SUN CITY GIRLS Fruit Of The Womb / Polite Deception (Eclipse) 2lp 27.00
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This is the fifth in the Cloaven Cassette reissues from the Sun City Girls on vinyl. There were 23 of said cassettes which the Girls released themselves from 1987 to 1990, although some of the material dates back to their beginning in the early '80s. These two sets of recordings were recorded in 1986, most of which features live recordings of the 'Girls free improv / middle-eastern skronk dotted with some choice songs of their mangled psyche-punk including a live version of their single "Sev Asher." Like all of the previous Eclipse 2LP sets, not all of the original cassette has been rescued and preserved on vinyl, BUT there are some unreleased extras which do make their way onto these very nicely packaged sets. We only were able to get a handful, and when they're gone, they're gone...

SUN CITY GIRLS Funeral Mariachi (Abduction) cd 17.98
Yay! Repressed and back in stock!!
This recent Record Of The Week, NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! Packaged in a mini-lp style sleeve.
We had long heard rumors that the Sun City Girls had been working on a cinematic album as something of a follow-up to Torch Of The Mystics and 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda, two of our all-time favorite, classic albums from the Girls' idiosyncratic catalogue of punky psychedelia dissolved through Southeast Asian pop, free jazz, and Ennio Morricone soundtracks. But with the tragic death of drummer, poet, and polyglot savant Charles Goucher in 2007, it seemed that the Girls would end their career with the grand tease of an album of this sort never to be released. Fortunately, those recordings were not the stuff of urban legend or of unfounded fantasy, and the Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop has finally completed the album with the help of long time SCG cohort Scott Colburn! So here it is, the final SCGs album, and it's a worthy (and really quite accessible) capstone to their idiosyncratic discography.
Morricone has long been an influence and inspiration for the Sun City Girls, and especially Alan Bishop. In fact, he's been responsible for some of the best Morricone compilations issued over the years (i.e. Morricone 2000 and the Crime & Dissonance 2cd on Ipecac). As much as Bishop had been infatuated with Morricone, the homages to Morricone had been heavily disfigured and mutilated within the playfully murderous aesthetic of the Sun City Girls, where nothing is sacred and everything is fair game with the Girls' crosscultural appropriation. But for Funeral Mariachi, the Morricone riffs are situated in beguiling songs wholly devoid of the Sun City Girls' curmudgeonly fuck-you stances. In other words, Funeral Marachi is a damn good record. So good that it will probably invite a lot more people to investigate the wonderfully frustrating and woefully inaccessible back catalogue of the Sun City Girls.
Introspective, haunting, and at times beautiful, Funeral Mariachi opens with "Ben's Radio" where the Bishop brothers breakthrough a mid-tempo spy thriller number with a staccato duet of call and response avant-weirdness coupled with blurting atonal horns. Unmistakably Sun City Girls. In "Black Orchid", the group turns in the first of many Morricone references, where the Girls' are equally enamored by the incidental vocal melodies that worked throughout all of his scores. Here the Girls' offer a sad ballad for Richard Bishop's always stunning acoustic guitar and Alan's falsetto vocals bellowing his polyglot language. "Blue West," with its high-lonesome chorales, bad-ass guitar licks, and a mournful arrangements, could have been straight out of a John Ford movie. "Holy Ground" might as well be the Girls' answer to Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls to the Heart of the Sun" with Alan's caterwauling voice droning behind the diabolically chanted vocals, beautiful guitar leads, shadowy atmospherics, and weirdly playful calliope melodies. "Mineral Wells" and "El Solo" turn towards the more saccharine moments of the Morricone oeuvre with loungy piano, reverb whistled melodies, and actual female vocals (and not Alan mimicking a woman's voice). "Come Maddalena" is in fact a Morricone cover, from the 1971 Italian film Maddalena, perhaps known only for its soundtrack. Again, a rather moody atmosphere is set for plaintive, yet fuzzed out guitar melody. So fucking good!
MPEG Stream: "Ben's Radio"
MPEG Stream: "Black Orchid"
MPEG Stream: "Blue West"
MPEG Stream: "Come Maddalena"
MPEG Stream: "Funeral Mariachi"

SUN CITY GIRLS Funeral Mariachi (Abduction) lp 25.00
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We had long heard rumors that the Sun City Girls had been working on a cinematic album as something of a follow-up to Torch Of The Mystics and 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda, two of our all-time favorite, classic albums from the Girls' idiosyncratic catalogue of punky psychedelia dissolved through Southeast Asian pop, free jazz, and Ennio Morricone soundtracks. But with the tragic death of drummer, poet, and polyglot savant Charles Goucher in 2007, it seemed that the Girls would end their career with the grand tease of an album of this sort never to be released. Fortunately, those recordings were not the stuff of urban legend or of unfounded fantasy, and the Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop has finally completed the album with the help of long time SCG cohort Scott Colburn! So here it is, the final SCGs album, and it's a worthy (and really quite accessible) capstone to their idiosyncratic discography.
Morricone has long been an influence and inspiration for the Sun City Girls, and especially Alan Bishop. In fact, he's been responsible for some of the best Morricone compilations issued over the years (i.e. Morricone 2000 and the Crime & Dissonance 2cd on Ipecac). As much as Bishop had been infatuated with Morricone, the homages to Morricone had been heavily disfigured and mutilated within the playfully murderous aesthetic of the Sun City Girls, where nothing is sacred and everything is fair game with the Girls' crosscultural appropriation. But for Funeral Mariachi, the Morricone riffs are situated in beguiling songs wholly devoid of the Sun City Girls' curmudgeonly fuck-you stances. In other words, Funeral Marachi is a damn good record. So good that it will probably invite a lot more people to investigate the wonderfully frustrating and woefully inaccessible back catalogue of the Sun City Girls.
Introspective, haunting, and at times beautiful, Funeral Mariachi opens with "Ben's Radio" where the Bishop brothers breakthrough a mid-tempo spy thriller number with a staccato duet of call and response avant-weirdness coupled with blurting atonal horns. Unmistakably Sun City Girls. In "Black Orchid", the group turns in the first of many Morricone references, where the Girls' are equally enamored by the incidental vocal melodies that worked throughout all of his scores. Here the Girls' offer a sad ballad for Richard Bishop's always stunning acoustic guitar and Alan's falsetto vocals bellowing his polyglot language. "Blue West," with its high-lonesome chorales, bad-ass guitar licks, and a mournful arrangements, could have been straight out of a John Ford movie. "Holy Ground" might as well be the Girls' answer to Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls to the Heart of the Sun" with Alan's caterwauling voice droning behind the diabolically chanted vocals, beautiful guitar leads, shadowy atmospherics, and weirdly playful calliope melodies. "Mineral Wells" and "El Solo" turn towards the more saccharine moments of the Morricone oeuvre with loungy piano, reverb whistled melodies, and actual female vocals (and not Alan mimicking a woman's voice). "Come Maddalena" is in fact a Morricone cover, from the 1971 Italian film Maddalena, perhaps known only for its soundtrack. Again, a rather moody atmosphere is set for plaintive, yet fuzzed out guitar melody. So fucking good!
The vinyl of Funeral Mariachi is undoubtedly limited, but a cd is scheduled for release later in October, we're told.

