FLYING LOTUS Los Angeles (Warp) lp 21.00
There is no doubt that this record is going to find itself near the top of many of our year end favorite lists. This is one of those rare records that on first listen you are grabbed by its immediacy & intensity and with each repeated listen you melt deeper into its richness. While just in his early 20's Steven Ellison (aka Flying Lotus) has crafted a record wise beyond his years. There is a fluidity and transcendence on Los Angeles that defies categorization. Call it instrumental hip-hop if you want, but these are songs that would sound right at home next to spiritual Afro-jazz, psychedelic soul and even dubstep. Taking inspiration from the late great J Dilla, Flying Lotus understands how to extract such punch and soul from all the sounds he takes and creates. Flying Lotus has a wide world vision that's as informed by Eastern grooves and psychedelia as it is hip-hop, electronica, video games and cartoon culture (he used to make music for Adult Swim). This is stirring many of the same emotions and excitement as when Four Tet released the Rounds record and in many ways it brings to the next level what so much of Prefuse 73 tries to do.
It actually didn't surprise us that much to find out that Ellison is the great nephew of Alice Coltrane as you can hear the amazing legacy of her spiritual and universal consciousness in the sounds that Flying Lotus create. In fact there are a few upfront Coltrane moments on the record including "Aunti's Harp" which is an all too short but beautiful majestic minute of Alice on the harp. Flying Lotus has found a spot next to Madlib as a much needed ambassador of someone taking hip-hop as a launching pad orbiting to such pleasing outer dimensions. In fact , some of us couldn't help but daydream about a Flying Lotus/Erykah Badu collaboration as they both are so tapped into a magical and exciting landscape of hip-hop & soul that soars in spiritual and psychedelic horizons. Filled with undeniable passion and of course highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Camel"
MPEG Stream: "Riot"
MPEG Stream: "Golden Diva"

FLYING LOTUS Los Angeles (Warp) cd 14.98
There is no doubt that this record is going to find itself near the top of many of our year end favorite lists. This is one of those rare records that on first listen you are grabbed by its immediacy & intensity and with each repeated listen you melt deeper into its richness. While just in his early 20's Steven Ellison (aka Flying Lotus) has crafted a record wise beyond his years. There is a fluidity and transcendence on Los Angeles that defies categorization. Call it instrumental hip-hop if you want, but these are songs that would sound right at home next to spiritual Afro-jazz, psychedelic soul and even dubstep. Taking inspiration from the late great J Dilla, Flying Lotus understands how to extract such punch and soul from all the sounds he takes and creates. Flying Lotus has a wide world vision that's as informed by Eastern grooves and psychedelia as it is hip-hop, electronica, video games and cartoon culture (he used to make music for Adult Swim). This is stirring many of the same emotions and excitement as when Four Tet released the Rounds record and in many ways it brings to the next level what so much of Prefuse 73 tries to do.
It actually didn't surprise us that much to find out that Ellison is the great nephew of Alice Coltrane as you can hear the amazing legacy of her spiritual and universal consciousness in the sounds that Flying Lotus create. In fact there are a few upfront Coltrane moments on the record including "Aunti's Harp" which is an all too short but beautiful majestic minute of Alice on the harp. Flying Lotus has found a spot next to Madlib as a much needed ambassador of someone taking hip-hop as a launching pad orbiting to such pleasing outer dimensions. In fact , some of us couldn't help but daydream about a Flying Lotus/Erykah Badu collaboration as they both are so tapped into a magical and exciting landscape of hip-hop & soul that soars in spiritual and psychedelic horizons. Filled with undeniable passion and of course highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Camel"
MPEG Stream: "Riot"
MPEG Stream: "Golden Diva"

WOODEN SHJIPS s/t (Holy Mountain) cd 14.98
Can't believe how many of these we've sold! Now, sadly, all the limited edition copies with the extra bonus disc are gone, gone, gone. Uh... we guess if anyone was -waiting- for the version without the extra disc, well now it's available, here it is! Seriously, though, if you missed getting this before, one disc is better n' none. Way better since it's a fantastic album all its own self. Here's the review, edited for the absence of said bonus disc: From right here in our sunny San Francisco neighborhood, comes an eagerly anticipated new release of hypnotically searing garagey psych jams! And yes, if you haven't run into them before, it's Wooden ShJips with a J, that's not a typo, just a way we guess of making their moniker more psychedelic (and easier to Google, too). They've garnered a lot of deserved attention from folks into minimalistic psych throb, that's for sure, their now-out-of-print 10" and 7" vinyl records released last year making us -- and so many others, foremost among 'em Tom Lax of Siltbreeze/Siltblog fame, and Byron Coley at The Wire -- into drooling Wooden Shjips fanatics.
So, this new self-titled album follows on from their various singles and eps with five more fuzzy, super groovy, guitar/organ/bass/drums slowburners, somewhere between Comets On Fire and Circle, with a definite Doors-y vibe as well, in part due to the keys which give this an almost loungey relaxed feel at times, and in part due to the occasional laidback Morrison-ish vocals of guitarist Erik Johnson. Erik also makes us think of Neil Young as well, as his more "out" guitar solos -- some if 'em SCORCHING -- could be off of Young's feedback-filled Arc. Or a Les Rallizes Denudes record! Track four, "Blue Sky Bends", having the best Rallizes-ish drone-factor of the record. Overall, we'd say that these tracks, as a development from their earlier material, exhibits more and more of a throwback to the ballroom Frisco style of the sixties... now they just need to get a light show happening! But something tells us they'd be all about stark bright white strobes and dark black shadows only, maybe some b&w op art spirals, if their monochrome packaging aesthetic and the general heavy lidded mood of the music is anything to go by...
MPEG Stream: "We Ask You To Ride"
MPEG Stream: "Blue Sky Bends"

YA HO WA 13 Penetration: An Aquarian Symphony (Cold Sweat) cd 15.98
Cool. A truly cult band begins to get its due. If you read our list or are otherwise hip to out-there '70s communal psych rock then you already know all about the amazing Ya Ho Wa 13, house band of Father Yod's Source Family, uh, commune. It was just a few months ago that we hosted a book signing with Isis and Electricity Aquarian and other original members of the Source Family, in conjunction with which the reunited Ya Ho Wa 13 played a show here in San Francisco. Wow. That was something.
So, what with the book (The Source: The Untold Story Of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 And The Source Family) and associated publicity, now the Cold Sweat label has done a domestic digipack cd reissue of what might be the best of the Ya Ho Wa's many albums. A domestic vinyl release is soon to follow on the Tee Pee label as well.
Here's more or less what we said about this big AQ fave when we listed the previously available UK import cd edition a few years ago:
Whoah, man. A seriously trippy, dark and clangorous document here from the (very literally) cult group of early '70s rockers called Ya Ho Wha 13. Of all the many albums that the legendary Father Yod and his band of freaky communal-living hippies made back in the day (most but not all of 'em compiled into the massive Aquarius-beloved 13-disc God And Hair box set that came out in Japan some years back), it's always been THIS one that we at AQ (and pretty much every other reputable source too) have heralded as the absolute heaviest and best of the bunch. An essential item for anyone into far-out freeform '70s psych weirdness. And it's got an unbeatable title, eh? Penetration: An Aquarian Symphony. How can we not dig that? So we're quite stoked to have it reissued by itself on cd for those who haven't got and/or aren't ready for the box set. The four tracks here (including one entitled simply "Ya Ho Wha 13") venture from droneing spacey effects laden soundscapes with eerie Eastern-sounding vocal wailing to full-tilt throbbing, percussive tribal lift-off frenzies complete with stabs of heavy guitar distortion. Throw in some whistling to add an off-kilter spaghetti western soundtrack vibe and you've got Penetration. A damaged, dense, intense, quasi-religious psychedelic California-krautrock experience. Even the mellowest parts are still pretty edgy. This 1974 recording is definitely to be considered a cosmic precursor to everything from the drum circle discs of the Boredoms to the improv rock of Reynols to the neo-hippy clank of the No Neck Blues Band. Amazing. And totally utterly AQ-recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "Yod He Vau He"
MPEG Stream: "Journey Through An Elemental Kingdom"

MAUS, JOHN Love Is Real (Upset! The Rhythm) cd 15.98
The year is only just beginning but there have already been some amazing new records released that we're pretty sure will end up on our favorites of '08 list. This new outing by the enigmatic John Maus is one of them and it might just be the most engrossing and addicting albums we've been hooked on in a long time!
Best and barley known in the past as being loosely associated with the Paw Tracks family (Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Ariel Pink) Maus has made a record that will make his name definitely stand on its own. As he's created one of the most fantastical, bizarre and engaging pop records in recent memory. Warped bedroom pop with a flair for fantasy, wrapped in old fucked up synths, deep slowed down vocals, cosmic beats and a singular unique vision. Like OMD on codeine or early home demo recordings of The Cure captured on an answering machine tape that's been dubbed over way too many times. Or imagine a soundtrack to a lost early '80s movie made by both John Hughes and John Carpenter, as romantic teenage life intersects with magical apocalyptic doom! Love Is Real is as creepy and mystifying as it is heartfelt and endearing. As catchy as it is unpredictable. Out of nowhere the synths will rise to crazy loud levels or Maus will let out a haunting scream, and even after listening to this album hundreds of time as we have obsessively already, those parts still jump out, scare, startle and thrill us every time we listen.
Start to finish the album is impeccable. Songs lead into each other perfectly, the pacing is dead on, and every single track on the record belongs where it is and has a weight of its own. Whether it's sounding like the muddiest version of a Psychedelic Furs track or tapping into a bizarre drugged out cosmic disco excursion or having a freaked out panic attack, the record pulls from so many directions while always sounding like a completely other universe. This is what fantasy sounds like when the world around you is falling apart. Totally amazing!
MPEG Stream: "Heaven Is Real"
MPEG Stream: "My Whole Worlds Coming Apart"
MPEG Stream: "Tenebrae"

HAROLD & MAUDE (CAT STEVENS) OST (Vinyl Films) lp+7"+booklet 42.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
How could a movie so tightly integrated with music not have released a soundtrack? Well, in the case of popular cult film, Harold and Maude, whose creative usage of many of Cat Steven's most well known and widely available songs instead of a proper score, a soundtrack release at the time must have seemed like throwing money down a well. All of Steven's songs were available on his own albums, and the audience for the film at the time, which has overwhelming increased in years following, was very small. So finally, The Harold and Maude soundtrack has been made available on vinyl for the first time and it comes with a 36 page full color booklet on the making of the film and a bonus 7" of alternate versions of two songs not previously available anywhere. It's a bit pricey, but the package is deluxe and the vinyl is high quality, and any soundtrack collection of sixties and seventies film music would be remiss without it. And who doesn't love Harold & Maude??

