PADANG FOOD TIGERS Born Music (Blackest Rainbow) lp 21.00
Brand new full length of hushed minimal pastoral psychedelia from the duo of Spencer Grady and Steven Lewis, who also do time in aQ fave Rameses III, and like we mentioned in the review of the cd ep we listed a while back, the sound of Padang Food Tigers is like a more minimal version of the sound of their main group, the songs lush layered expanses of hushed folky drift, laced with field recordings, the sound of rainfall seems to run throughout, as if the listener was eavesdropping on some intimate back porch rainy day jam.
Most of the songs here feature just a couple instruments, usually guitar, banjo, lapsteel, piano, even harmonica, the song a gradual unfurling of some lazy woozy melody, the sound rich with room sound, a lush natural reverb, a dream like echo, the opener introduces the record with the sound of rain, over which a haunting piano plays a funereal lament, accompanied by banjo, the two playing out a skeletal harmony, often making it difficult to tell which is which, the perfect intro to such an introspective record.
Much of the record is like some sort of abstract, Appalachia, subtle strum, slippery slide, all spread way out, letting notes flutter and fade, spinning surprisingly lush streaks of warm whirring buzz, the tracks with banjo sound like slow motion bluegrass, other tracks introduce more natural sounds, rushing rivers, chirping crickets, and suddenly the jam seems to have moved creekside, the notes bouncing off the porch and joining the sounds of the woods and water, a few of the tracks build and become epic and emotional, like the soaring majesty of "Right Up Rooster", a lush swirl of strummed high end steel strings and warm piano chords, the sound almost liturgical, but so dreamy and divine.
And the record finishes with a bit of music box like melody, woven into some spare late night folk, all warm and lit by flickering firelight, a darkly dreamy finish to a darkly dreamy record. So nice.
LIMITED TO 250 COPIES, already sold out at the label!
MPEG Stream: "Born Music"
MPEG Stream: "Rise Before The Rain"
MPEG Stream: "Every Heaven I've Ever Seen"

PADANG FOOD TIGERS Go Down Moses (Under The Spire) cd ep 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The strangely named Padang Food Tigers, are actually an offshoot of blissed out pastoral dream drone folk outfit Rameses III, and it sounds like it.
A short three track ep of sun dappled folky drift, sounding like three movements of a single piece, all hazy and hushed and delicate and lovely, the simple strummed melodies drift above field recordings of wind and water, wrapped in lush gauzy swells of soft focus whir, laced with tinkling chimes and distant bells, a slowly unfurling landscape of abstract folk drone meditative mesmer, eventually the instruments fade, leaving just the chimes and the sound of the world outside. Only to have the simple strumming reemerge over a brief stretch of crackle and pop, the sounds presumably of a warm fire in the hearth, this time there's piano as well, a delicate counterpoint to the crystalline guitar, which drifts lazily into the final track, the piano more pronounced, this time everything underpinned by the thick liquid buzz of a bowed cello, the deep resonant rumble wrapping warmly around melancholy pointilist piano, a sonic rendering of a lazy summer afternoon, the trees waving in the breeze, a stream burbling nearby, a glimmering world of tranquil bliss and washed out dreamlike folk drone ambience. So lovely. Sad it's so short.
Packaged in a stamped cardstock sleeve, LIMITED TO 200 COPIES, each one hand numbered.
MPEG Stream: "Go Down, Moses"
MPEG Stream: "Corn Stem King"

PADDED CELL Night Must Fall (DC Recordings) cd 22.00
Time for the noirishly groovy, '70s prog and funk infected, jazzily inflected debut full length from the UK's sinister, stylish Padded Cell. What time is that? About 2am maybe. Night must fall, indeed it must.
Those of you that picked up that excellent Milky Disco comp on Lo last year oughtta remember the track "Konkorde Lafayette", which also appears here in edited form. Padded Cell's contribution was a highlight of that comp, which also featured Studio, Sorcerer, Quiet Village and fellow DC artists The Emperor Machine, among others.
Almost entirely instrumental (there's only a couple of vocal cuts), generally dark and creepy and sometimes bleepy, Night Must Fall slow-burns through slinky, cinematic Goblinesque grooves that bring in some no-wave sax blat, and plenty of vintage analog synth zapp and bass brapp. Padded Cell certainly nods to Italo disco... and also the "disco not disco" NYC '80s downtown punk-funk scene - in fact Dennis Young of Liquid Liquid is this album's propulsive guest drummer! Imagine a spooky and suspenseful John Carpenter soundtrack gone dubby disco... Very cool, so cool in fact we had to import these directly from the label in England.
PS. we also got this on vinyl but unfortunately they all came with fairly badly bent corners...we'll try to get replacements but if you can't wait and want the wax, let us know...
MPEG Stream: "Savage Skulls"
MPEG Stream: "City Of Lies"
MPEG Stream: "Konkorde Lafayette (edit)"

