CHECKER, CHUBBY Goes Psychedelic (Mariola) lp 30.00
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! Good thing too, since the cd reissue is now out of print. Our review of it follows...
When you think deep soulful psychedelic tinged rock the first name that probably does NOT come to mind is Chubby Checker. But guess what, he did in fact brew up a totally potent batch of psych rock burners that somehow slipped completely under the radar.
Apparently Chubby was living in Holland in 1971 when he hooked up with some eccentric and unknown hippie rockers who all seemed to be smoking some seriously good stuff and together they recorded this batch of seriously scorching tracks! Forget everything you know about Chubby Checker. This is not "The Twist", or the golden-oldies or a novelty comeback with the Fat Boys in the '80s. This is impassioned psychedelic rock killer with deep grooves and a super emotional and intense vocal delivery from Chubby. Every time we play this in the store someone thinks it's some rare Hendrix track or an unreleased Arthur Lee gem or some amazing group like Black Merda finally being resurrected. In fact just about all of these songs could have appeared on any of the recent spate of psych reissue comps that we have fallen so in love with (Nuggets, Cherrystones), and actually we were given our first sneak peak into this secret world of Chubby Checker a few years back on the great collection Mr. Toytown Presents Vol. 2: Nightmares at Toby's Shop. We never thought we'd finally hear the whole disc, heck, we didn't even think there -was- a whole disc. Turns out there was, now on cd as Goes Psychedelic though it was originally released on some budget labels variously under the titles New Revelation and Chequered.
There are some mind blowing songs here. Songs that aren't just cool cause it's neat and weird and interesting that they are actually being sung by Chubby Checker but songs that stand on their own two feet and grab your and shake you and sound so damn good! What's also so cool about this recording is that 9 of the 11 songs were actually written by Chubby, so it's not like some hip producer just grabbed a bunch of great songs and slapped his name and voice on them. He shows such an amazing range, from scorching stingers ("Love Tunnel") to druggy cookers ("Stoned In The Bathroom") to darkly solemn tales ("He Died"). What an absolute surprise of a record! We haven't been able to stop playing it since it arrived to AQ. We're completely addicted! And we think you will be too.
MPEG Stream: "Love Tunnel"
MPEG Stream: "How Does It Feel"
MPEG Stream: "Goodbye Victoria"

V/A Legends Of Benin (Analog Africa) cd 24.00
Score three in a row for the always amazing Analog Africa label! First African Scream Contest, then Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou, and now Legends of Benin! Focusing on four composers, Gnonnas Pedro, Honore Avolonto, Antoine Dougbe, and El Rego from the small West African country Benin, recording between 1969 and 1981. All coming from different regional musical traditions but operating in the same fervent musical scene in Cotonou where the Orchestre Poly Rhythmo were also from, that group providing back-up on a couple of tracks here.
As with the other two Analog Africa compilations, this one also focuses on tight danceable grooves and rare afro-funk. Gnonnas Pedro was perhaps the most popular of the four, being a master of the style known as Agbadja, derived from early burial rituals focusing on three differently toned percussion instruments, Pedro modernized the sound to such a degree that the first track, the highly infectious "Dadje Von O Von Non" later became the anthem for the national football team. Honore Avolonto, a young tumba player from Togo, was the most prolific composer in Benin, writing songs for pretty much every group around. Amazingly, he had no band of his own, but would score a hit, tour with the band until the hit faded and then write another hit with some other band and be off. He eventually recorded an LP,which became Benin's biggest selling LP ever. El Rego, a boxer in his young life and a brothel owner later on, made one of the first recordings of Jerk music (as soul and funk music was so dubbed) in Benin. His tracks are the most Western influenced, often times singing in English. Antoine Dougbe, is the most obscure and his tracks are among the rarest finds. His style combined elements of Congolese Rhumba, High Life, and traditional Beninese rhythms into a form he called Afro-Cavacha, named after the fast rhythms of pop music from Zaire. Dougbe, often worked with the Orchestre Poly-Rhytmo, but it was often an uneasy relationship since Dougbe's father was a feared and powerful Voudon priest, and the band (most of them practicing Voudons) feared reprisals should they question Dougbe's arrangements and musical instruction. But undoubtedly this religious quality so pervasive in Benin is what created such intensely tight and dynamic music, hypnotic and bewitching and endlessly captivating. Pure Gold!
MPEG Stream: GNONNAS PEDRO ET SES DADJES "Dadje Von O Von Non"
MPEG Stream: EL REGO ET SES COMMANDOS "Vimado Wingnan"
MPEG Stream: ANTOINE DOUGBE "Kovito Gbe De Towe"
MPEG Stream: HONORE AVOLONTO "Na Mi Do Gbe Hue Nu"

OH SEES, THEE / TY SEGALL split (Castle Face) 7" 5.98
Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall cover each other on this brand new smokin' seven inch. We really don't need to say anything more. Anyone who's been listening to the current wave of charged, blown out garage pop these days knows that these are two of the most potent forces in the game. Thee Oh Sees are coming off what we think may be one of the best records of the year, Help, and Ty Segall's debut was one of our favorites of '08. So rad to hear them tackle each other's songs. Thee Oh Sees do "The Drag" with a deep-in-the-void reverb filled flair that suits the song so well. Ty does "Maria Stacks" from The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In, a song which might just be Andee's favorite Oh Sees jam, not just cuz it's hooky and catchy, but it also immortalizes AQ pal and amazing artist/zine-maker Maria Forde. Ty finds a way to make the song a bit more lo-fi and fucked up sounding while still holding on to the great melody that makes the original stick like it does. Pretty much a no-brainer, best grab one of these while you can!

SEGALL, TY Cents (Goner) 7" 5.98
Good time to love the damaged and super charged garage prowess of Ty Segall as he's got great songs just gushing forth with a whole slew of new releases, most of which are of course crazy limited. There's his split with Thee Oh Sees, two new 7"s of his own, a split 12" with Black Time and a brand new full length coming soon on Goner. We were slow on the draw on the last round of TS 7"s which are sadly already out of print, so we're happy we were able to grab some of these before they disappeared too.
"Cents" is one of Segall's best songs yet and it'll probably be on his forthcoming full length too. Packed with infectious raw and dirty guitar and those slightly distorted yet crisp vocals, all coming together to make your body do the herky jerky. The 'b' side has two great fast and furious pop nuggets that are as timeless and potent as perfectly crafted garage rock gets. The kid is on fire!

CLUSTER Qua (Nepenthe) cd 14.98
We are totally in love with this new Cluster album. Not just because they are living legends of krautrock who helped shape electronic music as we know it. Not just because they are in their '70s and still making amazing music. Not just because their instore performance here at AQ a couple years ago left everyone in awe... those are all reasons why we love Cluster in general so it would be easy to just talk about all their past attributes, but the new record doesn't rely on the past, at all!
While Cluster have released a few live records recently, this is their first full on studio album in fourteen years! On Qua they do revisit some of the classic Cluster sounds immortalized on records like Zuckerzeit and Sowiesoso, but what we really love about the album is how they aren't just rehashing the Cluster of old. They continue to explore different sound palettes and the musical options and directions those new sounds open up to them. Using their synths they carefully craft these seventeen tracks and while each seems to have a life of its own they are woven together in such a compelling way. Listening to Qua is hearing two masters at their craft weaving sounds together, creating such interesting patterns, shapes and colors. Still at the top of their game all these decades later, Qua ranks high in their mighty back catalog.
MPEG Stream: "Formalt"
MPEG Stream: "So Ney"
MPEG Stream: "Ymstrob"
MPEG Stream: "Putoil"

HUNX AND HIS PUNX Teardrops On My Telephone (Shattered Records) 7" 6.98
Oohh la la! Hunx made his first colorful and sassy splash as a member of ultra fun Kill Rock Stars outfit Gravy Train, but in fact he's been contributing to D.I.Y culture ever since he was a young teenager making some of the most amusing and amazing zines we've ever read (if you are ever lucky enough to find his zine about Applebees by all means grab it!).
While it seems that Gravy Train have gone on hiatus, that break has spawned two awesome offshoots as Chunx (Brontez) started his own scrappy garage pop project The Younger Lovers and Hunx has been blasting out saucy, catchy and irresistible bedroom garage pop gems of his own with his new project Hunx And His Punx. Taking inspiration from girl groups, John Waters films and a hot vintage queer aesthetic complete with unzipped black leather jackets and lots of skin, Hunx is truly one of the few out and proud folks making waves in what was until recently a really stale garage pop scene. But wow has that changed in the last year or two as folks like Brilliant Colors, Wavves, Ty Segall, Dum Dum Girls, and more have injected much needed heaps of fresh energy and wild vibes into the scene. Hunx And His Punx lean much more towards the bubble gum side of garage pop in the best way. Kind of like if a young Fred Schneider jammed out Ronettes covers. "Teardrops On My Telephone" could have been the perfect soundtrack to one of those early Kenneth Anger short films. While others who try to inject humor and sass into their pop usually fall so flat, Hunx has the ability to make songs that are as charmingly goofy as they are catchy.
We slept on the now way out of print and wonderfully scandalous scratch and sniff 7" so grab one of these before they too are gone for good.

