HOWLING WIND, THE Into The Cryosphere (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
Before even hearing a note, we were sold. You really can't argue with an album called Into The Cryosphere, not to mention the fact that this bears the stamp of the always amazing Profound Lore label, AND this duo features Ryan Lipinsky of doom lords Unearthly Trance and punkers Villains. The Howling Wind definitely writhe in some of the same blackened sludge as UT, but with an approach that is heavily indebted to the hateful black metal we can never get enough of, with a thrashiness that is hypnotic, relentless, and pretty much the kind of thing your mother wouldn't ever want you listening to. Their punked out approach snakes around the Cryosphere through all sorts of passages, taking you along for a super negative death trip reminiscent of Deathspell's more thugged out excursions on Kenose. The riffs are thick and burly, the drums heavy as fuck, and you will marvel over how appropriate a name like The Howling Wind is, as the whole album seems shrouded in an uncontrollable, icy wind. Not surprising then that the band would cook up song titles like "Teeth Of Frost", "Ice Cracking In The Abyss", and "A Dead Galaxy Mirrored In An Icy Mirage". Lipinsky certainly sounds like a man of conviction here, with his super tough, throatshredding vocals telling you how it's gonna be. Totally nihilistic and hateful with a sense of fuck all despair, it's also surprisingly catchy with riffs that just won't let up, which will surely keep this one blasting out of our speakers for quite some time.
MPEG Stream: "The Seething Wrath Of A Frigid Soul"
MPEG Stream: "Teeth Of Frost"

HOWLING WIND, THE Pestilence & Peril (Profound Love) cd 14.98
Not to be confused with Howlin' Magic, Howlin' Rain or Howling Hex! This Howling, the Wind one, is appropriately enough a black metal band. Of the more primitive, thrashing variety... screaming morbid cacophony, with deathgrunts and raw pounding riffs raging amidst a murky metallic miasma.
This duo is spearheaded by Brooklyn's Ryan "Killusion" Lipynsky, a musically misanthropic gentleman whom you may know from such fine bands as Unearthly Trance, Villains, and the (un)godly Thralldom, to which this project is perhaps the sequel. Here he (and Portland, Oregon based drummer Parasitus Rex) bring the noise old school black metal style. They definitely owe allegiance to the likes of Darkthrone and Hellhammer. There's some doomic dirge on here too, and 'ambient' bits as well.
And yep, The Howling Wind ain't a bad name at all for this - a lot of this really does sound like it's been recorded in a howling wind. That's more than the case on the final track, "The Inevitable Conclusion", which sounds like a howling wind itself, being rather more of a creepily abstract, droning, power electronics track than anything "metal".
MPEG Stream: "Sin Continuum"
MPEG Stream: "Deadlands"

HOWLING WOLF ORCHESTRA Speedtraps For The Bee Kingdom (Rockathon Records) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Number 9 in the 'Fading Captain' series of Bob Pollard / Guided By Voices related projects. And what more do you need to know? Well, okay, this one is actually a little weirder than your normal Pollard / GBV fare: a rickety framework of spaced out ambience, rhythmic sort-of-retarded drumming and general lo-fi randomness, all supporting some pretty cool not exactly GBV sounding pop songs.

HOWLING, THE (OST) (Studiocanal) cd 16.98
One of those movies we weren't allowed to watch as a kid, but managed to see it anyway, I mean, c'mon WEREWOLVES! We had nightmares for weeks. The soundtrack is pretty scary too....

HOYRY-KONE Huono Parturi (Ad Perpetuam Memorium) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of the absolute standout tracks on the recent "Slave To The Power" double cd Iron Maiden covers collection was the version of "The Trooper" by an obscure Finnish chamber-rock combo called Hoyry-Kone. It was certainly the weirdest inclusion on the comp, as they were the only band to pay tribute to Maiden with trombone, cello and saxophone! We'd never heard of them before, but resolved to find out more. Now we've tracked down this reissue of their second album, from 1997. Hopefully their upcoming third album won't take 'em too much longer, 'cause this one is pretty great! They play an eclectic sort of progressive rock, starting the disc off with a lulling, beautiful, quasi-religious six-minute mostly-vocal piece that suggests Nordic folk influences, before erupting into a hard-hitting classical rock attack that combines Naked City-style dynamics with "Eleanor Rigby" strings. From there, we hear echoes of everything from prog greats King Crimson and Area to cabaret music and even a little metal riffing (hence their interest in Maiden I guess)... For fans of Uz Jsme Doma, Samala Mammas Manna, Borknagar, Bondage Fruit, Arcturus, and other international exemplars of complex, melodic, progressive, and (last-but-not-least) *bizarre* rock. Recommended!
RealAudio clip: "Laahustaja"

HOYSTON, JENNY Isle Of (Latitudes / Southern) cd 14.98
Last year one of our favorite records was one of those limited edition Latitudes eps from Paradise Island. Sadly that great ep is now out of print but luckily Jenny Hoyston, who is Paradise Island, and a member of the great Erase Errata has unleashed her first full length solo recording, sonically similar, just now under her own name.
Isle Of is everything we've come to love about Jenny's music. It's eccentric, impassioned and so fully engaging. From anthemic blood rushers like "Spell D-O-G" and "Bring Back Art" to twangy numbers like "Even In This Day And Age" and "Send The Angels" to the Mary Timony/Helium like "Novelist" to late-night burners like "Ruff Ruff/Rainbow City," Isle Of is a record filled with unpredictability but with a common thread of honest delivery and colorful expression. While most people treading such wide ground would most likely trip up at some point, Jenny is able to get all those sounds and songs to make perfect sense. Her range and great taste comes shining through brightly, bringing the same kind of intensity that she's perfected in Erase Errata, yet without any of the usual band boundaries.... We love the free and loose sounding Jenny, singing any kind of song she wants, and doing so with a conviction and flare that's impossible not to fall for. Liberating, exciting and totally infectious. Isle Of is highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Spell D-O-G"
MPEG Stream: "Novelist"
MPEG Stream: "Break Apart, Reattach"

