SKULL DEFEKTS, THE Open The Gates Of Mimer (AA / Nosordo) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

SKULL DEFEKTS, THE Peer Amid (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98
It's like the second coming of late great rhythmic post rockers Lungfish. This latest disc from Swedish hypno rockers Skull Defekts finds the group teaming up with modern musical shaman (and former Lungfish frontman) Daniel Higgs, for what is easily the groups most 'rock' record yet, which is no bad thing, and with the addition of Higgs, the band's sound is transformed into something that to these ears sounds remarkably like a modernized, supercharged Lungfish. Skull Defekts, like Lungfish before them, are obsessed with rhythm, and repetition, and their songs bear this out, often comprised of just one or two parts, repeated over and over, trance-like and mesmerizing, the band locking in tight, and getting all droned out and hypnotic and krautrocky, constantly shifting but minimally and subtly, so on the surface, it's total zoner psychedelic drone rock bliss, but closer listening reveals a constantly mutating underbelly innercore, and on Peer Amid, Higgs acquits himself nicely, taking an approach not that dissimilar to his Lungfish days, short shards of lyrics, more like mantras, repeated over and over, he's in full shamen mode, the band his high priests, the normal Skull Defekts fleshed WAY out, lush and layered, with tons of extra effects, electronics, percussion, the guitars super thick and distorted and heavy, the perfect bed for Higgs' inspired lyrical rants, the overall sound slipping from the noise rock/krautrock hybrid of the title track, to the almost Bleach era Nirvana sounding "No More Always", to the Eastern tinged midtempo dirgery of "Gospel Of The Skull", that is probably as perfect a realization of the Skull Defekts / Daniel Higgs hybrid as to be found here, the main riff sounding almost like something off Sun City Girls' Torch Of The Mystics, and Higgs' vocals all over the place, nearly operatic, super intense and over the top.
The rest of the record offers still more inspired, next level, spiritual hypno noise rock, rhythmic mantra drone psychedelia, in the form of the creepy vocal driven drag of "The Silver Ring", with its brooding ambience chant-like vox and crashing distortion, and the tribal buzz drenched "In Majestic Drag" with its huge drums, crackling crumbling distortion, strange shimmering ambience, and still more crooned moaned vox, and "Fragrant Nimbus", with a main rhythmic groove that almost sounds like the Ex, Higgs, sing/speaking over the top, sparring with extra percussion, squalls of super intense psychedelic freekout, the vocals multi-tracked creating strange harmonies, and "What Knives, What Birds", another -almost- funky sounding jam, that wreathes the rhythms in distorted processed vocals, winding tangled distorted guitar melodies, and finally, "Join The True" with a killer bass heavy rhythm, circular and mesmerizing, Higgs, vocals an ominous spoken word, the vocals and instruments locked tight for a nearly unshifting 3 minutes, before exploding into a majestic bit of melodic crashing and soaring, again, reminding us a bit of Nirvana's Bleach, albeit filtered through both Lungfish AND Skull Defekts, the result a glorious slab of super rhythmic, catchy and melodic, heavy and trancelike hypnorock bliss!
MPEG Stream: "Peer Amid"
MPEG Stream: "No More Always"
MPEG Stream: "Gospel Of The Skull"
MPEG Stream: "What Knives What Birds"

SKULL DEFEKTS, THE Peer Amid (Thrill Jockey) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It's like the second coming of late great rhythmic post rockers Lungfish. This latest disc from Swedish hypno rockers Skull Defekts finds the group teaming up with modern musical shaman (and former Lungfish frontman) Daniel Higgs, for what is easily the groups most 'rock' record yet, which is no bad thing, and with the addition of Higgs, the band's sound is transformed into something that to these ears sounds remarkably like a modernized, supercharged Lungfish. Skull Defekts, like Lungfish before them, are obsessed with rhythm, and repetition, and their songs bear this out, often comprised of just one or two parts, repeated over and over, trance-like and mesmerizing, the band locking in tight, and getting all droned out and hypnotic and krautrocky, constantly shifting but minimally and subtly, so on the surface, it's total zoner psychedelic drone rock bliss, but closer listening reveals a constantly mutating underbelly innercore, and on Peer Amid, Higgs acquits himself nicely, taking an approach not that dissimilar to his Lungfish days, short shards of lyrics, more like mantras, repeated over and over, he's in full shamen mode, the band his high priests, the normal Skull Defekts fleshed WAY out, lush and layered, with tons of extra effects, electronics, percussion, the guitars super thick and distorted and heavy, the perfect bed for Higgs' inspired lyrical rants, the overall sound slipping from the noise rock/krautrock hybrid of the title track, to the almost Bleach era Nirvana sounding "No More Always", to the Eastern tinged midtempo dirgery of "Gospel Of The Skull", that is probably as perfect a realization of the Skull Defekts / Daniel Higgs hybrid as to be found here, the main riff sounding almost like something off Sun City Girls' Torch Of The Mystics, and Higgs' vocals all over the place, nearly operatic, super intense and over the top.
The rest of the record offers still more inspired, next level, spiritual hypno noise rock, rhythmic mantra drone psychedelia, in the form of the creepy vocal driven drag of "The Silver Ring", with its brooding ambience chant-like vox and crashing distortion, and the tribal buzz drenched "In Majestic Drag" with its huge drums, crackling crumbling distortion, strange shimmering ambience, and still more crooned moaned vox, and "Fragrant Nimbus", with a main rhythmic groove that almost sounds like the Ex, Higgs, sing/speaking over the top, sparring with extra percussion, squalls of super intense psychedelic freekout, the vocals multi-tracked creating strange harmonies, and "What Knives, What Birds", another -almost- funky sounding jam, that wreathes the rhythms in distorted processed vocals, winding tangled distorted guitar melodies, and finally, "Join The True" with a killer bass heavy rhythm, circular and mesmerizing, Higgs, vocals an ominous spoken word, the vocals and instruments locked tight for a nearly unshifting 3 minutes, before exploding into a majestic bit of melodic crashing and soaring, again, reminding us a bit of Nirvana's Bleach, albeit filtered through both Lungfish AND Skull Defekts, the result a glorious slab of super rhythmic, catchy and melodic, heavy and trancelike hypnorock bliss!
MPEG Stream: "Peer Amid"
MPEG Stream: "No More Always"
MPEG Stream: "Gospel Of The Skull"
MPEG Stream: "What Knives What Birds"

SKULL DEFEKTS, THE Polonium (Kning Disk) 3"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.
Not only is this limited 3" cd-r release on one our our newest favoritest labels, Sweden's Kning Disk (who brought us both the Erik Enocksson Record Of The Week and Balroynigress reviewed on our last list) but it's also by one of our newest favoritest bands, The Skull Defekts (also Swedish). You know why we love Kning, and if you read our reviews of a handful of their previous releases, you also know what we think is so great about The Skull Defekts... they're abstract technicians of noisy mechanical rhythm n' glitch, masters of repetitive industrial improv thrum n' stutter. Like their Stateside colleagues (and Kning labelmates) Wolf Eyes, they've also been quite prolific (we have several other new Skull Dfx titles in stock and awaiting review, in fact!).
Polonium (named for a rare, radioactive element, used in the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning) is a heavy, hypnotic electrical noise construct about 20 minutes long, recorded live on the radio (Resonance FM) in London, England, January 6th 2007. Although performed by a stripped down duo version of the band, normally a quartet, it's a good example of what we love about this outfit and would make a good introduction to their sound, though we're listing it now mainly 'cause we know fans are gonna want to get their hands on this before it's gone, as this release, in its second and possibly final edition, is LIMITED TO 100 NUMBERED COPIES. We only have a few...

SKULL DEFEKTS, THE Skkull (Release The Bats) cd 14.98
The Skull Defekts are another one of those bands that seem to have gone from some unknown entity with just a cd-r and a tape, to a serious band, with an avalanche of releases, in the blink of an eye. So much so that it's been tough for us to keep up. This is the first of maybe three cds that have come out in the last little while, but the first we're actually getting around to reviewing.
In the review of the only other SD release we've listed and reviewed, a now out of print lp on Conspiracy Records, we said that "if there was any justice in the world, these guys would be battling Wolf Eyes for the hipster noise rock crown for sure," and this record, along with all the others we have yet to review, but will soon, only reaffirms that sentiment.
But whereas Wolf Eyes are lo-fi and murky, using piles of junk and damaged electronics and instruments that look (and sound) like they were sitting in a garage rusting for 20 years, The Skull Defekts seem to approach their noise with a bit more technical savvy, to the point of sounding mostly electronic, which they may very well be, but it's a testament to these guys and their sound that it's pretty difficult to tell what exactly is going on and what manner of soundmaking devices could produce this glorious racket. But who cares really, when it sounds this amazing, and mysterious, fucked up and so beautifully damaged.
The opening track here sounds like a Oval, but after being stored on decaying tape in William Basinski's attic for 20 years. A hypnotic looped soundscape of glitched electronics, haunting electronic melodies, crumbling distorted textures, alien beeps and bloops, all strung together into haunting melodies, and lurching barely perceptible rhythms, the song constantly crapping out, being swallowed up by distortion, as if it was being played back on a broken tape player, a skipping cd player and blown speakers simultaneously. A gorgeous chunk of decayed beauty. Of modern electronic corrosion. The second track is a slow growing drone, a warm electronic warble, a resonant thrum, drifting beneath shimmering metallic melodies, like Niblock covered by Wolf Eyes, a barely shifting series of sounds and layers, the various components becoming more and more distressed as the piece progresses, more distorted, less cohesive, but weirdly enough, more and more lovely.
The last half of the record is split into two parts, the first is a cloud of chaotic high end, a little bit Sunroof!, a little bit Vibracathedral Orchestra, but anchored by looped electronics and a relentless klaxon pulsing in the background, giving the track a strange sort of momentum, not at all unlike Avarus or Anaksimandros on Kompakt. The second part, and final track on the record, is a long dirge-y drone, of thick corrosive electronics and warm whirring low end, always on the verge of erupting into full on sludge, but instead, grinding glacially through a landscape of dark rumble and thick rib cage rattling throb...
MPEG Stream: "Sex Fracture"
MPEG Stream: "Carved In Bones"

SKULL DEFEKTS, THE Skulls VM Von Hausswolf & The Sons Of God Descending The Silver River Of The DFX (Important) lp 21.00
Pretty much every review of Skull Defekts begins with some comment about how confounding these guys are, or what a big surprise the record is, so at this point, having these guys surprise us is exactly what we expect! Yet we're still surprised and confounded every time.
This lp finds Skull Defekts both live and in the studio, with their lineup augmented by some surprising (yep!) additions. The A-side is live, and finds CM Von Hausswolff becoming an honorary Defekt, along with someone called Jean-Louis Huhta, augmenting the core duo of Joachim Nordwall and Henrik Rylander, and we were expecting something, well, noisy, but instead, this is a gorgeous, ultra minimal side long dronescape, hushed layered drift, muted high end sine wave shimmer, the sound growing gradually more dense, thickening, sprawling, the high end more incendiary, the low end more crunchy and distorted, finally building to a bit of a noisy climax, before slipping right back into more minimal dronedriftskree. Quite cool.
The B-side finds the Defekts welcoming Leif Elggren to the group, along with Kent Tankred, this quartet created their sidelong 'jam' live in the studio, and again, it begins as a hushed, barely there field recording, static and hiss, a bit of clatter and scrape, weird distorted buzz, streaks of feedback, tiny buried melodies, sonic fragments drifting in the ether, sonic motes settling on some greyed expanse of blurred mystery, the B-side is definitely headphone listening, the sounds of daily life will for sure overpower the sounds coming out of the speakers, but with headphones, one can enjoy the deep sonic mysteries of this epic chunk of minimal ambient dronemusic.

SKULL DEFEKTS, THE The Black Hand (Riot Season) lp 14.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
The Skull Defekts are another one of those bands that seem to have gone from barely existing, with only a cd-r or an lp or two floating around, to a seriously productive group spitting out a release or two every few months. And with SD, unlike a lot of bands, we CAN NOT get enough. Easy to understand why. Their records all sound so completely different, some are glitchy freak outs, others are droney and contemplative, some are heavy and dark, others shimmer and drift, but all of them somehow manage to sound fairly distinctive and unique, with some invisible Skull Defektive thread running through them.
This particular slab of Defektive sound is all synths, thick and pulsing, layers upon layers of grinding throbbing buzzing synthesizer, laced with distant streaks of slightly higher pitched synths, adding a bit of subtle color, a gorgeous glacial Niblock drone synth symphony, the tones beating against each other, subtly altering the tempo and rhythm and timbre, a whole side of dark minimal buzzy crawl, sounds amazing on both 33 or 45.
The flip side begins with more synths, almost like a continuation of the first side, but with a strange industrial jackhammer beat, that eventually dissipates leaving the synths to squirm and slither.. The second track on side 2, is like a higher end mix of side 1, with the various layers beginning to crumble and distort, and glitch out a bit, almost like the Skull Defekts as recorded by William Basinski, all very buzzy and intense, sounding a bit like the gateway to the other dimension in the movie Phantasm gone haywire... So cool.
Packaged in a gorgeous black on black wood cut style sleeve.

