BILLY BAO May 08 (Parts Unknown) lp 12.98
We were definitely a bit skeptical when we read descriptions of Spanish noise rockers Billy Bao as sounding like Brainbombs, Fela and Whitehouse. Even more so when we got the record in and noticed those were the three bands BB thank on the sleeve, we figured, okay, lazy reviewing, BB love those bands so heck, they probably sound like that, or at least sort of. So imagine our surprise upon actually hearing this, and realizing that the Fela / Whitehouse / Brainbombs was somehow, pretty right on. At least in as far as one can actually describe a band as awesomely weird and fucked up as Billy Bao.
The core sound is definitely Brainbombs, low slung fuzzy sludge bass, in the red, super distorted and impossibly blown out. The drums a Neanderthal pound that borders on the machinelike here and there, howled vocals, alternating shouting and sort of crooning a non stop stream of invective, the sound crusty and filthy and punk rock and garage rock, but with a weird electronic vibe, bordering on industrial now and again. The relentless crunch occasionally screeches to a halt, and launches into a weird super dynamic stop start thing, sometimes even getting all stuttery as the guitars dissolve into fractured electronics.
And the horns, did we mention the horns? Not like the moaning bleat of the Brainbombs' dented trumpet, these are full on festive high life horns, buried way down in the mix, sampled we're guessing, quite possibly actually Fela, but low enough in the mix that only the horns make it through the murk, except for a few moments where the horns / samples slip into the stuttery spaces, only adding to the off kilter chaos.
The B-side sounds like Burmese on angel dust, and since Burmese ALREADY sound like they're on angel dust, BAD angel dust, you can get an idea of how fucked up and fierce and bass heavy this side long jam is, the music a wall of blown out, super tangled, in the red bass riffage and low end buzz, so noisy that the song teeters back and forth between intense riffage and full on speaker shredding NOISE, over which the vocals are a feral frenzied Whitehouse style yowl.
Heavy and fucked up and noisy and genius. WAY WAY WAY recommended. A few more listens and we might just have us a new favorite band.
The sleeve is just a single long missive from the band, there are liner notes and thanks lists in there, but for the most part it's all a stream of consciousness rant against war and government and industry and copyright and loads more, the inside cover features two full color photos of just the sort of death and destruction and human misery they're talking about.

COLD CAVE Love Comes Close (Heartworm) cd 13.98
Cold Cave have really been making the rounds as of late, but unless you were one of the lucky few to obtain some of their super limited vinyl only platters or their recent Cremations collection (which is still available), you may have been left out in the... cold. HAHA! But anyway, Love Comes Close is the first official Cold Cave record, though it does include the three songs (re-recorded?) off the band's disgustingly limited Etsel and Ruby 12" which we had for about 5 minutes, as well as the song "The Trees Grew Emotions And Died" from the ep of the same name, all of them winners. We are happy to report that this baby more than ably lives up to all the hype. It's not that the sound of Cold Cave is revolutionary or progressive... nay, in far less skilled hands, this could easily be filed under the "derivative shit" category, but Cold Cave's remarkable melodic sense and keen understanding of songcraft are so expertly handled that their tunes come off more like lost synth pop classics. It's actually a bit unbelievable just how darkly catchy these songs are, and how they will just pop into your head at random moments like they've been there for ages. Cold Cave's music is the perfect combination of everything that is great about '80s synth based music with none of the dated cheesiness, or maybe more appropriately, just the right amount of dated cheesiness. OMD styled melodies and uber dramatic vocals from the school of Ian Curtis meld with throbbing rhythms, awesome life denying lyrics, and a pronounced gothic element, but goth as interpreted by hardcore kids. All of these combined are enough to make Cold Cave stand out from the rest of the pack. Plus, you know it's gotta be good when various folks may *want* to dislike something but can't muster the hate in their hearts simply because it's so great.
The album kicks off with "Cebe And Me", with super minimal percussion and murky, distorted female vocals that weave around a repetitive synth buzz. This sets things up perfectly for the next track, "Love Comes Close," with CC mainman Wes Eisold's deadpan vocals and music that manages to be both upbeat and melancholy as hell. The real kicker with this one, however, is the fact that it is a DEAD RINGER for the melody in the infamous mirror dance scene in Silence Of The Lambs. So now all you dudes can fashion a mangina and prance naked in front of your mirror within the comfort of your own home, just like Buffalo Bill. "Life Magazine" utilizes a blown out buzzy keyboard to hold the foundation while more down to earth programming and amazing female vocals courtesy of one time Xiu Xiu collaborator Caralee McElroy help to make this maybe our favorite track on the album. A reedy little synth melody sits atop everything else, and the dreaminess of it all sends things way off into the clouds... Goddamn, it's so good.
Naming a song "Heaven Was Full" definitely sets the bar pretty high, you're pretty much obligated to make it awesome, and that's just what Cold Cave did with this one. Subsonic oscillations swirl below what sounds like wispy winds made by a synthesizer, accompanied by Eisold's low croon and some of the catchiest and most beautiful melodies on the album. The slow movement of this piece really strikes an emotional chord, it's a real downer, but it's so irresistible it hurts. "The Tree Grew Emotions And Died" features some cool clanky drum machines with staccato boy/girl vocals and an ever present layer of super blown out guitars (we think), with a nice, slightly bouncy keyboard melody carrying the song forward. Album closer "I.C.D.K." is a quirky yet slightly ominous dance number that will certainly keep many an ass shaking all night long, and when it's all over, you first instinct will be to put Love Comes Close on for another round.
Undoubtedly Cold Cave will have trouble escaping comparisons to bands like the Cure, Joy Division, and even the Magnetic Fields at times, and not without good reason. But the band's greatest strength is its ability to go beyond their influences and deliver music that is too amazing and well written to be ignored. If you don't dig it, it doesn't mean people will respect your supposed impeccable taste and appreciation for groundbreaking music... it means you're missing out.
MPEG Stream: "Love Comes Close"
MPEG Stream: "Life Magazine"
MPEG Stream: "Heaven Was Full"

COLD CAVE Love Comes Close (Heartworm) lp 14.98
Cold Cave have really been making the rounds as of late, but unless you were one of the lucky few to obtain some of their super limited vinyl only platters or their recent Cremations collection (which is still available), you may have been left out in the... cold. HAHA! But anyway, Love Comes Close is the first official Cold Cave record, though it does include the three songs (re-recorded?) off the band's disgustingly limited Etsel and Ruby 12" which we had for about 5 minutes, as well as the song "The Trees Grew Emotions And Died" from the ep of the same name, all of them winners. We are happy to report that this baby more than ably lives up to all the hype. It's not that the sound of Cold Cave is revolutionary or progressive... nay, in far less skilled hands, this could easily be filed under the "derivative shit" category, but Cold Cave's remarkable melodic sense and keen understanding of songcraft are so expertly handled that their tunes come off more like lost synth pop classics. It's actually a bit unbelievable just how darkly catchy these songs are, and how they will just pop into your head at random moments like they've been there for ages. Cold Cave's music is the perfect combination of everything that is great about '80s synth based music with none of the dated cheesiness, or maybe more appropriately, just the right amount of dated cheesiness. OMD styled melodies and uber dramatic vocals from the school of Ian Curtis meld with throbbing rhythms, awesome life denying lyrics, and a pronounced gothic element, but goth as interpreted by hardcore kids. All of these combined are enough to make Cold Cave stand out from the rest of the pack. Plus, you know it's gotta be good when various folks may *want* to dislike something but can't muster the hate in their hearts simply because it's so great.
The album kicks off with "Cebe And Me", with super minimal percussion and murky, distorted female vocals that weave around a repetitive synth buzz. This sets things up perfectly for the next track, "Love Comes Close," with CC mainman Wes Eisold's deadpan vocals and music that manages to be both upbeat and melancholy as hell. The real kicker with this one, however, is the fact that it is a DEAD RINGER for the melody in the infamous mirror dance scene in Silence Of The Lambs. So now all you dudes can fashion a mangina and prance naked in front of your mirror within the comfort of your own home, just like Buffalo Bill. "Life Magazine" utilizes a blown out buzzy keyboard to hold the foundation while more down to earth programming and amazing female vocals courtesy of one time Xiu Xiu collaborator Caralee McElroy help to make this maybe our favorite track on the album. A reedy little synth melody sits atop everything else, and the dreaminess of it all sends things way off into the clouds... Goddamn, it's so good.
Naming a song "Heaven Was Full" definitely sets the bar pretty high, you're pretty much obligated to make it awesome, and that's just what Cold Cave did with this one. Subsonic oscillations swirl below what sounds like wispy winds made by a synthesizer, accompanied by Eisold's low croon and some of the catchiest and most beautiful melodies on the album. The slow movement of this piece really strikes an emotional chord, it's a real downer, but it's so irresistible it hurts. "The Tree Grew Emotions And Died" features some cool clanky drum machines with staccato boy/girl vocals and an ever present layer of super blown out guitars (we think), with a nice, slightly bouncy keyboard melody carrying the song forward. Album closer "I.C.D.K." is a quirky yet slightly ominous dance number that will certainly keep many an ass shaking all night long, and when it's all over, you first instinct will be to put Love Comes Close on for another round.
Undoubtedly Cold Cave will have trouble escaping comparisons to bands like the Cure, Joy Division, and even the Magnetic Fields at times, and not without good reason. But the band's greatest strength is its ability to go beyond their influences and deliver music that is too amazing and well written to be ignored. If you don't dig it, it doesn't mean people will respect your supposed impeccable taste and appreciation for groundbreaking music... it means you're missing out.
MPEG Stream: "Love Comes Close"
MPEG Stream: "Life Magazine"
MPEG Stream: "Heaven Was Full"

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A BOLHA Um Passo A Frente (Lion) cd 14.98
Following the Tetragon highlighted here last list, and other recent releases like Sergius Golowin and Guru Guru, what treat does the meritorious and meticulous reissue label Lion Productions have for us THIS week? Another obscure, freaky gem of dusty vintage, yes, but this time not krautrock, instead it's from another wonderful subgenre, that of Latin American psychedelia!
This Brazilian band flourished circa 1965-1978, starting off as a Beatlesy dance pop group called The Bubbles, before changing their name to its Portuguese equivalent A Bolha in 1970 and going for a harder, more progressive rock sound, inspired in part by the bands they'd seen on a trip to England, at the Isle of Wight festival. All this according to the extensive liner notes in the thick, illustrated cd booklet, which provides plenty of info about the band and their career, including their stint as backing band for Tropicalia star Gal Costa. But history aside, what matters is the music, and even today A Bolha's lively grooves are pretty great!
This album, Um Passo A Frente, was recorded and released originally in 1973, and is rightly considered a Brazilian rock classic of the era. These tracks (7 from the album proper, plus fantastic 2 bonus cuts included on this reissue) range wildly across the spectrum of pop psych / hard rock / Tropicalia, incorporating laidback vibes, vocal harmonies (all songs sung in Portuguese), sudden prog rock changes (and song lengths, a couple up to 9 and 10 minutes), swirling organ, acid rock guitar soloing, honkytonk piano plinkery, frenetic percussion, countryish blues moods, bubblegum boogiewoogie, and even some free jazz squealing sax (such as during side two's epic "A Espera", which also has some really great freak out moments for all of us flute fanciers!). If we had to pick, our favorite track might be "Tempos Constantes", mixing fuzzy guitar riffage n' rippery with out-and-out uptempo sunshiney pop, but it's a tough call. And then there's the bonus cuts. If anything, those two tracks from A Bolha's debut 1971 single are heavier / druggier / jammier than the preceding cuts on this disc, the band apparently lightening up a bit for the album two years later. Worth it for those two alone, almost!
Definitely one for fans of South American psych all told, if you like the likes of later Os Mutantes, Los Dug Dugs, Bango, Embrujo, Som Imaginario, Color Humano, Miguel Cantilo, et. al. And in some weird way, we're even reminded a bit of recent Comets On Fire output!
NB Although what we said above about Lion Productions being meticulous with their reissues is generally true, we did discover that despite their best efforts, the track listing and disc programming here is screwed up, for one thing tracks 6 and 7 appear to be switched around. Whoops! Lion is quite chagrined and will post corrected information to their website asap.
MPEG Stream: "Tempos Constantes"
MPEG Stream: "A Espera"
MPEG Stream: "Sem Nada"

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO U.F.O Are We Experimental? (Prophase Music) cd 17.98
Are they? After all, how much of an experiment can it be after you've made, like, several hundred albums? Is it still an experiment the 1,000th time you do it? Though we can usually guess at the results of any "experiment" by this prolific Japanese hippie psych outfit, it's not like we don't want to hear that sound of theirs again and again and again. However, this time 'round it DOES seem that they're going a little further out than usual, and the title isn't simply an excuse for cover graphics parodying the Jimi Hendrix album... The eleven tracks found here are pretty weird, many taking a kitchen sink sound collage approach that just might incorporate everything from blown out freek guitar scramble (of course), to acoustic flute folk, to echoing sound FX, to chaotic cocktail jazz, to garbled electronics and tape manipulations. Not necessarily nothin' they haven't done before, but not quite like this. It comes closer to some early Boredoms stuff or even Hanatarash cut-ups than it does the extended jam-outs of most AMT releases. So yeah, they are experimental. And successfully so, in our pseudoscientific opinion. At least, we found this quite intriguing/entertaining. Welcome to the Acid Mothers Laboratory!
MPEG Stream: "Wired Stinky Pussy Luver"
MPEG Stream: "Close Encounters Of The Electric Spirits"
MPEG Stream: "Goodbye Big Asshole Emmanuelle"

ANALS Total Anal (Permanent) lp 16.98
Ah, France. Home to the sugary pop sounds of Phoenix and the stately elegance of Air... But scratch the surface to the French underground, and you're faced with the harsh realization that things may be way more fucked than you ever imagined. Festering like an open sore is the Anals, a nihilistic duo from Metz capable of whipping up an ungodly racket with only drums, synthesizers at their most basic functioning level, occasional guitars, anguished Frenchman vocals sung in English, and a whole FUCKLOAD of sheer, agonizing noise. After listening to these hateful miscreants, it makes total sense that they were shat forth from the same land that brought us the Marquis de Sade, Celine, and Gerard Depardieu.
Looking at the lyric sheet to Total Anal may be the deciding factor for just how much you can take from these guys. Those into pushing the limits of decency and comfort with bands like the Brainbombs or the Country Teasers, however, will probably find much to love with this one. The album begins with "Commando Of Love," a little ditty musing poetic on a love triangle set in a concentration camp. The song is comprised of a creepy, tense synth whir that is eventually met with pounding cave man drums and vocals that sound more exasperated than enraged. Like many of the other songs on the record, the melodies are almost perceived, as the songs are pretty much made up of earsplitting noise, carried forward by a relentless thump and cacophonous vocals. Other parts of the record sound like This Heat being beaten up and reinterpreted by a couple of French street thugs armed with sound generators and Six Finger Satellite records. The incessant drumming and unrestrained feedback make it feel like your heart might blow at any moment. Strangest of all, however, is on songs like "Vaginal Death Tunnel," where you realize that though this is noise rock with an emphasis on both the "noise" and the "rock," the Anals are creating music that somehow manages to fall within the approximation of a pop song structure, in the same way a group like the Dead C was able to achieve on some of their earlier records. Not that this would ever be mistaken for pop music...
Coming to us from the killer Chicago store/label Permanent Records, who introduced many of us to the glorious sounds of Cave, Total Anal also comes with a free download in a nod to the turntable deprived. Highly recommended listening for those who like things on the dirty side, in every imaginable way.
MPEG Stream: "Commando Of Love"
MPEG Stream: "Vaginal Death Tunnel"
MPEG Stream: "Love Lives In The Street"

BEAUSOLEIL, BOBBY The Lucifer Rising Suite: Original Soundtrack And Sessions Anthology (Ajna) 4lp box 53.00
We've carried this longtime aQ fave several times over the years, in multiple formats, in varying degrees of availability, unfortunately, it never seemed to stick around for long. For a while we were even in contact with Beausoleil himself via his wife who was handling his business for a while, trying to get copies. Well, now you can thank the fine folks at Ajna, who have not only reissued it again, but added TONS of unreleased material, included all sorts of new, original artwork, pressed it up on VINYL and packed it all in a super deluxe box. These are expensive, but so worth it, after all, it's the only way to currently get Lucifer Rising, and of course it's a limited pressing, so these won't be around forever...
Ahhh Lucifer Rising, the rare soundtrack to cult underground director and Crowley-ite Kenneth Anger's film Lucifer Rising (begun in the mid-'60s, completed in 1980). Originally Jimmy Page was supposed to do the score, but he bowed out and the music was instead handled by another cult figure, the musical visionary and imprisoned killer Bobby Beausoleil, who composed and performed this spacey psychedelic opus with his Freedom Orchestra (presumably all fellow prisoners with Bobby).
Bobby and the Freedom Orchestra play electric guitars, Fender Rhodes electric pianos, some synths and bass...there's two drummers, and a trumpet player. The result is a sometimes sinister, sometimes blissful, always beautiful and "cosmic" drifting soundscape. Gurgling old-school electronics blend with propulsive rock drumming, while psychedelic guitar soloing tears across the sunset horizon created by the synths...The combination results in what you might imagine an early '70s Tangerine Dream/Ennio Morricone collaboration might have sounded like. It's indeed a lost classic. And the composer's life story is at least as weird and interesting as the music...
In the late Sixties, Bobby was a rising star in the LA rock-pop scene, hanging with Zappa, the Beach Boys, and Love. But then a drug deal went bad and he was sent to death row for murder, arrested 3 days before the Manson killing spree. Fortunately for him, his sentence was eventually commuted, but he's spent like the last 30 years in jail. He's been a model prisoner, pursuing his talents in music and art despite his incarceration, and you'd think that the parole board would have let him out by now (he's been paying his debt to society longer than anybody else has for a similar crime, we're told) but sadly for Bobby, he's got to deal with his association with the notorious Charles Manson. While never a member of Manson's Family (a common misconception), he did play in a band with Manson, and the media hype surrounding anything to do with Manson hasn't helped Bobby's case, as you might imagine! (At least that's the way Beausoleil tells it. But the more one delves into the story of "Lucifer Rising", the weirder things get -- for instance, apparently Bobby was supposed to PLAY the role of Lucifer in the original 1966 version of Anger's film, but the two had a falling out and Bobby allegedly stole the footage and buried it in Death Valley! How this jibes with him later writing this soundtrack, we don't know.)
Yet, not being one to simply sit in his cell and rot, Bobby has, as we said, kept quite busy within the clutches of the California Penal system.
This new vinyl box set, includes all the music on the various versions we've carried over the years, plus SO MUCH MORE.
This version includes newly remastered recordings spanning 11 years, from the original 1967 recordings to the Tracy Prison recordings in 1978. 4 lps, 2 of which are entirely unreleased material, nine new pieces of art by Beausoleil, 8 on the printed inner sleeves, and one 2 foot by 3 foot poster, a second poster, a massive booklet, with tons of new liner notes, and loads of photos, the box gorgeous and hefty, full color outside and inside, this is THE outsider lost seventies occult rock soundtrack holy grail for sure.
And although for obvious reasons Bobby wouldn't probably approve of the use of the word to describe himself and this soundtrack, in the aQuarius recOrds' musical context it's quite appropriate: CULT!

BIANCHI, MAURIZIO / M.B Technology 1 & 2 (At War With False Noise) 2cd 14.98
You would think that with not one, but four archival collections of Maurizio Bianchi's seminal work from the early '80s, all of these recordings would have been made available by now. Actually, an excerpt of Technology 1 did appear on the Vinyl-On-Demand 5LP boxset Archives 1, but nowhere has Technology 2 been reissued, barring the dodgy bootlegs throughout the past three decades. Technology 1 & 2 were originally self-released cassettes that Bianchi issued under his MB moniker in 1981.
For those not familiar with the work of MB / Maurizio Bianchi, Technology 1 & 2 actually works as an excellent primer into his industrial wastelands strewn with carcinogenic pathogens and primitive landmines. This Italian musician came to prominence through his initial work with William Bennett of Come Productions and later through a few releases on Broken Flag; and his recordings throughout the late '70s and early '80s were definitely of the 'Industrial' mindset as in Whitehouse, Throbbing Gristle, and SPK. But his references were less the detourned rock structures of those outfits, his influence came more from the German camps: Klaus Schulze, Cluster, Conrad Schnitzler, etc. In applying the death-culture aesthetic of those aforementioned Brits to the electronic expressionism of those aforementioned Germans, Bianchi had a jumping off point for a massive output, which is clearly why these tapes had yet to see the light of day.
Both Technology 1 and 2 are poly-dimensional explorations of searing hiss, robotic bleeps, turgid noise, and mechano rhythms. The first chapter throb with pulsing electronics that splatter across a hot-wired electrical field that almost engender the noxious energy of shortwave radio receptions of utility signals. These sharply rendered rainbow electronics are contrasted by the far more alienating shivers of electrical sound on Technology 2. Here, Bianchi sets up sheets of metallic vibration and rippling static for his insistent pulses of stun-gun blasts. Both of these discs are much closer to the Symphony For A Genocide and Mectpyo Blut album found in the MB box. Bianchi was true to the misanthropic attitudes of his youth on these recordings, presenting the sounds as the artifacts of technology that invade the body on a cellular level to destroy from within.
MPEG Stream: "Technology 1 Untitled 2"
MPEG Stream: "Technology 2 Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Technology 2 Untitled 3"

BLACK TO COMM Charlemagne & Pippin (Digitalis) cd 12.98
A brand new disc from this mysterious German outfit, long time aQ faves Black To Comm, who you might assume might be some sort of garagey rock thing based on their name, but nope, these guys make drones, epic twisting layered expansive beautiful drones, three guys, tones of instruments, but you might not know it by listening. Organ, tape loops, electronics, metal percussion, violin, toys, water, shruti box, bells, whistles, feedback and pictaphone, the recipe for sort of cacophonous Avarus style foresty free folk freakout is some hands, but in the hands of this trio, the sounds conjured up with those instruments is melted down, swirled and shimmered, smeared and blurred, into a looooooong single track. A gorgeously blissful hazy drift, at the center of it all is THE DRONE, a lush, softly shifting stream of layered tones, fluttering flickering notes and melodies, warm whirring textures and all manner of muted overtones, but all around it, a sea of other sounds swirl and spin, high end trills, mechanical creaks, slivers of feedback, glitchy electronics, and what starts out as serene and dreamy, grows ever so much more ominous, the sounds filling out, the edges sharpening, the heft seeming to expand exponentially.
Instead of some sort of lowercase minimal dronemusic, the sound here is epic, majestic, sprawling spacedrone, blinding blistering sonic effulgence, a whirling ur-drone rife with strange FX, and a dense throbbing core.
The last few minutes finds the spaced out drone wreathed in a soft cacophony of blurred noise, a patina of washed out distortion, a wild tangle of squiggly high end, the entire track a lurching, slow swelling spaced out loop, totally mesmerizing, and in its own way heavy and dense and intense. It's hard to get a feel for the power at work here with only a fleeting listen, but taken as a whole, these sounds surround you, and suck you in. Strap on your headphones and you'll find yourself falling willingly under Black To Comm's tripped out space drone spell, drifting endlessly throughout their gloriously and deliriously hazy, woozy and wildly psychedelic world of sound.
MPEG Stream: "Charlemagne & Pippin"

BLANK DOGS Slow Room! / Anywhere (Captured Tracks) 7" 6.98
Two new jams from this one man band, spearheading the current new wave of... umm, new wave. And we have to to say, lately, we're more and more convinced that if there is some sort of crown for dour new wave lo-fi noise pop king, it's gotta go to Mr. Blank Dogs, and this 7 inch only seals the deal. Strip away the fuzz and the hiss and the distortion and the crackle and you'd have some dangerously catchy pure pop. Fuck it, DON'T strip any of that stuff away and you STILL have some seriously perfect pop.
The A side has a hook most bands would kill for, rendered here in buzzy brittle synths, lilting guitar melodies, cool distorted effected vox, and all sorts of warble and warp, easily the catchiest Blank Dogs track yet.
The B side channels vintage Sebadoh style bedroom 4-track sad boy folk pop into something a little more poppy and new wave-y but still plenty murky and jangly and lo-fi, with sci-fi synths, rubbery bass and haunting multi tracked vocals, as well as another killer guitar part. Absolutely kick ass gloomy downer new wave doom pop that pretty much no other shitgazing bands have been able to touch...

