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
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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 analogue 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 subterrenean heaviness, pushing this closer towards the Earth / Sunn 0))) terrain. A really wonderful album!!!
RealAudio clip: "Enurn"
RealAudio clip: "Equipment Rack"
RealAudio clip: "Format"

K-RAD Deli Mood Spot (Someoddpilot) cd 14.98
The opening track for "Deli Mood Spot" is so misleading and uncharacteristic of the rest of the album that I have to question K-Rad's decision for including it on the album. K-Rad is a Chicago trio specializing in an IDM techno centered around low-sampling rate grit and faux-acid squiggliness often heard on Patrick Pulsinger's productions for Cheap Records, yet the album seductively begins with a down-tempo, trip-hop number straight outta Mo' Wax circa 1996, complete with blunted breaks, Steinski inspired samples, and DJ Shadow funk recontextualizations. Both that opening cut and the rest of the album are well-executed but certainly do not work as a paired dyptic of well-established aesthetics.
RealAudio clip: "103BR18"
RealAudio clip: "177JIF"

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. Goldfish (Tigerstyle) cd 13.98
Taking a step away from the fragile, quiet, slow/sadcore sounds of her last album as well as those of her band Ida, Karla Schickele's performance on this her second solo full length is much less restrained, subdued and delicate. Honest, intimate and bittersweet, she seems to pour her heart into each of these songs. The acoustic instrumentation is once again lovely and barebones - perhaps even more spartan so than on her debut - providing a subtle backing to her voice. Very reminiscent of the early '90s Olympia / DC folky pop scene (Lois, Mecca Normal, Spinanes, etc). Nice!
RealAudio clip: "Ballad"
RealAudio clip: "More Than Wanted"

K. New Problems (Tiger Style) cd 14.98
The first solo album from Karla Schickele of Ida is a lovely, gentle affair. Full of hushed, intimate acoustic recordings embellished with a delicate, almost imperceptible, misty texture. Soft, spartan string and piano instrumentation allow her voice and words to shine through. Very much in the same vein as Low (with whom she recently shared a split cd), or Elliott Smith. Fans of the slower moments of the Spinanes or That Dog (which a customer actually mistook this for) might tingle to k. as well.
RealAudio clip: "Poor Dumb Bird"
RealAudio clip: "Knoxville"

K. / LOW split (Tiger Style) cd ep 9.98
A lovely split release between Low and Karla Schickele of Ida (and formerly of Babe the Blue Ox and Beekeeper). As expected, this is a slow, quiet dreamy gathering of like-minded souls. Tara Jane O'Neil adds drums and organ on the k. tracks. Mr. Warn Defever recorded the Low tracks and remixed one by k.

K. / LOW split (Tiger Style) 7" 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A lovely split release between Low and Karla Schickele of Ida (and formerly of Babe the Blue Ox and Beekeeper). As expected, this is a slow, quiet dreamy gathering of like-minded souls. Tara Jane O'Neil adds drums and organ on the k. tracks. Mr. Warn Defever recorded the Low tracks and remixed one by k.

K.C. ACCIDENTAL Anthems for the Could've Bin Pills (Noise Factory) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
K.C. Accidental is centered around the compositional talents of Kevin Drew and Charles Spearin, the latter is also a member of the out-rock ensemble Do Make Say Think. For the debut album, the duo has employed a wealth of talent (trombones, strings, accordions, organs along with guitar, bass, drums) to augment their lush instrumental orchestrations. "Anthems for the Could've Bin Pills" ranks up there with some of the more successful dramatically inclined atmospheres, on par with Rachel's, Tarentel, Mogwai, and Godspeed You Black Emperor. Really good!

