MACLISE, ANGUS Astral Collapse (Quakebasket) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There has been something of an Angus MacLise revival going on in the past couple of years, stemming from the discovery of many archival Maclise recordings by Tony Conrad. In the '60s, MacLise had been a instrumental figure in the inception of LaMonte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music as well as the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, before infamously departing after learning that they would get paid for a gig. Anyway, he thought VU was too structured. A creative wanderlust led him out of those pursuits, working with dozens of composers, poets, film-makers, artists, etc. and travelling all across the globe in pursuit of hermetic wisdoms and Buddhist teachings. "Astral Collapse" collects 6 tracks from the MacLise archives, offering a variety of instrumentation including organ, bongos, piano, autoharp, cembalum, bells, an Arp synthesizer, field recordings, voice, and plenty of effects. As heard on previous recordings, MacLise transforms everything into shimmering, intoxicated trances of amorphous sound. As talented as MacLise may have been as a poet, I can't say that the spoken word entries on "Astral Collapse" are all that successful; however, the haunting arpeggiated organ on "6th Face Of The Angel" and the dreamy, sonic shape-shifting of "Cloud Watching" more than make up for the incongruities of psychedelic drones topped with an earnest recitation of Buddhist mysticism.
RealAudio clip: "6th Face Of The Angel"
RealAudio clip: "Cloud Watching"

MACLISE, ANGUS Astral Collapse (Quakebasket) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There has been something of an Angus MacLise revival going on in the past couple of years, stemming from the discovery of many archival Maclise recordings by Tony Conrad. In the '60s, MacLise had been a instrumental figure in the inception of LaMonte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music as well as the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, before infamously departing after learning that they would get paid for a gig. Anyway, he thought VU was too structured. A creative wanderlust led him out of those pursuits, working with dozens of composers, poets, film-makers, artists, etc. and travelling all across the globe in pursuit of hermetic wisdoms and Buddhist teachings. "Astral Collapse" collects 6 tracks from the MacLise archives, offering a variety of instrumentation including organ, bongos, piano, autoharp, cembalum, bells, an Arp synthesizer, field recordings, voice, and plenty of effects. As heard on previous recordings, MacLise transforms everything into shimmering, intoxicated trances of amorphous sound. As talented as MacLise may have been as a poet, I can't say that the spoken word entries on "Astral Collapse" are all that successful; however, the haunting arpeggiated organ on "6th Face Of The Angel" and the dreamy, sonic shape-shifting of "Cloud Watching" more than make up for the incongruities of psychedelic drones topped with an earnest recitation of Buddhist mysticism.

MACLISE, ANGUS Brain Damage In Oklahoma City (Siltbreeze) cd 14.98
"Brain Damage In Oklahoma City" is the second archival release on Siltbreeze of Angus MacLise's ecstatic drone minimalism. MacLise was the original percussionist for the Velvet Underground (before quitting after learning that they'd been PAID for a gig) and an active member of LaMonte Young's Dream Syndicate along with Tony Conrad and John Cale. While MacLise's sound definitely holds a similarity to the '60s minimalist giants around him, his sensitivity to texture separates him from his cohorts who were more interested in a strict adherence to concept. The highlight of this collection is the lengthy concert performed in New York as a benefit for the Oklahoma City Police Dept. Tony Conrad's liner notes (which appear to be some of his diary entries from 1968) aren't terribly clear as to the intent of the benefit - whether to pay for MacLise's legal fees from getting busted in Oklahoma for pot or because of general benevolence to the fraternal order of the police. I think the former is more likely. Regardless, this blows that recent Dream Syndicate release on Table of the Elements out of the water. Impressive tranced out drones (featuring Conrad playing "limp string") collide with the abstract rhythmic patterns from MacLise's barrel conga.

MACLISE, ANGUS Cloud Doctrine (Sub Rosa) 2cd 19.98
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This most recent collection of work by Angus MacLise is culled from a collection of over 50 tapes discovered over 20 years ago and rescued from probable destruction. MacLise was instrumental in the formation of LaMonte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music as well as the first incarnation of The Velvet Underground, and continued to explore drone music, Eastern music and electronic tape music until his death in 1979. This two disc set features early electronic experiments, some epic ambient/drone pieces including performances from John Cale and Tony Conrad, and 2 recordings of Maclise reading his poetry, of which there are apparently very few recordings. While we are not much for spoken word around these parts, the two pieces here are actually quite nice. MacLise's poetry is strange and pretty wonderful and is delivered over a background of drone and hum and buzz. The rest of this collection includes the above mentioned short pieces for electronics, a bunch of short instrumental explorations and three 30 minute pieces of ambient clatter and ur-drone. Gorgeous and spacious, free and transcendental. Think No Neck Blues Band meets the Dead C meets Stockhausen. Great stuff!
MPEG Stream: "Trance #2"
MPEG Stream: "Organ & Drum"

MACLISE, ANGUS s/t (Counter Culture Chronicles) lp 25.00
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Angus MacLise was the original percussionist for the Velvet Underground (before quitting the band upon learning that they would be paid for a gig) and a member of the legendary trance / minimalist ensemble The Dream Syndicate with LaMonte Young, Tony Conrad, and John Cale. Recently his archival recordings have resurfaced as the Silbreeze collection "Invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda," this vinyl only collection from Counter Culture Chronicles, and the indefinitely postponed Dream Syndicate release (courtesy of Table of the Elements). Distrubing trance music that drifts endlessly with gritty hurdy-gurdy (?) drones and the constant pitter-patter of tablas and small hand drums. This eponymous collection features the long out of print "Trance" single from Fierce, "The Joyouse Lake" flexi disc which featured an excerpt from 1965's "Invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda," and the soundtrack to Ron Rice's 1964 film "Chumlum."

MACLISE, ANGUS The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (Siltbreeze) cd 14.98
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Angus MacLise - poet and percussionist - was a key player in LaMonte Young's "Theatre of Eternal Music" which also spawned such artists as Tony Conrad and the Velvet Underground (which Angus a considerable amount of input in founding but quit upon learning they'd make money at a gig). "The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda" is comprised of lengthy pieces of looping psychedelic drones and hippy drum circle freakouts that were composed to accompany Ira Cohen and Jack Smith art films.

MACLISE, ANGUS & HETTY MACLISE Dreamweapon II (Boo-Hooray) lp 33.00

MAD MUSIC INC. Mad Music (Drag City) lp 17.98
Just as it first appeared in the Boston Area around 1977, there are no song titles, contact info or any other identifying information accompanying this mysterious release, a reissue of a private press recording of serene but outsider-inflected new age classical composition. Like another similarly minded aQ fave, Moolah, the music presented on Mad Music Inc. is an oceanic mixture of echoed piano, harp and gong, in short sketches with one track adding percussion, some subtle bass groove and female spiritual cosmic jazz vocals (not quite the "cosmic disco" stated on Drag City's cover sticker, but still pretty cool!).
The primitive cover painting of two diametrically opposed naked women looks like it was inspired by Da Vinci's famous Vitruvian Man, with the women jumping out of their constrained environs. This seems like it would be an easy candidate for the Nurse With Wound list, especially with the back cover graphic of a chuckling Ming The Merciless type character with a tape machine implanted on the side of his head. Whatever it means, it must have been too elusive for even Stephen Stapleton, an obsessive authority on such obscurities. Regardless, for fans of weirdo new age, library records, and private press mysteries, this should be a nice sounding addition to your collection!

