KINSKI Alpine Static (Sub Pop) lp 15.98
God! How we love instrumental rock records! And while we'll be the first to admit that there have been some great vocalists, almost always, when we throw on a new record, we wait all tensed up, cowering, just waiting for the vocals to come in, and make or break the record. Well, thankfully we've never had that problem with Kinski (even on the rare occasions they do add vocals), a four piece mostly instrumental space rock band from Seattle, who we've loved from day one. Not just 'cuz of their killer monicker (we LOVE Klaus Kinski!) but for their blissed out shoegazey Hawkwind meets My Bloody Valentine meets Pink Floyd instrumental spaced out bliss rock. So the first thing we noticed when we threw on Alpine Static was how much, well, more rocking it was! I mean, they definitely rocked before, no doubt about it, but in much more of a laid back, stoned and moody and a little bit mellowed out way. But on Alpine Static, Kinski most definitely kick out the jams. There were moments on past records that hinted at the heavy and/or poppy rocking the band was capable of, but this is the record where uptempo RAWK is the first order of business. So take Kinski's knack for droning repetitive hypnorock, and then wrap that around some hyperdistorted Heavy Rocks (a la Boris), a bit of technical shredding (a la the Fucking Champs), some pulsing propulsive krautrock (a la Neu!), some ultra caustic squalls of guitar noise (a la Comets On Fire), some crunchy, stacatto dirgerock pound (a la Circle at their fiercest), a bit of moody post rock (a la June Of 44), some epic and blown out guitar freakouts (a la Dinosaur Jr., Swervedriver, Pixies) and then the occasional return to that blissed out cosmic dronerock Kinski are also so adept at and you've got a seriously solid slab of head banging, hip shaking space rocking kosmik heavy rock jams!
MPEG Stream: "Hot Stenographer"
MPEG Stream: "The Wives Of Artie Shaw"
MPEG Stream: "Hiding Drugs In The Temple (Part 2)"

KINSKI & JIM HOBBS A Clear Day And No Memories (self-released) lp 35.00
Got a super small handful of these ultra limited lps, commemorating a collaboration between Northwestern psych rockers Kinski, and British visual artist Jim Hobbs, whose most recent installation, featuring multiple 16mm projections, was scored live by Kinski, and the whole thing was captured on this here lp. Originally only available at the art show and via the band, each one of these, besides the record, comes with an original silkscreened print (hence the price). But we're a record store first and foremost, so let's talk about the musicÉ
Three long tracks, all on the dreamy droney side, barring a few explosive psychedelic freakouts, the opener is a lush, minimal bit of slow building shimmer, hazy and dreamy, a little bit krautdrone new age-y, soft pulsations, swirling overtones, the sound getting more lush and thick as the track progresses, harmonious and lovely. The second track is more of the same, softly smoldering, muted metallic buzz, stretched out into softly undulating waves, hushed and meditative, at least for the first 7 or 8 minutes, that's when the guitar explodes, thick, and downtuned, a spidery buzz, wreathed in feedback, that quickly splinters into a full bore freakout, and is then woven into the hushed background drift, the squall dropping out briefly, only to return even more intense, the sound growling and buzzing, then the drums come in, spare at first, offering up flurries of tom fills, no rhythm, just another layer of psychedelic noise, eventually, the noisiness winds down, leaving a barely there bit of shimmer, which drifts dreamily into a haze of surf like static. The final track, a nearly 29 minute epic, is like an expanded version of the previous track, more super minimal drone leading into a wild tangle of feedback drenched frenzied psychedelia, the drums coming in almost right away, the opening and closing drones much more stretched out, the explosive psych breakdown significantly shorter, the last 10 minutes, a slow shifting, lush layered driftscape, a slow winding down to silence. Quite cool. Hard to imagine the visuals that would accompany these tracks, even harder to imagine the response of a museum crowd to those blasts of incendiary psych noise. Great stuff.
LIMITED T0 389 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. Housed in super swank, thick full color gatefold jacket, and each record includes a silkscreen print by Jim Hobbs. Includes a download coupon.
MPEG Stream: "No Memories"
MPEG Stream: "A Clear Day"

KINTEIX Selected E_Missions (A Silent Place) cd 10.98

KIPPLE Flashes Of Irrational Happiness (Evander Music) cd 14.98
Along with the "irrational happiness" in this album's title there are also flashes of madness and brilliance throughout the proceedings. Bringing together free roaming avant jazz with elements of tiki exotica, psychedelia, post rock and so much more, the new Bay Area combo known as Kipple craft a loose, open musical weave that's often quite reminiscent of awesome fellow SF artists such as pop collagists Milk Cult and the uncategorizable keyboardist Graham Connah. It's no wonder about the latter 'cause he just happens to make many a wonderful contribution throughout the album. Also featured prominently are Moe! Staiano (formerly of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Idiot Flesh) and Ches Smith (Secret Chiefs 3, Marc Ribot, Xiu Xiu, Carla Bozulich or Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant). Keeps you on your toes, and keeps those toes a-tapping thanks to a creative and tight rhythm section. Moodily captivating. Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Crafty Apples"
MPEG Stream: "Infinity Plus One"

KIRBY, DAVID Inside, It Is Ringing (Students Of Decay) cd-r 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Managed to dig up a few more copies of this long out of print cd-r, here's our review from when we first listed this way back in 2006:
We're not sure how the Students Of Decay label remained beneath our radar for so long, but we're definitely scrambling to make up for lost time. This latest blast of underground weirdness, comes from the very unassumingly named David Kirby, but don't let the lack of cool creepy moniker fool you, Inside, It Is Ringing is a serious slab of abstract industrial drones. Not pretty or drifting or dreamlike or tranquil. Well, actually it sort of is all of those things, but not in the soft super blissed out ambient way. Well, okay, the second track here sort of is. The first track though, is dense and thick and caustic and abrasive. Not to say it's not listenable because it most certainly is, in fact that's the magic of it. The parts are hard and sharp and harsh, but they are combined in such a way, that those disparate noise elements become a rich slowly shifting, organic whole. Imagine bits of Organum, Vibracathedral Orchestra, and bands like that, sort of melted down and poured into a giant cauldron, where they are slowly swirled until they take on the consistency of molasses, or tar. Dark and menacing. Bowed metals reverberate, buzzing steel strings are smeared into glistening streaks of metallic shimmer, thick layers of sun baked fuzz are spread out over glacial grooves. The first track is metallic and cold. The sound is all ice and barren landscapes. The second is much more warm and organic, the perfect balance to the frosty drift of the first track. It's an epic 24 minute subterranean stream turned into music. Like any of the cd-r bands you know and love, given a seriously heavy duty M83 makeover. NICE!
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. You know the drill...
MPEG Stream: "Part One"

KIRBY, LEYLAND Eager To Tear Apart The Stars (History Always Favors The Winners) cd 17.98
Now available on cd!!! (Recent vinyl version pretty much all gone.)
While we've been treated to numerous divine sonic excursions from Mr. Leyland Kirby (aka The Caretaker) over the last couple years, since the release of the mind blowing and unanimous all time aQ fave Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was lp trilogy, which included the all-over-the-map Intrigue & Stuff series, and the old timey mixtape that was the Caretaker's An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, this latest mysterious missive, evocatively (or provocatively?) titled Eager To Tear Apart The Stars, most definitely seems to be the first record that sonically acts as a logical follow up, to that sprawling triptych, delving into the same sort of hauntological soundcaping, but with a distinctive shift in sound. Which becomes obvious from the first track, and continues throughout, the mood is somber, the vibe darkly cinematic, easily the most patient and painterly thing we've heard from Kirby, ominous piano stabs wreathed in thick surface noise, a warm muted hissy buzz, hovering over softly soaring strings, a weightless chordal thrum, that seems hopeful and lit from within, but manages to still remain earthbound, as if tethered to some unseeable darkness. The first two tracks and the haunting closer, seem to be a suite of sorts, some lost soundtrack, driven by melancholy piano and wreathed in those sweetly sorrowful strings, initially the sounds buried in grit and crackle, but by the record's end, that noise seems to have abated, leaving the sound crystalline and prismatic, almost as if the receding noise reflects a sort of sonic hopefulness, a light at the end of a very long tunnel.
But between these cinematic bookends, lurk several tracks that rank among our favorite Kirby jams yet. "To Reject The World" is a sonic trifle, an intro of sorts, the piano from the opening movements carry over, this time over a thick rumbling swirl of blackened buzz, drifting on sinister swells, before giving way to "No Longer Distance Than Death", which sounds like it could have been lifted from Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was, a slow motion creep, everything hazy and blissed out, rumbling distortion and muted buzz smeared into bleary streaks of dreamlike sound, like an M83 track spinning at 6rpm on an old Victrola, so moving and haunting, and that's when The Caretaker pays a visit, his "They Are All Dead, There Are No Skip At All", another haunted ballroom slow dance, all murky strings, muddied chiming melodies, woozy strings, some sort of slow motion waltz, a dance of the damned captured on wax cylinder and played back in an alternate future, mysterious and utterly lovely.
Once again, Kirby continues to explore the hauntological sonic underworld, and gives us just a glimpse of the musical mysteries that reside there.
MPEG Stream: "The Is The Story Of Paradise Lost"
MPEG Stream: "No Longer Distance Than Death"
MPEG Stream: "They Are All Dead, There Are No Skip At All"