BUBBLE PUPPY A Gathering Of Promises (Charly) cd 17.98
The legendary Roky Erickson and his 13th Floor Elevators are treasured by most psychedelic rock hounds, and deservedly so (recently the subject of a 10cd retrospective box set!). But the Elevators weren't the only sixties Texas psych band to release album on the Houston based International Artists label, of course, there was also the more avant garde Red Krayola... and THESE guys, best known for their hit "Hot Smoke And Sassafras", a song you must have heard at some point in your life, most likely without knowing it was by a band called Bubble Puppy. It starts off with an immediately catchy, chicka-chicka riff, one of THOSE killer riffs, funky and fuzzed, which leads into some primo '60s pop psych. Really it's the next best thing to James Gang's "Funk #49", or even some of Hendrix's classics a la "Purple Haze", in that long forgotten groovy acid rock style bands just don't do anymore. Great title too. "Hot Smoke And Sassafras" appeared on BP's lone 1969 album A Gathering Of Promises, now reissued in a limited edition, impressively thick deluxe "digibook" packaging complete with 8 bonus tracks!
Bubble Puppy are one of those sorta well-known yet still overlooked bands, who will forever be considered one hit wonders, but while "Hot Smoke..." is one REALLY good reason to get this album, they have other songs that are quite worthy too! Ferinstance, the title track is a great example of the other thing that BP do so well, a more mellowed out style of psych pop, another would be the Beatlesy "It's Safe To Say"... And then among the bonus tracks (some of which are merely mono singles versions of album cuts) you'll find "Thinkin' About Thinkin'", another energetic raver very much the "Hot Smoke..." style. Seems like they could have been a bigger band for sure, but International Artists wasn't able to take 'em there. Eventually these guys moved to LA and changed their name to Demian 'cause Bubble Puppy (an allusion to a childrens' game that figures in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World) sounded too bubblegum, which wasn't at all the intention - Bubble Puppy being a rock act whose very first gig was as support for The Who! Sadly, Demian never made it either, but at least these guys will forever be footnoted at least in the annals of rock n' roll thanks to "Hot Smoke...", though they deserve more than that based on the significant charms of this entire album.
MPEG Stream: "Hot Smoke And Sassafras"
MPEG Stream: "A Gathering Of Promises"

CAIN A Pound Of Flesh (Rockadrome / Vintage) cd 12.98
Rockadrome's Vintage division comes through with the proto metal goods yet again, this time reissuing the 1975 debut album from Minnesota hard rockers Cain (put out on compact disc once before by Rockadrome's previous incarnation Monster Records, but long out of print). First off, you know this is gonna be heavy when you see that cover, graphically and grossly depicting an actual pound (or more) of actual flesh overflowing from a tin can marked Cain. "8 Prime Cuts" it says on the can. And there are, 8 prime cuts of good ol' '70s American riff rock. (Plus four more bonus tracks from '78 on this cd reish.) It's along the lines of Grand Funk, Starz, Bad Company, Ted Nugent, Moxy, with some hints of Angel and Blue Oyster Cult...
Frontman Jiggs Lee's barechested vocals lead the charge with barroom bravado, as Cain kick out their jams, consisting of hard hitting party time grooves definitely made to be blasted LOUD out of muscle cars in the Midwest. Full of funky rhythms and dramatic crescendos, Cain's music is basically swaggering cock rock, with nods to both glam and the proggier fare from the likes of Led Zep and Queen (there's even flute in the intro to the second track, "Katy"). Speaking of Queen, you gotta love a band that has a song called "Queen Of The Night" and then another one, two tracks later, entitled "South Side Queen".
If you liked the recent Rockadrome reissue of Poobah, you'll want to check this out too. And for even more proto metal awesomeness that's shown up here this week, see also our review of the Up All Night various artists collection!
MPEG Stream: "Queen Of The Night"
MPEG Stream: "Heed The Call"

CARTER, CHRISTINA Lace Heart (Root Strata) 2lp 23.00
"Lace Heart" was originally self-released as a cd-r in 2005 in an edition of 300 copies and quickly disappeared from circulation. Nevertheless, it was one of the recordings in Christina Carter's extensive catalogue that immediately stood out to her fans and became a benchmark for albums that followed. These spectral avant-folk numbers managed a teary-eyed, nocturnal atmosphere through Spartan arrangements for just guitar and voice. Her guitar quietly meanders along simple strumming that may only alternate between just a few chords throughout each of the tracks, peppered with occasional overdubs of distant, shimmering swells of reverberation; and the album drifts in and out of dreamstates through the hypnotic repetitions of her slowly chiming guitar. Her earthen voice occasionally rises out of her arrangements as a beautiful counterpoint, but more often than not her monophonic cooing nestles into the warmth of the guitar as a perfect complement to those elliptical plucks and strums.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, beautiful printed sleeves, the lps pressed on thick swirled red vinyl, the D side featuring an etching similar to the front cover artwork!

CATALYST, THE Swallow Your Teeth (The Perpetual Motion Machine) lp 11.98
These guys must destroy live. Check out the picture on the sleeve, wild frenzied sweaty kids mid-mosh, a bloodied microphone, and then of course there's the music, a fucking skull crushing unholy post punk noise rock racket that manages to take all the stuff we loved about Sub Pop and AmRep and nineties noise rock and amp it all up two thousands style. A little bit of screamo, a bit of post hardcore, but really, these guys could have come straight out of 1995, cuz they just don't make shit like this anymore. Only, they do. Catalyst does, and it sounds as good as it ever did.
Heavy as fuck, catchy as fuck, wild tribal drumming, buzz drenched super distorted riffage, howled vocals, soaring choruses, plenty of mathy breakdowns, a little bit off groove, hooks galore, warped woozy guitar harmonies all tangled and melodic reminding us big time of Drive Like Jehu, and heck, they even have a song called "Lars Ulrich's 1986 Funeral (It Should Have Been You)".
We raved about their previous record Marianas Trench, which we still have a few copies of, but this one is even better, heavier, catchier... We often lament the lack of actual BANDS, y'know, bands that write songs, there's so much dronemusic, and experimental ambience, and free folk improv, and blackend buzz, and we do love all that, but sometimes nothing hits the spot like an actual rock band, pounding away on actual instruments, sweating, bleeding, leaping off the stage, rolling around on the floor, and spitting out actual songs. Of course it helps when the band is this bad ass and the songs rule this hard, so if you've been hankering for some seriously heavy post punk noise rock in your life, and who amongst us HASN'T? Well, then these guys should definitely hit the spot.

CONCERN Truth and Distance (Digitalis) cd 12.98
One of several new releases on the always kick ass Digitalis label, this one from a one man band called Concern, that one man being Gordon Ashworth, little brother of Owen Ashworth of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, as well as a member of the late great Peyote Calamity, a weird heavy outfit, who sadly never released a proper record, but neither of those bands necessarily hint at the sounds to be found here. Utilizing a vast collection of instruments and noise making devices, zither, lap harp, mbira, banjo, piano, clarinet, trombone, accordion, acoustic guitar and alto horn, Ashworth blurs all those various instruments into long streaks of hazy drone-y dreaminess. Three tracks, all long, all gorgeously lush and textured, strangely melodic and propulsive for a sound that tends toward a more static drift.
Opener "Truth And Distance" bristles with energy, a glowing warm shimmer, the edges growing ever sharper as the songs sprawls outward, from a hushed whisper to a mighty heart of the sun ur-drone, the sound raw and organic, the core a deep unwavering drone, but the sound is like a stream, carrying all manner of glitch and hum, stray bits of disembodied guitar, melodic fragments, eventually transforming into a strange abstract Appalachia, a soft swirling tangle of upper register buzz and and skittery processed tones, definitely some of the most divine drones we've heard.
The first track is well over half the total length of the record, but the second two tracks, while shorter, are just as beautiful and epic. "Young Birth" builds from hushed whir to almost symphonic sounding majesty, a warped otherworldly new age, all tranquil and blissed out, the various tones overlapping and intertwining before fading out in a soft flurry of crackle and hum. While the final track, "Heartsink", begins all raw and fuzzy and almost heavy with a Tim Hecker sort of vibe, only to shift gears, and allow the sound of the various instruments to become distinct and identifiable. Which in no way means the sound is any less dreamlike, soft shimmers of heavily reverbed piano drift weightlessly in an expanse of soft muted melodies, the overtones creating distant drone-y swells, the result a lovely abstract sort of classical chamber dronemusic, so so so nice.
Essential listening for the drone inclined, and any one into Tim Hecker, Aidan Baker, Fennesz, Belong and the like might just have a new favorite record.
MPEG Stream: "Truth And Distance"
MPEG Stream: "Young Birth"

CURRENT 93 Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain (Coptic Cat) 2lp 22.00
NOW ON VINYL!!! It's always a challenge to delve into the polyglot mythologies of David Tibet, as the visions in his lyrics reference a host of esoteric subjects: the gnostic Christian texts of the early 2nd Century, Thelemic citations from Aleister Crowley, snippets of Coptic, and plenty of Tibet's feverish dislocations of images delivered in stream of consciousness. The central protagonist here is Aleph, a character with a slippery persona, one that may be acting before God set the universe in order, one that may be acting as a dopplerganger to Adam, one that may be the murderous precursor of Cain, one that may spell out an alternate origin of Lucifer, or one that is unique to Current 93. To avid Current 93 fans, these mysteries and contradictions are commonplace; but the biggest shift for Current 93 is in the musical arrangements. Gone are the fairy-dusted madrigals for just piano, 12-string guitar, and violin. Tibet has now grasped onto a blistering, occasionally sprawling psychedelia centered upon heavy, proto-metal riffs. Amon Duul's Yeti, the psychedelic moments of Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, and certainly early Alice Cooper all factor into Current 93's arrangements. Given the '70s laden heaviness of this album, it's a little hard to believe that Al Cisneros (Om, Sleep) who had previously collaborated with Tibet isn't present. Instead, Tibet has brought on board Alex Neilson, Andrew WK, Keith Wood, Matt Sweeney, Rickey Lee Jones, James Blackshaw, porn-star Sasha Gray, and a host of others. Once again, Steven Stapleton is at the helm of the production with Andrew Liles adding his deft hand in the mix as well. Alex Neilson's presence on drums is of particular note, as his heavy-handed fills and lumbering gate does away with the taut precision which gave some Current 93 albums an anal retentive quality. Neilson in conjunction with the army of guitarists churning through these heavy, psychedelic riffs makes this album as good as it is.
MPEG Stream: "Invocation Of Almost"
MPEG Stream: "On Docetic Mountain"
MPEG Stream: "Not Because The Fox Barks"

ELEVEN POND Bas Relief (Dark Entries) lp 19.98
What a total gem! An amazing unearthed, ultra obscure album from way back in 1986. Hailing from Rochester, NY, Eleven Pond crafted super infectious dark pop with wonderful synth moments and song writing that has really held up over the years. Some of the production, and much of the overall sound reminds us a bit of Seventeen Seconds era Cure, where basslines lead the tracks and the guitars and synths add such a nice mood and texture. We're also reminded a lot of another obscure mid '80s band, For Against, who had the same ability to take Factory/4AD elements and influences and meld them so nicely with classic eighties American college rock, they kind of sounded like this amazing hybrid of Joy Division and R.E.M.
With new romantic vocals that totally tap into vintage Depeche Mode and New Order territory, we also hear echoes of other lesser known yet great bands of this era like Soul Merchants and Jet Black Factory. With so many new bands lately referencing that era and looking to similarly vintage sounds for inspiration, it's so refreshing to hear an actual relic from that period, too bad it sadly somehow slipped through the cracks, but now we can finally enjoy this set of songs, so worthy of much wider appreciation.
Limited to a pressing of 500, each copy has been silk screened and contains two Eleven Pond postcards as well as a sticker from Dark Entries, the label who mark this as their first release and who we have a pretty good feeling we're going to be hearing a lot more from in the future. Grab one while you can, as this is highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Tear & Cinnamon"
MPEG Stream: "Asterisk"
MPEG Stream: "Portugal"

EMACIATOR Appease (Monorail Trespassing) cassette 6.98
So in the latest issue of the Wire, David Keenan was on to something with his cultural study of what he's calling 'hypnogogic pop' to define connections between the likes of Emeralds, The Skaters, Ariel Pink, Zola Jesus, Pocahaunted, and others. He argues that these bands draw from a fictional reading of the late '70s and early '80s, that extracts an aura of that time period without a direct revisionism of any particular style. It would be a stretch to qualify Emaciator as 'pop' but certainly on this brilliant cassette self-released on Monorail Trespassing, Emaciator does fit within the hypnogogic definition of a half-awake / half-dreaming and half-remembering / half-forgetting sensibility. The psychic birthing place for this album would have been sometime in the late '70s and would stand as Jon Borges fictional historicism of what braintuning cassettes should have sounded like instead of insipid new age wishy-washy-ness. Sure, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, and Harmonia had generated a like-minded ambience through mellotron and guitar; and minimalists like Roland Kayn, Yoshi Wada, and LaMonte Young deconstructed composition into an unrepentant drone; but the psychedelia of the former rarely melded with the rigor of the latter. And here is where Emaciator fills in the historical gap, producing these two linear shots of deep cosmic dronemusik. The first side gradually builds out of analogue synthesis with swelling pulses of low end frequencies bristling against a meandering melody which hovers like a mirage in the distance. The second side is even more meditative, with a steady arc of sound which emerges like an arctic sunrise in wintertime, peeking over the blackened horizon only to sink back as a sunset. Emaciator's work seems to be smoothing out more and more, leaving an increasing gap between this work and the noise alter-ego Pedestrian Deposit. Both are great projects and should be checked out! Appease is a limited edition 22 minute cassette in an edition of 125 copies. These will not last.

END III (Black Hate) cd 17.98
It's been more than 6 years since we last heard from Greece's End, whose last record, entitled of course II, we described thusly: "For fans of Weakling, Eikenskaden, Khold, Satyricon, and Burzum - which means basically, if you like black metal, you want this! Actually, forget black metal for a second. If the idea of speaker-threatening fuzz-dirge loping from your stereo appeals to you, then you still want this."
Which heck, still holds true with this most recent disc, the only difference being that the sound is a bit more polished, a bit tighter. Whereas the first two End records were pretty raw, III finds End taking their raw buzz and furious blast and adding some heft, and a bit of groove. For every explosive face-melting soul-shearing burst of frenetic grinding black fury, there's some lurching, loping doomic dirge, often slipping into gorgeous spidery drifts, or drifting toward something much more post rocky than black metal, there's still plenty of acoustic guitar, but instead of peeling back all the other instruments, the buzzing steel strings are woven into the buzzing blackness, adding another woozy almost folky dimension.
And the mention of Khold in the old review is even more applicable now, and heck Code too, as this new End, spends much of its time droning dramatically, or in cool mathy gnarled bits of Deathspell-ed crunch, with lots of stop starts, dizzying arpeggiated guitars, warped almost gothic sounding breakdowns, soaring melodies all over the place, weirdly technical, and dramatic, and emotional, there seems to be a new wave of avant post black metal, and End seemed to have tapped into it, and perfectly fused it with their classic Greek blackness. III seems to be another one of those records that benefits from repeated listens, the poppiness and sonic mystery that pervades pretty much every song, seem to no longer lurk in the background, instead, driving these songs and defining End's awesome new sound.
Packaged in a super deluxe 6 panel digipak, with a big booklet, and some seriously gorgeous (and scary) black and white artwork.
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe"
MPEG Stream: "Self-Eating Mass"
MPEG Stream: "Still In Flesh"

EVANS, JESSIE Is It Fire? (Fantomette) cd 14.98
For those who love rhythm, attention! Is it Fire?, Jessie Evans' first solo record, has enough percussion to satisfy even the most energetic dancefloor junkie. Latin- and African-inspired beats programmed by Jessie are masterfully enhanced with live percussion performed by Toby Dammit (of Iggy Pop fame) and, on a few tracks, none other than Budgie (of the Banshees/Creatures). For the most part, the instrumentation is kept to a minimum, letting the rhythm drive the songs. Saxophone and bass played by Jessie add melody, and the occasional trumpet and other horns (played by Martin Wenk of Calexico) enhance the Latin air. A couple of songs are even sung in Spanish. Synths pop up every once in a while, and, except on a track or three, are left buried in the mix, serving only to add a little flavor. Sometimes, as on the last Vanishing LP, the vocals are fuzzed out into incomprehension, more of a washy layer than a narrative, opting to let the drums tell the story. And what a story they tell!
Don't misunderstand: there's a lot going on within every track. Jessie had been bringing us great music for years, now: The Subtonix, The Vanishing, Autonervous. Is it Fire? is a strong notch on the belt of an artist who will hopefully continue to bring us great music for a long time.
MPEG Stream: "Is it Fire?"
MPEG Stream: "Ninos del Espacio"
MPEG Stream: "To the Sun"

EVANS, JESSIE Is It Fire? (Fantomette) lp 14.98
For those who love rhythm, attention! Is it Fire?, Jessie Evans' first solo record, has enough percussion to satisfy even the most energetic dancefloor junkie. Latin- and African-inspired beats programmed by Jessie are masterfully enhanced with live percussion performed by Toby Dammit (of Iggy Pop fame) and, on a few tracks, none other than Budgie (of the Banshees/Creatures). For the most part, the instrumentation is kept to a minimum, letting the rhythm drive the songs. Saxophone and bass played by Jessie add melody, and the occasional trumpet and other horns (played by Martin Wenk of Calexico) enhance the Latin air. A couple of songs are even sung in Spanish. Synths pop up every once in a while, and, except on a track or three, are left buried in the mix, serving only to add a little flavor. Sometimes, as on the last Vanishing LP, the vocals are fuzzed out into incomprehension, more of a washy layer than a narrative, opting to let the drums tell the story. And what a story they tell!
Don't misunderstand: there's a lot going on within every track. Jessie had been bringing us great music for years, now: The Subtonix, The Vanishing, Autonervous. Is it Fire? is a strong notch on the belt of an artist who will hopefully continue to bring us great music for a long time.
MPEG Stream: "Is it Fire?"
MPEG Stream: "Ninos del Espacio"
MPEG Stream: "To the Sun"

FAUST So Far (4 Men With Beards) lp 19.98
Nice to have this in now as an actual vinyl (180 gram) reissue, after all, it's one of the BEST RECORDS EVER. That's right. And I don't think we're really going out on a limb with that claim. Certainly one of the best krautrock records ever (as are pretty much all the Faust albums, actually). This, Faust's second album, originally released in 1972, is the missing link between The Velvet Underground and The Boredoms, we're telling you. Just listen to the mantric opener "It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl" and tell us they weren't influenced by the VU... yet taking things way further into the trance-zone, pioneering the minimal post-rock sounds of many popular indie bands today... Circle ferinstance! And for sure the Boredoms. Also, without Faust, chances are, no This Heat. No Nurse With Wound. Yep they were pioneers all right. And still sound plenty fresh 'n weird today. So Far reigns in the sound collage craziness of their selt-titled debut, tightening up into actual song-form-iness, even getting into some pleasantly lyrical poppiness... but always ready to do something violently eccentric. "Daddy, take the banana!"
And, this vinyl reissue comes packaged like the original with a bunch of art inserts!
MPEG Stream: "It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl"
MPEG Stream: "No Harm"

GAINSBOURG, SERGE Bonnie and Clyde (4 Men With Beards) lp 17.98
We're so psyched that all these amazing Serge Gainsbourg records have been getting the reissue treatment lately, since for the last several years any time you tried to find Gainsbourg on vinyl, that section in the record store would always be empty, or somehow worse, filled with outlandishly expensive imports.
Originally released in 1968, Bonnie And Clyde was labeled as a collaboration between Gainsbourg and his sultry fling of that moment, the illustrious Brigitte Bardot. While she isn't on all of the record, the tracks she does appear on do soar with such sultry and seductive pop perfection. And the tracks where Gainsbourg goes at it alone manage to be equally as suave and swirly, tapping into his masterful ability to bring so much texture and depth in demonstrating the ultimate possibilities of pop music. You can hear so many more contemporary bands in these songs, the influence is irrefutable. Everyone from Air, Stereolab, Beck, Sebastian Tellier, Stereo Total, Magnetic Fields, Jens Lekman, Rufus Wainwright, April March and about a million more have followed in one way or another the blueprints that Gainsbourg created. Bonnie and Clyde perfectly displays Gainsbourg's flair for cabaret inspired lush and colorful pop. Yet another document of the man's musical genius!

GALAXIE 500 Today (20/20/20) lp 15.98
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available on vinyl once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta.
Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly quitting to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful ventures, none of them have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
Today was Galaxie 500's 1988 debut, and it's a slow burning paean to the more unstable sides of love and patient resolve. The elliptical rhythm section smolders and intensifies without ever fully "rocking out" while the warm guitar work strums over the top occasionally veering into understated solos. But Wareham's forlorn low-key vocals with clever but enigmatically simple songwriting is what ties the songs together. The centerpiece of the album however is their cover of Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste". The original version being a short, a capella, almost spoken poem, in Galaxie 500's hands, it becomes a simmering epic as they bookend the singing with forceful driving instrumental passages, sounding like something the early Velvets would have come up with. The final song, "Tugboat" was also their first single, and nicely sets up of what this band is all about: lonely and introspective but decisive, leading and in full control.

GALAXIE 500 On Fire (20/20/20) lp 15.98
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available on vinyl once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta.
Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly quitting to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful ventures, none of them have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
On Fire was the band's 1989 follow-up to Today, and is widely considered their best album (though we love them all, and really find it hard to favor one in particular over the others). It's definitely their most varied yet most assured album. The songs have more blissed-out dynamics, without losing their understated verve. The instrumentation is augmented on a few songs by more acoustic guitar underlayers and moments of organ and even guest cameo Ralph Carney's tenor sax on "Decomposing Trees". But a noticeable standout is Naomi Yang singing on "Another Day", a soft gauzy highlight on an already stellar album. If there were any longstanding regrets about this band among fans, the big one would be we wished she got to sing more. The cover song this time goes to George Harrison's "Isn't It A Pity", a sentiment that extends way past Harrison's original intent and hovers over this band like a ghost.

GALAXIE 500 This Is Our Music (20/20/20) lp 15.98
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available on vinyl once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta.
Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly quitting to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful ventures, none of them have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
This Is Our Music from 1990 wasn't planned as a final album, as the band seemed to be striving for larger recognition with their most accomplished and widely-received record. The opener "Fourth of July" (which was also the single) leaps out with a charge more than any of their other opening songs. Yet most of the rest of the songs are sublimely slow beautiful bummers, with more noticeable shoegazey shimmer. Of course, the centerpiece, yet again is another gorgeous cover. This time it's Yoko Ono's "Listen, The Snow Is Falling". Sung by Yang, the band expands upon a simple original with a stretched out epic instrumental climax. The final track, "King of Spain, Part Two", a kind of follow-up to the b-side of their first single, brings the band around full circle, as the song seems to drift off into the sunset. You couldn't plan a more perfect note for a band like Galaxie 500 to end on.

GARY WAR Horribles Parade (Sacred Bones) lp 16.98
Gary War definitely found a perfect home for his tweaked and twisted pop, right next to the best of recent outsider pop deconstructionists like Ariel Pink, Kurt Vile, John Maus, Blank Dogs, etc. With his latest lp he carefully stretches his already compelling sound into even more tripped out directions, some gorgeously bizarre, warped catchy, electronics melded with ultra fucked up pop that sound like they really belong on some sort of amazing Ariel Pink/John Maus collaboration. While his last records oozed with residues of '70s psychedelia, Horribles Parade almost sounds like an amazing deconstruction of new-wave gone way weird. Like if someone got a hold of old master tapes from Devo, the Units and Gary Numan and doused them mysterious liquids, messed with the speed a bit, and played it all back on an old analog reel to reel through shitty speakers in the room next door. Deliciously delirious.

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Rend Each Other Like Wild Beasts, Till Earth Shall Reek With Midnight Massacre (At War WIth False Noise) lp 16.98
What might you glean from an image of a shepherd with a ram's head cradling a baby lamb, standing amidst a flock of sheep, or what appears to be an image of Jesus or a saint or angel, also with a ram's head? What if those images were accompanied by phrases like "Rend Each Other Like Wild Beasts, Till Earth Shall Reek With Midnight Massacre", or "Then Shall They Come, Oh Master, Shrieking From Red Battlefields To People Thy Dark Realms", or "In Sullen Silence Stalks Forth Pestilence"? Well if you've been reading the aQuarius list for a while, you'd no doubt realize that this must be another filthy blackened sonic missive from our favorite master of cinematic black doom, Gnaw Their Tongues.
Three new tracks, all lengthy and dense and brutal and hellishly symphonic, we've struggled to describe the sound of GTT in the past, it's not doom, or black metal, although it incorporates bits of both, it's the strings and horns and haunting ambience, the weird samples and film clips, the strange arrangements that play out more like orchestrations than jams, that make Gnaw Their Tongues so singularly fucked up and genius.
Side one is all hellish deep drones wrapped around distant foghorns, or some sort of inhuman cries, layered atop dense rumbles and muted industrial percussion, tense, ominous, harrowing, building to a crushing cacophony, like a Godflesh record played at 16 rpm, alongside a soulful strings record playing at 8 rpm, the horns bleating and skronking and moaning beneath the heaving machinelike pound. Bursts of blasting buzzing crunch pepper the doomscape, as do super distorted harsh howls, and all manner of tangled melody, like some symphony of filth and crust, a creeping lumbering abstract soundscape, with a super haunting horror movie outro.
The 2nd side is more spacious and doomy, but no less intense, bits of backwards melody lace the stumbling pound, like some Bernard Hermann horror movie score gone haywire, all screaming strings, screaming voices, mysterious samples, all gorgeously abject, but hauntingly beautiful, the mournful horns, the dramatic stings, and the crumbling black wall of sound carrying everything forward and dragging it down to hell.
Gorgeous packaging, the aforementioned ram headed figures on the cover, with a heavy printed inner sleeve, and pressed on thick vinyl. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Almost out of print, these are most likely our last copies ever...
NOTE: All jackets slightly damaged, not enough to distress most folks, but anal record collectors beware!