PINHAS, RICHARD East / West (Cuneiform) cd 15.98
Another early Richard Pinhas album has been reissued! East/West was his fourth solo outing and was originally released in 1980. As the title suggests, the sounds are definitely reminiscent of those from the far east and west, more so the former than the latter perhaps. That said, the eleven tracks are incredibly varied. Check out the kinetic shimmering cityscape of "Kyoto: Kyoto #3", the slinking Fripp inspirations of "La Ville Sans Nom" and Beautiful May", the fevered unprocessed and vocoder'd vocals of the driving prog "Houston 69 Part 1". As with most every Pinhas solo album (and those of his band Heldon), East/West is a wealth of cyclical rhythms, looming atmospheres and near-industrial textures. In fact, it may also pique the interest of fans of Download if it hasn't already. As we were digging this, it made us want to revisit the seemingly likeminded The Eyes Of Stanley Pain from 1996. Included are two previously unreleased bonus tracks!
MPEG Stream: "Houston 69 Part 1"
MPEG Stream: "La Ville Sans Nom"

HARMONIA 76 Tracks & Traces (Ryko) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wow! Long-lost (or neglected) tapes starring electronic krautrock luminaries Moebius and Roedelius (of Cluster) and Michael Rother (of Neu!), and Brian Eno!

SMITH, STEVEN R. Owl (Digitalis) cd 12.98
Reverberant electric crackle opens the album, like you've got your ears wedged right there next to the pickups on Steven R. Smith's guitar. In a surprise move for S.R.S. fans, his unadorned, dolefully sonorous voice then wails gently and lamentingly over this sometimes thick, sometimes sparse, very droney music. This disc is mostly just vocals and guitar (and occasional other, acoustic instrumentation), slow and sad and distorted. It's a very intimate, raw duet for hushed, humming folky singing and whale-call psych guitar, dissonant yet melodic ...oooh lovely. Definitely something that fans of recent Richard Youngs and Six Organs Of Admittance and Dan Higgs should check out. Steven R. Smith fans too without question, even though you've never heard him like this before (singing)! At times his vocals come across like Kurt Cobain's at his most mumbled...thus kinda Neil Young-y too.
Basically we've liked pretty much EVERYTHING that S.R.S. has been involved with, from Mirza to Thuja to Hala Strana to various solo recordings to this here new album. On Owl, while musically similar to, say, his Kohl album, he's still doing something new and different for him, really sticking his neck out with the addition of his own vocals... very admirable and thankfully in fact successful! The lonely, spacious, dreamy, plugged-in folkiness of this, and especially the emotion in S.R.S.'s singing, reminds us a bit of that band Rex, from back in the day, dark and lush, moody with a bit of twang. Heck this almost takes Steven R. into the territory of another, unrelated Smith, Elliott. Recommended!
And stay tuned for another new Steven R. Smith project due out soon on the Soft Abuse label, Ulaan Khol. It's equally as S.R.S. as this, but in the other direction...
MPEG Stream: "Across The Flats"
MPEG Stream: "Bindery"
MPEG Stream: "Cleft"

HARPER, ROY Stormcock (Science Friction) cd 25.00
BACK IN STOCK, in a new, DELUXE version. Which means, it's now packaged in a cd-sized hardcover book-like sleeve, with 20 pages of new photos, prose and poetry not found in the previous edition... also it's been digitally remastered for better sound to Roy Harper's specifications. This helps make up for the higher price, also due the pathetically weak US dollar at the moment. But it's well worth it, this is one of the best albums EVER, a steady seller here at AQ that you should hear if you haven't.
Here's what we said about it previously: To those of us who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, Roy Harper might already be something of an implied legend, stuck in our adolescent memories as the name referenced in the Zeppelin III song, "Hats Off To Roy Harper". Some of us may even have noticed in the liner notes to Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here that it was Roy Harper belting out the vocals on "Have a Cigar". Sadly, for most of us from this generation we have heard very little or none of this man's own music.
Harper's life story (as raw material for some of the best songs ever written -- seriously, just surrender your ears to "Goldfish" or "Tom Tiddler's Ground") is full of drama and obsession: joining the RAF in order to escape a Christian upbringing, Harper's "legendary" self-inflicted nervous breakdown in order to get out of his military service provided the prima materia for some of his first songs (e.g. "Committed" on his debut album Sophisticated Beggar). After escaping a mental institution in order to elope with a pregnant girlfriend, Roy headed off into London where his rebellious ways got him arrested. Serving a prison sentence, he spent most of his time in the library reading and evolving his creative spirit. Following his release in 1964 he busked around North Africa and then returned to London to join the folk club scene alongside the Incredible String Band, Donovan, Joni Mitchell, Bert Jansch and Nick Drake. During the recording of his first record he hosted the vagabonds of London in his flat and sermonized, guerilla-style, to the church-goers across the street from his flat window. So Roy's records were full of such expressions of protest against religion, politics, and the countless social forces subverting individuality and the imagination of the day. With every Roy Harper record, the listener gets extensive stream-of-consciouness rants, often surreal and often quite funny, complementing the songs with a voice that is at once confounding and endearing. The spirit in Roy's songs, one complicated by fits of great joy, sadness and absurdity, where the most banal things in life are rendered the most beautiful (such as "How could you say such terrible things with a wonderful wife like yours?") still coheres as the voice of a truly singular spirit.
So...why can't we find Roy Harper sections in most record stores? After all he has dozens of albums and is still very much alive and making music. Well, a rare and wonderful thing in light of the typical artist versus the record industry scenario is that Harper has somehow managed to own all rights to his records and now distributes his material exclusively under the name Science Friction. But doesn't distribute very widely as his is but a small operation, based in Ireland. However, we've gotten in touch with Science Friction and are now happy to offer our customers, at long last, a selection of what we consider to be some of Roy's best. Starting with Stormcock!
Recorded in 1970 at Abbey Road, Stormcock is a four-song, 41 minute opus of folk-rock genius (what has been dubbed by one critic a masterpiece of its own genre, "epic progressive acoustic"). Basically, the sort of thing that, despite the current upswing in the underground of psych-tinged folky songsmithery, you just don't get to hear much these days. A rare talent, fully on display here, and without some of the confounding eclecticism and eccentrities that may make some other Harper albums take a bit more work to get into. No, this is a definite "wow" from the very first few bars of the first song, continuing solid and stellar all the way to the end of the album. Gorgeously melodic, slow and langorous, sparkling with Roy's brillant acoustic guitar playing, otherworldly arrangements, and of course his voice, phrasing and lyrics. Roy wrote all the songs and sings and plays most of the music -- there's a few additional musicans on hand at times to help flesh out Roy's sound-world, among them one S. Flavius Mercurius (aka Jimmy Page) contributing lead guitar on "The Same Old Rock", as well as the orchestral musicians employed for the magnificent album-closer "Me And My Woman".
Anyone who digs Six Organs Of Admittance or Devendra Banhart or the like owes it to themselves to experience some Roy Harper. Likewise anyone who loves the quieter, folker sides of the aforementioned Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Packaged with lyrics, art, and Roy's cryptic latter-day liner notes.
MPEG Stream: "One Man Rock And Roll Band"
MPEG Stream: "Me And My Woman"

CITAY Little Kingdom (Important) lp 16.98
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!
It's quite remarkable that only two records into their existence Citay have managed to carve out a sound that is so instantaneously recognizable and distinctive. With their soaring guitars, glorious melodies and harmonies that sound as if they're raining down from the sky, this ensemble led by Ezra Feinberg has quickly become one of the shining lights of the San Francisco music scene, but we think that folks from all over the globe should be hearing them, so they too can be swept away by Citay's carefully crafted songs.
Little Kingdom is the follow up to their debut which was a unanimous AQ favorite when it came out around two years back. With a similar sound and feel as that first outing they have widened their reach as the songs descend with a much more expansive quality. Brimming with a crisp sensation Little Kingdom is matching our autumnal mood so perfectly.
We love how Citay always sound so monumental without resorting to the typical quiet...quiet...loud...eruption formula that so many post-rock groups use when they want to sound grand. What makes Citay so great is that they don't TRY to sound grand or monumental, it's just that the songs they make require a presentation that the band understand so well and do so effortlessly. Little Kingdom makes us want to run into leaves and feel the wind rushing against our skin, whisking us away, the sounds of the strings on guitars summoning us to a greater place!
MPEG Stream: "Eye On The Dollar"
MPEG Stream: "Little Kingdom"
MPEG Stream: "On The Wings"

