PAWNSHOP Aloha From Saturn (Beard of Stars) cd 14.98
Stoner/cock rock from Norway's Pawnshop whose religious icons are located under the hood of a '66 Ford 289 Mustang as well as in their pants. Required listening alongside Kyuss, Hellacopters, and Monster Magnet.

PAWS Cokefloat! (Fatcat) cd 14.98
Ignore the embarrassing cover art and the too twee band name if you can, but definitely dig into Glaswegian trio Paws's unabashedly nineties style indie rock debut. A perfect hybrid of the all too obvious influences, mostly Superchunk, but a little Dinosaur Jr. too, heck if this record came out twenty years ago, heck, they might be indie rock elder statesmen themselves now, but these kids were barely even born then, but somehow they amassed a pretty kick ass record collection, one we would imagine included the aforementioned Dinosaur and Superchunk, Archers Of Loaf too, but we hear a lot of lesser knowns (which could just be us), but heck, if you're an old guy or gal like us, and remember loving Small (or Small 23), Further, Loomis, Throneberry, Clumsy, Tripping Daisy and all the myriad other fuzzy, jangly, indie rock bands that were the soundtracks to all our crushes and breakups and roadtrips, then Paws will push all your buttons. And these guys aren't doing anything new, in fact they're doing just the opposite, essentially channeling everything we loved about nineties indie/college rock, fuzzy guitars, soaring choruses, whiny sad boy vocals, lyrics mostly about girls and breakups and teenage things, but these guys do it so well, hooks galore, crazy catchy songs, strident and super rocking, with plenty of jangle too, it's a lot like the sound of modern retro indie rock outfits like Silversun Pickups (themselves dead ringers for Smashing Pumpkins), but played by kids, and it sounds like it, youthful and ramshackle, totally fun, the sort of sound that makes you almost unable to resist embracing your inner indie rocker, it'll take all your will power to not flail about, air guitaring and singing along. Maybe the best nineties style indie rock record, since, well, since the nineties!
MPEG Stream: "Catherine 1956"
MPEG Stream: "Jellyfish"
MPEG Stream: "Homecoming"
MPEG Stream: "Pony"
MPEG Stream: "Sore Tummy"

PAX s/t plus 7 Bonus Tracks (Walhalla) cd 21.00
Those of you who dig the '70s heavy rock proto-metal stuff like we do, need to check out this rad Peruvian band. This new cd reissue is better'n previous editions we've seen in terms of track inclusion, featuring as it does all of the eponymous 1970 Pax album plus, like it says, seven bonus tracks, including their cover of "Radar Love"! They also do "Smoke Of The Water" (sic), but hey back then that wasn't quite so tired.
Pax, featuring former members of Peruvian '60s beat combo Los Shains, were definitely one of the heaviest South American rock acts of their day (that we've heard, that is), easily competitive with American and British bands like Bang, Leafhound, and Sir Lord Baltimore. And they even have a bit of a groovy, Hendrix/Funkadelic (early Funkadelic) vibe as well. Yes indeed, Pax provide plenty of cowbell, wah-wah guitar, drug references, and all-right-now! rock n' roll attitude -- enough to make any fan of the aforementioned bands (not to mention the likes of Juan de la Cruz, Los Dug Dugs, and Modulo 1000) happy. They're not 100 percent heavy all the time -- few bands back then were -- but the lighter stuff is quite nice too and when they're heavy they're HEAVY, riffy with raw, in-your-face production and nicely rough-edged vocals, that you'll hear on such tracks as "A Storyless Junkie", "Deep Death", "Pig Pen Boogie", and "Firefly". Serious subjects, some of it (junkies, death) but they can be playful too, silly even, as on "Shake Your Ass". A '60 flowers and beads vibe comes through on the gentle, melodic likes of "Green Paper (Toilet)" and "For Cecilia" as well.
MPEG Stream: "A Storyless Junkie"
MPEG Stream: "Green Paper (Toilet)"

PAYCHECK, JOHNNY Nowhere To Run (The Omni Recording Corporation) cd 17.98
Probably best known for his boss bashing hit "Take This Job And Shove It" (written by David Allan Coe!), Paycheck began life as Donald Eugene Lytle, originally performing as Donny Young, before, changing his name to Johnny Paycheck, and falling in with the outlaw country movement, along with folks like Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, etc.
In the sixties, Paycheck started his own label, Little Darlin, and released a handful of records, all pretty intense and twisted and gorgeous, and rarely heard. This killer comp collects those rare tracks, and while on first listen, this sounds like classic honky tonk country, his voice immediately recognizable, but the sounds pretty classic, listen closer, pay attention to the lyrics, and suddenly the sounds don't sound so classic, instead, they are dark, and sinister, and seriously fucked up. Or at least with a twisted sense of humor. The sticker on the cd describes Paycheck thusly: "Imagine David Lynch As A Honky Tonky Singer" which is not that far off. On the surface, everything appears normal, but just below the surface, something much more dangerous lurks. A killer. Maybe. A psycho, VERY likely. Tales of murder, suicide, death, insanity and oh yes, drinking, just have a gander at some of the song titles: "(It's A Mighty Fine Line) Between Love And Hate", "(Pardon Me) I've Got Someone To Kill", "It Won't Be Long (And I'll Be Hating You)", "There's No Easy Way To Die", "I'm A Coward", intense and spooky and menacing, but all set to killer country twang and foot stomping honky tonk.
Another winner from Omni, and like all the Omni reissues, this comes with a huge booklet, new liner notes, and tons of photos. And as always most definitely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "(It's A Mighty Thin Line) Between Love And Hate"
MPEG Stream: "(Pardon Me) I've Got Someone To Kill"
MPEG Stream: "It Won't Be Long (And I'll Be Hating You)"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Monkey With Another Monkey's Monkey"

PAYNE, ADAM Organ (Holy Mountain) cd 13.98
Adam Payne of Residual Echoes fame returns with a truly solo album. It's one of those where your appreciation (or lack thereof) of his singing may make it or break it for you. To us, his vocals here kinda sound like an uninspired, more conventional Dave Thomas (Peru Ubu). And rather than the blown out heavy psych weirdness (with some '80s SST label art-punk stylings) that we were used to from Residual Echoes, this is mostly much more of a straight ahead indie rock/bar rock blend, unfortunately tending towards the latter half of that equation. Sorry, we just weren't into most of this, at least not compared to Payne's earlier work in the Echoes, who we do really really like.
Not that this doesn't have its moments. For instance, the eight and a half minute meandering track five, "Incidental Arrangement" is a lovely, sinewy psych guitar instrumental that does sound rather SST (and also reminds us of the Sun City Girls).
MPEG Stream: "The One After Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "In Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Incidental Arrangement"

PAYNE, ADAM Organ (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98
Adam Payne of Residual Echoes fame returns with a truly solo album. It's one of those where your appreciation (or lack thereof) of his singing may make it or break it for you. To us, his vocals here kinda sound like an uninspired, more conventional Dave Thomas (Peru Ubu). And rather than the blown out heavy psych weirdness (with some '80s SST label art-punk stylings) that we were used to from Residual Echoes, this is mostly much more of a straight ahead indie rock/bar rock blend, unfortunately tending towards the latter half of that equation. Sorry, we just weren't into most of this, at least not compared to Payne's earlier work in the Echoes, who we do really really like.
Not that this doesn't have its moments. For instance, the eight and a half minute meandering track five, "Incidental Arrangement" is a lovely, sinewy psych guitar instrumental that does sound rather SST (and also reminds us of the Sun City Girls).
MPEG Stream: "The One After Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "In Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Incidental Arrangement"

PAYNE, FREDA Payne & Pleasure (Reel Music) cd 14.98
1974 album of deep soul burners from the legendary Freda Payne. What a voice!

PAYNE, MAGGI Ahh-Ahh Music for Ed Tannenbaum's Technological Feets 1984-1987 (Root Strata) lp 17.98
For its first ever archival release, the Root Strata label delves into Bay Area composer Maggi Payne's computerized music experiments from 1984-87. Composed for a unique dance/video project collaboration with experimental video maker Ed Tannebaum for a series of performances called Technological Feets. For these performances, the movements of three dancers live on stage are captured on camera and processed in real time on a screen above them. The dancers can view the processing on video monitors in front of them and thus react to their own movements. The music is then a mixture of live performed responses over prerecorded tracks. You can check one of the videos here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98fvPSNJHpw
Payne, who is a dancer herself (as well as flautist, who performed on David Behrman's "On The Other Ocean" from 1977), imbues her music with a fresh rhythmic energy that makes these pieces instantly engaging. The terrific opener, "Flights of Fancy" is full of dynamic uplift but countered by a brooding undercurrent of minor key melancholia that for us outshines many current synth practitioners, the way it inches quite close to pop music. Titles like "Gamelan" and "Shimmer", give pretty clear clues to their direction, but the title piece, "Ahh-Ahh (Ver 2.1)" sourced from many forms of white noise, flute and snare drum, where, according to the liner notes, "spatial location and modulation are of primary concerns in this piece", is all subtle layered shifts of audio spectrum effects that is a tranced out disorientating delight. Root Strata has done a great service in getting this little known composer some much deserved wider attention. Payne who is currently the Co-Director of Contemporary Music at Mills College probably has had a hand in inspiring scores of young musicians and composers, we're sure among them the likes of Mariell V. Jakobsons and Gregg Kowalsky as well as Roger Tellier-Craig (Le Revelateur) and Sabrina Ratte who had a hand in getting this release to see the light of day. We can't recommend this enough!
MPEG Stream: "Flights Of Fancy"
MPEG Stream: "Ahh-Ahh (Version 2)"

