SAINT VITUS The Walking Dead / Hallow's Victim (SST) cd 16.98
"Welcome to darkness!!" It's a red letter DOOM day here at Aquarius, with the arrival of this long awaited reissue! For some reason, SST had never before released these essential Saint Vitus records on compact disc. Now they're here, officially together on one cd, the LA doom legends' 2nd full length album Hallow's Victim and subsequent 12" ep The Walking Dead, both first unleashed back in 1985! Plus, a bonus track!!
There were other great underground metal bands in the '80s who practiced what doom messiahs Black Sabbath preached: Trouble, Candlemass, Witchfinder General, Pentagram... But it was LA's Saint Vitus who took the Sabbath sound to even further extremes. They were heavier, slower, doomier than anyone else. Psychedelic, wasted, DOOM. Both of these essential doom documents boast the unique vocal presence of Vitus' original singer, Scott Reagers. As we've no doubt mentioned in other reviews, it's been a subject of some debate 'round here about who was the best Vitus vocalist, Reagers or his replacement, Scott "Wino" Weinrich. Whatever your preference, we'd hope you agree that Reagers was pretty AMAZING, his dynamic, dramatic banshee wailings somehow like an unholy hybrid of both Ozzy and Dio! But way more twisted, wretched, and over the top than even that would sound. And although the recent Vitus reunion lineup is with Wino, when we saw 'em, Wino made a point of paying tribute to Reagers, talking about how awed he was to have to try and fill his shoes back in the day. (Man, we wished we'd been at the show in LA, where Reagers did show up on stage to sing a few songs!).
Containing classic tracks like "White Stallions", "War Is Our Destiny", and "Mystic Lady", we can't recommend disc this highly enough to any traditional doom fan who doesn't have this stuff! Druggy frizzy fuzzy punk rock burn out Black Sabbath worship doesn't get much better (maybe Vitus's self-titled debut from '84 edges this out). While guitarist Dave Chandler is technically a mess, he sure had a knack for writing a riff, and his demented wah-happy soloing makes up in sheer psychedelic chutzpah what it lacks in chops. Drummer Armando Acosta and bassist Scott Adams revel in the slow and low, respectively (though Vitus do crank up the speed at plenty of spots on this disc, actually). And then there's the mournful cries of Reagers on the mic, delivering the goods, proving that a scuzzy band of stoners from LA playing the '80s hardcore punk rock circuit might just have had the best metal vocalist of all time EVER... well that's what some of us here think, anyway. Hear for yourself.
The bonus track happens to one of our favorite songs in the Vitus catalog, "Look Behind You". This is the original recording of that tune, as sung by Reagers, taken from SST's 1986 Blasting Concept Vol.II compilation (it was later redone with Wino on the Thirsty And Miserable ep in '87).
MPEG Stream: "War Is Our Destiny"
MPEG Stream: "The Walking Dead"
MPEG Stream: "Look Behind You"

SAINT VITUS V (Southern Lord) cd 15.98
Of all the classic "doom metal" pioneers who kept the spirit of Black Sabbath alive in the '80s -- Trouble, Witchfinder General, Candlemass, Pentagram -- the most significant to me (Allan) by far is LA's Saint Vitus. Perhaps 'cause they recorded for seminal punk label SST, their influence was broad. In some way, you can thank Saint Vitus for side two of Black Flag's My War, for the Melvins, for SUNNO)))... "Stoner rock" owes them too. These guys were proudly retro '70s longhairs when it definitely wasn't cool, and for that they will forever be badasses. I pretty much like *all* of their albums, many of which aren't in print anymore. But this one, 1989's V (their 5th LP, natch) has just been reissued by the powers-that-be-doomed at Southern Lord. It's certainly classic Vitus, their final release with vocalist Scott "Wino" Weinrich before he split to reform The Obsessed for a brief and unsurprisingly ill-fated major label stint. And it was the first Vitus LP not to come out on SST. Instead it was released by the now long-defunct German doom specialists Hellhound. So, in the States, it was a hard to find import, and little publicized. For these reasons, V acquired quite a mystique -- some fans going so far as to consider it their best. I can't exactly agree with that -- for one thing, V is marred by perhaps the worst 2 minutes in Vitus' career ("When Emotion Dies", a sensitive acoustic number featuring Wino dueting with a female vocalist -- that ain't what Saint Vitus is all about!) -- but elsewhere on this slab you'll find some essential heaviness, from the psychedelic powerhouse opener "Living Backwards" to the wrenching, rocking "I Bleed Black" to the massive melancholy dirge of "Patra (Petra)" and the epic, shivering "Jack Frost". As well, tracks like "Angry Man" and "Ice Monkey" provide uptempo inklings of stoner rock to come... So, a prime Vitus platter that anyone with records by Electric Wizard/High On Fire/Spirit Caravan etc. ought to also own. And, there's more: Southern Lord have unearthed a video of Wino's first-ever performance fronting Vitus, shot by Larry Lally at the Palm Springs Community Center on May 16th 1986. It's included it on the cd as a bonus Quicktime file! It looks kind of like black and white '50s TV footage, but it's great to see and hear this vintage Vitus show, the band tearing through five classics including "Clear Windowpane" and "Saint Vitus".
MPEG Stream: "I Bleed Black"
MPEG Stream: "Patra (Petra)"

SAINT VITUS V (Southern Lord) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Of all the classic "doom metal" pioneers who kept the spirit of Black Sabbath alive in the '80s -- Trouble, Witchfinder General, Candlemass, Pentagram -- the most significant to me (Allan) by far is LA's Saint Vitus. Perhaps 'cause they recorded for seminal punk label SST, their influence was broad. In some way, you can thank Saint Vitus for side two of Black Flag's My War, for the Melvins, for SUNNO)))... "Stoner rock" owes them too. These guys were proudly retro '70s longhairs when it definitely wasn't cool, and for that they will forever be badasses. I pretty much like *all* of their albums, many of which aren't in print anymore. But this one, 1989's V (their 5th LP, natch) has just been reissued by the powers-that-be-doomed at Southern Lord. It's certainly classic Vitus, their final release with vocalist Scott "Wino" Weinrich before he split to reform The Obsessed for a brief and unsurprisingly ill-fated major label stint. And it was the first Vitus LP not to come out on SST. Instead it was released by the now long-defunct German doom specialists Hellhound. So, in the States, it was a hard to find import, and little publicized. For these reasons, V acquired quite a mystique -- some fans going so far as to consider it their best. I can't exactly agree with that -- for one thing, V is marred by perhaps the worst 2 minutes in Vitus' career ("When Emotion Dies", a sensitive acoustic number featuring Wino dueting with a female vocalist -- that ain't what Saint Vitus is all about!) -- but elsewhere on this slab you'll find some essential heaviness, from the psychedelic powerhouse opener "Living Backwards" to the wrenching, rocking "I Bleed Black" to the massive melancholy dirge of "Patra (Petra)" and the epic, shivering "Jack Frost". As well, tracks like "Angry Man" and "Ice Monkey" provide uptempo inklings of stoner rock to come... So, a prime Vitus platter that anyone with records by Electric Wizard/High On Fire/Spirit Caravan etc. ought to also own.
MPEG Stream: "I Bleed Black"
MPEG Stream: "Patra (Petra)"

SAINTE-MARIE, BUFFY Illuminations (Vanguard) cd 13.98
We didn't realize this was still available until someone happened to order one the other day. And being so easy to get, we had to get more to share with everyone.
Easily one of our favorite folk rock records from the day, probably our favorite Buffy Sainte-Marie album ever, Illuminations is truly strange and beautiful. A heady brew of gothic folk elements, Native American invocations and bewitching electronic effects and magical drones. Her vocals sometimes soft and saintly, othertimes heavy, rocking and intense. Originally released in 1969 on the awesome Vanguard label, no other Buffy Sainte-Marie record is quite like this one, with songs that are poetically beautiful dealing with themes of love and injustice through esoteric supernatural imagery of vampires, angels, mystical rites and creation myths, and with music that is equally beguiling. From the first spiraling electric vocal warbles that open "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot", the Cluster like drones on "The Angel", the witchy folk-funk of "He's A Keeper of The Fire" to the final track, "Poppies" that presages Grouper by nearly forty years. Fantastic!
MPEG Stream: "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot"
MPEG Stream: "Adam"
MPEG Stream: "He's A Keeper of The Fire"
MPEG Stream: "Poppies"

