SHIT AND SHINE / EXPENSIVE SHIT Romantic And Macho At The Same Time (Monofonus Press) 7" 8.98
A pretty good match up, and not just based on the band names (although it doesn't get much more perfect than that). Our beloved Texas by way of the UK by way of Texas drum heavy rhythmic noise rockers Shit And Shine start things off with some super lo-fi, looped and repetitive dubbed out minimalism, weird echoey vox draped over a surprisingly super mellow bit of drift and drag, creepy and spaced out, a little skittery and shuffly, at least until it EXPLODES in a blast of grinding distorto noise and howling feedback, transforming the sound into some sort of blacknoise power electronics industrial stomp, yet for all it caustic noisiness, it remains surprisingly rhythmic and hypnotic, the sound SO distorted it seems to be crumbling and decaying as the track plays, replete with all manner of glitches and drop outs, which makes it almost sound like Shit And Shine covering Faxed Head!
We had never heard of Expensive Shit before, but it definitely sounds like the equipment they're using is anything BUT. They counter with their own sort of lo-fi noise rock dubbiness, a twisted, murky, FX flecked dark sonic churn, laced with all manner of clatter and crunch, all over a roiling spaced out dronescape. After a brief blast of noise, the track settles into a slithery, skeletal bit of abstract industrial noise dub, that sounds like Throbbing Gristle recording at King Tubby's and as that might have you imagining, it sounds pretty damn good.

SHIT YOUR PANTS AND DO THE DEATH DANCE Issue #1 zine 5.00

SHIT YOUR PANTS AND DO THE DEATH DANCE Issue #2 zine 5.00

SHIT, MARK Video Anthology (SPAME) dvd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
When Brentley of SF's finest nerd-rock band Three Day Stubble brought these homespun dvds into AQ, he recommended wearing a diaper while viewing it -- i.e, 'cuz you're gonna shit yerself laughin'! While we didn't quite have that exact experience when we watched it, we did find ourselves put through the full spectrum of mental states -- shock, bummer, boredom, agitation and elation. The dvd is divided into five chapters that span fifteen years, and each one offers a home video glimpse into the life of the lad who calls himself Mark Shit. And we can tell you he was one intense kid! Sometimes hyper, sometimes bratty, often punk as fuck, but always completely focused on the video camera. In our opinion, the high point musically is the second chapter named TDRtones Session -- intentionally or not, it features a claustrophobic performance of some pretty great, tightly wound propulsive post-punk. Songs include "Spratley Went To The Bathroom", "She Didn't Know I Was A Midget", "Gah Gah's Coming Out" and an odd very Hendrix-icated "Star Spangled Banner". The low point in every sense is the 'reunion'. You'll have to see for yourself.

SHITMAT Full English Breakfest (Planet Mu) cd 14.98
We've said it once, we'll say it again, we CAN NOT get enough jungle. Especially the mutant strain of spastic junglized, hard raga drill and bass practiced by folks like The Bug, Kid 606 and of course Shitmat. And if we had to pick, Shitmat would most likely be our pick of the bunch. Amazing programming, keeping enough of that classic cheesy drum and bass sound to satisfy our nostalgia, but fucking it up just enough to hit the spot for those of us always in need of a head spinning, ear shredding blast of complete jungle mayhem. The first Shitmat record was just multiple versions of the same song albeit all drastically different, but it's still a huge thrill to finally get a new record of all new (well new in their current form, ya know?) songs. And blessed be, it's even weirder, funnier and harder than the first one. Originally released on 5 separate 12"s, this disc collects almost all of the tracks (one from each 12" was left off jsut to piss us off, but that's okay, we still have been spinning this like crazy). Just like the first album, this collection is a massive buzzing electrified briarpatch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. Highlights of Full English Breakfast include the track "Day O," where Shitmat takes the "Banana Boat Song" and turns it inside out and shreds it to ribbons adding crashing amen breaks and booming low end, "There's No Business Like Propa' Rungleclotted Mashup Bizznizz," a totally fucked up take on Irving Berlin's classic show tune, and "Dis Dancehall Ting...", a chopped up, and junglized version of Aled Jones' "Walking In The Air", junglizing tunes by The Archers, Trisha and the Blue Peter theme, and loads more rumbling, pummelling raga dancehall gabber jungle dancefloor destroyers. WE FUCKING LOVE THIS STUFF!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "UK Swampcore Sucks"
MPEG Stream: "Night Of The Scorpion Scumland Riders"
MPEG Stream: "Dubplate Murder Sound"

SHITMAT Full English Breakfest Volume 1 (Planet Mu) 12" 8.98
We went on and on about the Shitmat record a few lists back. A massive buzzing electrified briars patch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. So fucking good!! One of Andee's favorite records of the year by a longshot. So we were super psyched for this new series of five limited 12"s. Be forewarned, these 12"s are being reissued on cd eventually, but one track on each 12" will NOT be on the cd, and those are FIVE tracks you CAN NOT live without!!
Volume One is jam packed with that booming buzzing, speaker shredding old school jungle, new school drill and bass we love so much! FUCK YEAH!!

SHITMAT Full English Breakfest Volume 2 (Planet Mu) 12" 8.98
We went on and on about the Shitmat record a few lists back. A massive buzzing electrified briars patch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. So fucking good!! One of Andee's favorite records of the year by a longshot. So we were super psyched for this new series of five limited 12"s. Be forewarned, these 12"s are being reissued on cd eventually, but one track on each 12" will NOT be on the cd, and those are FIVE tracks you CAN NOT live without!!
Volume two features the track "Day O," during which Shitmat takes the "Banana Boat Song" and turns it inside out and shreds it to ribbons adding crashing amen breaks and booming low end. Plus four more tracks of rolling pounding, stuttering drum and bass madness.

SHITMAT Full English Breakfest Volume 4 (Planet Mu) 12" 8.98
We went on and on about the Shitmat record a few lists back. A massive buzzing electrified briars patch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. So fucking good!! One of Andee's favorite records of the year by a longshot. So we were super psyched for this new series of five limited 12"s. Be forewarned, these 12"s are being reissued on cd eventually, but one track on each 12" will NOT be on the cd, and those are FIVE tracks you CAN NOT live without!!
Another blast of all orignal (well, you know...) rumbling, pummelling raga dancehall gabber jungle insanity. Set your speakers for stun!

SHITMAT Full English Breakfest Volume 5 (Planet Mu) 12" 8.98
We went on and on about the Shitmat record a few lists back. A massive buzzing electrified briars patch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. So fucking good!! One of Andee's favorite records of the year by a longshot. So we were super psyched for this new series of five limited 12"s. Be forewarned, these 12"s are being reissued on cd eventually, but one track on each 12" will NOT be on the cd, and those are FIVE tracks you CAN NOT live without!!
On the final volume, Shitmat indulges his goofy side (much like on his recent cd) by covering and junglizing tunes by The Archers, Trisha and the Blue Peter theme, as well as another 4 tracks of huge ragga dancehall gabber brutality. We can never get enough of this stuff!!!

SHITMAT Full English BreakfestVolume 3 (Planet Mu) 12" 8.98
We went on and on about the Shitmat record a few lists back. A massive buzzing electrified briars patch of ultra complex drum and bass, huge booming low end and sliced and diced hard ragga. So fucking good!! One of Andee's favorite records of the year by a longshot. So we were super psyched for this new series of five limited 12"s. Be forewarned, these 12"s are being reissued on cd eventually, but one track on each 12" will NOT be on the cd, and those are FIVE tracks you CAN NOT live without!!
Volume three's standout numbers are "There's No Business Like Propa' Rungleclotted Mashup Bizznizz," a totally fucked up take on Irving Berlin's classic show tune, and "Dis Dancehall Ting...", chopped up, and junglized version of Aled Jones' "Walking In The Air" as well as two other dancefloor destroyers.

