HRSTA L'Eclat Du Ciel Etait Insoutenable (Fancy) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Is your Godspeed You Black Emperor antenna tingling? Yup, this is yet another project from the fertile Montreal scene, featuring Mike Moya, a GSYBE! founding member. He's also in Set Fire To Flames and Molasses. Hrsta (say "Hursh-tah") is his solo debut, featuring vocals, guitar and a lot of background creepiness. His dark and mournful vocal moments bring to mind Nico with the Velvet Underground or a drugged out Violent Femmes doing Leonard Cohen songs!
RealAudio clip: "Lime Kiln"

HRSTA Stem Stem In Electro (Constellation) cd 14.98
Hrsta is the project of Godspeed You Black Emperor co-founding member Mike Moya (also of Set Fire To Flames and Molasses). he's assembled a full band for this, the follow-up to his first solo album L'Eclat Du Ciel Etait Insoutenable, and it's a beauty. The first song draws back the heavy curtain on a darkened stage with a droning chorus of shadowy faceless chanted vocals which immediately drew comparisons to the Italian ensemble Larsen's fine album Rever which was an AQ Record Of The Week a couple of years ago. In fact, we'd venture a guess that much like that mysterious group, Hrsta also draw deep inspiration from Swans and Michael Gira. Weighted by an immense emotional gravity, Moya's music is a heady, hypnotic force -- half dream, half nightmare. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "...And We Climb"
MPEG Stream: "Une Infinite De Trous En Forme D'Hommes"

HRSTA Stem Stem In Electro (Constellation) lp 16.98
Now on vinyl. Hrsta is the project of Godspeed You Black Emperor co-founding member Mike Moya (also of Set Fire To Flames and Molasses). he's assembled a full band for this, the follow-up to his first solo album L'Eclat Du Ciel Etait Insoutenable, and it's a beauty. The first song draws back the heavy curtain on a darkened stage with a droning chorus of shadowy faceless chanted vocals which immediately drew comparisons to the Italian ensemble Larsen's fine album Rever which was an AQ Record Of The Week a couple of years ago. In fact, we'd venture a guess that much like that mysterious group, Hrsta also draw deep inspiration from Swans and Michael Gira. Weighted by an immense emotional gravity, Moya's music is a heady, hypnotic force -- half dream, half nightmare. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "...And We Climb"
MPEG Stream: "Une Infinite De Trous En Forme D'Hommes"

HRVATSKI / SIGHTINGS split (Ache Records) 7" 5.98

HTRK Eat Yr Heart / Sweetheart (Ghostly International) 12" 13.98

HTRK Marry Me Tonight (Blast First Petite) cd 17.98
When was the last time anyone made a Sisters Of Mercy reference and meant it as a wholehearted compliment? Well, that's definitely the case for HTRK (pronounced Haterock, FYI) as this Melbourne trio adopts a bleaker than black stance through their psychosexual dirges. With slinky Goth basslines, ghostly coldwave electronics, and skeletal slow-mo drum machine pulses, HTRK's arrangements mirror those that the Sisters Of Mercy produced for The Reptile House EP (which found them at their slowest, creepiest, and most anti-pop). But instead of Andrew Eldritch and his affected baritone, the singer for HTRK is Jonnine Clementine Standish whose comatose droning is seductive and compelling in its own right. She adopts the roles as the co-dependent, the broken-hearted, the addicted, the master, the servant, and the lonely, all delivered in Lydia Lunch's "I Fell In Love With A Ghost" dispassionate, zombified mantra. On the track "Rent Boy", Standish breaks out of that montone delivery, bellowing this dark ballad that comes across more like PJ Harvey than before. We have to wonder if the title is a reference to the These Immortal Souls track "Marry Me," penned by the former Birthday Party guitarist Roland S. Howard who happens to have produced this record and has sprinkled his narcotized swamp rock guitar throughout. No matter if it is or if it isn't, Howard's voodoo production for HTRK certainly gives them that Birthday Party feel. Great, very dark stuff for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Ha"
MPEG Stream: "Rent Boy"
MPEG Stream: "Fascinator"

HTRK Nostalgia (Fire) cd 15.98
Once known as the Hate Rock Trio, this Australian-born / London-based ensemble shortened their name down to HTRK (which the band still insists on pronouncing Hate Rock). Unfortunately, in the spring of 2010, the bassist Sean Stewart committed suicide. The remaining members - Jonnine Standish and Nigel Lee-Yang - look to continue making music, although that may seem a difficult proposition given that Stewart's low-slung basslines really drove HTRK's doom and dirge songwriting approach. The Birthday Party, Sisters Of Mercy, and PJ Harvey came together within HTRK's very impressive 2009 album Marry Me Tonight, produced by Roland S. Howard who really emphasized the skeletal, haunted aspect of HTRK's sound. That's quite different from what you'll hear on their 2007 debut Nostalgia, which still had a very strong Birthday Party sound especially with Stewart's recapitulation of Tracy Pew basslines, but the band has buried Standish's exhausted / exasperated vocals, Lee-Yang's swampy guitars, and the minimalist electronic programming in a huge bath of reverb. The spectral morass of all of the reverb really casts as a abjectly narcotic to the feel of these songs. Where on Marry Me Tonight which pushed Standish's vocals to the foreground to dramatic effect, she's lurking around the corners of these songs, howling and yelping deep into the night. It should be noted that a couple of songs from Nostalgia do reappear on Marry Me Tonight, although the difference in production really does change the the outcome. "Look What's Been Done" has become "Ha". "Look At That Girl" reappeared as "Rent Boy" and "I'm All Broke Up" turned into "Disco." Really fantastic.
MPEG Stream: "Look What's Been Done"
MPEG Stream: "Look At Her"
MPEG Stream: "I'm All Broke Up"

HTRK Work (Work, Work) (Ghostly International) cd 12.98
It's a bleak world for HTRK, as tragedy and death has surrounded this outfit which has only been around for a couple of years. In 2010, the band's bassist Sean Stewart committed suicide and the producer of their haunted album Marry Me Tonight, Rowland S. Howard died of cancer a year earlier. All of these elements make a connection to The Birthday Party almost inevitable, especially given their historical mirroring in relocation from Melbourne to Berlin and the manifestation of the id through a very raw sound. But where The Birthday Party was an expression of violence, HTRK are in constant search of desire, occasionally finding it only to have it frustratingly fizzle out before anything ecstatic can be achieved. As a result, HTRK's sensual bleariness is in an emotional feedback loop that never can spiral beyond the longing for sex, love, a relationship, etc, without anything ever attained. HTRK's existential portraits of being trapped by one's own desires are in direct opposition to the hedonism found in most electronica. Here on Work (Work, Work), the band parallels some of the horror-affected reverberation of the flash-in-the-pan Witch House crowd; but instead of drawing on unremembered memories of the forgotten '80s, HTRK has profound pain to draw upon... and they want their audience to feel that too.
The band had been shifting their sound even before Stewart's death, with a greater reliance on electronics and subharmonic tones girding the spindly guitar work from Nigel Yang and the self-composed breathiness of Jonnine Standish. They were moving away from the rock trio and towards a miasma of voice, guitar, bass, and electronics with boundaries between these sounds far more permeable. The closest references to HTRK's sound would be Ike Yard and Dome, although HTRK are much more interested in building tension with their teasing melodicism through their droning electronics. The first track on the album features a weird collage that Stewart had made of late nite TV sex ads in Berlin amidst slow-motion sighs caught in a half-melodic drone and crawling drum machine pulse. "Eat Yr Heart" ramps a quarter-speed Giorgio Moroder sequence above heroin paced rhythm with Jonnine crooning a sultry melody counterpointed by breathy exhalations. Sexually charged yes, but more of a downward spiral into dejection rather than release. "Poison" is more in keeping with the bass and guitar structures found on Marry Me Tonight, with Sean Stewart's bass clearly present next to the twilight flickering drone-riffs from Yang. "Body Double" overhauls Suicide's classic sound of metallic synth / drum interplay with undulating melodies that stretch into a magnificent coda of cascading melancholy for what amounts to a masterful album. Highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Ice Eyes Eis"
MPEG Stream: "Eat Yr Heart"
MPEG Stream: "Poison"
MPEG Stream: "Body Double"