SAINTS (I'm) Stranded (4 Men With Beards) lp 15.98

SAKADA Askatuta (Rhizome) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SAKADA Undistilled (Matchless) cd 17.98
Beyond the scope of AMM, percussionist Eddie Prevost and Keith Rowe have been exploring the synthesis of improvisation and digitized electronics through a handful of divergent ensembles. Where Rowe's M.I.M.E.O. was a massive 13 piece ensemble with a number of forceful egos struggling with each other for position in the stereo field, Prevost's Sakada -- a far less cumbersome trio working with Australian transplant Rosy Parlane and the London-based Basque who simply goes by Mattin -- succeeds in marrying specific textures found within an unconventional means of playing a drum kit and an unconventional means of digital sound. With Parlane and Mattin working the electronic workstations to generate radio static and controlled feedback manipulations (no clean samples here! everything's covered in a layer of grit), Prevost never strikes the heads of his drums once. Rather he scrapes metal objects around the rims, bows the cymbals, and rubs handheld motors on the skins themselves. Many of the sounds could have come from an Organum record; however, Sakada is far more of disjointed affair snarling and stumbling their way through 3 extended improvisations recorded in London and Barcelona in 2002.
RealAudio clip: "Audit - 20.01.02"

SAKHI, HOMAYUN Music Of Central Asia Vol. 3: The Art Of The Afghan Rubab (Smithsonian Folkways) cd+dvd 21.00

SALA-ARHIMO s/t (Last Visible Dog) cd 12.98
Yes, more delicate spectral music from Finland! Sala-Arhimo are a branch off of the Islaja tree... and if you're at all familiar with us here at AQ you know we're mighty fond of 'em. This self titled album is very hazy, Spartan and folk-tinged much like Islaja, but perhaps a bit darker, more somber and mournful. Lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Onnellisten Saari"
MPEG Stream: "Juuristosta Latvaan"

SALE FREUX Subterraneus (Misanthropic Art Productions) cd 13.98

SALEM King Night (IAMSOUND) cd 13.98
Before we get into our usual wordy meandering, hyperbolic gushing and tangential ruminating, we oughta come right out and say it first thing, this record is fucking incredible. One of the coolest weirdest records we've heard in ages. Twisted and blown out, weirdly melodic and groovy, dense and washed out and otherworldly and fucking bizarre, equal parts blissed out hypnogogic shoegazey drift, lurching, chopped and screwed style Southern crunk, majestic choral dreaminess, blurred beat heavy collaged electronica, and sample heavy blown out synthbuzz epicness. In some alternate universe alien world, THIS is the music that comes blasting out of booming systems in tricked out lowriders, some sort of glorious, blindingly blissy club music that fuses stuttery stumbly beats, to crumbling distorted low end, and thick swaths of synths so blown out the whole record sounds like it might collapse, mix in soaring operatic vocal samples, low slung bass buzz, jittery drum skitter, and mush mouthed slowed down 'rapping', smear and blur it all into one glorious, warped and warbly cough syrup fever dream epic, and that's basically Salem's King Night.
By now, most folks have at lest heard of 'witch house' a new 'genre' that Salem seem to represent, willingly or not, it's hard to say, but alongside other groups like oOoOO, witch house has received the sort of blog hype (and mainstream press) that immediately turns us off, and made us want to hate it, but so far, everything we've heard, we've dug, big time, but nothing has kicked out ass as much as this Salem record. It's so weird, and twisted and bizarre, it's sort of hard to believe that THIS is the record people are talking about, it makes sense that we'd love it, and that it would be an aQuarius Record Of The Week, but the New York Times? John Q. Public? Fuck it, like we always say, we'd way rather here stuff like this on the radio anyway. But regardless of the hype, or the backlash, or any of the nonmusical stuff, it all boils down to how ingenious and utterly OUT THERE this is. Just check out the title track, some weird garbled voices, some skittery drum machine, some ravey synths, choral voices, and then BAM, the song explodes, the bass a throbbing slab of rumbling crunch, the drum machine weirdly awkward, but the perfect compliment to the tangled melodies, and those soaring distorted operatic voices, the track a total epic, building and building, like the score for some insane alien sci-fi slow motion dancefloor martial arts battle, you can almost visualize fishtanks exploding into galaxies of exploding glass shards, while bodies fly threw the clouds of glistening sparkle, everything seemingly floating weightless. So good. We could listen to this track FOREVER (and pretty much have since we got it). But then comes "Asia" with its fat stuttery beat, and girlish vocals buried beneath a miasma of crumbling distorted crunch, and woozy synth melodies and confusional drum programming, sounding a bit like some over the top M83 jam gone haywire, or maybe some lost Cocteau Twins B-side remixed by Alec Empire and Black Moth Super Rainbow, everything fuzzy and washed out and gauzy, murky and dark, but still suffused with a weird sort of sunshininess. "Frost" is more of the same, even prettier and blissier, taking Sigur Ros and dipping it in a vat of gristly distortion and Carpenter sci-fi synths, and then stretching it out into a billowing sheet of diaphanous dream pop.
It's not until "Sick" that we get a glimpse of Salem's other side, their chopped and screwed, sippin' sizurp, alien slow motion shoegaze hip hop side, the music remains essentially the same, maybe not quite as dense, still swirls of female vocals, a strange otherworldly chorale, but over the top of this sonic cotton candy , a 'rapper' delivers his mutated pitch shifted flow, mouthful of marbles, finger on the record slowing it do a crawl, creating a weirdly dreamy draggy druggy hip hop / dream pop hybrid. And the rest of the record seems to drift lazily between those two sounds, "Release Da Boar" finds Salem offering up another cloud of dopesmoke dreaminess, fuzz drenched dirge pop bliss, which gives way to "Trapdoor", another slow motion, DJ Screw style cough syrup remix, laid over a warm warped and warbly bit of lysergic ambience and buzzing rave synth swirl. "Hound" is like the title track redux, so thick and crumblingly distorted, but so blown out and beautiful, "Tair" is a gloriously weird spaced out, handclapped chunk of shoegaze rap, and "Killer" sounds like Joy Division or Interpol run through a million distortion pedals, and set to a Casio keyboard drum machine beat, only to shrug off some of the crunch and warble, leaving a gorgeous stretch of plaintive low slung doom pop, that hints at the poppiness that lurks beneath the surface on King Night, only to finish the record in a squall of synth buzz, mumbled vox and drum machine chaos.
Wow. What else can we say. This sounded so good in the store, and even better in headphones, but it wasn't until we got in the car, and cranked this as loud as it would go, that it finally sunk in, and suddenly, we were bouncing up and down in a tricked out lowrider on some alien planet in some alternate universe, our booming system BOOMING, getting totally lost in these twisted and gorgeously damaged sounds. WAY WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "King Night"
MPEG Stream: "Asia"
MPEG Stream: "Trapdoor"
MPEG Stream: "Redlights"
MPEG Stream: "Killer"

