GAS Nah Und Fern (Kompakt) 4cd 34.00
Not sure where to even start with this one. Everyone here at aQ, heck almost everyone we know loves Gas, the blissed out minimal ambient techno project of Mr. Wolfgang Voigt. But don't let the word 'techno' scare you off, as the music of Gas can easily win over the most ardent techno-phobes. The techno element in the sound of Gas is only a tiny part of Voigt's magical soundworld, often just a shadow, a distant heartbeat like pulse, sometimes more pronounced, but usually just a murky throb or a rhythmic murmur, the music of Gas is Gauzy and shimmery, blurred and softly buzzy, it's like an even more dreamlike Oval, or perhaps Porter Ricks crossed with Labradford, or Tim Hecker recording a record for Chain Reaction. When we talk about Kompakt's Pop Ambient sound, Gas is the template, that which we measure all other 'pop ambience' by. The sound is at once ethereal and intimate, haunting and mysterious, lush and expansive, the beatless tracks drift endlessly, each a divine blur of soft chordal whir and looped effervescence, the more beat heavy tracks, retain that same washed out otherworldliness, but manage to infuse them with a subtle, barely-there groove, sometimes adding gritty crackle, or subtle dubbed out delay, but always sounding light and airy, weightless and darkly blissful. We once described Gas as sounding like being adrift in a sea of electronics, in a fog so deep, the pulsating beats that would guide you back to shore are murky at best, muffled by distance and the unending push of the droning wind. And we're not sure if we could describe it better. But we'll try.
Nah Und Fern collects all four Gas albums, all of which have been out of print for ages: Gas, Zauberberg, Konigforst and Pop. And when we were first preparing to review this set, we were all ready to describe Gas' sonic arc, from the more overtly techno debut, to the much more ambient and ethereal final album. But on returning to the s/t debut, we discovered that the sound of Gas changed very little over the course of 4 albums, instead, each is like a movement in a massive symphony of gloriously murky minimalism.
The self titled debut deftly balances pure ambience with some of the most propulsive Gas tracks, including a 14 minute epic that seems to be assembled from a Chariots Of Fire loop, but in the hands of Voigt, it's transformed into something otherworldly. It is techno, but not for dancing, for many of us Gas serves the same purpose as dronemusic, sounds to lull you to sleep, to allow you to drift off, to disengage and let your mind float freely, led by your ears, entranced as they are by the beautiful shimmer and motorik soft focus propulsion of Gas.
As much as we love all of these records, the two middle records Zauberberg and Konigforst make up the heart of this Gas box. Both luminous and exuberant, yet subdued and melancholic. Sedate technotic pulses beneath wind swept drones, expansive orchestral sprawls burnished to an exquisite golden luster. Voigt's subtle dub techniques on these two discs coax the polytonal swells of deep sustained horns into lush rhythmic repetitions. These are heroic if gloomy electronica epics, realizing a fantasy fusion of Wagner's teutonic vigor and a disembodied dancefloor drone.
The final disc, Pop, is in fact the poppiest, or so we always believed, but in context with the other three discs, we are once again surprised by how consistent the Gas sound remained, while still managing to subtly expand on the sound Voigt virtually created and perfected over the course of the first three full lengths. Much like the original cover art, Pop is the metaphorical sound of the intrusion of the forest onto the dance floor, with all of its mysteries, mythologies, and wonders being ordered by the insistency of Voigt's monophunk beats. Where the earlier works were dark haunts wherein deep fluid ambience topped the nonstop pulsating rhythms, Pop is a shimmering sunfilled excursion that is mostly beatless, forming its structures out of repetitive sequences of trilling ambience swelling in and out of each other within Voigt's surreal soundworld of hypnodub washes. The lost beat resurfaces finally on the last track which is a beautiful looped repetition of the previous ambient modulations, but subtly and gracefully merged with a muted, insistent underwater dancefloor throb. Breathtaking.
A modern minimalist electronic masterpiece, four stunning parts of one majestic whole, finally united into one magnum opus, spanning years, yet sounding to our ears, utterly timeless.
Each disc is packaged in a full color sleeve, along with four inserts, all adorned with blue and green tinted forestscapes, and all housed in a gorgeous matte finished cardboard box, also adorned with a similar image, and the letters G A S embossed across the top of the box.
MPEG Stream: "Gas 2"
MPEG Stream: "Zauberberg 2"
MPEG Stream: "Konigforst - Eins"
MPEG Stream: "Pop 1"

GAS Nah Und Fern (Kompakt) 2lp 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not sure where to even start with this one. Everyone here at aQ, heck almost everyone we know loves Gas, the blissed out minimal ambient techno project of Mr. Wolfgang Voigt. But don't let the word 'techno' scare you off, as the music of Gas can easily win over the most ardent techno-phobes. The techno element in the sound of Gas is only a tiny part of Voigt's magical soundworld, often just a shadow, a distant heartbeat like pulse, sometimes more pronounced, but usually just a murky throb or a rhythmic murmur, the music of Gas is Gauzy and shimmery, blurred and softly buzzy, it's like an even more dreamlike Oval, or perhaps Porter Ricks crossed with Labradford, or Tim Hecker recording a record for Chain Reaction. When we talk about Kompakt's Pop Ambient sound, Gas is the template, that which we measure all other 'pop ambience' by. The sound is at once ethereal and intimate, haunting and mysterious, lush and expansive, the beatless tracks drift endlessly, each a divine blur of soft chordal whir and looped effervescence, the more beat heavy tracks, retain that same washed out otherworldliness, but manage to infuse them with a subtle, barely-there groove, sometimes adding gritty crackle, or subtle dubbed out delay, but always sounding light and airy, weightless and darkly blissful. We once described Gas as sounding like being adrift in a sea of electronics, in a fog so deep, the pulsating beats that would guide you back to shore are murky at best, muffled by distance and the unending push of the droning wind. And we're not sure if we could describe it better. But we'll try.
Nah Und Fern collects all four Gas albums, all of which have been out of print for ages: Gas, Zauberberg, Konigforst and Pop. And when we were first preparing to review this set, we were all ready to describe Gas' sonic arc, from the more overtly techno debut, to the much more ambient and ethereal final album. But on returning to the s/t debut, we discovered that the sound of Gas changed very little over the course of 4 albums, instead, each is like a movement in a massive symphony of gloriously murky minimalism.
The self titled debut deftly balances pure ambience with some of the most propulsive Gas tracks, including a 14 minute epic that seems to b assembled from a Chariots Of Fire loop, but in the hands of Voigt, it's transformed into something otherworldly. It is techno, but not for dancing, for many of us Gas serves the same purpose as dronemusic, sounds to lull you to sleep, to allow you to drift off, to disengage and let your mind float freely, led by your ears, entranced as they are by the beautiful shimmer and motorik soft focus propulsion of Gas.
As much as we love all of these records, the two middle records Zauberberg and Konigforst make up the heart of this Gas box. Both luminous and exuberant, yet subdued and melancholic. Sedate technotic pulses beneath wind swept drones, expansive orchestral sprawls burnished to an exquisite golden luster. Voigt's subtle dub techniques on these two discs coax the polytonal swells of deep sustained horns into lush rhythmic repetitions. These are heroic if gloomy electronica epics, realizing a fantasy fusion of Wagner's teutonic vigor and a disembodied dancefloor drone.
The final disc, Pop, is in fact the poppiest, or so we always believed, but in context with the other three discs, we are once again surprised by how consistent the Gas sound remained, while still managing to subtly expand on the sound Voigt virtually created and perfected over the course of the first three full lengths. Much like the original cover art, Pop is the metaphorical sound of the intrusion of the forest onto the dance floor, with all of its mysteries, mythologies, and wonders being ordered by the insistency of Voigt's monophunk beats. Where the earlier works were dark haunts wherein deep fluid ambience topped the nonstop pulsating rhythms, Pop is a shimmering sunfilled excursion that is mostly beatless, forming its structures out of repetitive sequences of trilling ambience swelling in and out of each other within Voigt's surreal soundworld of hypnodub washes. The lost beat resurfaces finally on the last track which is a beautiful looped repetition of the previous ambient modulations, but subtly and gracefully merged with a muted, insistent underwater dancefloor throb. Breathtaking.
A modern minimalist electronic masterpiece, four stunning parts of one majestic whole, finally united into one magnum opus, spanning years, yet sounding to our ears, utterly timeless.
The vinyl version of the Gas box, is not in fact at all the same as the cd set, instead, it features only one track from each album, but extended to fill one of the four sides. So it's basically four extended mixes, one from each of the discs in the box. And, unfortunately, we have less than 10 copies, and that's all we'll ever have, so once these are gone, we will NOT be able to get more.
MPEG Stream: "Gas 2"
MPEG Stream: "Zauberberg 2"
MPEG Stream: "Konigforst - Eins"
MPEG Stream: "Pop 1"

