JOHANNSSON, JOHANN Englaborn (Touch) lp 16.98
This AQ favorite, finally available on vinyl!
Founding member of the Kitchen Motors arts organization in Reykjavik, Johann Johannsson has been at the forefront of adventurous music in Iceland, performing with the Apparat Organ Ensemble and working with some of the more acclaimed Icelandic exports (i.e. members of Sigur Ros, Mum, Stilluppsteypa, Halfer Trio, etc.). Englaborn is the first album for Johannsson, who reconstructed this album from the score he wrote for the stage play by Havar Sigurjonsson. Johannsson stated that "The play is extremely violent and disturbing; and basically, when faced with the script, I decided to work against it as much as possible and just try to write the most beautiful music I could." While we do not have the benefit of witnessing the play itself or any images for that matter (beautiful Jon Wozencroft photographs of the sea grace the cover of this album), Johannsson invokes a profound sadness through his descending chord progressions for the Epos Spring Quartet which he augments with Spartan use of percussion, electronics, piano, computerized voices, and harmonium. Where Sigur Ros has crafted grandiose operas of Icelandic melancholia, Johann Johannsson simplifies his scores into poignant short stories that nevertheless resonate with those emotions.
MPEG Stream: "Odi Et Amo"
MPEG Stream: "Eg Atti Graa Asku"
MPEG Stream: "ef Eg Hefdi Aldrei..."

JOHANNSSON, JOHANN Virdulegu Forsetar (Touch) 2cd 17.98
Johann Johannsson is fast becoming one of the bright lights in the already talent rich Icelandic underground music scene. Having helped found the Kitchen Motors arts organization in Reykjavik, Johannsson has also performed with the Apparat Organ Ensemble as well as members of Sigur Ros, Mum, Stilluppsteypa and more.
We raved about Johannsson's debut album Englaborn. But while this new release is sonically quite different, it retains many of the elements that we found so appealing on Englaborn. Virdulegu Forsetar is an hour long piece written for 11 brass players (trumpets, horns, tuba), percussion (Glockenspiel and bells), electronics, organs and piano.
Virdulegu is not as much of an all drone record as his debut, but most definitely still contains many drone-y parts and drone-like elements. A brooding, slow building, minor key, cinematic epic. Warm and lush, rich with harmonic overtones, and melodically very grandiose. The sounds here are very visual and definitely bring to mind vast expanses of land or space, whether it's the sun slowly rising over the desert, the moon peeeking from behind a planet, a slowly spiralling galaxy, and even the Olympics. Huh? Yep, the Olympics. The melodies and instrumentation are quite similar to the fanfares used during the opening ceremonies, or over montages of past Olympiads. It's a little distracting, but quite lovely nonetheless. And of course much darker and dronier than any of the music actually used for the Olympics. Each epic fanfare / flourish dissipates into a rumbling subterranean drone, where it hovers and slowly shifts until another fanfare surfaces in it's place, shines briefly, only to quickly sink back into the inky darkness. This would be the perfect music for the Drone Olympics that we plan on holding in 2006!
MPEG Stream: "Part One"

JOHANNSSON, JOHANN Virdulegu Forsetar (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.
A reissue of the 2004 album Virdulegu Forsetar from Iceland's post-classical composer Johann Johannsson. Since the release of this album, Johannsson has jumped from Touch to 4AD, with international acclaim following right along. Virdulegu Forsetar is an hour long piece written for 11 brass players (trumpets, horns, tuba), percussion (Glockenspiel and bells), electronics, organs and piano. Virdulegu is all brooding, slow building, minor key, cinematic epic. Warm and lush, rich with harmonic overtones, and melodically very grandiose. The sounds here are very visual and definitely bring to mind vast expanses of land or space, whether it's the sun slowly rising over the desert, the moon peeking from behind a planet, a slowly spiralling galaxy, and even the Olympics. Huh? Yep, the Olympics. The melodies and instrumentation are quite similar to the fanfares used during the opening ceremonies, or over montages of past Olympiads, lovely nonetheless. And of course much darker and dronier than any of the music actually used for the Olympics. Each epic fanfare / flourish dissipates into a rumbling subterranean drone, where it hovers and slowly shifts until another fanfare surfaces in it's place, shines briefly, only to quickly sink back into the inky darkness.
MPEG Stream: "Part One"

JOHANSSON, JERRY Next Door Conversation (Kning Disk) cd 14.98
Sitar raga music from Sweden? Sure! On the Swedish label Kning Disk, who last brought us cds by Wolf Eyes and James Blackshaw -- so we'd expect just about anything (interesting) from them. Composer/arranger Jerry Johansson is a sitar player (who studied with sitar master Roop Verma, who was taught by Ravi Shankar). Here he presents his piece "Next Door Conversation", in two parts, 53 minutes total. His sitar is the lead instrument, and in traditional style he's accompanied by santour and tambura -- but also by a violin/violin/viola/cello string quartet from the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra! Shades of Kronos, eh?
It's a dreamy, slowly unfolding, sitar n' strings soundscape, the Eastern twang of Johansson's sitar calmly contrasting with the more cinematic sweep of the string quartet, each recontextualizing the other. With sounds from the subcontinent and Swedish folk motifs both incorporated, this is a gorgeous East-West hybrid indeed, and crosses over other borders to somehow remind us of everything from Spaghetti Western soundtracks to Chinese orchestral music. Gosh, there's not much more to say other than, enjoy!
MPEG Stream: "Next Door Conversation Part I (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Next Door Conversation Part I (excerpt 2)"

JOHN WILKES BOOZE Five Pillars Of Soul (Kill Rock Stars) cd 14.98
For those of you who missed out on the super limited handmade Five Pillars Of Soul cd-r's JWB released one at a time over the last couple years, you can once again thank your lucky stars, you've been saved. And those of you who did manage to get em, well, why not get this handy disc that collects all 5 cd-r's onto a real cd with even more extensive liner notes added.
While this is purportedly a tribute to soul music, the soul music seems to be mostly implied here, like 'soul' in spirit, in concept, in intention, but not in execution. Which is not a bad thing. This -is- soul music, but the way it can only be played by middle class, white, mid-western boys. All shrieking, skronking, sweaty, pounding, rocking and GROOVING. You can catch glimpses of the Make Up, the Blues Explosion, the White Stripes, New York Dolls, as well as Alice Donut (especially in the vocals). Weird and pretty wonderful. Spazzy, soulful, glammy ROCK AND ROLL. There are 5 volumes. Short and sweet (each clocking in at 10-15 minutes) and all in honor of JWB's peculiar ideas of the pillars of soul: Melvin Van Peebles, Tania Hearst (Patty Hearst with her SLA name), Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan and Yoko Ono. They also throw in some covers of the Zombies, the Fugs, and Mission Of Burma but turn them into punky soul-fuck explosions... Good stuff. Although I'm still clinging to the belief that the sixth pillar must be BRUCE WILLIS!!!
MPEG Stream: "Sweetback's Gonna Make It"
MPEG Stream: "See Through Sound"

JOHN WILKES BOOZE Five Pillars Of Soul Vol.1: Melvin Van Peebles (Affirmation) 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.
While this is purportedly a tribute to soul music, the soul music seems to be mostly implied here, like 'soul' in spirit, in concept, in intention, but not in execution. Which is not a bad thing. This -is- soul music, but the way it can only be played by middle class, white, mid-western boys. All shrieking, skronking, sweaty, pounding, rocking and GROOVING. You can catch glimpses of the Make Up, the Blues Explosion, the White Stripes, New York Dolls, as well as Alice Donut (especially in the vocals). Weird and pretty wonderful. Spazzy, soulful, glammy ROCK AND ROLL. There are 5 volumes (we have the first four). Short and sweet (almost too short, clocking in at 10-15 minutes) and all in honor of JWB's peculiar ideas of the pillars of soul: Melvin Van Peebles, Tania Hearst (Patty Hearst with her SLA name), Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan and the as yet to be announced 5th pillar.
Nice handmade sleeves with cool/funny liner notes. They do covers of the Zombies, the Fugs, and Mission Of Burma and turn them into punky soul explosions... Good stuff, here's hoping the fifth pillar is BRUCE WILLIS!!!
RealAudio clip: "Sweetback's Gonna Make It"
RealAudio clip: "Brer Soul Is On The Street"

JOHN WILKES BOOZE Five Pillars Of Soul Vol.2: Tania Hearst (Affirmation) 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.
While this is purportedly a tribute to soul music, the soul music seems to be mostly implied here, like 'soul' in spirit, in concept, in intention, but not in execution. Which is not a bad thing. This -is- soul music, but the way it can only be played by middle class, white, mid-western boys. All shrieking, skronking, sweaty, pounding, rocking and GROOVING. You can catch glimpses of the Make Up, the Blues Explosion, the White Stripes, New York Dolls, as well as Alice Donut (especially in the vocals). Weird and pretty wonderful. Spazzy, soulful, glammy ROCK AND ROLL. There are 5 volumes (we have the first four). Short and sweet (almost too short, clocking in at 10-15 minutes) and all in honor of JWB's peculiar ideas of the pillars of soul: Mario Van Peebles, Tania Hearst (Patty Hearst with her SLA name), Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan and the as yet to be announced 5th pillar.
Nice handmade sleeves with cool/funny liner notes. They do covers of the Zombies, the Fugs, and Mission Of Burma and turn them into punky soul explosions... Good stuff, here's hoping the fifth pillar is BRUCE WILLIS!!!
RealAudio clip: "SLA Popcorn"
RealAudio clip: "A Butcher's Tale"