SALEM King Night (IAMSOUND) lp 14.98
Before we get into our usual wordy meandering, hyperbolic gushing and tangential ruminating, we oughta come right out and say it first thing, this record is fucking incredible. One of the coolest weirdest records we've heard in ages. Twisted and blown out, weirdly melodic and groovy, dense and washed out and otherworldly and fucking bizarre, equal parts blissed out hypnogogic shoegazey drift, lurching, chopped and screwed style Southern crunk, majestic choral dreaminess, blurred beat heavy collaged electronica, and sample heavy blown out synthbuzz epicness. In some alternate universe alien world, THIS is the music that comes blasting out of booming systems in tricked out lowriders, some sort of glorious, blindingly blissy club music that fuses stuttery stumbly beats, to crumbling distorted low end, and thick swaths of synths so blown out the whole record sounds like it might collapse, mix in soaring operatic vocal samples, low slung bass buzz, jittery drum skitter, and mush mouthed slowed down 'rapping', smear and blur it all into one glorious, warped and warbly cough syrup fever dream epic, and that's basically Salem's King Night.
By now, most folks have at lest heard of 'witch house' a new 'genre' that Salem seem to represent, willingly or not, it's hard to say, but alongside other groups like oOoOO, witch house has received the sort of blog hype (and mainstream press) that immediately turns us off, and made us want to hate it, but so far, everything we've heard, we've dug, big time, but nothing has kicked out ass as much as this Salem record. It's so weird, and twisted and bizarre, it's sort of hard to believe that THIS is the record people are talking about, it makes sense that we'd love it, and that it would be an aQuarius Record Of The Week, but the New York Times? John Q. Public? Fuck it, like we always say, we'd way rather here stuff like this on the radio anyway. But regardless of the hype, or the backlash, or any of the nonmusical stuff, it all boils down to how ingenious and utterly OUT THERE this is. Just check out the title track, some weird garbled voices, some skittery drum machine, some ravey synths, choral voices, and then BAM, the song explodes, the bass a throbbing slab of rumbling crunch, the drum machine weirdly awkward, but the perfect compliment to the tangled melodies, and those soaring distorted operatic voices, the track a total epic, building and building, like the score for some insane alien sci-fi slow motion dancefloor martial arts battle, you can almost visualize fishtanks exploding into galaxies of exploding glass shards, while bodies fly threw the clouds of glistening sparkle, everything seemingly floating weightless. So good. We could listen to this track FOREVER (and pretty much have since we got it). But then comes "Asia" with its fat stuttery beat, and girlish vocals buried beneath a miasma of crumbling distorted crunch, and woozy synth melodies and confusional drum programming, sounding a bit like some over the top M83 jam gone haywire, or maybe some lost Cocteau Twins B-side remixed by Alec Empire and Black Moth Super Rainbow, everything fuzzy and washed out and gauzy, murky and dark, but still suffused with a weird sort of sunshininess. "Frost" is more of the same, even prettier and blissier, taking Sigur Ros and dipping it in a vat of gristly distortion and Carpenter sci-fi synths, and then stretching it out into a billowing sheet of diaphanous dream pop.
It's not until "Sick" that we get a glimpse of Salem's other side, their chopped and screwed, sippin' sizurp, alien slow motion shoegaze hip hop side, the music remains essentially the same, maybe not quite as dense, still swirls of female vocals, a strange otherworldly chorale, but over the top of this sonic cotton candy , a 'rapper' delivers his mutated pitch shifted flow, mouthful of marbles, finger on the record slowing it do a crawl, creating a weirdly dreamy draggy druggy hip hop / dream pop hybrid. And the rest of the record seems to drift lazily between those two sounds, "Release Da Boar" finds Salem offering up another cloud of dopesmoke dreaminess, fuzz drenched dirge pop bliss, which gives way to "Trapdoor", another slow motion, DJ Screw style cough syrup remix, laid over a warm warped and warbly bit of lysergic ambience and buzzing rave synth swirl. "Hound" is like the title track redux, so thick and crumblingly distorted, but so blown out and beautiful, "Tair" is a gloriously weird spaced out, handclapped chunk of shoegaze rap, and "Killer" sounds like Joy Division or Interpol run through a million distortion pedals, and set to a Casio keyboard drum machine beat, only to shrug off some of the crunch and warble, leaving a gorgeous stretch of plaintive low slung doom pop, that hints at the poppiness that lurks beneath the surface on King Night, only to finish the record in a squall of synth buzz, mumbled vox and drum machine chaos.
Wow. What else can we say. This sounded so good in the store, and even better in headphones, but it wasn't until we got in the car, and cranked this as loud as it would go, that it finally sunk in, and suddenly, we were bouncing up and down in a tricked out lowrider on some alien planet in some alternate universe, our booming system BOOMING, getting totally lost in these twisted and gorgeously damaged sounds. WAY WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "King Night"
MPEG Stream: "Asia"
MPEG Stream: "Trapdoor"
MPEG Stream: "Redlights"
MPEG Stream: "Killer"

SALLY STROBELIGHT Starships In Silhouette (Weird Forest) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A druggy troll through a cough syrup drenched new wave underworld. Like waking up in some filthy sonic back alley, your head spinning, and you ears filled with fuzz. The memories of last night's little fragments, coming back to you in bits and pieces, some murky analog synths, some stumbling drum programming, lots of creepy low slung bass...but it's the druggy female voices that swirl around your head like some hangover halo, sultry and sexy but also distinctly alien, drenched in FX, cooing softly in your ear, a late night, narcoleptic narcotic lullaby. An Adult. 45 played at 16 rpm, Nico fronting some slow motion electroclash outfit, a mysterious damaged doom version of Glass Candy, a seriously fucked up new wave Portishead? Sally Strobelight is all of those things. A delightfully damaged, druggy, slow motion new wave electro dirge missive from some doomed and drug ravaged otherworld. Awesome.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! Clear vinyl housed in a gorgeous in tranluscent, full-color vellum sleeve!
MPEG Stream: "You And I"
MPEG Stream: "Transcend The Obvious"

SALLY, ZAK Fear Of Song (La Mano) cd 14.98
A few years back, bassist Zak Sally decided to leave the band Low, to pursue his true loves, printing and book making, and thus La Mano was born, an incredible publishing / print house run by Sally, with some amazing books, many made by hand, a few of which we've had for sale at aQuarius. But it was inevitable, that he'd feel the itch again, to play music, and so Sally recorded his own record, played all the instruments, and then printed and assembled the super cool covers by hand at La Mano, total DIY all the way, which is only made cooler by how good this record is.
The sound is a rough and raw amalgamation of all the rad nineties rock we (and probably Sally) grew up on, specifically Rex, Red Red Meat, Codeine, and yeah, even Low, there's a definite twang too, that makes much of this sound a bit like a heavier Calexico, but Sally's voice is a dead ringer for Red Red Meat's Tim Rituli, so the less rocking, more dark and brooding tracks here definitely sound a lot like Red Red Meat.
But this record is all over the place, with blown out drum machines, distorted riffs, dreamy acoustic guitars, vocals that go from raspy howl to hushed croon, wheezing keyboards, opener "St(R)Utter" is killer, with super distorted chugging guitars, pounding programmed drums, swirling glitchy effects, and moody impassioned vox, "How I Did What I Did When I Did It" is a stripped down acoustic stunner, with really gorgeous multitracked vocals, a gorgeous main melody, and some wild psychedelic guitar, the title track too is acoustic and intimate, but underpinned by swirling buzzing weirdness way off in the background, and of course record closer, the awesomely titled "Corpsegrinder!", begins all acoustic, with distorted vocals, and strange muted percussion, all moody and meandery, before building to a full on, emotional, soaring indie rock ballad.
Definitely for fans of any of the aforementioned bands, or just cool homebrewed DIY indie rock.
And again speaking of DIY, the packaging is amazing, printed on thick textured paper, the front cove image glued to the booklet, same with the little 'band' photo on the back, the insert with the track listing is oversized, houses the disc itself, and has a tab sticking out, signed by Sally and hand numbered, LIMITED TO 900 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "St(R)utter"
MPEG Stream: "Why We Hide"
MPEG Stream: "Corpsegrinder!"

SALLY, ZAK Fear Of Song (Nero's Neptune) lp 16.98
NOW ON LP!!!
A few years back, bassist Zak Sally decided to leave the band Low, to pursue his true loves, printing and book making. But it was inevitable, that he'd feel the itch again, to play music, and so Sally recorded his own record, played all the instruments, and then printed and assembled the super cool covers by hand at La Mano, total DIY all the way, which is only made cooler by how good this record is.
The sound is a rough and raw amalgamation of all the rad nineties rock we (and probably Sally) grew up on, specifically Rex, Red Red Meat, Codeine, and yeah, even Low, there's a definite twang too, that makes much of this sound a bit like a heavier Calexico, but Sally's voice is a dead ringer for Red Red Meat's Tim Rituli, so the less rocking, more dark and brooding tracks here definitely sound a lot like Red Red Meat.
But this record is all over the place, with blown out drum machines, distorted riffs, dreamy acoustic guitars, vocals that go from raspy howl to hushed croon, wheezing keyboards, opener "St(R)Utter" is killer, with super distorted chugging guitars, pounding programmed drums, swirling glitchy effects, and moody impassioned vox, "How I Did What I Did When I Did It" is a stripped down acoustic stunner, with really gorgeous multitracked vocals, a gorgeous main melody, and some wild psychedelic guitar, the title track too is acoustic and intimate, but underpinned by swirling buzzing weirdness way off in the background, and of course record closer, the awesomely titled "Corpsegrinder!", begins all acoustic, with distorted vocals, and strange muted percussion, all moody and meandery, before building to a full on, emotional, soaring indie rock ballad.
Definitely for fans of any of the aforementioned bands, or just cool homebrewed DIY indie rock.
And again speaking of DIY, the packaging is amazing, printed on thick textured paper, the front cove image glued to the booklet, same with the little 'band' photo on the back, the insert with the track listing is oversized, houses the disc itself, and has a tab sticking out, signed by Sally and hand numbered, LIMITED TO 900 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "St(R)utter"
MPEG Stream: "Why We Hide"
MPEG Stream: "Corpsegrinder!"

SALLY, ZAK Recidivist (La Mano) book 15.00
We don't carry a whole lot of books, so when we do, it has to be because there's something really special about it. Those of you who made it to the recent book signing here at aQ already know what's so special about this here book, but for those of you who didn't, we'll give you a little background.
Mr. Zak Sally spent a good portion of his life playing the bass guitar in slowcore outfit Low, he recently left the band to focus on his real love, art, drawing and self publishing. He began a series of graphic novels entitled Recidivist and started his own publishing house called La Mana and began to publish gorgeous and lovingly hand crafted books, graphic novels, posters and monographs.
One of which just so happens to be this, the latest and perhaps final installment in Sally's Recidivist series. The first of the series to be an actual book, amazingly bound with an off white textured cover and a black spine, featuring the striking image of an arrow piercing a very realistic heart on the front, a severed hand with a paint brush on the back, a beautiful old fashioned hard cover, the sort that creaks when you open it, the pages inside printed on nice thick paper. Almost worth buying just for that stuff. But lucky for us, the artwork and storytelling inside is just as compelling. Very reminiscent visually of Chester Brown (Ed The Happy Clown, Yummy Fur, I Never Liked You, Underwater, etc.), the artwork is precise but still loose and hand drawn looking switching often from white pages with black lines, to all black pages with white art, the effect is really fantastic. The story is obtuse, a little confusing, but in that way great graphic novels can be. Monkeys, a roadtrip, dark forests, humans with the heads of pigs, nudity, school girls, surgeries, cupid, wristwatches, canyons, gas stations, all woven together into a mysterious and fascinating narrative. Gorgeous to look at and riveting to read. SO highly recommended!

