HAYWARD, CHARLES / NUS / DAVID SHEA Bari, Italy - October 1996 (Sub Rosa) cd 16.98

HAYWARD, RICK s/t (Sunbeam) cd 16.98

HAZARD Land (Touch) cd 16.98
BACK IN STOCK!!!
The Swedish sound artist B.J. Nilsen recorded under the moniker Hazard from 1996 up until this 2002 record as a means of investigating the physical and psychological effects that natural sounds hold upon the human body. (He's continued recorded in a similar vein albeit using his given name). The pursuits of sonic research are refinements of Nilsen's Industrial heritage which began with a handful of epistemologically grim albums as Morthond for Cold Meat Industries and has continued with the Janitor collaboration with Baby Doll Lima of Deutch Nepal. Unlike those projects, Hazard engages a stronger poetic sensibility in the digital processing of field recordings from snow, ice, water, wind, etc. The resultant cold, cold, cold drones dappled with rich, textured detailing always imply a malevolence within natural phenomena.
As on the Hazard album with its self-evident title Wind, Land finds Nilsen collaborating with respected field recordist Chris Watson to capture source material worthy to be run through the Hazard bank of DSP patches. Again, it's wind that Nilsen is after, transforming the violent whippings of Arctic winds into huge rumblings of low frequencies that burst into climatic squalls of rushing drones crackling with a rough-hewn digital grit. As the album progresses, the sense of foreboding and dread which opens the album dissipates and reveals brighter tonalities that are worthy of comparison to Eno's ambient recordings.
MPEG Stream: "Substation"
MPEG Stream: "Church"
MPEG Stream: "Kissing Gate"

HAZARD North (Ash International R.I.P.) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BJ Nilsen (the individual hiding behind this disc's grey packaging and the name Hazard) may also be hiding from his former Cold Meat Industries moniker Morthound. While the overall isolation and dispair of Swedish winters is found in both of Nilsen's projects, Hazard has shed the Satanic/Catholic themes of Morthound in favor of post-structuralist abstraction that results in shivering grey drones striated with a variety of scrapes and shimmers. We'll agree with the evocative description the Wire's Ian Penman came up with for this: the sound of a stealth bomber thinking to itself 'I'm getting too old for this shit, and I'm heading for the far away places to shiver and rust'.

HAZARD Wind (Ash International) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Having difficulties in making wind recordings for his new project, Benny Jonas Nilsen (aka Hazard) asked field recording specialist Chris Watson for some help. Coincidentally, Watson had just finished, of all things, a radio program all about wind for the BBC (isn't the BBC cool!), and was happy to supply his tapes to Nilsen. With the incredible clarity of Watson's recordings and Hazard's own raw documentations made using much less professional gear (mostly contact microphones on branches and grass to produce an eerie glistening crackle), Hazard had the material to create this new disc, "Wind".
Following the approach of juxtaposing natural acoustic phenomena with synthetic computer based processing that he utilized on his "North" and "Wood / Bridge / Field" albums, Hazard here generates a wide miasmic range of deep drones and dark looping passages from the manipulated wind recordings, but not overly-structuring the material, instead favoring an organic presentation of the sounds. The addition of Watson's pro recordings add a great deal of color to Hazard's otherwise cold grey timbres, with his dynamic recordings of wind whistling through creaky window frames, environmental recordings of westerlies whipping around mountainous peaks, and violent thunderstorms! The result is a fantastic record on par with Andrew Chalk's "East Of The Sun" or Zoviet France's "Mohnomische."
RealAudio clip: "Stream"
RealAudio clip: "Anemo"
RealAudio clip: "Sough"

HAZARD Wood / Bridge / Field (Ash International R.I.P.) cd+lp 20.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Hazard's third album sprawls across a cd and an lp, packaged together as one cohesive body of work. Moving further and further away from the industrialist tendencies that Hazard's B.J. Nilsen employed for his previous work on Cold Meat Industries as Morthound, Nilsen deftly manipulates field recordings made in various Swedish forests to evoke an unforgivingly barren Swedish landscape that normally doesn't translate so well on field recordings (unless you're Chris Watson). Hazard's grey sweeps of electronic dronescapes are sparsely punctuated by residual scrapings of what could be wood, leaves, and dirt for a spectacularly chilling work.

HAZARD / FENNESZ / BIOSPHERE Light (Touch) cd 15.98
"Light" is an all-exclusive precursor to the 2001 Touch Tour with Hazard, Fennesz, and Biosphere. Unfortunately, that tour is only taking place in England, so the rest of us will have to make do with this CD. Hazard's track is an eerie drone that rises quickly into ringing tones punctuated by periodic field recording glicthes, rounded drones, and quick digital edits of rain, deep in the background. Fennesz offers more of his warm digital deconstruction of guitar noise, with popping edits of different layers of sound to form melodic if wholly distorted chords. Biosphere offers two remixes from his "Cirque" album of his atmospheric downtempo electronica.
RealAudio clip: FENNESZ "C-Street"

HAZARD, GRANT Genus Euphony (QPM) cd 14.98
Some of you may know Grant Hazard from Oakland-based band The Very Hush Hush, whom we have carried records from in the past. For his first solo effort, Hazard gives us an instrumental cd of icy cool but beautifully melodic ambience. Comprised mostly of minimalist solo piano inflected with spacious textures and droning loops, Hazard's classically-trained musicianship serves him well in recalling the dulcet tones of impressionist composers such as Debussy and Satie, the modern day minimalism of Brin Eno and William Basinski, and touches of the dark-natured cinematic temperaments of Bohren & der Club of Gore. Limited to 500 copies. An excellent debut!
MPEG Stream: "Marionette"
MPEG Stream: "Trepanning"
MPEG Stream: "Shards"

HAZEL, EDDIE Game Dames And Guitar Thangs (Warner Bros.) lp 14.98
Also now reissued on vinyl.
Funkadelic guitarist (of "Maggot Brain" fame) steps out solo, 1977. Includes funkadelicized covers of "California Dreamin'" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"!

