V/A (SORC'HENN / DRUNJUS / BURIAL HEX / TEETH COLLECTION / CRYSTAL DRAGON / BLACK SPARROW / PAN TO SCRATCH / TAIKURI TALI) Bright And Dark Light (Earjerk) 4 x cassette box 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
LAST COPIES!!!
Killer quadruple cassette tape box, featuring a handful of amazing sound and noise makers, some definite aQ faves, as well as a whole bunch of names ne to us, each band was instructed to compose a single sidelong piece, representing either light or darkness, and as the Earjerk website mentions, it's really no surprise that most bands chose darkness (either that or they have a weirdly skewed idea of what constitutes 'light').
Up first, long time aQ fave Sorc'Henn, who in the past has dabbled in buzzy black metal, shimmery deep ambience, here it something else entirely, a thick caustic fog of hiss and buzz and grit and grime, buried melodies swirl beneath a constantly shifting layered soft blackened noise. Grim and haunting for sure.
Teeth Collection are a name we know, but we'd never heard their (his?) music until now. A strangely haunting soundscape of reverbed clatter, truncated melodies, distant hiss, muted rumble, all slowly building to a cathartic swirl of blown out heaviness.
We had a Drunjus cassette ages ago, and had always wanted to hear more. Here, the sound is a crystalline web of haunting synths, of keening long tones, of muted melodies, bowed gongs (courtesy of one of the guys from Pelt), this is some mysterious otherworldly cinematic drift for sure. Like a way more minimal abstract Goblin almost. Then comes Crystal Dragon, awesome name, and even more awesome sound, a super raw and primitive chunk of outer space sci-fi weirdness, grinding synths, wound into whirring dronescapes, thick and undulating, warm and luxuriously textured.
Then we have Burial Hex, aka Clay Ruby, who also does time in Jex Thoth and Wormsblood, but Burial Hex is his ritualistic black ambient project, and that's precisely what you get here, a super raw recording, distorted and effected, the tape seeming to crumble, plenty of low end warble, clang and clatter and crunch, doused in effects, like a madman locked in a dungeon, dragging chains, and assembling some unholy machine, super creepy and pretty hard to describe. Black Sparrow are another group we'd never heard of, but they fit pretty well amongst this esteemed brotherhood of sound, an ethereal ephemeral shimmer, made from crumbling effected guitars and processed synths (we think), woven into a soft almost serene bit of buzzy drift, peppered with bits of glitch and squelch, but smoothed out into a blurred bit of mesmer.
Then some Finnish weirdness from Taikuri Tali, definitely a band we're gonna have to hear more from, some random bits of conversation, before the trio launch into a gorgeously tweaked bit of mad scientists soundscaping, squeaks and rattles and scrapes and whirs that get more and more abstract as the track progresses, eventually transforming into some sort of alien shortwave broadcast.
Finally, Pan To Scratch, another new to us outfit, they finish things off with a super old school bit of layered dronemusic, letting the overtones crate strange and subtle rhythms, intertwined with what sounds like birdsong, tape manipulation, lots of tape hiss, and random bumps and thumps, weird and pretty wonderful.
Which is a pretty good way of describing this whole collection, weird and wonderful, as well as abstract and haunting and dark and buzzy and raw. The usual suspects should freak for this, SUPER LIMITED of course, handsomely packaged as well in one of those oversized molded plastic booklike folders, the kind of case instructional language tapes usually come in. Cool!

V/A (THE HEADS / CARLTON MELTON / MUGSTAR / KOOLAID) I'm So Convoluted (Agitated) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another super limited Record Store Day release, this one seemed so 'made-for-aQ' we got as many as we could, which is a bunch, but we're guessing with a lineup like this, these will be gone in a flash. What's the lineup you ask? Well, we figured a list of the bands would be all it would take to get most of you flipping out. It definitely worked for us. UK space rockers and past aQ Record Of The Week honorees The Heads, UK psychedelic space rockers and also past aQ Record Of The Weekers Mugstar, local space rock faves Carlton Melton, and another band we have never heard called Koolaid, or maybe Koolaid (Alien Ballroom). Sold yet?
The Heads here appear as Rituals Performed The Heads And Big Naturals, not sure if they're taking the piss or if they joined up with some other outfit, but holy shit is their nearly side long track a mindblower. A dense blast of psychedelic noise gives way to a more dreamy drifty spacekraut, before transforming into a chugging churning pound, that quickly flips backwards, and suddenly the whole track is a fantastically hypnotic arrangement of backwards swoops and fffwwwt's, before exploding back into another blast of stomping heaviness, laced with all manner of warped turntable noise, only making everything that much more tripped out.
Mugstar finish off the side with a brief blast of almost poppy heaviness. Still Hawkwindy but more garage-y and Stooges-y, with some seriously unhinged vox and a cool start/stop effects heavy chorus.
And finally, Koolaid finish things off, with the weirdest of the bunch, groovy, and almost funky, thick steel string strum, all wreathed in psychedelic guitar noise, laced with some weird samples, drug related of course, and a riff that is a dead ringer for the Knight Rider theme, in fact, the band seem to borrow themes from other songs and transform them into something spacier, there were a few other bits that sounded familiar, all wound into a sound noisy and weirdly tripped out.
So cool. And SO LIMITED. 350 COPIES WORLDWIDE. We have a bunch, but these are the last copies we'll ever have. No art, just green labeled lps housed in lime green 12" style sleeves.

