GODHEADSILO Skyward in Triumph (Sub Pop) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Sebadoh performed a song at Sub Pop birthday bash; the lyrics went something like "MY­WIFE­THINKS­ GODHEADSILO­ARE­THE­GREATEST­FUCKING­BAND­IN­THE­WORLD!"

GODLESS Church Arsonist (Rusty Axe) cd 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Rusty Axe is one of the few cult underground black metal labels that can seemingly do no wrong. "Raw Fucking Metal" is what they do, and they do it better than almost anyone else. Always with a demented twist, all of their bands damaged and demented in their own way, some seriously fucked up, others just with a unique vision, but a seriously outsider aesthetic, which obviously appeals to the AQ sensibility.
In the past, we've had Rusty Axe releases from damaged modern doom masters The Wizar'd, the putrid metallic black noise of Enbilulugugal, and the Midwestern redneck black metal of Blood Cult. And the recently released Rusty Axe sampler has had us chomping at the bit to hear more from Baphomets Horns, Defecated Corpse, Demonic Mortuary and of course Finisher (best band name ever?).
To hold us over, we've got the latest release from Puerto Rican church burners Godless, an actual cd (not a cd-r) of ultra primitive blackblackblack lo-fi buzz. Definitely steeped in the Norwegian tradition, Godless have been around since 1990 and were the first black metal band from Puerto Rico, and they definitely sound like it. Church Arsonist is like a black metal time capsule from the nineties, Mayhem, Emperor, Darkthrone, Immortal, extreme Ant-Christian buzzing epic black metal majesty. Black guitars soar and squirm over relentlessly thrashing blast beats, incredible riffing, that goes from jagged razorsharp brutality to blown out dirgey doom, harsh howled vocals way down in the mix, insane dizzyingly manic leads, the whole disc peppered with bits of ambient sound and strange samples, chanting monks, machine gun fire, nighttime forest sounds, World War 2 news clips, dive bombing planes, there seems to be a distinctly warlike element to Godless as well, which actually suits their sound (just as much as the church burning, anti-Christian themes), which spends much of its time loping along at a buzzing Burzumic midtempo, super anguished and bleak, downtuned guitars evoking sorrow and misery, but with every miserable dirge countered with a blazing blast of blackness.
Incredibly cool booklet and art, lyrics and photos, and check out one of the band members, in full medieval cloak/tunic, chainmail and tights, gauntlets on both hands, clutching a mighty broadsword, leaning into the fire (although in the live shot he's wearing jeans and a venom t-shirt, but who can blame him, playing live in chainmail and tunic is rough...)
An awesome, classic modern slab of blackened primitivism. Grim. Check. Cult. Check. Black. CHECK.
MPEG Stream: "Church Arsonist"
MPEG Stream: "Fur Diejenigen, Die Vom Kriegsraben Gerufen Wurden"

GODMAN God Dog (Acid Mothers Temple / Eclipse) cd 19.98
*Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert*
Spacey, swirling, not-un-heavy trip-out rock jamming from some dudes who really know how to do that sort of thing, since some of 'em are members of Japan's Acid Mothers Temple, including the bearded one himself, guitar guru Kawabata Makoto! Higashi Hiroshi from AMT is on hand as well on electronics. Hence the alert sounding from your computers loudspeakers right now (what, it's not working? well, you can read the alert above). The other three musicans (guitar, bass, drums) here all appear to come from another Japanese psych band called Mandog, who we weren't familiar with before but maybe should investigate! Together, this AMT-Mandog collab called Godman has conjured up two long tracks, near-half-hour instrumental build-ups that in a blindfold test we'd certainly happily mistake for AMT output proper, just as cosmic and krautrocky as we like it. If you've liked the last few AMT releases like Starless And Bible Black Sabbath and Demons From Nipples you won't go wrong with Godman either.
MPEG Stream: "Dog>><

GODS HATE KANSAS For Snakes (New Disorder) cd-ep 5.98
Second cd from these political punk rockers. Jarring, chunky yet oddly catchy hardcore that takes some weird twists and turns. Sort of early Fugazi/Bad Religion-ish. Includes a cd-rom of video clips and zine stuff. Recorded by Ryan Massey of American Steel.

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR F#A#oo (Kranky) cd 14.98
While it does take a while for this Canadian nine-piece to build through the opening murky drones, this debut album (originally issued on vinyl through the small Canadian label Constellation) evolves into a dynamic orchestration that falls somewhere in between Dirty Three and Village of Savoonga. The most innovative album from Kranky in a very long time!

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR F#A#oo (Constellation) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With the recent release of this album on Kranky, we made it a point to bring in the vinyl from the small Canadian label Constellation. What a surprise! The mix on the vinyl is quite different (and better) than that of the CD as the LP is a tighter more dynamic orchestration from this nine piece ensemble who bridge the gap between Village of Savoonga and the Dirty Three.

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR Levez Vos Skinny Fists Comme Antennas To Heaven (Constellation) 2cd 15.98
The Canadian ensemble Godspeed You Black Emperor has provided a Quebecoise doubling of the title of their third release: one in English, the other an Anglicized French. Throughout their relatively brief but impressive career, Godspeed You Black Emperor has successfully translated a melodramatic psychic desolation into droning orchestrations that soar into majestic crescendos for strings, a trio of guitars, twin bassists and percussionists. Totally majestic and epic. However, the aura of socially-concerned pretentiousness -- which had been held at bay on the last two releases -- really makes itself known on this record. The title's blatantly obvious search for pathos, more unneeded street poetry, and some 'ironic' found sounds from a grocery store's intercom sales announcement are some of GYBE's pretentious excesses on this album. Musically, Godspeed You Black Emperor moves along similar paths as on their previous records... sure it's beautiful, sure it's emotional (except the first track on disc one, in which GYBE tries to make happy music -- a mistake).
What was so great about Godspeed's first releases was the remarkable freshness of the sound, as if they emerged from nowhere to produce incredible compositions. But with nothing really new or innovative to push them forward, Godspeed You Black Emperor has gotten a little schmaltzy, a little stale. Mood music without meaning.
Furthermore -- put your gossip hats on -- we hear that Godspeed rather repeatedly behaves like uptight cheap assholes to more than several bands they agreed to play shows with, but that's another story. Sorry to be so negative, folks -- it's a fine record and if you haven't heard them before then you should most definitely pick up a Godspped record. It's just that if you're already a big fan, this might disappoint just a little.