KIRBY, LEYLAND Eager To Tear Apart The Stars (History Always Favors The Winners) lp 22.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While we've been treated to numerous divine sonic excursions from Mr. Leyland Kirby (aka The Caretaker) over the last couple years, since the release of the mind blowing and unanimous all time aQ fave Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was lp trilogy, which included the all-over-the-map Intrigue & Stuff series, and the old timey mixtape that was the Caretaker's An Empty Bliss Beyond This World, this latest mysterious missive, evocatively (or provocatively?) titled Eager To Tear Apart The Stars, most definitely seems to be the first record that sonically acts as a logical follow up, to that sprawling triptych, delving into the same sort of hauntological soundcaping, but with a distinctive shift in sound. Which becomes obvious from the first track, and continues throughout, the mood is somber, the vibe darkly cinematic, easily the most patient and painterly thing we've heard from Kirby, ominous piano stabs wreathed in thick surface noise, a warm muted hissy buzz, hovering over softly soaring strings, a weightless chordal thrum, that seems hopeful and lit from within, but manages to still remain earthbound, as if tethered to some unseeable darkness. The first two tracks and the haunting closer, seem to be a suite of sorts, some lost soundtrack, driven by melancholy piano and wreathed in those sweetly sorrowful strings, initially the sounds buried in grit and crackle, but by the record's end, that noise seems to have abated, leaving the sound crystalline and prismatic, almost as if the receding noise reflects a sort of sonic hopefulness, a light at the end of a very long tunnel.
But between these cinematic bookends, lurk several tracks that rank among our favorite Kirby jams yet. "To Reject The World" is a sonic trifle, an intro of sorts, the piano from the opening movements carry over, this time over a thick rumbling swirl of blackened buzz, drifting on sinister swells, before giving way to "No Longer Distance Than Death", which sounds like it could have been lifted from Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was, a slow motion creep, everything hazy and blissed out, rumbling distortion and muted buzz smeared into bleary streaks of dreamlike sound, like an M83 track spinning at 6rpm on an old Victrola, so moving and haunting, and that's when The Caretaker pays a visit, his "They Are All Dead, There Are No Skip At All", another haunted ballroom slow dance, all murky strings, muddied chiming melodies, woozy strings, some sort of slow motion waltz, a dance of the damned captured on wax cylinder and played back in an alternate future, mysterious and utterly lovely.
Once again, Kirby continues to explore the hauntological sonic underworld, and gives us just a glimpse of the musical mysteries that reside there.
MPEG Stream: "The Is The Story Of Paradise Lost"
MPEG Stream: "No Longer Distance Than Death"
MPEG Stream: "They Are All Dead, There Are No Skip At All"

KIRBY, LEYLAND Intrigue & Stuff Vol. 1 (History Always Favours The Winners) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Leyland Kirby's sprawling Sadly The Future Is No Longer What It Was collection, which compiled the vinyl double lps When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die, When Did Our Dreams And Futures Drift So Far Apart, and Memories Live Longer Than Dreams, sounded exactly how those titles would lead you to believe: wistful, melancholy, a blurred sonic approximation of fading memories and tarnished dreams, of lost loves and long lonely nights, the sounds so achingly beautiful, a bleary collage of loops and field recordings and layered ambience, lush drones, and fragmented melodies, it easily became a unanimous favorite, and a record we couldn't keep in stock. We had a similar response to the Caretaker, an alter ego of Kirby's, who as the Caretaker explored a similarly obfuscated, antique filmstrip sound, but culled from slowed down jazz records, ancient chunks of vinyl reimagined, rendered in blurred and smeared streaks, and evoking a similarly emotional response. Thus we, and lots of you, became OBSESSED, needing to own everything Leyland Kirby or the Caretaker released, and always hankering for more.
So now, after a protracted silence, Leyland Kirby returns, with yet another series, this one entitled Intrigue & Stuff, spread out over 4 separate lps, this being volume 1, and this time, with a whole different sound. And we mean WAY different. Gone is all the scratchy ambience, the warped and warbly loops, the haunting minor key pianos, the mysterious moody textures, the blurred bleary beauty, and in its place is a strange chunk of warped electronica. Yep. Just have a listener to opener "Video 2000", which plays like a super distorted, slightly fractured Boards Of Canada, or like some techno record slowed waaay down, and run through a handful of effects pedals with dying batteries, the sound are super distorted, buzzy and fuzzy, the beat drags, gloriously, the rhythm loping, the melodies sun dappled and glimmering, a sort of blown out lo-fi downtempo avant IDM, which leads directly into the bloopy bleepy moody drift of "Re-Record Not Fade Away" with majestic synth shimmer laid beneath a blooping alien melody. "Neon-Lit Atoms" is up next, and again, is super distorted, the beats crumbling and crunchy, even the synth sounds seem to crumble, the sound a bit like some strange DJ Screw jam, but here wreathed in swirling sci-fi synths, lush and Eighties sounding, but when wedded to the weird crunch and crumble, it becomes something else entirely, eventually blossoming into something that definitely borrows from the whole Carpenter / Goblin soundtrack sound, but then twists it all up into something fractured and fantastically fucked up.
"Live For The Future, Long For The Past" was apparently used for a BBC documentary, which is a little surprising, because, while it is stately and elegant, majestic and moody, it's also dark, and droney, super distorted, and creepy as hell, the grinding distorted buzz that seems to wreath all the sounds make the vibe downright apocalyptic, the synths slightly new wave-y, but here stretched into long tense tones, and buried in thick layers of distorted sonic rubble, like the theme music for some futuristic sporting event, recorded and stored on some way too fragile media, only to be dug up hundreds of years later and played back in all it's decayed and nearly destroyed glory, seeming to slowly fall apart as it plays. "Low Entropy" sounds like an interlude of sorts, a descending plink plonk piano melody coupled with a blown out ultra distorted counter melody, the two in a woozy, tangled otherworldly harmony, which finally leads into the final track, "Ruined Visions", which is perhaps a reinterpretation of a John Denver song, but regardless, is a fantastically abject chunk of slo-mo, cough syrup synth, dreamdrone drag, the sounds seeming to melt and ooze and crumble and fracture, the melodies wavery and woozy, the main melody so mournful and melancholic, but all the sounds slightly off kilter, a little bit witch house-y, its a gloriously warped and druggy electro-ballad, a chopped and screwed synthscape, stretched into streaks and warbles, and winding down like a battery of synths being played on some old, slowly dying Victrola.
Ultra minimal packaging, plain black big-hole disco style 12" sleeve, and of course, very very limited.
MPEG Stream: "Video 2000"
MPEG Stream: "Live For The Future, Long For The Past"

KIRBY, LEYLAND Intrigue & Stuff Vol. 2 (History Always Favours The Winners) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As we mentioned in the review of volume one of Leyland Kirby's new four part series Intrigue & Stuff, his work has become a bit of an obsession for us around, here, and from what we can gather, many of you out there. His sprawling Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was collection was and is definitely a unanimous aQ favorite. And don't even get us started on The Caretaker, his hauntological mixtapes of crackly old jazz records, mysterious, haunting and otherwordly sonic studies on memory and loss. So it's not surprising that the first volume of this new series threw us for a bit of a loop. But hell, if there's anybody you SHOULD expect the unexpected from, it's Kirby. Thus we grew to love Intrigue & Stuff volume 1, which was in fact a collection of twisted murky electronics, fractured reimagined IDM, crumbling synth shimmer, not to mention some grinding distorted buzz and some dreamy droned out electro warble, and just from the above descriptions, you begin to realize that maybe it wasn't so sonically out of character after all.
But then what to expect from the second volume? Surely not more of the same we imagined. And in fact, it's definitely not, it's more of a return to the sound we imagine most folks were hoping for with volume one, sonic decay, warped slo-mo samples, crumbling distortion, everything woozy and warped. This time, separated into just three tracks, the shortest a little over 4 minutes, the longest nearly 20, Kirby slips back into his hauntological guise, with the opening track, the provocatively titled "Eventually, It Eats Your Lungs", unfurling as a super distorted slo-mo soulful creep, a deep crooned vocal suspended in fields of churning staticky buzz, of blurred chordal shimmer, the sounds all wreathed in effects, and crumbling from the speakers, it's almost like a Caretaker remix of some Burial track, the same sort of creepy murky soul, the vibe is so mysterious and hauntingly sinister, laced with super cinematic cues, it's WAY too short at 12 minutes, this is the sort of thing we could listen to FOREVER, and found ourselves wishing Kirby had stretched that track into a whole record.
The relatively brief "Speeded Up Slow Motion" sort of sounds exactly like the title implies, a dizzying spatial shimmer, with pulses of distorted ambience, careening back and forth between the left and right stereo fields, while in the background, new agey melodies tinkle and chime, and as amazing as this one sounds, we definitely could not handle a whole record of this. But in fact, it seems to be a bit of a palate cleanser, preparing our ears for the epic sprawl of the final track, "Complex Expedition", which begins with a long slow drift, wreathed in a haze of hushed static, driven by subtle muted low end pulsations, and rife with bits of abstract dub, sounding a little like some super ambient abstract version of Pole, every sound wrapped in echo and sent drifting into the ether, it's not until about 5 minutes in, that the main melody surfaces, a playful darkly distorted bit of carnivalesque bleep and bloop, that quickly turns sinister, and minor key, and we're in definite Goblin territory, the track slips back into the initial ultra minimal drift, and the sound slowly and dreamily slips back and forth, that second melody returning, but each time more greyed out and grim, until finally the process seems to reverse itself, and the track seems to emerge from darkness, luxuriating in the light, only to moments later disappear into darkness for good.
Fantastic, of course, and already we're hankering for volume three...
MPEG Stream: "Eventually, It Eats Your Lungs"
MPEG Stream: "Speeded Up Slow Motion"
MPEG Stream: "Complex Expedition"

