DAVIS, JOHN Instructional Sculpture For Children (Root Strata) 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.
The undulating drones and scraped loops which provide the backbone for the debut recording for San Francisco's John Davis could have easily been plucked from a Phill Niblock or Andrew Chalk composition; but in fact their origins lie in the interactive exhibitions found at the Exploratorium, SF's one of a kind museum of science, art, and human perception. If you've never had the opportunity to get to the Exploratorium, it's well worth the visit as there's tons of contraptions designed to illuminate, educate, and amaze. Armed with a mini-disc recorder, a good mic, and a willingness to explore, Davis captured many of plinks, plonks, and bongs from the Exploratorium's many exhibits that demonstrate any number of acoustic phemonena. He then ran these field recordings through a battery of Max/MSP patches to arrive at this spiralling cloud of pixelated smears, golden drones, and a variety of those aforementioned plinks, plonks, and bongs. Davis certainly draws from the aesthetics of Stephan Mathieu and Fennesz, adding a mechanical and metallic clamour into the mix.
Released on Tarentel's Root Strata label, this beautifully packaged cd-r is strictly limited to 50 copies, of which we only have a handful. You know what that means!
MPEG Stream: "Instructional Sculpture For Children (excerpt)"

DAVIS, JOHN Open Ground (Peasant Magik) cassette 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Northern Californian media artist John Davis is a bit of a renaissance man. Film, photography, and sound design all come together through looping systems that pile old means of construction on top of new ones, with all sorts of erasures and additive marks along the way. The results throughout all of his media can be strikingly beautiful, if idiosyncratic in the way the old becomes new and vice versa. Such has been evident on his musical output for Root Strata, Students Of Decay, and Digitalis; and it's certainly true for his cassette on Peasant Magik. The tape begins with a drone-field of pastoral impressionism that fits very nicely within the overarching aesthetic of Root Strata as something of a reclamation of rural psychedelia (a phrase coined by Flying Saucer Attack to describe their first album), yet Davis intervenes through small phrases of electronic plinks and strange field recordings buried behind the Chalk-ish guitar drones. He then moves onto a piece driven by ring modulated tone and motorized clatter that harkens to early electronic music experiments merged with the scrabblings Keith Rowe would sometimes offer by disrupting guitar pick-ups with other magnetics and motors. Elsewhere, Davis fuses a no-fi layering of mashed textures on par with any of the Richard Youngs albums of grit and shimmer crossed with the Jasper TX / Machinefabriek means of song deconstruction. Needless to say, there's a lot going on in each of the tracks that Davis provides, but it's not an overload that he's seeking rather a curiosity to explore as many possibilities while maintaining a hushed restraint. Limited to 100 copies.

DAVIS, JOHN The Gold Hooped Nature (Root Strata) cd 12.98
We're not sure if this is the first proper full length from this local soundscaper / field recordist, but it's definitely the first one we've ever had. We raved about the last two Davis discs we carried, both cd-r's both now unfortunately out of print.
But this is an actual cd, so it should be around for a while, which is a very good thing, as it's just as fantastic as those long gone cd-r's, so hopefully this time a few more folks will get a chance to lay their ears on Davis' minimal loveliness.
And minimal and lovely is precisely what this is. In past reviews we've mentioned Niblock and Coleclough, and obviously those comparisons still apply, but the cool thing about Davis is that he is not nearly so precise. His sounds have grit and static, there is room sound, tape hiss, not to a distracting degree, but only in so much as it adds a bit of warmth and texture.
Davis' music, while deep and shimmery, mysterious and dark, is also natural, captured and created in its environment, not in some vacuum, so a nearly static drone is often peppered with bits of glitch, strange percussion, slivers of feedback. Sounds pulse and waver, drift and shift, often creating incidental rhythms. Those more rhythmic tracks are like some darker dronier pop ambient music, subtly throbbing beneath slow shifting layers of sound, not murky as much as washed out and soft around the edges.
A few tracks stick out here and there, like the warbly almost jazzy interlude "Half Consumed" with it haunting trumpet melody and strange backwards rhythm, but for the most part, The Gold Hooped Nature is simply another breathtaking collection of minimal dronemusic, from an unsung modern master.
Packaged in a beautiful silkscreened gold on white gatefold cardstock sleeve and LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "Before And Since"
MPEG Stream: "Hudibras"
MPEG Stream: "Queen Mab's Chariot"

DAVIS, JOHN Vines Go Roaming (Digitalis) cassette 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Never got enough of these to list, which is a bummer, cuz this super limited tape, from local dronelord Davis, is really fantastic. But at least this way, a few of you can get your mitts on this gem, two side long sprawls of dreamy minimal ambient shimmery drone music, one side, guitar, field recordings and electronics, the other side just accordion and electronics. All subtly shifting tones, and hushed clouds of reverberating chordal drift, all blurred and smeared into dreamy streaks of soft focus sound.
Packaged in a cool, screen printed oversized sleeve/envelope, with a printed insert. Already out of print, got 3 copies, and that's all we'll ever have....

DAVIS, JOHN & MAXWELL CROY Halides (Root Strata) dvd-r 12.98
A beautiful document from last year's On Land festival, the Root Strata curated gathering of artists and sound artists and musicians. This particular set featured gorgeous home solarized super-8 film shot by John Davis throughout Northern California, while Davis and Maxwell Croy, one half of the duo that runs Root Strata, created their own complimentary soundtrack, a soft hazy dronescape of bowed strings, layered vibrations and hushed, barely-there melodies.
The images are really quite evocative, all washed out and softly distorted, like home movies, they have that sort of faded memory feeling, images of a lost time, and the solarizing process only further enhances that element, the slow shifting landscapes peppered with solar flares, deep red glows, the colors super saturated, flowers become miniature suns, fields of grass look like stained glass, or fields of green stars, all manner of foliage becomes more about texture and color, just softly swaying stretches of hazy burnt out shades of soft white, deep yellow, warm browns...
And the music perfect suits the images, tranquil and impressionistic, long tones underpin soft shards of melody, like a muted raga, the buzz blurred and smoothed out into gauzy streaks of sound, a koto gives the music a distinctly Eastern vibe, the tones like swells on a sonic sea, meditative and mesmerizing.
LIMITED TO 120 COPIES! Housed in a cool oversized hand silkscreened jacket, with a printed insert and a strange accordion like inner dvd-sleeve.

DAY, CARSON Terrabyte (Dielectric) 3" cd-r 7.98
Wow. This is a gorgeous little thing before we even pop it in the player. A fogged plastic 3" soft jewel case, one side a super detailed photo of some sort of brilliant green caterpillar, the other a transparent smear of different greens, bright but strangely muted, revealing the tiny green disc within. The music itself is just as beautiful, thick slabs of post-Autechre skitter and thump, tangled and serpentine, but still somehow soothing and dreamy, the dense convoluted beats and rhythms all wrapped up in warm warped melodies and beautifully creepy atmospheres. Very cinematic and epic. Like some perfect mix of Autechre, Boards Of Canada and Godspeed maybe...
Only 100 copies made. Of which we got 20. So act fast!
MPEG Stream: "Gentle"
MPEG Stream: "Cubic Space"

DAY, CARSON / ILET APT Into The Night (Dielectric) 12" 8.98
The first salvo of electronic vinyl madness from AQ pal Drucifer's new label comes in the form of four 12"s, beautifully packaged in distinctive orange sleeves (dance 12" style) and on nice thick vinyl, and sonically running the gamut from stuttery glitched out electronica to shimmery drones to speaker shredding digital rhythms to dreamy beatscapes.
Carson Day (NOT Carson Daly!) is a 17 year old SF local who according to the Dielectric website likes Tool, White Zombie, Boards Of Canada, Autechre and loads more. Don't notice much of the Tool or White Zombie influence, but the Boards/Autechre vibe is present in spades. Stuttery, skittery rhythms over dreamy pastoral backdrops, with hyper-distorted melodies, the occasional grinding, rib cage rattling low-end bass line and bursts of almost jungle peppering these dreamy, late night electronic workouts. Definitely for fans of Autechre, Boards Of Canada and the like.
MPEG Stream: "Different Agendas"
MPEG Stream: "Come Here Often"

DDAA Action And Japanese Demonstration (Fractal) cd 27.00

DE DEYSTER, EDMOND Selectie 02 (Ultra Eczema) lp 32.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Volume two of these recently discovered long lost recordings of seventies synthesizer music from a mysterious Belgian musician named Edmond De Dyster. Like the first volume, these pieces were discovered on unmarked reel to reel tapes in a box marked simply with the year, 1975. Discovered by Ultra Eczema head honcho Dennis Tyfus, these recordings, along with those on the now out of print first volume, are only part of a trove of unreleased, and for the most part unheard recordings De Dyster made in private, who seemingly had no intention of releasing them, in fact, even his family didn't know he had been making recordings.
None of this mystery would be worth anything if it weren't for the music, which is weird and wonderful, raw and primitive, all analog synthesizers, almost like a lo-fi BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The sounds are tripped out and abstract, bleeps and bloops and beeps and sine wave tones, and crumbling distorted rhythms, plodding ominous low end melodies, spooky squalls of glitch and squelch, reverbed squiggles, ghostly tones, haunting and otherworldly like a Theremin, here and there some new age flutter, deep soft swells, fuzzy staticky streaks of buzz, muted rhythmic thumps, that low end creeping and slithering through clouds of swirling tones and shimmering textures, all set adrift in wide open expanses of distant rumble and soft fuzzy whir. Amazing stuff. Think Tangerine Dream, Conrad Schnitzler, Battiato, Schulze, Heldon. And you may as well add De Deyster to that list. Anyone into experimental electronic music, should absolutely check this out.
Who knows how many other lost boxes of tapes or mysterious music makers lurk in bedrooms and basements out there? Probably more than we might imagine...
Gorgeously packaged in a hand screened, extra thick jacket, with a full color printed insert. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.

DE DYSTER, EDMOND Selectie 01 (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.
Ultra limited lp only reissue of long lost seventies analog synthesizer music from mysterious Belgian musical recluse Edmond De Dyster. These tracks were recovered from unmarked tapes recently discovered, recorded sometime in the early to mid seventies. De Dyster had been recording for years, not to release, just for himself, before his family even realized he was making music nearly a decade later. A sort of lo-fi, bedroom Conrad Schnitzler, De Deyster created dense and rich fuzzed out synthscapes, buzzy and fuzzy, with psychedelic outer space FX swooping all over the place, lots of tape hiss, instrument buzz, creepy alien melodies, like a much more abstract and damaged Tangerine Dream. Crumbling rumble, grimy grit, whirring distortion, birdlike trills, strange minor key melody fragments, long passages of dreamlike bloop and bleep. So cool.
Packaged in a beautiful full color sleeve, featuring washed out family photos of the artist as a young man. Also includes liner notes and a full sized insert.
Limited to 400 copies, already out of print, and we only managed to get about 20 so act fast!

