M (Drag City) 7" 3.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
M is the work of Louisvillian Dave Pajo who's also played in Tortoise and Slint.

M 'M' The History - Pop Muzik The 25th Anniversary (Metro) cd 14.98
Pop! Pop! Pop Musik! Pop! Pop! Pop Musik! Hands up, who loves that single? Okay, now let's see who can name any other songs by M (aka Robin Scott)? Although he more than fits the definition of "one hit wonder", M also had a sizable body of work that unfortunately never reached as many ears as that single. But now we all get a second chance with this commemorative 25th anniversary compilation that reveals many more facets of M! The first half of this compilation is really strong, short blasts of catchy sort of punky commercial new wave but about halfway through veers dangerously into ultra cheesy, new wave/disco pap. But hell it's worth it for the first half alone. "Pop Musik" may be the only song you know by heart, but check out "M Factor", the just-as-good-B-side of "Pop Musik", "Modern Man" and a bunch of other little gems.
FYI: Actually Scott fostered a bit of a 'comeback' of sorts a couple of years ago when he produced Ex-Girl's last album and made a live guest appearance with them at SXSW (yes, performing *that* song... it was great!).
MPEG Stream: "M Factor"
MPEG Stream: "Smash The Mirror"

M'LUMBO Sacrifices To The Neon Gods: The Greatest Sacred Cargo Cult Television Theme Songs Of All Time (Mulatta Records) cd 16.98
For being released on the same label that brought us two albums of elephants playing instruments (the Thai Elephant Orchestra), an album of rapping by grade-schoolers (Da Hiphop Raskalz) and several other weird/wonderful projects, the idea of an album of avant-groovy cover versions of well-known television themes seems downright tame! Yet, downtown NYC hipster jazz/world/cassette culture/kitchen sink band M'Lumbo do manage to entertain and intrigue -- who could not help but enjoy unusual, out-there renditions of such familiar tunes as "Hawaii Five-O", "The Addams Family", "I Dream Of Jeannie", "I Love Lucy" and "Get Smart", among others?? It's exotica for the TV generation(s), coming across like a wild mix of Martin Denny and Afrobeat and John Zorn. And actually, most of the time you'd be hard pressed to identify the TV tune that they're using/abusing as a basis for each track of faux-ethnic improv, lost under electronics and samples and an abundance of percussion, and even what sound like the calls of jungle birds... in fact it's probably best if you try to listen *without* thinking about these songs being TV themes, or at least imagine that M'Lumbo's "cargo cult" conceit is true, and you're hearing the musical worship of classic cathode ray gods done by some musically freaky tribe of "savages" who just happen to have free cable and became addicted to old TV reruns.
MPEG Stream: "Mickey Mouse"
MPEG Stream: "The Alfred Hitchcock Theme"

M, SACHIKO Detect (Antifrost) 3"cd 9.98
Austere sine-wave tones, clicks and silence from Japanese experimentalist Sachiko M, known for her work solo and in the avant-pop trio Hoahio as well as with collaborators like Otomo Yoshihide (in Ground Zero, ISO, Filament, etc.). This cdep (in the irresistable 3" format) fits firmly into her ouvre of barely-there, barren electronic soundscapes of blips and non-blips. Is it zen art? is it conceptual bullshit? Depends on your tastes, but it seems quite lovely for those whose ears are attuned to such efforts. On the new, potentially interesting Greek label Antifrost.

M. KOURIE Dreams Of M. Kourie, the (Chrome Peeler) cd 12.98
The mysteriously titled record, The Dreams Of M. Kourie, is actually the work of local dronelord Nathan Berlinguette, who manned the bass in techgrind outfit Creation Is Crucifixion, as well as exploring spaced out dronescapes with his partner Travis Ryan (of Cattle Decapitation) in the now defunct 5/5/2000. We listed the 5/5/2000 reissue recently, a collection of newly discovered tapes of old old recordings, a haunting world of dronelike nihilism and inner space exploration. With The Dreams Of M. Kourie, Berlinguette takes up where 5/5/2000 left off, setting a course for the heart of a black hole, and taking the scenic sonic route to get there. This is the sound of stargazing, a blackened landscape of warm shimmer, that almost imperceptibly shifts and contorts, each new shape even more abstract and more black than the shape before, tracing a minimal path that simultaneously drifts beneath the sea, through subterranean caverns, amidst the vacuum of space and through the impossibility of alternate universes, the pieces and parts and sounds and arrangements are not in and of themselves mysterious, there are soft rumbles, and warm chordal swells, glistening abstract melodies, drifting gauzy shimmer, but the way they are put together, the way the sounds fall into one another, subtly mix, or rest atop one another, these are the things that turn sound into emotion, these are the aspects that are impossible to explain but precisely what make this journey special. Eyes closed, laying in tall grass, atop a lonely hill, a night as clear as glass, the air warm and humid, watching a million years of starlight shift and shimmer. So nice.
Packaged in a simple two panel black sleeve, printed in metallic gold ink.
MPEG Stream: "And Woke In Spring"
MPEG Stream: "The River"

M., SACHIKO Imaginary Soundtrack (Out One Disc) cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

M., SACHIKO Sine Wave Solo (Amoebic) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Frequent Otomo Yoshihide collaborator (Filament, I.S.O., Ground Zero) presents her first solo album, taking her lone instrument, the "100% Free Memory Sampler" to the outer limits of blistering sine wave manipulation. With these mere sine waves she produces a lot of variety - from tracks of piercing test tone torture to more serene, sparse blip-scapes. Impressive.

M., SACHIKO / KAFFE MATTHEWS / ANDREA NEUMANN In Case of Fire Take the Stairs (Improvised Music From Japan) cd 17.98
Recorded live in Japan on St. Patrick's Day of 2002, the line-up for this electronic / improvisation performance has Kaffe Matthews on sampler / laptop, Andrea Neumann on prepared piano, and Sachiko M using sinewaves and a contact microphone. Neumann's use of the piano is rather unconventional as she performs exclusively within the piano itself, scraping and plucking the strings with metal objects and motors, avoiding the keyboard altogether. Sachiko M, who has become a ubiquitous presence in the ever-growing field of electronic improvisation, is qualititatively active in her manipulation of her raw sinewaves. But Matthews has placed herself at the center of activity, controlling the tightly looped samples culled from her collaborators and building loose structures of pulses, clicks, and rhythms within this extended performance.
RealAudio clip: "Track 3"

M., SACHIKO / TOSHIMARU NAKAMURA / OTOMO YOSHIHIDE Good Morning Good Night (Erstwhile) 2cd 21.00

M.B. Evidences Volume 1 1980 (Final Industrial Music) (Vinyl On Demand) 5lp 99.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Anyone familiar with the Vinyl On Demand label is probably well aware of how utterly amazing their releases are, how well researched, gorgeously packaged, and of course how limited and difficult to track down. We managed to get three titles, all of them amazing, we only have one copy of each, and wanted to give some of our mailorder folks a shot and snagging one of these. So a brief description follows, and we only have a single copy so first come first served.
M.B. Maurizio Bianchi. Check the aQ site for tons of reviews, as we gush all about one of our favorite industrial music makers EVER. Dark drones, haunting buzz, primitive synths, busted tape machines, old turntables, delay pedals, all woven into something truly divine.
Contains all of MB's tape music from 1979 and 1980, for the first time ever on vinyl.
Five lps, housed in printed hand numbered sleeves, pressed on thick vinyl, all in a gorgeous printed, black box embossed with metallic text.
WE HAVE ONLY ONE COPY!!

