REICHEL, HANS Dawn Of The Dachsman (FMP) cd 18.98

REICHEL, HANS Death of the Rare Bird Ymir / Bonobo Beach (FMP) cd 18.98

REICHEL, HANS Lower Lurum: A Guitar & Daxophone Operetta (Rastascan) cd 15.98

REICHEL, HANS Shanghaied On Tor Road: The Worlds 1st Operetta Performed On Nothing But The Daxophone (FMP) cd 18.98

REICHEL, HANS & W€DI GYSI Show-down In ZŸrich & Tokyo (Intakt) cd 17.98

REICHEL, HANS / FRED FRITH / KAZUHISA UCHIHASHI Stop Complaining / Sundown (FMP) cd 18.98

REID, JAMES Like A Buzzard Chased By Crows (Barl Fire) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While people are wandering around with freak folk stars in their eyes, soaking up the hippie good vibes of Joanna Newsom, Brightblack Morning Light, Vetiver, Devendra, and other fringed folkies, they run the risk of overlooking some lesser knowns, that are making music equally as compelling and beautiful, if not more so. Enter one James Reid, whose first (as far as we know) record has found its home on the always reliable Barl Fire label, who in the past have focused more on drone music and sort of avant free rock, but for their first foray into folk this is most definitely a winner.
Reid will undoubtedly get compared to Nick Drake, which is obviously not a bad thing, and in Reid's case is pretty spot on. His dark melancholic steel string guitar and warm honey vocals deftly woven into lush tapestries of dreamy moonlit folk.
But there are bits of modern (and not so modern) production fuckery that make Like A Buzzard Chased By Crows more than just a straight up folk record. Reid employs a strange technique where he seemingly records vocals or flute and then plays them back live into the microphone during the recording. So on one track, the background is a lush garden of swirling steel string guitar, while the vocals are played back on a crappy old tape player, the vocals stopping and starting with the kachunk of the play/stop button. Another track has a flute that sounds all weird and warbly as it is played back at various tempos, so at the beginning and end of each phrase you can hear the tape speed up or slow down. Really weird but it somehow sounds perfect. Those moments though are utilized with restraint, surfacing here and there, but overall, this is just a really beautiful, dark and lovely, moody and slightly ominous folk record that all you Devendra / Newsom / New Weird America obsessives should not miss out on....
MPEG Stream: "Our Poor Lone Kestrel"
MPEG Stream: "Time Of Autumn (Hedgerow Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Kingfisher Blue"

REID, STEVE Nova (Universal Sound) cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Soul Jazz has started to release the original albums from whence the tracks came for their excellent cosmic jazz/funk comp "Universal Sounds of America" from a few years back. The Art Ensemble's magnificent "Les Stances A Sophie" was the first, now here's this disc by drummer Steve Reid and band, first released in 1976. "Lions of Judah" (the track used on that comp) is perhaps the most intensely funked up cut on here, but isn't the only highlight by any means. Reid, with his bandmates in the "The Legendary Master Brotherhood" (trumpeter Ahmend Abdullah, saxophonist Joe Rigby, pianist/electric organist Les Walker, and bassist Luis Falcon) also stir up some badass kosmigroove sounds on "Nova"'s other four cuts, in the Pharoah Sanders/Alice Coltrane vein. Can't wait for Soul Jazz to come up with more of this stuff!
RealAudio clip: "Lions of Judah"
RealAudio clip: "Sixth House"

REID, STEVE Nova (Universal Sound) lp 24.00
Finally available again... and on vinyl!!
We originally got a small taste of this 1976 record from drummer Steve Reid and his band via Soul Jazz's awesome, but sadly long out of print cosmic jazz/funk comp Universal Sounds of America and knew we needed more. There was a cd available briefly, but it seems to be out of print now as well. Thankfully, Nova is available again, on vinyl.
"Lions of Judah" (the track from the aforementioned comp) is perhaps the most intensely funked up cut on here, but isn't the only highlight by any means. Reid, with his bandmates in the "The Legendary Master Brotherhood" (trumpeter Ahmend Abdullah, saxophonist Joe Rigby, pianist/electric organist Les Walker, and bassist Luis Falcon) also stir up some badass kosmigroove sounds on Nova's other four cuts, in the Pharoah Sanders/Alice Coltrane vein. So good!

REID, STEVE Odyssey Of The Oblong Square (Universal Sound) cd 17.98
Steve Reid is a free jazz legend, his resume, musical and otherwise, is mindblowing, he played in Sun Ra's Arkestra, was a Motown session drummer, was in James Brown's band and played at the Apollo, he lived in Africa, was jailed for opposing the Vietnam War, was a Black Panther, lived in a loft with Meryl Streep and her brother, put on shows and performances there, and played with Fela Kuti, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Lester Bowie, about a million others, including more recently Four Tet's Kieran Hebden, which resulted in three amazing albums, all big time aQ faves.
Odyssey Of The Oblong Square is one of Reid's first records, released originally over 30 years ago, was extremely limited even at the time, and is some serious left field, out-funk free jazz genius. Reid was featured recently in Soul Jazz's Freedom Rhythm & Sound: Revolutionary Jazz & The Civil Rights Movement 1963-82 collection, and this record was definitely a musical cornerstone of the rapidly developing free jazz underground in the seventies. Listening to this now, it still sounds as powerful and radical and emotional as it must have nearly 4 decades ago. Wild horns, dense skittery rhythms, sprawling clouds of constantly shifting tempos and timbres, super melodic, but also wild and chaotic, and most importantly FUNKY. The bass is the standout, which is saying something when all the players are so incredible, but it's like a living thing, throbbing and undulating, flurries of rapid fire notes, long languorous tones, even one long stretch where the bass just seems to buzz and hum, transforming the sound into something much more dark and intense, a solid anchor to allow the drums and horns to explore and expand. The two longest tracks here are epic, the band so tight, but simultaneously so loose and expressive, the final track "Ginsamseng" at one point finds the horns playing super loooong tones, layered and shifting, almost sounding like free jazz composed by Phill Niblock. Wow. So intense, and definitely spiritual and utterly transcendent, more than music, this is musical expression, the soul made sound, and that sound lives on, and continues to inspire. Way recommended.
The reissue features the original super striking yellow and black Masonic album artwork, as well as new liner notes, detailing Reid's life and musical exploits. Another fantastic reissue from Universal Sound / Soul Jazz.
MPEG Stream: "Deacon's Son"
MPEG Stream: "Odyssey Sweet"