PAYNE, MAGGI The Extended Flute (CRI) cd 13.98

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Die Festung (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Black metal may be all about the buzz and the blast, the insane insectoid riffing, the furious blast beats, the howled hateful shrieks, the epic arrangements and grim production, but it's also about drama, and mystery. Lots of folks scoff at the corpsepaint, and the forest photos, the spikes and the fire, but it's all part of the magic, the mood, it may seem played out and overdone, and often a little silly, but it is part of what makes black metal so weird and wonderful. And for us the weirder and more mysterious the better.
There is Immortal, the Blizzard Beasts, strange pro wrestling looking dudes tromping around in the snow. There is Absu, alchemical musical warlocks, conjuring up all sorts of demons. And there are about a million other corpsepainted ghouls lurking in black forests and staring out from blurry black and white photos. The thing is, with most of those guys, you can imagine them donning their corpsepaint after a pint down at the pub. You can imagine them lounging around in jeans, ordering Chinese food. The corpsepaint and their character in the band are things they put on like a costume. It's a little like when you realize one of your favorite artists is a normal person, you see them at the laundromat or the grocery store and some of the mystery is lost.
Thus, we seem to find ourselves drawn to the weirdest, most mysterious, most bizarre black metallers we can track down. Necrofrost is one. We know nothing about them, other than their strange blackened sounds, their demented corpsepainted visages staring out at us from the back of the record covers, their fucked song titles. It all helps create some alternate reality where those guys lurk in some primeval forest and create that impossible damaged and brilliantly fucked up music.
Such is also the case with Paysage D'Hiver, a one man band from Switzerland, who in addition to recording by himself as Paysage D'Hiver, is also a member of the equally mysterious black horde Darkspace in which PD'H mainman Wintherr is called Wroth and is one of three creepy corpsepainted wraiths who all look strangely like Pinhead from Hellraiser (we're doing our best to track down the Darkspace discs for the store too). Where Darkspace is some sort of science fiction cosmic black metal weirdness, Paysage is more of a blown out buzzy ode to nature and spirituality, to winter and of course to darkness. Paysage D'Hiver have, over the last 8 or 9 years, released eight cassettes. That's it. Almost no one we know had ever heard them, or had owned one of those cassettes. But the mystery had everyone curious. And when we did finally hear the music, it was just as magical and mysterious as we had hoped.
Recorded back in 1999, Die Festung was one of three Paysage demo tapes released that year, and the second in this comprehensive reissue campaign, which will find all 8 tapes being reissued on cd, each packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 book style sleeves, adorned with amazing wintry art and sealed in super subtle black on black printed envelopes.
Unlike the other Paysage D'Hiver reissue reviewed elsewhere on this list (Schattengang), Die Festung is an epic and expansive series of ambient soundscapes, and not specifically black ambience, instead, the sound is much more along the lines of classic Krautrock a la Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh or Cluster. Some folks here also heard some Gooomy trancelike bliss, like Cyann And Ben or M83, but way more minimal and spacey. All glistening soundscapes of looped synthesizers, simple keyboard figures repeated over and over and slowly shifting, layers of minor key whir, and vocal like melodies, epic and grand, smooth shimmery swells and majestic sweeps, sparkling clouds of electronic twinkles all glimmering and sparkling. Paysage D'Hiver translates to landscape of winter, and Die Festung sounds precisely like that. It's hard not to imagine long tracking shots of soft blue glaciers, of snowy peaks and forests that go on forever. A view from above of frosty landscapes and endless fields of snow and ice. So totally mesmerizing and lovely. The perfect companion to the buzzing black murk of Schattengang.
Packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, a gorgeous snowy forest and mysterious distant castle drawing adorning the front, inside a booklet full of drawings and photos, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. And as with most things, super limited, not sure how long these will be around....
MPEG Stream: "Eishalle"
MPEG Stream: "Koenig Winter"
MPEG Stream: "Prinz Frost"

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Einsamkeit (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 26.00
BACK IN PRINT AND BACK IN STOCK!!
Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery.
Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure...
Einsamkeit was the final release from Paysage D'Hiver, originally released on cassette in 2007, but the 'band' never officially 'broke up', so who knows, there could be a new Paysage some day, but for now, Einsamkeit was the band's last missive, three sprawling tracks, all right around 15 minutes, the first, a warm swirl of abstract krautdrone, deep murky pulses beneath shimmers of glimmering melody, all woven together by a strange barely there machine like whir, the track a sort of cinematic ambient drift, wheezing rumbles bleed into strange field recordings, almost industrial sounding clatter and creak underpin the barely there whisper of brushed percussion, and mysterious music box melodies, gorgeously creepy and abstract. As is the next track, another stretch of dreamlike ambience, but this time around it's hardly wintery, instead, the sound is warm and lush, almost sun dappled sounding even, warm wisps of melody, long languorous streaks of blurred chordal drift, it almost sounds like something that could be on Root Strata or Type, far removed from most black metal, even more black metal ambience. Drifty and hazy and gauzy and washed out and lovely.
Finally, the first epoch of Paysage D'Hiver draws to a close, beginning with the whirling winter wind, then some seriously filthy distorted guitar buzz, laid over ominous minor key synths, droney and buzzy and blissed out, only to dissipate nearly right away, leaving just a strange militaristic drum beat, and a deep rumbling thrum, and some glimmering ethereal synth shimmer, the squiggly bits of sci-fi melody, reminding us a bit of Oneohtrix or Innercity, that same sort of retro-futuristic vibe, but here the sound is rendered as something much more grim and foreboding. The guitar eventually returns, more filthy black buzz, and vocals surface for the first time, harsh and hellish, but way down in the mix, like another layer of hiss, suddenly the drums drop out, and for some reason the tension ratchets WAY up, and the buzzing guitar and mewling vokills drone on and on, riding an undulating low end swell, before dropping out completely, leaving nothing but the wind, and the blackness beyond. Totally amazing, and essential!
Like all the Paysage reissues, Einsamkeit comes in a gorgeous oversized A5 style digibook, with a cool super abstract starscape on the front, and inside a fold out booklet, with beautiful winter landscapes and minimal text. The whole thing sealed in a black envelope, the band name and album title printed in black ink, on the black background.
MPEG Stream: "Einkehr"
MPEG Stream: "Kraft"

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Kerker (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 26.00
BACK IN PRINT AND BACK IN STOCK!!
At long last! One of the most anticipated black metal reissue campaigns EVER, moves forward with the 4th and 5th installment in the comprehensive cd rerelease of the entire recorded output by Swiss one man horde Paysage D'Hiver. Judging from past installments, and how often we get asked when the next disc is coming out, most of you have already freaked out a bit, added this to your cart, and begun 'the preparations', lighting the torches, blacking out the windows, turning your freezer on high and leaving the door open to produce thick drifts of snow throughout your house (well, it worked in Tom And Jerry cartoons), in anticipation of finally getting to immerse yourself in the frostbitten winter world of Paysage D'Hiver.
Paysage are almost universally revered, as THEE ultimate grim and frosty black metal band, the soundscapes and sprawling epics the make up the 11 Paysage releases so far are truly transcendent, each one dramatically different than the last, but somehow a continuation, another chapter in a hopefully never ending saga. Much like how Darkspace creates a black metal that seems at once futuristic and alien, evoking distant planets, dead suns, black holes, strange ships and mysterious beings, Paysage invokes, crumbling stone walls, set amidst icy peaks, cloaked in year round snow, thick forests painted white, the branches heavy with frost and snow, flickering firelight bravely battling against the ever encroaching coldness, of darkness, and night, of moonlight and death, of earth and sky, seasons and most importantly Winter. Makes perfect sense then, as most of you already know that Wintherr, the man behind Paysage, is also a member of Darkspace.
Both bands transcend the genre, using sound, by deftly arranging sounds similar to many other bands, in a whole new way, to create something wholly original, something that is more than just music, powerful sounds that transport and transform. Like Darkspace, the music of Paysage is made up of course by buzz and blast. And there are riffs and vokills. There are drums, and keyboards and bass. But right there is where any similarity to other black metal bands ends. The world of Paysage is a world of alchemy, it's far more difficult to imagine Wintherr hunched over a four track, than it is to picture him in a cave over a fire mixing potions. When we listen to Paysage, we don't picture someone in jeans and a t-shirt playing a guitar, we imagine a lonely figure wrapped in furs, hunched over, walking up an icy path toward a black structure in the foothills of some mighty mountain range, the windows glowing amber, a distant flicker barely visible through a wall of falling snow. And somehow that's exactly what makes this music so magical, and so utterly mind blowing.
Kerker was originally released on cassette in 2000, and is essentially a single piece, split into movements, and of all the reissues so far is the murkiest, all of the requisite parts are present but the fidelity is so low, the recording so strange, that all of the constituent parts are rendered one swirling muted organic whole. Bands like Wold, Amocoma, Yoga, Paysage take it to a whole 'nother level. Beginning with a rumbling ambience, the main riff soon surfaces, barely audible over the din of the intro, and very little changes when the vocals and the drums join in, the sound becomes a bit more frenetic, headphones reveal more details, but even then, the sound is a swirling churning roiling black sea of buzz and blur and hum and rumble and whir occasionally coalescing into discernible black metal before seemingly blurring before your very eyes and slipping back into the abyss. So incredibly haunting and mysterious and beautifully fucked up. The second movement is all ambient, thick swaths of keyboard, and pounding industrial drums, a gurgling blackened drift, like trudging through some underground cavern populated with demons and monsters, huddled by firepits, trying desperately to escape the blizzard that lurks above. Here too the sound is incredible, lush, yet lo-fi, muddy and indistinct, but within that muddy swirl all manner of subtle details and slow shifting colors reveal themselves. Voices too, demonic, ominous, bubbling up from below. The third movement continues the descent, the ice melting, soon the rocks themselves liquefying into viscous black pools, the sound of this approach to hell is one of deep low end buzz, a blown out distorted rumble that seems to swirl malevolently beneath a haze of blurred whir, until finally a keyboard enters, adding a glimmer of light to the pitch black sprawl.
Finally, the cycle is completed with another super distorted, murky blast, this time with synthesizers adding demented shards of melody, the drums an avalanche of pound and crash, the guitars a maniacal frenzied buzz, the vocals a subterranean gurgle, and again all blurred and smeared into a gorgeously hazy washed out smear of abstract buzzing blackness, dark and dramatic, haunting and enigmatic.
Like all of the reissues, the cd is housed in a book sized A5 digipak, adorned with haunting images, this time a grim looking dungeon (Kerker means Dungeon) and a swirling black hole, with lyrics and NO liner notes. The digipak is housed in a black envelope, with the name of the band and the record printed in barely legible black ink.
MPEG Stream: "Tiefe"
MPEG Stream: "Schritte"