SALLY, ZAK Why We Hide (Sub Pop) 7" 4.98

MPEG Stream: "Why We Hide"

SALLYANGIE, THE Children of the Sun (Sanctuary / Castle) 2cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Hippy Renfaire Britfolk from 1968, featuring a 15 year old, pre-"Tubular Bells" Michael Oldfield and his older sister Sally Oldfield! This was really Sally's project -- apparently she had some sort of sudden spiritual revelation that caused her to break off her University studies in literature and philosophy, and pick up a guitar to write what became the "Children of the Sun" album! Of course, musical talent and creativity wasn't unknown to the Oldfield family, as history later showed.
This brother-sister duo both sang (Sally better than Mike) and played acoustic guitar, accompanied by session musicans -- flute, and harpsichord and chamber string arrangements on two songs. While much of this album is quite twee indeed, portions are rather dark and melancholic... A song title like "The Murder of the Children of San Francisco" kinda tells you where they were at. Sadness, beauty, blue birds and evening mists...that sort of thing. Contacts with British folk-rock act Pentagle got the determined Sally the recording deal for The Sallyangie's one and only album, reissued now as a delightful artifact of a long-lost era, when lush psychedelic pagan madrigal music was at its prime!
Castle has packaged this reissue with a bonus disc of previously unreleased demo tracks from both Sally and Mike, recorded in the year or two after "Children Of The Sun" was first issued. These include three folky guitar improvisations from Mike, and two dreamy pop songs by Sally. But that's it for The Sallyangie, although Sally sang on several of Mike's popular albums in the early/mid seventies before striking out on a sucessful solo vocal career of her own in the New Age field. But this album, with Sally's lovely wavering voice, Mike's adept guitar picking, and an abundance of youthful, period charm, is certainly worth checking out regardless of the Oldfield siblings' later careers.
RealAudio clip: "River Song"
RealAudio clip: "Lady Mary"

SALLYANGIE, THE Children Of The Sun (Earmark) lp 21.00
Now reissued on vinyl! Here is what we said about it when the cd version was available (which it isn't anymore, sadly):
Hippy Renfaire Britfolk from 1968, featuring a 15 year old, pre-"Tubular Bells" Michael Oldfield and his older sister Sally Oldfield! This was really Sally's project -- apparently she had some sort of sudden spiritual revelation that caused her to break off her University studies in literature and philosophy, and pick up a guitar to write what became the "Children of the Sun" album! Of course, musical talent and creativity wasn't unknown to the Oldfield family, as history later showed.
This brother-sister duo both sang (Sally better than Mike) and played acoustic guitar, accompanied by session musicians -- flute, and harpsichord and chamber string arrangements on two songs. While much of this album is quite twee indeed, portions are rather dark and melancholic... A song title like "The Murder of the Children of San Francisco" kinda tells you where they were at. Sadness, beauty, blue birds and evening mists...that sort of thing. Contacts with British folk-rock act Pentangle got the determined Sally the recording deal for The Sallyangie's one and only album, reissued now as a delightful artifact of a long-lost era, when lush psychedelic pagan madrigal music was at its prime!
Sally sang on several of Mike's popular albums in the early/mid seventies before striking out on a successful solo vocal career of her own in the New Age field. But this album, with Sally's lovely wavering voice, Mike's adept guitar picking, and an abundance of youthful, period charm, is certainly worth checking out regardless of the Oldfield siblings' later careers.

SALOME s/t (Vendetta) cd 13.98
For the Biblically impaired out there, Salome was the stepdaughter of King Herod, ruler of Galilee, and her infamy comes from the fact that she was convinced by her mother Herodias to seduce her stepfather (euwww) with an eye to getting him to promise her anything she wished. And what she wished was the head of John The Baptist on a platter. Why? Because John condemned the marriage of Herodias and Herod. Harsh.
Thus Herod did her bidding, and she was able to present John's severed head on a platter, to her satisfied mother. One of the most gruesome Biblical moments for sure (although only one among MANY), that has oft been the subject of paintings and plays. But that sort of cold hearted brutality, that sort of gleefully grim bloodshed, how would that play out sonically? Well, perhaps a bit like Virginia's Salome, a female fronted slow motion sludge juggernaut, whose sound falls somewhere between Eyehategod, Khanate and Monarch. Four long songs, each a gloriously filth encrusted, downtuned dirge, with frontwoman Kat's vocals a raspy wraithlike shriek, that is at times a dead ringer for Khanate's Alan Dubin. The music, while definitely sludgey and pummeling is rife with surprising melody, even some of the slowest heaviest parts sound more like 16 rpm Sabbath than the more static and sludgey dronedirgedoom that's all the rage. But the band definitely mix it up, some lo-fi jangle here and there, some classic UK doom sounding mournful melody, some incredibly lugubrious chug and churn, some rocking parts that have a bit of a Melvins feel, all stretched out into slow slithery spaced out ultradooooooom.
The record closes with the 21 minute "Onward Destroyer", which while incredibly heavy and sooooo slooooow, manages to be weirdly pretty, with clean guitar melodies drifting in between the rest of the song's abstract spacious plod, almost like a funereal doom Low. Some awesome sheets of Eyehategod style feedback, with the band eventually kicking it up a notch, and -almost- rocking, a midtempo doomic groove, more harsh hellish vox, and an amazing stretch of feedback that sounds almost orchestral before the band pound out a sludgey groovy slow motion finale.
Monarch, Moss, Eyehategod, Khanate, Thou, Corrupted, Bunkur, if that sounds like your ideal playlist, then this is pretty much a no brainer. But for folks into troo classic doom more than this extreme modern variant, Salome might just be the perfect gateway to whet your appetite for something more black and more grim, and with a few more o's. Doooooooooooooooooooooooooom........
Both the cd and the lp are limited to 500 copies. The lp is already out of print, so when those are gone, that's it, but the cds should be around a bit longer, although probably not much.
MPEG Stream: "The Vivification Of Ker"
MPEG Stream: "White Tides"

SALOME s/t (Vendetta) lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For the Biblically impaired out there, Salome was the stepdaughter of King Herod, ruler of Galilee, and her infamy comes from the fact that she was convinced by her mother Herodias to seduce her stepfather (euwww) with an eye to getting him to promise her anything she wished. And what she wished was the head of John The Baptist on a platter. Why? Because John condemned the marriage of Herodias and Herod. Harsh.
Thus Herod did her bidding, and she was able to present John's severed head on a platter, to her satisfied mother. One of the most gruesome Biblical moments for sure (although only one among MANY), that has oft been the subject of paintings and plays. But that sort of cold hearted brutality, that sort of gleefully grim bloodshed, how would that play out sonically? Well, perhaps a bit like Virginia's Salome, a female fronted slow motion sludge juggernaut, whose sound falls somewhere between Eyehategod, Khanate and Monarch. Four long songs, each a gloriously filth encrusted, downtuned dirge, with frontwoman Kat's vocals a raspy wraithlike shriek, that is at times a dead ringer for Khanate's Alan Dubin. The music, while definitely sludgey and pummeling is rife with surprising melody, even some of the slowest heaviest parts sound more like 16 rpm Sabbath than the more static and sludgey dronedirgedoom that's all the rage. But the band definitely mix it up, some lo-fi jangle here and there, some classic UK doom sounding mournful melody, some incredibly lugubrious chug and churn, some rocking parts that have a bit of a Melvins feel, all stretched out into slow slithery spaced out ultradooooooom.
The record closes with the 21 minute "Onward Destroyer", which while incredibly heavy and sooooo slooooow, manages to be weirdly pretty, with clean guitar melodies drifting in between the rest of the song's abstract spacious plod, almost like a funereal doom Low. Some awesome sheets of Eyehategod style feedback, with the band eventually kicking it up a notch, and -almost- rocking, a midtempo doomic groove, more harsh hellish vox, and an amazing stretch of feedback that sounds almost orchestral before the band pound out a sludgey groovy slow motion finale.
Monarch, Moss, Eyehategod, Khanate, Thou, Corrupted, Bunkur, if that sounds like your ideal playlist, then this is pretty much a no brainer. But for folks into troo classic doom more than this extreme modern variant, Salome might just be the perfect gateway to whet your appetite for something more black and more grim, and with a few more o's. Doooooooooooooooooooooooooom........
Both the cd and the lp are limited to 500 copies. The lp is already out of print, so when those are gone, that's it, but the cds should be around a bit longer, although probably not much.
MPEG Stream: "The Vivification Of Ker"
MPEG Stream: "White Tides"

