GNAW THEIR TONGUES Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh (Universal Tongue) 3"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.
We almost missed out on this one completely. Limited to 100 copies or so, we tried to order 40 and were informed they only had a handful left. So we begged and pleaded, and the label agreed to press up 40 more copies just for us, and thus for you. Whew! Since we discovered this band we've become pretty obsessed. As have you all, judging from how quick we sell out of Gnaw records. They're heavy, they're super fucked up, it's not just black metal or sludge, it's some head spinning hybrid equal parts abstract industrial, ambient collageblasting blackness, hyperspeed grind, blackdrone, harsh and hellish, but strangely musical, their last record, the recently reviewed An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood (they have a knack for titles too) is pretty much a shoe in for record of the year. Have a look at that review for some serious gushing.
This 3 song ep, is GTT at their most black metal. The first two tracks, while laced with bits of orchestral grandeur, and blown out crumbling bliss, spend most of their time blasting away, but even then, there are bits of melodic flair here and there, the distortion is so thick and intense, the whole thing threatens to blur into some thick whirring drone, the opener has a killer breakdown groove, utterly majestic and epic, before flitting back to the black blast. The second track is another blackened monster, furiously thrashing and convulsing wildly, but it too is peppered with bits of glimmering effulgence, and a middle breakdown where distorted guitars are pitched up and allowed to shimmer ominously like some Bernard Hermann score, before the metal drops back in, transforming the track into a pummeling slow motion Godflesh style industrial dirge that eventually launches itself back into a furious burst of grim brutality.
The final track is the creepiest of the bunch, long drawn out synth drones, wavering ominously, wrapped in bis of whir and metallic buzz, samples distorted and effected drifting amidst the swirling black ambience, the moodiness eventually overtaken by a thick wave of white noise distortion and what sounds like voices screaming in terror, finally splintering into a hellish black frenzy.
Packaged in a mini 3" dvd-style case, with full color artwork, and pressed on a black cd-r. Limited to these 40 copies, once they're gone, might be tough to convince them to make us more again...
MPEG Stream: "Blood Drenched Altars"
MPEG Stream: "Knife... Martyr... Despair"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Devotion (At War With False Noise) 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.
It seems almost criminal to release something so limited by a band as hyped as these guys (or this guy) are lately. But there you go. 100 copies. Already sold out. We got almost half of them, but even just in the store they've been flying out of here. So you should know what that means by now. Thankfully, all the hype is well deserved and then some. Gnaw Their Tongues is one of the grimmest, sickest, darkest, most gloriously fucked up outfits going, mixing black ambient drones, dirgey sludge, buzzing black metal, abstract industrial, even mixing in bits of dialogue and snippets of opera and random other weirdness, the result a totally baffling and bewildering headfuck, that manages to creep the shit out of us, but somehow keep us listening over and over and over and over.
Devotion though is a departure, ditching much of the metal of past releases, as well as most of the song structure, and opts for something much more static and ambient, but no less heavy, these four tracks are thick swaths of dark torturous throb and groan, creaks and shimmers, rendered in crumbling greys and hoarse ghostlike wheezes. It's like an aural tour of some mysterious catacombs, built from skulls and rotting flesh, the bleak atmosphere rife with the sounds of strange machinery, the tortured cries of the doomed, a veritable symphony of cacophonous crashes and deafening blasts of blown out buzz, boiled down into a primordial ooze and smeared into gorgeously lush waves of corrosive grinding crush, a bristly brutal blur that slithers and undulates like a pit full of black snakes.
The packaging is appropriately grim and black and bleak, and fancy, as are most At War With False Noise releases, printed cd-r's housed in a two sided washed out black and white gatefold sleeve, decorated with goats and candles and bloodshed and naked women, tucked in an oversized A5 sized black cardstock gatefold jacket, with a barely legible black on black vellum cover, all in a plastic outer sleeve.
And again, limited to 100 copies, already out of print, blah blah blah...
MPEG Stream: "Devotion"
MPEG Stream: "Canibalis"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen (Universal Consciousness) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two long out of print cd-r's from our favorite symphonic black doom noize combo, gets the ultra deluxe reissue treatment. Both Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen, originally released on Corps-Morts (the first thing we ever heard from GTT), and Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh originally released on Universal Tongue, are both represented here in full, and on top of that, there are THREE unreleased bonus tracks, so even folks who have those original cds will probably want this, not just for the bonus tracks (although that might be enough), but to have those two out of print cd-r's on a proper cd!! Gorgeous packaging too, super striking 6 panel digipak, comes with a GTT sticker too.
Not sure how we first heard about Gnaw Their Tongues, pretty sure a customer recommended them, but believe us when we say that the words Gnaw Their Tongues had barely left their lips (or maybe more accurately, the words had barely left the email and reached our cerebral cortex) and we were already smitten. How could they not rule with a name like that? The question was merely HOW they would rule, dark and creepy? Heavy and harsh? Doom? Blacknoise? Drone? Howabout all of those?! Oh yeah, it's almost like someone snuck into the AQ barracks in the middle of the night to scan our minds and see what kind of bands we dreamed about, the bands our subconscious really wished existed.
They took all the data back to their lair, the one hidden beneath that big scary mountain, and spent years analyzing it, and creating equations, chemicals, compounds, months in an underground lab, until eventually the whole project was forgotten.
Until years later, when a record store employee was hiking and discovered the ruins of some old, well, it looked like a fortress, maybe a lair, and decided, against all the wisdom gleaned from a million after school specials, to explore. Way down deep in the dusty recesses of this old forgotten lair, this record store feller discovered some sort of portal, rusted shut it seemed, and adorned with messages in some strange language, an alien tongue if you will, they looked like warnings, but what the heck, shit like that only happens in horror movies, so the feller went about trying to unlock the portal, and after what seemed like ages, the lock clicked, and the rusty metal swung open, and suddenly all was blackness, and dripping red, and agony and misery, and hell embodied on earth, in the form of this filthy black musick.
That filthy black musick was in fact these two musical documents by these mysterious black beasties known as Gnaw Their Tongues. Who on Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen, spew forth a caustic noxious ultradoom. A black metallized lurch and stumble, harsh, hellish vocals buried beneath an avalanche of corrosive guitar, strange alien ambience, and mechanical monster drumming. Horrible and grotesque and dizzyingly brutal, but with tiny vestiges of beauty and melody, occasionally visible through the dense black sonic fog. Stretches of distorted doom verging on the beautiful, separating gut wrenching squalls of utter black chaos. And that's just the first track.
The second is like the first, only fast. Really fast. Like sticking your head into the middle of a lightning storm. Like Velvet Caccoon and Wold and AmacomA all playing simultaneously, at full volume, broadcast through Konono's PA, until your ears bleed, but it's not all pain and suffering, this whirling world of sound is again strangely melodic, twisted into some almost pop like shapes, but always quickly bathed in blackness and sent spinning back into the fray.
"29 Needles" is a step away from the end, and is some sort of industrial plod, a garish landscape of bleak brutality, sparse ultradistorted percussion, clouds of caustic whir, creepy ghostlike voices, the sort of sounds that make Wolf Eyes sound like the Carpenters. A musical death march through a world of fire and death and destruction, of keening musical misery and downtuned sonic punishment.
Finally, the prophecy is complete with once the sounds of "Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen" reach the ears of mortal man. The plants wither and the sky grows dim, our hearts beat slower and our blood begins to boil, the earth begins to crack, and slowly we sink into the depths of the underworld, and this is the sound that the end of all things makes. A lonely slowed down low end caterwaul, a rumbling whir peppered with jagged streaks of harsh noise, thick swells of coruscating sonic malevolence, storm clouds of hiss and buzz, a pounding skull splitting din from the heavens, an electrical storm that singes every nerve in your body, leaving you paralyzed, supine, blind, and mute, with only your ears ringing painfully, just barely able to make out the dying gasps of life as we know it.
Then came Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh. We almost missed out on it completely. The original version limited to 100 copies or so, we tried to order 40 and were informed they only had a handful left. So we begged and pleaded, and the label agreed to press up 40 more copies just for us, and thus for you. But those were gone before we knew it. Which is why this reissue is such a godsend (satansend?) Since we first discovered this band we had become pretty obsessed. As have the aQ blacknoize minions, judging from how quick we sell out of Gnaw records. They're heavy, they're super fucked up, it's not just black metal or sludge, it's some head spinning hybrid equal parts abstract industrial, ambient collageblasting blackness, hyperspeed grind, blackdrone, harsh and hellish, but strangely musical.
Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh finds GTT at their most black metal. The first two tracks, while laced with bits of orchestral grandeur, and blown out crumbling bliss, spend most of their time blasting away, but even then, there are bits of melodic flair here and there, the distortion is so thick and intense, the whole thing threatens to blur into some thick whirring drone, the opener has a killer breakdown groove, utterly majestic and epic, before flitting back to the black blast. The second track is another blackened monster, furiously thrashing and convulsing wildly, but it too is peppered with bits of glimmering effulgence, and a middle breakdown where distorted guitars are pitched up and allowed to shimmer ominously like some Bernard Hermann score, before the metal drops back in, transforming the track into a pummeling slow motion Godflesh style industrial dirge that eventually launches itself back into a furious burst of grim brutality.
The final track is the creepiest of the bunch, long drawn out synth drones, wavering ominously, wrapped in bis of whir and metallic buzz, samples distorted and effected drifting amidst the swirling black ambience, the moodiness eventually overtaken by a thick wave of white noise distortion and what sounds like voices screaming in terror, finally splintering into a hellish black frenzy.
As mentioned in the introduction to this review, in addition to the reissued tracks, this version of Die Mutter also includes three new, unreleased tracks. The first is a gorgeous post industrial orchestral crawl, heaving horns, crunching metallic percussion, guttural vocalizations, blasting beats, exotic strings, long stretches of haunting cinematic ambience, heavy and harrowing, the production fucked up and fractured, the sound woozy and wonderfully grim. The second is more of the same, a lumbering death march painted in broad swaths of majestic strings, buzz drenched guitars, all wrapped around a super spare machinelike pound, fuzzed out Goblin like synths, like a Bernard Hermann score gone haywire. And finally, the awesomely titled closer "I Am The Lord And There Is No Other; I Make The Light, I Create Darkness" (GTT definitely have a way with song and album titles), a slow burning bit of black ambient drift, distant drones, creepy keyboard shimmers, dark layered waves of low end rumble, epic swells of soundtracky creepiness, while all throughout, the track drifts through sprawling fields of mysterious creaks and groans, clatter and crunch. Occasional squalls of orchestral percussion tangle with blurred bits of otherworldly whir, all streaked with sweetly sorrowful strings. So good.
If you're new to Gnaw Their Tongues, and you're into sounds blackened and brutal and bizarre and fucked up and noisy and creepy and epic, then you couldn't find a better place to start than this, and yeah, GTT fanatics, you're definitely gonna want this, even if you have the cd-r's, as we mentioned above, this is some of the best GTT material, finally on a proper cd, but even more importantly, this would be well worth $12 even if it was just a 20 minute / 3 song ep containing only the bonus tracks.
MPEG Stream: "Leichenbergen"
MPEG Stream: "And The Waters Shall Prevail Upon The Earth"
MPEG Stream: "Blood Drenched Altars"
MPEG Stream: "Knife... Martyr... Despair"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen (Corps-Morts) cd-r 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not sure how we first heard about Gnaw Their Tongues, pretty sure a customer recommended them, but believe us when we say that the words Gnaw Their Tongues had barely left their lips (or maybe more accurately, the words had barely left the email and reached our cerebral cortex) and we were already smitten. How could they not rule with a name like that? The question was merely HOW they would rule, dark and creepy? Heavy and harsh? Doom? Blacknoise? Drone? Howabout all of those?! Oh yeah, it's almost like someone snuck into the AQ barracks in the middle of the night to scan our minds and see what kind of bands we dreamed about, the bands our subconscious really wished existed.
They took all the data back to their lair, the one hidden beneath that big scary mountain, and spent years analyzing it, and creating equations, chemicals, compounds, months in an underground lab, until eventually the whole project was forgotten.
Until years later, when a record store employee was hiking and discovered the ruins of some old, well, it looked like a fortress, maybe a lair, and decided, against all the wisdom gleaned from a million after school specials, to explore. Way down deep in the dusty recesses of this old forgotten lair, this record store feller discovered some sort of portal, rusted shut it seemed, and adorned with messages in some strange language, an alien tongue if you will, they looked like warnings, but what the heck, shit like that only happens in horror movies, so the feller went about trying to unlock the portal, and after what seemed like ages, the lock clicked, and the rusty metal swung open, and suddenly all was blackness, and dripping red, and agony and misery, and hell embodied on earth, in the form of this filthy black musick.
That filthy black musick was this, the first recorded document by these mysterious black beasties known as Gnaw Their Tongues. Who spew forth a caustic noxious ultradoom. A black metallized lurch and stumble, harsh, hellish vocals buried beneath an avalanche of corrosive guitar, strange alien ambience, and mechanical monster drumming. Horrible and grotesque and dizzyingly brutal, but with tiny vestiges of beauty and melody, occasionally visible through the dense black sonic fog. Stretches of distorted doom verging on the beautiful, separating gut wrenching squalls of utter black chaos. And that's just the first track.
The second is like the first, only fast. Really fast. Like sticking your head into the middle of a lightning storm. Like Velvet Caccoon and Wold and Amacoma all playing simultaneously, at full volume, broadcast through Konono's PA, untiil your ears bleed, but it's not all pain and suffering, this whirling world of sound is again strangely melodic, twisted into some almost pop like shapes, but always quickly bathed in blackness and sent spinning back into the fray.
"29 Needles" is a step away from the end, and is some sort of industrial plod, a garish landscape of bleak brutality, sparse ultradistorted percussion, clouds of caustic whir, creepy ghostlike voices, the sort of sounds that make Wolf Eyes sound like the Carpenters. A musical death march through a world of fire and death and destruction, of keening musical misery and downtuned sonic punishment.
Finally, the prophecy is complete with once the sounds of "Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen" reach the ears of mortal man. The plants wither and the sky grows dim, our hearts beat slower and our blood begins to boil, the earth begins to crack, and slowly we sink into the depths of the underworld, and this is the sound that the end of all things makes. A lonely slowed down low end caterwaul, a rumbling whir peppered with jagged streaks of harsh noise, thick swells of coruscating sonic malevolence, storm clouds of hiss and buzz, a pounding skull splitting din from the heavens, an electrical storm that singes every nerve in your body, leaving you paralyzed, supine, blind, and mute, with only your ears ringing painfully, just barely able to make out the dying gasps of life as we know it.
MPEG Stream: "Leichenbergen"
MPEG Stream: "And The Waters Shall Prevail Upon The Earth"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidschen (Universal Consciousness) cd 10.98
NOW REPRESSED AND AVAILABLE AGAIN AT A CHEAPER PRICE!!
Here's our review of the Die Mutter reissue when we first listed it back in 2009:
Two long out of print cd-r's from our favorite symphonic black doom noize combo, gets the ultra deluxe reissue treatment. Both Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen, originally released on Corps-Morts (the first thing we ever heard from GTT), and Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh originally released on Universal Tongue, are both represented here in full, and on top of that, there are THREE unreleased bonus tracks, so even folks who have those original cds will probably want this, not just for the bonus tracks (although that might be enough), but to have those two out of print cd-r's on a proper cd!! Gorgeous packaging too, super striking 6 panel digipak, comes with a GTT sticker too.
Not sure how we first heard about Gnaw Their Tongues, pretty sure a customer recommended them, but believe us when we say that the words Gnaw Their Tongues had barely left their lips (or maybe more accurately, the words had barely left the email and reached our cerebral cortex) and we were already smitten. How could they not rule with a name like that? The question was merely HOW they would rule, dark and creepy? Heavy and harsh? Doom? Blacknoise? Drone? Howabout all of those?! Oh yeah, it's almost like someone snuck into the AQ barracks in the middle of the night to scan our minds and see what kind of bands we dreamed about, the bands our subconscious really wished existed.
They took all the data back to their lair, the one hidden beneath that big scary mountain, and spent years analyzing it, and creating equations, chemicals, compounds, months in an underground lab, until eventually the whole project was forgotten.
Until years later, when a record store employee was hiking and discovered the ruins of some old, well, it looked like a fortress, maybe a lair, and decided, against all the wisdom gleaned from a million after school specials, to explore. Way down deep in the dusty recesses of this old forgotten lair, this record store feller discovered some sort of portal, rusted shut it seemed, and adorned with messages in some strange language, an alien tongue if you will, they looked like warnings, but what the heck, shit like that only happens in horror movies, so the feller went about trying to unlock the portal, and after what seemed like ages, the lock clicked, and the rusty metal swung open, and suddenly all was blackness, and dripping red, and agony and misery, and hell embodied on earth, in the form of this filthy black musick.
