PAIVANSADE Puhalluspelto (Eclipse) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Attention Finnophiles!! Another missive of forest-y free folk from far away Finland. This time in the form of a super limited lp from the group Paivansade, who happen to be made up of folks from Kiila, Rauhan Orkesteri and Lauhkeat Lampat who some of you may be familiar with. The sound is everything we've come to expect and love, plucked strings, wheezing squeezebox, chimes and rattles, very spare and spacious, like a Fahey record stretched out as far as it will go, with ambient bowed strings, very haunting. Once in a while the sound erupts into squealing, clattery, whistling frivolity, with deep throaty hand drums providing a clumsy rhythmic framework for a wild tribal gypsy folk workout. Fans of Anaksimandros, Kemialliset Ystavat and Avarus will obviously find this essential. Limited to 500 copies!

PAJO 1968 (Drag City) cd 14.98
This man can do (and has done) many many different things musically (Slint, Tortoise, M, Aerial M, Papa M, Early Man, Dead Child and Zwan as well as guesting with Matmos, Anomoanon, Bonnie Prince Billy, Peggy Honeywell to name just a few!). David Christian Pajo's fine self-titled album last year was his most straightforward, traditionally song structured work to date, and Pajo's 1968 follows suit. It's an intimate album of hushed, subtle gestures. He's set his soothingly smooth voice front and center. A wise decision, it draws you in close, an invitation into his trademark wistful, pastoral picked guitar landscape. Very lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Foolish King"
MPEG Stream: "Walk Through The Dark"

PAJO Scream With Me (Black Tent Press) lp 23.00
For the first release from the newly launched Black Tent Press, comes this legendary recording, all acoustic covers of Misfits songs by Dave Pajo, he of Slint, Papa M, Aerial M and loads more. Recorded on a crappy hand held tape recorder way back in 2004, these recordings have been circulating for years, passed around from band to band on tour, duped and dubbed over and over, until it acquired near mythical status. Well now, it's finally available, proper like, and this is no crappy dubbed cassette, nope, it's now a super fancy deluxe lp!
As we mentioned above, Dave Pajo has been a part of so many records that we hold near and dear. First as a member of all-time AQ favorite's Slint and then guesting on records like The West by Matmos and a ton of solo records under his own name and as Papa M and Aerial M, as well as some serious arena rock action as a member of Zwan with Billy Corgan and Paz Lenchantin (who also has a rad limited edition LP on Black Tent, reviewed elsewhere on this list) and right now he's even a part of the touring band for the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. Phew!
But finally we get to hear Pajo playing a handful of classic Misfits songs, in his own hushed and stripped down style. Both a testament to how great Misfits songs were and Pajo's soft delicate touch, these songs sound perfect all hushed and acoustic, like he recorded them right in your bedroom not even using a microphone, just sitting on the edge of your bed, singing right in your ear. It's pretty amazing to hear Pajo sing some of these lyrics, we're reminded how totally scandalous these Misfits lyrics were back in the day, and if you couldn't understand them then, you sure can now! A cool juxtaposition of delicate acoustic prettiness, and bloody gory nasty brutishness. Pajo is definitely not the first to give the Misfits an acoustic makeover, even the Lemonheads did a gorgeous stripped down cover of "Skulls", but somehow tackling this whole set of songs, it just works, and minus the lyrics, Scream With Me could almost sound like some lost Pajo record, or some unreleased demo.
Incredible packaging, 130 gram vinyl, housed in a thick sleeve, with a 1 color spray painted serigraph on French paper, comes with a cd featuring all the music on the lp, and is LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: "Angelfuck"
MPEG Stream: "Teenagers From Mars"
MPEG Stream: "Attitude"

PAJO, DAVID CHRISTIAN s/t (Drag City) cd 14.98
Aerial M, Papa M., M and now David Christian Pajo (or if you go by the front cover even, simply 'Pajo')... Hmmm, it's a fact! Mr. Pajo by any other name still sounds as sweet. But we've just gotta ask, what's with all these artists who refuse to stick to one moniker? Will Oldham and Jason Molina are two other culprits. We'd understand it if each of their aliases' albums was drastically different from the next, but more often than not, it isn't. Such is the case with this solo self-titled album from the former member of Slint, Tortoise and Zwan, it really doesn't stray too far from where Pajo's roamed before. However, that said, there are a few notable new twists on his old self (or should we say 'selves'?), an unexpected turn into the breathily sung, achingly sensitive acoustic folk-pop domain of such artists as the late Elliott Smith or even the Moody Blues. Affecting note progressions, moving vocal performances and understated percussion are brought together with fine results. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Oh No No"
MPEG Stream: "Baby Please Come Home"

PALACE (WILL OLDHAM) Arise Therefore (Drag City) cd 14.98
Palace release features some of the prettiest songs Will Oldham has ever written, as well some of his oddest lyrics (and this is one of the tame ones):

to see in me a promise of what i could give
and i to see in her a reason to live
which was past just a symbol of woman and luck
that i would never be lacking for something to fuck

PALACE (WILL OLDHAM) Arise Therefore (Drag City) lp 11.98
Palace release features some of the prettiest songs Will Oldham has ever written, as well some of his oddest lyrics (and this is one of the tame ones):

to see in me a promise of what i could give
and i to see in her a reason to live
which was past just a symbol of woman and luck
that i would never be lacking for something to fuck

PALACE BROTHERS There Is No One What Will Take Care Of You (Drag City) cd 14.98

PALACE BROTHERS There Is No One What Will Take Care Of You (Drag City) lp 9.98

PALACE MUSIC Little Blue Eyes (Drag City) 7" 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
2 songs from 1993.