UNITS History Of The Units (Community Library) cd 14.98
Moog-enabled synth punk subversion straight outta San Francisco in the late '70s/early '80s, entertaining n' agitating electronic New Wave action excavated and reissued! And it's totally timely considering how many bands in today's scene would so love to sound like this.
We won't pretend we were familiar with The Units before this fantastic anthology album showed up. Perhaps we'd heard the name before (or maybe we were confusing 'em with ol' Jandek's 1978 debut album, also under the name The Units), but we knew nothing about this band 'til we heard this disc a few weeks ago. And as soon as we did, it went into heavy rotation here at the store. These Units were definitely a important piece of San Francisco punk/new wave history, but just a bit before our time. Well, not Aquarius's time, just us folks who work here now! Actually, a close reading of the thanks list in the cd booklet will find a shout out to Aquarius, 'cause (if you didn't know) Aquarius was THEE punk/new wave record store in San Francisco in the '70s... (Which reminds us, we've got to get more of our history up on the AQ website.) And, in fact, The Units' debut lp Digital Stimulation was the very first release on seminal SF indie 415 Records (who had their biggest hit with Romeo Void), a label run in part by Aquarius' owners at the time. So this most certainly isn't the first time that The Units music has been blasting regularly in the Aquarius shop, it's just been a few years, is all.
Putting things in proper place/time/scene perspective, this archival disc starts off with an audio snippet of the late SF punk "godfather" Dirk Dirksen on stage at Mabuhay Gardens, good-naturedly mocking both The Units (accidentally referring to them by the name of another band, the Zeros) and their cheering fans (with the sardonic comment "obviously, people with as little taste as yourself would become ecstatic over such average talent"). Then, making us ecstatic, twenty tracks of prime Units music follows, The History Of The Units containing most all of the tracks from their 1980 415 Records album Digital Stimulation as well as a handful of stuff taken from early 7"s and demo tapes, as well as more experimental pieces recorded for film soundtracks and art happenings and other ephemera.
Not unlike Devo, The Units had a concept thing going, all about a critique of alienated modern industrial society, dehumanizing conformity, and corporate culture, with songs like "Cannibals" and "Work". Perhaps perversely choosing to use machines to make their point, The Units tried to take the human element out of the rock band equation, preferring for instance to project their own propaganda films rather than allow the audience to focus on a frontperson. And yes, they do also sound quite bit like Devo at times, which is way okay by us!
Their synth-obsession was also in part an anti-guitar thing, a reaction to the mainstream. In fact, they took their anti-guitar philosophy to the extreme of not only having a "stamp out guitars" logo, but also making fake guitars out of plywood to smash on stage, while letting their synths play on "cruise control". So definitely The Units were highly conceptual, art schoolish, but not academic - the liner notes are clear that the idea was to be an all-synth band that "kicks ass" (the full quote being: ""I wanted an all synthesizer band... and not some fucking polite, socially acceptable electronic experiment in academia. I didn't want a doctorate in electronic doodling. No, I'm talking about a synth band that kicks ass!") and according to what we're hearing here, they succeeded. And they were not without contemporaries. There were The Screamers, Nervous Gender, and of course Devo; all of whom wanted to take the synthesizer into punk. For many of the Units tracks, it would very easy to replace the lead synth lines with guitars and have an equally kick ass rock song, but the fact is that these are Moog-powered cuts which do oscillate between a quirky sensibility with angular chops and a full-throttle punk car-crash. If you would think the former finds the Units sounding like Devo and the latter like the Screamers, you'd be right!
Yes indeed, the songs on this disc range from urgent Devo-esque pop punk and Screamers-y rants to moody proto-'80s dance tracks to more abstract, instrumental, rhythmic/textural electronic pieces like "Tight Fit" and "East West". There's loads of electric energy, some goofy humor, and certainly serious intent. So many gems here, incorporating buzzing droning distorted synths, propulsively skittering drum beats, and monotone vocals (both male and female).
Their incredible singles "Cannibals" (a tempestuous, driving song that was pure '70s punk), "High Pressure Days", and "Warm Moving Bodies," are prominently featured here, all of which were impressively catchy. Their ability to write these hooks earned them a deal with Epic, who released two seminal 12" singles (which couldn't be licensed for this compilation) and has been sitting on another collection of recordings since 1983. But beyond the hook, the Units were plenty weird, as seen in their peculiar lullaby melodies on "Red" which almost comes across like a Rodd Keith song-poem with a very sparse arrangement. Despite the band's curses toward academic music, a few choice intertwining moments of the Units minimalist grooves come awfully close to sounding like a punked out Terry Riley! Hardly polite music!
Other selections here include the cold wave weird science of "Digital Stimulation", the gloriously grinding downer melody of "Contemporary Emotion" (apparently a cover, a song by some contemporaneous hard rock band we've never heard of called Trakstod Station), and there's even an ode to our very neighborhood, "The Mission Is Bitchin", with lyrics about burritos and marijuana!
Of course it's all a bit dated, of its era, and that's part of the charm... but like we said, a lot of this also sounds like it could be put out by a band today, since everything old is new again and the '80s New Wave / synth thing is a current retro craze. Definitely this is a good time for The Units to be reissued!
And Community Library have done a really nice job of it, the gatefold cd sleeve containing a thick 32 page cd booklet with elaborate colorful collage style liner notes by bandleader Scott "Dr. Tex Nology" Ryser, a Units manifesto of sorts, he also talks about the wild and crazy San Francisco of the '70s/early '80s era, and also there's several pages of old fliers for Units gigs at the Fab Mab and other SF punk venues... we noticed one for the Warfield too, with The Units opening for OMD and Gary Numan. Also shows with Romeo Void, Dead Boys, Soft Cell, Psychedelic Furs, Dead Kennedys, Crime, Screamers, Iggy Pop, the Police, Tuxedomoon... Definitely makes us young 'uns wish we'd been around in SF back then. (Another note about the packaging, it says copyright 2007 on the back but that that's a mistake, it's when the artwork was initially prepared, this is indeed a brand new 2009 release, with also a vinyl version upcoming as well, not sure when, though.)
MPEG Stream: "Cannibals"
MPEG Stream: "Warm Moving Bodies"
MPEG Stream: "i Night"
MPEG Stream: "East West"

BLACK UHURU Sinsemilla (Island) cd 13.98
Sinsemilla is a total masterpiece, originally released in 1980, but which somehow most of us managed to miss out on completely, until just recently. When we finally did hear it for the first time we knew this would be one of those lifer discs, a record that would never leave our collection, and that would get repeated play for years and years to come.
Black Uhuru formed in Jamaica in the late '70s and with this, their third album they drafted the blueprint for the possibilities of how wide reaching and soul satisfying reggae songs could really sound. We stress SONGS as this is a collection of some of the most well crafted, melodic, catchy and deep grooved reggae jams we've ever heard. So good, it's tough to imagine that this isn't some sort of greatest hits album, every single track sizzles with a personality of its own that grabs your attention and keeps you coming back for more. With nods to Patrick Adams, a revolutionary spirit and a true yearning for that elusive state of happiness, this is a record that even though we discovered late, will most likely rank as an all-time AQ reggae favorite. Eternal summer jams!
MPEG Stream: "Happiness"
MPEG Stream: "Push Push"
MPEG Stream: "Sinsemilla"

MAJOR LAZER Guns Don't Kill... Lazers Kill (Mad Descent / Downtown Music) cd 15.98
We love dancehall, the beat, the rhythms, the toasting especially, the lurching hypnotic groove of it, but what we, and lots of other folks have always had trouble with, was the lyrical content, the whole scene in fact, rife with violence, and homophobia and misogyny, much like American hip hop, but even more fucked up and seriously unpalatable.
So much so that plenty of folks around aQ land who might otherwise dig dancehall big time, have sworn off it completely. UNTIL NOW.
Diplo and Switch, bring their twisted and tweaked approach to beats and grooves, and whip up one the wildest, craziest dancehall records EVER. And what better way to thumb their noses at traditional dancehall than by getting a whole gaggle of female rappers and toasters to team up with the more well know male Jamaican dancehall vocalists, often verbally sparring back and forth in the same song. The sound is supercharged, electrifying, the beats banging, the samples bizarre but perfect, a tangled technicolor musical backdrop over which the vocalists do their THANG.
Morricone-esque guitars, the clip clop of horse hooves, ringing cell phones, horse whinnies, dizzying looped rhythms, a killer stuttery beat, tons of woozy low end, everything chopped and hiccuppy, an awesome deep growly bit of toasting, and some cool looped Santogold vox, before she gets to spit her own bad ass verse, and that's just the first song.
The whole disc destroys though, relentless non stop hip shaking head bobbing sweaty sexy speaker destroying musical magic, some tracks bliss out into some sunshiney reggae grooviness, all laid back, infused with some awesome smoky sultry vox, other tracks get raw and rough, with buzzing guitars and fuzzed out bass lines, plenty of clatter and crunch, others are fizzly and festive, with vocodered vocals and skittery beats, and still others are dense tightly wound jams, drenched in effects and tangled up with rollicking block rocking beats and squiggly melodies. Even as an instrumental record, this would kill, but the vocalists push it over the top, tongue twisting flows all over the place, lightning fast sputters, growly drawls, head spinning back and forth and of course plenty of whoops and whooooooos...
Summer dancehall party record of the year for sure, with awesome Major Lazer cartoon cover art, very reminiscent of the classic old Scientist albums!! So recommended. Every time we play this in the store, someone comes up to see what the heck it is!
MPEG Stream: "Hold The Line"
MPEG Stream: "When You Hear The Bassline"
MPEG Stream: "Can't Stop Now"

ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI 6 Loverboy (Cooler Cat Records) 2lp 17.98
Recorded back in 2001-2002, Loverboy was originally released as a bonus second disc with the first pressing of the House Arrest album. Later pressings did not include this record, and led many folks to freak out and obsess and do everything in their power to track it down!
So it should come as a delight to outsider pop lovers and Ariel Pink fans everywhere to discover that Loverboy is finally getting a proper release, as a super deluxe double lp. It's the one Ariel Pink record that features the most musical input from his buddy and bigtime AQ favorite John Maus, who co-wrote a few of the tracks and whose instantly recognizable deep croon can be heard on a few other tracks as well. AP also gives a much deserved nod to one of his idols, R. Stevie Moore, kicking out a cover of "Hobbies Galore", and on top of all that, it's also the record where we first got a sneak peak what would become the Holy Shit record that AP would make with Matt Fishbeck, as the track "I Don't Need Enemies" from that record first appeared here.
Like a boy-man running wild in a bedroom filled with demons and a busted 4-track, Loverboy is that boy-man's warped take on AM radio if it was programmed by drugged out visionaries from another planet. Loverboy has some of our favorite Ariel Pink songs to date, and definitely displays AP's range, from the absurd to the profound, hinting at his true potential. Like most Ariel Pink vinyl we're never sure how long these will stay in print, so best act fast if you want to get one of these for your collection.