HOYSTON, JENNY AND WILLIAM WHITMORE Hallways Of Always (Southern) cd 11.98
As if she's not already plenty busy with Erase Errata and Paradise Island, Ms Jenny Hoyston has joined forces with William Elliot Whitmore. Not sure if this is a one-off, but we sure hope not 'cause they make such a great duo, and this six song ep ends all too soon! Their voices compliment each other wonderfully as they weave their earthy tales in true country folk tradition. Yes, we could go on and on lavishing praise, but how 'bout we just cut to the chase and give this a hearty "Recommended!"
MPEG Stream: "Feast Of A Thousand Beasts"
MPEG Stream: "Marrow"

HR PUFNSTUF AND OTHER SID & MARTY KROFFT FAVORITES (Gazillion) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Gather 'round "kids"! Twenty seven theme songs and fun tunes from those vibrant Saturday morning tv shows of the '70s. Are you ready for... Witchiepoo, Far Out Space Nuts, Electrawoman & Dynagirl, Bugaloos, Dr. Shrinker, Land Of The Lost, Bigfoot & Wildboy and so much more? Yeah, we sure are! Fantastic (in the true sense of the word), trippy and at times pretty darn fucked up. This is what the fabulous Mr. Show modelled the Altered States Of Druggachussetts after!
RealAudio clip: "HR Pufnstuf Theme"
RealAudio clip: "Bugaloos Theme"

HROPTR Silent Depravation (NOTHingness) 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.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

HRSTA Ghosts Will Come And Kiss Our Eyes (Constellation) cd 15.98
Ominous, heavy and despairing, Hrsta's third album really reminded us of the most recent Carla Bozulich album Evangelista on which she collaborated with many of the Godspeed You Black Emperor kindred spirits. It definitely solidifies their position as a mighty stand-out amongst the many Godspeed branches. Ghosts Will Come And Kiss Our Eyes opens with a deep wheeze of an accordion that almost imperceptibly melds with main man Mike Moya's distinct guitar work that glides like a theremin in and around heavy-lidded drones from harmonium and organ. Loosely structured despairing vocal passages vanish into absolutely beautiful glistening drone scapes out of which acoustic guitar and voice re-emerge. Wonderful.
MPEG Stream: "Beau Village"
MPEG Stream: "Tomorrow Winter Comes"

HRSTA Ghosts Will Come And Kiss Our Eyes (Constellation) lp 15.98
Ominous, heavy and despairing, Hrsta's third album really reminded us of the most recent Carla Bozulich album Evangelista on which she collaborated with many of the Godspeed You Black Emperor kindred spirits. It definitely solidifies their position as a mighty stand-out amongst the many Godspeed branches. Ghosts Will Come And Kiss Our Eyes opens with a deep wheeze of an accordion that almost imperceptibly melds with main man Mike Moya's distinct guitar work that glides like a theremin in and around heavy-lidded drones from harmonium and organ. Loosely structured despairing vocal passages vanish into absolutely beautiful glistening drone scapes out of which acoustic guitar and voice re-emerge. Wonderful.
MPEG Stream: "Beau Village"
MPEG Stream: "Tomorrow Winter Comes"

HRSTA L'Eclat Du Ciel Etait Insoutenable (Fancy) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Is your Godspeed You Black Emperor antenna tingling? Yup, this is yet another project from the fertile Montreal scene, featuring Mike Moya, a GSYBE! founding member. He's also in Set Fire To Flames and Molasses. Hrsta (say "Hursh-tah") is his solo debut, featuring vocals, guitar and a lot of background creepiness. His dark and mournful vocal moments bring to mind Nico with the Velvet Underground or a drugged out Violent Femmes doing Leonard Cohen songs!
RealAudio clip: "Lime Kiln"

HRSTA Stem Stem In Electro (Constellation) cd 14.98
Hrsta is the project of Godspeed You Black Emperor co-founding member Mike Moya (also of Set Fire To Flames and Molasses). he's assembled a full band for this, the follow-up to his first solo album L'Eclat Du Ciel Etait Insoutenable, and it's a beauty. The first song draws back the heavy curtain on a darkened stage with a droning chorus of shadowy faceless chanted vocals which immediately drew comparisons to the Italian ensemble Larsen's fine album Rever which was an AQ Record Of The Week a couple of years ago. In fact, we'd venture a guess that much like that mysterious group, Hrsta also draw deep inspiration from Swans and Michael Gira. Weighted by an immense emotional gravity, Moya's music is a heady, hypnotic force -- half dream, half nightmare. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "...And We Climb"
MPEG Stream: "Une Infinite De Trous En Forme D'Hommes"

HRSTA Stem Stem In Electro (Constellation) lp 16.98
Now on vinyl. Hrsta is the project of Godspeed You Black Emperor co-founding member Mike Moya (also of Set Fire To Flames and Molasses). he's assembled a full band for this, the follow-up to his first solo album L'Eclat Du Ciel Etait Insoutenable, and it's a beauty. The first song draws back the heavy curtain on a darkened stage with a droning chorus of shadowy faceless chanted vocals which immediately drew comparisons to the Italian ensemble Larsen's fine album Rever which was an AQ Record Of The Week a couple of years ago. In fact, we'd venture a guess that much like that mysterious group, Hrsta also draw deep inspiration from Swans and Michael Gira. Weighted by an immense emotional gravity, Moya's music is a heady, hypnotic force -- half dream, half nightmare. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "...And We Climb"
MPEG Stream: "Une Infinite De Trous En Forme D'Hommes"

HRVATSKI Irrevocably Overdriven Break Freakout Megamix (Enschuldigen) cd 11.98
In recent years, Keith Fullerton-Whitman has been focusing on the beautiful strains of minimalism speckled with an exceptional craftsmanship and radical rewriting of historical precedents. Fortunately, he's not forgotten about his Hrvatski moniker where he applies his Amen break (the classic drum and bass loop!) obsession to short attention span theatre. Irrevocably Overdriven Bleak Freakout Megamix is a live set from his summer 2004 jaunt to San Francisco, where he performed at the Rx Gallery through the Jiffy Scuttler series for avant-electronica performances. And yes, the set does live up to its name, mangling many of the same mathematically acrobatic drum 'n' bass rhythms found on his previous albums (Oiseaux 96-98 and Swarm & Dither) in a toxic soup of knob-twiddling noise that's as good as non-jazz Squarepusher records or the more antagonistic Aphex Twin tracks. The seamless audio program of the show is splattered with 91 tracks, the longest of which clocks in at a mere 48 seconds. We like!
MPEG Stream: "Track 13"
MPEG Stream: "Track 19"
MPEG Stream: "Track 50"