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Kristall & Isa (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 26.00
BACK IN PRINT AND BACK IN STOCK!!
At long last! One of the most anticipated black metal reissue campaigns EVER, moves forward with the 4th and 5th installment in the comprehensive cd rerelease of the entire recorded output by Swiss one man horde Paysage D'Hiver. Judging from past installments, and how often we get asked when the next disc is coming out, most of you have already freaked out a bit, added this to your cart, and begun 'the preparations', lighting the torches, blacking out the windows, turning your freezer on high and leaving the door open to produce thick drifts of snow throughout your house (well, it worked in Tom And Jerry cartoons), in anticipation of finally getting to immerse yourself in the frostbitten winter world of Paysage D'Hiver.
Paysage are almost universally revered, as THEE ultimate grim and frosty black metal band, the soundscapes and sprawling epics the make up the 11 Paysage releases so far are truly transcendent, each one dramatically different than the last, but somehow a continuation, another chapter in a hopefully never ending saga. Much like how Darkspace creates a black metal that seems at once futuristic and alien, evoking distant planets, dead suns, black holes, strange ships and mysterious beings, Paysage invokes, crumbling stone walls, set amidst icy peaks, cloaked in year round snow, thick forests painted white, the branches heavy with frost and snow, flickering firelight bravely battling against the ever encroaching coldness, of darkness, and night, of moonlight and death, of earth and sky, seasons and most importantly Winter. Makes perfect sense then, as most of you already know that Wintherr, the man behind Paysage, is also a member of Darkspace.
Both bands transcend the genre, using sound, by deftly arranging sounds similar to many other bands, in a whole new way, to create something wholly original, something that is more than just music, powerful sounds that transport and transform. Like Darkspace, the music of Paysage is made up of course by buzz and blast. And there are riffs and vokills. There are drums, and keyboards and bass. But right there is where any similarity to other black metal bands ends. The world of Paysage is a world of alchemy, it's far more difficult to imagine Wintherr hunched over a four track, than it is to picture him in a cave over a fire mixing potions. When we listen to Paysage, we don't picture someone in jeans and a t-shirt playing a guitar, we imagine a lonely figure wrapped in furs, hunched over, walking up an icy path toward a black structure in the foothills of some mighty mountain range, the windows glowing amber, a distant flicker barely visible through a wall of falling snow. And somehow that's exactly what makes this music so magical, and so utterly mind blowing.
Kristall & Isa was originally released on cassette in 2001, and is another blast of frostbitten brilliance, a furious buzzing trek across snow choked tundras, and right out of the gate, this is one of the fiercest of the Paysage discs, the guitar a furious buzz so in the red that it's blurred into a near static streak of sound, the vocals are harsh and hysterical, buried in the mix, the drums a motorik pound, and within the swirling chaos there seems to be strange melodies lurking, what sounds like flutes or keyboards surfacing and then disappearing in the blink of an eye, definitely lending a strangely psychedelic vibe to the proceedings.
The record quickly shifts gears and transforms into lo-fi bedroom ambience, sounding like it was recorded on a boom box, all manner of clatter and clunk, the music and the vocals super low, it almost sounds like someone held up a microcassette recorded to the speaker of their stereo, super intimate and creepy. The follow up is much the same, only this time the music is a whooshy soft focus blur, but still the shifting microphone can be heard, as well as lots of tape hiss, a truly creepy ambience, like listening surreptitiously from afar.
"Der Kristall Ist Eis" explodes into a bleary eyed buzzy black blast similar to the album opener, and again the sounds are so blurred and blown out that the track seems to gradually shift into some spaced out buzz drenched dronemusic, hypnotic and mesmerizing. A near static blast, that pounds away while all around it clouds of static and buzz swirl, and eventually, beautiful warm melodies surface from the din, and it suddenly sounds like two records playing at once, but in a really good. really strange way.
After one more extended stretch of bedroom lo-fi field recordings, this one the most ambient and abstract of the bunch, a series of hushed whispers and some barely there shimmer, the final track explodes once again in a relentless frenzy of buzzing high end, machine like jackhammer pound, and a wall of blown out static rrrooooaaar. This track is the most varied of the bunch, slipping at one point into a lurching Burzumic lope, but only briefly before returning to the relentless wintery black onslaught. The band pause for breath, while cold winter winds blow through, the band offer up a tangled convoluted off kilter outro that sounds almost Deathspell-ish, before darkness falls once again and all that is left is the sound of the windswept wintery night.
Like all of the reissues, the cd is housed in a book sized A5 digipak, adorned with haunting images, this time a beautiful winter forest and a snowy stream, with lyrics and NO liner notes. The digipak is housed in a black envelope, with the name of the band and the record printed in barely legible black ink.
MPEG Stream: "Isa"
MPEG Stream: "Kalte"

PAYSAGE D'HIVER logo patch patch 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Got just a few of these left, but figured we'd relist it since we're listing the two new cd reissues...
Super cool embroidered patch from one of our favorite black metal bands. Black and white and silver, the band's logo frosted with snow. Your denim vest wants one of these soooooo bad. We only have a tiny handful of these so don't be too bummed out if they're gone before you get one...

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Nacht (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 26.00
BACK IN PRINT AND BACK IN STOCK!!
Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery.
Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure...
Nacht was originally released on cassette in 2004, and features 4 looooong tracks, all between 12 and 18 minutes longs, and like most of the other Paysage records, the tracks are introduced, and separated by long stretches of wintery ambience, whipping winds, cracking branches, howling wolves, the opening track here introduces creepy deep organ drones, swirling synths, all super dramatic and atmospheric, perfectly woven into the howling winds, croaked demonic gurgles, a super haunting atmospheric black winter drift, that leads right into an extended stretch of mesmerizing black metal buzz, the riffing relentless, the drums machinelike and buried in the mix, the melodies epic and majestic, the vocals a sick alien gargle, the track shifting from blast, to doomic lumber, to buzzing black ambience and back again, underscored by barely there swaths of synth, before finally fading back out into the wintery ambience. The next track is more a sort of blackened buzzy drone, the riffs stretched into streaks of melody, layered into undulating sheets of frosty buzz, the vokills a constant creaking rasp, building in intensity, eventually becoming a super melodic dirgescape, all coruscating high end melodies and crumbling distorted low end, finally finishing off with just a single buzzing guitar, unfurling its riffage over the ever present winter wind. And finally, the record finishes with a gloriously epic chunk of freezing black buzz, relentless and intense, frantic riffing blasting beats, shrieked demonic howls and soaring synths, all gradually fading into the distance, as everything is swallowed up by the swirling snow and the bleak endless winter. Fucking incredible!
Like all the Paysage reissues, Nacht comes in a gorgeous oversized A5 style digibook, with a super creepy, ultra minimal cover image, where you can just see a corpsepainted face in the light of a burning torch, inside is a foldout booklet, with another creepy image and some lyrics, all sealed up in a black envelope, with the band name and album titled printed on the front, black ink, on black background.
MPEG Stream: "Ein Getriebener Im Schneestreiben"
MPEG Stream: "Finsternis, Tod Und Einsamkeit Ersticken Meinen Atem"

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Paysage D'Hiver (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, the third Paysage D'Hiver reissue, in the continuing comprehensive reissue campaign, of what is quickly becoming our favorite 'new' black metal outfit. A mysterious Swiss one man band (who also plays in the equally mysterious Darkspace) who released a series of cassette demos beginning in 1998, most of which we never heard (and we're guessing very few of you did either) all of which are getting re-released as super deluxe cds, in fancy A5 book style digipaks, sealed in black envelopes. And so far, each one absolutely essential.
We raved about the first two a few lists back, Schattengang, a three song, 40 minute frosty epic, equal parts blown out buzzy, blurry, hyper repetitive, trance-like black metal, and swirling rumbling black ambience, and Die Festung, which was all ambient, a krautrocky keyboard excursion more Tangerine Dream than Burzum. Paysage D'Hiver, the self titled demo originally released in 2000 (one of two that year) is another side of Wintherr's (great name!) Paysage D'Hiver, this time, it's all black metal, relentlessly buzzing, taking the mesmerizing looped repetitive nature of our favorite BM groups, and seriously pushing the envelope, taking riffs and pounding them out for close to twenty minutes. The ultimate blissed out buzz. Frosty and grim and creepy and seriously dark, but totally hypnotic and strangely beautiful.
The first track, "Der Weg", sets thee tone, launching immediately into a murky insectoid riff, buzzy and majestic, then locking into it, creating a duper tense droning blackened landscape of buzz and blast. Over which the vocals wail and croak, the guitars so blurry and relentless, the actual riffs seem to fade away leaving a never ending buzz, just a constant whir of distorted guitar. Like a black metal Niblock. But in, and amidst, and over, and around, things mutate and shift, and turn an already bizarre droney buzz into something even stranger.
The most surprising element is the violin. It moans and soars, unfurling haunting melodies, slightly off key, but just makes it that much more creepy, at first it sounds really out of place, but as the song drones on, the violin seems more and more an organic part of 'the sound'. Elsewhere there are strange melodic crooned vocals, female maybe, or a high male tenor, that soar ghostlike above the ever buzzing din, there are one or two momentary respites from the relentless onslaught, one a synthy sprawl, the other an acoustic interlude, but it's always back to that gloriously mesmerizing buzz.
The second track is more of the same, and if anything even more droning, lots of epic keyboards, offering up subtle ambience, lurking right below the ever buzzing riffage, the pounding blast beats so low in the mix, they just sound like another layer of buzz, and the tortured anguished howls. Near the end of track two, the song drifts into a barely there black ambience, only to immediately resume, but instead of a furious blast, a loping sea sick waltz, very Burzumic, swaying and strangely sorrowful.
The final track is another nearly 20 minute blast, the first half a wall of dense buzz, the second half, a keyboard drenched swirl of blackness, each based on the same riff, creating this slowly mutating buzzing black drone, with the keyboards gradually becoming more and more intense, eventually becoming the focal point as the black buzz drifts away, and for the last 5 minutes, a gorgeous Tim Hecker-ish, gauzy landscape of muted melody and slow shifting low end, all bathed in a swirling cloud of soft focus buzz. Dreamy and divine.
So goddamn good. It's amazing, that until now, music this epic and intense, this emotional and utterly amazing, could be relegated to barely distributed cassette tapes. If you missed the last two, you are absolutely gonna want all of them. We're loving this like crazy, listening to it non stop, but already we're counting the minutes until the next one...
Like the other two reissues, packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, this time with a gorgeous windswept forest hillside, and a mysterious dark figure hunched over, near the top adorning the front, inside a fold out booklet with another alternate image of the cover, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. Probably super limited as these things usually are...
MPEG Stream: "Welt Aus Eis"
MPEG Stream: "Gefrorener Atem"

