(Gringo) cd 17.98

SKOGSBERG, JOAKIM Jola Rota (Subliminal Sound) lp 32.00
NOW ON VINYL!! Yes! Back in 2008 when we listed the Japanese import, Tiliqua label cd edition of this fantastic reissue and made it a Record Of The Week, we promised folks that there was going to be a super limited vinyl version too on Tiliqua coming out few months later, and people scrambled to pre-order it... but it never ever materialized. We hoped and waited but it never came out. Not sure what happened, but thankfully, though, at long last the Subliminal Sounds label (Dungen, Parson Sound, Baby Grandmothers, Peter Grudzien, etc.) from Skogsberg's home country of Sweden has taken charge and given life to this wonderful album again on vinyl for the first time in over 30 years. So, here's what we said before about the cd edition...
Even if we didn't make this Record of the Week, we'd probably still be selling quite a few of 'em, as we're sure we've got a lot of knowledgeable record-collector-type customers for whom adding this to cart will be but the work of a second, the second after their eyes bug out upon seeing the artist and title listed above. But since this reissue is not only of an incredible rarity but also of an incredible record, we wanted to make sure everybody heard about it, besides those for whom it's already a "holy grail". Yep, Joakim Skogberg's original 1972 Jola Rota lp definitely falls into the highly obscure "holy grail" category, a lost treasure for lovers of weird, wonderful acid-folk and underground psychedelia. The sort of thing that develops a legend that it can't possibly live up to... but then DOES, blowing minds when it's finally reissued. The sort of thing that's whispered about among connoisseurs of psych, written of in a few select fanzines and blogs, heard only by a lucky few who got an Nth generation cassette dub or cd-r burn from a friend, who got it from a friend, and so on. The sort of thing, that even a few years after a brief exposure to its wonders, will make you stop and think every once in a while, dang when is someone finally gonna reissue that amazing obscure album??? Some other recently excavated examples would include Moolah's Woe Ye Demons Possessed, Bobb Trimble's Harvest Of Dreams, and Gary Higgins's Red Hash... and before that, once upon a time Comus's First Utterance too would have fallen into that category. Bruce Haack's Electric Lucifer as well, though originals of that were and are much MUCH easier to come by. Whereas *this* album was originally pressed in an edition of around just one thousand copies - of which only a few hundred were ever sold back in the day, with the remainder of the pressing being, gasp, melted down to be recycled into other lps!
So, here it is, artist Joakim Skogsberg's lone album Jola Rota finally, officially reissued for the very first time! Our hearts went pitter pat when we found out. We first heard this when our friend Loren Chasse (of Of/Thuja/Jewelled Antler/etc. fame) floated us a cd-r burn he had gotten from a pal overseas a couple years ago, as per the scenario outlined above. He figured we'd like it, and of course he was right. What's not to like? Swedish-forest-folk hippie ritual mixed with droned-out psych guitar. Truly strange, and captivating, vocal mumble. And, get this, it was actually mostly recorded out in a forest, on portable reel-to-reel gear!! Once out of the woods, the raw recordings were overdubbed (Skogsberg being responsible for all sounds on this album) in studio, but remain quite raw, the mystery and majesty of northern landscapes, dark shadowy places, placid lakes, tall trees and moss-covered rocks utterly alive in the music of the nature-loving Skogsberg.
Side One starts off with "Jola Fran Ingbo", which introduces Joakim's unusual "Jola" singing style derived from Swedish trad folk, also heavily influenced by Buddhist chant, accompanied by staccato bowings of ominous violin. Immediately this is waaaay darker than most other Swedish folk/psych we've heard! Seriously droney and austere. That's followed by the more freaked out, rockier "Offer Rota", which finds Skogsberg singing whilst pounding away on percussion and unfurling a thick layer of distorted guitar murk, with what sounds like a Jew's Harp warbling in the background. The next piece, "Fridens Lijor", on the other hand, is an unaccompanied vocal piece, close-miced and intimate, all about Skogsberg's fragile Jola babble...
Beginning side two, "Besvarjelse Rota" builds up a dubby, bassy electronic rhythmic whomp-whomp throb beneath its damaged psych guitar wail, that (in our warped imagination) foreshadows modern minimal techno a la Chain Reaction, "heroin house" beats.... could almost be Pole jamming with Algarnas Tradgard or something! Later, the lengthy "Jola Fran Stensate" harkens back to the solemnity of the album's first track, and then "Jola Fran Leksand" winds up this unique, amazing trip with something of a pagan campfire dance piece, for folky fiddle and rattling hand percussion.
Overall, though, Jola Rota's mood is solitary and ceremonial. Skogsberg not a guru leading his followers, but rather one man, inspired, singing devotional songs to nature, in personal communion with the ancient deities of Sweden and the universe... it IS universal, probably why it sounds simultaneously like krautrock and Tibetan worship and Native American prayer-songs. The universality of the drone, and the human voice in spiritual reverence regardless of language. At its droniest, many moments here recall Parson Sound or the aforementioned Moolah. Totally, magically mesmeric. Wow... EVERYONE who's heard this since we got it in has been entranced.
Remastered from the original tapes with the help of Skogsberg himself. There's also new liner notes and previously unpublished photos of the long haired and bearded (of course) Skogsberg included, just like the cd version (which, being a Japanese import, isn't much cheaper than this Swedish import vinyl!).
Limited to 500 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Jola Fran Ingbo"
MPEG Stream: "Offer Rota "
MPEG Stream: "Besvarjelse Rota"

RED TEMPLE SPIRITS s/t (Independent Project Records) 3cd 34.00
We have loved this band since we were in high school, when we first picked up a copy of the Red Temple Spirits' first record. That album - Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon - became something we've returned to over and over again. Then, it was a more adventurous, post-apocalyptic, and lysergically tainted take on the British post-punk / goth-pop albums of my youth. You know, Love & Rockets, Siouxsie, The Smiths, The Cure. But later, upon discovering the Syd Barrett fronted Pink Floyd records, Twink's Think Pink, and the Outsiders' CQ, Red Temple Spirits seemed less to fit in with their contemporaries and more of a feral updated expression of psychedelic awakening of those bands from the '70s. The basslines from Red Temple Spirits may have been lifted wholesale from Steven Severin of Siouxsie & The Banshees, and the guitars could hit the jagged, sparkplug bursts of Gang Of Four or even Crime (but for the most part, they paralleled the dark-eyed jangle of the Abecedarians); but the arrangements were far more convoluted - at times shambolic and rambling, and at others ritualistically intense.
The band emerged out of the LA goth-punk scene in 1987, when bassist Dino Paredes departed Psi-Com, which was fronted by none other than Perry Farrell (who would go on to form Jane's Addiction) only to find another amazing frontman in the form of William Faircloth. This British ex-pat was equal parts doomsayer and acid casualty, eagerly waxing poetic about the latter through the lens of the former. Many of these visionary tales mapped out a basic philosophy of universalist gnosticism - "The Light Of Christ" addresses a common gnostic precept that an inner wisdom is trapped within the human condition and can be tapped through meditation, invocation, rigorous study, whatnot, but not before passing through allusions to Buddhism and animism. Vocally, Faircloth sounds a hell of a lot like Black Francis / Frank Black trying to do a Syd Barrett impersonation - a demonic, tonal yelp with a faint trace of a British lisp.
The band produced two albums, the aforementioned Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon (1988) and the nearly impossible to find If Tomorrow I Were Leaving For Lhasa, I Wouldn't Stay A Minute More (1989). The bulk of copies of the latter all seemed to end up in Greece for whatever reason, and given the prices for the album online, must have been single handedly supporting the Greek economy. The debut is an astonishing album that sprawls from languid dirges to frenetic punk-pop songs all lead in dramatic fashion by Faircloth. The second album attempts to tighten up some of the more unhinged aspects, with a few more conventional psych-rock songs but when they hit the cover of Pink Floyd's "Set The Controls To The Heart Of The Sun," it really is a twisted acid trip launched beyond Earth's orbit, through pounding tribal rhythms, Keith Levene-esque guitar scratchiness, and Faircloth's belted vocals. Both of those albums are present in their entirety here, along with some choice bonus tracks (including a really tripped out version of 13th Floor Elevators' "Rollercoaster") as well as a third disc of demos.
This 3cd set also marks the reinvention/reactivation/resurfacing of Bruce Licher's Independent Project Records, complete with the amazing letterpress folios he was creating back in the '90s. Faircloth was actually one of Licher's press technicians after Red Temple Spirits broke up, and Red Temple Spirits and Licher's Savage Republic were certainly coming from the same headspace. The major difference being that Red Temple Spirits was actually a way better band, if criminally under-appreciated. Very highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Waiting For The Sun"
MPEG Stream: "Dark Spirits"
MPEG Stream: "Meltdown"
MPEG Stream: "In The Wild Hills"
MPEG Stream: "Set The Controls"

ATRIARCH Ritual Of Passing (Seventh Rule) lp 13.98
Now on vinyl, via Seventh Rule, the second album from this Portland black/doom horde, originally released on cd by Profound Lore in 2012. It finds their sound moving in a surprising new direction. The first record was classic blackened doom, with loooooong songs, depressive and mournful, sonically similar to outfits like Yob, Atavist, Cough, and other masters of the slo-mo doom-ed creep, but on Ritual Of Passing they seem to have an almost death rock thing going on, the sound way more punk, the songs shorter, choppy and churning, the vocals the biggest change of all, a snarly yowl, a good match for the music certainly bit well removed from the vocals on the first record, harsh AND clean. And we have to say we're digging it a lot.
It's kind of exciting to hear these guys attempt such a weird hybrid: black metal, doom, noise rock, goth, deathrock, it's all sorta tangled up into something pretty original sounding.
The opening track "Parasite" kind covers all the bases, starting out all classic doom, creepy and funereal, but then instead of erupting into full on doooooom, the sound instead explodes into a chugging, swaggery, gloomy noise/death rock dirge, with cool minor key guitar melodies, pounding double kick drumming, a shouted, super catchy chorus, which the more we listen to, the more removed from metal it seems. Then there's the wild psychedelic black noise progged out chaotic outro. Pretty badass we have to say. And while the other tracks do tend more toward proper doom, those elements from the first track definitely find their way into the rest of the record, the vocals especially, which sound even cooler, when paired with woozy, dirgey doom, and soaring almost black metal guitars, and in places, the vocals get all croony and dramatic, the music following suit, slipping into a sort of churning post punk minimalism, and on one track, where the sound slooooows waaay doooooown, more of a weird goth-doom ballad, before exploding back into another stretch of weirdly mathy, metallic post punk, noise rock crush.
Fans of the first record might be a bit thrown off, but we're digging this one WAY more than we ever did the first one, precisely cuz it's so different, and so far removed from the doom / death sound that's been done to, well, death!
MPEG Stream: "Parasite"
MPEG Stream: "Altars"
MPEG Stream: "Prayer"
MPEG Stream: "Cursed"

AUTHOR & PUNISHER Women & Children (Seventh Rule) cd 11.98
It's difficult to review records by Author & Punisher, cuz as longtime readers of the aQ list know, the music is only part of the equation. A&P is in fact Tristan Shone, who builds some of the most beautiful musical 'instruments' we've ever seen. Instruments that look more like pieces of art, or the guts of some super advanced aircraft, massive steel drums, weird science fiction style triggers attached to tracks, that slide along steel strips like some futuristic weapon. He sings through a mask that looks a little like that weird mouthpiece Bane wears in the Batman movies. And the act of making this music is extremely physical. Watching Shone play, he's spinning that massive metal drum, and slamming those weird triggers, sliding pieces of steel into other pieces of steel, there are huge dials and knobs, and chains, and cords, it's like he's in the cockpit of some alien spaceship, the act of flying said spaceship just so happens to produce the music of Author & Punisher, at least, that's how we envision it. And it's these gorgeous machines that while integral to the sound are inherently not present on the record. So if you've never seen the machines, or seen A&P play, then it's all about the music. Thankfully, the music is fucking awesome. Granted, it's a lot better listening to this stuff, and imagining those huge machines grinding away and spewing out these sounds, but even sans the visuals, this stuff kills. At times it's like an even more blown out, more machine like Godflesh. Although this time around, there's a lot more melody, which gives some parts a sort of dark gloomy rock vibe. We hear a little Deftones weirdly enough, and some of the post Godflesh outfits (Jesu, JK Flesh), there's definitely a serious dub vibe going on too, the vocals doused in effects, and looped and layered, the drums too, pretty dubby, and the bass, holy shit, the low end on this A&P record is unlike anything you've ever heard, like the rib cage rattling wobble of dubstep, but times ten, even more blown out and cranked up, noisy and thick, subsonic, corrosive and caustic. The sound will be heavy and churning, when suddenly, the bass drops, and it's like someone snuck in and spun your bass knob to ten. And cranked up the volume too. We can vouch for the extreme bassiness. We were lucky enough to host an Author & Punisher instore a while back, and one song in, our upstairs neighbors came rushing downstairs to see what the hell was going on, as EVERYTHING in their apartments was shaking and vibrating and sliding off shelves. THAT part of the A&P sound is pretty accurately represented here, the sound MASSIVE, and thick, and dense, and utterly CRUSHING.
This time around Shone seems to have honed everything he was going for on past records. The production is huge, the bass is punishing, the arrangements are dense and intricate, the sound is equal parts dubbed out and electronic, super dynamic too, with long stretches of more skittery minimalism, the heaving slabs of skull smashing heaviness more spaced out, plenty of gothy and gloomy passages, the vocals slipping easily from effects heavy clean croon, to demonic distorted bellow, the beats flit from skittery to devastating pound and back again, the overall sound is more textural, more fully realized, heavy, and rhythmic, mesmerizing and seriously fucking brutal. Anyone into Godflesh, Necro Deathmort, JK Flesh, old Digital Hardcore, heavy dub, blown out beatscapery, and of course alien robotic metal-dub, this shit is unbeatable!
Cool small world aQ crossover postscript: Longtime readers of the aQ list are no doubt familiar with the comic Wuvable Oaf, we've reviewed several issues, and raved about it like crazy, our very own Andee even appeared in one issue, as did aQ, lots of big hairy dudes, cats, strange sex and plenty of METAL. Anyway, one of the imaginary bands featured in the comic, Ejaculoid, who is in fact a 'real' imaginary band (featuring some aQ beloved hardcore luminaries!), were given the 'real' remix treatment by a handful of actual real bands, one of which was Author & Punisher, whose Ejaculoid remix is included here!
MPEG Stream: "Women & Children"
MPEG Stream: "In Remorse"
MPEG Stream: "Melee"
MPEG Stream: "Fearce"

AUTHOR & PUNISHER Ursus Americanus (Seventh Rule) lp 13.98
THIS FORMER RECORD OF THE WEEK, NOW ALSO ON VINYL FOR THE FIRST TIME! (We are also listing the brand new album from A&P, Women & Children, but that's cd only for now.)
We first discovered Author & Punisher via a super limited dvd, cuz really, as good as the music is, and it is amazing, you sort of have to see the music being made to understand just how fucking nuts this stuff, and this guy really is. A&P is one man, Tristan Shone, who builds his own instruments, which in and of itself is nothing new, but we're not talking cobbled together rickety speakers and Amps For Christ style plywood soundmachines (although we love that stuff), we're talking gorgeous, precision machined instruments, that look like modern art, huge smooth steel drums, strange handles that slide along metal rails, bizarre triggers and stainless steel mouthpieces fitted with multiple microphones, Author & Punisher's setup looks like some post modern Rube Goldbergian sonic mousetrap, all glimmering metals and smooth expanses of perfectly fitted machines, the live performance as physical as any normal instrumentalist if not more so, Shone spinning the huge metal; drum creating thick swells of rib cage rattling low end, slamming the strange handles along the steel rails producing booming bursts of percussion, the strange Cylon like microphone producing an inhuman alien bellow. Even sans sound, the performance is riveting. Mesmerizing. We were lucky enough to host an Author & Punisher instore, and besides being incredible to see up close, the sounds produced shook the old wooden building that houses aQ so hard, that our upstairs neighbors came down in a panic, explaining that the whole hose was vibrating, and things were falling off shelves and tables.
Now imagine that sort of physical energy, converted into sound, but not just any sound, but totally mesmerizingly epic, crushing buzz drenched post industrial heaviness. A sound that falls somewhere between the industrial crush of Godflesh, and the blown out electronic buzz and glitch of Digital Hardcore, but all blurred into a sort of abject blackened industrial doom. All manner of low end pulsing and buzzing, rumbling and whirring, the beats skittery and stuttery one second, pounding and Teutonic the next, and then there's the bass generator, which we assume comes from that huge metal disc, cuz a sound that thick and intense should really come from a massive 300 pound hunk of spinning metal, that impossibly dense low end, weirdly woozy and almost liquid, the tones being adjusted on the fly, so much so that it sounds like the speed of the recording is being messed with, the sound warbly and woozy, warped and darkly damaged and druggy. While at the same time being heavy as fuck, and pretty much WAY more brutal that bands with real drummer and a phalanx of guitarists in front of rows of amps.
It's amazing how much of the physicality is captured on the record, more so here than on past recordings, the sound managing the delicate balance between blown out amp destroying crush, and tightly wound, barely controlled chaos. The songs slipping from lumbering doomic lurch, to swoonsome skittery abstract dronemusic, from noisy metallic pummel, thick, sinewy digidub, and from thick almost metalgaze drift, to super spare haunting minimal skitter.
Ursus Americanus is definitely the culmination of past recordings and live performances, managing the seemingly impossible task of creating something that stands on its own musically, but that captures a soundmaking method that you're unlikely to experience from anyone else. Totally incredible. And obviously, if you get the chance, see A&P live, and have your mind (and ears) blown.
MPEG Stream: "Terrorbird"
MPEG Stream: "Lonely"
MPEG Stream: "Mercy Dub"