HARVEY MILK Life... The Best Game In Town (Daymare) 2cd 31.00
It's weird to think that there was a time when it was practically impossible to get a Harvey Milk record. We spent ages trying to track down any information about these guys, looking for their Courtesy And Good Will lp, trying to decipher the mystery of the My Love Is Higher album cover. A random sequence of events led to Andee reissuing Courtesy on tUMULt, which was later snapped up by Relapse. And after that, things started to snowball, singles collections, reissues, and lo and behold a new album, the band back together again, and touring! Finally taking their rightful place at the head of the heavy rock table where they always belonged. Only now, they're the elder statesmen instead of the young upstarts. But hell, they still sound way heavier and more alive than any of the current crop of heavies. And this brand new disc just seals the deal.
And as if the band weren't heavy enough, they've added Mr. Joe Preston (Thrones/Melvins/Earth/High On Fire/etc.) to the group. And the results are pretty stellar. Not only do the band still crush and destroy (they couldn't really get any heavier, could they?) but they're even more melodic. In some strange twist, they seem to have melded the classic rock tendencies of Pleaser era Milk, with the infuriatingly and brilliantly repetitive dirge of Courtesy, creating something both epic and catchy, hooky and heavy, and insanely obtuse and difficult.
The opening track begins with Creston singing in a delicate falsetto, over simple strummed guitar, and then the bomb drops, and the band explode into some post-Melvins, post-Killdozer dirgey crawl, but even at their most sludgiest, they still manage to sound incredible. It's like some pop band got flayed alive and shoved in a bubbling tar pit. Only to emerge a stumbling lurching dripping beast. Epic grinding riffage and classic rock leads give way to an extended chugscape, over and over and over, the vocals suddenly sounding all Gibby-like, the guitar so distorted it crumbles and falls like sodden chunks through the grill of your speaker, until the very end when the vocals transform into a line from the Beatles' "A Day In The Life", and then they finish off with their own version of -that- famous chord. What the fuck?
The next track begins all Led Zep, huge booming drums, until in swings the riff, and vocalist Creston Spiers wounded howl. Then there's "After All I've Done For You" a super dense tangled riffscape that recalls Don Caballero or Bastro, with it's furious mathiness, but it is Harvey Milk, so it of course mutates into a slow motion doomdirge complete with fucked up backwards production.
Our favorite track might be "Motown", with it's soaring melody, and super hooky main riff. A total pop classic albeit one bathed in guitar crunch, and delivered in a feral croon. Some killer leads seal the deal, and some almost Eagles like guitar harmonies. Then there's "Roses", which begins all gentle piano, and guitar harmonics, and Creston's plaintive warble, before slipping into something a little sludgier and sloooooooooooow. Very Courtesy sounding for sure. Near the end, "Barn Burner explodes into another frenzy of mathy riffage, proving again that HM are not a slow motion one trick pony. But it's not just a riff fest, there are some gorgeous harmonies, and some amazing guitar playing going on.
Finally the band finish off with a bang. The nearly nine minute "Good Bye Blues", an impossible slow trudge, peppered with little jagged chunks of riff, plenty of space, stop start weirdness, an almost classic rock sounding bridge, all tangled soaring leads and manic drumming, only to slip back into epic dirgery, and finishing off with a goofy little burst of 'Milked polka and a big Gong Show goooooong. Irreverent, goofy, funny, but somehow still deadly serious, musically merciless, creating epic skull crushing doomscapes one second, whispered balladry the next, and fucked up mathy what-the-fuck the very next, and thus remaining still, without a doubt, one of the best bands in the world.
This is the fancy Japanese double disc edition, which is the only one we're carrying right now, since we figured that most folks into Harvey Milk are WAY into Harvey Milk, and wouldn't mind paying a little extra for a whole extra disc, not to mention some fancy Japanese gatefold packaging. If you really want the cheaper domestic single disc version, just ask, we can order it for you, but heck? Why would you. Who can argue with MORE Harvey Milk? Not us. SO here we have a whole second disc of MORE. Basically, it's the whole record, in demo form, which means, that it's instrumental, and that the arrangements and recordings are dramatically different. Some songs are truncated, others are way stretched out, some changed dramatically between the demo and the album, some remained almost the same, but in both cases, these versions are fantastic. And you know it's something when a band's demos sound better than most other band's actual albums. But as if that weren't enough, there's also an unreleased Leonard Cohen cover! "Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" And HM fans will remember what these guys can do with a Cohen track, as is evidenced by "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong" on Courtesy. This one is similar, not quite as anguished, but close, dark and strangely haunting, Creston's vocals more retrained, but still raw and raspy and deep, over a simple strummed guitar, a mournful lament, which in true HM fashion finishes off with some retarded super effected riffing that sort of grinds and noodles until a computer voice intones "This cellphone is a piece of shit."
How can you not love Harvey Milk?! You can't. You just can't. So buy this. It's probably the best record you'll buy this year, and for lots of you, it will immediately become the best record you own. All hail the Milk!
As mentioned above, this comes in a super swank full color Japanese style mini gatefold, with an obi, and multiple printed inserts, track listing, a bunch of Japanese text, and lyrics in English!
MPEG Stream: "Death Goes To The Winner"
MPEG Stream: "Decades"
MPEG Stream: "Skull Socks & Rope Shoes"
MPEG Stream: "Motown"

ALICE COOPER Pretties For You (Rhino Encore) cd 13.98
Ok, we know what you're thinking (maybe). Alice Cooper? Aquarius Record(s) Of The Week? Two of 'em?? If you're not familiar with these albums, you might be wondering... and while we know that many loyal AQ customers are of course extremely knowledgeable about all sorts of cool music, just as much or more so than any of us who work here, we also wouldn't be surprised if more than a few of you had never been exposed to these first two Alice Cooper albums before. Which is why we HAVE to list them and make them Records Of The Week!! After being out of print for far too long, they've now been newly reissued on cd (in limited editions, see below for more about that), and we're excited to be able to tell you about 'em.
So, when most people think of Alice Cooper, what comes to mind? The big '70s shock rock act, up there with KISS, the guy who was the Marilyn Manson of the '70s, or maybe the regular on Hollywood Squares, or even the early '90s hairmetal Alice, of Wayne's World "we're not worthy" fame. Campy and kitschy and scholocky and alcoholic, with snakes and blood. All good things of course. But even if you are a fan of the Alice Cooper classics from the '70s, albums like Love It To Death, Killer and Billion Dollar Babies, the Alice Cooper Band's 1969 debut Pretties For You and its 1970 follow up Easy Action are often overlooked, and underrated. Originally released on Frank Zappa's Straight label (and whatever you might think of Frank Zappa, he had a good track record for releasing freaky music by other folks, Captain Beefheart ferinstance!) this early Alice Cooper stuff is NOT the heavy metal hard rock you might be expecting. That was a direction AC went in really only after moving from LA to Detroit and hooking up with producer Bob Ezrin. There's hints of heaviness, of course, but this is waaay more psychedelic and poppy and proggy. And weird. If you think you know what to expect, think again. You're in for a bizarre treat indeed. (Some Alice Cooper fans might not agree, but we hope most open minded AQ customers will!)
The front cover of Pretties For You has a painting that make it look like a Robert Wyatt record. And on the back cover, the band, posing in a gallery of strange modern sculptures, show off a visual style that makes 'em look something like a cross between Blue Cheer and Roxy Music. Intrigued? Throw the album on, and you're confronted with the first of this album's many non-sequiturs, the orchestral fanfare of "Titanic Overture", which segues into the why-be-normal, twisty-turny psych piece "10 Minutes Before The Worm" (actually only 1 minute, 40 seconds long). They weren't trying to ease anybody into their "thing" it seems. Better yet is track three, "Swing Low Sweet Cheerio", the album's first true pop gem, and still plenty weird. And that's what this is, a pop album, full of great pop songs, super Beatlesy, hummable stuff. But it's Beatlesy in a tripped out Sgt. Peppers way. And wait a second, Pretties For You? The Pretty Things' "SF Sorrow" might also have been an influence. There's a lot of quirky dynamics, theatrical art rock gestures, cryptic humor, wild psychedelic effects, screaming fuzz guitar, strange stops and starts... it can be off-putting at first, probably difficult listening for some, with as much in common with Amon Duul II or even Olivia Tremor Control as they do with Alice Cooper's later million-sellers. But, you like '60s garage psych right? Well early AC were really a Nuggetsy garage band (originally called The Earwigs, then The Spiders, and then The Nazz, finally settling on Alice Cooper following a legendary Ouija board session). Doing their thing on the Sunset Strip in LA, they gradually got nuttier and nuttier, more psychedelic and experimental. If AC hadn't gone on to such later success, we're certain this would be regarded by psych lovers as an obscure cult classic of late '60s freakdom, like 50 Foot Hose or West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band or something. Instead, it's the record that probably confuses average Alice Cooper fans, and isn't heard by anybody else, which we think is a shame...
Alice Cooper's swaggering second effort, Easy Action, is just a bit more straightforward, more of a "rock" album, proto-glam in fact, AC maybe trying to take on T-Rex? On it, with some wicked lyrics, Alice starts to develop his better known, "mentally ill" or "evil" sick humor persona, in a wittier way though than the cartoonishness that later took over in later years. His ever-so-slightly-raspy, steeped-in-decadence voice, of course, always had star power from the very beginning, but here he occasionally breaks out a snarl that never surfaced on Pretties, amidst more melodic crooning. And one of the tracks, the spasmodic tour de force "Still No Air", foreshadows Alice Cooper's later West Side Story obsession on School's Out.
And Easy Action proves to be still pretty darn trippy and weird, with plenty of progtastic twists, just like Pretties. Heck, "Lay Down And Die, Goodbye" is 7+ minutes of pretty much just sound FX laced freakishness. This album boasts several more glorious psychedelic pop gems like "Laughing At Me", the piano ballad "Beautiful Flyaway", and the very Beatlesy "Shoe Salesman", alongside the harder rockin' likes of "Return Of The Spiders"... Oooh so many good tunes. Compared to the debut, it's perhaps a more confident, slightly less confusional record, that set them up for major label success of their next album, another huge favorite of ours, Love It To Death, recorded with Ezrin after their relocation to Detroit - a move that made sense, considering they did have a lot in sonically common with The Amboy Dukes and even the MC5. You'll also hear parallels to very early Blue Oyster Cult and David Bowie... And (moreso on Pretties) an American version of Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett era mind you...) or even a more obtuse The Doors...
While Alice Cooper (both the man and the band) made a lot of classic music in their career(s), no other Alice Cooper records were ever quite as arty and bizarre, with the unique one foot in the psychedelic sixties mix of throbbing manic energy and melancholic moodiness that's found on Pretties For You and Easy Action. Are we going out on limb by making 'em Records Of The Week? Nope, what could be more AQ?? These have been favorites here for a long time, but rarely available. And Jim and Allan bonded over these back when they both first started working here years ago. Also, we know the guys in Harvey Milk will have to be stoked to find that their new album got ROTW honors alongside these two!
And by the way, we insist on filing these under A, not C. It's the Alice Cooper Band dammit. Alice himself didn't go solo 'til Welcome To My Nightmare in 1975. The original act, featuring guitarists Glen Buxton and Mike Bruce, bassist Denis Dunaway, and drummer Neil Smith, alongside the former Vincent Furnier on vocals and snake handling, deserves their due! One of the great American rock bands.
One final note: these reissues on this new Rhino "Encore" imprint are based around the (dumb) idea of doing releases that are only available for a limited time. It's like the way Disney puts out DVDs. So, all the more reason for us to shout from the rooftops about these two albums -- in six months, according to the label, these reissues will be out of print, again!! Argh. So get 'em while you can, if you don't already have them in your collection!! And buy a copy for a friend!
MPEG Stream: "Swing Low, Sweet Cheerio"
MPEG Stream: "Fields Of Regret"
MPEG Stream: "No Longer Umpire"

