SHIMMER KIDS UNDERPOP ASSOCIATION The Book of Mirrors (Parasol) cd 11.98
These laidback SF popsters make light, sweet-tart songs, and here's a six-song ep for your listening delight! A little backyard ramshackleness, a little swirly 'n' spacy psych-folkish, a little '60s beach blanket worthy with warm vocals, jangly guitars, some horns and hey, was that a recorder we just heard tooting away too? Actually they wouldn't be at all out of place in the warm, creative company of the Elephant 6 collective. Nice.
MPEG Stream: "The Last Joke In Town"
MPEG Stream: "Engines Of The Inner Circle"

SHINDIG Issue #7 (Nov-Dec 2008) magazine 9.98
This snazzy British psych/garage/folk/R&B/beat mag delivers another colorful issue. This time with Roky Erickson on the cover, back in the day with his 13 Floor Elevators, as part of a 15 page section devoted to the Texas psychedelic sixties scene (with articles on Bubble Puppy, Cold Sun, The Moving Sidewalks, and others)... plus, this issue also boasts features on the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, The Strawbs, exploito hippie era paperbacks, Jackie DeShannon, producer Mickie Most, and more. Including tons of reviews. 82 A4 sized pages.

SHINDIG! Issue #6 (Sept-Oct 2008) magazine 9.98
We've been stocking this magazine for a little while now & thought we'd put it on our list this time so mailorder customers (or locals who didn't spot it already on the magazine rack here) could get a chance at it, if they're interested in the sixties-centric stuff that Shindig! specializes in. Published in the UK, this full-color bimonthly is kinda like Ugly Things done glossy like Mojo, covering "psych, garage, beat, powerpop, soul, folk...". They definitely dig into some obscurities of the era, but just not 30 pages deep they way they'd do in UT. This issue has Marc Bolan's folky, freaky Tyrannosaurus Rex on the cover. Inside, stuff about the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, The Move, The Youngbloods, Slade, and (yes!) AQ fave Aussie proto-metallers Buffalo, amongst others. Plus lots and lots of reviews and the other usual magazine things. And they reserve a smidgen of space for modern-day acts of the appropriately retro persuasion, too. 80+ A4 sized pages.

SHINGO2 Homo Caeruleus Cerinus (Revolg) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Cool Japanese hiphop with unexpected twists and turns, so it will appeal to fans of DJ Shadow, Mo'Wax, and the Future Primitive series. Double LP, cd any day now.

SHINGO2 / TERRACOTTA TROUPE XGND My Nation (Moja Nacija) (Mary Joy) 12" 6.98
From our favorite hip hopper from Japan comes this new 12". Six tracks of one piece, My Nation, all flavored with reggae, due to the collaboration between Shingo and the Japanese dub duo Dry & Heavy. While the modern dub is light and bouncy on Dry & Heavy's side (which also contains a fun acapella track), Shingo and Terracotta Troupe's side is gloriously scratch-laden and very good, gleefully messing with JFK's "Ask not what you can do for your country..." speech. Wish we could make you a sample, but this is vinyl only.

SHINGO2/CAPITAL/DJ NOZAWA s/t (Homo Caeruleus Cerinus) 2cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Super good Japanese hip hop with unexpected twists and turns. Will appeal to fans of DJ Shadow, Mo'Wax, and the Future Primitive series. Comes in a beautiful book-like package. Recommended.

SHINING Grindstone (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98
The previous Rune Grammofon album from Norwegian electronica/jazz outfit Shining (2005's In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster) we liked quite a bit -- and sold quite a few copies of as well. But we don't remember it being quite as hard and heavy as this new disc! Some of this is almost industrial-metal, seriously. Herky-jerky rhythms one moment, sheer droning heaviness the next, with moody male and female vox amidst the instrumental/electronic onslaught. This has a sinister circusiness that makes you think that Mike Patton (Fantomas/Faith No More/etc.) must somehow be involved, though of course he's not. Doubtless he'd like how spunky, brassy, swirly, and dark this is, and that Shining haven't lost their any of their intense cinematic Morricone-ish sensibility.
MPEG Stream: "In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm"
MPEG Stream: "Fight Dusk With Dawn"