V/A We Are Not Together (Repsychled) cd 15.98
Peru's biggest Paul McCartney worshippers, We All Together, came out of a community of bands in Lima that shared the same love for dreamy Beatlesque pop. Eight of the bands are collected here: Monik, Cerro Verde, Laghonia, Smog, Illicit, FE 59 and others. Chronicling singles from the Mag label recorded between 1968-1974, the songs range from original compositions to covers of songs popularized by The Doors, Malo, and Lesley Gore. All quite nice.
MPEG Stream: BETO VILLENA & WE ALL TOGETHER "Suavecito"
MPEG Stream: MONIK "The World Is Getting Worse"
MPEG Stream: CERRO VERDE "I Lost A Game"
MPEG Stream: SMOG "Wicked Man"

STORY, THE Arcane Rising (Sunbeam) cd 16.98
One of our favorite "folkpsych" albums of last year was the debut full-length Tale Spin from the English father-son duo known as The Story. Wasn't terribly much of a surprise, really, since the elder half of The Story, Martin Welham, was an integral member of Forest, an amazing (and undeservedly obscure) band from back in the original late sixties/early seventies magical era of British acid folk music, contemporaries of Fairport and Pentangle and the Incredible String Band and Dando Shaft and Comus. The reissues of their two albums have been huge favorite here at Aquarius. But now it's almost forty years later, and we suppose that Martin making music with his son Tom could have been a let-down. But it wasn't, not a bit, no sirree. Martin still had "it". And apparently a musical talent for pastoral prettiness runs in the family too.
And this second album from The Story is also quite something. Again what wows us is just the lovely blend of their gentle voices and sprightly guitar strum, singing songs full of melancholic atmospheres and melodic enchantment... As an acoustic duo, the focus here is on the song writing, the melodies and pagan-tinged lyrics, not psychedelic effects or rock bombast, and the Welhams do wonders with just their guitars and voices, plus some sundry hand-percussion, flutes, and (literal) bells and whistles too. Like Tale Spin, this album is utterly sweet and mellow and hum-able...in terms of mood, it has its dark corners but even then the Martin and Tom's harmony vocals bring warmth and light to the journey, which seems to be along forest paths and over country streams, across both misty moors and sunny meadows. The songs (sixteen of 'em) are ALL quite nice, none of them overly lengthy, mostly just a minute or three apiece, making maximum melodic impact before The Story moves itself along to the next song. Timeless stuff -- we could almost imagine a Welham grandchild eventually joining up and The Story continuing and bridging yet another generation...
PS They also have a track on the excellent new Brit-folk compilation John Barleycorn Reborn, which we'll be reviewing on our next list...
MPEG Stream: "Watch Out"
MPEG Stream: "Flash Across The Sky"

OF The Sun & Earth Together (Ultra Hard Gel) cd 12.98
Loren Chasse, one of the chief swamis of the collective Jewelled Antler sound through such projects as Thuja, Blithe Sons, Child Readers, Franciscan Hobbies, Ov, and too many more to list (boy, they used to crank out those cd-rs!), records solo under the moniker Of (the similarly named Ov being the duo of Chasse with his wife and AQ-employee Christine, full disclosure). Simply put, we love Of (and Ov), of course... and are always happy when Chasse takes some time away from his other activities (the somewhat less musical of which being his day job as a public school teacher) to craft a new Of album, a phantom tendril from his own personal dreamworld reaching through our shared reality to caress our ears and cause imaginary crystals to glow softly somewhere within that part of our minds attuned to such blissful vibrations. Not to make this sound like any sort of New Age fluff though, as while as ethereal and meditative as this is, Chasse always incorporates some primitive grit into his work, his music full of feedback hiss, quiet distortion, ambient elemental field recordings of nature, the magnified rubbings of rocks and plants, objects close to the ground, part of the earth, illuminated (and given shadow too) by the radiation of a far-off, flaming star.
The music of The Sun and Earth Together is akin to a slowly turning mobile, as if it were giving off drones and tones as well as glinting with color and the reflections of light. As light shimmers, so does this music. As light dims, it dims too. The abstract sculptural shapes of this imagined mobile move in beautiful indeterminate patterns, much as the sounds Chasse conjures from disparate sources* as cymbalom and stones, autoharp and voice, bells and bowls, guitar and zither all drift delicately, and droningly, in phosphorescent clouds and constellations. This disc clocks in at 51 minutes, consisting of four tracks, each one longer than the last, from the three minute opener "Ignimbrites" to the 26 minute closing title track. All composed of tingling, whispered layers of lo-fi loveliness, gentle and graceful and ultimately glorious.
*we're guessing on some of these...
MPEG Stream: "Archangelic Curtain"
MPEG Stream: "Ignimbrites"
MPEG Stream: "Vog Rings"

CITAY Little Kingdom (Dead Oceans) cd 14.98
It's quite remarkable that only two records into their existence Citay have managed to carve out a sound that is so instantaneously recognizable and distinctive. With their soaring guitars, glorious melodies and harmonies that sound as if they're raining down from the sky, this ensemble led by Ezra Feinberg has quickly become one of the shining lights of the San Francisco music scene, but we think that folks from all over the globe should be hearing them, so they too can be swept away by Citay's carefully crafted songs.
Little Kingdom is the follow up to their debut which was a unanimous AQ favorite when it came out around two years back. With a similar sound and feel as that first outing they have widened their reach as the songs descend with a much more expansive quality. Brimming with a crisp sensation Little Kingdom is matching our autumnal mood so perfectly.
We love how Citay always sound so monumental without resorting to the typical quiet...quiet...loud...eruption formula that so many post-rock groups use when they want to sound grand. What makes Citay so great is that they don't TRY to sound grand or monumental, it's just that the songs they make require a presentation that the band understand so well and do so effortlessly. Little Kingdom makes us want to run into leaves and feel the wind rushing against our skin, whisking us away, the sounds of the strings on guitars summoning us to a greater place!
MPEG Stream: "Eye On The Dollar"
MPEG Stream: "Little Kingdom"
MPEG Stream: "On The Wings"

YOUNGS, RICHARD Autumn Response (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98
It might be unfair (though easy) to lump Richard Youngs' recent output into the trendy category that lately has been swallowing all music that includes singing and acoustic instruments, namely "freak folk" (or "acid folk" or whatever you want to call it, you know what we mean). On Autumn Response Youngs is hardly singing the music of "the people", nor is he making conscious efforts to associate his music with that of past artists and traditions of his native British Isles. Instead, the lyrics suggest a solitary imagination, isolated and introspectively afoot in a landscape (the further journeys of a 'summer wanderer'?). His song structures are simple and atmospheric...mantra-like..built around emotive, hypnotic, doubled vocal tracks that become vertiginous at times with repeating riffs on acoustic guitar. The affecting, pastoral melodicism and minimalist structuring of these songs gives the impression that Youngs has combined the talents of the great Roy Harper with the methodologies of folk guitar experimentalist Steffen Basho-Junghans, perhaps.
Like most of Youngs' recent records on Jagjaguwar, this one is constructed with a limited set of 'rules' (instruments, production effects, etc.) which makes the record less a collection of songs and more a cohesive single work evolving through its various parts until arriving at the 16+ minute closer, "Something Like Air". It's something all right, and it's breathtaking, as is so much of this lovely, lovely album.
MPEG Stream: "Low Bay Of Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Paths In The City"
MPEG Stream: "One Hundred Stranded Horses"

YOUNGS, RICHARD Autumn Response (Jagjaguwar) lp 14.98
It might be unfair (though easy) to lump Richard Youngs' recent output into the trendy category that lately has been swallowing all music that includes singing and acoustic instruments, namely "freak folk" (or "acid folk" or whatever you want to call it, you know what we mean). On Autumn Response Youngs is hardly singing the music of "the people", nor is he making conscious efforts to associate his music with that of past artists and traditions of his native British Isles. Instead, the lyrics suggest a solitary imagination, isolated and introspectively afoot in a landscape (the further journeys of a 'summer wanderer'?). His song structures are simple and atmospheric...mantra-like..built around emotive, hypnotic, doubled vocal tracks that become vertiginous at times with repeating riffs on acoustic guitar. The affecting, pastoral melodicism and minimalist structuring of these songs gives the impression that Youngs has combined the talents of the great Roy Harper with the methodologies of folk guitar experimentalist Steffen Basho-Junghans, perhaps.
Like most of Youngs' recent records on Jagjaguwar, this one is constructed with a limited set of 'rules' (instruments, production effects, etc.) which makes the record less a collection of songs and more a cohesive single work evolving through its various parts until arriving at the 16+ minute closer, "Something Like Air". It's something all right, and it's breathtaking, as is so much of this lovely, lovely album.
MPEG Stream: "Low Bay Of Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Paths In The City"

CHALK, ANDREW The River That Flows Into The Sands II (Faraway Press) cd 24.00
The sequel to the River That Flows Into The Sand had originally been released through Andrew Chalk's Faraway Press imprint as a super-limited edition cassette in early 2006. We never managed to get a hold of those cassettes; and it goes without saying that they disappeared before we could even blink. Thankfully, Chalk has re-released all of that material on cd, remastered by the inimitable Colin Potter. As on the first part of The River, Chalk picks up the guitar for his minimalist explorations tightroping between the ghostly impressionism of Keiji Haino's Nijiumu project from many moons ago, the narcoleptic atmospheres of Maeror Tri / Troum, the oceanic ambience of Boris' Flood, and the time-reversal qualities of Eliane Radigue, all the while putting to shame every upstart drone artist with a cd burner and an Echoplex.
Just as the first River cd meanders through five variations of the cascade sound, Chalk produces another five tracks of rippling drones on this disc. Similarly, he has packaged the disc in the dotted decalcomania which graced the first cd. The major differences can be found in the gritty, growling distortion which exists just beneath the surface of these glassine drones. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!
MPEG Stream: "The River II, track 2"
MPEG Stream: "The River II, track 4"
MPEG Stream: "The River II, track 5"