HAZEL, EDDIE Game, Dames & Guitar Thangs (Collectors' Choice) cd 13.98
Funkadelic guitarist (of "Maggot Brain" fame) steps out solo, 1977. Includes funkadelicized covers of "California Dreamin'" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"!

HAZLEWOOD, LEE 13 (Smells Like) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of Lee's rarest records (it saw just a limited release in Sweden only), this 1972 gem is full of horns and upbeat songs about, according to Lee, "pimps, whores, pushers, dopers, gangsters, and bottom of the human-chain shitheels. Now you're probably thinking I'm writing about major record companies and their unscrupulous executives, but this time, you're wrong! I'm describing the characters in my cd '13'" Recommended!

HAZLEWOOD, LEE Cake Or Death (Ever) cd 16.98
The man with the give 'em hell attitude towards life takes the same approach towards death on what is widely reported to be his farewell record. Suffering from renal cancer, and getting his affairs in order, Hazelwood, the gravelly-voiced singer and producer of some of the most exciting and weirdest country-tinged pop, refuses to wax poetic about his inevitable fate. Full of rollicking new numbers, some duets with non-famous friends, and a couple of visits back to his two best known hits with Nancy Sinatra, "Boots" (featuring Duane Eddy on guitar) and "Some Velvet Morning" (with counter vocals sung by Lee's granddaughter, Phaedra, who thought the song was about her), this is not the kind of record that Hazelwood's fans would have ultimately wanted which would have him harkening back to his late sixties heavy reverb sound, or the sad lonesome burn of songs like "My Autumn's Done Come" recently featured on Air's Late Night Tales compilation. Instead this is a cheerfully black-humored ode to a man who has defined everything on no one else's terms but his own, remaining every bit of a nutter all the way to the very end.
MPEG Stream: "The First Song of The Day"
MPEG Stream: "Anthem"
MPEG Stream: "Boots (Original Melody)"

HAZLEWOOD, LEE Cowboy in Sweden (Smells Like) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Here's what our pals at Revolver Distro say: "Free to ramble in the post Boots days, a newly minted Lee Hazlewood (legendary NANCY SINATRA/DUANE EDDY collaborator/songwriter) struck out for Europe, sampling Spain, France and Germany before landing in Sweden, a locale which would inspire some of his strongest work. His key artistic associate in Sweden was the film director TORJORN AXELMAN, and together the two masterminded the film and album project Cowboy In Sweden. The album went gold in Sweden and was a precurser to their next collaborative masterpiece, A House Safe For Tigers. Now reissued by Smells Like to give you Lee's trademark singular synthesis of cowboy rambles, rock rhythms and symphonic pop. Joined by vocalists NINA LIZELL and SUSIE JANE HOKOM (of the INTERNATIONAL SUBMARINE BAND led by GRAM PARSONS) who lend their heavenly voices to the sophisticated humor and raw subject matter of Hazlewood's material. Eleven songs of hard luck tales, pragmatic politics and love odes fueled by dark, poetic lyrics and esoteric images declaimed with wit, irony and wry honesty. One of Hazlewood's finest and most original offerings-a true gem in uncut form."

HAZLEWOOD, LEE Farmisht, Flatulence, Origami, ARF!!! and Me (Smells Like) cd 13.98
Yes, this is a *new* Lee Hazlewood album, his first domestic release of new material in over 20 years! Lee and the Al Casey Combo tackle a bevy of standards, including "Makin' Whoopee" and "Try A Little Tenderness". The liner notes, fixating on Lee's imaginary (we hope) "scotch bus", are even stranger & funnier than the record... but it's too bad the music is nowhere near as good as it was when Lee was in his prime.

HAZLEWOOD, LEE For Every Solution There's a Problem (City Slang) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In conjunction with the release of "Total Lee! The Songs of Lee Hazelwood," "For Every Solution There's a Problem" presents a collection of previously unreleased songs, some in their rawer demo form and some fully fleshed out productions. There's some low key Hazelwood classics here, especially the oh-so-dark opener "Dirtnap Sories," the aaalmost country of "Buying Back," and a late but worthy entry into the Lee + Lady duet canon recorded in the 'nineties and featuring "Melissa," a singer whose last name is unremembered by the musicians and producers involved. There's some goofy moments ("Dolly Parton's Guitar"? Hmm..), but if you're a Lee lover, this is a nice collection. As with the tribute album, Lee comments on every track in the liner notes.
RealAudio clip: "dirtnap stories"
RealAudio clip: "dolly parton's guitar"

