[]O--------------------------------
[]O--------------------------------   Aquarius Records
[]O--------------------------------   2003 Staff Faves
[]O--------------------------------   December 17 2003
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31 KNOTS It Was High Time To Escape (54 40 Or Fight) cd 14.98
The new, 2nd album from this Portland (OR) trio sure has gotten under Allan's skin (in a good way). Is that because of the incessant, complex bass lines? The strident yet often lovely vocals? The classically-influenced details? The band's infectious prog-pop chutzpah? All that and more. Yes indeedy, 31 Knots play indie-pop with healthy helpings of prog. That's right, prog -- as in Yes for instance. The press we've seen on this plays up the Yes comparisons, and we'd have to agree, though there's much else going on as well as "Fragile" and "Close To The Edge" worship. Inspiration is drawn from the '80s as well as the '70s, as this possesses a New Wavish pop/punk energy that makes some of this sound like, say, Hot Hot Heat meets Yes. Other names to drop in a review of 31Knots might include: Circus Lupus, Convocation of, King Crimson (their "funkier" side), The Police, Modest Mouse, Party of Helicopters, and Gang Of Four. Maybe. What we're sure of is that 31 Knots are mathy yet catchy, way more compelling and poppy than most post and/or math rock outfits you can imagine. Their sinewy, elegant songwriting is backed up by impressive, precise playing, but, like the best proggers in the '70s, they don't let their obvious instrumental prowess get in the way of writing really good songs, ones with melodic content and emotional depth. There are *lots* of good songs on here -- it was hard to pick the two to make sound samples from! As mentioned above, this is their second album (introducing a new drummer, the guy from Dilute & Natural Dreamers). Somehow we missed their first album but we'll rectify that error asap!
MPEG Stream: "No Sound"
MPEG Stream: "That Which Has No Name"

AGITATION FREE Last (Spalax) cd 14.98
Not too long ago we reviewed the recent reissues (on the Garden of Delights label) of the first two albums by this AQ-beloved krautrock band, an outfit up there with Pink Floyd, Ash Ra Tempel, Wishbone Ash, Can, Guru Guru, etc. in our book of cool '70s psych/prog.
Recorded live in 1973 and '74, and then originally released in '76, this is Agitation Free's third album (and, at the time, final album -- though there's been other posthumous live/archival releases since then). We thought since everybody likes their first two so much we ought to tell you about "Last"! Basically, if you liked the wide-open, psychedelic jamming guitars and electronic experimentation of Agitation Free's "Malesch" or "Second" you'll want to check this one out too. The three cosmic, spacey instrumental tracks here include a version of the lovely "Laila II" from their second album, and bits from their first. And track three, the VERY spacey, minimalist rock of "Looping IV" (which, at 23 minutes, covered the original LP's entire B-side), will lull you into a beatific trance just as well as anything by today's expert space/drone bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Landing, or Kinski...
RealAudio clip: "Soundpool"

AISLERS SET How I Learned To Write Backwards (Suicide Squeeze) cd 13.98
Hurrah! The much anticipated third album from our favorite world-weary pop angels has arrived! Very '60s Brill Building girl group style production but with less naive, sugarcoated lyrical sentiments. Sooooo sssplendid! Beautifully recorded, with layer upon layer of beautiful melodies and instrumentation. This band really does just get better and better. Their recordings have the hugeness and details reminiscent of Phil Spector or Joe Meek. And the use of reverb is flawless. The soft echoey lovely vocals just melt my heart and the songs are so individually rad that they stand on their own and apart from each other. This record is softer and sadder in some ways, perhaps their darkest work to date. Less poppy or optimistic than previous songs I've heard. I really can't take it off my stereo at home. Absolutely, totally and completely recommended!!!
RealAudio clip: "Catherine Says"
RealAudio clip: "Attracion Action Reaction"

ASA-CHANG & JUNRAY Jun Ray Song Chang (Leaf) cd 15.98
Don't know much about this record. But boy we sure do like it. And part of the reason is it is so indescribable. Seriously. Rarely is a record free enough from referents that we are forced to describe the sound alone instead of comparing it to this person and that band. Which while daunting, is also incredibly exciting. It even inspired a spirited discussion with my lady friend (who also loved this record) on how to explain/describe just what the hell is going on here musically. Asa-Chang is a self-taught tabla/bongo guru and in-demand session percussionist and this is his first proper solo record. And it's not at all the record you might expect from a famous tabla player. The tabla, and percussion in general is used quite sparingly, usually strangely entagled with processed vocals, creating fucked up rhythms and otherworldly harmonies. The first track features lots of mournful strings, soaring and swelling with staccato tabla perfectly in sync with spoken male and female vocals. Strangely hypnotic and totally alien sounding. The next track is sort of calypso, with horns and steel drums pecking out a lo-fi, murky melody, sounding a bit like Indian street musicians jamming with some Elephant 6 band. And it continues, careening wildly (stylistically) all over the place, but somehow remains totally cohesive and utterly compelling. They even do a cover of Brigitte Fontaine & Art Ensemble's "Comme A La Radio"! With harmonica and sitars and electronics and crazy tablas triggering whispery Japanese vocals over lovely strings. Unlikely sounds and deliberately angular melodies, super affected vocals ranging from robotic sped up female voices to distorted, pitched down male voices, often harmonising (sort of), occasional almost-indie rock riffs plucked out on an acoustic guitar, bells and chimes, shimmering drones, electronic bleeps and blips, and amazing percussion all gel perfectly into one of the weirdest coolest records we've heard in a long time.
MPEG Stream: "Nana"
MPEG Stream: "Nigatsu"
MPEG Stream: "Kobana"

V/A Bali: Golden Rain (Nonesuch) cd 12.98
We just got the first batch of the Indonesia / South Pacific installment of Nonesuch's Explorer reissues, which total 12 in number. Ten of the discs are from either Java or Bali and just about each one features an entirely different form of gamelan. A Gamelan, as a cursory way of introduction, is an orchestra of primarily bronze (though bamboo gamelan are also common) percussion instruments -- metallophones, gongs, gong-chimes -- and drums. Quite often a gamelan will have a specific repertoire that it is exclusively built for the performance of, and certain ceremonial gamelan are limited to the performance of a single piece. On top of this, throughout Java and Bali there is an ever changing world of both village and court traditions which continue to defy definitions. These discs just in from Bali and Central & Western Java just scratch the surface of gamelan throughout Indonesia, but they're a fine introduction anyway.
Back in 1967 when this record hit the shelves it blew people's minds, and even today it remains one of the most unique and amazing things you're likely to hear. "Golden Rain" is the historic recording that started it all. Recorded by David Lewiston in 1966, Golden Rain was not only the first recording to be released in the Explorer series, but is touted as the first commercial release of "International" music (a claim that some might argue with.)
The first two tracks are recordings of Gamelan Gong Kebyar. The 20-minute third track is Lewiston's recording of kecak, the almost universally loved monkey chant. Kecak has an interesting history in that its creation in the 1930s is due at least in part to German artist Walter Spies, a cultural outsider. The performance is entirely a cappella, with a male chorus of 60+ men chanting in an interlocking fashion derived from gamelan composition. The origins of the chant come from a ritual exorcism dance that's centuries old. The thing about Balinese performance, at least up until later this century, is that it was all inseparably tied to ritual, be it a wedding ceremony, funerals, and other various life cycle ceremonies. Bali's increasing popularity as a tourist destination for middle class and wealthy Europeans in this century was coupled with these same tourists wanting to be entertained by their exotic hosts. Unfortunately for them, there was not only no concept of performance merely for entertainment's sake and not being Balinese, their presence at any such ritual event was violation of its sacrosanctity. Spies' work in encouraging his Balinese friends to create a completely new performance from older traditions, whatever his intentions may have been, allowed for the Balinese to keep the purity of their rituals intact and for the occidentals to get their kicks.

RealAudio clip: BALI: GOLDEN RAIN "Gamelan Gong Kebyar "Hudjan Mas""
RealAudio clip: BALI: GOLDEN RAIN "Ketjak: The Ramayana Monkey Chant [excerpt 1]"
RealAudio clip: "Ketjak: The Ramayana Monkey Chant [excerpt 2]"

BLOODBATH Resurrection Through Carnage (Century Media) cd 13.98
Bloodbath might sound like a generic death metal name, and that's kind of the idea. They're actually a Swedish metal supergroup paying tribute to the late 80's/early '90s death metal that they loved in their youth. Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Entombed, that kind of thing... Gory, grinding, blasting DEATH.
Bloodbath is made up of vocalist Michael Akerfeldt (mastermind of gods Opeth*), guitarist Anders Nystrom and bassist Jonas Renkse (both of AQ-faves Katatonia), and drummer Dan Swano (Dan Swano! he's been in a zillion bands, but we'll mention our favorites, Pan-thy-monium and Karaboudjan). They did a three-song ep a few years back, as a lark, and we never really expected a follow-up due to these dudes' busy schedules in their full-time outfits. But apparently the pleasures of unadulterated death metal beckoned irresistibly to them, and this "Resurrection" was thankfully at last spawned. And with this sort of musical braintrust, you know that Bloodbath isn't going to disappoint. Indeed they don't. Doomy, intricate, brutal, produced to perfection, and catchy in the blood-letting way that really only makes sense to death metal fans. Thanks guys!
*who have just released their eagerly anticipated new album, "Deliverance" (see nearby for our review) and we don't doubt the timing was coincidental...clever record company.
RealAudio clip: "Buried By The Dead"

BROADCAST HaHa Sound (jewelcase version) (Warp) cd 16.98
At last, the highly anticipated follow-up to The Noise People Make has arrived!
Cup totally adored their pre-album Pendulum cdep, and after giving the HaHa Sound a first listen she feared that this sophomore effort's brightest highlights might've been packed onto that lil' ep. For instance, the ep's title track bursts forth as the second song on the album and is clearly one of its standouts. It's undeniably irresistible! Thoroughly taken with that song as well as the gloriously obtuse, bloopy electronic instrumentals, she initially found herself somewhat disoriented with the rest that followed (as you might be able to tell 'cause she's speaking about it in the third person), but then she gave it a second spin... and the album blossomed before her very eyes/ears!
Vocalist Trish Keenan murmurs and sings in her wistful, lullaby-perfect voice that nears the clarity and sweetness of Karen Carpenter or Julee Cruise. It's the perfect foil for the fizzing and churning backdrop of analog synths, guitars, bass and percussion created by Roj Stevens, Tim Felton, James Cargill and Steve Perkins - tipping their collective hat to '60s Brill Building girl groups, the grand sentimental lovey-dovey-ness of Bacharach, and Esquivelian space age bachelor pads everywhere. Broadcast skillfully craft glistening, starry-eyed music that swirls and creaks like an old carousel, but just as ably veer off into more eccentric, trippy territory a la Bruce Haack, Raymond Scott and Joe Meek (psst, this contrast is perfectly exemplified at the meeting between songs 7 and 8 - "Lunch Hour Pops" and "Black Umbrellas" - check 'em out!). Perhaps the time has come that the occlusive "Stereolab Jr." tag they've been saddled with (granted, quite aptly so) may be tossed in the trash. Very recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Lunch Hour Pops"
MPEG Stream: "Black Umbrellas"

CALEXICO Feast of Wire (Quarterstick) cd 14.98
Right out of the starting gate, this new Calexico album rings with a fond familiarity, perhaps leaning a little more towards traditional country than their past mariachi-drenched sound. However, from that point on John Convertino and Joey Burns take a winding path away from both the sound and style that have defined them for three superb albums, returning only every so often to their trademark lushly reverbed slinking twang with horns. It's a bold move with results that are both successful and refreshing for the group. That's not to say they're unrecognizable, nor sounding like a completely different band. Not at all, each song is most certainly distinctly Calexico. Still very cinematic and expansive. However, there's subtly executed shifts and additions that build gloriously upon their work to date. The simmering second song "Quattro" has an almost Fleetwood Mac "Tusk" rhythmic feel, and oddly enough the sixth is called "Not Even Stevie Nicks" a surprisingly sunkissed '70s-ish pop rock song. High strings slide and soar through the atmosphere of "Black Heart". Mid-album, hushed backing vocals grace the chorus of "Woven Birds". The Convertino-penned "The Book And The Canal" is a brief hushed interlude centered around misty piano melody. For those of you itchin' for some more familiar moments, there's still plenty on songs like "Guero Canelo" and "Close Behind" (both written by Burns). Something new for old Calexico fans and a great introduction for those who've yet to experience this fabulous group. Wonderful, and very recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Quattro"
RealAudio clip: "Black Heart"
RealAudio clip: "Not Even Stevie Nicks"

CAT POWER You Are Free (Matador) cd 14.98
Simply gorgeous, and so well worth the nearly five year wait! Yes, it has been that long since the last Cat Power album (not including her Covers Record), but Chan Marshall's songwriting is so rich and lingering, that an album like 1998's Moon Pix just lasts and lasts. You certainly may have been craving more new CP songs, but at the same time found you were not yet done with what was on your plate. Timeless and deeply personal, hers is music you revisit again and again. So it comes as no surprise that You Are Free is no exception. Absolutely compelling and gorgeously assembled, this is an album that you could easily lose yourself in. Although it's as emotionally weighted as any of her past albums (or perhaps even more so), this doesn't solely focus (or dwell) on themes of sorrow and pain as those did. Introducing the earthy intimacy of the album, the lead off song trails offs with a handful of casual piano notes as if it were being performed in an impromptu setting - perhaps in front of just her closest friends. The third song "Good Woman" is a prime example of how strength, frailty, hope and despair are all entwined in Marshall's music. This deeply moving highlight of the album acutely conveys crushing heartbreak, survival and renewal. With backing vocals sung by two young girls and an enveloping string arrangement, you'll surely wish it continued past its four minutes. Marshall does kick up some dust on a few numbers, singing with such white-knuckled conviction on songs like "He War", only to return within her next breath to a ghostly whisper on "Fool". Quite something to behold. You Are Free comes to a close just as it began - subdued, yearning with just her voice and piano. Highly recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Good Woman"
RealAudio clip: "He War"

BROOKS, CEDRIC IM Light Of Saba (Honest Jons) cd 17.98
This amazing and absolutely incomparable recording of Cedric Im Brooks finally gest reissued by Astralwerks via Honest Jons. Those of you who've picked up copies of the Trojan Nyabhinghi Box Set have already gotten a taste for Mr. Brooks. Born in Kingston in 1943 Cedric Brooks had been involved in Jamaica's music scene since the early sixties, playing both clarinet and saxophone for several groups and recording some successful instrumentals for Coxsone Dodd, along with working as a session musician at Studio 1. It was two subsequent events that really sharpened Brooks' musical aesthetic though: the first was a trip to the United States where Brooks almost had the opportunity to join Sun Ra's Arkestra (the birth of his daughter back home in Jamaica thwarted this). The other was his introduction to rasta percussionist Count Ossie. Ossie & Brooks teamed up, forming the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, to produce the holy grail of reggae/nyabhinghi recordings "Grounation". After parting ways with Ossie, Brooks formed his own orchestra "Light of Saba" in 1974 and recorded several albums worth of material with them. This compilation of 18 tracks here are absolutely amazing, a truly bizarre amalgam blending roots reggae, jazz, afro-funk, soul, calypso and even disco -- all glued together with pounding nyabhinghi drumming (not to mention bass, guitar, organ, horns and flute). Those beginning to feel squeamish about such shameless genre blending fear not: this is not some half-assed world-beat record cum marketing gimmick. This is perhaps one of the best "reggae" (though it doesn't completely fit the genre) reissues we've seen through these doors in a long time! This is heavy, rough hewn, beautiful and potent. This is one of those gems that, when we play it in the store, everyone either wants or wants to know just what the hell it is and when the hell it was recorded. Timeless and crucial. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Sabayindah"
MPEG Stream: "Africa"
MPEG Stream: "Nobody's Business"

WATSON, CHRIS Weather Report (Touch) cd 14.98
Oooh. We're super pleased to get this new Chris Watson field recordings album (see note below). He's one of our favorites in the realm of just going out in the world, shutting up, and listening. With really good equipment and recording skills, that is. In the past he's brought us up close and personal with a variety of African wildlife, as well as the fauna of his native England. Now with the perhaps too-obviously titled "Weather Report" he focuses on the bigger picture, not just animals but the places in which they reside, which means a lot of weather phenomena in the mix.
There's three long tracks, each providing an aural portrait of a location over time. Kinda like time-lapse film, but the action is not sped up here, just carefully edited together. They're all natural environments, not urban, the first ("Ol-Oloool-O") taking you on a virtual expedition into the wilds of Kenya's Masai Mara, one day in October 2002. The next, "The Lapaich" compresses four months of sound from a Scottish highland glen in the fall and winter. Lastly, "Vatnajokull" closely examines the slow flow of a glacier in Iceland, which sounds like drone piece from our experimental section. From animals, birds and insects to washes of wind and rain to quiet, creaking ice, this is all pretty darn magical. Newcomers to Watson's work should note that there's no processing of the sound to make it "experimental music", it's a straight-up documentary with no additions or interference (aside from the neccessary edits). Then again, I suppose it is "music" in the John Cage 4'33'' sense. And it's wonderful sound. Amazing, vibrantly real stuff that'll fire your imagination. If you've seen that amazing new documentary movie "Winged Migration" you've got a filmic analogy to the kind of thing Watson captures here.
NB. You know, it's a bit embarrassing, but we've never listed this man's releases in our database before, aside from the "Star Switch On" disc of remixes and his contribution to Hazard's "Wind".
Whoops! Dunno how that happened, 'cause we're all really big fans of his work. So, at least we can offer a timely review of this, his third proper release on Touch, and perhaps retroactively review his previous efforts "Outside The Circle Of Fire" and "Stepping Into The Dark" on a future list.
MPEG Stream: "Ol-Olool-O"
MPEG Stream: "Vatnajokull"

COELACANTH The Glass Sponge (23five) cd 12.98
Second release from this droning duo. Coelacanth is our very own Jim Haynes and AQ pal Loren Chasse (Jewelled Antler, Blithe Sons, Thuja, Franciscan Hobbies, Id Battery et al). Four extended tracks of gorgeous space-y drone-y almost-ambience. Forests of cricket-like chirps are blurred into smeary ambient washes of cool greys and pale whites, beneath smatterings of clinking clicking clatter. Keening, indistinct moaning tones sound like distant foghorns, reflected from the slowly shifting terrain. Underwatery warped sonic shudders billow outward as vague melodies drift and float, chiming and reverberating, eventually dissipating into misty clusters of ethereal almost transparent notes. Hissing, fuzzy high end buzz whirs machinelike over industrial clatter that has been smoothed out into pulsing, barely-there rhythms. So so nice. All of the sounds were collected from various public and private Coelacanth performances over the last couple years, before being assembled into the Glass Sponge. Released by local sound art nonprofit 23five.
MPEG Stream: "The Electric Hydrometer"
MPEG Stream: "The Hexactinellidae"
MPEG Stream: "The Violet Shell and Its Raft"

COHEED AND CAMBRIA In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 (Equal Vision) cd 13.98
Emo doesn't get any more epic than this. Start with the name, Coheed And Cambria? What the fuck? And then song titles like "The Velourium Camper Pts. I-III", "Three Evils (Embodied In Love And Shadow)" and "Cuts Marked In The March Of Men". But the music is where things get really weird, and epic. Lengthy and proggy song structures, huge crunchy metal guitars, convoluted and improbable rhythms, and vocals...woah, the vocals. Somewhere between Freddie Mercury, Jeff Buckley, Geddy Lee, the guy from Shudder To Think, and the guy from Cyclefly, with a gorgeously crystalline high tenor, that swoops and soars, not silly like, say, the Darkness, but more graceful and dramatic, and totally gorgeous. The title track is a metalcore masterpiece, but what sets it apart is the clean vocals throughout, the almost-Pinback sounding breakdown in the middle, and the Peter Gabriel like epic reprise, complete with a huge chorus of back up vocals. The record is super varied though, from Get Up Kids style emo romps, to metalcore crunch, to progressive weirdness, to MTV metal, with death metal breakdowns, super sappy pop choruses, complicated and ridiculous instrumental breaks, and a hidden track that manages to be so bizarre and silly and prog with multiple parts, SUPER dramatic vocals, lyrics like "My robot will never die..." and hyper complex instrumental segments, and still sound right at home with rest of the record. Sounds a bit like the bands stab at a grand musical a la the Who's Tommy. This gets played SO much in the store (this hit the spot for Jim's emo sweet tooth) and I (Andee) haven't stopped listening to it at home since I got it. Even saw their video on MTV2 which is really bizarre! But only made me like them more. Thought they'd be skinny little emo boys, but they're sort of bearded, husky, regular guys, and one of them sports a wicked rock-fro that would make Buzz from the Melvins proud!
MPEG Stream: "In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3"
MPEG Stream: "Cuts Marked In The March Of Men"

JACKMAN, DAVID Up From Zero (Robot) cd 14.98
After a spell of expensive releases both solo and as Organum that held a paltry amount of material, David Jackman has finally provided a new album where the dollar per minute ratio is less than one! In other words, you get 35 minutes of aggregate sound collage for a mere $14.98. Though a reissue, essentially nobody has really heard these recordings before as Up From Zero was one of the very first cassettes that Jackman put out on his Aeroplane Records back in 1982 in an edition of just 30 copies. There's also an extra track dating back to 1980, a collaboration with the underappreciated Philip Sanderson. While his strongest work has clearly been his Organum project which concentrates on timbral accumulations of bowed gongs and scraped metals into epic drones and minimalist constructions, Jackman's solo work has a considerable amount to offer. Up From Zero is a particularly dynamic suite distinguished by the easily recognizable samples which riddle Jackman's compositions. A screeching loop of a car crash interrupts the burbling of a placid stream; deep rumbling drones situate behind the seasick motion of scraped metals and smashed glass; and bowed guitar echoes toward infinity. These sounds are much more obvious than most Organum / Jackman sounds, but never quite articulate themselves as the Surrealist epiphanies of Nurse With Wound. It may have been that these early works experimented with various sounds before he hit on the signature of Organum. Nevertheless, another very strong piece of work from one of the great minimalists of the contemporary era.
MPEG Stream: "Ways To The Sea"
MPEG Stream: "Threshold"
MPEG Stream: "Up From Zero"