PADDED CELL Night Must Fall (DC Recordings) 2lp 23.00
DC sent us new covers (the first batch were a bit bent) so now we can list the vinyl of this! Here's the highlight review we ran of the cd version last list:
Time for the noirishly groovy, '70s prog and funk infected, jazzily inflected debut full length from the UK's sinister, stylish Padded Cell. What time is that? About 2am maybe. Night must fall, indeed it must.
Those of you that picked up that excellent Milky Disco comp on Lo last year oughtta remember the track "Konkorde Lafayette", which also appears here in edited form. Padded Cell's contribution was a highlight of that comp, which also featured Studio, Sorcerer, Quiet Village and fellow DC artists The Emperor Machine, among others.
Almost entirely instrumental (there's only a couple of vocal cuts), generally dark and creepy and sometimes bleepy, Night Must Fall slow-burns through slinky, cinematic Goblinesque grooves that bring in some no-wave sax blat, and plenty of vintage analog synth zapp and bass brapp. Padded Cell certainly nods to Italo disco... and also the "disco not disco" NYC '80s downtown punk-funk scene - in fact Dennis Young of Liquid Liquid is this album's propulsive guest drummer! Imagine a spooky and suspenseful John Carpenter soundtrack gone dubby disco... Very cool, so cool in fact we had to import these directly from the label in England.
MPEG Stream: "Savage Skulls"
MPEG Stream: "City Of Lies"
MPEG Stream: "Konkorde Lafayette (edit)"

PADDED CELL Word Of Mouth (DC Recordings) 12" 11.98

PADDEN, DANIEL Pause For The Jet (Dekorder) cd 16.98
Another back room discovery, a little stash of these until-now-unreviewed discs, 2008's Pause For The Jet, from aQ fave Daniel Padden, whose solo records we ended up digging way more than his day job in Volcano The Bear. Not to slag VtB, but Padden on his own, manages to create gorgeously head spinning, fractured and fantastical worlds of sound, schizophrenic and chaotic for sure, leaping willynilly from all out noise assault to lilting folk, from murky drone to twangy ethereal drift, which in other hands could definitely be jarring and disorienting, and, well... hell, it still is in Padden's hands, but there's just something about the way he strings all those disparate sounds together that works. Although works in a way that will most likely not be obvious to the casual listener, but by now, anyone into weird homebrewed sounds, will no doubt find much to dig here (and anyone whole loved Padden's other discs, you're probably gonna want this too!).
Pause For The Jet seems to tend toward the drone and the drift, sort of, 17 songs most of them pretty short, some as short as 30 seconds, the longest almost 5 minutes, but the rest hovering between 1 and 3 minutes, which might frustrate some, looking for long, slowly unfurling dronescapes, but taken as brief bits of droning sound and twisted melodic weirdness, PFTJ is a pretty appealing listen. Stretches of ethereal shimmer, underpinned by plonking piano and low slung bass, slip into maddeningly fractured collages of varispeed tape manipulation, hazy blurred drift and disembodied pump organ, detuned twang flecked campfire folk gives way to hushed melancholic thrum, Tow Waits-ish back alley cabaret is peppered with Ribot like guitar buzz and still more tape weirdness, elsewhere strings keen and buzz and bombinate, Padden croons beautifully over skeletal melodies, dark swells of thumping upright bass pulse beneath Herrmann like strings and noisy percussion, the record lumbering back and forth between atonal skronk, and haunting avant lo-fi folk, psychedelic shimmer, and disembodied ghostlike creep.
Another one we have VERY few copies of, so act fast...
MPEG Stream: "Those Troats"
MPEG Stream: "Marseille Tape"
MPEG Stream: "Our Earthly Balloon"

