GROWING The Sky's Run Into the Sea (Kranky) cd 14.98
Yay! The debut album from this Olympia trio may be one of the Kranky label's best in a long while. It's almost completely instrumental and melds gorgeous post-rock with ambient electronics and thick, satisfying drones. In the space of an hour, four lengthy tracks develop. Serene arpeggiated guitar notes give way to shimmering cymbals. Silence unfolds into emotive ambient atmospherics, which devolve into simply strummed acoustic guitar. Warbly electronics ebb and flow over the natural buzz and hum of insects on a warm summer night. Notes are held forever until they fade naturally, reminding us of Earth or SunnO))) only without the overt metal/doom element, just the heavy, weighty sombreness... and with Growing this gravity always evolves to an epic hope-imbued sort of flight toward a blissful horizon. The dynamics are carefully controlled yet effortless, and not at all "hard" to listen to. (In fact, one of the pieces uses the chord progression from "Norwegian Wood", odd choice but a welcome bit of familiarity amidst the drone.) A gorgeous, calming record. Highly recommended for fans of Windy & Carl, Earth, The Necks, Jonathan Coleclough, Sunroof, and even Boris. But even if you don't know those artists from Adam, you should give the soundclips a listen because the operative word here is "accessible" -- whether or not the genres Growing touches on are your cup of tea, they do it so well that this record may open your ears to stuff you've previously written off as too difficult. This is soooo pretty. Windy loves this. So does Allan.
MPEG Stream: "A Painting"
MPEG Stream: "Tepsije"

GROWING The Sky's Run Into the Sea (Kranky) 2lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yay! The debut album from this Olympia trio may be one of the Kranky label's best in a long while. It's almost completely instrumental and melds gorgeous post-rock with ambient electronics and thick, satisfying drones. In the space of an hour, four lengthy tracks develop. Serene arpeggiated guitar notes give way to shimmering cymbals. Silence unfolds into emotive ambient atmospherics, which devolve into simply strummed acoustic guitar. Warbly electronics ebb and flow over the natural buzz and hum of insects on a warm summer night. Notes are held forever until they fade naturally, reminding us of Earth or SunnO))) only without the overt metal/doom element, just the heavy, weighty sombreness... and with Growing this gravity always evolves to an epic hope-imbued sort of flight toward a blissful horizon. The dynamics are carefully controlled yet effortless, and not at all "hard" to listen to. (In fact, one of the pieces uses the chord progression from "Norwegian Wood", odd choice but a welcome bit of familiarity amidst the drone.) A gorgeous, calming record. Highly recommended for fans of Windy & Carl, Earth, The Necks, Jonathan Coleclough, Sunroof, and even Boris. But even if you don't know those artists from Adam, you should give the soundclips a listen because the operative word here is "accessible" -- whether or not the genres Growing touches on are your cup of tea, they do it so well that this record may open your ears to stuff you've previously written off as too difficult. This is soooo pretty. Windy loves this. So does Allan.
MPEG Stream: "A Painting"
MPEG Stream: "Tepsije"

GRUBBS, DAVID & NIKOS VELIOTIS The Harmless Dust (Headz / Fader) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

GRUBBS, DAVID / MATS GUSTAFSSON Off-Road (Blue Chopsticks) cd 14.98
David Grubbs' previous collaboration with the Swedish improvisational reedist Mats Gustafsson, who's played with Ken Vandermark and Peter Brotzman, resulted in "Apertura," with Grubbs on harmonium and Gustafsson on tenor sax. On "Off-Road,", instrumentation includes electric guitar and electronics as well as harmonium from Grubbs and fluteophone (basically a cross between a flute and a saxophone, as the name implies), tenor sax, flageolet (a brass whistle), synthesizer and contact mics from Gustafsson. Henry Moore Selder (last seen directing a Hives video) helps out on maracas and turntables. Gustafsson's playing involves a lot of breathing heavily through his reeds, creating subtle vocal textures rather than notes. It sounds kind of creepy, really. These songs feature clattering, helicopter-esque percussiveness moving through the stereo field, accompanied by contact-mic buzz; juxtapositions of operatic vocal recordings, kitty meowing, long buzzing reed tones and synth clacking in a kind of sloppy improv plunderphonia; and some more digestible tracks with Grubbs lending guitar work reminiscent of his work in Gastr Del Sol. Recorded in Stockholm.
MPEG Stream: "Dystopian Turboprop"
MPEG Stream: "Back Off"

GRUEL s/t (At War With False Noise) cd 13.98
Any band described as 'the Melvins playing King Crimson', well, how could you not want to hear that, assuming that were it true, you might have a new favorite band!! But, those sorts of descriptions are usually hyperbole, and while we love us some hyperbole, claims like that definitely bear some deeper digging.
That said, this stuff is pretty close to that Melvins meets KC claim, a sort of avant sludge, or prog-doom, or avant-prog-sludge. In addition to the Melvins and King Crimson, we're also thinking Harvey Milk, Dot [.], Moss, Swans, Black Shape Of Nexus, Blutch, Slomatics, and tUMULt's Like A Kind Of Matador, in fact, pretty sure that Gruel features the guitarist from LAKOM, and thus it has a similarly epic sludge prog feel. Four loooong songs, all clocking in at about 15 minutes, sprawling and epic and intricate, loads of parts, riffs, bombastic drumming, the sound slipping from classic sounding rock, to glacial sludge, to slo-mo ambient drift, to math metal churn, midtempo caveman pounds to frantic thrashing crush to super spare abstract ultra-mega-doom, to almost pretty shoegazey buzz to hushed barely there shimmer, the various parts laced with wild leads, mysterious percussion, children's voices, harsh hellish vox, bellowed yowls, weird field recordings, thick rib cage rattling low end, and a massive milk curdling guitar sound. So while it might not exactly be Melvins meets King Crimson, it's close enough, and most definitely plenty proggy and doomy and sludgey, and will no doubt hit the spot for fans of all the above mentioned bands, and all things slow and low, heavy and heady.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, packaged in a PVC sleeve, and wrapped in a full color sleeve that folds out into a big two sided full color poster!
MPEG Stream: "I"
MPEG Stream: "II"

GRUPPO D'IMPROVVISAZIONE NUOVA CONSONANZA Niente (Roundtable / The Omni Recording Corporation) lp 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
FINALLY BACK IN STOCK!! LAST COPIES!!!
The Omni Recording Corporation has been killing it lately in a string of essential vinyl reissue collaborations with the Australian Roundtable label, focusing on rare library, lounge and private press exotica. We recently listed the Orchestra Peter Thomas Orion 2000 lp of tripped out sci-fi grooves, and this week we have two extremely fine examples of Italian library music from composer Egisto Macchi and his more well known group that included Ennio Morricone, Gruppo D'Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza.
While we have always respected and revered this Italian improv collective, much of their recorded output has been on the difficult listening side of things. Skronky free jazz , metallic bangs and tings, tape noise and pounding prepared piano. Sometimes abstract, dissonant and sparse, though equally majestic, heavy and remarkable, it hasn't always been easy to get behind...until now! Finally, a lost recording from 1971 for the Gemelli Library that was never released, Niente is a mind-scorching set of avant-psych groove. While there are still qualities of their defining sound present, this set is marked most notably by a strong rhythm section that is not afraid to jam out. Reminding us of favorite records from Faust and Can, this is the GDNC at their most kraut. Both funky and proggy, we think that moden day-psych fans of bands like Wooden Shjips, 3 Leafs, Carlton Melton and The Heads should look into the weird sound world of this release and get their minds blown!
Limited to 500 copies and nearly out of print, we were lucky to get the copies we have, so don't snooze on this one!

GRUPPO DI IMPROV VISAZIONE NUOVA CON SONANZA Azioni (Die Schachtel) 2cd + dvd 64.00
Some brilliantly abstract percussive improv from legendary sixties outfit Gruppo Improvisazione Nuova Consonanza, who among its members counted a young Ennio Morricone. But don't expect any of that cinematic desert twang, this is way more far out, a series of lengthy improvisations that range from clattery percussive soundscapes assembled from all manner of rattles and shakers and struck and bowed metal, chaotic and densely tangled, to haunting whirls of electronic glitch, skronky horns, pounded piano and weird tape experiments, to droney spaced out free jazz, but always retaining a wide eyed innocence and a penchant for kicking up a seriously noisy racket, even the softest moments often interrupted by a loud clang or some shimmering high end scrape. Recorded between 1967 and 1969, most of this sounds like it could easily have been recorded this year, some mysterious outfit from Finland or Japan, recording in the forest, releasing limited cd-r's. But it's also very much of it's time, a little bit academic, very later sixites / early seventies. Noisy as all get out, but incredibly captivating and strangely lovely at times. Two whole discs jam packed with some mesmerizingly freaked out free music exploration.
Also included is an amazing DVD, a gorgeous black and white concert film, documenting a live performance in Rome from 1967. Subtitled in both English and Italian. And it's all region. All of the discs are in similarly designed digipaks, and along with a poster, and a thick book packed with liner notes and photos, are housed in a super striking cloth covered box, with embossed white swirls and embossed text! Amazing.
MPEG Stream: "Kate"
MPEG Stream: "Es War Einmal"

GRUPPO DI IMPROVVISAZIONE NUOVA CONSONANZA Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza (RZ) cd 21.00
A collection of recordings (from '67 to '75) by this legendary international (well, Italian basically) all-star improv ensemble perhaps most famous for including in its ranks Ennio Morricone (on trumpet)! The other members were Mario Bertonichi, Walter Brachi, Franco Evangelisti, John Heineman, Roland Kayn, and Egisto Macchi. Also, guests found here include Frederic Rzewski, Giovanni Piazza, and Jesus Villa Rolo. Formed in 1964, unique in being a "new music" improvising group composed entirely of, uh, composers. The sound is somewhere between European free improv jazz a la the FMP label and avant-garde, Cageian 20th century chamber music, with an emphasis on extended techniques and "deformed sounds". Liner notes in English and German. (Not new, from '92, but we just got this and another Gruppo disc you'll see elsewhere on the list and were excited enough by them to want to list 'em.)

