FONTAINE, BRIGITTE / ARESKI L'Incendie (Spalax) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

FONTAINE, BRIGITTE / ARESKI Vous Et Nous (Saravah) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
An awesome, quirky slice of French hippy avant-pop with lots of ethno-electronic action. Allan's favorite of Fontaine's ouvre.

FONTAINE, BRIGITTE WITH ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO Comme ˆ la Radio (Saravah) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
I somehow missed out on the first round of this reissue a little bit ago, but luckily for all of us, it's popped up again! This is an amazing collaboration between two totally incredible musical explorers, french chanteuse Brigitte Fontaine (with percussionist partner Areski) and avant-jazz greats Art Ensemble of Chicago, recorded during the Art Ensemble's stay in Paris in 1969. Though coming from very different backgrounds, each artist's idiosyncratic approach, commitment to experimentation, disregard for genre boundaries, and keen sense for improvisation and working collaboratively yields an album that pushes each performer to new heights. The blend of Fontaine's vocals, Areski's understated percussion, and the Art Ensemble's horns is really seamless, evoking the mysterious, intriguing sounds of lounge jazz in a dada cafe, or, well, an intellectual french chanteuse melding avant-folk with free jazz, which is exactly what it is. Brigitte Fontaine is becoming more and more cemented as one of my absolute favorite artists ever whith each reissue I get my hands on. So great, so recommended!
RealAudio clip: "Comme ç La Radio"

FONTANELLE F (Kranky) cd 10.98
We do declare this "Tortoiselab". Second album from these ex-Jessamine boys. Faux-krautrock groove/ambience.
RealAudio clip: "Charm and Strange"

FONTANELLE s/t (Kranky) cd 14.98
Fontanelle is the band comprised of ex-Jessamine folks attempting to evoke the wide open spaciousness of 1970s electric Miles Davis, such as "In a Silent Way" or "Get Up With It". But, no matter how much they may love jazz, face it, this is merely instrumental post rock with mighty pretensions. A disappointment.

FONTANELLE s/t (Kranky) lp 10.98
Fontanelle is the band comprised of ex-Jessamine folks attempting to evoke the wide open spaciousness of 1970s electric Miles Davis, such as "In a Silent Way" or "Get Up With It". But, no matter how much they may love jazz, face it, this is merely instrumental post rock with mighty pretensions. A disappointment.

FOO FIGHTERS In Your Honor (Sony) 2cd 17.98
As we all know since the last Foo Fighters' album Dave Grohl has kept himself knee-deep in high profile projects -- drumming for Queens Of The Stone Age, Tenacious D, and Killing Joke as well as his own 'metal' collaborative monstrosity Probot. He's certainly contributed much to the other bands he's played with and they in turn have left their influential marks on him. Unlike the likes of Keith Moon or Bill Ward, few drummers these days have honed their own distinct personal sound. Grohl is an exception. His drumming and songwriting both have an unmistakable Grohl-ness. This is apparent right from the lead-off track of In Your Honor. That song (which is also the title track) sure sounds like he nicked a few useful cues from the awesome force that is Killing Joke and encorporated them into the Foo Fighters realm. It introduces a much more unforgiving pummel to their already thoroughly punchy sound. In Your Honor has a loud/heavy disc and a quieter/gentler one -- embodying the two sides of Grohl. Where both sides of Grohl stumble a bit this time out however is in the lyric department. He's pulled out some serious cliche rhymes. But for fans who want some big catchy glossy rock (and maybe some more moody subdued mellow glossy rock to go along with it) this will probably hit the spot!

FOO FIGHTERS One By One (RCA) 2cd 16.98
Sounds like Mr. Grohl's been hangin' out with Queens Of The Stone Age... oh, he has. Seriously though, if you dug the most recent QOTSA album "Song For The Deaf" (which we did), this newest Foo Fighters record will probably also tickle your fancy. While not as 'weird' as the Queens, the Foo Fighters here mine similar territory, playing melodic and poppy hard rock, even flirting with full on metal (but never quite going all the way). This is definitely their heaviest, "grungiest" (!) album yet, again quite like QOTSA -- though the Foos' own trademark heartbreaking pop smarts shine through as well. We've loved Grohl & Company's previous albums too, and if there's a band you're gonna have to hear on the radio and in the mall and on the plane, might as well be an ass kicking rock and roll band like the Foo Fighters and not Celine Dion or O-Town! Recommended. (The copies we've got right now come with a limited bonus DVD disc with a video & live footage, dunno how long these will last though).
RealAudio clip: "All My Life"
RealAudio clip: "Have It All"

FOO FIGHTERS Skin And Bones (RCA) cd 13.98
We love the Foo Fighters... but this acoustic record blows.

FOOD Last Supper (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98
4th album from Norweigan avant-fusioneers, 2nd for Rune G.

FOOD Molecular Gastronomy (Rune Grammofon) cd 17.98
We liked the other Food discs, but this one's just a bit to wanky fusiony whatever for us, sorry.