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Schattengang (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Black metal may be all about the buzz and the blast, the insane insectoid riffing, the furious blast beats, the howled hateful shrieks, the epic arrangements and grim production, but it's also about drama, and mystery. Lots of folks scoff at the corpsepaint, and the forest photos, the spikes and the fire, but it's all part of the magic, the mood, it may seem played out and overdone, and often a little silly, but it is part of what makes black metal so weird and wonderful. And for us the weirder and more mysterious the better.
There is Immortal, the Blizzard Beasts, strange pro wrestling looking dudes tromping around in the snow. The is Absu, alchemical musical warlocks, conjuring up all sorts of demons. And there are about a million other corpsepainted ghouls lurking in black forests and staring out from blurry black and white photos. The thing is, with most of those guys, you can imagine them donning their corpsepaint after a pint down at the pub. You can imagine them lounging around in jeans, ordering Chinese food. The corpsepaint and their character in the band are things they put on like a costume. It's a little like when you realize one of your favorite artists is a normal person, you see them at the laundromat or the grocery store and some of the mystery is lost.
Thus, we seem to find ourselves drawn to the weirdest, most mysterious, most bizarre black metallers we can track down. Necrofrost is one. We know nothing about them, other than their strange blackened sounds, their demented corpsepainted visages staring out at us from the back of the record covers, their fucked song titles. It all helps create some alternate reality where those guys lurk in some primeval forest and create that impossible damaged and brilliantly fucked up music.
Such is also the case with Paysage D'Hiver, a one man band from Switzerland, who in addition to recording by himself as Paysage D'Hiver, is also a member of the equally mysterious black horde Darkspace in which PD'H mainman Wintherr is called Wroth and is one of three creepy corpsepainted wraiths who all look strangely like Pinhead from Hellraiser (we're doing our best to track down the Darkspace discs for the store too). Where Darkspace is some sort of science fiction cosmic black metal weirdness, Paysage is more of a blown out buzzy ode to nature and spirituality, to winter and of course to darkness. Paysage D'Hiver have, over the last 8 or 9 years, released eight cassettes. That's it. Almost no one we know had ever heard them, or had owned one of those cassettes. But the mystery had everyone curious. And when we did finally hear the music, it was just as magical and mysterious as we had hoped.
Recorded back in 1999, Schattengang was one of three Paysage demo tapes released that year, and the first in this comprehensive reissue campaign, which will find all 8 tapes being reissued on cd, each packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 book style sleeves, adorned with amazing wintry art and sealed in super subtle black on black printed envelopes.
Schattengang is three long tracks, the longest almost 21 minutes, the shortest just under 7. Forty one minutes of haunting ambient foresty buzz. The opening track begins with some gorgeous shimmery tranquil ambience, which soon gives way to a murky muddy black buzzing smear, super blown out, and washed out, thick swaths of epic keyboards, over barely audible riffing, buried drumming, and vocals that are another murky layer of sound. Occasionally, the clouds part and you can hear some grim primitive riffing, but soon they are sucked back into a swirl of whirling blackness and dense FX, it's so fuzzy, and droney, it's almost more hypnotic and mesmerizing than blasting, but listen close and there is some serious black fury within Paysage's thick wash of whirled sound. The buzz eventually shifts gears to a lugubrious, glacial funereal doom, plodding and monstrous, with huge simple drums, and long drawn out crumbling chords, guttural vocals, all stretched into a slithery blackened crawl. It's difficult to explain precisely why this stuff is so compelling, but it's just so dark and murky, and buzzy and dreamy, but not really like some of the other buzzy dreamy blackness we have championed in the past.
The second track begins with more drifting surreal ambience, tinkling sleigh bells, before a huge wave of fuzzy guitar drone, and swirling spaced out keyboards engulfs everything, a dense black blur, all the parts so fast and furious, so tangled up and smeared together, it sounds almost like some strange buzzing drone underpinned by sweeping cinematic keyboards, laced with bits of dialogue and found sounds... About halfway through the song winds down into a dark droning interlude all dreary synths, strange thumps and creaks, disembodied voices, the distant cry of wolves, the whir of the night winds, but it's not long before it's back to full on droneblast, before finally slowly blissing out into a very mournful Xasthur like arpeggiated minor key coda, a loping almost sea sick waltz that loops and loops hypnotically before fading out. So epic. So black yet so strangely beautiful.
The final track is all ambient, shimmering swaths of keyboard, glistening and glimmering, very Tangerine Dream or maybe Popol Vuh, while beneath the surface, voices whisper and groan quietly, haunting hiss and bits of wind-like whir drift by, quite haunting and again very cinematic. Our new favorite blast of freezing grim black mystery for sure.
Packaged in an oversized A5 book style digipak, a gorgeous snowy forest drawing adorning the front, inside a booklet full of drawings and photos, but of course almost no information or liner notes. So completely recommended. And as with most things, super limited, not sure how long these will be around....
MPEG Stream: "Moloch"
MPEG Stream: "Atmosphaere"

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Steineiche (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 26.00
BACK IN PRINT AND BACK IN STOCK!!
Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery.
Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure...
Steineiche was the very first Paysage D'Hiver demo, originally released in 1998, and over the course of four tracks, the shortest 11:34, the longest 24:27, pretty much every side of the Paysage sound is introduced, opening with a creepy intro, clean guitar, plucking out a mournful minor key melody, swirling winter winds, a croaking creaky vocal, like stumbling upon some reanimated skeleton in a cave on the side of a mountain, and having it begin to speak in some strange language, until finally, and quite abruptly, the track explodes in a frenzy of furious blasting, the guitars frantic, the buzzing woozy and warped, the vocals a continuous demonic shriek buried way down in the mix, almost an alien squeal, the whole track the musical equivalent to a raging snowstorm. Eventually, the track sputters to a halt, the drum machine skittering into a stretch of creepy drift, with more clean guitar, only to immediately burst into frenzied action again, listen closely and you'll here some super creepy deep voice intoning some mysterious passages WAY down in the mix, before taking off again, finally, the riffage grows weirdly angular, mirrored by strange choir like voices, the drums a half tempo pound, the vocals getting more and more garbled, before fading out with a tolling bell laced lumbering chug.
The second track is an odd one, even by Paysage standards, huge downtuned chugging riffs, a guitar that almost sounds like a banjo, more tolling church bell, total grim frostbitten doom, but with that guitar/banjo, it sounds almost like some strange doomfolk Appalachia, the track does occasionally grow more dense, swirling warped synths, gurgling vokills, the riffage super thick and distorted, the whole thing almost dronelike, and so it goes slipping back and forth between the strange folky doom chug, and the churning garbled black grind, only to finally finish off with some haunting campfire folk, all moaning sorrowful fiddle, all wrapped in reverb, draped over the distant howl of the whipping wind.
The longest track, is all ambient, lush synths over murky percussive pulses, a soundtrack like dronescape, laced with mysterious voices, fragments of minor key melody, deep rumbles, and distant shimmer, the tolling of bells, haunting operatic vocals, super atmospheric and cinematic, which leads directly into the final track, a seemingly super minimal drone / field recording, the whirring of winds, a distant low end pulse, a hushed bass rumble, it's not until about 6 minutes in, when what sounds like a radio broadcast of choir like voices, and they sound backwards too, tinny and mysterious, so creepy when paired with the rumbles and wind, and with the little bits of crackle, that give way to a murky washed out black metal buzz, wrapped wound those same voices, a strangely shoegazey sort of drift, that peters out quickly leaving just the wind, and tinkling chimes.
So goddamn weird and amazing, and still more than a decade later, better than nearly any other black metal out there!
Like the other reissues, Steineiche comes packaged in a gorgeous oversized A5 style digibook, some mysterious gnarled shapes on the cover, with a fold out booklet revealing winter scenes and lyrics, the whole thing sealed in a black envelope, with the band name and record title printed in black ink, on the black background, subtle, and nearly impossible to read.
MPEG Stream: "The Tree Woman"
MPEG Stream: "The Tree"