SKULL DEFEKTS, THE The Sound Of Defekt Skulls And Intense Cranium Contact (Feedbacking Gothenburg And Chicago) (Utech) cd 14.98
Here's a Skull Defekts artifact that we've had hanging around for quite a while, meant to list it long ago but somehow it got lost in the shuffle! But since we luv this Swedish noisemaking duo (just raved about their latest, Drone Drug, on list #298) it would be a shame not to finally review this one too. Released on Utech, in one of their stylish slim die cut sleeves, this cd finds the Defekts doing their thing, using a "custom Drone Machine" and multiple mixing desks, also maybe a field recording of a flapping crow? We're not sure, that's what we read. The Skull Defekts are a cryptic crew indeed. Anyway we could believe it, and this sounds like what we like: one long 43 minute track here of whooshing, whirring, droning, crunching, crackling, glitching, abstract electronic bliss n' brutality with plenty of piercing peaks and lulling lows. Doubtless dangerous at high volumes, but hummingly hypnotic too (not in the "you can hum along" pop sense, but 'cause it sounds like a soothing huuummmmmmm!). No drums here, so it's not as rock or rhythmic as records like Blood Spirits and Drums are Singing.
Lovely, noisy stuff, looping and grainy, for fans of Pan Sonic, Stilluppsteypa, Vulture Club, Sunroof!, Space Machine, just to name a few you probably have already sitting nearby to the Skull Defekts cds you already possess.
Fun fact: 1/2 of Skull Defekts was once the drummer for '80s Stooges-style Swedish psych/punk rockers Union Carbide Productions. Did not know that until recently.
MPEG Stream: "The Sound Of Defekt Skulls... (excerpt)"

SKULLFLOWER Abyssic Lowland Hiss (Heavy Blossom) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Spent ages trying to track these down and finally managed to get some from the man himself. The latest from the current incarnation of the mighty Skullflower. Released on Marcia Bassett's Heavy Blossom label (Bassett is Bower's partner in Hototogisu), Abyssic Lowland Hiss finds Skullflower mainman Matthew Bower joined by Lee Stokoe from Culver for a seriously pulverizing double axe attack. Recorded live in Holland, this is just about the noisiest SF we've heard in ages. None of that space rock or krautrock or drone-y high end bliss Bower has been known to dabble in, this is full on white hot guitar meltdown brutality. One guitar is a grinding hiss drenched low end rumble, while the other guitar squeals and peals and roars and shrieks and often melts down into a throbbing thrum, joining the other guitar for some speaker shredding blasts of blown out buzz and druggy psychedelic chaos. No dynamics, no riffs even, just two guitars spewing thick jets of ultra distorted, FX drenched fury. As with all things Bower, there is a melodic component, a sort of shimmer that permeates even his noisiest sounds, although here, that shimmer is nearly swallowed whole by the ravenous black beast that is Abyssic Lowland Hiss.
MPEG Stream: "Abyssic Lowland Hiss I"
MPEG Stream: "Abyssic Lowland Hiss II"

SKULLFLOWER Argon (Freek) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With the demise of Freek records, this may be the last we see of this amazing Skullflower record, with the outfit fully entrenched in the lithium haze of squalid feedback drone. Skullflower's Matthew Bower described the album as "the SF release that best prefigures the rich,rewarding sweep of Sunroof!. four long pieces, the last studio bound w/ Tim Hodgkinson really floats, undisciplined but strident, uplifting drone, shot through and augmented with wind and voices."

SKULLFLOWER Carved Into Roses / Infinityland / Singles (VHF) 3cd 21.00
We had long been dreaming about a singles compilation from long running UK noise rock / psych dirge combo Skullflower, who are not a 'singles' band by any stretch, but somehow, peppered throughout their lengthy career, and a clutch of classic albums proper, lurk some of the most iconic singles ever, FOUR of which are gathered here, on cd for the first time ever. And the fact that those singles are essentially just the bonus tracks here, should give you an idea of exactly why this was a shoe in for Record Of The Week.
Two of our favorite, classic Skullflower jams, long out of print, now available again together along with the aforementioned singles: Carved Into Roses, originally released in 1994 on VHF, and Infinityland, released a year later on HeadDirt, with the classic SF lineup of Stuart Dennison and Russell Smith (of beloved nineties psychedelic scuzzdub heavies Terminal Cheesecake), two guitars and drums, no bass, both records featuring Simon Wickham Smith and Philip Best of Ramleh as guests. At first we were wondering why exactly these two records were being re-released together, similar lineup of course, and listening to them again, they are sonically very similar, marking the band's shift toward a somewhat different sound, shedding some of the pummel and thud of their earlier releases for something a bit more abstract and tripped out, still heavy and noisy of course, but edging a bit closer to the murky muddy psychedelic drift and gauzy blurred noise-psych drift of their sonic brethren in the Dead C, the sound here in many ways sounding very much like classic NZ noise rock of the era, the tracks lengthy headtrip blissouts, everything wreathed in feedback, the drums and vox buried in the mix, while the guitars writhe and swirl, droned out and raga like one second, fierce caustic squalls the next. SO already it makes sense to bundle these two records together, even more so though once we discovered that they were originally conceived of as one epic sprawling double disc set.
The opener of "Carved Into Roses" pretty much sets the scene, channeling vintage Dead C, and thus finding Skullflower at their very poppiest, reminding us a bit of Dead C offshoot Gate, a sort of meandering Velvets-y drift, lazy and laid back and lugubrious, the sound druggy and droney, a pop song swaddled in thick sheets of wild guitar and smeared psychedelic freakout, almost like some sort of super abstract and seriously drifty space rock, definite foreshadowing some of the sounds of today (White Hills, AMT, etc), the dirgey lope like one of those modern psych bands slooooowed waaaaay down, all swirling washed out guitar skree, ethereal buried-in-the-mix vox, it's downright meditative in its own heavy softly noisy way. The whole record isn't so blissed out and hazy, "The Rose Wallpaper" explodes into a tangle of free jazz freakout, the drums wild and octopoidal, what sounds like some sort of Middle Eastern horn bleats and skronks, the sound growing ever more noisy and chaotic, a seriously heady chunk of OUT-noise jazz if there ever was, which leads right into "Shiny Birds Of Doom", another dark dirge, this one laced with what sounds like organ, or maybe more horns, the lumbering industrial sounding drumming, pounding away through thick swirls of hum and buzz, some howled vocals drift in and out, surprisingly catchy melodies appearing now and again, but more often then not dissipating into the creeping abstract gloom, fans of Gnaw Their Tongues and similarly cinematic black doom will definitely dig.
"Silver Glove Puppet" is a hissy high end stretch of noise pop rendered in shades of grinding crunch, and fractured chaos, sounding a bit like a WAY noisier unhinged Swans, the song getting noisier and noisier, those tangled guitars unwinding thick barbed streaks of effects drenched buzz, but simultaneously becoming more and more song-like as impossible as that seems. Then there's "Metallurgical King", which brings back the horns, and lays them over a cool looped guitar, and some almost krautrock like drumming, super hypnotic, and cyclical, it's only 12 minutes, but you can totally picture this stretching out to fill up a whole live set, totally mesmerizing noisejazz krautdrone hypnorock bliss. And finally Carved Into Roses finishes the way it started, with a stretch of murky out-pop moodiness, the strangely titled "Ge4050" unfurls thick slabs of coruscating guitar buzz, warm washed out melody, never quite coalescing into a proper pop song, instead, seeming to blossom into some sort of psychedelic supernova, all blown out guitars and glimmering sonic blur. Another track that's way to short at seven minutes...
Which leads directly into Infinityland, which starts off with the epic nearly 13 minute long "The Idiotsburgh Address", which opens with a long stretch of layered guitar, blurred and buzzy, droned out and raga like, it's not until about 90 seconds in when the drums kick in, and those guitars coalesce into something again, almost poppy, dirgey, buzz drenched doom-pop creep, woozy and washed out, the guitars soaring and fierce, wrapped around a lilting minor key melody, some wailed wordless vocals, the drums occasionally explode into bursts of delirious drum damage, and of course the guitars are constantly splintering into wild blinding squalls of crunch and howl, but for long stretches, much of that heaviness peels back, again revealing a sort of dirgey industrial almost krautrock sounding meander, haunting and meditative, but still plenty heavy and noisy, and again, hard not to compare this to vintage Dead C. Which leads directly into "White Fang", which is one of the classic Skullflower jams, short by comparison, but the only track that really recalls the Skullflower of old, a pounding almost industrial rhythm, some chugging churning riffage, wild squiggly psychedelic leads, basically the freakout heart-of-the-sun space rock final finishing jam transformed into a whole song, one sounds like staring into the sun, blown out and gloriously blissfully heavy.
"Pixie Dust" is another favorite, darkly haunting, and creepy heavy, the opening riff seriously haunting and ominous, the sound immediately locking into a serious sprawl of noise drenched space-psych mesmer, the sort of thing that would have modern day psych rockers bowing down in reverence, as would follow up "Abraxas", which sounds a bit like Wooden Shjips with a heavy noise makeover, a tranced out groove pounding away within a constantly shifting cloud of psychedelic swirl. "False Magic Kingdom" offers up stretch of serious trip out, the 'free'-est track here for sure, a sort of psychedelic ambience, lots of random rhythmic skitter, pulsing looped buzz, streaks off feedback, clouds of cymbal shimmer, a total outrock freeform epic, before finally finishing off with the comparatively brief closer, "Blood Orange", a gorgeously noisy coda, which melds melancholic clean guitar melody to chaotic rhythms and blown out guitar buzz, yet another track which would have benefited from another 10 or 15 minutes...
And if that wasn't enough, there's a whole 'nother 50 minutes of glorious Skullflower skree, the aforementioned 7"s tracks, "Choady Foster" / "Spent Force" originally released in 1994 on Helter Skelter, "White Fang #2" / "Glassy Essence", also originally released in 1994, on Freek, the Village Sorting 7" originally released in 1995 on Self Abuse (featuring Tim Hodgkinson of Henry Cow), and finally The Art Of Skullflower, originally released in 1996 on Way Out Sounds, which features Bower solo as Total on the B side. Definitely some of our favorite SF jams, and we're so psyched to have them on cd finally. "White Fang #2" is a wild unhinged, super lo-fi, in-the-red, psychedelic dirge rock blow out, that is the most 'rock' SF has ever sounded, while "Glassy Essence" is a thick undulating sprawl of corrosive blackened drones, drifting on a muted chaos of drum stumble and cymbal sizzle. "Choady Foster" sounds like it could have come from the same sessions the produced Carved Into Roses", a murky, psychedelic space rock, motorik groove and thick gouts of frenzied guitars, over a totally mesmerizing stripped down hypnorock framework. "Spent Force" strips away the rhythm, and most of the low end leaving a strange stretch of minimal buzz and glitch and hiss, underpinned by minimal muted drumming and loads of tape hiss, not to mention the occasional super dramatic and cinematic sonic swell. The live version of "Metallurgical King" from the Art Of 7", finds SF in full on abstract trip out drift mode, the drums less a driving force and more another texture floating amidst billowing clouds of feed back and effects drenched sonic swirl. The Total track from the flipside, is similarly drifty, but somehow much darker and heavier, with more heft, and a more serious low end, but still all tangled up in feedback and crumbling distortion, although the main guitar unfurls a thick, SUNNO))) like thrum. And finally, the epic Village Sorting 7", which finds the track "Village Sorting" split into two halves and spread out over all 14 minutes available on that original slab of wax, a plodding drum beat, a fog of insectoid buzz and jagged shards of atonal melody, all blurred and smeared into what sounds like some sort of lo-fi slowcore dirge melting before your very ears, the song laced with some serious free jazz style skronk, the second half / flipside eventually sheds the drums and lets the grinding guitars and bleating horns freakout over a shimmering bed of rumble and buzz. SO GREAT! Here's hoping the rest of the SF singles find their way onto cd, but for now, we've been spinning this disc nonstop, at least when we weren't spinning the other two. Definite contender for reissue of the year, and absolutely essential for fans of all things heavy and psychedelic, abstract and spaced out, noisy and rhythmic.
The packaging is pretty gorgeous too, a super deluxe 6 panel digisleeve, all full color textured paper, with something we had never seen before, the abstract oil painting from the cover printed on the jacket and then the paper sleeves affixed over the top, so parts of the painting our visible around the edges, it's really striking, and inside the various records and 7"s are reproduced in miniature, with extensive track notes, all that and a Japanese style obi too!
MPEG Stream: "Pipe Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Metallurgical King"
MPEG Stream: "White Fang"
MPEG Stream: "False Magic Kingdom"

