BLACK OAK ARKANSAS The Knowbody Else '69 (Purple Pyramid) cd 16.98
Way back before Black Oak Arkansas became the wild, liquored up, Southern fried hard rocking musical party we all know and love, and well before James Mangrum strapped on a washboard and transformed into wild Jim Dandy, the ringmaster of the BOA traveling sideshow, there was a little band called the Knowbody Else, who barely hinted at what was to come.
Instead, the sound of the Knowbody Else, essentially the proto Black Oak, is more more laid back and groovy, druggy and stoney, lots of twang and jangle, the drums loping and lazy, lots of slippery slide, and Dandy's, er, Mangrum's vocals are awesome, scratchy and rough, a throaty ragged croon, melodious but still raw, a bit wild and slightly unhinged, like a cross between the guy from Nazareth and the guy from The Monks, basically even though he's super young, he sounds like some crazy old man with a beard fronting a hippie rock combo, which isn't all that far off, minus the old bit.
The opening track is so great, a killer hook, weirdo lyrics about candy bars, some awesome lightning fast slide guitar leads, lots of twang, and a killer shuffling swing rhythm, plus a wicked hook that sticks fast in your head and is damn difficult to get out.
The rest of the record follows the same sort of sonic path, groovy sixties hippie rock, a little like the Allman Brothers meets the Grateful Dead mixed with a little Canned Heat maybe, guitars unfurling dreamily, muted tribal percussion, some flute flutters in the background, warm warbling organ swells, gentle minor key strum, slide guitar melodies, soft swirling twang, occasional bursts of wild lead guitar, it sounds like we're describing some super limited freek folk cd-r, and folks who are into that stuff should definitely check this out, but for the most part, the Knowbody Else is dark and doleful country rock, most of it sounding like just a guy and his guitar, or maybe at the most a couple folks, not the massive outfit pictured on the cover. The songs though are slightly off kilter, a bit trippy and weirdly mysterious, the unique vocals and brooding moodiness, turning the music into something much more 'out there and dark' than most of the stuff from that era. Minus the first track, which is just a killer Southern rock jam!!
It's not hard to imagine, walking down some long stretch of buckling asphalt, nothing but fields and cows in every direction, stumbling upon some old dilapidated roadhouse, pushing open the door, dark inside, except for the dim lights from behind the bar, and the stage against the back wall, filled with a bunch of shirtless longhairs, kicking out these mellow jams. Awesome.
But then there are the bonus tracks from a few years latter, which feature Tommy Aldridge on the drums, who would go on to drum for Ozzy, Whitesnake and Pat Travers, and sound WAY more like the Black Oak we're used to, big heavy proto hard rock party grooves, heavy blues, with crunchy guitars, and big beats, the first of the two bonus tracks is a killer, sounding even more like Nazareth, or maybe Blackfoot, with some super heavy guitar, and Dandy's wailing vox. The second bonus track, titled "Jim Dandy" is a bit cheesy and is sort of skippable, but that first one definitely has us hankering for more of the BOA heavy stuff!
Comes in one of those weird new fangled rounded corner style cd cases, and while they last, includes a button and a patch for your fringed leather vest!
MPEG Stream: "Hold Me Down"
MPEG Stream: "In Your Quiet Home"

BLACK OX ORCHESTAR Nisht Azoy (Constellation) cd 14.98
This Montreal quartet gets its inspiration from traditional European Jewish music. But this is not schlocky watered down bar-mitzvah klezmer. Instead, it's a really nice melding of Jewish folk music, klezmer, and an appropriate amount of darkness in its solemn delivery. With touches of free jazz and post rock up their sleeves they tastefully bring the sounds of traditional Jewish music to a modern place without resorting to cliched samples or overtly electronic cop outs that scream 'hey we're so modern'. At times they almost sound like if The Dirty Three were from the old world and had a direct line to a vast and varied Jewish heritage. Black Ox Orchestar stay true to the roots they're paying homage to while also breathing new life into an old sound. Very nice.
MPEG Stream: "Bukharian"
MPEG Stream: "Violin Duet"

BLACK OX ORCHESTAR Nisht Azoy (Constellation) lp 16.98
This Montreal quartet gets its inspiration from traditional European Jewish music. But this is not schlocky watered down bar-mitzvah klezmer. Instead, it's a really nice melding of Jewish folk music, klezmer, and an appropriate amount of darkness in its solemn delivery. With touches of free jazz and post rock up their sleeves they tastefully bring the sounds of traditional Jewish music to a modern place without resorting to cliched samples or overtly electronic cop outs that scream 'hey we're so modern'. At times they almost sound like if The Dirty Three were from the old world and had a direct line to a vast and varied Jewish heritage. Black Ox Orchestar stay true to the roots they're paying homage to while also breathing new life into an old sound. Very nice.
MPEG Stream: "Bukharian"
MPEG Stream: "Violin Duet"

BLACK OX ORKESTAR Ver Tanzt (Constellation) cd 14.98
From Constellation, the label that brought us Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Silver Mt Zion, among others, comes the Black Ox Orkestar. But this Montreal group (with membership ties to the abovementioned bands I believe) isn't about epic post-rock. Rather, they specialize in music from the Old Country: Eastern European Jewish folk music interpreted with respect and youthful energy. Some of these tunes are stately, heavy with the weight of ancient tradition, some are swirling, passionate and outspoken. Unconstrained by klezmer orthodoxy, they draw on appropriate eclectic influences (Greek, Middle Eastern and Gypsy music) but don't attempt to hybridize with anything Godspeed-like either. If you like Davka, or Hala Strana, or suchlike, check this out.
MPEG Stream: "Shvartze Flamen, Vayser Fayer"
MPEG Stream: "Papir Iz Dokh Vays"