SHINING In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster + Grindstone (Rune Grammofon) 2lp 29.00
NOW ON VINYL! Not one but two albums by this weird sorta jazz electronica group on Rune G. Here's a review cobbled together from our write-ups of the cd versions of the relevant records...
In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster was the 2005 debut of Shining, from Norway (not to be confused with the black metal Shining from Sweden). What be they if not black metal? Hmm, let's listen...good grief, dunno the genre for this even...it's jazz we guess...of sorts. Powerful and freaky and technological. Lead by Jorgen Munkby (ex-Jaga Jazzist, as is the Shining's keyboardist) who plays (on here) everything from sax to accordion to church organ to guitar to mellotron to synths, and does drum programming too. But Shining is a five-piece band so as multi-instrumental as Jorgen is, he's doesn't have to do it all at once. And they leave the tubular bells to a guest musician. So, you get the idea that there's potentially a lot going on. The requiste Kim Hiorthoy cover art, which kinda looks like a blown-to-bits website, implies as much. The ten tracks here veer from booming bombast to melodic moodiness. Energetic ADD explosions of horns and percussion are calmed with weird wordless vocal parts, rhythmic frenzies give way to eerie grooves, and the players' jazz chops are chopped up. There's plenty of tension, and release, let's say! Just imagine some hotshot jazz guys gone on a dark, cinematic bender, unhealthily obsessed with Carl Stalling cartoon scores and arty prog rock and all possibilities of modern electronics. Your ears will feel fully exercised (and dare we say delighted) after a session with Shining. Very cool.
Then in 2007, Grindstone came out. Compared to the debut, it seemed quite a bit harder and heavier than we remember! Some of this is almost industrial-metal, seriously. Herky-jerky rhythms one moment, sheer droning heaviness the next, with moody male and female vox amidst the instrumental/electronic onslaught. This has a sinister circusiness that makes you think that Mike Patton (Fantomas/Faith No More/etc.) must somehow be involved, though of course he's not. Doubtless he'd like how spunky, brassy, swirly, and dark this is, and that Shining haven't lost their any of their intense cinematic Morricone-ish sensibility.
A handsome gatefold package, limited to 500 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Goretex Weather Report"
MPEG Stream: "Aleister Explains Everything"
MPEG Stream: "The Smoking Dog"
MPEG Stream: "In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm"
MPEG Stream: "Fight Dusk With Dawn"

SHINING IV The Eerie Cold (Avantgarde Music) cd 16.98

SHINING PATH Take You So Low So You Can Fly So High (Planaria) lp 14.98
Killer vinyl reissue of a long out of print cassette from the Shining Path, aka Ilya Monosov and Preston Swirnoff, brother of our very own Irwin.
Originally released on T.B.T.D and now long gone. Sort of taking off from where Shining Path's first Holy Mountain release left off, these guys take synths, vocals, organs, hurdy gurdy, drum machine and guitar and whip them into a blown out krautrock, wild noise space rock frenzy, some baffling mix of Can, Hawkwind, High Rise and Suicide, that sounds perfect together, a confusionally brilliant wild eyed blowout. Total WTF? free psych heaven! From the opening burst of blown out heart-of-the-sun psychrock meltdown, to a stretch of spacious drifting, mesmerizing motorik fuzzstomp, to the final chunk of weird drum machine driven, electronic krautdrone, these guys are absolutely melt minds and destroy speakers, and we can't get enough. The flipside is another burst of furious dubbed out druggy psych, this batch of tuneage recorded live in Brooklyn in 2006 with guests Little Howlin' Wolf and Peter Barry. Recommended of course.

SHINING PATH, THE Chocolate Gasoline (Holy Mountain) 12" 13.98
Latest release from Holy Mountain, a new 12" from The Shining Path, the duo of Ilya Monosov, and Preston Swirnoff. We've dug pretty much everything we've gotten our hands on so far, and this 12" is no different. Well, actually it is, sort of.
And no we don't mean it's different as in we don't dig it, but no, as in it sounds WAY different than other SP releases. Where as other records were overdriven dubbed out druggy psych rock, Chocolate Gasoline has a bit of, well, a sort of calypso vibe mixed into their usual psychedelic stew. It's really strange, sort of sleazy sounding, WAY tripped out, but we still love it.
Stripped down percussion, moaning reverbed guitar, blown out FX drenched leads, strange vocals, that almost sound like Jamaican style toasting, and that calypso vibe. It continues on through most of the record, occasionally interrupted by dubbed out rhythms, clouds of electronic glitch, all dizzy and druggy, it actually sounds a bit like this: imagine the house band in some dark dingy calypso bar, a bar you just stumbled into after being heavily dosed with LSD, everything spinning and twisting into freaky shapes, the band jamming in the corner, begins to lift off the ground, their sounds becoming colors, the bar fading until just you and the band are standing on some other planet, watching the Earth melt in the background while the band jams on, and the little rock you're on drifts closer and closer to the sun.
Packaged in an eye popping 12" style sleeve, all reds and blues and yellows, just begging for some 3-D glasses!

SHINING PATH, THE Live At Voltaire Commune (Trensmat) 7"+cd-r 10.98
Dicovered a little box of these in the back room... Thought they were all gone, they weren't apparently, but they will be soon!
The Shining Path is the psych rock alter ego minimalist experimental duo Ilya Monosov and Preston Swirnoff, and in the past we've raved about their blown out kraut flecked space rock. This new 7" captures the group live in 2005, two tracks from one of their very rare live performances.
The opener is a deep slow burning dirge, glistening and glowing, the sound of a planet slowly drifting into the orbit of a collapsing sun, guitars swirl and soar, grind and growl, effulgent and resplendent. This is drone rock rendered almost static, the riffs crawl, the bass throbs, the whole track creeps, or more appropriately, floats weightless, in a cloud of layered red hot psych guitar, spit out in thick glowing gouts, shot through with feedback, it's like High Rise covering Stars Of The Lid!
The second track is a bit more rocking, the drums and bass locked into a motorik groove, while the guitar, still super distorted and blown out, spits out riffs in sudden bursts, eventually coalescing into one constant stream of psychfuzz, pelted by fragments of super effected vocals, strange little squalls of FX, and then the bass gets all dubbed out, bouncing back and forth beneath the buzz and fuzz.
Like all Trensmat 7"s, the vinyl comes bundled with a bonus cd-r, this one featuring an extra live track, a heavy rocker, with some serious riffing and harmonica (!), as well as four live videos from various performances, nicely filmed, cool effects, tripped out lighting, and most importantly, more awesome music, with bleated sax, moaning horns, droney raga-like buzz, chanted vocals, creepy ambience, thick walls of guitars, rumbling throbbing bass, all woven into some seriously spaced out psychedelic dronerock.
Pressed on white vinyl and of course, VERY LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Live At The Voltaire Commune"
MPEG Stream: "Lonely Hearts"

