MATMOS Rat Relocation Program (Locust) cd 14.98
Eek! Rats! You can always count on the mischevious Matmos (Drew and Martin, SF's darling duo of experimental electronica, who you probably know not only for their own weird, wonderful releases but also their work with Bjork) to make the most of the strangest sound-sources. In this case, a rat they (humanely) trapped in their Tenderloin apartment! Why? Well this is one of Locust's "Met Life" releases...that's not an insurance company but rather a "location sound series" for which sound artists were asked to both provide field recordings of their urban environment as well as "respond" musically to that environment. This 30 minute cd consists of two tracks. Track one is just the poor rat giving a solo performance, of squeaks and screams. If you have a cat this might interest them greatly. On the second track Matmos join in, turning the rat's cage into a nightclub for Intelligent Dance Music, with beats ranging from the purely abstract to the downright groovy. The rat's squeaks remain the same, coming in as if on cue in breaks in the music as orchestrated by Matmos. The rat's no house diva that's for sure, and we like the effect. Matmos' dance grooves are totally dark, and rat-appropriate while other parts of this (and the rat's original performance) echo some avant-garde 20th century classical with its use of space and silence. A successful 'collaboration' indeed. And don't worry, I don't think they actually subjected the rat to this mix. Furthermore, in the liner notes Matmos explain that "the following morning we took the rat to a wealthy suburban neighborhood and set it free."
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

MATMOS s/t (Matador) cd 14.98
This is one of our unanimous store favorites, a very accesible, murky electronic record inspired by electro and the sounds of hair, breathing and Polish trains. Recommended without reservation, this is some of the best of the bunch.
RealAudio clip: "It Seems"

MATMOS Supreme Balloon (Matador) cd 13.98
Matmos have that very rare and special talent of being able to turn endless creativity and playful spirit into something transcendental. While much of the press they get ends up being about their unique methods and approaches to gathering sounds (plastic surgery, semen, polish trains, rats, etc.) or the famous folks they have worked with (Bjork, Kronos Quartet, Terry Riley, etc.) the truth is that ultimately it's the strength of their varied albums and engaging live performances that have made them one of the best and most compelling music makers of the last decade.
Supreme Balloon finds Matmos stripped down in a sense as they put their contact mic's away and decided to make a record made solely with synthesizers and samplers, and the results are pretty damn stunning! Showing that they could give the DFA camp a tutorial if asked ("Polychords"), keeping their playful spirit on high with their Switched on Matmos take on "Les Folies Francaises" as well as reaching outer orbits of pure psychedelic bliss on the 24 minute title track. They use their wide range of synthesizers to create a kraut-like sensation with bursts of fluorescence and a sense of adventure and eye on the multicolor sky that is so damn hard to resist. Matmos manage to find the hidden smile in Klaus Schulze's stern visage, the relics of a Tangerine Dream with a half dose of ecstasy we always wished was out there somewhere. Once again they've proven that you can be smart without being stiff, playful without being dumb. Supreme Balloon will be a definite contender for record of the year!
(P.S., vinyl fans should note that the double-LP version of this record comes with three extra tracks including a great collaboration with Terry Riley titled "The Hashish Master"!)
MPEG Stream: "Polychords"
MPEG Stream: "Supreme Balloon"
MPEG Stream: "Rainbow Flag"

MATMOS Supreme Balloon (Matador) 2lp 26.00
Matmos have that very rare and special talent of being able to turn endless creativity and playful spirit into something transcendental. While much of the press they get ends up being about their unique methods and approaches to gathering sounds (plastic surgery, semen, polish trains, rats, etc.) or the famous folks they have worked with (Bjork, Kronos Quartet, Terry Riley, etc.) the truth is that ultimately it's the strength of their varied albums and engaging live performances that have made them one of the best and most compelling music makers of the last decade.
Supreme Balloon finds Matmos stripped down in a sense as they put their contact mic's away and decided to make a record made solely with synthesizers and samplers, and the results are pretty damn stunning! Showing that they could give the DFA camp a tutorial if asked ("Polychords"), keeping their playful spirit on high with their Switched on Matmos take on "Les Folies Francaises" as well as reaching outer orbits of pure psychedelic bliss on the 24 minute title track. They use their wide range of synthesizers to create a kraut-like sensation with bursts of fluorescence and a sense of adventure and eye on the multicolor sky that is so damn hard to resist. Matmos manage to find the hidden smile in Klaus Schulze's stern visage, the relics of a Tangerine Dream with a half dose of ecstasy we always wished was out there somewhere. Once again they've proven that you can be smart without being stiff, playful without being dumb. Supreme Balloon will be a definite contender for record of the year!
(P.S., vinyl fans should note that the double-LP version of this record comes with three extra tracks including a great collaboration with Terry Riley titled "The Hashish Master"!)
MPEG Stream: "Polychords"
MPEG Stream: "Supreme Balloon"
MPEG Stream: "Rainbow Flag"

MATMOS The Civil War (Matador) cd 14.98
If Drew Daniel got to indulge his big-booty-beach-party perversions on the Soft Pink Truth album, then Martin Schmidt, who is the other half of Matmos duo, should have the opportunity to elaborate his own musical virtues and vices. That said, it would be too easy to qualify "The Civil War" as the Martin record; but there are many more than a few similarities between this album and the previous outing "The West," Matmos' historically coded album which Matmos has publicly announced as being masterminded by Martin. Again, Matmos and their comrades in arms (J Lesser, Blevin Blechtum, Keith Fullerton Whitman, David Grubbs, Mark Lightcap, and others) wield some atypical instruments -- an emergency alarm system, blood, a rabbit pelt, conductive jelly, and an ultrasonic doppler flow detector (huh?); but what is most surprising about "The Civil War" is its dramatic break from the directions of contemporary electronica. Structurally, this album is a pastiche of jaunty Renaissance jigs, fife and drum marches, medieval madrigals for hurdy gurdy, and rustic folk. Yet, smeared across the surfaces of these archaic musics are digital pixels, microtonal glissandos, misplaced electronic beats, and intrusive glitches. This is an overtly clever take on appropriation, never allowing an exact mimesis of the older forms, rather Matmos position the old and the new in a context of dislocation. At their best, perhaps on "The Struggle Against Unreality Begins," Matmos reconstitutes the alchemy of Coil during their "Horse Rotovator" period, where the anarchronistic references collapse into a monstrous dirge with sly glances toward the carnivalesque.
Those Bjork fans who love her swansongs and wish to indulge in the genius of her technicians must be warned that "The Civil War" is a willfully difficult listen. But those adventurous listeners will certainly be delighted by the collision of state of the art electronics and the music of yesteryear.
MPEG Stream: "Regicide"
MPEG Stream: "Y.T.T.E"
MPEG Stream: "The Struggle Against Reality Begins"

