NADJA / TROUM Dominium Visurgis (Transgredient) cd 16.98
It's tough to argue with this pairing, Canadian doomdrone driftduo Nadja, and German dronescapers Troum! While each group definitely has their own distinctive sonic trajectory, there is definitely a lot of overlap, and you'll hear the two groups explore and expand these commonalities live in the studio, with three extended tracks of smoldering slow motion dronemusic that as one might imagine touches on barely there hushed ambience, lumbering glacial downtuned crush, and dreamy drifting shimmer.
The first track is a slow building subterranean creep, creaking, and groaning, the sounds muted and muddied, laced with bits of brilliant melody, and underpinned by constantly shifting layers of low end, but soon those buried melodies become the focal point, drifting to the fore, creating a haunting ghostlike expanse, ominous and cinematic, building to a somewhat harrowing climax before fading back to a dolorous drift.
The second track comes out swinging, big distorted drums, weirdly processed and dubbed out, stuttery and lumbering, the sounds around the rhythm growing ever more intense until they're matching the doomic plod with their heaving swells of blurred riffage, intense and epic, the muted heaviness augmented by mysterious minor key melodies swelling and swooping, the while track in constant flux, as if the drum machine was misfiring, and the band were following right along. Finally, the record finishes with a 25+ minute dronescape, that floats spectrally from warm blackened whirs, to tripped out psychedelic swirl, to hushed almost choral sounding shimmer, to majestic Godspeed like epic...
Packaged in a super beautiful gorgeously designed 8 panel matte finish digipak.
MPEG Stream: "Part 1 (excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "Part 2 (excerpt)"

NADLER, MARISSA Australian Tour cd 2006 (Diagnosis...Don't!) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not only do the Grey Daturas kick up a serious noiserock ruckus, they also run their own cd-r label, the mysteriously titled Diagnosis... Don't! There are three new releases, and we managed to get a handful of each.
This is a super limited tour only cd-r from the sweet voiced folk chanteuse Marissa Nadler and features not only a handful of live tracks featuring Nadler accompanied by organ, but also features unreleased 4 track recordings, as well as outtakes from her two brilliant full lengths, Ballads Of Living And Dying and The Saga Of Mayflower May.
All the tracks here are gorgeous (of course), especially the live tracks, soft tangled steel string guitar and Nadler's dreamy vocals, all hovering above a thick soft wash of droning organ. The four track recordings are lovely too, extra lo-fi but thus super intimate, tape hiss and recording crackle making Nadler's already timeless music sound even more from some lost and mysterious past.
Super limited, already out of print, we got a bunch but they won't last. Packaged in cool handmade sleeves, a little hole in the textured paper cover through which another layer of colored paper is visible. Includes a photocopied insert as well.
MPEG Stream: "Flora Barone, Queen Of The Vaudeville Throne"
MPEG Stream: "Box Of Cedar"
MPEG Stream: "Famous Song"

NAGOSKI, IAN Effortless Battle (Recorded) cd 12.98
The central element of Ian Nagoski's stately minimalist epic Effortless Battle is the 'wild wave' -- an instrument built by Nagoski's sometime collaborator Daniel Conrad. A system of tone generators that activates the resonant frequencies of an array of metal plates, the 'wild wave' is not as cacophonous as one might think. Rather Nagoski coaxes a pretty amazing set of timbral drones that slowly progress over the two extended pieces on Effortless Battle, music that comprised the soundtrack to a video by Catherine Pancake. Initially, these vibrating metal plates rumble ominously, resembling a electrical motor ceaselessly puttering in the distance; but Nagoski pushes the subtle overtones to steadily make their presence known and eventually replace the lower frequencies with glistening patterns of ever-shifting vibrato. In a lot of ways, Nagoski's use of the 'wild wave' creates an controllable activity that mimics the resonances found in the field recordings of Toshiya Tsunoda, which are often of giant metal plates vibrating from environmental sources.
MPEG Stream: "Ripped Steam Hinterland"

NAGOSKI, IAN Kerflooey (Ehse Records) lp 16.98

NAHVALR s/t (Enemies List) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Black metal by its very nature is fairly isolationist, especially considering that one of the mains strains consists of one man bands holed up in their bedroom / attic / shed / shack / cave, shunning humanity, sunlight, any sort of personal interaction, filtering all of that negative hateful energy into their grim black buzz. Even proper black metal groups, with more than one member, are often quite tribal, kvlt-like you might even say, performing sonic rituals in some dimly lit rehearsal space, channeling all manner of dark energy and creating music both bleak and brutal, evil and cathartic. That sound, created by a group, is still intensely personal and to a certain degree is created more out of a need to create, than a need for adoration or success.
But what if you turned that whole dynamic completely around. Removed all aspects of kvlt-ishness, of individualism, what if you created a black metal horde open to anyone, anyone with an amp and a guitar, or even just a computer, could record tracks, and contribute to what would eventually be woven into the first open source black metal record.
And here it is, masterminded by the guys behind gloomy bliss metal duo Have A Nice Life, Nahvalr is indeed, as far as we know the very first "open source" black metal band. Parts and songs were solicited online, contributed via email, handed off in person, donated anonymously, and eventually the HANL guys took all the various tracks and deftly assembled them into this buzzing black behemoth. And there is in fact, plenty of buzz obviously, layer upon layer of crushing downtuned insectoid buzz, but also loads of creepy ambience, weird warbly doomy bits, super lo-fi blasts of near white noise, insane grinding drum machine stutter, haunting black ambience, deep ominous rumbles and softly glowing shimmers, weird chanted vocals, industrial scrape and pound, blown out blissed out blackened drifts of crumbling soft noise, it's all very schizophrenic, but it doesn't at all sound like a hodge podge, it sounds more like a truly expansive sprawling chunk of demented abstract black metal weirdness. Which is precisely what it is. It just so happens that there's way more than 4 or 5 guys "in the band."
Some songs are so steeped in buzz it sounds like records by Ildjarn, Velvet Cacoon and Wrath Of The Weak all being played simultaneously, other tracks are loosed from their black metal moorings and sound like Skullflower, thick sheets of sound, spaced out noise drenched ur-drones, others are gloomy and darkly melodic, simple guitarlines unfurling over streaks of feedback, howled anguished vocals, and shimmering black drones, while still others are furious dense blasts of raw, noisy black metal, in the red, speaker destroying missives from hell, swirling and roiling and churning maniacally, but often splintering into creepy doomic crawls or fucked up abstract Abruptum like blackened soundscapes.
The record begins with a sample of conspiracy theorist and radio talk show host Art Bell, talking about digging a hole to hell in Siberia, before launching into blown out super saturated black metal blast, but the source material is so varied, that even the parts that sound like black metal on the surface, have so much going on just below, twisted warbly melodies, keening wails, disembodied voices, textures and layers, so immersive and expansive, headphones are like X-ray goggles, revealing a whole other world hidden to the casual listener. The record then swerves from warped slow motion ambient doom, to soundscapes of high end skree and garbled guitarnoise, to grinding blacknoize fury, to downright gorgeous blissy drones and all the other various sonic stops mentioned above. Not at all typical black metal, instead, more of a weird sound experiment, based around black metal tropes, and created with a core of buzzing blackness, but allowed to sprawl WELL past the usual boundaries that define the genre, creating something extraordinary yet still distinctly black in the process.
MPEG Stream: "Chorus Of Blasphemes"
MPEG Stream: "Bloodflood"
MPEG Stream: "Black Elk Speaks, Chokes, And Dies"

NAKAMURA, TOSHIMARU No-Input Mixing Board (Zero Gravity) cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This Japanese electronic music experimentalist's new solo disc (last AQ-L we reviewed his recent collaboration with Sachiko M) on the always-interesting and handsomely packaged Zero Gravity label. No-Input Mixing Board's title accurately describes Nakamura's musical technique: he connects one channel of his mixing board to another, with no outside sound source, and then mixes and manipulates the resulting feedback, making something out of "nothing". The results range from the difficult abstraction of piercing tones, sine waves, and digital flutter (and what sounds like a croaking frog!) to Oval-esque, quite pleasant moments and quiet drones. Pretty amazing what this guy can do with no input! Maybe not the future of music, but an impressive, even lovely, sound-essay on the infinite within the finite...or something like that.
RealAudio clip: "No-Input Mixing Board #1"
RealAudio clip: "No-Input Mixing Board #3"

NAKAMURA, TOSHIMARU No-Input Mixing Board 2 (A Bruit Secret) cd 15.98
Along with part-time collaborator Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura positions his work in the Japanese movement known as "onkyo" which translates as "the reverberation of sound." Nakamura emphasizes the texture of sound through the manipulation of a restricted palette. "No-Input Mixing Board 2" is just that, a reconstruction of the sounds that originate from the feedback tones of a mixers output looped back into its input. Obviously, Nakamura has taken this sound -- not always the ugly discharge of noise but can be a subtly flanging drone - and filtered it through his laptop (or a really big wall of effects, but it's probably a laptop), thus sort of cheating on the purity of source material. Well, if Aube is allowed to call his work single source material manipulations, I guess Nakamura can too. Anyway, "No-Input Mixing Board 2" is a dramatically diverse album of structural tweaking, at times situating near the off-kilter dronology of Stilluppsteypa with static charged cold atmsopheres, and others with more Chain Reactionist intentions of reduced techno. An interesting album.
RealAudio clip: "NIMB 15"
RealAudio clip: "NIMB 18"

NAKAMURA, TOSHIMARU Vehicle (Cubic Music) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
More glitch follies from Japanese electronic composer Toshimaru Nakamura and his now-famous No-Input Mixing Board! Utilizing "internal feedback" from looping the input and output of a mixing board through itself. More active that the near-silence of many other "onkyo" efforts from Nakamura and his contemporaries, each of the nine tracks here are full of abstract throbbing buzzing sounds. Some tumble along, approximating minimalist Chain Reaction style "techno" "beats". Others drone and hiss without any rhythmic structure at all. With these fluttering bleeps and crinkly soundscapes, Nakamura has crafted another compelling, sometimes even pretty, album for those interested in the strange, defective-sounding sounds of "empty" electronic equipment.
MPEG Stream: "nimb#37"
MPEG Stream: "nimb#33"

NAKAMURA, TOSHIMARU / SACHIKO M Do (Erstwhile) cd 15.98
The second release by this duo after a disc on Meme, presents true "sinecore" sounds for fans of barely-there abstract electronics. We're told that these Japanese artists are part of a new experimental electronica subgenre called "onkyo", which means "reverberation of sound" and refers to this sort of textural, improvised soundscaping. Sachiko M, who is a solo artist as well as frequent collaborator of Otomo Yoshihide and others in Ground Zero, ISO, Filament, etc., plays her memory-free "sampler with sine wave", while Toshimaru Nakamura (also a veteran of many collaborations, with the likes of Taku Sugimoto, Keith Rowe, and others) utilizes his "no-input mixing board". Basically, both are using "empty" electronic music devices to create a difficult, sparse, but strangely fascinating sound environment. It's like insects having a lonely conversation via shortwave, or transmissions (and interference) from an alien galaxy. Actually, its more like trying to listen in on something like that, but only getting the background sounds. This sort of high-end whine isn't for everyone, but those with 20' to 2000 series cds in their collections, those who are are partial to sine wave signals and static crackle, will enjoy.

NAKATANI, TATSUYA Nakatani Gong Orchestra (Taiga) lp 24.00
We had never heard of Japanese-American percussionist Nakatani before, but from what little we've learned since this record showed up, it seems like he's a seriously formidable drummer / percussionist, and while this record does seem to be a bit removed from his usual sound, it does also seem to chronicle his voracious appetite for both collaboration and experimentation. The Nakatani Gong Orchestra is not so much an orchestra, as it is in fact Nakatani driving around to different cities, his van crammed with gongs and bows and mallets and various other homemade implements, upon arriving in each city, he gets together with 5 or 6 new players, gives a brief workshop, and a little bit of practice, before this impromptu 'orchestra' then performs, most of these performances being recorded - a handful of those presented here.
As you might imagine, the sound of a gong orchestra is dark and rumbling, shimmery and resonant, the gongs bowed and scraped more than struck, the result lush billows of sound, long streaks of bowed metal woven into softly undulating shimmers, rife with constantly shifting overtones, dark metallic swirls, a deep resonant thrum, darkly prismatic, so much going on just below the surface, softly roiling, a whorl of blacks and greys, streaked with shards of high end skree, and shot through with slivers of deep dark ambience and soft cacophonies of blurred haze, the whole of side one is a dark drift, warm and whirling, mesmerizingly mellow. As is much of the B side, although there's a stretch where the gongs build to a serious crescendo, sounding almost symphonic, before once again settling into another slow sprawl of reverberant mesmer.
Gorgeous meditative stuff for sure. Fans of Organum, Phill Niblock and other masters of the drone and the overtone, will find themselves in buzzing metallic low end heaven. As if there was any other kind!
LIMITED TO 800 COPIES!! Housed in super fancy, heavy Stoughton style tip-on jackets, with subtly metallic printing, each one hand numbered!

