MOSS Sub Templum (Candlelight) cd 13.98
It's been a while since we've had to employ multiple 'o's in a review. A bit of a death of doom it seems. Or at least the sort of doom that requires all those extra 'o's. A loyal customer of ours even whipped up this "doom chart" based on our usage of multiple 'o'd doom in reviews!
And if memory serves, Moss was one of the bands that routinely got described as doooom, or doooooooooom, and sometimes even doooooooooooooooooooooooom. So we were all ready to put finger to key and just let the 'o's roll out, one after the other after the other, until we felt we had conveyed the crushing doom of Moss. That is until we pressed play, and were treated to "Ritus", a five and a half minute soundscape of whirring synths and washed out ambience, of cymbal sizzle and proggy keyboard drones, of whispered voices and buzzing shimmer. Hmmm. The liner notes say it's inspired by Doris Norton, an electronic musician who's also a member of AQ faves Jacula!! An interesting start from one of the sludgiest, crustiest bands around. Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom. Ahh. That's better. The second track returns us to that dank dark sloooooooooow place Moss call home. Twenty three minutes of downtuned crush, the tempo only slightly faster than the growth of actual moss. But even all gnarled and sludge-y, something has definitely changed. It's not nearly as filthy, and harsh, it's actually weirdly pretty. Almost like it's some more melodic metal record being spun manually with one finger at 3 or 4 rpm. The distortion is still dense, the long drawn out chords seeming to crumble, the drums spaced way out, but somehow still more buys than you're average ultradoom drummer, the vocals are still harsh and howling, but somehow, they too seem to be a bit more smooth, further down in the mix, like another layer of sound, the howls allowed to unfurl into another layer of buzz. It's strange, but we definitely dig. And we're not saying this is NOTHING like old Moss, or folks into Bunkur and Esoteric and the like won't love it, you will, the differences are subtle, and the sound is just a little bit, well, prettier, if you can imagine something bleak and black and harsh and hateful being pretty. Which we can!
The next track, a nine minute dirge, is a bit more raw and rough, most of that prettiness we were blathering on about above is GONE. Shrieking feedback, the drums even slower and more spare, the guitars even more distorted and the vocals throat shreddingly harsh, the tempo slightly accelerated, bordering on Eyehategod territory.
But it's all bout the closer, "Gate III: Devils From The Outer Dark". Clocking in at 35 minutes + and beginning with a churning sea of downtuned rumble and buzz, before the drums finally kick in, and f course by kick in we mean pound sporadically. This track is WAY more than a dirge. It makes the track before it sound like thrash metal. This is slooooooow and so so so so dooooooooooooooooooomy. The guitars thick and corrosive, the chords allowed to ring way out and fade away before the next one drops in to take its place, but weirdly enough, this one too sounds sort of pretty, not like the opening track, but still very dreamlike and mesmerizing. Long streaks of feedback spread out over wide open expanses of minimal thud and warm warped slow motion buzz, when the vocals drop out, it becomes something entirely different, finishing off with several minutes of thick low end drone, the guitars rumbling and wrapped into a thick nearly static pulse, something truly hypnotic and almost spacey, but without sacrificing a single one of those extra 'o's.
Definitely a progression, a band can only pound and plod for so long, but so subtle that the casual listener might not even notice. "Oh yeah, heavy, slow, dooooooom", but as with most music, deep listening reveals a whole lot more going on beneath the surface, and once your ears lock on to that stuff, even the sounds on the surface begin to sound different.
WAY RECOMMENDED for the doom-ed amongst you. And just cuz we knew you were waiting for it, Sub Templum could very well be doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom disc of the year!!
MPEG Stream: "Subterranean"
MPEG Stream: "Dragged To The Roots"

V/A Mary Anne Hobbs : Evangeline (Planet Mu) cd 14.98
The first mix cd from dubstep diva DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, Warrior Dubs, was a sort of greatest hits snapshot of the dubstep/grime scene at the time. Lots of well known names, tons of aQ faves: Milanese, Burial, Kode9, Bug, and loads more. And while it was an incredible comp, for those of us who had already been obsessively tracking down as much grime and dubstep as we could get our hands on, it was a little light on new discoveries, a terrific mix for sure, but one we might have made ourselves. Which is ironic considering that dubstep, like jungle and garage and techno before it, is a genre that thrives on the newest thing, on the latest tracks, so much so that all the great DJ's tend to spin dubplates, unique copies of discs that have yet to be commercially released.
This latest collection from Miss Hobbs is something completely different though. And precisely what we were hoping for. Not only does if feature a whole mess of new names and never-heard-of's amongst the usual suspects, it also spreads out sonically, way beyond the realms of grime or dubstep, incorporating all manner of other electronic musics, but all somehow woven into something incredibly cohesive, and darkly groovy.
Much of this collection is super minimal, laid back and downtempo, lots of murky production and slowly skittering beats, some haunting almost completely ambient tracks, but some serious bangers as well. But before we get to all those, we might as well talk about the biggest surprise here, "Theory Of Machines" by Ben Frost, a nine and a half minute slab of slow burning blurred dronemusic, that over the course of its 9 minutes builds from soft shimmer to dense crumbling Tim Hecker style blurred beauty, to thick caustic blown out soft noise, to an super distorted almost-trip-hop. The sound is immense and epic, and so gorgeous, wreathed in crackle and underpinned by buzzing downtuned lowend, streaked with soaring synths, the track's climax, all skittery beats beneath clouds of hiss and whir and crackle and fuzz is totally intense and gorgeous. And the fact that it's dropped right between a super spaced out reverb drenched out chunk of muddy dubstep and some sun dappled Boards Of Canada style downtempo shuffle, speaks to Hobbs' skills as a DJ. Song choice, arrangement, segues.
Even with the artists we know, Hobbs didn't necessarily pick their big hit, instead opting for the song that best suited the mix, and it pays off. Opening with Ital Tek's glitchy dubby stutter, and closing with Claro Intelecto's hushed techno whisper, a soft washed out dreaminess over a barely there pulse, the tracks in between manages to be all over the map, without sounding random or just thrown together. A grinding buzzing synth heavy grime jam from Wiley follows hot on the heels of Cult Of The 13th Hour's Kode9-ish slow dub, replete with a motorik pulse, some muted muddied skitter, and some deep spoken word vocals. DJ Pinch offers up some super abstract dubstep, the usual synth buzz relegated to a distant murmur, the main rhythm, surrounded by little flurries of tribal shuffle, which is quickly followed up by Magnetic Man's electronic dub, that minus the dubstep synth warble brings to mind On-U-Sound or the Dub Chemists. Surgeon offers up some awesome Kompakt style techno, all looped and hypnotic, minimal and murky, which quickly gives way to a Boxcutter track that almost sounds like some electronic dub infused free jazz, all abstract skitter, crooned vocals, throbbing bass, strange space FX, bits of free freakout, even some whirring organ.
Definitely not the mix for someone looking for a dubstep greatest hits, we've got the recent Steppa's Delight collection among others for that, this is more a collection of modern electronic music, a glimpse into the future of sound, how these various tracks fit together, how electronic music continues to change before our very ears, dub becomes dubstep but what will it become next, techno and grime and downtempo and trip-hop seep back into the 'new' sound and makes it even newer, hybrids of hybrids of hybrids, how these sounds look to the past to reach the future. But more importantly, you can dance to them. Well, sort of.
MPEG Stream: ITAL TEK "Archaic"
MPEG Stream: CULT OF THE 13TH HOUR "The Way Of The Gun"
MPEG Stream: BEN FROST "Theory Of Machines"
MPEG Stream: CLARO INTELECTO "Beautiful Death"

