F/I A Question For The Somnambulist (Strange Attractors Audio House) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This 2003 release went out of print WAY too fast, so the kind folks at Strange Attractors Audio House have swooped in to save the day. And they didn't just make it available again, they repackaged it in a super swank silkscreened sleeve and added a killer bonus track!
F/i have been somewhat of a buried treasure since the early eighties, spewing a rich brew of buzzy psychedelia, sludgy stoner doom, and extended space jams over the course of numerous lps and cassettes, but never really reaching out beyond the space rock underground. That's a shame as there has been a recent plenitude of reissues, making available again some of F/i's most seminal recordings, on cd for the first time, reminding us what a psych/space rock powerhouse these guys were. And still are! These guys never really stopped kicking out the jams. A Question For The Somnambulist finds the band back to its original lineup with the return of founding member Richard Franecki, and while one might hope this would mean a fiery, triumphant comeback of amp melting, spine crushing intensity, you also have to consider that it's been 20+ years since the launch of F/i, and these guys are getting older, and wiser, and mellower. So while there are moments where the whole thing threatens to combust and leave your stereo a charred husk, most of AQFTS is more on the dreamy, hypnotic, Krautrocky side, reminding us quite a bit of Finnish drone rockers Circle or local psych rock tribe Subarachnoid Space, with warm fuzzy riffs, swirls of squiggly Moogs, propulsive infinitive rhythms, and the occasional squall of freakout guitar.
MPEG Stream: "A Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Daisy Cutter"
MPEG Stream: "Hit The Kill Switch Eugene"

F/I Blanga (Lexicon Devil) cd 16.98
Since the beginning of the eighties, the strangely monickered F/i have been turning their amps up to 11, firing up the bongs, filling their space ship with all manner of effects and illicit mind altering substances and setting the controls for the heart of the sun. Here we are more than two decades later and F/i are still drifting in a dreamy and drug addled Hawkwind meets Loop meets Acid Mothers Temple meets Spacemen 3 meets way too many drugs sonic stupor and it still sounds so good. Music to take drugs to make music to take drugs by for sure! Huge streaks of reverb drenched distorted guitar, swirls of synthesizer swoop and sizzle, electronic beeps and bloops and burbles, throbbing, rumbling basslines, Hendrixian psych guitar freakouts and simple krautrock rhythms keeping the whole thing from floating off into the atmosphere. From full on Stooges-y psych stomp, to blissed out shimmering space trance, to smeary echoey ambience to almost Stereolab / Neu! style synth heavy krautrock, F/i manage to take whatever sonic course they're laid and make sure it also involves flying way too close to a black hole and thus being doused by white hot radioactive guitars or dense clouds of thick fuzzy synths or being bombarded by blown out cymbal sizzle, and burning up in a gloriously dreamy and druggy white hot space rock ball of flame!
MPEG Stream: "In The Garden Of Blanga"
MPEG Stream: "Blanga's Transformation"

F/I Blue Star / Merge Parlour (Lexicon Devil) cd 14.98
Final blast from the past in this F/i reissue blitz of late and it's a doozy. The first half is a reissue of the Blue Star lp, three lengthy tracks of spaced out fucked up Hawkwind meets Gore meets Acid Mothers Temple outer-space-psych. Sludgy riffs are pounded into oblivion, splintering into shards of psychedelic swoosh and druggy shimmer. Endlessly and gorgeously hypnotic. The second half is the F/i half of their split with Vocokesh, and is way more electronic. Same vibe and feel as the first half, but with the riffs becoming weird modulated tones, and the propulsive drumming turning into mechanical throbs and pulses. Imagine a krautrock Wolf Eyes or Factrix covering Sabbath. This is some awesome shit. As recommended as the rest of the recent F/i reissues!
MPEG Stream: "Om Twenty-One"
MPEG Stream: "Pleasure Centres / The Beach"

F/I Paradise Out Here (Lexicon Devil) cd 16.98
Maybe the most anxiously awaited release in Lexicon Devil's comprehensive series of F/i reissues. Paradise Out Here, originally released in 1989, might just be the heaviest, most freaked out, most spaced out of all the F/i records. All it takes is about one minute of opener "From Poppy With Love", an acid fried, ultra freaked out, swirling psychrock blowout to understand why. A chugging scuzzy garage rock riff scratches out a relentless spacey stomp beneath a massive roiling cloud of FX that make Acid Mothers Temple's arsenal look like a broken down collection of Casio distortion boxes and Fisher-Price keyboards. So heavy and so spacey. Monster Magnet, Hawkwind, AMT, Colour Haze, UFOmammut, White Hills, Comets On Fire, the Heads, the Telescopes, Atomic Bitchwax, Loop. If those are the kind of bands that get your blood boiling and your bong bubbling then this record is definitely for you. Extended excursions into the outer reaches of deep deep deep space, where the stars blink and twinkle in dizzyingly psychedelic colors, everywhere you look guitars are all twisted and distorted, thick slabs of rumbling bass plow through reverbed swirls of shimmer, melodies explode and splinter into jagged bits in gloriously incendiary bursts, everything is blurry and swathed in a thick drug rock haze, and everywhere you look huge slabs of blown out wah guitar drift past, like fluffy prismatic clouds, underneath it all, drums pound a never ending rhythm, while being endlessly pelted with synth squiggles and a veritable hail storm of bleeps and bloops and beeps. Woah. This record is so relentless and about as tripped out and psychedelic as a record can get without completely collapsing in on itself.
If there was ever a record that made us want to get super high, turn off all the lights, rock the fuck out and drift WAY WAY WAY OUT.... it's this one.
MPEG Stream: "From Poppy With Love"
MPEG Stream: "The House Of The Pharoah's Daughter"

F/I Space Mantra (Lexicon Devil) cd 15.98

F/I The Past Darkly / The Future Lightly: Rare & Unreleased 1983-1989 (Lexicon Devil) 2cd 17.98
The Australian label Lexicon Devil has certainly picked an unusual scene to ressurrect from the mires of terminal obscurity, as they've been reissuing a handful of records from the mid-'80s psych-electronic-noise rock scene of Milwaukee. It's probably a stretch to qualify this as a 'scene,' since the bands in question had only a handful of rotating members in a couple of guises, specifically F/i, Boy Dirt Car, and Vocokesh. F/i began as a trio with Richard Franecki, Greg Kurczewski, and Brian Wensing, although Franecki parted ways in 1990 to form Vocokesh and record solo albums, leaving Wensing in charge of F/i, which theoretically is still operational. Despite its subtitle as being rare and unreleased, "The Past Darkly / The Future Lightly" was originally issued as a 3LP set on RRRecords with a tiny pressing of 300 copies in 1989, and makes for a pretty good overview of F/i's diverse history that runs from gritty electronic passages to dusted psych rock explosions. The earlier electronic pieces are clearly the best work in F/i's catalogue coming across as droning fields of sound not unlike Conrad Schnitzler or MB. The move to distorted and wah-wah heavy hypno-space-rock never quite rises above bearing a passing resemblance to Hawkwind, Blue Cheer, or the early Skullflower rock explosions. Pretty great stuff though.
RealAudio clip: "Dormant"
RealAudio clip: "Standing In The Garden"

