SUN ARAW Off Duty / Boat Trip (Woodsist) cd 13.98
As if the music of lysergic, lo-fi drugdub one man band Sun Araw wasn't flipped out and damaged enough, on this latest joint, those already tweaked and twisted sounds get even more far out, the vibe WAY druggier and spacier, a 26 minute blast of crumbling wah-guitar laced psychdub comedown in the form of three skull caving soul freeing innerspace excursions.
"Last Chants" begins with a dense swirling cloud of white noise and damaged effects, shot through with barely there melodies, and loose detuned riffage, as the noise gradually fades out, it reveals the strange slow motion cough syrup psychfunk dub drawl lurking underneath, woozy wah guitar, echo drenched Sly Stone vox, streaked with shards of high end shimmer, distorted fuzzy crunch, all hazy and blurry as if run through a series of bongs, all roped to a loping lugubrious barely there rhythm.
"Midnight Locker" is way more dubby, fragmented rhythms, and strange vocal oooh's, drift in a sea of swirling whirring low end thrum, woozy bass slithers throughout, cowbells surface here and there, little bits of wah, spidery tendrils of psychedelic guitar, the buzz and blur eventually recede leaving just a strange assemblage of percussion and guitar, all over a distant rumbling shimmer, but mostly it's spare and spacious and still seriously drugged out.
And finally, "Deep Temple" starts out almost like a proper dub jam, but within seconds, that woozy groove is wreathed in gorgeously blown out prismatic sheets of shimmery sound, an impossibly shoegazey dub drone bliss out of the highest order, twisted and looped, and as the track progresses more and more heavy and psychedelic.
The cd version tacks on an additional 18 minutes, 2008's Boat Trip ep, which is a bit more lo-fi and a bit more minimal, long stretches of low slung bass rumble, thick swaths of shimmering drones, crumbling distorted heaviness, reverbed vox, loping and hypnotic, still dubby, but not nearly as blown out and explosive, a sort of meditative dreamy druggy coda. So cool...
MPEG Stream: "Last Chants"
MPEG Stream: "Midnight Locker"
MPEG Stream: "In The Trees"

SUN ARAW On Patrol (Not Not Fun) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest cloud of smoked out dub psych damage from this one man band, a massive sprawling album, every song bleeding into the next, one epic druggy abstract sonic trip. The Sun Araw sound keeps drifting further and further out, and in the process, approaching something that sounds a bit like reggae, but filtered through a cracked Not Not Fun filter, and a bank of busted amps and malfunctioning effects pedals. Oh and pot smoke. Lots and lots of pot smoke.
Woozy, warbly, prismatic, sun baked (and just plain baked), stripped down, dubbed out, inner space drift. Wah Wah guitars hover over skeletal rhythms, reverb and delay coats everything in earshot, disembodied chantlike vox are draped over SA's twisted mutant lo-fi dub. The record drifts into some warped murk, still peppered with plenty of upstroke reggae guitar jangle, but wrapped in wheezing keyboards and some super distorted fuzz bass.
The second record begins all ethereal and new age, some hushed glimmering ambient drift, near static, before launching into some dubby krautrock, muted and muddy and minimal, flurries of keyboard tangle spray notes at the relentless motorik pulse, still more abstract vox and lots of gorgeously spidery guitars, all tangled up into minor key melodies that seem to fade into the background, the whole record sort of hazy and ghostly, while somehow remaining krauty and dubby. The sidelong final side strips everything away, or piles it all on, blurring and smearing and winding everything into a dense layered drift, looped and hypnotic and psychedelic, that wouldn't sound out of place on a Monopoly Child Star Searchers record. Rad stuff.
MPEG Stream: "Ma Holo"
MPEG Stream: "The Stakeout"
MPEG Stream: "Deep Cover"

SUN ARAW On Patrol (Not Not Fun) 2lp 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest cloud of smoked out dub psych damage from this one man band, a massive sprawling double lp, every song bleeding into the next, one epic druggy abstract sonic trip. The Sun Araw sound keeps drifting further and further out, and in the process, approaching something that sounds a bit like reggae, but filtered through a cracked Not Not Fun filter, and a bank of busted amps and malfunctioning effects pedals. Oh and pot smoke. Lots and lots of pot smoke.
Woozy, warbly, prismatic, sun baked (and just plain baked), stripped down, dubbed out, inner space drift. Wah Wah guitars hover over skeletal rhythms, reverb and delay coats everything in earshot, disembodied chantlike vox are draped over SA's twisted mutant lo-fi dub. The record drifts into some warped murk, still peppered with plenty of upstroke reggae guitar jangle, but wrapped in wheezing keyboards and some super distorted fuzz bass.
The second record begins all ethereal and new age, some hushed glimmering ambient drift, near static, before launching into some dubby krautrock, muted and muddy and minimal, flurries of keyboard tangle spray notes at the relentless motorik pulse, still more abstract vox and lots of gorgeously spidery guitars, all tangled up into minor key melodies that seem to fade into the background, the whole record sort of hazy and ghostly, while somehow remaining krauty and dubby. The sidelong final side strips everything away, or piles it all on, blurring and smearing and winding everything into a dense layered drift, looped and hypnotic and psychedelic, that wouldn't sound out of place on a Monopoly Child Star Searchers record. Rad stuff. Thick vinyl, full color gatefold sleeve, and yeah, probably limited.

SUN ARAW Phynx (Not Not Fun) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Take the blown-out pop psych euphoria of Les Rallizes Denudes, throw in a dash of Parson Sound's hypnotic kraut feel, and you're getting close to honing in on the futuristic yet tribal psych jams effortlessly conjured up by Cameron Stallones, a member of Long Beach's Magic Lantern who goes it alone as Sun Araw. From the prolific folks at Not Not Fun, Phynx resounds with a heavy California daze, a drugged out, bluesy blend of face melting drones, fuzzed out guitar riffs, and repetitive clangy rhythms. Ritualistic and somehow modern, Sun Araw walks the line between pop and drone. Moments of the album are dense with catastrophic buzzing thickness, and other parts are more rockin' with a pretty defined heavy groovin' psych feel. All very guitar based, we're reminded of dudes like Ignatz, but less lo-fi and intimate, definitely more rhythmic and percussive. We're even sort of reminded of Brightblack's older stuff, heavy lethargic blues on Robitussin.
But Phynx is much more dense and perplexing. Layers of fuzz on top of layers of vocals on top of layers of drones...you get the idea. A seriously engaging album, there's tons of variety and small details to get all wrapped up in. And not to mention the sweet picture on the cover of some mysterious blindfolded figure in the dim hall of a library! Don't miss out on this California tribal psych gem!

SUN ARAW Sun Ark (Not Not Fun) 7" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two words we never thought we'd need these two words in a review of solo lysergic space psych outfit Sun Araw: Funky. And Reggae. But indeed this latest slab of effects drenched trip out, indeed requires both of those descriptors to do it justice.
The A side is all fuzzy bloopy bass, over a groovy loping rhythm, lots of wah guitar, drenched in effects, little squalls of psychedelic freakout here and there, super stripped down, synthy and spacey and yeah, a little bit funky. But in some weird way it totally works.
The flipside offers up, right out of the gate, some funky timbales, more wah guitars, he whole thing pretty blissed out and druggy for sure, with super tripped out stereo panning and warm wheezing organ, and a distinct and undeniable rocksteady vibe.
We're trying to remember if these tendencies were present in past Sun Araw outings, and we feel like they must have been, but it's not until now that they were allowed to blossom, seems strange, and it definitely sort of is, but we're digging it. Try to imagine the a totally drugged out, abstract, fuzzy, reverby, effects doused slightly funky, lo-fi reggae drone space jam, and this is probably it!