HAZLEWOOD, LEE Lee Hazlewoodism: Its Cause and Cure (Water) cd 15.98
You know it's been a cold and lonely world since Lee Hazlewood left it, not that he wasn't constantly reminding us what a cold and lonely world we live in while he was still alive. But somehow listening to his preternaturally world-weary songs -- sung in his trademark wooly baritone; sheathed in their unique, and at times kitschy, baroque country-pop splendor; resigned to epic restlessness, heartbreak, loss, and death; and yet resolutely and often humorously self-defiant -- feels even sadder, now that he's gone. His back catalog is huge and for the uninitiated can be difficult to navigate but thankfully Water has reissued his first three MGM recordings from the mid-sixties for the first time separately (the 2002 2cd Big Beat reissue, These Boots Are Made for Walkin': The Complete MGM Recordings compiled all three albums together). Beautifully arranged by Billy Strange and newly remastered, they are the perfect entry point into Lee's left-field western cinematic sound. We're reviewing our two favorites here, the third will be on the next list!
Lee Hazlewoodism: Its Cause and Cure from 1967 continues in the same vein as its predecessor (The Very Special World ofŠ) but includes more of his half-spoken / half-sung epic narratives such as "Jose" about a young boy's quest to be a matador, and "The Nights", about the harsh life of a white woman who decides to join a clan of Native Americans. Peppered with more upbeat numbers than ballads, the best of which are "In Our Time" with its Byrds-like 12 string guitar, "The Girls In Paris" and "Dark In My Heart". As with most Hazlewood records, listeners have to deal with some cheese, here most represented by the vaudevillian "Suzy Jane Is Back In Town", but that is grist for the mill when dealing with someone whose sound world maneuvers fearlessly into many of the strangest niches of American popular music. It's best to brave these minor moments than ignore one of the best examples of pop production put to tape. R.I.P. Lee!
MPEG Stream: "The Girls In Paris"
MPEG Stream: "The Nights"
MPEG Stream: "In Our Time"

HAZLEWOOD, LEE Love and Other Crimes (LHI) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Vintage Lee Hazlewood, the man who Nancy Sinatra says "wrote three quarters of the songs I'm performing" (but always refused to marry her).

HAZLEWOOD, LEE Movin' On (Ace) cd 13.98
Late seventies Nashville-inspired country record recorded in Sweden. In similar vein to his 1963 debut, Trouble Is A Lonesome Town. Equally sublime and goofy!

HAZLEWOOD, LEE Poet, Fool, or Bum (LHI) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Vintage Lee Hazlewood, the man who Nancy Sinatra says "wrote three quarters of the songs I'm performing" (but always refused to marry her).

HAZLEWOOD, LEE Requiem For an Almost Lady (Smells Like) cd 13.98

HAZLEWOOD, LEE Something Special (Water) cd 15.98
You know it's been a cold and lonely world since Lee Hazlewood left it, not that he wasn't constantly reminding us what a cold and lonely world we live in while he was still alive. But somehow listening to his preternaturally world-weary songs -- sung in his trademark wooly baritone; sheathed in their unique, and at times kitschy, baroque country-pop splendor; resigned to epic restlessness, heartbreak, loss, and death; and yet resolutely and often humorously self-defiant -- feels even sadder, now that he's gone. His back catalog is huge and for the uninitiated can be difficult to navigate but thankfully Water has reissued his first three MGM recordings from the mid-sixties for the first time separately (the 2002 double cd Big Beat reissue, These Boots Are Made for Walkin': The Complete MGM Recordings compiled all three albums together). Beautifully arranged by Billy Strange and newly remastered, they are the perfect entry point into Lee's left-field western cinematic sound. We reviewed the other two on last week's list, this is the third, not our favorite necessarily but still pretty dang good, and fans will of course want all three...
The Something Special album from 1968 is unique in that after it was recorded and given a catalog number and cover (nice tan, Lee!), MGM decided to cancel it. So it has been given "lost album" status, making this the first time it has been issued on its own. The opening track "Shades" was actually recorded during the Lee Hazlewoodism sessions but the rest of the set, which covers more jazzy and Tin Pan Alley territory than the previous two records, doesn't quite reach the same majestic pop realms. In fact it features some bizarre Louis Armstrong style scatting (provided by Billy Strange himself) that will have less brave folks running. Not Hazelwood's finest moment as a whole record but for completists who have missed this, there are more than a couple of worthy moments. R.I.P Lee!
MPEG Stream: "Shades"
MPEG Stream: "Little War"
MPEG Stream: "Stone Cold Blues"

HAZLEWOOD, LEE The Many Sides of Lee (LHI) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Vintage Lee Hazlewood, the man who Nancy Sinatra says "wrote three quarters of the songs I'm performing" (but always refused to marry her). This has one of the best of 'em all: Lee's self-relexive version of "These Boots are Made for Walking" wherein he punctuates his singing (Nancy's voice isn't missed here) with narrative comments like: "and then [producer] Billy Strange said we'd better fade this out or we'll all get arrested..." (on "The Many Sides of Lee").

HAZLEWOOD, LEE The Very Special World Of Lee Hazlewood (Water) cd 15.98
You know it's been a cold and lonely world since Lee Hazlewood left it, not that he wasn't constantly reminding us what a cold and lonely world we live in while he was still alive. But somehow listening to his preternaturally world-weary songs - sung in his trademark wooly baritone; sheathed in their unique, and at times kitschy, baroque country-pop splendor; resigned to epic restlessness, heartbreak, loss, and death; and yet resolutely and often humorously self-defiant ‹ feels even sadder, now that he's gone. His back catalog is huge and for the uninitiated can be difficult to navigate but thankfully Water has reissued his first three MGM recordings from the mid-sixties for the first time separately (the 2002 2cd Big Beat reissue, These Boots Are Made for Walkin': The Complete MGM Recordings compiled all three albums together). Beautifully arranged by Billy Strange and newly remastered, they are the perfect entry point into Lee's left-field western cinematic sound. We're reviewing our two favorites here, the third will be on the next list!
The Very Special World of Lee Hazlewood from 1966 is one of his best albums ever. Opening with "For a Moment", a ballad of hurt marked by a wall of phase-shifted strings and a chorus of female back-up singers, we're taken through a set of gloriously arranged ballads and loungey pop numbers including the original versions of "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" and "Sand" (a duet with Suzy Jane Hokum, that he later recorded with Nancy Sinatra). But it's the centerpiece meditation on dying, "My Autumn's Done Come" that's worth the price of admission. It's hard to say if Scott Walker heard this record before embarking on his own string of baroque balladry the following year, but there are surely definite parallels. R.I.P. Lee!
MPEG Stream: "Sand"
MPEG Stream: "My Autumn's Done Come"
MPEG Stream: "I Move around"