V/A (THE NECKS / DAVID GRUBBS / MIRA CALIX / MUTE SOCIALITE / O-TYPE) Strade Transparenti (Staubgold) cd 17.98
Yo, people!! One word: NECKS!!! Whoops, we could have easily overlooked this, a soundtrack to some foreign film we'd never heard of, but thankfully we did happen to notice the artists involved (which, to make sure YOU don't miss this, we've noted above). One of our all time faves, Australian drone-jazz trio The Necks, happens to appear here, track one "Transparent Roads" is theirs, the title track, and it's over 28 minutes long! So, right there, your money's worth, the rest of the disc could be considered a bonus. And a very worthy bonus, considering it includes diverse contributions from a bunch of interestin' artists in their own right, namely David Grubbs, Mira Calix, Mute Socialite, and O-Type. Quite a varied, even unlikely group, we're curious how they all happened to be invited to make music for this project, which was an Italian art film apparently about a bus trip through the Brazilian countryside, a "cinevoyage" visiting both the land and people. The film's director, Augusto Contento, certainly avoided using the obvious - Brazilian music - though a few of the tracks here do give a nod to such, Mute Socalite's song for instance titled "Samba Outlaw".
First, though, The Necks. Their track is, as any fan might guess, glorious. It's a quite Alice Coltrane-ish sounding Necks set, glittering cosmic jazz hypnosis. If you've heard The Necks, you won't be surprised - though the instrumental textures of "Transparent Roads" differ somewhat from their most recent album Silverwater. Skittering drums, repeating, brief piano melodies, and what sounds more like an electric guitar than their usual stand-up bass, all locked into impossibly precise yet organic sounding pulsations, surging, cyclic, building building building. With subtle complexities, incredible control, The Necks are truly masters of their art. Hard to imagine that they use the entirety of his piece on the soundtrack, that would be a bus trip through otherworldly realms, leaving Brazil, however beautiful and fascinating, far behind. Whew!!
A tough act to follow. After that, what? David Grubbs (Gastr Del Sol, Bastro) is up next, his ten and a half minute solo electric guitar track "To Know A Veil" acting as a palate cleanser, sparse with simple clangorous chords ringing out, abstract scrabbling filling the spaces, or not, drones forming in both memory and reality, it's pretty powerful, like a no wave SUNNO))) perhaps. So that plus The Necks, and good grief, this is worth buying twice, already.
Then Warp's Mira Calix contributes "I Carry You In My Heart", a moody pitter patter percussion piece, over twelve minutes long, quite nice (it kinda goes with another release on this particular week's list, the Fairlights Mallets And Bamboo mix of '80s Japanese avant-bliss). That's followed by the Bay Area's own avant-weirdos Mute Socialite, who really begin to echo or suggest some sort of Tropicalia vibe, however abstract. Their rather groovy "Samba Outlaw" (5:23) turns this disc into the sort of dance party to which you'd invite the Sun City Girls... Another good one. And then finally, there's former MX-80'ers O-Type (featuring guitarist Bruce Anderson) offering up an amazing 23 minute finale to the soundtrack, "Shadowgram" giving The Necks a run for their money in fact, in terms of making repetitive, mesmeric music that actually reminds us a lot of Circle (a tropical Circle?), with shuffling rhythms and nervous textures that makes you wonder just where this Brazilian bus ride is going to end up, or if you want to find out.
So, buy this for The Necks for sure, but stay for the rest and you will be extra pleased. Again, we've never seen the movie and are quite curious, just to see how it could live up to its own soundtrack, which rules!!! More Italians should make movies in Brazil and have soundtracks commissioned for release on German label Staubgold, based on how well this turned out...
MPEG Stream: THE NECKS "Transparent Roads"
MPEG Stream: DAVID GRUBBS "To Know A Veil"
MPEG Stream: O-TYPE "Shadowgram"

V/A (TOM THUMP) Let's Listen To Some Music! (self-released) 2cd-r 14.98
Latest mixes from this venerable veteran Bay Area DJ! Always solid and always a great variety of old classics and fresh sounds and grooves!

V/A / ETRAN FINATAWA Rough Guide To Desert Blues / Introducing Etran Finatawa (Rough Guides / World Music) 2cd 14.98
Over the last several years, the access we've had to new sounds coming out of the Saharan desert have been so mind-blowing. Bands like Tinariwen, Tartit, Terakaft, Etran Finatawa, have all become some of our favorite bands, a sound so hypnotic, we're continually mesmerized by their warm grooves and trance inducing guitar playing and percussion. This collection showcases the best of these West African desert blues player, like all the aforementioned groups, as well as tracks by Amadou & Mariam, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba, Samba Toure, Tamikrest, and more. It's also very fitting that there is an Ali Farka Toure track included as it was really his music and influence that spawned the sound that these bands are keeping alive and expanding in such incredible ways. What makes this a must have is the bonus disc which is the first album by Etran Finatawa, whose latest disc we raved about last list. What a smoking debut it was, it shows that even from their beginnings there was something so intense, soulful and beautiful about their music. A total must have for sure, and the compilation disc is the perfect gateway for anyone looking to get turned on to the good stuff coming from the West African desert.
MPEG Stream: TARTIT "Achachore I Chachare Akale"
MPEG Stream: ETRAN FINATAWA "Surbajo"
MPEG Stream: BASSEKOU KOUYATŽ & NGONI BA "Bambugu Blues"
MPEG Stream: MALOUMA "Yarab"
MPEG Stream: ETRAN FINATAWA "Aliss"

V/VM Fast Moving Tracks (V/VM Test Records) 2cd 18.98
Until the day when Jay Lesser is recognized as the genius of sonic terrorism that he really is, there's V/VM. Now only down to one member (as Janski Noise has permanently joined forces with DJ Speedranch), V/VM mixes junk store gems (e.g. Donald Duck's sputtering quacks, tabernacle choirs, marching bands, MSR style renditions of Elvis songs, crappy star-search pop songs, etc...) with the awesome power of the Chaos Pad and an array of distorted breakbeats.

V/VM Hate You (Offal) cd 13.98
Right from the get-go, the V/VM compilation "Hate You" is easily the most enjoyable (read: not annoying or irritatingly ironic) and well executed collection from this Stockport collective. The basic premise here is, well, pretty much the same as any other V/VM project: take any "shite" track and slice, dice, shred, add tons of distortion and completely destroy the shit out of it. V/VM busts Carl's Cox. Skkatter disc-rapes Madonna. Devil Chan coats the sugary sweet sounds of Japanese pop stars Judy And Mary with nasty blasts of white noise (quite wonderfully, actually). Jansky Noise proton blasts Ray Parker, Jr.'s theme to Ghostbusters and sends it to a ghost trap. And so on... Also, the cd version sports an additional four tracks not found on the lp, including an excellent (as always) track by Gai/Jin (aka Hrvatski and his Japanese friend, Jiro H) plus an extended version of V/VM's "Hate You". Probably limited, and for good reason. We only have 2. Ever.

V/VM Help Aphex Twin.../2.0 Because You Don't Give A Fuck (V/Vm Test Records) 3"cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
V/VM -- a label, a band, a concept, and perhaps most importantly a mistake -- has now stooped to taking potshots at The Aphex Twin, who has been very quiet for the past three years, releasing just the "Windowlicker" ep in 1999. While the silence of Aphex is a little annoying, I can't see any reason as to why V/VM would see the need to mangle Aphex Twin's work. Fun I suppose. Exactly what V/VM has done to banal love songs, traditional Hawaiian tunes, theme-songs to TV medical shows, The Spice Girls, George Michael, Lionel Ritchie, etc, by running the original through a ring modulator and timestretching sampler. Possibly only worthwhile if it gets Aphex to release another record.

