEG Stream: "Fog"
MPEG Stream: "Slumberer"

LORD TIME Black Hole At the End Of The Tunnel (Universal Consciousness) cassette 8.98
Another blast of nekro-black "morbid dead metal" filth from this aQ fave, the solo project of Andorkappen, the drummer of LA black metal trio Harassor. And like the previous tape on Universal Consciousness, this is some dark, sinister, hateful heaviness, the sound raw and primitive, filthy and crusty, the sound lo-fi, but still somehow weirdly lush and LOUD, buzzing guitars, pounding practice space drumming, and some seriously sick demonic croak vokills. The sound is all over the map, slipping from super brittle and tinny, to murky and muddy and sludgey, the songs too, dirgey ritualistic creeps, frantic lightning speed blasts, pounding punkish d-beat blowouts, the sounds not at all typical, with clean effects laden guitars and warped FX, wild tangled psychedelia, field recordings, all woven into this twisted black epic. 36 minutes, 20 brief blasts, plus a super creeped out almost 20th century sounding piano dirge outro, spare and abstract, percussive and darkly ominous. The whole track repeats on both sides. The label describes this as "primitive devotional caveman soul music" and who are we to argue.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Packaged in super deluxe, embossed, heavy textured metallic paper J-cards, each one hand numbered and sealed with a sticker, each copy marked with Mr. Lord Time's actual blood!
MPEG Stream: "Black Hole At the End Of The Tunnel (excerpt)"

LORD, MARK Tachyon Firing Squad (Phaserprone) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

LORD, MARK / MORGAN EGG Last Chance In Heaven / Discontinue Stardust (No Label) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK!!!
Ah, the second release from the Mimaroglu Music Sale sponsored "No Label" which probably will stick as a name, when it really was meant to be a private imprint with the absence of a label name. No matter, though as this split LP from Mark Lord (the pseudonym of Christopher Forgues) and Morgan Egg (who we know next to nothing about). Forgues has previous work under the Whitehouse inspired project Kites with blistering pierced noise surrounded by shock-horror tactics; and that sensibility has been tempered under the Mark Lord moniker. The only semblance of that former self appears in an appropriated dialogue of a '70s porn, buttressed by some fantastic retro-garde / minimal wave electronics. These looping synth modulations arpeggiate and expand along linear pulsations dappled by circuit bent twiddle and scrags of cheap noise. Sort of like a more progressive take on the Units without so much of the punk overdrive; or conversely, more of an Oneohtrix / Emeralds synth vibe jacked up a bit. The final cut "Warpath" tops the drum machine propulsion with an almost charmingly playful melody to the counter the insistent synth bass pulse. Really great stuff!
Morgan Egg's snarled drone tempests declares their influences from the classic Italian industrial work by Maurizio Bianchi and Giancarlo Toniutti. Washes of grey static and revolving chunks of leaden distortion meld into the grim atmospheres that Egg laces with oscillating electronics and curiously languid bell tones. Quite a departure from the Mark Lord side, but just as incredible.
Less than 300 copies in print!

LOS ANGELES FREE MUSIC SOCIETY Blorp Esette Collector's Edition (Transparency) 4cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As if the 10cd box set previously released by Organ of Corti was not enough, the Transparency label now reissues another 4 discs of material from this semi-legendary, decidedly anti-rock, '70s pseudo-collective. Fortunately, this release is a lot easier on the wallet than that previous box set was. Taking Captain Beefheart's destruction of the song to the outsider art extreme of non-musicality, the members of the LAMFS experiment with noise, broken instruments, and juvenile behavior. Tracks from Smegma, Christian Death (!!?--yeah, it's good!), Rick Potts, Henry Kaiser, etc.

LOSCIL Triplepoint (Kranky) cd 14.98
Scott Morgan has spent his fair share of time in a number of notable Vancouver pop outfits. For instance, most recently he's played in Destroyer (with former New Pornographer Dan Bejar) and with retro-popsters The Battles, but neither revealed even a hint of this decidedly ambient electronic persona. The first glimpse I ever had of Loscil was on the "Vancouver Special" compilation. His contribution was a reworking of the Destroyer song "Merci". His second surfacing is this album which finds its home in the welcome nest of Kranky Records. Subtle, ethereal dreamscapes perfect for rainy days like those in his hometown. Very nice!