DE ERIOMEM, ARTHUR Drowned By Voices, Somewhat Rather Slowly (Invisible Birds) cd-r 11.98
Arthur De Eriomem is one of the shadowy figures behind Ingenting Kollektiva, a dreamy disintegrated drone project with a keen knowledge of avant-garde music, art, film, architecture, and design, all of which gets churned through whatever arcane processes may be at work, resulting in some rapturously dark driftscaping and visually arresting videos as well. De Eriomem cites that the title of this release was culled from David Toop's Sinister Resonance, a book that runs with the idea that sound, for all of its physical attributes, operates more in the realm of the ghostly. It's an apt description, especially in relation to Simon Reynolds' appropriation of hauntology to describe particular threads of retro-futurism in electronica. Like The Caretaker, William Basinksi, and Phillip Jeck, who augment their sounds through an aural patina of antiquity, De Eriomem's slippery composition has the feel of something very, very old - like a lost wax cylinder recently discovered in some midwestern attic, covered in flecks of ash and dust. It would be easy to believe these warbling recordings are of a 19th Century hurdy-gurdy, playing doleful, repetitive melodies all the while the echoing slowly sustained drones and evanescent blossomings of golden ambience; but De Eriomem mentions the sources to be analogue delay and guitar. It hardly matters how he did it, it's just a gorgeous drone disc, one that would warrant comparisons also to The Aeolian String Ensemble and the guitar based work from Andrew Chalk. Handmade packaging in a numbered of edition of 100 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Drowned By Voices, Somewhat Rather Slowly"

DE GENNARO, MATTHEW A Guide For The Perplexed (Epigonic) cd 9.98
Another dose of dreamy acoustic guitar haze from Matt De Gennaro. We loved his last record, Humbled Down, and here he continues in a similar vein through a 5-piece suite of gently finger picked and slide guitar compositions. Although comparisons to the recent primitive guitar school of Fahey, Jack Rose, and Sir Richard Bishop will abound, we feel De Gennaro's airy and spacious compositions are more closely related to William Eaton's pastoral paean's to nature's lonely loveliness. Beautiful.
MPEG Stream: " Part One"
MPEG Stream: "Part Four"

DE GENNARO, MATTHEW Humbled Down (Last Visible Dog) cd 9.98
Some of you might remember De Gennaro from the amazing drone record he made a few years back with Alastair Galbraith, Long Wires In Dark Museums (Vol. 1), an exploration of, well, long wires in dark museums! A shimmering drone of subtle reverberations, tonal colorations and slow shifting ovetones. This lastest solo guitar record is a lot more structured and sort of more in line with the whole free-folk 'new weird america' outsider whatever scene, you know, Jack Rose, James Blackshaw, Pelt, No Neck Blues Band, Matt Valentine, etc. but even so, much of the subtle shimmer and delicate drone of the long wires record is still found on Humbled Down, just wrapped around De Gennaro's gorgeous and understated acoustic guitar. Fans of Rose and Fahey and the like will no doubt love this stuff, but it's a lot more subtle and dreamy, each note gauzy and suspended in a fine hazy mist, sort of smeary and indistinct, melodic yet sort of out of focus like an old photograph, or how you might imagine Philip Jeck would sound if he were a guitar player. Drifting and otherworldly and very very lovely.
MPEG Stream: "Candlestick Maker"
MPEG Stream: "Coal"

DEAD C Future Artists (Ba Da Bing!) cd 10.98
Best song title ever?: "The AMM Of Punk Rock". And what's funny is, if there was ever a band that could rightfully claim that title as their own, it NZ's Dead C. Much like how Nirvana spawned a million shitty wannabe's, the Dead C basically did the same for the noise rock underground. Anyone with a piece of shit guitar and a beat up four-track got to thinking they could be a band, not realizing that the match up of Bruce Russell, Michael Morley and Robbie Yeats was a magical once in a lifetime sort of lucky draw.
It's been four years since the last Dead C record, The Damned, a killer slab of classic Dead C -ROCK- that we dug like crazy. From full on rock to moody ambience, it was a serious return to form. So what did this noise rock power decide to do as a follow up (besides wait four long years)? Well, as being contrary seems second nature to them, they decided to be difficult. To make a hard to listen to, abstract record filled with amazing sounds assembled in amazing and perplexing shapes and letting us figure out how to enjoy them. And enjoying them is exactly what we're doing. If drastic stylistic shifts and difficult listening are things that send you packing then odds are you gave up on these guys long ago.
Starting off with the above mentioned "The AMM Of Punk Rock", the Dead C reclaim the noise rock throne from Wolf Eyes or whoever happens to be parked there this week. These guys are legends for a reason, they can take seemingly unmusical sounds, caustic, abrasive, minimal and harsh, and weave them into something beautiful. This is no exception. Wheezing chords, tape hiss, amp buzz, strange disjointed melodies, huge billowing rubbery low end ooze, plenty of electronic glitch and squiggle, bits of buzz and beep, until about halfway through when a riff enters the fray, a gorgeously SUNNO)))-y wash of distorted guitar rumble over simple spare percussion, like classic Dead C slowed waaaaaaay down. Not sure if it's the sound of punk rock AMM, but it sure as hell could be.
Elsewhere, the band dip into dissonant mumbly noise rock, complete with crooned vocals, clattery junk yard percussion, VU style riffing, a shuffling beat and a hidden hook that once unearthed will stick in your head like crazy, long drawn out buzzscapes of sputtering distortion, weird processed drums, digital skitter, and thick rumbling whir, super spaced out reverbed kraut jams, not all that unlike some lost German Oak jam, simple plodding percussion, metallic crunch, squalls of angular guitar, sheets of feedback, some downright groovy riffing and some seriously propulsive drumming, and for the final 20 minute track, a creepy lo-fi junkyard noise rock Appalachia, with raga like steel string guitar and wavery chordal warble, some blown out synth weirdness, and strange alien melodies, all wrapped in tons of reverb and delay, like it was recorded in a huge underground cavern, giving the whole track an awesomely subterranean vibe, casting the 'C as some clan of bearded beasties, with blind eyes, pale skin, and hair down to the ground, who have spent the last thousand years holed up in their cave, with nothing but some old amps and janky synths, busted up drums and a single crappy microphone...
And that's kind of what the whole record sounds like really, that Dead C classic deconstructed primitivism, begrudgingly dragged into the future (hence the record title? Ironic? Not?), the murky stumbling sonic chaos we know and love augmented with strange modern flourishes and unexpected modern production fuckery, which actually quite becomes them...
MPEG Stream: "The AMM Of Punk Rock"
MPEG Stream: "The Magicians"

DEAD C Future Artists (Ba Da Bing!) 2lp 17.98
NOW ON VINYL!!!
Best song title ever?: "The AMM Of Punk Rock". And what's funny is, if there was ever a band that could rightfully claim that title as their own, it NZ's Dead C. Much like how Nirvana spawned a million shitty wannabe's, the Dead C basically did the same for the noise rock underground. Anyone with a piece of shit guitar and a beat up four-track got to thinking they could be a band, not realizing that the match up of Bruce Russell, Michael Morley and Robbie Yeats was a magical once in a lifetime sort of lucky draw.
It's been four years since the last Dead C record, The Damned, a killer slab of classic Dead C -ROCK- that we dug like crazy. From full on rock to moody ambience, it was a serious return to form. So what did this noise rock power decide to do as a follow up (besides wait four long years)? Well, as being contrary seems second nature to them, they decided to be difficult. To make a hard to listen to, abstract record filled with amazing sounds assembled in amazing and perplexing shapes and letting us figure out how to enjoy them. And enjoying them is exactly what we're doing. If drastic stylistic shifts and difficult listening are things that send you packing then odds are you gave up on these guys long ago.
Starting off with the above mentioned "The AMM Of Punk Rock", the Dead C reclaim the noise rock throne from Wolf Eyes or whoever happens to be parked there this week. These guys are legends for a reason, they can take seemingly unmusical sounds, caustic, abrasive, minimal and harsh, and weave them into something beautiful. This is no exception. Wheezing chords, tape hiss, amp buzz, strange disjointed melodies, huge billowing rubbery low end ooze, plenty of electronic glitch and squiggle, bits of buzz and beep, until about halfway through when a riff enters the fray, a gorgeously SUNNO)))-y wash of distorted guitar rumble over simple spare percussion, like classic Dead C slowed waaaaaaay down. Not sure if it's the sound of punk rock AMM, but it sure as hell could be.
Elsewhere, the band dip into dissonant mumbly noise rock, complete with crooned vocals, clattery junk yard percussion, VU style riffing, a shuffling beat and a hidden hook that once unearthed will stick in your head like crazy, long drawn out buzzscapes of sputtering distortion, weird processed drums, digital skitter, and thick rumbling whir, super spaced out reverbed kraut jams, not all that unlike some lost German Oak jam, simple plodding percussion, metallic crunch, squalls of angular guitar, sheets of feedback, some downright groovy riffing and some seriously propulsive drumming, and for the final 20 minute track, a creepy lo-fi junkyard noise rock Appalachia, with raga like steel string guitar and wavery chordal warble, some blown out synth weirdness, and strange alien melodies, all wrapped in tons of reverb and delay, like it was recorded in a huge underground cavern, giving the whole track an awesomely subterranean vibe, casting the 'C as some clan of bearded beasties, with blind eyes, pale skin, and hair down to the ground, who have spent the last thousand years holed up in their cave, with nothing but some old amps and janky synths, busted up drums and a single crappy microphone...
And that's kind of what the whole record sounds like really, that Dead C classic deconstructed primitivism, begrudgingly dragged into the future (hence the record title? Ironic? Not?), the murky stumbling sonic chaos we know and love augmented with strange modern flourishes and unexpected modern production fuckery, which actually quite becomes them...
MPEG Stream: "The AMM Of Punk Rock"
MPEG Stream: "The Magicians"

DEAD C Golden Canine (Ba Da Bing) 12" 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NZ noise rockers the Dead C were just here, and they had a little stash of super limited tour 12"s, of which we managed to get a big handful, 25 or 30, but that's it. Once these are gone, they are gone gone gone.
The recordings are live, no info on when or where, but the sound is murky and lo-fi and muddy and washed out and with any other band that would be a bummer, but that's the sort of production that perfectly suits Dead C's particular sound, especially live.
The A side begins with a thick throbbing distorted guitar drone, for minutes, before the drums finally kick in, a propulsive krautrock beat that lasts all of 20 seconds before slowing down and dropping out. Hmm, false start? Sounds cool regardless, as the guitar drone continues on and the drums once again join the fray, and the band locks into a loose but groovy psychedelic New Zealand krautjam, the guitars so muddy and indistinct, they sound almost like a static drone, a constant buzz beneath the drums, before those drums drop off and the track finishes with a woozy shimmery drone.
The B side is a gorgeous haunting creep, a black sonic fury, all pulsating guitars, growling low end and muted abstract drumming, with stuttery feedback spread out over the heavy detuned sprawl. The whole side so minimal and hypnotic and ominous and beautiful.
SUPER LIMITED. Packaged in plain black 12" sleeves.

