NEGATIVLAND Willsaphone Stupid Show, the (Seeland) 2cd 15.98
Volume 6 in Negativland's Over The Edge series (so named for the weekly radio show produced by Negativland on KPFA). This volume is dedicated to David Wills -- aka The Weatherman -- and his obsession with field recording, most notably his fixation with recording his family. Don Joyce and David produced several shows on Over The Edge dedicated to David and his tapes and then distilled it down to these two discs. Beginning with a recording of David with his first tape recorder as a young wippersnapper and continuing with all the various tapes he made through his youth, adolescence, and on into adulthood. One of the principle subjects of David's recordings are Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with his family. In David's house, where he lived with his parents up until they passed away, he had both his room and the kitchen wired for sound so that he could play tapes of his mom and grandmother talking while making thanksgiving dinner as they made thanksgiving dinner a year later, or two years, or five... etc. The two then remark on the previous years as David continues to record them and talk back to them. The result is a really bizarre, non-linear ongoing conversation. Interspersed throughout these two discs of David's audio history are sections where listeners to the show call up and query Mr Wills for help with their cable TV repair, radio and electronics problems, ask questions about home cleaning and participate in the "Fake Bacon & Electronic Music" hotline.
RealAudio clip: "I'm A Vegetable, Wired Up House, Steamin' Mad At Dirt, etc"
RealAudio clip: "Fuck You, Tough Darts, Jingle Bells, etc"

NEGATIVLAND / CHUMBAWAMBA The ABC's Of Anarchism (Seeland) cdep 8.98
Listen and learn, kiddies.

NEHIL, SETH & JGRZINICH Gyre (Cut) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Seth Nehil and John Grzinich have been collaborating in various sound ventures off and on for well over a decade, back when the two met in Austin, Texas. Gyre marks the conclusion of a body of field recordings and agitated environments that the two began working on while travelling throughout Eastern Europe and later manipulated into installation soundtracks, arriving at three lengthy tracks. A constant fluidity of gray sounds wraps around the opening track of Gyre, which gives the impression of being deep underwater investigating the nether regions; yet the tactile sounds of various rubbings and cracked details contrast the subaqueous references with earthen found sounds of soil, stone, wood, and metal. The second piece acts as a call and response to the acoustics of some crumbling Soviet warehouse, with wooden tappings echoing from various parts of the space, presumably from the two participants. Gradually, a thick rumble of low end thrumb reverberates through additional layers of chattering birds which serves to counter the 'industrial' sound debris. The creaking from a high tension wire sets the stage for the final piece on Gyre, with ringing metallic vibrations amassing into a beautiful aura of hallowed droning. On par with the likes of Murmer, Loren Chasse, Tarab, Eric La Casa, and Small Cruel Party, Gyre is an excellent album.
Note! Jason Kahn has closed shop on his Cut label, meaning that the remaining copies we currently have are the last copies available.
MPEG Stream: "Cast"
MPEG Stream: "Weald"
MPEG Stream: "Glaze"

NEHIL, SETH & JGRZINICH Stria (Erewhon) cd 14.98
Strangely enough, we had never managed to get any of these records in stock when it originally came out in 2002 as the companion to the now out of print album Confluence, which had been released on the Intransitive label. Stria is one of many collaborative projects between these two impressive sound artists, straddling the realm of dronescape delirium and dislocated field recordings. Seth Nehil and John Grzinich first began working together in the humidity of Austin, Texas in the revolving door collective of Alial Straa, which also proved formative for Michael Northam and Olivia Block. But as all of these folks wandered to various corners of the globe (Grzinich in Estonia, Nehil to Portland, Block to Chicago, and who the hell knows where Northam currently calls home), the collaborations have become impressively focused projects, even as they take several years to complete. Like its companion piece, Stria centers upon the idea of resonance, spread across three longform pieces. The first of which collects various bowed tones from a huge ensemble of musicians and twists them all into a sinewy mass of slowburning drones and gradual progressions. The reference in the liner notes to Alvin Lucier makes complete sense in view of this impressive dronesmear crescendo on par with anything that Jonathan Coleclough or Organum had mustered. The second piece is more in keeping with Grzinich's recent work with clattering stone and found objects in concrete bunkers, as scrabbling sounds and tactile noises echo back and forth against murky atmospheres. The final piece returns to the drone work with motors agitating long thin wires with phase shifting oscillations and eerie turbulence rattling what otherwise would be some very pretty ambience, but instead becomes a sublime listening experience. An excellent piece of work all around.
MPEG Stream: "Tome Gather"
MPEG Stream: "Arboreal"
MPEG Stream: "The Mirrored Corner"

NEHIL, SETH & MATT MARBLE Ecllipses (And/OAR) cd 13.98
Naturalist aktionism? Sure, let's call it that. We can't really say that the Hermann Nitsch and Gunter Brus bloodletting as grand allegory is applicable to this collaboration between Portland based sound artists Seth Nehil and Matt Marble; but a rigorous body of work is definitely at hand. These two are the editors of the sound art journal FO A RM, and have both generated impressive bodies of conceptually minded compositions through field recordings, found objects, the almighty drone, and hand-built instruments. Here, Nehil and Marble wax poetic about the overlay of tactile sounds to emphasize the ruptures, holes, and negative spaces which may have been present on each layer of sound. So, instead of a gaping piece of unbroken ambience, Ecllipses is a tense and discordant album of rollicking textures which bristle and scrape against each other. Nehil and Marble revel in tumbles and scrabbles of what could be a revolving metal drum filled with various pine cones, twigs, and pebbles. Elsewhere, they focus upon churning bowed steel-strings, which offer buzzing clouds of softly rendered acoustic noise; and then soft pluckings of what sound like softened dulcimers drift into prolonged echo, hinting at avant-folk drones of Jewelled Antler (especially the Ov recordings) and Kemialliset Ystavat. Barring a minimal amount of signal processing and ring modulation, the album flourishes in the sodden palette of natural objects: wood, grass, leaves, soil, and rock.
MPEG Stream: "Aprupture"
MPEG Stream: "Hither"
MPEG Stream: "Ecllipses"

NEILSON, ALEX & RICHARD YOUNGS Road Is Open Life (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Long time collaborators (and OG Jandek backing band, for his first live shows ever), AQ fave Richard Youngs and Alex Neilson once again team up for an absolutely gorgeous collection of sonic wonder, from lilting fuzzy folk, to massive churning guitarscapes. Five tracks, all ten to fifteen minutes long, each a sprawling expanse of dreamy deconstructed pop, fluttering free folk drift, abstract percussive clatter or full on wall of sound rrroooaar. The opener is a delicate, tribal swirl, Rumbling low tones, pulsing piano, ethereal chant like vocals, dark moody melodies wrapped around flickering electronic FX, shuffling hand drums, a bit Wicker Man, a little hippy drift, hypnotic and meditative, drowsy and so lovely. The follow up is just as lovely, but way more abstract, a slowly shifting ambient tableau of sizzling cymbals, muted distant melodies, disembodied voices, and shimmering washes of abstract sound, all smeared into a blissfully blurry soundscape.
Track three jacks up the cacophony just a bit and suddenly the disc gets dangerous. Super blown out guitar throb underpins a clattery skeletal framework, supporting slippery slivers of high end feedback, everything clouded in thick swirls of dense effects, eventually building to an impenetrable psychdrone fug. And even before you can shake it off and get that ringing out of your ears, the band slips back into tribal drift mode, building another dreamy swirlscape of looped whir and muted rhythmic scrape, glistening acoustic guitar and coo-ing vocal ambience. The final track is another dreamy drone-y drift, but this time wrapped in spike-y psychedelic guitar leads, the whole track hovering beneath FX-drenched warped and warbly wah wah guitars, everything spinning and swirling, like the soundtrack to one of those sixties films about getting high, but even more druggy and gloriously far out.
MPEG Stream: "New Moon Alone"
MPEG Stream: "Pictures For The Multitudes"