PALACE MUSIC Lost Blues & Others (Drag City) cd 14.98

PALACE MUSIC Lost Blues & Others (Drag City) 2lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

PALACE MUSIC Viva Last Blues (Drag City) cd 14.98

PALACE OF WORMS Lifting The Veil (The Flenser) cassette 5.98
Latest blast of black filth from right here in SF, from one man band Palace of Worms, aka Balan, who also does time in Elk, and in Weakling worshipping outfit Dead As Dreams. The first PoW record was a huge hit around aQ land, a killer mix of grim black buzz, and avant post rock weirdness, everything we had read about this new record talked about how all the post rock and other stuff had been ditched in favor of a sound more raw and old school, but to these ears, this is anything but, the weirdness that made The Forgotten so good, still pretty much in full effect.
The opening intro eases us back into PoW's black underworld, a sprawling smoldering melodic drift, all serpentine guitars, minimal tribal drum pound, buried vokills, which leads directly into a lumbering chunk of midtempo dirgery, laced with some serious melody, and finally some raw blasting blackness, and the rest of the tape seems like a push and pull between those two influence, the melody and intricacy, the raw blast and primitive buzz, but it's that constant tension that gives Lifting The Veil its energy, even when songs are in full on blast mode, the sound is still weirdly textured and melodic, check out the first half of "No Exit", appropriately grim and frantic, but the chords are lush, and there seems to be all sorts of melodic shading going on, not taking away from the grimnity of the sound, just adding texture and depth.
"The Scroll Of Kimiris" is similarly crafted, on the surface, a frenzied blackened buzz, but the guitars soar, the melodies epic, the sound weirdly spacious and spare. "Wounded Pride" also begins all mathy and melodic, a doomy trudge, a lurching arrangement that ends up sounding noise rocky and majestic, before eventually crumbling into buzz and blast, but it's "Hellish Journey" that's the record's focal point, easily the heaviest, most sonically dense track, and its longest at nearly 10 minutes, the melodic aspect is downplayed a bit, but still surfaces all over the place, especially in the dreamy clean voiced outro, but those parts are well balanced by the sheer black force of the surrounding sonics.
Packaged with super nice, printed, heavy-stock fold-out full color inserts, and of course, SUPER LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "No Exit"
MPEG Stream: "The Scroll Of Kimiris"

PALACE OF WORMS The Forgotten (The Flenser) cd 8.98
For a while, San Francisco seemed like some sort of black metal mecca, record after record and shows galore, all sorts of grim and kvlt hordes, Leviathan, Draugar, Crebain, Horn Of Dagoth, Elk, Necrite and more. And while some of those bands are still active, the recordings have seemed to dry up, more a trickle than a torrent. We know there is a Crebain record in the works, there's the forthcoming Mastery 2cd on tUMULt, a rumored Leviathan, but there are lots of new bands too, Botanist, Kerasphorus, and these guys, or rather this guy, Palace Of Worms, and finally a new slab of fucked up freaked out blackness from SF to obsess over, and believe us, this is well worth obsessing over.
Anyone into any of the above mentioned bands will dig PoW for sure, a dizzying blend of troo black metal buzz, and experimental post rock, which is evident from the first few seconds of the record, beginning with haunting majestic synths, then a brittle lo-fi blast of metal, that sounds like it was played on a mandolin, or pitched up, before the song proper kicks in with a wall of frenzied super saturated black buzz, croaked vokills, and buried in the mix blast beats, switching gears multiple times throughout the song, chugging doomic sprawl, to gnarled Deathspell style blackprog, with plenty of tangly guitar lines and lurching tempo changes, clean guitar, very reminiscent of another aQ BM fave Woe, the same sort of melodic sensibility fused into a seriously harrowing chunk of grim black aggression.
The rest of the record follow suit, dipping occasionally into ultra raw, old school black metal pound, weird almost industrial shoegazey ambience (sounding a bit like Nadja or Jesu), classic midtempo Burzumy blackness, awesomely creepy Eastern tinged black ambience, almost Katatonia moody sounding melodic blackness, but always returning to that furious heaviness, all lightning speed riffage, hellish vox, dizzying complex rhythms, soaring synths, but all infused with that strange, and subtle pop element that turns grim and black into something much more interesting, and makes Palace Of Worms another band to add to SF's black pantheon.
MPEG Stream: "Far From The Light"
MPEG Stream: "The Antagonist"
MPEG Stream: "As I Slumber Amongst The Cold Thoughtless Stars"

PALADINO, FRANCESCO & OPUM Nosesoul (Hic Sunt Leones) cd 7.98
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Some of our favorite records over the last few years have come from our customers. As in, recorded and released by, not just recommended by. I mean, it makes perfect sense, that folks into cool weird music, would be making cool weird music themselves, but nevertheless it's always a nice surprise. Whether it's the delicate dreamy folk of Ilyas Ahmed, or the crushing doom of Monument of Urns, it's always exciting to discover that the guy who buys all the weird cd-r's, or the customer who is always ordering super limited vinyl is in fact, making some strange and wondrous sounds themselves.
Such is the case with our Italian mailorder customer Francesco Paladino, who has teamed up with Opum (Paladino seems to prefer the collaboration, having joined forces with lots of folks in the past including dronesters Alio Die) for a record of epic and hauntingly cinematic low end explorations. Field recordings are deftly woven into huge sprawling drones, strangled falsetto vocals and growling grumbled voices drift ominously amidst the slowly swirling low end ambience. Chimes tinkle and random bits of percussion float restlessly above thick fuzzy synthesizers, all the while more and more strange animalistic vocalisations enter the mix. Birdsong and simple percussion are the framework of one track, while a pulsing synthesized throb another, FX swirl effortlessly over the sound of scraping stones, whispering wind, distant chanting. The vibe is strangely liturgical, one can imagine this disc as the soundtrack to some slow moving Italian giallo, Goblin handling the freaked out progged up horror parts, while Paladino and Opum handle the suspense, the dark shadowy corridors, a long walk through a moonlit park, the foreboding feeling that death lurks around every corner. Creepy and sinister and ominously beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Preghiere"
MPEG Stream: "Light"

PALAIS SCHAUMBURG Lupa (Phonogram / Tapete) cd 17.98
Reissued obscurity for fans of Gang Of Four / Pop Group.