FOOD s/t (MolSook) lp 11.98
Another bad ass chunk of pounding post punk math rock heaviness from Virginia. We raved about Tigershark a while back, some seriously chugging riffery, then The Catalyst more recently, who knocked us on our asses with their weird post hardcore stoner grunge screamo (we still have a few of those left, check elsewhere on the aQ site), not sure if Food are related, but they might as well be, they're heavy as fuck, and offer up a similarly supercharged post punk, but while The Catalyst and Tigershark both channeled AmRep (The Catalyst mixing in plenty of Sub Pop), Food take that sound even farther, with their super thick distorted fuzzed out guitars, pounding caveman drums and thick ropy bass, they weave a pretty thick, almost dirgey at times, post punky metallic garage rock stomp, but it's the vocals that seal the deal, a wild feral howl, falling right between Rick Froberg of Drive Like Jehu / Hot Snakes and Mudhoney's Mark Arm, plenty of vitriol and swagger, and a paint peeling yowl that perfectly compliments Food's chug and churn.
Dense loping grooves give way to stripped down tribal workouts, give way to complex mathy jams, which give way to seriously murky, dirge-y, almost Brainbombs-ish sludge, slathered with plenty of squealing Eyehategod style feedback, and all locked into pounding metallic repetition. Some seriously killer garage-y metallic post punk for sure.
Incredible packaging, eye popping cover art, all recycled materials, heavy printed insert, and pressed on INSANELY thick vinyl. And probably pretty limited too.

FOOD Veggie (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Norway's Rune Grammofon label has become one of those imprints whose releases we ALWAYS have to pay attention to -- and not just 'cause of the lovely packaging courtesy artist/designer Kim Hiorthoy in which they are invariably resplendent, but because they are often quite excellent. As is this one, Food's "Veggie" (housed in, of course, a handsome Hiorthoy digipack). Apparently it's the third album from this experimental jazz group. The other two, unheard by us, were live recordings, but with "Veggie" Food move into the studio, and not just any: the "Audio Virus Lab" of Norwegian sound artist Deathprod. In the context of Helge "Deathprod" Sten's electronics-infused production, this becomes something rather other than normal "jazz". It's experimental indeed. Led by British saxophonist Iain Ballamy, the Food quartet also features Supersilent's Arve Henriksen on trumpet, Mats Eilertsen on acoustic and electric basses, and Thomas Stronen on drums (and most of 'em are also credited with "sampler", so it's not just Deathprod doing the electronicky stuff).
If you count Mr. Deathprod, who is also a Supersilent member (and who actually gets a whole track here, "Nofood", all to himself), this band is 2/5ths Supersilent, and boy, do we love Supersilent -- they're our favorite Norwegian "death-jazz" improv n' electronics group. So already we were anticipating good things from "Veggie", and you don't have to listen for very long to encounter echoes of Arve Henriksen's breathy solo album "Sakuteiki", the glacial drones of Supersilent's "5", and the electronic chaos of Supersilent's "1-3" as well. Bubbling underneath with electro-acoustic beats and drones, this is spacey, lyrical, melodic, 21st century jazz, establishing a range of moods from a mellow Miles Davis trumpet at sunset looking over a North Sea fjord kind of thing to more abrasive, paranoid glitching and shrieking experience... Really nice. Good, and good for you.
RealAudio clip: "Tofu"
RealAudio clip: "Veg"
RealAudio clip: "Chickpea"

FOOD , DJ Kaleidoscope (Ninja Tune) cd 16.98
DJ Food's trip hop ironies appear not so tongue in cheek now, as if the jokes once required within the hip hop tricknological breaks to be a Ninja Tune record aren't a part of the matured DJ Food. Filmic scores of sweeping strings, stand-up basslines, and so-downtempo-you-gotta-be-stoned breaks. In spite of the seductive spoken poetry of Ken Nordine, there's an atmosphere of sadness that pervades the moody theatricality of this album. Nice.

FOOD BRAIN Social Gathering (Universal Japan) cd 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another reissue of heavy psychedelic weirdness from early '70s Japan, in the same series as the Flied Egg and Flower Travellin' Band discs we've listed lately. Food Brain features the Hammond organ excess of Hiro Yanagida and the acid fried guitar of Shinki Chen (names you might know from other outfits like Speed, Glue and Shinki, Love Live Life +1, April Fool, and solo too). As well, Hiro Tsunoda (the Jacks, Strawberry Path, Flied Egg) is on drums, and Luis Kabe (Golden Cups) on bass. Together on this, their only album (1970), they cook up a progressive, confusionally avant-garde feast of bluesy riffage, freeform improv, drug-addled humor, and hippie rawk heaviosity. There's plenty of raw jamming, the sort of stuff these guys would probably have loved to bring to the ballrooms of San Francisco... but amidst and among, there's lots of weirder moments too, more at home in the krautrock realm perhaps. For instance, the brief track five, "The Conflict Of The Hippo And The Pig", what sounds like a guy maniacally playing a straw. Or the entirety of the epic quarter-hour 8th track, "The Hole In A Sausage", which features a horn-grunting free jazz freakout in collision with a near-metallic distorted bass riff on a famous classical symphonic theme.
MPEG Stream: "That Will Do"
MPEG Stream: "Liver Juice Vending Machine"
MPEG Stream: "The Hole In A Sausage"

FOOD, DJ A Dub Plate of Food (Ninja Tune) cd 9.98
It's been a longtime since we've heard from DJ Food, and the funkjaztikally tricknological lingusitics of DJ Food have certainly been missed. Working on one track with the seductive baritone spoken word of Ken "Colors" Nordine, DJ Food lays down four tracks of slippery noirish trip hop that would make Barry Adamson proud.