REID, STEVE Odyssey Of The Oblong Square (Universal Sound) lp 24.00
Steve Reid is a free jazz legend, his resume, musical and otherwise, is mindblowing, he played in Sun Ra's Arkestra, was a Motown session drummer, was in James Brown's band and played at the Apollo, he lived in Africa, was jailed for opposing the Vietnam War, was a Black Panther, lived in a loft with Meryl Streep and her brother, put on shows and performances there, and played with Fela Kuti, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Lester Bowie, about a million others, including more recently Four Tet's Kieran Hebden, which resulted in three amazing albums, all big time aQ faves.
Odyssey Of The Oblong Square is one of Reid's first records, released originally over 30 years ago, was extremely limited even at the time, and is some serious left field, out-funk free jazz genius. Reid was featured recently in Soul Jazz's Freedom Rhythm & Sound: Revolutionary Jazz & The Civil Rights Movement 1963-82 collection, and this record was definitely a musical cornerstone of the rapidly developing free jazz underground in the seventies. Listening to this now, it still sounds as powerful and radical and emotional as it must have nearly 4 decades ago. Wild horns, dense skittery rhythms, sprawling clouds of constantly shifting tempos and timbres, super melodic, but also wild and chaotic, and most importantly FUNKY. The bass is the standout, which is saying something when all the players are so incredible, but it's like a living thing, throbbing and undulating, flurries of rapid fire notes, long languorous tones, even one long stretch where the bass just seems to buzz and hum, transforming the sound into something much more dark and intense, a solid anchor to allow the drums and horns to explore and expand. The two longest tracks here are epic, the band so tight, but simultaneously so loose and expressive, the final track "Ginsamseng" at one point finds the horns playing super loooong tones, layered and shifting, almost sounding like free jazz composed by Phill Niblock. Wow. So intense, and definitely spiritual and utterly transcendent, more than music, this is musical expression, the soul made sound, and that sound lives on, and continues to inspire. Way recommended.
The reissue features the original super striking yellow and black Masonic album artwork, as well as new liner notes, detailing Reid's life and musical exploits. Another fantastic reissue from Universal Sound / Soul Jazz.
MPEG Stream: "Deacon's Son"
MPEG Stream: "Odyssey Sweet"

REID, STEVE Rhythmatism (Universal Sound) cd 21.00
A while back we were quite pleased by Soul Jazz / Universal Sound's reissue of jazz drummer Steve Reid's kosmigroove classic Nova. Now comes another reish of more of Reid's "deep spiritual jazz" in the guise of Rhythmatism, an LP originally released in 1976 on Reid's own Mustevic label. Here Reid (who has played with such legends as Sun Ra, Miles Davis, and James Brown among many others) leads a five-piece band that includes Les Walker on piano and Arthur Blythe on saxophone, with saxophonist Charles Tyler also guesting one one cut. Pianist Walker actually wrote almost all the tunes on here, but it's Reid's energy -- his Rhythmatism -- that propels this tight, groovy, not-too-in, not-too-out set.
MPEG Stream: "Rocks"
MPEG Stream: "Center Of The Earth"

REID, STEVE Spirit Walk (Soul Jazz) cd 21.00
In recent years there's been a plethora of attempts at merging free jazz with an updated often electronic sound. The results of this merging have often been quite lackluster and disappointing. There has always been something that seems so forced in those unions. So when we heard that legendary and way too underrated jazz percussionist Steve Reid had enlisted the electronic hands of Kieran Hebden of Fridge and Four Tet fame we were both interested yet cautious not to get our hopes to high because of how past collaborations like this have turned out. Luckily our fear was immediately squashed as we put this on. The sounds of vintage prime-time-soul-infused-forward-thinking-jazz a la Art Ensemble of Chicago were coming out our speakers and it was a sound that we know we could rejoice in. The electronics are very subtle and add a nice texture in the moments they appear. This is not some sloppy throw in some samples and clicks and cuts under sax kind of affair. Reid oozes with confidence and a presence that marches with groove and flare. This is for sure one of the best new jazz albums to grace AQ in quite a while. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Lugano"
MPEG Stream: "Unity"

