SMOG Red Apple Falls (Drag City) cd 13.98

SMOG Rock Bottom Riser (Drag City) cd ep 5.98
If your copy of Smog's last full length A River Ain't Too Much To Love has gotten buried beneath the year's worth of cds that followed it, this cdep brings two of that album's songs back to the top of the stack in new even more achingly beautiful versions including one of the album's best, suitably the title track here. Ahh, such deep velvety melancholia! To sweeten the deal even further there's a couple of previously unreleased, non-LP tracks and a video for "Rock Bottom Riser".
MPEG Stream: "Rock Bottom Riser"
MPEG Stream: "Bowery"

SMOG Sewn to the Sky (Drag City) cd 14.98
Bill's first album, Sewn..., c. 1990, out of print for eons, is finally available on vinyl again. It's also on cd.

SMOG Sewn to the Sky (Drag City) lp 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Bill's first album, Sewn..., c. 1990, out of print for eons, is finally available on vinyl again. It's also on cd.

SMOG Strayed (Drag City) cdep 10.98
New Smog ep with a brand new song 'Strayed', to hold us over until his new full length 'Under the Puke Tree'. The best part of this e.p. is that it also contains 8 songs from his long out of print cassette release 'Cow', which features Smog at his stumbling, lo-fi, Jandek-ish noisiest best!

SMOG Wild Love (Drag City) cd 14.98

SMOG Wild Love (Drag City) lp 16.98

SMOHALLA Nova Persei (God Is Myth) 3" 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.
Latest in God Is Myth's ongoing series of super limited 3" cd-r's. each a tribute, homage, musical offering to the legacy of H.P. Lovecraft, who, as we've posited before, has had more of an affect on heavy metal, than even J.R.R. Tolkien! And these are crazy limited, only 100 copies, we got 20, and it's already out of print, this is your first and only stab and nabbing one of these.
The series so far has been pretty stellar, and surprisingly varied. Past installments have included UK experimental folk black metal one man band Caina, Appalachian heathen black metallers Harvist, mysterious blacknoise dronelords LVTHN, and Kentuckian black buzzers Sapthuran, who shared a split with the mighty Leviathan a while back.
The newest comes from a truly bizarre and epic post rock avant black metal trio called Smohalla, who hail from France, and while not shoegazey like the other French BM outfits we've been so obsessed with as of late, Alcest, Amesoeurs, etc., they do display a similar unconventional approach to their black metal, and while not as blissy, it is quite fuzzy and tripped out and in many ways not very black at all.
The intro is a brief swirl of atmospheric cinematic sort of krautrock, reminding us a bit of Silver Mt. Zion, epic and intense with some very Achim Reichel like vocals, delayed and tripped out.
The second track we expected to burst into furious buzz, but instead begins like some apocalyptic folk track, all martial snares, and mournful melodies, swoonsome melodic swells, chanted crooned vocals, clean finger picked guitars, all dense and reverby, wrapped in a mist of fuzzy swirl, definitely more post rock than metal, very reminiscent of Ved Buens Ende, but more washed out and druggy. There are some black metal riffs, but they're delivered cleanly, and stretched over a loping rhythmic backdrop. Before the pic doomy breakdown near the end, a thick wall of roiling guitars, heavy, but more melodic and mysterious.
The whole record tends to hover in a strange post rock landscape, where chunks of metal and buzzing riffage, drift by on steady currents of midtempo dramatic math rock minimalism, with occasional howly metal vox, but even then they're strewn over a chaotic avant rock framework, and the occasional blast beats too are nestled in thick reverby swaths of soft buzz instead of grim blacknessÉ
The only truly metal moment, is the opening of track 4 with it's dense furious buzzing riff, and harsh vocals, but even that is long passages of haunting piano, strange swirling FX, and disembodied voices, some very choral, the vocals like some ancient angelic choir.
These guys may be a metal band, and this may very well be a black metal record, but the typical tropes of black metal are not the focus, instead, they're just elements of a bigger whole, a weird, creepy, off kilter, fucked up, epic, cinematic whole, the sound more dark and haunting than heavy, more loping and midtempo than blasting and buzzing, but in many ways that makes this an even more appropriate tribute to the Lovecraft and the magical worlds he created.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, and again we have 20 of those. You know what that means. Full color cover, each disc includes an insert with information on Lovecraft as well as a killer creepy portrait.
MPEG Stream: "Les Yeux Du Temps"
MPEG Stream: "Nova Persei"

SMOHALLA Resilience (Arx Productions) cd 13.98
This French avant post black metal outfit from France is named for a Native American 'dreamer-prophet', and the word can be loosely translated simple as 'dreamer', which might sound a bit pretentious, at least until you hear this stuff, which really, is barely black metal at all, other than in vibe and mood, lineage and perhaps the occasional bit of buzz, cuz for the most part, the sound of Smohalla is much more abstract and spaced out, swirly and shimmery and dreamlike, hints of post rock and krautrock and a sort of ethereal melancholia, lots of synths and effects, strange spectral vocals, all woven into a sort of gloomy avant pop, the sort of thing that will no doubt have folks into groups like Alcest and Amesoeurs flipping their lids. But Smohalla are even LESS metal than either of those bands. There are some killer riffs, that at first sound like they could explode into some frenzied buzzing, but instead seem to blossom into a weirdly prismatic blackened pop. The record opens with "Quasar", the title hinting at the cosmic / celestial sounds within, simple skeletal drumming, lots of glitch and swirl, echoey piano, and blurred synth smears, thick layered thrum, epic and majestic, strange sampled voices, choral like harmonies, some big distorted drums, with the synths and effects cranked up alongside for a seriously druggy shoegazey final few seconds. Which gives way to the aforementioned almost-black metal riffage, the song intricate and expansive, ghostly and surreal one second, lumbering and dirge-y the next, hints of BM weirdos Virus about, with weird mathiness, and gnarled atonal guitars. The bellowed dramatic vox and soaring synths, wrapped around more metallic riffage, definitely remind us of Borknagar, Solefald and Ved Buens Ende, but this is so much more far out, totally blissed out experimental blackness, but infused with huge heapings of pop, and a what-the-fuck streak a mile wide.
That's not to say the band aren't capable of some serious blackened heaviness, just check out "Oracle Rouge", with one of the best riffs on the record, and loping woozy rhythm, some actual black metal shrieks, not to mention some furious blasting, fans of Peste Noire will dig this off kilter weirdo black metal doom pop weirdness, there's even some skittery programmed drums, some soaring strings, the final bit of the song seriously cinematic. And then it's right back into more creepy black pop mystery and abstract avant gloom dreaminess. There are a few more instances of serious blackness but for the most part, Smohalla continue to unfurl a fantastical black soundscape that has us thinking even a few weeks in, and even though technically this came out last year, we might already have a contender for (sort of) black metal record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Quasar"
MPEG Stream: "Au Sol Les Toges Vides"
MPEG Stream: "Le Repos Du Lezard"