NEKRASOV Cognition Of Splendid Oblivion (Siege Of Power) cd 10.98
For everyone who missed out on that last Nekrasov, which is probably most folks as it was a cd-r limited to 50 copies, half of which we got and sold in a flash, here's another new full length, from this Australian black metal / blacknoize terrorist, and this one is also limited, but never fear, not nearly as limited as that last one, and it's an actual cd, so we should have these for a while, a little while at least.
Which is good news, cuz this might be the best Nekrasov yet, let's start with the packaging, wow, a gorgeous and grim 6 panel sleeve, with intense black and green paintings, each panel featuring variations of the new super intense NKRSV logo printed in reflective clear ink, so striking, and pretty representative of the sounds within.
For those new to Nekrasov, his sound is a blasting blackness almost entirely ensconced in blacknoise, a swirling chaotic squall of hiss and grinding skree and blown out howl, within which lurks frantic riffing, relentless drumming, although much of the time, it feels implied more than actually heard. Like WOLD, Nekrasov rewards close listening, headphones strapped on, reveals a crumbling, abject hellish sound world, hateful and harsh and harrowing, it doesn't get much more brutal than this, or noisy, but on Cognition Of Splendid Oblivion more than even, Nekrasov finds a balance, letting the noise swallow certain portions whole, but dialing the noise back in places, giving us glimpses if riff or melody, of blast, ror texture. And the noise itself, is not straight up Merzbowian brutality, there's definitely nuance, almost like the noise is an artifact of the guitars being TOO distorted, the drums TOO crushing, the vokills TOO brutal...
"Psychic Epilepsy In The Butcher Of Light" might be the heaviest thing Nekrasov has recorded, the riffs seemingly MADE out of noise, churning, throbbing, the vocals struggling to be heard through the sheer crush of the riffs, the drums no more than a distant pulse. But within this black buzzing void, the sounds grow epic and majestic, soaring and struggling to shine through the thick black clouds of sound.
The other cool thing about Nekrasov that we may have mentioned before is the breadth of tone and timbre, the noise is multi dimensional, and varies from track to track, because it's not just noise for noise sake, it's part of the composition, an integral part, so sometimes the sound is hissy and brittle, other times murky and muddy, some track get all shoegazey and blissed out, others threaten to gouge your eardrums out. The second to last track starts out all dreamy and washed out, then the BM kicks in, sans noise, and we're treated to a rare glimpse of the buzz and blast behind the curtain, before the final track crushes everything in its path with some of the densest and pummeling noise possible, and even then, it's weirdly listenable, twisted and textured, a swirling blackness that grinds and howls and blasts and buzzes until finally slipping into oblivion.
MPEG Stream: "Heresy.Heresy. Heresy. Oh. Where Have You Gone"
MPEG Stream: "Psychic Epilepsy In The Butcher Of Light"
MPEG Stream: "The Person And The Yawning Abyss"

NEKRASOV Extinction (Crucial Blast) cd 13.98
Not one, but two new missives from mysterious blackmetal/blacknoize merchant Nekrasov, an Aussie one man horde who crafts some of the most twisted sickest noise drenched black metal we've ever heard. Elsewhere on this list you'll find an older title, a split/collaboration with Canadian doom-ed black metal peddlers Humiliation, but this right here is the latest bit of filth and fury, transmitted from NKRSV headquarters directly into your rotting blackened earholes. And weirdly enough, while it's still noisy as fuck, it seems Master Nekrasov has dialed back the noise a bit, right out of the gate, the awesomely titled "We Are Just An Indifferent Interpretation Of The Black Plague" explodes in a frenzy of lightning fast programmed beats, of insectoid riffing, of hellish howling vokills, but the whole thing weirdly and impossibly melodic, it's all relative of course, but woven into the fabric of the furious grinding black blast, is a distinctly hooky undercurrent, which not only makes it crazy catchy, also infuses the rest of the track with a distinctly weirdo black vibe. The second track is another blast of pounding grimness, this time the harsh vox are balanced by what sounds like monks chanting and yet still more strangely pleasing melodies, all buried under the relentless pound and churn, the result is a strange bit of almost orchestral sounding brutality.
After a lengthy bit of blackdrone drift, all muted rumbles and buried industrial percussion, a sort of militaristic windstorm ambience, the record slips back into blackened buzz, this time, much punkier, not blasting so much as pounding furiously, the vocals super hot and in-the-red, swallowing up all the other sounds with every shriek, while in the background the new surprisingly melodic side of Nekrasov struggles to shine from behind the black curtain of frantic buzzing and machinelike pound. More ambience follows, some field recorded creepiness, laced with buried bits of melody, culminating in an avalanche of crumbling distortion and harsh blurred black crunch, the final bit of pure buzzing metallic blackness comes in the form of "Chant The Name Of God In A Thousand Languages Until All Is Blood And Feces", a return to the noisy Nekrasov of old, a buzzing old school black metal smothered in thick sheets of hiss, the distortion so blown out, the vocals so processed and inhuman, the whole thing threatens to crumble to pieces, and is constantly blurring into an almost full on blackdrone.
The record finishes off with two lengthy tracks, nearly 22 minutes, of creeping, haunting, abject, miserable black ambience, the first a thick black churning dronescape, heavy glacial guitars smeared into dense streaks, trudging across a sonic wasteland, all industrial filth, whirring church organ (!) and mysterious melodic drift. And finally, the 16 + minute title track, a corrosive blackened noise drone, layered and dense, also industrial, but less rhythmic, heaving crumbling swells, the sound of cities crumbling, of collapse and decay, of death and oblivion. Brutal and intense.
MPEG Stream: "We Are Just An Indifferent Interpretation Of The Black Plague"
MPEG Stream: "Matter Is The Bastard"
MPEG Stream: "Pre-Fetal Non-Mantra"

NEKRASOV / ADERLATING split (Chrome Leaf) lp 14.98
A pretty strange, but in many ways pretty perfect pairing, cult Aussie black metal / black noize horde Nekrasov, and industrial cinematic black doom project Aderlating, which just so happens to be an offshoot of the mighty Gnaw Their Tongues.
Both blackened, both noisy, here the two drift together and end up meeting somewhere right in the middle, floating in the hellish black abyss, heavier on the ambient than the black metal, more abstract and atmospheric than harsh and harrowing.
Nekrasov offers up a side long stunner, which begins as a roiling minimal dronescape of textured blackness, muted streaks of submerged melody, buried vocals, creeping slow motion pulses, constantly shifting layers, deep dense overtones, creaks and scrapes, utterly haunting and otherworldly, occasionally building to a SUNNO)))-like wall of sound, before slipping back into something more slithery and cinematic. By The end, the sound has reached a fever pitch, a swirling, caterwauling cacophony of inhuman vocalizations, tangled black tendrils of buzz and skree, all woven into an organic, heaving blackened ambient drone driven sonic beast, before finishing off with a stretch of hushed minimal shimmer.
Aderlating, aka Gnaw Their Tongues, otherwise known as Mories, counters with a set of three interlocking soundscapes, abject and industrial, set amidst a sea of softly swirling black tones, shapes and sounds seem to creak and groan, like some hellish machine, churning away just below the surface, spewing gouts of feedback, and sinking ever deeper into the vile black void that somehow keeps it afloat. Fragments of voice, melody, surface here and there, only to be swallowed up again. Occasionally the proceedings seems to almost coalesce into some sort of garish subterranean cabaret, but still cloaked in swirling swaths of hellish hiss and black buzz, and epic rumbling low end that threatens to devour all the other sounds. Fragmented barely there rhythms lead into an avalanche of crumbling distortion and in-the-red psychedelic blacknoize, which roils and churns and explodes in a frenzy of sonic chaos, before returning again, to its more tranquil state, which even itself is rife with industrial clatter and swaths of muted caustic noise, finishing off in a blaze of brilliant bristling blackness.
Gorgeous packaging, stunning cover art, black inner sleeve and pressed on sick green, white and black splattered vinyl.
LIMITED TO 300!!!