M.B. (BIANCHI, MAURIZIO) + NIMH Together's Symphony (Silentes) 4cd 73.00
There's not much reason to belabor the point on this one. Simply put, it's limited to 300 copies and we only have two of these boxsets kicking around. Needless to say, it's a fine example of Maurizio Bianchi's return to the glacial power electronics and sustained drone concussions that dominated his earliest experiments in the '70s and '80s. As for NIMH, that project is the work of Italian avant-guitarist Giuseppe Verticchio whose work in softened ambience has drawn comparisons to Steve Roach and Aidan Baker; and in working with Bianchi, he does offer some elegiac guitar and piano works to accompany Bianchi's hypnotic gray / black drones. If it's not out of print, it will be soon. We might be able to get a few more but it sems unlikely...
MPEG Stream: "Niddah"
MPEG Stream: "Recovered Memories"
MPEG Stream: "Back To Laudomia"

M.B. / MAURIZIO BIANCHI Mectpyo Bakterium / Genocide O.T.M. (Menstrual Recordings) 2cd 27.00
Maurizio Bianchi is one the pioneers of Italian Industrial music, transforming the psychedelic electronics of the likes of Conrad Schniztler, Cluster, Eno, Neu!, etc. into a chilling, dark theater of cancerous sounds that had become the template for the countless dark ambient / industrialists who followed. His story is a peculiar one, as he was incessantly productive throughout the late '70s and early '80s until he unexpectedly stopped in 1984. This musical cessation served to heighten the mystique around the man, as rumors and falsehoods swirled around his legacy, followed by numerous bootleg tapes and LPs of his rarities. While Bianchi has resurfaced once again with new material (some of questionable quality), this 2cd set is a collection of the classic Bianchi sound. Mectpyo Bakterium was an album originally released on LP back in 1982, and then later in 1998 through the Alga Marghen reissue campaign of his major records. The second disc is a collection of extremely rare tracks, including several that had made their way into the public domain as bootlegs.
Mectpyo Bakterium is a bleak piece of electronic expressionism, with shivering tones and slashing bursts of clinical noise meandering through minefields of grim atmospheres. As it was originally released on LP, the two main tracks of this album are each side-long excursions that mutate and fold on top of themselves, beginning at very dark, very grim launching points and ending up in an entirely different mindframe, having rotated through dour melodies, squalid noises, funeral drum machine marches, and further bleak electronics. It makes sense for this to be a worthy contemporary of TG, Cabaret Voltaire, and Whitehouse! The Mectpyo Bakterium disc also features two bonus tracks - the same featured on the 1998 cd reissue.
The second disc entitled Genocide O.T.M. culls tracks from three sources -- the Japanese bootleg Anthology 1981-1984, the acetate 7" of Genocide Of The Menses, and the Leibstandarte SS MB 2 LP. It's hard to know where that Leibstandarte SS MB track came from, as it's not credited to either of the Come Organization LPs, but the track here "Zyclombie" is a very dark, noisy construct of accreting hiss and lazer-drill droning. Bianchi in top, noise-mantra form. The tracks from the Genocide Of The Menses 7" continue in this same vein with equally impressive results. Neither of the two tracks credited as "Neuro Habitat" actually come from the album of that same name, but are woozy tape excursions with rudimentary drum machines and slow-motion noise bellowing. These tracks are pretty rough around the edges, and the sound quality could have been punched up a bit. Aside from these odd-ball cuts, the whole set is a remarkable document of just how good Bianchi had been back in the day.
We only have a handful of these which we got from Mr. Bianchi himself. It remains to be seen, if we'll be able to get more copies in!
MPEG Stream: "Sterile Regles"
MPEG Stream: "Zyclombie"
MPEG Stream: "Genocide Of The Menses 1"

M.I.A. Arular (XL / Interscope) cd 15.98
Holy crap. This album rules. Ragga, hip-hop, dancehall, infused trashy electro party pop jams! Quelle mix.
A few months ago, some folks came in the store while on holiday from Germany asking if we had anything like "M.I.A.? You know this? It is all over tha place in Germany." I had to say no, not in this neck of the folktastic dronedom of San Francisco. But now it is here, XL at last bringing us the domestic release of M.I.A.'s debut album, Arular, which follows up a mix-tape on which she collaborated with Diplo and raised a lot of eyebrows -- apparently German eyebrows in particular!
Seriously though, you know you want to party!! No says you? You're too bummed out on Karl Rove taking over the whole damn place to party? Well, her lyrics are very politically leaning so you don't have to feel all guilty about having a good time. We've been spinning this non-stop ourselves, and selling it non-stop too. Lives up to the hype. ...Now on major label Interscope and thus more expensive than before.
MPEG Stream: "Pull Up The People"
MPEG Stream: "Galang"

M.I.A. Arular (XL) lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Holy crap. This album rules. Ragga, hip-hop, dancehall, infused trashy electro party pop jams! Quelle mix.
A few months ago, some folks came in the store while on holiday from Germany asking if we had anything like "M.I.A.? You know this? It is all over tha place in Germany." I had to say no, not in this neck of the folktastic dronedom of San Francisco. But now it is here, XL at last bringing us the domestic release of M.I.A.'s debut album, Arular, which follows up a mix-tape on which she collaborated with Diplo and raised a lot of eyebrows -- apparently German eyebrows in particular!
Seriously though, you know you want to party!! No says you? You're too bummed out on Karl Rove taking over the whole damn place to party? Well, her lyrics are very politically leaning so you don't have to feel all guilty about having a good time. We've been spinning this non-stop ourselves, and selling it non-stop too. Lives up to the hype.
MPEG Stream: "Pull Up The People"
MPEG Stream: "Galang"

M.I.A. Kala (Interscope) cd 13.98
Holy shit this record is amazing!!! What a charged and dynamic follow up to one of the hottest debuts of the decade. It doesn't surprise us though, as we knew from the first time we heard M.I.A. that she had some special power inside of her. She is that rare world voice in music that we desperately need so much right now. It's incredible how she crosses lines and borders like very few other artists seem able to.
Kala is one of the few records that we sell to every kind of person and taste. Metalheads, indie rockers, pop kids, dance-heads, hip-hop aficionados, experimental music lovers.... they're all going crazy for the new M.I.A. and for great reason. It's one of the most kick ass, colorful and fully realized albums to come out in a long time.
She was denied entry to the States repeated times when making this record, so her initial plans to record the record with Timbaland were thrown out the window. But this countries' insane border policies ended up being a blessing in disguise, as it forced M.I.A. to look elsewhere for producers, so she traveled throughout Africa and India where she did lots of raw field recordings which all come to life in such exciting ways on Kala. In fact Kala is kind of like what we imagine might happen if Konono No.1 were transported to Bollywood. While we've recently been swept up by the mystical power and strength of some fierce women of the past like Selda and Betty Davis, we can't think of anyone in the modern day who better conjures up that kind of unique energy and spirit than M.I.A.
This is a record meant to be blasted LOUD. So next time you have folks over, no matter what sort of music they dig, don't worry it won't be awkward just throw on M.I.A. and every single one of them will dig it like crazy. Guaranteed.
Without a doubt a contender for record of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Bird Flu"
MPEG Stream: "World Town"
MPEG Stream: "Paper Planes"

M.I.A. Maya (331 / XL) cd 13.98
For all that's made of M.I.A.'s politics and persona, it's important not to forget that what makes her music so fucking special is how it taps into such a purely physical sensation. Her last album Kala was an absolute game changer. The kind of record that reshaped everything around it. You could almost use her name as a genre, as so many folks were inspired by it and after her debut, we began hearing so many people try their hand at the M.I.A. sound. From Santogold, Gang Gang Dance, Rainbow Arabia, Rye Rye, Bonde Do Role, Thunderheist, Buraka Som Sistema, and on and on. Her influence crossed so many cultural lines and on so many fronts, not just her sound but also her fashion, imagery and overall aesthetic. And it's easy to see why, there is something so dynamic, urgent, spirited and alive about what M.I.A. is doing.
It's so hard to follow up a record that was as close to perfect as we think an album can be, but god damn she has found a way to maybe do it. Maya blasts right out of the gate and makes it clear its going to be an uncompromising, visceral and frenetic ride. With great collaborating producers like Diplo, Switch and Blaqstarr back on board as well as bringing in dubstep sensation Rusko as well as Sleigh Bells guitar shredder Derek E. Miller. But much like Bjork, M.I.A. is a master of curating and surrounding herself with super talented producers and players, yet taking all the pieces of those elements and crafting them into something much bigger and more fully realized. The record is paced so perfectly, after an onslaught of charged, dirty and sweaty tracks she offers fresh breaths through some catchier pop minded jams and then its right back into the line of fire. Maya, is both the most angry and tender of the albums she is made so far. Because while its filled with so many unrelenting politically fueled anthems it also finds M.I.A. singing about the courage of falling in love and getting weighed down by gravity, which shows us the range she is capable of and will continue to explore.
It seems certain folks love to build people up only to knock them down. In recent months M.I.A was torn to pieces in a tacky/petty feature in the New York Times and many of the same blogs and online music critic establishments who championed her in the first place, and who are now taking cheap shots at her, personally and musically. But all that is meaningless. Truth is, M.I.A. continues to be an absolute force of nature. Creating music that really can and does unite so many different kinds of people and makes you sweat in ways that feels empowering and full of purpose. She has taken the spirit of punk, hip-hop and dance music to make a sound that is so singular and spectacular. Maya is another striking achievement from one of the most important, outspoken and brave artists of our generation.
MPEG Stream: "Born Free"
MPEG Stream: "Steppin Up"
MPEG Stream: "Lovalot"
MPEG Stream: "It Takes A Muscle"