V/A Mary Anne Hobbs : Evangeline (Planet Mu) 4lp 22.00
The first mix cd from dubstep diva DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, Warrior Dubs, was a sort of greatest hits snapshot of the dubstep/grime scene at the time. Lots of well known names, tons of aQ faves: Milanese, Burial, Kode9, Bug, and loads more. And while it was an incredible comp, for those of us who had already been obsessively tracking down as much grime and dubstep as we could get our hands on, it was a little light on new discoveries, a terrific mix for sure, but one we might have made ourselves. Which is ironic considering that dubstep, like jungle and garage and techno before it, is a genre that thrives on the newest thing, on the latest tracks, so much so that all the great DJ's tend to spin dubplates, unique copies of discs that have yet to be commercially released.
This latest collection from Miss Hobbs is something completely different though. And precisely what we were hoping for. Not only does if feature a whole mess of new names and never-heard-of's amongst the usual suspects, it also spreads out sonically, way beyond the realms of grime or dubstep, incorporating all manner of other electronic musics, but all somehow woven into something incredibly cohesive, and darkly groovy.
Much of this collection is super minimal, laid back and downtempo, lots of murky production and slowly skittering beats, some haunting almost completely ambient tracks, but some serious bangers as well. But before we get to all those, we might as well talk about the biggest surprise here, "Theory Of Machines" by Ben Frost, a nine and a half minute slab of slow burning blurred dronemusic, that over the course of its 9 minutes builds from soft shimmer to dense crumbling Tim Hecker style blurred beauty, to thick caustic blown out soft noise, to an super distorted almost-trip-hop. The sound is immense and epic, and so gorgeous, wreathed in crackle and underpinned by buzzing downtuned lowend, streaked with soaring synths, the track's climax, all skittery beats beneath clouds of hiss and whir and crackle and fuzz is totally intense and gorgeous. And the fact that it's dropped right between a super spaced out reverb drenched out chunk of muddy dubstep and some sun dappled Boards Of Canada style downtempo shuffle, speaks to Hobbs' skills as a DJ. Song choice, arrangement, segues.
Even with the artists we know, Hobbs didn't necessarily pick their big hit, instead opting for the song that best suited the mix, and it pays off. Opening with Ital Tek's glitchy dubby stutter, and closing with Claro Intelecto's hushed techno whisper, a soft washed out dreaminess over a barely there pulse, the tracks in between manages to be all over the map, without sounding random or just thrown together. A grinding buzzing synth heavy grime jam from Wiley follows hot on the heels of Cult Of The 13th Hour's Kode9-ish slow dub, replete with a motorik pulse, some muted muddied skitter, and some deep spoken word vocals. DJ Pinch offers up some super abstract dubstep, the usual synth buzz relegated to a distant murmur, the main rhythm, surrounded by little flurries of tribal shuffle, which is quickly followed up by Magnetic Man's electronic dub, that minus the dubstep synth warble brings to mind On-U-Sound or the Dub Chemists. Surgeon offers up some awesome Kompakt style techno, all looped and hypnotic, minimal and murky, which quickly gives way to a Boxcutter track that almost sounds like some electronic dub infused free jazz, all abstract skitter, crooned vocals, throbbing bass, strange space FX, bits of free freakout, even some whirring organ.
Definitely not the mix for someone looking for a dubstep greatest hits, we've got the recent Steppa's Delight collection among others for that, this is more a collection of modern electronic music, a glimpse into the future of sound, how these various tracks fit together, how electronic music continues to change before our very ears, dub becomes dubstep but what will it become next, techno and grime and downtempo and trip-hop seep back into the 'new' sound and makes it even newer, hybrids of hybrids of hybrids, how these sounds look to the past to reach the future. But more importantly, you can dance to them. Well, sort of.
MPEG Stream: ITAL TEK "Archaic"
MPEG Stream: CULT OF THE 13TH HOUR "The Way Of The Gun"
MPEG Stream: BEN FROST "Theory Of Machines"
MPEG Stream: CLARO INTELECTO "Beautiful Death"

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PYHA The Haunted House (tUMULt) cd 13.98
Unbelievably grim and blown out Burzumic black metal buzz from a Korean eighth grader! Recorded over a couple years and finally released when he was 14 years old! It's true. tUMULt has been trying to get this out for ages, and it's finally here. Black metal record of the week? The year more likely. Perhaps maybe EVER.
It took almost two years to track Pyha down, and then almost four more to sort out the eventual release of this grim depressive black masterpiece. Here's how it started:
Longtime aQ pal Steven Schultz (he of Puny Humans and Stalin Claus Superstar infamy) was studying in Korea and bought a bunch of records. None of them really impressed him that much, except for one mysterious disc, by a 'group' called Pyha, which in Korean means 'ruins'. He later discovered that Pyha was the work of one man, er, kid actually, a 14 year old eighth grade black metaller! Needless to say, WOW. Anyway, on returning, Steven passed the cd on to Andee who was BLOWN AWAY. Completely floored, so much so that he knew he had to release it. More people HAD to hear this. So the hunt was on. How to track down a 14 year old kid in Korea. Pre-internet it would have been impossible. But another aQ pal, Jason, was actually living part time in Korea, weirdly enough he's a minor television star there, and offered to try and track down Pyha. Which miraculously he did, and we then discovered that there were in fact 4 albums, all recorded when Pyha was between the ages of 14 and 17! All of which are amazing, and all of which should eventually be released on tUMULt.
But this is THE ONE. The essence of pure inspired ultra personal musical expression. Powerful and intense, blown out and buzz drenched, depressive and melancholic. Andee sent a cd-r of the record to a writer at Terrorizer, who was so impressed, he reviewed the sans-art home burned cd-r in that magazine and gave it a TEN. It's that fucking mind blowing. We mentioned in our recent review of the Wrath Of The Weak record that it was maybe the buzziest black metal record ever. Well, it has nothing on Pyha. Totally in the red, digital distortion, crumbling and furious. The vocals anguished wails and tortured howls, the drums simple programmed beats, weirdly clipped and processed, also wreathed in distortion, keyboards offering up more buzz and shimmer. Long stretches of creepy ambience, samples of speeches and warfare, of wailing weeping mothers and children, all woven into Pyha's buzzing black tapestry. Total bedroom lo-fi production, but completely idiosyncratic and inspired. No blast beats or furious thrashing, instead, the tracks are either midtempo, or no-tempo, with some tracks eschewing drums all together, just a wall of ultra distorted riffage all tangled up with demonic howls. But it's not just howling and screeching, the vocals sometimes emerge as a weird wailing croon, other times as a hushed whisper, while other times a mumbled moan. In fact, a few of the tracks almost sound like some weird black metal Sebadoh, super lo-fi and dripping with distortion, the vocals weary and worn, buried beneath swirling squalls of blacknoise. Others have a distinct shoegaze quality too, that is if you can imagine a shoegaze Abruptum, the drums loping and laid back, the guitars washed out and blurred, the vocals SO distorted they swallow up all the other sounds and become another layer of super saturated sound. Sometimes they even morph into fucked up harmonies, so loud and lo-fi they crackle and splinter, without losing any of their alien beauty. There are long stretches of ambience too. Crackling campfires, crickets, warm whirring synths way off in the distance, ghostly gurgled disembodied voices, whipping wind, all interwoven with tape hiss and buzzing synths, creepy noises, and all manner of sonic detritus.
Three of the tracks here are bonus tracks, recorded later, and manage to fit perfectly with the original disc. One is especially of not, as it's maybe the most melodic of the bunch, thick keyboards drift over a sea of pulsing cymbal sizzle, and barely audible guitar, the drums buried way down in the mix, the vocals growling and hissing and howling, the whole thing very dreamy and drifty and otherworldly. Until the end, when everything drops out leaving just shimmering synths, and the sounds of war, speeches, soldiers, sirens, weeping mothers, crying children, so intense and anguished and moving. Which brings us to the lyrical content. Pyha is staunchly anti-government, anti-war, anti-military, he's a pacifist and an anarchist, and has chosen black metal as the medium to express his message. The packaging is covered in images of Korean wartime atrocities, all of which is even more ironic and sad, when you learn that Pyha (now that he's old enough) is currently in the Korean Army, as military service there is compulsory.
The record closes with one of the most powerful tracks on the record. A seven+ minute blow out, as black as anything else on the disc, and definitely the fastest, as close to a blast as Pyha gets. But it's still loping and woozy. The drums and cymbals are recorded super hot and lay a gauzy layer of hiss over the proceedings, keyboards pick out a delicate minor key melody, hovering weightless like ghosts over the roiling blackened churn below. It almost sounds like Wold at times, as if there was some old 78 playing beneath the wash of black buzz. The track gets heavier and heavier, the vocals more and more demonic and monstrous, the intensity building and building, the main riff, remaining impossibly haunting and majestic as it sinks deeper and deeper into the sea of noise drenched blackness, leaving more and more of that mysterious underlying melody, to drift off and eventually fade away.
Rare is the record, black metal or otherwise, that evokes such intense emotion, that gives the listener chills. Beyond the blackness and the buzz, lies a record of impossible depth, full of emotion and passion. So much so, that it's easy to forget that it was conceived, composed and recorded entirely by a little middle school kid!
Gorgeously packaged in a 6 panel gatefold digipak. Brown and gold sepia toned, with metallic ink, the outside a tranquil Korean landscape, inside a garish gallery depicting the human cost of warfare.
After all that, it might seem like overkill, but this is, without a doubt, THE BLACK METAL RECORD OF THE YEAR. And for some of us, one of the best black metal records ever. What the fuck were you doing when you were 14 years old?!
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Four"
MPEG Stream: "Eight"
MPEG Stream: "Ten"

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ARMANENSCHAFT Psychedelic Winter (Primitive Reaction) lp 29.00
Now that doom legends Reverend Bizarre are dead and gone, main clergyman Sir Albert Witchfinder has time to dabble in about a dozen other projects, such as this one, primitive raw black metal outfit Armanenschaft. Sir Albert is in fact known as Ancient Fisherman here, as he and his partners Morbid Necrovore and Hyperborean Princess whip up a furious squall of filthy fucked up black metal. Most of the tracks are fast and furious, brutal and buzzing, although the record begins with a super spacey tripped out Tangerine Dream style synthscape before launching into some ultra raw necro buzz. The guitars are totally blown out, ultra distorted, relentless D-beat drums buried in the mix, the vocals a harsh howl that just as often slips into a super strange strangled wail. Super simple, super stripped down, Repetitive and hypnotic, definitely for fans of Bone Awl, Ildjaarn, Ash Pool, Akitsa and the like.
BUT, there's plenty of weirdness going on too. Long stretches of buzzing black noise, some slower doomy tracks with warped, almost twangy guitars, over looping rhythms and growled vocals, plenty of droning alchemical guitar rituals, crumbling dirges, and hissed inhuman vocals. One of our favorite tracks is one that is just drums and vocals, the drums super processed and locked into a looped D-beat, pounding away, the vocals maniacal and hysterical, going from shriek to moan to mumble to scream, and sounding like some possessed muppet. WOW. But even with all that weirdness, the core of the record is stripped down raw primitive black metal, thrashing and pounding, which we totally love. The weirdness only makes it that much better.
Hail the Ancient Fisherman. Highly recommended. Vinyl only. VERY LIMITED.