NEKRASOV / HUMILIATION split (New Scream Industry) cd 12.98
This is not actually brand new, it's from last year, but we've been doing our best to track down enough copies to list for ages now, and were finally able to get some direct from NEKRASOV HQ. And holy shit was it worth the wait. Nekrasov, the one man Aussie blacknoize wrecking crew who have long terrorized aQ with epic blasts of furious blackness, teamed up with Canadian black metal misanthropes Humiliation, for a seriously malformed chunk of audial evil. And while it's a split, it's also a partial collaboration, each band contributing three tracks, one of which has been augmented and fucked with by the other.
The proceedings begin with Nekrasov unfurling drifting clouds of muted murk, which give way to a barrage of blurred riffage, then blown out tumbling blast beats, all gnarled and blurred, weirdly pretty and washed out, Humiliation adding various sounds to the already dense racket. For the next two tracks, Nekrasov goes it alone, first the epic (and epically titled) "From Where I Sit The Sky Was Full Of Wrath And Ill Will", a sprawling 11 minutes of tangled spidery guitar melody, creeping droned out drift, hushed industrial ambience, ominous orchestral swells, harsh howled vokills, a brief blast of black metal crush, and then a tripped out squall of twisted effects drenched blackened noise. Finally, things finish off with a a super abstract final jam, all lumbering machine like lurch, rumbles and creaks, clatter and processed grinds and buzzes, eventually smoothing out into a deep subterranean sounding low end thrum.
The first Humiliation track begins as a haunting whirl of strange processed winds and voices, almost like some sort of EVP style field recording. Soon the voices become more pronounced, wreathed in effects, the ambience peppered with disembodied riffs, bits of chug, soaring bits of minor key melody, all suspended in a field of hiss and whir and buzz, eventually exploding into some seriously filthy and damaged black doom, harsh vokills, lo-fi drum damage, thick black chugs, a strange bit of Khanate-meets-Abruptum-meets-Burzum-meets-Wolf Eyes, a spaced out bit of grimness, eventually fading into a soft swirl of music box like melody and distant rumble, before exploding into the follow up, another chunk of lumbering hateful black stumble, which over the course of the next 8 minutes drifts from abject industrial pound, to tripped out Gnaw Their Tongues style almost orchestral minimal doom, to clattery creepy soundtracky ambience, to Swans like Teutonic pound, to almost dreamy otherworldly drift.
The final track, begins like another slab of industrial flecked doomic plod and crush, wreathed in a corrosive halo of crumbling distortion and malfunctioning effects, before the riffing drops out completely, leaving a roiling expanse of fractured feedback, strange samples, grinding scrape and howl, all wrapped in wildly explosive layers of blown out buzz.
More necessary Nekrasov, and something serious to whet your appetite for more fucked up filth from the mysterious Humiliation...
MPEG Stream: NEKRASOV "From Where I Sit The Sky Was Full Of Wrath And Ill Will (w/Humiliation)"
MPEG Stream: HUMILIATION "Barbarians (w/Nekrasov)"

NEMETH Film (Thrill Jockey) cd 14.98
Nemeth is the first solo outing from Stefan Nemeth who we know best for his work with Radian, one of the more compelling and stimulating electronic post rock outfits of the last several years. It makes perfect sense that he has also been hard at work scoring various films projects since he has such obvious skills for creating brooding sounds that sizzle with subtlety and mounting tension. Over the last several years Nemeth found himself creating soundscapes for experimental filmmakers and installation artists. He used those works as his source material in creating this debut solo work. This is by no means a laptop project, as Nemeth used lots of organic instrumentation like guitars, percussion and synthesizers along with his electronics and programming skills to create these chilling sounds. It's pretty impossible to tell which sounds are real and which are electronically generated in this work and that's what makes Nemeth's music so spectacular. He treats all of the elements he uses with a fluidity that makes all the disparate sounds wash into each other. Film reminds us a bit of the more subdued and ominous elements of Pan Sonic, the hypnotic qualities of Circle, the ghostly decay of Thomas Brinkmann. All great company to be in, Nemeth has created a record that uses all its layers and textures with mindful perfection!
MPEG Stream: "Luukkaankangas"
MPEG Stream: "Field"

NEMOTO, SHINOBU Improvisations #1 (Experimedia) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This Japanese guitarist would have been much better off calling this record anything other than Improvisations #1. To be fair, these five extended pieces of drone smolder are technically improvised, but they sure as hell do not sound like the improvisations of Keiji Haino, Tetuzi Akiyama, Masayuki Takayanagi or any other giants of Japanese improv guitar bruitism. Shinobu's work recalls much more of the post-shoegazing excursions that you would get from Explosions In The Sky, Tarentel (circa From Bone To Satellite), and even some of Machinefabriek's constructions. As we mentioned, Shinobu does technically improvise each of these tracks, although it might be better stated that be records these pieces in single takes, collecting loops through his arsenal of pedals and layering them into these architecturally dense mounds of compacted fuzz, drone, and noise all blurred into a beautifully shoegazing atmosphere. The first track builds a warm enveloping haze on top of which Shinobu plops a rich piece of slide guitar work, that gives this track train-chugging-through-desert-valley-at-sunset type of cinematic scope. The second piece takes a slightly darker arc that billows with bioluminescence and distantly mechanoid pulsations. Again, Shinobu continues darker still throughout the album with the ensuing tracks, as the guitars become more spectral, more laced with shadow, and heavier on the low end frequencies. Here, you'll find more references to Troum or Aidan Baker, in terms of a darker take on the ambience. With the fourth track, Shinobu brightens everything with a guitar driven variation on the Gas / Pop Ambient sound that's very, very nice. Afterwards, the darkened murk and shadow returns on the finale, a majestically black piece of ambience. So so cold.
Experimedia has been turning up some pretty amazing artists from around the world that previously we had never heard of, and this album is certainly one of the gems in their increasingly prolific catalogue of releases. Limited to 150 copies!!!
MPEG Stream: "18:55 09 jan. 2009 "
MPEG Stream: "16:27 14 jan. 2009"
MPEG Stream: "22:34 14 jan. 2009"

NERELL, LOREN Lilin Dewa (Side Effects) cd 14.98
Loren Nerell is the ethnomusicologist who compiled the exceptional field recording album "Indonesian Soundscapes" for Soleilmoon. "Lilin Dewa" is his outstanding studio production based on archaic Javanese and Balinese gamelan styles infused with dronologist electronics to add a dark mystery to the delicate percussive processions. It makes perfect sense that Brian Lustmord released this on his Side Effects label.