SMOKE AND SMOKE Love Suffers Long (French Kiss) cd 14.98
Remember godheadSilo? That uber-loud and heavy bass and drums duo from North Dakota that sounded something like a mix of the Melvins and Lightning Bolt? Some of their stuff was pretty damn amazing. And loud. Well now they're back, sort of, as two-thirds of this new band Smoke And Smoke. The other third is the ex-singer of punk rockers the Murder City Devils. And it sounds just kinda like you might expect -- loud and heavy with a snarly punk element to it. Very energetic and kick ass, with pounding drums and bombastic distorted bass -- and some equally crazed synth sounds we think. Raucous and damaged but in a soulful and tender kind of way...
MPEG Stream: "Into The Smoke And Smoke"
MPEG Stream: "Boys, Books, and Kitty Cats"

SMOKE, THE s/t (Kismet) cd 17.98
This reissue isn't new, but we overlooked listing it when it came out and it's GREAT so figured better late that never. A one-off symphonic pop-psych masterpiece circa 1968, one of the many lost classics of the era, and really this is so good it's hard to understand how it wasn't a big hit. Listen to these songs and you'll wonder why as well. Southern California's The Smoke (not to be confused with the UK's Smoke of "My Friend Jack" fame, though these guys sound British too, and use British spellings and Peter Max style artwork) weren't really a band, but more of a studio concoction, the brainchild of 20 year old wunderkind producer Michael Lloyd, who was a founding member of the legendary West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. He also was responsible for producing (and writing most of the songs for) the lone album from '67 by a band called October Country. Like that fine band (whose Michael Lloyd-penned "theme song" is reprised here), Lloyd's own The Smoke is Beatles and Beach Boys influenced big time, total paisley pop perfection. Lloyd sure knew what he was doing. And we'd be surprised if discerning DJs haven't mined this album for breaks, what with all the fanciful baroque prog bits and lush orchestration in there alongside the wistful balladry.
Perhaps since The Smoke didn't play live, album sales never took off. Too bad, but we're so glad it's been reissued. And Lloyd at least went on to a very successful career as a producer for a bunch of big names in the '70s and '80s so you don't have to feel bad for him. But we think you'll be definitely happy to add the likes of "Cowboys And Indians" and "The Hobbit Symphony" to your personal '60s popsyke hit parade...
MPEG Stream: "Cowboys And Indians"
MPEG Stream: "Gold Is The Colour Of Thought "
MPEG Stream: "October Country"

SMOKE, THE s/t (Kismet) lp 24.00
ALSO REISSUED ON VINYL!
This reissue isn't new, but we overlooked listing it when it came out and it's GREAT so figured better late that never. A one-off symphonic pop-psych masterpiece circa 1968, one of the many lost classics of the era, and really this is so good it's hard to understand how it wasn't a big hit. Listen to these songs and you'll wonder why as well. Southern California's The Smoke (not to be confused with the UK's Smoke of "My Friend Jack" fame, though these guys sound British too, and use British spellings and Peter Max style artwork) weren't really a band, but more of a studio concoction, the brainchild of 20 year old wunderkind producer Michael Lloyd, who was a founding member of the legendary West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. He also was responsible for producing (and writing most of the songs for) the lone album from '67 by a band called October Country. Like that fine band (whose Michael Lloyd-penned "theme song" is reprised here), Lloyd's own The Smoke is Beatles and Beach Boys influenced big time, total paisley pop perfection. Lloyd sure knew what he was doing. And we'd be surprised if discerning DJs haven't mined this album for breaks, what with all the fanciful baroque prog bits and lush orchestration in there alongside the wistful balladry.
Perhaps since The Smoke didn't play live, album sales never took off. Too bad, but we're so glad it's been reissued. And Lloyd at least went on to a very successful career as a producer for a bunch of big names in the '70s and '80s so you don't have to feel bad for him. But we think you'll be definitely happy to add the likes of "Cowboys And Indians" and "The Hobbit Symphony" to your personal '60s popsyke hit parade...
MPEG Stream: "Cowboys And Indians"
MPEG Stream: "Gold Is The Colour Of Thought "
MPEG Stream: "October Country"

SMOKESTACK, DJ Shitala 2 (Giving Tree) cd 8.98
Hot of the heels of our Bollywood Bloodbath Record Of The Week from last list, we're happy to have another blast of banging Bollywood greatness for you. Arjuna Sayyed (aka DJ Smokestack) has proven to be not only one of the most knowledgable and deep digging DJ's in the Bay Area, but pretty much anywhere in the world as far as we're concerned. Some of us were lucky to snag the first volume in his Shitala series so we already knew how damn good his mixes were. Filled with some of the most insane '70s & '80s Bollywood jams, and mixed with such a flawless touch, this mix highlights all those amazing sitar freakouts, tabla jams, dynamic vocals, funk filled beats and everything that make this era of Bollywood music so endlessly enthralling...
Clocking in at about an hour, Shitala 2 is a testament to the greatness and forward thinking musical minds that were at the helm of the sounds of Bollywood during this classic era. Call it Indian funk, or disco, or whacked out pop, whatever it is, we call it killer! Smokestack's mix has crazy broad appeal, sure hardcore Bollywood heads will flip, but also hip-hop lovers, funk diggers, dance floor DJ's, and probably YOU. DJ Smokestack not only honors the legacy of Bollywood, but uses his knowledge and talent to infuse new life and energy and share the results with so many who may otherwise might never encounter and engage with the originals. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 3"

SMOKEY & MIHO s/t (Afro Sambas) cd ep 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Actually a quintet, Smokey & Miho are: Smokey Hormel (guitar), John Birdsong (trumpet), Don Falzone (bass), Joey Waronker (drums) and Miho Hatori (vocals). An altogether mellow EP from this outfit that includes one half of the perky, groovy Cibo Matto (we listed Yuka Honda's much more expansive and impressive solo debut last AQ List). Five soft'n'easy, jazzy cocktail hour numbers that get a bit more abstract closer to the close of the cd.
RealAudio clip: "Ocean In Your Eyes"

SMOKEY & MIHO Tempo De Amor (Afro Sambas) cd ep 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Miho Hatori the former chanteuse for Cibo Matto here makes dreamy, Astrud Gilberto-style, very light and floaty bossa nova with fellow Brazillian music fetishist Smokey Hormel. On this their second EP, they've focused on the works of Baden Powell, respectfully covering five of his classic songs. Performed with an increased ease and confidence by all involved, these are finely executed, faithful renditions of this Brazillian music master's works. So lovely.
RealAudio clip: "Bocoche"