LOSSMAKER s/t (Lo Bit Landscapes) 12" 11.98
We had never heard of Lossmaker, aka video artist / musician Luke Wyatt, but this new 12" on recent Record of The Weekers Nihiti's Lo Bit Landscapes label is pretty fantastic, a strange assemblage of mini-soundscapes, cinematic and lush, textured and layered, the vibe sort of mellow and melancholic, a little Boards Of Canada for sure, but way more twisted and experimental. The opener is a brief bit of crackle wreathed chamber folk, sort of old timey, but definitely strangely soundtracky, piano and fiddle, swoonsome strings, a little haunting and dreamlike, which leads directly into the sort of Boards Of Canada style minimal electronic groovescapery, minor key melodies, over softly pulsing rhythms, the sound sweeping and darkly epic, while at the same time pensive and personal, lots of strange production happening, but it's all woven into some dreamy dark electronica.
There's more of that hazy, softly psychedelic chamber music, again haunting and cinematic, this time laced with strange electronic glitches and mysterious pulsations, a dreamy, melancholy coda to the first side.
The flipside begins with a brief bit of backwards melodic swirl, dreamy and super psychedelic, super hypnotic, sorta wish it was more than an intro. That leads directly into another stretch of minimal moody electronic skitter, this time, laced with acoustic instruments, some guitar strum here and there, but also some ominous synth swells, some robotic squelches, some cool super distorted melodies, all warped and warbly, the song epic and intense, getting more and more psychedelic and intense, but remaining warm and woozy and dreamlike.
MPEG Stream: "Melodrama Camp 3"
MPEG Stream: "Mann Hires Haim For Sad Caper Film"
MPEG Stream: "Early Morning Robotech"

LOST DOMAIN Palace (Pseudo Arcana) cd 13.98
This is somehow the first record by The Lost Domain we've listed, even though we've been digging their music for a while now. You may have heard some Lost Domain on the killer Gold Leaf Branches compilation a while back, and this is more of the same, long expanses of non-ambient ambience. Delicate layers of raga like buzz, gentle distant drones and lots and lots of space. This sounds like some sort of alien temple music. You can imagine some strange structure on a rocky outcropping on some distant planet, inside mysterious hooded figures kneel in prayer, a gorgeous spacious meditative drone drifting like insence smoke through the temple. This is so lovely and thick with strange sonic subtleties. Music for fading into sleep, or slowly emerging from a dream world. Definitely the perfect music to lull you into a trancelike state and allow your soul to come loose from your body and drift off into other dimensions. So nice.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

LOTUS CIRCLE Caves (Dusktone) cd 13.98
Caves is the latest sonic ritual from this mysterious Greek horde whose sounds is a blackened doomdrone, that seems to have more in common with the strangely hypnotic solo guitar psychedelia of aQ faves Blackwolfgoat that any of the more typical black/doom metal outfits we've reviewed in the past. No drummer, we can only assume LC is a one man band, and his M.O. is the sort of thing we love. A sort of post SUNNO))) sort of doomdronedirge, unfurling a churning slo-mo riff, and then looping it, over and over and over, a mesmerizingly cyclical core, around which various other sounds are arranged, blurred streaks of rumbling buzz, haunting chantlike vocals, clouds of FX drenched chordal whir, streaks of high end, buried melodies, bits of murk other sonic detritus, the result is indeed very ritualistic, record opener "ÉTo Witness Under The Stars" spends a good four minutes chugging away, before the riff drops out, leaving just a strange swirl of overlapping voices, very liturgical, wreathed in crackle and hiss, before a new riff takes over, this one more brittle, wrapped in feedback, and more distinctly metal, but still essentially a slow motion bit of doom-ed riffery, one that seems to grow more downtuned as the surrounding sounds grow more horrific and blackened.
And so it goes, "Dawn Of A Dead Sun" follows a similar pattern, but wraps it's droned out feedback soaked riff in banshee wails and blackened vokills, and as the track progresses, it seems to grow more psychedelic, more raga like, inspiring a sort of trance state, a gloriously droned out blackriff ritual that is utterly entrancing. "Secret Entities" is the most 'rock' of the bunch, sounding like it might explode into proper song form at any time, but instead the chords ring out into the ether, the melodies fading into blackness, while "From The Depths" wraps the core riff in a weirdly processed almost slappy synth sound, which at first sounds odd, but soon more effects join the fray, and it becomes a strangely heady hypnotic crawl, and finally "Plutonian Funeral", finishes things off with the creepiest and most minimal sprawl of the bunch, layering a sort of creepy carnivalesque synth, beneath an oozing layer of crumbling low end, peppered with weird reverbed twang, and wrapped in distant melodic shimmers, as well as the occasional hellish shriek, a dark, occultic coda for sure.
Gorgeous haunting heaviness, that just might appeal to fans of black psychedelia and abstract guitardrones more than metalheads...
MPEG Stream: "...To Witness Under The Stars"
MPEG Stream: "Dawn Of A Dead Sun"