TRAD GRAS OCH STENAR From Moja To Minneapolis (Gashud) dvd 28.00
It's been, what, three years since Swedish psych veterans Trad Gras och Stenar toured the United States? Too long anyway. If you saw 'em then, you know why we're so excited about this new DVD. This band has been around, in one form or another, since the late sixties, starting off in 1967 as Parson Sound, then morphing into International Harvester, Harvester, and finally Trad Gras och Stenar (Trees, Grass, and Stones). And they somehow have maintained their radical hippy outlook, their politics and their musical adventurousness, all these years (they were on a long hiatus from 1972 until their 1995 reunion). This band just rules. Makes us young 'uns a bit less worried about getting old.
Heavy and mesmeric, TGoS's jams are something like a more hippified version of Circle, minimalist, rhythmic, trance-inducing. For more description of their sounds, please refer to one of our reviews of their several albums. Presumably if you're curious about this dvd you've already heard 'em, and just want to know what the dvd is all about. Basically, it's like their home movies from tour (and tour-prep). It's done in a cinema-verite manner, capturing quirky detail, Trad Gras definitely interested in demystifying and debunking any "rock and roll" pretense. For instance, when at one point the plays on Swedish television, the clip from the actual TV show is never shown, just their own "behind the scenes" footage. And then there's a scene of the band out of doors, in the snow (!), trying to tune in themselves on an old TV set, almost just to be silly.
Shot by filmmaker Michael Hogstrom circa 2002-2005, this documentary follows TGoS around Sweden and over to both Russia and the United States to various gigs, playing their wonderful music and dealing with the mundane misadventures of life on the road. There's plenty of performance footage and lots of inter-band banter (with English subtitles, yay!) in the tour van or backstage. In fact, thematically this movie is almost as much about "old friends" as it is a musical document. It's almost two hours worth of the Trad Gras och Stenar experience -- not a substitute for seeing 'em live in person but the next best thing for sure (and since we in the USA don't have that opportunity all that often, this is a treat!). And, another treat: there's a few minutes of 8mm footage of the band appearing at one of the famous free Stockholm summer festivals back in 1970, a montage of various vintage clips of the scene there, all scratchy and colorful. These were silent films, so the sound isn't synched, but there's a Trad Gras album playing on the soundtrack (literally, in a preamble, we're shown the needle being dropped on the vinyl). A nice bonus!
If you're not charmed by the way the dvd begins, outside Trad Gras och Stenar's practice space at a house somewhere in the Swedish countryside, with their wizened guitarist and spiritual leader Bo Anders Persson seated on a motorcycle, trying to get the thing to start up, as the rest of the band looks on, then perhaps this excursion won't be for you. But if immediately you wish you were hanging out with those guys, helping with the motorcycle, hearing their stories, basking in their music, then you're a fan of TGoS and will enjoy the rest of the movie!!

HENGST, CLIFF AND SCOTT HEWICKER Good Times: Bad Trips (Gallery 16 Editions) book 25.00
Ever had a bad trip? And no, not just an "oh I'm freaking out man" sort of trip, we're talking the sort of trip that sticks with you forever. The first time, the worst time, the best worst time, sex, death, injury, mayhem and misery, well our very own Scott Hewicker and his partner Cliff Hengst have been collecting tales of these bad trips from a who's who of artists and musicians, friends and family, even AQ employees and have finally compiled them all into one volume, this here gorgeous hardcover book entitled Good Times: Bad Trips, and not only packed with stories, but with all sorts of original and found artwork to accompany these far our freaked out tales of drugs and debauchery. 
The contributors include Devendra Banhart, local luminary John Dwyer, our very own Irwin Swirnoff and our very own Lauren Robertson, Martin Schmidt and Drew Daniel from Matmos, John Koch from Troll, Ezra Feinberg from Citay, Alexis Georgopoulos from Arp, Wayne Smith from Aero-Mic'd, Nathan Burazer from Tussle, Jack Hanley (of Jack Hanley Galleries) as well as loads of artists and writers like Chris Johanson, Shaun O'Dell, Keegan McHargue, Leslie Shows, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy... the list goes on and on and on. 
The thing is, it almost doesn't matter who wrote which story, so much so that the credits are tucked away, way in the back of the book, so the stories are just that, stories, removed from their authors, not overly writerly, instead conversational, like hanging out drinking and telling tales, where most bad trip stories actually get told. And these are some seriously demented stories. Some are super funny, some are really intense and brutal, some are so ridiculous they sound made up, others are more mundane, but resonate as experiences most of us have shared. It's an amazing read. A killer collection of short stories, all of them fascinating, tales of stolen jet skis, yellow food banquets, secret upper crust sex societies, deflowered virgins, brain loops, dead body mannequins, emergency room freakouts, smoking out with Lee Scratch Perry, football player rapists, midnight calls to Mom, industrial strength lasers, heart murmurs, talking crows, living nude books, grey music, naked hippies, sex with surrealists, skin rashes, mouths full of dough, Cher costumes, stolen Harry Potters, boom box kicking, fake pistols, guitar masturbating, mother meltdowns, Tesla coils and so so so much more. 
Gorgeously designed and laid out, plus the book is jam packed with eye popping art, paintings, drawings, collages, photographs and ephemera, all suitably warped and trippy, beautiful and bizarre, collected, found or created by Hewicker and Hengst. And all housed in a super swank, full color 136 page hard cover book. Each one signed by the artists!! Absolutely recommended. And a limited run of only 1000 copies, so buy now or be prepared to sell a kidney or take out a second mortgage on your house to pick one up on eBay later...

CLIMAX GOLDEN TWINS 5 Cents A Piece (Abduction) lp 21.00
Maybe it's a good thing that the Climax Golden Twins don't put out a lot of records. That way, when one of their damaged recordings of post-everything psychedelia marred with hallucinatory sound collages does come our way, we can savor it all the more. Along comes 5 Cents A Piece, and we couldn't be happier. Yup, this is a fucking great record. Is it their best? Maybe. But it most certainly ranks as one of the musical triumphs of 2007.
In many ways, the Twins have operated on parallel tracks to their geographical / spiritual brothers from the Sun City Girls, with the Twins mining more from the underbelly of Americana than the esoterica of South-East Asian pop. But Messrs Taylor and Millis are not without an appetite for such eccentricities, as Robert Millis continues to be an occasional contributor to the always exceptional Sublime Frequencies series. That said, the Twins are no longer a duo as they had been for so many years; here, on 5 Cents A Piece they've added the talents of percussionist Dave Abramson to their lineup. His quick turns from cosmo-rock hammerfist to free-jazz tumble down the stairs to plinkering vaudevillian backbeats make for the perfect foil to the twin guitar splatter of Taylor and Millis. As much as Abramson's presence is noticed on 5 Cents A Piece, the auditory dementia of Taylor and Millis steers the album (if it can be called 'steering,' that is). At times, they throw themselves

MOORE, DUDLEY Bedazzled (OST) (Acme) cd 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of our all time favorite movies featuring arguably our most favorite song of all time! Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, one of Britain's best comedy duos were at their creative peak in this 1967 Stanley Donen classic in which Moore, apart from writing and starring, also provided the jazzy piano-led score. In the film, Moore's character meets the devil (awesomely played by Peter Cook) after a failed suicide attempt and sells him his soul for seven wishes. Infatuated with a co-worker, Moore uses his seven wishes to become more attractive. First as an intellectual, then as a rock star, then a wealthy industrialist. Each time outwitted by Cook who consistently one-ups Moore's attempts at charm. The best scene is the rock star segment, where Moore, after delivering his best Cliff Richards imitation in a music showcase ("Love Me"), is shocked to be followed by Drimble Wedge and The Vegetations, led by Peter Cook in full Velvets/Warhol mode with an army of modly-dressed dancing girls performing the title track, "Bedazzled", an arch call and response that is the pinnacle of psychedelic ambivalence ("You knock me out / I don't want you"). Incredible! The rest of the score is jaunty and jazzy, reminiscent of Vince Guaraldi and the Michael Garrick Trio. This reissue contains both Mono and Stereo versions.
MPEG Stream: "Moon Time"
MPEG Stream: "Love Me"
MPEG Stream: "Bedazzled"

ZOMBIES, THE Odessey & Oracle: 30th Anniversary Edition (Big Beat) cd 22.00
Sometimes you just have to pause from the hustle, bustle and general assault of the modern world to refresh your appreciation of something truly exceptional and timeless. So, that said... Everyone! Stop what you're doing this very second, and get your own copy of this album! If you already have it, then get another copy for your best friend! If they already have it, then... well, you get the picture! Its presence is absolutely essential in any/every self respecting music lover's library.
This is not a new release, in fact it is the 30th anniversary edition which came out back in 1998... which means this classic album is pushing forty, and it still delights like a pup! Simply stated, Odessey & Oracle is a rare beautifully plumed pop bird that soars above the crowd. So many of our favorite more recent pop gods were clearly enormously influenced by this band and this album in particular -- Pernice Brothers, Zumpano, The New Pornographers, The Posies, The Shins... the list goes on and on and on. And we could go on and on but why waste breath and time? Highest recommendation, 'nuff said!
This edition also includes a bunch of bonus tracks for the completist (primarily alternate and mono versions). Heck, if you wanna go totally whole hog... may we recommend the Zombie Heaven 4 cd box set? At least two aQuarians own one, and several others are definitely considering it...
MPEG Stream: "Care Of Cell 44"
MPEG Stream: "Changes"
MPEG Stream: "This Will Be Our Year"