KIRBY, LEYLAND Intrigue & Stuff Vol. 3 (History Always Favours The Winners) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The third volume in Kirby's four part Intrigue & Stuff lp series is another brilliant and baffling collection of sounds, one which manages to stay true to Kirby's trademark 'sound', which is to say a sort of warped and warbly, decayed and memory-faded, looped and layered mystery, while at the same time continuing to drag that sound into new and ever more fantastically confusing directions, which is what the Intrigue & Stuff seems to be for. An outlet for the various pieces that didn't quite fit into the woozy old timey vibe of the Caretaker, or the hauntological alchemy of Kirby's records proper.
But like the previous volumes, those elements still exist, they're just all twisted up and tangled up with a whole mess of new sounds. Just take the opener, "The Start Of Wars And The End Of Eras", which plays like the soundtrack to a planetarium show gone utterly haywire, it's glistening and kosmische and celestial, but it's also distorted and rhythmic, soaring and majestic, blurred and muddied and smeared into woozily warped shapes, slipping from angular and intense to washed out and sweetly melodic, occasionally it sounds like the organ player in a theater, albeit filtered through a ceiling high bank of malfunctioning effects, but it is pretty fantastic, swirling and heady and fractured, textural and tense and psychedelic.
The second track immediately changes tack, although some of the sounds are similar, it's a sort of muted whirl of melodies, peppered with a strange rhythmic squelch, and underpinned by whirling wind like hiss and hum, like a crumbling lo-fi Goblin / John Carpenter.
The flipside starts off with some James Ferraro style retro eighties style pop, all cheesy synths, and handclap rhythms, Casio grooves and swirling synths, but Kirby pulls it apart, the sounds seemingly transferred from a 10th generation VHS tape onto a 20th generation VHS tape, and played back on one of those VCR/TV combos, it's fantastically retro, and druggily warped and crumbling before our very ears.
That weird eighties vibe oozes into the next track, where Kirby ditches much of the buzz and crumble, and instead weaves an almost funky, eighties made for TV movie soundtrack groove, all electronic percussion, swoonsome synths and fuzzy basslines. Which leads to the final movement, a dreamy bit of new age drift, all prismatic shimmer and soft swelling chordal whir, laced with tinkling chiming melodies, and brief bits of rumble and crunch, dreamy and meditative, and just a little twisted and tweaked.
If you have the first two volumes, you're obviously gonna want this one too, and more than the others, this might be the one to appeal to fans of all things retro eighties synth: James Ferraro, Dylan Ettinger, Xander Harris, Gatekeeper, Innercity and the like, although this stuff is a fair bit more warped.
MPEG Stream: "The Start Of Wars And The End Of Eras"
MPEG Stream: "Fleeting Modern"

KIRBY, LEYLAND Memories Live Longer Than Dreams: Part Three (History Always Favours The Winners) 2lp 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The third and final volume of this sprawling 6lp (two lps in each volume) drone haze ambient masterpiece from the man behind the Caretaker, and V/VM! All three 2lps have been compiled onto a triple cd, this week's Record Of The Week, but for vinyl folks, who have the first two, grab part three while you can...
For a couple of years now, Leyland James Kirby has been releasing a highly acclaimed catalog of maudlin ambient recordings culled from melodic phrases looped and blurred from old 78s. The bulk of these recordings (typically released under the Caretaker moniker) didn't seem to leave England or at least they didn't arrive in California. Now that the distribution has improved, we've finally been able to hear what the fuss has been all about. This album belongs to a trilogy called Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was that Kirby has made now that he finds himself living under the grey skies of Berlin having relocated from grey skied Manchester; lo and behold, he's still making cold, rainy grey music for cold, rainy days. And yeah, he's pretty damn good at it.
Like the other two double LP sets, Memories Live Longer Than Dreams eschews titles (even this title is nowhere to be found on the LPs artwork!) and doesn't even give us any information what so ever on the artwork, a paint-smeared canvas. It works as an endless loop of flipping the two records, forgetting which track you've drifted in and out of, and wondering where to start next. These pieces of blurred ambience, obfuscated field recordings, and sad piano melodies hint at the furniture music of Erik Satie, the mood engineering of Angelo Badalamenti, and the emotional resonance of William Basinski. Limited to 450 copies, these will not last.

KIRBY, LEYLAND Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was (History Always Favours The Winners) 3cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It had to be an aQ Record Of The Week. Nearly four hours of warbly and washed out ambient beauty spread out over 3 cds (and 6 lps!), from the man behind the looped and warped ambient jazz minimalism of The Caretaker and the electronic fuckery of V/VM. We've been listing/reviewing the vinyl versions as they were released, part one: When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die, part two: When Did Our Dreams And Futures Drift So Far Apart, and part three: Memories Live Longer Than Dreams (elsewhere on this week's list). We would have made the vinyl ROTW too, but we thought it was a lot to ask, 6 lps, nearly $80, so we held off, for THIS. A gorgeous compact collection of all 6 lps on 3 discs, in super minimal sleeves, gathered in an equally minimal and mysterious slipcover, printed to look like an old wooden crate. The art and the sound are all inexorably linked. The music of Kirby is mournful and mysterious, melancholy and otherworldly, everything shot through with a certain degree of sadness. Check the song titles: "When We Parted, My Heart Wanted To Die", "The Beauty Of The Impending Tragedy Of My Existence", "And As I Sat Beside You I Felt The Great Sadness That Day", "Tonight Is The Last Night Of The World", and the sounds those words represent, impart the same sense of heartbreak and loneliness, the music feels grey, like looking through a rain speckled dust coated window, at an old abandoned lot, the metal rusted, broken swingsets, collapsing barns, dead grass, mud and old pieces of wood, artifacts of a happier time, all reflecting the blackened sky above. But somehow, this isn't miserable music, it manages to be warm, and thick, and rich, and deceptively simple, lots of layers constantly shifting. It's definitely dronemusic, but not minimal or static, these sounds are alive, record crackle, buried voices, old record, warped instrumentation, sounds are looped and stretched and inverted, tied into knots and then pulled slowly and delicately apart. Fans of Philip Jeck, and Tim Hecker, and William Basinski, this is another gorgeously decayed artifact to add to your collection, evoking many of the same emotions as those like minded soundscapers, yet, the music of Leyland Kirby manages to sound unlike any of them.
This is the perfect soundtrack for introspection, for long nights, candlelight, grey days, windswept storm drenched hillsides, for drifting off, for huddling up with another and sharing warmth, dark, delicate and so beautiful. An incredible, sprawling collection of blurred ambience, obfuscated field recordings, and sad piano melodies hint at the furniture music of Erik Satie, the mood engineering of Angelo Badalamenti, and the emotional resonance of Basinski's Disintegration Loops.
While technically the vinyl wasn't Record Of The Week, it essentially has been, for a couple months now, just delivered in installments, each one a mysterious missive from some otherworld, those who have been keeping up, no doubt understand, and are surely already utterly and inexorably tangled up in Kirby's magical and mournful world of sound, but for the rest of you, who have yet to delve, to climb through, to step beyond, to lose yourself completely. Now is the time, and the message is clear, Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was...
MPEG Stream: "I"
MPEG Stream: "III"
MPEG Stream: "IV"

KIRBY, LEYLAND Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was (History Always Favours The Winners) 6lp 52.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
All three 2lp releases, bundled together with a printed obi, cheaper than buying them all separately, but so limited it's already sold out.

KIRBY, LEYLAND When Did Our Dreams And Futures Drift So Far Apart: Part Two (History Always Favours The Winners) 2lp 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Volume two of this sprawling 6lp (two lps in each volume) drone haze ambient masterpiece from the man behind the Caretaker, and V/VM!
For a couple of years now, Leyland James Kirby has been releasing a highly acclaimed catalog of maudlin ambient recordings culled from melodic phrases looped and blurred from old 78s. The bulk of these recordings (typically released under the Caretaker moniker) didn't seem to leave England or at least they didn't arrive in California. Now that the distribution has improved, we've finally been able to hear what the fuss has been all about. This double lp is the second in a trilogy called Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was, and finds Kirby now living under the grey skies of Berlin having relocated from grey skied Manchester; lo and behold, he's still making cold, rainy grey music for cold, rainy days. And yeah, he's pretty damn good at it.
Like the first volume, When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die, Memories Live Longer Than Dreams also eschews titles and doesn't even give us any information what so ever on the artwork, a paint-smeared canvas. It works as an endless loop of flipping the two records, forgetting which track you've drifted in and out of, and wondering where to start next. These pieces of blurred ambience, obfuscated field recordings, and sad piano melodies hint at the furniture music of Erik Satie, the mood engineering of Angelo Badalamenti, and the emotional resonance of William Basinski. Limited to 450 copies, these will not last. However, there's now a 3cd set containing the whole vinyl trilogy.