LOTUS EATERS Mind Control For Infants (Neurot) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With an avant-metal / metalcore membership of superstar proportions with Stephen O'Malley (Sunn 0))), Burning Witch, Teeth Of The Lion Rule The Divine, Khanate, etc.), James Plotkin (Old, Atomsmasher / Phantomsmasher, Khanate, etc.), and Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, HydraHead Records, etc.), the Lotus Eaters locate themselves quite far away from the archetypes of metal. Actually, their sound is more of re-contextualization of remnants from the disintegration of metal into fragments of ominous spectres of atmosphere, distant orchestrations of acousmatic sound, and slivers of guitar drones. With very spartan arrangements, the Lotus Eaters' first CD (after a couple of super limited vinyl only releases) invokes the archaic ritualist behavior, gnostic alchemical symbolism, and dark ambient transgressions of the post-industrial work of Troum, Cranioclast, and even Coil's "How To Destroy Angels" album. However, throughout the suitably nightmarish activities, the trio of guitarists reveal very simple two or three note melodies; and on more than one occasion, "Mind Control For Infants" loosens its iron fisted grip on a dark atmospheres, exploring some pristine, glistening bell tones, rich acoustic guitar fingerpicking, and gossamer threads of feedback. This album makes for wonderful late-night listening, and is certainly recommended!
RealAudio clip: "Track 1"
RealAudio clip: "Track 5"

LOTUS EATERS Mind Control For Infants (Taiga) 2lp 42.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Long out of print on cd, now available again as a super deluxe double lp, and we mean DELUXE, incredible heavy gatefold jacket, like a cloth covered hardcover book, printed in gold metallic ink, tip on cover image and inside gatefold, printed inner sleeves, so fantastic looking, hence the price. Here's our review of Mind Control when we first listed the cd way back in 2002:
With an avant-metal / metalcore membership of superstar proportions with Stephen O'Malley (SUNNO))), Burning Witch, Teeth Of The Lion Rule The Divine, Khanate, etc.), James Plotkin (Old, Atomsmasher / Phantomsmasher, Khanate, etc.), and Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, HydraHead Records, etc.), the Lotus Eaters locate themselves quite far away from the archetypes of metal. Actually, their sound is more of re-contextualization of remnants from the disintegration of metal into fragments of ominous spectres of atmosphere, distant orchestrations of acousmatic sound, and slivers of guitar drones. With very Spartan arrangements, the Lotus Eaters' first cd (after a couple of super limited vinyl only releases) invokes the archaic ritualist behavior, gnostic alchemical symbolism, and dark ambient transgressions of the post-industrial work of Troum, Cranioclast, and even Coil's "How To Destroy Angels" album. However, throughout the suitably nightmarish activities, the trio of guitarists reveal very simple two or three note melodies; and on more than one occasion, "Mind Control For Infants" loosens its iron fisted grip on a dark atmospheres, exploring some pristine, glistening bell tones, rich acoustic guitar fingerpicking, and gossamer threads of feedback. This album makes for wonderful late-night listening, and is certainly recommended!

