BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL / BRUCE RUSSELL s/t (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL / ESO STEEL Serene Trajectories (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another entry from the neverending barrage of gritty drones from Campbell Kneal's Celebrate Psi Phenomenon cd-r imprint, "Serene Trajectories" finds Campbell in his Birchville Cat Motel persona collaborating with fellow New Zealand sound sculptor Richard Francis (aka Eso Steel). Ostensibly, both work with "the drone", although they approach the medium in two entirely different means. Campbell prefers electric miasmas from guitar amplifiers and broken electronics, often drawing comparisons to Dead C and Sunroof; where Francis works with much cleaner techniques, digitally sculpting field recordings into textually rich dronescapes. As can be expected, this album falls directly in between those two ends of the fidelity spectrum, as flurries of indeterminant buzzings amass into thick snowstorms of raw sound while dramatic clatterings and striations burst through the stereofield with remarkable clarity and precision. Yup, another winner from Celebrate Psi Phenomenon.
RealAudio clip: "Serene Trajectories"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL / TARENTEL / CHARALAMBIDES Nothing Out There #5 (Nothingoutthere) 3x3"dvd-r 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We discovered this just a little too late. The first in a series of cool compilations, all insanely limited, dvd-r's with interviews and live performances, super fancy homemade packaging. But sadly out of print, a bummer considering how perfect this one seems for aQ. C'mon! Birchville Cat Motel, Tarentel and Charalambides! Limited to only TWENTY FIVE copies. Arghh. Well somehow we convinced the label to do another pressing just for aQ, so here it is, a killer triple 3" dvd-r set, gorgeously packaged, with three long time aQ faves.
Up first is Charalambides, recorded live in Hasselt 2006, several songs, lovely as always, dark and funereal, ethereal, gorgeously shot, super close ups of the guitar, lips against a microphone, lit in reds and blues and purples, a dark stage, nothing but the two players... Really nice, intercut with simple abstract animations and interviews with the band.
The second disc is Birchville Cat Motel, recorded live in Gent 2006, and features Campbell Kneale, aka Mr. BCM, lurking on a hellish looking stage, all red lights and dry ice fog, just Kneale's figure hunched over his instruments, mic stands like demon's claws reaching up through the mist, a huge pair of painted eyes behind him on the wall.
Kneale sort of swaying back and forth in a total trance, wearing a black mask, singing and twiddling knobs, in a surprisingly tiny space, playing to about 20 people, the sound appropriately massive and thick, even mixing in a loop of Metallica (!), electronic bagpipes, and a Buddha Machine. Awesome. Also includes an interview with Kneale, talking about how nobody in NZ knows who he is, and about his very normal, run of the mill life, he's a school teacher, recording as a solitary process, and other cool stuff.
Finally, the third disc features Tarentel live in Geneva and Bern 2006, interviews with the whole band, talking about the development of their sound and creating new sounds, their approach to music making, improvisation, etc. The live stuff features beautiful films drifting behind the band, who are all cloaked in shadow, the sound dark and abstract, low shimmers and abstract drones, thick and textural, fluttering horns and whirring guitars woven into thick rough expanses of muted growl and soft focused creep, laced with tripped out dubby drums.
The video includes shots of the club, the bands wandering around, exterior shots, all woven into the super striking live footage.
Second pressing just for the aQ faithful, LIMITED TO 30 COPIES!!! The packaging is fantastic, every single one slightly different, sizes, shapes, each one a folded up map, the mini dvd-r's affixed to little nubs on the map, liner notes and little photos affixed to other panels of the map, all folded up in a plastic pouch.

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL WITH ANLA COURTIS Three Sparkling Echoes (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're sort of surprised this match up hadn't already happened before. Pretty much a no brainer. Campbell Kneale, aka Birchville Cat Motel, and Anla Courtis, from the now defunct Reynols. While it most definitely seems like a match made in noise rock heaven, there was definitely the potential for a very chaotic mess, but the two most definitely brought out the best in each other, and the result might just be one of our favorite releases from either of these guys.
Three looooong tracks, each a gorgeous and languorous slow build, minimal, but dense and heavily layered, simple propulsive rhythms, and all sorts of warm rich sonic textures. The opener, is maybe one of the most beautiful 'noise rock' tracks EVER. Swirling, beautiful cello-like melodies, low and lumbering, moan and croon, a deep, resonant, cavernous, creeping minor key dirge, lurking mysteriously beneath a swirling cloud of metallic cicadas and oscillating whirs and flutters. One of those tracks that should go on forever. Building gradually in intensity, but never exploding into full on heaviness, instead just drifting dreamlike, until the various sounds peel back leaving just a gorgeous soundscape of simulated nature sounds and abstract ambience. The first time we threw this on we ended up listening to this track 3 or 4 times in a row. But as soon as we could tear ourselves away, we realized that the other two tracks were darn near just as beautiful.
The second track is a spacious and spare expanse of tinkling music box chimes, strange percussive thumps, guttural vocalizations, and a warm melodic whir, heavily panned, swooping dramatically from speaker to speaker. Those swoops eventually transforming into thick slabs of guitar whir, a gorgeously glacial epic, rife with muted melodies, and dense with sonic subtleties...
The closer pretty much seals the deal. Simple tribal drums, clattery junkyard percussion, over warbly warped FX drenched guitars and a loping dirge-like rhythm building in intensity until the guitars become a huge tangly squall above that static mesmerizing rhythm. It's almost like a noise rock Tom Waits.... like the Black Rider performed by Sunroof! Or a super blissed out take on old Swans. Guitars so thick and warm you just want to curl up and climb under, letting that clattery motorik rhythm just carry you away...
MPEG Stream: "First Sparkling Echo"
MPEG Stream: "Second Sparkling Echo"

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL WITH LEE RANALDO 30th December 2004 (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now this is a bit of an odd combination, AQ faves Birchville Cat Motel, aka Campbell Kneale going one on one with none other than Mr. Lee Ranaldo, he of indie noiseniks Sonic Youth. How did it come about? Why did it come about? Who knows, and who really cares as the results speak for themselves. These two fellas, with some kind of 'noise' as their common thread, managed to conjure up some gorgeous dronescapes, that eventually ramp up to some serious NOISE, before drifting back into dreamy shimmery bliss. A single hour long track recorded live in New York at the Tonic in December of 2004 on BCM's last trip to the US, this is a slow building drone, equal parts chord organ, guitars, maybe even bagpipes (at least that's what it sounds like) all sort of swirling and reverberating, with distant tinkling chimes and simple stretched out melodies. About halfway through, Ranaldo kicks it up a notch and lets the distortion rip, a huge wall of white hot guitar, kept in line by a simple and very spare single snare-hit beat, a sort of free noise doom, with little bits of backwards electronic rhythm, and keening lawnmower like guitar melodies. The last fifteen minutes is a sweetly languid wind down, distortion disengaging, rhythms drifting into the ether, melodies dissipating like clouds after a storm, all as the chatter of the crowd slowly encroaches on the barely there sounds that moments later are not there at all.
MPEG Stream: "30th December 2004"

BIRD BY SNOW Antlers And The Sun (Gnome Life Records) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Folky-psyche bliss featuring Spencer Doran (Cloaks)
and members of Whysp and Residual Echoes.
Records are hand screened on recycled sleaves
with clear red vinyl!

BIRD BY SNOW Industrial Collapse (Gnome Life Records) 7" 4.98

BIRD BY SNOW Sky (Gnome Life Records) lp 12.98

BIRD OF OMEN Eulogy (Hand Hewn Timbre) 3"cd-r 4.98
After six releases as Monument Of Urns, whose blackened doom has long been a favorite with aQ metalheads, the mysterious man behind Urns returns with a new project, Bird Of Omen, meticulously packaged like the Urns releases in gorgeous hand screened printed vellum oversized sleeves, which led us to believe that Bird Of Omen would be a sonic continuation of the black dirgery of Urns, when in fact, BoO is something else entirely.
In fact before we get into it, we'd say that ANYone into Barn Owl, Earth and that sort of Morricone influenced dronefolk desert twang, should definitely check out Bird Of Omen, cuz that's definitely what BoO is all about. Some of the blackness and doominess of Urns is definitely present, but it's much more subtle, more in the ambience, and the vibe, cuz the vibe is definitely brooding and haunting, whipping winds, howling wolves, all over a distant drone, a rumbling low end, and subtly spacey shimmer, over which a guitar unfurls twangy tendrils of minor key guitar, the sound slightly distorted and blown out, so the low notes go into the red, and add a bit of distortion, the background low end droning ominously, and drifting in and our like some mysterious black sonic swell. And in fact, the more we listen to this, the more we can imagine how easy it would be to transform this into a Monument Of Urns record, and which also made us realize that minus the distortion, Bird Of Omen is not that far removed from Urns, the same sort of dismal miserablism, the same sort of brooding trudge, a lumbering slo-mo slither, but where Urns doused that in distorted guitars, here, those sounds are spare and unadorned, maybe wrapped in a bit of echo and delay, and in some weird way, the sound manages to be just as doomy. And the closing track, which might be our favorite, sounds a bit like Barn Owl mixed with Skepticism. The twang dialed way back, letting the murky low end drive the song, a grim black creep, surrounded by field recordings, voices, the sound of rain, and a final coda that hints at the doom that lurks in the background as the sound swells into a squall of detuned buzz and swirling feedback, before finally fading out, truly haunting and harrowing. So great!
As mentioned above, gorgeous packaging, a printed vellum outer sleeve over a screen printed inner sleeve, the 3"cd-r affixed to the inside.
MPEG Stream: "Euolgy I"
MPEG Stream: "Euolgy II"