HRVATSKI Oiseaux 96-98 (Reckankreuzungsklankewerkzeuge) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The debut album from Hrvatski (the prosaic electronica expert at Forced Exposure) is a drum & bass disc that almost all junglists will absolutely hate. 'Oiseaux 96-98' is a rumination on the Amen break (THE quintessential drum & bass break) which Hrvatski treats less as the structural placefinder and more as a hypnotic noise crashing endlessly next to looping toxic drones and field recordings of wildly screeching Hitchcockian birds. By also incorporatating the likes of detuned acoustic guitars, a 190+ bpm Pink Floyd cover, garage-sale organs, and hand held dulcimers, this near-drop out from the Berklee School of Music (and former Guitar Player magazine 'Metal Detector' columnist) unloads his vast store of musical knowledge and ideas. Hrvatski has created an unusual synthesis of Stockhausen's excess, Farmer's Manual's digital glitch worship, and of course The Winston's 'Amen, Brother' (in the liner notes, he does apologize for overabundance of the aforementioned break, because 'it just sounded so damn good...'). Recommended!!

HRVATSKI Raume (Tonschacht) 7" 5.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not cheaply made floppy vinyl on this seven inch. No sir. Hrvatski wouldn't think of it. This has some of the fattest, heaviest vinyl we've ever seen on a seven inch. "Raume" sounds much like early / non-jazz Squarepusher, where the complexity of the drum programming meant more than being true to drum & bass tropes. In other words, mind-boggling.

HRVATSKI Swarm & Dither (Planet Mu) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Following the electronically toxic explorations of the Winston Bros' "Amen" break on the "Oiseaux 96-98" album, Keith Fullerton Whitman returns with his second album as Hrvatski. "Swarm & Dither" further expands the fusions of drum & bass with obscure '60s psyche-rock, plenty of Max / MSP patches, and an open dialogue (critical and otherwise) with academic composition. The "Amen" breaks still run rampant throughout the "Swarm & Dither" cuts, but are less of a unifying factor than on Hrvatski's preceding album. Rather, Whitman under the Hrvatski guise treats each individual track as insular structures where he's responding and reacting to all of the elements within. "Swarm & Dither" is less of a wholly conceived album, and more of a collection of completed fragments. At times, these individual tracks are celebratory eruptions of DSP gabbacore jungle (i.e. the magnificent version cover of "Paint It Black" which also appeared on the amazing tUMULt compilation "Painted Black"); at others, they display a dry sense of humor that's more of satrical witticism than another self-reflexive piss-take (i.e. the Commodore 64 8-bit melodies appearing on "Marbles" on top of a rhythmic kaleidoscope of perpetually menacing breakbeats and 909 stabs); and on others, Hrvatski displays serious expositions on grindcore and elite '60s electronic composition (esp. Stockhausen and Riley). The album ends on a particularly anti-electronic note, with Hrvastki doing a very straight cover of Trad, Gras, och Steiner's "Waltz of Tegenborg" -- a Swedish psych / prog tune perfect for happy-go-lucky dancing trolls. It's a perfectly odd ending to a wonderfully odd album.
RealAudio clip: "Paint It Black"
RealAudio clip: "Vatstep DSP"
RealAudio clip: "Marbles"

HRVATSKI Swarm & Dither (Planet Mu) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Following the electronically toxic explorations of the Winston Bros' "Amen" break on the "Oiseaux 96-98" album, Keith Fullerton Whitman returns with his second album as Hrvatski. "Swarm & Dither" further expands the fusions of drum & bass with obscure '60s psyche-rock, plenty of Max / MSP patches, and an open dialogue (critical and otherwise) with academic composition. The "Amen" breaks still run rampant throughout the "Swarm & Dither" cuts, but are less of a unifying factor than on Hrvatski's preceding album. Rather, Whitman under the Hrvatski guise treats each individual track as insular structures where he's responding and reacting to all of the elements within. "Swarm & Dither" is less of a wholly conceived album, and more of a collection of completed fragments. At times, these individual tracks are celebratory eruptions of DSP gabbacore jungle (i.e. the magnificent version cover of "Paint It Black" which also appeared on the amazing tUMULt compilation "Painted Black"); at others, they display a dry sense of humor that's more of satrical witticism than another self-reflexive piss-take (i.e. the Commodore 64 8-bit melodies appearing on "Marbles" on top of a rhythmic kaleidoscope of perpetually menacing breakbeats and 909 stabs); and on others, Hrvatski displays serious expositions on grindcore and elite '60s electronic composition (esp. Stockhausen and Riley). The album ends on a particularly anti-electronic note, with Hrvastki doing a very straight cover of Trad, Gras, och Steiner's "Waltz of Tegenborg" -- a Swedish psych / prog tune perfect for happy-go-lucky dancing trolls. It's a perfectly odd ending to a wonderfully odd album.

HRVATSKI / SIGHTINGS split (Ache Records) 7" 5.98

HSDOM Untitled (Phaserprone) cassette 8.98
The last we heard from mysterious post industrial deadtech alchemist HSDOM was on a split cd-r from way back in 2009, which he shared with likeminded noisemaker SYNB aka Mat Brinkman of Load Records infamy, but on that split, with each artist reworking the sounds of the other, it was difficult to tell whose sounds were who, and to be honest at the time, it didn't matter, as both batches of reworked sound were incredible. So this limited cassette is actually our first true glimpse of what this Brooklyn by way of Berlin soundscaper is capable of, and much like that out of print split, it's a creepy, industrial, soundworld, of disembodied reverbed voices, churning, chugging, whirling rhythms, twisted swirling fractured effects, loads of hiss and static, rumble and crunch, the sounds swooping from speaker to speaker, slipping from rhythmic pulse to white noise blast, a barrage of looped lysergic mesmer, the garbled voices transformed into rhythms of their own, while the various electronics offer up their own confusional counter rhythms, blurred sea of blackened squiggles, hazy ambient sound turned into minimal thrumscapes, bleary streaks of gristly shimmer, peppered with common every day sonic detritus, all transformed via old microphones, mouldering magnetic tape, and damaged effects into some sort of crumbling futuristic transmission, sent from the cold grey past.
The second site starts out with some pulsing cold wave synths, slightly off, occasionally seeming to falter, or stumble, a haunting hypnotic malfunctioning machine groove, still underpinned with strange whispered voices, bits of distorted electronics, the synth tones gradually changing tone and timbre, clipped and brittle one second, warm and fluid the next, everything gauzy and hazy and washed out, the vibe growing more tense and claustrophobic, a minimal cinematic loopscape that evokes dread and darkness, gradually fading out to something much more shadowy and abstract, a looped bit of synthy soundtracky murk, that locks into a motorik groove, while all around, more strange voices, brittle sine wave tones, creaking glitched out electronics, mysterious low end croaks, all seems to float and shimmer like some dying sonic particle field. Haunting, otherworldly, dreamily disturbing, quite abjectly fantastic.
And of course, SUPER LIMITED!! Very likely the last copies we'll be able to get. Beautifully packaged in deluxe letterpressed, hand stamped J-cards, pro duplicated...