LOTUS EATERS s/t (Drone Records) 7" 6.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With an album on the horizon from Neurot Records, the Lotus Eaters are bound to have an interesting future. This is the psychoacoustic drone project for several well-known metalcore artists (James Plotkin, Stephen O'Malley, and Aaron Turner) offering two tracks of Organum-like events with scraping metals, encroaching drones, and acoustic guitar finger picking. Destined to be the most sought after Drone single, and we've only got a few copies left. Limited to 250 copies and pressed on white vinyl, with an elaborate design from O'Malley.

LOTUS EATERS Wurmwulv (Taiga) 2lp 35.00
Originally released on cd in 2007 by Troubleman Unlimited, this sprawling experimental epic is finally available on vinyl, and in a seriously lavish, ultra deluxe edition... Here's what we had to say about Wurmwulv when we first reviewed the cd way back when...
As if these guys weren't busy enough with their 'day jobs', Stephen O'Malley (Khanate, SUNNO))), Burning Witch, KTL, Thorr's Hammer), James Plotkin (Atomsmasher, Phantomsmasher, Khanate, OLD, Flux, Romance) and Aaron Turner (Isis, Old Man Gloom, House of Low Culture) still somehow managed to find time to get together and do something a little less... heavy, or sludgy, or crushing, or even drone-y for that matter.
Wurmwulv is the latest chunk of ambient drift, minimal clatter, and abstract soundscaping from the trio known as Lotus Eaters. Three looooong songs, 50 minutes of strange drifting sound.
The opening track is a slowed down pipe fight. A warped wander through a sea of chimes and bells, of resonant metal and shimmering metallic drones. Avarus, Anaksimandros, have got nothing on these guys. Ominous and dark, but strangely melodic. From delicate tinkling to dense metal on metal pound, single notes fluttering in space, to flurries of clang and clatter, all the while, way in the background, a deep swirling tidal low end shifts and shimmers.
The second track is brief, 5 minutes of high end drift, strange electronic interference, gristly rumbles and hissy whirs, while beneath it all, machines creak and groan, mysterious objects scrape and rattle until near the end, the track is suddenly overtaken by a lush wall of warm guitar whorl.
The final track, another lengthy exploration, is an effects laden trawl through a world of constantly shifting low end. Nearly static, layers of rumble and whir, gently and almost imperceptibly shuffling, while over the top, drift tiny alien sonic events and muted squiggles of FX, helicopter like whup-whup-whup's, and faux animal calls, clicks and thumps, all manner of mysterious sound. Eventually, a flurry of high end streaks takes the form of some sort of effervescent symphony, glistening in their own all high end universe, before the low end returns, bringing with it a muted folky drift, a lazy sun dappled slow burning outro...
The packaging of this new vinyl edition is indeed over the top, well worth the hefty pricetag, gorgeously printed, on heavy stock, pressed on heavy vinyl, the 4th side of which is gorgeously etched...
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 2"