SHINING PATH, THE s/t (Holy Mountain) lp+cd 15.98
Wow! Holy Mountain hits the bullseye once again. This time out it's with the rock incarnation of Monosov Swirnoff, who first showed us the Shining Path on the second volume of their vinyl only series of lps on Eclipse. This is some seriously blown out and ecstatic raw and relentless rock that is equally influenced by the amazing early punk scene in Australia (think Primitive Calculators) as it is the menacing hypnotic qualities of Suicide, the blasting moments of Can and the psych guitar overload of Japan's High Rise. We love how the Shining Path offer us a taste of what can happen when punks get psychedelic. This isn't just '70s psychrock rehash/worship, instead there is a really cool urgency and momentum that's often lacking in modern day psych excursions. The Shining Path is kind of like the sweat and guts of early punk rock under the influence of Les Rallizes Denudes. While Monosov and Swirnoff reside on opposite sides of the country and thus are rarely able to perform live they did manage a short tour last summer with outsider genius Little Howlin Wolf, those lucky enough to catch them in the East got a total treat. Here's hoping that The Shining Path are able to play some shows around here as we would love to hear and feel these radiating scorchers in the flesh, but until that happens this record is gonna be blasting through our speakers nonstop!
The LP comes with a cd as well, so you get the best of both worlds for the same price...
MPEG Stream: "The Day When He Himself Shall Wipe Away My Tears"
MPEG Stream: "Moroccan Summer"
MPEG Stream: "Hadliku Ner"

SHINING PATH, THE Take You So Low So You Can Fly So High (T.B.T.D.) cassette 6.98
Brand new super limited cassette release from this droned out space rocking duo made up of Ilya Monosov, and Preston Swirnoff, who just happens to be the brother of our very own Irwin! Sort of taking off from where their Holy Mountain release left off, these guys take synths, vocals, organs, hurdy gurdy, drum machine and guitar and whip them into a blown out krautrock, wild noise space rock frenzy, some baffling mix of Can, Hawkwind, High Rise and Suicide, that sounds perfect together, a confusionally brilliant wild eyed blowout. Total WTF? free psych heaven! From the opening burst of blown out heart-of-the-sun psychrock meltdown, to a stretch of spacious drifting, mesmerizing motorik fuzzstomp, to the final chunk of weird drum machine driven, electronic krautdrone, these guys are absolutely melt minds and destroy speakers, and we can't get enough. 
Packaged in gorgeous fold over, card stock envelope like sleeves, hand painted, with pasted on gull color tripped out artwork, on red cassette tapes, with full color picnic blanket colored inserts. LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES, each hand numbered...

SHINING, THE In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98
Ah Rune Grammofon, what have you for us today? Another enticing digipacked cd of course, this one from a band called Shining, from Norway (but not to be confused with the black metal Shining from Sweden). What be they if not black metal? Hmm, let's listen...good grief, dunno the genre for this even...it's jazz we guess...of sorts. Powerful and freaky and technological. Lead by Jorgen Munkby (ex-Jaga Jazzist, as is the Shining's keyboardist) who plays (on here) everything from sax to accordion to church organ to guitar to mellotron to synths, and does drum programming too. But Shining is a five-piece band so as multi-instrumental as Jorgen is, he's doesn't have to do it all at once. And they leave the tubular bells to a guest musician. So, you get the idea that there's potentially a lot going on. The requiste Kim Hiorthoy cover art, which kinda looks like a blown-to-bits website, implies as much. The ten tracks here veer from booming bombast to melodic moodiness. Energetic ADD explosions of horns and percussion are calmed with weird wordless vocal parts, rhythmic frenzies give way to eerie grooves, and the players' jazz chops are chopped up. There's plenty of tension, and release, let's say! Just imagine some hotshot jazz guys gone on a dark, cinematic bender, unhealthily obsessed with Carl Stalling cartoon scores and arty prog rock and all possibilities of modern electronics. Your ears will feel fully exercised (and dare we say delighted) after a session with Shining. Very cool.
MPEG Stream: "Goretex Weather Report"
MPEG Stream: "Aleister Explains Everything"
MPEG Stream: "The Smoking Dog"

