MV & EE WITH THE BUMMER ROAD (MATT VALENTINE / ERIKA ELDER) Green Blues (Ecstatic Peace!) cd 10.98
After releasing a legion of limited cd-rs and vinyl only releases of droney, and smoky, arcane mystical acoustic weirdo raga from the Vermont backwoods (which we loved!!), Matt Valentine and his partner Erika Elder have finally released an album that is neither limited nor expensive. Marking their debut on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! Imprint, Green Blues is a more straight ahead roots-rock album than we've heard before from this camp, which ultimately makes this release pretty disappointing. There's no doubt to what the "green" in the title refers to, as Valentine and Elder have been for many years living off the grid in a wood cabin and making lots of heady music. But here they seem to have been listening to their Neil Young, Grateful Dead and Canned Heat records a little too long, making their honest hippie affirmations veer into near-comical shtick. On the plus side, it's thankfully short and it does gets better as it goes along with the songs getting longer and stranger with less singing towards the end. Maybe this is just a one-time kink in a long string of amazing releases. Let's hope next time, they'll take a step back from the bong.
MPEG Stream: "East Mountain Joint"
MPEG Stream: "Big Deal"

MV & EE WITH THE GOLDEN ROAD Drone Trailer (Di Christina) cd 13.98
It seems romantic to think about living out in the country, sleeping in a trailer and spending all your time making music and hanging out with a dog named Zuma. That's sort of a reality for East Coast trippers MV and EE. And it's funny to us how many people love to label this band as "that hippy, Neil Young wanna-be" duo. Which is sorta true, I mean they DO live a very alternative lifestyle, and take a listen to any of their albums and tell us you can't hear the Neil Young similarities. Buuuuut, on the other hand, MV and EE have been on the lo-fi psych folk tip for over a decade! Yes it's true, some aQ customers might even remember Matt Valentine's super influential acid-folk band from the nineties Tower Recordings, killer stuff that was sadly overlooked. And while we don't completely disagree with the insensitive hype that hovers around MV & EE, we DO have to say that Drone Trailer, the latest release from these extraordinary acid folk experts, is AWESOME, some of their best material yet! A murky glimpse into some sprawling cosmic countryside, more of the usual sun-baked tripped-out Americana, but thanks to the heavy hitting Golden Road backing band, Drone trailer is more driving and rockin' then most other MV and EE releases. Barn burning space fuzz meets twangy foot-stomping psychedelic meltdown. Loosely arranged jammers that waver under the blaring sun, mind-warping drones laced with lazy day vocals and bluesy guitar, the clumsy rhythms of Crazy Horse meet the expansive sprawl of Flying Saucer Attack. Kinda like if Ignatz recorded his last record with a full band, or if Spacemen 3 did a folk record. Spaced-out rural twang, the perfect soundtrack for your next lazy Sunday afternoon, highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "The Hungry Stones"
MPEG Stream: "Drone Trailer"

MV & EE WITH THE GOLDEN ROAD Drone Trailer (Di Christina) lp 14.98
It seems romantic to think about living out in the country, sleeping in a trailer and spending all your time making music and hanging out with a dog named Zuma. That's sort of a reality for East Coast trippers MV and EE. And it's funny to us how many people love to label this band as "that hippy, Neil Young wanna-be" duo. Which is sorta true, I mean they DO live a very alternative lifestyle, and take a listen to any of their albums and tell us you can't hear the Neil Young similarities. Buuuuut, on the other hand, MV and EE have been on the lo-fi psych folk tip for over a decade! Yes it's true, some aQ customers might even remember Matt Valentine's super influential acid-folk band from the nineties Tower Recordings, killer stuff that was sadly overlooked. And while we don't completely disagree with the insensitive hype that hovers around MV & EE, we DO have to say that Drone Trailer, the latest release from these extraordinary acid folk experts, is AWESOME, some of their best material yet! A murky glimpse into some sprawling cosmic countryside, more of the usual sun-baked tripped-out Americana, but thanks to the heavy hitting Golden Road backing band, Drone trailer is more driving and rockin' then most other MV and EE releases. Barn burning space fuzz meets twangy foot-stomping psychedelic meltdown. Loosely arranged jammers that waver under the blaring sun, mind-warping drones laced with lazy day vocals and bluesy guitar, the clumsy rhythms of Crazy Horse meet the expansive sprawl of Flying Saucer Attack. Kinda like if Ignatz recorded his last record with a full band, or if Spacemen 3 did a folk record. Spaced-out rural twang, the perfect soundtrack for your next lazy Sunday afternoon, highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "The Hungry Stones"
MPEG Stream: "Drone Trailer"

MV & EE WITH THE GOLDEN ROAD (MATT VALENTINE / ERIKA ELDER) Gettin' Gone (Ecstatic Peace) cd 9.98
If you've ever asked yourself just -exactly- when Matt Valentine will abandon any pretense that would suggest he isn't Neil Young's little brother, wonder no more. MV & EE's inebriated folk drones of yore have given way to a much more straight-forward style of writing, which means more riffs and less hippie freak-outs. As usual, Erika Elder's vocals have that feeling of hearing someone singing in the shower from the next room over; novice but strikingly pleasant. Valentine's voice is an acquired taste at best. In spite of his singing, catchy melodies abound as they churn out a good pop-folk-rock record that both complements their other work and serves as a good starting point for anyone who's curious. This is anthemic folk Americana for the uninitiated. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Easy Livin'"
MPEG Stream: "Speed Queen"

MV / EE & THE BUMMER ROAD (MATT VALENTINE / ERIKA ELDER) We Offer You Guru (Child Of Microtones) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We Offer You The Guru might be a folk record, in some other time, and some other world. Sure there are steel string guitars, harmonica, jews harp, even sruti box and electric dulcimer, and there is a melancholy strumminess, and dreamy twanginess to be sure, but Matt Valentine and Erika Elder (aka MV / EE) wrap their druggy spaced out folk in a dense cloud of thick reverb and smoky ambience, traditional folk melodies are stretched and twisted apart into creepy snippets and fuzzed out musical vignettes, the whole thing reminding us a little bit of the movie Gummo at times, very cinematic in a fucked up and back woods-y sort of way, damaged and not a little drug addled, but at the same time hauntingly beautiful. Elder's vocals are slurred and indistinct, intertwined with wheezing harmonicas and plinking plonking Jandek-ian guitars. Valentine's usual droney raga steel strings, aren't so droney here, instead they become lovingly lugubrious deconstructed strums and picked apart picking, textural and abstract, a rickety framework for the ghostly clouds of vocal / harmonica interplay drifting through these hazy shimmery soundscapes.
MPEG Stream: "Rural Boogie"
MPEG Stream: "Lost Lover Blues"