FOOD, DJ A Dub Plate of Food (Ninja Tune) 2x10" 11.98
It's been a longtime since we've heard from DJ Food, and the funkjaztikally tricknological lingusitics of DJ Food have certainly been missed. Working on one track with the seductive baritone spoken word of Ken "Colors" Nordine, DJ Food lays down four tracks of slippery noirish trip hop that would make Barry Adamson proud.

FOOD, DJ A Recipe for Disaster (Ninja Tune) cd 14.98
'U.K. co-conspirators Jonathan Moore and Matt Black record under a variety of names, including Hedfunk, Coldcut, Hex, and their more widely known moniker, DJ Food. A Recipe For Disaster is a collection of tracks--some old, some new--incorporating everything from lazy, ambient hip-hop to smoking R&B/funk to blazing, hyperkinetic jungle. Headz who've peeped the pair's past releases on the Funkjazztical Tricknology compilation and the handful of releases on their own Ninja Tune and Ntone labels will be pleased to know that the relentless experimenters have not rested on the laurels of their early successes (which include everything from the legendary "7 Minutes Of Madness" remix of Eric B. & Rakim's "Paid In Full" to cuts for Lisa Stansfield and Yaz, to full-length club gear such as Coldcut's Philosophy LP) ... Recipe is among Black and Moore's most listenable efforts to date, repaying repeated listening with a good mix of body and mind--sex music for the booksmart.' --Sean Cooper

FOOD, DJ Quadraplex EP (Ninja Tune ) cd ep 8.98
Yay! With all the drama of DJ Shadow's seminal early single "What Does Your Soul Look Like", DJ Food's new EP on the always-dependable Ninjatune label is a 16-minute masterpiece of tension, buildup, and release. But where Shadow uses hip hop as a template with which to venture outwards, DJ Food beautifully manhandles post-rock. (And thank god, seeing how post-rock's been behaving badly lately.) This is the record Tortoise should've made. Filled with sounds of glass -- rims being rubbed, sustained chimes, etc. -- the record begins with four minutes of atmospheric minimalism that sounds like you're in deep silent outer space... and then Mr. Spock radios in (really) with some deep words and you realize you ARE in deep space. With a swoosh of broken glass, the drums kick in, brightly echoing layers of active breakbeats John McEntire probably has wet dreams over. The album concludes serenely with warm glass chimes. It's so lovely, a wonderfully refreshing surprise. Highly recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Hour Glass"
RealAudio clip: "Monocle (Silver Dub)"
RealAudio clip: "Shattered Glass"

FOOT VILLAGE Anti-Magic (Upset The Rhythm) lp 17.98

FOOT VILLAGE Anti-Magic (Upset The Rhythm) lp 17.98

FOOZ s/t (Custom Heavy/Alone) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Eight songs of '70s influenced (everything from krautrock to Budgie) progressive, psychedelic "stoner rock" from this new Spanish band. A bit odd, as they mix a lot of things together: Middle Eastern atmospheres, soft Pink Floydish mellowness, and raging hard rock. It doesn't always work, but this debut shows a lot of potential. Certainly more interesting than your typical Kyuss clone, anyway.

FOR CARNATION Marshmallows (Matador) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Eagerly-awaited new release from this Chicago ex-Slint combo (John Herndon, Brad Wood, Brian McMahon, etc.). 6 dark, tense, quiet tracks of gorgeous foreboding for the depressed.

FOR CARNATION Marshmallows (Matador) 12" 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Eagerly-awaited new release from this Chicago ex-Slint combo (John Herndon, Brad Wood, Brian McMahon, etc.). 6 dark, tense, quiet tracks of gorgeous foreboding for the depressed.