SUN CITY GIRLS God Is My Solar System/Superpower (Eclipse) 2lp 18.98
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Eclipse has undertaken the ambitious yet noble task of re-releasing the entire Sun City Girls cassette recordings -- some of which date back to the band's pre-Placebo origins. This first re-issue (in a series of ten) includes the first two releases by the band, taken from their cassettes "God Is My Solar System" and "Superpower". Recorded between 1982 and 1983, these tracks show the Girls in all their youthful exuberance -- an unselfconscious & spontaneous collision of punk rock and free jazz-- and probably made when the members of bands like the No Neck Blues Band were just a twinkle in their mamas' eyes. Sadly for SCG completists, we aren't entirely sure whether these two slabs of wax actually contain all the tracks on first two cassettes. While none of us personally owns either, according to Scott Colburn's very complete discography -- http://www.gravelvoice.com/scg/scg.html -- there are quite a few tracks missing and some included which weren't even on the original cassettes. But before you poo poo this and the upcoming LP's as unworthy of your attention, know that you a) will only be able to find these tracks otherwise on crappy nth generation dubs and b) that these handsomely pressed gatefold double LPs are limited to 1000 copies. On top of that this album cover is attractively decorated with nice archival live photos of Sun City Girls demonstrating to all who stand before them just who the Gods, or Godesses, of costume rock are.
MPEG Stream: "This Is My Name"
MPEG Stream: "Invocation"

SUN CITY GIRLS Handsome Stranger, the (Abduction) cd 14.98
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The 'Girls have finally gotten around to releasing volume 8 in their Carnival Folklore Ressurection series and is it worth the wait? Err... well, the dwindling fanbase around here say "nay!" But then again, we haven't been the staunchest supporters of this series for the most part. Says here the tracks here were recorded between 1997 and 1998 at Gravelvoice, GBV and Maple Leaf. Mr Charles Gocher serves as appointed rantster on this disc with the Bishop brothers noodling around for accompaniment -- think Dante's Disneyland Inferno without so much inspiration. Gocher's forced kookiness is tiresome at best, but Jim probably said it best at our second listen through the album: (in his finest impersonation of the comic book store owner guy on the Simpsons) "Worst Sun City Girls Album EVER!" The music itself ranges from the usual clack n' scratch creepery to tongue-in-cheek jazz with a snippet of a field recording from Bali thrown in at the very end for good measure.
RealAudio clip: "Shadowland"
RealAudio clip: "Grease That Lightnin' Bolt"

SUN CITY GIRLS High Asia Lo-Pacific (Abduction) 2cd 16.98
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"High Asia Lo-Pacific" comprise volumes 9 and 10 of the Sun City Girls' Carnival Folklore Resurrection series. High Asia, disc one, finds the Girls returning to their quasi-ethno folk which they seem to do so well. Using primarily stringed instruments -- guitars and lutes, bowed and plucked -- augmented with some nice harmonium work and a bit of piano. Middle Eastern flavored melodies are the vehicle of choice for most of these tracks with the Girls using their trademarked falsettos and nasal murmuring. Gocher's drumming remains low in the mix throughout with the exception of the sort of rocking "Philly SOUL LAO" and "Old Glory's Fade". Three tracks of the Sun City Girls' alter ego as a dark-hippy jam band are the exception to the rule in this collection and their presence represents more of a refreshing change than the wearying endlessness that an entire album of such No Neck Blues Band-esque skronkery can be. Disc two, Lo-Pacific, is a 40 minute mix-track of short wave and field recordings. With the exception of a section in the middle entitled "Blood of Guadalajara" -- contributed by John Vallier -- featuring a radio play of a 'cock' fight (get it?) , all the recordings were made by the Sun City Girls during their travels throughout Asia between 1988 and 1998. Quite a nice montage of street scenes, odd animal noises, calls to prayer, arguments, strange radio transmissions and more. There's even a snippet of a numbers station (Russian maybe?) slipped into the mix. The inclusion of this second disc definitely pushes this release near the top of the list of our favorites in the C.F.R. series.
RealAudio clip: "Draco Kilik"
RealAudio clip: "Qator Sidaan Yong"
RealAudio clip: "Ruby SOUL LAO"
RealAudio clip: "Lo-Pacific (excerpt 1)"
RealAudio clip: "Lo-Pacific (excerpt 2)"
RealAudio clip: "Lo-Pacific (excerpt 3)"

SUN CITY GIRLS Insignificanto (Empirical) 7" 5.98
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SUN CITY GIRLS Jacks Creek (Abduction) cd 16.98
This record is fucked. Maybe you're thinking that "fucked" is one of the best compliments we can offer for a record. But seriously, this record is fucked-up. The Sun City Girls have long been known for the devilish personas which adopted liberally from the South East Asian pop and Bollywood scores. Slowly, erratic Beat poetry, bizarrely theatrical ideas, and uncomfortable experiments began to creep into their recordings. Jacks Creek was one of the records that had long been reviled as one of the Sun City Girl's biggest red flags for a serious lack of quality control. Loosely, a 'hillbilly' album, Jack's Creek begins with the Goucher and the Bishop Brothers muttering in badly rendered, redneck drawls about the terrible odor coming from an Indian burial mound somewhere nearby. For 10 minutes three men groans and whisper their fears, for one of the more convoluted extracts from the Sun City Girls catalogue. Eventually, a back-porch improv jam of warble and strum on harmonica, banjo, and voice brings this track to a conclusion, leaving more questions than answers. The hobo freak-folk of Jacks Creek with more hoots, false starts, and faux-drunk dialogue than actual songs, would certainly turn off anybody looking for an entire album of dramatic psych-punk ecstasy a la Torch Of The Mystics (although a few meandering gems like "Fact The Business" work their way into Jacks Creek). Like we said, this record is fucked.
MPEG Stream: "Gurman"
MPEG Stream: "Useless Stillborn"
MPEG Stream: "Fact The Business"

SUN CITY GIRLS Juggernaut (Abduction) cd 16.98
Alan Bishop of the Sun City Girls has been the curator of many of the finest Ennio Morricone collections, including the brilliant compilation on Ipecac Crime & Dissonance, despite the John Zorn written liner notes that seemed to suggest that Mike Patton had done the compiling. Needless to say, it makes a lot of sense for the Sun City Girls to find their way into the realm of the soundtrack, given Alan Bishop's love of Morricone; and Juggernaut is one of those Sun City Girls soundtracks. While this soundtrack was originally released on vinyl through Abduction back in 1994, the corresponding film by Mark Roman Bodnar and Kyrill Kazemirovitch Protsenko had never been officially released. That said, it did make an appearance at an Italian film festival in 1997; so, it probably is an actual film, and not some fiction propagated as a strange in-joke by the Sun City Girls. But then again...
Anyway, Juggernaut is a pretty good Sun City Girls album. The band had always been a difficult proposition, as they had thrown every idea (from the great notions of smashing Southeast Asian pop melodies with SoCal skate punk energy to the better-in-theory modes of junkyard gamelan via free jazz) at the audience and let them sort out the mess. Juggernaut follows suit, as an entirely instrumental album with the highlights giving nods to the classic SCG album Torch of the Mystics through lysergic guitar solos splattered across acid-punk jams that could easily ground the work of early Flaming Lips or Thinking Fellers, if those bands were way more fucked up. The semi-focused, stoned ritualism that makes up the rest of the album could have had some atmospheric purpose in the original film although they're not out of character for any given Sun City Girls album.
MPEG Stream: "Gravelhead"
MPEG Stream: "Spatial Retreat"
MPEG Stream: "Among All Flat"