K.O., DJ For Wearing A Phone W/Q- (K Records) cd 12.98
A mix cd along the lines of K7's "DJ Kicks" series by dj K.O. of ICU (now IQU) and with ultra-minimal cover art (plain jewel case.) Contains tracks by: Ryuichi Sakamoto, Plone, Andre Estermann, AEMIC, Michael Fakesch, Illianthal, Red Snapper, Boom Boom Satellites, One True Parker, Hexer, Jon Forte vs. London Electricity, BOB Sound System, Palm Skin Productions, E.V.A., and Aphex Twin.

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

KA-SPEL, EDWARD Red Letters (Cacciocavallo) cd 14.98
With the evidence clearly stated in Ka-Spel's solo projects, no one can doubt who wears the pants in the extended family of the Legendary Pink Dots. Edward Ka-Spel expands the downer psychedelic strum frosted with ample doom & gloom found on the "Hallway of the Gods" Pink Dots album into smoldering experimental if baroque arrangemnts maintaining his Syd Barrett vocal mimicry all the while.

KAADA AND PATTON Romances (Ipecac) cd 15.98

KACIREK, SVEN Palmin Sessions (Pingipung) cd 17.98

KADANE, MATT AND BUBBA Music From The Film Hell House (Pleximusic) cd 10.98
First things first, have you seen the film? It's an unsettling documentary about the planning and production of a "hell house" in Texas, a Halloween haunted house with ulterior sermonizing motives. That said, this soundtrack may certainly be enjoyed without viewing the film... particularly if you're a fan of Bedhead and The New Year. Followers of said groups are undoubtably already aware that the music was composed by band members (and brothers) Matt and Bubba Kadane. Much of the music is indeed of the drowsy drifting meditative variety for which those groups are well-known, Haunting gentle string plucking, melting bass tones, faintly ominous drones fill the air for most of the brief eighteen minutes.
MPEG Stream: "Speaking In Tongues"
MPEG Stream: "Harvest"

KADET Seismic (Tektonic Shift) cd 12.98
Listening to this new release from SF solo IDM/electronicist Kadet is an almost multi-sensory experience. A plethora of wonderfully itchy glitches, thick tenuous throbs and metallic percussive gasps probe your ears. Some sounds actually made my teeth buzz as if I'd chomped down on some aluminum foil - an impressive feat unto itself. The latter tracks gradually sink into a much more deeply fluid abyss - like the echo-y sensation of slowly drifting to the bottom a pool. Fans of the newest stuff from Phoenecia and Nic Endo might take a shine to Kadet.
RealAudio clip: "Sphere"
RealAudio clip: "Ursula"

KADET Thin Air (Current / Tektonic Shift) cd 12.98
Here is Ms Kadet Kuhne's follow-up to Seismic, her fine IDM album from 2001. Since then she's relocated to LA, but she hasn't made any radical departures in her music. That's a good thing 'cause her past endeavors have been pretty darn great, wholly enveloping listens. Now, whether the "thin air" of the title is in reference to that which you might "vanish into" or that which you find at high altitudes, we do not know. But we can say that regardless, the title suits this album well. Some of her sounds can be fleeting and ghostly, while the more severe and imposing ones may leave listeners a wee bit out of sorts or short of breath. Characterized by swishy, cricket-y textures, gentle cloudy drones and rounded deep bass thuds, This Air is a considerably more subdued ambient affair overall than its kinetic, glitchy predecessor. Also, although these sounds were originally part of Sensorium, her audiovisual installation collaboration with Reto Schmid/testrun which showed in Switzerland, LA and here in SF, Thin Air may be best listened to on headphones in isolation. Nice!
MPEG Stream: "Mind Meld"
MPEG Stream: "Chromosoak"

KADURA From The Depths Of The Other Space (Charnel Music) cd 11.98
From Osaka, Japan: Eastern psych-trance space rock. A treat for fans of Ghost and other mind-expanding PSF-label bands. Really nice, especially when leader Atsushi Kobayashi is playing his zurna (double-reed horn).