M.I.A. Maya (331 / XL) 2lp 19.98
For all that's made of M.I.A.'s politics and persona, it's important not to forget that what makes her music so fucking special is how it taps into such a purely physical sensation. Her last album Kala was an absolute game changer. The kind of record that reshaped everything around it. You could almost use her name as a genre, as so many folks were inspired by it and after her debut, we began hearing so many people try their hand at the M.I.A. sound. From Santogold, Gang Gang Dance, Rainbow Arabia, Rye Rye, Bonde Do Role, Thunderheist, Buraka Som Sistema, and on and on. Her influence crossed so many cultural lines and on so many fronts, not just her sound but also her fashion, imagery and overall aesthetic. And it's easy to see why, there is something so dynamic, urgent, spirited and alive about what M.I.A. is doing.
It's so hard to follow up a record that was as close to perfect as we think an album can be, but god damn she has found a way to maybe do it. Maya blasts right out of the gate and makes it clear its going to be an uncompromising, visceral and frenetic ride. With great collaborating producers like Diplo, Switch and Blaqstarr back on board as well as bringing in dubstep sensation Rusko as well as Sleigh Bells guitar shredder Derek E. Miller. But much like Bjork, M.I.A. is a master of curating and surrounding herself with super talented producers and players, yet taking all the pieces of those elements and crafting them into something much bigger and more fully realized. The record is paced so perfectly, after an onslaught of charged, dirty and sweaty tracks she offers fresh breaths through some catchier pop minded jams and then its right back into the line of fire. Maya, is both the most angry and tender of the albums she is made so far. Because while its filled with so many unrelenting politically fueled anthems it also finds M.I.A. singing about the courage of falling in love and getting weighed down by gravity, which shows us the range she is capable of and will continue to explore.
It seems certain folks love to build people up only to knock them down. In recent months M.I.A was torn to pieces in a tacky/petty feature in the New York Times and many of the same blogs and online music critic establishments who championed her in the first place, and who are now taking cheap shots at her, personally and musically. But all that is meaningless. Truth is, M.I.A. continues to be an absolute force of nature. Creating music that really can and does unite so many different kinds of people and makes you sweat in ways that feels empowering and full of purpose. She has taken the spirit of punk, hip-hop and dance music to make a sound that is so singular and spectacular. Maya is another striking achievement from one of the most important, outspoken and brave artists of our generation.
MPEG Stream: "Born Free"
MPEG Stream: "Steppin Up"
MPEG Stream: "Lovalot"
MPEG Stream: "It Takes A Muscle"

M.I.A. Paper Planes: Homeland Security Remixes (Interscope / XL) 12" 6.98
If you are anything like some of us, you probably still haven't stopped playing M.I.A's latest album Kala. One of those records that we have listened to hundreds of times by now and it still gives us that charge of strength, splash of color and push towards fun like almost no other record can. While we love every song on the record there is no denying that Paper Planes became a runaway hit with its infectious rifle shots and perfect sampling of "Straight to Hell" by The Clash. So it makes sense that lots of folks wanted to try their hand at remixing that song, and these Homeland Security Remixes finds five very capable and varied hands doing the original justice and breathing even more life into that great song. DFA turn it into a vintage sounding disco jam, Adrock uses little kids with glorious results and Scottie B. cranks up the adrenaline even more for a B'more slammer. Diplo and Blaqstarr also turn in super good remixes of their own making this one a keeper and instant party starter!
MPEG Stream: "Paper Planes (Remix for the children by Adrock)"
MPEG Stream: "Paper Planes (Scottie B. Remix)"

M.I.M.E.O. Music In Movement Electronic Orchestra (Perdition Plastics) 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 debut of Keith Rowe's (AMM) improvised electronic ensemble that includes Fennesz, Pita (Mego), Phil Durrant, Jerome Noetinger (Metamkine), Richard Barrett, Justin Bennett, Cor Fuhler, Yannis Kyriakides, Gert-Jan Prins, and Thomas Lehn is a radical investigation into powerbook digital damage balanced with cacophonous guitar, violin, and piano.

M.R.K.1 Ready For Love (Planet Mu) 12" 8.98
We've long been complaining about the dearth of "grime" in the States, so we were psyched to discover that the folks at Planet Mu decided to do something about it. They've been reissuing UK grime releases for the states, but this latest batch of 12"s offers up some grime / jungle hybrids as well as their own twisted take on dubstep and grime. And it kills!
This is grime done commercial hiphop style, which is not a bad thing at all. We always talk about how grime should be all over the radio and MTV, well if that's gonna happen, it's probably gonna be M.R.K.1 aka Mark One. The first track on here is an absolute killer, like Kanye or the RZA with sped up soul samples over dizzying stuttery dubstep rhythms. The next track is slippery and slithery and grimy but weirdly convoluted and tangled up, super murky and dark, like Tricky or Portishead gone grime, and bass lines so low and heavy that even at low volume they threaten to blow your speakers.
The flipside features two groovy grimy instrumental shuffles, with alien synths, that speaker shredding low end, and wide open spaces just begging for some mad freestyle flows.

M.S.B.R. + KENGO LUCHI (Alien8 Recordings) cd 14.98
Japanese noise, three live duets plus a solo track from each artist. M.S.B.R. does musique concrete/electronics, Kengo Luchi does "death folk" with anguished vocals a la Keiji Haino. Together, it's meandering no wave folk with electronic freakouts, not for the faint of heart.

M2 14id1610s (Ant-Zen) cd 17.98
Whatever this is called M2 or Squaremeter; this is the work of Panacea remixing a handful of electronic minimalism / post-techno from the Ant-Zen label. It follows aesthetically the path Panacea had been taking on the "Brasilia" album with ping-pong oscillations of sine-waves, digital glitchery, and an erratic machine-gun drum & bass kick popping up for a split second then deferring back to piercing tones. While 89% of this album came from Ant-Zen, this really could be another release from the damaged mind of Panacea. Do you think he has tinnitus?

M2 Sinecore (Mille Plateaux) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Our first encounter with Panacea's M2 was on his remix album of the Ant-Zen catalogue, where he transformed the Ant-Zen sound into an aggressive minimalism much closer to a steroid-pumped version of Raster clan's digital clickery. Now "Sinecore", much like the remix project, is an album of clinical tension. M2's cerebral metronomic structures clang with rhythmic sinewave modulations and rigid digital tones, yet a sputtering collage of mutant flanges and dadaist arrythmia disrupts the insistency of the pure tones and clicks.