That filthy black musick was in fact these two musical documents by these mysterious black beasties known as Gnaw Their Tongues. Who on Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen, spew forth a caustic noxious ultradoom. A black metallized lurch and stumble, harsh, hellish vocals buried beneath an avalanche of corrosive guitar, strange alien ambience, and mechanical monster drumming. Horrible and grotesque and dizzyingly brutal, but with tiny vestiges of beauty and melody, occasionally visible through the dense black sonic fog. Stretches of distorted doom verging on the beautiful, separating gut wrenching squalls of utter black chaos. And that's just the first track.
The second is like the first, only fast. Really fast. Like sticking your head into the middle of a lightning storm. Like Velvet Caccoon and Wold and AmacomA all playing simultaneously, at full volume, broadcast through Konono's PA, until your ears bleed, but it's not all pain and suffering, this whirling world of sound is again strangely melodic, twisted into some almost pop like shapes, but always quickly bathed in blackness and sent spinning back into the fray.
"29 Needles" is a step away from the end, and is some sort of industrial plod, a garish landscape of bleak brutality, sparse ultradistorted percussion, clouds of caustic whir, creepy ghostlike voices, the sort of sounds that make Wolf Eyes sound like the Carpenters. A musical death march through a world of fire and death and destruction, of keening musical misery and downtuned sonic punishment.
Finally, the prophecy is complete with once the sounds of "Die Mutter Wahlt Das Todtenkleidchen" reach the ears of mortal man. The plants wither and the sky grows dim, our hearts beat slower and our blood begins to boil, the earth begins to crack, and slowly we sink into the depths of the underworld, and this is the sound that the end of all things makes. A lonely slowed down low end caterwaul, a rumbling whir peppered with jagged streaks of harsh noise, thick swells of coruscating sonic malevolence, storm clouds of hiss and buzz, a pounding skull splitting din from the heavens, an electrical storm that singes every nerve in your body, leaving you paralyzed, supine, blind, and mute, with only your ears ringing painfully, just barely able to make out the dying gasps of life as we know it.
Then came Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh. We almost missed out on it completely. The original version limited to 100 copies or so, we tried to order 40 and were informed they only had a handful left. So we begged and pleaded, and the label agreed to press up 40 more copies just for us, and thus for you. But those were gone before we knew it. Which is why this reissue is such a godsend (satansend?) Since we first discovered this band we had become pretty obsessed. As have the aQ blacknoize minions, judging from how quick we sell out of Gnaw records. They're heavy, they're super fucked up, it's not just black metal or sludge, it's some head spinning hybrid equal parts abstract industrial, ambient collageblasting blackness, hyperspeed grind, blackdrone, harsh and hellish, but strangely musical.
Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh finds GTT at their most black metal. The first two tracks, while laced with bits of orchestral grandeur, and blown out crumbling bliss, spend most of their time blasting away, but even then, there are bits of melodic flair here and there, the distortion is so thick and intense, the whole thing threatens to blur into some thick whirring drone, the opener has a killer breakdown groove, utterly majestic and epic, before flitting back to the black blast. The second track is another blackened monster, furiously thrashing and convulsing wildly, but it too is peppered with bits of glimmering effulgence, and a middle breakdown where distorted guitars are pitched up and allowed to shimmer ominously like some Bernard Hermann score, before the metal drops back in, transforming the track into a pummeling slow motion Godflesh style industrial dirge that eventually launches itself back into a furious burst of grim brutality.
The final track is the creepiest of the bunch, long drawn out synth drones, wavering ominously, wrapped in bis of whir and metallic buzz, samples distorted and effected drifting amidst the swirling black ambience, the moodiness eventually overtaken by a thick wave of white noise distortion and what sounds like voices screaming in terror, finally splintering into a hellish black frenzy.
As mentioned in the introduction to this review, in addition to the reissued tracks, this version of Die Mutter also includes three new, unreleased tracks. The first is a gorgeous post industrial orchestral crawl, heaving horns, crunching metallic percussion, guttural vocalizations, blasting beats, exotic strings, long stretches of haunting cinematic ambience, heavy and harrowing, the production fucked up and fractured, the sound woozy and wonderfully grim. The second is more of the same, a lumbering death march painted in broad swaths of majestic strings, buzz drenched guitars, all wrapped around a super spare machinelike pound, fuzzed out Goblin like synths, like a Bernard Hermann score gone haywire. And finally, the awesomely titled closer "I Am The Lord And There Is No Other; I Make The Light, I Create Darkness" (GTT definitely have a way with song and album titles), a slow burning bit of black ambient drift, distant drones, creepy keyboard shimmers, dark layered waves of low end rumble, epic swells of soundtracky creepiness, while all throughout, the track drifts through sprawling fields of mysterious creaks and groans, clatter and crunch. Occasional squalls of orchestral percussion tangle with blurred bits of otherworldly whir, all streaked with sweetly sorrowful strings. So good.
If you're new to Gnaw Their Tongues, and you're into sounds blackened and brutal and bizarre and fucked up and noisy and creepy and epic, then you couldn't find a better place to start than this, and yeah, GTT fanatics, you're definitely gonna want this, even if you have the cd-r's, as we mentioned above, this is some of the best GTT material, finally on a proper cd, but even more importantly, this would be well worth $10 even if it was just a 20 minute / 3 song ep containing only the bonus tracks.
MPEG Stream: "Leichenbergen"
MPEG Stream: "And The Waters Shall Prevail Upon The Earth"
MPEG Stream: "Blood Drenched Altars"
MPEG Stream: "Knife... Martyr... Despair"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES For All Slaves A Song Of False Hope (Burning World) cd ep 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest ep of cinematic doom dirge black ambience from this freaky one man band, and like past missives, this stuff is gorgeous, sick, confusing, heavy, fucked up, noisy, mysterious, cinematic, epic, disturbing and totally brilliant.
It's supposedly an ep, but it's almost an hour long, and for most folks an hour of this punishment is all you could take.
Check out some of our other Gnaw reviews, to read our gushing descriptions of the super evocative sound world GTT is able to conjure up, we wrote endlessly about bleak barren wastelands, charred bodies, horrific site and sounds, it's almost easier to describe the images and ideas that this music evokes that it is to describe the sounds themselves. But we'll have a go.
Imagine Abruptum scoring films and you might have a rough idea: strings soar, horns moan and bleat, industrial percussion is laced throughout, vocals are disembodied guttural howls, melodies creep through blackened soundscapes of buzz and pound, opening up into expanses of creak and clatter, laced with samples and found sounds, all floating above a sea of tense dronemusic, everything wrapped in swirling clouds of black sludge, and doomic rumbles. The clouds occasionally part, revealing some intimate moment, whether musical and dramatic, agonized wailing, or some strange dialogue, usually tangled up with some gloomy melody, some stumbling rhythm, before exploding again into a cacophonous blast of epic cinematic blacknoize.
This record doesn't deviate too much from past releases, which is just fine with us, it sounds like we're just digging deeper into the scarred psyche behind Gnaw Their Tongues, the most notable difference might be the presence of more sampled strings, and the record's closer which is a gorgeous buzzing midtempo black metal dirge, that manages to sound grim and raw, but also weirdly melodic and emotional.
GTT is one of the few bands who manages to create an absolutely unique sound, an impossible doom / black metal / ambient hybrid that fuses all of those various sounds perfectly into something that is both all and none of those. And as always, garish artwork, this time a topless woman preparing to emasculate a supine nude man, and of course song titles like "The Uncomfortable Silence In Between Beatings" and "My Womb Is Barren And I Want Revenge".
Fucked up and genius and thus absolutely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "For All Slaves A Song Of False Hope I"
MPEG Stream: "The Uncomfortable Silence In Between Beatings"
MPEG Stream: "A Fiery Deluge"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Per Flagellum Sanguemque. Tenebras Veneramus (Crucial Blast) cd 13.98
We've gotten to the point with every review of a new Gnaw Their Tongues record, where we're essentially at a loss for words, if you have a look on the aQ site at past reviews, you'll see these sprawling ultra wordy descriptions that read like some sort of sinister poetry, because really, that's the only way to describe the twisted sound world of cinematic black doom outfit Gnaw Their Tongues, the work of a single man called Mories, who as we've established in the past, must be one twisted fellow. Cuz no one that wasn't utterly demented and deranged could create sounds like this. We have the genre in iTunes for this as 'Industrial Symphonic Cinematic Black Doom', which is as succinct a descriptor as we could come up with. And is fairly accurate. Odds are if you're a fan, you can't get enough, and you're gonna want this one too, after all these sorts of sick sonics engender obsessiveness, trust us, we're totally under Mories' thrall as well, and greet every new slab of twisted genius filth, like some bowl of rotting porridge slipped between the bars of our cell. We beg for the darkness, we imbibe of the blackness, we devour the sounds we are given.
But for those new to this bleak world of chaotic sonic mystery and abject cinematic noise, have a gander at the song titles, "Human Skin For The Messenger's Robe", "Urine-Soaked Neophytes", "Fallen Deities Bathing In Gall", "Bonedust On Dead Genitals", "The Storming Heavens As A Father To All Broken Bodies", which should give you at least a rough idea of the spirit of GTT, now imagine those sentiments rendered in sound, and you have Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus, which in English translates as "with blood and whip, we worship the dark", which again, should leave no doubt as to what lies beyond the blackened gates, a world of churning black metal offal, of demonic symphonies, the sound of Gnaw Their Tongues is precisely what we would imagine Satan's symphony must sound like, epic and majestic, but utterly bleak and blackened, the sound swirling and blurred, erupting into thick gouts of black buzz, but just as often collapsing into something more akin to the score for a bloodletting. The sound does occasionally let up, but it's usually only to build tension, offer dynamics, or unveil the sound of some poor wretch retching, or the cries of people as their skins are flayed, Gnaw Their Tongues is a torture chamber in sound, but so exquisitely rendered, we often find ourselves wondering why Mories isn't scoring every twisted horror film in Hollywood, probably because these sounds are too evocative, and paint too much of a distinct picture, that the need for actual images is practically null.
The thing with GTT records, is that often, there's too much going on, and the can become a head spinning wall of sound, a swirling roiling cauldron of black noise, but more often the balance is just right, and Mories' creation is perfectly balanced, equal parts buzzing blackness, abject doom, and haunting symphonic mesmer, a melding of horror score, outsider abstract doom metal and epic classical music, and Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus seems to be maybe the most perfect specimen yet, spending less time grinding and howling and blasting and buzzing, and more time conjuring up some seriously soul stirring ambience, and some blackly symphonic sonic horror.
As always, utterly intense, ridiculously epic, and has us wondering what kind of demented mind can conjure up such glorious filth, and then actually creates it. Grim genius!
MPEG Stream: "Hic Est Enim Calix Sanguinis Mei"
MPEG Stream: "Human Skin For The Messengers Robe"
MPEG Stream: "Urine Soaked Neophytes"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Per Flagellum Sanguemque. Tenebras Veneramus (ConSOULing Sounds) 2x10" 36.00
Originally released on cd in 2011 on Crucvial Blast, this twisted slab of grim, avant, cinematic psychedelic experimental blackened doom is now available on vinyl, a double 10"! Housed in a swank gatefold jacket. Here's what we had to say about Per Flagellum when we first reviewed the cd version:
We've gotten to the point with every review of a new Gnaw Their Tongues record, where we're essentially at a loss for words, if you have a look on the aQ site at past reviews, you'll see these sprawling ultra wordy descriptions that read like some sort of sinister poetry, because really, that's the only way to describe the twisted sound world of cinematic black doom outfit Gnaw Their Tongues, the work of a single man called Mories, who as we've established in the past, must be one twisted fellow. Cuz no one that wasn't utterly demented and deranged could create sounds like this. We have the genre in iTunes for this as 'Industrial Symphonic Cinematic Black Doom', which is as succinct a descriptor as we could come up with. And is fairly accurate. Odds are if you're a fan, you can't get enough, and you're gonna want this one too, after all these sorts of sick sonics engender obsessiveness, trust us, we're totally under Mories' thrall as well, and greet every new slab of twisted genius filth, like some bowl of rotting porridge slipped between the bars of our cell. We beg for the darkness, we imbibe of the blackness, we devour the sounds we are given.
But for those new to this bleak world of chaotic sonic mystery and abject cinematic noise, have a gander at the song titles, "Human Skin For The Messenger's Robe", "Urine-Soaked Neophytes", "Fallen Deities Bathing In Gall", "Bonedust On Dead Genitals", "The Storming Heavens As A Father To All Broken Bodies", which should give you at least a rough idea of the spirit of GTT, now imagine those sentiments rendered in sound, and you have Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus, which in English translates as "with blood and whip, we worship the dark", which again, should leave no doubt as to what lies beyond the blackened gates, a world of churning black metal offal, of demonic symphonies, the sound of Gnaw Their Tongues is precisely what we would imagine Satan's symphony must sound like, epic and majestic, but utterly bleak and blackened, the sound swirling and blurred, erupting into thick gouts of black buzz, but just as often collapsing into something more akin to the score for a bloodletting. The sound does occasionally let up, but it's usually only to build tension, offer dynamics, or unveil the sound of some poor wretch retching, or the cries of people as their skins are flayed, Gnaw Their Tongues is a torture chamber in sound, but so exquisitely rendered, we often find ourselves wondering why Mories isn't scoring every twisted horror film in Hollywood, probably because these sounds are too evocative, and paint too much of a distinct picture, that the need for actual images is practically null.
The thing with GTT records, is that often, there's too much going on, and the can become a head spinning wall of sound, a swirling roiling cauldron of black noise, but more often the balance is just right, and Mories' creation is perfectly balanced, equal parts buzzing blackness, abject doom, and haunting symphonic mesmer, a melding of horror score, outsider abstract doom metal and epic classical music, and Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus seems to be maybe the most perfect specimen yet, spending less time grinding and howling and blasting and buzzing, and more time conjuring up some seriously soul stirring ambience, and some blackly symphonic sonic horror.
As always, utterly intense, ridiculously epic, and has us wondering what kind of demented mind can conjure up such glorious filth, and then actually creates it. Grim genius!
MPEG Stream: "Hic Est Enim Calix Sanguinis Mei"
MPEG Stream: "Human Skin For The Messengers Robe"
MPEG Stream: "Urine Soaked Neophytes"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Reeking Pained And Shuddering (Paradigms) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If for some reason you missed out on the last Gnaw Their Tongues release, a super limited cd-r now unfortunately out of print, and aren't yet as ridiculously obsessed with these guys as we are, we can get you up to speed pretty easily. Beyond the evocative name, there's the record title: Reeking Pained and Shuddering, and how about the song titles: "Blood Spills Out Of Everything I Touch", "Destroying Is Creating" or "Nihilism; Tied Up And Burning". And if you still don't have even a rough idea of what you're in for, there's always the music itself, a roiling sonic cesspool of unfettered abject brutality and buzzing murky malevolence. A sort of black metal doom noise hybrid, like Abruptum jamming with Wolf Eyes but slowed way dooooooown, dipped in tar, rolled in dirt and shoved staggering and bloody out of your speakers.
But this isn't just noisy, or heavy or brutal, each song is strangely nuanced, and manages to veer wildly all over the sonic map without losing cohesiveness, each track is like a mini epic, with movements, moods, a convoluted song structure that is tangled and serpentine but that has some alien logic.
Take the 8+ minute opening track "Blood Spills Out Of Everything I Touch", which begins with a lurching industrial plod, all lo-fi Godflesh pound and pummel, in a swirling cloud of grey fog FX, but then, the riffs take on some horror movie like cinematic ambience, somehow sounding orchestral and majestic, before falling apart into some strange shuffling skittering krautdoom, peppered with what sounds like horns, snippets of dialogue, and huge booming downtuned crashes, until everything peels back, just leaving a weird smear of rumbling drones and smeared carnival music, beneath a super creepy monologue from some film, appropriately gruesome, the music in the background looping and more and more ominous, eventually building to a near static symphony of vacuum cleaner whir, above a skeletal framework of skittery percussion, and moaning creaking collapsing-building downtuned riffage. And that's just one song.
"Utter Futility Of Creation" begins with super sinister soundtracky strings, before the hammer falls and the record resumes its monstrous lurch, but the strings never go away, they trill and soar and scrape in the background, adding super dramatic tension and furthering the idea that this record might be the soundtrack to the scariest movie ever made. Here and there the band bow out, leaving the strings to weave an ominous swirl of sonic terror and panic, the band pulsing in the background, as if waiting to pounce, again what sound like horns join the fray. It's like what Goblin might have sounded like had they grown up on a steady diet of grindcore and black metal. "Nihilism; Tied Up And Burning" begins as another chunk of lost cinematic black ambience with female operatic vocals over a dark black whirl of thrum and throb, before a grinding looped riff surfaces and the band launch into a blasting slab of black metal, but all tangled up with those haunting vocals, and bathed in a fuzz so thick it sounds like it was recorded by Tim Hecker or Christian Fennesz, but so much more harsh and harrowing. Much of the rest of the record leans toward the ambient, with the buzzing guitars washed out into dense drones, more fucked up field recordings and samples, processed vocals, whirring alien loops, howled moaned voices, but still with the occasional stretch of pounding percussion, or wall of impossibly detuned guitar, everything crumbling and filthy, frightening and seriously fucked up. Definitely one of our new favorite bands.
Some of this stuff is previously released, mostly on outrageously limited cd-r's and cassette releases, so while some of you collector fiends might have one or two of these tracks, as far as the rest of us are concerned, this fresh musical meat!
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! Housed in a white dvd case, with full color artwork and printed heavy paper insert.
MPEG Stream: "Blood Spills Out Of Everything I Touch"
MPEG Stream: "Utter Futility Of Creation"
MPEG Stream: "Nihilism; Tied Up And Burning"