PAYSAGE D'HIVER Winterkate (Kunsthall / Cold Dimensions) cd 26.00
BACK IN PRINT AND BACK IN STOCK!!
Finally! The wait is over. The final 4 releases in what is now a nearly complete reissue collection of all 9 demos from mysterious Swiss black metal horde Paysage D'Hiver. By now, most folks are probably more familiar with Swiss sci-fi black metallers Darkspace, whose mainman Tobias Mockl, aka Wroth, was the sole force behind the frosty, grim, wintry Burzumic blur that was Paysage D'Hiver. Calling himself Wintherr in Paysage, over the course of nearly a decade, Mockl crafted 9 full length demos, and two split releases, each one a stunning landscape of frostbitten buzz and buried blasting beats, of shrieked vokills, and haunting windswept interludes, of creepy footsteps and crunching ice, of lilting blackened folk and of totally epic black metal mastery.
Paysage trafficked primarily in sprawling wintery epics, up to 20 minutes in length, rife with trancelike riffage, and long stretches of haunting ambience, the sort of black trance-inducing monotone mesmer that we can't seem to get enough of, although occasionally, Mockl would unleash something totally different, a record of Tangerine Dream like kraut synth drone ambience, or in the middle of a squall of furious black blasting, a strange lurching lumbering clean guitar lope, or long stretches of almost orchestral soundtrack like drift, but always the atmosphere was grim and cold and grey, the production blurred and buzzy and murky and lo-fi, but not shitty 4-track lo-fi, instead, that low fidelity was a part of the sound, just adding to the miserable freezing chill of the proceedings, casting a patina of dour despondency, evoking the shadow of dead trees and their skeletal branches, of epic expanses, buried in snow, inhospitable, barren, forlorn, of loneliness and sorrow, emptiness and death. Easily some of the most intense, otherworldly, creative and evocative black metal ever made, and one of our all time favorites for sure...
Winterkalte was originally released in 2001, and begins with the sounds of screaming winds, and strange footsteps, and various random sounds, in fact it almost sounds like field recordings, or lost tapes from some doomed winter expedition, finally recovered after years and years, the sound buzzy and lo-fi, finally the guitars come in, sharp and harsh and brittle, the drums a machinelike skitter, exploding into a super raw and ultra intense blast of frosty blackness, the vocals so distorted and lo-fi they almost sound like white noise, the blasting is relentless, and trancelike, until finally some synths drift in, adding some super creepy texture and melodic counterpoint, and then with about 7 minutes left, the buzz and blast drop out, leaving just acoustic guitar, over the same whipping wind, and the lonely crunch of footsteps in snow, which trudge right into the next track, a very Burzumy plodding trudge, the guitars thick and buzzy, the vocals again blasts of near white noise, the melodies haunting and mournful, the vibe super intense and dramatic, the swirling synths in the background adding even more gravitas to the already abject winter miserablism of the doom drenched black dirge.
The next track is nearly nothing but wind and wintery ambience, all but for a brief bit of haunting choral music right near the beginning, ghostly harmonies drifting spectrally over the sounds of winter. And so the mysterious personage trudges onward through the wind and snow and the black night, the ambience laced with tinkling distant melodies, before once again the song kicks in, a loping woozy riff, a galloping beat, and those whitenoise vox, all wrapped in a whirring blanket of soft noise and blurred hiss, only letting up occasionally, allowing in the wind, delicate crystalline melodies, and the percussive crunch and boom of distant mysterious goings on, but always lurching back into the blast and buzz. And so it goes, one more track, a blurred monochromatic blast of frozen blackness, gives way to the final movement, still more blasting and buzzing, shrieking and blackened flailing, furious and frenzied, again leaving space for frozen winds, and melancholy acoustic guitars, before the final squall of wintery buzz, finally finishing with acoustic guitars and ethereal synths, fading into the cold black night.
Incredible, and as essential as all of the Paysage records. And like the other reissues, Winterkalte comes packaged in a gorgeous A5 style oversized digibook, the front adorned with a cool painting of some bleak winterscape, while inside, a fold out booklet, featuring lyrics. The whole thing sealed in a black envelope, the band name and album title printed on the outside, black on black!
MPEG Stream: "Ich Schreite"
MPEG Stream: "Ich Starre"
MPEG Stream: "Winter"

PEACE ORCHESTRA (G-Stone) cd 16.98
This is solo work from Peter Kruder of Kruder and Dorfmeister. Lots more mellow, stretched out and less overtly dance-y than K+D. Very nice.

PEACE ORCHESTRA Reset (G-Stone / !K7) cd 18.98
OK, I admit it. No one here is a fan of Kruder and Dorfmeister, let's just leave it at that. If you can't say anything nice... then praise the side project instead. Really, though, one snowy evening in Lake Tahoe, stoned and well-fed, I did experience several moments of communion with the debut Peace Orchestra album, Peter Kruder's solo project, which is a well-executed piece of trip hop. This here Reset record is a remix album that IMO doesn't improve on the original, in fact the differing styles of the remixers make an already sufficiently cohesive statement into a mish mash. Can't we just leave well enough alone? Remixers include: DJ DSL, Gotan Project (whose leadoff remix is actually quite lovely, especially with the added bandoneon that makes for a very Morricone-style wistfulness), Zero dB, Guillaume boulard, Truby Trio, and more.
RealAudio clip: "The Man (El Hombre de la Pampa mix by Gotan Project)"

PEACE ORCHESTRA Reset (G-Stone / !K7) 3lp 21.00
And here's the vinyl... OK, I admit it. No one here is a fan of Kruder and Dorfmeister, let's just leave it at that. If you can't say anything nice... then praise the side project instead. Really, though, one snowy evening in Lake Tahoe, stoned and well-fed, I did experience several moments of communion with the debut Peace Orchestra album, Peter Kruder's solo project, which is a well-executed piece of trip hop. This here Reset record is a remix album that IMO doesn't improve on the original, in fact the differing styles of the remixers make an already sufficiently cohesive statement into a mish mash. Can't we just leave well enough alone? Remixers include: DJ DSL, Gotan Project (whose leadoff remix is actually quite lovely, especially with the added bandoneon that makes for a very Morricone-style wistfulness), Zero dB, Guillaume Boulard, Truby Trio, and more.

PEACE, THE Black Power (Groovie) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the first-ever reissue of the sole, rare-as-hell mid '70s LP by The Peace, an Afro-rock band that may or may-not have been made up of service members from the Zambian Air Force (and definitely included members of another obscure African rock band, The Witch), and holy crap it's a winner! Unlike the Nigerian bands of the same era that retained a more distinctly African sound (for more on that, check out Sound Way's phenomenal Nigeria Rock Special comp), Black Power is a full-on Western-styled psych-fuzz groover that rocks in a soulful, funky way from start to finish. It's American-sounding to the point that the only thing that truly gives this record away as being from Africa is the distinctly ESL-sounding vocal delivery. Pretty awesome. We can best describe it like this: imagine that weird band that sort of sounded like a ragtag version of the Allman Brothers that played at the county Apple Blossom Festival every year when you were a kid, somehow managing to get sent to Africa's Copperbelt region, absorbing the local culture, and then playing through smashed up amps at some mining town honky tonk. Loose and funky, kinda fuzzed and Hendrixy. With some lovely mellow, melodic moments, and harder rock riffing too.
We're constantly having our minds blown here at aQ by the steady stream of gems coming from African crate diggers, and this find is no exception!
PLEASE NOTE - We'd be remiss were we to leave out the following note from the label: "The sound for this album is not perfect at all. It's understandable that it's probably impossible to get a good condition copy of the original vinyl to remaster, as this is so so rare even to find in trashed condition. So it has remastered with a decent result in the most part of the album... but there are two songs that have some prominent noise."
MPEG Stream: "Black Power"
MPEG Stream: "I Have Got No Money"
MPEG Stream: "Peaceful Man"

PEACE, THE Black Power (Groovie) lp 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the first-ever reissue of the sole, rare-as-hell mid '70s LP by The Peace, an Afro-rock band that may or may-not have been made up of service members from the Zambian Air Force (and definitely included members of another obscure African rock band, The Witch), and holy crap it's a winner! Unlike the Nigerian bands of the same era that retained a more distinctly African sound (for more on that, check out Sound Way's phenomenal Nigeria Rock Special comp), Black Power is a full-on Western-styled psych-fuzz groover that rocks in a soulful, funky way from start to finish. It's American-sounding to the point that the only thing that truly gives this record away as being from Africa is the distinctly ESL-sounding vocal delivery. Pretty awesome. We can best describe it like this: imagine that weird band that sort of sounded like a ragtag version of the Allman Brothers that played at the county Apple Blossom Festival every year when you were a kid, somehow managing to get sent to Africa's Copperbelt region, absorbing the local culture, and then playing through smashed up amps at some mining town honky tonk. Loose and funky, kinda fuzzed and Hendrixy. With some lovely mellow, melodic moments, and harder rock riffing too.
We're constantly having our minds blown here at aQ by the steady stream of gems coming from African crate diggers, and this find is no exception!
PLEASE NOTE - We'd be remiss were we to leave out the following note from the label: "The sound for this album is not perfect at all. It's understandable that it's probably impossible to get a good condition copy of the original vinyl to remaster, as this is so so rare even to find in trashed condition. So it has remastered with a decent result in the most part of the album... but there are two songs that have some prominent noise."
MPEG Stream: "Black Power"
MPEG Stream: "I Have Got No Money"
MPEG Stream: "Peaceful Man"

PEACEPIPE John Uzonyi's Peacepipe (Shadoks Music) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
At their best, Peacepipe peel out great '60s California biker psych-guitar jams that sound like a cross between Blue Cheer and Quicksilver Messenger Service, full of wah wah action, distortion, and massive sustain. They also remind us a bit of Japan's White Heaven. Unfortunately, there are just a few let-down tracks, where they let hippie cliche and ill-fated dabblings in pop get the best of them. So it's not all killer. But, if you're in the mood, there's a lot of good stuff here that's totally worthwhile. Recorded in Hollywood, California circa 1969, this record is very dated, but very cool -- and heavy (a la Iron Butterfly, not Slayer!). Led by guitarist John Uzonyi, the Peacepipe trio (also known as The Human Equation) highlights John's vocals and wild guitar, but drummer Gary Tsuruda and keyboardist Rick Abts get their licks in as well. Chalk another one up for the Shadoks label, who have included three bonus tracks (two from their 1968 single) that weren't included on the Peacepipe LP (first issued by Rockadelic in '95) on this cd reissue.
RealAudio clip: "Sea Of Nightmares"
RealAudio clip: "A Biker's Tune"
RealAudio clip: "The Day The War Has Ended"