MAEROR TRI Ambient Dreams (Beta-Lactam Ring) cd 22.00
The liner notes to this reissue from a 1990 cassette boldly state that, "all sonds you hear on this cd originated from natural ambient sources. No electronic sound-sources were used." For those who would think that such a disclaimer would result in Maeror Tri's excursion into field recording and acoustic documentation, you would be wrong. All of the effects and heavy treatments that plant Ambient Dreams firmly within Maeror Tri's well established aesthetic of dark atmospheric drones and post-industrial bleakness are still present and accounted for. If anything, Ambient Dreams demonstrates that Maeror Tri (and their contemporary incarnation Troum) are all about their arsenal of effects units and their backmasking tape techniques; but they sure as hell know how to use them as effectively on Ambient Dreams as on any of their other records. As on all of their other albums, blurred masses of sound ground everything for Maeror Tri's droning productions whose amorphous structure fluctuates with a frigid liquidity. The half melodies, breathy fragments of sound, and rippled textures that break through the aforementioned dark ambience have all of the trappings of Maeror Tri's typical guitar strategies, rebuffing their claim that all of the work is of "natural ambient sources," unless of course those highly treated sounds found their way into a sampler and sequencer. Regardless, Ambient Dreams conjures the recurring image for Maeror Tri of blackened clouds of ash, dust, and soot suspended in desolated abandoned warehouse whose interior is sporadically pierced with dim shafts of light.
MPEG Stream: "Window To The Absolute"
MPEG Stream: "Piano Bursting Soul"
MPEG Stream: "Amputation"

MAEROR TRI Emotional Engramm (Iris Light) cd 12.98
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MAEROR TRI Emotional Engramm (Zoharum) cd 17.98
Originally released in 1997 on the now defunct Iris Light imprint out of England, Emotion Engramm was the final album from Maeror Tri - the haunting, post-industrial drone trio that was the precursor to the equally haunting, post-industrial drone DUO Troum. This record - more so than any of the other Maeror Tri albums - engaged the complex structures that Troum would later push through their interlocking, shadowy melodies and slow-motion, effects-heavy drone. At the same time, the concepts that went into Emotional Engramm are more closely related to the clinical psychological themes of the Maeror Tri albums Multiple Personality Disorder or Language Of Flames & Sound, as referenced by the titular engram (purposefully misspelled in the title), a Scientology term for a mental image embedded into the brain by any type of trauma - physical, emotional, psychic, or otherwise. Far from prescribing the teachings of Scientology, Maeror Tri uses that concept as a jumping off point in conjuring "resonance of control, impact, fortuity, the randomly instigated yet inedibly etched emotional memory: Kodak ghosts." It's easy to read particular passages within the frozen din of washed-out guitar noise, spectral melodies, tectonic bass rumblings, and metallic slashes of grim electronics as the seizures within the psyche that might get caught in an infinite loop for the inner-mind. Some of those images provide an emotional resonance that's deeply sad and full of despair, while others are enraged with a blackened hostility. As we mentioned, many of the ideas and strategies that went into this album continued to develop through Troum; but even so, this stands as one of the best albums that either Maeror Tri or Troum had produced.
MPEG Stream: "Secunda Figura: Sublimis"
MPEG Stream: "Quarta Figura: Vadum"
MPEG Stream: "Septima Figura: Sphaira"

MAEROR TRI Hypnobasia / Ultimate Time (Old Europa Cafe) 2cd-r 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's been a very slow process, but the massive catalogue of cassette only releases from Maeror Tri appears to be making its way into the digital realm. Back in the early '90s, the Italian label Old Europa Cafe had released a very interesting tape series including two albums by this legendary German industrial drone outfit. It is a shame that in their recovery of these archival Maeror Tri recordings, OEC released the two cassettes as a double CD-R instead of giving them a proper CD release. No matter, it's still nice to see these recordings back in circulation. How long they'll be around is, of course, another matter. Hypnobasia (1992) is one of the noisiest manifestations of Maeror Tri, as trio of guitars spew volcanic slabs of distortion upon their signature low-end drone work and deep space ambience. Ultimate Time (1994) featured a bunch of tracks that had originally been commissioned for compilations, which for whatever reason never materialized. The flanging bass drones, metallic scraping, phased delay patterns, backwards masked screeches, and eerie crashing noises buried in digital reverb make for a much bleaker, more nightmarish version of the Krautrock antecedents in Popul Vuh and Kluster, but with ample references to Zoviet France and Lustmord thrown in the mix.
VERY LIMITED!! We only have a handful of these, and assuming we -can- get more it might take us a while.
MPEG Stream: "Drowning Souls"
MPEG Stream: "The Reckoning Space"

MAEROR TRI Hypnotikum I (Soleilmoon) lp 15.98
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Almost entirely overlooked by 'post-rock' journalists for their fascination with industrial culture, Maeror Tri (now disbanded though Stefan and Martin have continued as Troum) have nevertheless constructed some of the most beautiful and simultaneously terrifying drone rock, complete with delicate melancholic melodies sublimated beneath glacial guitar washes. These tracks were culled from the backing tapes Maeror Tri performed with on their last European tour. Opens up a can of whup-ass on Windy & Carl and Labradford. A pretty limited piece of vinyl from Soleilmoon.

MAEROR TRI Hypnotikum II (Poetra Negra ) lp 15.98
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AQ favorite dronologists Maeror Tri dissolved in 1997 (with two thirds of the band reincarnating as Troum), but a handful of MT recordings have recently seen the light of day. "Hypnotikum II" is the second (and final) part of a series based on the tape loops used in a series of MT performances in 1996. Maeror Tri's dreamy oversaturation of drone-guitar noise is reminiscent of the old skool power electronics in which you can't tell if the melodic interludes are actual elements buried deep within the sound or hallucinated fragments. As with everything Stefan Knappe touches (either as MT/Troum or on his Drone 7" label), this is golden.

MAEROR TRI Language Of Flames And Sound (Old Europa Cafe) cd 21.00
Here is the second pressing of Maeror Tri's 1996 album Language Of Flames And Sound, which has long been noted for the brain-shaped packaging (faithfully restored in the second edition) and also has the distinction as being Maeror Tri's noisiest recording. This German trio began in the early '90s as a bleak, Dark Ambient project that brought a simple, if elegant use of effects-driven melodies to post-industrial noisescapes proposed by the Hafler Trio, Lustmord, and Illusion of Safety. While there are plenty of drawn out periods of flanging drones, spectral hiss, and those evanescent melodies which have become the trademark for the post-Maeror Tri project Troum, Language Of Flames And Sound brutally slams down on the distortion boxes, turning these languid, pseudo-Goth drones into thickened buzzsaws of melodic guitar noise that's not all that far from where black metal has progressed in recent years. An album like this should also make Aidan Baker blush as so many of these sounds have been mirrored in Najda. Throughout these megawatt explosions of radioactive noise splattering the all-consuming, ever dark ambience, Maeror Tri set down grinding loops of mekanoid pulsations that get at the band's Industrial roots. It's nice to have this back in print, although it's pretty limited. So who knows how long this batch will last.
MPEG Stream: "Viurunge [Last Firing Of The Neurons]"
MPEG Stream: "Onus"
MPEG Stream: "Diving Into Monument"

MAEROR TRI Meditamentum I (Manifold) cd 13.98
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This is the second Maeror Tri reissue to appear in the past month, perhaps signifying a flood of old material from the seminal German droned-out industrialists. Or maybe not. Regardless, Meditamentum I originally came out on the tiny Holonom label back in the mid-90s, collecting tracks from the huge catalogue of Maeror Tri's cassette-only releases dating back to 1989 (including tracks from Peak Experience, Somnia et Expergisci, Ambient Dreams, Sensuum MEndacia, Sublimal Forces, Allianz, Hypnobasia, and Venenum, if you must know). Limited to 500 copies, the first volume of Meditamentum quickly went out of print, only to be repressed (in a much nicer package with embroidered cloth sleeve) by Manifold. As a whole Meditamentum is a far more ambient, drifting collection than the black-hole isolationism found on the recent Singles collection released on EE Tapes; nevertheless, the trio still concentrates on their signature cold, grim soundfields of droning guitars, laced with backwards breathy echos and haunted extented vocalizations.
MPEG Stream: "The Threat"
MPEG Stream: "Vox Sirenum"
RealAudio clip: "Vermis"

MAEROR TRI Multiple Personality Disorder (Purplesoil) cd 14.98
Multiple Personality Disorder was the first cd and first major release for the seminal post-industrial ensemble Maeror Tri; and yes, the album's title does allude to one line of psychological research into the delineation of (in this case) four personalities that often correspond with acute cases of multiple personality disorder. On one hand, this thematic application does make a parallel to the pseudo-diagnostic aesthetics promoted by SPK and Lustmord in the early '80s; but on the other, Maeror Tri's Stefan Knappe was studying psychology throughout university, and those ideas clearly impacted the way he approached music, smearing dark drones and ethereal melodies out of heavily processed guitars, bass, synths, and other instruments through Maeror Tri to provide an evocative, enveloping, atmospheric, and occasionally threatening form of dark ambience.
The four suites of the album include "The Administrator," "The Anaesthetizer", "The Revenger", and "The Protector," each seeking to encapsulate the metaphoric sounds of those aforementioned personality traits. Hence, the first seeks something of a balance that's neither too dark nor too warm in the shimmering guitar drones and backwards masked swells of monochromatism. The second piece is a opiating, druggy drone track, that has a serpentine, oozing quality in the densely stacked rumbles of low-end distortion and shadowy murk. "The Revenger" is a suitably menacing track of down-pitched vocal snarls and demonic growls that grate against a noisescaping drone backdrop. The finale is downright beautiful certainly looking forward to the post-Maeror Tri project Troum and their luminous, billowing drones sculpted with lilting melodies buried under tons of smeared reverb. Multiple Personality Disorder was always one of the best Maeror Tri albums, and one that succeeded through this conceptual framework (which would have caused lesser artists considerable trouble). The reissue does do away with the original Korm Plastics artwork, which wasn't anything really to write home about; so, if you don't have the original and are keen on anything dark and droning, pick this up!
MPEG Stream: "The Administrator"
MPEG Stream: "The Anaesthetizer"