SKULLFLOWER Circulus Vitiosus Deus / Circle Of Serpents / Valley Of Scorpions (Turgid Animal) 3cd box 53.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Managed to get SIX copies of this back in stock, direct from the band, and this is it. Anyone who missed out first time around, one more chance to grab one of these, one of our favorite new SF records for sure!
Massive dose of divine Skullflower noisiness this time around, a long in the works, super limited, hand assembled TRIPLE cd (not cd-r) boxset featuring all new material, over three hours or buzzing noise, abstract riffing, and all manner of brilliant sonic fuckery.
Not sure which disc comes first, but we'll start with Circle Of Serpents, and right off the bat, we're greeted with a glorious looped riff, reminiscent of Exquisite Fucking Boredom or Orange Canyon Mind, locked and looped and played over and over and over, while in the background all manner of melodies and melodic fragments, swoop and swoon and howl and keen, a swirling abyss over which a fuzzy minimal metal loop is locked on repeat. But don't expect the whole disc to be riff based, the second track explodes in a wall of grinding crumbling blown out noise drenched chaos, and as if we weren't already mixing it up enough, track three offers up some full on ultra grim blasting murky black metal, Skullflower style! We knew Bower dug the black metal, and always hoped something would come of it, so here you go, raw and buzzy, a stuttering drum machine blast beat, riffs blurred and smeared into abstract streaks, vokills buried in the mix, all barreling though clouds of effects and crumbling noise. The rest of the disc slips from epic, sun dappled Sunroof! like effulgence, tortured Abruptum style black ambience, thick distorted classic Skullflower wall of rrrrooooaaaar, strange fractured bagpipe industrial rhythm noise jams, thick warm blissy shoegazey guitar drones, and more. Easily the most varied, the weirdest, the most listenable, and quite possibly the best Skullflower record we've heard in years, and that's just the first disc.
And thankfully, the other two discs hold up just as well, super varied, and noisy and heavy, rife with drones and riffs and ragas and blasts of black metal, strange rhythms, mysterious percussion, doomy dirges, layers of guitars everywhere, dense and thick and corrosive and abrasive and warm and pretty and fucked up and furious and dreamy, all over the map, somehow all held together by some nearly impossible to decipher masterplan, but why try to understand, it's not necessary to enjoy this, in fact it's better to just luxuriate in the massive soul swallowing sound, and simple give in as you drift further and further, deeper and deeper.
Matthew Bower who is Skullflower describes it like this:
"Leitmotivs and keys get twisted and mangled and return with the dread anticipation of Nietzsche's eternal recurrence in a cycle of upheavals and lacerations, beginning and ending interwoven in an occult pantheistic tapestry that posits a gateway from the rational universe of gods creation into universe b, for spirits that can tune to the bleak, gorgeous vision SF has been channeling since tribulation.
Comes in a cardboard box with silver foil blocked slipcases featuring sigils/glyphs/runes that are both symbols and aspects of the working, and 15 visual fragments that can be arranged in conjunction with the sounds to make spells, koans, traps, resonances to help bring about the sacred alignments that the music aims toward.... indeed a valuable tool for dark meditation, and lefthand tantra".
That's right, 3 cds in silver embossed sleeves, in a hand painted cardboard box, each hand painted by Bower himself, also included a bunch of color inserts, as well as liner notes, the whole thing LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Vexed Abyss"
MPEG Stream: "Lungs Of Hell"
MPEG Stream: "Xipe Totec"

SKULLFLOWER Desire For A Holy War (Utech) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
First in a new series from the Utech label, a curated collection of releases, each featuring original artwork from artist Stephen Kasner (whose book we still have a few copies off, see elsewhere on the site), a hand picked roster that seriously SCREAMS aQ: Aluk Todolo, Final, Skullfower and more!
First up is Skullfower, a brand new disc, which finds Matthew Bower embracing mayhem and chaos. He may have flirted with riffage and space rock for a brief spell, but he is back to creating huge caustic guitarscapes, with Skullfower seemingly a much harsher, noisier, more aggressive take on his Sunroof! project. Where Sunroof! traffics in blissed out ragas and soaring high end ur-drone, Skullfower is creating dense worlds of sound. Psychedelic, textured, layered, but blown out and ultra distorted, it's almost like a guitar orchestra, Bower conducting a symphony of Keiji Haino's, but he's doing this all himself (for the most part). A cursory listen reveals an ear shredding blast of whitenoise sound, but the opening track is about as melodic as music like this gets, not in the traditional sense, but there seems to be some sort of sonic narrative, the various chunks of riff, the keening high end squiggles, the washed out chordal whir, it all blends into one massive, organic, strangely musical chunk of soft noise.
However, the second track will take a bit more digging to discover its inner warmth, for it is indeed white hot, a wall of grinding hissing speaker punishing white noise, the next few tracks follow suit, never straying far from the upper registers, sometimes pulsing and stuttering, but remaining on the difficult side of easy listening. But even in these harsh sonic environs, Bower manages to create melody and texture within what is essentially a noise context, this is far from Merzbow (well, okay, not FAR).
By track five, the low end has caught up the the high, and while the proceedings are still noisy, the skree is offset by the whir, there seems to be a sort of industrial percussion buried WAY down in the mix, melodies fracture and fly apart, only to drift back together in new shapes, some stretches are downright beautiful, tangled melodies, disembodied riffing, a convergence that turns chaos into structure, a song surfaces where there was once noise, before slipping back into unhinged drift. The final track is a blast of psychedelic noise guitar blow out, a sonic battle, riffs clash and break into jagged shards, lightning bolts of feedback are hurled then deflected by a churning rumble of amp buzz, speakers are cannons, the sky black with buzz, the ground wet with whir, a gorgeous sky splitting, earth shaking cacophony.
MPEG Stream: "Your Cities, Your Tombs"
MPEG Stream: "Moses Conjured A Blood Niagra"

SKULLFLOWER Exquisite Fucking Boredom (tUMULt) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've been digging the recent Skullflower release Orange Canyon Mind like crazy (last week's record of the week in fact) so we figured it would be a good time to revisit Exquisite Fucking Boredom, Skullfower's 2003 release, and at the time, their first in SEVEN YEARS! A triumphant return for this mighty UK heavy/drone/psych outfit. And with 2005's OCM, it seems Skullflower is back to stay!
With Exquisite Fucking Boredom, Matthew Bower (Sunroof!, Total ) resurrected his slumbering free-noise behemoth, offering up this gorgeous blast of hypnotic, pummeling, droning crush, equal parts shimmering skree, damaged motorik rhythms, murky and druggy psych-rock riffs and swirling fuzzed-out guitars.
The album's core is the epic, expansive and never ending, four part suite "Celestial Highway", a sludgy sabbathy seventies rock riff, repeated adinfinitum, a dangerously unstable entropic jam wherein the riff slowly drifts apart, sinking into a churning tarpit of abstract whir and hum, gradually mutating into a drifting, throbbing pulse, as warbly synths, chirping birds, and thick washes of dreamy sonic turbulence overtake and subdue any traces of the original riff. Mesmeric and hypnotic and totally otherworldly. Like UK mantric rockers Loop, on repeat play, while your boombox runs out of batteries, or a sweeter, prettier version of Dutch minimal metal gods Gore, or imagine Steve Reich or Terry Riley composing for Black Sabbath. The remaining tracks retain their Krautrockish propulsion but drift closer to Sunroof! territory, loosening the psychedelic electronic riffscapes from their moorings, letting them float lazily through a gauzy soundscape of buzzing melodies, luminous shards of shimmering feedback and rumbling waves of drowsy, druggy drone. Like Neu! or Kraftwerk, doped up and drifting off, run through a bank of cheap effects, and broadcast out of an underwater leslie speaker, the lo-fi rhythms suffocating under a thick blanket of gossamer guitars and sonic detritus. Hypnotic and savage, dreamy and otherworldly, quixotic and godlike! Featuring sonic contributions from Vibracathedral Orchestra's Neil Campbell and produced by Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound, Ora. Monos, etc.).
MPEG Stream: "Celestial Highway I"
MPEG Stream: "Celestial Highway II"
MPEG Stream: "Celestial Highway III"
MPEG Stream: "Saturn"

SKULLFLOWER Fucked On A Pile Of Corpses (Cold Spring Records) cd 17.98
The legendary long running Matthew Bower led noise rock outfit continues its trajectory into a world of black noise and raw black metal primitivism. Having made a multitude of stops along the way, proto industrial pound, rhythmic psychedelic riffery, meandering free noise, blacknoise raga, blistering spaced out trance, and plenty more in between, not to mention the various sonic offshoots (Total, Sunroof!, GHQ, Voltigeurs, etc.), it seems that Skullflower, and its Captain, have set course of the heart of some black star, with a crew now numbering four, this outfit conjures up gouts of primal black energy, that out of context could rival classic Japanoise for sheer crushing onslaught, and the early days of black metal, for pure sonic nihilism. Which is definitely a combination Bower and Co. seem to be well aware of, seemingly attempting to fuse a murky sort of black metal buzz, to speaker shredding power electronics, while somehow managing a bit of melody and momentum. Opener "Hanged Man's Seed" seems to manage the impossible by wedding some lo-fi wheezy NZ style bedroom Casio drone, to a pulsing muted rhythm, and explosive shards of blackened skree, the result though is surprisingly lovely, in a sort of brutal punishing noisy way. It almost sounds like Merzbow jamming with Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos.
"Viper's Fang" takes a similar tack, but this time taking proper psychedelic riffage, and submerging it in a roiling cauldron of black sonic pitch and coruscating crush, and there are definitely drums happening here too, buried in the murk, but again, surprisingly melodic, and again looking to NZ for a comparison, the Dead C come to mind, simultaneously at their very poppiest, and very noisiest.
But "Defiling Their Temples With Bestial Lust" takes care of that melody stuff, or does it. Sure on the surface it sounds like a blast of blacknoise, but underneath, there's a definitely woozy minor key melody, a drifting pop element all but obscured by the streaks and shards of corrosive crumbling noise above.
To be fair, there is a stretch, the next three songs in fact, where the noise wins, pretty sure there's still stuff going on in there, riffs and melodies, drumming, vocals, whether it's droney pop or buzzing black metal, but it's nearly impossible to tell. The buried sounds definitely inform the noise, but again, the noise wins, but even noise is not infallible, letting brief bits of hidden sound to escape their black tarpit prison. And then there's the closer, which brings the sound full circle, offering up a sort of melancholic blackness, a primitive pound, wrapped in super dense tangles of guitarnoise and grinding sonic chaos, but here, like on much of the record, the two seemingly disparate elements seem to bleed into each other, creating a whole that is WAY more than its constituent parts, a buzzy, melodic, noise drenched blackness that sounds like what we imagine these guys were aiming for all along.
There has been much talk about this being SF's harshest record ever, we have politely disagree (that honor most definitely belongs to Strange Keys To Untune God's Firmament). Sure it's brutal and black, punishing and pummeling, but it's also weirdly poppy, darkly melancholy, and to our ears a pretty perfect mix of blacknoise, black buzz, and mysterious melody. Definitely our favorite Skullflower record in a while...
MPEG Stream: "Hanged Man's Seed"
MPEG Stream: "Viper's Fang"
MPEG Stream: "Sleipnir"