V/VM HelpAphexTwin/1.0: We Don't Give A Shit... (V/Vm Test Records ) 3"cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We don't either...still, here's vol. one of infamous UK electronic jokesters V/VM's unoffical/unneccesary Aphex Twin "remix" project.

V/VM Masters of the Absurd (V/VM Test ) lp 14.98
V/VM's prankster electronica furrows its brow for "Masters Of The Absurd" -- a far more seriously minded vinyl-only release of digital crunch and mind-erasing distortion than is ususal for these guys, who are normally so worthy of the album's title. Yes, absurdity has always had a place within the work of this Manchester duo; but here, their anarchic glee in atomizing sound information has released a malevolent alter-ego who has little patience for the silliness of their earlier work crafted from digitally damaged thrift store vinyl. V/VM's grand absurdist gesture on "Masters Of The Absurd" is the assignment of a pig farmer and a butcher as the protagonists in their electronica drama. Beyond that, there isn't much logic to V/VM's assaults: just thick layers of overloaded digital noise, decomposing tonal drone haze, stolen fanfares of bombastic almost Wagnerian scores, and an obliteration of George Michael's "Careless Whisper" for those wanting a smattering of V/VM giddiness. Willfully difficult data jamming and blistering electro-shock treatment!

V/VM Sick-Love (v/vm) cd 13.98
Oh no. V/VM has too much time on their hands. "Sick-Love" is a collection of their warbled hard disc edit / hack jobs that butcher top 40 love ballads from The Spice Girls, Simply Red, Lionel Ritchie, Berlin, etc... This record is a really bad joke that goes on too long...which maybe puts it into the good joke category. Wait a minute, shouldn't V/VM and Neil Hambuger get together for an all star comedy album?

V/VM Sometimes, Good Things Happen (blue) (V/VM) cd 16.98
While V/VM has recently been responsible for some of the worst and most unlistenable mash-ups of UK pop hits into ring-modulated pisstakes, this twin set "Sometimes, Good Things Happen" steps away from their recent atrocities. But it's still hard to trust that V/VM has constructed these recordings with any degree of sincerity; rather, I would postulate that these albums could be KLF-like jokes attempting to seduce the aloof audiences from the IDM crowd into liking V/VM again, much like the KLF did in their ambient record "Chill Out" in which they derided the early '90s ambient scene as being just music for sheep by making one of the best examples of ambient techno. I have no proof for this assumption, just a hunch and an innate distrust for V/VM. Regardless, V/VM claims that the two parts to "Sometimes, Good Things Happen" are the same, when to any sane individual they are clearly different with a less than solid conceptual connection.
The blue album - being the digitally coarse noise album in the pairing - could be viewed as the negation of all of the beautiful melodies and subtle structures of the first. Yet, this side of the dyptic doesn't entirely work as a noise album full of immediate impact and visceral textures and stands more as an execution of a concept. Allan wondered if it's the same V/VM as before and if there had been some internal personnel shifting within the group. Quite possible.
RealAudio clip: "The Truth Is Dead"

V/VM Sometimes, Good Things Happen (orange) (V/VM) cd 16.98
While V/VM has recently been responsible for some of the worst and most unlistenable mash-ups of UK pop hits into ring-modulated pisstakes, this twin set "Sometimes, Good Things Happen" steps away from their recent atrocities. But it's still hard to trust that V/VM has constructed these recordings with any degree of sincerity; rather, I would postulate that these albums could be KLF-like jokes attempting to seduce the aloof audiences from the IDM crowd into liking V/VM again, much like the KLF did in their ambient record "Chill Out" in which they derided the early '90s ambient scene as being just music for sheep by making one of the best examples of ambient techno. I have no proof for this assumption, just a hunch and an innate distrust for V/VM. Regardless, V/VM claims that the two parts to "Sometimes, Good Things Happen" are the same, when to any sane individual they are clearly different with a less than solid conceptual connection.
If you have to choose one over the other (and that is recommended), pick the Orange disc. This album is a dreamy collection of floating ambient washes, metallic drones, and sensibly minimal rhythmic clicks, not at unlike the acclaimed Aphex Twin album "Selected Ambient Works Vol 2." Surprisingly listenable, but should you trust V/VM to not laugh at you for enjoying this? Of course not. But so what?
RealAudio clip: "The Truth is Dead"
RealAudio clip: "Some Things Look Better Baby"
RealAudio clip: "So Near And Yet So Far Away"

V/VM / JANSKY NOISE Posh Spliced / Spiller (V/VM Test Records) 7" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
V/VM's humor requires that their audience not just be familiar with the artists they appropriate but already be over exposed by their insipid pop songs. It may be a delusional agenda, but V/VM's total destruction of such chart toppers as Elton John, Posh Spice, Lionel Ritchie, etc... is swathed in the righteousness of a dadaist salvation: that the world will be much better off if every pop hit has its obliterated V/VM twin. On paper, that sounds like a great idea; but the realization on a Fisher Price turntable and a Kaoss Pad is less than ideal. But it is funny...sort of.

VACANT LOTS Confusion b/w Cadillac (Mexican Summer) 7" 5.98

VACUUM Kick Shade Accident (Siltbreeze) 7" 9.98

VACUUM BOYS, THE Songs From the Sea of Love (Fire Inc.) cd 16.98
"Join the team as they uncover the secret of the three-hundred year old Spanish mummy, solve the riddles of the scary old woman, help Gert-Jan face his fear of water, and try to save the city's pets in an adventure of endless twists and turns, laughs and rock n' roll!"
When I (Allan) was younger (no seriously, much younger) I liked to read books about kids who started their own detective agencies, Encyclopedia Brown, The Three Investigators, that sort of thing. Indeed I tried to set myself up as a detective too (I had a fingerprint kit and a magnifying glass and even a deerstalker hat) but sadly if unsurprisingly had trouble finding clients with crimes to solve, unlike my fictional counterparts. So I was immediately taken with this new Fire Inc. release, the booklet of which contains Episode Four of "The Secret Of The Haunted Spanish Galleon", a mystery story featuring those precocious kids turned detectives turned rock n' rollers, The Vacuum Boys. Very cleverly presented, with appropriate artwork and graphics. In reality, The Vacuum Boys aren't kids, mystery-solvers, or a rock band. They're Heimir Bjorgulfsson (of Stilluppsteypa), Girt-Jan Prins (MIMEO, solo electronics), Guy Amitai, and Dan Armstrong (Central 87), and deal in electronic clicks and cuts, not clues, and certainly not rock n' roll. Sure there's guitars on here, and drums (Girt IS a real drummer we know, and Dan does guitar and electronics improv), but there's a lot of computer processing involved as well -- and maybe a Hoover. Recorded live at Prins' studio in Rotterdam February 2002, it's a noisy (but pleasantly so), chopped-up glitch-fest of crackle, distortion, whoosh, and bleep, sounding more akin to Merzbow than the Monkees.
Of the current spate of experimental electronic releases, this one is not only pretty great but definitely gets points for being packaged in such an imaginative and thankfully not over-intellectualized way. Go Vacuum Boys! We look forward to their next adventure!
RealAudio clip: "Do The Hoove Move"
RealAudio clip: "Whole Lotta Hoovin'"
RealAudio clip: "To All The Trees"
RealAudio clip: "Orange Coloured Sky"