GOLIATH BIRD EATER Blood Generation (Caligulan) cass 7.98
We haven't heard from Goliath Bird Eater in a while, a guitar and drums duo from LA featuring one Mr. Bobb Bruno as the axe wielding half. We were warned (or was it promised?) by Caligulan label head honcho Anthony, that this GBE was gonna be the heaviest yet, and just a few minutes in, and we're convinced. Whereas the last GBE was sort of mathy and freaked out, we compared it to a stripped down Dazzling Killmen, this new one is all slow burning heaviness, heaving churning guitars, sounds like an ocean of guitars, all tuned as low as they go, and unfurling massive swells of crumbling rumbling glacial heaviness. Eventually, the heaviness recedes, leaving something much more abstract and spacey, all processed guitars, swirling effects, very droney and krautrocky, fans of Expo 70 will probably flip, but best not be averse to heaviness, as they band slip right back into that churning roiling crush that started things off, before finally slipping into a slow simmering low end drift to finish off the first side. There doesn't seem to be any drums on side A so as he's credited with organ too, we can only assume that some of that heaviness could be attributed to some serious organ abuse.
The flipside starts off with another metallic riff, this one a bit more propulsive, and wreathed in shimmering organs, somehow melding some grinding slow motion metal with spaced out krautrock drift, pretty bad ass for sure. This side two doesn't offer up much in the way of drumming, other than what sounds like the click of a hi-hat keeping time, but it hardly detracts from the oozing sprawling heaviness, in fact if anything, the lack of drums lets the sound spill over in all directions, the main riff becoming more and more muddy and blown out, the organs and synths taking on more of the sound, until yes, the drums finally drop, and the song is transformed into some gorgeously in-the-red krautdrone space rock groove that definitely rivals anything you've heard from the various sonic space explorers reviewed elsewhere on the site. The music gets downright majestic, the drums locked in and motorik, the sort of jam that could, and as far as we're concerned SHOULD, go on forever. FUCKING AWESOME.
Killer packaging too, silkscreened and painted photo paper sleeve, with printed metallic gold cardstock insert.

GREENE, LORNE The Man (Omni Recording Corporation) cd 16.98
Everyone remembers Lorne Greene as Ben Cartwright, big boss of the Ponderosa Ranch on the TV show Bonanza. He cut a striking figure, salt and pepper hair, deep stentorian voice, broad shouldered and ruggedly handsome, so of course like most stars of the time (and really ANY time), Greene set out to be a recording star as well as a television star, and is the case with so many wouldbe rockstars, or country stars, Greene managed a few records, might have even had a hit or two, but it just wasn't in the cards. It's not really that he's a bad singer, although he does seem to slip into a more sung/spoken thing that actually belting it out, and it's not that these are bad songs, some of these jams are CRAZY catchy, it seems like maybe he was mismarketed at the time, instead of separating his singing career from his TV career, someone made the choice that Greene would be a singing cowboy, singing about the sort of stuff that Ben Cartwright might have sung about. The result being some serious (silly) kitsch, almost every song features a spoken word intro by Greene, his voice booming, reverbed, as if speaking from on high, and every song is about working on the railroad, or mining, or being in prison, or playing poker in a saloon, or a love song from a cowboy to his gal, then there's the music, fuzzy guitars, weird doo wop background vocals, gorgeous harmonies, a little bit of exotica, some goofy sound effects, some definite Morricone-isms (how could there not be, the twangy whistly Western vibe is all over these tracks obviously), and of course Greene crooning over the top, again spending much of his time sing/speaking, but when he does let loose, he almost sounds like Thurl Ravenscroft (who sang the them from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas), and at times some of these tracks even sound a bit like Screamin' Jay Hawkins, really good stuff for sure, and so fun, definite mix tape / party music, we've been playing this non stop, thankfully it doesn't quite devolve into a vanity vehicle like the William Shatner / Leonard Nimoy records. Instead it plays like some awesome, slightly cheesy, way over the top, catchy as all get out, lost country record, which it basically is.
Anyone who dug the Plantation Gold comp we made Record Of The Week a while back will WAY dig this. Another killer job from Omni, whose reissues have set a new standard, tons of photos, a long vintage interview with Greene and tons more. The Man collects two albums in their entirety, as well as a handful of tracks from several later records, a killer package for sure. Now, if only Omni would put together an Eddie Noack collection!!! One of the most amazing (and sickest) country rockabilly legends ever...
MPEG Stream: "Pop Goes The Hammer"
MPEG Stream: "End Of Track"
MPEG Stream: "Nine Pound Hammer"
MPEG Stream: "Bring On The Dancing Girls"

HARBINGER Second Coming (Guerssen) cd 17.98
We reviewed Dave Bixby's Ode To Quetzalcoatl record on the last list. A glorious batch of born again, weirdly damaged outsider folk, chronicling Bixby's struggle to recover from drug abuse, and to find God, which culminated in receiving actual messages from God.
Needless to say, that record was pretty intense, the music not that far out, spare and sparse and jangly and folky, but the lyrics, woah, harrowing and twisted and depressive and dark dark dark, and did we mention a bit bizarre, especially considering Bixby had achieved some sort of physical covenant with God apparently.
So here we we have Bixby's second record, released shortly after Ode To Quetzalcoatl, circa 1969, but much had changed in his life, he had hooked up with a dubious spiritual advisor / guru who eventually joined the band and wrested some of the control from Bixby (as well as being investigated by the government in connection with his sort-of-cult the Group), the performances were much larger, hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, at Christian colleges and at secular venues, Bixby had found a home, and had friends and support, but was still tortured by the same questions and fears that haunted the first record.
Harbinger is much more polished, recorded in an actual studio, with occasional female vocals, lush harmonies, overall a more positive vibe, but still the songs are intense, and emotional, mysterious and dark, just check out "Cosmic Energy", tense and minor key, Bixby's vocals more confident, but at the same time more intense, haunting atonal guitar figures, lots of buzz, a killer track for sure. And the rest of the record is pretty excellent too, a warm sunshine-y dark Christian folks, with definite dark undertones. A rare lost gem for fans of freaky outsider psychedelic folk and anyone into Jandek, Nick Drake, Bill Fay, Roy Harper, Perry Leopold, Charles Manson and other troubled folk troubadours...
MPEG Stream: "Cosmic Energy"
MPEG Stream: "Time To Clear Your Mind"
MPEG Stream: "Control"

HARBINGER Second Coming (Guerszen) lp 26.00
We reviewed Dave Bixby's Ode To Quetzalcoatl record on the last list. A glorious batch of born again, weirdly damaged outsider folk, chronicling Bixby's struggle to recover from drug abuse, and to find God, which culminated in receiving actual messages from God.
Needless to say, that record was pretty intense, the music not that far out, spare and sparse and jangly and folky, but the lyrics, woah, harrowing and twisted and depressive and dark dark dark, and did we mention a bit bizarre, especially considering Bixby had achieved some sort of physical covenant with God apparently.
So here we we have Bixby's second record, released shortly after Ode To Quetzalcoatl, circa 1969, but much had changed in his life, he had hooked up with a dubious spiritual advisor / guru who eventually joined the band and wrested some of the control from Bixby (as well as being investigated by the government in connection with his sort-of-cult the Group), the performances were much larger, hundreds, sometimes thousands of people, at Christian colleges and at secular venues, Bixby had found a home, and had friends and support, but was still tortured by the same questions and fears that haunted the first record.
Harbinger is much more polished, recorded in an actual studio, with occasional female vocals, lush harmonies, overall a more positive vibe, but still the songs are intense, and emotional, mysterious and dark, just check out "Cosmic Energy", tense and minor key, Bixby's vocals more confident, but at the same time more intense, haunting atonal guitar figures, lots of buzz, a killer track for sure. And the rest of the record is pretty excellent too, a warm sunshine-y dark Christian folks, with definite dark undertones. A rare lost gem for fans of freaky outsider psychedelic folk and anyone into Jandek, Nick Drake, Bill Fay, Roy Harper, Perry Leopold, Charles Manson and other troubled folk troubadours...
MPEG Stream: "Cosmic Energy"
MPEG Stream: "Time To Clear Your Mind"
MPEG Stream: "Control"

JABLADAV Atta Vinter (self released) cd-r 11.98
It's all been leading up to this. Seven releases in less than 4 years, we now find ourselves bowing before long anticipated (at least around here) record number eight from this Weakling worshipping, Black Flag channeling one man black metal band, who as we've mentioned before, began life as nothing more than a fun fuck-around musical HAILZ to the late great Bay Area metal masters Weakling, and heck, if you're gonna pick a band to emulate and be influenced by, you could do a LOT worse. But it didn't take long for that influence to fade, and for Jabaldav to find their own voice. And that voice was indeed a twisted one, a sound that struck a chord with aQ weirdo black metal obsessives, a twisted and gnarled blackness, jagged and harsh, hooky and heavy, and plenty weird and warped.
On Atta Vinter, Jabladav expand their sound considerably, present still are the frenzied buzzing, the relentless blast beats, the grinding Greg Ginn-ish like guitars, but the songs on AV are way more epic and sprawling, weirdly haunting and majestic, long stretches of choral drift, of looped keyboard-drenched ambience, acoustic guitar flecked streaks of orchestral sounding mellotron, strange bits of abstract vocals, soaring strings, all woven seamlessly into huge crushing slabs of black brutality, of howling pounding primitive pound.
Weirdly enough, the punk element is in full effect here too, with some of the tracks sounding like slightly more metal versions of classic Midwestern punk rock, at least one is a dead ringer for Die Kreuzen, which is NEVER a bad thing. The vocals are way more varied too, from yowled bellow, to feral yelp, to hellish shriek, most of the songs are pretty short too, with more than half under 3 minutes, but plenty of wild tangled riffing and octopoidal drumming crammed into those few minutes. And even at its punkest, the sounds are a breath away from full on furious black metal blur, and that's sort of the magic of Jabladav, a careening, lurching unpredictable punkish black metal blowout that confounds and confuses, slipping from total Norwegian style icy blast, to killer loping post punk tangle, to gorgeous shimmery drone, and back again, the various elements so disparate, but so perfectly meshed, the melodies catchy as hell, the riffs super memorable, the sound still strangely sharp and lo-fi, almost lush, but the guitars ultra distorted and super saturated, the drums pounding but buried in the mix, the flow of the record a definite sonic journey, culminating in the final 3 song suite, a long-ish expanse of downtuned doominess, that gives way to mathy grinding witchiness, whose barely there drone outro leads right into a brief blast of weirdly melodic almost power-metal sounding blackness, with harmonized guitars and a super blown out in-the-red sound, which finally, leaves us battered and bruised before the epic 11 minute closer, which begins all spidery minor key guitar, and whirring warbling mellotron, before exploding into perhaps one of the most frantic bits on the record, a lurching, twisted downtuned, buzz drenched stutter, with one of the weirdest, and most KILLER riffs ever, before again slipping into that murky spidery crawl, and then back again, over and over, the heavy riffage, getting simultaneously more and more distorted and fucked up, but more and more catchy and melodic, the weird mellotron drones only adding a distinctly creepy vibe to the proceedings, the whole track impossibly complex and dizzying, before the track stumbles to a standstill, leaving a shadowy blur, a strange funereal drift, the blackened tendrils of sound gradually shriveling up and dying, leaving nothing but darkness.
Next level shit for sure, maybe too much for the grim troo old guard, but screw them, for the rest of us, this is exactly the sort of stuff we're always dying for, buzzing, blackened, outsider, otherworldly, weird as shit heaviness that defies easy categorization. WAY recommended. Maybe the best Jabladav yet, which is saying something!
And just like the other Jabladav records, limited to 100 copies, each one hand numbered and signed, most with a little something extra inside.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"

JOHNSON, BLIND WILLIE If I Had My Way, I'd Tear The Building Down (Monk) lp 22.00
We got another amazing batch of vintage blues reissues from the wonderful Monk label. Look elsewhere on the list for reviews of two more volumes of Charley Patton recordings and a double lp set by Blind Willie McTell!
If I Had My Way, I'd Tear The Building Down is a compilation of recordings Blind Willie Johnson made for Columbia records between 1927 to 1930. Having recorded 30 songs in total, this compilation gathers nearly half of his entire recorded output. Hailing from Texas, and blinded at a young age by his stepmother (who accidentally threw lye water in his face that was meant for his father while they were fighting) Johnson became known as one of the most talented bottleneck guitar players around (though his slide was actually a pocketknife!), having honed his style on various homemade guitars he built as a kid. His blues style was heavily gospel-influenced, singing with a gruff bass voice so he could be heard above the noise of the street, as he used his music as a preaching tool. He was later joined by his wife, who added 19th century hymns to their repertoire and joined him on some of the later recordings as the high end response to his low-end calls. While she is featured on four of the tracks here, most of them are just Johnson and his beautiful slide guitar!

JONSI & ALEX Riceboy Sleeps (XL) cd 13.98
Golly, doesn't this album absolutely scream "Iceland"? Albeit in the most hushed fashion. Not a bad thing in our books by any means! Very apropos, of course! Jonsi & Alex aka Jon Por Birgisson and Alex Somers are indeed a duo from Reykjavik, Iceland. The cover artwork for their debut album is a deadringer for any release from Mum or Sigur Ros. Go figure as Jonsi is in fact the singer of Sigur Ros! The muted dark tones shroud blurry mysterious figures like snapshots from a dream. As well, their music has both a familiar sighing wistfulness and expansive grandeur to it. The first track "Happiness" follows a three note melody drawn out on bowed strings in a slowly swelling cycle. It's deceptively powerful in its seeming simplicity, and quite capable of stirring up bittersweet aches from days long past. Riceboy Sleeps is graced with strings by Amiina and choral accompaniment by Kopavogsdottur. And really, the album is just as much theirs as it is Jonsi & Alex. Their performances are breathtaking! Other highlights: "Indian Summer", "All The Big Trees" and "Daniell In The Sea". Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Happiness"
MPEG Stream: "Indian Summer"

KOOL & THE GANG Live At P.J.'s Hollywood, California (Reel Music) cd 14.98
For most casual listeners of music, Kool & The Gang will forever be remembered (and dismissed) for their platinum eighties mega-hit "Celebration". Which is a damn shame! That song alone has nearly built a wall so high over their past efforts that it's hard to convince people that in the seventies, there wasn't a harder working live band or tighter funk unit outside of James Brown & the JB's than Kool & The Gang. Even those familiar with their early funk hits, "Jungle Boogie", "Funky Stuff" or "Hollywood Swinging" (all from their 1973 album Wild and Peaceful) may not realize they put out five records of underrated solid grooves before that. Live At PJ's from 1971 was the band's third album, and their second live album released in a row. A hectic night after night touring schedule of gigs across the country had given the band the necessary chops to pull off one of the most exciting sets committed to wax. Not only were they tight on the funk side, but confident enough on the jazz side of things to get more exploratory and expansive. On the opener "N.T." (short for No Title), both funk and jazz sides are on full display at once. While they are known for having a killer horn section, the most amazing thing about this band is the flute leads, especially on "Sombrero Sam" and "Lucky For Me". Live at PJ's is largely an instrumental record, with occasional vocalizing on a couple of tracks, as the band at this point hadn't expanded much beyond it's soul-jazz roots into the full on funk band it would later become. But it's later hip-hop credentials become apparent on the last song (before the bonus track) "Dujii" as its opening groove became the foundation for "Jazz Thing" by Gang Starr. So awesome, that this underrated live set is available once again! Highly recommended.
MPEG Stream: "N.T."
MPEG Stream: "Lucky For Me"
MPEG Stream: "Dujii"

L'ACEPHALE Malefeasance (Aurora Borealis) cd 17.98
They may have taken two years between their first and second records, but here comes number three, mere months after we raved about number two, Stahlhartes Gehause. Malefeasance is another stunner, again mixing all manner of experimentation and soundscapery with a core grim black buzz, but L'Acephale move ever farther from the constricting tropes of black metal here, instead utilizing those sounds and styles to their own end, i.e. creating some of the most mysterious and darkly compelling abstract buzz drenched heaviness we've heard in ages.
Where Stahlhartes Gehause was still essentially a black metal record, Malefeasance feels like anything but, with much of the record buzz-free, and even when the band do create some seriously harrowing grimnity, it's abstract, and obtuse, avant even, bordering on a sort of sculpted noise, utilizing bits of blackness to enhance each track's mood and menace.
Album opener "Vainamoinen Nacht" is an epic 10 minute chunk of blackened drift, hushed and shimmery, laced with strange samples and nits of found sound, ominous and haunting, eventually, the song culminates in a flurry of hiss and static and crunch, leaving just some strange bit of European choral music. The following track, "Hitori Bon Odori", harkens back to L'Acephale's Mord Und Totsclag record, offering up some apocalyptic folk, replete with steel string strum and martial snares, whirling winds, and deem ominous wordless vocals. "A Burned Village" is the first time the band explore any black metal, although the track begins with a haunting funereal drum dirge and deep monk like chanting, which continues throughout the track, which consists of buzzing insectoid riffage, harsh vokills, and no traditional blasting drum beats, instead, more martial snares and that same opening percussion. Heavy for sure, and black, but not necessarily metal, more like some sort of metallic black ambience.
The last three tracks, clocking in at 18:09, 14:17 and 23:00 respectively, make up the bulk of the record, the first, "From A Miserable Abode" explodes in a squall of swirling downtuned guitars, super distorted and saturated vocals, a heaving Merzbowian freakout, tons of effects and stuttering sonic fragments, there do seem to be drums, but they're buried in the mix, instead the track seems to expand ever outwards, a huge dense cloud of frenzied sound, all underpinned by a moaning, keening high end drone, which later on reveals itself as a bagpipe or some sort of horn, the metal and noise fading out, leaving just a glorious Eastern style high end ur-drone, mesmerizing and meditative and very very mysterious. "Sleep Has His House" is another 'metal' track, but again, there seems to be very little forward momentum, very little propulsion, instead, the band whip up supercharged drifts of noise drenched high end skree, while underneath, a guitar is locked in a motorik hypnotic loop, the result a sound like some Finnish forest drone folk outfit remixed by some harsh noise combo, the two disparate elements melding into something wholly original and hauntingly listenable.
Finally, the record closes with the 23 minute "Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted", a deep drone / soft noise exploration, beginning with some subsonic rumbles, some streaks of feedback and brittle high end, and finally an extended doom folk dirge outro, a simple minor key guitar figure over a backdrop of his and whir, the whole thing strangely textural and visceral, ominous and dense with menace.
It's definitely strange that what might be the best L'Acephale record so far, also happens to be the least metal. So much so that we can only recommend this to the most adventurous of metalheads (which we like to think would be the majority of metal loving folk that read the aQ list), but fair warning to the rest, that this is not really a black metal record at all, instead, it's some gloriously abstract, blackened ritualistic collection of dark metallic drift and alchemical doom folk, of blacknoise and apocalyptic dronemusik, and thus, metal or not, is WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "From A Miserable Abode"
MPEG Stream: "Vainamoinen Nacht"
MPEG Stream: "Hitori Bon Odori"

LISA O PIU When This Was The Future (Subliminal Sounds) cd 17.98
So magical! This album has swept us off our feet! We should have known as soon as we heard of the fine company these folks have been keeping. They recently backed up Roger Wootton of Comus (!) for a recorded performance in Sweden, and Mattias Gustavsson of Dungen produced this very album. Fear not, any elevated expectations will be met effortlessly. Needless to say, both of those bands are serious longtime aQ faves, and Lisa O Piu is well on its way to becoming a new one. This is wonderful.
But before we proceed any further, please allow us to advise you that this is best heard on headphones! Why? Well, for one thing, there might be no better sounds at the moment to tune out the ruckus of the world outside. Traffic congestion, construction work, random yelling in the street begone! No, we're not exaggerating. Lisa O Piu's debut album is filled with such glintingly opulent folk that both gently creeps and majestically soars. Entering into its embrace is like embarking on a magic carpet ride to some distant enchanted forest. Secondly, they've taken good advantage of the stereo field in the recording process. So headphones really enhance the listening experience. When the three female vocalists - frontwoman Lisa Isakkson, along with Jennie Stabis and Maria Lagerlof - are singing and performing all at once, it's as though your whole head is filled with glorious song. This is a particular joy on the robust opener "Cinnamon Sea". When they are singing solo as they do on the closing track "And So On", it's as though they are taking turns singing right in each of your ears. The lush instrumentation is centered around acoustic, electric and 12-string guitars as well as an ensemble of woodwinds, but subtle introductions of mellotron, theremin, cellotron and harp slip the proceedings deeper into a hazy psych-tinged dream realm.
Fans of Linda Perhacs, Vashti Bunyan, Sybille Baier and Marissa Nadler... open your arms and ears to these Stockholm beauties!
MPEG Stream: "Cinnamon Sea"
MPEG Stream: "Equatorial Changes"
MPEG Stream: "And So On"

LISA O PIU When This Was The Future (Subliminal Sounds) lp 28.00
So magical! This album has swept us off our feet! We should have known as soon as we heard of the fine company these folks have been keeping. They recently backed up Roger Wootton of Comus (!) for a recorded performance in Sweden, and Mattias Gustavsson of Dungen produced this very album. Fear not, any elevated expectations will be met effortlessly. Needless to say, both of those bands are serious longtime aQ faves, and Lisa O Piu is well on its way to becoming a new one. This is wonderful.
But before we proceed any further, please allow us to advise you that this is best heard on headphones! Why? Well, for one thing, there might be no better sounds at the moment to tune out the ruckus of the world outside. Traffic congestion, construction work, random yelling in the street begone! No, we're not exaggerating. Lisa O Piu's debut album is filled with such glintingly opulent folk that both gently creeps and majestically soars. Entering into its embrace is like embarking on a magic carpet ride to some distant enchanted forest. Secondly, they've taken good advantage of the stereo field in the recording process. So headphones really enhance the listening experience. When the three female vocalists - frontwoman Lisa Isakkson, along with Jennie Stabis and Maria Lagerlof - are singing and performing all at once, it's as though your whole head is filled with glorious song. This is a particular joy on the robust opener "Cinnamon Sea". When they are singing solo as they do on the closing track "And So On", it's as though they are taking turns singing right in each of your ears. The lush instrumentation is centered around acoustic, electric and 12-string guitars as well as an ensemble of woodwinds, but subtle introductions of mellotron, theremin, cellotron and harp slip the proceedings deeper into a hazy psych-tinged dream realm.
Fans of Linda Perhacs, Vashti Bunyan, Sybille Baier and Marissa Nadler... open your arms and ears to these Stockholm beauties!
MPEG Stream: "Cinnamon Sun"
MPEG Stream: "Equatorial Changes"
MPEG Stream: "And So On"

MCTELL, BLIND WILLIE Scarey Day Blues (Monk) 2lp 30.00
We got another amazing batch of vintage blues reissues from the wonderful Monk label. Look elsewhere on the list for reviews of two more volumes of Charley Patton recordings and an lp by Blind Willie Johnson (not to be confused with this Blind Willie)!
Born blind at the turn of the century, Blind Willie McTell was not only an astute guitar player, but even a more avid businessman, often using a myriad of pseudonyms (Hot Shot Willie, Georgia Bill) to juggle multiple record deals. Having developed a unique subgenre of the blues called Piedmont Blues, combining a hard roots Delta style with the more sophisticated East-Coast style, his guitar playing often sounded like there were multiple instruments playing. McTell was less gospel-influenced than Blind Willie Johnson, favoring songs about hard-living and hard-loving. He had a long recording career with a few labels, but with not as much success as he hoped for due to the Great Depression. This compilation spans 26 recordings between 1927 and 1931 recorded in his home town of Atlanta for the Victor Records label.