GRUPPO DI IMPROVVISAZIONE NUOVA CONSONANZA Musica Su Schemi (Cramps) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The cd version, finally back in stock, of the recently-reissued LP that we recommended back on list #83 in January. Here's the description we provided then, written for us by Gruppo-fan Drew Daniel of Matmos: "If there was such a thing as "catchy" improv this sumptuous, careful record would be it. Not reading Italian I am in the dark as to the extent to which this recording is based on "game theory", but the numerous pictures of chess boards in the room with the assembled throng of Italian composer/improvisors suggests that some kind of game based operation produced these sounds- but you don't need to be Bobby Fischer or speak Italian to be stunned by the beauty, immediacy and focus of this gathering, which includes luminaries such as Ennio Morriconne. Far from the skronking racket which "improv" can call to mind in some listeners, there is a kind of majestic, attentive, and totally confident quality to these performances that will have the hair on your neck standing at attention, and the cinematic scope of Morricone's past work is fully in evidence here. When all six musicians build up a resonant, triumphant drone from horns and piano in "Ommaggio a Giacinto Scelsi", both honoring and extending the work of the Italian aristocrat/mystic composer, the result is a kind of 17 minute long "transport" that very little contemporary music comes close to. Best of all, they also know when to make a track only two minutes long! Required listening for fans of Morricone, Supersilent, Godspeed or AMM."

GRUPPO DI IMPROVVISAZIONE NUOVA CONSONANZA Musica Su Schemi (Get Back) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If there was such a thing as "catchy" improv this sumptuous, careful record would be it. Not reading Italian I am in the dark as to the extent to which this recording is based on "game theory", but the numerous pictures of chess boards in the room with the assembled throng of Italian composer/improvisors suggests that some kind of game based operation produced these sounds- but you don't need to be Bobby Fischer or speak Italian to be stunned by the beauty, immediacy and focus of this gathering, which includes luminaries such as Ennio Morriconne. Far from the skronking racket which "improv" can call to mind in some listeners, there is a kind of majestic, attentive, and totally confident quality to these performances that will have the hair on your neck standing at attention, and the cinematic scope of Morricone's past work is fully in evidence here. When all six musicians build up a resonant, triumphant drone from horns and piano in "Ommaggio a Giacinto Scelsi", both honoring and extending the work of the Italian aristocrat/mystic composer, the result is a kind of 17 minute long "transport" that very little contemporary music comes close to. Best of all, they also know when to make a track only two minutes long! Required listening for fans of Morricone, Supersilent, Godspeed or AMM. - Drew Daniel

GRUPPO DI IMPROVVISAZIONE NUOVA CONSONANZA Musica Su Schemi (Superior Viaduct) lp 15.98
Local reissue label Superior Viaduct seems to be branching out beyond the punk/postpunk/industrial genres that they'd heretofore mainly specialized in, with some surprising (but cool) reissue selections, including a record by hillbilly dronester Henry Flynt, and this one, by '60s Italian improv "gruppo" featuring famed soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone, plus also Egisto Macchi and other notables. Long a favorite around here, we're happy to have this new vinyl reish, nicely done. Here's what our pal Drew Daniel of Matmos was kind enough to write about this for the aQ site the very first time we listed it:
If there was such a thing as "catchy" improv this sumptuous, careful record would be it. Not reading Italian I am in the dark as to the extent to which this recording is based on "game theory", but the numerous pictures of chess boards in the room with the assembled throng of Italian composers / improvisors suggests that some kind of game based operation produced these sounds - but you don't need to be Bobby Fischer or speak Italian to be stunned by the beauty, immediacy and focus of this gathering, which includes luminaries such as Ennio Morriconne. Far from the skronking racket which "improv" can call to mind in some listeners, there is a kind of majestic, attentive, and totally confident quality to these performances that will have the hair on your neck standing at attention, and the cinematic scope of Morricone's past work is fully in evidence here. When all six musicians build up a resonant, triumphant drone from horns and piano in "Omaggio a Giacinto Scelsi", both honoring and extending the work of the Italian aristocrat / mystic composer, the result is a kind of 17 minute long "transport" that very little contemporary music comes close to. Best of all, they also know when to make a track only two minutes long! Required listening for fans of Morricone, Supersilent, Godspeed or AMM.
Bravo, Superior Viaduct, bravo!
And it includes a download code!
MPEG Stream: "Schema 1"
MPEG Stream: "Omaggio a Giacinto Scelsi"

GUAPO WITH GUESTS RUINS & THE STOCK EXCHANGE Death Seed (Freeland Records) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The UK's purveyors of rock/improv spazzy heaviness known as Guapo (a guitar/drums duo) team up with some like minded friends, including the famed Japanese progfreaks Ruins, for some crazed jamming/spontaneous composition. Half the record features drummer Tatsuya Yoshida and bassist Hisashi Sasaki of Ruins, while the second half incorporates the double bass of John Edwards and the alto saxophone of Caroline Kraabel (ex-Honkies), who we hear has now joined Guapo full-time. The results are, as expected, on the noisy side. While "Death Seed" doesn't equal any Guapo or Ruins record proper, it's certainly a worthy investment for fans of these bands or similar noisecore sounds. Italian import.

GUARDIAN ALIEN See the World Given to a One Love Entity (Thrill Jockey) cd 14.98
We really weren't sure what to expect from the oddly monikered Guardian Alien, knowing that two of the members also played in black metal outfit Liturgy, but that this was drummer Greg Fox's project, Fox also apparently recording as GDFX, whose tripped out experimental electronic tape on Ormolycka we reviewed a while back. We were even further confused when we got a look at the record cover, a weird painting of a Rasta alien in a tracksuit, in a field full of animals and campfires, and a sky full of deer with books in their mouths and exploding suns, and of course the tracksuited alien is holding a copy of the record, whose cover depicts the same alien holding a copy of the record and so on and on and on ad infinitum. The title too, "See The World Give To A One Love Entity" has a definite Rastafari bent, so we were definitely feeling some serious trepidation as we pushed play, which at first unfurled what sounded like field recordings, birds and insects, and then footsteps, maybe the footsteps of that alien on the record cover, then a brief bit of Eastern style drone, before BLAM, the song explodes in what we can only describe as Liturgy by way of Sunroof!, which you have to hear to believe.
It's a furious raga-blast, the drums relentless a splattery chaos of wild octopoidal drumming, the guitars following suit, sounding like a transcendental Mick Barr, it's frenzied and tangled but infused with a serious does of droned out tranciness, and then as the song lets up briefly, we were expecting that whole bit to just be the intro, but then the furious raga-blast starts up again, this time even more intense and explosive, and this time with vocals, a strange chanting buried in the mix, very ritualistic and meditative, and even though the band is pounding away frantically, the whole thing manages to be totally mesmerizing and utterly hypnotic, and after three minutes, although it feels like much more, the sound settles down into something much more stripped down and meditative, the drums no less busy, but instead, weaving a dense percussive backdrop over which woozy guitars waver and buzz, the vocals become more distinct, the melodies stretched out into gorgeously buzzy ragas, we're reminded of Astral Social Club at time the same sort of noise-raga thing, but here blissed out, the sound like some wild ritualistic drum circle wedded to some serious free jazz raga exploration, the vocals doused in effects, sounding truly alien, in keeping with the cover and the concept, the sound swirly and tripped out and super psychedelic, until eventually the drums drift off, leaving just a sky full of layered undulating guitars, a blur of shifting overtones and wild sonic squalls, before the drums come back in, a dense mathy, driving percussive groove, wreathed in swirling effects, the song shifting constantly, arranged like an epic black metal song in some ways, it's dynamicism in no way taking away from the tracks overall mesmer, and it is a single track, nearly 40 minutes of blast beat driven raga ur-drone psychedelia, dipping into ultra minimal drones and chant like vocalization here and there, chiming Tibetan bowls elsewhere, the field recordings that opened the record returning occasionally, a gorgeous droned out slow build to a final movement, a gloriously cosmic free jazz psychedelic drum heavy raga drone blowout, that builds to a sort of Boadrum like rhythmic frenzy before finally fading out in a cloud of deep bell like tones and slow fading shimmer. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "See the World Given to a One Love Entity (Excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "See the World Given to a One Love Entity (Excerpt 2)"