BIRD TRAPS Don't Be So Reckless (Black Cross Recordings) cd-r 9.98
A copy of this just showed up in the mail one day, all the way from Australia, a long time ago, but then somehow disappeared, lost we can only assume, amidst all of the stuff that is continually piling up here at aQ. Eventually, after some back and forth with the band we managed to secure another copy, and WOW are we glad we did. We were expecting something heavy and dark, not sure if it's the name that maybe had us confusing them with the Bird Blobs (bad ass Aussie garage punks) or the fact that they were pals with the Grey Daturas, either way, this is anything but dark and heavy, instead, Bird Traps traffic in something much more ethereal and ephemeral, slow shimmering soundscapes, cinematic and warm, lush and emotional, long slowly unfurling melancholic melodies, sun dappled and soft focus, dreamlike abstract chamber music of sorts reminding us of William Basinski, the Caretaker, Rachel's, Klimek, Max Richter, Tim Hecker, Belong, but unlike many of those sound sculptors, the music of Bird Traps is not distorted, or decayed, not warped or blown out, but IS hushed and delicate, mysterious and gauzy, a softly spun series of mini epics, long tones stretched out over hazy expanses of minimal whir, of blurred minimal melody, the songs developing gradually, soft swells giving way to gentle washes of crystalline sound, completely mesmerizing, able to envelop the listener in a velvet cocoon of sonic tranquility, but infused with just enough pathos and emotion, to make the sounds compelling, evocative, intimate and intense. A soundtrack to a slowly shifting, nearly static sepia toned film of the sky melting into the horizon, the stars fading into the cloak of night, this world slipping into the next...
MPEG Stream: "Floorboards"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Be So Reckless"

BIRDS OF DECAY / DREAMCATCHER split (Not Not Fun) 7" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

BIRDS, THE Birds Birds Birds In The World (Important) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Many folks were disappointed when Cotton Casino decided to drop out of the Acid Mothers Temple. And it wasn't just lecherous psych rock nerds who would no longer be able to ogle the tiny chain smoking, perpetually scowling waif, stationed stoically behind her synthesizers. No, she also happened to contribute some of AMT's most appealing elements with her burbling blooping bleeping space rock synths and her angelic ethereal otherworldly vocals. This is only her second proper, non cd-r release, post AMT, and her first release as Birds, with her musical partner Per Gisele Galaen who had previously played in the groups Sloburn and Del. And damn if this isn't the lovliest AMT related record we've yet heard. As one might imagine, the focus here is Cotton Casino's voice, at once totally delicate and tentative, but at the same time dreamy and haunting. However, it's the surrounding sounds that really make this record special. The record opens acapella, with Casino's quavering vocals sounding like a timid girlish singer in some sort of creepy opera, which only gets creepier once the music comes in, hauntingly strummed guitars that blur into a shimmering minor key backdrop, while tiny electrical impulses whoosh to and fro in the background. After that the record drifts like an unmoored ship, down a dark stream through a dark and ominous forest, the sounds throughout moody and melancholy, with slow motion strings swooping in morose minor key arcs, Casino gurgling like a baby, her bandmate Galaen singing in a barely audible deadpan over swirls of space-y sound effects, the sounds of running water, delicate melodies playing on a heavily reverbed piano far in the distance, the buzz of steel strings ringing out like an electric sitar, dizzying synth melodies careening from speaker to speaker interrupted by wild squalls of full on ultra distorted Japanoise guitar skree, gorgeous folky acoustic guitars beneath Casino's hypnotic sing song vocals, extended stretches of warm droning rumbles, playful Moog melodies and more of that Casino bloopy space synth, sounding almost like Perrey And Kingsley, and finally the whole record finishes off with a six minute blast of full on wall of guitar meltdown, noisy and punishing, but at the same time completely hypnotic, like getting buried in warm wet sound, feeling it fill your ears and your eyes and your mouth, so all you can see or hear or taste is GUITAR, roiling and swirling and pulsing, slowly fading and drifting into space, leaving only a battered old piano, playing a simple melody, accompanied by Casino's barely there angelic purr.
Gorgeously packaged with original Pete Fowler artwork (Andee sports several Fowler tattoos in fact!), an image of a pink smoke breathing, wooden helmeted, long stripey armed, black bearded demon, surrounded by birds and squirrels and hairy horses, all rendered in blurred out 3-D on one of those cool three dimensional stereo lenticular cards. Wow!
MPEG Stream: "Green To Me"
MPEG Stream: "Beethoven's Women"

BIRDTREE, THE Orchards and Caravans (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Birdtree is multi-instrumentalist Glenn Donaldson, whom you may know as one of the driving forces of Thuja/Blithe Sons/Franciscan Hobbies/Skygreen Leopards/The Knit Separates and myriad other manifestions of the magical, mystical Jewelled Antler "collective", those psychedelic/folk/drone/experimental/improvised San Franciscian sound lovers who keep bringing us cd-rs and sometimes real cds of their wondrous musical projects. This cd in fact was once a cd-r on the Jewelled Antler label (reviewed back on list #135), but at last now it's a *real* cd courtesy of the Last Visible Dog imprint, adorned with even more of the same stunning collage artwork as before. We sold a bunch of the original limited version, and hope to do as well with this, since many folks didn't get copies the first time around, and as we said then, this stuff is so good it needs to be heard! Donaldson's Birdtree features his expressive guitar melodies in pursuit of a pensive and melancholic atmosphere. Occasionally accompanied by fellow Mirza / Thuja member Steven R. Smith, Donaldson has created a mysterious, semi-improvised set of songs incorporating field recordings, indeterminant drones, majestic pastoral psychedelia with repetitive organ lines, bowed oud, bells, harmonium, spectral guitar riffs, and, crucially, Donaldson's distant, wistful vocals. The Birdtree is simply a gorgeous, haunting record, similar in ways to Village of Savoonga, Graeme Jefferies, Greg Weeks, and even some of the Harvester / Parson Sound recordings. And Richard Youngs, especially Richard Youngs in his folky, finger-picking, extended vocal bliss mode. It's really beautiful. While there was something nice and personal about the handmade aspect of the original cd-r, we're really glad it's back in print as a proper cd. One of our favorites from the Jewelled Antler stable, and that's saying a lot! Recommended!
RealAudio clip: "Red Midnight Raven"
RealAudio clip: "Animals Of The Summit"
RealAudio clip: "Everyone Of Us A New Leaf"
RealAudio clip: "Raven Returns / The Uppermost Forest"

BIRGE, JEAN-JACQUES / FRANCIS GORGE / SHIRAC Defense De (MIO Records) cd + dvd 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
How 'bout that, we just noticed that this reissue of a rare, super-obscure 1975 improv jazz rock record got a 'review' in one of the latest issues of Vice magazine, of all places! But that kinda makes sense actually, since nudity, drugs, n' sex were seemingly all important elements of Birge/Gorge/Shirac's avant-hippy milieu. That is, judging by the movie on the DVD disc that comes in this deluxe two-disc package, which also features plenty of Vice-worthy fashion do's and don'ts from the freaky French scene back in the mid-seventies! The film in question, La Nuit Du Phoque, is an experimental student opus shot in 1974 by Jean-Jacques Birge and Bernard Mollerat. It's a surreal piece of work that's of course quite dated but certainly amusing and interesting. Political, humorous, psychedelic and very avant garde. Meanwhile Birge and two other cohorts were making crazy music as heard both on the soundtrack of La Nuit Du Phoque and the Defense De album, a truly cult ducument of abstract electronic jazz-prog-psych, one that made it onto the infamous Nurse With Wound list. It was recorded at a friend's dad's apartment who happened to be a free jazz producer and thus kept an 8-track tape recorder and a variety of interesting instruments from pipe organ (!) to cello to xylophone at home. Shiroc was the drummer, Birge played synth, sax, tapes, and more, and Gorge was on guitar, bass, the cello, etc. A friend supplied additional sax and another some electric piano. Sundry other electronics, percussion, ethnic instruments also made into the mix. A big sprawling free-for all, but not an unstructured mess. A lot of this is quite restrained and beautiful, droning and spacious. Apparently, these guys were in high school when they started doing stuff like this! Later they went on to found Un Drame Musical Instantane, an experimental music group still active today. The cd with Defense De contains not only the original LP but also four previously unissued tracks, while the DVD disc not only features the 41-minute La Nuit Du Phoque film but SIX MORE HOURS of previously unreleased Birge/Gorge/Shriac audio! And that's some of the best stuff on here. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "Le Reveil"
MPEG Stream: "Pourrait Etre Brutal"