M83 0078h (Gooom) cd 7.98
Check out the review of M83's full length Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts for the complete low down, but if a dreamy, drone-y fuzzy mix of the Orb, Boards Of Canada, Stereolab, New Order, and My Bloody Valentine sounds good to you, then not only should you pick up the M83 full length, you should also be aware of this 3 track ep, with one track from Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, a live track, and a remix by fellow dream poppers and Gooom labelmates Cyann And Ben as well as a secret hidden track, a brief angelic wash of fuzzy synth. So nice.
MPEG Stream: "0078h"

M83 0078h (Gooom) 12" 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now here on vinyl!
Check out the review of M83's full length Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts for the complete low down, but if a dreamy, drone-y fuzzy mix of the Orb, Boards Of Canada, Stereolab, New Order, and My Bloody Valentine sounds good to you, then not only should you pick up the M83 full length, you should also be aware of this 3 track ep, with one track from Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, a live track, and a remix by fellow dream poppers and Gooom labelmates Cyann And Ben as well as a secret hidden track, a brief angelic wash of fuzzy synth. So nice.
MPEG Stream: "0078h"

M83 America (Gooom) cd ep 9.98
We love M83. Here's how we described their import full length from a while back:
"A huge slab of fuzzy shoegazey electronica-flecked dream pop. We've been listening to this nonstop since it came in. Imagine the post rave swirl of the Orb, mix in the muted warmth of Boards Of Canada, the lalala Neu-worship of Stereolab, the catchy new wave of New Order, then wrap the whole thing in a thick shimmery distorted haze a la My Bloody Valentine and you'll be close. Now imagine that concoction as the soundtrack to the love scene in some super bizarre Anime. You know, the part where the girl is going into space because she can't live on earth because her tentacles keep killing cute little pandas, and her boyfriend is a giant panda, but they love each other so much her tears turn into jewels that the pandas can eat to make them invincible. It's that heartbreakingly good."
Wow, right? Well, as you can imagine we were super excited for more. And this ep just happens to have a lot more, three unreleased tracks, one of which is a massive 17 minute slab of fuzzy blissed out ambience. And a really cool video for the track "America" from their full length. Sounds great? Well take a second before you add this to your cart. M83's full length record, Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, is being released domestically at the end of July with a bonus disc containing EVERYTHING on this ep, as well as two more unreleased tracks and another video! But of course that requires buying the whole album you already may own all over again. So if you haven't bought the M83 record for some crazy reason, wait until the full length domestic double disc comes out and then by all means pick it up. But if you already own the full length, and don't mind missing out on a track/video or two instead of buying it again, this is a good way to get another half hour of gorgeous bliss pop for a mere ten bucks. Up to you.
MPEG Stream: "America"
MPEG Stream: "Tsubasa"

M83 Before The Dawn Heals Us (Mute) cd 16.98
You'll be glad to know that M83 still basically sound like some strange and wonderful mix of My Bloody Valentine, the Orb, Boards Of Canada, Stereolab and New Order. And they most definitely are still the only band around making this sort of lush, fuzzed out, electronic bliss pop. But the new record takes a strange turn. Some around here think a not so advisable one. But we'll elaborate a bit and you make the call.
First, strap yourself in, and set the controls for the heart of... the eighties.
It starts with the ultra-cheesy cover art, a late night big city scape with the band name written in a thick white graffiti scrawl. If you didn't know M83 was a band you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was a Bacardi ad for some new drink.
And sonically it follows a similar time travelling path. Imagine the eighties is a big packet of Lick-Em-Aid, you know that weird colored sugar you'd eat as a kid. So after a year of listening to the first M83 record non stop, it's nice and wet, so go ahead and dip it into your packet of eighties Lick-Em-Aid and you've basically got Before The Dawn Heals Us. Where Dead Cities was almost timeless sounding in its seamless melding of eighties pop, anime soundtrack, modern electronica, nineties shoegaze and classic Krautrock, the new record is eighties through and through. Every song could be music for a montage from Gleaming The Cube or Pump Up The Volume or Back To The Future. When you close your eyes, you can almost visualize the credits rolling over garish splashes of pastel, listing all of the other songs on the 'soundtrack' by folks like Rick Springfield, Ray Parker Jr., Cyndi Lauper, etc. That said, this is still an amazing record. For every moment of cringeworthy fluff, there's three or four of utter pop brilliance. Totally alien snatches of shimmering synth, stuttering studio fuckery, the entire thing peppered with little sounds, electronic and organic, some barely noticeable, some completely defining the songs. Before The Dawn Heals Us sounds best when the band is going full bore, firing a warm beam of thick guitars and fuzzed out synths straight up into the starry sky, stretched out over a rigid framework of drum machine and pulsing bass, that gets so bombastic it almost sounds like Dimmu Borgir or Cradle Of Filth. On first listen the cheese factor was definitely too distracting, but on each listen, those bits of dated pop just sound like pieces of a glorious bigger picture. They may stick out at first but soon, you can't imagine the rest of the record without them. Which makes sense as soon as you spend some time with the record. The whole thing just sort of flows like some unearthed eighties arthouse soundtrack. A deliriously abstract, emotionally charged musical arc, with strange snippets of dialogue and spoken word moving the musical plot forward.
On its own this might not be the perfect record, but as the second part of M83's fuzzy, blissed out musical journey into the shimmery ether, it's an absolute masterpiece.
MPEG Stream: "Moon Child"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Save Us From The Flames"
MPEG Stream: "A Guitar And A Heart"

M83 Before The Dawn Heals Us (Gooom / Mute) 2lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON VINYL!!
You'll be glad to know that M83 still basically sound like some strange and wonderful mix of My Bloody Valentine, the Orb, Boards Of Canada, Stereolab and New Order. And they most definitely are still the only band around making this sort of lush, fuzzed out, electronic bliss pop. But the new record takes a strange turn. Some around here think a not so advisable one. But we'll elaborate a bit and you make the call.
First, strap yourself in, and set the controls for the heart of... the eighties.
It starts with the ultra-cheesy cover art, a late night big city scape with the band name written in a thick white graffiti scrawl. If you didn't know M83 was a band you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was a Bacardi ad for some new drink.
And sonically it follows a similar time travelling path. Imagine the eighties is a big packet of Lick-Em-Aid, you know that weird colored sugar you'd eat as a kid. So after a year of listening to the first M83 record non stop, it's nice and wet, so go ahead and dip it into your packet of eighties Lick-Em-Aid and you've basically got Before The Dawn Heals Us. Where Dead Cities was almost timeless sounding in its seamless melding of eighties pop, anime soundtrack, modern electronica, nineties shoegaze and classic Krautrock, the new record is eighties through and through. Every song could be music for a montage from Gleaming The Cube or Pump Up The Volume or Back To The Future. When you close your eyes, you can almost visualize the credits rolling over garish splashes of pastel, listing all of the other songs on the 'soundtrack' by folks like Rick Springfield, Ray Parker Jr., Cyndi Lauper, etc. That said, this is still an amazing record. For every moment of cringeworthy fluff, there's three or four of utter pop brilliance. Totally alien snatches of shimmering synth, stuttering studio fuckery, the entire thing peppered with little sounds, electronic and organic, some barely noticeable, some completely defining the songs. Before The Dawn Heals Us sounds best when the band is going full bore, firing a warm beam of thick guitars and fuzzed out synths straight up into the starry sky, stretched out over a rigid framework of drum machine and pulsing bass, that gets so bombastic it almost sounds like Dimmu Borgir or Cradle Of Filth. On first listen the cheese factor was definitely too distracting, but on each listen, those bits of dated pop just sound like pieces of a glorious bigger picture. They may stick out at first but soon, you can't imagine the rest of the record without them. Which makes sense as soon as you spend some time with the record. The whole thing just sort of flows like some unearthed eighties arthouse soundtrack. A deliriously abstract, emotionally charged musical arc, with strange snippets of dialogue and spoken word moving the musical plot forward.
On its own this might not be the perfect record, but as the second part of M83's fuzzy, blissed out musical journey into the shimmery ether, it's an absolute masterpiece.
MPEG Stream: "Moon Child"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Save Us From The Flames"
MPEG Stream: "A Guitar And A Heart"