ATELEIA & BENJAMIN CURTIS Baghdad Batterie (Table Of The Elements) lp 17.98
There's a new vinyl-only series from beloved experimental label Table Of The Elements. Each 12" is one sided with an etching on the other side. Artists involved and contributing exclusive material include Collections Of Colonies Of Bees, Belong and a handful of others. The first one we've got is from Ateleia and Benjamin Curtis, who, utilizing guitar, bass, electronics and computers, have whipped up a truly strange installment for the series, beginning of course with the guitar, which is the focus of the series, this duo have created a strange hybrid of modern minimal techno, and reverby eighties pop. Sounds like a bit of a mess, but the two sounds sound great together. Beginning with a skittery shuffly beat, some fuzzy synths, distorted guitars, chiming reverb heavy chords, all wound into something that sounds a bit like Big Country or The Smiths deconstructed by some Chain Reaction artist.
Weird looped rhythms, tribal drums, processed melodies, those hypnotic repetitive guitars soaring and ringing out, that's the best way we can describe it, like some sort of Pop Ambient eighties pop thing, equal parts Gas, U2 (just the guitar), Big Country, reminds us quite a bit of the recent very retro M83 record, but with a distinctly techno, muted 4 on the floor vibe. Pretty cool.
Pressed on clear vinyl, one side intricately etched, housed in a thick vinyl sleeve, and needless to say, WAY LIMITED!

AUFGEHOBEN Khora (Holy Mountain) cd 13.98
Pop quiz! Or not so "pop" really. Whom have we ever compared to Anaal Nathrakh -and- This Heat -and- High Rise -and- Merzbow?? Why Aufgehoben of course. Their name sounds German (it means something along the lines of "nullified" or "voided" in that language). And early on, their music did have krautrocky, rhythmic underpinning. Underpinning brutal ultra distorted NOISE rock that is. And that noise has gotten only noisier and noisier, believe it or not (disbelieve at your peril).
Aufgehoben are in fact from England, and certainly fit in with the harsh n' heavy tradition of bands like Skullflower, God, Ramleh, and more recently, Shit And Shine, with whom they share the multiple drummers thing, though Aufgehoben manage to make do with just two of the species freaking out on their drum kits. They also utilize "bricks and metal" as well as the usual guitars and electronics.
But if you had to guess, from just listening to 'em, you'd probably pick Japan as their country of origin. Again, 'cause of the sheer noisiness of this, but also 'cause of how the album's last, longest track "Jederfursich..." (26:57) is an epic, repetitively pounding psych guitar blow out (blow up?) that would have the combined forces of both Boris and Merzbow running for cover... whereas the tracks that precede it aren't quite as "rock", though no less noisy, maybe more so, in the vein of Wolf Eyes, who too might reach for the earplugs when confronted with this.
Khora's first track "Ignorance Oblivion Contempt" is a vigorous splattering of utterly fried sounds, shrill shards of feedback and frantic trash-compacting percussion colliding and imploding and becoming one dense, writhing mass. That's followed by "Annex Organon", which features a more sparse sort of clatter, but you'd still better be careful about turning up the volume! Next, on "A Bastard Reasoning", we get over ten minutes of mayhem that begin with random meteor strikes of percussive, concussive distortion and then turn into a rumbling, tumbling skree-for-all. Damn.
The relative rockiness n' riffiness of the aforementioned fourth and final track, even if the riffs sound like they're played with explosives rather than on guitars, is just a slightly more controlled sort of chaos, building and building and building... kinda like a Cadaver In Drag track -being- dragged, behind a tank, down a rocky road.
No, Aufgehoben's brand of utterly destroyed instrumental improv has NOT been tamed at all on Khora, their 5th album, and 2nd for Holy Mountain, who quite rightly hail that ultimate track "Jederfursich..." as being "easily the most massive song of the year". Being obsessed with Les Rallizes Denudes and Keiji Haino, and putting out Blues Control and Wooden Shjips records, would lead you too to say things like that about Aufgehoben. Get this and see, we think you'll agree... This damage is definitely for fans of similar subversive sonic conspirators and AQ faves Shit And Shine.
MPEG Stream: "Ignorance Oblivion Contempt"
MPEG Stream: "Jederfursich..."

BENGA Diary Of An Afro Warrior (Tempa) cd 17.98
Having released a superhuman amount of singles and split 12"s for Tempa , Big Apple, Planet Mu, and Hot Flush labels, Benga is most definitely one of the key figures bringing dubstep to a wider audience. That's mainly due to the UK club success of "Night", Benga's collaboration with Coki, his Tempa labelmate. The quivering nervous build-up to a massively skittery and surfy air-raid siren release cemented the producer's reputation as one to watch. Now with this full length, Benga is given room to expand the boundaries of what dubstep can be. Utilizing plaintive jazz horns, synth squelches, moody electro, warmer textures and beats that veer more towards house than genremates Burial or Kode 9, Diary of An Afro Warrior is more than a series of strung together singles but a richly complex and diverse dancefloor manifesto that is amongst the best the genre has to offer. Highly Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Night"
MPEG Stream: "B4 The Dual"
MPEG Stream: "26 Bsslines"

BERBERIAN, JOHN Expressions East (Mainstream) lp 16.98
We're lucky to get in this week not one but two mid-sixties LPs showcasing the amazing virtuosity and global grooves of master oud player John Berberian. These are beautiful 180 gram reissues on colored vinyl from Mainstream records who have been reissuing a lot of their amazing back catalog as of late. When you see the covers of Expressions East and its follow up, Oud Artistry, you can't help but think of the late fifties / early sixties "Exotica" craze with paintings of belly dancers in a modernist style and use of oriental-looking fonts. Of course this is not going to be a Hamza El Din record, but the American-born Armenian Berberian is no Martin Denny either. On these records, Berberian beguiles us with his frenetically intense jazz-like compositions occasionally featuring the haunting vocals of Bob Tashjian. Featuring an amazing band playing traditional instruments (canun, bongos, dudoog, dumbeg, def, guitar, clarinet and finger cymbals along with an array of other exotic percussion) performing mesmerizingly rhythmic tracks of Turkish, Armenian and Arabic origins. Berberian became better known for more rockish Middle Eastern projects later on in his career, but it's these early records that really showcase his masterful skills as an instrumentalist and performer. Both records are well-recommended!

BERBERIAN, JOHN Oud Artistry (Mainstream) lp 16.98
We're lucky to get in this week not one but two mid-sixties LPs showcasing the amazing virtuosity and global grooves of master oud player John Berberian. These are beautiful 180 gram reissues on colored vinyl from Mainstream records who have been reissuing a lot of their amazing back catalog as of late. When you see the covers of Expressions East and its follow up, Oud Artistry, you can't help but think of the late fifties / early sixties "Exotica" craze with paintings of belly dancers in a modernist style and use of oriental-looking fonts. Of course this is not going to be a Hamza El Din record, but the American-born Armenian Berberian is no Martin Denny either. On these records, Berberian beguiles us with his frenetically intense jazz-like compositions occasionally featuring the haunting vocals of Bob Tashjian. Featuring an amazing band playing traditional instruments (canun, bongos, dudoog, dumbeg, def, guitar, clarinet and finger cymbals along with an array of other exotic percussion) performing mesmerizingly rhythmic tracks of Turkish, Armenian and Arabic origins. Berberian became better known for more rockish Middle Eastern projects later on in his career, but it's these early records that really showcase his masterful skills as an instrumentalist and performer. Both records are well-recommended!