SHITMAT Grooverider (Planet Mu) cd 14.98

SHITMAT Hang The DJ (Wrong) cd 15.98
We love Shitmat. A lot! As any regular reader of the AQ list must realize by now. But this new one sort of threw us for a loop. Shitmat was our go to guy for that blasting old school nineties heavy ragga jungle, bass bin rattling drum and bass, with super blown out synths, buzzing bass, and those hyper charged drum breaks. As we've said before, it's one of those sounds that we could listen to FOREVER.
Well, Hang The DJ starts off from a whole different angle. With a more mash-up vibe going on. In fact, the first few tracks could pass for Girl Talk tracks, with their million bits and pieces all cobbled together into a head spinning pop culture dance floor concoction. Well, once we got over our initial shock, we started to really dig it, sure it wasn't what we were expecting, but damn if it wasn't kicking our asses. Furious and freaky, skittering skipping and completely brilliantly baffling. Classic pop songs, old diva standards, heavy metal guitars, snippets of hip hop, and pretty much everything else under the sun. It began to almost sound like Girl Talk crossed with Venetian Snares. But the more we listened, the more we could hear the Shitmat sound. A bit obscured and all tangled up in there, but still that same cheeky sense of humor and flair for killer stuttery beats.
But about halfway through the disc something happened. The jungle returned, subtly at first, but soon, we were in full on dance floor destroying ragga jungle heaven, killer toasting, gnarled Amen breaks sliced and diced, huge drops, massive slabs of synth bass, some full on bursts of hardcore gabber...
And then before we knew it, it was gone, and we were back to stuttering skittering mash-ups, but suddenly it all made more sense. The next time through, those opening mash-ups sounded perfect butted up against those wild jungle tracks, and the jungle bits perfectly segued into the million-sample-a-minute freakouts, and all of a sudden, it seemed like we just might have ourselves a new fucked up electronic sort-of-jungle mash-up dance record....
MPEG Stream: "Badman And Robin'"
MPEG Stream: "Bloodclot Jungle Techno!"
MPEG Stream: "Jesus Was A Raver"

SHITMAT Hang The DJ (Wrong) lp 22.00
We love Shitmat. A lot! As any regular reader of the AQ list must realize by now. But this new one sort of threw us for a loop. Shitmat was our go to guy for that blasting old school nineties heavy ragga jungle, bass bin rattling drum and bass, with super blown out synths, buzzing bass, and those hyper charged drum breaks. As we've said before, it's one of those sounds that we could listen to FOREVER.
Well, Hang The DJ starts off from a whole different angle. With a more mash-up vibe going on. In fact, the first few tracks could pass for Girl Talk tracks, with their million bits and pieces all cobbled together into a head spinning pop culture dance floor concoction. Well, once we got over our initial shock, we started to really dig it, sure it wasn't what we were expecting, but damn if it wasn't kicking our asses. Furious and freaky, skittering skipping and completely brilliantly baffling. Classic pop songs, old diva standards, heavy metal guitars, snippets of hip hop, and pretty much everything else under the sun. It began to almost sound like Girl Talk crossed with Venetian Snares. But the more we listened, the more we could hear the Shitmat sound. A bit obscured and all tangled up in there, but still that same cheeky sense of humor and flair for killer stuttery beats.
But about halfway through the disc something happened. The jungle returned, subtly at first, but soon, we were in full on dance floor destroying ragga jungle heaven, killer toasting, gnarled Amen breaks sliced and diced, huge drops, massive slabs of synth bass, some full on bursts of hardcore gabber...
And then before we knew it, it was gone, and we were back to stuttering skittering mash-ups, but suddenly it all made more sense. The next time through, those opening mash-ups sounded perfect butted up against those wild jungle tracks, and the jungle bits perfectly segued into the million-sample-a-minute freakouts, and all of a sudden, it seemed like we just might have ourselves a new fucked up electronic sort-of-jungle mash-up dance record....
MPEG Stream: "Badman And Robin'"
MPEG Stream: "Bloodclot Jungle Techno!"
MPEG Stream: "Jesus Was A Raver"

SHITMAT Killababylonkutz (Planet Mu) cd 14.98
Oh man, is this good! We've been going on and on about drum and bass, the amen break, all that late nineties jungle, and how we can never get enough. Well, we can't. And it seems like we needn't worry. Lately we've had reissues of classic Remarc stuff as well as that wicked Soundmurderer mix cd from a few months back. But as you know, we may love jungle, but we especially like our beats BIG and HEAVY and DISTORTED, so when we discovered DJ Scud and all that Ambush label stuff as well as Kevin Martin's Bug project, who took dancehall and infused it with spastic jungle rhythms and then distorted and twisted them into intense and abrasive, speaker destroying, head banging, dance floor clearing kicks to the head, we were SOLD. And as the beats got heavier and more twisted, and the hard dancehall got harder and harder we were in heaven. So here we have the latest and maybe greatest in a long line of digital hardcore style dancehall mashups, courtesy of one fellow called Shitmat. One thing to point out is that all of the tracks on Killababylonkutz are actually the same song, but it's a testimony to Shitmat's deft hand and skillful progamming that it took us a while to even realise that we were listening to really different versions of the same song! The toasting is hard and fierce, a raspy Jamaican howl, fleet and tongue-twisting, but over the course of the record, it's sped up and chopped up, slowed down and stretched out, so that if you weren't paying attention, you would really think the vocals on each track were completely different. And of course everything is buried in an avalanche of buzzing, spastic beats, tumbling all over the place, threatening to fall into utter chaos, complete noise, but always barely hanging on and slipping back into a wickedly catchy, prickly and pounding beat. Sonically, Shitmat twists his original "Babylon", into all sorts of shapes, a loping reggae dirge with buzzing bass and throbbing beats, all out splattery drill and bass, classic 4 on the floor hardcore jungle, and everything in between. Towards the end of the record, he lets things get a little goofy like mashing up the "Babylon" vocals to Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger" and using what sounds like the theme from Benny Hill! Still fun but silly. But c'mon, who cares?!? It hardly matters since the rest of the record is so good, and so hard, and so heavy and so totally great! Fans of DHR, Alec Empire, DJ Scud, DJ/ Rupture and the like who have been itching for some more serious hardcore dancehall mayhem may find this stuck in their cd player FOREVER!
MPEG Stream: "Original Babylon"
MPEG Stream: "Rudeboy Babylon"
MPEG Stream: "Rough Babylon"

SHITMAT Killababylonkutz (Planet Mu) 2lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of last week's records of the week, now available on vinyl. Oh man, is this good! We've been going on and on about drum and bass, the amen break, all that late nineties jungle, and how we can never get enough. Well, we can't. And it seems like we needn't worry. Lately we've had reissues of classic Remarc stuff as well as that wicked Soundmurderer mix cd from a few months back. But as you know, we may love jungle, but we especially like our beats BIG and HEAVY and DISTORTED, so when we discovered DJ Scud and all that Ambush label stuff as well as Kevin Martin's Bug project, who took dancehall and infused it with spastic jungle rhythms and then distorted and twisted them into intense and abrasive, speaker destroying, head banging, dance floor clearing kicks to the head, we were SOLD. And as the beats got heavier and more twisted, and the hard dancehall got harder and harder we were in heaven. So here we have the latest and maybe greatest in a long line of digital hardcore style dancehall mashups, courtesy of one fellow called Shitmat. One thing to point out is that all of the tracks on Killababylonkutz are actually the same song, but it's a testimony to Shitmat's deft hand and skillful progamming that it took us a while to even realise that we were listening to really different versions of the same song! The toasting is hard and fierce, a raspy Jamaican howl, fleet and tongue-twisting, but over the course of the record, it's sped up and chopped up, slowed down and stretched out, so that if you weren't paying attention, you would really think the vocals on each track were completely different. And of course everything is buried in an avalanche of buzzing, spastic beats, tumbling all over the place, threatening to fall into utter chaos, complete noise, but always barely hanging on and slipping back into a wickedly catchy, prickly and pounding beat. Sonically, Shitmat twists his original "Babylon", into all sorts of shapes, a loping reggae dirge with buzzing bass and throbbing beats, all out splattery drill and bass, classic 4 on the floor hardcore jungle, and everything in between. Towards the end of the record, he lets things get a little goofy like mashing up the "Babylon" vocals to Survivor's "Eye Of The Tiger" and using what sounds like the theme from Benny Hill! Still fun but silly. But c'mon, who cares?!? It hardly matters since the rest of the record is so good, and so hard, and so heavy and so totally great! Fans of DHR, Alec Empire, DJ Scud, DJ/ Rupture and the like who have been itching for some more serious hardcore dancehall mayhem may find this stuck in their cd player FOREVER!
MPEG Stream: "Original Babylon"
MPEG Stream: "Rudeboy Babylon"
MPEG Stream: "Rough Babylon"