FABULOUS DIAMONDS Commercial Music (Chapter Music) cd 16.98
We made the last record from this Australian drum and organ duo Record Of The Week back in 2010, a glorious concoction equal parts simple stripped down krautrock rhythms, swirling psychedelic organ mantras and ethereal vocal incantations. That Fabulous Diamonds album was a bit like some psychedelic zoner pop melted down into something much more primal and abstract, a sound at once alien and mysterious, but that somehow retained ghostly vestiges of the pop songs that somehow spawned it, the sound slipping woozily from looped lunar hypnorock to mesmerizingly motorik minimalism and back again.
This new record takes the same sound, and reimagines it as something even MORE abstract, even MORE psychedelic and sprawling, each song a single idea, looped and layered and strung into a dizzying stretch of tranced out rhythmic mesmer, the vocals this time around seemingly more of an afterthought, with several songs foregoing vocals entirely. The first half of the record seems to inhabit a sonic orbit slightly closer to conventional pop, but only slightly. Opener "Inverted Vamp" unfurls a warm, murky rhythmic churn, as if it were simply the intro to some dark retro psych pop jam, but instead, the sound loops, cyclical and repetitive, in fact, for the first two minutes, the band lock tight into a tranced out slo-mo groove that as far as we're concerned could have continued that way for the entirety of the record, and it STILL would have been Record Of The Week. Instead, the vocals drift in, all dreamy and hazy, a plink plonk melody drifts beneath the undulating layers of buzz and whir, the whole thing sounding like a Stereolab or Broadcast record produced by King Tubby, and perhaps also spinning at the wrong speed. Woozy and washed out and so gloriously blissed out and hypnotic.
"John Song" is another drum driven chunk of dirgey murk-pop, that again, sans vox, sounds like some sort of slowcore This Heat, but it's the vocals that transform the sound into something much more distinctive, in this case drifting in and out, alongside some strange dubbed out synths, in fact, the dub vibe looms large throughout. Where Peaking Lights take dub and make it all dreamy and sunshiney, Fabulous Diamonds, drag dub into the dark, wrap it in shadows, and douse it in soft focus noise, letting it careen lazily in a field of warm swirling thrum.
About midway through, the record begins to remind us of African Head Charge, or even Muslimgauze, that same sort of rhythmic tranceout, still heavily dubby, but dark and drifty and spacey and all about the texture, and atmosphere, and of course the rhythms. "Lothario" becomes a total AHC style groover as the track coalesces into something darkly driving, and laced with warm whirring ominously minor key synths, it's probably our second favorite track here.
After a few more shorter tracks, again heavier on the vocals, the sound drifts back toward that mysterious murky pop that defined the first few tracks, but even at its poppiest, the sound constantly shifts and transforms, slipping easily into something distinctly unpop, looped and layered, pulsing and pulsating. The sound laced with Reich/Riley like organ arrangements, swirls of fragmented melodies, those divine vocals, and of course the unwavering rhythms.
Closer "Downhill" though is definitely our favorite, and it feels like the whole record was working up to this nearly 11 minute slow burner, beginning with a super spare skeletal tribal beat, beneath pulsing synth squelch, it's nearly 4 minutes (4 gloriously mesmerizing minutes!) before the sound shifts noticeably, a second organ part gradually surfacing, the sound growing more and more dense, then a third, laying down a sinister bassline, and finally, the sound slips into a creepy cinematic swirl, worthy of Carpenter or Goblin for sure, and fans of all that retro synth soundtrackery, this track will knock you on your ass, somehow growing more and more melodic, and more and more intense, a sprawling swirling psychedelic kosmische blissout of the highest order. So great! (Vinyl version upcoming, by the way.)
MPEG Stream: "Inverted Vamp"
MPEG Stream: "Lothario"
MPEG Stream: "Downhill"

FABULOUS DIAMONDS Commercial Music (Chapter Music) lp 17.98
This recent aQ ROTW, now on vinyl as well!!!
We made the previous record from this Australian drum and organ duo Record Of The Week back in 2010, a glorious concoction equal parts simple stripped down krautrock rhythms, swirling psychedelic organ mantras and ethereal vocal incantations. That Fabulous Diamonds album was a bit like some psychedelic zoner pop melted down into something much more primal and abstract, a sound at once alien and mysterious, but that somehow retained ghostly vestiges of the pop songs that somehow spawned it, the sound slipping woozily from looped lunar hypnorock to mesmerizingly motorik minimalism and back again.
This new record takes the same sound, and reimagines it as something even MORE abstract, even MORE psychedelic and sprawling, each song a single idea, looped and layered and strung into a dizzying stretch of tranced out rhythmic mesmer, the vocals this time around seemingly more of an afterthought, with several songs foregoing vocals entirely. The first half of the record seems to inhabit a sonic orbit slightly closer to conventional pop, but only slightly. Opener "Inverted Vamp" unfurls a warm, murky rhythmic churn, as if it were simply the intro to some dark retro psych pop jam, but instead, the sound loops, cyclical and repetitive, in fact, for the first two minutes, the band lock tight into a tranced out slo-mo groove that as far as we're concerned could have continued that way for the entirety of the record, and it STILL would have been Record Of The Week. Instead, the vocals drift in, all dreamy and hazy, a plink plonk melody drifts beneath the undulating layers of buzz and whir, the whole thing sounding like a Stereolab or Broadcast record produced by King Tubby, and perhaps also spinning at the wrong speed. Woozy and washed out and so gloriously blissed out and hypnotic.
"John Song" is another drum driven chunk of dirgey murk-pop, that again, sans vox, sounds like some sort of slowcore This Heat, but it's the vocals that transform the sound into something much more distinctive, in this case drifting in and out, alongside some strange dubbed out synths, in fact, the dub vibe looms large throughout. Where Peaking Lights take dub and make it all dreamy and sunshiney, Fabulous Diamonds, drag dub into the dark, wrap it in shadows, and douse it in soft focus noise, letting it careen lazily in a field of warm swirling thrum.
About midway through, the record begins to remind us of African Head Charge, or even Muslimgauze, that same sort of rhythmic tranceout, still heavily dubby, but dark and drifty and spacey and all about the texture, and atmosphere, and of course the rhythms. "Lothario" becomes a total AHC style groover as the track coalesces into something darkly driving, and laced with warm whirring ominously minor key synths, it's probably our second favorite track here.
After a few more shorter tracks, again heavier on the vocals, the sound drifts back toward that mysterious murky pop that defined the first few tracks, but even at its poppiest, the sound constantly shifts and transforms, slipping easily into something distinctly unpop, looped and layered, pulsing and pulsating. The sound laced with Reich/Riley like organ arrangements, swirls of fragmented melodies, those divine vocals, and of course the unwavering rhythms.
Closer "Downhill" though is definitely our favorite, and it feels like the whole record was working up to this nearly 11 minute slow burner, beginning with a super spare skeletal tribal beat, beneath pulsing synth squelch, it's nearly 4 minutes (4 gloriously mesmerizing minutes!) before the sound shifts noticeably, a second organ part gradually surfacing, the sound growing more and more dense, then a third, laying down a sinister bassline, and finally, the sound slips into a creepy cinematic swirl, worthy of Carpenter or Goblin for sure, and fans of all that retro synth soundtrackery, this track will knock you on your ass, somehow growing more and more melodic, and more and more intense, a sprawling swirling psychedelic kosmische blissout of the highest order. So great!
MPEG Stream: "Inverted Vamp"
MPEG Stream: "Lothario"
MPEG Stream: "Downhill"

FABULOUS DIAMONDS Fabulous Diamonds II (Chapter Music) cd 16.98
Much has been made about the Dual 7"+ cd set that Fabulous Diamonds released a few years back through Nervous Jerk, a small Australian imprint which had the good fortune of also releasing an Animal Collective single. Dual did make an appearance here at Aquarius, although it arrived rather mysteriously (perhaps from the band, perhaps not) and vanished after just a single play of the disc on a busy Saturday afternoon. Yes, that's always a good sign when we don't have to ballyhoo the merits of a record, and the strength of the tunes speak for themselves. Woozy hypnosis from organ, sax, drums, monotone female vocals, and lots of delay patterning is what we can remember from back in 2007. The arrival of Fabulous Diamonds' II (whoops, somehow we missed their self-titled Siltbreeze LP in '08) jogged that memory to the forefront of our collective mind, and we're happy that at least we got hear those early tracks at least once. BUT, damn if Fabulous Diamonds haven't made a stellar album here with II.
This Melbourne duo - Nisa Venerosa (drums, voice) and Jarrod Zlatic (organ, effects) - channels a quasi-mystical hybrid of post-Terry Riley time-lag accumulation and the proto-electronica riffs of the Silver Apples through deliriously simple means. Venerosa lays down a slinky percussive groove without much in the way of variation what so ever, much like finest of motorik krautrock drummers (e.g. Jaki Liebezeit, Zappi Diermaier, etc.), and pairs it with Zlatic's spellbinding layers of interwoven phases, loops and moire patterns snatched from his arpeggiating mantras on organ and synthesizer. Venerosa's stoned lullabies are well suited in their simplicity and echoplex ooze to the Diamonds' hypnotic arrangements. On this album, three short tracks about three and half minutes each are bracketed by two lengthy hypno-zoner jams. Those untitled shorts are great on their own, with curiously catchy phrases of repetitive pop minimalism, but Fabulous Diamonds are clearly at their best when sprawling their rhythms and sounds over longer durations, when Zlatic's organs, electronics, and loops have plenty of time for a lunar trajectory around the dark side and back. Anyone with a passing fancy for the likes of Stereolab, Can, Pocahaunted, Aavikko, Shogun Kunitoki, and of course The Silver Apples would be well served with these Fabulous Diamonds. Excellent!
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "3"
MPEG Stream: "4"