SUN CIRCLE Lessness (Arbor Infinity) lp 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We first discovered the raga drone duo Sun Circle via a cd-r sent to the store, direct from the band, and as mentioned in the review of that very cd-r, somehow the disc got lost, only to be discovered literally YEARS later, only for us to finally listen to it, and be totally blown away. The band was as adept at growling howling humming dronemusic as it was at ephemeral atmospheric ambience, crafting their own variations of classic ragas, filtered through an aesthetic as informed by modern music, noise rock and who knows what else, as it was Indian classical music and 20th century minimalism.
On their newest, Lessness, as the title suggests, the band do indeed work with less, each side of the double lp performed on single instrument, either drums, tamboura or gong, but in doing so, manage to transform the minimal instrumentation into something lush and expansive, rhythmic and hypnotic.
The first side is just drums, and is most definitely the most minimal of the bunch, maybe too minimal for some, with just a very simple spare rhythm, pounded out on a drum, maybe several, but the sound is spare, and simple, but listen close, and listen for the whole of the side, and the sounds grow ever more complex, on the surface the rhythm never wavers, but as you get sucked in, the sounds do seems to come alive, the overtones, the subtle shifts in timbre, constantly evolving, but so subtly, it might not be noticeable unless you're in it for the long haul and have those headphones strapped on tight. Total rhythmic raga bliss.
The second two sides are both produced with just tambouras, and the sound is incredible, thick and layered, gorgeously lush, an organic, and living sound, the subtle colors of the sound reflective and prismatic, constantly shifting, intense and mesmerizing and strangely meditative and psychedelic. On the second tamboura side, the sound becomes a bit more structured, but only a bit, buzzing steel strings, subtly rhythmic, locked into a looped groove, deep rumbles beneath a repeated fragmented melody, the most traditionally raga sounding of the bunch, and like the two sides before it, seemingly unchanging, as if it really was looped, but this is the sort of sound that rewards deep listening, and blossoms into a world of complex sound, just below the surface.
Especially on the final side, which is all gongs, and very much like the Karen Stackpole records on Dielectric, the sounds is deep and resonant and so sonorous, ringing out, layered here and there, but more often left to just hover in space, before fading away, only to have another tone take its place, no processing, just the glorious sound of vibrating metal, dark and mysterious, meditative and hypnotic. So gorgeous.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!

SUN CIRCLE s/t (Lichen) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available as a super limited lp, ONLY 525 COPIES, housed in cool heavy weight jackets with paste on artwork and a gold metallic sticker on the back. Includes an insert with liner notes, each one hand numbered. Here's what we had to say about the cd version:
This mysterious musical missive showed up here way back in 2007, and quietly slipped through the cracks, and sat huddled on a shelf in the closet, until just a matter of days ago, it was so long ago, we're ashamed to admit, we don't remember much about the band or what they're all about, so we'll go purely on sound (which is probably what we should do anyway).
Two looooong tracks, the first begins quite strangely, a thick undulating dronescape made from voices, howls and hums and croons woven into a strangely soothing wall of textured sound, we kept expecting it to shift but it never does, 19 minutes of pure voice raga, it's super intense, and so raw and intimate and organic, when it ends, like all dense drones, it feels like all the air gets sucked out of the room.
After the fervent intensity of the first track, the tranquil beginning of track two is almost jarring in it's softness, drifting clouds of bells and chimes, spread out over lots of space. Once again, we kept expecting the song to kick in, but instead, it's another exercise in space and tension, ultra minimal and percussive, the chimes and bells ring out and are allowed to decay to almost near silence, before the next flurry of tinkling and chiming. Really gorgeous and strangely zen.
This sort of stuff requires dedicated close listening, headphones help, but that sort of listening is indeed rewarded.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

SUN CIRCLE s/t (Lichen) 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.
This mysterious musical missive showed up here way back in 2007, and quietly slipped through the cracks, and sat huddled on a shelf in the closet, until just a matter of days ago when we re-discovered it, and thus, we present to you, the last 10 copies of this long out of print cd-r, released in a limited edition of 100.
It was so long ago, we're ashamed to admit, we don't remember much about the band or what they're all about, so we'll go purely on sound (which is probably what we should do anyway).
Two looooong tracks, the first begins quite strangely, a thick undulating dronescape made from voices, howls and hums and croons woven into a strangely soothing wall of textured sound, we kept expecting it to shift but it never does, 19 minutes of pure voice raga, it's super intense, and so raw and intimate and organic, when it ends, like all dense drones, it feels like all the air gets sucked out of the room.
After the fervent intensity of the first track, the tranquil beginning of track two is almost jarring in it's softness, drifting clouds of bells and chimes, spread out over lots of space. Once again, we kept expecting the song to kick in, but instead, it's another exercise in space and tension, ultra minimal and percussive, the chimes and bells ring out and are allowed to decay to almost near silence, before the next flurry of tinkling and chiming. Really gorgeous and strangely zen.
This sort of stuff requires dedicated close listening, headphones help, but that sort of listening is indeed rewarded.
Packaged in a beautiful cardstock sleeve, with paste on liner notes and abstract cover, a metallic gold sticker, and a cd spray painted gold. Once again, there were only 100 copies and that was a year ago, so these are definitely the last copies we'll see...
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

SUN CIRCLE Tapes (Autumn) 2cd 23.00
Originally released for a Japanese tour with Grouper and Ben Vida, Tapes is a collection of, yep, you guessed it, tapes, from this drone duo, whose last two records were big hits around here, SC's sound a super minimal blend of hushed layered dronemusic and cosmic ragas, often creating epic pieces from single sound sources, like the gong piece on the Lessness lp, which might be one of our favorite Sun Circle tracks ever, a sprawl of deep sonorous shimmering metallic thrum.
Tapes, as we mentioned, collects a handful of previously released, and now out of print, cassette releases, and offers them on cd for the first time, along with two previously unreleased tracks, none of the songs here titled, instead, presented with a description of where they came from, how they were created and sometimes how limited the original release was.
Six tracks, the longest 22:24, the shortest 13:05, all gorgeously minimal, and each displaying a different side of Sun Circle's sound. The opener is from a 2007 split tape limited to just 50 copies, and is a 21+ minute synthscape/rage, beginning with pulsing analog synths, very tranced out and hypnotic, before a metallic buzz begins to form, and slowly builds, eventually blossoming into a thick layered drone, rich and lustrous, there also seems to be voices, all these sounds woven into thins softly undulating streak of warm effulgent sound, which continues on even as that initial synth fades out, finishing with a hazy bit of metallic shimmer and buzz. the second track is from another split tape, this one from 2008 and limited to 100 copies, and begins as a slow burn bit of abstract drone/drift, smoldering and humid, that initial drone laced with streaks of complimentary sound, longform tones, swirling overtones, the whole thing almost sounding like a symphony in slow motion. Hazy and shimmery and dreamy. The final track on the first cd is a collage of ALL of the live sets from a 2007 tour, just voice and organ, but 11 different performances layered on top of each other, resulting in a sweet slab of thick warm blur and buzz, super mesmerizing, culminating in an explosive noisy final movement.
The second disc begins with a live track, taken from a 2009 tour tape, limited to 100 copies, and begins as a delicate drift, which is soon joined by some bagpipe like buzz (harmonium?), wheezing chords over that warm minimal shimmer, very ritualistic sounding, just drifting and drifting, until the second half where the sound seems to become more muted, the edges worn to a dull glow, the sound a bleary blurred expanse of soft metallic shimmer, driven by a simple rhythmic beating drum. The second track is taken from the same tour tape, and was recorded in 2009 right here in SF at the Swedish American Hall, and is the most rhythmic of the bunch, starting out with some tribal drumming, all over a distant low end thrum, it's not until about 3 minutes in, that a buzz begins to surface, quickly burying the drums beneath its unwavering, slow shifting whir, some serious soft noise mesmer, that goes on and on and on, completely sucking the listener in, before fading out about 12 minutes later, leaving just those drums to finish things off.
Finally, the last track is previously unreleased improvisation, overtone singing performed in a acoustical echo chamber, and then layered over recordings of gongs from an earlier tour, and if there's anything we can think of that could sound better than that, we sure don't know what. The voices and gongs wreathed in reverb and natural echo and delay, the notes stretching way out, all manner of harmonies and overtones, totally heavenly minimal dronemusic, and barring a brief squall of crunchy distorted noise, the whole track is hushed and delicate, drifty and dreamlike. So good.
Nice packaging too, two color silkscreened origami style folded cardstock sleeves, with a printed insert, featuring all the liner notes.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"