FOR CARNATION, THE Promised Works (Touch & Go) cd 12.98
Slint may arguably be the most important, influential indie rock band of the last two decades, their album Spiderland, still one of the best selling recordsÊon Touch And Go, is almost directly responsible for about a million math rock bands to come after. And rightfully so. Their sound was delicate and dark, intense and ultra personal, super dramatic and incredibly evocative. Dynamic and simply incredible. From the angular bombast of their debut Tweez, to the epic song cycle that is Spiderland, their swan song, the band had few peers, and those records, still, to this day, are pretty tough to beat.Ê
Weird then, that post Slint ensemble The For Carnation (which also happened to include several folks who would go on to form Tortoise) seemed to sort of slip under the radar, releasing two eps, then calling it a day. But for those who heard them, Fight Songs and Marshmallows, those records were nearly as important as the Slint records that came before. When we first discovered that half of Slint were in a new band, that did sort of sound like Slint, we were thrilled, and when we finally heard Fight Songs, we were blown away, it WAS like Slint, but even darker, and quieter, less dynamic, and more brooding, but just as persona and intense. Now both of those eps have been compiled on a single disc, and sound as good as ever.Ê
Opening with "Grace Beneath The Pines", the band drift, barely moving through a vast expanse of simple muted minor key chords, and hushed vocals, like the quietest part from some unreleased Slint track, stretched out into a whole song, with only one or two dynamic swells, with much more time spent just sort of hovering, and shimmering, lots of silence, and plenty of strange distant low end rumbles and whirs. The melody bittersweet, and so subtly catchy. The next track, "How I Beat The Devil" is about as rocking as they ever got, a brief minute and a half of minor key math rocking, instrumental, a sort of almost surfy riff, over a convoluted rhythm and some wild guitar squalls, before the band settles back down into the lazy loping shuffle that is "Get And Stay Get March", a super hypnotic riff, repeated over and over, simple sing song lyrics, incredibly mesmerizing, a sort of math rock drone, slowcore stretched out into a late night slow motion drone jam.Ê
The second ep, Marshmallows, continues on the same trajectory as Fight Songs, brooding, minimal, sort of sun dappled and sing songy, a dark slow motion post rock crawl, creepy yet pretty, haunting and dreamy. The stand out track on Marshmallows is "I Wear The Gold", a weird almost This Heat style rhythm jam, based around a looped bass riff, and some super intricate drumming, the whole thing smeared into a seemingly endless hypnotic groove. The rest of the record is a dark whispery shuffle, the vocals hushed and tip toeing across, delicate landscapes of thrum and skitter, until the final track "Preparing To Receive You", another sort of krautrockish hypnorock jam, with a super spare mathy drum line, a looped repetitive riff, with super subtle shifts and variations, the sort of song you could imagine stretching out to 15, 20, even 30 minutes, but for those nearly nine minutes, it's absolute minimal mathy slow motion drone rock bliss.Ê
MPEG Stream: "Grace Beneath The Pines"
MPEG Stream: "How I Beat The Devil"
MPEG Stream: "I Wear The Gold"

FOR CARNATION, THE s/t (Touch & Go) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Brian McMahon is becoming the indie-rock equal to Leonard Cohen - cool, measured, suave, and theatrical in his abbreviated deeply whispered delivery. In his first record in 4 years (due in part to spending over two years recording this album in six different studios), McMahan and the For Carnation still pack all the wallop of his former band Slint, but with much more grace and subtley. This was rumored to be the For Carnations 'soul' record, but don't expect Afghan Whigs style indie rock white boy soul. Sure this record has soul, but it's way more like the For Carnation's trip hop record. You can hear Massive Attack and Portishead and Mo Wax in their sound as much, if not more than Slint or any other indie rock references. Though the structures remain firmly rooted in rock, what was probably one of the most anticipated indie *rock* records of late, turns out to be a beautiful, dark and langorous accidental trip hop record. Nice

FOR STARS It Falls Apart (Future Farmer) cd 14.98
For Stars have done it again -- improved on that which came before. Their third album unfolds gradually, both expanding on and refining the already wonderful lush pop melacholia of their last full length We Are All Beautiful People. Their mellowness is sounding at times a little more 'shoegazer' than 'slowcore' this time out. On each of the eight songs, they take a contemplative pace as if that's all they can muster under the weight of their collective heart's burdens, and they don't hesitate to add a dissonant tone here and there effectively building tension and atmosphere. Their soaring, lilting multi-part vocals and textural flourishes are in many ways very post-Radiohead's OK Computer, and Flaming Lips' Soft Bulletin. As well, the seventh song also brought to mind a more elaborate Guided By Voices, but they're by no means simple soundalikes. Their well-crafted achingly lovely songs glow in their own right.
MPEG Stream: "I Should Have Told You"
MPEG Stream: "If It Falls Apart"

FOR STARS We Are All Beautiful People (Future Farmer) cd 13.98
Wow. For Stars have always been a pretty cool band, playing a quietly melancholic brand of sadcore that pleases fans of Low and Nick Drake, etc. But on this third album their sound appears to have matured exponentially, developing into a newer better creature. Their songs now have a hushed majesty to them, with hookier (yet still minor key) melodies, and more dynamics, a lot like the precision Flaming Lips pieces that always have a musically logical reason for their loud-soft progressions (unlike the scores of Mogwai wannabes out there). Frontman Carlos Forrester's occasional warbly falsetto also reminds us of Flaming Lips, and the modestly ramshackle tone of the entire record will appeal to fans of Grandaddy. A really good record.
RealAudio clip: "Wires"
RealAudio clip: "The Astronaut Song"
RealAudio clip: "Only Star"

FOR STARS Windows For Stars (Future Farmer) cd 10.98
Honestly, the moment I heard the first few strains of the opening track of this album, I was transported back many a year to my childhood. Summer days spent listening to the radio, strains of Carly Simon or Bread. Not a bad thing... no, this album nudges you into bittersweet reminiscence with its slowly creeping, lonely melodies. Local slowcore, for fans of Smog and Palace; recommended.