VACUUM CLEANERS A Hundred Separate Ways (Bad Vugum) cd 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

VACUUM ERA GELID ATMOSPHERE (V.E.G.A.) Alienforest - A Sick Mind's Hologram (Debemur Morti) cd 16.98
The tongue twistingly monickered Vacuum Era Gelid Atmosphere, who shell henceforth be referred to as VEGA, has been a huge favorite around these parts, ever since we first laid ears on their Cocaine album.
When we first got that record we were really expecting something fucked up and damaged and bizarre, but instead, Cocaine ended up being one of the fiercest most frenzied and fastest black metal discs we had ever heard, a total soul shearing onslaught so drenched in buzz it seems impossible that the whole thing didn't collapse under the weight of all that buzzing and blasting.
Well here we are revisiting VEGA's past, and guess what, they actually did used to be seriously fucked up and bizarre, their black metal still fierce and frenetic, but tempered by weird eighties style Goblin-y synthscapes and weirdo new wave and all sorts of other whatthefuck-ness.
The opener is appropriately black metal, an intro, but even there, the brooding synths and ominous drones are laced with processed children's voices which are FREAKY. So then, as black metal record law dictates, the next track should be a serious blast of black metal fury, but here, well, it sounds like some eighties John Carpenter soundtrack, or the chase scene in some cheesy sci-fi flick, or Goblin at their new waviest, but fuck it, who cares what the BM bylaws dictate, this stuff is awesome. Haunting and cheesy, dramatic and so over the top, and all over the place, slipping into some ominous synthy drones, before transforming into some minimal almost jungle jam, the skittery beats underneath warm woozy synths and creepy minor key melodies, and finally some harsh black metal vox over the top. And then buzzing guitars. Dropping in with about 50 seconds to go. Fuck yeah. Did we mention we love these guys? Well we love them even more now.
It's not all insane cheesy new wave weirdness, the follow up "Kill Me" explodes in a frenzy of grinding blackness, but even then, part way in, shifts gears and becomes super melodic with soaring melodies, and mathy rhythms, but you know what, by the end, the track has somehow transformed into another synth drenched skittery new wave outro.
And so it goes. Easily half the record is soundtracky new wave-y weirdness. And these guys nail it. Zombi, Proscriptor, you Carpenter / Goblin revisionists better watch your asses, cuz this takes all that stuff and gets it all tangled up with black buzz and blurred blasts. And those are definitely the best moments, when harsh vocals are laid over skittery electronic drums and whirling synths, so wrong it's right!
The band are still capable of spewing black filth with the best of them, "Insex Infect" is a solid 4 minutes of blown out in-the-red black heaviness, putting most BM bands to shame, but then moments later, they offer up a creepy bit of synthy ambience, only to lurch right back into another black frenzy.
The black metal here is top notch, so heavy and brutal and grim, incredible riffs and wild drumming, harsh vokills, and dense tangled arrangements, but the other stuff, it's not just throw away, like most bands tossing in a little keyboard interlude, it's well crafted, dark and mysterious and haunting, ominous and sinister, even without the metal, this would have been an awesome retro chunk of new wave Goblin worship, but with the metal, it's something far more fucked up and GENIUS.
Packaged in one of those oversized super jewel cases. Andee's black metal reissue of the year!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Kill Me"
MPEG Stream: "Cocaine"
MPEG Stream: "Plastiktaschen"
MPEG Stream: "Alienforest"

VACUUM ERA GELID ATMOSPHERE (V.E.G.A.) Cocaine (Debemur Morti) cd 14.98
While we are admittedly totally obsessed with damaged and demented, freaky and fucked up, bizarre and obtuse outsider black metal, every once in a while we'll discover a band who manage to incorporate bits of all of those things, but in a way that's much more subtle. A band can be really weird without being totally fucked up. Completely demented without stumbling and struggling and sounding totally damaged. A band can be furious and fast, heavy and complex, brutal and intense, but still be super far out and perplexingly bizarre. Think Spektr, Blut Aus Nord, and now the VEGA Corporation. Or V.E.G.A. Or more specifically, Vacuum Era Gelid Atmosphere. Thanks to AQ pal Drew for turning us on to these guys. We were definitely surprised when we finally heard them. Not at all what you might expect. With a name like Vacuum Era Gelid Atmosphere, and a record called Cocaine. Some trippy abstract very UN-metal artwork and a liner note proclamation that goes like this:
"(V.E.G.A.) supports freedom of thought, sometimes misunderstood as insanity by the most.
The band was born at the last breaths of black metal and dies soon after.
This album is a gift to its memory... a dead-born child... a trip went wrong... a nightmare in your brain...
Feed your insanity...
We now live in the future... as lights, always hiding in the dark, yet shining... as a new band, "VEGA-KORPORATION"
Totally devoted to the exploration of mind, soul and technology..."
We were totally prepared for some stumbling recorded-in-a-cave, howling, midtempo, warbly damaged black buzz. And we would have been totally happy with that for sure. But this band is absolutely nothing like that at all.
V.E.G.A. are impossibly grim and so Incredibly fierce and furious. We talk about black metal bands sounding buzzy all the time, but this is a whole 'nother thing. The first track is some sort of ultimate demonic buzz direct from the fiery pit. A buzz that is sharp and jagged, so blown out and strangely panned, that it almost makes you dizzy listening to it. Careening like a pissed off swarm of hornets from speaker to speaker, the buzz distorts and crumbles, fades out and then swoops back in super hot and completely oversaturated. It definitely sounds like there is something seriously wrong with your speakers, in a GOOD way! And within that buzz is a twisting squirming vortex of fuzzy riffs, insanely blasting beats, shrieked vocals, all in a dense super complex tangle of black fury. One song was all it took. Not only were we totally and completely sold. We were also totally brutalized. Exhausted. Our ears beaten to a bloody pulp. And we LOVED it. The record veers wildly back and forth between impossibly brutal buzzing and more Burzumic midtempos with just a bit of a groove like Khold. But either way, the songs are dense and dark, furious and brilliantly fucked up. And that's not even taking into account the non-metal elements which are legion. Songs are peppered with weird sonic bits, and separated by haunting interludes that range from creepy children singing to women screaming in terror, stretches of industrial pummel with skittery drum machines and super processed Laibachian Teutonic growls to dreamy blissed out minor key jangle with Mark E. Smith sort-of-spoken vocals, massive glacial dirgescapes of downtuned sludge, peppered with Godflesh style beats to weird folky foresty ambience. But unlike a lot of bands, those bits are just that, bits, little bits of unlikely shading, small demented complements to the bands furious metallic onslaught.
That is until you get to the epic fourteen minute closing track. A vast expanse of weird record crackle spread in a thick patina over soaring minor key strings and distant muted drums. Creepy and dreary, but sort of super emotional and sublime. It sounds a bit like an old scratched up Godspeed 45 being played on a Victrola while on another Victrola, someone is playing a super scuffed copy of some old Scorn 12" on the wrong speed, the machine like beats perfectly drifting into the majestic grandeur of the strings and swoonsome ambience. After a brief bit of silence, we're suddenly tossed into some sort of weird eighties sounding synth rock, a bizarre electronic drums drenched video game music sort of jam that is just totally twisted and not a little bit out of place. It eventually morphs into a more metal version of Goblin, creepy and slightly cheesy with big thick distorted guitars laid over top. Woah.
A definite contender twisted black metal record of the year for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Lilja..."
MPEG Stream: "Insex Infect"
MPEG Stream: "Perspectives"