HAZLEWOOD, LEE Trouble is a Lonesome Town (Smells Like) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two more long overdue re-issues from this legendary producer, author of Nancy Sinatra's songs, owner of gravelly voice well suited to 'Trouble is....', the narrated suite about a fictional town.

HBK TRIO Wallpaper (self-released) dvd-r 12.98
It's a bold move to offer a debut recording as a DVD; but that's what the East Bay improv / drone / noise HBK Trio has issued forth. Well it's DVD-R; but still! This trio features such stalwarts of the Bay Area sound community as Jim Kaiser (Petit Mal, NF Orchest, French Radio) on his trusted bowed bicycle wheel and other slabs of metal, Angela Hsu (NF Orchest) on violin and electronics, and Adrian Bayless on horns and electronics. As an ensemble, the three capture the spirit of AMM or even some of the Fonal adventurousness (minus the freak folk attributes) with all of the intertwining gestures and expressive bouts of sustained tones and softened noise generated acoustically and tempered with effects. The film comes in two distinct variations; but both of which document the biodiversity of the many creatures living in the East Bay: wasps, beetles, ravens, blackbirds, ants, and bees seen amongst the hurricane fencing, train tracks, and telephone wires. Shot digitally in video, the film enjoys some very nice static shots of insects scurrying about, then with rapid cuts of ravens marauding in the sky. You might ask yourself, is this limited? Hell, yes!

HC MINDS The Beginning Of The End (Blind Date) lp 16.98
ATTENTION DOOM FANATICS, DOOMLORDS and DOOM MAIDENS!!!
HC Minds began life way back in the early nineties, in the placid little town of Eugene Oregon, and while the name might not be immediately familiar to many of you, the bands that were spawned from HC Minds most likey are familiar: the legendary YOB, and the not nearly so legendary, but equally awesome Aldebaran. HC Minds released a handful of records, including a split with Japanese sludgelords Dot [.], most of which faded away with little or no fanfare, but maybe it was just that their doom was a bit ahead of its time. Now that we're in the midst of a doom renaissance, what better time than now for HC Minds to rise from the grave and offer up a new batch of filthy, downtuned doomy sludge!
Their first record in 6 years, The Beginning Of The End is a gloriously heavy sludgefest, doomy yes, but not ultra doomy like Corrupted and Bunkur and Moss, no this is way more rocking, we're talking Eyehategod, Grief, Bongzilla, Weedeater, Acrimony, Church Of Misery, that sort of thing.
The opener here is a short sharp blast of groovy stoner doom, with a killer almost NOLA sounding main riff, recorded HOT and way in-the-red, lo-fi, but fierce and intense, but that brief blast quickly gives way to some massive slow motion Sabbathian doom, lurching, lumbering, tuned way down, the drums spread way out but pounding heavily, total classic old school dooooom. But the record closes with another uptempo jam, a super heavy grinding stoner doom workout, mathy, jagged, with wild drumming and a killer main riff.
The first track on the B side is the record's centerpiece though, HC Minds get all Corrupted, starting off with 5 or 6 minutes of dark languorous piano, atmospheric and haunting, before the hammer falls and the band launch into the meat of the song, WAY heavier, but no less atmospheric and mysterious, this time bordering on ultradoom, with the riff unfurling and ringing out into long stretched spaced out crumbling decaying distortion, before the riff winds up and goes again, the drums a massive pound, but striking every few seconds, the vocals a raspy whisper, the whole thing gorgeously depressive and sloooooooow.
The band close out with an even slooower doom jam, super abstract, and ultra distorted, a lugubrious crawl, but peppered with furious squalls of wild grinding psychedelic freakouts, and some harsh demonic almost black metal vox, so fucking awesome, almost wish this track had been given a whole side of its own.
Heavy, and slow, and doomy, and downtuned, which in case you're still not getting it means total stoner doom dirge NIRVANA.
LIMITED TO 380 COPIES!!!! On black vinyl, although amidst the 30 copies we got, there are 4 or 5 of the super limited white vinyl version, maybe you'll get lucky. Comes in an awesome full color eye popping sleeve, with a printed insert, and an equally eye popping poster of the cover.

