!!! (CHIK CHIK CHIK) Louden Up Now (Touch & Go) cd 15.98
Everybody's favorite indie funk-dub party band returns with their second full length after almost 4 years of near silence (just an ep and a few other sporadic appearances). And they take up right where they left off. Fun and funky, silly and sexy, occasionally intense and aggressive, but always a big ol' sweaty stew of jangly wah guitars, dubbed out FX all over the place, tribal rhythms, slap bass, ska horns, hypnotic grooves, bizarre production and lots of vocals! That's right. Vocals. The boy vocals sound quite a bit like the Clash at their most dubbed out, while the female vocals are classic sounding disco diva. All this vocalising keeps the proceedings weird and unpredictable, and add some serious snarl to the party (with a mouth that Mom would want to wash out with soap!), while perfectly complimenting !!!'s super extended instrumental workouts that are equal parts funky seventies sitcom theme song, coked up Studio 54 dance mix, British punk dub, Prince-like nasty funk (complete with Prince like lyrics: "U might C U R there...") and groovy Neu like krautrock. Comes with a bonus disc that appears to be the 'bad words removed' clean edit version of the record.
MPEG Stream: "When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Karazee"
MPEG Stream: "Pardon My Freedom"

!!! (CHIK CHIK CHIK) Me And Giuliani Down By the School Yard (A True Story) (Touch & Go) 12" 5.98
!!!'s new single is razor sharp, cold 'n icy dance music, 2 lengthy pieces that have all the brightness and vitality of Liquid Liquid's "White Lines" or other similar hybrids of punk and dance music happening in NYC in the early '80s -- ESG, maybe Arthur Russell. Maybe it makes sense that they left the laid back clime of California for the adrenaline energy of New York. Three of its eight members are on Outhud, and one is in LCD Soundsystem.
However, I don't think foregrounding a vocal line is a good idea. !!!'s instrumentation is just enough; the vocals distract from what the instruments are saying, when all I want to hear is what that addictively groovy guitar's chkk-chkk-chikka chkk-chkk-chikka is going to go, or where the joyous chord progressions will take me. Recommended!

!!! (CHIK CHIK CHIK) Me And Giuliani Down By the School Yard (A True Story) (Touch & Go) cd single 5.98
!!!'s new single is razor sharp, cold 'n icy dance music, 2 lengthy pieces that have all the brightness and vitality of Liquid Liquid's "White Lines" or other similar hybrids of punk and dance music happening in NYC in the early '80s -- ESG, maybe Arthur Russell. Maybe it makes sense that they left the laid back clime of California for the adrenaline energy of New York. Three of its eight members are on Outhud, and one is in LCD Soundsystem.
However, I don't think foregrounding a vocal line is a good idea. !!!'s instrumentation is just enough; the vocals distract from what the instruments are saying, when all I want to hear is what that addictively groovy guitar's chkk-chkk-chikka chkk-chkk-chikka is going to go, or where the joyous chord progressions will take me. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Me and Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard (a true story)"

!!! (CHIK CHIK CHIK) Myth Takes (Warp) cd 14.98
!!!'s latest makes us want to dj (or at least attend) a sweaty summer dance party so bad it hurts. Emulating the underlying mood of such parties, Myth Takes delivers without moderation. Drummer Gerard Fuchs provides a rapid heartbeat for the record by employing the open/closed hi-hat repetition you remember most from old 70's funk classics. Manic vocals that wax abrasive and wane falsetto paired with slap bass, clattering and hypnotic guitars, synths, and a whole lotta effects easily make Myth Takes the dance party record of the year. Accepting that college kegger dance-offs may merely be a not-so-distant memory for some of us, the Brooklyn based band's groove pounding third (full length) release has also proven to come in handy for ass-shakin' apartment cleaning and Aquarius order packing! Established !!! fans will certainly not be disappointed with Myth takes, and the Brooklyn based eight-piece is sure to recruit some new sweatband-rockin' blood with sex drenched hits like "Must Be The Moon."
MPEG Stream: "Myth Takes"
MPEG Stream: "Must Be The Moon"

!!! (CHIK CHIK CHIK) Myth Takes (Warp) lp 20.00
!!!'s latest makes us want to dj (or at least attend) a sweaty summer dance party so bad it hurts. Emulating the underlying mood of such parties, Myth Takes delivers without moderation. Drummer Gerard Fuchs provides a rapid heartbeat for the record by employing the open/closed hi-hat repetition you remember most from old 70's funk classics. Manic vocals that wax abrasive and wane falsetto paired with slap bass, clattering and hypnotic guitars, synths, and a whole lotta effects easily make Myth Takes the dance party record of the year. Accepting that college kegger dance-offs may merely be a not-so-distant memory for some of us, the Brooklyn based band's groove pounding third (full length) release has also proven to come in handy for ass-shakin' apartment cleaning and Aquarius order packing! Established !!! fans will certainly not be disappointed with Myth takes, and the Brooklyn based eight-piece is sure to recruit some new sweatband-rockin' blood with sex drenched hits like "Must Be The Moon."
MPEG Stream: "Myth Takes"
MPEG Stream: "Must Be The Moon"

!!! (CHIK CHIK CHIK) s/t (Gold Standard Laboratories) cd 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Heads up, this is the highly anticipated full-length from current indie sensations !!! ("chik chik chik"). The band (composed of the guys from Sacramento's beloved Outhud as well as 3 or 4 other blokes) play a groove-addicted blend of (mostly) instrumental art-punk-funk that is so catchy and bouncy you will not believe it. Scene reports from all over the country have been afire with stories of !!! live shows wherein EVERYONE, including staid white emo boys, peels off their sweaty t-shirts to dance the night away. People who say they've NEVER danced at a show before simply could not restrain themselves in the face of !!!, who mix Gang of Four style angular guitar tension with the irresistible bass groove of Liquid Liquid, the fuzzy vocals of Joe Strummer (in fact it's sort of amazing and weird how often !!! sounds like "Casbah"-era Clash), and the kind of energy that just doesn't stop. There's only a couple of cringe-inducing moments (like when the singer goes "I learned a lot / from smoking pot / but I don't remember / what I forgot", but all in all this is a record that will have your hips moving wildly independent from the rest of yer body, like Byram's butt is doing right now... Go Byram go! (Then again, Byram has been known to shake his butt to Merzbow and Ryoji Ikeda, so maybe he's not the best litmus test of butt shaking music. Although our little dancing Santa in the window is certainly wagging his behind as we speak.)
RealAudio clip: "Intensify"
RealAudio clip: "Feel Good Hit of the Fall"

!!! (CHIK CHIK CHIK) s/t (Gold Standard Laboratories) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Heads up, this is the highly anticipated full-length from current indie sensations !!! ("chik chik chik"). The band (composed of the guys from Sacramento's beloved Outhud as well as 3 or 4 other blokes) play a groove-addicted blend of (mostly) instrumental art-punk-funk that is so catchy and bouncy you will not believe it. Scene reports from all over the country have been afire with stories of !!! live shows wherein EVERYONE, including staid white emo boys, peels off their sweaty t-shirts to dance the night away. People who say they've NEVER danced at a show before simply could not restrain themselves in the face of !!!, who mix Gang of Four style angular guitar tension with the irresistible bass groove of Liquid Liquid, the fuzzy vocals of Joe Strummer (in fact it's sort of amazing and weird how often !!! sounds like "Casbah"-era Clash), and the kind of energy that just doesn't stop. There's only a couple of cringe-inducing moments (like when the singer goes "I learned a lot / from smoking pot / but I don't remember / what I forgot", but all in all this is a record that will have your hips moving wildly independent from the rest of yer body, like Byram's butt is doing right now... Go Byram go! (Then again, Byram has been known to shake his butt to Merzbow and Ryoji Ikeda, so maybe he's not the best litmus test of butt shaking music. Although our little dancing Santa in the window is certainly wagging his behind as we speak.)