DEAD MEADOW Shivering King And Others (Matador) cd 10.98
Apparently time-travel is possible, 'cause there's just no way these guys could be of our day and age. With this, their third album and Matador label debut, Maryland thud-psych rockers Dead Meadow take things to an even higher, ahem, level of '60s/'70s inspired stoner delight. It's downer rock that swings like a pair of bellbottoms on a body hanging from a noose but is also certainly warm and enveloping, like a big fuzzy blanket. Heavy riffing with some nice mellow acoustic hippy jams as well. Basically drone-on bliss both ways. Kinda like if Sleep were a krautrock band.
We've said before that our only real problem with this band is the vocals. But on "Shivering King", although they're still super-nasal, they've managed via a combination of effects and mixing to somehow at last make 'em nicely palatable -- they're the high end counterweight to all the bass frequencies over which they drift. Fantastic!
NB. It's a bit weird Dead Meadow's on Matador now, but I guess they fit in with Bardo Pond (who've moved on to a new label, however) and it's not any stranger than the Champs being on Drag City!
Vinyl version is a double LP on 150 gram vinyl.
MPEG Stream: "Babbling Flower"
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE Transatlanticism (Barsuk) cd 14.98
We knew they still had it in them, and Transatlanticism prooves it. After a two year recording hiatus (not including the b-sides / demos release You Can Play These Songs With Chords) while singer Benjamin Gibbard stretched his wings with Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello in their Postal Service project, Death Cab For Cutie returns with a full length that not only does not disappoint, but possibly even surpasses their excellent sophmore effort We Have the Facts... album of three years ago. While they will probably always be compared to Built To Spill (circa Perfect From Now On or even Keep It Like A Secret) Gibbard et al. have undoubtably come into their own. Along with all the great hooks and beautiful melodies we've come to expect from Death Cab, the group has gotten progressively more crafty with their sound, utilizing electronic elements (never overshadowing the songs themselves) and, though it may not seem like much, piano. The latter is really something that suits their sound well. DCFC always have had this nack for pensive and heart rending melodies and there's really nothing better to sink them into your skin than some rich, full chords on a piano. Though it's used sparingly here, they could risk bringing it out more on further recordings, IMHO. The album's title track is a perfect example. The song's epic 8 minute length, beginning with a slow repeated chord progression on the ivories, builds steadily, sucking you into its world and leaving you feeling lonely in its absense when the final chords drift off into oblivion. So so nice.
MPEG Stream: "The Sound of Settling"
MPEG Stream: "Tiny Vessels"

DECEMBERISTS Castaways And Cutouts (Kill Rocks Stars) cd 14.98
Andee seems to always find one thing on the list to rave about. This week is no different, here's
Andee raving about this Decemberists disc:
I can't figure out why I like this record so much. On first listen it really doesn't sound like my kind of thing at all. Yet it just sort of grabbed me and I can't stop listening to it. Which is pretty exciting considering how much music I hear everyday and how seldom something just completely takes my breath away. Especially when I'm not expecting to like it! The Decemberists play a sort of mutant hybrid of indie pop and folk. And it is a bit twee, which would usually put me off right away. But for some reason, this record manages to claw it's way out of the twee-pop ghetto. The singer has a very affected, sort of British air which reminds me a bit of Belle And Sebastian (who I'm not a huge fan of), but way less wispy and more gritty and world weary. A bit like Robyn Hitchcock or Dan Bejar of the Destroyer (and the New Pornographers) The music though sounds a lot like Neutral Milk Hotel, all strummed guitars and belted-out vocals, but mixed with the dreamy and pastoral popscapes of Belle and Sebastian and even a little bit of the Pogues sort of celtic campfire stomp/gypsy street music vibe. Lilting and dreamy, but also really sharp and emotional. The lyrics are very bookish and the subject matter is very Dickensian, evoking cobblestone streets and gaslamps and hungry street urchins and idealised Victorian romance. Heartbreakingly bittersweet and once in a while even sort of funny. Like Edward Gorey drawings set to music. A lot of that has to do with the instrumentation, wheezing almost Parisian sounding accordions, ominous rumbling cellos, ghostly theremins, and droning warbling organs that affortlessly create that sort of late night, empty streets, drunk and bitter, wistful and sort of hopeful, broken hearted aura that so much music strives for.
From loping waltzes to bouncing pop to crawling dirges, the Decemberists weave a totally magical spell that totally envelops you and transports you to wherever it is the Decemberists are plying their wares. It's all just so beautiful and catchy and melancholy and absolutely fucking great!
MPEG Stream: "Leslie Anne Levine"
MPEG Stream: "Odalisque"
MPEG Stream: "Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect"

DELGADOS Hate (Mantra/ Beggars Group) cd 16.98
The Scots certainly have a magic touch when it comes to creating absolute pop splendor. Just think of artists like Belle And Sebastian, Mogwai, Teenage Fanclub, Arab Strap, not to mention supergroup The Reindeer Section... and then there's this band! You might recall Windy and Cup both gushing over the Delgados' last album The Great Eastern a couple of years back. Oh my! Well, we're happy to report that with this, their fourth full length, they've picked up right where they left off. That is, continuing to finely craft their splendid compositions full of a swirling carousel of strings, woodwinds and horns, honey-sweet male and female lead vocals, and an angelic choral accompaniment. Plus they've done so once again with the notable presence of Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Sparklehorse, Mercury Rev) in the producer's seat. Such a wonderful combination it is! Making for an even grander big picture than they created together on the super lush Great Eastern. Clouds of shimmering cymbal crashes punctuate the glorious, dramatic atmosphere, definitely revealing that distinct Fridmann touch. Wistful, lulling melodies are introduced in the most spartan of settings -- a lone voice and guitar -- but soon build to epic proportions. And the lyrics? Ah yes, quite capable of stirring heartswelling sighs and misty eyes from the coldest of men with their crushingly bittersweet imagery (lyrics are included in the cd booklet). If you've even a glimmer of affection for glorious orchestral pop, the Delgados are for you! Luminous and lovely and so very recommended.
Note: Includes a video for their song "Coming In From The Cold" and two bonus tracks not on the Mantra UK pressing.
RealAudio clip: "Coming In From The Cold"
RealAudio clip: "Favours"
RealAudio clip: "If This Is A Plan"

BOVELL, DENNIS Decibel (Pressure Sounds) cd 14.98
Seems we haven't had a super dub collection come our way for a while, so it's nice to have this wee disc pass through our doors. Before Dennis Bovell came to wider recognition through his efforts producing the Slits and the Pop Group, he could have retired and earned himself a veritable lifetime acheivement award for his efforts not only in shaping the sound of UK reggae, but also in putting on the map in a very Jamaican-centric scene. He had a hefty C.V. including: founding member of England's premiere reggae group Matumbi, running his Sufferer HiFi sound system, running a successful record label and his work with Linton Kwesi Johnson for starters. Though always confident that whatever he and his fellow musicians and producers in the UK were doing was just as good as the newest thing out of Kingston, getting his fellow countrymen and expats to reach the same conclusion was not as simple as saying the proof is in the pudding. There's a really great story in Lloyd Bradley's "Bass Culture" (printed in the U.S. with the less exciting "This Is Reggae Music" title) in which Bovell relates how he got people to stop and listen: the good old fashion dub plate. Every good DJ wants to have a kick ass track that their competitors don't, especially if they think it's coming from Jamaica. Knowing this, Bovell began having his group Matumbi cut dub tracks and release them on 7". They even went so far as to buy a "dink" machine to give them that extra bit of authenticity. See, the 7"sthat they'd get pressed in the UK all had the small hole in the middle, where as the Jamaican singles all had the big hole in the middle. The "dink" machine lopped out the hole in the middle so that their singles looked just like those from Kingston. Add a rubber stamped evocative label name, "Rama", to the single and there's no telling the difference. Then they just ran them around town to all the shops and sound systems, selling them direct (which only adds to a sense of authenticity in the world of exclusive dub plates). You have to read Bradley's book yourself to find out how they finally got "caught". Of the 16 dub tracks on this collection several are apparently those self same rare dub plates that fooled the DJ's and public of yore. But rare tracks or no, all of the tracks here (recorded between 1976 and 1983) are excellent, proving Bovell was indeed on par with the best in Kingston. Part of what inspired Bovell to challenge the Jamaican supremacy was his refusal to be content with merely immitating the rhythms already reworked ad nauseum on both sides of the Atlantic. Making the best of both worlds Bovell was un-fettered by the popular trends of Jamaican music while, in a genre almost predicated on creative borrowing, free to take what he liked from a wide pool of sources; be it Sly Dunbar rhythm tweaked with a calypso flavor, or a Congos era Lee Perry intro and bass line. But by throwing in some rock fuzz guitar, suavely lifting a lick from the Beatles here and there Bovell creates some great dubs that were uniquely his own. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Dominion Dub"
MPEG Stream: "Scientific"
MPEG Stream: "Entebbe"

SHILTON, EARL Two Rooms (Full Of Insects) (Invisible Spies) cd 11.98
I somehow knew this was an Aquarius Record of the Week the minute I first laid eyes on it. Well, okay, maybe that's not entirely true. But it had the potential, that much I knew for sure, just from the cover: a huge double bass drumkit, set up in the middle of the forest with the name 'Earl' scrawled on one of the bass drums. A very evocative image, combining our love of heavy rock (the kit), with my personal thing for drums (the kit again) and our love of all things forest-y: naturesounds, field recordings, animal sounds and all that. My mind was reeling. Was it a drummer just playing solos out in the woods? Was it some sort of Jewelled Antler style rock band / field recording hybrid? Or something else entirely? Stranger yet, the song titles were all in German while the label was British. Intriguing. Better give it a listen... Well, the first track revealed very little. A weird minimal rhythmic workout composed entirely of backwards drums and cymbals. Thhwwp....thhhwwwwip...sssssssp.... Very cool, but was that the gist of it? After a minute or so of that, the record exploded into something entirely unexpected -- a crushing metal riff, with weird syncopated drumming, a sort of chunky Pantera / Prong meets the Fucking Champs vibe, with whispered vocals. Then it shifted gears again and entered into a super melodic Carcass-style death metal breakdown with howled black metal vocals before it shifted back to the machine-like opening riff. And then I knew for sure. Record of the Week!
Only later, with some Internet research, did we figure out what the heck was going on. The dedication on the inside to UK death metal crusties Bolt Thrower should have been our first clue, as it turns out that Earl Shilton is a pseudonym for Alex Thomas, former drummer for those very same metalheads. For some unknown reason, Earl Shilton is the name he has assumed for this project "of crushing death metal brutality and total corpse raping necro-blast carnage" as his website puts it. Indeed!
Furthermore, that website tells us that on tour, the band features a quite young, brother and sister rhythm section! Live, Earl steps from behind the kit to handle the guitars and vocals, while the brother plays bass, and the 16 year old sister mans the drums!!! Fuck yeah! This is getting more Record of the Week by the minute, we're thinking! And the music is well worthy too, lest we forget --
"Two Rooms (Full Of Insects)" is a blasting, hyper complex, super varied blast of metallic mayhem. From motorik, ultra-precise technical riffery, to stop/start math-metal complexity, from grooving, galloping death metal fury, to screeching blasting black metal, from eighties Earache style thrash to modern metallic fury, with all sorts of tripped out breakdowns, fucked up production and some really really weird parts, like the breakdown a little more than halfway through the album where everything drops out except for a simple, quietly played hypnotic tom tom rhythm, joined by backwards, super creepy Orcish vocals, and the hissing backwards drumming that started the record, before the whole thing bursts back into motion, in an explosion of grandioise Maiden-ish metal. Whew, so good. And while it may not be the best (or truest) metal record on this list, it certainly is the weirdest. And the coolest. And certainly the one most suited to being Record of the Week!
MPEG Stream: "Infrarot / European Kanone"
MPEG Stream: "Zwei Raume (Voller Insekten)"
MPEG Stream: "Schlachthaus Rock"
MPEG Stream: "Tu Es.../Entscheidungskampf"

EDISON WOODS Seven Principles Of Leave No Trace (Glitterhouse) cd 14.98
Hurrah! Edison Woods, the Brooklyn-based aural/visual art assembly led by Ms Julia Frodahl, have crafted and set to flight their second tapestry of song. And they've garnered the assistance of some musical luminaries to realize their vision, namely Alan Weatherhead (engineer, producer and/or mult-instrumentalist for such groups as Sparklehorse, Cracker, and Trailer Bride) and Mark Van Hoen (producer, engineer and/or multi-instrumentalist for the likes of Locust, Mojave 3, and Seefeel). As well, guitarist Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins) steps in to guest on the final song. Whereas their debut cast a soothing, ephemeral atmosphere resembling diaphamous veils and glistening silks, this time the fabric, no less gorgeous, may be seen as being more akin to deep, jewel-hued velvets and sumptuous brocades weighted by painstakingly embroidered personal details. Ever so gracefully composed and arranged, all elements are much more present than previously so, bringing a sense of immediacy to the proceedings. This is particularly palpable in Frodahl's vocal performance. Formerly singing in a whispery murmur, here she expresses a greater range of character and raw emotion - often approaching the deeply heartbaring lilt of Chan Marshall. Need proof? Simply give the seventh song "Fiction" a listen, as well as the album's lengthy centerpiece "Was He A Poet". Wow! Indeed, the warmth and allure of Seven Principles Of Leave No Trace brings to mind not that of a comforting blanket, but rather of glowing embers of a dying flame. A haunting, burnished beauty. Once again, very recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Was He A Poet"
MPEG Stream: "Fiction"

EIKENSKADEN The Last Danse (Sacral Productions) cd 14.98
A little while ago we gave a thumbs (and pointy spikes) up review to an album called "Green Hell" by a French black metal band known as Mystic Forest. As we mentioned then, Mystic Forest's main guy, one Stefan Kozak, has another band called Eikenskaden ("Oaken Shield") which is almost *exactly* the same. The line-up is different, but the songwriting, production, and even the graphic design bear marked similarity. Apparently Eikenskaden is the project in which Kozak blows off steam and indulges even further in ridiculous black metal concepts, and it's true that of the two bands, this one is perhaps the best, though it's a close call. "The Last Danse" is Kozak's second Eikenskaden album, and is as amazing as anything else he's done -- totally frenzied, quirky, and Burzumic, more distorted yet more melodic than you could imagine.
I was listening to this at home the other night, and my housemate thought it sounded like two things playing at the same time. The very pretty, baroque sounding keyboard lines coexist bizarrely with a hellish wash of fuzz and distortion. Raw yet extremely melodic. You can hear in Eikenskaden (and Mystic Forest) the gothic black/doom "pop" of Katatonia, as well as the neo-classical shred of Windham Hell. It's a weird combo, maybe, but it works really well. Imagine Burzum or Khold possessed by Mozart or something, with Immortal/Popeye vocal growls too. Really, it's so insanely full of reverb and distortion it's crazy -- HSShshshhHZZHZZCH!!!
Also new in stock and recommended: Mystic Forest's third album, "Waltz In the Midst of Trees" ($13.98, see review elsewhere on this list/site).
MPEG Stream: "Then I'll Erase Myself Forever"
MPEG Stream: "Lost Memories"

V/A Ethiopiques Vol. 13: Ethiopian Groove (Buda Musique) cd 16.98
While not as famous as Amha Eshete (Amha Records), Ali Abdella Kaifa and his Kaifa records was still a heavyweight in Ethiopia's golden age of record production. Kaifa essentially took up the slack from Eshete when the latter went into exile in 1975 due to the country's increasingly hostile military government. Entering the music business in 1973 with the release of the first 45s on his label, Kaifa didn't just materialize in Eshete's absence. But it was the release of Mahmoud Ahmed's legendary "Ere Mela Mela" -- the album that would become the first Ethiopian recording to be released in Europe -- that really put Kaifa on the map. He was also the one who discovered Aster Aweke (who later fled Ethiopia to build a successful career as a world beat artist in the late eighties.) All but two tracks in this collection were recorded between 1976 and 1977 at the tail end of of Ethiopia's record industry, which was squashed in 1978 (at which point Kaifa continued to produce music on cassettes.) Along with the usual collection of male vocalists (Alemayehu Eshete, Hirut Bekele, Ayalew Mesfin and Tamrat Ferendji) there are four tracks featuring female vocalists (unfortunately underrepresented in this series) Bzunesh Beqele and the duo of Asselefetch Ashine & Getenesh Kebret. Ashine & Kebret must be heard to be believed, their unearthly parallel harmonies sharing the limelight wonderfully with the Army Band's flautist and arranger Teshome Sissay.
Longtime readers of AQ's list might have caught notice of this volume's title "Ethiopian Groove", as we had once stocked an album of the same name many years ago (see AQL #42). Indeed this album is the very same as the now out of print one on Blue Silver (in fact Ethiopiques series editor Francis Falceto was the one who compiled the earlier release), but with a few differences. While Ethiopiques #13 is unfortunately missing three of the Aster Aweke tracks that graced the original Ethiopian Groove CD, it is supplemented by the addition of two tracks by saxophonist Seyoum Gebreyes, two by vocalist Muleqen Mellesse and greatly expanded liner notes & photos. We can only hope that Buda Musique is intending to issue an entire CD dedicated to Aster Aweke and her earliest recordings for Kaifa. Until then, those of you with the original Ethiopian Groove should hold onto it.
RealAudio clip: MULUQEN MELLESSE & DAHLAK BAND "Djemeregne"
RealAudio clip: ASSELEFETCH ASHINE & GETENESH KEBRET & ARMY BAND "Metche New"

F/I Blue Star / Merge Parlour (Lexicon Devil) cd 14.98
Final blast from the past in this F/i reissue blitz of late and it's a doozy. The first half is a reissue of the Blue Star lp, three lengthy tracks of spaced out fucked up Hawkwind meets Gore meets Acid Mothers Temple outer-space-psych. Sludgy riffs are pounded into oblivion, splintering into shards of psychedelic swoosh and druggy shimmer. Endlessly and gorgeously hypnotic. The second half is the F/i half of their split with Vocokesh, and is way more electronic. Same vibe and feel as the first half, but with the riffs becoming weird modulated tones, and the propulsive drumming turning into mechanical throbs and pulses. Imagine a krautrock Wolf Eyes or Factrix covering Sabbath. This is some awesome shit. As recommended as the rest of the recent F/i reissues!
MPEG Stream: "Om Twenty-One"
MPEG Stream: "Pleasure Centres / The Beach"

F/I The Past Darkly / The Future Lightly: Rare & Unreleased 1983-1989 (Lexicon Devil) 2cd 17.98
The Australian label Lexicon Devil has certainly picked an unusual scene to ressurrect from the mires of terminal obscurity, as they've been reissuing a handful of records from the mid-'80s psych-electronic-noise rock scene of Milwaukee. It's probably a stretch to qualify this as a 'scene,' since the bands in question had only a handful of rotating members in a couple of guises, specifically F/i, Boy Dirt Car, and Vocokesh. F/i began as a trio with Richard Franecki, Greg Kurczewski, and Brian Wensing, although Franecki parted ways in 1990 to form Vocokesh and record solo albums, leaving Wensing in charge of F/i, which theoretically is still operational. Despite its subtitle as being rare and unreleased, "The Past Darkly / The Future Lightly" was originally issued as a 3LP set on RRRecords with a tiny pressing of 300 copies in 1989, and makes for a pretty good overview of F/i's diverse history that runs from gritty electronic passages to dusted psych rock explosions. The earlier electronic pieces are clearly the best work in F/i's catalogue coming across as droning fields of sound not unlike Conrad Schnitzler or MB. The move to distorted and wah-wah heavy hypno-space-rock never quite rises above bearing a passing resemblance to Hawkwind, Blue Cheer, or the early Skullflower rock explosions. Pretty great stuff though.
RealAudio clip: "Dormant"
RealAudio clip: "Standing In The Garden"

F/I Why Not Now?... Alan! (Lexicon Devil) cd 14.98
Yet another grimy blast of drugged out psychedelia from unheralded underground psych gods F/i. This is the third or fourth F/i reissue in the last several months (and definitely Andee's favorite), finally restoring their epic and long out of print back catalog. Why Not Now?...Alan! was originally released on lp way back in 1987 on RRR and suffered sonically from poor mastering, as well as cohesively from the fact that several of the tracks were chopped to fit on a single lp. This cd reissue finds the chopped songs restored to their original extended versions, and the sound remastered and beefed up significantly! F/i around this period were a noisy, abstract, psychedelic juggernaut, equal parts Hawkwind, Lustmord, Skullflower, Amon Duul and a healthy dose of free noise gleeearghhh like some of their RRR labelmates. Glitchy, sputtering, malfunctioning instruments, amp buzz, and crackly bursts of short wave radio whirl chaotically into a sonic supernova, until a propulsive rhythm struggles and emerges from the chaos, a krautrock behemoth, lumbering through a landscape of swirling wah guitars, squalls of shrieking, space-y bleeping swoosh, clattery 'pipe fights', rumbling subsonic drones, super distorted drum / car horn industrial crunch and all manner of drugged out grit, but throughout it all, the hypnotic riff powers on, head down, chugging into oblivion. Think a massively damaged Neu! Or maybe Hawkwind on a really, really bad trip, or Circle, drugged and forced at gunpoint to do their best Agitation Free until their fingers bleed, or Amon Duul II, if instead of German hippies, their commune consisted mostly of American noise rockers from the eighties. As the record progresses, some of the extraneous noise is shed in favor of a more sleek psych/kraut rock, relentless and hypnotic, repetitive and mesmerising, but even streamlined, it still sounds seriously damaged and dangerous. Fucking awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Zombie Theme 2"
MPEG Stream: "Number 27"
MPEG Stream: "QR (Z)"

FROG EYES The Golden River (Global Symphonic) cd 13.98
Hailing from the same city that popped out Hot Hot Heat, Frog Eyes bring forth an altogether different sound from their Victoria, BC brethren. Imagine a baroque hybrid of the Brit-inflected melodrama of Interpol or Pulp and the more dissonant, hand-wringing instabilities of Xiu Xiu. Very high on moody affectation with the focus squarely on the vocals. In addition to the deeply emotional croon and warble of those mentioned above, singer Carey Mercer may also draw comparisons to Tom Waits' hoarsely heart-baring delivery or the slightly smoother sandpaper swoon of Psychedelic Furs' Richard Butler. Lyrics and song titles are somewhat cryptic, obtuse and strangely poetic. The backdrop: electric guitar string churns and howls, shimmery cymbal washes, all anchored by some velvety piano melodies. FYI: More evidence of the Vancouver/Victoria music scene being quite a mighty tight knit family? Neko Case's Corn Sister co-hort Carolyn Mark lent her lovely voice to three songs (check out the luminous fifth song "A Latex Ice Age"), and Ms Mark's bandmate Tolan McNeil engineered the proceedings. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "A Latex Ice Age"
MPEG Stream: "Time Destroys Its Plan At The Reactionary Table"

MÀKURYA, GZ—TATCHÀW Ethiopiques Vol. 14: (The Negus of Ethiopian Sax) (Buda Musique) cd 15.98
I'm sure that, by now, we're way passed that point that divides the completists with those that are content with two or three volumes of this series. And yet, though speaking partially from a completist's viewpoint, volume 14 might be one that anyone who's enjoyed previous Ethiopiques releases to take note of. Volume 14 is a re-release of a 1970 Philips Ethiopia recording of GZ—tatchÀw MÀkurya. MÀkurya, a saxophonist, is apparently considered the Albert Ayler of Ethiopia. But before y'all non-free jazz aficionados get scared off by thoughts of atonal scree, you can rest assured that there's not a lick of that here. Probably what was most likely intended by such a comparison was either Ayler's propensity for using folk melodies in his works, or maybe even... marches. The cornerstone of MÀkurya's style is derived from a strictly vocal style associated with war known as "shellela". Apparently MÀkurya got the idea of transcribing this singing style to saxophone. Brash and insistent as it is, it's really nothing like even the tamest "sheets of sound" from Coltrane's pre-free jazz days. Entirely instrumental, the music of GZ—tatchÀw MÀkurya is, while familiar in the scope of Ethiopian music we've come to know and love, also much different than all that's preceded it. It probably most resembles Ethiopiques Volume Four in respect to their both lacking in vocals, but there the similarities stop. The band is stripped down to organ, guitar, bass and drums and accompaniment usually consists of a steady, uptempo ostinato over which MÀkurya then plays his rapid and rococo melodic improvisations (often alternating with the squealing farfisa-like organ). Also included as a bonus track for this CD issue is a late fifties rarity from MÀkurya. Yet again, we highly recommend this newest Ethiopiques release for both sometimes fans and -- it goes without saying I suppose -- completists as well.
MPEG Stream: "Yegenet Muziqa"
MPEG Stream: "Shellela"