BATILLUS Concrete Sustain (Seventh Rule) cd 11.98
When it comes to heaviness - interesting heaviness - the Seventh Rule label is pretty dang reliable. This list we're getting caught up with some of their latest, with THREE new Seventh Rule releases reviewed. This one's the follow up to this NYC band's mammoth full-length debut Furnace, a hate-and-pain-fueled aQ fave back in 2011. Again Batillus punish the listener with mammoth industrialized sludge. It's total deathmarch of doom, uber-distorted noizerock churn that's equal parts Godflesh and Eyehategod, super blown out and often epic, their "blackened doom metal" sound strangely, rhythmically catchy and wide open to loud/soft post-rock-like experimentation, sometimes finding the desolate beauty amidst the ruins. The vokills and loosely-strung guitars vie for which can be harsher, while the machine-like (but not drum machine) percussion grabs you and maintains forward momentum down, down through the glorious, hellish realms of Batillus's sick sound. The lyrics deal in decay and despair and the music follows suit. The Sanford Parker production is the icing on this crushing cake. Nicely done, definitely recommended to all those who liked their earlier effort, or dig similarly antisocial, ultra-heavy doomcore (and doomed-out post-rock) a la The Body, Thou, Cough, Fleshpress, Kowloon Walled City (who turned us on to Batillus in the first place), etc., & also fellow Seventh Rulers Atriarch and Author & Punisher for sure!
Vinyl version also available, via Vendetta.
MPEG Stream: "Concrete"
MPEG Stream: "Cast"
MPEG Stream: "Thorns"

BIPOLAROID Supernatural Beauty (Get Hip) 7" 5.50
Latest blast of sixties style psychedelic pop from these aQ faves - two short sharp ditties, one clocking in at about 90 seconds, the other a little over two minutes, but that's plenty of time for Bipolaroid to deliver some seriously sunshiney psychedelia, chiming percussion, shuffling rhythms, dreamy guitar jangle, whirring organ, all dreamily druggy and a little bit garage-y, with a sound that like past records, if you didn't know it was new, it would be easy to believe this one some unearthed sixties pop rarity. The B side slips into something a tiny bit darker and more driving, the vocals getting sweetly falsetto in places - and speaking of the vocals, on past Bipolaroid records, the vocals (and the sound in general) were a dead ringer for Pink Floyd, but the now the singing has grown much more distinctive, cooler and weirder, adding a definite twist to Bipolaroid's sun dapped psychedelic jangle.

BLOOD CEREMONY The Eldritch Dark (Rise Above) cd 14.98
Come, come to the sabbat!! It is now upon us, The Eldritch Dark, album number 3 from one of our top favorites amongst the burgeoning new wave of female fronted occult rock bands, Toronto's Blood Ceremony. And there's a LOT of good bands in that "scene", a bunch of 'em on the same label(s), Rise Above/Metal Blade. Blood Ceremony are a bit heavier than their UK compatriots/competition, Purson, reviewed last list, but a heck of a lot more folky and Comus-y than The Devil's Blood (RIP - that band's final release comes out next week).
While vocalist/flautist/keyboard player/witchy woman Alia O'Brien is once again the star of the show, there are evocative male vocals on here too, from bassist Lucas Gadke, first noticeable on track 3, the semi-acoustic "Lord Summerisle" - that's right, a reference to the Wicker Man movie there, hardly a surprise, considering their inspirations. All the songs are about black masses, dark woods and witchery, dontcha know. And capture a '70s Britfolk, Wicker Man vibe for sure, being both catchy and atmospheric, total progged-out pagan hoedown material, full of not just flute but fiddle too. Plus synth and Hammer Horror organ as well, and of course some seriously doomy guitar riffage, that you can dance a reel too (but you'll halfway expect to get a sacrificial dagger in your heart at some point in the fun). Obviously recommended without reservation to fans of the aforementioned bands, also Jex Thoth, Jess And The Ancient Ones, and their non-female fronted psych-folk-doom godfathers Pagan Altar. We should also mention Jethro Tull and Black Sabbath here just to be complete!
MPEG Stream: "Witchwood"
MPEG Stream: "Ballad Of The Weird Sisters"
MPEG Stream: "The Eldritch Dark"

CACCIAPAGLIA, ROBERTO Sonanze (Mupymup) lp+cd 29.00
We've been working backwards in the Roberto Cacciapaglia catalog. We started with the eccentric pop of The Ann Steel Record from 1979, then a few lists back moved on to his minimalist systems composed piece, Sei Note In Logica. We'd planned on reviewing his first record, 1975's Sonanze, when Wah Wah originally reissued it, but are glad we waited for this Mupymup version which contains a bonus disc of 15 extra pieces from the period which really detail the beautiful range of this experimental classical composer with both Italian prog and Krautrock ties, and this will most definitely appeal to fans of either genre.
Sonanze is perhaps the most classical leaning release of the bunch, but it definitely has a deep kosmiche feel. Its 10 movements begin with cascading gongs filtered through tape loops against an airy atmosphere of piano runs. Chamber string dramatics lay out the definitive feel of the entire piece of plaintive horns and kettle drums before getting full on cosmic in the Second Movement with pulsating synths and deep phased chanting leading to a percolating soundscape of jaw harp vibrations and swelling strings. The third movement brings in Lubomyr Melnyk-style piano cascades, while the fourth movement introduces a disembodied angelic choir, reminding us of Ligetti's "Lux Aeterna" from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The 5th movement brings in Peter Michael Hamel-style organ arpeggiations devolving into bowed gong scrapes. The 6th movement is very Michael Rother like, with cloudy gliding guitar and on and on it goes, a different feel or instrument in each changing movement, but somehow tied into a deeply introspective and gorgeous whole. Mixed by legendary krautrock producer Rolf-Kaiser Ulrich (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel), Sonanze is definitely our favorite of the three releases we reviewed thus far (though the Ann Steel scores major points because it's so dang out there!).
The bonus disc is also pretty killer, filled with cosmic new age compositions of Moog and piano, filled with wonderful vocal experiments (check out the proto-Grouper track, "Manuela"), gongs and some abstract soundscapes to boot. So totally recommended and these reissues don't stick around long, so get it while you can!
MPEG Stream: "1st Movement"
MPEG Stream: "2nd Movement"
MPEG Stream: "6th Movement"
MPEG Stream: "Manuela"
MPEG Stream: "Skywaves"
MPEG Stream: "Floating Clouds"

CENTIPEDE September Energy (Klimt) 2lp 39.00
One our our most popular Records Of The Week of recent vintage was the double cd by ambitious UK ensemble the Orchestra Of The Upper Atmosphere, and in our review of that we mentioned this, an unjustly obscure classic from the early '70s, a joyous symphonic jazz prog outpouring from another HUGE ensemble, that the UOA reminded us of just a bit - it probably was one of their inspirations, in fact. Centipede was a robust 50-piece orchestra, lead by composer Keith Tippett, featuring a host of rock and jazz musicians from the Canterbury scene (Robert Wyatt wrote the original liner notes), including members of King Crimson, Soft Machine, and Nucleus. Heroically recorded & produced by King Crimson's Robert "Bob" Fripp, Septober Energy was originally released in 1971 (yep), and has now been reissued by Klimt in a gatefold sleeve on double vinyl, that barely contains this sprawling, vibrant masterpiece, which morphs continually through jazz and prog and 20th century avant classical idioms, incorporating droning wordless vocal choirs, violin and cello scrape and skitter, crazed crescendos of jabbering kecak-like chant, delicate piano passages, masses of trumpets, saxes, and trombones, and more... Imagine William Sheller's Lux Aeterna album with a whole bunch of Albert Aylers on board, maybe, especially with Centipede's dynamic shifts from driftingly pleasant melodic horn passages to total free jazz freakout to righteous, swinging "hairy funk" grooves. Moments might possibly get too "fusiony" for some folks, but not for us though.
Fripp was supposed to play guitar, but instead he was too busy with his recording duties, so the fat fuzz riffery that occasionally appears comes courtesy of Brian Godding of Blossom Toes (who, even more germane to this music, later on played with Magma!). There's also lyrics by (and singing from) Tippett's then-wife Julie, who now actually often collaborates with UOA's Martin Archer, see.
MPEG Stream: "Septober Energy Part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Septober Energy Part 2"
MPEG Stream: "Septober Energy Part 4"

CIRCLE Panic (Full Contact) lp 22.00
Circle's punky Panic record, out of print on cd, now available on vinyl!!!
Ah, Circle. We love 'em. You love 'em (or, if this is the first you've heard of them, then please do an artist=circle search on our website for plenty o' info). And we've all come to expect the unexpected from these freaky Finns, yet also always expect the "Circle" sound: rhythmic, krautrocky, "circular". And they always deliver. Yet we'd have to say, with Panic they've also managed to come up with the Circle album that we doubt -anyone- would quite have predicted, nosiree.
Spoiler warning! Since we know that the legions of Circle fans reading this pretty much don't need us to tell 'em that they want this or any new Circle record and will be all over this like stink on a pig regardless, we should mention that this review contains something in way of a "spoiler" about the album's contents and if you're already planning on buying this you might want to read no further. Not that the surprise is, y'know, like The Crying Game or anything. So read on if you want.
Looking at this, you might be wondering, what do the apocalyptic, crusty-punk looking black-and-white graphics mean? And why'd they call it Panic? And what's with the sticker on the front, proclaiming Circle to be "Finland speed-kraut pioneers" and telling us that they consist of ex-members of Sorto Ja Riiso, Saaste, Nyrkinen Kehitys, Spiders, and Suomen Ruutivarasto? Are those even real bands? Ultimately, you're wondering, what's this gonna sound like??
So, let's put it on... it starts off with "Black Tape", reminiscent of their recent lovely Miljard set: minimal piano plinking amidst spacey organic washes of synth, sort of Circle in an ambient Aphex Twin / Terry Riley mood. As that track flows into the next, and the next, the tone becomes more urgent, ominous, and busier... And then, without warning (well, unless you've read this) track number four ("Neverending Dinner") blasts from the speakers, a loud n' raging PUNK rock shock to the system, 38 seconds long. Seriously retro '80s styled hardcore punk, boots and spikes and all that, with vocals angrily shouting subversive political diatribes, the music uber-distorted and as catchy as a veneral disease. Wow. That's what we mean by a surprise! Thus begins this mayhemic middle portion of the album, six tracks, averaging not much more than a minute in length each, is Circle's teenage punk rock rebellion reborn and moshing hard. But since it's Circle's version of punk, so you can still hear the sci-fi prog rock keyboards layered in there, twittering and swooshing amidst the purely punk noise. Weird weird weird. Then, like a summer thunderstorm, all that's over with... and we're back to the vast, instrumental reaches of deep, dark space, the disc coming to a conclusion with its two longest tracks, the 12 minute "Tunnel" and the 14 minute "And Far Away", both even dronier and spacier than the synthscapes that began the album. Wow again.
If you think about it, those two extremes - spacey prog and quasi-metallic rockin' - are both integral parts of the hard-to-define Circle sound. So it's as if on Panic, they've taken the "usual" Circle thing and pulled it apart, like taffy. The opposite ends of the album are stretched out into a bleak and beautiful drone-zone, while the heaviest densest craziest stuff settles into the middle.
Some might criticize Circle for what might appear to an indulgence in high-concept joking around... post-modern appropriation... punk playacting... taking the piss... whatever. But what we think is that they're all the more amazing for it, for deciding to do a "punk" record yet keeping it Circle. After all, if you're gonna make as many albums as these guys have AND always have to make sure you stay true to the very distinctive sound they're established (the "circular", repetitive thing), you've gotta be creative, which they are. So their solution here is to sandwich their warped '80s punk pastiche between something completely different - cosmic electronics like '70s Schulze or maybe a John Carpenter soundtrack. The jarring juxtaposition is brilliant and maybe even meaningful, somehow tying in with the nuclear nightmares depicted on the album graphics. And there are many clever details in the graphics dep't by the way, from the collaged riot pics to the fonts used to the barbed wire borders and the Ektro flag-logo... tight. In fact, we might wonder which came first, the graphic notions or the music...!?
MPEG Stream: "State Powder"
MPEG Stream: "U.M.F.G. Horsemen"
MPEG Stream: "And Far Away"

CRISTAL Homegoing (Hand-Held Recordings) cd 14.98
Homegoing is the most recent full length from these avant dronescapers, whose Re-Ups lp on Flingco was a big hit around here. The group counts members of the late great Labradford amongst their membership, and as we mentioned in our review of Re-Ups, there does seem to be a sonic thread connecting both groups.
Cristal explore much of the same ground as other dronelords like SUNNO))) and Locrian, but Cristal focus less on the heavy, and more on the atmosphere, and the texture, the sounds here unfurling, and unfolding, revealing fragmented melodies, and mysterious song-like shapes drifting amidst the fields of low end thrum and keening shimmer.
The opener sounds almost classical, like Wolf Eyes performing with the symphony, a symphony forced to play old rusted metal and weird found implements, the result is a black, foggy creep, with moaning cellos and creaking streaks of high end, all wreathed in lush swirls of blackened sound, ethereal and ephemeral, a lushly ominous broodscape the sounds poised to exploded into something epic, but instead, seems to drift ever inward, collapsing into a brief bit of almost new age sounding drift, all hazy hushed thrum, before splintering into an epic sprawl of softly churning rumble, laced with layered pulsations, all blurred and smeared into a slow heaving swell of softly crumbling low end, wreathed in a halo of hushed high end shimmer. Gorgeous and harrowing.
The second half of the record begins with a field of cavernous subterranean low end reverberations, the sound almost ritualistic, the tones sounding almost like human voices processed by the natural deformations in whatever cave these sounds were excavated from, the sound shifts to something even more minimal, a field of softly undulating swells, brooding, moody and mysteriously cinematic, all bleeding into a hazy prismatic drift, all muted high end skree, sculpted into dreamlike shapes and set adrift on soft focus billows of weightless sound, the airiness giving way to something more warm and washed out, dreamlike and melancholic, before shifting into the epic near 11 minute closer, which starts off barely there, but quickly builds to something epic and majestic, a swirling serene squall of dense psychedelic shimmer, and slow shifting layers of glimmering, chordal whir, all hazy and heady and heavenly...
MPEG Stream: "Yoke"
MPEG Stream: "Streaming Wisdom"
MPEG Stream: "Mirror"

DAUBY, YANNICK Hares And Bells (Invisible Birds) cd-r 11.98
The liner notes state that this is "an homage to young hares and their fascination with bells." Well, we learn something new everyday, as we had no idea that cute, little baby rabbits had an affinity for bell tones one way or the other. The field recordist and sound sculptor Yannick Dauby offers forth this lovely piece of manipulated, dulcet bell tones, but does he intend this piece to be the equivalent to Raymond Scott's Soothing Sounds For Babies, but for rabbits? It is certainly soothing to these human ears, regardless of the lapine allusions. Semi-melodic phrases from various chimes and bells are multi-tracked and processed with degrees of pitchshifting, reversed playback, echo, and reverb, removing it from the context of a field recording of a set of windchimes, and situating it into a far more abstract musical one. Dauby's pace is suitably slow and somewhat sensuous in its langour, all suspended within a sedate fog of droning mystery. Not too far from some of the Mirror records that Andrew Chalk and Christoph Heemann released back in the day. This is a super limited release - just 100 copies - from the folks at Invisible Birds, who as always do a classy job on the artwork.
MPEG Stream: "Hares And Bells"