PEACHES Fatherfucker (XL Recordings) cd 14.98
Lookie, here's Peaches' second album. Can she top the the disturbingly rauchy raps of her debut The Teaches Of Peaches? Well, first off, we've gotta hand it to her for the album cover, if not the title. Byram prefers to call this Amish And Proud or perhaps The C. Everett Koop record. As for the musical content, well we don't think Peaches fans will be disappointed! As to what those of us here who aren't Peaches fans (she's had a polarizing effect on the Aquarius staff) think, well, as the lead off track goes (and goes and goes) Peaches "don't give a fuck". So if she's "the kind of bitch you want to get with" then go to it. Rockin' rawer than '80s beat-box grooves and rawer than Lil' Kim rhymes, Fatherfucker is maybe what Pink would sound like if she really was punk like she poses. And as if to prove how punk Peaches is, this features a duet with none other than Iggy Pop, on the track "Kick It", and elsewhere she puts "Rock 'n' Roll" on her set list. Simple but effective, this album doesn't slack on Peaches' provocative sexual/gender stance while always rockin' the parti like Gold Chains. So if you can hang with song titles like "Shake Yer Dix" then you're only $14.98 away from a good time. The cd also includes some video for computers, if you dare.
MPEG Stream: "I'm The Kinda"
MPEG Stream: "Kick It"

PEACHES Fatherfucker (XL Recordings) lp 13.98
Lookie, here's Peaches' second album. Can she top the the disturbingly rauchy raps of her debut The Teaches Of Peaches? Well, first off, we've gotta hand it to her for the album cover, if not the title. Byram prefers to call this Amish And Proud or perhaps The C. Everett Koop record. As for the musical content, well we don't think Peaches fans will be disappointed! As to what those of us here who aren't Peaches fans (she's had a polarizing effect on the Aquarius staff) think, well, as the lead off track goes (and goes and goes) Peaches "don't give a fuck". So if she's "the kind of bitch you want to get with" then go to it. Rockin' rawer than '80s beat-box grooves and rawer than Lil' Kim rhymes, Fatherfucker is maybe what Pink would sound like if she really was punk like she poses. And as if to prove how punk Peaches is, this features a duet with none other than Iggy Pop, on the track "Kick It", and elsewhere she puts "Rock 'n' Roll" on her set list. Simple but effective, this album doesn't slack on Peaches' provocative sexual/gender stance while always rockin' the parti like Gold Chains. So if you can hang with song titles like "Shake Yer Dix" then you're only $14.98 away from a good time. The cd also includes some video for computers, if you dare.

PEACHES I Feel Cream (XL) cd 12.98
Oh dirty, sassy, strong Miss Peaches is back with another clutch of sweaty and sexy dancefloor jams. By this point you probably know where you stand with Peaches and those of us already in love with her mischievous and intoxicating sounds are finding lots to delight us on I Feel Cream. While not hugely different than past releases, Cream does have a slightly shinier production (courtesy of Simian Mobile Disco and Digitalism) and there are a few tracks where Peaches sings full on and proves to have a pretty good singing voice. But fear not, she still gets down and dirty and keeps most of the rhythms and beats primitive and stripped down. It's a perfect blend of the new sleeker Peaches with the more raw dancefloor roots of her great debut Teaches Of Peaches from almost a decade ago. We would rather hear this blasting over the airwaves than Lady Ga Ga anytime! While AQ staffers have been pretty split over the years on Peaches (she does tend to create a love or hate response) those of us who love her sound and what she does, what she stands for, and the music she makes, are feeling pretty damn good about I Feel Cream.
MPEG Stream: "Serpentine"
MPEG Stream: "Mommy Complex"
MPEG Stream: "Lose You"

PEACHES I Feel Cream (XL) lp 16.98
Oh dirty, sassy, strong Miss Peaches is back with another clutch of sweaty and sexy dancefloor jams. By this point you probably know where you stand with Peaches and those of us already in love with her mischievous and intoxicating sounds are finding lots to delight us on I Feel Cream. While not hugely different than past releases, Cream does have a slightly shinier production (courtesy of Simian Mobile Disco and Digitalism) and there are a few tracks where Peaches sings full on and proves to have a pretty good singing voice. But fear not, she still gets down and dirty and keeps most of the rhythms and beats primitive and stripped down. It's a perfect blend of the new sleeker Peaches with the more raw dancefloor roots of her great debut Teaches Of Peaches from almost a decade ago. We would rather hear this blasting over the airwaves than Lady Ga Ga anytime! While AQ staffers have been pretty split over the years on Peaches (she does tend to create a love or hate response) those of us who love her sound and what she does, what she stands for, and the music she makes, are feeling pretty damn good about I Feel Cream.
MPEG Stream: "Serpentine"
MPEG Stream: "Mommy Complex"
MPEG Stream: "Lose You"

PEACHES Impeach My Bush (XL) cd 13.98
First things first, we were pleased to see that fortunately Peaches has shorn her last album's copious facial hair, opting instead for a gold sequined head covering (tho' on the back cover we were dismayed to discover her spandex cameltoe in full bloom!). Not one to sit on the sidelines nor one to hold her tongue, she's juiced up her funky party pants and sidled herself up alongside the hip-electro-hop likes M.I.A. and Lady Sovereign. Now she strikes a balance between those gals and Le Tigre. She's broadened her vocal range with the extremes spanning from her trademark flat-line speak-sing and a more fiery Kathleen Hanna-style scream. Thick buzzin' synths and ball-crunchin' guitars surround her from start to finish. She's sure come quite a ways from her barebones pre-set button pushing debut Teaches Of Peaches. Still as lasciviously potty-mouthed fun as ever but with a heckuva lot more craft and oomph and guest stars too (Josh Homme, Feist and Joan Jett!).
MPEG Stream: "Fuck Or Kill"
MPEG Stream: "You Love It"

PEACHES Impeach My Bush (XL) 2lp 16.98
First things first, we were pleased to see that fortunately Peaches has shorn her last album's copious facial hair, opting instead for a gold sequined head covering (tho' on the back cover we were dismayed to discover her spandex cameltoe in full bloom!). Not one to sit on the sidelines nor one to hold her tongue, she's juiced up her funky party pants and sidled herself up alongside the hip-electro-hop likes M.I.A. and Lady Sovereign. Now she strikes a balance between those gals and Le Tigre. She's broadened her vocal range with the extremes spanning from her trademark flat-line speak-sing and a more fiery Kathleen Hanna-style scream. Thick buzzin' synths and ball-crunchin' guitars surround her from start to finish. She's sure come quite a ways from her barebones pre-set button pushing debut Teaches Of Peaches. Still as lasciviously potty-mouthed fun as ever but with a heckuva lot more craft and oomph and guest stars too (Josh Homme, Feist and Joan Jett!).
MPEG Stream: "Fuck Or Kill"
MPEG Stream: "You Love It"

PEACHES Set It Off (Kitty-Yo) cd ep 8.98
Raunchy freeze-dried lo-fi disco queen Peaches gets the teaches in house and accelerated funk, respectively, from Chick On Speed Tobi Neumann and Detroit's DJ Assault, reworking the title track from her Teaches of Peaches full length. Kid 606 Fucks The Pain Away, Spring Break style, armed with Eazy-E and hair farm riffage. I want my MTV!
RealAudio clip: "Fuck The Pain Away (Kid 606 Going Back To Bali Remix)"

PEACHES Set It Off (Kitty-Yo) 12" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Raunchy freeze-dried lo-fi disco queen Peaches gets the teaches in house and accelerated funk, respectively, from Chick On Speed Tobi Neumann and Detroit's DJ Assault, reworking the title track from her Teaches of Peaches full length. Kid 606 Fucks The Pain Away, Spring Break style, armed with Eazy-E and hair farm riffage. I want my MTV!
RealAudio clip: "Fuck The Pain Away (Kid 606 Going Back To Bali Remix)"

PEACHES Teaches of Peaches - Expanded (Kitty-Yo) 2cd 15.98
Expanded North American Edition. Includes an exclusive bonus disc with new tracks, remixes and enhanced videos!
Sure, Peaches is shallow ear candy, but we all need sugar sometimes. With songtitles like "Fuck the Pain Away" and "Lovertits," Peaches far surpasses Li'l Kim in raunchiness, and her cool vocal delivery is equal parts coked-out ice-queen, white girl trying out hip hop a la Debbie Harry, and fierce punk yowler on the level of PJ Harvey and Kathleen Hanna. The music is super simple freeze-dried disco / wannabe electro / digital hardcore complete with stark drum programming and disembodied armies of handclaps. The whole package is slightly tongue in cheek -- Peaches has got the Sandra Bernhard-style parody / pathetic reality thing down cold. Those who would spend their money on Chicks on Speed should really check this out instead. Peaches delivers.
RealAudio clip: "Fuck the Pain Away"
RealAudio clip: "Hot Rod"

PEACHES The Teaches of Peaches (Kitty-Yo) cd 15.98
You are hereby forewarned that five AQ staffers totally hate this record, while two others like it a lot. AQ fistfight!
We'd heard a lot from various customers recently about this female rapper with a disc on German indie-electronica label Kitty-Yo, so we finally had to order some in, and it's proved to be very controversial indeed.
Here's what the thumbs-downers have to say:
Yuck! Someone take that groovebox away from her, and wash her pottymouth out with soap. This is... really stupid and bad. Sheer aural annoyance. I could go on, but don't want to waste the space. File under: Chicks On Speed (no, actually it's worse than that).
And here's the other side of the coin:
Sure, Peaches is shallow ear candy, but we all need sugar sometime. With songtitles like "Fuck the Pain Away" and "Lovertits," Peaches far surpasses Li'l Kim in raunchiness, and her cool vocal delivery is equal parts coked-out ice-queen, white girl trying out hip hop a la Debbie Harry, and fierce punk yowler on the level of PJ Harvey and Kathleen Hanna. The music is super simple freeze-dried disco / wannabe electro / digital hardcore complete with stark drum programming and disembodied armies of handclaps. The whole package is slightly tongue in cheek -- Peaches has got the Sandra Bernhard-style parody / pathetic reality thing down cold. Those who would spend their money on Chicks on Speed should really check this out instead. Peaches delivers.
P.S. Interview between Le Tigre and Peaches at http://tvwww.webfreetv.com/de/de/de_national/culture_zone_de/musicrules/peach/.
RealAudio clip: "Fuck the Pain Away"
RealAudio clip: "Hot Rod"

PEACHES The Teaches of Peaches (Kitty-Yo) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now on vinyl.