JOHN WILKES BOOZE Five Pillars Of Soul Vol.3: Albert Ayler (Affirmation) 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.
While this is purportedly a tribute to soul music, the soul music seems to be mostly implied here, like 'soul' in spirit, in concept, in intention, but not in execution. Which is not a bad thing. This -is- soul music, but the way it can only be played by middle class, white, mid-western boys. All shrieking, skronking, sweaty, pounding, rocking and GROOVING. You can catch glimpses of the Make Up, the Blues Explosion, the White Stripes, New York Dolls, as well as Alice Donut (especially in the vocals). Weird and pretty wonderful. Spazzy, soulful, glammy ROCK AND ROLL. There are 5 volumes (we have the first four). Short and sweet (almost too short, clocking in at 10-15 minutes) and all in honor of JWB's peculiar ideas of the pillars of soul: Mario Van Peebles, Tania Hearst (Patty Hearst with her SLA name), Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan and the as yet to be announced 5th pillar.
Nice handmade sleeves with cool/funny liner notes. They do covers of the Zombies, the Fugs, and Mission Of Burma and turn them into punky soul explosions... Good stuff, here's hoping the fifth pillar is BRUCE WILLIS!!!
RealAudio clip: "They Dont Like Me In This Town"
RealAudio clip: "Death Of A Jazz Musician"

JOHN WILKES BOOZE Five Pillars Of Soul Vol.4: Marc Bolan (Affirmation) 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.
While this is purportedly a tribute to soul music, the soul music seems to be mostly implied here, like 'soul' in spirit, in concept, in intention, but not in execution. Which is not a bad thing. This -is- soul music, but the way it can only be played by middle class, white, mid-western boys. All shrieking, skronking, sweaty, pounding, rocking and GROOVING. You can catch glimpses of the Make Up, the Blues Explosion, the White Stripes, New York Dolls, as well as Alice Donut (especially in the vocals). Weird and pretty wonderful. Spazzy, soulful, glammy ROCK AND ROLL. There are 5 volumes (we have the first four). Short and sweet (almost too short, clocking in at 10-15 minutes) and all in honor of JWB's peculiar ideas of the pillars of soul: Mario Van Peebles, Tania Hearst (Patty Hearst with her SLA name), Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan and the as yet to be announced 5th pillar.
Nice handmade sleeves with cool/funny liner notes. They do covers of the Zombies, the Fugs, and Mission Of Burma and turn them into punky soul explosions... Good stuff, here's hoping the fifth pillar is BRUCE WILLIS!!!
RealAudio clip: "Academy Flight Song"
RealAudio clip: "Rock 'n' Roll Star"

JOHNSTON, DEMIAN & KEVIN GAN YUEN Keep Your Hands (Debacle) 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.
One of two new releases this week from the always awesome Debacle Records (Expo 70, The Slaves, Megabats and about a million more), the other is some gorgeously druggy and dreamy downercore bedroom pop from Cough Cool, this one is a cool collaboration from Demian Johnston, whose team up with Mink Stole we raved about a few lists back, and who was once a member of late great kick ass postpunk metalcore heavies Kiss It goodbye. But on the solo stuff we've heard so far, Johnston tends toward dark and blackened drones, which makes this collaboration all the more apt, with Johnston joined by Kevin Gan Yuen, one half of local black metal noise merchants Sutekh Hexen.
And thus you can imagine the sort of sinister sounds these two conjure up. Deep devilish rumblings, strange bits of percussion and creepy sonic detritus, a roiling black sea of blurred tarpit riffage, laced with chiming harmonics, haunting barely there melodies, the sound dense and heavily layered, slipping from meditative thrum to churning gnarled crush and back again, shifting from Wolf Eyes-ish black industrial creep, to thick pulsating SUNNO))) like black hold doom, to swirling, almost pretty blackbliss ambience. The two occasionally dip their deep rumblings in something more caustic and corrosive, adding a patina of crumbling hiss, and gristly static, but just as often, smearing those sounds into another layer of undulating buzz and blur, the twisted chugging slo-mo near-static riffage at one point wreathed in the sound or falling rain, creating a weirdly atmospheric stretch of ambience that evokes some sort of unholy black storm, before splintering into one final blast of grinding low end crunch.
Sweet stuff, WAY recommended for fans of grim black slow low heaviness, and creepy, sinister, blackhole buzz, which we're guessing probably includes a whole lot of you...
LIMITED TO 120 COPIES!!
MPEG Stream: "Told Outloud Indoors"

JOHNSTON, DEMIAN & MINK STOLE Trailed & Kept (Debacle) cd-r 8.98
We're beginning to think that Debacle might just have to be our new favorite label. Certainly one of the coolest weirdest cd-r labels around. With a massive catalog we've only begun to work our way through, the spaced out krautdrone bliss of Expo 70, the hazy mantra like synth/vocal ritualism of the Slaves, and the tripped out synthscapery of Megabats, all killed, and now we have these, one of two releases on this week's list from Demian Johnston, who we knew nothing about, until we read that maybe he was in legendary technical metalcore outfit Kiss It Goodbye, which makes more sense here (than on the split tape with Mamiffer, reviewed elsewhere on this list), as this is some seriously corrosive, and caustic heaviness, not in the sense of metal, or rock, or even riffing, this is some dense, heaving, roiling blacknoise ambience that rivals Blue Sabbath Black Cheer for sheer power and intensity, but unlike the nearly impenetrable black hole sound of BSBC, the sounds here are infused with melody, and for every blast of brutality, there's a stretch of hushed shimmer, or creeping minimal drift.
Oh did we mention we have no idea who or what Mink Stole is either? The Debacle site offers no insights, a quick web search reveals that it's a guy called Chris Negrete, and that this whole record was born of a single guitar effects improv jam, recorded live, by Johnston, and then sent off to Negrete to fuck with, and fuck with he did, adding all manner of texture, extra noise, percussion, transforming a cloud of swirling guitar growl into a sprawling soundscape of black ambience, and foggy low end creep. The opening track is a harsh blast, but the follow up is a hazy, distorted slowcore free-drone drift, the record unwinds and unfurls gradually, slipping from sound to sound, hazy almost new agey krautdrone one minute, complete with haunting crooned vox, to deep minimal ambient thrum the next, an oozing black cloud of sound, laced with thick percussive low end flutters, and blasts of tweaked effects, otherworldly and a bit harrowing. Elsewhere thick swells of metallic buzz pulse over creaking, groaning industrial landscapes, SUNN-like sheets of blackdrone guitar buzz billow over buried barely there melodies, washed out shimmers float weightlessly alongside operatic vocals, in a gauzy expanse of warm layered warble and crystalline guitar shimmer, and roiling seas of whir and hiss churn over a submerged series of mechanical drones and machine like pulsations. Awesome, and dark. For fans of Kevin Drumm, Prurient, Wolf Eyes, and the grim bleak side of the black drone spectrum.
MPEG Stream: "Crept Into Homes"
MPEG Stream: "Burn Under Our Fingernails"
MPEG Stream: "Devil Takes The Something"

JON AD Mega-Plaskweeebo (Grand Cooley) cassette 6.98
SKWEEE!! DJ Jon AD (who runs the LoDubs and losonofono labels as well as the kick ass Anthem Records store in Portland) claims responsibility for the "first skweee mixed cassette in the known universe". Yep, that's probably correct. Kudos to him, and as skweee connoisseurs ourselves, we can tell you it's a damn fine mix, dense with percolating glitch and electronic future-funk freakiness from some of the best in the biz.
And you're reading this and wondering what the heck this "skweee" is of which we speak, well first off this tape will school you, and secondly, just do a quick search on our site and you'll find reviews of previous skweee comps like Skweee Cruise and Skweee Tooth that should explain it.
Jon wanted to demonstrate that skweee can rock a (dance) party, and definitely succeeds. We like how he mixes in a few ringers - non-skweee, or perhaps we should say pre-skweee (?) tracks by the likes of Boogie Down Productions and the Beastie Boys, to give the listener a sense of skweee's hiphop, b-boy roots. The tape is also crammed, of course, with the work of such Scandinavian skweee luminaries as Limonious, Daniel Savio, Spartan Lover, Mangrove, Uday, Rigas Den Andre, V.C., Randy Barracuda, Slow Hand Motem, Beem, and Joxaren. The new wave of American skweee is represented too, with Portland's Lazercrotch leading off side A...
Over the whole tape, there's nearly 30 individual skweee cuts seamlessly mixed together, in quite a dense and frenzied fashion. Each side of this C-60 cassette was recorded in a single take, with two turntables, mixer, and effects ('cause skweee can always use MORE video game zipps and zapps).
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!! Comes with download code, so you don't actually need a tape deck...
MPEG Stream: "excerpt side A"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt side B"

JONES, GLENN / BLACK TWIG PICKERS WITH CHARLIE PARR Even To Win Is To Fail / EastMont Syrup (Thrill Jockey) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A fantastic split lp released for Record Store Day, on one side Mr. Glenn Jones, formerly of modern krautrockers Cul De Sac, now an undisputed master of the Appalachian guitar, on the other side, a bluegrass hoedown teamup, bluesman Charlie Parr and country string band the Black Twig Pickers.
Fans of Jack Rose (who Jones dedicated this record to), James Blackshaw, Marisa Nadler, Ilyas Ahmed, Tom Carter and the like who haven't heard Glenn Jones, now's the time to remedy that for sure. Lush tangles of intricate steel string picking, gorgeous melodies, plenty of buzz and slippery slide, rich overtones, from moody dark drift to effusive folk flecked twang, every track here is a gem, Jones a modern master of the Appalachian guitar.
The flipside finds Parr shacking up with The Black Twig Pickers for a serious hootenanny, a back porch, sun-going-down, campfire country folk bluegrass jam session, fiddles, banjos, steel string guitars, all whipping up a wild rollicking country workout, from dark haunting twang to old timey blues, from rollicking hoedown to mournful lament...
LIMITED Record Store Day release, so these may not be around for long. Housed in a super heavy full color jacket, includes a download coupon, and multiple inserts, including some recipes from Charlie Parr.