SKULLFLOWER Funeral Rites (Stiff Opposition) 3"cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of two new ULTRA limited releases from Mr. Matthew Bower (Skullflower, Total, Sunroof! etc.), this one from his long running Skullflower project, which has gone through many permutations over the years, from pummeling thud rock, to full on face melting noise, to tripped out tranced out psychedelia. In recent years, Bower has become increasingly interested in black metal, and SF records have definitely offered up glimpses of this black buzz obsession, maybe none more so than this two track ep, which starts out with "Black Helicopters", an intro of sorts, a stuttering loopscape of static pulsations and swirls of hiss and whir, super mesmerizing, heavily textured and atmospheric, with a subtly pulsing rhythmic component. Gradually, the sounds begin to glitch out, the sound blurring into a hazy sprawl of heady thrum, before slipping into the second track, the 10+ minute "Sky Burial", which finds Bower unfurling some thick swaths of blackened riffage, smeared into the buzzing washed out background, the effect not so much 'black metal', as a sort of super thick, darkly psychedelic blackened drone, sounding like Tim Hecker armed with nothing but a handful of black metal riffs and an arsenal of pedals. Super tripped out and dizzyingly hypnotic, the frantic frenzied riffing is almost more implied, as the edges blur and everything oozes into one epic undulating mass of blackdrone blurbuzz. The sound does gradually build, but never explodes fully, instead just seeming to grow more and more dense, while within this black squall, lurk all manner of haunting minimal barely-there melodies, and buried not-quite rhythms.
EXTREMELY LIMITED! As in 25 or 30 total made EVER, we have about just 7 remaining out of the batch we started with, and unless we can convince Bower to whip up more, these are the last copies we'll ever see. So act fast, list alternates, you know the drill. Housed in cool handpainted minisleeves with pasted on liner notes.
MPEG Stream: "Sky Burial"

SKULLFLOWER IIIrd Gatekeeper (HeadDirt) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Before Skullflower became a blissed out free drone, psychedelic raga outfit which would eventually morph into the ultra dreamy Sunroof!, they were trolling much darker, much harsher waters. When IIIrd Gatekeeper first came out way back in 1992, it fell right in alongside its sonic brethren, Swans, Godflesh, Pitchshifter, Terminal Cheesecake, Ramleh and all of those industrial dirge rockers. Originally released on Justin Broadrick's hEADdIRT label, IIIrd Gatekeeper is definitely one of Skullflower's finest moments (and quite possibly both Andee and Allan's favorite SF record EVER), a slow murky trudge through a blinding squall of psychedelic guitar freakout, dense swirls of which lurk behind a lurching slow motion bass dirge and pounding near industrial drumming. Each track picks a riff and pounds it into the ground, repeating and repeating until you can't help but be drawn in, while white hot streaks of guitar skree and low end rumble spin around the relentless plodding. SO much heavier and scarier than almost any other record. A bit like a heavy metal Whitehouse, or a more psychedelic Swans. A muddy, filthy, drug drenched metal club to the side of the head. So fucking awesome.
THIS WAS A WAREHOUSE FIND. THIS RECORD IS SOOOO OUT OF PRINT, BUT ONE OF OUR DISTRIBUTORS FOUND A BOX SO WE TOOK AS MANY AS THEY HAD. ONCE THESE ARE GONE IT'S BACK TO eBAY WITH YOU...
MPEG Stream: "Can You Feel It?"
MPEG Stream: "Saturnalia"
MPEG Stream: "Rotten Sun"

SKULLFLOWER IIIrd Gatekeeper (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
We lucked into a chunk of these a while back (the out of print original pressing that is), an all time industrial metal noise classic, quite possibly the best Skullflower record there is, some folks think. And we're inclined to agree. Although with a body of work like Bower and Co.'s, that's a pretty tough call. Well, those disappeared in a heartbeat, but lucky for ALL of us, even those of us who have bought this amazing disc multiple times, it's now been reissued, remastered, with all new artwork, liner notes, ready to finally be adored and revered by all lovers of heavy music, many who may not have been hip to the massive fucking might and heart stopping brutality of Skullflower when they first unleashed this disc way back in 1992. So dig in, and let this glorious avalanche of beautiful heaviness bury you beneath its utter intensity and frightful majesty.
Before Skullflower became a blissed out free drone, psychedelic raga outfit which would eventually morph into the ultra dreamy Sunroof!, they were trolling much darker, much harsher waters. When IIIrd Gatekeeper first came out way back in the beginning of the nineties, it fell right in alongside its sonic brethren, Swans, Godflesh, Pitchshifter, Terminal Cheesecake, Ramleh and all of those industrial dirge rockers. Originally released on Justin Broadrick's hEADdIRT label, IIIrd Gatekeeper as we mentioned above, is definitely one of Skullflower's finest moments (and quite possibly both Andee and Allan's favorite SF record EVER), a slow murky trudge through a blinding squall of psychedelic guitar freakout, dense swirls of which lurk behind a lurching slow motion bass dirge and pounding near industrial drumming. Each track picks a riff and pounds it into the ground, repeating and repeating until you can't help but be drawn in, while white hot streaks of guitar skree and low end rumble spin around the relentless plodding. SO much heavier and scarier than almost any other record EVER. A bit like a heavy metal Whitehouse, or a more psychedelic Swans. Or early Earth. A muddy, filthy, drug drenched metal club to the side of the head. So fucking awesome.
Awesome new packaging. Black gatefold printed inside and out with metallic silver ink, printed inner sleeve, and extensive liner notes and band history, including excerpts from rare interviews, from Skullflower historian and bad ass noisemaker in his own right Roy Felps.
MPEG Stream: "Can You Feel It?"
MPEG Stream: "Black Rabbit"
MPEG Stream: "Saturnalia"
MPEG Stream: "Rotten Sun"

SKULLFLOWER La Noche De Walpurgis (self-released) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Over the last 20 Years, Matthew Bower and his ever mutating noise rock combo have gone through more sonic shifts than it would seem possible, each alteration like an artist's 'period', but instead of a BLUE period or RED period, SF shifted from a crushing proto industrial pummel period, to a blown out black noise period, to a metallic drone period, to the more recent psychedelic hypno-riff period, and a momentary dip back into the black noise, but now he/they seem to have launched into a whole new period that effectively combines that more recent riff-based sound with that pure noise the group has dabbled in and revisited over the years. And incorporated into that sound, eagle-eared listeners may be able to hear the fruits of Bower's ever growing interest in black metal as well. With the recent 3 cd boxset and Not Not Fun lp, Skullflower have again reinvented themselves and produced a series of recordings that are at once incendiary and noise drenched, and at the same time, textural and psychedelic. More than ever, headphones are required, as background music, La Noche will simply spread out into a uniform sheet of grey noise, but slap on the phones and it's like lathering your head in LSD flavored honey and sticking your head in a den of slumbering sonic bears.
Various blown out and distorted guitar lines squiggle and squirm, producing an ever expanding tangle of fractured psych rock sprawl, beautiful prismatic squalls, rife with fragmented melodies, inadvertent harmonies, woozy and tripped out and gorgeously noisy. Parts of La Noche almost sound like some alien guitarists shred tape, broadcast through millions of miles of space, picking up all manner of detritus before being captured on some deep-in-the-jungle SETI satellite, and it's now up to us to decrypt the message, salutations from a friendly word, warnings of our impending doom, or just some hundreds of years old kid going apeshit and capturing it on some deep space 4track. And Bower's guitars are drenched and doused in strange effects as well resulting in a sound that falls somewhere between malfunctioning bagpipes and the strange sonic wonder of another aQ favorite, Amps For Christ. In fact, this could be like a metallic noise version of AfC, if Amps For Christ weren't ALREADY a metallic noise version of AfC.
Some of the tracks here do lock into some serious, albeit buried under layers of processed effects and crumbling distortion, grooves, in fact, "Vinum Sabbati" has a bad ass riff grinding away, within a swirling cloud of high end insectoid shimmer, a gorgeous psych rock chug, lurching and lumbering beneath the surface, and the record finishes off with some total black metal worship, "Serene & Terrible Noontide Abyss" is a brittle buzzy Darkthrone-y riff, looped into a mesmerizing mantra, while underneath stripped down and spare percussive pound adds an abstract rhythmic element. Like pretty much every SF track lately, we'd love to hear this one expanded into a whole record!
Anyone who bought either the triple cd box on Turgid Animal or the Not Not Fun lp, or both, or heck NEITHER, is definitely going to want this. Heavy and blown out and hypnotic and metallic and brutal and pretty and buzzy and pretty much all we could hope for from Bower and company. And as always this is SUPER LIMITED. We did get a whole bunch of these, direct from Mr. Bower himself, but when we run out it may take us a while to get more, and at some point we most likely won't be able to get more, at all. And by now, you must know, that means get one NOW!
MPEG Stream: "Black Flame"
MPEG Stream: "Vinum Sabbati"
MPEG Stream: "Serene & Terrible Noontide Abyss"

SKULLFLOWER Last Shot At Heaven (Noiseville) cd 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Managed to get a tiny handful more of this long out of print rarity from the label, LAST COPIES!!!!
Everyone has their own particular favorite Skullflower era, the pummeling Swans-like crush of the early records, the blown out free drone guitar skree of Obsidian Shaking Codex, the tripped out druggy riffy space rock of Exquisite Fucking Boredom and Orange Canyon Mind, or the full on face melting guitarnoise assault of more recent releases, as far as we're concerned it ALL rules, whether heavy or noisy, pounding and pummeling or drifting and shimmering, Matthew Bower and whatever other noisemakers he manages to assemble, are responsible for some of the most amazing OUTrock records of the last twenty years, if not ever.
One of the best is no doubt Last Shot At Heaven, released in 1993, which features the band as a trio, and looks ahead to the dirgey riffage of Exquisite Fucking Boredom, but mixes in plenty of druggy shimmer (lots of Sunroof! foreshadowing), post industrial pound and psychedelic guitar freakout. This is WAY out of print, but the label discovered a box of 40 or so stashed away, so we took all they had left (25 copies), needless to say, these are the last copies EVER, the label has no plans to repress, and we took every remaining copy, so if you want one, be quick!
Last Shot explodes right off the bat with "Caligula" a dirgey riff heavy groove, all massive plodding pound, and squalls of wah guitar, howled vocals buried in the mix, streaks of feedback, tangled guitar melodies, very metallic and definitely heavy, but still plenty space-y and krauty. The follow up "Get The Horn" is all looped shimmer and pulsing thrum, peppered with growling distorted guitars, and spaced out drum pound, the growling guitars intensifying over the near static "Baba O'Reilly" like synth part. "Dufus" is an ultra distorted lo-fi garagedoom dirge, Dead C style free rock recorded at the bottom of a well, still thick with swirling guitars and simple plodding drums. "Bad Alchemy" is total proto metal, a killer main riff, wrapped in squiggly guitar freak out, the whole thing a woozy metallic groove, locked into an endless loop, the vocals a thick effected drawl off in the distance, "Elf Piercer" is a bit of Hawkwindy style space rock, again, locked into a relentless loop, effects everywhere, the guitars wild and tangled, "Rotten Sun II" is a super blown out doomic dirge, with howled vox and super jagged caustic riffage, and rhythms buried beneath the crumbling distortion, "Mystic Eye" is all tribal drumming, buzzing guitar, throbbing bass, soaring melodies, the most straight up rock of any of the tracks, but once it achieves maximum volume, it again gets looped into a seemingly endless jam, and finally "Blown Dukes", a hazy guitar drift, all warm whir and warble, thick buzz, disembodied riff, eventually joined by spare drumming, before devolving into a free rock freakout.
One of the more accessible Skullflower records for sure, but fear not, still plenty heavy and noisy and psychedelic, and unfortunately, almost for sure, your last chance to get your hands on one.
MPEG Stream: "Caligula"
MPEG Stream: "Elf Piercer"
MPEG Stream: "Mystic Eye"

SKULLFLOWER Malediction (Second Layer) cd 15.98
Matthew Bower's growing obsession with black metal has gradually infiltrated the blown out guitar skree of his earlier recordings and continues to push the sound of modern Skullflower into realms blacker and more grim and gristly than ever. Much like the recently reviewed (but sadly now out of print) Vile Veil lp, word on the street was that Malediction was to be the "Skullflower black metal" record, which it could very well be, but you have to realize that no matter how much Darkthrone or Pyha or Old Wainds or Arckanum Bower listens too, those sounds get filtered through that mysterious mind, eventually coming out via his guitar as a sound not terribly removed from something recognizably Skullflower, but with enough blackness, enough buzzing riffage, enough cello (here transformed into howling moans and caustic shards of scrape and skree) and enough chaotic drum splatter, courtesy of original Skullflower drummer Stuart Dennison, to make this more than just another Skullflower record, and more than just another guitarnoise record, it transforms this wild cacophony into some transcendent blacknoise hybrid, equal parts ur-drone and black buzz, psychedelic freakout and free-noise experiment, a pulsing, throbbing swirl of abstract heaviness and in-the-red speaker damaging crunch, a sound that slips fluidly from total abstract atom scatter to lurching almost riffy mesmer, remaining always wreathed in a thick, corrosive field of upper register sonic static, only the drums, ever really leaping from the fray, to hurl some thunderous beats before being quickly sucked back under.
Not sure if it was that brief foray into almost seventies sounding riffiness, back circa the records Exquisite Fucking Boredom and Orange Canyon Mind, but ever since then, Bower and company have been making noise with a vengeance, the sound of Skullflower and fierce and fucked up and heavy and noisy as it's ever been, Bower's black metal interests only adding to the bands hellish sonic trajectory. That's not all to say black metallers would dig this, cuz odds are, only the most extreme music obsessives among the black legions would find this particular brand of psych-skree to their liking, but heck, those of you who do fit that profile, go for it, immerse yourself, and discover just what it is about Skullflower, just what sort of black ritualistic magic lurks within the caustic black sonic sun that is Malediction.
Noiseniks will no doubt flip their lids, appropriately so, but there's so much more to this 'noise', what seems like a wall of sound, crumbles into pieces revealing so much texture within, every heaving wave of punishing crunch, gradually parts revealing a delicate network of strange melodies, the sounds while on the surface seem easily defined, are in fact more complex then they might appear, guitars and drums and voices and cellos all careening chaotically into a roiling churning black sea, a bottomless sonic expanse that takes metal and sludge and doom and noise and punk rock and minimal drone music and melts it down, shaping it into something new and mysterious, a baffling, deafening sound that defies any sort of classification, as the title of an old SF record so boldly proclaimed. This is Skullflower. And THIS, is Skullflower NOW.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. Packaged in a six panel full color digipak with cool tripped out watercolor artwork by Bower himself.
MPEG Stream: "A'arab Zaraq ~ Ravens Of The Burning Of God"
MPEG Stream: "Drenched In Moonsblood (Waxing Gibbous)"