VACUUM HEAD TREE Excel (Eye Eye) (Megaphone) cd 9.98

VACUUM TREE HEAD Bakuretsu Fukio (Megaphone) cd 9.98

VACUUM TREE HEAD The Oob Eye Works (Megaphone) cd 9.98

VADIM, DJ USSR Life From The Other Side (Ninja Tune) cd 14.98
Vadim's super slow motion hip hop minimalism has been funked up with some west coast style turntable tricks ala Skratch Piklz or Cut Chemist. Vadim has also employed a wide variety of vocal talents (including EI-P, BMS, Skinnyman, etc.) but the highlight is Sarah Jones completely non-pretentious femminist reinterpretation of The Last Poets!

VADIM, DJ USSR Reconstruction (Ninjatune) cd 16.98
Remix of Vadim's USSR Repertoire, including an Oval mix.

VADIM, DJ, & IRISCIENCE Friction (Ninjatune) 12" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

VAGGIONE, HORACIO La Maquina de Cantar (Ampersand) cd 14.98
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Reissue of a 1978 album, originally released by the Italian avante garde label Cramps in their Nova Musicha series, of almost maddeningly repetitive electronic music by Argentinian composer Horacio Vaggione. Spacey, cosmic, "multilayered sci-fi epic glop" that reminds us of Conrad Schnitzler or some sort of space-station, videogame version of Terry Riley or Steve Reich.
There's two LP-side-long tracks here. Track one is seventeen minutes of relentless burbling, recorded in 1971 with an IBM computer. Track two is a duet for mini-Moog and Yamaha organ that takes off from the madness of track one to end with a pretty keyboard fanfare of near prog-pop proportions, which in 1978 could have potentially been a hit, with heads anyway.
This disc drove Andee insane (he thinks it sounds like Tangerine Dream on speed), but Allan liked it quite a bit (he also thinks it sounds like Tangerine Dream on speed)!
RealAudio clip: "La Maquina de Cantar"

VAGUSNERVE Lo Pan (Utech) cd 14.98
This fellow we know recently wrote an entertaining book called Get High Now, no not about drugs, but about other sorts of highs, non-drug related natural techniques to enjoy "sensory trips" and the like. Quite a few of them are sound-based (the book even references Ryoji Ikeda at one point) but in a major oversight, a recommendation to "listen to VagusNerve" was left out! 'Cause it's definitely a trip when you really settle into a session with VagusNerve on the stereo or better yet headphones - likewise of course with a lot of other drone musics too, why do you think we like the stuff so much? Loud enough, it'll either stimulate, or at least simulate, a high.
So, c'mon, get high now with Chinese guitar/laptop duo VagusNerve. Someone calling herself VAVABOND is the laptopper, and Li Jianhong (of D!O!D!O!D!) is the guitar player. We're already considerable fans of Li's solo psych/noise guitar excursions (his disc on aRCHIVE for instance, and a fantastic new one on PSF, Classic Of the Mountains And Seas) so we were excited when we found out he's half of VagusNerve. We were also interested to learn what exactly the lo pan of the title is. As the liner notes explain, it's a traditional Chinese mytho-technological device, a sort of Feng Shui compass. A rotating disc in a wooden base, with several concentric rings of Chinese characters to which the needle in the middle can point, indicating various arcane things.
VagusNerve are not actually using a lo pan to make this music, rather it's inspired by a dream Li had about a giant lo pan in a forest that could be used to summon UFOs! That's pretty much the title of the first track, in fact. And swarming cosmic UFOs looking for mystical feng shui advice definitely could be making some of the sounds heard here. It's nervous, very active drone musick, buzzing and zapping and crackling and chiming, featuring 3 long tracks (8:21, 21:05, 28:27). There's much moody sci-fi windiness, and what sounds like flocks of otherworldly birds crying to one another, amidst thick grinding whooshing sizzling drones, spinning and swirling. Feedback a la underwater whale calls, resonant "long wire" like vibrations, insectoid buzzings, and mechanical rhythms all feature in the the mix. It's a sonic delirium, wherein Urthona is jamming opaquely with KK Null, if that hypothetical comparison is of any help to you.
Definitely another cool Utech release, a label we've been raving about lately for many good reasons (Horseback, Gog, Aluk Todolo, Blood Fountain...). Regarding Li Jianhong, hopefully we'll be reviewing that new PSF disc of his very soon. And, by the way, he also made several appearances on that An Anthology Of Chinese Experimental Music box set we listed last time.
MPEG Stream: "In The Summer Of 2006 Li Made A Dream About A Lopan And A UFO."
MPEG Stream: "No Doubt. The Lo Pan Is A Universe."