NITE JEWEL Good Evening (Human Ear) cd 11.98
Oh yeah! It doesn't get more sultry, more sizzling, or more charming then Nite Jewel. Ever since we heard her 12" on Italians Do It Better we've been entranced by this Los Angelas based artist's take on slowed down, slow burning, bedroom dancefloor jams, which sound like some kind of amazing mix of space disco and '80s soul and funk, with a healthy serving of valium in thrown in the mix. Good Evening contains those two great tracks from the Italians Do It Better 12", and thankfully, all the other songs here are just as satisfying as those tracks that reeled us in the first time around. There is something really unique about Nite Jewel's sound, drawing on '80s and '90s soul but infusing those sound with such a nice shoegaze and atmospheric feel, these wonderfully homecrafted tracks really do feel like that kind of D.I.Y. late night dance-in-the-clouds soundtrack we always longed for. While there has definitely been a renaissance in recent years of groups influenced by cosmic disco, Nite Jewel manages to stand out, conjuring and channeling sounds from the hazy and dreamy side of things like Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins) to dance floor divas like Debby Deb. Who knew someone would ever find a way to bring the spirit of 4AD and mix it with RnB and have it sound so damn fine. We could see Nite Jewel appealing to anyone, from fans of Grouper to Goldfrapp, there's so much to love on this record. Feel the slow burn!
MPEG Stream: "What Did He Say"
MPEG Stream: "Artificial Intelligence"
MPEG Stream: "Weak For Me"

MOS DEF The Ecstatic (Downtown Records) cd 16.98
Some of us were ready to concede the fact that Mos Def may have evolved into a much more important and amazing actor than rapper, but with The Ecstatic he grabs us forcefully and reminds us that he is most definitely still a potent musical force to be reckoned with! Any record that opens with a Malcolm X soundclip and goes right into a song that samples the music of Turkish psych singer Selda is setting the bar pretty high, and Mos Def just keeps pushing that bar higher and higher, as The Ecstatic is his most intense, immediate and powerful record in a long time.
The Ecstatic features some of the best hip-hop producers around (Madlib, Oh No, Georgia Ann Muldrow, Mr. Flash and even the late great J Dilla). While those producers help flesh out the strong beats and slightly Eastern vibe, the strength of the album is all about the presence of a rejuvenated Mos Def who sounds so commanding, in control and at ease on the mic. His flow and intensity on the record reminds us of classic Eric B. & Rakim, the kind of hip-hop that hits you hard on first listen but keeps unveiling more of its potency on repeated listens. Can't imagine a better hip-hop record coming out this year. So great!
MPEG Stream: "Supermagic"
MPEG Stream: "Revelations"
MPEG Stream: "Auditorium (Feat. The Ruler)"

V/A The Sound of Wonder: Rare Electronic Pop From The Lollywood Vaults 1973-1980 (Finders Keepers) cd 23.00
Yay! It's been awhile since we've had a new Finder's Keepers release, and this one is amazing!
By now we're all too familiar with the Eastern cinematic pop splendor and sitar funk of Bollywood. But what about Lollywood? Yes, just to the north in Pakistan, the city of Lahore had their own cottage film industry. Perhaps not as well known outside Pakistan, Lollywood was highly profitable in the seventies and eighties, housing a unique music division with its own equivalent of Bollywood's R.D. Burman and Asha Bhole in M. Ashraf and his female collaborator, Nahid Akhtar. With the help of EMI, Pakistani musicians were able to create ambitious music in a world class studio, using far-out instrumentation like Moogs and other synthesizers, accordions, surf-guitars, and tons of traditional hand percussion instruments instead of a proper drum set. It's definitely a far more electric and electronic pop sound , than what we're used to hearing in classic Bollywood music. Having an almost retro-futurist bent in its explosive collision of Eastern and Western musical touchstones: Freak-Beat and Surf Rock meets Space-Age Moog Pop and Urdu Groove! Originally released on 7" mini-lps (a curious marketing scheme was to release one soundtrack on 3 separate 7"s!), this is the first time these wild and delightful cinematic obscurities have been collected. Let's hope more get discovered. This IS the Sound of Wonder!
MPEG Stream: M. ASHRAF "Dama Dam Mast Qalander"
MPEG Stream: TAFO "Karye Pyar"
MPEG Stream: NAZIR ALI "Society Girl"

FIELD, THE Yesterday And Today (Anti / Kompakt) cd 15.98
The Field's 2007 album From Here We Go Sublime caught many people by surprise, and we were happy to find ourselves included in that crowd of Field supporters. This was a minimal techno record playing the part of a pop album, through sleights of hand that extracted the sappiest moments of the '80s without appearing the part of the ironist. In pixel-painted blurs of entrancing melodies and soothing ambient warmth, The Field offered nostalgia without having a damn Lionel Richie song stuck in your head. Yup, one of the more memorable samples from From Here We Go Sublime was a wistful guitar lead from Richie's "Hello." In a lot of ways, The Field reached a pinnacle for Kompakt's Pop Ambient strategies, easily surpassing perhaps the album that started it all: Gas' Pop.
Jump two years down the line and several trips around the world, The Field returns with a second album that shouldn't disappoint those who were held rapt by the debut. Yesterday and Today has much of the restrained crescendos of velvety hypnosis grafted onto the steel girds of German engineered techno. Yes, we do know that The Field's Axel Willner is from Sweden, but the heart and soul of the motorik pulse is firmly rooted in Germany. Neu!, Kraftwerk, Cluster, Basic Channel, and of course, Kompakt are the obvious references in the formal structures of The Field, with his source material being those misty-eyed remembrances of music's past. If there are specific samples to be recognized in Yesterday and Today, they are not overt and obvious; but the sentiment is still the same. Nice.
The vinyl version includes a cd of the album as well!
MPEG Stream: "Leave It"
MPEG Stream: "I Have The Moon, You Have The Internet"
MPEG Stream: "Yesterday & Today"

FIELD, THE Yesterday And Today (Anti / Kompakt) 2lp+cd 19.98
The Field's 2007 album From Here We Go Sublime caught many people by surprise, and we were happy to find ourselves included in that crowd of Field supporters. This was a minimal techno record playing the part of a pop album, through sleights of hand that extracted the sappiest moments of the '80s without appearing the part of the ironist. In pixel-painted blurs of entrancing melodies and soothing ambient warmth, The Field offered nostalgia without having a damn Lionel Richie song stuck in your head. Yup, one of the more memorable samples from From Here We Go Sublime was a wistful guitar lead from Richie's "Hello." In a lot of ways, The Field reached a pinnacle for Kompakt's Pop Ambient strategies, easily surpassing perhaps the album that started it all: Gas' Pop.
Jump two years down the line and several trips around the world, The Field returns with a second album that shouldn't disappoint those who were held rapt by the debut. Yesterday and Today has much of the restrained crescendos of velvety hypnosis grafted onto the steel girds of German engineered techno. Yes, we do know that The Field's Axel Willner is from Sweden, but the heart and soul of the motorik pulse is firmly rooted in Germany. Neu!, Kraftwerk, Cluster, Basic Channel, and of course, Kompakt are the obvious references in the formal structures of The Field, with his source material being those misty-eyed remembrances of music's past. If there are specific samples to be recognized in Yesterday and Today, they are not overt and obvious; but the sentiment is still the same. Nice.
The vinyl version includes a cd of the album as well!
MPEG Stream: "Leave It"
MPEG Stream: "I Have The Moon, You Have The Internet"
MPEG Stream: "Yesterday & Today"

PHOENIX Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Glass Note) cd 14.98
You probably already heard a lot of the hype surrounding this record, and you know what? It's all totally true! Phoenix have created one of the best and most infectious pop records to come around in a very long time. We're talking start to finish every single song having hooks and melodies that sound so fucking great and are both breezy and catchy as well as so totally immaculately crafted.
This is one of those rare pop records that is both so smart and so fun. Imagine Saturdays=Youth era M83 covering the Strokes!!! Although comparisons seem a bit silly here as Phoenix have really made a super unique record, that kind of perfect summer pop jam that most bands only dream of and often spend their whole lives trying to make, only to fall flat over and over again. No matter where you are or what you're doing, when you listen to this record you're totally transported, it's a refreshing rush, the world seems sunshinier, the skies bluer, everything just sparkles and glistens. So cool and suave and slick in the best way, it's impossible to not fall in love with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. So many folks we know, who are into experimental music or electronica or other branches of more esoteric minded sounds, have just fallen head over heels for this new Phoenix record which is truly a testament to its undeniable universal appeal.
While past Phoenix records always had at least a few totally standout tracks, none of those records can possibly compare. Some of us here, pop fanatics for sure, were pretty skeptical, having not been that impressed with past record, and not believing the hype, but after hearing just the opening track, naysayers were silenced, and almost immediately transformed into rabid fans, playing this to death, in the store AND at home. Sparkling, hook laden, well produced power pop bliss. This one's gonna be a bigtime contender for pop record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Lisztomania"
MPEG Stream: "Fences"
MPEG Stream: "Lasso"

SONIC YOUTH The Eternal (Matador) cd 13.98
The Eternal is pretty much a perfect title for a Sonic Youth album. There is something so eternal about their presence in our cultural landscape that it's kind of impossible to think about living in a world without them. Since their last album, the rather great Rather Ripped, their contract with Geffen finally expired which thus finds this new album on indie Matador, but truth be told Sonic Youth were the rare band who really seemed to be able to make any kind of record they wanted while on a major anyway, and just used their own SYR imprint as the outlet for their more experimental and improv based leanings.
The Eternal is very similar in scope and feel to their last few outings, but even a bit more rocking and immediate. Almost sounds like they took the blueprints for Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped and just pushed a big 'turbo' button. The true stars of the album are Lee Ranaldo and Kim Gordon, whose songs are the ones we find ourselves getting truly attached to. We really wish Ranaldo would make a song based solo album one of these days, as his contributions to Sonic Youth, especially in the more recent years, feel so urgent and insightful. We do wish The Eternal allowed itself to get a little more sprawled out and dreamy but still, as we listen to this album more and more the music and songs and sounds keep sinking deeper and deeper into our psyches, no surprise as one of the trademarks of Sonic Youth's legacy is how they make records that really do reveal themselves with repeated listens.
While people seem to always be so nostalgic when they think of Sonic Youth, it's important to remember that this is still very a much a band who is in the present and continuing to make great and moving music.
MPEG Stream: "Malibu Gas Station"
MPEG Stream: "Anti-Orgasm"
MPEG Stream: "Walkin Blue"

SONIC YOUTH The Eternal (Matador) 2lp 32.00
The Eternal is pretty much a perfect title for a Sonic Youth album. There is something so eternal about their presence in our cultural landscape that it's kind of impossible to think about living in a world without them. Since their last album, the rather great Rather Ripped, their contract with Geffen finally expired which thus finds this new album on indie Matador, but truth be told Sonic Youth were the rare band who really seemed to be able to make any kind of record they wanted while on a major anyway, and just used their own SYR imprint as the outlet for their more experimental and improv based leanings.
The Eternal is very similar in scope and feel to their last few outings, but even a bit more rocking and immediate. Almost sounds like they took the blueprints for Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped and just pushed a big 'turbo' button. The true stars of the album are Lee Ranaldo and Kim Gordon, whose songs are the ones we find ourselves getting truly attached to. We really wish Ranaldo would make a song based solo album one of these days, as his contributions to Sonic Youth, especially in the more recent years, feel so urgent and insightful. We do wish The Eternal allowed itself to get a little more sprawled out and dreamy but still, as we listen to this album more and more the music and songs and sounds keep sinking deeper and deeper into our psyches, no surprise as one of the trademarks of Sonic Youth's legacy is how they make records that really do reveal themselves with repeated listens.
While people seem to always be so nostalgic when they think of Sonic Youth, it's important to remember that this is still very a much a band who is in the present and continuing to make great and moving music.
MPEG Stream: "Malibu Gas Station"
MPEG Stream: "Anti-Orgasm"
MPEG Stream: "Walkin Blue"