SUN CITY GIRLS Libyan Dream (Abduction) cd 14.98
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Volume 7 in the Carnival Folklore Resurrection series, and all four of Aquarius' Sun City Girls heads give it the thumbs up. According to the liner notes the Sun City Girls originally made 50 cassettes of "Libyan Dream" and dropped them off in cassette vendors racks throughout South East Asia in 1993. The majority of the tracks on this disk are in the garage punk -- ethno and otherwise -- vein which the Girls do so well. Some of the tracks might even be familiar to those who've had any of the prolific cassette releases by the band. There's a rocking version of the Ted Nugent's Amboy Dukes' "Journey To the Center of Your Mind" replete with vocals (versions I've heard the Girls do previously were instrumental), and a nice rendition of the theme to "The Wild World of Animals." On the faux ethno-garage tip there's a version of "The Vinegar Stroke" (from Torch of the Mystics) and a great seven minute opus reworking of a traditional number entitled "Sangkala Suite." For those who prefer the Girls' improv free skronk, there is one five minute track here as well as forays in a couple other tracks, including the 14 minute + title track.
RealAudio clip: "Journey To The Center Of The Mind"
RealAudio clip: "Sangkala Suite"

SUN CITY GIRLS Montreal Pop (NCHC) lp 14.98
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SUN CITY GIRLS Napoleon & Josephine: Singles Volume 2 (Abducted) cd 16.98
We were thinking, yay, Singles Volume 2! Singles Volume 1, entitled You're Never Alone With A Cigarette, was soooo good (see our review elsewhere on the site, sadly though it's out of print now).
But... er... well... not yay quite so much. This one is kinda hard to take, though certain diehard SCG fans will doubtless disagree. It's the skits side of their ourvre represented here, rather than the music.
Maybe go for the Master Musicians Of Bukkake's Totem One or Totem Two, instead, if you haven't already.

SUN CITY GIRLS Piasa... Devourer Of Men (Abduction) cd 16.98
So the story goes that a young Italian director named Antonio Pomola got in touch with the Sun City Girls in 1993 to score a film about a giant pre-historic flying reptile terrorizing a 19th Century Native American tribe somewhere in the Midwest. According to the Girls, the film was never completed; and the soundtrack is the only document from the film's creative genesis. There doesn't appear to be any further information about the career or even existence to this Pomola character, beyond the fact that the Sun City Girls composed this soundtrack of fragmented interludes, raga instrumentals, and weirdo atmospherics. Needless to say, the Girls self-released this soundtrack in 1994 on vinyl; only to have it disappear from circulation in quick fashion.
Jump a dozen years into the future, and the soundtrack is available again at last with a cd pressing. Composed immediately after their Juggernaut soundtrack (reviewed elsewhere on this list), the Sun City Girls offered a series of edited fragments, which mostly touch on a psychedelic ritualism which foreshadows the Finnish free-folk splatter of Avarus, Kemialliset Ystavat, and Kuupuu. Faux-indian raga blues drifts into lumbering plods for plenty of chicken scratch guitar noodles, free-jazz drum stumblings, and glossalaic vocals. At times, the Bishop brothers and Charlie Gocher tease us with a glimpse of their mutant songwriting talents; but more often than not, it's sinister atmospheres for gongs, Tibetan horns, and amorphous guitar pluckery.
MPEG Stream: "Thunderbird"
MPEG Stream: "Wingspan Eclipse Of The Moon"

SUN CITY GIRLS Radio One & Two (Abduction) 2cd 19.98
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After an almost three year hiatus (Sublime Frequencies seems to have been garnering the Girls' attention and finances these days) the Sun City Girls have racheted up the Carnival Folklore Resurrection project with two new titles, both of them live performances by the trio on the radio. This first set, CFR volumes 11 & 12, was recorded in November of 2002 on Brian Turner's radio show on WFMU in New Jersey and was actually originally released a year or so ago as a super limited edition available only through the group's website. Both sets are quite similar in execution, spanning the gamut of SCG's musical tendencies. Either of these performances could be seen as a great introduction to the group or, equally, one for serious fans only. It's all here: overseas shortwave and field recordings, Uncle Jim rants, skronky improv madness, pretty instrumental interludes, re-engineered soundtrack themes and bizarre mixes. If there's a noticeable difference in the balance of material on the two releases we'd say that Radio One & Two has more Uncle Jim ranting and field recording mixing, while 98.6 Is Death has more actual live rocking, jamming and skronking in the studio.
MPEG Stream: "Not In My League"
MPEG Stream: "Krung Thep Cut-out"

SUN CITY GIRLS Severed Finger With A Wedding Ring (Abduction) cd 14.98
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How time flies... We're now on volume 5 in the Girls' monthly "Carnival Folklore Ressurection" series. Seven more to go. This one was recorded on March 18th of this year in -- surprize, surprize -- Seattle, Washington. The disk opens with a mock blues piece with curmudgeonly vocals by Mr Gocher, and then proceeds into a rather nice 10 minute, organ led instrumental dirge rock jam. After a track of more Gocher-led rambling (this time more akin to the tracks on "Dante's Disneyland Inferno") the rest of the show is occupied by guitar, bass and drum improv madness. Not exactly crucial, but who is to understand what is it is that Sun City Girls fans really want...

SUN CITY GIRLS Static From The Outside Set (Abduction) cd 14.98
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Ah the Sun City Girls. Ever perplexing and unpredictable... yet reliably weird. It's nice to know there's always the Sun City Girls. It's kinda that "there'll always be an England" feeling. But different. Very different. Anyway, and now we're up to number fourteen in the SCG's "Carnival Folklore Resurrection" series. Static From The Outside Set recorded (or should we say compiled?) for a BBC radio program, On The Wire Lancashire, in the summer of 2005. There's 29 diverse tracks here, many of them collaged tracks-within-tracks edited to simulate the spinning of the radio dial. Highlights? Well there's a lot of almost Jewelled Antlerish tinkering and droning, we liked those cuts quite a bit. The SCGs can do the psychedelic drone folk thing quite well (and they also play on our heartstrings by doing a very faithful cover of "Gently Johnny" from The Wicker Man soundtrack!).
But there's more: fake-jazz ("Tea Boy Attitude", "Django-ized"), Beeheartian skronk ("Iced-Off Broccoli"), interminable talk radio parody ("Sacrifice in the USA"), blues, a limerick, a Brian Wilson song, all sorts of jibber jabber and non sequitur interludes, like the track "Elvis and Machinery" wherein the Colonel tells Elvis, "stay away from that wheelbarrow, you don't know nothin about machinery". You'll go "huh?" but then the Girls will spin that dial and you'll be dealing with something else already. So it's something of a grab bag, but one we sure didn't mind groping around in.
MPEG Stream: "Mysteries Behind The Curtain"
MPEG Stream: "Bacchanalia"
MPEG Stream: "Radio Neocon #3"

SUN CITY GIRLS Sumatran Electric Chair (Abduction) cd 14.98
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Six discs into the Sun City Girls' rather indulgent "Carnival Folklore Resurrection" series and even the most fannish of fans could be forgiven for starting not to care. So, in accordance with their contrary ways, leave it to the SCGs to spring a surprise: this one is probably the best yet in the series, an actual collection of pseudo ethnic psychedelic "pop" songs mixed with mysterious field recordings, both providing much evocative, "exotic" ambience. So, if the messy spazzy skronk of the live stuff that comprises a lot of the first five discs in the CFR series turned you off, you should give 'em another chance with this one.
RealAudio clip: "My Friend RAIN"
RealAudio clip: "Gardens Green with Broken Chests"
RealAudio clip: "Bustin' Up MOGOK"

SUN CITY GIRLS Superculto (Abduction) cd 14.98
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Volume three in the "Carnival Folklore Ressurection" series. This one was taken from a live show, once again in Seattle, from September 13, 1997. Jim and Byram both rate this one somewhere in between the second and the first (Andee would just as soon see them stop altogether) -- a bit of their rock fuckery and a bit of their jazzy improvery. Our man on the inside, John at Revolver, says that there are twelve of these due for release (one a month.) I suppose that there are people out there that will need all twelve, but I just wish they would re-issue all their cassettes on cd -- remastered or not -- or get the rights to re-issue their old Placebo releases?