BIRTH REFUSAL / CASSIS CORNUTA split (Ultra Eczema) lp 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Drone damage industrial synth noise collaboration between Belgian avant noisemaker Cassis Cornuta and our old pals Olson and Connelly of Wolf Eyes, who together, whip up a gloriously noisy (and surprisingly listenable) slab of buzz and hiss and drone and drift. Wrapped in some of the most stunning packaging EVER, like most of the Ultra Eczema stuff. A massive fold out thick paper sleeve, the outside adorned with weird veiny, brainy skull-like monster heads, white on a greyish brown background, super creepy and icky, the inside, a full color landscape with a orange rock monster attacking a pregnant lady with a knife in the middle of a foresty swamp, while all around lurk goopy green melty creatures, with the tops of their heads removed and their bright orange brains leaking out. Eeeuw. And as if that weren't enough, this one sided disc, features an amazing etching on the the b-side, another creature, all bulging eyes and dripping brains.
So what's it sound like? A dense staticky synth rumble beneath clouds of whirring electronic glitch, laid atop massive slow moving slabs of low end, rife with lots of almost-melodies, peals of feedback and high pitched sinewave like tones. Everything wrapped in thick swirls of distortion and and amp damage crumble, occasionally interrupted by stretches of near ambient grind, blown out spaced out FX and creaking industrial crunch and clatter.
It's definitely noisy, and harsh at times, this basically is a 'noise' record after all, but it's surprisingly listenable, and downright pretty at times, droney and drifty as often as it is abrasive or brutal. Nice.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!

BISCHOFF, JOHN Aperture (23five Incorporated) cd 14.98
BACK IN STOCK!
Currently a faculty member in the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College, John Bischoff has been composing music with computers and electronics since the mid 70s, and has always focused his compositions towards malleable forms that best suit live performances. Within this context, Bischoff seeks to position the construction of sound far beyond the common perception of synthetic music as a mere simulation of the intrinsic sounds of traditional instruments. Instead, Bischoff qualifies his work as the realization of a "reflective intention," where he determines sonic structure not only through the predetermined elements which go into a piece, but also through the active process of listening to the music as it happens and responding accordingly. During the '70s when programming involved crude systems of binary code, Bischoff's vision of the possibilities for computer-based composition fused to performative agency seemed implausible; yet in hindsight, his artistic imperatives were incredibly prescient of contemporary tools such as the nearly omnipotent audio synthesis language Max/MSP, which has been at the core of Bischoff's recent work. An aptly named set of compositions, Aperture opens the possibility for multiple readings through a series of diverse techniques ranging from additive synthesis to FM synthesis to sampled-based processes. Each of the pieces on the album was recorded in real-time with no overdubs. Aperture introduces itself with clusters of samples that sprawl with the deliberate pacing of Morton Feldman's later period, yet Bischoff renders what might be recognizable citations of a piano or percussion as pointillist condensations of digitized pixels and precise plastic details. Over the course of the following pieces, Bischoff unleashes coarse streams of electrons which flange and pulse within the caustic firestorm of divergent timestretching, giving the impression that Bischoff is quite literally tearing the fabric of sound. Bischoff also offers a collaboration with Kenneth Atchley and complements the oversaturated physical noise of Atchley's water fountain sculptures with short digital articulations that ride on the top of Atchley's dense textures.
This is Bischoff's first recording in quite sometime, and has been well worth the wait!
MPEG Stream: "Piano 7hz"
MPEG Stream: "Immaterial States"
MPEG Stream: "Sealed Cantus"

BISHOP, SIR RICHARD Graviton Polarity Generator (Social Music) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

BISHOP, SIR RICHARD Improvika (Locust) cd 14.98
Sir Richard Bishop, also known as Rick Bishop of the Sun City Girls, offers up Improvika, the second entry in Locust's Wooden Guitars series, after the compilation of that same name on which he also featured, alongside Tetuzi Akiyama, Jack Rose, and Steffen Basho-Junghans. It's also his second solo record -- his now out-of-print first one, Salvador Kali, was released a few years back on the Revenant, a label begun by the spiritual forefather of the Wooden Guitar concept, John Fahey (R.I.P.). So, as you might already guess, unaccompanied steel string acoustic guitar sketches in the Fahey-established "American Primitive" style are the haps here, with more than a few references to the wide variety of 'world musics' that the Sun City Girls like to celebrate and subvert. Bishop's playing is both impressive and evocative, and anyone caught up in the current craze for Faheyesque guitar solos (and why wouldn't you be?) ought to enjoy Sir Rick's sublime efforts here. Locust, keep 'em coming! (Next up in the series, we believe, will be Pelt's Jack Rose...)
MPEG Stream: "Jaisalmer"
MPEG Stream: "Mystic Minor 23"

BISHOP, SIR RICHARD Improvika (Bo Weavil) lp 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now, but not for long, on (limited, expensive) vinyl!
Sir Richard Bishop, also known as Rick Bishop of the Sun City Girls, offers up Improvika, the second entry in Locust's Wooden Guitars series, after the compilation of that same name on which he also featured, alongside Tetuzi Akiyama, Jack Rose, and Steffen Basho-Junghans. It's also his second solo record -- his now out-of-print first one, Salvador Kali, was released a few years back on the Revenant, a label begun by the spiritual forefather of the Wooden Guitar concept, John Fahey (R.I.P.). So, as you might already guess, unaccompanied steel string acoustic guitar sketches in the Fahey-established "American Primitive" style are the haps here, with more than a few references to the wide variety of 'world musics' that the Sun City Girls like to celebrate and subvert. Bishop's playing is both impressive and evocative, and anyone caught up in the current craze for Faheyesque guitar solos (and why wouldn't you be?) ought to enjoy Sir Rick's sublime efforts here.
MPEG Stream: "Jaisalmer"
MPEG Stream: "Mystic Minor 23"

BIXOBAL Number 1 October 2007 (Ri Be Xibalba) magazine 2.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Basically, if you're into the more experimental, droney, improv-y, internationally adventurous, whatever side of the stuff we feature here at AQ, and you like to read which of course you do, and you've got a lousy two bucks, you should pick this up!! Edited by Eric Lanzillotta (of Anomalous records fame), this new 'zine is devoted to all sorts of interestin' music n' stuff, this debut issue featuring Robert Millis waxing nostalgic about his favorite Korean 78 rpm record, an interview with ESP-Disk experimentalist Alan Sondheim, an article about the books of number one Fug Tuli Kupferberg, an Indian travelogue from Sun City Girl Sir Richard Bishop, and a no-holds-barred interview with Dave Nuss of the No Neck Blues Band (which gets into some interesting, open-minded discussion about what might be bullshit or not about NNCK's music!!). A great read. Plus there's a plethora of reviews and other 'zine-ish goodness. 56 pages, digest-sized. Looking forward to issue 2!

BIXOBAL Number 2 January 2008 (Ri Be Xibalba) magazine 2.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Seems that our pal Eric Lanzillotta (former proprietor of Anomalous Records) is serious about this 'zine publishing venture. Issue one of Bixobal appeared just three or four short months ago, now here's the equally interestin' issue number two, again a bargain at two bucks. It's a digest-sized black and white 55 page xeroxed affair, crammed with cool things to read if you're into stuff along the lines of experimental drone, free improv, and international exotica. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Bixobal's got various folks from Sun City Girls/Climax Golden Twins axis on board as contributors. Contents this ish include among other things Part II of Sir Richard Bishop's Indian travelogue, interviews with avant vocalist Phil Minton and electronic musician Robert Haigh, an article about the whys and wherefores of collecting "bad records" with advice about doing so, a Rob Millis essay about the wondrous "talking machine", and a hilarious rant from cranky old Uncle Jim taking music journalism to task for the overuse of certain words, like "jangly" and "soundscape" (good thing we're careful never ever to use such terms, ha!). Plus then there's 24 densely packed pages of music reviews, from Angelblood to Zashiki Warashi. Plenty of readin' here to entertain and inform the average AQ customer for sure!