KAGEL, MAURICIO Pan String Quartets I, II, III (WDR) cd 14.98

KAGEL, MAURICIO Playback Play (WDR) cd 16.98

KAHN, JASON Vanishing Point (23five Incorporated) 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 jumping off points into 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"

KAHVAS JUTE Wide Open (Aztec Music) cd 21.00
Aussie prog reissued.

KAIA Lady Man (Mr. Lady) cd 12.98
She of the angel voice and lyrics that bite, it's Kaia from Team Dresch with another solo record of realness. This beats Jewel and Mary Lou Lord into the ground and leaves them writhing in the knowledge of their total inferiority.

KAIA Lady Man (Mr. Lady) lp 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
She of the angel voice and lyrics that bite, it's Kaia from Team Dresch with another solo record of realness. This beats Jewel and Mary Lou Lord into the ground and leaves them writhing in the knowledge of their total inferiority.

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"

KAIN The Blue Guerrilla (Juggernaut) lp 11.98

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"

KAISER / HSU DUO Alternate Soundtrack To The Last Theft (self-released) 3" cd-r 5.98
The Last Theft is a 1987 short film by the Czech stop-motion animator Jiri Barta, whose sensibility is not far from that of Jan Svankmejer. East Bay improvisers Jim Kaiser and Angela Hsu took up the challenge of working with this baroquely dark fairy tale of a short, using their signature instrumentation for reel-to-reel tape, bicycle wheel, violin, and a few choice effects pedals. Where their collaborations are typically clustered around squiggles and screeches from bowing the bike wheel and scraping against the violin, this 'alternate soundtrack' is considerably moodier and spun around the a warbling industrial-strength drone axis. Long-form bellows and primeval discordant textures weave a growling, ominous atmospheres rich with opium smoke laced with asbestos dust, altogether sounding not all that far from the classic works by Organum or Taj Mahal Travellers. It should also be noted that Spoonbender 1.1.1. scored a very different piece to a condensed version of the film!
MPEG Stream: "Alternate Soundtrack To The Last Theft"

KAISER CHIEFS Employment (Universal) cd 10.98
Okay folks, let's just state what has become increasingly obvious... if you're over the age of twenty seven, you're probably not hearing a lot of new music these days that doesn't sound like [fill in the blank]. So we've sorta gotta accept that 'good music' is gonna be that which is probably somewhat lacking in the originality department but done exceptionally well. Case in point, Kaiser Chiefs. Expect that name to be shoved down your throat in the next few months beyond Franz Ferdinand proportions. Yeah, just like F.F. they're on a major label and hence have the big bucks and suits makin' sure you know who they are, but also just like F.F. they've got the chops and hooks to back up the hype... and yes, what they do is very much like F.F., Killers, Futureheads, Maximo Park, et al -- y-know, late 80s/early 90s-inspired catchy-as-fuck choruses, woozy synth keyboards, sinewy guitars, punchy drumming, hammered piano keys, cocky lead vocals and falsetto na-na-na-na backing vocals -- but with more of the lanky bombast of Pulp, more of the sneering bite of The Clash (especially on the first single "I Predict A Riot" and the fourth song "Na Na Na Na Naa"... yes, it's really called that!) and yeah even a bit of Adam & The Ants too (check out the tenth song "Time Honoured Tradition")! I'm sure some folks will be trying to turn up their noses at this, but it's pretty hard to resist. Aw heck, kids who were born the year that this kind of music first became popular will probably think Employment is groundbreaking, but for those of us...uhhh, older folks, it's gonna simply be a gosh dang dandy summertime album! So get a jump on it.
MPEG Stream: "I Predict A Riot"
MPEG Stream: "Time Honoured Tradition"

KAISER CHIEFS Off With Their Heads (Universal / Motown) cd 12.98

KAISER, HENRY, & WADADA LEO SMITH Yo Miles! (Shanachie) 2cd 19.98
Kaiser and Smith join together to pay tribute to Miles Davis' electric '73-'75 period, joined by The Rova Sax Quartet, Nels Cline, Elliot Sharp, John Medeski, Lukas Ligeti, Oluyemi Thomas and many others...