PADDEN, DANIEL Pause For The Jet (Dekorder) lp 14.98
Another back room discovery, a little stash of these until-now-unreviewed discs, 2008's Pause For The Jet, from aQ fave Daniel Padden, whose solo records we ended up digging way more than his day job in Volcano The Bear. Not to slag VtB, but Padden on his own, manages to create gorgeously head spinning, fractured and fantastical worlds of sound, schizophrenic and chaotic for sure, leaping willynilly from all out noise assault to lilting folk, from murky drone to twangy ethereal drift, which in other hands could definitely be jarring and disorienting, and, well... hell, it still is in Padden's hands, but there's just something about the way he strings all those disparate sounds together that works. Although works in a way that will most likely not be obvious to the casual listener, but by now, anyone into weird homebrewed sounds, will no doubt find much to dig here (and anyone whole loved Padden's other discs, you're probably gonna want this too!).
Pause For The Jet seems to tend toward the drone and the drift, sort of, 17 songs most of them pretty short, some as short as 30 seconds, the longest almost 5 minutes, but the rest hovering between 1 and 3 minutes, which might frustrate some, looking for long, slowly unfurling dronescapes, but taken as brief bits of droning sound and twisted melodic weirdness, PFTJ is a pretty appealing listen. Stretches of ethereal shimmer, underpinned by plonking piano and low slung bass, slip into maddeningly fractured collages of varispeed tape manipulation, hazy blurred drift and disembodied pump organ, detuned twang flecked campfire folk gives way to hushed melancholic thrum, Tow Waits-ish back alley cabaret is peppered with Ribot like guitar buzz and still more tape weirdness, elsewhere strings keen and buzz and bombinate, Padden croons beautifully over skeletal melodies, dark swells of thumping upright bass pulse beneath Herrmann like strings and noisy percussion, the record lumbering back and forth between atonal skronk, and haunting avant lo-fi folk, psychedelic shimmer, and disembodied ghostlike creep.
Another one we have VERY few copies of, so act fast...
MPEG Stream: "Those Troats"
MPEG Stream: "Marseille Tape"
MPEG Stream: "Our Earthly Balloon"

PADDEN, DANIEL The Isaac Storm (Ultra Eczema) lp 16.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
As much as we all dig Volcano The Bear, we've actually been loving VtB member Daniel Padden's One Ensemble project even more. While Volcano are more of a surreal dadaist experimental sound outfit, for the One Ensemble, Padden takes those same Dadaist tendencies but tempers them a bit, wrapping them around pretty pop or lilting folk and creating some truly alien sounding prettiness.
But on this ultra limited lp, Padden takes his One Ensemble and wanders back into some serious Volcano The Bear territory. Demented music box melodies drift amidst soaring strings, clinking clanking percussion, deep moaning cellos, bursts of staticky field recordings and manipulated field recordings, while over the top float haunting mysterious melodies. Sounds a bit like a more druggy demented Tom Waits.
Elsewhere, thick washes of fuzzed out ambient whir wrap themselves around damaged pitch shifted guitar warble, junk yard percussion marches through thick clouds of ominous drones, detuned acoustic guitars shimmer beneath heavily reverbed scrapes and squeaks and wheezing harmonica melodies. A totally mesmerizing, dizzying and damaged trawl through some surreal junk yard filled with broken musical instruments and ghost musicians, jamming in the middle of the night to an audience of beat up stuffed animals and rusted out appliances. So cool!
Packaged in a super spiffy crayon colored owl, coloring book collage cover.
LIMITED TO 400 COPIES!!

PADDEN, DANIEL The One Ensemble of (Catsup Plate) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Daniel Padden, of English improvisational psych-folksters Volcano the Bear, creates meandering, lovely music that has received comparisons to artists as accomplished as This Heat, Soft Machine, and Art Ensemble of Chicago. Distant and spooky to warm and languid, "The One Ensemble Of..." features subtle improv mixed with sparse, repetetive, melodic piano, and manges to make kazoos sound sad and beautiful. Instrumentation also includes violin, cello, saxophone, harmonium, ballaphon (like a Ghanian xylophone), and other "little instruments." A wistful, gorgeous and strange album.
RealAudio clip: "Sleep Between the Brows of All My Eyes"
RealAudio clip: "Chasm Dave"

PADDEN, DANIEL (THE ONE ENSEMBLE OF) Live at VPRO Radio (Brainwashed) cd-r 11.98

MPEG Stream: "Clown Flinging"
MPEG Stream: "Mustard Mustard"