NERELL, LOREN Taksu (Soleilmoon) cd 14.98

NERFBAU Error Swarms (Resipiscent) cd 14.98
Latest from these noisy Oakland oddballs, who at the outset, sound a bit like a way more fucked up, way more musical Negativland or Tape Beatles, at least over the first few songs (and the last few), the same sort of cut-up recontextualism, but way less linear, and way more warped, the samples less the focus, and more just another element, and while it is noisy, it's also lush and textural, glitched out and electronic, droney and industrial, the various voices and found sounds eventually disappearing almost entirely for the bulk of the record, beneath heaving swells of crumbling distortion and sheets of hissing shortwave interference, warm whirling melodies drifting over dense rumbling reverberations, occasionally things lock into subtle rhythms, throbbing like some buried subterranean pulse, other times the songs seem to expand, sprawling into blackened noisescapes, abstract and amorphous, each one a mysterious hazy stretch of garbled muted haze, an undulating surfacesound, barely obscuring all the action right underneath, chittering percussive skitter, roiling bass heavy thrum, squalls of blown out synth buzz, bursts of superdistorted in-the-red crunch, weird abstract drones wrapped around conflagrations of blurred bleary noise that begin to sound almost like beats, flecked with all manner of hum and whir, the whole thing growing gradually prettier and more melodic as it goes, the noise elements definitely restrained, more textural than caustic and the end result for the most part is less of a noise record, and more of a super varied, abstract avant drone record. That said, the band do occasionally fuck shit up, with super intense bursts of howled blacknoise, or shards of grinding metallic buzz, but for every one of those moments, there's another of dark brooding dronescapery, or haunting cinematic drift to balance it out. Cool stuff.
Packaged in an oversized full color sleeve, partially covered by a grey fabric hood, and wrapped up tight with copper wire.
MPEG Stream: "Cochlear Phantasmagoria"
MPEG Stream: "Mechanical Camel Toe (Smell It My DNA)"
MPEG Stream: "Error Swarms"
MPEG Stream: "Malleus Hybrid"

NERVE NET NOISE Meteor Circuit (Intransitive Recordings) cd 14.98
Japanese duo Nerve Net Noise, with previous releases on Meme, Zero Gravity, and Hronir, make the sort of experimental electronic "music" that really separates the men from the boys (or, shall we say, the insane noise geeks from everyone else). But while Tsuyoshi "Tagomago" Nakamaru (who handles the mix and effects) and Hiroshi Kumakiri (who builds NNN's unique synthesizers) are from Japan, this *isn't* howling vacuum cleaner grinding shrieking death noise in the tradition of Merzbow/Hijokaidan/Masonna/etc. Rather, it's closer in style to the clicks n' cuts of Ryoki Ikeda and the "empty" sine wave pulses of Sachiko M.
Some call it "onkyo" music. How about we call it squeaky toy, modem on the fritz, annoying buzzer going off music? Yep, it's still room-clearing stuff, y'know. Indeed, it was hard to review, 'cause my co-workers kept yelling at me to turn it off!! But to NNN's ears, this is beautiful music. From Kumakiri's liner notes:
"At first, Nerve Net Noise enjoyed pure sound. These days, we try to think about music. We aspire to create music that is between played and not-played, between controlled and uncontrolled. We feel that consciously performed music can have too much evidence of human planning. But we also dislike random music that displays no evidence of human planning at all. We try to find a satisfying middle area with our albums."
Well, that's an uncommon idea of "music", now isn't it!? But it explains a lot about how this album sounds. Basically, Kumakiri's array of homemade synths are switched on and allowed to make the noises they want to make, while the NNN duo tweak the volume and so forth, affecting the sounds and rhythms. When they're happy with what they're hearing, they record the results. It's kind of a Metal Machine Music concept. Imagine a nest of robotic birds, mechanically, repetitively chirping at one another, slowly building into patterns and rhythms that will drill themselves into your brain, causing either the euphoria of a trepanation (if you're into it) or simply the pain of such. But it's clear that the former is the intention. These guys aren't trying to make assaultive music for masochists -- they just hear things differently from most folks. For instance, we suspect they'd hear the beauty inherent in a malfunctioning car alarm. If you want to open *yourself* up to this realm of sound-appreciation, then "Meteor Circuit" wouldn't be a bad place to start -- just don't expect your co-workers, housemates, family, etc. to enjoy it! (Is it perverse to like this stuff? 'Cause some of us here have more than one NNN cd in our collections...)
RealAudio clip: "#1"
RealAudio clip: "#4"

NERVE NET NOISE Various Amusements (Hronir / Staalplaat ) cd 14.98
"Various Amusements" by the Japanese glitch / onkyo / minimalist ensemble Nerve Net Noise was billed to us as an electronic meditation on the common activities of teenage girl's afternoon, such as shopping, talking on the phone, putting on make up, taking a nap, cooking, etc. With such an unusually literal intentionality applied to the pure tones, ear-piercing vibrations, and minimalist noises found within, it's impossible not to qualify "Make Up" as a track sounding as if the fictional girl were applying her make up with a belt sander! The only track that had any resemblance between the activity explained in the title and the sonic quality of the music itself was "Cooking," which at a stretch could the digitalization of eggs frying in a pan of hot oil. It's difficult to imagine what Nerve Net Noise (who are two grown Japanese men) really wants to convey through such an absurdist exercise. Chalk it up to being "conceptual."
RealAudio clip: "Afternoon Nap"
RealAudio clip: "Make Up"

NES Castlevania (Auris Apothecary) cassette 5.50
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NES Contra (Auris Apothecary) cassette 5.50
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NES Gun.Smoke (Auris Apothecary) cassette 5.50
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NES Mega Man (Auris Apothecary) cassette 4.98
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NES MEGAPACK (Castlevania / Contra / The Legend Of Zelda / Ninja Gaiden / Gun.Smoke / Mega Man / Tetris) (Auris Apothecary) 7 x cassette 30.00
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save a couple bucks

NES Ninja Gaiden (Auris Apothecary) cassette 5.50
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NES Tetris (Auris Apothecary) cassette 4.98
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NES The Legend Of Zelda (Auris Apothecary) cassette 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

NEST / MHFS s/t (Gest) 3"cd-r 4.98
We have long been huge fans of New Zealand noisemaker Nigel Wright ever since we first heard him on a cd-r way back in 2005. Since then we've tried to carry everything we could get our hands on, but unlike his overproductive countrymen, it hasn't been much. We flipped over the recent Tapir 3"cd-r and only just recently got a handful of this disc.
Nest is a duo, featuring Wright and LA based sound maker Andrew Scott, and for this little 3" the two have teamed up with Mark Sadgrove (of MHFS and Infintesimal) and together these three kick up quite a din, huge distorted washes of sound that shift and pulse and twist and throb like something alive. Burning white hot and blown out, it's a glistening wall of supernova guitars, wreathed in a hazy cloud of dense distortion and buzzy reverb. Like a single shard of My Bloody Valentine psychrock blowout, looped and run through a busted up old distortion pedal. A gloriously crumbling, coruscating blast of face melting psychedelic free noise bliss.
Already out of print. We have about 25 copies, but these will probably go quick...
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"

NEST / TIM COSTER s/t (Gest) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Last year we reviewed a cd-r by the duo Nest, guitarist Andrew Scott and NZ noisemaker Nigel Wright, where they teamed up with fellow kiwi MHFS, but for this latest outing, the duo has teamed up with yet another New Zealander, Tim Coster, and the results are again sublime. But in a much different way than the last collaboration. Where that one was distorted and heavy and buzzy, this new one is much darker and more introspective, guitars and laptops blurred into warm whirring blurs, soft distorted pulses smoother out into soft swells, a dreamy dark tranquil drift, that continues that way for much of the track's 25 minutes, but right around the 17 minute mark, the guitars grow a bit restless, the sound a bit more corrosive, over the continuous low end flow, soars streaks of coruscating high end, shards of feedback, eventually shedding the low end completely, leaving the sharper guitar to riff weightlessly and slowly transform into a fuzzed out chunk of slow swirling murk, that unfurls until the track's end. Good stuff. Fans of the usual abstract free drone stuff will dig this heavily!
MPEG Stream: "Untitled"