DEATH TRIP Pain Is Pain (Full Contact) lp 22.00
This recent kick ass reissue from weirdo Finnish sludge punks Death Trip, now also available on vinyl!!!
When we travel, record shopping plays a huge part in our planning. We're guessing the same is true of many (most?) of you. Not only do we typically have various stores we want to check out, we also have a list, with all the stuff we've been looking for forever, and while we may have scoured our local stores looking for stuff on that list, in the hopes that something might pop up, it's when we go someplace new, when we really expect to get lucky. When Andee went to Finland a few years back, he was lucky enough to have Jussi from Circle as his host, who is legendarily obsessed with record shopping (and who on his last visit to San Francisco, went record shopping EVERY SINGLE DAY!), and Jussi was tasked with helping Andee find two things at the top of his Finland-specific list, a single from Finnish dirge rockers Worms, and any or all of the three singles from legendary Finnish punks Death Trip.
Thus, this is pretty exciting - here we have the COMPLETE recorded works of Death Trip, released on Jussi's Ektro Records, and barring a trip to Finland and much crate digging, this is the only way you're gonna get to hear this stuff, and even then, besides the six songs from those three singles, there are EIGHT bonus tracks, available only here: six rare live recordings and two unreleased demos! And while Death Trip were punk, they weren't necessarily 'punk rock', their sound was almost more Stooges-y, all sludgey and dirgey, with a crazy lead vocalist, Laja Aijala from Finnish punk legends Terveet Kadet, and who slips from guttural yowl to hysterical shriek, it's easy to see why Jussi would be obsessed with these guys, heck, why anyone would be. Their namesake song "Death Trip" is total swaggery glam blues slither, with some wild shredding guitars and those twisted vox, it's from 1988, but the sound is total nineties noise rock. Albeit a weirdly minimal punky proto-noise rock. "We're Gonna Die Tonight" begins with weird synth buzz and twisted weirdo vocals, which goes on for a whole minute before the band kicks in, sounding a bit like Hanoi Rocks, but still with those bizarre vocals. Here's where we pause, and say, if we didn't know better, and didn't know for a fact that Death Trip were a real band, we'd be tempted to think it as another Jussi / Circle project, like Steel Mammoth or Mercedes Hell or something. At the very least, it's easy to see where Circle and Co. got much of their inspiration.
"Chainsaw Goddess" is all Loop / Spacemen 3 guitars wedded to punk rock beats, swirling synths and more feral vox, while, "Deep Red" is total tripped out punk doom, with even MORE unhinged vox, dirgey and noisy and super heavy. "Please Skin Me Alive" is total noisy post punk / noise rock crush, with wah wah guitars, a seriously Stoogesy main riff, and finally "Something" is all low slung bass, another dirgey groove that reminds us of Green River or Skin Yard more than proper punk rock, which is probably why we love this stuff so much. Those of you who remember the band Smack, who were sort of a glammy, trashy rock band from Finland, there's actually a surprising amount of sonic overlap, with much of Death Trip's sound veering into the almost grungy/glammy. It's only six songs, but most bands would kill for a body of work half this ruling.
Then there are the live tracks, which are super blown out and lo-fi, noisy and chaotic, one of 'em an altered Stooges cover in fact, with some of the tracks getting stretched way out into sprawling dirges, and the two demos are great too, for tracks which were never properly recorded, and while super raw and lo-fi, still sound just as kick ass as the singles tracks proper.
MPEG Stream: "Death Trip"
MPEG Stream: "We're Gonna Die Tonight"
MPEG Stream: "Pain Is Pain (Demo)"

DEEBANK, MAURICE Inner Thought Zone (1972) cd 14.98
A few years back, there was a comprehensive reissue campaign for moody atmospheric pastoral eighties jangle poppers Felt, a group we had convinced ourselves we wouldn't like, until we finally heard them, and not only liked 'em but became a bit obsessed. And while most folks are probably familiar with Felt mainman Lawrence (nee Lawrence Hayward) who was the face of Felt and who would go on to front Denim, and less successfully Go Kart Mozart (ugh), it's the lesser known Maurice Deebank who helped create Felt's signature sound, which is evidenced on here, a reissue of Deebank's 1984 instrumental solo debut, which finds Deebank creating lush landscapes of shimmer and jangle, swirling minor key chords, looped, cyclical melodies, and warm whirling layered ambience, introspective and heartfelt, the music here shadowy and dreamlike, lovely and lyrical, reminding us at times of Roy Montgomery, and at others Vini Reilly, but really sounding like our favorite moments on those early Felt records. Deebank would leave Felt in 1986, as Lawrence moved more toward the bubblegum pop that would begin to seep into the later Felt outings blossoming into the pure pop of Denim, while Deebank continued to look inward, creating gorgeous soundscapes of soft psychedelia and glistening guitar shimmer. "Dance Of Deliverance" might be our favorite track here, ominous low end, soft swells of shimmering synths, all swirled into a sort of shadowy new age drift, or it might have sounded new age if it wasn't so dark, a brooding mini masterpiece that is the perfect balance to the rest of the record's more sun dappled crystalline dreaminess. So great!
MPEG Stream: "The Watery Song"
MPEG Stream: "Four Corners Of The Earth"
MPEG Stream: "Silver Fountain Of Paradise Square"
MPEG Stream: "Dance Of Deliverance"

DISPIRIT 111112 (self-released) cassette 6.98
Troo Cvlt types everywhere have been waiting for this, the second "demo" tape from heralded Bay Area black metal / doom artists Dispirit, the band featuring guitarist/vocalist John Gossard, previously of Asunder, The Gault, and most crucially, USBM legends WEAKLING.
The joke around here has always been, Question: Hey, have you seen Dispirit play live? Answer: Yes, well, no, not really - since you usual can't actually SEE them through all the fog they use on stage, putting even SUNNO))) to shame in fog machine abuse. They've got those suckers cranked to 11. And guess what? Their music SOUNDS foggy too.
Once again recorded live at "Oboroten" (presumably, their practice space), here's three more long lo-fi excursions into Dispirit's hazy, obscured world of blackened, doomy, slowcore infused metal. Endless depressive trudge, utterly lugubrious lumbering plodding, with Gossard's anguished vocals (excuse us, vokills) a blown-out despairing howl barely rising above the din... And boy is it mesmeric.
But then a strange thing happens. When you think you have 'em pegged, the shit gets much more metal and gallopy, the vocals more aggro, the riffs sharper, and even squiggly leads emerge (though still cutting through a dense miasmatic murk). Dispirit know how to rip, in their own way, it turns out. Whew! We're even hearing some Sabbath in there.
Side B is back to the slow, sludge trudge, with Dispirits exhalations of doom pretty soon lulling the listener into a trancelike state, the music drifting off on textural, suicidally shoegazy waves of sound, ominous and... oh wait, it's the first song again, turns out "the program is repeated on side B." Aha.
Also not sure what's up with the numbers as the tape title, oh maybe it's the date this was recorded. And the three song titles are given in a tiny, gothic blackletter font that's super hard to read (kinda like on the Weakling cd). Maybe the first song is called "All Baths End The Same"? Or probably it's "Paths" but we like "Baths". Which would go with song two, "Beneath The Waves", pretty sure we got that one right. Then there's "The Drinker" or "The Drifter" or "The Drinser"?? As you can see this music has muddled our minds.

EARTHEN SEA Ocean Beach (Earthen Zone) cassette 5.98
The latest missive from local dronelord/soundscaper Earthen Sea, comes in the form of this sonic homage to our very own Ocean Beach, although the sonic picture these two sidelong sprawls paint is altogether much more abject and sinister than the sunny seaside one might imagine. Sure, it's foggy and cold, but here that overcast sky manifest as swirling sheets of soft grey shimmer and bleary blustery thrum, all smeared into softly heaving swells. And that sound is infused with deep shadows, to these ears, this is might be the sound of Ocean Beach, but some post apocalyptic beach devoid of humanity, the earth scorched and mankind extinct, the sand littered with ash and burnt husks of unknown creatures, the water black with blood and rife with mysterious detritus, the sky choked with roiling clouds, the light filtering through hazy and blurry, almost like the whole world is underwater. This beautifully bleak soundscape is laced with strange staticky percolations, glitchy shards that fuse into a sort of abstract skeletal rhythm, a sort of abstract minimal krautrock melted down into something oozing and primordial. A haunting soundworld of sci-fi, kraut-age, black ambient drones, buried murky rhythms, and muted minor key melodies. Awesome!
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Each one featuring a unque cover that's individually hand painted!!
MPEG Stream: "Side A (excerpt)"

EIGHT BELLS The Captain's Daughter (Seventh Rule) cd 11.98
Ding, ding! (x4) Something ring a bell? That's cuz Eight Bells is the new group formed from the ashes of veteran spacerockers Subarachnoid Space, whose last album before they disbanded in 2010 was titled, Eight Bells. Since we liked that record a lot, we're happy to report that Subarachnoid Space guitarist Melynda Jackson has teamed with erstwhile Subarachnoid Space drummer Chris Van Huffel, plus bassist Haley Westeiner, to take up where Subarachnoid Space left off, this trio continuing Subarachnoid Space's latter-day trajectory into heavier and heavier territories, to the point that it makes sense that this would be recorded by Billy Anderson, and come out on Seventh Rule. And woah this is good, damn good. Mostly instrumental (even when there is singing, it's often kinda used as another instrument), and definitely progressive, with sinuous song structures and intricate epic arrangements, they play a kind of mathy, moody spacerock that at times even ventures into black metal territory - Cascadian black metal we guess, to be precise, since that's where they're based, up in the Pacific Northwest. Seriously, if you didn't know the context, there's stretches where you'd think it was a BM record for sure. And as space rock or post rock, it's definitely rockin'. Think Kinksi meets Wolves In The Throne Room...
A good example of Eight Bells' dynamic, apocalyptic mathrock is how the urgent angular quickstep of track two, "Fate And Technology" takes a sudden shift into slower, quieter, more placid territory adorned by dreamy, gentle female singing, but then builds up again to sheer, near black metal blasting complete with harsh, throatripped vokills. Those vokills and vocals are both handled by Haley, but the title track does bring in guest vocalist Kris Force of Amber Asylum to add her haunting pipes to the mix, for some extra atmosphere, that track reminding us, with its scrambling riffery, of Stinking Lizveta, at first anyway, then getting seriously epic in a postrock way, 12+ minutes full of drama and majesty (and intense chops!), climaxing with thunderous drum pound and wordless high end operatic vocalizations from Force. Here and elsewhere there's droning synths, echoing effects, and a thick, muscular bass presence, part of what makes Eight Bells so heavy and propulsive.
For fans of Subarachnoid Space (of course) and Liturgy and maybe the likes of Worm Ouroboros too. Recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "Tributaries"
MPEG Stream: "Fate And Technology"
MPEG Stream: "The Captain's Daughter"

ELUVIUM Nightmare Ending ( Temporary Residence Ltd.) 2cd 16.98
It's been three years since we last heard from Matthew Cooper, aka Eluvium, and that record, Similes,
found Cooper mixing it up a bit, adding vocals, and transforming his Eno like shimmery drift into something more songlike, reminding us at the time of Black Heart Procession. But here on full length number seven, Cooper returns to the sound of his earlier records, like 2007's Copia, creating a lush, hushed landscape of cinematic ambience, minimal and melancholy, long sweeping expanses of synth shimmer floating ghostlike beneath stately piano chords, all wreathed in a wistful haze, but tempering this wistful drift with some seriously dark brood. The opener tugs at the heartstrings, and once again has us wondering why Cooper isn't in Hollywood scoring blockbusters, but then the tone shifts a bit, the follow up track adding some shadow, some sonic pathos, haunting, near symphonic swells, washed out and ethereal, as lovely as the opener, but slightly downcast, which leads directly into the brief dark sprawl of "By The Rails" which finds Cooper giving Stars Of The Lid a run for their money, unfurling a seriously dark bit of droned out thrum, rife with minor key melodies, and churning low end textures, all smeared into a blur of shadowy shimmer, and overlaid with soft sheets of static and distant keening melodies, fantastically murky and moving, an anomaly in Cooper's oeuvre maybe, but it had us hankering for more, and embracing the sonic shadows when they do surface.
The rest of the first disc unwinds dreamily, long swaths of soft noise drift dissipates into a gorgeous stretch of solo piano, which gives way to another dreamlike expanse of crystalline piano, this time wreathed in muted rumbles, and slow shifting textures, again, super cinematic and moving. Finally the final track on the first disc adds some rhythmic static and some softly corrosive crunch to the proceedings, the whole thing building to an almost Godspeed-like coda.
Disc two begins with a surprisingly noisy bit of ambience, delicate pointillist piano floats weightless in clouds of thick crumbling buzz, cascading sheets of distortion smoothed out into soft swirls of blurred blackened shimmer, the end result a dreamily noisy bit of dreamy drift. That noisiness seems to have bled into the rest of the record, at least a few tracks, with Cooper's usual haunting hush, augmented by thick sheets of shoegazey thrum, but still peppered with passages of delicate solo piano, or whisper like moody minimalism, the record closing with a brief bit of gristled soft noise, and then a sprawling stretch of stately dreaminess, warm fluid piano drifts atop long shimmering tones, and vocals surface for the first time, transforming the warm, wistful ambience, into a haunting dream-drone lullaby. Gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "Don't Get Any Closer"
MPEG Stream: "Warm"
MPEG Stream: "Rain Gently"
MPEG Stream: "Happiness"

FEVERWITCH For Ears Unfurling Like Flowers (self-released) cassette 5.98
This is the first we've heard from local songstress/soundscaper Feverwitch, and with that band name, the strange song titles, the unorthodox characters/spelling, you might be thinking Witch House, a genre we all loved but which seemed to have been a bit of a flash in the pan - and to a degree you'd be right, from the very first few second of the first track FW unfurls some seriously haunting slomo mesmer, ritualistic and cinematic, whirling organs, slowed down male vocals drone beneath FW's dramatic croon, what sound like strings swoop and soar, darkly mysterious and almost liturgical, like a lo-fi 4 track Arvo Part, spectral and shimmery, murky and moody, the perfect late night chill out bliss out, with a slightly witchy/demonic edge to it.
And really, that's how the whole tape plays out, vibes of Twin Peaks, hints of Grouper, definitely plenty of Witch House residue, gothy and gloomy, some of the tracks are like otherworldly ballads, FW's distinctive vocals nestled in fields of processed vocals, delicate tinkling piano, crystalline expanses of hushed thrum, others build to strident singer/songwriter drama, albeit steeped in thick clouds of reverb and delay, and when the drums come in (which is seldom), they had some heft, some rhythmic gravitas that gives the song a ghostly propulsion. Swirls of cosmic synths drift in, adding a sort of new age / sci-fi vibe, everything blurred into a washed out lysergic sonic haze, that's darkly and dreamily divine.
Then there's the final track, where FW really gives her voice a workout, letting loose with the sort of voice that gives you chills, dramatic operatic, somewhere between Kate Bush and Diamanda Galas, wild trills, soaring impossible melodies, all over sweeping faux strings and brooding atmospheric swirl. Wow.
Really nice, fans of Grouper, Zola Jesus, Chelsea Wolfe should check this out for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Veni^2"
MPEG Stream: "Bower Bird"

GOAT Dreambuilding / Stonegoat (Sub Pop) 7" 5.98
Goat on Sub Pop, how 'bout that? Pretty cool. We don't make 7" singles Records Of The Week, but if we did, this one woulda been a good candidate due to the excitement/anticipation it generated, and how much it satisfies such anticipation! So consider it a 7" Of The Week at least.
Although its Goat's first domestic US release, and being a single could certainly function as a taster/intro to their sound, really we'd direct anyone as yet uninitiated into the cult of the Goat directly to their full-length from last year, World Music. We made THAT a Record Of The Week after all, it's soooo good. Read our review for the dubious but entertaining backstory on this Voodoo-cursed Afropsych band from a tiny town in Sweden. But for all of you who are already fans, we know you're jonesin' for this.
Compared to some of the poppier/catchier tracks on World Music, the A side "Dreambuilding" is more of a jam, the chanted vocals without an immediate chorus a la "Goatman" or "Run To Your Mama", rather it basically seems like an excuse for mega ultra fuzzed guitar leads to be unleashed, psychedelically skronking sinuously over a bed of groovy primal hand percussion with a trippy 'exotica' feel to it - and as far as we're concerned, they don't need an excuse to do that sort of thing, we dig it! Not that this isn't catchy, it's just more of a jam is all.
The B side (or AA side, they're both meant to be considered A's) is another song with a sound that's obviously immediately Goat and nobody else, and is great of course. How could it not be, it's called "Stonegoat"?! If anything we're digging it more than "Dreambuilding", it's all gurgling wah-wah fuzz and throbbing Afrobeats and wailing vox in the best Goat tradition. Killer.
Comes with an mp3 download code! Like many 7"s, it's limited, and being Goat, demand is high. Sub Pop is almost all sold out, so we don't know if/when we'll get more, though eventually they may repress. Dunno if this means the next Goat full-length will be coming out soon, and on Sub Pop or not, but this certainly whets our appetite for more, regardless!