SUN CITY GIRLS 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda (Locust) 3lp 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Sun City Girls fans rejoice, the vinyl reissue of their epic crowning acheivement "330,003 Crossdressers..." is upon us. Originally released in 1996 on double cd only, "Crossdressers" almost certainly surpassed "Torch of the Mystics" as the Sun City Girls' most highly regarded recording. The tracks contained herein capture the Girls at their most creepy, beautiful and just downright inspired. Whether it's the plodingly gloomy song "CCC" with its rumbling piano, ominous guitar line, howled chorus and rain, or the So.Cal-esque punk arrangements of traditional sounding East Asian songs like "Soi Cowboy" or the numerous free-jazz meets Javanese gamelan experiments (actually sounds much better than the capsulated description might suggest), the Girls are at the peak of their game on these tracks. Possibly the most remarkable moment of all is the faux-Indian fusion acid-psych jam between the Girls and long time collaborator violinist Eyvind Kang, in which Kang convincingly plays Indian style violin improvisations with gentle accompaniment from the Girls before building into one of the most impressive freak-out frenzies the band has ever commited to tape. On the CD edition the track, "Ghost Ghat Trespass", had been wedded to another live jam between SCG and Kang "Sussmeier", but the two are separated at the spine on the LP with the first taking up the end of side 5 and the latter the beginning of side 6. Methinks this is a better setup any how because after listening to "Ghost Ghat..." it's nice not to be thrown immediately into the skronk of "Sussmeier" so directly. Which brings me to the issue of track arrangement. Though all the tracks included on the CD are present here, they are not in the same order. Which isn't that much of a problem, certainly not for those who've never owned the cd and have yet to wear a groove into their head of the way things "ought to be." The set is beautifully packaged in a double gatefold cover (though it appears the front cover image darkened a bit in the process) and includes a couple extra photos that did not come in the original package including a nice photo of the trio which many may recognize from their interview in The Wire a ways back and another of one of them exotic nekkid lady dancers they like so much. A final note, on the inside reads "this is a limited edition vinyl only release." You know what that means.
RealAudio clip: "Soi Cowboy"
RealAudio clip: "Lies Up The Niger"
RealAudio clip: "Ghost Ghat Trespass (excerpt 1)"
RealAudio clip: "Ghost Ghat Trespass (excerpt 2)"
RealAudio clip: "CCC"

SUN CITY GIRLS 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda (Get Back) 3lp box 68.00
ONCE AGAIN IN PRINT ON VINYL... at a not so nice price, unfortunately, but exquisitely presented in a swank box with some fancy printed inner sleeves, an appropriate presentation for one of this band's crowning achievements.
Originally released in 1996 on double cd the later as a triple lp (both those versions now out of print), "Crossdressers" almost certainly comes damn close to the sheer genius of "Torch of the Mystics", the Sun City Girls' most highly regarded recording. The tracks contained herein capture the Girls at their most creepy, beautiful and just downright inspired. Whether it's the ploddingly gloomy song "CCC" with its rumbling piano, ominous guitar line, howled chorus and rain, or the SoCal-esque punk arrangements of traditional sounding East Asian songs like "Soi Cowboy", or the numerous free-jazz meets Javanese gamelan experiments, the Girls are at the peak of their game on these tracks. Possibly the most remarkable moment of all is the faux-Indian fusion acid-psych jam between the Girls and long time collaborator violinist Eyvind Kang, in which Kang convincingly plays Indian style violin improvisations with gentle accompaniment from the Girls before building into one of the most impressive freak-out frenzies the band has ever committed to tape.
So goddamn good. Grab one of these before it goes out of print AGAIN.

SUN CITY GIRLS 98.6 Is Death (Abduction) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
After an almost three year hiatus (Sublime Frequencies seems to have been garnering the Girls' attention and finances these days) the Sun City Girls have racheted up the Carnival Folklore Resurrection project with two new titles, both of them live performances by the trio on the radio. This second set, CFR volume 13 was recorded on Kim Sorise's show on WFPK in Louisville, Kentucky in April of 2004. Both sets are quite similar in execution, spanning the gamut of SCG's musical tendencies. Either of these performances could be seen as a great introduction to the group or, equally, one for serious fans only. It's all here: overseas shortwave and field recordings, Uncle Jim rants, skronky improv madness, pretty instrumental interludes, re-engineered soundtrack themes and bizarre mixes. If there's a noticeable difference in the balance of material on the two releases we'd say that Radio One & Two has more Uncle Jim ranting and field recording mixing, while 98.6 Is Death has more actual live rocking, jamming and skronking in the studio.
MPEG Stream: "Sangkala #4 / Sour Smells In Nevada"
MPEG Stream: "Man Without A Harmonica"

SUN CITY GIRLS A Bullet Through The Last Temple (Abduction) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Volume 4 in this never-ending (well, 150 volume) monthy series of Sun City Girls releases is here. It's jazz. It was recorded live in Seattle, December, 1997. It is now beginning to sink in that they really are going to put out a new cd every month for the rest of eternity (well, 150 months). This will really separate the true SCG lovers from the mere SCG likers, won't it now?

SUN CITY GIRLS Beginnings Dark (Enterruption) lp 36.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
An absolutely essential, vinyl-only Sun City Girls release, one of our all time favorite SCG records since Torch Of The Mystics. The bad news is, A. it's really expensive, and B. we only got 15 copies and it's totally out of print. So SCG fanatics best act fast if they want one of these, cuz holy shit is this one mindblowing and ear tickling release...
The packaging alone makes this worth the price tag. An ultra thick, eye popping sleeve, housed in a die cut lp slipcase, with metallic embossing on the front. Inside, it's a one sided white vinyl lp, with the flip side gorgeously silkscreened. And there's so much stuff crammed inside the sleeve, it weighs a ton. There's multiple 12"x12" full color flats that seem to be alternate cover art, lots of random sized artwork, all on thick cardstock, two sheets of stickers, a band photo, a childhood photo of SCG Charlie Gocher (who passed away recently) and a page of confusing SCG linernotes from some zine from way back in 1999. Hard to say if that means this was previously released, but none of us have ever heard it.
So when you go to play the record, don't be confused by the needle hovering endlessly on the edge of the disc, it plays from the inside out, backwards, so set the needle down next to the label and let 'er rip. And as if the direction of play was any indicator, the music is almost entirely backwards! And it's amazing. Dark and droney, creepy and haunting, a little bit circusy, but mostly dizzying and hypnotic. Imagine listening to the darkest scariest SCG album backwards.... (and in fact, this is apparently the backwards version of "The Venerable Song (The Meaning Which Is No Longer Known)" from the LP Bright Surroundings Dark Beginnings released on Majora way back in 1993!)...
Haunted vocals and mysterious chants and howls, fluttering flickering flutes all drift and hover over a gorgeous landscape of backwards drones and strange pulsing rhythms, created from that swooping backwards 'ffffzzzzt' sound that music makes in reverse... We weren't sure what to expect, but we've been listening to this nonstop, over and over and over, so goddamn good.
Not sure how limited this was (other than REALLY), and apparently there were a million different variations of color and inserts and whatnot in this already tiny micropressing, but we only have 15, and once these are gone, they are gone forever.