V/A Skweee Tooth (Ramp Recordings) cd 14.98
Pretty soon it won't be so skweeeasy to come up with good skweee-puns... As you may know, we definitely do have a sweet tooth (or, rather, ear) for skweee and thus are super stoked about this new compilation, which is totally in the tradition of the Museum Of Future Sound Vol. 1 and 2 comps we freaked out about last year and the year before... in fact, this may as well be Museum Of Future Sound Volume 3 (Volume Skweee?), 'cause the same Skweeedish, we mean Swedish label that brought us those, Flogsta Danshall, teamed up with the UK's Ramp Recordings to release this new collection, featuring tracks selected by Flogsta boss and skweee artist Pavan.
The vitality and variety of the cheeky skweee scene is certainly on display here. Some tracks are more dancey, some more minimal, some more chaotic. But it's all within the skweee realm of (mostly) instrumental, wacked out, synth damaged, chiptune-y, sometimes silly, glitchy grooves inspired by '80s electro, hiphop and video games. There's 13 cuts of that special Scandinavian DIY retrofuturefunk here, quite a few by names we already knew (Mesak, Liminous, Daniel Savio, Rigas Den Andre, Joraxen, Spartan Lover, Wankers United, Mrs. Queda) plus a few others we didn't (Beatbully, V.C., Easy & Center Of The Universe, Melkevlen, Slow Hand Motem). These skweee-boys bring it. Squelchy sizzly synths, 8-bit action, plenty of distortion, and fractured funk beats. It's the playfulness and fuckedupedness of skweee that made us love it so (plus that fact that the shit's so darn catchy), and you get plenty of all that on Skweee Tooth.
The compilation gets off to a surefire start with Easy & Center Of The Universe's cleverly titled "Legend Of Selda". Geddit, computer game geeks? That's right, the track takes the melody from a song we know we've heard before by '70s Turkish folkpsych singer Selda, one of the AQ crew's faves, and turns into skweee! ALL the tracks here are cool, though, ranging from the shuffle of "Frisco Bum" by Liminous, to the very video-gamey "Liikutuksla" by Mrs.Queda, to "Distordelle", a thick, woozy one from Rigas Den Andre. One of the more manic, glitched out grooves is "Sex With A Woman" by Spartan Lover, with Joraxen's frantic "Fel I Facit" running a close second. Much moodier (skweee can be that too, actually) and more abstract is "Melkevlen" by Melkevlen Ft. Sagtann. And then at the very end of the disc, the crackly "Idea" by Slow Hand Motem surprises by including some mellow male vocals, alongside a synth lick that echoes the Middle Eastern psych element of Skweee Tooth's opening track. Heck we could go on about 'em all. There's never a dull moment, it's always wonderfully off-kilter, definitely fun stuff.
In a world where electronic music can sometimes take itself too seriously, all academic and IDM and Ars Electronica and everything, the unpretentious pun-loving skweee is a breath of fresh air, just what was skweeeded. More, please!
(And we promise, no puns next time, we couldn't possibly think of too many others anyway....ok one more: if one of these artists came over and did a tour of the States, we could say they were cross-country skweeeing!).
MPEG Stream: EASY & CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE "Legend Of Selda"
MPEG Stream: BEATBULLY "Rek Johnny Rek"
MPEG Stream: LIMINOUS "Frisco Bum"

BARDO POND Gazing At Shilla (Important) lp 17.98
No one does stoned and blissed out deep-in-the-forest jams better than Bardo Pond. For over fifteen years now this Philly outfit have been kicking out some of the most gorgeous organic spaced out rock EVER. Bardo Pond have so many different sides to their sound, from more song based tracks, to full on psychedelia, to dirgey space rock, and of course there's the sprawling tripped out and totally dreamy epic jams.
Gazing At Shilla finds the Pond in the latter mode, which is just fine as we can't get enough of that sound, when the band somehow bring earth and sky together in gloriously cataclysmic ways, allowing us to get so totally and fantastically lost in their sound. Recorded between 2003-2006, each side is a single, fantastic, sprawling twenty minute instrumental. "Eight - Thousanders" finds the band soaring and floating and gliding with such ease and fluidity. While "Kali" gets a little buzzier and darker, gritty space-y sonics transmitted from another dimension. Imagine if Roy Montgomery and Sonic Youth joined forces, or those special moments when Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mothers Temple set their trajectory for cosmic spheres unknown. Ultimately though, it sounds like Bardo Pond (albeit only one of their many sides), a band who continue to grow, evolve and rule!
This the first of a new four part Bardo Pond related series of limited edition vinyl only releases on Important, we also just got the others in, one each by Bardo side projects Alasehir, Alumbrados, and Moon Phantoms - the latter a collaboration with Japan's Suishu No Fune!

GRIZZLY BEAR Veckatimest (Warp) cd 15.98
Looks like this is gonna be the album that establishes Grizzly Bear and brings them to the next level, and for good reason, as it's their most ambitious and assured outing yet. Filled with such lush deep harmonies, these are songs that create such lovely states of brooding, dramatic pop both smart and emotional. Imagine sprinkling Van Dyke Parks arrangements on top of the songs Elliott Smith was creating near the end of his life as well as a healthy dose of inspiration from Nina Simone and you start to get an idea for the kind of intense orchestral baroque pop Grizzly Bear have created with Veckatimest. They enlisted Nico Muhly to create arrangements on a few of the tracks, but even the songs without Muhly's touch are are still impossibly lush and rich sounding. Veckatimest almost makes us want it to be gray and wet outside forever as these are the kind of sounds to keep you warm in the darkest and coldest of times. So nice! And even Andee, who was never that keen on Grizzly Bear, was immediately smitten by the track "Two Weeks". If that track doesn't convince you, then maybe you just don't like pop music...
MPEG Stream: "Two Weeks"
MPEG Stream: "Cheerleader"
MPEG Stream: "I Live With You"

GRIZZLY BEAR Veckatimest (Warp) 2lp 25.00
Looks like this is gonna be the album that establishes Grizzly Bear and brings them to the next level, and for good reason, as it's their most ambitious and assured outing yet. Filled with such lush deep harmonies, these are songs that create such lovely states of brooding, dramatic pop both smart and emotional. Imagine sprinkling Van Dyke Parks arrangements on top of the songs Elliott Smith was creating near the end of his life as well as a healthy dose of inspiration from Nina Simone and you start to get an idea for the kind of intense orchestral baroque pop Grizzly Bear have created with Veckatimest. They enlisted Nico Muhly to create arrangements on a few of the tracks, but even the songs without Muhly's touch are are still impossibly lush and rich sounding. Veckatimest almost makes us want it to be gray and wet outside forever as these are the kind of sounds to keep you warm in the darkest and coldest of times. So nice! And even Andee, who was never that keen on Grizzly Bear, was immediately smitten by the track "Two Weeks". If that track doesn't convince you, then maybe you just don't like pop music...
MPEG Stream: "Two Weeks"
MPEG Stream: "Cheerleader"
MPEG Stream: "I Live With You"

TOURE, VIEUX FARKA Fondo (Six Degrees) cd 16.98
Vieux Farka Toure's music resonates with a strength, power and wisdom well beyond his years. While the shoes he's had to fill being the son of the late great Ali Farka Toure are quite enormous he's done so with an equally gifted ability to create songs that ring with a universal truth and strength that anyone can understand no matter what language you speak. We were instant believers in after hearing his debut a couple years ago and our appreciation of him grew when we saw him live opening for Tinariwen at the Palace Of Fine Arts shortly after that record came out. There was no doubt that this was a man filled with passion, remarkable guitar playing skills and a voice that is both peaceful and commanding of attention. Fondo is further proof that we will be hearing great music from Vieux for many years to come. While continuing the great tradition of Mali music that his dad helped bring to the ears of many across the globe, he is carrying on that legacy with a richness all his own.
MPEG Stream: "Fafa"
MPEG Stream: "Mali"
MPEG Stream: "Sarama"

V/A Eccentric Soul: Smart's Palace (Numero Group) 2lp 21.00
Now On Double Vinyl!
This time out the mighty Eccentric Soul series focuses on the dingy and delightful venue Smart's Palace, located in Witchita, Kansas which during the years of 1963-1975 was ground zero for all the best sweaty, sensual and romping soul being played around that town. While the club did get a few big names in their time, both James Brown and Aretha Franklin once played there, its bread and butter were the nationally unknown but completely talented soul artists located in the tragically underrated scene going on down in Kansas.
The man behind Smart's Palace was Dick Smart who not only ran the club but also played music himself, promoted most of the shows AND ran his own label. In true DIY fashion he helped cultivate one of the richest soul scenes around, totally overflowing with true but untapped talent. This has got to be the sexiest, sweatiest, most romantic, sultry and sexual set of songs that has come out of the Eccentric Soul series yet. So many amazing voices on here, some as smooth as butter, others as commanding as a drill sergeant of love. Fans of folks like Eddie Kendricks, Al Green, and Curtis Mayfield will find so much to dig as as the new to us artists here like Baby Neal, Fred Williams and Kenneth Car offer up songs that we could listen to over and over and still get down and dirty with their raw yet flawless true soul grooves.
MPEG Stream: BABY NEAL & THE SMART BROTHERS "I'm Not Ashamed"
MPEG Stream: THERON & DARRELL "It's Your Love"
MPEG Stream: TIM JACOB "Mercy Baby"

RIECHMANN Wunderbar (Bureau B) lp 17.98
Cosmic-kraut lost masterpiece! We knew we would get your attention with that, and for good reason because this is a record that any fan of spaced out kosmiche needs to own. Released in 1978, Wunderbar was the only solo album by Wolfgang Riechmann, as he was tragically murdered just a few weeks before this record originally came out.
Influenced by the sounds around him in Germany you can hear bits of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Neu!, Kraftwerk, etc. The record has a fluidity to it that just soars and flows with such a shimmering grace. Makes a lot of sense that he was in a band in the early '70s with Michael Rother (Neu!, Harmonia) and Wolfgang Flur (Kraftwerk) called Spirits Of Sound. Recorded over thirty years ago, you can definitely hear Wunderbar's possible influence in the music of folks like Lindstrom, Prins Thomas, Arp, Jonas Reinhardt, Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom, Growing, Emeralds, etc. Riechmann would have sounded right at home on the Pilooski curated Dirty Space Disco compilation we love so much, which connected the dots between the spaced out electronic sounds of '70s Germany and cosmic disco dancefloors. We wouldn't be surprised if Matmos was listening to this as inspiration before they made Supreme Balloon. Wunderbar is that rare kind of album that allows you to get lost in space while never losing its keen melodic sense, a sound that is fresh and alive, never stagnant or pointlessly self absorbed. Mind boggling to think how his music would have evolved over the years if his life wasn't ended so abruptly, but here's hoping that Wunderbar finally gets the recognition and respect is so rightfully deserves! And you non vinyl inclined folks hold tight, a cd reissue is on its way in July.