NAKED CITY Complete Studio Recordings (Tzadik) 5cd+book 96.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Holy crap! That's pretty much the first thing we thought when we saw this gorgeously designed box set. And it seems pretty appropriate considering 'holy crap' is what we inevitably think everytime we hear these guys play. For those of you who are new to Naked City, imagine five middle aged guys, short hair, some bald or balding, wearing dockers, and button down shirts, sitting in chairs, reading sheet music, and playing some of the most extreme, fucked up and chaotic genre splicing jazz / noise / twentieth century / metal / cabaret / whatever you've ever heard. Mix in the Zorn factor, band leader John Zorn, perpetually clad in some metal t-shirt and yellow and black camoflauge pants, and the Eye factor, occasional guest vocalist Yamatsuka Eye of the Boredoms, then also figure in a ridiculous obsession with metal, Japanese bondage, and crime scene photography and you've got Naked City. One of the only bands who can skip from country to grindcore to bebop to twentieth century classical to western swing and back and make it seem like they aren't even trying. And more importantly, make it sound like those disparate sounds belong together. Supposedly, Naked City played two weeks straight, every night, for two hours, and never played the same song twice. These guys are insane. So now we come to this here new box, which collects all of the Naked City records, remastered of course, as well as a new track recorded specifically for this box, a 'vocal' version of the Naked City classic "Grand Guignol" featuring Mike Patton. The box includes the all time classic self titled record, Absinthe, Radio, Heretic, and Grand Guignol as well as a massive book. The box and the book are gorgeously designed, like the Tzadik label aesthetic, only taken to the extreme. A thick white box, housing 5 digipaks and a hardcover book, very twenties looking, with flowing decorative script, all in metallic foil of course, the cds are redesigned in a way that incorporates the new look, but still includes ALL of the images and liner notes from the original releases, while the book is full color, black and white, some pages printed on gauzy vellum, all the album artwork, band photos, sketches, musical notation, drawings, testemonials, the whole thing so -designed- it's almost impossible to read sometimes (remember Raygun magazine?), but that sort of just fits with Naked City and their aesthetic obfuscation and confusional musical misdirection. What an amazing fucking band! And with all the records collected in one place, it's hard to imagine any other band collecting such a flawless and timeless body of work. And even though most Naked City fans already have all these records, Allan and Andee (massive fans) can tell you that you're probably gonna want this anyway! And if you've never heard Naked City, well, why not go all out and right that very tragic wrong. You won't be sorry!
MPEG Stream: "You Will Be Shot"
MPEG Stream: "A Shot In The Dark"
MPEG Stream: "Reanimator"
MPEG Stream: "Igneous Ejaculation"
MPEG Stream: "Saigon Pickup"

NAMBLARD, MARC Chants Of Frozen Lakes (Kalerne Editions) cd 17.98
BACK IN STOCK!!!
We've long been proponents of the idea, that any sound man can make, using technology and engineering and electronics, nature can make too. And it will be just as mysterious and interesting. Made even more so, that those sounds occur, well, naturally. And in most cases, especially in electronic music, many of the sounds we discover and create using synthesizers, mimic sounds already produced in nature.
Countless field recordings have proven this, and this latest disc - a recording of the ice on a lake in France, slowly melting - does so once again!
By now, regular readers of the list, have been exposed to plenty of unique field recordings, drag races, life support machines, frogs, applause, monkeys, cowbells, barking dogs, rutting deer and of course the sound of water and ice. Ice and water seem to be particularly interesting sonically, as they always seem to be in motion, whether at the microscopic level melting and cracking, or on a more physical level, the sound of rushing rivers, pouring rain.
The sounds here, like many of the other field recordings we are so fond of, sound NOTHING like what you would imagine ice would sound like. Apparently, the layer of ice on the lake, acts like the head of a drum, transmitting the various cracks and crackles and vibrations across the expansive sheet of ice, producing strange tones, some very electronic sounding, all of them mysterious.
This record was woven together the sounds of the ice covered lake on a single day. Hours of recordings edited into one hour, but no other work has been done on these sounds, this is the actual sound of the ice. It begins with the sound of birds, the ice producing tiny little streaks of sound, that do sound like synthesizers, strange space-y FX, suspended in an expanse of murky murmur. The intensity and the frequency of those space-y streaks increases as the day warms up and the ice begins to fracture and melt, the barrage of bleeps and bloops begin to sound like a Star Wars laser battle, and sound like it couldn't possibly be the sound of ice. Eventually, the laser like streaks get deeper, and more resonant, as if someone was adding reverb or delay, until it's just a cloud of fuzzy bleeps and warbly tweets, underpinned by the actual staticky crackle of the ice cracking.
It's hard to explain much better than that, try listening to the sound samples, you will be amazed. It truly is a rare glimpse of some impossible and mysterious soundworld. A peek into how nature works, or at the very least, a chance to overhear the magic of nature, the sounds the exist in the wild, even if most of the time we're unable to hear them. Magical.
MPEG Stream: "Chants Of Frozen Lakes (Excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Chants Of Frozen Lakes (Excerpt 2)"

NANA APRIL JUN The Ontology Of Noise (Touch) cd 16.98
It's probably no surprise that we were intrigued when we first heard about this disc, after all the press release claims that it "researches the dark associations of post-black metal". And they go on to recommend it to fans of Burzum's masterpiece Filosofem! However, it must be the ambient aspects of Filosofem they're referencing, as you'll find no true frosty guitar buzz here, instead this is a purely digital, all-electronic album released by the UK's ever reliable, experimental Touch label, home to the likes of Fennesz, Philip Jeck, B.J. Nilsen, Chris Watson, and others. Intriguing, eh?
Of course, if we hadn't read that press release, we might never have related this to anything black metal at all, but we'd still like it. It's a very pleasant and varied dronological document, suggestive of field recordings, even though all these sounds are abstract ones, mostly realized inside a computer. There's passages that seem like buzzing insect swarms ("Process Philosophy"), or lashings of wind and rain ("Space-Time Continuum"), or Tibetan temple bells ("Semantic Shift"), or the gentle swaying of leaves and branches in a breeze ("Sun Wind Darkness Eye"). That particular track goes on to generate a mysterious low, soft hum, eventually accompanied by a beating electronic pulse, like much of the minimal techno we enjoy...
It's all quite evocative and lovely, although now that we think about it, some of these sounds could also be, like, cold winds blowing across frozen fjords, or sinister rumblings heard inside a subterranean crypt... And who knows, perhaps Nana April Jun (aka Christofer Lamgren), who hails from Sweden, wears corpsepaint whilst working with his digital tools. Probably not, though, since the majority of the text we read pertaining to this release was on the academic side of things. And although discussions of subjects like "the ontology of noise" and other psuedointellectual concepts can be a mite pretentious, regardless of that, all the whooshing, hissing, droning here is very good listening indeed.
MPEG Stream: "The One Substance"
MPEG Stream: "Process Philosophy"
MPEG Stream: "Space-Time Continuum"

NARROWS, THE Alligator (Wantage / Tapes) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
FINALLY, BACK IN STOCK!!!
There's something about Bellingham Washington. Not sure what it is. But bands from there seem to always be really really strange sounding. But strange in this completely undefinable way. It's like they have the same influences as the rest of us, listen to the same music, but when it comes time to get down and rock, what comes out is totally twisted and unique. There's the Reeks And Wrecks, whose twisted take on indie rock comes out sounding more like a New Orleans funeral march, and now the Narrows, who seem to be rooted in early nineties math rock / slowcore a la Codeine, Seam and stuff like that, but somehow the sound they produce is a chugging, metallic, emotionally supercharged blast of minimal minor key moodiness. Hard to explain just why this stuff resonates so intensely but it does. Could be that the band used to be faster, but a horrific tour accident/injury and months of songwriting on pain killers morphed them into this chugging super dynamic behemoth, or again, it could just be Bellingham. Seriously, this band is so good they actually got Andee to leave the house and go to a show! Ask anybody who knows Andee, that's a major accomplishment.
Alligator is a reissue of the Narrows' first two releases, Days Are Numbered from 2000, and Six Ten from 2001. Seven tracks, the shortest clocking in at a fairly substantial 7 minutes, the longest a massive 17 minutes. All the songs are total epics, with moody stretched out verses, mumbled vocals, loping rhythms, and fuzzed out melancholy melodies -- and then crushing pummeling pounding choruses, massive distorted slabs of heartbreaking intensity with wailed anguished vocals. This is the kind of stuff you wish you had back in your good old mixtape days to let that girl/guy know just how completely fucked up and miserable they made you feel. So fucking great.
MPEG Stream: "Does It Sting Your Eyes?"
MPEG Stream: "October's Problem"

NARROWS, THE Alligator (Wantage / Tapes) 2lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There's something about Bellingham Washington. Not sure what it is. But bands from there seem to always be really really strange sounding. But strange in this completely undefinable way. It's like they have the same influences as the rest of us, listen to the same music, but when it comes time to get down and rock, what comes out is totally twisted and unique. There's the Reeks And Wrecks, whose twisted take on indie rock comes out sounding more like a New Orleans funeral march, and now the Narrows, who seem to be rooted in early nineties math rock / slowcore a la Codeine, Seam and stuff like that, but somehow the sound they produce is a chugging, metallic, emotionally supercharged blast of minimal minor key moodiness. Hard to explain just why this stuff resonates so intensely but it does. Could be that the band used to be faster, but a horrific tour accident/injury and months of songwriting on pain killers morphed them into this chugging super dynamic behemoth, or again, it could just be Bellingham. Seriously, this band is so good they actually got Andee to leave the house and go to a show! Ask anybody who knows Andee, that's a major accomplishment.
Alligator is a reissue of the Narrows' first two releases, Days Are Numbered from 2000, and Six Ten from 2001. Seven tracks, the shortest clocking in at a fairly substantial 7 minutes, the longest a massive 17 minutes. All the songs are total epics, with moody stretched out verses, mumbled vocals, loping rhythms, and fuzzed out melancholy melodies -- and then crushing pummelling pounding choruses, massive distorted slabs of heartbreaking intensity with wailed anguished vocals. This is the kind of stuff you wish you had back in your good old mixtape days to let that girl/guy know just how completely fucked up and miserable they made you feel. So fucking great.
The 2lp version comes in an amazing gatefold with a pop up alligator and liner notes!
MPEG Stream: "Does It Sting Your Eyes?"
MPEG Stream: "October's Problem"

NARROWS, THE The Skull At Life Size (Wantage / Tapes) cd 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There's something about Bellingham Washington. Not sure what it is. But bands from there seem to always be really really strange sounding. But strange in this completely undefinable way. It's like they have the same influences as the rest of us, listen to the same music, but when it comes time to get down and rock, what comes out is totally twisted and unique. There's the Reeks And Wrecks, whose twisted take on indie rock comes out sounding more like a New Orleans funeral march, and now the Narrows, who seem to be rooted in early nineties math rock / slowcore a la Codeine, Seam and stuff like that, but somehow the sound they produce is a chugging, metallic, emotionally supercharged blast of minimal minor key moodiness. Hard to explain just why this stuff resonates so intensely but it does. Could be that the band used to be faster, but a horrific tour accident/injury and months of songwriting on pain killers morphed them into this chugging super dynamic behemoth, or again, it could just be Bellingham. Seriously, this band is so good they actually got Andee to leave the house and go to a show! Ask anybody who knows Andee, that's a major accomplishment.
The Skull At Life Size is a massive thirty minute epic that live, is often stretched out even further to fill up the Narrows' entire set. A churning slow motion dirge, spare and hypnotic, dark and miserable. The bass and guitar float eerily through a haze of minor key overtones and above a sparse skeletal framework of simple drumming. Occasionally, the intensity builds into a massive wave of furious chaos, all crashing cymbals, roaring distorted guitar, and keening heartfelt wails belting out a ridiculously catchy (and unlikely) hook, before the whole thing dissipates and settles back down into its original lugubrious crawl. So completely amazing. The Narrows are one of those groups who can do so much with so little. Guitar, bass and drums, one or two parts, and the results are sublime. It's all about shadings and subtleties. A perfect economy of composition and performance. Minimal and perfect.
MPEG Stream: "The Skull At Life Size"