BLACKSHAW, JAMES Litany Of Echoes (Tompkins Square) cd 14.98
With each new James Blackshaw release, we're always amazed at how someone who works within such a small musical framework can continuously exceed our expectations. Definitely a favorite among favorites of solo guitarists, Blackshaw has bulked up his arsenal of compositional approaches by introducing for the first time the use of piano as a key element. Bookending the album are two long form pieces of solo piano in a minimalist style that remind us of Charlemagne Palestine or Lubomyr Melnyk. When the twelve string is first heard on the second track, it's not before we're set up with a foundation of resonant timbres of violin and viola (played by Fran Bury) that give weight to the airy modal improvisations of the guitar. Adding subtle layers of richness and dynamics, the strings ground and support the ringing overtones of the 12 string creating complex harmonies to the pulsating melodies. We can't imagine we'll ever tire of hearing Blackshaw's shimmering textural pieces. Amazing how sound so deep, dark, damp and resonant can be so transcendentally uplifting.
MPEG Stream: "Gate of Ivory"
MPEG Stream: "Past Has Not Passed"
MPEG Stream: "Echo And Abyss"

BONES OF SEABIRDS Sacrament (Small Doses) cd-r 8.98
First release from Bones Of Seabirds, aka Ryan McGill, and it's a deft blend of blown out free noise ambience a la Sunroof! and Birchville Cat Motel, dreamy soundscape drift and churning low end doomdrone.
The minimal liner notes inside credit Mcgill with strings and synths, and both, while in full effect, are blended and blurred into a sound less distinct, more ethereal and abstract. The opener is all gritty gristly high end, sheets of feedback, coruscating layers of buzz and glitch, all pulsing and throbbing, melodies buried within, strange harmonies, culminating in a wall of downtuned near static guitar buzz, a blackened blizzard of sound. The second track is a roiling lowendscape of rumbles and blurred drones, off in the distance bits of high end glimmer, shards of crackling grind and chordal whir, dense and ominous but still strangely pretty. The third track, is a haunting landscape of reverb drenched harmonics, long stretched out tones, mysterious melodies, softly heaving textures, bits of electronic tracery, whirring and shimmering, all wrapped in a skein of murk and blur.
And so it goes for the rest of the disc, the tracks dipping into those three sounds, blending and blurring and creating whole new sonic worlds from its constituent parts. Needless to say, most folks who like this kind of thing have already added this to their cart and moved on, but for the rest of you, fans of SUNNO))), Birchville, Vulture Club, Acre, and Tunnels among others, who are into all things that drone and rumble and whir and roil and swirl and shimmer and throb and grind and pulse and drift, will most likely want to pick one of these up PRONTO.
LIMITED TO 138 COPIES! Each one in a gorgeously handmade package, black ink printed on thick cardstock, housed in a hand cut full color vellum overlay, inside a printed vellum insert, with liner notes, each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Belial"
MPEG Stream: "Serpent"

CHILD READERS Music Heard Far Off (Soft Abuse) cd 14.98
Yay, 'tis time for another delightful dose of Jewelled Antler goodness... these dusty gems aren't strewn about the twiggy forest floor as much as they used to be (back in the day of Jewelled Antler's prolific cd-r production), so it's with even greater pleasure that we regard this latest from Jewelled Antler potentate Loren Chasse (Of, Ov, Thuja, Blithe Sons, Franciscan Hobbies, The Knit Separates, etc.) and his compatriot, and Berlin-based expatriate, Jason Honea (The Shitty Listener, Teenage Panzerkorps, Chord Fort, The Knit Separates, Franciscan Hobbies).
The usual hazy Jewelled Antler soundworld of abstruse natural field-recordings, fragmented folky melodies, and the textural droning of acoustic instruments (and non-instruments) is utterly entered into here, with the gentle, lullaby-like vocals of Mr. Honea softly taking you by the hand to wander in wonderment through it all. The music glistens and shimmers and sighs like the soughing sound of wind in the trees, and Honea's voice does too... it's some sort of lo-fi, fairytale indie-rock, though not very rock - the angular outset of the track "A Loved Thing/Gull's Blood" being the most raucous, rock-like thing here, almost Swell Maps-ish, reminding us, as much of this does, of likeminded New Zealanders Pumice... mostly though, while replete with much buzzing noise and sudden shiftings, this certainly on the dreamier and driftier side of things! Imagine Martyn Bates magically transported into the musical context of a Charles Burchfield landscape painting, perhaps... yet with this duo's "weird dude energy" keeping things interesting and unexpected (for instance, "A Poem In One Song" features indistinct background groanings that we recognize as Loren being silly).
Jason's intimate, close-miced vocals provide distorted textures of their own to go with the rather abstract music-making, always melodic and soothing even if you never bother to puzzle out the imagery of his improvised, stream-of-conciousness lyrics, some of which probably have to do with his new experience of fatherhood!
There's a sweet sixteen audio tracks here, plus four MPG4 video clips as a bonus! A few guests drop in to join Chasse and Honea on some of the songs, including Rob Reger (Thuja), former AQer Christine Boepple (Ov, Skygreen Leopards, Whysp), and Mark Williams (Mirza, Father Beard). Meanwhile, the videos take you out in the field with the Child Readers, each one a perfect visual analog to the accompanying music (four non-album tracks), full of natural scenery and more of that "weird dude energy", Jewelled Antler style. For these alone this is probably a must-buy for any Jewelled Antler fan or follower - if it wasn't already - since this fourth Child Readers disc (after 2 cd-rs on JA and a cd on Mallard Lake, all seemingly years and years ago) is perhaps our new favorite. Sometimes it's hard for us to express how much we like these records, 'cause we're friends with these guys and we feel weird gushing to much, but this IS fantastic. So glad the Child Readers are still up to their (un)usual hijinks. Recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "Young Worlds-Try To Hear!"
MPEG Stream: "Son Of Man"
MPEG Stream: "Starlight Veering"

DALTON, KAREN Green Rocky Road (Megaphone) cd 19.98
This is the one!! The beautiful, raw, and majestic lost Karen Dalton recordings we've all been waiting for. While we loved the recent release Cotton-Eyed Joe, it was mostly because we thought we'd never get to hear any other recordings, so we were happy with the below lo-fidelity and wavering performances (Dalton never liked performing live, so we don't think those recordings showcased her best side). Then these recordings showed up and have blown the others away. Recorded in 1962 at home on two track tape, played mostly on solo banjo, Green Rocky Road captures Dalton at her most intimate and unearthly. Like some old dusty recordings of lost Appalachian folk, Dalton's circular fingerpicking and warm wooly voice invokes a magical quality as she works through several interpretations of traditional folk songs including versions of "Katie Cruel", "If I Had A Ribbon Bow", and "In The Evening", which were featured on her studio albums.
Other songs not previously featured are the British Folk classic "Nottamun Town", the ghostly "Little Margaret" and the famous cowboy song "Whoopee Ti Yi Yo". There's even a nice moment where you hear Dalton talking to her mother about going to dances. The quality of the recordings while still raw is so much greater in fidelity than Cotton Eyed-Joe, you'd think she was singing to herself in your home not realizing you were secretly standing behind her hanging on to every breath, praying that nothing breaks her transcendent spell. We can't recommend this enough!!!
MPEG Stream: "Green Rocky Road"
MPEG Stream: "Little Margaret"
MPEG Stream: "Whoopie Ti Yi Yo"

EIKO, ISHIBASHI & TATSUYA YOSHIDA Slip Beneath The Distant Tree (Rhythm Tracks) cd 15.98
Ok, if you're a fan of the Japanese prog-core duo Ruins and their amazing drummer and musical mastermind Tatsuya Yoshida, you already know he's a big fan of '70s progressive rock. Of course. It's pretty obvious, even if you've never experienced the Ruins' infamous "Prog Rock Medley". Ruins wouldn't be Ruins without the influence of classic '70s bands like Magma, Area, and Henry Cow. Here, Yoshida -really- gets proggy, though, paying tribute to some of his inspirations in that genre (and, classical music too) with a both a batch of worthy originals and several exquisite cover versions as well.
At home in yet another duo situation, Tatsuya Yoshida (vocals, drums, programming, keys, acoustic guitar) teams up with Eiko Ishibashi (vocals, piano, keys, flute), to turn in 14 tracks of utter prog nirvana, stuff that's gorgeously melodic and mathematically mindboggling, both.
Fans of Ruins, Koenjihyakkei, Tairikuotoko vs. Sanmaykuonna, and other manifestations of Yoshida's prog-obsession will be drooling, from the sweet female vocals and quirky hectic changes of "Festival Of Teeth" to the amusing, impressive ADD-antics of the quite clever "Classic Medley" (all 1 minute, 21 seconds of it), from the dizzying "The Invention Of A Parachute" to the thickly synth-buzzed, heavy and haunting "Planet Of Reverberation" which ends the disc... Wow.
While that "Classic Medley" has a tongue-in-cheek, showoffish element we're sure, this duo also respectfully give props to a few of their influences with some other covers, including songs by This Heat ("Twilight Furniture"), Soft Machine ("As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still"), Genesis ("Time Table"), and Debussy ("Doctor Gradus Ad Pernassum")! You know what? Even if you've never ever heard Ruins before, we would still recommend this to the curious, who could just as easily as any old school prog diehard be thrilled by this elegant, intricate music. Especially since, with both the covers and originals, these two manage to strike a stellar balance between the technical, excitingly indulgent side of prog, and truly lovely, uh, songishness. So nice!
And now we're curious to hear more from Ms. Eiko...
MPEG Stream: "Sanctuary"
MPEG Stream: "The Invention Of A Parachute"
MPEG Stream: "Classic Medley"
MPEG Stream: "Planet Of Reverberation"