MATMOS The Civil War (Matador) lp 11.98
If Drew Daniel got to indulge his big-booty-beach-party perversions on the Soft Pink Truth album, then Martin Schmidt, who is the other half of Matmos duo, should have the opportunity to elaborate his own musical virtues and vices. That said, it would be too easy to qualify "The Civil War" as the Martin record; but there are many more than a few similarities between this album and the previous outing "The West," Matmos' historically coded album which Matmos has publicly announced as being masterminded by Martin. Again, Matmos and their comrades in arms (J Lesser, Blevin Blechtum, Keith Fullerton Whitman, David Grubbs, Mark Lightcap, and others) wield some atypical instruments -- an emergency alarm system, blood, a rabbit pelt, conductive jelly, and an ultrasonic doppler flow detector (huh?); but what is most surprising about "The Civil War" is its dramatic break from the directions of contemporary electronica. Structurally, this album is a pastiche of jaunty Renaissance jigs, fife and drum marches, medieval madrigals for hurdy gurdy, and rustic folk. Yet, smeared across the surfaces of these archaic musics are digital pixels, microtonal glissandos, misplaced electronic beats, and intrusive glitches. This is an overtly clever take on appropriation, never allowing an exact mimesis of the older forms, rather Matmos position the old and the new in a context of dislocation. At their best, perhaps on "The Struggle Against Unreality Begins," Matmos reconstitutes the alchemy of Coil during their "Horse Rotovator" period, where the anarchronistic references collapse into a monstrous dirge with sly glances toward the carnivalesque.
Those Bjork fans who love her swansongs and wish to indulge in the genius of her technicians must be warned that "The Civil War" is a willfully difficult listen. But those adventurous listeners will certainly be delighted by the collision of state of the art electronics and the music of yesteryear.

MATMOS The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast (Matador) cd 15.98
San Francisco's darling electronic conceptualists Matmos have crafted an ambitious collection of audio portraits for their 6th full album, allowing their baroque sampling tricknology to articulate the metaphors in mapping out the complexities of each of the portraits. The collection of audio portraits represents the inspiration pantheon for Matmos, ranging from the ivory tower of academia to far reaches of underground culture. Hence, there's analytical philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the scabrous feminist Valarie Solanas, New York house legend Larry Levan, Germs' frontman Darby Crash, homoerotic photographer James Bidgood, eccentric producer Joe Meek, gay chronicler Boyd McDonald, countercultural godfather William S. Burroughs, and noir-thriller novelist Patricia Highsmith. Matmos' work has always been a cavalcade of electro-acoustic stunts directed within a studied and adventurous reading of contemporary electronica tinged with comedic overtones, ranging from black humour to slapstick antics. The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast is no different, romping through wah-wah splattered porno funk, mutant disco beats clipped with diva-house vocals, noirish concrete-collages, and tracks literally wrapped in semen stained sheets. As Matmos deconstructs and compresses the dense histories of each of their portrait subjects into the context of a six to ten minute electronica tracks, it's the details that Matmos amass that give each of their portraits such charm and pleasure. Very well done, indeed!
MPEG Stream: "Steam And Sequins For Larry Levan"
MPEG Stream: "Semen Song For James Bidgood"
MPEG Stream: "Solo Buttons For Joe Meek"

MATMOS The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast (Matador) 2lp 16.98
San Francisco's darling electronic conceptualists Matmos have crafted an ambitious collection of audio portraits for their 6th full album, allowing their baroque sampling tricknology to articulate the metaphors in mapping out the complexities of each of the portraits. The collection of audio portraits represents the inspiration pantheon for Matmos, ranging from the ivory tower of academia to far reaches of underground culture. Hence, there's analytical philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the scabrous feminist Valarie Solanas, New York house legend Larry Levan, Germs' frontman Darby Crash, homoerotic photographer James Bidgood, eccentric producer Joe Meek, gay chronicler Boyd McDonald, countercultural godfather William S. Burroughs, and noir-thriller novelist Patricia Highsmith. Matmos' work has always been a cavalcade of electro-acoustic stunts directed within a studied and adventurous reading of contemporary electronica tinged with comedic overtones, ranging from black humour to slapstick antics. The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast is no different, romping through wah-wah splattered porno funk, mutant disco beats clipped with diva-house vocals, noirish concrete-collages, and tracks literally wrapped in semen stained sheets. As Matmos deconstructs and compresses the dense histories of each of their portrait subjects into the context of a six to ten minute electronica tracks, it's the details that Matmos amass that give each of their portraits such charm and pleasure. Very well done, indeed!
MPEG Stream: "Steam And Sequins For Larry Levan"
MPEG Stream: "Semen Song For James Bidgood"
MPEG Stream: "Solo Buttons For Joe Meek"

MATMOS The West (Deluxe) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The CD release of last year's fantastic vinyl-only album from San Francisco's Matmos comes with an extra track AND some new artwork (buy it for the cowboy photo of Jay Lesser on a horse!). Totally amazing organic electronica laced with playful electro beats, wildly manipulated field recordings, arid soundtracks, and guest appearances from David Pajo (Slint, Tortoise, Aerial M), Kris Force (Amber Asylum), and Jay Lesser (who has now officially joined Matmos).

MATMOS The West (Autofact / Vague Terrain) cd 14.98
At long last, possibly our favorite Matmos record ever is back in print! The West is by far the most sprawling and highway ready record in their illustrious back catalog. With all the well deserved attention they've received over the years for their innovative methods and countless collaborations one thing that's often overlooked is how well their records tend to predict and predate what's about to come floating up from the musical underground. Recorded and released a few years before the big new weird America/freak folk movement took off and before everyone was using laptops to create folktronica, Matmos made this amazing album that perfectly melds their leftfield electronic roots with spacious and trance inducing guitar to create the kind of record you would imagine might have been made if Henry Flynt and Jim O'Rourke were to collaborate or if Christian Fennesz got to twist knobs while John Fahey was playing in one of his most exploratory moments. With a long list of guests including J. Lesser and David Pajo (Slint, Papa M) on board for the record, Drew & Martin once again demonstrate how great they are at letting others into their world and being open to where the sounds will take them while still maintaining a distinct vision.
The West is for sure one of our favorite roadtrip records of all time. "Sun on 5 at 152" really does sound exactly how it feels when the sun is blasting through your dirty windshield and you can't really see what's ahead but you keep your foot on the pedal and just follow the road to wherever it may lead you. While no two Matmos records are alike The West probably finds its most kindred spirit in The Civil War, another Matmos record that proves there is much more to these great music makers then simply synths and samples. No matter what they create, soul seeps richly through their fractured sounds and in our opinion The West may be their most soulful, satisfying and resonating release EVER. Highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Sun on 5 at 152"
MPEG Stream: "Last Delicious Cigarette"
MPEG Stream: "Action at a Distance"

MATMOS / MOTION (Fat Cat) 12" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The 11th split 12" from Fat Cat features San Francisco's electronica geniuses Matmos and hard disc editors Motion. Matmos starts off with "Freak 'n' You" full of Funkstorifique damage on some sappy R&B slow-jam with lots of time-stretching, cybernetic sampledelica, and fractured beat skitter. This is followed by a collaboration with David Pajo and part time Matmos member Jay Lesser for a collage of string plucks from laptop modified banjos and guitars to create almost Pierre Schaeffer-ish creakiness and theremin-like vibrato.
Motion's digital kaleidoscope of warbling cd skips resembles the painterly squiggles of Microstoria.