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR Levez Vos Skinny Fists Comme Antennas To Heaven (Constellation) 2lp 16.98
The Canadian ensemble Godspeed You Black Emperor has provided a Quebecoise doubling of the title of their third release: one in English, the other an Anglicized French. Throughout their relatively brief but impressive career, Godspeed You Black Emperor has successfully translated a melodramatic psychic desolation into droning orchestrations that soar into majestic crescendos for strings, a trio of guitars, twin bassists and percussionists. Totally majestic and epic. However, the aura of socially-concerned pretentiousness -- which had been held at bay on the last two releases -- really makes itself known on this record. The title's blatantly obvious search for pathos, more unneeded street poetry, and some 'ironic' found sounds from a grocery store's intercom sales announcement are some of GYBE's pretentious excesses on this album. Musically, Godspeed You Black Emperor moves along similar paths as on their previous records... sure it's beautiful, sure it's emotional (except the first track on disc one, in which GYBE tries to make happy music -- a mistake).
What was so great about Godspeed's first releases was the remarkable freshness of the sound, as if they emerged from nowhere to produce incredible compositions. But with nothing really new or innovative to push them forward, Godspeed You Black Emperor has gotten a little schmaltzy, a little stale. Mood music without meaning.
Furthermore -- put your gossip hats on -- we hear that Godspeed rather repeatedly behaves like uptight cheap assholes to more than several bands they agreed to play shows with, but that's another story. Sorry to be so negative, folks -- it's a fine record and if you haven't heard them before then you should most definitely pick up a Godspped record. It's just that if you're already a big fan, this might disappoint just a little.

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR Slow Riot For Zero Kanada (Kranky/Constellation) cd 10.98
The second release from the Canadian nine piece ensemble is about as epic as 28 minutes can get. As with 'F#A#oo", Godspeed render the psychic desolation of the Canadian tundra as an intense soundtrack that swells from glacial strings to dense yet melodic orchestrations for guitars, bass, bells, percussion, and their string section. Certainly inspired by Morricone's mighty scores, "Slow Riot..." is also reminiscient of the dark musings of their contemporaries: Village of Savoonga, Rachel's, Mogwai, etc...
Haunting. Beautiful. Awesome. A unanimous staff favorite.

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR Slow Riot For Zero Kanada (Kranky/Constellation) lp 15.98
The second release from the Canadian nine piece ensemble is about as epic as 28 minutes can get. As with 'F#A#oo", Godspeed render the psychic desolation of the Canadian tundra as an intense soundtrack that swells from glacial strings to dense yet melodic orchestrations for guitars, bass, bells, percussion, and their string section. Certainly inspired by Morricone's mighty scores, "Slow Riot..." is also reminiscient of the dark musings of their contemporaries: Village of Savoonga, Rachel's, Mogwai, etc...
Haunting. Beautiful. Awesome. A unanimous staff favorite.

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR Yanqui U.x.o. (Constellation) cd 14.98
It's a new Godspeed record, and it's got all you've come to know and love about them. Yanqui U.X.O. shows their epic cinematic post-rock gestures getting perhaps even more sweeping and grandiose. The various samples making pointed social criticiscms that appeared throughout Lift Your Skinny Fists... are absent this time around, much to the relief of several AQ staffers who found the politics heavy handed. That doesn't neccesarily mean this record is apolitical-- the taut, tension filled sounds still feel like the soundtrack to a revolution, and the back cover diagram explicates connections between various major labels and weapons manufacturers. GYBE are not going to give up resisting Yanqui neo-imperialism just because they're an instrumental band. The irony of resisting the capitalist war machine by selling a product is not lost on the band, but then again, you might just want to close your eyes and let the warm sheets of Godspeed sound wash over you, and not think about any of that political stuff, right? Well allright. Cryptic message from the liner notes: "& hope still, a little resistance always maybe stubborntiny lights vs. clustering darkness foreverok? thankslovegodspeedyou!blackemperorbyexoxoxox"
RealAudio clip: "09-15-00 track 1"
RealAudio clip: "09-15-00 track 2"

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR Yanqui U.x.o. (Constellation) 2lp 17.98
It's a new Godspeed record, and it's got all you've come to know and love about them. Yanqui U.X.O. shows their epic cinematic post-rock gestures getting perhaps even more sweeping and grandiose. The various samples making pointed social criticiscms that appeared throughout Lift Your Skinny Fists... are absent this time around, much to the relief of several AQ staffers who found the politics heavy handed. That doesn't necessarily mean this record is apolitical-- the taut, tension filled sounds still feel like the soundtrack to a revolution, and the back cover diagram explicates connections between various major labels and weapons manufacturers. GYBE are not going to give up resisting Yanqui neo-imperialism just because they're an instrumental band. The irony of resisting the capitalist war machine by selling a product is not lost on the band, but then again, you might just want to close your eyes and let the warm sheets of Godspeed sound wash over you, and not think about any of that political stuff, right? Well allright. Cryptic message from the liner notes: "& hope still, a little resistance always maybe stubborntiny lights vs. clustering darkness foreverok? thankslovegodspeedyou!blackemperorbyexoxoxox"

GOEM Abri (12K) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Abri" is the eighty-eleventh album from Goem -- the hyper-prolific Dutch trio of musique concrete artists doing minimalist techno. By now, the Goem sound is starting to show the limitations of working with minimalist rhythms that are so minimal that grooves are completely impossible. As on the previous dozen or so releases, Goem begins with piercing sinewaves and predictably introduces steady pulses of warbled bass clicks. There are some minimalists who can turn the smallest of sounds into something evocative (take Andrew Chalk and Wolfgang Voigt as examples), and there are those who can't. Goem is quickly stumbling into the realm of the latter.
RealAudio clip: "Zelfs"

GOEM Disco (Fourth Dimension) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Goem is the exceedingly reductive post-techno ensemble comprised of Peter Duimelinks, Roel Meelkop, and Frans De Waard. Drawing from both the gentle modulations of Terry Riley's minimalism and the stripped down techno rhythms of Jeff Mills, early Pan Sonic, and Mike Ink, Goem forges their simple rhythmic patterns along an unchanging signal pulse, which steadily curves out of barely audible blips into swelling cascades of huge bass thumps, misfiring electro-glitches, and occasionally counterpulsing high-hats - all of which never swerve from the original rhythmic pulse. Very cold and very sterile... and for Goem, that's certainly a complement.
RealAudio clip: "Disco 3"
RealAudio clip: "Disco 5"

GOEM ems een / ems twee (Audio.nl) 12" 9.98
We are told that the track "ems een" utilizes music by Muslimgauze, but Goem (the post-techno collective featuring Roel Meelkop, Frans De Ward, and Peter Duimelinks) has systematically elimated everything from Muslimgauze's Arabic electronica except for a somatic bass pulse. Clinical rhythms and terse electron manipulation in the same vein as Mika Vainio and Ryoji Ikeda.

GOEM Extensie (Noise Museum) cd 17.98
Goem is the post-techno production team comprised of three guys (Roel Meelkop, Peter Duimelinks, and Frans De Waard) known more for their contemporary musique concrete /drone work. For this record, Frans De Waard commissioned remixes of the material found on the "Reduktie" which embraced the hyperminimal clickery and tone generation of Mika Vainio's solo work as ¯. The remixologists have for the most part left a good chunk of the structure intact with a monophunk techno minimalism, but have rearranged / reconstructed / recycled the various bleeps and blips through the wonders of the laptop. Featured remixes are Stilluppsteypa, L.O.S.D., Taylor Deupree, Kim Cascone, Jos Smolders, Starfish Pool, Surge, Radboud Mens, Institut Fuer Feinmotorik, and /Slo-Fi.