FORBIDDEN PLANET (OST) (Small Planet / GNP Crescendo) cd 16.98
Released in 1956, Forbidden Planet was MGM's attempt to bring the science fiction genre into the main stream by pouring tons of cash into its production. Nominated for an academy award for special effects and featuring a robot cast member, Forbidden Planet was about as futuristic as one could get in the mid fifties. So it only followed that the score for such a lavish, futuristic science fiction film should be on par with Robby The Robot and the rest of the show. Louis and Bebe Barron were just a couple of upstarts in the burgeoning field of electronic music. As it happens, the score for Forbidden Planet is often touted as the very first to use no orchestral instruments. Indeed nothing but electronically synthesized sounds and tape manipulation are used, period. Knowing that the original working title for the film was actually "Fatal Planet" makes sense when one listens to the soundtrack sans film. The series of dark bellows, squeals, bleeps and farts that are the textural aural landscape of Forbidden Planet are as creepy at times as any horror film soundtrack or any release by Barron-contemporary Vladimir Ussachevsky. It was most certainly unlike anything any Hollywood film had ever used for a soundtrack and listening to it today, it remains a truly strange and wonderful anomaly in film music history. Highly recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Main Titles - Overture"
RealAudio clip: "Ancient Krell Music"
RealAudio clip: "Battle With Invisible Monster"

FORBIDDEN PLANET (OST) (Moving Image Entertainment) lp 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally available again on a GORGEOUSLY printed, gate fold LP edition. Released in 1956, Forbidden Planet was MGM's attempt to bring the science fiction genre into the main stream by pouring tons of cash into its production. Nominated for an academy award for special effects and featuring a robot cast member, Forbidden Planet was about as futuristic as one could get in the mid fifties. So it only followed that the score for such a lavish, futuristic science fiction film should be on par with Robby The Robot and the rest of the show. Louis and Bebe Barron were just a couple of upstarts in the burgeoning field of electronic music. As it happens, the score for Forbidden Planet is often touted as the very first to use no orchestral instruments. Indeed nothing but electronically synthesized sounds and tape manipulation are used, period. Knowing that the original working title for the film was actually "Fatal Planet" makes sense when one listens to the soundtrack sans film. The series of dark bellows, squeals, bleeps and farts that are the textural aural landscape of Forbidden Planet are as creepy at times as any horror film soundtrack or any contemporary release by Vladimir Ussachevsky. It was most certainly unlike anything any Hollywood film had ever used for a soundtrack and listening to it today, it remains a truly strange and wonderful anomaly in film music history. Highly recommended.

FORBIDDEN PLANET s/t (self-released) 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.
Bay Area improv dude and Rastascan label owner Gino Robair (drums, "materials") teams up with AQ-fave Bjoern Eichstaedt (keys, voice) and fellow Germans Pit Schmidt (sax, tapes) and Thomas Maos (guitar, "mts modulation" whatever that is) for this live session, recorded April 15th 2000 at Club Voltaire, Tuebingen Germany. If you read our lists closely, you'll know Eichstaedt as a very creative and eclectic musician, responsible for solo electronic recordings, the Bunglized jazz/rock of Bretzel Killing Machine, AND the utter black metal weirdness that is Caacrinolas! Eichstaedt's new Forbidden Planet project incorporates his pal Robair's improv jazz sensibilities into a crazy half-hour-plus stew of everything from mellow noir-jazz to full-on Hendrix-style distorted guitar skree to sizzling electronic scrape-scapes to Patton-esque abstract vocal blurt. Quite a trip. Must have been a great show, although of course this was edited down from the raw recordings. It's a cd-r, numbered and limited to 100, packaged in an ever-popular *sandpaper* cover!
RealAudio clip: "Track 2"

FORBIDDEN ZONE (Hercules Films) dvd 22.00
Available for the first time on DVD, the Elfman brothers legendary 1980 film. Filmed on an incredibly low budget with a cast of family and devoted friends, Forbidden Zone has long been a cult classic. It all started from a D.I.Y. cabaret-esque stage troup -- The Mystic Knights Of The Oingo Boingo -- which Richard and brother Danny along with several friends had been schlepping around Los Angeles in the late 70's. As a final blowout to their ever more complex show, Richard decided to produce a film featuring the Mystic Knights and friends. Shot in black & white, Forbidden Zone is a surreal tale involving the sixth dimension -- run by King Fausto (Herve Villechaise of Fantasy Island) and his Queen Doris (Susan Tyrrell) -- and an unfortunate family of freaks that happen to fall into it one by one. Like an insane amalgam of Busby Berkeley intertwined with The Residents' Vileness Fats and imbued with an almost unhealthy scatalogical sense of humor, Forbidden Zone is a movie unlike any other. Handmade sets, costumes, music and more, the film is a product of its time and perhaps offers more than just a little insight into the workings of the soon to become famous Danny Elfman with his future post-ska new wave Oingo Boingo and hit film scores. Pay close attention when you watch this film to see if you can spot a young Willy Winant (Mr. Bungle, John Zorn, avant garde percussionist extraordinaire) dressed up in drag. The DVD comes packaged with a whole heaping of bonus material, including early footage of The Mystic Knights Of The Oingo Boingo's stage show, an extended discussion by director Richard Elfman with his brother and other key players in the film, an Oingo Boingo video ("Private Life"), deleted scenes, and more.

FORCE s/t (Howling Bull) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Hyper fast, blazing growling death-grind/fast core from members of Hellchild. This record takes the fury of Hellchild, and ups the rpm. Essential.