COLTRANE, ALICE Eternity (Sepia Tone) cd 12.98
We recently listed the new vinyl reissue of this, and so we thought we'd highlight the previously available cd version again here this time too! Alice plays it all on this reissue of her forceful and eclectic 1976 album Eternity - she wields the harp and organ, a Fender Rhodes electric piano, even cymbals and vocals on a couple tracks. Each song is different in mood and instrumentation, with the first track "Spiritual Eternal" featuring a veritable big band of brass, reeds, and strings.
Occasionally some manic timbales and congas accompany her meditative organ explorations. And what mind altering organ explorations they are, she commands the instrument as if she's channeling a force from outer space, coaxing from it sounds that are mind-blowing and completely transcendental! Eternity is one of those records that you put on and just surrender completely to. So moving and powerful. It will take you on a journey rife with every kind of sonic twist and turn you can imagine. From harmonic and peacefully blissed out voyages, to tripped out and jamming cosmic explosions, it even ends with her amazing version of "Spring Rounds" from Stravinsky's Rites Of Spring. It's a record that reminds us that Alice Coltrane didn't just play 'jazz', it was music that crossed boundaries of genres, nations, and even galaxies. Eternity is the work of a truly gifted artist able to create mystical sounds that never fail to induce a transcendental state of consciousness in the listener. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Morning Worship"
MPEG Stream: "Los Caballos"
MPEG Stream: "Spiritual Eternal"

BLACKSHAW, JAMES The Glass Bead Game (Young God) cd 14.98
So on his last album, Blackshaw stepped into new territory with some orchestral instrumentation, even laying down a few piano tracks. And even though we didn't think it was possible, he just might have outdone himself, yet again, with his most dynamic album to date, The Glass Bead Game, released on the infamous Young God Records. Most aQ costumers are well aware of the talent and mystery that surrounds Mr. Blackshaw and his twelve-string mastery. And while we've really dug all of his numerous past albums, it seems like Blackshaw has never sounded so confident in his mantra-like finger picking and ornate compositions. With the freedom to compose works for piano, strings, flute, clarinet and a choir, Blackshaw's vision has grown from a small sprout into a sea of blooming vines.
It baffles us how cinematic this stuff is. These tracks all tell epic tales of being lost at sea, nighttime woodland campfires, sad goodbyes and lonely mornings, all without any lyrics. Sometimes there are these moments where Blackshaw will simply change chords and suddenly the piece takes on a whole new feel, a whole new sound, and you can't help but feel emotionally struck. His playing is so recognizable and distinguished from his solo-guitar peers, a perfect marriage of patients and skill, droning and droning on one chord only to build suspense and anticipation before suddenly revealing the next movement, so good! And there's something about his playing that is so European, so different from the Americana-type sound of other finger pickin' contemporaries. Blackshaw's pieces seem to shimmer with an ethereal haze that faintly glows like an old lantern in the woods, casting flickering light on faces of spirits in the night.
The Glass Bead Games starts things off running with a lush harmonium drone and Blackshaw's quick, raga-esque finger picking soaring above. Gradually female vocals and strings creep in to blanket Blackshaw's guitar in a silky ambience, creating an almost dreamlike experience. We really love how the vocals have this Philip Glass or Steve Reich orchestral kind of vibe. Instead of long swells the voices are short, repetitive wordless ohs and ahs, kind of like some carousel organ or angelic harp. "Cross" builds and retreats in some cosmic ebb and flow, continually swirling with deep, melodic range and heartfelt emotion, all with the twelve string at its glowing core. "Bled", the second track, begins with a slow, contemplative mood. Notes plucked then left to dissipate into thin air. Somber and desolate, the piece only grows into a dark journey through Eastern ragas and into celestial radiance, only to return in the 9th minute to the opening, contemplative passage.   
The album comes to a gorgeous close with the 18 minute "Arc". With James on the piano, he builds from quiet contemplative drops of rain into huge waves of quickly flourishing arpeggios, not all that different sounding from his guitar picking. We totally love how his style and aesthetic remains intact, whether he's sitting at the piano or with a guitar on his knee, his close attention to detail and use of hypnotic, emotionally captivating melodies shines throughout. Notes flickering and shimmering about as overtones soar above like clouds. There's so much about this record that you can get fully wrapped up in, so much detail it would be impossible to absorb it all in just one listen. We've already been listening to Glass Bead Game for over a week, and still new details keep popping out of the woodwork. And to top it off, beautifully fitting, earth-toned artwork of various birds of prey perfectly adorns the album with some magical visual hex. By far our favorite Blackshaw album to date and quite possibly his best, highly and fully recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Cross"
MPEG Stream: "Bled"

DUCKTAILS s/t (Not Not Fun) cd 14.98
Here's some seriously warm, wobbly, surfy, tropical sounding lo-fi gems that have totally captured our attention! Dripping with such melty, melodic yet slightly tripped out perfection. Ducktails had a lot going for it before we even heard the music, the name obviously (!), the great cover art by Jan Anderzen (Kemialliset Ystavat) and the fact that it was mastered by Graham Lambkin of The Shadow Ring already lead us to believe there might be some kind of magic being brewed under the colorful, inviting cover, so we threw this on the stereo right away and it's been beyond the perfect soundtrack for the bright and sizzling sunshine days we've been baking in for the last couple weeks. Ducktails is the work of one person, Matt Mondanile who has found such a unique sound, melding elements of the lo-fi pop movement that came out of New Zealand in the '80s with a tropical undertone and wandering spirit that sounds like bits and pieces from some gem of a find on a Sublime Frequencies compilation, the kind of rare multidimensional sound that Pumice is able to achieve, or the more pastoral side of prog that folks like Bo Hannson explored, or a sun-soaked instrumental passage from an Ariel Pink record (actually this actually reminds us a lot of the great Holy Shit record Ariel Pink made with Matt Fishbeck a while back), or maybe White Rainbow shining their hypnotic rays through the bodies of a band on Woodsist. The album's closer "Surf's Up" is almost like a new generation's version of Terry Riley's A Rainbow In Curved Air!
This record is like a soft edged maze that leads in a million different directions and takes you around on a sonic adventure that isn't as concerned with destination as it is in creating a totally and wholly encapsulating journey. While many in the new wave of one-man-band lo-fi noise pop combos have been focusing their sonic scope more on the fuzz, and burn, and rocked out side of things, Ducktails have a much more languid, dreamy and enchanting approach to finding lo-fi bliss through conjuring up so much warm sun soaked color in their hypnotizing sounds. Highly Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Beach Point Pleasant"
MPEG Stream: "Surf's Up"
MPEG Stream: "Horizon"

EMMANUEL, J.D. Solid Dawn: Electronic Works 1979-1982 (Kvist) cd 14.98
Yes! Finally, J.D. Emmanuel's late seventies, early eighties mind expansion music is more readily accessible. Mostly previously available through rare private pressing lps and vinyl rip blogs, Emmanuel is pretty much one of the main underground touchstones of the present wave of sunny new age meditative minimalist outfits such as The Alps, Emeralds, Ducktails, and White Rainbow. We had that limited reissue of his 1982 Wizards LP which flew out of here in a flash and now we have the less-limited Solid Dawn disc, which is a compilation of works between 1979 and 1982 in which Emmanuel seemed to be superhumanly productive. Taking the minimalist template of Terry Riley, the continuous music of Lubomyr Melnyk, and Brian Eno's discreet music, filtering it through a more soft-focus mystical kosmiche veil of Klaus Schulze, Ariel Kalma and Eberhard Schoener, Emmanuel makes long-form compositions that are vaporous and propulsive like swiftly moving clouds using wind chimes, blurry shifting drones, and arpeggiated synth-scapes. Check out his website for more info about this Texan native, who not only offers spiritual consultation, but offers automotive and business management solutions as well! Outsider New Age doesn't get much better than this!
MPEG Stream: "Sunrise Over Galveston Bay"
MPEG Stream: "Whirlwind"
MPEG Stream: "Changeling"

OH SEES, THEE Tidal Wave (Woodsist) 7" 5.98
When you're on...you're on...and if you are The Oh Sees these days, you ARE ON FUCKING FIRE!!! Seriously we haven't seen a band hit a sizzling stride like Thee Oh Sees are currently experiencing in AGES. So we welcome the tidal wave (yes, we went there) of releases from them in the last year with totally open and eager ears. Their newest album Help, an aQ Record Of The Week recently, will most likely find it's way on to many of our year end favorites list, we can't stop listening to it! So it should come as little surprise that these two new non-album tracks are also totally perfect, ultra catchy blasts of pure garage pop genius! It's actually such a perfect time for Thee Oh Sees to be cutting singles as they seem able to continually whip up memorable, endearing and super kick ass songs, which will hopefully mean more singles to come!
Makes perfect sense that Tidal Wave was released on Woodsist and the full length came out on In The Red, as both of those labels sounds lately, perhaps owe a sonic debt to the blown out magic Jon Dwyer has been blasting out for the last decade. Get one while you can!

OTIS, SHUGGIE Freedom Flight (Epic) lp 15.98
Is there any song more perfect than "Strawberry Letter 23"? We can't think of a song that conjures up as much synaesthetic sensations that we literally can sense colors and aromas every time it plays. We came to it from the Brothers Johnson 1977 version who had the bigger hit with it (and it's good too), but when we finally heard the original where Shuggie Otis sings and plays every part, including glockenspiel, acoustic and electric guitars, piano and percussion plus a choir full of vocals, we knew his was the one! Of course it's one of the star tracks on Shuggie Otis's second record Freedom Flight from 1971, the album he recorded right before his epic Inspiration Information. Produced by his father, Johnny Otis when Shuggie was just 15 years old, here he ventures into a more psychedelic soul mode after releasing two records of more bluesy late sixties electric guitar jams. That bluesy guitar feel hasn't quite left, but in a similar way Prince channeled Hendrix and Sly Stone, Otis applies this amazing sweetness and light to the heavier acid-y guitar work. "Sweet Thang" "Purple" and the 13 minute closing title track show that Otis wanted to take the soul blues thing to another dimension altogether. While the other tracks like "Ice Cream Daydream", "Me and My Woman", and "Someone's Always Singing" are tasty little nuggets of funk pop. In fact, we suspect that Prince took more from Shuggie Otis than he did Hendrix and Sly Stone put together!
Four of the songs from Freedom Flight were on the Luaka Bop cd reissue of Inspiration Information, but that doesn't mean the rest is not as good. And of course it's on vinyl which is the best way to hear this! Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Strawberry Letter 23"
MPEG Stream: "Sweet Thang"