SHITMAT One Foot In The Rave (Planet Mu) cd 14.98
The last Shitmat record was just a tad too ravey for us, when what we really want from Mr. Shitmat, is wild pounding ragga jungle. He's probably responsible for one of our favorite ragga jungle records ever, Killababylonkutz, a whole record of multiple version of the same dancehall jam, but holy shit did that one slay. Wild drill and bass, over the top toasting, bizarre samples, all chopped up and looped into chaotic careening slabs of junglized pummel.
Since Killababylonkutz, Shitmat has moved more and more toward straight up rave music, sometimes doing sort of mashup thing, other times going for the goofy retro angle a la the recent Zomby, record. No matter how much we liked all of those records, we couldn't help hankering for more of the hard stuff. Well, it looks like Shitmat heard our prayers somehow, cuz even with that title, this is the hardest most jungly record since Killababylonkutz and we've been going nuts.
Sure there's still plenty of rave-y jams, and mashup bits, but there's also plenty of wild chopped drum and bass, some serious chunks of ragga jungle here and there, even some toasting, and Shitmat lets his spastic programmed insanity run wild, spitting out dizzying tangles of impossiby complex drum jams, making even the cheesiest of dance grooves sound hard and heavy. The best jams are definitely the ragga jungle numbers, worth it for those 3 or 4 tracks alone, but like we said it's all pretty great, and makes for excellent listening even for the dancefloor phobic!
Awesome Cabbage Patch Kid cover art too!
MPEG Stream: "Clash and Carry (Old Socks Remix)"
MPEG Stream: "Archaeology"
MPEG Stream: "Whitelabel Unity"

SHITMAT One Foot In The Rave (Planet Mu) lp 17.98
The last Shitmat record was just a tad too ravey for us, when what we really want from Mr. Shitmat, is wild pounding ragga jungle. He's probably responsible for one of our favorite ragga jungle records ever, Killababylonkutz, a whole record of multiple version of the same dancehall jam, but holy shit did that one slay. Wild drill and bass, over the top toasting, bizarre samples, all chopped up and looped into chaotic careening slabs of junglized pummel.
Since Killababylonkutz, Shitmat has moved more and more toward straight up rave music, sometimes doing sort of mashup thing, other times going for the goofy retro angle a la the recent Zomby, record. No matter how much we liked all of those records, we couldn't help hankering for more of the hard stuff. Well, it looks like Shitmat heard our prayers somehow, cuz even with that title, this is the hardest most jungly record since Killababylonkutz and we've been going nuts.
Sure there's still plenty of rave-y jams, and mashup bits, but there's also plenty of wild chopped drum and bass, some serious chunks of ragga jungle here and there, even some toasting, and Shitmat lets his spastic programmed insanity run wild, spitting out dizzying tangles of impossiby complex drum jams, making even the cheesiest of dance grooves sound hard and heavy. The best jams are definitely the ragga jungle numbers, worth it for those 3 or 4 tracks alone, but like we said it's all pretty great, and makes for excellent listening even for the dancefloor phobic!
Awesome Cabbage Patch Kid cover art too!
MPEG Stream: "Clash and Carry (Old Socks Remix)"
MPEG Stream: "Archaeology"
MPEG Stream: "Whitelabel Unity"

SHITMAT & FRIENDS Gary Gruesome Remixes (Planet Mu) 12" 8.98
We've long been complaining about the dearth of "grime" in the States, so we were psyched to discover that the folks at Planet Mu decided to do something about it. They've been reissuing UK grime releases for the states, but this latest batch of 12"s offers up some grime / jungle hybrids as well as their own twisted take on dubstep and grime. And it kills!
AQ fave Shitmat whips up this nutty two step banger, with all sorts of pop culture detritus mixed in to a swirl of throbbing distorted grime, FAT fuzzy bass lines, pounding low end and all sorts of vocal fragments and electronic chaos.
Chevron takes the same track and stretches it out a bit, removing all the random sonic extras, turning it into a stripped down minimal skittery jam, sort of lo-fi with affected vocals, burping bass and skeletal grimy beats.
Finally Mu-Ziq turns the track inside out, chopped up and super spastic, stuttery and shuffly, a minimal grimescape, sounding creepy and intense and about to blow, like it might shift into some manic Squarepusher drill and bass at any moment but it never does leaving you tense and exhausted. Awesome.

SHITMAT / LADYSCRAPER Grungecore Volume 1 (Fukdup) 7" 6.50
There's been much talk about grunge around aQ these days. A lot of it has to do with the fact that a bunch of us just love grunge, STILL, and thus talk about it all the time. But beyond that, Andee recently dedicated an entire radio show to his grunge favorites, and this summer is the Sub Pop 20th anniversary celebration, which rumor has it, might entail a Green River reunion! And now there's this, the first volume in a proposed series called Grungecore. And the second we heard about it, we knew we needed it!
Gabber jungle dancehall electronic freak Shitmat, covering Nirvana's "Negative Creep"!!! As if that weren't enough, the flipside is some other crazed electronic tweaker taking on Nirvana's "Senseless Apprentice" (aka "Scentless Apprentice"). And if even that weren't still enough, every single 7" comes in a sleeve, hand sewn from actual flannel shirts! Holy shit!!!
So the Shitmat side is a killer. It begins with all this throbbing black ambience, weird rhythmic skitter, which explodes into a fierce relentless blast of gabber madness. But it no way does it sound anything like Nirvana. UNTIL, the vocals kick in, and then it fits, it sound so right, it wouldn't be hard to imagine Kurt Kobain fronting some band on DHR back in the nineties, the rhythm of the original is kept intact, with the little pauses filled with flurries of jungle instead of that moaning guitar, the howling at the end of the chorus processed into some fucked up digital scream. Only reminds us how much we love Shitmat.
The flipside is someone called Ladyscraper, and their version of "Scentless Apprentice" sounds nothing like the original, less of a remix, more of an interpretation. Huge chunks of throbbing sizzling synth, massive grinding bass, the beats are more like speaker shredding bolts of digital crunch, the churn and skitter and occasionally explode into impossibly dense tangles of digital glitch. The vocals are super distorted, almost black metal, the whole thing stops and starts, super convoluted, it's basically impossible to tell it's a Nirvana song, but that doesn't mean it's not awesome.
Each 7" comes in its own flannel sleeve, hand sewn, from various parts of various different flannel shirts. Some are sleeves, and have buttons or cuffs, others have parts of collars, a few have a strange mudflap that flops outside the plastic sleeve. Each sleeve has a Grungecore sticker affixed to the front and a FUKDUP label Sub Pop parody sticker on the back, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, the label on the 7" is hand stamped and hand numbered, and includes a photocopied insert with liner notes and rad high school drawings. WAY recommended.