GENESIS s/t (Guerssen) cd 23.00
No, not that Genesis. In fact several bands around the world in the '70s were named Genesis. This is the Colombian group who may just be running away with the title of Our Favorite Genesis! Founded by Humberto Monroy who was in another AQ favorite South American psych outfit, The Speakers, this is some breezy and beautiful psych-folk-rock with tasteful use of flutes, acoustic, electric and 12-string guitar and warm melt-in-your-ears vocals. With a pep and playfulness that hints at Tropicalia but with a much more laid back and sensual disposition, falling somewhere between the colorful psych-pop of Madrid's Agamenon and the dreamy acid-folk of Chile's Congregacion. For those that speak Spanish, the lyrics are very smart and impassioned, praising the farmers, the environment, natives and the lower classes. This was their 2nd album, originally released in 1974 and so very well standing the test of time. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Suenas, Quieres, Dices"
MPEG Stream: "Reconfortame"
MPEG Stream: "Manos De Hombre"

MAMMATUS The Coast Explodes (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98
NOW ON VINYL! Totally like it belongs. Here's our long-ass review of this great album:
Sometimes music is more than just pure sound, or the exposing of deep personal secrets and emotions, or even an homage to one's inspirations. Sometimes it's meant to tell a story... a vessel for a message. Then again sometimes music can combine all of those facets, AND MORE! Such is the case with Mammatus' sophomore effort, The Coast Explodes. On a purely sonic level, this record is absolutely amazing (we'll get there), but it's amazing on a conceptual level as well.
This record is the second installment of Mammatus' gradually unfolding tale of the battle between Light and Darkness. Goodly Light vs. the Evil of Man. Communion with Nature and the casting out of the corrosive agents of Man's doooom. The inhalation of divinity's smoke/breath... exhaling peace from every pore of the translucent flesh. Harnessing the power of Nature in your throat and fingers... swinging the sword to the heart of darkness. Bludgeon the dragon's foul heart! Mammatus is here to bare the Blade of Truth against nature's corrupters, and to ROCK against the cowardly haters of peace! Ahem, their "blade" is of course music, so lets talk about that for a sec.
This epic journey continues right where their self-titled debut left off. The first track "Dragon of the Deep part 3 (Excellent Swordfight)" is a continuation of the Dragon saga (the first album ending with "Dragon of the Deep" parts 1 and 2), and right off the bat you can hear the development. Holy shit! PROG!!!!! Where the last record was more of a trippy blend of hypno-kraut Can-ishness with the slaying heavitude of stoner lordz Sleep, this record somehow maintains that comparison and adds an incredible dose of YES! and YES!!! it rules! So the album starts with a creeping guitar drone, almost as if directly continued from part 2, before bursting in with a driving and hypnotic groove, a la Circle or the above mentioned Can, with little time change shreds at the end of each phrase (kinda proggy) and then suddenly the tempo breaks and we hear a killer stoptime, full-band SHRED! bringing us into another mesmeric groove with beautiful guitar leads soaring perfectly over the everchanging trance. The track builds and builds, ever climbing. Just when you think it can't get more ripping, another amazing riff is unearthed, the band playing so tightly we suspect they might share one cosmically unified mind. In tune with the alignment of the planets and such. All of this is building to something, you can feel it, when suddenly the song crescendos into a freeform cacophonous skronk! Cowbells, drums, and about 500 simultaneous guitar solos! FREAKOUT!
What emerges from this undulating swell is just about all a worshipper of heavy could hope for, an earth shaking riff with the first vocals of the record. Singer Nicky Emmert enters with his first cry to battle, calling us to raise the sword! The vocals are as trippy as ever, beautiful, as if sung from the back of a deep cave. This brutally sick aural climax ends almost as soon as it begins only to plunge axe first into the second track, "Pierce the Darkness", Starting with a gong crash and woodflute solo (!) then charging directly into another trance like groove. The vocals this time start right away, floating and glistening over the motorik pulse, again seemingly a call to arms. The track eventually develops into a blasting free time psychedelic guitar jam which then decompresses into some serious blissy drone.
And what happens next is one of the highlights of the record. The sound of synthesizers enter the drone and build up to a spine tingling harmonized guitar/Moog solo! You know the euphoric feeling you get when listening to shimmery synth part in Yes's "Close to the Edge", and the triumph in the pit of your stomach when Wakeman's church organ finally enters ("I get up, I get down")? A similar energy is in operation here. After this shining moment the song takes another turn towards the HEAVY and some kick ass riffage again fills the speakers. After a bit of strange synth tweakage, the mood of the album changes. Track 3, "The Changing Wind" is an all out drum circle folk jam! Acoustic guitars, propulsive hand drum rhythms, and another lilting melody from Nicky, praising mother nature and her unknowable ways. Hypnotic and blissful for sure. Suddenly the sounds of waves crashing and sea lions barking brings us seamlessly into the final movement, and title track, "The Coast Explodes". Starting with one of the catchiest "stoner" riffs we've heard for a long time. In fact this riff gets stuck in our heads for days at a time. So groovey and catchy, it makes the trees dance. Ahem. This song is a slow builder, rising subtly, and then dipping once more till it finally becomes an almost whisper. The vocals again invoking mother earth, sung in a beautiful falsetto. After this quiet respite the amps again get cranked to 11 and we are blessed with another monolithic slab of heaviness! So satisfying and perfect, it almost makes ya weep. At the end of this journey the chanting of some mythic and mysterious wizard is heard, as if belted out from the peak of a snow covered mountain, beckoning to the children of nature to rise up and join the crusade! The song then gently winds down and the whooshing sounds of the ocean again take over the mix, leaving the listener in a state of utter peace. SHIT! This album really takes you on some sort of transcendental adventure... We got lost there for a minute.
At the most basic level, Mammatus make some of the most inventive and inspired heavy music of our day. Combining diverse inspirations and molding them into something that comes across as totally genuine and pure, and of course TOTALLY RULING! Crushing and mesmerizing and beautiful all at the same time. The story behind the music makes the album all the more powerful. The listening experience of this record is akin to reading a super epic novel, one where the payoffs happen in all the right places. So duh, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!! For fans of Sleep, Yes, UFOmammut, Can, Circle, King Crimson, and all things heavy and trippy and shredding and rocking and ruling!
MPEG Stream: "Dragon Of The Deep Part Three (Excellent Sword Fight)"
MPEG Stream: "The Coast Explodes"

RACCOO-OO-OON Mythos Folkways Vol. III (Woodsist) lp 14.98
More blissed out full moon music from these multi syllabic musical mammals (say that ten times fast!). Four tracks spread out over 2 sides... And if the last Mythos Folkways lp is any indicator, blink and you'll miss this...
The first half begins all fluttery and folky, dreamy melodies drifting amidst swirls of percussive thrum, all tangled up into some sort of fracture folk, peppered with random free jazz skitter, garbled vocals and dense clouds of FX. It sounds like a band -about- to stumble into action, -about- to fully rock out, tense and dense and abstract and mysterious, for most of the side, but then they DO rock out and it's awesome. A blown out mathy psych jam, drums and cymbals everywhere, guitars grinding and growling and swooping and soaring, all wrapped in thick swaths of reverb and delay and distortion, eventually petering out and finishing off with some soft blissy drift. 
The flip side follows a similar sonic pattern, beginning with more abstract skree and clatter, a haphazard improvised ramble, which gradually builds into a tripped out alien krautrock jam, still abstract, but with little propulsive lurches, draped with bizarre falsetto vocals, haunting harmonies, all unwinding into a slithery garage-y groove. 
Cool hand screened covers, photocopied insert, and of course way limited...

CHESNUTT, VIC North Star Deserter (Constellation) lp 21.00
Vic Chesnutt's collaboration with a number of folks on the Constellation Records roster (aka A Silver Mt. Zion and a list of friends which includes Fugazi's Guy Picciotto and members of Hangedup, Frankie Sparo, Esmerine, The Quavers, and yes, Godspeed You Black Emperor) sounds *exactly* as you would expect... bleak and immensely moving. They keep such perfectly dour company that we wonder what took them so long to make it happen! Flooded with anguish and raw nerves, North Star Deserter is an intense frayed journey, but not without a moment or two of glimmering hope and twisted folly. Chesnutt's lyrics have always been an affecting bruised blend of the absolutely direct and the utterly cryptic. We know they're a perfect match for his own creeping, barren plain plucked guitar accompaniment, but wow, when joined by these additional like-minded vocalists and musicians the results are often times crushingly beautiful. Placed before a landscape of ominous cello drones, electrified string shards, and near-military marching drums, his weathered rasp of a voice resonates anew. The amazing breadth of this album is captured in two songs late in the album -- the thunderous roar of "Debriefing" and the hushed haunted loner "Marathon". Damn. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Debriefing"
MPEG Stream: "Marathon"

SARIN SMOKE s/t (Wholly Other) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
First release from this brand new duo, made up of one part Tom Carter (Charalambides) and one part Pete Swanson (Yellow Swans), gorgeously presented as a one sided clear vinyl lp, the other side featuring silkscreened artwork from Grouper's Liz Harris, housed in a thick clear vinyl sleeve. 
Both these guys bring out the best in the other, dense tangles of chiming metallic shimmer, drifting harmonics, whirring amp buzz, keening feedback, bits of scrape and shuffle, dotted with tiny squalls of burnt psych guitars, swooshing ambience and lots of drifting space. 
The sound is murky, but vibrant, notes and chords spread into a thick slow shifting fog of fragmented melodies and wavery bits of guitar grind. On the surface, this is raw and wild, untamed and even mildly abrasive, but these guys manage to deftly smooth it all out into something downright pretty, without losing any of the raw fire or visceral immediacy. 
As with most things like this, it's also super limited...