ALICE COOPER Easy Action (Rhino Encore) cd 13.98
Ok, we know what you're thinking (maybe). Alice Cooper? Aquarius Record(s) Of The Week? Two of 'em?? If you're not familiar with these albums, you might be wondering... and while we know that many loyal AQ customers are of course extremely knowledgeable about all sorts of cool music, just as much or more so than any of us who work here, we also wouldn't be surprised if more than a few of you had never been exposed to these first two Alice Cooper albums before. Which is why we HAVE to list them and make them Records Of The Week!! After being out of print for far too long, they've now been newly reissued on cd (in limited editions, see below for more about that), and we're excited to be able to tell you about 'em.
So, when most people think of Alice Cooper, what comes to mind? The big '70s shock rock act, up there with KISS, the guy who was the Marilyn Manson of the '70s, or maybe the regular on Hollywood Squares, or even the early '90s hairmetal Alice, of Wayne's World "we're not worthy" fame. Campy and kitschy and scholocky and alcoholic, with snakes and blood. All good things of course. But even if you are a fan of the Alice Cooper classics from the '70s, albums like Love It To Death, Killer and Billion Dollar Babies, the Alice Cooper Band's 1969 debut Pretties For You and its 1970 follow up Easy Action are often overlooked, and underrated. Originally released on Frank Zappa's Straight label (and whatever you might think of Frank Zappa, he had a good track record for releasing freaky music by other folks, Captain Beefheart ferinstance!) this early Alice Cooper stuff is NOT the heavy metal hard rock you might be expecting. That was a direction AC went in really only after moving from LA to Detroit and hooking up with producer Bob Ezrin. There's hints of heaviness, of course, but this is waaay more psychedelic and poppy and proggy. And weird. If you think you know what to expect, think again. You're in for a bizarre treat indeed. (Some Alice Cooper fans might not agree, but we hope most open minded AQ customers will!)
The front cover of Pretties For You has a painting that make it look like a Robert Wyatt record. And on the back cover, the band, posing in a gallery of strange modern sculptures, show off a visual style that makes 'em look something like a cross between Blue Cheer and Roxy Music. Intrigued? Throw the album on, and you're confronted with the first of this album's many non-sequiturs, the orchestral fanfare of "Titanic Overture", which segues into the why-be-normal, twisty-turny psych piece "10 Minutes Before The Worm" (actually only 1 minute, 40 seconds long). They weren't trying to ease anybody into their "thing" it seems. Better yet is track three, "Swing Low Sweet Cheerio", the album's first true pop gem, and still plenty weird. And that's what this is, a pop album, full of great pop songs, super Beatlesy, hummable stuff. But it's Beatlesy in a tripped out Sgt. Peppers way. And wait a second, Pretties For You? The Pretty Things' "SF Sorrow" might also have been an influence. There's a lot of quirky dynamics, theatrical art rock gestures, cryptic humor, wild psychedelic effects, screaming fuzz guitar, strange stops and starts... it can be off-putting at first, probably difficult listening for some, with as much in common with Amon Duul II or even Olivia Tremor Control as they do with Alice Cooper's later million-sellers. But, you like '60s garage psych right? Well early AC were really a Nuggetsy garage band (originally called The Earwigs, then The Spiders, and then The Nazz, finally settling on Alice Cooper following a legendary Ouija board session). Doing their thing on the Sunset Strip in LA, they gradually got nuttier and nuttier, more psychedelic and experimental. If AC hadn't gone on to such later success, we're certain this would be regarded by psych lovers as an obscure cult classic of late '60s freakdom, like 50 Foot Hose or West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band or something. Instead, it's the record that probably confuses average Alice Cooper fans, and isn't heard by anybody else, which we think is a shame...
Alice Cooper's swaggering second effort, Easy Action, is just a bit more straightforward, more of a "rock" album, proto-glam in fact, AC maybe trying to take on T-Rex? On it, with some wicked lyrics, Alice starts to develop his better known, "mentally ill" or "evil" sick humor persona, in a wittier way though than the cartoonishness that later took over in later years. His ever-so-slightly-raspy, steeped-in-decadence voice, of course, always had star power from the very beginning, but here he occasionally breaks out a snarl that never surfaced on Pretties, amidst more melodic crooning. And one of the tracks, the spasmodic tour de force "Still No Air", foreshadows Alice Cooper's later West Side Story obsession on School's Out.
And Easy Action proves to be still pretty darn trippy and weird, with plenty of progtastic twists, just like Pretties. Heck, "Lay Down And Die, Goodbye" is 7+ minutes of pretty much just sound FX laced freakishness. This album boasts several more glorious psychedelic pop gems like "Laughing At Me", the piano ballad "Beautiful Flyaway", and the very Beatlesy "Shoe Salesman", alongside the harder rockin' likes of "Return Of The Spiders"... Oooh so many good tunes. Compared to the debut, it's perhaps a more confident, slightly less confusional record, that set them up for major label success of their next album, another huge favorite of ours, Love It To Death, recorded with Ezrin after their relocation to Detroit - a move that made sense, considering they did have a lot in sonically common with The Amboy Dukes and even the MC5. You'll also hear parallels to very early Blue Oyster Cult and David Bowie... And (moreso on Pretties) an American version of Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett era mind you...) or even a more obtuse The Doors...
While Alice Cooper (both the man and the band) made a lot of classic music in their career(s), no other Alice Cooper records were ever quite as arty and bizarre, with the unique one foot in the psychedelic sixties mix of throbbing manic energy and melancholic moodiness that's found on Pretties For You and Easy Action. Are we going out on limb by making 'em Records Of The Week? Nope, what could be more AQ?? These have been favorites here for a long time, but rarely available. And Jim and Allan bonded over these back when they both first started working here years ago. Also, we know the guys in Harvey Milk will have to be stoked to find that their new album got ROTW honors alongside these two!
And by the way, we insist on filing these under A, not C. It's the Alice Cooper Band dammit. Alice himself didn't go solo 'til Welcome To My Nightmare in 1975. The original act, featuring guitarists Glen Buxton and Mike Bruce, bassist Denis Dunaway, and drummer Neil Smith, alongside the former Vincent Furnier on vocals and snake handling, deserves their due! One of the great American rock bands.
One final note: these reissues on this new Rhino "Encore" imprint are based around the (dumb) idea of doing releases that are only available for a limited time. It's like the way Disney puts out DVDs. So, all the more reason for us to shout from the rooftops about these two albums -- in six months, according to the label, these reissues will be out of print, again!! Argh. So get 'em while you can, if you don't already have them in your collection!! And buy a copy for a friend!
MPEG Stream: "Mr. & Misdeameanor"
MPEG Stream: "Refrigerator Heaven"
MPEG Stream: "Laughing At Me"