SUN CITY GIRLS The Dreamy Draw (Abduction) cd 14.98
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Second volume in SCG's "Carnival Folklore Resurrection" series, The Dreamy Draw is a vast improvement over the first. Similar to Vol. 1, it's a semi-improvised live performance (this time Seattle in May of 1998), but this is executed with a greater degree of savvy, on the level that one would expect from a group as seasoned as the Sun City Girls (rather than the pedestrian stoned-in-college basement "jam session" of volume one.) The performances here are soaked with meandering piano playing pseudo-East Asian pentatonic ditties along with the various parts and pieces of gamelan that the Girls have picked up in their travels.

SUN CITY GIRLS Torch of the Mystics (Tupelo) cd 14.98
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Reissued once again on cd, Torch... is most often referred to as the best SCG album; a good place to start.

SUN CITY GIRLS Valentines From Matahari (Majora) cd 14.98
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Finally a cd reissue of this excellent SCG improv-splatter elpee.

SUN CITY GIRLS You're Never Alone With A Cigarette (Abduction) cd 16.98
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In recent months, we've seen several interestin' Sun City Girls reissues come out on cd via the Abduction label, like such previously vinyl-only rarities as the (supposed) soundtrack recordings to Piasa The Devourer Of Men, Dulce, and Juggernaut. Along with the shaggy dog hillbilly joke that is Jacks Creek. So fans of the now sadly defunct Sun City Girls, that cultish, psych-punk, faux-ethnic, WTF? trio, have had some welcome listening of late. However, this new disc, a collection (volume one!) of Sun City Girls singles, has us the most excited yet. That's cause these nine tracks, mostly released as singles on the Majora label back in the day, were actually all recorded during the same sessions that resulted in the acclaimed 1989 SCG album Torch Of The Mystics. That album, now out of print, is almost universally regarded as the band's best, and most popular. We'd agree, it's definitely the unanimous fave here at AQ (well, along with the equally long gone 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda). Too bad Torch Of The Mystics is out of print!! But of course that makes these tracks, cousins to those on Torch, all the more covetable!
Apparently, originally Torch was meant to be a double LP, and most of these tracks were instrumentals that would have been sequenced in amongst the songs that appeared on the final version of Torch. Plans for a double LP were eventually scrapped, and much of the extra material was then released by Majora on the You're Never Alone With A Cigarette 7" and Three Fake Female Orgasms 2x7". However, three of the tracks here are previously unreleased studio recordings, and another track, "The Fine-Tuned Machines Of Lemuria", is restored to its full 12 minute length for the first time (having been edited down for 7" release).
On of the reasons we (and everybody) likes Torch so much is that the songs, sounding much like some sort of alien, Southeast Asian surf rock, were unhindered by the unhinged eccentric excesses that make so many other, more confusional SCG recordings something of an acquired taste. Their unique take on "world music" was at its most accessible on Torch, with some of their most memorable, melodic moments and evocative atmospheres. You're Never Alone..., while not quite Torch part II, is certainly in that ballpark, with the ringing, exotic electric guitar skree of Richard Bishop taking center stage on much of this, ably supported by the drums and percussion of Charles Gocher and the bass playing of Alan Bishop (with sundry other, often ethnic, instrumentation from all). There's glorious folky riffing and moody improvs and plenty of prime SCG wonderful weirdness. Definitely an essential disc for all SCG fans!!
MPEG Stream: "Amazon One"
MPEG Stream: "Wild World Of Animals"

SUN DIAL Other Way Out / Other Way In (Relapse) 2cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Plains Of Nazca"
MPEG Stream: "Exploding In Your Mind"

SUN DIAL Return Journey (Relapse) cd 12.98

MPEG Stream: "Magic Potion"
MPEG Stream: "North Eastern"

SUN KIL MOON Admiral Fell Promises (Caldo Verde) cd 14.98
After all these years, Mark Kozelek's music still fills us with chills and goosebumps like no one else can. His melancholic voice and restrained arrangements come together for songs that sink so deep into our veins and lead us into cloudy and dazed daydreams. Admiral Fell Promises is a new set of songs written by Kozelek (he was on a big covers kick for a while) and they rank right at the top of anything he has created. The formula is not all that different from past Sun Kil Moon releases but there is something in the stark immediacy of the songs that is pulling us in so deep to this carefully crafted album. Maybe it's all the years he's spent in San Francisco but the record is just so perfect for those fog filled grey days that hit us all throughout the year and make us forget what day/month/year it is. These songs are so perfect for that dazed and dislocating sensation, filled with such a bleak romanticism. If he didn't have such a tasteful sense of subtly he could easily wow a crowd with impeccable almost flamenco/Spanish sounding guitar playing. Kozelek is one of those people who has never rested on his laurels. After Red House Painters it would have been easy for him to just allow that to be his lasting legacy, but over the years under his own name and the Sun Kil Moon moniker he continues to create a body of work that will stand the test of time. A must have for Kozelek fans and if you have checked out on his releases for a while this would be a great time to check back in!
MPEG Stream: "�lesund"
MPEG Stream: "Half Moon Bay"
MPEG Stream: "Bay Of Skulls"

SUN KIL MOON April (Redeye) 2cd 16.98
From the first few chords and softly warbled vocals of April's 10 minute opening track, "Lost Verses," it's clear that we are in familiar territory with Mark Kozelek's latest release under the Sun Kil Moon moniker -- his first collection of new songs since 2003's Ghosts Of The Great Highway; his incredibly distinctive, molasses-slow blend of roots, indie rock, doom and gloom folk, Neil Young-tinged guitar sprawl, and traditional American songsmithery is in full effect here. Kozelek has made a career out of continually refining a very particular and immediately recognizable aesthetic. It's a sound that is at once both sprawling and intimate, expansive and hushed, confident and reserved. April is marked with the same sense of haunted yearning and loneliness that has characterized all of his best work. In fact, this may be one of the finest collections of songs he's produced to date. It's easy to get lost in this record, as the delicate interplay between words and melody weave their way around one another and reveal a stark beauty that only Kozalek is able to produce.
This 2cd set includes a bonus disc with alternate versions of 4 songs from the album lovingly packaged in a digipak adorned with ethereal b&w photography that will be as familiar to fans as the sound of Kozalek's voice. Simply gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "Lost Verses"
MPEG Stream: "Moorestown"

SUN KIL MOON Ghosts Of The Great Highway (Jetset) cd 16.98
Attention all Mark Kozelek and Red House Painters fans gather 'round! Here's something new for you from the gent himself! Not surprisingly his new band sounds very much in the same vein as his assorted past work. Heck, his stellar bandmates include Red House Painters' Anthony Koutsos, American Music Club's Tim Mooney and Geoff Stanfield (ex-Black Lab). Each song is steeped in Kozelek's usual yearning melancholia and lyrical eloquence, all warmed by ample reverb. The highlight is the expansive, haunting 14 minute long "Duk Koo Kim", although "Carry Me Ohio" and "Last Tide" aren't far behind. As well, they fire things up a bit on the comparatively rockin' "Lily And Parrots". Sure to please fans new and old.
MPEG Stream: "Carry Me Ohio"
MPEG Stream: "Duk Koo Kim"

SUN KIL MOON Ghosts Of The Great Highway (Jetset) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another fave now on vinyl! What we said about the cd version: Attention all Mark Kozelek and Red House Painters fans gather 'round! Here's something new for you from the gent himself! Not surprisingly his new band sounds very much in the same vein as his assorted past work. Heck, his stellar bandmates include Red House Painters' Anthony Koutsos, American Music Club's Tim Mooney and Geoff Stanfield (ex-Black Lab). Each song is steeped in Kozelek's usual yearning melancholia and lyrical eloquence, all warmed by ample reverb. The highlight is the expansive, haunting 14 minute long "Duk Koo Kim", although "Carry Me Ohio" and "Last Tide" aren't far behind. As well, they fire things up a bit on the comparatively rockin' "Lily And Parrots". Sure to please fans new and old. THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.