BLACK OX ORKESTAR Ver Tanzt (Constellation) lp 14.98
From Constellation, the label that brought us Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Silver Mt Zion, among others, comes the Black Ox Orkestar. But this Montreal group (with membership ties to the abovementioned bands I believe) isn't about epic post-rock. Rather, they specialize in music from the Old Country: Eastern European Jewish folk music interpreted with respect and youthful energy. Some of these tunes are stately, heavy with the weight of ancient tradition, some are swirling, passionate and outspoken. Unconstrained by klezmer orthodoxy, they draw on appropriate eclectic influences (Greek, Middle Eastern and Gypsy music) but don't attempt to hybridize with anything Godspeed-like either. If you like Davka, or Hala Strana, or suchlike, check this out.
MPEG Stream: "Shvartze Flamen, Vayser Fayer"
MPEG Stream: "Papir Iz Dokh Vays"

BLACK PLASTICS, THE Black Heat Black Lightning Black Plastic (Wesome) cd 5.98
The debut from Bay Area indie rock foursome The Black Plastics reveals something of a split personality. The band jumps back and forth between two distinct styles -- ramshackle lilting jangly post-rock songs and much more angstful, harder edged numbers. The former brings to mind bands such as Modest Mouse or Built To Spill, whereas the latter is more akin to Unwound, Cursive or Doug Martsch's pre-B.T.S. band Treepeople. Perhaps there's two different members handling the songwriting duties? Can't really tell from the liner notes as all the songs are credited to the band as a whole. Nonetheless, they execute both styles with ease, making for quite an enjoyable listen. One thing we do know though is that this album was recorded by the more than capable folks at indie rock studio heaven Tiny Telephone Studios. Way to go!
MPEG Stream: "Golden Sink"
MPEG Stream: "Telesavaliscaster"

BLACK PUS Down Down Da Drain / Bark Of The Tree (Skulltones / Corleone) 7" 9.98

BLACK QUEEN The Anthropocalypse (Catastrophic Sound) cdep 7.98
The up and coming local metal/punk/experimental label Catastrophic Sound releases its second cd, following the debut by death metallers Sangre Amado. This one is a four-song ep by another local band, Black Queen, who have perfected a black metal influenced, somewhat weird and skronky assault. Choppy rhythmic complexity and a near-constantly deployed guitar squeal are the band's most obvious trademarks, but these four tracks range from raging death metal brutality complete with guttural vocal growling to some quieter, textural instrumental passages. "The Anthropocalypse" is heavy, varied and quite interesting. I've yet to see 'em play live but if this disc is any indication they must be pretty great on stage. On the other hand, I hope they spend their free time in the recording studio so we will someday have a full-length album to behold.

BLACK SABBATH Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath 1970-1978 (Warner Bros. / Rhino) 8cd + dvd box 96.00
For the 35th anniversary of Black Sabbath, Rhino unveils this massive box set collecting in their entirety the eight studio albums by the original Ozzy Osbourne-fronted Black Sabbath line-up. And that's just great, fantastic. But actually I (Allan) personally think something even more substantial is in order for the band that, more than anyone, invented heavy metal -- a physical monument, perhaps a Gothic cathedral to be built in Birmingham England, where their music could be constantly playing on hidden loudspeakers 24-7? Something like that. But then again, they are pretty much my favorite band of all time. There's not room here to explain why, but I'd say Sabbath are in a large part responsible for my fanatical interest in music of all kinds and thus my job here at Aquarius Records. Seriously. The heaviness, the riffs, the emotion, the sincerity, the originality, the love, the darkness, the mystery, the humanity... Black Sabbath stand above all others.
So... anyway this box set gets a hardy recommendation from me. Basically, if you don't already have all the remastered cds of the Ozzy-era albums, then you should BUY THIS. It's a deal. 12 bucks an album, plus a felt-covered 78-page hardback book and a bonus DVD! And we're talking about some of the BEST ALBUMS EVER. Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Master Of Reality, Vol. 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage, Technical Ecstasy, Never Say Die. Ask me to list the top 20 heavy metal albums -- nay, rock and roll albums -- of all time and at least the first six of these will be on it! (Actually, please don't ask me, but you get my point.) The DVD consists of four songs performed live on the German Beat Club TV show, with that great psychedelic early '70s video effects processing. You've probably seen "Iron Man" or "Paranoid" from this before, they show 'em on VH-1 or MTV sometimes. But there's also "Black Sabbath" (dig the extreme close-ups on Ozzy's anguished face as he sings) and their rockin' cover of "Blue Suede Shoes"! Sabbath fans might already have these, though, as they've been available before. The book contains lots of great pictures, a detailed Sabbath timeline, two lengthy essays about the original Sabbath's rise and fall, and (at last!) printed lyrics from all eight albums...the surreal drugged-out poetry of the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath lyrics in particular are brilliant. Lots to pour over here, and even a Sab fan like myself learned somethings (like, it's Tony Iommi, not Ozzy, coughing in the intro to "Sweet Leaf"). Maybe the one unnecessary thing in the book are the celebrity blurbs that litter the pages -- Sabbath don't really need the endorsement of Beck or Henry Rollins, do they?! And I also must complain that nowhere in the band history or timeline does the post-Ozzy Sabbath even get a mention: Ronnie James Dio at least deserves better than that!
The whole set is packaged smartly in, of course, a black box. There's two smaller cardboard slip-case style boxes (labeled 1970-1972 and 1973-1978 respectively) that fit in there with the book, each of 'em holding four digipack cds, with the original album art. The cds themselves are remastered. Sadly, there's not much in the way of extras -- no bonus tracks to speak of (the only one being "Evil Woman" from the UK edition of their debut). But Sabbath weren't a band that recorded a lot of throw-away b-sides or un-issued song demos. After all, these eight albums were from a span of eight years, the first four from just 2 years. So they were quite prolific but it all ended up on their albums -- and what's so amazing is that there's no filler. For the first six albums at least, almost EVERY SONG is great, and contains a riff eternal. That's why they're gods. However, I do think that they could have dug up some live material (there's bootlegs of lots of good stuff) or the rumoured demos from pre-Sabbath incarnation Earth. Too much to hope for I guess. And the DVD could have included more than the Beat Club footage: what about the California Jam or Don Kirschner's Rock Concert or their promotional videos? Oh well. Again, that's only gonna matter to extreme fans like myself, everyone else should be more than satisfied with just the timeless, legendary music from the albums anyway.
MPEG Stream: "Solitude"
MPEG Stream: "It's Alright"

BLACK SABBATH Born Again (Castle) cd 14.98
Previously hard-to-find on cd, the last great Sabbath album, 1983's "Born Again" sees Ian "Deep Purple" Gillan stepping up to the mic, replacing Ronnie James. This lineup only lasted one album, but it's one of our favorites.