SUN CITY GIRLS Bleach Has Feelings, Too! / To Cover Up Your Right To Live (Eclipse) 2lp 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Eclipse continues with installment number two in their ongoing and immense task of reissuing the entire Sun City Girls cassette catalog. As we discovered with their previous release of the first two cassettes "God Is My Solar System" and "Superpower" they've taken the liberty of both including odds and ends from other cassettes and leaving out bits and pieces here and there to boot. Which is all good and well, as it leaves those dedicated fans who hold onto the original cassettes with a special keepsake and allows SCG neophytes and collectors alike to both enjoy a time capsule look at the trio in its infancy and a handsome limited edition package to share with our kids when we retire. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The tracks taken from "Bleach Has Feelings, Too!" come to us from recordings made by the Girls between 1982 and 1984. It's a snapshot of three precocious teenagers as they fuck around with a radio evangelist's call-in show, spin some sex records that would make the makers of Flexi-Sex blush and lay down the groundwork for their trademark punk rock free jazz skronk. The tracks on "To Cover Up Your Right To Live", culled from 1983 and 1985 recordings, present yet another disparate facet of the SCG aesthetic, namely that of the (ir)reverent cover tune. Along with fuck you style jams to VU's "Waitin For My Man" and "The Summertime Blues" there's also some kick ass takes on the theme to the "Wild World of Animals", "Caravan", and "Back Stabbers". Forget the album's shortcomings in regards to its definitive aspirations. This is a fine gatefold edition with great photos (demonstrating once again that the Girls are the best dressed men in show business) and, like the cassettes from where this comes, will be long gone and out of print in short time anyhow.

SUN CITY GIRLS Bright Surroundings, Dark Beginnings (Majora) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Further classic SCG's vinyl makes it onto cd, in this case, featuring three long & live tracks.

SUN CITY GIRLS Cameo Demons And Their Manifestations (Abduction) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Limited to 1000 copies, here's the first installment in a series (of indeterminate number) dubbed Carnival Folklore Resurrection by the always confounding Sun City Girls. Six tracks, all new, recorded live in Seattle 1997. Apparently improvised, and of course not exactly easy listening. Sun City Girls fans know what they're getting into. Newcomers should instead start with all-time SCG classic "Torch of the Mystics".

SUN CITY GIRLS Carl The Barber (I Don't Feel A Thing) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A-side is the Sun City Girls uber-lo-fi punk rock freak out of the same name (a version of which appears also on "Libyan Dream" in the Carnival Folklore Series). The B-side is a field recording of someone getting their hair cut by a barber named "Carl". True story.

SUN CITY GIRLS Dante's Disneyland Inferno (Locust) 3lp 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As promised, Locust Music has just re-issued the Sun City Girls' Dante's Disneyland Inferno. Long out of print, and never before released on vinyl, DDI was originally released in 1996 along side the fabulous 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda. Unlike 330,003 Crossdressers, Dante's Disneyland inferno is less likely to appear on anyone's "Sun City Girls album to own if you had to pick only one" choice. DDI is pretty much the Girls "spoken word" album (though not without its share of singing, of which there is much on here to boot) and as such is generally only good for one or two listens, kind of like God Speed You Black Emperor. Dominated primarily by the voice of Charley Gocher and accompanied by himself, the Bishop Bros., Scott Colburn + some special guests, the album isn't necessarily bad, it just doesn't lend itself to many repeat listens. The musical accompaniment to Gocher's sordid and seedy tales run the gamut of the SCG musical experience: off kilter beat jazz, improv. skronkery, world music tomfoolery and gloomy-folk freak out. And the poetics / songs themselves are two parts Grimm's Fairy Tales, one part Current 93 and 1.666 parts Ethel Merman on PCP. The end result of which is like a seriously disillusioned Tom Waits or a satanically possessed Violent Femmes, take your pick. As a bonus, you lucky vinyl buyers get an additional photo of the Girls and a comic adaptation of the song "The Brothers Unconnected" within this deluxe, double gatefold sleeve edition.
RealAudio clip: "A Secret Revealed Unwittingly"
RealAudio clip: "Helen Waite"

SUN CITY GIRLS Dante's Disneyland Inferno (Get Back) 3lp 56.00
Get Back recently reissued the Sun City Girls' fabulous 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda opus on (triple) vinyl, to the delight of many (despite the high price tag). Now they've also just reissued Dante's Disneyland Inferno as well. Both albums had been done in the vinyl format before, by Locust, but went out of print ages ago. As did the original cd versions, which date from 1996. Of these two releases, though, Dante's Disneyland inferno is less likely to appear on anyone's "Sun City Girls album to own if you had to pick only one" choice. As we said when it originally came out, DDI is pretty much the Girls "spoken word" album, one of 'em anyway (though not without its share of singing, of which there is much on here too), and as such is generally only good for one or two listens... Dominated primarily by the voice of the late Charley Gocher and accompanied by himself, the Bishop Bros., Scott Colburn + some special guests, the album isn't necessarily bad, it just doesn't lend itself to many repeat listens. The musical accompaniment to Gocher's sordid and seedy tales run the gamut of the SCG musical experience: off kilter beat jazz, improv skronkery, world music tomfoolery and gloomy-folk freakout. And the poetics / songs themselves are two parts Grimm's Fairy Tales, one part Current 93 and 1.666 parts Ethel Merman on PCP. The end result of which is like a seriously disillusioned Tom Waits or a Satanically possessed Violent Femmes, take your pick.
That said, we know some folks are gonna HAVE to have this, so here it is, in a nice box package like 330,003. Definitely worth a spin or two at least. And who knows, maybe it's better than we remember. At the time, we thought Godspeed You Black Emperor featured too much "spoken word" too!

SUN CITY GIRLS Dulce OST (Abduction) cd 16.98
It's Christmastime for Sun City Girls fans it seems... well it's almost Xmas anyway for everybody as we write this, but what we mean is that some hard to find gems from the SCG's extensive and bizarre discography are finally finding their way back into circulation, with several long out of print LP titles getting cd re-release on Abduction in recent months. Sad as it is that the SCGs are no more (the trio's drummer Charles Goucher tragically a victim of cancer earlier this year) at least it will be a while before they run out of recordings to reissue, as this prolific band's back catalog of obscurities goes way back to the early '80s...
This particular item, a soundtrack (or is it? the film "was never completed" and perhaps was never begun, either), was originally released on limited edition vinyl in 1998. Based on this music though, we'd LOVE to see this film, if it did in fact exist. According to a "reliable" source (Alan Bishop of the Sun City Girls, in the liner notes) the story goes that the SCGs were approached by a mysterious Japanese film director to provide the music to his film about a secret underground alien base in New Mexico. This alleged director turned out to be a member of the infamous Aum Shinrikyo cult, perpetrators of the sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995. Unfazed, the SCGs took the commission... but never heard from the Japanese man again. Hmm. Well we're happy that the SCGs followed through and produced this album (OR, made up that story, and produced this album).
On it, they blend delicate, melodic moments of overwrought cinematic beauty with the usual surreal SCG shenanigans. There's breathy, wordless vocals, industrial-strength noise, improv clatter, and cocktail-jazz flourishes... it's weird, it's spooky, it's sometimes quite lovely. Now, while we know the Sun City Girls could have easily done all this by themselves, they actually got some help from their friends, this album featuring contributions from violinist Eyvind Kang, clarinetist Jessie Miller, and last but not least, Japanese spazzprog drums/bass duo The Ruins (Tatsuya Yoshida and Ryuichi Masuda)!! Ends up sounding something like Mike Patton's Fantomas attempting to make music for a cattle mutilations movie, in the imagined style of a '70s Italian soundtrack, as if released on ESP-Disk (whew! stretched out that implausible string of doubtful comparisons didn't we...).
MPEG Stream: "Dulce (Main Title)"
MPEG Stream: "Electro Bovine Method"
MPEG Stream: "Descent To Level 7"

SUN CITY GIRLS Folk Songs of the Rich and Evil / Exotica on $5 a Day (Eclipse) 2lp 21.00
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Cassette archive reissue number four from Eclipse brings us two more long out of print Sun City Girls cassettes. Like the previous releases, these LPs do not definitively reproduce those old cassettes, but both include tracks previously unreleased and lack the inclusion of several tracks on those original cassettes. Folk Songs of the Rich and Evil comes out of the Girls' old stomping grounds of Phoenix, Arizona circa 1985. Through and through this one's an avant-punk-free-jazz-nightmare, demographically designed to fuck with the hopes and aspirations of the ethno rock loving crowd. Elliott likens Alan's fever pitched vocals to that of sleep talker Dion McGregor. The tracks on Exotica on $5 a Day come primarily from 1983 and 1985, also recorded in and around Arizona. For the tracks on side A brothers Alan and Richard drop their guitar and bass to join Charlie in a maniacal tribal faux-Native American drum and vocal jam. Ironically enough, the final -- bonus -- track on this side "Hopi Ceremonious" was recorded at a Big Mountain benefit in 1986. Side B is a set of droney improvised tunes, the likes of which must certainly be seen as sowing the seeds for a future No Neck Blues Band.