M83 Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (Mute) 2cd 16.98
This was easily one of our favorite records of last year. So we're super excited that Mute has decided to re-issue it, not only at a lower price, but with an extra disc of remixes, unreleased tracks and two videos!
We hadn't even heard of this band until a handful of customers started mentioning them, so we figured we'd best check it out, and guess what? Turned out to be pretty fucking amazing. A huge slab of fuzzy shoegazey electronica-flecked dream pop. We've been listening to this nonstop since it came in. Imagine the post rave swirl of the Orb, mix in the muted warmth of Boards Of Canada, the lalala Neu-worship of Stereolab, the catchy new wave of New Order, then wrap the whole thing in a thick shimmery distorted haze a la My Bloody Valentine and you'll be close. Now imagine that concoction as the soundtrack to the love scene in some super bizarre Anime. You know, the part where the girl is going into space because she can't live on earth because her tentacles keep killing cute little pandas, and her boyfriend is a giant panda, but they love each other so much her tears turn into jewels that the pandas can eat to make them invincible. It's that heartbreakingly good. This will totally hit the spot for electro geeks, shoegazers, pop kids, and everyone in between.
MPEG Stream: "Unrecorded"
MPEG Stream: "Run Into Flowers"
MPEG Stream: "In Church"

M83 Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (Mute / Gooom) 2lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl!
We hadn't even heard of this band until a handful of customers started mentioning them, so we figured we'd best check it out, and guess what? Turned out to be pretty fucking amazing. A huge slab of fuzzy shoegazey electronica-flecked dream pop. We've been listening to this nonstop since it came in. It's not really that new, but it's so good, we figured better late than never. Imagine the post rave swirl of the Orb, mix in the muted warmth of Boards Of Canada, the lalala Neu-worship of Stereolab, the catchy new wave of New Order, then wrap the whole thing in a thick shimmery distorted haze a la My Bloody Valentine and you'll be close. Now imagine that concoction as the soundtrack to the love scene in some super bizarre Anime. You know, the part where the girl is going into space because she can't live on earth because her tentacles keep killing cute little pandas, and her boyfriend is a giant panda, but they love each other so much her tears turn into jewels that the pandas can eat to make them invincible. It's that heartbreakingly good. This will totally hit the spot for electro geeks, shoegazers, pop kids, and everyone in between.
MPEG Stream: "Unrecorded"
MPEG Stream: "Run Into Flowers"
MPEG Stream: "In Church"

M83 Digital Shades (Vol.1) (Mute / Goom) cd 14.98
We probably reference M83 in reviews more often than No Neck Blues Band or SUNNO))) (okay, maybe not SUNN), which makes sense since they, almost more than any other group we can think of, totally typify that gorgeously washed out synth heavy warm shimmery bliss that infuses so much of the music we love. Their sound is seeped in gauzy smears of new age-y blur and hushed layered soft focus ambience, and even on their last record, the super eighties shimmer pop of Saturdays=Youth, that shimmer was always right below the surface, adding a distinctly otherworldly vibe to the songs.
Digital Shades (Vol. 1) in not a proper album per se, more of a project, undertaken by Anthony Gonzalez, aka M83, between recording sessions, exploring a more stripped down, ambient and new age sound. Originally released as a digital download (hence the title), Digital Shades is finally available as an actual release, the first in a series.
Playing more like fragments, or rough sketches, the songs on Digital Shades are simple and space-y, often only one or two notes, a simple melody, a breathy buried vocal, stretched out into long mesmerizing streaks of sun dappled drift. You can almost imagine these as backing tracks for soon to be M83 tracks. Remember when Pet Sounds mania was happening, and that record was released in all sorts of different permutations? Well, one version contained a whole bunch of gorgeous harmony vocal backing tracks, that once removed from their songs, sounded so strange and angelic and haunting, and such is the case here. Loosed from any sort of structure, these pieces are allowed to float and hover and swirl and slowly unfurl into sprawling expanses of billowy dreamy dronemusic. Sweeping and cinematic, yet somehow still minimal and intimate. Bird song surfaces here and there, as well as some brief snippets of more traditional M83 vocalizing, but those moments are brief, leaving just long streaks of soft sound, to unfold slowly, to blossom into delicate shapes, and to glisten in the light of a thousand suns. Admittedly, Gonzalez is paying homage to Brian Eno, and that's not difficult to hear at all, even in more traditional sounding M83 recordings, and lots of these pieces also sound quite a bit like some lost Twin Peaks Angelo Badalamenti mood music. Absolutely gorgeous. Maybe too minimal and blissed out for some, but for those of you (us!) with a soft spot for delicate drone-y new ageish ambience, and soft shimmery drones, a la Eno, Harold Budd, Popol Vuh, IASOS, Ariel Kalma, and the like, this is absolute heaven.
MPEG Stream: "Waves, Waves, Waves"
MPEG Stream: "Coloring The Void"
MPEG Stream: "Sister [Part 1]"

M83 Don't Save Us From The Flames (Gooom / Mute) cd ep 8.98
You probably already know if you like M83 by now. If you haven't heard them, go check out their brilliant debut Dead Cities RIGHT NOW. If you're already a fan of their fuzzed out My Bloody Valentine / Boards Of Canada dream pop bliss out then like us you can never get enough. This ep features "Don't Save Us From The Frames", probably the best track from their most recent album, Before The Dawn Heals Us -- a massively thick, multi layered psych pop confection with soaring harmony vocals and fuzzy synths all over the place. The reason to pick this up though (we'lll assume you already have the album) is the three unreleased tracks. "Until The Night Is Over" is a gorgeous eighties style ballad, with just enough fuzz and production fuckery to keep it interesting. Think Alan Parsons Project meets Air Supply meets the Flaming Lips. Then there are two remixes of "Don't Save Us...". The first is by Superpitcher, and he works some Kompakt magic, turning the original track into a stripped down, four on the floor, moody heroin house workout. The vocals soar unfettered over a simple pulsing rhythm and a relentlessly throbbing bassline. So good. Exactly how you dreamed a Gooom / Kompakt mashup should sound. The other remix is by Boom Bip, and is a shuffling, skittery IDM workout. A little like Autechre covering the Beach Boys. As always, so good!
MPEG Stream: "Don't Save Us From The Flames (Superpitcher)"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Save Us From The Flames (Boom Bip)"

M83 Run Into Flowers (Mute / Gooom) cd single 8.98
This is the single for possibly the best track on M83's breathtaking Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts album (about to get reissued with a bonus disc!), a hazy shimmery Stereolab meets My Bloody Valentine sun dappled, shoe gazing pop gem. Could it get any better? We definitely thought not, as exhausted as we are by the endless stream of remixes and remix albums. But what do ya know? The remixes on this single actually do twist the song into new and totally appealing shapes. Abstrakt Keal Agram turns the track into a hiccupping hip-hop-shoegaze mash up. Stuttering samples and bumping rhythms totally restructure the wispy original. The main reason to pick this up though is Jackson's Midnight Fuck remix, which takes the original and adds some simple electronica skitter, and morphs the whole thing into a Mike Inc. / Gas / Force Inc. blurry throbbing soundscape of fuzzy synths, etherial vocals, rumbling ambient murk and a propulsive 4/4 rhythm. The final track gets the remix treatment from fellow Gooomsters KG and it's the biggest blast of the bunch, a way rougher and noisier burst of distorted haze and supernovas of white noise static, with the vocals and melodies buried under a thick wash of grit and skree.
MPEG Stream: "Run Into Flowers (Midnight Fuck Remix By Jackson)"

M83 s/t (Gooom) cd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Night "
MPEG Stream: "Kelly"
MPEG Stream: "Facing That"