GUARDIAN ALIEN See the World Given to a One Love Entity (Thrill Jockey) lp 15.98
We really weren't sure what to expect from the oddly monikered Guardian Alien, knowing that two of the members also played in black metal outfit Liturgy, but that this was drummer Greg Fox's project, Fox also apparently recording as GDFX, whose tripped out experimental electronic tape on Ormolycka we reviewed a while back. We were even further confused when we got a look at the record cover, a weird painting of a Rasta alien in a tracksuit, in a field full of animals and campfires, and a sky full of deer with books in their mouths and exploding suns, and of course the tracksuited alien is holding a copy of the record, whose cover depicts the same alien holding a copy of the record and so on and on and on ad infinitum. The title too, "See The World Give To A One Love Entity" has a definite Rastafari bent, so we were definitely feeling some serious trepidation as we pushed play, which at first unfurled what sounded like field recordings, birds and insects, and then footsteps, maybe the footsteps of that alien on the record cover, then a brief bit of Eastern style drone, before BLAM, the song explodes in what we can only describe as Liturgy by way of Sunroof!, which you have to hear to believe.
It's a furious raga-blast, the drums relentless a splattery chaos of wild octopoidal drumming, the guitars following suit, sounding like a transcendental Mick Barr, it's frenzied and tangled but infused with a serious does of droned out tranciness, and then as the song lets up briefly, we were expecting that whole bit to just be the intro, but then the furious raga-blast starts up again, this time even more intense and explosive, and this time with vocals, a strange chanting buried in the mix, very ritualistic and meditative, and even though the band is pounding away frantically, the whole thing manages to be totally mesmerizing and utterly hypnotic, and after three minutes, although it feels like much more, the sound settles down into something much more stripped down and meditative, the drums no less busy, but instead, weaving a dense percussive backdrop over which woozy guitars waver and buzz, the vocals become more distinct, the melodies stretched out into gorgeously buzzy ragas, we're reminded of Astral Social Club at time the same sort of noise-raga thing, but here blissed out, the sound like some wild ritualistic drum circle wedded to some serious free jazz raga exploration, the vocals doused in effects, sounding truly alien, in keeping with the cover and the concept, the sound swirly and tripped out and super psychedelic, until eventually the drums drift off, leaving just a sky full of layered undulating guitars, a blur of shifting overtones and wild sonic squalls, before the drums come back in, a dense mathy, driving percussive groove, wreathed in swirling effects, the song shifting constantly, arranged like an epic black metal song in some ways, it's dynamicism in no way taking away from the tracks overall mesmer, and it is a single track, nearly 40 minutes of blast beat driven raga ur-drone psychedelia, dipping into ultra minimal drones and chant like vocalization here and there, chiming Tibetan bowls elsewhere, the field recordings that opened the record returning occasionally, a gorgeous droned out slow build to a final movement, a gloriously cosmic free jazz psychedelic drum heavy raga drone blowout, that builds to a sort of Boadrum like rhythmic frenzy before finally fading out in a cloud of deep bell like tones and slow fading shimmer. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "See the World Given to a One Love Entity (Excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "See the World Given to a One Love Entity (Excerpt 2)"

GUDNADOTTIR, HILDUR Leyfdu Ljosinu (Touch) cd 15.98
Leyfdu Ljosinu translates from the Icelandic to "Allow The Light" and is a stunningly beautiful piece from the post-classical composer Hildur Gudnadottir, who recorded this in one-shot with no edits or overdubs with just cello, voice, and electronics. The liner notes and the press release make a big deal about the single take of this recording, but with how adept so many doom / drone / shoegaze / black noise musicians are a creating loops on the fly through computer or pedal or whatever, this shouldn't be the first thing to commend Gudnadottir on. What she should be praised for is her command over ALL of her instruments and how well she emotes a beautiful desolation through those instruments. At first, Gudnadottir sings a plaintive, wordless melody which she captures in a loop, as she abstracts that loop by stretching it and dunking it in reverb, she adds more vocal tones and melodies - more and more of which begins to blur into an ethereal cauldron of roiling sound somewhere between the elegant hypnosis of William Basinski and Grouper's elegiac hymnal deconstruction. After some 15 minutes, the cello makes a slow introduction, seamlessly overtaking the voice as the prominent instrument. Again, Gudnadottir filters the sounds of her cello through all of her effects, furthering the descent of her sounds to the very bottom of the ocean. By the conclusion of the piece, she eschews the reverb for a frantic, nervous dervish across the strings of her cello abruptly coming to a perfect conclusion.
MPEG Stream: "Allow The Light (extract 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Allow The Light (extract 2)"

GUDNADOTTIR, HILDUR Mount A (Touch) cd 15.98
Not a brand new record, but instead a reissue of a 2006 album from one of our favorite cellists, Hildur Gudnadottir, who in the past has contributed brilliantly to records by Sigur Ros, Mum, BJ Nilsen and others, but whose solo records are even more fantastic. Focusing of course on the cello, she also incorporates zither, gamelan, viola, piano, vibraphone and more into a sound that's haunting and brooding, mystical and mysterious, the instruments subtly treated, melodies multitracked, gorgeous lush landscapes of blurred string sections, cinematic swells giving way to hazy murky blur, notes stretched out into warm whirling melodic tangles, complex counterpoint, ever shifting overtones, every track here a gloriously lush and emotionally charged miniature epic that hovers in some impossible space between classical, avant garde and drone, but always with a distinctly human element, these are the sort of deep and powerful songs and sounds that effortlessly evoke a sense of wistful melancholia, emotions that are definitely at odds with the smiling candid snapshot cover photo, these tracks like miniature soundtracks for fading memories and lost loves...
So gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "Light"
MPEG Stream: "Floods"
MPEG Stream: "Casting"
MPEG Stream: "Shadowed"

GUDNADOTTIR, HILDUR Without Sinking (Touch) cd 16.98
Hildur Gudnadottir has such a way with the cello, able to create such utterly moving music that is filled with nuance and texture but that is also so deeply emotional. Hailing from Iceland, Gudnadottir's resume includes collaborations and partnerships with the likes of Pan Sonic, Mum, Sigur Ros, Angel, BJ Nilsen, etc. It's so nice to get to hear her take center stage, carefully crafting a sound that is about as moody and beautiful as music really gets. Perfect for those eternal gray days we are faced with so often in San Francisco, this is a record we put on when we just want to get lost in the fog and haze. There is very nice and subtle processing throughout the album as well, and here and there Gudnadottir tries her hand at the zither with stunning results. Johann Johansson adds organ on a few tracks as well, and fans of HIS best work as well as music by folks like Sylvain Chauveau, Philip Glass, Michael Cashmore, Joan Jeanrenaud and Colleen should for sure check this out. Truly elegant and intensely resonant. And thus highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Erupting Light"
MPEG Stream: "Overcast"
MPEG Stream: "Into Warmer Air"

GUDNADOTTIR, HILDUR Without Sinking (Touch) 2lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL, WITH THREE EXTRA TRACKS!!!
Hildur Gudnadottir has such a way with the cello, able to create such utterly moving music that is filled with nuance and texture but that is also so deeply emotional. Hailing from Iceland, Gudnadottir's resume includes collaborations and partnerships with the likes of Pan Sonic, Mum, Sigur Ros, Angel, BJ Nilsen, etc. It's so nice to get to hear her take center stage, carefully crafting a sound that is about as moody and beautiful as music really gets. Perfect for those eternal gray days we are faced with so often in San Francisco, this is a record we put on when we just want to get lost in the fog and haze. There is very nice and subtle processing throughout the album as well, and here and there Gudnadottir tries her hand at the zither with stunning results. Johann Johansson adds organ on a few tracks as well, and fans of HIS best work as well as music by folks like Sylvain Chauveau, Philip Glass, Michael Cashmore, Joan Jeanrenaud and Colleen should for sure check this out. Truly elegant and intensely resonant. And thus highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Erupting Light"
MPEG Stream: "Overcast"
MPEG Stream: "Into Warmer Air"