MAEROR TRI Myein (Waystax) cd 16.98
Maeror Tri was a legendary German band that forged a mighty sound of corrosive, post-industrial dronescaping throughout the '90s before moving onto the equally impressive drone-based project Troum. Myein was one of the first cds by Maeror Tri, originally released by ND Records and housed in an unusual, oversized triangular sleeve. Now that this has been reissued through Waystyx, Myein enjoys a slightly less cumbersome, but no less appealing matte black, die-cut sleeve with a gold envelope housing the disc. Myein opens with a black cauldron of swarming guitar drones that steadily increases the atmospheric pressures over the course of the opening track before cracking in a burst of seething noise. Maeror Tri follows this with one of their more melodic interludes, extending a melancholic descending chord progression into a haunted mantra. The final entry on Myein finds Maeror Tri at their most sprawling, amorphous, and shadowy with an undulating ocean of dark dark drones littered with flanging sounds. We can only hope that Myein is the first of many reissues from Maeror Tri's hard to find back catalogue. Excellent!
MPEG Stream: "Phlogiston"
MPEG Stream: "Desiderium"
MPEG Stream: "Myein"

MAEROR TRI The Beauty Of Sadness (Tantric Harmonies) cd 18.98
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BACK IN STOCK from the German ensemble Maeror Tri, whose exceptional, post-Industrial dronemusik straddles the current obsession with the doom-laden atmospherics of Corrupted, SUNN O))), Earth, etc. and the sublime impressionism of Jonathan Coleclough and Mirror. The Beauty Of Sadness was one of the last cassettes that Maeror Tri released before calling it quits in 1996; and as one might be able to discern from the title, this record finds Maeror Tri shifting their drones away from their heavy, menacing bleakness and toward a transcendent etherealism. Out of the churning wash of sound from their dynamic use of reverb, delay, and flange effects boxes, Maeror Tri push through honest to goodness songs of hypnotically repetitive guitar chords, melodies, and harmonies, making The Beauty Of Sadness come across like a rough-hewn but equally effective version of My Bloody Valentine's bleary eyed monotone found on Loveless. For those familiar with the recent work of Troum (whose members were two-thirds of Maeror Tri), The Beauty Of Sadness is an obvious precursor to their marvelous first chapter in the Tjukurrpa trilogy.
MPEG Stream: "Melting In Warmth"
MPEG Stream: "Dreamscaping"

MAEROR TRI The Singles (EE Tapes) cd 13.98
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Since their early beginnings, the German guitar-drone ensemble Maeror Tri had a love affair with the 7" single that extended into their formation of the now seminal Drone Records series of 7" only releases. From 1993 to 1998, the trio released five singles on a handful of labels, condensing their ground zero ambience, post-industrial shadows, and subharmonic detonations into eight minute chunks. Cleverly packaged in a seven inch cover, this compilation from EE Tapes features four of those five singles, including the Physis 7" for Fool's Paradise, the Mystagogus 7" for Noise Museum, and their two releases on Ant-Zen, Exorbitant and Pleroma. Saltatrix, which was the first single that Maeror Tri produced for Drone Records, is the one missing single from the compilation; and that's only because Drone is planning on re-pressing that single sometime in the future.
The Physis single opens the album with a post-Neubauten bashing of tribal rhythms upon heaps of scrap metal which gets an accompaniment of looping feedback, static, hiss, and ominous throbbings. While better known for their bleak ambience, both Maeror Tri and their later incarnation Troum explored primitive rhythms within the guitar excursions from time to time. Mystagogus and Exorbitant delve into subterranean murk with deep, all-consuming heavy drones steeped in a gravel throated menace, often heard in recent days from naysayers SUNNO))) and Corrupted. The album ends with some of the best pieces that Maeror Tri or Troum have ever done from the Pleroma 10" which happened to be released after MT had already disbanded in 1996. It's a cauldron of low-end misery that brims forth with an ominous riff whose melody sheers through the isolationist pall of secrecy. Absolutely stunning! Considering that only 524 of these things exist, they (like the rest of the Maeror Tri catalogue) won't last long.
MPEG Stream: "Phyein"
MPEG Stream: "Industrial Meditation"
MPEG Stream: "Pleroma"

MAEROR TRI Venenum (Une) cd 12.98
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Some of the earliest work from this amazingly prolific German drone band, "Venenum" was originally released back in 1991 as a cassette on AudioTapes and now sees a super limited digital release. At this early stage in Maeror Tri's existence, the overstaturation of guitar, keyboard, and occasional Teutonic vocalising held much more of a post-industrial ambience than the trancedent darkness of their later work. Lumbering melodies and bleak passages of raw sound filter through tons of icy effects. Really great stuff.
RealAudio clip: "Onoskelis"

MAFOUKA Closet Crown (self-released) 3" cd-r 5.98
BACK IN STOCK!
Second solo record from Preston Nunez, who plays in cosmic synth rock outfit Scantily Clad, whose three cd-r's were all big hits around here. A little while back Nunez sent us some copies of the debut record from his new group Guisher, which while bearing virtually no relation to Scantily Clad, still totally hit the spot, a head spinning bit of slice and dice audio collage weirdness, rhythmic and groovy and noisy and all over the sonic map. So we weren't entirely sure what to expect from this new project, Mafouka, which definitely has more in common with Guisher than with Scantily Clad, but where Guisher was a relentless sonic barrage, Mafouka sounds more measure and composed, at least a bit, it's still a bit of a barrage, 14 songs in a little under 20 minute, short bursts of hypnotic soundscaping. The opening track is all woozy and warped, a rhythms created from what sounds like a needle scratching across the surface of a record, not to mention some slowed down beats, looped female vocals, shimmery synths, it's like a super raw, primitive home brewed Portishead almost, that sort of washed out, late night vibe, then the next three tracks, all clocking in at well under a minute each, offer up brief snippets of sound, from a layered and looped but of easy listening, to some dialogue heavy, drum addled ambience, to a killer chunk of super distorted dirgey doom, again laced with bizarre samples, until finally another song that breaks the 2 minute mark, a synthy distorted creeper, the sound panning from speaker to speaker, laced with chopped up bits of drumming, layered voices, warm swirling melodic shimmer, which leads directly into another twisted, surprisingly melodic loopscape, from which unfurls the rest of the record, a sprawling selection of primitive sampledelia, equal parts Art Of Noise and Negativland, but all woven into something much more moodily musical, a glorious bit of home brewed 4-track alchemy that in some way plays out like a bedroom indie pop Endtroducing, albeit a bit more freaked out and fractured.
More super extravagant home mad packaging, this time, colored jewel cases with the art printed onto clear stickers which are affixed to the front, no tray, the 3" disc affixed to the inside of the trayless jewel case, over some photocopied artwork pasted into the bottom, which is also visible through the back of the jewel case, which has yet another clear sticker affixed to it. LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Track 1"
MPEG Stream: "Track 5"
MPEG Stream: "Track 11"