SUN CITY GIRLS Fresh Kill Of A Cape Hunting Dog / Def In Italy (Eclipse) 2lp 19.98
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Another in the Eclipse series of LP reissues of old Sun City Girls cassettes. If Byram was back from Java we'd have him explain all about it, as he's the big SCG expert 'round here, but we figure better to get this listed now, before it sells out, rather than wait for Byram to get back and shake off the jet lag. Plus how weird would it be for him to write about the Sun City Girls' faux-ethno shenannigans after having been in the real world locale from which they take so much inspiration? So, SCG fans, you need to know (perhaps) this: Fresh Kill Of A Cape Hunting Dog and Def In Italy (ugh) were both Cloaven cassette releases from 1987, although recorded from '83-'85 and on tour in '84, respectively. This luxurious gatefold vinyl edition is limited to a mere one thousand copies. Four sides of high weirdness you probably want real bad.

SUN CITY GIRLS Fruit Of The Womb / Polite Deception (Eclipse) 2lp 27.00
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This is the fifth in the Cloaven Cassette reissues from the Sun City Girls on vinyl. There were 23 of said cassettes which the Girls released themselves from 1987 to 1990, although some of the material dates back to their beginning in the early '80s. These two sets of recordings were recorded in 1986, most of which features live recordings of the 'Girls free improv / middle-eastern skronk dotted with some choice songs of their mangled psyche-punk including a live version of their single "Sev Asher." Like all of the previous Eclipse 2LP sets, not all of the original cassette has been rescued and preserved on vinyl, BUT there are some unreleased extras which do make their way onto these very nicely packaged sets. We only were able to get a handful, and when they're gone, they're gone...

SUN CITY GIRLS Funeral Mariachi (Abduction) cd 17.98
Yay! Repressed and back in stock!!
This recent Record Of The Week, NOW AVAILABLE ON CD!!! Packaged in a mini-lp style sleeve.
We had long heard rumors that the Sun City Girls had been working on a cinematic album as something of a follow-up to Torch Of The Mystics and 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda, two of our all-time favorite, classic albums from the Girls' idiosyncratic catalogue of punky psychedelia dissolved through Southeast Asian pop, free jazz, and Ennio Morricone soundtracks. But with the tragic death of drummer, poet, and polyglot savant Charles Goucher in 2007, it seemed that the Girls would end their career with the grand tease of an album of this sort never to be released. Fortunately, those recordings were not the stuff of urban legend or of unfounded fantasy, and the Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop has finally completed the album with the help of long time SCG cohort Scott Colburn! So here it is, the final SCGs album, and it's a worthy (and really quite accessible) capstone to their idiosyncratic discography.
Morricone has long been an influence and inspiration for the Sun City Girls, and especially Alan Bishop. In fact, he's been responsible for some of the best Morricone compilations issued over the years (i.e. Morricone 2000 and the Crime & Dissonance 2cd on Ipecac). As much as Bishop had been infatuated with Morricone, the homages to Morricone had been heavily disfigured and mutilated within the playfully murderous aesthetic of the Sun City Girls, where nothing is sacred and everything is fair game with the Girls' crosscultural appropriation. But for Funeral Mariachi, the Morricone riffs are situated in beguiling songs wholly devoid of the Sun City Girls' curmudgeonly fuck-you stances. In other words, Funeral Marachi is a damn good record. So good that it will probably invite a lot more people to investigate the wonderfully frustrating and woefully inaccessible back catalogue of the Sun City Girls.
Introspective, haunting, and at times beautiful, Funeral Mariachi opens with "Ben's Radio" where the Bishop brothers breakthrough a mid-tempo spy thriller number with a staccato duet of call and response avant-weirdness coupled with blurting atonal horns. Unmistakably Sun City Girls. In "Black Orchid", the group turns in the first of many Morricone references, where the Girls' are equally enamored by the incidental vocal melodies that worked throughout all of his scores. Here the Girls' offer a sad ballad for Richard Bishop's always stunning acoustic guitar and Alan's falsetto vocals bellowing his polyglot language. "Blue West," with its high-lonesome chorales, bad-ass guitar licks, and a mournful arrangements, could have been straight out of a John Ford movie. "Holy Ground" might as well be the Girls' answer to Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls to the Heart of the Sun" with Alan's caterwauling voice droning behind the diabolically chanted vocals, beautiful guitar leads, shadowy atmospherics, and weirdly playful calliope melodies. "Mineral Wells" and "El Solo" turn towards the more saccharine moments of the Morricone oeuvre with loungy piano, reverb whistled melodies, and actual female vocals (and not Alan mimicking a woman's voice). "Come Maddalena" is in fact a Morricone cover, from the 1971 Italian film Maddalena, perhaps known only for its soundtrack. Again, a rather moody atmosphere is set for plaintive, yet fuzzed out guitar melody. So fucking good!
MPEG Stream: "Ben's Radio"
MPEG Stream: "Black Orchid"
MPEG Stream: "Blue West"
MPEG Stream: "Come Maddalena"
MPEG Stream: "Funeral Mariachi"

SUN CITY GIRLS Funeral Mariachi (Abduction) lp 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We had long heard rumors that the Sun City Girls had been working on a cinematic album as something of a follow-up to Torch Of The Mystics and 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda, two of our all-time favorite, classic albums from the Girls' idiosyncratic catalogue of punky psychedelia dissolved through Southeast Asian pop, free jazz, and Ennio Morricone soundtracks. But with the tragic death of drummer, poet, and polyglot savant Charles Goucher in 2007, it seemed that the Girls would end their career with the grand tease of an album of this sort never to be released. Fortunately, those recordings were not the stuff of urban legend or of unfounded fantasy, and the Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop has finally completed the album with the help of long time SCG cohort Scott Colburn! So here it is, the final SCGs album, and it's a worthy (and really quite accessible) capstone to their idiosyncratic discography.
Morricone has long been an influence and inspiration for the Sun City Girls, and especially Alan Bishop. In fact, he's been responsible for some of the best Morricone compilations issued over the years (i.e. Morricone 2000 and the Crime & Dissonance 2cd on Ipecac). As much as Bishop had been infatuated with Morricone, the homages to Morricone had been heavily disfigured and mutilated within the playfully murderous aesthetic of the Sun City Girls, where nothing is sacred and everything is fair game with the Girls' crosscultural appropriation. But for Funeral Mariachi, the Morricone riffs are situated in beguiling songs wholly devoid of the Sun City Girls' curmudgeonly fuck-you stances. In other words, Funeral Marachi is a damn good record. So good that it will probably invite a lot more people to investigate the wonderfully frustrating and woefully inaccessible back catalogue of the Sun City Girls.
Introspective, haunting, and at times beautiful, Funeral Mariachi opens with "Ben's Radio" where the Bishop brothers breakthrough a mid-tempo spy thriller number with a staccato duet of call and response avant-weirdness coupled with blurting atonal horns. Unmistakably Sun City Girls. In "Black Orchid", the group turns in the first of many Morricone references, where the Girls' are equally enamored by the incidental vocal melodies that worked throughout all of his scores. Here the Girls' offer a sad ballad for Richard Bishop's always stunning acoustic guitar and Alan's falsetto vocals bellowing his polyglot language. "Blue West," with its high-lonesome chorales, bad-ass guitar licks, and a mournful arrangements, could have been straight out of a John Ford movie. "Holy Ground" might as well be the Girls' answer to Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls to the Heart of the Sun" with Alan's caterwauling voice droning behind the diabolically chanted vocals, beautiful guitar leads, shadowy atmospherics, and weirdly playful calliope melodies. "Mineral Wells" and "El Solo" turn towards the more saccharine moments of the Morricone oeuvre with loungy piano, reverb whistled melodies, and actual female vocals (and not Alan mimicking a woman's voice). "Come Maddalena" is in fact a Morricone cover, from the 1971 Italian film Maddalena, perhaps known only for its soundtrack. Again, a rather moody atmosphere is set for plaintive, yet fuzzed out guitar melody. So fucking good!
The vinyl of Funeral Mariachi is undoubtedly limited, but a cd is scheduled for release later in October, we're told.