FABULOUS DIAMONDS Fabulous Diamonds II (Siltbreeze) lp 15.98
Much has been made about the Dual 7"+ cd set that Fabulous Diamonds released a few years back through Nervous Jerk, a small Australian imprint which had the good fortune of also releasing an Animal Collective single. Dual did make an appearance here at Aquarius, although it arrived rather mysteriously (perhaps from the band, perhaps not) and vanished after just a single play of the disc on a busy Saturday afternoon. Yes, that's always a good sign when we don't have to ballyhoo the merits of a record, and the strength of the tunes speak for themselves. Woozy hypnosis from organ, sax, drums, monotone female vocals, and lots of delay patterning is what we can remember from back in 2007. The arrival of Fabulous Diamonds' II (whoops, somehow we missed their self-titled Siltbreeze LP in '08) jogged that memory to the forefront of our collective mind, and we're happy that at least we got hear those early tracks at least once. BUT, damn if Fabulous Diamonds haven't made a stellar album here with II.
This Melbourne duo - Nisa Venerosa (drums, voice) and Jarrod Zlatic (organ, effects) - channels a quasi-mystical hybrid of post-Terry Riley time-lag accumulation and the proto-electronica riffs of the Silver Apples through deliriously simple means. Venerosa lays down a slinky percussive groove without much in the way of variation what so ever, much like finest of motorik krautrock drummers (e.g. Jaki Liebezeit, Zappi Diermaier, etc.), and pairs it with Zlatic's spellbinding layers of interwoven phases, loops and moire patterns snatched from his arpeggiating mantras on organ and synthesizer. Venerosa's stoned lullabies are well suited in their simplicity and echoplex ooze to the Diamonds' hypnotic arrangements. On this album, three short tracks about three and half minutes each are bracketed by two lengthy hypno-zoner jams. Those untitled shorts are great on their own, with curiously catchy phrases of repetitive pop minimalism, but Fabulous Diamonds are clearly at their best when sprawling their rhythms and sounds over longer durations, when Zlatic's organs, electronics, and loops have plenty of time for a lunar trajectory around the dark side and back. Anyone with a passing fancy for the likes of Stereolab, Can, Pocahaunted, Aavikko, Shogun Kunitoki, and of course The Silver Apples would be well served with these Fabulous Diamonds. Excellent!
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "3"
MPEG Stream: "4"

FACTORYMEN Yellow Eyes And The Sound Of Vomit (Richie Records) lp 17.98
Brand new batch of twisted noise pop malfunction from Steve Peffer, the mastermind behind fucked up noisemakers Homostupids. Fans of the 'Stupids stumbling lo-fi Neanderthal crush will find much to love here, but Factorymen takes the demented buzz and crunch of Homostupids, and fashions it into something a bit poppier, and weirdly enough, more electronic, creating some sort of knuckle dragging buzz drenched electro-pop, that takes the warped pop of folks like Ariel Pink and James Ferraro, and adds some Stooges-y swagger and some dirge rock guitar buzz, not to mention the whole thing sounds like it was recorded on a cassette that's been sitting the dashboard of a car for the last decade, all hiss and warble and plenty of Faxed Head like sonic drop outs, but all that only adds to the deliriously demented sound.
Tape speeds shift, the fidelity slips from muffled and murky to brittle and blown out, the songs are all over the map from garage-y pound to blurred hypnotic thump, to total eighties style FM radio cheese, to blurred blissy strangely sunshiney Breakfast Club pop, to rhythmic Butthole Surfers like mesmer, to downtuned synth laced space doom dirge, al woven into a druggy and lo-fi, synthy, outsider, electronic, psychedelic warped pop that almost sounds like a drug addled Stephin Merritt record on Not Not Fun or Olde English Spelling Bee, but with just enough crunch to keep the sound at least tangentially noise rocky. Bizarre and sorta brilliant, should most definitely appeal to fans of James Ferraro, Ariel Pink, Rusted Shut, Rangers, Pink Noise and other similarly twisted pop deconstructionists.
Includes a download of the whole record, as well as the previous Factorymen record, 25 tracks in all! The first FM record another batch of even more murky minimalist drug pop...
MPEG Stream: "Calling The Dentist"
MPEG Stream: "S E C"
MPEG Stream: "Our Secret Recipe"
MPEG Stream: "Johnny Is Really Ronnie"

FACTRIX Artifact (Storm) 2cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
After months of digging, we were finally able to track some of these down. For those of you not in the know, Factrix just happen to be AQ faves Wolf Eyes favorite band, so much so that not only do they try to sound like them, but to this day they continue to send their industrial-doom heroes letters of gratitutde and worship! Factrix originally manufactured their proto-Wolf Eyes sound in San Francisco some 20+ years ago. The history of underground music on the West Coast in the late '70s is not an easy one to trace. Unlike the punk explosion in England or New York, the influences and disturbances of the musical circuits manifested collusions of ideas that never really fit into the marketable ideas of punk or new wave. Even before those terms were commonplace, California was home to such anomalies in artrock as the Residents and the Los Angeles Free Music Society, who both experimented freely with technology, dadaism, culture jamming, and the detritus of post-psychedelia and bad acid trips. This was the environment that also spawned such genre unfriendly projects as The Screamers, Savage Republic, Non, Survival Reseach Laboratories, Nervous Gender, Negativland, and -- Factrix.
In truth, SF's Factrix belonged to the original Industrial culture of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire, although their take on trangressive themes and their grim abuse of technology never reached as wide an audience as those icons of Industrial Records. In their short lifespan from 1978 - 1982, Factrix developed a language that clearly rivalled that of their European comrades; but in many ways, Factrix owed their sound to their San Francisco roots, as they inverted the paisley pretenses of psychedelia into a grim seance of sound in which free love became sexual taboos, universal peace became soul-crushing dread, and transcendence became morbidity. This inversion of psychedelia used many of the same tools of Haight-Ashbury in composing through non-structured improvisations as well as through a steady diet of psilocybin mushrooms; but the sound came out all wrong. Factrix devolved '70s pop banalities into dissonant slabs of noise with squiggling guitar feedback and all-encompassing dirges from over-distorted basslines, with a continuous, tinny pulse from an abused drum machine. The process of free association carried over in the vocal duties, which were typically shared amongst the chief protagonists Bond Bergland, Cole Palme, and Joseph Jacobs, although industrial culture celeb Monte Cazzaza was also known to offer his demented lisp to Factrix.
While not presented as a 'best-of' collection, "Artifact" features the best material that Factrix had produced, including all of the tracks from their seminal "Schentot" LP on Adolescent Records and a ton of live material, which has been digitally salvaged so as to sound great. "Artifact" is an essential artifact, in fact and a great surprise!
MPEG Stream: "Empire Of Passion"
MPEG Stream: "Snuff Box"

FACTRIX Scheintot (Superior Viaduct) cd 12.98
About ten years ago, we championed the San Francisco industrial prodigies Factrix via their Artifact 2cd anthology released on Storm, in fact, we made it a Record Of The Week. That went out of print quickly; so we are now quite grateful to Superior Viaduct for at last reissuing two of this band's seminal recordings! Factrix originally manufactured their proto-Wolf Eyes sound in San Francisco some 30+ years ago. The history of underground music on the West Coast in the late '70s is not an easy one to trace. Unlike the punk explosion in England or New York, the influences and disturbances of the musical circuits manifested collusions of ideas that never really fit into the marketable ideas of punk or new wave. Even before those terms were commonplace, California was home to such anomalies in artrock as the Residents and the Los Angeles Free Music Society, who both experimented freely with technology, dadaism, culture jamming, and the detritus of post-psychedelia and bad acid trips. This was the environment that also spawned such genre unfriendly projects as The Screamers, Savage Republic, Non, Survival Research Laboratories, Nervous Gender, Negativland, and - Factrix.
In truth, SF's Factrix belonged to the original Industrial culture of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire, although their take on transgressive themes and their grim abuse of technology never reached as wide an audience as those icons of Industrial Records. In their short lifespan from 1978 - 1982, Factrix developed a language that clearly rivalled that of their European comrades; but in many ways, Factrix owed their sound to their San Francisco roots, as they inverted the paisley pretenses of psychedelia into a grim seance of sound in which free love became sexual taboos, universal peace became soul-crushing dread, and transcendence became morbidity. This inversion of psychedelia used many of the same tools of Haight-Ashbury in composing through non-structured improvisations as well as through a steady diet of psilocybin mushrooms; but the sound came out all wrong. Factrix devolved '70s pop banalities into dissonant slabs of noise with squiggling guitar feedback and all-encompassing dirges from over-distorted basslines, with a continuous, tinny pulse from an abused drum machine. The process of free association carried over in the vocal duties, which were typically shared amongst the chief protagonists Bond Bergland, Cole Palme, and Joseph Jacobs.
Scheintot was the only studio album from Factrix, originally released on Adolescent Records in 1981. Its dark lysergic murk and obsessive decomposition crawls through scabrous guitars, clanking metal, distorted electronics, shadow-cast vocals and atmospheric doom, certainly paralleling the death-factory churn of TG's Second Annual Report and SPK's Leichenshrei. It must be stated that all of the tracks here (including the cd's two bonus tracks!) were present on the aforementioned Artifact 2cd; but with that long out of print, this becomes a recommended purchase!
MPEG Stream: "Heavy Breathing"
MPEG Stream: "Center Of The Doll"
MPEG Stream: "Thin Line"