PEACHES The Teaches Of Peaches (XL / Kitty-Yo) lp 34.00
Reissued on hella expensive vinyl. What we said 'bout it some years ago, originally, and we doubt anyone's opinions have changed much over the years...
You are hereby forewarned that five AQ staffers totally hate this record, while two others like it a lot. AQ fistfight!
We'd heard a lot from various customers recently about this female rapper with a disc on German indie-electronica label Kitty-Yo, so we finally had to order some in, and it's proved to be very controversial indeed.
Here's what the thumbs-downers have to say:
Yuck! Someone take that groovebox away from her, and wash her pottymouth out with soap. This is... really stupid and bad. Sheer aural annoyance. I could go on, but don't want to waste the space. File under: Chicks On Speed (no, actually it's worse than that).
And here's the other side of the coin:
Sure, Peaches is shallow ear candy, but we all need sugar sometime. With songtitles like "Fuck the Pain Away" and "Lovertits," Peaches far surpasses Li'l Kim in raunchiness, and her cool vocal delivery is equal parts coked-out ice-queen, white girl trying out hip hop a la Debbie Harry, and fierce punk yowler on the level of PJ Harvey and Kathleen Hanna. The music is super simple freeze-dried disco / wannabe electro / digital hardcore complete with stark drum programming and disembodied armies of handclaps. The whole package is slightly tongue in cheek - Peaches has got the Sandra Bernhard-style parody / pathetic reality thing down cold. Those who would spend their money on Chicks on Speed should really check this out instead. Peaches delivers.

PEACHES / EFFIE BRIEST / ALAN VEGA Jonny / Universe / No Tomorrow (Blast First Petite) 10" 15.98
Another chapter in the Suicide related 10" series from Blast First Petite. This one features Peaches, Effie Briest, and Alan Vega. The cover of this 10" is the most shocking thing about the release with its illustration of an erect cock adorned with dragon tattoos and dripping with semen. You might think that Peaches would match this image with a dirty-dirty-dirty bit of electro, but her track is a more innocent than sultry cover of "Johnny" from Suicide's first album. Effie Briest takes up an odd track to cover, "Universe" from the little-known Why Be Blue album Suicide released in 1992. Their cover eschews electronics for an atmospheric post-punk dirge certainly worthy of the acclaim they received on their Sacred Bones lp. The Alan Vega track originally came from the 1990 album Deuce Avenue, with a narcoleptic arrangement of electronics and Vega's rockabilly, lip-curled vocals.

PEACOCK, ANNETTE I'm The One (Future Days Recordings / Light In The Attic) cd 15.98
Sweet! The 1972 solo debut from the one and only Annette Peacock has at last been properly reissued on both cd and vinyl. This has been unavailable for years and definitely deserves to be heard. Last year, we found out that Peacock had just done her own reissue on cd, but they were only available in prohibitively expensive, autographed editions, though we were quite tempted to order 'em anyway. Glad we waited, for this more affordable and widely available reish comes in both digipak cd and lavish vinyl. We've sold quite a few of these already, so we guess some peeps were waiting for it too.
How to describe this? It's jazzy, bluesy, avant pop music, an inside-outside hybrid, with acid rock and electronic experimentation alongside the likes of a cover of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender", rendered ultra moody and dramatic. Throughout, Peacock's vocals are expressive, edgy, extreme, and electronically effected (fed through a Moog synth, in fact), but also seductive and sensual. At her best here, she comes across like a free jazz version of Betty Davis (the funkstress ex-wife of Miles). It's also likely that fans of Yoko Ono will approve. Quite a debut, from a woman who had toured with Albert Ayler, hung out with Timothy Leary, and could count David Bowie and Diamanda Galas among her fans.
The epic title track ferinstance, starts off all skittery-skree freeform freaky, then, staying freaky, turns into a funked up torch song when the vocals come in. There's parts that sound like Sly & The Family Stone or Stevie Wonder grooves, other parts that sound like spaced-out Moog madnessÉ all in the same song! That's the opening track, too, and sets the tone for the entire album, which is full of groovy bits, sad piano ballads, and spooky electronic soundscapes, in various combinations. Some of the synth stuff is played by her (then?) husband Paul Bley, with whom Annette had made a few improvised synths/vocals albums around about the same time. The album also features Brazilian percussionist Arto Moreira.
This reissue is remastered, and comes complete with brand new liner notes and previously unpublished photos. Here's hoping this means there's also a reissue of Peacock's 1978 masterpiece X-Dreams not far behind.
The double lp version is limited to 1000 hand numbered copies and includes a poster, the cd comes in a digipak with thick booklet.
MPEG Stream: "I'm The One"
MPEG Stream: "Pony "
MPEG Stream: "Gesture Without Plot"

PEACOCK, ANNETTE I'm The One (Future Days Recordings / Light In The Attic) 2lp 33.00
Sweet! The 1972 solo debut from the one and only Annette Peacock has at last been properly reissued on both cd and vinyl. This has been unavailable for years and definitely deserves to be heard. Last year, we found out that Peacock had just done her own reissue on cd, but they were only available in prohibitively expensive, autographed editions, though we were quite tempted to order 'em anyway. Glad we waited, for this more affordable and widely available reish comes in both digipak cd and lavish vinyl. We've sold quite a few of these already, so we guess some peeps were waiting for it too.
How to describe this? It's jazzy, bluesy, avant pop music, an inside-outside hybrid, with acid rock and electronic experimentation alongside the likes of a cover of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender", rendered ultra moody and dramatic. Throughout, Peacock's vocals are expressive, edgy, extreme, and electronically effected (fed through a Moog synth, in fact), but also seductive and sensual. At her best here, she comes across like a free jazz version of Betty Davis (the funkstress ex-wife of Miles). It's also likely that fans of Yoko Ono will approve. Quite a debut, from a woman who had toured with Albert Ayler, hung out with Timothy Leary, and could count David Bowie and Diamanda Galas among her fans.
The epic title track ferinstance, starts off all skittery-skree freeform freaky, then, staying freaky, turns into a funked up torch song when the vocals come in. There's parts that sound like Sly & The Family Stone or Stevie Wonder grooves, other parts that sound like spaced-out Moog madnessÉ all in the same song! That's the opening track, too, and sets the tone for the entire album, which is full of groovy bits, sad piano ballads, and spooky electronic soundscapes, in various combinations. Some of the synth stuff is played by her (then?) husband Paul Bley, with whom Annette had made a few improvised synths/vocals albums around about the same time. The album also features Brazilian percussionist Arto Moreira.
This reissue is remastered, and comes complete with brand new liner notes and previously unpublished photos. Here's hoping this means there's also a reissue of Peacock's 1978 masterpiece X-Dreams not far behind.
The double lp version is limited to 1000 hand numbered copies and includes a poster, the cd comes in a digipak with thick booklet.
MPEG Stream: "I'm The One"
MPEG Stream: "Pony "
MPEG Stream: "Gesture Without Plot"

PEACOCK, ANNETTE X-Dreams (Earmark) lp 24.00

PEAKING LIGHTS 936 (Not Not Fun) cd 13.98
We've dug pretty much everything we've heard from this Wisconsin husband and wife duo, the lp on Night People, the split with Wet Hair, those records found the group unfurling thick slabs of murky dronepop, twisted psychedelic dub, blurred hypnotic riff heavy space drone, psychedelic space boogie, all wound into a roiling sonic stew, seriously warped and druggy and occasionally blown out and noisy, but on this new record, they've ditched much of the heaviness, a lot of the noisiness, and toned down much of the murky psychedelia and instead crafted something much poppier and dreamier. The first track is a bit misleading with this in mind, as it's a lysergic bit of distorted dubbed out riffage, with some programmed beats, buried under chiming melodies and a heaving bass buzz, kaleidoscopic and hazy and with the potential to explode into something much heavier and noisier, but instead it gives way to "All The Sun That Shines" which sort of lives up to its title, a dubby reggae flecked bit of woozy skitter, programmed beats, swirling effects, loads of reverb and delay, and hazy ethereal female vox, some spidery Morricone-esque guitar twang, and an almost calypso groove are woven into the proceedings too, the result though is indeed hazy and sunshiney and gloriously washed out.
"Amazing And Wonderful" is up next, and while featuring a similarly murky Skaters-esque rhythm, it ditches the dubbiness, and sets a sort of abstract post punk into a much more dreampoppy realm, all tinkling chimes, descending melodies, multi tracked vox, all wrapped in a gauzy patina of swirling reverby whir. "Bird Of Paradise Dub Version" is another abstract swirl of druggy space pop, the 'dub version' aspect embodied by the delayed drums and the softly swirling clouds of blurred effects and heavy heavy echo. And so it goes, the rest of the record unwinds similarly, an ever shifting collection of murky, lo-fi programmed-beat driven dub pop, muddy, and murky and warbly, plenty of buzzing low end, shimmery effects, hushed dreamlike vox, a little bit of synthy new wave here and there, some stripped down low slung trip hop every once in a while, and even some fragmented off kilter synth pop strangeness, but overall, way less damaged then their past outings, and more akin to a group like Pigeons, that same sort of downtempo electronic pop, albeit with a much more murky, warped and experimental bent. Which as far as we're concerned translates into really really cool!
MPEG Stream: "Synthy"
MPEG Stream: "All The Sun That Shines"
MPEG Stream: "Birds Of Paradise Dub Version"