JONES, JOE Back and Forth Exhibition Sound (? Records) cd 22.00
Another clattery automated masterpiece from composer Joe Jones. It's hard to gather any information from the liner-note-less cd booklet or from the almost information-less website (what info there is, is in German) but what we can tell you, is Jones creates automated, often solar powered machines that beat drums, hit cymbals, strum autoharps and create mysterious, noisy robot jams, simple thumping caveman beats and cacophonous metallic clangs meander nervously over a continuous high end whir. Sort of like an android No Neck Blues Band warming up while Skullflower rehearses down the hall. Nice.
RealAudio clip: "Back And Forth"

JONES, MASON Crystalline World of Memory (Public Eyesore) cd-r 8.98
Local experimental guitarist Mason Jones -- you know him from his popular space rock band Subaranoid Space, and perhaps also from his isolationist guitar explorations under the name Trance (a moniker it seems he's dispensed with here), or his Japan-o-centric music 'zine Ongaku Otaku, or his former label Charnel Music, or his other dabblings in the world of Japanese noise, etc. -- presents this cd-r of guitar music. Really beautiful, spaced-out guitar music. These nine tracks incorporate both lovely, melodic note-picking and echo-effected ambience. We know Mason's got a ton of effects pedals and isn't afraid to use 'em, but the underwater drones and neighing-horse symphonies he creates don't stop him from actually utilizing his guitar in a more conventional sense here as well. Mason's pleasant, kinda sixties-sci-fi-sounding playing on this solo project (live to DAT, with subsequent edits) falls in zone somewhere betwixt the pretty post-rock dynamics of, say, Sonna, and the physicality and psychedelia of a Kawabata Makoto... good stuff Mason!
RealAudio clip: "Snow In The Morning"
RealAudio clip: "The Last Remembered Moment"

JONES, MASON Quiet Sparks (CIL KYOTO) cd-r 11.98

JOOKLO DUO High (Troglosound) 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 had never even heard of Jooklo Duo until recently. Even though they have oodles of records and cd-r's out, many of them on their own Troglosound imprint. No use kicking ourselves, all we can do is dig in and catch up, which we're doing big time. Not only do we have this kick ass, super limited tour only cd-r, available only at shows on their current US tour OR from aQuarius, nowhere else, we're copresenting their show at Cafe Du Nord on April 21st (more on that elsewhere on this week's list), we're also hosting a Jooklo Duo instore on April 20th (also more about that elsewhere on this list). So by all means, come to the instore, go to the Du Nord show, and buy one of these cd-r's before they're gone, you won't regret it.
So for those of you, like us, who are relatively new to the magic of the Jooklo Duo, are the Italian duo of Virginia Genta on sax, flute and voice, and David Vanzan on drums and percussion, they're sort of free jazz, but also just sort of spaced out avant improv, as at home jamming with Burnt Hills or No Neck as they are on a jazz bill, maybe more so. They incorporate all sort of haunting vocals and chants, into their constantly shifting skittery improvised mystical sound explorations. Eastern melodies, Gamelan sounds, it's free, and improvised, but also mystical, occultic, spiritual, the sound of revolutionary sixties free music, channeled through the spirit of today.
On High, available only at aQ and at shows, the duo are on fire, maybe one of their most intense recordings ever, the sax is blown out, in the red, fierce and fiery, the drums, wild and octopoidal, the two instruments, dancing around each other, frenzied and frantic, and about as heavy as free music gets, they're heavily influenced by Coltrane and Ayler and Cherry and Coleman, and it's easy to hear that on High, it's like post post POST bop, the sax is a lethal weapon, the drums laying down suppressive fire, a totally transcendent, epic, mind blowing, next level, free jazz blowout. WAY recommended, as are the upcoming shows.
LIMITED TO ONLY 100 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. We got about half, you can only get them here at aQ, or at the shows on this tour, they're packaged in super swank paste on cardstock sleeves, with a super striking miniature full color version of the SF show poster inside. For more on the tour, the SF show, the other bands playing, the cd-r, and the Jooklo Duo in general, go here: http://troglobloger.blogspot.com
MPEG Stream: "Serpents Now"
MPEG Stream: "Pawa Now"
MPEG Stream: "All Sounds"

JOOKLO DUO The Warrior (Northern Spy) 7" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest blast of blown out, super fierce and fiery free jazz pummel from this Italian duo, whose last tour cd-r was a huge hit around here, and whose surprisingly hushed and minimal instore was pretty fantastic. But for those of you who lucked out and snagged one of those cd-r's or saw the duo perform live when they were in SF, you know what you're in for, two sides, two tracks brimming with nonstop, relentless, frantic, frenetic, explosive super rhythmic, wildly tangled and super psychedelic next level free jazz freakout. The drums never let up, laying down a super textured avalanche of rhythmic shuffle and skitter and pound, a non stop drum solo, that manages to be totally free, yet somehow strangely rhythmic, but it's the sax and clarinet, wielded by Virginia Genta, that drives these jams, the sounds she gets out of her horns are inhuman, alien, free jazz may skronk and squeal, but this stuff SHRIEKS and GRINDS and is just a face peeling onslaught of strangled notes, atonal melodies and wild high end squiggles. There are bits of extra percussion, some vocals, even a little blast of harmonica (?), but this is definitely hardcore free jazz that will send anyone with any sort of aversion to skronk and squeal and shriek running for the hills. The rest of us can just revel in Jooklo Duo's divine jazz chaos.
MPEG Stream: "Primitive Power"
MPEG Stream: "Fire Liberation"

JOSEL, SETH Go Guitars (oo Discs) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Six maximalist guitar pieces played by Seth Josel, who performs compositions by James Tenney, Lois V. Vierk, Phill Niblock, John Cage, and himself. Vierk's composition for five guitars is sheer chiming hypnosis much like the symphonies of Glenn Branca. The one by Niblock is a lengthy white hot drone spanning 30 minutes. Josel's own pieces are incendiary jams a la Caspar Brotzmann.
RealAudio clip: "Guitar Too, For Four (performed by Phil Niblock)"

JOYCE, DON Mort aux vaches (Staalplaat) cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Solo recording by Don Joyce of Negativland. All sounds used come from WWII and sound effects.

JOYCE, JAMES The Complete Recordings (Sub Rosa) cd + book 22.00
Be warned, the $22.00 price tag and the title of this disc "The Complete Recordings" might be a little misleading. The complete recordings of James Joyce actually total all of 12 minutes. "Eolian Episode" recorded in Paris in 1924, and "Anna Livia Plurabelle" (from Finnegans Wake) recorded in Cambridge in 1929. Both scratchy and antiquated, that sound we here at AQ love so much. Also included in this set is a huge book(let) containing an unpublished book by Eugene Jolas as well as an introduction written by Marc Dachy about the friendship between Jolas and Joyce. Haven't had a chance to delve too much into the book, but it looks really interesting, and helps justify the price. We have to admit to being a bit diappointed by the brevity of the disc, but fans of Joyce will obviously need this.
MPEG Stream: "The Complete James Joyce Pt. 1 (excerpt)"

JRP (JAMIE POTTER / BONUS) s/t (Jyrk) 3" dvd-r 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the first in a planned series of 3" dvd-r's from the folks at Jyrk. This first installment comes from Jamie Potter of experimental drone ensemble Bonus, whose cd-r on Root Strata we reviewed a while back (don't ask, it's out of print) and dug pretty heavily.
This dvd features more of that deep rich Bonus buzz, a whirring rich warm chordal drone that subtly shifts over the course of this 25 minute film and the film is as strangely mesmerizing as the music. At first it's hard to tell exactly what you're seeing, some sort of alien starscape, or some incredibly magnified view of atoms and molecules, tiny little colored lights, that soon grow into a big white blinding sun shape that swirls and spins and changes colors, like watching some sort of scientific representation of some cataclysmic cosmic event. It's totally hypnotic and it's easy to drift into some sort of trance, with the drones and the spinning shapes. The shapes are fascinating, looks like some sort of monitor, and the images on the screen shift and spin, transforming itself into weird spinning symbols, and pixelated glowing discs, like video feedback but more more 'designed'. Really striking and completely beautiful. To look at AND to listen to.
Packaged in a cool mini 3" jewel case with full color insert. LIMITED TO 90 COPIES! ALREADY SOLD OUT. WE HAVE ABOUT 20 COPIES, AND THAT'S ALL WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET!