HTRK Work (Work, Work) (Ghostly International) lp 17.98
It's a bleak world for HTRK, as tragedy and death has surrounded this outfit which has only been around for a couple of years. In 2010, the band's bassist Sean Stewart committed suicide and the producer of their haunted album Marry Me Tonight, Rowland S. Howard died of cancer a year earlier. All of these elements make a connection to The Birthday Party almost inevitable, especially given their historical mirroring in relocation from Melbourne to Berlin and the manifestation of the id through a very raw sound. But where The Birthday Party was an expression of violence, HTRK are in constant search of desire, occasionally finding it only to have it frustratingly fizzle out before anything ecstatic can be achieved. As a result, HTRK's sensual bleariness is in an emotional feedback loop that never can spiral beyond the longing for sex, love, a relationship, etc, without anything ever attained. HTRK's existential portraits of being trapped by one's own desires are in direct opposition to the hedonism found in most electronica. Here on Work (Work, Work), the band parallels some of the horror-affected reverberation of the flash-in-the-pan Witch House crowd; but instead of drawing on unremembered memories of the forgotten '80s, HTRK has profound pain to draw upon... and they want their audience to feel that too.
The band had been shifting their sound even before Stewart's death, with a greater reliance on electronics and subharmonic tones girding the spindly guitar work from Nigel Yang and the self-composed breathiness of Jonnine Standish. They were moving away from the rock trio and towards a miasma of voice, guitar, bass, and electronics with boundaries between these sounds far more permeable. The closest references to HTRK's sound would be Ike Yard and Dome, although HTRK are much more interested in building tension with their teasing melodicism through their droning electronics. The first track on the album features a weird collage that Stewart had made of late nite TV sex ads in Berlin amidst slow-motion sighs caught in a half-melodic drone and crawling drum machine pulse. "Eat Yr Heart" ramps a quarter-speed Giorgio Moroder sequence above heroin paced rhythm with Jonnine crooning a sultry melody counterpointed by breathy exhalations. Sexually charged yes, but more of a downward spiral into dejection rather than release. "Poison" is more in keeping with the bass and guitar structures found on Marry Me Tonight, with Sean Stewart's bass clearly present next to the twilight flickering drone-riffs from Yang. "Body Double" overhauls Suicide's classic sound of metallic synth / drum interplay with undulating melodies that stretch into a magnificent coda of cascading melancholy for what amounts to a masterful album. Highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Ice Eyes Eis"
MPEG Stream: "Eat Yr Heart"
MPEG Stream: "Poison"
MPEG Stream: "Body Double"

HUBBS, STAN Crystal (Companion / Gloriette) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We can always count on local reissue label Companion Records to foster the kind of rare hidden musical gem that perhaps won't appeal to everyone, but will get a select group of enthusiasts very excited over the discovery of someone's sincerely unique, but oftentimes misguided musical vision. Companion's specialty has always been cd reissues of vintage private press vanity releases, such as the Luie Luie, Charlie Tweddle, Marc Mundy, and New Creation records, and for their first foray into vinyl, have given us two quite amazing but very different musical visionaries: the spirited orchestral lounge stylings of Michael Farneti (reviewed elsewhere on this list) and the latent stoner mope-psych of Stan Hubbs.
Released in collaboration with Gloriette Records (Nite Jewel, Ariel Pink, and Puro Instinct), Stan Hubbs' 1982 recording Crystal is more out of its time than ahead of it. Recorded in his rural Sonoma County living room, it seems like the band almost can't decide if they're latent hippie stoner boogie-folk, eighties shred-guitar rock or progressively disaffected mope wave, which makes for an unusually intriguing sound that is hard to pin down. Hubb's vocals sometimes sung in a near monotone with female singer Kriss O'Neil can sound as much like a downer Fleetwood Mac as it can resemble some of today's gloomy pop found in Beach Fossils or Crystal Ships. But it's Larry Doyle's kitchen sink electric guitar approach that makes it really out of sync in an amazing way. Using lots of psychedelic effects and sounding like he's eager to show off his shredding licks to anyone who comes along, Doyle shows just barely enough restraint not to overstep the hazy vibe the singers and keyboards are laying down. Imagine if Simply Saucer did a cover of America's "Tin Man", and you'll sort of get the idea. But this is regionalism at its best, taking lots of big musical ideas from different popular styles and making something completely home-brewed, a bit oft-kilter and super genuine. Limited to 500 copies, comes with a full reproduction of the 16 page booklet of lyrics and drawings that came with the original release. Hot Damn!
MPEG Stream: "Joe and Gina"
MPEG Stream: "Let's Go On Back To Camp"
MPEG Stream: "Golden Rose"
MPEG Stream: "Seems Like It's A Rich Man's World"

HUDSON MOHAWKE Butter (Warp) cd 16.98
For fans of Dam-Funk , Flying Lotus and James Pants. Neo-Electro funk with lots of cheesy eighties synth patches and wobbly beats!

HUDSON, JEFF & JANE Flesh (Captured Tracks / Dark Entries) cd 13.98
The husband and wife duo Jeff & Jane Hudson started out in art-punk outfit The Rentals (not to be a confused with the Weezer side-project of the same name from the '90s). There were a couple of Rentals singles, one of which landed on Beggars Banquet in 1979, before the band broke-up. The Hudsons relocated to New York from Boston, and shifted towards synths, drum machines, and electronics in their collaborative project. Their first ep - World Trade - was released in 1981 through the seminal No Wave Lust/Unlust label alongside Mars, Dark Day, Martin Rev, Lydia Lunch, Z'ev, etc., and the Hudsons had made the rounds of all the punk spaces at the time, opening for Suicide on at least one occasion. Flesh was their second album, one that they recorded at home and released themselves in 1982. There is an insularity to this album that asks something of a chicken and an egg question. Was their self-financing the result of an expressive solipsism, or vice versa?
Regardless, Flesh is a record that didn't have many contemporaries in New York, although if they hailed from San Francisco, the Residents, Snakefinger, and the Psyclones would have all been kindred spirits. Jane and Jeff wrote darkly carnivalesque, post-punk numbers through early Roland synths and drum machines, accompanying bass, guitar, vocals, and a lot of warbling effects. Their flanging, weird sound grafted onto the chicken scratch guitars certainly looks forward to what Blank Dogs would do some 30 years later. So it's no surprise that Blank Dogs' label Captured Tracks would be one of the two two labels releasing this reissue, which comes with a ton of bonus material, including the aforementioned World Trade ep, the "No Club" single, and the punchy art-punk dance number "Special World," originally released as a single in 1983 before the Hudsons transitions from music to video art. Great stuff!
MPEG Stream: "G.S. III"
MPEG Stream: "Pound, Pound"
MPEG Stream: "Special World"