KIRBY, LEYLAND When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die: Part One (History Always Favours The Winners) 2lp 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For a couple of years now, Leyland James Kirby has been releasing a highly acclaimed catalog of maudlin ambient recordings culled from melodic phrases looped and blurred from old 78s. The bulk of these recordings (typically released under the Caretaker moniker) didn't seem to leave England or at least they didn't arrive in California. Now that the distribution has improved, we've finally been able to hear what the fuss has been all about. This album belongs to a trilogy called Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was that Kirby has made now that he finds himself living under the grey skies of Berlin having relocated from grey skied Manchester; lo and behold, he's still making cold, rainy grey music for cold, rainy days. And yeah, he's pretty damn good at it.
As a piece of vinyl, When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die eschews titles and doesn't even give us any information what so ever on the artwork, a paint-smeared canvas. It works as an endless loop of flipping the two records, forgetting which track you've drifted in and out of, and wondering where to start next. These pieces of blurred ambience, obfuscated field recordings, and sad piano melodies hint at the furniture music of Erik Satie, the mood engineering of Angelo Badalamenti, and the emotional resonance of William Basinski. Limited to 450 copies, these will not last. However, there's now a 3cd set containing the whole vinyl trilogy.

KIRBY, LEYLAND When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die: Part One (History Always Favours The Winners) 2lp 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For a couple of years now, Leyland James Kirby has been releasing a highly acclaimed catalog of maudlin ambient recordings culled from melodic phrases looped and blurred from old 78s. The bulk of these recordings (typically released under the Caretaker moniker) didn't seem to leave England or at least they didn't arrive in California. Now that the distribution has improved, we've finally been able to hear what the fuss has been all about. This album belongs to a trilogy called Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was that Kirby has made now that he finds himself living under the grey skies of Berlin having relocated from grey skied Manchester; lo and behold, he's still making cold, rainy grey music for cold, rainy days. And yeah, he's pretty damn good at it.
As a piece of vinyl, When We Parted My Heart Wanted To Die eschews titles and doesn't even give us any information what so ever on the artwork, a paint-smeared canvas. It works as an endless loop of flipping the two records, forgetting which track you've drifted in and out of, and wondering where to start next. These pieces of blurred ambience, obfuscated field recordings, and sad piano melodies hint at the furniture music of Erik Satie, the mood engineering of Angelo Badalamenti, and the emotional resonance of William Basinski. Limited to 450 copies, these will not last. However, there's now a 3cd set containing the whole vinyl trilogy.

KIRCHIN, BASIL Abominable Dr. Phibes (Perseverance Records) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
There's been quite a resurgence in folks' interest in the career and records of Basil Kirchin of late. Not sure if it's his inclusion on Nurse With Wound's legendary list of influences, or just more access to lost recordings, but we're pleased as punch either way. Kirchin was not JUST a legendary outsider producer of obscure musical madness -- like most of us he had to pay the bills. Not many of us are lucky enough to pay the bills by scoring one of the greatest 'horror' films ever, The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Unlike the insanity of his legendary Quantum record reviewed a few months back, Kirchin pretty much plays it straight here. Well, as straight as a mad musical genius can. From creepy pipe organ overtures, to dreamy, flute-flecked fantasy ambience, to grand sweeping cinematic epics, with pizzicatto strings and soaring strings to minor key spine tingling creep-outs. Fans of his more obscure recordings won't find the weirdness they may have been expecting, but fans of Morricone, Barry, Nicolai and their ilk will be quite pleased. Extensive liner notes detail the convoluted history of the film and the soundtrack.
MPEG Stream: "War March Of The Priests"
MPEG Stream: "Dr. Phibes Waltz / Cage Full Of Bats"
MPEG Stream: "Vulnavia"

KIRCHIN, BASIL Charcoal Sketches / States Of Mind (Trunk) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If this keeps up Basil Kirchin could become the underground avant garde Tupac. The only problem is that Kirchin is still alive. After years of complete silence and a series of recording either impossible to find and hear or unreleased, seems that the floodgates have opened and reissue after reissue come tuumbling forth. We're not complaining though, as everything we've heard so far has been pretty amazing. For those of you new to Kirchin, this composer / arranger / musician, is probably best known in underground circles for being namechecked on that legendary Nurse With Wound list that came with their first record. This here cd is not a reissue, rather the first time these two mini albums have ever been released. The first three tracks, or 'Sketches' consist of rough ideas and works in progress that Kirchin composed and recorded before his legendary Quantum record (reviewed on the AQ list last year). These sketches are jazzy and dreamy, meldoic and almost traditional sounding, EXCEPT for the fact that the tinkling pianos and muted trumpets are competeting with a wild panoply of exotic bird calls, chirping and cheeping and occasionally shrieking. The second half of this disc, States Of Mind, is an unreleased soundtrack to a documentary about mental illness and features Evan Parker making one of his first appearances with his new 'free' style. Which is perfectly suited to the music. Dark and creepy, atonal and confusional, haunting and cinematic, swirling backdrops of manic piano, rumbling bass, and swirling horns with Parker's sax skronking atop it all. Really curious liner notes too, describing song by song, the different mental ailments related by the music. Weird.
MPEG Stream: "Sketch 1"
MPEG Stream: "Plaques And Tangles"

KIRCHIN, BASIL Charcoal Sketches / States Of Mind (Trunk) lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
If this keeps up Basil Kirchin could become the underground avant garde Tupac. The only problem is that Kirchin is still alive. After years of complete silence and a series of recording either impossible to find and hear or unreleased, seems that the floodgates have opened and reissue after reissue come tuumbling forth. We're not complaining though, as everything we've heard so far has been pretty amazing. For those of you new to Kirchin, this composer / arranger / musician, is probably best known in underground circles for being namechecked on that legendary Nurse With Wound list that came with their first record. This here cd is not a reissue, rather the first time these two mini albums have ever been released. The first three tracks, or 'Sketches' consist of rough ideas and works in progress that Kirchin composed and recorded before his legendary Quantum record (reviewed on the AQ list last year). These sketches are jazzy and dreamy, meldoic and almost traditional sounding, EXCEPT for the fact that the tinkling pianos and muted trumpets are competeting with a wild panoply of exotic bird calls, chirping and cheeping and occasionally shrieking. The second half of this disc, States Of Mind, is an unreleased soundtrack to a documentary about mental illness and features Evan Parker making one of his first appearances with his new 'free' style. Which is perfectly suited to the music. Dark and creepy, atonal and confusional, haunting and cinematic, swirling backdrops of manic piano, rumbling bass, and swirling horns with Parker's sax skronking atop it all. Really curious liner notes too, describing song by song, the different mental ailments related by the music. Weird.
MPEG Stream: "Sketch 1"
MPEG Stream: "Plaques And Tangles"

KIRITCHENKO, ANDREY Stuffed With/Out (Nexsound) cd 11.98
The Ukraine has an incredibly vibrant underground music scene. From the black metal side of the spectrum, Drudkh, Hate Forest, Nokturnal Mortum, Dub Buk, Astrofaes, Lucifugum all the way over to the abstract minimalist free noise side of things, most notably The Moglass, but also Andrey Kiritchenko, who runs the amazing Nexsound label, and also creates some beautiful music himself.
Using guitars, field recordings and a bit of processing, Kiritchenko conjures up a fuzzy world of haunting reverberations, dense swarms of metallic buzzings, mysterious harmonica like wheezes, and a a swirling spacey ambience. You can't help but hear Fennesz, Ambarchi, and other avant guitarscapers, as well as folks like Tim Hecker and Phillip Jeck, with all the fuzz soft focus murk and dreamlike abstraction. But there's something very particular about Kiritchenko's sound, it is always obviously a guitar. The steel strings are the centerpiece of each track, sometimes the buzzing strings get pulled apart into weird wisps of sound, other times it's the background that skitters and loops, stretches out and gradually darkens, while the guitar continues to strum above the swirling morass. A gorgeous and modern, dark foresty folk, an otherworldly take on classic Appalachia. Fahey left to wander through some ancient Ukrainian forest, the results fed into a computer and allowed to spill out, a glitchy expanse of steel strings and skittery buzz, swirls of rich deep ambient flutter, while within little ripples of steel string shimmer slowly spread out, way in the distance bursts of malfunctioning digital melody race across the horizon like clouds in those time lapse nature films, while just underneath lies a soft and serene bed of lilting acoustic guitar and a world of glistening iridescence.
Absolutely amazing packaging. The disc is visible through die cut circles, each one slightly bigger than the one before it, each panel of the brown card stock digipak adorned with dense tangles of abstract text and fuzzy indistinct animal shapes. So cool.
MPEG Stream: "Time Travel Of A Snail"
MPEG Stream: "A Rabbit Makes Her Dreams Come True"

KIRKEGAARD, JACOB 01.02 (Bottrop-Boy) cd 16.98
Another of the quartet of fine new Bottrop-Boy releases, "01.02" is the solo debut from Danish composer Jacob Kirkegaard, collecting material recorded over the past two years in Cologne (where he lives), Paris, and elsewhere. You might know Kirkegaard's name from his collaboration with AQ-fave turntable experimentalist Philip Jeck, the "Soaked" cd that came out last year on the Touch label. The sound of Jeck-style radioactive crackle from antique vinyl carries over to this release, along with gentle melodies, beats, drones, and vague samples. Recognizable, fragmented bits of guitar and piano surface occasionally, and field recordings or environmental sounds also are utilized. The disc as a whole is a very pretty n' abstract glitch-scape. True, you might feel that you already have a few albums like this in your collection -- but it's a slippery slope arguing that more lovely, glitchy, ambient, droney, dreamy electronic music is an unneccessary thing, and this one is certainly a nice listen, particularily if you're a Jeck fan!
RealAudio clip: " 1002 Kobenhavn"
RealAudio clip: "0102 Koln"