M83 Saturdays = Youth (Mute) cd 14.98
Over the course of several records, M83 have virtually invented their own genre, we're not even sure what to call it, but it's some sort of gossamer, fuzzed out blissy dream pop, so much so that, the name M83 itself became an oft referenced descriptor when referring to bands of all stripes that borrowed bits of fuzz or buzz or bliss from M83's sonic palette.
The last record, Before The Dawn Heals Us, found the band shedding some of their more arty influences, much of the krautrock, some of the electronica, lots of the buzzy shoegaze, opting instead for some straight up eighties pop, replete with cheesy electronic drums, big choruses, super effected guitars, a gloriously retro chunk of sweetly dated pop, BUT, they balanced that with some seriously over the top fuzzed out bombast.
However, that record definitely hinted at what was to come, and now years later, the bombast is long gone, and if anything, the band has delved even further into our teenage years, and reinvented themselves as a band plucked right from MTV circa 1985, and we love it! This is total emo. Before there was emo. The soundtrack to hanging out in parking lots, crushes, love notes, first kisses, John Hughes movies, falling in love, break ups, mix tapes and all that stuff.
The sound of Saturday = Youth is that, the sound of Saturdays, no school, hanging out with friends, the sound of being young, your whole life ahead of you, but with every second feeling like it could be your last. So much angst, so much passion, so much hope, and so much fear. All perfectly represented by this collection of gloriously glistening sunshine-y pop and fuzzy synthy electro pop.
The record begins with melancholy piano and swoonsome synths, fluttery female vocals somewhere between Kate Bush and Elizabeth Fraser, an intro that quickly gives way to some straight up eighties style MTV pop, a la Tears For Fears, all wooshing and emotional and dramatic, but so awesome. Not sure if this would be quite as appealing to someone who hadn't grown up on this kind of stuff, but for those of us who did, it's pretty irresistible. The next song is all electronic drums, and super processed soaring female vocals, squiggly synths, electric piano, and more super dramatic soaring choruses.
Our favorite so far is probably "Graveyard Girl", with its Cranberries-esque intro, all big jangling guitars, and crooned vocals, the melody super sweet and melancholy, drifting over swooning synths and a relentless rhythm, this is perfect pop, harmonies and hooks, all filtered through that particular time. It helps that there's a video that pretty much perfectly captures the spirit of the song. With a cute gothy girl who visits the pet cemetery and leaves dog toys and kibble on gravestones, pining after the cute boy. Filmed all fuzzy and old, so it looks just like out memories feel. There's even a spoken word part in the middle, delivered by a young girl, talking about loneliness and love, it's pretty perfectly heart wrenching. And then the artwork, all fuzzed out photos of various teens, the jock, the goth girl, the cute guy, the hot girl, the nerd, the punk, all hanging out in some sun dappled park on a Saturday, killing time, being young.
The whole record is like that, so totally moving and jubilant and emotional and slightly cheesy but in a really good way. Whether they're channeling the electronic skitter of New Order, or the fluttery dramatic pop of Kate Bush, or the jangle rock bombast of the Hooters, it's the very best kind of retro. It all makes us feel either really really old, or secretly sort of young again. Or like we're in some awesome eighties teen movie. Regardless, we love it, and can't seem to stop listening to it...
MPEG Stream: "You, Appearing"
MPEG Stream: "Kim & Jessie"
MPEG Stream: "Skin Of The Night"
MPEG Stream: "Graveyard Girl"

M83 Saturdays = Youth (Mute) 2lp 22.00
Now available on vinyl!
Over the course of several records, M83 have virtually invented their own genre, we're not even sure what to call it, but it's some sort of gossamer, fuzzed out blissy dream pop, so much so that, the name M83 itself became an oft referenced descriptor when referring to bands of all stripes that borrowed bits of fuzz or buzz or bliss from M83's sonic palette.
The last record, Before The Dawn Heals Us, found the band shedding some of their more arty influences, much of the krautrock, some of the electronica, lots of the buzzy shoegaze, opting instead for some straight up eighties pop, replete with cheesy electronic drums, big choruses, super effected guitars, a gloriously retro chunk of sweetly dated pop, BUT, they balanced that with some seriously over the top fuzzed out bombast.
However, that record definitely hinted at what was to come, and now years later, the bombast is long gone, and if anything, the band has delved even further into our teenage years, and reinvented themselves as a band plucked right from MTV circa 1985, and we love it! This is total emo. Before there was emo. The soundtrack to hanging out in parking lots, crushes, love notes, first kisses, John Hughes movies, falling in love, break ups, mix tapes and all that stuff.
The sound of Saturday = Youth is that, the sound of Saturdays, no school, hanging out with friends, the sound of being young, your whole life ahead of you, but with every second feeling like it could be your last. So much angst, so much passion, so much hope, and so much fear. All perfectly represented by this collection of gloriously glistening sunshine-y pop and fuzzy synthy electro pop.
The record begins with melancholy piano and swoonsome synths, fluttery female vocals somewhere between Kate Bush and Elizabeth Fraser, an intro that quickly gives way to some straight up eighties style MTV pop, a la Tears For Fears, all wooshing and emotional and dramatic, but so awesome. Not sure if this would be quite as appealing to someone who hadn't grown up on this kind of stuff, but for those of us who did, it's pretty irresistible. The next song is all electronic drums, and super processed soaring female vocals, squiggly synths, electric piano, and more super dramatic soaring choruses.
Our favorite so far is probably "Graveyard Girl", with its Cranberries-esque intro, all big jangling guitars, and crooned vocals, the melody super sweet and melancholy, drifting over swooning synths and a relentless rhythm, this is perfect pop, harmonies and hooks, all filtered through that particular time. It helps that there's a video that pretty much perfectly captures the spirit of the song. With a cute gothy girl who visits the pet cemetery and leaves dog toys and kibble on gravestones, pining after the cute boy. Filmed all fuzzy and old, so it looks just like out memories feel. There's even a spoken word part in the middle, delivered by a young girl, talking about loneliness and love, it's pretty perfectly heart wrenching. And then the artwork, all fuzzed out photos of various teens, the jock, the goth girl, the cute guy, the hot girl, the nerd, the punk, all hanging out in some sun dappled park on a Saturday, killing time, being young.
The whole record is like that, so totally moving and jubilant and emotional and slightly cheesy but in a really good way. Whether they're channeling the electronic skitter of New Order, or the fluttery dramatic pop of Kate Bush, or the jangle rock bombast of the Hooters, it's the very best kind of retro. It all makes us feel either really really old, or secretly sort of young again. Or like we're in some awesome eighties teen movie. Regardless, we love it, and can't seem to stop listening to it...
The vinyl also comes with a cd of the record.
MPEG Stream: "You, Appearing"
MPEG Stream: "Kim & Jessie"
MPEG Stream: "Skin Of The Night"
MPEG Stream: "Graveyard Girl"

M83 Slowly-Sitting (Gooom) 10" 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
LIMITED LIMITED LIMITED!!!
OK, now that we've got that out of the way, we managed to get a dozen or so of these very limited, promotional only 10"s from AQ faves M83. And unlike the overlap between their singles and re-releases and imports, as far as we can tell these tracks are exclusive to this record. Two longish tracks of that perfect electronic bliss psych we've been freaking out over, although this time a bit heavier on the beat than the bliss (a decidedly steady techno-ish thump throughout), sounding quite a bit like New Order dipped in My Bloody Valentine. Nice.

M83 Teen Angst (Mute) cd 8.98
Single number two (or is it number three?) from the recent M83 record and damn if that record doesn't sound better and better as we re-examine it single by single. A perfect warm flush of gossamer dreaminess, lush buzzing synths and breathy otherworldly vocals. You should really already have the title track by now, if you don't, for chrissakes order yourself a copy of Before The Dawn Heals Us and then come on back. So it's the two bonus tracks that are the reason to pick this up. There's the exclusive-to-this-single track "Addicted To Self Mutilation", a slow burning soundscape of falsetto harmonies, like the Beach Boys on peyote, slipping and slithering over a simple electronic shuffle and a jagged buzz-guitar drone. Hard to figure how a band can come up with sonic leftovers WAY better than most bands' main courses! The other track is a reworking of "Teen Angst", by Montag, a fellow Gooom Records sonic alchemist, who was responsible for the soaring string arrangements on both of the M83 records (and whose lastest record we'll be reviewing soon!). Montag takes the lush and fuzzy original and strips it way down, leaving just a skeletal electronic rhythm, with ghostly traces of the original synths swirling amidst the hushed vocals and mournful minor key melodies, eventually allowing the whole thing to build to an intense and chaotic rhythmic frenzy that simply blinks out, leaving residual traces of synth and skitter floating through your head.
MPEG Stream: "Addicted To Self Mutilation"
MPEG Stream: "Teen Angst (Montag Remix)"