BLACK SABBATH Heaven And Hell (Castle) cd 14.98
First post-Ozzy outing, Dio's Sabbath debut.

BLACK SABBATH Live At Last (Castle) cd 14.98
Live with Ozzy in '74 or so. Finally remastered and available on a non-shoddy label.

BLACK SABBATH Master Of Reality (Castle) cd 14.98
Essential. We probably don't have to tell you that Master Of Reality is one of Black Sabbath's best, heck one of the best elpees EVER, with Tony, Geezer, Ozzy and Bill whumping out such classics as "Sweet Leaf", "Children of the Grave", "Into The Void", "Lord Of This World" -- good grief every track on here is brilliant!

BLACK SABBATH Master of Reality (Get Back) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We probably don't have to tell you that Master Of Reality is one of Black Sabbath's best, heck one of the best elpees EVER, with Tony, Geezer, Ozzy and Bill whumping out such classics as "Sweet Leaf", "Children of the Grave", "Into The Void", "Lord Of This World" -- good grief every track on here is brilliant!

BLACK SABBATH Mob Rules (Castle) cd 14.98
Their second album with Dio, and despite the absence of drummer Bill Ward, it's an all time metal classic with some of Sabbath's best songs.

BLACK SABBATH Never Say Die! (Castle) cd 14.98
The final Ozzy-era Sabbath disc.

BLACK SABBATH Paranoid (Castle) cd 14.98
Essential.

BLACK SABBATH Paranoid (Get Back) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Essential.

BLACK SABBATH Past Lives (Sanctuary / Divine Recordings) 2cd 21.00
Forget about the Ozzfest reunion tours, this is live Black Sabbath (the BEST BAND EVER, sez Allan) from their '70s heyday, with the original, Ozzy-fronted line-up. Two discs worth of the heaviest of metal from the originators of the form. Super-exciting but for one thing: many Sabbath fans probably already have disc one, formerly known as the "Live At Last" album (recorded in 1973, released in 1980 against the band's wishes at the time -- 'cause they'd fired Ozzy and Ronnie James Dio was now their singer. Now, of course, they've got no problem with it). Still, one whole disc of previously (officially) unreleased live Sabbath is worth more than the 21 bucks this is going to cost you. And it comes with (while supplies of this handsome limited edition digipack version last) a poster and guitar pick, plus three bonus tracks too that aren't on the regular jewelcase edition.
Here's the track listing:
(Disc One) Tomorrow's Dream, Sweet Leaf, Killing Yourself To Live, Cornucopia, Snowblind, Children of the Grave, War Pigs, Wicked World, Paranoid, (Disc Two) Hand of Doom, Hole in the Sky*, Symptom of the Universe, Megalomania*, Iron Man*, Black Sabbath, N.I.B., Behind the Wall, Fairies Wear Boots. (Asterisks indicate bonus tracks only on this digipak verison.)
As a live band, Black Sabbath kill -- absolutely charismatic, energetic, and creative. And of course, HEAVY. Plus, you get to enjoy Ozzy's stage banter ("Are you high? Are you high? So am I!"), and variant, improvised lyrics/solos. In the middle of "Wicked World" on disc one, Tony Iommi gets a melodic, medieval solo, then they go into a jazz break, then jam on a whole 'nother riff, with Ozzy making up lyrics, that could have been a great song but never made it into the studio in this form, and then charge into "Supernaut", followed by a Bill Ward drum showcase, then back to "Wicked World"...
So, "Past Lives" is pretty incredible, from a musical standpoint. Of course, they could have included a lot more -- there's lots of pics from Sabbath's appearance at 1974's California Jam but as far as I can tell, no tracks from it. And where's "Blue Suede Shoes"??
Further complaints: although there's plenty of cool old pics of the Ozzy and the boys, and it's a nicely designed package, they should have gotten a Sabbath fan to proofread the liner notes (their third album is Master of Reality, not Masters of Reality, for instance -- and I think it's the Birmingham Town Hall they played at in 1972, not Burmingham Town Hall) but that's a quibble. What really does suck is that the tracks on disc two are given no specific dates and venues of recording -- it just says "recorded live at various locations & dates during the seventies". Lame! It seems from the track selection and Ozzy's between-songs comments that the majority of the second disc dates from around 1975, right before the release of their Sabotage album (they do "Megalomania"!!). Is this from the Philadelphia show recently bootlegged as a triple LP box set? Other songs are from their December 20th, 1970 show at the Olympia in Paris. I've got a bootleg of that and the tracks here certainly sound better than they do on the boot. Now, why the people who put this together didn't think we'd want to know where and when the tracks were from I can't imagine... But anyway, especially if you don't already have Live At Last and probably even if you do, this is an essential purchase for Sabbath fans.
RealAudio clip: "Snowblind"
RealAudio clip: "Hand Of Doom"
RealAudio clip: "Hole In The Sky"

BLACK SABBATH s/t (Castle) cd 14.98
Only one of the most important debut albums in the history of rock and roll!!! Essential.

BLACK SABBATH s/t (Get Back) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Only one of the most important debut albums in the history of rock and roll!!! Essential.

BLACK SABBATH Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (Castle) cd 14.98
Essential.

BLACK SABBATH Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (Get Back) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Essential.

BLACK SABBATH Sabotage (Castle) cd 14.98
Remastered version of the Sabs' most "prog" album, the masterpiece known as "Sabotage". Essential.