REID, STEVE ENSEMBLE Daxaar (Domino) cd 15.98
Steve Reid's resume speaks for itself. Over the last four decades his drumming has pretty much done it all! Mentored by with John Coltrane, playing in ensembles with Sun Ra and Fela Kuti, laying down the beats for Motown hits from Martha Reeves & The Vandellas to his own avant outings and recent collaborations with Kieren Hebden of Four Tet fame. Daxaar was recorded in Senegal with a large ensemble including Hebden on electronics, Khadim Badji on percussion and Jimi Mbaye on guitar. This was by no means Reid's first time in Africa, as he made the pilgrimage there very early in his musical career inspired by the visits to Africa that had such a strong impact on many of his musical heroes like Don Cherry and Art Blakey. Daxaar opens with a welcoming track played by Isa Kouyate on korah and vocals and the rest of the record finds Reid leading his ensemble through some really nice cosmic afro-jazz. There are a few moments that sound a little more fusiony then we usually expect from Reid, whose taste is for the most part always spot on. Not quite as out as some of his recent offerings but just as skilled, flawlessly executed and another bit of proof as to why he's one of the greatest jazz musicians still going strong!
MPEG Stream: "Big G's Family"
MPEG Stream: "Jiggy Jiggy"

REID, TERRY River (Water) cd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Dean"
MPEG Stream: "Avenue"

REID, TERRY Silver White Light: Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970 (Water) cd 15.98

REID, TERRY Superlungs (Astralwerks) cd 16.98
Made infamous as the man responsible for Robert Plant's voice blasting on classic rock radio for years to never end, 'cause Reid turned down Jimmy Page's request in 1968 to be the singer for his new band The New Yardbirds which of course became Led Zeppelin (and Reid actually was the one to suggest in his place Plant and also John Bonham for Page's new outfit). A pretty good guitar player in his own right, he didn't want to be just the singer for a band so he stayed on his own. This collections compiles tracks from his first two albums (including covers of Dylan and Donovan) as well as some bonus material. The first two tracks are absolute killers, on par with his older more country tinged haunting sound (as heard also on the Devil's Rejects soundtrack!), while the rest of this collection leans more toward solid blues tinged rock, from a man who could have been...
MPEG Stream: "Superlungs My Supergirl"
MPEG Stream: "Loving Time"

REIGLE, ROBERT Marriage of Heaven and Earth (Acoustic Levitation) cd 15.98
Collection of recordings from the career of tenor sax-player, Robert Reigle, includes his "Marriage of Heaven and Earth" which, coincidently, contains the same tone cluster as the last movement of Scelsi's "Pfhat." Here, the two are paired in a continuous piece. "The Marriage of Heaven and Earth" reappears at the end of the disc where Reigle has edited the improv out of the cluster and placed them into the left and right channels so that the listener can adjust the relative volume of the constituent parts of the cluster. Reigle's ensemble's version of Albert Ayler's "Bells" features AQ fave Eyvind Kang on violin and electronics.

REIGN GHOST s/t (Akarma) cd 15.98

REIGNING SOUND Love And Curses (In The Red) cd 13.98

REIGNING SOUND Love And Curses (In The Red) lp 10.98

REIGNING SOUND Time Bomb High School (In The Red) cd 13.98
This is a project of Greg Cartwright of the Oblivians, whom I (Sadie) am a big fan of. His past recordings are sooo good, my favorite being Bad Man, which one of my other favorite bands, the Detroit Cobras, have covered brilliantly (both those releases are available on Sympathy for the Record Industry). Although I found this new project not to be quite charming or bittersweet as Greg's previous endeavors (his progress technically and the hi fi recording kinda bummed me out -- no more toy pianos and fucked up acoustic guitar, boo hoo), this is still a great and rockin' record, just different from what I liked about this other stuff, which was its sweet awkwardness and sad lyrics. What he's up to here sounds more like self confident laid back '70s-esque rock, a la The Rolling Stones or The Boss which ain't such a bad thing, to some. Indeed, some of Reigning Sound's songs (especially the title track) have the organ and vocal quality of old Bruce Springsteen records, big time.
RealAudio clip: "You're Not As Pretty"
RealAudio clip: "Time Bomb High School"

REIGNING SOUND Too Much Guitar (In The Red) cd 13.98
Too Much Guitar is the name of the new Reigning Sound album, and in case you're wonderin' what kind of guitar there's too much of... well, let's just say "murky '60s style garage rawk". Don't get us wrong, we're not against lo-fi, retro-style recordings (which is what it seems they were shooting for), but this on the other hand just sounds uneven and poorly recorded. Totally neutering the raw energy of many songs. The tinny guitars are joined by a cloudy wash of cymbals which pretty much clutters up the rest of the sound spectrum. We figure The Reigning Sound just might make you wanna stomp and shout along with the singer Greg Cartwright (who possesses the perfect hoarse howl for this music)... if you could make out the words let alone his voice amid the muddy din. 14 songs in all... some fare better than others.
MPEG Stream: "We Repel Each Other"
MPEG Stream: "When You Touch Me"

REIGNS House On The Causeway (Monotreme) cd 15.98
A few years ago, they surveyed a drowned, underwater village in a dammed up valley, and on the album before that, they lowered a microphone deep into a hole in the ground, making some unusual discoveries... well, not REALLY, but in their musical imaginations. Now, enter with Reigns into the 'house on the causeway'. That's right, it's the return of our favorite moody, mysteriously conceptual site-based post rockish indie gloom pop electronica act from England! Again they're exploring/evoking an imaginary locale, and what creepy things may or may not have happened there, through their mostly dreamy, little bit nightmarish music... They've got something in common with a lot of the artists on Miasmah and Type labels, though less soundscapey, more actually song oriented. They also are reminding us a lot of Tarwater this time around. Maybe that's accentuated by the inclusion of more in the way of vocals (usually quite processed, however) on some of the tracks here, while in the past they'd been primarily instrumental, with textual information (or disinformation) presented in the cd or 7" booklet...
The House On The Causeway seems to feature two (related) modes of song - the purely instrumental, slowly unfolding ones; and the slightly more uptempo ones with singing/rhyming and skittering drum beats... It's all quite lovely as always with Reigns, their looping piano notes and ambient electronics a blissful reverie, but also as always an eerily lurking menace persists, both sonically (minor key ominousness that emotionally suggests horrors but shocks only sparingly, as with the distorted noisy outburst at the end of "Crex, Crex, Crex") and intellectually via the accumulation of sinister signifiers in the cryptic lyrics, songtitles ("Everything Beyond These Walls Has Been Razed", "Mirrors At Night", "Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen") and artwork that the listener can't quite square with the seemingly sweet music, music that seems to conceal whispers and weepings.
MPEG Stream: "Bad Slate"
MPEG Stream: "Vaulted"
MPEG Stream: "The Black Cramp"