GUDNADOTTIR, HILDUR, BJ NILSEN & STILLUPPSTEYPA Second Childhood (Quecksilber) cd 15.98
Will there be a time when Stilluppsteypa will once again march out of the Icelandic tundra with a record all their own? It has been three years since Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson and Helgi Thorsson produced anything other than their collaborations with BJ Nilsen; but if things progress as they have through those two impeccable albums of glacial drone damage (Vikinga Brennivin and Drykkjuvisur Ohljodanna) and a split LP only release, who the hell cares if they do anything by themselves? For the fourth time, the drunken cabal of Nilsen / Sigmarsson / Thorsson return to the mixing desk with their psychotropic drones laced with Haflerian absurdity; and here on Second Childhood, the three have recruited the upcoming avant-garde cellist Hildur Gudnadottir, who has previously worked with the likes of Mum, Pan Sonic, and Johann Johannsson.
With the opening growl of scratched cello hypnosis plunging into a deep void of low end vibrations, the notions of this collective Second Childhood being warm and fuzzy go out the window with plenty of references to the blackened sprawl generated by the likes of Corrupted, Black Boned Angel, or anything on Battlecruiser. As bleak as gaping minimalism is on most of Second Childhood, the atmospheres do lighten a bit with some narcotic ambient passages of heavily processed guitars and cello that come across like a meeting between Andrew Chalk and Colleen. Yet, as the album comes to a close, the mind-numbingly heavy drones return with the addition of pulsing post-Sahkho rhythms lurking in the background as if somebody next door was thumping out a minimal techno groove. Pretty much everything that BJ Nilsen and Stilluppsteypa produce is well worth investigating, and this continues to be true for their ongoing collaborations. Brilliant.
MPEG Stream: "It's About The Size Of A House"
MPEG Stream: "How To Catch The Right Thought"
MPEG Stream: "The Direction Was Foggy Or Cloudy"

GUERIN, JEAN Tacet (Elica) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Elica, the Italian label that brought us, among other things, the Confusional Quartet and Andre Almuro's "Delpi", has unearthed another lost recording. Jean Guerin's "Tacet" is a super rare LP, originally released on the French Futura label (Red Noise, Mahogany Brain, Jacques Berrocal, and other freaky stuff) back in 1970. Jazz drummer Guerin composed it as a soundtrack to some radical art film we haven't seen, but the music definitely stands on its own. It is a spacious sonic swamp of quirky academic electronics and avant-jazz horns. Eerie, echoey, effects laden soundscapes. Some strange, theatrical vocals. Mysterious, mostly quiet stuff. Very "20th century"!
Instrumention includes trumpets (and "trumpet-in water"), tenor saxophone, double bass, bass guitar, darbouka, percussions, rhythm machine, generator and VCS3. Reissued in a digipak with reproductions of the original album art and liner notes by Philippe Carles, co-author of the "Free Jazz, Black Power."
RealAudio clip: "Maochat"
RealAudio clip: "Gaub 71"

GUILTY CONNECTOR First Noise Attack (MSBR) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Guilty Connector is Tokyo's Kohei "Fast" Nakagawa, the one-man goliath of jet engine sonics. Not since Merzbow's "Rainbow Electronics" have you witnessed sheer power and unrelenting force. Remember the first time you put on Monde Bruits? If you miss the Golden Years of noise (circa 1991-1996), this'll certainly take you back...
RealAudio clip: "Scar"

GUILTY CONNECTOR Symptom Of The Universe (Sewer Records) cd-3 ep 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Japan's one man, harsh electronic,metal machine wrecking crew returns with a 3" cd of 'covers', of Black Sabbath's 'Symptom Of The Universe' and the Ramones' 'Blitzkrieg Bop.' And while Kohei The Fast, the man behind GC, does play actual guitar, the bulk of his sound is made up of "UTSU electronics" and field recordings. You get a glimpse of those classic riffs before they are thrown melody first into the tree shredder, and what comes out the other side is a ear shredding, brain rattling, bone breaking wall of shrieking feedback, buzzing instrument hum and an avalance of white/pink noise. Japanoise fanatics are gonna need this!
RealAudio clip: "Symptom Of The Universe"

GUILTY CONNECTOR / BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL Assholes Of The World and Hunt in Packs (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Unfortunately a split and not a collaboration, 'Assholes Of The World...' finds New Zealand's Campbell Kneale and Japan's Kohei 'The Fast' (aka Guilty Connector) joining forces in the elite brotherhood of noisy assholes! Kohei starts things off quite unlike the stuff we're used to hearing from him, a simple, static high register drone. But that doesn't last long. All sorts of speaker shredding intrusions pile up on what is now a howling air raid siren-like screech, and then immediately into a sort of Merzbow-ish rhythmic stutter. The second track is a 4 minute blast of hyperchaotic metallic noise. Like some sort of ACTUAL SONG buried under the rotting corpses of Merzbow and Masonna.
You might think Kneale would pull out the big guns and answer back with a mighty blast, but he instead shows some gentlemanly restraint, and offers up one of his most serene pieces yet. What sounds like a single strike of a bell, stretched out as far as it will go, slowly oscillating, sound waves spreading out forever. Subtle insect-like flutters and the SPAREST percussion imaginable, a tiny bit of clatter, a reverby thud every couple of minutes. Quite nice, and a surprisingly subtle rebutt to Guilty Connector's boot to the face.
RealAudio clip: GUILTY CONNECTOR "Mothers Bloated Corpse - Warning"
RealAudio clip: BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL "Seven Silver Lanterns"

GUILTY GHOSTS Veils (Words + Dreams ) cassette + cd-r + silkscreened canvas bag 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Weirdly enough, we first heard Guilty Ghosts on some mysterious witch house / drag compilation someone made for us, that track a haunting bit of morose skeletal downer guitar pop, all chiming 4AD guitars over skittery clipped rhythms and soft focus swirls of hushed dreamlike shimmer, not to mention swoonsome strings, listening to that track again now, has us wondering why exactly the rest of the world hasn't caught on to Guilty Ghosts. It's the sort of thing a label like Matador or Fatcat or XL should be flipping out over.
But for now, GG, aka Tristan O'Donnell, is going the DIY route, releasing his own tapes and cd-r's, and we managed to get a handful of the deluxe version of his most recent full length, which does in fact include that mixtape jam we loved so much back in the day, and we're happy to report that the whole record is brimming with more of the same, lush expanses of layered guitars, softly tangled melodies, warm swirling buzz, looped breakbeats, the sound melancholic and wistful, the drum driven jams sounding like a darker, more mysterious underground lo-fi shoegaze pop version of the Happy Mondays, while the more guitarscapey tracks remind us of the Durutti Column, and when the vocals come in, it's total shoegaze dreampop bliss. Just check out "Everlasting Evening", which is the sort of jam we wish would go on forever, a thick swirl of guitar buzz, beneath strummed acoustic guitars, underneath ethereal streaks of tangled psychedelic melodies, buried mysterious samples, and some gorgeous angelic female vox, it's definitely easy to see why GG would be embraced by the witch house camp, but the sound is so much more lush and composed, O'Donnell's sights set somewhere much higher, these tracks expansive and cinematic, with tracks like "Everlasting Evening" reminding us of MBV and Portishead and the like.
The whole record unfurls like a dream, the lush swirling tangle of guitars all on its own would be enough to have us smitten, but the occasional vox, and the various rhythms, the ever shifting drones and textures, all deftly woven into gorgeous sonic dreamscapes, and be sure to check out "Begotten", tucked away near the end of the tape, which just might be our favorite jam here, haunting and lovely, like the brooding slow building soundtrack to some heart wrenching scene in an arty big budget blockbuster, we're surprised someone hasn't snapped this up for some Christopher Nolan trailer or something. So awesome. And obviously totally recommended!!
This limited version includes both a tape, with a printed J-card, a sticker AND a bonus mix cd, which offers up a ton of cool and super varied GG beloved jams, all gathered up in a screen printed canvas drawstring bag.
MPEG Stream: "Begotten"
MPEG Stream: "The End Of Akira"
MPEG Stream: "Everlasting Evening"
MPEG Stream: "Late Night Voyages"

GUIONNET, JEAN LUC & ERIC CORDIER Synapses, Synapses IV and Synapses V (Selektion) cd 16.98
French sound-artists and improvisers Jean Luc Guionnet and Eric Cordier have built a large interconnected sound sculpture constructed out of parts of stringed instruments (guitars, detuned piano, and cello), percussive elements and metal resonators... all suspended from the ceiling with various wires and instrument strings. As all of these elements are hinged from the same point on the ceiling, each action affects the whole system. So if Jean Luc scrapes one of the wires, the whole systems will shake and bang against each other, with pretty much unplanned results. So their improvisations with the Synapse device are a fusion of post-Einsturzende instrument building, No Neck Blues Band pipe fights, and the conceptual playfulness of "The Way Things Go" filmmakers Ficheli & Weiss.
MPEG Stream: "Part 1"
MPEG Stream: "Part 2"

GUISHER Hide Your Cold Dome (self-released) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We weren't sure what to expect from a Scantily Clad side project, but it certainly wasn't this! But we like it. In fact we sort of LOVE it. Unlike the cosmic synth drone of Scantily Clad, Guisher specializes in a dizzying, short attention span collection of home brewed lo-fi cut and paste, slice and dice, collaged, sample heavy, hyper rhythmic loopscapes. Sped up soul samples, snippets of songs off the radio, are slathered in crumbling distortion, then assembled into strange stuttery beatscapes, waves of white noise swallow up the proceedings, only to spit out fragmented shards of pop on the other side.
The sound is awesomely raw and primitive, like some caveman Art Of Noise at times, but the structures and rhythms are often surprisingly complex, and downright groovy at times, while pulverizingly noisy at others. The sound is pretty fantastic, slipping from DJ Shadow like moody skitter to weird world music collage to barely there short wave static in the same track, only to weave some sort of analog assembled electronica on the next track, all lumbering rhythm surrounded by flurries of tangled melodies, and weird swooping backwards effects. And so it goes, a head spinning kitchen sink concoction, a blast of crunchy electric guitars, shards of yacht rock, blasts of static and slowed down voices one second, warm and warbly, shuffling sort-of-electronic woozy rhythmic groovescape the next. So great! And apparently all recorded while on prescription drugs, which definitely might explain everything...
SUPER SUPER LIMITED. ONLY 55 COPIES, partially because the packaging is so deluxe, an oversized photocopied booklet with tons of fold out pages, secret panels, a little multi paneled triangular booklet in the middle, and a foldout poster, all in a plastic bag, each one individually sewed shut with multi-colored thread.
MPEG Stream: "Cuddle Consent"
MPEG Stream: "Chewed Popcorn"
MPEG Stream: "Spine Bottom Dimples"