PALAIS SCHAUMBURG s/t (Phonogram / Tapete) cd 17.98
Reissued obscurity for fans of Gang Of Four / Pop Group.

PALANCE, JACK s/t (Water) cd 15.98
Yes, this is a Jack Palance album. You know, that scary Ripley's Believe It Or Not guy. Plus he was in some movies and stuff. Of course, you know him, you love him. Back in 1969, someone at Warner Bros. though it would be a good idea for Jack to make a record. Maybe 'cause he'd been in some westerns, or maybe 'cause he dug Lee Hazlewood and Johnny Cash, or maybe 'cause the country-rock thing lends itself well to a semi-spoken word delivery when you can't really sing all that well, Jack grew a moustache, went to Nashville and, with the help of some studio pros, cut this album. Now it's been reissued on cd with a big ol' booklet of liner notes and everything. And it is pretty entertaining, totally orchestrated, with backing singers and so on, Jack Palance recognizable as himself, playing upon his sinister, tough guy screen persona with ballads like "Meanest Guy That Ever Lived" (that one he wrote himself, in fact). Now we wish somebody would reissue the Telly Savalas LP!
MPEG Stream: "Meanest Guy That Ever Lived"

PALAST, GREG Weapons Of Mass Instruction Live (Alternative Tentacles) cd 14.98

PALE BLUE SKY Shades Of Grey (Arbor) lp 14.98

PALE CHALICE Afflicting The Dichotomy Of Trepid Creation (The Flenser) cd 8.98
Some furious buzzing blasting blackened grimnity from right here in SF, the 4 song debut from Pale Chalice, a local black metal band who slay, this is not avant black metal, or post black metal, or experimental black metal, this is total, raw and furious, hateful and brutal old school classic black metal. The vocals are incredible, you might recognize that raspy demonic alien croak - those rotted pipes belong to Ephemeral Domignostika, of one man black metal band Pandiscordian Necrogenesis (who we've raved about on past lists), who's also one man black metal band Mastery (whose complete discography is coming out any day now on Andee's tUMULt label), but the rest of Pale Chalice ain't so shabby either, not sure if any of the others do time in other local outfits, but it hardly matters, this shit is fierce and frenzied and frantic, the sound huge, the guitars buzzing, the riffs gnarled, the bass a buried low end throb, the drums relentless and seriously blasting, the 4 tracks here hovering mostly in full on blast mode, but occasionally slipping into punkish pound, or woozy midtempo lope, even a little acoustic guitar drift near the end, the songs are massive and majestic, four tracks in about 30 minutes, sprawling blackened buzz drenched epics, intricate and intense, the vocals cranked WAY up in the mix, which makes the whole thing sound seriously fucked up and SICK.
Fast and furious, grim and black, one of the best new black metal records we've heard in a whileÉ and yet another group to add to the ever expanding Bay Area black metal pantheon!
MPEG Stream: "Transplant Of Dimensional Recourse"
MPEG Stream: "Command Of The Formless"

PALE DIVINE Cemetary Earth (I Hate Records) cd 16.98

PALE DIVINE Eternity Revealed (Martyr Music Group) cd 14.98
Crimson Tears? Lord Of Sorrow? Ever After? Solitude? Hmm...from song titles like those, it would seem we've got a doom metal band on our hands here, eh? Well, of course we knew that already since this is the second album from Pennsylvania power trio Pale Divine, whose first album Thunder Perfect Mind we gave a couple doomed digits up to three years ago. Now they're back, just as morose and metal as before, and still riff-rockin' hard for the air guitarists among you out there. Pale Divine's singer/guitarist belts out the lyrics to their hymns of doom with what some friends of mind would term "chain wallet" vocals, that put us in mind of Metallica's James Hetfield and, in combo with the music, Blind-era Corrosion of Conformity. Overall, the band's influences are solidly in the realm of Sabbath (natch), Pentagram, Trouble, and Candlemass (that's their "Solitude" covered here, a massive version that closes out this album with supreme downer majesty). That is, as doom bands goes, Pale Divine are definitely in the rock n' roll tradition, one foot in the '70s, akin to acts like Place Of Skulls or Abdullah, as opposed to the ugly, feedback-filled, drone-dirge style of doom of we also love as practiced by the likes of Khanate and Cavity. Heavy but relentlessly rockin', Eternity Revealed breaks no new ground in a well-trodden genre but skillfully executes their specific style with aplomb, which we would imagine was precisely their aim. If you're looking for the innovative new doom, check out Yob (for instance) but for something accessible to crank in your Camaro, Pale Divine ought to do the trick. Includes re-recordings of some of their early demo tracks, including "Serpent's Path", their contribution to the first At The Mountains of Madness compilation some years ago.
MPEG Stream: "Serpents Path"
MPEG Stream: "Ever After"