REIGNS Styne Vallis (Jonson Family Records) cd 14.98
Ah, Reigns. This UK band is one of our favorites when it comes to gentle, electronica-flecked post-rock loveliness. You could compare 'em to lots of stuff, from Godspeed You Black Emperor! to Sigur Ros to Eluvium to to Stafraenn Hakon... but what makes Reigns rule is that they create an additional layer of conceptual strangeness, each recording, despite being mostly instrumental, supposedly documenting an "investigation" into a specific, mysterious, otherworldly locale. On their first album, entitled We Lowered A Microphone Into The Ground, reviewed here last year, was "about" exactly what the title suggests. Plumbing the depths of the earth with a microphone, Reigns "operatives A & B" experienced disturbing psychosomatic (?) phenomena... it was all very surreal and vague and created an intriguing aesthetic dissonance between the very pretty music and the accompanying text.
This new full-length is along the same lines, another dreamy experience, quietly melodic and placid, this time a soundtrack of sorts to the exploration of a lost village, Styne Vallis, in a Wessex valley damned up and flooded long ago to make a reservoir. It's -not- in any sense a field recording -- the drowned pastoral landscape this documents is conjured conceptually by the music alone. It's more about evoking emotions of these places than images. Again what makes this have extra resonance is that as gorgeous as this music is, there are little hints of something else, something sinister afoot... something weird, maybe wrong, is going on, in the background. This music is suggestive of secrets. Curious and curiouser it and its listeners both will be...
Warm and detailed and sooo good. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "The Lost Black Mass Footage"
MPEG Stream: "The Three Pockets"

REIGNS The Blank Tape / Frozen Acid (Jonson Family Records) 7" 3.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Another back room discovery! Back in stock for as long as they last...
Er, when it Reigns it pours... as you should remember, last list we reviewed the new full-length cd from one of our favorite UK post rock acts, Reigns. We're waiting for a restock of those now, but in the meantime we've got *another* new Reigns release, a limited edition 2-song 7" single. Two new tracks of their lovely, so lovely and evocative instrumental music. Shimmering and mesmeric. That would be reason enough to pick this up, but, there's more: this comes packaged with a twelve-page booklet full of text in a tiny tiny font, detailing more of the adventures of Reigns Operative B, a diary of a field recording investigation into the English countryside. Of course things get a bit fantastical and weird, and in the end it's a bit like something by Thomas Ligotti. This is totally what we think makes Reigns extra-special, that added dash of imagination and mystery, presented in a confusional, supposedly scientific yet tongue-in-cheek manner. Neat!

REIGNS The House On The Causeway (Monotreme) lp 28.00
A few years ago, they surveyed a drowned, underwater village in a dammed up valley, and on the album before that, they lowered a microphone deep into a hole in the ground, making some unusual discoveries... well, not REALLY, but in their musical imaginations. Now, enter with Reigns into the 'house on the causeway'. That's right, it's the return of our favorite moody, mysteriously conceptual site-based post rockish indie gloom pop electronica act from England! Again they're exploring/evoking an imaginary locale, and what creepy things may or may not have happened there, through their mostly dreamy, little bit nightmarish music... They've got something in common with a lot of the artists on Miasmah and Type labels, though less soundscapey, more actually song oriented. They also are reminding us a lot of Tarwater this time around. Maybe that's accentuated by the inclusion of more in the way of vocals (usually quite processed, however) on some of the tracks here, while in the past they'd been primarily instrumental, with textual information (or disinformation) presented in the cd or 7" booklet...
The House On The Causeway seems to feature two (related) modes of song - the purely instrumental, slowly unfolding ones; and the slightly more uptempo ones with singing/rhyming and skittering drum beats... It's all quite lovely as always with Reigns, their looping piano notes and ambient electronics a blissful reverie, but also as always an eerily lurking menace persists, both sonically (minor key ominousness that emotionally suggests horrors but shocks only sparingly, as with the distorted noisy outburst at the end of "Crex, Crex, Crex") and intellectually via the accumulation of sinister signifiers in the cryptic lyrics, songtitles ("Everything Beyond These Walls Has Been Razed", "Mirrors At Night", "Your Tiny Hand Is Frozen") and artwork that the listener can't quite square with the seemingly sweet music, music that seems to conceal whispers and weepings.
MPEG Stream: "Bad Slate"
MPEG Stream: "Vaulted"
MPEG Stream: "The Black Cramp"