KAITO Everlasting (Kompakt) 12" 9.98
Certainly much more dancefloor friendly than the recent output from Kompakt, Kaito's "Everlasting" features a laid back shuffling tech-house groove flushed out by low slung basslines and constantly syncopating Carl Craig like synth pads.

KAITO Hundred Million Love Years (Kompakt) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "Natural Source"
MPEG Stream: "Hundred Million Light Years"

KAITO Hundred Million Love Years (Kompakt) lp 13.98

MPEG Stream: "Natural Source"
MPEG Stream: "Hundred Million Light Years"

KAITO Special Life (Kompakt) cd 17.98
Get your dancin' shoes polished up and ready to go 'cause Kaito (aka Japanese producer Hiroshi Watanabe) has offered up over 75 minutes of sleek and sharply executed trance-meets-house grooves. There's all-out thumpin' bass rumpshakers to total gonna-love-you-downtempo numbers and a super spacy atmospheric closing track mysteriously called "Awakening (Beatlesstrumental)". This is his first full length, but please note, it compiles his three previous 12"s with a few new tracks.
RealAudio clip: "Breaking The Star"
RealAudio clip: "Awakening (Beatlesstrumental)"

KAITO Trust (Kompakt) cd 15.98
Another winner from Kompakt, made even more of a winner in that like much of Kompakt's output, it is contributing to the gradual conversion of the techno hating holdouts around here. Trust, the latest disc from Japanese producer Hiroshi Watanabe aka Kaito, takes the trancey house sounds of his past releases, and infuses a bit more of the Pop Ambient the Kompakt is also known for. Lots of swooshing shimmer, with warm waves of lush whirr, draped over lilting piano melodies. Skittery 4/4 rhythms, and hazy streaks of high end M83 style synths wrapped around thumping grooves and tinkling melodies. "Nothing Could Be More Peaceful" might be our favorite, super murky and ultra dreamy and pastoral, a sort of Chain Reaction meets Pop Ambient sound, that slowly builds to something more trancey and propulsive.
This is definitely not a record for folks who don't already dig techno, it's not an ideal gateway record, it's not super weird or avant or abstract, it's pretty housey, definitely trancey, there are some warm warped and murky moments, but the core of the record is something much more sleek and dancefloor ready, and definitely more classically techno. So if you dig that sort of thing, odds are this will hit the spot, and if you're new to all this techno stuff and are looking for a place to start, this would definitely be a good one to try.
MPEG Stream: "And That Was The Way"
MPEG Stream: "Rainbow Circles"
MPEG Stream: "Trust"