!!! (CHIK CHIK CHIK) Take Ecstacy With Me (Touch & Go) cd ep 5.98
No thank you. We'd rather do PCP with the James Gang. Or smoke drano with the Commodores. Or even drink Liquid Plumber and horse piss smoothies with Funkadelic. Or better yet, how 'bout we just listen to the original version by the Magnetic Fields and skip this all together...

!!! (CHIK CHIK CHIK) Take Ecstacy With Me (Touch & Go) 12" 5.98
No thank you. We'd rather do PCP with the James Gang. Or smoke drano with the Commodores. Or even drink Liquid Plumber and horse piss smoothies with Funkadelic. Or better yet, how 'bout we just listen to the original version by the Magnetic Fields and skip this all together...

!!! (CHIK CHIK CHIK) / OUT HUD Lab Remix Series Vol.2 (Gold Standard Laboratories) cd ep 6.98
Finally available on cd! Here's what we had to say about the beloved vinyl version that originally came out in 2000:
"Very, very good instrumental 12" from two Sacramento bands (the latter is pronounced 'chik chik chik'), both of whom draw heavily from the chugga chugga guitars of Wire and the art / punk / funk of Liquid Liquid. Highly recommended! Windy cannot stop playing this in the store."
Indeed these two groups were received with feverish enthusiasm, leading the indie dance-punk trend of a few years back. This split ep (one second over 30 minutes long) features three Out Hud tracks and one lengthy number from !!! (one second shy of 12 minutes long).
MPEG Stream: OUT HUD "JGNE"
MPEG Stream: !!! "Instinct"

!CARLOS! Bigger Teeth (Headhunter/Cargo) cd 11.98
Local boys play smart and plucky noise pop.

!T.O.O.H.! (!TOTAL OBLITERATION OF HUMANITY!) Order And Punishment (Earache) cd 15.98
Tooh? Tee-oh-oh-ech!!? What's that? Oh, TOTAL OBLITERATION OF HUMANITY! Nice. Of course, they're one of those mean and blasting grindcore bands, and a really good one, on the weirder side of the genre -- or genres, in their case, since the Czech Republic's misanthropic !T.O.O.H.! tend to blenderize metal, punk, jazz, and other elements in their music.
We've actually been fans of these freaks for a long time, and were pleased to see 'em get a release on big time extreme metal label Earache, especially as we'd never been able to stock their cds regularly before, since they were all hard-to-come-by Middle European imports. Now we can get Order And Punishment anytime we want to spank all y'all with. And a sonic spanking it is, an utterly spastic spanking of technical death grind insanity. Ripping rollercoaster songcraft, full of widdly neo-classical guitar, vehement vocals in Czech (about what, we don't know), dizzying changes, and some valiantly thrashing riffs... it's really those "classic" metal elements that turn this into a headbanger's ball for us, and make Order And Punishment a worthy repeat listen. What a bunch of nutters.
MPEG Stream: "Abu-Hassan"
MPEG Stream: "Padaji, Piskaji"

'PATE, RON AND HIS DEBONAIRS Raudelunas 'Pataphysical Revue (Alcohol) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Not sure how many of you remember the Reverend Fred Lane. He was (is) a maniacal, big band jazz, Las Vegas-style showman, vocalising, testifying and spewing a litany of totally random craziness over a splattery, skronky, surreal big band blast of trainwreck horns, trap-kit down the stairs percussion, and wild octopus piano. Think a musical version of Neil Hamburger, only less pathetic and more disturbed. Or disturbing. Shimmy disc compiled two of his long out of print lps on cd years back, and that cd still ranks as one of my all time favorite records. So fucked, but so catchy and funny and noisy and just utterly damaged. There was a rumour of another Fred Lane record existing and slated for release on Shimmy Disc, but supposedly Lane broke into the Shimmy Disc office, stole the master tapes, and then ran nude through downtown New York unfurling the tape as he ran. How cool is that? So I was super excited when I got wind of this archival release of a 1975 performance, featuring Ron 'Pate's Debonairs, Lane's occasional back up band, and Lane as the MC and featuring loads of local luminaries from the vibrant Tuscaloosa, Alabama art scene. This document is less of a wild jazz free for all like the Lane records, and more like a demented variety show, equal parts wild free improvisation, 'serious' academic minimalism, wacky community theater, skronky jazz, drony tribal ambience, and good old straight up goofiness. Lane makes for an excellent emcee, channelling Wayne Newton through Neil Hamburger, trying to whip what sounds like a TINY audience into some sort of frenzy (with the help of lots of canned, pre-recorded applause) and even belts out a few sort-of-standards: 'My Kind Of Town', 'Volare', etc. But this isn't the Fred Lane show, unfortunately, as Lane mostly conducts raffles and performs random monologues. However, lack of Lane aside, things do get pretty interesting. Random ensembles perform pieces that range in sound from No Neck Blues Band style stumbly tribal folk, to drony medieval chamber music to ambient proto-industrial clang. There's even a performance of Concerto For Active Frogs, that should MOST DEFINITELY appeal to AQ customers, a piece composed for taped frogs, featuring a frog soloist, a frog chorus and various complimetary instruments. Pretty cool stuff. While there are some cringeworthy moments, some of the stand-up is BRUTAL and there's definitely a you-had-to-be-there-and-maybe-it-would-also-help-if-these-were-your-friends vibe, this is still pretty amazing and weird and well worth your time. And definitely try and track down the Fred Lane release on Shimmy Disc for a blast of the weirdest, skronkiest, big band creepiness you will ever hear.
MPEG Stream: "Monologue"
MPEG Stream: "Concerto For Active Frogs"
MPEG Stream: "The Raffle"
MPEG Stream: "The Captains Of Industry"

( R ) In Pink (Important) cd 14.98
Solo project from one of the members of Larsen. Languid post-rock hypnosis with plenty of nods to late-period Swans and Joy Division. The latter becomes apparent with a cover of Joy Division's "Atmosphere."

(CT) PROJECT Akapella (Nemoguitt Recordings) cd 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Eleven musicians record their voices, and manipulate them with effects, samples, etc. to create an interesting assortment of songs.