HUDSON, JEFF & JANE Flesh (Captured Tracks / Dark Entries) 2lp 19.98
The husband and wife duo Jeff & Jane Hudson started out in art-punk outfit The Rentals (not to be a confused with the Weezer side-project of the same name from the '90s). There were a couple of Rentals singles, one of which landed on Beggars Banquet in 1979, before the band broke-up. The Hudsons relocated to New York from Boston, and shifted towards synths, drum machines, and electronics in their collaborative project. Their first ep - World Trade - was released in 1981 through the seminal No Wave Lust/Unlust label alongside Mars, Dark Day, Martin Rev, Lydia Lunch, Z'ev, etc., and the Hudsons had made the rounds of all the punk spaces at the time, opening for Suicide on at least one occasion. Flesh was their second album, one that they recorded at home and released themselves in 1982. There is an insularity to this album that asks something of a chicken and an egg question. Was their self-financing the result of an expressive solipsism, or vice versa?
Regardless, Flesh is a record that didn't have many contemporaries in New York, although if they hailed from San Francisco, the Residents, Snakefinger, and the Psyclones would have all been kindred spirits. Jane and Jeff wrote darkly carnivalesque, post-punk numbers through early Roland synths and drum machines, accompanying bass, guitar, vocals, and a lot of warbling effects. Their flanging, weird sound grafted onto the chicken scratch guitars certainly looks forward to what Blank Dogs would do some 30 years later. So it's no surprise that Blank Dogs' label Captured Tracks would be one of the two two labels releasing this reissue, which comes with a ton of bonus material, including the aforementioned World Trade ep, the "No Club" single, and the punchy art-punk dance number "Special World," originally released as a single in 1983 before the Hudsons transitions from music to video art. Great stuff!
MPEG Stream: "G.S. III"
MPEG Stream: "Pound, Pound"
MPEG Stream: "Special World"

HUGUENOTS, THE s/t (Hydra Head) cd 14.98

HUKKELBERG, HANNE Rykestrasse 68 (Propeller) cd 15.98
Norwegian singer-songwriter Hanne Hukkelberg's debut, Little Things, was an enchanting collection of delicate instrumentation, fluttering vocals, and sophisticated songwriting. It took more than a few of us here at aQ by surprise and became something of a sleeper hit for lazy sun-drenched afternoons. The same sensibilities that made Little Things so successful are evident on Rykestrasse 68: vocals pushed to the front of the mix, dry, personal and sultry while a kaleidoscope of drips, drops, bells and whistles flutters in the background. However, the darker mood and sense of melancholy on this record make it more suitable for grey days and rain-streaked windows than its sunnier predecessor.
The obvious points of comparison are, of course, artists like Bjork, Feist and Tujiko Noriko -- powerhouse singers who blend fractured acoustic sounds, electronic flourishes and sophisticated songwriting; however, Rykestrasse 68 stands on its own as a beautiful work from a tremendously talented artist who manages to achieve a really engaging combination of naivete and a deliberate, self-aware intellectualism. It's a winning blend, evident in the mix between the toy instruments and found sounds that lend the record a certain childlike quality and the darkness and drama to that comes out in its best moments (take her cover of The Pixies' "Break My Body," for example).
This, much like her previous, will undoubtedly fly beneath the radar, as it falls into that awkward middle ground between something you'd read about in The Wire and cafe-friendly pop. However, give this one a chance and it'll undoubtedly become the perfect soundtrack to some quiet, melancholy moment in your life. Simply gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "Berlin"
MPEG Stream: "The Pirate"

HULL Beyond The Lightless Sky (The End) cd 9.98
We've been meaning to review this for a while now, record number two from the East Coast post-hardcore sludge pop combo Hull, whose first record positioned them alongside aQ faves Torche, with that sort of extreme heaviness fused to extreme poppiness thing, but on the new record the band have had a serious sonic makeover. The opening track alone, after a brief bit of sludginess, explodes into a furious blasting metalpunk blowout, with shrieked vox, buzzing guitars, slipping into chugging almost-breakdowns, before exploding into a roiling bit of lumbering doom, the guitars super distorted, the band lurching through some cool stop/starts, peppered with wild double kick drumming, and some psychedelic guitar shred, before shifting gears and locking into a super blown out mathy churn, before slipping right back into a strange sort of sing along punk dirge, and heck, the song is 11+ minutes so the band go all out, jamming wildly and flitting from sound to sound, managing to string it all together into something cohesive, and pretty massively crushing.
The rest of the record is just as varied, with the second track getting all spacey and droney, never really metal more a sort of acoustic guitar driven dirge, big drums wedded to some almost Appalachian style buzz, swampy and bluesy, but still dark and heavy, before the title track finds the band launching right back into some bellowed, downtuned heaviness, all angular guitars, and pounding drums, the poppiness of their first record still finding its way into their sound, but more subtly, with this new sound being much more about texture and mood, riffing and metallic pound, but it definitely suits them, in fact in some ways, while this new sound is still beholden to many that came before, it's a much more original sound, and one they've definitely made their own, and one we're still exploring after repeated listens. Epic and varied, sludgey and thrashy, melodic and mysterious, and most definitely psychedelic, this is the kind of record that should hit the spot for heavy music obsessives of all stripes. WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Earth From Water"
MPEG Stream: "Just A Trace Of Early Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "Beyond The Lightless Sky"

HULL, SCOTT Requiem (Relapse) cd 15.98

HUMAN BEAST, THE Volume One (Sunbeam) cd 16.98
Heavy-ish prog/psych power trio action outta Edinburgh, Scotland circa 1969, here's the sole album by this obscure but well-regarded band. This is its first fully official cd reissue, done with the help of the band members themselves, and boasts a 16 page booklet full of vintage photos, lyrics and reminiscences. This moody Beast was apparently much heavier in live performance than on this comparatively tame studio recording (a common problem for bands back then, lamented in the liner notes by bassist Ed Jones, who claims that only about 45 seconds of the record really reflects their earbleeding live sound). Even then, Volume One isn't without, well, volume. And power. Explosive electric guitar breaks and urgent rhythms, alternating with plodding and poetic dreamscapes. Wah-wah'd chicka chicka chicka guitar with Eastern-inflected melodies wending around and around. The first song is called "Mystic Man" and indeed the entirety of The Human Beast's album evokes a mystic, almost creepy feeling, accentuated by cryptic lyrics, lines like "We celebrate the feel of human meat" and "Mind escapes you, flies to freedom / Leaves your hollow gargoyle kingdom". There's certainly a special weirdness to The Human Beast, a peculiar, pagan freakiness. Their cover of The Incredible String Band's "Maybe Someday" fits right in. Very effective.
And while the production never lets them get quite as Beastly as they wanted to be, for 1969 this is still pretty badass. These guys probably never heard Randy Holden's Population II, but they probably would have liked it. And they'd certainly heard their share of Jimi Hendrix and Iron Butterfly... While more '60s psych than '70s proto-metal (at their heaviest here, closer to Cream than Sabbath), we'd certainly rank 'em in alongside the likes of High Tide, Sam Gopal, NSU, The Dark, Arzachel, and Andromeda...
MPEG Stream: "Appearance Is Everything, Style Is A Way Of Living"
MPEG Stream: "Maybe Someday"
MPEG Stream: "Reality Presented As An Alternative"

HUMAN BEAST, THE Volume One (Sunbeam) lp 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now also reissued on vinyl...
Heavy-ish prog/psych power trio action outta Edinburgh, Scotland circa 1969, here's the sole album by this obscure but well-regarded band. This is its first fully official reissue, done with the help of the band members themselves. This moody Beast was apparently much heavier in live performance than on this comparatively tame studio recording (a common problem for bands back then, lamented in the liner notes by bassist Ed Jones, who claims that only about 45 seconds of the record really reflects their earbleeding live sound). Even then, Volume One isn't without, well, volume. And power. Explosive electric guitar breaks and urgent rhythms, alternating with plodding and poetic dreamscapes. Wah-wah'd chicka chicka chicka guitar with Eastern-inflected melodies wending around and around. The first song is called "Mystic Man" and indeed the entirety of The Human Beast's album evokes a mystic, almost creepy feeling, accentuated by cryptic lyrics, lines like "We celebrate the feel of human meat" and "Mind escapes you, flies to freedom / Leaves your hollow gargoyle kingdom". There's certainly a special weirdness to The Human Beast, a peculiar, pagan freakiness. Their cover of The Incredible String Band's "Maybe Someday" fits right in. Very effective.
And while the production never lets them get quite as Beastly as they wanted to be, for 1969 this is still pretty badass. These guys probably never heard Randy Holden's Population II, but they probably would have liked it. And they'd certainly heard their share of Jimi Hendrix and Iron Butterfly... While more '60s psych than '70s proto-metal (at their heaviest here, closer to Cream than Sabbath), we'd certainly rank 'em in alongside the likes of High Tide, Sam Gopal, NSU, The Dark, Arzachel, and Andromeda...
MPEG Stream: "Appearance Is Everything, Style Is A Way Of Living"
MPEG Stream: "Maybe Someday"
MPEG Stream: "Reality Presented As An Alternative"