JU4N Vaporware (Holodeck) cassette 7.50
One of six new tapes from the always awesome Holodeck label out of Austin, Texas is this washed out retro '80's synth jammer from Juan Cisneros, who previously operated under the moniker, VC Childkraft (and who had one of our favorite tracks on the Brainclub Vol. 1 compilation). Vaporware is a hard to quantify mix of post-witch house haziness through a glaring Miami Vice heat. "Shattered Glass in Oil Rainbow" jarringly begins with a choked speedboat motor noise before settling into a calm seascape invoking a sonic comparison to The Holy Other channeling slow motion Jan Hammer. Romantic synth textures and even far away saxophone, taking us back to some love scene from an unrealized Michael Mann thriller, but filtered through an even dreamier veil of alien sensuality, placing an unfamiliar tense spin on a forgotten nostalgic moment. "Angel Cop/Black Market Exotica" brings some danger to the proceedings with sounds from a futuristic Asian crime thriller with crowd screams and laser bursts. Less tongue in cheek than someone like, say, Umberto, JU4N actually manages some thoughtful compositional choices that takes this to a deeper place than the references invoked would suggest. This is not your standard, Carpenter/Goblin synth worship, instead diving bravely head-on into some scarier Phil Collins "In The Air Tonight" territory and re-emerging rather unscathed with a unique sonic twist. Wear your Ray-Bans and proceed with caution! Limited!

JUDAH s/t (Small Voices) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There's absolutely no information about Judah as to the who, the what, or the when. We could be really bold and say that this bleak, murky synth-punk outfit was active in the early '80s emerging out of the Bowery alongside the likes of Suicide and Dark Day; but in all likelihood, this is a contemporary project that has all of the minimal wave trappings. The arrangements on this eponymous album are suitably stripped down with just syncopated bass-tones, monophunk drum machines, and motorik pulses through pure analogue electronics with very little touching on melody. The vocalist (whoever that may be) strikes a sneering rock pose certainly modeled on the rockabilly vocals of Alan Vega with a few funhouse Elvis grinds by way of Karl Blake of Shock Headed Peters. This is a pretty damn compelling record, and one that we wish we could tell you more about. Unfortunately, we do have very limited stock on this, with very little hope of getting more...
MPEG Stream: "Sainted Pusher"
MPEG Stream: "The Killing Reborn Jesus"
MPEG Stream: "Magdalena (Dance!)"

JUDD, F.C. Electronics Without Tears (Public Information) cd 19.98
A self-taught musician with a keen understanding of electronic circuits, F.C. Judd published the first of 11 books on the nascent field of electronic music in 1954. This was a few years before the BBC founded its Radiophonic Workshop, and documentation exists that Judd and the Workshop's Daphne Oram were in communication with each other. That said, Judd might have counted amongst the hundreds of amateur enthusiasts who tinkered in garages, basements, attics, and sheds throughout the UK (and beyond for that matter!); but his anonymity was not for a lack of trying, as he did publish those 11 books, founded the Amateur Tape Recording magazine (with a run from 1959-1967), and funded a couple of record labels, all in the pursuit of disseminating experimental tape music to a wider audience. Many of those singles did get bundled by Studio G for library use (and subsequently, one of those tracks made it onto the G-Spots compilation from the Studio G archives, curated by Trunk Records), and Judd did create the electronic sound design for the children's sci-fi puppet show Space Patrol in 1963.
Judd's late '50s / early '60s studio featured various oscillators, tape decks, and filters alongside a primitive drum machine and an experimental synthesizer, both of his own design; and he rendered an eerie array of vibrations and electronic plonk, coupled with a rough-cut / hand-spun approach to tape edits and loops. Judd varied from the spookily abstract paralleling (and predating) the sound design from the Forbidden Planet and Dr. Who soundtracks; and some delightfully playful electronic poptunes looking forward to Joe Meek's gleeful electronics as The Blue Men. Interspersed throughout the electronics and tape experiments, Judd offers up his own thoughts on the tracks themselves with a dry sense of humor tossing about explanatory definitions of basic musique concrete techniques and various electronic circuits. A fantastic and compelling document of the earliest and nearly forgotten pioneers of British electronic music, to which Judd himself said it best: "Musique Concrete is fascinating!"
MPEG Stream: "Suspended Motion"
MPEG Stream: "Tempotune"
MPEG Stream: "Space Links"
MPEG Stream: "Cheery Bye"

JULIAN, PHIL Live Flux (The Tapeworm) cassette 9.98
Another list, another batch of tapes from UK label The Tapeworm! This one comes from a guy named Phil Julian, who despite apparently being quite active in the experimental music underground since the nineties, we had not previously heard of. But all it took was a few seconds of his Live Flux to convince us that that was definitely an egregious oversight on our part. Huge billowing clouds of low end rumble and buzzing metallic shimmer, all constructed from experiments with "unstable/chaotic systems", aka modular synths, contact mics, feedback etc. It's impossible to tell what the source is for these sounds, but it hardly matters, just sit back and let these thick sonic swells wash over you. Undulating, and softly pulsing swirls seem to coalesce into heaving walls of sound only to immediately dissipate into drifting clouds of sonic particles, before beginning to gather once again. The sound eventually settles into something much more serene, a sort of Niblockian stretch of layered tones, backed with all manner of incidental sound, voices, shuffling feet, pieces of wood on concrete, hard to say if these were purposeful or not, but they do add mysterious texture, to Julian's dronemusic, which even in its more serene state, begins again to build to something dense and intense. The flipside is more of the same, but the recording is more raw, wreathed in hiss, the sounds pulsing madly as well, as if tones were chosen that were just off enough that their overtones would collide and disagree, the results though are a wild chaotic cloud of hissing, throbbing soft noise, that for all of its noisiness and abrasion, still manages to be weirdly hypnotic.

JUMALHAMARA Slaughter The Messenger (Hammer-Of-Hate) cd ep 10.98
We've gotten to a really weird place in our music obsession, as evidenced by the fact that sometimes a recommendation against, is almost stronger than a recommendation FOR. Sounds weird but it's true. We have friends at other stores, who will tell us something is terrible, they hated it, but then will add "you might like it though." And the weird thing is, they're usually right (that we'll like it). We've developed such a taste for the bizarre, it's sometimes hard to tell if something is bad, or so fucked up it's genius.
However, one of those friends recommended against buying this very record, very vehemently in fact. Hard to recall, but it was something along the lines of it not being very metal and being all jangly and wussy. Fair enough. But they are from Finland, and they do have a song called "Discover The Pigtail"! Those two pieces of critical info were enough to overrule our friend's warning, and we're so glad they were.
This latest ep from Finnish black metal, psychedelic post rock horde Jumalhamara is AMAZING. Three songs, all on the long side, with a sound that is pretty difficult to pin down. It is easy to see why someone questing for serious black metal grimness might be disappointed. The record begins with the sound of children, laughing, playing, and what sounds like oinking pigs, a field recording of some village, until the band ROAR into action, pounding out a fierce blast of blackened buzz, grinding and intensely heavy, but it literally only lasts for about 10 seconds, then the band drifts off into some washed out hippy psych territory, all crooned reverbed vocals, lazy sun baked melodies, simple hand drums, slippery minimal bass, streaks of dubbed out distorted guitar, but for the most part, this is almost like some blackened Finnish Grateful Dead. Near the end there's even some fuzzy organ, the guitars get a bit heavier, the vocals moaning and chant-like, but it never really explodes, just gets thicker and more dense, while still seeming jammy and druggy. So awesome. Almost like a slightly heavier, way more fucked up black metal version of the recent Dead Man record.
"Discover The Pigtail" begins with glistening harmonics, which are soon joined by some strange off kilter drumming, tangled riffing and howled vocals, the cool thing about this track is that those harmonics never go away, so even as the band slithers and sprawls, spewing out a sort of buzzy blackness, the glistening shimmer totally shines through, diluting the heaviness, turning what might be something raw and heavy into something way more bizarre and trippy, at times it almost sounds like two records playing simultaneously, they drift in an out of sync, all very dizzying and gloriously tweaked.
The final track is the briefest of the bunch, and begins as a grinding gnarled and blackened doomic dirge, but not typically sludgy and murky, instead it's super dense and layered, the drums doing much more than pounding away, stumbling and skittering, beneath streaks of high end guitar, and chugging blown out riffage, the cymbals sizzling, the whole track recorded super hot and in the red, blasting and pounding and twisting until it fades out.
Definitely not really black metal, more like some sort of twisted doom-ed post rock avant psych, but still plenty heavy and really fucking great!
MPEG Stream: "The Swing"
MPEG Stream: "Discover The Pigtail"