DEAD C Harsh 70s Reality (Siltbreeze) 2lp 17.98
Newly reissued on vinyl, our very favorite record from New Zealand noise rock legends the Dead C. This is IT. One of THEE most perfect slabs of abstract free rock ever set to tape. Yes, noise rockers, this is where it all started. Originally released way back in 1992, about five years into their recorded career. Long out of print and finally available again (on vinyl, cd still sadly out of print). We're of the mind that the Dead C never made a bad record, but of their entire recorded output, Harsh 70s Reality continues to be our all time favorite. Most of the vestiges of pop that showed up in their past records, the legacy of their NZ pop heritage, were jettisoned or at least transformed into something much harder, and much weirder. The pop remained, but drastically altered, more often twisted and tangled, buried or burned, a soft glowing core barely visible through the Dead C's abstruse ambient noise. Truly hard to describe, there are guitars and drums, but Harsh 70s Reality never really rocks, it does however manage to be heavy and psychedelic and dense and droney all at once. Blissful, tranquil, harsh, jagged, dreamy, dark, atonal, an impossible collision of sounds and emotions. This may be noise rock, but it's not precisely noisy, nor rock. By this point, the Dead C were channeling Cale and Conrad and Maclise and the Taj Mahal Travellers as much as any rock or noise outfits.
This is immediately evident on the opening track, the 22 minute "Driver U.F.O.", a massive dirgescape of angular guitar, clanging and keening, a sound that hinted at the noise to come, their future trajectory, headed for sonic worlds even further out. A world first visited here, of strange little abstract chordal figures, not riffs per se, just strange smears of sound repeated over and over, totally mesmerizing, but completely alien, sheets of guitar noise, big slabs of metal percussive clang, creepy wheedly little melodies, lots of drone and drawn out streaks of feedback. Sounds almost like the first musicians ever, musical cavemen, suddenly stumbling upon a stage full of amps and drums, and curiously exploring, discovering all the strange ways the different instruments can be poked and prodded and struck to create an abstract and gorgeous primitive din. This is divine dronemusic. A clattery atonal dronescape. If you took this first track, stuck it on a crappy cd-r, made up some crazy name, Black Tomb Resurrect or something, added some xeroxed cover art, and sent out a handful to the Wire and Eclipse and Volcanic Tongue, made sure it was limited to 100 copies, you would have indie hipsters shitting themselves to get their hands on one, buying copies on eBay for $100. It's that prescient. Either that or the current breed of noisemakers are not hiding their Dead C obsession AT ALL.
The shorter tracks here do actually 'rock'. Sort of. As much as a jagged smear of super distorted crumble and crunch can 'rock'. "Sky" sounds like the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" covered by Reynols, a stumbling rock drum beat beneath a white noise riff, all crumbly distortion and blown out fuzz, and some strange sort of crooned vocals drifting in and out. "Suffer Bomb Damage" is a haunting keyboard drone, all off key lo-fi Casio wheeze and reverb spring percussion, very reminiscent of NZ legends Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos. "Love" sounds like the Velvet Underground fronted by Jandek, covering the MC5, lurching fuzzy garage stomp with damaged guitar and weary, drawled vocals. "Constellation" is some long lost Velvet Monkeys joint, an East Village folkfuzz jam, throbbing and saturated in dense distortion and wrapped in thick sheets of druggy droney guitar swirl, all wrapped haphazardly around a cracked pop hook. The record ends on a truly strange note, a sort of fuzzy folk drift, warm acoustic guitars are picked and strummed, a mournful lament, crowd sounds and occasional bursts of distorted fuzz, as well as a brief stretch of wailed anguished vocals and a few splatters of snare drum, but for the majority of the nearly ten minutes of "Hope", we drift lazily through a murky world of soft muted guitars and sad, mumbled vocals. So lovely. A most perfect noisefolk elegy. It's hard to understand how the hell this record ended up here, drifting dreamlike and swathed in murky folk, especially after the 20+ minutes of face melting freaked out abstraction of "Driver U.F.O." Or the blown-out deconstructed noiserock in between. But that's exactly what makes the Dead C so special. This is exactly where it had to end up. Where you were meant to emerge. It seems like an impossibly confusional journey, an improvised exploration. And it is. But taken as a whole, Harsh 70s Reality is exactly as it was meant to be. Perfect. Perfectly imperfect. A world of noise that slips from sound to sound, taking many forms, many guises, a world where letting fuzzy folk guitars and soft vocals wash over you is not all that different than letting a wall of crumbling guitar grind and feedback freakout collapse and bury you alive. Two different sides of the same glorious noise.
Includes a download coupon as well.
MPEG Stream: "Driver U.F.O."
MPEG Stream: "Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Love"

DEAD C Secret Earth (Ba Da Bing) cd 10.98
So, this is the quote-unquote rockin' Dead C album? So we were told, that was the supposed spin on this one, the twenty-somethingth album from these veteran NZ "free-rock" heroes. But maybe we got that wrong, 'cause aren't they all equally (free-) rockin'? Probably what was meant was that this was more "song-y", in comparison to their previous album, last year's Future Artists, 'cause there's more singing... but otherwise, not such a huge departure. And their album before that, 2003's The Damned, was WAY rock on tracks like "Truth". It's always kinda funny getting into discussions about just how rock or noise or whatever the Dead C are, anyway, since the thing about them is that they're playing Dead C music exclusively, forging into otherwise uncharted, unnamed sonic territory with each release even after 20 years in the "biz", leaving all other underground noise/drone/rock/experimental/floorcore acts to play catch-up. As we said in our review of Future Artists, the Dead C have an amazing ability to take "unmusical sounds, caustic, abrasive, minimal and harsh, and weave them into something beautiful." That they surely do here. If you've never heard 'em before, this could be a fairly accessible starting point.
Certainly, you can't argue that lead off track "Mansions" (the 1st of 4 songs on this 45 minute disc) does not, underneath its avant-garde, noisily shambolic exterior, have a rock n' roll heart that's a-beatin'. As well, there's melody amidst the murk, with mumbly, half-whispered vocals rising to the fore. But really it's more moanin' than it's rockin', the whole album moaning and droning, full of shrill feedback textures and an eventually hypnotic sheen of percussive clangor (on the lengthy track 2 "Stations", and track 3 "Plains" especially). They stir up quite a dense din on the latter, leaving more space on album closer "Waves" for Michael Morely's plaintive vocals to wend thro' the distortion, showing the kinder, gentler side of the Dead C... Such a fine blend of immediate emotional impact and unsettling, unfamiliar audio explorations. As "song-y" as we say this is, who else writes songs that at each and every moment seem maybe like they are finishing, and/or beginning anew? Standard song structures and instrumental roles are abandoned or deprioritized in favor of an alien Dead C agenda of experimental, improvised (yet to their own logic disciplined) expressiveness that really does justify the "free" in the free-rock tag. As essential as ever. (And if you can, don't miss 'em on their first US tour in ages - they played SF last night and it was great.)
MPEG Stream: "Mansions"
MPEG Stream: "Stations"

DEAD C Stealth / The Factory (Sub Pop) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

DEAD C, THE Clyma Est Mort / Tentative Power (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) 2lp 23.00
One of two new installments in Ba Da Bing and Jagjaguwar's ongoing vinyl reissue campaign of perhaps one of THE greatest noise rock bands ever, New Zealand's Dead C, who unlike many (most?) of their contemporaries, were perfectly capable of mixing stumbling downer pop with full on room clearing cacophony, muted minimal sonic abstractions and crunchy riff heavy drone rock, without sounding like anyone but themselves.
And as far as oft referenced bands around aQ, it's no surprise that Dead C gets name dropped in so many reviews, in many ways, they are the archetype for modern noise rock, for subversive outsider post rock, whatever you want to call it, Dead C were and are the masters, and these reissues should make that abundantly and utterly clear. And just might put into perspective how 'original' and 'groundbreaking' a lot of the current flavors of the noise rock month really are.
Clyma Est Mort was recorded live in the band's practice space in 1992, was released as a purported 'bootleg' (even going so far as to dub in crowd sounds from a Renderers gig, creating the illusion of a live record, sort of) and is an incredible, and awe inspiring ultra expansive slab of outsider experimental post noise, noise pop, avant rock abstraction. Sounds hyperbolic, but these sounds, ESPECIALLY in 1992, but even today, sound so unique, so idiosyncratic, slipping nimbly from clouds of swirling skree, to stumbling krautrock, to glacial abstract pop, spoken vocals drifting in a sea of rumbling crumbling guitars, held together by sporadic and gloriously inconsistent rhythms, and that's just the very first song, the fractured and ebullient "Sunshine / Dirt For Harry". And it doesn't let up. From full on driving noise drenched punk rock, the guitars grinding and blown out, the recording in the red and oozing distortion and feedback, all unable to disguise the pure pop at its core, to woozy almost doomy dirges, laced with clouds of sizzling cymbals, sitar like guitar buzz, warped weary vox, bursts of shrieking crunch, like some sort of Velvet Underground gone haywire, to noisy, atonal, super heavy noise pop, that sounds a bit like a New Zealand Sebadoh, but doused in distortion and with the guitars detuned, and recorded in an underground bunker.
The record closes with a pretty devastating one two punch. "World" a gorgeously melancholy almost balladic noise dirge, with some sweetly heartfelt vocals over a dense tangle of jagged guitars, the drums chaotic and LOUD, everything hazy and murky, but somehow super tense and emotional and beautiful. And finally, "Das Fluten" a sprawling abstract creep, all deep rumbles, and random abstract room sounds, creaking, thumps, detuned acoustic guitars, bits of percussion, streaks of feedback, little slivers of melody, fluttery flutes, a stumbling bit of super minimal noise folk, all held together by a thick rumbling bass drone, which also makes the whole thing strangely haunting and ominous.
And as if that weren't enough, this reissue includes a whole extra record, "Tentative Power" a collection compiling the band's 1991 singles, originally released on Siltbreeze, Forced Exposure, Ba Da Bing and Hermeticum Corp. "Hell Is Now Love" might be one of the greatest pop songs EVER, done in the Dead C's inimitable UNpop style, "Bone" is a strange faux world music drone pop mini epic, with some super strange guitar action. The "Power" / "Peace" / "Mighty" trilogy from the Forced Exposure single, is still MORE poppy, giving us a hint of what could have been if these guys weren't so noise inclined, and finally, the 7" version of "Power", a track rescued from the band's vast archives, a gorgeous slab of blown out noise pop, distortion drenched indie jangle, simple drumming, wild squalls of psychnoise guitar, sing songy vocals, dense and noisy but surprisingly catchy. So goddamn good.
This should be required listening for every new band. It'll either inspire them to do great things, or convince them to hang it up.
Pressed on super thick vinyl, in a deluxe heavy gatefold sleeve, and includes a proper cd version of the record too seeing as none of this stuff has ever been on cd before!

DEAD C, THE DR503 / The Sun Stabbed EP (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) 2lp 22.00
It's a bit hard to believe that it's been just over 20 years since New Zealand's Dead C first unleashed their unique brand of 'noise rock' on our unsuspecting ears, but 'tis true, and while the band have gone through many sonic permutations over their two decades, their sound somehow has always remained distinctly their own. There have been long stretches of inactivity too, with the various members pursuing their own projects, Gate, A Handful Of Dust, etc. but they always seemed to find their way back. A new record, and a recent US tour, has upped the band's profile of late, but what better time to look back, at their first two proper full lengths, available on vinyl in the US for the first time, with all sorts of extras.
While the Dead C are generally considered to be a 'noise rock band', to many THEE 'noise rock' band, it's easy to forget that at their heart, they are a pop band. With songs, and verses and choruses and crooned vocals, and strummed acoustic guitars, and all of that stuff. Never was that more apparent than on their first two records, Eusa Kills and Dr 503, which found the band sort of straddling two worlds of sound, the prevailing 'New Zealand' sound, a sort of lo-fi bedroom pop, and their own peculiar trajectory, a loose ramshackle assemblage of guitarnoise, fractured FX, noisy ambience, and a general clang and clatter. A pretty heady mix for sure, which probably had more conservative listeners reeling, but had the rest of us clamoring for more.
Dr 503, was their first proper full length (3rd actual, depending on who's keeping track), and opens up with what many consider the penultimate Dead C track "Max Harris", and if a single song could indeed be a microcosm for the Dead C sound, it's probably "Max Harris". Woozy rhythms, stumbling off kilter rhythms, the middle part sounds like a lo-fi This Heat crossed with Geronimo, all abstract distorted crunch, and muted squalls of tribal drumming, streaks of clipped effects, murky processed vocals, slivers of feedback, even a mere seconds-long acoustic guitar outro. The record veers and careens all over the place, spoken word over splattery percussion and clipped minimal strum, thick doomy dirges of heavily reverbed guitar, gloomy Joy Division basslines, and hushed muttered vocals, skipping phonographs draped over stripped down slowcore, Sebadoh style lo-fi bedroom folk, primitive tape experiments, pounding almost garage-y jams that transform into spare Jandekian sprawls, but all held together by some nearly impossible to define Dead C aesthetic.
The record finishes off with a devastating one-two punch, the 9 minute Dead C classic sort-of-ballad "Polio", which begins all folky and strummy, gradually the guitars warp and warble, the drums stumble in, and the song just sort of drifts and skitters, the guitars weirdly effected, the vocals heartfelt and buried way down in the mix, the drums almost Can-like in their motorik simplicity, there are some moments of chaos, but for the most part "Polio" is dark and dreamy and murky and softly buzzy, a little jangly, and sort of pretty. And then it's on to the 13+ minute "Max Harris 2" which does seem to contain some sonic elements of the original, but the sound here is repetitive and clangorous, the guitars buzz and whir, the riffs angular and jagged, the sound washed out and lo-fi, the vocals another buried mumble, until the song shifts gear part way through, and it's just a single guitar, plucking out that same main riff, accompanied by super spare percussion, and wreathed in tape hiss, after a sudden burst of crash and crunch, the track jams on and on and on, becoming slowly unhinged, the sounds slowly detuning, everything getting more and more warped and warbly before stuttering to a halt.
This reissue tacks on the Sun Stabbed ep (originally released as a 7"), from right around the same time, which is pretty impossible to find at all, on vinyl or otherwise. Offering up more of the same, a handful of gorgeous and confusional tracks offering up still more of the Dead C's unique clash of classic New Zealand songsmithery and noise drenched, abstract, sonic deconstruction.
Absolutely and utterly essential listening. Gorgeously repackaged in a super heavy gatefold sleeve, reproducing much of the original art, and pressed on super thick vinyl. And as you might have guessed, VERY VERY LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Polio"
MPEG Stream: "I Love This"
MPEG Stream: "Angel"