GOLDCARD s/t (Off Records) cd 14.98
I just realised we have never listed any Pond records. Which is a crying shame as they are responsible for two of my favorite records EVER, having slowly mutated from a dirgy grungy (they were on Sub Pop after all) sludgy rock band, to a gorgeously lush and quirky pop band, making one of the greatest pop records ever, Rock Collection. That major label debut disappeared from the radar without even a blip, most likely resulting in the end of the band. We'll remedy the Pond situation on some later list, but for now, we can talk about the new album from Pond mainman Charlie Campbell, and his new band Goldcard, which is essentially Pond (it features one of the other two Pond guys) as well as Quasi frontman Sam Coomes and a bunch of other folks. This is gorgeously quirky, super catchy really really strange indie pop, but the strangeness in no way interferes with the pop-ness, in fact it only serves to make it sound miles more original than any of the other folks reaping greater rewards than the way more deserving Campbell and his Goldcard. Campbell has an unbelievable knack for interesting arrangements/instrumentation and unlikely melodies, so unlikely in fact, that they stick in your head like bubble gum on hot asphalt. Seriously. And the lyrics are absure and surreal, about bunnies and cars and random weirdness, but are somehow achingly perfect in capturing moods and emotions, without resorting to actually talking about them. A rare gift indeed. Goldcard almost sounds like a much more intimate, stripped down Pond record, with less emphasis on the rock, and more on arrangements, and moods and experimenting, which is a good thing. The record starts off with this weird shimmering guitar part (which was all over the last Pond record), that Campbell talks about in the liner notes, realising that he didn't in fact invent it but inadvertently stole it from the Flaming Lips. All the songs have extensive notes that only tangentially relate to the songs themselves and are really funny! Once again, when I'm faced with a record that I am digging SO MUCH and listening to non-stop, I feel like no matter what or how much I write I can't do it justice or explain just why it's so good. And it is SO GOOD! Fans of the Flaming Lips, Grandaddy, Pond obviously, Built To Spill, Quasi, Modest Mouse and all that plaintive, moody, catchy indie pop will be rewarded greatly and maybe have a new treasure trove of perfect mixtape material!
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "We Only Doubt Which Theory We Will Be Proving First"
MPEG Stream: "Rabbit"
MPEG Stream: "Destroy And Recreate"

GORGOROTH Twilight of the Idols (Nuclear Blast) cd 14.98
Maybe all seems grim and dismal and you're in the mood for some truly wretched, nasty, evil-as-fuck black metal to match your mood? Or maybe you're perfectly well-adjusted, but like to explore extremes of mood and melody in a metal context? Look no further than this new disc from Norwegian black metal stalwarts Gorgoroth. Twilight Of The Idols provides eight delightful tracks featuring throat-ripped screams and distorto-riff-carnage to match. Carefully, artfully, Gorgoroth weave a complex tapestry, an ancient shroud, from these elements. Not as experimental and fucked up as Gorgoroth's Destroyer, nor as quirkily 'pop' as their last one Incipit Satan, this new album delivers the goods without any gimmickry at all (until, perhaps, you get to the final, what-the-fuck-? faux classical synth coda ending the album, that is). It's pretty much just straight-to-hell, do not pass go, do not collect 200 kroner. There's dense, downer epics of slow trudge, and trancey, higher BPM blur, both having about the same effect, a lot like a less overtly (overly?) prog Enslaved. With their sense of sick melody and technical execution, Gorgoroth are definitely one of the greats. Indeed, if these guys weren't hulking, face-painted, spike-draped Norwegians, but a bunch of skinny American metalcore guys, maybe we wouldn't take 'em for granted as much as we do, and we'd realize that all the praise heaped on the likes of Converge and Isis is also the level of worship worthy of this band...
MPEG Stream: "Exit - Through Carved Stones"
MPEG Stream: "Teeth Grinding"

HALA STRANA Fielding (Jewelled Antler) 2cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In terms of 'keywords' this review should go something like this: Hala Strana, Jewelled Antler, Thuja, Steven R. Smith, Mirza, limited edition cd-rs, Eastern European folk music. Eh? Ok, now some of you are already clicking ADD TO CART or headin' down to our store. But if all that was more-or-less gobbledygook to you, let's elaborate. Hala Strana, which you may already have encountered as an entry in the Jewelled Antler Library series of 3" cdrs, is a project of LA-based multi-instrumentalist (and multi-instrument builder) Steven R. Smith, who is a member of Jewelled Antler flagship improv psych group Thuja and a solo artist in his own right. Hala Strana is his vehicle for instrumental droned-out Eastern European folk music appreciation/interpretation, and really represents some of his finest work to date. Multitracking turns Steven R. Smith into a one-man village orchestra, playing everything from violin to optigan, bul bul tarang to gourd guitar, harpsichord to clay flowerpots! Bouzouki, cello, harmonium, percussion, etc. These songs also incorporate snippets of field recording tapes and sampled recordings of traditional music. Plus some of his Thuja cohorts also show up to help out.
Many of the tracks are based on traditional folk tunes from Hungary, Albania, Macedonia, Croatia, and other Balkan backwaters. If you've heard any of the wonderful Muszikas records, you'll understand Steven R. Smith's inspirations. His arrangements and instrumention turn 'em into total folk-psych gems, reminding us of certain krautrock bands, International Harvester, the Dirty Three, Kemialliset Ystavat, Black Forest/Black Sea, all sorts of good things. Utter old world beauty meets underground drone aesthetics = some kind of Transylvanian trance music. Really nice. And we're looking forward to *another* new Hala Strana disc, a cd being released on Emperor Jones next week. That one's gonna be good too. But Fielding is hard to top. After all, there's TWO discs worth of music, and a handsome, handmade lil' booklet of art and text included. Unfortunately, there's only about 25 of these still available, so act fast!
MPEG Stream: "Villages"
MPEG Stream: "Time"

HALA STRANA s/t (Emperor Jones) cd 11.98
Ok, here's a Hala Strana cd that we won't (or shouldn't) run out of, unlike the super-limited Jewelled Antler double cd-r release we reviewed last list. But hurry up n' buy it anyway, 'cause it's also a good one! As splendid as the double, if less sprawling.
Hala Strana, for those just tuning in, is the Eastern European inspired psych-folk-drone project of the prolific and talented Steven R. Smith (Thuja, Mirza, his own self). SRS wrote all but two of the 13 tunes on here (there's a trad. Moravian and trad. Transylvanian credit for those two) and plays ALL the myriad instruments, from guitar to harmonium to cello to drums to accordion to melodica to glockenspiel... With the magic of overdubbing, he's a one man orchestra. But we wish this was a band, just 'cause we'd *love* to hear this music live!
Though only two of the tracks are actually based on traditional Eastern European folk, they all share that spirit, the "Transylvanian trance" lure mentioned in the review of that other Hala Strana. Some of the songs have an epic vibe that comes across like a Balkan Godspeed You Black Emperor!, others are more intimate, with melodic hooks that make 'em sound a bit like instrumental Decemberists tracks -- maybe that's the accordion making us think that. Very recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Stria"
MPEG Stream: "The Strictness of Beauty"

HARVEY MILK The Singles (Relapse) cd 15.98
Who would've though this would ever come to pass?! Those of you who love things slow and sludgy and heavy, should be on your knees, thanking whatever god you pray to, for allowing this divine musical covenant to be placed in your dirty, filthy unworthy hands!
Harvey Milk were Atlanta's answer to the Melvins, but slowed waaaaaaaay down and spaced waaaaaay out. Songs so spare but somehow so impossibly heavy, riffs so thick that they threaten to clog your speakers and rhythms so stretched out that they can barely be called rhythms. Add in a serious free jazz + ZZ Top obsession and you've got the recipe for one of the greatest, heaviest bands EVER. They recorded two brilliant full lengths (with their original lineup), one of which was re-issued on Andee's tUMULt label a couple years ago. And we thought then, sadly that we had heard the end of HM forever. But along comes Relapse to save the day, collecting all of Harvey Milk's impossibly rare 7"s and compilation tracks onto one black-hole-heavy chunk of aluminum. Most singles collections allow you to trace the development of a band, watching them slowly turn into the band you already know and love, but this collection proves that HM spontaneously combusted, emerging from their tarpit womb a fully formed, lumbering, molten, sludge rock colossus. From plodding, 3 mph sludgy, dirgy Melvins's worship, to chaotic noisy caveman thud, to Codeine-ish slow motion mood rock, to spare, rhythmic bass and drums space-scapes with demonic, anguished howls and Hendrix like riffs dipped in tar and sprinkled with wild peals of head-shearing feedback, to semi-acoustic tear jerkers, with warbly barely-in-key vocals, I mean, they even do a fucking Peter Criss solo song! How brilliant is that! Harvey Milk confounds as much as they just flat out destroy. How the fuck does a three piece rock band actually sound like they're playing on the wrong speed?! It's as if the entire band had a pitch control knob, and they keep turning it down and down and dooooown. And playing drums for this band must be utter hell. Massive expanses of space, demarcated by pounding beats, spread so far apart they just barely make up a rhythm, with enough space between beats for the drummer to get up, go to the bar, have a cigarette, and make it back in plenty of time for the next beat. So minimal and hypnotic and difficult and heavy, it just blows all other sludge rock hopefuls back to the stoneage. And even in the context of a 'singles collection', songs that were never meant to be together on a record, this stuff falls so perfectlyinto place, you would never know this wasn't conceived as a proper record. Yet another testimony to the under-appreciated genius of the mighty Harvey Milk. Liner notes from AQ pal and Chunklet head honcho Henry Owings. Essential for those of you who love Boris, Corrupted, Earth, Sunn 0))) and the like, as well as their massively head crushing opus Courtesy And Goodwill Towards Men!
MPEG Stream: "Yer Mouse Gets My Dander Up"
MPEG Stream: "I Do Not Know How To Live My Life"

INTERPOL Turn On The Bright Lights (Matador) cd 16.98
The Strokes, Andrew W.K., The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Liars, and now Interpol are part of a recent rash of New York punkish bands birthed from the music hype machine as the great salvation of rock 'n' roll. Strange that these bands would garner such praise, since none of them operate outside of the arena of the homage -- either as ironic hyperbole in Andrew W.K. or as The Strokes' downward mobility to blue collar rockisms. Of all the aforementioned bands, Interpol seem the most interesting as they've managed to successfully resurrect Ian Curtis, a task that hasn't really met with much success in other bands. I mention just Curtis, as his persona seems to resonate much more strongly with Interpol than Joy Division as a whole. Sure there are ghosts of Factory's post-punk jaggedness and mororsely bleak temperament; but Interpol's forceful minor keys offer other roadstops past The Strokes' take on brightly-colored, guitar jangle and the sublime washes of fuzzy feedback heard in the early '90s shoegazer bands (MBV, Ride, Slowdive, etc.). Musically, Interpol's debut "Turn On The Bright Lights" is an excellent marriage of those aforementioned styles; but like Joy Division, Interpol is driven by a charismatic singer with a flair for dramatic bombast and a predilection for angst. Paul Banks, Interpol's singer, is a rare breed in the contemporary world of depressed vocalists who have typically followed the emo-centric whimper and scream approach of Sunny Day Real Estate to infuse any lyrical content with immediacy and passion. Instead, Banks can actually really sing, his nervous vibrato echoing the musical accompaniment played between depressed weariness and urgent conviction.
Much of Interpol's aesthetic choices and lyrical content (love / hate relationships, urban isolationism, and sexual dependency) have already been done to death, but few have been able to do them as well. "Turn On The Bright Lights" is a fantastic record and actually lives up to all of the hype that has surrounded it.
RealAudio clip: "Untitled"
RealAudio clip: "Obstacle 1"
RealAudio clip: "Say Hello To The Angels"
RealAudio clip: "Stella Was A Diverr And She Was Always Down"

IRR. APP. (EXT.) Dust Pincher Appliances (Crouton) cd 14.98
Invocations of Surrealism have come to reflect a Frank Zappa or Dr. Bizarro form of 'weird,' with little understanding and even less appreciation for the truly revolutionary nature of the Surrealism that dominated avant-garde culture in the early 20th Century. Fortunately, a few sound artists have truly succeeded in manifesting the spirit of Surrealism in their work. The most obvious being Nurse With Wound in keeping true to the Surrealists bawdy appropriation of Victorian aesthetics in exploring unsettling horrors; and to a lesser extent, there's the Hafler Trio who took the intense interrogrations of Surrealism to a gnostic conclusion. Somewhere in between these two giants of sound art is the work of Irr.App.(ext). For the past eight or nine years, Irr.App.(ext) has been toiling in obscurity, and producing a body of work that easily rivals his more well known compatriots.
Some of you may remember a stunning art exhibit here at Aquarius records back in the early spring of 2003 with all sorts of obtuse collages, exquisitely rendered nightmarish drawings, and shadow boxes loaded with peculiar juxtapostions and mixed messages. That was the work of Matt Waldron, who also happens to be the man behind the musical project Irr.App.(Ext) along with a couple of likeminded delinquents. Unfortunately, Matt has had a ridiculous spell of bad luck with labels folding before releasing his work, or not being able to find the funding, or just being jerks. His luck has finally changed with the release of Dust Pincher Appliances, which in turn reissues a very early 10" originally released on Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson's Something Weird label back in 1995. Waldron has extended the original recordings with those of a follow-up 10" which was never actually released.
Though some eight years old, the recordings on Dust Pincher Appliances are still stunning. The album unfolds as an ever changing drama of Surreal events, evolving through time to reveal startling revelations, disquieting progressions, and atypical juxtapositions of sound. Eerie drones and atmospheres dominate the majority of the album, haunted by distant voices bathed in reverb or unrecognizable events that scurry malevolently like tiny monsters or robotic insects. Carnivalesque episodes often interrupt the proceedings with cackling sound effects, brash trumpet blurts, and toy piano discord.
Dust Pincher Appliances is a marvelous album and should be the harbinger of a wonderful catalog that the world needs to embrace.
MPEG Stream: "A Distended Particular"
MPEG Stream: "Wracking The Carcass For Residue"

COHEN-SOLAL, JEAN Flutes Libres (Mio Records) cd 17.98
The time has come. That very special time, that only comes once in a long, long while. Open the gates! Unfurl the red carpet! Prepare thyselves! It's time to induct yet another record, into the eliteand exclusive pantheon of Andee's favorite flute records. The Pantheon currently looks about like this: Phill Niblock's Four Full Flutes, Eberhard Blum's Berlin To Buffalo, Comus' First Utterance, Koukiji Kougezan's The Live [11th] Final Hyakusenmansyuuraku, Byard Lancaster's It's Not Up To Us, the first four Osanna records, Za Frumi, Alan Silva, Jethro Tull and pretty much all Roland Kirk and Eric Dolphy. Well, you can now add French flautist/double bassist Jean Cohen-Solal to that list. Flute Libres & Captain Tarthopom collects Cohen-Solal's first two ridiculously rare albums originally released in 1971 and 1973, on one cd. Long considered progressive rock masterpieces, these two records feature Cohen-Solal's ultra personal take on classical, jazz and avant garde, even mixing in some psychedelic rock and ambient minimalism to the mix. The disc starts off with a jazzy psych rock workout, sort of funky, with a boppy rhythm and wailing flutes, very catchy and cool. But from that point on, the record travels down a much darker path, as the jazz and funk and rock dissipate into spacy, shimmery soundscapes, reminiscent of Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd or even Taj Mahal Travellers, with warm melodic swells, shimmery washes of cymbals and gongs, and lonely notes, flute and double bass, swathed in reverb or wah, and sent to drift through the ether. Things rev up later on, adding shuffling jazz rhythms, dizzying flute melodies and faraway freakout guitars, channelling Magma and Focus, weaving meandering, propulsive and progressive, spacerock and jazzrock mantras. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Concerto Cyclique"
MPEG Stream: "Raga Du Matin"
MPEG Stream: "Matiere"

JEMAA EL FNA Morocco's Rendezvous Of The Dead: Night Music of Marrakech (Sublime Frequencies) dvd 21.00
Those expecting a documentary in the traditional sense, wherein a huge film crew with lighting rigs and hired security take over a small village while an authoritative voice-over gives you a blow by blow account of what unfolds before your eyes may be disappointed. This is a one man, one camera production. Shot entirely at night, relying on the good will of the participants, and leaving the interpretation up to you, the viewer, filmmaker Hisham Mayet takes us on a tour of Marrakech, Morocco's Jemma El Fna -- "the central square of the final outpost before one ventures into the great beyond of the western Sahara desert". All along the square people, mostly men, gather in circles around individual and groups of musicians. playing oud, banjo (!!!), various bowed instruments and percussion, the performers are accompanied by singers ranging from seasoned veterens working the crowd to youthful amateurs. In one section a young girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old sings and dances as an envious peer looks on. Perhaps one of the coolest moments though is when our cameraman stops by a gentleman set up in the square with his portable turntable and classic 7"s, sampling for us some of his favorites, crackly with age, and carefully wiping off the beautiful but worn jackets for us to see. Clocking in at 50 minutes, there's not a dull moment on this disc. While we forwarn those living overseas that this disc is NTSC, it is also region-free for those with multi-region players.

HAYNES, JIM Magnetic North (The Helen Scarsdale Agency) cd 13.98
Feedback, shortwave, wasps! Perhaps that's all we need to say to get you to click the "add to cart" button, but let's go on...
Our own Jim Haynes may be primarily a visual artist, working within a self-actualized aesthetic of rust and decay (a small sample of which you'll get with the each-one-unique cover to this release). But his love of music, especially of the 'dronological' variety, of sound art and field recording and experimental glitchscapes, has led him to accompany his recent art shows and installations with soundtracks of his own making. He's also been collaborating with AQ-fave Loren Chasse in the duo Coelacanth, who just released the very nice Glass Sponge disc (reviewed last list), so you know he knows what he's doing. This Magnetic North cd is the audio portion of an installation of the same name and is a despairingly lovely drone-scape, constructed from feedback, shortwave radio static, and recordings of wasps, as we said. Like his visual art, it's just a little spooky and discomforting, evoking ghostly transmissions from the void. It's quiet, wind-tunnel drone that could be a wordless EVP recording of a paranormal haunting, and then begins to sound like the haunting is being itself haunted! Jim's solo work seems less microscopic in focus than what he and L. Chasse do in Coelacanth. It can be claustrophobic, but conversely also spacious and even somehow incorporeal, phantasmal. One track features sparsely chopped clips of feedback, but we like best the tracks that drift endlessly without making the listener consider the physical sound-making process. Definitely for fans of Mirror, John Duncan, Francisco Lopez, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson...or for anyone willing to plumb the abyss suggested by this sound-work.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

KILLING JOKE s/t (Zuma) cd 14.98
It would be a considerable understatement to say this new Killing Joke album is a sobering listening experience --Y´it's a fierce, visceral, and bleak call to battle. It rocks and rages withY´echoes of theirY´1981 debut (and first self-titled) album'sY´feel and spirit. Yes, genuinely punk, andY´yes, genuinely metal... although those stifling labels can't and won't adhere to this band. Frankly, very few artists today can capture the pure seething energy that this, Killing Joke's second self-titled album,Y´has harnessed.
Jaz ColemanY´tears out of your speakers likeY´a man possessed. His deeply inspired vocal performanceY´delivers some ofY´his most inhuman gutteral growls, anguished howls and demonic hisses. Brilliant. His lyrics, brutally direct, are steepedY´in immense disgust and despair,Y´with hard-hitting political critiques -- cross-hairs unquestionablyY´zeroing in onY´Bush, September 11th and America --Y´interestingly, a lot of theY´heavy duty ones are omittedY´from theY´liner notes.Y´
Geordie Walker'sY´thunderstorm of guitars drillY´and grind, at once both tightly clenchedY´and loosely slung -- pelting your ears with metallic shards and sinewed debris. original bassists Youth and Paul RavenY´consume any remaining air withY´glowering lines that boil and stew.Y´With each song, the unrelenting roar of Killing Joke closes in around you.
Drummer Dave Grohl -- apparently not busy enough with Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stoneage -- does an excellent job immersing himself in the Killing Joke realm,Y´closely resembling the pummeling precision andY´tribal thrash of Martin Atkins. HopefullyY´Grohl's presence (his name is stickered prominently on the front of the cd) will draw younger audiences to this venerable band.Y´
UnlikeY´other bands from the past who've regrouped recently for one last hurrah or to cash in on the latest retro trends, it's clear Killing Joke have resurfaced because they truly have something vital to convey (just as they did back in 1990 with Extremities...dirt... etc). They don'tY´ churn out albums year after year to fulfill record contract obligations- they make music with a piercingY´focus when they feel the need and when it is needed.
Andy Gill'sY´production is beautiful andY´huge (but not tooY´'modern rock'), making for a generally accessible and current sounding albumY´(although some of the tracks are overly long) -- one that should haveY´hard music fansY´clambering.Y´
If you were ever into Killing Joke, check out this album! If you're new, this is aY´pretty goodY´place to start.Y´
MPEG Stream: "Dark Forces"
MPEG Stream: "Total Invasion"
MPEG Stream: "Implant"

KINSKI Airs Above Your Station (Sub Pop) cd 14.98
One of the so-called Terrastock Nation's heaviest ass-kickers, Pacific NW "space-rock" troupe Kinski continue their levitational ascent with this new full-length. We've especially been looking forward to it ever since Sub Pop released the teaser "Semaphore" ep late last year, which garnered high marks from us. The so-heavy-and-wintry-majestic-that-it's-almost-black metal title track from that ep reappears here, alongside seven new cuts that both drone-on and rock-out. Lengthy epics abound, structured to begin with moody, melodic mellowness before bursting into denser action at the half-way point, and are primarily instrumentals, with the fuzz of the overdriven guitars and the wallop of the drums taking full flight. From repetitive shoegazer post-rock to experimental pop to ambient Floydian psych, Kinski never falter, always full of energy, with sheer "set the controls for the nearest black hole" gravity-multiplying heaviness never far from kicking in. With "Airs", Kinski should be taking their place in the space/drone rock fandom realm next to the likes of Circle, Sonic Youth, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Subarachnoid Space, and a host of your cosmic krautrock greats of the past. Ol' Klaus would be proud.
RealAudio clip: "Schedule For Using Pillows & Beanbags"
RealAudio clip: "Your Lights Are (Out Or) Burning Badly"