MPEG Stream: "Carry Me Ohio"
MPEG Stream: "Duk Koo Kim"

SUN KIL MOON Ghosts Of The Great Highway (Deluxe Reissue) (Caldo Verde) 2cd 16.98
Hurrah! This marvelous Sun Kil Moon album has been reissued by Mark Kozelek's own label Caldo Verde. Along with the original album comes a whole extra disc of a half dozen bonus tracks including an acoustic rendition of "Salvador Sanchez", two versions of "Somewhere" and a radio recording of "Gentle Moon".
Here's what we said about the 2003 release:
Attention all Mark Kozelek and Red House Painters fans gather 'round! Here's something new for you from the gent himself! Not surprisingly his new band sounds very much in the same vein as his assorted past work. Heck, his stellar bandmates include Red House Painters' Anthony Koutsos, American Music Club's Tim Mooney and Geoff Stanfield (ex-Black Lab). Each song is steeped in Kozelek's usual yearning melancholia and lyrical eloquence, all warmed by ample reverb. The highlight is the expansive, haunting 14 minute long "Duk Koo Kim", although "Carry Me Ohio" and "Last Tide" aren't far behind. As well, they fire things up a bit on the comparatively rockin' "Lily And Parrots". Sure to please fans new and old.
MPEG Stream: "Carry Me Ohio"
MPEG Stream: "Duk Koo Kim"

SUN KIL MOON Tiny Cities (Caldo Verde) cd 15.98
Such a remarkable songwriter who clearly appreciates other remarkable songwriters, Mark Kozelek seems to really loves covering other folks' music! You might recall his awesome cavalcade of AC/DC songs (found on three of his solo cds -- Rock & Roll Singer, What's Next To The Moon and the out-of-print White Christmas), not to mention a handful of John Denver, Kiss and Simon & Garfunkel tunes too. Well, in his post-Red House Painters band Sun Kil Moon he's strangely chosen to follow-up their acclaimed 2003 debut album Ghosts Of The Highway with a sophomore effort which is comprised completely of Modest Mouse covers. S'pose it was a pretty fun album to record considering the caliber of Isaac Brock's songs (not to mention a pretty shrewd business move on his part considering the current popularity of Brock & Co). Very odd, but it works! Kozelek fully inhabits Tiny Cities, making the songs warmly his own.
MPEG Stream: "Space Travel Is Boring"
MPEG Stream: "Trucker's Atlas"

SUN SUPREME s/t (Meds) lp 16.98
It's easy to hear bits of No Neck Blues Band and Sun Burned Hand Of The Man And Avarus, and various other practitioners of that sort of rambling free folk stumble when first listening to this mysterious disc by some group called Sun Supreme. But listen closer for a minute and think about it. SUN Supreme, and where would any of those bands be without... Well, yeah, without the Sun City Girls, and while we can't really confirm it, this disc -was- recorded in Seattle, in 2004 and does pretty much sound like a late night, druggy ramble through some serious SCG territory.
The give away, is that it's not nearly as abstract as those other groups, it's way more melodic and musical, with a heavy emphasis on the guitar, and a distinctly Eastern bent, lots of strummed chords and kitchen sink percussion, bits of piano and other noisemakers, going from that sort of stumbling campfire improv to decidedly propulsive krautrocky groove, occasionally devolving into ramshackle chaos, but just as likely to coalesce into huge epic swells, before settling back down into more dreamy late night rambling. Really cool.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Packaged in beautiful hand screened chipboard sleeves and pressed on ultra thick vinyl.

SUNBURNED CIRCLE The Blaze Game (Conspiracy Records) cd 15.98
Any one lucky enough to visit hypnorockers Circle in Finland, besides being showered with hospitality and crazy adventures, hockey games, private concerts, lots of record shopping, reindeer dinners and Finnish pizza, also is quite likely to be invited to record with the band, as they seem to be in a constant state of ready-to-record-ness, as our very own Andee can attest to: just check http://www.tUMULt.net to hear Jaappollot, the results of several sessions he shared with the boys in Circle!
Seems a similar thing happened to abstract free rock collective Sunburned Hand Of The Man when they were in Finland, and it's hard to imagine a better match. Sunburned seems to have lured Circle back into the murky woods, for long languorous stretches of slow burning psychedelia. The metallic sheen of recent releases has been rusted and caked with mud and old dried branches, the result a trancelike folk flecked tribal krautrock, the perfect mix of what we like best about both bands.�
The sound on first listen is like some sort of�alien world music, with dense, but laid back�tribal drumming, swirling serpentine guitar lines,�whispered chanted vocals, all wrapped in a cavernous production, making the tracks sound warm and wide open, expansive and endless, there is clatter and clang, but for the most part it's smeared and blurred, buried in sonic murk, wrapped around abstract krautrock rhythms and chunks of angular guitar riffage. Some of the tracks get wild and chaotic, but even then, the sound is still restrained, not jagged or harsh, more swirling and washed out.�
One of our favorite tracks ever, by maybe either band, is the super hypnotic�"Heinavelho", another growling ambient sprawl, but strangely rhythmic and musical, still�murky and muddy and super hypnotic, but with ultra subtle�repetitively strummed guitars, held in check by martial drum rolls and little squalls of brushed snares, eventually building to an FX drenched gothy cabaret crawl, all moody and drunken, lurching and downtuned, staggering through a thick cloud of chirping bleeps and bloops and dense swells of rumble and shimmer.�
Fans of either band will definitely dig, and a good gateway for anyone into one, but not yet so into the other...
MPEG Stream: "Majava"
MPEG Stream: "Heinavelho"
MPEG Stream: "Vuoren Valloitus"