SHITS AND GIGGLES Trick Or Treat (Free Dope And Fucking In The Streets) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
***Ariel Pink alert!!!!*** ***Total mind-fuck alert!!!***
Shits And Giggles is a brand new band that features Ariel Pink alongside the mutant sonic terrorists the Vas Deferens Organization. While everyone in the world seems to be biting on Ariel Pink's brand of outsider pop, recently, it's kind of awesome to see him take a total left turn and create a completely different, but equally warped sonic beast.
Shits And Giggles wander in a musical landscape that feels like it's being beamed over from a different galaxy. Collapsing fucked up jazzy rhythms melt into plunderphonic like excursions while taking turns into psychedelic funk and other worldly whatthefuckness. All totally insane yet somehow still so damn compelling and weirdly trance inducing. You can hear how records by Negativland, Nurse With Wound, John Oswald, Throbbing Gristle, Muslimgauze, Wicked Witch, Sublime Frequencies, etc. have seeped their way into Shits And Giggles' subconscious, and no doubt about it this is a uniquely distorted musical adventure. Vas Deferens Organization are some of the folks who run the totally awesome blog Mutant Sounds, so it's no surprise that they have found their own way to create some completely tripped out magic of their own. Even though it's nothing like an Ariel Pink album there are still moments, the production, specific sounds, certain melodies and phrases, that are still so recognizably Ariel Pink. A total must have for Ariel Pink fans and everyone else into the demented done right!

SHITSTORM Paranoid Existence 2004-2008 (Rotting Chapel) cassette 8.98

SHITTY LISTENER, THE Crying Sweater (Ruralfaune) cd 13.98
Latest from The Shitty Listener, still one of the greatest band names EVER, and the work of Jason Honea, a satellite member of the Jewelled Antler Collective, having done time in Child Readers, Franciscan Hobbies, Knit Separates, Chord Fort, Teenage Panzercorps and loads of others, but The Shitty Listener finds the Berlin-based Honea going it mostly alone, creating, delicate, hushed, ultra fragile minimal anti pop, gorgeous drifts of barely there sound, the various non musical elements as much a part of the sound as anything else. Organs whir, Honea's gentle croon hovers and flits, suspended in a cloud of tape hiss, while all around, children play, footsteps clomp by, dishes clank and crash, as if Honea was huddled in the corner, trying desperately to capture a sound, before the outside world intrudes, and only sort of succeeding, but in that partial failure lies the magic of the Shitty Listener. Each song is a captured moment, alive, and immediate, and organic, this is not music you can play in the store, or blast in your car stereo, this is music made to get lost in, the sonic equivalent of the musician, sneaking up to you and crooning directly in your ear. A pair of headphones, and your transported to the world of The Shitty Listener, where music is only a part of the sound.
The songs are not just home recorded, many are captured out in the open, on walks, in fields, by the beach, near the seaside, birds chirp, people walk by, oblivious to the fact that they are contributing to a magical micro moment of musical mystery.
And for all its low fidelity, the sound is strangely lush, and impossibly warm and enveloping. Hissing melodies and softly strummed guitars are whipped up into blurred swirling clouds of feedback drenched drones, but somehow it's never noisy, just dense, and layered, and even in these noisy moments, you can still hear the detritus of life surrounding the music.
"I Keep Dreaming To Myself" sounds as close to a proper song, until Honea stops midsong to talk, and again, lovely strummed guitar is wrapped around, weird moaning melodies, creaks and rumbles, distant bells, a slowly crumbling collage, which leads right into the 12+ minute "The Burst Heart", which begins with a cacophony of crunch and scrape before settling into an ultra minimal bit of dronefolk, which builds to some intense strumming, before slipping right back to a whisper.
The record plays out in a similar fashion, fractured folk gives way to abstract ambience, gentle croons set amidst fluttering flutes, and strange space-y melodies, loops and drones way off in the distance, while rattles rattle and bells tinkle, and voices chatter in a cloud of burnished hiss, finishing off with the Shitty Listener version of a Murder Ballad, melancholy and mournful, infused with a bit of blurred warmth, some streaks of feedback, some tinkling toy xylophones, some reverberant buzz, before Honea instructs everyone to stop playing, and Shitty Listener's buzz and chime finally stumbles to a halt. So strange and magical and fantastic.
MPEG Stream: "Seeing Through Eyes Of Tears"
MPEG Stream: "Area Women"
MPEG Stream: "Pray Me Away"
MPEG Stream: "Grow Up To Dreams"

SHITTY LISTENER, THE Fruitless Accomplishment (Greengate Press) cd-r 6.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Found a box of these tucked away in the closet, a few more copies of this shitty pop gem if you missed out first time around...
The return of The Shitty Listener! Maybe one of our all time favorite band names EVER. And it's about time. We all completely dug the Girls All Say EP we listed a while back, but it just wasn't enough. It was only 9 minutes long after all. Well, Fruitless Accomplishment clocks in at a whopping 26 minutes, and thus manages to take all the elements we liked on the EP, and spreads them out, expands and explores, which just means there's so much more to like.
Actually originally released as a book, that just so happens to also contain a cd, for our purposes, we'll just go ahead and consider Fruitless Accomplishment a cd, that just so happens to come with a book (or rather with some text instead of the more extensive but now out of print book version)! For those new to the Shitty Listener, it's not really a band, instead it is one man, Jason Honea, from from the Jewelled Antler outfits The Child Readers and the Franciscan Hobbies, as well as the Chord Fort, the Knit Separates and Teenage Panzercorps. The Shitty Listener is his Honea's mostly solo, lo-fi, bedroom folk project. And is deeply connected to his poetry/lyrics and artwork. As is evidence by this deluxe text/cd combo.
The sound is incredibly intimate and low fidelity. Mostly recorded on micro cassettes or handheld tape recorders, Honea incorporates tape hiss and whatever ambient sound happens to occur in the background, whether it's a plane flying by, a dog barking, the sound of crickets, it all just becomes part of the sound. And just like old Sebadoh tapes, the ch-chunk sound of the record or stop buttons being pushed, as well as weird warbles in the tape, become as much a part of the song as the song itself. Lilting melancholy piano, gentle acoustic guitar strum, and not much else support Honea's warbly falsetto, plaintive and emotive, always way down in the mix, a sort of drifty fuzzy dreamy melody within each song. But that's more than enough. Each song ends up sounding surprisingly lush. Our favorites though have to be the ones that sound like they were recorded from a distance, or through the wall or window. Those tracks almost sound like Honea was singing and strumming indoors, while the mic was outside, capturing most of the music, but more than anything all of the ambient action happening around it. Other highlights include the a capella "Bad Wonder", "I Call You Up" which sounds a bit like Morrissey fronting Sentridoh, the minute long "Across My Dreams", a sort of processed dreamy guitarscape, and the 7 minute medley "Sweet To My Mind w/ Someone Flame-Like & Up Too Much", the first half of which sounds a bit like a Basinski composition, but made manually, by playing a figure on the piano, pushing stop on the tape player, pressing record and playing the figure again, over and over and over. So weird and wonderful.
Fruitless Accomplishment is a strangely compelling collision between abstract experimentation and lo-fi pop loveliness, and the results are truly divine!
The packaging is pretty dang divine as well. Packaged in a newsprint covered sleeve with collaged color art affixed to the front and back, inside is the cd-r, an insert with the liner notes, four full color and two black and white inserts featuring various drawings and collages by Honea, and Real Flowers, a small book of poetry, gorgeously printed on nice paper and with a full color paste on cover!
MPEG Stream: "Get A Grip"
MPEG Stream: "Pretty Soon Now"
MPEG Stream: "Sweet To My Mind / Someone Flame-like & Up Too Much"