MV, THE / EE MEDICINE SHOW (MATT VALENTINE / ERIKA ELDER) Moon Jook 12" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A super limited vinyl reissue of a long out of print cd-r from MV (Matt Valentine) and EE (Erika Elder) recorded live at the Glad Tree festival a few years back and released in a tiny edition on Valentine's Child Of Microtones label. Valentine And Elder also play in Tower Recordings, and while some of TR's free form psychedelia is present, Moon Jook, is much more of an abstract exploration of classic Appalachia filtered through a drone-folk sensibility. Quite similar to Jack Rose, in the way traditional sounding Appalachian bluegrass is stretched into slowly shifting extended ragas. The instrumentation here is mostly guitar (12 string, adapted silvertone) but with Elder contributing ukelele and tambura. The result is quite lovely, a drone-y drowsy stee string raga, hypnotic and repetitive with plenty of buzzing and lots of harmonic overtones. Haunting and otherworldly, slowly developing from simple melodic fingerpicking to dense layered folk flecked drones. The second side is mostly taken up by the epic "Megh Blues", a nearly side long soundscape of ambient swirl, distant swooshes and barely audible buzz, the whole thing a spare backdrop for lonesome atonal minor key slide guitar, slowly emitting strange voice like melodies, almost like an alien voice, speaking through a bizarrely tuned Jandekian guitar. Quite strange and beautiful. The record ends with a brief snippet of sepia toned ambience, bathed in warmth and crackle, like much of the record, giving Moon Jook the sound and feel of some dusty old 78. Lovely.

MX Ni Runder Modsols (Lille Kommune) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
aQ pal Phil Franklin turned us on to this mysterious Danish crew MX (believed to have something to do with the two main members obsession with BMX bikes, but that's another story we won't get into), and we were quite surprised and taken by what an amazing and flat out bizarre record this is! This is an anthology of recordings from the past ten years, and we're wondering why we haven't heard of these guys before, but we're so glad we know about them now! Our Danish language skills are lacking, so we can't really tell exactly what is going on or how many players are involved, so of course it leaves the music open to speculation. It sounds like it could be a whole bunch of people, or the careful tape manipulation of just a couple. But the sounds are dirty and lo-fi, recorded on four track and feature mostly short rhythmic compositions of acoustic string instruments (banjo, guitar, and violin), with distorted wheezing accordions, fuzzy pulsating synths, clattering percussion and cultic chanting. Occasionally strange tape manipulated vocals that sound like old folkway recordings of pygmys or some far-off South Asian tribe will appear, along with brain-melting primitive electronics effects. It reminds us a lot of the "ethnological forgery" of groups like Harappian Night Recordings and Sun City Girls, the hippie shamanism of Daniel Higgs and Ur-Dog, as well as the collective free-folk ingenuity of Kemialliset Ystavat. But for all the strangeness and noise, the songs seem more composed than improvised, full of beautiful otherworldly melodies and a stunning sense of DIY psychedelic exotica.
LPs are hand silkscreened on repurposed thrift store record covers. We only have about 8 of these and while we're trying to get more, it might be awhile until we see a restock, so act fast!

MX-80 I've Seen Enough (Atavistic) cd 14.98
Classic Bay Area band.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE Ecstasy And Wine (Lazy Records) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
During the two years between their first recordings in 1985 and the series of singles for Lazy records, My Bloody Valentine had blossomed from a second rate swamp-rock group into a charming Brit-Pop ensemble, poised to unleash their crushingly beautiful albums "Isn't Anything" and "Loveless." "Ecstacy And Wine," which collects those Lazy singles, takes all the right cues from The Jesus & Mary Chain, in bridging Beach Boys / Phil Spector bubblegum pop genius with dizzying walls of distortion that teetered between punk antagonism and white noise sedative. Just as Jim and William Reid mumbled their lyrics behind the hurricane of guitar fuzz on "Psychocandy," My Bloody Valentine's breathy vocal duets from frontman Kevin Shields and Belinda Butcher are super slow motion counterpoints to the band's shimmering guitar jangle. Even at this early stage My Bloody Valentine exhibited the tendencies of convegence between opposites: noise and pop, being asleep and being awake, gloom and bliss, etc. The resultant dream pop sounds found on "Ecstacy and Wine" are just as beautiful as My Bloody Valentine's later masterpieces, but don't explore so many of the extremes typified within "Loveless"
Unlike the disappointing debut recordings of "This Is Your Bloody Valentine" which exists only for completists, "Ecstacy and Wine" is an excellent album that should definitely have a home next to your other My Bloody Valentine records!
RealAudio clip: "Never Say Goodbye"
RealAudio clip: "Can I Touch You"
RealAudio clip: "The Things I Miss"
RealAudio clip: "I Don't Need You"

MY BLOODY VALENTINE Isn't Anything (Sony / Creation) cd 10.98
As we recently listed My Bloody Valentine's hard to find collection "Ecstacy and Wine" as well as their masterpiece "Loveless," it's about time that we got "Isn't Anything" into the Aquarius Records archives.
I seem to remember an odd anecdote about the recording process of this album, that it was recorded somewhere in the outskirts of their native Dublin near a sheep farm and the band ended up crashing at the studio throughout the entire recording session. Yet, their sleep patterns were constantly interrupted by the incessant bleating of those sheep, and the collective insomnia contributed to the lethargy and torpor found within "Isn't Anything." Of course, I've been unable to verify this story with anything factual, but this album sure does sound sleepy, mostly sliding towards the realm of deep slumber, but occasionally hopped-up on punchy sleep-deprived nerves.
In the name of revisionist history, "Isn't Anything" stands as the transition album between the gilded jangle of "Ecstacy and Wine" and the radioluminescence of "Loveless." My Bloody Valentine had begun to bury much of their emulation of '60s psychedelic pop in Sonic Youth mack-truck riffage and intertwining guitar haze that upstages the Velvet Underground strum-as-drone. Tracks like "Feed Me With Your Kiss" and "Sueisfine" thickly blur the sad lullaby vocals from Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher through overblown bass distortion and strangely uptempo rhythms. Yet, My Bloody Valentine will instantly glide out of these into the shoegazing drone-pop of something like "Lose My Breath" with its tone bending extended chords and lack of pronounced rhythms. Only a couple of the songs on "Isn't Anything" are as memorable as those found on "Loveless," but there are plenty of swirling dreamy-pop songs that make this album a treat for shoegazing fans!
RealAudio clip: "Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)"
RealAudio clip: "Lose My Breath"
RealAudio clip: "Feed Me With Your Kiss"
RealAudio clip: "Sueisfine"