SUNBURNED CIRCLE The Blaze Game (Conspiracy Records) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK. LAST COPIES. We just recieved the final ten copies we're gonna be able to get of the vinyl of this cool collab (the cd version of which is still readily available, however).
Any one lucky enough to visit hypnorockers Circle in Finland, besides being showered with hospitality and crazy adventures, hockey games, private concerts, lots of record shopping, reindeer dinners and Finnish pizza, also is quite likely to be invited to record with the band, as they seem to be in a constant state of ready-to-record-ness, as our very own Andee can attest to: just check http://www.tUMULt.net to hear Jaappollot, the results of several sessions he shared with the boys in Circle!
Seems a similar thing happened to abstract free rock collective Sunburned Hand Of The Man when they were in Finland, and it's hard to imagine a better match. Sunburned seems to have lured Circle back into the murky woods, for long languorous stretches of slow burning psychedelia. The metallic sheen of recent releases has been rusted and caked with mud and old dried branches, the result a trancelike folk flecked tribal krautrock, the perfect mix of what we like best about both bands.�
The sound on first listen is like some sort of�alien world music, with dense, but laid back�tribal drumming, swirling serpentine guitar lines,�whispered chanted vocals, all wrapped in a cavernous production, making the tracks sound warm and wide open, expansive and endless, there is clatter and clang, but for the most part it's smeared and blurred, buried in sonic murk, wrapped around abstract krautrock rhythms and chunks of angular guitar riffage. Some of the tracks get wild and chaotic, but even then, the sound is still restrained, not jagged or harsh, more swirling and washed out.�
One of our favorite tracks ever, by maybe either band, is the super hypnotic�"Heinavelho", another growling ambient sprawl, but strangely rhythmic and musical, still�murky and muddy and super hypnotic, but with ultra subtle�repetitively strummed guitars, held in check by martial drum rolls and little squalls of brushed snares, eventually building to an FX drenched gothy cabaret crawl, all moody and drunken, lurching and downtuned, staggering through a thick cloud of chirping bleeps and bloops and dense swells of rumble and shimmer.�
Fans of either band will definitely dig, and a good gateway for anyone into one, but not yet so into the other...
MPEG Stream: "Majava"
MPEG Stream: "Heinavelho"
MPEG Stream: "Vuoren Valloitus"

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Anatomy Vol. 1 (Manhand) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Getting tough to know what to say about these guys. For no reason other than the constant flow of new releases, cd's, lp's, double lp's and so many cd-r's!! But what the hell! They're all pretty fantastic so who's to complain. We managed to get about twenty of these from the band when they were here, therfore there's a darn good chance we won't be able to get any more, so if you want one act fast. Packaged in that by now immediately recognizable brown paper sleeve, pasted-on art on one side, hand written text on the other, Anatomy was recorded from 2002-2004, and features a much more 'rock' SHOTM, which seems to be the direction the band has been headed lately. Shuffling spaced out psychedelic grooves, sort of Grateful Dead meets Acid Mothers Temple meets No Neck Blues Band. Plenty of processed vocals, heavily affected guitars, and shuffling Krautrock rhythms, simple and hypnotic. There are brief song fragments that harken back to their more hippy pagan free folk drum circle daze, but for the most part Anatomy is chock full of amazing head nodding, dreamy and druggy space psych grooves!
MPEG Stream: "Eyelash"
MPEG Stream: "Cavity"

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Closer To The Bone (Manhand) 2cd-r 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally! Some new music from our favorite space-drone-free-rock-hippy-drum-circle-caveman-stomp-folk-clatter ensemble Sunburned Hand Of The Man. And once again, these are extremely limted and we don't know how long we'll be able to keep these in stock. Probably not very long at all. This double cd-r is volumes 9 and 10 in SHotM's proposed series of 50 and some of their best so far. As a whole, these two discs are much quiter and ambient than any of the other releases, focusing on space and the sound AROUND the sounds. Disc one is a spare creaky framework of mumbly, lo-fi space jams, distant melodies, ghostly and ethereal, reverbed vocals, minimal wah guitar, rhythms all clattery and loose, stumbling and barely there, almost marking out the beat like the occasional stone thrown into a still pool. All wrapped in spidery cobwebs of murk and mire and hiss and stutter. Truly gorgeous. Disc two continues on in the same vein with shuffling rhythms and vaguely Eastern melodies, chanting and mumbly vocalising. There are moments on disc two that change things up a bit, most notably a strange bastard funk jam that sounds like Starfuckers chanelling James Brown, and then as the disc progresses some No Neck Blues Band meets Sun Ra free jazz clatter with saxophone bleats, space-y rhytmic abstracts, and splattery percussion.
MPEG Stream: "Skulled"
MPEG Stream: "Last Ash Of Bone"

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Complexion (Records) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A visit from Sunburned Hand Of The Man always means a bunch of new releases, this time it's two lps, and a handful of cd-r's they've been lugging around on tour. We'll get to as many as we can, but let's start with Complexion. Like all of their releases, this lp, recorded live in 2004, is a gorgeous and stumbling tribal and primal mess, psychedelic and tripped out, space-y and rhythmic. There are multiple tracks listed but this plays like one massive track, two sides of loping campfire dirges, detuned guitars, simple shuffling rhythms, warbly organ melodies, super freaked out vocals all wrapped in reverb and delay, distant distorted wah guitar, and even some tape drop out that sounds as intentional as any of the other sounds present. Occasionally everything coalesces into super dense, perfectly concise passage of abstract rhythm and propulsive skitter that definitely reminds us of the legendary This Heat. This is druggy and dreamy bliss! All woozy and seasick and completely mesmerizing. At its most psychedelic it sounds a bit like Santana's little brother, high on tequila and peyote, sneaking into his big brother's practice space with his drug buddies and proceeding to get even higher and jam out all night long. Side two is a little more mellow and abstract, super minimal and trippy, a simple shuffling rhythm and all sorts of vocal and instrumental weirdness drenched in effects and splattered with little bits of random percussion, ghostlike vocals, and hazy drifting melodies.

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Fire Escape (Smalltown Supersound) cd 17.98
If you've kept up with the prolific and often very limited and hard to track down back catalog of Sunburned Hand Of The Man you'll know that they're always eager to explore new territory and widen their musical horizons. But even so, we still think you'll be thrown for a loop, in the best possible way. In fact this disc has even won over a few of us here who had always been on the fence with these Sunburned fellas in the past.
What's important to know about Fire Escape is that it's just as much of a Four Tet record as it is a Sunburned Hand Of The Man record. Four Tet and Sunburned!? Huh! What?! Sometimes the seemingly oddest pairings produce the most creative and unexpected results. And wow, we've totally been swept away by the magic these two forces have created, each contributing the best of of their respected, yet disparate qualities.
Sunburned got to do what they do, improvising and travelling in all their drugged out and mystifying glory, while Four Tet then collected hours upon hours of their recordings and worked his own magic on them to create a final product that might be the most realized, colorful and immediate Sunburned record yet.
From the opening track, which had us all thinking of 23 Skiddo in all the best ways, and throughout the entire album, you get to hear a band who pride themselves on their improv abilities but with the much more careful and deliberate and musically astute filter of Four Tet's Kieran Hebden, who has proven over the years that he not only makes really great music, but that he understands and appreciates great music in so many shapes and varieties. It's almost as if his recent collaborations with free jazz legend Steve Reid opened him up to the possibility and power of improvisation while still allowing him to retain the great sensitivity to sound that his made him one of the most compelling musicians to emerge out of the electronic scene in the last decade.
It's so exciting and exhilarating to see this kind of creative energy exchanged and brought together by folks from two seemingly different scenes, sharing the common thread of aiming to make transcendental music that transports you to different dimensions and offers up all kinds of unexpected twists and turns. After their recent collaboration with Circle and this totally successful meeting of musical minds with Four Tet we have to say we are loving the collaborative spirit of Sunburned Hand Of The Man more than ever, and while there was all kinds of hype surrounding SHOTM a few years ago, we are happy to report that they just might be only just reaching their most realized moment right now!
MPEG Stream: "Nice Butterfly Mask"
MPEG Stream: "Fire Escape"