SKULLFLOWER Obsidian Shaking Codex (RRR) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SKULLFLOWER Orange Canyon Mind (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
Skullflower's Exquisite Fucking Boredom, released last year on Andee's tUMULt label, welcomed back the seemingly retired Skullflower from a SEVEN YEAR hiatus. Skullflower mainman Matthew Bower was anything but MIA, keeping quite busy with his more blissed out Sunroof! project, as well as his equally blissed out but slightly noisier Hototogisu project. So after seven years, what was it that reanimated the slumbering corpse of Skullflower and sent the reawakened behemoth on a new path of sonic destruction. Well, it most definitely had something to do with THE RIFF. Exquisite Fucking Boredom was a throbbing pulsing ROCK record, a fucked up one for sure, but rock nonetheless. It was that relentless riffing eventually imploding on itself that convinced us that Skullflower was indeed back, to do unspeakable things with THE RIFF and offer up their own seriously skewed take on SPACE RAWK. So it seems now, with a new Skullflower record only a year later, we can rest assured that last year's return was for good.
All that talk of riffs, and a last record wholly centered around a single riff, and what does Bower do? Opens the new record with a dense splattery swirl of freaked out high end skree and throbbing drone, sounding not all that unlike his old group Total. There may be riffs in there somewhere, but you'd be hard pressed to find 'em. Sounds almost like he threw all of Hawkwind in the bathtub and then tossed in a plugged in hair dryer and recorded the results. Super freaked out spaced out free noise insanity! Fear not though, track two is where the riff returns, and once again we have to think Hawkwind, or maybe Circle, or even Can, that propulsive throbbing rhythm, that endless riffing, even some almost-leads, totally hypnotic and endlessly mesmerizing, a rock band rocking out until the end of the world as the earth opens up and the sky darkens with ash, although in this instance Bower takes that apocalyptic rock business and douses it in jagged sheets of white noise and huge slabs of acid fried feedback, swirling swells of amp buzz and chaotic guitar freakout, turning a rock song into a perilous journey through a sonic shitstorm. Makes sense that Crucial Blast has adorned this with a black metal styled Skullflower logo! And so it goes for the rest of the record. A musical tug of war, riffing is subsumed by squalls of white noise, massive waves of throbbing dissonance part allowing a riff to push its way through briefly, only to be eventually swallowed up again, eventually to resurface and push relentlessly forward into a looming musical darkness only toe be obliterated again into a beautiful cloud of swirling whirling noise. Not sure if this is the best rock record we've heard all year, or the best noise record. But it's damn sure one of 'em. Heck, it just might well be both!
MPEG Stream: "Starry Wisdom"
MPEG Stream: "Orange Canyon Mind"
MPEG Stream: "Annihilating Angel"

SKULLFLOWER Pure Imperial Reform (Turgid Animal) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're relisting this because it was actually meant to be a highlight originally, but somehow, half of the discs we ordered went missing, so not wanting to wait forever we went ahead and listed it, then a few weeks later, lo and behold, the missing discs resurfaced. So, here we go, big time highlight, for those who are way into the new more furious and noisy Skullflower, this live set is an absolute killer.
Another blast of Skullflowery fury, the second in as many months. Recorded live in 2007, live on the air, at a Belgian radio station, Pure Imperial Reform finds Skullflower mainman (only man?) Matthew Bower joined by fellow axeman Lee Stokoe for 42 minutes of unmitigated dual guitar overload.
As we mentioned in the last Skullflower review, Bower and his 'Flower have gone from riff to noise to and back again over the last twenty years. The last clutch of releases finds Bower once again exploring noise in lieu of any actual riffing. So for folks expecting some sort of Exquisite Fucking Boredom or IIIrd Gatekeeper, this might just rub you the wrong way. But if you loved Bower's Total project, and the more intense and facemelting side of Skullflower, then this live set will definitely hit the spot.
Two guitars, a wall of amps, the sound both white hot and in the red, these two gents spewing furious gouts of hissing fuzz from their respective axes, kicking up a planet splitting din, blown out buzz, squalls of feedback, jagged chunks of deconstructed melodies, streaks of garbled psychedelia, the guitars soaring and screaming, grinding and growling, strings scraped and bent, notes split into a million pieces, chords laid over other chords, gnarled pulsing drones, walls of full on Merzbowian white noise, all whirled into a constantly shifting, roiling miasma of fractured sonics.
Like most stuff like this, a cursory listen will get you nothing but a headache and some sore ears, but dig in, dive in, lay back and let the molten flow pour over you, and suddenly, like all 'great' noise music, the layers unfold and unfurl, melodies surface, rhythms reveal themselves, the sounds, however harsh and brutal, begin to soothe and mesmerize, about halfway in, you'll be totally entranced, a master musical hypnotist, who instead of a pocket watch, swings feedback and amp destroying buzz before your heavy lidded eyes. Wicked stuff for sure, heavy, noisy, brutal and impossibly beautiful.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "Pure Imperial Reform (Excerpt)"

SKULLFLOWER Strange Keys To Untune God's Firmament (Neurot) 2cd 17.98
It's hard to believe Skullflower has been a band for 20+ years, and that there have been more than 40 Skullflower releases (and that's not even counting all the other non-SF projects, like Total, Sunroof!, Hototogisu, etc.), but many of us have been along for the whole ride, from the early days of crushing post industrial caveman thud rock, to the more blissed out ur-drone guitarskree, to the second wave of riff centric looped heavy drone spacerock, to the most recent incarnation, a return to incendiary, explosive, ear shreddingly psychedelic guitar noise. And we have to say, we've loved every minute of it. Don't think there was a bum disc in the lot.
It is safe to say that some versions of Skullflower are more accessible, it seems like the riffier discs, opened up lots of ears, only to have them clamped down as Mr. Skullflower Matthew Bower decided to ditch the riff completely, or if not ditch it, bury it beneath an avalanche of corrosive, crumbling, amp destroying black hole white noise, which is where we find ourselves now, with this, the most recent disc from Bower and co., Strange Keys To Untune God's Firmament, a sprawling two disc collection of some of the heaviest, most punishingly brutal sounds we've heard from Skullflower maybe EVER. Which is saying a lot.
Like many of the recent SF discs, Strange Keys requires some dedication, some effort, this is UNeasy listening for sure, a glancing earful will get you nothing but the surface, a blown out wall of grinding NOISE, but take a deep breath, strap on the headphones and dunk your head into this roiling blackened mess, and suddenly, your third eye is opened to all of the sonic subtleties going on within this swirling orb of guitarnoize, textures, rhythms, layers, tones and overtones, riffs (yeah, there are still riffs), what sounds like percussion, some of the tracks get downright blissful, slipping into almost Sunroof! territory, albeit less sun dappled and divine, and more heavy and harrowing, other tracks introduce lots of textures and glitched out electronic buzz, the sharp edges dulled, a muted blast of warped throb and thrum, with buried foghorns, tangled tendrils of feedback, and even some hidden melodies, only to explode moments later in a shower of jagged psychnoise shards.
Fans of recent Skullflower excursions will not be disappointed, those in search of the elusive Bower riff, will just have to gird themselves and dig deep, but if you like your guitars noisy, and your drone music like a hail of rusty nails and broken glass, then, you will find your salvation in Strange Keys To Untune God's Firmament.
LIMITED TO ONLY 300 COPIES!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Shivering Aurora"
MPEG Stream: "Starlit Mire"
MPEG Stream: "Enochian Tapestries"

SKULLFLOWER Taste The Blood Of Deceiver (Not Not Fun) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
First vinyl in ages from the mighty Skullflower, and much like the triple cd box reviewed elsewhere on this list, the new SF sound finds Skullflower mastermind mixing the two distinct sides of his sound, the looped hypnotic riffy side, and the free abstract noise side, and the results are pretty fantastic, forging a new sort of noise drenched, proto metal abstract free drone psychedelia, and of course incorporating all kinds of other sounds, like black metal buzz, and minimal industrial percussion. The lp is the perfect addendum to that massive triple album box, serving almost like a 4th disc in the set, covering similar ground, but with its own particular twist.
Side one opens with that distinctive abstract-krautrock, metallic-psychedelic riff that only Skullfower seems to be able to pull off, looped and repetitive, but slowly shifting, almost imperceptibly, over a swirling morass of distorted buzz and feedback drenched howl, noisy and heavy but strangely meditative. The follow up shifts gears and offers up a buzzing wall of sound with soaring high end melodic streaks over the top, and what sounds like vocals buried WAY down in the mix. Hot on the heels of that one comes an awesomely droning psych rock dirge, this time with drums, and an incredibly catchy and surprisingly melodic main riff, woozy and druggy, but sounding like some classic eighties metal riff, just Skullflower-ed. And so it goes, the tracks shifting from chiming ritualistic dronemusic to buzzing abstract ambience to noisy almost-industrial plod and back again. And we're digging it big time. These two most recent releases might just be our favorite Skullflower records since Exquisite Fucking Boredom on tUMULt!

SKULLFLOWER The Paris Working 23-4-2009 (self-released) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another super limited missive from this latest incarnation of the mighty Skullflower, recorded earlier this year in Paris, which finds the band expanded to a four piece, including original SF member Stuart Dennison. One long nearly hour long track, and in keeping with the recent spate of SF releases, The Paris Working is more on the noise tip, eschewing any of the more riffiness that came before, replacing it with a wall of crumbling in-the-red, white hot psychedelic squall. Is there drumming? Maybe, but most of the time they're buried beneath an avalanche of pummeling free psych crush, heaving, roiling, churning, grinding guitar damage blown out into whirling clouds of sparkling high end glimmer and dizzying kaleidoscopic skree.
As with most of the noisier Skullflower discs, a glancing listen reveals a sound not that far removed from straight up noise, but closer listening, further investigation, and a pair of trusty headphones reveals a sprawling world of tone and timbre, strapping on headphones to listen to this disc is like watching a 3D movie without glasses, and then finally slipping on a pair, and the whole thing comes into focus, comes alive, colors and shapes, and in the case of The Paris Working, sheets and shards and streaks of sound, swirling and careening and hovering and billowing out into a massive Technicolor fog of gorgeously chaotic abstract freeform guitarnoise.
AS ALWAYS, CRAZY LIMITED, WE GET THESE DIRECT FROM SKULLFLOWER, SO WHEN WE RUN OUT IT MIGHT TAKE US A WHILE TO GET MORE (ASSUMING WE CAN GET MORE)...
MPEG Stream: "23-4-2009"