DEAD C, THE Eusa Kills / Helen Said This (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) 2lp 22.00
It's a bit hard to believe that it's been just over 20 years since New Zealand's Dead C first unleashed their unique brand of 'noise rock' on our unsuspecting ears, but 'tis true, and while the band have gone through many sonic permutations over their two decades, their sound somehow has always remained distinctly their own. There have been long stretches of inactivity too, with the various members pursuing their own projects, Gate, A Handful Of Dust, etc. but they always seemed to find their way back. A new record, and a recent US tour, has upped the band's profile of late, but what better time to look back, at their first two proper full lengths, available on vinyl in the US for the first time, with all sorts of extras.
While the Dead C are generally considered to be a 'noise rock band', to many THEE 'noise rock' band, it's easy to forget that at their heart, they are a pop band. With songs, and verses and choruses and crooned vocals, and strummed acoustic guitars, and all of that stuff. Never was that more apparent than on their first two records, Eusa Kills and Dr 503, which found the band sort of straddling two worlds of sound, the prevailing 'New Zealand' sound, a sort of lo-fi bedroom pop, and their own peculiar trajectory, a loose ramshackle assemblage of guitarnoise, fractured FX, noisy ambience, and a general clang and clatter. A pretty heady mix for sure, which probably had more conservative listeners reeling, but had the rest of us clamoring for more.
Eusa Kills originally came out in 1989, and makes it the Dead C's fourth proper full length (maybe 6th, hard to tell with the band's convoluted discography) and finds the band in full on song mode, with a somewhat improved production, which definitely suits them. Years later, the band would release a single called The Dead C. Vs. Sebadoh, the title a joke obviously, but even 5 years early, when Eusa Kills came out, the band did in fact sound quite a bit like Sebadoh at moments, dark and brooding, sort of rocking, melodic but a bit off kilter, especially on record opener "Scarey Nest", which is a dead ringer for some lost Sebadoh B-side, with a killer main hook, simple solid drumming, wistful sort of sad boy vocals, the guitars alternatingly jangly and corrosive. After a 43 second Butthole Surfers style abstract drum / guitar crunch jam with distorted vocals and a lumbering tempo, the band slip right back into more dark jangle, a minor key guitar unfurling, a shuffling military snare, more weary crooned vocals, it is easy to see why lots of folks refer to Eusa Kills as the Dead C's 'songs' record. Most of the tracks are 2 or 3 minutes, poppy and jangly, the whole record clocking in at a lean 36 minutes, the exceptions being the 6 minute "Phantom Power" which begins as an extended abstract jam, all simple solid drumming and jagged guitar, but then the vocals drift in all ghostlike and the sound is transformed into something much poppier, and the 7 minute "Maggot", which is probably the heaviest of the bunch, with its grinding guitars, it's lurching drum part, and the super distorted Buttholes style processed vox, but even then, there's a definite pop sensibility at work, although a bit obscured. The rest of the shorter tracks tend toward the pop-ish, whether it be pounding noise drenched indie rock, moaning slow motion Jandek style sprawl or the gorgeously languid hushed folky jangle that finishes off the disc.
Also included is the Helen Said This 12" originally released around the same time. Not quite as songy as Eusa Kills, but enough that the two fit together perfectly, an extension of Eusa's twisted jangle, muddled pop smithery, warm wooziness, and occasional cracked heaviness.
Totally recommended, and essential for all fans of fucked up music. And heck, even fans of not-so-fucked up music. This just might be the Dead C record you can handle. Gorgeously repackaged in a super heavy gatefold sleeve, reproducing much of the original art, and pressed on super thick vinyl. And as you might have guessed, VERY VERY LIMITED!
MPEG Stream: "Scarey Nest"
MPEG Stream: "Alien To Be"
MPEG Stream: "Phantom Power"

DEAD C, THE Harsh 70's Reality (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is IT. One of the most perfect slabs of abstract free rock ever set to tape. Yes, noise rockers, this is where it all started. Originally released way back in 1992, about five years into their recorded career. Long out of print and finally available again. We're of the mind that the Dead C never made a bad record, but of their entire recorded output, Harsh 70's Reality continues to be our all time favorite. Most of the vestiges of pop that showed up in their past records, the legacy of their NZ pop heritage, were jettisoned or at least transformed into something much harder, much weirder. The pop remained, but drastically altered, more often twisted and tangled, buried or burned, a soft glowing core barely visible through the Dead C's abstruse ambient noise. Truly hard to describe, there are guitars and drums, but Harsh 70s Reality never really rocks, it does however manage to be heavy and psychedelic and dense and droney all at once. Blissful, tranquil, harsh, jagged, dreamy, dark, atonal, an impossible collision of sounds and emotions. This may be noise rock, but it's not precisely noisy, nor rock. By this point, the Dead C were channeling Cale and Conrad and Maclise and the Taj Mahal Travellers as much as any rock or noise outfits.
This is immediately evident on the opening track here, the 22 minute "Driver U.F.O.", a massive dirgescapes of angular guitar, clanging and keening, a sound that hinted at the noise to come, their future trajectory, headed for sonic worlds even further out. A world first visited here, of strange little abstract chordal figures, not riffs per se, just strange smears of sound repeated over and over, totally mesmerizing, but completely alien, sheets of guitar noise, big slabs of metal percussive clang, creepy wheedly little melodies, lots of drone and drawn out streaks of feedback. Sounds almost like the first musicians ever, musical cavemen, suddenly stumbling upon a stage full of amps and drums, and curiously exploring, discovering all the strange ways the different instruments can be poked and prodded and struck to create an abstract and gorgeous primitive din. This is divine dronemusic. A clattery atonal dronescape. If you took this first track, stuck it on a crappy cd-r, made up some crazy name, Black Tomb Resurrect or something, added some xeroxed cover art, and sent out a handful to the Wire and Eclipse and Volcanic Tongue, made sure it was limited to 100 copies, you would have indie hipsters shitting themselves to get copies, buying copies on eBay for $100. It's that prescient. Either that or the current breed of noisemakers are not hiding their Dead C obsession AT ALL.
The shorter tracks here do actually 'rock'. Sort of. As much as a jagged smear of super distorted crumble and crunch can 'rock'. "Sky" sounds like the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" covered by Reynols, a stumbling rock drum beat beneath a white noise riff, all crumbly distortion and blown out fuzz, and some strange sort of crooned vocals drifting in and out. "Suffer Bomb Damage" is a haunting keyboard drone, all off key lo-fi casio wheeze and reverb spring percussion, very reminiscent of NZ legends Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos. "Love" sounds like the Velvet Underground fronted by Jandek, covering the MC5, lurching fuzzy garage stomp with damaged guitar and weary drawled vocals. "Constellation" is some long lost Velvet Monkeys joint, an East Village folkfuzz jam, throbbing and saturated in dense distortion and wrapped in thick sheets of druggy droney guitar swirl, all wrapped haphazardly around a cracked pop hook. The record ends on a truly strange note, a sort of fuzzy folk drift, warm acoustic guitars are picked and strummed, a mournful lament, crowd sounds and occasional bursts of distorted fuzz, as well as a brief stretch of wailed anguished vocals and a few splatters of snare drum, but for the majority of the nearly ten minutes of "Hope", we drift lazily through a murky world of soft muted guitars and sad, mumbled vocals. So lovely. A most perfect noisefolk elegy. It's hard to understand how the hell this record ended up here, drifting dreamlike and swathed in murky folk, especially after the 20+ minutes of face melting freaked out abstraction of "Driver U.F.O." Or the blown out deconstructed noiserock in between. But that's exactly what makes the Dead C so special. This is exactly where it had to end up. Where you were meant to emerge. It seems like an impossibly confusional journey, an improvised exploration. And it is. But taken as a whole, Harsh 70s Reality is exactly as it was meant to be. Perfect. Perfectly imperfect. A world of noise that slips from sound to sound, taking many forms, many guises, a world where letting fuzzy folk guitars and soft vocals wash over you is not all that different than letting a wall of crumbling guitar grind and feedback freakout collapse and bury you alive. Two different sides of the same glorious noise.
MPEG Stream: "Driver U.F.O."
MPEG Stream: "Sky"
MPEG Stream: "Love"

DEAD C, THE New Electric Music (Language Recordings Three) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Newest Dead C record released on their own Language Recordings label and expectations are HIGH since that last double Dead C cd was so amazing. We all went to see the Dead C live a few months ago, many of us for the first time, which is actually when we first discovered this new Dead C record, and to be honest we were WAAAAAY disappointed. Some didn't even stay for the whole set [although some did and actually dug the concert quite a bit!] Rambling, scattershot, clumsy percussion, noisy but not really all that inspired. Lots of aimless on stage wandering and interband discussions MID-SET!!! But you gotta cut them some slack, improvised music is really hit or miss, and relies as much on the audience's perception as it does the band's performance, and that's what makes it so exciting. So we weren't sure what to expect from the new record. A couple of folks had expressed their diappointment with 'New Electric Music', but we are happy to report, while it's a lot different than the self titled double cd, it's still a GREAT Dead C record. 'NEM' starts off with six minutes of burbling barely audible low end, pulsing and creeping, like a thick fog. Track two launches into a primitive rock and roll cave-stomp, simple propulsive drumming pins down whirls of white noise and chaotic rumble. The next two tracks veer more towards the traditional Dead C sound with track three a crumbling avalanche of guitar skronk and fluttery percussion, squalls of noise and waves of rumbling drone, and track 4 a sort of Jandek of the South Seas, with mumbled distant vocals over a loose free-twang framework. The final 30 minute track is gorgeous and if you ever had any doubts about the 'C being at the top of their game, this track should silence non believers. A rumbling, low end drone-scape with a metronomic burst of feedback that sets the whole thing into an hypnotic , almost-industrial rhythm. While in the background, electronics and unrecognizable guitar creaks and swells, rumble and soar and wrap the relentless one-beat rhythm in a coarse blanket of grit. As the track progresses, the background sounds intensify, threatening the rhythm but never quite overtaking it. So gorgeous. Probably one of the best things they've ever recorded. Dead C fans will not be disappointed and those unfamiliar could do worse than starting their education here!
RealAudio clip: "Repulsion"
RealAudio clip: "Killer "
RealAudio clip: "Hush"