REIGNS The Widow Blades (Monotreme) cd 16.98
Yay! It's a new one from "our favorite moody, mysteriously conceptual site-based post rockish indie gloom pop electronica act from England", as we've elaborately described 'em before. Site-based? Well, what that means is that the concept behind each of their albums is the sonic evocation of a location where something strange once happened, allegedly. These (possibly entirely spurious) sites explored on previous Reigns records include an abandoned house on a causeway, a bottomless hole in the ground, and an entire underwater village in a dammed up valley. In all cases, the Reigns duo of "operatives A & B" have conjured wonderfully dreamy, yet slightly creepy, oft instrumental imaginary soundtracks to these locales. These aren't actual "field recordings" but rather musical analogs to such, emotional field recordings if you will.
On the new Widow Blades, Reigns takes as their subject the (true?) story of a woman who vanished in a blizzard back in 1978. And just judging by the typically curious and unsettling song titles here ("Green Butter", "I Will Burn For This", "Horse Murders", "Four And A Half Minutes Missing"...), clearly there is more to this tragic tale than merely it being an unhappy wintertime mishap. The listener is invited to investigate, Reigns setting the scene with placid piano, gentle drones, minimal electronics, occasional downtempo beats, and some deep voiced vocals providing the solemn narrative, all very whispery and wintry and quite lovely despite the downer subject matter. It's slow and sad quasi ambience, and once again, we'd say Tarwater makes a good comparison. As always with Reigns, very much recommended! In fact, this would be worth it just for the final epic atmospheric track alone, "The Mounds", a dramatic 19-minute tour de force of suspenseful, glitchy beat-repetition and glimmering luminous melody. It certainly makes sense that Reigns have also been employed making actual soundtracks to some BBC television shows, lately. And this could easily fit in with the Miasmah catalog, too, for fans of that label.
MPEG Stream: "Vessels"
MPEG Stream: "I Will Burn For This"
MPEG Stream: "The Mounds"

REIGNS We Lowered A Microphone Into The Ground (Jonson Family Records) cd 14.98
Along with the new cd (reviewed last list) and the new 7" (reviewed this list), we also got restocked on this first Reigns cd... Originally reviewed on AQ list #239 thusly, for those who missed it then:
From the same UK label that brought us that great Hey Colossus album listed recently, here's something also really cool but VERY very different.... where Hey Colossus was brutally heavy and rhythmic, this band, Reigns, is so pleasantly pretty and placid. Utterly gorgeous, really, and mysterious. We're reminded of such artists as Stafraenn Hakon, Eluvium, Sonna, and Sigur Ros. It's that sort of gauzy, mellow, melodic post-rock, with songs constructed from gentle guitar and piano figures, operating in a zone of beautiful ambience, infused with indistinct electronic detritus. Swells of live percussion or electronic beats sometimes appear, too, but the mood remains blissful, if almost somber. But not really somber since there's a strange, very subtle sense of humor afoot, part of the weird conceptual framework that Reigns have invented for this album. Yes, it's a concept album! And a mostly-instrumental one at that, with no real singing to speak of, though you will occasionally hear voices drifting in the mix, including a computer voice (a la Radiohead) on the fourth track, "Translating".
The concept? It's intentionally vague and sort of surreal, but first off we're told that this was supposedly "recorded on location by Reigns operatives A & B". The title We Lowered A Microphone Into The Ground, taken literally, provides an imaginary scheme for the album. Each track is assigned a depth, ranging from 23 meters to 1 mile. Thus, track 2: "Corners & The Straights (102 metres)". Or track 9: "The Fattest Goose Shall Be The Soonest To The Spit (1460 metres)". Inside the handsome digipack you'll find the "Original Site Transcript" giving notes on what was encountered at each depth by the two Reigns operatives. Some examples:
"(102 metres) First subterranean voice. Operative B suffers small breakout of hives on ungloved hand."
"(416 metres) Foul smelling miasma rises from hole. Surrounding grass visibly pales."
"(1001 metres) Sudden rise in static. Recording levels unchanged. Operative B demands that A stop pinching at nape of B's neck. A denies any such activity."
More events and phenomena, both mundane and peculiar, are documented. But this is all in the liner notes -- you'll hear the voices mentioned but otherwise this isn't at all meant to -sound- like any sort of static-y, subterranean field recording...it's just very lovely music. Pretty nifty, as most more ordinary post-rock efforts don't exhibit such imagination! We like.
MPEG Stream: "Buried Chandelier (416 metres)"
MPEG Stream: "Pentecost (1001 metres)"