PALE DIVINE Thunder Perfect Mind (Game Two / Slow Ride) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not to be confused with the albums from Nurse With Wound and Current 93, *this* "Thunder Perfect Mind" is the full length debut from a Pennsylvanian power trio known as Pale Divine, and it's something we've been waiting for ever since we heard their cut on the Miskatonic Foundation's "At The Mountains of Madness" doom metal comp a few years back. We'd have to say it was worth the wait. The ten tracks of rockin', mid-paced stoner/doom riffage here are sure to interest those into that scene, fitting in with stuff like Spirit Caravan (although Pale Divine is darker and more metallic than Wino's band). Guitarist Greg Deiner's clean but rough and ragged vocals remind us a bit of Metallica's James Hetfield, but especially of Corrosion of Conformity's "Blind" album era singer, Karl Agell. Of course, all these comparisions harken back to the gods of doom, Black Sabbath. Actually there's a whole list of inspirations here (looking at Pale Divine's thanks list in the cd booklet), from the obvious (Sabbath) to the obscure (Leafhound, Manilla Road). But it seems that it's Pentagram who are their big heroes, though. That's obvious for two reasons: they cover Pentagram's "Twenty Buck Spin" and also actually manged to get Pentagram's Bobby Liebling to lend guest vocals/lyrics to their own tune "Dark Knight"!! So, Pentagram freaks (who'd probably like this album a lot anyway) now *have to* pick it up. Supposed '70s inspired stoner rock bands are a dime a dozen nowadays, but here's one of the few with an authentic DOOM vibe, that will really reward your attention.
RealAudio clip: "Magic Potion"
RealAudio clip: "20 Buck Spin"

PALE HOARSE s/t (self-released) cd ep 9.98
Follow-up to their stellar debut, The Gospels, this eponymous ep by local folk duo Pale Hoarse gives us five more gorgeous tracks of strung out sorrow. One of them a beautiful cover of Gene Clark's "With Tomorrow". This time the songs seem to be less about sin and salvation and more geared towards a nature-reverent British folk approach. Their dual male/female harmonies reminding us of a more mournful John Doe and Exene Cervenka, but on this ep exuding a more smoldering hopefulness than the dusty haunted doom of their debut. Quite lovely!
MPEG Stream: "Temple Bell Song"
MPEG Stream: "Nameless"

PALE HOARSE The Gospels (self-released) cd-r 11.98
Not to be confused with the heavy sludge doom of Pale Horse, local San Francisco duo of Kyle Ranson and Kimberly Pierce channel apocalyptic doom through a completely different sensibility. Using mainly just spare acoustic guitar, tambourine, and beautiful two-part vocal harmonies, The Gospels is a sermon of haunting southern gothic songs filled with death, despair and hard-living. Their sound reminds us at times like early Palace brothers, or a way stripped down Brightblack (before they added the Morning Light to their name), occasionally conjuring up dusty images in our minds of small town buskers singing for their supper and salvation. Thankfully, Pale Hoarse do not play up the vintage Americana card too heavy-handedly, instead using spare arrangements to tread on dark but universal themes. Perfect for Sunday Mornings coming down from the sins of the previous night and you just can't make it to church. Housed in a silk-screened paper bag with hand sewn leather envelope for the cd and insert with lyrics and drawings. So Beautiful and VERY LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Sarah"
MPEG Stream: "Darkness Has Overtaken Me"
MPEG Stream: "Pale Horse"

PALE HORSE Gee That Ain't Well (Dry Run) cd 14.98
Yet another entry in the so slow, so low, ultra doom, down tuned, skin flaying musical brutality sweepstakes. And we might just have a new contender for the crown. In the past we have knelt before the corrosive kings Khanate, as well as doom ladies in waiting Bunkur, Moss, Monarch, Whitehorse, Planet Aids, Marzuraan, Roanoke, and on and on and on. But where can you go when you can't get any slower, any heavier, any more distorted, any sludgier, any meaner, any more harsh? The answer to that is obviously WEIRDER. So that brings us to Pale Horse, on the same label as the first Jesu ep, but miles away sonically. As you may have gleaned from the above, Pale Horse are sloooooooow, and dooooooooomy and ultra sick and brutal. Imagine a stripped down Khanate, drums to the fore, WAY up in the mix and pretty much defining the sound. Make the bass more slithery and sludgy, and then just do whatever the fuck strikes your fancy. A whole track of just guitars leaning agains the amps, letting the madly vibrating strings do all the work? Sure. How about some Khante-y sludge and pummel, but instead of harsh shrieks, add some strange sing songy vocals that sound quite a bit like the vocals in This Heat or Camberwell Now? Okay! Let's take the slowest harshest slab of slow motion acid doom, and halfway through switch gears and finish the song off with some moody slow building post rock, epic and lovely and sweetly lilting with clean guitars and dreamy sad boy vocals. The whole record is like that, which is what keeps it from being JUST another sludge record. You'll be nodding off to some bulldozing riff, sliding glacially over a pounding caveman beat, when suddenly the vocals will kick in with some impossibly sweet melody (a bit like Harvey Milk at times). Or a full on rock song will peter out into a lengthy exercise in tension and release, more some sort of abstract 'piece' than a metal song. An entire track with sweetly strummed steel string guitar and slightly distorted sung/spoken vocals (a bit like Arab Strap)? It's in there, neatly squeezed between two Teutonic slabs of black hole heaviness. There's some sludgy groove that sounds a bit like the Jesus Lizard or The Cows, some stretched out ambient murmur, and even some epic Godspeed meets Isis majestic post metal. And somehow it all makes perfect (non)sense. Fans of ANY of the above mentioned should definitely check this out!
MPEG Stream: "Yes, I Do Own Clothes"
MPEG Stream: "Bliss"
MPEG Stream: "Holy Trinity Church Student Bar"