VAINICA DOBLE s/t (Wah Wah) cd 19.98
We're so glad to finally see this available, the lovely 1971 debut of Spanish female psych-folk duo, Vainica Doble. One of Spain's most collectable and sought after soft-psych artifacts, Vainica Doble combine Beatlesy pop with Incredible String Band like whimsical flair, often sounding like the prettiest moments of Os Mutantes, the groovier moments of England's Sunforest or even early Abba at their most balladic, due to the singers' beautiful dual harmonies. Featured on the Finder's Keeper's comp, Folk Is Not A Four Letter Word vol. 2, it's about time that this venerable Spanish duo finally gets some deserved recognition outside of their homeland. Included here are the 12 tracks from their original album and 8 bonus tracks comprised of rare singles, including a track by their backing band, Tickets (who recorded a song written by the duo) as well as an awesome fuzz-pop stomper called "Someone Like Me", that makes this amazing reissue even more worthy of your time!
MPEG Stream: "Caramelo De Limon"
MPEG Stream: "Dime Felix"
MPEG Stream: "El Duende"

VAINIO, MIKA Aineen Musta Puhelin / Black Telephone Of Matter (Touch) cd 15.98
More and more quiet goes the solo album for Mika Vainio, the Finnish electronic wizard who has brought us such feats of techo-minimalist intensity as the Kesto 4cd boxset set in Pan Sonic and the Metri album recorded as an O with slash through it. But under his own name, Vainio's recordings shrink from existence in the wake of gasping, nocturnal bouts of silence. That said, comparisons to the very-special-nothing-music of Bernhard Gunter (whatever happened to that guy?) or Richard Chartier don't really apply to Vainio's work. There's much more in common here with the 2009 release Vectors from Robert Hampson (also released through Touch), as a revamped interpretation of INA-GRM concrete / electronic compositions from the '60s and '70s. Vainio's palette of sound rotates between chorales of electrical static, snarls of sawtooth buzzings, and cold sinewave generation with a few field recordings thrown in for good measure; and Vainio composes these elements by way of the razor-cut more often than not. Thus, Aineen Musta Puhelin is a fragmentary collage, at times marked by sharpened, Tesla-coil bursts of engorged electricity only to snap to a blackened frame of silence or at least prolonged inactivity.
MPEG Stream: "Roma A.D. 2727"
MPEG Stream: "Bury A Horses Head"

VAINIO, MIKA Behind The Radiators (Touch) 7" 8.98
The cool thing about records like this, and this kind of music in general on vinyl, is that it's difficult to tell if a record is scratched, or if there's fuzz on the needle, as those are the sounds that have been harnessed to create the rhythms. Crackle and pop, hiss and skip, the more beat up the record, the more complex and abstract the rhythm. But for the sake of this review, we'll assume the copy of the new Touch single by Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio we listened to was indeed pristineÉ
The A side opens with a super minimal loop, seemingly crafted from the run off groove of an old record. A stripped down skeletal groove made from a bit of hiss and crackle, laid over a gorgeous blurred murky loop, that slowly builds and builds as the rhythms remains static, simple, hypnotic, the whole thing very abstract and quite lovely.
The flipside also begins with a super minimal rhythm, again, assembled from bits of vinyl detritus, this one too looped over a slow building drone, but this side is a bit more intense, the background sounds slightly more corrosive, while managing to remain subtly musical. At some moments, because of the staticky rhythm, it does almost sound like some dreamy drone 7" that got all scuffed up, especially when the music drops out and the needle settles into the locked runoff groove, where it stays, playing out the rhythm that began the track over and over and over.
Latest in Touch's recent 7" series, like all Touch releases, beautifully packaged, with a simple spare design and adorned with gorgeous photos by label head honcho Jon Wozencroft.

VAINIO, MIKA Kajo (Touch) cd 15.98
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It would be nice to think that after a long day of hammering shards of technotic minimalism from the handbuilt electronics of Pan Sonic, Mika Vainio sleeps next to these machines, operating them in his dreams, their toggles triggered in cybernetic response to the colorful pools of abtract imagery in his subconscious, while at the same time capturing the soothing comfort of a room being slept in at 4 in the morning. While such technology may be entirely out of reach (even for the talented circuit builders of Pan Sonic), Vainio's "Kajo" is a beautiful placid album of serial electrical events that could have been the result of such a sleep-composition. Very nice.

VAINIO, MIKA Life (...It Eats You Up) (Editions Mego) cd 16.98
Sure, this is the solo album on which Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio picks up the guitar, but the sounds that he wrangles from that instrument are not all that dissimilar from those he crafted on the final Pan Sonic album Gravitoni, and especially on the first half of their 4cd opus Kesto. There's long been a swagger to the low-slung electronic rhythm and noise that brought Pan Sonic closer to an electro-punk rockabilly sound by simulating a snarling guitar with accelerating riffs of synthesized distortion that had more in common with the growl of a motorcycle than the squelch of an 808. So, when Vainio switches out his tone generators for a guitar, he's still got all the tools to distort, corrode, and disintegrate the sounds of six strings with considerable aplomb. The drum machines, the spatialized approach to editing, the white hot shards of electricity, the swarming noise, and Vainio's ability to control all of his cacophonic sounds are all present on Life (...It Eats You Up). "Mining" is an exemplary track displaying Vainio's ability to work a brutalist noise-guitar riff into his jittery industrial groove, sounding something like a downtuned Big Black or loosened-up Godflesh. Many will comment on Vainio's cover of The Stooges "Open Up And Bleed" which strikes a glam rock strut with drum track and smolderingly dissonant guitar riffs. It must be said that Vainio's cover of Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" on Oleva was a better choice; but this one is pretty damn good too. The rock-n-roll mimesis of these tracks disintegrates over the remainder of the album, where splinters of guitar noise pop through walls of electrified drone, ominous hums, and demolished doom-laden ambience which aren't too far from the realms of KTL or Black Boned Angel. Pretty fucking great.
MPEG Stream: "Mining"
MPEG Stream: "Open Up And Bleed"
MPEG Stream: "Conquering The Solitude"
MPEG Stream: "A Ravenous Edge"