GUISHER Spiked Urn (self-released) 12" 14.98
Record number two from this offshoot / sideproject of cosmic synth drone combo, Scantily Clad, and in a way it's a continuation of the wildly chaotic cut and paste collaged weirdness of Hide Your Cold Dome cassette, which we compared to a caveman Art Of Noise, but this time around, it seems like the chaos was reeled in a bit, the sounds more measure and melodic, still fractured and fragmented for sure, but more warm and melodic, in fact tracks like "Tiger Spa" remind us of the whirling underwater sound of Oval, albeit a bit more home brewed and low fidelity. For every streak of soft focus shimmer, there's a little flurry of wild rhythmic skitter, or a cascade of weirdly chopped and screwed melodies. "Jetsam" is another one that displays the 'new' sound, all woozy, crumbling swells, slo-mo rhythms, the vibe more Philip Jeck, a dizzying time lapse sonic drift, lots of gristle and crunch, the sounds raw and rough around the edges, but somehow blurred and smeared into something more more soothing and mesmerizing, the jagged chaos of the first record transformed into a more controlled chaos, which Guisher has swaddled in all manner of lush, soft focus shimmer. Super nice.
Killer packaging too, the lp housed in a reflective anti-static sleeve, that sleeve adorned with a full color paste on track listing, that all wrapped in a super DIY photocopied jacket, and housed in a peach colored plastic sleeve.
LIMITED TO 200 COPIES!!

GULAGGH Vorkuta (New Era Productions) cd 13.98
Most of you weird music obsessives should probably remember Dutch black ambient freaks Stalaggh, whose MO was creating harsh atonal drones and buzzes, hellish noise drenched soundscapes as backdrops for various vocalists, those vocalists all inmates at a local psychiatric hospital. Yup.
The results were chilling, and creepy, and pretty fucking demented and incredible. Those Stalaggh recordings made even the evilest black metal sound totally tame in comparison. Some seriously emotional, demented and damaged, psychological sonic terror.
Since then, the band has regrouped, now called Gulaggh, with a similar plan of attack, with one little twist, according to the band, Gulaggh will be about "the perversion and inversion of Classical music combined with the vocals of the mentally insane". Definitely sounds good. Or maybe good is not the right word. But like Stalaggh, it seemed like Gulaggh would be equally disturbing.
So here it is. One track, 45 minutes, of totally haunting, mysterious... music? Sound? Soundart? Hard to know how to classify this. The sound of a voice, reverbed, over a deep distant thrum, all wrapped in little bits of hiss and creak, long tones rumble and drone, and then the voices begin to surface, mewling and moaning, groaning and mumbling, all over an insidious low end thrum, horns bleat, various bits of percussion pound scrape, and still the various voices get louder, more and more frenzied, the overall vibe ever more terrifying. The sound does seem to get classical, but more like an orchestra tuning up, abstract tones and atonal bleats and blurps, and then things go fucking apeshit, with all the vocalists, shrieking and screaming and howling, pounding on walls, stomping on floors, the cries growing more and more anguished, then out of nowhere some random drumming comes in, just in the middle of this cacophony of howls and shrieks, building to a frantic climax, before the voices begin to fade, swirling screams, sounding more like kids on a playground, but still intense knowing these aren't kids and they aren't on the playground. The horns step it up, honking and skronking and bleating and moaning, the drums skittering to a halt, then it's a weird fade out, quite voices, humming and murmuring and squeaking beneath the slowly fading horns, streaks of feedback, and that commanding, authoritarian voice from the beginning returns, the track ending how it started.
Holy shit, definitely super intense, and squirm inducing, somewhere between abject black ambience, a horror movie soundtrack, an educational film, a field recording, and a smattering of stumbling musical experimentation. Freaky as all get out, but in it's harrowing miserablism, does lurk moments of beauty, bits of melody, but for the most part those are definitely overshadowed by the evil and misery and terror, that the maniacs in Gulaggh have somehow rendered into music. Or at least sound.
Reservedly recommended. Difficult listening of the highest order, but would definitely be right at home on your cd shelf next to the Conet Project, the Ghost Orchid EVP recordings, and other mysterious and challenging collections of sounds found and otherwise.
MPEG Stream: "Vorkuta (excerpt)"

GULTSKRA ARTIKLER Kasha Iz Topora (Miasmah Recordings) cd 15.98
A Russian fairytale about a man with an axe who makes "flying porridge"?? Huh? Supposedly that's what this gorgeous album is "about" though since it's mostly instrumental and/or in Russian it's hard to say for sure, in any case it's certainly creepy and bizarre enough to be the soundtrack to such a story, and makes for a fine follow-up to Gultskra Artikler's record for Lampse last year, Pofigistka. That one was one of the strangest and most "actively" melodic or songlike of that label's ambient treasures but went quite well with Jasper TX and Machinefabriek, just as this fits in with Gultskra's new Miasmah labelmates Elegi for instance.
Kasha Iz Topara iz over an hour long, one track flowing into the next, the whole thing a continuous crackling soundscape of darkly dreamy textures, creaking sound FX, ominous chords, fractured and folky guitar, glitchy electronics, and sinister strings... among other things... a mix of haunting cinematic instrumentation, old time Eastern European tradition, and mysterious field recordings. What's not to like?? Axeman, bring more flying porridge please. Definitely for fans of Finnish forest freaks Kemialliset Ystavat, the aforementioned Elegi, and Miasmah label head Svarte Greiner, amongst others.
MPEG Stream: "Po Derevne"
MPEG Stream: "Medicinski Rabonik"

GULTSKRA ARTIKLER Pofigistka (Lampse) cd 15.98
We've said it before (more than once) but it does bear repeating AGAIN, Lampse is the label of our dreams. Quite literally in fact. Not only have we been totally captivated by every release we've heard so far, each one a gorgeous glistening slab of ethereal ambience, each buried in or delicately obscured by thick layers of gauzy sound or record crackle or tape hiss or any manner of fuzz and buzz, but these Lampse releases are all the perfect drifting off music, late night, lights low, cool breeze, floating off to never never land, sinking into a deep warm blackness, the absolute perfect going to sleep music. Our bedtime listening has pretty much been exclusively Jasper TX, Machinefabriek and this dreamlike sonic document from the hard to pronounce Gultskra Artikler.
GA might be the strangest of the bunch, which is saying a lot. The songs are much more active, with more obvious instrumentation, lots of guitars, most rendered into weird little angular shapes, sometimes stretched into gauzy smears, strings everywhere, sometimes pizzicato, drenched in reverb, floating dreamily in a swirling black void, sometimes soaring in the distance, weaving emotional epic backdrops to the sounds in the foreground, lots of mysterious percussion, and wheezing keyboards, fuzzy synths, but where the other two Lampse records we've reviewed employ a serious arsenal of sonic detritus to give their sounds a melancholy soft focus patina, Gultskra Artikler utilize a series of subtle field recordings, low level conversations, clinking silverware, footsteps, wind and rain, as well as what sounds like haunting disembodied tape loops, all woven delicately into the already ephemeral fabric of each song. And the thing is these are actual songs, there are melodies, and refrains and riffs, buried rhythms and soft swells of sweet sound, all rendered in deep shadows and indistinct hues. Grainy sound worlds that creep and swirl, drift and hover, an alien pastoral folk music buried beneath dense whirls of thick fog, slow, sleepy stretches of abstract ambience stretched into songlike shapes and allowed to drift lazily amidst a haunting world of shrouded beauty...
So absolutely lovely!
MPEG Stream: "Fizik Dyadya Kolya"
MPEG Stream: "Siluet Kotlet"