SMOKEY & MIHO The Two Eps (Afro Sambas) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yay. Here's this combo's two out of print (but wildly popular when they were available) eps collected onto one handy disc. Now folks who missed out on Smokey & Miho before have another chance to get acquainted. Miho Hatori, former chanteuse for perky, groovy indie popsters Cibo Matto, here makes dreamy, Astrud Gilberto-style, very light and floaty bossa nova with fellow Brazillian music fetishist, guitarist Smokey Hormel, and friends including John Birdsong (trumpet) and Joey Waronker (drums). Their second, five song ep (the first half of this disc) focused on the works of Baden Powell, respectfully covering five of his classic songs. Performed with an increased ease and confidence by all involved, these are finely executed, faithful renditions of this Brazillian music master's works. So lovely. The second half of this disc consists of the five tracks from their debut self-titled ep, and is equally mellow and nice. Soft'n'easy, jazzy cocktail hour numbers that get a bit more abstract closer to the close of the cd. All but one are Smokey & Miho originals, sung in English and Japanese (the cover being an Angolan tune from 1965 written by Ngola Ritmos).
RealAudio clip: "Ocean In Your Eyes"
RealAudio clip: "Bocoche"

SMOKEY EMERY Incident at Town Lake (Kendra Steiner Editions) 3" cd-r 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Austin based artist Daniel Hipolito has been recording as Smokey Emery for over a decade making small runs of self-released cd-rs of drone-based tape and field recordings. His musical aesthetic of manipulating industrial sounding drones made with vintage tape recorders into warm shimmering layered compositions that evoke the feel of memories of a fading past, rainy days and old photographs, the mystical feel of night and unspoken, perhaps terrifying secrets, have made him one of the more interesting figures to come out of Austin's growing experimental music scene. For this special but extremely limited 3" release (only 12 copies made!) on local Austin label Kendra Steiner Editions, there are two new pieces. The title track is like a Brian Eno recording for the Twin Peaks Soundtrack, giving off a dark foreboding yet alluring ambience. The second track, "Nightly" creates a chilly peacefulness of a dark meadow before sunrise, perhaps a restful solitude after a night of violence. Limited to 12 copies, we have 6, of those, and -might- be able to get a few more, but odds are once these are gone, they're gone for good!
MPEG Stream: "Incident At Town Lake"
MPEG Stream: "Nightly"

SMOKEY EMERY Lives (Kiamesha Drive) cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Originally made as a tour only cd-r in 2011, the four tracks on Lives document the live sound of one of our favorite tape-drone artists as of late, Smokey Emery. Recorded on cassette and digital camera in warehouse spaces in San Francisco and Austin between 2006 and 2010, these long-form tracks take pieces made with multiple tape recorders plus the abundant room ambiance and filter them through a murky drift of concrete industrial drones, machinic whirs, woozy snippets of orchestrated music and murmured vocals. Subtle gauzy shifts in tones hint at underlying ghostly melodies, giving a glowing aura to the chill. Like a more shoe-gazing Indignant Senility, these live tracks tantalize in their blissfully gloomy gloam. Limited!
MPEG Stream: "08.06.10"
MPEG Stream: "08.05.10"

SMOKEY EMERY Lives Vol. II (Kiamesha Drive) cd-r 5.98
Volume II in Smokey Emery's series of live performance edits expand from the first volume into 9 pieces taken from performances over the last couple of years around Austin, Texas and Colorado. Adding to the industrial foggy ambience of Smokey Emery's sound proper is the fact that these recordings were made on low-fi tape recorders, cell phones and digital cameras, further murking up the cloudy din. Listening at low volumes might be akin to listening to your refrigerator hum, but turned up a bit, there are distilled blooms of haunted sounds, muffled dialogue and far off buried music. We had this playing loudly one morning in the store, the day after the election in fact, when we had a sudden cold snap after days of warm dazzling sunshine and the store took on this sudden charge of a soft industrial autumn haze that was chilling and melancholic, but also blithely peaceful. We guess we'll be looking forward to winter after all! Limited!
MPEG Stream: "Track 2"
MPEG Stream: "Track 4"
MPEG Stream: "Track 8"

SMOKEY EMERY Quartz (Indian Queen) 7" 11.98
The debut vinyl release from Smokey Emery aka Daniel Hipolito on Silent Land Time Machine's Indian Queen imprint is a pastoral grey affair, lush with church organ ambience and analog equipment malfunction, a sort of Carnival of Lost Souls meets the Sinking of the Titanic. Split into three movements, the first called "Movement VI (Jumping the Fire)" is an abrupt organ loop shifting in pitch maniacally in a zombie-ish two-step wrenched in the reverbed clacking and whistling of old portable tape machines. "Movement VII: A Craft in Control" sounds at first like an old ballpark anthem slowed way down to a ghostly crawl, but its source may be more sacred or sinister, eventually churning what could be a hymn into a demonic funeral dirge just like the female lead in the aforementioned film. The flip side dedicated to the final movement "Movement V" expands on the previous theme, letting the sound sprawl into a foggy underwater wash of ocean liner doom and the muddled voices of once heralded memories of happier times.
Limited to 300 copies comes in a thick duotone b&w folder-cover of dueling catastrophe-collages by Daniel Hipolito himself.

SMOKEY EMERY Soundtracks For Invisibility (Vol.1): Youth Burnt While Traveling (Holodeck) cassette 7.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're pleased to present three inaugural cassette releases from psych/noise label Holodeck, championing the exploding underground electronic experimental scene in Austin, Texas, with beautifully packaged and designed cassettes. Have a look elsewhere on this list for other releases by Lumens and Thousand Foot Whale Claw.
But we're really pleased to see Smokey Emery's Soundtracks For Visibility series getting a full cassette reissue run. Long out of print on cd-r, here is what we said about Volume One when we first listened the cd-r version:
Recorded in 2002, these tracks of cinematic drones and loops quietly build from slow-burning sonic embers that pulse and throb to subtlety shifting drifts of piano, bells, and music boxes mutating into far-off whirring rhythms and wobbly melodic ellipsis. "Invisibility Vignettes" is an epic 16 minute track of 5 movements that lays out what sounds like a barren mechanical wasteland before a soft guitar and organ figure shines a small ray of humanity on the proceedings slowly evolving into an off kilter robotic heartbeat leading into the final track of a lovely far-off and decaying church organ loop. Lonely, Beautiful and of course LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "This Is The Wrong Place "
MPEG Stream: "Sad Machine In Soap Opera"
MPEG Stream: "Invisibility Vignettes"

SMOKEY EMERY Soundtracks For Invisibility Vol. II: You Take The High Road (Holodeck) cassette 7.50
NOW AVAILABLE ON CASSETTE!
One of six new tapes from the always awesome Holodeck label out of Austin, Texas. Here is what we said about this Austin murkscaper's long out of print record when we first had the cd version back in 2009:
Austin-based painter and installation artist, Daniel Hipolito has been composing and releasing music in limited releases under the moniker Smokey Emery for awhile now. Composed of far away drones and loops, Hipolito builds his compositions like he builds his cave-y black and white painted installations and environments, cinematically, with a fine-tuned sense for mystery, vague longing and subtle dramatic flair. Like the lights of heavy traffic at sunset or a slowly sinking ship, there is an ineffable lonely quality to these compositions that is both beautiful and doomed, but fully engaging enough to still make us keep listening as the lights slowly fade.
MPEG Stream: "Over The Side, Into The Storm"
MPEG Stream: "The Lights Are Big and I'm Driving Home"
MPEG Stream: "Over a Thousand Lakes"