BLACK SABBATH Technical Ecstasy (Castle) cd 14.98
Really good, but perhaps not absolutely essential.

BLACK SABBATH The Dio Years (Rhino) cd 16.98

BLACK SABBATH Vol 4 (Get Back) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Essential.

BLACK SABBATH Vol. 4 (Castle) cd 14.98
Essential.

BLACK SASH Fungus Of Terror (Defective / El Suprimo) lp 15.98

BLACK SEAS OF INFINITY Amrita - The Quintessence (Autumn Wind Productions) cd 11.98
We first heard from Salt Lake City black ambient technicians Black Seas Of Infinity on The Trinity Of Non Being, a killer three way split with Kaniba and Ugegi Aoiveae A Aer, released on Autumn Wind, the same label that brought us multiple releases from AQ faves Vomit Orchestra. All three bands' contributions were amazing, bleak and barren, dark and drone-y, since then we'd been on the lookout for any other releases by all three. Amrita - The Quintessence is the latest full length from one man band Black Seas Of Infinity, and the brief glimpses we got of his dark universe on that split are allowed to sprawl here, to spread way out, an inky black cloud of roiling industrial whir and crumbling abstract drones wrapping everything within earshot in dense swaths of sonic shadow. 
Every track here is a dark missive from some lost world, a barren soundscape of deep resonant swells, of epic cinematic ambience and strange percussive glitch and rumble. Like the best ambient music, the sounds here are not sonic or simple, instead, constantly shifting and changing shape, tonal color, rhythms surface like flotsam on some mysterious sea of sound, disembodied voices drift like ghosts, melodies are broken into fragments, the bits and pieces tossed into the abyss and carried like dead leaves on some vile black wind, crumbling shards of buzzing synth intertwine with strange found sounds and bits of simple percussion, massive billowing sonic ripples spread slowly out, shimmering in greys and blacks...
Think Wolf Eyes, Nordvargr, Vomit Orchestra, Lustmord, Anenzephalia, Wolfskin, MZ412, Hlidolf, Ruhr Hunter and the like... another ultra intense trawl through the mysterious blackened underworld, lurking beneath, around and behind all things pretty and happy...
MPEG Stream: "Devourment"
MPEG Stream: "AIShtLa"

BLACK SEAS OF INFINITY / KANIBA /UGEGI AOIVEAE A SER The Trinity Of Non Being (Autumn Wind Productions) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From the same label that brought us the amazing Vomit Orchestra discs comes this killer 3 way split, an exploration of black ambient, dark ritual, ambient drone music....
Up first is Black Seas Of Infinity from Salt Lake City. Having started life as a black metal band, they now find themselves, exploring a much more minimal dark ambient world of haunting melodies, mysterious vocals and muted industrial percussion. The first track is based around a mesmerizing melodic fragment, a bit of minor key melody that is looped hypnotically over a strange rhythm that sounds like someone trudging through snow or old brittle branches, while over the top, a slowed down, slightly distorted voice intones a strange litany, making the whole thing sound like some sort of liturgical rite. The next track is a dense martial soundscape of grinding industrial drones and distant distorted drumming, a simple militaristic march, like Wiseblood meets Death In June, before eventually transforming into a roiling wave of low end rumble and whir. BSOI's final track is a 12 minute epic, a series of haunting low end sonic occurrences, situated around a strange rhythm that sounds almost like the wheeze and clatter of an iron lung, the sounds around it constantly crumbling like the tape had decayed, very textural and creepy, like a more industrial Jeck or Tim Hecker almost...
Next up Is Kaniba, who offer up their own creeping crawling blackness. A rumbling soundworld of thumps and bumps, distorted and wrapped in dense sheets of black buzz, there are rhythms, but they don't drive the music, instead they are small creatures that scurry amidst it's black folds. The second of the two tracks is much more spacious and possibly much more harrowing. What begins almost serenely quickly becomes a monstrous moaning living black shadow of sound. Listening is almost like cowering amidst the ruins as some unseeable shape soars above, it's shadow cloaking you in darkness every time it passes. A symphony of low end, almost sounding like an orchestra slooooooowed waaaaaaay dooooown, its epic fanfare twisted into a shapeless squirming blackened thing.
Finally, the strangely named Ugegi Aoiveae A Ser wrap things up with a 16 minute drone coda. Much more minimal than the other contributors, but just as bleak and oppressive. A ringing harmonic shimmer slowly slips further and further into darkness, the high end peeling off like flayed skin, revealing a murky cloudy expanse of dark sound underneath. A slow moving swell, a static, barely shifting wall of sound, layers upon layer, like some hellish Phill Niblock composition. Ultra spare and quite intense.
Plenty here for the drone obsessed, lovers of weird music, and all the black souls in need of dark musical mystery...
MPEG Stream: BLACK SEAS OF INFINITY "To Receive The Perplexity Of The Soul Of Liberation"
MPEG Stream: KANIBA "When The Hurricane Comes"
MPEG Stream: UGEGI AOIVEAE A SER "Alignment In Opposition II"