DEAD C, THE Patience (Ba Da Bing) cd 13.98
We always have trouble knowing what to say about a new record from legendary New Zealand noise rockers the Dead C. They don't come very often, but when they do, it's kind of a big deal. We know it will be amazing. We just don't know how. Which is probably what's kept this band so exciting and vital for so many years.
Equally adept at crafting strange muted noise drenched pop songs, as they are sprawling expanses of chaotic abstract sonic experimentalism, we really can't think of a Dead C record that we don't love. And with most bands, nearly 25 years into their career, the later era records, no matter how good, almost always pale in comparison to the early ones, the ones made when the band were hungry, and young, and full of piss and vinegar, rebellious and angry, wanting to make us much noise as possible, and piss off as many people as possible. But somehow, with the Dead C, while their sound has definitely changed, in some ways dramatically, we have to say, we actually do like the new records just as much as the old ones. They're still noisy, occasionally poppy, rhythmic, dense and intense, they're just different, as they should be, 30 releases and 2 decades on, and Patience is no different, a sprawling fantastical songsuite of hypnotic rhythms, swirling ambient noise, murky melodic drift, album opener, the 16 minute Empire, is a gorgeous hazy psych jam, meandering mesmerizing, the drums pounding away through an ever shifting cloud of grinding super distorted heavily effected guitarnoise, the result is a sort of psychedelic krautrock, a weird mash up of German Oak and High Rise maybe, the sound appropriately lo-fi, but still somehow lush and loud, about midway through, the band pulls apart the various elements of the first half, the guitars unfurling in hazy streaks of burnished melody, the drums even more minimal, offering up strange scattershot bits of cymbal crash and snare shuffle, before stumbling back into forward motion, like a blissier more mellowed out version of what came before, the drums again motorik, but the noisy guitar squalls a bit softened, a little dreamier, as the song marches lazily to its conclusion.
There are two shorter tracks next, the brief interlude of "Federation", with its swirling cymbal sizzle, and murky churning guitar thrum, and then the more proper song lengthed "Shaft", which tempers some intense blown out guitar damage, with a beat that almost sounds electronic, thumping and jittery and surprisingly groovy, a perfect foil for the roiling crunch and rumble and screech all around, but for a band with a record called Patience, they've been known to not have much, and in that spirit, terminate the strangely groovy jam and transform it into something way more loose and free, a huge billowing wall of tangled guitar, of swirling feedback, and grinding scraping amp punishment, which somehow, doesn't sound harsh or noisy, just hypnotic and far out.
Finally, the band bliss out into the smoldering epic closer "South", loping mumbled low end melodies, wreathed in everpresent amp buzz, while over the top, guitars pulse, and streak, and shimmer, the guitars growing more restless and animated, offering up gorgeous chunks of fragmented melody, of truncated riffage, textures and overtones, whirs and crunches and howls, all the while the track pulses along hypnotically. Eventually the drums lurch into the fray, offering a chaotic, unpredictable rhythm, with which the rest of the band counters an incredible array of freaked out psychedelic guitar weirdness, finally, the drums lock in, and it's like a crumbling noiserock This Heat, strange high end squiggles, thick blasts of chordal rumble, plenty of static and hiss, the track pounding away, until finally the drums retire, leaving a sky full of squiggly super distorted high end, which then too dissipates, leaving, a churning minimal riffscape, pulsing, and heaving, and still surrounded by that ever present amp buzz, before just ending abruptly. Incredible as always.
Okay, so maybe we DO know what to say.
MPEG Stream: "Empire"
MPEG Stream: "South"

DEAD C, THE Patience (Ba Da Bing) lp 14.98
We always have trouble knowing what to say about a new record from legendary New Zealand noise rockers the Dead C. They don't come very often, but when they do, it's kind of a big deal. We know it will be amazing. We just don't know how. Which is probably what's kept this band so exciting and vital for so many years.
Equally adept at crafting strange muted noise drenched pop songs, as they are sprawling expanses of chaotic abstract sonic experimentalism, we really can't think of a Dead C record that we don't love. And with most bands, nearly 25 years into their career, the later era records, no matter how good, almost always pale in comparison to the early ones, the ones made when the band were hungry, and young, and full of piss and vinegar, rebellious and angry, wanting to make us much noise as possible, and piss off as many people as possible. But somehow, with the Dead C, while their sound has definitely changed, in some ways dramatically, we have to say, we actually do like the new records just as much as the old ones. They're still noisy, occasionally poppy, rhythmic, dense and intense, they're just different, as they should be, 30 releases and 2 decades on, and Patience is no different, a sprawling fantastical songsuite of hypnotic rhythms, swirling ambient noise, murky melodic drift, album opener, the 16 minute Empire, is a gorgeous hazy psych jam, meandering mesmerizing, the drums pounding away through an ever shifting cloud of grinding super distorted heavily effected guitarnoise, the result is a sort of psychedelic krautrock, a weird mash up of German Oak and High Rise maybe, the sound appropriately lo-fi, but still somehow lush and loud, about midway through, the band pulls apart the various elements of the first half, the guitars unfurling in hazy streaks of burnished melody, the drums even more minimal, offering up strange scattershot bits of cymbal crash and snare shuffle, before stumbling back into forward motion, like a blissier more mellowed out version of what came before, the drums again motorik, but the noisy guitar squalls a bit softened, a little dreamier, as the song marches lazily to its conclusion.
There are two shorter tracks next, the brief interlude of "Federation", with its swirling cymbal sizzle, and murky churning guitar thrum, and then the more proper song lengthed "Shaft", which tempers some intense blown out guitar damage, with a beat that almost sounds electronic, thumping and jittery and surprisingly groovy, a perfect foil for the roiling crunch and rumble and screech all around, but for a band with a record called Patience, they've been known to not have much, and in that spirit, terminate the strangely groovy jam and transform it into something way more loose and free, a huge billowing wall of tangled guitar, of swirling feedback, and grinding scraping amp punishment, which somehow, doesn't sound harsh or noisy, just hypnotic and far out.
Finally, the band bliss out into the smoldering epic closer "South", loping mumbled low end melodies, wreathed in everpresent amp buzz, while over the top, guitars pulse, and streak, and shimmer, the guitars growing more restless and animated, offering up gorgeous chunks of fragmented melody, of truncated riffage, textures and overtones, whirs and crunches and howls, all the while the track pulses along hypnotically. Eventually the drums lurch into the fray, offering a chaotic, unpredictable rhythm, with which the rest of the band counters an incredible array of freaked out psychedelic guitar weirdness, finally, the drums lock in, and it's like a crumbling noiserock This Heat, strange high end squiggles, thick blasts of chordal rumble, plenty of static and hiss, the track pounding away, until finally the drums retire, leaving a sky full of squiggly super distorted high end, which then too dissipates, leaving, a churning minimal riffscape, pulsing, and heaving, and still surrounded by that ever present amp buzz, before just ending abruptly. Incredible as always.
Okay, so maybe we DO know what to say.
MPEG Stream: "Empire"
MPEG Stream: "South"

DEAD C, THE Repent (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Live!

DEAD C, THE s/t (Language) 2cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Dead C is the stalwart collective of free noise / avant rockers from New Zealand comprised of Bruce Russell (member of A Handful of Dust and boss of the Corpus Hermeticum label), Michael Morley (aka Gate), and Robbie Yeats, beloved of Bananafish readers and Siltbreeze junkies everywhere. We thought that perhaps their day had passed but, think again, they've gone and created a superb new album! This new, long awaited release is a sprawling double cd that finds them in the least-rock space they have ever occupied. Recorded over the past 5 years, this album is saturated in a langurous humidity produced by guitar feedback scrapes, ring modulation, and the buzzing din of improperly balanced amplifiers.
Disc One is the noisier of the two, dominated by the epic 33 minute "SpeederBot" which passes from militant percussive stabs into twin tremolo guitar feedback, similar to the controlled chaos found on their masterful "Harsh '70s Reality" album. But Disc Two is where this eponymous Dead C release really shines. Sort of like an analogue version of Main, or like a Raster record coming in badly on a shortwave radio, full of erratic hissing and eerie static. The trio striates the slow motion hypnodrone of sampled guitar feedback (yup, the lo-fi mirror version of My Bloody Valentine) with creaky little events. It's apparent that all of the recent drones from New Zealanders like Lovely Midget, RST, and Surface of the Earth have definitely made huge impact on the Dead C. They've picked up the gauntlet and, after a few years in their lonely NZ laboratory, have again come up with something that can be only called Dead C music (more so than it can be called rock or anything else). Adventurous, idiosyncratic, fantastic.
This is as recommended as it limited (to 500 copies and may not see a repress, sorry). Buy now or cry later!! (as we like to say.)
RealAudio clip: "One Night"
RealAudio clip: "Realisation con Slider"

DEAD C, THE The Dead Sea Perform M. Harris (Jagjaguwar / Ba Da Bing) lp 14.98
One of two new installments in Ba Da Bing and Jagjaguwar's ongoing vinyl reissue campaign of perhaps one of THE greatest noise rock bands ever, New Zealand's Dead C, who unlike many (most?) of their contemporaries, were perfectly capable of mixing stumbling downer pop with full on room clearing cacophony, muted minimal sonic abstractions and crunchy riff heavy drone rock, without sounding like anyone but themselves.
And as far as oft referenced bands around aQ, it's no surprise that Dead C gets name dropped in so many reviews, in many ways, they are the archetype for modern noise rock, for subversive outsider post rock, whatever you want to call it, Dead C were and are the masters, and these reissues should make that abundantly and utterly clear. And just might put into perspective how 'original' and 'groundbreaking' a lot of the current flavors of the noise rock month really are.
The Dead C Perform Max Harris are the first ever recordings from the Dead C, recorded during their very first month as a band, originally released as a cassette limited to a mere 21 copies, later, multiple versions and edits were tacked on to the group's Dr 503 record, but this is the first time these two tracks, these two different version of the 'same' track, have been available together, unedited, since that tape. First time on vinyl too.
The sticker references Swell Maps and Crazy Horse, and you can definitely here some of that in these tracks, as well as 13th Floor Elevators, and the Velvet Underground but whatever influences inspired this psychedelic noise rock blow out, well, they were summarily obliterated and reinterpreted and spit out in this damaged and cracked and gloriously fractured incarnation, resulting in a sound that is hard to reference beyond simply the Dead C themselves, already helping create a sound that would go on to define the sound of the NZ underground, several weeks into what would be a 20+ year career.
"With Help From Max Harris" is a sprawling drone rock epic, beginning with a chaotic outpouring of wild rhythmic tribalism, tangled billowy guitar buzz, reverbed vocals buried in the mix, a fucked up production, lo-fi, but still somehow powerful and intense, but after a few minutes, the songs slows it down, dials it back, and becomes this strange spaced out strange of minimal hypnorock, repetitive and mesmeric, very krautrock / space rock, but way more abstract and loose and free, a glorious wash of sound, that could have gone on for another 15 minutes, and hell it probably did, we'll never know cuz it just cuts off abruptly, and for all we know the band played on and on and on.
"Beyond Help From Max Harris" is definitely the same song, but it's different enough to keep it interesting, but similar enough to satisfy that urge we had for the first track to continue on forever. "Beyond..." is a bit more hi-fi, just a bit, but the guitars are sharper, more jagged, the bass more of a presence, the quite parts even more quiet but the guitar adding all sorts of strange percussive harmonics, lots of crumbly amp buzz, furious in-the-red bursts of crunch and glitch, the vocals way less present, it ends up sounding like a less song-y version of the first track, more abstracted and free, still totally hypnotic and mesmerizing, just way more raw and feral and fucked up. GENIUS!
As mentioned above, this is the first time on vinyl for these tracks, and it's the first time they've been available together and unedited since that original cassette. Pressed on nice thick vinyl, in a swank black and white sleeve, includes a download card so you can cram this noisy bliss onto your hard drive.