GOEM Gast (Abri) cd 14.98
At one time, Goem seemed like a great idea - a bunch of Musique Concrete informed post-industrialists trying their hand at Pan Sonic style minimalist techno. For a couple of releases, it worked quite well; but "Gast" proves how incredibly limited Goem have become with their project, and how boring the microsound community has become as a whole. This album is a collection of remixes / collaborations between Goem and other artists who contributed to the yearly Mutek festival of experimental electronics in Montreal. For the most part, each of the artists (including Taylor Deupree, Richard Chartier, Mikael Stavostrand, Matmos, Mitchell Akiyama, Richard di Santo, and I8U) propose their remix / collaborations as an exact copy of the sheer boredom of Goem's pitifully miniscule, unwavering techno pulsations. Even Matmos - who should know better than this type of crap - just offer a minute and a half of indifferent static. A big disappointment.
RealAudio clip: "Second Walk (Taylor Deupree Remix)"

GOEM Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Goem's austere post-techno explorations have taken this Dutch trio (Frans de Waard, Roel Meelkop, and Peter Duimelinks) into a realm subaudible tones and muffled static rhythms on this effort. Their entry in the well-regarded Mort Aux Vaches series of radio broadcasts brings them much closer to the Studio 1 sound that Wolfgang Voigt pioneered with Mike Ink / M:1:5. Monochrome pulses phase through various EQ settings and knob twiddling effects that could easily make this pass for a release on Kompakt. It may thus be not surprising to learn that the source material for the final cut originated from Mr. Voigt himself!

GOEM Punik (Staalplaat) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Kick ass packaging aside (well over 1200 holes punched into cardstock and etched jewel case, so be careful!), Goem's "Punik" is one of the more interesting releases in the current deluge of lowercase / post-techno albums. Using a Student Simulator (simply qualified as a device used in medical school, for what, we don't really know) and a broken Doctor Rhythm drum machine triggering Boucle synthesizers at Stockholm's EMS Studios, "Punik" percolates with electron squiggles and ping-pong motorik slabs of rhythm, that could be the sound equal to Bridget Riley's Op-Art modernism.

GOES CUBE Another Day Has Passed (The End) cd 14.98

GOG Heavy Fierce Brightness (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The latest release from one of our favorite modern masters of drone and drift and doom and dirge, the oddly monikered Gog, who in Heavy Fierce Brightness, has composed two nearly 20 minute epic soundtracks for an art installation of the same name.
But regardless of the inspiration or ultimate application of the sounds contained within, Heavy Fierce Brightness is simply a continuation of Gog's endless sprawling exploration of some grim black space, a hellish otherworld, captured alchemically and represented sonically, a harrowing, harsh, blackly abject landscape of minimal low end thrum, and corrosive grinding glacial crunch, two slabs of slowly decaying melted metal filth, allowed to ooze blackly into great sonic tarpits of sound, audial black holes, their blinding black glow dulling all the colors around their slowly collapsing centers.
"Dragged By A Black Cat" begins as a hushed creep, a low thrumming drift, peppered with strange bits of scrape and clatter, the low end billowing up in great gauzy clouds, so low the speakers struggle to keep up. A haunting cinematic ambience, like the score for a descent into some great yawning abyss. Eventually streaks of feedback, and sheets of buzz are laid atop the throbbing low end, wreathed in electronic crackle, in gouts of tremorous glitch, building into a crumbling wall of cascading buzz and grinding crunch, the chaos and clamor gradually settling into a long bit of processed drift, a slow swirly sea of near static tones and subtle harmonic shifts, a Niblockian expanse of soft sumptuous swells and lush layered thrum.
"Heavy Fierce Brightness", begins much like the first side, some hushed minimal rumble, some ominous drone, but quickly the sound grows tense, a wash of smoldering buzz quickly enveloping the softly chiming minimal shimmer beneath, but that underlying melodic swirl, remains throughout, while the more corrosive sounds above, roil and churn like some storm swept sonic sea, the various layers coalescing into something strangely shoegazey, a warped undulating dronescape of looped and layered tones, of crunch and shimmer and buzz and whir, keening distant melodies, and lush rumbling whirs, all blurred into a slow shifting panorama of blown out black bliss, a muted harshness, that somehow still manages to soothe and entrance. The final stretch a series of mesmerizing slow burning swells, dark and deep, truly heavy dronemusic, a sound that is anything but minimal, a constant slow motion barrage of downtuned guitar crunch, squealing electronics, deep metallic reverberations, whirling layered tones, strangely textured thrum, gauzy ambience, all woven into a caustic and creeping doomdronedirgedrift crawl.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Housed in a gorgeous embossed jacket, with original artwork by Colin Stinson (and featuring images of the HFB installation).

GOG Heavy Fierce Brightness: Spells Of The Sun (Utech) cd 14.98
The return of these blackened psychedelic doomdrift dronelords, with their second record for Utech, and what appears to be the second Heavy Fierce Brightness record, the first being a limited lp only release from a while back, the soundtrack to an art installation (we still have a last few copies, act fast!), this one a new proper full length cd, this HFB further described as Spells Of The Sun, three new tracks, nearly 50 minutes of rumbling low end mystery and abstract avant blackness.
The ritual begins with the 8 minute sort of introduction "Spells Of Shadow", a smoldering sprawl of metallic buzz, and muted industrial throb, all manner of grinding metallic crunch, and swirling spaced out effects, the sound corrosive and distorted, but still hypnotic and soothing, a thick undulating black drone, the various layers surprisingly active, spinning off sparks and constantly changing tone and timbre, all the while underpinned by a hazy high end shimmer. Blackened dreamy dronemusic of the highest order.
"The Opening" unfurls yet another expanse of lush layered blackness, hazy and washed out and gorgeously mesmerizing, but before you know it, the song shifts gears and the band kicks in, pounding drums, distorted guitars, a sort of doomy lope, hypnotic and propulsive, wrapped around streaks of high end skree and feedback, then the vokills come in, SUPER distorted, the whole thing splintering into a blown out black squall, the main lumbering riff and rhythm still in place, but all around it, blackened clouds of crunch and chug and whir and buzz swirl and shimmer, a strangely pretty bit of motorik blackness. The metal fades out leaving traces of melody, stretched out into hazy smears of softly kaleidoscopic sound, some hushed minimal droney drift, only to explode once again into some dense doomy pound.
Finally, the 21 minute title track finishes things off, a sprawling layered dronescape, that shifts slowly from glassy almost new age-y minimalism, from soaring howling psychedelic squall to crumbling distorted doomdronedirgedrift, from keening high end ur-drone, to wild storms of swirling feedback and finally to murky minimal shimmer. As always, gorgeous stuff.
Packaged in cool oversized black and white four panel poster sleeve with artwork by Locrian's Terence Hannum.
MPEG Stream: "Spells Of Shadow"
MPEG Stream: "The Opening"