PEAKING LIGHTS 936 (Not Not Fun) lp 14.98
We've dug pretty much everything we've heard from this Wisconsin husband and wife duo, the lp on Night People, the split with Wet Hair, those records found the group unfurling thick slabs of murky dronepop, twisted psychedelic dub, blurred hypnotic riff heavy space drone, psychedelic space boogie, all wound into a roiling sonic stew, seriously warped and druggy and occasionally blown out and noisy, but on this new record, they've ditched much of the heaviness, a lot of the noisiness, and toned down much of the murky psychedelia and instead crafted something much poppier and dreamier. The first track is a bit misleading with this in mind, as it's a lysergic bit of distorted dubbed out riffage, with some programmed beats, buried under chiming melodies and a heaving bass buzz, kaleidoscopic and hazy and with the potential to explode into something much heavier and noisier, but instead it gives way to "All The Sun That Shines" which sort of lives up to its title, a dubby reggae flecked bit of woozy skitter, programmed beats, swirling effects, loads of reverb and delay, and hazy ethereal female vox, some spidery Morricone-esque guitar twang, and an almost calypso groove are woven into the proceedings too, the result though is indeed hazy and sunshiney and gloriously washed out.
"Amazing And Wonderful" is up next, and while featuring a similarly murky Skaters-esque rhythm, it ditches the dubbiness, and sets a sort of abstract post punk into a much more dreampoppy realm, all tinkling chimes, descending melodies, multi tracked vox, all wrapped in a gauzy patina of swirling reverby whir. "Bird Of Paradise Dub Version" is another abstract swirl of druggy space pop, the 'dub version' aspect embodied by the delayed drums and the softly swirling clouds of blurred effects and heavy heavy echo. And so it goes, the rest of the record unwinds similarly, an ever shifting collection of murky, lo-fi programmed-beat driven dub pop, muddy, and murky and warbly, plenty of buzzing low end, shimmery effects, hushed dreamlike vox, a little bit of synthy new wave here and there, some stripped down low slung trip hop every once in a while, and even some fragmented off kilter synth pop strangeness, but overall, way less damaged then their past outings, and more akin to a group like Pigeons, that same sort of downtempo electronic pop, albeit with a much more murky, warped and experimental bent. Which as far as we're concerned translates into really really cool!
MPEG Stream: "Synthy"
MPEG Stream: "All The Sun That Shines"
MPEG Stream: "Birds Of Paradise Dub Version"

PEAKING LIGHTS Imaginary Falcons (Night People) 12" 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

PEAKING LIGHTS Lucifer (Mexican Summer) cd 10.98
With their latest record, these long time faves, psychedelic psych-kraut space-dub husband and wife duo Peaking Lights, continue in their trajectory, away from the warped drugginess and abstract noisiness that defined their early records towards something WAY more blissed out and laid back, still druggy most certainly, but less 'bad trip' druggy and more woozily wasted on some lost sun dappled tropical isle under a warm deep blue summer sky.
Like their previous record 936, which was a HUGE hit around here, Lucifer gradually unfurls as a another heady sprawl of blissy dubby psychedelia that relies heavily on looped, cyclical rhythms, cascading layers, and bleary blurry loops. The opening intro is the perfect introduction, a soft cacophony of what sounds like murky muddy marimbas and steel drums and xylophones all tangled up into a glorious swirl. But "Beautiful Son" starts off the record proper, with doleful piano under a skyful of strange glitchy electronics, and reverby swirls and swoops, bloops and trills, all beneath some lush angelic female vox, the result sounding like a more tropical, dubby and abstract take on Stereolab, droney, pulsating and percolating, a little bit sci-fi, but the sort of seventies version of sci-fi, that retro futurism filtered through sixties dub pop.
"Live Love" lays down another backdrop of loops and cascading rhythms, this time driven by what sounds like a Casio on 'calypso' setting, reminding us a bit of James Ferraro, but with the 'dub' cranked, most notably, the woozy bassline, and the vocals dubbed into soft echo drenched swirls.
"Cosmic Tides" is the first full on dub, the duo offering up their own electro-dub version of the classics, the beat, heavily reverbed, the organ, the upstroke guitar, but this is Peaking Lights, not King Tubby, so soon, the song splinters into some dreamy space pop, and over the course of the song drifts dreamily between the two.
And so it goes for the record of the record, the sound veering from reggae like grooves, to warped lo-fi reverby slo-mo eighties pop-dub that sounds like Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" slowed way down, and finally a hazy ambient coda, all dreamlike piano wreathed in reverb, strange backwards swoops and squiggles, all smeared into a strange bit of haunting psychedelia, which had us hankering for more of that sort of thing along with all the dubby dreaminess next time around.
Cool La Dusseldorf homage cover art. LP is limited to 2000 copies and includes poster and a digital download!
MPEG Stream: "Moonrise"
MPEG Stream: "Live Love"
MPEG Stream: "Cosmic Tides"
MPEG Stream: "Morning Star"

PEAKING LIGHTS Lucifer (Mexican Summer) lp 17.98
With their latest record, these long time faves, psychedelic psych-kraut space-dub husband and wife duo Peaking Lights, continue in their trajectory, away from the warped drugginess and abstract noisiness that defined their early records towards something WAY more blissed out and laid back, still druggy most certainly, but less 'bad trip' druggy and more woozily wasted on some lost sun dappled tropical isle under a warm deep blue summer sky.
Like their previous record 936, which was a HUGE hit around here, Lucifer gradually unfurls as a another heady sprawl of blissy dubby psychedelia that relies heavily on looped, cyclical rhythms, cascading layers, and bleary blurry loops. The opening intro is the perfect introduction, a soft cacophony of what sounds like murky muddy marimbas and steel drums and xylophones all tangled up into a glorious swirl. But "Beautiful Son" starts off the record proper, with doleful piano under a skyful of strange glitchy electronics, and reverby swirls and swoops, bloops and trills, all beneath some lush angelic female vox, the result sounding like a more tropical, dubby and abstract take on Stereolab, droney, pulsating and percolating, a little bit sci-fi, but the sort of seventies version of sci-fi, that retro futurism filtered through sixties dub pop.
"Live Love" lays down another backdrop of loops and cascading rhythms, this time driven by what sounds like a Casio on 'calypso' setting, reminding us a bit of James Ferraro, but with the 'dub' cranked, most notably, the woozy bassline, and the vocals dubbed into soft echo drenched swirls.
"Cosmic Tides" is the first full on dub, the duo offering up their own electro-dub version of the classics, the beat, heavily reverbed, the organ, the upstroke guitar, but this is Peaking Lights, not King Tubby, so soon, the song splinters into some dreamy space pop, and over the course of the song drifts dreamily between the two.
And so it goes for the record of the record, the sound veering from reggae like grooves, to warped lo-fi reverby slo-mo eighties pop-dub that sounds like Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" slowed way down, and finally a hazy ambient coda, all dreamlike piano wreathed in reverb, strange backwards swoops and squiggles, all smeared into a strange bit of haunting psychedelia, which had us hankering for more of that sort of thing along with all the dubby dreaminess next time around.
Cool La Dusseldorf homage cover art. LP is limited to 2000 copies and includes poster and a digital download!
MPEG Stream: "Moonrise"
MPEG Stream: "Live Love"
MPEG Stream: "Cosmic Tides"
MPEG Stream: "Morning Star"

PEAKING LIGHTS Space Primitive (Night People) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We got a little taste of Peaking Lights on their split with Wet Hair, as part of the Not Not Fun Bored Fortress 7" series, and we loved their murky bass heavy drone pop and were definitely hankering for more. And here it is, in the shape of a one sided clear vinyl silkscreened 12", three new tracks of murky spaced out hypnotic riffage, sprawled out over a single side, these three tracks ooze and drift, a sort of disembodied abstract psychedelic space boogie, crumbling rock riffage draped over a morass of echo and reverb and crumbling distortion, the vocals high and keening and wrapped in reverb. The sound shifts a bit and becomes more rhythmic and hypnotic, swirly and softly buzzing, blissed out and droney, laced with shamen like vocalizing over tangled muddied riffing and some skeletal robotic percussion. The final track is the prettiest of the bunch, an epic slab of blown out hypno-drone psych buzz, another machine like rhythm, tinkling pianos, wheezing chords, all held together by undulating layers of fuzz, and all blurred into a fantastically hazy ritual of washed out dreamdronedrift.
The lp is pressed on clear vinyl, one side is silkscreened, the lp is packaged with a heavy paper insert, also silkscreened, green on green, all housed in a thick PVC plastic sleeve. And of course, limited...
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 2"

PEANUT BUTTER WOLF The Best Of... (Copasetik) cd 16.98

PEANUTS: THE ART OF CHARLES M. SCHULZ (Pantheon) book 30.00
Brand new book out covering the art of Charles M. Schulz of Peanuts fame. This is a GORGEOUS book! It was designed by star book graphics guy Chip Kidd, who was also responsible, among many other things, for the gorgeous packaging on the Chris Ware Acme Novelty Library book. The Schulz book is the same size and also features a cool dustjacket -- instead of a foldout poster like the Ware book, it's simply a little shorter than the book itself, so a strip of the b&w hardcover shows thru above the full color dustjacket. Oh so nice. And the contents are super interesting -- there's old postcards and scrapbook drawings and Peanuts dolls and toys. The older strips are often pictured not cleaned up and modernized, but were scanned in as is, with yellowing newsprint and wrinkles, and random pencil marks on them. Quite an artifact, this book!

PEARL HARBOR Something About The Chaparrals (Mexican Summer) lp 17.98
A flurry of releases from Mexican Summer, all limited, all gone before you know it, and all pretty dang good. Pearl Harbor offer up 4 songs of hazy, warbly girl pop, all crooned angelic vox and shimmery Cocteau Twins like guitars, dreamy and otherworldly, but plenty psychedelic and washed out, a bit reminiscent of a female Ariel Pink in some ways. Folks who dug Girls At Dawn, Dum Dum Girls, Grass Widow, Vivian Girls, will definitely feel right at home. But unlike a lot of those bands, PH channel a distinctly eighties vibe, the drums simple and machinelike, the guitars crystalline, and wreathed in soft effects, the melodies and harmonies reminding us of that era of MTV, synth pop, and new wave, with a slightly gothic tinge, woozy Joy Divisiony bass underpinning the chiming guitars, and glimmering tangled vocal lines, everything slightly blurred and indistinct, giving all the songs here a strange otherworldly feel, like you discovered some old broken radio that only picks up stations from 30 years ago, broadcasting lost synth pop from some alternate dimension. Trippy and psychedelic and really really cool.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each one hand numbered, each one with a download card too. Sorry tho that they're not so cheap, Mexican Summer just jacked up their prices...