REIN SANCTION Broc's Cabin (Sub Pop) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Say what you will about Sub Pop, but as a label, they have never been afraid to take chances. They've gotten way to much grief for launching grunge, and while the socical and retail affects of grunge left a bad taste in everyone's mouths, you gotta admit, we all loved and still love Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Tad, Nirvana, Screaming Trees, Green River, all that stuff. Today, it's hard to think of a more diverse label, from bluegrass to new wave to sixties style psych to garage rock to punk to electronic noise. They're pretty tough to pin down, which makes them one of the cooler labels around. Back in the day, they were still pretty weird in their choice of acts, you just had to dig a little deeper. Sure Nirvana and Soundgarden were paying the bills, but lots of us were digging the stranger sounds of the Hardship Post, Pond, Earth, Codeine, Come, the Dwarves and of course Florida's Rein Sanction. While the competition would be pretty stiff (Nirvana's Bleach, Codeine's Frigid Stars, Pond's The Practice Of Joy Before Death, Earth 2) we would definitely have to nominate Rein Sanction's first album, Broc's Cabin (originally released in 1991) as one of the all time best Sub Pop records EVER. In fact we had a massive (and massively enjoyable) debate when Andee suggested that this was in fact THE all time best Sub Pop record. Strong words for sure, but Broc's Cabin is just such a gorgeous and strange record. And it seems to have been unfairly and almost completely overlooked.
It's hard to describe a record that's always been with us, for almost 15 years now, cassette in the car, tracks on mix tapes. It never occurred to us to question the fact that this was just one of THOSE records. Essential and totally totally amazing. This is first and foremost a guitar record. Easily one of the best guitar sounds EVER. Simultaneously sun baked and rain soaked, thick and rich, swirling and slithering, like Hendrix and Crazy Horse and J. Mascis and the Meat Puppets and Husker Du, all dumped into a pot and brought to a boil.
The riffs are lazy and lugubrious, glacier thick and flowing like lava. All druggy and fuzzy, a dense cloud of sound that gets so thick you can amost climb into it or wrap it around you. So rich and evocative. The sound is foresty, swampy, backwoodsy. A rock band that most definitely rocks, but at the same time somehow blends into the trees, and the streams and the sky. Like a way more druggy Dinosaur Jr., complete with drawled Neil Young like vocals, that perfectly intertwine with the serpentine guitar riffs. With the sound of Broc's Cabin in your ears, close your eyes and the pictures in you head become a constantly shifting tableau of skies hung with dark clouds, branches waving in the wind and plains and fields rushing by through the streaked glass of your windshield. Definitely heavy, but not in the metal sense, more of a dense and dark, druggy and dreary moodiness, heavy with the weight of the world, an abstract hopelessness, a lonley emptiness. Sad for sure, minor key and gorgeously miserable. As if Rein Sanction were a band at the end of the world, set up on a rickety porch, playing long into the night, from across miles of parched fields and dank swamps, the sound of their guitars, like thick plumes of smoke, drifting lazily across a blackening sky, while loves are lost, friends fade away, memories become indistinct blurs and the whole world slips into darkness.
MPEG Stream: "Creel"
MPEG Stream: "F-Train"

REIN SANCTION Mariposa (Sub Pop) cd 9.98
A few lists back we raved wildly about a long lost Sub Pop artifact, a record called Broc's Cabin, from a relatively unknown Floridian rock combo called Rein Sanction. A record that got lost in the grunge rock shuffle of the early nineties, being overshadowed by groups like Soundgarden and Mudhoney and of course Nirvana. Broc's Cabin was a gorgeously depressive dirge rock gem, a minor key swirl of fuzzy serpentine riffs and drawled Neil Young like vocals, the whole thing doused in cough syrup and dirty swamp water. One of our all time favorite Sub Pop records EVER. But several different things can happen to a band after they put their heart and soul and sweat and blood into a record, only to find it forgotten and ignored and totally misunderstood. They can hang it up, give up the ghost, move on to other things. They can change dramatically, caving into the desire to be popular, turning their unique idiosyncratic music into something new and shiny, the sound that 'regular' people want to hear. Or they can seethe and scowl and marinate in anger and bitterness, loneliness and sadness, and they can make another record, taking their already dark and depressive sound and plunging even further into the bleak blackened recesses of their musical soul. And that's precisely what Mariposa is. A gorgeously bleak and bitter, minor key missive, a sludgy and weirdly melodic, ultra personal final will and testament. Present still are the strangely slippery riffs, Hendrixian waves of fuzzed out distortion, slithering and churning into dense knots of warm warbly melancholia, pounding tribal drumming, and pulsing subterranean basslines, weaving in and out of the tangled riffscapes. But the vocals are much more of a focal point this time around, imbued with misery and sadness, somewhere between a mournful croon and a lonely moan, not quite melodic, a bit atonal, but with just the right measure of hopelessness that they fit perfectly into Mariposa's swooning saddened soundscapes of grungy jangle and fuzzy thud. The sounds on Mariposa are also a bit more varied, incorporating lots of acoustic guitar, swooping backwards melodies, even some horns. But as a whole, this is one of those rare records, that literally makes you sad, gives you chills, makes you want to turn off all the lights, drink yourself into a stupor and turn the stereo up as loud as it'll go, figuring you might not wake up in the morning anyway. You can feel the darkness coming out of the speakers like a fog, it's almost palpable, almost like the band were playing for their lives, a desperate attempt to keep the devil at bay, a music rife with broken dreams and broken hearts, towns boarded up and long abandoned, souls aimless and adrift. But that sort of darkness and misery is the only thing that is capable of spawning music this beautiful, music that is lovely on the inside, it's not shiny or sparkly, sitting ignored on the side of the road for ages, cracked and covered in dust, but every song is suffused with a warm, barely there glow, barely visible through each song's twisting squirming crown of thorns, every cobwebbed tendril and rusty joint humming with hope, trembling with a hidden lust for life, dreams of what still might be, a light that never burns out, even when the music finally does.
MPEG Stream: "This Town"
MPEG Stream: "Almost Lost"
MPEG Stream: "Nada Brahma"

REINDEER SECTION Son of Evil Reindeer (Bright Star Recordings) cd 16.98
The predominantly Scottish supergroup returns with another album of dreamy mellowness and an expanded roster which now includes members of Teenage Fanclub and Idlewild. The recognizable sounds of the participants' individual bands (Arab Strap, Belle & Sebastian and Mogwai to name a few) are much less obvious this time around - seeming much less like a compilation than a collaborative effort. Last time, we could really proclaim, "That song sounds just like Arab Strap." On Son of Evil Reindeer, The 'Section sounds much more cohesive although still keeping within the wistful, melancholic territory of the bands mentioned above. Comforting blankets of folky pop tunes to wrap yourself in and a few peppier numbers to liven things up a bit. Very recommended for fans of the pretty and bittersweet. Warm hugs and pints for all!
RealAudio clip: "Your Sweet Voice"
RealAudio clip: "You Are My Joy"