KALACAKRA Crawling To Lhasa (Garden Of Delights) cd 21.00
The flood of compact disc reissues of obscure krautrock albums has been constant and overwhelming in recent years, but few discs are truly as cosmic and inspired as collector hype claims make them out to be. Usually an album's rarity is confused with "classic" status. But every once in a while, we get pleasantly blown away by an unexpected unknown. Kalacakra is one such album that deserves its mythical, mystical reputation (and $300 price tag on the collector's market). Reissued in 2001 (but not heard by us until more recently, due to the glut of such reissues alluded to above), Kalacakra's "Crawling To Lhasa" contains eight tracks of mantric acid-folk self-released in 1972 by the apparently drugged-out duo of Claus Rauschenbach ("guitars, kongas, percussions, vocals, harmonica, slentem") and Heinz Martin ("electr. guitars, flute, piano, vibraphon, schalmi, cello, violin, synthesizer"). Their strange, hippie sense of humor and obsession with the culture of Tibet (the name Kalacakra is the Tibetan term for "wheel of time") results in some fantastically nonsensical, eastern-influenced psychedelia (nonsensical? well, that "slentem" that Claus plays is in fact a non-existent, made-up instrument!). The album begins with the dark, hypnotic "Nearby Shiras", a song about a plague-ravaged town in olden Persia, which features some totally sinister and maniacal whispered German-language vocals, reminding us a bit even of Comus. As their crawl to Lhasa continues, Kalacakra venture into zones of lovely folk-strum and raga-rock as well, before the album wraps up with a deranged and damaged blues stumble called "Tante Olga". Oh, then there's two "bonus" tracks, recorded by Heinz in 1993, that are perhaps best ignored: electronic "world music" unfortunately lacking the mystery and insanity of his 1972 output, inoffensive but an unnecessary addition to this reissue for sure. Claus, we're told, still lives (on social security) in Kalacakra's home town of Duisburg, but does no recording. Good for him.
Some folks we know (who often make music under the name Thuja) got so inspired upon hearing this disc that they determined to start their own hippie psych side project, to be called "The Ways Of God To Man", drawing upon Kalacakra as well as the similar sounds of Yahowah 13 and Maru Sankaku Shikaku and Faust's "Tapes" as influences. We'll let you know if they manage to actually record anything!
Garden of Delights did their usual thorough job with this reissue, which boasts a thick booklet full of liner notes (in German and English), reproductions of label art from the original LP *and* from bootleg versions, plus photos of Claus and Heinz looking about as weird and long-haired and hippie-ish as it's possible to get!
Albums like this make us worry about overlooking other hidden gems amid the multitude of kraut/psych/prog reissues that we're blessed/cursed with every month, so we'll do our best to try and check 'em all out, eventually...whew...
RealAudio clip: "Nearby Shiras"
RealAudio clip: "Raga No. 11"
RealAudio clip: "Tante Olga"

KALAS s/t (Tee Pee) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "Monuments To Ruins"
MPEG Stream: "Frozen Sun"

KALEIDOSCOPE #4 magazine 6.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're always on the lookout for new weird music magazines, and we're fairly sure this might be our new favorite. To begin with, it's put out by one of the guys in weirdo black metal outfit Circle Of Ouroborus. Plus just have a gander at the contents, loads of AQ faves and a few bands we have yet to hear, but definitely sound promising. Blissy black metallers Amesoeurs and Amesoeurs offshoot Alcest, Finland's Ride For Revenge, Japanese metallic black ritualists Arkha Sva, Swedish suicidal black doomsters Hypothermia, Irish black metal cult Primordial, German black metal warriors Secrets Of The Moon, pagan folk legends Current 93, Australian one man metal horde Grippiud and Italian blackdeath warkult Blasphemophagher. As if that weren't enough, a bunch of record reviews, tons of cool photos, and every page is decorated in the margins with that cool pencil art that adorns all the Circle Of Ouroborus discs. Awesome!

KALEIDOSCOPE #5 magazine 10.98
Latest issue of this kick ass metal mag from long time aQ favorites, black metal geniuses (maniacs?) Circle Of Ouroborus, who, when not crafting twisted damaged folk flecked stumbling blackened buzz, put together a seriously excellent 'zine, covering a super varied selection of very AQ worthy outfits.
Number 5 features NY based primitive black metallers Ash Pool, Japanese doomsters Coffins, Danish doom combo Sol, legendary Norwegian black metallers Trelldom, German blackened death metallers Drowned, death metal legends Incantation, stoner doom trio Ramesses. And even some new-to-us stuff: Australian black thrashers Denouncement Pyre, and four super obscure black death doom bands with only demos to their names: Arvet from Finland, Ignivomous from Australia, Exorcism (we're not sure where they're from) and another Finnish band Profetus.
In addition to all that stuff, there's a bunch of reviews, as well as a killer primer on Finnish black metal, and each page has a cool hand drawn border with demons and flames and upside down crosses, skeletons, and in addition to all the various band photos, there are tons of creepy hand drawn illustrations.