GUM Vinyl Anthology (23five Incorporated) 2cd 21.00
Philip Jeck. Janek Schaeffer. Otomo Yoshihide. Thomas Brinkman. These are the avant-turntablists whose praises we've sung in the recent past; yet the use of the turntable with experimental music is nothing as novel as the current infatuation would indicate. Turntablism could be traced back to John Cage's Imaginary Landscape (1939), but perhaps a better historical jumping off point for those artists' delirious collage work would be with the early work of Christian Marclay and Non, who both reconfigured the noise and disembodied cultural reference from skipping records in the late '70s. It was that environment of Industrial culture that spawned Gum -- the Australian avant-turntablist duo which began quite literally with a skipping Brian Eno record. While Gum's Andrew Curtis and Philip Samartzis shared a common interest in Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and Whitehouse, their work centered upon the volatility of surface noise from cheap turntables that they rescued from thrift stores and junk shops. At the same time, Gum balanced their destructive pursuit of tumultuous noise and electrically charged static with a clinical disembodiment. Even when disco-grooves from the Bee-Gees or porno climaxes get mangled in their Frankensteinian aggregates of loops and layers, it's hardly funky or sexy... rather a wonderfully disturbing mess. Having only a couple of singles on RRR and Korm Plastics as well as two self-released LPs, Gum had remained a secret history within the prolific oeuvre of Australian sound art; and now, thanks to this Vinyl Anthology compendium which features the bulk of their recorded works, the ecstatic expressionism of Gum can now be rediscovered for what it really is: precocious genius.
MPEG Stream: "Sporadic Acts Of Violence"
MPEG Stream: "Injected by a Certain Amount of Charisma"
MPEG Stream: "Outfits for Agony"

GUM TAKES TOOTH Silent Cenotaph (Tigertrap) cd 14.98
This recent Record Of The Week, BACK IN STOCK!!
Imagine a band that sounded like a bastard mix of UK-via-Texas, multiple drummered noise rockers Shit And Shine, grinding bass and drum duo Lightning Bolt and legendary weirdo drug rock combo Butthole Surfers. Then imagine the sort of din such a band could and would kick up and mix in all manner of mangled and freaked out electronics. Finally, imagine all of that noise being conjured up essentially by a single drum kit. And thus you have UK duo Gum Takes Tooth, which is essentially a drummer, whose drums are wired up to a dizzying array of home brewed electronics and tone bent circuit boards, with a second member tweaking and fucking with the sound in real time. 43 minutes of electronic-ed drumming might not sound that appealing to some folks, but don't make the call until you get an earful of the sounds these two whip up. Sure at times it's raw and rhythmic, noisy and chaotic, but the sounds here are all over the map, from super charged This Heat style rhythmic workouts, to blasting almost grind metal like blow outs, minimal FX fueled ambient drifts, to tripped out sci-fi psychedelia, murky, meandering distorto slow-core to frenzied noise drenched prog and pretty much every conceivable stop inbetween. Add in some Merzbow style noise, a little Psychic Paramount drum heavy post rock heaviness, some world music like tribalism, and stir it all up, and voila.
Opener "Young Mustard" is a pretty good sampling of what these guys are capable of, offering up a wild frenzy of tribal drum pound, weird processed vox, swirling electronics and FX, which eventually explode into some seriously aggro Lightning Bolt style, blast beat driven, downtuned grind, only to blossom into some Six Finger Satellite like synth-drum craziness, before the whole thing devolves into a abstract stretch of minimal clatter, random bloops and bleeps, swirling electronics, all beginning a slow build, the tribal drums swooping back in, slowly goring more distorted and intense, until finally fracturing into what sounds a bit like the Ruins crossed with Man Is The Bastard, thick blown out buzz low tones, pounding drums, howled processed vox, all woven into a seriously crushing electro-dirge.
"Tankjott" is another good one, starting out with some rapid fire kick drums, some gurgly vox, some squiggly electronics, building to a lurching, stuttery groove, soon more electronics, and more of that heavy bass buzz swoop in, and it's some sort of metallic krautpsych groove, with all manner of buzzes, strange twisted vocals, electronic pulses, before exploding into another fried and buzz drenched rhythmic workout, sounding to us like a way more chaotic / noisy / electronic version of MITB offshoot Geronimo, definitely the heaviest track here, sounding almost metal, but via Hawkwind and This Heat and Melt Banana and all blurred into some impossibly mesmerizing electrometal krautgroove, WAY too short at 7+ minutes.
And in between those two tracks, plenty of hypnotic, cyclical, rhythmic noise, progged out heaviness, stuttery drum heavy buzz and psychedelic noise rock, usually all at the same time, "Strychnine Motive" probably the most traditionally song sounding, but it's really relative, while "The Earth's Mantle Colonised" takes that same sort of sound and trips it WAY out into some sort of psychedelic space rock, the vocals chopped and processed, plenty of spacey squiggles and weird chanted vocals, the whole thing still drum driven big time, "Nomad/Monad" sounds like some bastardized gamelan orchestra, or a punk rock electronic noise version of Konono No.1, all looped thumb piano like melodies, tangled up and barraged by all manner of strange sounds, and then finally, record closer "Hermaphrodite And Nourishment" which does in fact feature a member of Shit And Shine on second drum kit, and while we were expecting a super frenzied drum heavy blowout, instead, it might be the pretties song on the record, all moody and loping and melodic, laced with ringing Tibetan bowls, crooned softly distorted vocals, squalls of feedback, and the cool thing is it never really explodes or freaks out, instead, it's just gorgeously mesmerizing and hypnotic, droned out and tribal, the perfect sort of sonic come down at a record that spends much of its time at a serious musical fever pitch.
Probably one of our most exciting recent musical discoveries (thanks Jason P.!), and with every listen this record continues to confound and delight and reveal more of the weird shit that seems to constantly be going on just below the surface, and odds are if you like any/some/all of the above mentioned bands, imagine them all mashed together and distilled into some wildly and gloriously twisted hybrid, and we imagine you'll probably be as knocked out as we were.
MPEG Stream: "Tankjott"
MPEG Stream: "The Earth's Mantle Colonised"
MPEG Stream: "Young Mustard"
MPEG Stream: "Strychnine Motive"

GUNN, STEVE Onomato Disc (Onomato) 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.
Steve Gunn of GHQ and Magik Markers among others, offers up some truly dreamy drone-y ragas on this WAY out of print super limited cd-r, originally released early last year, and inexplicably unreviewed until now. Guitars, banjo, voice and sample, woven into thick hypnotic mesmerizing swaths of buzz and strum, like Fahey arranged by Niblock. But that's just the first track. The other three tracks slip from blissed out psychfolk drift, lazy smoke-y guitars slithering through wispy clouds of whir and shimmer, to abstract, avant Appalachia, all obtuse strum and pick, to soft acoustic folk music, with lots of space, and gorgeous little tangles of minor key melody.
Definitely will appeal to fans of Blackshaw, Rose, and other dronefolkers. Packaged in cool hand assembled sleeves, hand stamped, with a photocopied insert, and a phot pasted to the front. Originally limited to 90 copies, this is obviously WAY sold out, and these are thus the last copies ever...
MPEG Stream: "Young Subjects"
MPEG Stream: "For Tyrone Hill"

GUNN, STEVE / ILYAS AHMED Decline Of The Stiff / Ignored The End (Immune) 7" 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yet another one of the ultra limited Record Store Day releases, we got enough of this one to review for all the faraway folks who couldn't be here on the day. A killer split, one side longtime aQ fave Ilyas Ahmed, teamed up with Steve Gunn on the other.
Ahmed offers up some warm sun dappled Appalachia, lush strummed 12 string guitars, all minor key and melancholic, accompanied by wispy reverbed vox, plaintive and intimate, the sound hazy and hypnotic. Near the end, buzzing streaks of electric guitar swoop in, hushed swells and layered harmonies, turning the folkiness into something more moody and softly psychedelic.
Gunn counters with his own take on Appalachia, a stripped down bluesy vamp, a little bit bluegrass, a bit folky, warm overtones, lots of layered buzz, Gunn's vocals deeper and more gruff, swaddled in reverb and delay, the various spidery melodies seem to grow more tangled as the song progresses, a gorgeous chunk of bluesy psych folk for sure.
LIMITED TO 800 COPIES, only 200 on clear, which are the ones we have. Housed in a super swank jacket with original artwork by Ahmed.

GUNSHOP s/t (C.I.P.) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Gunshop is the work of Chicago noise artist Blake Edwards. This album (quite possibly his first) falls cleanly within the purist boundaries of noise culture and power electronics, with elements of Mego's computerized collage stutter introducing extended passages of whistling electronic squeals found on all of the Whitehouse albums (no William Bennett-esque nightmarish rants on Gunshop tho). What is surprising about this record is how it relies on the subtlety of sound rather than the all consuming control of the listening experience...

GUNTER, BERNHARD brown, blue, brown on blue (for Mark Rothko) (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Inspired by the modernist minimalism of Mark Rothko, Bernhard Gunter presents a rather audible composition (in comparison to his other not so audible records) of his dark gray minimalism in which gossamer fragments of droning sound are situated on the 'trademarked' silences as icy aural floes exposing their textural surfaces under sparse glimmers of lights. Recommended.