BLACK SHEEP Kiss My Sweet Apocalypse (Invada) 2cd 31.00
Achtung! UK's Black Sheep are another wonderfully indulgent Julian Cope related heavy psych rawk unit (a la Brain Donor), not to be confused with the '90s hiphop group. If you're a regular at JC's Head Heritage website (you should be) you know all about the man's expert obsession with underground '70s freakrock, The Stooges, Faust, Hawkwind, all that good stuff. That's the idea here, two sprawling discs, Black Sheep jamming away giving musical expression to such political / subversive / revolutionary / radical chic topics as "Underground Resistance" and "Che" (the latter being a Suicide cover).
It all begins (of course) with disc one, track one, "Ernesto": urgent strum, field recordings of rain and thunder, it's like an Amon Duul acoustic ritual mashed up with the intro to Black Sabbath's "Black Sabbath". The track reaches a screaming peak, then settles back to a simple throb... The throbbing continues on the more drum based "Protest-Underground", a tribal chant of that channels Ya Ho Wha and Edgar Broughton. The disc's third and final track starts off as a sparse voice/acoustic guitar ditty before pounding tom-tom drums join in to accentuate the song's apocalyptic character. Disc two boasts another three, long tracks, again full of chanting and strumming and drumming and gobs of droning spacey synth FX... There's some quite nice mellow parts mixed in, and it all really does sound like something recorded no later than 1976.
Probably coulda/shoulda highlighted this, but we do have to admit that unless you're totally hooked on Cope's Kool Aid, you might find, ferinstance, that someone chanting the phrase "underground resistance" over and over again (signifying what exactly?) IS sorta dumb... though that doesn't stop us from digging it. The title (also one of the songs) "Kiss My Sweet Apocalypse" is also a mite too clever, meaning dumb as well. Sounds like something Acid Mothers Temple would come up with, but of course we like them too, and if you also like Acid Mothers Temple, chances are you'll enjoy Black Sheep, their music and mindset are fairly well aligned.
MPEG Stream: "Ernesto"
MPEG Stream: "Protest-Underground"
MPEG Stream: "Leila Khaled"

BLACK SHEEP Kiss My Sweet Apocalypse (Invada) 2lp 39.00
Achtung! UK's Black Sheep are another wonderfully indulgent Julian Cope related heavy psych rawk unit (a la Brain Donor), not to be confused with the '90s hiphop group. If you're a regular at JC's Head Heritage website (you should be) you know all about the man's expert obsession with underground '70s freakrock, The Stooges, Faust, Hawkwind, all that good stuff. That's the idea here, two sprawling discs, Black Sheep jamming away giving musical expression to such political / subversive / revolutionary / radical chic topics as "Underground Resistance" and "Che".
It all begins (of course) with disc one, track one, "Ernesto": urgent strum, field recordings of rain and thunder, it's like an Amon Duul acoustic ritual mashed up with the intro to Black Sabbath's "Black Sabbath". The track reaches a screaming peak, then settles back to a simple throb... The throbbing continues on the more drum based "Protest-Underground", a tribal chant of that channels Ya Ho Wha and Edgar Broughton. The disc's third and final track starts off as a sparse voice/acoustic guitar ditty before pounding tom-tom drums join in to accentuate the song's apocalyptic character. Disc two boasts another three, long tracks, again full of chanting and strumming and drumming and gobs of droning spacey synth FX... There's some quite nice mellow parts mixed in, and it all really does sound like something recorded no later than 1976.
Probably coulda/shoulda highlighted this, but we do have to admit that unless you're totally hooked on Cope's Kool Aid, you might find, ferinstance, that someone chanting the phrase "underground resistance" over and over again (signifying what exactly?) IS sorta dumb... though that doesn't stop us from digging it. The title (also one of the songs) "Kiss My Sweet Apocalypse" is also a mite too clever, meaning dumb as well. Sounds like something Acid Mothers Temple would come up with, but of course we like them too, and if you also like Acid Mothers Temple, chances are you'll enjoy Black Sheep, their music and mindset are fairly well aligned.
MPEG Stream: "Ernesto"
MPEG Stream: "Protest-Underground"
MPEG Stream: "Leila Khaled"

BLACK STAGE Black Stage (Maborishi No Sekai) cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A Japanese improv trio featuring the prolific Keiji Haino (vocals, 6 & 12 string electric guitars, flute , Harp), Yuji Katsui (electric violin), and Natsuki Kido (acoustic guitar). Along with the likes of Painkiller and Melt Banana, this group appeared on the excellent Maborishi No Sekai Samples collection (which we still have in stock and look how inexpensive it is!). There are three long tracks; the first establishes an often delicate and complex mode of group playing, perfect for a night-time listen. The second continues in this vein, adding Haino's trademark anguished vocals to the mix, while the final and shortest track (at 9 min+) gets a lot heavier. Really impressive and gorgeous stuff, even if you're suffering from Haino-glut this is worth it. Import.

BLACK STROBE Burn Your Own Church (Play Louder) cd 14.98
In recent years we've had a geyser of dance punk, dance pop and dance rock, but dance metal? Naw, not really. The record label's description of this French duo gave us cause to brace ourselves. Mentions of Norwegian black metal fascinations, song titles like "Brenn Di Ega Kjerke" (Norwegian to English translation: burn your own church), acid house, '80s synth pop and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless piqued our twisted interest. However, dance metal it's not. Although heavy axe wielding machismo and well-oiled flexing do factor in throughout the album, this is more akin to the fevered techno industrial stomp of Primal Scream. More metallic than metal per se. And making just as strong an impression are the gentler moments when they fall more in step with the suave dramatics of Jarvis Cocker and Pulp. They also borrow a bit of lewd swagger from garage rawk trashies like The Cramps, the glammy bloat of Gary Glitter and Sigue Sigue Sputnik and the over the top vocal intonations of Laibach. No, it's nothing really new, in fact a lot of this sounds absolutely dated, but it sure is fun and a bit silly in an Andrew W.K. kind of way... but French.
MPEG Stream: "Brenn Di Ega Kjerke"
MPEG Stream: "I'm A Man"

BLACK STROBE Burn Your Own Church (Play Louder) lp 13.98
In recent years we've had a geyser of dance punk, dance pop and dance rock, but dance metal? Naw, not really. The record label's description of this French duo gave us cause to brace ourselves. Mentions of Norwegian black metal fascinations, song titles like "Brenn Di Ega Kjerke" (Norwegian to English translation: burn your own church), acid house, '80s synth pop and My Bloody Valentine's Loveless piqued our twisted interest. However, dance metal it's not. Although heavy axe wielding machismo and well-oiled flexing do factor in throughout the album, this is more akin to the fevered techno industrial stomp of Primal Scream. More metallic than metal per se. And making just as strong an impression are the gentler moments when they fall more in step with the suave dramatics of Jarvis Cocker and Pulp. They also borrow a bit of lewd swagger from garage rawk trashies like The Cramps, the glammy bloat of Gary Glitter and Sigue Sigue Sputnik and the over the top vocal intonations of Laibach. No, it's nothing really new, in fact a lot of this sounds absolutely dated, but it sure is fun and a bit silly in an Andrew W.K. kind of way... but French.
MPEG Stream: "Brenn Di Ega Kjerke"
MPEG Stream: "I'm A Man"