GNAW THEIR TONGUES Rend Each Other Like Wild Beasts, Till Earth Shall Reek With Midnight Massacre (At War With False Noise) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What might you glean from an image of a shepherd with a ram's head cradling a baby lamb, standing amidst a flock of sheep, or what appears to be an image of Jesus or a saint or angel, also with a ram's head? What if those images were accompanied by phrases like "Rend Each Other Like Wild Beasts, Till Earth Shall Reek With Midnight Massacre", or "Then Shall They Come, Oh Master, Shrieking From Red Battlefields To People Thy Dark Realms", or "In Sullen Silence Stalks Forth Pestilence"? Well if you've been reading the aQuarius list for a while, you'd no doubt realize that this must be another filthy blackened sonic missive from our favorite master of cinematic black doom, Gnaw Their Tongues.
Three new tracks, all lengthy and dense and brutal and hellishly symphonic, we've struggled to describe the sound of GTT in the past, it's not doom, or black metal, although it incorporates bits of both, it's the strings and horns and haunting ambience, the weird samples and film clips, the strange arrangements that play out more like orchestrations than jams, that make Gnaw Their Tongues so singularly fucked up and genius.
Side one is all hellish deep drones wrapped around distant foghorns, or some sort of inhuman cries, layered atop dense rumbles and muted industrial percussion, tense, ominous, harrowing, building to a crushing cacophony, like a Godflesh record played at 16 rpm, alongside a soulful strings record playing at 8 rpm, the horns bleating and skronking and moaning beneath the heaving machinelike pound. Bursts of blasting buzzing crunch pepper the doomscape, as do super distorted harsh howls, and all manner of tangled melody, like some symphony of filth and crust, a creeping lumbering abstract soundscape, with a super haunting horror movie outro.
The 2nd side is more spacious and doomy, but no less intense, bits of backwards melody lace the stumbling pound, like some Bernard Hermann horror movie score gone haywire, all screaming strings, screaming voices, mysterious samples, all gorgeously abject, but hauntingly beautiful, the mournful horns, the dramatic stings, and the crumbling black wall of sound carrying everything forward and dragging it down to hell.
Gorgeous packaging, the aforementioned ram headed figures on the cover, with a heavy printed inner sleeve, and pressed on thick vinyl. LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Almost out of print, these are most likely our last copies ever...
NOTE: All jackets slightly damaged, not enough to distress most folks, but anal record collectors beware!