(CT) PROJECT Found (Nemoguitt Recordings) cd 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Nine artists compose using only previously recorded material yielding surprisingly musical results, amid the expected clickery.

(FALLEN) BLACK DEER, THE Requiem (Latitudes 0:15) (Latitudes / Southern) cd 13.98
One of two new releases this week in the always kick ass Latitudes series, the other from long time aQ faves White Magic, and this one from the unknown to us until now The (Fallen) Black Deer, which features members of postrock/metal combo the Red Sparrowes. Ostensibly a soundtrack for the second half of Kubrick's The Shining, this is a gorgeous, haunting slab of cinematic drift and drone, that sounds a bit like a drumless Red Sparrowes actually. Moody and drone-y, measured riffing, keening tones way off in the distance, throbbing low end, jagged melodies, all smoothed into Godspeed style slow burning and building epics. The first four tracks play out as a single movement, the same riff, expanding and sprawling, finally culminating in the fourth track, a fierce crescendo, the guitars wailing and moaning, some buried black metal vocals, and bursts of static coming fast and furious, before slipping to the next track, and allowing the riff to drift off, leaving swirls of spaced out effects and layered drones, this goes on for a couple tracks before a new guitar line is introduced, spidery and minor key, mournful with a little twang, unwinding over a distant layer of whirring droning rumble, and over the last few tracks, that riff gets all tangled up with thick slabs of sludgey low end, soaring strings of upper register skree, stuttering chunks of effected guitar crumble, slipping dramatically form hushed and whispered to blown out and heavy. Very epic and cinematic for sure, but what it actually sounds like is just metallic post rock with the drums removed, and some drones added, which manages to turn it into something much more amorphous and abstract, and definitely gives it a sort of drifting unmoored vibe that definitely suits the sound. Especially when you imagine the sights these sounds are meant to conjure up.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES AS ALWAYS. Only 500 of which made it to the US, only a handful making it to aQ, packaged in that cool, origami style white on brown cardstock Latitudes sleeve, with a cool embossed metallic silver logo / image on the front, and a printed full color insert, each sleeve machine numbered.
MPEG Stream: "What Are Fears But Voices Airy?"
MPEG Stream: "Things Of The Past And Yet To Come"
MPEG Stream: "This Axe Is Restless"

(INTERNATIONAL) NOISE CONSPIRACY Bigger Cages, Longer Chains (Epitaph) cd 9.98
Taking the catchy rock n' roll energy of bands like the Hives or Rocket From the Crypt and propelling it into political territory, this Swedish fivesome provides the dance soundtrack to a revolution. Sexy, soulful horn-tinged garage-punk with lyrics dedicated to fightin' capitalism, giving a voice to immigrants, and other radical topics-- free your ass, and perhaps your mind will follow the young Swedes' lead to the weighty philosphies of Guy Debord, Luis Althusser and others, as listed in the liner notes following each song. Does the lack of a revolutionary quality to the relatively straight-ahead music undermine their message, or is this an aural example of tactics such as the use of comics and cinema that the Situationists used in order to better spread their message to the masses? I'm not sure, but I still think the album's pretty hot.
RealAudio clip: "Bigger Cages, Longer Chains"
RealAudio clip: "Beautiful So Alone"

(R) Under The Cables, Into The Wind (Important) cd 14.98
Under The Cables, Into The Wind marks the second solo album for Fabrizio Modonese Polumbo, who hails from the eccentric Italian post-rock outfit Larsen. That said, Polumbo qualifies this as his first 'real' solo album, as he dismisses his earlier album Humps as little more than a collection of fragments, compilation tracks, commissioned works, and live sessions. Where Larsen creates a smoldering sound of hypnotic grooves and melodies intensified by slashing counterpoints, Polumbo's (r) exhibits a greater degree of experimentation with the studio itself as an instrument, building elusive, shadowy collages and swelling compositions from ringing chimes, bowed metals and thick walls of jet-engine noise. Yet, he hasn't entirely dropped the structure of the song on this album, as densely packed acoustic guitar chords buidling into orchestrations much like Swans' final album Sountracks For The Blind; at the same time, there's a thoroughly abstracted cover of Avril Lavigne's "I'm With U," which Polumbo is quick to point out was produced not for ironic purposes, but out of a fascination with the control mechanisms of pop music (e.g. Laibach's numerous covers of Beatles, Queen, Rolling Stones, Europe, etc.) and reinterprets it as a call for empathy for those who deserve it. Well done, sir.
MPEG Stream: "Shining Camels And Rising Anacondas"
MPEG Stream: "I'm With U"

(SMOG) Supper (Drag City) cd 14.98
A recent Smog show here in SF was, somewhat surprisingly, totally amazing. Instead of stark indifference and an uninspired performance, it was everything you could possibly want a Smog show to be-- intimate and immediate, with Bill Callahan in an approachable mood, bantering with the audience and even taking requests. Accompanied by just an electric guitar and a tamborine, he played some of his very best songs (oh man, "To Be Of Use" from "Red Apple Falls" breaks my heart every time I hear it!) in a fashion that managed to be both wrenchingly honest yet cheeky and good-humored (see: "Dress Sexy at my Funeral," definitely the highlight of "Dongs of Sevotion" and also of this particular Smog set). He also played "Bathysphere," and weirdly, he seemed to be playing a cover of Cat Power's cover of his song, turning the cello parts from his recorded version into intense vocalisations. It was great! Oh yeah, he's got a new record, too. A couple of the songs Callahan played live turn up on it. I liked them better in their stripped-down live versions. "Supper," at the very least, doesn't suck nearly as much as "Rain on Lens." In fact, it's actually very pleasant. He's still got the rock-band thing going, but there are more mellow-melancholy moments and the songwriting is a bit stronger. There's this one crazy free-folk song that's definitely my favorite thing about "Supper": softly frenzied textural drumming layered with multiple levels of almost droning guitar picking, banjo, and hypnotic group vocals repeating the same line again and again... really beautiful, like a little bit of Tower Recordings or something transported into a Smog song. The rest of the album gets very alt-country what with the lap steel slide guitar and Palace-y mock-religious folk country-- actually, "Supper" has a pretty Mountain-ep era Palace vibe, only with unfortunate detours into gross blues-rock. Honestly, though, I can always listen to Callahan's conversational baritone confessionals. Here, counterpoint to his wounded lone-wolf male perspective (see: review of "Accumulation: None") is provided by a female vocalist who's trying to do a powerfully sultry country chanteuse thing and not being overly succesfull at it (glad she's there anyway, keepin' the man-with-no-name cowboy heartbreaker tendencies in check, to a degree). Overall, not a bad Smog album, assuming you already have "Red Apple Falls," "Julius Caeser," "Wild Love," "Dongs of Sevotion," "Accumulation: None" and even "Knock Knock."
RealAudio clip: "Our Anniversary"
RealAudio clip: "Feather By Feather"
RealAudio clip: "Driving"