HUMAN BEING Live At The Zodiak - Berlin 1968 (Nepenthe) cd 14.98
Krautrock and weird music fans all around the world MUST being living right, to earn up the good karma required for something this cool and unexpected and downright uber-historic to drop into our laps. A previously unreleased, live concert recording from a pre-Cluster (and pre-Kluster) krautrock ensemble featuring Hans-Joachim Roedelius, from way back in 1968. Wow. Who knew? Maybe not even Roedelius, who apparently not long ago just received a tape of this in the mail from an "anonymous donor", someone who'd lugged recording equipment to the underground (literally) music club Zodiak several decades earlier and captured this show, then filed it away like a sonic time capsule of late '60s Berlin freakdom, i.e. Human Being, an amorphous collective of (mostly) non-musicians, a sort of "noise orchestra" that found a home at the Zodiak (a club co-organized by Roedelius's comrade Conrad Schnitzler), touring also all the way to Morocco we're told, but never releasing a record... until now!
This rare document consists of one lengthy track, 56 and a half minutes long, of utter loud "early industrial" featuring guitar, organ, drums, saxophone, cello... and tons and tons of electronic FX, lots of echo and delay, feedback and tape loops, and what sounds like shortwave radio static... proving that there's nothing new under the sun, once again, THIS WAS DONE OVER 40 YEARS AGO FOLKS! Sounds like something we'd be selling on a cd-r from some floorcore noise-drone outfit nowadays!
20th century avant garde meets the anarchic spirit of the freeform psychedelic rock scene, with murky droning pulsations and percussive clatter building building into an insistent heavy throb by the end of the piece. It's abstract out-there stuff indeed, difficult to describe (the deep foghorn like rumbles remind us of Yoshi Wada's Earth Horns, if that helps). But you should experience it for yourself, especially if you're into the more droned out, free improv, experimental side of krautrock (or of anything)!
Given that it's cool this is available at all, we really shouldn't complain about anything, but we will say the digipack doesn't look quite the way we'd like it to... the cover illustration and cd booklet frankly seem a bit cheesy to us, in fact we almost ignored this as a result when we first saw it (don't judge a book by its cover, all right all right) just 'cause, well, it's too modern generic computery designy lookin', those fonts, that art, yuck. But, the text of the extensive liner notes is informative anyway, and besides it's really the music that STILL matters, 40+ years on from when Human Being originally hit the scene, now thanks to this release more than just an obscure footnote to the career of the very much still musically active (in Cluster, solo, and other collaborations) Hans-Joachim Roedelius.
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"

HUMAN BELL s/t (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98
Underrated gem of a record from this band that features Nathan Bell of Lungfish fame. Think recent Earth, Grails, Gary Lucas, a more restrained Explosions In The Sky, and the expansive desolate side of Ennio Morricone. This one slipped under the radar but damn is it great!
MPEG Stream: "A Change In Fortunes"
MPEG Stream: "Hanging From the Rafters"

HUMAN EYE They Came From The Sky (Sacred Bones) cd 14.98
Remember the "blurry noise-rock-space-garage distorto rock off kilter groove damaged glam trash blooz" of the weirdly named Timmy's Organism that we listed a while back? A twisted slab of schizophrenic warped what-the-fuck from Michigan, the product of a very disturbed musical mind, one belonging to a fella named Timmy Vulgar (who fronted the Clone Defects once upon a time). Well Timmy is back, this time with a band in tow, that would be Human Eye, and they take the twisted sound of Timmy's Organism, and rev it up, giving it the full band treatment, creating a riff heavy chunk of psychedelic spaced out drug drenched outsider noise rock, that manages to be riffy, hooky, heavy, and occasionally totally and completely fractured and fucked.
Take the awesomely titled "Brain Zip (Kickin' Back In The Electric Chair)", which begins all synth laden garage rock space buzz stomp, with snarly swaggery vox, and some of THEE most distorted guitars ever, totally blown out, and all twisted up, the various sounds somehow restrained and molded into some seriously tripped out post Stooges / pre Hawkwind space garage weirdness, until the guitar solo comes in, WAY up in the mix, and SUPER distorted, a wild melodic squiggle that relegates the rest of the song to a hushed background buzz. "Impregnate The Martian Queen Pt 2" is a glammy stomp, with Butthole Surfers style processed vox, not to mention a weird watery splash sound that seems to wreathe all of the sounds, there are even bongos and some acoustic guitars, like Ziggy Stardust on a SERIOUSLY bad (or good?) trip. "Junkyard Heart" somehow channels both Van Halen AND Monster Magnet, through a short sharp blast of drum heavy uber distorted effects drenched garage dirge crush. And so it goes, song after song of twisted fractured fucked up confusional new wave / space rock / glam garage / psych punk weirdness that we're digging more and more with every listen.
MPEG Stream: "Alien Creeps"
MPEG Stream: "Brain Zip (Kickin' Back In The Electric Chair)"
MPEG Stream: "Impregnate The Martian Queen Pt 2"

HUMAN EYE They Came From The Sky (Sacred Bones) lp 21.00
Remember the "blurry noise-rock-space-garage distorto rock off kilter groove damaged glam trash blooz" of the weirdly named Timmy's Organism that we listed a while back? A twisted slab of schizophrenic warped what-the-fuck from Michigan, the product of a very disturbed musical mind, one belonging to a fella named Timmy Vulgar (who fronted the Clone Defects once upon a time). Well Timmy is back, this time with a band in tow, that would be Human Eye, and they take the twisted sound of Timmy's Organism, and rev it up, giving it the full band treatment, creating a riff heavy chunk of psychedelic spaced out drug drenched outsider noise rock, that manages to be riffy, hooky, heavy, and occasionally totally and completely fractured and fucked.
Take the awesomely titled "Brain Zip (Kickin' Back In The Electric Chair)", which begins all synth laden garage rock space buzz stomp, with snarly swaggery vox, and some of THEE most distorted guitars ever, totally blown out, and all twisted up, the various sounds somehow restrained and molded into some seriously tripped out post Stooges / pre Hawkwind space garage weirdness, until the guitar solo comes in, WAY up in the mix, and SUPER distorted, a wild melodic squiggle that relegates the rest of the song to a hushed background buzz. "Impregnate The Martian Queen Pt 2" is a glammy stomp, with Butthole Surfers style processed vox, not to mention a weird watery splash sound that seems to wreathe all of the sounds, there are even bongos and some acoustic guitars, like Ziggy Stardust on a SERIOUSLY bad (or good?) trip. "Junkyard Heart" somehow channels both Van Halen AND Monster Magnet, through a short sharp blast of drum heavy uber distorted effects drenched garage dirge crush. And so it goes, song after song of twisted fractured fucked up confusional new wave / space rock / glam garage / psych punk weirdness that we're digging more and more with every listen.
MPEG Stream: "Alien Creeps"
MPEG Stream: "Brain Zip (Kickin' Back In The Electric Chair)"
MPEG Stream: "Impregnate The Martian Queen Pt 2"