GNAW THEIR TONGUES The Genocideal Deliverance (At War With False Noise) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The return of our favorite one man blackened noise drenched cinematic doomscape wrecking crew, with a super limited single, only 300 copies, of which we got about 40. Already sold out and out of print, so act fast if you want one of these filthy little black slabs.
And filthy they are, and heavy, and noisy, and most definitely the most metal thing we've heard from GTT to date. Two tracks, both sound cut from the same blood soaked cloth, relentless blast beats and drum machine splatter buried beneath thick oozing layers of churning downtuned black buzz, underpinned by tripped out keyboards, and some super harsh processed vokills. Occasionally moaning slabs of woozy drone surface, or the vocals become even more garbled, but the pace remains frenetic. Both sides feature a breakdown of sorts, the A side finds the sound slipping into some weird sort of soundtracky Goblin territory, all queasy synths and creepy minor key melodies, epic and cinematic, but still filthy and grimy and lo-fi, while the B-side introduces some haunting spoken word, over a dense swirl of drones and hums and buzzing, before exploding again into a guitar drenched blacknoise outro.
Awesome as always, and again, already OUT OF PRINT. These are the last copies, we, you or anyone else will ever see.

GNAW THEIR TONGUES / HALO OF THE SUN / THE ARM AND SWORD OF THE BASTARD GOD / THE SLAUGHTERED LAMB In Hoc Signo Vinces (Black Goat) cd 11.98
BACK IN STOCK!!
Killer 4 way split of extreme outsider heaviness, most folks will probably grab this for the two new Gnaw Their Tongues tracks, but will probably end up digging the other three bands nearly as much.
But since GTT might be the reason most folks are here, let's talk about those tracks first. No huge departures, just more of that same, grim, apocalyptic, industrial, cinematic doom. "Crawl" is just that, a harrowing sonic crawl, with blown out distorted drums, heaving downtuned guitars, moaning miserable melodies, hysterical shrieks, shimmering strings, dense drones, a freaked out apocalyptic soundtrack to the death of mankind. "Paleness" is more of the same, but more metal, the main riff a blurred bit of undulating buzz, the vocals insane, the drums and industrial plod, long stretches of creepy ambience, the final half of the song a dense, thick, layered bit of blackened slow motion dronemusic, that is as weirdly hypnotic as it is hellish. Definitely worth it for fans, to get those two tracks, but there's much more metallic misery to be had.
The Arm And Sword Of A Bastard God (killer name!) are a Southern California doomkult, and traffic in plodding blackened doom, minimal and murky, big guitars, pounding drums, and some sick slowed down death metal style vocals. Halo Of The Sun contribute their own bit of UK style doom-ed blackness, a frantic bit of black metal laced with wild squiggly guitar harmonies, harsh vox, a definite Cradle Of Filth vibe, weirdly melodic, but way more lo-fi and underground, the track breaks down into a lurching doomy trudge, there are even some weird processed clean vocals, but it's soon back into the dense black grind and churn. Cool stuff for sure. Definitely be into hearing more from these guys.
And last up, from LA come The Slaughtered Lamb, who also do the black doom thing, their sound way more akin to Gnaw Their Tongues, super distorted, almost industrial, the guitars crumbling and nearly formless, the vocals dripping in effects, a filthy abject sonic crawl through broken glass and bloody entrails, leading to the 26 minute closer, an sprawling bit of epic and dismal black ambience, from hushed shimmer, to distorted thrum, to black buzz creep and back again.
All four bands impress, so buy it for the Gnaw Their Tongues, but stick around for the Slaughtered Lamb!
MPEG Stream: GNAW THEIR TONGUES "Crawl"
MPEG Stream: HALO OF THE SUN "Fenriz"
MPEG Stream: THE ARM AND SWORD OF A BASTARD GOD "GutterMotherCreator"

GNOD 5th Sun (Trensmat) 7" 8.98
One of two new singles on this week's list from UK label Trensmat, one by outsider abstract noisescapers Whirling Hall Of Knives, and this one, from UK psychedelic spacekraut collective Gnod, and as always, already sold out at the label, and thus the copies we got are most likely the only ones we'll ever see. Gnod offer up two tracks, the A side, a thick, super distorted dirge, all downtuned riffage wreathed in celestial shimmer, pounding death march drumming and soft swirls of ethereal synths, some serious heavy psychedelic space doom for sure, and easily the heaviest darkest thing we've heard from these guys yet, and it had us definitely wishing this was way longer than just a 7".
The flipside is the 'dub' of the A side, and basically douses the whole thing in delay and a murky lo-fi patina, the sounds a bit blurrier and more washed out, the snares dubbed out and sent careening into the ether, the track laced with more weird samples, the overall vibe surprisingly much more heavy, the guitars gristlier, the drums more industrial, and like the A side, we wish there was a 30 minute extended edit, cuz this is the sort of blissed out psychedelic industrial dubbed out heaviness we never want to end.
Pressed on clear orange vinyl, and includes a link to downloads of both tracks.
MPEG Stream: "5th Sun"

GNOD Ingnodwetrust (Rocket) lp 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is only the second full length (we know of) from UK space rock psych drone collective Gnod, besides the recent cd-r/cassette The Crystal Pagoda we listed a while back. Most everything else we know about these guys comes from the various split and collaborative releases that came before. And that was all we really need to know, their list of collaborators reads like WE selected 'em: Bong, White Hills, Robedoor, that should be enough to give you an idea of where Gnod are coming from. But they definitely have their own twisted take on spaced out psychedelia, as is further evidenced here, on this two track lp. The first, a 20 minute epic titled "Tony's First Communion" opens with what sounds like a collision of zithers (band name?), which quickly gives way to a woozy low slung bass pulse, wreathed in distant chantlike vocals, and then in come the drums, and some swirling buzz, some croaking frogs (?), space-y FX, and the band are locked into a gorgeous head nodding hypno krautspace dirge, motorik and mesmerizing, the beat and the bassline stay solid, an anchor holding down all the chaos that surrounds them, lush tangled layers, buzz and fuzz and swirl and shimmer, creepy processed vocals, dubbed out effects, until a sudden break where the drums drop out, and howled vocals wrapped in distorted guitars swoop in, and remain as the groove restarts, adding to the tripped out weirdness. And so it goes, for 20 minutes, that main motorik spacekraut groove plodding relentlessly though a sky full of squeals and streaks, shards and squiggles, voices and instruments, samples and field recordings, all hurled heavenward and left to spin weightless in Gnod's orbit, adding all manner of twisted texture and melodic color to the already druggy and dreamy and supremely tranced out proceedings.
The shorter flipside, only 13 minutes, titled "Vatican" begins with big super distorted drums, that quickly drop out, leaving just swirling drones and muted electronics, reverbed voice transmissions and lush organ shimmer, until the drums drop again, big and blown out, reminding us a bit of a less manic Shit And Shine or Butthole Surfers, a tribal pound wreathed in glitch and hiss, a slo-mo spacerock dubstep, again the group locking tight into a groove, and letting it run out, while pelting it from all sides with thick jags of blackened buzz, or bleary streaks of Technicolor melody, twisted effects, shards of hiss and whir and hum, the voices even more reverbed and tripped out, but about halfway through, the song shifts to half time, and the sound becomes distinctly doomy, a space rock effects drenched dirge, the beat a caveman pound, the various sounds growing more and more intense, building to a gloriously glitched out, lumbering blown out space psych squall, the beat a lurching half time creep, the song plodding darkly until it finally crumbles and grinds to a halt.
So awesome. Fans of The Heads, White Hills, Shit And Shine, Bong, Carlton Melton, Robedoor, Teeth Of The Sea and all things rhythmic and psychedelic, krautrocky and spaced out, the line forms HERE.
MPEG Stream: "Tony's First Communion"
MPEG Stream: "Vatican"

GNOD The Crystal Pagoda (Sonic Meditations) cassette 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
You can often tell a lot about a band by the other bands they share splits with. And considering the fact that Gnod have done split time with both psychedelic space rockers White Hills, and space psych doomlords Bong, it's pretty much a no brainer. And the fact that these guys can pretty much hold their own with both says it all. And actually, the sound of Gnod does fall somewhere right between Bong and White Hills, beginning super murky and minimal, doomy and slow, the guitars abstract and space-y, fluttery flutes laced over whirring low end, the sound builds quickly to something seriously explosive, the drums pounding, lots of bagpipe like horns offering up more layers of drones, mumbled vox, distortion and noise and effects piling up until the rhythmic almost krautlike groove is buried beneath a heaving churning pile of constantly shifting and swirling sound. Pretty stellar for sure.
The second track here, another 20 minute space doom jam, is much less expansive, instead, it's a solid chunk of hypno space rock, the drums and bass locked tight, weird vocals drift in and out, swirls of space-y FX swoop down from above, the surrounding ambience is ever changing, but the rhythm keeps the song grounded, a head nodding, drug addled non-stop mesmerizing groooooove, lysergic and psychedelic but pretty stripped down compared to that opening salvo. Good stuff for sure. Anyone into the current crop of space rock explorers (like Expo 70, too, whose limited edition cassette/cd-r label put this out) will no doubt dig this BIG TIME.
MPEG Stream: "The Crystal Pagoda"
MPEG Stream: "Tony's First Disco"

GNOD The Crystal Pagoda (Sonic Meditations) cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
You can often tell a lot about a band by the other bands they share splits with. And considering the fact that Gnod have done split time with both psychedelic space rockers White Hills, and space psych doomlords Bong, it's pretty much a no brainer. And the fact that these guys can pretty much hold their own with both says it all. And actually, the sound of Gnod does fall somewhere right between Bong and White Hills, beginning super murky and minimal, doomy and slow, the guitars abstract and space-y, fluttery flutes laced over whirring low end, the sound builds quickly to something seriously explosive, the drums pounding, lots of bagpipe like horns offering up more layers of drones, mumbled vox, distortion and noise and effects piling up until the rhythmic almost krautlike groove is buried beneath a heaving churning pile of constantly shifting and swirling sound. Pretty stellar for sure.
The second track here, another 20 minute space doom jam, is much less expansive, instead, it's a solid chunk of hypno space rock, the drums and bass locked tight, weird vocals drift in and out, swirls of space-y FX swoop down from above, the surrounding ambience is ever changing, but the rhythm keeps the song grounded, a head nodding, drug addled non-stop mesmerizing groooooove, lysergic and psychedelic but pretty stripped down compared to that opening salvo. Good stuff for sure. Anyone into the current crop of space rock explorers (like Expo 70, too, whose limited edition cassette/cd-r label put this out) will no doubt dig this BIG TIME.
MPEG Stream: "The Crystal Pagoda"
MPEG Stream: "Tony's First Disco"

GNOD / A MIDDLE SEX Split (Blackest Rainbow) lp 21.00
UK space rock combo Gnod definitely seem to have a thing for splits. Thankfully, they've shared most of those splits with some seriously kick ass bands, two with NYC psychedelic space rockers White Hills, one with riff heavy psych rockers Robedoor, and one with UK space doom outfit BONG, and now they team up with the until-now-unknown-to-us A Middle Sex, who definitely hold their own alongside Gnod, and amidst the elite split sharing brethren.
Two side long 45rpm jams, Gnod's is a sprawling expanse of swirling psychedelic shimmer, total blissed out slow burn kosmische drift, clouds of tinkling glimmering chimes, spidery tendrils of smoldering psych guitar, wailed vox WAY down in the mix and a pounding caveman beat that's not so much rhythmic as it is some sort of primal throb. The more we listen, the more it almost sounds like some twisted space rock version of Finnish forest freaks Avarus. Not a bad thing at all!
Eventually the track does attain some forward momentum, a lurching, lumbering, lysergic dirge, but by the time it does, things are already winding down.
A Middle Sex, who also call the UK home, do their own psychedelic space rock thing, which in their case is all about rhythm, after a brief swirl of kosmik krautsynth shimmer, the band launch into a seriously spaced out sprawl of tribal pound, a primitive Crash Worship style rhythm ritual, wreathed in streaks of keening feedback and swirling high end. The track gradually becomes enveloped in a haze of psychedelic guitarnoise, a Skullflowerish skree for sure, before settling back into a weirdly tranquil bit of drugged out drift, laced with strangely effected Buttholes style vox and more keening high end tones.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, pressed on nice heavy 140 gram vinyl.