GUNTER, BERNHARD Crossing the River (Night Music) (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Byram once asked the rhetorical question, "What self-respecting composer doesn't have their oevre divided into three periods?" While Mr. Abbott was describing one of the many successes from the late period of Morton Feldman, Bernhard Gunter is a composer who hasn't had a long enough career to break into three distinct periods. However, I would postulate that with the trilogy of "Time, Dreaming Itself," "Then, Silence," and "Crossing The River (Night Music)," Gunter has created enough stylistic differences from his earliest recordings to warrant the claim that he has entered the second period of his life's work.
Where albums like "Un Peu De Neige Salie," and "Details Agrandis" situated barely audible pin pricks of piercing sounds against fields of Promethean silences, that aforementioned trilogy finds Gunter increasing the volume to far more perceptible levels and filling lengthy spaces with fluid passages of gradually building / decaying tonalities. He has proudly exclaimed all of his influences (Xenakis, Rothko, Feldman, Nono, and Bill Viola) through his work, and these pieces clearly show how great an influence Feldman especially has been upon his electro-acoustic minimalism. Gunter has quite literally been extending the slow motion aesthetics of Morton Feldman out of the chamber ensemble and into the language of electronic abstraction.
Gunter still maintains that all of his compositions are the manipulation of everyday sounds, yet these processed elements hold richly complex sonorous qualities that are more in common with oboes, cellos, and church organs than radiator pipes or rustled cutlery.
The problems with the argument that Gunter has entered his second period are obvious: his changes aren't terribly radical in scope, and may merely give evidence to his aesthetic malleability, he hasn't made any grand existential changes in his life that could warrant a profound change in aesthetic; and, of course, Gunter hasn't made such a proclamation.
Regardless of this silly romp into semantics, Gunter has produced his best record to date in "Crossing The River (Night Music)." Thank you for your patience.
RealAudio clip: "Crossing The River (Night Music)"

GUNTER, BERNHARD Details Agrandis (Table Of The Elements) cd 15.98

GUNTER, BERNHARD Monochrome Rust (12K) 2cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Monochrome Rust" -- which completes the ideas found on Gunter's "Monochrome White" double disc set -- finds Gunter returning to the space of near inaudibility as previously explored on his earlier work in "Details Agrandis" and "Un Peu De Neige Salie." I say near inaudibily, as Gunter has constructed this piece to maintain a consistency through the incredibly tiny crackling of digital shimmer and erratic high end warbling; but at normal listening levels, it is so quiet as to barely assert itself above the hard drive from the computer I'm using to write this review. When the drive powers down every couple of minutes and the sounds of "Monochrome Rust" are left to situate themselves against the background of Valencia Street road noise, this chorus of digital chirps is incredibly complex, building subtle repetitions and orchestrating various swells in density.
Gunter pairs "Monochome Rust" with "Differntial," an equally ephemeral construction that ripples with a vaguely noxious tonal frequency amidst the delicate digital clattering. I'm still much more of a fan of Gunter's recent "Crossing The River," but this is much more interesting than the majority of the Microsound encampment.
RealAudio clip: "Monochrome Rust"
RealAudio clip: "Differential"

GUNTER, BERNHARD Monochrome White (Line / 12K) 2cd 19.98
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The ultra-minimalist Bernhard Gunter created Monochrome White in attempts to simulate the experiential weightlessness that Gunter found within a recent Bill Viola retrospective of his video installations. Gunter conceptualized that this mimesis could take place through a steady spectrum of high frequencies, as if they could "lift it off the ground, so to speak." Monochrome White is just that: a barely wavering, stark white beam of high frequencies. Not bad, but this is certainly not one of Gunter's finer moments. If you're looking for one of his better recordings, check out Time, Dreaming Itself.

GUNTER, BERNHARD Redshift (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
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As Gunter's last couple of releases have been dedicated to Xenakis, Feldman, Bill Viola, Rothko, and Luigi Nono, his work could be qualified as a sort of ultra-minimalist portraiture, with each album as a quiet impression of how Gunter remembers and / or has been influenced by those artists. "Redshift" on the other hand had no specific artist in mind, though upon its completion, Gunter associated the work with the astronomical phenomenon of light from the farthest galaxies shifting to the red end of the light spectrum, offering proof of the theories that the universe is expanding. It's nice to see that an artist (especially one within the often stodgy field of minimalism) allows himself the freedom to actually listen to the work after its completion and form a unique association, instead of forcing the sounds of a composition into a predetermined conceptualization. Anyway, "Redshift" combines very quiet, digitally deconstructed textures of something like a glass bottle rubbing over wood or metal along with x-ray impressions of sound fluctuating from deep space. As the composition continues, Gunter incorporates the microtonal two note patterns which had been active in his Feldmanesque masterpiece "Crossing The River."
The second piece "Abscheid" is a wholly different composition of softened orchestral elements, what could be french horn, cello, church organ, and even a few pluckings of a harp, that have been drawn out into lovely darkened drones and sustained tonalities. Very nice.

GUNTER, BERNHARD Then, Silence (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
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With the recent reissues from Luigi Nono and Morton Feldman, their influences upon ultra-minimalist Bernhard Gunter appear quite pronounced, mostly through compositional similarities in building slow organic fluctuations, although all three have arrived at a similar timbre through differing methods and instrumentation. Gunter has, not surprisingly, dedicated Then, Silence to both Nono and Feldman, doing his best to hybridize both composers' idiosyncracies into his own quiet aesthetic. As with his more recent recordings, Gunter has resisted his propensity for quietness to the point of inaudibilty. Right from the beginning, Gunters maps out a series of low end processed tones which erupt with a piercing feedback frequency. With this being the loudest element of Gunter's composition (and his whole back catalogue for that matter!), it sets up a gradual decline in volume that persists until the final fade out of the 40 minute piece. While he's probably still composing within the confines of the computer, Gunter has been recently allowing his source material to have more of its own voice, and here a harmonium-esque organ is Gunter's featured instrument along with a variety of Pierre Schaeffer-esque cutlery clinks. A fitting homage to two of the 20th century's great composers.

GUNTER, BERNHARD Time, Dreaming Itself (Trente Oiseaux) cd 17.98
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With all of the sirens, cell phone conversations that need to be directed outside, and ambient street noise, a Bernhard Gunter record with all of the details buried deep within the non-space of quiet shouldn't be able to be heard above the ambient din of Aquarius. Yet, "Time, Dreaming Itself" is an outrageous Gunter record, simply because it's audible. Fragments of organ drone fizzle from complex fields of haziness into delicate detail work of crackling digital minutae. It could be that Gunter's intent has shifted way from allowing his work to slowly build out of silence into a louder volume that captures the listeners attention and then wanes into his more trademarked sub-audibilities!

GUNTER, BERNHARD / STEVE RODEN Japan (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
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Minimalist composers Bernhard Gunter and Steve Roden had intended on selling this split CD exclusively on their tour in Japan in November 2001, but became so fond of the recordings they decided to let the rest of the world have access to them as well. Gunter offers very very very quiet musing on the textures of shortwave radio. Beginning with extended silences, Gunter allows for tiny scrapes to come through his shortwave as if some electrical field (like lightning or sunspot activity) were crackling through an empty shortwave channel. Gradually, other shortwave sounds of grounding static and modulating heterodynes filter up through the mix, forming structural loops and delicate fluctuations. Steve Roden temporarily turns away from the extremely minimalist ethos usually found within Trente Oiseaux's tableaux with one of his two pieces being a performance on a zither, being both bowed and plucked. His second piece is far more indicative of the typical ice-floe constructions of Trente Oiseaux, as recordings of the same steel strung instrument have been processed with various computer ring modulators.
RealAudio clip: BERNHARD GUNTER "Particles / Waves"
RealAudio clip: STEVE RODEN "Every Color Moving"
RealAudio clip: STEVE RODEN "Eden"

GURDJIEFF, G.I. Harmonic Development: The Complete Harmonium Recordings 1948-1949 (Basta) 3cd + book 60.00
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Oh boy! This is another one of those releases that pushes all of our overwhelming music obsessive buttons, like the Conet Project, The Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv 1900-2000 box, the Yahowa 13cd box, the 50 cd Merzbox, the Ayler Holy Ghost box...
Compiled and produced by Gert-Jan Blom of the Beau Hunks, Harmonic Development brings to light the long lost harmonium performances of the fascinating Georg Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866-1949) whom some of you will know much better as a thinker and philosopher than a musician. This release consists of a beautifully designed 140 page softbound book filled with tons of photos and historical and personal minutae, accompanied by two compact discs of music in a digipack AND an additional disc of mp3's (that brings the total amount of music to over 19 hours!!) as well as a cool MPEG video of Gurdjieff home movies. Holy crap! So first, who was G.I. Gurdjieff? Well, the simple version is that Gurdjieff was an early twentieth century Russian mystic (and retired hypnotist), who drew inspiration from Sufism, and was fascinated with music. Gurdjieff had composed for piano for some years, but late in life he acquired first a wire recorder, and then a tape recorder, to document his improvisations (his "moosic") on the harmonium, a sort of pump organ, that produces a sound that is rich and full, a sort of lush, wheezing melodious moan, haunting and otherworldly. This collection gathers up recordings from the forties, from the last few years of Gurdjieff's life, and feature loads of intimate performances, several talks, and lots of ambient chit chat. It seems that Gurdjieff would perform a piece, slow and sad and gorgeously dreamy, enveloping all of his listeners in the mood, and when he was finished, he would then crack jokes and make small talk. Many of these performances feature this strange juxtaposition of almost religious intensity, and breezy lighthearted banter, which was somehow another part of his unique world view. We've yet to delve completely into the book, but even on their own, the discs are wonderful and completely mesmerizing, offering up hours of droney, mysterious harmonium music, but all sorts of ambient sounds and snippets of conversations as well, giving these recordings almost the same sort of vibe as the Conet Project, a distant dark mystery, as if these sounds were pulled from the ether, captured from another world and another time. At once recognizable, but at the same time totally alien.
And as you enjoy the hours of recordings, you can peruse the book which contains a preface by Robert Fripp, information on the unearthing and restoration of the recordings, track notes, transcriptions of the talks, as well as recollections of Gurdjieff's final year from a host of friends and students, among them the daughter of Frank Lloyd Wright.
MPEG Stream: "1B) New York Numbers #2"
MPEG Stream: "Wire B/1"