SHINJIKU THIEF Matte Black (Dorobo) cd 16.98

SHINJUKU THIEF Devolution (Dorobo) cd 14.98

SHINJUKU THIEF The Witch Haven (Dorobo) cd 14.98
While most of the imaginary filmscores follow Barry Adamson's approach: psychologically involved, noirish atmospheres with plenty of spy thriller references, Darrin Verhagen takes the imaginary filmscore to the realm of medieval epics for wizards, ghouls, and dragons. These dark post-classical compositions (which are entirely sampler based, rather than orchestrated) are reminiscent of the Cold Meat Industries aesthetic of bombastic Wagnerian elements and dark Industrial references to In Slaughter Natives. This marks the final installment to the Witch Trilogy after "The Witch Hammer" and "The Witch Hunter".
RealAudio clip: "Witches' Ladder"
RealAudio clip: "Spores Of Death"

SHINS, THE Chutes Too Narrow (Sub Pop) cd 14.98
Oh so very full of sunshine and bounce. Whereas their debut album presented The Shins in a very Beach Boys-y light, their new full length bears more than a passing resemblance to New Pornographer Carl Newman's former band Zumpano whose two albums were released on the very same label. At times, it's almost eerily so. What with the success of the New Pornographers, any hopes of a new Zumpano album have been dashed. Well folks, sounds like SubPop's found a band who're itchin' to slip their feet into those sizable shiny Z-band's shoes. That's not to say The Shins have become complete Zumpano facsimiles, but the resemblance is more than noticeable on songs like the thoughtful, keyboard and strings driven "Saint Simon", the ultra-exuberant "Turn A Square" and the album's first single "So Say I". That said, The Shins also draw comparisons to sensitive British songsmith The Jazz Butcher (check out the second song "Mines Not A High Horse"). What does this all mean? Geez... that The Shins have a firm grasp on the art of joyful vocal harmonies and elaborate pop orchestrations, but falter in the originality department? Granted the aforementioned artists were by no means groundbreaking, but they made their sounds their own and were just sooo good! Nonetheless, these ten intelligent, lush and very retro-pop tunes filled with falsetto male vocals, elaborate harmonies, jangly guitars, and strong piano melodies make for a pretty great end-of-summer album.
MPEG Stream: "Kissing The Lipless"
MPEG Stream: "Saint Simon"

SHINS, THE Chutes Too Narrow (Sub Pop) lp 12.98
Oh so very full of sunshine and bounce. Whereas their debut album presented The Shins in a very Beach Boys-y light, their new full length bears more than a passing resemblance to New Pornographer Carl Newman's former band Zumpano whose two albums were released on the very same label. At times, it's almost eerily so. What with the success of the New Pornographers, any hopes of a new Zumpano album have been dashed. Well folks, sounds like SubPop's found a band who're itchin' to slip their feet into those sizable shiny Z-band's shoes. That's not to say The Shins have become complete Zumpano facsimiles, but the resemblance is more than noticeable on songs like the thoughtful, keyboard and strings driven "Saint Simon", the ultra-exuberant "Turn A Square" and the album's first single "So Say I". That said, The Shins also draw comparisons to sensitive British songsmith The Jazz Butcher (check out the second song "Mines Not A High Horse"). What does this all mean? Geez... that The Shins have a firm grasp on the art of joyful vocal harmonies and elaborate pop orchestrations, but falter in the originality department? Granted the aforementioned artists were by no means groundbreaking, but they made their sounds their own and were just sooo good! Nonetheless, these ten intelligent, lush and very retro-pop tunes filled with falsetto male vocals, elaborate harmonies, jangly guitars, and strong piano melodies make for a pretty great end-of-summer album.
MPEG Stream: "Kissing The Lipless"
MPEG Stream: "Saint Simon"

SHINS, THE Fighting In A Sack (Sub Pop) cd ep 4.98
Tour only cd ep from AQ faves the Shins, who are the masters of shiny and sweet, jangly complex pop. This ep features "Fighting In A Sack", one of the best tracks from their recent Chutes Too Narrow album, as well as the video for "So Says I", that record's first single. Also included are two bonus tracks, a T-Rex cover, and a live version of "New Slang" on which the Shins are joined by Iron And Wine!!
MPEG Stream: "Baby Boomerang "
MPEG Stream: "New Slang"

SHINS, THE Oh, Inverted World (Sub Pop) cd 14.98
Built To Spill... meet Peter Cetera. Just kidding, that's just what struck me within the first few bars of this album. Sunshine-y retro-pop tunes with very Beach Boys-esque soaring vocal harmonies. Incredibly bright, earnest and toothsome!
RealAudio clip: "Girl on the Wing"
RealAudio clip: "Know Your Onion"

SHINS, THE Oh, Inverted World (Sub Pop) lp 9.98
Built To Spill... meet Peter Cetera. Just kidding, that's just what struck me within the first few bars of this album. Sunshine-y retro-pop tunes with very Beach Boys-esque soaring vocal harmonies. Incredibly bright, earnest and toothsome!
RealAudio clip: "Girl on the Wing"
RealAudio clip: "Know Your Onion"