GRASS WIDOW / SHANNON AND THE CLAMS Unbelievable / The Power (Wacky Wacko) 7" 8.98
Featured on the first episode of glamorously low-budget cable tv show Hollywood Nailz last year, two of our favorite SF rock bands faced off in a battle for best cover interpretation. First up, Shannon and The Clams taking Snap's "The Power" to a whole new punk level (brave choice!) while the flip side has Grass Widow bringing a groovy Bangles-ish flair to EMF's "Unbelievable". The segment featured an "all-star" panel of Nobunny, King Khan, fashionista Ringo Rock Yay and dominatrix Miss Shannon. For good reason, Grass Widow won the contest. Dressed in burkas, wearing glasses with large googly-eyes, the 'Widows brought a whole new meaning to unbelievable! Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HLkwLu2xuo. Many of the commenters on YouTube asked where they could pick this up, and we have the answer for you: right here!

GRAYDON, ANDY Unterwegs (Contour Editions) cd-r 12.98
The lowercase aesthetic is one that hasn't manifested all that often in recent years here at aQuarius, but we have been known to champion the likes of Bernhard Gunter and Steve Roden in years past. Andy Graydon is a New York based sound-artist who follows that particular minimalist aesthetic with his own highly conceptual precepts surrounding the three pieces in regards to negation of form and the construction of empty spaces. Graydon intentionally engineered the first piece at less than half the normal listening volume, through which the subtle gestures and manipulated field recordings tease in and out of existence. Electrical buzzes and flickering neon-tube hums flash around a rumbling urban din and strangely musical phrases that looks back to Robert Ashley's seminal piece Automatic Writing. Over the course of the three pieces, the overall volume steadily increases, through the subterranean low-end stasis of the middle track that blossoms into a radiant Haflerian blur of tightly woven tonal oscillations. Those slippery surfaces of placid yet eerie tones reprise at a lower octave on the 21 minute finale of Unterwegs with pneumatic hisses snaking through the composition. Really nice work found within, all of which is attuned to the rigorous minimalism of Jakob Kirkegaard, Richard Chartier, and Richard Garet, the latter of which released this on his always impressive Contour Editions. Limited to 150 copies!
MPEG Stream: "Airframe"
MPEG Stream: "Year Long Waiting Room"

GRIM TOWER Anarchic Breezes (Outer Battery) cd 15.98
The name had us expecting something blackened and metallic, but the lineup gave us a more realistic idea of what Grim Tower might sound like. The duo of Stephen McBean of Black Mountain, and aQ pal Imaad Wasif (Lowercase, Electric Flower Group) is self described as 'death folk', and Grim Tower do most definitely deliver a sort of dark psychedelic folk, lush and laced with effects and electronics, trancelike and ritualistic, the sound obviously beholden to classic seventies acid folk, but with plenty of modern psych folk tropes as well. Opener "Soft Seance" sets the scene pretty perfectly, over a bed of backwards rhythms, and softly swirling FX, the duo lay down some distorted psych guitar buzz, and some steel string buzz, the vocals a moody echo drenched croon, all minor key melodies, cool vocal harmonies, some big drumming toward the end, and a heavy psych finish, all distorto shred wrapped chug and churn. The second track is all banjo and sruti box buzz, Wasif's keening vox a nice contrast to McBean's croon, the vibe super apocalyptic and swampy, reminding us for sure of Woven Hand / 16 Horsepower big time. And so it goes, the sound shifting from dark brooding folky psychedelia, to culty, ritualistic acid folk, to almost pop, all jangly and melodic (check out "Orpheus Light") with fluttery flute and fuzz drenched acoustic guitars, to broody, balladic folkiness, to strummy, almost classic rock sounding psych, even some buzzy Appalachia, but all of these variations are definitely woven into a fantastically cohesive whole, a dark, mysterious, death obsessed psychedelic songsuite that we're digging big time!
MPEG Stream: "Soft Seance"
MPEG Stream: "Reign Down"
MPEG Stream: "Orpheus Light"

GULAGGH Vorkuta (Crucial Blast) cd 13.98
Long out of print, this twisted blast of warped blackened noise, now available again, thanks to the fine folks at Crucial Blast. Now in swank new silver on black digipak packaging.
Long time readers of the aQ list and weird music obsessives might remember Dutch black ambient freaks Stalaggh, whose M.O. was creating harsh atonal drones and buzzes, hellish noise drenched soundscapes as backdrops for various vocalists, those vocalists all inmates at a local psychiatric hospital. Yup. The results were chilling, and creepy, and pretty fucking demented and incredible. Those Stalaggh recordings made even the evilest black metal sound totally tame in comparison. Some seriously emotional, demented and damaged, psychological sonic terror.
Post Stalaggh, the band regrouped, and rechristened Gulaggh, with a similar plan of attack, with one little twist, according to the band, Gulaggh are all about "the perversion and inversion of Classical music combined with the vocals of the mentally insane". Definitely sounds good. Or maybe good is not the right word. But like Stalaggh, Gulaggh ended up equally sonically disturbing.
One track, 45 minutes, of totally haunting, mysterious... music? Sound? Soundart? Hard to know how to classify this. The sound of a voice, reverbed, over a deep distant thrum, all wrapped in little bits of hiss and creak, long tones rumble and drone, and then the voices begin to surface, mewling and moaning, groaning and mumbling, all over an insidious low end thrum, horns bleat, various bits of percussion pound scrape, and still the various voices get louder, more and more frenzied, the overall vibe ever more terrifying. The sound does seem to get classical, but more like an orchestra tuning up, abstract tones and atonal bleats and blurps, and then things go fucking apeshit, with all the vocalists, shrieking and screaming and howling, pounding on walls, stomping on floors, the cries growing more and more anguished, then out of nowhere some random drumming comes in, just in the middle of this cacophony of howls and shrieks, building to a frantic climax, before the voices begin to fade, swirling screams, sounding more like kids on a playground, but still intense knowing these aren't kids and they aren't on the playground. The horns step it up, honking and skronking and bleating and moaning, the drums skittering to a halt, then it's a weird fade out, quite voices, humming and murmuring and squeaking beneath the slowly fading horns, streaks of feedback, and that commanding, authoritarian voice from the beginning returns, the track ending how it started.
Holy shit, definitely super intense, and squirm inducing, somewhere between abject black ambience, a horror movie soundtrack, an educational film, a field recording, and a smattering of stumbling musical experimentation. Freaky as all get out, but in its harrowing miserablism, does lurk moments of beauty, bits of melody, but for the most part those are definitely overshadowed by the evil and misery and terror, that the maniacs in Gulaggh have somehow rendered into music. Or at least sound.
Reservedly recommended. Difficult listening of the highest order, but would definitely be right at home on your cd shelf next to the Conet Project, the Ghost Orchid EVP recordings, and other mysterious and challenging collections of sounds, found and otherwise.
MPEG Stream: "Vorkuta (excerpt)"

HENRY & GLENN FOREVER & EVER #2 (I Will Destroy You Comics / Microcosm Publishing) magazine 5.00
First there was Henry & Glenn Forever, then the sequel Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever, and now the saga continues! Comix about these two muscular manly man punk rock icons, as a loving gay couple - brilliant, hilarious concept! Some of the major contributors this issue include Tom Neely, Mark Rudolph, and Josh Bayer, their Henry & Glenn strips all getting pretty fantastical - and funny - in illustrating the titular duo's hypothetical romantic dynamic, with probably more of the laughs at Glenn's expense 'cause, y'know, of course - and the real-life Henry has stated that he thinks Glenn "would not be amused", as for Henry, well, we saw an interview where he said he's autographed copies of the comic for people but has never actually looked inside, which seems kinda weird too, doesn't it?
Neely's strip continues exploring Glenn's "Mother" issues, Rudolph's shows how Glenn does the household chores (and includes a cameo from Hall & Oates, H&G's uber friendly, Satan worshipping neighbors!!), Bayer's delves into bromantic existential angst in an epic way - and besides being funny, these comix end up being surprisingly sweet and heartwarming, too. Gotta love it!!
Color cover, b&w interior, 32 pages.

HEY COLOSSUS Cuckoo Live Life Like Cuckoo (MIE) lp 23.00
For past releases from this UK noise rock combo, we've employed descriptors like: head caving, throbbing, distorted, bad trip psychedelia, fuzz-distorted metallic, rhythmic heaviness, sheer nihilistic sludge, bludgeoning... you get the point, these guys are sonic crushers of the highest order. Or maybe WERE. Cuz this new lp displays a whole 'nother side to Hey Colossus, one that falls much closer to the psychedelic space rock side of the sonic spectrum.
The record opens with a super psychedelic groove, sorta space-kraut, chordal synth swirls wrapped in clouds of shimmer FX and laced with streaks of feedback, total hypno rock bliss out, that is until the vocals come in. Growly and demonic and raspy and intense, removed from HC's normally noisier sound, those voKILLS take on a much more sinister vibe, and make for a weird combo, mad man ranting over otherwise tranced out psychedelic mesmer, but it works. And those clouds of effects bleed right into the next track, all tribal drumming and spidery guitar melodies, and yup, those crazed vocals, the whole thing building to something much more noisy and rocking, but only briefly, before slipping back into a sort of proggy space kraut psychedelia. Minus those vocals (heck, even with 'em!), the sound falls somewhere closer to outfits like White hills, Mugstar and Carlton Melton, which is not a bad thing at al, just maybe a bit surprising.
The B side though is a bit sludgier and heavier, with thick, almost metallic riffing, but still, kinda space-y and proggy, those swirling FX from the A side still all over the places, the B side remaining pretty dark and heavy, at least until the weird, almost croony, countryish outro, which adds dusky twang, to the broody space-y drift, and of course those vox!
Cool weird stuff. Hey Colossus fans will probably still dig, but so might space/psych rock fans this time around.

HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER Haw (Paradise Of Bachelors) lp 23.00
When we first heard Hiss Golden Messenger, we weren't entirely sold, we definitely dug it, and tons of people we love were involved, and the sound was definitely reminiscent of the late great SF outfit the Court And Spark, whose M.C. Taylor fronts HGM, but where that band channeled classic country and folk, this new group explored the members' love of groups like Traffic and the Grateful Dead, especially the Grateful Dead. And while Jussi from Circle has spent the last ten years trying to convince us to love the Grateful Dead, it's been a tough sell, and it was maybe the one sticking point that kept us from loving HGM. But somehow, the more we listened, the more we got it, and it wasn't just the Dead, then, it was seventies AM radio, classic rock, Laurel Canyon country, hell even soul and classic pop, Taylor and his parter Scott Hirsch deftly cramming all of those influences into something weirdly timeless, modern, but entirely beholden to the music that came before, and we found ourselves pretty smitten. And more so with every record. The sound growing darker and darker, more polished, the songwriting better and better. It's hard to put a finger on just what it is, but 2011's Poor Moon sealed the deal. And the recent Record Store Day collaboration with Steve Gunn, was a stunner, and it's tragic that it was allowed to go out of print before all but a tiny handful of folks got to hear it.
But with Haw, HGM have moved to the next level, crafting a dense, layered, lush, country rock, soul pop, folk flecked, classic rock gem that should be a no brainer for the usual No Depression suspects, but it's also the sort of record that has the crossover potential to hook fans of more mainstream pap like Mumford & Sons and all that Starbucks country rock. And heck, Fleet Foxes fans, this might hit the spot for you too. At its core it's folky, and country, but there's so much more going on, soaring strings that bring to mind E.L.O., and that's in the midst of a brooding ballad, there are horns too, even some soulful female background vocals, which are usually the kiss of death, but here, they kind of work. Lots of the songs are wreathed in field recordings, chirping crickets, chickens, barking dogs, the sound of life in the country. And pretty much every song here is a sprawling epic, almost symphonic in scope, multiple parts deftly woven into pop song form, and the songs themselves, gorgeously rendered, lovely lilting melodies, subtle hooks, the arrangements stunning, it's all pretty fantastic, and is easily the best thing we've heard from Taylor since the Court And Spark. Also doesn't hurt that Taylor's band now also seems to include recent aQ Record Of The Weeker William Tyler!
MPEG Stream: "Red Rose Nantahala"
MPEG Stream: "Sufferer (Love My Conqueror)"
MPEG Stream: "Devotion"

I SIGNORI DELLA GALASSIA Iceman (Medical Records) lp 19.98
This might be the coolest, weirdest release yet from Medical Records, which is saying a lot considering how much cool, weird stuff they put out. From the French synth pop of Mathemetiques Modernes, to the twisted WTF? guitar & synth one man band Lou Champagne System (a previous Record Of The Week!), and from the space-y psychedelic synthscapery of Axxess (another past ROTW!), to Swiss teenage electro poppers Guyer's Connection, it's all so good, and we could go on, but you get the picture. We love this label, and their ability to consistently dig up the most amazing, baffling, brilliant gems, maybe none so brilliant and baffling than this rarity, a 1979 record from an Italian outfit called I Signori Della Galassia, who play cosmic prog space disco, but with plenty of sonic twists and turns.
Might as well start with the cover, a stunning super surreal painting of a stylized naked woman, whose bottom half is a tree, her roots and branches disappearing into the sand of what looks like an alien beach. Flip the record over, and peep the band members' photos, they all look like regular seventies rockers, that is except for the giant collars on their different colored capes/jumpsuits!!! Holy cow, everything is screaming PROG so far, and opener Proxima Centauri (prog title too, no?) does not disappoint, 8+ minutes of pulsing sci-fi, futuristic chase music, swirling synths, wild percussion, loads of FX, crazy catchy melodies, the beat is definitely disco, but it's pretty progged out too. Fans of groups like Majeure, Zombi and Umberto, will FLIP. The Carpenter and Goblin vibe is obviously huge, but when combined with some pulsing Euro-disco propulsion, the track explodes into some serious space-disco-prog radness!
It sounds like the follow up track is more of the same, if anything, even MORE prog, heavier, with some fuzzy acid riffing, the vibe darker, laced with swirling soundtracky strings, and this time vocals, super dramatic, alternately pushing the sound toward something more disco, but then something poppier and proggier. Super dynamic, super psychedelic, and pretty goddamn heavy!
Things slow down around track three, the sound growing even more cinematic, pulsing and puslating, droned out and ominous, tinkling synth melodies over a bed of cosmic shimmer, and sinister low end thrum, some acoustic guitars, as well as strange voices, and mysterious effects, and then suddenly, about halfway through, the song explodes into a weird, almost jaunty groove, proggy and funky, and SO GOOD!
And so it goes, the band laying down carnivalesque keyboards, fuzzy guitars, and then BLAM, track 4 turns into what sounds like the music for Christmas On Ice, goofy and playful, the main motif totally holiday, but all the while, Eastern guitar melodies swirl in the background, a push pull between festive and exotic, at one point sounding a bit like a disco-prog version of Perrey And Kingsley! And it only gets weirder from there on out. Slipping into some seventies yacht rock balladry, lush and heartfelt, before flitting right back into more disco-prog, this time heavier on the disco, it's not hard to imagine some alien discotheque, I Signori the house band, the dancefloor looking like the Cantina scene in Star Wars.
Later, the sound is transformed into creepy cosmic balladry, Tangerine Dream synths wrapped around grooving hard rock drums, Queen like guitars, and some super twisted processed vocals, before finally moving into a songsuite that is total cosmic disco-prog bliss out, swirling synths, wild drumming, complex arrangements, the sound lush and epic, spacey and psychedelic, until the very strange closer, which begins like it might be another pulsing prog out, even when the vocals come in, it's total classic Italo-prog, a synth driven chorale, that is suddenly transformed into some treacly seventies yacht pop, which is somehow still peppered with bursts of tangled prog, not to mention some weirdly abrupt stops and starts. So weird, and SO GREAT!
Like all Medical Records releases, elaborately packaged, pressed on 180 gram silver vinyl, and LIMITED TO 600 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Proxima Cantauri"
MPEG Stream: "Puoi Sentirmi"
MPEG Stream: "Fermate La Reazione"