SMOKEY EMERY Soundtracks For Invisibility Volume II: You Take The High Road (Kiamesha Drive) 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.
Austin-based painter and installation artist, Daniel Hipolito has been composing and releasing music in limited releases under the moniker Smokey Emery for awhile now, but we've only just finally managed to get some for the store. Composed of far away drones and loops, Hipolito builds his compositions like he builds his cave-y black and white painted installations and environments, cinematically, with a fine-tuned sense for mystery, vague longing and subtle dramatic flair. Like the lights of heavy traffic at sunset or a slowly sinking ship, there is an ineffable lonely quality to these compositions that is both beautiful and doomed, but fully engaged enough to still make us keep listening. Each cd-r is hand packaged with a unique photographic cover and wrapped in a vellum envelope. Lovely and Limited!
MPEG Stream: "Over The Side, Into The Storm"
MPEG Stream: "The Lights Are Big and I'm Driving Home"
MPEG Stream: "Over a Thousand Lakes"

SMOKEY EMERY Youth Burnt While Traveling: Soundtracks For Invisibility (Kiamesha) 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.
Volume one of Smokey Emery's Soundtracks For Invisibility Series (we reviewed Vol. 2, a couple of lists ago). Since we listed these out of order, Daniel Hipolito, the man behind Smokey Emery, repressed Vol. 1 just for us! Recorded in 2002, these tracks of cinematic drones and loops quietly build from slow-burning sonic embers to subtlety shifting drifts of piano, bells, and music boxes mutating into far-off whirring rhythms and wobbly melodic ellipsis. "Invisibility Vignettes" is an epic 16 minute track of 5 movements that lays out what sounds like a barren mechanical wasteland before a soft guitar and organ figure shines a small ray of humanity on the proceedings slowly evolving into an off kilter robotic heartbeat leading into the final track of a lovely far-off and decaying church organ loop. Lonely, Beautiful and of course Limited!
MPEG Stream: "This Is The Wrong Place "
MPEG Stream: "Sad Machine In Soap Opera"
MPEG Stream: "Invisibility Vignettes"

SMOLEN, DAVE Malleable Laminates (Sprout And Flora) cd-r 5.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
**LAST COPIES**
A while back we reviewed a disc by a group called Flittermice Of Eld, a sort of abstract ambient drone homage to Darkthrone, in particular their classic track "As Flittermice as Satan's Spys", which of course ended up sounding nothing like Darkthrone at all, but kicked our asses nonetheless.
So what do these Flittermice do when they're not pulling apart black metal institutions and reshaping the bits into their own twisted little soundscapes?
Well, actually, sort of the same thing, just without the Darkthrone bits (although we can't say for sure there are no Darkthrone bits here). But Mr. Dave Smolen, he of the aforementioned Flittermice, here strikes out on his own, and the result is very similar to the sound on Flittermice, albeit a bit more minimal and electronic, a slow burning lowercase trawl through a soundworld of electronic crackle and minimal glitch and buzz, twenty minutes of drifting static discharge, bursts of high end shimmer and shift, layers of metallic reverberation drift through spacious expanses of whir and rumble, clouds of spacey FX swirl around disembodied shards of percussion and muted rhythms. Serene and ambient, but also dense and intense, like slithering through a lightning storm, or crawling through a field of electrically charged vibrating steel strings...
Weird and quite cool...
SUPER LIMITED!!! Of course, packaged in hand screened cardstock jackets housed in thick vinyl sleeves.
MPEG Stream: "Malleable Laminates"

SMOOSH Free To Stay (Barsuk) cd 12.98
There's something really nice sometimes about listening to something without knowing the back story and just appreciating it for what it is. I (Irwin) came in early today to catch up on some review writing. This new release on Barsuk (home to Nada Surf, Death Cab For Cutie, etc.) was on my list. I popped it in and started listening and what I heard was so refreshing. Totally earnest catchy pop with mainly keyboards, piano, drums and sugary sweet female vocals. I started thinking of the charm of Mates of State, the way the Aislers Set could make you want to sing along, the catchy melodies of Call & Response, the heyday of K records twee charm. It wasn't until later in the day that it hit me why the band's name sounded familiar. I had read about them in Vice a while ago. Two sisters who started playing music at the age of 8 years old. They learned drums from Chris Walla of DCFC and now at 14 this is their second album. We all though the first one was pretty decent, but we all agree that this is by far a better more assured outing. Really refreshing and delightful sounding.
MPEG Stream: "Find A Way"
MPEG Stream: "Free To Stay"

SMOOSH She Like Electric (Pattern) cd 10.98
What does it mean when Chan Marshall of Cat Power lip-syncs to one of your songs for her encore set? Hmmm... we're not quite sure, but Ms Marshall apparently has been closing her recent shows with one of this band's songs. So what's the big deal? Well, the two band members are eight year old Asya and ten year old Chloe! But before you cry "gimmick!" and unleash your torrents of skepticism about whether or not there are some scheming grown-ups pushing the buttons and pulling the strings behind all this, check 'em out. Apparently the lone adult who's played a role in their development is Death Cab For Cutie's drummer Jason McGerr who taught Chloe how to play the drums. From what we can tell, they've got more personality and accomplished song smarts in their baby toes than a hundred pithy pre-teen Debbie Gibsons and Tiffanys. And they're not bound by genre limitations -- the album runs the stylistic gamut from lilting Cat Power-ish folk pop tunes to a playful funky yo!-filled rap. Totally exuberant and carefree. That said, it is somewhat perturbing to hear girls of this age emoting like a thirty or forty year old on a few songs. Geez, it's unsettling enough when twenty-ish year old Alicia Keys does it!
PS: they bear no resemblance nor connection (musical or otherwise) to the fictitious band of the same name on Mr. Show.
MPEG Stream: "Massive Cure"
MPEG Stream: "It's Cold"

SMORZANDO Smrad (Midwinter) cassette 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From the same label that brought us the damaged depressive blackened genius of Happy Days, and the melancholic doom-ed black metal of Leaden, comes this, the first release from Swiss outfit Smorzando, who craft a strange and haunting world of melancholy black metal, mixing the creepy drone-y miserablism of Burzum, with strange abstract post rock, and super blown out in the red production, creating something both black and brutal, fucked up and mysterious, with a super unique sound that is as much noise rock or post rock as it is black metal.
The drums are simple, the guitars go from distant minimal jangle, to blown out crumbling distortion, the melody is a simple keyboard suspended in a sea of black buzz, the vocals go from guttural growl to hysterical shriek, but are buried under swells of super distorted in-the-red, shoegazey blackness. Occasionally, the songs lurch into furious blasts, but for the most part just lurch and lumber, lonely and forlorn, the deep bass and strange melodies sound like foghorns, the production wrapping everything in a grey fuzzy fog, the guitars effected and warbly, sometimes sounding almost electronic, other times sounding like a black avalanche of sound, always underpinned by a lilting melancholy melody or some ghostly ambience, so gorgeous and sad and heavy and absolutely beautiful. One of our new favorite slabs of depressive doom drenched black metal misery for sure.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Each packaged in a super cool plastic clamshell cassette case, with haunting black and white artwork, and printed black and white fold out insert.