VAINIO, MIKA Life (...It Eats You Up) (Editions Mego) 2lp 27.00
Sure, this is the solo album on which Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio picks up the guitar, but the sounds that he wrangles from that instrument are not all that dissimilar from those he crafted on the final Pan Sonic album Gravitoni, and especially on the first half of their 4cd opus Kesto. There's long been a swagger to the low-slung electronic rhythm and noise that brought Pan Sonic closer to an electro-punk rockabilly sound by simulating a snarling guitar with accelerating riffs of synthesized distortion that had more in common with the growl of a motorcycle than the squelch of an 808. So, when Vainio switches out his tone generators for a guitar, he's still got all the tools to distort, corrode, and disintegrate the sounds of six strings with considerable aplomb. The drum machines, the spatialized approach to editing, the white hot shards of electricity, the swarming noise, and Vainio's ability to control all of his cacophonic sounds are all present on Life (...It Eats You Up). "Mining" is an exemplary track displaying Vainio's ability to work a brutalist noise-guitar riff into his jittery industrial groove, sounding something like a downtuned Big Black or loosened-up Godflesh. Many will comment on Vainio's cover of The Stooges "Open Up And Bleed" which strikes a glam rock strut with drum track and smolderingly dissonant guitar riffs. It must be said that Vainio's cover of Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" on Oleva was a better choice; but this one is pretty damn good too. The rock-n-roll mimesis of these tracks disintegrates over the remainder of the album, where splinters of guitar noise pop through walls of electrified drone, ominous hums, and demolished doom-laden ambience which aren't too far from the realms of KTL or Black Boned Angel. Pretty fucking great.
MPEG Stream: "Mining"
MPEG Stream: "Open Up And Bleed"
MPEG Stream: "Conquering The Solitude"
MPEG Stream: "A Ravenous Edge"

VAINIO, MIKA Onko (Touch) cd 15.98
Mika of Panasonic's solo album, almost an hour of squeaks, subsonic rumbles, ear piercing whistles and barely audible drones. Either your favorite record of the year or you couldn't care less...

VAINIO, MIKA Rasputin 3000 / Devil Arrives To Finspang (Comfortzone) 7" 13.98
This single from the Finnish electronica giant Mika Vainio (one half of the Pan Sonic duo) was meant to be available as a special release on Record Store Day, but it arrived about a week late. These things, of course, do happen. But we've got 'em now, and while RSD 2012 is past, these are still crazy limited, and most likely will be gone in a flash!
Mostly when Vainio records under his given name, his electronics are thoroughly abstracted and dislocated from the rhythmic strategies he produces in Pan Sonic. Those recordings tend to be strange, dream-time excursions of Tesla coil charges and mad-scientist fizzle, but here on this single, Vainio returns to the 'rhythm', which has long been his strong suit. The A side is grinding, shuffle-techno number whose heavy rhythmic swagger and cycloramic distortion locks in step with the Pan Sonic albums Kesto and Gravitoni. The B side is a tad mellower with a groovy noirish rhythm, but equally as dark. One time pressing of 750 copies!

VAINIO, MIKA Revitty (Torn) (Wavetrap) cd 17.98
Revitty? Might that have something to do with Martin Rev? It's hard to say if the word means anything other than simple being a title for this solo project from Mika Vainio, one of the two shockheaded Finns behind Pan Sonic. As the electron wrangler for Suicide, Martin Rev has clearly been a major influence on Vainio's work, especially in how to extend electronic sounds through dynamic usage of pattern, repetition, and variation. Both Pan Sonic and Suicide have always been known for the rhythmic pounding of their scalding electric minimalism; yet in most of Vainio's solo work, the rhythmic structures are merely hinted at through nuanced implications or entirely done away with in the spirit of grand abstractions. What's left for Vainio's sound sculpting is raw energy often recklessly unleashed in radioactive bursts with only ghostly hints at a pulsing electricity within. So maybe we're grasping at straws to add some context to this work, but it's still a mighty fine piece of Finnish electronic abstraction, chock full of bleakness and aggression.
MPEG Stream: "Hampaat I"
MPEG Stream: "Raatelu"

VAINIO, MIKA Sokeiden Maassa Yksisilmainen On Kuningas (Touch) cd 15.98
Best known as half of the minimalist techno duo Pan Sonic with Ilpo Vaisainen, Mika Vainio has crafted a variety of electro-acoustic techniques that bare little resemblance to his contemporaries in glitched electronica. Marked as much by his use of space as by the quality of his abstraction of sound, Vainio's recordings under his given name even stand apart from his solo projects such as ¯, Tekonivel, and Philus. As Vainio, he has shed all of the intertwining rhythmic assualts found elsewhere, but continues to pursue a crystalline frigidity in his investigations of sound. "Sokeiden Maassa Yksisilmainen On Kuningas" (which translated from the Finnish as "In the Land of the Blind One-Eyed Is King") opens with a harsh blast of digitized noise that settles down into a ominous soundscape punctuated by a flanging bass pulse and distant isolationist drones. Smatterings of prolonged silence take up a considerable amount of time within Vainio's album, and provide parallels to the French attitudes of musique concrete (i.e. Lionel Marchetti, Luc Ferrari, etc.) But it's drones that give Vainio's work such dynamism and expressivity, at times standing in as sustained chords from a grimy organ and others as creepy swells of "Forbidden Planet" style electronics.
RealAudio clip: "Kasvien Vari"
RealAudio clip: "Se On Olemassa"

VAINIO, MIKA Time Examined (Raster-Noton) book + 2cd 61.00
Time Examined is a monograph that documents Mika Vainio's scores for installation, film, theater, and performance, sounding very much like the work that Vainio has been releasing through Touch in recent years. As most folks probably already know, Vainio is half of the minimalist techno project Pan Sonic, but his solo work has become increasingly devoid of rhythm, with suspended tones, industrially-minded field recordings, prolonged electrical gasps, explorations into signal decay, and metallic echoes cast upon a black canvas of expansive nothingness. These installations within employ numerous visual cues - vintage clocks, old lightbulbs, transistor radios, vacuum tubes, Soviet-era electrical components, industrial films from the 1940s, and other ephemeral equipment from science laboratories from a past era. There had always been something elegantly retrograde about Vainio's electronic tinkerings with sound, and his installation work certainly reinforces this reading into his work. The accompanying 92 page book features tons of images from these installations, films, performances, and dance pieces with accompanying texts from CM von Hausswolff and Daniela Cascella. The first of the two cds features scores from over the past 15 years; and the second disc features the tone-plus-bleep split 1997 release Mikro Makro that Vainio produced alongside Carsten Nicolai (then recording just as Noto). A very nicely designed document!
MPEG Stream: "The Human Fly"
MPEG Stream: "Berns"
MPEG Stream: "Half Awake Half Asleep"

VAINIO, MIKA Titanikin Juhlakantaattii (Titanik) cd 13.98
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Following the bleak shiftings of sound on his albums "Okno" and "Ydin", Vainio (who also works in Pan Sonic and has a list of pseudonyms including ¯, Kentolevi, Tekonivel, and Philus) sets up the electrostatic buzz of his Complex Sound Generator against the body cavity throb of huge slo-mo beats. An excellent (if only 20 minutes long, lacking in artwork, and very hard-to-find) document from this AQ-beloved electronica artist.

