TIVOL Early Teeth (Holy Mountain) cd 13.98
Finally! One of the most intense, and beautifully blown out blasts of scorching primal kraut flecked Finnish psych rock is available on cd!
By now, Finland must seem like one big musical forest, will small tribes of elfin music makers, sitting around fires, with home made instruments and beat up old guitars and primitive tape recorders, spending their days kicking out clattery, meandering free folk pagan jams, tribal and hypnotic. Venture a little further into the forest though and you'll find Circle, harnessing the power of the sun to power their amps and keyboards, kicking out endless psychedelic drone rock jams. Chop your way through some dense underbrush, delve even deeper into the woods, where there is less life and less light and it's a little dark and scary and you'll find Pharaoh Overlord, big hairy Yeti's, clubs in hand, making a sludgy racket around a huge funeral pyre, horrible blackened shapes dancing on the canopy overhead. But go no further, because there's a cave, with a mouth as black as pitch, where no one dare enters, for fear of the unholy racket emanating from within. For it's here you'll find the mysterious members of Tivol. Look closer and the cave sort of resembles a beat up old garage. But stand back and prepare yourself for the wild and wooly psychedelic freakouts spewing from the mouth of this cave / garage. Pounding trashcan drums, druggy, super affected space rock guitars, and howled banshee vocals, screeching and wailing. This is the scuzzy, fuzzy, sloppy, noisy soft white underbelly of the Finnish rock scene, and we LOVE IT. Like the unwanted lovechild of Guitar Wolf, Hawkwind and Liquorball, let loose in the woods, only to be raised by pot smoking, psych rockin' wolves. The ultimate pounding psychedelic garage space-sludge. Ah, Finland. Where else could it come from?
This record collects two long out of print cd-r releases (one on 267 Lattajjaaa, one on Time-Lag) that were cleaned up a little (only a LITTLE) made louder and more in your face and then etched into a massive slab of wax with a sharp stick (and subsequently also transferred to this cd edition).
MPEG Stream: "Vihaan Vitusti Kaikkea Mita Kulutusyhteiskunnan Aikaansaama Pinnallinen Alkoholiin Perustuva Sosiaalinen Kayttaytymiskulttuuri Edustaa"
MPEG Stream: "Laskipaisyyden Kultainen Suihku"

TIVOL Early Teeth (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
By now, Finland must seem like one big musical forest, will small tribes of elfin music makers, sitting around fires, with home made instruments and beat up old guitars and primitive tape recorders, spending their days kicking out clattery, meandering free folk pagan jams, tribal and hypnotic. Venture a little further into the forest though and you'll find Circle, harnessing the power of the sun to power their amps and keyboards, kicking out endless psychedelic drone rock jams. Chop your way through some dense underbrush, delve even deeper into the woods, where there is less life and less light and it's a little dark and scary and you'll find Pharaoh Overlord, big hairy Yeti's, clubs in hand, making a sludgy racket around a huge funeral pyre, horrible blackened shapes dancing on the canopy overhead. But go no further, because there's a cave, with a mouth as black as pitch, where no one dare enters, for fear of the unholy racket emanating from within. For it's here you'll find the mysterious members of Tivol. Look closer and the cave sort of resembles a beat up old garage. But stand back and prepare yourself for the wild and wooly psychedelic freakouts spewing from the mouth of this cave / garage. Pounding trashcan drums, druggy, super affected space rock guitars, and howled banshee vocals, screeching and wailing. This is the scuzzy, fuzzy, sloppy, noisy soft white underbelly of the Finnish rock scene, and we LOVE IT. Like the unwanted lovechild of Guitar Wolf, Hawkwind and Liquorball, let loose in the woods, only to be raised by pot smoking, psych rockin' wolves. The ultimate pounding psychedelic garage space-sludge. Ah, Finland. Where else could it come from?
This lp collects two long out of print cd-r releaese (one on 267 Lattajjaaa, one on Time-Lag) that were cleaned up a little (only a LITTLE) made louder and more in your face and then etched into a massive slab of wax with a sharp stick. Packaged in a gorgeous hand printed sleeve, courtesy of Rob Fisk and The Free Porcupine Society.

TIVOL Interstellar Overbike (Last Visible Dog) cd 9.98
The Last Visible Dog label, who specialize in some of our favorite genres (improv drones, Finnish weirdness, Japanese free-psych, NZ noise) sadly seems to be winding things down, but we did just arrange to restock a whole bunch of their stuff to sell at a "nice price" (thanks Chris!), including a few old aQ faves that we got enough of to relist, though these are the very last copies we're gonna have, ever...
Here's our ravings about Tivol's killer 2nd album from back in 2006:
Tivol were always the unkempt, crusty, scuzzy garage rock, deformed cousin-locked-in-the-basement, dirty, filthy side of the Finnish musical underground. Where Circle were channeling classic Krautrock, Tivol were spewing a sort of Brainbombs / Liquorball hybrid. Where Islaja was whispering flowery lullabies, Tivol were stomping through the flower garden in big black boots. Sure they were sloppy and noisy and scattershot, but even at their most chaotic and blissfully blown out, there were definite traces of Hawkwindy spacerock, propulsive krautrock, and full on stoner rock. Albeit obscured by clouds of pot smoke and an awesomely lo-fi production. A lot has changed since last we heard from Tivol. They clean up real nice. They're still a sloppy noisy scuzzy bunch, but now they've got their hair all slicked back, shirts tucked in (at least in the front), shoes polished, and have begun to faintly resemble their countrymen in Circle. That's right, this is relentless and repetitive kraut flecked space rock, with a stoner rock streak a mile wide, pulsing and pounding, with swoops and swooshes of interstellar synth and most surprising of all, vocals, real vocals, a sort of throaty croon way up in the mix, super dramatic and bizarre. A bit Bauhaus maybe, a bit Dave Vanian.... But their garagescum roots definitely shine through, there's nothing clinical or super tight, or polished here, the drums are splattery and pounding and the guitars are warm and muted and fuzzy, the vocals drift bizarrely, crooning and wailing, everything drenched in cosmic rays and super space FX. A little like Circle if they smoked a lot of pot, recorded on a 4 track in their parents' garage, and listened to nothing but Hawkwind and Mainliner. Which of course means FUCKING AWESOME!
MPEG Stream: "Tivoloid Part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Pratkabarbaarit"

TLAOTLON Squirt Image Flex (Trensmat) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We first heard these New Zealand psychedelic loop-noise, beat wrangling weirdos on a split 7" with Whirling Hall Of Knives released on Trensmat, and one of the tracks from that single opens up the group's debut lp, with a glorious, dizzying blast of abstract psychedelia, looped and rhythmic, rife with woozy low end synth buzz, swirling tangled melodies, a robotic rhythmic pulse, sounds swirling and beats stuttering, like we mentioned in the review of the 7", we're reminded a bit of a more electronic, slightly less noisy Our Love Will Destroy The World, or a way noisier, beat driven High Wolf. The record flits from woozy groove to almost jungly skitter, from pulsing spaced out psychedelic electro, to crunchy, churning soft focus noisiness, churning industrial dub to tripped out cosmic alien dancefloor destroying, noise drenched, house music of a sort, only house music as it has that 4 on the floor pulse, but otherwise it's some sort of cracked and freaked out avant kitchen sink home brewed weirdo electronica. "Wild Rent" is one of our favorite jams, a slow building chaos of colliding beats, and looped melody, that eventually transforms into a super tripped out minimal dub, but that dub is buried beneath a cascade of sonic swirl, "Cassini Tubs" is a good one too, a spare bit of skitter, that is soon surrounded by thick buzzing synths, gradually transforming into a sort of alien M83 slowgroove shoegaze dubstep. The record finishes off with the 10+ minute "Tropfend Platz", which starts out as the prettiest, dreamiest track on the record, all glimmering looped high end, and whirling soft focus thrum, and then the drums kick in, a super spastic sort of fucked up and fractured drill and bass, with thick squelches of low end buzz, the whole thing gradually surrounded by a hazy cloud of shoegaze-y shimmer, becoming a dense chunk of beat heavy bliss, that's as psychedelically mesmerizing as it is infuriatingly groovy.
Pressed on splattery clear gold vinyl, housed in hand silkscreened red and white jackets, and includes a link to a digital download of the whole record, which includes two bonus tracks, 16+ minutes, not on the lp!
MPEG Stream: "Attitudes Blankets To Nada"
MPEG Stream: "Flayed Vert"
MPEG Stream: "Strem"