PALE SKETCHER Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed (Ghostly International) cd 13.98
Pale Sketcher finds Justin Broadrick taking his post Godflesh project Jesu in an entirely new direction. Named for Pale Sketches, a collection of early Jesu demos and song fragments, unused parts and unfinished songs, which were presented on Pale Sketches as a collection of odds and ends, but here are reworked into a mysteriously minimal electronica. And to be totally fair, the sound, while on the surface seems radically different, really doesn't sound all that far removed from the sound of Jesu proper, sure the thick metalgaze guitars are stripped away, and the beats are a bit more skeletal and overtly electronic, but the lush shoegazey drift is still what it's all about. Thick swells of melancholy minor key shimmer, spidery melodies, hushed gauzey production haze, everything sun dappled and washed out and prismatic, it's not that hard to imagine that instead of this being a one time excursion, that this is in fact the direction Jesu was, or is, headed. Every record since the debut, Heartache, has consistently gotten less heavy, more and more mellow and dreamy, drifting ever closer to a sort of M83 style retro eighties shoegaze doom pop, so it would make perfect sense for Jesu to gradually be transformed into something warm and dark and electronic.
The sound here suits the songs perfectly, dreamy and minimal, moody and hushed, a little bit dubby, the heaviest parts are the swaths of buzzing dubsteppy bass that surface here and there, but otherwise this is like some spaced out soundtrack composed by Jesu, very cinematic, haunting and lovely, stripped down and abstract, the vocals ghostly and ethereal, in fact most all of the sounds here are ghostly and ethereal, allowed to drift and shimmer, held in place by muted pulses, and streaks of soft skitter, the whole thing ends up sounding so dreamlike, so otherworldly, the perfect next step in Jesu's constant evolution.
MPEG Stream: "Don't Dream It (Mirage Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Wash It All Away (Cleansed Dub)"
MPEG Stream: "The Playgrounds Are Empty (Slumber Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Plans That Fade (Faded Dub)"

PALE SKETCHER Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed (Ghostly International) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pale Sketcher finds Justin Broadrick taking his post Godflesh project Jesu in an entirely new direction. Named for Pale Sketches, a collection of early Jesu demos and song fragments, unused parts and unfinished songs, which were presented on Pale Sketches as a collection of odds and ends, but here are reworked into a mysteriously minimal electronica. And to be totally fair, the sound, while on the surface seems radically different, really doesn't sound all that far removed from the sound of Jesu proper, sure the thick metalgaze guitars are stripped away, and the beats are a bit more skeletal and overtly electronic, but the lush shoegazey drift is still what it's all about. Thick swells of melancholy minor key shimmer, spidery melodies, hushed gauzey production haze, everything sun dappled and washed out and prismatic, it's not that hard to imagine that instead of this being a one time excursion, that this is in fact the direction Jesu was, or is, headed. Every record since the debut, Heartache, has consistently gotten less heavy, more and more mellow and dreamy, drifting ever closer to a sort of M83 style retro eighties shoegaze doom pop, so it would make perfect sense for Jesu to gradually be transformed into something warm and dark and electronic.
The sound here suits the songs perfectly, dreamy and minimal, moody and hushed, a little bit dubby, the heaviest parts are the swaths of buzzing dubsteppy bass that surface here and there, but otherwise this is like some spaced out soundtrack composed by Jesu, very cinematic, haunting and lovely, stripped down and abstract, the vocals ghostly and ethereal, in fact most all of the sounds here are ghostly and ethereal, allowed to drift and shimmer, held in place by muted pulses, and streaks of soft skitter, the whole thing ends up sounding so dreamlike, so otherworldly, the perfect next step in Jesu's constant evolution.
MPEG Stream: "Don't Dream It (Mirage Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Wash It All Away (Cleansed Dub)"
MPEG Stream: "The Playgrounds Are Empty (Slumber Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Plans That Fade (Faded Dub)"

PALEFACE Rinse: 05 (Rinse) cd 21.00

PALESTINE / COULTER / MATHOUL Maximin (Young God) cd 14.98
Charlemagne Palestine has long been one of the pioneers of American Minimalism, tracing back to his '60s performances that rivalled Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, and Tony Conrad in duration, intensity, and transcendent potential. "Maximin" finds Palestine working with David Coulter and Jean-Marie Mathoul to re-intepret / re-mix / re-iterate (or how ever you care to catagorize it). For the most part, Palestine contributed material from his albums "Jamaica Heinekens In Brooklyn," "Schlongo!!!daLUVdrone," and "Karenina," while Coutler and Mathoul added additional drones, found sound textures, illbient breakbeats, and ethnic instrumentation.
RealAudio clip: "Schlongo!!!daLuvdrone Revisted 1"
RealAudio clip: "Schlongo!!!daLuvdrone Revisted 2"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE A Sweet Quasimodo Between Black Vampire Butterflies (Cold Blue ) cd 14.98
Fifty minute single track of classic organ cycle repetitions for fans of Terry Riley, Jon Gibson, Steve Reich.
MPEG Stream: "A Sweet Quasimodo Part One"
MPEG Stream: "A Sweet Quasimodo Part 2"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Continuous Sound Forms (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
Volume 2 in Alga Marghen's "The Golden Research" series of Charlemagne recordings from the late '60s to mid '70s. The self-explanatory "Continuous Sound Forms" features two works from Palestine's archives. "Duo Strumming for Two Harpsichords" (1978) is broken into three excerpted duets between Palestine and Elisabeth Freeman who hammer out a continuous tight arpeggiation on two harpsichords. At predetermined times, the duo altered their tight rhythmic patterns to play indeterminant notes, giving a very playful feel to the piece. The title of "Piano Drone" (1972) is a little misleading as the entire piece doesn't exactly coalesce into an extended drone, rather this is a painterly composition of whimsical piano patterns that are washed out with acoustic effects using the piano's sustain pedal.