MAGDALENA SOLIS Hesperia (Klangverhaeltnisse) cassette 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
LAST COPIES EVER!
This out of print cd-r now reissued on TAPE!! Here's our review from when we first listed the cd-r version back in June:
Portable mp3 players and iTunes and all the digital music out there has definitely changed the way we listen to music. Many folks barely listen to whole albums anymore, instead making playlists, or setting their devices on shuffle, and while in some ways, that's a bummer, that the traditional concept of THE ALBUM, seems to be slowly fading from the collective consciousness, in other ways, it's actually gotten lots of folks to listen to music they've had forever, but had maybe forgotten all about, and shuffle is the best thing to happen to deep cuts EVER. How often does some track start playing, and you're forced to check and see who it is, and it ends up being some band you love, some record you love, but it's a track hidden away mid-record. And the other thing we've noticed is how much you end up listening to records that are in your iTunes RIGHT AFTER one of your favorite records, there's that record you always listen to, which inevitably leads right into whatever comes next alphabetically, and bam, that next record is suddenly a new favorite too. Something similar happened at work, where one of the computers had an iTunes full of music, and there were certain records we listen to all the time, and like above, one of those records would play right into the next, and EVERY time, we would have to check and see what it was, and every time, it was a band called Magdalena Solis, so we checked the store, and the website, and we had never carried it. A mystery of sorts. Quickly solved when we discovered that it was sent to us by two awesome aQ customers, Wouter and Terje, thinking we'd like it, and boy did we, we LOVED it in fact, so much so that we tracked down the band, and then the label, and finally got actual copies for ourselves, and for YOU. And trust us, it was well worth the wait.
The sound of Magdalena Solis hovers somewhere between psychedelic space rock and kosmische krautdrone, which means it's pretty much EXACTLY what we love, hazy, washed out drifts of dense distorted wah wah guitars, swirling FX, Eastern melodies, hushed angelic female vox, minimal drums, most of the tracks, pulsing and drifting and shimmering, and when there are drums, it's more sort of a blissed out, percussion laced spacedronedrift, take "Seven Boys And Seven Girls" the drums a simple motorik pulse, the main melody looped and cyclical, the whole thing wrapped in effects-heavy swirls of distorted synth and psych guitar buzz, the sound building to a seriously blown out cacophony, only to settle right back down again, leading into the comparatively contemplative "Cities Crumbling Planets Growing", a sitar soaked stretched of billowy low end, and distant sci-fi squiggle, barely there guitars slowly build into something, thick and fierce and spaced out and dreamily distorted.
The whole record is a series of smoldering slow build space drone epics, heavily layered landscapes of swirling synths, wheezing organs, skittery percussion, lush warm sonic swells, all wreathed in thick swaths of serious psych guitar, the sound constantly shifting from tranquil and dreamlike, to blown out and druggy/droney and way tripped out, heady and hypnotic and easily some of the best kaleidoscopic kosmische space/drone/psych we've heard. Most definitely recommended for fans of White Hills, Grails, the Alps, Expo 70, Gnod, Carlton Melton, Bong, Lumerians, White Noise Sound, Spacemen 3 and other droney, druggy psychedelic drifters...
MPEG Stream: "Wake Up And Start To Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Seven Boys And Seven Girls"
MPEG Stream: "Cities Crumbling Planets Growing"
MPEG Stream: "Prosperina's Gardens"

MAGDALENA SOLIS Hesperia (Dying For Bad Music) 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.
Portable mp3 players and iTunes and all the digital music out there has definitely changed the way we listen to music. Many folks barely listen to whole albums anymore, instead making playlists, or setting their devices on shuffle, and while in some ways, that's a bummer, that the traditional concept of THE ALBUM, seems to be slowly fading from the collective consciousness, in other ways, it's actually gotten lots of folks to listen to music they've had forever, but had maybe forgotten all about, and shuffle is the best thing to happen to deep cuts EVER. How often does some track start playing, and you're forced to check and see who it is, and it ends up being some band you love, some record you love, but it's a track hidden away mid-record. And the other thing we've noticed is how much you end up listening to records that are in your iTunes RIGHT AFTER one of your favorite records, there's that record you always listen to, which inevitably leads right into whatever comes next alphabetically, and bam, that next record is suddenly a new favorite too. Something similar happened at work, where one of the computers had an iTunes full of music, and there were certain records we listen to all the time, and like above, one of those records would play right into the next, and EVERY time, we would have to check and see what it was, and every time, it was a band called Magdalena Solis, so we checked the store, and the website, and we had never carried it. A mystery of sorts. Quickly solved when we discovered that it was sent to us by two awesome aQ customers, Wouter and Terje, thinking we'd like it, and boy did we, we LOVED it in fact, so much so that we tracked down the band, and then the label, and finally got actual copies for ourselves, and for YOU. And trust us, it was well worth the wait.
The sound of Magdalena Solis hovers somewhere between psychedelic space rock and kosmische krautdrone, which means it's pretty much EXACTLY what we love, hazy, washed out drifts of dense distorted wah wah guitars, swirling FX, Eastern melodies, hushed angelic female vox, minimal drums, most of the tracks, pulsing and drifting and shimmering, and when there are drums, it's more sort of a blissed out, percussion laced spacedronedrift, take "Seven Boys And Seven Girls" the drums a simple motorik pulse, the main melody looped and cyclical, the whole thing wrapped in effects-heavy swirls of distorted synth and psych guitar buzz, the sound building to a seriously blown out cacophony, only to settle right back down again, leading into the comparatively contemplative "Cities Crumbling Planets Growing", a sitar soaked stretched of billowy low end, and distant sci-fi squiggle, barely there guitars slowly build into something, thick and fierce and spaced out and dreamily distorted.
The whole record is a series of smoldering slow build space drone epics, heavily layered landscapes of swirling synths, wheezing organs, skittery percussion, lush warm sonic swells, all wreathed in thick swaths of serious psych guitar, the sound constantly shifting from tranquil and dreamlike, to blown out and druggy/droney and way tripped out, heady and hypnotic and easily some of the best kaleidoscopic kosmische space/drone/psych we've heard. Most definitely recommended for fans of White Hills, Grails, the Alps, Expo 70, Gnod, Carlton Melton, Bong, Lumerians, White Noise Sound, Spacemen 3 and other droney, druggy psychedelic drifters...
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, comes with a download code.
MPEG Stream: "Wake Up And Start To Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Seven Boys And Seven Girls"
MPEG Stream: "Cities Crumbling Planets Growing"
MPEG Stream: "Prosperina's Gardens"

MAGGOTED s/t (Jyrk) cd-r 5.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Elsewhere on this list we're reviewing the vinyl reissue of a long out off print cd-r featuring an AQ wet dream collaboration between Australia's Grey Daturas and Portland's (formerly SF's) Yellow Swans. Here we have a similar match up, but instead of those two bands butting heads in a dense noisy free for all, Maggoted is the secret rendezvous of just two like minded souls. Rob Mayson from the Grey Daturas and Pete Swanson of the Yellow Swans. You can almost picture the scene. Two guitarists, a bassist, drummer, keyboards, lots of noise, a big glorious ear splitting drone drenched racket, when Pete leans over and whispers in Rob's ear "Psst. You wanna go somewhere, umm, a little less crowded, you know, just you and me?" So the two secret off, and whip up their own private din. 30 minutes of droning grinding industrial free noise ambience, that ends up being as good as anything either one has done on their own.
There's definitely a like-minded approach to sound making shared by the Swans and the Daturas, obvious on their collaboration, and even more evident here when it's just one on one. Huge slabs of corrosive distorted whir, are separated by stretches of haunting tranquility, peppered with strange little sonar like tones, sort of industrial, a definite creeped out dark ambience, grinding and lumbering like Godflesh with all the metal removed, leaving nothing but a huge dense amorphous heaviness. By the end of the first 15 minute tracks, all the subtle dynamics and mysterious industrialism has been swallowed up completely by sheets of white noise and squalls of brutal hiss. The second 15 minute track follows a similar pattern. A dreamy muted drift, with boiling teapot high end skree way in the background, a moaning minimal drone right underneath, wavering and warbling below, with soft fluttering notes and lower register melodies drifting and swirling like whisps of black smoke. As the two meander darkly through this subtle sound world, a distant wave of white noise and damaged electronics threatens to overtake them, building into a frothing fury, before completely burying them in a thick swirl of cracked glitch and buzz and wild whipping streaks of grinding guitarnoise. Woah!
Packaged in a cool blue on black handscreened sleeve with photocopied insert.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES, OF WHICH WE GOT ABOUT 40!!
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

MAGIC CARPATHIANS & LECHISTAN'S ELECTRIC CHAIR Mirrors (Vivo) cd 14.98

MAGIC CARPATHIANS PROJECT, THE Ethnocore 2: Nytu (Drunken Fish) cd 13.98
The Polish avant-hippy experimental ethno-folk duo (got that?) the Magic Carpathians release their first domestic US disc, quickly following up their recent import-only "Denega" album (and coinciding with their first ever US tour, which featured an appearance in-store here at Aquarius Records recently). As always, the Magic Carpathians fuse ancient ethnic instruments and vocal techniques (the "Nytu" of the title referring to a lost Slavic singing style) with modern electronic effects and field recordings (this time, drawn from their travels to India and Nepal). Guests include members of the Suns of Arqa as well as past Magic Carpathian/Atman associates. Krautrock fans, adventurous new-agers, world music lovers, drone heads, all should check out this band!
RealAudio clip: "India Mai"
RealAudio clip: "Ram Nam Satya He"