WOODEN BIRDS Magnolia (Barsuk) cd 15.98
As far as we're concerned, Austin's American Analog Set were one of the most underrated indie-rock-pop-emo bands of the late '90s and early '00s. They made some of the most hushed and moody bedroom indie rock we had ever heard, crating the perfect music for lazily relaxing with that special someone, but equally ideal for those lonely nights with only your memories to keep you warm. AAS had the earnest sincerity of Death Cab For Cutie, but also displayed a maturity in sound and scope that appealed to fans of folks like Low and Red House Painters. At the helm of American Analog Set was Andrew Kenney, who possesses one of our favorite voices...just so damn pretty! Soft and comforting and emotive without resorting to whining or typical indie boy tortured mewling. While we were sad to see American Analog Set call it quits a few years back (they should/could have been bigger than The Shins and DCFC!) we were super excited to see that Kenney has a brand new project Wooden Birds, and the Birds' sound pretty much encapsulates everything we loved so much about his old band. Slow and steady, warm melodies tucked tightly into each song, and Kenney's voice sounding as seductive and entrancing as ever. Nothing that Kenny does ever feels forced or heavy handed, he's able to deliver sentimental songs that slowly melt their way into your ears and wrap around your body like that amazing soft blanket you've had since you were little and wouldn't trade for the world. So nice!
MPEG Stream: "False Alarm"
MPEG Stream: "The Other One"
MPEG Stream: "Never Know"

SOULEYMAN, OMAR Dabke 2020 (Sublime Frequencies) cd 16.98
Sublime Frequencies record number two from the mind blowing Omar Souleyman! In reviewing the last Souleyman disc we compared the sound to something resembling a Middle Eastern Aavikko, which if you're anything like us, sounds AMAZING. Totally over the top chaotic world music rife with soaring strings, cheesy eighties drum machines, wild synths, and amazing buzzing saz melodies, and if anything this new disc is even more over the top.
More than ever, Souleyman's music sounds very Bollywood, festive, wild, sweaty, energized, intense and relentless, rooted around rhythm, the various melodies and vocals slither and swirl, unfurling woozy Eastern melodies over the non stop beat. It's definitely dance music, and party music, just not the sort of dance / party music we're used to.
The recording is fantastic too, very lo-fi, the texture and timbre of the sound shifting constantly, from murky and muddy, to bright and brilliant, could be that these cuts were culled from various tapes recorded and released over the past decade, but that only adds to the fun, and if it's anything, this music is fun. Funky, groovy, and fun fun fun. Sometimes the melodies are so rapid fire it begins to sound like some sort of alien video game music, then moments later it will slip into something darker and folkier, before exploding again into a wild burst of psychedelic dance chaos! Dabke apparently is a style of music, THIS music, a kind of party music rarely heard outside of Syria, as it's considered not important enough to export, but as far as we're concerned this is some of the most amazing music we've ever heard. For more background info on Souleyman, check the review of the older record on the aQ site, plenty of background on his life and his music, but it's hardly necessary, the sounds here definitely speak for themselves, and what they're saying, is buy this record now! It's so so so so so essential. And heck, while you're at it, you might as well pick up the other one as well (which is now available on vinyl!) if you haven't already, they both completely rule!
MPEG Stream: "Atabat"
MPEG Stream: "Lansob Sherek (I Will Make A Trap)"
MPEG Stream: "Shift Al Mani (I Saw Her)"

INVISIBLE CONGA PEOPLE Weird Pains / Cable Dazed (Italians Do It Better) 12" 9.98
While not straying too far from the rest of the Italians Do It Better catalog (which we'll admit we're big suckers for!) Invisible Conga People definitely, defiantly have their own identity. A bit more dark and brooding then most of their labelmates, there is most definitely a really rich sense of atmosphere in their slow burning electronic sizzlers. You can tell there is some love for the minimal leanings of krautrock and post punk channeled into their dark corner of a seedy dance club. This isn't as much for the dancefloor (though it would be on dancefloors we would frequent) as it is for late wasted nights alone in your bedroom when you just want to close your eyes and get lost in some sizzling sensations. Full on sensual seduction!

O'NEIL, TARA JANE A Ways Away (K) cd 14.98
You can sense it right away when you're hearing an artist truly find their voice, and in doing so, managing to create something magical that outshines everything else they've done before.
A Ways Away is by far Tara Jane O'Neil's most realized outing to date. While she has a healthy back catalog of woozy and pretty solo outings plus some fine recordings with her old bands, Rodan and Sonora Pine, up until this point she's always been an artist we liked a lot but would never say we love. That has changed - we declare our full on love and devotion to Tara Jane with this totally gorgeous album. She has found a way to inject so much more mood and atmosphere into her songs, drifting and dreamy, rustic and lingering. Like she's tapped into the magic of those Georgia Hubley soothing and sad moments on Yo La Tengo records or when Mimi Parker takes to the mic for slowcore beauty with Low. Nothing sounds forced or out of place, the songs are given the room to breathe and circulate and Tara's vocals are as pretty and understated as ever. The instrumentation is as potent as the vocal delivery, making us think of what it might sound like if Mirah and Steven R. Smith joined forces or if Grouper got more rustic and even more song orientated but still left trails of such dreamy and hazy delight. Simply beautiful!
MPEG Stream: "Dig In"
MPEG Stream: "Biwa"
MPEG Stream: "Pearl Into Sand"

VASELINES Enter The Vaselines (Sub Pop) 2cd 14.98
Our definition of pure pop perfection would have to be Scotland's Vaselines! They embody everything a perfect pop band should be. They are charming and clever, dirty and sweet, sensitive and sassy. They have the ability to rock out or get all dreamy with equal potency. Coinciding with their reunion tour that will find them playing San Francisco in just a few days, Sub Pop has compiled pretty much all of their material onto this 2 disc collection. The first disc includes all of their studio recordings (the Son Of A Gun EP, the Dying For It EP, and the full length Dum Dum). The bonus disc includes three demo versions and two live shows from '86 and '88. Fair warning to fans, the first disc is identical to the Vaselines collection that came out a few years back, so if you have that, you'll be getting this for the demos and live stuff on disc two. Or cause you want it on vinyl, if you opt for that format. And if you have no Vaselines, well, needless to say this is ESSENTIAL.
Now that we have all that out of the way we can go back to gushing about why The Vaselines are the perfect pop band and how they pretty much influenced all the rad underground (and overground) pop stuff we've loved in the decades since they first hit the scene. Nirvana, Belle And Sebastian, Yo La Tengo, Hole, Vivian Girls, Beck, Dum Dum Girls, The Breeders and so many more owe so much of their sound, style and aesthetic to the Vaselines and everything they created during their short existence from 1986-1990. They predated the era when indie bands began to experience more widespread success and appreciation, but their songs and style pretty much set the blueprint for the alternative nation that would explode in the years following their breakup.
Listening to these songs is like hearing some crazy greatest hits collection as every single song is so totally classic and memorable, hard to believe that it's actually just their complete discography. Every song was truly unique and so goddamn catchy. Some of their songs were popularized when Kurt Cobain declared his undying love of the Vaselines and had Nirvana cover "Son Of A Gun", "Molly's Lips" and "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam". The Vaselines had a charisma that makes their songs appeal to such a wide cross section of music fans. They are the band K records wish they could have had, and have been trying to sign ever since. The Vaselines had the wit and smarts so many of their Glasgow followers try a little too hard to emulate, but most of all they had SONGS, songs that are so damn endearing and so completely timeless!
MPEG Stream: "Son Of A Gun"
MPEG Stream: "You Think You're A Man"
MPEG Stream: "Jesus Wants Be For A Sunbeam"
MPEG Stream: "Let's Get Ugly (Live)"

VASELINES Enter The Vaselines (Sub Pop) 3lp 23.00
Our definition of pure pop perfection would have to be Scotland's Vaselines! They embody everything a perfect pop band should be. They are charming and clever, dirty and sweet, sensitive and sassy. They have the ability to rock out or get all dreamy with equal potency. Coinciding with their reunion tour that will find them playing San Francisco in just a few days, Sub Pop has compiled pretty much all of their material onto this 2 disc collection. The first disc includes all of their studio recordings (the Son Of A Gun EP, the Dying For It EP, and the full length Dum Dum). The bonus disc includes three demo versions and two live shows from '86 and '88. Fair warning to fans, the first disc is identical to the Vaselines collection that came out a few years back, so if you have that, you'll be getting this for the demos and live stuff on disc two. Or cause you want it on vinyl, if you opt for that format. And if you have no Vaselines, well, needless to say this is ESSENTIAL.
Now that we have all that out of the way we can go back to gushing about why The Vaselines are the perfect pop band and how they pretty much influenced all the rad underground (and overground) pop stuff we've loved in the decades since they first hit the scene. Nirvana, Belle And Sebastian, Yo La Tengo, Hole, Vivian Girls, Beck, Dum Dum Girls, The Breeders and so many more owe so much of their sound, style and aesthetic to the Vaselines and everything they created during their short existence from 1986-1990. They predated the era when indie bands began to experience more widespread success and appreciation, but their songs and style pretty much set the blueprint for the alternative nation that would explode in the years following their breakup.
Listening to these songs is like hearing some crazy greatest hits collection as every single song is so totally classic and memorable, hard to believe that it's actually just their complete discography. Every song was truly unique and so goddamn catchy. Some of their songs were popularized when Kurt Cobain declared his undying love of the Vaselines and had Nirvana cover "Son Of A Gun", "Molly's Lips" and "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam". The Vaselines had a charisma that makes their songs appeal to such a wide cross section of music fans. They are the band K records wish they could have had, and have been trying to sign ever since. The Vaselines had the wit and smarts so many of their Glasgow followers try a little too hard to emulate, but most of all they had SONGS, songs that are so damn endearing and so completely timeless!
MPEG Stream: "Son Of A Gun"
MPEG Stream: "You Think You're A Man"
MPEG Stream: "Jesus Wants Be For A Sunbeam"
MPEG Stream: "Let's Get Ugly (Live)"

BRIDEZ Evilroad (self-released) cd-r 9.98
Sometimes you just gotta get down and dirty, sleazy and rocking, and we have to say it's been hard to find bands doing that sort of thing right these days. So thank the stars for Bridez, a San Francisco band who make sounds made reckless nights on the dancefloor, beer soaked chaos, reminding us that rock n roll is supposed to be trashy and wild and impassioned!
There is definitely a '90s vibe happening on Evilroad that reminds us of all those great records by bands like L7, Babes In Toyland, 7 Year Bitch, Hole, Mudhoney, The Gits, Royal Trux, etc. that we've recently been revisiting, reveling in how damn good they still are. For their debut full length Bridez teamed up with Greg Ashley of Gris Gris fame producing and he definitely brings his keen sense of melody and atmosphere to the Bridez' high energy infectious rock assault. While we're sure lead singer Liza Thorn is sick of the Courtney Love comparisons, there is no denying that her voice and energy conjures images of the Courtney we used to go crazy for circa Pretty On The Inside and Live Through This. But while she commands plenty of attention the rest of the band have some serious chops as well and a truly relentless spirit which helps make Bridez a full on band to take notice of.
While much of their reputation surrounds their reckless and chaotic live shows, it's awesome to hear that behind all the commotion and mayhem, this band has some seriously great songs running through their veins. So fucking good!
MPEG Stream: "Evil Road"
MPEG Stream: "Rolling Stoned"
MPEG Stream: "California"

CONVERSE, CONNIE How Sad, How Lovely (Lauderette) cd 14.98
Wow! What is it about the sudden appearance of a cache of lost amateur folk recordings that just makes us stop everything we're doing and pay attention? Well, in the case of Connie Converse who made these recordings between 1954 and 1961, her sadly beautiful songcraft coupled with her mysterious (and most likely, tragic) disappearance in the early seventies, paints a tinge of regret and missed opportunities on the proceedings that make her gentle and deeply personal songs resonate more poignantly. A bookish gal from New Hampshire with academic leanings and no strong musical background, she took to writing poems and songs after leaving college in New York a year before she was to graduate. Her songs attracted the interest of animator and amateur recordist Gene Deitch who taped over 40 songs of hers, before she moved to Michigan to live with her brother and set her mind to other pursuits. In the years since, she still played music for friends and family, but her hopes that her recordings would lead to successful opportunities did not pan out and she became more despondent. Taking a leave of absence from her job, she wrote several farewell letters to family and friends, packed up her Volkswagon and disappeared, her whereabouts still unknown...
Similar in tone to Vashti Bunyan and Sibylle Baier, Converse came from a generation earlier. Her songs have a folk-country revivalist vibe popular during the time but her songs don't seemed to be influenced directly by the folk revival movement. Instead it seems she was orbiting in her own parallel universe, like a folksinger version of Emily Dickinson, focussing on the subtle details of daily life and the lovely and lonely qualities that intertwine throughout. Those qualities are heightened by the raw and intimate feel of the recording with its natural imperfections, and side dialogue left thankfully intact.
Fans of Bunyan and Baier, Barbara Dane, Ruth Friedman, Karen Dalton and Niela Miller will find lots to love here. How Sad, How Lovely, Indeed!
MPEG Stream: "Talkin' Like You (Two Tall Mountains)"
MPEG Stream: "Roving Woman"
MPEG Stream: "One By One"

GAINSBOURG, SERGE Histoire De Melody Nelson (Light In The Attic) lp 26.00
Now on Vinyl!!
Well it's about time!!!!!! After years of wallowing in the hazy convoluted mists of legend, hearsay, and hipster influence, only to be obtained through ultra expensive imports, rare bootlegs, or ripped vinyl blogs, this long unavailable but hugely influential work by Serge Gainsbourg finally sees its first domestic reissue almost forty years after its scandalous release.
You won't need a translator to understand the sublime perversity at the heart of this concept record, arguably Gainsbourg's most accomplished full studio album. Released in 1971, Histoire De Melody Nelson is a seven song suite about an underage English nymphet (the titular Melody Nelson) and the wealthy lecherous older Frenchman who, after nearly running over her in his Rolls Royce, takes her in, falls in love and eventually deflowers her. And of course, like most love stories, there is a tragic climax. While the story is largely lifted from Kubrick's cinematic version of Lolita, the concept was undertaken in actuality as a symphonic love letter to Jane Birken, the British actress and singer (she sings the part of Melody). Though, not underage when they began their affair, she was twenty years younger than Serge, and their relationship became controversial with the release of their 1969 duet "Je t'aime....mon non plus" (originally recorded with Brigitte Bardot) with its sounds of a simulated female orgasm.
But Melody Nelson is not only Gainsbourg's finest moment, its musical reputation would be nothing without the orchestral arrangements and progressive grooves of Jean-Claude Vannier (see our review of L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, to get some highly praised background). The underlying score is less obviously song-oriented and more atmospheric than previous Gainsbourg outings, yet deceptively simple. The opening and closing tracks each at nearly eight minutes mirror each other with a sinewy descending bass groove and classic drum breaks (sampled heavily by De La Soul, David Holmes and Dan The Automator), which set the stage for acid-y guitar fills, swooning strings and Serge's own seductive speak-singing. The closing track ("Cargo Culte") ups the transcendent quality of the climax by adding a mass choir and full orchestra to the swirling tower of sound. In between these two tracks are shorter but artfully arranged pieces of folk-groove, French chanson, acid rock, and cinematic sonic bliss that move the story forward. It's one of those records that slowly grabs you, lures you into its spell, and eventually hooks you, so you'll want to keep listening to it over and over.
Though it was a flop on its initial release - Gainsbourg was largely a singles artist before this point, and the leap from that to concept album, especially one of this perverse nature, was perhaps too wide for French audiences - Histoire De Melody Nelson has gained a significant cult following over the years, perhaps reaching its greatest influence in the nineties with bands like Portishead (Dummy), Pulp (This is Hardcore), Massive Attack (Protection), Radiohead (The Bends), Air (Moon Safari), Blonde Redhead (Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons) and Beck (Sea Change), nearly lifting the basic sonic template of this album wholesale. Reissue of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Melody"
MPEG Stream: "Ballade De Melody Nelson"
MPEG Stream: "En Melody"

BURAKA SOM SISTEMA Black Diamond (Fabric) cd 16.98
Oh shit! These are some intensely sweaty and dancey jammers that are sure to be the soundtrack of any truly down and dirty party this summer, and probably for a long time to come. Hailing from Portugal, Buraka Som Sistema have become international ambassadors for the Kuduro scene, bringing this unique sound to people throughout the world. It makes perfect sense that M.I.A. lends her voice to the record's standout track, as the sounds on Black Diamond make a great companion to her latest record Kala. Incorporating elements of hip-hop, Baile funk and electronica, Black Diamond is all about being uptempo and making bodies sweat, move and shake and groove. This is one of those records that should appeal to all sots of music lovers, from fans of Konono No.1 seeking that same sort of intense all out energy to fans of Missy Elliott who want something pulsating and creative to move them on the dance floor. So damn good!
MPEG Stream: "Sound of Kuduro (feat. DJ Znobia, MIA, Saborosa, & Puto Prata)"
MPEG Stream: "Aqui Para Vocês (feat. Deize Tigrona)"
MPEG Stream: "IC19"

COLTRANE, ALICE Eternity (Warner Bros) lp 14.98
Alice plays it all on this reissue of her forceful and eclectic 1976 album Eternity - she wields the harp and organ, a Fender Rhodes electric piano, even cymbals and vocals on a couple tracks. Each song is different in mood and instrumentation, with the first track "Spiritual Eternal" featuring a veritable big band of brass, reeds, and strings.
Occasionally some manic timbales and congas accompany her meditative organ explorations. And what mind altering organ explorations those are, she commands the instrument as if she's channeling a force from outer space, coaxing from it sounds that are mind-blowing and completely transcendental! Eternity is one of those records that you put on and just surrender completely to. So moving and powerful. It will take you on a journey rife with every kind of sonic twist and turn you can imagine. From harmonic and peacefully blissed out voyages, to tripped out and jamming cosmic explosions, it even ends with her amazing version of "Spring Rounds" from Stravinsky's Rites Of Spring. It's a record that reminds us that Alice Coltrane didn't just play 'jazz', it was music that crossed boundaries of genres, nations, and even galaxies. Eternity is the work of a truly gifted artist able to create mystical sounds that never fail to induce a transcendental state of consciousness in the listener. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Morning Worship"
MPEG Stream: "Los Caballos"
MPEG Stream: "Spiritual Eternal"

SIMONE, NINA Emergency Ward! (Sony) lp 15.98
Nina Simone's vast and varied back catalog never ceases to thrill and amaze us. As we dig and dig into the deep vaults of her recorded material we keep running into records that demand full attention and grab us by our vitals and throw us right into the world she was inhabiting at that moment. This 1973 album, now reissued on vinyl, found Nina full of a crazy kind of energy, empowerment, rage, urgency and intensity. As the Vietnam War continued to linger, Emergency Ward! was Nina Simone's most pointed protest against the war, as well as one of her most fiery and commanding records, period. With arrangements by the great Weldon Irvine and a church junior choir from South Jamaica, New York backing her up, a strong foundation was laid for Nina to take those elements and bring them to life as only she could. Recorded live in a few different locations the record finds Simone at her most epic and emotionally charged. The first side is one long track that merges an adaptation of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" with "Today Is A Killer", a poem by David Nelson, that Nina Simone transforms into an unforgettable gospel burner! The second side starts off with an irresistible version of "Poppies" and then the grand finale is an eleven minute emotionally poignant take on another George Harrison song, "Isn't It A Pity", that rings with so much truth and timeliness all these years later. Nina Simone fans, you must have this! Totally engaging and essential!

CLINE, NELS Coward (Crytogramaphone) cd 17.98
We've always had much respect for Nels Cline, his guitar playing skills are undeniable for sure, but for SOME of us, it wasn't actually until this solo outing that we've been able to totally fall in love with a Nels Cline album. Coward is one of the most languid, eclectic, yet strangely and enchantingly fluid solo guitar albums we've heard in ages. While there have been no shortage of great solo guitar records lately, as good as many of them are they all tend to be quite narrow in scope. There are either the John Fahey/Takoma school followers whose records are filled with finger picked sweeping pastoral Appalachia from beginning to end, or the drone guitar records, many of which we love, but again don't show much of a range in scope or sound. It's definitely a credit to many of those artists that they stick to what they know and do it very well, but when you're Nels Cline, you know SO MUCH about the guitar and its infinite range of sonic possibilities, and Coward finds him exploring so many of those possibilities with brilliant results! Whether sprawling or rustic, melodic or deconstructed, he's found ways to create sounds and songs that are brimming with personality, mood and emotion. He's also not afraid to get all lush and beautiful, or dark and mysterious, this is most definitely a record that truly has something for almost any music lover.
We hear a spirit and adventurous streak similar to records by greats like Baden Powell, we also hear more moody elements that have us thinking of Loren Connors, as well as fractured noisy moments that could be on a Tetuzi Akiyama record, but most of all a sense of true songwriting and melodic capability with the guitar, that recalls the gorgeous guitarscapes of Roy Montgomery. Nels Cline has proven that he's not only an extremely talented musician but also an artist with a rich imagination and soulful way with sound. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Thurston County"
MPEG Stream: "The Nomad's Home"
MPEG Stream: "X Change(s)"

OH SEES, THEE Help (In The Red) cd 13.98
Listening to Help, it's almost impossible to hear anything but mere traces of the chaotic noise rock path John Dwyer followed to make it to Thee Oh Sees (aka OCS, and Ohsees), but it's that noisy past, and penchant for musical shit stirring, that informs the jangly garage pop on Help, and transforms the band's jangle and shuffle and pound into near perfect buzzy fuzzy catchy retro pop, and makes it easily the best Oh Sees record yet. And a definite contended for (garage) pop record of the year.
Most of us were introduced to Dwyer via his two piece noise rock costume rock combo Pink And Brown (after brief stints in some well known Providence outfits), but unlike most of the costumed joke bands at the time, P&B offered some serious songsmithery along with the unhinged live shows and audience baiting. A brief stint drumming for SF grindlords Burmese led directly into the band that brought Dwyer to worldwide attention, the Coachwhips. Arguably one of the best live bands around, the Coachwhips made up for what they lacked in actual songs with sweat and alcohol soaked performances, utter chaos, and sometimes literally, ultra destructive houseshows. Coachwhips shows were all about the energy, the vibe, jumping around, flailing wildly, getting wrecked and having a blast. Sometimes though, that energy was difficult to translate to home listening. Take away the sweaty throng and the deafening volume and, well why would you want to do that?
And so came the Oh Sees, originally called OCS, and a double cd release on Andee's tUMULt label a few years back, essentially a solo record, one disc of folky fluttery lo-fi twang flecked pop, another of corrosive textured noise experiments, which ended up being, for many of us, one of our favorite post Pink And Brown Dwyer documents. OCS transformed into The Oh Sees and became a real band, and seemed poised to follow in the sonic footsteps of the Coachwhips, stripped down garage rock, super lo-fi, lost of brittle high end, yelped distorted vocals, tribal drumming, but there was definitely something more, more refined, more catchy, more timeless sounding, something much more than garage rock, a sound that reminded us of sixties girl groups, of Phil Spector productions, raw and primal, but lush and expansive and catchy. But that catchy lush side of the Oh Sees remained hidden beneath squalls of tweeter abuse and fractured effects, a wall of fuzz and buzz more than an actual wall of sound. Until now.
Help finds the band making their first record for garage rock stalwarts In The Red, which is ironic as this is Thee Oh Sees' least typically garage rock record yet. Instead, the sound is total pop, plucked fresh from a time capsule buried in the sixties, the guitars jangle as much as crunch, lots of reverb, the vocals wreathed in a haze of delay, lots of female vox, the choruses are lush, the drums are still tribal, but much more measured, often quite spare, the arrangements though are anything but classic, sometimes getting super abstract, but never losing their catchiness, sometimes adding all sorts of extra distorted overload, but just as quickly slipping into something smooth and groovy. Minus the weird moments and the fucked up productions, some of these songs do really sound like they were just transported forward four decades.
"Meat Step Lively" starts off all Cramps-y, with a fuzzy grinding main riff, simple pounding rhythm, but adds some awesome female vocals and background 'ooooohs', some spidery lead guitars, and coolest of all breaks it down with about a minute to go into a swinging sixties smoke-y jazzy flute flecked groove. "The Turn Around" is a minute of blown out drum damage and fractured effects, but wrapped around a sing songy main riff, and some cool distorted and reverbed vox, in total Guided By Voices fashion, they truncate what could have been the jam of the record, and launch into "Can You See", which is all slithery and washed out, with angelic background vocals, shuffling drums, and a cool dreamy bridge, but the whole thing still manages to sound ominous and intense and weirdly sexy.
The record closes with "Peanut Butter Oven", which we first heard on the recent (and sadly now out of print) Awesome Vistas 12", and it's obvious why this was the single, it definitely is THE jam of the record, with it's simple stripped down jangle, workmanlike drum beat, and soaring minor key strings, and let's not forget the gorgeous harmony vocals draped over the singing strings and that irresistible main riff.
And so it goes, every track here is a gem, each one offers up something new, some twisted take on that classic sixties garage rock sound, but it's that sound revved up and filtered through Dwyer's gloriously cracked pop sensibilities, bathed in buzz and fuzz or stripped way down and left shimmery and crystalline, sometimes wrapped in HUGE hooks or allowed to simmer and slither, the catchiness subtle yet so irresistible, and unlike past efforts, even at its noisiest, the noise element seems more an organic part of the sound, and is often shaped into something barely recognizable as noisy.
We knew Dwyer and company had it in them, and now they've proven it, BIG TIME. Dying to see what they come up with next, if they could possibly one up this here disc, but hell, for now, Help has us way satisfied. And records like these are exactly why they invented that repeat button on your cd player. Folks with turntable will just have to get up and flip the record over and over and over, again and again and again.
WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Meat Step Lively"
MPEG Stream: "Ruby Go Home"
MPEG Stream: "Rainbow"

JAY, JEREMY Love Everlasting (K Records) 12" 6.98
Oh Jeremy, we can never get enough of your airwalking dreamy and dancey delights!
The 12" is such a perfect format for his songs, as he really is a singles artist in so many ways. Creating such memorable songs that can stand on their own and lend themselves to obsessive repeated listens. Love Everlasting is the late night, slow burning dance floor with a disco light shining bright side to Jeremy's arsenal of charming and seductive songwriting. You can almost see the steam rising off these tracks as you lay the needle into the grooves. This is exactly what you would want to hear the DJ throw on as it gets close to closing time and you're sipping your last drink and all you want to do is slow dance the final moments of the blurry, fun-filled night away. So great!

CHERRY, DON & LATIF KHAN Music / Sangam (Heavenly Sweetness) lp 25.00
We rave about jazz legend Don Cherry as often as we can. Every reissue has us all in a tizzy. In the past we made his mind blowing Orient an aQ record Of The Week. And in retrospect, we probably should have made the Blue Lake reissue a ROTW as well. Cherry was continually pushing the boundaries of jazz, exploring and helping shape free jazz, and incorporating all manner of world music into his ever changing and expanding sound.
This disc, recorded in 1978, found Cherry once again reimagining the sound of jazz, and challenging unadventurous jazz fans, by teaming up with legendary Indian percussionist Ustad Ahmed Latif Khan. Cherry had experimented with Indian music before on past recordings, but this was the first full on collaboration. Two sides, one featuring Cherry compositions, accompanied by Khan on tablas, the other side, Khan compositions, the tablas more of the driving force, the sound distinctly more Indian classical, with Cherry accompanying Khan.
The untitled opener finds Cherry and Khan covering Ornette Coleman, Cherry's former band leader. It's a dark brooding shuffle, all warm keyboard grooves, and the tablas, how they change everything, the skittery rhythms, but also the strange rubbery low end, the song eventually morphs into a Cherry original, and gets a bit proggy with wild trumpets and thick organs, the tablas still driving the whole thing. It's the next track where it gets really interesting though. A sprawling rhythmscape, the tablas doing double time, the rhythm, and a pulsing sort-of-bass line, Cherry delivering abstract almost scat like falsetto vocals, dark and drone-y and spaced out and minimal, peppered with occasional bursts of wild horn skronk, but for the most part, a swirling tripped out stretch of throbbing subtly psychedelic jazz minimalism. The final Cherry composed track is another gem, all glistening chimes and high end tones, flurries of piano, distant horns, whooshing effects, and of course the skitter of the tablas, more melodic almost that rhythmic on this track. Cherry also introduces some flute, which gives the track a sort of freak folk vibe, really!
Khan's side is distinctly less jazz. The tablas way up in the mix, his dexterous rhythms totally spellbinding, intricate, and again melodic, Cherry offering up strange bits of percussion, muted keyboards, very abstract and so cool. The final track, a sprawling 13 minute epic begins with just organ, drifting in space, until the tablas come in, and holy shit, even more intense and intricate, wreathed in a bit of reverb, and slipping from loping grooves to wild bursts of impossibly complex rhythmatism, the organ, a constant warm whir in the background, and the timbre of the keyboards, continues to infuse the track with a distinctly prog feel. Making this some sort of abstract classical Indian jazz prog? Whatever you want to call it, these are some gorgeously hypnotic and meditative sounds. So very recommended. Fans of the Necks might get into this too, similarly dark minimal vibe, especially the Khan tracks, and well worth checking out for the rest of you, even if jazz isn't normally your thing.
MPEG Stream: "One Dance"
MPEG Stream: "Air Mail"
MPEG Stream: "Sangam"

V/A Eccentric Soul: Smart's Palace (Numero Group) cd 16.98
This time out the mighty Eccentric Soul series focuses on the dingy and delightful venue Smart's Palace, located in Witchita, Kansas which during the years of 1963-1975 was ground zero for all the best sweaty, sensual and romping soul being played around that town. While the club did get a few big names in their time, both James Brown and Aretha Franklin once played there, its bread and butter were the nationally unknown but completely talented soul artists located in the tragically underrated scene going on down in Kansas.
The man behind Smart's Palace was Dick Smart who not only ran the club but also played music himself, promoted most of the shows AND ran his own label. In true DIY fashion he helped cultivate one of the richest soul scenes around, totally overflowing with true but untapped talent. This has got to be the sexiest, sweatiest, most romantic, sultry and sexual set of songs that has come out of the Eccentric Soul series yet. So many amazing voices on here, some as smooth as butter, others as commanding as a drill sergeant of love. Fans of folks like Eddie Kendricks, Al Green, and Curtis Mayfield will find so much to dig as as the new to us artists here like Baby Neal, Fred Williams and Kenneth Car offer up songs that we could listen to over and over and still get down and dirty with their raw yet flawless true soul grooves.
MPEG Stream: BABY NEAL & THE SMART BROTHERS "I'm Not Ashamed"
MPEG Stream: THERON & DARRELL "It's Your Love"
MPEG Stream: TIM JACOB "Mercy Baby"

WARLUS Songs (Guerssen) cd 17.98
Oh yeah! The Guerssen label strikes gold again with another rad reissue of totally obscure psych-pop, this time out of France, circa 1975. Unless you're one of the two hundred people who actually got a copy of this private press record the first time around there is no way you (like us) have ever heard Warlus before. The timing couldn't be better on this reissue, as its stoned and breezy sounds would be so at home in today's underground. Imagine if Ariel Pink or Kurt Vile were coming of age in the '70s, this might be the home recording they would have made. We also hear hints of the more stoned and drifty side of Thee Oh Sees, even.
While this duo were French they sang in English and this, combined with the group's lo-fi and D.I.Y aesthetic, makes Walrus sound almost like some kind of amazing proto-Shrimper release. We're reminded of the psych-pop of Roger Rodier and, at times this makes us imagine a more melodic Jandek joining forces with fellow outsider Bob Trimble, covering Kinks songs! Or something equally awesome. The songs are intimate and woozy, with nice sound experiments sprinkled throughout. We've been hooked on this the second we heard it. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "You"
MPEG Stream: "Listen To The Warlus"
MPEG Stream: "Good Night The Day"