HE 6 Go Go Sound '71 Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (Beatball) cd 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Recently, we reviewed Brazil's Modulo 1000... Before that, Thai Beat A Go Go volume 2. And the Lemmy-goes-to-India sounds of Sam Gopal. And the Juan dela Cruz Band from the Phillipines. And Turkish music galore. And all those incredible Cambodian Rocks comps. Et cetera, et cetera. Yup, we've had a lot of vintage heavy rock and psych reissues from all over the world now, but this is maybe the first time we've gotten our hands on something from Korea (and hopefully not the last -- we'd love to get Sanullim discs too, someday).
Recorded in, yay, 1971, pressed in a ridiculously limited (promotion only) quantity of 300 copies each, and subsequently all but forgotten, these two records by Korean psychedelic groovesters the HE 6 are some gems indeed! With the exception of the closing side-long seventeen minute cover of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (which faithfully does indeed include the obligatory drum solo as per the original version, along with what sounds like a police siren and also an added *flute* solo!) all the tracks on the two albums Go Go Sound '71 vol. 1 and Go Go Sound '71 vol. 2 included here are instrumental jams -- numbered themes with titles like "Theme 2. 4/4 for Guitar" and "Theme 3. Running Human". And even "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is mostly instrumental of course.
Listening to the other tracks on this disc it makes sense that they would choose Iron Butterfly's opus as the sole tune to cover. Like that tune, all of their originals are extended jams led by fuzzed-out electric guitar and Hammond organ. In addition, the aforementioned flute gets a workout too. (Yet another victory for the flute, so often mistakenly perceived as diminutive instrument! But the flute can certainly hold its own in this heavy, groovy, acid-rock band.) And it's crucial to mention that HE 6's rhythm section is darn tight! Indeed, this stuff's funky enough that we're sure they were probably just as much influenced by James Brown's band The JB's as they were by the likes of the Vanilla Fudge and Iron Butterfly. If not so obscure, we're sure this would have been plundered by DJs looking for the swank breaks... who knows, maybe hip hop producers in Korea have done so? So, very much recommended to all you folks into these sorta swinging '60s/'70s sounds -- especially if you dig the Cambodian Rocks and Thai Beat comps!
'Tis an expensive import, but the packaging helps justify the price: a gorgeous heavy-duty mini-LP styled gatefold sleeve, complete with a booklet featuring extensive liner notes (in English!) and photos, plus you even get two colorful HE 6 stickers! Nice.
MPEG Stream: "Theme 1. Introduction Music"
MPEG Stream: "Theme 5. The World of 6/6"

HE IS LEGEND 91025 (Tribunal) cd 12.98

HE TENDS TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SKY s/t (Redwood) 2cd 15.98

HEAD HITS CONCRETE Summer 2004 Tour ep (Plastic Airlines) 7" 3.50
We reviewed a cd by these Canadian grinders a long ways back, a furious twisted atonal slab of spazzed out math grind, that reminded us of Drop Dead or Crossed out all tangled up with the Locust and as we said before sounded quite a bit like your head hitting concrete. Well we managed to get a small handful of these tour only singles, and it's more of the same. But here, the sound is even more convoluted, chaotic, spastic, angular off kilter riffing, freaked out drumming, super dense and dizzying arrangements, with long drawn out stretches of droney repetitive chug, peppered with bits of lightning fast blasts, the guitar constantly slippery and slithery, the chords unhinged, the notes seeming to twist and warble, almost like a slide guitar, but this woozy weirdness gives the whole records a super unhinged feel. Reminds us a whole lot of some long lost Gravity band, which is a VERY good thing indeed. (and we just might have a few copies of the HHC cd in stock, check elsewhere on the site). LIMITED TO 200 COPIES.

HEAD HITS CONCRETE Thy Kingdom Come Undone (Crimes Against Humanity) cd 10.98
Can't think of a much better description for Head Hits Concrete than...well...um...your head hitting concrete. This Canadian noise grind juggernaut is a massive metallic sledgehammer, sounding a bit like some unholy union of Drop Dead, Crossed Out and more spastic contemporaries like the Locust or the Daughters. Relentlessly buzzing and thrashing, but with all sorts of squiggly guitar harmonies and weirdly ear twisting atonal melodies and full on blasts of utter chaos as well as the occasional burst of classic metal riffery, albeit dressed in spazz/grind clothing. Then just mix in song titles like "The Anal Cavity Is Coming Up Roses", "I Shit God", "We Love E. Coli", "The Pastor's Cock Is In My Mouth (Hooray!)" and you've got one of the coolest, heaviest, sonically fucked records in recent memory. 47 songs in 60 minutes. Yes.
MPEG Stream: "The Anal Cavity Is Coming Up Roses"
MPEG Stream: "The Practical Impossibility Of Denying Emotion"
MPEG Stream: "The Pastor's Cock Is In My Mouth (Hooray!)"
MPEG Stream: "I Shit God"

HEAD SHOP, THE s/t (World In Sound) cd 21.00

HEADDRESS Lunes (No Quarter) cd 13.98
Texas trippers Headdress have been stirring up quite the fuss lately. First Mexican Summer reissues their out of print Turquoise cd-r on wax, and now Brooklyn's infamous No Quarter offers up their most recent effort, an unexpected leap into new territory for this psych/folk turned heavy drone duo. Seems these former folkie nomads have traded their knapsacks and peace pipes for distortion pedals and tube amps, not sure if it's for the better as we really loved the airy country atmospheres the old Headdress did so well. Lunes begins with a buzzing drone that lingers on and on as layers of tremolo organ and distant electric guitar creep in and out. The band have definitely dropped their Brightblack influence and instead traded it for other, heavier influences like Earth 2 or Nadja, not exactly a bad thing, though it seems their new droneyness is a bit flat and lacks the depth of other drone outfits. Their signature shoegazy, dreamy vocals don't appear until the third track, accompanied by a repetitive twangy riff that plods on and on into infinity, like watching the sun fall behind a never-ending horizon, definitely our favorite track on the album as it reflects what really makes this band unique in our eyes. Complete with trippy psychedelic artwork in a nice looking cd gatefold package, don't miss out on this slow burning drift into the golden summer sun.
MPEG Stream: "Seethrough"
MPEG Stream: "The Lost White Brother"