KIRKEGAARD, JACOB 4 Rooms (Touch) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Over his past few releases, Jacob Kirkegaard has exhibited a noticeable shift in his work away from the early experiments with the antiquated residue of Jeckian avant-turntablism towards a clinical conceptualism. His last release, Eldfjall, found Kirkegaard wandering Iceland and documenting the numerous geothermal vents for their tumultuous growlings and tectonic rumbles. On 4 Rooms, Kirkegaard is again wandering in a foreign land, as this Danish born / German resident took off to the "Zone of Exclusion" in the still irradiated town of Chernobyl! There, Kirkegaard employed the same techniques of recording and rebroadcasting sound that Alvin Lucier used on his groundbreaking piece I Am Sitting In A Room, but instead of introducing his own voice into the accumulated room ambience, Kirkegaard simply records the ghostly reverberations from a church, an auditorium, a swimming pool, and a gymnasium. Given the weight of the Chernobyl disaster, it's impossible not to hear these timbral vibrations as anything but radioactive shadows of those who died some 20 years ago; but on a phenomenological level, the sounds that Kirkegaard collects are eerily beautiful falling somewhere between the techgnostic work of recent Hafler Trio and the stoic vibrations of Toshiya Tsunoda.
MPEG Stream: "Church"
MPEG Stream: "Swimming Pool"

KIRKEGAARD, JACOB Eldfjall (Touch) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
After several records exploring the internal mechanics of turntables (including a collaboration with Philip Jeck), the Danish sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard turns to the earth itself as the source material for Eldfjall. Using a host of accelerometers, vibration sensors, and contact microphones that he buried in the earth during several trips to Iceland, Kirkegaard maps the sonic terrain of that island-country's volatile geothermal activity. Given the magnitude of his subject matter (the geological sites of rupture where two continental plates are slowly splitting apart), Kirkegaard's recordings are suitably rumbling drones of raw liquifaction. At the more subdued moments, wind can be heard whipping around these rocks (or could that be scalding hot water percolating through porous material?); but for the most part, Kirkegaard documents dense aggregates of vulcanized sound, pressurized water, and agitated vibrations that give the impression of some monumental seismic catastrophe. Kirkegaard's recordings impose a rigorous, clinical taxonomy upon sound, as each chunk of sound slams up against each other without the graceful transitions of a crossfade. Perhaps this is more true to the original source material, but such compositional decisions put Eldfjall closer to the dissonant jump-cuts of Daniel Menche's work. Nevertheless, fans of Toshiya Tsunoda and Chris Watson's Weather Report album should definitely take note! Very good.
MPEG Stream: "Gaea"
MPEG Stream: "Coatlicue"

KIRKEGAARD, JACOB Labyrinthitis (Touch) cd 16.98

KISS THE ANUS OF A BLACK CAT An Interlude To The Outermost ((K-RAA-K)3) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We have been anxiously awaiting the return of the strangely named Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, the apocalyptic folk project of Stef Heeren, a Belgian instrument builder and musician, who managed to create one of the darkest, most compelling 'folk' records in recent memory. A dark world of strum and buzz, equal parts Comus, Current 93, Woven Hand, Swans and the like. His voice a strange strangled croon, venomous and dramatic, over intensely strummed acoustic guitars and all manner of ambient backdrops.
Things have changed quite a bit on An Interlude To The Outermost, much of the sound is the same, the aggressive acoustic guitars, the vocals, the apocalyptic foreboding, but now there are drums, drums that anchor and drive each song, giving the record a much different vibe, not at all unappealing, just a lot different. Where If The Sky Falls, We Shall Catch Larks seemed to drift, unhinged and unmoored, no distinct rhythms to pin it down, each song hovering like black smoke from a forest campfire, An Interlude To The Outermost is much more structured, songs, arrangements, the drums are an obvious shift, but the tempos too, and the overall sound, this is distinctly more rocking, a sort of near-rollicking campfire folk jam, bringing to mind 16 Horsepower and even the Pogues here and there, albeit much more nihilistic and dark. And the sound is a lot more lush as well, with a wider array of instrumentation, the drums, but also accordion, and electric guitar. In fact, more than ever KTAOABC sounds like some impossible mix of Current 93, 16 Horsepower and New Model Army. If that makes any sense. But it's awesome. Epic and intense, brooding and moody, but a bit rocking as well.
The melodies are still lilting and minor key, the mood is most definitely miserablist, a dour dreary black folk, but with epic blasts of full on, heavily instrument-ed folk ROCK. It takes some getting used to, but once you do, it does make perfect sense. There are still some moments reminiscent of the first record, the funereal crawl of "You Will Reap A Whirlwind", the wheezing dirge of "Beyond The Tanarian Hills"... And actually, even at its most rocking this disc is just as dark and sinister sounding. It's just slightly more lush and upbeat, but it suits the sound. And the more we listen to it, the less we can imagine it sounding any other way. Where the first record channeled dark forests, and leafless trees, crows on abandoned farmhouses, open expanses of barren fields, the new record is the thunder of horse hooves, the rumble of thunder, the shadow of storm clouds, a fierce and furious, subtly rocking, epic and intense divine doom folk. And like the first disc, essential for fans of all things C93, Nick Cave, Death In June, Comus, Swans, Der Blutharsch, Richard Youngs, Woven Hand and 16HP.
Beautifully packaged in a minimally screenprinted fold over cardboard sleeve, with a striking image on the cover, an old fashioned looking drawing of a bedraggled kitten and a big ball of yarn...
MPEG Stream: "The Firesky"
MPEG Stream: "A Scatterbrain Sings Of Christians And The Ghoul Bares Teeth"
MPEG Stream: "You Will Reap A Whirlwind"

KISS THE ANUS OF A BLACK CAT Hewers Of Wood And Drawers Of Water (Zeal) cd 11.98
It's been ages and ages since we last heard from Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat. All three of the previous KTAOABC records: An Interlude To The Outermost, If the Sky Falls, We Shall Catch Larks and The Nebulous Dreams, were all huge hits around here. KTAOABC, aka Stef Heeren is a Belgian musician, who also builds his own instruments, and past records have all played out like some impossible mix of Comus, Woven Hand, Swans and Current 93. A brooding, dark apocalyptic folk, that has definitely evolved over the years, always spare and haunting, but also always mysterious and ominous, slightly sinister, and a little witchy. Heeren employed quite a varied sonic palette as well, the core vocals and acoustic guitar augmented by piano, bells, strings, and on the last record, even drums, transforming the more drifty vibe of past records into something more rocking and propulsive.
But on Hewers Of Wood, Heeren seems to pull back a bit, there are still drums, but the songs seem more subdued, hauntingly minimal, back to the creepy dirgey folk of Kiss The Anus records of old. In fact, more than ever, KTAOABC is sounding like Woven Hand / Sixteen Horsepower, a similar knack for melody, the same sort of strident vocalizing, at times his voice a dead ringer for David Eugene Edwards, the swampy bluesy folk, it's a sound we love, and Heeren is a master, and these songs are super intense and emotional, hypnotic and mesmerizing, and so catchy and gorgeously creepy.
The first three songs are practically perfect, the slo-mo Comus-y waltz of the title track, the buzz flecked urgency of "All Your Ghosts Are Worried", and "Argonaut And Magneto" which could easily mistaken for a Woven Hand song (if it wasn't for that Belgian accent), so much so that it almost sounds like a cover, but also means it's gorgeous and powerful intensely moving.
The whole record oozes with a sense of foreboding, as if each song was some sort of cautionary tale, stories of lives lost, loves lost, forgotten memories and other, better times, and this sense of loss and regret, as well as some hope for redemption and forgiveness, that all seems to seep into every note, every lyric, helping transform this swampy bluegrassy folk music into something more, acid tinged, subtly psychedelic, emotionally powerful, sonically revelatory, dark meaningful music. Gorgeous!
MPEG Stream: "Hewers Of Wood And Drawers Of Water"
MPEG Stream: "All Your Ghosts Are Worried"
MPEG Stream: "Argonaut And Magneto"

KISS THE ANUS OF A BLACK CAT Hewers Of Wood And Drawers Of Water (Zeal) lp 16.98
NOW ON VINYL!!
It's been ages and ages since we last heard from Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat. All three of the previous KTAOABC records: An Interlude To The Outermost, If the Sky Falls, We Shall Catch Larks and The Nebulous Dreams, were all huge hits around here. KTAOABC, aka Stef Heeren is a Belgian musician, who also builds his own instruments, and past records have all played out like some impossible mix of Comus, Woven Hand, Swans and Current 93. A brooding, dark apocalyptic folk, that has definitely evolved over the years, always spare and haunting, but also always mysterious and ominous, slightly sinister, and a little witchy. Heeren employed quite a varied sonic palette as well, the core vocals and acoustic guitar augmented by piano, bells, strings, and on the last record, even drums, transforming the more drifty vibe of past records into something more rocking and propulsive.
But on Hewers Of Wood, Heeren seems to pull back a bit, there are still drums, but the songs seem more subdued, hauntingly minimal, back to the creepy dirgey folk of Kiss The Anus records of old. In fact, more than ever, KTAOABC is sounding like Woven Hand / Sixteen Horsepower, a similar knack for melody, the same sort of strident vocalizing, at times his voice a dead ringer for David Eugene Edwards, the swampy bluesy folk, it's a sound we love, and Heeren is a master, and these songs are super intense and emotional, hypnotic and mesmerizing, and so catchy and gorgeously creepy.
The first three songs are practically perfect, the slo-mo Comus-y waltz of the title track, the buzz flecked urgency of "All Your Ghosts Are Worried", and "Argonaut And Magneto" which could easily mistaken for a Woven Hand song (if it wasn't for that Belgian accent), so much so that it almost sounds like a cover, but also means it's gorgeous and powerful intensely moving.
The whole record oozes with a sense of foreboding, as if each song was some sort of cautionary tale, stories of lives lost, loves lost, forgotten memories and other, better times, and this sense of loss and regret, as well as some hope for redemption and forgiveness, that all seems to seep into every note, every lyric, helping transform this swampy bluegrassy folk music into something more, acid tinged, subtly psychedelic, emotionally powerful, sonically revelatory, dark meaningful music. Gorgeous!
MPEG Stream: "Hewers Of Wood And Drawers Of Water"
MPEG Stream: "All Your Ghosts Are Worried"
MPEG Stream: "Argonaut And Magneto"