(SMOG) Supper (Drag City) lp 14.98
A recent Smog show here in SF was, somewhat surprisingly, totally amazing. Instead of stark indifference and an uninspired performance, it was everything you could possibly want a Smog show to be-- intimate and immediate, with Bill Callahan in an approachable mood, bantering with the audience and even taking requests. Accompanied by just an electric guitar and a tamborine, he played some of his very best songs (oh man, "To Be Of Use" from "Red Apple Falls" breaks my heart every time I hear it!) in a fashion that managed to be both wrenchingly honest yet cheeky and good-humored (see: "Dress Sexy at my Funeral," definitely the highlight of "Dongs of Sevotion" and also of this particular Smog set). He also played "Bathysphere," and weirdly, he seemed to be playing a cover of Cat Power's cover of his song, turning the cello parts from his recorded version into intense vocalisations. It was great! Oh yeah, he's got a new record, too. A couple of the songs Callahan played live turn up on it. I liked them better in their stripped-down live versions. "Supper," at the very least, doesn't suck nearly as much as "Rain on Lens." In fact, it's actually very pleasant. He's still got the rock-band thing going, but there are more mellow-melancholy moments and the songwriting is a bit stronger. There's this one crazy free-folk song that's definitely my favorite thing about "Supper": softly frenzied textural drumming layered with multiple levels of almost droning guitar picking, banjo, and hypnotic group vocals repeating the same line again and again... really beautiful, like a little bit of Tower Recordings or something transported into a Smog song. The rest of the album gets very alt-country what with the lap steel slide guitar and Palace-y mock-religious folk country-- actually, "Supper" has a pretty Mountain-ep era Palace vibe, only with unfortunate detours into gross blues-rock. Honestly, though, I can always listen to Callahan's conversational baritone confessionals. Here, counterpoint to his wounded lone-wolf male perspective (see: review of "Accumulation: None") is provided by a female vocalist who's trying to do a powerfully sultry country chanteuse thing and not being overly succesfull at it (glad she's there anyway, keepin' the man-with-no-name cowboy heartbreaker tendencies in check, to a degree). Overall, not a bad Smog album, assuming you already have "Red Apple Falls," "Julius Caeser," "Wild Love," "Dongs of Sevotion," "Accumulation: None" and even "Knock Knock."

(V/A) PHIZMIZ, ERGO / XPER.XR / PEOPLE LIKE US Gongexeva (Mukow) cd-r 8.98

*0 0.000 (Mu-Label) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
*0 is the mathematically inclined pseudonym for Japanese puretone artist Nosei Sakata. The name of his project refers to the multiplication of anything times zero equating zero, thus giving you an idea of what is sonically in store on his fourth recording.
Sakata's first few recordings had been attempts by this Japanese artist to out-muscle Ryoji Ikeda's sine-wave and bleep constructions, with a great deal of success. Here, his minimalism achieves its purest form... With the exception of the two 1000hz sinewave test tones which bookend this recording, the tones which Sakata uses are so extreme as to be not only outside of our speaker's frequency range, but also outside the range of human (or at least my) perception. While the only two tones used are the ultrasound frequency of 20200hz and the infrasound frequency of 14hz, he does break from his harsh minimalism on one track to layer these two frequencies together. The prinicple is that when two frequencies such as these are layered together a secondary tone (somewhere smack inbetween the two at around 10000hz) should be audible. The problem is that if the speakers can't produce the frequencies, the secondary frequencies can't be heard. A noble concept, even if it doesn't really work for us puny mortals / puny stereos.

+ / - (PLUS / MINUS) You Are Here (TeenBeat) cd 14.98
Originally a solo side project of Versus' guitarist James Balayut, Plus/Minus has swelled into a full blown trio with fellow Versus member Patrick Ramos and Chris Deaner hopping aboard. They present their full length follow-up to Holding Patterns, the blissful +/- five-song debut from earlier this year. You Are Here is for the most part quite an understated affair, but it's not without dynamic and stylistic range. Slightly jazzy, touching on almost all shades of Chicago postrock. The result? A finely blended sound that's reminiscent of a hybrid of Tortoise, The Sea And Cake and Versus too. Soft, often near-spoken male vocals, warm tendrils of tremoloed guitars, bendy groovy cyclical basslines, plenty of crash cymbal punctuations. That said, quite possibly their catchiest pop song to date -- the soaring guitar-driven "Trapped Under The Ice Floes" -- makes a welcome "redux" reappearance here (it was the second song on the EP).
MPEG Stream: "Ventriloquist"
MPEG Stream: "Trapped Under The Ice Floes (Redux)"

+ / - (PLUS / MINUS) Holding Patterns (TeenBeat) cd 9.98
On this 5-song ep, Plus / Minus waste no time in getting down to business, and that business is crafting glorious dream pop. However, they prove they can shift gears with nary a blink of the eye going from the considerably amped up power pop of the second song "Trapped Under Ice Floes" straight into the ultra soothing "Far Into The Fields". Very graceful and very nice. Can't wait for more!
MPEG Stream: "Trapped Under Ice Floes"
MPEG Stream: "Far Into The Fields"

+ / - (PLUS / MINUS) Let's Build A Fire (Absolutely Kosher) cd 13.98
Let's Build A Fire is the kind of record you unfortunately don't hear much about these days. Not enough bells and whistle's perhaps. What makes the Brooklyn based trio so great is sort of subtle. Well played beautiful guitar riffs that blend perfectly with the gorgeously pitched soft vocals. Complicated, but not flashy drumming. Talented friends playing and harmonizing on a single track not for the novelty of a pedal steel or cello, but to complete the vision of a well rounded gentle pop song. Let's Build A Fire is reminiscent of a very definitive time in the history of indie music that had us glued to our headphones listening to the likes of Yo La Tengo, Superchunk, and Polvo (to name a few). It's the kind of album we definitely don't hear enough about these days.
MPEG Stream: "One Day You'll Be There"
MPEG Stream: "Leap Year"

+ / - (PLUS / MINUS) s/t (TeenBeat) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Very nice! The lovely, minimal vellum packaging offers very little in the way of liner notes and gives nary a hint of the sounds contained inside, but one thing we do know for sure is that this is the debut from +/- aka James Balayut and Patrick Ramos. And if those names sound familiar, well it just might be because they were two members of the fine NYC polished pop outfit Versus. Actually fans of said band might find this album a familiar friend as the overall sound flows quite closely to that of many songs from their last album, the subtly textured, varied and pretty "Hurrah". Mostly soft, warm and heartfelt vocals over lush instrumentation. Lazy day basslines, soothing organ drones, twinkling guitar melodies with a few bursts of My Bloody Valentine-esque feedback washes and an occasional playful, skitterish or blown-out programmed beat a la Cornelius. The warm boyish vocals reminded me of those of Elliott Smith, Sea & Cake and Mark Robinson. Standout tracks include "Beverly Road" and "Crestfallen". Check 'em out!
RealAudio clip: "Crestfallen"
RealAudio clip: "Beverly Road"