HEADDRESS Lunes (No Quarter) lp 13.98
Texas trippers Headdress have been stirring up quite the fuss lately. First Mexican Summer reissues their out of print Turquoise cd-r on wax, and now Brooklyn's infamous No Quarter offers up their most recent effort, an unexpected leap into new territory for this psych/folk turned heavy drone duo. Seems these former folkie nomads have traded their knapsacks and peace pipes for distortion pedals and tube amps, not sure if it's for the better as we really loved the airy country atmospheres the old Headdress did so well. Lunes begins with a buzzing drone that lingers on and on as layers of tremolo organ and distant electric guitar creep in and out. The band have definitely dropped their Brightblack influence and instead traded it for other, heavier influences like Earth 2 or Nadja, not exactly a bad thing, though it seems their new droneyness is a bit flat and lacks the depth of other drone outfits. Their signature shoegazy, dreamy vocals don't appear until the third track, accompanied by a repetitive twangy riff that plods on and on into infinity, like watching the sun fall behind a never-ending horizon, definitely our favorite track on the album as it reflects what really makes this band unique in our eyes. Complete with trippy psychedelic artwork in a nice looking cd gatefold package, don't miss out on this slow burning drift into the golden summer sun.
MPEG Stream: "Seethrough"
MPEG Stream: "The Lost White Brother"

HEADDRESS Turquoise (Mexican Summer / Kemado) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl! LIMITED TO ONLY 500 COPIES!!!
Formerly known as Worship (they released a small cd-r pressing under that moniker), the elusive group who now answer to the name Headdress continue their dusk lit creep through the enchanted wilderness. On Turquoise they craft a beautiful loosely woven tapestry of ivy-like guitar tendrils, lichen-encrusted percussion, solemn mossy male vocals that reside somewhere between Jandek and M. Ward. The album's fifth song "Babylon" sounds strangely like a deconstructed folk rendition of America's "Horse With No Name". Whether intentional or not, the glinting familiarity of the latter's central melody adds to the existing subtle hallucinatory atmosphere of the proceedings. The crowning jewel of rough hewn Turquoise though is the sixth track titled "Moon Of Shedding Ponies". It's a frayed, meditative instrumental populated with generous turns of a rainstick and what sounds like howling wolves or banshees.
If you dig the rustic, abstracted psych-folk sounds of Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice and the many bewitching branches of the Jewelled Antler Collective, don't miss this!
MPEG Stream: "Babylon"
MPEG Stream: "Moon Of Shedding Ponies"

HEADDRESS Turquoise (Totem Songs) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Formerly known as Worship (they released a small cd-r pressing under that moniker), the elusive group who now answer to the name Headdress continue their dusk lit creep through the enchanted wilderness. On Turquoise they craft a beautiful loosely woven tapestry of ivy-like guitar tendrils, lichen-encrusted percussion, solemn mossy male vocals that reside somewhere between Jandek and M. Ward. The album's fifth song "Babylon" sounds strangely like a deconstructed folk rendition of America's "Horse With No Name". Whether intentional or not, the glinting familiarity of the latter's central melody adds to the existing subtle hallucinatory atmosphere of the proceedings. The crowning jewel of rough hewn Turquoise though is the sixth track titled "Moon Of Shedding Ponies". It's a frayed, meditative instrumental populated with generous turns of a rainstick and what sounds like howling wolves or banshees.
If you dig the rustic, abstracted psych-folk sounds of Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice and the many bewitching branches of the Jewelled Antler Collective, don't miss this!
MPEG Stream: "Babylon"
MPEG Stream: "Moon Of Shedding Ponies"

HEADHUNTER Futurebound (Tempa) 12" 11.98

HEADHUNTER Initiate (Tempa) 2x12" 21.00

HEADHUNTER No Mad (Tempa) cd 17.98

HEADHUNTERS Return of the Headhunters (Verve) 15.98
The legendary jazz-funk masters reunite -- featuring Bennie Maupin, Paul Jackson, Mike Clark, and Bill Summers -- and with "special guests" Herbie Hancock, Billy Childs, and N'Dea Davenport. You will remember that Herbie Hancock made a string of fantastic kozmik groove records in the 1970s with this band, who then made a few on their own without him, and all are worth hearing. We've got a few of the Hancock 70s reissued LPs too, so ask us about those if you are interested.

HEADHUNTERS Survival Of The Fittest (Arista) lp 13.98

HEADLANDS BAND California (Headlands Band Music) cd 11.98
Headlands Band are a local quintet who play honest rock'n'roll without pretentions or airs, which makes 'em even more likable even if I didn't already appreciate their music. Well-written songs with that instantly classic traditional sound somewhere between Uncle Tupelo, Neil Young and Dieselhed. The poignant touches of lap steel remind me of Lambchop, and there's also cheerfully strummed mandolin & warbly organ on top of the guitars. The vocals are a slight weak point, sometimes sounding rather strained, and there's one kinda 'emo'-ish song that I try to program out, but other than that this is a solid debut very well-recorded and exectued. Surprisingly, I like this a lot more than the new Jay Farrar (ex-Uncle Tupelo) record, and that's sayin' something. For fans of all the abovementioned bands as well as Granfaloon Bus.
RealAudio clip: "Lonely"
RealAudio clip: "California"