KOPERNIK s/t (Eastern Development) cd 13.98
This record is so goddamn beautiful. Hard to know how to describe it. It reminds me of the sonic equivalent of those time lapse films where you watch the seasons pass in a matter of minutes, sunrise, sunset, plants slowly unfurling and blossoming, before wilting and falling to the ground, snow and then rain and then sun, everything moving at an accelerated pace, but blending and merging into a completely mesmeric and hypnotic fugue. Sort of like that. The tag on the cd mentions Godspeed and the Rachel's, and while those are the easiest comparisons (Godspeed because it's so epic, and the Rachel's because it's sort of chamber music) they don't at all hint at the complexity and depth of this Kopernik record. Thick and throbbing, undulating bass is the foundation, cellos, and upright basses, double basses, bowed and plucked, create a viscous and dense bed of rumbling, pulsing low end over which delicate, glistening melodies are sprinkled. This is ambient music, but so rich with layer after layer of delicate sound, that form an impossibly complex and challenging and beautiful listen. While rooted in this bass heavy, epic classical ambience, these songs do stretch in all sorts of improbable directions. Gorgeously lush chamber music, with digital glitches and hiccups, reminscent of Oval's Diskont, but instead of sounding underwater it sounds like it's floating in midair. A medieval court music, sort of grand and pompous, but also a bit forboding, like a much more GRIM Penguin Cafe Orchestra with burbling bass and loping melodies. Dark and cinematic, suspenseful and harrowing noirscapes with thick walls of lower register thrum with heavily affected backward vocals. Lonely and desolate, but so sincere and emotional. A perfect late night record of soothing dreaminess and nocturnal mesmer, but unlike many similar records, it can stand up to serious listening, offering even more when time is taken to explore its rich mysteries.
MPEG Stream: "Ondoyany Et Divers"
MPEG Stream: "Theme For Grace"
MPEG Stream: "Man, Myth, And Magic"

KOUGEZAN KOUKIJI The Live [11th] Final Hyakusenmansyuuraku (Horen) 2cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The day we first got this in stock, it was pouring rain -- appropriately enough, because playing this made it seem like it was raining in the store as well as outside, quite a lovely effect we thought. Truly, this is a stunningly beautiful concert/field recording, the culmination of a series of concerts held at (the very rainy) Koukiji temple in Japan. The concerts were organized by Yasushi Utsunomia -- whose claim to fame was as recording engineer for art rockers After Dinner. According to Utsunomia, his initial efforts were unsuccessful due in part to demanding and flaky performers (apparently all rock bands) and a crappy sound reinforcement system supplied by the temple. In the end, the first problem was solved by turning to traditional musicians and the second by constructing a sound reinforcement system worthy of such a space (a detailed diagram of the performance space and speaker locations is included on the back of the booklet's cover.) The performances heard here are on shakuhachi, ryuteki (both Japanese bamboo flutes), sitar and stone flute (played by the legendary shamanistic composer Akio Suzuki). All are accompanied by rain, from soft patter to heavy downpour. At times the rain is so loud it completely drowns out the soft playing of the instruments, essentially being an instrument itself -- and as a warning to those who would say otherwise, says Suzuki: "I'll tear out the ears of whoever says this is just rain." For its part, the electro-acoustic elements added via DSP and Utsunomia's custom built horn loaded speaker array are all but completely transparent for much of the concert. During Korei Deguchi's ryuteki performance is when the processing is most noticeable, with what sounds like the work of a harmonizer. Aside from that, the musicians' playing, the space, the rain and Utsunomia's equipment are seamlessly wedded and, if nothing else, you'll feel drenched by the time you finish listening. This numbered edition comes beautifully packaged with a nicely printed cover drawing (some thick rubbery ink that feels nice to pass ones fingers over) of a couple of cats performing for an audience of felines, and is hand-stamped on the inside. Also it includes a printed fold out with liner notes in Japanese and English. The whole thing -- package, idea, music -- is simply beautiful. Several of us here (Andee, Byram, Allan, at least) have already taken copies home...
RealAudio clip: AKIO SUZUKI "Stone Flute"
RealAudio clip: YASUHIRO MINAMIZAWA "Sitar"
RealAudio clip: KOUREI DEGUCHI "Ryuteki"

LAIBACH Rekapitulacija 1980 + 1984 (NSK / EFA) cd 15.98
If one were to take the logic of appropriative artists like Warhol or Rauschenberg, to the extremities of absurdity and dehumanization through the procress of mechanical reproduction, you would have Laibach. Perhaps the most misunderstood post-modern project to infiltrate pop culture, Laibach has often been associated with the proliferation of totalitarianism and Nazi culture, simply because they used those higly charged symbols and images and projected them back into the mass culture. However, Laibach's intent is to reinvest not just those symbols, but any symbol of authority and power, with the question of why is this symbol important to our culture. In many ways, Laibach was continuing in the same paths of inquiry found in their British compatriots Throbbing Gristle and The Hafler Trio; however, Laibach never cracked a smile, an attitude exemplified in their triumphant reinterpretations of the Beatles "Let It Be" as a series of miliaristic dirges and patriotic medleys.
"Rekapitulacija 1980 + 1984" was their first album, released as a double LP set with a beautiful series of reproduced woodcuts, offering portraits of the noble spirit from the agrarian worker married to the industrial landscapes, mirroring the same totalitarian artforms that had been thrust upon their native Slovenia during the Nazi occupation and later behind the Iron Curtain, when Yugoslavia was a Communist country. Despite this being their earliest set of recordings, Laibach's skill in the studio is tremendous, as heard in their epic piece 'Ti, Ki Izzivas' transforming Bernhard Hermann's soundtrack for "Psycho" into a punishing uber-motif coupled with a relentless drum machine pound and discordant organ blasts. Other tracks such as 'Brat Moj' or 'Smrt Za Smrt' are brooding no wave constructions, taking the best and most haunting elements of early Swans and early Cabaret Voltaire and fusing them into a skeletal anti-groove laced with growling vocals and commanding basslines.
But Laibach themselves have said it best in their early masterpiece 'Perspektive' : "By darkening the consumers' mind, it drives them into a state of humble contrition and total obedience and self-sacrifice, by destroying every track of individuality, it melts the individuals into a mass and a mass into a humble collective body... Our basic inspiration (ideals which are not ideals through their form but the material of Laibach manipulation itself) remains an industrial production, the art of the third Reich, totalitarianism, taylorism, bruitism, disco... The disco rhythm as a regular repetition, is the purest / the most radical form of the militantly organized rhythmicity of technicist production, and as such the most appropriate means of media manipulation." To hear this recited in the style of a Russian propagandist over a ominous thud of drum machines and triumphant Wagnerian horns, one can't help but laugh at the absurdity of such a statement; however, the logic quickly sinks in that Laibach are 100% correct. A brilliant album.
Perhaps the greatest and most challenging pieces of conceptual art disguised as a pop album. Truly awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Brat Moj"
MPEG Stream: "Slovenska Zena"
MPEG Stream: "Ti, Ki Izzivas"

LED ZEPPELIN s/t (Atlantic) 2dvd 29.00
Ok, first off, any real big Led Zeppelin fans don't even need to read any further -- trust us, just get this! Even if you don't have a dvd player, you should invest in one just to see this. And even if you're just a casual fan you probably should get this too. Really I'm not (or wasn't) that big of a Zeppelin fan myself, but I'm way more into 'em now after viewing this release... five and a half hours of rare vintage Zep footage, both pro shot and bootleg, all of it pretty awesome -- heck, for the clothes and hair let alone the music!
Breaking it down, disc 1 is mainly consists of a 1970 Royal Albert Hall concert, featuring a charmingly charmingly youthful Zep at an early peak, with the highlights there being Bonham's "Moby Dick" drum solo and the '50s rockers they cover towards the end of the show. With disc one you also get some other clips, including four songs in crystal-clear black and white from Danish TV (with kids sitting cross-legged on the floor, mere feet in front of the band, dangerously close to Page's amplifier -- did that kid ever hear again??)
There's lots of "Dazed And Confused" here, with their performance of that number on the British TV show "Supershow" being the best. It's the most EVIL sounding "Dazed And Confused" ever, Page's guitar *and* Plant's vocals oh-so-distorted just perfectly, due to the recording perhaps. With some crazy edits and the band becoming enveloped in a climactic fog machine miasma, this is worth $29 alone, seriously!
Disc two starts off with a brilliant "Immigrant Song" video constructed from 1972 Austrialian live video and 1972 Californian live audio. Then it's on to Madison Square Garden (1973) for some outtakes from The Song Remains The Same, the concert movie that this dvd blows out of the water. Good stuff though. Following that, you get their 1975 Earl's Court performance -- one of this dvd set's highlights, really. Just check out the blazing clavinet-and-Bonzo-driven mechanical funk workout of "Trampled Underfoot" -- damn! The dvd then moves on to Knebworth '79, their triumpant swansong UK performance where a band that has visibly aged in the four years since Earl's Court really smokes, with "Achilles Last Stand" standing out.
The non-performance footage on this set includes a young Page and Plant, very much the soft-spoken British rock aristocrats, fielding questions from reporters in NYC 1970, like what they think of the Beatles -- whom they just knocked out of the #1 chart position.
Really, about all we can complain about is the crappy dvd packaging. The so-called cover art is just lame, a Photoshopped mesa, desert plain, and Zeppelin-shaped cloud. Why didn't they just use a still from the footage on the darn dvd?? Watching it, you'll certainly see many a shot that would have make a much much better cover than what they used. However, the dvd itself is done with class, with an excellent interface -- the menus themselves feature additional looped Zep clips seen nowhere else in the dvd, so be sure not to overlook them while selecting the main features! Recommended, if you couldn't tell already!

MOGOL, LES (MOGOLLAR) Danses et Rythmes de la Turquie (World Psychedelia Ltd.) cd 17.98
Like we said in the 3 Hur-el review, above, the Middle Eastern '60s/'70s psychedelic rock scene is quite a happenin' phenomenon here at Aquarius -- bands from Istanbul blending the "heavy" beat sounds of London, L.A. and San Francisco with their own ethnic musical traditions. So, along with that great 3 Hur-el disc, we're *really* pleased to have just gotten cd copies in stock of a 1971 album by the fantastic Mogollar (or Les Mogol as they were known in France, where this LP was first released). This band has been a super favorite of ours ever since we first heard 'em on the "Love Peace & Poetry: Asian Psychedelia", "Turkish Delights", and "Hava Narghile" compilations. Yep, they appeared on all three of those fab comps, deservedly so as they were not only one of Turkey's biggest pop bands of the time but also one of the best, near as we can tell. They formed in 1967, playing a style of experimental psychedelic rock based on the folk music of the Anatolian region of Turkey. Their unique Anatolian (or Anadolu) "pop" sound is simply a delight, as amply demonstrated by this particular album. It features 13 tracks (none of 'em to be found on the aforementioned comps) that are based on traditional songs -- but for sure the original versions didn't sound like this, so groovy and hip. They employ some standard sixties rock instrumention -- plenty of electric organ getting almost "In-a-gadda-da-vida"-ish at times -- but also really bring the traditional Turkish instruments to the fore, playing ikligs and baglamas and darbukas and kasiks...all kinds of stringed and percussion instruments, often used traditionally but more often just fiercely strummed to great rock 'n' roll heights. Compared to 3 Hur-el's "Hurel Arsivi" this almost-all-instrumental album is folkier *and* jazzier, the electric organ giving some tracks a kind of Martin Denny exotica vibe. Both discs, though, would make great party records. Highly recommended!!
(Windy's new favorite record -- thus proving once again that in her personal canon of favorite all time records, about 90% of them are from 1971-74. And she's delighted to find that the track "Wildflower" was liberally sampled by none other than AQ-fave Amon Tobin for his stellar "Verbal" song... thus proving once again what great taste Tobin has, we says.)
MPEG Stream: "Madimak"
MPEG Stream: "Fairy Chimneys"
MPEG Stream: "Wild Flower"

LUGUBRUM De Totem (Blood Fire Death) cd 11.98
LUGUBRUM. The name belongs in all-caps cuz Allan and Andee have concluded that Lugubrum are the greatest black metal band EVER. Maybe. After becoming utterly enamoured of their split with their own side project Finsternis (reviewed on list #144), the two of us ordered some of Lugubrum's self-released cds direct from Belgium, for our own collections. Such sudden, massive Lugubrum exposure proved one thing: the totality of their music, their art, their concepts -- are all beyond normal mortal understanding. We must bow down to the totally fucked Lugubrum aesthetic. Yes, they are obsessed with drinking beer and eating carrots. (Yes, we just said eating carrots -- there's a spiked carrot in their logo, their motto is "Beer Us Or Die!!!"). Yes, they make music from the bowels of Hell. Yes, they have some seemingly silly songtitles ("Midgets of Evil"? "Beard Of Disease"?) -- but with totally grim and twisted lyrics, however. Being so paradoxically silly AND serious is the sort of weirdness we truly admire.
Eventually we'll try to stock their import cds, but we're lucky that now their hard-to-find-to-say-the-least 1999 masterpiece, "De Totem" has been reissued in the USA, remastered with 2 bonus tracks! This disc demonstrates that Lugubrum excel at slow-paced trudge-trawls through the doomy mire, changing up with trancey speed blasts. The sound -- their guitars, their vocals -- is so dirty nasty filthy. Makes Anaal Nathrakh sound like freshly scrubbed choirboys. The fuckin' fuzz...fuck. Such doomed, distorted, diseased atmosphere. Frosty string bends. Noisy feedback. Anguished howls. In a word: Beautiful.
And, if that wasn't enough, with the photo sessions for the De Totem booklet, Lugubrum have invented a whole new, hitherto untried look: hillbilly black metal!!! No corpse paint, rather corncob pipes, hoedown hats, shotguns, and beards. A pet hound dog, even. And yes, they actually take it so far as to play banjo on the album! Although, what's weirder is that one of the bonus tracks seems to incorporate a Jamaican dub influence... As we said, now our favorite black metal band in the world. LUGUBRUM.
RealAudio clip: "Udder Of Death"
RealAudio clip: "De Totem "
RealAudio clip: "Reet Reel"

M83 Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (Gooom) cd 17.98
We hadn't even heard of this band until a handful of customers started mentioning them, so we figured we'd best check it out, and guess what? Turned out to be pretty fucking amazing. A huge slab of fuzzy shoegazey electronica-flecked dream pop. We've been listening to this nonstop since it came in. It's not really that new, but it's so good, we figured better late than never. Imagine the post rave swirl of the Orb, mix in the muted warmth of Boards Of Canada, the lalala Neu-worship of Stereolab, the catchy new wave of New Order, then wrap the whole thing in a thick shimmery distorted haze a la My Bloody Valentine and you'll be close. Now imagine that concoction as the soundtrack to the love scene in some super bizarre Anime. You know, the part where the girl is going into space because she can't live on earth because her tentacles keep killing cute little pandas, and her boyfriend is a giant panda, but they love each other so much her tears turn into jewels that the pandas can eat to make them invincible. It's that heartbreakingly good. This will totally hit the spot for electro geeks, shoegazers, pop kids, and everyone in between.
MPEG Stream: "Unrecorded"
MPEG Stream: "Run Into Flowers"
MPEG Stream: "In Church"

MELECHESH Sphynx (Osmose) cd 15.98
Those crazy "Mesopotamian" metallers Melechesh are back, following up their last album, Djinn, considered a best of 2002 metal release 'round here, with this equally killer collection of tunes. The band consists of two Arab-Israelis now living in Europe and, perhaps the key to how Melechesh has become such a force to be reckoned with, percussion perfectionist Proscriptor of Texas black thrashers Absu. Dunno how they get together to practice or write songs, but whatever they do seems to work! As on Djinn, they meld traditional Middle Eastern music with black/death metal, kind of like an extreme update of the way those "Turkish Delights" garage-psych bands did it. They take their influences seriously -- in fact there's an enhanced portion of the cd that will fill your computer screen with lengthy explanations of their musicology, complete with guitar tablature, drum beat analysis, and even pictures of the "oriental" instruments used alongside the usual electric guitars, bass and drums on the album! Then again, this is also state of the art metal. Sphynx is crammed with riffs, complex detail, constant changes, the utmost in headbanging tech. Totally adrenalized, thrashy and catchy. Fans should happily note that this includes their awesome track from the last Osmose World Domination sampler. Oh, and in case you're wondering, we found no overt references to the war in Iraq. These guys are more interested in ancient supernatural stuff than they are in our less-than-mystical world of strife.
MPEG Stream: "Tablets Of Fate"

YONKERS, MICHAEL BAND Microminiature Love (Sub Pop) cd 13.98
Every so often a gem will get dredged up out of the murk of history that is so unlike anything else it can only give us hope for the future of music. An obscure late-sixties rock n' roll visionary, Michael Yonkers' stuff was like nothing anyone had heard back then (or even now, really): fucked up garage psych with dementedly genius lyrics, unhinged vocals and crazy acid-fried guitar. Yonkers, a legendary Minneapolis-area figure, built his own effects pedals, cut his Fender Telecaster down to a plank, and played like no one else ever. It's hard to describe this. It's sort of like a damaged fusion of stripped down Black Sabbath, The Troggs, Pere Ubu, and The Cramps?? Or something like that. When this was unearthed on vinyl last year by the Destijl label, we heard it and freaked out. It became a big favorite 'round here -- Sadie especially was enamored. So we were thrilled to find out that Sub Pop was gonna do a cd version of that now out of print LP, with pretty much a whole 'nother LPs worth of bonus tracks tacked on! Definite Record Of The Week material -- as psychedelic proto-punk goes, if anything it's even more raw, original and insane than that wonderful Simply Saucer reissue we raved about recently. Yonkers recorded these tracks in 1968 and '69 and they've been sitting in the can more-or-less unheard these past 35 years -- "Microminature Love" being shelved by its original label back in '69 we'd assume 'cause it was just so ahead of its time. Listening to it today it sounds not only fresh, but as if it could have been recorded in, say, 1981 or this year as well. Music seems to have grown up around it in its Rip Van Winkle state of hibernation. While part of what makes Michael Yonkers' sound so unique was his obsessive electronic tinkering -- making custom delay, distortion and vibratto units (some of which he successfully manufactured on a commercial level) -- it was also shaped as much by accident. The story goes that during a live performance in an earlier group, Michael's guitar fell to the floor and was knocked into an open tuning. Playing out the rest of the set with this off key tuning, Michael was inspired to pursue this course further, both with his guitar sound and, seemingly, his vocals too! All over "Microminiature Love" he exploits these semi-out-of-tune drones which make his music all the more heavy and wigged out. Imagine the Stooges playing with a water damaged electric sarod, then replace Iggy with Jello Biafra pitched down a minor third and you get an idea of the beginnings of the Michael Yonkers Band. While some may find Michael's singing a bit hard to get used to at first, its well worth giving him a couple listens because I can guarantee it'll grow on you. This edition comes nicely packaged with photos courtesy of Mr. Yonkers, nice liner notes from AQ-pal Karl Ikola, and the six aforementioned bonus tracks recorded in 1969, that only further cement our admiration of Yonkers as a brilliant "outsider artist" of '60s garage rock. Not like the Shaggs, though -- this is killer rock n' roll, make no mistake.
MPEG Stream: "Microminiature Love"
MPEG Stream: "Kill The Enemy"
MPEG Stream: "Hush Hush"

MOVING UNITS s/t ep (Palm Pictures) cd ep 4.98
A four song introduction to the Moving Units from Los Angeles in preparation for their forthcoming full length. It would be admirable of me if I could write this entire review without drawing comparison to the obvious. Every review I read about these guys says they sound exactly like this one band whose around right now who sounds exactly like this other band who is no longer. So I don't see the good I would do in repeating that. I'm so jaded, weird and bitter about the resurgence of the 80's new wave punk sound, soooo I am not going to even go there. I'll simply say that this sounds like a band that grew up listening to this certain kind of music with quirky funky bass lines, hectic high guitar melodies and staccato, stop-start, dancy drums. I must say though, it is completely successful post-punk dance music. Smooth and fun with alternately sullen / angstful boy vocals. I'm so over this recent trend in music, but they are doing it well. And I'm sure they'll go relatively far if only on nostalgia points alone.
RealAudio clip: "Between Us and Them"
RealAudio clip: "X and Y"

MR. SHOW The Complete Third Season (HBO) dvd 35.00
Best sketch comedy show ever. Hard to know what else to say. Everyone here has been OBSESSED with Mr. Show since it first aired on HBO years ago. To the point that some of us even spent a fortune buying crappy quality bootleg tapes on Ebay just to be able to see the show again! So we were SO EXCITED that HBO finally planned on releasing all four seasons! FUCK YEAH! A crazy mix of video and live sketch comedy starring Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. Cross you might recognise from his numerous guest appearances: Men In Black 2, Scary Movie 2, and about a million TV shows as well as his comedy record on Sub Pop 'Shut Up You Fucking Baby.' Mr. Show is brilliantly twisted, offensive and foul mouthed, ridiculous and unbelievably clever, obsessed with sex, drugs, rock and roll, reality police shows, old folks, streaking, British people, and of course cock rings! This is season three and features the amazing Sid And Marty Croft spoof Drugachussetts which is worth the thirty five bucks all by itself. And if you decide you are as obsessed as us, we can also order you the first and second season DVD set!