ENDLESS BLIZZARD Remember Your Death (BlackMetal.Com) cd 13.98
We've long been fans of LA's retro black thrashers Lightning Swords Of Death, we'll get their record reviewed one of these days. But recently we've become even more obsessed with LSOD guitarist Roskva's other outfit, the much blacker and buzzier Endless Blizzard, who channel classic Norwegian style BM (we assume the Blizzard in their name is an homage to the original Blizzard Beasts, Immortal) through more traditional classic metal, with lots of prog going on as well, which you know we love. Heck, they even begin the record with their own interpretation of a classic Popol Vuh Track!
But at their heart (of winter), they are a blasting grim war metal beast, offering up epic majestic riffage, furious blasting beats, intricate melodies, killer hooks, and awesome shrieking vokills.
Most of the tracks are blackened juggernauts, roiling and relentless, but the record is peppered with unexpected sounds, the haunting liturgical organs of "Luciferian Crown" complete with soaring strings and mysterious chanted vocals, the looped medieval folk of "Under The Tranhelm", a totally mesmerizing stretch of mysterious buzz and moody melody, and the epic two part final track, "Buried Still Breathing / Remember Your Death", which begins with a whirring warbly organ, playing out a minor key melody, lots of wheeze and buzz, almost like some sort of bagpipe style raga, before shifting into a plodding doom drift, heavy on the buzzing synths, which shift into some deep minimal dronemusic, before acoustic guitars join in and allow the track to unwind dreamily.
But it's not just the weird bits that make this so good. The tracks, beyond being buzzy and heavy and complex, are also catchy as hell, blending classic eighties style metal with more modern black buzz, the riffs and melodies sticking in your head like crazy.
One of our new favorites BM records for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Arcane Dimension"
MPEG Stream: "Cultivated By Darkness"

ENDLESS BLIZZARD Remember Your Death (BlackMetal.Com) 2lp 15.98
We've long been fans of LA's retro black thrashers Lightning Swords Of Death, we'll get their record reviewed one of these days. But recently we've become even more obsessed with LSOD guitarist Roskva's other outfit, the much blacker and buzzier Endless Blizzard, who channel classic Norwegian style BM (we assume the Blizzard in their name is an homage to the original Blizzard Beasts, Immortal) through more traditional classic metal, with lots of prog going on as well, which you know we love. Heck, they even begin the record with their own interpretation of a classic Popol Vuh Track!
But at their heart (of winter), they are a blasting grim war metal beast, offering up epic majestic riffage, furious blasting beats, intricate melodies, killer hooks, and awesome shrieking vokills.
Most of the tracks are blackened juggernauts, roiling and relentless, but the record is peppered with unexpected sounds, the haunting liturgical organs of "Luciferian Crown" complete with soaring strings and mysterious chanted vocals, the looped medieval folk of "Under The Tranhelm", a totally mesmerizing stretch of mysterious buzz and moody melody, and the epic two part final track, "Buried Still Breathing / Remember Your Death", which begins with a whirring warbly organ, playing out a minor key melody, lots of wheeze and buzz, almost like some sort of bagpipe style raga, before shifting into a plodding doom drift, heavy on the buzzing synths, which shift into some deep minimal dronemusic, before acoustic guitars join in and allow the track to unwind dreamily.
But it's not just the weird bits that make this so good. The tracks, beyond being buzzy and heavy and complex, are also catchy as hell, blending classic eighties style metal with more modern black buzz, the riffs and melodies sticking in your head like crazy.
One of our new favorites BM records for sure!
MPEG Stream: "Arcane Dimension"
MPEG Stream: "Cultivated By Darkness"

ENDLESS DISMAL MOAN (EDM) Ruin (BlackMetal.Com) cd 13.98
The second of two "Endless" black metal bands on this week's list. While the other Endless (Blizzard) channels the spirit of classic Norwegian blackness, this Endless (Dismal Moan), finds his inspiration somewhere much darker and way more fucked up. This is record number three from Japan's Endless Dismal Moan (aka EDM) and is another glorious blast of gnarled dissonance and off kilter metallic blackness. The work of a single entity, curiously named CHAOS9, EDM traffic in super repetitive trance like black metal, grinding buzzed out riffs, convoluted and obtuse, locked into mesmerizing loops, the tracks repetitive and hypnotic. The vocals are a maniacal shriek way down in the mix, the drums not always blasting, sometimes pounding out strange stuttery rhythms alongside the riffs, and it's all about the riffs, thick and massive and jagged, sometimes everything locks into super precise stop start dynamics, before exploding again into buzzing black chaos.
It's sort of hard to explain the sound of EDM, it's like the intro or a bridge of a traditional black metal track, all twisted up and stretched out into a whole song, super droney and woozy and tripped out and dizzyingly dense. There are a few brief respites, some Goblin-y horror movie keyboards, some creepy doomy almost industrial blackened crunch, bits of cinematic black ambience, a long loopscape of still more Italian horror movie style synths and weird machinelike rhythms, and the final track, a blissy almost shoegaze-y abstract drift, drums dense with reverb, the barely there melodies drifting in a sea of soft hiss and blurred muted buzz, which just barely balances the furious fractured blackness that makes up the rest of the record.
Yet another disc of essential fucked up blackened genius! TOTALLY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Ruin"
MPEG Stream: "JYUSO"
MPEG Stream: "I"

FEN Ancient Sorrow (Northern Silence) cd ep 11.98
While ostensibly a black metal band, the UK's Fen, are so much more than that. In fact, take away the vocals, and in a blind taste test we would have been hard pressed to describe them as black metal at all.
The sound is all loping rhythms, soaring chords, the sound majestic and epic, minor key and mathy. The first track sounds more like Isis or Pelican than it does Darkthrone or Deathspell. Well, actually, it does remind us a bit of Deathspell's most postrock moment, the genius Kenose. The band are described as 'atmospheric black metal / post rock' which would be a tad more accurate if you swapped the two descriptors. Even the riffs sound more like something off a Polvo or Pitchblende record, which is not a bad thing at all. In fact, we're a little bit obsessed with Fen. Another band whose sound is one we had always sort of wished for. Nineties math rock black metal! It's really uncanny listening to these three songs how often our ears catch a little Archers Of Loaf or Rodan or Don Cab or Bitch Magnet. And the thing is, the sound may be a bit heavier and more distorted, it's really only the vocals that turn this into black metal. If Fen were an instrumental band, they wouldn't sound all that out of place on Touch And Go. But they are heavy, and they are a bit black, and as if to prove it, the closer is the heaviest, and the least overtly mathy of the bunch. A plodding churning doomy chunk of loping blackened crush. And near the end of the 12+ minute track, the band even actually explode for the very first time into a furious blast beat, and finish off the track thrashing blackly, but even that brief burst is not enough to hide their true sonic soul, the whole track is rife with mathiness, with soaring majestic post rock-ness, just wrapped in a bit of blackness.
None of this is meant to sound apologetic, not in the least, this is absolutely one of our favorite new records, metal, mathy or otherwise. We just wanted to give fair warning to the troo grim hordes out there, who might have been put off a bit by the dearth of true blackness. But for the rest of you, this comes highly recommended. If you ever dreamed about a black metal Polvo (and who didn't) or wished Deathspell had continued on their more post rock path, or if you just can't get enough of that metallic post rock, and maybe wouldn't mind if it sometimes got a bit blacker, well then this is definitely for you...
MPEG Stream: "Desolation Embraced"
MPEG Stream: "The Gales Scream Of Loss"

FEN Ancient Sorrow (Northern Silence) 12" 11.98
While ostensibly a black metal band, the UK's Fen, are so much more than that. In fact, take away the vocals, and in a blind taste test we would have been hard pressed to describe them as black metal at all.
The sound is all loping rhythms, soaring chords, the sound majestic and epic, minor key and mathy. The first track sounds more like Isis or Pelican than it does Darkthrone or Deathspell. Well, actually, it does remind us a bit of Deathspell's most postrock moment, the genius Kenose. The band are described as 'atmospheric black metal / post rock' which would be a tad more accurate if you swapped the two descriptors. Even the riffs sound more like something off a Polvo or Pitchblende record, which is not a bad thing at all. In fact, we're a little bit obsessed with Fen. Another band whose sound is one we had always sort of wished for. Nineties math rock black metal! It's really uncanny listening to these three songs how often our ears catch a little Archers Of Loaf or Rodan or Don Cab or Bitch Magnet. And the thing is, the sound may be a bit heavier and more distorted, it's really only the vocals that turn this into black metal. If Fen were an instrumental band, they wouldn't sound all that out of place on Touch And Go. But they are heavy, and they are a bit black, and as if to prove it, the closer is the heaviest, and the least overtly mathy of the bunch. A plodding churning doomy chunk of loping blackened crush. And near the end of the 12+ minute track, the band even actually explode for the very first time into a furious blast beat, and finish off the track thrashing blackly, but even that brief burst is not enough to hide their true sonic soul, the whole track is rife with mathiness, with soaring majestic post rock-ness, just wrapped in a bit of blackness.
None of this is meant to sound apologetic, not in the least, this is absolutely one of our favorite new records, metal, mathy or otherwise. We just wanted to give fair warning to the troo grim hordes out there, who might have been put off a bit by the dearth of true blackness. But for the rest of you, this comes highly recommended. If you ever dreamed about a black metal Polvo (and who didn't) or wished Deathspell had continued on their more post rock path, or if you just can't get enough of that metallic post rock, and maybe wouldn't mind if it sometimes got a bit blacker, well then this is definitely for you...
MPEG Stream: "Desolation Embraced"
MPEG Stream: "The Gales Scream Of Loss"