KISS THE ANUS OF A BLACK CAT Turn Hegel On His Head (Implied Sound / Public Guilt) 7" 5.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two songs, two movements, spread out over two sides, each a distinctly different version of what sounds like a similar sonic root, from one of our favorite modern apocalyptic freak folks, Kiss The Anus Of The Black Cat, aka, Belgian bard Stef Irritant.
We raved about the KTAOABC full lengths, and if you don't have those you should get them now, but if you need a taster, this is the perfect place to start.
The A side is a slow burning slab of simple spare strumming, stripped down percussion, hovering over a sea of creaks and background buzzes, brief flurries of muted tribal percussion. The song builds and builds into a super impassioned climax, the vocals wailing, the drums pounding, sounding like the perfect mix of Current 93 and the Woven Hand.
The flipside, sounds like it's made up of similar elements, and begins already a bit revved up, but here the vocals are wrapped in effects and processed into strange ghostly whispers, the guitars, the vocals, everything is stretched into streaks of droney buzz, again working its way up to an epic bombastic finale, all chaotic percussion, crashing drums and thick sheets of feeding back guitars.
Gorgeously packaged in a white textured paper sleeve, printed inside and out, with a Japanese style obi and pressed on white vinyl.

KITCHEN AND THE PLASTIC SPOONS Best Off - Recordings 1980-81 (Ill Wind) cd 23.00
Wow! An amazingly weird synthy Swedish new wave punk band that burned bright for one short year way back in 1980. Kitchen & The Plastic Spoons were herky jerky, full of demented pep and enough deranged energy to make themselves a seriously freaked out and super unique proposition. Sort of how we always wished new wave sounded, not overly polished but instead kind of demented and mad in all the right ways. Like The Pop Group and the Dead Kennedys all mixed up with Siouxsie and Johnny Lydon taking turns on vocals. As much as this makes us think of some of the more well known (relatively) bands of the era like The Slits, Raincoats, Au Pairs, Liliput and Maximum Joy, there is something so singular and unique about Kitchen And The Plastic Spoons that makes it kind of surprising that this is the first time these tracks have been dug up in almost 30 years. It's amazing how vibrant and timely this still sounds. It's hard not to imagine that bands like Erase Errata had somehoww gotten their hands on one of the few hundred original lp's and used it as a sort of template or inspiration. With all the hype in recent years over lost punk reissues from the likes of The Homosexuals, Crime and The Metal Boys this might just take the cake for a long overdue rediscovery of a truly weird punk classic!
MPEG Stream: "In Bars"
MPEG Stream: "Uddevalla"
MPEG Stream: "Psch"

KLANGMUTATIONEN Schwarshagel (Utech) cd 14.98
"Organic free metal from Malaysia" is what we had heard about Klangmutationen. Wow, really? Utech doesn't provide much information at all about this band, other than to describe them as a "mystery" (how helpful), and compare their music to the work of outside '70s free improv artists from Europe (the FMP label) and Japan (Masayuki Takayangi, Kaoru Abe). We're also told that this mysterious group hails from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Do we believe it? Maybe. We'd like to.
Certainly their music has a dark, strange vibe - literally, vibrations - cycles of low-end droning, sounding like giant metal springs being vibrated... or more likely, electric guitars, detuned. Strings/springs flapping loosely, arcing with electricity. Weird and atmospheric. Like Harry Bertoia meets Caspar Brotzmann!?
That's the first track (2:19) and part of the second into which it flows (25:05). But before long, the lengthy track two develops a serious case of screaming, saxophone/flute/clarinet skree, definitely giving some skronked-out substance to those free jazz comparisons. It's pretty intense and extreme, right on for those into Rudolph Grey's Blue Humans, John Zorn's Painkiller, Peter Brotzmann, Charles Gayle, Arthur Doyle, Albert Ayler, cats like that... yet it's definitely not, y'know, jazz. More like "jazz" for fans of SUNNO))) and Aufgehoben... or drone music for fans of Borbetomagus. Dense and distorted, this is the sound of plunging into the abyss, with a witches' chorus of reed-squealing cacophony as company.
The third track, clocking in at 19:42, is almost as much of a juggernaut. More whale-call feedback guitar grind, murk and moodiness. And then this disc comes to a close with the brief (1:58), relatively quiet caresses of fourth, final track. An eerie, wispy coda that could be the soundtrack music heard as a landing party from TV's Star Trek beams down to some strange, oddly lit world... and they should be glad they don't have to face whatever alien threats the album's earlier tracks would provide cues for!
Curious stuff, this Klangmutationen. Heavy too. We're enjoying repeat spins of this disc, and also should mention we have another release of theirs, yet to be reviewed - an LP on the Holy Mountain label (which affiliation in itself is a recommendation).
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

KLANGMUTATIONEN Weibe Messe (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98

KLARINETTE (CLARINETTE) The Path Of Sisyphus (self-released) cd-r 12.98
A match made in heaven (or maybe hell), one of our favorite noise makers / soundscapers, Mr. Dan Vallor, aka Clarinette, or in this case, Klarinette with a K, tries his hand at 'metal', the end result sounding less like metal proper, and more like some twisted, super distorted, ultra heavy, hypno rock, avant noise rock dirgery, which of course means we're digging it big time. We weren't sure what to expect when Vallor told of us this impending metalocalypse, but it definitely wasn't this. We were expecting something more dronedoomdirge-y, sort of noise style drones, but delivered with some extra heft. But instead, The Path Of Sisyphus reveals itself as something much more subtle, rhythmic and hypnotic, a simple skeletal drum beat (programmed perhaps?) locks into a stripped down krautrock like groove, and seems to set the controls on autopilot, while the surrounding sounds explode in wild gouts of crumbling distortion, keening moaning swaths of blown out buzz, murky tangled melodies, undulating swells of layered guitar fuzz, that pulsing propulsive beat, keeping this from being straight up abstract noise, and helping transform it into something that sounds not all that far removed from a past Record Of The Week by Torlesse Super Group, which features another longtime aQ fave Roy Montgomery. That TSG record was a fantastic assemblage of murky ambience, and minimal rhythms, tranced out and super hypnotic, and the vibe is similar here, but with a hefty helping of Dead C style guitarnoise over the top, as well as some super catchy melodies buried in the murk, all deftly woven into billowing clouds of soft focus psych guitar and bleary distorted tangles of blissed out noise, and all anchored to that beat, that persistent rhythm, which somehow holds it all together.
Those guitars, and it sounds like there's lots of 'em, as in swarms and swarms of em, are what this is all about, and they swoop wildly from angry buzzing barrage to keening Sunroof! like skree, to grinding metallic churn, to weird Butthole Surfers like distorto melody dirge, in fact, at some points, this sounds like it could be some lost live BH recording, that simple tribal rhythm, and the super distorted melody infused guitar freakouts over the top, all wreathed in a sort of fuzzy haze.
Fantastic stuff! And while maybe not strictly metal enough for metalheads, it's still plenty heavy, not to mention psychedelic, dark and rhythmic, tranced out and utterly hypnotic, which means, of course, absolutely recommended! And it's dedicate to our very own Andee!!
LIMITED TO 60 COPIES!! Of which we have almost half, but it's very likely these will be go pretty quick, and once they're gone, that's it. Each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "The Path Of Sisyphus (exceprt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "The Path Of Sisyphus (exceprt 2)"

KLEEMAN, ARROW Phase Reps And Builds (Root Strata) cassette 6.98
One of two new tapes from Root Strata, this one comes from Arrow Kleeman, who we know very little about other than the fact that he's a visual artist and musician/composer, on Phase Reps And Builds, he pretty much does exactly what the title suggests, repeating electronic phrases, looped rhythms, and layering them into lush, gorgeously mesmerizing sci-fi synthscapes. Percolating rhythms, overlapping melodies, the sound simultaneously futuristic and retro, definitely tapping into the whole Blade Runner / John Carpenter / Logan's Run vibe that folks like Majeure and Zombi and Umberto have been exploring lately. But where those folks seem to be pushing the eighties soundtrack / Euro dancefloor, Kleeman's explorations are more minimal, more academic. Not to say they're lacking in emotion, they're just darker, and more contemplative, the sounds cyclical, mesmerizingly repetitious, each track and experimental loopscape, trancelike and tranquil, infusing its rhythmic and electronic elements with the compositional approach of Steve Reich and Terry Riley, creating a sort of modern minimalism / sci-fi retro-futuristic space synth hybrid.
Needless to say, recommended for fans of Lichens, Grasslung, Oneohtrix Point Never, Pulse Emitter, Le Revelateur, etc.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!
MPEG Stream: "AutoBlips"
MPEG Stream: "NuPhase"
MPEG Stream: "RepeatAgain"