PADDEN, DANIEL (THE ONE ENSEMBLE OF) The Owl Of Fives (Textile) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK! Finally managed to get more of these in. Not sure how long they'll be around or when we'll be able to get more! So don't snooze!
As much as we dig UK musical experimentalists Volcano The Bear and their disjointed sonic surrealism, VtB member Daniel Padden has always managed to take that sound of theirs even further, somewhere else entirely, to a place where his juxtapositions coalesce into a dark and highly personal, mostly instrumental melancholia. Meandering and thoughtful, like a twilight walk through a musical forest, just wandering, laying down on the ground when the mood strikes you, gazing at patches of sky through the dense canopy of leaves, feeling the wet earth soak through your clothes, shivering as small insects crawl all over you tickling your skin, squinting as you're blinded by a brilliant shaft of sunlight that breaks through the trees, then melts into the forest floor beneath while you're sprinkled with a fine mist as the wind looses the condensation from the branches. This not-so-precise effect is achieved with reverby pianos in vast expanses of space, slippery slide guitar, plinkety plonk keyboards, soaring minor key strings, Appalachian guitar picking over squirming beds of bombinating drones. Padden's dense buzzing ragas are all dreamy and melancholy and super intimate and personal sounding, but somehow at the same time are grandiose and epic, with occasional waltz-like marches, like chamber music for some outer space / otherworldly king and his court. Occasionally delicate and haunting, occasionally rambunctious and a little chaotic. But always totally beautiful and mesmerising and truly mysterious. Think somewhere between Eyvind Kang, the Sun City Girls, Kronos Quartet, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and Jack Rose. All that and more is filtered through Padden's slightly skewed musical mind's eye.
MPEG Stream: "Farewell My Porcupine"
MPEG Stream: "Gong Farm"
MPEG Stream: "Singing Norway To Sleep"

PADDEN, DANIEL (THE ONE ENSEMBLE OF) The Owl Of Fives (Textile) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As much as we dig UK musical experimentalists Volcano The Bear and their disjointed sonic surrealism, VtB member Daniel Padden has always managed to take that sound of theirs even further, somewhere else entirely, to a place where his juxtapositions coalesce into a dark and highly personal, mostly instrumental melancholia. Meandering and thoughtful, like a twilight walk through a musical forest, just wandering, laying down on the ground when the mood strikes you, gazing at patches of sky through the dense canopy of leaves, feeling the wet earth soak through your clothes, shivering as small insects crawl all over you tickling your skin, squinting as you're blinded by a brilliant shaft of sunlight that breaks through the trees, then melts into the forest floor beneath while you're sprinkled with a fine mist as the wind looses the condensation from the branches. This not-so-precise effect is achieved with reverby pianos in vast expanses of space, slippery slide guitar, plinkety plonk keyboards, soaring minor key strings, Appalachian guitar picking over squirming beds of bombinating drones. Padden's dense buzzing ragas are all dreamy and melancholy and super intimate and personal sounding, but somehow at the same time are grandiose and epic, with occasional waltz-like marches, like chamber music for some outer space / otherworldly king and his court. Occasionally delicate and haunting, occasionally rambunctious and a little chaotic. But always totally beautiful and mesmerising and truly mysterious. Think somewhere between Eyvind Kang, the Sun City Girls, Kronos Quartet, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and Jack Rose. All that and more is filtered through Padden's slightly skewed musical mind's eye.
MPEG Stream: "Farewell My Porcupine"
MPEG Stream: "Gong Farm"
MPEG Stream: "Singing Norway To Sleep"