NADA SURF Let Go (Barsuk) cd 14.98
Not sure what it is about this record, but I (Andee) haven't been able to stop listening to it for weeks now. Some of you may remember Nada Surf from their big MTV hit 'Popular'. Not sure how a band goes from heavy rotation on MTV to being on indie label Barsuk, but whatever the reason, I sure can't complain, when the result is a record as catchy and dark and personal as this. And great! Did I say great?! This has to be one of my favorite pop records of recent memory. And the interesting thing is that it really is a POP record, not power pop, or noise pop, or any thing so specialised. If anything, it's most reminiscent of college rock circa 15 years ago. Which could be bad but in this case is most certainly not. Jangly and rocking, dark and melancholy, with really cool funny lyrics that at times are so banal and seemingly random, that they manage to carry the back breaking weight of their heartbreak and misery without the usual sap and schmaltz of most 'rock' lyrics. This record isn't weird or ground breaking or super challenging, just really really good. And ultimately, it comes down to the MUSIC, and how often you want/need to listen to it, and as I find myself throwing this on almost every day, I think that says it all.
RealAudio clip: "Blizzard of 77"
RealAudio clip: "Happy Kid"
RealAudio clip: "Fruit Fly"

NAT PWE Burma's Carnival Of Spirit Soul (Sublime Frequencies) dvd 26.00
Like the Jemaa El Fna DVD on Sublime Frequencies, the Nat Pwe DVD also contains no voice over, authoritative or not, to mis-guide you through the festivities. Instead, using the camera in the same way someone might make a field recording in the traditional auditory realm, you are led merely by the camera angles and edits chosen. As a way of background, here's what Sublime Frequencies writes about the event contained here: "In Burma, many people believe in ghost spirits called NATs. These spirits are historical figures who met tragic or violent deaths. They are said to possess the power to assist or devastate the lives of those who recognize them. A PWE is a ceremony held to appease a Nat. Pwes are arranged daily throughout Burma for many purposes including the achievement of success in business, a happy marriage, or improving one's health. A Nat is summoned through a Kadaw; the flamboyent and charismatic master of the Pwe dressed in elegant costume. The Kadaw is a spirit medium, dancer, storyteller, and magician who exposes the crowd to a living incarnation of the Nat brought forth through opening ritual and careful observance of tradition. Many of the Kadaws are male crossdressers performing the role of female Nats and the Nat culture attracts the homosexual, occult, artistically expressive and more outgoing elements of the Burmese population. Cash money is thrown and cigarettes and whiskey are hand delivered by the Kadaw to the willing faithful. Audience participants are often ecstatic, spontaneously launching into trance as the Nat spirit possesses their bodies while the melodically ornamental and thundering sound of the Nat Pwe orchestra plays on as perhaps the last, great unknown musical juggernaut existing anywhere. Each Pwe has its own mood and Nats can dictate a variety of happenings and unpredictable phenomenon. Since the 11th century, there have been 37 officially recognized Nats and every August, in the village of Taungbyon, there is a festival dedicated to two of them. This festival is one of the greatest spectacles on earth. At the peak of the Taungbyon celebration, there are dozens of very intimate venues holding continuous Pwe's for 48 hours without interruption bubbling with excitement and intensity all within the narrow alleys of bamboo shelters amidst a vibe of mysterious, electric charm. What results is the magnetic, unexplainable concoction of conservative tradition, free expression, music, dance, spirit possession, and anomolous synchronicities of Burma's Carnival Of Spirit Soul." Insane stuff. The film begins in the daytime following hundreds of pilgrims as they make their way to the event and ends late into the night after the festivities have reached a zenith of frenzied performance and audience participation. The camera wanders from tent to tent, each one containing a Kadaw, a Nat Pwe Orchestra (a completely crazed percussion ensemble about as removed from Burmese Harp music as you can get) and crammed with people making offerings (mostly pinning money to the Kadaw's head dress and blouse). There's really no way to do it justice in describing this event. If there were ever a comparison in the U.S. it would have to be like a transvestite tent revival held in a New Orleans graveyard with musical accompaniment by the Ruins. Running 85 minutes, I've found this disc also works nicely just as an audio recording. For those of you with a multi-format disc player, it makes a truly cool CD as well. While we forwarn those living overseas that this disc is NTSC, it is also region-free, so if you can handle the format you're in like Flint. Comes with an 8 page booklet of notes and photos.

NEGURA BUNGET 'N Crug Bradului (Code 666) cd 15.98
The return of Romania's avant black metallers Negura Bunget, who were best known around these parts for their last record, which sounded remarkably like SF black metal legends Weakling. NB have progressed, or regressed, or at least moved on, so now they truly sound like nobody else. Four epic tracks clocking in at almost an hour, and sonically all over the place. Dark, ambient rumbles evoke the spirits of the forest before the first track kicks in sounding a bit like Don Cab, with spastic drums, way up in the mix while grainy guitars saw wildly away. Eventually BIGGER riffs come tumbling down like a black metal avalanche and the whole thing becomes a swirling, bloodied whirlpool of octopus-armed drumming, possessed keyboards and buzzing mosquito riffs. Occasionally the metallic fury abates allowing gently strummed acoustic guitars and field recordings to weave simple melodic soundscapes in the lulls. Really strange breakdowns are peppered throughout, like a drum/keyboards/clean-vocal part that sounds like an ultra raw Killing Joke or Sisters Of Mercy, ambient passages with howling wind and far away wails, a loping black metal waltz, buzzing and swaying drunkenly, and a closing drone that rumbles and whirs and sounds as good as any Jonathan Coleclough record. While there are moments of black metal familiarity here and there, there's just so much strangeness, even just in the way instruments sound or how they play certain parts. There's a definite post rock vibe in the song structures especially in a lot of the drum parts. Strange production with quiet guitars and LOUD guitars and occsionally LOUD drums. But it all makes for a really unique record. Some seriously twisted, rhythmically bizarre, completely damaged, grandiose and melancholy black metal supposedly inspired by "Romanian mysticism". And, it comes in a really beautiful oversized cardstock sleeve that unfolds sort of like a map and contains an actual twig from some Romanian tree!
MPEG Stream: "I"
MPEG Stream: "II"

NEW PORNOGRAPHERS Electric Version (Matador) cd 15.98
The LONG anticipated return of the undisputed gods of pop in the new millennium. Yes, it's here! The newest from the New Pornographers and, needless to say, it does not disappoint. From the very get go with the title track we have almost a reprise of "Letter From An Occupant" with its knee twitching, hip shaking energy and bouncing keyboard line. Carl Newman, Neko Case, et al continue to demonstrate not only superior song writing abilities but a sense of effortless and unpretentious musicianship which is perhaps most evident in their continued brilliant harmony vocals (to say nothing of the interplay between Neko and Carl's lead vocal lines throughout the album). And what's that? No, it may sound like "Year of the Cat" man Al Stewart, but it's actually Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar, returning to the group as a "secret member" on 3 tracks. There's something about the way that the New Pornographers are able to consistently tap into the seventies and early eighties radio popcontinuum of ELO, Sparks, Cheap Trick, fatten up the harmonies, and then filter it all through a Rainer Maria style emo ethic -- and make it kick ass! And while admittedly this album might take a little longer for it to seep in than did Mass Romantic, it's worth the repeated listens cuz if this is bubblegum pop, it's the kind that gets more flavor the more you chew. And those of us who had 'issues' with the sound (not the songs) on the first album, finding it to be a little brittle with a bit of a brutal high end, will be quite pleased with the much warmer, dreamier sound. Pop record of the year wethinks.
MPEG Stream: "The Electric Version"
MPEG Stream: "All For Swinging You Around"
MPEG Stream: "TheNew Face of Zero and One"

NEW PORNOGRAPHERS, THE Mass Romantic (Matador) cd 10.98
Remastered, repackaged, repriced, relisted! We're happy to announce that Matador has gone and reissued this AQ-fave band's 2000 debut (previously only available as a Canadian import, of which we sold gizillions) domestically. There's no bonus tracks or anything, but it's been remastered (which actually means something -- they tamed the treble and it's indeed an improvement), repackaged (the cd is in a jewel case this time), and now the price is a real deal. So if you haven't already picked this up, now's the time. Here's the review we wrote back when it originally came out:
Amazing pop maestro Carl Newman (Zumpano, Superconductor) heads the star-studded cast of what is, to AQ's collective ears, simply THE BEST POP ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2000. When was the last time the AQ staff and our wildly differing tastes happened to *unanimously* agree on a single album's brilliance? Maybe Neutral Milk's second record? The Soft Bulletin or Conet Project? Suffice to say that this happens very rarely, and that's how good this New Pornographers record is. "Mass Romantic" is absolutely shiningly great power pop, with influences as wide-ranging as Big Star, the Zombies, Eno, the Beach Boys, Cheap Trick, and Built to Spill.
Not since, well, the last Zumpano record (or Silver Sun's debut) has a pop record emerged that's this powerful, kickass, well-crafted and totally complex. Really. Each of the twelve tracks is a fully realised pop creation unto itself. Intelligent, infectious, and uplifting, with truly flawless arrangements (the key to pop greatness).
In a sparkling non-country spin, the wonderful Neko Case lends her vocal gusto to complete the soaring FOUR-PART vocals on such gems as "Letter From An Occupant" not to mention the title track. And the four other members of the New Pornographers are super talents in their own right: Daniel Bejar (the enigmatic figure behind the very Nilsson-influenced combo known as Destroyer), John Collins (bassist/engineer for the Nardwuar the Human Serviette-lead freakos the Evaporators, garage-pop stalwarts Smugglers, and the rock army known as Superconductor), Kurt Dahle (drummer for Canadian college popsters Limblifter), and indie filmmaker Blaine Thurier.
Recommended for everyone -- even if you only buy one pop or rock record this year, this should be it.
MPEG Stream: "Mass Romantic"
MPEG Stream: "The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism"
MPEG Stream: "Letter From An Occupant"
MPEG Stream: "Execution Day"

NURSE WITH WOUND Soliloquy For Lilith (United Dairies) 3cd 35.00
"The record is fucking amazing," or so says Nurse With Wound protagonist Steven Stapleton. So fucking amazing in fact that he's issued "Soliloquy For Lilith" in a handful of different editions. Originally released as a triple vinyl set in 1988 (though references have been made to a mysterious additional 12" released in 1989), "Soliloquy For Lilith" got the CD reissue back in 1993, standing as one of the pinnacles within the Nurse With Wound pantheon of surreal records. Now 10 years after the first CD pressing (which was a double CD), Stapleton has issued this masterpiece as a triple disc to mirror of the triple vinyl edition, and he's produced two extra tracks of contemporary material that perfectly complement the original tracks.
The iconography of Lilith is a rich and often divergent set of references, beginning with an ancient story (possibly of ancient Babylonian origin, but merged into Jewish mysticism) of Lilith being the first woman (predating Eve's birth from Adam's rib) who chose not to live in the Garden of Eden. While contemporary feminists have taken Lilith as a role model of independence from masculine authorship (i.e. Lilith Fair), Lilith has often been associated with supernatural tendencies with Qabalist scholars qualifying her as a demoness instead of human, manifesting herself as the 'hidden' second moon that circles the Earth. For his "Soliloquy For Lilith," Stapleton opts for the archaic readings of Lilith, or perhaps a far more personal one as Lilith is the name of his daughter. This is Nurse With Wound's mellowest album as a brooding contemplation of Lilith as an archetypal source for unknown magicks. Here, extended mantras flutter through an ambience created by the closed loop of various effects pedals and flangers, cycling through the built-in harmonics from those electronic elements as tidal rhythms and hums. The resulting album rivals any of the ambient records of Brian Eno and Klaus Schultz, adding a decidedly menacing feel to the ambient blueprint.
Yes, we certainly agree that this record is fucking amazing.
MPEG Stream: "Soliloquy For Lilith (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Soliloquy For Lilith (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Soliloquy For Lilith (excerpt 3)"

NURSE WITH WOUND Salt Marie Celeste (United Dairies) cd 18.98
Before I get into any critique of this, I have to say that Salt Marie Celeste is easily the best Nurse With Wound record in years!
Throughout the 25 years of Nurse With Wound recordings, Steven Stapleton has actively pursued audio manifestations of Surrealism, often hypothesizing on what Surrealists like Andre Breton or Tristan Tzara might do if they had access to contemporary recording technology but still maintaining their bastardizations of Victorian aesthetics. Recently on recordings like Man with the Woman Face or Alice the Goon, NWW embraced obtuse free associations to build dense sound puzzles of dead-end jokes, absurd parataxis, and general confusion. However, Salt Marie Celeste is far simpler an application of Surrealism, as Stapleton renders NWW a vehicle for psychological horror. For this album, Stapleton and studio wizard Colin Potter (who has been the only other collaborator with NWW for the past couple of releases) have drawn from Gavin Bryars' "Sinking of the Titanic" for inspiration; however, NWW never dwells in the lulling pathos which characterizes Bryars' composition. Instead, Salt Marie Celeste is a relentless album which imagines the tidal currents around the Titanic's demise as an inhumanly cold force steadily bringing the doomed ship to the bottom of the ocean. Through a series of looping mechanisms, Stapleton and Potter build a massive orchestration of fluctuations which swell and dissipate with an unnerving regularity. The central element to the compostition is an ominous wave of electronic sound which constantly tumbles forward. Fans of NWW will recognize this from the super limited edition Music from the Horse Hospital 2cd, yet done much more effectively here. Wooden creaks and moans emerge from this gravity well of sound, before breaking up and disappearing amidst the tidal wave of intensity. For the references to the Titanic (or at least in Bryars' composition), Salt Marie Celeste conjures suffocating and bleak images of ghost ships mysteriously appearing on the horizon.
Regardless, this is clearly one of Nurse With Wound's best and should not be missed!
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"

OF The Infant Paths (Jewelled Antler) cd-r 9.98
Oooh this is good. Haunting, gentle, abstract-seeming but musically very pretty stuff, in the vein of the best folk/drone from Tower Recordings and Kemialliset Ystavat, Popul Vuh and Brian Eno. Perhaps you've heard the Atrium Musicae "Musique de la Grece Antique" disc? This too sounds like imaginary ancient music, maybe made by wood-spirits before the dawn of man. An elemental, atmospheric sonic ritual. Of is the new solo project of AQ-pal Loren Chasse. You might know him from Thuja, Id Battery, Blithe Sons, Child Readers, Coelacanth, numerous other "Jewelled Antler" projects... There was an Of track on Jewelled Antler's Heat & Birds compilation, and this cd-r is the debut full-length release from Of, dedicated to Loren's grandmother who passed away recently. Now maybe you're wondering, doesn't Loren already record solo as under his own name, putting out stuff like that great Hedge of Nerves cd on Anomalous, so what's with this Of moniker? Well, with Of, Loren takes the field recording / experimental sound collage ideas that he brought to Id Battery and his previous solo projects and brings it into a live-recorded, improvised *musical* context, where --this is important-- in addition to minidisc and contact mic, he's also playing more traditional sorts of musical instruments. Kinda like a one-man Thuja, or Blithe Sons or Child Readers. There's guitar, oud, bells, harp, pipes, whistles, bowed wires, harmonium, drumkit, and a 150 year old mellodion (pump organ) employed here, plus the usual assortment of rocks, sticks, and other natural debris that Loren "plays". Also to be heard is record crackle from an old Victrola, and recordings of wind and water made by his mother on her sailboat. All lovingly lo-fi home (and outdoors -- in California, Maryland, and Pennsylvania) recorded and mixed with handheld tape recorder, mindisc, and computer. Sleepy, dark, and meditative, "The Infant Paths" is a perfect example of the Jewelled Antler aesthetic, a musical methodology where lapping water sounds complement harmonium drones and carefully plucked guitar strings; tinkling bells and crackling branches accompany simple, fragile melodies found on broken organ keyboards; where nature and the environment are musical collaborators with poetic souls like Mr. Chasse.
Unlike Blithe Sons or Child Readers, this is all instrumental -- nope, you won't hear any vocals from Loren here, the only singing is done by birds. Someone else (Richard Youngs, Greg Weeks, the Blithe Sons themselves) might have been tempted to sing over these tracks, but they're plenty magical without any wispy vocals or lyrical content. Dense and detailed, suitable for your own dreams and reveries. Wow. We knew he had it in him, but still we're impressed. One of our favorite releases by Mr. Chasse yet!
MPEG Stream: "The Lamp Shell Path"
MPEG Stream: "Theodolites And Chains"
MPEG Stream: "Torus At The Sunrise Turn "

OZZBORN, ONRY The Grey Area (One Drop) cd 14.98
For a while now, we've been raving about the various groups/collectives attempting, in their own ways, to sort of reinvent hip hop. Mush and Anticon and all those folks, Dose One, Cloudead, Sage Francis, Sole, Why? etc. And part of the appeal was their apparent disregard for hip hop tradition, removing whatever they felt like, beats, hooks, structures, funkiness, rhymes and replacing all of that with the everything and the kitchen sink. Bizarre samples (jazz, metal, field recordings, whatever), damaged, stuttering massively unfunky beats, stream of conciousness lyrics, and that whiny, white-boy, tongue twisting flow. But it seems like all of that stuff is doomed to remain on the periphery of popular hip hop. Not sure if the world is ready, and by world I mean kids who watch MTV and want nothing more than a new Jay-Z record that sounds EXACTLY like the last one. So what happens when someone with the same idea, reinventing/re-invigorating hip hop, takes a different, more subtle approach? Doesn't bury their respect for traditional hip hop under a wash of effects and Satie loops and epileptic beats. And attacks from the inside. Subversive and insidious. You get something that sounds like it -could- be on MTV and the radio, definitely -should- be, but probably still won't. Onry Ozzborn and his Old Dominion crew have been crafting some of the most original and BEST hip hop for several years now. Staying pretty underground, but not sure how long that can last. This is an amazing sounding record, amazing production, banging beats, wicked flow. But there's this aura of creepiness that is what makes it so appealing. All minor key, and gritty and ominous. You can hear lots of influences, Xzibit, Ras Kass, even Onyx, but it's all filtered through Ozzborn's twisted vision. The weird thing is, this sounds like it really COULD be huge. On the surface it just sounds like really good hip hop. Dig a little deeper more and more strangeness is revealed. Not to say this stuff isn't weird. It is. It's just a little less obvious. Less "Look at me! Isn't this crazy!!" and more "Back off...you have no idea what you're getting into motherfucker..." The samples are strange and original, but they're so deftly woven into the tracks it feels like they couldn't sound any other way, haunting Gregorian chants, rumbling synths, creepy minor key pianos, heavily reverbed electric guitars, what sounds like a bubbling aquarium, and all kinds of stuff. The beats are loping and head bobbing, and Onry's flow is thick and gritty, dark and threatening and downright evil sounding. There are hooks galore, choruses that actually stick in your head. And if that wasn't enough to make this one of my favorite hip hop records of the year, this record has one thing, that automatically qualifies it for major respect...NO SKITS!
MPEG Stream: "Def Shepard"
MPEG Stream: "The Altar"
MPEG Stream: "ListenAnd Learn"
MPEG Stream: "Dance Your Life Away"

SANDERSON, PHILIP Reprint (Anomalous) cd 14.98
A wonderful piece of history precedes the reissue of this recording by the British pioneer of DIY electronics and cassette culture, Philip Sanderson. Having manufactured a number of cassette-only releases from 1978 - 1981 through his label Snatch Tapes, Sanderson devised the rather cynical ploy of recording under the moniker Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey to see if labels like Rough Trade, Cherry Red, or Fast Product might take the bait of women artists producing abstract electronic music. It's the same dodgy yet brilliant ploy recently used by San Francisco's Ziegenbock Kopf to market themselves as gay leatherboys. Unlike ZK, Sanderson got so far as to get a Claire Thomas and Susan Vezey track on the intriguing Cherry Red compilation entitled "Perspectives and Distortions" alongside The Virgin Prunes, Eyeless In Gaza, The Lemon Kittens, and Robert Fripp. The charade was up when Cherry Red made an offer to Claire and Susan to release an album and wanted to meet the two. Upon learning of the ruse, Cherry Red decide to pull out of the deal instead of continuing the masquerade. It's a shame that it had to come to that as Sanderson had produced a really amazing record of low-tech Cluster-inspired electronic bubblings, although Cherry Red's reaction is an understandable one. Regardless, Sanderson shrugged it off, issued the recordings as "Reprint" through Snatch in 1980, and thankfully 23 years later re-released it on CD through Anomalous Records.
The album begins convincingly enough in regards to the Claire and Susan mythology as Sanderson has employed the vocal talents of a woman simply identified as Nancy in an ethereal collage of her voice cycling through a mantra of tape delay effects. Yet that is the only reference to anything distinctly feminine on the record, as Sanderson completes the record with variations and repetitions of clattering electronics corroding into grimy noise and smeary tape hiss, not unlike Chris Carter's productions for Throbbing Gristle and less structured than Sanderson's work as the Storm Bugs. Sanderson's liner notes describe the record as "academic rigour married to an inverted pop art aesthetic. For whereas pop art incorporated the cheap intoxications of consumer culture into the supposed lofty rooms of high art, here was an attempt to incorporate the form of high art into the low brutality of DIY electronics." Well stated! It's probably not for everybody, but with the proliferation of CD-R labels doing the exact same thing 20 years later, "Reprint" is a historical gem.
MPEG Stream: "Bright Waves"
MPEG Stream: "Under Press of Sail"

PLASTIKMAN Closer (Novamute) cd 16.98
Richie Hawtin aka Plastikman was always a big deal in techno circles, but we never did (and still don't) get the whole house music thing. So it wasn't until his last record, Consumed, when we finally understood. It helped that Hawtin had stripped his house music down to the bare essentials, and wrapped it in all sorts of murk and grime, coming up with a beautifully grim and stark chunk of minimal throb, not entirely unlike the Chain Reaction label's heroin house sound. Consumed was one of the best chill out records ever, and perfect to drift off to sleep to. And Closer pretty much takes up right where consumed left off. Clipped clinical beats, throbbing and pulsing, like a heartbeat, in a dark expanse of fuzzy ambience. The only big change this time around is the addition of vocals on a few tracks. At first, the vocals were super distracting, but after a few listens the vocals seem to fit with the whole mood of the record, dark and paranoid, they're heavily affected, run through a vocoder and distorted to sound super alien and sexless, reciting strange mantras like "I'm just a voice in your head...".
It may not be as immediately classic as Consumed, but it definitely hits the same sweet spot as Chain Reaction, Basic Channel and Kompakt stuff.
A historical aside: the very first acid house single "Acid Tracks" by Phuture had a b-side entitled "Your Only Friend," a cautionary tale of the perils of drug use uttered by a disembodied voice, run through a vocoder and a pitchshifter. It's a haunting, numbing track that counters the physical rush of the 808 work out and insistant drums. This began a trend within techno toward a paranoid aesthetic, and where Richie Hawtin seemed to find a historical root for Closer.
MPEG Stream: "Ask Yourself"
MPEG Stream: "Disconnect"

PLEASURE FOREVER Alter (Sub Pop) cd 13.98
Release the bats! It's another case of ex hardcore kids discovering the joys of rockin' the dark side-- Pleasure Forever used to be the Slaves who were most of the VSS, and they play wonderfully dark-tinged pop with piano, guitar and drums. Comparisons to the likes of Nick Cave/ Birthday Party, the Doors and These Immortal Souls have been cropping up in adulatory reviews, and those references (These Immortal Souls especially) are certainly in evidence in these very catchy yet slightly sinister tunes. The piano really makes their sound, transforming the whole thing into an intensely heady rock cabaret that reminds me of that "hit" Black Heart Procession song "Release."
MPEG Stream: "Czarina"
MPEG Stream: "Hymn Harmonia"

POSTAL SERVICE Such Great Heights (Sub Pop) cd ep 3.98
This four song introductory ep offers barely a peep of Postal Service's effervescent crushworthy tunes. Ah, such a sweet peep it is! A perfect accessory to their full length that's out now too. Definitely see the full album review for all the PS nitty gritty, but in particular regards to this ep (a current Cup fave by the way), the title track is an instantly catchy gem that's sure to find its way onto friends' mixtapes everywhere. The second half is actually PS songs performed by two other bands - fellow Sub Poppers The Shins and Iron And Wine. The brief encounter ends with Iron And Wine's drowsy acoustic rendition of "Such Great Heights". And y'know what? This lil' cd is worth picking up for that track alone. Beautiful! Each version is strong on its own and great in contract to one another. Recommended!
RealAudio clip: POSTAL SERVICE "Such Great Heights 1 "
RealAudio clip: IRON AND WINE "Such Great Heights 4"