DEAD C, THE The Whitehouse (Siltbreeze) cd 10.98

DEAD C, THE The Whitehouse (Siltbreeze) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

DEAD C, THE Trapdoor Fucking Exit (Siltbreeze) 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 kind of wish distros and labels would do house cleaning more often. A few lists ago we got copies of a couple super rare long out of print Birchville Cat Motel releases, then a few weeks ago one of our distributors found a secret stash of the long out of print Skullflower cd IIIrd Gatekeeper (Allan and Andee's favorite btw) and this week Tom, the mighty overlord of the Siltbreeze empire, cleaned out his basement and found a dusty little pile of this legenday NZ freenoisepop gem from the godlike Dead C, Trapdoor Fucking Exit. We pounced on them immediately as this is most definitely one of our all time favorite records, and a record so subtly influential, that without it, you could pretty much wipe the entire modern noise rock slate squeaky clean. Sure, the Skaters and Wolf Eyes and The Grey Daturas and the Yellow Swans would all be around, but they'd probably sound more like jangly indie pop the grinding free noise weirdness. For if anyone deserves the credit/blame for launching a thousand bands that perform sitting on the floor twiddling knobs, it's the Dead C. But wait! The Dead C were no knob twiddlers, no they were a goddamn bonafide rock band. Bass, drums, guitar, but with the most basic of instrumentation, they were able to conjure up totally inhuman and unholy squalls of sound. And this was not just noise, the Dead C, at least in the beginning, crafted soft focus, ultra personal pop songs stripped to the bone, the musical flesh peeled off, leaving a rickety percussive framework, draped with mumbled crooned sad boy vocals, all totally wrapped in dense billowy clouds of guitar swirl and thick streaks of fluttering feedback. The ultimate corrosive, deconstructed, detuned, angular, abstract, noise / pop / rock hybrid.
A bit like other bedroom NZ bands of the time, but with that fey 4-track dreaminess completely drenched in lo-fi hiss and grit. Song structures totally subverted, almost like the Chills with a full frontal lobotomy and a airplane hanger full of amps or a clan of cavemen attempting to play the Clean's greatest hits. Elsewhere, the crooning vocals are replaced by distant Gregorian style chanting, serene and ghostlike, but still buried under luxuriously lo-fi washes of ultra murk. Trapdoor Fucking Exit is a confusional crawl of machine gun snares, grinding guitars, slow burn instrument rumble, careening, stumbling rhythms, chaotic ambience, claws-on-concrete guitar scrabble, drum splatter, feedback freakout, but all seemingly effortlessly harnassed into some strange, haunting, detuned and damaged indie noise pop. The Dead C would eventually ditch the pop element almost altogether, concentrating more on texture and sound, but for a brief moment, way back in 1990, the diametrically opposed sound worlds of lo-fi bedroom pop and corrosive free noise freakout collided and formed a brilliant and briefly blinding burst of glorious pop flecked free noise beauty. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
And remember this is waaaay out of print, we got a handful from the Siltbasement and we're not sure how many more there are lurking in corners or in old boxes, so we figure once these are gone they are probably gone for good.
MPEG Stream: "Heaven"
MPEG Stream: "Mighty"
MPEG Stream: "Krossed"

DEAD C, THE Tusk (Siltbreeze) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Highly anticipated album from New Zealand's Dead C (Bruce Russell, Robbie Yeats, and Michael Morley), masters of controlled chaos.

DEAD C, THE Vain, Erudite And Stupid - Selected Works: 1987-2005 (Ba Da Bing!) 2cd 10.98
All right, while Andee is the biggest Dead C expert here at Aquarius, we're ALL fans of New Zealand's long-running noise rock geniuses. And since he took responsibility for writing the extensive and effusive reviews we've published in recent weeks for the repressings / warehouse finds of The Dead C's Harsh 70s Reality and Trapdoor Fucking Exit albums, I (Allan) thought I'd step up and take over reviewing this brand new release, which is in fact a sort of "best of" anthology selected and compiled by the band themselves, featuring 22 tracks spread over two compact discs, spanning their career to date. Not being as much of an expert as Andee, but still a fan (I've got a few of their albums, and would have more but missed out on some releases when I wasn't as 'hip' to this band as I am now), this 2cd is just what I needed: a primer of sorts on this sometimes confusional, confounding, and obscure-but-important band. And as far as reviewing goes, what's to review? THIS SHIT IS ESSENTIAL! End of story. It's an ideal introduction for newbies and even the most dedicated Dead C fanatic will want it as well. Even if you've collected every last rare tape or vinyl track from these guys it's still nice to have a few of 'em on cd.
You'll hear how The Dead C trio of Michael Morley, Robbie Yeats, and Bruce Russell blazed their own unique path through the down under underbelly of indie-rock experimentation, pushing the boundaries of (between?) noise and rock in their New Zealand laboratory. True originals, appreciated at first only by a hardy few (themselves, mainly, as well as the likes of Sonic Youth). Their deliberately lo-fi, song-subverting, willfully 'wrong' music-making was and is perhaps an acquired taste. We'd venture to guess though that at this point, few regular AQ customers would have less than positive reactions to The Dead C's seasick lurchings, to their sounds of droning flybys from UFOs made out of straw, and feedback stomp and damaged thrash. No complaints about caustic liquids somehow coursing through guitar strings, amps, and ears. Thumb up to their hazy hints of melodies, buried beneath solid static storms of guitar distortion, or their moments of quietly emotive indie-pop prettiness in the NZ tradition, left to rust and decay.
The tracks are arranged chronologically, from "Max Harris" off their 1988 Flying Nun album DR503 starting off the first disc, to the track "Truth" taken from The Damned released in 2003 that ends the second disc. Disc one might be considered a survey of their "songier" era, going up to about 1992's Harsh 70s Reality, while disc two deals with material from 1994 on that saw them becoming less of a particularly noisy indie-rock band and more of truly abstract, improvising noise band, still with some rock and pop elements weirdly woven in. The tracks selected comprise both some "greatest hits" (things we'd have picked too, for sure) and some total rarities from long-deleted cassettes and limited vinyl-only releases, like the Clyma Est Mort LP, The Operation Of The Sonne LP, the Xpressway Pile-Up cassette comp, and the Helen Said This mini-LP, among others. Actually most of these tracks are rarities, in the sense that a lot of their '90s cds on Siltbreeze like The White House and Repent, and even more recent albums like the incredible self-titled double disc on Language Recordings from 2000 are out of print now too. There's two tracks from Harsh 70s Reality, but strangely enough nothing from Trapdoor Fucking Exit, by the way.
The thick cd booklet contains essays, in ascending order of non-fictional detail, from Seymour Glass of Bananafish mag, Tom Lax of Siltbreeze, and Nick Cain of Opprobrium fanzine. And there's track-by-track commentary from Bruce Russell as well, adding to the "primer" value of this release. It may be true that this band's stuff takes a while to "get". Years maybe. But this crash course gives a great head start.
The blurb sticker on the front of this proclaims The Dead C as "the GREATEST noise/drone rock band of all time" and we really might not have any argument with that at all! It goes on to suggest that fans of Wolf Eyes, SUNNO))), Lightning Bolt and Growing would/should dig The Dead C quite heavily. Probably true as well. The implication being, though, that fans of those bands wouldn't have heard of The Dead C before. Perhaps -- and if that's the case, and that's you, you definitely should check this out!!! We'd probably go on to say that as much as we enjoy all those bands, The Dead C is much closer to our hearts for sure...
MPEG Stream: "Hell Is Now Love"
MPEG Stream: "3 Years"
MPEG Stream: "Tuba Is Funny (Slight Return)"
MPEG Stream: "Bitcher"

DEAD ELEPHANT Thanatology (Riot Season) cd 16.98
Record number three from this Italian noise rock / stoner doom power trio, and weirdly enough the first one of their records to get reviewed on the aQ list. Weird because these guys are amazing and are right up our (and presumably your) alley, a killer twisted hybrid of classic Sabbathy metal and more modern noise rock, downtuned Neurosis-y sludge and spaced out psychedelic dronemetal, a la countrymen Ufomammut. Opener "Bardo Thodol" starts out with a riff that's a dead ringer for Sleep, of course these guys add some chanted monk-like vocals, the vibe droned out and psychedelic, and when the rest of the band finally kick in, the sound is EPIC, massive, and heavy as fuck, a crushing mathy doom sludge dirge, the vocals alternating between a monstrous bellow and a wild feral shriek, the churning riffage and damaged drum pound laced with a surprising amount of melody, and all sorts of strange sounds in the background, that sound like bells and singing and other mysterious field recordings, which are apparently actual recordings of Italian funeral marches, super dramatic, especially when the band cuts out completely, leaving just the mournful wail of distant horns, draped over a strange hushed soundscape of backwards drones and muted muddied effects, the band slowly building back up again, and launching anew into another onslaught of pound and pummel, of soaring metallic heaviness.
The rest of the record unwinds in a similar fashion, the lumbering doomic heaviness tempered with long stretches of vocal drones, of spidery psychedelia, bursts of spazzed out math metal, of grinding noise rock frenzies, finishing off with the epic 16 minute two part closer, the first part of which is a gorgeous stretch of ambient minimalism, all tinkling melodies, barely there rhythms, distant swells, soft squalls of psychedelic guitar, swirling drones, and a deep rumbling buzz, that slowly builds into the second part, a feedback drenched, stop start noise rock blow out, soaring synths over crushing crashing chords, delirious drum pound and wild howled vox, a weirdly tripped out abstract psychedelic finale.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "On The Stem"
MPEG Stream: "A Teardop On Your Grave / Downfall Of Xibalba"

DEAD LETTERS SPELL DEAD WORDS Lost In Reflections (Killer Pimp) cd 11.98
For years now, the cryptically (and coolly) monickered Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words has been quietly and consistently releasing some of the most haunting and beautiful minimal dronemusic we've heard, a blend of soft skittery glitch, brooding guitar loops, deeeeeep drone, dreamy drift, and experimental post-everything soundscaping, that is as good if not better than anything produced by the legion of overhyped sound makers constantly fawned over by the public and press alike. We've only managed to review two DLSODW releases so far, both sadly out of print now, but the release of this new one, quite possibly his best, seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally throw our weight behind Dead Letters, and hopefully open some ears to these mysterious and wondrous sounds, and reveal to the hordes of dronelords and free music freeks just what they've been missing.
Dead Letters is the work of Swedish musician Thomas Ekelund, and over the years, his music has drifted from extreme near silent ultra minimalism, to warm whirring dronescapes to muted crunch and clatter to shimmering underwater ambience, but on Lost In Reflections, all of those elements are present, in lesser amounts, the perfect distillation of a lifetime of sounds, here presented more as background then the main event, that main event here being the guitar. Each of the six tracks, however distorted or refracted or fragmented or obfuscated, seems to be borne of the guitar, with Ekelund working his mysterious alchemy and transforming those buzzing steel strings into wholly new shapes.
The opener, "This Room Seems Empty Without You" held us spellbound from the very first few seconds, a bit of reverby guitar, moody and minor key, very post rock, slow core and abstract, the notes hovering in a dark expanse of overtones and deep low end shimmer, the guitar unfurling gradually, subtly processed, peppered with a strange percussive glitch, that gives the music a sort of downtempo vibe, still droney and abstract and free, but with a little Portishead or Bowery Electric mixed in. The glitches coalesce into an almost-rhythm, the end result is some strange minimal instrumental downtuned Galaxie 500 mixed with the brooding barely there drift of Bohren, and a sort of late night lugubrious skitter.
The next track, "Lost & Losing", takes a whole 'nother tack, beginning with bits of scrape and creak, amp buzz, muted harmonics, a subtly percussive textural soundscape, quietly and slowly surrounded by a gorgeously hazy sea of sun spots and solar flares, taking the shoegaze-y shimmer of Nadja and Jesu and dialing it way back, until it's a glimmering sheet of prismatic buzz, all the while those strange sounds from the song's beginning continuing to weave a buried barely there rhythm, everything locked into deep woozy bleary eyed swells.
We have the tendency to go song by song, describing the sound of each, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but often it's not just the sound, it's the mood and the vibe and the feel and the deft and delicate arrangement of those sounds. And Ekelund is a master, taking simple strummed guitars, and wrapping them in a gauzy patina of blur buzz, locking the original riff into a loop, and then gently adding bit of melody, bits of texture, turning something simple into something complex and gorgeous, there are hints of Earth all over Lost In Reflections as well, a particularly abstract bit of fuzzy drift, will suddenly part to reveal a dark elegiac guitar line, slowed way down, creating some sort of underwater blues, while elsewhere, the twang and pluck of the guitar strings is wreathed in sonic sunlight, the sounds allowed to overlap and tangle up, the notes and melodies all wound up, spinning slowly and spitting out sparks, bits of glitch and high end tones, streaks of feedback, until those sounds are smeared into one long undulating stretch, and over the top a string of chiming notes are hung like Christmas lights on a tree, the, guitar often disappearing completely, leaving just a bit of twang to hover and then fade away.
The final track is a monster, nearly 20 minutes, imagine Nadja, Merzbow and Tim Hecker covering Arvo Part, and you might be close. This is some sort of soft noise, blindingly effulgent upper register ur-drone chorale, the streaks and shards of guitars sound like voices, the distortion thick, the effects crumbling and swirling, a glancing listen reveals a wall of sound, but headphones are like a diving bell, allowing us to sink into this roiling sonic sea, that seems to stretch out forever, bottomless and endless, part way through, the song changes shape, that which constituted the whole of the sound up until that point is relegated to a background for these new sounds, a sweeping, loping epic bit of post rock, still washed out and woozy, but with a simple propulsive rhythm, and a gorgeously melodic chiming central riff, darkly fervent and slightly ominous and hauntingly epic, the swirling sounds around those new elements growing more frenetic, thickening, while the song just grows and grows, sprawls and expands, as if any second the heavens will open and the song will become the sonic manifestation of the rapture. So totally intense and powerful and moving and majestic, and simply breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "This Room Seems Empty Without You"
MPEG Stream: "Lost & Losing"
MPEG Stream: "What I Wouldn't Give To Feel Alive"

DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS A Line : Align (Mystery Sea) cd-r 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Found a stash of these in the back room. Lucky thing too since these Mystery Sea discs are limited to 100 copies, AND they're amazing, so you get one more chance you lucky bastards, don't blow it:
This is the first time we've reviewed anything by Swedish dronescaper Thomas Ekelund, aka Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, which is weird as folks around here are big fans. It's not for lack of releases, he's been pretty prolific, it just one of those things, so many releases, artists, records, so little time.
Well, we aim to change that all right now, with this, the latest from Ekelund, a limited cd-r released on night-ocean-drone label Mystery Sea, and Ekelund's sounds here sound right at home. Three looooong tracks, the first, ultra minimal, it takes minutes to get going, but once it does, it's a fantastic expanse of ultra minimalism, so minimal in fact that much of it borders on Francisco Lopez territory. But turn it up, and listen close, and Ekelund's soundworld will reveal itself to you. A washed out murmur, peppered part way through with footsteps, the sound of metal on metal, some sort of random field recording, of men working, the clang and clatter overshadowing the whispery sounds beneath, but by the end of the first track, those whispery sounds have built into growling swells, thick smears of muted melody, crumbling and almost industrial sounding when paired with the grind and creak of the workmen.
The second track starts off in a similar fashion, strange super close mic'd sounds, thumps and scrapes, crinkles and cracks, over a super busy microscopic dronescape, all hisses and whirs and little bits of almost invisible melody, but it doesn't take long for that track to also swell into something dense and thick, high end tones rest atop a pulsing sea swell like drone, the low end fading out leaving a strangely dreamy high end shimmer, eventually fading out and leaving just those strange clunks and scrapes and that whirling swirling whisper beneath.
The closing track is a continuation of track two, in fact, they all sort of fit together into one sprawling soundscape, but the closer remains murky and minimal, a subtle scraping floating on a thick, but soft and smeared low end rumble, it's only in the last minute or two that other sounds join in, strange twinkles and glimmers, like laying on the ocean floor and watching bits of sunlight slowly make their way through the swirling blue grey sea.
Amazing packaging too, full color tray card, numbered, the booklet a half booklet, leaving half of the cd face exposed. Very striking.
And as always LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: "At Keiller's Park (Summer 2006)"
MPEG Stream: "At Keiller's Park (Fall 2007)"

DEAD LETTERS SPELL OUT DEAD WORDS Lost In Reflections (Ideal / Fang Bomb / Release The Bats) lp+7" 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!!! This recent Record Of The Week now on lp, lp AND 7" to be exact, as it was too much music to fit on a single lp. Fancy packaging, thick vinyl, very swank, and of course very limited!
For years now, the cryptically (and coolly) monickered Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words has been quietly and consistently releasing some of the most haunting and beautiful minimal dronemusic we've heard, a blend of soft skittery glitch, brooding guitar loops, deeeeeep drone, dreamy drift, and experimental post-everything soundscaping, that is as good if not better than anything produced by the legion of overhyped sound makers constantly fawned over by the public and press alike. We've only managed to review two DLSODW releases so far, both sadly out of print now, but the release of this new one, quite possibly his best, seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally throw our weight behind Dead Letters, and hopefully open some ears to these mysterious and wondrous sounds, and reveal to the hordes of dronelords and free music freeks just what they've been missing.
Dead Letters is the work of Swedish musician Thomas Ekelund, and over the years, his music has drifted from extreme near silent ultra minimalism, to warm whirring dronescapes to muted crunch and clatter to shimmering underwater ambience, but on Lost In Reflections, all of those elements are present, in lesser amounts, the perfect distillation of a lifetime of sounds, here presented more as background then the main event, that main event here being the guitar. Each of the six tracks, however distorted or refracted or fragmented or obfuscated, seems to be borne of the guitar, with Ekelund working his mysterious alchemy and transforming those buzzing steel strings into wholly new shapes.
The opener, "This Room Seems Empty Without You" held us spellbound from the very first few seconds, a bit of reverby guitar, moody and minor key, very post rock, slow core and abstract, the notes hovering in a dark expanse of overtones and deep low end shimmer, the guitar unfurling gradually, subtly processed, peppered with a strange percussive glitch, that gives the music a sort of downtempo vibe, still droney and abstract and free, but with a little Portishead or Bowery Electric mixed in. The glitches coalesce into an almost-rhythm, the end result is some strange minimal instrumental downtuned Galaxie 500 mixed with the brooding barely there drift of Bohren, and a sort of late night lugubrious skitter.
The next track, "Lost & Losing", takes a whole 'nother tack, beginning with bits of scrape and creak, amp buzz, muted harmonics, a subtly percussive textural soundscape, quietly and slowly surrounded by a gorgeously hazy sea of sun spots and solar flares, taking the shoegaze-y shimmer of Nadja and Jesu and dialing it way back, until it's a glimmering sheet of prismatic buzz, all the while those strange sounds from the song's beginning continuing to weave a buried barely there rhythm, everything locked into deep woozy bleary eyed swells.
We have the tendency to go song by song, describing the sound of each, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but often it's not just the sound, it's the mood and the vibe and the feel and the deft and delicate arrangement of those sounds. And Ekelund is a master, taking simple strummed guitars, and wrapping them in a gauzy patina of blur buzz, locking the original riff into a loop, and then gently adding bit of melody, bits of texture, turning something simple into something complex and gorgeous, there are hints of Earth all over Lost In Reflections as well, a particularly abstract bit of fuzzy drift, will suddenly part to reveal a dark elegiac guitar line, slowed way down, creating some sort of underwater blues, while elsewhere, the twang and pluck of the guitar strings is wreathed in sonic sunlight, the sounds allowed to overlap and tangle up, the notes and melodies all wound up, spinning slowly and spitting out sparks, bits of glitch and high end tones, streaks of feedback, until those sounds are smeared into one long undulating stretch, and over the top a string of chiming notes are hung like Christmas lights on a tree, the, guitar often disappearing completely, leaving just a bit of twang to hover and then fade away.
The final track is a monster, nearly 20 minutes, imagine Nadja, Merzbow and Tim Hecker covering Arvo Part, and you might be close. This is some sort of soft noise, blindingly effulgent upper register ur-drone chorale, the streaks and shards of guitars sound like voices, the distortion thick, the effects crumbling and swirling, a glancing listen reveals a wall of sound, but headphones are like a diving bell, allowing us to sink into this roiling sonic sea, that seems to stretch out forever, bottomless and endless, part way through, the song changes shape, that which constituted the whole of the sound up until that point is relegated to a background for these new sounds, a sweeping, loping epic bit of post rock, still washed out and woozy, but with a simple propulsive rhythm, and a gorgeously melodic chiming central riff, darkly fervent and slightly ominous and hauntingly epic, the swirling sounds around those new elements growing more frenetic, thickening, while the song just grows and grows, sprawls and expands, as if any second the heavens will open and the song will become the sonic manifestation of the rapture. So totally intense and powerful and moving and majestic, and simply breathtaking.
MPEG Stream: "This Room Seems Empty Without You"
MPEG Stream: "Lost & Losing"
MPEG Stream: "What I Wouldn't Give To Feel Alive"

DEAD MACHINES Futures (Troubleman Unlimited) cd 11.98
Man, as someone who works with computers a LOT, I was listening to this record while thinking about what "dead machines" means to me and hmmm... wish they titled it Fan Works, Won't Boot Up.
And even though that's sort of a joking title, it would actually describe what this noise-scape record sounds like.
On an artistic level, there is something genuinely nice here. Very little variances in overall sound level and track length make this seem almost like some sort of stilted dialogue amongst a sea of dying machines. Or very similar to the background white noise folley from Blade Runner.
Dead Machines is actually a magical New York noise couple: John Olsen (Wolf Eyes) and Tova O'Rourke (Wooden Wand, Vanishing Voice). Parts of this album remind us of SF's own Patrick Mullins from Burmese who creates aural apolocalypses in the same vein, using a multitude of electronics and sound manipulation.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

DEAD MACHINES Live at Tzompantli (Eclipse) lp 14.98

DEAD MACHINES / DAMION ROMERO / JOHN WIESE Friday the Thirteenth (Anarchymoon Recordings) 2lp 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
With a lineup like that you'd probably be expecting some sort of ear splitting noise free-for-all. A blasting batch of brutality designed to melt your speakers into little black puddles, to send your neighbors diving for the phone to call the cops, the sort of N O I S E that is gloriously and literally unlistenable. Well, in this case, you'd be wrong. Very wrong.
In fact all four sides of this quadruple live set, are downright listenable, if not actually lovely here and there. An epic 4 sided dark ambient dronefest, that while hitting the spot for the usual suspects, will definitely also appeal to the drone minded among you as well as the Earth / SUNNO))) dronedoomdirge obsessed.
John Wiese of Bastard Noise and about a million other projects starts things off not with a bang, but a rumbling whir, a slowly unfurling blanket of crumbling fuzz and hiss, muted minimal ambience rife with pulsing low end and thick rivers of black shimmer. This is dark ambience more than noise, strange disembodied melodies, drifting all ghost like, haunting and surprisingly pretty, but without ever losing its overall bleak and ominous vibe. Definitely the best thing we've heard from Wiese.
So at this point we sort of expected Dead Machines to kick it up a notch, and they do, sort of. Beginning with a grinding symphony of buzzing analog synths and fuzzed out feedback, but that quickly gives way to a very Wolf Eyesian industrial ambient wasteland, clang and rumble, creaking and crumbling clatter, barely there dreamlike whir, distant high end melodies, downright blisssful before a coda of thick buzz and roaring damaged noise (but even then, it sounds really fuzzy and washed out)
It's up to Romero then, to get things good and noisy, but surprise surprise, Romero follows suit, offering up maybe the most tranquil and drone-y set of the bunch, thick undulating low end throb, overtones shifting and beating against each other, sounding like a doom metal Phill Niblock. Gorgeous and dreamy but still dark and menacing.
The final track, taking up all of side 4, features this fearsome foursome, Romero, Wiese and the two Dead Machines, teaming up for an epic and one would assume chaotic and noisy collaboration, but once again, we're thrown a serious curveball. Instead of all four piling up on top of each other and making a huge loud mess, they deftly intertwine their sounds into a subtle dark drift. Only once exploding into a full on noise drenched onslaught, spending most of the time rumbling and whirring and weaving a dense and dreamy world of dark drones, and mysterious sonic shapes. Really fucking awesome.
Double lp, pressed on THICK black vinyl, packaged in super elaborate, three color silkscreened fold over sleeves and LIMITED TO 515 COPIES...