HELDON Live 1975-1979 Live Electronik Guerilla Well And Alive In France (Captain Trip) 3cd 44.00
This triple cd set in a fat ol' jewel case combines two previous Captain Trip releases of rare live Heldon material that we'd previously reviewed -- those were the Live Elektronik Guerilla: Paris 1975-1976 cd and Well and Alive: Live in Nancy 1979 2cd. It's a lot cheaper to get 'em both together in this 3cd package, though you're missing out on the miniature lp style sleeves.
Here's a conglom of our reviews of the two:
The disc that collects the 1975-'76 live recordings consists (in contrast to the rhythmically precise spaciness of the later '79 material) of looser, stoned, rockin' jamming. Indeed. Of course, still pretty darn spacey. This wasn't recorded by electronic robots by any means. Sounds more like mellow Hendrix-digging freaks doing drugs and getting off on droning acid rock guitar. We can't exactly argue with that, though. Be warned that sound-quality-wise, this is fairly hissy and lo-fi. Not a pristine studio recording, that's for sure -- but it really works with all the fuzz, effects, and feedback, akin to a Rallizes boot. Still, not the place to start if you're utterly new to Heldon.
Then on to the two discs from '79...what a difference a few years made! The '79 stuff kicks so much precision ass. Awesome! On the first disc, the band effortlessly locks into hypnotic rhythmically complex cycles driven by Francois Auger's incredibly tight yet dexterous drumming. Some stretches are austere, atmospheric and almost soothing, while others possess a mysterious dark force that'll thrust you back in you seat, and still others' synthed-out spaciness might have you tripping your pants off. Mind-melting. The second disc is less kinetic, more along the lines of frontman Richard Pinhas' later solo guitar and synthesizer drone explorations (think: more Tangerine Dream, less King Crimson).
Please note: be forewarned that the recording quality is less than stellar (somewhat murky at times), but also keep in mind that these are previously unreleased tracks. Personally we feel the pros outweigh the cons in this situation, but of course you'll have to decide for yourself.
If you're new to this group, allow us to simply proclaim: late '70s Heldon = psych-prog / electronic rock at its finest. Prior to entering the live Heldon arena, we'd highly recommended checking out 1977's Interface and 1979's Stand-By. Fierce, menacing and propulsive.
MPEG Stream: "1984 Apres Cosmic C'Etait"
MPEG Stream: "Track Of Cocaine"
MPEG Stream: "Heldon UFO War Machine"
MPEG Stream: "Red Line Target"

AQUARIAN, ISIS WITH ELECTRICITY AQUARIAN The Source: The Untold Story Of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 And The Source Family (Process) book + cd 24.95
An amazing compendium of facts (and some fantasy?) pertaining to the surprisingly under-documented '70s self proclaimed Aquarian tribe The Source Family and their freeflowing psychedelic jam branch Ya Ho Wha 13!
For years our awareness of this group was limited to the obscure recordings of the band (including the extraordinary giant box set God And Hair), and a smattering of vague and sensationalist 'cult' rumors. The members' secret oath and a marked absence of controversy, calamity and crime no doubt kept this group underwraps and off the pages of tabloids. Our fascination grew tenfold a couple of years ago thanks to the compelling dvd documentary "Yahowha 13: Re-visiting Father And The Source Family". It recounts the history of the movement founded by Father Yod (aka Ya Ho Wha, born Jim Baker) through interviews with original members and archive footage. Definitely recommended viewing. Fortunately for those whose interest has been piqued, we now also have this book. Isis Aquarian was one of Father Yod's fourteen 'women' or 'spiritual wives' and the group's appointed record keeper. Hence she was integral to the inner workings of the Source Family and has compiled an enormous archive of photographs, writings, and memorabilia. Her wealth of and deep connection to this knowledge makes for an immensely intimate and informative document. Lively and entertaining too, among other things, the book details living a utopic life in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills and a subsequent move to Hawaii, observing Father's integrated teachings of ancient philosophies and religions (strongly influenced by Yogi Bhajan and the writings of Manly P. Hall), practicing daily pre-dawn meditations and rituals, and eating a strictly vegetarian diet. In fact, the Source Family ran one of the very first and most wildly successful vegetarian / raw health food restaurants which was located on the Sunset Strip (recipes and photos from the restaurant are included!). Nowadays yoga has been mainstreamed into another physical fitness trend -- a glorified stretching if you will, the ancient spiritual teachings lost to the masses -- and terms like 'guru' and 'visionary' are bandied about with abandon, but back in the late '60s and early '70s there was a West Coast consciousness explosion goin' on, and these people lived it!
The bonus cd is a daunting experience unto itself featuring not only a mindblowing Ya Ho Wha 13 live performance at Beverly Hills High in 1974 (obviously not the most pristine recording quality nor anything resembling trained musicianship (we suspect that if any members had any formal schooling, it was tossed to the wind) -- this is a sensory overloaded moment captured in time of opened channels and the cathartic power of music), but also fascinating radio interview segments, enlightening Father Yod lecture snippets, and Source Family chants! Anyone curious about Ya Ho Wha is gonna want the book, we'd think, and this bonus disc pretty much makes it essential, with its several tracks of unreleased Ya Ho Wha jams, freaky stuff to be found nowhere on the infamous God & Hair 13 cd box set...
MPEG Stream: "Beer Recordings (Ya Ho Wha 13)"
MPEG Stream: "KPPC Interview"

WOODEN SHJIPS Summer Of Love (aka Sol '07) (A Sick Thirst / Holy Mountain) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A single song teaser to these local boys' long awaited full length, coming soon on Holy Mountain. And if you've been digging their past releases (a 7" and a 10") then this brand new single will definitely hit the spot. More of what we love, a relentless, neverending blown out fuzzy groove, all warm whirring organ, fuzz guitar, and throbbing bass, the drums a super solid motorik framework, the vocals sort of sung / spoken, reverb and delay EVERYWHERE, the strangest addition is the haunting horns on the A side, that drift and moan ghost like over the fuzz jam below. One song spread out over two sides, by side 2, the band have locked it in and sound like they are never gonna stop. A looped cyclical minimal fuzzrock jam that sounds almost like some crazy crossbreeding of the Doors and Spacemen 3, which should appeal to Circle, Salvatore and Magyar Posse fans as much as all the druggy psychrock dronesters out there.
Red vinyl, in plain plastic sleeves (like past releases) and all proceeds go to Food Not Bombs...

WOODEN SHJIPS Summer Of Love (aka Sol '07) (A Sick Thirst / Holy Mountain) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The red vinyl version of this single song psych drone blow out from these SF boys is sold out and gone, but now they've repressed the thing on blue vinyl, yay! It's the same in every way, just a different color. If you've already ordered the red version, you're gonna get the blue version, cuz it's pretty much the same, minus the color thing, after all these are for listen' to, NOT collectin'...right?
A single song teaser to these local boys' long awaited full length, out now on Holy Mountain. And if you've been digging their past releases (a 7" and a 10") then this brand new single will definitely hit the spot. More of what we love, a relentless, neverending blown out fuzzy groove, all warm whirring organ, fuzz guitar, and throbbing bass, the drums a super solid motorik framework, the vocals sort of sung / spoken, reverb and delay EVERYWHERE, the strangest addition is the haunting horns on the A side, that drift and moan ghost like over the fuzz jam below. One song spread out over two sides, by side 2, the band have locked it in and sound like they are never gonna stop. A looped cyclical minimal fuzzrock jam that sounds almost like some crazy crossbreeding of the Doors and Spacemen 3, which should appeal to Circle, Salvatore and Magyar Posse fans as much as all the druggy psychrock dronesters out there.
BLUE vinyl now, in plain plastic sleeves (like past releases).