JUPPALA KAAPIO Animalia Corolla (Omnimemento) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Faux-Finnish, droning freak-folk from a Japanese sound artist and a Swiss chanteuse!
Juppala Kaapio is comprised of Hitoshi & Carole Kojo, whose lysergically bright-eyed concoctions draw from plenty of arcane and archaic folkloric traditions, and emerge as a beguiling, playful form of abstracted psychedelia. We've mentioned before that the name of the project is in fact Finnish, translating as Juppala Dwarf. What, who, or where Juppala is, we don't really know; but the aesthetic which the couple evoke is definitely akin to those adventurous Finns responsible for Kemialliset Ystavat, Avarus, Islaja, and Kuupuu. Bells, flutes, hand percussion, cheap synths, violins, melodicas, vocal chants, and whatnot all go into the buzzing, wheezing thickets of sound that make up Juppala Kaapio's Animalia Corolla. With all of these instruments, the two create dense layerings of glistening textures and radiant drones that slip and slide around quite a bit, but always seem grounded in a fundamental harmonic tone that the two have plucked from the celestial spheres above. It's easy to situate these not only near those Finns, but also Taj Mahal Travellers at their most celebratory, LaMonte Young at his trippiest, and Fursaxa at her most narcotized. Really beautiful transcendent, modern-day ritualism!
We have here the art edition of Animalia Corolla, packaged in a neatly stitched felt sleeve and a screen-printed o-card to house the cd itself. This version is in an edition of ONLY 88 copies. We'll probably not be able to restock this, but we should have the regular version shortly.
MPEG Stream: "Moosfluh"
MPEG Stream: "Saturatus"

JUPPALA KAAPIO Animalia Corolla (Omnimemento) cd 17.98
BACK IN STOCK! At a lower price (in slightly less extravagant packaging, but only just slightly!)
Faux-Finnish, droning freak-folk from a Japanese sound artist and a Swiss chanteuse!
Juppala Kaapio is comprised of Hitoshi & Carole Kojo, whose lysergically bright-eyed concoctions draw from plenty of arcane and archaic folkloric traditions, and emerge as a beguiling, playful form of abstracted psychedelia. We've mentioned before that the name of the project is in fact Finnish, translating as Juppala Dwarf. What, who, or where Juppala is, we don't really know; but the aesthetic which the couple evoke is definitely akin to those adventurous Finns responsible for Kemialliset Ystavat, Avarus, Islaja, and Kuupuu. Bells, flutes, hand percussion, cheap synths, violins, melodicas, vocal chants, and whatnot all go into the buzzing, wheezing thickets of sound that make up Juppala Kaapio's Animalia Corolla. With all of these instruments, the two create dense layerings of glistening textures and radiant drones that slip and slide around quite a bit, but always seem grounded in a fundamental harmonic tone that the two have plucked from the celestial spheres above. It's easy to situate these not only near those Finns, but also Taj Mahal Travellers at their most celebratory, LaMonte Young at his trippiest, and Fursaxa at her most narcotized. Really beautiful transcendent, modern-day ritualism!
This new version replicates the packaging of the out of print deluxe art edition, and comes housed in a diecut full color inner sleeve, which in turn is in a thick green-grass textured outer jacket, the whole thing wrapped in a screen-printed o-card that matches the inner sleeve. Super swank!
MPEG Stream: "Moosfluh"
MPEG Stream: "Saturatus"

JUPPALA KAAPIO Rewound Groves (Omnimemento) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yes, that is faux-fur sprouting from this cd by Juppala Kaapio! As we mentioned before, this duo has a Finnish name and shares a Finnish freak-folk ritualism, but neither participant is Finnish. They are in fact the husband / wife pairing of Carole and Hitoshi Kojo, who bring extended technique vocals, bleary instrumentation from smoke & mirror, and lots of liquid nirvana electronic processing to the source material. Where their earlier works had 'jammed nature' along the Jewelled Antler / RV Paintings / Kemiallyset Ystavat axis with a wistful crunchiness, Rewound Groves marries the golden-summer glow of high-latitude pagan liturgy and the rapturous blur of Andrew Chalk's contributions to Organum or even some of the Taj Mahal Travellers broadcasts to nowhere. The vocals from both Hitoshi and Carole wax and wane on the opening number "Sewing Through Twigs" amongst a richly patterned undulation of glistening drones from what might be bells, might be flutes, might be guitars, might be the sparkle of twilight stars. Watery textures and backmasked tape bridges these sounds with the :zoviet*france: like haze of "Mycophiles And Pebbles" with spectral loops and holy mesmerism sprawled throughout the soft-focus layering of sound. Probably the best thing that Juppala Kaapio has released to date; and given the artwork this is justifiably limited to 123 copies. Brilliant.
MPEG Stream: "Sewing Through Twigs"
MPEG Stream: "Mycophiles And Pebbles"
MPEG Stream: "A Germ From The Sun"

JUPPALA KAAPIO Sporing Promenade (Omnimemento) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Juppala Kaapio is a project with a Finnish name and Finnish credentials, but not a Finn amongst the lot. The parties responsible are the husband and wife duo of Carole and Hitoshi Kojo (the former Swiss and the latter Japanese by birth), but Hitoshi in particular has spent a fair amount of time in the Finnish hinterlands, and had made an appearance on the recent Kemialliset Ystavat album Ullakopalo. That said, Hitoshi has a small but impressive catalog of material recorded over the past decade under the moniker Spiracle. There, thick masses of texture piled on top of each other, creating thick drones with ghostly melodies flickering about, much like the archaic sounding recordings of Organum and the more compacted albums of Andrew Chalk. All of this culminated in the 2cd Ananta opus released back in 2009, and Hitoshi shifting his focus to the collaborative project Juppala Kaapio, whose name translates vaguely as the Juppala Dwarf. The two hint at the thickening drones of Spiracle, focusing more on a clattering, psychedelic ritualism that is more in keeping with all things Fonal - spluttering acoustic guitars, toy synths, Tony Conrad inspired viola drone, hand percussive tappings, prolonged flute tones, lots of bells, found forest objects, and vocalized mantras as if the personal soundtrack to a private ritual for wandering spirits who found themselves in a moss-covered cabin somewhere in the northern reaches of Finland basking in the midnight sun of an endless Arctic summer. Playful, fantastical, haunting, and thoroughly tripped out, Juppala Kaapio is highly recommended to any one keen on Jewelled Antler, Fursaxa, Taj-Mahal Travellers, Parson Sound, the freakiest end of the freak-folk spectrum, and of course the aforementioned Kemialliset Ystavat.
MPEG Stream: "Meganze Zaru"
MPEG Stream: "Souffle"
MPEG Stream: "Lamellations"
MPEG Stream: "Lunastus"

JUTE GYTE Old Ways (Jeshimoth) cd-r 11.98
We should all be very grateful to the mailmen who serve aQ. Without them, the aQ list would be a very different beast. They come by almost every day, through sleet and rain if necessary. Usually bearing gifts of strange sounds transported from all corners of the globe. And often, some mysterious unmarked package will contain something special, a gorgeous ambient lp, or some obscure otherworldly folk record, or in many cases, some bizarre twisted chunk of black metal. And often those records will go on to be big time aQ faves, which is bound to be the case with this strange disc from a mysterious black metal horde called Jute Gyte, that just showed up one day in the mail.
The package we got was jammed with records by bands with names like Night Troll, Tremor Of The Black Manx, Pumpkin Buzzard, Testikill, but we were strangely drawn to this Jute Gyte record, weird name, cool oversized dvd style packaging, and once we threw it on we understood why. The description on the label's website introduces us to Jute Gyte with these words:
"A bipedal humanoid rat releases a sandpaper-throated screech as most of its internal organs exit through a huge hole in its furry back. Large and small intestines launch forth in whip-like arcs, briefly straightening into perfectly even ropy lines. A massive snail-demon explodes into fragments of confetti: red, green, blue."
And as weird as that reads, once you immerse yourself in the blown out crumbling ultra raw industrial tinged synth laden black metal of JG, maybe it'll make more sense. Then again, maybe not.
The guitar sound is so fierce and fucked up. Ultra distorted, super saturated and fuzz drenched, not so much chuggy or abrasive as massive and blown out, as if a tiny bit more of anything and the riffs would just crumble to pieces, the drums mechanical and machinelike, the vocals a demonic shriek, howling and anguished, everything wreathed in washed out synths and what sounds like a million layers of distortion. The melodies are super catchy, the sound is impossibly warm and lush, even though in every other way it seems harsh and heavy.
Things slow down here and there, the music transformed into a lurching industrial stomp, all gnarled guitars and new wave synths, almost like some crazy blackened Six Finger Satellite jam. There's a cool abstract mandolin interlude (apparently there's mandolin throughout the whole record too!), that's all super spare and skeletal, before a thick warped and warble synth comes in and obliterates the mandolin, leading directly into the second half of the record, the guitar comes back in and is again sop distorted and heavy, that it almost sounds like a synth, the chords ringing out crumble and distort and cause the speakers to nearly implode. Locked into a churning low end psychedelic blow out, the track just throbs and pulses, not so much metal or industrial as some sort of drone music unleashed, the various tones and notes expanding like miniature supernovas.
After a bout of woozy twisted detuned-guitar post rock drift with harsh vokills, burbling underwater synths, and tangled atonal melodies, like Khanate heard through a funhouse mirror, the record closes with another massive and epic dose of in-the-red blackdrone buzz, like Nadja, if they decided to throw in with the dark lord, another heaving wall of crumbling blackness, wrapped around a surprisingly catchy melody, the drums buried in the mix, just a distant throb, with a lurching stop start arrangement, like some sort of slowed down black metal math rock, but dripping with distortion and effects, infused with spaced out synths, and again on the verge of total implosion. And like the rest of the record, impossibly warm and fuzzy and melodic, while simultaneously being one of the most distorted and blown out things we've ever heard.
This isn't brand new, it's maybe a year old, but we only just discovered it, and figured it was something we had to share with the loyal aQ. Quickly becoming a new black metal favorite, just in time for our year end lists...
MPEG Stream: "Waves"
MPEG Stream: "Teeth"
MPEG Stream: "Round"