BIXOBAL Number 3 April 2008 (Ri Be Xibalba) magazine 2.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Already up to issue number 3! Issues #1 and #2 are already sold out, but it looks like we can look forward to the regular appearance of many future issues. Editor Eric "Anomalous" Lanzillotta (with the able assistance of Patrick Marley, Rob Millis, Allan MacInnis and others) has really got a 'zine on his hands.
He explains that the main purpose of Bixobal is to be "delving deeper into the worlds of the musicians behind the music" in the form of articles and interviews. The music, in Bixobal's case, being that of the more experimental, psychedelic, folky, obscure international, or otherwise usual variety. Thus, this ish we find an extensive interview with Peter Stampfel of legendary NYC hippie folk outfit the Holy Modal Rounders (his ex-wife, Antonia Stampfel, is also interviewed separately). Whether discussing his theory of the importance of 1957 in the history of rock n' roll, or the effect of recorded sound on musicians' use of vibrato, or the unfortunate inter-band personality conflicts that apparently plagued the Rounders, it's pretty interesting even for those not already Rounders fans. There's another, briefer interview this issue as well, with Gerd Kraus of '70s cosmic krautrockers Limbus 3 (and 4). It's interesting as well.
And then there's the usual 'zine things like reviews and ads. Oh, and Rob Millis has another "Talking Machine" column wherein he tells of searching for rare shellac (78rpm records) over in India... yet he doesn't find exactly what you'd think he'd find, his "Victrola favorite" this issue is by the Beatles... or is it?

BJECT Object 4 (Locust) cd 14.98

BJERGA / IVERSEN Most Things Are Made Of Water (Utech) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've long been fans of this Norwegian duo, but have only ever listed one of their other records, due in no small part to the fact that the majority of their releases have been of the incredibly limited variety. This one is no different. We listed the Rural Faune cd-r a few months back, limited to 71 copies, this new one on Utech is thankfully limited to 200, so there's still a chance at least that a few more folks can get turned on to these guys' quiet cacophonies. Using mostly guitars and electronics, with a handful of mysterious "amplified objects", Bjerga and Iverson create super dense little soundworlds, heavy on the drone, with finger picked guitars stretched into insectoid like buzz, streaks of feedback and thick layers of glitchy buzz, all smeared into super dreamy longform blissouts, each one dotted with all sorts of sharp and jagged, fuzzy and fragmented sonic bits and baubles. Surprisingly heavy and dirge-like, it's almost like a less low end, more FX drenched SUNNO)))!
Packaged in gorgeous hand assembled card stock covers with a pasted on black and white sort of obi. Limited to 200 copies, each one hand stamped. We only got about 15 or so, and we're pretty sure once these are gone we won't be able to get more.
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Four"

BJERGA / IVERSEN The Trumpets Of Silence (Ruralfaune) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We won't go into too much detail with this one as it was limited to only 71 copies of which we got the last 20.
This Norwegian duo have a pretty lengthy discography, but somehow this is the first disc we've gotten enough of to list (and unfortunately we only got 20 so they'll be gone before you know it). Utilizing a wide array of electronics and amplified objects, Bjerga and Iverson craft a rich world of pulsing and pulsating sound, crackles and squelches, snippets of conversatio s, shortwave interference and all sorts of random electronic filigree are embedded in warm rivers of rumbling drone and glistening streaks of keening high end shimmer. Glitch and grit pepper huge washes of murky ambience, while multiple layers of sounds slowly shift and drift. Dark and mysterious, droney and lovely.
Limited to 71 copies, each one hand numbered, in a cool heavy fabric sleeve, -most- but not all of 'em packaged with a gorgeous see through leaf, and tied shut with a little piece of twine.
MPEG Stream: "The Trumpets Of Silence"

BJORGULFFSON, HEIMIR / JONAS OHLSSON Fur Your Bears Only (Bottrop-Boy) cd 16.98

BJORGULFSSON, HEIMIR Circulations (Staalplaat) 12" 12.98

BJORGULFSSON, HEIMIR Discreet Journey Digitalis (Ritornell) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Heimir Bjorgulffson is the ringleader of the Icelandic powerbook trio Stilluppsteypa and presents his second solo project on the Mille Plateaux experimental subsidiary Ritornell. "Discreet Journey Digitalis" finds Bjorgulffson pushing further into the quote unquote Lowercase territory mapped by Bernhard Gunter and Steve Roden (in particular Gunter's ultra quiet "Details Agrandis") with miniscule digital events scattered through prolonged silences, muffled drones, and sparse field recordings. Headphones required.

BJORGULFSSON, HEIMIR Machine Natura (Staalplaat) cd 13.98
Heimir Bjorgulfsson is one of the members of the Icelandic experimental electronic trio Stilluppsteypa, and presents "Machine Natura" as a part of Staalplaat's "machine series" for microscopic glitch music -- pretty much Staalplaat's answer to Ritornell. This 15 minute EP begins with two slightly out of phase sine waves that criss-cross into a noxious high pitched squeal. Bjorgulfsson abruptly brings this to an end, with several minutes of silence and incredibly quiet electronic activity. The volume remains very low, but tiny clatterings do begin to emerge out of the solitude. Of particular note is the packaging, which features all of the text etched into the jewel case. Altogether this is nicely done, but is yet another foray into sinewaves and silence really necessary?
RealAudio clip: "track 5"

BJORGULFSSON, HEIMIR & JONAS OHLSSON Unspoken Word Tour (Brombron / Staalplaat) cd 15.98
Having recently left the obscurant electronica ensemble Stillupsteypa, Icelandic transplant Heimir Bjorgulfsson has wasted no time in starting up some new projects. This collaboration with Swedish installation artist Jonas Ohlsson was commissioned by Extrapool - an arts residency program which, in conjunction with Staalplaat, gives two likeminded artists unlimited access to a really nice recording studio for a week and publishes the results as a limited edition CD. While Bjorgulfsson's work is certainly a known quantity through his numerous solo projects and the AQ-endorsed Stilluppsteypa albums, Ohlsson has primarily been active in the Northern European gallery scene, executing willfully sloppy installations of consumerist excess, punk-as-fuck attitudes, and that post-ironic sentiment that's so fashionable in San Francisco galleries these days. That said, Ohlsson's resume cites some training in electro-acoustic compositions and he also seems to have a taste for Acid House. In their condensed studio session, Bjorgulffsson and Ohlsson have produced a surprisingly diverse album, splattering through fractured techno beats, at times strangulated into Matmos-esque noise-funk and others into the classic Sahko sound with frigid shards of electricity cascading down upon taut rhythms.
Most everything in the Brombron series has been quite good, and "Unspoken Word Tour" is no exception.
RealAudio clip: "20 People Gathering On My Field"
RealAudio clip: "Pyramids of Pure Pleasure"
RealAudio clip: "Old Panther"

BJORGULSSON, HEIMIR The Opposite (Fire Inc.) 3"cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The powerbook has pretty much replaced the razor tape splice as the primary instrument for musique concrete, and Heimir Bjorgulfsson's laptop has been a extra busy machine in expediting this transference from old to new. Outside his work in AQ-faves Stilluppsteypa, Heimir has produced his first solo recording, this cute 3". An alien array of mutable clicks and pops corrode a digital arena where the high frequency damage of Ryoji Ikeda meets the hypnotic malevolence of John Duncan. Very good!

BJORK Medulla (Elektra) cd 17.98
The conscious decision to use only the human voice in musical compositions is nothing new -- the unadulterated vocals of a cappella soul groups and barber shop quartets immediately spring to mind -- however, few mainstream artists have brought this approach to today's popular music (okay, we remember Bobby McFerrin). The choice to use only one 'instrument' initially seems to be potentially limiting, but of course Bjork's not limited at all. Her voice on its own has an arguably unsurpassed power and expressiveness. Now, add to that a number of other artists of her meticulous choosing (Mike Patton, Robert Wyatt...), and she can't be stopped. Granted Bjork also has the luxury of state of the art recording technology at her beck and call to mutate and accommodate any sound (directly from a human source or otherwise) into something altogether unrecognizably different (and decidedly non-human sounding) for her sonic pallette. Indeed, many of Medulla's tracks are stunning examples of a near-magical fusion of human vocal ability, composition and studio wizardry. You won't encounter much in the way of her deliriously wonderful pop songs here (not unexpectedly, this is something that seems to have already put off a few Bjork fan AQ customers upon their initial listens, but we'd recommend giving the album a little more time, and you might discover it sinking its non-pop hooks into you), instead you'll find what is perhaps her most challenging, otherworldly, abstract work to date. There's two versions of this available, digipack vs. regular jewel case. The high price digipak version differs from the normal jewel case version ONLY in that it is a digipak (duh) but also contains a small poster. Worth two extra bucks? You decide. Also realise that if you're the poster hanging type, all of the liner notes in this version are on the back of the poster, so you'll have to get a real good look at 'em before this goes up in your locker! So basically, we'd recommend opting for the regular jewel case edition...
MPEG Stream: "Where Is The Line"
MPEG Stream: "Submarine"