----*
----* New On tUMULt :
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VARGHKOGHARGASMAL Drowned In Lakes (tUMULt) cd 13.98
Varghkoghargasmal. When we first discovered this German one man band, it was via a cassette, with a black and white photocopied cover, a washed out image of some wintry forest landscape, accompanied by the legend 'wooden metal'. Needless to say we were totally intrigued, only to discover, that there wasn't anything really that metal about it, or wooden even. Not sure if 'wooden' referred to the trees, or to acoustic guitars, but none of that mattered once we head the music inside. A twisted confusional mix of slowed down Dick Dale style surf riffage, stumbling drums, haunting melodies, warbly organs, all wrapped around a simple motorik almost krautrock groove. We had no idea what to call it, or really even what to think, other than being totally smitten, transfixed and ensorcelled. Definitely ensorcelled.
So here we have the brand new album from Avenger, the man solely responsible for Varghkoghargasmal, and if anything, it's even more haunting and mysterious, more creepy and strange, and somehow way more beautiful.
It's a difficult sound to explain, the guitars are clean, but are often still playing in a black metal style, frantic riffing or rapid picking, but just as often the guitars are spidery and minor key, unfurling lugubrious tendrils of creepy twang, or reverbed shimmer. The vocals are minimal, a hushed whisper here and there, a Viking style chant during one song, but it's mostly left to the music, which is incredibly evocative, it's like some sort of acoustic black metal, mixed with slowed down surf rock, dark languorous krautrock, and a distinct Morricone vibe as well. And then there are the drums, which by design or by happenstance, are a definite sonic focal point, as they are WAY up in the mix, and they are all over the place, the fills are chaotic, the rhythms stumble and stutter, but in their imperfections lie a truly unique sort of emotion and feeling not found in most music. The drums anchor everything, locking into foresty krautrock grooves, sputtering into dense little tumbling squalls, the prefect framework for Avenger's rickety moonlit jams.
Most of the songs creep and crawl, sometimes behind a curtain of rainfall, the sound of the forest spirits, flickering firelight, fireflies lighting up the canopy overhead, pianos pick out mournful melodies, the drums, lurching along, a perfectly imperfect accompaniment, organs wheeze, synths whir, steel strings twang, the whole thing so impossibly transcendent, effortlessly evoking ancient atmospheres and deep emotions. When the band lock into a more rocking groove, and the rhythm builds into something propulsive, the guitars stretch out into long streaks of buzzing melodies, the organ plays along like some old time music box, and the sound transforms before your ears and transports you to some truly mysterious otherworld.
There are some black metal references for sure, mostly the ambient bits of Burzum, and some of the riffing recalls suicidal black metal, albeit played with no distortion and more melancholy really than miserable, some of the more frenzied parts even sound like Iron Maiden played on acoustic guitars, and sometimes the guitars manage to sound like banjos, but still the creepiest and prettiest moments occur when the sound winds down into something much more minimal and muted, letting the keyboards weave fluttery melodies, over whirring drones and spare guitar melodies, only occasionally flecked with little flurries of haphazard drumming.
One of the few records that we can unequivocally describe as being utterly unlike anything else you will ever hear! Hauntingly beautiful, beautifully bizarre, and WAY WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Autumn Rain"
MPEG Stream: "Far Away From The Earth..."
MPEG Stream: "...Near The Stars"
MPEG Stream: "Listen To The Wind"

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ASTRAL SOCIAL CLUB Monster Mittens (Dirty Knobby) 7" 5.98
It seems the transformation is finally complete. Astral Social Club began life as a logical sonic extension of the mothership that birthed in, Vibracathedral Orchestra. But lately, Mr. ASC aka Neil Campbell, has been dabbling in sounds more suited to the dancefloor. Just a track here and there, but with this new single, hot on the heels of a recent sonically similar 7"/cd-r, it seems that the new Astral Social Club is indeed making music for THE CLUB.
Not that it's not still noisy and tripped out and bizarre and space-y, it most certainly is, but now you can dance to it. Or at least nod subtly, or just sort of sway back and forth. The point is there's a beat, and the beat makes it sort of funky in some alien psychedelic way, and we LOVE it.
The A side features the above mentioned beat, it's propulsive and sort of house-y, pulsing away beneath a cloud of swirling FX, strange percussion, stuttery loops, it's all very chaotic and free, druggy and far our, but that rhythm keeps in grounded. Music for some video game danceparty on an alien planet, or some seriously drug addled fucked up underground rave held in a cave a mile below the surface of the earth. Either way, it's excellent.
The flipside is like the chill out version of the A side, still looped and hypnotic, but that thud that defines the beat is replaced with a synthy squelch, all around it sounds streak and blur and shimmer, everything sort of bleary eyed and indistinct, like the wind down 3 am chill out after party at the end of the universe.
Now that Campbell has found his groove, we're dying for a full length, which will undoubtedly be the freaked out fucked up drug fueled underground alien danceparty record of the year!

BALDWIN, MATT Paths Of Ignition (American Dust) cd 14.98
We love our modern Appalachia, tangled steel strings, gorgeous sprawling avant bluegrass, Fahey, Jack Rose, James Blackshaw, Ilyas Ahmed, it's a crowded field, but all the key players manage to create something much more special than just a Fahey rehash. Sure there are tons of folks out there with a guitar, a heavily worn copy of Death Chants, and not an original musical idea in their head, but there are the few, like the above folks mentioned, who took that sound, and were inspired to create their own soundworlds. You can add Matt Baldwin to that list.
It's a little hard to put a finger on what exactly makes Baldwin's sound so special, it could be more of a focus on classic melody, than on pick and strum, the opening track on Paths Of Ignition darkly unfurls into a warm whirring pastoral guitarscape, lots of major key melodies, unlikely harmonies, strange bits of slippery slide, and plenty of electric guitar buzz, some soaring growling leads, all woven into some haunting raga infused psychedelic space folk. The whole track is laced with tangles of wild almost-shredding guitar, deep resonant drones, swirling little melodic flourishes, it all transforms -his- take on Appalachia into something much more tripped out, psych rock and almost poppy in its prettiness.
The rest of the disc hews a little closer to the neo-Appalachia party line, but even then, his tracks slither and buzz, lots of haunting guitar rumble, intricate finger picking, delicate melodies, dreamy and drifty, mysterious and timeless. Except the one cover, the song that actually got us interested in Baldwin in the first place. It's only 4 minutes long, but it's a killer. Baldwin takes on Judas Priest's "Winter" and nails it. The main riff of the original sounds perfect on a steel string, brooding and ominous, beneath that guitar deep swells of buzzing guitardrone pulses and throbs, and the vocals, Baldwin does a pretty excellent Halford, a reverb drenched high pitched croon, complete with vibrato and little trills, the track finishes off with some killer lead guitar, sprawled over that gorgeous languorous main riff, that seems to slither and drift on forever.
Any one into the current crop of modern Appalachian / neo-folk / whatever-you-call-it guitar music will definitely dig this, and while it's worth it for the Priest cover alone, the whole record is pretty fantastic. Now it's up to Blackshaw to cover some old Scorpions, or Rose to take on a classic UFO or Uriah Heep track, so if either of you guys is reading this...
MPEG Stream: "Winter"
MPEG Stream: "Weissensee"

CLUSTER Berlin 07 (Important) cd 14.98
Goin' a little Cluster crazy over here. This list we've got two archival Kluster releases, and this brand new Cluster disc. We've also got our memories of the Cluster duo Moebius and Roedelius playing here at Aquarius last month, which was amazing! If you don't know who or what we're talking about, please look to some of our other Cluster reviews elsewhere on our website for more information about this fantastic band of German electronic music innovators, who still kick ass (in their relatively calm, quiet, and well-crafted manner).
Cluster fans who missed their recent shows (in NYC, Chicago, LA, Big Sur, Santa Cruz, and SF) can get some kind of idea of what it was like from this live recording, documenting their historic "reunion" show in Berlin last year. Not only was it the concert that brought Cluster together again after about a decade-long hiatus, it was also the first time they'd performed live in Berlin since 1969! While this isn't exactly the set they were playing on tour in the States (it can't be, since they do different stuff every night, always creatively improvising), it'll give you an idea...
This disc is broken into two long tracks, textural soundscapes full of ambient shimmer, gently oscillating melody, mysterious noises, soothing drones, and occasional beats that sound sampled from a mad scientist's laboratory... or, it sounds like you're on some sort of twilight safari in an electronic jungle... definitely demonstrating the debt that the likes of Aphex Twin owe to electronica originals Cluster! And while this won't supplant their '70s classics like Zuckerzeit and Soweisoso in your collection, nor does it tarnish their legacy in any way.
Someone had told us that they now used laptop computers, which bummed us out just a bit... well turns out that's absolutely not true! Cluster had all kinds of gear, both digital and analog, but NO laptops, and Moebius jokingly told us that he'd probably be too dumb to figure out how to use one (doubtful). On this recording, both M & R are simply credited with playing synthesizers and "objects" though we bet there's techie nerds out there that would like to know more... And finally, in case you're worried we're just a bit too Cluster crazy, this disc also passed the "didn't have any idea what was playing in the front of the store and came out of the office just to find out 'cause it sounded so weird and interesting" test!
MPEG Stream: "1 "
MPEG Stream: "2"

CORRUPTED Nadie (Throne) 12" 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of the very first releases from thee rulers of downtuned heaviness, of doomy sludge, Japan's Corrupted. Most of the folks reading this list are pretty well familiar with Corrupted, whose records rank among all our all time favorites, sludge or otherwise. We recently listed the rerecording of the group's debut album Paso Inferior, now we have a vinyl reissue of one of their very first recordings, the Nadie ep, originally releases way back in 1995! It's been remastered, has all new artwork legendary Japanese photographer Kyotaka Tsurisaki, it comes in a super deluxe gatefold sleeves, and comes with a big poster on nice thick paper, and beyond all that, it is three tracks of the heaviest, most crushingly beautiful music you'll ever hear.
Years before doom and sludge and drone was a viable musical direction, Corrupted were one of the few bands in the underground carving their own doomy slow motion path. Back in the day, they played with and toured with and shared splits with punk and grind bands, as while they may have not shared a sound, they shared an aesthetic and a DIY ethic. And even 12 years ago, Corrupted were already turning pounding drums, massive downtuned riffage and howled vocals (in Spanish of course) into something almost symphonic, majestic, epic, beautiful, while remaining punishing and brutal and heavy.
Nadie is three tracks, 45pm, two shorter tracks that pound and pummel, a third sidelong track that hints at the droniness that would infuse their later recordings, with sheets of Eyehategod-like feedback, long drawn out chords, gorgeous and trancelike, as amazing now as it was more than a decade ago, and this record definitely casts lots of the wannabe doomdronedirge outfits as unworthy to even lug Corrupted's gear around.
This is not just drone and sludge for drone and sludge's sake, these are SONGS, perfectly arranged, parts woven into other parts, melodies, and harmonies, it's incredible complex, which is why the music of Corrupted resonates, and continues to move well beyond the boundaries of the genre they find themselves defining.
The is, needless to say, totally essential. The bad news is that it is LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES! And is already out of print. We got a BUNCH, but judging from how quickly the last limited Corrupted record disappeared, these are bound to be gone in a flash.