NARROWS, THE The Skull At Life Size (Wantage / Tapes) lp 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There's something about Bellingham Washington. Not sure what it is. But bands from there seem to always be really really strange sounding. But strange in this completely undefinable way. It's like they have the same influences as the rest of us, listen to the same music, but when it comes time to get down and rock, what comes out is totally twisted and unique. There's the Reeks And Wrecks, whose twisted take on indie rock comes out sounding more like a New Orleans funeral march, and now the Narrows, who seem to be rooted in early nineties math rock / slowcore a la Codeine, Seam and stuff like that, but somehow the sound they produce is a chugging, metallic, emotionally supercharged blast of minimal minor key moodiness. Hard to explain just why this stuff resonates so intensely but it does. Could be that the band used to be faster, but a horrific tour accident/injury and months of songwriting on pain killers morphed them into this chugging super dynamic behemoth, or again, it could just be Bellingham. Seriously, this band is so good they actually got Andee to leave the house and go to a show! Ask anybody who knows Andee, that's a major accomplishment.
The Skull At Life Size is a massive thirty minute epic that live, is often stretched out even further to fill up the Narrows' entire set. A churning slow motion dirge, spare and hypnotic, dark and miserable. The bass and guitar float eerily through a haze of minor key overtones and above a sparse skeletal framework of simple drumming. Occasionally, the intensity builds into a massive wave of furious chaos, all crashing cymbals, roaring distorted guitar, and keening heartfelt wails belting out a ridiculously catchy (and unlikely) hook, before the whole thing dissipates and settles back down into its original lugubrious crawl. So completely amazing. The Narrows are one of those groups who can do so much with so little. Guitar, bass and drums, one or two parts, and the results are sublime. It's all about shadings and subtleties. A perfect economy of composition and performance. Minimal and perfect.
MPEG Stream: "The Skull At Life Size"

NARWHALZ (OF SOUND) MRI Menthol Moms (Ormolycka) cassette 5.98
Of all the tapes in this most recent batch of doozies from weirdo tape label Ormolycka, this one, from the oddly monikered Narwhalz (Of Sound), is notable for two reasons, one, it's not actually new. But we sorts skipped over it the first time around. Which brings us to two, which is, it's actually fucking AWESOME. The reason we skipped over it before, is we kinda had it pegged as jokey friend rock, the name, the song titles, the hot pink goofy cover, but holy shit, what an awesome surprise. In some weird ways, it reminds us of that awesome Fever hip hop record on DHR, super distorted, blown out, noise drenched 8 bit, hip hop weirdness, the beats crunchy and super distorted, the vocals a buried mumble one second, a distorted megaphone yowl the next, all set to the strains of woozy video game squiggles, thick blurry bass buzz, total happy hardcore style techno beats wrapped around dubbed out noise-hop, everything doused in hiss and buzz, wild swooping effects, stuttering and skipping and swirling and lurching and lumbering, total dancefloor destroying, speaker shredding sonic chaos that KILLS. This is the sort of shit we'd want to blast in our tricked out boomin' system ride (especially the one that instead of a trunk full of woofers, features a hundred tweeters, total glass shattering, eardrum melting high end skree). Fucking rad. Ormolycka strikes again. And we stand corrected and bow before the mighty Narwhalz (Of Sound)!!

NATH, PANDIT PRAN Midnight / Raga Malk (Just Dreams) 2cd 41.00
This recording, the musical life of Pandit Pran Nath, his influence on Western minimalism, his importance to music, both modern and traditional, is steeped in history, but just as important, if not harder to describe, is the sound. A warm drifting dreamscape, layers of buzz and hum and drone, Nath's perfectly intonated vocals, hovering weightless above a thick swirl of Sitar string buzz and slowly shifting drones. This is true drone music. Warm and rich, thick and effervescent. Densely layered but light and airy. Truly difficult to describe, but a record that has immmediately become one of the most played / listened to records around these parts. Nath spent most of his life studying and performing in India, and became well known for his strict adherence to the authentic rendering of traditional ragas and an unwillingness to change his style or sound to be more 'modern'. His focus on the slower 'alap' sections of ragas was an obvious influence on seventies minimalists like La Monte Young and Terry Riley (both students of his), and other students / followers included Don Cherry, Rhys Chatham, Henry Flynt and many others. He eventually became a US citizen and continued performing, composing and teaching right up until his death. There is a definite dearth of recordings, considering how long Nath had been performing, this 2 disc set was originally released in 2002, and has luckily been reissued. The price tag is steep, but once these sounds hit your ears, any thoughts of price or money as well as all of your other earthly worries will just drift away. Both of these performances, one from 1971 recorded in San Francisco, the other in NYC in 1976, feautre Nath accompanied by Western musicians, Terry Riley, Ann Riley, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, who seem perfectly in tune with Nath's sound and vision. Anyone who loves the music of Chalk, Coleclough, Mirror, Ora, Organum, any of that minimal drone music, would do well to dig deep and discover the roots of that music. This is most definitely some of the most beautiful, transcendental drone music we have ever heard.
MPEG Stream: "Midnight (4 VIII 71 SF)"

NATH, PANDIT PRAN The Raga Cycle, PalaceTheatre, Paris 1972 (Sri Moonshine) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1 (Excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1 (Excerpt 2)"

NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM A Visitor's Guide (Lo Bit Landscapes) 12" 11.98
We know nothing about these guys, other than this is the latest release on LoBit Landscapes, who released the recent aQ Record Of The Week from Nihiti, For Ostland, and while there are some sonic similarities, NPS is a much more beat driven, dancefloor driven affair. Although from the opening of "Silver Miner", you might be forgiven for expecting something much more murky and abstract, beginning as it does with a weird pulsing landscape of squelches and swirls, a blurred smear of textures, but one that quickly blossoms into a weird sort of future funk, all motorik groove, and noisy, super distorted melodies, which almost sound like wild animal cries fashioned into tones, the result is something at once electronic, but also dense and psychedelic and a bit noisy. The second track too lays down a crumbling, distorted beat, and lays sheets of distorted electric guitar buzz over the top, and this time weaves in some mumbled vox, buried in the mix. It's a hard sound to classify, it's a sort of gloomy electro pop, but one that's both a bit gothy, and a bit noisy.
"Flying Penguin" unfurls a weird barrage of metallic melody, before in swoops a fractured, and convoluted stuttery beat, as well as swirling synths, and some alien vocodered vox, the end result being equal parts dreamy electro pop and experimental avant electronica, but with a definite caustic crunch. Although the closer, the awesomely titled "Sad And Fucked (Not Moving)" might be our favorite of the bunch, a swirling squall of metallic buzz, and dense chordal shimmer, seriously kosmische, the sounds airy and ethereal at first, but gradually growing more distorted and blown out, only to seemingly melt before our ears into a woozy, keening, droned out murky drift.
MPEG Stream: "Silver Miner"
MPEG Stream: "Sad And Fucked (Not Moving)"

NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS Laurie Bird (Students Of Decay) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Natural Snow Buildings is another one of those bands almost every one had heard of, but almost no one had actually heard. A handful of meticulously packaged and criminally limited cd-r's that disappeared before most of us even knew they existed. But everyone spoke in hushed tones, about the amazing sounds of Natural Snow Buildings, that's a lot of hype, and huge potential for a let down, as all of those records are finally being reissued in slightly less limited editions, this being the first readily available one, but we're happy to report, this dup truly does live up to the hype.
Their sound, as all great sounds are, is quite difficult to describe. Their sound is abstract and ambient, but active and busy, propulsive yet minimal and almost static, rife with melodies, but dense and droney, soft and shimmery and so so pretty.
The first track here is enough to enchant even the most jaded of listeners. A glistening, effulgent soundscape of glimmering prismatic tones, and deep soft whirs, dreamy streaks of major key melodies draped over the constantly shifting sea of warm whirls. It's like a more organic version of the first track on Oval's Diskont record, but where that track sounded underwater, this one sounds sun dappled and windswept, a bit of a raga really, but its buzz and drone is spread out into a downy bed of fallen leaves, the listener falling back into the Autumn's embrace, the sun sparkling through the latticework of branches overhead. Not ominous or dark, this is joyous and rich and bursting with a warm organic glow, the layers and melodies constantly slipping and sliding in this huge mass of billowy soft sound. As the song progresses, if it were even possible, it seems to get more and more blissful, everything wreathed in haunting halos of sound, UNTIL the drums kick in. and the whole thing explodes into a jagged splatter of angular atonal feedback, and grinding distortion, a chaotic squall that dissipates almost as quickly as it came on, leaving the duo to wind back down, meandering dreamily to the next track.
The second track is a bit dirgier, darker, a pounding rhythm, and a rumbling gurgling low end bass growl, underpinning the weirdly tribal jam, bells, chimes, voices, some fragments of guitar, but mostly a droning rhythmic groove, eventually joined by a chorus of angelic vocals turning a dark drone into some sort of pastoral hymn.
The final track is the most minimal, an understated drone, layers of softly overlapping overtones, shifting tonal colors, warm and buzzy, and nearly bursting with some internal heat, the tones growing more and more feverish, the sounds threatening to crumble, until the tones do break free and splinter into streaks of feedback, and woozy shimmering slabs of high end skree, noisy and staticky, with strange alien sounding chanted voices.
Truly fantastic, and gorgeous, challenging, and wondrously unique. And again, well worth the hype. So recommended.
BUT!!! Still limited to only 100 copies!! Why??? Why not 500? Or 1000? These will be gone again way too fast, so don't delay, you'll be sorry...
MPEG Stream: "Cockmotherfighting"
MPEG Stream: "Orisha's Laments"

NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS Night Coercion Into The Company Of Witches (Ba Da Bing!) 3cd 15.98
If there was ever a band to masterfully manipulate the whole 'insanely limited release' thing, it's French duo Natural Snow Buildings, whose early releases were so limited, it's a wonder anyone even got to hear them, case in point, 2008's Night Coercion Into The Company Of Witches, which was released as a triple cd-r in a run of just TWENTY TWO copies!! Over the last few years, many of those old NSB records have been getting reissued in much more reasonable editions, and while that sort of hype can often backfire, especially when way more people have heard OF your band, than actually heard it, every NSB release we get simple confirms what a remarkable duo they actually are, and what a shame it is that it's taken this long for more people to actually hear them.
It wouldn't be an NSB review without the 'limited release' rant, but now that we've got that out of the way, we can luxuriate in this fantastic collection of lush layered folkdrone psychedelia and ritualistic soundscapery. Coercion is in fact the group's first proper domestic release, and thus might be the first many folks hear, and we have to say, you couldn't ask for a better introduction. Three discs, nearly three hours, six tracks, the shortest clocking in at 17:59, the longest at 57:47, which is exactly how NSB are meant to be experienced, their tracks epic, sprawling, lush and organic freeform explorations, guitars and percussion, woodwinds, bells and chimes, lovely vocals, all woven into something mesmerizingly transcendent.
There's definitely a sonic link, intentional or otherwise, to the Finnish forest folk we hold so dear, fans of groups like Avarus, Anaksimandros, Uton, Kemialliset Ystavat and the rest, will definitely discover kindred sonic spirits here, the foresty campfire vibe looms large, but NSB aren't afraid to take that muted minimalism, and let it blossom into something massive, gloriously lush and layered ur-drone tranceouts of the highest order, taking elements of Flying Saucer Attack, Astral Social Club and classic kosmische krautrock, and tangling it all together into something sublime and divine. While some tracks, like the record opener, "Kadja Bosou", are rhythmic and trancey, others, like the title track, are much noisier affairs, dense squalls of chaotic sound, reminiscent of Birchville Cat Motel or Our Love Will Destroy The World, but often foregoing the rhythmic component for something freer and more abstract, keening high end melodies, shards of heavily effected guitar howl, over a softly roiling backdrop of shimmer and thrum, the sound slipping easily from drifting loose and free to something more directed, tethered to a simple pulse, or some minimal percussion, but even then, the rhythms seem less an anchor, as a pulse, a loose demarcation, guiding the wild psychedelic swirls overhead.
Theirs is definitely a sound that's difficult to describe, especially on a record as vast and varied as Coercion, but somehow, each epic track, as different sonically as some of them are, manage to all sound like NSB, whether it's crumbing and noisy and atonal, or lush and layered and lovely, or driving and hypnotic and strangely propulsive, NSB imbue their sound with some ineffable sonic thread that runs not just through these songs, but through all of their songs.
This record (or perhaps more accurately, THESE recordS are) is an epic journey, one that requires patience, and perhaps headphones, to really get the full effect, the thought of a single three hour session might seem daunting, but these are the sorts of songs that suck you in, that are so easy to get lost in, truly psychedelic, and at times it's difficult not to fall into some sort of trance listening to this stuff, it's gorgeously zoned out, darkly melodic at times, almost purely textural at others, but always utterly mesmerizing, and some of the most unique and moving modern music you're likely to hear.
MPEG Stream: "Kadja Bosou"
MPEG Stream: "Night Coercion"
MPEG Stream: "Brooms, Trapdoors, Keyholes"

NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS Night Coercion Into The Company Of Witches (Ba Da Bing!) 4lp 45.00
NOW ON VINYL!! Which includes a download coupon, which can be redeemed for EXTENDED versions of the songs on the lp...
If there was ever a band to masterfully manipulate the whole 'insanely limited release' thing, it's French duo Natural Snow Buildings, whose early releases were so limited, it's a wonder anyone even got to hear them, case in point, 2008's Night Coercion Into The Company Of Witches, which was released as a triple cd-r in a run of just TWENTY TWO copies!! Over the last few years, many of those old NSB records have been getting reissued in much more reasonable editions, and while that sort of hype can often backfire, especially when way more people have heard OF your band, than actually heard it, every NSB release we get simple confirms what a remarkable duo they actually are, and what a shame it is that it's taken this long for more people to actually hear them.
It wouldn't be an NSB review without the 'limited release' rant, but now that we've got that out of the way, we can luxuriate in this fantastic collection of lush layered folkdrone psychedelia and ritualistic psychedelia soundscapery. Coercion is in fact the group's first proper domestic release, and thus might be the first many folks hear, and we have to say, you couldn't ask for a better introduction. Three discs, nearly three hours, six tracks, the shortest clocking in at 17:59, the longest at 57:47, which is exactly how NSB are meant to be experienced, their tracks epic, sprawling, lush and organic freeform explorations, guitars and percussion, woodwinds, bells and chimes, lovely vocals, all woven into something mesmerizingly transcendent.
There's definitely a sonic link, intentional or otherwise, to the Finnish forest folk we hold so dear, fans of groups like Avarus, Anaksimandros, Uton, Kemialliset Ystavat and the rest, will definitely discover kindred sonic spirits here, the foresty campfire vibe looms large, but NSB aren't afraid to take that muted minimalism, and let it blossom into something massive, gloriously lush and layered ur-drone tranceouts of the highest order, taking elements of Flying Saucer Attack, Astral Social Club and classic kosmische krautrock, and tangling it all together into something sublime and divine. While some tracks, like the record opener, "Kadja Bosou", are rhythmic and trancey, others, like the title track, are much noisier affairs, dense squalls of chaotic sound, reminiscent of Birchville Cat Motel or Our Love Will Destroy The World, but often foregoing the rhythmic component for something freer and more abstract, keening high end melodies, shards of heavily effected guitar howl, over a softly roiling backdrop of shimmer and thrum, the sound slipping easily from drifting loose and free to something more directed, tethered to a simple pulse, or some minimal percussion, but even then, the rhythms seem less an anchor, as a pulse, a loose demarcation, guiding the wild psychedelic swirls overhead.
Theirs is definitely a sound that's difficult to describe, especially on a record as vast and varied as Coercion, but somehow, each epic track, as different sonically as some of them are, manage to all sound like NSB, whether it's crumbing and noisy and atonal, or lush and layered and lovely, or driving and hypnotic and strangely propulsive, NSB imbue their sound with some ineffable sonic thread that runs not just through these songs, but through all of their songs.
This record is (or perhaps more accurately, THESE recordS are) an epic journey, one that requires patience, and perhaps headphones, to really get the full effect, the thought of a single three hour session might seem daunting, but these are the sorts of songs that suck you in, that are so easy to get lost in, truly psychedelic, and at times it's difficult not to fall into some sort of trance listening to this stuff, it's gorgeously zoned out, darkly melodic at times, almost purely textural at others, but always utterly mesmerizing, and some of the most unique and moving modern music you're likely to hear.
MPEG Stream: "Kadja Bosou"
MPEG Stream: "Night Coercion"
MPEG Stream: "Brooms, Trapdoors, Keyholes"

NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS Shadow Kingdom (Blackest Rainbow) 2cd + comic book 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We love super limited collectable releases as much as the next person, but it really does seem to be getting out of hand. Cd-r's, tapes, vinyl, limited to 1000, to 500, to 50, 33, even 12 in some cases. Sure it makes sense that there is a limited audience for a lot of music, so maybe 12 or 33 or 50 is enough, but once it's obvious that you've moved beyond such a limited fanbase, it's time to ramp it up. A band who routinely sells thousands of records, can not (or at least SHOULD not) release a record limited to 100 copies. All it does is piss off all the fans who love your music. And by the same token, bands who DO release ultra limited releases, well, when those releases begin to sell out in a matter of hours, or minutes, or if those releases end up on eBay the next day and sell for hundreds of bucks, well, then similarly, it's time to give up on the limited release. It's partially the listeners' fault, clamoring for ANYTHING limited, sometimes it seems like how limited something is, is vastly more important to folks than what it sounds like.
But why discuss this here, in a review of dynamic drone duo Natural Snow Buildings? Well, because these guys have LONG surpassed the point at which they should be doing pressings any smaller than 500, heck, any smaller than 1000. So far, every NSB record or NSB sideproject record we've gotten, has been so limited that A. We were not able to get as many as we wanted. B. They all were practically out of print by the time they landed at aQ, and worst of all, C. Loads of folks who wanted the music and could care less about collectability and were just big fans of the band ended up shit out of luck, and had to buy it on eBay for some crazy amount of money, if they wanted to hear it at all.
Shadow Kingdom is not as limited as many of the past NSB jams, but is still limited enough that we could only manage a smallish chunk, and it's yet to be determined if we can get more once these sell out, but we'll for sure try.
Which when you break it down is really a bummer, cuz music this good, sounds this dark and intense and incredible need to be heard by as many people as possible. Shadow Kingdom is at its core, a drone record, but NSB's take on the drone is so lush and expansive and epic, slow burning, but burning bright, effulgent and incendiary, guitars blurred into thick glimmering streaks, the various layers, pulse and throb and undulate, and those drones are shot through with flecks of folk, bits of twang, dreamy vocals, buzzing sitar, shimmering ambience, and those epic swaths of dronemusic are set amidst more song based sounds, the record slipping from nearly half hour walls of drone, to delicate fluttery folky ambience, to skittery sun dappled free folk, to washed out new age whir, to warm gauzy dream pop, all of those various permutations constantly drifting into one another, overlapping, intertwining, changing shape, melodies bleeding into other melodies, tones and chords drifting and whirling, it's all very otherworldly, and mesmerizing, meditative and so so so dreamy. A double cd is perfect for NSB, as they can indulge themselves, letting pop songs sprawl into disembodied hazy space-y anti-pop, allowing warm bits of forest folk, to blossom into ever expanding fields of flickering fluttery sonic shimmer. It's hard to listen to music this beautiful, and emotional, and exquisitely crafted, and imagine it only being heard by a handful of people. So yeah, another fantastic disc of drone folk loveliness from this French duo, grab one if you can, and c'mon guys, make as many copies as there are people who want to hear it, at the very least, someone should gather up all the out of print tapes and lps and cds and assemble a massive bargain priced boxset, for all the fans who missed out on so much music from a band they love. So gorgeous, and in case you hadn't figured it out by now, very, very, very limited.
MPEG Stream: "The Fall Of Shadow Kingdom"
MPEG Stream: "For Fear They May Come Back/Childrens Of The Seventh Circle/The Dark Road"
MPEG Stream: "Gauled Ones And Birth Rugs"
MPEG Stream: "The Crystal Bird"

NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS The Dance Of The Moon And The Sun (Students Of Decay) 2cd 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Originally released in two editions, one limited to 32 copies, another 19 copies, France's Natural Snow Buildings had arguably created their masterwork, a sprawling two and a half hour epic, that seemed destined to only be heard by those 51 people. But making more at that point was an impossibility, as each one was hand painted, painstakingly assembled, and the magic and mystery of The Dance Of The Moon And The Sun seemed to be lost forever. That is until now. Students Of Decay, spent months putting together this deluxe reissue, which again, was way too limited, with only 500 copies pressed, and is already sold out and out of print from the label. We have 25 copies, and that's all we'll ever have.
Some of you might remember the three way split The Snowbringer Cult, which featured the duo of Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte, aka Natural Snow Buildings filling two discs with their folky drones and drone drenched folk, one disc a proper NSB release, the other split between each member's solo project, Isengrind and Twinsistermoon. The Dance Of The Moon And The Sun, while ostensibly credited to NSB, plays a bit like The Snowbringer Cult, as it covers all sorts of ground, from fluttery strum and croon, to deep buzzing drone, to drifty druggy spaciness, to motorik kraut jams, to sun dappled forest folk, and every possible stop in between. Makes sense really, as 150 minutes is a lot of sonic space to fill, and the two fill it to overflowing with a luxurious array of gorgeous sounds, from light and airy to dark and brooding, it really seems foolish to go into too much detail, as these will probably disappear in a matter of minutes, but for the uninitiated, it can't hurt to dig a little deeper.
The duo dip their toes in reverb drenched sixties female folk, quickly switching gears and unfurling a fifteen minute krautjam constructed from simple metallic percussion, and ominous buzzing drones, before immediately switching back for some ramshackle lo-fi bedroom strum and croon, and then slipping smoothly into a gorgeously blissed out slow motion space drone drift, all glimmering long tones and soft blurred shimmers. And the thing is, no matter what the sound, or what sort of sonic otherworld the duo are exploring, they manage to imbue the sound with innocence and wonder, while seeming to master it completely, and making it their very own. The dronemusic here is epic and understated and utterly divine, the folk and pop parts are gorgeous, catchy, intimate and emotional, and when the two collide, they create something else entirely, and the band are able to take it in any direction, a brief fragment, burning bright and then gone, or a stretched out sprawling epic, simple figures, subtle melodies, allowed to drift and blossom, the pop elements, and the folk elements, transformed into perfect parts of an even more perfect whole.
Packaged in a gorgeous fold over black white and yellow cardstock sleeve, adorned with the band's eye popping artwork, inside, a 6 panel black and white insert on thick paper, with liner notes, more wild images and liner notes from Time-Lag's head honcho Nemo.
Again, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. ALREADY SOLD OUT AND OUT OF PRINT. THESE ARE THE LAST COPIES EVER!
MPEG Stream: "Cut Joint Sinews & Divided Reincarnation"
MPEG Stream: "Wisconsin"
MPEG Stream: "Dance Of The Moon & The Sun"

NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS The Dance Of The Moon And The Sun (Students Of Decay) 2cd / 2 x cd-r / 2 x 3"cd-r 45.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the insanely limited, and pretty pricey, super deluxe version of Natural Snow Buildings' The Dance Of The Moon And The Sun. It was limited to 120 copies. It is out of print. Sold out. We only got a very few of these (as in 5), and will not be able to get more. The deluxe version features normal double disc version, PLUS, 2 more full length cd-r's, and 2 three inch cd-r's for a total of SIX DISCS. The extra discs are housed in a cardstock fold over sleeve, each one hand painted by the band, hand numbered, inside are 4 full color inserts, all of the discs held together by a printed full color obi. WE ONLY HAVE 5 COPIES OF THIS. IT WILL UNDOUBTEDLY SELL OUT IMMEDIATELY. AS IN MERE MINUTES! ONCE THESE ARE SOLD OUT, YOU WILL AUTOMATICALLY RECEIVE THE STANDARD, CHEAPER, TWO DISC VERSION. IF YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT THE STANDARD VERSION, AND ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN THE DELUXE $45 VERSION, THEN PLEASE PUT A NOTE IN THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THE ORDER FORM TO THAT EFFECT.
Originally released in two editions, one limited to 32 copies, another 19 copies, France's Natural Snow Buildings had arguably created their masterwork, a sprawling two and a half hour epic, that seemed destined to only be heard by those 51 people. But making more at that point was an impossibility, as each one was hand painted, painstakingly assembled, and the magic and mystery of The Dance Of The Moon And The Sun seemed to be lost forever. That is until now. Students Of Decay, spent months putting together this deluxe reissue, which again, was way too limited, with only 500 copies pressed, and is already sold out and out of print from the label. We have 25 copies, and that's all we'll ever have.
Some of you might remember the three way split The Snowbringer Cult, which featured the duo of Mehdi Ameziane and Solange Gularte, aka Natural Snow Buildings filling two discs with their folky drones and drone drenched folk, one disc a proper NSB release, the other split between each member's solo project, Isengrind and Twinsistermoon. The Dance Of The Moon And The Sun, while ostensibly credited to NSB, plays a bit like The Snowbringer Cult, as it covers all sorts of ground, from fluttery strum and croon, to deep buzzing drone, to drifty druggy spaciness, to motorik kraut jams, to sun dappled forest folk, and every possible stop in between. Makes sense really, as 150 minutes is a lot of sonic space to fill, and the two fill it to overflowing with a luxurious array of gorgeous sounds, from light and airy to dark and brooding, it really seems foolish to go into too much detail, as these will probably disappear in a matter of minutes, but for the uninitiated, it can't hurt to dig a little deeper.
The duo dip their toes in reverb drenched sixties female folk, quickly switching gears and unfurling a fifteen minute krautjam constructed from simple metallic percussion, and ominous buzzing drones, before immediately switching back for some ramshackle lo-fi bedroom strum and croon, and then slipping smoothly into a gorgeously blissed out slow motion space drone drift, all glimmering long tones and soft blurred shimmers. And the thing is, no matter what the sound, or what sort of sonic otherworld the duo are exploring, they manage to imbue the sound with innocence and wonder, while seeming to master it completely, and making it their very own. The dronemusic here is epic and understated and utterly divine, the folk and pop parts are gorgeous, catchy, intimate and emotional, and when the two collide, they create something else entirely, and the band are able to take it in any direction, a brief fragment, burning bright and then gone, or a stretched out sprawling epic, simple figures, subtle melodies, allowed to drift and blossom, the pop elements, and the folk elements, transformed into perfect parts of an even more perfect whole.
Packaged in a gorgeous fold over black white and yellow cardstock sleeve, adorned with the band's eye popping artwork, inside, a 6 panel black and white insert on thick paper, with liner notes, more wild images and liner notes from Time-Lag's head honcho Nemo.
Again, LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. ALREADY SOLD OUT AND OUT OF PRINT. THESE ARE THE LAST COPIES EVER!
MPEG Stream: "Cut Joint Sinews & Divided Reincarnation"
MPEG Stream: "Wisconsin"
MPEG Stream: "Dance Of The Moon & The Sun"

NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS The Snowbringer Cult (Ba Da Bing) 2lp 21.00
The Snowbringer Cult was a double cd originally released way back in 2008 on the Students of Decay label, and was the first proper cd release from French bedroom drone-psych-folk epic from Natural Snow Buildings, the boy/girl duo of Mehdi Amaziane and Solange Gularte, that double cd included a NSB full length, as well as an album from each of their solo projects, those being Isengrind and Twinsistermoon. That double cd is finally available again, but has also been reissued on vinyl for the first time, with each of the three parts being released separately as its own record.
Natural Snow Buildings have been a band since WAY back in 1999, toiling quietly WAY underground, and over the course of the last decade plus, have only really released a handful of records, and in the first 6 or 7 years, they only managed 4 cd-r's and two tapes, the total number of copies of all 6 of those releases hovering at about 250. That's insane! At the time we couldn't help wonder how a band with such a small catalog, that has reached so few ears, could generate so much fanboy freakout?! But that's precisely what happened. And thankfully, and perhaps surprisingly, in the case of NSB, and the two solo offshoots, the hype does not seem unwarranted. The freaking out more than merited. The music of Amaziane and Gularte is definitely something special, much more than the usual generic fx laden droned out abstract cd-r floor-core that seems to be constantly flooding the scene, this duo write actual songs, and create gorgeous soundscapes, they mix raga-like psyche with fluttery folk, deep drones with pristine pop, weaving it all together into something spectacular.
What happens when the two join forces, becoming Natural Snow Buildings? It would be way too easy to say that the sum equaled the parts, that if you took the sound of Isengrind and Twinsistermoon and combined them, it would equal the whole of NSB. There is certainly -some- truth to that, but it's not math, it's magic. Alchemy, musical sorcery, these are sounds not numbers, and thus are governed by forces far more magical and mysterious than physics or science. The two together join spirits, their natures become entwined, they draw from one another, each offering the other part of their soul, rendered in music. The results are truly divine. An assemblage of sounds, deftly woven into expansive shapes and hushed mystery, landscapes of drone and shimmer, of cinematic wonder and dark introspection. Some tracks are super abstract, layered near static drifts, longform movements that sonically evoke other lands, other times, the past long forgotten, the future not yet experienced, other tracks are wheezing sun dappled Appalachia, but turned inside out, the chords and notes seemingly drawn inward, toward the speakers, the vocals breathless and mournful, all laid atop a thick swirl of distorted riffage, other tracks are fragmented folk, all murky blurred piano, backwards guitars, heartsick melodies, wrapped in a thick gauzy production, smeared into snapshots glimpsed through eyes brimming with tears. Other tracks are space rock writ small, minimal dirges, drone jams, chanted vocals, strange stuttery percussion, and glorious buzzing guitars, culminating in the final track, which begins much like the others, all hazy and dreamlike, vocals ethereal, guitars spare and skeletal, until unexpectedly the band lock into some serious droned out space rock. A serious dark and druggy looped riff, a la Spacemen 3, Hawkwind, Loop, anchored by a simple pounding thudrock rhythm, driving intensely through swirling clouds of FX and warm whirring ambience, a seriously dense, propulsive krautjam, that just so happens to hide a soft drifting pop shimmer underneath, and while the track rocks with a surprising intensity, it's precisely what's underneath that turns the jam into something resplendent.
MPEG Stream: NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS "Resurrect Dead On Planet Six"
MPEG Stream: NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS "Bear Hunting"

NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS The Wheel Of Sharp Daggers (Digitalis) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We always talk about how someday, with a record we know everybody is gonna want anyway, we're just gonna say "Here it is. A new Record by so and so. It's pretty great. You should buy it." Or something almost that succinct.
So here you go. French duo Natural Snow Buildings. A brand new tape, Super limited, like maybe 100 copies or something. We got about 30 of them. It's already out of print and unavailable almost everywhere. It's intense, majestic, epic and sort of heavy in a really mysterious way. Beautiful full color covers. It's really pretty great. You should buy it.

NATURAL SNOW BUILDINGS Waves Of The Random Sea (Blackest Rainbow) cd 14.98
We got a tiny handful of these a few weeks back, the brand new record from this French psych folk drone duo, and we were happy to get even those, considering how criminally limited NSB releases usually are. Those flew out of here and we figured they were just gone for good. But lo and behold, a batch somehow made it across the sea to one of our distributors and we snatched up all the copies we could, although that wasn't really all that many, so if you're an NSB fanatic, best act fast.
And if you're not a fanatic, well, then why the hell not. This duo conjures up some of the most fantastic otherworldly psychedelia we've ever heard. Long tracks that ooze and sprawl and drift, folk songs blurred and smeared into ambient outer space shimmer, drones undulate beneath clouds of slow swirling melody, effects whir and thrum, meditative and tranquil and dreamily druggy, the songs slipping from that sort of untethered psych drift to something much more earthbound, a woozy forest folk, tangled steel strings, minimal percussion, but still wreathed in the same sort of spaced out haze that seems like at any moment could blossom into full on heart of the sun ambient abstraction, and often does.
The one thing we can say about NSB, is that their records all sound like they were cut from the same sonic cloth, a glorious, fantastical, psychedelically colored cloth sure, but the sound remains quite similar, as if each record is less like a proper new album, and more like the next movement in some multi part epic, which is fine with us, this must be part 10 or 11 by now, but the sound remains so hypnotic and enthralling. The perfect blend of dark witchy psych folk, and deep shimmering dronemusic, of swirling psychedelic new age and ritualistic foresty primitivism, sun dappled and dew scented, all the sounds prismatic and crystalline, whether floating weightlessly in a field of hushed minimal thrum, or roiling darkly in a cloud of reveberating low end, Natural Snow Buildings are masters at creating this other world, conjuring up a soundtrack to takes us there with them and as always, the results are utterly breathtaking, and fantastically captivating.
ALREADY SOLD OUT AT THE LABEL!! These could very well be the last copies we get...
MPEG Stream: "The Waves Of The Random Sea"
MPEG Stream: "The Ice Fortress"

NAUTICAL ALMANAC Cisum (Heresee) picture disc lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Nice looking picture disc from Wolf Eyes cohorts and Hanson Records superstars Nautical Almanac. Lots of warbly, ultra processed vocals, brain shredding feedback, clinking and clattering random percussion, half formed melodies smashed to bits and scattered haphazardly all over the place, retardedly strummed guitars, damaged electronics blooping and buzzing and screeching, clumsy abstract rhythms, strange ambient drones, all mixed into a huge whirling, convusing, throbbing, pulsing, ear-hurting, gut-punching beautiful mess.

NAUTICAL ALMANAC Transcriptedivisions (Hanson) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Second LP from the mysterious Chicago duo (I think), who create destructive lo-fi electronics music. Not "electronic music", but modified Casios and Speak & Spells and cryptic tape manipulations assembled in a fucked up, nonlinear pastiche of ataxia. Such volatile eccentricities and an arhythmic approach unfortunately make not for a record that sounds great, but a record that has great sounds. You know you want one, but you don't know why. Limited to 500 vinyl-only copies on the ever-so-fashionable Hanson Records of Ann Arbor, MI.

NAZI UFO COMMANDER Strange Monastaries (Old Europa Cafe) cd-r 14.98

NAZORANAI (KEIJI HAINO + STEPHEN O'MALLEY + OREN AMBARCHI) s/t (Ideologic Organ) cd 16.98
All right, if you were excited a few months back when we listed the Imikuzushi album by Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, and Jim O'Rourke (that group's second release), we imagine you'll be equally chuffed about this: the debut from a quite similar trio consisting of Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, and Stephen O'Malley! Yeah, the guy from a little band you may have heard of called SUNNO))). Also KTL and Khanate and a bunch of others. Suddenly, is Keiji Haino still the darkest lord in the room? Well, yeah. But O'Malley has some cred in the blackness-of-soul category, and his presence helps make this even heavier.
And as you should expect, much like with the Haino/Ambarchi/O'Rourke lineup, this grouping is also, again, pretty much Haino's show. Even though he's recently reactivated his seminal outrock power trio Fushitsusha (on the intense Hikari To Nazukeyo album, reviewed here not long ago), Haino seems happy to have other outlets for Fushitsusha-esque stuff, and this is one of 'em, his shamanistic self taking the lead on guitars, vocals and synth. With O'Malley on bass and Ambarchi on battery, he's being ably backed up by guys who, y'know, dig his trip. And since Ambarchi has experience playing with Haino already, and O'Malley for his part has previously collaborated with Ambarchi, they're definitely "on" here, even though Nazorani had only played together a couple times prior to this this particular recording, which documents a live performance in Paris, France November 2011, altogether improvised "real-time" music we assume.
There's 72 minutes of their harrowing music here, four tracks, all obviously titled by Haino, though they almost could be parodies of his typical titlesÉ The set begins with "Feel The Ultimate Joy Towards The Resolve Of Pillar Being Shattered Within You Again And Again And Again", starting off with stretches of near-silence, pregnant with electricity, occasionally single chiming notes ringing out in the vast void from Haino's guitar, accompanied by sparse suspenseful skitter and pendulous plod too, from the percussion, while O'Malley's bass is a eerie, echoing, subtle shivering of low-end in the darkness. Haino's vocals, as always, are anguished, true cries from the heart, torn from the throat. O'Malley and Ambarchi have performed with Mayhem's Attila Csihar before, in Gravetemple, but even the "vokills" of that notorious black metal singer weren't as vokill as these! Let's put it this way, the AQ staffer writing this review is at this very moment suffering from a severe toothache (root canal pending) and Haino, whatever he's saying, seems to be expressing something even deeper and stronger than the merely physical pain that this reviewer is currently sufferingÉ
And then, wow, we won't tell you at exactly what minute of this lengthy track the apocalpyse is unleashed, but eventually it is, Haino's amp suddenly the fount of epic floodwaters of cavern-carving distortodelic guitar volume. And it's sheer manna from above (or below?) for fans of Haino/Fushitsusha and any other out-there heavy duty guitar skree.
The album's other three cuts are constructed from similar sonics, ambient ominous battlefields that provide the gripping backdrop for Haino's moans and wails, via either voice or guitar, but make for good gripping listening in an of themselves, like for instance the many moody minutes of final cut "Not To Leave Everything To The Light Outside Of You But To Be Aware Of The Prayer 'What Do I Want To Do?' That Exists Inside You, And Let That Go Out Of You As A Light, Or Things Might Get Worse, No?" even before Haino's amp really gets warmed upÉ
Another awesome Haino showcase, featuring great work from all involved, released on an obviously honored O'Malley's Mego sub-label, Ideologic Organ, with (of course) gorgeous packaging & design.
MPEG Stream: "Feel The Ultimate Joy Towards The Resolve Of Pillar Being Shattered Within You Again And Again And Again"
MPEG Stream: "Not A Joy To Come Closer But So-Called A Sacred Insanity Has Finally Appeared"
MPEG Stream: "Not To Leave Everything To The Light Outside Of You But To Be Aware Of The Prayer 'What Do I Want To Do?' That Exists Inside You, And Let That Go Out Of You As A Light, Or Things Might Get Worse, No?"