HEADPINS Turn It Loud (Wounded Bird) cd 13.98

MPEG Stream: "Turn It Loud"
MPEG Stream: "Keep Walkin' Away"

HEADS Tilburg (Rooster) 2lp 28.00
As much as we dig the new breed of psychedelic space rockers, none of them can touch the Heads, whose sound is some impossible union of Hawkwind, the Stooges and Monster Magnet, able to whip off a 3 minute pounding garage psych jam one minute, and a 30+ minute free form metallic space drone the next, usually choosing to meld the two into super rocking, ur-psych blowouts, sprawling and heavy and blown out and EPIC.
This 2 lp live set, recorded while the band were on tour with SF's own Wooden Shjips, finds the Heads in fine form, effortlessly kicking out the jams live, BIG TIME, and in the process offering up a primer for all those young psych rock whipper snappers.
Brooding slow burn space-out to full on supernova lysergic psych meltdown, effects everywhere, swirling clouds of hazy blurred distortion, drums, heavy and pounding and rock solid, but occasionally getting all skittery and abstract, the songs slip from dirgey and doomy to hypnotic and heavy to super rocking and chaotic, the vox (when they do surface) are distorted and howled and buried in the mix, and the riffs, oh the riffs, for all the atmosphere and the vibe and the effects, the riffs slay, the melodies are insanely catchy, the leads stick in your head as if they were the chorus from a pop song, hooks buried everywhere beneath the roiling incendiary space rocking and free form psychedelia.
So goddamn good, the band's already heavy and unhinged sound gets even more far out live, the songs and sounds let loose, the unfurling into super spacious drone drenched spaced out psychedelic heaviness. Fuck yeah.
SUPER LIMITED. Gorgeous Day Of The Dead sixties style psychedelic cover art, thick stock, nice heavy vinyl, killer sound, essential...

HEADS Under The Stress Of A Headlong Dive (Alternative Tentacles) cd 14.98
IN STOCK AGAIN, now available domestically on the Altermative Tentacles label! The cover art has gone purple but otherwise it's the same...
Hailing from Bristol, England, the ultra-powerful power quartet (formerly a trio) known so appropriately as The Heads are here to freak you out again. We've been waiting for, like, three years for a new full-length album from these guys, who are just about our favorite heavy-psych-stoner-garage-rawk band currently existing in this blessed world. Under The Stress Of A Headlong Dive is finally here and we are NOT disappointed. Totally chuffed is more like it.
This, their seventh album, contains 19 new tracks, some of them weird under-a-minute droning FX interludes, others fuzz-fueled manic marathons lasting upwards of a quarter hour. Oh god the fuzz! This is some heavy, heavily distorted wailing swirling insanity indeed. Comets On Fire can't even compare. You have to go to Japan, maybe, and stick your head right next to the amps of a band like High Rise or Mainliner to approximate The Heads' in-the-red, pedals-to-the-metal, flyin' high, inner eye stare down acid energy sound. But we also have to imagine that they think of themselves as a pop band of sorts. The Fall would be one reference (the vocals do remind us of Mark E. Smith). And the Stooges were a pop band too, let's remember, and along with Hawkwind must be one of The Heads biggest sources of inspiration. But The Heads ain't a retro act, this is future/now rock action we're glad to be around to witness (on disc, that is, never seen 'em live but would love to!!).
Punkishly menacing and kind of metallic (with bongos, though!), or spacey and mantric, this never lets up and never gets dull. Over the course of this 72 minute platter they always seem to have a new trick up their sleeves, or a new pedal to step on... all heads should agree that The Heads have outdone themselves with this one!!
MPEG Stream: "Earth / Sun"
MPEG Stream: ""Pass, The Void""
MPEG Stream: "Return Of The Bemmie"

HEADS OF PAGAN Under The Tall And Darkened Arches (Faunasabbatha) 3" cd-r 5.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
In a world full of tiny labels, it takes a lot to stand out, whether it's some amazing and mysterious sounds or super unique and hand made packaging. And if anything RuralFaune as shined in both respects, a crazy collection of some of the weirdest noisemakers in the world, and some seriously amazing, and in many cases, fragrant, packaging. Hand printed, painted, folded, pasted, held together with string or wire, often filled with branches or flowers, scraps of paper, seeds or bits of plant matter, many of them very strong smelling, all of them amazing.
Well, Bruno, the man behind RuralFaune, was really getting into heavy music, and decided that maybe RuralFaune was not the place for such musics, so he started FaunSabbatha, a new label dedicated to heavy, creepy, dark music, metal, metallic, or just plain evil. Four new releases, each one outrageously limited, gorgeously hand packaged, and gone before you know it.
Heads Of Pagan are a duo, just voice, guitars and effects, but their 21 minute track sounds more like a tangle of crumbling downtuned basses. Low rumbling, thunderous riffs, slowed way down and allowed to pulse and throb, reverberate and whir, slightly percussive, the sound of pick hitting string is quickly swallowed up by black billows of rib cage rattling sound, very abstract and murky, muddy and mysterious, which over the course of the track grow in intensity, becoming thicker, more grinding, more distorted, the notes and melodies becoming less indistinct, transforming into a roiling black bass drone, only occasionally offering up fragments of melody, sharp bolts of feedback entering the fray, eventually building into a full on Merzbow style noise track, but with the basses becoming fuzzy and alien, sounding instead like synths, oh but they're guitars so it's even stranger, buzzing warbly confusional chaos smeared into a dense blackened low end blur. Heavy but not metal, brutal but still sort of ambient. Definitely for fans of the sloooooow and looooooow.
LIMITED TO 66 COPIES. In a mini 3" sleeve with a mini 3" printed insert.
MPEG Stream: "Under The Tall And Darkened Arches (excerpt 1)"