FACTRIX Scheintot (Superior Viaduct) lp 14.98
About ten years ago, we championed the San Francisco industrial prodigies Factrix via their Artifact 2cd anthology released on Storm, in fact, we made it a Record Of The Week. That went out of print quickly; so we are now quite grateful to Superior Viaduct for at last reissuing two of this band's seminal recordings! Factrix originally manufactured their proto-Wolf Eyes sound in San Francisco some 30+ years ago. The history of underground music on the West Coast in the late '70s is not an easy one to trace. Unlike the punk explosion in England or New York, the influences and disturbances of the musical circuits manifested collusions of ideas that never really fit into the marketable ideas of punk or new wave. Even before those terms were commonplace, California was home to such anomalies in artrock as the Residents and the Los Angeles Free Music Society, who both experimented freely with technology, dadaism, culture jamming, and the detritus of post-psychedelia and bad acid trips. This was the environment that also spawned such genre unfriendly projects as The Screamers, Savage Republic, Non, Survival Research Laboratories, Nervous Gender, Negativland, and - Factrix.
In truth, SF's Factrix belonged to the original Industrial culture of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire, although their take on transgressive themes and their grim abuse of technology never reached as wide an audience as those icons of Industrial Records. In their short lifespan from 1978 - 1982, Factrix developed a language that clearly rivalled that of their European comrades; but in many ways, Factrix owed their sound to their San Francisco roots, as they inverted the paisley pretenses of psychedelia into a grim seance of sound in which free love became sexual taboos, universal peace became soul-crushing dread, and transcendence became morbidity. This inversion of psychedelia used many of the same tools of Haight-Ashbury in composing through non-structured improvisations as well as through a steady diet of psilocybin mushrooms; but the sound came out all wrong. Factrix devolved '70s pop banalities into dissonant slabs of noise with squiggling guitar feedback and all-encompassing dirges from over-distorted basslines, with a continuous, tinny pulse from an abused drum machine. The process of free association carried over in the vocal duties, which were typically shared amongst the chief protagonists Bond Bergland, Cole Palme, and Joseph Jacobs.
Scheintot was the only studio album from Factrix, originally released on Adolescent Records in 1981. Its dark lysergic murk and obsessive decomposition crawls through scabrous guitars, clanking metal, distorted electronics, shadow-cast vocals and atmospheric doom, certainly paralleling the death-factory churn of TG's Second Annual Report and SPK's Leichenshrei. It must be stated that all of the tracks here (including the cd's two bonus tracks!) were present on the aforementioned Artifact 2cd; but with that long out of print, this becomes a recommended purchase!
MPEG Stream: "Heavy Breathing"
MPEG Stream: "Center Of The Doll"
MPEG Stream: "Thin Line"

FACTRIX & CAZAZZA California Babylon (Superior Viaduct) lp 15.98
About ten years ago, we championed the San Francisco industrial prodigies Factrix via their Artifact 2cd anthology released on Storm, in fact, we made it a Record Of The Week. That went out of print quickly; so we are now quite grateful to Superior Viaduct for at last reissuing two of this band's seminal recordings! Factrix originally manufactured their proto-Wolf Eyes sound in San Francisco some 30+ years ago. The history of underground music on the West Coast in the late '70s is not an easy one to trace. Unlike the punk explosion in England or New York, the influences and disturbances of the musical circuits manifested collusions of ideas that never really fit into the marketable ideas of punk or new wave. Even before those terms were commonplace, California was home to such anomalies in artrock as the Residents and the Los Angeles Free Music Society, who both experimented freely with technology, dadaism, culture jamming, and the detritus of post-psychedelia and bad acid trips. This was the environment that also spawned such genre unfriendly projects as The Screamers, Savage Republic, Non, Survival Research Laboratories, Nervous Gender, Negativland, and - Factrix.
In truth, SF's Factrix belonged to the original Industrial culture of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire, although their take on transgressive themes and their grim abuse of technology never reached as wide an audience as those icons of Industrial Records, even as Factrix teamed up with fellow San Franciscan provocateur Monte Cazazza for this Spartan yet very caustic live recording. California Babylon was originally released by Subterranean Records back in 1982. There are songs lurking throughout the scalding guitar noise, announced through repetitive, lurching basslines that sound like Flipper tunes played at super slow-motion. Growling slabs of toxic noise, grim electronic murk, tape collages (including some rather diabolical rants from somebody who sounds a lot like Jim Jones), and plenty of guttural No Wave deconstruction spew out from underneath those bass throbs, with Monte Cazazza occasionally spitting his own transgressive venom with his unmistakable, devilish lisp. There's even an appearance from Z'ev on a couple tracks clanking on found metal objects!
The bonus tracks on California Babylon are pretty amazing, we have to say; and all of these were in fact featured on that aforementioned Artifact compilation. On these tracks, the trio was certainly honing their songwriting craft, but they had not eschewed the noise, the murk, nor the bad vibes. "Silver River" is an awesome slab of downer, drone-rock orchestration that could very easily be mistaken for some New Zealand / Expressway gem by Gate or Alastair Galbraith, where "No Trees" reprises Factrix' searing guitar noise with staccato punk vocals and deconstructed post-punk basslines.
The accompanying dvd (which comes only with the cd edition, not the vinyl) features "Night Of The Succubus", the video that was shot at the same California Babylon live recordings. Like Scheintot, California Babylon is an essential document of San Francisco's industrial culture!
MPEG Stream: "Death By Hanging"
MPEG Stream: "Poltergeist (Theme From "Shift")"

FACTRIX & CAZAZZA California Babylon (Superior Viaduct) cd+dvd 14.98
About ten years ago, we championed the San Francisco industrial prodigies Factrix via their Artifact 2cd anthology released on Storm, in fact, we made it a Record Of The Week. That went out of print quickly; so we are now quite grateful to Superior Viaduct for at last reissuing two of this band's seminal recordings! Factrix originally manufactured their proto-Wolf Eyes sound in San Francisco some 30+ years ago. The history of underground music on the West Coast in the late '70s is not an easy one to trace. Unlike the punk explosion in England or New York, the influences and disturbances of the musical circuits manifested collusions of ideas that never really fit into the marketable ideas of punk or new wave. Even before those terms were commonplace, California was home to such anomalies in artrock as the Residents and the Los Angeles Free Music Society, who both experimented freely with technology, dadaism, culture jamming, and the detritus of post-psychedelia and bad acid trips. This was the environment that also spawned such genre unfriendly projects as The Screamers, Savage Republic, Non, Survival Research Laboratories, Nervous Gender, Negativland, and - Factrix.
In truth, SF's Factrix belonged to the original Industrial culture of Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire, although their take on transgressive themes and their grim abuse of technology never reached as wide an audience as those icons of Industrial Records, even as Factrix teamed up with fellow San Franciscan provocateur Monte Cazazza for this Spartan yet very caustic live recording. California Babylon was originally released by Subterranean Records back in 1982. There are songs lurking throughout the scalding guitar noise, announced through repetitive, lurching basslines that sound like Flipper tunes played at super slow-motion. Growling slabs of toxic noise, grim electronic murk, tape collages (including some rather diabolical rants from somebody who sounds a lot like Jim Jones), and plenty of guttural No Wave deconstruction spew out from underneath those bass throbs, with Monte Cazazza occasionally spitting his own transgressive venom with his unmistakable, devilish lisp. There's even an appearance from Z'ev on a couple tracks clanking on found metal objects!
The bonus tracks on California Babylon are pretty amazing, we have to say; and all of these were in fact featured on that aforementioned Artifact compilation. On these tracks, the trio was certainly honing their songwriting craft, but they had not eschewed the noise, the murk, nor the bad vibes. "Silver River" is an awesome slab of downer, drone-rock orchestration that could very easily be mistaken for some New Zealand / Expressway gem by Gate or Alastair Galbraith, where "No Trees" reprises Factrix' searing guitar noise with staccato punk vocals and deconstructed post-punk basslines.
The accompanying dvd (which comes only with the cd edition, not the vinyl) features "Night Of The Succubus", the video that was shot at the same California Babylon live recordings. Like Scheintot, California Babylon is an essential document of San Francisco's industrial culture!
MPEG Stream: "Death By Hanging"
MPEG Stream: "Poltergeist (Theme From "Shift")"
MPEG Stream: "Silver River"
MPEG Stream: "No Trees"

FACTUMS A Primitive Future (Assophon) lp 16.98
After a record on Siltbreeze, one on Sacred Bones, one on Kill Shaman, and a whole mess of singles, none of which we managed to list somehow, comes this latest full length from Seattle's Factums, a soundtrack (or faux soundtrack perhaps), that takes their gloomy gothic post punk new wave sound and gets it all tangled up with much more soundtracky elements, and it's a pretty killer combo.
So yeah, that sort of post Joy Division, depressive modern retro new wave thing these guys do so well is fully intact, but on A Primitive Future, that sound is surrounded on all sides by experimental interludes, ambient mood music, drones and driftscapes, all appropriately haunting and mysterious and cinematic.
When the band rocks, it's fierce and feral, barked distorted vocals, creepy keyboards, buzzing angular guitars, chaotic drumming, krauty motorik rhythms, darkly new wave-y and dreamily doomy and depressive, but here the band spend much more time sprawling sonically, creating sounds to accompany sights (or so we're meant to believe): shimmering expanses of soft focus hiss over field recordings, haunting stretches of gauzy druggy drift, lo-fi rumbles beneath layers of shifting grit and grime, swirls of malfunctioning music box chimes, deep muted ambient whir, murky sci-fi psychedelic swirl, clouds of abstract deconstructed reverb and detuned guitar and on and on.
Not just another dose of cold wave post punk gloom (although there are moments, instead, a spaced out abstract creepy chunk of brooding, sci-fi, new wave, cinematic ambient doom drift.