MY BLOODY VALENTINE Isn't Anything (Plain) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This amazing classic finally get the deluxe vinyl reissue treatment, in a nice heavy sleeve and on 180 gram virgin vinyl! I seem to remember an odd anecdote about the recording process of this album, that it was recorded somewhere in the outskirts of their native Dublin near a sheep farm and the band ended up crashing at the studio throughout the entire recording session. Yet, their sleep patterns were constantly interrupted by the incessant bleating of those sheep, and the collective insomnia contributed to the lethargy and torpor found within "Isn't Anything." Of course, I've been unable to verify this story with anything factual, but this album sure does sound sleepy, mostly sliding towards the realm of deep slumber, but occasionally hopped-up on punchy sleep-deprived nerves.
In the name of revisionist history, "Isn't Anything" stands as the transition album between the gilded jangle of "Ecstacy and Wine" and the radioluminescence of "Loveless." My Bloody Valentine had begun to bury much of their emulation of '60s psychedelic pop in Sonic Youth mack-truck riffage and intertwining guitar haze that upstages the Velvet Underground strum-as-drone. Tracks like "Feed Me With Your Kiss" and "Sueisfine" thickly blur the sad lullaby vocals from Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher through overblown bass distortion and strangely uptempo rhythms. Yet, My Bloody Valentine will instantly glide out of these into the shoegazing drone-pop of something like "Lose My Breath" with its tone bending extended chords and lack of pronounced rhythms. Only a couple of the songs on "Isn't Anything" are as memorable as those found on "Loveless," but there are plenty of swirling dreamy-pop songs that make this album a treat for shoegazing fans!
RealAudio clip: "Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)"
RealAudio clip: "Lose My Breath"
RealAudio clip: "Feed Me With Your Kiss"
RealAudio clip: "Sueisfine"

MY BLOODY VALENTINE Loveless (Warner / Sire) cd 9.98
We just realised that this record, one of AQ unanimous all time favorites, never got listed on the website OR the AQ list. And while most of you may already have this, a few of you are in for a big surprise and a musical awakening. "Loveless" stands at the pinnacle of the UK shoegazer movement of the early '90s also populated by Ride, Slowdive, Blind Mr. Jones, Lush, and dozens of lesser knowns on Creation and Cherry Red Reords. Almost all of these bands were enthralled by '60s pop, extending Phil Spector's wall of sound into thick tapestries of distortion and reverberation that almost completely buried their distinctly pop structures. My Bloody Valentine was no exception, but were certainly the most adventurous in terms of production techniques and most definitely the best songwriters of the lot (though Ride and Slowdive did write some amazing songs) culminating with their masterpiece (and swansong) "Loveless." Led by the intertwined guitars and vocals of the bleary eyed duo of Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher, My Bloody Valentine blurred what would normally be punk-as-fuck distortion into a velvety wash of sleepwalking sound, soothed further by their hushed lullabye vocals. Yet, My Bloody Valentine weren't just interested in lulling their audiences to sleep, as "Loveless" borrows more than a few tricks from the contemporary Manchester sound (Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, etc.) with their brilliant track "Soon" filled with rolling basslines and spry breakbeats.
That track along with the equally groovy-yet-dreamy "Glider" ep had been the basis for Simon Reynolds curious thesis that My Bloody Valentine had produced some of the earliest jungle tracks. More plausible was that MBV were one of the first rock bands to actively incorporate sampling into their production techniques. My Bloody Valentine had resampled their guitar feedback digitally to created strangely warbling layers of sound and allow for additional tools to build their bittersweet, melancholic melodies. "Loveless" may remain the final testament to the musical prowess of My Bloody Valentine, as Kevin Shields continues to state the claim that another album is in the works... well it's been in the works for over a decade and has no signs of ever being realized. Nevertheless, this album *still* sounds totally fresh and wholly superior to all of the bands that have attempted to revive the My Bloody Valentine sound (Lilys, Swirlies, Flying Saucer Attack, Third Eye Foundation, Fennesz, Chessie, etc, etc, etc).
Perhaps our opinion best stated by former Aquarian Marc Kate: "If you don't own it, I won't be mad, but you will certainly earn my pity." An earthshattering record. Period.
RealAudio clip: "Only Shallow"
RealAudio clip: "I Only Said"
RealAudio clip: "Sometimes"
RealAudio clip: "Soon"

MY BLOODY VALENTINE Loveless (Plain) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This seminal shoegazer classic gets the deluxe vinyl reissue treatment as well (along with their 'Isn't Anything' album), in a nice thick sleeve and on 180 gram virgin vinyl! While most of you may already have this, a few of you are in for a big surprise and a musical awakening. "Loveless" stands at the pinnacle of the UK shoegazer movement of the early '90s also populated by Ride, Slowdive, Blind Mr. Jones, Lush, and dozens of lesser knowns on Creation and Cherry Red Reords. Almost all of these bands were enthralled by '60s pop, extending Phil Spector's wall of sound into thick tapestries of distortion and reverberation that almost completely buried their distinctly pop structures. My Bloody Valentine was no exception, but were certainly the most adventurous in terms of production techniques and most definitely the best songwriters of the lot (though Ride and Slowdive did write some amazing songs) culminating with their masterpiece (and swansong) "Loveless." Led by the intertwined guitars and vocals of the bleary eyed duo of Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher, My Bloody Valentine blurred what would normally be punk-as-fuck distortion into a velvety wash of sleepwalking sound, soothed further by their hushed lullabye vocals. Yet, My Bloody Valentine weren't just interested in lulling their audiences to sleep, as "Loveless" borrows more than a few tricks from the contemporary Manchester sound (Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, etc.) with their brilliant track "Soon" filled with rolling basslines and spry breakbeats.
That track along with the equally groovy-yet-dreamy "Glider" ep had been the basis for Simon Reynolds curious thesis that My Bloody Valentine had produced some of the earliest jungle tracks. More plausible was that MBV were one of the first rock bands to actively incorporate sampling into their production techniques. My Bloody Valentine had resampled their guitar feedback digitally to created strangely warbling layers of sound and allow for additional tools to build their bittersweet, melancholic melodies. "Loveless" may remain the final testament to the musical prowess of My Bloody Valentine, as Kevin Shields continues to state the claim that another album is in the works... well it's been in the works for over a decade and has no signs of ever being realized. Nevertheless, this album *still* sounds totally fresh and wholly superior to all of the bands that have attempted to revive the My Bloody Valentine sound (Lilys, Swirlies, Flying Saucer Attack, Third Eye Foundation, Fennesz, Chessie, etc, etc, etc).
Perhaps our opinion best stated by former Aquarian Marc Kate: "If you don't own it, I won't be mad, but you will certainly earn my pity." An earthshattering record. Period.