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE From Etudes To Cataclysms For The Doppio Borgato (Sub Rosa) 2cd 18.98

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Holy 1 & Holy 2 (Alga Marghen) 2lp 37.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"The Golden Research" series of previously unpublished works from the Charlemagne Palestine vaults so far comprises two cd volumes and this expensive vinyl item, which features an expanded version of what you get on half of the first cd volume (reviewed elsewhere). The 'late night electronic sonorities' of 1967's "Holy" are here presented in four subtle variations (instead of the two found on the cd version, where the piece is pared with "Alloy"). This piece was based upon creating a drone that harmonized with the din of New York's late night ambience. Using a battery of oscillators that were altered to emit varying degrees of white noise, Palestine generated an effective electric drone device which fluctuates ever so slowly across the two 20 minute variations. Palestine himself described his sound generators as "immense sacred machines humming like gargantuan Tibertan bees." Palestine presents two version of "Holy 1," one version of "Holy 2," and a sound-collage between was commissioned by Gus Solomons for a dance piece at New York University.

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Holy 1 & Holy 2 / Alloy (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
"The Golden Research" series of previously unpublished works from the Charlemagne Palestine vaults begins with this volume that documents two distinct bodies of Palestine's work. The first being the 'late night electronic sonorities' of 1967's "Holy" which are presented in two subtle variations. This piece was based upon the creating a drone that harmonized with the din of New York's late night ambience. Using a battery of oscillators that were altered to emit varying degrees of white noise, Palestine generated an effective electric drone device which fluctuates ever so slowly across the two 20 minute variations. Palestine himself described his sound generators as "immense sacred machines humming like gargantuan Tibertan bees." The second half of the cd features "Alloy", which is one of those pieces that qualified Palestine as one of great minimalists from the 1960s. Working with Tony Conrad, Bob Feldman, and Deborah Glaser, Palestine accompanies the electric drones from "Holy" with extended glossalalic vocals, the clatter of various chimes, and Conrad bowing one very long amplified string. An excellent historical document.

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE In-Mid-Air (Alga Marghen) cd 16.98
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This is one of three separate shards of electronic music history (Ashley, Neuhaus, and Palestine) recently unearthed by Italian audio archaeologists Alga Marghen.
The disc of early Charlemagne Palestine electronic works ("late night recordings" at the NYU Intermedia center on the Buchla 100 and 200 analog synths, done between 1965 and 1970) is probably the most "listenable" of these three reissues. It's also volume 3 in Alga Marghen's "The Golden Research" Palestine archive series. Listenable, yet certainly scarily dark and droney and hissy, conjuring fear and sudden violence, far from the pretty, hypnotic bliss of some of the man's later work. Inspired by everyday refrigerator hum and race car motors, but way more "late night", this material must predate his obsession with cute stuffed animals!
MPEG Stream: "Tymbral For Pran Nath"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Jamaica Heinekens in Brooklyn (Barooni) cd 15.98
"Begun in the spring of 1997, this work came out of the idea of traveling with an electronic drone on a ghetto blaster and re-recording it in different situations in many countries. After several months of unsuccessful experiments, I decided to record different situations or soundscapes first and then to superimpose a drone later. I made recordings in 20 different environments including Los Angeles, Paris, Nice, Berlin, New York City, Rotterdam, and Lisbon, but far and away the most impressive, expansive, and sonically interesting was the recording I made on the 5th of September 1997 on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn during the Jamaica Day Parade; the yearly tradition where more than 2 million Island people who live and around the New York City area meet to dance, sing, eat, and drink for an entire afternoon... With a small DAT player and a small stereo microphone, I walked throughout the festival very slowly for several hours to let the ambient sounds of each block naturally change in real time. The 60 minute segment on this record is played without any editing, but superimposed upon this extract I have composed three series of drone textures... All together this work creates a dialogue between pure and mixed electronics of my long continuum tradition and the real-time ambient sounds of a traditional urban ethnographic popular festival. The results have no extra-musical philosophies behind them." -- Charlemagne Palestine

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Music For Big Ears (Staalplaat) cd 16.98
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When just a precocious lad of 15, Charlemagne Palestine began playing the bells in the church tower next to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He claims that he played those bells everyday for the next six years, and this physical involvement with the sound of huge church bells paralleled his initial involvement with electronic music in the '60s. Jump forward four decades to find Palestine getting a Staalplaat commission to return to the sonorities of church bells by playing the Daimler-Benz carillon in Berlin. Palestine and Jeffery Bossinb -- the official carilloner for these bells -- tap out an unchanging rhythmic pulse using their four fists and four legs to create a mesmerizing piece of sustained minimalism that certainly fits comfortably alongside the extended work of likeminded composers such as LaMonte Young, Tony Conrad, and John Cale.
What I want to know is who in their right mind would let some 15 year old kid into a church tower to hammer on some incredibly expensive bells everyday for six years!?!?
RealAudio clip: "Music For Big Ears 2"
RealAudio clip: "Music For Big Ears 4"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Schlingen-Blangen (New World) cd 15.98
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NYC drone-pioneer Palestine takes us on a 71-minute trip of shimmering bliss, utilizing not his usual Bosendorfer piano but rather a baroque organ. First realized in 1979, recorded in 1988, and finally now released. "Schlingen-Blangen" is a sustained organ drone in which Palestine manipulates the timbre subtly throughout the piece. Very reminscent of the works of Palestine's contemporary La Monte Young. To be filed under "disembodied organ sonority"!