TO KILL A PETTY BOURGEOISIE Marlone (Kranky) cd 14.98
We haven't ever heard any of the other records by this strangely monickered duo, and in some ways it's probably that name that kept us from exploring their music in the past. We know, book, cover, band name, check. But with so much stuff to listen to, it's inevitable that something like album cover or band name or label, will influence what you listen to first, or maybe even at all. But heck, it's Kranky, and the album cover is pretty cool, so two out of three ain't bad. And we have to say we're glad we did finally decide to take the plunge, cuz the world of TKAPB is a gorgeously gloomy one, a haunting and otherworldly late night drift through a world dark and ominous, and occasionally downright frightening. Think Grouper, Mazzy Star, Kuupuu, Valet, that sort of gauzy dreaminess, murky and muddy, spacey and druggy, with ethereal female vocals, barely there drum skitter, warm languid bass, the instruments less recognizable as instruments, and more as sound generating devices, each emitting long tones, or soft rhythms, the result is a slow burning jazzy drone-y drift, but TKAPB seems a bit more sinister than the rest of those bands, imbuing their hazy midnight drift, with some deep drones, some jagged shards of distorted crunch. A creepy dreamy slowcore, with hints of something darker, heavier, and noisier. Just check out "The Needle", a loping slow groove, minor key and tense, the vocals sultry and smoky, creeping and crawling, until suddenly something hellish surfaces, a squall of demonic buzz and noise, only a second or two, but it adds such menace to the track, as does a swirling sea of cymbal sizzle and what sounds like a moaning string section. Almost like some sort of doom torch song.
The rest of the record is maybe not nearly so intense, but it is a very dark record, think Portishead, Grouper, Skepticism, and Bohren all wound up in a sprawling songsuite of drummachined black ballads, harrowing love songs, grim ambience and blackened downtempo electronica, with a sound so gauzy and washed out and murky and psychedelic, and yeah, occasionally menacing, that it's impossible for us not to give this our highest recommendation.
MPEG Stream: "You've Gone Too Far"
MPEG Stream: "The Needle"
MPEG Stream: "Villain"
MPEG Stream: "I Hear You Coming, But Your Steps Are Too Loud"

TO ROCOCO ROT Speculation (Domino) cd 14.98
We've always thought there was something special about To Rococo Rot, we've heard moments on their records that really show they can reach next level brilliance in their ability to merge such a pronounced feeling and mood with their deep grooves and beats. Before dubstep and any of the other new electronic subcategories, To Roccoco Roc were already making super rich, moody and nuanced sounds that didn't conform to one single style. Speculation is their first album in many years and it finds the Berlin trio in top form. The album opens with Cluster-like pulsations and as it organically moves forward with a post-kraut-rock sensibility, the sounds shift and sway, going back and forth from a tense and haunting sensation to something more free and exploratory. There are moments where they tap into the kind of sound we imagine Tortoise and Mouse On Mars might create if they collaborated, yet there is something a bit more sinister and seething just under the surface of To Rococo Rot's sound. Their sonic versatility really sets them apart from so many of their peers. So nice to have them back!
MPEG Stream: "Away"
MPEG Stream: "Seele"
MPEG Stream: "Ship"

TO ROCOCO ROT Speculation (Domino) lp 22.00
Also on vinyl!
We've always thought there was something special about To Rococo Rot, we've heard moments on their records that really show they can reach next level brilliance in their ability merge such a pronounced feeling and mood with their deep hitting grooves and beats. Before dubstep and any of the other new million electronic subcatagories To Roccoco Roc were making really rich, moody and nuanced sounds that didn't conform to one single style. Speculation is their first album in many years and it finds the Berlin trio in top notch form. The album opens with Cluster like pulsations and as it organicaly moves forward with a post-kraut-rock sensibility as the sounds shift and sway going back and forth from a tense & haunting sensation to something more free and exploratory. There are moments where they tap into the kind of sound we imagine Tortoise and Mouse On Mars creating if they collaborated yet there is something a bit more sinister seething under the surface of To Rococo Rot's sound. Their versitility in sound really sets them apart from so many of their peers. So nice to have them back!
The vinyl comes with a digital download.
MPEG Stream: "Away"
MPEG Stream: "Seele"
MPEG Stream: "Ship"

TOAD s/t (Second Battle) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Why does anyone bother with the current crop of "stoner rock" when there's so much better stuff made back in the original stoner age (the '70s) now being reissued?? If you're into the Man's Ruin roster, and prone to buying albums by the latest Swedish Kyuss clone, yet don't have, say, Lucifer's Friend, Flower Travellin' Band, Leafhound, Captain Beyond, or Buffalo reissues in your collection, it's time to get with the program! Not that that's easy, since much of the good old shit is definitely obscure and unheralded. For instance, we hadn't ever heard of this Swiss band Toad until a kindly customer sold back a bootleg cd with an intriguing cover a couple years ago. Now, here's a legit reissue of the same album thanks to the freaks at Second Battle. This self-titled disc is the first and best of Toad's three LPs, serving up hard-rockin' stoner psych in the best blues-based tradition of early Blue Cheer and Led Zep. The first track "Cotton Wood Hill" will offer a clue about the lineage of this band, as Toad's rhythm section played on the classic LP of that same title by acid-fried Krautrockers Brainticket! Toad boasts an excellent vocalist put to good use on the more melodic parts of their sometimes quite long songs, but a large part of the LP is occupied by heavy (HEAVY) jamming instrumental excursions featuring the killer guitar of one Vic Vergeat. This is genuine heaviness, circa 1971. This reissue features four bonus tracks, including their spacey cover of Hendrix' "Purple Haze", a suitable choice indeed. Toad, dude.
RealAudio clip: "Cotton Wood Hill"
RealAudio clip: "Life Goes On"

TOAD s/t (Akarma) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Toad's eponymous debut is an underground proto-metal classic, one we've had before when it was a Second Battle reissue and are pleased to stock again now that Akarma has reissued it again. It's cheaper than the previous edition and comes in one of those gatefold sleeves too. Here's our original review talkin' 'bout Toad:
Why does anyone bother with the current crop of "stoner rock" when there's so much better stuff made back in the original stoner age (the '70s) now being reissued?? If you're into the Man's Ruin roster, and prone to buying albums by the latest Swedish Kyuss clone, yet don't have, say, Lucifer's Friend, Flower Travellin' Band, Leafhound, Captain Beyond, or Buffalo reissues in your collection, it's time to get with the program! Not that that's easy, since much of the good old shit is definitely obscure and unheralded. For instance, we hadn't ever heard of this Swiss band Toad until a kindly customer sold back a bootleg cd with an intriguing cover a couple years ago and we got clued in (and then found the legit reish to stock).
This self-titled disc is the first and best of Toad's three LPs, serving up hard-rockin' stoner psych in the best blues-based tradition of early Blue Cheer and Led Zep. The first track "Cotton Wood Hill" will offer a clue about the lineage of this band, as Toad's rhythm section played on the classic LP of that same title by acid-fried Krautrockers Brainticket! Toad boasts an excellent vocalist put to good use on the more melodic parts of their sometimes quite long songs, but a large part of the LP is occupied by heavy (HEAVY) jamming instrumental excursions featuring the killer guitar of one Vic Vergeat. This is genuine heaviness, circa 1971. 1971!!
Just two bonus tracks, "Stay" and "Animals World" on this reish, not the four Second Battle included.
MPEG Stream: "Cotton Wood Hill"
MPEG Stream: "Life Goes On"