+/- (PLUS MINUS) Xs On Your Eyes (Absolutely Kosher) cd 14.98
Wow, we've gotten quite a bunch of terrific pop releases for you his week... such as Dead Science, and this one! Xs On Your Eyes is album #4 for +/-, and what a fine one it is! Songs like "Snowblind" and the title track make this a near-perfect autumnal indie pop treasure and a great follow-up to 2007's Let's Build A Fire. With their warm reverbed male vocals, jangle-pop guitars and smart songwriting, +/- possesses the comforting fuzzy security blanket nature of bands like Death Cab For Cutie, Postal Service, Nada Surf and Yo La Tengo, but with more propulsive drums and horn embellishments. Also, as with past +/- recordings, you can still hear fond familiar echoes of guitarist James Balayut's other band Versus, so if you were/are a fan you sure don't want to miss! College radio cuddle-ready!
MPEG Stream: "Snowblind"
MPEG Stream: "Xs On Your Eyes"

+/- (PLUS/MINUS) VS. BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS s/t (TeenBeat) cd 10.98
As the back cover informs us, "+/- covers BB and BB covers +/-". Seems simple enough, don't it? And if you're not familiar with these two bands you'd probably already guess just from the bands' names that this might be a rather odd pairing. So we thought. However, it's not as strange as we initially believed. Seems Blood Thirsty Butchers have gone through something of a transformation in the years since we last heard from them... it has been quite a while. If our memory serves correctly, they used to be a gritty indie hardcore band from Japan. As far as we know they're still from Japan, but they've mellowed considerably. They make dreamy post-rockish pop with angelic female and boyish vocals with a very occasional blast of gnarly guitar aggression. They're so much closer in sound to soft popsters +/- than we could ever have anticipated. Soooo, whatcha get is a pretty consistent half dozen delicious indie pop tunes with feverishly strummed Unrest-style jangly guitars. So at home on the Teenbeat record label.
MPEG Stream: +/- (PLUS/MINUS) "Banging The Drum"
MPEG Stream: BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS "Waking Up Is Hard To Do"

000 (ZERO ZERO ZERO) Crypto Sensus (Gazul) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
French avant-rock trio (one member each on "electriques", "acoustiques", and "electroniques") whose instrumental explorations seem to stem from the tradition of bands like the late great '70s experimentalists This Heat. Indeed, Zero Zero Zero feature former members of the legendary but obscure Magmoid prog-rock weirdo outfit Shub-Niggurath, a favorite of ours. It's nice to know that these folks are just as adventurous and talented as they were in the '80s, without sounding remotely dated in any way.

1 SPEED BIKE Droopy Butt Begone! (Constellation) cd 14.98
Aidan Girt, drummer from Godspeed You Black Emperor and the man behind Exhaust, has a new side project. Gritty, atmospheric tunes laid out with hip-hop and down-tempo electronica beats give "Droopy Butt Begone!" (I know, a regretful album title, there seem to be a lot of those lately) a feel akin to Village of Savoonga's "Score" but with a bit more kick, ie: beats. Works pretty well, although the voice samples of pointless crazy guy rambling (a la Godspeed) are a bit unnecessary.

1 SPEED BIKE Droopy Butt Begone! (Constellation) lp 13.98
Aidan Girt, drummer from Godspeed You Black Emperor and the man behind Exhaust, has a new side project. Gritty, atmospheric tunes laid out with hip-hop and down-tempo electronica beats give "Droopy Butt Begone!" (I know, a regretful album title, there seem to be a lot of those lately) a feel akin to Village of Savoonga's "Score" but with a bit more kick, ie: beats. Works pretty well, although the voice samples of pointless crazy guy rambling (a la Godspeed) are a bit unnecessary.

1 SPEED BIKE Someone Told Me Life Gets Easier In Your 50's (Broklyn Beats) cd 14.98
Much like his American counterpart Kid 606, Montreal, Quebec's 1-Speed Bike makes IDM that's not afraid to nuzzle right up beside your tender ear, only to deliver a hefty dose of ripe and robust digital flatulence. Aidan Girt (also of the very differently minded Godspeed You Black Emperor and Exhaust) tailors his jagged tracks from heavy grit electronic sandpaper providing the maximum degree of aural abrasions. As his moniker implies this music pretty much travels at a singular pace... full throttle. Heaps of distorted digital spasms and splatters elbow their way through the thumpin' programmed thuds and crashes that only occasionally allow the rubble to settle into some sort of traceable rhythms. A side note: Girt's song titles are as smart-ass and in-your-face as his music (often more so). A sample: "If You Were A McDonalds, Your Lips Would Be An Orange Soda, But Your Dick Would Be A Shriveled-Up Fry". Aaaah, ma pomme frite malheureuse!
MPEG Stream: "Cats Don't Judge People Do"
MPEG Stream: "My Dick Is This Small Because It's -40 Degrees F"

1-2-6 Graveyard Paradise: The Complete 1 2 6 & Taboo Recordings, 1966-68 (Ugly Things) cd 15.98

1/3 OCTAVE BAND Fading Light From Distant Suns (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We at AQ have long been fans of Campbell Kneale and his project Birchville Cat Motel who along with the Dead C, Omit, Gate and a handful of others have helped to define one of the richest free-rock-noise-drone scenes in the world. For years Kneale has been releasing cds, lps and cassettes (most of them quite limited) of noisy electronic soundscapes and gorgeous organic drones. So when we discovered Kneale also ran a label, we figured it was definitely worth checking out. And how right we were. Not only is all of the music on Celebrate Psi Phenomena amazing, but the packaging is perfectly and stunningly designed as well (quite nice considering this is a cd-r label. See our crappy cd-r packaging rants in the last three or four lists) with each cd in a plastic sleeve nestled between two sheets of old fashioned textured wallpaper, printed, and sealed with a gold star.
1/3 Octave Band's sound is a slowly unfolding haze of purposeful minor key guitar strum that dissolves into rumbling guitar shimmer and warm chordal washes of hum and fuzz and occasional electronic buzz. Buried in the gossamer layers of sound are clanging crashes, gritty throbbing and almost imperceptible melodies. 1/3 Octave Band take the bliss-out of Spacemen 3, roll it in angel dust and dip it in tar before laying down and drifting off. So nice.
RealAudio clip: "One"
RealAudio clip: "Two"

1/3 OCTAVE BAND Navigation By Light (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another new jam from New Zealand's 1/3 Octave Band, courtesy of Campbell Kneale's (Birchville Cat Motel, Black Boned Angel, etc.) Celebrate Psi Phenomenon label. Packaged as always in the immediately recognizable wallpaper sleeve, this is some serious soft focus, gauzy and dreamy and free floating minimal bliss for sure.
Four tracks, 49 minutes, each track a lengthy drift through delicate worlds of subtle sound. From a barely audible whir, flecked with distant high end melodies and crystalline glimmering, to creaking cavernous murmurs, to almost industrial dronescapes, to haunting cinematic soundscapes, but with all the jagged edges worn away into smooth soft shapes. This is the music of dreams. Music from another world. The sound of wandering somnambulant through some soft space, eyes closed, mind open, and drifting heavenward.
MPEG Stream: "Magnetic South "
MPEG Stream: "Semaphore"

1/3 OCTAVE BAND Sub Lumina (Humbug) cd 16.98
More blissed out dream drone from these mysterious musical inner space explorers.