M87 Noctilucent Threnodies (Supernal) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not to be confused with the fuzzy shoegazey bliss of AQ faves M83, M87 are a mysterious dark ambient drone outfit on the same label as Benighted Leams, Contra Ignem Fatuum, Drudkh, and Meads Of Asphodel. That alone should have you pretty psyched to see what sort of weirdness these guys conjure up. We'd be tempted to say M87 are an anomaly in Supernal's predominantly black metal roster, but some of our favorite releases on Supernal were on the ambient side of things, the weird medieval drones of Dark Ages and the crumbling pummeling SUNNO)))-like dirge of Fall Of The Grey Winged One. M87 are a much blissier affair. An outer space drift that hovers and floats, wide open expanses of shimmering static hum and glistening effervescence. The liner notes proclaim "There are no keyboards or guitar synthesizers on this disc" so we can only assume this is ALL guitar, which makes it even more impressive. Released way back in 1999, and only now finally making it to the AQ list, M87 definitely explores similar sonic territory as Fennesz, Ambarchi, Tim Hecker, Dean Roberts and the like. The opening track is a thick static blur, like standing in the middle of a busy train station, the sound of the people, and the trains and the spaces cavernous reverb building into a massive swirling whir. This dense proto industrialism surfaces elsewhere on the record, each time, adding more to the mix, buried clangs, or muted melodies, but these caustic sonic clouds are just interludes, long ones granted, drifting darkly and offering an aggressive contrast to the rest of the record's serene and beautiful soundscapes. Warm, rich, dark, dreamlike, ominous, otherworldly, each track, like some exploration of a barren alien planet, or some mysterious abandoned city, a series of abstract isolationist drones, whose textures and melodies, which once existed, have now melted, spreading out into thick pools of shimmering sound, each offering a twisting distorted reflection of the haunting world beyond.
MPEG Stream: "Mu Cephel"
MPEG Stream: "M8 (Lagoon Nebula)"
MPEG Stream: "NGC 7358"

M:I:5 Massstab 1 : 5 (Profan) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wolfgang Voigt's palette of techno structuralism shifts ever so slightly, but apparently enough to warrant lots of different names (including Gas, Mike Ink, Wassermann, All, Studio One, Love Inc, etc). M:I:5 bubbles with off kilter synthetic syncopations phasing against the 'monophunktrax' (that's what Voigt calls it), a sort of monochromatic shuffle of unchanging techno drum kick throbs. Despite the omnipresent beat, Voigt's minimalist aesthetic doesn't seem to be going for the dance friendly experience, unless you can imagine dancing the night away to bleak and hypnotic blackness. Recommended.

MAAL, BAABA Missing You (Mi Yeewnii) (Palm Pictures) cd 16.98
Though nothing is going to compare with his co-release with Mansour Seck, Djam Leelii (1984), this is certainly a much better album than his last release, Nomad Soul. Baaba Maal has turned away from the synth heavy world beat that he helped introduce and returned to an almost stripped down production which features his lilting voice, guitar, kora, bass, percussion and backing chorus. The heavy synths are replaced by lush production by Abbey Road old timer and Bends (Radiohead) producer John Leckie.
RealAudio clip: "mamadi"

MAAL, BAABA Nomad Soul (Island) cd 15.98
Senegalese vocalist's new album is very 'world beat', not as traditional as our longtime favorite record by him and Mansour Seck, titled Djam Leelii.

MABUKI, JUNKO Slave Of Love (Tiliqua) cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What was meant to be a limited series, seems to be extended indefinitely, with a new disc on this week's list, and at least two more installments planned. And if anything, they just keep getting better, and more perverted! There's just too much sexy sound to stop now. Longtime readers of the aQ list will no doubt be familiar with the Erotic Oriental Sunshine series of archival releases from Tiliqua Records in Japan (who also released the Joakim Skogsberg, this week's Record Of The Week). Each disc in the series unearths a lost gem from a particular sexy chanteuse, lost examples of a strange, and distinctly Japanese artform, where studio bands would perform groovy tunes, exotica, lounge, new age, jazz, even sometimes sort of Morricone style soundtracks, while a starlet would coo and purr, groan and moan over the top.
Past installments have included sexy action heroine Ike Reiko, Japanese "Play Girl" Kuwabara Yukiko, seventies bondage / S&M queen Naomi Tani (who Mabuki is often compared to), legendary porn actress Taguchi Kumi, sexy Lolita, Petite M'Amie, aka Mari Keiko and the most recent disc (and the only one not out of print), which instead of focusing on a particular starlet, focused on the composer responsible for many of these releases, Masami Kawahara.
But this newest installment returns to the series' original pattern, collecting all the recorded works by a single actress/performer, in this case, S+M / bondage queen Mabuki Junko, who essentially took over when Naomi Tani retired. Mabuki was curvaceous and busty, and a spirited performer, writhing and squirming as she was restrained, tied up, whipped and spanked, finding fame starring in films with titles like All Women Are Whores. Her film career was brief, her musical career even more so, having released a single 7" and a single cassette. The cassette was part of a series called Yoru No Driver, designed for truckers, to keep them company on long lonely all night drives, and were thus sold primarily in gas stations and truck stops. Both are collected here, and both are as weird and wild, freaky and fucked up as all of the other installments. And in its own way, one of the weirder installments.
Playing more like some soap opera on tape, the music is exotic and groovy, somewhere between easy listening and light jazz, but with strange Eastern tinges. The music fading out, to play in the background, while Mabuki and her male 'co-star' deliver their lines. Growing more and more frenzied and feverish, until Mabuki begins to sob, and groan, and squeal, the sound of fabric tearing, the sound of tape being pulled from a roll, the sound of whipping, grunting, breathless grunts and howls, all bathed in reverb, and over a smooth jazzy backdrop.
Other tracks feature fuzzy flute, muted trumpets, string stabs, groovy guitars, some actual singing (most notably on the second track, which was the title song to one of Mabuki's films), steel string guitars, spacey synthesizers, shimmering harps, shuffling snares, what sounds like koto, xylophones, some tracks totally goofy and cheesy, others haunting and ominous, at least one a groovy string soaked disco groove, but most all of them featuring long stretches of soap opera drama, with Mabuki pleading and sobbing tearfully, eventually giving in, and losing herself in some sexy punishment. Weird weird weird, but as always pretty fascinating and of course way recommended for fans of wild and exotic sounds.
Packaged in a super deluxe Japanese miniature gatefold style cd sleeve, with a printed obi, sexy photos of Mabuki including the cover shot of her gagged with a scarf, and the gatefold phot showing Mabuki in an open robe trussed up with red cords, and extensive liner notes in English and Japanese including a biography of Mabuki, and notes on each track. ULTRA LIMITED!!! Like most of the releases in this series, this one is a one time only limited pressing of only 1000 copies, and is already SOLD OUT. There's a good chance once these are gone we will be unable to get more...
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "2"
MPEG Stream: "3"