HTRK Eat Yr Heart / Sweetheart (Ghostly International) 12" 13.98

HTRK Marry Me Tonight (Blast First Petite) cd 17.98
When was the last time anyone made a Sisters Of Mercy reference and meant it as a wholehearted compliment? Well, that's definitely the case for HTRK (pronounced Haterock, FYI) as this Melbourne trio adopts a bleaker than black stance through their psychosexual dirges. With slinky Goth basslines, ghostly coldwave electronics, and skeletal slow-mo drum machine pulses, HTRK's arrangements mirror those that the Sisters Of Mercy produced for The Reptile House EP (which found them at their slowest, creepiest, and most anti-pop). But instead of Andrew Eldritch and his affected baritone, the singer for HTRK is Jonnine Clementine Standish whose comatose droning is seductive and compelling in its own right. She adopts the roles as the co-dependent, the broken-hearted, the addicted, the master, the servant, and the lonely, all delivered in Lydia Lunch's "I Fell In Love With A Ghost" dispassionate, zombified mantra. On the track "Rent Boy", Standish breaks out of that montone delivery, bellowing this dark ballad that comes across more like PJ Harvey than before. We have to wonder if the title is a reference to the These Immortal Souls track "Marry Me," penned by the former Birthday Party guitarist Roland S. Howard who happens to have produced this record and has sprinkled his narcotized swamp rock guitar throughout. No matter if it is or if it isn't, Howard's voodoo production for HTRK certainly gives them that Birthday Party feel. Great, very dark stuff for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Ha"
MPEG Stream: "Rent Boy"
MPEG Stream: "Fascinator"

HTRK Nostalgia (Fire) cd 15.98
Once known as the Hate Rock Trio, this Australian-born / London-based ensemble shortened their name down to HTRK (which the band still insists on pronouncing Hate Rock). Unfortunately, in the spring of 2010, the bassist Sean Stewart committed suicide. The remaining members - Jonnine Standish and Nigel Lee-Yang - look to continue making music, although that may seem a difficult proposition given that Stewart's low-slung basslines really drove HTRK's doom and dirge songwriting approach. The Birthday Party, Sisters Of Mercy, and PJ Harvey came together within HTRK's very impressive 2009 album Marry Me Tonight, produced by Roland S. Howard who really emphasized the skeletal, haunted aspect of HTRK's sound. That's quite different from what you'll hear on their 2007 debut Nostalgia, which still had a very strong Birthday Party sound especially with Stewart's recapitulation of Tracy Pew basslines, but the band has buried Standish's exhausted / exasperated vocals, Lee-Yang's swampy guitars, and the minimalist electronic programming in a huge bath of reverb. The spectral morass of all of the reverb really casts as a abjectly narcotic to the feel of these songs. Where on Marry Me Tonight which pushed Standish's vocals to the foreground to dramatic effect, she's lurking around the corners of these songs, howling and yelping deep into the night. It should be noted that a couple of songs from Nostalgia do reappear on Marry Me Tonight, although the difference in production really does change the the outcome. "Look What's Been Done" has become "Ha". "Look At That Girl" reappeared as "Rent Boy" and "I'm All Broke Up" turned into "Disco." Really fantastic.
MPEG Stream: "Look What's Been Done"
MPEG Stream: "Look At Her"
MPEG Stream: "I'm All Broke Up"

HTRK Work (Work, Work) (Ghostly International) cd 12.98
It's a bleak world for HTRK, as tragedy and death has surrounded this outfit which has only been around for a couple of years. In 2010, the band's bassist Sean Stewart committed suicide and the producer of their haunted album Marry Me Tonight, Rowland S. Howard died of cancer a year earlier. All of these elements make a connection to The Birthday Party almost inevitable, especially given their historical mirroring in relocation from Melbourne to Berlin and the manifestation of the id through a very raw sound. But where The Birthday Party was an expression of violence, HTRK are in constant search of desire, occasionally finding it only to have it frustratingly fizzle out before anything ecstatic can be achieved. As a result, HTRK's sensual bleariness is in an emotional feedback loop that never can spiral beyond the longing for sex, love, a relationship, etc, without anything ever attained. HTRK's existential portraits of being trapped by one's own desires are in direct opposition to the hedonism found in most electronica. Here on Work (Work, Work), the band parallels some of the horror-affected reverberation of the flash-in-the-pan Witch House crowd; but instead of drawing on unremembered memories of the forgotten '80s, HTRK has profound pain to draw upon... and they want their audience to feel that too.
The band had been shifting their sound even before Stewart's death, with a greater reliance on electronics and subharmonic tones girding the spindly guitar work from Nigel Yang and the self-composed breathiness of Jonnine Standish. They were moving away from the rock trio and towards a miasma of voice, guitar, bass, and electronics with boundaries between these sounds far more permeable. The closest references to HTRK's sound would be Ike Yard and Dome, although HTRK are much more interested in building tension with their teasing melodicism through their droning electronics. The first track on the album features a weird collage that Stewart had made of late nite TV sex ads in Berlin amidst slow-motion sighs caught in a half-melodic drone and crawling drum machine pulse. "Eat Yr Heart" ramps a quarter-speed Giorgio Moroder sequence above heroin paced rhythm with Jonnine crooning a sultry melody counterpointed by breathy exhalations. Sexually charged yes, but more of a downward spiral into dejection rather than release. "Poison" is more in keeping with the bass and guitar structures found on Marry Me Tonight, with Sean Stewart's bass clearly present next to the twilight flickering drone-riffs from Yang. "Body Double" overhauls Suicide's classic sound of metallic synth / drum interplay with undulating melodies that stretch into a magnificent coda of cascading melancholy for what amounts to a masterful album. Highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Ice Eyes Eis"
MPEG Stream: "Eat Yr Heart"
MPEG Stream: "Poison"
MPEG Stream: "Body Double"