SALOME Terminal (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
Record number two from this grim doom sludge trio, named of course for the stepdaughter of King Herod, in the Bible, who was the one that requested John The Baptist's severed head on a platter, a fitting name certainly for the aural horrors these three deal in, and one of the three just so happens to be vocalist Katherine Katz, who also does time in genius grind outfit Agoraphobic Nosebleed.
Her time in AnB must have rubbed off on her main group, cuz things aren't nearly as slow and sludgey as we remember. That said, opening track "The Message" might have you thinking otherwise, a slow building sludgescape, all twisted electronics, and spare downtuned chug, we were prepared for some serious Moss/Monarch/Bunkur sort of dirgery, but then after about three minutes of abstract avant doom, the track kicks in proper, and the band unfurl something practically midtempo, a weirdly lumbering groove that is thick, and heavy, and awesomely brutal, with Kat's insanely harsh bellowed and screeched vokills. The 'verses' are way more stripped down, leaving lots of space for Kat's vox to be the focal point, draped over simple plodding drums and occasional chug, but then the song veers back into that more propulsive doomy groove. It's not as slow and sludgey maybe, but this is still some seriously brutal stuff.
And there are still more sonic surprises in store, the title track is downright mathy, with still more sludgey groove, and some killer start stop dynamics, sounding more like some Harvey Milk / Khanate hybrid. Which actually sort of describes the whole record, it's like they fused that sort of abject shrieking minimal doom, to something more 'rocking', cuz this is actually seriously rocking, way more than the last record, and it definitely suits them. The riffs are gnarled and blackened, the drums are crushing, and intricate, those vocals are incredible, slipping easily from Dubin-ish shriek to Cannibal Corpse like bellow, and instead of relying on mood and ambience, like a lot of doom/sludge outfits, these songs are definitely composed, and are complicated, and occasionally weirdly catchy.
We figured the 17+ minute "An Accident Of History" might be the album's centerpiece, and it still could be, although instead of more churning heaviness, it's a weird abstract drone piece, all static and hiss, shortwave radio, twisted feedback, bizarre samples, disembodied voices, glitched out electronics, malfunctioning effects, a pretty fantastic bit of audio experimentation, that somehow sounds like it belongs, dropped right there in the midst of Salome's complex math sludge heaviness. Awesome.
Housed in super striking embossed black & white, six panel digipak packaging.
MPEG Stream: "The Message"
MPEG Stream: "Terminal"
MPEG Stream: "Master Failure"

SALT Issue 5 magazine 4.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another blast of AQ style rock (you know exactly what we mean) with a healthy side dish of professional wrestling from AQ pal Kevin and his master-of-all-other-zines magazine Salt. Issue five features tUMULt's own 7000 Dying Rats, the hyper-literate metallic grind of Bloodhag, an amazing interview with one of Andee's favorite comic book artists Renee French, label feature on iDEAL Recordings, a review of Kawabata Makoto and Jojo Hiroshige live in Japan, former Man's Ruin rockers Croatan, the relatively little know Japanese band Syogana, some reflections on the ECW, reviews of underground wrestling videos, some comics, and even some record reviews. A great read. Send this guy some money so he can turn this thing into a regular magazine and knock the Wire and Spin and Magnet and Terrorizer on their asses!

SALT Issue 6 magazine 4.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, after a whole year, another issue of one of our favorite magazines around. As we've said in the past, someone give this man a million dollars so he can make Salt an actual monthly magazine that would invariably replace the Wire, Terrorizer and any other relevent rags in one fell swoop. Super well informed, well written and with a very wide scope of music (and culture). This time around there are interviews with the mighty Antiseen, black metal underlord Wrest from Leviathan, local no-wavers Erase Errata, underground doom sludgeniks Southern Gun Culture, AMT pals Floating Flower, the cute and dorky Gravy Train!!!!, a ton or reviews (Boris, tUMULt, Load and more), a Boris UK tour diary written by AQ pal Daniel, drummer for the soon-to-be-huge doomsters Like A Kind Of Matador, and of course lots of wrestling: interviews with Hugh Rogue, Shark Boy and an indepth review of the IWA Mid-South King Of The Death Matches! Wow. Check it out.

SALT Issue 7 magazine 4.00
Finally, after more than a year, Salt #7 sees the light of day!!! What's the big deal you ask? Well, if you'd been paying attention to the AQ list, you'd know that Salt and its one man staff Kevin somehow manages to kick the asses of all other alternative music mags around with just a beat up old borrowed PC and a photo copier. There's a serious dearth of killer underground music zines, especially ones that cover the sort of music we love, and especially ones that does it with such passion and humor, AND especially ones that are also obsessed with pro wrestling and are not afraid to stick a review of some big match right there between an article about Xasthur and an interview with Boris! As far as we know, there's only one magazine that fits the bill... SALT! So there, music snobs. This is easily our favorite magazine going now, and we still wish someone would just give Kevin a big ol' stack of money so he could start a real glossy magazine, it would totally destroy, equal parts Terrorizer, the Wire, Option, Buttrag, and whatever other weirdness he'd see fit to pack in there. This time around we've got an interview with Swedish metallic grind outfit Burst, unknown to us Ohio three piece rocking juggernaut Driver, an interview with Andy who runs the Riot Season label, a brief history of "Descent", a night of alternative metallic music and art in Leeds, that sounds so cool it makes us wish San Francisco was just a -little- bit closer to the UK, also a bunch of fliers from Descent, one man's alcohol fueled quest to travel across Europe to see SUNNO))), Boris, Circle and more, an interview with Bay Area black metal horde Draugar, an interview with the mighty Malefic of Xasthur, tons of record reviews, and of course a lengthy wrestling review of recent IWA events (as well as an interview with IWA rising star Josh Abercrombie) and finally an interview with Brody's Militia, a wicked thrashcore outfit from Ohio named for legendary wrestler Bruiser Brody. Phew. All hand assembled and photocopied. Lots of photos, and lots of illustrations courtesy of Kevin Salt himself. Here's hoping we don't have to wait a whole year for #8!!

SALT Issue 8 magazine 4.00
Another year, another Salt. In fact it's been way more than a year, maybe almost two, but it's always well worth the wait. No one does zines any more, which is a huge shame, loosed from the binds of relying on advertising, and someone else's money, a zine can cover anything, explore music, art, even wrestling, can opt for any layout, but the problem is, that without that monetary support, sometimes you are forced to wait years between issues, which is criminal. Especially with zines like Salt. Every time we review a Salt, we always end up sending out a request for somebody, ANYBODY, to get in touch with Salt mastermind Kevin, give him a bunch of money and set him up with a real magazine. All the other mags out there can breathe easy since that is probably unlikely to happen any time soon. But if it did. Decibel, Terrorizer, the Wire, Signal To Noise, your days would be numberedÉ
So issue 8, as is the pattern, is even better than 7, which was already kick ass. On the cover, a super striking drawing of Diamanda Galas, done by Kevin Salt himself, and inside, well hell, it's like a zine custom made for aQ. A Pharoah Sanders live review, a Suishou No Fune / RKF South By Southwest tour diary, an interview with comedy grind masters 7000 Dying Rats, an interview with aQ beloved dronescapers Hywl Nofio, Finland's masters of hypnorock and kings of the NWOFHM, Circle, a handful of record reviews, an interview with Malefic from Xasthur, an interview with the Clientele, and since Kevin is strangely fascinated with Professional Wrestling, there is an elegy for the now defunct ECW, including an interview with author, journalist and ECW expert John Lister, and finally, an interview with our very own Andee about tUMULt, a follow up of an original label spotlight in one of the earlier issues.
The mind boggles what this guy could do with a real magazine. Not that we really want anything to change with Salt. But we sure wouldn't mind if it came out every month. Heck, every week!
And for the first time, this issue comes bundled with a super limited, exclusive 3" cd-r from Hwyl Nofio. A fourteen minute track called "Christ Distort", another gorgeously sprawling expanse of metallic shimmer and blissed out buzz. Exclusive to this issue of Salt.
LIMITED TO 50 COPIES. Each mag/cd hand numbered.