LOU CHAMPAGNE SYSTEM No Visible Means (Medical Records) lp 19.98
We were pretty much sold before we'd even heard a single note from the bizarrely name Lou Champagne System, which is indeed the work of Mr. Lou Champagne, and that 'System' is actually a thing, not just a cool band name appellation, it's some sort of "guitar and hookup" invented by Lou himself which "allows him to play guitar and sound like a whole band with no tapes!" There's a picture of him on the cover too, skinny mustache, and skinny Cylon style new wave shades. Plus it's on Medical Records, who were responsible for another recent Record Of The Week, Novels For The Moons by Axxess. And if you thought that one was weird, this one is gonna blow your mind.
"The Lou Champagne System is a real time guitar synth solo act" the original liner notes go on to explain, who with the help of that aforementioned system, whipped up some of the coolest, weirdest post punk / new wave we've heard in ages. A rare private press lp from Canada, originally released in 1983 on Champagne's own label, this unearthed gem, on first listen, elicited a whole range of reactions, ranging from "this is freaking amazing?!" to "what the fuck is this?!", and in most cases it was a little bit of both, cuz while this stuff is pretty weird and a little bit goofy, it's also totally kick ass. And the fact that he played this stuff live using a whole array of pedals and switches and that system. Just check out the opener "Don't Say I'm Here", which takes crunchy almost metallic guitars, swirling analog synths, and primitive skeletal drum machines, and crams it all into some dense, claustrophobic punk wave weirdness. Ranting vocals, hysterical laughter, a bizarre back and forth dialogue between someone called "Fred" and a "Narrator", there's also some rad shredding psychedelic leads. It's the sort of retro weirdness that the current crop of outsider synth wave revivalists are channeling, but nothing compares to the sheer madness/brilliance of the original. "Broken Hearts" is a bit more poppy, the same sonic layout as "Don't Say I'm Here", but for a brief minute it sounds way more commercial like it could have been some obscure eighties hit, but then BAM, the synths get all squiggly, the vocals get even more unhinged, a woozy weirdly psychedelic synth punk freakout that is so fucked and bizarrely brilliant, there's another wild squall of guitar leads, this time sounding like some tangle of malfunctioning electronics.
The other jam here we're obsessing on is the awesomely titled "Propaganda Frustration", with its smoldering slow build synth intro, that explodes into a droned out sprawl of skeletal drum skitter and pulsing synths, and when the song proper kicks in, it's all dark and heavy and propulsive, a sort of Goblin / Carpenter sound transformed into something much more electro-pop, the vocal heavily effected and buried in the mix, a driving late night future groove that sound like those sunglasses on the cover. Then there's "Another Dimension", with a sort of faux synth horn intro, that gives way to some chugging metallic guitars, that almost sounds like Motorhead or something, until those primitive programmed drums come in, then it becomes this weirdly metallic driving synth punk, the vocals over the top and dramatic, you can almost imagine the sort of low budget cable access video that would have accompanied this jam. Oh and did we mention the insane chorus, where the drums go all wobbly and chaotic and sound like they're totally malfunctioning beneath the howled vox? So fucking nuts!
From there on out it doesn't get any less weird, in fact, if anything it continues on its warped trajectory, squiggly synths, skittery stuttery drums, strange synth melodies, the vocals unhinged and maniacal, the songs heavy and punky and fuzzy and synth and totally catchy and baffling bizarre, but we definitely have to mention the awesomely brooding closer, which is quickly becoming our favorite, sounding like some outsider synth dirge version of Blue Oyster Cult's "Veteran Of The Psychic Wars" from the Heavy Metal soundtrack, with it's haunting creep and weird field recorded honking horns and crickets, all beneath super psychedelic swirls of synth and some seriously tripped out gorgeously multi-tracked harmonized vocals, including the way too appropriate lyric "I'm like a man in a fantasy, maybe I should just get stoned..."
Totally and utterly amazing, and baffling, and so obviously absolutely recommended. Total fractured genius outsider post-punk synth wave weirdness that is threatening to become the only thing we want to listen to!
Pressed on white vinyl, LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, each one hand numbered. Includes a 12" x 12" insert with liner notes / lyrics.
MPEG Stream: "Don't Say I'm Here"
MPEG Stream: "Broken Hearts"
MPEG Stream: "Propaganda Frustration"
MPEG Stream: "Silent Walking"

LOVELY MIDGET Lovely Midget (Corpus Hermeticum) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
I've actually been waiting for Lovely Midget's debut album for some time, after a brilliant 10" on Ecstatic Peace a couple of years back. Lovely Midget is the work of New Zealand's Rachel Shearer, whose resume includes a few releases for Siltbreeze and Xpressway as Queen Meanie Puss and Angelhead. Whereas those projects were firmly entrenched in the magical avant-pop strum shared by fellow NZ musicians like Alastair Galbraith, Lovely Midget's gritty drones barely have anything to do with the song, capturing a antiquated sound similar to Movietone or Kjetil Brandsdal's Corpus Hermeticum release. The layers of guitar feedback, slowly tumbling percussion, and sunbleached vibrations could easily have resulted in the crystalline sleepiness of My Bloody Valentine but instead have been covered with 10 years of dust and cobwebs blurring the melodies with murk and mire. Interestingly, this muddy, droning din was created digitally, although there certainly isn't any indication that any digital production was used, and Lovely Midget would never get confused with the sterile electronica found on Raster or 12K. Rather this has all the trappings of a fantastic lo-fi 4-track recording... it's beautiful, dreamy, and highly recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Paul Johns"