CREEL, WALT Shooting / Loading: An Audio Companion For The Visual Series Deweaponizing The Gun (self released) lp 15.98
We've carried some strange sounds in our shop. We've listed them in other reviews, but it definitely bears repeating, ice melting, drag racing, life support machines, bats, lots of frogs, insects in stored foodstuffs, EVP voices from beyond the grave, chanting cults, arcade ambience, applause, silence, purring kittens, shortwave broadcasts, the sounds of Symphony intermissions, deer in heat, singing power lines, guitars dragged behind trucks, the aurora borealis, blank tapes, monkeys, crackling fires, the ocean, elephants playing gamelans, vibrating docks and bridges, hollerin' and so much more. The one thing we've yet to carry is the sounds of a gun being fired. Until now.
But this isn't just some random sniper fire, or some yahoos firing their shotguns out in the woods. No these gunshots have a purpose. And that purpose is art. The shooter is a man called Walt Creel, who uses a rifle to perforate big pieces of sheet metal, and in doing so creates huge images from the bullet holes. Cool huh? The works are part of a concept called Deweaponizing The Gun, wherein the gun's destructive power is transformed into the power to create. In conjunction with the visual works, Creel decided to deweaponize the gun in another way, by capturing the sound, one that usually invokes panic and terror and recontextualizing it into something while maybe not musical, something distinctively sonic, and textural, percussive and strange.
And that it is. A one sided 12", featuring recordings of Creel firing his gun into metal, an auditory glimpse into the process of creating his art. Sonically, it's reminiscent of pop guns, or firecrackers, or a screen door slamming, not the huge roar and bang you hear in movies or on TV, instead, the sound is actually slight, tinny, high end, the shots fired create a strange spare soundscape of not quite rhythms, the recording hissy and lo-fi, adding texture and grit, not the easiest listening, but still pretty fascinating, in both concept and execution. Found sound and field recording enthusiasts will definitely dig.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES! Beautiful one sided black and white sleeves, each one hand numbered and signed by the artist, and each with a small cardstock antlered insert.

CROM Hot Sumerian Nights (Underdogma) cd 14.98
Crom are funny guys. Their first record, The Cocaine Wars, featured one of the best album covers EVER, a Heavy Metal Magazine style painting of a hot babe in armor, riding a huge polar bear, across a vast tundra, covered in a thick layer of snow, that once the booklet was opened, was revealed to actually be mounds of cocaine being sniffed by a mighty Viking! The new record, features the band painted in the same style as the first record, all Vikings, wearing armor, swords at their side, one flipping the bird, trudging across another snowy expanse, that this time, once the booklet opens, becomes the fluffy bedspread of a sleeping Viking, warm and cozy beneath a polar bear skin, his arm around his sleeping wench. Needless to say we were sold before we even heard a note.
And musically, these guys are pretty goofy too, tons of short short tracks, as many skits and interludes and weird sonic experiments as there are proper songs. But the key to Crom is that A. They really are funny, and the skits, while often dumb or puerile or pointless, are in fact pretty hilarious, and B. The riffs KILL. To the point of being incredibly frustrating, as each song cuts off after only a minute or two, leaving the listener wanting more. Way more. But somehow, all of those metallic fragments, and all of the fucked up silly non-musical moments, are woven into one awesomely over the top, confusional genius mess.
The sound is part black metal, part classic metal, part grind, a little Fucking Champs, some death metal, a little doom, it's obviously the work of some seriously obsessive metalheads, with seriously short attention spans, but the songs when they kick in totally destroy, from furious thrashing blackness, to grinding churning chug, to what-the-fuck metallic free for all, to total classic old school majestic metal, often all in the same song, and then there's all the snippets from movies, the bits of dialogue, the weird whispered vocals chanting 'join us', the entire track made of the sniffle of cocaine sniffing (we assume), weird epic fade-in's that fade in to nothing, some seriously Melvins-y sludge, confusional collages of samples and downtuned riffage, but none of that shit would fly if the band weren't capable of rocking like mother fuckers, which they most certainly are.
And be sure and stick around for the hidden last track, crickets, burbling brook, some distant humming, some Orc-ish growling, monks chanting, incantations, a bunch of crazy Jesus samples, and then a furious blown out lo-fi blast of chaotic metallic grind, the whole thing finishing off with one of those little chunk of music from an after school special or one of those "one to grown on" TV spots.
Hot Sumerian Nights will probably frustrate the shit out of a lot of folks, but they could be quickly won over with a polar bear, a warrior babe, a wall of amps and lots and lots of blow...
MPEG Stream: "Wee Hours Of The Snowgoat"
MPEG Stream: "Thorgrimm's Lament"
MPEG Stream: "The Lurker Within"
MPEG Stream: "Grim Grey Gods"

DANIEL, TED QUINTET Tapestry (Porter Records) cd 14.98
Porter Records have been unearthing some fine free musical gems lately, including killer rarities from Birigwa and Byard Lancaster, and have now unleashed this 1974 live free jazz set from Ted Daniel Quintet. Recorded and performed at Ornette Coleman's Artist House, a performance space in the Lower East Side, flugelhorn and trumpet player Daniels teamed up with a quintet featuring Khan Jamal on vibes (we're big fans of his Drumdance To The Motherland album), Tim Ingles on electric bass with wah wah pedal, brother Richard Daniel on Fender Rhodes and echoplex and Jerome Cooper on drums. Majestic and psychedelic, fans of Idris Ackamoor, Khan Jamal, and Roland P. Young will find plenty to love here. Right on!
MPEG Stream: "Asagefo"
MPEG Stream: "Tapestry"

DERBYSHIRE, DELIA, BRIAN HODGSON, DON HARPER Electrosonic (Glo-Spot) cd 29.00
We had the super limited (and crazy pricey!) vinyl version of this a while back, and they flew out of here. We only have a couple left of the vinyl, but we finally got it on cd, at a slightly cheaper price, and now all you sans turntable can dig on these far out sounds!!
We all went a little gaga for those BBC Radiophonic Workshop cds, amazing collections of freaky and far out music for movies and radio and television, crafted in mad scientist like labs packed to the gills with strange sound making devices, primitive analog synths, tape machines and all manner of random electronic bric a brac. Delia Derbyshire was one of the Workshop elite, having been responsible for the Dr. Who theme as well as the Tomorrow People theme and loads of other legendary BBC songs and sounds.
This cd, is a reissue of a super limited lp, which was itself a repress of a rare and long out of print disc of library mood music released on KPM in 1972. Derbyshire and her sonic cohorts recorded the record as Electrosonic, using pseudonyms as well, to avoid any sort of complications due to their positions at the BBC. The results were of course fantastic. Moody and mysterious, wild and playful, spacey and haunting. From Goblin-esque creepy haunted house synthscapes, to freaky fuzzy funky seventies sci-fi grooves, to far out bloops and bleeps. Analog synths, jazzy upright bass, tons of primitive and not so primitive effects, all whipped into impossibly catchy and fantastical sounds and songs.
MPEG Stream: "Quest"
MPEG Stream: "The Pattern Emerges"
MPEG Stream: "Celestial Cantabile"
MPEG Stream: "The Wizard's Laboratory"

DUNCAN, JOHN Phantom Broadcast (All Questions) cd 19.98
BACK IN STOCK!!! It's been a while since we've had this one in stock, but it's certainly one of Duncan's best. Originally out in 2002, Phantom Broadcast marked the beginning of a surge of activity. Here's what we had to say about the album a few years back:
While attending Cal Arts in the mid '70s, John Duncan discovered the transient frequencies of shortwave, and made it his tool of choice in transferring his knowledge about the psychological implications for specific colors to the realm of sound construction. Instead of merely rehashing the Marshall McLuhan's 'medium is the message' tropes, Duncan's use of the shortwave is marked by his ability to transform the sound device into an externalization of profound (and sometimes disturbing) psychological states. Throughout his impressive back catalogue of recordings, the textural grit and grim electrical tonality of shortwave has repeatedly surfaced in any number of contexts, whether that be the poisonous aggression of River Of Flames or the architectural hauntings of Palace of Mind. The same can be said for this album, as Duncan used nothing but a single shortwave transmission augmented by minimal amount of processing in composing the 47 minutes found within Phantom Broadcast. Instead of the darkened references mentioned earlier, Duncan has extracted a sublimely powerful and uniquely transcendent series of sounds from what is just a utility signal containing something banal like air traffic controller data but could be something sort of shadowy like a RTTY radioteletype (a fairly sophisticated form of encryption; although not impossible to crack like Numbers Stations). These electrical sounds -- originally noxious striations of aural code -- have been smeared into quasi-harmonic, gaseous states and articulated as gasping reverberating drones. Right from the beginning of the album, these sounds do appear as from shortwave but as an epic piece of '60s Minimalism or Ligeti choral and caralon composition. Such references do not disappear over the Phantom Broadcast composition as organic cycles and fluctuations move throughout. It's simply breathtaking and beautiful.
MPEG Stream: "Phantom Broadcast (excerpt)"

GROUPER Dragging A Dead Dear Up A Hill (Type) cd 15.98
Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill opens with an entirely characteristic yet coy swell of effected elemental smear, crumbling delicately yet forcefully, until giving way to what is, to date, and here is the coy part, Liz Harris' most songwriterly and structured album. As opposed to the rich swaths of drone that up until now defined her sound, Harris has shifted from the abstract towards a more distinct and figurative sound. True to the title, the record unfolds like a sort of mysterious and morbid fairytale, innocent in its clear and elegant melodies, yet creepy and highly abstract in its more droney and sublime interludes. For the most part, her guitar playing is laid bare, removed from the dense fog of effects that typically occlude them. And what we discover is actually a pretty strummy record, with plenty of clean guitar articulation though certainly the aroma of her previous tech heavy approach remains in what is relatively speaking still pretty effected. At times she even reverts back to the gorgeous icey crunchy string attack of some previous efforts. With so much space liberated in the absence of drones, we also get to hear her stunning voice. Furthermore, the occasional audible lyric creeps to the surface, one standout fragment being "Love is enormous," a somewhat shockingly affirmative sentiment from an otherwise darkly mysterious and abstract persona. From start to finish "Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill" lulls you into its graceful murmurings and hypnotic thrumming. An exquisite addition to an already compelling discography. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Disengaged"
MPEG Stream: "Heavy Water/ I'd Rather Be Sleeping"