IRON CURTAIN Road To Hell (Dying Victims Productions) cd 10.98
Not too long ago you may recall we raved about a Canadian metalpunk band called Iron Dogs, and in that review we mentioned that the same label that put out the Iron Dogs actually had two other "Iron-" bands in their catalog of very much NON-iron-ic metal. Iron Dogs are still by far our favorite, but we did enjoy both Iron Kobra and Iron Curtain as well, so we thought we'd review 'em too!
So, this band, Iron Curtain, are not from an Eastern European country as you might think from their name, but instead are from Spain. One of their biggest influences is undoubtedly Motorhead, evidenced by the gravely Lemmy-phlegmmy vox and simple catchy riffage, though their flashy Flying-V antics are cranked up to even speedier levels a la Accept. Ripping along at 100 mph, Iron Curtain deliver the goods with alcohol-fuelled aplomb, servicing all your lyrical needs in regards to whips & chains and other cool subjects like motorcycles, jungle cats, and Marshall amps. It's a nonstop barrage of energetic '80s styled speed metal, damn good fun for those who like such stuff - we do! And we applaud their choice for a bonus track - they do a cover of a song by, not obvious choice Motorhead, but better yet Motorhead's female proteges, Girlschool! Iron Curtain's version of Girlschool's "Hit & Run" ends up being the poppiest part of this album, perhaps unsurprisingly, and makes us want to go listen to some Girlschool now, too. (Fun fact: Girlschool once did an instore meet-and-greet appearance at aQuarius, sometime in the '80s when we were located up on 24th Street in Noe Valley - we've seen photos!)
MPEG Stream: "Taste My Whip"
MPEG Stream: "Black Fist"
MPEG Stream: "Ready To Strike"

IRON KOBRA Dungeon Masters (Dying Victims Productions) cd 10.98
Not too long ago you may recall we raved about a brilliant Canadian metalpunk band called Iron Dogs, and in that review we mentioned that the same label that put out the Iron Dogs actually had two other "Iron-" bands in their catalog of very much NON-iron-ic metal. Iron Dogs are still by far our favorite, but we did enjoy both Iron Kobra and Iron Curtain as well, so we thought we'd review 'em too.
Iron Kobra basically sound just like you'd expect a band called Iron Kobra to sound, and that could be either a good thing or a bad thing. Well, we think it's a good thing, of COURSE it's a good thing, in part 'cause while there's no dearth of faceless European power metallers going on about dragons and swords and stuff, these guys are so much more raw and old school in their approach, underground and cult all the way, baby. They're a band of German young 'uns who love metal and beer, lots of both at once we assume, and doubtless do have a sense of humor about what they do, just check out their stage names - Don "The Warrior" Viper, Sir Serpent, Lightning Lord Python, and Ringo Snake (on drums of course), though ultimately their love of ye olde metal is indeed ultimately non-ironic we're pretty sure. They've a bit like a German version of Japan's Metalucifer (leaving aside the fact that there already IS an officially-sanctioned German version of Metalucifer, that's another story), but they only do ONE song on here with the words "Heavy Metal" in the title, an anthemic number called "Heavy Metal Generation", though they do it twice, including an alternate version at the end of the disc. They also do a track called "Metal Rebel" so there's that too. Along with other such titles as "Valhalla Rock" and "Speedbiker". They also get points from resident DM Allan here for the album title (and title track) "Dungeon Masters". So you get where they're coming from. Total D&Dish '80s metal worship, influenced by Maiden and the rest of the NWOBHM, Runnng Wild, Thor, Manowar, etc. The thing is, at first we thought it was gonna be amateur hour, but while charmingly fannish and garagey, they're pretty dang good at making this rockin' metal, despite the not-so-pro vocals and deliberately cliched subject matter. Iron Kobra's songs rely on their speedy swagger, catchy choruses, crafty licks - and of course sheer heavy metal attitude, which as the disc spins you'll realize they've earned the right to have.
MPEG Stream: "Valhalla Rock"
MPEG Stream: "Black Magic Spells"
MPEG Stream: "Speedbiker"

IRR.APP.(EXT.) + BLUE SABBATH BLACK CHEER Discordant Convergence (Phage Tapes) cd 11.98
The collaboration continues between the surrealistically inclined irr. app. (ext.) and the blackened doomdronedirge horde Blue Sabbath Black Cheer. As on the previous pairings, Discordant Convergence slants towards the irr. app. (ext.) side of the sonic spectrum with M.S. Waldron (the man behind the curtain of that cryptic project) ripping apart much of the Blue Sabbath Black Cheer sound, leaving a rumble here, a heavy-ass riff there, but mostly tossing about head-scratching scribbles of vibration, ululations, and fuckery. But unlike the solo irr. app. (ext.) albums, there are some serious bad vibes going on here. Kreiselwelle or Cosmic Superimpositions are dark records for sure, but there's a dreaminess to them that is entirely done away with here. Waldron may be piloting this ship, but Blue Sabbath Black Cheer are in the engine room, dead set on their demonic invocations, whose negative energies can't help but infect everything around.
A plodding bassline that could have been lifted straight off of Aluk Todolo's Finsternis opens the album amidst an unsettled chorus of gnarled textures, that sounds like somebody / something ripping apart flesh, sinews, tendons, and bone. Unhinged vocalizations, screeches, and screams dot the infernal atmospherics and flashes of atonal orchestrations with basslines surging sporadically through the mix. As the album unfolds, more acoustic chokings, grindings, and other misdemeanors caught on tape co-mingle with lumbering dirges of ritualized drone-doom, followed by plenty of bleak passages of horror-film synths, slashed metals, barked power-electronic vocals, and fucked-up transmissions from the center of the earth. It's all very unsettling, but it's all very highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Son Of The Morning"
MPEG Stream: "Dire Consequences"
MPEG Stream: "Last Tango"

JEFFERIES, PETER Last Great Challenge In A Dull World (De Stijl) cd 14.98
Last Great Challenge In A Dull World was the debut solo cassette from NZ legend Peter Jefferies
(This Kind Of Punishment, Nocturnal Projections) originally released on the Xpressway label way back in 1990. It's one of our favorite records from that era, and the extremely fertile New Zealand underground rock scene of the time, with Jefferies joined by a who's who of NZ outrock royalty, members of the Dead C, the 3D's, Look Blue Go Purple, Alastair Galbraith, and more, but it's Jefferies' show, crafting a super idiosyncratic, avant singer/songwriter record that broods and blasts in equal measure, obviously homebrewed, lo-fi for sure, but with a sound that's impossibly lush and layered.
Crunchy, distorted guitars, wrapped around pounded piano, murky drumming drifting way down in the mix, Jefferies' deep, heavily accented, dramatic sung/spoken vox, all manner of sound effects, field recording, musique concrete fused to classic pop songsmithery, moody, haunting minimalism alongside pounding distorto rock, alongside strange experimental soundscapes. The magic is in Jefferies' ability to transform non-musical sound experiments into minimal masterpieces, songs that have no right to being so catchy, but that will get stuck in your head like crazy. Whether it's the strange found sound driven "Domesticia", which creates a domestic symphony of household sounds, running water, the clink of silverware in glasses, footsteps, pouring liquid, garbage disposals, over which Jefferies croons a sweetly melancholic lament, or "The House Of Weariness", which takes what sounds like some abstract 20th century classical music, fuses it to some primitive manipulated samples, all draped over stately mournful piano, Jefferies' vocals super processed, but somehow, it all falls together pretty much perfectly. And between these more experimental pop songs, are tracks like "On An Unknown Beach", which has to be one of the darkest, prettiest songs ever, all softly reverbed pianos, multi tracked vocals, warm haunting harmonies, or the opener "Chain Or Reaction", which is a killer slab of near perfect pop, all fuzzy guitar, piano pound and driving drumming, and Jefferies' super distinctive vox.
And so it goes, striking a perfect balance between, moody, swoonsome, minimal 4 track popsmithery, and fuzzy, distorted, avant NZ lo-fi noise pop, with most tracks falling somewhere right in between. One of our all time faves finally, and deservedly available again!!
MPEG Stream: "Chain Or Reaction"
MPEG Stream: "Domesticia"
MPEG Stream: "On An Unknown Beach"
MPEG Stream: "Guided Tour Of A Well Known Street"

KING WOMAN Degrida / Sick Bed (Sleep Genius) cassette 4.98
The Sleep Genius label who has brought us great releases by Chasms, Bad News, Tied To The Branches and Concrete Island is back and not only with a new cassette, but a cassingle!!!!!! Yes that's right, a cassette in a gorgeously blood red shrink-wrapped paper stock sleeve!
King Woman is the first solo project of Kristina Esfandiari, the front woman of San Francisco local band Whirr, who we're not familiar with, but wondering now if we should be after hearing this. Backed by members of Tied to the Branches and Chasms, Esfandiari's deep resonant voice hovers over the minimal hazy treatments in these two slow shoegaze murder ballads. She reminds us of Hope Sandoval or Marissa Nadler but with a richer timbre to her vocal that is quite stunning. The backing music all hovering slow motion creep, quietly lifting these songs up to the beckoning gallows. Pretty fucking great!

KINK GONG Voices (Discrepant) lp 29.00
Kink Gong is the long running project of Laurent Jeanneau, a Sublime Frequencies contributor, who as Kink Gong uses some of the actual field recordings he collects to create a strangely avant experimental world music, virtual collaborations with the musicians he records, often manipulating the various songs and sounds, but just as often, he'll simply play an indigenous instrument, process those recordings and then combine them with the originals. The sound is pretty remarkable, in many cases Jeanneau contributions super subtle, to the point of seamlessly weaving his own sounds and manipulations into the unaltered recordings, resulting in what essentially could be a field recording proper, but here and there, the changes are radical, and the combination of computer processed sounds and organic acoustic recordings makes for some truly wondrous and mysterious 'world music'.
The liner notes on the lp sleeve are super explicit, describing the original recordings, and just exactly what Jeanneau did with which sounds, the remarkable thing being that even knowing all that, none of the magic is lost.
The record opens with a collage of 10 voices, from two women and a man, those voices are layered and blended over a slowed down mouth organ, resulting in something strange and lovely, and almost alien sounding chorale, with just enough of the original sounds to keep it sounding like some impossible indigenous music, the organ droning darkly in the background, the drones and the voices producing all manner of sympathetic overtones and strange sonic colorations.
The second track features a woman, reciting text over a 4 string lute, processed by Kink Gong, and eventually accompanied by two women singing, the sound laced with actual field recordings, chickens, and voices in the background, the lute transformed into a swirling drift of soft focus drones and blurred melodies, the singing voices tangled up in that droning drift. And finally, the A side finishes with a recording of a percussion ensemble, accompanied by Kink Gong on bronze cymbals, played and processed, all beneath the voice of a female vocalist. Super tribal and trancey, a definite No Neck Blues Band vibe, also a very doomy feel, glitchy and gristly, the electronically modified background a strange contrast, but one that creates a strange sort of psychedelia.
The flipside begins with a vocal choir, and a collage of three recordings from another ensemble, as well as an electronically modified lute, the alterations here so subtle, it's quite difficult to tell what's been done, we're guessing it's mostly the collaging, but it's done so deftly, that it sounds untouched, but even in its seemingly unaltered form, it's dense and layered and lovely. Then two lutes and a woman's vocal choir are merged into a rumbling, skittery tangle, a droned out low end swirl beneath which gorgeous vocals drift and soar. And finally, Jeanneau takes traditional Chinese instruments, and processes them into a lush sprawl of dreamlike shimmer, all smeared into a soft swirl of almost synth sounding ambience.
Gorgeous stuff, and fans of Ghedalia Tazartes' invented world music and imagined sonic rituals should check this out as well...

LASCOWIEC Frostwinds Of The Apocalypse (Dark Hidden Productions) cd 12.98
Frostwinds Of The Apocalypse is the latest full length from SF black metal duo Lascowiec, and is introduced by a strangely martial bit of medieval sounding synth and drum machine driven fanfare, which sounds more like it should be the beginning of some power metal record, but instead ushers in another blast of frenzied grim black buzz from these aQ faves, the sound lo-fi, warm and washed out, the guitars a dense insectoid swirl, the drums buried in the mix, more a pulse than a blast, and the vocals a deep demonic rasp. The sound furious, epic, majestic, melodic. Minus the vocals, the sound is super tranced out and mesmerizing, almost shoegazey in places, as is the second track, the vocals here echo-drenched and weirdly psychedelic, the tempo slowed down, making the sound even more trancey, the blown out buzz utterly mesmerizing, the overall effect less headbanging and more hypnotic. And while most of the record is spent it black buzz mode, there are of course random bits of non metallic sound, the most interesting being the epic 6+ minute sort of title track closer, which essentially sounds like a black metal song proper, but played on a clean guitar with no distortion, wreathed in echo and reverb, the result surprisingly lovely, still totally recognizable as black metal, but in a wholly different form, one that's darkly dreamlike, and has us hankering for a whole record of stuff like this! As always, essential Bay Area USBM!
MPEG Stream: "When Nothing Remains"
MPEG Stream: "Hail Of Destruction"
MPEG Stream: "Swept Away By The Forstwinds Of Apocalypse"

LLYR Heathen (Brotherhood Of Light) cassette 5.98
First we've heard from this local outfit, released on the Brotherhood Of Light tape label (Sunchariot, Haar, Sirius, Cosmic Breath, Surt, Uruk Hai, Domus Mactibilus, Worldscape:18), and like much of the stuff on BoL, we're assuming it's the work of the same core folks, much like the Black Legions and the BM scenes in Russia and the Ukraine, it seems like a handful of folks in multiple configurations make up the multitude of groups, but we're not complaining, in fact, as BoL continues to move away from black metal, or at least push the boundaries, we're digging their releases more and more. A couple lists back we reviewed a tape by a group/person called Worldscape:18, which was some weird sort of collaged/noisescape/electronica. And this week, we have one of several new releases from Llyr, whose tape starts out with the gentle slightly sinister lilt of drifting synths, sounding like it could explode into some serious Goblin style action at any point, but instead, sprawls out, soft billows of almost new age-y shimmer, until finally, some super distorted guitars surface, and some seriously sick, anguished vox, wouldn't say it was black metal, but it's definitely blackened, and sort of metallic. More free form and abstract, the guitars churning in thick billows over those shimmery synths, the vokills howling and rasping in the murk. Tangled melodies unwind beneath the vocals, as well as strange sci-fi electronics, maybe not sonically, but most definitely spiritually, Llyr reminds us of outsider metal acts like Circle Of Ouroborus, Tomb Of, Varghkoghargasmal and Trollmann Av Ildtoppberg.
And that pretty much sets the template for Llyr's sound, long stretches of icy synth, chiming ethereal melodies, beneath sheets of blurred guitar buzz, disembodied riffs, wraithlike rasps, and even some drums, stumbling programmed drums that bring to mind Fastest weirdly enough, and when the electronics peel back, and leave just lurching drums and woozy riffage, it's like some gloriously damaged primitive black metal ritual, that soon disappears into another cloud of dense, swirling WTF weirdness.