PAGAN ALTAR Judgement Of The Dead (Shadow Kingdom) cd 12.98
Red letter day here for old school doom fanatics! Not one but two cd reissues from NWOBHM (aka New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, in this case, make that very very British) cult Pagan Altar! This one's a reissue of their debut album, aka Vol.1, Songs written circa 1978-'81, recorded 1982, not released for the first time officially until 1998 on the band's own Oracle Records, then again via very limited & long gone vinyl, and now available again thanks to the folks at cult metal label Shadow Kingdom, who claim Pagan Altar as their favorite band ever. Obscure as it is, this is really a classic, '70s Sabbath/Priest styled (proto) metal, with an authentic occult vibe, powerful and melodic, up there with Angel Witch and, especially Witchfinder General - if you like them, you need to hear Pagan Altar as well!
Amazingly, the band is still around, still quite active, having released a couple other excellent albums (see Lords Of Hypocrisy, the other one on this list), with work proceeding on a new one. They also did a split 7" with Jex Thoth a while ago. As a matter of fact, Allan had the pleasure of seeing Pagan Altar play live at the Roadburn Festival in Holland in 2010! As far as he was concerned, one of the highlights of the fest (along with one of the only bands there to have been around longer, Comus!!!). When they came out on stage, the silver-haired singer (Terry Jones, brother to lead guitarist Alan Jones) was wearing a feathered top hat, that he gracefully doffed towards the audience, greeting the crowd in a mellifluous Yorkshire accent. He possessed a theatrical, charismatic presence that made him seem not unlike one of the earlier incarnations of Dr. Who! They then proceeded to kick out an utterly classic sounding set of twin guitar NWOBHM, including of course many songs from this album, folkloric metal of witchery and doom, sung in a reedy voice that sounds a lot like a British version of Roky Erickson. They were really, really good.
So, if you're lucky enough to get a chance to see 'em, do so! And, at the very least, if doom and NWOBHM is your thing, check out their recordings, this being a great one to start with, though Judgement Of The Dead and Shadow Kingdom's other PA cd, The Time Lord, are also quite recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Pagan Altar"
MPEG Stream: "In The Wake Of Armadeus"
MPEG Stream: "Night Rider"

PAGAN ALTAR Judgement Of The Dead (Buried By Time And Dust) lp 36.00
AS OF APRIL 2010, THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT, BUT WE'VE BEEN TOLD THAT IT IS BEING REPRESSED IN A COUPLE OF MONTHS. SO PLEASE INQUIRE IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PLACE A PREORDER FOR IT.
We know you folks love limited edition vinyl releases, as Record Store Day just proved yet again. Well, here's something we just got a handful of copies of, and might not be able to get again - it's on the same label that did the Saint Vitus Die Healing vinyl that sold out so fast. And it's another one for vintage doom fanatics, a vinyl version of the debut album, aka Vol.1, from NWOBHM (aka New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, in this case, make that very very British) cult Pagan Altar! Songs written circa 1978-'81, recorded 1982, not released for the first time officially until 1998, and now available again in a deluxe gatefold vinyl edition. Obscure as it is, this is really a classic, '70s Sabbath/Priest styled (proto) metal, with an authentic occult vibe, powerful and melodic, up there with Angel Witch and, especially Witchfinder General - if you like them, you need to hear Pagan Altar as well!
Amazingly, the band is still around, still quite active, having released a couple other excellent albums, with work proceeding on a new one. They also did a split 7" with Jex Thoth not too long ago. As a matter of fact, Allan had the pleasure of seeing Pagan Altar play live just last week, at the Roadburn Festival in Holland! As far as he was concerned, one of the highlights of the fest (along with one of the only bands there to have been around longer, Comus!!!). When they came out on stage, the silver-haired singer (Terry Jones, brother to lead guitarist Alan Jones) was wearing a feathered top hat, that he gracefully doffed towards the audience, greeting us in a mellifluous Yorkshire accent. He possessed a theatrical, charismatic presence that made him seem not unlike one of the earlier incarnations of Dr. Who! They then proceeded to kick out an utterly classic sounding set of twin guitar NWOBHM, including of course many songs from this album, folkloric metal of witchery and doom, sung in a reedy voice that sounds a lot like a British version of Roky Erickson. They were really, really good.
So, if you're lucky enough to get a chance to see 'em, do so! And, at the very least, if doom and NWOBHM is your thing, check out their recordings, this being a great one to start with, except that we probably won't have it for very long (we only got, like, 8, and already have sold a few)...
MPEG Stream: "Pagan Altar"
MPEG Stream: "In The Wake Of Armadeus"
MPEG Stream: "Night Rider"

PAGAN ALTAR Mythical & Magical (Shadow Kingdom) cd 12.98
Mythical and magical, indeed! Pagan Altar, hopefully you know by now, are an '80s metal band from the UK, who never released anything back in the day, but here in the 21st century have been putting out records, dusting off their old, unrecorded songs to much underground acclaim and amazement. Their style is one that works as well, or even better, when played by gents of advanced age - part epic NWOBHM thespianism, part Black Sabbathy doominess, part hoary Brit-folk tradition. It's misty, mystic full moon music that the ancient headbanging druids of Stonehenge would probably find even more appropriate for their esoteric purposes than house band Hawkwind.
So, here's the final (for now) entry in the Pagan Altar discography for us to list. This 2006 release, originally on the band's own Oracle Records label, has been newly reissued by cult metal label Shadow Kingdom (for whom Pagan Altar are THEE best band ever). This joins Judgement Of The Dead, The Time Lord, and The Lords Of Hypocrisy in the Shadow Kingdom's Pagan Altar catalog, and it's right up there with any and all of 'em, full of emotive, incredible soloing, catchy, doomy riffs, wonderful vocals (again reminding us of a creaky combo of both Ozzy Osbourne and Roky Erickson), and an overall pagan atmosphere delivered with classic rock perfection that's not much known this side of the the '80s. What else can we say, besides, recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Samhein"
MPEG Stream: "The Cry Of The Banshee"
MPEG Stream: "Dance Of The Druids"