KALEIDOSCOPE Faintly Blowing (Repertoire) cd 19.98
Although, sadly, we haven't been able to get copies of the first Kaleidoscope album on cd of late (the one entitled Tangerine Dream, not to be confused with the krautrock band of that name), we are very happy to now have copies of this perfectly twee UK psych pop combo's recently reissued second album, 1969's Faintly Blowing! And it comes in a nice digipack with six bonus tracks! Now if only we had some tea and crumpets we'd be all supercalifragilistic. Ahem.
Kaleidoscope were one of the best unsung post-Peppers British psych-pop acts. This one carries on from their first (a solid AQ fave) with more of the same delightful dreamy oh-so-melodic and lysergically lyricized pop psyke, some of the best ever in our humble opinion. Orchestrated, emotive, shoulda-been-hits abound, along with some way-out psychedelic experimentation. The Kaleidoscope story continued into the proggy '70s with a name change to Fairfield Parlour but Faintly Blowing was really their last colourful hurrah of dainty dandy '60s poppiness.
MPEG Stream: "Faintly Blowing"
MPEG Stream: "Snap Dragon"

KALEIDOSCOPE Tangerine Dream (Repertoire) cd 22.00
Whoo-hoo! At last this AQ fave is back in stock, repressed in a nice new digipack edition. Here's how we raved about it when we first reviewed it a few years ago:
Not a new release -- nor even a new reissue -- but we just manage to get some and wanted to list it 'cause it's something that several of us here have been listening to a lot lately! This Kaleidoscope were a sixties British pop psych band (not to be confused with the various other Kaleidoscopes of the era from the US and Mexico) and we believe these guys might in fact have been THE ULTIMATE psychedelic pop band ever. This album (also not to be confused with the famous Krautrock/soundtrack outfit with the same name as the album's title) is just incredible. Gorgeous vocals, killer melodies, lush orchestrations, and, especially, beautifully baroque psych-speak lyrics that put "Strawberry Fields Forever" to shame -- with lines like "Battalions in baby blue are bursting beige balloons / the water pistols are all filled with lemonade / the jester and the goldfish have joined minds above the moon / oh please kiss the flowers and you too will be safe / oh swing and sway..."
It's very British, twee and dreamy, being that perfect blend of sunshine and melancholy so many psych pop bands of the era were striving for. The Kaleidoscope did it best right here. I mean, if you like the Zombies and the Hollies and heck the Olivia Tremor Control you should know about these gents too. Indee, the original 1967 album's final track (followed here by six bonus tracks), "The Sky Children", might be THE ULTIMATE pop-psych track on this ultimate pop-psych record. (Hey a little hyperbole never hurt anybody.) It's an eight-minute epic, with a thrilling vocal hook on endless repeat, and amazing lyrics continually pouring forth the whole time. Truly awe-some, if you're attuned to the vibe.
MPEG Stream: "Dive Into Yesterday"
MPEG Stream: "Flight From Ashiya"
MPEG Stream: "The Sky Children"

KALENDAREV, YURI Sound Sculptures (Die Schachtel) cd 27.00

KALEVALA People No Names / Boogie Jungle (Walhalla) cd 21.00
The Kalevala is the Finnish national mythological epic, and thus no surprise this '70s prog/boogie band hails from Finland. Yes that's right, we said prog/boogie. And Finland. Wonder if Itavayla are fans? There's two LPs reissued here on this single cd, the band's 1972 debut People No Names, and their 1975 follow-up Boogie Jungle. Of the two, well, you can maybe guess which is the best...
People No Names is simply a crazed hard rockin' prog behemoth, kicking ass and taking names (no names?). The nine-minute title track doesn't hold back the rapid-fire changes, the ripping guitars, the jazzy grooves, the weirdly gruff vocals...it's wild stuff!! The other cuts here veer from instrumental shred to folky melodiousness to heavy psychedelic jamming, oftentimes all at once! Not for those with no tolerance for wackiness, though. The countryish hoedown "Tamed Indians" will see to that...
Record number two, which appeared three years later, after the band broke up and reformed with a new line-up (including a new vocalist), is a bit more of an ordinary, less-prog, more Jimi Hendrix-y affair. Still wacky though. And, of course, they've gone BOOGIE big time. Some will find this just too ridiculous but we're having wonderful nostalgic flashbacks to a '70s rock n' roll Finland we never actually experienced.
Interesting note: Liner notes that reveal the band's original name was Vietnam, which didn't fly with concert promoters at the time, hence the change...
Another note: one annoyance is that Walhalla did that annoying thing labels so often do when they put out 2-on-1 cds, trying to cram both album's covers on one panel of the cd booklet rather than giving each cover a panel. Pet peeve #294,391.
MPEG Stream: "People No Names"
MPEG Stream: "Lady With The Veil"
MPEG Stream: "Mind The Fly Hunter"