HTRK Work (Work, Work) (Ghostly International) lp 17.98
It's a bleak world for HTRK, as tragedy and death has surrounded this outfit which has only been around for a couple of years. In 2010, the band's bassist Sean Stewart committed suicide and the producer of their haunted album Marry Me Tonight, Rowland S. Howard died of cancer a year earlier. All of these elements make a connection to The Birthday Party almost inevitable, especially given their historical mirroring in relocation from Melbourne to Berlin and the manifestation of the id through a very raw sound. But where The Birthday Party was an expression of violence, HTRK are in constant search of desire, occasionally finding it only to have it frustratingly fizzle out before anything ecstatic can be achieved. As a result, HTRK's sensual bleariness is in an emotional feedback loop that never can spiral beyond the longing for sex, love, a relationship, etc, without anything ever attained. HTRK's existential portraits of being trapped by one's own desires are in direct opposition to the hedonism found in most electronica. Here on Work (Work, Work), the band parallels some of the horror-affected reverberation of the flash-in-the-pan Witch House crowd; but instead of drawing on unremembered memories of the forgotten '80s, HTRK has profound pain to draw upon... and they want their audience to feel that too.
The band had been shifting their sound even before Stewart's death, with a greater reliance on electronics and subharmonic tones girding the spindly guitar work from Nigel Yang and the self-composed breathiness of Jonnine Standish. They were moving away from the rock trio and towards a miasma of voice, guitar, bass, and electronics with boundaries between these sounds far more permeable. The closest references to HTRK's sound would be Ike Yard and Dome, although HTRK are much more interested in building tension with their teasing melodicism through their droning electronics. The first track on the album features a weird collage that Stewart had made of late nite TV sex ads in Berlin amidst slow-motion sighs caught in a half-melodic drone and crawling drum machine pulse. "Eat Yr Heart" ramps a quarter-speed Giorgio Moroder sequence above heroin paced rhythm with Jonnine crooning a sultry melody counterpointed by breathy exhalations. Sexually charged yes, but more of a downward spiral into dejection rather than release. "Poison" is more in keeping with the bass and guitar structures found on Marry Me Tonight, with Sean Stewart's bass clearly present next to the twilight flickering drone-riffs from Yang. "Body Double" overhauls Suicide's classic sound of metallic synth / drum interplay with undulating melodies that stretch into a magnificent coda of cascading melancholy for what amounts to a masterful album. Highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Ice Eyes Eis"
MPEG Stream: "Eat Yr Heart"
MPEG Stream: "Poison"
MPEG Stream: "Body Double"

HU VIBRATIONAL Beautiful (Soul Jazz) cd 21.00

HUBBS, STAN Crystal (Companion / Gloriette) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We can always count on local reissue label Companion Records to foster the kind of rare hidden musical gem that perhaps won't appeal to everyone, but will get a select group of enthusiasts very excited over the discovery of someone's sincerely unique, but oftentimes misguided musical vision. Companion's specialty has always been cd reissues of vintage private press vanity releases, such as the Luie Luie, Charlie Tweddle, Marc Mundy, and New Creation records, and for their first foray into vinyl, have given us two quite amazing but very different musical visionaries: the spirited orchestral lounge stylings of Michael Farneti (reviewed elsewhere on this list) and the latent stoner mope-psych of Stan Hubbs.
Released in collaboration with Gloriette Records (Nite Jewel, Ariel Pink, and Puro Instinct), Stan Hubbs' 1982 recording Crystal is more out of its time than ahead of it. Recorded in his rural Sonoma County living room, it seems like the band almost can't decide if they're latent hippie stoner boogie-folk, eighties shred-guitar rock or progressively disaffected mope wave, which makes for an unusually intriguing sound that is hard to pin down. Hubb's vocals sometimes sung in a near monotone with female singer Kriss O'Neil can sound as much like a downer Fleetwood Mac as it can resemble some of today's gloomy pop found in Beach Fossils or Crystal Ships. But it's Larry Doyle's kitchen sink electric guitar approach that makes it really out of sync in an amazing way. Using lots of psychedelic effects and sounding like he's eager to show off his shredding licks to anyone who comes along, Doyle shows just barely enough restraint not to overstep the hazy vibe the singers and keyboards are laying down. Imagine if Simply Saucer did a cover of America's "Tin Man", and you'll sort of get the idea. But this is regionalism at its best, taking lots of big musical ideas from different popular styles and making something completely home-brewed, a bit oft-kilter and super genuine. Limited to 500 copies, comes with a full reproduction of the 16 page booklet of lyrics and drawings that came with the original release. Hot Damn!
MPEG Stream: "Joe and Gina"
MPEG Stream: "Let's Go On Back To Camp"
MPEG Stream: "Golden Rose"
MPEG Stream: "Seems Like It's A Rich Man's World"

HUDAK, JOHN Don't Worry About Anything, I'll Talk To You Tomorrow (Alluvial) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
John Hudak remains one of the underappreciated dronologists/lowercase composers, despite a number of really great albums notably "Brooklyn Bridge" and this album. "Don't Worry About Anything, I'll Talk To You Tomorrow" uses as its source material a phone conversation that took place between Hudak and his mother a year before she died. But the voices have been stripped of syllabic content to a bare sonorous abstraction with only the hints at conversational rhythms. Hudak uses these sounds to create a poetic miasma of timestretched insect-like shimmers and delicate tonalities that vibrate above a solemn quietness. A beautiful record that makes the impersonal and sterile Raster-label clickery seem, somehow, lacking.