GOG Mist From The Random More (Utech Records) cd 14.98
In a world (our world at least) full to overflowing with drone records, dirge records, doom records, and yes, dirgedoomdrone records, the mysterious Gog have somehow always managed to transcend. From their very first release, the subtly spectacular Noriah Mills, Gog have continued to mine similar territory as so many other soundmakers, but with the resultant whole so much more than its constituent parts.
The music of Gog, while on the surface, perhaps seemingly simple, minimal, abstract, is the sort of sound that requires deep listening, upon which, the guitars then reveal themselves as so much more than electronic tone generators, the long strands of feedback and the layers of dense billowy buzz, so much more than just texture and timbre. And while on past releases, the band hinted at something a bit more black, their occasionally blissed out ambience drifting into darker and darker greys, on Mist From The Random More, the band have fully committed, creating what for them is a haunting otherworldly black metal suite, a droned out, blissed out, buzz drenched, almost static expanse of smoldering grimness, shot through with glimmering glistening effulgence, a bit like wrapping a black gauze around an exploding sun, the results, again, transcendent.
The record begins with a gorgeous, slow burning bit of guitar drone, that owes more to the kosmiche sounds of krautdrone than the downtuned glacial fug of more doom-ed entities. These guitars soar and shimmer, warm gouts of feedback enfolded by deep rich sheets of coruscating soft focus heaviness, any other band would stretch this out to fill up a whole album, and rightfully so, we'd probably be gushing just as much if Gog chose to do the same thing, but these Sunroof-ian solar sonics are only part of Gog's grand vision for Mist From The Random More.
The title track, taking up the bulk of the record, finds Gog fully immersing themselves in black metal, or at least their (very) loose approximation of what black metal is, or could be. The sound is grim, and frosty, but only in the sense that it reflects much of the black metal that came before, in every other way, it's anything but, the guitars glow, the riffs are fluid, organic, wrapped in a soft burnished buzz, that reminds us a bit of Jesu or Nadja, but the arrangement is more Necks. In fact, a shorthand descriptor might be "a black metal Necks", which if you're anything like us, would be all it would take. Simple skittery minimal drumming, almost looped sounding if it weren't so abstract, beneath a roiling cloud of layered guitars, grinding and whirring and hissing, and within that cloud, some gorgeously melancholic low end melodies, difficult to describe the strange blend of loveliness and heaviness, but there it is, a distinctly lovely heaviness, washed out and blurry, and hypnotic and epic and melodic, within this seemingly static structure, the sound swings and slips through various incarnations, moving from total blurred buzz, to a more slowcore lope, always wreathed in swirling clouds of blackened shimmer, until the end, when the track explodes in climax of effects drenched psychedelic churn.
The closing track offers a chance to decompress, a strange assemblage of soothing tones, shot through with streaks of feedback, very cool and clinical, almost a Raster-Noton sort of sound, there's a brief burst of super distorted crumbling sonic chaos, almost Merzbowian in its intensity, transforming into a haunting post industrial doomscape, before again returning to the relative tranquility of the first few minutes, eventually leaving just a single upper register tone, which also finally fades into the shadows.
Another fantastic record from Utech (after a whole mess of incredible releases, including last list's Aluk Todolo Record Of The Week), gorgeous packaging, an abstract skull, rendered in some kind of white dust (cocaine?), on a spare black background, a gatefold with printed liner notes inside, and yes, probably limited...
MPEG Stream: "Night Zoe"
MPEG Stream: "Mist From The Random More"

GOG Noriah Mills (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting) cd-r 7.98
Every once in a while we'll get a disc in the mail, that has us intrigued before we've even heard it. Take Gog for instance. Well, to begin with, they're called Gog. Or so we believed. The cover wasn't entirely clear. They could have been called Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting, which is just as intriguing. The cover art is kind of trippy, a little bit spacey, still no sure sign of what was in store musically. So we tossed it on, and wow, nice, some sort of soft drifting shimmer, like signing bowls, bowed metal, deep resonant chiming over a thick soft backdrop of deep dark ambience. Another perfect late night drift record we're thinking, when all of a sudden the 21 minute long second track kicks in and holy shit, suddenly we're in a whole 'nother place, and it's not nearly so pretty and tranquil. A huge Earth 2 like riff, sprawled out and massive, a glacial low end crush, churning, downtuned and buzzing, each chord pulsing and throbbing, just as suddenly, some strangely beautiful melodies surface, and start drifting right along side the main slow motion riff, and suddenly it's both epic AND lovely, pretty, but ominously heavy, underneath, all manner of murky sounds swirl and whirl, a constantly shifting sea of drones and muted underwater FX, then again Gog knock us on our asses when the drums finally kick in at about the 10 minute mark, and the song transforms into some sort of lumbering sludge doom behemoth, the cymbals sizzling way up in the mix, the drums pounding, the riff more corrosive and harsh, monstrous and massive doom metal that unfurls even as it launches into action, subtly blissing out, until Gog's doom is heavily laced with My Bloody Valentine fuzziness and the sunburst blown out beauty of bands like the Angelic Process and Nadja. An gorgeously blinding blast of sludgy brilliance.
MPEG Stream: "Hovering Lake"
MPEG Stream: "Noriah Mills (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Noriah Mills (excerpt 2)"

GOG Past The Deepest Gate (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Gog is definitely one of our favorite modern purveyors of droning doomic filth. From the massive downtuned multiple o'd doom ofÊNoriah Mills to the more abstract but no less heavy split with Apparatia (the one with the metal cover we just reviewed, only a few copies left), it's as if Gog the man is on some hell-bent mission to explore the foulest pits of hell and dredge up the crustiest, doomiest, ugliest, foulest sonic ooze in existence.Ê
And we're fully supportive of this endeavor, as we're the ones who benefit. We're the ones with an insatiable appetite for all things grimy and sludgy, slow and low and heavy heavy heavy....
We got this slab of black ambient brutality at the same time we got the split, but we only got a fraction of the copies we requested since this one is already out of print. We have about fifteen of these in stock, so be prepared to leave empty handed, but at least the most fleet fingered amongst you doom obsessed will leave here with a big sick grin and an earful pockets full of oozing black beauty.
Four tracks, about a half hour, the opener is a stone cold black ambient doom classic, thick glacial slabs that shift and growl, pulse and throb, blown out and distorted, crumbling and overdriven, heavy and thick, but seeming to decay before our very ears. A gorgeous melancholy melody rendered in black tar and allowed to melt in the hot sun, clogging your ears and speakers.
The rest of the disc is not so distorted, a bit more tranquil, but with hints of the doom metal that lurks just below the surface, thick swirling washes of rumbling crumbling whir, chunks of fragmented riffs, doused in reverb and sent spinning into the ether, dense foghorn like swells, crazy hyper delayed and dubbed out squalls of hiss and static, snippets of distant percussion, whirring soft shimmer, all slowed down and smeared into glacial black blurs, settling at the bottom of your speakers like some sort of hellish doomdrone silt. Awesome.
And again, already out of print, only 15 copies or so in stock, once these are gone that's it.
MPEG Stream: "The Invaders Have A Search Beam"
MPEG Stream: "The View From Under A Rock"