WOODEN SHJIPS s/t (Holy Mountain) 2cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Whoo-hoo! We thought these bonus disc havin' Wooden Shjips cds were all gone, gone, gone... but there was a serendipitous "warehouse find" and now we have a few more for anyone who missed out! Act fast, though!
From right here in our sunny San Francisco neighborhood, comes an eagerly anticipated new release that clinches its Record Of The Week status not only by comprising a fantastic debut full-length album of hypnotically searing garagey psych jams, but also by including a BONUS disc (limited edition, first 2000 copies only) in a cardboard sleeve shrinkwrapped to the jewel case, featuring all the tracks from the now-out-of-print 10" and 7" vinyl records released last year that first made us -- and so many others, foremost among 'em Tom Lax of Siltbreeze/Siltblog fame, and Byron Coley at The Wire -- into drooling Wooden Shjips fanatics.
And yes, if you haven't run into them before, it's Wooden ShJips with a J, that's not a typo, just a way we guess of making their moniker more psychedelic (and easier to Google, too). They've garnered a lot of deserved attention from folks into minimalistic psych throb, that's for sure, and further whetted everyone's appetites for this album with the "Summer Of Love" 7" single that came out a couple weeks ago and has already sold out (2nd pressing in the works, be patient).
So, this new self-titled album follows on from that single with five more fuzzy, super groovy, guitar/organ/bass/drums slowburners, somewhere between Comets On Fire and Circle, with a definite Doors-y vibe as well, in part due to the keys which give this an almost loungey relaxed feel at times, and in part due to the occasional laidback Morrison-ish vocals of guitarist Erik Johnson. Erik also makes us think of Neil Young as well, as his more "out" guitar solos -- some if 'em SCORCHING -- could be off of Young's feedback-filled Arc. Or a Les Rallizes Denudes record! Track four, "Blue Sky Bends", having the best Rallizes-ish drone-factor of the disc. Overall, we'd say that these tracks, as a development from their earlier material, exhibits more and more of a throwback to the ballroom Frisco style of the sixties... now they just need to get a light show happening! But something tells us they'd be all about stark bright white strobes and dark black shadows only, maybe some b&w op art spirals, if their monochrome packaging aesthetic and the general heavy lidded mood of the music is anything to go by...
And then there's the limited bonus disc. Don't dawdle, you don't want to miss it (particularly if you didn't score the original vinyl releases). It's got the three tracks from their debut Shrinking Moon For You 10" (the one that they didn't even tell us about even though we see these guys on the street every day, we had to find out about it from Mr. Lax's blog!) and both cuts from their Dance, California / Clouds Over Earthquake 7". We'll try to summarize what we said about these songs before. The music from the 10" starts off with the title cut, a fuzzy garagey stomp, a groove that locks in and plows forward relentlessly. We began to feel like we were listening to some sort of garage rock Steve Reich. Guitars just sort of buzzing along, blooping new wave bass right underneath, simple solid drumming. But then in swoops some super feedback guitar that sounds like a demented horn section, and before you can examine it more closely it disappears, and we're back to the groove. That happens a few more times before the vocals kick in, sort of sing songy, but SO drenched in delay that the words get all jumbled up and are sort of jettisoned into outer space. There is also a subtle wash of fuzzy keyboards giving the whole thing a sort of Loop vibe. the second track is quite similar except the vocals are a bit more distinct, sort of laidback and mumbly. After a few listens, it became clear that there is some sort of minimal thing going on, but it's more like some lost Velvet Underground track arranged for Reich and Riley. Droney and drifty and druggy and totally mesmerizing. The third track bucks the trend and instead veers off into some tripped out ambience, with drifting motes of guitar fuckery, random sounds and noises, and some cool creepy backwards vocals. Sort of like an indie hipster freenoise "Revolution #9." Cool.
The two tracks from the 7" are also quite sonically similar to the 10" cuts. First up, surprise surprise a buzzy lo-fi garage groove, beneath bizarre super distorted insectoid guitar leads, buzzing WAY up in the mix and sounding almost like some primitive malfunctioning synth. But the whole time, beneath the alien buzz, the groove just hums along, like some extra baked Velvet Underground outtake. "Clouds Over Earthquake" is way more laid back, some blown out sun baked riffage, a super lazy groove, like Loop played at 16rpm, decorated with warm hornlike melodies that eventually stretch out into some serious outerspace psych rock explorations. The vocals we loved so much on the 10" resurface here too, laconic, drawled sung/spoken and super affected, very Lou Reed sounding albeit buried way down in the mix and absolutely drenched in thick reverb and fuzzy delay. Awesome!
So those tracks are all here (not in that order though) along with a radio edit of "Dance, California" for completists. These are the songs that had us jonesing for a full length, which you've just read about up above, and now all this music is together in one crucial package, while they last.
FYI, a vinyl version of the full-length is to follow in a month or two we're told... and maybe Holy Mountain can come up with some better cover art for it too? We were a bit underwhelmed by the blurry black & white photo of the band sitting around on the steps to someone's house, but then again their vinyl releases were in clear sleeves with no art to speak of, so I guess elaborate packaging ain't their thing. But motorik minimalist krautrocky pulsations, mellow Doorsy '60s groove, and out and out geetar psych-splosions are, so we can't complain!!
MPEG Stream: "We Ask You To Ride"
MPEG Stream: "Blue Sky Bends"
MPEG Stream: "Clouds Over Earthquake"

EROC Eroc 2 (Zwei) (Revisited) cd 17.98
The Brain reissue series on Revisited continues to bring us the crazy krautrock goodies! Of course, having already raved about the first solo album from the drummer for theatrical prog loonies Grobschnitt, Joachim Ehrig aka Eroc, we were exceedingly curious about this second one. Ja, Eroc 1 was a HUGE hit 'round here. After all, we called it a "krautrock masterpiece" and compared it to all sorts of favorite things, from Harmonia to Fridge! So, what's the deal with Eroc 2, originally released a year later in 1976? The cut-up confusionality that was a deliberate, delightful part of Eroc's debut is continued here, but taken to further extremes, which makes this more of a DIFFICULT spin at times. It's more bizarre, with the curiosity factor up and the overall listenability factor slightly down.
Like Eroc 1, this has its share of moody, melodic, synth-laden instrumental bliss-outs for the Cluster fans in the house. Eroc 2's electronics also venture into carefree, Bavarian dances for Liederhosen wearing' hippies. And then there's a bunch of paranoiac freakouts to give Faust a run for their money! In a word: Quirky. Heck, downright weird. But it's krautrock, that's what we came for. The mood of the music displays good and bad vibes both -- and a sense of humor, we're pretty sure (though our lack of German makes it tough know just what's a joke). There's a healthy amount of talking (auf Deutsch) all over this album. Singing too. Though there's lots of purely instrumental parts as well. But with 30 tracks (13 of 'em bonus cuts!), some of them dense epics, many others brief under-a-minute interludes of insanity, the puzzling and the pleasing are in rough proportion. Amidst Eroc's wonderful spacey, synthy, psychedelic music, you'll hear all sorts of stuff. Children's voices. Babbling outbursts. Electronic squiggles -- and the sound of maniacal sawing? Oh and orgasmic (male) moaning... Perhaps it's all some sort of concept album and all this makes sense, tied together in some strange narrative. Or, they're all nonsense non sequiturs, anyway? We don't know, but are amused/intrigued/entertained. Definitely, get Eroc 1 first, but check this out too. If you like your krautrock to be uber krauty, full of surreal surprises and jokes you won't get, you'll probably dig this. Like Eroc 1, this consists of stuff recorded in Eroc's home studio, growing out of tapes intended to augment Grobschnitt's live shows. Both records turned into personal LP-length visions well worthy to stand alone.
Can't wait to hear Eroc 3, which is supposedly also been reissued or will be soon...
MPEG Stream: "Nebelwelt"
MPEG Stream: "Geleert Worte"
MPEG Stream: "Sonnenfluch"
MPEG Stream: "Morley's Orgasm"

PUMICE Pebbles (Soft Abuse) cd 14.98
From jaunty opener "Eye Bath" onward, this album is one that surprises and delights and offers so much interesting DIY recorded avant-drone *texture* along with its actually quite catchy indie-pop song-iness! We always knew we liked the music of New Zealander Stephan Neville, aka one-man-band Pumice (also a member of The Futurians), he's definitely been in there amongst all the cool, home-taped dronological sounds appearing on obscure cds, cd-rs, cassettes, lathe-cut vinyl and so forth from his entrancing island home that we've been geeking out about over the years. But all the releases tend to overwhelm. Not just Pumice's, but Birchville Cat Motel and Omit and Peter Wright and Antony Milton all the rest. We can't always devote our full attention. And actually, Pumice's previous album, Yeahnahvienna, released a year or so ago on Soft Abuse was a bit ho-hum we thought, we didn't even ever get around to reviewing it. A lot of it was too stripped down and acoustic, revealing too much of the vocals which aren't really Mr. Neville's strong suit. But we're glad we didn't miss this new album! It's different, dense, infectiously fuzzed, and really really good (one of those albums that gets all the AQers coming up to the counter to see what's playing when it's on). Actually our interest in Pumice was rekindled by the recent underground NZ comp on Xeric, Need For A Crossing. Neville, along with Pseudoarcana's Antony Milton, curated it, and it featured several cuts by Pumice and other projects of his, which were quite striking. So suddenly were were like, hmm, Pumice, hey let's be sure to check out this new disc Pebbles. And lo and behold, it's a winner.
Like we said, Pumice makes lo-fi indie rock, the Dead C and the Velvet U are both likely influences, also all the rich history of NZ indie awesomeness from labels like Xpressway and Flying Nun, artists like The Clean, Tall Dwarfs, and Alastair Galbraith. The music here is damaged, reverbed, distorted, as much about sound as song. Regarding Pebbles, Pumice claims Moondog and Simply Saucer as inspirations -- while we might not have thought of those disparate outsider references, they're not so outlandish when we think about it. And although Neville has a reputation for gloominess, the sheer pop umph buried beneath the lo-fi grit and noise of these tracks can't be denied, and tends to balance the depressive effects of the doleful droniness also much in evidence. Yeah, there's moments of rollickin' destroyed rock as well as an experimental folkiness that Richard Youngs fans will dig... and again if you like ye olde Xpressway style NZ indie stuff this is gonna be a blast. Another reminder for us here at AQ that we need to make a New Zealand section in the store again, like we used to back in the day!
MPEG Stream: "Eye Bath"
MPEG Stream: "Stop Over"
MPEG Stream: "Greenock"