FERIAL CONFINE (ANDREW CHALK) First, Second And Third Drop (Siren Records) cd 29.00
Andrew Chalk recorded as Ferial Confine for a few years in the mid '80s. At that time, all of those recordings were cassette only releases, mostly self-released / private editions of just a couple of copies with the exception of the Meiosis cassette put out by Broken Flag. That cassette and the Full Use Of Nothing LP, which Fusetron reissued from one of those private edition tapes, found Chalk embracing an acoustic teethgnashing through metallic noise junk. It was no wonder that The New Blockaders and Organum would seek him out as a future collaborator. But there were only hints on those two recordings of what would later become what Chalk would be best known for: the majestic, sublime, and beautiful drone.
Chalk's 1986 album Crescent, which was released under his own name, has long been viewed as the bridge between the Ferial Confine aesthetic of blistered noise and the softened timbral complexities of later work including that of Mirror. That said, nobody had heard First, Second And Third Drop. Also recorded in 1986, this Ferial Confine album truly is the missing link between the two polarities of the Chalk aesthetic, as the scraping metallic skree is present but often tuned in sympathy to bowed gongs and long-thin wire drones. Blossoming reverberation consumes some of these tracks, which sound even better than the classic Organum sound of that time period. It goes without saying that this album is incredible. Well, Andrew Chalk made it, of course. But the historical nature of this record makes it even all the more interesting. Oh yeah, it's also painfully limited; and already sold out at the label.
MPEG Stream: "The Flying Fish"
MPEG Stream: "Advent"
MPEG Stream: "It's Past"

FIFTY FOOT HOSE Cauldron (Phoenix) cd 17.98
Wow, it's hard to believe we've never reviewed this album before because Fifty Foot Hose have always had a special place in our hearts. One of our favorite underground San Francisco bands from the original psychedelic era, we were very lucky to have them play at our 25th anniversary party when they revived a few years back, in the mid '90s. Led by bass player Cork Marcheschi, a noted sculptor and instrument builder, who, inspired by experimental composers John Cage, Edgar Varese, Terry Riley and George Antheil, began modifying his own form of electronic instruments using elements from theremins, fuzzboxes, cardboard tubes and a speaker from an old WWII bomber. Filling out the band were guitarist David Blossom and his wife Nancy on vocals who helped bring out the bands more jazz and psychedelic influences. Like a witchier United States of America (the band) with a more lysergic bent, Cauldron, the band's best known 1968 release goes through an array of styles from oscillating drone interludes, and folk-funk, to anxious mind-melting freakouts. This album has gone in and out of print so many times that it's no wonder we haven't been able to keep it around long enough to review it. A longtime favorite. Limited to 1000 copies. The lp is also quite limited (probably even moreso). Don't miss it.
MPEG Stream: "If Not This Time"
MPEG Stream: "Rose"
MPEG Stream: "Cauldron"

FIFTY FOOT HOSE Cauldron (Phoenix Records) lp 24.00
Wow, it's hard to believe we've never reviewed this album before because Fifty Foot Hose have always had a special place in our hearts. One of our favorite underground San Francisco bands from the original psychedelic era, we were very lucky to have them play at our 25th anniversary party when they revived a few years back, in the mid '90s. Led by bass player Cork Marcheschi, a noted sculptor and instrument builder, who, inspired by experimental composers John Cage, Edgar Varese, Terry Riley and George Antheil, began modifying his own form of electronic instruments using elements from theremins, fuzzboxes, cardboard tubes and a speaker from an old WWII bomber. Filling out the band were guitarist David Blossom and his wife Nancy on vocals who helped bring out the bands more jazz and psychedelic influences. Like a witchier United States of America (the band) with a more lysergic bent, Cauldron, the band's best known 1968 release goes through an array of styles from oscillating drone interludes, and folk-funk, to anxious mind-melting freakouts. This album has gone in and out of print so many times that it's no wonder we haven't been able to keep it around long enough to review it. A longtime favorite. Limited to 1000 copies. The lp is also quite limited (probably even moreso). Don't miss it.
MPEG Stream: "If Not This Time"
MPEG Stream: "Rose"
MPEG Stream: "Cauldron"

FJORDNE The Last 3 Days Of Time (Dynamophone) cd-r 14.98
Wonderful! As is reflected in the icy blue cover art, this is a wintry album - contemplative and shimmering soundscapes populated by acoustic guitars, piano, fleeting vocal gasps and seemingly microscopic electronics. Imagine a not so distant Japanese cousin of the Diskont album by Germany's Oval. Yes, it's that good! Winding and unwinding like the delicate clockwork mechanics revealed amid the feathers of the diminutive birds on the cover, these ten tracks are simply gorgeous from start to finish... as has been pretty much everything released to date by this fine, young SF independent label. Needless to say, very recommended! A perfect fit for those who've also been enjoying the soothing immersion into the releases on labels such as A Room Forever and Mystery Sea.
The cd comes beautifully packaged in a round metal tin with a ribbon attached inside to facilitate opening the tin and getting the disc out.
MPEG Stream: "Dazing Off"
MPEG Stream: "Everyone Has A Season"

HANCOCK, HERBIE, RON CARTER, JONATHAN KLEIN, THAD JONES... Hear, O Israel: A Prayer Ceremony In Jazz (Trunk) cd 16.98
Most likely you don't immediately connect Modern Jazz with Jewish Ritual, but this gorgeous reissue of a long lost private pressing of a 1968 Friday night service may have you rethinking those ideas. Written by Jonathan Klein, a then 17 year-old son of a Massachusetts Rabbi, who was asked to compose music for a service dealing with "Sects and Symbols Within Judaism". The music and service were so popular that the Synagogue incorporated the piece into every Friday night service, and Klein assembled a group to tour various New England Universities. For the debut performance in New York, Klein managed to get the finest New York Jazz musicians to perform his piece, including Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass, Grady Tate on drums, Jerome Richardson on flute and saxophone and Thad Jones on trumpet and flugelhorn with Antonia Lavanne and Phyllis Bryn-Julson on soprano and contralto voices respectively. Thankfully it was all recorded. Unlike the Christian Youth movement who used spiritually minded rock and folk music to sway new converts, the music for this service doesn't pander to youthful audiences. The music swings in unexpected ways for a religious ceremony but its full intent is an abstract spiritual openness. Even with the Hebrew recitations by Rabbi David Davis, the message is divine, universal and inspired. Rejoice!
MPEG Stream: "Matovu - Bor'chu"
MPEG Stream: "Sanctification"
MPEG Stream: "Kiddush"

HARVEY MILK The Pleaser (Chunklet) 2lp 23.00
Available for the first time on vinyl! Thanks to the kind folks at Chunklet, Harvey Milk's The Pleaser is now available on lp, with a second lp featuring Live Pleaser, an out of print cd-r that was available as a companion disc with the Relapse reissue, also never before available on vinyl. Super thick, fancy pants gatefold sleeve, the gatefold a classic rock and roll collage of band photos, snapshots and live pix, inside a full color insert with lyrics, and the lps are pressed on colored vinyl, one red, one blue, housed in nice black inner sleeves. And since you knew this was coming, VERY VERY VERY LIMITED!!!! Here's what we had to say about the record itself:
The Pleaser has always stuck out as, uh, different, in the brief but utterly ruling Harvey Milk discography. Mindblowingly different. On The Pleaser, these dirgey, heavier-than-thou arty post-rockers decided to really rock out with their cocks out, to put it crudely. It's the surprise Harvey Milk for headbangers, a beer-foaming behemoth of explosive rock n' roll riffola! No more holding back for 20 minutes at a time, they'd had it with that. From song one, riff one, this is pure RAWK, inspired by Motorhead, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and ZZ Top. (Again, a bit of a parallel with Earth, whose last '90s album Pentastar also featured badass, muscle car, classic rock motifs.) And that would be enough for us to love it. Yet, 'cause it's Harvey Milk, there's more to it than that. They do the rawk thing with Harvey Milk style -- even though it's unusually uptempo for them, their weird avant-artistry is still at play. Song structures aren't so straightforward as they seem, that throaty Harvey Milk howl is still there, and strange chord progressions abound... and of course it's way HEAVIER than the hesher beloved bands that inspired it. And possessed of unexpected flashes of beauty, also in the Harvey Milk tradition.
Listening to this, you can imagine what the kind of band playing this music would look like: long hair, beards, jean jackets, maybe a backwards baseball cap or two, the bassist perhaps wielding an axe that's shaped like a Jack Daniel's bottle. Sweaty and hairy and throwing the devil horns, leering at the girls. But... that they're actually more like nerdy indie rock dudes (a la The Champs) might cause some confusion and/or consternation. And admittedly the very last track, "Rock And Roll Party Tonight" reveals some indie irony at work, tongues planted in cheek. But try to find the humor in the likes of "Shame" and "Misery". Or the slow, bluesy, balladic "Lay My Head Down". No, this is as serious as they ever were, just expressed in a far rock-ier mode.
They slow down to the turgid doomy pace of My Love Is Higher and Courtesy And Goodwill only occasionally ("Red As The Day Is Long" being one such example), instead preferring a more energetic attack, packed with shred guitar solos, catchy hooks, and hoarse but melodic vocals. Shorthand summation: it's kinda like the Melvins meets Tad meets Thee Speaking Canaries (the Van Halen influenced indie mathrockers), playing a wild kegger for a drunken crowd of revelers, the smarter few of whom realize they're witnessing something really amazing and weird and subversive of the party vibe, but ALL of them having a great time. It can't be denied, this is the Harvey Milk we put on when it's Miller Time, Allan definitely finding himself giving this more spins-per-decade than a lot of their other, equally awesome but much more spacious and difficult-to-grok output.
And wait, that's not all! There's more: this vinyl reissue (like the cd reissue before it) comes with a bonus lp of the previously cd-r only live-on-the-radio set Live Pleaser, value added for fans picking this up for the first, second -or- third time. It's got kickass versions of all the tracks from The Pleaser -- plus a cover of "Deuce" by KISS, that fits in with songs from The Pleaser just perfectly like they wrote it themselves!
MPEG Stream: "Down"
MPEG Stream: "Get It Up & Get It On"
MPEG Stream: "Lay My Head Down"
MPEG Stream: "Shame (Live)"