BJORK Medulla (Ltd. Edition) (Elektra) cd + poster 19.98
The conscious decision to use only the human voice in musical compositions is nothing new -- the unadulterated vocals of a cappella soul groups and barber shop quartets immediately spring to mind -- however, few mainstream artists have brought this approach to today's popular music (okay, we remember Bobby McFerrin). The choice to use only one 'instrument' initially seems to be potentially limiting, but of course Bjork's not limited at all. Her voice on its own has an arguably unsurpassed power and expressiveness. Now, add to that a number of other artists of her meticulous choosing (Mike Patton, Robert Wyatt...), and she can't be stopped. Granted Bjork also has the luxury of state of the art recording technology at her beck and call to mutate and accommodate any sound (directly from a human source or otherwise) into something altogether unrecognizably different (and decidedly non-human sounding) for her sonic pallette. Indeed, many of Medulla's tracks are stunning examples of a near-magical fusion of human vocal ability, composition and studio wizardry. You won't encounter much in the way of her deliriously wonderful pop songs here (not unexpectedly, this is something that seems to have already put off a few Bjork fan AQ customers upon their initial listens, but we'd recommend giving the album a little more time, and you might discover it sinking its non-pop hooks into you), instead you'll find what is perhaps her most challenging, otherworldly, abstract work to date. There's two versions of this available, digipack vs. regular jewel case. The high price digipak version differs from the normal jewel case version ONLY in that it is a digipak (duh) but also contains a small poster. Worth two extra bucks? You decide. Also realise that if you're the poster hanging type, all of the liner notes in this version are on the back of the poster, so you'll have to get a real good look at 'em before this goes up in your locker! So basically, we'd recommend opting for the regular jewel case edition...
MPEG Stream: "Where Is The Line"
MPEG Stream: "Submarine"

BJORKK, HENRIK NORDVARGR On Broken Wings Toward Victory (Old Europa Cafe) cd 15.98

BJORKK, HENRIK NORDVARGR The Dead Never Sleep (Old Europa Cafe) cd 15.98
Finally we're starting to be able to get records by Nordvargr on a regular basis. Many of us here have been totally obsessed with Nordvargr for ages but it's been so tough to get his records in with any regularity and never enough to list.
For those unfamiliar, Mr. Nordvagr was a member of seminal black metal ambient drone outfit MZ412, and later went on to form the miltaristic drone folk ensembles Toroidh and Folkstorm, as well as releasing stuff under his given name. The Dead Never Sleep is Nordvargr's newest release and definitely harkens back to his days in MZ412. This is one of the darkest, bleakest most abject drone records ever. Super minimal and pitch black. A million shades of black and grey, all slowly and barely shifting. Vast expanses of slow motion reverberations and distant rumbles, the sounds of hearts beating and gongs shimmering and winds whipping and waves crashing but all heard through the tiny end of a mile long, black hole telescope. Planets imploding struggling to be heard through the deadness of space. A barely there smear of subsonic thrum, gorgeously serene, like a peaceful boat trip, drifting lazily down a river of black pitch, through the blackened caverns of the underworld. Definitely one of the most evocative, and brilliantly bleak collections of drone musick in recent memory!
MPEG Stream: "Algenon"
MPEG Stream: "Noma Klaw"

BJORKK, HENRIK NORDVARGR Vitagen (Essence Music) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally back in stock!
The newest release on AQ pal Uirajara's stellar Essence label, home to the awesome dark ambience of Wolfskin, the splattery noise onslaught of Merzbow's Sha Mo 3000, and soon to release the Brazilian version of Boris's most recent Mabuta No Ura, with completely different artwork and extra music, comes the latest in a recent spate of releases from Scandanavian dark ambient technician Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, who also records as Folkstorm, Toroidh and began his journey down the darkened path with his black ambient outfit MZ412. This newest release is as dark and bleak and sonically terrifying as they come, which is quite odd considering Vitagen is dedicated to his daughter Indra (the dedication reads: Dedicated to Indra, the light which guides me through the darkness), the cover features all antique photos of little girls, and the super limited deluxe version (now out of print, so don't ask) even came with a handmade porcelain doll. But there is nothing loving or childlike here, unless of course it's meant to be the musical probing of the darkest recess of a child's mind, all monsters and nightmares, things that go bump in the night, shadows outside the window, demons waiting in the closet, all brought to life by disembodied rumbles, slow building industrial swells of shivering blackness, ominous smears of demonic minimalism, and occasional cracks and crashes, like brief bursts of lightning illuminating the terrors hidden in the night, just for a moment, but that moment is enough to fill your soul with dread as you are plunged back into utter darkness. And while the sound of Vitagen is definitely brutal and barren and hauntingly grim, it's also quite beautiful, and even soothing at times, with small stretches of tranquil ambience scattered here and there, melodies slowed down and pulled apart into dark shapes that sort of drift and hover, a nice balance between the hellishly malevolent and the soothingly serene. Beautifully packaged in a six panel, embossed cardboard sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "Steril "
MPEG Stream: "Voidum"

BJORKK, HENRIK NORDVARGR & BEYOND SENSORY EXPERIENCE VS. KENJI SIRATORI Hypergenome666 (Old Europa Cafe) 2cd + 2x3"cd 63.00
Black ambient terrorists MZ412 were and are the definition of "true Swedish black industrial" and were one of the first bands to successfully bridge the gap between dark ambience and black metal. The two main members never abandoned their vision, but instead, put MZ412 on hiatus while the two pursued and explored different sounds and sonic worlds. Nordvargr most prolifically in Toroidh, Folkstorm and under his own name, while Drakh began the Beyond Sensory Experience project.
Recently the two reunited and released a brand new MZ412 record (to be reviewed here soon) and recorded a brand new Nordvargr / Drakh album (coming soon on Andee's tUMULt label). Somehow they also found time to collaborate with Japanese writer and sonic assassin Kenji Siratori (who also collaborates with Pendro elsewhere on this list) on Hypergenome666, a massive multiple disc, art book project that is breathtaking, not just visually (with incredible artwork and design courtesy of Paul McCarrol) but sonically as well, featuring some of the most caustic, heavy and frighteningly menacing black ambience and dark drones we've ever heard.
Two discs, one features Nordvargr, the other Drakh and his Beyond Sensory Experience, each pitted against Siratori, whose main weapon is the word, both written and chopped and sliced and diced into strange verbal soundscapes.
The Nordvargr disc just might be the darkest heaviest thing we've ever heard from him. Creepy and cavernous, huge ominous swells and crumbling industrial crunch drift amidst disembodied monstrous growls and keening distant melodies. Black clouds hover above, spewing forth grinding bursts of electrical discharge, interrupted occasionally by strange dreamlike interludes, epic and majestic horns, processed vocals, looped and chopped, treated and affected, crumbling crunchy rhythms, thick swaths of blown out distortion and expansive smears of whirring ambient buzz and thick streaks of minor key color. This is one of the scariest sounding discs ever. So deep and dense, so many layers, so much going on, it's the sound of being lost in the underworld, wandering alone forever. It's strangely beautiful too.
The BSE disc finds Drakh also teamed up with (or against, hard to say) Siratori and that disc is nearly as sinister and bleak as Nordvargr's. A bit more rhythmic, with the voices and vocals pushed more to the fore, the rhythms a lurching framework for the various low end streaks, swirling and shimmering. The voices are transformed into alien black shapes and back again. Dense and thick, a crumbling world of delicate drones and thick slabs of grinding distortion. More blissed out and ambient, dreamy and soft focus, but no less threatening or evil sounding. The discs are similar enough that they could be collaborative, some lost MZ412 disc, or a new Nordvargr / Drakh, but different enough that they stand on their own, offering light where the other offers dark, or more accurately, offering more dark...
The text and song titles and lyrics are all the work of Siratori and are dense and confusional, equal parts stream of consciousness, cyber punk and whatthefuck, "amorphous anthropoid, sympathy cell waves, acidhumanix, biocapturism..." it goes on and on, some impossible otherworld of reanimated corpses and time travel and cellular warfare and who knows what else. Dizzying and overwhelming and totally fascinating. The artwork somehow reflects that, at once modern and futuristic, classic and strangely surreal, naked figures, deformed babies, all sorts of religious iconography, corpses, genitals, industrial machinery, skulls, blood, welts, tentacles and tendrils...
All housed in an oversized fold over slipcover, inside a folder with the discs mounted inside, full color postcards, and a perfect bound book of Siratori's bizarre text.
While they last, we have the super limited version (only 300 copies!!) which includes two extra 3" discs. The first is Kenji Siratori - Sound Monologue : Hypergenome666, which features Siratori's spoken word, processed and tangled up into strange electronic soundscapes, skipping loops, and dense reverb drenched rhythms, all circling the haunting and mysterious words, grinding and blown out, super distorted and crumbling into strange shards of sound. The other is BSE vs. Nordvargr + Kenj Siratori - Tragedy Cell, featuring all three, collaborating, or battling, a glacial, frostbitten black wasteland, vocals swirl and are swallowed up, huge slabs of distorted low end blacken the sky, disembodied rhythms hover amidst whorls of whirring buzz, everything bathed in crackle and hum...
So absolutely stunning in every way.
MPEG Stream: HENRIK NORDVARGR BJORKK VS. KENJI SATORI "Acidhumanix"
MPEG Stream: HENRIK NORDVARGR BJORKK VS. KENJI SATORI "Corpse City"
MPEG Stream: BEYOND SENSORY EXPERIENCE VS. KENJI SATORI "Seed"
MPEG Stream: BEYOND SENSORY EXPERIENCE VS. KENJI SATORI "Amorphous Anthropoid"