FORCEFIELD Lord of the Rings Modulator (Bulb) cd 14.98
The second album from Providence Rhode Island art darlings Forcefield (the band who knits sweaters that they sell in art galleries for thousands of dollars, apparently, and who also performed at the Whitney Biennial!) is the second Bulb release we've noticed after the Mind Flayer album bearing a logo saying "Bulb Underworld" and a crude drawing of a twenty-sided die. Allan's D&D senses are tingling. Thus the following conversation in our office...
Allan: Hey this new Forcefield is a pretty cool, textural electronic noise record! It sounds like angry rats, squeaky balloons and exploding synths. Very listenable though. Wasn't their other album a herky jerky arty rock punk kinda thing though?
Andee: Yeah, I think so.
Allan: Well, I like this album.
Andee: Uh, I think the world's seen enough noise records...
Allan: But this one's called Lord Of The Rings Modulator!!
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

FORD & LOPATIN Emergency Room (Mexican Summer) picture disc 21.00
Yes, the Lopatin in this duo is in fact Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never fame - and Joel Ford was his partner in Games. For whatever reason, the duo have dropped the Games moniker, but they are still producing their earnestly reverential homage to '80s trashy electronic pop. This is the second of four singles, not sure what happened to the first one, as we never got that, but no matter as this one has all of the trappings of a Harold Faltermeyer production circa 1984 (you know "Axel F" from Beverly Hills Cop, or the score to Fletch). "Emergency Room" is all cocaine and legwarmers in its mid-tempo electro-funk groove built on sampled slap-basslines, vapid-but-catchy blorping melodies, vocoder vocals (augmented with modern day auto-tuning, mind you), and even an over the top LA rocker guitar solo thrown in for no real reason other than Harold Faltermeyer would have had an LA rocker at his disposal. The two B sides are from The Bug, who strips the song down to a slow motion crawl with lots of dubby atmospheres and little remaining but the vocals, and Gavin Russom, whose remix is a bubbly number that smoothes out many of the '80s references into a tumbling left-field techno number. Pressed as a picture disc with X-rays of spine and hands. Limited to 300 copies.

FORD + LOPATIN Channel Pressure (Mexican Summer) cd 13.98
Channel Pressure is a record that seems wholly devoid of irony, even though everything indicates that it should be dripping with it. Daniel Lopatin is the mastermind behind the polygon electronica of Oneohtrix Point Never, and together with Joel Ford, he recorded one hell of an electro-pop single as Games that could have been lifted from any club circa 1986. That sense of time travel is still being dialed in for Channel Pressure (authored by Ford + Lopatin, who have dropped the Games moniker for something more in keeping with Stock, Aiken, and Waterman, although their sound is firmly American). This album is completely unashamed of its mid-'80s electro-pop aesthetic, with many of the boyband falsetto vocals popping out of the slick, urban-pop productions like ghost-jams of forgotten MTV wannabes of that time period. The spry electronic rhythms and bent-synth melodies become all the more ridiculous with the hair-metal guitar solos that spring to life for no good reason other than because they could. Ford + Lopatin even managed to convince Mexican Summer to spring for them to record in Jan Hammer's studio. Yeah, the same Jan Hammer who scored the Miami Vice theme song! Where Oneohtrix Point Never expresses some dripping emotions through the mainframe of sci-fi computing, Channel Pressure has its head buried in a pile of cocaine, imagining itself as a sci-fi lovestory with robots and super-computer, but comes across more as a pretty straight homage to the production styles of Nile Rodgers and Harold Faltermeyer. A new New Jack Swing awaits.
MPEG Stream: "Emergency Room"
MPEG Stream: "Joey Rogers"
MPEG Stream: "Break Inside"

FORD + LOPATIN Channel Pressure (Mexican Summer) lp 16.98
Channel Pressure is a record that seems wholly devoid of irony, even though everything indicates that it should be dripping with it. Daniel Lopatin is the mastermind behind the polygon electronica of Oneohtrix Point Never, and together with Joel Ford, he recorded one hell of an electro-pop single as Games that could have been lifted from any club circa 1986. That sense of time travel is still being dialed in for Channel Pressure (authored by Ford + Lopatin, who have dropped the Games moniker for something more in keeping with Stock, Aiken, and Waterman, although their sound is firmly American). This album is completely unashamed of its mid-'80s electro-pop aesthetic, with many of the boyband falsetto vocals popping out of the slick, urban-pop productions like ghost-jams of forgotten MTV wannabes of that time period. The spry electronic rhythms and bent-synth melodies become all the more ridiculous with the hair-metal guitar solos that spring to life for no good reason other than because they could. Ford + Lopatin even managed to convince Mexican Summer to spring for them to record in Jan Hammer's studio. Yeah, the same Jan Hammer who scored the Miami Vice theme song! Where Oneohtrix Point Never expresses some dripping emotions through the mainframe of sci-fi computing, Channel Pressure has its head buried in a pile of cocaine, imagining itself as a sci-fi lovestory with robots and super-computer, but comes across more as a pretty straight homage to the production styles of Nile Rodgers and Harold Faltermeyer. A new New Jack Swing awaits.
MPEG Stream: "Emergency Room"
MPEG Stream: "Joey Rogers"
MPEG Stream: "Break Inside"