NET SHAKER Church On Time (self-released) cd-r 9.98
Another mysterious disc that just showed up in the mail one day, and totally knocked our socks off. So we ordered a bunch cuz we wanted to share them with all of you, but then we realized we had to describe it, and damn if this isn't a tough one to figure out.
Dark and somber, rhythmic and minimal, a muddy, murky, sort of krautdrone drift. The rhythms are pulses, that drift in and out, the guitars moan and keen, electronics warble and rumble, lots of twisted bits of low end, changing speed and tone, super abstract and drifty and otherworldly, the band occasionally coalesce into a sort-of-groove, but even then, it's a sort of convoluted lumber, vocals, wrapped in reverb and echo, draped over the stuttering anti-funk, the melody carried by deep slow shifting swells, all around fragments of sounds tangle and untangle, their overtones creating strange minimal melodies.
When the vocals do come in, it almost sounds like some sort of avant coldwave, imagine a cold wave Starfuckers maybe, a little bit cold and clinical and machinelike, but Net Shaker are less concerned with song, and groove, and being new wave or cold wave or whatever. They definitely exist in their own fucked up and fractured world.
The sound may be hard to pin down, but it's definitely mesmerizing, hypnotic, cyclical, a woozy, warped, murky assemblage of cold Teutonic pop, layered drones, motorik krautrock, spaced out post industrial ambience, not to mention some fractured druggy sonic collage. Noise rock, post punk, avant pop, dirge wave, cold core, krautwave, not sure what to call it, or if it even needs a name, what we do know is this is one of the most original sounding records we've heard in ages, and we find ourselves listening to this cd-r all the time. Which pretty much says it all...
MPEG Stream: "Descenda"
MPEG Stream: "Silhouetta"
MPEG Stream: "Church On"
MPEG Stream: "Iss"
MPEG Stream: "Ticlake"

NETHER The Wholeness of Nothingness (NOTHingness REcords) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Got just TWO copies of this, found tucked away in the closet here, originally released in 2003, looooong out of print, the label too is now defunct, this is some seriously epic, black hole, bottomless low end deepdarkdronemusic. Bleak and hushed, ambient minimal shimmer, cold and barren, cinematic and utterly ominous, shot through with streaks of crumbling distortion, the whole thing so gorgeously haunting and harrowing. Definitely for fans of Thomas Koner, and other masters of the grim black drone.
Packaged in an oversized dvd case, full color printed cover, and as mentioned above, out of print, last two copies EVER.
MPEG Stream: "The Wholeness of Nothingness"

NETHER DAWN, THE Outer Dark (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's that time again. That mysterious time, which only occurs a few times each year. Like an equinox or a solstice. When strange shimmering sonic clouds drift lazily across the sea and land gently in our earholes. That's right, it's time for some new sounds from one of our favorite labels in the world, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. This instalmment comes from the mysterious Nether Dawn, which is the work of Mr. Antony Milton, who just so happens to run another one of our favorite labels, PseudoArcana. Milton has spent much of his time lately making big noises, and causing much sonic destruction performing his own brand of free-drone-metal as Mrtyu, but here returns to his drone-drfit roots. Outer Dark is a gorgeously pastoral spacescape, fuzzy and washed out, huge drifts of shimmer and wide expanses of sun baked ambience. Delicate and crystalline, melodies lurk innocently beneath thick swaths of sweet buzz or dash furtively and barely noticed through deep swells of rich rumbling sound. Notes soaked in reverb float lazily through twilit skies, like listening to the most beautiful music with your ears crossed, so everything is just a little bit fuzzy, a little bit smeared, notes become tinly little shooting stars, their tonal colors turned into little musical trails drifting into the ether, while guitars are stretched into soft gauzy sheets, everything warm and wonderfully dreamlike. Beautiful!
MPEG Stream: "GreetĘThe Evening With A Kapai"
MPEG Stream: "Southern Cross"

NETHER DAWN, THE Whiskey Mute-Down (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98
Nether Dawn is the alter ego of Mr. Antony Milton, who really needs no more alter egos, but what the heck, with each alter ego comes another chunk of gorgeous sound, so we're not complaining. This is not really new, it's just been sitting here waiting to get reviewed, and we've finally gotten around to it, and as is often the case, from the second we threw this on, we were wondering why the heck we waited so long.
Whisky Mute-Down begins as a gorgeous crumbling wall of rumbles and drones, of buried melodies and streaks of high end feedback. Noisy, but soft noise, it totally had us wishing it was the only track here and would continue on in the same vein for another hour. But thankfully, the rest of the record has other sonic treasures to offer. A spare guitar drifts above buzz and crackle, of amp buzz and the sound of bad connections and old cords, warm soft whirs spread out in thick waves, sounding a bit like field recordings, far beneath the call of some alien creature rings out, a clattery clanging guitarscape rings out over an almost techno pulse, the beat and the pulsing guitar swaying woozily back and forth, while a second guitar unfurls delicate little high end melodies, a long slow burning distant grinding guitar shimmers beneath glimmering high end, and above bellowing low end, the various layers blurring together like oil and water, offering up various colors and tones, and finally, another minimal dronescape, a doomy riff, wreathed in crackle and stripped to the bone, occasionally rearing up to chug and crunch, but otherwise laying prone, and the buzz and hiss pile up, the whole thing a smoldering sea of distorted drones, decaying before our ears. Worth it for the first track alone, but even more worth it for the rest...
MPEG Stream: "Evensong Pt. One"
MPEG Stream: "Routes Through Grey Lands"

NETHER DAWN, THE / 1/3 OCTAVE BAND Live At Sound & Fury (Sound & Fury) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK!! FINAL COPIES!!
Another killer (and super limited, argh) release from Sound & Fury, a killer record store / label in Australia, who recently decided to close down the shop, but will continue to book tours, have shows and release records, lucky for us! This disc is a live to minidisc recording from a massive New Zealand freenoise show featuring a who's who of AQ faves and kick ass NZ underground legends: Birchville Cat Motel, 6Majik9, James Kirk from Sandoz Lab Technicians, and of course the Nether Dawn and 1/3 Octave band.
The Nether Dawn are Antony Milton (PseudoArcana, Mrtyu, etc.) and AQ pal Jon Dale, who teamed up for this 15+ minute set of soaring drone and dense thick hum and shimmer. Big low pulses of sound tangled up with sparkling high end, glistening melodies and mumbled heavily affected vocals. A blast of cosmic space out along the same lines as Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof! and the like but with a softer, more dreamlike focus. Nice.
1/3 Octave Band follow up with their own lengthy jam, a near 17 minute slab of chiming metal, clanging percussion, super reverbed pipefight, little swirls of high end feedback, reverberating chimes, and a soft shimmery skree, that about halfway sort of slow down and stretch out, into a languid, sunbaked guitar/electronics free jam drift. A shimmering cascading flow of warm reverberant chords, flickering feedback, and subtle but distinct minor key melancholia. So nice.
Packaged in really nice brown paper, sealed with a black stamped wax seal, each copy hand numbered with a printed inner sleeve and a unique full color, actual photo.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

NETO, JULIEN Le Fumeur de Ciel (Type) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Julien Neto creates velvety and gorgeous drone music that twitches with static-like prickles. Each track of Le Fumeur de Ciel envelopes the listener with an aching heaviness, the kind that originates from deep within your chest. Quite moving and very film score-ish. If you enjoyed Port-Royal's Flares album that we highlighted last list, you might also find Julien Neto's music ticklin' your fancy.
MPEG Stream: "VI (featuring Keith Kenniff)"
MPEG Stream: "Questionable Things"