SHINS, THE Phantom Limb (Sub Pop) cd ep 3.98
It's been a few years since The Shins transformed from indie rock's little secret to international superstars thanks in big part to Zach Braff and the exposure that Garden State gave them. But every now and then a really good band gets the grand attention they deserve and it looks as if The Shins will continue to make solid and undeniably smart pop records seemingly unfazed by their recent burst in popularity. This is a 3 song teaser that will hold us over till their follow up to Chutes Too Narrow comes out soon after new years. It's got stocking stuffer written all over it!
MPEG Stream: "Phantom Limb"
MPEG Stream: "Split Needles (alt version)"

SHINS, THE So Says I (Sub Pop) cd single 4.98
For just being a lil' 3-song ep, So Say I offers quite a wide overview of what The Shins have been up to since their 2001 debut Oh Inverted World. The rollicking, retro, very Zumpano-esque title track is the first single off of their forthcoming album. Hopping in the back seat for this short ride along the beach are the considerably mellower, earthier "Mild Child" and an alternate live-in-the-basement version of the album's ninth song "Gone For Good".
MPEG Stream: "Mild Child"

SHINS, THE Wincing The Night Away (Sub Pop) cd 14.98
What do you do when one day, you're just another decent, sort of well known indie rock band who writes really great songs and then suddenly you become probably the most famous indie rock band around thanks to a big Hollywood movie and waves of big time hype. Well if you are The Shins you just keep writing totally great songs and remain the same great band that made us all fall in love with them in the first place. It's so nice to see how unfazed they seem to be after their huge rise in popularity. You get the feeling that Wincing The Night Away is the same record they would have made, had luck not been how it was and they still remained a somewhat obscure (by mainstream standards) indie rock band from New Mexico. The infectious breezy melodies are definitely still there. Smart pop that draws upon the richest of influences yet now sounds so singularly their own. Songs that seep into your head and have no plan of leaving anytime soon. Wincing The Night Away also finds them exploring a more moody side. The Shins are like that great friend who gets famous but still calls every time they are in town and you aren't jealous of their fame just super happy for them.
PS. The first batch of these come with an awesome 7" with a non-album track and the e.p. version of Split Needles, can't promise 'em forever but you'll get one with your purchase while they last...
MPEG Stream: "Australia"
MPEG Stream: "Black Wave"

SHINS, THE Wincing The Night Away (Sub Pop) lp 14.98
What do you do when one day, you're just another decent, sort of well known indie rock band who writes really great songs and then suddenly you become probably the most famous indie rock band around thanks to a big Hollywood movie and waves of big time hype. Well if you are The Shins you just keep writing totally great songs and remain the same great band that made us all fall in love with them in the first place. It's so nice to see how unfazed they seem to be after their huge rise in popularity. You get the feeling that Wincing The Night Away is the same record they would have made, had luck not been how it was and they still remained a somewhat obscure (by mainstream standards) indie rock band from New Mexico. The infectious breezy melodies are definitely still there. Smart pop that draws upon the richest of influences yet now sounds so singularly their own. Songs that seep into your head and have no plan of leaving anytime soon. Wincing The Night Away also finds them exploring a more moody side. The Shins are like that great friend who gets famous but still calls every time they are in town and you aren't jealous of their fame just super happy for them.
Hey! Vinyl Enthusiasts and iPod users, The Shins got your back as this LP comes with a coupon for a free download of the record.
PS. The first batch of these come with an awesome 7" with a non-album track and the e.p. version of Split Needles, can't promise 'em forever but you'll get one with your purchase while they last...
MPEG Stream: "Australia"
MPEG Stream: "Black Wave"

SHIPP STRING TRIO, MATTHEW Expansion, Power, Release (Hat Hut) cd 16.98
Fucking gorgeous new album from pianist Shipp, who almost never disappoints. Moody, classical-inspired jazz that also makes use of the talents of Mat Maneri (violin) and uber-bassist William Parker. From lyrical and melancholy to nervous and energetic, this spans a range of emotions that would make it an appropriate (if avant) soundtrack to a Hitchcock film...
RealAudio clip: "Functional Form"

SHIPP, MATTHEW (MATTHEW SHIPP QUARTET) Flow of X (2.13.61) cd 14.98
Matt Shipp, piano; Mat Maneri, violin; William Parker, bass; Whit Dickey, drums. Beautiful, difficult.

SHIPP, MATTHEW Before the World (FMP) cd 17.98

SHIPP, MATTHEW New Orbit (Thirsty Ear) cd 15.98
A lovely new recording from celebrated jazz pianist Matthew Shipp and co. (his sidemen here being trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and of course bassist William Parker). It's part of a new jazz series from Thirsty Ear called "Blue Series" (curated by Shipp himself, actually).