GOAT World Music (Rocket) cd 17.98
We've been waiting for this one for ages. After an insanely limited 7" single, which was so scarce, no one we know has actually ever even seen a copy, let alone bought one, and a teaser video on YouTube, and all sorts of rumors about this Swedish band who were influenced by African music and voodoo and came from some mysterious village no one had ever heard of, well, needless to say, we were DYING for the full length, and it does not disappoint.
So the story goes, in a tiny village in Sweden called Korpilombolo (which we're told is Swedish slang for 'middle of nowhere'), there has existed a band called Goat for generations, this is just the first incarnation of the band that has captured any of their music on tape. Supposedly the village was cursed by some sort of voodoo witch doctor, who was put to death for being a witch, and introducing voodoo worship to this tiny village. And whether it's true or not, the IDEA of it definitely influences the music of Goat, whose sound most definitely has a serious African vibe, the percussion, the vocals, it's heady concoction of wild psychedelic space rock, all driving krautrock rhythms, and tangled squalls of electric guitar freakout, and dense rhythmic percussion, and almost double dutch sounding vocals. When we first threw this on, our first impression was that it sounded like a weird mix of Konono No.1, The Heads and (believe it or not) the Go! Team, which even now, after constant listening doesn't seem that far off.
The tracks are dense, and psychedelic, heavy, fuzzy, definitely Stooges-y at times, Hawkwindy at others, several of the tracks display a Miles Davis style grooviness, sounding like a SUPERCHARGED ultra heavy Bitches Brew, others pound away sounding exactly how you might imagine some ancient voodoo ritual would sound reimagined by some modern Swedish psychedelic space rock outfit. "Goatman" (from the 7") is the perfect intro, after a strange sample, and some tribal drumming, the guitars come cascading in, wild squalls of psychedelic wah guitar, and keening high end wails, then the vocals come in, belted out over the fuzzed out bass, the percussion wild and groovy, it's total Swedish Afro-psych, or something, if this one track stretched out and filled up the whole record, it STILL would have been Record Of The Week.
The band do have a surprisingly broad palette though, whether it's the subdued acid folk Appalachia of "Goathead", or the organ driven Afro-groove of the appropriately titled "Disco Fever", with its percussion heavy funk swaddled in progged out organs, and then there's the equally funky "Golden Down", that sounds like some Southeast Asian Sublime Frequencies jam, but here cranked up, the guitars super distorted, the bass dangerously buzzy, the sound blissfully in-the-red, the drums wild and loose, the ultimate heavy psychedelic dance band, for those three minutes you can almost imagine these guys jamming out at the edge of the world in some alternate dimension seedy dive, with a dancefloor full of damned souls. Sweaty and swaggery and fierce as fuck. "Let It Bleed" delivers a more laid back groove, and even introduces some saxophone, which gives it the vibe once again of some psych-ed up Ethiopian groove. "Run To Your Mama" melds serious Sabbath-y riffage to some wild tribal percussion, and wailed vox, while "Goatlord" unfurls some dark psych folk, replete with super distorted heavy psych leads, over urgent strumming and cooed echo drenched vox, sounding a bit like a more psychedelic Comus in fact.
And finally, the record finishes off with the epic "Det Som Aldrig Forandras", with its bagpipe sounding opening, that quickly explodes into a heady psychedelic groove, droned out and hypnotic, the sort of jam that should/could have been ENDLESS, but instead, works its way back to a seriously heavy psychedelic coda, bookending the brief 3 minute opener, again, the sort of jam they could have stretched out for another twenty minutes, and we would have been in heaven, but the fact that it loops back around to the beginning, only adds a strange sort of endless ritual vibe to the proceedings, and makes it that much easier to play it all over again. And again. And again. Forever.
Super swank, die cut, eye popping artwork too, on the cd and lp both!
MPEG Stream: "Diarabi"
MPEG Stream: "Goatman"
MPEG Stream: "Golden Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "Det Som Aldrig Forandras / Diarabi"

GOAT World Music (Rocket) lp 21.00
We've been waiting for this one for ages. After an insanely limited 7" single, which was so scarce, no one we know has actually ever even seen a copy, let alone bought one, and a teaser video on YouTube, and all sorts of rumors about this Swedish band who were influenced by African music and voodoo and came from some mysterious village no one had ever heard of, well, needless to say, we were DYING for the full length, and it does not disappoint.
So the story goes, in a tiny village in Sweden called Korpilombolo (which we're told is Swedish slang for 'middle of nowhere'), there has existed a band called Goat for generations, this is just the first incarnation of the band that has captured any of their music on tape. Supposedly the village was cursed by some sort of voodoo witch doctor, who was put to death for being a witch, and introducing voodoo worship to this tiny village. And whether it's true or not, the IDEA of it definitely influences the music of Goat, whose sound most definitely has a serious African vibe, the percussion, the vocals, it's heady concoction of wild psychedelic space rock, all driving krautrock rhythms, and tangled squalls of electric guitar freakout, and dense rhythmic percussion, and almost double dutch sounding vocals. When we first threw this on, our first impression was that it sounded like a weird mix of Konono No.1, The Heads and (believe it or not) the Go! Team, which even now, after constant listening doesn't seem that far off.
The tracks are dense, and psychedelic, heavy, fuzzy, definitely Stooges-y at times, Hawkwindy at others, several of the tracks display a Miles Davis style grooviness, sounding like a SUPERCHARGED ultra heavy Bitches Brew, others pound away sounding exactly how you might imagine some ancient voodoo ritual would sound reimagined by some modern Swedish psychedelic space rock outfit. "Goatman" (from the 7") is the perfect intro, after a strange sample, and some tribal drumming, the guitars come cascading in, wild squalls of psychedelic wah guitar, and keening high end wails, then the vocals come in, belted out over the fuzzed out bass, the percussion wild and groovy, it's total Swedish Afro-psych, or something, if this one track stretched out and filled up the whole record, it STILL would have been Record Of The Week.
The band do have a surprisingly broad palette though, whether it's the subdued acid folk Appalachia of "Goathead", or the organ driven Afro-groove of the appropriately titled "Disco Fever", with its percussion heavy funk swaddled in progged out organs, and then there's the equally funky "Golden Down", that sounds like some Southeast Asian Sublime Frequencies jam, but here cranked up, the guitars super distorted, the bass dangerously buzzy, the sound blissfully in-the-red, the drums wild and loose, the ultimate heavy psychedelic dance band, for those three minutes you can almost imagine these guys jamming out at the edge of the world in some alternate dimension seedy dive, with a dancefloor full of damned souls. Sweaty and swaggery and fierce as fuck. "Let It Bleed" delivers a more laid back groove, and even introduces some saxophone, which gives it the vibe once again of some psych-ed up Ethiopian groove. "Run To Your Mama" melds serious Sabbath-y riffage to some wild tribal percussion, and wailed vox, while "Goatlord" unfurls some dark psych folk, replete with super distorted heavy psych leads, over urgent strumming and cooed echo drenched vox, sounding a bit like a more psychedelic Comus in fact.
And finally, the record finishes off with the epic "Det Som Aldrig Forandras", with its bagpipe sounding opening, that quickly explodes into a heady psychedelic groove, droned out and hypnotic, the sort of jam that should/could have been ENDLESS, but instead, works its way back to a seriously heavy psychedelic coda, bookending the brief 3 minute opener, again, the sort of jam they could have stretched out for another twenty minutes, and we would have been in heaven, but the fact that it loops back around to the beginning, only adds a strange sort of endless ritual vibe to the proceedings, and makes it that much easier to play it all over again. And again. And again. Forever.
Super swank, die cut, eye popping artwork too, on the cd and lp both!
MPEG Stream: "Diarabi"
MPEG Stream: "Goatman"
MPEG Stream: "Golden Dawn"
MPEG Stream: "Det Som Aldrig Forandras / Diarabi"

GOAT'S GLOOM s/t (Divergent series) 7" 7.50
We weren't sure what to expect from this mysterious outfit, but it definitely wasn't this! We got this from FRKSE, who's most recent releases was a Record Of The Week not too long back, and the fact that the group was called Goat's Gloom, and came via FRKSE, we were really expecting some sort of dark churning experimental abstraction, rhythmic, industrial, sorta home-brewed, which is precisely what we got, at least at first, muddy, and moody, a sort of grinding industrial crunch and clatter, noisy and lo-fi, definitely our sort of thing, and then all of a sudden, there's RAPPING. Woah. We were sort of thrown for a loop, but it didn't take us long to get right back into. The weird combination of rapid white boy flow over lurching stumbling junkyard beats and blown out industrial ambience is actually pretty goddamn great. Sounding a bit like some warped and woozy cross between DHR hip hoppers Fever and aQ faves Death Grips, via Bay Area hip hop label Anticon, if that makes any sense. And it sort of doesn't, but that's definitely what makes this so cool. As the record progresses too, it just gets noisier and more chaotic, lots of drones and low end rumble, sheets of buzz and all sorts of fucked up rhythmic weirdness. Fans of all the weirdo Ormolycka tapes we've been reviewing lately, this is definitely right up your alley. LIMITED TO 125 COPIES!!

GOATVARGR Black Snow (Cold Spring Records) cd 17.98

GOATVARGR s/t (Cold Spring) cd 10.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
You can't go wrong with a 'goat' band name. Goat Horn, Lubricated Goat, Floating Goat, Lost Goat, Goatsnake, Goatsblood, Goatlord, Goat Fire and of course Goat Thrower, so what if you just got rid of all that extraneous stuff, the throwing and the blood and the lubrication and got right down to it, the goat. Thus we have simply Goat, a one man American noise band who spits out a furious fog of harsh growling fuzzed out noise. So what if this Goat teamed up with one of our favorite masters of the apocalyptic dark ambient drone, Nordvargr? Well, then of course you'd end up with a creature known simply as Goatvargr, that sonically straddles the mysterious martial darkworld of Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk and the harsh caustic brutality of Andy O' Sullivan (aka Goat).
Huge expanses of industrial creak and groan, blown out beats buried under piles of sonic debris, face melting bursts of acidic distortion and crumbling walls of guitar grind, distant martial beats stretched out over smears of black sound and buried desiccated vocals, squealing sheets of feedback and layer after layer of Merzbowian murk. This is most definitely a noise record, but Nordvargr injects enough of his subtle darkness and penchant for strange beatscapes to keep the proceedings appropriately damaged, dreary and darkly demented. Recommended for the iron eared with hearts of noise! Great stuff!
MPEG Stream: "Goatlord Rising"
MPEG Stream: "Fik"

GOD Anti-Sex, Anti-Wiretapping (Made In Taiwan) (Jyrk) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The first offical cd (not cd-r) release from the Yellow Swan's label Jyrk and it's a doozy. A 45 minute spin through a dizzying collage of electronic fuckery, white noise, chopped static, all sorts of percussive amp buzz and cable jiggle, swooping sheets of feedback and chaotically controlled drones. High end sine wave lazer beams, all sorts of crickety glitchery and warm warbly woosh. Definitely for fans of Yellow Swans, Wolf Eyes, Hair Police, Double Leopards, Burning Star Core and all that lovely noisy goodness. Packaged in a super sweet hand screened, multi-colored wallpaper style sleeve. Nice.
MPEG Stream: "Anti-Sex, Anti-Wiretapping (Made In Taiwan)"