FACTUMS Gilding The Lilies (Assophon) 2lp 21.00
Weirdo Seattle gloompunk artrock experimentalists Factums have always been tough to describe, and somehow it seems with each new record, they push their sound even further into indescribable sonic realms. Which bring us to this, a sprawling double lp called Gilding The Lilies, which seems to be a much expanded version of the 2010 tape of the same name on Night People. And like past records, it sometimes feels like you're listening to a compilation, 'cause the songs are so totally varied, and even within songs the sound is constantly shifting, from gloomy creep, to organ driven dirge, from gothy lo-fi electro, to gorgeous Eastern style buzz drenched ragas... it's fantastic, yet also fantastically confusing. But once immersed in Factums' twisted soundworld, the songs seem to make a sort of sense, fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle where all of the pieces are different shapes, but that can be assembled in any order to create an unlimited series of final images, if that makes any sense, and even if it doesn't, that almost seems more appropriate.
There was a time where these guys had a sort of Captured Tracks / Sacred Bones vibe going on, and while that does surface here and there, the group definitely seem to to have moved well beyond any sense of pop music, only dabbling here and there, while spending most of their music crafting strange soundscapes, and conjuring up mysterious sonic spirits. Dense drone out buzz is draped over skeletal percussion, everything wreathed in billows of low end warble, that warble shaped into propulsive pulsations and wedded to a lo-fi distorted sort-of-electro rhythm, over which a deep voice wreathed in a metallic shimmer croons dramatically, only to slip right back into some sitar like buzz, long layered tones, that are soon swallowed up by an undulating sine wave tone and laid out beneath a skittery jazzy drum beat, only to dissipate into a cloud of low end thrum, and rubbery electronic rhythms, surrounded by industrial crash and clatter, which then slips darkly into a rhythmic bit of buzzy drift, and, well you get the idea. Now imagine that constant meandering sonic exploration going on for wholly three more lp sides and you've got Gilding The Lilies, a fantastic head spinning sonic descent into some abstract alternate dimension soundworld, one you might find yourself in no hurry to escape...
LIMITED TO 700 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Another Place"
MPEG Stream: "Lady In The Sand"
MPEG Stream: "Gilding The Lillies"
MPEG Stream: "The Trap"

FACTUMS Roman Soldier (Captcha) 12" 15.98
Of all the recent groups channeling the spirit of cold wave and the gothic miserablism of Joy Division, Factums are by and far the absolute weirdest. Capable of whipping up incredible chunks of gloom pop, the instead, often opt for creating totally twisted gloomscapes, weird faux soundtracks, pulsing rhythmic expanses, a series of fantastically warped variants of a sound that is rapidly becoming played out. Which is why these guys remain mysterious, fascinating, and with every record, you really can't be sure what you'll get.
This one sided 12" (the B-side features and awesome etching) offers up three tracks of twisted low fidelity mystery, the first, a pulsing murky rhythm, laid beneath strange processed super rhythmic synths, all glitchy and squelchy, peppered with echo drenched vocal samples and stripped down percussion, eventually the sounds coalesce into a cool retro electro synthbuzz loopscape, super distorted, the sounds crumbling and completely in-the-red, a strange hypnotic lo-fi groove, crunchy and almost industrial sounding, laced with bits of heavy guitar buzz, all processed and clipped. Weird as fuck, but really really cool.
The 2 part second track is also weird, but in a totally different way, a creepy melancholy music box like soundscape, hazy and out of focus, mumbled vocals buried in the mix, the whole thing totally woozy and druggy, the second part introduces electronic rhythms, clouds of cymbal shimmer, strange reverbed guitar strum and warbly organ whir, a fantastically confounding dirgey, gauzey electro gloom music box ballad. Or something. Whatever it is, we dig it. A LOT!!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!

FAD GADGET The Best Of..... (Mute) 2cd 19.98
With Adult., The Faint, and Fisherspooner actively reclaiming the dark theatricality of '80s electro-pop, an anthology of Fad Gadget's work couldn't have had better timing. That said, it is quite difficult to comfortably classify Fad Gadget amongst the new wave legions including OMD, Human League, and Depeche Mode, as Frank Tovey (who was pretty much the sole proprietor of Fad Gadget) applied his pop sensibility towards a carnivalesque absurdity and a well versed understanding of historical Surrealism (Hugo Ball in particular). Most exemplary of this confluence of ideas and movements is Fad Gadget's purposefully heavy-handed mockery of jaded punks on "Collapsing New People" which featured Einsturzende Neubauten adding their industrial clamor to the Soft Cell-like, anthemic electro-pop. Driving home the point of the import of this track, this compliation features *three* versions of that song, along with a bunch of singles and b-sides. Disc one is the greatest hits portion of the program with tracks like "Insecticide" as a brutal piece of SPK-ish electronica butted right up against the synthetic cabaret of "Fireside Favourite." The second disc has a bunch of rarities and extraneous remixes, but isn't terribly neccessary. Definitely worthwhile for disc one...
RealAudio clip: "Collapsing New People"
RealAudio clip: "Insecticide"
RealAudio clip: "Lady Shave"

FAHEY, JOHN & CUL DE SAC The Epiphany of Glenn Jones (Thirsty Ear) cd 15.98
Boston psych/folk/space rockers Cul de Sac covered a Fahey tune on their first album, Ecim, and here they finally get to collaborate with their hero, an ordeal (so say the liner notes) but with quite excellent results as expected.

FAINT, THE (blank-wave arcade) (Saddle Creek) cd 15.98
Check out these stylin' Brit-inflected synth-wavers from Nebraska! The Faint make music that's coolly sparse and punchy with synth sounds straight outta the '80s. And they throw in a well-placed hook or herky-jerk when they see fit. Makes me think of a young, pouty, punky Pulp. Quite good, yes.
RealAudio clip: "Sex Is Personal"

FAINT, THE Danse Macabre (Saddle Creek) cd 13.98
Holy Duran Duran! I Am VSS-bender! What if Ladytron were all guys and into Talk Talk instead of drawing 'inspiration' from Kraftwerk? Yes folks, it's kinda like that. Song-oriented new wave that sounds like the '80s actually happened! Vocoded vocals, disco beats, sequenced bass lines. The Faint are from Omaha, Nebraska, are quite good, and their suburban midwest influences should take them quite a ways -- that is, they're not too challenging for most AQ customers, but 'different' enough to be interesting for 'most' people... there's some very good music on 'Danse Macabre' (cheesy title though). Songs to make you dance. "Your Retro Career Melted" has a damn catchy chorus. Well worth checkin' out. Daft Punk/Orgy fans, if they only knew.
RealAudio clip: "Agenda Suicide"
RealAudio clip: "Your Retro Career Melted"

FAINT, THE Danse Macabre Remixes (Astralwerks) cd 16.98
Remixes can be pretty darn hit-or-miss. Among other things, they can breathe life into lackluster songs, or obscure the originals way far beyond any recognition, or fuse two sonic worlds into something new, magical and completely faithful to both artists. Not quite sure yet where these Danse Macabre remixes fall. On the first few listens, I was struck with the sense that most of the remix artists here seem to have very little affinity to the band - diluting the punch and catchiness of these Nebraskans' songs into just so-so, slick house and techno tracks. I mean, the original Danse Macabre songs are entirely capable of packing a dancefloor on their own, thank you very much! Participants includes Paul Oakenfold, Junior Sanchez, Ursula 1000, Tommie Sunshine, and Photek.

FAINT, THE Fasciinatiion (Blank.Wav) cd 12.98
Rad! If you're already a fan of this Omaha, NE band, you're gonna love this! And if you're an older (i.e., pre-Danse Macabre) fan you're probably going to love it even more 'cause it's juiced up with some earlier Faint elements (like some infectious hooks and saucy lyrics) that the band more or less ditched on their last album, Wet From Birth. That album had the band going in a more balls-out rock direction, and their live shows followed suit. Fasciination finds them getting back to the synthesizers and electronics - super textured, thick and gnarly! -- and perhaps increasingly so. They seem to have devoted much more attention to sculpting the sound design, but not at the expense of the aggressive energy and the songs themselves. Although their access to recording production resources has no doubt increased with their popularity, they haven't been blinded by the bright lights or technology. Nothing's too glossy and no one seems to be sitting on any laurels, they still sound like The Faint. As we've said before this band too often gets unjustly lumped in with the legions of dumbshit vacuous dance punk bands, but c'mon, it's usually just a new-wave prejudiced knee-jerk reaction to the synth sounds and arpeggiated basslines (something which the band no longer seems to rely on anyways!). If you dismissed them long ago, you just might want to give Fasciination a spin because while they're quite capable and willing to whip a dance party into a frenzy, The Faint have always had far more going on in both craft and intent. Released on their own label Blank.Wav.
MPEG Stream: "Get Seduced"
MPEG Stream: "Machine In The Ghost"

FAINT, THE Media (Saddle Creek) cd 14.98
Check out the early sounds of Nebraska's new wavers' The Faint. This is their first album which was released back in '98.