MATMOS WITH J LESSER Live (Vague Terrain) cd 11.98
This limited edition collection of live material from Matmos with J Lesser (and a couple of guests) exposes the improvisational ability of this San Francisco electronica duo (or trio if you count Lesser) who are mostly reknowned for their transmutation of arcane sound sources (surgical suction, crayfish nerves, acupuncture) into IDM / tech-house. Where their studio albums have been crafted in full cognizance of the play between techno's rhythmic propulsion and the textural eccentricity of some of their source material, Matmos' live performances always try to integrate the performative, risk-taking elements of improvisation alongside pre-programmed rhythms and sequences. Thus, Matmos' live shows can't ever be accused of being the non-performances of a dude and his laptop, or sounding like their records for that matter. With these 11 live excerpts, Matmos ramble through dense processed bloopings made with skipping cds, walkie talkies, acoustic guitar, vacuum cleaner tubes, and duck calls (the latter being the most obtuse sound source on this album) alongside plenty of electronic skitter, resulting in something more in line with Gastr Del Sol and Red Crayola than what one may expect from Matmos. A couple of tracks (ones not qualified as improvisations in the liner notes) do venture into the throbbing electronica found on "Quasi-Objects" and "A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure," including those aforementioned duck calls which I would really like to think is Matmos member M.C. Schmidt's answer to house divas. These tracks span the band's career with tracks dating back to 1997.
Matmos wanted to keep this a limited release, only selling these to a handful of shops across the globe. While not quite exclusive to Aquarius, this album isn't terribly likely to be showing up at many other shops! Act fast!
RealAudio clip: "Live 4"
RealAudio clip: "Live 6"
RealAudio clip: "Live 8"

MATRIX Various Films (Chain Reaction) cd 15.98

MATRIX Various Films (Chain Reaction) cd 15.98

MPEG Stream: "Blue Film #2"
MPEG Stream: "Milieux"
MPEG Stream: "Red Film #2"

MATSUNAGA, KOUHEI Upside Down (Mille Plateaux) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Deep pulsing bass drones with creepy slow metallic percussion, and lots of interesting noise-making, featuring voice and cello and appearences by noise-greats Masonna and Merzbow, being not so balls-out noisey, but contributing effectively to the album as a whole.

MATT POND PA Last Light (Polyvinyl) lp 16.98

MATTHEW SHIPP Piano Vortex (Thirsty Ear) cd 16.98

MATTHEWS, ERIC Foundation Sounds (Empyrean) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Our House"
MPEG Stream: "Sorry"
MPEG Stream: "Gold"

MATTHEWS, ERIC Six Kinds Of Passion Looking For An Exit (451) cd 14.98

MATTHEWS, KAFFE Ann (Annette Works) cd 14.98
While the majority of the sound source of Kaffe Matthews' "Ann" album is the violin, her improvisational sampling prowess has subverted and treated the original source into constantly shifting digitally looped drones and abstract patterns. This is her first album in a series of releases alphabetically progressing through women's names.

MATTHEWS, KAFFE Bea (Annette Works) cd 14.98
The second album from Kaffe Matthews is a continuation of her realtime explorations of sampler manipulation within a particular live setting. With a (sometimes hidden) microphone capturing her Tony Conrad-esque violin drones incedental sounds, Matthews selects snippets of droning sound to be fed into her sampler for hypnotic, ever shifting abstractions of sound.

MATTHEWS, KAFFE cd dd (Annetteworks) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Kaffe Matthews is a UK electronic artist specializing in live sampling techniques in which she pulls a variety of sounds from her performance space and transforms them into a variety of loops to be collaged in real time. Her previous recordings had often featured her playing violin and specifically manipulating that sounds; but as can be heard here on her fifth album, Matthews' is moving beyond the violin towards more abstracted compositions and sound elements. Chilling grey drones nervously build from mysterious, extended atmopherics into ominous mechanical rhythms, sounding like the post-industrial work of Nocturnal Emissions or Hazard.

MATTHEWS, KAFFE Cecile (Annette Works) cd 14.98
"Cecile" - Kaffe Matthews' third album - is quite similar in execution to her riveting live performance which recently took place here at Aquarius. Her method is to manipulate and layer samples of incidental sounds gathered from a singular context (meaning that no samples were brought into the context, and none were added later). While her previous two records had primarily improvised around violin, "Cecile" uses a lot of scratchy surface noise of vinyl as the source material, ending up sounding similar to Philip Jeck's collages.

MATTHEWS, KAFFE + HAYLEY NEWMAN Pointy Stunt (Audioview/Lowlands) cd 15.98
This Hayley Newman person performs all sorts of weird actions, then electronic sound manipulator Kaffe Matthews processes the resultant audio. 67 minutes, all recorded live. Weird actions? Well, try wearing a velcro bodysuit with microphones sewn in, or dancing on a miked-up wooden box wearing stilleto shoes outfitted with motors in the heels...hmm. Anyway, knowing that Kaffe can make even the everyday sounds here at Aquarius Records quite interesting with her processing (as she demonstrated not long ago at an instore performance) you might expect that the material on "Pointy Stunt" couldn't fail. Unexpected sounds abound, with everything from some pleasing drone/hum on the "Shoes" track to cut up music and animal noises that result from Newman weighing different objects on digital scales that Matthews set up to trigger odd samples.

MATTOID, THE eternifinity (Cleft) cd 10.98
If your pajama party guest list included Ween, Beck and Lou Reed, it might sound something like this. We have a sneakin' suspicion that lots of pot was involved in the creation of this music. It's a very very off-kilter blend of folk and rock. Things go off on weird tangents that seems very much the product of a mind, uhh, well-baked. If The Mattoid does not smoke the weed, we sincerely apologize, but you listen to these six songs (c'mon, one of the songs is called "Tinkli Vinkli"... wha'?!), and tell us you don't think the same thing!
MPEG Stream: "Joy"
MPEG Stream: "Tinkli Vinkli"

MATTSON, ED Kathy (Visionguild) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ed Mattson's debut cd features eleven laidback, down-homey country folk numbers. Joining him in the playing and producing duties is fellow Bay Area based indie rootsy singer/songwriter Clay Hawkins. Many of the songs bring to mind a more barebones brethren of warm, weathered Americana bands such as Red House Painters or American Music Club. Released on the new SF label and music collective Visionguild.
MPEG Stream: "Riverside"
MPEG Stream: "The Main"

MATZ, D. Ballroom Session One (Ambassador Transit) 7" 4.50
Dan Matz of Windsor For Derby offers two tracks of solitary, singer / songwriter tracks with him, his guitar, and a couple of guys adding harmonium and melodica drones on one song. Pretty as some of the recent Windsor recordings, but no where nearly as intense as his Michael Gira collaboration.