REINDEER SECTION, THE Y'all Get Scared Now, Ya Hear! (PIAS) cd 16.98
A super-group that'll surely make Scot-pop fans everywhere alternately weep with joy and pee their pants. Are you ready? The Reindeer Section team is a mighty fifteen members strong featuring members of Arab Strap, Belle And Sebastian, Mogwai, Astrid, Eva, Snow Patrol, V Twin, and Mull Historical Society. Whew! Now that we've gotten that outta the way, what does it sound like? Well, as one would expect, drowsy, folky pleasantries that often eerily resembles the mope beats of the Folk Implosion or Beck. And some tracks are definitely dominated by certain participants (namely Arab Strap and Belle And Sebastian - giving the fans of those bands even more reason to celebrate). Not surprisingly, the original idea for this gathering of Scottish - and a few Irish - luminaries was concocted during a long night of drinking... at a Lou Barlow gig.
RealAudio clip: "Deviance"
RealAudio clip: "Sting"

REINHARDT, DJANGO 1938 (London Debut and Paris Sessions) (Monk) lp 24.00

REINHARDT, DJANGO Djangology (Bluebird / RCA Victor) cd 16.98
This 1949 album saw legendary seven-fingered Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt reuniting for a recording with also-legendary jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli for the first time since World War II broke up their Paris-based combo, the (yep) legendary Quintet of the Hot Club of France. Recorded in Rome with some not-so-notable Italian sidemen four years before Django's death in 1953, it's bebop influenced, although not Django's Les-Paul-inspired interest in electric guitar (he plays an acoustic here, as per his pre war habit). A nice digipak reissue, with lots of informative liner notes, and versions of Django faves from "Heavy Artillery" to "Djangology" to "Swing 42". 23 tracks total. A record collection -- let alone a jazz collection -- without any Django Reinhardt is sadly lacking, and this is a fine demonstration of his immense, shining talent.
RealAudio clip: "Djangology"

REINHARDT, DJANGO From The Ultraphone Shelves (Monk) lp 24.00

REINHARDT, DJANGO Last Years of Peace (1936-1937) (Monk) lp 24.00

REINHARDT, DJANGO Verve Jazz Masters 38 (Verve) cd 12.98

REITER, ASH Paper Diamonds (self-released) cd 9.99
Wonderful warm and cozy indie pop from this San Francisco songstress. Ash Reiter has such a beautiful voice, and nice range in songs from the slow and melty to more upbeat and catchy. We're reminded a bit of folks like Feist, Call & Response, The Bird & The Bee, Komeda, Saint Etienne, Au Revoire Simone and The Postmarks. Clocking it at just about an hour, these fifteen songs are packed with some of the most refreshing and effervescent pop we've heard in a long time.
MPEG Stream: "Francais"
MPEG Stream: "Stumble & Fall"
MPEG Stream: "Albatross"

REITZEL, BRIAN 30 Days Of Night OST (Ipecac) cd 16.98

RELATIVELY CLEAN RIVERS s/t (Radioactive) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

RELIGIOUS KNIVES It's After Dark (Troubleman) cd 13.98

RELIGIOUS KNIVES It's After Dark (Troubleman Unlimited) lp 15.98

RELIGIOUS KNIVES Live at Bigjar (aRCHIVE) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We'd been digging the Religious Knives for a while now, but only just realized that RK featured two guys from aQ faves Double Leopards, which suddenly makes a whole lot of sense.
Don't be expecting the same sort of blown out abstract dronemusic as Double Leopards though, the Religious Knives are a whole 'nother proposition. The sound is more of a retro spacerock groove, druggy and stoned, laid back and psychedelic. Think Spacemen 3, Velvet Underground, Wooden Shjips, that sort of washed out groove, fuzzy and trippy and grooooovy.
This set recorded at Big Jar Books in Philadelphia, finds the band in almost straight rock mode, unfurling a lazy sun baked drugrock jam, all warm glowing guitars, simple shuffling drums, and reverb drenched vocals. Slightly twangy, a bit of a Dead vibe, some Neil Young, not super avant or experimental, more sort of just solid stoned drug rock. There's even a cover of ? And The Mysterions "96 Tears" transformed into something much murkier and muddy, less of a focus on that main keyboard lick, letting the song become more about the buzzing guitars and the propulsive rhythm, the vocals swathed in effects and buried in the mix, buzzy and gloriously laid back. The final track is a 14 minute psych groove, that eventually builds to a super looped cyclical climax, locked into a relentless hypnorock groove like a more mellow Circle or something, definitely makes to get high, sit back and let the music carry you off into the heart of the sun.
Definitely for fans of any of the above mentioned bands. And like all aRCHIVE releases, super limited, ONLY 600 COPIES! And of course exquisitely packaged. A four panel oversized foldover sleeve, the front panel shortened to reveal the disc face, which is etched around the edges with what appear to be shapes or characters. Cool.
MPEG Stream: "The Sun"
MPEG Stream: "96 Tears"

RELIGIOUS KNIVES Lock (Heavy Tapes) 12" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The folks who run the Heavy Tapes label also do time as Religious Knives, and this is their most recent release, a two song 12", each side sprawling and laid back and psychedelic. The A side is all drifting ambience, wheezing chords, warm whirring guitar swirl, tinkling chimes, super spare drumming, all over a muted rumbling like an idling car in the distance. Dazed and druggy and drone-y, a plodding spaced out dirge. We were sort of expecting to be instrumental, but then about half way through the vocals came in, a laconic Velvet Underground sort of drawl, perfectly suited to the cough syrup shuffle of the music beneath it.
The flipside is a bit like an amped up version of the A side. Thick peals of corrosive guitar, howled vocals buried way down in the mix, tons of reverb and delay, repetitive tribal drums, the whole thing a dense and thick, sprawling psychedelia.