GOG / APPARATIA split (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting) cd-r 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The return of the peculiarly monickered Gog, a one man practitioner of the dark musical arts, able to whip up huge swaths of drifting droney shimmer as easily as a crushing avalanche of corrosive slow motion riffage. More often than not some glorious grey area right in the middle.Ê
Here Gog is teamed up with the unknown to us Apparatia, who proves to be a worthy match up.Ê
Gog begins the proceedings with a 25 minute epic, blown out and buzzy, recorded SUPER hot and way in the red, a strange creepy soundscape of metallic clang, and huge reverbed guitar, not riffing, just sort of shimmering and vibrating, everything suspended amidst a barren sprawl of decay and delay, until everything explodes, and the track is transformed into an impossibly distorted, barely moving glacial wall of sound, the production so hot, the speakers seem on the verge of collapse, a massive spacious dirge that like other Gog stuff, manages to be lovely amidst all those jagged edges and crumbling chaos. Partway through, the guitars blur into just a long stretch of distorted whir, while beneath, the bass and drums continue to plod along, a strange slowed down groove buried beneath roiling clouds of fuzz. Gog finishes off his half the split with a little minute or so long chunk of random sound, peppered with vocals, a haunting little fragment of creepy ambience.Ê
Apparatia are in fact a grim buzzing black metal behemoth, who right out of the gate, first song, launch into some seriously grim blasting, super distorted and ultra sick, the vocals a demonic croak, the guitars a blurry buzz, the drums another static roar buried in the mix. But the band do mix it up, weaving haunting clean guitar interludes, with the harsh super affected vocals crooning hellishly over the top. Raw and primitive, and gloriously intense and brutal, theÊvocals and guitars in a constant battle of the buzz, the recording quality sort of damaged and lo-fi, making for some Faxed Head like audio damage. Pretty fucking cool for sure. Definitely need to hear more from these guys. But for now, this is a seriously killer one two punch, one part slow motion sludge, one part grim, buzzing fury.Ê
AMAZING PACKAGING. A printed sheet of metal, black on silver, super heavy, like the music inside, text and images affixed to the back, the cd housed in a black and silver metallic paper sleeve, with mysterious blurred images and liner notes. Sticker on the front,ÊLIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!! Each one hand numbered. We got 40 and that's it. Once these are gone, we will not be able to get more...
MPEG Stream: GOG "The Fruition Of The Occult"
MPEG Stream: APPARATIA "I Devoured Her Black Soul"
MPEG Stream: APPARATIA "Chamber Of Silents"

GOGOGO AIRHEART Exitheuxa (GSL) cd 11.98
Sounds like the GoGoGoAirheart fellows have shifted their music making approach just a little for their fourth full length, focusing more on guitars and pop-structured songs and less on their more familiar extended dubby bass, post punk jams. In the process, they've relinquished a bit of the tension that made the music on both their self-titled and "Love My Life Hate My Friends" albums so immediate and absorbing. It's in those jams that the best of GGGAH surfaces. Likewise, live, they can be hit or miss, but when their improvs lock into a groove... Hoo boy, they are amazing -- especially when the fluid bass playing of A. Vyas is given room to move. The angstful howl'n'yelp of main vocalist Michael Vermilion is still very much in the vein of The Pop Group particularly on the longer numbers, but quite often in the shorter punky songs his voice also takes on a nasality reminiscent of the Buzzcocks' Pete Shelley ("Sincerely P.S."). He's joined on vocal duties by Vyas and guitarist Benjamin White. Also thrown into the instrument mix are trumpet, piano, programmed drums, Moog synths and organ.
RealAudio clip: "Here Comes Attack"
RealAudio clip: "Sincerely P.S."
RealAudio clip: "When The Flesh Hits"
RealAudio clip: "Good Things"

GOGOGO AIRHEART Love My Life Hate My Friends (Vinyl Communications) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This album fades in as though we've just encountered the GoGoGo boys well into one of their lengthy improvisational sessions. Constantly changing in instrumentation, sometimes there's two drummers, sometimes a cellist, and sometimes who knows? But it's always anchored by some truly awesome bass playing. Live, they can be a tightly wound, convulsive unit channeling the ghosts of The Pop Group and The Fall, or a quietly meditative dubby discovery of notes and rhythms. Includes a reworking of A Certain Ratio's "Do The Du".

GOGOGO AIRHEART s/t (Gold Standard Laboratories) cd 11.98
San Diego's Gogogo Airheart play their own version of late '70s style arty post-punk. From dabbling in dub realms to punching out frenetic, spasmatic, pop dislocation, Gogogo Airheart doesn't hide their affinity with The Pop Group, whose song "Trap" they in fact cover. There are also ample references to Wire's "Pink Flag" and even neo-Krautrock by way of The Fall, making for an excellent follow-up to GGGAH's great "Love My Life Hate My Friends" album. See them live. Buy their records. Gogogo Airheart kick ass.

GOGOGO AIRHEART s/t (Vinyl Communications) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not to be confused with their more recent self-titled release on Gold Standard Laboratories, this is a much earlier release (with green cover art). In fact, it was their debut full length back in '97. Since then, GGGAH led by the core duo of Michael Vermillion and A. Vyas have been a tireless, ever-evolving band from San Diego. Primarily based around jam sessions and post-punk experimentations, GGGAH are often very hit or miss, but when they 'hit' it is something pretty special. This album is much more noise heavy and haphazard than their later stuff. Very dub influenced with its churning, sinewy bass and sharp rimshot beat, but shades of Sonic Youth and CAN also creep in by way of obscured strange vocals, scraping guitar sounds and electronic squidge invading the cyclical rhythms.