HUDAK, JOHN Helene Marie: Reinterpretations (Alluvial) 2cd 15.98
When experimental composer John Hudak began working on his minimalist piece "Don't Worry About Anything; I'll Talk To You Tomorrow," he originally thought it would be released on vinyl, and so constructed two distinct movements (for the record's two sides). The piece was constructed via digital manipulation of an answering machine message left by Hudak's mother a year before her death. However, the subtlety of Hudak's work meant that the surface noise inherent with vinyl would be a problem, so Hudak opted to release an expanded version of one of the two movements on cd. Alluvial, who released that cd, liked the piece enough to commission a double cd of re-interpretations / remixes to accompany the original unreleased movement.
Hudak's work maintains a tenuous relationship with language, in particular the parallel between minimalism and haiku's communication of complex imagery through self-imposed restrictions. "Don't Worry About Anything" is one of Hudak's most evocative pieces, as he has stretched out the syllabic utterances of his mother's reassuring message into a delicate latticework of slow moving crystalline frequencies that exude a restrained sadness. That said, the unreleased movement doesn't really offer much more than the previously available version (which is ok if you don't have that), and neither do the remixes / reinterpretations on disc one by Jason Lescalleet, M. Behrens, Sukora, and Peter Duimelinks. However, disc two is far more interesting, with remixes / reinterpretations by Francisco Lopez, Eric Lanzillotta, Frans De Waard, and Leif Elggren. These four have all pulverized the original source material into granular rumblings and dense textural drones that offer uneasy responses to the delicacy of the original.
RealAudio clip: JOHN HUDAK "Don't Worry About Anything..."
RealAudio clip: FRANCISCO LOPEZ "Untitled #95"
RealAudio clip: ERIC LANZILLOTTA "Balmy Calm"
RealAudio clip: LEIF ELGGREN "Unitited (November 2000)"

HUDAK, JOHN Highway (Edition) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
John Hudak's minimalist sound experiments have often utilized single source materials. But unlike the elemental singularity of Aube where water, flourescent bulbs, and oscilators are transmogrified into almost interchangeable, dense noise fields, Hudak's choices are based upon the metaphoric content of the subject matter as in "Don't Worry About Anything..." which broke apart an answering machine message from his mother before she died. For "Highway," Hudak has extracted a quiet percolation from transient recordings from a freeway overpass. In spite Hudak's concept of turning the banal anger of road rage into a quiet Lopez-esque meditation of sound, the source material -- which could simply be a loose contact microphone bouncing against asphalt as cars rush by -- doesn't inspire any extended listens.

HUDAK, JOHN Pond (Meme) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While the origins for Hudak's sounds are purposefully ambiguous, the high-end shimmering drones appear with a clear organic textural density to them, that could easily be digitally timestretched chirps of crickets, locusts, or other twilight insects. Hudak pushes the envelope of these crystaline sounds close to the pain threshold, but restrains from going into Whitehouse territory for a more trancendental listening experience.

HUDAK, JOHN & STEPHAN MATHIEU Pieces Of Winter (Sirr) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pieces of Winter was born of two compositions that the sound artists John Hudak and Stephan Mathieu recorded as holiday gifts for their friends during the 2002 Christmas season. Hudak is reknowned for his stone-faced minimalism of deconstructed acoustic phenomenon; and for -his- seasonal recording buried a contact microphone in the snow and captured the sound of the snow turning to ice. Mathieu had composed a piece with Eva-Lucy Mathieu for pump organ and ocarina, which in turn he transformed into calm and exquisitely warm piece of delicate drones. Commissioned by the Portugese label Sirr, the two married their previous recordings into a gentle exercise for minimalist grace, in which the two have removed all recognizable traces of the source material's distinctive qualities and extracted digital fragments that allude to the poetry of winter, snow, and the cold without overtly stating it. Steady cracklings form a steady stream of hushed gray textures, accentuated by crystalline pinpricks of pristine feedback whistlings. Later on, Pieces of Winter glistens with the delicate glitch collages that have become a signature for Mathieu on his celebrated Full Swing album. A word of warning, this album is very quiet, and you really have crank the volume to perceive the amount of detail found within!
MPEG Stream: "01"
MPEG Stream: "08"

HUDAK, JOHN / JASON LESCALLEET Figure 2 (Intransitive) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Figure 2" is the second collaboration for sound artists John Hudak and Jason Lescalleet. Hudak's sound work is an extension of his work with delicate amplifications of emotive sounds which normally exist below the threshold of audibility, sounding like a less composed Bernhard Gunter. Lescalleet explores the expressive qualities of the lo-fi technology of reel-to-reel tape machines, damaged speakers, and ambient found sounds.
On an undisclosed winter night when the first blizzard of the season hit the Boston area, Hudak and Lescalleet were perfoming inside the warm confines of the Lindsay Chapel of the First Church Congregational in Cambridge. The first snow is always a mixed blessing as it offers on one hand the dramatic shift in the landscape from the drab grey of autumn to the blinding whites of early winter, yet on the other the snow obviously signifies the inevitability of cold weather. "Figure 2" subconsciously speaks of these dual emotions conjured by the encroaching winter. Using manipulations of recycled sounds from the dark old chapel itself, Hudak and Lescalleet present a series of slow sub-bass drones punctuated by eerie creakings of the wooden architecture and whistling tones from the wind rushing through cracks in the windows.
RealAudio clip: "Figure 2.2"
RealAudio clip: "Figure 2.5"

HUDSON MOHAWKE Butter (Warp) cd 16.98
For fans of Dam-Funk , Flying Lotus and James Pants. Neo-Electro funk with lots of cheesy eighties synth patches and wobbly beats!