JUV s/t (Miasmah) cd 16.98
The Miasmah label has been on fire lately! Without a doubt they have become one of the most consistently dependable labels releasing layered, dark, haunting, droned out mysterious sounds. This time around the label has gone back to the '90s to unearth some amazing sounds that somehow never managed to get a proper widespread release. It makes sense that this Norwegian band's moniker means 'abyss'. The music makes the listener feel like they are floating around the charred remains of a civilization that has been doomed, yet there is still something so paralyzing and beautiful about the void and desolation.
It's so impressive that this was recorded between 1996-1998, a decade before the outburst of so many drone based recordings that we have constantly freaked out over. With a sound that is so haunted, nuanced, layered, and so perfectly executed, taking in the more ambient and creepy side of black metal and doom drone luminaries like Burzum, SUNNO))) and Paysage D'Hiver, the soundscape imagination of Philip Jeck, and the minimalist intensity of Tony Conrad and Deathprod.
Like the soundtrack to a horror movie that isn't as much about shock and awe as it is about casting a very real spell that shimmers with isolation and a beautiful kind of despair. As with most things on Miasmah, so very recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Los"
MPEG Stream: "Stue"
MPEG Stream: "Forvarsel"

JUV s/t (Miasmah) 2lp 23.00
The Miasmah label has been on fire lately! Without a doubt they have become one of the most consistently dependable labels releasing layered, dark, haunting, droned out mysterious sounds. This time around the label has gone back to the '90s to unearth some amazing sounds that somehow never managed to get a proper widespread release. It makes sense that this Norwegian band's moniker means 'abyss'. The music makes the listener feel like they are floating around the charred remains of a civilization that has been doomed, yet there is still something so paralyzing and beautiful about the void and desolation.
It's so impressive that this was recorded between 1996-1998, a decade before the outburst of so many drone based recordings that we have constantly freaked out over. With a sound that is so haunted, nuanced, layered, and so perfectly executed, taking in the more ambient and creepy side of black metal and doom drone luminaries like Burzum, SUNNO))) and Paysage D'Hiver, the soundscape imagination of Philip Jeck, and the minimalist intensity of Tony Conrad and Deathprod.
Like the soundtrack to a horror movie that isn't as much about shock and awe as it is about casting a very real spell that shimmers with isolation and a beautiful kind of despair. As with most things on Miasmah, so very recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Los"
MPEG Stream: "Stue"
MPEG Stream: "Forvarsel"

K Feel - Fire Earth Wind Water (Labrynth) cd-r 14.98

K Final Drums On Earth: Chapter 1 Revelations (Labyrinth) cd 14.98
We're always so pleasantly pleased to receive music from and by our mailorder customers from around the globe! K is from Portugal. In case you couldn't tell from the album's title, this is some intensely ominous music. Rolling swells of dank guitar generated drones dominate the seven tracks. Industrial grindings and IDM-esque rhythmic sequences occasionally emerge from the deep smothering roar. Chill-inducing and apocalyptic.
MPEG Stream: "Everything Will Be Dissolved"
MPEG Stream: "In The Future I See"

K-GROUP / OMIT Storage (Fusetron) lp 14.98
Here's a piece of wax that came out back in 2002, and it's a title that we thought was long discontinued by Fusetron. But, luckily, somehow, a handful of copies still exist, and if you're keen on the stun-drone / brain-zonk electronics currently blasted by the Emeralds axis, you NEED to investigate everything that Omit has ever released. Our words from way back when...
Both K-Group and Omit have been longtime aQuarius favorites from the New Zealand experimental noise scene; but unfortunately, they've been pretty quiet in their respective outputs during the past couple of years. K-Group is the solo project for Paul Toohey, who has also worked in the (defunct?) Surface Of The Earth, both of which centered around low-frequency tectonic drones coaxed from abused amplifiers. Clinton Williams has taken up the Omit moniker for his creepy, tape loop compositions loaded with bleak sci-fi / psychotic imagery. This collaboration between Williams and Toohey is actually their second, if you count a 7" which came out ages ago. In running Williams' battery of analog synths through Toohey's cabinets, they've constructed an eerie album of deep rumblings that are on par with anything that Coleclough, Koner, or Troum have managed to release. As the K-Group / Omit drones ripple with a gritty amplifier buzz often lacking in the driftwork of those aforementioned artists, "Storage" pulses with a subterranean heaviness, pushing this closer towards the Earth / SUNNO))) terrain. A really wonderful album!!!

K-X-P s/t (Smalltown Supersound) cd 18.98
Ok, so AQ customers are likely well aware of the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" movement popularized by Circle and cohorts, an alleged genre that's usually more krautrock than metal anyway, but is certainly Finnish. Well, drop the heavy metal part and you've got Finnish New Wave, eh? And that's what new Smalltown Supersound act K-X-P are up to. Synth-laden '80s inspired "New Wave" from Finland, played on drums, bass, and keys (no guitar), with plenty of that motorik krautrock groove Circle and Co. are known for as well. One of their two, rotating drummers (they switch off on this recording) is in fact Tomi from Circle and Aavikko so that certainly makes sense.
Consisting largely of instrumental grooves, these eight tracks are heavy on the electronics, and driving hypnotic rhythms, with some vocals here and there, that at times remind us of Adam & The Ants, or what we think we remember Adam Ant sounding like, though the vocals in "Pockets" are weirdly effected in a way that makes 'em sound almost like Mika Ratto from Circle, singing over Gary Numan-like throbbing synth pop. K-X-P doesn't lack variety, "Mehu Moments" actually reminds us of a krauty version of that Charanjit Singh Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat reissue, it's got that "exotic" vibe with synth squiggle freaking out over steady pulsations, and "18 Hours (Of Love)" has a bit of a glammy Gary Glitter shuffle-time Fred Bigot feel to it, with the singer chanting anthemically over rhythmically spaced electronic distortion-detonations. Elsewhere, K-X-P offer up moodier, dubbier excursions. And yeah, with our love of Finland, and Circle, and krautrock, and coldwave, and noise, and disco, and dub, this pushes plenty of buttons. So this disc has been getting a lot of instore play here at AQ, as word passes from one staffer to another...
We'd happily recommend this to you if you enjoy some/most/any/all of the following: Jonas Reinhardt, Aavikko, Neu!, Suicide, Circle, Cold Cave, Salvatore, Bronze, even Rah Bras.
MPEG Stream: "Mehu Moments"
MPEG Stream: "18 Hours (Of Love)"
MPEG Stream: "Aibal Dub"

K-X-P s/t (Smalltown Supersound) lp 18.98
Ok, so AQ customers are likely well aware of the "New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" movement popularized by Circle and cohorts, an alleged genre that's usually more krautrock than metal anyway, but is certainly Finnish. Well, drop the heavy metal part and you've got Finnish New Wave, eh? And that's what new Smalltown Supersound act K-X-P are up to. Synth-laden '80s inspired "New Wave" from Finland, played on drums, bass, and keys (no guitar), with plenty of that motorik krautrock groove Circle and Co. are known for as well. One of their two, rotating drummers (they switch off on this recording) is in fact Tomi from Circle and Aavikko so that certainly makes sense.
Consisting largely of instrumental grooves, these eight tracks are heavy on the electronics, and driving hypnotic rhythms, with some vocals here and there, that at times remind us of Adam & The Ants, or what we think we remember Adam Ant sounding like, though the vocals in "Pockets" are weirdly effected in a way that makes 'em sound almost like Mika Ratto from Circle, singing over Gary Numan-like throbbing synth pop. K-X-P doesn't lack variety, "Mehu Moments" actually reminds us of a krauty version of that Charanjit Singh Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat reissue, it's got that "exotic" vibe with synth squiggle freaking out over steady pulsations, and "18 Hours (Of Love)" has a bit of a glammy Gary Glitter shuffle-time Fred Bigot feel to it, with the singer chanting anthemically over rhythmically spaced electronic distortion-detonations. Elsewhere, K-X-P offer up moodier, dubbier excursions. And yeah, with our love of Finland, and Circle, and krautrock, and coldwave, and noise, and disco, and dub, this pushes plenty of buttons. So this disc has been getting a lot of instore play here at AQ, as word passes from one staffer to another...
We'd happily recommend this to you if you enjoy some/most/any/all of the following: Jonas Reinhardt, Aavikko, Neu!, Suicide, Circle, Cold Cave, Salvatore, Bronze, even Rah Bras.
MPEG Stream: "Mehu Moments"
MPEG Stream: "18 Hours (Of Love)"
MPEG Stream: "Aibal Dub"