GOGOL BORDELLO Super Taranta! (Side One Dummy) cd 14.98
You might've noticed the recent flurry of Eastern European inspired bands -- for instance the dreamy rural acoustic sounds of Beirut, A Hawk And A Hacksaw and the Bay Area's own Karpov. Since 1999, New Yorkers Gogol Bordello have been taking similar influences into a decidedly more urban setting and whipping it up into an art punked gypsy-fied frenzy. Indeed, on their latest album, they opt for blinding neon brights versus the abovementioned groups' warm earthy hues. Leader of the pack Eugene Hutz might maybe have true Slavic roots but we thinks that this is not without a healthy dose of irony. At times Super Taranta! charges head first into a pirate-ish many bottles of rum drunken traipsing of the plank. Not ones for the subtle nor the soft, theirs is a garish, sweaty, loud and loose vaudevillian circus which the hipster scene has been all over for years. It screams 'New York' at the top of its lungs! This is the kind of wild, tawdry partying where glasses are smashed, clothing gets torn, and everything else gets trampled in its path. Good times? Fuck yeah!
MPEG Stream: "Wonderlust King"
MPEG Stream: "Forces Of Victory"

GOLD CHAINS Live At The Beta Lounge (MX Entertainment) dvd 19.98
Presented for your party pleasure: this DVD compiles a performance by righteous party-monger Gold Chains at San Francisco's Beta Lounge, along with plenty of extra videos and live performances, including the awesome "I Come From San Francisco" video, shot on a BART train! Locals: look for yourself and your friends in the videos. Out-of towners: experience the magic of a Gold Chains show from the comfort of your living room. The live at Beta Lounge portion comes peppered by unfortunate amounts of clean-cut white girls in flygirl pose mode and art-school graduate ghetto parody, but Gold Chains himself puts on a helluva show as always, making the most uptight of booties shake and temporarily redeeming the white-boy indie-electronic hip-hop genre (at least until the next time I'm reminded of the existence of Cex). Although it's funny; I know I was pretty drunk that night, but I remember the show being totally crazy, like crowd surfing, buckets of sweat, jam-packed dance-your-ass-off crazy. Somehow, the video doesn't quite seem to convey the mayhem. Perhaps the filming would have benefitted from another approach, or maybe I was just more wasted than I realized. Hmmm.

GOLD CHAINS s/t (Orthlorng Musork) cd 9.98
I can't believe that this record hasn't driven us mad. In the very near future, it very well may. But at the moment, Gold Chains certainly tickles our fancy for purposefully ridiculous, totally fun electronica/hip-hop. Gold Chains is the boisterous hip-hop pseudonym of San Francisco's Topher Lafata, who now releases his first album through Kit Clayton's Orthlorng Musork. Unlike the disastrous ironic electronica of Cex and Peaches, Gold Chain's megalomania comes with a charming flashiness which is so often lost in the pursuit of being self-effacing, in order to be funny or ironic. In terms of hip-hop delivery, Gold Chains is pretty old school, enunciating all of his syllables upon clearly defined rhythmic patterns and sounding a little quicker, but equally as raspy as Tone Loc or DMX. And his content is equally old school, boasting of almost exclusively about his sexual prowess, but occasionally it's about how much he can shred a microphone with his lyrics or the quality of the parties he throws. Getting some help from Kit Clayton on production, Gold Chains' backing tracks are a mixture of the seductive IDM grooves of Autechre or Pole and the muscular proto-electronica of Tackhead and Gary Clail. While Gold Chains' live shows are infamously IN-YO-FACE, bratty, and juvenile, he has the sense (and the skillz!) to make it all sound sooo good. Oh yeah, the last track is built entirely on a Stereolab song and it works perfectly. I'm not kidding. In short, this is a recommended debut from a local hero, with plenty of 'bling bling' in his future!!
RealAudio clip: "I Come From San Francisco"
RealAudio clip: "No. 1 Face In Hip Hop"
RealAudio clip: "Rock The Parti"

GOLD CHAINS s/t (Orthlorng Musork) lp 8.98
I can't believe that this record hasn't driven us mad. In the very near future, it very well may. But at the moment, Gold Chains certainly tickles our fancy for purposefully ridiculous, totally fun electronica/hip-hop. Gold Chains is the boisterous hip-hop pseudonym of San Francisco's Topher Lafata, who now releases his first album through Kit Clayton's Orthlorng Musork. Unlike the disastrous ironic electronica of Cex and Peaches, Gold Chain's megalomania comes with a charming flashiness which is so often lost in the pursuit of being self-effacing, in order to be funny or ironic. In terms of hip-hop delivery, Gold Chains is pretty old school, enunciating all of his syllables upon clearly defined rhythmic patterns and sounding a little quicker, but equally as raspy as Tone Loc or DMX. And his content is equally old school, boasting of almost exclusively about his sexual prowess, but occasionally it's about how much he can shred a microphone with his lyrics or the quality of the parties he throws. Getting some help from Kit Clayton on production, Gold Chains' backing tracks are a mixture of the seductive IDM grooves of Autechre or Pole and the muscular proto-electronica of Tackhead and Gary Clail. While Gold Chains' live shows are infamously IN-YO-FACE, bratty, and juvenile, he has the sense (and the skillz!) to make it all sound sooo good. Oh yeah, the last track is built entirely on a Stereolab song and it works perfectly. I'm not kidding. In short, this is a recommended debut from a local hero, with plenty of 'bling bling' in his future!!

GOLD CHAINS Straight From Your Radio (Tigerbeat6) cd 9.98
Who rocks the parti? Local darling Gold Chains cracks the whip with five new dancefloor hotties giving a heads up to the Cologne and Berlin Schaffelfieber sound. Having travelled the world in his brief career as Gold Chains, Topher Lafata has absorbed the sounds of other lands to craft his own brand of electrosonic hiphop thunder. Following on his acclaimed debut for Orthlorng Musork, "Straight From Your Radio" is another brief encounter with the hard beat mystic nonmaterialistic witch doctor. Each track is very distinct from the next from the rubbery bass of the lead off track to the absurd cootchie song. So silly and repetitious, it lyrically reminded me of Snow's "The Informer" from '93. Continuing on, "Let's Make It" pumps out the big beats Sweet and Gary Glitter style. Y'know those thumpin' '70s enormo-party anthems! He even does a reworking of Samhain's "Human Pony Girl"! Come join the caravan...
RealAudio clip: "I Treat Your Cootchie Like A Maze"
RealAudio clip: "Let's Make It"
RealAudio clip: "Human Pony Girl"

GOLD CHAINS Straight From Your Radio (Tigerbeat6) 12" 9.98
Who rocks the parti? Local darling Gold Chains cracks the whip with five new dancefloor hotties giving a heads up to the Cologne and Berlin Schaffelfieber sound. Having travelled the world in his brief career as Gold Chains, Topher Lafata has absorbed the sounds of other lands to craft his own brand of electrosonic hiphop thunder. Following on his acclaimed debut for Orthlorng Musork, "Straight From Your Radio" is another brief encounter with the hard beat mystic nonmaterialistic witch doctor. Each track is very distinct from the next from the rubbery bass of the lead off track to the absurd cootchie song. So silly and repetitious, it lyrically reminded me of Snow's "The Informer" from '93. Continuing on, "Let's Make It" pumps out the big beats Sweet and Gary Glitter style. Y'know those thumpin' '70s enormo-party anthems! He even does a reworking of Samhain's "Human Pony Girl"! Come join the caravan...
RealAudio clip: "I Treat Your Cootchie Like A Maze"
RealAudio clip: "Let's Make It"
RealAudio clip: "Human Pony Girl"

GOLD CHAINS The Game (PIAS) 12" 7.98
Don't call Gold Chains a player, he's in love with you. And don't call him played out, 'cause this single is another evolutionary step for the genre twisting, scruffy-voiced laptop MC. Broken electric funk and tech-hop beats infuse one of Gold Chains catchiest, best-produced (and that's saying a lot) tracks to date. Features a hectic pitched-up remix by Kit Clayton, and a groovy house-ier mix by Luomo (aka Vladislav Delay).