LORELLE MEETS THE OBSOLETE On Welfare (Captcha) cd 11.98
A few lists back we made the oddly named duo Lorelle Meets The Obsolete one of our Records Of The Week. And as we explained then, it's not just a cool weird band name. Lorelle is the woman who fronts LMTO, and her partner is in fact named The Obsolete, and together, the duo whip up a head, druggy brew of darkly psychedelic garage-kraut mesmer, and actually, when we made Corruptible Faces our Record Of The Week, it easily could have been this record instead, as we discovered both albums at the same time, and they feel sonically like two parts of a bigger whole, which means, any/every one who dug Corruptible Faces, is gonna want this one too, the same mix of murky, motorik mesmer and psychedelic garage groove. The opener gets all Stooges by way of Spacemen 3 by way of Moon Duo, fuzzed out riff, loping, minimal rhythm, processed vocals, wheezing organ, everything wreathed in delay and echo, washed out and druggily woozy, totally blissed out zoner-groove garage psych radness for sure. The sound soon morphs into something much more stripped down and acoustic, but no less droned out and druggy, a hazy sprawl of steel string strum, and acoustic percussion, all tangled up beneath whirring organs, and echo drenched, breathy vocals, the whole thing blossoming into something a but more lush and layered, the vibe sorta Suicide via Bob Dylan, but druggier and garagier if that makes any sense, but before you know it, the sound shifts again, and we're in total psychedelic trance mode, buzzing drones, and reverby female vocals, swirling FX, languorous ruffs and abstract percussion, all drifting in a cloud of sonic fug, and all tethered to a simple, pulsating groove, it's the sorta song that most bands would stretch out for 10 or 20 minutes, but here it's less than 4, LMTO restlessly moving on to yet another subtle variant of their dreamy druggy sound, this time it's all sixties soft focus shimmer, classic girl group sound stripped down to a haunting bit of skeletal drift, before the organs swoop to the fore, wrapped in strange swirling FX and slowly drifting swaths of gauzy shimmer, which eventually blossoms into some sweetly melodic fuzz bass garage rock girl pop, and so it goes.
Lorelle and her partner The Obsolete have a knack for weaving disparate short songs into a lush, interconnected whole, a gorgeous, gloriously psychedelic songsuite that's druggy and dreamy, hazy and hypnotic, and like Corruptible Faces, is one of our new favorites...
MPEG Stream: "Traveler"
MPEG Stream: "The Obsolete Man"
MPEG Stream: "Waitin' For The Orange Sunshine"
MPEG Stream: "The Means Of Production"

MAGAZINE Real Life (Vinilisssimo) lp 27.00
Finally a long overdue, and totally necessary reissue of the first album from quintessential art-punk outfit Magazine. Howard Devoto founded the band in 1977, after parting ways with the Buzzcocks. Less than a year after the Sex Pistols exploded onto the world stage, Devoto recognized the problematic cliches of punk and sought to remedy the trad-rock banalities and the limitations of just being able to play a couple of chords. Real Life applies the energy of the punk rock that's full of piss and vinegar to the glammy dynamics of early Roxy Music and David Bowie. Surrounding Devoto were bassist Barry Adamson (later one of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds and accomplished solo artist in his own right) and John McGeoch (one of the longer serving guitarists for Siouxsie & The Banshees). The opening track "Definitive Gaze" defines what it means to be angular, with its catchy if choppy basslines, spryly jittery snare fills, and sci-fi synth leads punctuated by sneered vocals from Devoto. This track along with the two singles off the album - "Shot By Both Sides" and "The Light Pours Out Of Me" - mark three of the high water marks of what could be defined as post-punk. The album as a whole jerks itself between restless arm-flailing mania, tempestuous emotional outbursts, and melodic croons whose ghosts would eventually haunt the likes of Radiohead, Kaiser Chiefs, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs many many years later...
MPEG Stream: "Definitive Gaze"
MPEG Stream: "Shot By Both Sides"
MPEG Stream: "Recoil"

MILES Unsecured (Modern Love) 12" 17.98
You might not recognize the name Miles, but fans of dark, twisted modern electronic music, might know him better as one half of Demdike Stare, or one half of Pendle Coven, or even as Suum Cuique, all of which we've raved about here on the aQ list. For whatever reason, we've been unable to get enough copies of Miles' most recent full length on Modern Love to list, but while we wait, we did manage to nab a handful of this even more recent 12" ep, which finds Miles delivering some raw, distorted, dark dark dark dance music, fans of recent aQ faves like Shed and Terrence Dixon, will definitely dig, as will folks into Vatican Shadow and Silent Servant, which is in fact closer to the sound of Unsecured. Some seriously noisy, dark, skittery techno, big distorted bears over ribcage rattling bass pulses, wreathed in a thick sonic gauze, and laced with cinematic synth swells, hazy and gristly and a little psychedelic, adding some acid-y squelch at the end of the first track. That track bleeds into some skeletal Kompakt sounding house music, gritty and grime-y, woozy and darkly tripped out, the beats seemingly sculpted from bursts of white noise static.
The flipside is much more industrial sounding, with a strange Art Of Noise vibe, very soundtracky with ominous synths, simultaneously funky and noisy, which leads into the brooding closer, all droned out ominous ambience, pulsing layered drones, that gradually mutates into something more skittery and squelchy but over a serious sprawl of sinister low end drift.

MONOS Everyday Soundtracks (Fungal Records) cd-r 13.98
Way back when, we actually had copies of the original cd-r of Monos' Everyday Soundtracks which was originally released in 2001 in an edition of 100 copies. The artwork was pretty dumb but also highly memorable, as Darren Tate simply affixed a sticker of a car or a truck or bulldozer to a black piece of paper. Dumb, maybe, but we definitely remembered that one coming in the shop. The music however was far more subtle than the cover implied, a collection of dense fog and rumbling overtones emanating from these manipulated field recordings. Monos is the ongoing collaborative project between Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound, etc.) and Darren Tate (Ora, etc.); and their work typically begins with the cryptic recordings from Tate (field recordings? actionist events? slumped synth drone? spectral guitar voids? all of the above?) and ends in Potter's studio where he amplifies and manipulates vibrant sonorities and eerie drones from the source material. Such is the case for the three lengthy pieces on Everyday Soundtracks. Tate and Potter allow glimpses into the source materials by allowing for intrusions of the muffled hum of cars passing by or the cooing of a dove or the burbling of water dripping through pipes; and out of these sounds, Monos builds a deep, somnambulant drone that swallows those natural sounds into a lulling stasis. Like the original pressing all those years ago, this one is limited to 100 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Everyday Soundtracks 1"
MPEG Stream: "Everyday Soundtracks 3"

NUMINOUS EYE Clockwork Moon (Nod And Smile) lp 11.98
Latest lp from local shoegazing psych duo of guitarist/vocalist Mason Jones (ex-Subarachnoid Space) and drummer Mike Shoun (Thee Oh Sees), both of whom augment Numinous Eye's sound with copious synths and effects. Amped up and/or blissed out, it's hypnotic stuff, some songs riding waves of distorted guitar and roiling drums, others more laid back and mellow, with gentle singing, these more song-y songs still featuring echoing, extended spacey guitar passages over steady, tasteful drum beats (Shoun in Caesura '90s era mode, his old post-rock band), with Mason's gentle, sensitive vocals drifting over top, hinting at Galaxie 500 - though some comparisons soundwise could also be made to the psychedelic stylings of fellow San Franciscans Wooden Shijps, as well as to some of Mason's pals in the Tokyo psych scene (previous Numinous Eye releases have featured contributions from members of Acid Mothers Temple and Up-Tight among others). Recommended - as is this list's other ex-Subarachnoid Space related release, by Eight Bells!
Vinyl-only, comes with digital download code though. And boy is it a thick slab of 180-gram vinyl.
MPEG Stream: "As You Like It"
MPEG Stream: "Building Dreams"
MPEG Stream: "Will You Let It Fade"

OH SEES, THEE Moon Sick (Castle Face) cd ep 13.98
Originally released as a vinyl-only 12" for this year's Record Store Day, this four song ep from beloved garage rockers Thee Oh Sees is now available as a post-RSD cdep. So for folks who may have missed out, or were maybe even waiting for a possible compact disc version, this is your lucky day.
The record opens up sounding like a lo-fi version of Wall Of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio", all shuffling drums, and swirling sci-fi FX, the opener "Grown In A Graveyard soon adds echo drenched guitars, billowing dubbed out chords, reverbed yelps, building into a serious psychedelic swirl, not overtly catchy, more sort of tranced out and hypnotic. "Sewer Fire" is a slinky bass driven groove, the bassline wrapped in still more thick billows of crumbling distortion, before exploding into some fuzzy reverb heavy garage rock crunch.
"Humans Be Swayed" starts off with fluttery flutes, over tribal drums and low slung bass slither, again, big guitars, chiming jangles wrapped in noisy squalls of psychedelic fuzz, the rest of the song unwinding with dueling boy-girl vocals, some searing distorto lead guitars, a cool woozy ultra melodic drifty wind down ending, that gets downright dreamy, and leads directly into "Candy Clock", which is the poppiest jam here, all big booming Beach Boys drumming, over circus-y harpsichord (courtesy of Kelley Stotlz), the result being a sort of vintage sounding Bee Gees slab of lush, baroque pop that might be one of the coolest songs we've heard from Dwyer & Co.
MPEG Stream: "Grown In A Graveyard"
MPEG Stream: "Candy Clock"

ORCHESTRE POLY-RYTHMO DE COTONOU Volume 3: The Skeletal Essences Of Afro Funk (Analog Africa) cd 24.00
Not sure what to say about this legendary Afrobeat outfit that we haven't already. We first discovered Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou via the amazing African Scream Contest compilation, and ever since, we've become a bit obsessed, playing the first two collections to death! This long in the works THIRD collection, gathers up still more recordings from these aQ faves, culled like the other collections from nearly 500 recordings, the tracks here have never been issued outside of Africa, and like those past installments, display one of the funkiest bands around, recorded mostly for small labels, and often with just one mic in the living room of friends' homes, but the sound, and the songs, so catchy, and groovy and funky, wild funky-drummer drumming, killer horns, whirring organs, emotional vocals, the sound big time beholden to James Brown, and often displaying the Latin music influence on West African music at the time as well. Fuzzed out and funky, most definitely psychedelic, groovy as all get out, infectious and irresistible, any one who dug the first two comps (and/or loved African Scream Contest), this one's a no brainer. So great! And like all Analog Africa releases, gorgeously packaged, the cd in a digipak, with a huge booklet, featuring lyrics to all the songs, tons of photos, the digipak and the book housed in a heavy slipcover!
MPEG Stream: "Ne Rien Voir, Dire, Entendre"
MPEG Stream: "Houzou Houzou"
MPEG Stream: "Adjro Mi"

PHARAOH OVERLORD #3 (Full Contact) lp 22.00
This kick ass chunk of Finnish hypno heaviness from Circle offshoot Pharaoh Overlord, long out of print on cd, now finally reissued for the first time ON VINYL!!! Here's more-or-less what we said about when we listed the cd version back in 2005:
Whoo-hoo! Hypnotic as ever, here's the new studio album from Circle's so-called (by us) "stoner rock" side-project. Well now we'd have to say that stoner rock tag is a bit inaccurate, an oversimplification. I mean, we were kinda hoping they'd always stay "heavy" but I think that they're not so much "the stoner rock version of Circle" now, than they are simply a stripped down, instrumental Circle with more psych guitar action. Very very krauty. This actually actually sounds a lot like Salvatore, as much as Circle, for that matter. Which is most definitely a good thing!
Stacked up alongside Pharaoh Overlord's previous albums, it's not so dark as II, not so fried and blown-out as Battle Of The Axehammer, and probably comes closest to #1. And it's definitely something stoners are still gonna dig, but while they do heavy it up riff-wise sometimes, the psych aspect is laid-back and mellow just as much. Can you imagine the vibe of that last Dead Meadow mixed with a Circle style rhythmic pulse? This is all about tracks like opener "Test Flight", a druggy ten minute psych-jam, or track three, an epic, but almost funkily tight number called "Laivius 17", that builds up over 13 minutes and 13 seconds, getting more and more psych-guitar-skronked until it snaps -- into track four, "Autobahn", nothing but a droning, distorted guitar-burn solo. It's ten minutes but I wouldn't mind it for a whole album! That then swivels into the tick-tock, low-key groove of "Octagon". Very Can, that one. And on it goes... If only Pharaoh Overlord/Circle could come up with a way to make their cds automatically repeat when they reach the end, that would utterly satisfy the Circle aesthetic. Of course, you, the listener, will probably want to hit play again, but that's assuming you're not too zoned out to move your arm.
MPEG Stream: "Test Flight"
MPEG Stream: "Laivaus 17"
MPEG Stream: "Autobahn"

PYE CORNER AUDIO Superstitious Century (Boomkat Editions) 12" 17.98
As we mentioned in our review of a recent tape on The Tapeworm Label from the mysterious one man outfit Pye Corner Audio, we've had trouble getting/keeping ANYthing in stock, everything disappearing and going out of print before we could get enough to review or list. This 12" looks to be just as scarce, already on its second or third pressing, and we imagine not long for this world. The work of someone called the Head Technician, Pye Corner Audio typically exists in a space shared by such like minded outfits as Demdike Stare and the Caretaker, twisted electronics, psychedelic soundscapes, blissed out sci-fi synthiness, all of which is present here, but to a much smaller degree as Superstitious Century finds the Head Technician taking a stab at a vintage sound that's much more dancey and clubby, and somehow he pulls it off, managing to channel those sounds from dancefloors past and imbue them with the more twisted vibe of other Pye Corner jams, from pulsing slomo house music, to AFX style skitter, to gorgeous crumblingly distorted synth swells, to lilting minor key melodies, to laid back slow grooves, to softly psychedelic drifts...
Pressed on bright yellow vinyl, each one numbered, and limited enough that we're not sure we'll be able to get more of these once they're gone!

QUIN, DOUGLAS Antarctica (Miramax) cd 13.98
Never thought we'd get to stock/list this again, the last time we had it, years ago, the only place we could get 'em from when out of business and we thought this disc was now sadly totally out of print. But then, YAY, we just found a small stash of 'em at another supplier!! So don't miss out on this all-time aQ fave, a highly-recommended staple (when it's been available) of our found-sounds section! Here's our review from way, way back:
If you liked Sounds of North American Frogs or "Insect Noise In Stored Foodstuffs, or Chris Watson's exotic animal recordings, here's another discovery we recently made in the aQ-beloved field-recordings genre.
In a blind test, it would be impossible to tell these Antarctic animal sounds from the most cutting edge experimental electronica that we sell at aQuarius! And according to the liner notes, the recordings found on this disk received no processing aside from being recorded using a "multi-headed array of hydrophones [underwater microphones]" and then mixed down (for great stereo sound). But some of the recordings, most notably the underwater recordings of Weddell seals, really seem like they could be the first installment of some new modern minimal electronic series, as they would fit in nicely next to the likes of Noto and Pan sonic. The underwater seals track features sweeping squeals like a whale song being sped up and slowed down and mixed with Stephen McGreevy's recordings of electromagnetic atmospheric phenomena. It's as if the seals are secret knob-twiddlers in an electronic music studio. In other words, you could have a field day getting your "clicks & cuts" lovin' friends to guess who this "new avant-electronica artist" is! Also included on this cd are several recordings from the surface of the Antarctic continent as well: seal mothers and pups, Emperor and Adele penguins, a six minute track of a shattering & creaking glacier, and the brief but beautiful "Wind Harps From The Taylor Valley". This disc became a 'aQ-fave recommendation' practically the minute we first heard it!! Maybe we're jaded, and have to listen to penguins frolicking to get our musical kicks, but it just seems so amazing. Wait until you hear it! Incredible and so essential.
MPEG Stream: "Wind Harps From The Taylor Valley"
MPEG Stream: "Emperor Penguins"

RADIO BIRDMAN Radios Appear (1972) cd 14.98
The debut album from these '70s high energy rock heroes from Down Under, now reissued on compact disc, for the first time ever in the US, we're pretty sure (though 4 Men With Beards did vinyl not too long ago). As we've noted before (we're cribbing a bit from our own review of their 'best of' compilation cd Sub Pop did a while back), Radio Birdman were the mid-'70s Australian reincarnation of the MC5 and The Stooges, lead by expat Michigander Deniz Tek (guitarist, songwriter, and later a fighter pilot and doctor!), and damn were they good. Being half a world away and several years removed from Detroit ground zero, Birdman's homage to their proto-punk Grande Ballroom heroes was no rip-off, with their penchant for surf-guitar licks being but one point of departure (one song here, "Aloha Steve & Danno", incorporates the Hawaii 5-O theme song). Other influences include the Velvets, Blue Oyster Cult, and Alice Cooper. While legends in Australia, they're more like an obscure rock footnote over here, but once you're into 'em, you'll be really into 'em! This 1977 album was their first full-length, and a total classic (whichever version you get, there were actually two with slightly different tracklists and covers, this is the overseas one released by Sire in the US in 1978). It includes their cover of The 13th Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me" along with intensely rockin' Birdman classics like "Murder City Nights", "Do The Pop", "New Race", "Hand Of Law", and "Man With The Golden Helmet".
This digipack edition includes new liner notes by Bay Area music writer & zinester Sam Lefebvre, pointing up the band's mythology-building "radical factionist" aesthetic and better-than-punk instrumental proficiency.
MPEG Stream: "Do The Pop"
MPEG Stream: "Aloha Steve & Danno "
MPEG Stream: "Murder City Nights"

RHYTON Unity Bailout (self-released) cassette 8.98
We at aQ are big fans of Brooklyn-based psych-splorers Rhyton (made their Thrill Jockey debut a Record Of The Week in fact) and Rhyton it seems are fans of us too it seems, since they were nice enough to dub us an exclusive limited supply of a new cassette of theirs, originally something they made only for merch sales on a recent European tour. aQ is the only store carrying this release, and we only have 20 copies, that's it forever!
Unity Bailout is 30 minutes, four tracks, of live and rehearsal recordings, the sort of spacey, druggy, drifting jams we expect from these guys (members of No Neck Blues Band and Psychic Ills, by the way). The tape starts off with the 12 minute "Mold Channel", a sprightly, trippy-hippie improv session of head-nodding abstract humid burble all right. Then the darker, dronier "At Endless Buggy Pt. Alpha" begins, featuring more militant marching drum beats and skree-ier guitarwork. Flip the tape and that piece continues into "Pt. Beta", adding some more mumbled, distorted vox, the guitar (and electric saz?) lines getting more sinuous and scrambled, noise and volume building, that buggy of theirs heading down a bumpy road indeed, losing a wheel or two along the way! Such a style of caveman krauty damaged jam is in full effect on the tape's final track too, the almost ten-minute long "In Silent One", even louder and heavier and kinda Haino-esque, with fuzzy feedback guitar carving whale-calls through the murk, propelled by steady drum splatter. It gets pretty freaky, satisfyingly so, 'specially if you like the idea of Burnt Hills or Doktor Kettu jamming on some almost unrecognizable Dick Dale surf licks or something like that. The pulsating moldy walls of Rhyton's presumably subterranean practice space sure absorbed a lot of intense stoner vibes during the recording of this tape. Thanks, Rhyton, for letting us in.
The tape's covers are hand stamped metallic ink on black paper.
MPEG Stream: "Mold Channel"
MPEG Stream: "At Endless Buggy Pt. Alpha"
MPEG Stream: "In Silent One"