KALINICH, STEPHEN JOHN A World Of Peace Must Come (Light In The Attic) cd 14.98
One would usually never align The Beach Boys with early freak folk, but then this strange and lovely oddity suddenly emerges out of nowhere and all kinds of links can be made. Stephen John Kalinich was (and still is) a poet and songwriter who with the help of Lindsey Buckingham in a project called Zarathurstra and Thelibus cut a demo of "Leaves of Grass" inspired by the Walt Whitman poem. Moving to LA in the mid-sixties, he met the Wilson brothers and based on the strength of the demo was signed as the first artist on their newly formed Brother Records imprint. He co-wrote songs mainly with Dennis such as "Little Bird" and "Be Still" from the Friends album (one of our Beach Boys favorites) as well as songs from the recently reissued "Pacific Ocean Blue". "A World Of Peace Must Come" was to be his debut release. Recorded by Brian Wilson at Brian's house in 1969, the tapes were immediately lost and never heard from since... until now. The production is not what you might expect from Brian Wilson, instead these are beautiful lo-fi recordings of beat-like impressionistic poetry and song, backed by simple arrangements of acoustic guitars, field recordings and tablas, with bits of dialogue between Brian and Stephen interspersed. One can't help but be reminded of the Jewelled Antler collective's foresty acoustics when listening to tracks like "The Deer, The Elk, The Raven". Or the gentle spoken word psych of Bobby Brown. Like Eden Ahbez was to Nat King Cole, Kalinich was a strange visionary figure in the Wilson's lives, and this is a fascinating document of their relationship, and an interesting curio of The Beach Boys in their peak era. Now if someone would only reissue that American Spring album........
MPEG Stream: "The Deer, The Elk, The Raven"
MPEG Stream: "Be Still"
MPEG Stream: "America, I Know You"
MPEG Stream: "Leaves Of Grass"

KALLABRIS Music For Very Simple Objects (Substantia Innominata / Drone Records) 10" 13.98
It's unlikely that Michael Anacker (aka Kallabris) had much if anything to do with the once prolific, post-industrial outfit Cranioclast; but Kallabris did release a couple of magnificent pieces of submariner drone records in the late '80s through the Jazztone imprint which had some sort of cohabitation with the Cranioclast in-house label CoC. In many ways, those early Kallabris records were an obvious precursor to what Leyland Kirby has done recently with his Caretaker project in conjuring the mood of a Victorian ship slowly sinking out at sea. Haunted melodies, incidental creaks of distressed metal, and maudlin ambience are found in both sets of recordings. Jump ahead a decade or two, and Kallabris has buried some of the emotional sentiment found in his earlier work, moving more towards a sense of dislocation and unease through electro-acoustic means. Indebted to the German cut-n-paste work of P16.D.4 and G*Park, Music For Very Simple Objects may have begun humbly (e.g. field recordings and found objects), but results in two highly refined collages. The first side is filled with empty holes, bracketed by small events which get treated with all sorts of oblique effects, ending up sounding stoic and black in nature. The flip is more of the 'drone' side recalling the early Kallabris sounds (after-all this is released by Troum's Drone Records!), with slippery sustained tones oozing out of a musique concrete introduction of gossamer metallic klanks and clicks.