SKULLFLOWER This Is Skullflower (VHF) cd 13.98
Finally available again, this essential recording from the legendary Skullflower, notable in that it was the last record before that band shut down operations for 7 years, before returning with the Exquisite Fucking Boredom release on tUMULt, which found Skullflower reborn, channeling Hawkwind and proto-metal and creating their own sort of spaced out hypno riff rock.
This Is, finds the band right in between, having slowly been moving away from the industrial thud of previous discs, toward something much more spaced out and hypnotic, definitely reflecting SF mainman Matthew Bower's raga drone explorations in Sunroof!
Record opener "Lounge", sets the tone for the whole record, sounding less like Skullflower, and more like No Neck Blues Band or Sunburned Hand or Avarus, a sort of meandering free jazz / free noise freakout, with skittery abstract rhythms, pounded piano, squalls of psychedelic wah guitar, but lots of space too, not a heaving mass of crush, more like a spaced out bit of psych rock abstract drift, underneath it all did definitely lurk a slab of dense drone, but here it stays in the background. Which leads directly into the slightly more ominous "Creaky Rigging", which unfurls as a loose hazy raga, long drawn out tones, spidery guitars, clouds of cymbal shimmer, barely there drums, the sound very Eastern, the sound building and building into something much more intense, but retaining that essential raga-drone-buzz core. Super hypnotic and dense, like a way looser Pelt or something, or Flying Saucer Attack minus the songs.
"Glider" ups the ante a little, adding some more traditional drum pound, to it's billowing sheets of white noise guitar and streaks of squealing feedback, anchored by a pounding piano, a bit like The Dead C, working their way through a lightning storm of layered high end skree and clouds of psychedelic fried amp crunch.
The record closes with a nearly 40 minute live jam "The Pirate Ship Of Reality Is Moving Out", which begins all clean guitar jangle, striped with spidery bits of atonal guitar melody, a slow avant raga, that lurches and sways, threatening to coalesce into a proper rock song, but always veering into much more abstract territory, eventually exploding in a frenzy of sawed strings, and howling psychdrone screech, before slipping into something much more spacious and contemplative, spending the next ten minutes or so navigating a field of blackened shimmer and hushed drift, before in the last few minutes, returning to the fiery salvo of the song's climax.
An incredible record of avant psychedelia and abstract raga, definitely worth revisiting, especially for those who may have found Skullflower's recent releases too intense or harsh, and anyone into the above referenced bands, Pelt, The Dead C, Avarus, No Neck, Sunburned Hand, will for sure dig this, as it charts similar sonic territory, while managing to sound distinctly and uniquely like Skullflower.
MPEG Stream: "Lounge"
MPEG Stream: "Creaky Rigging"

SKULLFLOWER Tribulation (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
About three years ago, Matthew Bower resurrected his sleeping freenoise behemoth Skullflower, after having spent the last few years focusing on the more dreamy drone based Sunroof! That disc was a serious surprise, the new Skullflower was somehow some sort of stoned, freaked out druggy, psychedelic kraut/space/groove/stoner rock outfit. Killer psychrock riffs, looped into oblivion and buried in dense washes of outer space FX and thick sheets of tripped out ambience. We were stunned, and totally blown away. Exquisite Fucking Boredom was just about the heaviest noisiest space rock record EVER! The follow up to EFB, Orange Canyon Mind was still heavy on the riffs, but the noise quotient was cranked WAY up, as if the band had made this huge leap into some outer space drug rock alternate universe, but was sliding steadily back into the old Skullflower's swirling pit of white noise and grinding guitar feedback. So here we have record number three from Skullflower mach II, and it seems those riffs had an incredibly short half-life and have now been totally obliterated, the shards of all those dying riffs have been chopped into pieces and hurled into the spinning vortex that is Tribulation. Easily the noisiest record since the good ol' Total days (Bower's band before Skullflower), with huge sheets of white hot, blown out guitar skree, crunchy amp buzz, sparkling clouds of glitched out electronic interference, and layer after layer after layer after layer of thick squirming, slithering, shrieking guitar ROOOOOAAAR. Tribulation most definitely sounds like an army of guitars, set to kill, and leaned up against an even bigger army of feeding back amplifiers. Every track is a dense ear shredding tangle of melodic fragments and wild peals of upper register psychguitar abuse. Imagine classic Total mixed with Bower's new blacksludge outfit Mirag and you'll get a rough idea of what sort of aural punishment you're in for. Harsh and heavy, noisy and brutal, but as with most Bower projects, not without some hidden beauty, although Tribulation's hidden beauty is tucked safely away, beneath a million pounds of black hole noise rock pummel.
MPEG Stream: "Lost In The Blackened Gardens Of Some Vast Star"
MPEG Stream: "Black Wind"
MPEG Stream: "Dwarf Thunderbolt"

SKULLFLOWER Vile Veil (Noiseville) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest burst of glorious guitar noise from Matthew Bower and his ever evolving Skullflower, not sure who plays on this one, pretty sure they're back up to a full band, 3 piece? 4 piece? What we do know, is on Vile Veil, you can finally hear Bower's burgeoning interest in black metal seeping into the Skullflower sound. The title track sounds like it could have been listed from some lost nineties Nordic demo, all tinny buzzy riffage, buried howls, drums? Maybe, but if they're there, they're well buried under the muted murk and buzz drenched skree. Weirdly propulsive and frenetic, Bower and Co. kick out the grim frostbitten jam, infusing it with their own particular brand of blown out sheen, layered with sheets of feedback, and more noise than any self respecting black metal horde has ever had to contend with, the result though it pretty stellar, the sort of buzzing black noise that should hit the spot for metalheads and noiseniks alike.
The second track is more of the same, but a bit less brittle, subtly more melodic, with the vocals creeping up in the mix, but not sounding like vocals so much as like hissy bursts of white noise static, draped over the moaning deconstructed riffage and layered high end dronescape.
The final track, a side long crusher called "Vinum Sabbati", harkens back to Bower's noisier Total project, all high end and hiss and skree and screech, soaring upper register tones and loads of feedback, but the sound is sculpted into something almost orchestral sounding, strangely listenable (it's all relative!), even a bit melodic, but all wrapped in a constantly swirling cloud of caustic sonic abrasion, intense, and dense, thick and nearly overwhelming, fantastically and punishingly epic and brutal.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. We got a bunch, but odds are these will be gone before you know it.

SKULLFLOWER / AXOLOTL Split (Bored Fortress) 7" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A total drone/noise dream team, for the latest in Not Not Fun's Bored Fortress series of split 7"s, too bad we only managed to get about a fifteen of these, direct from Mr. Axoltol himself, who sold us his, and apparently THE, very last copies. Too bad as it's a doozy, but at least a handful of folks will get to lay their ears on this stuff.
The Axolotl side sounds like Karl Axoltol crafted his track knowing full well it was going to be sharing a record with Matthew Bower's Skullflower, as it is a total slab of Sunroof! style ur-drone bliss. A wash of keening high end shimmer, a backdrop of murky upper register whirs, while over the top, a glorious cascade of glistening glimmering feedback.
The Skullflower side finds the band (or the man) continuing to explore dense guitarscapes, however this track is the most musical and melodic of recent outings, a huge wash of guitars, layered and tangled, but with some serious riffage buried in the mix, streaks of feedback and a haunting minor key undercurrent.
Cool eye popping full color cover art. And again, we only have fifteen or so copies so don't get your hopes upÉ

SKULLFLOWER / WHITE MEDAL split (Turgid Animal) 7" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yes we still have a few. WTF?? What else do you need to know besides this: SUPER LIMITED SKULLFLOWER 7". Not much we'd imagine, but heck, just in case, it might be good to know that this chunk of Skullflower guitarnoise, veers dramatically away from the spate of recent releases, that focused on a more harsh, speaker shredding, ear wrecking intensity, and slips back to something a bit more warm and washed out, definite Sunroof! territory for sure, albeit less upper register skree and more wall of thrum low end crush. Blissed out and melodic, think Jesu, Nadja, SUNNO))), but totally and distinctly Skullflower, heavy, and harsh, dense and intense, but shot through with pretty melodies and constantly shifting layers and textures, a dizzying drift of soft focus muted Merzbowian buzz. So good. Had this been stretched out into a full length record we'd be talking serious Record Of The Week contender for sure.
The flipside comes from UK one man black metal horde White Medal, who counters with his own murky slab of downtuned distortion drenched doomic black buzz, a heaving sea of muddy low end and swirling muted chaos, the drums blasting away, but buried in the mix, the vocals a howling demonic inhuman wail, the sound so blurred and blackened, that it sounds almost static, even though beneath the surface, the drums are blasting, the riffs grinding, a glorious smear of woozy melancholic buzzing blackness, dense and ferocious, but washed out and weirdly melodic. Both sides rank up there with some of the best stuff we've heard from either outfit. But act fast, only 400 COPIES!

SKY BURIAL Aegri Somnia (Utech) cd 14.98
One of two new releases on the Utech label these week, the other from mysterious dronelords Owwl, and this one from Sky Burial, aka Mike Page, who once fronted power electronics / harsh noise outfit Fire In The Head, but since that 'group's demise, his focus has been on the much more cosmic post industrial black ambience, one that owes much to the kosmische drift of groups like Tangerine Dream Popul Vuh, but filters that kraut-psych sound through something much grimier and abjectly industrial. The results are pretty fantastic, sprawling slowburn blackened space-drift epics that creep and slither, drift and hover, oozing in ominous chordal clouds over glistening barely there melodies, and lush layered thrum, sounding almost orchestral at times, grimly majestic, the noise element still present, but muted and blurred into woozy washes of ashen grey and obsidian black. Long stretches of whirring ambience peppered with industrial clatter, and the crunch and creak of mysterious machinery, there's definitely a Wolf Eyes vibe here too, not to mention some SAXOPHONE, which was a bit unexpected, coming right at the end of the 40+ first movement, but that's not just any sax, its played by the godfather of psychedelic spaciness Nik Turner of Hawkwind, that last stretch wreathing Turner's sax in swirling tendrils of spaced out glimmer, and thick swells of chordal hum.
The comparatively brief (16 minutes) second movement is a much more minimal affair, at least initially, with a sea of insectoid buzz, draped over roiling low end rumbles, both of which are soon joined by a soft cacophony of strange pulses and buzzes, as well as a dreamy wash of ethereal shimmer, soon a skeletal rhythm surfaces, before disappearing in a cloud of cosmic sci-fi FX, only to emerge a super distorted churn, the track shifting constantly, most notably when it blisses out into a hissy swirling ambience, peppered with strange processed vox, before finally finishing off in a haze of industrial rumble and psychedelic space synth drift. Sounding almost like a more industrial, more blackened Expo 70, which is not a bad thing at all.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! And like all Utech releases, gorgeously packaged, the cd in a black inner sleeve, along with a fold out full color poster, all housed in a super striking, black and white patterned oversized outer sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Movement I: The Synaethete's Lament"

SKY PROJECTION s/t (Sygil) lp 11.98
From the same folks who brought us the amazing Charnel House cd-r elsewhere on this week's list, comes this mysterious slab of wax, with very little in the way of liner notes, other than a cryptic list of "Implements", which include Metasonix S-1000, Drone Commander (!), Sherman Filters, Eventide Delay, Dave Smith Instruments, Keeley Electronics and Music From Outer Space (!). They had us at "Drone Commander", but sealed the deal with "Music From Outer Space"! But what exactly do you get when you mix those outer space sounds with a drone commander and all the rest? Well, some sort of abstract, fuzzy, droney cosmic weirdness that somehow melds tripped out minimal psychedelia to blackened drones and abstract experimental riffage. The record opens with a long stretch of murky guitar churn, rife with gnarled melodies, that sounds a bit like some weird hybrid of Amps For Christ and Blackwolfgoat, but from there on out, the sound gets decidedly more minimal, slipping into a sort of super abstract FX drenched kosmische drift, thick swells of low end rumble, beneath layered swirls of blurred buzz and muted high end shimmer, those deep tones surfacing throughout the tracks on side one.
The flipside starts off with a hazy metallic ur-drone, a little bit Sunroof!-y, but a bit more blissed out, hypnotic and heady, before slipping into a pulsing minimal sprawl of rib cage rattling bass creep, which soon blossoms into more of a warm whir, hushed and soft focus, gauzy and fuzzy and dreamlike, but infused with a subtly ominous sonic vibe, before finally, the record finishes off with another bit of Amps For Christ-ish pulsating electronics and what sound like processed synth, a twisted spaced out psychedelic krautwave coda, that wraps things up in a big buzzy new age psych kraut bow. Awesome!
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!! Each one hand numbered, housed in a coll black and dark red fold over sleeve, with a printed clear plastic insert.
MPEG Stream: "Album Sampler"

SKYGREEN LEOPARDS Disciples of California (Jagjaguwar) cd 14.98
Wander again through the mystic meadows with these two lazy troubadours of the rustic psych folk revival. Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn and friends are back with another installment (11 songs, 35 minutes) of the SGL's always sunshiney and melodious mellowness. The haze hasn't lifted, these boys are still sitting crosslegged and deep in the dandelions, drifting astrally across their own inner California state of mind, a cosmos of '60s dosed song-half-writing... by that we just mean that this and other SGL artifacts could all be One, though this IS way more song-based than other Jewelled Antler related projects. They gently strum and strum and mumble and sing of Sally Orchid and the Egyptian Circus and Silvery Branches, and love, always love, and this is certainly lovely... Imagine (imagination is what the SKG's and their lyrically cryptic concepts certainly stoke) the delivery of a Dylan afflicted with the Olivia Tremors, engaged in pastoral nature worship, on a California trip.
We should also note the bumper-sticker ready song title here: "Jesus Was Californian". WWJD? Eat organic avocados!
MPEG Stream: "Disciples Of California"
MPEG Stream: "Places West Of Shawapee"