GODHEADSCOPE A City Out Of Sight (God Is Myth) cd 10.98
Some of you may know the name Matt Rosin from past collaborations with AQ faves Dead Raven Choir, but here, as Godheadscope, he is now called M. Kolophonium, and is single handedly attempting to craft a sort of classical black ambience, the label suggests Arvo Part conducting and arranging a performance by Corrupted, which sounds amazing, and while we see what they're getting at, we're not sure that's wholly accurate. The label also suggests that Godheadscope is for fans of Wolfmangler, Boris, Jesu, Dead Raven Choir among others, and that really just sort of sounds like it would be for most aQuarius customers then, eh?
But this is indeed an epic and gorgeous chunk of experimental ambience. And unlike most offerings falling under the same banner, this is not simple or really minimal, not guitars against the amps SUNNO))) style drone, not lo-fi single note drones, no this is dense and layered, composed and arranged. The songs are set up in gradually developing movements, strings and synths woven into delicate frameworks, allowed to breath, to expand and contract, to swell and pulse.
The record seems to be separated into two movements, the first two tracks, are like a sonic wave pool set in motion, then slowed down and stretched out, dark languorous waves of sound, that ebb and flow, gorgeous and glacial, with extended spaces between the notes, a truly majestic and cinematic sprawl, but within the swells, there seems to be a lot going on, synths and guitars, even voices, all smeared into strangely lush organic drones, twisted into strange lovely shapes.
The second half of the record is much more tranquil, still adhering to that swell and shimmer pattern, but everything softer and more spare, an ambience to balance the first half's energy, culminating in the moody drift of the final number, lush pianos laid over a haunting field of electrical crackle and anguished distant wails, woven into a jazzy shuffle, sounding like a super abstract tribal Necks, some freaked out kosmiche free jazz that unwinds into a gorgeous piano / feedback coda, trailing off into nothingness...
MPEG Stream: "Room Of Light"
MPEG Stream: "Joy/Grime"

GODHEADSCOPE Threshold (Poet's Edition) (Meristem Music) cd-r + book 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Second record we've had from Godheadscope, whose last release was on God Is Myth, and found this one man band attempting to conjure up a mysterious classical black ambience, described by the label as "Arvo Part conducting and arranging a performance by Corrupted", which was not all that far off the mark. This latest disc, however, is less heavy, and more atmospheric, with vocals, male and female, soaring strings, delicate piano, all woven into the minimal black ambient background, which makes for a delicate sort of blackened chamber music, quite cinematic, mournful and melancholy, hushed and expansive, long tones drift over lush strings and synths, the vocals dramatic, yet minimal, bass throbs dot the soundscape, streaks of glitch and electronic shimmer wrapped tenderly around sweetly sorrowful melodies, pointillist piano, there are some intense and brooding movements, but the record never explodes, instead opting to pulse and throb and smolder, and while the vocals do occasionally tread perilously close to cloying, dipping into some ethereal 4AD goth territory, they tend to be more hushed and whispered, adding an ominous element to a sound already haunting and otherworldly.
Originally released as a download only, we managed to get a small handful of the "Poet's Edition", which is a cd-r, bundled with an oversized hand assembled, numbered and signed book, featuring liner notes and, obviously, poems.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "7"

GODMAN God Dog (Acid Mothers Temple / Eclipse) cd 19.98
*Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert*
Spacey, swirling, not-un-heavy trip-out rock jamming from some dudes who really know how to do that sort of thing, since some of 'em are members of Japan's Acid Mothers Temple, including the bearded one himself, guitar guru Kawabata Makoto! Higashi Hiroshi from AMT is on hand as well on electronics. Hence the alert sounding from your computers loudspeakers right now (what, it's not working? well, you can read the alert above). The other three musicans (guitar, bass, drums) here all appear to come from another Japanese psych band called Mandog, who we weren't familiar with before but maybe should investigate! Together, this AMT-Mandog collab called Godman has conjured up two long tracks, near-half-hour instrumental build-ups that in a blindfold test we'd certainly happily mistake for AMT output proper, just as cosmic and krautrocky as we like it. If you've liked the last few AMT releases like Starless And Bible Black Sabbath and Demons From Nipples you won't go wrong with Godman either.
MPEG Stream: "Dog>><

GOEM Abri (12K) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Abri" is the eighty-eleventh album from Goem -- the hyper-prolific Dutch trio of musique concrete artists doing minimalist techno. By now, the Goem sound is starting to show the limitations of working with minimalist rhythms that are so minimal that grooves are completely impossible. As on the previous dozen or so releases, Goem begins with piercing sinewaves and predictably introduces steady pulses of warbled bass clicks. There are some minimalists who can turn the smallest of sounds into something evocative (take Andrew Chalk and Wolfgang Voigt as examples), and there are those who can't. Goem is quickly stumbling into the realm of the latter.
RealAudio clip: "Zelfs"

GOEM Disco (Fourth Dimension) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Goem is the exceedingly reductive post-techno ensemble comprised of Peter Duimelinks, Roel Meelkop, and Frans De Waard. Drawing from both the gentle modulations of Terry Riley's minimalism and the stripped down techno rhythms of Jeff Mills, early Pan Sonic, and Mike Ink, Goem forges their simple rhythmic patterns along an unchanging signal pulse, which steadily curves out of barely audible blips into swelling cascades of huge bass thumps, misfiring electro-glitches, and occasionally counterpulsing high-hats - all of which never swerve from the original rhythmic pulse. Very cold and very sterile... and for Goem, that's certainly a complement.
RealAudio clip: "Disco 3"
RealAudio clip: "Disco 5"

GOEM ems een / ems twee (Audio.nl) 12" 9.98
We are told that the track "ems een" utilizes music by Muslimgauze, but Goem (the post-techno collective featuring Roel Meelkop, Frans De Ward, and Peter Duimelinks) has systematically elimated everything from Muslimgauze's Arabic electronica except for a somatic bass pulse. Clinical rhythms and terse electron manipulation in the same vein as Mika Vainio and Ryoji Ikeda.

GOEM Extensie (Noise Museum) cd 17.98
Goem is the post-techno production team comprised of three guys (Roel Meelkop, Peter Duimelinks, and Frans De Waard) known more for their contemporary musique concrete /drone work. For this record, Frans De Waard commissioned remixes of the material found on the "Reduktie" which embraced the hyperminimal clickery and tone generation of Mika Vainio's solo work as ¯. The remixologists have for the most part left a good chunk of the structure intact with a monophunk techno minimalism, but have rearranged / reconstructed / recycled the various bleeps and blips through the wonders of the laptop. Featured remixes are Stilluppsteypa, L.O.S.D., Taylor Deupree, Kim Cascone, Jos Smolders, Starfish Pool, Surge, Radboud Mens, Institut Fuer Feinmotorik, and /Slo-Fi.

GOG Heavy Fierce Brightness (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting) lp 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The latest release from one of our favorite modern masters of drone and drift and doom and dirge, the oddly monikered Gog, who in Heavy Fierce Brightness, has composed two nearly 20 minute epic soundtracks for an art installation of the same name.
But regardless of the inspiration or ultimate application of the sounds contained within, Heavy Fierce Brightness is simply a continuation of Gog's endless sprawling exploration of some grim black space, a hellish otherworld, captured alchemically and represented sonically, a harrowing, harsh, blackly abject landscape of minimal low end thrum, and corrosive grinding glacial crunch, two slabs of slowly decaying melted metal filth, allowed to ooze blackly into great sonic tarpits of sound, audial black holes, their blinding black glow dulling all the colors around their slowly collapsing centers.
"Dragged By A Black Cat" begins as a hushed creep, a low thrumming drift, peppered with strange bits of scrape and clatter, the low end billowing up in great gauzy clouds, so low the speakers struggle to keep up. A haunting cinematic ambience, like the score for a descent into some great yawning abyss. Eventually streaks of feedback, and sheets of buzz are laid atop the throbbing low end, wreathed in electronic crackle, in gouts of tremorous glitch, building into a crumbling wall of cascading buzz and grinding crunch, the chaos and clamor gradually settling into a long bit of processed drift, a slow swirly sea of near static tones and subtle harmonic shifts, a Niblockian expanse of soft sumptuous swells and lush layered thrum.
"Heavy Fierce Brightness", begins much like the first side, some hushed minimal rumble, some ominous drone, but quickly the sound grows tense, a wash of smoldering buzz quickly enveloping the softly chiming minimal shimmer beneath, but that underlying melodic swirl, remains throughout, while the more corrosive sounds above, roil and churn like some storm swept sonic sea, the various layers coalescing into something strangely shoegazey, a warped undulating dronescape of looped and layered tones, of crunch and shimmer and buzz and whir, keening distant melodies, and lush rumbling whirs, all blurred into a slow shifting panorama of blown out black bliss, a muted harshness, that somehow still manages to soothe and entrance. The final stretch a series of mesmerizing slow burning swells, dark and deep, truly heavy dronemusic, a sound that is anything but minimal, a constant slow motion barrage of downtuned guitar crunch, squealing electronics, deep metallic reverberations, whirling layered tones, strangely textured thrum, gauzy ambience, all woven into a caustic and creeping doomdronedirgedrift crawl.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES! Housed in a gorgeous embossed jacket, with original artwork by Colin Stinson (and featuring images of the HFB installation).

GOG Heavy Fierce Brightness: Spells Of The Sun (Utech) cd 14.98
The return of these blackened psychedelic doomdrift dronelords, with their second record for Utech, and what appears to be the second Heavy Fierce Brightness record, the first being a limited lp only release from a while back, the soundtrack to an art installation (we still have a last few copies, act fast!), this one a new proper full length cd, this HFB further described as Spells Of The Sun, three new tracks, nearly 50 minutes of rumbling low end mystery and abstract avant blackness.
The ritual begins with the 8 minute sort of introduction "Spells Of Shadow", a smoldering sprawl of metallic buzz, and muted industrial throb, all manner of grinding metallic crunch, and swirling spaced out effects, the sound corrosive and distorted, but still hypnotic and soothing, a thick undulating black drone, the various layers surprisingly active, spinning off sparks and constantly changing tone and timbre, all the while underpinned by a hazy high end shimmer. Blackened dreamy dronemusic of the highest order.
"The Opening" unfurls yet another expanse of lush layered blackness, hazy and washed out and gorgeously mesmerizing, but before you know it, the song shifts gears and the band kicks in, pounding drums, distorted guitars, a sort of doomy lope, hypnotic and propulsive, wrapped around streaks of high end skree and feedback, then the vokills come in, SUPER distorted, the whole thing splintering into a blown out black squall, the main lumbering riff and rhythm still in place, but all around it, blackened clouds of crunch and chug and whir and buzz swirl and shimmer, a strangely pretty bit of motorik blackness. The metal fades out leaving traces of melody, stretched out into hazy smears of softly kaleidoscopic sound, some hushed minimal droney drift, only to explode once again into some dense doomy pound.
Finally, the 21 minute title track finishes things off, a sprawling layered dronescape, that shifts slowly from glassy almost new age-y minimalism, from soaring howling psychedelic squall to crumbling distorted doomdronedirgedrift, from keening high end ur-drone, to wild storms of swirling feedback and finally to murky minimal shimmer. As always, gorgeous stuff.
Packaged in cool oversized black and white four panel poster sleeve with artwork by Locrian's Terence Hannum.
MPEG Stream: "Spells Of Shadow"
MPEG Stream: "The Opening"

GOG In Our Architecture This Resounds (King Of The Monsters) 2lp 22.00
Latest sprawling dronedoom epic from this aQ favorite one man band. For whatever reason, we always forget to mention that the Gog guy once did time in some other aQ fave heavies Unruh and Wellington, but for the last little while has been trafficking in something much more minimal and abstract, that would be Gog, whose sound is a constantly mutating black sonic cloud. While already a strange beast, Gog seems to have gotten even stranger here. Four sides, all spinning at 45 (although they sound even murkier and sludgier at 33!), the first of which begins with a long stretch of grinding metallic industrial blackness, like the hum of machinery magnified into a glorious drone-y din, occasionally coalescing into something resembling SUNNO))) like riffage, before ultimately fading out in a blur of muted shimmer. The B side introduces some spaced out jazzy drumming, a strangely out of pace shuffling rhythm, draped over a fog of blackened whir, the vibe very Necks-like in its spacey almost looped sounding mesmer, rife with swoonsome melodies, and a final movement that's all washed out lo-fi drift and click splattered low end churn.
The second record begins as a thick, caustic industrial dirgescape, again flecked with some jazzy rhythms, that continually shift, and at one point transform into what sounds like looped fills beneath sheets of whirring buzz, only to explode into a corrosive finale, all keening high end skree. And finally, the D side unfurls a blurred bit of gauzy ambience, the loveliest of the bunch, at least briefly, a very Tim Hecker-ish feel, that quick grows more corrosive and caustic, the drums come shuffling in, the sound growing more rhythmic, tribal and dense, laced with samples, the whole thing subtly dubbed out and heavily effected, making it a sort of tripped out psychedelic coda. So cool.
LIMITED TO 220 COPIES!! Pressed on white vinyl, and comes with a 33"x22" poster!