PSYCHOMANIA OST (Trunk) cd 14.98
When I found out we were getting this record, I (Allan) just about flipped. Psychomania!? THE Psychomania?!? The soundtrack -- never before released, as it turns out -- to the creepy British zombie biker horror flick that has haunted my nightmares for years and years, ever since I saw it on TV, unsupervised by my parents I have to assume, when I was a little kid in the early '70s! Actually for a long time growing up I never knew it was an actual film, I kinda thought all these weird freaky mental images of maniac hippie bikers with British accents were my own imaginings from some bad dream but then as a teenager I found out the truth about my childhood trauma when I ran across the Psychomania VHS tape at a local video shop -- "Hey! That's the film I must have seen!" Perhaps you've seen it too, maybe even under similar circumstances (several people I've described it to have had long-buried memories come to the surface, and in fact one of the people who contributed liner notes mentions a similar experience to mine!).
As near as I can remember/surmise, it was about a gang of bikers who commit suicide and come back from the dead to terrorize innocents. Hence the cover tag line "Seven Suicides - and they roared back as The Living Dead!" But I also think that maybe someone gets turned into a frog? Or the bikers worship a frog, maybe? (Their must be a significant frog in the film, anyway, 'cause I remember one and there's a track called "The Frog" on here -- also the studio musicians on this soundtrack are billed as a band called Frog!)... Definitely some weird witchy LSD biker 'sploitation happenin's. A unique formula for a grade-Z flick to be sure. Released in 1972, this film about a cult has itself become a cult film, resulting a last in this release of composer John Cameron's soundtrack music.
While I can't really comment on the merits of the film (I still haven't seen it again since way back when, and while I'm tempted to find it and rent it now, I doubt it could compare to that initial experience!), it turns out that the soundtrack is KILLER. Yes indeedy. From the first track to the last, exploitation film scores don't get much better. It's got it all -- total Morricone/Goblin/Carpenter horror flick spookiness, interludes of suitably weird dialogue from the film (someone's mother telling him she's worried the police will arrest him and his delinquent friends gets the response: "the word, mother, is fuzz...the word, mother, is busted"), and lashings of evil acid rock/funk to further pander to and/or corrupt the long-haired kids to whom this must have been marketed. Repeatedly, you'll hear the band (that'd be "Frog") vamping on a simple but effective fuzz riff, presented slightly differently on every occasion. You can't argue with it, it's good. Oh, and let's not forget the folk-pop biker ballad "Riding Free" as sung by Harvey Andrews. Then it's back to the scary music and effects (was that a croaking frog?).
John Cameron explains in his liner notes that this was recorded before synths were in common use, so "every trick was used: Musser vibes through phase and wah-wah pedals, phased bowed bass, drumsticks inside a grand piano, electric harpsichord through a compressor, Hammond organ fed through a phase unit and Leslie speakers, and wordless solo voice." Thus, experimental ominous psychedelic bizarroid film music that gets our highest recommendation. And everyone we've played it for has been equally enthused. (We wouldn't make this Record Of The Week *just* 'cause of some repressed childhood memory...) Rev up your bikes and ride for the FROG. (Vinyl coming next week, for those who want even more of an authentic '70s experience.)
MPEG Stream: "Secret Of The Locked Room"
MPEG Stream: "Motorcycle Mayhem"
MPEG Stream: "Riding Free"
MPEG Stream: "One By One"
MPEG Stream: "The Trap"

YOUNGS, RICHARD Airs of the Ear (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98
The UK's Richard Youngs is a treasure, and his new release is a stellar one. Psychedelic, haunting, gorgeous, unique. As with his recent albums like "May" and "Making Paper" Youngs draws on British folk traditions, but here also melds his voice and acoustic guitar with electronics, for less of a minimal approach. The balance is perfect, of warm human melody and calming, sheening electronic drones, densely interwoven, or ringing out alone in the open, songs being both epic and intimate. Think of his last album "May" (a sad-song acoustic guitar and voice affair) with space-rock sound effects, adding drama and proggy intrigue. What's great is that the sci-fi mad scientist laboratory type of sounds here (theremin, ring modulator) are recognizable, but used uniquely, not ending up sounding like what they usually connote (thanks to the acoustic element perhaps). Meanwhile, the colorful, cartoony cover art looks like it was done by someone from a local high school art class, perhaps inspired by a '70s era after-school TV animation or something. But that's part of Youngs' charm, his aesthetic is wholly his own, not conforming to any hip scene, unafraid and honest. Both solo and with collaborators (notable among them Simon Wickham-Smith, Kawabata Makoto, Matthew Bower), he's created a fantastic body of work, from quirky noise improv to metallic drone to psuedo-prog to minimalist folk, his creativity and talent deserving of greater recognition (when's he going to show up on the cover of The Wire?). We'd imagine that although a lot of AQ regulars probably know Youngs, many more don't, and as this latest Youngs is certainly one of his best (of many great albums), it gets a big recommendation to all! So good, so heavenly. Also, if you liked Glenn Donaldson's Birdtree cd as much as we did, you'll definitely want this too, for Youngs is an obvious comparison/influence...
MPEG Stream: "Fire Horse Rising"
MPEG Stream: "Halifax Amore"
MPEG Stream: "Oh My Stars"

SAGOR & SWING Allt Hanger Samman (Hapna) cd 15.98
Sweden's Sagor & Swing are an instrumental drums and Hammond organ duo. HAMMOND ORGAN! We know some of you are crazy for the Hammond organ. We are too. And Hammond-freaks or not, this is a lovely, lovely record. Super melodic and dreamy, calm and mesmerizing. Eric Malmberg (organ) and Ulf Moeller (drums) take much inspiration from dark and sleepy Swedish forests, we're told, but we're sure the music of legendary Swedish '60s Hammond/drums duo Hansson & Karlsson is also a big influence! Malmberg actually plays a Hammond that Bo Hansson used on his beloved 1970 Sagan Om Ringen (Lord Of The Rings) album! Not only that, but he writes a comic strip published in a Swedish newspaper called -- get this -- Hansson & Karlsson In Outer Space. The duo's H&K obsession serves them well, without them becoming mere copyists at all. Some tracks are lively and spirited, with stick-in-your-head folk-derived hooks a la fellow Swede Bjorn Olsson (himself a sort of Bo Hansson protege), while others are more like slightly sinister Dario Argento/Goblinesque lullabies, that combine music box melodies with one-note ambient minimalism a bit like that one Aphex Twin-esque track on Burzum's Filosofem. Just a bit. Some Kraftwerk rhythms are hinted at as well, and Magyar Posse's cinematic epics too. This is definitely a universal AQ-staff fave, and we think you'll love it too. Apparently it's S&S fourth album, so we'll have to track down their other two asap!
MPEG Stream: "Grottmusik"
MPEG Stream: "Lovverk"
MPEG Stream: "Det Sista Aventyret"

SAULE Sentimental Journey (Sub Rosa) cd 16.98
This is the stuff we like! Slow moving vinyl crackle and click, achingly pretty. Droning melodiously, hum and repetition beautifully employed, this conjures a mood of reverie and melancholic bliss. Saule is the name used by Belgian composer Xavier Garcia Bardon for his turntable-based works, and this Sub Rosa cd is his debut release. The first thing we were reminded of when we heard this was Philip Jeck. You know how much we love that British looper of scratchy old vinyl, right? Like Jeck, Saule also finds music in the grooves of old records -- that is, in the sound of the needle on wax, as well as what's more commonly considered a record's musical 'content'. And like Jeck he's a careful listener, rather than a hyperkinetic whipwhipwhap dj. Futhermore, both Saule and Jeck use multiple turntables to elaborate an aesthetic enamored of dusty, glacially-paced drones. But although they have much in common, Saule isn't merely just another Jeck. No, Saule is more like Jeck crossed with a post-rock band! But there's no 'band', just Saule's prepared records, three turntables, a microphone, mixer, and "headphones (for feedback)". With Philip Jeck, the mesmerizing, crackling loops can be their own reward, but Saule will provide some rock-like resolution as well, as with the sudden burst of distortion that heralds the addition of a sampled, broken drum break toward the end of track one, "Hola". Especially when you get to "Lido", the third of three long tracks that comprise Sentimental Journey, you'll hear this post-rock thing we're talking about. Codeine mixed with Radian comes to mind. "Lido" was apparently originally conceived as a soundtrack to an independent film, stills from which enliven the cd packaging. And it, like the other tracks here, has a cinematic quality, though it might well overwhelm any visuals. This disc is a stellar exampleof 'turntablism' in a non-hip-hop context -- as we said, it's more like instrumental post rock instead, although we're sure DJ Shadow fans will like this! We suggest playing it loud, which will be especially effective when track three swells into something grand that Godspeed could never match.
MPEG Stream: "Hola"
MPEG Stream: "Lido"

SIGMARSSON, SIGTRYGGUR BERG A Little Lost (Bottrop-Boy) cd 16.98
Another marvelous album from Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, one of the founding members of the Icelandic experimental / electronica ensemble Stilluppsteypa. Generally speaking, the themes of contradiction and tension that run through Stilluppsteypa's recordings also appear in the solo work of Sigmarsson, although he spends much more time allowing all of his ideas to unravel, slowly articulating each sound before offering semiotic and / or acoustical counterpoints. "A Little Lost" opens with a fluttering drone from a digitally enhanced church organ sounding quite similar to the sounds heard on "Ship" his sublime debut for Trente Oiseaux. Flicking in and out of audibility, these drone hamonics subtly couple with a quiet smoldering of static to offer an expanse of lulling sound. Throughout the album, Sigmarsson slowly dismantles the hypnotic atmosphere, first with pronounced lapses of the drones in favor of delicate textural sounds, then through a series of repeated chunks of elemental grit sliding backwards and forwards against the grain of the drone, and climaxing with a tumultous blast of digital noise shaped into offkilter metal riffs which abruptly cut to some drunk yokel barking the alarm call from a German U-boat. Sigmarsson's genius becomes apparant in how he has moved from the calm beginning of the album to this abrasive pinnacle with a self-contained intelligence and sly continuity in sound construction. The album returns to a sense of calm through the final track, a lengthy remix of mutant minimalism provided by Irr.App.Ext, the sorely under-represented project of Santa Cruz artist Matt Waldron. Very, very nice!
RealAudio clip: "My Treasure Ship"
RealAudio clip: "The Day Microphones Came To Life..."

SLOW READER s/t (Fueled By Ramen ) cd 13.98
If angels started a pop band, they wouldn't sound like Built To Spill. They wouldn't sound like the Polyphonic Spree. They wouldn't sound like Grandaddy. They wouldn't sound like Elliott Smith. They would sound like Slow Reader. Although they would have to be angels that had broken hearts and who didn't know how to talk to that one girl, and who remember that one summer, and who are lonely and misunderstood, and whosit at home on their cloud writing perfect little pop songs, who even thogh they are angels sound sort of 'emo', who sing in perfect falsettos in perfect harmony and who sing about amputees and lost loves and drugs and stuff.
Slow Reader take elements of all of the above bands and mix them into a perfect, dreamy sweetpop confection. Not to intimate that this is light in any way. This is just as melancholy and dark as anything, it's just that the darkness is wrapped up all snug and tight in a radiant, delicate pure white cloud of rapturous sound, all pure and angelic, etherial and heavenly (to stretch this allusion to its breaking point). Heavily strummed acoustic guitars, pianos that tinkle and drop notes around your ears like spring showers, warm and rich organs that wrap everything in a dreamy haze, peculiar rhythms that range from super processed, heavily affected drums that sound almost electronic to "We Will Rock You" style handclap/footstomp percussion. But it's the vocals that really get me. Gorgeous and drenched in reverb, with a whispery urgency like Elliott Smith, capable of turning misanthropic tales of amputees into daydreamy lullabies. Outside of the Goldcard record reviewed elsewhere on this list, this is almost all I've been listening to. Fans of any of the bands mentioned NEED this.
Random note: Not sure what it is, but Slow Reader are the second brilliant pop band in recent memory to be born from weird punk/ska band roots (the first being The Stereo, who we've repeatedly raved about in the past). Not sure if it means anything, but it just seemed interesting.
MPEG Stream: "I Like You Most"
MPEG Stream: "Anesthetic For The Amputee"
MPEG Stream: "Politics Music And Drugs"
MPEG Stream: "Stupid Bet"

STARK REALITY Now (Stones Throw) cd 16.98
Here's a weird one. Imagine a late-sixties jazz-funk combo playing fucked up versions of children's songs written in the 40s and 50s by Hoagy Carmichael. Actually, you don't have to imagine that, if you just listen to this disc. 'Cause that's what's happening here. The first eight tracks on this cd were orginally released in 1970 as "The Stark Reality Discovers Hoagy Carmichael's Music Shop" LP. Dunno what kids thought of it, but the heads must have loved it, unless it tripped 'em out too much. The idea (hatched by Hoagy's son Bix, who worked at Boston's WGBH public TV station with musican Monty Stark, the leader of The Stark Reality) was to psychedelize ol' Hoagy's music for hippie youngsters. The result were these awkwardly funky, severely distorted (in every possible way), jazzed-out cuts, featuring Stark's crazily atonal fuzz-equipped vibes and bizarrely straight singing/rhyming. The music appeared in a WGBH kid's show, then was released on LP. That LP is apparently quite an expensive rarity these days, with those that have heard it either thinking it brilliant or insane or both. The LP track "Rocket Ship" was one of Windy's favorite cuts on Peanut Butter Wolf's recent "Jukebox 45" mix cd, and he has now reissued the whole album on his Stones Throw label, so we all can judge its merits, along with several non-Hoagy bonus cuts. The thorough liner notes do their best to explain the whole deal, and indicate that more than one lucky beat-diggin' hip hop DJ has made this their secret weapon.
It's utterly ridiculous yet oddly compelling. You'll either have to turn it off after two minutes or it'll become an all-time fave, that's the sort of record this is! Easily the most warped, heaviest jams ever on subjects like basic musical notation, remembering the number of days in each month, and recipes for cooking stew. I mean, some of this makes Sun Ra's wiggiest solos sound normal.
MPEG Stream: "Junkman's Song"
MPEG Stream: "All You Need To Make Music"

STREET = X s/t (Pseudoarcana) cd-r 12.98
What is it about New Zealand? And the ease in which New Zealand bands seem to be able to transfrom 'noise' into something more. Much more. Street+X is a duo, employing violins, microphones, organs and REALLY BIG AMPS in a tiny room. Totally mesmerising, hypnotic, dreamy, shimmery, noisy, dirgy, lo-fi, high-end, spaced out DRONE ala Sunroof!, Total, Skullflower, Birchville Cat Motel, Dead C, Gate, Vibracathedral Orchestra, etc. I never get sick of this stuff and this is some of the best I've heard, Fans of the above mentioned bands NEED this.
RealAudio clip: "Wherever You Shall Tread"

STEVENS, SUFJAN Greetings From Michigan, The Great Lakes State (Sounds Familyre) cd 14.98
We sold a bunch of these in the store before anyone really knew what it was, mostly to folks who were from Michigan, as it's an entire suite of songs about Michigan. Thanks to our pal Barbara Duffield who turned us on to this (she's from Michigan too!). But trust us, there's plenty to love here, even if you're not from Michigan (although if you are, stop reading here and just buy it. It's great. There's even a map inside so you can follow along and know which song goes with which place). Sufjan Stevens is a new discovery for us, and maybe for you too, but judging from how great this record is, he probably won't stay unknown for long. Dark and dreamy, sad and lonely, drifting and soulful, shimmery and sun dappled, gently strummed acoustic guitars, dark muted horns and lots of banjo, along with Stevens' delicate crackle of a voice, sounding not unlike a more depressed Archer Prewitt, with occasional female background vocals on a handful of the tracks making for wonderful harmonies! This record is chock full of warm and warbly, melancholic melodies, pastoral folk-pop soundscapes, and some of the best songwriting we've heard in a while. Fans of Palace, Songs:Ohia, Arab Strap, Sixteen Horsepower, Woven Hand, the Decemberists and that sort of mopey melancholia will love this! This just might be the best twangy indie-folk-pop record since Iron And Wine!
MPEG Stream: "For The Widows In Paradise, For the Fatherless In Ypsilanti"
MPEG Stream: "The Upper Peninsula"
MPEG Stream: "Flint (For The Unemployed And The Underpaid)"

BLITHE SONS, THE We Walk The Young Earth (Family Vineyard) cd 14.98
These days, any band that uses improvisation with heavy doses of loose, opiated psychedelia, lazy comparisons will inevitably be drawn to the No Neck Blues Band. It has to be said that The Blithe Sons, who have warranted a number of such comparisons, sound ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like the No Neck Blues Band. And actually they are much better off because of it... The Blithe Sons, of course, are the Jewelled Antler Collective's most active members Loren Chasse (Thuja, Child Readers, Id Battery, Coelacanth, etc.) and Glenn Donaldson (Thuja, Skygreen Leopards, Bird / Ivy / Olivetree, etc.), having literally embraced their philosophy that "making music should be a picnic." Thus, they've taken to hiking all across coastal California, recording their pastoral avant-folk songs and empathic minimalist actions in direct communion with the landscape around them. The two sites which are particular to the Sons' third album "We Walk The Young Earth" were a wooden bridge in San Gregorio and the concrete bunkers scattered throughout the Marin Headlands. The latter were sites that have played a large role in many of the textural amplifications that Chasse produced in Id Battery; however, Chasse doesn't return the Blithe Sons to the smoldering abrasions of Id Battery. Rather, "We Walked The Young Earth" turns their minimalist hymns and melancholic drones toward a space that is even quieter, more introspective than anything yet produced by the Jewelled Antler collective, as if they've become hypnotized by their own reverberating drones in the confines of the bunker. It's true that in these spaces, Chasse and Donaldson spend a considerable amount of time listening to the environment around them, and shaping sounds that are sympathetic to those spaces. That's something with which the No Neck Blues Band has never really ever succeeded, instead opting for more of a druggy improv stumble. A sleepy album for sure, "We Walk The Young Earth" is another gorgeous album from these perennial AQ staff favorites.
MPEG Stream: "The Book Of Names"
MPEG Stream: "Green Patterns"
MPEG Stream: "All Children's Faces Looking Upwards"

BUG, THE Pressure (Tigerbeat6) cd 13.98
We gotta hand it to Tigerbeat6 head honcho Miguel for giving this disc a domestic release and price. Released in the U.K. by Rephlex, "Pressure" is the second outing by Kevin Martin under the moniker of The Bug. While this guise may be a recent one for Mr. Martin, he's not a newcomer to the scene. You may already be familiar with his previous projects Techno Animal, Curse of the Golden Vampire, God and Ice (certainly not a curriculum vitae to be sneezed at). With The Bug though, Kevin attacks our lower intestinal tracts with some of the best hardcore dancehall we've heard in a long time. Residing somewhere between DJ Scud's pummelling gabber style Ambush! material and Timeblind's Three-Foot-Long Bong-Hit of a track "Rastabomba". It's exactly the dancehall cuts that what we here at Aquarius have been thirsting for. Whereas Scud's tracks, being instrumental, were totally insane over-the-top panacea style gabber, "Pressure" is primarily a true dancehall record, with toasting on every track. As such, Martin's rhythms tend to be stripped down more than Scud's. Which isn't to say they ain't hard. Under Wayne Lonesome's damaged toasting for "Fuck Y~Self" for instance is some busy as hell, noisy-assed rhythm that battles 10 rounds with Lonesome's growling. Along with Lonesome, toasters on this record include Daddy Freddy, Roger Robinson, Paul St. Hilaire, The Rootsman and more. A definite must for fans of Ward 21 and sundry other demented dancehall. Absolutely sick, absolutely essential!
MPEG Stream: "Beats, Bombs, Bass, Weapons"
MPEG Stream: "Fuck Y~Self"

DARKNESS, THE Permission To Land (Atlantic) cd 12.98
We'd been warned about this next-big-British band from our friends overseas. But mere warnings weren't enough to prepare us for what has quickly become our favorite new record / not-so-guilty pleasure. Everytime we play this in the store, people freak out and either ask "What the fuck??" or buy one on the spot. It's that good. And weird. More on that in a minute. This is easily the best RAWK record in forever. Huge catchy, crunchy riffs, big eighties drums, hooks galore, equal parts AC/DC, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Pat Benatar, Billy Squier, Rick Springfield, Journey, REO Speedwagon, John Parr (remember him? 'Naughty Naughty'?) but nothing could've prepared us for the vocals. And once those vocals kick in it's all over. Think Bon Scott meets Tiny Tim, Freddie Mercury meets Vince Neil, the singer from Comus meets the singer from Nitro, or an opera singer thrust on stage and forced to front Def Leppard. It's that amazing. The vocals slip effortlessly into a falsetto that then leaps wildly from note to note, octave to octave, stretching single words into multi-syllabic whoops and wooooahhhs. So amazing. Yet somehow they fit the music perfectly. From big balls-out riffy cock rock, to melancholy FM radio ballads, to good ol rock and roll, all just slightly tweaked by the unorthodox vocals. Plus the amazing song titles and lyrics fit perfectly with the whole vibe and seemingly could be delivered in no other way than a howling ridiculous falsetto. "Black Shuck, that dog don't give a fuck", "Love on the rocks with no ice" and "Keep your hands off of my woman, moootheeeerfuuuuuuuuckeeeeeer" with motherfucker spanning 8 or 9 syllables and 2 or 3 octaves. So fucking brilliant! The vocals move this from the catagory of good retro rawk act that would be a guilty pleasure to the we-can't-believe-this-is-popular, it's totally fucked and practically avant-garde yet insanely catchy and commerical. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "Get Your Hands Off My Woman"
MPEG Stream: "Growing On Me"
MPEG Stream: "I Believe In A Thing Called Love"

GET UP KIDS Something To Write Home About (Vagrant) cd 13.98
Really good, straight up emo-pop. Reminiscent of early Superchunk singing their guts out. Lyric sheet included.