FORDE, MARIA A Cautionary Calendar About Junk Food zine calendar 4.00
We've sad it before and we'll say it again. We love Maria Forde. She can draw anything. Famous directors, zombies, vegetables, and eventually, she's gonna draw all of us! You'll be able to see all the various AQ folks rendered in Maria's inimitable style.
But until then, you can count down the days with this bad ass Maria Forde calendar. A Cautionary Calendar About Junk Food you can hang on your wall, small enough to keep in your bag or even your pocket, and packed with awesome drawings. And it's not just the drawings, it's the subject matter. Just like her various series of directors, actors, her choices are unlikely but so so perfect.
So here we have a year's worth of images, legends and misfires of the junk food world: the inventor of Dubble Bubble (originally called Blibber Blubber!), Hostess cupcakes, Frosted Flakes, Lik-M-Aid, the man who invented the process of freezing McDonalds French fries, and helped create Cheez Wiz, the inventor of sliced bread, Baby Ruth bars, one of the possible inventors of the TV dinner, the inventor of Mountain Dew, Gene Hackman as Willy Wonka and more!!!
We're having a snack attack already!

FORDE, MARIA Read This To Get Your Enjoys magazine 4.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
You may remember us pimping our pal Maria Forde's artshow a list or two back, featuring sketches of veggies and things. And if you live in the neighborhood, you for sure have seen her bad ass drawings and paintings of various classic movie stars and starlets, as well as some wicked zombie drawings, which have found their way onto shirts and buttons. We're even discussing having here do a series of AQ employees and AQ favorite records!! She also even painted a portrait of our very own Andee which you can see on the very out of date staff page on the AQ website.
We've had random bits of here art here in the store over the years, she's still quite partial to the zine, and heres are always amazing, super detailed, ultra personal, intimate and funny, fun to read and packed with awesome drawings and weird shapes and ideas.
Read This To Get Your Enjoys is the latest from Forde and her merry band of like minded collaborators, various writers and artists. Packed with stories, and drawings, comics, photos, with gorgeous colored pencil full color front and back, inside and out covers, the front even has a little pocket with a stick of gum for you to chew on while you curl up and dig in. The back cover has a little pocket too, that one has a little tiny mini zine in there, to check out once you've worked your way through. We'd tell you more, but you should just buy it, and discover all the special hidden things inside for yourself. Limited to only 50 copies, each signed and hand numbered, and a total STEAL at only four bucks...

FORDE, MARIA Read This To Get Your Enjoys 2 (self-released) zine + cd-r 8.98
One of our favorite local artists returns with volume two of her Read This To Get Your Enjoys zine. The first one was a huge hit around here (we still have a few left, just ask), killer art, funny stories, even a piece of gum! Local folks might know Maria Forde from her drawings of movie stars and directors that have graced walls, shirts and buttons, across the street at video shop Lost Weekend, her art an impossible blend of playful childlike wonder, super technical focus, and poignant whimsy for sure.
This time around, for number two, everything is a little bit bigger and better. Full color covers, inside and out, lots of contributors, an extra full color mini-zine insert, and even a cd-r mix tape.
And just like mixtapes, we never get tired of zines, super personal and intimate, cleverly laid out, creatively designed, sometimes super sleek and smooth, other times more scribbly and lo-fi, found letters, photos, doodles, elaborate illustrations, it's easy to tell from looking at Read This... that Maria and her crew love the form and are helping it to thrive and flourish. We could describe each piece and part, but it's sort of pointless, if you're into zines, and cool art, and like us don't get nearly enough small press bliss, pick this up. Funny, weird, sad, melancholy, goofy, playful, earnest, heartfelt, beautifully drawn, and lovingly assembled. Plus a bad ass disc, in a little pocket inside the back cover, filled with killer hip hop from one of the zine's contributors, part of his answer to the question posed to him as to why he makes hip hop. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a song must be worth a million.
Just like the first issue, WAY recommended.

FORDELL RESEARCH UNIT Repetition (Basses Frequences) cd-r 10.98

FOREIGN CINEMA Non-Synchronous Sound (Parallax Sounds) cd ep 5.98
You can probably imagine that we get lots of bands sending and dropping off their cd's for us to check out. As painstaking and time consuming as it can be, we really do try to listen to every single thing that ends up in our hands, even though it sometimes takes us forever to do so. But damn we've been reminded why all that listening is worth while, as buried deep in a stack of cd's to check out from months ago laid this absolute shoegaze gem from a local San Francisco duo who deserve to get some major attention with this stunning ep.
Reminding us in equal parts of Slowdive and The Cure circa Faith, these are songs to get lost to, bathing the listener in a perfect seductive daze. We've got to say we've become big fans of ep's as of late, a format that requires the musician make the most of every single moment, as the four songs/twenty minutes of music on Non-Synchronous Sound are all absolutely hypnotic and satisfying. Reminding us of the heyday of Sara records or a more shoegazey Pains of Being Pure At Heart joining forces with a less rock minded and more blissed out Crystal Stilts.
Slumberland, Matador, 4AD, Captured Tracks, if we were your A&R reps we would be begging you to sign this duo, as this is a band who deserves to get their music out to a way wider audience. Totally stunning!
MPEG Stream: "Ice Machine"
MPEG Stream: "Arbitrary Map Mode"
MPEG Stream: "Lovers And Killers"