LOVELY MIDGET North Head (Family Vineyard) cd 14.98
Lovely Midget is Rachel Shearer, a long time player/participant in the New Zealand noise/drone/free rock underground. Lovely Midget, her one woman project, falls squarely in the ambient drone side of that NZ scene, along with likeminded Kiwis Flies Inside The Sun, Omit, etc. Dark and langorous soundscapes of gently rippling reverb, heartbeat like pulses buried beneath barely played guitars, rumbling almost-not-there bass, occasional percussive clatter, and ultra minimal vocalisations. Some of the most beautiful, serene, dreamy ambient noise we've heard in a while.
MPEG Stream: "Squall"
MPEG Stream: "Fading"

LOVESLIESCRUSHING Crwth (Chorus Redux) (12k) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Chorus was a record by the post-shoegazing duo Lovesliescrushing that was released via an obscure Peruvian imprint called Automatic Entertainment sometime in 2007. Needless to say, it's an album that practically nobody has heard, barring a download from a blog or something. Despite the novelty of this incredibly rare record, Chorus was also a major departure for the duo in that voice was the only source material for all of the blissed out driftscapes, with Scott Cortez eschewing the fizzed, opiated, and blurred guitar in favor of effects-heavy treatments upon the wordless vocals of Mellisa Arpin-Duimstra. Crwth is a re-edit of the raw material used for Chorus, emerging with a very similar muted hue of softed loops and delicate drones that hang gently upon the backdrop of digital dust blown upon a velvet surface. For those of you who had gotten a hold of the limited 2cd boxset on Projekt (or had been familiar with the last couple of Lovesliescrushing albums for that matter), this sole use of voice isn't all that much of a stretch, as Lovesliescrushing has been pushing a trajectory away from the beautiful noises of their MBV-inspired Bloweyelashwish and toward an angelic, slightly melancholy ambience with only the flicker of a song structure hovering at the bottom of their echo chamber. It's been said that Lovesliescrushing finds themselves between Slowdive and Fennesz; yes, that's true, but the reductionism down to an essential beautiful sound is taken even further than that imagined hybrid. Really, this is quite fantastic.
MPEG Stream: "Dzai"
MPEG Stream: "Glenq"
MPEG Stream: "Shemerr"

LOVESLIESCRUSHING Girl Echo Suns Veils (Projekt) 2cd + wooden box 54.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Here's a record that we had been excited about for well over a year, back when Projekt announced that they would be releasing a 2cd set by Lovesliescrushing. This is a band that should warrant a much bigger pressing than the 300 copies of this elaborate box; but, at least we have a few copies to offer.
Lovesliescrushing is a shoegaze duo out of Tuscon, Arizona who made a surprise debut on the darkwave / goth label Projekt around 1993 or so, with the cassette Bloweyelashwish (which later did get a cd release). This album took the My Bloody Valentine overdrive of distortion, reverb, more distortion, and more reverb to a deconstructed end, further blurring the notion of song structure and entirely getting rid of the rhythm section. The duo has slowly been releasing work over the past two decades, gradually smoothing out the distortion and leaving an almost Tim Hecker like mass of droned texture from ethereal female vocals and once heavily distorted guitar wash.
The two discs of Girl Echo Suns Veils are split between the crunched shoegaze density of their earliest recordings and the most recent explorations of their narcotized drone-pop. Those early recordings are remastered from demo tapes dating back to 1990, when 'the noise' and 'the pretty' were coming together in equal resolve. The later material is certainly nothing to scoff at, and would make for a great addition to the next Pop Ambient compilation.
Brilliant stuff, and packaged in an oversized wooden box, hand silkscreened by Lovesliescrushing's Scott Cortez, with some collaged art work, and a feather or two found within. AND CRAZY LIMITED. We have less than 10 copies, and can NOT get more, so grab one while you can...
MPEG Stream: "Babys Breath (Original Version)"
MPEG Stream: "Spidery Velvet"
MPEG Stream: "Feathermouth"
MPEG Stream: "Goldenfur"