TOBACCO Fucked Up Friends (Anticon) cd 14.98
Tobacco would definitely be a strange name for a group. But it's an even stranger name for a -person-, except when you realize, that person is in fact the twisted mastermind behind the cracked electro pop of aQ faves Black Moth Super Rainbow. In our review of the most recent BMSR record, we compared their sound to Air covering Daft Punk, but with a bunch of junky old equipment, busted up amps and rickety swap meet synths. What's not to love?!?!
For Mr. Tobacco's first solo foray, he actually sticks pretty close to the Black Moth template he created, but does manage to give that sound a little twist. The instantly recognizable fuzzed out gritty synths, the stuttery crunchy crumbling beats, the chopped up vocodered vocals, the blissy eighties sheen, all in full effect, but up the hip hop vibe a bit, mix in some ethereal female vocals, some borderline cheesy (but still kick ass) cop show theme song groove, handclaps, fluttering flutes, soaring cinematic faux strings, even some rapping at one point (courtesy of Aesop Rock, who took BMSR on tour earlier this year), and we're slipping into Fucked Up Friends territory. A few of the tracks are instant classics, sounding sometimes like a more sunshine-y hip-hop flecked Goblin, other times like a more lo-fi synth heavy Boards Of Canada, and once in a while like an LSD dosed Daft Punk doing the soundtrack for a nature special on Yo MTV Raps all about jellyfish or mountain goats or those weird fish that glow in the dark. WTF?! But par for the course with Tobacco and his Black Moth Super Rainbow. And while there does seem to be a bit more hip hop happening here, it's essentially another gloriously fractured and fucked up BMSR record, which is just fine with us!
MPEG Stream: "Street Trash"
MPEG Stream: "Truck Sweat"
MPEG Stream: "Hairy Candy"
MPEG Stream: "Hawker Boat"

TOBACCO Fucked Up Friends (Anticon) lp 14.98
Tobacco would definitely be a strange name for a group. But it's an even stranger name for a -person-, except when you realize, that person is in fact the twisted mastermind behind the cracked electro pop of aQ faves Black Moth Super Rainbow. In our review of the most recent BMSR record, we compared their sound to Air covering Daft Punk, but with a bunch of junky old equipment, busted up amps and rickety swap meet synths. What's not to love?!?!
For Mr. Tobacco's first solo foray, he actually sticks pretty close to the Black Moth template he created, but does manage to give that sound a little twist. The instantly recognizable fuzzed out gritty synths, the stuttery crunchy crumbling beats, the chopped up vocodered vocals, the blissy eighties sheen, all in full effect, but up the hip hop vibe a bit, mix in some ethereal female vocals, some borderline cheesy (but still kick ass) cop show theme song groove, handclaps, fluttering flutes, soaring cinematic faux strings, even some rapping at one point (courtesy of Aesop Rock, who took BMSR on tour earlier this year), and we're slipping into Fucked Up Friends territory. A few of the tracks are instant classics, sounding sometimes like a more sunshine-y hip-hop flecked Goblin, other times like a more lo-fi synth heavy Boards Of Canada, and once in a while like an LSD dosed Daft Punk doing the soundtrack for a nature special on Yo MTV Raps all about jellyfish or mountain goats or those weird fish that glow in the dark. WTF?! But par for the course with Tobacco and his Black Moth Super Rainbow. And while there does seem to be a bit more hip hop happening here, it's essentially another gloriously fractured and fucked up BMSR record, which is just fine with us!
MPEG Stream: "Street Trash"
MPEG Stream: "Truck Sweat"
MPEG Stream: "Hairy Candy"
MPEG Stream: "Hawker Boat"

TOBACCO La Uti (Anticon) 12" picture disc 15.98
Brand new remix ep (featuring a clutch of new jams as well) from Tobacco, the weirdo psychedelic synth electro hip hop side project of long time aQ faves Black Moth Super Rainbow, on which a handful of past Tobacco jams get reworked and revved up, and handed over to some of the world's weirdest and most warped MC's: Anti-Pop Consortium, Doseone, Rob Sonic, not to mention some rappers we've never heard of: Serengeti, Height, Icicle Frog, Zackey Force Funk.
The new tracks kill, the old tracks sound new, a dizzying, over the top, twisted avant hip hop blowout, synths buzz and twist and get all tangled up, the beats skitter and stutter, guitars crunch and shimmer, samples are chopped up and looped and layered, sounds buzz and crunch and whir, a swirling ever shifting backdrop for some seriously out there flows.
"TV All Greasy" buzzes and warbles while Anti-Pop go nuts over the top, the vocals riding on the undulating synths, "The Injury" sounds like an eighties educational film soundtrack wedded to crunchy fuzzguitar, the beats primitive, Doseone's whiny flow perfectly balancing Tobacco's shimmery vocodered croon, "Lick The Witch" is classic old school hip hop slathered in synth buzz and swirling effects, and Rob Sonic's bad ass versery, "2 Thick Scoops" is a dirgey almost metallic bit of shoegaze doompop hip hop freakiness, with some slithery flow and some woozy synth filigree, and so it goes, the rest of the record playing out in similarly blown out, synth heavy fuzz guitar drenched stumbly outsider hiphop radness.
Makes us think how cool it would be if all the boring radio rappers who shell out thousands of dollars for boring beats, got Tobacco to whip up some of his weirdness instead. We can't help but imagine Jay-Z or Eminem spitting rhymes over some of this stuff. If only!
Features some disturbing Tobacco style basketball headed milky cereal garish colored eye popping artwork on a 12" picture disc!
MPEG Stream: "TV All Greasy (Feat. Anti-Pop Consortium)"
MPEG Stream: "The Injury (Feat. Doseone)"
MPEG Stream: "Lick The Witch (Feat. Rob Sonic)"

TOBACCO Maniac Meat (Anticon) cd 13.98
Yay! Put on your favorite monster mask and pour a big bowl of sugary breakfast cereal, Black Moth Super Rainbow's possibly groovier, more "hip-hop" alterego is back! Tobacco in the house!! And when we say possibly groovier, what we mean is that this is VERY groovy, about as groovy as it is distorted, and 'delic. Thick, fuzzy, flangey synths colorfully pulsate everywhere, amidst handclap-laced "Unholy Demon Rhythms" (as one song title here puts it)... and it seemingly never ends, hypnotic, head nodding, foot tapping, one track after the next, grooving out with laidback sunshiney good vibes and DayGlo exploding weird noize-energy, all at the same time. A lot of it's instrumental, and when vocals do appear, they're dreamily delivered, heavily treated with spacey electronic effects, the stoned flow far more like blissed out chant than regular "rap", although Tobacco's debut Fucked Up Friends did feature a cameo from rapper Aesop Rock, and this new one boasts guest rhyming on a couple cuts by none other than Beck, who is the godfather of druggy indie-tronic hiphop, right?
The lyrics, when there are lyrics, are usually brief (if not to-the-point), containing cryptic poetry and good advice (?), for instance from "Constellation Dirtbike Head", the lead-off track: "Feel the day, the hottest day / Don't eat the berries around you / Don't eat the berries around you / Burn all your things". Them's all the words. Tobacco returns to the themes of burning and eating later in the disc, but you'll grok just as much sense from the song titles (several of which sound like they'd fit nicely on a NWOFHM album by Steel Mammoth or somebody, e.g. "Lick The Witch", "Motorlicker", "Nuclear Waste Aerobics", etc.).
Basically, if you liked Fucked Up Friends (and why wouldn't you?), you'll like Tobacco's sophomore effort too, it's cut from the same cloth, another sixteen tracks of his friendly, freaky soundz. And same thing goes, if you like BMSR, Tobacco's for you too, but we explained that already when we reviewed the first one (which we made a Record Of The Week by the way, and maybe shoulda done the same this time too). Compared to BMSR, this is pretty similar, Tobacco just steps a little harder, funkier, totally rockin' the bells, with the ever-present, almost skweee-ish synths being even woozier and soooooo wonderfully distorted! Along w/ BMSR, this makes us think of what it might sound like if Fuck Buttons got Daft Punk'd...
One last thing to say, obvious, but we're on a deadline: Tobacco IS addictive! But that's ok, while this might get a Surgeon General's warning, it gets our recommendation!
MPEG Stream: "Constellation Dirtbike Head"
MPEG Stream: "Sweatmother"
MPEG Stream: "Creepy Phone Calls"