GOG Ironworks (Utech) lp 19.98
The return of Gog, and yet another monolithic slab of avant heaviness, this time based on, according to the label at least, the death of the American dream, with much of the sounds coming from Gog mainman Mike Bjella's family blacksmith shop, hence the title. And sonically, it is a gorgeous dark and depressive epic, the opening track a strange bit of atmospheric ambience, constructed from a weird brittle blast beat, beneath a crumbling all of distorted low end, buried melancholic melodies, and what sounds like the clank and clatter of metal on metal, the sound eventually builds into something much more melodic, that opening buzzy brittleness, overlaid by a dreamy washed out guitar, all blurred and shimmery, eventually the buzz and blast dissipating completely, leaving just spidery guitars over the sound of churning machinery, plaintive piano, before finally exploding into a wall of Tim Hecker like buzz. The rest of the tracks aren't all so lovely, instead they often veer toward blackened industrial crunch, and smeared blacknoise, often with deep vocals drifting over the top, but just as often left to churn and squeal and howl and rumble.
"God Says To Love You In Chains", though, IS as lovely as the opener, at least in the beginning, another melodic noise hybrid, delicate buzz, echo drenched anguished wails, pointillist piano, all beneath a crumbling cascade of blown out distortion, and mysterious percussion, building to a caustic and chaotic frenzy, the strange percussion giving the track a tribal fee, all the while wheezing swirling synths or organs drift beneath, adding a strange bit of atonal drone to the proceedings. "A Promised Eternity Fulfilled With Cancer" too is a dark beauty, haunting piano wreathed in a cloud of static and hiss, crunch and crumble, a more abject take on Tim Hecker / The Caretaker, or perhaps a more blissful lovely take on Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, either way, the sampled sound of machinery, or what sounds like it, drives the track, grinding away beneath the piano, and the psychedelic haze. After a track of what sounds like pure processed field recordings, those sounds murky and muffled, gradually more and more processed, into sheets of noise and haunting rhythmic pulsations, the record finishes with a lovely bit of melodically sculpted noise, "I Draw My Strength From You", is a brooding drift, rife with thick blurred swaths of low end, and the distinctive sounds of hammer on metal, a gorgeous bit of collaged ambience, the sounds gradually growing more and more corrosive and distorted, crackling and in-the-red, a coda of blown out buzz, which quickly settles back into a long slow sprawl of grey noise and lush, textured ambience.
Packaged in a super striking black on black embossed jacket, includes a download coupon, and is LIMITED TO 300 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "1870-1906"
MPEG Stream: "Tasks Which Destroy Body And Soul"
MPEG Stream: "God Says To Love You In Chains"

GOG Mist From The Random More (Utech Records) cd 14.98
In a world (our world at least) full to overflowing with drone records, dirge records, doom records, and yes, dirgedoomdrone records, the mysterious Gog have somehow always managed to transcend. From their very first release, the subtly spectacular Noriah Mills, Gog have continued to mine similar territory as so many other soundmakers, but with the resultant whole so much more than its constituent parts.
The music of Gog, while on the surface, perhaps seemingly simple, minimal, abstract, is the sort of sound that requires deep listening, upon which, the guitars then reveal themselves as so much more than electronic tone generators, the long strands of feedback and the layers of dense billowy buzz, so much more than just texture and timbre. And while on past releases, the band hinted at something a bit more black, their occasionally blissed out ambience drifting into darker and darker greys, on Mist From The Random More, the band have fully committed, creating what for them is a haunting otherworldly black metal suite, a droned out, blissed out, buzz drenched, almost static expanse of smoldering grimness, shot through with glimmering glistening effulgence, a bit like wrapping a black gauze around an exploding sun, the results, again, transcendent.
The record begins with a gorgeous, slow burning bit of guitar drone, that owes more to the kosmiche sounds of krautdrone than the downtuned glacial fug of more doom-ed entities. These guitars soar and shimmer, warm gouts of feedback enfolded by deep rich sheets of coruscating soft focus heaviness, any other band would stretch this out to fill up a whole album, and rightfully so, we'd probably be gushing just as much if Gog chose to do the same thing, but these Sunroof-ian solar sonics are only part of Gog's grand vision for Mist From The Random More.
The title track, taking up the bulk of the record, finds Gog fully immersing themselves in black metal, or at least their (very) loose approximation of what black metal is, or could be. The sound is grim, and frosty, but only in the sense that it reflects much of the black metal that came before, in every other way, it's anything but, the guitars glow, the riffs are fluid, organic, wrapped in a soft burnished buzz, that reminds us a bit of Jesu or Nadja, but the arrangement is more Necks. In fact, a shorthand descriptor might be "a black metal Necks", which if you're anything like us, would be all it would take. Simple skittery minimal drumming, almost looped sounding if it weren't so abstract, beneath a roiling cloud of layered guitars, grinding and whirring and hissing, and within that cloud, some gorgeously melancholic low end melodies, difficult to describe the strange blend of loveliness and heaviness, but there it is, a distinctly lovely heaviness, washed out and blurry, and hypnotic and epic and melodic, within this seemingly static structure, the sound swings and slips through various incarnations, moving from total blurred buzz, to a more slowcore lope, always wreathed in swirling clouds of blackened shimmer, until the end, when the track explodes in climax of effects drenched psychedelic churn.
The closing track offers a chance to decompress, a strange assemblage of soothing tones, shot through with streaks of feedback, very cool and clinical, almost a Raster-Noton sort of sound, there's a brief burst of super distorted crumbling sonic chaos, almost Merzbowian in its intensity, transforming into a haunting post industrial doomscape, before again returning to the relative tranquility of the first few minutes, eventually leaving just a single upper register tone, which also finally fades into the shadows.
Another fantastic record from Utech (after a whole mess of incredible releases, including last list's Aluk Todolo Record Of The Week), gorgeous packaging, an abstract skull, rendered in some kind of white dust (cocaine?), on a spare black background, a gatefold with printed liner notes inside, and yes, probably limited...
MPEG Stream: "Night Zoe"
MPEG Stream: "Mist From The Random More"

GOG Past The Deepest Gate (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting) 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.
Gog is definitely one of our favorite modern purveyors of droning doomic filth. From the massive downtuned multiple o'd doom of Noriah Mills to the more abstract but no less heavy split with Apparatia (the one with the metal cover we just reviewed, only a few copies left), it's as if Gog the man is on some hell-bent mission to explore the foulest pits of hell and dredge up the crustiest, doomiest, ugliest, foulest sonic ooze in existence.
And we're fully supportive of this endeavor, as we're the ones who benefit. We're the ones with an insatiable appetite for all things grimy and sludgy, slow and low and heavy heavy heavy....
We got this slab of black ambient brutality at the same time we got the split, but we only got a fraction of the copies we requested since this one is already out of print. We have about fifteen of these in stock, so be prepared to leave empty handed, but at least the most fleet fingered amongst you doom obsessed will leave here with a big sick grin and an earful pockets full of oozing black beauty.
Four tracks, about a half hour, the opener is a stone cold black ambient doom classic, thick glacial slabs that shift and growl, pulse and throb, blown out and distorted, crumbling and overdriven, heavy and thick, but seeming to decay before our very ears. A gorgeous melancholy melody rendered in black tar and allowed to melt in the hot sun, clogging your ears and speakers.
The rest of the disc is not so distorted, a bit more tranquil, but with hints of the doom metal that lurks just below the surface, thick swirling washes of rumbling crumbling whir, chunks of fragmented riffs, doused in reverb and sent spinning into the ether, dense foghorn like swells, crazy hyper delayed and dubbed out squalls of hiss and static, snippets of distant percussion, whirring soft shimmer, all slowed down and smeared into glacial black blurs, settling at the bottom of your speakers like some sort of hellish doomdrone silt. Awesome.
And again, already out of print, only 15 copies or so in stock, once these are gone that's it.
MPEG Stream: "The Invaders Have A Search Beam"
MPEG Stream: "The View From Under A Rock"

GOG / APPARATIA split (Sounds Of Battle And Souvenir Collecting) cd-r 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The return of the peculiarly monickered Gog, a one man practitioner of the dark musical arts, able to whip up huge swaths of drifting droney shimmer as easily as a crushing avalanche of corrosive slow motion riffage. More often than not some glorious grey area right in the middle.
Here Gog is teamed up with the unknown to us Apparatia, who proves to be a worthy match up.
Gog begins the proceedings with a 25 minute epic, blown out and buzzy, recorded SUPER hot and way in the red, a strange creepy soundscape of metallic clang, and huge reverbed guitar, not riffing, just sort of shimmering and vibrating, everything suspended amidst a barren sprawl of decay and delay, until everything explodes, and the track is transformed into an impossibly distorted, barely moving glacial wall of sound, the production so hot, the speakers seem on the verge of collapse, a massive spacious dirge that like other Gog stuff, manages to be lovely amidst all those jagged edges and crumbling chaos. Partway through, the guitars blur into just a long stretch of distorted whir, while beneath, the bass and drums continue to plod along, a strange slowed down groove buried beneath roiling clouds of fuzz. Gog finishes off his half the split with a little minute or so long chunk of random sound, peppered with vocals, a haunting little fragment of creepy ambience.
Apparatia are in fact a grim buzzing black metal behemoth, who right out of the gate, first song, launch into some seriously grim blasting, super distorted and ultra sick, the vocals a demonic croak, the guitars a blurry buzz, the drums another static roar buried in the mix. But the band do mix it up, weaving haunting clean guitar interludes, with the harsh super affected vocals crooning hellishly over the top. Raw and primitive, and gloriously intense and brutal, the vocals and guitars in a constant battle of the buzz, the recording quality sort of damaged and lo-fi, making for some Faxed Head like audio damage. Pretty fucking cool for sure. Definitely need to hear more from these guys. But for now, this is a seriously killer one two punch, one part slow motion sludge, one part grim, buzzing fury.
AMAZING PACKAGING. A printed sheet of metal, black on silver, super heavy, like the music inside, text and images affixed to the back, the cd housed in a black and silver metallic paper sleeve, with mysterious blurred images and liner notes. Sticker on the front, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!!! Each one hand numbered. We got 40 and that's it. Once these are gone, we will not be able to get more...
MPEG Stream: GOG "The Fruition Of The Occult"
MPEG Stream: APPARATIA "I Devoured Her Black Soul"
MPEG Stream: APPARATIA "Chamber Of Silents"

GOLD PANDA Marriage (Notown) 12" 13.98
Gold Panda's Lucky Shiner was one of our favorite electronic records from last year, so we were super psyched to discover this special Record Store Day remix 12", with four super distinctive and very different versions of one of the tracks from Lucky Shiner, by some pretty cool remixers. Star Slinger is up first, and douses the original in super thick buzzing dubsteppy bass, and thickens up the beats, everything distorted and intense and blurred and fantastically prismatic. Baths takes the opposite approach and stretch the original into something much more minimal and blissy, hushed and muted, lots of backwards smears, tinkling melodies, warm and warbled, a sort of housey almost pop ambient vibe, deep soft pulses, and haunting pianos, so so lovely. AQ faves, drone steppers Forest Swords totally reinvent the track as a glitched out sprawl of folky abstract minimalism, drifty and dreamy and so otherworldly. Halls takes the track EVEN further, and transforms it into a hazy, gauzy, softly glimmering stretch of abstract ambience. And finally, the original is tacked on the end in all its playful looped and sampled glory.
SUPER LIMITED. This was a Record Store Day release, so stock is limited, and odds are once these are gone that'll be it.