10 FT. GANJA PLANT Bass Chalice (ROIR) cd 15.98

120 DAYS s/t (Vice) cd 13.98
Of course black metal and soft pop aren't the only cool sounds coming outta Norway these days, but who'd guess there'd be something with such a German bent to it. 120 Days are the Norwegians of whom we speak. Four hip young fellows wearing the sizable influences of kraut rock geniuses (CAN, Neu!, Kraftwerk) and raw angsty post-punk terrors (Suicide and The Stooges) proudly on their sleeves. They take those lessons they've learned studying their masters' classic recordings and project 'em through a modern rock sheen and the result is strangely mesmerizing. Flitting from motorik jam to angular new wave and back again, often in the same song. Long blown out synthscapes and distant robotic pulses butted up against crazed dancefloor throb and jagged guitars... You can almost imagine some exclusive seventies German nightclub, tucked in the basement of some abandoned building, where every week, a crowd of tight panted, angular haircutted, garishly make-upped kids meet up with a bunch of long haired space rock burnouts, and stay up all night harmoniously dancing, getting high, making out and drifting off, all to the strains of 120 Days...
MPEG Stream: "Be Mine"
MPEG Stream: "Sleepwalking"

13 & GOD Men of Station / Soft Atlas (Anticon) 12" 8.98

13 & GOD s/t (Anticon / Alien Transistor) cd 14.98
This is essentially the perfect mix of Anticon's off kilter avant indie hip hop, and the Notwist's melancholy electronic bliss rock. Which makes perfect sense considering that 13 And God is made up of 3/5 of the Notwist (Markus and Micha Acher, Martin Gretschmann) and all of Anticon's Themselves (Doseone, Dax, and Jel). The rest of the Notwist (drummer Martin Messerschmid and guitarist Max Punktezahl) help with production and several tracks feature guest vocals from Steffi Bohm of Ms. John Soda and Valerie Trebeljahr of Lali Puna. That should give some idea of what 13 And God is all about. Dreamy expanses of melancholy glitchpop, wistful and wandering, simple shuffling and loping drum beats, fuzzy synth melodies, warm warbling loops, soft focused and otherworldly, and then the strange entangling of Notwist-like breathy effervescent vocals and Doesone's rapid fire tongue twisting helium affected flow. Seems like it would be a mess, but surprisingly, they manage to make it all fit perfectly. Fans of the Notwist's Neon Golden should find this essential (assuming they aren't averse to a little hip hop here and there) and fans of Themselves, Doseone and those sorts of things will most likely just find this to be yet another perfect piece in Anticon's always evolving musical puzzle.
MPEG Stream: "Low Heaven"
MPEG Stream: "Men Of Station"
MPEG Stream: "Superman On Ice"

13 & GOD s/t (Anticon / Alien Transistor) 2lp 14.98
This is essentially the perfect mix of Anticon's off kilter avant indie hip hop, and the Notwist's melancholy electronic bliss rock. Which makes perfect sense considering that 13 And God is made up of 3/5 of the Notwist (Markus and Micha Acher, Martin Gretschmann) and all of Anticon's Themselves (Doseone, Dax, and Jel). The rest of the Notwist (drummer Martin Messerschmid and guitarist Max Punktezahl) help with production and several tracks feature guest vocals from Steffi Bohm of Ms. John Soda and Valerie Trebeljahr of Lali Puna. That should give some idea of what 13 And God is all about. Dreamy expanses of melancholy glitchpop, wistful and wandering, simple shuffling and loping drum beats, fuzzy synth melodies, warm warbling loops, soft focused and otherworldly, and then the strange entangling of Notwist-like breathy effervescent vocals and Doesone's rapid fire tongue twisting helium affected flow. Seems like it would be a mess, but surprisingly, they manage to make it all fit perfectly. Fans of the Notwist's Neon Golden should find this essential (assuming they aren't averse to a little hip hop here and there) and fans of Themselves, Doseone and those sorts of things will most likely just find this to be yet another perfect piece in Anticon's always evolving musical puzzle.
MPEG Stream: "Low Heaven"
MPEG Stream: "Men Of Station"
MPEG Stream: "Superman On Ice"

1349 Beyond the Apocalypse (Candlelight) cd 15.98
If you walked into Aquarius right now and came up to me and asked: hey I want to hear some truly violent and grim Norwegian black metal! And it better be good! I want my ears to fill with black blood and my face to instinctively become a snarling grimace as my head bangs uncontrollably!! What would I do? Well, I might point you towards Immortal or Gorgoroth... or I might just hand you this new disc from Norway's numerically-nomenclatured 1349. Already notable for boasting the legendary drummer Frost from Satyricon in their ranks, this band became underground superstars upon the release of their previous full-length, Liberation, which was simply one of last year's best black metal albums. Just ask Wrest from Leviathan, who provided AQ's rave review of it at the time. The prospect of a new 1349 made our black metal lovin' hearts go pitter-pat and we're not disappointed with it now that it's here. Still fast still grim still better than 99 percent of their competitors. Compared to Liberation, this is marginally less fuzzy and buzzy, revealing what sounds a bit more like a 'real metal band' than some trance-inducing drone act. They're breaking no new ground riff-wise, but the guitars are savage and bleak, the drumming simply insane, and surprises lurk in dark corners of this record. 1349 are just so ...classy. So, in answer to your question, I would confidently say, get Beyond the Apocalypse!
MPEG Stream: "Nekronatalenheten"
MPEG Stream: "Blood Is The Mortar"