SLOUGH FEG, THE LORD WEIRD Traveller (Dragonheart) cd 14.98
BACK IN STOCK! We thought we'd relist this, 'cause we finally got a handful back in, and they went so quick the first time, back in April, you might have missed them. You'd think this would be easy to stock since they're an SF band, but the label is in Italy and we've been out of 'em for months...
AQ's favorite cult true heavy metal band, The (one and only) Lord Weird Slough Feg, are back with their fourth (can it be?!) compact disc of chaos and conquest, this time conjuring visions of cosmic adventure in a galaxy-spanning science-fictional Imperium of the sixth millenium AD, rather than the battefields of the Celtic fantasy world which inspired such previous Slough Feg albums as "Down Among The Deadmen" and "Twilight Of The Idols", though they've taken some of their trademark Celtic-tinged riffs with 'em into the future.
Yep, the Feg boys have come up with a full-on scifi concept album here, each song contributing to a space opera story of far-future genetic warfare. It's convoluted and not just a little bit absurd (we'd expect nothing less from the Lord Weird) involving a megalomaniac mad scientist, dangerous alien spores, a hybrid race of sentient dogs known as Vargr (as pictured on the cover), asteroid miners, and a space pirate named Baltech Budapest who develops psionic powers after being turned into a dog-man! Huh? Well, all this is an excuse for Slough Feg to flex their collective metal muscles, showing off with dueling shredding guitar solos, majestic harmonies, dramatic vocals, shuddering doom riffs, and so forth. The European power metal legions traffic in such wares as well, but none with such flamboyant eccentricity and sheer insanity as the Slough Feg crew. Lost Horizon, Rhapsody, Blind Guardian, Hammerfall and the like might be more polished and synthesized, but for indomitable metal spirit and over-the-top anything-goes chutzpah you've got to hand it to San Francisco's Slough Feg, they'll take on all comers musically while upping the bizarreness quotient to impossible extremes. Raw, bombastic heaviness gives way to acoustic guitars, adrenalized thrash collides with show-tune catchiness, and the story of course is completely fucked. With their two Les Pauls going full bore, this is perhaps the last word in galloping, epic, multi-tracked guitar harmony metal... Their forbears like Iron Maiden, Queen, and Thin Lizzy should be proud (and a little confused). What Drunk Horse are to '70s boogie rock these guys are to '80s metal, except... Slough Feg really mean it! Even when it's hard to figure out *what* they mean.
Fans will probably agree that the grandiose "Traveller" is the Slough Feg album most similar to "The Bastard" by their sister band Hammers of Misfortune -- both being continuous narratives ("Traveller" having but one vocalist to handle all the roles however). But while the Hammers' masterful metal operetta seemed all Dungeons & Dragons, this concept record is actually specifically based on -- and named after -- a once-popular science fiction role playing game called Traveller, D&D's spacefaring cousin. The cover design, and some of the lyrics, will make a lot more sense if you're familiar with that game!
MPEG Stream: "High Passage/Low Passage"
MPEG Stream: "Asteroid Belts"

RAPTURE, THE Echoes (DFA / Mercury) cd 11.98
You probably don't need us telling you about The Rapture. But if you've been in hiding for the past few months, The Rapture's "Echoes" has been one of the most widely anticipated albums of the season. There has been an inordinant amount of hype surrounding this band and the DFA production team; and often that type of silliness doesn't really play that well here at Aquarius. So for us, the anticipation was out of a simple question which many other people have been asking as well: Is anything else on Echoes as good as that "House of Jealous Lovers" track? Honestly, no; but The Rapture trying to out-groove "House of Jealous Lovers" is like My Bloody Valentine trying to out-shoegaze "Soon." It's just not going to happen. And if that question is what you needed answered, we're happy to oblige.
However if you look beyond that obvious question, and beyond the ridiculous hype of 'New York's best new band' and actually listen to the record, you might be surprised at how good it is. That said, The Rapture will never escape its influences, in particular Entertainment by Gang of Four, Metal Box by Public Image Limited, early A Certain Ratio, and The Cure. Why anybody would want to ape Robert Smith's nasal whine is beyond me, but The Rapture's singer Luke Jenner has done just that. There's even a direct citation of The Cure's "One Hundred Years" found on The Rapture's "Olio," where Jenner yelps the phrase "Over and over and over again," just as Smith does. It's a little painful, but the DFA production of this remade Rapture track which appeared on their Gravity debut many moons back is a powderkeg post-punk groove laced with plenty of uptempo rhythms. It's certainly strong enough to transcend the vocals and comes close to the cocaine frenzy of "House of Jealous Lovers." As a whole Echoes succeeds through its dynamics, at times suffocating the band's sound in the pressure cooker of jagged guitar scratches, Jenner's voice, and heart-racing rhythms (i.e. "Killing"), at others releasing Jenner's voice as a ghastly diva amidst tubular bells and beatific Chicago house grooves (i.e. "I Need Your Love"), and at others donning the vastly different art rock poses of The Birthday Party and Radiohead (i.e. "Heaven" and "Open Up Your Heart" respectively).
The Rapture is a true amalgam of all things cool at the moment, and the cynic in me wants to call this bullshit for that exact reason; but it's just too good to receive that damnation from me!
MPEG Stream: "Olio"
MPEG Stream: "Killing"
MPEG Stream: "I Need Your Love"

STEREO, THE Rewind + Record (Fueled By Ramen) cd 13.98
We have been so excited for the release of this record. We were kind of late discovering the Stereo, but it took no time at all for their last two records to instantly become way too played, in the store, at home, in the car. Perfect kick ass power pop. Just the right balance of cheesy seventies FM radio catchiness and thick guitars, amazing harmonies, and hooks galore! So I have to admit to being a little bummed when I first heard this. It seemed much less catchy, and a LOT more Journey/REO Speedwagon. And while a few other Aquarians still feel that way, I wasn't about to give up that easily. And boy, was I ever rewarded for my tenacity. This has to be THE pop record of the year. You know how some records immediately hook you and you play the shit out of them until you almost can't stand to hear them anymore? And then there's some records (like the most recent Anniversary for instance) where on first listen, there's not the obvious hooks to hang onto so you sort of dismiss it as 'not as good' as their other records. But often when you return, you realise that albums like that often slowly reveal themselves to be the sort of records that become totally essential, and end up getting listened to way more than those immediately catchy ones. So what I'm getting at here, is that this is definitely the best Stereo record yet, and quite possibly the best pop record this year. The songs are more complex and more subtle, but they still rock, and still have amazing hooks! And this time around there's all sorts of extra unexpected additions: weird production, strange synthesizers and crazy drum programming. But those new elements only add to the pop brilliance these pop punkers can conjure up at the drop of a hat. I swear I have not gone a day without blasting this record since it came out. Think the Posies, Jellyfish, the Anniversary, the Get Up Kids, Superchunk, Weezer, Redd Kross, Silver Sun, Sloan. Totally good time, big guitar, clap along, driving with the top down, mix tape for that girl you like PEFECT POP. Buy this or you'll make Andee very sad.
RealAudio clip: "Pay No Attention"
RealAudio clip: "You Better Believe It"
RealAudio clip: "Tell Your Football Dad No"
RealAudio clip: "Have I Paid My Debt To Mpls?"
RealAudio clip: "Turn Off Your TV"

ARMPIT, THEE The Praying Mantis (Pseudoarcana) 2cd-r 15.98
This unfortunately monickered duo make up for the name, with a wild and woolly sound, raw and noisy but dreamy and soothing at the same time. Carrying on the tradition of 'classic' NZ noise ala the Dead C / Gate, TA take instruments, REAL instruments, and spread them over our ears in a thick and prickly, warm and sticky, pummellingly beautiful mess of sound. From thud rock dirge, to outer sound explorations, to almost-pop, to deconstructed rhythmic workouts, to shoe-gazey space rock, all filtered through that distinctly noisy NZ lo-fi aesthetic. Really really great. Two cd-r discs in a nice handpainted cover, with some truly strange comics inside.
RealAudio clip: "Rocket"
RealAudio clip: "Gallows"
RealAudio clip: "Hot Gossip"

TRAD GRAS OCH STENAR Djungelns Lag (1/2 Special) cd 14.98
Yes! Maximum damaged Swedish guitar psych jamming in the house! Knowing how much we at AQ LOVE the sixties Swedish psych sounds of Parson Sound/International Harvester/Harvester/Trad Gras Och Stenar (multiple manifestations of basically the same band, whose crucial original LPs and unreleased recordings have been reissued on cd over the past couple of years, a boon to music-lovers everywhere -- see elsewhere on our website for reviews) you can imagine how excited we were to find out that TWO MORE Trad Gras Och Stenar LPs of early seventies vintage were now being reissued by new US label 1/2 Special, who indeed do a bang up job with these two discs. The booklets feature lots of photos and posters, a discography, and detailed liner notes from the band (delving into remembrance of the personal and social transformations of the hippie era). Plus, each disc's got a hefty bonus track (32 minutes on "Djungelns" and 27 on "Mors")! And of course it's the music that really makes these essential.
Influenced by Scandinavian folk music, drugs, radical politics, Terry Riley, the Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, Indian ragas, etc. this is some awesomely messed-up far-out rock music for sure. If these guys were German instead of Swedish, we'd be talking about a Krautrock legend. TGOS, as the final incarnation of group that started as Parson Sound, features a stripped-down line-up playing music that is perhaps more conventionally "rock" based than earlier formations, but definitely the heavy minimalism of Parson Sound and the Amon Duulish folked-out trippiness of Harvester remain important elements of their lugubrous sound.
"Djungelns Lag" ("Jungle Law" in English), originally issued in 1972, collects tracks recorded by TGOS on tour in Sweden and Norway during the summer and fall of 1971. You get extended dual guitar tangle and lovely sad folk laments, brief bouts of sunshiney nonsense vocals backed with acoustic guitar strum ("Dibio"), and even hippie hoedown jaw-harp jams ("Munfiol"). Wherever they wander, this is generally mellow yet moving, always measured and stately even when at its most abstract and electric.
Likewise with "Mors Mors" (aka "Bye Bye"), a 1973 album of tracks originating on tour in Sweden and Denmark in '72, which continues with both the gentle freakiness and distorted thud. The Rolling Stone's "Last Time" gets a TGOS treatment (not quite as blasted as their take on "Satisfaction" found on their self-titled album, though) and again their originals feature plenty of what we dig: moments of ragged Haino-worthy axe attack, tripped-out Quicksilver leads, and lovely pastoral folk-drone...
So it's appropriate that both discs were reissued simultaneously, if you want one you'll want 'em both. What else can we say...well, anyone who buys Acid Mothers Temple discs ought to be sure to take some Trad Gras Och Stenar home too, that's for sure. As with all the reissues from this camp, highly recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Var Vila"
RealAudio clip: "Munfiol"

TRAD GRAS OCH STENAR Mors Mors (1/2 Special) cd 14.98
Yes! Maximum damaged Swedish guitar psych jamming in the house! Knowing how much we at AQ LOVE the sixties Swedish psych sounds of Parson Sound/International Harvester/Harvester/Trad Gras Och Stenar (multiple manifestations of basically the same band, whose crucial original LPs and unreleased recordings have been reissued on cd over the past couple of years, a boon to music-lovers everywhere -- see elsewhere on our website for reviews) you can imagine how excited we were to find out that TWO MORE Trad Gras Och Stenar LPs of early seventies vintage were now being reissued by new US label 1/2 Special, who indeed do a bang up job with these two discs. The booklets feature lots of photos and posters, a discography, and detailed liner notes from the band (delving into remembrance of the personal and social transformations of the hippie era). Plus, each disc's got a hefty bonus track (32 minutes on "Djungelns" and 27 on "Mors")! And of course it's the music that really makes these essential.
Influenced by Scandinavian folk music, drugs, radical politics, Terry Riley, the Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, Indian ragas, etc. this is some awesomely messed-up far-out rock music for sure. If these guys were German instead of Swedish, we'd be talking about a Krautrock legend. TGOS, as the final incarnation of group that started as Parson Sound, features a stripped-down line-up playing music that is perhaps more conventionally "rock" based than earlier formations, but definitely the heavy minimalism of Parson Sound and the Amon Duulish folked-out trippiness of Harvester remain important elements of their lugubrous sound.
"Djungelns Lag", originally issued in 1972, collects tracks recorded by TGOS on tour in Sweden and Norway during the summer and fall of 1971. You get extended dual guitar tangle and lovely sad folk laments, brief bouts of sunshiney nonsense vocals backed with acoustic guitar strum ("Dibio"), and even hippie hoedown jaw-harp jams ("Munfiol"). Wherever they wander, this is generally mellow yet moving, always measured and stately even when at its most abstract and electric.
Likewise with "Mors Mors" (a 1973 album of tracks originating on tour in Sweden and Denmark in '72), which continues with both the gentle freakiness and distorted thud. The Rolling Stone's "Last Time" gets a TGOS treatment (not quite as blasted as their take on "Satisfaction" found on their self-titled album, though) and again their originals feature plenty of what we dig: moments of ragged Haino-worthy axe attack, tripped-out Quicksilver leads, and lovely folk-drone...
So it's appropriate that both discs were reissued simultaneously, if you want one you'll want 'em both. What else can we say...well, anyone who buys Acid Mothers Temple discs ought to be sure to take some Trad Gras Och Stenar home too, that's for sure. As with all the reissues from this camp, highly recommended.
RealAudio clip: "Rocktrall"
RealAudio clip: "Klangbron"

UNCLE TUPELO March 16-20 (Columbia) cd 17.98
Finally after years of waiting, the Uncle Tupelo back catalog gets the deluxe reissue treatment it so deserves. Belleville, Illinois' favorite sons almost single handedly made it okay for indie rockers to don sparkly jean jackets and publicly profess their love of all things Byrds and Gram Parsons, creating in the process a genre that would carry on their proud tradition to this day. From the gorgeously-twangy-country-intertwined-with-raucous-punk-rock of their early days to the lush-and -perfect-Nashville-via-Midwestern-backwater -country/bluegrass of their final years, no one can hold a candle to Farrar and Tweedy, the dynamic duo whose different (but equally compelling) songwriting styles and dramatically disparate voices helped form the foundation for one of the greatest rock bands (or country rock bands) of the last decade.
Record number three was the record where it all changed. Where Uncle Tupelo became first and foremost, a country outfit. Many thought this was a one off experiment, but as their next and final record Anodyne would prove beyond any shadow of a doubt, they were country through and through. Produced by R.E.M.'s Peter Buck March 16-20 was all acoustic and sounded like a record of traditionals, which it sort of was, even though only five tracks were -actually- traditionals. The originals here are so perfect, timeless and...well.. traditional sounding, with Farrar and Tweedy spinning tales of coal mines, railroads, Satan, murders, and that new fangled atomic power. Mandolin, banjo, pedal steel, slide guitar, violin, accordion and even bouzouki all added to the gorgeous stripped down sound of a band not only at their peak, but so obviously having fun, playing songs, and the kind of songs, they truly loved. Lots of photos and liner notes.
Bonus tracks: 'Take My Word' from a 1992 7", 'Moonshiner (Live 1/24/93)' from a 1994 compilation, and 4 unreleased tracks from 1991 demo recorded in a kitchen: "Grindstone (1991 Longview Farm Acoustic Demo)', 'Atomic Power (1991 Longview Farm Acoustic Demo)', the Stooges' 'I Wanna Be Your Dog (1991 Longview Farm Acoustic Demo)' and 'The Walton's (Theme) (1991 Longview Farm Acoustic Demo)'.
MPEG Stream: "Fatal Wound "
MPEG Stream: "Wipe The Clock"
MPEG Stream: "Black Eye"
MPEG Stream: "Moonshiner"

UNCLE TUPELO No Depression (Columbia) cd 17.98
Finally after years of waiting, the Uncle Tupelo back catalog gets the deluxe reissue treatment it so deserves.Belleville, Illinois' favorite sons almost single handedly made it okay for indie rockers to don sparkly jean jackets and publicly profess their love of all things Byrds and Gram Parsons, creating in the process a genre that would carry on their proud tradition to this day. From the gorgeously-twangy-country-intertwined-with-raucous-punk-rock of their early days to the lush-and -perfect-Nashville-via-Midwestern-backwater -country/bluegrass of their final years, no one can hold a candle to Farrar and Tweedy, the dynamic duo whose different (but equally compelling) songwriting styles and dramatically disparate voices helped form the foundation for one of the greatest rock bands (or country rock bands) of the last decade.
This is the record that started it all. Alt-country, No Depression or whatever it's called these days. Named for a Carter Family song and influenced as much by punk rock as folk and bluegrass, No Depression is a wild, rollicking, twangy, thrashy record full of amazing hooks, mournful melodies, and kick ass rock and roll. Never had a rock band managed to make country so cool (the Byrds came close, but I mean a ROCK band, a PUNK ROCK band!), opening up the ears of indie rockers everywhere. Perfectly captures the teen angst and dreary hopelessness of rural midwestern farm life, that no-way-out resignation mixed with just a dash of maybe-I-won't-end-up-like-my-folks-poor-and-miserable. It also introduced us to the amazing songsmithery of Farrar and Tweedy, whose tunultuous partnership would only last a few more years, but who would separately continue on (Wilco, Son Volt) to define the genre they practically invented. Tons of photos and liner notes.
Bonus tracks: The vinyl only bonus track 'Left In The Dark' from the Anthology 2lp, 'Won't Forget' from the A Matter Of Degrees soundtrack (terrible movie, great soundtrack!), a kick ass cover of the Byrds' 'Sin City' from an old 7", a live acoustic version of 'Whiskey Bottle', a 1988 demo of 'No Depression', and 'Blues Die Hard' from the Colorblind And Rhymeless 1987 demo.
MPEG Stream: "Graveyard Shift"
MPEG Stream: "Factory Belt"
MPEG Stream: "Whiskey Bottle"

UNCLE TUPELO Still Feel Gone (Columbia) cd 17.98
Finally after years of waiting, the Uncle Tupelo back catalog gets the deluxe reissue treatment it so deserves. Belleville, Illinois' favorite sons almost single handedly made it okay for indie rockers to don sparkly jean jackets and publicly profess their love of all things Byrds and Gram Parsons, creating in the process a genre that would carry on their proud tradition to this day. From the gorgeously-twangy-country-intertwined-with-raucous-punk-rock of their early days to the lush-and -perfect-Nashville-via-Midwestern-backwater -country/bluegrass of their final years, no one can hold a candle to Farrar and Tweedy, the dynamic duo whose different (but equally compelling) songwriting styles and dramatically disparate voices helped form the foundation for one of the greatest rock bands (or country rock bands) of the last decade.
This is record number two and for a lot of folks was sort of a let down. Seems to be the fans' least favorite, but with lots of records like that, being the least listened to, it can offer all sorts of treasures when re-assessed. This was definitely a transition record, moving away from their punk rock roots and towards the traditional country they so obviously loved. Consequently, it sort of hovers right in the middle, feeling a little lost. Blunting the thrashy twangy punk they had perfected on their debut and kind of muddying the country/bluegrass trail they were preparing to blaze. My biggest problem was that Jeff Tweedy seemed to step up and take on a lot of the lead vocals. And at that point, Tweedy's whine-y, reedy vocals were only present to be a counterpoint to Jay Farrar's gorgeous whiskey soaked drawl. Since then, I've grown to appreciate Tweedy's vocals a lot more and can appreciate the dual vocalists and how they perfectly complemented each other. But the songs are still here in spades. Catchy and miserably defiant and hopelessly hopeful and just totally great. The fuzzy grungy opener 'Gun' is still one of my favorites. Again lots of photos and liner notes.
Bonus tracks: 'Sauget Wind' from an 1992 7", a fierce cover of The Soft Boys' 'I Wanna Destroy You', and three unreleased demos: 'Watch Me Fall', 'Looking For A Way Out (fast version), and 'If That's Alright (fast acoustic version)'.
MPEG Stream: "Gun"
MPEG Stream: "Still Be Around"
MPEG Stream: "Watch Me Fall"

V/A Ethiopiques Vol. 13: Ethiopian Groove (Buda Musique) cd 16.98
While not as famous as Amha Eshete (Amha Records), Ali Abdella Kaifa and his Kaifa records was still a heavyweight in Ethiopia's golden age of record production. Kaifa essentially took up the slack from Eshete when the latter went into exile in 1975 due to the country's increasingly hostile military government. Entering the music business in 1973 with the release of the first 45s on his label, Kaifa didn't just materialize in Eshete's absence. But it was the release of Mahmoud Ahmed's legendary "Ere Mela Mela" -- the album that would become the first Ethiopian recording to be released in Europe -- that really put Kaifa on the map. He was also the one who discovered Aster Aweke (who later fled Ethiopia to build a successful career as a world beat artist in the late eighties.) All but two tracks in this collection were recorded between 1976 and 1977 at the tail end of of Ethiopia's record industry, which was squashed in 1978 (at which point Kaifa continued to produce music on cassettes.) Along with the usual collection of male vocalists (Alemayehu Eshete, Hirut Bekele, Ayalew Mesfin and Tamrat Ferendji) there are four tracks featuring female vocalists (unfortunately underrepresented in this series) Bzunesh Beqele and the duo of Asselefetch Ashine & Getenesh Kebret. Ashine & Kebret must be heard to be believed, their unearthly parallel harmonies sharing the limelight wonderfully with the Army Band's flautist and arranger Teshome Sissay.
Longtime readers of AQ's list might have caught notice of this volume's title "Ethiopian Groove", as we had once stocked an album of the same name many years ago (see AQL #42). Indeed this album is the very same as the now out of print one on Blue Silver (in fact Ethiopiques series editor Francis Falceto was the one who compiled the earlier release), but with a few differences. While Ethiopiques #13 is unfortunately missing three of the Aster Aweke tracks that graced the original Ethiopian Groove CD, it is supplemented by the addition of two tracks by saxophonist Seyoum Gebreyes, two by vocalist Muleqen Mellesse and greatly expanded liner notes & photos. We can only hope that Buda Musique is intending to issue an entire CD dedicated to Aster Aweke and her earliest recordings for Kaifa. Until then, those of you with the original Ethiopian Groove should hold onto it.
RealAudio clip: MULUQEN MELLESSE & DAHLAK BAND "Djemeregne"
RealAudio clip: ASSELEFETCH ASHINE & GETENESH KEBRET & ARMY BAND "Metche New"

V/A Folk and Pop Sounds of Sumatra Vol. 1 (Sublime Frequencies) cd 14.98
We're pretty damn excited by Sun City Girls 33.3 percenter Alan Bishop's new Sublime Frequencies label. "Dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers" Sublime Frequencies is slipping on the shoes apparently discarded by such pioneering labels as Smithsonian Folkways, Nonesuch Explorer, et al. Unlike previous explorers in such unheard music, Sublime Frequencies is not restricted by academic or commercial purposes. The latter probably deserves a bit more explanation; for where much of the post-Explorer purveyors of "world music" shamelessly produce an endless slough of slick garbage that sounds like the crap you can hear on any U.S. top 40 radio station merely sung in another language (Christ, if I had a wooden nickel for every fuckin' starry eyed NPR music review extoling the uniqueness of some generic world music outfit that combines electronic music with traditional folk, yadda, yadda, yadda the world's forests would be clear cut by now) the recordings you'll hear presented by Sublime Frequencies come from the cracks in the pavement of the culture makers. Through field recordings (many made by Bishop himself in his travels), radio and shortwave broadcasts some of the most fucking great music and audio you've never heard has been culled together. Balls to fidelity, none of the artists here would be allowed within 10 miles of a Putamayo AR executive, this is the punk rock of field recordings!