TOBACCO Maniac Meat (Anticon) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL!! A few weeks after the cd, about which we had this to say:
Yay! Put on your favorite monster mask and pour a big bowl of sugary breakfast cereal, Black Moth Super Rainbow's possibly groovier, more "hip-hop" alterego is back! Tobacco in the house!! And when we say possibly groovier, what we mean is that this is VERY groovy, about as groovy as it is distorted, and 'delic. Thick, fuzzy, flangey synths colorfully pulsate everywhere, amidst handclap-laced "Unholy Demon Rhythms" (as one song title here puts it)... and it seemingly never ends, hypnotic, head nodding, foot tapping, one track after the next, grooving out with laidback sunshiney good vibes and DayGlo exploding weird noize-energy, all at the same time. A lot of it's instrumental, and when vocals do appear, they're dreamily delivered, heavily treated with spacey electronic effects, the stoned flow far more like blissed out chant than regular "rap", although Tobacco's debut Fucked Up Friends did feature a cameo from rapper Aesop Rock, and this new one boasts guest rhyming on a couple cuts by none other than Beck, who is the godfather of druggy indie-tronic hiphop, right?
The lyrics, when there are lyrics, are usually brief (if not to-the-point), containing cryptic poetry and good advice (?), for instance from "Constellation Dirtbike Head", the lead-off track: "Feel the day, the hottest day / Don't eat the berries around you / Don't eat the berries around you / Burn all your things". Them's all the words. Tobacco returns to the themes of burning and eating later in the disc, but you'll grok just as much sense from the song titles (several of which sound like they'd fit nicely on a NWOFHM album by Steel Mammoth or somebody, e.g. "Lick The Witch", "Motorlicker", "Nuclear Waste Aerobics", etc.).
Basically, if you liked Fucked Up Friends (and why wouldn't you?), you'll like Tobacco's sophomore effort too, it's cut from the same cloth, another sixteen tracks of his friendly, freaky soundz. And same thing goes, if you like BMSR, Tobacco's for you too, but we explained that already when we reviewed the first one (which we made a Record Of The Week by the way, and maybe shoulda done the same this time too). Compared to BMSR, this is pretty similar, Tobacco just steps a little harder, funkier, totally rockin' the bells, with the ever-present, almost skweee-ish synths being even woozier and soooooo wonderfully distorted! Along w/ BMSR, this makes us think of what it might sound like if Fuck Buttons got Daft Punk'd...
One last thing to say, obvious, but we're on a deadline: Tobacco IS addictive! But that's ok, while this might get a Surgeon General's warning, it gets our recommendation!
MPEG Stream: "Constellation Dirtbike Head"
MPEG Stream: "Sweatmother"
MPEG Stream: "Creepy Phone Calls"

TOBIN, AMON Foley Room (Ninja Tune) cd+dvd 16.98
Always keeping things fresh, mysterious and yet unmistakably his own, AQ fave Amon Tobin has one-up'd himself again. Following his Chaos Theory excursion into the videogame soundtrack realm (for Splinter Cell 3), Tobin returns to our welcoming ears and eyes with the cd/dvd extravaganza Foley Room. With a samplin' palette drawn from found sounds and field recordings, the huge aural assaults he unleashes are at once imposingly dense and oh so intricately beautiful. Despite the different source material, sonically and stylistically this initially recalls the foreboding drum'n'bass electronic architecture of his early releases Bricolage and Permutations. However, at track 10 'Always" he shifts gears momentarily, kicking into a more hip hop inflected grooviness like that of his later works Supermodified and Out From Out Where. Fucking wizardly.
MPEG Stream: "Bloodstone"
MPEG Stream: "Always"

TODAY IS THE DAY Axis Of Eden (Supernova) cd 14.98

TODAY IS THE DAY In The Eyes of God (Relapse) cd 15.98
I bet somebody could write a pretty solid dissertation on the self-proclamation of the pop ego as being trapped within a metaphoric insanitarium. While the wimp/non-threatening boy pop of the Backstreet Boys have appropriated this imagery, the majority of this discourse would be within metal. Iron Maiden's Eddie, Quiet Riot, Alice Cooper, and Scorpions being the first to come to mind within the visual use of straightjackets and padded cells. Similarly, Steve Austin's deranged lyricism (which shares time with his heavily distorted bark) seems to harken from the creepy mental hospitals which lurk in the backwoods around Nashville (a place Today Is The Day used to call home). These off-kilter banshee wails add a 'pretty' if sublime quality to the otherwise incendiary pummel of Today Is The Day's muscular heavy riffs and complex blast beats. This, their second album for Relapse (fifth overall, they did three for AmRep dontcha know), hones their weird noise-aggression into its most effective and metallic form yet, due in part to a new and perhaps better lineup.

TODAY IS THE DAY Supernova (Supernova Records) cd 14.98
Been meaning to get to this one for a while, it's something we absolutely *had* to highlight eventually, the long-overdue reissue of the crucial first album by this now veteran, always visionary noise rock/metal outfit. Mainman Steve Austin (vocals/guitars) has led a vast variety of TITD lineups over the years, having made eight studio albums to date, and Supernova is where it all started. When this first came out back in 1993 on the now-defunct Amphetamine Reptile label, we were immediately entranced and in fact almost frightened by this band's (at the time) fairly unique blend of atmospheric/ambient weirdness (via surreal sampling), melody, and heavy/hard rock action. Surely the most Satanic thing AmRep ever released, next to the God Bullies. Also, at the time, we'd have compared it to the likes of Steel Pole Bathtub, Oxbow, Engine Kid, Neurosis, Pain Teens... more recently, Old Man Gloom maybe.
Supernova's dozen tracks are full of both sheer beauty and terror; cruel, cryptic, compelling. It's a genius avant-metal mutation, ultimately more metallic than we knew back then (perhaps pioneering the "noisecore" genre), the band's violent hardcore/postrock riffage and distorted, angry vokills being moodily morphed with all manner of psychedelic sound FX fuckery and chaotic layers of vocal mumble and chatter, buried in the mix like crossed wires or intercepted transmissions... there's also stretches of proggily Frippish guitar, synth bleep, unidentifiable field recordings, including even some barnyard animal noises heard on one track. Today Is The Day keeps all this under control though, these are truly *songs*, mysterious and mayhemic but never too messy. The line between dreaminess, and nightmarishness, is often erased... they were definitely on to something here, as later output proved, Today Is The Day getting more overtly metal in later incarnations, maybe even more experimentally extreme, but never any more uniquely "Today Is The Day" than on Supernova.
This digitally remastered reissue now comes in a digipack, and the artwork is slightly altered from the original, and there's two bonus tracks too (from the '93 AmRep 7" single, "I Bent Scared"), but otherwise it's the same Supernova we know and love. In a word: Recommended!
Ok, now that that's finally out of the way (hey, it's always hardest to review the albums that you like the most, anxiously wanting to do 'em justice) we'll hopefully get to the *new* TITD album, Axis of Eden, soon. And also the same label's reissue of another TDID AmRep classic, Willpower, the ultra-intense follow-up to Supernova...
MPEG Stream: "6 Dementia Satyr"
MPEG Stream: "Blind Man At Mystic Lake"
MPEG Stream: "The Kick Inside"

TODAY IS THE DAY Temple Of The Morning Star (Relapse) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
AmRep refugees resurface on Relapse with a new rhythm section but the same pulverizing, distorted, sample-and-keyboard laden, throat-ripping, math-grind, ugly-beauty sound.

TODAY IS THE DAY Willpower (SuperNova) cd 14.98

TODD Big Ripper (Riot Season) cd 16.98
You would most definitely be forgiven for not expecting big things from a band called Todd. And you sure as shit would probably wouldn't expect something this fierce and heavy and fucked up. But once you realize these guys are on Riot Season, and that they count as members (or did at one time) guys from long time aQ faves Shit And Shine, then it all begins to make a bit more sense. Right down to the taking-the-piss monicker.
And Todd most definitely have plenty in common with their way more tweaked and druggy countrymen S+S, but where S+S do their multiple drummered post Buttholes freak out thing, Todd are a bit more riffy and raw, still rhythmic and heavy and blown out and in the red, but more pounding and relentless, maybe more akin to Brainbombs and Rusted Shut and Twin Stumps and White Mice and the Mayyors, you get the drift, howled marble mouthed vox, riffs crumbling with distortion, so much so that half the time they just sound like a wall of fuzz, the bass a wash of bowel rattling rumble, the drums pounding and frantic, the band swing from unhinged Scratch Acid / Jesus Lizard noise rock, to seasick post rock groove, to lurching sludge-y doom, to full on filthy space rock trip outs, to repetitive, looped sounding dirge-y drug rock, there's even some warped twang flecked almost slowcore sounding drift, but even then, the vocals are unhinged, and the amps sound like they're gradually turning to some sort of black goo, and the band eventually stumble back into a filthy field of sonic broken glass and ear shredding pound and howl.
Needless to say, if you dig Shit And Shine, Brainbombs, No Balls, Twin Stumps, Butthole Surfers, Rusted Shut, Oxbow, Hey Colossus, the Anals, Billy Bao, any of that sort of crusty, metallic, noise drenched filth, then these guys will definitely hit the spot.
MPEG Stream: "Track Side Fire"
MPEG Stream: "Happy Easter Florida"
MPEG Stream: "French And Out Of France"