BLACK SUN Paralyser (At War With False Noise) lp 9.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
What the heck's up with Glasgow these days? Until recently, Glasgow was all sunshiney jangle pop and brooding epic post rock. Or so it seemed. Maybe we haven't been paying attention. Maybe it's been a while since we took a good hard look at the seedy underbelly of Glasgow's music scene, but something sinister is definitely going on over there, cuz all sorts of filthy, brutal, heavy, sick sounds are oozing across the sea and into our cowering frightened ears. Next list we'll probably be listing a record by another Glaswegian crew called De Salvo, who are scary as shit, and here we've got the latest from Black Sun.
Black Sun is a bit of a name over there, but they're a new name to us, although it only took a few minutes of this filth for us to realize folks over here, especially the ones into massive dronedirgedeathcrush and slow motion ultra doooooom will likely be freaking out big time.
Three tracks, all 'versions' of the same song, the first, 19+ minutes taking up the whole of side one, is all lurching downtuned lumber, squealing harmonics, all locked into step with the pounding drums, the vocals tortured and anguished and WAY up in the mix, the sound somewhere between Khanate, Eyehategod, and Neurosis. About halfway through the sound simmers down a bit, a low slung softly churning bass rumble, clean minor key guitar lines all spidery and skeletal, warm whirring keyboards, that eventually slip into a groove that sounds uncannily like a slowed down Three Mile Pilot. Clean crooned vocals, laid over the woozy rhythm, before exploding back into stuttering metallic stop start lurch, gradually growing more and more noisy and unhinged.
The flip side takes the same track and jacks up the industrial vibe, way more low end crunch, a bit murkier and muddier, the vocals buried in the mix, little streaks of feedback peeking out from behind thick caustic slabs of rhythmic pound. Very reminiscent of Godflesh or Pitchshifter, relentless and machinelike, but wreathed in swirls of strange keyboards, and mysterious effects and all manner of fucked up guitar filigree. In some ways superior to the A side, at least to these ears. And finally, the second half of the B-side offers up the 'dub' version, which takes the more industrial version of "Paralyser" even further, the rhythm stripped down, the guitars processed and clipped, the vocals twisted and doused in effects, the arrangement all spaced out, the drums pounding one second, careening from speaker to speaker the next, the whole track actually is panned pretty hard, making headphones essential for experiencing the full dizzy drift. Definitely left us wanting more...
Essential listening for the usual suspects. If your favorite sounds are most often described with the adjectives doomy, crumbling, blackened, pummeling, crushing, heavy, crusty, metallic, slow motion, glacial, filthy, then my friends, you should prepare to kneel in supplication, and stare directly into the Black Sun...
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, housed in a very Godflesh looking sleeve, with a heavy cardstock insert, liner notes on one side and strange bloody symbols on the other.
MPEG Stream: "Paralyser (Prison Of The Cross)"
MPEG Stream: "Paralyser (Dub Mix)"

BLACK SUN / THEY ARE COWARDS Code Black / First And Only (At War With False Noise) 7" 9.98

BLACK SWAN NETWORK (A.K.A. OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL) The Late Music (Camera Obscura) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From Tony Dale's Australian Camera Obscura label (http://www.caber.net/obscura) comes this wonderful cd and the following description:
Camera Obscura is proud to bring you The Late Music (Volume One), a full-length CD of experimental/ambient tape manipulations by Olivia Tremor Control side-project Black Swan Network. In the unlikely case that you wondered what those strange interludes between the four-part harmony pop gems of OTC's Dusk at Cubist Castle would sound like developed into pieces in their own right, here is your chance to find out. The Late Music on conceptually from the two and four channel extravaganzas that can be found on the bonus disc of sound experiments shipped with early copies of the Dusk at Cubist Castle CD and also on OTC's The Opera House and Jumping Fences EPs. Any attempts to describe the seven pieces that make up this release are bound to fall short of the mark, because this is not much like anything we have ever heard before. The sounds created for this release only occasionally give any kind of clue about what was used to create them. For one track, Elephant 6 collective member Eric Ledford contributes an oblique cello improvisation. For another, the voices of infants laughing and crying are brilliantly multiplied and sequenced and processed for an effect that has been observed to create near hysteria in the listener. But on most of the seven tracks here, Black Swan Network have used the source material as an abstract resource to be sculpted into dreamlike Musique Concrete.

BLACK SWANS Change! (Southern) lp 26.00
Now available on vinyl! And super limited. Each record hand designed and painted by handicapped adults in an art program, much like Creativity Explored here in San Francisco. Gorgeous, ultra personal one of a kind designs for a super pretty record. Here's our review of the cd:
The Black Swans third stop in the land of indie record labels is the appropriately named La Societe Expeditionnaire. Their music traverses the shadowed terrain between Tindersticks and Bob Dylan -- particularly in Noel Sayre's slow moody fiddle creep and Jerry DiCicca's vocal inflection. More rugged than the former, less travelled than the latter, and more raw and fierce than either. You might recall this Bay Area band's last two fine pit-of-despair releases the full length Who Will Walk In The Darkness With You? and the Sex Brain cdep which came out on Delmore and Bwatue respectively, but are unfortunately now out of print.
But you shan't despair too much once you get yer paws on this new one because Change! packs its own deep, dark, earthen wallop. The electric guitars slash at the handwringing of the strings, then melt into snaking melodic streams. A gripping listen.
MPEG Stream: "Hope Island"
MPEG Stream: "Coats"