MAUDLIN OF THE WELL Bath (Dark Symphonies) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Repressed and back in stock, these Maudlin Of The Well albums (Bath and Leaving Your Body Map) may be of interest to fans of post-MotW band Kayo Dot. Here's what we said about these when we first encountered 'em:
Andee and Allan saw this band play last year [1997, actually] at the Milwaukee Metalfest, and they made a definite impression: imagine a death metal band (three or four long-haired dudes with the requisite t-shirts and musical equipment) sharing the stage with several complete incongrous-looking college band geek -types (playing trumpet, violin, french horn -- highbrow western art music instruments like that). This band is then fronted by a short-haired singer with a mustache who is painfully, obviously really *into* Mike Patton of Mr. Bungle. They weren't that great, really, but it was a nice change of pace from the generic death/black fury of the rest of the fest! Now, here's their new albums (not one, but two) and our friend Drucifer tells us that they might be the records of the year! Well, we *never* listen to him...BUT...these are pretty astounding, actually! Bizarre and intriguing, anyway. We're not complete sure if they're really *good* or not, yet. This new stuff sounds kinda like a relaxed Ulver jamming after listening to some old Radiohead, only occasionally remembering that they're supposed to be playing metal. Or Voivod on a New Age kick. Weird! Lots of acoustic guitars and sensitive-guy singing. Mixed with church organ, mellow saxophone, watery sound fx (the disc is called "Bath" after all!), and some ethereal female vocals. The metal content is minimal, there's maybe only three songs out of the ten found here where the drums and guitars work themselves up into a truly metallic velocity and heaviness (but when they do, it's really heavy). "Leaving Your Body Map" is similar (we thought maybe one of these two discs was the "heavy" one, the other not, like the last two Areyon releases, but that's not the case). Like "Bath", this is on the pretty side. Delicate. Emotion-filled. Melancholy. Quirky. With sudden, unpredictable bursts of very heavy metal. These guys (and gals) have to be commended for trying something different, although it's a bit hard to get one's head around. They're trying to get something across that really hasn't been done before, and they're obviously talented. We're guessing that they're Hampshire College English/Music majors who also happen to be really into Opeth, Morbid Angel, and giant squids, and art. Check 'em out if you dare.
MPEG Stream: "The Ferry Man"
MPEG Stream: "Birthpains of Astral Projection"

MAUDLIN OF THE WELL Leaving Your Body Map (Dark Symphonies) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Repressed and back in stock, these Maudlin Of The Well albums (Bath and Leaving Your Body Map) may be of interest to fans of post-MotW band Kayo Dot. Here's what we said about these when we first encountered 'em:
Andee and Allan saw this band play last year [1997, actually] at the Milwaukee Metalfest, and they made a definite impression: imagine a death metal band (three or four long-haired dudes with the requisite t-shirts and musical equipment) sharing the stage with several complete incongrous-looking college band geek -types (playing trumpet, violin, french horn -- highbrow western art music instruments like that). This band is then fronted by a short-haired singer with a mustache who is painfully, obviously really *into* Mike Patton of Mr. Bungle. They weren't that great, really, but it was a nice change of pace from the generic death/black fury of the rest of the fest! Now, here's their new albums (not one, but two) and our friend Drucifer tells us that they might be the records of the year! Well, we *never* listen to him...BUT...these are pretty astounding, actually! Bizarre and intriguing, anyway. We're not complete sure if they're really *good* or not, yet. This new stuff sounds kinda like a relaxed Ulver jamming after listening to some old Radiohead, only occasionally remembering that they're supposed to be playing metal. Or Voivod on a New Age kick. Weird! Lots of acoustic guitars and sensitive-guy singing. Mixed with church organ, mellow saxophone, watery sound fx (the disc is called "Bath" after all!), and some ethereal female vocals. The metal content is minimal, there's maybe only three songs out of the ten found here where the drums and guitars work themselves up into a truly metallic velocity and heaviness (but when they do, it's really heavy). "Leaving Your Body Map" is similar (we thought maybe one of these two discs was the "heavy" one, the other not, like the last two Areyon releases, but that's not the case). Like "Bath", this is on the pretty side. Delicate. Emotion-filled. Melancholy. Quirky. With sudden, unpredictable bursts of very heavy metal. These guys (and gals) have to be commended for trying something different, although it's a bit hard to get one's head around. They're trying to get something across that really hasn't been done before, and they're obviously talented. We're guessing that they're Hampshire College English/Music majors who also happen to be really into Opeth, Morbid Angel, and giant squids, and art. Check 'em out if you dare.
MPEG Stream: "Gleam In Ranks"
MPEG Stream: "The Curve That To An To An Angle Turn'd"

MAULAWI Nururdin (Universal Sound) cd 21.00
From the "Now Thing" comp.

MAUS HAUS Lark Marvels (Pretty Blue Presents) lp 13.98
We've been getting tons of requests for this, and after many attempts at contacting the band, we've finally got copies of their full length vinyl debut!! Maus Haus is a local San Francisco experimental pop six piece group, whose analogue synth-driven sounds lend themselves to comparisons to bands like Hot Chip, Stereolab, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Aavikko and Grizzly Bear. They're sure garnering a popular following with floor-filling live club gigs and word-of-mouth buzz!! But Maus Haus also mine a more off-kilter chamber pop sound that often forays into adventurous noirish British jazz territory that set the group apart from their perhaps better known contemporaries and influences. Whipsmart lyrics, soulful harmonies and tightly shifting musical arrangements (pensive harpsichords, far-off flutes and hypnotic saxophone hooks weave throughout) aptly display the group's fine-tuned musicianship and makes this local band definitely one to watch! Each LP comes with a mp3 download card for those who are vinyl-impaired! Very Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "We Used Technology (But Technology Let Us Down)"
MPEG Stream: "Radio Dials Die"
MPEG Stream: "Million Volt Lights"

MAUS, JOHN Love Is Real (Upset! The Rhythm) cd 15.98
The year is only just beginning but there have already been some amazing new records released that we're pretty sure will end up on our favorites of '08 list. This new outing by the enigmatic John Maus is one of them and it might just be the most engrossing and addicting albums we've been hooked on in a long time!
Best and barley known in the past as being loosely associated with the Paw Tracks family (Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Ariel Pink) Maus has made a record that will make his name definitely stand on its own. As he's created one of the most fantastical, bizarre and engaging pop records in recent memory. Warped bedroom pop with a flair for fantasy, wrapped in old fucked up synths, deep slowed down vocals, cosmic beats and a singular unique vision. Like OMD on codeine or early home demo recordings of The Cure captured on an answering machine tape that's been dubbed over way too many times. Or imagine a soundtrack to a lost early '80s movie made by both John Hughes and John Carpenter, as romantic teenage life intersects with magical apocalyptic doom! Love Is Real is as creepy and mystifying as it is heartfelt and endearing. As catchy as it is unpredictable. Out of nowhere the synths will rise to crazy loud levels or Maus will let out a haunting scream, and even after listening to this album hundreds of time as we have obsessively already, those parts still jump out, scare, startle and thrill us every time we listen.
Start to finish the album is impeccable. Songs lead into each other perfectly, the pacing is dead on, and every single track on the record belongs where it is and has a weight of its own. Whether it's sounding like the muddiest version of a Psychedelic Furs track or tapping into a bizarre drugged out cosmic disco excursion or having a freaked out panic attack, the record pulls from so many directions while always sounding like a completely other universe. This is what fantasy sounds like when the world around you is falling apart. Totally amazing!
MPEG Stream: "Heaven Is Real"
MPEG Stream: "My Whole Worlds Coming Apart"
MPEG Stream: "Tenebrae"