LOWE, FRANK & EUGENE CHADBOURNE Don't Punk Out (Emanem) cd 19.98

LOWE, ROBERT A. A. Fazo IV: La Kvalito de Speguloj (Rainbow Body) cd 13.98
NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! A good thing since the recent vinyl is already out of print...
Robert Lowe is better known now for his work as Lichens and with Om, better known then for being in nineties indie noise rockers 90 Day Men. Recently, those Lichens recordings have oozed a cosmic vibe of enveloping transcendence through looping vocals and shimmering guitars; and through Om, he's been instrumental in furthering the Middle Eastern dervish vibe in Om's live sets (as of this writing, it's unclear if he'll join the band in the studio). That said, it's all electronics for Lowe on this formerly lp-only, micro-edition pressing. The first side sinks into a side-long excursion that glides along a sedate hypnotic groove of downer electronic bass pulses, which almost has a hyper stripped down Tricky-meets-Conrad Schnitzler slinkiness to the rhythm. Filter swept tonal bendings and pixie-dusted melodies float about the laid back rhythms. Chill-out music, indeed. The second side contains five shorter cuts of library music redux with spiralling arpeggiations and weird-science bloopiness that fits perfectly into the Oneohtrix Point Never / Pulse Emitter camp of electronic meditations. The titles all give you a chance to bone up on your Esperanto!
MPEG Stream: "Cyclamen"
MPEG Stream: "Clearlight Alhemio"

LOWE, ROBERT A. A. Fazo IV: La Kvalito de Speguloj (Rainbow Body ) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ooh! A hyperlimited LP from Robert Lowe, better known now for his work as Lichens and with Om, better known than for being in nineties indie noise rockers 90 Day Men. Recently, those Lichens recordings have oozed a cosmic vibe of enveloping transcendence through looping vocals and shimmering guitars; and through Om, he's been instrumental in furthering the Middle Eastern dervish vibe in Om's live sets (as of this writing, it's unclear if he'll join the band in the studio). That said, it's all electronics for Lowe on this LP-only, micro-edition pressing. The first side sinks into a side-long excursion that glides along a sedate hypnotic groove of downer electronic bass pulses, which almost has a hyper stripped down Tricky-meets-Conrad Schnitzler slinkiness to the rhythm. Filter swept tonal bendings and pixie-dusted melodies float about the laid back rhythms. Chill-out music, indeed. The second side contains five shorter cuts of library music redux with spiralling arpeggiations and weird-science bloopiness that fits perfectly into the Oneohtrix Point Never / Pulse Emitter camp of electronic meditations. The titles all give you a chance to bone up on your Esperanto! Only 300 copies!