TODD Big Ripper (Riot Season) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL!
You would most definitely be forgiven for not expecting big things from a band called Todd. And you sure as shit would probably wouldn't expect something this fierce and heavy and fucked up. But once you realize these guys are on Riot Season, and that they count as members (or did at one time) guys from long time aQ faves Shit And Shine, then it all begins to make a bit more sense. Right down to the taking-the-piss monicker.
And Todd most definitely have plenty in common with their way more tweaked and druggy countrymen S+S, but where S+S do their multiple drummered post Buttholes freak out thing, Todd are a bit more riffy and raw, still rhythmic and heavy and blown out and in the red, but more pounding and relentless, maybe more akin to Brainbombs and Rusted Shut and Twin Stumps and White Mice and the Mayyors, you get the drift, howled marble mouthed vox, riffs crumbling with distortion, so much so that half the time they just sound like a wall of fuzz, the bass a wash of bowel rattling rumble, the drums pounding and frantic, the band swing from unhinged Scratch Acid / Jesus Lizard noise rock, to seasick post rock groove, to lurching sludge-y doom, to full on filthy space rock trip outs, to repetitive, looped sounding dirge-y drug rock, there's even some warped twang flecked almost slowcore sounding drift, but even then, the vocals are unhinged, and the amps sound like they're gradually turning to some sort of black goo, and the band eventually stumble back into a filthy field of sonic broken glass and ear shredding pound and howl.
Needless to say, if you dig Shit And Shine, Brainbombs, No Balls, Twin Stumps, Butthole Surfers, Rusted Shut, Oxbow, Hey Colossus, the Anals, Billy Bao, any of that sort of crusty, metallic, noise drenched filth, then these guys will definitely hit the spot.
MPEG Stream: "Track Side Fire"
MPEG Stream: "Happy Easter Florida"
MPEG Stream: "French And Out Of France"

TODD Purity Pledge (Southern) cd 14.98

TODD, MIA DOI Gea (City Zen Records) cd 13.98

TODD, MIA DOI Manzanita (Plug Research) cd 16.98
With her latest full length, the earthy, elegant Manzanita, Mia Doi Todd may easily be seated alongside the formidable chanteuse likes of Anne Briggs, the Cowboy Junkies' Margo Timmins and more recently Lhasa (particularly the eighth and ninth songs on this album). Each woman's voice is a richly nuanced force unto itself -- quite possibly supplying enough electricity (in the form of atmosphere, mood and emotion) to power a small village. Ever so moving, Todd's soaring vocals and piano needs very little other adornment. Manzanita is her fifth album, and her first on the Plug Research label. Her previous four were released on four different labels which has made her music a bit difficult to track down in its entirety, but even still each one has marked a sizable growth in her devoted cult following. Hopefully Manzanita will bring her admirers overflowing to above ground heights. Beautiful!
MPEG Stream: "Tongue-Tied"
MPEG Stream: "Deep At Sea"

TOE 2000 s/t (Atavistic) cd 13.98
With both Doug McCombs of Tortoise and guitarist Jeff Parker of Isotope 217 in this Chicago band, you can guess as to what Toe 2000 (terrible name!) sound like--from jazzy, Tortoise-y instrumentals to subtle almost new age-y grooves...

TOKENS Intercourse (Rev-Ola) cd 14.98

TOLL Christ Knows (Cold Spring) cd 15.98
BACK IN STOCK!!!
Long lost legendary slab of classic British industrial music, originally released in 1986 on the amazing Broken Flag label. The most noteworthy thing about Toll, besides it being a killer record, is the fact that it just so happens to feature a pre-Stereolab Tim Gane (!) as well as Paul Lemos from Controlled Bleeding. But Stereolab fans won't necessarily dig this, Toll is grim stuff. Cold and harsh, lots of metallic percussion, looped rhythms, skipping records, bits of shortwave radio, disembodied voices, plenty of metal on metal clang, thick distorted drones, all held together by huge lurching basslines, that give the whole thing a definite depressive miserablist vibe, like a seriously industrial Joy Division.
At their most musical, like on the loping mantra like "Broken Frame", they do sound quite a bit like the darkest of Factory bands, with simple plodding percussion, and hypnotic low end throbs, all beneath a dramatically crooned vocal line. Imagine any of the current crop of new wave revivalists, Interpol for example, slowed waaaaaaaaaaaaay down and wrapped in plenty of rumble and clang, and you'll get an idea of the sound of Toll.
But that's only one element of their sound, the other being much more abstract, epic, wide open expanses of industrial crunch and shimmering drone, mournful melodies drifting in and out of machinelike rhythms, and crumbling landscapes of sound, wheezing hisses and keening feedback, jagged shards of buzzing electronics, all sorts of strange vocals, dripping with reverb and delay, grinding whirs and thick moaning low end, very dark and dreary and very prescient of the whole modern Wolf Eyes and friends noise scene.
In addition to the entire Christ Knows LP, the cd includes 3 bonus tracks, two that sound like they could be lost Wire jams, all blown out and relentlessly throbbing, with wild squalls of feedback and buzzing guitars over bouncy bass lines and simple propulsive rhythms, while the other is an epic drone-y crawl, thick with layered voices, pulsing bass lines, muted percussive thumps and shuffles and tangled guitar scribbles, all swirled into a dense cloud of slow shifting sound. So awesome.
Fans of old school industrial (Throbbing Gristle, Suicide, Nurse With Wound), classic post punk / new wave (Wire, Joy Division, the recently reviewed Arkansaw Man, etc) as well as mode modern outfits like Skullflower, Wolf Eyes, Dead C and the like, will seriously dig!
MPEG Stream: "Broken Frame"
MPEG Stream: "As We Live And Breathe"
MPEG Stream: "Brute Freeze"

TOM THUMB & THE LATTER DAY SAINTS Kindermusik EP (Three Ring) cd ep 9.98
Bay Area label Three Ring Records expand their roster by a third with four impressive new releases by Rykarda Parasol, Frankel, Scattered Pages and these New Englanders who call themselves Tom Thumb & The Latter Day Saints. Three Ring has already got fine releases by the indie rock/pop likes of Elephone, Soltero, Ebb & Flow and D.W. Holiday and Scrabbel, but with this recent outpouring they bolster their country'n'folk branches.
What a great introduction Kindermusik is! Their withery vocals are much like those of The Weakerthans with some Thom Yorke-ian inflections. They're set atop music that brings together the rustic twang of Calexico and the pop rocks of Sloan.
Very warm and engaging. Also ripe for the picking if you like M. Ward and My Morning Jacket!
MPEG Stream: "Real Small Talk"
MPEG Stream: "Atlantic City"

TOMAHAWK Anonymous (Ipecac) cd 16.98
Mike Patton has so many darn concept supergroup projects (Fantomas, Maldoror, Lovage, Peeping Tom...) but Tomahawk seems to be the one which is the most steadfastly rock and yet also quite unpredictable and open to thematic whims. On this their third album, Patton along with Tomahawk band mates Duane Denison (Jesus Lizard) and John Stanier (Battles, Helmet) set about exploring and reinterpreting the early music of the North American indigenous peoples. Needless to say, the trio combines awesome musicianship and craft which is both reverential and yes, quite rocking. Fierce, passionate and darkly captivating.
MPEG Stream: "Mescal Rite 1"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Dance"