HUDSON, JEFF & JANE Flesh (Captured Tracks / Dark Entries) cd 13.98
The husband and wife duo Jeff & Jane Hudson started out in art-punk outfit The Rentals (not to be a confused with the Weezer side-project of the same name from the '90s). There were a couple of Rentals singles, one of which landed on Beggars Banquet in 1979, before the band broke-up. The Hudsons relocated to New York from Boston, and shifted towards synths, drum machines, and electronics in their collaborative project. Their first ep - World Trade - was released in 1981 through the seminal No Wave Lust/Unlust label alongside Mars, Dark Day, Martin Rev, Lydia Lunch, Z'ev, etc., and the Hudsons had made the rounds of all the punk spaces at the time, opening for Suicide on at least one occasion. Flesh was their second album, one that they recorded at home and released themselves in 1982. There is an insularity to this album that asks something of a chicken and an egg question. Was their self-financing the result of an expressive solipsism, or vice versa?
Regardless, Flesh is a record that didn't have many contemporaries in New York, although if they hailed from San Francisco, the Residents, Snakefinger, and the Psyclones would have all been kindred spirits. Jane and Jeff wrote darkly carnivalesque, post-punk numbers through early Roland synths and drum machines, accompanying bass, guitar, vocals, and a lot of warbling effects. Their flanging, weird sound grafted onto the chicken scratch guitars certainly looks forward to what Blank Dogs would do some 30 years later. So it's no surprise that Blank Dogs' label Captured Tracks would be one of the two two labels releasing this reissue, which comes with a ton of bonus material, including the aforementioned World Trade ep, the "No Club" single, and the punchy art-punk dance number "Special World," originally released as a single in 1983 before the Hudsons transitions from music to video art. Great stuff!
MPEG Stream: "G.S. III"
MPEG Stream: "Pound, Pound"
MPEG Stream: "Special World"

HUDSON, JEFF & JANE Flesh (Captured Tracks / Dark Entries) 2lp 19.98
The husband and wife duo Jeff & Jane Hudson started out in art-punk outfit The Rentals (not to be a confused with the Weezer side-project of the same name from the '90s). There were a couple of Rentals singles, one of which landed on Beggars Banquet in 1979, before the band broke-up. The Hudsons relocated to New York from Boston, and shifted towards synths, drum machines, and electronics in their collaborative project. Their first ep - World Trade - was released in 1981 through the seminal No Wave Lust/Unlust label alongside Mars, Dark Day, Martin Rev, Lydia Lunch, Z'ev, etc., and the Hudsons had made the rounds of all the punk spaces at the time, opening for Suicide on at least one occasion. Flesh was their second album, one that they recorded at home and released themselves in 1982. There is an insularity to this album that asks something of a chicken and an egg question. Was their self-financing the result of an expressive solipsism, or vice versa?
Regardless, Flesh is a record that didn't have many contemporaries in New York, although if they hailed from San Francisco, the Residents, Snakefinger, and the Psyclones would have all been kindred spirits. Jane and Jeff wrote darkly carnivalesque, post-punk numbers through early Roland synths and drum machines, accompanying bass, guitar, vocals, and a lot of warbling effects. Their flanging, weird sound grafted onto the chicken scratch guitars certainly looks forward to what Blank Dogs would do some 30 years later. So it's no surprise that Blank Dogs' label Captured Tracks would be one of the two two labels releasing this reissue, which comes with a ton of bonus material, including the aforementioned World Trade ep, the "No Club" single, and the punchy art-punk dance number "Special World," originally released as a single in 1983 before the Hudsons transitions from music to video art. Great stuff!
MPEG Stream: "G.S. III"
MPEG Stream: "Pound, Pound"
MPEG Stream: "Special World"

HUDSON, KEITH Flesh of My Skin, Blood of My Blood (Basic Replay) cd 17.98
This long sought after collector's item holy grail finally gets reissued. And while we don't exactly have the same Pavlovian response when slapping this album on the deck as the collecting world at large does, it's an interesting document nonetheless. Primarily it is Hudson's fragile, practically off key, trembling voice baring himself wide open for the whole world that makes this record almost creepy. The production here is standard fare, not as out there as his later Wackies collaboration "Playing It Cool & Playing It Right" which we listed before, and possibly a little too dependent on synthy-sounding keyboards for an early seventies Jamaican release. But still pretty cool.
MPEG Stream: "Flesh Of My Skin"
MPEG Stream: "Darkest Night"

HUDSON, KEITH Flesh of My Skin, Blood of My Blood (Basic Replay) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This long sought after collector's item holy grail finally gets reissued. And while we don't exactly have the same Pavlovian response when slapping this album on the deck as the collecting world at large does, it's an interesting document nonetheless. Primarily it is Hudson's fragile, practically off key, trembling voice baring himself wide open for the whole world that makes this record almost creepy. The production here is standard fare, not as out there as his later Wackies collaboration "Playing It Cool & Playing It Right" which we listed before, and possibly a little too dependent on synthy-sounding keyboards for an early seventies Jamaican release. But still pretty cool.
MPEG Stream: "Flesh Of My Skin"
MPEG Stream: "Darkest Night"

HUDSON, KEITH Pick A Dub (Blood & Fire) cd 16.98

HUDSON, KEITH Playing It Cool & Playing It Right (Basic Replay) cd 16.98
Lotsa folks we know seemed real excited about the prospect of this reissue. Apparently this 1981 album, a collaboration between Hudson and fellow Jamaican turned Yank Lloyd Barnes (Wackies), was reknowned as an especially far-out dub treatment, way gone on the studio fuckery as these things go. Having now heard it, we agree that the production IS a big part of this record's appeal. But it's not THAT experimental, really. We think it's just as great that it's such a sunny n' soulful slice of Jamaican vocal/groove reggae. Sure it's super dubbed out at a times, with sped up/slowed down tapes, massive echo fx, filters, distortion, all that good stuff, but these songs are also really soulful and smooth, funky even. Actually, we're really reminded of the loose, swampy sound of Funkadelic's early efforts. Productionwise, this is druggy, sure -- not as wasted as the LSD-fried production of Funkadelic's "Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow", but close at times. Anyway we're talking about dub reggae here, laid back and head noddin'. Dub fans take note, this is a good 'un. It's over a half-hour long but seems kinda short just 'cause it's so good and groovy that you just want it to keep on keeping on...but that's what the repeat button is for. So, excellent call on the part of Basic Channel's new Jamaican reissue imprint Basic Replay for making this album available again!
MPEG Stream: "Playing It Cool"
MPEG Stream: "California"