LSD POND (LSD MARCH + BARDO POND) s/t (aRCHIVE) 2cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This one hardly needs a review. Space rockers Bardo Pond, jamming with Japanese psych-rockers LSD-March! Two discs, looooooooong songs, plenty of sprawling druggy psychedelia, throbbing serpentine basslines, busy groovy drumming, and lots and lots and lots of guitars, buzzing and whirring, grinding and roaring, wailing and howling.
Culled from two stoned, late-night recording sessions on days off from the 2006 Bardo Pond / LSD-March / Masami Kawaguchi's New Rock Syndicate East Coast tour, these tracks were edited together by Bardo Pond-er Michael Gibbons with no overdubs, just a document of epic, swirling, lurching, grooving spaced out psych rock.
Incredible recording, super clear, almost studio quality, multiple drummers, multiple guitar players, the sound is loud, and intense, sometimes blissing out into laid back stretches of near ambient tranquility, but always building back up into howling squalls of freaked out psychrock nirvana. The first disc is the more jammy of the two, more loose and improvised sounding, even the opening track fades in with the track already in full swing, like they had already been jamming for a while before we even got to the part.
The second disc introduces flute, and some electronics, and begins with a looped lick, over some skittery drumming, and some serious grinding growling low end, it goes on for ages, and we never really wanted it to stop. It does eventually, which is okay as the band has already moved on, locking into some new looped rhythm, the guitars fiery arcs of sound, that low end continuing to grind and buzz, the multiple guitars and guitar parts careening wildly over a roiling backdrop of howling moaning distorted buzz.
The second track on disc two is almost entirely ambient, sounding more like Toho Sara or something, the guitars smeared and blurred, everything buzzy and rumbling, clouds of tinkling shimmer and random percussive clatter, hand drums, glitchy electronics, streaks of feedback, thick swaths of distorted abstract riffing, culminating in a soaring blown out multiple guitar-ed Ur-drone. The disc finishes off with a 20 minute scorcher that goes from furious psych skree meltdown, to stumbling abstract freeform flutter and back, the players locked in a battle to the death, full freakout, ultra-noise mode, vocals scrambling over a dogpile of grinding electronics, a sea of shrieking feedback, an avalanche of drum chaos, and about a ton of blown out guitar damage. Phew.
Every time we play this in the store, someone buys one, or someone comes out from the back to see what the heck is playing. This might just be one of the most played discs in the store recently. And rightfully so.
As always, aRCHIVE spares no expense on the packaging, but they may have outdone themselves this time. A thick textured black ink on cream cardstock gatefold sleeve, the words LSD and POND embossed and printed in reflective silver ink, inside an 8 page black and white booklet affixed to the sleeve, with live photos and liner notes, each disc in it's own black sleeve, printed in silver ink, Japanese characters, the two discs held together by a Japanese style obi, in the same style as the cover. WOW.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. A one time pressing, so don't miss outÉ
MPEG Stream: "We Are LSDPOND (2nd Version)"
MPEG Stream: "Sugatanaki Kyofu"

LUASA RAELON Into The Void (Crucial Bliss) cd-r 8.98
Along with the Light Of Shipwreck and Aidan Baker discs reviewed elsewhere on this list, Luasa Raelon is the third of three killer new releases from Crucial Bliss, the Crucial Blast sub-label focusing on things equally as crucial, but way more blissful than the mothership label.
Luasa Raelon is the work of David Reed, the same guy responsible for Envenomist (whose Black Bile tape we raved about on the last list, and which we have very few copies of...) and has a similarly bleak and black feel. In fact, the label describes the sound as "Cthulhian ambient death" and who are we to argue...
A concept record about a lost expedition left to die in space, the sound is appropriately spacious and massive, buzzing and grim, black and foreboding. Massive swells of billowing buzz, wrapped around slow shifting expanses of near static whir, over the top, thunderous industrial crashes and sputtering shortwave transmissions, distant keening melodies, muted klaxons sending sonic ripples out in the emptiness of space, long stretches of downtuned brutality draped over epic minimal smears of barely there blur. Mournful melodies pulled apart and tangled up with grinding distorted crumbling decaying riffage, everything lumbering and drifting into the bottomless depths of some sonic black hole.
Like Wolf Eyes doing the score for the remake of 2001 A Space Odyssey, a bleak wasteland of tones that grind and buzz and rumble, stretching out into infinity, an epic sonic blackness, from coruscating doomdronedirge to soft shimmery black ambience, the soundtrack to your cold corpse floating through the great black void.
And as with all Crucial Bliss releases, the packaging is super striking, an oversized fold over thick cardstock sleeve, full color inside and out, creepy alien tendril artwork, the cd attached to a plastic hub affixed to the sleeve...
LIMITED TO ONLY 200 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Mariners"
MPEG Stream: "Dark Matter"

LUBELSKI, SAMARA In The Valley (C.O.M.) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.