MY BLOODY VALENTINE This Is Your Bloody Valentine (Dossier) cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There will be some of you who will not heed this review and pick this up simply because this may in fact be the earliest documentation of My Bloody Valentine. At this time in 1984, Kevin Shields' project consisted of an entirely different line-up than the one that produced such classics as "Loveless" and "Isn't Anything." With a Lux Interior / Glen Danzig ghoulish glam rock vocalist in Dave Conway, My Bloody Valentine's earliest sound lived up to their shock-horror-vampire name recalling the sloppy garage-tainted punk of The Birthday Party. Unfortunately, this is not nearly as good as the Birthday Party, and not even close to what they would later produce. Caveat Emptor.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN Cosmic Light of the Third Millennium (Important) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Three"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN Il Segno (Starlight Furniture Co.) cd 14.98
One of our favorite jams from this Italian space drone duo, originally released on lp only back in 2003, now reissued on cd with two loooong bonus tracks.
Il Segno continued MCIAA's skewed trajectory of deconstructed outer space blues and scraping drone-y minimalism utilizing a wild array of poper and toy instruments. Il Segno is a two part epic (due probably to the fact that it was recorded for vinyl), the first part the more subdued, with the buzzing of long wires, like a slowed down sitar, under mumbled Italian spoken word, creating a dreamy, drawly, syrupy soundscape. Near the end of part one, things pick up a little with the introduction of crackling, scraping, feedback and what sounds like distant peeling sirens. Part Two is like outerspace Jandek, a minimal, deconstructed blues jam (if something this lugubrious and hazy can be called a 'jam'), just heavily reverbed, plucked guitars notes, hanging effortlessly in the ether, while scattered percussion drifts by like shooting stars, with the occasional supernova of cascading cymbal wash, all partially obscured by distant Skullflowery skree, tinkling chimes and warm moaning drones.
For the reissue, the duo have whipped up another two parter, the cryptically titled "AC-1" and "AC-2", clocking in at 7 and 16 minutes respectively. Part one is a dizzying slippery soundscape of scrapes and shimmers, bits of high end and soft peals of melody all slipping and sliding against each other, like a hundred tiny little pieces of metal being rubbed against the strings of amplified guitars, creating a strange symphony of high end soft skree. Part two is a way murkier affair, as if the track before was dragged through the mud, rolled up in thick swirls of reverb, and then broadcast through a rickety old PA, with the bass cranked and the treble knob lopped off completely. A muddy trawl that slowly transforms into a loping slithery disembodied space blues peppered with soft streaks of feedback and bloopy swooshy psychrock FX.
Gorgeously packaged too, various shades of green, with strange diagrams printed in clear reflective spot varnish over all that green.
MPEG Stream: "AC-1"
MPEG Stream: "Il Segno"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN Il Segno (Starlight Furniture Co.) lp 13.98
This newest release from the curiously monickered Italian duo My Cat Is An Alien comes courtesy of local label Starlight Furniture and continues their skewed trajectory of deconstructed outer space blues and scraping drone-y minimalism utilising a wild array of poper and toy instruments. Il Segno is a two part epic, with the first part the more subdued, with the buzzing of long wires, like a slowed down sitar, under mumbled Italian spoken word, creating a dreamy, drawly, syrupy soundscape. Near the end of part one, things pick up a little with the introduction of crackling, scraping, feedback and what sounds like distant peeling sirens. Part Two is like outerspace Jandek, a minimal, deconstructed blues jam (if something this lugubrious and hazy can be called a 'jam'), just heavily reverbed, plucked guitars notes, hanging effortlessly in the ether, while scattered percussion drift by like shooting stars, with the occasional supernova of cascading cymbal wash, all partially obscured by distant Skullflowery skree, tinkling chimes and warm moaning drones.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN Il Suono Venuto Dallo Spazio (Victo) cd 16.98