MEADS OF ASPHODEL, THE The Early Years (Godreah) cd 11.98
The Meads of Asphodel have been a longtime favorite around these parts, not surprisingly, since they've been pushing the boundaries of how black metal is defined with their bizarre, often hilarious brand of nutso, super anti-Christian metal with notable medieval and Middle Eastern influences. Though you will find it impossible to stifle (nervous?) laughter at various moments, the Meads, however, are no joke. In fact, one could argue that their highly unorthodox stance is actually WAY more real and bad ass than the plethora of groups all adopting the same boring, pseudo-Satanic bullshit pose. Maybe some find it difficult to take seriously a band with a penchant for dressing up in medieval armor, but why not? It's certainly no less ridiculous than corpsepaint. The notes in this collection of demos from the band's first phase (1998-2002), penned by group leader Metatron, make it clear that sucking up to record labels and metal fans in general was never part of the agenda. Instead, the Meads have been, and continue to be, true to only themselves. Fuck yeah.
With this anything goes mentality, the Meads have delivered some of the weirdest, most incomprehensible metal maybe ever. The influence of NWOBHM greats, notably Venom, shines bright, but how many other black metal groups would you expect to punctuate their evil riffage with parts that sound like drunken medieval wedding parties, disco breakdowns, and country western hoedowns? Not too many. The strangest part about all of these is how randomly they will pop up, when you're never expecting it.
Symphonic keyboards are also pretty central to the Meads' sound, with heavy as fuck church organs and harpsichord-styled synths adding a decidedly atmospheric element to it all. There are even some moments of strummed 4AD style jangle, but take note of the covers by GBH and Italian thrashers Bulldozer to get an idea of the band's more aggressive influences. Heavy D-Beats, punkish power chords, and harsh bellowing (in addition to some nice black metal croaking, of course) exist in the mix in pretty much equal measure to everything else.
We would be lying if we said this band was for everyone. But for those who like their metal adventurous, totally fucked, and pretty much without precedent, we couldn't recommend this highly enough!
MPEG Stream: "Just Another Time To Kill"
MPEG Stream: "Rise In Godless Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Another God In Another Place"

METI BHUVAH II (Assault) cd 12.98
Leave it to the Russians to school us on the dark realities of existence with their relentlessly insular take on black metal. Everyone knows and loves Old Wainds and Nav, and now we have Meti Bhuvah, an intense whirlwind of blackened punk fury from the icy North that sounds like it could have easily stepped out of 1986. The abundance of stripped down thrashing punk riffs and guttural, bile spewing vocals, combined with appropriately lo-fi yet powerful recording quality, pretty much sound like the perfect balance of crusty D-Beat punk and Bathory's first record with bursts of pre-crossover American Hardcore a la Siege, COC, and SSD. The drums are generally a medium paced pound, the guitars are like napalm with occasional moments of phased out weirdness from the archaic recording devices, and the bass sounds amazing as it gurgles and distorts its way around the rest of the maelstrom. There isn't much variation to the affair, nor should there be. Instead, Meti Bhuvah stick to the basics, much in the vein of Ildjarn, and never let you forget why you relinquished your soul to the dark side in the first place. The riffs are evil yet catchy as hell and the saturation of pure metallic rage begins to take on a throb of psychedelic proportions if you just let it sink in and take over. In a little more than thirty minutes, Meti Bhuvah takes you on a blackened journey through the Russian wilderness that skews your perception and pummels your eardrums into senselessness. Just the way we like it.
MPEG Stream: "Immersion"
MPEG Stream: "Desire"
MPEG Stream: "Pleasure"
MPEG Stream: "Blood, Flames And Ice"

MOGRAG MAGAZINE Vol. 1 / 2009 (Mograg Garage) magazine 15.00
Mograg Garage is a Japanese DIY art gallery run out of an actual garage in suburban Tokyo. To commemorate their first year of exhibitions, they published this small, but gorgeously detailed and beautifully produced full-color 40 page catalog documenting the artists that exhibited last year.
Eight artists are represented with six writers contributing columns (all translated into English). Their plan is to release a catalog every year. And if they're all like this one, then sign us up for a subscription! The artworks are highly visual, bold and graphic, lots of colorful psychedelic landscape paintings (including one of a giant cave that is also the head of a sabre-toothed tiger), intricate and epic tattoo-like line drawings, pop-surrealism, embroidery of colorful birds, lush photographs, computer-generated collages and graffitti like drawings. Jim Woodring is cited as an influence, and one can see influences of Hayao Miyazaki and Takashi Murakami here too which should give you some idea of the gallery's core aesthetic. A lot of the art looks like what you would see in Juxtapoz magazine (but without that magazine's air of self-importance). The columns are equally strange, in that they're not so much about the artists or artworks (at least not in a way we can directly understand), but about random experiences and points of view. For instance, one column expounds on the art of booger collecting (!), others are more lyrical and poetic, while still others are more informative and practical like the one on how to run your own art and toy gallery. Which is the best advice to take from this, as the folks who run Mograg certainly know what they're doing and how to have fun doing it too. These are VERY LIMITED!! We only got a handful of these from a local Japanese friend and not sure we can get more. Definitely, a unique publication you won't easily find elsewhere!

MONOSOV, DJ ILYA AND THE 21 CENTURY PUNKS New Music (Holy Mountain) 12" 13.98
It seems Ilya Monosov has been letting down his hair of late and going sonically all out (or all in?), and following his muse wherever it might take him, creating a varied and vast array of wild and wonderful sounds.
From his Gainsbourg inspired solo outing on Language Of Stone to his latest 12" of tropical fucked up late night sleeze offered up by The Shining Path, these wildly disparate and super passionate sounds feel light-years away from his earlier, much more academic leanings. These four songs, clocking in at about thirty minutes total, find Ilya completely on fire! The opener "Always Look To You (Extended Mix)" is a motorik burner full of fiery Suicide-isms and a very Wooden Shjips like groove. Next comes "Tropical Relaxation", a dark and infectious prog-like jam rife with otherworldly sounds that unravel into a hypnotic chaos that we could lose ourselves in forever.
The B side opens with "Belly Womb" a dissonant track would feel right at home on an early Matmos record, referencing the more fucked up side of Excepter/Black Dice. The record closes with "Unnatural Ways" which sounds like some late night DJ fading in and out of records by Master Musicians Of Joujouka, Throbbing Gristle, Sun Ra and Cabaret Voltaire. We can't stop playing this 12", so full of vibrant color and bombastic energy while hitting all its idiosyncratic targets so right on!
MPEG Stream: "Always Look To You (Extended Mix)"
MPEG Stream: "Unnatural Ways"

MOONDOG More Moondog (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
Every time we get a chance to review a Moondog reissue we can't help ourselves from going on and on about what a musical genius and true visionary Moondog was. Mind boggling that from the 1950's all the way up to his death in 1999 he was making such otherworldly sounds, influenced by his love of classical music and driven by a wild imagination that led him to create his own instruments, weave field recordings into his work and compose some of the most adventurous, impacting and delightful sounds anyone has ever created.
Moondog was completely self-taught, and was blind resulting from an accident when still very young so he composed all his music in braile! Just another dimension to the truly unique backstory that shaped who Moondog was. The ultimate proto-weirdo-outsider musician, but all backed up with pure original genius.
More Moondog was originally released right after his 1956 self-titled debut on Prestige, and opens with two field recordings, the first of which finds him doing a 'duet' on his bamboo pipe with the sounds of the whistle from the Queen Elizabeth cruiseship. As the record goes on he explores such amazing percussive possibilities as well as continuing to weave in and out of a psychedelic array of sounds created with varied instrumentation of his own invention. The album also features one of his stunning vocal rounds "All Is Loneliness" which was later covered by Janis Joplin/Big Brother And The Holding Company.
It's been so awesome to play these Moondog records in the store as lots of our younger customers who are into all the latest experimental and weirdo sounds, always seem to freak out when we play this and then tell them it was recorded in 1956. We see their eyes light up with excited disbelief and we totally understand why. Essential!

MOONDOG s/t (4 Men With Beards) lp 16.98
Every time we get a chance to review a Moondog reissue we can't help ourselves from going on and on about what a musical genius and true visionary Moondog was. Mind boggling that from the 1950's all the way up to his death in 1999 he was making such otherworldly sounds, influenced by his love of classical music and driven by a wild imagination that led him to create his own instruments, weave field recordings into his work and compose some of the most adventurous, impacting and delightful sounds anyone has ever created.
Moondog was completely self-taught, and was blind resulting from an accident when still very young so he composed all his music in braile! Just another dimension to the truly unique backstory that shaped who Moondog was. The ultimate proto-weirdo-outsider musician, but all backed up with pure original genius.
This, his Prestige debut, came out in 1956 and still sounds like it belongs in another era/galaxy. Whether playing piano, percussion or magical sounds with the instruments he created from his imagination, the sounds on this album are as dazzling as anything he would create throughout his lifetime. So mind blowing the way he intertwined real life field recordings into his songs, and basically created a musical language all his own. Moondog was a man so present and creative with his daily surroundings. Who knew someone often mistaken for nothing more then a street hobo was capable of such musical genius?
It's been so awesome to play these Moondog records in the store as lots of our younger customers who are into all the latest experimental and weirdo sounds, always seem to freak out when we play this and then tell them it was recorded in 1956. We see their eyes light up with excited disbelief and we totally understand why. Essential!

OMAR S Fabric 45: Detroit (Fabric Records) cd 16.98
Not sure how we stumbled across this. And it seems foolish to state once again, in a review of a house music record we have been digging BIG TIME, that we don't in fact really like house music, so fuck it, we found a couple tracks by Omar S on some aQ pal's website, and were immediately blown away, apparently he's a bit of a big deal in the world of house music, from Detroit (obviously), and while most Fabric comps feature proper DJ sets, for this one, it's all him spinning his OWN tracks, which is just fine with us, we've been listening to this nonstop since we first got it in.
Needless to say, this is a variant of that kind of house music we DO like, super stripped down, minimal, skeletal, very Kompakt for sure, mostly just beats, wrapped around barely there loops, abstract melodies, tons of space, all about the pulse, just listen to "Strider's World", that's the track that sucked us in. It begins all crunchy and big beated, before mellowing out a bit, and then... what? The main rhythm is some looped video game sound (from the game Strider? We checked, being the nerds that we are, and it didn't seem like it), how rad is that? Draped over a skittery rhythm and a repeating minor key melody, it's only 4+ minutes, but we would have been psyched for it to be twice that long. Heck, we would have been happy if the whole 72 minutes was just that song, but it hardly matters, the rest of the disc is pretty much just as rad, bloopy and skittery and hypnotic. Hard to imagine people dancing to this stuff, but for chilling out, it's perfect, all blissed out and late night sounding, dreamy and totally mesmerizing. There are a couple tracks that get a bit to 'diva', but just skip those and the rest of the disc is pretty much flawless, and definitely one of our new favorites, and once again, has us reassessing our seemingly barely applicable anymore generally negative stance on house music...
Like all Fabric comps, comes in a cool metal box, wrapped in a printed slipcover. NICE.
MPEG Stream: "Strider's World"
MPEG Stream: "Polycopter"
MPEG Stream: "Flying Gorgars"
MPEG Stream: "Oasis Four"

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER Memory Vague (Root Strata) dvd-r 12.98
Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never and one half of Infinity Window) has produced this bizarro DVD of visual esoterica culled from YouTube videos of '80s computer animation and straight-to-video clips with ghastly amounts of digital effects. Much of the imagery is familiar to anyone who grew up watching MTV and Night Flight in the early-to-mid '80s, although Lopatin's sources occasionally sport Cyrillic texts flashing across the screen, which may point to even more obtuse references from Russian television. Nonetheless, his aesthetic choices gravitate to those cathode ray / neon glows which seemed to grace the cover of every issue of Omni magazine and were also endemic to every single computer animation project freshly broadcast from the cable access station circa 1985. He takes snippets from these videos and loops them into mantras of a woman affectionately displaying the new fangled piece of technology known as as compact disc, an overlapping series of neon hexagons floating freely on blackened backdrop, spiral stairstepping patterns of glowing squares descending to oblivion, and an ultra-cheesy rainbow bridge wavering towards an gleaming city in the distance. There's one snippet which seems to be culled from a Hipgnosis video, although it's one we're not familiar with; but it's got many of the signatures of Hipgnosis -- a psychosexual reconfiguration of the human body (here a woman's hands seductively caress each other while water pours from above almost as if coming from the palms of her hands) and barren Dali-esque landscapes cobbled into modern architecture.
Like his Betrayed In The Octagon LP for No Fun, Lopatin constructs a soundtrack that is equal parts John Carpenter soundtrack, Richard Pinhas arppegiation, and Klaus Schulze cosmic tapestry. His glissandos of analogue synth bubble and glide with a cybernetic optimism that the world is going to be a much better place through the pursuit of technology. Lopatin does include two numbers based on samples from an '80s pop tune, sounding much like an Ariel Pink song both in its no-fi production and unsettled sentimentality.
A weird and wonderful collection! And yes, it's limited to something like 100 copies!!

PAN SONIC / KEIJI HAINO Shall I Download A Blackhole And Offer It To You (Blast First Petitie) cd 17.98
Woah! Talk about an unexpected, yet killer collaboration. In this corner, arctic electronic experimentalists Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen (aka Pan Sonic), from Finland. In the other corner, blackclad Emily The Strange lookalike and psych guitar shaman Keiji Haino, from Tokyo, Japan. Both parties know a thing or two about manipulating electricity, noise, and drone. You'll hear plenty of that here, the Vainio/Vaisanen/Haino trio recorded live in Berlin, November 2007.
Heck, we're always happy hearing Haino in any setting, but it turns out that Pan Sonic are particularly perfect to accompany him, they bring the darkness too... note that it's usually Haino's unique presence that makes itself felt most prominently in any collaboration with which he's been involved (Boris, Merzbow, Sitaar Tah, Zeitkratzer, etc.), and such is the case here, even the title is obviously Haino-esque. And nothing else sounds like his occasional, anguished vocals, which when they appear here, are in stark organic contrast to the digital, mechanical machinations of his co-conspirators Pan Sonic.
Guttural throat-torn outbursts from Haino screech forth over palpitating drum machine clicks and throbbing low-end pulses. Sizzling buzz and whirr wreathe the proceedings. Haino's whale call guitar feedback breaches the dark void, Tibetan monks are channelled. The dynamics shift from mysterious quiet groans and beautiful keening drones to loud, out and out distorted glitch/guitar warfare... It's been a loooong time since there's been an album from Haino's band Fushitsusha, but this is the next best thing!
Well, we dunno if you can download a blackhole but basically there's equivalent blackness and gravity on this compact disc, that we'd be happy to sell to you. And unlike any download, it's housed in nice Stephen O'Malley designed digipack packaging with the artists' names in spot varnish on the cover.
MPEG Stream: "track 3"
MPEG Stream: "track 4"
MPEG Stream: "track 8"

PATTON, CHARLEY Electrically Recorded: High Water Everywhere (Monk) lp 22.00
We got another amazing batch of vintage blues reissues from the wonderful Monk label. Look elsewhere on the list for reviews of a two lp set by Blind Willie McTell and an lp by Blind Willie Johnson!
One of two new volumes of Charley Patton's vintage recordings from 1929 on Paramount from the undisputed King of the Delta Blues. This one featuring the two-part "High Water Everywhere", widely considered to be one of the best blues songs ever, and 14 other amazing tracks. With his loud gravelly whiskey soaked and cigarette coated voice, he could pound the fury out of a song and deeply influenced much of the later urban blues that came out of Chicago. Incredible!

PATTON, CHARLEY Electrically Recorded: Jesus Is A Dying-Bed Maker (Monk) lp 22.00
We got another amazing batch of vintage blues reissues from the wonderful Monk label. Look elsewhere on the list for reviews of a two lp set by Blind Willie McTell and an lp by Blind Willie Johnson!
One of two new volumes of Charley Patton's vintage recordings from 1929 on Paramount from the undisputed King of the Delta Blues. This one featuring his more spiritual sides including the devastating "You're Gonna Need Somebody When You Die". With his loud gravelly whiskey soaked and cigarette coated voice, he could pound the fury out of a song, and here sin and salvation were just two means to get around to the core of some of the most ferocious music ever made!

POPOFF, MARTIN Worlds Away: Voivod And The Art Of Michel Langevin (Spider Press) book 49.00
Here it is, at last. The long rumored ART BOOK from Michel Langevin, aka Away, the drummer and visual conceptualist for pioneering Quebecois avant-thrash-metal geniuses Voivod. Away's artwork, the ultimate in sci-fi school binder imagery, helped define his band's unique appeal. Heck, although the music was amazing, one of the other big reasons to buy a Voivod album was to get all that cool artwork, it got to the point that their cds had a piece of Away-art in the booklet for each song, one per page...
We first heard he was putting a book together a few years ago, it was supposed to be published by the Troubleman label, or at least that's what we'd thought, but nothing ever materialized, and then suddenly out of the blue a few weeks ago we got an email from Martin Popoff, the Canadian metal scribe responsible for the three massive Collector's Guide To Heavy Metal volumes we've reviewed in the past, saying that HE was doing a book with Away, and now here it is!
A hefty, hardback, 12"x9" coffee table tome, 184 pages, in full color when appropriate, Worlds Away is what we've been waiting for. TONS of his artwork, of course. Stuff you'll remember from the albums of course, but also sketchbook pages, flyers, demo tape covers, logos, picture discs, as well as art he's done on commission for other bands... Eye candy for Voivod fans oh yeah. And then there's the text, Away interviewed by Popoff, chapter after chapter delving into the world of Voivod, the music, the art and their connection. The early years stuff is surprising but not surprising as we learn about his artistic inspirations as a kid in the '70s (Magma album covers, Gene Simmons' boots...). The history of the band is traced, their evolution from raw thrashers to spaced-out art rockers, along with the evolution in Away's creative / technical process. Turns out the cool monochrome, sorta low res images from the Nothingface album look like that 'cause of the memory limitations of the computer he was using, for instance. Also we get the story behind the 3-D art for The Outer Limits album (which almost didn't happen). We probably don't need to go on, those of you who want this book probably already know it.
FYI, since these aren't cheap, and we're not a bookstore, and it's pretty much for fans only, we only got a few. So if and when we run out it will remain to be seen if we can get more.
VOIVOD!!!!

RHUITH Voormithadreth (Gate Of Ganzir) cd-r 9.98
We first heard about Italian one man outsider black metal band Rhuith, via the Hammer Smashed Jazz blog, one of our favorites, a blog that doesn't offer bands' music for free, instead highlighting cool releases and directing folks to places where they can buy em. So this band Rhuith, were apparently a killer weirdo black metal band from Italy, who besides crafting grim twisted outsider buzz, also has a serious obsession with dark pop and classic eighties music, which most definitely found its way into the band's sound, but also meant that he would often cover music from that era, as well as offering up blackened versions of distinctly non-metal tracks, Depeche Mode, Portishead, Placebo etc. Our kind of band for sure!
So we finally got in touch, and small world, ends up, Rhuith is a long time aQuarius mailorder customer. Which sort of makes sense, considering his twisted take on black metal and the fantastically unlikely hybrid that is Rhuith. So we managed to get a whole bunch of his most recent release, Voormithadreth, a four song demo, LIMITED TO 66 COPIES! Which just so happens to include two bonus tracks from another out of print releases, one of which is his Portishead cover, which is worth the price of admission alone.
SO what does Rhuith sound like? Imagine a super lo-fi take on classic black metal, the riffing frenzied and buzzy, the drums way down in the mix, pounding away, but the vocals, holy shit, so over the top and out there, slipping from long slow reverbed mooooooans, to effects drenched shrieks so loud they blow out the whole song. Another track sounds all swampy and garage-y, midtempo and groovy, the vocals even more freaked out, with some strange dubbed out effects, so it almost sounds a bit like a black metal Butthole Surfers. The 48 second long "The Owls" is a furious bit of primitive blast and buzz that leads into the loping Burzumic dirge that is "The Son, The Lion And The Phoenix", a keyboard flecked bit of creepy black doom, with more crooned vocals, and a second half that's all warped and twisted guitars, and swirling distorted effects, weirdly pretty.
Two bonus tracks, the first a gorgeously poppy bit of blackened jangle, a killer main guitar part that sounds straight out of the Breakfast Club soundtrack, but super distorted, the sound crumbly and raw, the vocals a hissy demonic shriek, a killer combo of harshness and pure eighties pop, peppered with some super creepy minimal breakdowns, all spoken word and low slung drones. And then the Portishead cover, an amazing version of "Over", no drums, just super blown out downtuned guitars, playing that main riff over and over, the vocals deep and emotional and dramatic, this could easily be a Rhuith original, and dare we say it adds a whole new vibe to the original, and the more we listen to this, the more we just might like the Rhuith version better. Dark, and haunting, and hypnotic, just today, we've probably listened to that one track 10 times. Can't wait to hear what he decides to cover next. But it's not just the covers that make Rhuith so special, he has definitely cultivated a unique sound, one that touches on lots of stuff we dig, but twists it all up into something new and bizarre and bad ass. It's rare to be digging a record so much, that you find yourself ALREADY looking forward to the next one, but that's exactly how we're feeling with Voormithadreth!
Packaged in a dvd case, with a black and white cover, and inside a xeroxed insert, both the cover and the disc itself hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Sadoqua"
MPEG Stream: "Over (Portishead Cover)"
MPEG Stream: "The Son, The Lion And The Phoenix"

RILEY, TERRY A Rainbow In Curved Air (Columbia) lp 17.98
The recent vinyl reissue of this totally essential Terry Riley album has given us the opportunity to finally review a record that holds a special place in many of our hearts. A Rainbow In Curved Air is pretty much the ultimate in hypnotizing cosmic bliss out. Two long tracks in which Riley used electric organ, harpsichord, rockischord, dumbec, saxophone and tambourine, to create a sound in which his minimalist background served as a launching pad for him to really reach the outer limits of sound, a sound that is about as perfect as a soundtrack to sunrise we could ever imagine.
A Rainbow In Curved Sky was originally released in 1969, it was the first album Riley made for Columbia records and it's still so baffling and amazing to think there was a time when major labels would release such brilliant, noncommercial transcendent music like this. After doing some digging around we realized that one of the main reasons that Riley amazingly ended up on Columbia was because fellow electronic pioneer David Behrman had landed a job at the label, so he brought Riley into the land of Columbia and produced this amazing album.
Forty years after it's genesis, these are still sounds that make us stop in our tracks and suck us in, allowing us to get lost in the most amazing sonic daydreams one could imagine. A Rainbow In Curved Air has proven to be a model for several generations of cosmic music makers. It's safe to say that without this record there wouldn't be folks like Arp, Growing, Emeralds, White Rainbow, etc. Beyond recommended and totally essential!

ROEDELIUS, HANS-JOACHIM Durch Die Wuste (Bureau) lp 17.98
Durch Die Wuste was the first solo outing by Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster/Harmonia fame, and originally came out in 1978 on the always impeccable Sky label. Melding his tastes for classical composition, spaced out ambience, and electronic rock possibilities, this album found Roedelius simmering in warm rolling waves that just invite you to get lost and daydream in their subtly hypnotic pull. What's most amazing and compelling about this album is how organic it all sounds. Years before folks were really getting a grasp of how to intertwine traditional instrumentation with electronics, Roedelius was doing it masterfully. We're also so taken by the divine percussive quality that rises to the surfaces on lots of the album, especially the record's last two songs where Roedelius manages to play the drums himself and creates an amazing orbital groove that we could listen to forever. Durch Die Wuste manages to combine both his more dark and outsider tendencies with his ability to create the ultimate in shimmering cosmic bliss. We can't believe that some of us had never heard this record before, we are so beyond happy that it's been reissued as this stands up against any of Cluster's breathtaking moments. Highly recommended! Oh and for those of you who need/prefer to have this on cd it will be reissued in that format in August!
MPEG Stream: "Johanneslust"
MPEG Stream: "Mr. Livingstone"
MPEG Stream: "Regenmacher"

ROMAN SOLDIERS s/t (Captured Tracks) 7" 6.98
Can't imagine a team up that would have lo-fi underground noise poppers more in a tizzy than this, Roman Soldiers, which is actually Blank Dogs AND Gary War together for the first time, crafting some of the most warped and warbly and ultra tweaked new wave downer pop ever, even by both groups already warped and warbly standards.
This plays at 45, but fair warning, it sounded pretty rad at 33, even more miserable and murky, but that's the advanced version, only for those of you who think you can handle it.
Two tracks, both a sort of creepy sci-fi electro new wave top 40, a definite Butthole Surfers vibe, mostly due to the vocals, which are SUPER heavily effected, muddy and reverby, the guitars are jagged and angular and jangly, of course there's plenty of synths all over the place, rumbling and buzzing, the whole record gloriously washed out and woozy. The flipside is total Gary Numan worship, thick slithery synths, cool laid back distorted vocals, a killer main hook, just some practically perfect doomy gloomy electro pop, again infused with that alternate universe FM radio wooooze. Here's hoping these guys stick it out together long enough to whip up a full length!