NETTLE (DJ /RUPTURE) El Resplandor: The Shining In Dubai (Sub Rosa) cd 16.98
Been a while (8 years?) since we've heard from Nettle, or DJ /Rupture for that matter. Nettle is the live band project of DJ /Rupture, the amazing mix master (and self-described "border-crossing bass visionary") responsible for, as we put it, "plunderphonic dancehall turntable mashups" on his various rad mixes (2001's Gold Teeth Thief being THE classic). We know he's got a show on WFMU, still does music and mixes, but we didn't know that his band Nettle was still active, or rather that it had been reactivated. So this new Nettle album is unexpected, but nevertheless awesome.
El Resplandor is a concept album, the quite cool concept pretty much revealed in its subtitle: The Shining In Dubai. Yes, we're in imaginary soundtrack territory here - what if, Stephen King's The Shining were set in an abandoned luxury hotel in the Arabian emirate of Dubai, on the Persian Gulf? Musically, this turns out to be an excellent idea... you keep the spooky psychological horror stuff (family moves into isolated empty hotel, things get weird, dad loses his shit, etc.) and add an ethnic Middle Eastern music element as well.
DJ /Rupture, credited with "electricity, mudd", works with an ensemble of musicians, including guitarist Andy from The Ex. So there's guitar, cello (x2), violin, and guembri (an African 3-stringed skin-covered lute) - along with lovely, wordless female vocals, something that's always perfectly suspense soundtrack worthy!
While in the past, this outfit sounded something like a beat-heavy, uber-distorted Muslimgauze, with hiphop elements even, El Resplandor is more restrained, atmospheric, and eerily evocative, in keeping with the concept. There's much somber shimmer and string pluck, and of course tape manipulation and electronic glitchery, with DJ /Rupture applying his mixing/editing skills to what may have been improvised solos from the various instrumentalists - we're not sure of the compositional method, but it certainly involves some measure of computer processing. The eleven varied tracks all individually contribute to the haunted, alienated, edge-of-the-desert vibe of The Shining in Dubai idea... From the stately exotic dance of "Espina" to the buzz, crackle and chaos of "Simoom (Wasp Wind)", this is a beautiful and dramatic disc. One that makes for a good late night listen, excepting the presence of that "Simoom" track, where thing get a bit... disturbed... that might wake you up from your reveries!
The digipack packaging features scene-setting liner notes by none other than imaginative architectural essayist Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG fame (great blog, check it out if you haven't before) and equally appropriate photographs by Lamya Gargash. Quite recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Radio Flower"
MPEG Stream: "Empty Quarters"
MPEG Stream: "El Resplandor: In The Marsh"

NEUHAUS, MAX Electronics & Percussion - Five Realizations By (Sony Japan) cd 29.00

NEUHAUS, MAX Fontana Mix-Feed 1965/1968 (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
This is one of three separate shards of electronic music history (Ashley, Neuhaus, and Palestine) recently unearthed by Italian audio archaeologists Alga Marghen.
Max Neuhaus' "Fontana Mix-Feed" features six "realizations" of an indeterminate John Cage score, in Neuhaus' hands an electro-acoustic feedback concerto created with timpani, contact microphones, amplifiers, and a mixer. Shrill, high-end death drone, different at each performance. This is common stuff nowadays, but back in 1965 before such genres as "power violence" and "no-input mixing board" music, it must have fascinated and/or severely disturbed the listeners (generally in some posh academic setting -- the booklet is full of great photos and flyers for Neuhaus' performances). Like the Ashley's "Wolfman", this Neuhaus disc is cool when you consider that context: as depicted on the cover, a nerdish young Neuhaus in suit and tie, on stage at Carnegie Hall causing audience discomfort and pain with his knob twisting! Definitely of historic import, at the very least.
MPEG Stream: "Chicago, April 1965"

NEVAI, NONDOR Three Tocattas (self-released) lp 23.00
If we had to pick THEE most warped and bizarre and musically confusional motherfucker out there, we just might have to pick Nondor Nevai, sometime member of To Live And Shave In L.A., but with a pretty sizable catalog of completely fractured and fucked solo recordings, not to mention he plays in a duo with Mick Barr, which is like a free-metal freakout, which really has to be heard to be believed. As does this, the latest outing from NN, self described as "murderous freeblasting klassikill" performed on "an amplified organ so distorted and piercing it is painful", which is pretty much spot on, but there's way more going on. The provenance of discovering this record might put it in perspective. Someone sent us an amazing video, featuring Nondor Nevai, in a snowy clearing in the middle of a dark forest, next to a tree with a severed deer head tied to it, NN in black jeans and suspenders, shirtless, huge shaggy mop of hair, arms covered in blood, wildly headbanging as he lights an upside down plywood cross and chugs alcohol, and most importantly, getting all up in the camera, menacingly brandishing his iPhone! That phone clutched in his outstretched hand 'invisible orange' style. And the music, suitably warped, blasting buzzing weirdness, check it out for yourself:
http://nandornevai.com/movies.html
So when NN got in touch we ordered a bunch of this new record, a super limited (only 250 copies) 180 gram 12", housed in a super thick, gatefold sleeve, with a killer patch affixed to one side, featuring a strange image of some sort of demon hovering over the earth, glowing silver hands holding arrows crossed in front of this hooded visage, bearing the legends "Overshadower Kommand" and "Kolder Than Heaven". Once you finally make it past the eye popping art and the confusional text, you'll discover a sprawling collection of what can only be described as electro classical black prog doom whatthefuck. Buzzy super distorted melodies, twisted processed vokills, heavily panned so they stutter swinging wildly from speaker to speaker, the songs alternately plodding along menacingly, lumbering and lurching or occasionally slipping into ferocious blackened blasts. There's plenty of Goblin-y ambience here and there, but even those bits are wrapped around wild octopoidal drumming, the sound not really black metal, but definitely black, and occasionally metallic, instead it's like some twisted carnivalesque black prog, which to us sounds like a dream/nightmare combination of ELP, Vondur and Orthrelm, which needless to say, means this RULES.
Baffling and brilliant, totally recommended for folks who like their heaviness as fucked up as possible, total outsider black prog bliss.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!!!

NEVILLE, STEFAN Destroy Only After 10 Years (Stabbies Etc.) 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.

NEW LINES, THE Witches' Milk (Moon Glyph) cassette 5.98
It's so sad that we haven't been able to keep a single release by this band of space age retro psych poppers in stock for than a matter of days. Both their debut lp, and their split 7" with Still Corners sold out in a flash, and we imagine a similar fate will befall this most recent cassette, yet another ultra limited record from Boston pop groop The New Lines, whose sound is a gorgeous, warm and fuzzy blur of Stereolab like krautpop, sixties bachelor pad grooves, Beach Boys harmonies, analog synths, whirling organs, and that sort of retro jangle pop we can't seem to get enough of, a la the Zombies, High Llamas, and the Elephant 6 Stable. These guys may be flying under the radar for now, but it can't last long, cuz anyone into THAT sound will be flipping out when they hear The New Lines. Perfect fuzzy, jangly pop, wreathed in reverb and echo, driven by super melodic basslines, underpinned by lush chordal swells, the vocals a deep and dramatic croon, all blurred into a gauzy swirl of dream pop shimmer, hooks and melodies drifting weightless through sun dappled glades of whirring organs and summery strum, everything infused with a weary melancholia that makes these sounds perfect both for summery afternoons, and bundled up wintery wanders. Grab one before they're gone, cuz this is LIMITED TO 150 COPIES, and it's already sold out and out of print. So these are the LAST COPIES EVER...