TOMAHAWK Mit Gas (Ipecac) cd 17.98
"Mit Gas" is the second album from these heavy friends, not so different from their first self-titled one. Fans won't be disappointed, it's good. Thus, perhaps it will suffice to print here our review of their debut disc, translated via Babblefish into German and back again...
Do a type of "supergroup" not have to tell itself release on the Ipecac label of microphone Patton, Patton even (marking we that you not are it the voice of gentleman of bad work, belief no longer and Fantomas, true?) as well as the always astonishing guitar of the Jesus lizard Duane Denison, formerly cows/presently Melvins bass Kevin Rutmanis, and percussion John Stanier of the helmet. The results are no surprise, but perhaps type of a disappointment: this lizard sounds actually like a cross between belief no longer and the Jesus! That is not bad, but enthuses not either. Patton/lizard follower it should obviously inspection from, although.
MPEG Stream: "Birdsong"
MPEG Stream: "Rape This Day"

TOMAHAWK s/t (Ipecac) cd 17.98
A kind of "supergroup" release on Mike Patton's Ipecac label, featuring Patton himself (we don't have to tell you he's the voice of Mr. Bungle, Faith No More and Fantomas, do we?) as well as the always amazing guitar of the Jesus Lizard's Duane Denison, former Cows/current Melvins bass player Kevin Rutmanis, and drummer John Stanier of Helmet. The results are no surprise, but maybe kind of a disappointment: this indeed sounds like a cross between FNM and the Jesus Lizard! That's not bad, but not inspired either. Patton/Lizard fans should of course check it out, though.
RealAudio clip: "101 North"

TOMBS Winterhours (Relapse) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "Gossamer"
MPEG Stream: "Golden Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Beneath The Toxic Jungle"

TOMES The Dreadful Gift (Jewelled Antler) 3" cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Volume two in the planned monthly twelve volume Jewelled Antler "Library" series of 3" cd-rs (a format for which we are suckers -- they're just so cute, darn it) is the debut recording from a group called Tomes, who are, as it turns out, basically Jewelled Antler flagship group Thuja (Rob Reger, Loren Chasse, Glenn Donaldson, absent Steven R. Smith), letting themselves get a little bit louder and noiser than they usually do in Thuja, harking back a bit to precursor band Mirza in fact. Probably the main reason this wasn't put out as a Thuja release is because Tomes' title and artwork are in fact the Jewelled Antler collective's knowing nod to a black metal aesthetic (which has fascinated Glenn particularily of late). But while intended as a tribute of sorts to black metal, the psychedelic drone music found here only holds subtle echoes of dark Nordic woodlands and burning churches. The twenty minutes of abstract heavy improv of "The Dreadful Gift (parts 1 and 2)" is darn good stuff regardless of the tangential conceptual framework. With noisy phantoms clanking chains, groaning drones, tell-tale heartbeats and and distorted freeform guitar feedback, this does achieve a dark n' dirgey but beautiful atmosphere. Too beautiful perhaps to leave the black metal hordes quaking in their corpsepaint, it still could be a Jewelled Antler Halloween soundtrack of sorts -- I wonder why didn't they wait 'til the October Library installment for this? Definitely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Dreadful Gift 1"
MPEG Stream: "Dreadful Gift 2"

TOMORROWLAND Sequence of the Negative Space Changes (Kranky) cd 13.98
Your parents like Windham Hill, you like Kranky.

TOMORROWLAND Sequence of the Negative Space Changes (Kranky) lp 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Your parents like Windham Hill, you like Kranky.

TOMORROWLAND Stereoscopic Soundwaves (Darla) cd 12.98
Volume six in the Darla "Bliss Out" ambient pop series. This band is now signed to Kranky, and that should tell you something; if that doesn't, maybe these song titles will: "Sea Of Serenity" and "Kepler Planet Harmonies." For fans of Labradford and Magnog.

TOMORROWLAND Stereoscopic Soundwaves (Darla) lp 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Volume six in the Darla "Bliss Out" ambient pop series. This band is now signed to Kranky, and that should tell you something; if that doesn't, maybe these song titles will: "Sea Of Serenity" and "Kepler Planet Harmonies." For fans of Labradford and Magnog.

TOMUTONTTU (Beta-Lactam Ring) 7" 9.98
Originally intended to be released with a super limited version of the recently listed vinyl of Kemialliset Ytsavat's all time AQ favorite Alkuharka. We missed out on the limited version, but managed to get a handful of the 7" from the label, but once these are gone they are gone for good.
The strange thing is it's not actually a Kemialliset single, but rather a Tomutonttu record, which is in fact the solo project of kemialliset mainman Jan Anderzen (whose recently reviewed lp we still have a few copies of). The sound is similar though and this 7" is a doozy, in fact, the A side might be one of our favorite tracks from these Finns EVER.
Strange percussive acoustic guitar, all sprawled out and spidery, wrapped in lots of grit and grime and crackle, with distant keening feedback and bizarre percussion that sort of sounds like a rubber ball in a tin can, but the two woven deftly together produces the most divine results. All manner of buzz and rattle wrapped warmly in a shimmery, soft focus ambience.
The B side is a bit more far out, but still pretty bad ass, clouds of buzzing and glitched out electronics hover over mournful plinking piano, which gives way to a weird looped rhythm, some backwards melodic buzz, simple drumming and weird disembodied vocals. And then it gets weird, tooting horns, raspy growls, all sort of tribal and spacey, when suddenly it launches into a brief spate of turntable abuse, finally finishing off with a blown out crumbling ultra distorted coda. Phew. Weird, but so nice.
Thick vinyl in a full color eye popping sleeve...

TOMUTONTTU s/t (Fonal) cd 17.98
Originally released on vinyl back in 2007, now finally available on cd!
Tomutonttu is Jan Anderzen, member of Kemialliset Ystavat, Avarus, Anaksimandros, and who knows how many other Finnish free folk outfits. He's one of the kings of that scene. His hand (and gnarled guitar, and wheezing keyboard...) have been in tons of our favorite records and projects. This however is the first chance we've had to hear Anderzen on his own as Tomutonttu, seeing as the first Tomutonttu was so limited it disappeared before we were able to get even a single copy.
Needless to say, fans of all things folky and Finnish will love this, it fits perfectly amidst the Avarus and Kemialliset releases, but it stands on it's own too, strange in its own right, personal, and lovely, but also spacey and kind of freaked out. But then why would we expect anything else?
The record begins with the calls of whippoorwills, soon joined by the calls of yet more birds, all whipping wildly above a thrumming drone made up of buzzing kazoo vocals, moaning muted strings, and some mysterious pulsing minimal throb. Sounding almost like a super lo-fi "Symphony Of The Birds" all tangled up with some chunk of freaky forest folk. Ends up those aren't real birds, as their calls slow down and get all twisted up, it becomes evident it's a record of birds being slowly manipulated, becoming more and more abstract, the bird calls transforming into weird rumbles and flurries of high pitched squiggles, all over the growing buzz of a shimmery space guitar and more of that strange buzzy kazoo like moaning, peppered with deep rich sonic swells, very dreamy and alien, like some sort of otherworldly nature recording.
The next track hews closer to the Finnish folk sound, sort of medieval sounding with drifting high end keyboard melodies draped over muted rhythmic clang and sweet swoonsome swirls of soft sound. The last track on side A sounds like some strange Bollywood Western, minor key and very Eastern sounding, processed guitar and blown out keyboards all tangled up into a gorgeously lilting melody, dreamy and sparkly and super playful.
Side B begins with more playfulness, this time the percussion, all drenched in reverb and echo, like some sort of wind chime garden, muted into strange melodies, droning keyboards beneath, very haunting and otherworldly, it almost sounds African, like likembes, sometimes there are hints of gamelan too, at least in the timbre and the melodies, but all warm and distorted and dreamily blown out. The next track is a brief snatch of what sounds like some unearthed old time recording, all fuzzy warble and a softly keening melancholy melody. And finally, the lengthy final track is a reprise of the opener, all tinkling chimes, distant moaned vocals, and soft clouds of constantly shifting and swirling bird calls, dizzying but also strangely soothing. Definitely one of the nicest records we've heard from the Avarus/Anaksimandros/Kemialliset Finnish freakfolk axis...
Packaged in an amazing sleeve with the same eye popping artwork as the original lp.
MPEG Stream: "Tteema"
MPEG Stream: "Kohtublues"
MPEG Stream: "Live In EU 1"