NAZORANAI (KEIJI HAINO + STEPHEN O'MALLEY + OREN AMBARCHI) s/t (Ideologic Organ) 2lp 32.00
All right, if you were excited a few months back when we listed the Imikuzushi album by Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, and Jim O'Rourke (that group's second release), we imagine you'll be equally chuffed about this: the debut from a quite similar trio consisting of Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, and Stephen O'Malley! Yeah, the guy from a little band you may have heard of called SUNNO))). Also KTL and Khanate and a bunch of others. Suddenly, is Keiji Haino still the darkest lord in the room? Well, yeah. But O'Malley has some cred in the blackness-of-soul category, and his presence helps make this even heavier.
And as you should expect, much like with the Haino/Ambarchi/O'Rourke lineup, this grouping is also, again, pretty much Haino's show. Even though he's recently reactivated his seminal outrock power trio Fushitsusha (on the intense Hikari To Nazukeyo album, reviewed here not long ago), Haino seems happy to have other outlets for Fushitsusha-esque stuff, and this is one of 'em, his shamanistic self taking the lead on guitars, vocals and synth. With O'Malley on bass and Ambarchi on battery, he's being ably backed up by guys who, y'know, dig his trip. And since Ambarchi has experience playing with Haino already, and O'Malley for his part has previously collaborated with Ambarchi, they're definitely "on" here, even though Nazorani had only played together a couple times prior to this this particular recording, which documents a live performance in Paris, France November 2011, altogether improvised "real-time" music we assume.
There's 72 minutes of their harrowing music here, four tracks, all obviously titled by Haino, though they almost could be parodies of his typical titlesÉ The set begins with "Feel The Ultimate Joy Towards The Resolve Of Pillar Being Shattered Within You Again And Again And Again", starting off with stretches of near-silence, pregnant with electricity, occasionally single chiming notes ringing out in the vast void from Haino's guitar, accompanied by sparse suspenseful skitter and pendulous plod too, from the percussion, while O'Malley's bass is a eerie, echoing, subtle shivering of low-end in the darkness. Haino's vocals, as always, are anguished, true cries from the heart, torn from the throat. O'Malley and Ambarchi have performed with Mayhem's Attila Csihar before, in Gravetemple, but even the "vokills" of that notorious black metal singer weren't as vokill as these! Let's put it this way, the AQ staffer writing this review is at this very moment suffering from a severe toothache (root canal pending) and Haino, whatever he's saying, seems to be expressing something even deeper and stronger than the merely physical pain that this reviewer is currently sufferingÉ
And then, wow, we won't tell you at exactly what minute of this lengthy track the apocalpyse is unleashed, but eventually it is, Haino's amp suddenly the fount of epic floodwaters of cavern-carving distortodelic guitar volume. And it's sheer manna from above (or below?) for fans of Haino/Fushitsusha and any other out-there heavy duty guitar skree.
The album's other three cuts are constructed from similar sonics, ambient ominous battlefields that provide the gripping backdrop for Haino's moans and wails, via either voice or guitar, but make for good gripping listening in an of themselves, like for instance the many moody minutes of final cut "Not To Leave Everything To The Light Outside Of You But To Be Aware Of The Prayer 'What Do I Want To Do?' That Exists Inside You, And Let That Go Out Of You As A Light, Or Things Might Get Worse, No?" even before Haino's amp really gets warmed upÉ
Another awesome Haino showcase, featuring great work from all involved, released on an obviously honored O'Malley's Mego sub-label, Ideologic Organ, with (of course) gorgeous packaging & design.
MPEG Stream: "Feel The Ultimate Joy Towards The Resolve Of Pillar Being Shattered Within You Again And Again And Again"
MPEG Stream: "Not A Joy To Come Closer But So-Called A Sacred Insanity Has Finally Appeared"
MPEG Stream: "Not To Leave Everything To The Light Outside Of You But To Be Aware Of The Prayer 'What Do I Want To Do?' That Exists Inside You, And Let That Go Out Of You As A Light, Or Things Might Get Worse, No?"

NDE Kampfbereit (Cold Spring Records) cd 15.98

NEAVE, RICHARD You're Not Welcome (Celebrate Psi Pheomenon) cd-r 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another batch of super limited and beautifully packaged cd-r's from Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. The finest in underground free noise / drone, culled mostly from New Zealand but all around the world as well. For those of you new to the CpsiP label, imagine classic Siltbreeze (Dead C, etc.) mixed with Jewelled Antler (Thuja, Blithe Sons etc.), dark and deep listening that sometimes verges on all out noise, but more often than not remains subtle experiments in avant drone and abstract sound. And when we say limited we mean LIMITED. Thes babies come in pressings of 30-80, out of which we get a whopping 10 copies!!
NZ "legend" Richard Neave finally lets his home recorded madness see the light of day. A wild concoction of atonal guitar scrabble, malfunctioning recording devices, tape hiss and drop out, squealing feedback, damaged Casio keyboards and whatever else was laying around. Sounds a bit like the guys in the Dead C shrunk down and forced to work inside a damged tape deck / clock radio, with a dying battery, desperately trying to keep things running smoothly. Or maybe Keiji Haino and Derek Bailey rolled up in a big wet carpet, being pummelled by broken synthesizers and pelted with blown out speakers. Wild and beautiful and noisy as hell.
MPEG Stream: "The Madness Of King George"
MPEG Stream: "Love Routine"

NECKLACING s/t (Accidie Records) cassette 6.98
Possibly named for an Incapacitants track from many moons ago, Necklacing is a collaborative project between the LA drone-plus-noise artists Matt Sullivan and William Hutson, the former working under the guise Earn and the latter as Rale. This is much more of a full-on noise project than what we've heard from either of them previously, as they're seeking the harness the power of various 'white noise generators.' It seems to us, that these generators include amplified tape hiss and shortwave radio static all blown out with overdriven gain and well-tempered distortion. No delicate introduction here, just a blast of a white noise that opens both tracks of this tape, and a plateau of noise is sustained throughout streaming into an thick low-end underbelly and topped with a very hectic stream of tactility. In their evenhanded application of the noise, Necklacing offer a perspective of clinical detachment, somewhat like the manifestations of tape noise on the brilliant, if long forgotten Reynols album Blank Tapes. The second side, which begins and ends just as the first, exhibits more from the shortwave, with rapid fire blips from utility signal transmissions bleeding through the agitated surface noise. Necklacing is an entirely different animal from the kaleidoscopic frenzy of Merzbow, the primal energy of Menche, and the psychological pressures of John Duncan. Very well done, and very limited. 100 copies altogether.

NECKS, THE Aether (ReR Megacorp) cd 16.98
We've gone cuckoo for the Australian trio The Necks, and this is the third album we're gonna enthuse over. More brilliance, in other words! Again, the Necks play a hard-to-categorize blend of jazz and rock that's "experimental" yet totally accessible, making use of insanely evocative piano, drums and bass in a hypnotically repetitive, circular, subtly shifting manner. It brings to mind everything from Philip Glass to Stars of the Lid to Miles Davis. That's right.
Aether begins as if it is finishing, with long minor key chords and shimmering cymbals that wait until fading from the audible before the next set s-l-o-w-l-y emerges. As with The Necks' relatively more active Hanging Garden album, they set down that evocative sonic foundation for a full twenty minutes before single piano notes sail out surprisingly, hesitatingly stating a melodic line. It's over an hour long and not for a second does it become boring -- despite its stillness there's a warmth, no chill. The piece's closing section (another healthy 20 minutes) is a muted flourish, with the cymbals unendingly shimmering, the piano notes echoing and repeating like the tide is coming in. This is the perfect and only soundtrack to a Sunrise. Amazing.
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"

NECKS, THE Aquatic (Carpet Bomb) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
All right, those of you who have still not taken the plunge into the glorious, jazzy drone-y world of Australia's The Necks, here's yet another chance, and a pretty low priced one at that! We finally managed to get a bunch of copies of Aquatic, a cd that we used to carry years ago and that has only now become available again. The Necks explore expansive soundscapes of almost static rhythms, Terry Riley-esque piano figures and a 'songwriting' style that leans more towards Steve Reich than Ornette Coleman. Shuffling snare and ride cymbal, piano and bass weave lush repetitive figures that mesmerise in their barely perceptible shifts resulting in a gorgeously meditative and almost transcendental sort-of-free-jazz. The core three piece is joined on Aquatic by a hurdy gurdy which adds to the overall droniness. Even the jazz hater at AQ is frequently caught listening to the Necks! What more do you need to know?! C'mon!
MPEG Stream: "Aquatic 1"
MPEG Stream: "Aquatic 2"

NECKS, THE Chemist (Recommended) cd 16.98
The Necks are one of those rare bands that we could literally listen to forever. Their sound is just so perfectly hypnotic and so well suited to extended listening. If they invented a new format, where a band could release say, a 24 hour long song, the Necks are the first band we would think of. In fact they actually have played a 24 hour show. We keep hoping it will get released, although the epic scope might be lost split up over 24 discs.
This here is the Necks 13th release in about 20 years. And for a band to stay true to their sound for that long, while remaining viable and listenable and exciting is testament to the Necks' unbelievable skill. For those new to the Necks, imagine a three piece jazz ensemble, bass, drums and piano (although, on Chemist, for the first time ever, guitar is introduced, played, oddly enough by drummer Tony Buck), who specialize in extended longform pieces. Ultra minimal, slowly shifting epics, a single riff, a single motif, repeated and looped and subtly colored over the span of ten minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes even 24 hours. Totally mesmerizing and hypnotic.
Chemist is the most rocking Necks record we can remember. At least the opening 20 minute track. The groove is much more upfront, driving, propulsive, like a stripped down jazzed up Can or Faust. Loping, groovy, mesmeric, small flurries of piano drift and flutter over a super solid bass and drums groove. In fact, this almost sounds like a jazzier version of Finnish drone rockers Circle. The same sort of endless riffing and perfectly propulsive rhythm. The second track is much more spare and straight up jazzy, a soft shimmery shuffle, the final track while not quite as aggressive as the opener, does have a similarly relentless rhythm that turns the jazzy drift into something almost 'rocking'. Hard to say if this is our favorite Necks record, as we pretty much love them all, but this is definitely the most aggressive and thus pushes a different set of buttons. Necks fans obviously need this. But some of you Circle / Salvatore fans who are up for something a little more dark and jazzy and moody might just dig this A LOT.
MPEG Stream: "Fatal"
MPEG Stream: "Buoyant"