SMUT PEDDLERS Porn Again (Rawkus) cd 16.98
Nasty, smutty hip hop, that's surprisingly pretty good. Great production, great beats, and two whiny white MCs that don't sound all that white. Starts off really strong but wears a little thin after a while. Guests include Kool Keith, Kool G. Rap, R.A. The Rugged Man, and Howard Stern Show regular Beetlejuice.

SNAILFACE s/t (I + II) (Wordclock) 2 cassettes + box + pin + fur 11.98
So what's a band to do when they're not playing their particular brand of crushing metal flecked noise rock brutality? Well, take on new identities of course. Offer up their masked visages and craft a whole new set of songs, under a different name, with an ostensibly different sound, but one that really is just a way poppier, stonier, spacier version of their band proper. Which is fine with us.
So the mysterious Snailface, who hail from right here in SF, are in fact, the alter ego of aQ faves Kowloon Walled City, and traffic in a sound that has more in common with Kyuss and Queens Of The Stoneage and Torche and other heavy pop combos than the AmRep-y sludge that KWC specializes in. And the funny thing, which happens with lots of side projects / one offs / joke bands, is that the band is super relaxed, having fun, no pressure, none of the big band worries that come with a 'real' band, so whether they mean to or not, they end up ruling, and writing killer songs, and coming up with songs that are not just fun and funny, but that totally rock and are catchy as fuck, and if that band was their actual main focus band, it might even end up being super popular.
Which is the case with Snailface. Sure, the songs have goofy titles, and silly lyrics, they're called Snailface, they wear costumes in the band photos, but you sort of forget all about it when you throw it on, big stonery riffs, super melodic vocals, catchy choruses, the sound epic and heavy and hooky, psychedelic and spacey, some killer leads, plenty of weirdness too, fucked up production, backwards vocals and guitars, field recordings, bizarre samples, but all that stuff just sort of decorates the songs proper, which RULE. The first record is way more blown out and desert rock, stonery and drug-poppy, while the second record, a concept record about Yetis. is way more classic rock / big production epic heaviness, with shades of Thin Lizzy, Blue Oyster Cult and Kiss added to the mix. But together, this doubleshot two-fer is fucking awesome. Fans of any of the above mentioned bands, as well as anyone into catchy groovy heaviness, this stuff will definitely hit the spot.
Comes packaged in a hand screen printed cardboard box, the tapes both with full color printed inserts, one of 8 different buttons, all nestled on a nice bed of Yeti fur (3 different kinds!). LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Dancing On Landmines"
MPEG Stream: "Drug School"
MPEG Stream: "Toxic City Of The Sea"
MPEG Stream: "Yowie Wants A Piece"
MPEG Stream: "The Almasty (Kelermes Mirror)"
MPEG Stream: "Triangle Visage Of The Hibagon / Skunk Ape"

SNAKE APARTMENT Paint The Walls (Parts Unknown) cd 9.98
Nobody makes real punk rock anymore it seems. Sure, there's pop punk, or screamo, or generic 3 chord bash and thrash, but we miss the gnarled grinding ugly punk of SST or Amrep, the sludgey slithery guitars, the sheets of feedback, the plodding drum damage, the clouds of amp buzz, and the howled reverbed vocals, the Stooges-y stomp, the damaged groove, the atonal angular riffage, the slippery squiggly leads...
Well thankfully Providence punk rockers Snake Apartment are doing their best to change all that. We've been eating up everything we could track down from these guys, which up until now was just a split 7" and a split lp, and as far as we know this is their first proper full length, at the very least, the first one we've managed to carry, and it's a killer.
Every sone starts off with a squall of feedback, the scrape of pick on strings, thick swaths of ungrounded amp buzz, before the riff kicks in, usually some sort of Ginn-ish tangle that manages to be thick and heavy, but still atonal and damaged (as in Black Flag's Damaged), the drums lurch and swing, the guitar and drums dueling to the death, getting all wound up in each others bizness to glorious result. The bass is just a huge gooey low end throb, permeating every inch of the proceedings, the vocals a drawled laconic lazy shout, sometimes slipping into Nick Cave-ish croon, sometimes turning into a harsh howl, but draped over the jagged punk like a bloodied corpse tossed in a copse of black rose bushes.
Imagine some unholy union between Black Flag, the Brainbombs, The Stooges, Tad and some old SST doom stuff, then have them take lots of drugs and record a record for Amphetamine Reptile... as if that didn't already say it all, this fucking rules.
Killer garish, eye popping drug tripping cover art too!
MPEG Stream: "Paint The Walls"
MPEG Stream: "Pigs is Pigs"
MPEG Stream: "No Raises This Quarter"

SNAKE APARTMENT / WORK/DEATH split (Corleone) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Super limited split between two new (to us) bands, Snake Apartment and Work / Death.
The Snake Apartment side is a side long track, a murky Brainbombs-y dirge, blown out and gunky, thick and corrosive. A plodding slab of sticky syrupy sludge rock, mixed with haunting disembodied lounge singer vocals, the whole thing a sort of moaning sea sick stumble.
Work / Death offer up their own druggy dirge, theirs is a noisy abstract drone, crowd sounds, room ambience, footsteps and muffled conversations are eventually sucked up into a vortex of thick rumble, peppered by blasts of fuzzy murk, the whole thing sounding like a damaged recording of a roomful of amps with guitars leaned up against them. Intense and abstract and pretty fucking cool.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Six different covers, by six different artists: Will Schaff, Ben Barnett, Mike Taylor, Merdith Stern, Scott Reber and Mat Brinkman!

SNAKE FLOWER 2 Memory Castle (Southpaw) 7" 6.98
What more can we say about Snake Flower 2's Mr. Matthew Melton, the man not only behind SF2 but the sonically similar Bare Wires, not to mention some killer solo records. The Oh Sees' John Dwyer is convinced Melton is the best songwriter in the underground garage rock scene, and perhaps beyond, and well, we're inclined to agreed. SF2's Renegade Daydream, still ranks as one of our all time faves, and the last Bare Wires is like the best chunk of classic sixties mod pop that the old Who never made. The sound here, like on other SF2 records, it total classic old school Yellow Pills style power pop. None of that lysergic weirdness, hypnogogic trippiness, lo-fi murk, or faux girl group reverby shimmer, instead, Melton and his crew just write some of the catchiest jangle pop songs around, and play them in a style, and with a sound, that manages to sound totally timeless.
Hooky, jangly, crunchy, short, sharp, urgent, some killer leads, simple drumming, jangly guitars, just total classic fuzzy garagey power pop. Lots of bands out there can make the SOUND, but few have the songs to back it up. SF2 most definitely does, and like all great singles, these 4 tracks just leave you wanting more more more...