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN Landscapes Of An Electric City (Ecstatic Peace) 2lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This band is much better than their horrible name would imply. My Cat Is An Alien is the delicate avant-rock project of the Italian brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, who have garnered a considerable amount of respect from Sonic Youth. So much so that MCIAA has opened for SY on a number of recent Italian gigs, jammed with Kim Gordon during one of those tours, and got this album released through Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label. The brothers open their album very quietly with quiet Slint / Tarentel guitar chords and lots of silence between the repeated stanzas. Equally spartan blurts of synthetic 8-bit noise emerge in congress with the guitars, eventually doubling up with a time-stretched / down-pitched reflection of itself. All of this very slowly gets smeared into a spiralling pattern of cosmic delay and tape-loop mechanisms. This track (or movement as MCIAA calls it) takes up all of side one, and is worth the prices of admission alone. The rest of the album is a bit of a turn downhill. Side two tumbles through a passage of lo-fi noise, sounding like a hand-cranked cheese grater being amplified with an occasional John Fahey-esque splutter behind it all. This lp had originally been released as a CD-R / demo before it was sent to Thurston Moore. The other LP is a one-sided affair with the band spitting out spastic sort-of-no-wave.
RealAudio clip: "Movement 1"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN Listen Before Black Falls (Root Strata) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ultra limited lp from Italy's masters of spacey sonic drift, My Cat Is An Alien.ÊReleased on Root Strata, the label of Tarentel's J.C. Ledesma. The two brothers in MCIAA again set their controls for the heart of the sun, but spend most of their time drifting lazily through space. Simple folk guitar, spread over random percussive clatter, the two tangled and stretched into some sort of amorphous spacey blissy drone. Tones stretch and shimmer, the background a distant whir, with soft vocals, fragile and whispery, so delicate and dreamy. The second 'movement' on the first side sounds a bit like the incidental music from some long lost sixties sci-fi lost in space type program, a soundscape of bleeeps and swooshes, bloops and alien trills, but it MCIAA's universe they are buried beneath a thick unwavering high end guitar drone. This sci fi dronescape continues onto the flipside where it spreads out over the whole side, a feedback guitar drifting weightless through the alien soundscape that is My Cat Is An Aliens peculiar sonic world.
SUPER LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Each copy hand numbered. Packaged in gorgeously silver inked hand screened sleeves.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN The Cosmological Eye Trilogy (Last Visible Dog) 3cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Here we go again. Remember that really limited cd-r that came out a few years ago, the one that was practically impossible to get, and maybe you bought on eBay for way too much, remember how bummed you were that you missed out on it? You really wanted it. REALLY. So now you have the gun loaded, the rope over the beam in the living room, a bottle of whiskey and a handful of pills on the counter, the note is almost finished. HOLD UP!! C'mon, if we've learned anything by now, as frustrating and annoying as it is, pretty much EVERY cd-r, will at some point be reissued on a much sturdier, longer life-spanned actual compact disc. Especially as there are labels that seem to exist exclusively to re-release albums that have already been released on cd-r. Okay, so maybe that was a bit snarky, but what the heck is the point of a limited cd-r when it will just be re-released in an unlimited version later on? Why not skip the cd-r step and just make a cd to start with? There's nothing entirely wrong with cd-r's, we LOVE cd-r's, we all buy cd-r's like crazy, and you know what? Some records are meant to be limited. A couple hundred copies is all the world needs. But for bands that are popular, with fans all over the world, a cd-r limited to 100 copies is just ridiculous, especially when fans will no doubt be expected to buy the actual cd version (most likely with bonus tracks) later on. We're not complaining (well, we sort of are) because heck, any record good enough to compose, record, and release, probably deserves to be heard by more than 50 or 100 people (not in every case, obviously!), we just wish bands and labels would have the foresight to realize that a handful of copies won't be enough and it's just as simple and cost effective in that case to make real cds! Ok, enought ranting... So we have the The Cosmological Eye Trilogy from Italian free noise siblings My Cat Is An Alien. Most definitely the kind of epic and beautiful music that definitely deserves a wider audience. So kudos to LVD for making these discs available again. The original versions of these discs came packaged with original artwork from Roberto of MCIAA and thus were pretty nice and worth owning, and certainly made a limited run necessary. While the paintings are only present in photgraphic reproductions here, the music more than makes this 3cd reissue worthwhile. MCIAA's musical world is populated by huge expanses of sound, broad minimalist soundscapes woven together with all sorts of guitars: electric alien guitar, astral alien guitar, electric nebulae guitar drone, as well as mini-xylophone, spacee toys, whirlpool, toy mic, percussion, metal sticks, cosmic cymbals, helix cymbals, Plutonian percussions and of course astral percussions. All recorded live with no overdubs, these spaced out sonic explorations are pretty amazing, from clattery, gritty industrialism, with scraping percussion and distorted vocals, to delicate barely there expanses of swoosh and waver, with distant foghorn-like moans, minimal drones, strange machine like whirs, almost inaudible chimes and melodies, to tribal space rituals with swirling blooping bleeping synths slipping and sliding around manic percussion, to strange alien sounding free jazz noise hybrids, shuffling cymbals, lots of dubbed out reverb, peals of feedback, and little bits of clatter and clink suspended in fields of looped fuzz and repeating cycles of hum and drone.
A completely overwhelmingly brilliant assemblage of outer space free jazz drone rock minimalism that will most definitely hit the spot for all you free-ambient-noise-drone cd-r hounds, but will probably also appeal to fans of Acid Mothers Temple style space rock, twentieth century minimalism, "new weird America" (Italy?), and all stops in between.
Packaged in a strange triple fold plastic sleeve that is unfortunately not ideal for keeping cds from getting scratched...
MPEG Stream: "Untitled One"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled Two"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN The Cosmological Eye Trilogy -Part Three- (Opax) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN The Cosmological Eye Trilogy -Part Two- (Opax) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN The First Flames Of Tommorrow (Opax) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN The Rest Is Silence (Eclipse) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN Through The Reflex Of The Rain (Free Porcupine) cd 14.98
Another band that seems poised to challenge Acid Mothers Temple to a who-can-release-more-records duel. But much like AMT, Italy's My Cat Is An Alien have somehow managed to keep the quality control pretty high (minus the unforgivable series of limited $100 split lps, that were released on cd not soon after). On Through The Reflex Of The Rain, MCIAA drift even further into deep space psych, with a free drone workout that rivals Total or Sunroof!. Angular guitars over warbly organs, shimmering reverb drenched chords stretched into endless sheets of cosmic vibration, clouds of beeps and bloops drift dangerously close, swirls of tonal color are excited into such a state that the rest of the instruments seem to be drawn toward some distant point of maximum gravity. Blissful and droned out, but at the same time, charged with a ominously crackling energy. Packaged in a beautifully silkscreened blue and metallic gold cardboard sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Through The Reflex Of The Rain (excerpt)"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN When The Windmill's Whirl Dies (Eclipse) 2lp 15.98

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / CHRISTINA CARTER & ANDREW MACGREGOR (Very Friendly) cd 14.98
MCIAA sure do get around...another fine team up this time with Christina Carte of Charalambides and some guy called Andrew Macgregor. Beautiful and space-y!