RELIGIOUS KNIVES Smokescreen (Sacred Bones) cd 14.98
For some reason we didn't realize that Religious Knives was in fact members of late great noise/drone combo Double Leopards, but it does make sense. Religious Knives, albeit a lot less noisy, do seem to explore a similarly spaced out and psychedelically minimal path, but where DL wove thick drones, Religious Knives beagan to move away from the freeform drift and toward a sort of psychedelic spaced out krautrock, all low slung bass, tribal drumming, woozy wheezing organ, deep crooned vox, buzzing guitars all stretched out into longform slow burning space psych drifts that definitely exist in the same space as Wooden Shjips, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, Naked On The Vague, Sun Araw, Fabulous Diamonds and the like. There's also a serious nineties New Zealand vibe going on, which has a lot to do with the deep vocals, but there are also female vocals, and those tracks tend to sound a bit more poppy, but all the songs are rife with long tones and deep drones, the organ thick and buzzy, the guitar spidery and minor key, all woven seamlessly into the band's blissed out psych jams. Hazy and druggy and so good. Kind of surprised more of the Moon Duo / Wooden Shjips / Lumerians / Carlton Melton space/drone rock obsessives haven't flipped out over these guys too, could be because they're less rocking, more moody and brooding and minimal and spare, but we're thinking even so, it's only a matter of time...
MPEG Stream: "The Message"
MPEG Stream: "Paper Thin"
MPEG Stream: "Smokescreen"

RELIGIOUS KNIVES Smokescreen (Sacred Bones) lp 19.98
For some reason we didn't realize that Religious Knives was in fact members of late great noise/drone combo Double Leopards, but it does make sense. Religious Knives, albeit a lot less noisy, do seem to explore a similarly spaced out and psychedelically minimal path, but where DL wove thick drones, Religious Knives beagan to move away from the freeform drift and toward a sort of psychedelic spaced out krautrock, all low slung bass, tribal drumming, woozy wheezing organ, deep crooned vox, buzzing guitars all stretched out into longform slow burning space psych drifts that definitely exist in the same space as Wooden Shjips, Assemble Head In Sunburst Sound, Naked On The Vague, Sun Araw, Fabulous Diamonds and the like. There's also a serious nineties New Zealand vibe going on, which has a lot to do with the deep vocals, but there are also female vocals, and those tracks tend to sound a bit more poppy, but all the songs are rife with long tones and deep drones, the organ thick and buzzy, the guitar spidery and minor key, all woven seamlessly into the band's blissed out psych jams. Hazy and druggy and so good. Kind of surprised more of the Moon Duo / Wooden Shjips / Lumerians / Carlton Melton space/drone rock obsessives haven't flipped out over these guys too, could be because they're less rocking, more moody and brooding and minimal and spare, but we're thinking even so, it's only a matter of time...
MPEG Stream: "The Message"
MPEG Stream: "Paper Thin"
MPEG Stream: "Smokescreen"

RELIGIOUS KNIVES The Door (Ecstatic Peace) cd 12.98
Wow, the perfect garage kraut blues for a generation of post-everything youth hungry for something to rock out to. One part free and trippy and one part industrial and weird, here is a band that represents the East Coast jam band effortlessly. Michael Bernstein and Maya Miller, members of the noise/drone outfit the Double Leopards, team up with Nate Nelson (Mouthus) on drums and Todd Cavallo on bass, for a stripped-down session of head-nodding jammers. The Door pays homage to the alchemic aspects of krautrock while setting forth a new chapter in the noise-rock agenda. Stripped down rhythms driving beside ripping guitar licks, lush '60s organ flutters, and mumbly apathetic vocals that don't sound too far off from the vocals of producer Thurston Moore. The door is catchy in a strikingly weird way, like listening to a '60s pop record through a fucked up underwater amp. Any fans of creepy damaged pop will not want to miss this killer record!
MPEG Stream: "Downstairs"
MPEG Stream: "Basement Watch"

RELLIK Killer (Doomed Planet) lp 14.98
Digging up more rare metal history (starting with the Solitude Aeturnus demos vinyl pressing), Rob Preston's Doomed Planet label presents a reissue of obscure '80s Bay Area (non-thrash!) metal act Rellik's lone 12", with unreleased bonus tracks filling it out to full-length status. On vinyl only, of course, and limited to 500 copies, almost sold out. OK, most folks who get this list probably won't be interested, but we're listing it for those who'll be searching for it on the internet. And besides, Rob's got good taste in metal -- this is pretty good in the mid-'80s Metal Blade vein (a la Omen, Cirith Ungol).

REMARC Sound Murderer (Planet-Mu) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Everyone who bought that Soundmurderer drum and bass comp cd on Violent Turd from a while back should just buy this too. Wicked old school drum and bass. Simple and dumb, with lots of Amen breaks and sirens and clipped samples, bass bin rattling lows, tweeter twitching synth stabs, time stretched ragga toasting and just all the big dumb jungle you can handle. This totally brings me back to when the whole AQ crew would go to the only local bar in SF that played jungle, and we would just sit in front of the speakers and LOVE IT. There's a bunch of classics on here (a few that were on the Soundmurderer comp), and there's some brutal 'soul diva' stuff too, but basically this is just classic fucking jungle / drum and bass, that we never get tired of hearing!
MPEG Stream: "R.I.P."
MPEG Stream: "Thunderclap"