SUN CITY GIRLS God Is My Solar System/Superpower (Eclipse) 2lp 18.98
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Eclipse has undertaken the ambitious yet noble task of re-releasing the entire Sun City Girls cassette recordings -- some of which date back to the band's pre-Placebo origins. This first re-issue (in a series of ten) includes the first two releases by the band, taken from their cassettes "God Is My Solar System" and "Superpower". Recorded between 1982 and 1983, these tracks show the Girls in all their youthful exuberance -- an unselfconscious & spontaneous collision of punk rock and free jazz-- and probably made when the members of bands like the No Neck Blues Band were just a twinkle in their mamas' eyes. Sadly for SCG completists, we aren't entirely sure whether these two slabs of wax actually contain all the tracks on first two cassettes. While none of us personally owns either, according to Scott Colburn's very complete discography -- http://www.gravelvoice.com/scg/scg.html -- there are quite a few tracks missing and some included which weren't even on the original cassettes. But before you poo poo this and the upcoming LP's as unworthy of your attention, know that you a) will only be able to find these tracks otherwise on crappy nth generation dubs and b) that these handsomely pressed gatefold double LPs are limited to 1000 copies. On top of that this album cover is attractively decorated with nice archival live photos of Sun City Girls demonstrating to all who stand before them just who the Gods, or Godesses, of costume rock are.
MPEG Stream: "This Is My Name"
MPEG Stream: "Invocation"

SUN CITY GIRLS Handsome Stranger, the (Abduction) cd 14.98
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The 'Girls have finally gotten around to releasing volume 8 in their Carnival Folklore Ressurection series and is it worth the wait? Err... well, the dwindling fanbase around here say "nay!" But then again, we haven't been the staunchest supporters of this series for the most part. Says here the tracks here were recorded between 1997 and 1998 at Gravelvoice, GBV and Maple Leaf. Mr Charles Gocher serves as appointed rantster on this disc with the Bishop brothers noodling around for accompaniment -- think Dante's Disneyland Inferno without so much inspiration. Gocher's forced kookiness is tiresome at best, but Jim probably said it best at our second listen through the album: (in his finest impersonation of the comic book store owner guy on the Simpsons) "Worst Sun City Girls Album EVER!" The music itself ranges from the usual clack n' scratch creepery to tongue-in-cheek jazz with a snippet of a field recording from Bali thrown in at the very end for good measure.
RealAudio clip: "Shadowland"
RealAudio clip: "Grease That Lightnin' Bolt"

SUN CITY GIRLS High Asia Lo-Pacific (Abduction) 2cd 16.98
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"High Asia Lo-Pacific" comprise volumes 9 and 10 of the Sun City Girls' Carnival Folklore Resurrection series. High Asia, disc one, finds the Girls returning to their quasi-ethno folk which they seem to do so well. Using primarily stringed instruments -- guitars and lutes, bowed and plucked -- augmented with some nice harmonium work and a bit of piano. Middle Eastern flavored melodies are the vehicle of choice for most of these tracks with the Girls using their trademarked falsettos and nasal murmuring. Gocher's drumming remains low in the mix throughout with the exception of the sort of rocking "Philly SOUL LAO" and "Old Glory's Fade". Three tracks of the Sun City Girls' alter ego as a dark-hippy jam band are the exception to the rule in this collection and their presence represents more of a refreshing change than the wearying endlessness that an entire album of such No Neck Blues Band-esque skronkery can be. Disc two, Lo-Pacific, is a 40 minute mix-track of short wave and field recordings. With the exception of a section in the middle entitled "Blood of Guadalajara" -- contributed by John Vallier -- featuring a radio play of a 'cock' fight (get it?) , all the recordings were made by the Sun City Girls during their travels throughout Asia between 1988 and 1998. Quite a nice montage of street scenes, odd animal noises, calls to prayer, arguments, strange radio transmissions and more. There's even a snippet of a numbers station (Russian maybe?) slipped into the mix. The inclusion of this second disc definitely pushes this release near the top of the list of our favorites in the C.F.R. series.
RealAudio clip: "Draco Kilik"
RealAudio clip: "Qator Sidaan Yong"
RealAudio clip: "Ruby SOUL LAO"
RealAudio clip: "Lo-Pacific (excerpt 1)"
RealAudio clip: "Lo-Pacific (excerpt 2)"
RealAudio clip: "Lo-Pacific (excerpt 3)"

SUN CITY GIRLS Insignificanto (Empirical) 7" 5.98
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SUN CITY GIRLS Jacks Creek (Abduction) cd 16.98
This record is fucked. Maybe you're thinking that "fucked" is one of the best compliments we can offer for a record. But seriously, this record is fucked-up. The Sun City Girls have long been known for the devilish personas which adopted liberally from the South East Asian pop and Bollywood scores. Slowly, erratic Beat poetry, bizarrely theatrical ideas, and uncomfortable experiments began to creep into their recordings. Jacks Creek was one of the records that had long been reviled as one of the Sun City Girl's biggest red flags for a serious lack of quality control. Loosely, a 'hillbilly' album, Jack's Creek begins with the Goucher and the Bishop Brothers muttering in badly rendered, redneck drawls about the terrible odor coming from an Indian burial mound somewhere nearby. For 10 minutes three men groans and whisper their fears, for one of the more convoluted extracts from the Sun City Girls catalogue. Eventually, a back-porch improv jam of warble and strum on harmonica, banjo, and voice brings this track to a conclusion, leaving more questions than answers. The hobo freak-folk of Jacks Creek with more hoots, false starts, and faux-drunk dialogue than actual songs, would certainly turn off anybody looking for an entire album of dramatic psych-punk ecstasy a la Torch Of The Mystics (although a few meandering gems like "Fact The Business" work their way into Jacks Creek). Like we said, this record is fucked.
MPEG Stream: "Gurman"
MPEG Stream: "Useless Stillborn"
MPEG Stream: "Fact The Business"