FAINT, THE Mote (Gold Standard Laboratories) 12" 9.98
Grab this up before it's gone! The Faint take on Sonic Youth's "Mote" for this one-off GSL release (their usual label is Saddle Creek) and they do so in supreme synth-rock style. They busted this track out for their encore at their recent show here in SF. These lanky Omaha new wavers are positively driving the kids wild. Triggering the dance mechanism in all. This vinyl-only release also includes two remixes by The Lack and Psyrendust as well as a track entitled "Dust" with fellow Nebraskans Bright Eyes.

FAINT, THE Wet From Birth (Saddle Creek) cd 13.98
The long-awaited, highly anticipated follow-up to the ultra rad Danse Macabre album has arrived, saddled with the burden of high expectations (it also comes with perhaps the worst title and cover art). Unfortunately and unjustly lumped in with the vapid electro-clash crowd (they were actually head and shoulders above the dance-punk fashionista pack -- showing some brain behind the style sheen), The Faint's new album has already been receiving the post-trend backlash. A number of us here at AQ dug D.M. quite a lot and wanted to resist that post-trend trend, hoping for an onwards and upwards progression from that album. We'd heard rumblings about intriguing changes in direction, new focuses, etc. However much to our chagrin, the first song struck us like an uninspired rehash of something that didn't even make the cut last time, but with the addition of more high-tech bells and whistles (E.L.O.-esque string flourishes, a wider range of vocal processing, etc). Their former insanely infectious hooks are nowhere to be found. Disappointed, we found ourselves asking, did they too succumb to the vacuous hipster hype machine? Well, not entirely... although it does seem that when they were making this album they were at least partially conscious of the newfound demands of appealing to the more mainstream kids. There are many songs that are clearly going to be instant crowd pleasers, but they're also among the band's most superficial work with lots of simplistic 'short-hand for new wave' accessories. That said Wet From Birth has some of The Faint's most ballsy 'rock' sounding songs in years (check out the big distorted nu metal-ish guitars in "Dropkick The Punks"). As well, vocalist Todd Baechle has clearly been working on his delivery, expanding his dynamic range so as to not have to rely on studio applied effects to provide depth, personas, etc. Simply put, he's no longer enslaved to the vocoder. The space between the highs and lows of this album are considerable (for instance, the abovementioned "Dropkick..." is revved-up and exciting, while the album's single "Disappear" is downright aggravating), but we suppose that's to be expected from a band poised to make the jump to the next level of commercial success while at the same time still trying to eke out some artistic progress. Nonetheless, we'd still recommend revisiting Danse Macabre or their earlier Blank Wave Arcade.
MPEG Stream: "I Disappear"
MPEG Stream: "Dropkick The Punks"

FAINT, THE Wet From Birth (Saddle Creek) lp 13.98
The long-awaited, highly anticipated follow-up to the ultra rad Danse Macabre album has arrived, saddled with the burden of high expectations (it also comes with perhaps the worst title and cover art). Unfortunately and unjustly lumped in with the vapid electro-clash crowd (they were actually head and shoulders above the dance-punk fashionista pack -- showing some brain behind the style sheen), The Faint's new album has already been receiving the post-trend backlash. A number of us here at AQ dug D.M. quite a lot and wanted to resist that post-trend trend, hoping for an onwards and upwards progression from that album. We'd heard rumblings about intriguing changes in direction, new focuses, etc. However much to our chagrin, the first song struck us like an uninspired rehash of something that didn't even make the cut last time, but with the addition of more high-tech bells and whistles (E.L.O.-esque string flourishes, a wider range of vocal processing, etc). Their former insanely infectious hooks are nowhere to be found. Disappointed, we found ourselves asking, did they too succumb to the vacuous hipster hype machine? Well, not entirely... although it does seem that when they were making this album they were at least partially conscious of the newfound demands of appealing to the more mainstream kids. There are many songs that are clearly going to be instant crowd pleasers, but they're also among the band's most superficial work with lots of simplistic 'short-hand for new wave' accessories. That said Wet From Birth has some of The Faint's most ballsy 'rock' sounding songs in years (check out the big distorted nu metal-ish guitars in "Dropkick The Punks"). As well, vocalist Todd Baechle has clearly been working on his delivery, expanding his dynamic range so as to not have to rely on studio applied effects to provide depth, personas, etc. Simply put, he's no longer enslaved to the vocoder. The space between the highs and lows of this album are considerable (for instance, the abovementioned "Dropkick..." is revved-up and exciting, while the album's single "Disappear" is downright aggravating), but we suppose that's to be expected from a band poised to make the jump to the next level of commercial success while at the same time still trying to eke out some artistic progress. Nonetheless, we'd still recommend revisiting Danse Macabre or their earlier Blank Wave Arcade.
MPEG Stream: "I Disappear"
MPEG Stream: "Dropkick The Punks"

FAIR, JAD & WILLETT, JASON Twister (Dark Beloved Cloud) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Angular art rock, very lo-fi. This is an extremely limited edition of 100 clear vinyl lps hand cut in New Zealand, and we've got the West Coast exclusive.

FAIRFIELD PARLOUR From Home To Home (Repertoire) cd 21.00
If you have been digging the recent Kaleidoscope (UK) reissues, then here is another treat: This re-issue of Fairfield Parlour's debut album on the Vertigo label, From Home to Home. The story behind this album and band name have never been fully made clear, as Kaleidoscope and Fairfield Parlour were the same band. Perhaps tired of being confused with the American band Kaleidoscope, who were better known; or sensing that the candy-coated psychedelia they had been dabbling in for two albums was waning fast, Kaleidoscope decided to adopt the new band moniker, Fairfield Parlour, and change their look from colorful twee paisley folksters to Old Tyme country-psych balladeers. So what is the music like? Well, while there is definitely a more haunting, lushly orchestrated sound evoking a darkly antique and mystical psych-pop vibe full of harpsichord, mellotrons, flutes and 12-string guitars, and the songwriting is more serious, it's not too far from a type of sound Kaleidoscope would have naturally progressed toward had they kept the same name. Lots of bands of the era from the Kinks to the Byrds had similar stylistic evolutions from psych pop to roots rock, but perhaps the band (or the label) felt that audiences somehow wouldn't make the transition. We can't help but think the confusion over the name change only made things worse for the band (they disbanded the following year after making one more album which was never released), it's a shame too because this album is really really great! This re-issue features the original album plus eight bonus tracks of singles demos, and alternate tracks. For fans of Euphoria, The Byrds, the Incredible String band and Muswell Hillbillies-era Kinks.
MPEG Stream: "In My Box"
MPEG Stream: "Soldier of the Flesh"

FAIRPORT CONVENTION Liege & Lief (Island) cd 17.98

FAIRPORT CONVENTION Liege and Lief (4 Men With Beards) lp 17.98

FAIRPORT CONVENTION Unhalfbricking (Water) cd 15.98
The first four Fairport Convention albums are canon, no doubt about it. But while many may disagree with the inclusion of the first album, the one before Sandy Denny joined, and their full on embrace of traditional folk material on the fourth, Leige and Lief, pretty much all Fairport fans can agree that their second album, What We Did On Our Holidays, and third, Unhalfbricking are their very best. Thankfully Water has reissued both.
Unhalfbricking? What the hell does that mean? Perhaps the title was alluding to the transitional shedding of American rock elements that had featured more prominently on their first two records and laying the foundation towards redefining a traditional British sound. Sure there are still Dylan covers, in fact three of them, but the exiting of Ian Matthews brought in another Fairport stalwart, fiddler Dave Swarbrick which tipped the balance musically towards classic British folk. And what's more British than this cover? We think that's Sandy Denny's parents. So awesome! Of course, strong songwriting doesn't hurt, and Sandy Denny contributes her most famous song, "Who Knows Where The Time Goes" and the equally haunting "Autopsy". But the finest moment of the album (and prescient of their future sound) goes to the eleven minute take on the traditional tune, "A Sailor's Life". Rumor has it, that they recorded this song in a single take because Denny, suffering from a cold, didn't think she could sing it more than once (though she wouldn't stop smoking). It's definitely the band at their peak and one of the finest recordings they made. Unfortunately, as we mentioned in the "What We Did On Our Holidays" review, the band was cursed and this was the last record for teenage drummer, Martin Lamble, who died in a freak accident involving the band's van. This cemented their future foray towards traditional material as the band refused to play live any of the music that they previously recorded with Lamble. But it's the air of that legendary rock curse (which would also tragically claim Sandy Denny, eight years later) that gives the early music of Fairport Convention it's mysteriously bewitching and dark edge. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Autopsy"
MPEG Stream: "A Sailor's Life"
MPEG Stream: "Who Knows Where The Time Goes"