HUMAN FLESH Pretending To Be Pseudo Code (Plinkity Plonk) cd 15.98
More minimal wave weirdness from the archives of Alain Neffe, who was responsible for the huge archive of Insane Music tapes which were released back in '80s with all sorts of death disco rhythms, caterwauling electronics, and Cronenberg allusions to sex, death, and the demise of modern culture. Earlier in 2012, we discovered Neffe's recordings as Cortex, with cooing French female vocals and cosmically baroque electronic ambience. Given how much we (and quite a number of you as well!) were smitten by the sidereal radiophonic explorations of Cortex, which we went so far as to make a Record Of The Week, we've found yet another of Neffe's early projects - Human Flesh. Throughout the '80s, this was pretty much a solo project of his, although the entire Insane Music catalogue finds Neffe working with a small cadre of vocalists and electronic tinkerers. Pseudo Code was another of Neffe's projects, featuring Guy-Marc Hinant (who later founded Sub Rosa Records) and Xavier S; and this trio was quite active recording and performing from 1979 to about 1983.
One day in 1982, Neffe had set up the studio for a session of Pseudo Code recordings, waiting for Guy-Marc and Xavier to show up. Instead, a friend from a distant Belgian town arrived at the studio unannounced. This fellow was named Guy de Bievre, and the two decided to use the all of the settings on the synths, sequencers, and drum machines originally for the Pseudo Code sessions to create something for Neffe's Human Flesh project. The Pseudo Code sound was much more dialed into the Cabaret Voltaire ethos of electronics with minimalist sequencing and plodding rhythms that inspired dread and horror. Neffe and Bievre add expressivist blooping electronics, scattered guitar distortion, and some punk-poet barking to the rhythmic sequences, that could almost be a Richard Pinhas & Chris Carter duet from that same period, if such as thing could be imagined. A single track of snaking electronic rhythms, splattered with cold melodies, haunted blurting noises, and those occasional vocals that all come together as a fine piece of industrial mesmerism. Limited to 300 copies!
MPEG Stream: "Playing With Another Guy (extract 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Playing With Another Guy (extract 2)"

HUMAN INSTINCT Stoned Guitar (Vintage / Rockadrome) cd 12.98
So as soon as we dove into the extensive liner notes of this seriously awesome reissue of New Zealand's heaviest (and only??) psych band Human Instinct, we realized that despite their failed commercial success, these dudes were really way ahead of their time. After relocating to the UK in the late sixties and undergoing a handful of line-up changes, Human Instinct hit the local bar circuit with an original formula of heavy ripping psych played at blistering, amp melting volumes. Inspired by Hendrix and other dudes pushing the limits of the newly evolved electric guitar, Human Instinct developed a sound that was completely unique and possibly influential on the heavy bands that followed. While we wouldn't exactly call this stuff proto-metal, more like heavy psych, it definitely was a major step in reaching the heavy blackened riffage that bands like Sabbath and Pentagram would later perfect. That said, the album definitely has songs worth listening to over and over and over, buuuuuut there are a few tracks ya might just want to skip over. Oh and did we mention these dudes were known for having a lead singer who ALSO plays drums standing up!!?? Yes its true, Maurice Greer not only has a wicked sweet voice, but his drumming style is truly unique!!
Track number one kicks things off with an awesome version of Dennis Wilson's "Black Sally". Definitely a track you can headbang to, it's easy to hear how their slow grooving heaviness could one day become the essence of doom. Needless to say, these guys were way ahead of their time, I mean according to the liner notes, they starting playing together in '58!! Crazy! "The Jugg-A-Jugg Song", our second favorite track on Stoned Guitar, starts off with a wall of psychedelic fury, blaring, amp frying guitar, rampant drum chaos, destroying eardrums and anything else that stands in the way! So good!! "Midnight Sun" follows with stoney (obviously), repetitive riffs layered with atmospheric fuzz solos that seem to launch into the sky, really kraut-like and hypnotic, not unlike Parson Sound or Wooden Shjips, sorta.
So this is basically the complete package, four bonus tracks, killer liner notes with photos and basically the entire history of this underappreciated heavy psych gem! Stoned Guitar is fried out, in-the-red type blues perfection for fans of the recently reviewed Jerusalem, Bedemon, or even Flower Travelin' Band. We even hear some similarities to new psychedelic jammers Magic Lantern or Eternal Tapestry too. Take our advice and don't miss out on this super influential piece of psych glory!! And maybe Rockadrome/Vintage will follow up with reissues of the other two Human Instinct albums, we used to have all three as imports but they've been AWOL lately.
MPEG Stream: "Black Sally"
MPEG Stream: "Midnight Sun"

HUMAN INSTINCT Stoned Guitar (Sunbeam) 2lp 34.00
NOW REISSUED ON VINYL!! Here's what we wrote about the cd version we listed a couple years back:
So as soon as we dove into the extensive liner notes of this seriously awesome reissue of New Zealand's heaviest (and only??) psych band Human Instinct, we realized that despite their failed commercial success, these dudes were really way ahead of their time. After relocating to the UK in the late sixties and undergoing a handful of line-up changes, Human Instinct hit the local bar circuit with an original formula of heavy ripping psych played at blistering, amp melting volumes. Inspired by Hendrix and other dudes pushing the limits of the newly evolved electric guitar, Human Instinct developed a sound that was completely unique and possibly influential on the heavy bands that followed. While we wouldn't exactly call this stuff proto-metal, more like heavy psych, it definitely was a major step in reaching the heavy blackened riffage that bands like Sabbath and Pentagram would later perfect. That said, the album definitely has songs worth listening to over and over and over, buuuuuut there are a few tracks ya might just want to skip over. Oh and did we mention these dudes were known for having a lead singer who ALSO plays drums standing up!!?? Yes its true, Maurice Greer not only has a wicked sweet voice, but his drumming style is truly unique!!
Track number one kicks things off with an awesome version of Dennis Wilson's "Black Sally". Definitely a track you can headbang to, it's easy to hear how their slow grooving heaviness could one day become the essence of doom. Needless to say, these guys were way ahead of their time, I mean according to the liner notes, they starting playing together in '58!! Crazy! "The Jugg-A-Jugg Song", our second favorite track on Stoned Guitar, starts off with a wall of psychedelic fury, blaring, amp frying guitar, rampant drum chaos, destroying eardrums and anything else that stands in the way! So good!! "Midnight Sun" follows with stoney (obviously), repetitive riffs layered with atmospheric fuzz solos that seem to launch into the sky, really kraut-like and hypnotic, not unlike Parson Sound or Wooden Shjips, sorta.
Stoned Guitar is fried out, in-the-red type blues perfection for fans of the recently reviewed Jerusalem, Bedemon, or even Flower Travelin' Band. We even hear some similarities to new psychedelic jammers Magic Lantern or Eternal Tapestry too. Take our advice and don't miss out on this super influential piece of psych glory! FYI, also in stock but not yet reviewed, vinyl reissues of Human Instinct's other two albums, Pins In It and Burning Up Years.
MPEG Stream: "Black Sally"
MPEG Stream: "Midnight Sun"

HUMAN LEAGUE Dare / Love And Dancing (Caroline) cd 16.98
The transformation of Human League from electronic experimentalists with punk affinity to the advocates of new wave fashion of style over substance was completed through the third album "Dare." Yup, this was the defining album which broke them as legitimate pop stars through the mega-single "Don't You Want Me;" however, there's no sense of adventure or daring on this album beyond their angular haircuts and androgynous appearance. This CD reissue also features 8 instrumental tracks from "Dare" that were released as the "Love And Dancing" EP.
MPEG Stream: "Don't You Want Me"