SUN CITY GIRLS Juggernaut (Abduction) cd 16.98
Alan Bishop of the Sun City Girls has been the curator of many of the finest Ennio Morricone collections, including the brilliant compilation on Ipecac Crime & Dissonance, despite the John Zorn written liner notes that seemed to suggest that Mike Patton had done the compiling. Needless to say, it makes a lot of sense for the Sun City Girls to find their way into the realm of the soundtrack, given Alan Bishop's love of Morricone; and Juggernaut is one of those Sun City Girls soundtracks. While this soundtrack was originally released on vinyl through Abduction back in 1994, the corresponding film by Mark Roman Bodnar and Kyrill Kazemirovitch Protsenko had never been officially released. That said, it did make an appearance at an Italian film festival in 1997; so, it probably is an actual film, and not some fiction propagated as a strange in-joke by the Sun City Girls. But then again...
Anyway, Juggernaut is a pretty good Sun City Girls album. The band had always been a difficult proposition, as they had thrown every idea (from the great notions of smashing Southeast Asian pop melodies with SoCal skate punk energy to the better-in-theory modes of junkyard gamelan via free jazz) at the audience and let them sort out the mess. Juggernaut follows suit, as an entirely instrumental album with the highlights giving nods to the classic SCG album Torch of the Mystics through lysergic guitar solos splattered across acid-punk jams that could easily ground the work of early Flaming Lips or Thinking Fellers, if those bands were way more fucked up. The semi-focused, stoned ritualism that makes up the rest of the album could have had some atmospheric purpose in the original film although they're not out of character for any given Sun City Girls album.
MPEG Stream: "Gravelhead"
MPEG Stream: "Spatial Retreat"
MPEG Stream: "Among All Flat"

SUN CITY GIRLS Libyan Dream (Abduction) cd 14.98
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Volume 7 in the Carnival Folklore Resurrection series, and all four of Aquarius' Sun City Girls heads give it the thumbs up. According to the liner notes the Sun City Girls originally made 50 cassettes of "Libyan Dream" and dropped them off in cassette vendors racks throughout South East Asia in 1993. The majority of the tracks on this disk are in the garage punk -- ethno and otherwise -- vein which the Girls do so well. Some of the tracks might even be familiar to those who've had any of the prolific cassette releases by the band. There's a rocking version of the Ted Nugent's Amboy Dukes' "Journey To the Center of Your Mind" replete with vocals (versions I've heard the Girls do previously were instrumental), and a nice rendition of the theme to "The Wild World of Animals." On the faux ethno-garage tip there's a version of "The Vinegar Stroke" (from Torch of the Mystics) and a great seven minute opus reworking of a traditional number entitled "Sangkala Suite." For those who prefer the Girls' improv free skronk, there is one five minute track here as well as forays in a couple other tracks, including the 14 minute + title track.
RealAudio clip: "Journey To The Center Of The Mind"
RealAudio clip: "Sangkala Suite"

SUN CITY GIRLS Montreal Pop (NCHC) lp 14.98
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SUN CITY GIRLS Napoleon & Josephine: Singles Volume 2 (Abducted) cd 16.98
We were thinking, yay, Singles Volume 2! Singles Volume 1, entitled You're Never Alone With A Cigarette, was soooo good (see our review elsewhere on the site, sadly though it's out of print now).
But... er... well... not yay quite so much. This one is kinda hard to take, though certain diehard SCG fans will doubtless disagree. It's the skits side of their ourvre represented here, rather than the music.
Maybe go for the Master Musicians Of Bukkake's Totem One or Totem Two, instead, if you haven't already.

SUN CITY GIRLS Piasa... Devourer Of Men (Abduction) cd 16.98
So the story goes that a young Italian director named Antonio Pomola got in touch with the Sun City Girls in 1993 to score a film about a giant pre-historic flying reptile terrorizing a 19th Century Native American tribe somewhere in the Midwest. According to the Girls, the film was never completed; and the soundtrack is the only document from the film's creative genesis. There doesn't appear to be any further information about the career or even existence to this Pomola character, beyond the fact that the Sun City Girls composed this soundtrack of fragmented interludes, raga instrumentals, and weirdo atmospherics. Needless to say, the Girls self-released this soundtrack in 1994 on vinyl; only to have it disappear from circulation in quick fashion.
Jump a dozen years into the future, and the soundtrack is available again at last with a cd pressing. Composed immediately after their Juggernaut soundtrack (reviewed elsewhere on this list), the Sun City Girls offered a series of edited fragments, which mostly touch on a psychedelic ritualism which foreshadows the Finnish free-folk splatter of Avarus, Kemialliset Ystavat, and Kuupuu. Faux-indian raga blues drifts into lumbering plods for plenty of chicken scratch guitar noodles, free-jazz drum stumblings, and glossalaic vocals. At times, the Bishop brothers and Charlie Gocher tease us with a glimpse of their mutant songwriting talents; but more often than not, it's sinister atmospheres for gongs, Tibetan horns, and amorphous guitar pluckery.
MPEG Stream: "Thunderbird"
MPEG Stream: "Wingspan Eclipse Of The Moon"

SUN CITY GIRLS Radio One & Two (Abduction) 2cd 19.98
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After an almost three year hiatus (Sublime Frequencies seems to have been garnering the Girls' attention and finances these days) the Sun City Girls have racheted up the Carnival Folklore Resurrection project with two new titles, both of them live performances by the trio on the radio. This first set, CFR volumes 11 & 12, was recorded in November of 2002 on Brian Turner's radio show on WFMU in New Jersey and was actually originally released a year or so ago as a super limited edition available only through the group's website. Both sets are quite similar in execution, spanning the gamut of SCG's musical tendencies. Either of these performances could be seen as a great introduction to the group or, equally, one for serious fans only. It's all here: overseas shortwave and field recordings, Uncle Jim rants, skronky improv madness, pretty instrumental interludes, re-engineered soundtrack themes and bizarre mixes. If there's a noticeable difference in the balance of material on the two releases we'd say that Radio One & Two has more Uncle Jim ranting and field recording mixing, while 98.6 Is Death has more actual live rocking, jamming and skronking in the studio.
MPEG Stream: "Not In My League"
MPEG Stream: "Krung Thep Cut-out"

SUN CITY GIRLS Severed Finger With A Wedding Ring (Abduction) cd 14.98
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How time flies... We're now on volume 5 in the Girls' monthly "Carnival Folklore Ressurection" series. Seven more to go. This one was recorded on March 18th of this year in -- surprize, surprize -- Seattle, Washington. The disk opens with a mock blues piece with curmudgeonly vocals by Mr Gocher, and then proceeds into a rather nice 10 minute, organ led instrumental dirge rock jam. After a track of more Gocher-led rambling (this time more akin to the tracks on "Dante's Disneyland Inferno") the rest of the show is occupied by guitar, bass and drum improv madness. Not exactly crucial, but who is to understand what is it is that Sun City Girls fans really want...

SUN CITY GIRLS Static From The Outside Set (Abduction) cd 14.98
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Ah the Sun City Girls. Ever perplexing and unpredictable... yet reliably weird. It's nice to know there's always the Sun City Girls. It's kinda that "there'll always be an England" feeling. But different. Very different. Anyway, and now we're up to number fourteen in the SCG's "Carnival Folklore Resurrection" series. Static From The Outside Set recorded (or should we say compiled?) for a BBC radio program, On The Wire Lancashire, in the summer of 2005. There's 29 diverse tracks here, many of them collaged tracks-within-tracks edited to simulate the spinning of the radio dial. Highlights? Well there's a lot of almost Jewelled Antlerish tinkering and droning, we liked those cuts quite a bit. The SCGs can do the psychedelic drone folk thing quite well (and they also play on our heartstrings by doing a very faithful cover of "Gently Johnny" from The Wicker Man soundtrack!).
But there's more: fake-jazz ("Tea Boy Attitude", "Django-ized"), Beeheartian skronk ("Iced-Off Broccoli"), interminable talk radio parody ("Sacrifice in the USA"), blues, a limerick, a Brian Wilson song, all sorts of jibber jabber and non sequitur interludes, like the track "Elvis and Machinery" wherein the Colonel tells Elvis, "stay away from that wheelbarrow, you don't know nothin about machinery". You'll go "huh?" but then the Girls will spin that dial and you'll be dealing with something else already. So it's something of a grab bag, but one we sure didn't mind groping around in.
MPEG Stream: "Mysteries Behind The Curtain"
MPEG Stream: "Bacchanalia"
MPEG Stream: "Radio Neocon #3"