HAINO, KEIJI & YOSHIDA TATSUYA Uhrfasudhasdd (Tzadik) cd 16.98
And here's the Tzadik-issued part II to the latest collaboration between Japanese prog/psych legends Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins) and Keiji Haino (Fushitsusha). Part I, Hauenfiomiume, came out on Yoshida's Magaibutsu label, and we highlighted it last list. The equally easy to say, remember, and spell Uhrfasudhasdd consists of 16 more tracks from the same sessions... also with crazy alphabet soup song titles. So, what we said about Hauenfiomiume pretty much applies here too. Compared to earlier Yoshida/Haino team-ups, it's more on the Ruinsy side, in part 'cause Yoshida computer-edited and mixed it, splicing and dicing their original improvs (?) into condensed, intense compositions, ranging from eerie ambience, to heavy progspazms. There's lots of quick cuts and giltched-out passages, making for manic spires of spiralling energy... For instance, on the track "Thuguigodssphiff", This Heatish percussion is punched in next to blasts of distortion and Magmoid vocal choruses. Maybe this is what a 'screwed and chopped' Koenjihyakkei would sound like! Except that most of this seems sped up, not slowed down. "Dhoidvophkjiff" could have been constructed from samples of Orthrelm and Brise-Glace.
It's the sort of insanity you expect from Yoshida in other words, everything from attention-deficit keyboard tinkling to fried synth soundz to rubbery bass riffage to howling guitar (well that's probably Haino's doing). The black-clad Haino's ability to conjure utter darkness bleeds through as well (check out the track 12, "Zhuddiposshk" for some harrowing, horrific atmospheres and creepy guttural vocal stylings, which crop up again on the ominous "Fiuijkdfgpokwom")... Basically if you're at all into either Haino or (maybe moreso) Yoshida, you'll enjoy this crazy cornucopia of their most extreme tendencies, multiplied by studio technology! Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Dhoidvophkjiff"
MPEG Stream: "Cchjdisoiugpodf"
MPEG Stream: "Oodiffipoawhull"

HOLTKAMP, KOEN Make Haste / Free Birds (A Room Forever) lp 30.00
Finally, volume three is here. This long in the works vinyl project finally sees the light of day, and the results are more fantastic and striking, both sonically and visually, than we could ever have imagined. We'd been hearing about this series, a boxed set of vinyl records, each with one side of music, one side of field recordings, a sort of physical extension and manifestation of a long running podcast, both the podcast, and these lps, an experiment in the art of listening. Each lp is limited to 300 copies, comes housed in an oversized box, with a gorgeous actually photographic print affixed to the cover, inside a metallic inked, letter pressed insert. You have to see them to believe them, well worth the price, as they are visually stunning, and the music is breathtaking.
The first volume featured Machinefabriek, the second Svarte Greiner (we have very few copies left of each, if you still need them, order asap! They're reviewed elsewhere on the site), this third and final installment in the first salvo, is from an artist called. Koen Holtkamp, one half of the drone duo Mountains, as well as the head honcho of the Apestaartje label.
The musical side begins with thick electronic buzzes, that gradually spread out, swooping and shimmering and becoming more orchestral and musical and underwater sounding, a bit like Oval, but much darker and not as glitchy. As the track progresses, all manner of crackle and hiss surfaces, bathing the drones in a rough patina and giving it all a warm tactile texture. The acoustic guitars drift in and the song is transformed into some gloriously hissy acoustic dronefolk. So lovely. The track builds to an intense and frenzied climax, before gradually winding down again, the acoustic guitar drifting amidst soft static and subtly stereo-panned hum.
The field recording side is amazing. Strange, bizarre, the sounds while at one moment are obviously birds, at others they sound totally alien, or manufactured. The recording sounds like it took place in some massive space, a warehouse, a train station, someplace with high ceilings and tons of open space, everything is dripping with reverb and natural delay, the birds coo and twitter, the muted ruffle of wings, occasional squabbles erupt into wild squalls of tweet and screech, eventually mellowing out into a constant drift of soft avian murmurs. The sound is just fantastic and intense, so well recorded, and the sound are just amazing.
The cover photo is gorgeous too, an body of water streaked with golden ripples, the insert is gold ink on letter pressed textured black paper.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. We got a bunch, but they've been flying out of here, and it's apparently already out of print, so it's very likely that we have some of the very last copies (of the first two volumes too!), so once the batch is gone, we will not be able to get any more.

JAY, JEREMY Alpharhythm (K) 7" 4.50
No one has mastered the art of the infectious ep or 7" in recent times quite like Jeremy Jay, laying down the kind of tracks that you want to listen to over and over and over, and his latest single continues the smoking hot streak. "Alpharhythm" catches its sultry groove right from the get go and unfolds into a dancey hot number. It's the kind of song that would be perfect if the art kids, outcasts and dreamers actually got to make the soundtrack to their perfect prom. The B side, "Moonbeam Window", though very brief is so great, with a hot/cold vibe and a sound that feels like it's some lost post-punk gem recorded in a garage filled with smoke machines and an old glimmering disco ball hanging from the ceiling. There is something about Jeremy Jay's music that is just so effortless and is undeniably the essence of cool. Highly recommended!

JEX THOTH s/t (I Hate Records) cd 16.98
Here we go again. Maybe you remember our review a year or so ago of an ep by a psychedelic doom band from Wisconsin called Totem, related to "New Weird America" folkies Wooden Wand? We thought it was great, EXCEPT for one, possibly deal-breaking catch: the female lead singer's soaring vocals, which put it in the love 'em or hate 'em category, with most of us at AQ unfortunately forced to select the latter option, or at least do our best to live with 'em since we liked the music.
Well, as if to challenge us, Totem have changed their name to Jex Thoth (after the "stage name" of that selfsame singer!), and are back with their debut full-length album, again released by the doom metal purveyors at Sweden's I Hate Records, who previously have brought us music from Burning Saviours, The Puritan, Fall Of The Idols, Lord Vicar, Gates Of Slumber, and lots of other awesome heaviness.
That we have to have any reservations about this album at all is too bad, 'cause on the face of it, you probably couldn't deliberately design anything more likely to appeal to us at AQ, really! Not only is it psychedelic pagan DIY doom metal, to begin with, but check it out: Jex Thoth's guitar player Silas Paine is actually Jewelled Antler linchpin Glenn Donaldson (Thuja, Skygreen Leopards, Blithe Sons, etc. etc.). Also in the band, another AQ friend, Clay Ruby (Davenport, Burial Hex). The cover art is by our Finnish pal Albert Witchfinder from doomlords Reverend Bizarre. And the album itself is dedicated to the memory of Cayce Lindner, from Flying Canyon, whom we too miss very much.
Also, Jex Thoth's "thanks list" is very much up our alley: they give props to Circle, Slough Feg, Silvester Anfang, Bobb Trimble, and Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott, among others. And why are they thanking Bobb Trimble, whom hopefully you know as the '80s psych singer-songwriter outsider genius whose at-long-last reissued albums we made Records Of The Week last year? Because they do a cover of his apocalyptic song "When The Raven Calls" from Iron Curtain Innocence on here!! Yep, a Bobb Trimble cover! Brilliant. (And actually, we'll admit, a good choice for Jex Thoth's vocal style.)
So... plenty of indications that this is going to be something we'd LOVE. The music here is great, kind of an acid-folky New Weird Doom, all about ye olde '70s Sabbathy guitar riffage and Purplish organ jamming, fuzzed out and dirgey and druggy, full of spaced out fx, droning synth, lumbering distorted wah-wah riffs. It's not always so heavy, sometimes more of a melancholic moodiness, as much trippily atmospheric freek-folk psych and prog as it is doom (especially on the epic four-part "Equinox Suite"), their style of "metal" not solid steel or iron, but softer precious metals unearthed from an ancient treasure trove, like gold, silver and mythic mithril. We WANT to love this, and it shouldn't be hard... except for Jex Thoth's singing (again), which for most of us is just too high in the mix, too dramatic in a "thespian" sort of way, too sleek and clean and earnest, drawing out each word, each syllable with forced emotion... we're reminded of Grace Slick, with a side of Geddy Lee. But such things are subjective, your mileage may vary, and certainly Jex Thoth (the band) consider Jex Thoth (the vocalist) to be their major focal point, for better or worse. Her vocals ARE distinctive, and do give this band quite a unique vibe all right. And maybe they'll grow on us, actually they already have on Allan here, he'll admit, who while he still cringes a bit at some of her delivery, finds this working for him more often than not. So although we can't give this an unqualified recommendation, we're gonna highlight it anyway, and you can listen to the sound clips and see what you think. (We DO know some peeps who love her singing, actually, so maybe it's just us.) After all, in a lot of ways, this is the Jewelled Antler meets Jacula doom trip we've always dreamed of! A "New Weird Witchcraft" isn't far off the mark either. Acid folk classic doom, we approve of that!
Oh, and if you are already a Totem/Jex Thoth fan, you might be interested to know that we also have just a couple copies left of Jex Thoth's limited edition split 7" with '80s UK doom legends Pagan Altar (!), featuring the track "Stone Evil" from this album, we weren't able to get enough to list, but you might get lucky if you ask us quick, they're $12.98.
MPEG Stream: "Nothing Left To Die"
MPEG Stream: "Equinox Suite: The Poison Pit"
MPEG Stream: "Stone Evil"