SKYGREEN LEOPARDS Disciples of California (Jagjaguwar) lp 13.98
Wander again through the mystic meadows with these two lazy troubadours of the rustic psych folk revival. Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn and friends are back with another installment (11 songs, 35 minutes) of the SGL's always sunshiney and melodious mellowness. The haze hasn't lifted, these boys are still sitting crosslegged and deep in the dandelions, drifting astrally across their own inner California state of mind, a cosmos of '60s dosed song-half-writing... by that we just mean that this and other SGL artifacts could all be One, though this IS way more song-based than other Jewelled Antler related projects. They gently strum and strum and mumble and sing of Sally Orchid and the Egyptian Circus and Silvery Branches, and love, always love, and this is certainly lovely... Imagine (imagination is what the SKG's and their lyrically cryptic concepts certainly stoke) the delivery of a Dylan afflicted with the Olivia Tremors, engaged in pastoral nature worship, on a California trip.
We should also note the bumper-sticker ready song title here: "Jesus Was Californian". WWJD? Eat organic avocados!
MPEG Stream: "Disciples Of California"
MPEG Stream: "Places West Of Shawapee"

SLAVES, THE Grey Angel (Paradigms) cd 11.98
Record number two from this now defunct, vocal/synth psychedelic shoegaze duo, recorded back in 2009, and released not long after their Debacle cd-r, Ocean On Ocean. And like that record, on Grey Angel the Slaves again masterfully conjure up some sort of cosmic otherworld, a sound so expansive and epic, its hard to believe they're just a duo, layers of smoldering synths, swirling clouds of blurred effects, and the vocals, ethereal and angelic, like a deconstructed Slowdive, or My Bloody Valentine, slowed way down, and smeared into alien torch songs, the music roiling and full of motion, the lush raga like tones draped over a swirl of fractured melodies and vocal fragments, a darkly dour, melancholic rhythmless drift, all buzz and fuzz and rumble and whir, bleeding into one organic sonic swoon. On the tracks that hew closer to traditional songcraft, the melodies coalesce into something that almost sounds like some lost eighties synthwave creep, but the Slaves add wild squalls of psychedelic guitars, and reverb drenched vocal acrobatics, all of those disparate elements again woven into something impossibly lovely and dreamily mesmerizing.
A collection of melted pop songs, of deconstructed shoegaze, which occasionally, like on the cold wave poppy "Visions", definitely sounds like it could be some unearthed eighties synth pop gem, but of course spinning at the wrong speed, and not to mention the weirdly processed male vox, almost robotic, a weirdly (im)perfect foil for the gorgeous powerful soaring female vox. But of course, it doesn't take long for the band to slip back into something more abstract and tripped out, looping snipped vox over thick synth swells, all again as a backdrop to those gorgeous vocals.
"Ancestors" almost sounds like witch house, with all the rhythms stripped away, and the sounds super saturated, sonically coloring way outside the lines, haunting and dreamily ominous, the track growing more and more noisy and chaotic as it goes, culminating in the sweetly brooding slo-mo shoegaze dreamwave of the closer "Angel", which sounds like the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from Sleep Over or Still Corners, a totally gorgeous hazy, hushed dreamsynth ballad, that sounds a little bit like Zola Jesus on 4AD...
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "You Could Save Me"
MPEG Stream: "Dreamin'"
MPEG Stream: "Angel"

SLAVES, THE Ocean On Ocean (The Helen Scarsdale Agency) 2lp 24.00
Fuck, yeah! Here, we have the double lp reissue of the aQuarius favorite Ocean On Ocean by The Slaves, the Portland duo of Birch Cooper and Barbara Kinzle. We got the cd-r of this album back in early 2011, upon the enthusiastic request from the former aQ-staffer Jon Porras, known to some as one half of of drone-doom duo Barn Owl. The rough sound of the cd-r has been considerably improved via remastering by James Plotkin, with the vinyl cut at 45 rpm so that all the heavy / dreamy / shoegazy loveliness is even richer and more radiant. Still one of our favorite albums, made even better!
We love bands whose music-making formula appears, on the surface, simple and intuitive, yet the sounds they create are huge, engulfing and seemingly complex. Using two synthesizers and echoing vocals, The Slaves inhabit a sound that is as lush and dense as it is mysterious and minimal. Their debut album, Ocean on Ocean, is the perfect showcase of a group that can conjure up bountiful sounds within a restrained approach. Honestly, we can't get enough of Ocean on Ocean, something about those enormous, dreamy, engulfing songscapes just leaves us wanting more. Their oozing brew of minimal pop melts and blurs with the melodic thickness of MBV's Loveless or early Slowdive, but surrenders to a contemplative mode that falls somewhere between Gregorian hymn and pagan ritual. The duo spin a radiant web of sustained vocals and heavy synth, each chord drawn out and smeared into a neon haze while indecipherable lyrics suggest longing, loss and submission to oblivion.
"Seventeen" unfolds with a slow arching chord progression that grows and dissipates like a coastal tide. Female vocals creep into the oceanic haze while fluttering noise and cosmic wash hover in obscurity. And though the rhythm-less wash may appear to be aimless improv, a close listen reveals a defined structure beneath the veil of long tones and heavy atmospherics. And yes, The Slaves are heavy. And it's not a "down-tuned guitars through a wall of amps" kind of heavy. It's more evident in the slow movement of the songs, and the visceral effects felt by each musical gesture. The duo have perfectly crafted a searing offering of "soft doom", so gorgeous and mesmerizing we've had Ocean on Ocean on repeat for the past week. "Shadows" is another noteworthy track. We love the push and pull of heavy synth and whispery vocals, whirls of female voice echo into the night then dissipate into huge swells of HEAVY distorted synth. Crumbling low end amid ethereal dream chants, what else could we ask for?? One of our favorite records in recent memory and highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Seventeen"
MPEG Stream: "Sweet High"

SLAVES, THE Ocean On Ocean (Debacle) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We love bands whose music-making formula appears, on the surface, simple and intuitive, yet the sounds they create are huge, engulfing and seemingly complex. Using two synthesizers and echoing vocals, The Slaves inhabit a sound that is as lush and dense as it is mysterious and minimal. Their debut album, Ocean on Ocean, is the perfect showcase of a group that can conjure up bountiful sounds within a restrained approach. Honestly, we can't get enough of Ocean on Ocean, something about those enormous, dreamy, engulfing songscapes just leaves us wanting more. Their oozing brew of minimal pop melts and blurs with the melodic thickness of MBV's Loveless or early Slowdive, but surrenders to a contemplative mode that falls somewhere between Gregorian hymn and pagan ritual. The duo spin a radiant web of sustained vocals and heavy synth, each chord drawn out and smeared into a neon haze while indecipherable lyrics suggest longing, loss and submission to oblivion.
"Seventeen" unfolds with a slow arching chord progression that grows and dissipates like a coastal tide. Female vocals creep into the oceanic haze while fluttering noise and cosmic wash hover in obscurity. And though the rhythm-less wash may appear to be aimless improv, a close listen reveals a defined structure beneath the veil of long tones and heavy atmospherics. And yes, The Slaves are heavy. And it's not a 'down-tuned guitars through a wall of amps' kind of heavy. It's more evident in the slow movement of the songs, and the visceral effects felt by each musical gesture. The duo have perfectly crafted a searing offering of 'soft doom', so gorgeous and mesmerizing we've had Ocean on Ocean on repeat for the past week. "Shadows" is another noteworthy track. We love the push and pull of heavy synth and whispery vocals, whirls of female voice echo into the night then dissipate into huge swells of HEAVY distorted synth. Crumbling low end amid ethereal dream chants, what else could we ask for?? One of our favorite records in recent memory and highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Seventeen"
MPEG Stream: "Sweet High"

SLAVIN, RAN Insomniac City (Mille Plateaux) cd+dvd 23.00

SLEEP Ghostwriting (Metonymic) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
New Zealand's Sleep is very very different from the Sabbath worshippin' stoner-doom band of the same name. This Sleep is a quartet of New Zealand free noise musicians, including stalwarts Kim Pieters and Peter Stapleton, as well as Nathan Thompson and Susan Ballard. As with other collaborations between Pieters and Stapleton (such as Rain, Flies Inside The Sun), Sleep's work is based on loose improvisations that circle through tentative rhythmic patterns (mostly with spartan basslines and skittering percussion) along with Keith Rowe-like growling guitar noise and other gritty textural elements. AMM are an obvious influence on Sleep's more droning and decidedly restrained moments.

SLEEP OVER Forever (Hippos In Tanks) lp 16.98
Finally, we got enough of these to list, the darkly dreamy lp debut of Stefanie Franciotti's hazy and gauzy solo outfit, Sleep Over. A new light in the field of female-led synthesization, a la Laurel Halo and Maria Minerva, Sleep Over is a stunning mix of Grouper's washed out and oceanic distortion, Cocteau Twins-ish pop romanticism and uncanny gothic dream soundtrack. We've been fans of Franciotti since her days as singer in aQ faves, Silver Pines, but in Sleep Over she has found her true calling as an experimental sound composer, synthesizing voice and sound in chillingly bright sonic environments and ambient textures. Gorgeous!
MPEG Stream: "Romantic Streams"
MPEG Stream: "Casual Diamond"
MPEG Stream: "Cryingame"

SLEEP RESEARCH FACILITY Stealth (Cold Spring) 2cd 22.00
Even though we have yet to review anything on the aQ list from this deep listening black ambient drone technician, most of the drone lovers at aQ were already big fans, how could we not be? Sleep Research Facility, aka Scottish soundscaper Kevin Doherty, specializes in an ultra minimal, spaced out black ambience, weaving sprawling landscapes of hushed thrum and sinister murmur, often manipulating field recordings and processing them beyond the point of recognition, assembling them into bleak, epic, haunting, somnambulant drifts. We were particular taken by this most recent missive, which finds Doherty working exclusively from a selection of field recordings, samples collected from a B-2 Stealth Bomber, at a US Air Force base in the UK, and if there was ever a more appropriate sound source for this sort of hushed sonic mystery, it's the military's most mysterious aircraft.
And while these recordings are obviously not the sounds of the aircraft in flight, it's easy to imagine that this modern marvel of technology was in fact THIS stealthy, emitting just a strange series of hushed rumbles, a deep shimmery thrum, laced with the telltale sounds of radio transmissions, tinny voices from the ether that sound almost like EVP recordings, ghostly and wraithlike. Doherty's manipulations are subtle, weaving the original sounds into gentle pulsations, layering multiple recordings into lush textures, weaving strange sine wave tones and staticky gristle into the proceedings, blurring and smearing everything into hazy, darkly psychedelic sonic shadows.
The mix of abstract low end ambience, and strange transmissions, can't help but remind us of all time aQ fave the Conet Project. It definitely has that same vibe, the clouded provenance of these sounds, the pure musicality of the distinctly non-musical, but Doherty does work his magic, adding subtle swaths of melody, and giving the tracks here, no matter how minimal, a sense of propulsion, beneath the murk and the droned out whir, a barely there rhythmic pulse, while at the same time sculpting the various sound sources into sprawling fields of moody mesmer, a tranced out minimalism that is at once, soothing and darkly tranquil, this record quickly becoming one our favorite records to drift off to in the evening, and yet at the same time, crackling with energy, infused with not just the sounds themselves, but the implied weight of those sounds, borne of this strange machine, one that was devised to inflict violence, the ultimate delivery system for our collective bloodlust, the sounds of which, when at rest, are strangely lovely, albeit rife with a tension implicit in the source, and speak to an alternate purpose, one where this machine, even in repose, becomes less a means of destruction, and instead is involved in the creation of something beautiful and darkly transcendent.
The record proper is accompanied by a second disc, which is the 'source' material Doherty used to create his dark droney vision, and the most interesting thing is how musical that material already is. And while these aren't the raw unedited recordings, they are the 'pre-mix' versions, which are meant to represent those source sounds, and while they are definitely much less processed, they still possess a dark musicality, with much of the grit and gristle of the finished record stripped away, leaving just deep tones, and long shifting layers of thrum and hum and whir, like the record itself, occasionally the true source sounds do reveal themselves, whether it's the clang and clatter of work in the hanger, or the squelched blurts of radio static, but ultimately, the source disc is simply another version of Stealth, one that we actually find equally enthralling. Essential modern dronescaping from this master of the dark sonic arts!
MPEG Stream: "Stealth 1"
MPEG Stream: "Stealth 2"
MPEG Stream: "Stealth 3"
MPEG Stream: "Source 3"