MABUSES, THE Mabused! (self-released) cd 16.98
We'd been going through a sort of Shimmy Disc revival lately, digging out all of our old favorites, the first Gwar record, Bongwater, Dogbowl, Jellyfish Kiss... We had sort of forgotten how good all that stuff was. One of our favorites though was this little Brit pop gem by a band called The Mabuses. One of the most perfect slabs of clever hook filled pop ever. The track, "Kicking A Pigeon", has to be, all hyperbole aside, one of the greatest and most lyrically bizarre pop songs EVER. So much so that on hearing it, Allan went on a tear trying to track a copy down for himself (and fear not, Andee is trying to figure  out a way to reissue that record on tUMULt!). 
We were sort of just enjoying this pop flashback, when our pal Brian at WFMU emailed to inform us that not only were the Mabuses still in fact a band, they were playing shows AND had a brand new record. So we got in touch with the band and here it is, a glorious new record from one of our favoritest pop bands, The Mabuses. 
There's no point in comparing the sound of this record to the Shimmy Disc one, since most folks probably missed it entirely, but for those who remember, the sound is relatively unchanged, lush and slightly twee, jangly guitars, soft horns, strings, all very lush and classic sounding, with clever lyrics and dreamy vocal harmonies, but with some BITE too. Some songs are super washed out and dreamy, others are angular and propulsive. The sound borrows from much that came before, but manages to distill it all into something, that once you've been Mabused, can sound like no one else. Bits and pieces of bands like the High Llamas, Steely Dan, Robyn Hitchcock, Cardinal, Jellyfish, that classic Flying Nun sound... that should give you a rough idea...
Every song here is a pop gem, but "Byayaba" might be the new "Kicking A Pigeon", a super catchy riff, sharp edged and distorted, the vocals doubled and delivered in a commanding baritone, like a pissed off more punk rock Magnetic Fields, then there's the strange garden party strings and horns jam of "Garden Devils", the fuzzy slithery grind of "Russian Roulette" featuring Kramer on bass, the harpsichord pounding Jellyfish jam of "Seasider"... it's just all so good...
To be totally honest, on first listen we couldn't help but compare Mabused! to their self titled record on Shimmy Disc, but the more we listen, the more this disc has grown on us, unfolding like a garden full of strange and wonderful flowers, and now, it seems to be permanently stuck in our players. Total pop nirvana! So so recommended. 
Gorgeously packaged too, a super elaborate die cut digipak, with a massive fold out poster / lyric sheet.
MPEG Stream: "Dark Star"
MPEG Stream: "Seasider"
MPEG Stream: "Mirth"

MAC BLACKOUT Don't Let Your Love Die b/w Sometimes (Sacred Bones) 7" 5.98
Can you imagine some strange mix of Black Bug, Depeche Mode and Varghkoghargasmal? Well you can now. Sounds like an aQuarius mad sonic scientist dream come true and it IS. This latest Captured Tracks single, from Mac Blackout, aka the dude from the Functional Blackouts and Daily Void, has to be our new fave single of the year, the A side is a ferocious and catchy as fuck chunk of gothy retro cold wave synth soaked gloom pop, stumbling and warped, with cool shrieky vocals, squiggly synths, total Nintendo wave, hooky and a little heavy, but so gloriously noisy and poppy and buzzy and twisted and fucking AWESOME. The flipside is just as good, taking that same sound, but mixing in some thick swaths of dense fuzzed out M83 style swirl, some super dramatic vocals, and crumbling crunchy almost industrial rhythms, still infused with some eighties pop jangle and some anthemic teen movie soundtrack pathos, but all blurred and blasted into something much more fucked up and far out. So good.

MACE Circulations (Sub Rosa) cd 14.98
Circulations is an instrumental album in four sections, for four instruments: drums, guitar, harp and clarinet. And tape. Which we'll explain in a second. First though, let's just say: this is so GREAT. But it's been tough to review. 'Cause there's a lot of explaining to do. And it's the sort of thing where, yup, the construction of the music IS interesting, but reading about it sorta might make it sound like an academic exercise. Which it may be, in part. But our point is, that even if you don't know how it came about, academics aside it's a really really great listen! Like a crazy soundtrack, sort of (a lot of this would be perfect for some freaky '70s Italian horror/sci-fi/suspense flick). Sometimes bewilderingly dense, at others beautifully melodic and simple. There's a chaotic tangle of sounds but it's carefully crafted, moving through (and returning to) many moods.
You'll encounter moments of heavy distorto-percussion frenzy that sound not unlike Village of Savoonga, This Heat or Dead C. Passages of pretty melody carried by the harp or the clarinet. Intense, echoing drumscapes. Shimmering textures, loud stabs of skronk guitar, placid strings, stirring arpeggios, glitchy stutter. It's very dynamic indeed. Sometime simple and serene, sometimes seriously scrambled and spliced. A complex assemblage of sounds constantly morphing and mutating...
But let's give the background on this, 'cause we're sure that some of you will be intrigued. Basically, the deal here is that young French composer Pierre-Yves Mace (who has one other album out, on Tzadik), wrote out four solos for the four instruments (drums, guitar, harp, clarinet). The musicians in question recorded these solos. Then Mace took those recordings and created four processed tape-collage backing tracks to accompany each of the original individual solos, which were then slightly revised and performed again over the tapes that Mace created. Thus four movements, created in four stages, for Percussion/Tape, Guitar/Tape, Harp/Tape, and Clarinet/Tape. (It says "tape" here, so we will too, though we suspect a computer was involved at some point, not just old-fashioned cut and splice procedures.) The 'solo' instrument is the focus of each track, but you'll hear from all of 'em throughout the disc. Fortunately, Mace's talents extend beyond this disc's conceptual framework, however interesting. While it's fun to listen and try to pick out the sounds from each solo that have been processed and transposed and otherwise recontextualized in the taped accompaniment (you'll be cross referencing from one movement to another, looking for traces of a guitar lick or clarinet motif heard elsewhere), the end-result music is just as interesting and enjoyable without even thinking about how it was created.
It stands on its own as a highly-charged, detailed and often gorgeous instrumental piece of music, which could be a brilliant electro-acoustic improv session, kinda like Ground Zero or Supersilent or those Spring Heel Jack improv projects, that blend live instruments with live electronics and sampling (self-sampling in this case). But with a 20th (21st?) century classical feel. And it's definitely composed and purposeful. Very impressive. There's certainly been a few great releases lately from the Belgian label Sub Rosa (Tibetan Buddhist Rites, Mitchell Akiyama's Small Explosions That Are Yours To Keep) and now this. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "1st Movement For Percussion / Tape"
MPEG Stream: "4th Movement For Clarinet / Tape"

MACE, PIERRE-YVES Faux-Jumeaux (Tzadik) cd 15.98

MACEDA, JOSE Gongs and Bamboos (Tzadik) cd 16.98
When Tzadik says something like "one of the most original and underappreciated composers in contemporary music" it should be taken with more than one grain of salt, yet the presentation of Philipino composer Jose Maceda certainly holds up to such critical praise. Well versed in both the temple musics of Southeast Asia and the conceptually minded compositions of Varese and Xenakis, Maceda explores an interesting form of minimalism using very large ensembles performing upon Southeast Asian instruments. "Pagsamba," for example, is a massive composition for 100 bamboo flutes, 100 bamboo, 100 bamboo clappers, 100 wooden bars and beaters, 100 bamboo scrapes for 100 instrumentalists, 8 gongs with stopped sounds, 8 gongs with free sounds, 5 male vocal quintets, and 100 mixed vocals. Whew! In a score that seems rather open-ended and no apparent lyrics to the free-floating vocals, "Pagsamba" has more than a few similarities to "The Great Learning" by Cornelius Cardew. "Suling-Suling" is another piece of extended minimalism for a 30 member ensemble for flutes, bamboo buzzers, and flat gongs with a composition that again is somewhat open-ended. As the performance of "Suling-Suling" was done by the Mills Contemporary Ensemble, it has much more of that "stumbling down the stairs" feel. The final piece "Colors Without Rhythms" (as perfomed by the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra) is a piece for intertwining percussion, vibraphone, harp, strings, woodwinds, etc... recalling Terry Riley's painterly "In C."

MACEO & ALL THE KING'S MEN Doing Their Own Thing (Fuel 2000) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Reissue of this classic soul/funk album. Escaping from under the thumb of Soul Brother No. 1, Mr. James Brown (a genius, but a tyrant), tenor saxophonist Maceo Parker formed a new group of equally fed-up ex-James Brown sidemen, including trumpeter Richard "Kush" Griffith, guitarist Jimmy "Chank" Nolen, and Maceo's drummer brother Melvin Parker. Of course, many of this crew, even Maceo, would be back with Brown within a few years, joining up with his equally incredible new band, The JB's... but briefly, anyway, All The King's Men struck out on their own, debuting with this disc in 1970. It wasn't a commerical success (some say 'cause a revengeful James Brown actually paid disc jockeys NOT to play it), but it is a fine slice of funk by some of the best in the business! Essential for any funkateer's collection.