SAX RUINS Yawiquo (Ipecac) cd 16.98
Do you like sax? Do you like the Ruins? Then, hey, have we got a deal for you! Ruins drummer/mastermind Tatsuya Yoshida teams up with jazz improviser Ono Ryoko (alto sax) in this new unit, Sax Ruins (sorry, no idea what that name means, how did they come up with it?). The Japanese band Ruins has been Yoshida's vehicle for heavy duty, ultra mathy, Magmoid post-punk prog mania since 1985, and has pretty much always been a drums / bass two piece, Yoshida accompanied by several different insane bass players over the years. Their last album was 2002's Tzomborgha, also on Mike Patton's Ipecac label... and then in 2004 bassist number four (Sasaki Hisashi) left the band, yet to be replaced as far as we know. So Ruins is now defunct, or at least on an indeterminate hiatus, but that hasn't stopped Yoshida from performing Ruins songs, in a mindboggling one-man-band format called Ruins Alone. And now, in the Sax Ruins duo!
As you might expect, it's hyper frenetic and jumpy, but also... boppy. The buoyant saxophone helps make this duo's uber uptempo activity feel positively infectious, a joyful noise indeed. And it's not all frantic musical athletics, there's room here for some really lovely, melodic passages too, as on "Epigonen". Ono Ryoko really pulls out all the stops, drawing on her experience playing not only jazz but also funk/R&B, prog, and psych (the latter in collaboration with Acid Mothers Temple). She delves into extended techniques, circular breathing and such, and somehow is a match for Yoshida in the endless energy dep't. Together, what they unleash here is exciting stuff, way more complex and catchy than your average freakout. Imagine a stripped down, pepped up marching band playing really wild Carl Stalling / Raymond Scott style cartoon music. And wisely, Yoshida has kept this instrumental, none of his crazy vocals getting in the way of the sax blasts.
The 17 tracks here include saxified reinterpretations of classics from the Ruins' vast catalog, such as "Hyderomastgroningem" and "Pallaschtom", plus some new tunes too, including the album's title track and grand finale, that one a showstopper for sure.
So, again, definitely for fans of Ruins - who also like saxophone. And those into the likes of Zu, Flying Luttenbachers, 16-17, Alboth, and other exemplars of jazzprogcore craziness. Oh, and of course any John Zorn / Naked City fan ought to be ecstatic! Dunno if we'll really need any MORE albums from Sax Ruins though, 'cause as cool as this is, we're still keen for more Bass Ruins...
MPEG Stream: "Zworrisdeh"
MPEG Stream: "Gravestone"
MPEG Stream: "Yawiquo"

SLANEY, IVOR Terror / Prey (OST) (Moscovitch Music) lp 17.98
Attention British Horror fans! We have here, released by a new a label run by one of the guys from sampling groop Quiet Village, two previously unreleased soundtracks on one lp from New Wave of British Horror director Norman J. Warren: Terror (1979) and Prey (1978). Warren, best known for three horror movies he made in the late seventies (the first one was Satan's Slave), had a film style similar to Dario Argento, highly explicit and gory supernatural thrillers filmed on a low budget with modern day settings and using younger actors, a sharp contrast to the classic period-set hammer films earlier in the decade. Composed by Ivor Slaney, an in-house composer for the DeWolfe Library, the music is deliciously creepy.
Terror sounds like a lost soundtrack by Goblin, beginning with proggy synths and organ dirges augmented by female vocal moans that are equally wistful and uh, well, terrifying! There are a couple of groovy interludes, one of them a short blues-rock number, the others more pensive, but the final tracks are full bore high-pitched synth drones that had the hairs on the back of our neck standing up on end! Also, an interesting piece of side trivia is that Terror stars Tricia Walsh, better known as Tricia Walsh-Smith, the you-tube sensation famous for videos berating her ex-husband to the general public!
Prey feels more like classic British horror scores, offering up at first soft and pastoral themes using harpsichord, organ and piano. From what we can gather from the sounds and the tagline (A Carnal Lust That Defies Earthly Expectation!) is that this is a rather twisted love story involving birds, as bird sounds emerge here and there. The lilting music soon turns to what sounds like a terrifying merry-go-round and then we get bits of sounds from the film itself of screams and flesh being ripped apart by massive bird-like creatures. There are a couple of party numbers, one a jazzy theme sung by someone who sounds like Caroline Peyton, the other by a lounge band, before the final twisted Moog dirge comes into play with snippets of doomy dialogue. Great creepy stuff!
NOTE: A cd version is coming out in a couple of weeks or so, for the vinyl-impaired! Meanwhile this lp is limited to 1000 copies.

SOKAI STILHED Second (self released) cd-r 8.98
Sokai Stilhed is the stage name for the soft-spoken Heather Cullen, whose vocal and sound-sculpting abilities should be taken quite seriously given the strength of her work on this hand-spun release. There's plenty of things that Cullen employs that immediately give us pause. First of all, there's the perpetual crackle of old vinyl achieving a golden patina which accentuates her otherworldly reverberations; but most importantly is her voice which drawls haunting reconstructions of Appalachian psalms which crosshatch a world-weariness with a hallowed adoration for the divine. Even as she pushes her own voice deep in the recesses of the faux-tape compression and dreamily droning ambience, there is a potency and strength to her voice. Given the opportunity, she could belt out a bluesy, a capella number at a Baptist church that would give many people the shivers; but instead of that well-trod path, she fragments her own voice to complement the delicate artifacts from guitar, autoharp, field recordings, and her trusted Loop Station. These tracks emerge as if stitched from spider webs, catching hold of whatever may fall into the web, but they are ephemeral if nothing else. If Philip Jeck were given unrestricted production over a Cat Power record, it would sound pretty close to this. These editions are handmade by Cullen featuring a candle-burnt and wax sealed piece of paper mounted to the cover and also featuring the album's track titles. It remains to be seen just how limited these are... A fantastic release, no matter how you look at it!
MPEG Stream: "Speak Easy"
MPEG Stream: "First"
MPEG Stream: "Ikiru"

SPRUNG AUS DEN WOLKEN Dub & Die (Klanggalerie) cd 21.00
No, it's not an album of dubs that Sprung Aus Den Wolken wrangled out of their Cassettencombinat studio; but these stripped down recordings represented the first officially released work from the seminal art-punk / industrial outfit, originally released back in 1981 on ZickZack as an eponymous album. That said, these were not the first recordings for Sprung Aus Den Wolken, as their Cassettencombinat studio / tape imprint had been recording a prodigious amount of material which actually warranted a 3lp boxset for Vinyl-On-Demand, much of it through the Sprung Aus Den Wolken moniker. Alexander Hacke and Kiddy Citny were the principal agents of Cassettencombinat in the day, and here on Dub & Die, Hacke was still in the band at the time, having not fully committed to the Einsturzende Neubauten cause. He proves once again to be an excellent foil to Kiddy Citny's punk poetics.
Compared to the sparkplug frenzy of the Faux Pas collection, Dub & Die is downright minimalist with lots of room spacing strangulated guitar and the loping basslines amidst the primitive electronics with Citny rambling as loose as ever but with considerable restraint. None of this is a bad thing, especially when the title track comes across like a German version of Young Marble Giants. There are other tracks tracks whose jittery funk mutations allude to a junkyard mish-mash of Gang Of Four and A Certain Ratio, and a few which do hold worthy comparisons to the early Neubauten spring-loaded Industrial numbers. Klanggalerie once again has unearthed a great record, which is limited in this cd reissue to 500 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Dub & Die"
MPEG Stream: "Leidenschaftlich"
MPEG Stream: "Jeder Tag"

SUPERSISTER Present From Nancy (Esoteric) cd 21.00
Supersister were a seventies Dutch prog group who released a quartet of classic albums, but none more classic than this, their 1970 debut. And this, Present From Nancy, is so goddamn good, if we had our way, we would have ordered a ton of these and made it a Record Of The Week, or at least PROG Record Of The Week, although it's more like a contender for Prog Record Of The FOREVER!! But sadly, we've been unable to get more than a few at a time, even now we have less than ten copies, and while we should be able to get more, it might take us a while, but we figured it would be better at least that a few of you prog freaks were able to get your hands on these, rather than no one at all.
So what's got us all hyped up? What's so great about Supersister? Just listen to the three sound samples, easily one of the best one-two-three punches in classic prog. A dense relentless, super technical ELP-ish workout, with manic piano, fuzzed out organ, incredible complex drumming, impossible time signatures, killer melodies, some amazing flute leads, and yet even at its most manic and relentless it manages to be both jazzy, groovy, heavy and catchy as hell! In the title track, flutes flutter wildly over the bass piano drum jam locked in beneath, with the band occasionally exploding into awesome flurries of piano and flute before the band bursts back into action. Then there's "Memories Are New", with its warm looped fuzz organ, and lilting vocal, thick crunchy fuzz guitar, and again some incredible drumming, and a way with composition that manages to make even the most obtuse time signatures and strange arrangements flow perfectly. Finally, "11/8", named for the time signature we suppose, is another dense acrobatic instrumental workout, the organs and synths fully fuzzed out, even the pass is super distorted, working through rapid fire flurries of notes, the drums somehow locked in tight, with the synths occasionally stuttering into skittery buzz, before the track devolves into heavy downtuned chords and tinkling piano, so dynamic and varied and again, the rare sort of prog that gets stuck in your head like a pop song. AND THAT'S JUST THREE SONGS.
The rest of the record continues in a similarly proggy vein, but gets even weirder, adding all sorts of dark shimmering drones, bizarre bits of a capella, pounding fuzz guitar jams, dreamy drifty almost new age sounding soundscapes, and this reissue tacks on two singles, the first one sounds like the Zombies or some other sixties/seventies dream pop outfit, with a B-side that is SO bizarre, a woozy organ driven jam, with a heavily accented spoken word story about an alien or something, complete with processed alien voices. The other single is an Elvis style honkytonk jam that is also truly bizarre, while the B side is a Doors-y groove, with weirdly crooned vocals and warm organs, and what can only be a kazoo solo. This band did get increasingly goofy with each record, almost too much to take by the end, but Present From Nancy is Supersister at their heaviest and grooviest and proggiest. And definitely remains one of our favorite prog jams EVER.
MPEG Stream: "Present From Nancy"
MPEG Stream: "Memories Are New"
MPEG Stream: "11/8"

TALBOT TAGORA Lessons In The Woods Or A City (Hardly Art) cd 11.98
We could find out almost nothing about this bad ass art pop trio from Seattle. Other than, well, they're from Seattle, they're a trio, their record is on the same label that released the Pretty & Nice record, and they were named for some weird executive car developed by Chrysler in the eighties. Oh and apparently the drummer is a teenager who still lives with her Mom (OK, we did find something out about them on the web). The art pop thing we just figured out on our own about 2 seconds after throwing this disc on.
The label sent us a press release, but it was jam packed with all sorts of surreal dadaist mumbo jumbo, we sort of wanted to reprint it here, but it's loooooong, and heck, it really has nothing to do with the glorious racket these guys (and gal) kick up.
Angular guitars, yelped almost new wave sounding vocals, lots of effects, tons of reverb and delay, some notes and vocal parts get looped and spin off into the ether, the guitars chug and chime and even jangle, the bass is rubbery and has a distinctly Joy Divisiony vibe. The overall sound is jittery and manic, frenetic and frenzied, Bouncy and brittle, lo-fi and off kilter. Lots of early nineties college rock reference points but filtered through the cracked lens of the current lo-fi noise pop movement. Folks into stuff like Wavves, Blank Dogs, Gary War and the like might find TT to their liking as well.
Passages get repeated over and over, turning cracked no wave pop into something much more abstract and mesmerizing, songs explode into furious squalls of freaked out mathy blow outs, guitars soaring, drums splattering all over the place, the vocals desperately howling along, hooks are there, but are wrapped in delay and buried in the murky mix, some of the tracks so drenched in effects that they seem to blur before your very ears, only to suddenly snap back into focus and stumble through an awesomely dense tangle of atonal guitar and stuttery drum damage. Warm synths warble woozily, draped over crunchy riffage and sea sick melodies, the whole record a sprawling chaotic swirl of fractured pop, that we can't seem to stop listening to.
MPEG Stream: "Mixed Signals Through Miles Of Pilgrimage"
MPEG Stream: "Ichthus Hop"
MPEG Stream: "Bounty Hunter"
MPEG Stream: "Solar Puppets"

TALBOT TAGORA Lessons In The Woods Or A City (Hardly Art) lp 13.98
We could find out almost nothing about this bad ass art pop trio from Seattle. Other than, well, they're from Seattle, they're a trio, their record is on the same label that released the Pretty & Nice record, and they were named for some weird executive car developed by Chrysler in the eighties. Oh and apparently the drummer is a teenager who still lives with her Mom (OK, we did find something out about them on the web). The art pop thing we just figured out on our own about 2 seconds after throwing this disc on.
The label sent us a press release, but it was jam packed with all sorts of surreal dadaist mumbo jumbo, we sort of wanted to reprint it here, but it's loooooong, and heck, it really has nothing to do with the glorious racket these guys (and gal) kick up.
Angular guitars, yelped almost new wave sounding vocals, lots of effects, tons of reverb and delay, some notes and vocal parts get looped and spin off into the ether, the guitars chug and chime and even jangle, the bass is rubbery and has a distinctly Joy Divisiony vibe. The overall sound is jittery and manic, frenetic and frenzied, Bouncy and brittle, lo-fi and off kilter. Lots of early nineties college rock reference points but filtered through the cracked lens of the current lo-fi noise pop movement. Folks into stuff like Wavves, Blank Dogs, Gary War and the like might find TT to their liking as well.
Passages get repeated over and over, turning cracked no wave pop into something much more abstract and mesmerizing, songs explode into furious squalls of freaked out mathy blow outs, guitars soaring, drums splattering all over the place, the vocals desperately howling along, hooks are there, but are wrapped in delay and buried in the murky mix, some of the tracks so drenched in effects that they seem to blur before your very ears, only to suddenly snap back into focus and stumble through an awesomely dense tangle of atonal guitar and stuttery drum damage. Warm synths warble woozily, draped over crunchy riffage and sea sick melodies, the whole record a sprawling chaotic swirl of fractured pop, that we can't seem to stop listening to.
MPEG Stream: "Mixed Signals Through Miles Of Pilgrimage"
MPEG Stream: "Ichthus Hop"
MPEG Stream: "Bounty Hunter"
MPEG Stream: "Solar Puppets"

TEENAGE PANZERCORPS s/t (Captured Tracks) 7" 6.98
Latest blast of nihilistic Teutonic post punk from this Jewelled Antler offshoot, and while much of the TPK sound we've come to love is still present, in some ways the sound here is a whole different beast. Surprisingly poppy, lo-fi, and jangly, a little gloomy, yep, sounds right at home on a label that features Blank Dogs and Gary War. The music is all low slung and murky, not nearly as angular as other TPK records, instead, these guys whip up their own brand of lo-fi new wave pop, the main thing that still screams TPK are the vocals, an echo drenched Teutonic almost-shout, intense and booming, heavily accented, and in German as far as we can tell, a strange juxtaposition to the woozy bass heavy grooves underneath. The guitars are minor key and melodic, sometimes chiming and almost Cure-like, the combination makes this sound like it could be some last rarity reissued on Vinyl On Demand.
The side long B side is musically all washed out and dreamy, with a killer main riff, all fuzzy and doomy, the whole track laced with warbly organs, a sort of off kilter cold wave vibe, until those vocals swoop in and twist it all up. Awesome!

TERRORS Inequipoise (Monorail Trespassing) cassette 6.98
A tremendous cassette only release from the Terrors, an unknown project presumably based out of Los Angeles who offers up some totally desolate, bedroom recordings for cheap synths, guitar, voice, and -- because it's on Monorail Trespassing - snippets of noise. The first track has this creepy, nocturnal repeating motif of minor key melody that is trying to be a Rhodes keyboard but is probably something much more disposable, but that melody could be something easily found on a Labradford album or even a Bohren and Der Club of Gore track, but run through William Basinski's tape machinations. Ghostly splashes of droning guitar ebb and flow around that melodic passage, furthering the darkened gloom which settles around the track. This alone is worth the price of admission! The next track and a few fragmented moments on the other side feature vocals from the Terrors. It's a painfully lonely voice singing into a crappy microphone, which accentuates the melancholy vocal melody wrapped with plenty of tape hiss and an occasional downer strum on an acoustic guitar. These songs appear as a cross between Devendra and Grouper, as these roughly hewn takes on whatever was at hand with the pure emotion coming through the songs, cast in a hue that is profoundly depressed for the Terrors. The last track on this cassette ends with a arcing wash of white noise, that almost sounds like Terrors set up his recording under the flight path of LAX, just to get the rush of a plane taking off to conclude this track. It's a C-30 tape, and limited to 125 copies. Really great!

V/A Up All Night (Past & Present) cd 17.98
Proto metal fiends, come get your fix! This new collection of "20 Heavy Nuggets From The Golden Age Of Hard Psych" is definitely in the tradition of other cool comps like White Lace And Strange, Downer Rock Genocide, The Electric Asylum, A Visit To The Spaceship Factory, Psychedelic Minds, etc. Just check out the lineup, names we know (and love) include the likes of Highway Robbery, Bang, Sir Lord Baltimore, Granicus, Power Of Zeus, Haystacks Balboa, Yesterday's Children, Tin House, SRC, and The Litter. Heavy hitters, all of 'em. Now you might already have some of these cuts, if you really are a hard psych / proto metal fiend, but you surely don't have 'em all. And even though we were familiar with a bunch of these bands, there's plenty more here we'd never had the pleasure of hearing before, and these obscurities fit right in with such illustrious company. Most of these tracks are taken from LPs, not singles, usually the band's one and only album, many of which have never been properly reissued or even if they have been, aren't in print anymore anyway.
So what we've got here is a deep survey of vintage late '60s, early '70s North American hard rock action, (proto) metallic, garagey, and psychedelic, chock full of crunching riffs, wild wailing guitars, and rough n' tough vocals. It's all pretty darn heavy for the era, if not quite to the extreme reached across the pond by heavy metal progenitors Black Sabbath (though Bang comes quite close - and hey look there's a song titled "Wrought Iron Man" by a band called Steeplechase). This comp includes the the most fuzzed out and stompin' version of frat rock chestnut "Gimme Some Lovin'" you've ever heard (by Euclid, from their album Heavy Machinery). Of course, fuzz is in copious supply all across this disc, erupting perhaps most savagely on the classic "Kingdom Come" by Sir Lord Baltimore, a majestic six and a half minute epic mixing tripped out lyrics with bursts of ultra distorted guitar. Being one of the tracks, like a few others here, that'd we'd have chosen ourselves for an all time ultimate proto metal mix.
FYI, the other bands on this disc we haven't mentioned yet are: Liquid Smoke, The Finchley Boys, Damnation Of Adam Blessing, Dragonfly, Jamul, Third Power, Head Over Heels, and Landslide. Among all 20, it's hard to pick faves, some are heavier, some are weirder/proggier, some are blusier, some are groovier, some are more melodic, you'll have to decide for yourself. But this is definitely a pretty badass acid rock comp! And thankfully the cd booklet includes informative commentary on each band/track.
MPEG Stream: TIN HOUSE "Be Good And Be Kind"
MPEG Stream: SIR LORD BALTIMORE "Kingdom Come"
MPEG Stream: HAYSTACKS BALBOA "The Children Of Heaven"

VAN WEY, BROCK White Clouds Drift On And On (Echospace) 2cd 21.00
Yet another bit of gorgeous drifting pop ambience from the Echospace camp, this time from the unknown to us Brock Van Wey, which is strange in part because he's from right here in SF, and apparently he's been making this divine dreaminess for a while now.
Well, no use in lamenting what we may have missed, better to just leap straight in to these white clouds, and live in the moment. And Van Wey's moment is indeed divine, a series of sprawling gauzy ethereal moments in fact, all soft tones, and softly tumbling melodies. We hear Brian Eno all over this for sure, as well as Gas and Roedelius and Reich, needless to say if those names mean anything to you, odds are this could well become your new favorite late night chill out music.
A hushed ambient pop drift, equal parts new age shimmer, and muted electronic thrum, here and there the sound gets super fuzzy and washed out and suddenly we're reminded of the Field, or perhaps a beatless M83, that same sort of sun dappled soft focus looped mesmer, often the sound seems to be constructed from voices, layered and effected, a hauntingly organic and lovely assemblage of tones and textures, alternately rendered in minimal drift, and maximal shimmer. So gorgeous. Gorgeous enough that Echospace mainman Stephen Hitchell was so smitten that he added a whole extra disc of his own reinterpretation / remix of the album, and if Hitchell's version, while dramatically different, is just as good. The fuzzed out bliss is muted and blurred and backgrounded, allowing rhythms and minimal textures to drive these versions, the sound very much Chain Reaction, a glitchy skeletal dub, wreathed in soft smears of the original's dreamy buzz, a super modern dubbed out click and glitch and thump and pulse, that drifts from warm gristled buzz, to lounge-y almost exotica, to full on dark space dub, and finally to warm, hissy, glitchy, skittery, washed out dreamdrone ambience. Both discs on their own would be essential listening, but together, this couldn't be more recommended.
MPEG Stream: "I Knew Happiness Once (Intrusion Shape V)"
MPEG Stream: "Too Little Too Late"
MPEG Stream: "White Clouds Drift On And On (Intrusion Shape I)"

VOLTAIC OMEN Supreme Satanic Substorm (self released) cd-r 8.98
It all began with two unidentified mp3's sent via email, no message, no anything, just to HUGE files. We were wondering if there was something wrong with our email, and then POW. Two songs, identified only by title, but nothing about what they were, the name of the band, where they came from. Our first impulse was to just trash em, but we thought what the heck? And holy shit were we immediately floored. Exactly the sort of buzzing warped blackness we love around these parts, lo-fi, tripped out, druggy, heavy, space-y, we had to figure out who the heck this band was and how to get MORE!!
After a few emails back and forth, we discovered this filthy black chaos was the work of a one man band from the Northwest called Voltaic Omen, a little more digging revealed than not only did that one man have the most bad ass corpse paint, but his corpsepainted visage was an integral part of one of the VO logos, one of the best black metal logos ever by the way. VO was only too happy to send us more, the result being several weeks of mp3's and downloads and demos and cassettes and 3"cd-r's and often a new track every few days as they were hatched. It's almost like we won the fucked up demented lo-fi black metal lottery! But now it's time to share our good fortune with you. Not only will there hopefully be a compilation coming soon on Andee's own tUMULt label, but we have a brand new proper cd-r demo, called Supreme Satanic Substorm, and crammed with the swirling, stumbling, off kilter, fucked up and freaky black metal weirdness that had us so smitten in the first place.
SSS starts out appropriately enough with Carl Sagan from Cosmos, his voice drenched in reverb, before the record stumbles into motion, a lugubrious tarpit blast, under some oozing riffage and bizarre echoey vocals, which suddenly switch gears into what sounds like some lo-fi noise pop jam gone black metal. And it only gets weirder from there, lumbering doomic blurred buzzscapes wrap around woozy minor key guitars, heaving strangled vokills drift over programmed beats, the vibe shifting from washed out Burzumy dirge, to total psychedelic outer space blackened skree, the third track "Blood Bound" is all growled vocals, over tinny high end swirls of guitar, and splattery blast beats, a sound less metal, and more sort of washed out grim bliss, then the low end kicks in and the track seems to ooze and sprawl and slip into even more chaos. Elsewhere, tracks drift into weird muted skitter, or are laced with dizzyingly out of tune synths, funhouse melodies, even some weirdly poppy jangle, but it always seems to collapse inward, into a swirling black cloud of gloriously outsider whatthefuck. This is not the sort of stuff for folks looking for super tight blazing black metal, or even Burzumic depressive blackness, no, Voltaic Omen is for the freaks, the folks who like their black metal as demented as it is black, who want their black metal records to sound like they were left on the dashboard of the car in a heatwave, the grooves all melting into one another, the result a warped, woozy, warbly weird as fuck ambient black space blow out. And even when it seems like he's going for classic black metal, a frenzied riff, flurries of double kick drum, soaring epic melodies, it only lasts for a few seconds, before it gets pulled apart, wrapped in a vocal that sounds like a dying foghorn, or sent tumbling through some spaced out stretch of demonic vox and whirring amp buzz, or pelted with off kilter D-beat drumming, or splintered into thick swirls of intense (but still twisted) black ambience, often slipping into abstract, almost funereal doom or even indescribable bursts of total blackspacepsychdrone freakout.
As the above review demonstrates, this stuff is super hard to describe. But think Abruptum, Lugubrum, Vondur, Striborg, Necrofrost, that's the sort of damaged delirium Voltaic Omen explores. So now all of you loyal aQ weirdo black metal obsessives can add Voltaic Omen to your fucked up freaked out damaged and demented outsider lo-fi space drone black metal pantheon!
MPEG Stream: "Slow Circles Show Signs"
MPEG Stream: "Blood Bound"
MPEG Stream: "Old Vampyre"

VOLTIGEURS Tentacle Rape (self released) cd-r 11.98
Second release from this Skullflower side project, fronted by (of course) SF mainman Matthew Bower, who in Voltigeurs teams up with SF cellist Samantha Davies for a bit of Skullflowery blow out. Their M.O. seems to remain the same as on the self titled disc on Turgid Animal, a head splitting rib cracking wall of crumbling super distorted noise, but a noise shot through with more texture and melody than one might expect. As with most music like this, a glancing listen, or hearing it as background sound, will do nothing for you, a white noise vacuum cleaner Merzbowian blowout. But crank the volume a bit, strap on some headphones, and you will gradually become able to parse these caustic sounds.
Not sure if it's the presence of cello, or if Davies brings out Bower's softer side, but the sounds within the sounds here are surprisingly melodic, little tangles and squiggles, fragments and shards, but it's not just the inner sounds, the constantly coruscating frenzy of blown out guitar buzz, is warm and textural, layered and dense, a rich sound that seems to be constantly shifting and changing hues, timbre and tone, slipping from warm whir, to grating skree, to crumbling crunch, to in-the-red frenzy, but at every step along the way, the sound is much more than just NOISE, it most definitely IS 'noisy', and when we go on about Bower's softer side, it is of course, all relative, Bower's softer side is still about a hundred times harsher and heavier than the next guy's, but since we are not really big fans of harsh noise at all, it definitely takes a special touch for us to enjoy something this noisy, and Bower and Davies most assuredly have it.
From the most recent Skullflowers to this (and the previous) Voltigeurs disc, the duo have figured out how to harness noise, hot to sculpt and create with noise, the sort of noise than in lesser hands would be uncontrollable, and would overwhelm, here becomes sound, which in turn becomes music, a heavy, harsh, hellish, blown out music, no doubt, but from these two we would expect nothing less.
Essential for Skullflower obsessives obviously, and a pretty perfect second movement in the ongoing Voltigeurs sonic saga...
MPEG Stream: "Bleak Harvest Pts 1+2"
MPEG Stream: "Land Murder"