SHIPP, MATTHEW Nu Bop (Thirsty Ear) cd 16.98
Here's another new one from the prolific, AQ-fave jazz pianist Matthew Shipp, another entry in Thirsty Ear's forward-looking, Shipp-curated "Blue Series".
The futuristic jazz found on "Nu Bop" is quite similar to David S. Ware's recent "Corridors & Parallels", which featured three of the players found here: Shipp, bassist extraordinare William Parker, and drummer Guillermo E. Brown. On "Nu Bop", Daniel Carter handles sax & flute, and someone named FLAM is responsible for synths and programming (leaving Shipp to his customary piano, instead of the keyboards he played on the Ware disc). This group has produced a unique, enjoyable mix of electronic beats and droney synth atmospheres, and up-tempo, uh, "nu-bop" jazziness. The album's sci-fi theme is reflected in the somewhat hokey track titles, like "Space Shipp", "X-Ray", "Rocket Shipp", and "ZX-1". As with other Blue Series offerings (like that great Spring Heel Jack "Masses" disc from last year), these hybrid jazz/electronica experiments are both good places for the jazz-curious modern music listener to begin exploring, and for the avant-jazz-centric to branch out. The future sound of jazz? We'll leave that for others to debate. We just hope that Shipp doesn't take it *too* far (no DJ remix disc please!!).
RealAudio clip: "Rocket Shipp"
RealAudio clip: "Nu Abstract"

SHIPP, MATTHEW One (Thirsty Ear) cd 15.98
Much like William Parker whose latest release we loved and listed last time, Matthew Shipp is a jazz great whose plethora of releases makes it easy to kind of lose track and maybe pay as much attention as we should (like William Parker). While his willingness to coloborate and stretch and blur lines of genre is admirable we have to admit that we are sort of partial to him on his own. Something about when it's just him and his piano that is so compelling. Of course he is a ridicously talented piano player but it's also the way in which he can create so much tension and mood with the keys that makes him so special. Not often lately that a solo piano record carries its weight and keeps things interesting enough to attract our interest but we're not surprised that Matthew Shipp's the one to deliver such a record.
MPEG Stream: "Patmos"
MPEG Stream: "The Encounter"

SHIPP, MATTHEW Symbol Systems (No More Records) cd 16.98

SHIPP, MATTHEW DUO W/ WILLIAM PARKER DNA (Thirsty Ear) cd 15.98
Two of the most important and reliable players of the now jazz, with a new piano-bass duo session.

SHIPP, MATTHEW DUO With Roscoe Mitchell (2.13.61) cd 15.98

SHIPP, MATTHEW QUARTET Pastoral Composure (Thirsty Ear) cd 14.98
Just now getting around to listing this relatively recent release (from a couple months back). Of all the currently hip and prolific jazzers out there, Mr. Shipp is probably our favorite. It's just hard to keep up with all his releases, but worth it not to miss 'em, 'cause he's a great pianist and someone who shows that the "difficult" and the "lovely" don't need to be mutually incompatable catagories. On this outing he's joined by Roy Campbell on trumpets, etc. as well as Gerald Cleaver on drums and (another hip, prolific jazz dude we have to like) William Parker on bass.

SHIPP, MATTHEW, "STRING" TRIO By the Law of Music (Hat Art) cd 18.98
The strings of Shipp's piano, William Parker's bass and Mat Maneri's violin. No drums. Challenging, sad, rewarding new music from these great improvisers.

SHIPPING NEWS Flies The Fields (Quarterstick) cd 14.98
As much as we might be led to believe otherwise, post rock is alive and well. And we mean post rock in the 'classic' sense, you know, the late nineties, post-Slint, instrumental mood rock, June Of 44, Tortoise, Rodan, Engine Kid, Bastro and all those bands we loved and still love. As evidenced by the post rockisms of recent aQ faves Chevreuil, Isis, Conifer and now the return of one of the classic post rock bands the Shipping News. We are admittedly suckers for a lot of sounds, the buzz and blur of frosty black metal, the classic amen break drum and bass, big crunchy metallic emo, but almost more than all of those, we can't get enough of that stretched out, hypnotic and rhythmic, brooding, propulsive post rock. Sinewy guitar lines, wound around crisp, intricate drumming, throbbing bass and spoken /sung / shouted vocals. Well, to be honest we -can- get enough of the vocals, in fact the vocals here were almost enough to put us off this record completely, but there's just something about this record that grew on us, even the vocals, especially the vocals. It's got this super dark, claustrophobic vibe, expansive and loose but weirdly tense and paranoid so completely reminiscent of THE post rock record, Slint's Spiderland. And while every band that has employed the quiet-loud, hard-soft song structure has been accused of ripping off Slint, a handful of bands just happened to occupy a similar sonic niche, deftly exploring the structure of rock, dismantling it and re-assembling it as a crystalline framework, delicate, but razor sharp, wrapped in warm melodies, subtle and woozily minor key. But unlike some of their post rock brethren, Shipping News don't ever really get loud, their dynamics are conveyed instead through intensity, and arrangement, owing a sonic debt of sorts to bands like Godspeed and Silver Mt. Zion as much as Slint. Regardless of its influences or precedents, Flies The Fields is just a gorgeously languid, mesmerizingly rhythmic, completely hypnotic epic rock record. Post or otherwise.
MPEG Stream: "Axons And Dendrites"
MPEG Stream: "Sheets And Cylinders"