BJORKLUND, T. QUARTET Janus (KV&GR/Recs) cd-r 6.98
From the twisted mastermind behind outsider weirdo black metal one man band Cloak Of Displacement, comes this debut from the oddly monickered T. Bjorklund Quartet, a CoD offshoot of sorts, oddly named for several reasons, one, it's not a quartet as far as we know, and T. Bjorklund is not his name, but by now we should have come to expect that sort of whatthefuckness from Mr. CoD, which bleeds right over into the music here, which is a sort of abstract free jazz, black noise weirdness, imagine wild squalls of lo-fi super distorted shredding, like a more damaged Mick Barr, that matched by some wildly abstract 'free' drumming way off in the distance, not to mention some blown out, croaked alien vokills, everything wrapped in an insane amount of tape hiss, as if it were recorded on a 1950's dictaphone, the end result being like a Faxed Head jazz record, or some abstract black metal record melting down and going totally haywire. But for all the damaged shred and abstract fuckery, the sounds do become strangely hypnotic, murky and muddy and blurred. There seems to be some bass going on too, that surfaces part way through, but the weird thing is, it doesn't sound played, it almost sounds like another record is playing with just bass on it, and that's where it's coming from. The sound does swing wildly all over the place, from weird electrified ambience to full bore noise, to what sounds -almost- like black metal, our favorite bit maybe being near the end, where that strange bassline, thrums beneath a field of high end sine wave skree, while the vocals howl maniacally, the bass getting louder and louder, as if someone was jamming in another room, and just opened the door.
Some seriously weird shit for sure. But if you've dug all the other Cloak records, or alternately are a jazzhead who somehow made it through this whole review, than check this out, we love it, but it's definitely on the 'difficult' side.
Packaged in a hand pasted digipak style sleeve, LIMITED TO 20 COPIES, we have 15 of those, all hand numbered, with a hand written 'free jazz' insert.
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt"

BLACK ARK OAKEN SAW Welcome To The Washboard Jungle (Hydra Head) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, MAINLY BECAUSE IT WAS AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE! HEE HEE! SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It was only a matter of time. There's been rap metal, and there's been funk metal, but as far as we know, nobody has combined black metal and dub, at least in a way that was at all palatable (we're definitely not counting the Bill Laswell produced Cradle Of Filth remix record or that abominable Tolkien-dub Prince Far Isengard record from a few years back). But now we've got the brilliantly monickered Black Ark Oaken Saw, a grim troupe of ganja smoking, washboard stroking, corpse painted Dandys in tight trousers. Huge swaths of murky buzzsaw guitars, howled demonic David Lee Roth-like vocals, wrapped in loads of reverb and delay, but instead of blast beats, or precise triggered drums, the dark abyss is framed by spare super blissed out, dubbed out echoplexed dub rhythms, snares crack and then repeat endlessly into the blackened void, while shrieks are snipped mid phrase and then recycled into haunting otherworldy echoes of blackened dub. Weird weird weird, it seems like this sort of thing wouldn't work at all, but surprisingly it's an absolutely perfect fit. Imagine Emperor with Sly and Robbie occupying the rhythm section or Lee Perry fronting Lugubrum. And we can't forget the un-named frontman who indeed plays the amplified washboard, but it too is run through a bank of effects and emerges a totally dubbed out barely recognizable version of itself. Hopefully, Hydra Head's interest in the fringes of black metal will continue to unearth more unholy treasures like the mighty Black Ark Oaken Saw!
MPEG Stream: "Haunting Halls of Hellfury (In Dub)"
MPEG Stream: "Christpunching (In Dub)"

BLACK BONED ANGEL Ashes (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 3cd-r 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally a release format massive enough to (only barely) capture the epic mammoth low slung downtuned brutal black beauty of Campbell Kneale's one man drone metal sludge combo Black Boned Angel. THREE full length cd-r's, that's over three hours of planet flattening slow motion guitar crumble and distorted doom crawl.
A collage of sorts weaving together audience bootleg recordings recorded all over Europe as well as demos and studio rehearsals. All held over the fire and melted down into a thick viscous fluid, that is poured into both your ears until the inside of your head melts and all you can hear is black.
Also included is the long out of print and never even seen by us until now "Heavens Blaze Forth the Death Of Princes" 2005 European tour cd.
What are you waiting for? This is IT. What we've been begging for. Hours and hours of soul destroying heaviness, bleak minimal soundscapes of roiling downtuned guitars and 16rpm riffage, like Steve Reich playing the SUNNO))) songbook. Churning and lurching and grinding and flattening all drone rockers in its path, the Black Boned Angel has descended from the heavens amidst showers of blood and black storm clouds to pass judgment, to beat us over the head with an angelic army of guitars, to bury us in a deep pit beneath a mountain of damaged amplifiers, to damn our souls to eternal torment. AND WE LOVE IT!
Packaged in the immediately recognizable CPsiP wallpaper packaging, with three printed inserts.
ULTRA LIMITED!!! We only got 50 copies, and will probably not be able to get more, so don't snooze...
MPEG Stream: "Endless Coming Into Life"
MPEG Stream: "The Sorrowful Mysteries"

BLACK BONED ANGEL Bliss And Void Inseparable (20 Buck Spin) cd 13.98
We talk about stuff being heavy all the time. Stuff being crushing. Pummeling. Sludgy. We describe slow heavy music with words like tarpit, and lumbering, and plodding. Deep. Cavernous. Subterranean. We try desperately to evoke the sort of abject brutality that this music makes us feel, lets us hear. But the truth is, while all of those words do describe Black Boned Angel, they barely manage to capture just how slow and low, heavy and completely skullcrushing this new record is. In huge letters, printed on the inside of the sleeve, are the words "Transcendence Can Only Be Reached At Maximum Volume" and truer words were never spoken.
Black Boned Angel is the darkside of Mr. Campbell Kneale, better know for his long running blissdrone outfit Birchville Cat Motel. A fascination with metal, and a desire to reach the depths of utter heaviness, led Campbell from the droning path of BCM and into a world of black terror and skull peeling ferocity, a harrowing path of ear shredding, heart stopping, brain melting brutality. And it seems he has acclimated quite well thank you.
Bliss And Void Inseparable is the third installment in Kneale's insidious plan to create a record so massive, that it collapses all of time and space, sucking the entire solar system into an alternate universe the size of a pea. And he's almost succeeded. We will perpetually live in fear knowing that the next BBA record could be the one that destroys the world as we know it. For now, we will luxuriate in the massive soul shearing metallic doooooom that is BAVI. The record begins with massive plods, each one the footfall of a beast so large we can barely comprehend its mass, instead, when it steps down, shockwaves roll out in all directions, like a sonic boom caused by a million downtuned guitars, leaving an fifty foot deep impression in the earth, the compacted ground littered with skeletons and corpses, the dirt wet with blood. Over this occasional black hole plod is laid a white hot streak of upper echelon feedback, an endless stretch of high end reverberation. It's like some sort of Moss / Whitehouse mashup. But even then, the guitars grow, feeding off the darkness, the feedback fades and the strange plodding coheres into some sort of prehistoric riff, a groove so slow and low that it's like a black glacier sliding in slow motion across the desiccated earth. But BBA's hellish pit is not with out hope, not without light, or melody, chanting vocals hover right below the surface, barely audible under a gauzy veil of guitar crumble and amp rooooaaaarrr. At about the halfway point, ghostly piano is introduced, offering up minor key, slightly atonal melodies, adding color to BBA's black world. But also adding a creepy ominous edge. Like the soundtrack to thee sort of horror movie that leaves half the audience frightened to death. This funeral plod continues on until very near the end, where the low end drops out, leaving nothing but a snarled tangled web of feedback, a shimmering lattice of high end, which eventually fades into nothingness.
It's a bit hard to absorb, best to just lay back and let this snarling black beast have its way with you. You might survive, halo tarnished and soul a bit blackened, and if for some reason you don't this angel will carry you lovingly down into the depths.
SO RECOMMENDED!
MPEG Stream: "Bliss And Void Inseparable"