HAYNES, JIM Eraldus / Eravaldus (Elevator Bath) picture disc 17.98
We love picture discs. The may not sound the best, but they look so amazing. Especially with the right images embedded in that there vinyl. We all definitely have a little treasure trove of picture discs that we hang on to just because they're so goddamn beautiful. It's just a bonus when the music is good too. Especially when the music actually benefits from the limitations of the picture disc format.
The latest release from our very own Jim Haynes is the inaugural release in Elevator Bath's newly launched picture disc series and they couldn't have chosen better. For those of you who have never seen Haynes' artwork, he rusts things (as he always so reductively describes his process), but the truth is he coaxes impossible textures and patterns from chemicals and metals, often letting nature determine much of a pieces final look. And they are simple amazing, deep oranges and browns, streaks and smears, strange shapes where metal has rested on other metal, drips and layers where the chemicals have pooled or allowed to shift, inconsistencies in the metal revealed after having some of it's surface eaten away. The process is almost as amazing as the outcome, but needless to say, Jim's pieces are total industrial-wasteland-decay eye candy.
The two images chosen for this picture disc are no exception. And knowing that some of Haynes' music was also created utilizing the process of rusting, it's nice to think that the sounds within are in fact produced from chemical and metal interacting, the picture disc the literal visual analogue to the resultant sounds on the recording. But the sounds here are way too lush and varied to be produced so simply, so the images are left to spin, only somewhat removed from the sounds to which they are linked.
Eraldus / Eravaldus is probably Haynes' most varied and lush recording to date, whether on his own or with sound artist Loren Chasse in Coelacanth. The chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves, underpin what sounds like an airplane passing overhead, but the sound remains, too static to be an airplane, soon revealing itself to be manufactured, gradually melodies take shape, bits of glitch and little shards of electronic interference surface, tiny little sonic events pepper the slow shifting rumble. But those little sonic events eventually blossom into thick streaks of high end, which not soon after transform into strange scraping and whirrings. The rest of the record drifts from mysterious soundworld to mysterious soundworld, dark dronescapes rife with clicks and hiss and grit, like a recording of some swamp late at night, gritty landscapes of reverbed percussion, blurred into droney smudges, smeared static becomes long expanses of slow shifting sound, that slips effortlessly from corrosive to shimmery and back again. Quite nice!
LIMITED TO ONLY 260 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "Eraldus"
MPEG Stream: "Eravaldus"

HENSKE, JUDY & JERRY YESTER Farewell Aldebaran (Phoenix) cd 17.98
One of the more amazing curios of the late sixties folk-rock era, this sole record by Judy Henske and Jerry Yester is a strange and heady amalgam of baroque pomp-rock, lilting folk-pop and experimental electronic weirdness. Henske is best known for a series of early folk-revival albums on Elektra, that featured her howling blues vocals and cabaret like wit. Yester, best known as a producer from an assorted array of folk and psychedelic bands including The Association, The Loving Spoonful, Tim Buckley (and more recently No Neck Blues Band!), made his debut as a musical artist and singer on this record. Originally released on Frank Zappa's Straight label (like those Alice Cooper albums we made Records Of The Week last time!), the album never did real well, but has always remained a cult treasure due to its genre-defying song styles and early psychedelic synthesizer experiments on the title track. Written in the voice of a dying star, Henske utilized an early vocoder device for the vocal tracks which also features Moogs and Theremins. Although it's the only track to feature that effect, it seems to fit right in with the rest, as no two songs are quite alike. That might make it a hit and miss listen for those craving consistency, but those who like the more unpredictable corners of sixties music, this cult gem is well worth it.
MPEG Stream: "Horses On A Stick"
MPEG Stream: "Charity"
MPEG Stream: "Farewell Aldebaran"

LEER, THOMAS Contradictions (Cherry Red) cd 17.98
As producers, musicians, critics, and listeners alike seem to hail the traditional pantheon of landmark influences, like Can, Kraftwerk, Throbbing Gristle, Fad Gadget, et al, there are still plenty of fantastic, sidelined artists who just continually fall through the cracks. Such is the case with Thomas Leer. Sadly, outside of collectors circles, he is practically unknown, even though he kept company with some of the biggest names in 20th century pop and avant garde music. After releasing the seminal bedroom techno-pop-industrial classic "Private Plane" 7" on his own label -- Oblique -- he collaborated with Robert Rental on The Bridge, an LP on Throbbing Gristle's Industrial imprint. In fact, those recordings inspired Chris Carter -- of TG and Chris and Cosey fame -- and a pre-Whitehouse William Bennett to pick up a Wasp synth. Not yet acquainted with Robert Rental? If you can get your hands on it, check out Live at the West Runton Pavilion, his collaborative effort with Daniel Miller of The Normal, and the founder of Mute Records. A fantastic document, it mirrors Thomas Leer's work as it subverts the traditional punk/rock paradigm, utilizing newly emerging technology to create music completely outside of the guitar/drums/bass framework. Some might say that it's at least implicitly as punk as anything else. That said, let's talk a bit about this particular release. Firstly, it does indeed have both "Private Plane" and "International." Okay. But there is plenty to glean from the rest of his lesser-known catalogue. Picture a synth-happy David Bowie and Konk collaboration, with a restrained sense of composition. Picture a soulful robotic version of Marc Almond making 4-track recordings for himself. Not under-produced, but understated and playful. Shriekback caught in an algorithm. Picture Cybotron and Inner City chugging Robitussin and trying their damnedest to picture what acid house might sound like if it were made in 1983. This collection amounts to exactly what it sounds like on paper: a great collection of work from an incredibly influential and diverse artist. Uninitiated? Check it out! Already a fan? You know you want to grab it! Totally recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Thomas Leer - Private Plane"
MPEG Stream: "Thomas Leer - Mr. Nobody"

LIGHT OF SHIPWRECK Through The Bilge Lies A Calm And Bloodless Sea (Waterscape) 3"cd-r 10.98
We were totally blown away by the Light Of Shipwreck cd-r released on Crucial Bliss a while back, and have been anxiously waiting for more. That disc was compared to Steve Reich, Brian Eno, Can and Earth by the label, but we were hearing Wolf Eyes, This Heat and The Necks.
We still hear all of that here to a certain degree, but LoS's whole sound has been reimagined and the results are pretty mindblowing. The record begins with a swirling sea of shimmering tones, of deep resonant rumbles and skittery processed rhythms, more textural really than rhythmic, melodies drawn out into long streaks of sound, a strange whirring slow motion driftscape, wrapped around a stuttering almost-rhythm, which eventually explodes into a dubbed out brittle beat, the beat heavily effected and allowed to slip into a sea of churning guitar growl and blurred soft noise, until those dubbed out drums return, and the track is transformed into some off kilter post rock, free noise, free jazz krautrock jam. But even that doesn't last, as the track quickly shifts into something much more tranquil, a haunting confluence of various layers and textures, the tones seem to glow and pulse, overlapping and intermingling, a less digital more lo-fi Oval perhaps, a Tim Hecker-ish dronescape, all bleary and blurry and washed out and dreamlike, but rough around the edges, a bit raw, the sounds organic and deep, woven into creeping minor key melodies and long expanses of crumbling shimmer. So awesome.
Packaged in a full color cover, housed in a mini vinyl sleeve, with a full color printed insert, each copy hand numbered. Pressed on cool blue cd-r's. And LIMITED TO ONLY 50 COPIES!!!!
RealAudio clip: "Through The Bilge Lies A Calm And Bloodless Sea 1"