SNAKE FLOWER 2 Renegade Daydream (Tic Tac Totally) cd 11.98
Not sure why, but it's been SO impossible to get enough of these to list, which is a huge bummer, cuz it's definitely turned into one of our favorite records of the year (and yeah, we know it didn't come out this year, but so what!). Our distros never have it, emails to the label never get returned, so fuck it, we listed it once and sold out, we just managed to get another handful back in, but who knows how long we'll be able to kep these in stock...
The weird thing is we were expecting something much more generic and garagey and run of the mill, but from the first song (a definite contender for jam of the year) we knew this was something WAY more. Fuzzy, and buzzy, and stoney and groovy and spaced out, crunchy guitars busy burbling basslines, some bad ass drumming, and some super wicked scowly vox, somewhere between the Lyres, Monster Magnet and the White Stripes.
"Flight Of The Navigator", the aforementioned jam, encapsulates pretty much everything we love about these guys and gal. A sharp jagged jangly main riff, with a killer stop start descending verse, a woozy soaring chorus, and then a total Monster Magnet bridge with weird processed vocals, and the guitars all space-y and stretched out. Some wild leads here and there, and HOOKS THAT KILL. We literally listened to this first track so many times, that it was weeks before we got any further into the record, but when we did, we discovered that the rest of the record was pretty much just as bad ass. The Lyres vibe can't be underestimated, but Monster Magnet is all over these tracks, as is Hawkwind, plenty of fuzzy poppiness too, classic garage infuses everything here, but it's way more poppy, and space-y and heavy and hooky. We could go on and on and on and on, but since the availability of this record is a bit up in the air, we'll just sum it up by saying this kicks ass big time, and if favorite records were indeed judged entirely and soley on how many times and how often it gets listened to, then we're pretty sure there's no other record this year that would even come close (if you ask Andee).
MPEG Stream: "Flight Of The Navigator"
MPEG Stream: "Talk About It"
MPEG Stream: "I Woke Up In A Dream"

SNAKE FLOWER 2 Renegade Daydream (Tic Tac Totally) lp 14.98
Not sure why, but it's been SO impossible to get enough of these to list, which is a huge bummer, cuz it's definitely turned into one of our favorite records of the year (and yeah, we know it didn't come out this year, but so what!). Our distros never have it, emails to the label never get returned, so fuck it, we decided to just list it with the 10 or so copies we have. So at least a few of you can check this out.
The weird thing is we were expecting something much more generic and garagey and run of the mill, but from the first song (a definite contender for jam of the year) we knew this was something WAY more. Fuzzy, and buzzy, and stoney and groovy and spaced out, crunchy guitars busy burbling basslines, some bad ass drumming, and some super wicked scowly vox, somewhere between the Lyres, Monster Magnet and the White Stripes.
"Flight Of The Navigator", the aforementioned jam, encapsulates pretty much everything we love about these guys and gal. A sharp jagged jangly main riff, with a killer stop start descending verse, a woozy soaring chorus, and then a total Monster Magnet bridge with weird processed vocals, and the guitars all space-y and stretched out. Some wild leads here and there, and HOOKS THAT KILL. We literally listened to this first track so many times, that it was weeks before we got any further into the record, but when we did, we discovered that the rest of the record was pretty much just as bad ass. The Lyres vibe can't be underestimated, but Monster Magnet is all over these tracks, as is Hawkwind, plenty of fuzzy poppiness too, classic garage infuses everything here, but it's way more poppy, and space-y and heavy and hooky. We could go on and on and on and on, but since the availability of this record is a bit up in the air, we'll just sum it up by saying this kicks ass big time, and if favorite records were indeed judged entirely and soley on how many times and how often it gets listened to, then we're pretty sure there's no other record this year that would even come close (if you ask Andee).
MPEG Stream: "Flight Of The Navigator"
MPEG Stream: "Talk About It"
MPEG Stream: "I Woke Up In A Dream"

SNAKE FLOWER 2 Renegade Daydream (Southpaw) cassette 4.98
One of our favorite records of the last couple years, now available on cassette!
The weird thing about Snake Flower 2's Renegade Daydream, is we were expecting something much more generic and garagey and run of the mill, but from the first song (a definite contender for jam of the year) we knew this was something WAY more. Fuzzy, and buzzy, and stoney and groovy and spaced out, crunchy guitars busy burbling basslines, some bad ass drumming, and some super wicked scowly vox, somewhere between the Lyres, Monster Magnet and the White Stripes.
"Flight Of The Navigator", the aforementioned jam, encapsulates pretty much everything we love about these guys and gal. A sharp jagged jangly main riff, with a killer stop start descending verse, a woozy soaring chorus, and then a total Monster Magnet bridge with weird processed vocals, and the guitars all space-y and stretched out. Some wild leads here and there, and HOOKS THAT KILL. We literally listened to this first track so many times, that it was weeks before we got any further into the record, but when we did, we discovered that the rest of the record was pretty much just as bad ass. The Lyres vibe can't be underestimated, but Monster Magnet is all over these tracks, as is Hawkwind, plenty of fuzzy poppiness too, classic garage infuses everything here, but it's way more poppy, and space-y and heavy and hooky. We could go on and on and on and on, but since the availability of this record is a bit up in the air, we'll just sum it up by saying this kicks ass big time, and if favorite records were indeed judged entirely and soley on how many times and how often it gets listened to, then we're pretty sure there's no other record this year that would even come close (if you ask Andee).
MPEG Stream: "Flight Of The Navigator"
MPEG Stream: "Talk About It"
MPEG Stream: "I Woke Up In A Dream"

SNAKE RATTLE RATTLE SNAKE Sineater (Greater Than) cd 9.98

SNAKE RATTLE RATTLE SNAKE Sineater (Greater Than) lp 14.98

SNAKEPIT Issue No. 19 magazine + 7" 11.98
Snackpit, the magazine of tasty treats! No, wait, that's not it. SNAKEpit. Also a magazine of tasty treats - that is, if you consider obscure, old school '80s metal a treat!! Dunno why we've never listed an issue of Snakepit before, this "Heavy Metal Magazine" has long been a must read for the most metal of us here. Each issue, like this one, featuring a plethora of ultra in depth interviews with (mostly) long-defunct, cult '80s metal bands, or rather, the former members thereof, many of whom probably haven't done an interview in decades. The interviewer's questions are loaded with such obsessive minutiae, it makes most magazines, with the exception of Ugly Things, look vague and cursory in comparison. Usually the Snakepit writers seem to know more about the history of band in question than the ex-band members could possibly even remember! (They'll throw questions at 'em like, "On April 9th 1982, ACID played live at the Beurshalle in your hometown, Bruges, with SOGGY. What do you remember from that occasion?", stuff like that.)
So, which denim 'n leather clad cults get the Snakepit treatment this time 'round? A bunch of our faves: Acid, Raven, Griffin, Watchtower, Obsession, and (early, Neil Turbin era) Anthrax, among others. And then lots more we maybe, barely had even ever heard of before, such as Blackkout, Voor, Sexist, Excalibur, Existance, Messiaxx, Witch Cross, Baron Steele... All gripping stuff for us metal geeks!
Not everything is '80s, it just sounds '80s. One of the more recent bands interviewed is the late, potentially great Powervice. We'd been wondering what happened to them, they had a great, Iron Maiden circa Killers sounding cut on the Earache comp Heavy Metal Killers a few years ago, then (we learn here) broke up, bummer.
Plus, this issue's densely packed 116 pages are also graced with a section of reviews (reissues, new stuff, demos) which are, interestingly, often quite harsh and negative. And there's plenty of ads for stuff we're gonna want to hunt down as well. Oddly, though, 'cause Snakepit, while its editorial offices are over in France, is published Stateside by the Nuclear War Now label, there's ads for current black metal stuff that they'd never ever cover in the magazine. The closest they'd come are things like early thrash / death metal crossover, like the feature on Chuck Schuldiner's pre-Death demo band Mantas in this ish.
And, as a bonus, this comes packaged with the limited edition vinyl 7" with rare tracks by the Bay Area's own awesome Griffin, live in '82, including their classic "Flight Of The Griffin" and a cover of The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again".