BLACK SWANS Sex Brain (Bwatue) cd ep 5.98
A new ep from these solemn gents from Ohio. They've followed up their fine debut album Who Will Walk In The Darkness With You? (which we just got back in stock too) with another five shadowy numbers. Sex Brain is imbued with a slightly more druggy feel than the full length, but still falls in step with the likes of Tindersticks. Well done!
MPEG Stream: "Friends"
MPEG Stream: "Dark Plums"

BLACK SWANS, THE Change! (La Societe Expeditionnaire) cd 13.98
The Black Swans third stop in the land of indie record labels is the appropriately named La Societe Expeditionnaire. Their music traverses the shadowed terrain between Tindersticks and Bob Dylan -- particularly in Noel Sayre's slow moody fiddle creep and Jerry DiCicca's vocal inflection. More rugged than the former, less travelled than the latter, and more raw and fierce than either. You might recall this Bay Area band's last two fine pit-of-despair releases the full length Who Will Walk In The Darkness With You? and the Sex Brain cdep which came out on Delmore and Bwatue respectively, but are unfortunately now out of print.
But you shan't despair too much once you get yer paws on this new one because Change! packs its own deep, dark, earthen wallop. The electric guitars slash at the handwringing of the strings, then melt into snaking melodic streams. A gripping listen.
MPEG Stream: "Hope Island"
MPEG Stream: "Coats"

BLACK SWANS, THE Who Will Walk In The Darkness With You? (Delmore) cd 9.98
The answer to the title's question appears to be... The Black Swans! Although this band has been together since 1999, this is their debut album. Who Will Walk In The Darkness With You? contains some of the darkest, slowest and most brooding music this side of Tindersticks and the Dirty 3. In fact, lead singer Jerry DeCicca's deeeeep vocals are practically a deadringer for Tindersticks' Stuart Staples. Or perhaps a cross between that band and Antony & The Johnsons. Those in the most somber of moods (or for those wishing to be made so) or fans of either of the abovementioned groups might wanna take this cd for a late night stroll! Oh yeah, and did we mention that this band also features the talents of man of many musical hats Mr. Josh Housh (ex-Our Lady Of The Highway, Catalpa Boys, etc)?
MPEG Stream: "Song Without You "
MPEG Stream: "Rocks In My Shoes"

BLACK TAJ s/t (Amish) cd 14.98
Two of the dudes from Polvo (who aren't named Ash Bowie) are back with Black Taj, which also include in their ranks members of the Idyll Swords. Rockin' out in more of a bar-band mode than Polvo...with some Far Eastern influences woven in.

BLACK TAMBOURINE Complete Recordings (Slumberland) cd 10.98
As of late 2008 and early 2009, there's been some serious hubbub over Slumberland, the stalwart indie label of Brit-inspired, shoegazing bliss pop, thanks to a couple of kick ass records from Crystal Stilts and Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. So a revisitation into perhaps the quintessential Slumberland outfit seems appropriate. Black Tambourine was a shortlived project featuring two of the guys from Velocity Girl, a chanteuse named Pam Berry, and Slumberland label boss Mike Schulman. They only released three singles, contributed a track or two to compilations, and played less than five shows before breaking up in 1991. Go figure that Complete Recordings anthologizes all of these tracks plus an unreleased single.
Black Tambourine's songs begin as jangly, melodic pop which gets tousled about in a blur of amplifier distortion piled onto reverb piled onto more amplifier distortion and just a little more reverb. Yup, it's the same wonderful sound that was also broadcast from the Shop Assistants, My Bloody Valentine (circa Isn't Anything, well cuz Loveless hadn't been released yet!), Jesus & Mary Chain, the Pastels, and almost any given band on Creation circa 1988. But no matter how great that all consuming shoegaze sound can be, the band has gotta have good songwriting chops; and Black Tambourine had 'em for sure. At times, there's that ramshackle quality of good old American DIY indie pop, but for the most part, the songs are effortlessly catchy and melodic with a swagger pushed forth by Pam Berry's reverb drenched and melancholy vocals. Still sounds great after all these years!
MPEG Stream: "Black Car"
MPEG Stream: "Pack You Up"
MPEG Stream: "Drown"

BLACK TO COMM Alphabet 1968 (Type) cd 15.98
When we first discovered Black To Comm, they were described to us as sounding like Fennesz, Pimmon, and Earth jamming with Merzbow, which at the time wasn't all that far off. Since then, they seem to have dialed back on the Earth and Merzbow, leaving their sound much more shimmery and blissy and looped and electronic. Oval was another good comparison, with that same sort of underwater digital looped soft focus glitchscape vibe going on.
The band have also seemingly become more of a band, letting the organic instruments show through, processed sure, but allowed to ring out and resonate, which makes their move to the Type label all the more appropriate.
Their sound is still woozy and washed out and hazy and warbly, but on the opening track, everything is driven by a piano, it's notes reverbed and repetitive, a sort of chamber music set amidst a field of static and crackle, the delicate melodies, wreathed in constantly shifting clouds of electrical interference. The second track loops backwards guitars over a field of warm crackle, letting the loop define the haunting melody, the background buzz gradually intensifying, eventually building to a blinding, glimmering high end ur-drone, all the edges rounded so instead of a field of skree, it's pulsing wall of crystalline shimmer and buzz.
Like a warped music box, the record plays out like some half remembered dream, delicate little melodies drift through a haze of moaning distant guitars, murky post rock is pulled apart into some strange spidery lo-fi dirgescape, pizzicato strings and urgently strummed harps are wound into a tense cinematic swirl, long streaks of clanging reverberating metal are laid atop warm vacuum cleaner drones, surrounded by clouds of clatter and clang, deep brooding rumbles finally give way to crackle and pop flecked soft focus easy listening pop ambience.
Another gorgeous collection of mysterious musical manipulation, essential listening for any one into dronemusic, minimal ambience, abstract electronica or just strange and beautiful far out sounds...
MPEG Stream: "Jonathan"
MPEG Stream: "Forst"
MPEG Stream: "Hotel Friend"