HUDSON, KEITH Playing It Cool & Playing It Right (Basic Replay) lp 15.98
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. Lotsa folks we know seemed real excited about the prospect of this reissue. Apparently this 1981 album, a collaboration between Hudson and fellow Jamaican turned Yank Lloyd Barnes (Wackies), was reknowned as an especially far-out dub treatment, way gone on the studio fuckery as these things go. Having now heard it, we agree that the production IS a big part of this record's appeal. But it's not THAT experimental, really. We think it's just as great that it's such a sunny n' soulful slice of Jamaican vocal/groove reggae. Sure it's super dubbed out at a times, with sped up/slowed down tapes, massive echo fx, filters, distortion, all that good stuff, but these songs are also really soulful and smooth, funky even. Actually, we're really reminded of the loose, swampy sound of Funkadelic's early efforts. Productionwise, this is druggy, sure -- not as wasted as the LSD-fried production of Funkadelic's "Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow", but close at times. Anyway we're talking about dub reggae here, laid back and head noddin'. Dub fans take note, this is a good 'un. It's over a half-hour long but seems kinda short just 'cause it's so good and groovy that you just want it to keep on keeping on...but that's what the repeat button is for. So, excellent call on the part of Basic Channel's new Jamaican reissue imprint Basic Replay for making this album available again!
MPEG Stream: "Playing It Cool"
MPEG Stream: "California"

HUG Heroes (Kompakt) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "Raido"
MPEG Stream: "Tiny Stars"

HUGUENOTS, THE s/t (Hydra Head) cd 14.98

HUKKELBERG, HANNE Rykestrasse 68 (Propeller) cd 15.98
Norwegian singer-songwriter Hanne Hukkelberg's debut, Little Things, was an enchanting collection of delicate instrumentation, fluttering vocals, and sophisticated songwriting. It took more than a few of us here at aQ by surprise and became something of a sleeper hit for lazy sun-drenched afternoons. The same sensibilities that made Little Things so successful are evident on Rykestrasse 68: vocals pushed to the front of the mix, dry, personal and sultry while a kaleidoscope of drips, drops, bells and whistles flutters in the background. However, the darker mood and sense of melancholy on this record make it more suitable for grey days and rain-streaked windows than its sunnier predecessor.
The obvious points of comparison are, of course, artists like Bjork, Feist and Tujiko Noriko -- powerhouse singers who blend fractured acoustic sounds, electronic flourishes and sophisticated songwriting; however, Rykestrasse 68 stands on its own as a beautiful work from a tremendously talented artist who manages to achieve a really engaging combination of naivete and a deliberate, self-aware intellectualism. It's a winning blend, evident in the mix between the toy instruments and found sounds that lend the record a certain childlike quality and the darkness and drama to that comes out in its best moments (take her cover of The Pixies' "Break My Body," for example).
This, much like her previous, will undoubtedly fly beneath the radar, as it falls into that awkward middle ground between something you'd read about in The Wire and cafe-friendly pop. However, give this one a chance and it'll undoubtedly become the perfect soundtrack to some quiet, melancholy moment in your life. Simply gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "Berlin"
MPEG Stream: "The Pirate"

HULK Silver Thread Of Ghosts (Osaka) cd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Elephant Memory"
MPEG Stream: "We Swam"

HULL Beyond The Lightless Sky (The End) cd 9.98
We've been meaning to review this for a while now, record number two from the East Coast post-hardcore sludge pop combo Hull, whose first record positioned them alongside aQ faves Torche, with that sort of extreme heaviness fused to extreme poppiness thing, but on the new record the band have had a serious sonic makeover. The opening track alone, after a brief bit of sludginess, explodes into a furious blasting metalpunk blowout, with shrieked vox, buzzing guitars, slipping into chugging almost-breakdowns, before exploding into a roiling bit of lumbering doom, the guitars super distorted, the band lurching through some cool stop/starts, peppered with wild double kick drumming, and some psychedelic guitar shred, before shifting gears and locking into a super blown out mathy churn, before slipping right back into a strange sort of sing along punk dirge, and heck, the song is 11+ minutes so the band go all out, jamming wildly and flitting from sound to sound, managing to string it all together into something cohesive, and pretty massively crushing.
The rest of the record is just as varied, with the second track getting all spacey and droney, never really metal more a sort of acoustic guitar driven dirge, big drums wedded to some almost Appalachian style buzz, swampy and bluesy, but still dark and heavy, before the title track finds the band launching right back into some bellowed, downtuned heaviness, all angular guitars, and pounding drums, the poppiness of their first record still finding its way into their sound, but more subtly, with this new sound being much more about texture and mood, riffing and metallic pound, but it definitely suits them, in fact in some ways, while this new sound is still beholden to many that came before, it's a much more original sound, and one they've definitely made their own, and one we're still exploring after repeated listens. Epic and varied, sludgey and thrashy, melodic and mysterious, and most definitely psychedelic, this is the kind of record that should hit the spot for heavy music obsessives of all stripes. WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Earth From Water"
MPEG Stream: "Just A Trace Of Early Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "Beyond The Lightless Sky"

HULL, SCOTT Audiofilm I (Crucial Blast) 3" cd 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Silence... thunder... shudder... shadow... those are some of the things evoked even by the first minute or so of this isolationist dark ambient piece crafted by the multi-talented Scott Hull, best known as the guitarist of grind heroes Pig Destroyer, also of Agoraphobic Nosebleed fame. The whole thing, which mostly just gets darker and more disturbing as it flows on, is about 12:36 in length, one track fitting neatly on a 3" cd (not cd-r, cd). We love it when we get actual 3" cds! Though we really like it when they come in those tiny little jewel cases (like tUMULt's Bathtub Shitter and Professor 3" releases). Whereas this is packaged in a cardboard sleeve. Looks good though, with appropriately atmospheric graphics by Seldon Hunt.
Titled Audiofilm 1, this is presumably the first in a series of limited edition 3" cds on Crucial Blast. Hull's "audiofilm" is a scary one. Dramatic, sudden percussive clashings. Dronological whoosh. Nightmare heartbeat pulsations. The hiss and gurgle of some malevolent monster. Waves of whispery electronic terror... Don't worry, it's just a little 3" cd. It can't really hurt you. And some of it is actually lullingly beautiful, as with the gentle bell sounds tinkling about 7-8 minutes in.
LIMITED EDITION. 1000 copies only (which seems like a lot, but Pig Destroyer are pretty popular). We only got a few, and don't know if we'll be able to get more. (But we also have a Scott Hull solo full-length on Relapse, another imaginary soundtrack styled ambient effort, to be reviewed in future.)
MPEG Stream: "Audiofilm 1 (excerpt)"

HULL, SCOTT Requiem (Relapse) cd 15.98

HULL, SCOTT Requiem (Relapse) lp 15.98