FOREIGN CINEMA Palace Of Fine Junk / Velvet Sky (Vibraphone) 7" 6.00
Foreign Cinema's debut ep was a huge hit around here, about a year ago when we finally realized it had been sitting in a box of cds to check out for way to long, we put it on and were totally blown away. In fact it's become one of those cds that pretty much gets played in the store every week at some point. It's just so perfect in its shoegaze, daydream perfection. They seem to be taking their time crafting a proper first full length (The Soft Moon were equally wise in releasing a handful of 7"s before their first album). These two new songs show there's plenty of wonderful, dark and breezy shoegaze pop to come from this awesome duo in the near future (we hope). We gotta give them extra props for naming the A side "Palace Of Fine Junk" after our favorite random junk/thrift store in the Tenderloin. In fact listening to Foreign Cinema is a lot like taking a dazed and hazy late afternoon walk through this city. "Velvet Sky" may be on the B side, but damn if it's not one of the most seductive and sensual slow burners of the year!
Beautifully packaged, hand stamped, and limited. So grab one while you can.

FOREIGN LEGION Kidnapper Van (Insiduous Urban Records) cd 14.98
Subtitled: "beats to rock while bike-stealin'." ...Hey don't steal my bike!

FOREIGN TELEGRAM Skin Jobs (Concrete Music) cd 10.98

MPEG Stream: "Proto"
MPEG Stream: "Joy Powder"

FORENSICS Hogback Mountain Sessions Vol.1 (Magic Bullet) cd 8.98

FORENSICS Things To Do When You Should Be Dead Anyway (Magic Bullet) cd 14.98
This record is so Aquarius it almost feels like they made it just for us. And you of course! Taking all sorts of crazy stuff that we love and stuffing it all into a single band. Ostensibly, Forensics are a metal band, a really heavy, metal band. But their peculiar brand of metal includes, extended hypnotic bass-heavy post rock work outs, dreamy dark ambience, full on fuzzed out stoner rawk (think Boris' Heavy Rocks), crushing minimal sludge and mathy spazz rock. But somehow it all fits together perfectly. Like Neurosis, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Codeine, Bastro, Dazzling Killmen and Old Man Gloom all got together to jam, and this is what came out. Super dramatic and epic, lengthy super repetetive jams that give way to squalls of metallic fury that then give away to creeping minor key slowcore. Chaotic bursts of grinding spastic metal bookended by Slint-ish hypnorock. Huge blackened slabs of glacial riffage that decay into pusling minimal krautrock. A massive, crushingly heavy, emotionally compelling cinematic soundscape. I swear if I was a film maker I would be getting bands like this to score my films for sure. Features members of Burning Airlines, Corn On Macabre, Pg.99, Trial By Fire, and Waiffle.
MPEG Stream: "Sidewinder Passage"
MPEG Stream: "Did You See What God Just Did To Us, Man?"
MPEG Stream: "Circling Bloody Animal Tracks"

FORENSICS Things To Do When You Should Be Dead Anyway (Magic Bullet) lp 9.98
Now available on vinyl. Packaged in a super deluxe woodcut looking chip board sleeve!
This record is so Aquarius it almost feels like they made it just for us. And you of course! Taking all sorts of crazy stuff that we love and stuffing it all into a single band. Ostensibly, Forensics are a metal band, a really heavy, metal band. But their peculiar brand of metal includes, extended hypnotic bass-heavy post rock work outs, dreamy dark ambience, full on fuzzed out stoner rawk (think Boris' Heavy Rocks), crushing minimal sludge and mathy spazz rock. But somehow it all fits together perfectly. Like Neurosis, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Codeine, Bastro, Dazzling Killmen and Old Man Gloom all got together to jam, and this is what came out. Super dramatic and epic, lengthy super repetitive jams that give way to squalls of metallic fury that then give away to creeping minor key slowcore. Chaotic bursts of grinding spastic metal bookended by Slint-ish hypnorock. Huge blackened slabs of glacial riffage that decay into pulsing minimal krautrock. A massive, crushingly heavy, emotionally compelling cinematic soundscape. I swear if I was a film maker I would be getting bands like this to score my films for sure. Features members of Burning Airlines, Corn On Macabre, Pg.99, Trial By Fire, and Waiffle.
MPEG Stream: "Sidewinder Passage"
MPEG Stream: "Did You See What God Just Did To Us, Man?"
MPEG Stream: "Circling Bloody Animal Tracks"

FORESHADOW No. 3 magazine + 2cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Attention doomsters! Doom metal alert! From Poland, one of the doomiest of all doom magazines we've ever seen. Interviews with and articles about Esoteric, Mournful Congregation, Spiritus Mortis, Swallow The Sun, Pantheist, My Shameful, Runemagick, Nadja, Until Death Overtakes Me and loads more! The best thing about this is that there's lots of cd-r and demo reviews of bands even we have never heard of, but now have to try and track down. Thankfully this 'zine also comes with a double cd-r (packaged in a DVD style case) with tracks from Moss, Skepticism, Swallow The Sun, Mournful Congregation, Mirror Of Deception, Unsilence, Dark Embrace, Chamber Of Sorrows, Cambian Dawn, Centurions Ghost, Nadja, Dysperium, Enoch, Forever Autumn, Stone Wings, The Gates Of Slumber, Tefra, Until Death Overtakes Me, Souls Entwined, Solicide, and Troglodyte Dawn (great name!).