NECKS, THE Drive By (ReR Megacorp) cd 17.98
Here at Aquarius, you might say that 2003 could have been called The Year Of The Necks. Sure, that sounds a bit funny, but what we mean is that this year is when everybody here either discovered or re-discovered this amazing band. We gave rave reviews to four of their older records, after falling in love with a four-cd live box of theirs back in December of last year. And judging from sales, a lot of you have gotten acquainted with The Necks this year as well, and liked 'em. This Aussie trio of piano (and/or organ), bass, and drums can't be easily catagorized: they're not exactly jazz, not ambient, not rock, not post-rock, not electronica...but they are some of the above, and more. Less too, 'cause what they do is so understated, and so specifically Necks.
So, what better way is there to celebrate The Year Of The Necks 'round these parts than to revel in the release of this brand new Necks opus, Drive By? And it's definitely the equal of any of The Necks' prodigious output, doing all the things we now expect from them...creating a mesmerizing, hypnotic musical trance-state over a lengthy playing time (in this case, one track, 60 minutes and seventeen gorgeous seconds long). Drive By is a pulsating wonder, steadily building over an hour, the drums becoming more active and restless but always "on", underpinning the constant throb of the bass. Drive By is bejewelled with bright tinkling piano, electronic effects, and other sonic elements, including what sound like crickets joining in around the 11 minute mark. 45+ minutes later, The Necks are still in the groove, channelling ancient rhythm into their extremely modern format. I'm beginning to think that the compact disc is too limiting for these guys. They need a DVD-audio release, so we can hear 'em play for seven hours straight!
So, what comparisons can we stretch to make? Some sort of NPR-ized Circle? A prettified Bohren? Steve Reich meets Miles Davis? Ah, hell with that. It's The Year Of The Necks. No comparisons necessary. Just check 'em out.
MPEG Stream: "Drive By (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Drive By (excerpt 2)"

NECKS, THE Mindset (ReR) cd 17.98
Looking back on reviews of other Necks records, we find ourselves either struggling to describe the Necks' unique sound, or gushing uncontrollably about how goddamn great they are. More often than not, some mix of the two. And we realized that wasn't likely to change here, with the latest record from these Australian modern jazz minimalists, who do indeed have a sound that's difficult to describe, but that is precisely why they are one of our favorite bands EVER. Jazz or otherwise. And they are most definitely jazz, drums, upright bass and piano, and many jazz music tropes are present in their music, it's just that their music takes the idea of jazz, and stretches it way out, and turns it into something much more about tension (and no release), about timbre and mood... Their songs are generally 20-60 minutes long, most of their records are in fact a single track, and they slowly build a gorgeous lush jazzscape that on the surface appears jazzy, a quick glancing listen and an unsuspecting listener might think, "oh, nice, jazzy", but had they bothered to keep listening, that wasn't just a part in a song they were hearing, it WAS the song, and the Necks masterfully take that part and nurture it, from a hushed whispery skitter, occasionally to an all out roar, but just as often, just a much more dense and intense hushed whispery skitter. The three players impossibly and organically linked, sounding less like a band, and more like pure sound. Like we said, it's hard to explain. In some ways, their music sounds like it could be the result of some sort of audio manipulation, as if some audio alchemist took jazz samples and stretched and layered them into these droned out hypnotic jazz ragas, which in itself is a testament to these guys' skill.
On Mindset, the Necks offer up two 21+ minute tracks, the first might be their darkest yet, starting out immediately with some deep low end thrum, some minimal drum skitter, the band immediately locked into a dark almost dirgey groove, and when the piano comes in, it's noisy and surprisingly atonal, the pedals depressed, the tones all bleeding into each other in a thick swirling angular sonic cloud, while the bass and drums remain locked tight. The bass gradually grows more active, and more melodic, as does the piano, the sound impossibly lush and dense, sounding like a way heavier Lubomyr Melnyk, swirling flurries of notes over layered drones, the drums subtly propulsive, it almost sounds like a jazz Godspeed You Black Emperor, so epic and majestic, and darkly moving. Eventually the drums too begin to be more active, and deviate from the groove, the sound building to a cathartic climax, before jettisoning much of the jazz, and turning into a dark droned out abstract psychedelic dirge, with what sounds like effects everywhere, although we're pretty sure they don't use much in the way of effects, there even seems to be what sounds like a guitar, offering up fuzzy squalls of high end buzz, the second half doesn't sound like jazz at all, more like some heavy droney psychedelic post rock outfit. So good. One of our favorite Necks jams for sure. And definitely a good gateway for those aQ-ers who tend toward the jazz-phobic.
The second track is a lot more subdued, starting out super abstract and spacious, tinkling melodies, mysterious sound effects, minimal percussion, spacey little glitches, streaks of high end skree, it's not until 5 or 6 minutes in when the song really starts to coalesce, the bass bowed, unfurling lush slow-mo melodies, and then finally, the drums drift in, another motorik shuffle, the sound remaining ethereal and washed out, glimmery and shimmery, very cinematic too, the drums crazy busy, but still holding things down, the track growing more and more frantic, and frenzied, while on the surface, the piano remains languid and tranquil, while beneath it, the rest of the band grows more and more agitated, the sound so dark and tense, and growing ever darker, hints of funkiness are blurred into something more abstract, the groove nearly swallowed up by the bands swirling sonic churn. Maybe THIS one is one of our favorite Necks jams ever. Hell, who needs to pick? Another Necks record that will no doubt rank as one of our forever faves, and again, Mindset definitely seems like the kind of record that could very well convince some folks out there of what we already know, that the Necks are one of thee best bands out there!
MPEG Stream: "Rum Jungle"
MPEG Stream: "Daylights"

NECKS, THE Mindset (ReR) lp 23.00
Finally, the lp version of this, back in stock! We never actually were able to list this Record Of The Week (list #389) on vinyl before, here it is at last...
Looking back on reviews of other Necks records, we find ourselves either struggling to describe the Necks' unique sound, or gushing uncontrollably about how goddamn great they are. More often than not, some mix of the two. And we realized that wasn't likely to change here, with the latest record from these Australian modern jazz minimalists, who do indeed have a sound that's difficult to describe, but that is precisely why they are one of our favorite bands EVER. Jazz or otherwise. And they are most definitely jazz, drums, upright bass and piano, and many jazz music tropes are present in their music, it's just that their music takes the idea of jazz, and stretches it way out, and turns it into something much more about tension (and no release), about timbre and mood, their songs are generally 20-60 minutes long, most of their records are in fact a single track, and they slowly build a gorgeous lush jazzscape that on the surface appears jazzy, a quick glancing listen and an unsuspecting listener might think, "oh, nice, jazzy", but had they bothered to keep listening, that wasn't just a part in a song they were hearing, it WAS the song, and the Necks masterfully take that part and nurture it, from a hushed whispery skitter, occasionally to an all out roar, but just as often, just a much more dense and intense hushed whispery skitter. The three players impossibly and organically linked, sounding less like a band, and more like pure sound. Like we said, it's hard to explain. In some ways, their music sounds like it could be the result of some sort of audio manipulation, as if some audio alchemist, took jazz samples and stretched and layered them into these droned out hypnotic jazz ragas, which in itself is a testament to these guys' skill.
On Mindset, the Necks offer up two 21+ minute tracks, the first might be their darkest yet, starting out immediately with some deep low end thrum, some minimal drum skitter, the band immediately locked into a dark almost dirgey groove, and when the piano comes in, it's noisy and surprisingly atonal, the pedals depressed, the tones all bleeding into each other in a thick swirling angular sonic cloud, while the bass and drums remain locked tight. The bass gradually grows more active, and more melodic, as does the piano, the sound impossibly lush and dense, sounding like a way heavier Lubomyr Melnyk, swirling flurries of notes over layered drones, the drums subtly propulsive, it almost sounds like a jazz Godspeed You Black Emperor, so epic and majestic, and darkly moving. Eventually the drums too begin to be more active, and deviate from the groove, the sound building to a cathartic climax, before jettisoning much of the jazz, and turning into a dark droned out abstract psychedelic dirge, with what sounds like effects everywhere, although we're pretty sure they don't use much in the way of effects, there even seems to be what sounds like a guitar, offering up fuzzy squalls of high end buzz, the second half doesn't sound like jazz at all, more like some heavy droney psychedelic post rock outfit. So good. One of our favorite Necks jams for sure. And definitely a good gateway for those aQ-ers who tend toward the jazz-phobic.
The second track is a lot more subdued, starting out super abstract and spacious, tinkling melodies, mysterious sound effects, minimal percussion, spacey little glitches, streaks of high end skree, it's not until 5 or 6 minutes in when the song really starts to coalesce, the bass bowed, unfurling lush slow-mo melodies, and then finally, the drums drift in, another motorik shuffle, the sound remaining ethereal and washed out, glimmery and shimmery, very cinematic too, the drums crazy busy, but still holding things down, the track growing more and more frantic, and frenzied, while on the surface, the piano remains languid and tranquil, while beneath it, the rest of the band grows more and more agitated, the sound so dark and tense, and growing ever darker, hints of funkiness are blurred into something more abstract, the groove nearly swallowed up by the bands swirling sonic churn. Maybe THIS one is one of our favorite Necks jams ever. Hell, who needs to pick? Another Necks record that will no doubt rank as one of our forever faves, and again, Mindset definitely seems like the kind of record that could very well convince some folks out there of what we already know, that the Necks are one of thee best bands out there!
MPEG Stream: "Rum Jungle"
MPEG Stream: "Daylights"

NECKS, THE Photosynthetic (Long Arms) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've been trying forever to get copies of this Necks record, recorded live in Moscow in 2002, and only now have we managed to get enough to finally list. For those of you unfamiliar with the Necks, imagine a standard jazz trio, piano, drums and double bass, now imagine that group playing a jazz that is anything but standard. Extended pieces, usually cd length, sometimes longer, motifs repeated endlessly, while the instruments circle warily, slowly building, each player adding the tiniest hint of sound, a rumbling shimmering, shuffling jazz drone, that pulses and breathes, stretches and swells, rumbles and shimmers. This is jazz for the avant drone set for sure. Chris Abrahams' piano spits out dense clouds of chords and notes, a swirling melodic sprawl, underpinned by Lloyd Swanton's rumbling droning low end and Tony Buck's ultra restrained drumming, shuffling and skittering, kicking up little percussive squalls that drift lazily into the hypnotic haze of piano chords and double bass thrum. It's like all the parts in every jazz song ever -right before- the band kicks in to the tune, all stitched together into a massive never ending free jazz drone. Feldman plays Monk, or Birchville Cat Motel covering Mingus. Dark and dreamy and totally mesmerizing. Another one of those groups who we can imagine playing a single song FOREVER! And we'd just lay there soaking it in and loving it! Actually there was a rumor of a Necks show recently, where they supposedly performed for 24 hours straight! What we wouldn't do for that to come out as a 24 cd box set!
Packaged in a jewel case with a really nice printed vellum booklet.
MPEG Stream: "Photosynthetic"

NECKS, THE Silverwater (ReR) cd 17.98
Hot damn. A new Necks album. They're one of our favorite bands EVER, and this is (one of the many reasons) why. Silverwater provides 67 minutes of the Necks' unique, hypnotic, keys/bass/drums bliss, all one track of course as is their wont. Over the course of those 67 minutes, though, the music made by this Australian trio varies quite a bit. Their trademark trance-iness is present, always, but at the same time this new album (their first studio record in, like, 3 years) seems more programmatic and propulsive than we're used to from these guys, taking off in directions we haven't necessarily heard from them before, but still sounding more like the Necks than anything else. Yet, parts could be mistaken for an underground ambient psychedelic jam from the likes of Sylvester Anfang, almost. And we'd say this is the Necks record to get Bohren & Der Club Of Gore fans into 'em. Other comparisons we've perhaps made before would be to Circle (in their non-metallic Miljard mode), Supersilent, Alice Coltrane, and AMM... anything that can elicit references to the likes of those is, obviously, amazing.
Eerie wavering drones delicately unfurl near the start, quiet and pretty... that gives way to a section that's almost ceremonial, like some percussive ritual. Sparse and deliberate, drums-only for a stretch, to be joined by deep, plucked bass notes... it could be some kinda krautrock jazz... and it does get "jazzier", sort of, with electric organ coloration, and cyclic piano plinkings, but also electronic-y gritty glitchiness overdubbed... Silverwater's shimmering textures and minimalist pulsations are simply beautiful, enthralling. It's a glorious 67 minutes, all right.
If you know the Necks, you know you need this. If you're new to the Necks, please do yourself a favor and check this out. Next to seeing them live (which some of us have been lucky enough to do, oh my god they were good), this will demonstrate quite effectively why we hold them in such high regard.
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 3"