SHITTY LISTENER, THE Girls All Say EP (3 Acre Floor / Paha Porvari) cd-r ep 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wow! This is the week for awesome band names, the Chord Fort, Flittermice Of Eld, Maggoted and now The Shitty Listener which might be one of the best band names EVER.
The Shitty Listener is Jason Honea from the Jewelled Antler outfits The Child Readers and the Franciscan Hobbies, as well as the Chord Fort, the Knit Separates and Teenage Panzercorps, along with some guest guitar from our very own Kerry McLaughlin.
This is an ultra personal abstract ambient artifact, equal parts super intimate crooning vocal and whirring mysterious drone. Recorded on a shitty handheld minicassette recorder which gives all of the multi part, nine minute epic "The Cloud Fort" (not to be confused with Honea's other band the Chord Fort) a super murky, haunted lo-fi vibe. Each part is brief, but beautiful, a blown out shimmering ambience that is soon joined by Honea's way in the background falsetto, before the music drops out completely, and then it's ALL vocals, bare and alone, sweetly singing, lightly draped with reverb, but for the most part super naked and intimate. The next stretch sounds like it could have been lifted off some old Jewelled Antler release, a thick textured soundscape of field recordings, and subtle dronings. Then there's some downright indie rock riffing that seem like they would maybe sound out of place, but here they don't, a cool minor key jangle that gives way to another stretch of even MORE intimate vocals, with no reverb or any natural ambience, almost like one of those cassettes you find in a thrift store packed with some aspiring singer's solo vocals. So intense and weirdly voyeuristic. The disc winds down with a murky, whir drenched snatch of easy listening bliss out that just trails off into the hiss of the tape recorder. So nice.
A gorgeously packaged cd-r. Full color cover, with a dreamlike painting on the cover, a textured paper insert, and the disc is professionally printed and is quite striking.
Only 9 minutes long, but also only six bucks!
MPEG Stream: "The Cloud Fort (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "The Cloud Fort (excerpt 12)"

SHITTY LISTENER, THE Hunt To Die (Sacred Harp Tapes) cassette 4.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Hot on the heels of two super limited cd-r's comes the newest batch of ultra personal lo-fi missives from Jason Honea aka The Shitty Listener. Honea (The Child Readers, Franciscan Hobbies, the Chord Fort, the Knit Separates, Teenage Panzercorps, etc.). A super intimate world of tiny folk songs, lo-fi lushness, strange fragments of sound, and whatever other strange sonics figure into Honea's Shitty Listening.
Strange distorted conversations, chopped up, a looped snippet of some Hall & Oates song, a dizzying found sound collage that quickly gives way to a simple warbly guitar strum, melancholy and struggling to stay in key, a lilting and dreamlike sliver of forest folk, complete with drifting falsetto vocals and a strange bit of tapping percussion way down in the mix. Most of the songs on Hunt To Die are of a similar make up, drifting crooning sweetness. although the lo fi production takes over here and there allowing the sound to become super distorted and bleed over everything else. Some droney buzz, some other snippets of found sound. And more fragile folky dreaminess. Like wandering through the lush foggy musical garden in Honea's mind. Everything gauzy and indistinct, mysterious and wondrous, and oh so pretty.
Feature some guest action from Honea's former partners in Jewelled Antler Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson.
Full color cover and a hand painted blue tape with fabric and artwork glued to the front. And as with most things like this probably really really limited...

SHIVER San Francisco's Shiver (Shadoks Music) cd 15.98
The music on this cd represents the entire recorded output of this obscure early '70s acid-rock band. Shiver recorded this stuff live to two-track tape in the summer of 1972, and while they never released an album back in the day, it's clear that the world is ready for their heavy guitar jams now. Well, maybe not the world -- but certainly those of us, mostly too young to have "been there then", who aren't entirely satisfied with today's stoner metal and are always looking for the real deal, the lost stoner psych monster.
Basically, Shiver were a bunch of hard-rocking hippie freaks, brought together by a Texas-bred drummer who moved to San Francisco to take up where his obvious heroes Blue Cheer left off. They soon had a rather rough, tough reputation, playing Haight street fairs and Hells Angels biker parties. At one point they even had a singer with an iron hook for a hand, which he could use as a slide for his guitar, or for more violent purposes. Shiver played "heavy psychedelic rock" at its most primal -- no overdubs, raw as hell.
Portions of this were previously available as an expensive Rockadelic LP, but the cd adds quite a few extra, lower-fidelity tracks as a "bonus."
RealAudio clip: "Bone Shaker"

SHIVER, THE Walpurgis (Garden of Delights) lp 34.00
Another official GoD vinyl reissue (following the Kalacakra we listed not long ago) of a krautrock rarity. Well, is it krautrock if it's from Switzerland? Sorta, it's heavy progressive Sixties blues psych in any case, full of hammering Hammond organ. And being Swiss, these guys were lucky enough to obtain appropriately shiver-inducing (and sexually suggestive) cover artwork by H.R. Giger, for their lone, rare, 1969 album release!
The music isn't quite creepy enough to live up to Giger's cover, though The Shiver can certainly get moody. The opener is fairly ominous, an instrumental called "Repent Walpurgis", with weeping wailing guitars and organ, and bombastic drumbeat breakdowns, though it has a nicely melodic piano passage too. And they sound quite liturgically somber - as well as psychedelic - on "Hey Mr. Holy Man", another of the other tracks here that might invite comparisons to AQ-fave Austrian krautrockers Paternoster. Also, we dig their downer cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", clearly inspired by The Animals' version more than that of Nina Simone.
While this is "pop music" it's certainly got something of a dismal, druggy vibe. Also this album is most definitely bluesy - and if you don't like that, then their song "What's Wrong About The Blues" will answer its own question!
Gatefold sleeve, numbered limited edition of 1000.
MPEG Stream: "Repent Walpurgis"
MPEG Stream: "Hey Mr. Holy Man"

SHIVVERS, THE Lost Hits From Milwaukee's First Family Of Power Pop: 1979-82 (Hyped To Death) cd 13.98

SHIZUKA Heavenly (PSF) cd 17.98

SHIZUKA Live/Traditional (PSF) cd 17.98
Live in '95. Hmm, I think maybe that was right about when some of us here at AQ saw this Japanese psych band, they came to SF and played an amazing show at the Kilowatt, back when they had shows there. Tokyo's Shizuka, with their haunting female vocals drifting ahead of an inevitable onslaught of noisy, billowing, distorto-delic electric guitar murk, were one of the '90s precursors to such current bands as LSD-march, Suishou No Fune, and Up-Tight. At the time, we compared 'em to Angel 'In Heavy Syrup and Slapp Happy Humphrey, the latter especially 'cause of Shizuka's extreme mix of delicacy and destructiveness, of melancholic melody and sheer, feedback-laden guitar/amp/earhole abuse. Not abuse, though, not really... it's loud, sculpted sound that's actually quite beautiful. As with so many Japanese bands from the PSF/Tokyo Flashback scene, it's like a cotton candy dream of the most out there Neil Young & Crazy Horse amplifier meltdowns (a la Arc). This raw (but not to Rallizes-like levels of low fidelity) 52 minute live set is Shizuka in their element, and even if you've never heard 'em before wouldn't be a bad place to start, at all. The first song alone should make you a believer if you're at all open to this sort of thing (i.e. maybe already a fan of some of the other bands mentioned above). And it is 26 and a half minutes long! That's the biggest blow-out on the disc, the other three tracks trafficking more in the tranquil side of Shizuka, with long slow-moving stretches of sweet vocals backed by echo and hum and hiss as the shoegazing guitar bides its time before finally erupting into full flight.
And of course, those already into Shizuka know they're one of the best, unique within the pantheon, and should be pleased have another rare document of their sad dark mystery.
MPEG Stream: "Shizuka live track 1"
MPEG Stream: "Shizuka live track 2"

SHIZUKA Tokyo Underground '95 (Last Visible Dog) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Japan's Shizuka were once (and maybe are again) an up-and-coming four-piece Tokyo psych outfit, you might know 'em from their contributions to PSF's Tokyo Flashback compilation series, or their studio album on that same label, or their amazing but now sadly out of print live cd on Persona Non Grata. They even played a great show here in San Francisco at the Kilowatt some years ago that some of us were lucky enough to witness. The prime elements of Shizuka's sound are the Keiji Haino-esque guitar storms of ex-Fushitsusha man Maki, combined with the haunting, sad female vocals of the band's namesake Shizuka (Japanophiles reading this probably also have seen her beautiful and spooky handmade dolls, on the cover of a Land of the Rising Noise comp and elsewhere). This band broke up a while ago, but have apparently recently reunited. No new material has been forthcoming, however, but they have released this live cd-r (recorded in 1995, before the break-up), which will be some consolation to fans. It's a 40-minute long live performance (complete with a fragment of the music being played through the PA prior to their set!) from a club in Tokyo. The recording is great, and their songs are phenomenal. Gorgeous, melancholic stuff, with the gently lulling singing of Shizuka being heartbreaking enough by itself, but also setting the listener up to be destroyed by the fantastic heavy psych controlled-noise outbursts of the guitar when they begin (usually a few minutes into each song). If you're already a Shizuka fan, you'll want this, and if you're into bands like Nagisa Ni Te, Slap Happy Humphrey, and Fushitsusha, you probably do too. Those with less expertise in modern underground Japanese psych -- but who dig the Velvets, Neil Young, or even an imaginary mix of Mazzy Star and Mogwai -- could do a lot worse for an introduction as well.
RealAudio clip: "Heavenly Persona"
RealAudio clip: "Lunatic Pearl"