SNAPLINE Phenomena (Maybe Mars) lp 14.98
We've been getting so much cool weird Chinese music in recently. We made the tripped out Neu! meets Yellow Magic Orchestra of White+ our Record Of The Week, we reviewed the blissed out shoegaze pop of Boyz & Girl, our Chinese section is overflowing with stuff that we'll try to to get reviewed and posted on the site (even as we wait to get more of the aforementioned back in), but figured we'd start with this one, which we got on lp, and have a limited number of, and not super sure if we can get more and if we can, how long it'll take.
Didn't know much about these guys, other than the fact that they're apparently super popular in China, and have been honing a sound rooted in early industrial music, from the seventies and eighties, with nods to the Cure and Joy Division, a dark pulsing electronic minimalism, dark and psychedelic.
Check out the opener here, a softly pulsing synth, monotone vocals, swirling effects and slow shifting textures, dirgey and almost robotic, darkly hypnotic and dreamily tranced out, hearing this it's not hard to see why ex P.I.L. drummer Martin Atkins became obsessed with the group and insisted on producing their debut. The second track finds the sound splintering into something more jagged and new wavey, sounding a bit more like Joy Division by way of the Residents, or a much murkier, glooming goth pop Suicide, jagged melodies, blurts of noise, dense drones and throbbing programed pulses. Dramatic and noisy and woozily off kilter. The Residents vibe is huge throughout, a warped alien cabaret, kept in check by the low slung basslines, the programmed rhythms, murky and motorik, the layered loops, and the almost vaudevillian vocals.
Every track here is dark and woozy, rhythmic and minimal, some krautrocky and propulsive, others super abstract and avant, and still others gloomy and brooding, often the sound fusing the three, into some heady Chinese experimental electronic gloom pop weirdness, that we're digging more and more with every listen.
For fans of warped outsider pop, early electronic industrial, gloomy and gothy electro pop, and whatever surreal sonic stops might lurk in between.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "3"
MPEG Stream: "4"

SNAPPER s/t (Flying Nun) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of the Record Store Day releases we were most psyched on getting this year was this Flying Nun/Captured Tracks reissue of the first ep by NZ cult legends, Snapper. But they didn't show up in time for RSD like they were supposed to, thanks to a shipping snafu. Finally, however, our Snapper 12"s (along with The Bats' first ep, also reissued by Flying Nun via Captured Tracks for RSD) finally showed and we're so glad it's here now and we're able to share it with you, as we probably wouldn't have been able to write about it earlier, because we're sure they would have been all snatched up on RSD proper. So we only have about 7 of these left, and we're pretty sure they're gone for good, so act fast if you want one!
Released in 1989, Snapper was formed by Peter Gutterdige (The Clean, Chills and Great Unwashed) and featured Christina Voice on organ and vocals. The band would go through several lines-up but it is this ep that defined their sound for bands to come, a mixture of Suicide, Jesus and Mary Chain and a less campy B-52's with a farfisa driven hypno-psych vibe that predated Stereolab. Their drug-psych influence can be easily sensed in bands like Moon Duo and Psychic Ills today. Includes poster and original press release. So so good! Four songs. All killer!
MPEG Stream: "Buddy"
MPEG Stream: "Death in Weirdness in The Surfing Zone"

SNARES (VENETIAN SNARES) Sabbath Dubs (Kriss) 10" 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's pretty impossible to argue with a dubstep version of Black Sabbath, especially when it sounds this good. Who would have thought that Sabbath would sound so right all dubbed out and slowed down? Venetian Snares, that's who. And on this super limited 10", there's no skitter or drill and bass, nope, just pure, simple bass heavy dubstep, wrapped around two classic Sabbath tracks. It sounds so goddamn good it's another one of those records that just makes us wonder why there aren't any bands who actually sound like this?!?
The A side is all slithery echoey beats, dubbed out and laid back, huge low end throbs, buzzing bass lines, Ozzy's reverbed wail draped over the top, a strangely stoned and FX doused version of "Black Sabbath", the guitars looped and stretched out, that tolling church bell all chopped up and sent spinning into the darkness, like a dubby snare, the whole thing just so dark and moody and groovy and amazing sounding.
The flip side starts off sounding like some straight up dubstep, blissed out and druggy, fuzzy and distorted, skeletal and bass heavy until the vocals kick in, and suddenly it's some fucked up and dubbed out take on "Electric Funeral". An absolute and total dancefloor destroyer for sure. Even the metal head wallflowers are tapping their feet and subtly banging their heads...
Pressed on marbled green vinyl, housed in a plain black sleeve, and pretty ridiculously limited.

SNATCH (OST) (TVT) cd 17.98
Boasts songs by The Specials, Herbaliser, Oasis, The Stranglers, Massive Attack, 10CC, and Madonna, but also includes a few dialogue clips from the movie. So you can hear Brad Pitt go "kaifnegjuavnnh" whenever you like. 20 tracks in all.

SNAWKLOR It Would Have Lived Here (Synaesthesia) cd 16.98
"To the technically semi-literate, post-Techno soundart can present a confusing spectacle, but with this beguiling recording such considerations are irrelevant. Snawklor is Dylan Krasevac and Nathan Gray, both playing laptops with sampler/loop programs live, and this is their second full length CD - Rushes appeared earlier on another small local label Marsupial Sounds. Snawklor's compositions process and layer samplings of field recordings, creating a rich acoustic ecology incorporating miked-up metallic percussion and tape debris. They recognisably draw on contemporary electronica while genuflecting to musique concrete tradition. There's a sense of involvement in live performance, and unusually for sampler-based acts, most sources are from their own field recordings. Snawklor reject the easy presentation of drone-like streams of sound, and the negativism of subdued minimal approaches, in favour of a more dramatic language. It's music of rich density Ð soundart but a clearly musical soundart.
Some tracks, like the first, "doublivores back", have a discernible pulse, but it's always varied, sometimes polyrhythmically, avoiding electronic music's frequent rhythmic banality. "Doublivores" combines inner city field recordings with R+B influenced rhythms and glimpses of the cassette's underlying recording, a residue of Grandmaster Flash. "War In The Trees" might remind the inattentive listener of Windham Hill, but even here there are hidden depths, and it's an isolated episode; the insect-like scurryings and avian twitterings of "Nocturgical" share the inspiration of Bartok's pieces of night music. This enormously varied but consistently beautiful
disc testifies to the vibrancy of contemporary Antipodean soundart." - Andy Hamilton, The Wire

SND Newtables (SND) lp 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The second release from this new electronica label from Sheffield (home of Warp Records) is minimal yet warm technology music. Like a Prozac laced Basic Channel / Chain Reaction, SND produces sparse melodies, spacious ambience, and sufficient clicks and pops. Limited to 600 copies.