GURDJIEFF, G.I. Improvisations (Mississippi / Psychic Sounds Research) lp 16.98
There's an ongoing argument at aQ headquarters about which is more preferable: a selection of a artist's musical works or the -complete- recordings. Of course that questions is completely relative to which artist one is talking about, and everyone will have a totally different opinion based on who you ask. But it instantly came to mind when we got this gorgeous new Mississippi reissue of Gurdjieff Harmonium Improvisations.
A little backstory: The fascinating Georg Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866-1949) whom some of you will know much better as a thinker and philosopher than a musician, was an early twentieth century Russian mystic (and retired hypnotist), who drew inspiration from Sufism, and was fascinated with music. Gurdjieff had composed for piano for some years, but late in life he acquired first a wire recorder, and then a tape recorder, to document his improvisations (his "moosic") on the harmonium, a sort of pump organ, that produces a sound that is rich and full, a sort of lush, wheezing melodious moan, haunting and otherworldly. He would often record these performances after hosting dinners and various social gatherings in New York and Paris both during its occupation and then right after the war had ended. Most of the surviving recordings come from the last year of his life.
Awhile back we got in a sprawling multi-disc / hardcover book box set on Basta (which is now sadly out of print), of his complete Harmonium Recordings. Over two cds, AND a third disc of mp3s, the entire output was 53 tracks and about 19 hours! That's a lot of harmonium recordings, and needless to say a bit daunting to take in and absorb, even if it was totally amazing. But what was really cool about that vast collection was the super intimate performances and long durations of the pieces (most in the 9-20 minute range), the sound of the harmonium peppered with all sorts of incidental ambience. It seems that Gurdjieff would perform a piece, slow and sad and gorgeously dreamy, enveloping all of his listeners in the mood, and when he was finished, he would then crack jokes and make small talk. Many of these performances feature this strange juxtaposition of almost religious intensity, and breezy lighthearted banter, which was somehow another part of his unique world view.
This current collection on Mississippi was originally issued as a French private press release in 1971 and is a sampling of seven performances between April and October of 1949. While taken from the vast collection of recordings, we believe they were edited down for length with much of the external ambience (banter, coughing, bellow clatter, etc) taken out, save for a final "Amen" at the very end of side 2, which is totally apropos, given the spiritual quality of the performances. The music though, is wonderful and completely mesmerizing, offering up lush, meditative, ritualistic, droney, melancholic harmonium music, a distant dark mystery, as if these minor key sounds were pulled from the ether, captured from another world and another time. Not quite ragas, more like slow and sad oceanic sea shanties. At once recognizable, but at the same time totally alien.
An early predecessor to the searching individualistic devotional recordings of Joakim Skogsberg, Daniel Higgs and Malachi, this is a perfect antidote for those seeking an immersion into Gurdjieff's mystical sound world without having to commit to a complete lifetime of listening.
A NOTE ABOUT THE SOUND SAMPLES: Due to the different title methods used between this record and the Basta collection, we couldn't find an exact match for sound samples, so we took similar sounding pieces from the same period from the Basta collection so you can get an idea of what this sounds like more or less.
MPEG Stream: "sample 1"
MPEG Stream: "sample 2"

GUS COMA Color Him Coma (Paradigm Discs) 2cd 19.98
We didn't know too much about this, other than it's a lost eighties recording of turntable manipulation and plunderphonia from a member of Homosexuals related outfit Milk From Cheltenham (the band whose name inspired Stephen Stapleton of Nurse With Wound to name his label United Dairies by the way), but really they had us at turntable manipulation and plunderphonia, and that's just what this is, split into a bunch of short tracks, this plays as a single sprawling dizzying epic, which apparently was born of multiple mixes of a song built from a ROOM SIZED 24 track loop, and it's pretty crazy, sample voices, snippets of orchestras, pounding percussion, woozy strings, the sounds warped and warbly, distorted and a little crackly, booming reverbed pianos, creepy snippets of soundtracks, bleating horns, excerpts from some old language lesson tape, skittery jazz, constantly shifting pitches, lots of warble, the sounds themselves strange, but their condition, and their treatment, including what sounds like manual finger on the record manipulation, is what really makes this so psychedelic and tweaked sounding. Many of the sounds here were unused and remixed excerpts of recordings which would eventually become the title track of the Milk From Cheltenham lp, which according to the label was "a tape collage of the live mixdown of 17 cassette recordings of locked record grooves, simultaneously, with stray radio and an infernal matchbox."
Apparently, the second disc is a collection of recordings discovered while digging through tapes in search of a master for disc one, and plays out much like the first disc with the main difference being a bit of bizarre and primitive drum programming, otherwise, it's another dizzying collection of strange sounds, mysterious voices, sonic snippets, all constantly manipulated and messed with. Although those rhythms somehow make it sound even more fractured and fucked up. Definitely the sort of thing that should appeal to fans of John Oswald, Negativland, Philip Jeck, Otomo Yoshihide, Strotter Inst, LAFMS, Dennis Duck, Martin Tetreault and other tape loop / turntable experimentalists.
Both discs include lengthy bonus tracks featuring yet more material, in this case intended for a never realized second Milk From Cheltenham lp, and while there's a booklet / poster, it doesn't offer much in the way of liner notes...
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "3"
MPEG Stream: "6"
MPEG Stream: "10"
MPEG Stream: "12"
MPEG Stream: "14"

GUTZEIT, BRENT New Kmocas (BOXmedia) cd-r 8.98
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I've been seeing Brent Gutzeit's name popping up recently as the guy who will open for any experimental artist who is touring the States... He played with Reynols, Mikael Stavostrand, Oval, and Stillupsteypa. You can certainly see why he's been getting such nice gigs. "New Kmocas" is a recent cd-r release of ring modulating bell tones that continuously drone until tight controlled blasts of noise glitch change the aural scenario. Pretty good stuff, and look for a Mort Aux Vaches and a Meme release. Hopefully all of this work will be as good as this one and won't suffer the problem of too much promotion and not enough thought put into the music.

GYDJA Umbilicus Maris (Mystery Sea) cd-r 17.98
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Another gorgeous release from Mystery Sea, whose sonic focus is on "night-ocean drones", and more than anything we've heard on MS, Umbilicus Maris by New Zealand one woman drone outfit Gydja perfectly embodies that focus.
Umbilicus Maris is very oceanic, aquatic, even sub-aquatic. The rhythm is tidal, a subtle pulse, a gradual swell, the sounds shift and shimmer like light through water, and of the handful of Mystery Sea releases we've heard, Umbilicus Maris is the loudest and most active. That's in no way to infer that this is anything but drifting blissy ambience. It most certainly is, but the sounds are not lowercase. Not barely audible. Abby Helasdottir, the sole soul behind Gydja, brings the sounds to the fore, they are dark and mysterious, droning and drifting, but they are loud, the listener can hear them, FEEL them, peer inside and around, can experience the sound physically, get lost inside the sound. A pair of headphones is all you need to get sucked under, floating weightless in a strange sun dappled undersea world of sound.
Field recordings (tides, oceans, streams?) are mixed with performances, all processed into some otherworldly soundscape, or seascape. Burbling, shimmering, glistening, glimmering, everything slightly blurry, warped and warbled, multiple layers, shifting and drifting, low end rumbles slowly drift to the surface, where strange sonic skitters and burbles float on the surface, everything drenched in echo and reverb, like some massive undersea cavern, lit only by a single shaft of sunlight, the sounds of dripping water magnified into swirls of sound, distant percussive pings, an ultra abstract undersea dub. So completely warm and dreamlike, headphones like a diving bell, eyes closed, no need to breathe, letting the sound wash over you, slowly sinking to the bottom of some warm sonic sea. Absolutely gorgeous.
And like all Mystery Sea releases, LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each disc numbered, and gorgeously packaged in striking full color artwork.
MPEG Stream: "Beyond The Earth's Edge"
MPEG Stream: "The Wave, With Red Stain Running"

H>OST Cin (V/VM Test Records) cd 14.98
First V/VM Test release that isn't a completely moronic conceptual art piece of shit. H>OST is the work of Polish artist Jacek Toszek. Cold and beautiful sonic landscapes much like those found in his native land, Toszek captures and embraces the frigidity inherent in electro-acoustic music and exploits it in the context of lifeless electronica.