RST Other Machines (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 3cd-r 34.00
The welcome return of New Zealand minimal drone guitar wrangler Andrew Moon, the man who is RST. We recently managed to get a handful of his amazing Corpus Hermeticum release Warm Planes (sorry, all gone now) direct from the man himself, after years of being out of print, and it reminded us how much we loved and missed his dark abstract guitarscapes.
And what do you know, hot on the heels of that reminder, BAM. A new record. And not just a new record, a new TRIPLE cd-r, which if anything, is essential for the sorts of sounds Moon creates, his expansive worlds of glacial guitar need all the space they can get, the beauty lies in the sounds of the journey, the sound of the guitar unfurling its sonic mysteries. We would have been just as happy with 6 discs, or 12, but we'll make do with three.
Other Machines is three discs, three tracks, each 45 minutes plus, titled "Worlds", "Ages" and "Earth", titles that certainly sound epic and timeless, but which perfectly suit the sounds within. Each track is one looooooong piece. Ultra minimal. A single guitar, allowed to slowly uncoil, to sprawl like some planet swallowing black cloud, the guitar loosing a single note, or maybe a single chord, either way, that sound drifts from the speaker like it could go on forever. And it feels like it does. Or it should. But this is no static drone, no, the guitar is always changing, pulsing and throbbing, shifting and shimmering, floating from downtuned thrum to metallic hum to drifting high end whir and back again. Always muted and minimal, not heavy so much as intense and dense. A strangely cyclic and mesmerizing expanse of never ending guitar buzz.
We could listen to this stuff nonstop (and some of us do!). You like SUNNO))), Fear Falls Burning, Phill Niblock, Vulture Club, you definitely need to hear RST. Epic, intense, super minimal, strangely melodic, and so totally gorgeous....
MPEG Stream: "Worlds"
MPEG Stream: "Ages"

EXPO '70 Animism (Kill Shamen) cd 12.98
It's amazing how quickly Expo '70 went from being a group we had never heard of, whose cd-r we got randomly sent to us in the mail, to a dronerock juggernaut, releasing disc after disc of amazing ambient kraut-flecked drift, what is beginning to seem remarkably like a monthly installment of outerspace sonic exploration. But heck, we'd much rather get a new 'issue' of far out Expo '70 dronebliss every month than say, Star Magazine (well, actually, okay, maybe Star was a bad example, but definitely more than say Spin or Rolling Stone or pretty much any other monthly installment sort of thing, anyway...).
Animism just so happens to be Expo '70's first actual cd as well, the first release that's not a limited edition cd-r, which is one of the reasons we decided to make it record of the week. 'Cuz to be totally honest, every single one of the Expo '70 releases could have been, and heck, maybe should have been Records of the Week. Certainly if we based it on how much they get played in the store, and the reaction of the folks hearing it, and the fact that the cds have been impossible to keep in stock. But that's only one of the reasons. The other, is that Animism, in it's own subtly space-y and psychedelic way, is quite possibly the 'heaviest' Expo '70 release yet.
The record begins much in the same way as most of the others. A huge drifting rumbling soundscape. Spare and wide open. Across this warm expanse drift disembodied guitar squiggles, reverbed scrapes, bits of fragmented melodies, post rock snippets, tinkling percussive shimmer,
all drifting over soft swells of undulating low end. There are tons of FX, but it's not Acid Mothers style freakout, instead, these sonic aktions are muted and smeared into dreamy streaks. Never has a music sounded so much like what it must feel like to drift weightless through space. Cloaked in inky blackness, but with the sparkle of a million stars illuminating the seemingly endless emptiness. And so it goes on, each track, a slow lugubrious crawl through the galaxies, strange shapes drift by, colored lights, every bit of melody like some barely visible shooting star, soft billow clouds of FX enveloping you before dissipating and leaving you to once again drift wide-eyed into infinity.
Track three, though, is where things start to get a little scary. In come the guitars, and this time it's not the little glimmers and twinkles, these are thick sheets of crumbling rumbling distorted buzz. Relentlessly trudging beast like across the same barren soundscapes, but leaving a trail of blown speakers in its wake. The effects here are much more blown out, melodies slip and slither amidst the coruscating heaviness, sounding almost like someone transported SUNNO))) back to the seventies, where they ended up jamming with Klaus Schulze and Ash Ra Tempel. Granted the Expo '70 cd-r Center Of The Earth, was also pretty heavy, but on Animism, the heaviness seems to be more deftly integrated with the lovelier psych-drone-drift parts, an organic space kraut doom, as dark and dense as it is dreamy and effervescent. The record effortlessly drifts back and forth, from black drone to space-y drift, as if one couldn't possibly exist in this universe without the other.
There are some subtle sonic surprises too, like the way-up-in-the-mix, tripped out harmonized guitars on "Entering The Night On A Highway Of Astral Projection", the folky acoustic strum on "Missing Sun", and the swirling SUNNO)))-y murk of "Shape-Shifting Mountain Mover", sounding a bit like the Angelic Process with the treble turned all the way down and the bass all the way up! Blissy and muddy, an epic blown out glistening dirge, suffocated under layer after layer of FX drenched detritus.
If there was ever an ultimate soundtrack for blowing the hatch and floating free, doomed to a languorous eternity of drug fueled drift and buzzing rumbling psychedelic space rock torpor, this is most certainly it.
So recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Mahogany Lake"
MPEG Stream: "Eagle Talons"

EXPO '70 Mystical Amplification (Kill Shaman) cd-r 6.98
We LOVE Expo '70. They're playing in SF this week, two shows that will be over by the time you read this. And we might not even get to go, 'cause we're too busy writing reviews, like this one... oh the bitter irony. But even if we miss them live (which would be a shame) we're still in Expo '70 heaven 'cause they've brought us two brand new cd-rs!! (And, there's also a new release on a real cd too, Animism, which we'll list next time!) Wow. That's a lot of Expo '70, but their krautrock inspired instrumental ambience is an expansive sound, that can easily sprawl across the full length of a cd or cd-r in just a track or two...and therefore can also spread beyond, occupying several near-simultaneous releases with no diminishment to our enjoyment. We're happy to hear it go on, and on, and on eternally. Expo overload, no, too much is never enough.
So, this one... Mystical Amplification. With song titles making reference to such things as "Mountainous Caverns Of Black Arts" and Konstantin Raudive's research into EVP (a la the Ghost Orchid) it's easy enough to say things like this music is haunting and mystical... mystical amplification, heck that's the title. The Expo '70 guys are doing all our work for us. The four long tracks (we like how the songs are split into a "side 1" and "side 2" when listed on the sleeve, even though it's of course all on one side of this cd-r) are all one-take improvs, with mainman Justin Wright on electric guitar ("with plenty of effects", all right) and his current Expo associate McKinley Jones playing a Moog synth. Spaced out and psychedelic trips much more on the "kosmische" tip than their Kansas City origin would suggest... this is all buzzing droning bliss, no drums or vocals to reign it in to human scale, just cosmic textures galore, often soothing, and a little bit ominous. There are moments that vaguely sound like Robert Fripp or Eddie Hazel jamming with Klaus Schulze, both of 'em dreamy and drowsy from drugs. Or imagine a mellower SUNNO))), teamed up with Space Machine, perhaps, getting all yogic on us with some abstract instrumental, electronic om-chants. Sleepy, slowly swirling, hissing and purring over quietly churning low-end depths...
By the way, this is slightly (a buck) more expensive than all the other Expo '70 cd-rs 'cause of the attractive vinyl-style gatefold packaging.
MPEG Stream: "Climbing Mountainous Caverns Of Black Arts"
MPEG Stream: "Luminous Phenomena Reacting To The Precognition Of Psychokinesis"

AMON DUUL II Wolf City (Revisited) cd 16.98
Oh, it's great to see old favorites back in print! The ever-reliable Revisited label has bestowed upon us the awesome Wolf City from Amon Duul II. Released in 1972, this is ADII's fifth album and a return to form after two not-as-hot releases, Tanz Der Lemminge and Carnival in Babylon. Much more structured than our two other ADII faves, Yeti and Phallus Dei, Wolf City doesn't waste any time establishing itself but instead gets right down to business. Relying heavily on Renate Knaup's demonic / angelic vocal style through shifting moods from epically dynamic and prog-inflected rock to spacerock jams, and gentle instrumentals. Each track takes us on an unpredictable ride of kraut heaviness with macabre organ, 12 string guitar, screeching violin and all sorts of strange background noises of odd laughing, grunts and choir-like ahhhs. So kickass! A great place to start for the uninitiated, containing as it does several ADII classic trax, among them "Deutsch Nepal". This new reish comes in a nice digipack and includes three bonus tracks: "Kindermoderlied", "Mystic Blutsturz", and "Duulirium".
MPEG Stream: "Wolf City"
MPEG Stream: "Wie Der Wind Am Ende Einer Strasse"
MPEG Stream: "Duulirium"

MALACHI Holy Music (Fallout) cd 16.98
Awesome. A few years ago, some friends of ours -- the Jewelled Antler guys as a matter of fact -- had a once-in-a-lifetime record collector wet dream come true experience while on a day trip up north of San Francisco. They came across some sort of town dump / recycling center place where a whole bunch of old vinyl lps had been left free for the taking. Like, someone's entire record collection! Of course our friends expected to find the usual beat-up Bread, Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel albums, but took a look anyway, just in case... and soon realized they'd stumbled upon a small cache of extremely cool, rare records! Obscure psych rock and free jazz stuff. Terry Riley and Alice Coltrane and even some Yahowha 13 lps!! Lucky bastards. Among the treasures was an album on Verve by someone called Malachi. We got to hear it, were wowed, and ever since have been hoping to find a cd reissue... at last, here it is!!
Psychedelic New Age before either terms were widely known or even invented, Holy Music was recorded one late San Francisco evening in 1966 by proto hippie Malachi. While most people consider psychedelic music of this time to be from garage rock bands who used sitars, Holy Music was truly one of the first psychedelic recordings in the way we define that term nowadays, meaning long and druggy, hypnotic, droney and blissed out. These five pieces named Wednesday (the day in which he recorded them) are raga-tinged guitar cycles accompanied by Jews harp, tom toms and meditative chanting,