MAUS, JOHN Love is Real (UTR) lp 15.98
Yeeeay! Finally out on vinyl now. Packaged so nicely too with the cd's shiny silver cover transformed into classy white on white (Even the vinyl is white!), but still with that original awesome full color sexy robot painting smack dab on the front cover! Now we get to play this in our bedrooms and jump up and down and lose ourselves in this amazing record all over again! Here's what we said when we heard Love Is Real for the first time....
The year is only just beginning but there have already been some amazing new records released that we're pretty sure will end up on our favorites of '08 list. This new outing by the enigmatic John Maus is one of them and it might just be the most engrossing and addicting albums we've been hooked on in a long time!
Best and barley known in the past as being loosely associated with the Paw Tracks family (Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Ariel Pink) Maus has made a record that will make his name definitely stand on its own. As he's created one of the most fantastical, bizarre and engaging pop records in recent memory. Warped bedroom pop with a flair for fantasy, wrapped in old fucked up synths, deep slowed down vocals, cosmic beats and a singular unique vision. Like OMD on codeine or early home demo recordings of The Cure captured on an answering machine tape that's been dubbed over way too many times. Or imagine a soundtrack to a lost early '80s movie made by both John Hughes and John Carpenter, as romantic teenage life intersects with magical apocalyptic doom! Love Is Real is as creepy and mystifying as it is heartfelt and endearing. As catchy as it is unpredictable. Out of nowhere the synths will rise to crazy loud levels or Maus will let out a haunting scream, and even after listening to this album hundreds of time as we have obsessively already, those parts still jump out, scare, startle and thrill us every time we listen.
Start to finish the album is impeccable. Songs lead into each other perfectly, the pacing is dead on, and every single track on the record belongs where it is and has a weight of its own. Whether it's sounding like the muddiest version of a Psychedelic Furs track or tapping into a bizarre drugged out cosmic disco excursion or having a freaked out panic attack, the record pulls from so many directions while always sounding like a completely other universe. This is what fantasy sounds like when the world around you is falling apart. Totally amazing!
MPEG Stream: "Heaven Is Real"
MPEG Stream: "My Whole Worlds Coming Apart"
MPEG Stream: "Tenebrae"

MAUS, JOHN Songs (Upset The Rythm) cd 14.98
Not to be confused with the John Maus who was in the Walker Brothers in the '60s this John Maus has been making warped baroque pop in the cozy confines of his bedroom in Minnesota for the last several years and is best known for his contributions to Ariel Pink and Animal Collective offshoot Panda Bear. Maus is one seriously prolific songwriter who until now has kept pretty much all of his own songs to himself. "Songs" is a collection of some of those dark pop offerings recorded at home over the last few years. Channeling the spirit of Ian Curtis and using vintage electronic equipment, Maus's songs evoke a hazy kind of daydreaming but with a much more morose slant. His deep voice got us thinking of folks like Calvin Johnson, Scott Walker and on the first track he's a dead ringer for Robert Smith. Dark weird pop done right!
MPEG Stream: "Time To Die"
MPEG Stream: "And Heaven Turned To Her Weeping"

MAUS, JOHN Songs (Upset! The Rhythm) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Also available on vinyl!
Not to be confused with the John Maus who was in the Walker Brothers in the '60s this John Maus has been making warped baroque pop in the cozy confines of his bedroom in Minnesota for the last several years and is best known for his contributions to Ariel Pink and Animal Collective offshoot Panda Bear. Maus is one seriously prolific songwriter who until now has kept pretty much all of his own songs to himself. "Songs" is a collection of some of those dark pop offerings recorded at home over the last few years. Channeling the spirit of Ian Curtis and using vintage electronic equipment, Maus's songs evoke a hazy kind of daydreaming but with a much more morose slant. His deep voice got us thinking of folks like Calvin Johnson, Scott Walker and on the first track he's a dead ringer for Robert Smith. Dark weird pop done right!
MPEG Stream: "Time To Die"
MPEG Stream: "And Heaven Turned To Her Weeping"

MAUSOLEUMS, THE Blackened Fawns Cleanse The Earth With Fire (Chinese Workers Labor Union) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The long overdue return of aQ faves The Mausoleums, whose last record was a confusional swirl of grim black buzz and weird jangle pop, blown out bliss and thick dense noise. A record we fell in love with, on the recommendation of an aQ customer, long before we discovered that The Mausoleums was in fact a he, and not a they, and just so happened to be a beloved aQ mailorder customer!
For this second record, the Mausoleums seem to have turned down the buzz (just a bit) and turned up the pop. That's right. POP. Not that there wasn't pop all over the last Mausoleums disc I Am The Mausoleum, but the opening track on Blackened Fawns Cleanse The Earth With Fire, "Livelihood", is a gorgeous organ drenched slab of crunchy distorted shoegaze jangle. And we're not talking about the new wave of "metalgaze" that so many metal bands seem to be glomming onto, this is just glorious and resplendent and soaring, shimmering blisspop nirvana, the guitars jangly but washed out and fierce, the melodies sprawling and sun drenched, the sound crumbling and gloriously distorted. In fact, one song in and we're thinking it well worth the price of admission.
But it doesn't take long for the band to dip back into their other true love, the next track, "The One Who Sees", finds the band returning to a furious blackened buzz, howled vocals, pounding drums, insect like riffage, but even then, the sound is still rife with disembodied pop jangle and soaring guitar buzz, an impossible hybrid that sounds way better than it should. The next track is neither, instead a dense processed soundscape of soaring guitar feedback, little curlicues of buzzing melody, looped stuttering drums, dizzying minor key strum, all tangled up in a gloriously seasick hypnotic whirl.
"Thief" begins as straight up pop, like some super distorted Pavement outtake, or lost Sebadoh jam, all fuzzy jangle and simple propulsive drumming, until the vocals come in, a super distorted black metal shriek, bringing with it another layer of buzzing blown out distortion.
And so it goes for the rest of the record, careening from glorious shoegaze distortion drenched buzz pop, to in-the-red lo-fi black metal crunch, but with those two various sonic strains constantly bleeding and leeching into the other, resulting in the record's finest moments, the impossibly dense, epic, majestic guitar drone shoegaze blowout of "Old Woman In The Woods", impossibly heavy, yet gorgeously melodic at the same time, the strange distorted folky raga buzz of "His Reward", the frenetic ultra distorted surfy twang of "Skeletal" and finally the brief closer, "The Bees", a lovely chunk of overdriven steel string Appalachia that near the end explodes into a brief blown out buzz-drenched burst of looped digital fuzz.
Be warned, these are hand made, each and every one. And by hand made, we mean, made by hand, with scissors, and glue, and perhaps not a ruler anywhere in site. Each copy is different, most of them strangely fitted together, a paper gatefold, some slightly smaller than others, some seriously skewed, the color varied from copy to copy, some slightly wrinkled, some almost normal looking, others like maybe they were made as an arts and crafts project at a grade school. But heck, that just adds to the coolness, and makes each one TRULY unique. Cool cover image (but one that has been used before, several times, sadly) and a full color thick paper stapled insert. And probably limited as most things like this usually are...
MPEG Stream: "Livelihood"
MPEG Stream: "The One Who Sees"
MPEG Stream: "Fertile Depths"
MPEG Stream: "Thief"