SLEEPRESEARCHFACILITY Deep_Frieze (Cold Spring) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "79 S 83 W"
MPEG Stream: "72 S 49 E"

SLEESTAK Mach 2 (Total Annihilation) cd 10.98
As we mentioned before, Man Is The Bastard, one of our favorite bands ever, are not very well represented on the aQ website, mostly due to the fact that their records, and in fact almost their whole career predates the list, which we will address one of these days, maybe as their back catalog slowly gets reissued. But their musical legacy lives on, most notably in recent Record Of The Week honorees Geronimo, as well as a whole mess of other post MITB combos: Bastard Noise, Unicorn, and this here, maybe our favorite of the bunch, Sleestak.
We recently listed a triple cd set called No Skull Left Unturned, which collected a bunch of rare and unreleased tracks from various Man Is The Bastard related groups, and if you remember, we raved about Sleestak there too, and now we finally managed to track down a source for the Sleestak full lengths (the band themselves in fact!) so here you go, the last Sleestak record before the various members went on to play in Drunk On Blood, Monte Carlo 76, Slowrider, Bastard Noise, Spastic Colon, Trogotronic, Unicorn and of course Geronimo.
And listening to this Sleestak stuff, it's easy to hear the roots of what would become Geronimo, in some places the sound is uncanny, it's like a more raw, lo-fi Geronimo, which means this stuff is fucking awesome. Might as well just quote a bit from the No Skull review, since it sums up Sleestak pretty well:
What a more mellow MITB might have sounded like, an ominous low slung brutality, bass heavy dirges, moody malevolence, more a sort of beautiful brutal post rock. A loping bass line wanders through a field of hiss and hum and buzz, spacious and spare, almost like a meaner more malevolent Low or Bohren. Slowcore peppered with bursts of twisted noise freakouts, and distant bits of shortwave squiggle, a very Slint-like vibe, with the guitar locking into super hypnotic loops, over lurching downtuned bass, drifting detuned melodic fragments, if someone didn't know better, they could definitely mistake this stuff for some super obscure Touch And Go or AmRep noiserock band, indeed!
"Atomic Clock" is a slow brooder, a low slung drums and bass drift, with distorted vocals, garbled and buried in the mix, streaked with fractured electronics, interrupted by brief bursts of chaotic crunch. "Faster Than A Sleeping Bullet" is total Geronimo, a grinding metallic riff, and a super minimal bit of percussion looped and locked for nearly 5 minutes. "When In Rome..." is bass heavy riffy noise rock, howled vocals over slithery post rockisms and angular riffage. "Dumb Luck" is another track that sounds like it was lifted and re-done as Geronimo, a simple drum line, beneath a hypnotic chunk of twisted electronics. "Dumb Luck Part Two" stretches it out into something much more post rocky, with plonked and plinked piano, the drums a bit more up in the mix, still flecked with insectoid buzz. Every track here is amazing. And at least half of 'em will have you thinking Geronimo, EVERYONE who bought that Geronimo record, or who dug that No Skull comp NEEDS this. But even those of you new to the whole MITB world, and who missed out on Geronimo, Sleestak stand up pretty well on their own, a dark and fucked up mysteriously brooding, ultra heavy and sludgey, rhythmic dronerock, and while we described Geronimo as Man Is The Bastard meets This Heat, that would also pretty much apply to Sleestak, but take that equation and mix in more MITB and a whole mess of noise rock.
WAY WAY WAY recommended.
Beautifully packaged in silkscreened matchbook style packaging, with a printed insert, all housed in a thick plastic sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Faster Than A Sleeping Bullet"
MPEG Stream: "Atomic Clock"
MPEG Stream: "When In Rome..."

SLEESTAK The Power Of Gemini(a (Thumbprint Press) cd 10.98
We still can't figure out how the hell we missed this band when they were still a going concern. Ex-members of the mighty Man Is The Bastard, a sound that is so aQ at times it sounds like they made this record just for us. Super rhythmic, hypnotic, krautrocky, heavy, noisy, squalls of analog noise, walls of feedback, buried distorted vocals, heavy and mesmerizing, like a power violence This Heat for sure. Sound familiar? It should. We described former aQ record of the Week honorees Geronimo similarly, which makes sense since basically, Sleestak eventually morphed into Geronimo shedding some of the grit and noise, but not all of it, tightening up their sound into something almost machinelike. Sleestak also sonically predated/predicted another aQ Record of the Week outfit, French post kraut noise rockers Aluk Todolo. So anyone who went nuts for either of those discs, or loved the Sleestak disc we listed a few lists back, you're probably gonna need this one too. Another mind blowing collection of mangled avant krauty noise rock, that is both brutal and abrasive, as well as weirdly repetitive and seriously heavy.
The drums are the core, and the heart of the sound, locked into seemingly simple grooves, the belie surprisingly complex arrangements, the drums are dense, hard hitting, the recording lo-fi but still thick and crunchy, swinging from doomy plod, to tripped out and space rocky, to totally abstract and spacious. While the drums pound away, the rest of the band wrap the rhythms in thick clouds of buzzing analog crunch, all manner of glitch and grit, squealing synths, rumbling downtuned bass, streaks of malfunctioning electronics, strange sound bites and snippets, and vocals, that range from howling guttural roar, to hysterical shrike, to hushed whisper. The band lets the drums drop out, sometimes for long stretches, the electronics and synths spread out swirling and churning, changing shape and sound, building all sorts of tension so when the drums do crash back in, it's super intense.
The Power Of Gemini(a was the first Sleestak record, originally released in 1997, and as such, it's definitely much more raw, more noisy, more lo-fi, the connection to MITB and various other post Bastard projects much more pronounced, but even back then, the band were already forging a super fucked up and gloriously idiosyncratic path, creating a sound, that managed to fuse the crushing heaviness and DIY roots of the members' previous bands, with a near maniacal future vision of some twisted, off kilter, and rhythmically obtuse post-everything sound.
Gorgeously packaged in a silkscreened letter pressed fold up origami style cardstock sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Endo"
MPEG Stream: "Mothball Coffin"
MPEG Stream: "Viva Santanas"

SLOMATICS / SELAAH split (Spirit Of Division) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We first discovered the doomlords known as Slomatics via another doomy combo, now defunct UK trio Like A Kind Of Matador, who released their only record on Andee's tUMULt label, and Slomatics definitely hit the spot, slow, crushing bruisers, downtuned and spaced out, heavy as fuck, and nothing has changed since then. On this limited split, they offer us 3 more slabs of lumbering ultracrush, a sound that falls somewhere between Harvey Milk, Like A Kind Of Matador and Electric Wizard. Churning riffage, howling vocals buried in the mix, big booming drums, all very druggy and hypnotic. The two shorter songs here get downright rocking, at least by Slomatics standards, slipping into a head banging 16rpm groove, that sounds a little like ZZ Top on thorazine, and a LOT like a less melodic, way meaner Torche. Definitely need more from these guys and SOON.
Slomatics team up with an outfit called Selaah, who couldn't be more different, solo guitar, looped and cyclical, a bit like a lo-fi Riley or Reich piece played on distorted electric guitar. Super mantra like, and circular, the sound does eventually build to a Sunroof!-like ur-drone finale, before suddenly shifting into a cool shimmering shifty layered upper register dronescape, before gradually growing prettier and prettier, and simultaneously more and more faint. Cool stuff. And definitely a nice way to balance the extreme low end heaviness of the first three tracks.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES. Hand numbered...
MPEG Stream: SLOMATICS "Superlab"
MPEG Stream: SELAAH "17:36"

SLOMO The Bog (Important) cd 14.98
The aptly-named UK dronedoom duo Slomo creep forth once more! These Julian Cope compatriots (the drude dude himself contributes a 30-second poetic spoken word coda to this album) also have given this disc a perfectly descriptive title, The Bog. Slomo's Chris "Holy" McGrail ("Moog Taurus, Sunn Mustang 6 string, clatter") and Howard Marsden ("Korg MS10 & MS20, hiss") exude and extrude one loooong 65 minute track of sinister yet soothing rumbling. This Bog is a fog of burbling electronics and feedback, naturally slow and low and quietly creepy. It's like gastric gurgling from the cathedraloid stomach of some cumbersome, slumbersome, subterranean behemoth. The droning sounds of what may be subtle cymbal shimmer combine with electronic textures from the duo's synths and guitars, sometimes smoothly soaring like underwater whale calls, whilst elsewhere developing into a much grittier, frying, throbbing buzz and crackle. Other gentle chimes and pulsations come
in to play as well, layered throughout this mesmeric, mysterious disc, which we could liken to a milder SUNNO))), perhaps sleeping and snoring and drifting in dream. Certainly recommended.
(By the way, we have just a few copies of a new cd-r in stock from Slomo member Holy McGrail in stock as well, his infamous plunderphonic Stooges tribute, Raw Power Suite, so please ask about it if you're interested.)
MPEG Stream: "The Bog [excerpt 1]"
MPEG Stream: "The Bog [excerpt 2]"

SLOMO The Creep (Important) cd 14.98
Finally available again! Now it's a real cd ( not a cd-r) and comes in spiffy new packaging courtesty of Important records! Here's what we said about the previous edition:
Could a band have a more perfect name? And an album a more perfect title? In this case, no. Slomo's The Creep is EXACTLY that. Creepy, creeping, slow motion music. One hour, one track, improvised and recorded live with minimal overdubs and "zero eye-contact" (it kinda sounds like it was recorded in total darkness, in fact). The ominous subterranean echoing seismic sounds of Slomo are the work of the UK's Chris McGrail and Howard Marsden. McGrail, as you might have guessed, is also the main guy behind heavy psych-dronesters Holy McGrail, whose Collecting Earthquakes was highlighted here last list. This heavy-lidded, cave-dwelling creature is a different, more somnolent beast, but if you liked that Holy McGrail disc we think you might like Slomo's The Creep too. It's something akin to a narcotized Earth or Black Boned Angel, but played with the spacious, quiet restraint of Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. The crunchy feedback on offer is both spooky and soothing. Appropriately, the cd booklet contains an old rhyme on the subject of this duo's namesake, a folkloric character known as Slomo for his generally slow and slothful ways. The final line says of Slomo: "Whose detractors do call static... but whose champions call Ecstasis?" Clearly McGrail and Marsden are of hold to the latter opinion, as do we.
This is an actual factory pressed cd, in a cool Important style gatefold cd sleeve, which supplants the now out of print cd-r version released on Julian Cope's Fuck Off And Di cd-r label that we listed back in September of 2005.
MPEG Stream: "The Creep [excerpt 1]"
MPEG Stream: "The Creep [excerpt 2]"

SLOMO The Creep (Fuck Off & Di) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY. HOWEVER, IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE REISSUED ON CD SOMETIME IN 2006!
Could a band have a more perfect name? And an album a more perfect title? In this case, no. Slomo's The Creep is EXACTLY that. Creepy, creeping, slow motion music. One hour, one track, improvised and recorded live with minimal overdubs and "zero eye-contact" (it kinda sounds like it was recorded in total darkness, in fact). The ominous subterranean echoing seismic sounds of Slomo are the work of the UK's Chris McGrail and Howard Marsden. McGrail, as you might have guessed, is also the main guy behind heavy psych-dronesters Holy McGrail, whose Collecting Earthquakes was highlighted here last list. This heavy-lidded, cave-dwelling creature is a different, more somnolent beast, but if you liked that Holy McGrail disc we think you might like Slomo's The Creep too. It's something akin to a narcotized Earth or Black Boned Angel, but played with the spacious, quiet restraint of Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. The crunchy feedback on offer is both spooky and soothing. Appropriately, the cd booklet contains an old rhyme on the subject of this duo's namesake, a folkloric character known as Slomo for his generally slow and slothful ways. The final line says of Slomo: "Whose detractors do call static... but whose champions call Ecstasis?" Clearly McGrail and Marsden are of hold to the latter opinion, as do we.
This is a professional duplicated cd-r with quite lovely artwork, released in a limited edition of just 100 copies on Julian Cope's own cd-r label. We did get a bunch, but that's it, when they're gone we won't be able to get any more...so you'd better not be a Slomo yourself if you want one!
MPEG Stream: "The Creep [excerpt 1]"
MPEG Stream: "The Creep [excerpt 2]"