VON Satanic Blood Angel (Nuclear War Now! Productions) cd 11.98
This classic chunk of Bay Area blackness finally available once again, on cd, and as a super limited, ultra deluxe double lp.
Satanic Blood Angel is the first and only official release from the mighty VON, a legendary black metal band from right here in the Bay Area. Never heard of 'em? Not surprising. Not only did they never release an actual album, but they were spurned by the scene at the time for playing sloppy fucked up, super simple and repetitive metal, unlike the technical thrash that was popular at the time. Von took their sound from Hellhammer, Bathory and Venom, playing very simple trance-like riffs, over and over, with barked, super-affected guttural vocals, and very little melody. Simple and raw and way more Satanic than most bands of the time. This droning grimness would become the blueprint for modern primitive black metal, and Von would take on legendary status, being constantly covered by the likes of Leviathan and other big deal black metal outfits, their one and only record released and re-released and bootlegged. But at the time, Von were pretty much the only ones doing what they were doing, pounding and blasting and buzzing. But somehow, it still sounds as good as, if not better than most of the contemporary bands trying to do the same thing. This reissue, like the one before it, collects everything, the Satanic Blood demo, the Satanic Angel demo, and a live show at the Stone in San Francisco from 1991. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "Devil Pig"
MPEG Stream: "Lamb"

VON Satanic Blood Angel (Nuclear War Now! Productions) 2lp 19.98
This classic chunk of Bay Area blackness finally available once again, on cd, and as a super limited, ultra deluxe double lp.
Satanic Blood Angel is the first and only official release from the mighty VON, a legendary black metal band from right here in the Bay Area. Never heard of 'em? Not surprising. Not only did they never release an actual album, but they were spurned by the scene at the time for playing sloppy fucked up, super simple and repetitive metal, unlike the technical thrash that was popular at the time. Von took their sound from Hellhammer, Bathory and Venom, playing very simple trance-like riffs, over and over, with barked, super-affected guttural vocals, and very little melody. Simple and raw and way more Satanic than most bands of the time. This droning grimness would become the blueprint for modern primitive black metal, and Von would take on legendary status, being constantly covered by the likes of Leviathan and other big deal black metal outfits, their one and only record released and re-released and bootlegged. But at the time, Von were pretty much the only ones doing what they were doing, pounding and blasting and buzzing. But somehow, it still sounds as good as, if not better than most of the contemporary bands trying to do the same thing. This reissue, like the one before it, collects everything, the Satanic Blood demo, the Satanic Angel demo, and a live show at the Stone in San Francisco from 1991. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "Devil Pig"
MPEG Stream: "Lamb"

VON OSWALD TRIO, MORITZ Vertical Ascent (Honest Jons) cd 17.98
This one is difficult to categorize. Rigid electronic music in the guise of open-ended free jazz? 20th century minimalism with subtle ethnographic influences? Concrete stoner music for the Salvia Divinorum set? Ok, the last one may have been a stretch, but this record has been really hard to wrap our brains around. This super group of sorts, all from the new wave of minimalist techno, includes not only Moritz Von Oswald (Basic Channel, Rhythm And Sound) of course, but also Sasu Ripatti (Vladislav Delay) and Max Loderbauer (Sun Electric), veering a bit from the predicted norm. That this was released on The Honest Jon's label adds another level of unexpected curiosity as this is an electronic record but not quite the "heroin house" you would expect from the Chain Reaction label, nor the classical recompositions Von Oswald made with Carl Craig earlier this year. What you get is a flexible weaving of machine calibrated electronic treatments (drones, synth sequences and hazy shifting textures) with an array of clattering handmade rhythm instruments (metal clangs, wooden clops, and watery blops) interlocking in organic ways designed for improvisation and live performance. It's definitely warmer and more inviting than most of the Basic Channel stuff, while still keeping the sound and performances reigned in. Yet we're not sure if this is a first foray into a more exploratory open-ended direction or just a curious one-off. Overall though, we go away with a beautiful and interesting sounding recording that's definitely worth checking out!
MPEG Stream: "Pattern 1"
MPEG Stream: "Pattern 3"

VON OSWALD TRIO, MORITZ Vertical Ascent (Honest Jons) 2lp 22.00
This one is difficult to categorize. Rigid electronic music in the guise of open-ended free jazz? 20th century minimalism with subtle ethnographic influences? Concrete stoner music for the Salvia Divinorum set? Ok, the last one may have been a stretch, but this record has been really hard to wrap our brains around. This super group of sorts, all from the new wave of minimalist techno, includes not only Moritz Von Oswald (Basic Channel, Rhythm And Sound) of course, but also Sasu Ripatti (Vladislav Delay) and Max Loderbauer (Sun Electric), veering a bit from the predicted norm. That this was released on The Honest Jon's label adds another level of unexpected curiosity as this is an electronic record but not quite the "heroin house" you would expect from the Chain Reaction label, nor the classical recompositions Von Oswald made with Carl Craig earlier this year. What you get is a flexible weaving of machine calibrated electronic treatments (drones, synth sequences and hazy shifting textures) with an array of clattering handmade rhythm instruments (metal clangs, wooden clops, and watery blops) interlocking in organic ways designed for improvisation and live performance. It's definitely warmer and more inviting than most of the Basic Channel stuff, while still keeping the sound and performances reigned in. Yet we're not sure if this is a first foray into a more exploratory open-ended direction or just a curious one-off. Overall though, we go away with a beautiful and interesting sounding recording that's definitely worth checking out!
MPEG Stream: "Pattern 1"
MPEG Stream: "Pattern 3"

WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS These Four Walls (Fat Cat) cd 14.98
Another killer brooding angular guitar-ed dour-ish hook filled modern new wave record from Scotland, this time from the awesomely monickered We Were Promised Jetpacks, whose sound will no doubt by now be familiar to fans of outfits like Maximo Park, Frightened Rabbit, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol and the like, and while WWPJ don't necessarily revolutionize -that- sound, they do know their way around a pop song, managing to wind taut chiming guitars, muscle-y drumming, buzzy synths, and yowled emotional vocals into slow burning epics, rife with crunchy guitars, epic post rock swells, some bursts of almost metallic heft, and plenty of low slung bass heavy grooves. The first song alone was enough, we were sold within seconds, a woozy muted dark riff, looped beneath a weary croon, building and building for nearly half the song, the guitars growing ever more insistent, tinkling chimes joining the nearly percussionless jam, before the track finally explodes into a massive Mogwai-ish blowout.
And so it goes. Crunchy guitars, anthemic choruses, a gloomy Joy Divisiony rhythm section, hooks like crazy, some songs hushed and intimate, but others wrapped in huge gauzy streaks of Godspeed / Mogwai / Sigur Ros epic post rock haze (and one of the songs even has a Conet Project sample!). Heavy and hooky, dark and jangly and a new favorite for sure.
MPEG Stream: "It's Thunder And It's Lightning"
MPEG Stream: "Ships With Holes Will Sink"
MPEG Stream: "Roll Up Your Sleeves"

WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS These Four Walls (Fat Cat) lp 16.98
Another killer brooding angular guitar-ed dour-ish hook filled modern new wave record from Scotland, this time from the awesomely monickered We Were Promised Jetpacks, whose sound will no doubt by now be familiar to fans of outfits like Maximo Park, Frightened Rabbit, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol and the like, and while WWPJ don't necessarily revolutionize -that- sound, they do know their way around a pop song, managing to wind taut chiming guitars, muscle-y drumming, buzzy synths, and yowled emotional vocals into slow burning epics, rife with crunchy guitars, epic post rock swells, some bursts of almost metallic heft, and plenty of low slung bass heavy grooves. The first song alone was enough, we were sold within seconds, a woozy muted dark riff, looped beneath a weary croon, building and building for nearly half the song, the guitars growing ever more insistent, tinkling chimes joining the nearly percussionless jam, before the track finally explodes into a massive Mogwai-ish blowout.
And so it goes. Crunchy guitars, anthemic choruses, a gloomy Joy Divisiony rhythm section, hooks like crazy, some songs hushed and intimate, but others wrapped in huge gauzy streaks of Godspeed / Mogwai / Sigur Ros epic post rock haze (and one of the songs even has a Conet Project sample!). Heavy and hooky, dark and jangly and a new favorite for sure.
MPEG Stream: "It's Thunder And It's Lightning"
MPEG Stream: "Ships With Holes Will Sink"
MPEG Stream: "Roll Up Your Sleeves"

WOBURN HOUSE Monstrous Manoeuvres In The Mushroom Maze (Paradigms) cd 12.98
We've been dying for this one, the latest from German post rock avant metallers Woburn House, whose last Paradigms release Message To Ourselves Outside The Dreaming Machine totally blew us away, with its weird mix of black buzz, post rock drift, metallic prog and noisy discordant math rock. And while on first listen, it seems not too much has changed, as we get further into the record (heck, further into the first song!), it seems that Woburn House have indeed begun exploring a new sonic direction...
It only takes a few minutes for this record to establish it's utter dominance, beginning with a drifty lilting spidery guitar melody, soft and jangly and minor key, before slipping into a lurching downtuned chug, all stop start crunch, before slipping back into the opening drift, this time accompanied by some skittery rhythms, and so it goes until finally the vocals come in, a warm ethereal crooned harmony, with a distinctly shoegaze-y vibe, way down in the mix, allowing the song to grow more jagged, and get a bit Voivod-y, before finally stretching out into a gorgeous looped sounding sun dappled post metal drift, all soaring chiming guitars, and those warm vocals, the track finally winding down in a swirling swell of epic sun dappled psychedelia. Wow. Okay, so yeah, things have changed quite a bit, in as much as WH have managed to expand their sound even further, and taken their metallic sound in a distinctly less overtly metallic direction.
The more we listen, the more it becomes evident that this record is much more mellow and poppy, than it's more metallic predecessor, the core sound falling somewhere between the twisted blackened metallic pop of Lifelover and the grandiose doom pop of Katatonia, the result is awesome, emotional, intense, epic, with the songs often building to huge chaotic climaxes, but just as often loping along dreamily, and metalheads fear not, while it is poppier, there is still plenty of crushing heaviness, gnarled riffage, and lurching chug to balance the blissy mathy pop and haunting shimmery drift that makes up much of the rest of the record.
"Globus" is some dark dreamy spacedrone, with its tribal drumming, dense fuzz bass, effects drenched guitars, all locked into a looped motorik groove that wouldn't be that out of place on a Expo 70 or White Hills record. "Transmitter" brings the metal back, but definitely drifts into some serious Katatonia territory, with some woozy drifty almost-prog, occasionally giving way to huge swells of metallic heft, and more of those warm crooned vocals, the entire song wreathed in a gauzy washed out sheen.
And finally, there's the 23 minute closing track "Transformer", which opens with the most black metal bit on the whole records, a buzzing blast, peppered with warbly minor key melodies, and warm swirling drones, but at its core, this is pounding and thrashing and heavy, until before you know it, the band have shifted gears once again, unfurling a glimmery driftscape of crystalline guitar and warm blackened ambience, when the track does kick back in, it's in a whole new form, a cool, lumbering post rock tangle of metallic buzz and complex start stop arrangements, there's even a long stretch of that sort of blown out Jesu-style metalgaze, before everything drops off, and all that's left is a field recording of birds, and cars, the side of the highway presumably, people talking, all manner of ambient sound, eventually the song does drift back in, and finishes with a few minutes of woozy laid back slow core pop drift, hazy and weary and like much of the rest of the record, dreamy and melodic.
Folks looking for lots of buzzing blackness or crushing chugging metallic pummel, might not find enough of that here, but for folks who love their metal infused with all manner of pop, and dig stuff like Amesoeurs, Katatonia, Lifelover, Alcest, and that sort of stuff, will definitely dig this a LOT.
MPEG Stream: "Omega"
MPEG Stream: "Oil"

WOE A Spell For The Death Of Man (Creeping Vine Productions) lp 14.98
NOW ON LP, blood red vinyl too...
Debut full length from this East Coast one man black metal band, and from note one, A Spell For The Death Of Man reveals itself as something not even remotely typical, a distinctly different, and surprisingly melodic take on the old blast and buzz. The opening minute or two of the nine minute "Solitude" is just guitar, all soaring mournful and minor key, playing out a distinctly post rock riff, unfurling lazily, wreathed in reverb, majestic and epic, sorrowful and distinctly indie, gradually growing slower and slower, before stick clicks bring on the blackness, a furious tangle of squiggly buzzsaw riffage and blasting beats, buried blackened shrieks. Somehow, even though on the surface the song seems to have switched gears completely, elements of the intro remain, within and beneath the roiling heaviness, lending the music a distinctly 'indie rock' vibe, especially when the track shifts again, and suddenly it sounds a a little like Superchunk or Seam, only supercharged and blackened and Satanized. Not to say this is super poppy and jangly, but it is, sort of. Once you hear it, it's tough to ignore, but then why the heck would you want to? Folks with a super limited musical scope, say, ONLY metal, probably won't hear it as much, especially if they're open to more melodic stuff like Alcest or Amesoeurs, but for those who maybe didn't grow up listening to only metal, as we're guessing is the case with Woe mainman (and only man) Xos. Just wait until the breakdown near the end, when that opening riff is wrapped around some muffled chugging, and some dense tribal drumming, suddenly it's equal parts Husker Du, Bastro and black metal.
The rest of the record is a bit more traditionally black, but even then, with galloping rhythms and dizzying black riffage, the songs still manage to sound strangely melodic, and in some super abstract sense, kind of poppy. But again, all of this pop and jangle and post rock, is totally tangled up with some seriously dense thrashing and super heavy, blasting black metal. It's that unlikely mix that makes Woe sound so different, and makes this record so awesome, deftly balancing the grim and the kvlt with the moody and hooky and melodic. The record closes with an even less black metal number than the opener, strange angular midtempo minor key guitars, plodding drums, very postrock / mathrock, the vocals still in black metal shriek mode, but draped over a lilting almost dirgey slowcore groove, definitely pretty, and a bit woozy and mysterious, but still heavy, and just the slightest bit black.
Fans of more melodic blackness will definitely dig, while dabblers and newbies might have just found the perfect black metal gateway drug.
MPEG Stream: "Solitude"
MPEG Stream: "Alone With Our Failures"
MPEG Stream: "Memento Mori"

ZANGENEH, PARI The Series Of Music For Young Adults: Iranian Folk Songs (Tehran / KS) cd 25.00
Folk-psych masterpiece out of Teheran, Iran circa 1976. With incredibly rich instrumentation and orchestration as a backdrop, Pari Zangeneh's voice soars with such soft strength. We're reminded a lot of some of the amazing psych gems from Turkey that we've dug so much like Mogollar and Selda but with less funk in the mix and much more lush folk running through the sound. In fact, Zangeneh sounds quite a bit like a Persian version of Vashti Bunyan at times, albeit with a bit more bravado and color in her delivery. She is still performing all these years later, and while this record is now over three decades old it still sounds so timeless and compelling. We imagine modern day psych-folksters like White Magic, Espers, and Dungen would find tons of inspiration in these mystical and delightful sounds, we sure do!
MPEG Stream: "Aye Laili"
MPEG Stream: "Mastom, Mastom"
MPEG Stream: "Asmar Asmar DJan"

ZOLA JESUS The Spoils (Sacred Bones) lp 16.98
Sacred Bones is turning into the go-to-label for rad vinyl (and cd!) from both up and coming bands s well as a bunch of way deserved obscure reissues. In the last year they've put out stuff by Blank Dogs, Gary War, Cultural Decay, 13th Chime, and a whole bunch more. We first heard Zola Jesus on a split with Burial Hex but with this full length we've been fully engrossed with her much needed female take on warped bedroom psychedelia. You can't just sight one easy reference for the sound of Zola Jesus and that's a good thing. From the dark and brooding elements of Siouxsie & The Banshees, the haunting spirit of Lydia Lunch, hints of the mystical world of a way lo-fi Kate Bush, layers of haze and echo that would be at home on records by folks like Valet and Pocahaunted. She offers up a much needed scuzzier, moodier, more dense version of what slicker folks like Bat For Lashes and Cocorosie have gotten quite famous for recently. The Spoils is a record filled with dark psychedelic explorations that are able to manifest that aura into really compelling songs that we find ourselves coming back to again and again.

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CLARK Totems Flare (Warp) cd 14.98
Clark put out one of the best and sadly overlooked electronic albums of last year, Turning Dragon. A high adrenaline rush of colorful spazzed out electronic perfection. Totems Flare finds Clark adding vocals to the mix on a few tracks (with varied results) and while we're not as much in love with this album as we were with his previous outings, Totems Flare still has plenty of crunchy, glitchy, color that pops out of our speakers and here and there REALLY hits the spot. In many ways Totems Flare has a sound reminiscent of Go Plastic era Squarepusher and it certainly is the most vintage Warp sounding record to come out on that label in a long time. And actually, the more we play this, the more we find ourselves getting into it. Check it out...
MPEG Stream: "Growls Garden"
MPEG Stream: "Look Into The Heart Now"

CLARK Totems Flare (Warp) 2x12" 23.00
Clark put out one of the best and sadly overlooked electronic albums of last year, Turning Dragon. A high adrenaline rush of colorful spazzed out electronic perfection. Totems Flare finds Clark adding vocals to the mix on a few tracks (with varied results) and while we're not as much in love with this album as we were with his previous outings, Totems Flare still has plenty of crunchy, glitchy, color that pops out of our speakers and here and there REALLY hits the spot. In many ways Totems Flare has a sound reminiscent of Go Plastic era Squarepusher and it certainly is the most vintage Warp sounding record to come out on that label in a long time. And actually, the more we play this, the more we find ourselves getting into it. Check it out...
MPEG Stream: "Growls Garden"
MPEG Stream: "Look Into The Heart Now"

CULTURAL DECAY, THE Eight Ways To Start A Day (Singles & Demos) (Sacred Bones Records) lp 17.98
We would have to be forgiven for missing out on The Cultural Decay from a couple years back. After all, there are eighty-gazillion lost and recently rediscovered post-punk, minimal-wave, and art-rock obscurities from all around the world; but this short-lived Belgian post-punk group from the early 80s is something special and fortunately, Sacred Bones did take notice and should be commended for finally making this available.
From 1980 to 1982, The Cultural Decay only played a handful of gigs, all in Belgium; and they released two singles, one of which was produced by the Revolting Cocks founder Luc Van Acker. From the onset, it's pretty clear that Joy Division was the favorite band of The Cultural Decay, as the guitar and bass interplay of jagged rhythmic guitar chops coupled with loping low-end bass melodies mirrors that of Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook. To be fair, this Belgian band did not have Ian Curtis as a front-man; and they relied more on a snarled monotone delivery similar to those found in the Buzzcocks and Crisis. For those who know fellow Belgian post-punkers Siglo XX, the sound of The Cultural Decay will be very familiar and arguably better! The songs are all darkly tinged post-punk tunes clouded by a dour atmosphere that the band urgently pushes against. Given that this collection features the two studio produced singles and a bunch of 4-track demos, the production quality is a bit uneven; but hey, that's DIY for you! It certainly doesn't detract from the songs themselves, which just get a little rough around the edges.
FYI, The Cultural Decay ran a small label themselves, and were the the original home of that incredible AA single that we reviewed not that long ago. Recommended, for sure!
PS: The cd (not here yet, unfortunately) features FIVE extra tracks not on the lp!

DESIRE II (Italians Do It Better) lp 13.98
NOW ON VINYL!
Everything Johnny Jewel touches these days turns to sultry dancefloor gold. Whether it's Glass Candy, the Chromatics, or a handful of other groups on Italians Do It Better that have felt Jewel's magic touch, he has really been largely responsible for making IDIB a label to trust when it comes to sizzling, late night spaced out disco!
What sets Desire a little apart from other acts on Italians Do It Better is that it's much more of a full band effort, with an affection for analog synthesizers as well as strings, percussion, piano, and it's got an overall delivery that is much more warm and rich than some of the other similar sounding outfits on the label. Desire still have that icy-detached aesthetic that can be found in the sounds of Chromatics, but there is something a bit more personal sounding in the songs here. While most records in this genre tend to be filled with super immediate hooks that sometimes lose their staying power on repeated listens, this record is a serious grower. In fact on first listen we thought maybe this was going to be a bit of a let down, but we're so happy we gave it a few more spins, cuz we were eventually totally sucked into the moody, sultry stylings that Desire conjure up. Between this and the Nite Jewel record we gushed about recently, our late night coming down soundtrack is sounding better then ever. Feel the slow burn!
MPEG Stream: "Dans Mes Reves"
MPEG Stream: "Oxygene"
MPEG Stream: "Mirroir Mirroir"

DISCOVERY LP (XL) lp 14.98
Now on vinyl!
It seems like many of the figurative walls that used to keep musical scenes and and record collections segregated are finally crumbling to the ground. In recent years indie rockers have embraced pop and the dance floor while lots of pop, hip-hop and R&B artists have latched on to the always evolving world of electronica. Discovery are kind of like the perfect poster boys for this evolution.
While best known for their more indie rock minded bands (one of those bands being quite the buzz band from a couple years ago) these two soundmakers have taken the opportunity to fully embrace their love of un-ironic pure dance pop delight. Much like the way Hot Chip brought the sound of Prince to a more indie sensibility, Discovery have crafted totally irresistible modern pop gems that kind of sound like the newest Phoenix record mixed with Kanye West. There is something so bright, colorful and refreshing about the sounds on LP. A bit more bouncy and playful then the Junior Boys while still using a bit of the same sonic template that they and Hot Chip helped create a few years back. The beats and electronics on LP are executed so flawlessly, if tweaked just a bit more they would sound right at home on a skweee record, but even so, this record is all about full on shiny pop perfection. Imagine the sound in the mall as we all roller-skated down the escalators after hours, in some teen movie with an Orange Julius in our hands, the food court behind us and a Forever 21 on the horizon. So yummy!
MPEG Stream: "Osaka Loop Line"
MPEG Stream: "So Insane"
MPEG Stream: "Carby"

FRAGMENT. Towards The Surface (ConSOULing Sounds) cd-r 10.98
We listed another record by this French one man band a few lists back, sold out of them in a flash, so when we restocked, we managed to get the remaining copies of this second release, Towards The Surface, we got less than a dozen though, and once they're gone they are GONE for good, as it's out of print.
We mentioned in that other review that Fragment. (the period IS part of the name) was mining a sound not all that removed from Jesu and Nadja, but listening to this now, it's really driving home just how much this stuff sounds EXACTLY like Jesu, it's almost criminal actually, but hell, if you're hankering for some heavy blissed out dreamy chugging shoegazey post metal, and can't wait for the next Jesu record, then heck, grab one of these.
The sound is of course fantastic, epic and majestic and bleary eyed, a little bit more mellow and laid back than Jesu proper, but quite similar in most other respects, the industrial pound, the layered warm guitar shimmer, the muted metallic chug, the mumbled sad boy vocals, all woven into a gorgeously blown out drone drenched epic dream metal drift. Listening to it again right now, and it sounds so fantastic, it just also happens to sound so fantastically like Jesu.
Cool packaging too, a cd sized dvd case with the full color artwork on a narrow strip along the center of the case, leaving the rest of the case transparent and the disc revealed.
MPEG Stream: "Towards The Surface..."
MPEG Stream: "Burn (Version II)"

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

JANDEK Six and Six (Corwood Industries) lp 22.00
Record number two, originally released way back in 1981, from this not-so-mysterious-anymore and not-so-reclusive-anymore mysterious recluse, finally available again on vinyl!
Another raw glimpse into the hermetic soul of this unliklely underground troubadour, through his ultra-minimal, angular trance-blues soaked with as always, lots of spring reverb and moaned wavering vocal. An acquired taste for sure, but those who do acquire a taste for Jandek's unique twangy murky off kilter caterwaul, often end up completely obsessed.