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Fire Escape (Smalltown Supersound) 2lp 25.00
Now available on lp!!
If you've kept up with the prolific and often very limited and hard to track down back catalog of Sunburned Hand Of The Man you'll know that they're always eager to explore new territory and widen their musical horizons. But even so, we still think you'll be thrown for a loop, in the best possible way. In fact this record has even won over a few of us here who had always been on the fence with these Sunburned fellas in the past.
What's important to know about Fire Escape is that it's just as much of a Four Tet record as it is a Sunburned Hand Of The Man record. Four Tet and Sunburned!? Huh! What?! Sometimes the seemingly oddest pairings produce the most creative and unexpected results. And wow, we've totally been swept away by the magic these two forces have created, each contributing the best of of their respected, yet disparate qualities.
Sunburned got to do what they do, improvising and travelling in all their drugged out and mystifying glory, while Four Tet then collected hours upon hours of their recordings and worked his own magic on them to create a final product that might be the most realized, colorful and immediate Sunburned record yet.
From the opening track, which had us all thinking of 23 Skiddo in all the best ways, and throughout the entire album, you get to hear a band who pride themselves on their improv abilities but with the much more careful and deliberate and musically astute filter of Four Tet's Kieran Hebden, who has proven over the years that he not only makes really great music, but that he understands and appreciates great music in so many shapes and varieties. It's almost as if his recent collaborations with free jazz legend Steve Reid opened him up to the possibility and power of improvisation while still allowing him to retain the great sensitivity to sound that his made him one of the most compelling musicians to emerge out of the electronic scene in the last decade.
It's so exciting and exhilarating to see this kind of creative energy exchanged and brought together by folks from two seemingly different scenes, sharing the common thread of aiming to make transcendental music that transports you to different dimensions and offers up all kinds of unexpected twists and turns. After their recent collaboration with Circle and this totally successful meeting of musical minds with Four Tet we have to say we are loving the collaborative spirit of Sunburned Hand Of The Man more than ever, and while there was all kinds of hype surrounding SHOTM a few years ago, we are happy to report that they just might be only just reaching their most realized moment right now!
MPEG Stream: "Nice Butterfly Mask"
MPEG Stream: "Fire Escape"

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Headdress (Records) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wouldn't really be an AQ list without a little gushing from Andee. So that said. SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN is my new favorite band!! Which is pretty amazing seeing as they have kept a pretty low profile. And I eventually had to get in touch directly with the band to get a hold of their stuff, but I WAS NOT disappointed. This lp is their first official release, although they have released 8 cd-r's (of a proposed series of FIFTY!!!) six of which we will have in stock and list in the near future. But what the hell does it sound like?!?!?! Well, the easiest comparison is the No Neck Blues Band, especially since they supposedly share a member or two. But unlike NNBB's free form hippy drum circle drug rock neanderthal clatter, Sunburned Hand take their hippy psych folk and mix in all sorts of disparate elements, motorik krautrock, droning ambient soundscapes, ROCK, free jazz, ESP style caveman thud, and delicate melodies and hints of seventies British folk. Also unlike NNBB, Sunburned Hand forego primitivism for primitivism's sake and weave all those elements together seamlessly, and musically, and most importantly, with a lush and rich and surprisingly full production. With a lineup eleven members strong, and instrumentation consisting of guitar, flutes, drums, keyboards, congas, blades of grass, whistles, djembe, shakers, trumpet, stunts, spirit, organ, horns, 'mountain top leads', 'the jazz', 'breath' and of course 'the looking glass', how can you go wrong? Well, you can't. So for now, this lp is the only way you'll be able to sample Sunburned Hand's otherworldly psych/kraut/rock/folk/drone/thrum/hum/skree until we eventually get some of the cd-r's. And there may be a release on tUMULt eventually as well!!!

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Hoof Trip / Plague Pipe (Riot Season) 7" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's pretty amazing that one of the most talked about underground bands in the world, one that has graced the cover of the Wire, as well as the inside of numerous other hipster music bibles, has no actual cd releases, and in fact, has nothing currently in print. EXCEPT for this 7". And that won't last long either as we're fairly sure we won't be able to get more of these. It's also too bad that these two tracks don't do much to demonstrate what SHOTM are capable of. Side one is a fairly tepid free percussion jam / hippy drum circle, sort of stumbling and meandering. Fairly pleasant but nothing to knock your improv socks off. Side two fares a little better, a little wilder and more focused, but the track doesn't really get going until about 20 seconds before it's over, when a wicked Can-ish groove kicks in only to be snuffed out moment later. Leaves you wanting more definitely. Not sure a 7" is the ideal medium for a sprawling, wandering, free form inprov outfit, but since this is all they got right now, if it sounds like your cup of tea, don't dawdle or you'll be out of luck.

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Loose Bugs (Spirit of Orr) cd-r 14.98
It's been ages since we've heard from these guys, maybe the second most referenced band on the aQ list when we're trying to describe stumbling tribal avant free rock, after the the No Neck Blues Band, both bands pretty much rule that world, each an ever shifting collective with a few core members, able to conjure up super epic clattery free folk, and droned out abstract minimalism, dipping liberally into noise rock, free jazz, 20th century classical, infusing their lo-fi chaos with a sense of art.
No Neck definitely drifted in the artier direction, releasing super limited editions, deluxe lps, performing in art spaces, playing with dancers, mysterious vocalists, while Sunburned Hand stayed more sort of punk rock, releasing an endless series of home made cd-r's, their sound remaining relatively consistent, a gorgeous, cracked, grimy and gritty anti rock, as much about noise as jazz, the players connected on some other level, their performances amazing, their recordings equally so, slipping from buzzing ragas, to strange clattery soundscapes, to full bore free rock roar, to hushed and contemplative drift, to spidery post rock minimalism, to skronky almost free jazz, to foresty free folk all detuned guitars and fluttery horns and stumbling drums, to a sort of avant Appalachia, all of that and more are touched on here, a killer recording from way back in 1998, only now seeing the light of day, packaged in a cool hand stamped origami style sleeve, with pasted on front cover art, and a printed poster / insert. LIMITED to 999 COPIES... (hmm, that's a lot for a cd-r!)
MPEG Stream: "Concentric Species"
MPEG Stream: "Meeting With Seed At The Gates Of Chance"
MPEG Stream: "Whale Bone Whistle"

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN No Magic Man (Arthur) cd 13.98

MPEG Stream: "The 1st Degree"
MPEG Stream: "The Air Itself"
MPEG Stream: "No Magic Man"

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Rare Wood (Spirit of Orr) cd 14.98
We've all been waiting for this one for a while. After tons of cd-r's and limited lps comes the first official, actual cd release from the poster boys of New Weird America (ugh), Sunburned Hand Of The Man. Right off the bat, we had to wonder, with at least a dozen cd-r's, and 3 or 4 full length lps and supposedly dozens more unreleased recordings, why for their debut cd would they release just 40 minutes of music, mostly recorded live on the radio? Weird. Happy to report though that this stuff is pretty darn good. A lot more aggressive and fucked up sounding than past efforts. A throbbing miasma of squelchy synth, noodly bass, wild clapping, clattery percussion and processed unintelligable vocals that pretty much take over the whole show, getting more and more strident and more and more gutteral veering into decidedly cookie monster territory at times. And it sort of works. The vocals seemed to be SHOTM's weak link in the past, but this new growling aggressive proselytizing turns this stuff into some sort of super aggro, backwoods pagan nightmare. Think Tom Waits meets Capt Beefheart with a tracheaotomy! Flutes, echo guitar, simple propusive drumming, delay pedals set to stun and reverb off the charts, skronky horns, as well as all sorts of droning industrial hums and grinding noise add to the chaos. Maybe not what we were expecting or even hoping for, bu cool nonetheless.
MPEG Stream: "Easy Wind"
MPEG Stream: "Camel Backwards"