NEW RISEN THRONE Whispers Of The Approaching Wastefulness (Cyclic Law) cd 15.98
It gets harder and harder to describe drone records and dark ambient music. After hundreds of releases, all of them dark and drone-y and shimmery, mysterious and rumbling and blackened, whirring and abstract and ominous, we've pretty much exhausted our thesaurus. But truth be told, those words still do apply to most of the ambient music we like, and just because we run out of new words, doesn't at all mean that there isn't more dronemusic to be discovered. More black ambient to explore.
And while repeating ourselves is perhaps unavoidable, each record that does offer up something new, will hopefully in turn allow us to discover new ways of describing those sounds. Sounds that while perhaps similar to other music we've heard, are in fact, in their own way, unique, and which sonically transport us to someplace fresh and exciting.
Although fresh and exciting are maybe not words we would use to describe Whispers of The Approaching Wastefulness from Italian black ambient master New Risen Throne. The sounds here are, well, see above, all of those. But in addition to being ambient music, and dronemusic, the sounds here are much more than that. Incredibly textured and cinematic, each song playing out like the soundtrack to some harrowing journey, evoking underground caverns, windswept icefields, barren fields, forests of dead trees, these tracks are rife with all manner of miniature events, NRT approaching sound less as a composer as a recordist, or an anthropologist, making sure to make note of every detail, no matter how minimal or seemingly inconsequential, as all of those little details, when fused into a larger whole, offer up an incredibly rich and deep world of sound, surrounding and swallowing the listener whole. Stepping through your speakers and emerging in some lost world, dimly lit by some black sun, buildings in ruins, cities in flames, fields run fallow, a landscape of dead leaves and burned bodies, the usual long slow rumbles and shimmering blurred buzz are of course present, but those sounds are just the backdrop for what is really going on, much of it seemingly not musical, it's almost like a field recording made by some time traveler lost in the middle ages, the drone and whir and buzz, merely sonic artifacts from the time travel, or the faulty recording equipment, the actual magic being the lives and worlds captured on tape. Eyes closed, one is able to imagine these other places, sound being as powerful if not more powerful than sight or smell or touch. And sure, cursory listeners will find this to be some gorgeous drone music, perhaps a bit on the grim ominous side for some, but adventurous listeners, willing to strap in, eyes closed, and leap into the abyss, will definitely find much more than mere drone music within Whispers of The Approaching Wastefulness.
MPEG Stream: "Signs Of The Approaching Wastefulness (I)"
MPEG Stream: "Blowing Funeral Chant"

NEW THRILL PARADE The Belly Washer (self-released) cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
You know a record is good, when you have no idea what the hell to say about it. Or if "what the fuck" is the first words that come to mind. Such is the case with this tour only cd-r ep from local twisted psych goth weirdos New Thrill Parade. Part of a burgeoning local scene that includes the Ovens (new record on tUMULt soon), Prizehog, Robocop 3 and a bunch of other dubiously named local noisemakers.
But New Thrill Parade definitely stand out, their dizzyingly druggy cabaret workouts, chiming high end guitars, chaotic drumming, long stretches of doomy Nick Cave like crooning, buzzing bass drones and wild operatic freakouts, like a soundtrack to some super fucked up Tim Burton student film. It's impossible to not imagine some strange stone creatures or gross, tentacled beasts singing the deep vocal parts, and some crazed multi headed ring master type balancing on some equally deformed beast belting out the wailing high parts.
Moody and dramatic and cinematic and over the top. Plenty psychedelic and tripped out and druggy, and really fucking catchy, hooks popping up all over the place, while the band unfurls their peculiar brand of funhouse doom and abandoned amusement park goth, horns bleat and moan sparring with the multiple voices, the vibe is definitely eighties, these guys would have KILLED at L.A.'s Scream club, maybe opening for Jane's Addiction or Tex & The Horseheads, but they take that sound and doll it all up with some more modern lo-fi noise rock heaviness, some warped off kilter over the top psych-glam freakouts, and plenty of textures and layers and effects and ambience.
Still need to see these guys live, might be a disappointment since we're envisioning strange beasts and scary monsters, but that's why the cd is perfect, close your eyes, and let these guys drag you screaming into their cracked and crazed world of sound.
TOUR ONLY, LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, we got a dozen or so, might very well be the only copies we get.
MPEG Stream: "Wine Tasting"
MPEG Stream: "Sun Like An Idiot"

NEWLYN, DAVID Brittle (Time Released Sound) 3"cd-r + old shellac record 36.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're really so excited to finally welcome local label Time Released Sound to the aQuarius family. We've yet to list anything, in part because their releases are so limited, but also, because they sell out so quickly. Every single release, every single copy is an incredible work of art. Each one hand crafted, individually assembled, numbered and hand stamped, letter pressed and printed, the packaging thematically linked to the sound within, with photographs, or old records, strange little knick knacks, clock hands, piano keys, they're really incredible, an absolute labor of love, with most of the limited versions taking hours to assemble, and the fact that Time Released Sound is just one man, makes it all the more impressive. So from here on out, we'll get a limited number of each release, they're quite limited already usually around 70-100 copies. And odds are we won't be able to get more than 10-15, but trust us, they're worth it, sonically beautifully, and visually stunning. There will be regular non-art editions of some of the releases, much less limited, and thus less expensive, but if you're after one of the limited editions, you'll want to act fast.
This one is already sold out, we have the LAST 6 copies, limited to just 78 copies (that number will make sense in a sec), this is a 3" cd, affixed to an actual 100 year old, 5.5" mini 78 rpm record, with the cd-r and the record with matching labels, both housed in a black, holed record sleeve, wrapped with a series of printed cards, those cards wrapped in vellum, with a tag affixed to the cards by string, the black sleeve hand printed. All of that housed in a stamped and stickered envelope, each with an actual stamp, it's quite stunning. And the 78 rpm is definitely playable, just be very very careful, those old records are incredibly fragile, and brittle, which is another way the art ties in with the music, Newlyn's record a series of delicate miniatures, lush pianoscapes, wreathed in reverb, occasionally flecked with strange machine like sounds, tinkling melodies, swirling strings, cinematic and hauntingly dreamy, a sort of otherworldly chamber music, hushed and intimate, melancholy and oh so lovely.
Be warned, these do NOT travel well, if you buy one of these, they need to be packaged like crazy! Tons of packing, loads of protection from the postman, or the other items in your order. The label suggested we only sell these locally, but we figured some of our mailorder folks would probably dig, so be warned re: the packaging, and if the shellac record does crack, we can't replace it, although maybe the label would see fit to send you a new 78!
MPEG Stream: "Incidental"
MPEG Stream: "Aesthetic Of This"
MPEG Stream: "Brevity"

NF ORCHEST Coagulant (Breaking Wheel Imprint) 3" cd-r 4.98
A necessary resurfacing of the NF Orchest. This was an East Bay post-noise project spearheaded by Jim Kaiser, Angela Hsu, and A.C. Way many years ago, marked by leaden electronics and acoustic dinscraping. The group found themselves with the rather trite problem of having too much on their plate - Kaiser performing almost constantly with Hsu, Thomas Carnacki, and irr.app.(ext.) amongst others; and Way taking up the cause of Maleficia, Carrion, and probably a few other blackened projects festering in Oakland warehouses. After five years since the last time we heard from the NF Orchest, the three found themselves plugged into the same PA at the Luggage Store in early 2010, where Kaiser bowed his trusted bicycle wheel, Hsu slashed across her violin, and Way produced all sorts of dread-inspiring, subterranean noises. The resulting sounds have the feel of being recorded way deep underground, with a molten snarl of hellish drone bubbling about atonal plucks and scrapes spiralling through phased delay patterns. Yeah, the violin improvisations in abandoned buildings do resonate with the Hsu / Kaiser end of the NF Orchest spectrum, but Way's heavy, black drones put this into an entire other catagory of spectral dark ambience.
MPEG Stream: "Coagulant"