SUN CITY GIRLS Sumatran Electric Chair (Abduction) cd 14.98
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Six discs into the Sun City Girls' rather indulgent "Carnival Folklore Resurrection" series and even the most fannish of fans could be forgiven for starting not to care. So, in accordance with their contrary ways, leave it to the SCGs to spring a surprise: this one is probably the best yet in the series, an actual collection of pseudo ethnic psychedelic "pop" songs mixed with mysterious field recordings, both providing much evocative, "exotic" ambience. So, if the messy spazzy skronk of the live stuff that comprises a lot of the first five discs in the CFR series turned you off, you should give 'em another chance with this one.
RealAudio clip: "My Friend RAIN"
RealAudio clip: "Gardens Green with Broken Chests"
RealAudio clip: "Bustin' Up MOGOK"

SUN CITY GIRLS Superculto (Abduction) cd 14.98
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Volume three in the "Carnival Folklore Ressurection" series. This one was taken from a live show, once again in Seattle, from September 13, 1997. Jim and Byram both rate this one somewhere in between the second and the first (Andee would just as soon see them stop altogether) -- a bit of their rock fuckery and a bit of their jazzy improvery. Our man on the inside, John at Revolver, says that there are twelve of these due for release (one a month.) I suppose that there are people out there that will need all twelve, but I just wish they would re-issue all their cassettes on cd -- remastered or not -- or get the rights to re-issue their old Placebo releases?

SUN CITY GIRLS The Dreamy Draw (Abduction) cd 14.98
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Second volume in SCG's "Carnival Folklore Resurrection" series, The Dreamy Draw is a vast improvement over the first. Similar to Vol. 1, it's a semi-improvised live performance (this time Seattle in May of 1998), but this is executed with a greater degree of savvy, on the level that one would expect from a group as seasoned as the Sun City Girls (rather than the pedestrian stoned-in-college basement "jam session" of volume one.) The performances here are soaked with meandering piano playing pseudo-East Asian pentatonic ditties along with the various parts and pieces of gamelan that the Girls have picked up in their travels.

SUN CITY GIRLS Torch of the Mystics (Tupelo) cd 14.98
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Reissued once again on cd, Torch... is most often referred to as the best SCG album; a good place to start.

SUN CITY GIRLS Valentines From Matahari (Majora) cd 14.98
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Finally a cd reissue of this excellent SCG improv-splatter elpee.

SUN CITY GIRLS You're Never Alone With A Cigarette (Abduction) cd 16.98
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In recent months, we've seen several interestin' Sun City Girls reissues come out on cd via the Abduction label, like such previously vinyl-only rarities as the (supposed) soundtrack recordings to Piasa The Devourer Of Men, Dulce, and Juggernaut. Along with the shaggy dog hillbilly joke that is Jacks Creek. So fans of the now sadly defunct Sun City Girls, that cultish, psych-punk, faux-ethnic, WTF? trio, have had some welcome listening of late. However, this new disc, a collection (volume one!) of Sun City Girls singles, has us the most excited yet. That's cause these nine tracks, mostly released as singles on the Majora label back in the day, were actually all recorded during the same sessions that resulted in the acclaimed 1989 SCG album Torch Of The Mystics. That album, now out of print, is almost universally regarded as the band's best, and most popular. We'd agree, it's definitely the unanimous fave here at AQ (well, along with the equally long gone 330,003 Crossdressers From Beyond The Rig Veda). Too bad Torch Of The Mystics is out of print!! But of course that makes these tracks, cousins to those on Torch, all the more covetable!
Apparently, originally Torch was meant to be a double LP, and most of these tracks were instrumentals that would have been sequenced in amongst the songs that appeared on the final version of Torch. Plans for a double LP were eventually scrapped, and much of the extra material was then released by Majora on the You're Never Alone With A Cigarette 7" and Three Fake Female Orgasms 2x7". However, three of the tracks here are previously unreleased studio recordings, and another track, "The Fine-Tuned Machines Of Lemuria", is restored to its full 12 minute length for the first time (having been edited down for 7" release).
On of the reasons we (and everybody) likes Torch so much is that the songs, sounding much like some sort of alien, Southeast Asian surf rock, were unhindered by the unhinged eccentric excesses that make so many other, more confusional SCG recordings something of an acquired taste. Their unique take on "world music" was at its most accessible on Torch, with some of their most memorable, melodic moments and evocative atmospheres. You're Never Alone..., while not quite Torch part II, is certainly in that ballpark, with the ringing, exotic electric guitar skree of Richard Bishop taking center stage on much of this, ably supported by the drums and percussion of Charles Gocher and the bass playing of Alan Bishop (with sundry other, often ethnic, instrumentation from all). There's glorious folky riffing and moody improvs and plenty of prime SCG wonderful weirdness. Definitely an essential disc for all SCG fans!!
MPEG Stream: "Amazon One"
MPEG Stream: "Wild World Of Animals"

SUN DIAL Other Way Out / Other Way In (Relapse) 2cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Plains Of Nazca"
MPEG Stream: "Exploding In Your Mind"

SUN DIAL Return Journey (Relapse) cd 12.98

MPEG Stream: "Magic Potion"
MPEG Stream: "North Eastern"

SUN KICH Lucky Mountain Hey!!!!!!!!!! (Japan Overseas) cd 13.98
Craziness courtesy Mssrs. Yoshida (Ruins) and Yamamoto (Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba). 29 tracks with titles like "Rush In Outer Space" and "Dream, Scum, True!!".

SUN KIL MOON Admiral Fell Promises (Caldo Verde) cd 14.98
After all these years, Mark Kozelek's music still fills us with chills and goosebumps like no one else can. His melancholic voice and restrained arrangements come together for songs that sink so deep into our veins and lead us into cloudy and dazed daydreams. Admiral Fell Promises is a new set of songs written by Kozelek (he was on a big covers kick for a while) and they rank right at the top of anything he has created. The formula is not all that different from past Sun Kil Moon releases but there is something in the stark immediacy of the songs that is pulling us in so deep to this carefully crafted album. Maybe it's all the years he's spent in San Francisco but the record is just so perfect for those fog filled grey days that hit us all throughout the year and make us forget what day/month/year it is. These songs are so perfect for that dazed and dislocating sensation, filled with such a bleak romanticism. If he didn't have such a tasteful sense of subtly he could easily wow a crowd with impeccable almost flamenco/Spanish sounding guitar playing. Kozelek is one of those people who has never rested on his laurels. After Red House Painters it would have been easy for him to just allow that to be his lasting legacy, but over the years under his own name and the Sun Kil Moon moniker he continues to create a body of work that will stand the test of time. A must have for Kozelek fans and if you have checked out on his releases for a while this would be a great time to check back in!
MPEG Stream: "lesund"
MPEG Stream: "Half Moon Bay"
MPEG Stream: "Bay Of Skulls"

SUN KIL MOON April (Redeye) 2cd 16.98
From the first few chords and softly warbled vocals of April's 10 minute opening track, "Lost Verses," it's clear that we are in familiar territory with Mark Kozelek's latest release under the Sun Kil Moon moniker -- his first collection of new songs since 2003's Ghosts Of The Great Highway; his incredibly distinctive, molasses-slow blend of roots, indie rock, doom and gloom folk, Neil Young-tinged guitar sprawl, and traditional American songsmithery is in full effect here. Kozelek has made a career out of continually refining a very particular and immediately recognizable aesthetic. It's a sound that is at once both sprawling and intimate, expansive and hushed, confident and reserved. April is marked with the same sense of haunted yearning and loneliness that has characterized all of his best work. In fact, this may be one of the finest collections of songs he's produced to date. It's easy to get lost in this record, as the delicate interplay between words and melody weave their way around one another and reveal a stark beauty that only Kozalek is able to produce.
This 2cd set includes a bonus disc with alternate versions of 4 songs from the album lovingly packaged in a digipak adorned with ethereal b&w photography that will be as familiar to fans as the sound of Kozalek's voice. Simply gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "Lost Verses"
MPEG Stream: "Moorestown"