NECRO DEATHMORT Music Of Bleak Origin (Distraction) cd 12.98
We made the debut from the awesomely named Necro Deathmort our Record Of The Week way back in January of 2010. As we mentioned in that review it was pretty much a no brainer, the band name to begin with, the album title (The Beat Is Necrotonic), but then the sound, heaving walls of SUNOO))) like heaviness wedded to skittery beats, blackened drones wrapped around low slung rhythms, a sort of SUNNO)) meets Squarepusher electro-metal-blackened-dubstep, beat flecked slo-mo doom bliss wreathed in hazy spaciness, all drifty and mesmerizing, psychedelic, hypnotic and HEAVY.
If anything, this new one, record number two, even more evocatively titled Music Of Bleak Origin, is exactly what you would hope for as a follow up. In some ways, the gimmick of the first record was almost enough, sludgey metal guitars AND beats, granted, those two elements, not usually good bedfellows, were deftly woven into something special, heavy enough for the metalheads, but atmospheric and rhythmic enough for everyone else, but here, it's like that first record reimagined, and re-engineered, sonically, compositionally, it's heavier, more melodic, the songs are more catchy, more actual proper songs, the beats are bigger too, with much of the record REALLY sounding like a metal dubstep record, with the sound shifting easily from doomy skitter, to lurching electronics laced lumber, at its heaviest, definitely worthy of any self respecting metalhead's attention (adventurous metalheads we might qualify), but those heavy moments are not JUST heavy, their tangled up with squelchy synths, spaced out effects, keening vocals way down in the mix, almost like they decided to add space rock to their already eclectic palette, and when they're more concerned with beats, that heaviness, and doominess, and bleak origin, seeps into every beat, every twisted loop, or fuzzy buzzy synth.
The brief opener is the perfect intro, a stuttery beat, pelted with squelches, laid over thick undulating bass, all wrapped in thick layers of buzz and long streaks of high metallic skree, a perfect chunk of electro metallic dirgery. It's not until the second track that NdM really get to let loose, starting out with a super skeletal beat, draped with fragmented melodies, hushed muted effects, a sort of spacerock Portishead, but then the big guitars come crashing in, and then the sound becomes a churning psychedelic doom, lumbering, lurching, the thick crumbling guitars wrapped in swirling synths, the vocals heavy with effects, a sort of metalgaze spacedoom that RULES.
Which makes the next track even more of a surprise, "Temple Of Juno" is straight up dubstep, like it could have been yanked off some Hyperdub 12", until the music swings in, changing the vibe to low slung and again sorta doomy, but riff with woozy synths, wordless vocals, another dirgey bit of psychedelic electro doom, that builds and builds until again, the guitars are massive, roiling and churning, now strapped to buzzy dubsteppy synths, and so it goes swinging from dubbed out metallic lumber to spacey synthy drift and back again.
"Uberlord" is total blackened guitardrone, wall of crumbling buzz, but again, liberally does with swirls of static, fractured FX, and shinnery synths, the result way more spaced out and psychedelic that heavy, which gives way to "For Your Own Good", which starts out all murky and muted and heroin house-y, gradually getting more and more dubbed out, the beats building in intensity, more buried vocals, it's not until about halfway through that the beat splinters into a way more propulsive rhythm, still motorik but more muscly, all wreathed in a synth spacey haze, hypnotic and dreamily blissed out.
"Devastating Vector", unwinds a stuttery techno beat, and some glitchy synths, and lays them out over a dense layered sprawl of ominous low end rumble and buzz, which transforms into some undulating buzzed out bass, the song a sort of dubbed out techno flecked dirge, until it gets SERIOUSLY electro, the sound wrapped in zig zagging synth melodies, dizzying and almost housey, but still the beat and the low end churns along relentlessly, it is actually sort of funky, but in a way that manages to kick ass, not what you would expect from 'funkiness' in this context at all. And of course it's Necro Deathmort, so halfway through, the song explodes in a burst of static, only to come out the other side all thick and buzzy and sludge, the bass blown out and blackened, the beat a lumbering lurch, the whole thing oozy and melty like the whole thing is some huge black mass pouring from your speakers. "Blizzard" sounds like part two of "Devastating Vector", less funky and more plodding, the synths set on swirl, lots of crunch and distortion, moody and murky and woozily washed out, the song rife with subtle melody, the vibe sort of melancholy.
"The Heat Death Of Everything" starts out all big booming beat, and keening high end drones, sounding like Jesu or Nadja or something, and then the hammer falls, and by hammer, we mean massive, thick, sludgey downtuned riffage, about as metal as these guys get, a death march trudge, all howled distorted vocals, pounding drum pummel, squealing feedback, almost industrial / mechanical, but with a Moss / Bunkur sort of ultradoom vibe as well, the sound eventually begins to glow, with subtle color, and buried melody, eventually transforming into a swirl of washed out shimmer and gauzy droned out drift, only to lead straight into the final track, "Moon", a haunting hushed outro, all muted moaning melody, and echo drenched skeletal rhythms, like a doomdronedirge Portishead, total druggy, late night chill out minimal electro-doom slowcore drift.
Fucking awesome, AGAIN. Anyone who bought the first one is DEFINITELY gonna want this one too, and anyone who somehow missed out on these guys the first time around, here's another chance. Absolutely contender for fave record of the year, metal, electronic, otherwise or BOTH.
Super swank packaging, a massive, gorgeously illustrated fold out poster sleeve, housed in a stickered PVC plastic sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Jaffanaut"
MPEG Stream: "In Binary"
MPEG Stream: "Temple Of Juno"
MPEG Stream: "Uberlord"

NECRO DEATHMORT The Colonial Script (III) (Distraction) cd 14.98
When we first discovered Necro Deathmort, they were recommended to us as sounding like Squarepusher style electronica fused to SUNNO)))-like sludge, and that was actually not far off the mark, with most of the record sounding precisely like that, thick crumbling distorted guitar buzz laced with all manner of stuttery skittery beats, and then the second record, found the band seeming to focus that sound, relying less on the electronica-meets-metal thing, and instead creating songs that just happened to be both electronic AND heavy, and while it wasn't as quirky or fucked up as the debut, it was definitely a better records, with proper songs, and one that does get plenty of repeat play even still (although so does the first one, which we still love), but we were super excited to discover there was yet another NdM record, a brand new one called The Colonial Script, and we knew from the second we put it on, we were gonna dig it as much as the first two.
For folks new to NdM, just check out the first two sound samples below to get a feel for what these guys are all about, which on the Colonial Script, definitely hews closer to the second record but does feature some seriously metallic moments.
Opener "Imperial" starts of all skeletal and spaced out, and when the drums drop, it's like the heaviest, darkest dubstep you've ever heard, the beats pounding away over thick buzzing rumbles and whirring low end, all wreathed in swaths of hum and thrum, and super dynamic, with the track stopping to creep along like some industrial doom, before gradually building back up again, the second half of the track super melodic and melancholy, all minor key and midtempo, a sort of true doom electronica if that makes any sense, building and building to a final few minutes blow out of metallic industrial pummel, which leads directly into "Led To The Water", which is all blown out metallic dirgery, the guitars thick and corrosive, the beats all Godfleshy and mechanical, the vocals a howled feral wail, the vibe is somewhere between black metal, Neurosis and Godflesh or Neurosis, the churning heaviness underpinned by all sorts of subtle melodic shimmer, the metal sort of peeling away, leaving a stripped down skeletal lumber, that fades out, the sounds growing more and more brittle before disappearing in a dubbed out haze. Hard to resist, another one of those bands that we sort of always wished existed and now does. This is some dancefloor destroying heaviness, the sort of stuff that no proper DJ in their right mind would drop, but if they did, people would lose their shit.
Much of this record plays out more like some blackened industrial metalscape, not electronica so much as programmed beats driving big riffs and grim atmospheres, but that can change when you least expect it, like on "Endless Vertex", when another sprawl of downtuned lumber gradually shifts into a gorgeous glimmery bit of beat heavy skitter, or the sort of DJ Shadow-ish blackened hip hop of "Shadows of Reflections of Ghosts Past", or even the sort of droned out krautrock shuffle of "Starbeast", that track adding swirls of synth, and thick undulating low end, resulting in a fantastically broody slab of low end beat driven minimal mesmer.
But again in between those instances of overt electronica, NdM are a seriously heavy outfit, trafficking in the sort of effects drenched programmed drum driven doom, that will have Nadja obsessives losing their minds.
As always, WAY recommended! For folks into electronic music, heavy music, or obviously both, and like the other two records, a shoe in for end of year top ten lists, even though it's only May. Packaged in a cool super black 6 panel digipak.
MPEG Stream: "Imperial"
MPEG Stream: "Led To The Water"
MPEG Stream: "Endless Vertex"
MPEG Stream: "Wretched Hag"

NECRO DEATHMORT This Beat Is Necrotronic (Distraction) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This record seemed like it was custom made for aQ. They're called Necro Deathmort, the record is called This Beat Is Necrotronic, they've been described as SUNNO))) meets Squarepusher, it's heavy, it's skittery, it's dark, it's like a metal dubstep record, or a grim electronic laced doomdrone record, some of the tracks are stuttery and rhythmic, others are grim and ominous and intense, all of them are heavy, the sound veers from spaced out and downtuned, to skeletal and psychedelic, to thick and caustic, to big beated and bassy.
Thanks to aQ customer Mark for introducing us to these guys, we've been listening to it nonstop since we got it in. It's definitely a tough one to pin down, a little all over the map, but no matter what's going on, the various sounds and vibes and moods are definitely connected, joined by a thick grim black thread.
"Spilth (Spill Your Filth)" starts things off with a lumbering electro jam, all squiggles and squelches, glitches and buzzes, but underpinned by some serious speaker destroying bass, fuzzed out and thick and rumbling and very very prickly, like the heaviest dubstep bassline you've ever heard, cranked even higher. "Hurt Me I'm Bored" is where the band get serious, spreading out a serious chunk of smoldering electronic flecked doom, haunting and propulsive, the drums simple and stripped down, the main riff minor key and a little bit woozy, all around the main groove, clouds of static and hiss swirl and spark, the low end again thick as hell, the guitars gradually growing more and more metallic until, the track is full on doooooooom, but still peppered with little squiggles of distorted leads and various shards of electronic detritus.
"I Can See Through Time" is all washed out whir and hushed shimmer, looped and chopped sounds smoothed into a droney almost pop ambience, which quickly gives way to "Return To Planet Atlas", a sort of trip hopped slowcore jam, all big beats, and thick gnarled woofer shredding low-end, surrounded on all sides by streaks of high end, and all manner of swirling effects. The beats are definitely reminiscent of Scorn, even Bomb The Bass (remember them?), but a bit amped up and a lot heavier: "Necro Effigy" is another strange beat driven groove, with strange voices, croaking frogs, fractured glitched out crunch, and stuttery stop start beats, "Broadcast" is a dreamy interlude, sampled voices, looped bass notes and distant drone-y rumbles, dreamy and ethereal, which leads right into "I Fought The Law And The Law Won" which sounds like Portishead, all smoke-y and late night, or maybe a more beaty Bohren, creepy crawly, mysterious and weirdly pretty, "Technicolour Minstrel Show" begins with a SUNNO)))-y wall of crumbling blackened sound, only to give way to a whirring soft focus dreamscape, while "Origami Werewolf" is a dark loping jam, all throbbing beats, sheets of blown out guitar, keening feedback, and some serious industrial riffage, and finally, the record closes with the nearly 13 minute "Ultimate Testament", a gorgeous super minimal slowcore crawl, the beats skeletal and spaced out, the guitar raw and distorted, thick and noxious, but the melodies epic and majestic, it sounds like it might build to classic post rock crescendo, but instead, everything drops out except for the drums, and the last few minutes are a strange minimal beatscape, booming, pounding, crashing, but with tons of space, the beats echoing into the blackness before winking out, only to be replaced by another beat, until there's nothing left.
This shit is amazing, so dark and heavy and unlikely. Gorgeously packaged too, in a super swank fold out six panel sleeve, adorned with some garish woodcut style illustrations, and be sure and check out their Myspace page as well, tons of other music that didn't make it onto the cd, including a killer reinterpretation of an old Nirvana song, that gets all Necro'd. So Rad. And just for the record, January is in no way too soon to start picking records for your best of 2010 list... just so you know...
MPEG Stream: "Hurt Me I'm Bored"
MPEG Stream: "Spilth (Spill Your Filth)"
MPEG Stream: "I Fought The Law And The Law Won"
MPEG Stream: "Technicolour Minstrel Show"
MPEG Stream: "Origami Werewolf"

NECROCUM / SEPPUKU Split (At War With False Noise) 7" 12.98