KIKURI (HAINO, KEIJI & MASAMI AKITA) Pulverized Purple (Victo) cd 15.98
Oh boy. It had to happen. And it did, at 2007's Festival International de Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville, Quebec. Kikuri is the heavyweight team up of two folks who cast long shadows in the realm of Japanese underground music: Japanoise master Merzbow (for he is Masami Akita) and that totemic Tokyo psych veteran, Keiji Haino, longtime leader of the free rock band Fushitsusha. There they are in the photo on the inside of the cd booklet, Haino and Akita both standing stoically in a leafy green forest... hey has Haino's hair turned grey, a la J. Mascis (with bangs)?? It's about time (not for the grey, for the team up). Haino has collaborated recently with Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins (including another highlight on this week's list!), and KK Null of Zeni Geva, and some years back with all of Boris, but this one's definitely as earthshaking (literally) as any of those, if not moreso.
So, think this might be dark, dense, and noisy? You're right! Putting this on is like telling your stereo, wake up, time to die!!! The first four of five tracks on this disc are all extreme, crinkled, screaming, disssstorrtted NOISE. It's interestingly varied, and very Merzbovian - although the cryptic, wordy song titles which are definitely the work of poetic soul Keiji Haino... such as: "Give Me Back That Colour You Stole From My Guts" (track 3) and "That Place Into Which You Fell Was Lined With A Cushion Of Pain And Is No Proof Of You Continuing Existence" (track 4). Yep, these initial four tracks of brutal catharsis, all but one of them over 10 minutes long, are quite excellent if you're a Merzbow fan, though those who know Haino will definitely be able to hear his input too, beyond the titles. The track "By Mischance That Soul I Devoured Was A Transparent, Vertical Blues" features bursts of his trademark tortured vocals amidst the throbbing hissing static that could be the work of either party. (Making it more of a "blues" is an outsider guitar part, well we think that's a guitar, plucked probably by Haino.) In any case, up to track five, this disc sounds most like Merzbow, with Haino as a special guest. But then, tipping the balance back towards Haino and his special brand of electric guitar apocalypse, comes the disc's last and longest track, with the shortest title, "Pulverized Purple". That's got to be Haino's title too, 'cause he has always had a thing about the color purple, no not the Alice Walker book. It takes up about half the disc, over 30 minutes long. And while it too is plenty distorted and noisy, like what came before it, it also features gobs and gobs of totally recognizable-as-guitar guitar playing, sheer howling psychedelic feedback style, that had even Andee here (who normally is a Haino hater, weirdly enough, and also thinks he's heard enough Merzbow already) declaring that this was fantastic. Heavy, heavy, droney, droney, and definitely worth the price of admission even if you maybe wouldn't normally buy a Merzbow record. Allan, who IS a big Haino fan, is happy that Andee has finally found something he likes by Haino (in large part 'cause it downplays his distinctive vocal stylings in favor of the way out heavy guitar wailin'). Shut up and play yer guitar is Andee's advice for Haino, and he takes it here. This is definitely something for fans of Fushitsusha (natch), Skullflower, White Heaven, Boris, Brotzmann (Caspar), Les Rallizes, LSD-march... The thick feedback wranglin' and added buzz and hiss sounds a bit like Hendrix' famous "Star Spangled Banner" trip given Striborg-style production!! Meanwhile, Masami Akita gets behind the kit to provide urgent drum tumble and cymbal splatter, reminding us that he played drums on that ol' krautrocky Crystal Fist cd that was a fave 'round here some years back. Damn. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Give Me Back That Colour You Stole From My Guts"
MPEG Stream: "Pulverized Purple"

KLUSTER Admira (Important) cd 14.98
Attention krautrock fans! Important Records has just unearthed two rare Kluster recordings, Vulcano and Admira. Of course we're Cluster krazy here at the moment (they just played in the store!!), but the first thing that must be mentioned is that not only is this Kluster-with-a-K material, it's Kluster AFTER Moebius and Roedelius left the band (to form Cluster-with-a-C). We actually didn't know that Kluster had continued without Cluster, as it were! But apparently they did, with original third Kluster colleague Conrad Schniztler in charge, working alongside sometime Kluster accomplices Klaus Freudigmann, Wolfgang Seidel, and "friends". It's Freudigmann (who, like Schnitzler, apparently also had something to do with Tangerine Dream at some point) who found these old tapes, each one now at last released on cd in deluxe packaging (embossed gatefold sleeve similar to that of the original Kluster album Klopfzeichen), limited to 1000 copies. Although we're still surprised that these guys performed/recorded as Kluster (and it's confusing, since we know the same lineup also made music under the name Eruption), regardless of who's on it, what's important is how it sounds, so...
Admira consists of twelve untitled tracks recorded in 1971, presumably in a studio, and left unreleased until now. Hmm, though we do like the fancy embossed packaging, we'd gladly trade that for some liner notes giving just a bit more information! But like we just said, what's important the music, and that's pretty cool. Definitely very Schnitzler-y, if you've heard very many of his recordings over the years, with lots of spacious synth-zap and droning abstraction. This is electronics infested krautrock on the outer fringes of freedom, ranging from meditative peacefulness to harsh noise (sometimes even over the course of one track). Admira's an experimental and eclectic set all right... ferinstance, track four is a proggy swirl of off-kilter keyboard coloration and chaotic percussion, track seven is a surreal soundscape of string sawing and outsider vocal warble. All in all, along with Vulcano, this is an excellent, if mysterious addition to the tiny Kluster (and much larger Schnitzler) discography, and a freaky footnote to the krautrock canon as a whole. Gives one hope that even now, somewhere in Germany, maybe there's more 37-year old tapes like these, under some bed or at the bottom of some closet, waiting to be dug up, worthy of release!
For those interested in the Kluster-with-a-K discs proper, those with Moebius and Roedelius, note we also have a new 3cd reissue on Water, comprising the albums Klopfzeichen, Zwei-Osterei, and Eruption, we'll try to give it a write-up next time.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "4"
MPEG Stream: "6"

KLUSTER Vulcano: Live In Wuppertal 1971 (Important) cd 14.98
Attention krautrock fans! Important Records has just unearthed two rare Kluster recordings, Vulcano and Admira. Of course we're Cluster krazy here at the moment (they just played in the store!!), but the first thing that must be mentioned is that not only is this Kluster-with-a-K material, it's Kluster AFTER Moebius and Roedelius left the band (to form Cluster-with-a-C). We actually didn't know that Kluster had continued without Cluster, as it were! But apparently they did, with original third Kluster colleague Conrad Schniztler in charge, working alongside sometime Kluster accomplices Klaus Freudigmann, Wolfgang Seidel, and "friends". It's Freudigmann (who, like Schnitzler, apparently also had something to do with Tangerine Dream at some point) who found these old tapes, each one now at last released on cd in deluxe packaging (embossed gatefold sleeve similar to that of the original Kluster album Klopfzeichen), limited to 1000 copies. Although we're still surprised that these guys performed/recorded as Kluster (and it's confusing, since we know the same lineup also made music under the name Eruption), regardless of who's on it, what's important is how it sounds, so...
Vulcano is a live show from Wuppertal in 1971. It's certainly a spooky hour of semi-ambient, proto-industrial music, presumably improvised, with electronics drifting and droning and quietly surging throughout these 23 mysterious, untitled tracks. There's some rattling percussion at times, what could be flute or maybe is just feedback, and distorted, echoing voices occasionally, too. Yeah, it's spooky. And historically interesting - there was a lot of freaky music being made back in 1971, but was there anything else quite like this? But most importantly, even if this was a cd-r by some obscure "floorcore" band that just came out, we'd still be enjoying it...
MPEG Stream: "9"
MPEG Stream: "14"
MPEG Stream: "19"

MGR / XELA split (Barge Recordings) 12" 12.98
This long in the works split finally sees the light of day. Two aQ faves together on one super limited lp. MGR, the solo project of Mike Gallagher from the mighty Isis, and Xela, the project of John Twells, who also runs the kick ass Type label.
We've yet to get around to reviewing the new MGR full length, but this track is definitely whetting our appetite. Simple finger picked guitar over, shimmering streaks of sound, layers of glimmering gossamer whir, loping and laid back, eventually some BIG guitar comes in, huge crashing chords, allowed to ring out and slowly fade away, the notes pulsing and beating against each other, building to an epic coda, all majestic and intense, like a stripped down Isis, the original guitar slipping into the ether, the huge chords crashing further and further apart, eventually stopping all together, leaving murky blurs of guitar cacophony, smoothed into dense swells, still intense and almost heavy, but more blurred and washed out, the notes and chords and harmonics swirling in a roiling sonic sea.
The Xela track begins with a squall of feedback and squiggly distorted electronics, harsh and jagged, eventually drums surface, the electronics are reigned in a bit, angelic voices drift in, everything bathed in some ethereal shimmer, the drums stumble and skitter, cymbals crash and sizzle, the electronics flit and flutter like clouds of lightning bugs, the sound gradually grows heavier and more dense, a low end gathering beneath the surface, the sound is almost like some free noise Arvo Part, haunting and choral, but those electronics continue to squelch and glitch, the drums skittering chaotically, the vocals wreathed in effects that turn them into shadowy blurs, the track becoming blurrier by the minute, more tranquil, the vocals smeared into glistening chords, the whole track like the soundtrack to staring into a dying sun. Really amazing, and unlike anything we've heard from Xela before.
SUPER LIMITED! ONLY 350 COPIES!!! All hand screened with some seriously creepy cover art. We only got 30 copies, and will not be able to get more!