K11 Metaphonic Portrait 1230 A.D. (Actual Noise) cd 10.98
K11 is sound artist Pietro Riparbelli, whose concepts are based on spaces as much as sounds. On the last K11 record, Riparbelli recorded short wave radios and receivers placed in Aleister Crowley's Thelema Abbey in Cefalu, Sicily, letting the sounds resonate and reverberate, creating gorgeous clouds of echoey drone and deep haunting rumble. For Metaphonic Portrait 1230 A.D., Riparbelli set up inside Assisi Cathedral in Umbria, again employing shortwave radios and receivers, harnessing the natural acoustics of the building, in this case, the cathedral's lower basilica, where the remains of St. Francis are kept. Adding only bits of organ and voice, Riparbelli has created an epic abstract dronescape, haunting and mysterious, the tones layered into huge walls of sound, allowed to ring out, sometimes fading to a distant shimmer, other times exploding in a cacophonous roar.
There's tolling bells, disembodied voices, blurred into ghostlike streaks, crumbling natural distortion that occasionally builds to a heaving chordal crush that could be Nadja or Tim Hecker. In fact, much of the sounds here, field recordings and recontextualized field recordings, organs and voices, begin to sound as old as the cathedral they were recorded in, some ritualistic conjuring, as if some strange sonic entity laid dormant for hundreds of years, only to be awakened, and captured on magnetic tape. Or imagine some strange recording device that doesn't just capture sound, but the sound of all the spirits and spiritual energy that ever existed in a certain space, hence the strange voices, the howling buzz, the keening melodic shards...
Less an exercise in field recordings, and more a gorgeous assemblage of field recorded sound. Not knowing the source of the music, one would still be captivated by these thick droned out buzzscapes, and epic high end ur-drones, the mysterious shimmer, the smeared voices, it definitely has the feel of some damaged turntable installation, like Philip Jeck set up in the dungeon of some castle, but knowing the mysterious source, and unique setting, only makes the music within that much more arcane and enigmatic.
The cd includes a video of the cathedral where the music was recorded as well...
MPEG Stream: "300=Tau"
MPEG Stream: "888"

K11 Voices From Thelema (Aurora Borealis) cd 14.98

KAADA AND PATTON Romances (Ipecac) cd 15.98

KACIREK, SVEN The Kenya Sessions (Pingipung) cd 16.98
It's always a challenge to meld electronic and organic sounds. When done correctly, it can be sublime, an otherworldly fusion of seemingly diametrically opposed musics, an impossible hybrid that on rare occasions can most definitely transcend its constituent parts. When done incorrectly, it can sound flat and forced. Or can simply not work at all. Most egregiously, the enduring 'electronica flecked folk' that we do on occasion love, but which in most cases is simply pedestrian strum and croon peppered with glitch and buzz and somehow presented as avant.
But this, this is something else entirely, an unlikely fusion of acoustic percussion, electronic studio production, various bits of programming and processing, and most importantly, recordings of actual Kenyan folk music, vocalists, traditional string instruments, all woven seamlessly into Kacirek's subtle sublime productions. It definitely makes more sense once you realize Kacirek is in fact a virtuoso jazz drummer and percussionist, thus the rhythmic focus of The Kenya Sessions, but that background in drumming hardly prepares us for this, a heady, propulsive, effusive, dark and mysterious bout of electronic folk music. And minus the voices, it's practically impossible to discern the Kenyan field recordings from the studio productions, there are moments of skittery Kompakt-like techno shuffle, but just as often, it Kacirek playing Marimba, or playing on a snare with brushes, and wrapping those sounds around the buzz of some African stringed instrument, or taking the various rhythms and weaving them into a lush, pulsing backdrop for some lovely vocalizing, the results are incredible, and range from the dark, buzzing and brooding opening track, "Arsenal Aluny Village", which almost sounds like a super minimal African Portishead, to the twangy shuffle of "Old Man Small Studio", the electronics dialed way back, but the marimba and tuned percussive melodies adding a distinctly Western pop element to the more traditional sounding vocals, or the murky almost Oval-esque shimmer of "Dear Anastasia", the backdrop smokey and sultry, the melodies dark and minor key, but then the vocals again transform the song into something completely original and very much unlike anything you've ever heard.
Imagine your favorite Sublime Frequencies compilation, or one of the Ethiopiques collections, if they were released on Kompakt, or imagine How To Dress Well composing a chill out soundtrack for late night Kenyan clublife, there aren't any 'beats' proper, instead the rhythms pulse and throb, shimmer and shuffle, skitter and stutter, usually super subtle, as textural as they are rhythmic, tangled up with pianos and marimbas, and then the Kenyan recordings, traditional instruments, twang and buzz, and those vocals, soulful and emotional, sometimes call and response, other times moody and crooned, and the sounds while often electronic, borderline 'techno' sounding even, just as often, veer toward something else entirely, more concerned with evoking a mood, creating a gorgeous ambient space, one that often explodes into something rhythmic and propulsive, but just as often slips into something hushed, and minimal, mysterious and lovely.
The record finishes off with the amazing "Takaye Preaching", which does indeed seem to be some preacher preaching, whose almost song like sermonizing, is accompanied by some perfectly matched up rhythmic flurries, skittery muted grooves and shuffling percussion, the rapidfire vocal delivery somehow softened by Kacireks's instrumental accompaniment, the result sounding like some moody jazzy drift wrapped around a hyper hip hop flow, but again, once the two elements are melded, it's hard to imagine that this was constructed in a studio, and not some sort of unlikely jam session, which is pretty much the magic of the whole record. A fantastically unique sonic document, a sort of avant world electronica, or minimal electro Kenyan soul, or maybe downtempo electro worldmusic, whatever you wanna call it, we're loving it, and odds are you will too.
MPEG Stream: "Arsenal Aluny Village"
MPEG Stream: "Old Man Small Studio"
MPEG Stream: "Dear Anastasia"
MPEG Stream: "Kayamba Tuc Tuc"

KADET Matter Of Mind (Tektonic Shift) cd 11.98
Kadet Kuhne is a San Francisco based media-artist, who often pulls the worlds of experimental video and avant-garde electronics closer together through her seamless audio-visual explorations of digitized fragments and mulched sonic detritus. Matter Of Mind is her first full album in nearly 8 years, although she certainly had plenty of performances, screenings, installations, and collaborations during that time. That said, this album does follow neatly with the previous record Thin Air in its ghostly abstraction of softened glitches, polished surfaces, and rounded tones not to far from the orbits of Jan Jelinek or Oval, with melodic fragments emerging sporadically through the time-stretched filigree and pixelated gaseousness. On "Ruminant," Kadet brings to the foreground the unprocessed sounds of a clarinet (courtesy of Giselle Eastman) amidst the digital smoke and mirror sound design of refracted noir, sounding like an updated version of the Vangelis soundtrack for Blade Runner. Her track "Encoded" responds to a process that Lucky Dragons used on John Coltrane's A Love Supreme to turn it into a visual score; here, she transformed the Coltrane classic into binary data and reassembled the audio signal output into a thoroughly abstracted corollary. Obviously, some of the original has been reintroduced with a subtle groove from a deconstructed bassline and a skittering rhythmic sample emerges amidst the digitally scrubbed and mulched-to-graynoise data. Her most refined work to date!
MPEG Stream: "Ruminant"
MPEG Stream: "The Clearing"
MPEG Stream: "Encoded"

KAHN, JASON On Metal Shores (Editions) lp 24.00
As we've mentioned before, American ex-pat and former hardcore drummer Jason Kahn made a radical shift away from the SST punk style jams he was kicking out during the '80s toward an avant-drone-noise-improv type of career that has taken him to Zurich, Switzerland. Yeah, it is a career for him, but the price one has to pay for having a sound-art career is a constant tour / exhibition schedule. Rock'n'roll may have its fortune seekers, but a steady paycheck through sound-art? Not very likely. Yet, Kahn has done it; and done it by producing work that is incredibly refined through his own take on electro-acoustic strategies, modular synth exploration, holy minimalist composition, and an occasional percussion flourish in ghostly deference to his former life as the drummer for Leaving Trains. With all of the touring and exhibitions (seriously, his schedule is fucking insane!), solo releases from Jason Kahn can be fleeting (although he's very prolific with his collaborative contributions). So, this new production from Kahn is something that could be celebrated simply because the man somehow found the time to get this out in the world; but that would be selling it short... as On Metal Shores is a brilliant piece of shimmering, gasping minimalism that glides out of acoustically-sourced drone reminiscent of Andrew Chalk and Organum, the metallurgically organic swells of Alan Lamb's wire recordings, and the graceful minimalism of Eliane Radigue and Roland Kayn. Kahn writes at great length in the liner notes about some of the situations for the source recordings, including the nice image of Jason Kahn tapping on a resonant hand-railing near Lake Zurich as local birds would congregate and take off depending on the volume of Kahn's rhythm-n-drone. These elements along with long-thin-wire instruments attached to transducers, the thrum of giant water tanks, drainage pipe raspings, and much more get worked into Kahn's shifting drones that accrete into swollen crescendos of complex shimmered noise and harmonic interplay. This stunner of an album is limited to 250 copies, hand numbered, and hand-painted.