TOMUTONTTU s/t (Beta-Lactam Ring) lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Tomutonttu is Jan Anderzen, member of Kemialliset Ystavat, Avarus, Anaksimandros, and who knows how many other Finnish free folk outfits. He's one of the kings of that scene. His hand (and gnarled guitar, and wheezing keyboard...) have been in tons of our favorite records and projects. This however is the first chance we've had to hear Anderzen on his own as Tomutonttu, seeing as the first Tomutonttu was so limited it disappeared before we were able to get even a single copy.
Needless to say, fans of all things folky and Finnish will love this, it fits perfectly amidst the Avarus and Kemialliset releases, but it stands on it's own too, strange in its own right, personal, and lovely, but also spacey and kind of freaked out. But then why would we expect anything else?
The record begins with the calls of whippoorwills, soon joined by the calls of yet more birds, all whipping wildly above a thrumming drone made up of buzzing kazoo vocals, moaning muted strings, and some mysterious pulsing minimal throb. Sounding almost like a super lo-fi "Symphony Of The Birds" all tangled up with some chunk of freaky forest folk. Ends up those aren't real birds, as their calls slow down and get all twisted up, it becomes evident it's a record of birds being slowly manipulated, becoming more and more abstract, the bird calls transforming into weird rumbles and flurries of high pitched squiggles, all over the growing buzz of a shimmery space guitar and more of that strange buzzy kazoo like moaning, peppered with deep rich sonic swells, very dreamy and alien, like some sort of otherworldly nature recording.
The next track hews closer to the Finnish folk sound, sort of medieval sounding with drifting high end keyboard melodies draped over muted rhythmic clang and sweet swoonsome swirls of soft sound. The last track on side A sounds like some strange Bollywood Western, minor key and very Eastern sounding, processed guitar and blown out keyboards all tangled up into a gorgeously lilting melody, dreamy and sparkly and super playful.
Side B begins with more playfulness, this time the percussion, all drenched in reverb and echo, like some sort of wind chime garden, muted into strange melodies, droning keyboards beneath, very haunting and otherworldly, it almost sounds African, like likembes, sometimes there are hints of gamelan too, at least in the timbre and the melodies, but all warm and distorted and dreamily blown out. The next track is a brief snatch of what sounds like some unearthed old time recording, all fuzzy warble and a softly keening melancholy melody. And finally, the lengthy final track is a reprise of the opener, all tinkling chimes, distant moaned vocals, and soft clouds of constantly shifting and swirling bird calls, dizzying but also strangely soothing. Definitely one of the nicest records we've heard from the Avarus/Anaksimandros/Kemialliset Finnish freakfolk axis...
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!! Pressed on 220 gram vinyl, packaged in amazing jackets with eye popping artwork and printed full color inner sleeves. These are gonna go fast and once these are gone they are GONE.

TOMUTONTTU Tomutonto (Fonal) cd 17.98
Another reissue from Finland's Tomutonttu, the solo guise of Jan Anderzen, better know as a member of Avarus, Anaksimandros, Kemialliset Ystavat and about a million others.
Tomutonto (notice the slight difference) as originally released as a super limited lp on Ultra Eczema back in 2006, and is now available on cd for the first time. Anderzen explores all sorts of sonic space as Tomutonttu, on the recently listed self titled cd, another reissue, the sounds was a kaleidoscopic tripped out primitivism, a stumbling forest folk, ritualistic and abstract, and while this disc offers up some similar sounding jams, it's much more out there, much more unhinged and experimental.
What songs there are, end up fragmented and all tangled up in a squirming heap, droned out organ tones, squeaks and creaks and thumps and clangs, muted percussion, processed vocals, hiccupping loops, bursts of distorted voices, damaged effects, malfunctioning electronics, fractured loops, swirling filed of spaced out buzz and birdcall like flitter, chant like vocals over Spanish sounding guitars, all wrapped in weird murk, reverb drenched operatic howls and moans, over distant creaking, and warm riffy humming, sped up strings, rhythmic clickings, all twisted and tweaked and warped and warbly.
Definitely on the TRIPPY end of the Finnish free rock underground foresty freak folk spectrum, but anyone into the rest of the Fonal catalog, and other Finnish weirdness should for sure check it out, give the sound samples a listen, that should decide it or you lickety split.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "4"

TONE Solidarity (Neurot) cd 14.98

TONES ON TAIL Everything (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 16.98
With all the Cold Wave and Minimal Synth reissues from the late seventies and early eighties coming back in vogue, we knew it wouldn't be long before we'd see some goth, industrial and deathrock bands from that period being re-issued too. Tones On Tail weren't all that obscure, coming out of the ashes of Bauhaus who disbanded in 1983, but they were very short-lived, only lasting about a year before Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins reunitied with Bauhaus bandmate, David J to become Love and Rockets in 1984. However, Tones On Tail produced an exceptional amount of material over one lp and numerous eps and singles. While best remembered for their club hit, "Go!", their output covered a range of gothic styles from gloomy pop to dark jazz, but always with an ear towards strong songwriting and evocative atmospherics. We always liked them a bit better than Bauhaus. Everything compiles pretty much everything you will ever need. So good!
MPEG Stream: "Lions"
MPEG Stream: "Movement of Fear"
MPEG Stream: "Rain"
MPEG Stream: "OK, This Is The Pops"
MPEG Stream: "You, The Night and The Music"
MPEG Stream: "When You're Smiling"

TONES ON TAIL Weird Pop (Beggars Banquet / Beggars Archive) 2lp 22.00
With all the Cold Wave and Minimal Synth reissues from the late seventies and early eighties coming back into fashion, we knew it wouldn't be long before we'd see some goth, industrial and deathrock bands from that period being re-issued as well. Tones On Tail weren't all that obscure, coming out of the ashes of Bauhaus who disbanded in 1983, but they were very short-lived, only lasting about a year before Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins reunited with Bauhaus bandmate, David J to become Love and Rockets in 1984. However, Tones On Tail produced an exceptional amount of material over one lp and numerous eps and singles. While best remembered for their club hit, "Go!", their output covered a range of gothic styles from gloomy pop to dark jazz, but always with an ear towards strong songwriting and evocative atmospherics. And we always liked them a bit more than Bauhaus anyway!
Weird Pop is a new double vinyl collection that covers most of the same ground as the older 2cd collection, Everything, with a few previously unreleased alternate versions of songs like the full original version of "Performance", the studio version of "Heartbreak Hotel", the single edit of "Go!" and the extended version of "Twist". But unless you want these tracks on vinyl, or you are a completist collector, you might not need this if you already have the Everything collection (which is also available to order from our website) as that features more tracks (24 tracks vs. 19 tracks on the vinyl). Nonetheless, it's always great to see one of our favorite bands get some more much-deserved attention!
MPEG Stream: "Lions"
MPEG Stream: "Movement of Fear"
MPEG Stream: "Rain"
MPEG Stream: "OK, This Is The Pops"
MPEG Stream: "You, The Night and The Music"
MPEG Stream: "When You're Smiling"

TONETTA 777 (Black Tent) lp+cd 28.00
Wow, is this record ever bizarre, not at all what you might expect from the same label that released the record of Pajo Misfits covers or Paz Lenchatin's gorgeous country drone folk record, but like those records, Tonetta's 777 is truly unique and weird and to some ears perhaps also wonderful. Incredibly strange music for sure...
Some folks might recognize the name Tonetta (or Tonetta 777) from his various videos on YouTube, and no doubt some of you were probably forwarded them as they are truly truly odd and were becoming a sort of sensation. So we were trying to find a simple succinct way of describing Tonetta, and decided to turn to the online source for all things freaky, Freakipedia (oddly enough there was no entry for Tonetta on Wikipedia) where Tonetta's entry described him as "an incredibly gay older man on YouTube who dances half naked to songs he pre-recorded. While most of the music sounds the same in his videos, his lyrics largely differ dealing with sexual fetishes such as pissing and pooping, larger women and men, and ass to mouth." Which does pretty much sum it up. Tonetta dresses in strange ripped Flashdance style outfits, g-strings, torn sweatshirts, bustiers, weird masks, sometimes pantyhose over his head, wigs, dresses, whatever, sometimes he's practically nude, he shimmies and shakes, in a diamond shaped frame surrounded by trippy colors, in front of a backdrop that looks like it's probably in his basement, white curtains, a black sheet hung on the wall, a bunch of balloons, and we haven't even gotten to the music yet, simple primitive drum machines, looped disco basslines, blown out guitars, everything in the red and blown out and distorted, the vocals either a deep croon, or a weird almost falsetto trill, the sound warped and warbly alternatingly funky, groovy, and/or psychedelic, sometimes the music sounds like some underground post punk lo-fi disco, other times it sounds almost like Ariel Pink or John Maus, and then there's the song tiles and lyrics, which as the Freakipedia entry alludes to, are subversive and sexual and bizarre and problematic and pretty goddamn funny: "My Bro", "Still A Slave", "A Really Big Cock", "Toronto Is Starting To Stink", "Metal Man", "Peeping Tom", "Drugs Drugs Drugs", "God Treats You Right", "I'm Gonna Marry A Prostitute", and on and on. Fucked up and freaky, but weirdly addictive, and as skeptical as we may have been about a whole album of this stuff, after seeing a bunch of his videos, we find ourselves digging this a whole lot, and listening to it more than we ever thought we would, which pretty much says it all!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, pressed on 140 gram vinyl, housed in a super nice thick cover, adorned with a 2 color serigraph, and comes with a cd version of the record as well.
MPEG Stream: "John And Yoko"
MPEG Stream: "My Bro"
MPEG Stream: "Still A Slave"
MPEG Stream: "A Really Big Cock"