Assembled from cassettes acquired by Alan Bishop through trade or purchase in 1989 while traveling through Sumatra, "Folk And Pop Sounds" contains some of the most obscure recordings of the three initial CD releases from Subliminal Frequencies. Located on the furthest Western edge of the Indonesian archipelago, Sumatra is big (as big as California) and widely unexplored in the audio realm in comparison with its neighboring islands to the East, Java and Bali. The disc begins with the Haba Haba Group in which a male singer is accompanied by flute, two alternating gongs and percussion and secondly by an unknown Sumatran Dangdut (crazy overdriven pop with a heavy Indian film music influence). The most immediately noticeable difference in these recordings from Sumatra to Bali & Java is the overt Arabic influence on the music. The Dangdut track even sounds similar to the music on a Somalian CD, "Jamiila" which we used to sell here years ago before it went out of print. As if to admonish us against generalizations, another later Dangdut track, with runaway farfisa organ, pleasant arppegiating electric guitar and female vocals sounds not dis-similar to the "keroncong" music of The Steps CD from Java released on Warn Defever's Time Stereo label. While the disc may begin innocently enough, the sequencing of the tracks seduces the listener into the strange world of Sumatran music. The very Arabic sounding Indang Pariaman which features a female singer who's melody line interweaves beautifully with end blown wooden flute and some more incredibly nutty buzzing electric keyboard (one can only imagine that the sound is intended to imitate a double reed instrument of old) is moved along by jovial electric bass and casio-rhythm. The combination of acoustic and archaic electric instruments is shamelessly wonderful. Later an orchestra of sorts, complete with violin, electric organ, bass, drums, female voice leads us down a fragrant path that's oddly reminiscent of a Sun City Girls track. Speaking of which, though this one technically isn't, there are a couple of tracks on here which indeed are songs covered by the Girls, can you figure out which ones? Along with the songs proper included here, there are some great excerpts from dramas. The first instance begins with sweet flute and what's supposed to be a rooster crowing, but emulated by what sounds like an old air raid siren played through a broken megaphone. A melodramatic dialogue ensues between a terribly afflicted female and a stoic male voice. needless to say, this one comes highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: HABA HABA GROUP "Sitogol #1"
MPEG Stream: UNKNOWN "Piso Somalim #1"
MPEG Stream: PIMP RUBIAH "Sri Mersing"

V/A Java: Court Gamelan, Volume II (Nonesuch) cd 12.98
Originally released in 1977, the second volume of the (hopefully eventual) tetrad of Javanese Court Gamelan features music from the lesser of the two courts at Surakarta: the Mangkunegaran. Which is not to say that the court, or its musicians and dancers, lacked prestige. Of the two gamelan heard on this recording, one is not only considered to be the most beautiful in all of Java, but resides in the largest pendopo (pavilion in which gamelan is performed) on the island. While all gamelan are treated with the respect given a prince, the older of the two gamelan here Kyai Kanyut Mesem ("Sir Swept Away by a Smile") is exceptionally sacred (so sacred is one instrument that it is never even played). The music here is the height of refined Javanese court gamelan and the two long pieces which make up the meat of this disc are each stunning in their own ways. The 21 minute Gending Bonang Babar Layar is a piece often played to welcome important guests and on that is intended to set a "mood of distinguished silence" as much as "power and authority". Played entirely with what are generally the louder instruments and completely devoid of vocals, Babar Layar exudes an eerie austerity that is breath taking. The almost evil sounding main melody is slowly condensed and increases steadily in volume until the final section of the piece in which the pounding, heavy bronze melody instruments are brought into an elliptical, concentrated -- for lack of a better word -- summarization of what had been so delicately building up. For me (Byram), it's one of those songs that never fails to give me goose bumps. Unfortunately, space limitations prevent us from sampling enough to really do justice to the intensity of the suite as it progressively builds over its twenty minute duration. The other showcase on this disc is "Gending Ela-Ela Kalibeber" which takes the opposite approach sonically, with the softer instruments and vocals taking center stage and rendering the main melody almost inaudible. Also included are two shorter pieces, "Ketawang Puspawarna" and "Ayak-ayakan Kaloran". Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Gending Babar Layar [excerpt 1]"
MPEG Stream: "Gending Babar Layar [excerpt 2]"
MPEG Stream: "Gending Ela-ela Kalibeber"

V/A Nice Up The Dance: Two Worlds Clash (Soul Jazz) cd 16.98
Last list one of our 'Records-of-the-Week' was the awesome "Wild Dub" compilation of punk-era dubs. This week, we've got another culture clash -- though, like "Wild Dub", it's less a clash than a perfect match -- with this mix of reggae meets hip hop mixes.
Not to be confused with Heartbeat's venerable compilation of disco-mixes which bears the same title, Soul Jazz's "Nice Up The Dance" is no less of a great collection. While the earlier genres of Jamaican music have drawn inspiration from the States in varying degrees since the 1950's, it's only recently that tables have turned and artists from the U.S. have begun importing ideas from Jamaica -- so much so that rap and dancehall are practically joined at the hip. Dancehall artists are not only cameo-ing on albums by prominent rap artists, but even getting some major label attention of their own. Along comes Soul Jazz to bridge the not-so-wide gap between hip hop and dancehall. On the one hand you have Jamaican artists here like Sean Paul, who has apparently been enjoying some MTV and major label attention right now. His 1996 track "Infiltrate", which has some sick sub-harmonic bass for those of you with subwoofers (the "Playground" riddim), is included here. And on the other you have American artists like J-Live with his track "Satisfied" which pays homage to Jamaican music by using Augustus Pablo's "East of the River Nile" as its foundation, and NY producer Kenny Dope with his trunk rattling dancehall/hip hop crossover classics "Boomin' In Ya Jeep" (featuring Screechy Dan) and "Gunshot" (featuring Shaggy). The best thing about this collection is that it's not some academic attempt to point out the missing links between hip hop and dancehall, but -- like Soul Jazz already has demonstrated time and again -- to collect some of the best tracks into a mix that will stay in your system this summer. This is going to be the album to blast at your next bar-b-q, or in your car on the way to the beach/park/club through the coming hot months (for those of you who are blessed with warm summers). Along with the aforementioned tracks is Cutty Ranks' kick ass come back tune "Who Say Me Done", a fucking wicked Tuva-drone toast from Pompidoo aptly titled "Synthesizer Voice", Steelie and Cleevie's electro-bass remix of Dawn Penn's "No, No, No" (admit it purists, this mix grows on you), another mix of the ever so popular "Ring The Alarm" by Tenor Saw and more. But the absolute bestest, most kick-assessed track on the album is Ward 21's gut pounding, steamroller of a bassline "Petrol" (from 2002 -- no it's not on the Mentally Disturbed album) which features tag team vocals from both the growling baritone and the 200-words-per-minute auctioneer cum toaster. And for those of you that can't live without it, there are some nice liner notes tracing the paths of Jamaican and American music here for you. Highly recommended!!!
MPEG Stream: KENNY DOPE "Boomin' In Ya Jeep"
MPEG Stream: WARD 21 "Petrol"

V/A Night Recordings From Bali (Sublime Frequencies) cd 14.98
Let's just start by reiterating what we said in the last list: We're pretty damn excited by Sun City Girls 33.3 percenter Alan Bishop's new Sublime Frequencies label. "Dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers" Sublime Frequencies is slipping on the shoes apparently discarded by such pioneering labels as Smithsonian Folkways, Nonesuch Explorer, et al. Unlike previous explorers in such unheard music, Sublime Frequencies is not restricted by academic or commercial purposes. The latter probably deserves a bit more explanation; for where much of the post-Explorer purveyors of "world music" shamelessly produce an endless slough of slick garbage that sounds like the crap you can hear on any U.S. top 40 radio station merely sung in another language (Christ, if I had a wooden nickel for every fuckin' starry eyed NPR music review extoling the uniqueness of some generic world music outfit that combines electronic music with traditional folk, yadda, yadda, yadda the world's forests would be clear cut by now) the recordings you'll hear presented by Sublime Frequencies come from the cracks in the pavement of the culture makers. Through field recordings (many made by Bishop himself in his travels), radio and shortwave broadcasts some of the most fucking great music and audio you've never heard has been culled together. Balls to fidelity, none of the artists here would be allowed within 10 miles of a Putamayo AR executive, this is the punk rock of field recordings!

By now we've listed numerous recordings from Bali already, and with good reason: the people of Bali live and breathe music and art. It's no wonder that they've been the source of fascination from artists dating back to Walter Spies and are currently inundated with the clumsey feet of foreign tourists who flock to the island every year. Much like the beloved Indonesian Soundscapes, Night Recordings From Bali is a collection of field recordings -- made by Alan Bishop and Manford Cain in 1989 -- of the sort not likely to be captured by traditional "ethnomusicologists" or found on the likes of an Explorer or even Smithsonian Folkways disc. For instance: "Rubber Television", a recording of a television drama or soap opera accompanied by gamelan, dripping water sound effects that warbles pathetically like they were being recorded with a dying cassette deck (courtesy of Bali's notorious humidity maybe?) While many of the other recordings are of Bali's numerous, well exposed gamelan and sundry other music ensembles like anklung, kebyar and kecak, the man-on-the-spot style recording fuses the sounds of the frogs and insects to the performances where another recordist might have isolated the ensemble. Additionally, there are recordings here of wild life segueing between musical performances and even a recording of a cremation ceremony where the surviving loved ones battle in a traditional tug of war between those wishing to bring the body to the pyre and those resisting the inevitable final journey.
MPEG Stream: "Legian Minstrels"
MPEG Stream: "Rubber Television"
MPEG Stream: "Night Village Barong #2"

V/A Radio Java (Sublime Frequencies) cd 14.98
We're pretty damn excited by Sun City Girls 33.3 percenter Alan Bishop's new Sublime Frequencies label. "Dedicated to acquiring and exposing obscure sights and sounds from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers" Sublime Frequencies is slipping on the shoes apparently discarded by such pioneering labels as Smithsonian Folkways, Nonesuch Explorer, et al. Unlike previous explorers in such unheard music, Sublime Frequencies is not restricted by academic or commercial purposes. The latter probably deserves a bit more explanation; for where much of the post-Explorer purveyors of "world music" shamelessly produce an endless slough of slick garbage that sounds like the crap you can hear on any U.S. top 40 radio station merely sung in another language (Christ, if I had a wooden nickel for every fuckin' starry eyed NPR music review extoling the uniqueness of some generic world music outfit that combines electronic music with traditional folk, yadda, yadda, yadda the world's forests would be clear cut by now) the recordings you'll hear presented by Sublime Frequencies come from the cracks in the pavement of the culture makers. Through field recordings (many made by Bishop himself in his travels), radio and shortwave broadcasts, some of the most amazing music and audio you've never heard has been assembled. Balls to fidelity, none of the artists here would be allowed within 10 miles of a Putamayo A+R executive, this is the punk rock of field recordings!

Radio Java is volume 2 in Sublime Frequencies' catalog, and is an absolutely amazing collection of tracks recorded off of stations in Jakarta, Surabaya, Yokyakarta and Bandung in 1989 by Alan Bishop and Manford Cain. Along with some familiar tunes, including a wealth of amazing Jaipongan tracks from West Java (See "West Java: Sundanese Jaipong and Other Popular Music" we listed from the Nonesuch Explorer series). But along with the snippets of Kerongcong (a bizarre amalgam that sounds like lopsided Hawaiian music) and Dangdut (an electrified pop music with ties to Indian film music) there are some insane cuts from radio commercials, enthusiastic DJ's,theater excerpts that are just plain remarkable. The disc is cobbled together in a channel surfing collage that continues to catch you off guard. Just when you've been lulled into teary-eyed submission by some sultry Sundanese singing, you're treated to a noise blast that would make Masami Akita blush. Radio announcers growl with their microphone inputs overloading, and crazy slapback echo that's just uncomprehensible, a cookoo clock rings and is followed by a strange ringing tone that sounds like early FM Synthesis experiments, and all this from one visit. You know there's more good to come soon, and that's a heartening thought in a world that's ever succombing to the blanding effects of U.S. commercial culture. Wonderful!!
MPEG Stream: RADIO JAVA "Radio Jakarta #1"
MPEG Stream: RADIO JAVA "Radio Republik Indonesia"
MPEG Stream: RADIO JAVA "Radio Solo/Bandung"

V/A Trojan Nyahbinghi Box Set (Trojan) 3cd 16.98
Okay, at the risk of sounding like a bunch of Trojan solipsists (which we're not, really), this new Trojan Box is super fucking great! Quite simply, the concept behind this anthology assembles reggae tracks with Nyahbinghi accompaniment. Nyahbinghi is the name of the original Rastafarian sect, and the African based drumming that accompanies virtually all of its ceremonies -- most Nyahbinghi grounations. While today Jamaican commercial music and Rastafarianism are virtually synonymous, the two haven't always been so cozy. In 1962 when Prince Buster brought Count Ossie and his drummers into the recording studio to back up the Folkes Brothers on their version of "Oh Carolina" it was considered a revolutionary concept -- Rastafarians being cultural pariahs at the time. It wasn't until the roots era of Jamaican reggae well into the seventies that everyone was dreading their hair in locks and going rasta. But even then, whether for commercial, aesthetic or logistic reasons, Nyahbinghi drumming didn't permeate the rhythm section of reggae the way rasta conscious lyrics took over the vocals. Nonetheless, there were still miles and miles of examples of Nyahbinghi drumming wed to reggae laid down on tape. With that in mind, Trojan has assembled a very nicely priced introduction to some of the more prolific users of the form -- such as Count Ossie and Ras Michael -- some classic commercial moments -- Jimmy Cliff's "Bongo Man" and plenty of rare tracks. With the exception of 6 tracks from the late sixties, the recordings on this set were made between 1970 and 1975, the golden era for roots reggae. Highly recommended!!
MPEG Stream: U ROY & PETER TOSH "Earth's Rightful Ruler"
MPEG Stream: DADAWAH "Zion Land"

V/A Wild Dub (Select Cuts) cd 16.98
Subtitled "Dread Meets Punk Rocker Downtown" this is a brilliant collection of dubbed out and reggaefied punk and new wave b-sides circa '77-'81, demonstrating the Jamaican dub influence on the youth culture of music and rebellion in England and elsewhere, back in the day. The underground dancefloor avantgardists of today can cop these styles, but this is the real deal, with tracks from well-known acts like The Pop Group, Killing Joke, The Slits, PIL, The Clash, Grace Jones and Stiff Little Fingers, plus some more obscure bands as well, like Red Beat, 4 Be 2, and Basement 5. Some cuts are actual echoey dubs, others are more about the Jamaican influence, and the dub concept of studio as instrument. All are pretty cool.
The Ruts' "Jah War" starts things off in deceptively ordinary fashion, pretty much straight up reggae (not a dub), though it does succesfully demonstrate this comp's thesis regarding the influence of reggae on punk (with The Ruts eventually becoming Ruts DC, subject of an anthology on Select Cuts we recommended a while back)... That's followed by Mikey Dread's dub version of The Clash's "Bank Robber" which of course sounds pretty much like The Clash, but dubbier. It's with track three, "Wild Dub" from Generation X, purportedly the first punk dub ever cut, that the punk-dub collision starts to get really interesting. And if Billy Idol's old band's dub attempt is cool, you can only imagine what more some of the more out-there groups came up with. For instance, dig the bizarre sounds of The Slits, whose disjointed dub of "Typical Girls" comes off like Italian 'rock concrete' deconstructionists Starfuckers by way of Jamaica, all cut-up and sparse and loopy. Definitely a highlight. Meanwhile, you've got The Pop Group setting an example for current acts like Out Hud/!!! to emulate, 4 Be 2's weird Irish hoedown skank, the throbbing "Turn To Red" by Killing Joke (from a super-rare 9" record), and Grace Jones' 1980 Chrissie Hynde penned dance classic "Private Life" with bass and drums from Sly & Robbie. And more... Former Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten is a ubiquitous presence, in addition to PIL's quintessential "Death Disco", there's a bunch of other John Lydon productions on here, including a great track from Vivien Goldman ("Private Armies") dubbed up by Lydon and Adrian Sherwood. Goldman, former singer with the Flying Lizards and reggae writer for the punk weekly Sounds, contributes the disc's liner notes, with an enthusiastic, informed, she-was-there-then-and-cares-deeply-about-it-now perspective. So, totally, recommended -- everyone who loved those great Disco Not Disco and/or In The Beginning There Was Rhythm compilations will want to check this out for sure!
MPEG Stream: KILLING JOKE "Turn to Red"
MPEG Stream: THE SLITS "Typical Girls (Brink Style Dub)"
MPEG Stream: VIVIEN GOLDMAN "Private Agents (dub)"
MPEG Stream: GRACE JONES "Private Life (Dub)"

V/A Rough Trade Shops: Post Punk Vol 1 (Rough Trade) 2cd 19.98
Over the past couple of months, Rough Trade -- the stores being the only remainder of the once mighty Rough Trade label empire during the '80s -- has been issuing a series of compilations that celebrate their legacy to the world of music. While the previous compilations had all been pleasant enough, the "Post Punk Vol 1" compilation a nearly perfect collection ofgreat tracks that encapsulates the aftermath of punk. In light of the fashionableness of current bands who have adopted post-punk aesthetics, postures, and agendas like Interpol, The Rapture, and Erase Errata, "Post Punk Vol 1" is required listening for those interested in the current flourishing of the post-punk ethos, but with little knowlegde of where it came from. But at the same time, this isn't just some banal K-Tel rehash of the obvious cuts from 1978-1983; rather, this compilation picks and chooses its course through less trodden pathes, but none the less reflect the post-punk zeitgeist.
In the liner notes, neither Colin Newman of Wire or Sean of Rough Trade bother to define what 'post-punk' means other than the stuff which happened after the Sex Pistols. It's a term as meaningless as 'post modern;' but this compilation arrives at something of a workable definition through analogy and example. More often than not, 'post punk' has come to mean rough hewn disco percussion, insistent and at times dubby basslines, jagged guitars, and a dominant vocal personality. The big names of post-punk are all here with Gang Of Four, The Fall, Wire, and Public Image Limited, but many of the lesser known groups in particular Au Pairs, 23 Skidoo, and World Domination Enterprises steal the show with the best tracks on this double cd compilation. Furthering the definition beyond a mere history lesson, the curators have tossed in tracks from current bands such as Erase Errata, The Rapture, Les Georges Leningrad, and Life Without Buildings.
With a few sore thumb exceptions, this compilation is a great listen; and its seamlessness is a testament to the quality curation done by Rough Trade.
MPEG Stream: AU PAIRS "You"
MPEG Stream: FLYING LIZARDS "Sex Machine"
MPEG Stream: WORLD DOMINATION ENTERPRISES "Asbestos Lead Asbestos"

BASINSKI, WILLIAM The River (Raster-Noton) 2cd 16.98
This is another in the recent spate of releases chronicling William Basinski's experiments with short wave radio. This 2 disc set, 90 minutes in length to reflect two sides of a cassette tape, is a 2 part piece recorded in 1983 using shortwave radio and primitive tape loops. Fans of Phillip Jeck should pick this up immediately. It's got that sepia toned, gorgeous, hazy old victrola sound, with lots of rough edges, staticky fuzz and warm hum. The tape loops are mostly Muzak, slowed down and stretched out into creepy and hypnotic melodies, under and over shifiting shortwave. Supposedly this was Basinski's attempt to emulate the warm dreamy sounds of the Mellotron, a vintage synthesiser that utilises short loops of tape. And in some ways he has succeeded, creating a weirdly lush, gauze-y, droney soundscape all culled from random shortwave transmissions. So nice!
RealAudio clip: "The River Part 1 (excerpt)"

WOVEN HAND Blush Music (Glitterhouse) cd 21.00
Seems like only moments ago, my favorite record of last year came out. Maybe that's just because I still listen to it almost every day!! It's that good. If you read the AQ list you know I'm talking about the totally amazing Woven Hand record, a solo project of David Eugene Edwards from Sixteen Horsepower. Let's quickly recap for those who don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Sixteen Horsepower make weird backwoods gypsy folk, augmenting normal instrumentation with fiddles, accordions and mandolins. Dark and swampy tales, campfire stumps and lugubrious dirge folk crawls. Sound good? Well that's 'cause it is!! A huge AQ favorite. We weren't sure what to expect from Edwards solo record. We certainly weren't expecting it to surpass 16HP in every way, but it did!! Darker and creepier, tales of apocalyptic doom and Biblical salvation rendered in dreary, droney folk, lit by the fire of a bayou campfire. SO SO SO GOOD!!! One of the few records that really moved me. Seriously, like to tears. It's so gorgeous and passionate and sinister and perfect. Yes, PERFECT. So here we are a year later and a new record from the Woven Hand. Blush Music is music composed for a modern dance performance by the Belgian dance troupe Ultima Vez. It's about half re-worked songs from the first record and half new material. At first I was a little disappointed that it was different versions of old songs, until I heard the new versions. GOD!! This record perfectly complements the songs on the first record. One of the highlights from the first record was the cover of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine", a perfectly gut wrenching, tear jerking slow motion valentine to lost love. On Blush Music, "Ain't No Sunshine" reappears as the 12+ minute "Animalitos", with the original stretched out into an entirely new shape, complete with dark, mornful ambient passages, wheezing organs, bombastic percussion, rumbling drones, bird calls, and forest sounds, with the vocals and melody occasionally surfacing only to be immediately overwhelmed by the turbulent soundscape. A couple songs from the first record get this treatment and the results are sublime. The new tracks, while not as immediately catchy as a lot of the tracks on the first record, still capture the same dread and dark hope. A good way to imagine this record in relation to the first, is imagine the first record as the -soundtrack- to an epic biblical southern love story equal parts Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Southern Comfort and All The Pretty Horses. Now imagine that Blush Music is the -score-, all the incidental music, the theme reworked and stretched out to hover emotionally beneath dialogue, or to guide the viewers emotions. I think this record works better if you already own the first one (thankfully the first one was just released domestically), but that isn't to say Blush Music is not a perfect slice of dark and droney, fire and brimstone, forlorn and forgotten, gorgeously damaged, gypsy psych-folk. 'Cause it is!
MPEG Stream: "Cripplegate"
MPEG Stream: "Animalitos (Aint No Sunshine)"
MPEG Stream: "Snake Bite"
MPEG Stream: "Another White Bird"

YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS Colossal Youth (Les Disques du Crepuscule / PIAS America) cd 15.98
Young Marble Giants' true minimal masterpiece, Colossal Youth, receives yet another reissue. Whatta cause for celebration -- this is absolutely essential listening (and Cup and Windy don't use that word lightly, mind you)! This British trio's existence was ever so fleeting, and they only had one proper album, but what a leftfield classic it is. It sounds *totally unique*, like nothing before, and has made a huge impact in the many years since it was originally released in 1980. Seriously -- this is one of those classic albums that not only has influenced tons of musicians (Hole even covered "Credit in the Straight World", but don't hold that against YMG!) but is also great listening in and of itself. It ranks up there with, like, The Velvet's first record, Neu!, the Raincoats, Pere Ubu's Modern Dance, etc etc.
A very hushed, metronome-sounding drum machine ticks out the tireless beat of each song like a friendly clock, and its neutral tone is also reflected in Alison Statton's girlish, earnest, not always pitch-perfect vocals as well as in the muted string strum of Stuart Moxham's electric guitar. Spartan, angular strikes from the same guitar punctuate this steady atmosphere as a frail organ does its wheezing, bleeting melodic best and Philip Moxham's rubbery bass line hesitantly bends and bounds. Minimal and no-frills, yes, but somehow there's so much more going on, and so much more expressed than its quietness belies. The songs are tiny and simple and total perfection. Powerful and totally f**king timeless and yes, very highly recommended.
(We believe this just might be the fourth edition. In the past, each time it's been pressed the track listing has increased, but not so with this Play It Again Sam America pressing. The song count remains at twenty five. Might be that there simply aren't any more recordings left in the vault to plunder. Not that we're complaining, we just wish a label would once and for all release it and be able to keep it available forever and ever and ever! Hopefully PIAS America is that label. Heck, we're truly fortunate to have as much YMG music as we do!)
MPEG Stream: "Brand New Life"
MPEG Stream: "Searching for Mr. Right"
MPEG Stream: "Wurlitzer Jukebox"

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Happy Holidays -- Allan Byram Jim Cup and Andee