FAIRPORT CONVENTION Unhalfbricking (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
Newly reissued on vinyl!
The first four Fairport Convention albums are canon, no doubt about it. But while many may disagree with the inclusion of the first album, the one before Sandy Denny joined, and their full on embrace of traditional folk material on the fourth, Leige and Lief, pretty much all Fairport fans can agree that their second album, What We Did On Our Holidays, and third, Unhalfbricking are their very best. Thankfully Water has reissued both.
Unhalfbricking? What the hell does that mean? Perhaps the title was alluding to the transitional shedding of American rock elements that had featured more prominently on their first two records and laying the foundation towards redefining a traditional British sound. Sure there are still Dylan covers, in fact three of them, but the exiting of Ian Matthews brought in another Fairport stalwart, fiddler Dave Swarbrick which tipped the balance musically towards classic British folk. And what's more British than this cover? We think that's Sandy Denny's parents. So awesome! Of course, strong songwriting doesn't hurt, and Sandy Denny contributes her most famous song, "Who Knows Where The Time Goes" and the equally haunting "Autopsy". But the finest moment of the album (and prescient of their future sound) goes to the eleven minute take on the traditional tune, "A Sailor's Life". Rumor has it, that they recorded this song in a single take because Denny, suffering from a cold, didn't think she could sing it more than once (though she wouldn't stop smoking). It's definitely the band at their peak and one of the finest recordings they made. Unfortunately, as we mentioned in the "What We Did On Our Holidays" review, the band was cursed and this was the last record for teenage drummer, Martin Lamble, who died in a freak accident involving the band's van. This cemented their future foray towards traditional material as the band refused to play live any of the music that they previously recorded with Lamble. But it's the air of that legendary rock curse (which would also tragically claim Sandy Denny, eight years later) that gives the early music of Fairport Convention it's mysteriously bewitching and dark edge. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Autopsy"
MPEG Stream: "A Sailor's Life"
MPEG Stream: "Who Knows Where The Time Goes"

FAIRPORT CONVENTION What We Did On Our Holidays (Water) cd 15.98
The first four Fairport Convention albums are canon, no doubt about it. But while many may disagree with the inclusion of the first album, the one before Sandy Denny joined, and their full on embracement of traditional folk material on the fourth, Leige and Lief, pretty much all Fairport fans can agree that their second album, What We Did On Our Holidays, and third, Unhalfbricking are their very best. Thankfully Water has reissued both.
What We Did On Our Holidays is our definite favorite. If there were one classic British folk-rock record we could recommend, it would be this one, mainly because it's so unclassic sounding. Here is the band at their most adventurous and unsettled, moving into different territory with each song. Mixing covers of American songwriters Joni Mitchell and Dylan with a wide array of original numbers and spirited takes on traditional material, we're taken through a trip of lively blues stomps, eastern mysticism, ghostly ballads and the best pairing of male and female vocal harmonies from Ian Matthews and Sandy Denny. Fairport Convention had the blessing of being made up of many other talented songwriters and musicians as well, including Richard Thompson, Martin Lamble, Simon Nicol, and Ashley Hutchings, but they were forever cursed by never having the same line-up twice on any of their records. While replacing former co-lead singer Judy Dyble (Giles, Giles and Fripp, Trader Horne) with Sandy Denny definitely upped their musical profile, this was sadly the last record for Ian Matthews. He went on to found Matthew's Southern Comfort and then later pursue his own solo work, but it just wasn't on the same par as his work on the first two Fairport albums. This is arguably the best line-up they had which makes for our highest recommendation.
MPEG Stream: "Book Song"
MPEG Stream: "Tales In Hard Time"
MPEG Stream: "She Moves Through The Fair"

FAIRPORT CONVENTION What We Did On Our Holidays (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
Newly reissued on vinyl!!.
The first four Fairport Convention albums are canon, no doubt about it. But while many may disagree with the inclusion of the first album, the one before Sandy Denny joined, and their full on embracement of traditional folk material on the fourth, Leige and Lief, pretty much all Fairport fans can agree that their second album, What We Did On Our Holidays, and third, Unhalfbricking are their very best. Thankfully Water has reissued both.
What We Did On Our Holidays is our definite favorite. If there were one classic British folk-rock record we could recommend, it would be this one, mainly because it's so unclassic sounding. Here is the band at their most adventurous and unsettled, moving into different territory with each song. Mixing covers of American songwriters Joni Mitchell and Dylan with a wide array of original numbers and spirited takes on traditional material, we're taken through a trip of lively blues stomps, eastern mysticism, ghostly ballads and the best pairing of male and female vocal harmonies from Ian Matthews and Sandy Denny. Fairport Convention had the blessing of being made up of many other talented songwriters and musicians as well, including Richard Thompson, Martin Lamble, Simon Nicol, and Ashley Hutchings, but they were forever cursed by never having the same line-up twice on any of their records. While replacing former co-lead singer Judy Dyble (Giles, Giles and Fripp, Trader Horne) with Sandy Denny definitely upped their musical profile, this was sadly the last record for Ian Matthews. He went on to found Matthew's Southern Comfort and then later pursue his own solo work, but it just wasn't on the same par as his work on the first two Fairport albums. This is arguably the best line-up they had which makes for our highest recommendation.
MPEG Stream: "Book Song"
MPEG Stream: "Tales In Hard Time"
MPEG Stream: "She Moves Through The Fair"

FAITH / VOID split (Dischord) lp 12.98

FAITHFULL, MARIANNE Before The Poison (Anti) cd 16.98
Like Ali G's German fashion maven, Bruno, says, "Marianne Faithfull gets a... Wattschhupp." And actually, much to the credit of her co-writers this round (PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Damon Albarn, and Jon Brion) these songs are good. Real good. Faithfull weaves her vocals around each song's style and rhythm. With Harvey, the tracks are punkish and throbbing or slow and moody. With Cave, melodramatic and artfully tragic. With Albarn, big and britpoppy. Brion's nursery-lullaby, "City of Quartz", closes the album with a scattering of kinder-esque instruments, faux-glockenspiel, toy piano, etc. Indeed. Faithfull and company offer a grand performance of the highest caliber! Mmmyes... Bravo.
MPEG Stream: "My Friends Have"
MPEG Stream: "There Is A Ghost"

FAITHFULL, MARIANNE Come My Way (Lilith ) cd 16.98
Where the long, amazing and intense road that is Mariane Faithfull's music career began. This is her debut (actually one of two simultaneous debuts) she released in 1965. This was the darker companion to the more cheerful pop of her self titled release of that same year. The record gives a sneak peak at the darker side of Faithfull, that would unravel in the decades to come. She takes on many folk standards and with her immaculate voice and charismatic touch and makes them very much her own. Relevant as ever, as these days you can hear her influence all over the recent great underground folk scene through the voices and stylings of folks like Marissa Nadler and Josephine Foster amongst many. With her own great release last year Before the Poison it's really nice to get a listen back to her roots and marvel at the trajectory of an amazing artist's career. The record ends perfectly with "Sister Morphine" which she penned with one time lover Mick and his cohort Keith, which predated their rendition on Sticky Fingers. When you can love what someone made in 1965 as much as you love what they came out with in 2005 you know you are dealing with someone so totally special. While those boys Mick and Keith, we haven't cared about them for decades.
MPEG Stream: "Lonesome Traveller"
MPEG Stream: "Sister Morphine"