VAINIO, MIKA Vandal EP (Ununquadium 114) (Raster-Norton) 12" 16.98
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VAINIO, MIKA Ydin (Wavetrap/Rastermusic) cd 15.98
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'Ydin' is a limited edition release of 750 copies of dark haunting electronic minimalism. Raster has proclaimed this to be best solo project from Vainio (of Pan Sonic, 0, Philus, Kentolevi, Tekonivel). Certainly it's in the running. As one of Vainio's non-beat oriented psychoacoustic compositions, Ydin is an exploration of electricity buzzing with delicate pulses, slashing noises, and eerie reverberations. Excellent!

VAINIO, MIKA / FENNESZ, CHRISTIAN Invisible Architecture #2 (Audiosphere) cd 16.98
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The second in the "Invisible Archecture" series of live collaborations from Audiosphere is Christian Fennesz and Mika Vainio from Pan Sonic. Housed like the Jeck / Tetreault / Yoshihide album in the annoying "super jewel box," this features a 34 minute collaboration between the two and a 32 minute solo track from Vainio, both recorded during a night of performances at Kaaitheatherstudio in Brussels on November 29, 1999. The Fennesz / Vainio collaboration is a densely saturated drone piece that's heavy on the loud / quiet dynamic, often matching delicate fractalizations of trademarked Megoisms from erratic clipped samples and pinprick bleeping alongside aerated drones culled from layers of processed distortion. This hints at the signature of both artists; yet, it doesn't appear that there's any of the random noise generation and guitar processing that makes the two artists' solo work so interesting. Thus, their collaboration doesn't seem as fully realized as we would hope and stands more as another entry into the realm of electronic improvisation. Vanio's solo track follows the path of his recent solo work (in particular "Kajo") with spartan minimalist gestures across vast expanses of barely audible resonant buzzings, extending into hypnotic pulsations of stripped down techno more like his Pan Sonic work.
RealAudio clip: VAINIO / FENNESZ "Live 1"
RealAudio clip: VAINIO "Live 2"

VAINIO, MIKA / PITA / PALESTINE, CHARLEMAGNE Three Compositions For Machines (Staalplaat) cd 16.98
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Mika Vainio of Pan(a)sonic and Sahko fame, Pita of Mego, and minimalist Charlemange Palestine each composed and performed a piece for machines (duh) that include the electric siren and 'bell tree'. The one collaboration between Pita and Mika Vainio is certainly worth the price of admission alone... 12 minutes of sublime murky beep and click composed entirely out of the processed sounds of typewriters!!!

VAINIO, VAISANEN, VEGA Endless (Mute) cd 14.98
Panasonic team up with Alan Vega of Sucide fame for a full-length!

VAISANEN, ILPO 20' to 2000 : February (Raster-Noton) cd 14.98
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Vaisanen is one half of Pan Sonic with Mika Vainio, and presents his contribution to what may be the coolest series for 1999. Noton / Raster has commissioned 12 electro-minimalists to reconstitute 20 minutes for the next millenium. Vaisanen is clearly the brutalist of Pan Sonic (where as Vainio is the sublimist) presenting harsh tones coupled with electronica 4/4 pulses.

VAISANEN, ILPO Asuma (Mego) cd 17.98
Ilpo Vaisanen hasn't had nearly as prolific a solo career as Mika Vainio - his companion in Pan Sonic who has a plethora of solo projects under his own name and as ¯, Philus, Tekonivel, and Kentolevi. "Asuma" is actually his first full album, finding a good home on Mego. After his electro-rhythm crunch which he contributed to Raster / Noton's "20 to 2000" series and a hard to find 12" of similar post-techno damage, we were surprised that his debut solo project had more more in common with Vainio's dreamy electro-acoustic collages.
"Asuma" acoustically feels as if it is intentionally paralleling the optical phenomenon of a mirage -- with wavering textures that never provide much definition to objects near the horizon in an environment of oppressive heat. Vaisanen keeps the subtle rhythmic elements (perhaps generated by voltage fluctuations rather than drum machines) submissive to the hot-wired buzzing drones from ill-tempered cable groundings. Really sublime and quite unassuming.
RealAudio clip: "Vallitseva"

VAJAGIC, ELIZABETH ANKA Stand With The Stillness Of This Day (Constellation) cd 14.98

VAJRA Live (PSF) cd 17.98

VAJRA Mandala Cat Last (PSF) cd 22.00
Modern psychedelic shamanistic troubadour and lord of fiery feedback howl Keiji Haino, along with legendary political folk radical Kan Mikami and veteran percussionist Toshiaki Ishitsuka (frequent Kazuki Tomokawa collaborator) comprise the so-called supergroup known as Vajra. Through several albums over the years, the improvisational trio has proven to continually evolve and remain as unclassifiable as any and all of their combined solo efforts. From the lyrically charged folk psychedelia of their early discs to the driven rhythmic force of their Ring album to the explosive sonic maelstrom and dynamism of Sichisiki: The Seventh Consciousness (an album not to be missed, Hainophiles!); a new album from Vajra carries with it a sense of newness and excitement. It demands you come without predilection and prejudice. Formed in the early nineties, the trio has grown to complement each others' unique languages. With Mandala Cat Last, they have inadvertantly metamorphosed themselves into a taut unit, rich in melody and musically cohesive. Their improvisations seem so natural and intentional, the fact that they are improvised doesn't even register as a technical aside. A short but sweet forty minutes, these six pieces are, like much of Mikami's oeuvre, tenebrous and graphic with that touch of mysticism only Haino can deliver. The opening cut, "The Sky Looks Green To Me", slowly builds a feral vocal interaction between Mikami and Haino. The disquieting and chilling vocal cries of the moving "Monkeys Don't Pray" are paired with haunting waves of distorted atmospherics and sparse percussive fits. An acapella break in the center of the album (from a revisited passage off of Mikami & Haino's Heisei recordings) is reciprocated by a warm instrumental closing hymn. Really beautiful, and though the lyrics are in Japanese, there are translations in the accompanying lyric sheets (and it turns out one of the songs has lyrics about Japanese cola!) -- which aren't totally necessary as the music, including Mikami's impassioned wails, transcends language and is quite engaging in its own right!
RealAudio clip: "Monkeys Don't Pray"
RealAudio clip: "The Sky Looks Green To Me"