KLEINBACH, WILHELM The Funerary Notebooks Of Herr Gratchenfleiss (The Guild Of Funerary Violinists) cd-r 12.98
What is more amazing than discovering a whole movement in music that had never been documented, let alone even heard of. EVER! No mention in any books, magazines, not a single trace. What if that music was in fact the music of Funerary violins. A music created and composed to be performed at funerals. The only evidence of these musics, some scratchy old wax cylinder recordings, some faded photos, and brittle sheafs of old sheet music. A music that flourished in the 1800's and disappeared almost completely by the 1900's after the Catholic church's Great Funerary Purges. Only recently discovered in a locked trunk was the music of Herr Gratchenfleiss, recorded to wax cylinder by Wilhelm Kleinbach. The sound a mournful miserable, gorgeously minor key dirge. So completely moving and emotional, the recordings thick with static and crackle, only adding to the power and timelessness of the music. What could be more amazing?
How about making the whole thing up? Constructing an elaborate history of a genre that never existed. Populating this history with lifelike characters, creating photos, sheet music, historical documents, but most amazingly, recording all the music, and treating it to sound as if it was some old wax cylinder recording.
Hard to say which would be more amazing, a wholly undiscovered hidden dark corner of musical history, quashed by the church and relegated to be lost forever, or an insanely detailed project, the ultimate conceptual art piece. Either way, we are in love with this stuff.
Simply from a musical standpoint, this is everything we could hope for. The recordings are fuzzy and staticky, bathed in layers of crackle and grit, and years of neglect and decay, but beneath the recording inconsistencies we love so much, are some truly moving and emotionally rich performances, the melodies are so intense and sad, minor key and mournful. truly funereal. It's impossible not to imagine some old funeral procession, a row of black clad mourners, trudging down a dirt road, with their deceased atop an old wooden cart, the sky grey, the music of the Funerary violinist winding around the procession like wreaths of black smoke. So goddamn lovely. We have been listening to this non-stop since we got it.
And then there's the story. The "history". Is it real? Is it possible that a musical movement could disappear so completely. So much so that not a single person anywhere EVER had heard of the Guild Of Funerary Violinists? Or is it all a huge put-on? A massive made up world? The ultimate outsider art project. Either way, we are completely blown away. If this is indeed real, HOLY SHIT! How utterly mysterious and romantic!! We do sort of want to believe it's real. It's so perfectly evocative of some other time, of death and sadness throughout the ages. But if it is in fact made up, it has to be one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed hoaxes of all time. There's even a book (you can probably find at you local bookstore), filled with photos and sheet music, and histories of all the players, the birth and death of the genre, it's so detailed and elaborate, so much so it almost seems impossible that someone could have created all of this from thin air, if it was made up, it must have been the creator's life's work. Years and years of methodical planning and writing and recording for sure. But either way, it's magical and fascinating, and 'real' or not, the music is truly gorgeous, and the story completely captivating, both intertwined into some sort of time machine, perfectly transporting us to that rain splattered dirt road, the soaring sad sounds of the Funerary violin drifting into the black sky...
MPEG Stream: "The Noble March Of Death"
MPEG Stream: "The Dizzy Flight Of Death"
MPEG Stream: "The Stately Tragedy Of Death"

KLEISTWAHR Arsonicide (Harbinger Sound) lp 26.00

KLEISTWAHR The Return (Noiseville) lp 23.00
Legendary UK noise merchant Gary Mundy (Ramleh, Skullflower, Broken Flag collective) returns with Kleistwahr, a project that fits nicely within the legacy of a man known for harsh electronic noise. While we struggled to find any detailed information on Kleistwahr, we can say that anyone digging Skullflower's more recent forays into blown out guitar skree (and we know there are plenty of you out there) will find much to love here. The four songs making up The Return contain all the air raid siren guitars and eardrum pulverizing feedback we have come to love, but things take a surprisingly beautiful turn on side two, with warm droney keyboards weaving a haunting melody that perfectly compliments the album cover, a stark photocopied image of a building foundation sitting exposed in the snow surrounded by dead trees. Though the songs are instrumental, Mundy is able to perfectly convey a feeling of despondency and sadness, genuine emotions that definitely set Kleistwahr apart from the multitudes of floorcore outfits, all hunkered over effects pedals making lots of noise, but very little of it as compelling and emotionally charged as this.
Part of Noiseville's awesome Outer Bounds Of Sound series, with each lp limited to a one time pressing of 300. We received 20, so you know what that means...

KLIPPERT, GARTH STEEL Music For Taxicabs (Field Hymns) cassette 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From the same label that brought us the old school electro synth lo-fi party jams of the oddly monickered Oxykitten, comes this, the latest from PDX via SF audio alchemist Garth Klippert, who while living in SF and working as a cab driver, spent his free time creating dreamy abstract melodic soundscapes, cobbled together from field recordings, twangy guitars, electric pianos, assorted homemade instruments and toys, as well as all manner of junk (plastic guns, saw blades, pot lids, shoes, etc). These disparate elements are smeared and blurred into warm, fluid, layered sonic drifts, from woozy piano driven sunshiney kraut shimmer, to twang flecked Negativland-esque vocal collages, to slow burning skeletal blues wrapped around mysterious voices and fields of click and chitter, to windswept expanses of almost Eastern sounding sort-of-ragas, rife with sped up voices, croaking frogs, muted murky looped and lo-fi rhythms, everything very hazy, a little haunting, cinematic and subtly psychedelic. Cool stuff for sure.
Pressed on bright yellow tapes, housed in full color sleeves, LIMITED to 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered, and comes with a digital download.

KLOOD P4.2: A Collection of Drones (self-released) 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 French ensemble Klood was responsible for one of the best releases from the Drone Records series of limited edition seven inches, coming very close to sounding like a lost track of melancholic guitar ambience by Maeror Tri. "P4.2: A Collection of Drones" is much grittier and more distorted than the rather lilting sound of that aforementioned single, but does live up to its name. Sustained tones (probably from guitar and synth) are run through a crunchy distortions, ample amounts of delay, and plenty of reverberation.
RealAudio clip: "Part 3"

KLUCSEVEK, GUY Free Range Accordion (Starkland) cd 14.98
Fifty three year old Guy Klucsevek is one of the world's foremost accordionists who consistently pushes outward the conventional notions of what an accordion must sound like. Described as possessing "poker-faced wit", his many recordings invite listeners to take delight in the many forms of music which can benefit from accordion intrumentation. This newest record features collaborations with or tributes to composers Klucsevek admires, including Burt Bacharach (covering a rare song Bacharach wrote for a B-horror film which he first heard on a tape John Zorn made for him), the esteemed Japanese composer Somei Satoh, and Lars Hollmer of AQ-beloved cult Swedish folk-prog band Samla Mammas Manna. Ranges from intense drones to fucked-up polka to some of the fastest most impressive fingers-flying-over-the-keyboard arpeggiated notes that I didn't even know were possible on the accordion! Klucsevek is one of a kind.
RealAudio clip: "Aeolian Furies"

KNEALE, CAMPBELL Pink Stalingrad (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ran out of these super quick, so for those of you who got left in the dust last time around, we just now managed to get more!
After a whole slew of recent releases, this is the first new record in a while from Mr. Kneale presented under his given name. Not sure what makes this a Campbell Kneale record and not a Birchville Cat Motel record, but who cares, fans of either will dig this heavily. Seems like Kneale's focus lately has been almost exclusively on his black sludge doom project Black Boned Angel, and we're not complaining, we definitely can't get enough of that stuff. But Kneale has quite a deft hand when it comes to free ambient drone as well, and oddly enough we can't seem to get enough of that stuff either. So here we have the new Kneale record, which could have just as easily been a Birchville record, based on the sounds within, and is shot through with plenty of Black Boned Angel-isms, delicate drones are thicker, heavier, more dense and volatile, sludge metal blissed out into expansive stretches of shimmer and swirl. Four lengthy tracks, each a barely moving slab of molten sonic grrrrwwwwrrrrrrrrvvvvvmmmmmm. Layers atop layers, delicate melodies buried beneath, rumbling churning slow shifting sound, keening high end skree all tangled up with subsonic reverberations, the whole thing a slow moving vibrational flow, a massive abstract multiphonic spaced out downtuned tranced our Ur-drone.
MPEG Stream: "Pink Stalingrad"
MPEG Stream: "Black Thrash Princess"

KNEALE.KIRK.PIETERS Btwxt / Bdvld (Celebrate Psi Pheomenon) cd-r 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another batch of super limited and beautifully packaged cd-r's from Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. The finest in underground free noise / drone, culled mostly from New Zealand but all around the world as well. For those of you new to the CpsiP label, imagine classic Siltbreeze (Dead C, etc.) mixed with Jewelled Antler (Thuja, Blithe Sons etc.), dark and deep listening that sometimes verges on all out noise, but more often than not remains subtle experiments in avant drone and abstract sound. And when we say limited we mean LIMITED. Thes babies come in pressings of 30-80, out of which we get a whopping 10 copies!!
A veritable New Zealand noise super group, featuring one member from each: Birchville Cat Motel, Sandoz Lab Technicians, and Flies Inside The Sun, the whole is definitely less than the sum of its parts, with three cooks in the kitchen, making barely audible microscopic soundscapes of whir and scrape, skitter and whisper, hum and tinkle. Huge expanses of barely-there sound, vast and wide open, only the occasional tiny bell or reverbed clunk letting you know the action is still on. This is some definite headphone listening.
MPEG Stream: "Btwxt"