TONETTA 777 Vol. 2 (Black Tent Press) lp+cd 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Some of us are shocked that there's a volume two, collecting still more of the cracked electronic soul pop lo-fi disco of mysterious YouTube phenom Tonetta, but then, there are plenty of folks, like most of us here, that have been waiting for another volume. Why you might ask? Why indeed. Not sure we can describe Tonetta better than we did in the review of the first volume, so probably better to just revisit:
"We were trying to find a simple succinct way of describing Tonetta, and decided to turn to the online source for all things freaky, Freakipedia (oddly enough there was no entry for Tonetta on Wikipedia) where Tonetta's entry described him as "an incredibly gay older man on YouTube who dances half naked to songs he pre-recorded. While most of the music sounds the same in his videos, his lyrics largely differ dealing with sexual fetishes such as pissing and pooping, larger women and men, and ass to mouth." Which does pretty much sum it up. Tonetta dresses in strange ripped Flashdance style outfits, g-strings, torn sweatshirts, bustiers, weird masks, sometimes pantyhose over his head, wigs, dresses, whatever, sometimes he's practically nude, he shimmies and shakes, in a diamond shaped frame surrounded by trippy colors, in front of a backdrop that looks like it's probably in his basement, white curtains, a black sheet hung on the wall and/or a bunch of balloons."
Wow huh? It's definitely weird stuff, but it's engendered a bit of a crazy obsession among all sorts of music lovers, ourselves included. And you'll know how you feel the second you hear it. The songs are super simple, usually, just one or two parts, drum machines, looped samples, disco basslines, all lo-fi and distorted, alternatingly groovy, psychedelic, stumbling and damaged, tripped out and funky, sometimes a head spinning collision of all of those. The song titles, like on the first volume, speak, well, volumes: "Hot Little Fuck, "G+B Showers", "Rape Victim", "Doin A Dyke Tonight", "Picking On Lennon", "Ultimate Whore", "Daddys Little Boy", "Big Rig", "Death Sentence", you get the drift.
It's warped, and bizarre, demented, and weird as all get out, but it's also surprisingly catchy, and a bit irresistible, and while you may scoff now, once you get an earful you might find yourself as obsessed as the rest of us. Don't believe us? Check out the sound samples, or better yet, go watch a few Tonetta vids on YouTube, and then come back for this (and volume one!) when you're ready!
Super fancy packaging, thick silkscreeened jacket, each one hand numbered, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, printed full color inner sleeve, pressed on nice heavy vinyl, and includes a cd that features all the tracks on the lp PLUS two bonus tracks.
MPEG Stream: "Big Rig"
MPEG Stream: "Hot Little Fuck"
MPEG Stream: "The Charge"

TONETTA 777 Vol.3 (Black Tent) 2lp + 2cd 27.00
Our favorite funky sleaze merchant is back with a whopping double lp (plus 2cds of the same material included!), and while we were shocked enough to think that there could be more than one volume of Tonetta's inflammatory outsider dance rock, we're practically, um... gagging on the abundance of grooves this time around. And it's not only the revelling in sexual deviance that make up the subject matter here (though there's plenty of it: assplay, scat play, gloryholes, four-ways, prostitution, bare-backing, basically, the works!), there is a lot of skewed political diatribes ("Obama's Prize", "Saddam", "This Old World"), and a questionably racist song using the N-word (though it could be viewed as anti-skin-head too maybe). But the most shocking of all perhaps, are the love songs which are some of the sweetest and most heartfelt tracks on here. Not sure if some of these tracks are old recordings or just shittily recorded, but this collection overall has the most range musically, with Tonetta's vocal style sounding at times like a crooning Roy Orbison, a bleating Captain Beefheart, or a seductive Leonard Cohen with lots of distorted circular guitar rhythms, lo-fi pans, tweeked-out synths and relentless predatory dungeon sex beats. Freaky!
MPEG Stream: "Ride Me"
MPEG Stream: "Obama's Prize"
MPEG Stream: "81 Inch Prime Ass"
MPEG Stream: "Saddam"
MPEG Stream: "Apachie Woman"
MPEG Stream: "Only Girl I Love"

TONSTARTSSBANDHT Midnite Cobras (Psychic Handshake) 7" 8.98
Everybody went crazy for Tonstartssbandht band's recent cassette, titled Parson Sounds, which was in fact covers of legendary Swedish psychfolk jams from Parson Sounds, Harvester and International Harvester, it was the first we had heard from these guys, but it's tough to go wrong, covering stone cold classics like that. Of course when we got this 7" in, we realized that because that first tape was all covers, and pretty faithful ones at that, we didn't actually know what these guys sounded like. And the weird thing was, we didn't actually imagine they'd sound like THIS, but we're digging it anyway, big time.
A bit of that Swedish psychfolk from the tape makes its way onto this here 7", but it's woven into a sort of heavy blown out psych pop, big booming drums, echo drenched vocals, thick, muddy, murky riffs, super catchy and still pretty psychedelic, totally ramshackle, super distorted, fuzzy, warped and lysergic, big hooky choruses, a little bit Animal Collective, a little bit Japandroids, a little bit Lightning Bolt (especially in the frantic tangled bass harmony breakdowns) all tangled up into a heavy, hooky freaked out blast of in-the-red mini noise pop gems, the sort of stuff that sounds like it would be amazing live, a heaving sweaty crowd spilling onto the stage, the band loose and on the edge of collapse, loud as fuck and totally on fire. And the 7" does a pretty great job of capturing that normally-quite-difficult-to-capture rock energy!

TONSTARTSSBANDHT Parson Sounds (Black Cheeks Tapes) cassette 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
How could we resist? This Canadian two piece (recently relocated to New York), two psych rock obsessed brothers, covering their favorite Swedish psychedelic folk drone jams of the geniuses known variously as Parson Sound, Harvester and International Harvester. Perfect timing too, as we've all been RE-obsessed with Parson Sound, after the deluxe triple lp reissue of their self titled masterpiece we made Record Of The Week last list. And while we're often skeptical of modern day folks covering CLASSICS, sure it's fun, but does everyone need to hear it, well, in this case the answer is hell yeah! These guys totally nail it, channeling not just the spirit, but the sound as well, from the lilting folky vocals, to the acid fried in-the-red guitars, to the pounding motorik drumming, right down to the recording, which sounds all murky and muddy and OLD, like it was itself some unearthed recording from the seventies. The duo lock into those incredible grooves, so thick and dense but lush and expansive and HEAVY, trancelike and mesmerizing, the sort of jams that should go on forever, slipping from fuzz drenched proto-metal, to dreamy, acid folk, to haunting acoustic laments, vocals doused in reverb, careening over roiling swells of super saturated fuzz and wild chaotic drumming.
If these guys can do this sort of justice to stone cold Swedish classics like these, we've definitely got to hear more. In the meantime, grab one of these before they're gone, whether you're a Swedish psych obsessive like us, or just dig on the sort of space psych drone dirge of bands like Heavy Winged, Eternal Tapestry and the like, this will hit the spot either way!