MAUSOLEUMS, THE I Am The Mausoleum (Chinese Workers Labor Union) cd-r 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A customer turned us on to the Mausoleums, a super distorted buzz drenched experimental 'black metal' combo, which we later discovered was in fact an aQuarius mailorder customer! Small world for sure. But even if we had no idea who the heck this was, we would still be suitably blown away. 
You think Wold and Velvet Cacoon know a thing or two about buzz and distortion, well, those guys have nothing on the Mausoleums...
It's hard to even quantify how blown out and buzzy the sound is here, it might make more sense to reference Japanese noise music cuz this almost sounds like straight up super distorted speaker melting N.O.I.S.E., on the surface at least. Until you notice a roiling whirlpool of blackened riffing and howled vocalizing, just beneath all that harsh hiss and brutal buzz. It's almost like Ildjarn or Beherit recorded by Masonna and produced by Merzbow. Blasting and relentless, face melting fury, guitars so distorted they sound like they might crumble into jagged shards, drums that sound like bursts of white noise, but all deftly shaped into riffs and songs and chunks of seriously scalding blackened metal. 
But then the band will unleash something like "Cicada", a gorgeous loping slowcore jam, again doused with delay and buried under a layer of distorted grit, but strangely lovely, with a bit of melancholy twang mixed in. 
Or the freaked out blackpsych blast of "Joan Of Arc" a track that sounds like a dense slab of pure black buzz and howl, until suddenly a gorgeous chunk of indie jangle surfaces, still dripping with distorted buzz, but so goddamn dreamy and melodic, like an even more distorted damaged My Bloody Valentine, the drums and cymbals so corroded and decayed, they balance out the dreamy jangle. Elsewhere, riffs are dipped in molten hellfire and pushed all the way into the red, crumbling distortion is draped over lilting minor key guitar, strange Greg Ginn-ish angular guitars are twisted and melted down into more black buzz...
And while the majority of the record is some of the filthiest, blackest buzzingest metal you'll ever hear, the buzzing blackness is split up by all sorts of unlikely and not that black jams, the strangely skeletal Stereolab-ish post rock of "Lenin Not Lennon", the creepy black electro (replete with strangely Beatles-esque guitar) of "Insignificance", the metalized buzz wrapped Neu!-isms of "Running Through The Reeds", the warbly organ flecked garage stomp of "I Guess I'm Like A Prince, Maybe" and the Spacemen 3 like druggy drone of "Like A Prince", all seemingly out of place, but when listened to as a whole, seem to perfectly balance the extreme brutal buzz of the rest of the disc. 
Maybe too fucked up and far out for most metal heads, but folks into super damaged heaviness, and freaked out whatthefuck metal will dig this BIG TIME. 
MPEG Stream: "Day Of Wrath"
MPEG Stream: "Cicada"
MPEG Stream: "Joan Of Arc"
MPEG Stream: "You Die Defiant"
MPEG Stream: "Lenin Not Lennon"

MAX ERNST & 2 (Max Ernst) 12" 9.98
I'm pretty sure that this is Thomas P. Brinkmann, although no information can be found on the record inspite of an etching with Pole and Din (it sound like neither) scrawled on the run-out groove. Yet the metronomic techno punctuated by a disjointed looping sample of a jazz riff has all the signifiers that Tom is the man behind this one. Fans of Plastikman and Chain Reaction should take note!

MAX, AGATHE This Silver String (Xeric) cd 16.98

MAX-B s/t (Wah-Wah) lp 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Awfully hard to find any information about this unique afro-funk pioneer. The first track on the album "Bananaticoco" we had heard before when we got the popular "Club Africa 2" compilation in a year ago, but a search on google under Max B's (Max Boulois) name only comes up with several listings for some obscure action films, and a quick visit to imbd.com shows a Max Boulois -- originally of Madrid, Spain -- who was an actor, writer and director (his tour de force being "Othello: aka The Black Commando"). Anyway, we do know that this lp was originally issued in 1973 by Opalo records and that Max B apparently recorded this album in Spain. The music contained herein is an interesting blend, of up tempo dance-party-afro-rock numbers with a decidedly Brazilian flavor. Lots of mixed chorus chanting and latin percussion with the occaisonal piano thrown in to boot. Then there are the two totally uncharacteristic tracks which are almost worth the price of admission alone: a heavy acid-psych track, "Poker" (a bonus track to this issue) with swishy wah-wah guitars (the label's bias?) and sloshy organ and the following track "Free", which is another psych track, though less heavy, which features moaning female vocals to a pulsing beat. We wish there was an entire album of tracks by Max B of this sort, but alas we must be satisfied with these two. This reissue is courtesy of the Spanish label Wah-Wah, which also released that live Prince Buster lp we listed a while back, and they do an impressive job of pressing their records on nice thick slabs of vinyl.

MAXFIELD, RICHARD / HAROLD BUDD The Oak Of The Golden Dreams (New World Records) cd 15.98
A split release between Richard Maxfield and Harold Budd (known for his collaborations with Eno) showcasing their 1960's experiments in electronics and free jazz. Maxfield's work ranges from synthetic 60s concrete / electronic pieces to narrated poetry over uptempo Ornette Coleman style free jazz. Budd's "The Oak of the Golden Dreams" is the highlight - a gritty piece of Steve Reich / Angus MacLise inspired minimalism of persistantly droning chords and loopy flanging notes making the whole piece sound like an electronic bagpipe.

MAXIMO PARK A Certain Trigger (Warp) cd 14.98
When we listed the Maximo Park ep a few lists back, in the review we proclaimed that if only it had been a full length it would have been record of the week for sure. Well, here we are a few months later, and what do ya know? Maximo Park is record of the week. It wasn't a done deal though, not at all. That first four-song ep was so perfect, Interpol meets XTC, flawless angular pop, we listened to it non-stop. So much so that when we first threw this on, it didn't quite live up to our expectations. Those first four songs from the ep set the bar pretty high. Maybe too high. But like all great records, each subsequent listen offered us more, and revealed each song to be even catchier than the one before. A Certain Trigger has quickly become the pop record of the year for us. Hyperbole? Maybe, but we just can't stop listening to this record. As we've mentioned many times before, we fought tooth and nail against this whole new wave dance punk revival, but a good band is a good band. What can you do? And ya know, we dug Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, but hell if Maximo Park doesn't trounce them all. They do have "the sound", that sort of jagged off kilter post punk pop that will ensure that they get lumped in with the flavors of the month. But the songs here are so much more timeless sounding. Unlike the loads of bands just aping Gang Of Four, Maximo Park sound like their own band, sure they share some sonic elements, but they sound like they could have easily existed in 1980 as much as 2005. And they draw their inspiration not only from the obvious, Gang Of Four, XTC, Interpol, but also incorporate the moody dramatic electropop of Ultravox, the gloomy buzz and burn of Joy Division, and even bouncy eighties power pop, with super fuzzed out synths, kinetic new wave rhythms, and of course MP frontman Paul Smith's immediately engaging vocals. The songs are bouncy and poppy, but manage to be dark and minor key and edgy enough to give the whole record an intense emotional buzz. Two songs from the ep are present, our pop song of the year "Apply Some Pressure" and the XTC worshipping "The Coast Is Always Changing" (you can hear samples of both with the review of the "Apply Some Pressure" ep), but there are plenty of new classics that have been getting repeat play here like crazy. The massively catchy "Now I'm All Over The Shop" with its pounding piano and weirdly arpeggiated rhythm, and a vocal melody that literally gives us chills, like that one song on a mixtape that makes you want to either smash everything to bits or run across town to declare your true love. And then there's the bouncy XTC count-by-numbers pop of "The Night I Lost My Head" with its angelic background Oooo's and a weird stop start chorus, and the gloomy bass driven "Once, A Glimpse" with it's chiming guitars, tribal rhythms and guitar heavy refrain and the gorgeously languid "Acrobat" that sounds like an updated version of Ultravox's "Vienna". So pretty. All of A Certain Trigger is totally classic sounding, enough that it was tough to pick which songs to make sound samples for. So yeah, all you folks who froth at the mouth for every band that has any of that Killers / Franz Ferdinand / Bloc Party sound going on will probably love this record, but it's way more than just another one of -those- bands. Maximo Park are an amazing pop band, and this is an amazing pop record, with enough sonic precedents to make it feel familiar and classic, but enough new stuff going on and enough killer classic songs to make it one of our favorite new records. Period.
MPEG Stream: "Now I'm All Over The Shop"
MPEG Stream: "Limassol"
MPEG Stream: "The Night I Lose My Head"
MPEG Stream: "Once, A Glimpse"