1349 Demonoir (Prosthetic) cd 14.98
It seems like we were the only people who loved the last 1349, the experimental black industrial aboutface that was Revelations Of The Black Flame. A twisted, lurching tangled of convoluted blackness, and abstract black drone, some of the darkest weirdest black metal shit we'd heard in ages. But folks pissed and moaned, "why isn't it fast?", "where are the blast beats?" and on and on and on. But c'mon, were we the only ones who did NOT want to just hear Liberation Part 4, or Beyond The Apocalypse Part 3? Seems like it.
Well, all the haters can breathe easy, cuz Demonoir is a return to the frenzied black blasts and insanely furious buzz that defined 1349's sound, but listen close, and there's still some weird shit going on. First off, every song is separated by a short instrumental track, each one denoted "Tunnel" plus a digit, contributing to the seamless flow of the record, and allowing the more by-the-numbers blackness to get some breathing room. These interludes range from effects drenched metallic drones, to creepy backwards pianos and acoustic guitars, woozy minor key melodies, and blackened industrial wastescapes, super tense Herrmann like cinematic ambience, to deep cavernous drones, and washed out shimmery white noise.
But it's not just the interludes, the band may have managed the impossible, melding their grim frosty blast of old, with their obvious desire to twist and transform and experiment. The result is some seriously epic and convoluted and yeah sort of experimental black metal, but subtle enough that folks how just want to bang their hands or thrash about, will be perfectly happy, while the rest of us can strap on headphones and get way lost.
"Atomic Chapel" is total classic 1349, but not quite, creepy spoken word, some weird start stop arrangements, some atonal piano buried in the mix, mysterious voices, chanting, all tangled up with some of the fiercest black metal ever. It's a pretty potent mix. Elsewhere the blasting blackness gets weirdly melodic, almost NWOBHM in parts, but then the band stretches it out, transforming it into a droned out chugscape, rife with wild moaning leads, that turn into effects drenched squiggles.
The pianos pop up now and again throughout the record, as do some more surprising melodies, more unlikely arrangements, the title track being maybe the strangest of the bunch, a woozy midtempo workout, all hissed and whispered vox, tangled spidery guitars, a super progged out arrangement, psychedelic and moody and fucking awesome.
On first listen we were sort of bummed out, thinking that the band had caved, and ditched the experimental stuff to placate the naysayers, but after listening a bit closer, we're beginning to think that in some ways, it's almost MORE subversive than Revelations Of The Black Flame, not so overtly fucked up, but infused throughout with a sort of insidious weirdness, that will worm itself into the minds and souls of the grim kvlt masses, whether they realize it or not.
MPEG Stream: "Atomic Chapel"
MPEG Stream: "When I Was Flesh"
MPEG Stream: "Psalm 7:77"

1349 Hellfire (Candlelight) cd 14.98
RAGE! This is the brand of blazing fast, berserker black metal that, if you were perhaps a less civilized and controlled person than we'll assume most readers of the AQ list to be, would perhaps result in you throwing yourself bodily about your room, thrashing, trashing, destroying things until your cd player suffers a critical blow and some semblance of reason returns to you with the sudden silence. Well let's hope that scenario never takes place (or if it does, nobody blames us for recommending this album). But listening to this frenzied blackness can certainly be cathartic even if there's no physical (only psychical) reaction. It's exuberant and extreme corpsepainted carnage up there with the best of 'em -- we're reminded particularily of the fiercest tracks by Immortal.
Yes indeed, the high expectations we had for upandcoming Norwegian black metal battle cruiser 1349's third outing, are met or exceeded in spades with the release of Hellfire, which features as always the inhuman drumming of Satyricon skinbeater Frost, who slows things down for some well-deserved headbangs only occasionally, but mostly drives the album forward faster than an Aquarius customer pouncing on a new limited edition vinyl Boris release! The blurring speed of Frost's drumming is well-matched by singer Ravn's angry, raspy throat abuse and the jagged riff shrapnel flying from the guitars. Swathed in an atmospheric cloak of evil, buzzing, distorted near-melody (especially the album's final, title track, which somehow clocks in at exactly 13 minutes and 49 seconds!), Hellfire is hyperspeed ultraviolence of the highest calibre. If you already like 1349 you know what to expect. Everyone else, watch out.
MPEG Stream: "I Am Abomination"
MPEG Stream: "Sculptor Of Flesh"

1349 Hellfire (Back On Black) 2lp 23.00
Now available as a super deluxe limited 2lp!
RAGE! This is the brand of blazing fast, berserker black metal that, if you were perhaps a less civilized and controlled person than we'll assume most readers of the AQ list to be, would perhaps result in you throwing yourself bodily about your room, thrashing, trashing, destroying things until your cd player suffers a critical blow and some semblance of reason returns to you with the sudden silence. Well let's hope that scenario never takes place (or if it does, nobody blames us for recommending this album). But listening to this frenzied blackness can certainly be cathartic even if there's no physical (only psychical) reaction. It's exuberant and extreme corpsepainted carnage up there with the best of 'em -- we're reminded particularily of the fiercest tracks by Immortal.
Yes indeed, the high expectations we had for upandcoming Norwegian black metal battle cruiser 1349's third outing, are met or exceeded in spades with the release of Hellfire, which features as always the inhuman drumming of Satyricon skinbeater Frost, who slows things down for some well-deserved headbangs only occasionally, but mostly drives the album forward faster than an Aquarius customer pouncing on a new limited edition vinyl Boris release! The blurring speed of Frost's drumming is well-matched by singer Ravn's angry, raspy throat abuse and the jagged riff shrapnel flying from the guitars. Swathed in an atmospheric cloak of evil, buzzing, distorted near-melody (especially the album's final, title track, which somehow clocks in at exactly 13 minutes and 49 seconds!), Hellfire is hyperspeed ultraviolence of the highest calibre. If you already like 1349 you know what to expect. Everyone else, watch out.
MPEG Stream: "I Am Abomination"
MPEG Stream: "Sculptor Of Flesh"

1349 Liberation (Candlelight) cd 15.98
1349 was once an obscure Norwegian black metal entity with one ep featuring Satyricon's Frost as session drummer. It was really great, actually, but it's only now with their full-length debut that people are starting to pay attention. Frost judged 1349's merits well and has joined as a permanent member -- if that isn't recommendation enough to you, here's what black metal expert Wrest (of tUMULt label black metallers LEVIATHAN) had to contribute:
"15 or so years after the birth of the second black metal storm, most of the so called 'original' black metal bands have changed direction in an effort to evolve. These acts have chosen to add different elements (rave, techno, way too much synth, etc...) or go in directions of so-called 'growth'. Fortunately, this is not the case with 1349's Liberation. From start to finish, Liberation is Arctic blackened terror, rendered at hyper velocity. The production is appropriately raw and cacaphonous, which makes for a guitar tone like a sonic guillotine, headed for your face at eye-level. At first listen the drums sound like they must be sped up. NOBODY can play that fast! Not so. It is merely a new snare-drum sound for Frost (a man few can hope to match at any speed). Most impressive is 1349's mastery of what most 'black metal' bands choose to leave out: the METAL! Along with loathsome, Satanic lyrics there are tasteful shards of igneous thrash and true metals. This record is a death-threat to all the 'evolved' black metal acts, prancing about flamboyantly in their pathetic raver-existences. Not to be missed... if you like the real thing."
And as purely Metal as Wrest insists this is, we'd be remiss if we didn't also point out that the insanely fast drumming and the solid buzzing hiss of the guitars make this disc a trance-drone record capable of appealing also to open-minded avantgardists as well as Immortal and Dissection fans!
MPEG Stream: "Riders Of The Apocalypse"
MPEG Stream: "Legion"