SHIPPING NEWS Flies The Fields (Quarterstick) lp 14.98
As much as we might be led to believe otherwise, post rock is alive and well. And we mean post rock in the 'classic' sense, you know, the late nineties, post-Slint, instrumental mood rock, June Of 44, Tortoise, Rodan, Engine Kid, Bastro and all those bands we loved and still love. As evidenced by the post rockisms of recent aQ faves Chevreuil, Isis, Conifer and now the return of one of the classic post rock bands the Shipping News. We are admittedly suckers for a lot of sounds, the buzz and blur of frosty black metal, the classic amen break drum and bass, big crunchy metallic emo, but almost more than all of those, we can't get enough of that stretched out, hypnotic and rhythmic, brooding, propulsive post rock. Sinewy guitar lines, wound around crisp, intricate drumming, throbbing bass and spoken /sung / shouted vocals. Well, to be honest we -can- get enough of the vocals, in fact the vocals here were almost enough to put us off this record completely, but there's just something about this record that grew on us, even the vocals, especially the vocals. It's got this super dark, claustrohpobic vibe, expansive and loose but weirdly tense and paranoid so completely reminiscent of THE post rock record, Slint's Spiderland. And while every band that has employed the quiet-loud, hard-soft song structure has been accused of ripping off Slint, a handful of bands just happened to occupy a similar sonic niche, deftly exploring the structure of rock, dismantling it and re-assembling it as a crystalline framework, delicate, but razor sharp, wrapped in warm melodies, subtle and woozily minor key. But unlike some of their post rock brethren, Shipping News don't ever really get loud, their dynamics are conveyed instead through intensity, and arrangement, owing a sonic debt of sorts to bands like Godspeed and Silver Mt. Zion as much as Slint. Regardless of its influences or precedents, Flies The Fields is just a gorgeously languid, mesmerizingly rhythmic, completely hypnotic epic rock record. Post or otherwise.
MPEG Stream: "Axons And Dendrites"
MPEG Stream: "Sheets And Cylinders"

SHIPPING NEWS Save Everything (Quarterstick) cd 13.98
2 ex-Rodan peoples.

SHIPPING NEWS Save Everything (Quarterstick) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
2 ex-Rodan peoples.

SHIPPING NEWS Three-Four (Quarterstick) cd 14.98
Please note this is not a new Shipping News album! Although it does include three new songs, it's mainly a compilation of their three fairly recent yet now out-of-print RMSN series eps ("Carrier", "Variegated" and "Sickening Bridge"). With the releases (some subtly retitled) strung together in this fashion, the group's musical diversity is revealed over the course of the fourteen songs, making for a rather strangely intriguing journey. And it's a lengthy one too with a running time of 69 minutes. While the songs have all the earmarks of post-rock - stop-starts, loud-quiets, multiple time signatures and tempo shifts - there are also plenty more experimental excursions. FYI: the new songs are "Variegated", "Wax Museum", "The Architect In Hell" and "Everglade".
RealAudio clip: "You Can't Hide The Mark Inside"
RealAudio clip: "Wax Museum"

SHIPPING NEWS Very Soon, and In Pleasant Company (Quarterstick) cd 14.98
The family that brought us Rodan, Rachel's and June of 44 returns after four years with a new album and the results are, well, not worth waiting four years for. Decidedly slower and moodier than their previous releases, Shipping News are unfortunately starting to fall into 'Anahata'-era June of 44 territory. With production that is only marginally better than their live recordings, this album is likely to frustrate fans that eagerly await a return to classic June of 44 rock-rage. Shipping News is going somewhere, but who knows if it's worth the wait.

SHIPPING NEWS Very Soon, and In Pleasant Company (Quarterstick) lp 13.98
The family that brought us Rodan, Rachel's and June of 44 returns after four years with a new album and the results are, well, not worth waiting four years for. Decidedly slower and moodier than their previous releases, Shipping News are unfortunately starting to fall into 'Anahata'-era June of 44 territory. With production that is only marginally better than their live recordings, this album is likely to frustrate fans that eagerly await a return to classic June of 44 rock-rage. Shipping News is going somewhere, but who knows if it's worth the wait.