HUMAN LEAGUE Golden Hour Of The Future (Black Melody) cd 21.00
BACK IN PRINT!!! Perhaps you've heard the quiet rumbling accolades for The Human League's early non-synthpop recordings. Up until now, only mere glimpses were available via their Reproduction album from 1979 and to a lesser degree 1980's Travelogue. Well, here's a UK import of twenty previously unreleased songs that predate their '80s glory. They were compiled from the label's own collection of bootlegs as well as from restored master tapes that have been locked away in the group's studio for over two decades. In those days ('77 to '79) they were also known as The Future. Decidedly un-pop, this Human League was an altogether different entity back then with a line-up that included Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh (who went on to form Heaven 17). Actually many of these works were performed by only these two gents. It was they rather than Philip Oakey who pretty much ran the early Future / Human League show. They constructed much more abstract and exploratory soundscapes with a heavier, graver mood than the later Oakey-fronted fluff that would bring the group fame (i.e, the weak songwriting, thin synth sounds, and off-key vocals of "Fascination").
Odd, yet effectively frail falsetto and deep spoken vocals converse over the low viscous electronic marches and swooping spaced-out analog synthesizer excursions with no drums or guitars. It actually would be quite at home accompanying the art-wave film Liquid Sky or on a bill with the Residents. Truly, much of this sounds quite fresh and adventurous today. All except one track were produced by Ware and Marsh. Note: the sound quality does vary from track to track, however this compilation still stands up as a revealing and intriguing document of this group's early works. Much more impressive and much less dated than both Heaven 17 and later Human League combined. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "4JG"
MPEG Stream: "Year Of The Jet Packs"

HUMAN LEAGUE Reproduction (Caroline) cd 16.98
"Reproduction" was the first proper album for the first incarnation of Human League, which was comprised of vocalist Philip Oakey, and electronic wizards Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh. Much like Kraftwerk, Human League took great care to play with the notions that all electronic music was cold and soulless but filtered through the lens of punk. At times, these tracks offer clinical rhythms and primitive electronic monotony; but at others, the trio would develop cascading melodies from shards of crystalline tones. "Reproduction" does feature Oakey's unmistakable baritone crooning throughout, which hits a low-point on the dodgy cover of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling," but for the most part is well matched for the grim electronic marches found throughout the rest of the album.
However, "The Dignity of Labour 1-4" is the true gem on this CD reissue. An instrumental EP which was produced after their first single "Being Boiled" and preceding the "Reproductions" album, "The Dignity Of Labour 1-4" is an amazing piece of proto-electronica paralleling much of the syncopated electronics produced by Chris Carter for Throbbing Gristle and later as Chris & Cosey. These four lengthy cuts are easily some of the best work that Human League ever did, if very very far removed from the chart-topping synth pop of "Keep Feeling Fascination" or "Don't You Want Me." Also featured on this CD reissue are the studio banter housed on a flexi disc for "The Dignity of Labour 1-4" and both cuts from their Fast Product single "Being Boiled" which was prominently featured on the "In The Beginning There Was Rhythm" and on the Girls on Top mashup with TLC.
MPEG Stream: "Circus Of Death"
MPEG Stream: "Dignity Of Labour 1"
MPEG Stream: "Dignity Of Labour 2"

HUMAN LEAGUE Travelogue (Caroline) cd 16.98
"Travelogue" which was the second album from Human League released back in 1980 found the group moving much closer to a friendlier pop sensibility, although occasionally showing sparks of brilliance through darkened science fiction references. Philip Oakey's vocals had clearly taken center stage to Human League's production, offering cabaret mannerisms and theatrical panache to the electronic production. A redux of "Being Boiled" is also featured on "Travelogue," but the synth horns and polished production don't add anything to the original. After these sessions, the band split due to artistic differences with Oakey maintaining the Human League moniker and Martyn Ware and Ian Marsh formed Heaven 17, a band which ironically developed into another synth-pop chart topper like Oakey's Human League.
MPEG Stream: "The Black Hit Of Space"
MPEG Stream: "Life Kills"

HUMAN LEAGUE, THE Golden Hour Of The Future (Black Melody) 12" 12.98

HUMAN QUENA ORCHESTRA A Natural History of Failure (Handmade Birds) lp 17.98
NOW ON VINYL VIA HANDMADE BIRDS!! Here's the review we wrote when the cd version came out on Utech...
Part three in the Human Quena Orchestra's ever evolving sonic mission to create what could possibly be the darkest, and most intense post industrial metallic blacknoise EVER. Not like there's a lot of competition, and having worked our way now through all three records, even if there were any other outfits foolhardy to have a go at HQO, they'd most likely be dispatched in short order. As anyone who's heard either Means Without Ends or The Politics Of The Irredeemable can attest to. Easily, two of the bleakest, most abject and miserable collections of hellish hymns and burntblack dronescapes ever committed to tape. HQO's modus operandi is a combination of caustic black buzz, of pounding machine like percussion and howling anguished shrieked vokills, all wound tight into throbbing, churning, nightmarish chunks of jagged black filth, and crusty musical misanthropy. Think the usual suspects, Khanate, diSEMBOWELMENT, Winter, Skepticism, Esoteric, even Swans, and then tune it further down, slow it further down, pile on layer after layer of suffocating buzz, of oozing soul crushing low-end, and let it fester, and rot, and crumble and decay, and you'll begin to get close to the strange and sick soundworld of HQO.
A Natural History Of Failure finds HQO mastermind Ryan Unks, joined by a handful of likeminded volunteers, each adding their own secret ingredients to Unks' noxious brew, and weirdly enough, if anything, more players has not resulted in more sound, or more accurately, the sound itself does seem MORE, more dense, heavier, thicker, more filthy and fraught with emotional peril, but the songs, the structures, somehow seem even more minimal. The opening track is more a thick, pulsing drone, a dense layered funereal creep, the sounds burnt and blown out, a single riff slowed down to near static, and left to churn and chug in slow motion, while more and more buzz and thrum and hiss is piled on top, a sound so heavy and so dense, it seems constantly on the verge of collapse. The second track two is more drone than crush or pummel, beginning as a hushed distant throb, an impossibly deep low end that drifts beneath ethereal streaks of grey melody, processed voices, and textured whirs, the sound builds to a furious roil, only to settle back down into what sounds like a symphony of warped SUNNO))) records, being played simultaneously with the needle stuck in the runoff grooves. And so it continues, a warped tarpit drift, vocals only show up in track three, and even then, so low in the mix, they just sound like jagged shards of static, nearly suffocated by the heaving rumbles above.
The whole first half of the record is constant low end punishment, but part 5 is where it changes, a processed voice, stretched into a perpetual moan, a looped bit of human bred sonic texture, over a lumbering bit bit of low-end, soon subsumed by a dense cloud of corrosive hiss, of swirling white noise, which leads directly into the most minimal track on the record, a hushed minimal pulse, warm and languid, but still subtly menacing, laced with high end shimmer, and blurred tinkling melodies, leading you gently into a truly ominous and monstrous plod, a robotic pound, trudging along a series of deep buzzing swells, being slowly torn apart by some sort of static driven industrial grey noise demon, the sound rendered and recontextualized into a slowly stuttery field of deep whirs and jagged shards of crumbling static, before finally finishing off with a brief bit of muted beauty, again, the sound impossibly thick and heavy, but blurred into something almost shoegazey, but still grim and gorgeously hopeless.
MPEG Stream: "II"
MPEG Stream: "III"
MPEG Stream: "IV"
MPEG Stream: "V"