KAHN, JASON Vanishing Point (23five) cd 14.98
Strange that we, of all people, didn't realize this before - the Jason Kahn who has been producing extraordinary minimalist compositions and beautifully subtle sound installations in recent years is the same Jason Kahn who had stints as the drummer for mid-'80s, SST bands Trotsky Icepick, The Leaving Trains (one of Andee's all time faves!), and Universal Congress Of. Believe it! Around 1990, Kahn moved to Europe, dropping out of the US art-punk / post-hardcore scene and effortlessly transitioning into the avant-garde improv community in Zurich. He soon began experimenting with feedback systems resonating within the architecture of his drum kit, discovering a vocabulary of noises that have become the building blocks for his current body of work. A man of numerous collaborations (Gunter Muller, Ralph Steinbruchel, Asher, Steve Roden, Kevin Drumm, Jon Mueller, Toshimaru Nakamura, etc.), solo Jason Kahn records don't happen ever so often; and this one on 23five is exquisite!
On Vanishing Point, Kahn's techniques shift a little bit from the feedback bouncing around the innards of his drum kit to a series of colored noises generated from his custom built, patch-bay synth. The album reveals itself as a subtle and hypnotic elegy for rattling metals, timbral vibration, gossamer static, hissing field recordings, and those aforementioned softened noises. Soon into the piece, Kahn introduces a flickered ghost of melody whose luminous tones manifest ever so slightly against his contrails of noise. The upper register hiss and statics of these layered noises slowly drop in pitch and frequency over the duration of the piece, revealing subharmonic rumblings and an oceanic current that tugs at the agitated textures of Kahn's surface noises. This glacial, minimalist shift renders Vanishing Point elegant and meditative.
For those familiar with the 23five catalogue, this fits snugly next to those awesome records on 23five from Jean-Francois Laporte and Tim Catlin, and for those who are not, the calm surfaces of Kevin Drumm, the crackled surface noise of Loren Chasse's Hedge Of Nerves, the spectral reflections from Alan Lamb's wire recordings, and even the placid side of Taiga Remains could be good sonic reference points for this excellent album.
MPEG Stream: "Extract 1"
MPEG Stream: "Extract 2"

KAHN, JASON & ASHER Vista (And/OAR) cd 13.98
This is a pairing that we didn't expect; and without a doubt, we didn't expect it to be so good. Jason Kahn is an American ex-pat living in Switzerland, having made a smooth transition from the percussive ends of improv into a drone heavy minimalism that often derives from the resonant frequencies of snares and floor toms. Earlier in 2008, Kahn delivered a transcendent live set at the San Francisco Art Institute with little more than an amplifier, a drum head, and some basic electronics. Asher Thal-Nir has impressed us with his ultra-quiet renderings of whispered field recordings and gauzy atmospherics, on par with some of the best work from Bernhard Gunter (what ever happened to that guy, anyway?). The album begins with rasping din of soft metals like aluminum or copper rattling against each other. For those familiar with Kahn's work, this tactile acoustic noise sounds just like one of his feedback systems transmitted through his drum kit; however, the sources for this album are all field recordings. Asher provided the environmental sounds from the back alleys of Boston, with ventilators, heating units, and other motors that ceaselessly rumble in the urban landscape. Kahn picked the far more pastoral sounds of Lake Zurich. It's almost as if Asher decided upon sounds better suited to Kahn's aesthetic and Kahn to Asher's sensibility. In any case, the huge rumble of subharmonics from Asher's industrial field recordings becomes this leaden cloud that weighs very heavily upon the recording. The fastidious production work between these two subtly shifts the clamorous frequencies into singing overtones, resembling a Ligetti chorale at times or a Pandit Pran Nath harmonium drone at another. But by the end of the record, the thick drone collapses into a vibrating black hole with ripples of negative energy fading into the soft patter of those lakeside field recordings. Definitely for fans of Phill Niblock, John Duncan's drone work, and Kevin Drumm's Imperial Distortion. Very fucking cool.
MPEG Stream: "Vista (extract 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Vista (extract 2)"

KAHN, JASON & RICHARD FRANCIS s/t (Monochrome Vision) cd 15.98
Richard Francis is one of the quieter musicians to hail from New Zealand. His sparse productions opt for a restrained set of grey noises and tactile field recordings that softens the archetypal gnarled NZ distortion of folks like Michael Morley, Antony Milton, or Campbell Kneale. He's also not nearly as prolific as those three, which is a shame as Francis' work has proven to be amazingly consistent over the years.
Here, he's presenting a collaborative body of work in collusion with a man who is nothing but prolific, the Swiss-based sound artist Jason Kahn. Given Kahn's studious use of particular noises (white, pink, blue, brown, etc.), Francis has certainly proven to be one of the more complementary musicians that Kahn has worked with over his lengthy career.
The eponymous record presents four extracts from live performances the two managed in both Switzerland and New Zealand in 2007 and 2008. Kahn's set-up often involves pushing particular, restrained noises and synthesized frequencies through the body of a floor tom, and controlling the feedback that can accumulate within that small architectural space; and Francis goes for the virtual systems through the computer interface. But the two can achieve rather similar results with different tools. These gravely, tactile sounds percolate, scrape, and vibrate their way into shifting sedimentary layers which ultimately form a meditative set of broken minimalism. The opening track features a gong-like set of metallic reverberations that billow against an agitated data-stream, which builds through accreted layers of deep low-end drones. Elsewhere, similarly subterranean tones softly rupture with a low-impact distortion grating clouds of grey static. Like on Kahn's groundbreaking album Vanishing Point, fragmented melodies quietly ripple well below the surfaces of noises, occasionally breaking through the hiss in oceanic swells of drone. Very nicely done!
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "4"

KAILASH s/t (Paradigms) cd 12.98
Latest in the ongoing series of lovingly packaged, super limited releases from UK label Paradigms, who ostensibly are a metal label, but whose releases are sonically all over the map, the gothic chamber music of Amber Asylum, the buzzing blackness of Utlagr and Throne Of Katarsis, the blessed out dream done of the Angelic Process, the psychedelic space folk of Plants, the grinding cinematic noise of Gnaw Their Tongues, the black ambient of Wraiths, the metallic post prog rock of Woburn House, the ultra doooooom of Hjarnidaudi and we could go on and on.
And we most likely will as Paradigms shows no sign of slowing down. Two new releases this time around, a disc of dreamy wispy neo-classical ambience from a group called Aythis, and this here slab of progged out bombastic post black metal from Italian horde Kailash.
Equal parts Slint-y black swoon, Opeth like metallic prog, Don Cab like mathy chaos, and plenty of folky strum and doomy lurch.
The tracks are long and proggy, lots of parts, the guitars swinging wildly from finger picked folky flutter, to furious black buzz, grinding out jagged angular riffs one minute, unfurling lilting minor key melodies the next. The drums though hold it all together, incredible fills, blasting double bass, convoluted tangles of odd time signatures, occasionally growled demonic vox, but it's all about the music, even were it instrumental, these songs would be plenty dense and busy, varied and complex to keep your head spinning (and most likely banging).
The label drops names like Ved Buens Ende, Fleurty, Death, Opeth, Emperor, Agolloch and Ulver, and certainly, folks who dig any / all of those bands will certainly be into what Kailash are doing, but to our ears much of this seems a lot mathier, way more dense and complex, and some of the time it really does sound like a black metal Don Cab, but then there's the saxophone (!), never the best idea really in almost any sort of music (outside jazz) and weirdly enough, Kailash drop in some smoky sax here and there, changing the vibe completely, turning it into some sort of blackened Gerry Rafferty jam, but fear not, a burst of furious mathy proggy heaviness is usually right around the corner...
Limited to 750 copies, packaged in a mini lp style sleeve wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve.
MPEG Stream: "The Sleepers"
MPEG Stream: "Wind Under The Door"

KAISER / HSU DUO 25 June 2008 (self-released) 3" cd-r 5.98
With a bicycle wheel, a reel-to-reel tape machine, and a few bits of electronics, Jim Kaiser has been a stalwart in the Bay Area improv / experimental community, having worked in French Radio (with Bruce Anderson of MX80), NF Orchest, and Thomas Carnacki's ensemble. But one of his more prolific collaborations has been with Angela Hsu, who's a classically trained violinist who pushes her instrument with tone-bending effects and improvisational techniques. For all of their performances over many years, we're pretty sure that this is their first released recording. Despite the date-as-title alluding to this being a live recording, this is actually a studio production, albeit one that was recorded straight to tape, or more likely to hard drive. During this session, Hsu's violin offers up descending plinks that cascade in a delay ridden tumble, sounding like crumbled bits from some undisclosed orchestral score. Beneath this, there is a grey dinscape constructed from Kaiser's bowed bike wheel and a muddled hiss from the tape machine. It could be a field recording of some sort, playing through the corroded heads of that reel-to-reel, but it's so obfuscated as to be a thick cloud of Philip Jeck dust warbling with varispeed jolts alongside scattered noises and caterwauling screeches, ripping in an agitated field of delay patterns. Limited to something like 25 copies. Don't expect these around for long!
MPEG Stream: "25 June 2008"