MAGIC CARPATHIANS PROJECT, THE & ZYGMUNT STENWAK Water Dreams.0 (Fly Music) cd 17.98

MAGIC LANTERN High Beams (Not Not Fun) lp 17.98
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Vast celestial ventures, blinding cosmic rays, rhythmic inductions, psych jams from another planet! Well, not exactly another planet. Sun soaked Long Beach locals, Magic Lantern have generated quite the buzz over the last year or so after a steady output of limited cdr's and tapes. We managed to catch one of their kraut-bliss live sets over the summer and we were really blown away. High Beams, their first vinyl release, is a finely crafted representation of Magic Lantern's sheer psychedelic power. Heavy blistering riffs swimming in a primordial ooze of spaced out organ, ripping solos, and luring drones. By far the most solid and impressive recording we've heard from these dudes. A fully engaging experience, High Beams maintains a nice balance between more intense, freak out, explosive-type jams and mellow, soft-daze meanderings. Pressed in an edition of 500 by the Not Not Fun family, this album is a must have for fans of anything cosmic! Trust us, you need this!

MAGIK (MAGICK) MARKERS A Panegyric To The Things I Do Not Understand... (Gulcher) cd 11.98
In the world of Magick Markers this release on the Gulcher label is perhaps most notable for being their first ever professionally manufactured compact disc. Yup, it's a fact! Up until now the band has had their music released on cassette tapes, cd-rs, and oh one vinyl lp on Ecstatic Peace (aka that label run by that fellow Thurston Moore). So, this is certainly a cause celebre for... someone. Musically, this very long-titled album is a disorderly heap of chunks and slabs of noisy guitar shambles that some folks might consider a distant relative of No Wave, but methinks that comparison would imply more compositional structure and form and organization than the Magick Markers have mustered here. File under: electric guitar dysentery. Note: although they've listed a whole slew of song titles ("Jung Knew Enough To Shut Up" is one of them), this is actually two 19+ minute long tracks (i.e, the individual songs aren't indexed).
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

MAGIK MARKERS Here Lies The Last Of The Redstone (Arbitrary Signs) cd-r 11.98
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MAGIK MARKERS Road Pussy (Arbitrary Signs) cd-r 11.98
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MAGISTRATES, THE Mini Sweets (self-released) 4 cd-rs 19.98

MAGNETIC STRIPPER Extended Play-R (Suitcase) 7" 5.50
Given the look and sound of this short EP, Magnetic Stripper could be some terminally obscure DIY-industrial-synth project circa 1982, with the tinny drum machines, noisy blurts from various synths, and plenty of references to Absolute Body Control, Minimal Man, The Units, and Chris Carter's synth moments within Throbbing Gristle. But in fact, this is the work of San Francisco's James Ellis, currently working and performing today. There are four short pieces that would make for a great teaser for a forthcoming record, with the weird-science array of disjointed synth melodies and electro-static squiggling, all hanging upon skeletal drum machine pulses. The title track has more of a bedroom project New Wave feel with its motorik rhythms and percolated step sequencing. The other three tracks take more of an early SPK direction with all of the drum rhythms taking on a lumbering pace, minus the snarled noise and grizzy imagery. Both sides of the 7" end on perfectly executed locked grooves, and the single comes with a retro-looking button. Very cool.

MAGNETICS We Are The Mountains We Are The Fields (Sweatlung) cd 9.98
Another backroom discovery, we got these more than a year ago, and somehow they never made it out on the floor. This trio of Australia underground vets have teamed up for some gorgeous sprawling free rock / free jazz weirdness. Warm and languid, abstract and pretty dreamy, taking guitars, vocals and drums, some feedback and processing, and even a bit of saxophone, into a weird blend of Necks like jazzy minimalism, and slow burning post rock ambience, like the Dirty Three covering the Dead C! All deep reverby guitars, sizzling cymbals, creaking bits of percussion, soft swirls of effects, very moody and fuzzy and ethereal. Some female vocals surface here and there, a soft torch songy croon over the smoldering post jazz skitter underneath, building to something a bit more abstract, a little more noisy, the cymbals still unleashing clouds of metallic shimmer, deep distant rumbles and whirs, some spidery guitars, and some woozy washed out ambience.
As the end draws near, the drone grows a bit more caustic, multiple layers of cymbals and soft feedback, and muted barely there low end, drift and swirl into a gorgeously hazy near static drone, rife with overtones and subtly shifting barely there melodies, and again, that skeletal guitar reaches up from the murk, grounding the free drift in something slightly more postrock, before closing off with a sub 2 minute outro, all angular Marc Ribot like guitar and breathless female vocals, haunting and quite pretty.
Think Necks, Bohren, Dirty Three, For Carnation, but a bit more avant and abstract, quite lovely...
MPEG Stream: "Charcoal"
MPEG Stream: "Pale"

MAGNUSSON, RUNAR The Art Of Dying In A Live Situation (Whitelabel) 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.
Runar Magnusson hails from Iceland, although he is now living in Copenhagen where he has quietly been producing some of the oddest electronica to pass through the store. Certainly if you've been infected by the viral sounds of Fflint Central or the electro-absurditites of Stilluppsteypa, Magnusson's work is something to check out. That said, the album opens on unsteady grounds as fellow Icelander Asmundur Asmundsson warbles drunkenly through the words to Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side," but as grim drones absorb the voice into the folds of grey vibrations, distant rumblings, and creepy electro-acoustic spasms, The Art Of Dying begins to live up to its name. An isolationist drift and shadow continues for a bit more than 35 minutes before Magnusson introduces a tumbling post-New Wave kaleidoscope of arpeggiated electronics that sounds like the dark sides of Fad Gadget and Heldon melded into a radioactive rhythmic cascade. After this incredible crescendo to the album, Asmundsson returns with another a capella clunker; for his finale, "We Are The World." Disturbing in more ways than one.
MPEG Stream: "The Art Of Dying In A Live Situation (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "The Art Of Dying In A Live Situation (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "The Art Of Dying In A Live Situation (excerpt 3)"

MAHAPATRA, ASHIS Orange Of (True-False) cd 12.98
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Perhaps the following situation may be a bit foreign to those of you who don't work in the music industry but we'd bet that some version of this happens to everybody now and again. Every once in a while, I (Jim) will meet somebody whose best friend is in a band or I'll re-acquaint with an old high-school or college pal who has recently discovered GarageBand; and inevitably the conversation sways to "Oh, you work at a record store? You should really check this record out! You'll love it." It's then that the misanthropist in me wishes I was wearing Andee's tUMULt t-shirt which elegantly proclaims, "I hate your band," as the music proffered inevitably falls between the twin pillars of musical mediocrity: Dave Matthews and Hootie & The Blowfish. Instead, there's usually a smile, a nod, and the non-critique, "oh, that sounds nice!" hoping the conversation will turn to other matters.
So when Ashis Mahapatra contacted me a while ago about his newfound love with digital synthesis, I was a bit nervous. Here's a genuinely great person who I hadn't been in touch with since college; fortunately, his record is FUCKING AWESOME, so I really didn't have to worry about dancing around the subject of a crappy record. Enough of that for a protracted introduction. Onto the meat of the record... Orange Of is an album that fans of Fennesz, Tim Hecker, and Keith Fullerton Whitman will drool over, densely packed with guitars blurred, fizzled, and refracted through the polygon abstractions of Max/MSP techniques. A beautiful shimmer of tapped guitar tones hovers above a thick pool of drone harmonics at the album's beginning, slipping and sliding through micro-glissandos before erupting in a dense Kevin Shield's explosion of narcotic distortion and tone-bending half-melodies. Mahapatra doesn't allow the computer to do too much of the talking for him, as he's certainly keen on grounding this album on the fundamentals of songwriting as swaying instrumental waltzes and elegant melodic phrases nestled in Mahapatra's vast oceans of post-shoegazing digitality. A highly recommended release from one code-slinging guitarist whose bound for great things.
MPEG Stream: "Track One"
MPEG Stream: "Track Two"
MPEG Stream: "Track Four"

MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ / THE CURTAINS Make us two crayons on the floor. (Yik Yak) split cd 13.98
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The wonderful, willfully naive Japanese indie-pop psychedelic ensemble Maher Shalal Hash Baz takes the first half of this split cd with a live performance recorded in Scotland. Honking sax, wayward vocals, sad-sack percussion, helpless guitar, plinking piano, and even skipping rope make it into the mix. Somehow, it's gorgeous, in a melancholy off-kilter way that few bands could pull off. Following Maher Shalal Hash Baz's seventeen tracks there's ten more by San Francisco outfit The Curtains, who likewise manage to make a virtue out of simplicity and spontaneity, their technical abilities (or lack thereof) never hampering their expressiveness. A good pairing indeed. The Curtains are noisier and more 'plugged-in' than MSHB, with electronic keyboard sounds forming some of their most striking moments. With both bands, what's improvised and what's not is hard to suss out, but experiencing the results can be quite pleasant either way if you don't demand much precision from your 'pop'. To us, these 27 tracks are a pleasant jumble worth experiencing.
MPEG Stream: MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ "Medicine For Melancholia"
MPEG Stream: THE CURTAINS "Bummer With Cakes"

MAHOGANY BRAIN With (Junk-Saucepan) When (Spoon-Trigger) (Mellow) cd 16.98
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Horde Catalytique Pour La Fin, Jacques Berrocal, Semool, Fille Qui Mousse, Jean Guerin, and (this one) Mahogany Brain: there's been a spate of reissues recently of stuff originally released on the Futura label, who were some sort of French version of NYC's avant-garde ESP-Disk, based on this evidence. Mahogany Brain's 1971 debut consists of a dozen head-scratching tracks of outside art skronk rock blurt, completely freeform and loose (but more messy and mellow than nasty or noisy, although they can be that way too). You'll get into their primitive underground vibe if you dig random blues licks, free jazz spazz, and wandering dada vocals. Considered a classic, but only by those who find the likes of Captain Beefheart and the Godz to be a little too "straight". We're told this was "very influenced by drugs" and believe it.
RealAudio clip: "Hot Milk Elbow (part 1)"

MAIN Ablation (Editions Mego) cd 16.98
Now here on cd too!!
It's been a very long time since Robert Hampson has released a Main album and an even longer time since he's produced a *great* Main album. Ablation changes that, although those who would be expecting the deconstructed hypno-rock of Motion Pool or Hydra-Calm will be disappointed; but those who had followed Hampson's trajectory starting with the last few Main records about a decade ago into spatialized electro-acoustics only to rediscover his infatuation with the drone which finally brought him back to the guitar as a principle instrument will certainly understand where this record is coming from. Hampson is still working at the storied GRM studios in Paris, and there is an infusion of the classic aesthetic of what came out of GRM within Ablation (notably Parmegiani and Ferrari), but at the same time he does link it back, if in a subtle way, to the mesmerism which girded the Main productions in the '90s. That said, any connections to his former group, Loop would be quite a stretch indeed.
On Ablation, Hampson has recruited Stefan Mathieu - a brilliant drone technician in his own right whom we've not heard from in ages - and the pairing works seamlessly, even as it clearly slants towards Hampson's vision of a cold disconnection dispensed in overlapping hissing layers and hypnotic patterns of abstracted sound. The percussive klank of a prepared piano on "I" is a bit of a red herring for what's found throughout Ablation especially on "II" and "III", is a series of slow ellipses of churning guitar drones and golden tonal coronas drifting with all of the uneasy beauty of an android's dream. The closing track "IV" bends along a radiophonic arc with ether crackle and metallic rasping and slow motion pixelations from a sharply rendered synth that forms the coda to the album. Organic. Liquid. Electric. Motorized. Bleak. Holy. All of those adjectives apply to this fantastic album. Welcome back, Main!
MPEG Stream: "II"

MAIN Ablation (Editions Mego) lp 22.00
It's been a very long time since Robert Hampson has released a Main album and an even longer time since he's produced a *great* Main album. Ablation changes that, although those who would be expecting the deconstructed hypno-rock of Motion Pool or Hydra-Calm will be disappointed; but those who had followed Hampson's trajectory starting with the last few Main records about a decade ago into spatialized electro-acoustics only to rediscover his infatuation with the drone which finally brought him back to the guitar as a principle instrument will certainly understand where this record is coming from. Hampson is still working at the storied GRM studios in Paris, and there is an infusion of the classic aesthetic of what came out of GRM within Ablation (notably Parmegiani and Ferrari), but at the same time he does link it back, if in a subtle way, to the mesmerism which girded the Main productions in the '90s. That said, any connections to his former group, Loop would be quite a stretch indeed.
On Ablation, Hampson has recruited Stefan Mathieu - a brilliant drone technician in his own right whom we've not heard from in ages - and the pairing works seamlessly, even as it clearly slants towards Hampson's vision of a cold disconnection dispensed in overlapping hissing layers and hypnotic patterns of abstracted sound. The percussive klank of a prepared piano on "I" is a bit of a red herring for what's found throughout Ablation especially on "II" and "III", is a series of slow ellipses of churning guitar drones and golden tonal coronas drifting with all of the uneasy beauty of an android's dream. The closing track "IV" bends along a radiophonic arc with ether crackle and metallic rasping and slow motion pixelations from a sharply rendered synth that forms the coda to the album. Organic. Liquid. Electric. Motorized. Bleak. Holy. All of those adjectives apply to this fantastic album. Welcome back, Main!
MPEG Stream: "II"

MAIN Tau ((K-RAA-K)3) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
When Robert Hampson began exploring "drumless space" through his digitally tricked-out guitarscapes under the guise of Main back in the early '90s, those initial records ("Motion Pool" in particular) were compelling albums of circular hypno-rock riffs spiralling through bleak, ominous drones. On one hand, Main had signified the birth of post-rock alongside other hybrid electronic / rock bands such as Seefeel and Disco Inferno (a couple years before the term got lumped onto Tortoise); yet on the other, Main had inspired the isolationist aesthetic where jack-booted industrialists and grizzled metallers tried their hands at grim ambient constructions. Since then, Main's influence has waned, as people like Jim O'Rourke and Fennesz have upstaged his guitar radicalism; and also as Main's albums have become increasingly more hermetic and less interested in the ideals of rock.
This last reason is obviously why Main got dropped from a sweet deal on Beggars Banquet; but, such opened up a number of possibilities to collaborate with Janek Schaeffer and Antenna Farm, as well as to produce this fine piece of electronic abstraction for (K-raa-k)3. On "Tau," very little is left of anything even closely resembling the timbres, harmonics, and actions of a guitar. It could be quite possible that there is in fact no guitar on this album. Nevertheless, Hampson calmly describes a sonic narrative through discrete samples which recall the alien tonalities of Morton Subotnik's work with the Buchla synthesizer. Loaded with MAX / MSP filters, these individual sounds amass into an icy soundtrack of microphonic detailing.
RealAudio clip: "Mirror"
RealAudio clip: "Heuristic"

MAIN Transiency (Tigerbeat6) cd ep 7.98
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The evolution of Robert Hampson's career has employed a steady skeletonization of the guitar -- possibly to the point that he doesn't even play guitar anymore on any of his records, but at least to the point where he's producing nothing that resembles a guitar. After dissolving his first band (the incendiary hypno-rock group Loop) and fronting Main, Hampson first dropped all drum tracks, then removed the bass, and gradually shifted towards sampling technologies over the guitar itself. "Transiency" is a short 20 minute EP, released by longtime Main / Loop / Hampson fan Kid 606 on the Tigerbeat 6 label. True to the last couple of releases, Hampson offers studied compositions of electronic minimalism and concrete flourishes that have been clipped against gaping voids of quiet spaces.
RealAudio clip: "I"
RealAudio clip: "II"

MAIN / WHITE WINGED MOTH / FLYING SAUCER ATTACK Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat) cd 19.98
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Staalplaat continues their "Mort Aux Vaches" series of commissioned radio broadcasts with this split release between Main, White Winged Moth, and Flying Saucer Attack. These recordings find all three experimental guitarist artists at their quietest and on their best behavior. Flying Saucer Attack gets the most attention with 4 softly played acoustic guitar tracks that are buried underneathe a building wall of reverb -- sort of like the mellower pieces on FSA's recent album "Mirror". Main offers a 15 minute track for treated guitars that is quite active by the standards of Robert Hampson's increasingly inaudible outfit. Tiny samples of malfunctioning guitar cables and soft scrapes on the strings repeat throughout the composition along with a bell like tonal drone. White Winged Moth (aka New Zealander Dean Roberts) also presents a 15 minute piece, with his humid guitar drones. Altogether this is an excellent compilation of work.
RealAudio clip: FLYING SAUCER ATTACK "#2"
RealAudio clip: MAIN "Counterglow"