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Schlongo!daLUVdrone (Cortical Foundation) cd 16.98
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"Schlongo!daLUVdrone" was a Valentine's Day performance that Palestine gave as a part of the Beyond The Pink performance festival held in LA in 1998. His contribution was a pipe organ solo concert at the Hollywood Methodist Church. While Palestine's liner notes do well to explain the process, his grammar sucks: "I began my investigation pipe by pipe creating sonorities putting small folded paper nuggets between the keys a continuous sound object starting with a fundamental then a perfect fifth then the octave above and gradually building enormous sonorities over several hours with tens then hundreds then thousands of overtones interacting with the beats creating a rhythmic fabric of overwhelming complexity." Of course our grammar often leaves something to be desired too... but what are you gonna do?

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Sharing A Sonority with Terry Jennings, Bob Feldman, Rhys Chatham, Tony Conrad (Algamarghen) cd 21.00

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Strumming Music (Sub Rosa) 3cd 22.00
And, the title should also say, lots and lots of stuffed animals! 'Cause these three discs of "strumming music" are by eccentric, minimalist composer Charlemagne Palestine, known for his love of stuffed animals, large numbers of which often adorn his grand piano in performance, as you can see in some of the photos that illustrate this release. He's even better known, though, precisely for this incredible "strumming music" of his. Lengthy, continuous, repetitious, dense note clouds, resonant with overtones, totally trance-inducing, apparently inspired by the sounds of carillon church bells. Disc one of this set, recorded in 1974, is the only one previously issued, simply as "Strumming Music". A typically hypnotic, very physical solo performance by Palestine, it's one 52 minute, 14 second track of utter Bosendorfer bliss (Bosendorfer being Palestine's preferred make of grand piano). Palestine varies the intensity over the course of the piece, subtly shifting in volume and speed throughout, rising and falling and rolling on and on; fans of such artists Steve Reich, Tony Conrad, Terry Riley, Lubomyr Melnyk and The Necks all ought to check this out, especially if you haven't already become aurally acquainted with Palestine's work. The other two discs here consist of previously unissued material, one being a 1977 recording of Palestine's Strumming Music for harpsichord, performed by Betsy Freeman (which replaces the warmer tones of the Bosendorfer with the tinnier, more brittle ones of that baroque instrument); the other being a special string arrangement of Strumming Music, also from '77, organized by John Adams at the San Francisco Conservatory, performed by a group of twelve student musicians, uncredited here.
It was rare for Palestine to allow others to perform his Strumming. He (with a little help from his stuffed animal friends) was The One to really do it, most ecstatically, at least judging from the length of the disc he plays on, which is quite a bit longer than the other two, which clock in at 35'24" and 24'26" respectively, but both of those are quite compelling as well. We like the "ringing" nature of the harpsichord one, it begins to sound almost electronic. Meanwhile, the string ensemble version features relaxing, shimmering drones, and also builds up to truly dramatic heights.
Packaged in a triple-digi, with a booklet of liner notes by Palestine's colleague Ingram Marshall.
MPEG Stream: "Strumming For Bosendorfer Piano"
MPEG Stream: "Strumming For Harpsichord"

PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE / TONY CONRAD An Aural Symbiotic Mystery (Subrosa) cd 14.98
We think the mystery suggested in the title is why this is the first ever recorded collaboration between these two giants of improvised left-field minimalist drone. Both Tony Conrad and Charlemagne Palestine, key figures in early American minimalism and the New York avant-garde of the early seventies had only performed three times together previously and since reuniting in Belgium in 2001, hadn't even seen each other in three decades. What's equally amazing is that neither one fully dominates this extended performance. Palestine's multiple crystalline organ drones graft neatly with Conrad's bowed pulsations from his modified 5 string violin, eventually intensifying with blistering shimmers and burning organic keyboard crescendos before falling into subdued space and void. There the two sweep the dust off and begin to spar with each other all over again, getting into some heated free-music territory culminating in Palestine's delayed vocal drones and Conrad's blissful undulating vibrations. Gorgeous!
MPEG Stream: "An Aural Symbiotic Mystery 1"
MPEG Stream: "An Aural Symbiotic Mystery 2"

PALLBEARER Sorrow And Extinction (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
With a name like Pallbearer, and a record cover that looks like an illustration from some obscure Dungeons and Dragons monster manual, you might be expecting some grim, oozing blackened slo-mo tarpit creep, or heck maybe even some full on over the top swords and sorcery power metal epic-ry, but what you might not expect, is precisely what this Arkansas doom crew conjures up, a surprisingly melodic, and downright dreamy chunk of true epic, super melodic, classic sounding doom, complete with acoustic guitars and soaring clean vocals, all wound around a sound that's more warm and fuzzy and washed out oftentimes than downtuned and sludgey. Reminding us a bit of aQ faves Megaton Leviathan, the same sort of shoegazey sound and dreamily psychedelic vibe, but Pallbearer sound much more beholden to classic metal, with some of these songs sounding like some lost eighties metal jam, slowed down and blissed out, often slipping into almost slowcore dirgery, that sort of haunting druggy mesmer, still epic and melodic, but more bleary and gauze-y, with the guitars not crunchy and buzzy, so much as thick and dense and lushly layered, the songs slow building and hauntingly brooding. Not that Pallbearer, aren't heavy, they most definitely are, like on "Devoid Of Redemption", a re-recorded track from their demo, the sound is massive, the guitars thick and churning, the drums a muted massive pound, but even then, those clean vocals change the whole vibe, and within the music itself, the melodies almost sound like horns, mournful and funereal, and the sound, even at its heaviest, seems to ooze into something much more dreary and dreamy and druggy. The recording and production too, perfectly suits the sound, vintage and classic, the sound Sabbathy, and Candlemass-y and St. Vitus-y, heavy but spacious, plenty of reverb, and deftly applied effects, but smeared and subtly stretched into something even more crushingly heavy, spaced out and psychedelic, and weirdly hauntingly lovely, a sound that's both murky and mesmerizing, magical and mysterious, which is making this a new favorite with the metalheads around here and a definite contender for doom record of the year...
MPEG Stream: "Foreigner"
MPEG Stream: "Devoid Of Redemption"