SALT Issue 9 magazine 5.00
It's hard to believe it's been two years since the last issue of Salt, but we're willing to be patient, after all it is possibly our favorite zine going, and as in our reviews of every issue of Salt, we really can't heap enough praise on this kick ass DIY zine, and as always, lament the fact that it somehow remains a zine, it seems like by now, Salt should be up there with Terrorizer and Rock A Rolla and Decibel. But you know what, fuck it, we love Salt just the way it is, virtually unchanged since issue #1, still black and white, a little oversized, same style layout, most of the illustrations done by Kevin, the guy who pretty much IS Salt, and the stuff he chooses to focus on, as always is weird and wonderful, varied and unlikely. Always something we're super into, always something else we've never even heard of, and even the stuff that seems like it would be of little interest, ends up being a fantastic read, always the sign of a great magazine.
This issue is especially exciting as it contains perhaps the first interview EVER with aQ fave and tUMULt recording artist, the mysterious Korean teenage black metaller Pyha, talking about life in Korea, black metal, mandatory conscription, protest music and more.
There's also a killer interview with Alicia from legendary crust doom outfit 13 (which also featured Liz Buckingham, now in Electric Wizard). There's a feature on doomdrone juggernaut Korperschwache, an extensive and WAY in depth review of the Some Bizarre Album, an extensive guide to getting drunk on cheap vodkas, a feature on indie poppers Grandaddy, and a guide to their best B-sides, a lengthy interview with comic artist Carla Speed McNeil, and an interview with the man behind new label The Great Pop Supplement (he also once upon a time ran both Enraptured and Earworm!). All that for five bucks! This time around there are no record reviews, and less pieces, but as Kevin explains in the intro, that's so the interviews and features could be longer and more extensive. Which they absolutely are.
What more do you need to know? You love music. You love reading about music. You love underground music, and underground zines, if you haven't been reading Salt, you've been missing out big time...

SALT Issue Four magazine 4.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally another issue of one of our favorite zines. SALT seems to be the zine version of Aquairus, sharing the same taste in music as well as a similar sense of humor, and a similar joy in discovering new and exciting music. Kind of wish someone would give Kevin SALT a big pile of money so he could do a real magazine and knock the Wire and Terrorizer and Spin and whoever else on their collective asses. This time around an interview with The Summer In Between, an article on Texas' Monotremata Records, an extensive review of the Acid Mothers Temple UK tour, show by show, by Kevin and a handful of friends spread out around England, as well as an interview with AMT mainman Makoto Kawabata where he talks quite a bit about his love of professional wrestling. Also in this SALT, an interview with bay area noise monsters Burmese, an interview with Aufgehoben No Process, an interview with guitarist Gary Smith, an interview with cartoonist Chris Yambar, an article about Rock And Role Play Records, home of the mighty Teen Chtulu, Blood Hag, and perhapst the best named band in the world: The Powersofdarknessshallrainblooduponthiscityfor500years, and an interview with AQ faves BORIS! As with every issue, lots of stuff you already dig, but a bunch of stuff you probably don't yet but undoubtedly will. Buy SALT or at least send this guy all your money.

SALT Issue Ten magazine 5.00
There's always a long wait between issues, but as longtime readers of the aQ list know, it's always worth the wait. And we know lots of longtime aQ-ers, are also longtime fans of Salt, which is the way it should be. A very occasionally published zine, produced by our pal Kevin, a contributor to Rock-A-Rolla magazine, but with Salt, he gets to focus on his true passions, whether that means some obscure band, or some obscure wrestler, all part of the charm. And as we mention in pretty much every review, we keep hoping Salt will either become a proper mag, or in some way become a more regular thing, cuz every issue is a huge treat, and before we know it, we've burned through it and are already hankering for a new one.
This time around, things start off with a feature on another obscure zine, this one called German Bite, a fanzine focused on German art, film and theater, and a mag that we've never read, but from reading ABOUT it here, definitely has us curious to track down some copies. There's also an introduction to aQ faves Maher Shalal Hash Baz, originally intended for Salt #3 (and written in 2001!), as well as a lengthy piece enumerating the various ways that the author loves the late great Royal Trux. Then there's a great piece on the long lost late great seventies post punk / new wave combo Neu Electrikk (which featured one member who would go on to record/perform as Hwyl Nofio, a name familiar to most longtime readers of the aQ list), and an interview with the guy behind LTM Recordings, and finally an interview with Elephant Six psych poppers The Minders.
There are some comics, some editorial content, a tribute to the late great British abstract painter John Hoyland and more, and all for $5. Salt always comes highly recommended, especially in an age of blogs and webzines, we should treasure the folks out there who still make proper zines, especially when they're as good as Salt!

SALTER, HANS J. Maya / Horror Rhapsody (Citadel) cd 14.98
Collection of recordings from legendary Hollywood soundtrack composer Hans Salter, from the television series Maya (recorded in 1966) and a 24 minute suite of music from the films "Son of Frankenstein", "The Mummy's Hand", "Black Friday" and "Man Made Monster" (recorded in 1941.)

SALVATORE Clingfilm (Racing Junior) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Norway strikes again! The amazing Salvatore (not to be confused with the cryptic No Neck Blues Band offshoot K. Salavatore) is a mostly instrumental five piece band from that Scandinavian country. They share a lot with their Finnish neighbors (and AQ-faves) Circle: the motorik Neu! drum-pulse, spacey psych drone krautrock inclinations, dubby, echoey production techniques, and "circular" rhythm-based songwriting that generates a pleasant hypnotic state in the listener.
But Salvatore's urgent, headnodding music possesses a gorgeous charm of its own, as there's a lot more in the way of psychedelic guitar burn and use of feedback in their compositions than is usual with Circle. Some other bands that Salvatore seem to reference along with Circle and Neu!: Can, Pell Mell, Flying Saucer Attack, Village of Savoonga... not bad company.
From the first moment we heard this band, we thought: wow, we've *got* to get more of these, Salvatore is a natural for Aquarius! It took us a couple months, but we were finally able to import a bunch of both their first and second albums at a good price direct from Europe. And, after playing them in the store, we're pretty sure we were right about 'em -- we sold some immediately! So good. Both discs are totally recommended, with "Clingfilm" (2000) being overall more structured and melodically catchy and "Jugend" (also 2000) being perhaps more heady, intense, and soundscapey. And both, of course, are not just recommended, but *mandatory* for fans of Circle!
RealAudio clip: "Halloo!"
RealAudio clip: "Horsegirl"
RealAudio clip: "Schneekaos"

SALVATORE Days of Rage (Racing Junior) cd 37.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SALVATORE Fresh (Racing Junior) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. HOWEVER, A DOMESTIC VERSION IS NOW AVAILABLE, LOOK FOR THAT NEARBY.
The new album from our new favorite Norwegian instrumental 'post-rock' band, finally in stock (along with restocks of the two discs we listed before, "Clingfilm" and "Jugend")! We think people will like this quite bit, although we're slightly less gung-ho about it than we were about those other two albums, maybe just 'cause this one seems to concentrate more on the 'prettier' side of Salvatore. Nothing wrong with that, it's just less intense. It's very poppy and sunny and nice, taking their Neu! influence into the Stereolab realm I suppose. The Salvatore boys recorded this in Morocco at the same time as "Jugend" and I guess this is the light to that album's darkness. Their hypnotic, Circle-ular grooves still transport the listener into lazy reverie, with plenty of gentle psychedelic guitar drift/drone and everything from xylophone to accordion cropping up in the mix. "Chant of the No No's" adds some sampled female vocals (very hazy and mumbled and repeating), while "Stork" features some jazzy pocket trumpet. If you got either of the other two Salvatores already, and dug their mellower moments, then you'll want this. If you haven't checked Salvatore out yet, you might start with this one if you're more into Tortoise than you are into Circle. It's Salvatore's Sunday morning album, you could say, rather than the evening/late-night listens of their other discs. Quite nice.
RealAudio clip: "Chant Of The No No's"
RealAudio clip: "The Seven Colours Of Gnaff"
RealAudio clip: "Vogel"
RealAudio clip: "Dune"

SALVATORE Fresh (Rocket Racer) cd 13.98
Yay. A domestic release for this, with four bonus (remix) tracks, including on from a Black Heart Procession guy! Hopefully we'll soon have restocks of their other cds -- we've got 'em on backorder at the moment with our supplier overseas. [whoops, nope, turns out they're now out of print...] Already on its way here (maybe here now), though, are import copies of Salvatore's newest, 4th album Tempo, which we'll of course alert you to when they arrive. In the meantime, we're quite happy to have their 3rd album Fresh around again.
This is more-or-less what we said about the original import version we stocked previously:
The new album from our new favorite Norwegian instrumental 'post-rock' band... We think people will like this quite bit, although we're slightly less gung-ho about it than we were about their first two albums, maybe just 'cause this one seems to concentrate more on the 'prettier' side of Salvatore. Nothing wrong with that, it's just less intense. It's very poppy and sunny and nice, taking their Neu! influence into the Stereolab realm I suppose. The Salvatore boys recorded this in Morocco at the same time as "Jugend" and I guess this is the light to that album's darkness. Their hypnotic, Circle-ular grooves still transport the listener into lazy reverie, with plenty of gentle psychedelic guitar drift/drone and everything from xylophone to accordion cropping up in the mix. "Chant of the No No's" adds some sampled female vocals (very hazy and mumbled and repeating), while "Stork" features some jazzy pocket trumpet. If you got either of the other two Salvatores already, and dug their mellower moments, then you'll want this. If you haven't checked Salvatore out yet, you might start with this one if you're more into Tortoise than you are into Circle. It's Salvatore's Sunday morning album, you could say, rather than the evening/late-night listens of their other discs. Quite nice.
MPEG Stream: "Chant Of The No-No's"
MPEG Stream: "The Seven Colours Of Gnaff"