SND STDIO (Mille Plateaux) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SND applies a heavy dose of what must be a factory preset handed out to all of the graduates of Force Inc's Institute of Auricular Fragmentation and Recombination. This is a silken yet firmly digital sound, sort of like a ring modulator fused with a hammond organ. SND encodes this signature sound to hyper-minimal shuffling house rhythms that could have been constructed out of the glitch rhythms found on Oval's "Diskont 94." The tonalities and phase patterns are so cool and detacted that it's hardly a shadow of a groove. They call this click house. How does this differ from glitch funk?

SND Tender Love (Mille Plateaux) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Don't expect anything new from SND's third record despite Mille Plateaux's claims of "their influential progressions in electronic experimentations." As before, this Sheffied duo offer pleasant, but detatched bitstreams of muted house grooves, synthetic organ pulses, and jittery syncopations.
RealAudio clip: "Tender Love 4"

SNIDER, ADAM Decomposer (Psychic Arts) cd-r 8.98
First full length from this Bay Area guitarist, who we first heard on the Berkeley Guitar compilation back in 2006, which also featured Matt Baldwin (whose Psychic Arts label released this!) and Sean Smith. And like his tracks on the comp, Snider displays quite a knack for sweetly melodic, pastoral Appalachia, conjuring up warm chordal swells, wrapped in delicate fingerpicked melodies, the tracks peppered with some subtle slippery slide guitar. Snider's style is generally not super flashy, and isn't about cascades of rapid fire notes, or dizzying melodic flurries, instead he tends to gently coax a hushed melancholia from his guitar, obviously the shadows of Fahey and Kottke and the rest loom large, but Snider definitely sounds right at home amongst such esteemed company. Most of the tracks here are dreamy and wistful, but a few (like "Val Verde Nights"), do display a more shadowy side, giving those tracks a moody minor key vibe. Good stuff.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered, and packaged in an origiami style folded jacket, with pasted on cover art and a photocopied insert.
MPEG Stream: "The Flying Suit"
MPEG Stream: "Mermaid"
MPEG Stream: "Accidents"
MPEG Stream: "Val Verde Nights"

SNIVELLING SHITS, THE I Can't Come (Damaged Goods) cd 16.98
This one came out of nowhere and kicked our asses. And to be totally honest, as is often the case, we ordered it almost entirely because the band had an awesome name, heck, they're called the Snivelling Shits. Fingers crossed we threw it on, and what do you know? The sound was as snotty and snarly and snarky and catchy and punk as fuck as the name implied.
The 'Shits were a joke band, formed by music journalist Giovanni Dadamo in 1977, designed to take the piss, but they ended up whipping up a batch of songs as good as if not better than any other groups at the time. Some impossible blend of the Buzzcocks, the Undertones, the Modern Lovers, The Sex Pistols, the Damned and the Velvets. Propulsive drumming, looped hypnotic riffing, and Dadamo's high pitched invective over the top. Take "I Can't Come", a bawdy sex tale about bedroom misadventure, with an insanely long list of other luminaries who couldn't come, culminating in the classic "Jesus Of Nazareth, heeeeeee can't come!" delivered in a snotty nasal whine. The rest of the tracks are just as funny: "Only 13", "Terminal Stupid", "I Wanna Be Your Biro", the all in French "Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi" and the impossibly catchy "Bring Me The Head Of Yukio Mishima". Every song here is a stone cold classic. Why these guys weren't huge it's hard to say. Might be because they didn't take it all that seriously, or the fact that they only ever recorded EIGHT tracks in their whole brief career, all collected here, along with some demos as well as the holiday chestnut "There Ain't No Sanity Claus" with the Damned (Dadamo also wrote a couple songs for those guys) and the previously released "isgodaman?" which was included on a comp under the pseudonym Arthur Comix because the record label didn't want the word Shits on their record cover.
Bottom line is this stuff is amazing. Hooky and haughty, frenetic and so bad ass. If you dig ANY of the above mentioned bands or have been digging on the current crop of snotty punk rock: the Catheters, the Thermals, Times New Viking, and the like, this will DESTROY YOU!!
MPEG Stream: "I Can't Come"
MPEG Stream: "Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi"
MPEG Stream: "Bring Me The Head Of Yukio Mishima"

SNIVELLING SHITS, THE I Can't Come (Damaged Goods) picture disc lp 21.00
Now also on picture disc vinyl!
This one came out of nowhere and kicked our asses. And to be totally honest, as is often the case, we ordered it almost entirely because the band had an awesome name, heck, they're called the Snivelling Shits. Fingers crossed we threw it on, and what do you know? The sound was as snotty and snarly and snarky and catchy and punk as fuck as the name implied.
The 'Shits were a joke band, formed by music journalist Giovanni Dadamo in 1977, designed to take the piss, but they ended up whipping up a batch of songs as good as if not better than any other groups at the time. Some impossible blend of the Buzzcocks, the Undertones, the Modern Lovers, The Sex Pistols, the Damned and the Velvets. Propulsive drumming, looped hypnotic riffing, and Dadamo's high pitched invective over the top. Take "I Can't Come", a bawdy sex tale about bedroom misadventure, with an insanely long list of other luminaries who couldn't come, culminating in the classic "Jesus Of Nazareth, heeeeeee can't come!" delivered in a snotty nasal whine. The rest of the tracks are just as funny: "Only 13", "Terminal Stupid", "I Wanna Be Your Biro", the all in French "Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi" and the impossibly catchy "Bring Me The Head Of Yukio Mishima". Every song here is a stone cold classic. Why these guys weren't huge it's hard to say. Might be because they didn't take it all that seriously, or the fact that they only ever recorded EIGHT tracks in their whole brief career, all collected here, along with some demos as well as the holiday chestnut "There Ain't No Sanity Claus" with the Damned (Dadamo also wrote a couple songs for those guys) and the previously released "isgodaman?" which was included on a comp under the pseudonym Arthur Comix because the record label didn't want the word Shits on their record cover.
Bottom line is this stuff is amazing. Hooky and haughty, frenetic and so bad ass. If you dig ANY of the above mentioned bands or have been digging on the current crop of snotty punk rock: the Catheters, the Thermals, Times New Viking, and the like, this will DESTROY YOU!!
MPEG Stream: "I Can't Come"
MPEG Stream: "Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi"
MPEG Stream: "Bring Me The Head Of Yukio Mishima"