KHANATE Clean Hands Go Foul (Hydra Head) cd 14.98
FYI, if you didn't get this when we listed the limited edition version with bonus live dvd, the cd-only version is still available, and a bit cheaper too. Here's our review from before:
Wait, what? Are we having a collective ultra-doom induced dream? A NEW Khanate record?? We'd practically been ready to slit our wrists (or should that be, ready to *stop* slitting our wrists?) when we heard that this sludgey supergroup (featuring members of SUNNO))) and Old) had split up a while back. But here's Hydra Head with a new Khanate release! Turns out, it's music they recorded back in 2005-2006 by James Ploktin, Stephen O'Malley and Tim Wyskida, with vocals apparently added later on by the inimitable Alan Dubin. And it's a pretty killer Khanate set, a fitting finale really, taking things to an extreme, emotional, and artistic level that they'd perhaps never reached before - or ever will again, seeing as how this is indeed their last album.
There's four tracks, "Wings From Spine", "Clean My Heart", "In That Corner", and "Every God Damn Thing". All of 'em claustrophobic and chaotic, but it's doomic slow-motion chaos, a ballet of percussive skitter, sculpted feedback, washes of grim drone, and crucially, insane wailing vokillz. Of course, with Khanate (and Dubin's new project Gnaw) a lot depends on how into his vocals you can get - and maybe you should be worried about your mental health if you get really into 'em! His misanthropic throat-peeling rants about, well, every Dubin-damned thing are perhaps an acquired taste, or affliction. We're fans though, yikes...
Musically, on Clean Hands we were struck by the lengthy semi-ambient stretches, seemingly improvised, that provide a disturbingly quiet yet creepy backdrop for Dubin's bloodcurdling extemporizations. The restrained rumble and clatter of these segments certainly build the tension, for the release that comes when the really heavy parts kick in, as of course they ultimately do. The thirty-plus minute "Every God Damn Thing" is especially hushed and ambient sounding, humming and hissing with fractured bits of amp buzz and jack/cord glitch, it's Khanate at their most Sinistri/Starfuckers-ish. Experimental, more than metal.

LASCOWIEC / MARBLEBOG / VERZIVATAR Deep Horizons Of Eternity (Turanian Honour) cd 13.98
Last copies of this hypnotic ,blissed out, depressive and melancholy black metal three way split...
We've been trying to get our hands on enough of these to list for ages, a killer 3 way split of obscure strangely melodic blackness, released on Hungarian label Turanian Honour, featuring long time aQ faves Marblebog, Bay Area depressive black metal duo Lascowiec and Verzivatar, another Hungarian horde we had never heard until now.
Lascowiec, whose killer demo compilation we raved about a while back (which we still have a small handful left), returns with four more tracks of washed out black beauty, darkly depressive and beautifully buzzy, the music of Lascowiec is a blurred and smeared minor key mystery, remove the distorted vokill croak, and you'd be left with a deep swirling shoegazey bit of soft focus buzz. The riffs are muted and muddy, lo-fi but still lush, locked into trancelike loops, woozy and warbly and hypnotic, about as pretty as black metal can sound without ceasing to be black or metal. Spidery tangled little melodies, wreathed in otherworldly effects, distorted but not harsh or jagged, more smoothed out and blissy, the vocals the grimmest element, but for the most part, it's the music that carries Lascowiec, gorgeously mournful, and hauntingly lovely buzzy blackness.
Marblebog offer up two songs, epic and majestic, melodic too, but with some super twisted way UP in the mix vocals, that transform an otherwise loping mysterious minor key dirge into something creeped out and harrowing. The main melody is gorgeous, almost power metal sounding, albeit slowed down and draped over a monotonous doomy drum plod, but those vocals, the perfect blend of harsh and hellish, brooding and pretty. Their second track is another strange blend, this time the guitars and drums are buried beneath thick swirling keyboards, and some fucked up demonic gurgled croaking vocals. Again, the effect is the same, a sort of woozy softly buzzing prettiness transformed into a fractured, Burzumic, off kilter depressive black dirge.
Finally Verzivatar deliver two tracks of fierce and frantic blasting blackness, but like the other two bands on the split, their sound is marked by an unlikely melodiousness, the riffs, frenetic and buzzy are also soaring and majestic, the vocals here too are weird, but less black metal, or really metal at all, more like a raspy punkish howl, or a strangled mewl. Gives Verzivatar a sort of crusty punkish vibe, reminding us a bit of French faerical black metal punks Nuit Noire. Definitely need to hear more from these guys.
All three bands offer up some seriously gorgeous melodic grimness, some surprisingly blissed out black metal buzz, unfortunately this is LIMITED TO 666 COPIES, and has been out for a while, so not sure we can get more. Each one is hand numbered, with a big full color booklet, liner notes, lyrics and the works.
MPEG Stream: LASCOWIEC "By Eight Hooves To Asgard"
MPEG Stream: MARBLEBOG "Rivers Of Eternity"
MPEG Stream: VERZIVATAR "Final Catharsis"

LAZARUS BLACKSTAR Tomb Of Internal Winter (Future Noise) cd 12.98
This crushing slab of downtuned heaviness back in stock...
With a name like Lazarus Blackstar, we were sort of expecting something a bit more polished, it definitely has a nu-metal or modern rock ring to it, but holy shit, nothing could be further from the truth. LB are purveyors of some of the crustiest, filthiest, heaviest sludge doom we've heard in ages. Featuring a who's who of British sludge / punk / crust / metal royalty (including at least one member of the legendary Sore Throat) these guys are broooootal. Massive, thick downtuned chug, crushing drum pound, a vocalist who sounds like he's spitting out vital organs with every anguished guttural roar, definitely hearing some Eyehategod, Grief, Bongzilla and that sort of thing, but the band bring some weirdness, like in the opening track, when after trudging through some seriously glacial black tar buzz, a guitar line soars from beneath the murk, tracing out a weirdly warm and buzzy and almost major key melody over the lurching lumber below. "Son Of Sorrow" slows it down even more, veering into some serious Bunkur / Moss / Monarch territory, before launching into an Electric Wizardly, almost stonery groove. The closer "Victim Of The Clergy", superimposes some demonic growling over a haunting hymn, the hammer falls and the song erupts in a slow negative trudge, the vocals this time punkish and yelped. There are some fucked up samples, some weird ambient percussion, like the sound of water dripping, or echoey footsteps, but the riff and the drums pound away, relentlessly, as various voices hover over the top, finally dropping out and finishing with a priest offering absolution. Heavy as fuck. Definitely need to track down the full lengths....
MPEG Stream: "Tomb Of Internal Winter"
MPEG Stream: "Son Of Sorrow"

MAJOR LAZER Guns Don't Kill People, Lazers Do (Mad Decent / Downtown Music) 2lp 21.00
NOW ON VINYL!!
We love dancehall, the beat, the rhythms, the toasting especially, the lurching hypnotic groove of it, but what we, and lots of other folks have always had trouble with, was the lyrical content, the whole scene in fact, rife with violence, and homophobia and misogyny, much like American hip hop, but even more fucked up and seriously unpalatable.
So much so that plenty of folks around aQ land who might otherwise dig dancehall big time, have sworn off it completely. UNTIL NOW.
Diplo and Switch, bring their twisted and tweaked approach to beats and grooves, and whip up one the wildest, craziest dancehall records EVER. And what better way to thumb their noses at traditional dancehall than by getting a whole gaggle of female rappers and toasters to team up with the more well know male Jamaican dancehall vocalists, often verbally sparring back and forth in the same song. The sound is supercharged, electrifying, the beats banging, the samples bizarre but perfect, a tangled technicolor musical backdrop over which the vocalists do their THANG.
Morricone-esque guitars, the clip clop of horse hooves, ringing cell phones, horse whinnies, dizzying looped rhythms, a killer stuttery beat, tons of woozy low end, everything chopped and hiccuppy, an awesome deep growly bit of toasting, and some cool looped Santigold vox, before she gets to spit her own bad ass verse, and that's just the first song.
The whole disc destroys though, relentless non stop hip shaking head bobbing sweaty sexy speaker destroying musical magic, some tracks bliss out into some sunshiney reggae grooviness, all laid back, infused with some awesome smoky sultry vox, other tracks get raw and rough, with buzzing guitars and fuzzed out bass lines, plenty of clatter and crunch, others are fizzly and festive, with vocodered vocals and skittery beats, and still others are dense tightly wound jams, drenched in effects and tangled up with rollicking block rocking beats and squiggly melodies. Even as an instrumental record, this would kill, but the vocalists push it over the top, tongue twisting flows all over the place, lightning fast sputters, growly drawls, head spinning back and forth and of course plenty of whoops and whooooooos...
Summer dancehall party record of the year for sure, with awesome Major Lazer cartoon cover art, very reminiscent of the classic old Scientist albums!! So recommended. Every time we play this in the store, someone comes up to see what the heck it is!
MPEG Stream: "Hold The Line"
MPEG Stream: "When You Hear The Bassline"
MPEG Stream: "Can't Stop Now"

NILSEN, BJ The Short Night (Touch / Autofact) lp 16.98
Now available on vinyl! However, it's apparently a totally different mix than the original cd version, the review of which (and associated sound samples) we've included below...
Benny Nilsen is a man perfectly content living in the northern regions of Europe, having grown up in Sweden and living no further south than Berlin. For while the long nights of winter can gnaw at one's soul, the long days of summer are something to look forward to. If his collaborative albums with Stilluppsteypa were the existentially grim albums of drunken wintry behavior, then The Short Night is his portrait of the summer time dreaminess of sunflecked, arctic nights. Having been such champions of Nilsen's work back when he was recording as Hazard for Ash International, we find it a little strange that so many people have qualified The Short Night as 'dark.' True, if you were to compare this album to the lilting work of Colleen or even to fellow label mate Biosphere, The Short Night would appear quite dark; but in the context of Nilsen's entire discography, The Short Night is a dramatically colorful piece of work. Sure, Nilsen's sustained low frequencies and a few moments of growling noise do have their devilish undertones; but throughout the album, Nilsen punctures these impressionist clouds with elegant electronic chorales of ethereal melodies that are surprisingly beautiful for BJ Nilsen. There is a melancholy to Nilsen's work, but melancholy isn't always synonymous with dark, as is the case here. In many ways, Nilsen has found himself trekking into the territories previously ventured by Fennesz and Machinefabriek, creating a transcendent sound through the tension between shoegazing / drone-based driftwork and subtle discordant agitation. This record is highly, highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Front"
MPEG Stream: "Pole Of Inaccessibility"
MPEG Stream: "Viking North"

ONEIDA Rated O (Jagjaguwar) 3lp 23.00
Whoops, we goofed. Listed this last time, along with the triple cd, and we got the price of the vinyl format wrong, made it too expensive. Sort of. Long story. Wondered why we didn't sell very many... it was probably cheaper from most other shops. So, here it is again at the right price! Sorry to the couple of you who bought it already at our special jacked-up price.
Here it finally is. Oneida's loooooong promised TRIPLE album, itself part two in a trilogy of releases that appear to chronicle the long and epic history of Oneida itself. We're still trying to piece together a narrative, but judging by song titles like "Story Of O" and "O", not to mention the album title, the fact that the previous record was called Preteen Weaponry, and artwork that seems to imply the chronicling of said long and epic history, we're just going with our gut on this one. Either way, with a decade plus of mostly ups, Oneida have delivered what is arguably their best record yet, or at least since 2001's psychedelic mind fuck Anthem Of The Moon, and it's really one of the most challenging, out there, and overwhelmingly rad albums of the year. The greatest thing about this band is how they use psychedelia as a blueprint, reinterpreting it in the process, and twisting their tunes into something beyond simple classification. There's heaps of krauty goodness, ominous electro groove, strange dubbed out hellscapes, and bluesy psychedelic squall, but in the end Oneida sound unlike anyone else, not even themselves on their other records (though we won't neglect to mention that anyone digging the recent works of groups like Circle and Cave will find plenty to go crazy for with this one).
One of the most noteworthy things about Rated O is the truly astounding precision playing that keeps everything in place. Everyone in the band (now augmented by Shahin Motia of Ex-Models and long time collaborator Barry London) is an ace performer, but GODDAMN is drummer Kid Millions' sense of pure rhythm mind boggling. The patterns Kid creates are essential to holding it all together, and his cyclical drumbeats are definitely the kind of next level shit that we should all aspire to. Coupled with literally some of the best fuzzed out organ tones ever committed to tape (EVER) and plenty of amazing psych guitar work, Rated O rocks and sways in all kinds of different directions, and it goes without saying that over the course of almost two hours, Oneida have given themselves plenty of time to seer their super repetitive jams deep into every nook and cranny of your brain. Throughout it all, they never cease to surprise, amaze, and with one song in particular, completely terrify (more on that in a bit).
Rated O plays out like a long journey, with each disc representing specific elements of the diverse sound Oneida has forged over the years. The album begins with the uncharacteristic yet somehow totally appropriate "Brownout In Lagos," an electro-dub sort of number with a constant sub bass presence providing much of the movement as atmospheric noises swoosh about. When the awesome guest vocalist comes in you have to remind yourself that you are listening to Oneida as your eardrums are pounded into supplication. "What's Up Jackal?" sounds more like what you might expect from these guys, with feral, distorted howls and a bubbling, percussive organ accompanied by all kinds of synthy ambience and what sounds like an electric sitar. While they have no difficulty pounding out expansive drugged out numbers, this song perfectly displays Oneida's unique talent at creating tense, claustrophobic psych pieces that seem much more focused than anything that could be produced with mindless jamming. No doubt, the big surprise here is "The Human Factor," which pretty much succeeds at redefining "heavy". We almost couldn't believe what or who we were listening to, since this number is more what you might expect from Khanate of Fleshpress. The song begins with an impossibly slow, yet super tight drum pattern, which remains throughout the 13 minute song. The only other sound is provided by an electronic hum, and eventually creepy siren noises and the most HELLISH, completely out of control screaming we have heard in ages. We're still trying to figure out just how Oneida managed to create such an unsettling and awesome piece with so little, making most doom bands sound like Dan Fogelberg in comparison. This song obviously tested the limits of many folks, but if you are able to sit back and focus, you will find yourself marveling at the almost comedic yet totally fucked up intensity of it all.
Disc 2 is the most typically Oneida-sounding of the three, starting with the epic jam "The River." This song is very much in the vein of the material from "Each One Teach One," with awesome repetitive organ pulses and fuzzy guitars that are both heavy and beautiful. Things really take off with this song, as the majestic sustained guitar chords and somewhat mournful vocals add a good amount of emotion. "I Will Haunt You" follows into similar psychedelic territory with big MC5 guitars and a generally mountainous sound.
The final disc is the loosest and seemingly most improvised of the album, its three songs venturing farthest into the drug zone with their lumbering improvisational feel. Closing number "Folk Wisdom" is a huge 20 minute piece, perfectly sounding like the culmination of the entire record with its epic, growing intensity before ending with a queasy organ blip. If you've gone about things the right way, you will have listened to all of Rated O straight through, and you will wonder just what the hell hit you.
Double albums are often enough to scare the shit out of any discerning music fan, and triple albums are generally unheard of. But Oneida cannot be generalized in terms of what is going on now or in the past. They are one of the few bands that truly has found its own unique voice and has taken things into realms most bands would never consider. Rated O is a serious piece of work, maybe a little too intimidating for the casual listener, but enough to keep Oneida's rabid fanbase jonesing for part three of the trilogy.
MPEG Stream: "Brownout In Lagos"
MPEG Stream: "The Human Factor"
MPEG Stream: "The River"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost In The Room"
MPEG Stream: "Folk Wisdom"

PISCES A Lovely Sight (Numero Group) lp+7" 17.98
NOW AVAILABLE ON ULTRA DELUXE VINYL!!
Numero Group strikes again! Why Pisces never made it into the canon of classic American psychedelic groups of the sixties like Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and The Grateful Dead is not so much a mystery as it is a latent lament. It's pretty clear why, since none of their music ever got released during their lifetime, but hearing this now, and it sounding so much more fresh and relevant compared to the overrated dinosaurs mentioned above, we sometimes wish the past could get a do-over, or at the very least we wish nostalgia could get a better soundtrack. Pisces would be at the top of our Summer of Love facelift!
Not just a curio from what might have been, the songs that this Rockford, Illinois group conjured could have made a classic album, had the core members overcame the obstacles of being an unknown band in the Midwest, perhaps toured or promoted themselves better, or at least hired themselves a decent manager. Focused so much on their sound, they were tireless studio workhorses, constantly augmenting their pop songs with innovative studio effects: delay, phasing, and layers of overdubs. Working with such blinders on is always a difficult proposition to long term success, plus having a sexy female guest vocalist that was never quite a core member of the band, steal most of the spotlight, only to be whisked away to start a failed solo career doesn't bode well for a band in dire need of a solid foundation.
But we think if they managed their image better, they could have been as big as Jefferson Airplane. Their songs are definitely better. Pisces were perhaps more influenced by British psych than the stuff that was happening on the west coast, but their darkly tinged lyrics full of creepy wonder and kaleidoscopic imagery are more chilling and beautiful, yet evoking the male and female harmonies of that more famous group. At times, it also reminds us of other obscure weirdo sixties soft-psych groups like Fifty Foot Hose, Neighborhood Children, Peanut Butter Conspiracy and H.P. Lovecraft, yet with a consistent sonic vision unclouded by annoying record label interventions and dated cliches. A Lovely Sight indeed!
MPEG Stream: "Dear One"
MPEG Stream: "Children, Kiss Your Mother Goodnight"
MPEG Stream: "Motley Mary Ann"
MPEG Stream: "Elephant Eyes"

SAVIOURS #1 - Acid Hand b/w Slave To The Hex (Kemado Records) 7" 7.98
Metalheads! SF local metal faves Saviours have just finished up recording their new, third full-length (following last year's killer Into Abbadon). To whet our appetite for its impending release, they've just put out three limited edition 7" singles, with devilish, medieval lookin' b&w artwork courtesy of Tim "Draugar" Lehi.
The 7"s feature demos of raging tracks that will appear on the new album, along with (on singles #2 and #3) exclusive cover tracks of songs by old school metal greats Saxon and Judas Priest respectively. Those fit right in with the Saviours' badass denim-and-leather thrashing.
In addition, each 7" comes with promotional extra item tucked into the sleeve - #1 has a large sticker, #2 has an embroidered patch, and #3 what we guess you'd call a mini-comic, one page, photocopied. Very cool, fans act fast! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES EACH, we only got a few.

SAVIOURS #2 - Burning Cross b/w Fire In The Sky (Saxon) (Kemado) 7" 7.98
Metalheads! SF local metal faves Saviours have just finished up recording their new, third full-length (following last year's killer Into Abbadon). To whet our appetite for its impending release, they've just put out three limited edition 7" singles, with devilish, medieval lookin' b&w artwork courtesy of Tim "Draugar" Lehi.
The 7"s feature demos of raging tracks that will appear on the new album, along with (on singles #2 and #3) exclusive cover tracks of songs by old school metal greats Saxon and Judas Priest respectively. Those fit right in with the Saviours' badass denim-and-leather thrashing.
In addition, each 7" comes with promotional extra item tucked into the sleeve - #1 has a large sticker, #2 has an embroidered patch, and #3 what we guess you'd call a mini-comic, one page, photocopied. Very cool, fans act fast! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES EACH, we only got a few.

SAVIOURS #3 - F.G.T. b/w Running Wild (Judas Priest) (Kemado) 7" 7.98
Metalheads! SF local metal faves Saviours have just finished up recording their new, third full-length (following last year's killer Into Abbadon). To whet our appetite for its impending release, they've just put out three limited edition 7" singles, with devilish, medieval lookin' b&w artwork courtesy of Tim "Draugar" Lehi.
The 7"s feature demos of raging tracks that will appear on the new album, along with (on singles #2 and #3) exclusive cover tracks of songs by old school metal greats Saxon and Judas Priest respectively. Those fit right in with the Saviours' badass denim-and-leather thrashing.
In addition, each 7" comes with promotional extra item tucked into the sleeve - #1 has a large sticker, #2 has an embroidered patch, and #3 what we guess you'd call a mini-comic, one page, photocopied. Very cool, fans act fast! LIMITED TO 500 COPIES EACH, we only got a few.

SEGALL, TY / BLACK TIME split (Telephone Explosion) lp 14.98
We couldn't highlight this awesome split when we listed it a couple weeks ago as we were told it had gone out of print! Well apparently they just pressed some more of them as we were able to get a handful again, yay! So, a re-listing is in order.
It's been raining Ty Segall the last few weeks with a slew of rad vinyl offerings that have flown out the door. This new split LP with Black Time finds Ty at his most raw and rocking! Seven brand new songs including a smoking cover of The Dwarves "Be A Caveman" from back in their total garage punk days. Black Time were new to our ears and they definitely prove that London can get raw and fuzzy with the best of them, as their way lo-fi and in-the-red sound make them a perfect match for Segall. Maybe a bit more punk in sound and aesthetic then TS while still totally tapping into the more damaged and distorted side of primitive garage punk. Such a good time to be a fan of raw and impassioned garage rock cause folks like Ty and Black Time are totally coming correct.

STAFF BENDA BILILI Tres Tres Fort (Crammed Discs) cd 16.98
BACK IN STOCK!
What is it about Kinshasa? The capitol city of the Democratic Republic Of The Congo first brought us the mind blowing Konono No.1, who fashioned PA's and amps out of old car parts, and rigged up thumb pianos with home built pick ups, crafting one of the most unique and fascinating and exuberant sounds we had ever heard. Now, also from Kinshasa, comes Staff Benda Bilili, an even more unique musical combo (as if that were even possible). A group of senior paraplegic street musicians, who live in and around the grounds of the zoo, who travel in cool custom built wheelchairs that look more like motorcycles, they sing and play guitar, and are backed up by a young all acoustic rhythm section, featuring a 17 year old prodigy, who plays wild psychedelic leads on a one string 'guitar' made from a tin can. There are pictures in the booklet, it's hard to believe anyone could conjure such amazing sounds from this little bit of scrap and string, but the proof is right here.
The music itself is not as far out as Konono No.1, it has much more of a traditionally folky feel, a distinctly highlife vibe, the vocal harmonies form the core of the sound, lush and laid back, stunningly intricate and gorgeous, the various stringed instruments buzz and twang, simple drumming holds it all together, and the occasional wild tangled squiggly solos on the tin can lute, sounding slippery and super high, the songs build to festive codas, and just as often slip back into something much more contemplative.
Feel good, sunshiney sounds that make you want to dance or drift off, you can almost imagine these guys all parked in their motorcycle wheelchairs, rocking late into the night around the campfire or under the streetlights. But you don't have to imagine, there are a handful of live videos too, so you can watch these guys create these amazing sounds live, sitting on the grass in the park, under the trees, hanging out in after dark lit only by firelight, and seeing that little kid rock out on the tin can lute, WOW. Also includes a really cool trailer, for what could either be a documentary about the band, or it could just be a short film / trailer for the record.
Needless to say, but we will anyway, TOTALLY recommended, especially for anyone who loves Konono No.1!!
MPEG Stream: "Sala Keba"
MPEG Stream: "Moto Moindo"
MPEG Stream: "Staff Benda Bilili"

SWINE Marked By The Baron (Vanguard Productions) cd 14.98
BACK IN STOCK!
It's strange what a huge influence Bay Area black metallers Von ended up being on pretty much everybody. Not really all that surprising really, they did after all totally destroy. Filthy and grimy and so heavy and primal and raw. It seems like every black metal band has at one time or another covered Von, there was even a full length tribute, and of course, there have been about a million bands who did everything in their power to channel the spirit and ferocity of Von, one of the most successful being Swine, the Von worshipping side project of a guy called Swine appropriately enough, frontman for Hateful Abandon, whose most recent record, Famine (Or Into The Bellies Of Worms), a collection of blackened gothic gloom, we highlighted a while back.
On Marked By The Baron, it's Satanic Blood Angel time, ALL the time, blasting drums supplied by a furious frenzied drum machine, the guitars thick and gritty, buzzy and intense, the vocals drenched in reverb and effects, grunting and growling, as much as howling and shrieking. The sound manages to be weirdly moody and dramatic too, with moaning guitar melodies drifting over the churning black filth below, giving most of the tracks a weirdly wistful vibe, considering how fast and furious the rest of the music is. Rapid fire, frenzied and relentless, pounding and punky, but so atmospheric and with such a vile vibe, and that aforementioned moody melancholy, culminating in the final track, that dips into some super emotional classic sounding doom, even slipping into some mournful clean guitar, and after a few minutes of silence, returning with a bit of washed out dreamy drone, weird.
But beyond those little bits of strangeness, this is some gloriously heavy, harsh, beautifully depressive, raw blasting blackness.
MPEG Stream: "Black Soul King"
MPEG Stream: "Beast Call"
MPEG Stream: "Tusk Toothed"

WAX POETICS Issue #36 magazine 9.99
It's the Brazil Issue! With Gilberto Gil on the cover. Also Joyce, Ceu, Tim Maia, Jards Macale, Arthur Verocai, Airto Moreira and tons more. All the deep interviews and awesome vintage color photography you expect from this fine magazine of funk, soul, hiphop, etc.

WIRE, THE #306 August 2009 magazine 9.98
'Nother issue of this essential new music monthly. On the cover, the Beat Konducta, Madlib! Also, Japan's Nisennenmondai, Chrystal Belle Scrodd aka Diana Rogerson, Andrea Parkins, Rolf Julius, the music scene in Belize, a primer on "British Visionary Jazz", an Invisible Jukebox session with Sleazy from Coil/Throbbing Gristle, and a feature on what they're calling "Hynagogic Pop": the dreamy noise music of Skaters, Pocahaunted, Emeralds... plus all the other usual Wire mag columns, reviews, and whatnot.