GOLD CHAINS Young Miss America (Pias America) cd 15.98
Gold Chains' new album is again a kick ass, completely weird hybrid of hip hop and bedroom electronics so over the top and colorful that it demands a lot of attention. Not as completely catchy as his selftitled debut, this is still exciting and a fun listen. And check out "Break or Be Broken", decidedly non hip hop love song with pretty rock chord progressions, a good direction for Gold Chains.
MPEG Stream: "Young Miss America"
MPEG Stream: "Break or Be Broken"

GOLD CHAINS & SUE CIE When The World Was Our Friend (Kill Rock Stars) cd 14.98
SF indie hip-hop artist Gold Chains brings it again! Rocking a more earnest and cynical parti... When The World Was Our Friend offers up more broken electric funk and tech-hop beats for fans of previous albums, though on a slightly darker and harder note. Congruent to its title, the album is less hoochies in thongs sippin champagne in the hot tub, and more holy shit man what the fuck is going on. More emphasized this time around is frequent collaborator Sue Cie, singing a generous amount of the tracks. When The World definitely pushes Gold Chains into a different realm. Looking forward to it being pushed even harder!
MPEG Stream: "Better Together"
MPEG Stream: "Come To Cali"

GOLD CHAINS & SUE CIE When The World Was Our Friend (Kill Rock Stars) lp 15.98
SF hip-hop artist Gold Chains brings it again! Rocking a more earnest and cynical parti... When The World Was Our Friend offers up more broken electric funk and tech-hop beats for fans of previous albums, though on a slightly darker and harder note. Congruent to its title, the album is less hoochies in thongs sippin champagne in the hot tub, and more holy shit man what the fuck is going on. More emphasized this time around is frequent collaborator Sue Cie, singing a generous amount of the tracks. When The World definitely pushes Gold Chains into a different realm. Looking forward to it being pushed even harder!
MPEG Stream: "Better Together"
MPEG Stream: "Come To Cali"

GOLD LEAVES The Ornament (Hardly Art) cd 12.98

MPEG Stream: "The Silver Lining"
MPEG Stream: "The Ornament"
MPEG Stream: "Endless Dope"

GOLD PANDA DJ Kicks (!K7) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: GOLD PANDA "An Iceberg Hurled Northward Through Clouds"
MPEG Stream: BOK BOK "Charisma Theme"
MPEG Stream: MUSLIMGAUZE "Uzi Mahmood"
MPEG Stream: MATTHEWDAVID "Like You Mean It"
MPEG Stream: GIUSEPPE IELASI "2"

GOLD PANDA Lucky Shiner (Ghostly International) cd 11.98
All it took was about 30 seconds, and we knew this was probably gonna become out favorite new electronica record, heck, maybe just our favorite new record period. The best way we can think to describe Gold Panda is like a more lo-fi DIY version of The Field, if that makes any sense. Where The Field take samples, and loops and layers them, rendering them almost unrecognizable, and creating lush house-y soundscapes, Gold Panda does something quite similar, but without the goal of disguising the source or the samples, a vocal loop is chopped up and processed and woven into a stuttering melody, over a simple looped beat, and warm whirling melodies, that looped sample makes the whole thing sound so playful, and at least on the opener, "You", whose sample is the word 'you' chopped and looped, that melody ends up sounding strangely Indian, like some electro raga, although over the course of the track, the tone and timbre and pitch changes, so it slips from Oval like shimmer, to skittery faux Indian raga, to loping super melodic playful trip hop.
And the whole record is like that, the construction of the tracks is obvious, the glitch and static and crackle and pop of the source records, are all part of the sound, the samples assembled to create rhythms, to fashion melodies, draped over whirring skeletal beats, woven into Philip Jeck like cracklescapes, gamelan like melodies are layered into a lush tangle of melodies and placed atop a sea of hiss and a spare stripped down beat, soft melodic swells are truncated and left to rise and fall, creating a woozy rhythm, the whole thing wrapped in playful chimes and clipped minimal beats, every track is playful and lovely and dreamy in its own way, not so dependent on the beat, as much as the arrangement of samples, which is inevitably perfect, and conjures up the perfect mood and atmosphere.
There are some definitely oddballs, the two minutes of folky acoustic guitar on "Parents", that manages to be quite pretty and sweet on its own, and fit with the rest of the more sample heavy tracks pretty perfectly, there's also the buzzy sitar laced "India Lately", which does chop up Indian ragas, sitars and tablas, and weaves those parts into a gorgeously shoegazy stretch of pop ambience, and finally, the record finishes off by revisiting "You", this time with strings and chimes, and a less manic arrangement, instead opting for something much more subdued and dreamlike.
So great! All this amazing electronica coming out lately, we can't get enough, but this one just might take the cake!
MPEG Stream: "You"
MPEG Stream: "Vanilla Minus"
MPEG Stream: "Snow & Taxis"

GOLD PANDA Lucky Shiner (Ghostly International) lp 17.98
All it took was about 30 seconds, and we knew this was probably gonna become out favorite new electronica record, heck, maybe just our favorite new record period. The best way we can think to describe Gold Panda is like a more lo-fi DIY version of The Field, if that makes any sense. Where The Field take samples, and loops and layers them, rendering them almost unrecognizable, and creating lush house-y soundscapes, Gold Panda does something quite similar, but without the goal of disguising the source or the samples, a vocal loop is chopped up and processed and woven into a stuttering melody, over a simple looped beat, and warm whirling melodies, that looped sample makes the whole thing sound so playful, and at least on the opener, "You", whose sample is the word 'you' chopped and looped, that melody ends up sounding strangely Indian, like some electro raga, although over the course of the track, the tone and timbre and pitch changes, so it slips from Oval like shimmer, to skittery faux Indian raga, to loping super melodic playful trip hop.
And the whole record is like that, the construction of the tracks is obvious, the glitch and static and crackle and pop of the source records, are all part of the sound, the samples assembled to create rhythms, to fashion melodies, draped over whirring skeletal beats, woven into Philip Jeck like cracklescapes, gamelan like melodies are layered into a lush tangle of melodies and placed atop a sea of hiss and a spare stripped down beat, soft melodic swells are truncated and left to rise and fall, creating a woozy rhythm, the whole thing wrapped in playful chimes and clipped minimal beats, every track is playful and lovely and dreamy in its own way, not so dependant on the beat, as much as the arrangement of samples, which is inevitably perfect, and conjures up the perfect mood and atmosphere.
There are some definitely oddballs, the two minutes of folky acoustic guitar on "Parents", that manages to be quite pretty and sweet on its own, and fit with the rest of the more sample heavy tracks pretty perfectly, there's also the buzzy sitar laced "India Lately", which does chop up Indian ragas, sitars and tablas, and weaves those parts into a gorgeously shoegazy stretch of pop ambience, and finally, the record finishes off by revisiting "You", this time with strings and chimes, and a less manic arrangement, instead opting for something much more subdued and dreamlike.
So great! All this amazing electronica coming out lately, we can't get enough, but this one just might take the cake!
MPEG Stream: "You"
MPEG Stream: "Vanilla Minus"
MPEG Stream: "Snow & Taxis"