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / KEIJI HAINO Cosmic Debris Volume III (A Silent Place) cd 10.98
My Cat Is An Alien, the Italian duo of brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, who recently graced the cover of UK new music mag the Wire, are crazy prolific, releasing an amazing number of cd-r's and limited vinyl releases over the years, and in addition, the duo definitely have a thing for collaboration, their discography rife with splits, the From The Earth To The Spheres series, which found the band partnering up with lots of aQ faves: Thuja, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Christian Marclay, among others, then there's this series, the first four of which we have here, originally released as super limited lps, each one housed with an actual original painting done by one of the brothers, but later re-released on cd, and finding the band once again sharing space with some pretty cool outfits: Text Of Light, Steve Roden, Keiji Haino and Mats Gustafsson. These are not however collaborations, instead, each artist took one side of the original lp, with MCIAA doing their thing on the other, the results pretty fantastic.
This one probably doesn't need much of a description at all, as fans of Japanese psych legend / guitar god Keiji Haino tend to be on the obsessive side, and c'mon, how can you resist and exclusive 21 minute track, with the very Haino-esque title: "Whither Goes It? / That Which Canst Not But Be Described / As My Prayer / Nowhere Held In Common / Lunatic, Unknowable". The answer is, you probably can't. Especially if you dig Haino at his most freaky, cuz this track, or series of tracks, finds Haino in full on Merzbow mode, unleashing a furious tripped out torrent of wild blown out sonic tangles, squalls of heavily processed psych weirdness, hard to say whether it's actually guitar, but if it is, Haino has twisted it into something else entirely, the sound super heavy and textured, rife with all manner of fragmented melodies, twisted effects, and crumbling weirdness, at least for the first 12 or 13 minutes, at which point, those sound all disappear, leaving just pounding drums, and Haino, howling maniacally, a strange psychedelic drum vocal dirge, that is soon surrounded by still more clouds of wild psychnoise and twisted effects, the strange FX wreathed drum plod dirge, pounding resolutely to the end of the track, with Haino down there somewhere ranting like some crazed shamen.
The My Cat Is An Alien track is downright tame by comparison, and when played in succession with the first two volumes in the series, and taking note of the similar song titles, reveals itself as a single massive multipart track spread out over these 4 discs, the track here starting off delicately, before quickly exploding into a woozy ambient haze, a thick fog of buzz and shimmer, beneath which chimes tinkle, vocals croon, percussion pounds, again with MCIAA seeming to look to Haino's side for inspiration, a strange shamanistic ritual, the high vocals blurring into the high end drones, creating a strangely hypnotic stretch of soaring Sunroof!-like ur-drone.
WE ONLY HAVE SEVEN COPIES OF THIS, and the label is now defunct, which means, we can not get more of these EVER!
MPEG Stream: MY CAT IS AN ALIEN "Everything Crashes Like Cosmic Debris"
MPEG Stream: KEIJI HAINO "Whither Goes It? / That Which Canst Not But Be Described / As My Prayer / Nowhere Held In Common / Lunatic, Unknowable"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / MATS GUSTAFSSON Cosmic Debris Volume IV (A Silent Place) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
My Cat Is An Alien, the Italian duo of brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, who recently graced the cover of UK new music mag the Wire, are crazy prolific, releasing an amazing number of cd-r's and limited vinyl releases over the years, and in addition, the duo definitely have a thing for collaboration, their discography rife with splits, the From The Earth To The Spheres series, which found the band partnering up with lots of aQ faves: Thuja, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Christian Marclay, among others, then there's this series, the first four of which we have here, originally released as super limited lps, each one housed with an actual original painting done by one of the brothers, but later re-released on cd, and finding the band once again sharing space with some pretty cool outfits: Text Of Light, Steve Roden, Keiji Haino and Mats Gustafsson. These are not however collaborations, instead, each artist took one side of the original lp, with MCIAA doing their thing on the other, the results pretty fantastic.
On volume four, My Cat Is An Alien continue their multi-part Cosmic Debris epic, unfurling another stretch of hazy vocal driven drift, bits of guitar twang submerged in a sea of looped shimmer, of minimal percussion, of high almost falsetto vocalizations, the sound ethereal and dreamlike, a cloud of twisted effects gradually surfacing and overtaking the sound, until finally, the track becomes a swirling cacophony of clatter and buzz and howl and skree, a dizzying chunk of blown out psychedelia for sure.
MCIAA teamed up with jazz legend Mats Gustafsson, whose track here, is gorgeously restrained, starting off with a hushed low end pulse, which is soon joined by more melodic pulsations, a blurred patchwork of electronic signals, low and high, a fantastically austere sprawl of Raster-Noton like rhythmic minimalism, which waits until the last 5 or 6 minutes to let loose, adding what could be processed horns, but could just as likely be a bank of home brewed effects, the original pulsing electronics now buried beneath a wildly psychedelic barrage of feedback and buzz, rumble and skree. So cool.
WE HAVE ONLY SEVEN COPIES OF THIS, and the label is now defunct, which means, we can not get more of these EVER!
MPEG Stream: MY CAT IS AN ALIEN "Everything Burns Like Cosmic Debris"
MPEG Stream: MATS GUSTAFSSON "I Have Not Set Any Time Limits For The Attempt"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / PESTREPELLER Solar Anarchy / As Wolf (A Silent Place) picture disc lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Never managed to get any of these when it first came out, a split picture disc lp with Italian psych folk duo My Cat Is An Alien, and the oddly named Pestrepeller, a duo featuring none other than legendary artist Savage Pencil. The MCIAA side find the brothers Opalio at their noisiest, kicking up a serious din unlike anything we've heard from them, getting downright Merzbowian at times, sheets of high end lots of clatter and clank, there are occasional bits of tranquility amidst the chaos, with looped liquid effects and tangled up faux field recordings, processed vox, and all manner of warped shimmer, but those moments quickly blossom into another gout of blown out psychedelia.
Pestrepeller take the opposite tack, reeling in their noise rock tendencies and unleashing a sidelong sprawl of rumbling drones, blurred guitar dirges, and softly psychedelic ambience. Opening with some thick SUNNO)))-like downtuned churn, wreathed in streaks of feedback, the sound quickly shits and transforms into an industrial thrum, rife with pulsing low end, lush swells of muted crunch and keening fragmented melodies, lots of hum and hiss, haunting and mysterious, an epic soundscape that manages to be musical on its own, but definitely has a distinctly cinematic vibe as well.
Comes in a heavy PVC sleeve sealed with a full color printed sticker. The picture disc features original full color MCIAA art on one side, Savage Pencil on the other. AND WE ONLY HAVE FOUR COPIES OF THIS, the label folded, these are the last copies we'll ever be able to get! If you order it, wouldn't hurt to list an alternate...

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / STEVE RODEN Cosmic Debris Volume II (A Silent Place) cd 10.98
My Cat Is An Alien, the Italian duo of brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, who recently graced the cover of UK new music mag the Wire, are crazy prolific, releasing an amazing number of cd-r's and limited vinyl releases over the years, and in addition, the duo definitely have a thing for collaboration, their discography rife with splits, the From The Earth To The Spheres series, which found the band partnering up with lots of aQ faves: Thuja, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Christian Marclay, among others, then there's this series, the first four of which we have here, originally released as super limited lps, each one housed with an actual original painting done by one of the brothers, but later re-released on cd, and finding the band once again sharing space with some pretty cool outfits: Text Of Light, Steve Roden, Keiji Haino and Mats Gustafsson. These are not however collaborations, instead, each artist took one side of the original lp, with MCIAA doing their thing on the other, the results pretty fantastic.
On volume two, My Cat Is An Alien seem to be composing with their 'collaborator' in mind, their sound definitely reminiscent of Steve Roden's minimal field recording / found sound / soundscaping in mind, at least initially, although MCIAA's take is much more raw and primitive, lots of creaks, and random room noise, mysterious about-to-crack vocalizing, the tinkling chiming of what sounds like a tiny xylophone, brief fragmented bits of melody, eventually blossoming into a swirling morass of groaning guitars, warm sweeps of melodic shimmer, plenty of murky industrial buzz, layered and droney, and again slipping into that sort of abstract trip out we can't get enough of, like Avarus meets No Neck Blues BandÉ
Steve Roden offers up two tracks, both as always hushed and lovely, the first a lengthy bit of minimal dronemusic, peppered with percussive thumps, and wreathed in short wave broadcasts, while the main drone, ebbs and flows, funereal and stately, a dark smoldering drift, that is gorgeously minimal and meditative. While the second, shorter track, finds Roden essentially playing guitar, a lovely bit of folky minimalism, the notes glistening, warm and lustrous, multiple melodies intertwined, unfurling gradually and dreamily, eventually joined by the buzz of a recorded voice, as if recorded on an old microcassette recorded, which soon pulls the guitar itself into that otherworld, the sound transformed into something tinny and barely there, as if it were some intercepted broadcast, delicate and mysterious.
WE ONLY HAVE SEVEN COPIES OF THIS, and the label is now defunct, which means, we can not get more of these EVER!
MPEG Stream: MY CAT IS AN ALIEN "Everything Waves Like Cosmic Debris"
MPEG Stream: STEVE RODEN "E-Bows And Rainbows"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / TEXT OF LIGHT Cosmic Debris Volume I (A Silent Place) cd 10.98
My Cat Is An Alien, the Italian duo of brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, who recently graced the cover of UK new music mag the Wire, are crazy prolific, releasing an amazing number of cd-r's and limited vinyl releases over the years, and in addition, the duo definitely have a thing for collaboration, their discography rife with splits, the From The Earth To The Spheres series, which found the band partnering up with lots of aQ faves: Thuja, Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Christian Marclay, among others, then there's this series, the first four of which we have here, originally released as super limited lps, each one housed with an actual original painting done by one of the brothers, but later re-released on cd, and finding the band once again sharing space with some pretty cool outfits: Text Of Light, Steve Roden, Keiji Haino and Mats Gustafsson. These are not however collaborations, instead, each artist took one side of the original lp, with MCIAA doing their thing on the other, the results pretty fantastic.
MCIAA offer up a sprawling bit of abstract primitivism, sounding like Avarus or Anaksimandros, lots of rhythmic clatter, instrumental haze, swirling heavily effected vocals, looped and sent spinning into a tripped out bit of foresty free folk weirdness, their are squalls of spacey FX, birdcall like trills, almost like some strange field recording, but the group layer and blur those sounds and build them into a strange Sunroof!-y sort of high end crystalline ur-drone, still shot through with murky muted melodies and tribal clatter.
On this installment, NYC outfit Text Of Light, featuring Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Alan Licht and others, counter with their own bit of clattery drift, theirs a bit more dense and abstract jazzy, like a supercharged, noisier Necks, the percussion wild and frantic, underneath heaving layers of buzz and thrum, and the occasional wailed vocal buried in the mix, the sound seeming to mellow out as the track progresses, dialing back the noise, replacing it with clouds of blurred feedback, and the occasional clatter of junkyard percussion, the sound very soundtracky, which makes sense, as if memory serves, this group was formed to do just that, accompany films with a new improvised score. Cool stuff. Sadly, WE ONLY HAVE SEVEN COPIES OF THIS, and the label is now defunct, which means, we can not get more of these EVER!
MPEG Stream: MY CAT IS AN ALIEN "Everything Falls Like Cosmic Debris"
MPEG Stream: TEXT OF LIGHT "033103 Paris"