SHIRAISHI, TAMIO & SEAN MEEHAN In The City (Fusetron) 12" 14.98

SHIRE, DAVID The Conversation (OST) (Intrada) cd 30.00
Finally back in stock. One of the best soundtracks to one of the greatest movies EVER!! Really. The last time we listed this was almost 5 years ago and we just now managed to get another batch in. Here's what we had to say about this amazing disc:
This is simply one of the greatest films ever made. You can call AQ and argue with us if you disagree. This film is so personal and intense. So completely thrilling and perfect. And it features what has to be Gene Hackman's best performance ever (except maybe for The French Connection). Also features Harrison Ford, as well as Cindy Williams in one of the best scenes of all time (the scene in the park, filmed in San Francisco's Union Square). And the soundtrack is equally impressive. David Shire, who also did the score for the oh so amazing Taking Of Pelham 123, was presented with a new challenge in the scoring of the Conversation. First, Coppola insisted that the score be simple and stripped down, unlike the bombastic full orchestras Shire was so adept with. Second, the score was composed before the film was finished (like Morricone with Leone), which allowed the score to guide the filming and really help focus the performances. So the score ended up being mostly just solo piano (with Shire believing the whole time that they would orchestrate it later). Dark and minor key. Simple, but so goddamn creepy. It's absolutely chilling and almost too perfectly captures the paranoid unhappiness of Hackman's Harry Caul. It's way scarier and dismal sounding than anything more modern doomsters like Piano Magic or Tindersticks have been trying to pull off. Another interesting aspect of the score is the 'jazz records' that Hackman's character plays sax along to in the film. Those 'records' were actually composed by Shire specifically for the film and Hackman actually played the sax. He had never touched a saxophone before, so on the set he had someone teaching him to play, and he would spend his time practicing scales instead of going over his lines. Those tracks are on this disc, complete with Hackman's sax accompaniment. Another bonus on the disc is a full band version of the Theme From the Conversation, where Shire finally gets to flex his arranging muscles. This soundtrack has never been released in any form, so it's pretty exciting that the folks at Intrada managed to pull it all together and get this out (they actually had to do quite a bit of legwork, remixing, re-EQing, and re-editing to put this all together!). Not really available at stores, we're managed to get a few copies 'cause we're such slobbering The Conversation fans.
And for those of you who haven't seen The Conversation...WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? WALK AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW. WALK TO YOUR NEAREST VIDEO STORE. RENT THE VIDEO. UNPLUG THE PHONE. AND WATCH. YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY. An absolutely beautiful film with some of the best performances, directing, and music you will ever see or hear.
MPEG Stream: "Theme From The Conversation"
MPEG Stream: "No More Questions / Phoning The Director"
MPEG Stream: "To The Office / The Elevator"

SHIRE, DAVID The Hindenberg (OST) (Intrada) cd 30.00
Even if David Shire had only ever done the scores for The Taking Of Pelham 123 and The Conversation, those two alone would seal the deal, ensuring Shire a top spot as one of our favorite film composers EVER. Those two soundtracks are so amazing, so intense and emotional, incredibly dramatic and really really strange. The recurring melodic motif of the Conversation is one of those rare musical moments, a tiny chunk of music that once it enters your head, it sticks there forever. It helps that it's repeated over and over and over in the movie and on the cd...
But Shire did so much more, amazing films, ridiculous movies, tons of TV, silly and fantastic, dark and depressing, some were fairly surprising, cuz who would have ever assumed that the guy who did Pelham 123 and The Conversation was the same man responsible for some of the music for Saturday Night Fever and Norma Rae...
From the same folks who brought us the long overdue cd release of the Conversation comes the soundtrack to The Hindenburg from 1975. One of the final entries in the spate of disaster movies, Airport, The Poseidon Adventure, The Hindenburg is the story of the legendary 1937 crash of The Hindenburg, a German Zeppelin, which remains still one of the worst disasters of the 20th century and one of the first to become a media event due to live radio broadcasts and newsreel footage. The movie transformed the disaster into a mystery, a secret plot to destroy the Hindenburg. A pretty killer cast, George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Burgess Meredith...
The music, while not as idiosyncratic as either Pelham or The Conversation, is still moving and dramatic, much more classic sounding old school soundtrack music, with haunting strings, playful little melodies, sweeping expanses of orchestral swoon, occasional bursts of atonal Bernard Hermann style high end tension, fluttering woodwinds, deep ominous low end, some more classical sounding string sections, it's all pretty great, even removed from the visuals, our favorite moments of course are the darker, dronier more tense and ominous bits, which thankfully make up much of the score.
Also included is a strange vocal track, called "There's A Lot To Be Said For The Fuehrer", a croony tin pan alley style ballad, and the whole record is bookended by newsreel broadcasts, the opening is a brief history of ballooning and the development of the zeppelin, all jaunty and playful, the closing is really intense, a rough scratchy live recording set to music of an eyewitness to the disaster, describing the crash as it unfolds, visibly shaken, his voice cracking as he struggles to keep from weeping. Heavy.
Certainly not the weirdest score, but soundtrack fans will definitely dig, and Shire fans should check this out for sure (as well as the recent Zodiac score that we also have in stock). And as with all the Intrada reissues, tons of photos and super extensive liner notes.
MPEG Stream: "Suspect Montage"
MPEG Stream: "Fin Repair Sequence"
MPEG Stream: "Boerth Sets The Bomb / Preparing To Land"
MPEG Stream: "Prelude To The Holocaust"

SHIRE, DAVID The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (OST) (Retrograde) cd 16.98
The nice guys over at (Film Score Monthly), a glossy magazine devoted to soundtracks, have issued this never-before-available soundtrack to fantastic 1974 suspense film featuring Walter Matthau as salty New York Transit Authority cop. The 12-tone jazz/funk masterpiece of a score was composed by David Shire, who is responsible for the all-piano score to The Conversation, among many others. So now Windy doesn't have to start a label to reissue this soundtrack, but maybe she will anyway -- Barbarella and Yojimbo still beckon...

SHIRE, DAVID The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (OST) (A&R) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
LP version of the soundtrack to fantastic 1974 suspense film featuring Walter Matthau as salty New York Transit Authority cop. The 12-tone jazz/funk masterpiece of a score was composed by David Shire, who is responsible for the all-piano score to "The Conversation", among many others. We have had this on cd for a couple years, but now it's on vinyl too! DJ alert: Mixmaster Mike used the main riff from this soundtrack on his "Surprise Packidge" single, to amazing results.