HUMAN QUENA ORCHESTRA Means Without Ends (Daft Alliance) cd 12.98
Various permutations of this disc have been floating around for a while, each in various states of completeness, but every one we'd heard sounded even better than the last. But this is the one, the final, finished product. The long in the works Human Quena Orchestra, the work of Ryan Unks, formerly of techgrind combo Creation Is Crucifixion, but don't be expecting grind, or even technicality, this all the way on the other side of the spectrum. Abject, filthy, pummeling, slow motion noise drenched doom. A plodding sonic monster, guitars, not just distorted, but treated and twisted into harsh, skin scraping, caustic slabs of sinister sound, a low end so thick, it's like dunking your head in a cement mixer, insane sounding drums, each snare crack like the recording of a million breaking windows, each kick drum the sound of a slowed down car wreck. And beneath it all, thick swells of black ambience, drifting and slithering, pulsing and swelling. A lurching, stumbling blackened doom dirge behemoth.Ê
ThinkÊSwans, Godflesh, Pitchshifter, that sort of machinelike apocalyptic industrial pound, mixed with some funereal ultra doom a la Moss, Bunkur, etc., but filtered through a druggy psychedelia, with a minimal shimmery drone bent, that ends up sounding like a way moreÊbrutal, way more harsh, tripped out, psychedelic, industrial version of Jesu, that sort of blissed out sun baked vibe, but as if played by some misanthropic black metal horde,Êharsh blackened vocals, shrieking hysterically and growling demonically over the relentless amp melting metallic trudge. Every track is rife with layer after layer of undulating low end. Like being tossed about on a stormy sea, but instead of water, it's an endless expanse of roiling black sound waves, rumbling drones, and thick snarled streaks of throbbing bass.Ê
The magic Of Unks' Human Quena Orchestra though is that this hellish harshness is balanced with a nearly equal amount of meditative ambience, long stretches of deep shimmer, and even some of the harshest tracks are tempered by the swirling low end drift lurking beneath. So brutally gorgeous. Definitely essential listening for fans of all the above mentioned outfits, as well as Monarch, Nadja, the Angelic Process, Fear Falls Burning, Skullflower, Abruptum, Monument Of Urns, Trollmann, Khanate, The Body and all our favorite purveyors of crumbling downtuned beauty and dreamy damaged doom.
Packaged in a gorgeous hand screened multiple panel fold over sleeve with super striking ADD style microscopic super detailed artwork.Ê
MPEG Stream: "The Ballad Of Ayn Rand"
MPEG Stream: "Believer"
MPEG Stream: "To Eat One's Way From The Inside Out"

HUMAN TELEVISION Orange (Soft Abuse) cd ep 6.98
This is a bit of a surprise. From our pal Chris at Soft Abuse, who was responsible for the Fransciscan Hobbies' Masks And Meanings and more recently the Old Bombs Audios cd, comes the release of this 3 song ep from Human Television, another in the new breed of eighties pop/new wave revivalists. Channelling the Smiths, Modern English, Wire, Pere Ubu and the like, Human Television, make a glorious din not unlike Interpol, Stellastar* or the Moving Units. Good stuff, when's the full-length?
MPEG Stream: "Tell Me What You Want"

HUMIDIFIER Nothing Changes (Link) cd 13.98
Superchunk and Spent members get back to their roots.

HUNCHES Yes. No. Shut It. (In The Red) cd 13.98
Raw fucked up garage / punk by these Portland punks. Totally hectic and noisy. Their live shows are legendary for being wild and you can feel it when you listen to this. Draws comparison to Pussy Galore and the Saints. They even do a cover of the Electric Eels song "Accident", which is utter crazy noise. It's all total chaos. Not unlike their label mates The Horrors.
RealAudio clip: "Static Disaster"
RealAudio clip: "Explosion"

HUNDRED DOLLAR BAND Waves And Particles (Emperor Jones) cd 13.98

MPEG Stream: "Hope"
MPEG Stream: "Midnight Blue"

HUNDRED SIGHTS OF KOENJI (AKA KOENJIHYAKKEI) s/t (God Mountain) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY. NOW AVAILABLE ON THE SKIN GRAFT LABEL DOMSTICALLY, THOUGH, SEE ELSEWHERE ON OUR SITE!
This amazing 1994 debut by Ruins side-project Koenjihyakkei (aka Hundred Sights of Koenji) is supposedly out of print, but miraculously back in stock! We're not sure if it's actually been repressed or if somebody just found a hidden cache of these in a warehouse somewhere, but either way we're happy (and suggest you get 'em while you can)!
If you're familiar with the Magma-obssessed Tokyo bass and drums duo Ruins, imagine them becoming EVEN MORE Magma-obsessed and adding female vocalist/keyboardist and a guitar player (actually, adding a bass player, as the Ruins bass player switched to guitar for this). This uber-Ruins quartet then wrote a bunch of insane, gorgeous prog rock tunes (or, in one case, adapted a traditional Bulgarian one) and play them to dazzling perfection. The French '70s prog band we keep mentioning (Magma) were insane, but not quite this heavy or hyper. If you like Ruins and/or Magma and/or weird prog music, you might want to get this if you haven't already. Probably the best of Koenjikhyakkei's three albums, which are all pretty cool ("II" being out of print still, though).
RealAudio clip: "Doi Doi"
RealAudio clip: "Yagonahh"
RealAudio clip: "Zhess"

HUNGRY GHOSTS Alone Alone (Smells Like) cd 13.98
A few lists back you might remember that we highlighted the elegant and moody solo 4-track recordings of J.P. Shilo. As we mentioned before, he had last been heard from in the late '90s with this group The Hungry Ghosts. Known as John Brooks during that time, he along with his two bandmates were responsible for one of the better and most overlooked records of the '90s. Sharing a similar sound and scope as their neighbors The Dirty Three, these are instrumentals that speak volumes about isolation, yearning, vastness and beauty. It makes you feel like you are out in an endless open field with Ennio Morricone carefully creating musical tension out on the horizon. The perfect late night driving record. Sweeping fender guitars, splashes of organ, fiddle, accordion and varied tuned percussion. A record that sounds just as Australian as it does like the old west or even Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian. Ten years later and Alone Alone still makes us freeze in our footsteps every time we hear it. Something so pure about its sadness, about its hope and about its beauty. Time has come for this record to get its well deserved moment in the spotlight!
MPEG Stream: "Alone Alone"
MPEG Stream: "Reading Your Mail"
MPEG Stream: "Interlude"

HUNTER, JANA Blank Unstaring Heirs Of Doom (Gnomonsong) cd 13.98
We caught a fleeting introductory glimpse of Ms Jana Hunter recently when she appeared on a split LP with Mr. Devendra Banhart. We were immediately struck by just how much her voice bore a striking resemblance to his. In fact, we had to double-check to make sure it was indeed her singing. Now on her own on this full length collection of her music from the past ten years (but still in the company of Banhart in other ways, this was released on the new label he runs with Andy Cabic of Vetiver), does that still hold true or was it simply a proximity issue? Well, we can say that although Ms Jana Hunter does occasionally affect a peculiarly familiar, charming lilt when she sings, she does sound quite a bit different (from both Banhart and herself on that split release), but not incongruously so. The first song "All The Best Wishes" has an aged recording sound that brings her closer to Jolie Holland in old tymey feel (this haunted, echo-y feel resurfaces later on in the tenth song "The Angle"), but her actual performance also recalls Cat Power's Chan Marshall in its achingly personal intimacy. Quite a first impression. Not at all unexpectedly, Blank Unstaring Heirs Of Doom nestles in well alongside the neo-folk works of Banhart, Holland, Vetiver, Cocorosie and Joanna Newsom... and Cat Power too. Be sure to stick around for the closing track "K". It's a casiotone-y sweetie!
MPEG Stream: "All The Best Wishes"
MPEG Stream: "K"