1349 Revelations Of The Black Flame + Works Of Fire Live (Deluxe) (Candlelight) 2cd 13.98
A quick look online reveals a crazy amount of negative feedback and terrible reviews for this, the newest record from Norwegian black metal supergroup 1349. Most of that negativity stems from the fact that everyone seemed to be hoping for a Hellfire Part 2. Hellfire being their last record, a frenetic non stop blast of frenzied lightning speed berserk blackened buzz. Which is strange, because we were actually hoping for something different. Hellfire was SO fast, and SO relentless, so much so that in many places it just became a furious black blur, which is fine, and we do love that record, but where does a band go from there? Certainly not faster, but somehow, faster seemed to be what most folks expected. What we can tell you is no one expected THIS. Slower. Weirder. Even a Pink Floyd cover. Could this really be 1349? It is, and it's awesome. Dark and lurching doom-ed blackness, shades of Celtic Frost for sure (whose Tom G. Warrior did some production work here). So fuck the haters, we already have a Hellfire, this is something way more interesting and original.
The record opens with some anguished screams, which give way to a long drifting dronescape, deep rumbling dark ambience, thick and layered, caustic and ominous, before finally lurching into song, but not in a black blast, more of a chugging pound, a little bit of tangled blackness, and then woozy, midtempo meander, atonal chords, off kilter rhythms, lots of start and stop, the tempo sort of sea sick, the vibe still WAY sinister, but much more abstract and avant, and way doomier, and it suits them. At first it seemed like maybe drummer Frost was wasted here, but finally, he has the opportunity to do something other than blast maniacally.
The second track is more of the same, a lumbering doomy bit of avant blackness, with gnarled riffs, simple pounding percussion, the arrangement mathy and convoluted, sounding more like Thorns or Khold or Tulus, which is a very good thing.
The record does offer up some blasting black metal, but not a whole lot, as one disgruntled reviewer put it "there's like maybe 10 minutes of ACTUAL black metal on the whole record!", which is true, the majority of the record is still 'black', but much weirder, slower, atmospheric, with a few straight up ambient tracks, long snarling dronescapes, spaced out stretches of gauzy piano wrapped in streaks of feedback, and bits of glitchy buzz, drifty chunks of guitar flecked rumble and whir, all butted up against awesomely twisted bits of black doom weirdness.
One of the best tracks sounds like a Deathspell Omega jam slowed way down, "Uncreation" is all woozy and tangled and almost gothy at points, but with cool bursts of staccato almost industrial sounding chug, and those dense black riffs, pulled apart and wrapped around the pounding rhythms.
The record closes with the haunting "At The Gate..." which begins like some doomdrone record, all downtuned guitar drone, thickening and sprawling like some noxious black cloud, it eventually splinters into a song, but all that means is the wall of guitar buzz and grinding low end is peppered with occasional drum pound, distant guitar leads, and super creepy processed vocals, before eventually blissing out and drifting off.
And let's not forget the Pink Floyd cover. It's almost unrecognizable, but for THAT bass line, super fuzzy and distorted, drifting through swirling layers of effects, the vocals whispered and doused in delay, the drums a machinelike pound, the guitars unfurling all manner of strange sounds, drones and whirs and shrieks and buzzes, no proper riffs, it's the bass and drums that drive this track, the guitars left to fill in the surrounding space with all manner of blurred black ambience. Haunting and spaced out but still plenty black.
As if that weren't enough, while we have 'em, Revelations comes housed in a slipcover, with a bonus disc, a live recording, from in Sweden in 2005, raw and lo-fi and fierce and furious, perfect for folks still hankering for some Hellfire, this should definitely satisfy, meanwhile, the rest of us can revel in 1349's strange new direction. WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Invocation"
MPEG Stream: "Serpentine Sibilance"
MPEG Stream: "Uncreation"
MPEG Stream: "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun"

1349 Revelations Of The Black Flame + Works Of Fire Live (Deluxe) (Candlelight) 2lp 28.00
NOW ON VINYL!!!
A quick look online reveals a crazy amount of negative feedback and terrible reviews for this, the newest record from Norwegian black metal supergroup 1349. Most of that negativity stems from the fact that everyone seemed to be hoping for a Hellfire Part 2. Hellfire being their last record, a frenetic non stop blast of frenzied lightning speed berserk blackened buzz. Which is strange, because we were actually hoping for something different. Hellfire was SO fast, and SO relentless, so much so that in many places it just became a furious black blur, which is fine, and we do love that record, but where does a band go from there? Certainly not faster, but somehow, faster seemed to be what most folks expected. What we can tell you is no one expected THIS. Slower. Weirder. Even a Pink Floyd cover. Could this really be 1349? It is, and it's awesome. Dark and lurching doom-ed blackness, shades of Celtic Frost for sure (whose Tom G. Warrior did some production work here). So fuck the haters, we already have a Hellfire, this is something way more interesting and original.
The record opens with some anguished screams, which give way to a long drifting dronescape, deep rumbling dark ambience, thick and layered, caustic and ominous, before finally lurching into song, but not in a black blast, more of a chugging pound, a little bit of tangled blackness, and then woozy, midtempo meander, atonal chords, off kilter rhythms, lots of start and stop, the tempo sort of sea sick, the vibe still WAY sinister, but much more abstract and avant, and way doomier, and it suits them. At first it seemed like maybe drummer Frost was wasted here, but finally, he has the opportunity to do something other than blast maniacally.
The second track is more of the same, a lumbering doomy bit of avant blackness, with gnarled riffs, simple pounding percussion, the arrangement mathy and convoluted, sounding more like Thorns or Khold or Tulus, which is a very good thing.
The record does offer up some blasting black metal, but not a whole lot, as one disgruntled reviewer put it "there's like maybe 10 minutes of ACTUAL black metal on the whole record!", which is true, the majority of the record is still 'black', but much weirder, slower, atmospheric, with a few straight up ambient tracks, long snarling dronescapes, spaced out stretches of gauzy piano wrapped in streaks of feedback, and bits of glitchy buzz, drifty chunks of guitar flecked rumble and whir, all butted up against awesomely twisted bits of black doom weirdness.
One of the best tracks sounds like a Deathspell Omega jam slowed way down, "Uncreation" is all woozy and tangled and almost gothy at points, but with cool bursts of staccato almost industrial sounding chug, and those dense black riffs, pulled apart and wrapped around the pounding rhythms.
The record closes with the haunting "At The Gate..." which begins like some doomdrone record, all downtuned guitar drone, thickening and sprawling like some noxious black cloud, it eventually splinters into a song, but all that means is the wall of guitar buzz and grinding low end is peppered with occasional drum pound, distant guitar leads, and super creepy processed vocals, before eventually blissing out and drifting off.
And let's not forget the Pink Floyd cover. It's almost unrecognizable, but for THAT bass line, super fuzzy and distorted, drifting through swirling layers of effects, the vocals whispered and doused in delay, the drums a machinelike pound, the guitars unfurling all manner of strange sounds, drones and whirs and shrieks and buzzes, no proper riffs, it's the bass and drums that drive this track, the guitars left to fill in the surrounding space with all manner of blurred black ambience. Haunting and spaced out but still plenty black. WAY recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Invocation"
MPEG Stream: "Serpentine Sibilance"
MPEG Stream: "Uncreation"
MPEG Stream: "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun"