GRIS GRIS Live At The Creamery (Birdman) cd 14.98
It's impossible to predict which bands will get that big break and blow up and which bands will never get all the love and glory they deserve. It seems like the Gris Gris were always on the verge of their big break but for one reason or another it never seemed to happen, and we're not sure why. To our ears they were one of the most impressive and refreshing in the recent onslaught of psych revivalists. Fueled by a 13th Floor Elevators inspiration they cranked out songs with some serious fire and substance. In fact it's Greg Ashley's sophisticated songwriting chops that really set the Gris Gris head and shoulders above so many of the others, the bands who knew how to look the look and make all the right psychedelic signifier sounds and images but didn't really have the true songs to back it all up. Sadly they called it quits or at least decided to take a long hiatus a few months ago, but luckily their legend can live on through this great record, a live show recorded in Oakland this past spring. Fiery renditions of lots of our favorite Gris Gris tracks and further proof that this is a band that deserves more ears to hear just what made them so special.
MPEG Stream: "Everytime"
MPEG Stream: "Ecks Em Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Necessary Seperation"

GRIS GRIS Live At The Creamery (Birdman) lp 14.98
It's impossible to predict which bands will get that big break and blow up and which bands will never get all the love and glory they deserve. It seems like the Gris Gris were always on the verge of their big break but for one reason or another it never seemed to happen, and we're not sure why. To our ears they were one of the most impressive and refreshing in the recent onslaught of psych revivalists. Fueled by a 13th Floor Elevators inspiration they cranked out songs with some serious fire and substance. In fact it's Greg Ashley's sophisticated songwriting chops that really set the Gris Gris head and shoulders above so many of the others, the bands who knew how to look the look and make all the right psychedelic signifier sounds and images but didn't really have the true songs to back it all up. Sadly they called it quits or at least decided to take a long hiatus a few months ago, but luckily their legend can live on through this great record, a live show recorded in Oakland this past spring. Fiery renditions of lots of our favorite Gris Gris tracks and further proof that this is a band that deserves more ears to hear just what made them so special.
MPEG Stream: "Everytime"
MPEG Stream: "Ecks Em Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Necessary Seperation"

GRIS GRIS, THE For The Season (Birdman) cd 14.98
Talented Oakland guitarist/vocalist Greg Ashley's Gris Gris gang is back, with a fab sophomore album mostly recorded at a cabin in Texas belonging to Greg's parents. So it's not garage rock, it's cabin rock. Probably good that they were presumably far from any neighbors since this quite often one dang noisily feedback-filled and fuzzed-out freakfest that might have gotten the cops called -- and who knows what manner of illict substances fueled the recording sessions, with which Gris Gris wouldn't want to be busted? Maybe The Man would mellow out knowing that the noisy rave-ups co-exist on this record with plenty of catchy melody and jangly folk and relaxed droniness and other good stuff. Although "Ecks Em Eye" starts the album off with a free jazz warm-up with Funhouse saxophone, the Gris Gris' psychedelic trip soon passes through the overgrown, shadowy backyards of bands such as Pink Floyd and the early Stones ('specially on the fake raga of the title track). Ashley & Co's retro-sensibilities venture even further into total oldies territory on "Medication #4". More current artists that this sometimes reminds us of (or whose fans we think might also like this) include Mudhoney, Greg Weeks/Espers, Comets On Fire, and Devendra Banhart, a little. Definitely recommended to anyone into the psych scene today, and cabin rock of course. With songs with titles like "Big Engine Nazi Kid Daydream" and "Down With Jesus" these guys aren't ever gonna have hits, but in our little world they should!
MPEG Stream: "Ecks Em Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Big Engine Nazi Kid Daydream"

GRIS GRIS, THE For The Season (Birdman) lp 9.98
Talented Oakland guitarist / vocalist Greg Ashley's Gris Gris gang is back, with a fab sophomore album mostly recorded at a cabin in Texas belonging to Greg's parents. So it's not garage rock, it's cabin rock. Probably good that they were presumably far from any neighbors since this quite often one dang noisily feedback-filled and fuzzed-out freakfest that might have gotten the cops called -- and who knows what manner of illict substances fueled the recording sessions, with which Gris Gris wouldn't want to be busted? Maybe The Man would mellow out knowing that the noisy rave-ups co-exist on this record with plenty of catchy melody and jangly folk and relaxed droniness and other good stuff. Although "Ecks Em Eye" starts the album off with a free jazz warm-up with Funhouse saxophone, the Gris Gris' psychedelic trip soon passes through the overgrown, shadowy backyards of bands such as Pink Floyd and the early Stones ('specially on the fake raga of the title track). Ashley & Co's retro-sensibilities venture even further into total oldies territory on "Medication #4". More current artists that this sometimes reminds us of (or whose fans we think might also like this) include Mudhoney, Greg Weeks/Espers, Comets On Fire, and Devendra Banhart, a little. Definitely recommended to anyone into the psych scene today, and cabin rock of course. With songs with titles like "Big Engine Nazi Kid Daydream" and "Down With Jesus" these guys aren't ever gonna have hits, but in our little world they should!
MPEG Stream: "Ecks Em Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Big Engine Nazi Kid Daydream"

GRIS GRIS, THE s/t (Birdman) cd 13.98
It's the debut from this Oakland trio lead by guitarist/vocalist Greg Ashley, whose solo album last year Medicine Fuck Dream won kudos from many amongst our staff and customers...if you liked that, you'll surely like this. Very authentic '60s sounding stuff from a paisley garage a la the Yardbirds, Kinks, Stones, and Syd Barrett. Ashley's got a whispery voice well-suited to the new nuggets The Gris Gris deal out here, ranging from gentle jangle-pop to raucous feedback rockers and psycho-delic drone-outs. Along with The Cuts, two way-back aligned winners from Birdman n' Oakland!
MPEG Stream: "Raygun"
MPEG Stream: "Mary #38"

GRIS GRIS, THE s/t (Birdman) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now vinylized...the debut from this Oakland trio lead by guitarist/vocalist Greg Ashley, whose solo album last year Medicine Fuck Dream won kudos from many amongst our staff and customers...if you liked that, you'll surely like this. Very authentic '60s sounding stuff from a paisley garage a la the Yardbirds, Kinks, Stones, and Syd Barrett. Ashley's got a whispery voice well-suited to the new nuggets The Gris Gris deal out here, ranging from gentle jangle-pop to raucous feedback rockers and psycho-delic drone-outs.
MPEG Stream: "Raygun"
MPEG Stream: "Mary #38"

GRODY, DANNY PAUL In Search Of Light (Students Of Decay) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Such a gorgeous second solo effort from Danny Paul Grody (The Drift, Believer, Moholy-Nagy, Tarentel). Adding beautiful elements of harmonium, synthesizer, bows, and bells to his blissful guitar playing, Grody has made the perfect autumnal album. These instrumental tracks take you to a place where your mind and body start to gently sway, and the stress, sadness, and loss of being alive are both acknowledged while also allowing you to drift into a dreamier state of mind, recalling some of our favorite records by folks like William Eaton, James Blackshaw, Bruce Langhorne, Jozef Van Wissem, and Steffen Basho-Junghans.
While many other solo records by great guitar players can often feel as a show off session for how well trained they are, In Search Of Light is an album more invested in creating an actual mood and atmosphere then hitting you over the head with tricky playing or trying to sound exactly like John Fahey. In fact it's the patience and subtly of Grody's playing that always attracts us to his work and keeps us listening for the reward of repeated listens. So perfect for fall, this record makes us want to put on our favorite autumn sweater as we cuddle up near a fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate and read a book of poems or just daydream the afternoon away. Highly recommended! Comes with a digital download so you can also dream the day away while in transit or at your computer...
MPEG Stream: "Hello From Everywhere"
MPEG Stream: "Orbits"
MPEG Stream: "Stars Gaze"

GUERRERO, TOMMY Soul Food Taqueria (Mo Wax) cd 14.98

GUERRILLA HI FI Echo Springs (Answer To Life) lp 11.98
New dub / jazz project brewed here in the Bay Area. Reggae backbone with jazz soloing on guitar, organ, trombone, trumpet, saxophone, flute and vibes. Features many local jazz heads including Gino Robair, Jeff Chan and even local turntablist DJ Zeph. Only available on LP at this time.

GUILTY PARTY It Doesn't Hurt (Evil Eye) cd 13.98
The Guilty Party keep their music in the shadows of night, lacing it with a slight goth and cabaret edge. On this full length follow-up to their 2004 Five Songs debut ep, the Bay Area foursome's brooding drama is more defined and recalls that of early '90s Northeastern U.S. rock bands such as Come or Versus, or more recent likeminded Westcoasters such as Duchess or Whysall Lane. Woozy and intoxicated / intoxicating, their troubled torment ramps up sharply as the album progresses, not unlike a rapid unravelling of emotions and nerves. The spotlight is wisely centered on the powerful throaty vocals of Angelica Maze. The potency of her pipes totally hold its own next to the imposing swagger of the guitars and driving rhythm section. Together they pack quite a wallop. Check out the eighth track "Switch Away" in which the band injects a little Sonic Youth-y art/noise rock dissonance at the end. Very cool. Recorded and produced by SF rock maestro Doug Hilsinger (of the very like-minded but more rural Waycross and Enochestra, they of the 'Taking Tiger Mountain revisited' project) who's also been known to play a little drums and guitar with the band too.
MPEG Stream: "Switch Away"
MPEG Stream: "The Prom Song"

GUILTY PARTY, THE Five Songs (self-released) cd-r 6.98
Five Songs is the debut release of this Bay Area moody rock band. What you first notice when you put this EP on for a spin is the contrast between the low, druggy female voice and the high pitched slinking guitar. The vocals and guitars sit prominently atop a bed of slow-boil bass guitar and drums. Shadowy, smoldering and more than a little bit gothy. Mixed by Doug Hilsinger (Waycross, Enorchestra).
MPEG Stream: "View From A Closet"
MPEG Stream: "Hit You"

HALA STRANA Karst e.p. (Jewelled Antler Library) 3" cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The fourth in the Jewelled Antler Library series of 3" cd-r releases comes from Thuja's Steven R. Smith, who has taken up the Hala Strana moniker for his Eastern European-folk music inspired meditations. "Karst" continues down the path of his previous Jewelled Antler production "Kohl" (which is slated for a reissue on 12" by Emperor Jones) with a more ramshackle production for his dense acoustic arrangements for guitar and scratchy violin, which often hints at Eastern European timbres but as played by Nikki Sudden. In fact two of Smith's tracks are versions of traditional Polish and Romanian folk songs. Often beginning with a clutter of loose sounds, Smith coaxes his orchestrations into melancholic melodies and has smothered everything with an unusual patina of crunchy vinyl static, giving the 18 minutes a distinctly antiquated feel. A great entry in a great series.
MPEG Stream: "Sztajer"
MPEG Stream: "Cantecul Miresei"

HALF FILM East of Monument (Buzz) cd 11.98
Local trio whose sweetly mournful, thickly atmospheric tunes will appeal to fans of Red House Painters and Radar Bros.

HALF FILM The Road To The Crater (Devil In The Woods) cd 14.98
Long overdue second full length from these San Francisco mope rockers. Dark and intense and delicate and absolutely beautiful. Think Low, Labradford, Codeine, Radar Bros. etc...

HAMBLIN, MASON The Ballroom Is For Dances (Out Of Round) cd 11.98
The local label Out of Round has been laboring quietly in the background, not calling a lot of attention to itself yet turning out record after record that are consistently of similar mood -- due to the fact that they all play on each others recordings. The homegrown label's "sound", then, is one of a grimy circus atmosphere, like Fellini's La Strada if it was set in some dusty corner of an urban American metropolis. There are lots of slowed down polkas and depressed waltz time-signatures, dour vocals, sad accoridans, and dolefully plucked guitars. Great mood music for the Tom Waits fan in all of us who feels like Waits is just too hip for his own good these days.
Check out www.outofroundrecords.com -- we carry all of their releases. For a limited time only, get an out of Round Records label sampler free with purchase of this disc.

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE 17th Street (Metal Blade) cd 14.98
Ripping heavy metal infused with ornate Queen-like pop smarts, in support of lyrical concerns that 99 percenters could rally around? Hmm, that could only be the new album from San Francisco's Hammers Of Misfortune! It's interesting to think, that 17th Street might be the very first record by these guys (and gals) that lots of people will be exposed to, on account of 'em now being on a "big" label, the venerable Metal Blade, who besides putting out this new record, also reissued Hammers entire back catalog last year. What will those newbies make of it, a bold, brash, bombastic, very very "musical", progged-out opus that's part power metal, part pop, part political commentary??
However, most folks reading this are probably already familiar with Hammers, perhaps possessors of the preceding four entries in their discography (or 5 or maybe even 6, actually, depending on how you count 2008's double album Fields/Church Of Broken Glass, as well as the archival release of their early material recorded under the name Unholy Cadaver). So this review is mostly directed those Hammers fans, AQ customers who have been following 'em over the years like we have, and are aware of all the various the lineup changes, and stylistic shifts (raspy black metal influences out, '70s Hammond organ driven prog in) that have become part of the Hammers saga. (If you are a newbie, we suggest you get The Bastard first, then check out their others.)
But, while 2001's The Bastard remains our favorite HoM release (heck, Andee here originally put it out on his label tUMULt, right?), we are definitely finding a lot to like about what Hammers have turned into ten years on. They remain a brilliant band, if an indulgent one - but then that's one of the perks of prog, isn't it?
As Hammers fans have come to expect, this is chock full of intricate, incredible guitarwork. Lots of vintage sounding Hammond organ in there as well, those ivories tinkled by a classically trained pianist, juxtaposed with technical thrash velocities. And soaring, quasi-operatic vocals of course, too... speaking of which, that's one of the most significant aspects to mention about this new album, that among the lineup changes since the last one, they have a new male vocalist who might finally fill the void left by the departure of Slough Feg's Mike Scalzi after 2006's The Locust Years. New frontman Joe Hutton is a more than capable singer, in fact he's quite good, and while he doesn't sound exactly like Scalzi, there's a quality to his voice that old fans who miss Scalzi in the band will appreciate.
He's not their new 2nd guitar player though, that'd be Leila Abdul-Rauf, formerly of blackened death metallers Saros, also of Vastum - who in addition to being a shredder who can hold her own playing those harmonies with Hammers founder John Cobbett, turns out to have a nice "clean" singing voice (she did the cookie monster thing in Saros!), filling the female 'diva' role now in Hammers - though these new songs, with Hutton up front, definitely place more emphasis on the male vocal part, a good thing we think. And he's certainly given some infectiously melodic material to wrap his pipes around, as it were.
We're probably notorious for finding buried 'poppiness' in all sorts of not very overtly poppy music, but don't think we'll get much argument here when we say that while Hammers have always been melodic, this is definitely their poppiest outing yet. To the point that we can almost imagine 'em being played on the radio, and could even kinda compare some of this to the likes of, uh, Journey, at times. Ferinstance, "The Grain", the album's first "single" (or at least, leaked YouTube track), is something that WILL definitely get stuck in your head, the chorus catchier than a really catchy thing, though it's over 7 minutes long, so forget the radio idea... Elsewhere on this album, Queen (and the many-layered guitars of Brian May) are a good comparison. You'll hear that on the heartwrenching piano ballad "Summer Tears", a moody one... Going beyond Queen, the sprightly likes of "The Day The City Died" gets almost into Sparks territory, even! Lest that not sound very "metal", don't worry, the frantic charge of "Romance Valley" amongst other stormers here should be enough to demonstrate that 17th Street is totally deserving of having the old school bloody axe Metal Blade logo emblazoned on its sleeve.
Conceptually (and being Hammers, you know there's concepts!), well, all their other albums came out during the heinous reign of George W. Bush. Now the class warfare is more the focus than the so-called War On Terror. And guess what? This is thus the first, and doubtless only, protest prog-metal album aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement (Occupy 17th Street!?). One of the songs, "Staring (The 31st Floor)", is about the collapse of Lehman Brothers, for gosh sake.
With the demise of Ludicra, Hammers are now lead guitarist and main songwriter John Cobbett's only going concern. And there was a lot of pressure on, but we think Cobbett & Co. rose to the occasion. Though it's hard to gauge what other folks will think of this, as no other bands really sound anything like Hammers do these days.
Available on both cd (digipack) or deluxe double gatefold vinyl, 180 gram, 45rpm for maximum fidelity!! The vinyl version features an extra 7 minute track, "Salt", right in the middle of the first side. And furthermore, the mastering job on the vinyl is said (by the band) to sound better, though we haven't yet made that determination ourselves.
MPEG Stream: "17th Street"
MPEG Stream: "The Grain"
MPEG Stream: "The Day The City Died"

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE 17th Street (Metal Blade) 2lp 24.00
Ripping heavy metal infused with ornate Queen-like pop smarts, in support of lyrical concerns that 99 percenters could rally around? Hmm, that could only be the new album from San Francisco's Hammers Of Misfortune! It's interesting to think, that 17th Street might be the very first record by these guys (and gals) that lots of people will be exposed to, on account of 'em now being on a "big" label, the venerable Metal Blade, who besides putting out this new record, also reissued Hammers entire back catalog last year. What will those newbies make of it, a bold, brash, bombastic, very very "musical", progged-out opus that's part power metal, part pop, part political commentary??
However, most folks reading this are probably already familiar with Hammers, perhaps possessors of the preceding four entries in their discography (or 5 or maybe even 6, actually, depending on how you count 2008's double album Fields/Church Of Broken Glass, as well as the archival release of their early material recorded under the name Unholy Cadaver). So this review is mostly directed those Hammers fans, AQ customers who have been following 'em over the years like we have, and are aware of all the various the lineup changes, and stylistic shifts (raspy black metal influences out, '70s Hammond organ driven prog in) that have become part of the Hammers saga. (If you are a newbie, we suggest you get The Bastard first, then check out their others.)
But, while 2001's The Bastard remains our favorite HoM release (heck, Andee here originally put it out on his label tUMULt, right?), we are definitely finding a lot to like about what Hammers have turned into ten years on. They remain a brilliant band, if an indulgent one - but then that's one of the perks of prog, isn't it?
As Hammers fans have come to expect, this is chock full of intricate, incredible guitarwork. Lots of vintage sounding Hammond organ in there as well, those ivories tinkled by a classically trained pianist, juxtaposed with technical thrash velocities. And soaring, quasi-operatic vocals of course, too... speaking of which, that's one of the most significant aspects to mention about this new album, that among the lineup changes since the last one, they have a new male vocalist who might finally fill the void left by the departure of Slough Feg's Mike Scalzi after 2006's The Locust Years. New frontman Joe Hutton is a more than capable singer, in fact he's quite good, and while he doesn't sound exactly like Scalzi, there's a quality to his voice that old fans who miss Scalzi in the band will appreciate.
He's not their new 2nd guitar player though, that'd be Leila Abdul-Rauf, formerly of blackened death metallers Saros, also of Vastum - who in addition to being a shredder who can hold her own playing those harmonies with Hammers founder John Cobbett, turns out to have a nice "clean" singing voice (she did the cookie monster thing in Saros!), filling the female 'diva' role now in Hammers - though these new songs, with Hutton up front, definitely place more emphasis on the male vocal part, a good thing we think. And he's certainly given some infectiously melodic material to wrap his pipes around, as it were.
We're probably notorious for finding buried 'poppiness' in all sorts of not very overtly poppy music, but don't think we'll get much argument here when we say that while Hammers have always been melodic, this is definitely their poppiest outing yet. To the point that we can almost imagine 'em being played on the radio, and could even kinda compare some of this to the likes of, uh, Journey, at times. Ferinstance, "The Grain", the album's first "single" (or at least, leaked YouTube track), is something that WILL definitely get stuck in your head, the chorus catchier than a really catchy thing, though it's over 7 minutes long, so forget the radio idea... Elsewhere on this album, Queen (and the many-layered guitars of Brian May) are a good comparison. You'll hear that on the heartwrenching piano ballad "Summer Tears", a moody one... Going beyond Queen, the sprightly likes of "The Day The City Died" gets almost into Sparks territory, even! Lest that not sound very "metal", don't worry, the frantic charge of "Romance Valley" amongst other stormers here should be enough to demonstrate that 17th Street is totally deserving of having the old school bloody axe Metal Blade logo emblazoned on its sleeve.
Conceptually (and being Hammers, you know there's concepts!), well, all their other albums came out during the heinous reign of George W. Bush. Now the class warfare is more the focus than the so-called War On Terror. And guess what? This is thus the first, and doubtless only, protest prog-metal album aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement (Occupy 17th Street!?). One of the songs, "Staring (The 31st Floor)", is about the collapse of Lehman Brothers, for gosh sake.
With the demise of Ludicra, Hammers are now lead guitarist and main songwriter John Cobbett's only going concern. And there was a lot of pressure on, but we think Cobbett & Co. rose to the occasion. Though it's hard to gauge what other folks will think of this, as no other bands really sound anything like Hammers do these days.
Available on both cd (digipack) or deluxe double gatefold vinyl, 180 gram, 45rpm for maximum fidelity!! The vinyl version features an extra 7 minute track, "Salt", right in the middle of the first side. And furthermore, the mastering job on the vinyl is said (by the band) to sound better, though we haven't yet made that determination ourselves.
MPEG Stream: "17th Street"
MPEG Stream: "The Grain"
MPEG Stream: "The Day The City Died"

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE Fields / Church Of Broken Glass (Profound Lore) 2cd 14.98
With their move to big time mega metal label Metal Blade, local long running epic blackened progressive true metal outfit Hammers of Misfortune finally see their back catalog reissued via their new label, which in the case of Fields / Church Of Broken Glass is a bit odd, considering that the original is still available from the label that released it in the first place, Profound Lore, so like all the other Hammers reissues, this one is definitely worth revisiting, and buying if you missed out on it the first time around, but we figured it made more sense to re-list the Profound Lore version... so here's our review of Fields / Church Of Broken Glass from when we first listed it not that long ago...
First, there was The Bastard. The ultimate over the top power metal/black metal rock opera, as far as we're concerned. Ok, so Andee here at AQ put it out on his tUMULt label... but that simply proves that he/we really like it (not that that's WHY we like it). Still Hammers' best, we think. But their follow up The August Engine was pretty killer too. And the same with their third album Locust Years, which we hailed as the first ever fantasy metal album that was also a contemporary political allegory (about Bush and the Iraq War). With that record, Hammers settled with regal grace into a new phase, with the significant addition of '70s styled Hammond organ, taking their prog leanings to ever proggier heights, the raspy black metal aspects of their sound discarded long ago. And this new release from the acclaimed San Francisco metallers is definitely a continuation of that, despite some major lineup changes in the Hammers camp since Locust Years came out in 2006.
Of course, mainman guitarist John Cobbett (Ludicra, ex-Slough Feg) is still the with the band. Also drummer Chewy Marzolo, and keyboardist Sigrid Sheie. But now there's a new set of singers. Hammers, as you may know, have always flaunted operatic/theatrical, male and female vocals, intertwining in their compositions. There's been a few different female singers (who also played bass) over the years, but the clean male vocals until now had been handled solely by Mike Scalzi of Slough Feg, who has a distinctive voice to say the least. Taking over the female role is Jesse Quattro, a trained singer who definitely holds her own in the tradition of Hammers' female vocalists. You won't notice much difference there, though she may well be the best they've had. She doesn't play bass, however, so they've got Ron Nichols in to handle that task. More difficult, perhaps, for Hammers, was replacing Scalzi, who left to concentrate entirely on Slough Feg. Patrick Goodwin (of Dirty Power and Pansy Division) stepped up into Scalzi's shoes and while his voice is definitely different, not having the weird presence or booming depth Scalzi's, he's a capable melodic singer, yearning and emotive, and maybe his less idiosyncratic style fits better with Hammers' current direction. Long time fans will definitely notice a difference, though, and some will roll with it, some won't. Certainly the Hammers of The Bastard aren't the Hammers here.
So, now Hammers Of Misfortune obviously have a lot to prove on this new album - or, actually, albums. That's right, as if to really rise to the occasion and make a statement, they've released a double album, or what they'd have us believe is two separate albums, Fields and Church Of Broken Glass, packaged together. Each one gets its own cover art, you flip the gatefold digipack over to see each one, in the style of an old Ace Double paperback (the cover shown here is that of Fields). Though we were a bit bemused to discover that since the seven cuts on Fields clock in at just over 37 minutes, and the five songs on CoBG total about 35, it actually would have been possible to fit 'em both on a single disc! At least Profound Lore isn't making you pay any extra for this two-cd concept. And, since HoM's music can be so exhaustively epic, full of complex arrangements and keyboard busy-ness and cryptic lyrics, it's actually easier on the listener to have two shorter cds to digest than one exceedingly lengthy one, really!
As well, each disc has its own theme, a rural/urban dichotomy between Fields and Church Of Broken Glass. The best example of the latter being the moody 10 minute epic "Butchertown", painting this very city's streets in sinister fairytale shades. (Urban decay, blight and fright being territory previously explored by Cobbett's black metal outfit Ludicra, as well.) If we know Cobbett, there's probably a clever narrative or allegory at play here, encompassing both discs, leading from song to song and one disc to the next, but Hammers lyrics are poetically vague enough that we haven't puzzled it all out yet exactly. You could look at their recent interview on the Pitchfork website for more insight if you wish. We again get a political vibe from some of this, and do have the idea that Fields starts off about the plight of peasant farmers in Afghanistan, beginning with the three-part, 16-minute suite of "Agriculture", "Fields", and "Motorcade". See what you make of these lines, from the latter: "Escorting friendlies, a walk in the park/Unlock the cages as soon as it's dark/Motorcade motorcade easy to mark/Send in the snipers to swim with the sharks/Breadline is burning, the headcount's a joke/Soon they'll be feasting on mirrors and smoke/Motorcade motorcade horses to show/Fish in a barrel and ducks in a row". Hmm. And Hammers manages to turn that into singalong catchiness!
Fortunately, even with the ambitious scale of this latest project, and all the new members in the band, fans will find that Hammers hasn't changed too much, still full of blazing guitar solos and stop on a dime dynamics, memorable riffs and melodies and exquisite harmonies, musical theater moments and multilayered vocals - all the over the top-ness we love about 'em. Perhaps though the progginess has gotten even proggier, more flowery... We're reminded of Kansas, actually! Well, Kansas mixed with Megadeth, maybe. With a healthy helping of that rollicking, Deep Purplish Hammond organ first introduced on previous opus the Locust Years, as we said. And if you're into 'em for the female vocals, you won't be disappointed at all.
So, what should be Hammers' sales slogan for this album - New and Improved? Well, no, we can't quite go there, what with our feelings about the The Bastard. Well, how about Two For The Price Of One! Sure. And how about Thinking Man's (and Woman's) Metal? Definitely. But we get the idea that slogans and soundbites and all those mass media manipulative aspects of modern commercial culture are exactly what Hammers Of Misfortune stands against, so we'll just leave it with, well worth checking out.
MPEG Stream: "Agriculture"
MPEG Stream: "Rats Assembly"
MPEG Stream: "Butchertown"
MPEG Stream: "Train"

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE The August Engine (Cruz Del Sur) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT, GET THE METAL BLADE VERSION INSTEAD!
Ready for some harmonies and heaviness? Pure, prog-tastic METAL for the long, dark winter? We know you are, 'cause it's been a long while. But now, it's here. The Hammers come down for the second time with this long-awaited new album, the follow-up to their acclaimed (and already out-of-print, for now) debut The Bastard released on our own Andee's tUMUlt label back in 2001. Whereas The Bastard was a full-on rock opera, The August Engine only *sounds* like a rock opera, it isn't actually one. There's no narrative, unifying concept to the songs this time, which puts HoM's eclectic metal mixture in danger of losing focus, being too unpredictably psychedelic and epic for their own good. Wait, what are we saying? That's no problem! As diverse as their songwriting and sonic palette can be, everything here sounds like Hammers and nothing else (well, except Slough Feg), which can only be the mark of a brilliant band.
Bursting out of the gates with an adrenalized instrumental opener that thrashes like Megadeth while remaining as gloriously 'classical' and over the top as anything on The Bastard, we can't say The August Engine never lets up. It does, but only in the sense that some decidedly unusual, and sometimes mellow avenues are explored. But for every non-metallic moment of sweet singing and pleasant acoustic guitars, you get plenty of shredding electric ones, with pounding drums, dramatic male and female vocals on a grand scale, and headbanging riffage. Advanced metal mastery here folks. Pretentious? Indulgent? Arrogant? No, simply mighty. The 10-out-of-10 review this album has already garnered from veteran metal scribe Martin Popoff likened them to a psychedelic version of the best of Iron Maiden, who are we to argue?
Hammers still consist of John and Mike from The Lord Weird Slough Feg, plus drummer Chewy. On this recording, Janis Tanaka plays bass and sings like an angel, though when you go see Hammers live now, they have a new lineup including not only a foxy new bassist/singer but another female vocalist who plays Hammond organ as well!
The vinyl (on tUMULt) has different cover artwork than, but the same tracks as, the compact disc version, released in a black-and-silver digipak edition by upstart Italian metal label Cruz Del Sur. Both sport cool Voivod-ish liner art by mastermind John Cobbett himself. Of course, recommended.
MPEG Stream: "The August Engine pt. 1"
MPEG Stream: "A Room And A Riddle"
MPEG Stream: "Insect"

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE The August Engine (Metal Blade) cd 14.98
With their move to big time mega metal label Metal Blade, local long running epic blackened progressive true metal outfit Hammers of Misfortune finally see their back catalog reissued via their new label, including of course, their second album, The August Engine, originally released on Italian label Cruz Del Sur. Here's what we had to say about the August Engine when we first reviewed it...
Ready for some harmonies and heaviness? Pure, prog-tastic METAL for the long, dark winter? We know you are, 'cause it's been a long while. But now, it's here. The Hammers come down for the second time with this long-awaited new album, the follow-up to their acclaimed (and already out-of-print, for now) debut The Bastard released on our own Andee's tUMUlt label back in 2001. Whereas The Bastard was a full-on rock opera, The August Engine only *sounds* like a rock opera, it isn't actually one. There's no narrative, unifying concept to the songs this time, which puts HoM's eclectic metal mixture in danger of losing focus, being too unpredictably psychedelic and epic for their own good. Wait, what are we saying? That's no problem! As diverse as their songwriting and sonic palette can be, everything here sounds like Hammers and nothing else (well, except Slough Feg), which can only be the mark of a brilliant band.
Bursting out of the gates with an adrenalized instrumental opener that thrashes like Megadeth while remaining as gloriously 'classical' and over the top as anything on The Bastard, we can't say The August Engine never lets up. It does, but only in the sense that some decidedly unusual, and sometimes mellow avenues are explored. But for every non-metallic moment of sweet singing and pleasant acoustic guitars, you get plenty of shredding electric ones, with pounding drums, dramatic male and female vocals on a grand scale, and headbanging riffage. Advanced metal mastery here folks. Pretentious? Indulgent? Arrogant? No, simply mighty. The 10-out-of-10 review this album has already garnered from veteran metal scribe Martin Popoff likened them to a psychedelic version of the best of Iron Maiden, who are we to argue?
Hammers still consist of John and Mike from The Lord Weird Slough Feg, plus drummer Chewy. On this recording, Janis Tanaka plays bass and sings like an angel, though when you go see Hammers live now, they have a new lineup including not only a foxy new bassist/singer but another female vocalist who plays Hammond organ as well!
The jacket sports cool Voivod-ish line art by mastermind John Cobbett himself. Of course, recommended.
MPEG Stream: "The August Engine pt. 1"
MPEG Stream: "A Room And A Riddle"
MPEG Stream: "Insect"

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE The August Engine (tUMULt) lp 12.98
Ready for some harmonies and heaviness? Pure, prog-tastic METAL for the long, dark winter? We know you are, 'cause it's been a long while. But now, it's here. The Hammers come down for the second time with this long-awaited new album, the follow-up to their acclaimed (and already out-of-print, for now) debut The Bastard released on our own Andee's tUMUlt label back in 2001. Whereas The Bastard was a full-on rock opera, The August Engine only *sounds* like a rock opera, it isn't actually one. There's no narrative, unifying concept to the songs this time, which puts HoM's eclectic metal mixture in danger of losing focus, being too unpredictably psychedelic and epic for their own good. Wait, what are we saying? That's no problem! As diverse as their songwriting and sonic palette can be, everything here sounds like Hammers and nothing else (well, except Slough Feg), which can only be the mark of a brilliant band.
Bursting out of the gates with an adrenalized instrumental opener that thrashes like Megadeth while remaining as gloriously 'classical' and over the top as anything on The Bastard, we can't say The August Engine never lets up. It does, but only in the sense that some decidedly unusual, and sometimes mellow avenues are explored. But for every non-metallic moment of sweet singing and pleasant acoustic guitars, you get plenty of shredding electric ones, with pounding drums, dramatic male and female vocals on a grand scale, and headbanging riffage. Advanced metal mastery here folks. Pretentious? Indulgent? Arrogant? No, simply mighty. The 10-out-of-10 review this album has already garnered from veteran metal scribe Martin Popoff likened them to a psychedelic version of the best of Iron Maiden, who are we to argue?
Hammers still consist of John and Mike from The Lord Weird Slough Feg, plus drummer Chewy. On this recording, Janis Tanaka plays bass and sings like an angel, though when you go see Hammers live now, they have a new lineup including not only a foxy new bassist/singer but another female vocalist who plays Hammond organ as well!
The vinyl (on tUMULt) has different cover artwork than, but the same tracks as, the compact disc version, released in a black-and-silver digipak edition by upstart Italian metal label Cruz Del Sur. Both sport cool Voivod-ish liner art by mastermind John Cobbett himself. Of course, recommended.
MPEG Stream: "The August Engine pt. 1"
MPEG Stream: "A Room And A Riddle"
MPEG Stream: "Insect"

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE The Bastard (Metal Blade) cd 14.98
With their move to big time mega metal label Metal Blade, local long running epic blackened progressive true metal outfit Hammers of Misfortune finally see their back catalog reissued via their new label, and of all the reissues, none was more anticipated than this, their amazing debut, The Bastard, originally released on our very own Andee's tUMULt label, but out of print for the last few years, The Bastard is easily one of the most original and totally genius metal records of the last decade (Terrorizer magazine even voted it one of the best 40 metal records of 2001!), here's our review of The Bastard when the tUMULt version was first released...
Our own Andee proves himself, and his tUMULt label, to be truly dedicated to the Heaviest of Metal with this new release! Following on from prior tUMULt metal-oriented releases (the grim and trancelike black metal genius of Weakling, the blackened grind of free-jazz fans Hatewave, the noisecore assault of Burmese...), the debut full-length album from San Francisco's Hammers of Misfortune takes the Metal to an entirely new level. It's a full-on metal opera, stirring everything into the cauldron, majestic male and female vocals, acoustic guitar breaks, Maidenesque harmonies, black metal vocal rasps, headbanging riffs and classical motifs. Next to seeing them live (where the leather-clad band, a mere four-piece, belts all this out and more), "The Bastard" is serious metal fun. Black, death, power, prog, epic: it seems like almost all styles of metal are represented in Hammers' songs, which flow non-stop from one to the next in a complex 3-act saga telling a crazy fantasy tale about a cursed bastard child raised by forest-spirits, who travels into the Underworld to find the Blood-Axe and slay his father, an evil tyrant, in the name of the Chaos Godess...or something like that. If you need help figuring it out, the 24-page booklet includes the "liberetto" as well as some excellent wood-cut style illustrations -- indeed the whole thing (a digipack) is a very handsome package.
Formerly known as Unholy Cadaver, Hammers of Misfortune is the demented brainchild of local metal master John Cobbett, who also played guitar in the cult SF "Celtic epic metal" outfit The Lord Weird Slough Feg. Mike from Slough Feg also sings on The Bastard, playing guitar and providing the "clean" male vox. And we must mention the contribution of Janis Tanaka (ex-Stone Fox) on bass and the excellent female vocals. "The Bastard" comes across like a mixture of Cradle of Filth and Blind Guardian, or Slough Feg and Opeth, or Satyricon and Mercyful Fate: it's that eclectic, that classic, that amazing.
MPEG Stream: "The Dragon Is Summoned"
MPEG Stream: "The Bastard Sapling"
MPEG Stream: "You Should Have Slain Me"
MPEG Stream: "Sacrifice / The End"

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE The Locust Years (Cruz Del Sur) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT, GET THE METAL BLADE VERSION INSTEAD!
People have been waiting a long time for this, the third opus from SF's own Hammers Of Misfortune, one of the most ambitious, audacious, bodacious, bombastic, maybe even slightly ludicrous bands in the metal realm...and metal this is, through and through, even as it pushes the envelope right over the edge into, I don't know, musical theater... 2003's The August Engine was pretty amazing, as was (our favorite) their year 2000 debut, The Bastard (released by Andee's tUMULt label we should note). The Locust Years has a lot to live up to.
And live it up they do here. Just check out the band photos for evidence of that (funnier if you know these folks). There's a shocking formal portrait on the back cover, everybody dressed up in tuxedos and evening gowns, hair pulled back. And then inside the cd booklet, you see 'em letting their hair down in a glammy, rock n' roll fantasy shot. It's nice to see that they don't take themselves too seriously, that should keep people guessing about this band. Not so pretentious as some might think, joking but no joke.
Quick intro first for those just tuning in/turning on to this band: Hammers is a rock-operatic heavy metal juggernaut with harmonizing lead guitars, pounding Hammond organ (new!), and majestic male and female vocal lines. The band features members of The Lord Weird Slough Feg past and present, and mainman John Cobbett is busy too with his other band black metallers Ludicra (new ep elsewhere on this list) plus he's been playing with the likes of Amber Asylum and even Jarboe of late... As you might imagine from all of this, Hammers is an especially eclectic mix of '70s prog, '80s metal, black metal (without the black metal vocals), classical music, avant-chamber-rock, Mary Poppinsy musical showtuneage, Opethian loud/soft, fast/slow dynamics...
Basically, everything (and more) that already earned mucho plaudits for the Hammers' first two albums is present here: the sweeping melodic grandeur, metallic excitement, complex arrangements, virtuoso playing, intelligent lyrics, many moods, and attention to idiosyncratic detail -- which is evident from the packaging, with its Thomas Woodruff cover painting and aforementioned photography, to the music, for instance the track "War Anthem" that features a whole hired drum line arranged by Hammers drummer Chewy. Or it's actually Chewy multitracking his own one man drum line. Either way, it's pretty darn Tusk!!
And lyrically, while it's not a storytelling narrative like The Bastard, it's somewhat more of a cohesive "concept album" than was August Engine... the concept being, near as we can tell, a very allegorical, cryptic protest against the awful person and policies of our president, George W. Bush!! Or at least that's what we get from lyrics like "Death - death to the infidels / sons of our servants shall serve and serve us well / and gifted with endless war / flags and fanatics forevermore" (from "War Anthem") or, "If people wonder at the suffering you cause / and your massive avarice has left them at a loss / if by chance they notice your bloody, snapping jaws / the blood upon your claws / your shifty eyes and laws / the nauseating flaws in all you've said / trot out the dead" (from "Trot Out The Dead") -- no that's not Satan they're singing about, not exactly. We're pretty sure that makes The Locust Years the world's first POLITICAL epic fantasy prog power metal album!!
Recommended of course.
MPEG Stream: "The Locust Years"
MPEG Stream: "We Are The Widows"
MPEG Stream: "War Anthem"

HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE The Locust Years (Metal Blade) cd 14.98
With their move to big time mega metal label Metal Blade, local long running epic blackened progressive true metal outfit Hammers of Misfortune finally see their back catalog reissued via their new label, including of course, their third record, The Locust Years, which like The August Engine before it, was originally released on Italian label Cruz Del Sur. Here's our review from when we first got The Locust Years, a while back...
We've been waiting a long time for this, the third opus from SF's own Hammers Of Misfortune, one of the most ambitious, audacious, bodacious, bombastic, maybe even slightly ludicrous bands in the metal realm...and metal this is, through and through, even as it pushes the envelope right over the edge into, I don't know, musical theater... 2003's The August Engine was pretty amazing, as was (our favorite) their year 2001 debut, The Bastard (released by Andee's tUMULt label we should note). The Locust Years has a lot to live up to.
And live it up they do here. Just check out the band photos for evidence of that (funnier if you know these folks). There's a shocking formal portrait on the back cover, everybody dressed up in tuxedos and evening gowns, hair pulled back. And then inside the cd booklet, you see 'em letting their hair down in a glammy, rock n' roll fantasy shot. It's nice to see that they don't take themselves too seriously, that should keep people guessing about this band. Not so pretentious as some might think, joking but no joke.
Quick intro first for those just tuning in/turning on to this band: Hammers is a rock-operatic heavy metal juggernaut with harmonizing lead guitars, pounding Hammond organ (new!), and majestic male and female vocal lines. The band features members of The Lord Weird Slough Feg past and present, and mainman John Cobbett is busy too with his other band black metallers Ludicra plus he's been playing with the likes of Amber Asylum and even Jarboe of late... As you might imagine from all of this, Hammers is an especially eclectic mix of '70s prog, '80s metal, black metal (without the black metal vocals), classical music, avant-chamber-rock, Mary Poppinsy musical showtuneage, Opethian loud/soft, fast/slow dynamics...
Basically, everything (and more) that already earned mucho plaudits for the Hammers' first two albums is present here: the sweeping melodic grandeur, metallic excitement, complex arrangements, virtuoso playing, intelligent lyrics, many moods, and attention to idiosyncratic detail -- which is evident from the packaging, with its Thomas Woodruff cover painting and aforementioned photography, to the music, for instance the track "War Anthem" that features a whole hired drum line arranged by Hammers drummer Chewy. Or it's actually Chewy multitracking his own one man drum line. Either way, it's pretty darn Tusk!!
And lyrically, while it's not a storytelling narrative like The Bastard, it's somewhat more of a cohesive "concept album" than was August Engine... the concept being, near as we can tell, a very allegorical, cryptic protest against the awful person and policies of our president, George W. Bush!! Or at least that's what we get from lyrics like "Death - death to the infidels / sons of our servants shall serve and serve us well / and gifted with endless war / flags and fanatics forevermore" (from "War Anthem") or, "If people wonder at the suffering you cause / and your massive avarice has left them at a loss / if by chance they notice your bloody, snapping jaws / the blood upon your claws / your shifty eyes and laws / the nauseating flaws in all you've said / trot out the dead" (from "Trot Out The Dead") -- no that's not Satan they're singing about, not exactly. We're pretty sure that makes The Locust Years the world's first POLITICAL epic fantasy prog power metal album!!
Recommended of course.
MPEG Stream: "The Locust Years"
MPEG Stream: "We Are The Widows"
MPEG Stream: "War Anthem"

HANGING THIEF s/t (Digitalis Ltd.) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
So as Barn Owl made their way home from Austin, Texas this past spring, they made a pit stop in the ominous town of Tulsa Oklahoma to hang out with friend and owner of Digitalis records, Brad Rose. They got into Tulsa just in time, as a huge storm had followed in their wake. And with a dark looming sky of black clouds and the threat of a tornado touching down any second, what else could they do besides stay inside and record some dark psychedelic drooooones? And this they did, and the result is a new project called Hanging Thief, named after the giant, praying mantis-like insect that frequents Rose's porch. Barn Owl, Rose and his wife Eden together sculpt a slow rising monolith that gently creeps up from the cracked Oklahoma soil. Hazy vocals, faint synth sorcery and heavy guitar droning melt together into two 30 minute sides of slow building, grim atmospheric psychedelia. Limited to an edition of 150, this tape is pro-dubbed and decked out in killer hand drawn artwork by Eden, don't be sorry you missed out on this ritual offering of analog sorcery!

HANK IV Third Person Shooter (Hook Or Crook) cd 13.98
Not to be confused with Hank III, aka Hank Williams the third, although there are bits of twang here and there, especially the first 10 second. But after that it's just blast after blast of scuzzy, sing along, snot-nosed garage rock stomp. Which makes sense when you consider that Hank IV is made up of equal parts Icky Boyfriends, Duh, Leather Uppers, Bum Kon and The Roofies.
Recorded right here in SF by Tim Green of the Champs, Hank IV kick out some serious sub-Stooges jams. Simple, bouncy, propulsive, grungy basement RAWK, with looping melodies over stripped down scuzzy stomps, peppered with chunks of angular riffing and gruff howled vocals. These guys must kill live!
MPEG Stream: "Melonhead"
MPEG Stream: "Oyster"
MPEG Stream: "Family Adam"

HANK IV Third Person Shooter (Hook Or Crook) lp + cd 13.98
Not to be confused with Hank III, aka Hank Williams the third, although there are bits of twang here and there, especially the first 10 second. But after that it's just blast after blast of scuzzy, sing along, snot-nosed garage rock stomp. Which makes sense when you consider that Hank IV is made up of equal parts Icky Boyfriends, Duh, Leather Uppers, Bum Kon and The Roofies.
Recorded right here in SF by Tim Green of the Champs, Hank IV kick out some serious sub-Stooges jams. Simple, bouncy, propulsive, grungy basement RAWK, with looping melodies over stripped down scuzzy stomps, peppered with chunks of angular riffing and gruff howled vocals. These guys must kill live!
MPEG Stream: "Melonhead"
MPEG Stream: "Oyster"
MPEG Stream: "Family Adam"

HANS GRUSEL'S KRANKENKABINET Blaue Blooded Turen (Resipiscent) cd 14.98
There are very few bands who truly baffle. Who confuse and confound, both musically and conceptually. Sure, plenty of bands are weird, or strange, or hard to describe, some might even be described as fucked up or damaged, but very very few truly baffle.
Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet is most definitely one of those bafflingly confusional elite. Supposedly featuring members of another baffling SF troupe, Caroliner Rainbow, Hans Grusel, and his Krankenkabinet create a bizarre cacophony of sound, theatrical, dramatic, noisy for sure, but weirdly melodic and playful and more than anything, confounding.
How to explain the peculiar world Herr Grusel inhabits? Hmmmm, abstract, obtuse, experimental, avant? All of those things for sure. The music of HGK is more sound than song, each 'piece' a slowly unfolding exploration of space, both inner and outer, rendered in synthesizers and effects, strange percussive thumps and grinding low end drones, all spread out across an expanse of scrapes and squeaks, and occasional squalls of buzz and glitch. Landscapes of twisted sound, tweaked and transformed, slipping from bloops and bleeps to abrasive crunch, what sounds like tables becomes fingers skittering across a fretboard, voices are processed and smeared into jagged streaks, bits of synth and electronics are chopped and looped into loping rhythms, faux horns unfurl minor key melodies, long stretches of minimal shimmer give way to a burbling concoction of malfunctioning keyboards and abstract clatter and thump, whirring alien machinery, the high end skitter of electronic crickets, warped tapes crumbling into warbly whirring flutters, bits of trumpet fanfare surface, and then get sucked under, bits of field recordings all tangled up with blurred buzz and thick sheets of reverberating low end.
This might be a collection of sorts, a few of the tracks are a soundtrack to Alice In Wonderland, which must add a whole 'nother harrowing aspect to the film, but even so, the whole thing plays like a proper album, all the tracks sort of melting into one another, like one massive sprawling musical bad trip.
MPEG Stream: "Stress (Auf Dem Meer) - Release"
MPEG Stream: "Pulse Withered Doors"
MPEG Stream: "Down The Rabbit Hole"
MPEG Stream: "Blooded Exits"

HANS GRUSEL'S KRANKENKABINET Happy As Pitch (C.I.P.) cd 11.98
More bizarre, musical macrame from the peculiar German gent known as Hansel Urnst Grusel! Happy As Pitch could easily be retitled When Wind-Up Toys Go 'Wrong'. While there's probably not any actual toys involved in Hans Grusel's Krankenkabinet, the assortment of drunken plinkety plonks, itchy clickety clacks, disgruntled grindings and dizzying whooshes sure bring them to mind. Played out on such instruments as a Resonator Neuronium and a Steim Crackelbox as well as more conventional horns, strings 'n' woodwinds and a battalion of analog synthesizers, The Krankenkabinet's compositions are mostly kookily tweaked roamings, punctuated by an occasional more menacing moment. Guest players include Liz Allbee on trumpet and Graham Connah on Moog Source Solo.
MPEG Stream: "Comb Parade"
MPEG Stream: "Tea For Two"

HAPPINESS s/t (Shit On) lp 9.98
Concept albums usually end up too overblown for their own good, or at least those that brand themselves as concept albums. All those secret messages and subtle hints at depth usually come down to nothing more than pretension and bong-ripping late-nights in the studio. Happiness, Gerard Patawaran's one man band, stages its self-titled LP as a marriage proposal to his girlfriend, with the ensuing songs passing through quite a few relationship-stages, most of which many of us have been through. The hesitancy of a crush to the passion of (what must be) true love; the pleasure of fucking in every room of the house to the Joy Division refrain of "love will tear us apart again."
There are no song titles on the jacket or the insert, so what we'll refer to as the "first song" sounds like a cross between The Psychedelic Furs and an elecrified Mountain Goats. The second song has a definite Magnetic Fields flavor and not just because of the "love" theme. With simple instrumentation, Gerard's melodic crooning creates an atmosphere that is larger than the simple drumbeat and jangly guitar. Sometimes there's little fuck-ups that endear the listener rather than seeming like fuck-ups, reminding us that no one is perfect and that even true love has the occasional hiccup. The whole album clocks in at around 22 minutes or so, weaving its way through the Psychedelic-Magnetic-Goats themes effectively.
There's something really sweet about this record that's hard to describe. The songs are short and diversely written, both happy and sad at the same time. It's a little late for Valentine's Day, but this is a perfect record for telling that certain special someone "I love you".

HARRISON, JOEL 3+3=7 (9 Winds) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Three guitarists and three percussionists, exploring Harrison's songs and their own extensive improvisational skills. Local. Featuring AQ fave guitarist Nels Cline!

HATCHET Awaiting Evil (Metal Blade) cd 13.98
The current retro thrash renaissance of course has its practitioners here in the Bay Area. Of course, 'cause the Bay Area in the '80s was thrash ground zero what with Metallica and Exodus and Heathen and all, and, well, history repeats itself. The North Bay young 'uns known as Hatchet are up for riding the retro thrash rocket as high as they can go (so far, getting signed to iconic label Metal Blade on the strength of the tracks they'd posted to their MySpace page!).
With mile-a-minute neck wrecking riffage, blasting battery, and snarling, sometimes screeching vox (spitting lyrics about angels of death and marching dead and stuff like that), Hatchet sure sound like the real deal, no (pardon the pun) hack job. Dunno how they would have fared vs. the Big Four back in the day, but amidst the legions of retro thrashers popping up left and right in the metal underground right now they more than hold their own. A rapid fire mix of technicality, melody, attitude, and horror-flick fun.
Nostalgic good times all right, nothing more, nothing less, but cooler in our book than boring death metal band number 71,523 that until recently was standard issue in the American underground metal scene. If you want originality, well grab the Slayer and Megadeth and Testament albums that Hatchet so obviously grew up on...
MPEG Stream: "Frozen Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Frailty Of The Flesh"

HAWK, GERALD The Honey Guide Bird (Abduction) cd 14.98
Second album from Gerald Hawk on the Sun City Girls' Abduction label. As on his first recording, King Of The River Canoe Mr. Hawk continues to delve deeper into his unique mumbling, psycho-sexual, angry-Jandek folk. However, on The Honey Guide Bird brooding experimental folk takes a back seat to dark soundscapes. Using looped recordings, guitar, processed keyboards, short wave radio blasts (even some snippets of numbers stations recordings), field recordings and ring modulated vocals this album sound much more like Zoviet-France than No Neck Blues Band.
MPEG Stream: "Bought You A Lollipop Store Just To Watch You Suck On Things"
MPEG Stream: "The Southern Mediterranean Giants"

HAWKINS, CLAY Traveling Songs (Visionguild) cd 10.98
Traveling Songs is the second folksy twang album from Mr. Clay Hawkins. Vocally, he falls close to the sensitive male singer/songwriter tree a la Damien Jurado, Elliott Smith -- earnest and deeply heartfelt -- but where this album truly shines is when it's just him playing solo in his acoustic guitar on songs such as "Stepping Lightly" (or when he's simply joined by the sound of birds twittering on the ninth song "The Trip"). This Bay Area-based gent originally hails from Arizona and it shows. His skillful string plucking glows with golden desert sunset tones. Very comforting and warm.
MPEG Stream: "Stepping Lightly"
MPEG Stream: "The Trip"

HAYES, SEAN A Thousand Tiny Pieces (Snail Blue) cd 11.98
Hey all you Alabama Chickens! Or admirers of Bay Area country boy Sean Hayes' album of that very name! If you're in the Bay Area, you just might've seen him performing with his pal Ms Jolie Holland recently. Such a great combination! From the clamour of folks coming in askin' about him, it seems like he made quite an impression. Well, we're happy to report that we've got a couple of his earlier releases for y'all straight from the man himself. Each proves him to be a prolific and consistently high caliber singer / songwriter.
This one is his debut full length originally released in 1999, and what really struck us right off the bat was how soulful Hayes' vocal delivery is on it. In fact, when combined with the meditative barebones folk guitar plucking, it bears more than a striking resemblance to that of Tracy Chapman. That in itself is by no means a bad thing, just a little startling, and apart from that initial oddness, this reveals itself to be another fine, achingly expressive album from Mr. Hayes. Fourteen songs in all.
MPEG Stream: "Candles, Birds, Water"
MPEG Stream: "Mary Magdalene"

HAYES, SEAN Alabama Chicken (Snail Blue) cd 11.98
Now, we might wanna recommend right here and now that you not be mislead by the cover and title of this cd which sort of suggested (to us at least) something akin to a Southern Culture On The Skids style hootenanny. Not so! Although we wouldn't doubt that this gent can kick up some dust on his own. Instead, how 'bout some southern Americana twang from right here in SF? Sean Hayes is the man slinging this fine Alabama Chicken, and he's joined by a luminous group of guest players. To name just a couple of them... AQ fave Jolie Holland plays her fiddle and sings on a couple of songs, and AQ dear friend Will Waghorn plays drums on a bunch of 'em too. Actually the title track is one that Holland and Waghorn both grace, and it's definitely a highlight. It's ever so solemn, haunting and perhaps the most fleshed out of the album's down home dozen with the aforementioned fiddle, as well as some ghostly musical saw, banjo, and marimba. The rest are more barebones and intimate, allowing individual instruments to linger and lope all by their lonesome. A bittersweet swoop of harmonica, some understated acoustic guitar, a handful of soft piano keys, a hushed brush-tap on a snare drum and high hat. Lovely! Hayes' softly ragged, mournful voice (Andee compared it to James Taylor) pairs so well with Holland's -- like kindred spirits -- it makes you yearn for more of their stirring duets. We'd venture to say that if you've been swooning to Ms. Holland and The Be Good Tanyas, you just might want to check this out too. Even if you haven't, please do! A moving, earnest and earthy album.
MPEG Stream: "Alabama Chicken"
MPEG Stream: "Two Big Eyes"

HAYES, SEAN Big Black Hole And The Little Baby Star (Sean Hayes Music) cd 11.98
The name Sean Hayes has swiftly become one that you can trust for some really good down-home listenin'. His ever-growing following around these parts know very well that this man has a special way with both word and song. His last album, the laidback bluesy beauty Alabama Chicken from 2003, really made its mark on the Bay Area country folk community, equally appealing to fans of his fellow indie folksters Will Oldham, Jason Molina and his pal Jolie Holland as well as fans of the less grassroots-y types such as Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson or country rock vets John Hiatt and Graham Parker. This, the eagerly anticipated Big Black Hole And The Little Baby Star, is his fourth full length. Honing, fleshing out and expanding on that which came before, it sure doesn't disappoint. Not one to let the grass grow beneath his feet nor one to rest on his laurels, Hayes continues to grow as a deeply soulful songcraftsman, discovering and exploring new broader possibilities in his music. Refreshing and strong from start to finish, Big Black Hole And The Little Baby Star's fourteen songs find him at his most confident and effortless. He's joined by a number of fellow SF musical luminaries Ara Anderson (Iron & The Albatross), Etienne DeRocher, Ches Smith (Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant), Todd Roper and Kathryn Jensen. Be sure to check out the album's closing number, the slowly grooving "Turnaroundturnmeon" that perhaps offers a glimpse of his future directions. Sure to convert many many more ears to this gent's warm, earthy aural finery. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Boom Boom Goes The Day"
MPEG Stream: "Turnaroundturnmeon"

HAYES, SEAN Flowering Spade (self-released) cd 13.98
Please welcome the new Sean Hayes full length! You know we sure do! Such a terrific storytelling songsmith with a liltingly sensitive and soulful voice, Mr. Hayes and his music are always an absolute pleasure to encounter. He's followed up 2006's Big Black Hole And The Little Baby Star with a whole 'nother wonderful album that expands on what has come before, stretching its limbs stylistically, expressively and production wise too. In fact, this is his first studio-recorded album, but don't expect anything drastically different, distractingly slick or heavy-handed. No, it was for the most part recorded live, and it retains his trademark intimate, down to earthy charm. Who's joining him this time around? Well, quite an awesome seven member backing band which includes Ara Anderson (Iron & The Albatross) and Ches Smith (Secret Chiefs 3, Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant). This baker's dozen does feature a broader instrument palette than his past releases which offers tasteful horn and accordion flourishes here and there to the rootsy proceedings. Yes, indeedie, Flowering Spade is another feather in his cap. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "All For Love"
MPEG Stream: "Elizabeth Sways"

HAYES, SEAN Lunar Lust (Snail Blue) cd 11.98
Hey all you Alabama Chickens! Or admirers of Bay Area country boy Sean Hayes' album of that very name! If you're in the Bay Area, you just might've seen him performing with his pal Ms Jolie Holland recently. Such a great combination! From the clamour of folks coming in askin' about him, it seems like he made quite an impression. Well, we're happy to report that we've got a couple of his earlier releases for y'all straight from the man himself. Each proves him to be a prolific and consistently high caliber singer / songwriter.
This one, Lunar Lust is his second full length which came out in 2002. Much like on his debut A Thousand Tiny Pieces, what really struck us right off the bat was the earnest, yearning emotiveness of Hayes' voice. In fact, when combined with the meditative barebones folk guitar plucking, it bears a startling resemblance to that of Tracy Chapman. That in itself is by no means a bad thing, and apart from that initial oddness, this reveals itself to be another fine, achingly expressive album from Mr. Hayes. Fourteen songs in all.
MPEG Stream: "Simple + Ideal"
MPEG Stream: "Whale Butterfly "

HAYES, SEAN Run Wolves Run (self-released) cd 11.98
Wow, is this really album #6 for Mr. Sean Hayes? Yes, indeedie it is! Shucks, we kinda knew there was something special 'bout this fine gent waaay back in 2003 when we heard the first few tunes off of his engaging debut album Alabama Chicken which he hand-delivered to us. Now, seven years later he's still tending kindly to the grass roots, self-releasing his music, and personally presenting it to us. We're happy to report that Run Wolves Run is splendid, and sure to please his ever growing legions of fans. While the heart of this Bay Area troubadour's music is unmistakably rooted in folk Americana, he's open to venturing beyond the genre's boundaries and welcoming fresh possibilities while steering clear of current trends. This time we sense that he's injected a bit more rock and funkiness into the proceedings. The results are perhaps a bit more upbeat that his past recordings, but they still maintain a sound that's wonderfully soulful and warmly familiar. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "When We Fall In"
MPEG Stream: "So Down"

HAYES, SEAN, JASON WEBLEY AND GUESTS (V/A) Ace of Spades Series Volume 5 - January 2005 (E14) cd-r 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ace Of Spades is a cd-r series of live recordings showcasing the intimate acoustic music of a variety of local indie artists. The series so far boasts consistently strong performances from all participants (well played and well recorded at Mama Buzz Cafe in Oakland).
Of the Volume 5 - January 2005 edition's seven featured artists, AQ customers will probably be most familiar with Sean Hayes. His three songs include "Diamond In The Sun", "Rattlesnake Charm" and a fine rendition of the title track of his beloved Alabama Chicken album. Other stand-outs are the haunting spartan female sung three songs from Black Bird Stitches, the easy-going pop folk double-shot from Songs From The Living Room and the rousing intoxicated gypsy strings of Sour Mash Hug Band. L.Carey, Jason Webley, and P. Panamarenko (who also appears on the Vol. 6 and Vol. 8 editions).
MPEG Stream: BLACK BIRD STITCHES "Snapshot Memories"
MPEG Stream: SOUR MASH HUG BAND "Song 1"

HAYNES, JIM Magnetic North (The Helen Scarsdale Agency) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Feedback, shortwave, wasps! Perhaps that's all we need to say to get you to click the "add to cart" button, but let's go on...
Our own Jim Haynes may be primarily a visual artist, working within a self-actualized aesthetic of rust and decay (a small sample of which you'll get with the each-one-unique cover to this release). But his love of music, especially of the 'dronological' variety, of sound art and field recording and experimental glitchscapes, has led him to accompany his recent art shows and installations with soundtracks of his own making. He's also been collaborating with AQ-fave Loren Chasse in the duo Coelacanth, who just released the very nice Glass Sponge disc (reviewed last list), so you know he knows what he's doing. This Magnetic North cd is the audio portion of an installation of the same name and is a despairingly lovely drone-scape, constructed from feedback, shortwave radio static, and recordings of wasps, as we said. Like his visual art, it's just a little spooky and discomforting, evoking ghostly transmissions from the void. It's quiet, wind-tunnel drone that could be a wordless EVP recording of a paranormal haunting, and then begins to sound like the haunting is being itself haunted! Jim's solo work seems less microscopic in focus than what he and L. Chasse do in Coelacanth. It can be claustrophobic, but conversely also spacious and even somehow incorporeal, phantasmal. One track features sparsely chopped clips of feedback, but we like best the tracks that drift endlessly without making the listener consider the physical sound-making process. Definitely for fans of Mirror, John Duncan, Francisco Lopez, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson...or for anyone willing to plumb the abyss suggested by this sound-work.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

HAYNES, JIM Sever (Intransitive) cd 13.98
We listed this recently as a double disc limited edition, unfortunately that is now out of print, but the single disc is well worth the price of admission. Here's our review attesting to that...
Much like his art, the music of Jim Haynes is based on, and is a continual exploration of the act of decay, an imagining of natural (and un-natural) processes rendered into sound, a world of crumbling landscapes and of microscopic worlds collapsing. While he has yet to figure out a way to actually record the process of metal rusting, Haynes has managed to create a soundworld that sounds precisely how he, and perhaps we, might imagine it.
The process of decay, and erosion, found on and in Sever, is some sort of sprawling sonic time lapse, each track as much about the sounds as the sources, as much about the arrangements as the process of listening, as much about texture as timbre, as much about the tiny details, and the expansive whole, the opening track for instance, is all clatter and crunch, chiming and tinkling, to these ears it sounds like wandering through a ruined world, a dead planet, the sun drying every living thing to husks, these sounds are the dried carapaces, hung from rotted fence posts, rubbing against one another in what little breeze is left under a harsh midday sun. The sound of footsteps, the crunch and scrape of a despondent trudge, a death march, but all of this is carefully blurred and smeared, the obvious references are blunted, so the sound evokes all of the above, yet as if it were a dream, the edges a bit fuzzy, the sounds slightly gauzy, the colors hazy, the sound almost underwater sounding at times, a feverdream in sound.
The rest of the tracks explore a different world altogether. A world of darkness and blight, of grim emptiness and eternal blackness, three variations on the darkness beyond, varying shades of grey and black, ominous, haunting, threatening, abject, deep and so very dark. Almost as if the listener from the first track, stumbled into the cool darkness of a cave, sheltered through the sun, only to find his or herself wandering through an endless labyrinth of tunnels and caverns, the sound massive and bottomless, but simultaneously hushed and intimate, the blackness rife with buried melodies, with warm whirring textures, the haunting clang and clatter of bells? Some sort of metal on metal. Crunch and crackle adds grit to Haynes' subterranean drift, the sound growing ever more ominous, the low end shimmer transformed into a grinding hiss, a black hum, wreathed in clouds of effervescent static, beneath it all, an unlikely pulse, a barely audible throb, a machinelike anti-groove buried beneath, a slow swirling noxious obsidian haze.
The final track explodes with what sounds like the grind of stone against stone, whirring processed textures, that slowly shift and are pulled apart into strands of greyed melody, a whirring, gritty expanse of softly intertwined layers, that seem to extend forever, the various bits of grit and grime worn away as the track progresses, the sounds getting smoother as they grow darker, as if the sounds are dragging the listener further down into the dark, the light from above fading, becoming a warm orange glow, then a smudge of red, before any and all color is swallowed up, leaving just the echoes to ring out before they too disappear.
MPEG Stream: ":"
MPEG Stream: "::"

HAYNES, JIM Sever / Severed (Intranstive) 2cd 14.98
What the hell? We thought these had long disappeared, but a handful of the super limited edition 2cd version of Sever / Severed were just discovered. These will most likely be the final copies we'll see of this... As for the record, here's what we had to say about it when we first reviewed it:
Much like his art, the music of Jim Haynes is based on, and is a continual exploration of the act of decay, an imagining of natural (and un-natural) processes rendered into sound, a world of crumbling landscapes and of microscopic worlds collapsing. While he has yet to figure out a way to actually record the process of metal rusting, Haynes has managed to create a soundworld that sounds precisely how he, and perhaps we, might imagine it.
The process of decay, and erosion, found on and in Sever, is some sort of sprawling sonic time lapse, each track as much about the sounds as the sources, as much about the arrangements as the process of listening, as much about texture as timbre, as much about the tiny details, and the expansive whole, the opening track for instance, is all clatter and crunch, chiming and tinkling, to these ears it sounds like wandering through a ruined world, a dead planet, the sun drying every living thing to husks, these sounds are the dried carapaces, hung from rotted fence posts, rubbing against one another in what little breeze is left under a harsh midday sun. The sound of footsteps, the crunch and scrape of a despondent trudge, a death march, but all of this is carefully blurred and smeared, the obvious references are blunted, so the sound evokes all of the above, yet as if it were a dream, the edges a bit fuzzy, the sounds slightly gauzy, the colors hazy, the sound almost underwater sounding at times, a feverdream in sound.
The rest of the tracks explore a different world altogether. A world of darkness and blight, of grim emptiness and eternal blackness, three variations on the darkness beyond, varying shades of grey and black, ominous, haunting, threatening, abject, deep and so very dark. Almost as if the listener from the first track, stumbled into the cool darkness of a cave, sheltered through the sun, only to find his or herself wandering through an endless labyrinth of tunnels and caverns, the sound massive and bottomless, but simultaneously hushed and intimate, the blackness rife with buried melodies, with warm whirring textures, the haunting clang and clatter of bells? Some sort of metal on metal. Crunch and crackle adds grit to Haynes' subterranean drift, the sound growing ever more ominous, the low end shimmer transformed into a grinding hiss, a black hum, wreathed in clouds of effervescent static, beneath it all, an unlikely pulse, a barely audible throb, a machinelike anti-groove buried beneath, a slow swirling noxious obsidian haze.
The final track explodes with what sounds like the grind of stone against stone, whirring processed textures, that slowly shift and are pulled apart into strands of greyed melody, a whirring, gritty expanse of softly intertwined layers, that seem to extend forever, the various bits of grit and grime worn away as the track progresses, the sounds getting smoother as they grow darker, as if the sounds are dragging the listener further down into the dark, the light from above fading, becoming a warm orange glow, then a smudge of red, before any and all color is swallowed up, leaving just the echoes to ring out before they too disappear.
The bonus disc features recordings previously thought to originate from a sound installation, but which is in fact the reworked source material of his performance opening for Nurse With Wound back in 2009.
Totally recommended!
MPEG Stream: ":"
MPEG Stream: "::"
MPEG Stream: "::::"

HAYNES, JIM Telegraphy By The Sea (The Helen Scarsdale Agency) cd 14.98
Uh oh. These are the very last copies of this cd by our own Jim Haynes to be found. As for the possibility of a repress, the label has unequivocally said "No," given the amount of work that was put into the letterpress & silkscreen packaging. Here's what we had to say about the record a couple years back...
We like to think that the music we all make and release would be just the kind of stuff we love to listen to and sell, and just the kind of stuff you all like to listen to and buy. And such is the case with our own Jim's new record Telegraphy By The Sea, an album he's been working on for several years now, cobbled together from material culled from various elements used in installations and performances in New York, Australia and various locations in between.
The disc is lovely, all wrapped in an ominously blackened but totally beautiful package of silkscreen and letterpress that could at first glance be mistaken for another Jesu or Godflesh album with its telephone poles smeared into moire patterns.
The music inside is just as lovely. Rust, drones, shortwave, drones, acid rain, drones, a big pile of rocks, drones, a small pile of rocks, and more drones. Drones and drones. But like all of those great drone artists we freak out about (Chalk, Koner, Basinski, Organum, blah blah blah...), Jim's not one to let the drone settle as a terminal pool of inactivity. This is a dynamic album, bristling with texture amidst the shifting passages, dramatic shifts, and evocative soundscapes. The visual side of his installations has this weird eeriness as he builds dense layers of rust and debris on top of corroded photographs of abandoned buildings and desolate landscapes. Those same metaphors of abandoned, desolate spaces are musically represented in Telegraphy By The Sea. In these spaces, time is accelerated with things rusting, falling apart, getting covered in moss, and being washed away by the ocean. Scrapes and gurgles from all of those bits of metal, bricks, and rocks dissolve through radioactive sinewaves into a gorgeous magnetic wall of grey-slab tones, gradually building through half-melodic phrases, a clatter of monochrome, and squalls of crackling static. All of this snaps in an instant at the end of the album, giving way to a wondrous nocturnal ambience cobbled from luminous bell-tones and detuned shortwave radio communications.
One of Jim's good friends and collaborators Loren Chasse, said it better than we could, "A telephone cord in the sand? A message taken down using an alphabet of sea-glass, shell and carapace? It all makes sense in the last 11 minutes!"
MPEG Stream: "Telegraphy By The Sea (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Telegraphy By The Sea (excerpt 2)"

HAYNES, JIM The Decline Effect (The Helen Scarsdale Agency) 2lp 25.00
Another mysterious sonic missive from our very own resident dronologist Jim Haynes, another excursion into the sound of decay, this time in the form of four sprawling sidelong epics, each its own self contained soundworld, culled from various field recordings, vibrating strings and other sonic errata. Recorded over the last three years, these recordings require headphones to truly explore their depth, and once strapped on, it's easy to get lost in these strange lands of decay and declines.
The A side was originally a commissioned soundtrack for a pair of films that screened at the Hauntology exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum in 2010, and while we've yet to see either of these films, the smoldering slow moving "Ashes" does evoke a certain ontological sonic dread, the core of the sound is of course the drone, but that drone is pulled taut, and the sound seems to fray as the track progresses, shedding sonic detritus in the form of fractured melodies, strange clicks and muted buzz. At times, this begins to sound like perhaps Haynes' most overtly musical record, but that musicality is eventually picked apart, the remaining elements litter the landscape like bits of some sonic wreckage, but then the edges are smoothed, and the stray shards are reigned in, the sound is truly beautiful, whether a deep sonorous drone, or a lush layered stretch of celestial shimmer.
Named for the performance space at which the piece was debuted, "Terminal" is another sidelong soundscape, the majority of the sounds sourced from field recordings of geysers and thermal vents, the opening few minutes unfurling like a raw field recordings, playing out like some obscure scientific document, unearthed from some dusty box filed away in a warehouse, chronicling some lost expedition. The sound doesn't necessarily grow more musical, but instead, seems to blossom and display more texture, and more depth, as if more sounds were introduced and then layered or woven into one another, streaks of blurred hiss, peppered with the sound of wind on microphone or the trickle of water, the white noise of eruption balanced by the hushed murmur of calm before and after.
Side three finds Haynes exploring radioactive decay, unclear what the sound sources are, we'd like to think, that it's indeed recordings of Strontium or Uranium, the radioactivity causing the tape to warp and curdle, but in fact, it sounds more like an assemblage of intercepted short wave broadcasts, and deep bellows of bowed metal, lush chordal swells washing over strange effects, muted glitches, lush tones and surprisingly dreamy overtones, bell like chimes, chittering cricket like clicks, Geiger counter like bleeps, all blurred and smeared into a gorgeous hazy of soft focus shimmer, those clicks coalescing into an almost-rhythm, while the surrounding sounds seem to lose cohesion, the edges softening, all bleeding into one another and drifting like blackened clouds of whir and thrum.
And finally, the last movement in this crumbling sonic tetraptych is the wire recording sourced "Cold", in which Haynes captures the sympathetic buzz of wires and plays them like some sort of abstract harp, at least that's how we picture it, a huge stone room, with metal wires running across in wild tangles, Haynes at the center, wildly bowing and striking wires, creating this delicate crystalline symphony, another blurred buzzscape, that peppers the lush layered shimmer, with creaks and clatter, skitter and crunch, but those errant sounds are quickly subsumed by the warm whirls of hushed bleary drift and an unexpected eruption of caustic blown out noise, a psychedelic squall that acts as the record's coda, before the inevitable decline, the sound slipping into nothingness. Gorgeous stuff.
LIMITED TO 350 COPIES!! Housed in a luxurious full color gatefold sleeve, and pressed on nice thick black vinyl. Includes a download coupon as well.
MPEG Stream: "Ashes"
MPEG Stream: "Cold"

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

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

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

HELLA Falam Dynasty (5 Rue Christine) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A couple of brief outbursts of precision mayhem from Hella, featuring their trademark maniacally dense drumming and head splitting guitar riffery.