SHIZUO Fuck Step (Digital Hardcore Limited) cdep 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Beyond two-step, dark step, tech step, and hard step, Shizuo embodies his own mutant brand of drum 'n' bass... Fuck Step. This music is so fresh and vital it will get your blood going like Black Flag and the DKs did for that 35 year old who lives next door to you. (Hey hey now don't get defensive, Grampa, I'm over 30 too.)

SHIZUO High On Emotion (DHR) cdep 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Shizuo, one of the noise/breakbeat/punk standouts on the intense Digital Hardcore label (with a great 7" out on Grand Royal), releases this studio & live ep, 10 tracks of Berlin electronic mayhem.

SHIZUO New Kick (DHR) 12" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of our favorites from Alec Empire's Digital Hardcore stable, with a new ep the title track of which is apparently a Cramps cover.

SHIZUO New Kick (DHR) cdep 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of our favorites from Alec Empire's Digital Hardcore stable, with a new ep the title track of which is apparently a Cramps cover.

SHIZUO Sweat (Digital Hardcore/Grand Royal) 7" 3.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of 4 singles from Digital Hardcore Recordings, Germany's nastiest, most extreme hardcore techno label, issued here in tasty uninitiated-friendly 7" format by the Beastie's Grand Royal label. A cheap way to learn all about what the hell is going on.

SHIZUO Vs. Shizor (Digital Hardcore/Grand Royal) cd 12.98
The weirdest of the Digital Hardcore crew breaks out with his first full length. Unanimous store favorite. Includes his stellar Sweat single, and features some of the hardest, most distorted yet intelligent bass and drums this side of Panacea. Recommended (esp. the next time you're pissed off.)

SHLOHMO Bad Vibes (Tall Corn Music) 2lp 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We don't care what the rest of the world says, we still love Witch House, or drag, or grave rave, or cave rave, or whatever you want to call it, we still can't seem to get enough of it, the murky slithery soundscapes of slo-mo rhythms, tarpit soul, slowed down vocals, everything wreathed in a cough syrupy haze, it's the perfect late night music, like a bastardized drug addled Portishead, which sounds amazing right? We've been particularly partial to the recent spate of groups crafting a sort of abstract soul, a minimal, washed out, woozy RnB that takes the tropes of the original sound and stretches 'em waaaay out and slows them waaaaay dooooown, the result being a blissed out sonic comedown, all lumbering shuffling beats, woozy washed out melodic swells, vocals alternatingly chopped and screwed or left to drift angelically amidst hazy clouds of druggy drift. Think How To Dress Well, Crypt Thing, D'eon, Holy Other, Dirty Beaches, Hype Williams and the like.
We had never heard Shlohmo before, and actually first discovered him via a recent local show featuring Water Borders, oOoOO, White Ring and other sonically similar soundscapers (think Witch House if you want, it's okay). Shlohmo definitely traffics in a similar sound. fans of any of the above mentioned bands, will no doubt dig Shlohmo as well, his sound leaning more toward the swirling slow motion melodicisim of Balam Acab or Clams Casino, the sound all slow strummed chords, wreathed in effects and layered beneath blurred vocals, occasionally deep and dramatic, but more often, a fluttery Prince like falsetto, spidery melodies, creepy rickety rhythms, slow motion stutters and woozy warble, those distinctly witch house-y female vox all layered into a sort of chordal thrum, the sounds here hovering mainly in some ethereal sun dappled Technicolor dreamworld, but once in a while the sounds gain momentum, and become darker, the sounds more caustic and crunchy, but even then, the vibe is more shoegazey and dreamily druggy, with the sound eventually slipping back into something much more drifty and ephemeral.
Gorgeous stuff. WAY recommend for fans of prettier dreamier drag (Balam Acab, Clams Casino, etc.)É
Packaged in a super swank full color gatefold sleeve, includes a download code as well.
MPEG Stream: "Big Feelings"
MPEG Stream: "Places"
MPEG Stream: "Anywhere But Here"

SHOCK Heaven (Voltaire) 12" 11.98
Latest 12" jam from local label Voltaire, and the first we've heard from local trio Shock, their song "Heaven", starts out all noisy and synthy, driven by a dark house-y pulse, which sort of had us expecting something all Carpenter/Goblin-y, but then the vocals come in, and the song is transformed into a gorgeous slab of retro electro pop shimmer, all groovy low slung bass line, reverby guitar jangle, ominous synth pulse, dubbed out handclaps, skittery beat, and some seriously divine, sultry vox, all wreathed in a gorgeously lush production, that had us thinking M83 for sure, a fantastic blast of fuzzed out shoegaze electronic house-pop.
The remixes are pretty bad ass too, probably most exciting for aQ-ers, is Steve Moore from Zombi's mix, which transforms it into a glistening cascade of percolating synth melodies, the house music pulse left intact, but the vocals blurred and smeared into long stretches of breathy looped drones. So good!
The other remixes are less dramatic, Beatbroker, as his name would suggest, goes heavier on the beat, while letting all the other sounds blur into something more ethereal and washed out, while Hatchback go the other direction entirely, and take the song in a much more eighties pop direction, more fuzzy retro-pop, all hazy and almost Beach House-y at times.
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"
MPEG Stream: "Heaven (Steve Moore Remix)"

SHOCKED, MICHELLE Threesome (Limited Edition) (Mighty Sound) 3cd 33.00
The latest from Ms Michelle Shocked is quite a doozy! Three differently themed full length albums -- Mexican Standoff, Don't Ask Don't Tell and Got No Strings -- offered up as a limited edition triple disc set on her own label, Mighty Sound.
MPEG Stream: "Early Morning Saturday"
MPEG Stream: "Baby Mine "

SHOCKING PINKS s/t (DFA) cd 13.98
DFA and Flying Nun Records unite, finally? Who knows why in the hell those two labels would ever get together, other than the fact that DFA's James Murphy seems intent on sticking his finger into every single existing part of music history -- sometimes effectively updating sounds and creating some interesting syntheses. Mr. Murphy's possible personal ambitions aside, the resulting product is pretty great. New Zealand's own Nick Harte comprises the one-man indie arsenal Shocking Pinks, which is an adept synthesis of its own. Try to imagine an album conceived and executed on a strict dietary regimen of Flying Nun, Sarah, and Creation Records, maybe even a little bit of Afghan Whigs' Gentleman. The result is a super chunk (wink, wink) of indie-pop goodness. Controlled, fuzzy guitars find a comfy home next to simple drums and simpler, more twee, slightly out-of-tune vocals, plus a dab of new wave synth-ibility. Not bad! Are we saying this is on par with what amounts to the absolute best indie labels of the '90s? Nah. But it is an awesome trip down memory lane, back to the days when indie rock wasn't perceived as being burnt-out hasbeens playing mediocre material for arena crowds or seriously lame highschoolers with black eyeliner. These were the days when it was acceptable, nay, required to embrace your inner (or outer) nerd and run with it. Yup. Mix tapes, 7"s, and '60s-style bowlcuts. Hell, do lovelorn, daydreaming teenagers even know what tapes are now?! Sigh... Well, half those labels are bankrupt, barely licensed out, but dammit, some of us just aren't done with it all yet. There is one little aberrant track entitled "Smokescreen," which isn't bad at all, but its cowbell and post-punk drumming really have no place on this record. Also, don't be scared of Harte's album closer, a warm and hazy cover of Arthur Russell's supremely beautiful "You Can make Me Feel Bad." Ah, but it feels so good. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "How Am I Not Myself"
MPEG Stream: "You Can Make Me Feel Bad"