MAKO SICA Dual Horizon (La Societe Expeditionnaire) lp 17.98
Mako Sica first came to our attention about a year ago with their awesome cassette on PlusTapes and an insanely limited 12" on Permanent Records. They really struck a chord with us, as the Chicago trio conjured an intimate collection of songs that sounded lush and expansive in a way other groups only hope to achieve. The cassette was lo-fi, but not as an excuse, and now the band ventures to new realms with their proper full length debut. Recorded live in an actual studio with no overdubs, the higher fidelity is used to the band's advantage, as they are able to properly expand upon the sound they nailed on the home recorded cassette. The three lengthy songs on Dual Horizon are the result of musicians who clearly understand the importance of working together as a unit to achieve something else entirely. Sure, there are bands (or more often than not "dudes" with solo projects) doing similar things throughout the globe - you may be reminded of a more Americanized version of Urthona with less distortion, or perhaps Expo '70 if their interests lay grounded in the desert instead of the cosmos - but Mako Sica is its own beast altogether, and more than most, these guys use negative space as an instrument unto itself for a truly unique feeling that is as beautiful as it is unsettling. It should also be noted that Dual Horizon was recorded by Todd Rittmann of US Maple fame, another band these guys recall at times, though after a couple handfuls of peyote.
"I'itoi" opens the record with wordless droning chants and some sparse bells. An atmosphere is established as windy sounds creep in, giving things a nice ominous vibe. Eventually, something begins to take shape as it bubbles out of the haze before turning into a thick ambient fog. The song is evocative of the middle of nowhere, the badlands from which the band took its name, and sharp bursts of jagged guitar snake about while voices continue to swirl in the mix. The sound is huge but still remains grounded by the musicians who refuse to lose control of their instruments to psychedelic noodling. Soon, a steady rhythm comes in and takes things heavenward as one guitar takes the lead with super fast picking on the high notes while the other holds down the role of bass. Things eventually change direction with a pronounced drumbeat taking you to another place altogether. "5th One Is The Dark" begins life with a softly muted root note taking the lead during the lengthy buildup. A tremeloed guitar begins to sound like something blowing in the wind, and though it's a bit "surfy" sounding, there are no waves in the desert, and it becomes another part of the band's enveloping sound. Sustained feedback and a voice soon work their way in, and though you can hear words, you are unsure of what is taking form. The song is dramatic and highly cinematic, managing to conjure the incomprehensible hugeness of nature while also sounding affirmative of the cycle of life that will continue after we're gone.
Taking up all of side 2 and clocking in at 21 minutes, "Dunes" rides out with giant sweeps of low end before everything drops and a steady tom rhythm comes in like a heartbeat. The guitars come back with a submerged melody and jangly high notes as you venture to the far reaches of your mind, and at around the 4 minute mark, things actually start to move with the flow of a "rock" song, but in a very minimal way, again utilizing the the open space around the band. It's interesting how the drums avoid using cymbals too much, as this works really well with the band's lineup; nobody overtakes anyone else and they sound like a living, breathing unit, and even though there is a lot of improvisation going on, the band clearly knows where to take things. As the song winds down, more voices emerge and disappear, with a blaring trumpet melody helping to further disorient you in the best of ways.
The record itself is pressed up on some awesome black and white hazed vinyl and includes a download card for those of you who plan to wander off under headphones with this thing playing on repeat. And while we're at it, we should point out the fact that there's only 250 of these bad boys out there, so don't sleep on this!
MPEG Stream: "I'itoi"
MPEG Stream: "5th One Is The Dark"
MPEG Stream: "Dunes"

MAKO SICA Essence (La Societe Expeditionnaire) lp 14.98
Chicago's Mako Sica have been a longtime favorite here at aQuarius, and with their second full length (third if you count their live vinyl debut), we figured it was about time more people took note of this amazing band. The trio whips up a heady and unique noise that goes way beyond simple classification and remains blissfully in its own world. The main ingredients Ð two guitars, drums, and evocative wordless vocals Ð are augmented here and there with trumpet, thumb piano, and various percussive flourishes, but it's the way the musicians interact with each other that makes this band so special. And while they certainly do rock as they ascend to higher levels of psychedelia, calling Mako Sica a "rock band" or a "psychedelic band" doesn't quite hit the mark. The noise addled skronk of hometown labels like Skin Graft is certainly evident as well as plenty of free jazz and world music influences, but the band never tries to be anything other than themselves, and with those influences guiding the way they have arrived at a stellar sound that will be instantly accessible to adventurous listeners. At the same time, a level of mysteriousness remains constant, demanding repeated listens. As distinctive as it all is, we know this will appeal to fans of legendary groups like Trad Gras Och Stenar, Taj Mahal Travellers, and Les Rallizes Denudes, not to mention the current crop of San Francisco bands blowing the minds of the world like Barn Owl, 3 Leafs, and Carlton Melton. How could we not make this a Record Of The Week?
Essence opens with the monolithic sidelong "Fate Deals A Hand". A slow, eerie buildup gives the impression of a rising sun as the sounds bubble to life. Sustained, cello-like drones and bells accompany a voice that is itself another layer of beautiful sound. The mood gradually shifts and an underlying harmonic fuzz on one of the guitars indicates that things are finally gonna take off. The heaviness and unease of the guitars grows as the percussion becomes more insistent, and six and a half minutes in the sounds begin to merge into a more distinct form before launching into an ominous psych jam that is almost metal if it weren't for the way the drums hold it all in place. Queasy, discordant sounds kaleidoscopically swirl about as the vocals (which at times sound almost like Nina Simone if she were wordlessly chanting) add an awesome, somewhat disorienting vibe that makes it difficult to guess when and where this music could be coming from. It's amazing how the vocals illustrate a story without words and create drama, even if you aren't quite sure what it all means. Eventually a delayed trumpet glides into the maelstrom, at which point the band somehow still holds back and lets an atmosphere of spaciousness build - spaciousness being one of the key elements separating this band from the rest of the pack, who often try to cram as much as possible into the proceedings. Of course, Mako Sica launches into another distorted freakout before reaching a final and total silence. Fucking awesome.
Side two offers up two more lengthy jams, beginning with "On Cracked Sea". Cosmic chanting and guitars operate in unison, trading melodies freely without confining themselves to any traditional structure. Instead, it's just TOTAL music, melodic, jagged, beautiful, and noisy, all at once, with the drums clattering about creating just as much mood as the guitars. More of that awesome harmonically rich fuzz guitar comes cascading in, bringing the song to a new level of intensity before winding down into a woozy blissful fadeout. The final track here, "Chain Leg", begins with some low ominous rumblings and more bad ass vocal chants, reminding us a bit of a less metallic version of UK space/psych/drone collective Bong. Eventually the proceedings get a little more abstract even as some discernible riffing takes center stage. Everything sounds perfectly in place and open to whatever adventures appear to be happening in real time. Musical freedom, pretty much.
For a band that has continuously surprised and inspired, Essence stands as Mako Sica's greatest achievement so far. Their somewhat shadowy existence may mean they might not the first band that comes to mind when pondering the international resurgence in explorative, free form psychedelic music, but it's hard to imagine that not changing with this amazing record. Get it now!
MPEG Stream: "Fate Deals A Hand"
MPEG Stream: "On Cracked Sea"