SALVATORE Jugend - A New Hedonism (Racing Junior) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Salvatore's second album, subtitled "Music from and inspired by De Utvalgte's literary installation based on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde", was recorded in Morocco for reasons unclear to us, although we could go on and draw comparisions to the wonderful trance music of that country. Salvatore don't end up sounding at all like the Master Musicians of Jajouka, of course, but they do sound inspired by sources and forces as deep as those at the root of the Master Musicians' music, if it's not blasphemous to say that about an electric-guitar wielding "postrock" band.
Read the review of Savatore's debut "Clingfilm" nearby to get the lowdown on these Norwegians, whose albums are a must for any fan of AQ-faves Circle.
"Jugend" is equally as good as "Clingfilm", with maybe more of the drone quotent, though that's a generalization. It does feature as its opening an eleven-minute epic called "Jugend II" that's an awesomely beautiful heavy guitar drone piece, each delicious wave of feedback-distortion seemingly designed to directly trigger your brain's pleasure centers. Play this one LOUD! Elsewhere on the album, mellow out to the dub effects of "Gallo" or the sheer beauty of "Ambrosia".
And let's just say that track three, "We Have Found The Enemy And He Is Us", may be the best Circle song Circle never wrote!
The theme of Wilde's "Dorian Gray" is the battle of Youth and Beauty with Time, with the lesson being: Live! Such exhortations make sense when in the grip of this music! A fucking great record.
Although Salvatore do remind us so strongly of Circle (and Circle offshoots like Ovalki, Ektroverde, and Pharaoh Overlord), it seems likely that such similarities are the result of shared influences rather than a direct ripoff. And, even if Salvatore *are* shamelessly copying the Circle blueprint, we can forgive 'em 'cause they do it sooooo well.
A final note: their brand new album, entitled "Fresh" will be arriving in a few weeks, we'll list it when we get it. And we hear that they are recording a fourth album in Chicago with Tortoise's John McEntire...
RealAudio clip: "We Have Found The Enemy And He Is Us"
RealAudio clip: "Jugend II"

SALVATORE Luxus (Glitterhouse) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We can't belive how tough it is to keep this in stock. So frustrating because we love this band so much and all of their other records are seemingly out of print. But we just managed to get another big batch of these in, but they probably won't last long...
Yes, at last! The new Salvatore is here! We've been trying to get this, their fifth album, for AGES. For whatever reason, these imports were tough to come by, but finally we've got 'em. And now that it's booming through our stereo here at the store, we know that it was worth the wait. First off, the love of Neu! still beats strongly in the hearts (and, um, beats) of these mostly instrumental Norwegian post-rockers. That motorik percussion propulsion that we love. Instant hypnosis in other words. Which means that they're still very much of the "Circle-ular" persuasion, leaning towards the likes of Tortoise and Trans Am too. Tortoise's John McEntire did the mix, in fact (and contributes drum machine on one track, "Brugata"). That's alongside drums, guitar x 2, organ, bass, "bassdrones", xylophone, vocoder, "sitter" (sitar?) -- and each track has a slightly different, usually expansive line-up of musicians and instrumentation. The bass and percussive elements are always quite strong, of course, but Salvatore still manage to make their music quite delicate too -- and although Luxus remains on the lighter side of Salvatore's output (the "poppier" path they've followed since 2002's Fresh), there are certainly bolts of electric darkness and grit shivering through these tracks, especially on the scarily reverberating "Fluxus"...while the combination of female vocals, strings, and "fake balaban" (presumably the middle-eastern sounding horn we hear) on the ten-minute-plus title track is simply gorgeous, not scary or dark at all. Speaking of balabans, Luxus establishes that ethnic influences are definitely a part of Salvatore's sound, something that they have in common with krautrockers Can, doubtless another inspiration of theirs. So, for fans of Can, Circle, Neu!, Tortoise, etc. Salvatore has produced another winning album, that we're so glad to finally have, to share with you.
MPEG Stream: "Hefe"
MPEG Stream: "Brugata"
MPEG Stream: "Luxus"

SALVATORE Tempo (Racing Junior) cd 14.98
About time we listed this -- we had limited quantities of the import version of this but now the latest from this Norwegian sensation has gotten a domestic US release. Yay we say 'cause Salvatore is a solid AQ fave. Like Finland's Circle, they're a sort of instrumental, psychedelic post-rock band who do a lot with repetition, riding the motorik Neu! krautrock rhythm into the 21st century. Indeed, the easiest description we can muster of their recent output is Circle + Tortoise = Salvatore. Take a listen and do the math yourself. Super pretty, super hypnotic stuff. Recorded in 2002 in Chicago by none other than Tortoise's John McEntire, Tempo follows on from Salvatore's previous album Fresh with more airy, dubby grooves. Supposedly they're done a live recording with ex-Can vocalist Damo Suzuki on the mic, which makes a lot of sense! Hope to hear that some (future) day... While we wish that Salvatore's first two, darker/heavier albums were still available, the "poppier" style of Fresh and now Tempo is quite enjoyable too.
MPEG Stream: "Easy"
MPEG Stream: "Tempo"

SALVATORE, K The Counterfeiter (Siwa) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
K Salvatore is an unspecified permutation of the modern-day, free-noise hippy collective The No Neck Blues Band. The Counterfeiter is the fourth album from this side project and is a sprawling loose improvisation for quiet horn flutter, wild flute trills, occasional guitar growl, and a clatter of semi-tonal wooden blocks against contact microphones (thereby following up K Salvatore's previous 'pipe fight' albums with a 'wood fight'). The production is purposefully coarse with the building flurries of K Salvatore's wild actions occasionally peaking out the analog recordings. Think Scratch Orchestra without any Fluxus conceptualisation, Amon Duul with less drum circle mantras, or Zoviet France completely stoned and lacking their trademark production work and effects. Or it could be our beloved Thai Elephant Orchestra, if they had been listening to Albert Ayler records instead of Thai temple music their whole lives. And, Siwa have outdone themselves with the super elaborate silkscreen work on the cover of this vinyl-only release!!!

SALVATORE, K. Ashmadai (Fusetron) 2lp 22.00
The newest release from this mysterious two man No Necked side project. A darkly damaged and demented abstract drone folk freakout. Soundiing not surprisingly like NNCK through the looking glass. A tripped out warped sonic funhouse of squiggly synth noodling, warbly wah guitar, haunting creaks, sporadic rhythmic clatter, dreamy blissy acoustic guitar strum, cicada like clicking minimalism, all wrapped up in thick layers of rumbling fuzzy ambience. Occasionally melodic fragments drift by, or bleeping blooping electronics surface, but for the most part. Asmadai is a mystical musical mystery in the form of warm muted underwater warble. So great. Another No Necked offshoot that can seem to do no wrong.
Two thick slabs of 45 rpm wax, housed in a gorgeously designed thick black and white sleeve.
And as with most things like this, VERY LIMITED!

SAMAEL Above (Nuclear Blast) cd 13.98

SAMAEL Ceremony of Opposites / Rebellion (Century Media) cd 15.98
These Satanic Swiss metallers' last full album before the the beginnings of their "techno" metamorphosis (a transition which first yielded the amazing Passage disc, before several disappointing follow-ups), reissued with the pre-Passage Rebellion ep added on. A now value-added black metal classic.

SAMAMIDON All Is Well (Bedroom Community) cd 15.98

RealAudio clip: "Sugar Baby"

SAMARAI CELESTIAL Isis Sun (Carrot Top) cd 14.98
Former Sun Ra Arkestra drummer chants and plays electronic finger drums, among other things, and wears a gold cape given to him by Mr. Ra. At a 1995 show in New York, his electronic drums temporarily refused to work, so he gamely chanted a single phrase whilst fixing the thing. Reminded me of the time Rick James was playing "Super Freak" on Solid Gold and one of the synthesizer's legs partially collapsed. Panic crossed his face but he played on.