MELNYK, LUBOMYR The Lund-St. Petri Symphony (Bandura) 2cd-r 32.00
It's been a while since we've heard from pianist Lubomyr Melnyk, master and creator of the Continuous Music technique, a playing style that involves incredible dexterity, the player creating swirling flurries of notes, in fact, Melnyk holds the record for most notes played per second! But as we've mentioned in past reviews, Continuous Music is no mere gimmick, Melnyk uses his technique to create dense shifting soundscapes, almost like a 20th Century Classical Oval, notes and melodies constantly in flux, dizzying and dreamy, a massive shape shifting organic whole, that seems to constantly change shape and tone and timbre. But the music of Melnyk is not difficult listening, just the opposite. His music is serene and hypnotic, mesmerizing and gorgeous. You can read way more about Melnyk and his technique in some of the other reviews, but needless to say, every new release is a thrill. And yes, it's another cd-r, but according to Melnyk and the label, there are so many pieces, that they'd rather make them all accessible, instead of making 1000 copies of just one. Who are we to argue? Besides, there's the fact that aQuarius is one of the only places in the world you can get Melnyk records.
Anyway, The Lund-St. Petri Symphony is another example of Melnyk's incredible skill and his deft arranging. This piece, originally composed and performed on organ, is recorded here on solo and double piano and is another shimmery expanse of Continuous music, with Melnyk sustaining a speed of 11-14 notes in each hand for the entire duration of the piece! What's even crazier, is it was meant to be played on THREE pianos (or organs), but was never recorded due to the fact that according to Melnyk, that much sound would not translate to modern recording techniques. There were plans to record the third part and release it as a separate lp so folks with two turntables could experience it in all its 3 piano glory, but it hardly matters, even on one piano, the sound is stirring. Minor key and melancholy, the notes glisten and glimmer, the melodies dense and ever shifting, the whole thing so completely entrancing. If you can imagine Pop Ambient music being created with just pianos, it would probably sound something like this.
As always, WAY recommended, this one only available at AQ as far as we know, and limited (maybe only 50 copies?). You like Oval, Eno, new age, Pop Ambient, or just wondered what it would sound like to hear 10 or 12 'normal' piano players all playing the same piece simultaneously, well, a little like this. Divine!
MPEG Stream: "NKR 22 Pt. 1"
MPEG Stream: "NKR 22 Pt. 2"

NOTWIST, THE The Devil You + Me (Domino) cd 13.98
Hurrah! The Notwist's long awaited follow-up to aQ fave album Neon Golden has arrived! That 2002 album set the bar pretty high for modern German electronic pop/rock and its wistful forlorn songs really resonated with many of us. Needless to say, the over five year wait may have elevated our expectations to unrealistically lofty heights. So we're approaching with care, and we'll be totally honest The Devil You + Me hasn't quite knocked up on our butts and tickled our heartstrings the way that Neon Golden did. The exacting and seamless pop blend of programmed and organic instrumentation that left us aghast. All right, we said it, and we won't belabor the point. Devil's appeal is certainly not as immediate, but it does sink in slowly, and Markus Acher's hushed yearning vocal delivery is as charming and affecting as ever. Songs such as the title track are sweetly engaging in a surprisingly Belle & Sebastian way. Meanwhile others such as "Sleep" draw easy comparisons to the lovely pop-tronic tunes of Canada's Caribou. Overall, it's a much darker, less catchy, less pop structured collection of songs. A bit more brooding, a bit less dreaming, and perhaps drawing in a bit more of some of their other bands: both Village Of Savoogna's sprawling sonic explorations and Lali Puna's breezy, melancholic ruminations. Indeed, it instead favors more grand and sweeping journeys particularly with the gracious presence of The Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra. Ask yourself, when doesn't the presence of a bassoon and a harp add epic sorrow and fantasy panache (respectively)? We're sure this one's going to continue to lay down its roots long into autumn. If you're new to this band, Neon Golden's the place to start, but you definitely shouldn't overlook the charms of the Devil.
MPEG Stream: "Good Lies"
MPEG Stream: "Gloomy Planet"

OM Live at Jerusalem (Southern Lord) lp 19.98
People have been dying for this one. Two epic sidelong tracks, recorded live in the Holy Land, from one of the world's heaviest duos, thee mighty Om. And in fact, this lp is the final recording of the original duo, with drummer Chris Haikus, who has since left the band to be replaced by the drummer from the Grails.
And a fitting swansong it is, as these two tracks are monsters, one from Conference Of The Birds, one from Pilgrimage, and as you might expect, the sound is massive, the bass churning and throbbing, the drums relentless and pounding, the duo locking into trancelike grooves, hypnotic and mesmerizing, and of course so so so heavy. What else do you need to know. It's Om, two tracks, each taking up a whole side, pressed on super thick vinyl, in super deluxe sleeves, and of course EXTREMELY LIMITED, only 3100 copies made (each one numbered), we got 25 and there's a good chance we won't be able to get more. You have been warned.

OSMONDS, THE Crazy Horses / The Plan (7T's / Cherry Red) cd 17.98
Which is gonna be harder, to convince you to buy a cd just for one song, or to buy a cd by The Osmonds? What about both?? Let's find out...
Ok, we might have trouble arguing that it's worth buying a whole cd (one with two entire albums on it!) just for ONE song. And it definitely seems likely we'd have even more trouble when that cd is by The Osmonds. But, then again, the song in question is "Crazy Horses"! If you haven't heard it before, this will be a lot easier for us if you just listen to the sound sample below, before we continue...
If you -have- heard it, you know that it was a remarkably heavy hit from a squeaky-clean group of cute, mop-topped brothers (including of course youngest brother Donny) not normally known for being such rockers. Heavy enough to qualify as proto-metal in our book. And also a bit of a novelty, we'll admit. But doesn't it make you wonder if the rest of the album from which it comes, 1972's Crazy Horses, is also as kitschily kickass? Well... the whole album is a bit of a novelty it turns out. Nothin' on it quite as crazy as "Crazy Horses", but there ARE definitely some other cool tracks, including the garagey groover "Life Is Hard Enough Without Goodbyes" and the Beatlesque "What Could It Be". Elsewhere they dabble in everything from soul balladry to what sound like Broadway showtunes, but seriously, there's enough decent rock here to make "Crazy Horses" not seem like a total fluke.
Adding to the value for money (really), the Crazy Horses album is teamed up on this twofer cd reissue with The Osmonds' 1973 concept album (yep, a concept album!) The Plan, which tries to teach about the boys' Mormon faith with the aid of some definite fuzzed out acid rock moves (and brassy horn sections too), the most bizarre example of which would have to be the stompin', over the top track "The Last Days", which seemingly suggests signs of Biblical prophecy to be found in the contemporary sociocultural situation of the early '70s... Both Crazy Horses and The Plan are at their best total bubblegum psychedelia, pretty charming after all these years, reminding us of the Beach Boys, early Bee Gees, and ELO - not an unimpressive feat by any means.
Neither album has been available on cd forever (if ever?) and if you don't want to bother digging for the original LPs of 'em at a flea market, then we'd definitely recommend this cd reissue! For "Crazy Horses", of course, but also a lot of other surprising, surreal pop pleasures...
(PS you can also check out YouTube for some "Crazy Horses" action, complete with goofy dancing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyRiNZDb5EY)
MPEG Stream: "Crazy Horses"
MPEG Stream: "What Could It Be"
MPEG Stream: "Traffic In My Mind"
MPEG Stream: "Movie Man"

PHARAOH OVERLORD #4 (Ektro) cd 14.98
BACK IN PRINT! And we're so happy! If you missed this, get it NOW.
Another one to file under "NWOFHM"! New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal. That's Pharaoh Overlord/Circle bassist Jussi's little joke. Only now it's gone waaaaay beyond joking. Or to another level of joke anyway. What we're saying, is that this fourth Pharaoh Overlord opus is a headbanger's delight, for real. Sure, Pharaoh Overlord were already supposed to be the "heavy" Circle side project, and they were, but not like this. This ain't mere 'stoner rock', this doesn't sound anything like Kyuss anymore. Instead, they've adopted chugging speed metal riffage that could be from an Accept album circa 1984, lashed it to their usual repetitive krautrocky rhythms, unleashed some very metal vocals, and gone entirely over to the dark side (which, by the way, is the title of one of our favorite tracks here, the album-ending 8+ minute instrumental epic that just drives a mean riff into your brain like the spiked fist thru the face of the skull in the cd booklet!!). They even snuck a little umlaut in over the 2nd 'o' in 'Overlord' on the spine of this cd.
Circle (and Pharaoh Overlord at this point have pretty much the exact same lineup as Circle, it's basically the same band) have dropped big hints about their love of metal before -- making references in their graphics and in their music, with many tracks on such albums as Sunrise and Tulikoira being pretty darn metal, as we've noted before -- but here they go whole hog. They sound less like a spacerock band who want to give a nod to metal with a riff here and there, than like a really weird actual metal band! It's rifftastic, hypnotic biker metal with a strange psychedelic side to it. And best of all -- it works! It's a high concept success (and as we mentioned, they've been seemingly high on this concept before, but never have been this tight with it). The unpredictable predictability of any Circle or Circle-related album, their basic kraut-inspired, "circular" formula, stands up to and indeed seems to embrace this