GOLDEN OAKS, THE Autumn testament (A Silent Place) cd 10.98

GOLDEN OAKS, THE Paradise (Barl Fire) 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.
The Golden Oaks are a dreamfolk duo consisting of Keith Wood (Hush Arbors) and Brad Rose (The North Sea, and Digitalis Records head honcho) who perfectly bridge the gap between soft focus free form Appalachian folk, and drifting droney abstract ambience.
Falsetto vocals, delivered mantra-like, drift lazily over delicately finger picked steel string guitars, and thick swells of harmonium, strings are bowed and buzz warmly, everything wrapped in gauzy swaths of smokey reverb.
Here and there, the druggy space rock meter gets pushed into the red, with streaks of fuzzy white hot feedback wrapped in layer after layer of undulating guitar fuzz, a dizzying otherworldly dreamdrone, an indistinct shadow of Spacemen 3 / Loop-ed space bliss, cast over a glistening expanse of crystalline Appalachia. Quite nice.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, already sold out at the label we have the last 20 copies....
MPEG Stream: "Blue Werewolf With Rainbow Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Seven Woods"

GOLDEN RETRIEVER Light Cones (Root Strata) lp 16.98
It's been nearly two years since we first heard the Portland, OR duo, Golden Retriever. That first cd-r release was so uber-limited that they were gone before most people had the chance to even register it. Thankfully this follow-up on Root Strata is both on vinyl and has a larger pressing, but that doesn't mean it will be around forever, so don't wait too long.
Light Cones sees the duo of Matt Carlson (one half of Bonus) and Jonthan Sielaff further expounding on their signature dynamic of modular synthesizer and bass clarinet interplay. Over two side long tracks, each about 20 minutes, the duo push the musical limitations of their essentially monophonic instruments into new forms and shapes. The beautiful ambient drift of their first release is present in long stretches, but they're buffered against darker passages of alien cathedral-ish organ swells, laserium like wave-forms, low-end whooshes and mechanoid insect-buzz swirls. The clarinet provides a clear reed tone in the mid-range that lyrically elevates the sound while keeping it just shy of a stratospheric etherealness, often descending pitches into an abyss of soft microtonal angularity. There is a sense of cosmic uplift to the work here that is not casually offered but comes only after thoughtful attentive listening through some deeply sonic twists and turns. Gorgeous stuff!
MPEG Stream: "Light Cones"
MPEG Stream: "Observer"

GOLDEN RETRIEVER Occupied With The Unspoken (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98
For their Thrill Jockey debut, the duo of Matt Carlson and Jonathan Sielaff make surprisingly rich long form electronic music using basic monophonic instrumentation of bass clarinet and analog modular synthesizers. We have been big fans of their Root Strata releases, especially their last long player, Light Cones, which took their dynamic interplay into all sorts of unexpected territory. But we couldn't help but wonder where they could go from there. Fortunately, upon first listen of Occupied With The Unspoken, we realized we didn't need to worry at all. Over the course of four tracks, the duo created extended recordings and carefully edited them into succinct passages focusing on melodic compositional interplay over free-form improvisation, allowing more ideas to come into play. This results in a more fully realized vison of cosmic uplift than in previous recordings. In fact, this may just be our favorite release from these guys so far!
MPEG Stream: "Serene Velocity"
MPEG Stream: "Canopy"

GOLDEN RETRIEVER Occupied With The Unspoken (Thrill Jockey) lp 16.98
For their Thrill Jockey debut, the duo of Matt Carlson and Jonathan Sielaff make surprisingly rich long form electronic music using basic monophonic instrumentation of bass clarinet and analog modular synthesizers. We have been big fans of their Root Strata releases, especially their last long player, Light Cones, which took their dynamic interplay into all sorts of unexpected territory. But we couldn't help but wonder where they could go from there. Fortunately, upon first listen of Occupied With The Unspoken, we realized we didn't need to worry at all. Over the course of four tracks, the duo created extended recordings and carefully edited them into succinct passages focusing on melodic compositional interplay over free-form improvisation, allowing more ideas to come into play. This results in a more fully realized vison of cosmic uplift than in previous recordings. In fact, this may just be our favorite release from these guys so far!
MPEG Stream: "Serene Velocity"
MPEG Stream: "Canopy"

GOLDEN RETRIEVER s/t (Root Strata) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We won't go into too much detail with this as it's limited to a mere 100 copies and odds are will be sold out or nearly so by the time you're reading this.
Golden Retriever is the duo of Matt Carlson, from Bonus, who we've raved about in the past, along with multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Sielaff, the two use synthesizer and bass clarinet to evoke images of some dystopian future, or the streets of some dying city, the synths buzz and rumble, whir and thrum, the clarinet soars and sings lyrically, subtly intertwined with the synth buzz, the two occasionally falling together perfectly, creating a thick swath of ominous sound. The clarinet flutter and flits, occasionally slipping into some abstract jazziness, other times offering counterpoint for the synths' low end melodic buzz, or unfurling long long Niblockian tones, which is when GR sound the best, when the synth and clarinet are locked into longform stretches of near static sound, tense and intense, minimal and mysterious.
Gorgeous packaging, elaborately folded vellum sleeve, with the full color disc visible from within, and a small printed insert. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: "False Start"
MPEG Stream: "Canonic Horizon"

GOLDEN SORES, THE Ashdod To Ekron (Drone Cowboy) 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.
We reviewed a record by a drone combo called Number None a while back. We didn't know too much about it or them, but what we did know was that the sound those guys produced was totally up our alley. Definitely drone based, but all over the map, wrapping various drones around all sorts of varied sonic elements, somehow creating a more cohesive whole than would seem possible.
So now we have the debut from this Chicago duo, called Golden Sores, which just so happens to feature one of the guys from Number None, and in the Golden Sores, the focus is much more defined, and the two craft an incredible collection of heavy buzzing dronemusic. Each track here a sprawling ever expanding black cloud of sound, from grinding low end rumbles, to effulgent sun dappled shimmer, some tracks take the murk of Sunn 0))) but spread it out and blur it into something more soothing and tranquil, others channel the urdrone rituals of Sunroof! through their own dirt smeared sonic filter. Some of the tracks slip into an almost late period Earth-like gospel Americana, but rendered in shades of grey and in smeared streaks of soft focus shimmer, and still others are swirling effects drenched expanses of outer space exploration.
The closing track gets downright nasty, adding a layer of crumbling distortion to a drone that sound like it was assembled from chanted voices, the two elements wrestling against one another until finally finding stasis and allowing a lilting melody to surface amidst the grind and buzz.
Totally gorgeous. If you like any of the above mentioned bands, or outfits like Tunnels, Svarte Greiner, Eternal Tapestry, Pussygutt, Half Makeshift, and other minimal cd-r dronelords, the Golden Sores will be your new favorite affliction.
Beautiful packaging. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered...
MPEG Stream: "Arphaxad"
MPEG Stream: "Gorgon Blues"

GOLDEN TONE Micro Data: Live, Berlin 1999 (Under Cover Music Group) cd 17.98
Starring Mr. Christian Fennesz.

GOLDMANN VS FENNESZ Remiksz (The Tapeworm) cassette 7.98
Relisting this 'cause somehow we still have a few, and cassettes make great stocking stuffers!!
Another weird and wonderful release from the mysterious Tapeworm label. "What's so weird and wonderful and mysterious about someone remixing Fennesz?" you might be wondering? Well on Remiksz, Stefan Goldmann makes use of Fennesz' previous Tapeworm release, the collection of samples appropriately titled Szampler, which gathered up various source material used to create some of our favorite Fennesz records and then wove those raw samples into a surprisingly cohesive whole. With Remiksz, things get pretty meta, with Goldmann removing Fennesz' original samples, one by one, replacing them with samples of his own, recorded and created over the last decade, in the same sequence, eventually resulting in this, Remiksz, a sort-of remix record, which contains absolutely NO music by Fennesz. Instead, Goldmann has composed a record using Fennesz' Szampler as a template, or a framework: the track durations are all the same, all the arrangements, it's just the sounds that are utterly and completely different. We guess one could argue that it therefore does incorporate MUSIC (in the sense of organization/structure) "written" by Fennesz, but just not his SOUNDS.
So Fennesz fans at first might be a bit puzzled, or disappointed, which definitely seems fair, but give it a chance, Goldmann has a fantastic arsenal of sounds and samples, many of them quite reminiscent of Fennesz himself, and like Szampler, Remiksz ends up being a deliriously varied barrage of tripped out psychedelic soundscapery, tendrils of buzzing guitar, dense staticky rumbles, orchestral bursts, little bits of melody, long shimmery drones, swirls of crackly haze, and blown out gauze, delicately drifting harmonics, dark ominous piano, cinematic strings, fields of celestial glitch and burnt black squelch, skittery fragmented rhythms, buried samples, cricket-like clicks, lots of reverb and washed out echo, warped and warbly tape experiments, primitive synths, a blurred and ever shifting short attention span sprawl of fractured lush loveliness and glitched out sampledelic sputter. Awesome.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES!!

GOLDMANN, STEFAN Haven't I Seen You Before (The Tapeworm) cassette 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The one thing about The Tapeworm label, is that while you never know exactly what you're gonna get, you do know more than likely it's definitely something you want to hear, whether you realized it or not. One of two new tapes from The Tapeworm this time out, this one from Berlin electronic producer Stefan Goldmann, who also runs the Macro Recordings label, but don't be expecting any sort of beats or techno here, instead, it's a gorgeously dark record of solo guitar. Goldmann describes himself as a mediocre guitarist, but a versatile engineer, so for his Tapeworm contribution, he recorded a whole bunch of little guitar bits, softly struck harmonics, simply strummed chords, pizzicato notes, plenty of clicks and scrapes, even his barely audible breathing as he hunched over the guitar, and cut and chopped and spliced and diced the various elements into 5 tracks, two different versions. The result though is not some sort of rapidfire plunderphonic workout, instead, it's delicate, and sublime, lots of space and subtle melody, warm little chordal tangles drift over softly shimmering expanses of space, strange plucks and thumps are built into barely there rhythms, one track does coalesce into something almost propulsive, but somehow remains minimal and abstract, even what sound like mistakes, mis-hits, muted notes, get reworked into the slow shifting anti-folk, free jazz dark drift tapestry Goldmann creates. Each side contains the same program, but different versions, so using the reverse function on your tape deck, you can further loop and tangle and reassemble the original tracks into different arrangements. So cool.
As always, LIMITED TO 250 COPIES...

GOLDMUND Corduroy Road (Type) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ah, it's October '06 and we just realized that this Goldmund album somehow slipped by our review-writing radar last year. So... better late than never, we're writing about it now.
This is the latest serene album from Goldmund also known as Keith Kenniff also known as Helios. Whereas the latter's most recent offering Eingya is an equally hushed post-rock beauty composed on guitars, keyboards and electronics, Corduroy Road's contemplative interludes are played almost solely on piano. Scant fleeting guitar strums add a barely-there percussive element sort of like a brush across a snaredrum. Ultra spartan and tenderly evocative. If you're looking for an album to instill utter calm (for yoga, massage therapy, bedtime?), look no further.
MPEG Stream: "Door Of Our Home"
MPEG Stream: "The One Acre"

GOLDMUND Heart Of High Places (Type) 7" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Shhhhh. As quiet and unassuming as it is, this new Goldmund 7" triggered an aQ realization that we hadn't written about his last cd Corduroy Road that came out last year. Uh oh, shirking our duties! Ah well, a review for that fine release was promptly written (it's listed on our website). Anyways, Heart Of High Places features six more of his resonant, uncluttered piano compositions. Slow, delicate and dewy. This record is part of the great 7" series from Type Records that also includes aQ faves Paavoharju and Machinefabriek.