SAMARTZIS / ENGLISH One Plus One (Room 40) cd 15.98

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP Mort aux Vaches (Staalplaat) cd 16.98
Since the late '80s, having spent time in the avant-noise project Gum, Australian sound artist Philip Samartzis has been exploring the technological residue that most sound engineers spend lifetimes trying to eliminate. Not surprisingly, indeterminant buzzings, electrical disturbances, crossed wire interference, tape hiss, and the surface noise of vinyl are the current source materials for Samartzis' electro-acoustic compositions. While there have been plenty of examples involving the tactility of technological residue with as many conceptual agendas (e.g. Loren Chasse's "Hedge Of Nerves," C.M. von Hausswolff's "An Operation of Spirit Communication," Christian Marclay's "Record Without A Cover," etc.), Samartzis has developed a unique signature that favors a clincally precise compositional technique that is typically affiliated with the Raster-Noton and 12K camps of electronic music. However, within those tightly controlled sets of sound, Samartzis allows for all of the haptic blemishes and residual sounds to continue unchecked by any controlling mechanisms.
Recorded as part of Staalplaat's stellar "Mort Aux Vaches" series of radio broadcasts for VPRO radio, these three lengthy pieces may be Samartzis' best work to date. While many of the sounds (i.e. miniature clatterings, run-out groove vinyl crackle, and irritable strains of gossamer feedback) have been recycled from previous recordings, Samartzis has greatly improved upon the contextualization of those sounds, providing an open-ended arena for a number of phenomenological events and metaphoric disconnects.
While maintaining the same packaging principles as all of the earlier "Mort Aux Vache" releases with a single tri-folded piece of paper holding the cd in place with a brass fastener, the paper in question is a beautiful iridescent, 'shark-skin' paper.
MPEG Stream: "Variable Resistance"
MPEG Stream: "Soft And Loud"

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP Soft And Loud (Microphonics) cd 15.98
The Australian sound artist Philip Samartzis has been working out the details of his Soft and Loud concept through various sketches which have been released on the Grain and Variable Resistance compilations, as well as in his contribution to the Mort Aux Vaches Staalplaat series. The source material and some of the compositional strategies tie all of his Soft And Loud pieces together, but it quickly becomes clear with this disc that Samartzis at last has fully realized his ideas of the surgical articulations of tactile aural phenomena within temporally linear progressions. In other words, he melds the ideas of INGRM's musique concrete (especially Luc Ferrari) to the pristine electro-glitch aesthetics of Raster-Noton and 12K (especially Carsten Nicolai and Richard Chartier). However, Samartzis is not purely a formalist, for there is a sense of metaphor and introspection that is evident in his work. All of the material found throughout the Soft and Loud pieces is from field recordings that Samartzis made on several trips to Japan. These compositions speak with a hyper-reality of his own reflections upon Japan's incredibly complex culture. In particular, Samartzis concentrates on the unique dialogue between the artificial and the natural. Set against a stark backdrop of empty silences, Samartzis' composition is pinpricked with tactile events: cracklings, sinewave mantras, pneumatic crunches, nauseatingly happy pachinko themes, a maudlin Japanese flute much like Akio Suzuki, etc.
Even though some of the same materials have been presented before, it's unusual to have the opportunity to witness the progression of piece of music such as this. So many times, a composition stands as a monument to the genius of the musician; not so here, for Samartzis has worked out all of the blemishes and false starts (perhaps even encouraging them!) under the critical ears of a listening public. So what I'm trying to say is that even if you already have the earlier parts to the Soft And Loud series, it's well worth picking up this highly recommended album!
MPEG Stream: "Soft and Loud part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Soft and Loud part 4"
MPEG Stream: "Soft and Loud part 5"

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP Unheard Spaces (Microphonics) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Australian sound artist Philip Samartzis is essentially presenting two bodies of work on Unheard Spaces, both of which are connected through the relationship between sound and emptiness. The first suite for Unheard Spaces is called "Absence And Presence" and opens with an abusive scrape across a cello announcing something of new direction for Samartzis. The pristinely crafted electro-acoustics which culminated in the dynamic Loud & Soft album have been replaced on the first half of Unheard Spaces with a series of spacious, yet expressionist clattering improvisations between Samartzis (electronics and field recordings), David Brown (guitar), Sean Baxter (drums), Anthea Caddy (cello), Thembi Soddell (electronics and field recordings), and Michael Vorfeld (percussion). However, Samartzis introduced one hell of a detour to the typical improvisational context: as he asked the participants to re-record what they had performed during the improvised session by memory and without the benefit of hearing what any body else was doing. The strategy is much more of a conceptual conceit that certainly adds to the randomness of the clusters of spluttering guitar, squealing sinewave oscillations, and tumbles of percussive improvisation.
The second half of Unheard Spaces (also called "Unheard Spaces") is something of an homage to the work of the late, great composer Luc Ferrari, whose cinematic musique concrete compositions brought an unnerving psychosexuality to his decentered collages. Perhaps less inclined for the lurid aspects of Ferrari's work (at least here, there's plenty of grotesqueries to be heard on his early Gum project of turntablist damage), Samartzis concentrates on the very subtle sounds within the urban landscape, Venice's landscape to be exact. The echoes from the various canals and antiquated passageways comprise the bulk of Samartzis' field recordings, with a healthy dose of watery sounds just to make sure you didn't forget this was Venice. What's clearly missing is the hustle and bustle of the city itself, as Samartzis has surgically removed almost all of the direct human presence. While the sound of cars and boats provides activity in the composition, the human voice is never the direct focal point; rather it's the elegant refractions of sound emerging from a labyrinth of a city. An impressive duality of improvisation and manipulated field recordings that would have easily been the jewel in INA-GRM's crown had this been recorded thirty years ago in Paris.
MPEG Stream: "Absence And Presence 02"
MPEG Stream: "Unheard Spaces 07"

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP Windmills Bordered By Nothingness (Dorobo Limited Editions) cd 14.98
For those who have paid attention to the Microsound and Phonography online lists, much has been made about the certainty some pundits place upon the categorization and divisions between the computer based Microsound genre and the field recordist based Phonography. An argument of similar rhetoric raged in the '60s between the German school of electronic music and the French school of Musique Concrete, but there were a couple of Swedish composers (Rune Lindblad in particular) who saw the advantage of both compositional models working harmoniously. Melbourne based composer Philip Samartzis holds a comparable postion as a relative outsider to these primarily European / American discourses; and thus has been able to synthesize elements from both field recording manipulation and the generative models of computerized sound construction. "Windmills Border By Nothingness" is his second solo CD, after recording a couple of hard to find noise-junk albums as Gum (which may get reissued sometime in the future through 23five). Samartzis' title of this 39 minute composition is indicative of the numerous punctuations of silence that bracket all of the events housed within. Unlike the practitioners of low-volume compositions (Gunter, Roden, Chartier, etc), Samartzis punctures sound with silence rather than playing the notions of audibility. Rushing waters, scraping improv guitar work (possibly from fellow Aussie David Brown), repeated metallic clangs, the hushed clickery of run-out grooves, indeterminant creakings, tense rattles from electronic vibrations, and strident granular synthesis are splattered across the stereo field with silences as breathing room. A very nice recording.
RealAudio clip: "Windmills Bordered By Nothingness excerpt 1"
RealAudio clip: "Windmills Bordered By Nothingness excerpt 2"

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP & RASMUS B. LUNDING Touch Parking (Synaesthesia ) lp 17.98
Outside of their sporadic collaborations, Rasmus B. Lunding and Philip Samartzis exist in vastly different quarters of the avant-garde, as the Danish Lunding is best known for tinkering with programmable Lego constructions as the basis for composition and installation, where the Australian Samartzis wields his digital operating theatre with the precision of a skilled surgeon. The alliance which forged Touch Parking could be described as the Second Annual Transoceanic Summit for Giddy Robotic Engineers and Texturally Inclined Post-Turntablists. Both artists bring all of their tricks of the trade to the table (e.g. purposefully artificial DSP effects, microsonic explosiveness, theatrical drop outs, variable spatialization, divergent polyphony, etc.), and actually balance out each other's strengths, as Lunding's sense of humour works well with Samartzis' expertise in abstraction. Touch Parking resolves itself as a Mobius strip of surfaces, with the complex collages of electro-acoustic events colliding into each other and emerging in an inscrutable rebus of semiotic dead-ends and idiosyncrasies. Goodiepal's artwork on this picture disc replete with S&M cheesecake illustrations and pinstriped Rune stones further complicates the ecstatic absurdities for the album.

SAMARTZIS, PHILIP / SACHIKO M Artefact (Dorobo) cd 14.98
Philip Samartzis is an Australian electro-acoustic composer, who had gone on a tour across Japan a few years ago and through his travels developed some interesting relationships with a number of likeminded composers in Japan. After working with onkyo minimalist Kozo Inada, Samartzis has joined up with the incredibly prolific Sachiko M for this limited release through Dorobo. Sachiko M offers her signature high end sinewaves and closed-circuit squeals from a sampler with an empty memory bank feeding back upon itself, yet Samartzis breaks up her unwavering tones with jarring slabs of static and bursts of low end noise, sounding much like recent output from Zbigniew Karkowski. Quite good!
RealAudio clip: "Interference"
RealAudio clip: "Corruption"