MAXIMO PARK A Certain Trigger (Warp) lp 16.98
When we listed the Maximo Park ep a few lists back, in the review we proclaimed that if only it had been a full length it would have been record of the week for sure. Well, here we are a few months later, and what do ya know? Maximo Park is record of the week. It wasn't a done deal though, not at all. That first four-song ep was so perfect, Interpol meets XTC, flawless angular pop, we listened to it non-stop. So much so that when we first threw this on, it didn't quite live up to our expectations. Those first four songs from the ep set the bar pretty high. Maybe too high. But like all great records, each subsequent listen offered us more, and revealed each song to be even catchier than the one before. A Certain Trigger has quickly become the pop record of the year for us. Hyperbole? Maybe, but we just can't stop listening to this record. As we've mentioned many times before, we fought tooth and nail against this whole new wave dance punk revival, but a good band is a good band. What can you do? And ya know, we dug Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, but hell if Maximo Park doesn't trounce them all. They do have "the sound", that sort of jagged off kilter post punk pop that will ensure that they get lumped in with the flavors of the month. But the songs here are so much more timeless sounding. Unlike the loads of bands just aping Gang Of Four, Maximo Park sound like their own band, sure they share some sonic elements, but they sound like they could have easily existed in 1980 as much as 2005. And they draw their inspiration not only from the obvious, Gang Of Four, XTC, Interpol, but also incorporate the moody dramatic electropop of Ultravox, the gloomy buzz and burn of Joy Division, and even bouncy eighties power pop, with super fuzzed out synths, kinetic new wave rhythms, and of course MP frontman Paul Smith's immediately engaging vocals. The songs are bouncy and poppy, but manage to be dark and minor key and edgy enough to give the whole record an intense emotional buzz. Two songs from the ep are present, our pop song of the year "Apply Some Pressure" and the XTC worshipping "The Coast Is Always Changing" (you can hear samples of both with the review of the "Apply Some Pressure" ep), but there are plenty of new classics that have been getting repeat play here like crazy. The massively catchy "Now I'm All Over The Shop" with its pounding piano and weirdly arpeggiated rhythm, and a vocal melody that literally gives us chills, like that one song on a mixtape that makes you want to either smash everything to bits or run across town to declare your true love. And then there's the bouncy XTC count-by-numbers pop of "The Night I Lost My Head" with its angelic background Oooo's and a weird stop start chorus, and the gloomy bass driven "Once, A Glimpse" with it's chiming guitars, tribal rhythms and guitar heavy refrain and the gorgeously languid "Acrobat" that sounds like an updated version of Ultravox's "Vienna". So pretty. All of A Certain Trigger is totally classic sounding, enough that it was tough to pick which songs to make sound samples for. So yeah, all you folks who froth at the mouth for every band that has any of that Killers / Franz Ferdinand / Bloc Party sound going on will probably love this record, but it's way more than just another one of -those- bands. Maximo Park are an amazing pop band, and this is an amazing pop record, with enough sonic precedents to make it feel familiar and classic, but enough new stuff going on and enough killer classic songs to make it one of our favorite new records. Period.
MPEG Stream: "Now I'm All Over The Shop"
MPEG Stream: "Limassol"
MPEG Stream: "The Night I Lose My Head"
MPEG Stream: "Once, A Glimpse"

MAXIMO PARK Apply Some Pressure (Warp) cd ep 8.98
Interpol meets XTC. What could be better? Not much if you ask us. Yet another band in the moody eighties new wave revival dance party (Futureheads, Killers, Bloc Party, Interpol, etc...) a genre we tried desperately to steer clear of, but what can we do? Band after band keep managing to take that totally played out sound and infuse it with new found energy, punk rock snarl and killer killer songs. The first track here "Apply Some Pressure" is easily the single of the year. Angular shards of guitar, insistent tribal drumming, and a hook that just won't quit. All topped off by a halftime, arpeggiated chorus that is absolutely PERFECT. One of the few songs of late that we just listen to over and over and over and over. But then track two is almost just as good, and it's then that Maximo Park's XTC worship becomes totally (and perfectly) obvious. Herky jerky rhythms over swoonsome guitar melodies, warm warbly synths and brainy lyrics (they even rhyme 'lost' with 'riposte'!). Tack on two more amazing tracks and you've got the most brutal tease of an ep in recent memory. Four songs in eleven minutes leaving you desperate for more More MORE. If this was a full length it may very well have been record of the week. As it is, fans of Interpol, the Strokes, the Futureheads, the Killers and all that sort of stuff should get all over this.
MPEG Stream: "Apply Some Pressure"
MPEG Stream: "The Coast Is Always Changing"

MAXIMO PARK Missing Songs (Warp) cd 9.98
We went apeshit for Maximo Park last year and we don't regret it at all. A testament to the kickassnes of the 'Park is how much they still get played in the store. ALL THE TIME! For those of you who don't know what the heck we're talking about, pick up Maximo Park's A Certain Trigger (one of Andee's top 10 records of last year and a unanimous store fave) and then we'll talk. Lumped in with the new breed of dance punk, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand,the Killers, but for our money Maximo Park trump them all. Taking the influence of all -those- bands, Gang Of Four, Interpol, Ultravox, Joy Division, and most importantly XTC! And it's the XTC that really separates MP from the pack. The dance element is tempered by a huge swath of snarky intelligent pop, and it doesn't hurt that in the middle of a wildly propulsive dance punk rave up MP will unleash a hook straight out of XTC's classic pop songbook, taking everything to a whole 'nother level. Fun and funky, clever and quirky, angular new wave guitars, bouncy power pop rhythms and synths all over the place. The songs on Missing Songs, a collection of B sides, are slow growers, not as immediately catchy as ALL the tracks on A Certain Trigger, but they're the kind of songs that on repeated listens seep into your brain and end up superseding the 'hits' and becoming you new favorites. EXCEPT for two tracks from the first Maximo Park that were as immediately catchy as ANY song they'd written which were inexplicably left off the full length, "Fear Of Falling" and "I Want You To Leave", both bouncy and churning and choppy and punky and fucking perfect. With strange stop start arrangements, lush harmony vocals and impossibly off kilter and improbably catchy hooks. Even if this were a $15 single with JUST those two songs it would be SO worth it. But instead you get a whole batch of other songs destined to be you new favorites, as well as three demo versions of tracks from the full length!
MPEG Stream: "A19"
MPEG Stream: "Stray Talk"
MPEG Stream: "Hammer Horror"