DEAD MEAT The King (Flingco Sound) 7" 9.98
One of two new releases on Flingco Sound, the other being the new one from outsider black metal horde Wrnlrd, reviewed elsewhere on this list, and this one, a brand new 7" from a group called Dead Meat, who apparently call the Bay Area home, even though this 7" is the first time we'd heard of 'em. But we want to hear more, cuz these guys are SO right up our alley, and yours we'd imagine.
A twisted blend of old school noise rock, hypnotic spaced out psychedelia, gloomy post punk, and old school Midwest Touch & Go style pigfuck heaviness, the guitars crush and churn, the drums pound, the vocals lazy and laid back, drenched in reverb, the songs stretched way out, brooding and hypnotic, sinister and swaggery, exploding into squalls of full on crunch. Imagine maybe Killdozer crossed with Interpol, or Joy Division recording for AmRep, or Drunkdriver jamming with King Snake Roost, or Clockcleaner doing Wipers covers, however you slice it, this stuff RULES. We need more, NOW.
MPEG Stream: "The King"

DEAD NEANDERTHALS Polaris (Utech) cd 14.98
Dunno about you, but man, we've always loved some sax/drums improv skree. Its just a thing that rules. Going way back to John Coltrane and Rashied Ali out there in Interstellar Space, you know. This Dutch duo are totally in that tradition, but of course (as you might guess from their excellent name) taking it to the extreme, playing essentially "acoustic noise" in freeform shred mode, one of 'em blowing like crazy, the other attacking his kit - not for nothin' that this Utech release was mastered by Jazzkammer's Lasse Marhaug. Also it's perhaps worth noting that one track is named "Yamatsuka Eye". So, yeah, this disc is intense -not unmusical, but intense - with sudden frantic tangles of tenor sax blurt and spasms of percussion slamming into your skull. Pure pleasure in other words, if you dig Peter Brotzmann machine gunning style sax, Zornified jazzcore, and/or the most aggressive Jooklo Duo stuff! Only just about under a half-hour in length, but that's fine, cuz Dead Neanderthals give it their all for the duration, ripping it up here like the sax/drums equivalent of Slayer's Reign In Blood (RIP Jeff Hanneman btw).
MPEG Stream: "Neck-AIDS"
MPEG Stream: "The Pit"
MPEG Stream: "Pliskken"

DEAD PENI 2-4+1 (Blossoming Noise) cd 12.98
Droning dirge-y sludge records are a dime a dozen at this point. It's still a sound we love, but we're rapidly reaching a saturation point. The punk rock ethos of 'anyone can start a band' combined with the fact that everybody has a cd burner, and the seeming 'ease' of making doomy drone music, just means that now, it requires a whole hell of a lot of digging and sifting thought mounds of mediocre doom and so so sludge, to discover something as fucked up and far out as Dead Peni.
We first hear Dead Peni on a compilation a year or two back and were immediately smitten. The name evoked some sort of blackened take on Rudimentary Peni, but the sound was nothing of the sort, instead Dead Peni trafficked in an expansive sprawling riff based blackened doomdrone, that was anything but static, like a slowed down tarpit space rock, an even doomier murkier Godflesh, or Wolf Eyes with some rhythmic heft. It was hard to get a feel for what DP were capable of just on the basis of the music on the comp, but it was definitely enough to know we needed more.
And -more- has arrived, in the form of this three track, 47 minute, mysteriously monickered slab of blackened crush. 2-4+1 begins all hushed shimmer and deeeeeep low end whir, a sound that could be any cd-r, until some ungodly beastlike growl emerges from the depths and the guitar explodes, super distorted, crumbling and processed, but weirdly muted and warm. A single crash, allowed to ring out, transforming into a charged electronic buzz, streaked with feedback, and underpinned by that monstrous gurgling voice. Finally the drums kick in, a slow motion drum machined doomic plod, and we're gone. Total buzzing black doom industrial noise nirvana, lumbering and druggy, minor key and surprisingly melodic. A bit of Godflesh, a little Gore, some classic old school funereal doom run through a bank of Wolf Eyesian cracked electronics and malfunctioning effects, the weirdest part is the crowd noise, what sounds like the chanting of a rally or demonstration, snippets and samples, wrapped in rippling sheets of feedback, and woven into massive churning waves of crumbling distortion, a cinematic and weirdly dreamlike doom / industrial / noise hybrid. Like the sound of some super fucked up post apocalyptic political rally, tattered flags, burning buildings, a crowd of shapes and figures clad in rags, some mysterious shadow, on a raised parapet, delivering his message in a gurgling rumbling barely audible vocals, almost like goregrind vocals, but buried so low in the mix they end up sounding like another layer of droning rumble. One guitar weaves a soaring almost majestic melody, but still woozy and washed out sounding, while the track lurches glacially onward, the crowd cheering and chanting, the whole thing like some mysterious soundtrack to the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we know it. But we can't help but willingly submit.
The following track begins with nearly 4 minutes of rain, thunder and lightning, voices, field recordings, laid over an almost imperceptible high end, which gradually grows and grows into a symphony of feedback, tones and overtones tangling and intermingling, creating all sorts of alien melodies, until finally the riff comes in, a super simple caveman dirge sort of riff, locked into a neverending loop, repeating over and over and over like some sort of proto metal mantra, while all the while, the rainfall continues, the random sounds drift in and out, the feedback swirls in little squalls and tangles, the only deviation, being some brief bits of classic doom like melody, before the riff inevitably returns to it's original looping dirge.
The final track begins with an explosion of blown out guitar and buzzing rumble, before drifting off, leaving the staticky detritus over a simple robotic pulse, and a sea of glitch and squiggles, the various elements finally locking into some sort of super abstract doom metal, but one that is hardly doom, or metal, more like some fragmented space drone, peppered with squalls of superdistorted guitar, the occasional clanging crash and crunch, all very muted and muddy, wreathed in a layer of gauzy distortion, voices, dogs barking, all manner of random sounds, and finally, a fierce howled processed demonic voice, wrapped in distorted riffage, and creating a super spare, spaced out sort of doom, where the riffs spend most of the time buzzing and drifting, only to rear up and spit out a bit of fractured melody and harsh hissy pummel, before recoiling again, and resuming its slow burning black drone. It almost sounds like Butthole Surfers ultra-doom, the same sort of effects drenched trippiness, and off kilter dementia, but way blacker, and way more fucked up and frightening.
Any of the three tracks could have been stretched out to album length, and we most certainly would have bought all three, but the three pieces here definitely work together well, as some sort of hellish, demonic, slow motion black doom drone dirge, that plays out almost like some impossible Wolf Eyes / Moss / Arvo Part mash up, if that makes any sense. Which it doesn't, but which is exactly what makes Dead Peni so amazing.
In addition to the 3 audio tracks, there's a fourth track included as a quicktime video, another blown out glacial buzz drenched dirge, this time accompanied by strange abstract visuals, black and white, giving way to green and blue, what seems to be buildings or ruins, but ultimately are so overexposed they just become shapes, the perfect visual representation of Dead Peni's abject black doom.
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "3"

DEAD RAVEN CHOIR Armoured Wolves (Jewelled Antler) 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.
Dead Raven Choir centers on the person known as Smolken (a native of Poland, temporarily residing in Texas). Smolken contributed a track to the recent "Heat & Birds" compilation on San Francisco's Jewelled Antler cd-r label, and now this DRC cd-r becomes the first thing released by JA not to feature musicians from their Thuja/Blithe Sons/Child Readers/Franciscan Hobbies/Skygreen Leopards/etc. collective. So what got the Jewelled Antlers all so gosh-darn interested in DRC? This disc provides the reason: DRC specializes in a warped, weird old-timey folk music -- all sparsely strummed guitar, with dark cello drones, atonal piano, and spooky organ faintly heard in the background, over which Smolken sings, in a rather unique style. It's bizarre outsider folk made by a black metal fan. Imagine the dead bones of a rustic farmer, propped up on his back porch with a broken-down guitar, possessed by a spirit or vampire from the Old Country. This animated corpse is made to strum the guitar, and to sing and whisper in an oddly dramatic, Polish accented voice, in this case declaiming lyrics from the poems of Hilaire Belloc and Rainer Maria Rilke!! Eerily quiet (mostly, but for some violent outbursts), and very dark and disturbing, the strange Eastern European theatricality of Smolken's singing and his abstract, alienated string pluck creates a negative, but fascinating, psychological atmosphere. It reminds us a bit of Japanese avant-garde folk troubadour Kan Mikami, or the mysterious Jandek...but creepier.
RealAudio clip: "November"
RealAudio clip: "The World's End"

DEAD RAVEN CHOIR Death To Dead Wolves (Jewelled Antler) cd 11.98
Oooh. That cover photo of the fog, sheep and trees is nice. A misty meadow for your imagination to wander in as you listen to this, which happens to be the debut "real cd" release from the previously cd-r only label Jewelled Antler. For the occasion, they've chosen an artist from outside their SF-based "collective", their friend Smolken's Dead Raven Choir. (A bit like picking Merzbow, that, since he's so prolific, but still a good choice quality-wise.) Smolken is the guy who has discovered the secret commonality between anguished black metal and emotional folk-minimalism (such as that of Japanese troubadours like Kan Mikami). Some of his releases tend towards the noise and distortion of black metal, others towards the broken Jandekian folk of one man and a guitar. Death To Dead Wolves is yet another haunting/haunted DRC album on the sparser side of that spectrum. If you're already a fan, go ahead and get this one, it's good. If not, perhaps some explanation is in order. Smolken's modus operandi on this disc is to intone poetry (all lyrics here are from the works of 20th century American poet and sometime monk, William Everson) in a heavy Polish accent, sounding rather like a B-movie vampire. Smolken's sinister stage-whisper melds with piano and guitar, all notes struck stark and creepy, with drones and silence both adding to the eerie mix. Electric guitar is utilized, but the playing is in his usual damaged folk style. The final song, "A Canticle To The Waterbirds" is 23 minutes long, the music loosely based on a traditional folk melody. An epic ending to an evocative disc.
MPEG Stream: "Red Sky At Morning"
MPEG Stream: "These Are The Ravens"

DEAD RAVEN CHOIR Dwelling In A Winter Goat Towards Northern Wolves (Catsun) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Got just a handful of this super limited cd-r from AQ pal Smolken and his folk/metal/ambient ensemble Dead Raven Choir. This one is all dark and skeletal appalachian folk, purposefully plucked steel string notes hovering motionless in the muggy, dusky air, murky reverbed piano, hushed urgently whispered vocals, and creepy, creaking ambience. Dark and intensely intimate. We only have 7 copies so once they're gone they're gone for good.
MPEG Stream: "The Dong With A Luminous Nose"
MPEG Stream: "Galgenberg"

DEAD RAVEN CHOIR Lesbian Corpse Wolves (Brazos Valley Meat Authority) 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.
Yet another Dead Raven Choir cd-r! And again incredibly limited. We actually got the last 8 copies and after they're gone, they're gone for good. This time around, Smolken, who is Dead Raven Choir, tackles the writings of Rainer Maria Rilke, composing a suitably somber folkscape around his weighty words. Jandek-ian guitar clatter, Appalachian folk, tenuous piano, dramatic almost operatic vocals, and creepy dark ambience all coalesce into nightmarish outsider-folk grimness. Two guest vocalists, one male and one female, handle most of the singing, while Smolken takes care of the rest (the rest being string bass, tenor banjo, guitar, piano and some singing). Dark and pretty, sad and somber, and really nice. Each cover is unique, with the top layer carefully singed to reveal the layer beneath, and each cd comes with a different beer label under the tray, which the liner notes explain quite simply: All beer consumption by Smolken!
MPEG Stream: "Funeral Monument of a Young Girl"
MPEG Stream: "Eranna To Sappho"

DEAD RAVEN CHOIR Lonesome Drinking Metal (Doom Mantra) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Folsom Prison Blues"
MPEG Stream: "I Wish I Was Eighteen Again"
MPEG Stream: "Fallen Angel"
MPEG Stream: "The Green Leaves Of Summer"

DEAD RAVEN CHOIR Lonesome Drinking Metal (Doom Mantra) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Folsom Prison Blues"
MPEG Stream: "I Wish I Was Eighteen Again"
MPEG Stream: "Fallen Angel"
MPEG Stream: "The Green Leaves Of Summer"