FAITHFULL, MARIANNE Easy Come Easy Go (Decca) cd 16.98
Besides being such a cultural icon, Marianne Faithful has some pretty amazing music in her back catalog. Her last album, 2005's Before The Poison was one of the most potent and emotionally stunning records of her career. It's an album some of us still listen to a lot, her voice with all its life experience shines through with so much truth, pain, and beauty. Her latest record, Easy Come Easy Go finds her tackling twelve cover songs and while we do think there should be a moratorium on covers albums, heck Marianne Faithful can do whatever she wants, and has made a career of turning other people's songs into her own.
If you are a musician and got a call that Marianne Faithful wanted to cover your song you would likely be pretty thrilled and honored, so we can't even imagine what folks like the Espers or the Decemberists thought when they got word that Marianne was going to cover their songs (those covers are two of the big standout tracks on this record!). Along the same lines, getting the call to be a part of Marianne's back up band would be pretty much mind blowing as well, so it's no surprise that the musicians on this album are some of the biggest heavy hitters around: Jim White (Dirty Three, Smog, Cat Power, etc.) on drums. Marc Ribot on guitar, Greg Cohen on bass and the list goes on and on. She also called upon some pretty recognizable voices to join her on some of the tracks like Antony, Cat Power, Rufus Wainwright, Jarvis Cocker and Nick Cave!
But make no mistake, this record is still totally all about Marianne Faithful and the way her weathered but brilliant voice is able to truly wrap itself around your ears. Whether tackling tracks by Dolly Parton, Brian Eno, Merle Haggard, Smokey Robinson, Morrissey or Judee Sill, she brings such emotional weight and such a volatile punch to these songs. Produced by Hal Willner, whom she last worked with on Strange Weather, you can feel his influence a bit too much on a few of the tracks, which go for a more old timey/cabaret feel, but luckily there are only a few of those, the rest of the album is much more driving, powerful and present sounding.
While The Rolling Stones may have ushered her into the spotlight all those decades ago, it's clear that as time has gone on Marianne Faithful sounds a million times more relevant and full of integrity than the Stones do now. A true living legend!
MPEG Stream: "The Crane Wife 3"
MPEG Stream: "Hold On Hold On"
MPEG Stream: "Ooh Baby Baby"

FAITHFULL, MARIANNE Kissin Time (Virgin) cd 22.00
Having just got back from tour with my band, during which I read Marianne Faithfull's autobiography, I have to say this release is timely. I feel like I know her. I could tell you about all of her sexual exploits, and all the drugs she did, the rock stars she hung around. Sadly that's all anyone ever cares to speak of in regard to Miss Faithfull. Why? Well... probably because it's a lot more exciting than her music. This is her first record in 3 years. Beck, Jarvis Cocker (of Pulp), Dave Stewart (of the Eurythmics) as well as Blur all help her out on this one - 'though not nearly enough. After reading the book I didn't like her at all. I got tired of her bragging and dull stories, and after listening to this cd (twice) I was equally unimpressed. Bad techno with horrible droning vocals and embarrassing lyrics. The music really embodies how I feel about her; substanceless, dull, show-offy crap. Unbearable.
RealAudio clip: "Sex With Strangers"
RealAudio clip: "Wherever I Go"

FAKEYOUROWNDEATH s/t (self-released) cd ep 3.00
New San Francisco band featuring ex-members of Elephone. While they're still in their infancy as a band they have recorded a debut ep, almost like a demo, just to get their music out in the world. And from the sounds of these four songs they're off to a pretty good start. Driving guitar fueled rockers that remind us a bit of folks like Interpol, The Editors and even Afghan Whigs. Will be cool to see what the future holds for them. And super cool that this ep so cheap.
MPEG Stream: "Mouth To Speak"
MPEG Stream: "Few Plus One"

FALCON Die Wontcha (Liquid Flames) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Those of you into obscure '70s heavy rock - or cult '80s metal for that matter - ought to be interested in this new album from the power trio Falcon. It's their second record, following a self titled debut in 2004. That one featured a cover of Bang's "Redman", and also a cameo vocal performance by Bobby Liebling of Pentagram, on a song dedicated to the memory of Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott... and that should give you an idea of where Falcon is coming from, in terms of influences/atmosphere. Capturing the spirit of the '70s proto-metal that we dig so much here at AQ too. Bang! Pentagram! 'Lizzy! c'mon!! Some other obvious selling points in Falcon's favor has to do with who's who in the band. They've got Greg Lindstrom from '80s epic doomsters Cirith Ungol on bass and Darin McCloskey of stoner metal act Pale Divine on drums. The third, crucial part of the trio is vocalist/guitarist Perry Grayson, who used to play in a much more technical power metal band called Destiny's End but gave that up to concentrate on his true love (well, next to the weird pulp fiction of H.P. Lovecraft), full on '70s-sounding downer rock. He's one of those guys with the crazy record collection full of vintage vinyl proto-metal platters, trying to bring it all back to life a la Magnus from Witchcraft. And being a badass guitar player with heavy friends makes it look easy, with Falcon now on to their second album, this one, so let's tell y'all some more about it...
Die Wontcha - love the title, love the cover art, which we can only guess was probably lifted from an old issue of Weird Tales or something like that - features ten tracks of groovy, rockin', bellbottomed '70s heaviness worship. Nine are Falcon originals, the tenth a killer cover of "Leader" by Aussie proto-metallers Buffalo (you'll find the original on their 1972 album Dead Forever, the reissue of which is reviewed elsewhere on our site). Since Perry recently relocated from LA to Australia, it's even more appropriate they do a Buffalo song. And boy howdy does it fit in with their own material.
The disc starts off with Lindstrom's lament for Scottish Formula 1 race car driver Jimmy Clark, who died in a tragic crash back in '68. It's totally the sort of thing a band like this back in the '70s would have written... almost a modern-day folk song. Definitely very Thin Lizzyish, with Perry's slightly gruff, deep voiced vocals, melodic minor key guitar leads, and classic, loping, hummable riffage. For those more into fantasy subjects, a couple tracks later Falcon's got "The King Of Elfland's Daughter", inspired by a poem by Irish fantasist Lord Dunsany. It too has a lot of Lizzyish licks...
Everywhere, Falcon's fuzzed out guitar and fat riffs scream '70s, as do the lyrics, Perry dropping lines like "back in the days of yore/hippie to the core" and "hit the stage with heavy rockin' band/tour the world kickin' out the jams/turn the amps up loud/stun the crowd". Yep, that's rock n' roll like they used to do, and Falcon bring it. But maybe the best expression of Falcon's mission is found in the lyrics to the disc's final track, penned by Lindstrom, entitled "Show You All" - which is all about going to a big show by some currently popular so-called rock band and unavoidably thinking they could do much, much better, Perry singing: "I want to jump on stage/and show you how all to play". That's kinda cocky, but we're sure some of you will share Falcon's sentiments, folks we'd recommend this to who also enjoy such quality, ripping n' riffy bands with retro-rawk '70s influences as Witchcraft, Burning Saviours, Bible Of The Devil, Slough Feg, Danava, Drunk Horse, etc... Some tracks, like "No Future" also remind us of the mood created by Wino's old band The Obsessed.
By the way, although we never listed it before, we do have a just a few copies of Falcon's equally rad s/t album in stock as well, the one with the Bobby L. cameo. We figured since we were highlighting this, some folks might want to pick that one up too, so we got some from the band. They're a little cheaper, 'cause the copies we have of that are pro duped cd-rs, not actual cds, FYI. They still have the same cool metallic foil stamped covers of the original cd version, though. And *this* disc is indeed a real cd, not a cd-r.
MPEG Stream: "Jimmy Clark"
MPEG Stream: "Careless"

FALKNER, JASON Bliss Descending (Wreckchord) cd ep 10.98

FALKNER, JASON Can You Still Feel? (Elektra) cd 15.98
Perfect pop material from this ex-Jellyfish member. For fans of Zumpano, Zombies, Beatles.

FALL A Past Gone Mad: The Best Of The Fall 1990 - 2000 (Artful) cd 30.00
"A Past Gone Mad" attempts to encapsulate the most confusing period of The Fall's history, marked by NME's 'reporting' on the turbulence surrounding Mark E Smith's drunken behavior, all of the sacked drummers, and self-destructing live shows. As a good portion of The Fall records from the '90s have escaped our ears, this is a solid (if painfully expensive) compendium of one of the most uncompromising personalities ever.

FALL OF SAIGON s/t (Dark Entries) lp 14.98
Another gem from Dark Entries, here's the reissue of the debut ep from the Southern French trio Fall Of Saigon, which featured a young Pascal Comelade, who developed into quite the avant-garde composer in the late '80s continuing strong to this day. A notable collaboration of his was in the Bel Canto Orchestra with aQ favorite Pierre Bastien; but here with Fall Of Saigon, he's working with the chanteuse Florence Berthon and guitarist Thierry Den. Their Spartan songs strut, waltz, and seductively sway along to the steady metronome pulse of a cheap drum machine with plaintive organ and electronic melodies, a smattering of judiciously plucked guitar notes, and Florence's sedate vocals. The band cites both This Heat and The Velvet Underground as influence, with the former inspiring their name; but through their sound, they've earned more than a few comparisons to Young Marble Giants with a couple of tracks that look forward to the hypnotic organ-drum workouts of Fabulous Diamonds, and they certainly deserved every one of those comparisons, as these six songs really make the most of the tiniest of sounds without ever sounding effete or unfinished. Post-punk minimalism of this nature is deceptively hard to pull off, and Fall Of Saigon do it marvelously. This is a very loud cut at 45 rpm, mastered again as with all of the Dark Entries productions by George Horn; and it gets a big thumbs up!

FALL OF TROY, THE Manipulator (Equal Vision) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Cut Down All The Trees And Name The Streets After Them"
MPEG Stream: "The Dark Trail"
MPEG Stream: "Quarter Past"

FALL OUT BOY Folie A Deux (Island) cd 15.98