BLACK TO COMM Alphabet 1968 (Type) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
When we first discovered Black To Comm, they were described to us as sounding like Fennesz, Pimmon, and Earth jamming with Merzbow, which at the time wasn't all that far off. Since then, they seem to have dialed back on the Earth and Merzbow, leaving their sound much more shimmery and blissy and looped and electronic. Oval was another good comparison, with that same sort of underwater digital looped soft focus glitchscape vibe going on.
The band have also seemingly become more of a band, letting the organic instruments show through, processed sure, but allowed to ring out and resonate, which makes their move to the Type label all the more appropriate.
Their sound is still woozy and washed out and hazy and warbly, but on the opening track, everything is driven by a piano, it's notes reverbed and repetitive, a sort of chamber music set amidst a field of static and crackle, the delicate melodies, wreathed in constantly shifting clouds of electrical interference. The second track loops backwards guitars over a field of warm crackle, letting the loop define the haunting melody, the background buzz gradually intensifying, eventually building to a blinding, glimmering high end ur-drone, all the edges rounded so instead of a field of skree, it's pulsing wall of crystalline shimmer and buzz.
Like a warped music box, the record plays out like some half remembered dream, delicate little melodies drift through a haze of moaning distant guitars, murky post rock is pulled apart into some strange spidery lo-fi dirgescape, pizzicato strings and urgently strummed harps are wound into a tense cinematic swirl, long streaks of clanging reverberating metal are laid atop warm vacuum cleaner drones, surrounded by clouds of clatter and clang, deep brooding rumbles finally give way to crackle and pop flecked soft focus easy listening pop ambience.
Another gorgeous collection of mysterious musical manipulation, essential listening for any one into dronemusic, minimal ambience, abstract electronica or just strange and beautiful far out sounds...
MPEG Stream: "Jonathan"
MPEG Stream: "Forst"
MPEG Stream: "Hotel Friend"

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"

BLACK TO COMM Fractal Hair Geometry (Dekorder) cd 16.98
A brand new record from this weirdo German drone combo (or maybe it's a one man band), and it's a doozy. We have been pretty into everything we've heard from BTC, so we were pretty excited to get out hands on this new one.
In the past, we, and other folks have compares Black To Comm to groups like Oval, Pimmon, Fennesz, Earth and Merzbow, but the truth is in fact much stranger, and much more difficult to describe. This is definitely drone music, but it's so mysterious sounding, not all low end rumbles or shimmering high end skree, instead, it's a seemingly haphazard assemblage of sounds and musical fragments, looped and processed and chopped up, then woven into looooong undulating dronescapes, that churn and shimmer and buzz and whir, but also twist themselves into strange shapes, offering up incidental melodic overtones and subtle rhythms. And the strange thing is the parts really don't matter so much, in that they are eventually transformed into something entirely new. It reminds us of an exhibit at the museum, where a voice would repeat a single word or phrase over and over, and you would try to pick out the word, but it was practically impossible, the looped speech immediately turned into something sonically mysterious and impenetrable. Fractal Hair Geometry is similar in that the source sounds are super varied, but within minutes, even seconds, the source becomes meaningless, instead it is simple an element in a swooning and swaying and woozily hypnotic whole. Chanted vocals, whirring organs, mysterious shimmers, squiggly melodies, buzzing Theremins, electronic glitches, analog synths, wheezing harmoniums, and those are just guesses, cuz just like that museum exhibit, it's difficult to tell what the source sounds are. We also didn't try that hard. It's like trying to peek under the table to see how a magician does a trick. We don't want to know. It's more fun to get lost in these mysterious sounds. One track even introduces a muted techno throb, and for a brief second it sounds like the weirdest record Kompakt never released. It's really hard to describe this stuff, which is probably why we like it so much, check out the sound samples, and hear for yourself!
MPEG Stream: "Negative Volumes"
MPEG Stream: "Orange Record"
MPEG Stream: "Play Eggchess 3"

BLACK TO COMM Fractal Hair Geometry (Dekorder) lp 16.98
A brand new record from this weirdo German drone combo (or maybe it's a one man band), and it's a doozy. We have been pretty into everything we've heard from BTC, so we were pretty excited to get out hands on this new one.
In the past, we, and other folks have compares Black To Comm to groups like Oval, Pimmon, Fennesz, Earth and Merzbow, but the truth is in fact much stranger, and much more difficult to describe. This is definitely drone music, but it's so mysterious sounding, not all low end rumbles or shimmering high end skree, instead, it's a seemingly haphazard assemblage of sounds and musical fragments, looped and processed and chopped up, then woven into looooong undulating dronescapes, that churn and shimmer and buzz and whir, but also twist themselves into strange shapes, offering up incidental melodic overtones and subtle rhythms. And the strange thing is the parts really don't matter so much, in that they are eventually transformed into something entirely new. It reminds us of an exhibit at the museum, where a voice would repeat a single word or phrase over and over, and you would try to pick out the word, but it was practically impossible, the looped speech immediately turned into something sonically mysterious and impenetrable. Fractal Hair Geometry is similar in that the source sounds are super varied, but within minutes, even seconds, the source becomes meaningless, instead it is simple an element in a swooning and swaying and woozily hypnotic whole. Chanted vocals, whirring organs, mysterious shimmers, squiggly melodies, buzzing Theremins, electronic glitches, analog synths, wheezing harmoniums, and those are just guesses, cuz just like that museum exhibit, it's difficult to tell what the source sounds are. We also didn't try that hard. It's like trying to peek under the table to see how a magician does a trick. We don't want to know. It's more fun to get lost in these mysterious sounds. One track even introduces a muted techno throb, and for a brief second it sounds like the weirdest record Kompakt never released. It's really hard to describe this stuff, which is probably why we like it so much, check out the sound samples, and hear for yourself!
MPEG Stream: "Negative Volumes"
MPEG Stream: "Orange Record"
MPEG Stream: "Play Eggchess 3"