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN s/t (Wabana) 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 long out of print lp finally gets reissued on cd. Packaged smartly in a purple digipak with a clear sticker of the original lp artwork afixed to the front. Here's what we had to say about it the first time around:
More scattered, primal free folk pagan minimalism from this Massachussets ensemble who have quickly humbled the mighty No Neck Blues Band in terms of hipster mystique but also in terms of recorded output. It seems like everytime a Sunburned Hand gets up to take a piss, it's documented on tape, and then released as a cd-r or limited lp. But as with the weekly Acid Mothers releases, the quality remains high enough that all you connoisseurs of "weird America" and all things free folk tribalism, at least for now, still have to pick up every last artifact. This cd is the latest document of SHOTM's not so expanding sonic universe. Krautrock hippy jams, wah guitars, chaotic ramshackle percussion, wild whoops and shouts, all occasionally slipping into some seriously propulsive grooves, but just as quickly falling apart, into space-is-the-place jazz skronk and Crash Worship / Wicker Man stumbling tribal rhythmic workouts.
MPEG Stream: "One "
MPEG Stream: "Three"

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN s/t lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
More scattered, primal free folk pagan minimalism from this Massachussets ensemble who have quickly humbled the mighty No Neck Blues Band in terms of hipster mystique but also in terms of recorded output. It seems like everytime a Sunburned Hand gets up to take a piss, it's documented on tape, and then released as a cd-r or limited lp. But as with the weekly Acid Mothers releases, the quality remains high enough that all you connoisseurs of "weird America" and all things free folk tribalism, at least for now, still have to pick up every last artifact. This lp is the latest document of SHOTM's not so expanding sonic universe. Krautrock hippy jams, wah guitars, chaotic ramshackle percussion, wild whoops and shouts, all occasionally slipping into some seriously propulsive grooves, but just as quickly falling apart, into space-is-the-place jazz skronk and Crash Worship / Wicker Man stumbling tribal rhythmic workouts.

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN The Trickle Down Theory Of Lord Knows What (Eclipse) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally reissued on cd! Another missive from this massive (seven or eight or who knows how many members) free rock/folk ensemble from Massachussetts who recently graced the cover of the Wire, representing "weird America". Which as far as we can tell is this current crop of hippy folk revivalists channelling the spirit of sixties' ESP and seventies British folk through their appropriately eclectic record collections. By now you know, we here at AQ can't get enough of the Sunburned Hand, and neither can anyone else, judging from the scarcity of their cdrs and LPs. But finally the cd reissues have started to surface! Trickle Down Theory... is about the free-est bit of scattered improv we've heard from SHOTM, and it's also maybe the most chaotic. A sort of murky, stumbling, shambling rhythm, with chantlike vocals and the occasional casio sputter. Tinkling chimes, rattling clatter and squealing sax all make brief appearances, and towards the middle of side two, things get slightly more propulsive (but only slightly) with a warbly, seasick Eastern raga that devolves into an outer space, free jazz battle of the bands, noisy and damaged and almost spiritual. With FLUTES! This is some prime, otherworldly, drugged out, folky and fucked up, primordial ooze.
MPEG Stream: "Spell It Out"
MPEG Stream: "Show Of Hands"

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Trickle Down Theory Of The Lord (Eclipse) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another missive from this massive (seven or eight or who knows how many members) free rock/folk ensemble from Massachussetts who are currently gracing the cover of the Wire, representing "weird America". Which as far as we can tell is this current crop of hippy folk revivalists channelling the spirit of sixties' ESP and seventies British folk through their appropriately eclectic record collections. By now you know, we here at AQ can't get enough of the Sunburned Hand, and neither can anyone else, judging from the scarcity of their cdrs. But at least the vinyl keeps coming. Too bad for those of you who remain turntableless. That'll teach ya! Trickle Down Theory... is about the free-est bit of scattered improv we've heard from SHOTM, and it's also maybe the most thrown together sounding. A sort of murky, stumbling, shambling rhythm, with chantlike vocals and the occasional casio sputter. Tinkling chimes, rattling clatter and squealing sax all make brief appearances, and towards the middle of side two, things pick up considerably with a warbly, seasick Eastern raga that devolves into an outer space, free jazz battle of the bands, noisy and damaged and almost spiritual. With FLUTES! While not their best effort, keep in mind that the worst SHOTM is better than the best lots of bands have to offer. This is still some prime, otherworldly, drugged out, folky and fucked up, promordial ooze.

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Wedlock (Eclipse) 2lp 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There are prolific bands, and then there are PROLIFIC bands. Take Acid Mothers Temple. Not a month, or even a week goes by sometimes without a new record by those Japanese psych rock freaks. Then there's Guided By Voices' Bob Pollard who has supposedly written over 3000 songs. Or what about Wolf Eyes with their insanely extensive back catalog of cd-r's? None of em can touch Sunburned Hand Of The Man. Every time they swing through town not only are they pushing a handful of lps or proper cd releases, they also always seem to have boxes and suitcases and pockets full of all new super limited cd-r's. This time was no different: An lp (listed last time), a cd-r (listed elsewhere on this list), a handful of super limited tour only cd-r's that sold out before we could even list them (there are benefits to visiting the store in person!) and now this epic two years in the works double lp. Entitled Wedlock, the music on these 2lps was compiled from a weeks worth of recording in 2003, on the way to, and in, Alaska, where the band were playing at a friend's wedding. Recorded live to two video cameras and then cobbled together using two cd decks and a mixer, this is definitely SHOTM at their most jubilant. And maybe most funky! C'mon, it was a wedding after all! The record starts off with haunting maudlin piano beneath damaged snippets of conversation, before it's cut off abruptly by rambunctious bluegrass steel guitar, recorded in a lo-fi haze and surrounded by random conversations, whooping sirens in the distance, and all manner of animal calls and ambient sounds. That's before the whole thing twists itself into a full on white boy groove, drunken reverbed vocals over a wildly sloppy shuffle, reckless and whooping and drunk and delirious. The rest of side two and three don't deviate too much from that sound. Imagine Funkadelic playing German Oak and you'll get an idea of the sort of Kraut-flecked folk funk we're talking about. A confusing swirl of tripped out effects, manic percussion, tweaked vocals, wah guitar and a throbbing simple rhythm beneath it all. At some points it sounds almost like a much more tribal, much more groovy Eagles, but with WAY more beer and WAY better drugs. Pulsing and throbbing through the murk of an all night party, liquid guitar lines slither endlessly around slippery slow burning rhythms. There's a brief spurt of spastic blown out free form pagan tribalism at the end of side three that hints at what is to come on side four, a side long, classic SHOTM-sounding blast of drug addled drum circle freak out, all hands on some sort of drum or cymbal or noisemaker, whipping up a wild squall of rhythmic chaos. Wow. The whole thing comes packaged in a thick gatefold sleeve, with a full color insert, featuring photos from the wedding and the Alaska trip and a reproduction of the original invitation.

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN Z (Ecstatic Peace!) cd 10.98

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MPEG Stream: "oo oo"

SUNDOWNERS The Girl With the Thing in Her Hair (Drag City) 7" 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Remember how the first Sundowners single sounded like Palace's Will Oldham had taken some hallucinogens and someone stole the tape and released it? The new Sundowners single plays the same prank on Bill Callahan of Smog. Cathy loves the synthesizer-drenched b-side. Whose bedroom will Drag City sneak into next? Hint: they'll find the duo in the kitchen.