KNEALE.KNEALE.KNEALE Majestic Header (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
It must be pretty fun being Campbell Kneale's kids. Not only is he a cool guy, funny, weird taste, he also gathers his offspring together once in a while and records an album!! Man, when we were 7 or 8 years old, I'm not sure we would have even understood what was going on if our Dad asked us to start a band or record an album. But the younger Kneales, Winter, aged 7, and Caspar, aged 9, are old hands at this recording business. In fact this is record number two, for this familial ensemble, rounded out by Campbell, aged 33. The last Kneale-Cubed record, Myriapod, was a chaotic freeforall blast of noise, a wall of sound very reminiscent of Papa Kneale's harsher Birchville albums. But part of that may have been cuz the kids were too young to know better, nothing more fun than making loud noise after all. But it seems Winter and Caspar have matured, both physically and musically, as Majestic Header is a much more refined affair, two lengthy tracks of skittery beated drone, with Winter and Caspar handling most of the instruments: beats, electronics, and percussion, leaving Dad to violin and guitar. The result is pretty cool. Both tracks are long free form drone workouts, a thick layer of fuzz beneath squealing peals of violin skree, while nestled amongst the fuzzy drone and thick whirs, a simple propulsive drum machine pulses along and the whole thing is pelted with strange alien squelches and abstract FX. The second track has an almost-house music thing going on, although it's buried under some Black Boned guitars. Like a techno Total or a heavy metal Neu! or some sort of primitive Birchville remix record. Cool stuff. Can't wait to hear what sort of sonic trouble these boys will get up to in their teens!! We're sure Campbell is bracing himself as well!!
SUPER LIMITED! WE GOT ABOUT 30 COPIES, WHEN THOSE ARE GONE THEY MAY BE GONE FOR GOOD, SO ACT FAST!
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

KNEALE.KNEALE.KNEALE Myriapod (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yet again, Celebrate Psi Phenomenon / Birchville Cat Motel madman Campbelll Kneale risks the wrath of child services by enlisting his offspring, Casper and WInter, in a 30 minute noise drenched free for all. Record number two from the Kneale family, this one is a speaker shredding burst of jagged noise and crumbling distortion. There might be songs and singing and other music type things present, but if they are, the kids have thrown them to the floor and stomped them to bits, then tossed them into the air, a massive swirling cloud of industrial rrroooaaar, like a battle royale between Total, Birchville Cat Motel and Hijokaidan. SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!
MPEG Stream: "Myriapod"

KNEALE.KNEALE.KNEALE The Silver Chair (Celebrate Psi Pheomenon) cd-r 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another batch of super limited and beautifully packaged cd-r's from Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. The finest in underground free noise / drone, culled mostly from New Zealand but all around the world as well. For those of you new to the CpsiP label, imagine classic Siltbreeze (Dead C, etc.) mixed with Jewelled Antler (Thuja, Blithe Sons etc.), dark and deep listening that sometimes verges on all out noise, but more often than not remains subtle experiments in avant drone and abstract sound. And when we say limited we mean LIMITED. Thes babies come in pressings of 30-80, out of which we get a whopping 10 copies!!
This triple K release is definitely a family affair, with the Kneales -- Campbell (age 30), Caspar (age 7) and Winter (aged 4) -- all getting together to make a sweetly innocent racket. Stumbling acoustic guitars, caterwauling violins, chimes and shakers and splattery percussion, distorted guitar fuzz, squiggly synthesizers, squeaking horns and toys, almost new wave keyboard pulses, primitive four on the floor techno beats and all sorts of other business. Sounds like it must have been a blast to make, and thankfully it's just as fun to listen to. Primitive, abstract New Zealand all ages noise rock. Nice.
MPEG Stream: "Feather Duster"
MPEG Stream: "Dinosaur Wars"

KNELL Last Ten Meters (Utech) cd 14.98
Knell comes from the same mold that has shaped the work of Jasper TX and Machinefabriek. While it remains to be seen if Knell will take the course of cd-r infinitude as both of the aforementioned artists have, it's clear from this debut recording that Knell (aka Johannes Buff) has the chops to pull off that expressive blur between art-drone soundsmear and elliptical patterns of darkened songwriting broken and stretched into lengthy constructs. Piano and harmonizing echoes set a shadowy stage at the onset of Last Ten Meters which Buff flushes out with unsettling squishes of sound as if aquatic creatures were unduly having their contents squeezed out of their pores. Eventually, a singular detuned guitar strum begins a melancholy dirge which steadily doubles and interweaves into a minor-key crescendo that all together falls somewhere between Larsen's post-rock hypnosis and the molten, subharmonic doom of Corrupted. After one of these smoldering peaks of downer rock riffs burns out in distant washes of distortion, the pools of metallic drone begin to coalesce once again and a fragmented song emerges once again. Yeah, Knell really does conjure the grim yet beautiful atmospheres as found in the best work of Jasper TX and Machinefabriek; hopefully, Buff will continue on with the Knell recordings in same exemplary fashion as his aesthetic contemporaries.
MPEG Stream: "Extract 1"
MPEG Stream: "Extract 2"

KNIFE, THE (IN COLLABORATION WITH MT. SIMS & PLANNINGTOROCK) Tomorrow, In A Year (Rabid / Mute) 2cd 19.98

KNIVES OV RESISTANCE Prisca Sapientia (Aurora Borealis) cd 14.98
Back in stock!
Latest release from the UK's Aurora Borealis label, responsible for the KTL double lp elsewhere on this list, as well as records from Moss, Ginnungagap, Wolfmangler, Guapo, the Grails, even Crebain!
Knives Ov Resistance are a European ensemble who weave dense soundscapes of blissed out ambience and abstract guitar shimmer, Channeling the spirit of Popol Vuh, Spacemen 3, Godspeed, Jackie O Motherfucker, and other like minded sonic explorationists.
A lush blend of field recordings, glistening guitars, rumbling drones, warbling turntables, all woven into drifting sun dappled sonic tapestries of sound. An ambient post rock drift, that flits and flutters amidst the sounds of children laughing, the lush din of the forest, chittering birds, the sound of leaves and water, a dense and thick backdrop, rife with turntabled fragments of sound, bits of opera, soaring strings, muted squiggles, slowed down ambience, warm whirs, mixed in with simple percussion, everything smeared into fuzzy blurs, all beneath an abstract summery folk, that glimmers and drifts, gradually changing shape and color, texture and timbre. Epic and expansive, yet subtle and simple. Some sort of abstract avant ambient folk perhaps... really really nice.
Fans of the above mentioned bands will definitely dig this, as well as fans of new weird America, modern free folk, and all things Jewelled Antler.
Packaged in a thick vinyl pouch, housed in a cool textured paper sleeve that folds out into a poster.
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 2"

KNIZAK, MILAN Broken Music (Ampersand) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Czech artist Milan Knizak began his art career without much success, getting himself thrown out of Pedagogic Uni Prague, Preliminary Art School Prague, and Art Academy Prague in quick succession. But during the mid '60s, Knizak affiliated himself with Fluxus and began experimenting with turntables, tape recorders, and the surfaces of vinyl in order to make a 'broken music,' predating the damaged turntable 'n' vinyl experiments of Christian Marclay by almost two decades! Originally he would just slow down and speed up his records to change to quality of the intrinsic music. But by 1965, he started to scratch the records, punch holes in them, sticking tape to the surfaces, dumping paint over whole record, burning them, literally cutting the records apart and gluing them back together. These would then be played on his turntable, and inevitably destroy the needle and often wreck the turntable itself! The collages that Knizak arrived at are nerve-wracking clattering works in which snippets of the original would emerge amidst erratic skips and asynchronous warbling. Certainly for those adventurous fans of Philip Jeck, "Metal Machine Music," and Marclay.
RealAudio clip: "Composition N. 1"
RealAudio clip: "Composition N. 3"

KODAMA Turning Leaf (Olde English Spelling Bee) lp 21.00

KOHN Random Patterns (KRAAK) 12" 15.98
We first discovered Kohn, aka Jurgen DeBlonde, via his contribution to the Western Vinyl 'Portrait' series, in which each artist was to pick an individual, write songs about said individual, and provide a drawing for the cover. Kohn picked Bruce Willis, so we could hardly resist when we saw this weird record in the racks with this scrawled portrait of BW on the cover. We were then pleasantly surprised to discover that there was more to the record that the concept/cover, and in fact, it was a gorgeous disc of glitched out folkiness and droney melodic abstractions, trippy loops and blurred collaged soundscapes, it was so good that we went searching for every release we could find.
And not soon after, this showed up, the latest from Kohn, an lp on Kraak and one that finds him exploring the concept, as the title suggests, of random patterns, recorded with just an organ, and with minimal edits, improvised variations on simple random patterns, designed to be listened to, again according to the liner notes, while doing something else, reading, meditating, driving, and it does sound perfect for that. Obviously influenced by Reich, Riley, Glass and the like, this is moody hypnotic, almost new age sounding kosmische mesmer, four long tracks, that over the course of each, gradually shift and transform, from murky looped churn, to glistening melodic shimmer, and from lush chordal thrum, to percolating sci-fi arpeggiations, that sound very cosmic and soundtracky, the sort of stuff that should definitely appeal to everyone into the current crop of retro futurism, Zombi, Umberto, Majeure, Blizaro, etc, although this is definitely more minimal, and in places definitely has a Zomes vibe, a similar sort of spaced out zoner vibe, perfect drift off, zone out, late night soundtrack for sure.
Housed in a super swank four color silkscreened fold over jacket, with a printed insert with liner notes detailing the motives behind the music, and Kohn's ideas and intentions in creating these random patterns.