SHOEMAKER, MATT Erosion Of The Analogous Eye (The Helen Scarsdale Agency) cd 14.98
BACK IN STOCK!
A very prescient, and very good, record by the sound-artist / field recordist Matt Shoemaker, Erosion Of The Analogous Eye pushes his work of tonal exploration and exaggerated found sounds into the neighborhood of many of the post-noise cosmic explorers who have been blossoming in every corner of the US it seems. At the same time, this is very much a Matt Shoemaker record, following a trajectory set forth through his acclaimed work on the once-mighty Trente Oiseaux label.
An ur-drone of analog synthesis opens the album, obviously harkening to '70s kosmische activities certainly a muscular revisitation of Schulze or even an extraction from Richard Pinhas. Such a lazerbeam of a drone has a lysergic sunrise feel to it, with the light and shadow brought into sharp relief, the colors shifted and separating into spectral bursts of yellow, red, pink, and orange. Yet, slowly, Shoemaker introduces atonal drones which clash with that introductory suspension. At first, the metallic slashes have almost an Andrew Chalk and Jonathan Coleclough feel, but Shoemaker quickly dispels those notions with a layer of field recordings of insects ravenously scurrying about. That introductory tone, which still continues through this first track, bends like a divebombing plane with Doppler tones trailing behind, descending in a series of bell tones. All of this in a seamless 17 minutes. A steady rhythm of gamelan bell tones opens the second track with accumulated complimentary drones shimmering and vibrating while harmonic dissonance abounds, collapsing into a quiet stream of percolating textures. Spread across 24 minutes, this track seems ancient and sounds beguilingly beautiful. Bellowing rumbles amplify out of recordings of rain, mud, and water and steadily arching through a metallic rattling of various pipes and gongs for the final track, which eventually gives way to an uneasy set of recordings of birds in a rainforest whose calls echo through the trees.
As with all Helen Scarsdale releases the packaging is stellar. Letterpressed text with hand-dyed paper. Each are different, each are quite special. Oh yeah, limited to a mere 300 copies!
MPEG Stream: "Erosion A"
MPEG Stream: "Erosion B"
MPEG Stream: "The Analogous Eye"

SHOEMAKER, MATT Groundless (Trente Oiseaux) cd 14.98
Before the days of email blasts and newsletters, mail order was almost always done by way of xeroxed lists from various outlets. One of the more incredible lists cam courtesy of Anomalous Records, who had itemized hundreds of records, cassettes, and various shapes of vinyl on one or two pieces of paper by printing everything an incredibly small font, often hovering around 3 pt in Helvetica or something like that. Not only was the list a task to read in terms of the sheer volume of material crammed into a very condensed amount of space, but the list also held an extraordinary amount of incredibly cool experimental, post-industrial, and avant-garde music that could not be found anywhere else. Sadly, Anomalous Records decided to close up shop about five years ago; but their importance as an outlet for obscure music is still felt today.
Matt Shoemaker's Groundless was one album that had been stocked from time to time on the Anomalous list with a curious description that said something to the effect that Groundless resembled the work of Andrew Chalk. Then in 2001 when Shoemaker's debut was released on Trente Oiseaux, references to Andrew Chalk were not all that common, as his seminal project Mirror had only just begun and his solo records had yet to catch the imagination of every producer of dronemusik. Needless to say, such a parallel was one that caught our attention; and the album was quickly ordered only to discover a strident realm of quiet crackling that was quite foreign to Chalk's all-consuming dronescaping. While Groundless sounds nothing like any of Chalk's recordings, it is still a brilliant piece of tactile sound abstraction. It may seem a stretch but perhaps Anomalous was only making comparisons on the impeccable quality of both Shoemaker and Chalk as composers, even if they don't share much in the way of aesthetics. Instead of the expansive drone, Shoemaker posits a dizzyingly cinematic sound design of streaming crackles, agitated piles of sand, and sympathetic field recordings that burst in dynamic fashion out of extended passages of queasy stasis into sharp snaps of electromagnetic propulsion. These techniques have more of an avant-garde film drama to them as blurry, soft focus objects give way to something which snaps to the foreground announcing all of its ugly bruises and scars with a sharpened clarity. Groundless emerges as yet another amazing recording from Matt Shoemaker.
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

SHOEMAKER, MATT Isolated Agent / Stranding Behavior (Elevator Bath) picture disc 17.98
Seattle's Matt Shoemaker has long stood as one of the few consistently great drone tacticians around, principally because his take on the drone supreme is punctured by humid field recordings laced with occasional bellowings of atmospheric dread. His previous works such as Erosion Of The Analogous Eye and The Wayward Set are demonstrations in equal parts of rich transcendence and hallucinatory isolationism. Given the titles of the two pieces on this gorgeous picture disc released by Elevator Bath, you can make a pretty solid bet that this tends more toward the latter aesthetic of Shoemaker's black-hole expressionism.
Shoemaker begins with a tense diamond-shot drone from overlapping sinewaves generated from controlled feedback. These pierced frequencies slide downwards amidst a curious set of clattering noises, almost like the amplification of a paramecium undulating its way into the crevices of its host body. Extended wheezes of grey gasps of air and motorized growlings swallow everything that came before with a ghostly echo of those feedback tones broadcast from way back at the event horizon. The second side (which may be the first, as Elevator Bath's picture discs are very trickly to discern track listings!) immediately expands into one of Shoemaker's signature pieces of lysergic darkness, with all of his ill-tempered vibrations colliding into huge phase patterns that mutate, deviate, and detour the linearity of his cold drone fundamental. Always bending and set off-kilter this composition is dangerously slippery as if set upon quicksand with the various layers upon layers splitting off in asynchronous, oozing, droning directions.
Very highly recommended as with all of Shoemaker's work! Limited to 233 copies.

SHOEMAKER, MATT Mutable Depths (Ferns) 3"cd 9.98
If Aquarius Records wasn't located in the temperate climate of San Francisco, would we be so enamored with the sounds of ice? If we had to deal with burst water pipes or having to shovel through several feet of snow just to get to the front door or trying to stay warm in bone chilling temperatures, the romance of ice would probably be lost on us. But as it stands, we love the sounds of a frosty winter. Give us the sounds of the windswept Nordic tundra, the subaqueous squawks of Antarctic penguins, the clank of Finnish oddballs building instruments out of ice, and these frigid recordings from one of our favorite sound artists.
Ice, the source material for Matt Shoemaker's contribution to the Ferns series of 3" cds, which seems to be on the way to rivalling Metamkine's Cinema Pour L'Oreille series of electro-acoustics through their set of expressive drones and molded field recordings. This all-too brief composition begins with a stoic set of raw field recordings from drippings of cold water, the crack of ice breaking under temperature fluctuations and pressure, and unsettled squigglings of water being forced through tiny fissures. After several minutes of this squishy introduction, Shoemaker sets forth a parabolic arc of dense gray drones whose frosty demeanor matches the source material. Eerie blasts of pierced electric tones mark the track's crescendo, after which Shoemaker authors a steady retreat in density back towards the dripping and crackle. Fans of William Basinski, Chris Watson, and BJ Nilsen should definitely take note of this excellent recording!
MPEG Stream: "Mutable Depths"