NF ORCHEST Parasite / Cleanse (Breaking Wheel) cd-r 6.98
NF Orchest is a Bay Area electro-acoustic / noisenik / improv trio centered around the activities of Angela Hsu, Andrew Way, and James Kaiser. While Hsu has connections with Mills College, Way and Kaiser have performed extensively around the Bay Area as French Radio with Bruce Anderson; Kaiser also records solo under the moniker Petit Mal. Bowed metals, damaged turntables, tumbled rocks, screeched violin pushed through squawk boxes, and the improbabilities of feedback all come together in the density of raw sound of NF Orchest that reflects the same interest in acoustic sonology as heard in Organum and Tony Conrad. Couple those influences with a eagerness to set off depth-charge rumbles, subterranean detonations, and Skaters-esque lo-fi dissonance, NF Orchest adds a particular noise-junk malice that is all their own. Yup, this is a super limited CD-R release of two live sessions recorded in July, 2005. Only 104 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Parasite"
MPEG Stream: "Cleanse"

NF ORCHEST & JERRY SMITH Oxidant (Petit Mal) 3" dvd-r 6.98
A very nice pairing of East Bay improvising post-industrialists NF Orchest and the abstractionist filmmaker Jerry Smith. NF Orchest's contribution is a documentation of a live action at The Lab in San Francisco, opening for irr. app. (ext.) back in 2010. The turgid atmosphere is set through a bed of gray crumbling noises, sculpted through murky electronics and shortwave radio noises. Out of this carcinogenic haze, NF Orchest scribbles slow gestures of creepy-crawling drones and nails-on-the-chalkboard screeches from viola and prepared bicycle wheel, whilst the bed of noise detonates in a cavernous hall with a Maurizio Bianchi-like pall of ash and slumped depression working throughout the metallic scrapings. Jerry Smith's video was conceived after the performance had transpired, and he manipulated found footage to match the sounds' progression. Ghostly flickerings of light emerge from static landscapes, darkened through various masks and overlays from additional footage, prismatic refractions, and residues from grainy filmstock. A slow-motion series of watery reflections of light on water is transformed into a choreography of near calligraphic marks dancing on a black backdrop. As one of those smoldering crescendos of noise builds towards the end of this 27 minute video, arcing flares of color jump-cut back and forth next to deep blue tidal waves, spiralling mandalas, and geometric elements. Limited to something like 50 copies.

NIBLOCK, PHILL Disseminate (Mode) cd 16.98
Phill Niblock is the god of drones! All these other experimental musicians and "dronologists" are like little kids with kazoos when put up against Niblock and his amazing compositions. It's only in the last few years that his works have found their way onto recordings so his reputation is finally, albeit slowly catching up with other more prolific modern composers. And here's a new disc to illustrate our point. The first track is a gorgeous thrum, performed by a 60 piece orchestra reading a traditional score, with no post-recording manipulations. The sound is very haunting and a bit Gregorian sounding. Absolutely mesmerising. The second track features contrabass flute, contrabass saxophone, contrabass tuba all pre-recorded, with the samples later re-assembled with ProTools. The sounds weren't altered but the assembly of the different pieces changed the sound. Consequently, this piece is sonically less organic and more electronic / clinical sounding, even though the source sounds are traditional instruments. The final piece is another traditionally composed and performed piece for viola, cello, bass clarinet, soprano sax, flute and trombone and is an unwavering multi-tonal thrum, rich and layered, slowly shifting as the microtones try to settle into position, sounding quite a bit at times like modern dronesters Sunroof! and Vibracathedral Orchestra.
MPEG Stream: "Kontradictionaries"

NIBLOCK, PHILL Four Full Flutes (Experimental Intermedia) cd 15.98
One of flute-drone master Niblock's best, in fan Andee's opinion.

NIBLOCK, PHILL G2, 44+ / X2 (Moikai) cd 14.98
Seems like Jim O'Rourke keeps sticking his grubby little paws where they're not needed. Tortoise? Stereolab? Mirror? Sonic Youth? Phill Niblock?!?!?!? Good thing he doesn't think Aquarius is cool enough otherwise that bunny-suited dork would be ringing you up at the cash register!! Maybe that's a little mean, but it does seem, where hipness goes, O'Rourke will follow. And in this case, at least, we can't really complain since it means we are treated to one more amazing Phill Niblock record. Niblock who has been active for 20+ years, but had never recorded due to his distaste for the process and the resulting less-than-adequate and timeless document, has recently seen more and more of his work seeing the light of day thanks to better recording and a medium (cds) with more room for longer duration pieces. Niblock also runs the XL label that has been focusing on twentieth century composers specialising in extended drones. On G2, 44+/X2, Niblock has composed an extended piece for multi-tracked guitar. The first version features guitar samples from Rafael Toral, Robert Poss, Susan Stenger and David First. The second version features the same 24 track mix as the first version, but with Kevin Drumm, Lee Ranaldo, Robert Poss, Alan Licht and Thurston Moore adding 2 live parts each. The results are stunning. Version one warm and ALIVE, a swelling, throbbing, beating wall of thick guitars, feedback and chords, all layered into one massive otherworldy drone. The second version is quite similar, but even more dense, with the extra guitars adding more low end rumble and a dizzying array of ultra-subtle harmonics. When the record ends, it's like a vacuum in your skull. It almost physically hurts when the music stops, as if you were floating on a rich, thick bed of sound and suddenly it was yanked out from under you and you find yourself laying on the cold hard ground. Nothing to do but push play again, sit back and let the guitars lift you toward the sky. SO GOOD!!
RealAudio clip: "Guitar Too, For Four - Toral Version"

NIBLOCK, PHILL Music By (Experimental Intermedia) cd 14.98

NIBLOCK, PHILL Touch Food (Touch) 2cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We were joking a couple days ago about Phill Niblock, or it could of been Tony Conrad (Or Angus Maclise or any of those folks) about how great it must be having over the course of your entire 30 or 40 year career to have played only 4 or 5 notes. Obviously it's not as simple as that. Niblock is one of the few modern composers that can hold your attention for an hour or more with the judicious use of a single note. Like Reich and Riley, Niblock harnesses the natural properties of sound letting the sound do much of the work, shifting slowly, beating intermittantly, always shimmering and occasionally throbbing as notes nestle close to each other, sometimes sliding into place perfectly, other times finding a strange resistance and audibly working to fit in, resulting in all these subtle shifts. This is glacial and static, warm and thick and totally mesmerising. Touch Food also seems, to me at least, to be Niblock's most melodically complex set of pieces. The melodies here manage to be fairly prominent, even though they are stretched to their limit and obfuscated by the thick wash of sound. This is heady, heavy stuff. Heavy enough in fact that all you dirge-ists (tm) who are into Earth and SUNNO))) and stuff like that may find that Niblock is your gateway drug, opening up the door to Maclise, Flynt, Cale and beyond. And of course, fans of modern drone, Sunroof!, Birchville Cat Motel, Skullflower, Vibracathedral Orchestra should definitely pick this up! His best record since Four Full Flutes!
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Potato"