HEADS, THE 33 (Invada) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A new Heads record is definitely cause for celebration around these parts. This UK power trio fuses stoner rock, psych rock and krautrock into a drone-y spacey heavy whole that couldn't be more AQ perfect. Technically, however, this is not a -new- release, it's a vinyl reissue of the Heads' 33 cd, which was of course limited to 33 copies, and which means, unless you are in fact one of those 33 people, then this is essentially a new record as far as most of us are concerned. And it's not exactly a proper Heads record either, instead it's twenty tracks of unreleased songs, studio snippets, outtakes and experiments all seamlessly woven together into one entire record (think Faust's Tapes). Quite a bit more abstract than other Heads records, 33 is definitely on the jammy, rhythmic experimentation side of things, definitely falling way more on the krautrock side of the line than the psych rock. Which is indeed a good thing. This is a perfect slab of hypnotic, tripped out, droning, tribal psych rock, and fans of Circle, Salvatore, Faust, Can, Spacemen 3, and all that sort of stuff should not miss it. And as with most things like this, QUITE LIMITED!

HEADS, THE At Last (Sweet Nothing) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Last list we slobbered all over an album called Under Sided by UK psych rock rulers The Heads, and in the course of the review we mentioned we also had an even newer disc by them, the live-in-rehearsal album At Last. We quickly ran out of Under Sided (hopefully we'll be getting more of 'em back in soon) but At Last is still here, and it's a great freaking freakout record too. With a band like The Heads, ALL their albums might as well be live, it's just that with the actual live album you get versions of classics culled from earlier albums, plus new material n' improvisations never heard before (or again). To quickly recap, The Heads are an unsung uber-awesome heavy duty psychedelic garage rock band that takes their inspiration from '70s masters like Hawkwind, The Stooges, and the Pink Fairies. We're also reminded a bit of Lubricated Goat and some other Aussie acts. So if you're into any of that, and/or current acid-rock acts like Monster Magnet, High Rise, Comets On Fire, and suchlike, you ought to like The Heads. Apparently they recorded this while getting ready to open up for Mudhoney, who, good as they are, must have been blown off the stage. As good as Under Sided (a few tunes from which get the live treatment here) and equally as recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Quad"
MPEG Stream: "Stodgy (Coke's Gone Flat)"

HEADS, THE Dead In The Water (Rooster) cd 14.98
This super limited rarity from one of our favorite modern space/psych rock bands finally available as a real cd, and in a run of more than 100 copies!!
As we mentioned a while back, UK garage psych space rockers The Heads have a little cottage industry going, a series of ultra limited cd-r's, usually limited to 100 copies or less, in super elaborate packaging, often, the sounds inside are studio experiments, outakes and the like, and thus are sometimes the freakiest, wildest psychedelic blowouts these guys have ever committed to tape. This one got reissued a while back as a super limited double lp, but is now finally available on cd!
With killer Jaws ripoff artwork on the cover, this disc is some of the most ferocious, druggy, freaked out space psych we've heard in ages. 
From the second the laser touches the aluminum, it's a speaker punishing super blown out ultra aggro wall of druggy psychedelic space garage stomp. Guitars soar and wail, emitting impossible dense clouds of notes and chords, it sounds like the best parts of every Monster Magnet song, the sort of post-song-proper section where the band just freaks out and heads skyward, so think ALL of those parts woven together into seriously EPIC JAMS, everything wreathed in swirling space FX, the drums pounding and guitars EVERYWHERE. Or imagine the relentless psych jams of Earthless, only seriously supercharged and acid fried. So great.  
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Side 1: Prologue / '69 Shakes Of The Tail, Mystic Healer ("Suck My Tail Pipe")"
MPEG Stream: "Side 2: A Bite?/ Backpool Loop, It Cannot Become ObsoleteŠ, "Sat Up All Night, Just Looking At It", Less Is More"

HEADS, THE Dead In The Water (Invada) lp 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
UK garage psych space rockers The Heads have a little cottage industry going, a series of ultra limited cd-r's, usually limited to 100 copies or less, in super elaborate packaging, often, the music inside are studio experiments, outakes and the like, and thus are sometimes the freakiest, wildest psychedelic blowouts these guys have ever committed to tape. We're doing our best to get the scoop on the next disc in the series, but in the meantime, the friendly folks at Invada have decided to reissue one of the best discs as a massive double lp set.
With killer Jaws ripoff artwork on one side, this gatefold lp is massive, thick, and gorgeous, the vinyl too is ultra thick, red, white and black splatter wax! In fact the whole package is so striking it almost doesn't matter what's inside. Lucky for us, it just so happens to be some of the most ferocious, druggy, freaked out space psych we've heard in ages. 
From the second the needle touches the vinyl, it's a speaker punishing super blown out ultra aggro wall of druggy psychedelic space garage stomp. Guitars soar and wail, emitting impossible dense clouds of notes and chords, it sounds like the best parts of every Monster Magnet song, the sort of post-song-proper section where the band just freaks out and heads skyward, so think ALL of those parts woven together into seriously EPIC JAMS, everything wreathed in swirling space FX, the drums pounding and guitars EVERYWHERE. Or imagine the relentless psych jams of Earthless, only seriously supercharged and acid fried. So great.