MAXIMO PARK Our Earthly Pleasures (Warp) cd 12.98
We made the first Maximo Park record of the week and here we are two years later and it still gets daily plays. An impossible hooky combination of new wave swagger and classic dour pop, Interpol meets XTC is how we described it, and that was pretty much spot on. Maybe a bit more modern and a lot more caffeinated. So we were counting the days until this here disc dropped, and it's everything we had hoped for. Not as immediately as catchy, and a little bit more introspective, but after repeated listens, Our Earthly Pleasures has blossomed into THE POP RECORD OF THE YEAR. We sort of gushed endlessly about the first record, so you might just want to head over to that review (A Certain Trigger) and see what we had to say, and heck, while you're there, if you don't already own it, you might was well add it to your cart. All the folks who flip over stuff like the Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand and the Killers will probably love this too. But the rest of you, who couldn't quite get into the whole new wave revival (like us) might just find yourself digging this anyway. It's more classic pop sounding than the current wannabe Gang Of Four sound... Smart pop, with killer hooks, crunchy guitars, playful piano, and some super clever / funny / wry lyrics. Epic sweeping melodies, killer chunks of fuzzy synths, some electronic squiggles here and there, but ultimately perfect pop through and through.
From the super anthemic "Girls Who Play Guitars", to the lilting minor key new wave miserablism of "Books From Boxes", to the sweeping dramatic epic-ness of "Karaoke Plays" to the surprise gem of the record "Nosebleed", tucked away in the second half of the record, featuring the unforgettable line "Did we go too far? Is that why your nose is bleeding?" that you'll find yourself humming to yourself all the time. Every track here is impossibly catchy, packed with hook after hook, amazing harmonies, clever turns of phrase, all wrapped up tight into some of the catchiest, most perfect kick ass pop we've ever heard. And if it even needed to be said again: POP RECORD OF THE YEAR!
MPEG Stream: "Girls Who Play Guitars"
MPEG Stream: "Our Velocity"
MPEG Stream: "Books From Boxes"
MPEG Stream: "Karaoke Plays"

MAXIMO PARK Quicken The Heart (Warp) cd 15.98
No point in being coy or beating around the bush. Might as well come right out and fess up (as if the aQ list faithful didn't already know). We LOVE this band, ever since the Apply Some Pressure cdep released way back in 2005, and every record since. Sure, A Certain Trigger might be their best record, but we dug Our Earthly Pleasures BIG time. It was definitely a grower, but it didn't take long for it to end up a daily play. Same thing with Quicken The Heart, at first we weren't sure what to think, we're always sort of hoping that MP will return to the hyper caffeinated Interpol meets XTC sound of that first record and come up with another song that rivals the impossibly kinetic hook filled jam that is "Apply Some Pressure", but just like with Our Earthly Pleasures, after a few listens we no longer found ourselves wishing for that sound of old, we just let these new songs wash over us, and with every listen they blossom more and more, and now at least half of the songs here rank as some of our favorite MP jams. Jangly new wavey guitars, propulsive drumming, buzzy synths, and killer vocals, amazing melodies, and hooks galore. There's only bum in the bunch, and weirdly enough it's the first single, hearing that before the record showed up had us a bit worried, but now that it's here, we just skip that song (and heck, even that one is growing on us) and play the shit out of the rest of the record. Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, Nine Black Alps, we love all those bands, but there's just something about Maximo Park that makes them our favorite.
We get so spoiled working in a record store, we know what records are coming out months before they do, and we sometimes get them a few days ahead of time, it does make you less excited, how you were as a teenager, but every time there's a new Maximo Park record, we find ourselves counting the days, and then heading to work on that Tuesday knowing that it'll show up sometime that day. That's a cool feeling, one we miss for sure, and one that is evoked by a surprisingly few bands. Needless to say, this record rules, if you're in the market for some smart, angular, new wave-y pop, you couldn't do much better than Quicken The Heart.
MPEG Stream: "Wraithlike"
MPEG Stream: "The Kids Are Sick Again"
MPEG Stream: "A Cloud Of Mystery"

MAXIMUM JOY Station MXJY (Victor) cd 42.00
During a brief three years in the early '80s, Y Records enjoyed a roster of amazingly funky, post-punk groups that included The Pop Group, The Slits, Shriekback, Pigbag, and bafflingly enough Diamanda Galas (not taking on the typical guise of the label, mind you). Maximum Joy was another outstanding entry from Y Records, having been formed by Tony Wrafter after the dissolution of the agit-pop punk ensemble Glaxo Babies. Wrafter recruited vocalist Janine Rainforth, another Glaxo Baby in Charlie Llewellin, and the Pop Group's John Waddington. After a couple of singles, the band released Station MXJY under the production thumb of Adrian Sherwood. His dub inflected engineering worked perfectly to render Maximum Joy's jaunty punk-funk tunes as a sunny doppleganger of The Pop Group. Amidst Sherwood's tape echo and delay workouts, the band adventurously march through a taut rhythm section that tightropes between a militant funk and a doleful rocksteady swagger, while chicken scratch guitars map out the simple song structures and saxophone solos splatter across the stereo. It's a very good thing that this record has been reissued (complete with four excellent bonus tracks), as Maximum Joy were clearly a talented bunch who might have been forgotten otherwise. It's just unfortunate that Station MXJY is only available as an expensive Japanese import. Ouch!
MPEG Stream: "Dancing On My Boomerang"
MPEG Stream: "Do It Today"
MPEG Stream: "Stretch"

MAXIMUM JOY Unlimited (1979-1983) (Crippled Dick Hot Wax) cd 16.98

MAXIMUM ROCK AND ROLL Issue #281 magazine 4.00
Once again, the punk rock newsprint bible returns jam packed with, well, loads and loads of PUNK ROCK!! But this time we get a piece on all time AQ faves Redd Kross, with an extensive history of the Redd Kross early years!! Woo hoo!! Also, Swedish scene report, Blackpool, UK scene report, and tons of bands we've never heard of: Italy's Out With A Bang, Derek Lyn Plastic, We March from Ohio, Alan Milman, Rat Traps from Tennessee, the Scarred, Gilbert Switzer, killer classic Japanese hardcore photos, another excerpt from Lance Hahn's (J-Church) upcoming book on the crusty Anarcho scene, this time the Blood Robots, stories from New Orleans part 3 plus book reviews, record reviews, punk rock news, tone of columns and more more more!