RISTANGNO, RICH What Would It Be Like To Be Rich (Drag City) lp 21.00
We finally saw that Rodriguez documentary, Searching for Sugarman, which was pretty great, but we couldn't help notice that the filmmakers completely ignored the best song on the Cold Fact record which in our opinion wasn't "Sugarman", but the song after it called, "Only Good for Conversation". We really wanted to know the story behind that one. Who was "the coldest bitch" he knew? That song has been a deep cut in heavy psych-fuzz circles for a long time and really hits home, at least for us, the deep bitterness of Detroit, so hard-hitting and close to the bone.
Fast forward ten years later to 1981 and out of Detroit comes another beaten down hard-laborer who has big rock music dreams, ambition and a visionary album concept. But for Rich Ristagno and his sole release, What Would It Like to Be Rich?, there was no alternate universe on the other side of the globe where he was bigger than Elvis. In fact, this record may not have seen the light of day had it not been for an early single he recorded a few years earlier that went nowhere which finally caught the attention of the same Michigan rock enthusiasts who freaked out over Rodriguez. Eventually, stacks of the unreleased full length were discovered unsleeved and undistributed in Ristagno's basement. Turns out, the artwork was never made for the record, and he didn't know how to go about doing it and so his initial pressing sat there gathering dust.
This private press recording was made with the help of a local Detroit studio and their in-house band Soular Flight who give Ristagno's dark autobiographical lyrics an outsider funk-rock edge. Ristagno's voice has a Lou Reed meets Shuggie Otis quality, a kind of dry soulfulness that anchors the heavy stoned funkiness of his backing band and the acid guitar shred that cascades around his straight ahead reverbed delivery. Fans of Wicked Witch and Stark Reality, take note! If Rodriguez had made a whole album that sounded like "Only Good For Conversation", this is probably close to what it would sound like. Thanks Drag City for rescuing another ill-fated obscurity.

ROTORVATOR I Vivi E I Mort (Crucial Blast / Crucial Blaze) cd 13.98
The first we heard from weirdo Italian blackened industrial noiseniks Rotorvator was via a collaboration with one man black metal band Rhuith, the two groups a perfect match up, each with their own peculiar take on black metal, with Rotorvator seemingly the weirder of the two, adding some tortured, twisted WTF-ness to Rhuith's sound, and if there was ever any doubt, this new full length most definitely goes a long way to demonstrating that Rotorvator are indeed masters of seriously damaged outsider avant industrial black metal weirdness. Or something. For a thumbnail descriptor, "damaged outsider avant industrial black metal weirdness" definitely works, the sound here all over the map, and not just the black metal map either, noise, industrial, psychedelia, electronica, it's all tangled up into a wild, warped, ever shifting, sonic sprawl, machine like rhythms, underpin dreamy almost shoegazey guitar buzz, howled demonic vokills, gnarled and dissonant, the sound slipping into a churning buzz drenched blackness, before exploding into a weird galloping blast, that sounds like some demented robotic black metal, the song slipping from blackened lope, to dense noise drenched howl, to furious blasting crush, to tranced out guitardrone. And that's just the first song.
After that the sound shifts into a weirdly ominous, sort of cinematic drift, all weird hand clappy rhythms, minor key guitar, skeletal drumming, weird high end guitar skree, more howled vokills, the vibe sort of droney and dirgey and psychedelic, a little bit electronic too, laced with pulses and pulsations, at one point interrupted by a blast of white noise static, and weird moaning voices, before slipping right back into it. The follow up is some spaced out minimal electronic skitter, some carnivalesque looped mesmer, that gives way to some super lo-fi black buzz, again, programmed beats drive the furious riffing, which is muted and muffled, the vocals WAY up in the mix, the song stuttering and lurching, the sounds panned super hard so they swoop from speaker to speaker, druggy and dizzying.
The sound shifts dramatically at that point into some seriously pretty heaviness, some blown out shoegazey dirginess, that could have gone one of two ways, and of course, it's Rotorvator, so instead of staying melodic and darkly lovely, it splinters into some noisy, churning, screeching blackness, but that stuff is draped over the pretty melodic guitar buzz, and it's a killer combo. The next track is more of the same, all swoonsome soaring synths and shoegazey black buzz, sounding a bit like a black metal M83, before crumbling into a gnarled lumbering creep, but again, even then, it's weirdly pretty, haunting and harrowing, but still pretty, with some seriously metallic riffing, some robotic drum pound, swirls of dense effects, and some gorgeous melodies, culminating in a weird final stretch of processed vox, ticking clock drum machine rhythm, and gristly swirls if staticky buzz. And finally, the record finishes with a dark, twang flecked dirge, drifting through clouds of melting FX, echo drenched guitar clang, pounding rhythms, swirling strings, haunting and like much of the record weirdly pretty.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!! Housed in a DVD style case, with full color artwork/insert, and inside a set of heavy cardstock, two sided, printed cards, bound by a silkscreened black on black obi.
MPEG Stream: "I. Ad Sanctos"
MPEG Stream: "II. Domenica"
MPEG Stream: "IV. I Morti"
MPEG Stream: "VII. Humming Bones"

RUDIMENTARY PENI Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric (Outer Himalayan) cd 15.98
As we mentioned in our review of Rudimentary Peni's recent Death Church, RP are maybe one of our favorite death rock outfits ever, and we were psyched to discover that their whole catalog is getting reissued, on vinyl, and apparently again on cd. We raved about Death Church a little while back, the group's 1983 debut, but now we leap all the way to the end, at least the end of the first era to the oddly named Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric, the group's final full length from 1995, a concept record conceived of while singer/guitarist Nick Blinko was in a mental hospital, the title, and the concept based on Blinko's delusions of being the titular pope. And while all the RP records are pretty twisted, this one definitely feels like the most warped, not just the music, which is often weirdly carnivalesque (check out opener "Pogo Pope", with its woozy riff, and mush mouthed nonsense vocalizing), but there's also a loop of Blinko muttering something in Latin (we think) which starts off the record, and plays continuously throughout, so you can hear it between songs, during all the quiet parts, and even during lots of the more rocking sections. It adds a pretty weird almost psychedelic vibe to the already twisted proceedings. And while that first that track sets the bar pretty high, it doesn't get any less weird. The core sound remains similar to past records, low slung bass, jagged slashing guitars, wild chaotic drumming, and of course Blinko's distinctive vocals, even more unhinged here than usual, the songs too, some definitely look back to past records, but a lot are bouncier, and more repetitive sounding, and the vocals follow suit, often repeating the same phrase over and over, or holding notes for ages, droning out in some weird ritualistic incantation.
That said, for all its weirdness, maybe BECAUSE of it, Pope Adrian still rules, and remains an all time favorite, as does everything in RP's catalog, all of which will eventually be getting reissued again. Fuck yeah!
MPEG Stream: "Pogo Pope"
MPEG Stream: "The Pope With No Name"
MPEG Stream: "Hadrianich Relique"
MPEG Stream: "Il Papus Puss"

SAGOR AND SWING Botvid Grenlunds Park (Hapna) lp 22.00
Yay! It's been a while since we've heard from this wonderful Hammond organ and drums duo from Sweden, but now they're back with a vinyl-only release on longtime label Hapna. Has it really been almost ten years since their last album? It has, and we've missed 'em, being big fans of their jazzy and dreamy and folky instrumental sound.
Looks like Eric Malberg has found a new drummer to play with, Fredrik Borling of Dungen replacing Ulf Moeller on the kit. Malmberg also lays down some swirling synth textures as well as playing his trademark Bo Hansson-influenced organ, the delightful results range from bright and jaunty uptempo pieces to more moody melodic reveries...
Moments make us think of Hansson, of course, and another great Swedish '70s organist, Merit Hemmingson (she of the "Swedish Hammond Folk Groove") but with the playful synths also of Joe Meek Telstar type stuff at times too. Altogether lovely, so glad to have 'em back!!
Limited to 500 copies, comes with digital download code.

SMITH, VERDELLE Tar & Cement: The Complete Recordings 1965-1967 (The Omni Recording Corporation) cd 17.98
What a find! We had no idea who Verdelle Smith was, but it only took one listen to this latest Omni Recording Corporation release, a compilation of her complete recordings to be, well, completely hooked. She only recorded music for two short years before disappearing from the music world altogether. But in a just universe, Verdelle Smith would have been as huge as Dionne Warwick and her producers and songwriters, Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, more famous than Burt Bacharach and Hal David (though to their credit, they were already pretty big due to a novelty hit "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" and Perry Como's "Catch A Falling Star", but we digress...). Verdelle Smith's songs were no mere novelty. Originally from Asbury Park, New Jersey, Smith grew up singing gospel, but had big musical ambitions, so she moved to Manhattan where she auditioned for Vance and Pockriss who were looking for a specific type of singer for a Shangri-la's style song called "Juanito", a song about overcoming the social stigma of an inter-racial relationship. With high production values, lush orchestration, hook-laden arrangements and Smith's big voice, she fit the part perfectly and the duo recorded one lp and several singles, one of which "Tar & Cement" made it to No. 1 in Australia (which is probably why Omni is reissuing this.). That song and its B side, "Piece of The Sky" are both big pop laments to urban sprawl, and the dehumanizing effects of industrialization. It's rare to see such social issues being addressed in soul-pop fashion, and probably why they received little notice in the states. But Smith's drop-dead voice and the fabulous production give these songs such a deep, knife-sharp edge. "If You Can't Say Anything Nice" could easily have been a lost Bacharach / David hit. But it was the song, "(Alone) In My Room", that was quickly covered by both Nancy Sinatra (on the Boots record, no less) and The Walker Brothers, that seemed to secure her the most fame, fleeting as it was. Smith's delivery throughout her brief career shares the same dramatic largesse as Scott Walker on his first four solo records. So if you're as much of a fan of them, Nancy Sinatra, Lee Hazlewood, early Dionne Warwick or Burt Bacharach as we are, then Verdelle Smith will be right up your alley.
So what happened to her? Well, she wanted to make gospel records but her producers weren't into it, so she gave up the music business to become more involved with her church and social activism, which according to the liner notes she still actively pursues to this day under her real name. So there you go. Thank you Omni for digging this up. Fantastic!
MPEG Stream: "Tar & Cement"
MPEG Stream: "A Piece of The Sky"
MPEG Stream: "In my Room"
MPEG Stream: "Juanito"
MPEG Stream: "If You Can't Say Anything Nice"

SPACIN' Deep Thuds (Agitated) cd 14.98
NOW ON CD!!!!
This is the second kick ass offshoot of Philly psych rock outfit Birds Of Maya - the first being the awesome Purling Hiss, whose Public Service Announcement record we made Record Of The Week back in 2010.
Purling Hiss totally blew us away, and Spacin' is doing the same with their awesomely titled debut Deep Thuds, and if you're already a fan of Purling Hiss, we have to say, you might as well stop reading right now and add this baby to your cart, cuz it's most definitely cut from the same sonic cloth, equal parts power pop, classic rock, Stooges-y swagger, hooky and fuzzy, hand claps, all tripped out and psychedelic.
The opener "Empty Mind" is a total classic old school garage punk jam. The Stooges vibe is HUGE, the drawled vox, and the T-Rex guitars, the woozy hooky chorus, the spidery psychedelic leads, the sound lo-fi but still rocking and fantastically fuzzed out. But then the second song "Some Future (Burger)", ditches songcraft entirely, instead weaving a lush landscape of murky mesmer, all heavily effected guitar drones, and looped melodies, total low fidelity kosmische trip out, which once again reminds us of Purling Hiss, and the way PH flits from pop to psych out and back again.
"Wrong Street" is total Yellow Pills style psychedelic power pop, the sound super distorted, but hooks galore, and more wild psych shreddery. "Chest Of Steel" is another lo-fi pop gem, which leads directly into the warped experimental "Oh Man", that is a weird melding of fuzzy psych groove, minimal krautrock, and hippie rock trip out, but it's awesome, totally hypnotic and spaced out and trance-y, the production giving it a sort of Ariel Pink / John Maus vibe.
There's one more short sharp pop jam before the final number "Ego-Go", which might be our favorite, a sprawling psychedelic groover, plenty poppy, but still droney and murky and minimal, sort of a power pop Velvets maybe, driven by some fierce guitaring, some rad psychedelic leads, and laced with plenty of thrum and jangle, with another warped production, that gives it the vibe of some lost live jam captured surreptitiously in some shitty dive bar, and dug out of some old dusty box 30 years later.
Probably our new favorite lo-fi psychedelic spaced out power pop / garage punk record, fuzzy, jangly, hooky as hell and one of those records we can't seem to stop listening to! And absolutely WAY recommended for everybody who bought any/all of the Purling Hiss records!!
MPEG Stream: "Empty Mind"
MPEG Stream: "Some Future (Burger)"
MPEG Stream: "Chest Of Steel"
MPEG Stream: "Ego-Go"

STARS OF THE LID Avec Laudenum (Kranky) lp 14.98
Finally available again on vinyl, the fifth full length from these aQ beloved dronelords, who can do more over a weekend with a couple guitars and a 4 track than most bands can manage with a million dollar studio and all the time in the world. And while SOTL did eventually graduate to more polished soundscaping, and continually strived to create beyond their means, Avec Laudenum, originally released in 1999, finds them still crafting lush expansive soundworlds that belly their relatively humble creation. By record number five, we were already smitten, the sound a gorgeously washed out and wistful world of soft swells, of gentle swirling chords, all blurred and smeared into a hushed, haunting, dreamlike ambience, five epic tracks of slow burn drift, some peppered with the sounds of distant trains, or other mysterious found sounds, at times, the music here sounds almost symphonic, while at others, it's a barely there, ultra minimal whisper. The first 22 minutes are a single three part epic, the opening first part is a gorgeous bit of super abstract shimmer, which blossoms into a huge sweeping part two. Orchestral and majestic, but still somehow reserved and restrained, the sound initially sun dappled and prismatic, but quickly growing dark and ominous, eventually shedding the hum and thrum and fuzz, and leaving just a woozy drift of softly pulsing shimmer, smoothed out into a bleary bit of cinematic drift. Finally, part three loops in some backwards melodies, and some buried melodies begin to surface, those melodies sounding almost choral, and making the sound feel like some long lost 4 track Arvo Part outtake!
The two lengthy tracks that finish things off are both dark and dolorous, the first a long sprawl of rumble an thrum, laced with a bit of soaring melody, the closer, a warm bit of smoldering shimmer, the soundtrack to the golden dawn, the darkness fading, the shadows retreating, the sky, and the landscape slowing adding color, a hazy, dreamlike coda, full of light and warmth and hope. So gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "The Atomium - Part One"
MPEG Stream: "The Atomium - Part Two"
MPEG Stream: "The Atomium - Part Three"

SURVIVAL s/t (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98
In our reviews of the last couple records from transcendental black metallers Liturgy, we found ourselves focusing a lot on the non-black elements of their sound. Sure they had the whole tranced out insectoid riffing, the blasting beats, the shrieked vox, all the usual black metal tropes, albeit definitely done quite well, and with their own unique spin on the sound, but part of that spin was some serious noise rock / math rock elements woven into the group's black buzz, and while we may have never come right out and explicitly said it, we always kind of fantasized what a non black metal liturgy might sound like. As in a whole record made from just those noise rock and black metal parts/songs/elements. And then all of a sudden, along comes Survival, the new project from Liturgy mastermind Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, which is pretty much just that. Some seriously kick ass super mathed out post rock heaviness, definitely beholden to all the math/post/noise rock greats that came before, but in this case, some of the tranced out mesmer of Liturgy seems to have found its way into Survival. The tracks are dense and lushly layered, intricate and almost proggy, but they also sound almost looped, with the band locking into riffs, and melodic motifs, and just hammering away, and getting super tranced out, the vocals too, almost a sort of monkish chant, a mysterious crooned chorale way down in the mix (which to these ears sounds a little like Alice In Chains, which is NOT at all a bad thing, in fact check out the acoustic brooder "Since Sun Revised", awesome!). And there does seem to be some grungy grooviness to the proceedings, the band unfurling slithery, swaggery tangles of mathy churn, or loping rhythmic crunch, the best moments here though are still when they do lock into a loop, and keep it going forever, total math rock bliss out for sure.
Fans of that classic nineties math/post rock sound will definitely dig, Don Cab, Rodan, AMF, etc, but Liturgy-isms abound, as if a bunch of these tracks could in fact be stripped down Liturgy tracks, but ultimately, Survival ply a twisted strain of heady, tangled, trancey, psychedelic mathiness that we're almost digging more than Liturgy!
MPEG Stream: "Tragedy Of The Mind"
MPEG Stream: "Original Pain"
MPEG Stream: "Freedom 1"
MPEG Stream: "Second Freedom"