PALMER, CLIVE Banjoland (Sunbeam Records) cd 16.98

PAMELA Z A Delay Is Better (Starkland) cd 15.98

PAN AMERICAN 360 Business/360 Bypass (Kranky) cd 14.98
2nd album from Mark Nelson's other project (he's also in Labradford) has all of the exceptionally slo-mo electronics, blurry guitar, and dubby processing found on the first Pan American album, but with guest appearances from Alan & Mimi of Low on vocals (which is good) and Rob Mazurek of Isotope 217 on coronet (which is jazz). Its sad to witness such digressions of good post-rock into questionable jazz-fusion wankiness.

PAN AMERICAN For Waiting For Chasing (Kranky) cd 13.98
Pan American is the solo project of Mark Nelson, who we first discovered via the late great Labradford, a group whose gorgeous brooding minimal post rock most definitely informed much of what's gone on since. Nelson began Pan American to explore his blossoming interest in computer music, electronica, dub and techno, stretching the sounds he created in Labradford and crafting dark landscapes of mysterious electronic sound, dreamlike stretches of minimal droning drift, and skittering softly stuttering and swirling textured ambience.
For Waiting For Chasing was originally released in a super limited edition back in 2006, and is easily PA's most minimal outing, skeletal and spare, haunting and otherworldly, the songs here drift, and slowly unfold, the rhythms are less rhythmic, and more textural, the opener here, "Love Song" is the perfect example, chittering clicks are draped over lush layers of whirling chordal thrum, chiming bells unfurl muted melodies, the sounds softly smeared into bleary streaks, bits of field recordings, static, glitch, all woven into PA's gorgeous soft swells of sound. Absolutely lovely dreamlike ambience, but flecked with distinctly un-ambient elements, which is what makes the sounds here so compelling.
Later PA records definitely moved in directions that some of us found way less appealing, but it's pretty impossible not to love this one.
Fields of crackle and mournful creak, looped melodies buried under layers of hiss and hum, woozy and warbly and dreamily indistinct, crumbling textures, smoldering layers, hazy fields of glimmer and muted loops, Oval like underwater swirl, dubbed out barely there beats stretch into heartbeat like pulses, bell like tones, glitch bursts of staticky melody, it's all just so fantastically hushed and lovely, culminating in the final track, "Amulls" which is as much about the melody, way down in the mix, off in the distance, a softly reverbed lullaby, tinkling piano, drifting minor key melody, all beneath a patina of crackle, a crackle which almost begins to sound rhythmic, like the some nearly invisible crystalline framework, around the delicate melancholy within. So so nice.
MPEG Stream: "Love Song"
MPEG Stream: "Are You Ready"
MPEG Stream: "Amulls"

PAN AMERICAN For Waiting For Chasing (Kranky) lp 14.98
Pan American is the solo project of Mark Nelson, who we first discovered via the late great Labradford, a group whose gorgeous brooding minimal post rock most definitely informed much of what's gone on since. Nelson began Pan American to explore his blossoming interest in computer music, electronica, dub and techno, stretching the sounds he created in Labradford and crafting dark landscapes of mysterious electronic sound, dreamlike stretches of minimal droning drift, and skittering softly stuttering and swirling textured ambience.
For Waiting For Chasing was originally released in a super limited edition back in 2006, and is easily PA's most minimal outing, skeletal and spare, haunting and otherworldly, the songs here drift, and slowly unfold, the rhythms are less rhythmic, and more textural, the opener here, "Love Song" is the perfect example, chittering clicks are draped over lush layers of whirling chordal thrum, chiming bells unfurl muted melodies, the sounds softly smeared into bleary streaks, bits of field recordings, static, glitch, all woven into PA's gorgeous soft swells of sound. Absolutely lovely dreamlike ambience, but flecked with distinctly un-ambient elements, which is what makes the sounds here so compelling.
Later PA records definitely moved in directions that some of us found way less appealing, but it's pretty impossible not to love this one.
Fields of crackle and mournful creak, looped melodies buried under layers of hiss and hum, woozy and warbly and dreamily indistinct, crumbling textures, smoldering layers, hazy fields of glimmer and muted loops, Oval like underwater swirl, dubbed out barely there beats stretch into heartbeat like pulses, bell like tones, glitch bursts of staticky melody, it's all just so fantastically hushed and lovely, culminating in the final track, "Amulls" which is as much about the melody, way down in the mix, off in the distance, a softly reverbed lullaby, tinkling piano, drifting minor key melody, all beneath a patina of crackle, a crackle which almost begins to sound rhythmic, like the some nearly invisible crystalline framework, around the delicate melancholy within. So so nice.
MPEG Stream: "Love Song"
MPEG Stream: "Are You Ready"
MPEG Stream: "Amulls"