MY COUNTRY OF ILLUSION American Dreamlife (Fire Museum) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MY DAD IS DEAD A Divided House (Unhinged) cd 11.98
It seems sort of weird to love My Dad Is Dad and not love Husker Du. The sound is similar, the voice is uncanny, even the melodies bear a striking resemblance to the 'Du. But there's something about Mark Edwards and his long running project that resonates in a way Husker Du never did for me. And the magic ingredient is... misery. Absolute, abject hopelessness. From the band name, to Edwards' impetus for starting the band, to the lyrics, it's all just so bleak and sad. But it's the sound, the song structure, the way the minor key jangle and strangely tangled guitar lines intertwine with Edwards' plaintive whine. It's almost like a Husker Du 45 at 33. The tempos rarely exceed a sort of shuffling lope, and more often than not songs trudge along head bowed hands in pockets, with a world weariness that is absolutely compelling. But even when the tempo does crank up, it's not so much 'fast' or 'punky' as it is a kind of careening out of control toward the inevitable fall, be it disappointment or death. This is most definitely indie rock, guitars jangle, bass throbs, drums crash and bang, but here, that usually sunshiney jangle, is rife with mournful miserablism, and each song a dark and doomy indie rock road map of broken promises, unfulfilled fantasies and dashed dreams.
MPEG Stream: "Unmade"
MPEG Stream: "The Ladder"

MY DAD IS DEAD Everyone Wants The Honey But Not The Sting (Emperor Jones) cd 13.98
After a long wait comes one of Mark Edwards' best records in years!

MY DEGENERATION A Film by Jon Moritsugu dvd 19.98
Completing our library of cult filmmaker Jon Moritsugu's flicks he's self-released on dvd (at least as of June 2011... we're sure there'll be more to come, since he's currently working on a new film!) is this early one from 1989. It was Moritsugu's first feature length freakout! Shot on 16mm, this trashy, kitschy, ultra lo-fi, truly underground film features a fictitious female rock trio, but its cast also includes a real pig's head. Super DIY, super strange, garish and fun! With music from Bongwater, Halo Of Flies, Vomit Launch, and Gov't Issue.
And while we're diggin' '80s movies about awesome punk rawk girl groups, definitely also check out Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains. A film from 1981 which often gets mentioned in the same breath as this one by indie flick aficionados. Much to Cup's delight it also finally got released on dvd a couple years ago, and we've got it in stock now too!

MY DISCO Little Joy (Temporary Residence Limited) cd 14.98
Now in stock on compact disc, too! The first we'd heard from Australia's My Disco was on their split 7" with Young Widows, their track a killer slab of dour post punk noise rock, all lope and chug and minor key guitars, which is how Little Joy starts out, all clanging riffage, low slung bass, simple propulsive drumming, mantra like vocals, a bit like a dronier spacier Interpol maybe, their sound repetitive and cyclical, peppered with jagged shards of caustic guitar crunch. But it's on the second track, "Young", where the band's unique sound really gets to blossom, after another opening blast of minor key post rock, with cascading This Heat like guitars, and pounding motorik drumming, the band eventually slip into something way more rhythmic and sinewy and mesmerizing, sounding almost like a punk rock Necks, the band unfurling an epic sprawl of minimal hypnorock, the instrumentation super restrained, more about the rhythm, and the timbre, then the melody, the sound at once heavy, rhythmic and hypnotic, reminding us of a way more abstract Circle, locked tight, peppering the looped groove with little flurries of extra drumming, super subtle bits of melodic filligree, but for the most part holding the listener in thrall with their trancelike mastery of tension and NO release. Which is how the whole record plays out, a push and pull between more traditional sounding post punk jangle and clang, and totally mesmeringly minimal droned out repetition, either on their own would certainly be pleasing enough, but the two combined, create something much more that the sum of it's parts, the rare sort of record that should appeal as much to math rockers as post punkers, or to krautrockers as much as pop kids. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Closer"
MPEG Stream: "Young"
MPEG Stream: "Turn"

MY DISCO Little joy (Temporary Residence Limited) lp 25.00
The first we'd heard from Australia's My Disco was on their split 7" with Young Widows, their track a killer slab of dour post punk noise rock, all lope and chug and minor key guitars, which is how Little Joy starts out, all clanging riffage, low slung bass, simple propulsive drumming, mantra like vocals, a bit like a dronier spacier Interpol maybe, their sound repetitive and cyclical, peppered with jagged shards of caustic guitar crunch. But it's on the second track, "Young", where the band's unique sound really gets to blossom, after another opening blast of minor key post rock, with cascading This Heat like guitars, and pounding motorik drumming, the band eventually slip into something way more rhythmic and sinewy and mesmerizing, sounding almost like a punk rock Necks, the band unfurling an epic sprawl of minimal hypnorock, the instrumentation super restrained, more about the rhythm, and the timbre, then the melody, the sound at once heavy, rhythmic and hypnotic, reminding us of a way more abstract Circle, locked tight, peppering the looped groove with little flurries of extra drumming, super subtle bits of melodic filigree, but for the most part holding the listener in thrall with their trancelike mastery of tension and NO release. Which is how the whole record plays out, a push and pull between more traditional sounding post punk jangle and clang, and totally mesmeringly minimal droned out repetition, either on their own would certainly be pleasing enough, but the two combined, create something much more that the sum of it's parts, the rare sort of record that should appeal as much to math rockers as post punkers, or to krautrockers as much as pop kids. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Closer"
MPEG Stream: "Young"
MPEG Stream: "Turn"