SHOEMAKER, MATT Soundtrack For Dislocation (Elevator Bath) cd 12.98
Undeniably, this is a Matt Shoemaker recording. This Pacific Northwesterner has long been a favorite dronologist here at Aquarius with his ominous recordings spawned from electro-acoustic feedback systems, humid field recordings, tonebent mood engineering slanted toward audio hallucinations, dense guitar swarms, and elongated, zoner synth passages that give John Elliott a run for his money. Soundtrack For Dislocation is a self-evident title for Shoemaker, given how his work fractures temporal / psychogeographical planes, teleporting the listener from one opiated mirage to another. His process is just as interesting as the sounds that he produces, as he drives and controls feedback through a system of slinkies that act like something of a hybrid between a stereo spring reverb unit and an omnidirectional microphone, with Russian synths, VCO filters, and noise-aggregators positioned at various points on the feedback loop track. We had once thought that the pre-digital Merzbow recordings had developed into something of an organism that thrived on electricity, had an intelligence that dictated the course of the noise, and begrudgingly entertained a relationship with Masami Akita. Shoemaker's electro-acoustic contraptions seem to be approaching this Frankensteinian, electric organism on par with Merzbow's, although the architects of both projects have very different designs.
Hence, this is not a torrent of distortion, but a vertiginous path of drone, hiss, blur, shadow, grit, and decay. Placid atmospheres shimmer at times with all of the cinematic grandeur of Stars Of The Lid, only to dissolve, mutate, and crumble into hallucinatory slippages where flecks of environmental sounds breaking through, twisting once again into a metallic resonance on par with the most haunting of Nurse With Wound constructions. Thrumming tones pulse into skittering vibrations that build to rupturing crescendos that snap into near-silent voids of disquieting rumble. All of this comes together in another magnificent album from Mr. Shoemaker. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Arrival"
MPEG Stream: "Fuse Error Phantom"
MPEG Stream: "Circulation Within The Elemental Drift"

SHOEMAKER, MATT Spots In The Sun (The Helen Scarsdale Agency) cd 14.98
Have a glance back at our most verbose descriptions about anything from the avant-garde fringes of music making, and you'll most likely find a common metaphor of specific locations, or rather the memories that the author attributes to that space -- good, bad, holy, abject, transcendent, etc. Upon listening to Spots In The Sun, we find ourselves returning to the well-trod linguistic device of comparing sound to the detached memories of place; however, Shoemaker's exploration of psychogeographic sound never grounds itself upon a specific location -- like a crumbling hospital, reclaimed World War II bunkers, or even his own favored locations of the jungles of Indonesia. Rather, Shoemaker drops the listener into a sunbleached environment, where heat, humidity, jetlag, fatigue, and general environmental claustrophobia prevent any of the specifics to make themselves known. While Shoemaker's landscapes are openly hostile toward the listener, these swarming masses of sound are incredibly alluring, drawing us in even though we may know better than to enter these openly toxic spaces. Shoemaker is always teasing us with small hints as to where we might be, with screeching birds, temple bells, and the patter of rain; but before we can begin to triangulate a position, Shoemaker rips us from our locale with a ruptured crescendo and drops us somewhere else. It is through the drone that Shoemaker achieves all of this and more, his swarming monochrome morphs from complex vibrations into radioluminescent clouds. Spots In The Sun is an exquisite manifestation of abstracted field recordings pushed to the point of grotesque minimalism, and is indeed some of the finest that we've heard (comparable to the likes of BJ Nilsen, Machinefabriek, Loren Chasse, Philip Jeck's Surf, and mnortham).
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SHOEMAKER, MATT Spots In The Sun (Limited Edition) ( The Helen Scarsdale Agency) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The music found within Matt Shoemaker's Spots In the Sun certainly makes for one of our favorite records in recent memory, unfortunately this ultra limited version is already out of print and will most likely not be around for long (but fear not, the regular version will follow soon after).
Shoemaker's exquisite manifestations of abstracted field recordings pushed to the point of grotesque minimalism is some of the finest that we've heard (comparable to the likes of BJ Nilsen, Machinefabriek, Loren Chasse, Philip Jeck's Surf, and mnortham), but what makes this "special edition" so unique is the packaging. You may remember many moons ago that The Helen Scarsdale Agency issued an edition of the BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa release with a copper foil cover mounted within a jewel case as the artwork. Well, Matt Shoemaker's Spots in the Sun sports similarly dazzling packaging, a corroded sheet of brass upon which the album text has been silkscreened, only to be slightly distressed in order to give it a beautiful worried quality. How limited is this edition? Fifty, of which we only got less than a dozen. So act fast, or bide your time until the regular version comes out in a month or so...
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SHOEMAKER, MATT Tropical Amnesia One (Ferns) cd 15.98
In the handful of exceptional records from concrete/drone composer Matt Shoemaker, the field recording has been central to his work. Take the aggregate tumblings of minerals from Groundless or the woozy humidity from Spots In The Sun, Shoemaker's use of the field recording in his pieces is miles apart from the pastoral use of bird songs or a gentle rainstorm to offer something 'natural' for an electronic ambient record. No, Shoemaker amplifies the more threatening aspects of nature with insects emitting nightmarish chorales, beetles aggressively scurrying towards hapless prey, and the air of a landscape so heavy and pungent with decay as to be impossible to breathe. For Shoemaker, the world may be nasty, brutish, and short; but he's discovering a weird beauty way out there amidst the grotesqueries of the world.
On the last two records from Shoemaker, a greater emphasis on synthesized psychedelia shot through his tense drone constructs; so with Tropical Amnesia One, Shoemaker has built an album that's just field recordings, without much of the atypical filtering, gizmos, and effects that turn Shoemaker's studio into a scientific laboratory. All of these recordings came from a two week residency Shoemaker spent deep in the Amazon forest, where silence was never afforded amidst the constant buzz of insects, torrential cloudbursts, and burbling streams all teeming with life. Watery sounds introduce the first 20 minutes to this album with all sorts of sodden creaks, slurping movements, and mud-sucking events amassed together. It's as if the vantage point to Shoemaker's sounds were just below the surface of a stagnant body of water next to a muddy embankment, crawling with leeches, skin-breaching worms, and any other parasitic creature that might come to mind. Shoemaker then shifts his attention for the remaining 44 minutes upward to the tops of the trees, where the insects have conspired to broadcast an ominous nocturnal hiss worthy of horror film sound design. A few insects and birds puncture the swarming noise, making the environment seem a lot less threatening than Shoemaker has contextualized it to be. A powerful, sublime recording, and what looks like to the be first in a series of recordings from the Amazon.
MPEG Stream: "Tropical Amnesia One [excerpt 1]"
MPEG Stream: "Tropical Amnesia One [excerpt 2]"
MPEG Stream: "Tropical Amnesia One [excerpt 3]"

SHOEMAKER, MATT Warung Elusion (Trente Oiseaux) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It has been many years since Metamkine has released anything through their highly esteemed Cinema Pour L'Oreille series of electro-acoustic / musique concrete masterpieces; but if they did, one sound artist who should stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Eliane Radigue, Luc Ferrari, Jean-Francois Laporte, and Jim O'Rourke would be Matt Shoemaker. If anything, Shoemaker's work has such an intensely cinematic quality as the edits of his sound design snap to and fro in dramatic fashion with static periods for magnetic drone, uneasy field recording, and agitated objects; and this cinematic undercurrent to his work alone would make him a strong candidate. But concepts are only really as good as their execution; and few have the panache of Matt Shoemaker. We recently posted a review of his third album Spots In The Sun, and we had been so taken by the quality of that record that we uncovered some copies of his second record Warung Elusion, which had been released back in 2001 on Bernhard Gunter's Trente Oiseux label. This is an album of sheer sonic abstraction whose sun-bleached, disquieting dreaminess parallels many of those 'lost-memory' albums that we have lauded so many time in the past (e.g. Phillip Jeck, Jasper TX, Tim Hecker, etc.). Yet, Shoemaker is not one to sentimentalize such sounds, rather he presents these flickering sound, erratic crackles, and deconstructed ambience as a reminder of human failings in the memory process. Here, meditation might drift into a lulling stupor in need of hard smack against the ear. It's a blow that Shoemaker is more than willing to impart upon his audience. Highly recommended!
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