BLACK BONED ANGEL Dashed Upon Stones (Battlecruiser) cd-r 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We've never seen Black Boned Angel perform live, but judging from the photo on the insert of this disc, the band might owe SUNNO))) some royalties, as the image features one of the Black Boned Angels (yep, now there are three) in a monk like robe, wielding an axe, but also poised to strike a drum! But fuck it, robes were a part of rituals long before SUNNO))), and BBA have their own ritualistic thing going on. Especially considering someone is simultaneously playing guitar AND drums.
The trio of BBA, now featuring not only main man Campbell Kneale on guitar, drums and tapes, and James Kirk on guitar and "amprifier worshippo" (?), but also now Jules Desmond on bass guitar, offer up the first recorded evidence we've heard of the three piece BBA on this here super limited TOUR ONLY cd-r, we got all the copies the band had left after their Australian tour, so once these are gone, that's it.
One single track, 34 minutes, beginning with nine minutes of washed out staticky buzz. For a minute there (actually for 9 minutes) we thought this might be it. One long buzz. Which would be fine, we love that stuff, but right around the 10 minute mark, the band kick into a slow motion doomy plod, the guitars thick and viscous, the drums a simple occasional plod (dude is also playing guitar!), the trio lurch and lumber, a woozy, spaced out tar pit dirge, the guitars throbbing and crumbling, eventually, blurring into a nearly static whirl of low end sound, an industrial soundscape of muted clatter and textured buzz, smeared into a slowly decaying outro.
Again, this is CRAZY LIMITED, pretty sure it's OUT OF PRINT, and thus these are most likely, the last copies ever...
MPEG Stream: "Dashed Upon Stones"

BLACK BONED ANGEL Eternal Hunger (Battlecruiser / Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Okay. We screwed up. It happens. What can we say? Sometimes we're easily confused. We get SO many records every week to listen to and review, hundreds in fact. But also, people don't always make it any easier. We recently got two discs in the mail, both with remarkably similar packaging, one WAS actually a reissue, of Matthew Bower's Mirag disc, a new version of a long out of print cd-r, the other, we now discover, is NOT in fact a reissue, but a brand new record, with -almost- the exact same title as the cd-r we wrongly assumed this was a reissue of. Arghhh. So anyway, enough of the scrambling to cover our screw-up-prone asses and on to this maginificent slab of murky malevolence.
BBA fans know what they're in for, a serious blackened pummeling, huge roiling washes of downtuned black tar riffing, swirled and smeared into epic waves of darkdarkdark ambience. Bookended on both sides by some Birchville style shimmery dronescaping, but those merely serve to ease you in, and ease you out, of this bottomless black pool of corrosive suffocating heaviness. Only twenty minutes long, but we're not entirely sure we could handle much more, even though we do pretty much wish this record would go on forever. Nothing but punishing blackness as far as the eye can sea. Nothing but rumbling crunch as far as the ear can hear. A never ending metallic drift into a swirling black hole of gloriously brutal doomdronedeathdirgesludge.
Packaged in swank silver ink on black sleeves!
MPEG Stream: "Eternal Hunger"

BLACK BONED ANGEL Eternal Love (Battlecruiser / Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 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.
They go quickly, but we DID manage to get a few more of these, one of the flagship acts of the Battlecruiser label... however, NOW we're certain that we've got the last ones, and never will again. So, if you missed it:
The return of Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) shadowy cloaked, blackened dirge-drone-sort-of-metal alter ego Black Boned Angel. The latest in Celebrate Psi Phenomenon's Battlecruiser series of ambient experimentalists gone metal. This twenty minute chunk of grim sludge is a little teaser for a forthcoming double cd!
Not quite as overtly metal as the recently reviewed Supereclipse cd, Eternal Love starts off much more sonically aligned with Kneale's more ambient exploits with BCM. Things start to go south (as in south of Heaven) a few minutes in with the introduction of creepy crawly gothy bass lines, drifting through the abyss, bass riffs begin but are abandoned part way through only to resurface moments later, like the skeleton of Joy Division, reanimated and lurching drunkenly through the scorched and barren underworld. Eventually this haunting bass line slips off the edge and into a suffocating blackened swirl of downtuned ultra distorted bass, grinding slow motion metal guitar, and plodding industrial percussion, a head crushing plod offering some sort of rhythmic guidance through Eternal Love's hellish tar pit trawl. SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!
MPEG Stream: "Eternal Love"

BLACK BONED ANGEL Eternal Love / Eternal Hunger (Riot Season) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This beloved blackened behemoth from New Zealand, AQ fave Black Boned Angel, aka Campbell Kneale, takes his first shot at spreading the disease via vinyl, with this two on one lp reissue of several long out of print cd-r's. Pressed on thick vinyl, and in a super striking silver-on-black sleeve, Eternal Love and Eternal Hunger are available once again, but only for a limited time!
Eternal Love is not quite as overtly metal as BBA's Supereclipse cd, and thus starts off much more sonically aligned with Kneale's more ambient exploits with BCM. Things start to go south (as in South Of Heaven) a few minutes in with the introduction of creepy crawly gothy bass lines, drifting through the abyss, bass riffs begin but are abandoned part way through only to resurface moments later, like the skeleton of Joy Division, reanimated and lurching drunkenly through the scorched and barren underworld. Eventually this haunting bass line slips off the edge and into a suffocating blackened swirl of downtuned ultra distorted bass, grinding slow motion metal guitar, and plodding industrial percussion, a head crushing plod offering some sort of rhythmic guidance through Eternal Love's hellish tar pit trawl.
On the flipside, Eternal Hunger is a serious blackened pummeling, huge roiling washes of downtuned black tar riffing, swirled and smeared into epic waves of darkdarkdark ambience. Bookended on both sides by some Birchville style shimmery dronescaping, but those merely serve to ease you in, and ease you out, of this bottomless black pool of corrosive suffocating heaviness. Twenty minutes long, a single side long track, nothing but punishing blackness as far as the eye can sea. Nothing but rumbling crunch as far as the ear can hear. A never ending metallic drift into a swirling black hole of gloriously brutal doomdronedeathdirgesludge.
MPEG Stream: "Eternal Love"
MPEG Stream: "Eternal Hunger"

BLACK BONED ANGEL Supereclipse (20 Buck Spin) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY. IT WILL PROBABLY BE REPRESSED SUMMER 2007 ACCORDING TO THE LABEL...
A while back we got a handful of limited 3" cd-r releases on a label called Battle Cruiser, which just so happened to be a side label of Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, run by the very prolific and very loved around these parts Campbell Kneale. They were super limited, only 30-80 copies of each and we only got 10. The best of the bunch was a little black gem by the name of Black Boned Angel. BBA was Kneale's foray onto massive, pummelling metallic sludge and man was it good. Shame we only ever had ten copies. Well, thanks to our pal Dave at 20 Buck Spin, we all get another chance to pick this up. And the ten of you who got the first version will probably also want to get this because:
A. It's not a cd-r, it's a real cd.
B. There's a twenty minute bonus track!
Fuck yeah! But what does it sound like? Black Boned Angel is a crushing salvo of sub-bass, low end, Earth / Sunn 0))) / Skullflower / Corrupted deathdirgedrone, but filtered through Kneale's Birchville Cat Motel high end ambient, shimmering skree, free noise sensibilities. Guitar tuned so low, the strings droop all the way off the fretboard, amps with the treble controls removed to make room for even more bass knobs, amps dipped in hot tar and pointed at the center of the earth, waves of low end rumble slowly rolling and decimating everything in its path. Hollowed out skulls, pounded mercilessly, beating out a primitive barely-there rhythm from the black abyss. Mysterious incantations, hardly audible from beneath the massive slab of sonic sludge, seem to invoke the very same bass-heavy demons threatening to smother and bury them with this very recording. Totally essential.
MPEG Stream: "Supereclipse 3"