YELLOW SWANS Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat) cd 27.00
Another archival release from the now defunct and greatly missed floorcore noise duo Yellow Swans. We have not been able to keep this in stock, we sold out twice before we had a chance to review it, and now we have 5 copies, maybe the last 5 copies, as this was limited to 500 copies and is already sold out and out of print at the label. So act fast and be lucky if you want one of these.
This Mort Aux Vaches session from 2007 finds the 'Swans at their heaviest and noisiest. On first listen, it's a wild psychedelic squall, heaving walls of crumbling distortion and blown out buzz, Skullflower, Total, that sort of thing, but closer listening reveals all sorts of prettiness beneath, lilting melodies, haunting refrains, keening feedback, unlikely harmonies, in fact, the more you listen, the more the 'noise' seems to peel back, letting the strange melodic beauty underneath shine through. Which was sort of the magic of the Yellow Swans, creating massive roiling swirls of chaotic beauty, sculpting otherwise harsh and hellish sonics into impossibly beautiful soundscapes, weaving buzz and rumble and drone and whir and howl and grind and crunch into dense shimmering clouds of otherworldly sound.
INCREDIBLE PACKAGING, maybe the most over the top Mort Aux Vaches yet, the usual fold over sleeve held shut by a little metal fastener, but affixed to the front a three dimensional sort-of-sculpture, depicting a little girl and a yellow swan, an image from some old storybook but rendered in three dimensions like it was pried off the front of some old building. Super cool.
And again, we only have FIVE copies. Be prepared to be disappointed... Sorry.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"

YOUNG ACCUSER, THE Unsound (Sub Pop) 7" 4.98
Prepare yourself, this could get kind of META. So Joe Pernice, looooongtime aQ fave (Scud Mountain Boys, Pernice Brothers, Big Tobacco, Chappaquiddick Skyline, etc.) will be publishing his first novel this year. In that novel, the narrator is in a band called The Young Accuser, THIS band. After the FICTIONAL narrator, leaves this, his FICTIONAL BAND, they record a FICTIONAL song and send it to the NON-FICTIONAL Sub Pop label. And like they say on the Sub Pop website: "This is the non-fiction version of that fictional single". Phew.
So basically, Joe Pernice and some pals cooked up this 3 song 7", ostensibly a record by the band from his novel, and heck, it's really awesome, BUT, not like anything you might expect from Mr. Pernice. The Young Accuser sound straight out of the eighties, a fuzzy power pop college rock, that reminds us of the Replacements, the Mice, and Guided By Voices BIG TIME. Super lo-fi production, distorted vocals (which are often a dead ringer for Bob Pollard), blown out bass, wild drumming way down in the mix, and some bad ass HOOKS, total rad eighties classic power pop indie rock. The B side is a bit more snarly, and even more lo-fi, culminating in the brief slip of a final song, the only track here that really sounds Pernice-y, with strummed clean electrinc guitar, Pernice's high plaintive croon, a gorgeous lo-fi ballad not that dissimilar to those Replacements tracks that were always tucked amidst the more rocking jams, "Answering Machine", "Skyway" and the like.
Cool stuff, with a totally bad ass vintage Sub Pop singles club sleeve.

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V/A An Anthology Of Noise & Electronic Music / First A-Chronology 1921-2001 (Sub Rosa) 3lp 41.00
NOW ON VINYL!
Sub Rosa, in claiming to present this compilation within the context that "history needs constant re-evaluation because, like music, history cannot be read as a fixed entity" has unfortunately released an anthology that offers no new insights or previously unknown factors in the inception of noise and electronic musics. Rather, the artists featured are the often-name dropped art stars used within institutional texts for the Whitney Biennial or Documenta to legitimize sound art or some connection between institutional forces and underground activity. A good number of the artists - like Luigi Russolo, Pierre Schaefer, Sonic Youth, Xenakis, Pauline Oliveros, Edgard Varese, John Cage, Ryoji Ikeda, and Einsturzende Neubauten - are undoubtedly important; but is it really necessary to sing their praises yet again? While there's certainly something to be said for introducing new audiences to a lot of the amazing music on this compilation, Sub Rosa should fess up to curating a sort of K-Tel compilation for the avant-garde. That said, this vinyl version probably will have some interesting utility for creative DJs!




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----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed :
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If you want to order one of these, just search for the item, then click on the buy button and it will be added to your cart!

24 CARAT BLACK "Gone: The Promises Of Yesterday" (Numero Group) cd 14.98
ALICE COOPER "Easy Action" (Warner Bros) lp 12.98
ALTZ MEETS ROLAND P. YOUNG "Escape: The Reconstruction of Isophonic Boogie Woogie" (EM) cd/lp 19.98/22.00
ALVA NOTO & RYUICHI SAKAMOTO WITH ENSEMBLE MODERN "UTP_" (Raster Norton) cd+dvd 32.00
AMBER ASYLUM "Bitter River" (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
ANAAL NATHRAKH "In The Constellation Of Black Widow" (Candlelight) cd 14.98
ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS "Aeon" (Secretly Canadian) cd ep 8.98
ANVIL "Forged In Fire" (Unidisc) cd 16.98
ASTRA "The Weirding" (Rise Above) cd 13.98
BILLY BAO "Dialectics Of Shit" (Parts Unknown) lp 13.98
BIRDS OF AVALON "Uncanny Valley" (Volcom Entertainment) cd 14.98
BITTERS, THE "Wooden Glove" (Captured Tracks) lp 14.98
BLIND BLAKE "Bahamian Songs" (Megaphone) cd 17.98
BLOODY PANDA "Summon" (Profound Lore) cd+dvd 14.98
BOWERBIRDS "Upper Air" (Dead Oceans) cd/lp 15.98/17.98
BOXCUTTER "Arecibo Message" (Planet-Mu) cd/2lp 14.98/17.98
CARTER, DEAN "Call Of The Wild" (Big Beat) cd 16.98
CARY, TRISTRAM "Trios For Synthi VCS3 Synthesizer And Turntables" (AKA) lp 27.00
CASH, TOMMY "Rise And Shine" (Omni Recording Corporation) cd 16.98
COLEMAN, ORNETTE "Love Call" (Blue Note) lp 12.98
CONGA DE LOS HOYOS "Carnival Music Of Easern Cuba" (World Audio Foundation / Soul Jazz) cd 17.98
DIAL (NZ) "s/t" (Robotic Empire) cd ep 6.98
DIDDLEY, BO "Bo Diddley Is A Gunslinger" (Checker) lp 12.98
DIDDLEY, BO "The Black Gladiator" (Checker) lp 12.98
DYSRHYTHMIA "Psychic Wars" (Relapse) cd 14.98
EAGLE TWIN "The Unkindness of Crows" (Southern Lord) cd 15.98
GLASS CANDY "Geto Boys" (Italians Do It Better) 12" 9.98
GOES CUBE "Another Day Has Passed" (The End) cd 14.98
HABOOB "s/t" (Long Hair) cd 27.00
HENKE, ROBERT "Indigo_Transform" (I/CM) cd 12.98
HENNES SISTE HOST "s/t" (Init Records) cd 13.98
HENRIKSEN, ARVE "Cartography" (ECM) cd 17.98
HOOD, ROBERT "Minimal Nation" (M-Plant) 2cd 17.98
JAFFE, SARA & MIA CLARKE "The Art of Touring" (Square Root Books) book + cd 19.95
JANDEK "Helsinki Saturday" (Corwood Industries) cd 8.98
JANSCH, BERT "A Rare Conundrum" (Drag City) cd 14.98
JANSCH, BERT "L.A. Turnaround" (Drag City) cd 14.98
JANSCH, BERT "Santa Barbara Honeymoon" (Drag City) cd 14.98
JOHN'S CHILDREN "Jagged Time Lapse" (Vinyl Lovers) lp 24.00
MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO. "Josephine" (Secretly Canadian) cd/lp 12.98/14.98
MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ "C'est La Derniere Chanson" (K) 2cd 13.98
MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ W/ MASAMI SHINODA "s/t" (PSF) dvd 27.00
MAHIKARI "s/t" (Birdman) lp 14.98
MANTLES, THE "Trust" (Mt. St. Mtn.) 7" 9.98
MAUS HAUS "Lark Marvels" (Pretty Blue Presents) lp 13.98
MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS "The Infamous TV Soundtrack 1969-1974" (De Wolfe) cd 17.98
MORDANT MUSIC / SHACKLETON / VINDICATRIX "Picking O'er The Bones" (Mordant Music) cd 16.98
MORODER, GIORGIO "Midnight Express (OST)" (Casablanca) cd 11.98
MUELLER, JON "Physical Changes" (Radium) lp+cd+dvd 25.00
MULLINS, DEE "The Continuing Story" (Omni Recording Company) cd 16.98
NISENNENMONDAI "Destination Tokyo" (Smalltown Supersound) cd 16.98
NOMEANSNO "Mama" (Wrong Records) cd 14.98
NOMEANSNO "The Day Everything Became Isolated And Destroyed" (Wrong Records) cd 14.98
NOMEANSNO "Wrong" (Wrong Records) cd 14.98
ON "Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night" (Type) cd/lp 15.98/23.00
P.H.O.B.O.S. "Anoedipal" (megaton) cd 28.00
PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC "1976 Live Mothership Connection" (Mojo Working / Shout Factory) dvd 14.98
PEEBLES, ANN "Part Time Love" (Fat Possum / Hi Records) cd 13.98
PERSISTENCE IN MOURNING "Undead Shall Rise" (At War With False Noise) lp 15.98
REATARD, JAY "Watch Me Fall" (Matador) lp 14.98
REIGNING SOUND "Love And Curses" (In The Red) cd 13.98
SA-RA CREATIVE PARTNERS "Nuclear Evolution: The Age of Love" (Ubiquity) 2cd 16.98
SALLY, ZAK "Why We Hide" (Sub Pop) 7" 4.98
SANGARE, OUMOU "Seya" (Nonesuch) cd 17.98
SARKE "Vorunah" (Indie Recordings) cd 21.00
SEGALL, TY "Horn The Unicorn" (HBSP-2X) lp 16.98
SHEVALREQ "Siege Of Albraca" (Hekaloth) cd 16.98
SIGH "Scorn Of Defeat" (Enucleation) cd 13.98
SKYGREEN LEOPARDS "Gorgeous Johnny" (Jagjaguwar) cd/lp 12.98/14.98
SON VOLT "American Central Dust" (Rounder) cd 15.98
SPIRAL JOY BAND "Pleasure Is The Headlight" (Uzu Audio) 2lp 29.00
STREET SWEEPER SOCIAL CLUB "s/t" (Epitaph) cd 16.98
STRENG, PEKKA "Kesamaa" (Love) cd 17.98
STRENG, PEKKA & TSAVALLAN PRESIDENTTI "Magneettimiehen Kuolema" (Love) cd 17.98
SUN RA "Nidhamu & Dark Myth Equation Visitation" (Art Yard) cd 22.00
SYLVESTER ANFANG II "s/t" (Aurora Borealis) cd/2lp 17.98/24.00
T.P. ORCHESTRE POLY-RYTHMO "The Kings Of Benin Urban Groove 1972-80" (Sound Way) cd 16.98
TAKAYANAGI, MASAYUKI "Archive 1" (Jinya) 5cd 95.00
TREE PEOPLE, THE "Human Voices" (Guerssen) cd 17.98
TYVEK "Mary Ellen Claims" (X! Records) 7" 5.98
V/A "An Anthology Of Chinese Experimental Music" (Sub Rosa) 4cd 34.00
V/A "Anthology Of Dutch Electronic Tape Music: Volume 1" (Basta) 2cd 24.00
V/A "Anthology Of Dutch Electronic Tape Music: Volume 2" (Basta) 2cd 24.00
V/A "Dub Echoes" (Soul Jazz Films) dvd 21.00
V/A "Loving Takes This Course: A Tribute To The Songs Of Kath Bloom" (Chapter Music) 2cd 17.98
/A "Raks! Raks! Raks!: 17 Golden Garage Psych Nuggets From The Iranian 60's Scene" (Raks) cd 26.00
V/A "Revelations Vol.1 A Light In A Dark Place" (Sullen) cd 12.98
V/A "Take Me To The Water: Immersion Baptism In Vintage Music And Photography 1890-1950" (Dust To Digital) book + cd 34.00
V/A "Transmissions From Sinai" (Arthur) cd 13.98
VAINO, MIKA "Aineen Musta Puhelin Black Telephone Of Matter" (Touch) cd 15.98
VIVIAN GIRLS "I Can't Stay" (In the Red) 7" 4.98
VOIVOD "Infini" (Relapse) cd 14.98
WARDRUNA "Runaljod - Gap Var Ginnunga" (Indie Recordings / Fimbullijod) cd 21.00
WOLF "Ravenous" (Century Media) cd 12.98
WRIGHT, O.V. "Memphis Unlimited" (Reel Music) cd 14.98
XYX "s/t" (Skulltones) 7" 7.98

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Another important note: box sets DON'T (usually) count as one item. Sorry. A box set will generally bump you up into the "three or more items" category. Y'know, they're big. Boxes.


INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING :
-------------------------------- For foreign customers we ship via US AIRMAIL ("First Class International"). Your price is based on the actual cost of shipping plus $1. You can check the US Postal Service international rate calculator: http://ircalc.usps.gov/. (Use the "Package" category and see the price for "First Class International". 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound.)

We highly recommend insurance for your international package, but it is very expensive! You can check the US Postal Service international rate calculator: http://ircalc.usps.gov/. (Use the "Package" category and see the price for "Priority Mail International". 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound. 1 lp is usually a little over 1.5 pounds.)


INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE :
-------------------------------- You are hereby forewarned that Aquarius is not responsible if your international package gets lost in the mail. Insurance is your only recourse if your records never show up. Since the terrible events of 9/11, mail service has been slow and undependable... and while we haven't experienced any *confirmed* permanently lost mail, insurance might provide some additional piece of mind in this time of upheaval. We strongly recommend it. But yes, it is very expensive. It's your choice. Again: Aquarius is not responsible for lost mail, so if you aren't willing to take a (slight but real) risk, please buy the insurance.

International insurance is very expensive! In fact often the insurance costs more than the value of your package, in which case it obviously does not make sense to insure it. You can check the US Postal Service international rate calculator: http://ircalc.usps.gov/. (Use the "Package" category and see the price for "Priority Mail International", which is the way insured packages are sent. 1-3 cds is usually 1 pound. 1 lp is usually a little over 1.5 pounds.)

For example: for a one-pound package worth $18 going to England, shipping without insurance is about $11.00. But with insurance, the shipping / insurance total is over $26.00!

It is your reponsibility to check the international rate calculator in order to determine whether or not you want international insurance. If you tell us you want international insurance, we will add it to your order no matter how much it costs!


PAYMENT :
-------------------------------- We accept the following credit cards: Visa, MC, Discover, and Amex. We will not charge your credit card until your order is ready to ship.

Money orders are accepted, but only in $USD. International customers please note that they must be international postal money orders purchased at a post office. Additional processing fees may apply. 

If you wish to pay by money order, you must confirm the order with us through email or phone BEFORE you send any payment. It's best to just use the secure order form on the website, and when checking out mark money order as your payment choice. We will then process your order and respond with all the crucial payment info.

We also accept payment by Paypal. If you opt for this payment method, we will send you a paypal total and payment instructions as soon as we've confirmed your order with you. Please do not send payment until you have received human contact from our mailorder department.

Unfortunately, we cannot take personal checks for mailorder, sorry!


QUESTION?
-------------------------------- Email the mailorder department: mailorder@aquariusrecords.org
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SOME SELECTED UPCOMING RELEASES

----} sometime soon/on the way/where is it?
Circle "Taantumus" cd reissue on Ektro w/ bonus track
Thor "Unchained" cd reissue on Ektro
Bible Of The Devil "Freedom Rock" lp version

----} August 4th
Greymachine "Disconnected" cd on Hydra Head
Joe Pernice "It Feels So Good When I Stop" novel soundtrack cd
Fruit Bats "The Ruminant Band" cd/lp on Sub Pop
Sylvester & The Hot Band "Blue Thumb Collection" cd on Hip-O
Modest Mouse "No One's First & You're Next" b-sides collection cd on Epic
Nathaniel Mayer "Why Don't You Let Me Be Black" cd on Alive

----} August 11th
Blood Fountains "Floods" cd on Utech
Vagusnerve "Lo Pan" cd on Utech
Horseback "The Invisible Mountain" cd on Utech
Bizzy B "Retrospective" cd/2lp on Planet Mu

----} August 18th
Pissed Jeans "King Of Jeans" cd/lp on Sub Pop
Steven R. Smith "Cities" lp on Immune
Final "Reading All The Right Signals Wrong" cd on No Quarter
Jay Reatard "Watch Me Fall" cd on Matador
Dock Boggs "Legendary Singer And Banjo Player" lp on Folkways
Elisabeth Cotten "When I'm Gone" lp on Folkways
John Fahey "America" lp reissue on Four Men With Beards
Roscoe Holcomb "High Lonesome Sound" lp reissue on Folkways

----} August 25th
16 Horsepower "Secret South" cd+dvd/lp+dvd on Alternative Tentacles
Cloudland Canyon "Silver Tongue Sisyphus" lp version on Holy Mountain
Jega "Variance" cd/2lp on Planet Mu
Liturgy "Renihiliation" cd on 20 Buck Spin
Laudanum "Coronation" cd on 20 Buck Spin
Sic Alps "L Mansion" 7" on Slumberland
Yoga "Megafauna" cd on Holy Mountain

----} September 8th
Yo La Tengo "Popular Songs" cd/2lp on Matador
Times New Viking "No Time, No Hope" 7" on Matador
Taken By Trees "East Of Eden" cd/lp on Rough Trade

----} September 22nd
Times New Viking "Born Again Revisited" cd/lp on Matador
Kurt Vile "He's All Right" 7" on Matador

----} October 6th
Kurt Vile "Childish Prodigy" cd/lp on Matador
Mission Of Burma "The Sound, The Speed, The Light" cd/lp on Matador

----} also upcoming sooner or later or sooner or later
Six Organs Of Admittance "Luminous Night" cd/lp on Drag City
Gösta Berlings Saga "Detta Har Hant" cd on Transubstans Records
Om "Live Conference" lp on Important
v/a "Kompakt Total 10" 2cd/3lp on Kompakt
v/a "The Electric Asylum Volume 3: Rare British Acid Freakrock" cd on Past & Present
Black Boned Angel "Verdun" lp on Riot Season
Shit And Shine "229 2299 Girls Against Shit" lp on Riot Season
Der TPK "s/t" 12" on Captured Tracks
Ocean "Pantheon Of The Lesser" 2lp version on Important
Bunkur "Nullify" cd on Displeased
Grumbling Fur (Guapo + Jussi from Circle) cd
Der TPK (Teenage Panzerkorps) "Games For Slaves" lp on Siltbreeze
Oxbow "Fuckfest" cd reissue on Hydrahead
Combat Astronomy "Earth Divided by Zero" cd
Rosetta "Wake/Lift" vinyl version
Anton Batagov "Passionate Desire To Be An Angel" cd on Long Arms Records
Japancakes "If I Could See Dallas"
Sean Smith "Eternal" cd on Ultra Hard Gel
Jazzfinger "The Sun's Golden Blood" cd on Beta-Lactam Ring
v/a "Noise Room" cd on Soniq
Country Teasers / Ezee Tiger split lp on Holy Mountain
Erase Errata TBA cd on Kill Rock Stars
Xiu Xiu TBA cd on Kill Rock Stars
The Black Heart Procession TBA cd/lp on Touch And Go
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists TBA cd/lp on Touch And Go
Rodan TBA cd/lp on Quarterstick
Deftones "Eros" cd on Warner Bros.
Swell Maps "International Rescue" clear vinyl LP reissue on Alive
Black Lips "We Didn't Know..." green vinyl LP on Bomp!
Loss "Despond" cd on Profound Lore

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On Land
September 19th & 20th
San Francisco, CA
Curated by Root Strata
Sponsored by Aquarius Records
Hosted by The Swedish American Hall
& Cafe DuNord
onlandfestival.com
Tickets available at
cafedunord.com
LIMITED FESTIVAL PASSES available for $35! Available only by calling Cafe DuNord box office (mon-fri, 2pm-6pm: 415-861-5016) to purchase over the phone!!
Sunday, September 20th
The Swedish American Hall
$20
Grouper
Christina Carter
Ilays Ahmed
Barn Owl
Sun Circle
Common Eider, King Eider
Brendon Murray
Saturday, September 19th
Cafe DuNord
$10
Tarentel
Keith Fullerton Whitman
The Alps
Ducktails
Pete Swanson
Joe Grimm
Operative (Scott Goodwin)
Saturday, September 19th
The Swedish American Hall
Early Show!
$10
Starving Weirdos
William Fowler Collins
Metal Rouge
Darwinsbitch
Jim Haynes
John Davis
Danny Paul Grody

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23five Incorporated & Artists' Television Access present a night of avant-garde film, video, and sound:

Jefre Cantu & Paul Clipson
Grasslung & Matthew Swiezynski
Pulse Emitter & Matthew Swiezynski

Saturday August 8, 2009
8 PM
$6 - 10 sliding scale
ATA / Artists' Television Access
992 Valencia Street San Francisco, California
www.atasite.org

Jefre Cantu is a San Francisco based artist and musician. He is a founding member of Tarentel; and since 1995, he has recorded and toured in the US, Europe & Japan with the group. In 2004 he began the Root Strata label and has released recordings from a wide variety of musicians such as Grouper, Barn Owl, Machinefabriek, Gregg Kowalsky, and numerous others. http://www.rootstrata.com/

Paul Clipson has shown his films internationally in various galleries, festivals and performance venues in Spain, The Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Japan and Russia, as well as throughout the U.S. and in the Bay Area, including at the Pacific Film Archive, the Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, Artists Television Access, The Exploratorium and the San Francisco Art Institute. He works primarily in film, video and works on paper. Since 2003, Clipson has collaborated on film/music performances, documentaries and short films with sound/music artists such as Tarentel, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Joshua Churchill, Robert Rich, Jim Haynes and Metal Rouge, projecting largely improvised in-camera edited experimental films employing multiple exposures, dissolves and macro imagery, that bring to light subconscious preoccupations and unexpected visual forms.

Grasslung is the project of Brooklyn based Jonas Asher with an emphasis on subtle palettes of sound, and minimal synthesis architecture, using mainly modular synthesizer, polyphonic synthesizer, effects and field recordings to invoke reflections of personal memories and melancholy atmospheres. Jonas Asher also operates the Phaserprone label with Jochen Hartman whom of which the two also collaborate in the project UW Owl.

Pulse Emitter is the project of Portland, Oregon programming master Daryl Groetsch and has recordings on labels such as Phaserprone, Black Horizons, Chondritic Sound, and Gameboy. He has performed in Europe, on the US East and West coasts, having played the No Fun Fest 2009 in Brooklyn, NY. "Over the years, Pulse Emitter0 has produced a fantastic variety of modular mayhem both turbulent and soothing, utilizing a bank of home-made synths and electronics. Deep space explorations worthy of Hawkwind, precise, controlled soundbombing akin to the most broken Throbbing Gristle moments" -- Brian Turner, WFMU

Matthew Swiezynski born Winchester Massachusetts, 1974, currently resides in Oakland California. Co-founder of the Invisible Birds label (with Diane Granahan) and creator and active contributor to The Art of Memory blog, each of which is devoted to research in the fields of music, film, art, photography and literature, dealing specifically with beauty, abstraction and minimalism. Mr. Swiezynski has been making films and videos since the mid 1990s. In the words of the film scholar Arthur de Eriomé, these works are an attempt at discovering, revealing, magnifiying and slowing down moments of beauty and the sublime not noticeable to the naked eye. His films have been shown in the United States, Mexico, Korea, and Canada, as well as Stanford University, Yale University School of Art, Yerba Buena Center For the Arts, the San Francisco Cinematheque, and most recently distributed through the label Invisible Birds.

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UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US at The Roxie for one week only!

Our pal Aaron (from the band Iran) is the co-director of the grim, cold, Norwegian black metal documentary Until The Light Takes Us that recently showed at the Yerba Buena Center For The Arts. He just called to let us know that since those screenings did so well (completely sold out, all 5 of 'em!), it has been arranged for the film to play for a week at the Roxie Theater here in the Mission! That's starting this Friday, July 31st every day at 9:10pm through Thursday, August 6th, with Saturday and Sunday matinees as well at 4:40pm. The Roxie is at 3117 16th Street, near Valencia. More details here.

So, if you missed it at Yerba Buena, you've got another chance to see it. Or go see it again. We definitely recommend it, it's certainly interesting... and a bit funny... and quite disturbing. Those already well versed in the whole Lords Of Chaos saga of church burning and murder will be fascinated by the jailhouse interviews with Varg Vikernes from Burzum, in particular (who is to be played by Twilight's Jackson Rathbone in the upcoming fictionalized Hollywood adaptation of the LoC book!). Newbies might be a bit puzzled at certain points, but doubtless intrigued as well. And Fenriz of Darkthrone, who also gets a lot of screen time, is quite entertaining, regardless of how familiar you may be with his music. We also like how arty the film is, in fact, there's probably just as much ambient electronica on the soundtrack as actual black metal, and there's plenty of gorgeous grim Norwegian scenery to look at too.

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Lots of love from your devoted AQ staff

Andee Cup Jim AllanIrwinScottNickSallyJonandAndrew