MY DYING BRIDE A Line Of Deathless Kings (Limited) (Peaceville) cd 27.00

MPEG Stream: "To Remain Tombless"
MPEG Stream: "L'Amour Detruit"

MY DYING BRIDE Meisterwerk I (Peaceville) cd 12.98

MY DYING BRIDE Songs of Darkness, Words of Light (Deluxe Limited Edition) (Peaceville) cd 21.00

MY DYING BRIDE The Dreadful Hours (Peaceville) cd 14.98
I, Sadie, am reviewing this record as a devout fan of goth music and soundtracks, who is not that knowledgeable or interested in metal. The name My Dying Bride intrigued me, and I find that their music does too -- the songs are long and gloomy, with beautiful layers of sad strings and escalating, chunky guitar. The vocals range from metal / cookie monster to clean deep and gothy. I prefer the latter, but can appreciate the variety. This record is certainly dark and sinister. The far away piano and slow outros remind me of the music from cult horror movies such as "Lets Scare Jessica To Death" or "The Haunting of Julie". The building, epic intros and long songs cause a tension throughout the record that is creepy and lovely at the same time. Consulting with our metal experts here at Aquarius, they suggest I mention that this is the latest in a long line of doom-filled albums from this UK metal band, one that evokes not only MDB's past works of gothic doom splendor but reminds us of other heavies like Solstice (whose old guitarist was shanghaied into MDB for this album) and Trouble. Vocal-wise, however, they tell me they prefer the death-growls to the clean goth singing. So, something for everyone, as long as everyone is a metaller or goth!
RealAudio clip: "My Hope, The Destroyer"

MY DYING BRIDE The Light At The End Of The World (Peaceville) cd 19.98
British heavy gloom metallers return to their roots, abandoning their flirtations with '90s radio-friendly goth rock, and instead creating a great album of doom-death metal of the sort that made them famous in the first place.

MY EDUCATION Bad Vibrations (Strange Attractors) cd 14.98

MY KILL JACK'S ON Milk Beast's Lullaby (2 Player Music) cd 9.98
Okay, so we'll admit that we didn't 'get' the name of this artist for a few days. Duh! Felt like a bit of a dimwit when it had to be explained. Ah well. The tracks on On Milk Beast's Lullaby (am I missing some clever wordplay there too???) sound nothing like their creator's namesake. Actually they give a more ample nod to electronic kingpins such as Aphex Twin, Mu-ziq and Autechre. M.K.J.O. aka lone technician Chris Doria has crafted an engaging debut album of driving drum'n'bass tracks contrasted with plenty of somber, creeping synth melodies.
MPEG Stream: "You Can't Hide Your Breaks"
MPEG Stream: "Midori Midori"

MY MISSION My Mission magazine 8.50

MY MORNING JACKET At Dawn (Darla) cd 15.98
Scruffy, rootsy, bluesy country-rock from a Louisville, KY band led by the young-Neil-Young vocal stylings of Jim James. Often slow and meandering, these recordings reverberate with an echo-y, cavernous, old hall feel. Very atmospheric, almost country-gothic...
RealAudio clip: "At Dawn"
RealAudio clip: "Hopefully"
RealAudio clip: "Way That He Sings"
RealAudio clip: "At Dawn (demo)"

MY MORNING JACKET Chapter 1: The Sandworm Cometh (Darla) cd 14.98
Chapter One: The Sandworm Cometh is one of two new My Morning Jacket collections of previously unreleased early tracks and rarities. We think we should forewarn you, with just one in-store play under its belt, this cd has already triggered some very hot and cold responses... and it's all hinging on how folks feel about MMJ's cover versions. It's apparent from these recordings (many of them recorded on a four-track) that even early on the MMJ sound was characterized by a drenching of abandoned ballroom/cathedral-esque reverb applied to Jim James' unstable, yelp-moaned vocals and the band's warm rootsy twang. That's all fine 'n' dandy, but this compilation is filled with many off-the-cuff covers of songs such as "White Rabbit" and "Rocket Man". Their renditions sorta seem like a more unkempt and countrified Flaming Lips that left some eyebrows raised and others furrowed around here. While we certainly wouldn't question the band's love for the songs, we wonder if their versions actually do the ol' Elton and the 'Airplane a disservice. Unfortunately the line's pretty blurred these days between a band playing a 'different-genred' song out of sincere joy and love of that song and a band simply covering it to be clever/ironic/weird. It sorta seems like MMJ tend to lean towards the latter. Okay, now that I'm done railing against their covers, allow me to say that if you can sidestep those, uh, boobytraps (that is, unless you don't wanna!), you might discover the best moments on this cd are the ones in which the band lightens up on the reverb a bit and lets their own achingly lovely songs shine through (check out "Weeks Go By Like Days" and "When Will They Come").
MPEG Stream: "My White Rabbit "
MPEG Stream: "When Will They Come"

MY MORNING JACKET Chapter 2: Learning (Darla) cd 14.98
My Morning Jacket's covers cavalcade continues on Chapter Two: Learning, the second of their two new collections of old rarities and previously unreleased tracks. And once again, if you can make your way through their '80s kick, you'll be rewarded with their own wonderful originals.
This time they take a whack at Berlin's "Take My Breath Away". It's sorta like if the Flaming Lips got really drunk and got the not-so-bright idea to churn out a soggy, atonal rendition of the theme from Top Gun. Then they plug away at the Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls" followed by "Dream A Lil' Dream". Uh oh. On those songs, Jim James' droopy lilting voice is endearing for a little while, then it gradually verges on grating. Oddly, at some point late in the proceedings his voice shifts from sounding a lot like Wayne Coyne to sounding a lot like Will Oldham and the music follows suit. Once again, this release drew rather extreme feedback from those present while this was played in the store. Some folks groaned, some chuckled uncomfortably and some simply fell silent. Let's put it this way, if AQ was the Gong Show, we suspect the cover songs would've been gonged repeatedly already... and we think Jamie Farr, Arte Johnson and Jaye P. Morgan would probably agree. Much like on Chapter One, this compilation's high points are the band's own songs such as the thirteenth track "I Will Be There When You Die". Omigod, sooo fragile and heartbreakingly beautiful and well worth wading through MMJ's '80s selections to get to!
MPEG Stream: "Take My Breath Away"
MPEG Stream: "I Will Be There When You Die"