MAKO SICA Live At Subterranean (Chaos Of The Stars) cassette 5.98
Chicago's Mako Sica return with another cassette release, with the band conjuring up two lengthy pieces live in their hometown plus an additional studio outtake from their amazing Dual Horizon album. You couldn't put together a more varied trio; the band is comprised of Polish guitarist Przemyslaw Krys Drazek (who also handles trumpet duties) formerly of longtime favorites Rope, drummer Michael Kendrick who cut his teeth for years in the underground metal community, and North Carolina bred guitarist/vocalist Brent Fuscaldo. Somehow the three managed to come together in the center of the United States, and with an arsenal of influences and references have managed to create a sound that is distinctly their own. Pinning the band down with terms like "psychedelic" or "improvisational" may help one get a vague enough reference, but these ultimately prove insufficient. The songs are expansive and constantly moving forward, always avoiding the pitfalls of mindless jamming and relying on the natural interaction of the three musicians, who possess an uncanny understanding of how to work with each other. Not surprisingly, there is a strong jazz influence to these songs, but the guitar team of Drazek and Fuscaldo is more than qualified to rock out and bring things into bold new territories. Kendrick's drumming perfectly complements his bandmates and provides the elastic framework that really sets the band apart from their peers.
The live performance was captured in August 2010, and monolithic 17 minute opener "Fate Deals A Hand" begins like smoke looming out across the horizon with an exotic Eastern feeling. Wordless chanting is used to great effect - sort of like a MUCH more restrained and melodic Haino-esque wail, at any rate an essential part of the band's musical vision. Things slowly build in intensity as the guitars create walls of swirling atmosphere while cymbals slowly crash about in waves as bells chime away. With the shamanistic vocalizing you probably won't be thinking "band from Chicago" as they lurch forward and become almost demonically heavy. The lead guitar snakes about while the rhythm work is created on the low strings for a sound that is a lot like you would get from an actual bass guitar. As we've mentioned in past reviews, these guys are experts at incorporating negative space for a totally unique effect, and even with members of the audience yammering away it almost seems like the voices were meant to be there. Bits of atonal free shredding stab like knives and bear a resemblance to legendary skronk rockers US Maple (whose Todd Rittman actually recorded the outtake on this tape). The band eventually cools down with sparse freeform drumming and some vocal-like trumpet work adding an elegant yet slightly disconcerting vibe before going into another suite of blissed out heaviness. Wow. Side 2 opener "Ancestors" begins with a steady drum plod carrying things forward while a thumb piano provides a unique kaleidoscopic melody. The dramatic low end guitar resembles something one might get on a synthesizer and the vocals create a cool mysterious feeling before the band explodes into a finale of beautiful noise that no doubt had some jaws dropping to the floor. As mentioned earlier, "Red Rivers" was cut during the Dual Horizon sessions. The song is another perfect demonstration of how well these guys know each other as people and musicians. The sharp bits of delayed lead guitar give out a jagged little melody alongside the gorgeous wordless vocals. The song has a lonely cinematic Western feel to it, eventually becoming reminiscent of Sabbath's "Planet Caravan" as it kicks into a steady groove with one guitar establishing an amazing dubbed out rhythm while the lead guitar dances about before wrapping up like a sunset.
An essential outing from one of Chicago's great unsung bands, and we are looking forward to the band's next full length which is in the works - can't wait!
MPEG Stream: "Fate Deals A Hand"
MPEG Stream: "Ancestors"
MPEG Stream: "Red Rivers"

MAKO SICA Noise Attic Session 2 (PlusTapes) cassette 5.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Recorded by the band in an old attic with creaky floor boards, rusty pipes, stained rugs, a hot water heater, and a borrowed 8-track reel-to-reel."
So state the liner notes to the PlusTapes re-release of this excellent Chicago band's recorded debut. And after one listen, such a description certainly makes sense, as the music exhibits a sort or urban rusticity, a sound that is as pleasantly detached as it is connected to life in a big city.
Comprised of players from Chicago's experimental and metal scenes (and featuring Przemyslaw K. Drazek of longtime Aquarius favorites Rope), Mako Sica exists as its own island within a city generally known for post rock and heavier sounds. A dreamy haze of gently strummed melodies floats above free form percussion with chantlike vocals that aren't as much sung as they are summoned, occasional bursts of trumpet punctuating the atmosphere. At every moment, a beautiful and softly sustained drone permeates the recording like an additional member of the band. And then, right when you've happily fallen into Mako Sica's trancelike psychedelia, the band snaps into a rhythmic groove that is focused but never forced. The beautifully textured songs walk along the border of experimentation while never losing themselves to mindless abstraction. And when the tape finally runs out, your first impulse will be to flip it over, walk into Mako Sica's world once again, and stay there.
As we mentioned above, this gem comes to us from the good people at the ever reliable PlusTapes, which also means it's ultra limited. 100 copies... we received 20, so you know those won't last long

MAKOTO, KAWABATA Tales of The Dream Planet (Housepig) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Even if it didn't say Kawabata Makoto on the cover, or if you didn't know that Kawabata is the guitar player in Japan's Acid Mothers Temple, you might guess that this was somehow Acid Mothers Temple related, just from the cover graphics. Naked hippy chick in yoga pose, check. Flying saucer, check. Comic book style voice balloon, check. (She's saying, "AHAAAAAAA... UMMMMMM", which could be alternate, onomatopoeic titles for this disc's two tracks, actually.)
And knowing that, you have an idea what this is all about. It's one of Kawabata's most blissed out, droned out efforts. Actually, it's hard to imagine something as physical as a guitar being involved in its making. Kawabata seems to be playing some more ethereal instrument, a simple shimmering cloud of cosmic sound that already existed at the dawn of days, long before anything as mundane as a guitar was ever invented. The transcendent, translucent 46 minute "She Came From The Shining Sea", followed by the shorter (17 minute) and even quieter "Kiss On The Dream Planet", seem more like mental projections, delicate dream drones direct from Kawabata's inner space practice space. It's certainly difficult to believe that he's actually, you know, touching anything to make this music. In reality, these two tracks were recorded at the actual Acid Mothers Temple (Kawabata's flat in Tokyo, we assume, or better yet a commune filled with those naked hippy chicks) in January and March of 2006... Kick back, close your eyes, and enjoy.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: "She Came From The Shining Sea"
MPEG Stream: "Kiss On The Dream Planet"

MALACHAI Return To The Ugly Side (Double Six / Domino) cd 14.98
Last year's Ugly Side Of Love, the debut from UK sampledelic duo Malachai, was a surprise hit around here, we loved it from the second we first heard it, we just didn't realize HOW much. We ended up playing it to death, and it ranked as one of our favorites of the year, so much so that we found ourselves lamenting the fact that we didn't make it a Record Of The Week. Which it no doubt should have been, a dizzying assemblage of samples and proper instruments, woven into what sounded like some some lost seventies retro rock, proto metal, fuzzy, groovy, heavy psych jam, and barring some little bits of obviously electronic filigree, it totally could have been.
So we were super psyched to discover a new record, and while on first listen, it doesn't sound -quite- as catchy as their debut, the more we listen, the better it gets, and we're pretty sure we'll find ourselves obsessed and kicking ourselves all over again. But whatever, just don't sleep on this, so fuzzy, and heavy and groovy and goddamn good. And strange. Simultaneously warm and familiar, but also like nothing you've heard, from the super cinematic opener "Monster", a string heavy bit of dramatic ambience, with big skittery beats, and a gorgeous soaring orchestral outro, which leads directly into a heavy shuffling drum beat, laced with some hazy guitar buzz, some swirling atmospheric shimmer, and then some reverby vox, the sound again some impossible hybrid of then and now, past and present, sixties psych wrapped around looped beats, and wreathed in shimmery effects.
"Mid Antarctica (Wearin' Sandals)" is super heavy proto metal buzz, the riffs epic, the organs whirring, the bass thick, the beats big, a sort of hip hoppy groove underpinning some serious psych fuzz, occasionally breaking down into ethereal drift, but always lumbering right back into some thick churning heaviness. "Rainbows" is all hazy and reverby and echoey, with gorgeous boy girl vox, the strums muted and washed out, everything wreathed in a patina of soft focus shimmer, and so it goes, the record shifting and transforming, from hushed balladic drift, to shuffling sunshiney hippie folk, to buzzy druggy groove, to piano driven super dramatic creep, to what might be our other favorite track, "Monster" which sounds like DJ Shadow, if he were raised on sixties psych as well as hip hop, epic and bombastic, moody and broody and so good. And it just keeps getting better. The sort of 'psychedelic sixties Entroducing' vibe becomes more pronounced as the record progresses, finishing off with the twangy, woozy buzz drenched strum and shuffle of the closer "Hybernation", pepper with some unlikely boomin' system low rider bass, and yeah, we're kicking ourselves now for not making this Record Of The Week, so just figure this is an UNofficial ROTW, which means this is about as recommended as it gets...
MPEG Stream: "Monsters"
MPEG Stream: "(My) Ambulance"
MPEG Stream: "Anne"
MPEG Stream: "Let 'Em Fall"