GOLD PANDA Marriage (Notown) 12" 13.98
Gold Panda's Lucky Shiner was one of our favorite electronic records from last year, so we were super psyched to discover this special Record Store Day remix 12", with four super distinctive and very different versions of one of the tracks from Lucky Shiner, by some pretty cool remixers. Star Slinger is up first, and douses the original in super thick buzzing dubsteppy bass, and thickens up the beats, everything distorted and intense and blurred and fantastically prismatic. Baths takes the opposite approach and stretch the original into something much more minimal and blissy, hushed and muted, lots of backwards smears, tinkling melodies, warm and warbled, a sort of housey almost pop ambient vibe, deep soft pulses, and haunting pianos, so so lovely. AQ faves, drone steppers Forest Swords totally reinvent the track as a glitched out sprawl of folky abstract minimalism, drifty and dreamy and so otherworldly. Halls takes the track EVEN further, and transforms it into a hazy, gauzy, softly glimmering stretch of abstract ambience. And finally, the original is tacked on the end in all its playful looped and sampled glory.
SUPER LIMITED. This was a Record Store Day release, so stock is limited, and odds are once these are gone that'll be it.

GOLD SPARKLE BAND Fugues & Flowers (Squealer) cd 14.98
Contemporary improvised 'free' jazz from this young-ish group. Recorded live in various venues throughout the midwest, the Gold Sparkle band take the wildest sounds of NY's downtown scene and imbue them with Ayler-ish free-bop glee. Reminds me of Sixties ESP jazz mixed with some of todays mainstays, David S. Ware, Tim Berne, John Zorn, Spy Vs. Spy. The first track is a killer, sputtering stuttering squealing structureless mayhem. Drums way up in the mix, melodies batted wildly back and forth. Nice. Once in a while the bottom seems to drop out, but they recover deftly and quickly. The record winds up with the almost half hour final track, a gorgeous funereal free jazz dirge, that builds and builds into a pounding orgiastic tribal workout. Pretty cool.
RealAudio clip: "Zodiac Attack"
RealAudio clip: "Second City Fugue (Subject)"

GOLD-BEARS Are You Falling In Love? (Slumberland) cd 10.98
Slumberland are certainly making up for lost time. This iconic pop label seemed to disappear for a while there a few years back, but since they reemerged, a month hasn't gone by without a new record by some new band (or an old favorite), and if it was any other label, we might be wondering "where the heck do they find these bands" but this is Slumberland, whose track record for discovering bands is pretty much totally untouchable. SO thus we have Gold-Bears, the latest new band on Slumberland, and we're digging it big time. Big jangly, distortion drenched noise pop, the label mentions Boyracer (one of our all time favorite pop bands who for some reason have never made it onto the aQ list) and the Wedding Present, both of which definitely fit, as do some of the other Slumberland bands like Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and Summer Cats, but hell, there are bits of Neutral Milk Hotel and other Elephant Six bands going on here and there. Gold-Bears' pop is rife with angelic female background vox, lots of 'la la la's and 'ooooooh's, horns and unlikely instrumentation, strange production, the sound slipping from murky punky and lo-fi, to big bombastic to jangly and shimmery, the record oozing hooks, none so much as the opener, a summer jam if there ever was one, plus it's called "Record Store", noisy, jangly, catchy as heck, super dynamic, crazy melodic, a total mixtape track for sure. And like all great records, Are You Falling In Love? is full of those sorts of tracks, the whole thing immediately catchy, but the sort of record where every song has the potential to be your favorite, and if you listen enough, they eventually all will be. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Record Store"
MPEG Stream: "All Those Years"
MPEG Stream: "So Natural"

GOLD-BEARS Are You Falling In Love? (Slumberland) lp 13.98
NOW ON VINYL!!
Slumberland are certainly making up for lost time. This iconic pop label seemed to disappear for a while there a few years back, but since they reemerged, a month hasn't gone by without a new record by some new band (or an old favorite), and if it was any other label, we might be wondering "where the heck do they find these bands" but this is Slumberland, whose track record for discovering bands is pretty much totally untouchable. SO thus we have Gold-Bears, the latest new band on Slumberland, and we're digging it big time. Big jangly, distortion drenched noise pop, the label mentions Boyracer (one of our all time favorite pop bands who for some reason have never made it onto the aQ list) and the Wedding Present, both of which definitely fit, as do some of the other Slumberland bands like Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and Summer Cats, but hell, there are bits of Neutral Milk Hotel and other Elephant Six bands going on here and there. Gold-Bears' pop is rife with angelic female background vox, lots of 'la la la's and 'ooooooh's, horns and unlikely instrumentation, strange production, the sound slipping from murky punky and lo-fi, to big bombastic to jangly and shimmery, the record oozing hooks, none so much as the opener, a summer jam if there ever was one, plus it's called "Record Store", noisy, jangly, catchy as heck, super dynamic, crazy melodic, a total mixtape track for sure. And like all great records, Are You Falling In Love? is full of those sorts of tracks, the whole thing immediately catchy, but the sort of record where every song has the potential to be your favorite, and if you listen enough, they eventually all will be. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Record Store"
MPEG Stream: "All Those Years"
MPEG Stream: "So Natural"

GOLDBERG, BEN / JOHN SCHOTT / MIKE SARIN What Comes Before (Tzadik) cd 15.98
From the obi: "Two of the most creative composer/performers on the West Coast, Ben Goldberg (New Klezmer Trio) and John Schott (TJ Kirk) are joined by verstaile Brooklyn-based drummer Mike Sarin (Dave Douglas, Myra Medford) to create a delicate musical universe balancing space and movement with thoughts unimagined, feelings unfelt. These introspective pieces for guitar, clarinet and percussion touch upon Jewish life and philosophy in a manner both subtle and cruel."

GOLDBERG, BEN TRIO Here By Now (Music & Arts) cd 13.98
Ben Goldberg on clarinet / bass clarinet with Trevor Dunn on bass and Elliot Humberto Kavee on drums.