SVARTE GREINER Black Tie (Miasmah) cd 16.98
Fresh off his collaboration with Aidan Baker and Andrea Belfi as B/B/S, Norway's Erik Skodvin aka Svarte Greiner outdoes himself on this one, one of the most "miasmatic" of the releases on his own Miasmah label yet. Doomiest anyway. And while some doom or dooom or dooooOOOOOoooom relies on heavy, highly amplified guitar riffs and anguished (or Ozzyish) vokills, Svarte G has none of that, pure instrumental atmosphere instead, drones and tones and ominous percussive sounds only, stately and suspenseful, "acoustic doom" he calls it and it IS. Seriously, imagine your most bummed out session of existential "why am I here, what is life about" angst, this is the soundtrack, but one that somehow finds the radiant beauty in that mood. Mood being doom spelled backwards as we all know, and Svarte Greiner has it both ways. Two long tracks, "Black Tie" and "White Noise" (hmm, is he a Bowie fan?), each 20+ minutes, both slowly unfolding, strangely soothing, yet total void-embracing, never-to-awake-or-return sonic nihil. How does he conjure such blissful darkness, with sudden soft-edged reverberating crashing chords interspersed amidst sparse, quietly textural soundfields? Sure probably with a piano or cello, guitar, synth and effects and other mundane everyday musical gear; but the results sound like they're sourced not from within an instrument or a computer but within the inner spaces of your own mind and (damned?) soul, for good or ill, the way you might, in a isolation tank, listen to your own heartbeat or bleakest unspoken thoughts and feelings, gaining solace from the blurred continuum of self and non-self. Whatever that means, but that's the sort of thing that the music of Svarte Greiner makes us ponder, and THAT at least should mean something.
If you're already a fan, and so many are for good reason, then that this gets the eyes closed, zoned out, thumbs up from us should be enough, get it, it's another transcendent slab of Svarte Greiner's cinematic downer drone loveliness. Also recommended to anyone into other Misamah soundscapes, Deaf Center and the like, stuff on Type too. Those still on the outside looking in, take a chance on crossing over and sink into this, it will sink into you.
MPEG Stream: "Black Tie"
MPEG Stream: "White Noise"

TEETH OF THE SEA Orphaned By The Ocean (Rocket) lp 23.00
FINALLY IN STOCK ON VINYL!!! We never actually got any copies of the uber limited first pressing, from 2009, so this is in fact, the very first time we've managed to get this on lp! So grab one before they're gone... AGAIN! Here's what we had to say about the cd, released in 2009:
Holy smokes is this right up our alley, and yours we're guessing. The first proper release (we think) from this UK instrumental space psych combo, who craft sprawling, smoldering epics, total kosmische psychedelic bliss out, not heavy and heady like the Heads or White Hills (at least most of the time), instead, TOTS let their songs brew and steep, like on the opening track here, the band unfurling a long stretch of warm washed out guitar buzz, haunting mariachi like trumpet, deep bass thrum, swirling sci fi FX, all woven into a super cinematic stretch of ritualistic psychedelic ambience. The second track offers up more of the same, but pushing the sound in a more Godspeedy, slow build direction, a minimal muted shimmerscape, wound around spidery guitars and a thick gloomy basslines, tribal drumming drives things forward, brooding and hauntingly intense, it's not until the final minute that the song explodes in a glorious burst of psych noise chaos.
The rest of the record offers up a series of miniature epics, haunting soundtracky ambience, mariachi flecked spaghetti western style psychedelia, occultic space rock infused krautrock, and just full on psychedelic space rock, all in varying measures, from the creepy soundtracky sci-fi electronics of "Coraniaid", to the deserty drone rock of "Swear Blind The Alsatian's Melting", that transforms into a sort of mathy space rock part way through, rife with haunting twang, and metallic buzz, eventually blasting off, for the heart of the sun, all pounding dynamic chug and churn, and soaring psychguitar freakout. "Dreadnaught" is another one that's all cinematic and sweeping, that trumpet adding a little mariachi vibe to every track it touches, this one a hazy slow burn, the horn adding layer of buzz and thrum, before a brief bit of shimmery glitched out jangle, before the final jam, "Sentimental Journey", which is all wheezing electronics, and minimal tribal drumming, harmonica, gauzy washed out melodies, a droning dirgey drift, that builds to a pulsing hypnorock dronekraut groove, all murky and motorik, and the sort of thing you wish would go on for ages longer, but instead here finishes off in decaying swirl of hazy harmonica flecked shimmer.
The perfect mix of spaced out psych and slow burning post rock epic, which means you can probably figure out if this is for you (it probably is!)...
MPEG Stream: "Only Fool On Horse"
MPEG Stream: "Latin Inches"
MPEG Stream: "Sentimental Journey"

UBT Ego Orientation (Psychic Handshake) cd 14.98
Record number two from this Canadian garage rock / noise pop combo, whose sound might surprise you, considering it's the project of none other than Mikey Heppner, frontman for Canadian metalheads Priestess, and his lady Kathryn McCaughhey, who together whip up some seriously hooky, crazy catchy, sorta psychedelic bubblegum garage, that KILLS.
Opener "Follow The Waves To The Coastline" is practically perfect, equal parts Redd Kross and Best Coast, fuzzy, jangly, sunshiney, with a main hook to die for, super complex, almost a little proggy, but at it's core classic power pop in garage rock clothing. It's not even two minutes, but it's one of those songs you'll find yourself listening to over and over and over. Took a while before we could make it any further into the record than that track. But there's plenty more garage pop goodness to be found. The second track is weirdly almost funky, super groovy, cowbell and handclap driven fuzz pop, which starts off all skeletal and herky jerky, before blossoming into full on heavy pop crunch, before switching it up again and splintering into some FX drenched proggy trip out, and then it's right back to the cowbells and handclaps. "Bumby's Song" brings the sound right back to pure pop. Sure it's fuzzy and stompy and a little bit noisy, but it's so catchy, the vocals soaring into a falsetto for another killer chorus. Classic girl group sounds find their way into UBT's sound, so does glam rock, lots of this has a sort of Ty Segall / Mikal Cronin vibe, but really, for all the garage rock-isms, this IS essentially an awesome noise pop record, leaning HEAVILY on the pop.
Check out the samples, especially the first one, and odds are you'll be hooked. Easily our favorite new pop/garage record, and ANYone whose been digging the current crop of local garageniks (Thee Oh Sees, Segall, Cronin, Warm Soda, etc.) should snap this up pronto!
MPEG Stream: "Follow The Waves To the Coastline"
MPEG Stream: "She Does Too"
MPEG Stream: "Bumby's Song"

UMBERTO The Night Has A Thousand Screams (Rock Action) cd 14.98
It took a while, but last year's Umberto release for Mogwai's Rock Action label finally got some decent US distribution, and we're pretty glad since we've been bugging the label and import distros about it for months now. 'Cause as you know we're huge Umberto fans, we absolutely love his Goblin-worshipping, giallo-inspired sinister cinematic synthscapes and this one's another spinetingler. And it's the (alternate) soundtrack to an actual movie, too! Most Umberto releases have been of the -imaginary- soundtrack variety, but The Night Has A Thousand Screams was composed and performed as live accompaniment for a 1982 slasher flick called Pieces, by cult Spanish director Juan Piquer Simon, as screened at the 2012 Glasgow Music And Film Festival.
As you'd expect, The Night Has A Thousand Screams is rife with the subtle menace of spooky, spacey synths, and lullaby-like melodies plinked out amidst haunting, harrowing drone/groan. There's also often the thump-thump-thump of a bass drum as the beating tell-tale heart of it all. That booming percussion can be pretty prominent in the mix, but we like the "live" sounding urgency of it when it occurs. Many passages leave aside the rhythms for long stretches of pure synth textures, however. Others get really rhythmic, like "The Investigation" with snappy drum machine beats that brings in shades of Umberto's other big influence, John Carpenter, natch.
Not having heard the film's original soundtrack we can't compare it, but we're betting Umberto did at least as good of a job scoring such scenes as "The Dance Studio" and "The Waterbed", and it's one that works just fine for home listening minus the visuals as well. Another wonderfully groovy and atmospheric Umberto creep-out!
MPEG Stream: "Boston, 1942"
MPEG Stream: "The Investigation"
MPEG Stream: "The Waterbed"

V/A Enjoy The Experience : Homemade Records 1958-1992 (Now & Again) 2cd 19.98
This past record store day, we were super excited about this amazing book by Johan Kugelberg, "Enjoy the Experience: Homemade Records 1958-1992", a hefty, 508-page tome that thoroughly chronicles the history and obsessions of one of the largely misunderstood and under-appreciated niches of recorded music, the "vanity record" - also known as "private press recordings" - also known as outsider weirdness! With that book came a download coupon for an amazing compilation of some of the artists included in the book, and now that compilation has been released by Now & Again on double cd and vinyl and it's both super amazing and completely bonkers in all the best ways. It includes some old faves like Arcesia, whose operatically crooned "White Panther" some might recall from the American edition of the Love Peace & Poetry psych series; the love damaged soul-punk balladeer Gary Wilson (who can forget that line at the end of his song "6.4 = Makeout"? "She's a real groovy girl and she's got red LIPS! She's Real! She's Real!! SHE'S REAL!!!!"? Well, not us anyway), and Florida lounge maestro, Michael Farneti, whose Good Morning Kisses lp we featured on one of our Outsiders & Eccentrics In-between lists. But there are plenty of new-to-us goodies, including one of our new faves, Medico Doktor Vibes, whose Caribbean-inflected witch doctor bedroom funk recorded in LA in 1979 will soon be reissued by local label Companion Records sometime in the near future. As per the Now & Again sound, there are plenty of outsider funk, soul and disco rarities, some naive lounge, burnt out yacht rock, creepy exotica and country pop and just plain weird sounds - like 33 1/3 whose jungle themed "Monkey Bridge" would make any Kid Creole & The Coconuts fan smile. Here's the rest of the line-up: Vinny Roma, Steven David Heitkotter, Joe E., Ray Harlowe & Gyp Fox, Russ Saul, Jade, Boa, Circuit Rider, Dennis The Fox, Bob Harrison, Gary Schneider, The Muzzy Band, The Invaders, Carol-Leigh & Hank Mindlin.
Fun freaky shit!
MPEG Stream: FARNETI, MICHAEL "ESP Switch"
MPEG Stream: ARCESIA "White Panther"
MPEG Stream: MEDICO DOKTOR VIBES "Diska Limba Man"
MPEG Stream: INVADERS "Spacing Out"
MPEG Stream: 33 1/3 "Monkey Bridge"
MPEG Stream: CAROL-LEIGH & HANK MIDLIN "Inquire Within"

VIAN, PATRICK Bruits Et Temps Analogues (Staubgold) cd 17.98
French prog from the seventies can move us in just the right ways, especially if it hits that sweet spot between Kosmiche new age and sublime Euro-jazz, yet still has that individually eccentric feel that you only get from the French. Patrick Vian's sole 1976 lp Bruits et Temps Analogues, famously included on the Nurse With Wound list, is just such a record. An amalgam of Michael Rother sky gliding electronic music and a mellower take on the "Superficial Music" of Bernard Szajner, Vian packs a lot of punch into his compositions, propelled forward by the hypnotic counterpoint of sunny guitar lines, analog Moog washes, flutes and all kinds of dazzling rhythmic instrumentation, such as kinetic jazz drumming, and deep vibraphones, the latter thanks to the help of Mino Cinelu (who had played with the likes of Gong, Weather Report and Miles Davis). There's also an exotica quality at play here especially on the track, "Orenock" which feels like we're on safari on some strange desolate planet, as well as some avant-garde tendencies, such as using tape manipulations of recordings of American sporting events on the musique concrete piece, "Tricentennial Drag". Vian began his musical career in the legendary French prog /free jazz band Red Noise, but the vibe on Bruits et Temps Analogues is way more serene and groovy. It lives up to its awesome cover painting. Originally released on the Egg / Barclay label, it's about time this stellar album got reissued. Thanks Staubgold! Highest Recommendation!!
MPEG Stream: "Sphere"
MPEG Stream: "Oreknock"
MPEG Stream: "R&B Degenerit!"
MPEG Stream: "Tricentennial Drag"

WHIRLING HALL OF KNIVES (WHOK) Devisions (Trensmat) lp 16.98
So far we've only heard a couple of singles from these twisted psychedelic soundscapers, both on Trensmat, one a split with Tlaotlon, and what little we've heard from these guys, pretty much knocked our socks off. A sort of layered psychedelia, droned out hypnorock space-kraut, like a lot of the other bands on Trensmat, but WAY weirder and more tripped out, and that doesn't seem about to change on their first full length, which opens with a wild squall of gristled noise before settling into a serious sprawl of droned out space rock mesmer, all churning organ (processed guitar?), tribal drumming, swirling FX, the rhythms buried in the mix, so it almost sounds like a super distorted drone-prog, that almost gets metal for a second before collapsing into full on crumbling noise, transformed into a long stretch of distorted zoner drift. That track alone, most psychedelic space combos would kill for, but we're only getting started.
The 10+ minute "Alternate Devil (Dvaita)" sounds like Gnod with a heavy dub makeover, all lurching big beats, and swirling clouds of caustic buzz, heavy and heady and super tranced out, it almost sounds a bit like the Boredoms or Shit And Shine, super churning and rhythmic, a wild tribal rhythm pelted by sheets of roiling noise, the drums eventually dropping out, leaving just the noise, but that too recedes, leaving a hazy droned out noise-psych drift, all tangled synths and swirling FX, buried voices and stretched out guitar buzz. So good.
Nothing on the rest of the record is quite that sprawling and epic, but WHOK do manage to kick up a seriously collection of kick ass sonic skree, processed guitardrones, and swirling blown out psychedelia, gives way to noisy kraut-drone lumber, rife with weird almost choral vocals, whorls of white noise, and of course some seriously dense drumming. There's also plenty of minimal druggy drift, like an even more heavily sedated Spacemen 3, as well as some super blown out guitardrone buzz, washed out and woozy, and finally, the WHOK version of techno, a grinding noisescape of noise blasted beats wreathed in droned out guitarbuzz and crumbling in-the-red distortion, pulsing and throbbing malevolently, before splintering into a total trip out free form soft noise psychedelic coda. Cool!!!
Includes a link to a digital download of the whole record, and like all Trensmat releases, EXTREMELY LIMITED!!
MPEG Stream: "Wraith / Donn Amok"
MPEG Stream: "Alternate Devil (Dvaita)"
MPEG Stream: "9xReal"
MPEG Stream: "Immureme"

X RAY POP Pirate! (Finders Keepers) lp 25.00
A few weeks back we listed an amazing French synth-pop rarity on the Dark Entries label called The Dream Machine by duo X Ray Pop, a compilation of early singles and demos that was equal parts Les Rita Mitsouko, Mo-dettes and Stereo Total. Now Finders Keepers follows that up with a reissue of the band's first full length, Pirate!, from 1985. Pirate! was originally released on cassette in a small edition of 100 copies, so it went down the rabbithole of obscurities pretty quickly. So it's awesome that it's getting reissued! We did notice that 5 of the tracks on both releases were the same, but then a glance at the subtitle on this release, The Dark Side Of The X, clued us into the fact that while the songs are the same, they are VERY different versions. The Dream Machine demos were more stripped down and gave a lighter touch to the French pop created by vocalist Zouka Dzaza and instrumentalist Doc Pilot. On Pirate! however, the songs have more overdriven synthesizers creating a much darker Suicide-ish feel heightened by the rapid-fire drum machines. Still catchy and cool, but closer to the cold wave of Deux and Gina X on this go round than the way they were to Pizzacato 5 and Stereolab was on the last one.
MPEG Stream: "Nous Sommes"
MPEG Stream: "Nana Electronique"
MPEG Stream: "L'Eurasienne"
MPEG Stream: "Un Petit Plume"