MOGWAI Young Team (Chemikal Underground) 2cd 14.98
Long before every band in the world had quite verses and loud choruses, before every band listed Godspeed You Black Emperor as an influence, there was Mogwai. And yeah, they owed their very existence to Slint and the Pixies, but unlike many of the bands that would follow, they wrapped up all that Pixie-dust and all of those Slintisms into something brooding and epic and at the time we first laid ears on Young Team, like -almost- nothing we had ever heard before. For being a seminal post rock classic, this record has spent much of its time out of print and unavailable. Finally, it's available again, this time housed in a swank slipcover and with a whole extra disc, featuring a handful of tracks from comps and singles, including one previously unreleased, and a bunch of killer live tracks. Folks who already love this record, are just the sort of folks (like us mind you) that will almost for sure have to buy this again for the bonus stuff, but if you somehow managed to make it all the way to 2008 without owning a copy of Young Team, this is your lucky day.
What's the big deal about Young Team, yeah, Mogwai, heard 'em, they have a bunch of records out right? Yeah, and they're all great, but this one. THIS one, THIS is it! THE one. The record that launched a MILLION other records. Half the bands we love and freak out about wouldn't even exist if it weren't for THIS RECORD. Or if they did, they sure as heck wouldn't sound the way they do. Sure there was Spiderland. And the theory that everyone who heard Spiderland started a band. And the Pixies. Same thing. And let's not forget Nirvana. Between Slint, Nirvana and the Pixies, the template for angsty loud/soft indie rock was pretty much defined FOREVER. Until Young Team that is. Mogwai most definitely owed a huge debt to the above mentioned big three, but there was just something special about Young Team. The ultimate brooding post rock stumble into massive epic metallic crush record we had ever heard. This is heavy, but oh so pretty, dark and romantic, but also creepy and seriously ominous sounding. Soft super blissed-out meandering almost-ambient soundscapes, dark brooding passages of near silence, eventually shattered into a million pieces by bursts of frenzied, rhythmic noise a la Godflesh, crushing and metallic and machinelike, but always ready to drift and fade back into soft swooning tranquility. But even the loud heavy parts are strangely melodic and ridiculously catchy. This record is so fucking great. Even now, more than a decade after it was first released, and after we've heard more than enough bands do their own versions of Young Team. Maybe the best way to really drive home how massive and amazing and incredibly influential this record is, would be to list a handful of bands who most likely owe their entire existence to this record. No disrespect to any of these groups AT ALL (we love them every single one of them) but you gotta give credit where credit is due... the sons of Mogwai include Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Isis, Timeout Drawer, Snowblood, the Ocean, Magyar Posse, Gregor Samsa, Aereogramme, This Is Your Captain Speaking, Explosions In The Sky, Sigur Ros, Pelican, Mono, Grails, Tarentel, Jimmy Cake, Switchblade, Minsk, Conifer, Tides, Eden Maine, Rosetta, Red Sparrowes, Indian, Baroness, Cult Of Luna, Mouth Of The Architect and we could go on and on. So if you love any or all of the above mentioned bands, and how could you not, and yet you've somehow never heard Young Team, you are in for it in a big beautiful way! The return of one of indie rock's most epochal releases, back from the grave to remind us all just how devastatingly fantastic this record is!
The bonus disc features four extra tracks, one unreleased, seemingly a trifle, super short, but in its 3 minutes it manages to evoke some serious moodiness, and has us wishing it was way longer. A second, previously released, clocks in at less than 2 minutes, and is culled from some obscure comp, but again, it's a gloriously bleak moodscape. The third bonus track is more of an actual song, with skittery electronic sounding drums, and washed out minor key strum, all very dark and drone-y, and then there's Mogwai's gorgeous cover of Spacemen 3's "Honey", paying homage to another band that obviously influenced their sound, their version is not quite as druggy as the original, but bathes the vocals in reverb, adds glockenspiel and chimes, and turns it into something almost choral. The live stuff is raw and urgent and intense, AND loud, listening to "Mogwai Fear Satan" live is almost like being there, the drums a frenzy of crashes and endless fills, roiling beneath dense clouds of druggy FX drenched clouds of soaring guitar, truly transcendent.
File this next to Spiderland and Surfer Rosa and a handful of other epochal indie rock touchstones. Needless to say, ridiculously recommended and essential.
MPEG Stream: "Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home"
MPEG Stream: "Like Herod"
MPEG Stream: "Mogwai Fear Satan"

MONARCH / GREY DATURAS Dawn Of The Catalyst (Throne) 12" 19.98
Finally! Been waiting for the vinyl version of this for a while now. Taking the slow boat all the way from Spain, but it was well worth it, sounds awesome, looks amazing. Metallic gold and black on shimmery silver matte finish, all new artwork. SUPER LIMITED, we got a bunch, but we won't be able to get more. Here's more about the music inside:
A while ago we were informed that French ultradoom combo Monarch had called it a day. We were crushed. One of our favorite purveyors of filthy slow motion doooooooooom, fronted by a woman, a rarity in doom for sure, and with a penchant for smiley skulls and Hello Kitty. A band that seemed tailor made for the very bizarre tastes of the AQ faithful, seemed to be no more. 
But before we could begin our campaign of mourning, black clothes spray painted with cute skulls, black Hello Kitty armbands, we discovered that in fact we were misinformed, or maybe the band had taken a break, or something, but we cared not, for whatever reason, Monarch was still alive, and would live to doom another day. And doom they did. Gracing us with more and more glorious downtuned heaviness, including their bad ass cover of Turbonegro's "I Got Erection"!
So now that we're pretty comfortable with the continued existence of our favorite cute doomsters, we can wait patiently for each new, massive slab of harsh slow motion glacial dooooooooooooooooooooom. And for folks new to Monarch, don't go expecting this to actually -sound- cute. They may be fronted by an adorable French girl, who spins playfully on the beach in their videos, but when she opens her mouth to sing, it's the sound of blackness and misery, a demonic caterwaul, unrivaled by most male metal vocalists. And sure the art on their records may be cute cartoon burning churches and big eyed ghosts, but the sounds inside are slow and black as tar, guitars tuned so low they rumble instead of roar, drum beats so far apart, the drummer can probably smoke a cigarette between beats. And we're happy to report that this 16+ minute chunk of doom is all that and more. The more being the haunting ethereal female vocals partway through... Crushingly heavy, weirdly beautiful. A plodding symphony in slow motion. Essential Monarch beautiful brutality.
The surprise here is the Grey Daturas track, also a 16 minute epic, that on first listen sounds surprisingly doomy, and a lot like the Monarch track. The Daturas are often heavy, but rarely doomy like this, but it suits them. And they pepper their doom with all sorts of sonic weirdness, bits of electronic fuckery, strange modulated feedback, subtle FX, until about 13 minutes in, when the song suddenly morphs into a muted wall of smeared and crumbling white noise, a blast of blurred sound that eventually fades into nothingness. 
Pretty amazing stuff, from both bands. Doom hounds will be well pleased.
MPEG Stream: MONARCH "Rapture"
MPEG Stream: THE GREY DATURAS "Golden Tusk The Endearing"

MOON DARK / HARASSOR split (Universal Consciousness) 7" 4.50
It doesn't get more kvlt than this. Two of the grimmest black metal bands California has to offer. One from SF, one from LA, each rumored to include members of some other more well known black metal bands, the sound of both bands, raw and primitive, stripped down, furious and buzzy, simple and pounding.
The true measure of a black metal band these days is their MySpace presence. The truly grim and kvlt, still somehow manage to whip up a Myspace page, even though that's probably the last kvlt activity imaginable. We like to imagine bands in the forest, or in a cave recording, or covered in blood and corpsepaint wandering through the snowy mountains, not hunched over a laptop writing html. But still a quick look at both bands' MySpace pages reveal that Moon Dark are truly the most hateful and grim band in the land, read as they defend their shitty logo, and their stupid band name, while still managing to accuse all other bands of being false metal and lame poseurs and call for the death of all Christians. While we discover that Harassor are pretty badass looking, fronted by a HUGE bearded bald dude, with corpsepaint and a big upside down cross on his forehead that stretches all the way up to his bare pate. Excellent.
Sonically, both bands tread similar ground. Pounding buzz drenched stripped down black metal. Think Akitsa, Ildjarn, Bone Awl and the like. Moon Dark is the more lo-fi of the two, a furious super distorted rehearsal space sound, the vocals a hysterical shriek over chugging midtempo riffage and barely audible drums (assuming there are drums at all). Occasionally, the riff slips into a bizarre almost circusy sing-song melody which is fucked up but actually awesome, before slipping back into grim buzz mode.
The Harassor side is not so lo-fi but still plenty grim and buzzy, total d-beat style heaviness, Akitsa, Malveillance, pounding drums, SUPER buzzed out guitars, killer gurgly demonic vox, and even some strange scrappy guitar parts which are super cool. Creepy and almost Misfits-y at times, but buzzy and black enough to hold their own with Moon Dark.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Each numbered in human blood. Black and white printed sleeves, and pressed on white vinyl!

NADJA Radiance Of Shadows (Conspiracy) 2lp 36.00
Now available on vinyl from the fine folks at Conspiracy Records. Super limited (we only have about 15 copies, not sure if we can get more), super expensive, but so worth it. Incredible new artwork, an embossed, diecut jacket, printed thick full color inner sleeves, visible through the diecut, photos by Seldon Hunt, the vinyl thick as well, weights a ton and sounds amazing. Limited to only 750 copies, and there's a killer etching on the fourth side too!! Here's what we said about the record when it came out on cd:
As much as we love Aidan Baker's solo recordings, and we most definitely