HUNTER, JANA Carrion (Gnomonsong) cd ep 8.98
A sweet little ep of three demo tracks from Jana Hunter's last full length, There Is No Home and three brand new tracks. It's nice to hear the older tracks in more stripped down and lo-fi form showcasing her agile songwriting abilities, while at the same time giving us a fix of new songs to pass the time before her next sure-to-be-wonderful full length.
MPEG Stream: "There's No Home (Demo)"
MPEG Stream: "Paint A Babe"

HUNTER, JANA Carrion (Woodsist) 12" 12.98
A sweet little ep of three demo tracks from Jana Hunter's last full length, There Is No Home and three brand new tracks. It's nice to hear the older tracks in more stripped down and lo-fi form showcasing her agile songwriting abilities, while at the same time giving us a fix of new songs to pass the time before her next sure-to-be-wonderful full length.
MPEG Stream: "There's No Home (Demo)"
MPEG Stream: "Paint A Babe"

HUNTER, JANA There's No Home (Gnomonsong) cd 13.98
This sophomore album for Gnomonsong shows Jana Hunter in fine form. Moving away from the folky 4-track recordings of her debut, the songs on There Is No Home have a catchier and more powerful indie rock feel to them yet without too much unnecessary polish. Sure the influence of older Cat Power (especially Dear Sir) and PJ Harvey is still evident, but it stills sounds fresh and maybe even better than what Cat Power is doing right now, so who can fault it. A lot of these wonderful songs stay stuck in our heads for days. Nice!
MPEG Stream: "Palms"
MPEG Stream: "Vultures"
MPEG Stream: "There's No Home"

HUNTER, JANA There's No Home (Gnomonsong) lp 13.98
This sophomore album for Gnomonsong shows Jana Hunter in fine form. Moving away from the folky 4-track recordings of her debut, the songs on There Is No Home have a catchier and more powerful indie rock feel to them yet without too much unnecessary polish. Sure the influence of older Cat Power (especially Dear Sir) and PJ Harvey is still evident, but it stills sounds fresh and maybe even better than what Cat Power is doing right now, so who can fault it. A lot of these wonderful songs stay stuck in our heads for days. Nice!
MPEG Stream: "Palms"
MPEG Stream: "Vultures"
MPEG Stream: "There's No Home"

HUNTSVILLE For The Middle Class (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98

HUNX & HIS PUNX Gay Singles (True Panther) lp 11.98
As hard as we tried, we were never able to get in all the 7" singles that Hunx & His Punx released on labels like Bachelor, Shattered House, True Panther and Bubbledum, since Hunx began recording with his Punx while his other band Gravy Train! was on an indefinite hiatus. So we were so psyched to find that True Panther was compiling all those 7"s on a single lp, and since they're are all pretty much already out of print, so this might be your only chance to get all those tracks. Appropriately titled Gay Singles, the cover features an eye popping close up of a zebra stripe jockey clad crotch.
Hot on the heels of a long tour he's just embarked on supporting Jay Reatard, we're so excited that Hunx & His Punx gets to spread his amazingly flamboyant and sexy spirit and pure garage pop and punk perfection to a wider audience. A total student/lover of all things popular culture, Seth Bogart (aka Hunx) has become such a master of infusing his songs with playful and seductive themes, crafting killer pop jams, displaying plenty of tongue in cheek lyrics and a whole lot of skin, yet this is not just some kind of joke rock, as there is a really great understanding of true pop music, girl group sound and power pop and Ramones style punk rock. So damn catchy and loaded with innuendo and sex appeal that's sure to create a party anywhere and anytime these punx perform (or even just get blasted on your boombox!). So damn fun!

HUNX & HIS PUNX Too Young To Be In Love (Sub Pop) cd 11.98
With all the great music they've put out it's easy to forget that Hunx & His Punx had still not put out a proper full length until now. With Too Young To Be In Love, Hunx shows he's not just good only for singles but that he can keep the momentum up and fun flowing for a whole full length record. His love of girl groups shines so bright in these songs as you can hear how the sounds of The Crystals, The Shangri Las, and The Ronettes are given such respect as they are channeled through a gay punk's point of view. With great back-up vocals from some fine ladies including Shannon from Shannon & The Clams, this is a record that gives you all the hand claps, high energy, and tales of heartbreak that you want in a great pop record. "The Curse Of Being Young" might just be Hunx's finest song yet as it for sure will be a contender for favorite pop song of the year, and luckily everything else on the album stands near that level of pop excellence.
MPEG Stream: "Lovers Lane"
MPEG Stream: "He's Coming Back"

HUNX & HIS PUNX Too Young To Be In Love (Sub Pop) lp 13.98
With all the great music they've put out it's easy to forget that Hunx & His Punx had still not put out a proper full length until now. With Too Young To Be In Love, Hunx shows he's not just good only for singles but that he can keep the momentum up and fun flowing for a whole full length record. His love of girl groups shines so bright in these songs as you can hear how the sounds of The Crystals, The Shangri Las, and The Ronettes are given such respect as they are channeled through a gay punk's point of view. With great back-up vocals from some fine ladies including Shannon from Shannon & The Clams, this is a record that gives you all the hand claps, high energy, and tales of heartbreak that you want in a great pop record. "The Curse Of Being Young" might just be Hunx's finest song yet as it for sure will be a contender for favorite pop song of the year, and luckily everything else on the album stands near that level of pop excellence.
MPEG Stream: "Lovers Lane"
MPEG Stream: "He's Coming Back"

HUNX & HIS PUNX Too Young To Be In Love (Burger) cassette 11.98
Hunx' recent Sub Pop release, now on... cassette!?!!? Yep.
With all the great music they've put out it's easy to forget that Hunx & His Punx had still not put out a proper full length until now. With Too Young To Be In Love, Hunx shows he's not just good only for singles but that he can keep the momentum up and fun flowing for a whole full length record. His love of girl groups shines so bright in these songs as you can hear how the sounds of The Crystals, The Shangri Las, and The Ronettes are given such respect as they are channeled through a gay punk's point of view. With great back-up vocals from some fine ladies including Shannon from Shannon & The Clams, this is a record that gives you all the hand claps, high energy, and tales of heartbreak that you want in a great pop record. "The Curse Of Being Young" might just be Hunx's finest song yet as it for sure will be a contender for favorite pop song of the year, and luckily everything else on the album stands near that level of pop excellence.
MPEG Stream: "Lovers Lane"
MPEG Stream: "He's Coming Back"

HUNX AND HIS PUNX Gay Singles (True Panther Sounds) cd 13.98
Yay! Now on cd, this previously vinyl-only collection from last year, here's what we wrote about that, then:
As hard as we tried, we were never able to get in all the 7" singles that Hunx & His Punx released on labels like Bachelor, Shattered House, True Panther and Bubbledum, since Hunx began recording with his Punx while his other band Gravy Train! was on an indefinite hiatus. So we were so psyched to find that True Panther was compiling all those 7"s on a single lp, and since they're are all pretty much already out of print, so this might be your only chance to get all those tracks. Appropriately titled Gay Singles, the cover features an eye popping close up of a zebra stripe jockey clad crotch.
Hot on the heels of a long tour he's just embarked on supporting Jay Reatard, we're so excited that Hunx & His Punx gets to spread his amazingly flamboyant and sexy spirit and pure garage pop and punk perfection to a wider audience. A total student/lover of all things popular culture, Seth Bogart (aka Hunx) has become such a master of infusing his songs with playful and seductive themes, crafting killer pop jams, displaying plenty of tongue in cheek lyrics and a whole lot of skin, yet this is not just some kind of joke rock, as there is a really great understanding of true pop music, girl group sound and power pop and Ramones style punk rock. So damn catchy and loaded with innuendo and sex appeal that's sure to create a party anywhere and anytime these punx perform (or even just get blasted on your boombox!). So damn fun!
MPEG Stream: "You Don't Like Rock N Roll"
MPEG Stream: "Cruising"
MPEG Stream: "Teardrops On My Telephone"