BLACK BONED ANGEL Supereclipse (Celebrate Psi Pheomenon) cd-r 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another batch of super limited and beautifully packaged cd-r's from Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. The finest in underground free noise / drone, culled mostly from New Zealand but all around the world as well. For those of you new to the CpsiP label, imagine classic Siltbreeze (Dead C, etc.) mixed with Jewelled Antler (Thuja, Blithe Sons etc.), dark and deep listening that sometimes verges on all out noise, but more often than not remains subtle experiments in avant drone and abstract sound. And when we say limited we mean LIMITED. These babies come in pressings of 30-80, out of which we get a whopping 10 copies!!
Black Boned Angel is Campbell Kneale's entry in the burgeoning field of sub-bass, low end, Earth / Sunn 0))) / Corrupted deathdirgedrone. And it's a doozy. Guitar tuned so low, the strings droop all the way off the fretboard, amps with the treble controls removed to make room for even more bass knobs, amps dipped in hot tar and pointed at the center of the earth, waves of low end rumble slowly rolling and decimating everything in its path. Mysterious incantations, barely audible from beneath the massive slab of sonic sludge, seem to invoke the very same bass-heavy demons threatening to smother and bury them with this very recording.
MPEG Stream: "3"

BLACK BONED ANGEL The End (Handmade Birds) cd 14.98
Is it really the end for Black Boned Angel, the aQ beloved guitar/drum doomdronedirge duo? It sadly seems to be, as The End is apparently not just the title for this elaborately presented three part song suite, but does in fact supposedly represent the final musical missive from Campbell Kneale and James Kirk, aka BBA. And not a bad way to go. A three song epic, the shortest 16 minutes, the longest more than 24, and right away, the duo launch into it, with a sick, metallic howl, a crushing doom-ed lumber, all demonic vokills, and crumbling super distorted riffage, all wrapped around simple monstrous drum plod, and while that sort of intro usually signals some straight up droned out black doom sludge, quickly the sound reveals a surprising amount of melody and texture, the creep and crawl, and abject ultra doom miserablism, tempered by an inner light, and some super crazy catchy guitarwork, that gives the sound an epic, majestic, chiming dreaminess, and when the rhythm kicks in proper, it's a strange sort of wistful doom-sludge slowcore; but just as quickly as the sound coalesces, it seems to decay right before our ears and shift back into amorphous black buzz. And the song seems to push and pull between these two sides, the loping mournful melancholia, and the howling black hole heaviness, eventually, reaching a gorgeous sort of equilibrium, which is weirdly coupled with some seriously warped guitar, a sky full of tangled distorted melodic moan, not buzz, but a sort of haunting keening, unlike almost any other guitar sound we've hear, its ultimate effect giving the sound a seriously woozy, psychedelic vibe, although the last few minutes finds the drums ditched and the two guitars wound tight into a thick cloud of billowing guitarnoise and grinding black crunch.
The second movement begins like some demonic Arvo Part piece, all layered choral vocals and ominous drones, heady and haunting, it's not until nearly 5 minutes in, that the doom drops, and when it does, it's a tarpit chug, but again, it's laced with some unlikely beauty, at first sounding like a more blown out Blackwolfgoat, but soon, it turns into something utterly lovely and almost dreamy, of course still doused in crumbling black buzz, but beneath all the distortion and doomic swirl, is something lilting and melancholic, strip away all the heaviness, and we'd be talking total heartbreak ballad, but when fused to the groups monstrous lumber, it somehow only becomes that much more intense and darkly emotional, there's a definite Nadja vibe, but this is way dreamier and way more overtly melodic than ANYthing we've heard from them, it's like some crazy catchy song fragmented, looped and slowed down and stretched out into a gorgeous blackdoom dreampop dirge, eventually blissing out into a droned out drift of soft crumble, swirling effects, and delicate piano.
Finally, BBA finish things off (and by things, we mean the record AND the band), with another epic majestic dirgescape, this one too laced with melody, and unlikely texture, soaring and weirdly poppy, the melodic component here a strange wavery vocal like melody, that sounds somewhere between a warped theremin, and a vibrato heavy opera singer, that quavering 'voice' woven into the groups melancholy plod, and like the track before, the drums drop out, and most of the buzz, leaving a gorgeous haze of crumbling distortion, blurred riffage, and that ghostly melody, a haunting threnody, and a darly dream epitaph for one of our favorite bands. Who will be greatly missed.
Super elaborate packaging, all assembled and numbered by hand, an origami style inner jacket, with a full colored oversized insert, several envelopes/sleeves, all housed in a thick 7" sized vellum outer sleeve, through which the silver printed inner sleeve can be viewed. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "II"
MPEG Stream: "III"

BLACK BONED ANGEL The Endless Coming into Life (20 Buck Spin) cd 13.98
We always sort of assumed Black Boned Angel, the alter ego of Birchville Cat Motel's Campbell Kneale, was just that, an alter ego, a one man exploration of things dark and drone-y and heavy, the sort of stuff that was maybe TOO day for his day gig in BCM. But here, on the latest BBA, Kneale has teamed up with fellow Kiwi noisemaker (and longtime aQ customer) James Kirk for something just a little bit different.
One single hour long song, that begins with all manner of barely there ambience, distant resonant rumbles, keening high end, fluttering chimes, super super minimal, tons of space. Eventually, the guitar comes in, but not crashing or exploding, instead, it comes in strumming dolefully, unfurling deep sorrowful chords, that are allowed to ring out, building a spaced out minor key melody that drifts in a melancholy haze. The sound is really quite pretty, some sort of post rock, minimal slowcore, think Dirty 3, or Low, but even slower and more abstract. And this goes on for nearly 30 minutes, lulling the listener into a soporific daze. But c'mon, this is BLACK BONED ANGEL, at about the halfway mark, the hammer falls, and the duo unleash a torrent of digitally processed distortion that buzzes and rumbles, all draped over a throbbing industrial crunch, until what sound like real drums join the fray, splattering out a spider web of disjointed beats beneath the nearly static undulating layer of undulating grinding buzz. When the buzz does shift, the chord change feels massive, the melody locking in tight, before slipping back into a metal-Niblock blur.
Eventually, the song ramps down, the guitars fade away leaving high end traces of what came before, keening streaks in the sky, shimmering lowend shadows underpinning coruscating arcs of distorted skree, eventually smoothing out into a soft, warm whirring blur that drifts off until the end.
Gorgeously packaged in a black on black digipak. Another winner from Kneale and his (for now) partner Kirk!
MPEG Stream: "The Endless Coming Into Life"

BLACK BONED ANGEL The Witch Must Be Killed (Conspiracy) lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Back in stock, final copies we're gonna get!!
Latest slab of sprawling outsider minimal ambient sludge doom drone from this (now) duo, fronted by none other than Campbell Kneale, he of Birchville Cat Motel and Our Love Will Destroy The World, but as most of you probably already know, BBA is a whole 'nother beast. A snarling, slow motion, glacial, tarpit, black crawling beast, a sparse, yet still dense assemblage of massive riffing, the riffs themselves doused in crumbling distortion and left to just decay before our ears, only to have another crunching chord wash over us, not so much riffs as long arrangements of massive notes and chords, a forward momentum of nearly nil, these guys create some serious ultra doom, that rivals groups like Moss for sheer sonic weight.
The Witch Must Be Killed is a two sided two parter, the first side begins with a long stretch of near silence, hushed ambient drift, before the band really kick in with a Neurosis-at-16rpm dirge, and calling it a dirge is being generous, it's so slow, it's almost like a soundscape assembled from bits of riff, and occasional crashing drum pound, but the result is intoxicating, gorgeously hazy and blown out and weirdly epic, especially with the addition of a whole other layer of sound, what could be distant waiting vox, or another high end guitar, or some sort of noisemaker, but what that extra layer does is add some serious pathos, tension, what would otherwise be a metallic creep, becomes something totally emotional and intense, like a metal Godspeed crossed with an even more minimal Corrupted, but WAY spaced out, cosmic and otherworldly, more in line with something like Jesu or Nadja, but way heavier, and WAY more metal.
Repetitive, hypnotic, mesmerizing, nearly endless, a sprawling primordial metallic ooze, that envelops and consumes, sucking the listener into a black vortex of minimal metallic sound, the song itself developing slowly, nearly imperceptibly, for it is an actual sound, not just a hodge podge of sounds, a song that fills up nearly two sides, until about halfway through side two, when the band slip into their own sort of Filsofem, a blurred wash of buzz and rumble, of swirling hiss, of smeared effects and black ambience, laced with a haunting melody, played over and over, way off in the distance, partially obscured by the murk, while beneath it strange voices surface and swirl, the guitars smolder and burn, totally gorgeous and weirdly dreamy and otherworldy, as the record dissolves into an extended outro as bleary eared and buzzy as the best Birchville jam, just rendered via big amps and loud blackened guitars. Awesome.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!