PAGAN ALTAR The Lords Of Hypocrisy (Shadow Kingdom) cd 12.98
Red letter day here for old school doom fanatics... Shadow Kingdom brings us not one but two cd reissues from those mystic, misty masters of British metal majesty, Pagan Altar. A truly "cult" doom act from the NWOBHM era, somehow still kicking in the here-and-now. Their debut was recorded in 1982, but kept secret and unreleased until almost the year 2000AD. They followed that with this album, Lords Of Hypocrisy, in 2004, originally released on their own Oracle Records label. It features songs which were originally written back in the late '70s, early '80s by the brothers Terry Jones (vocals) and Alan Jones (guitar). While all Pagan Altar rules, this just might be our fave. Terry Jones' nasal voice is a dramatic, wizened croak and caw, that can soar with ravens in the night sky... evoking both both Roky Erickson and Ozzy Osbourne (which means, Witchcraft fans should hear Pagan Altar). His brother brings the Sabbathy riffs and lead guitar rippage, also playin' some banjo on twangin' folk instrumental interlude "The Devil Came Down To Brockley".
Throughout the album there's drifting soft folky parts and epick metal stormers, Pagan Altar combining a pastoral prog vibe with a Satanic metal one... sad and melancholic, with intelligent lyrics, and it doesn't get more DOOM than songs about nuclear armageddon! Somehow the overall sound reminds us of Ozzy (early solo, circa Randy Rhodes Blizzard Of Ozz era), but gone way underground and druidical. A classic that stands with the best of the NWOBHM even though it was released so many years later... like a time capsule from the '80s. Brilliant stuff any NWOBHM and/or doom lover who's got a pagan bone in their body ought to own.
The original cd release of this we never were able to get enough of to list. And then the swank limited vinyl edition Buried By Time And Dust came and went (as did an earlier Miskatonic vinyl version). So nice to have it back as an affordable cd release thanks to the doom fiends at Shadow Kingdom. (Wish they'd have included the two bonus tracks found on the vinyl, but oh well...)
MPEG Stream: "The Lords Of Hypocrisy"
MPEG Stream: "Sentinels Of Hate"

PAGAN ALTAR The Lords Of Hypocrisy (Buried By Time And Dust) 2lp 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Red letter day here for old school doom vinyl fanatics. Buried By Time And Dust bring us two essential reissues, the Witchfinder General lp boxset reviewed elsewhere this list, and this, a vinyl version of the 2nd album from those mystic, misty masters of British metal majesty, Pagan Altar. A truly "cult" doom act from the NWOBHM era, somehow still kicking in the here-and-now. Their debut was recorded in 1982, but kept secret and unreleased until almost the year 2000. They followed that with this album in 2004, featuring songs which were originally written back in the late '70s, early '80s by the brothers Terry Jones (vocals) and Alan Jones (guitar). While all Pagan Altar rules, this just might be our fave. Terry Jones' nasal voice is a dramatic, wizened croak and caw, that can soar with ravens in the night sky... evoking both both Roky Erickson and Ozzy Osbourne (which means, Witchcraft fans should hear Pagan Altar). His brother brings the Sabbathy riffs and lead guitar rippage, also playin' some banjo on twangin' folk instrumental interlude "The Devil Came Down To Brockley".
Throughout the album there's drifting soft folky parts and epick metal stormers, Pagan Altar combining a pastoral prog vibe with a Satanic metal one... sad and melancholic, with intelligent lyrics, and it doesn't get more DOOM than songs about nuclear armageddon! Somehow the overall sound reminds us of Ozzy (early solo, circa Randy Rhodes Blizzard Of Ozz era), but gone way underground and druidical. A classic that stands with the best of the NWOBHM even though it was released so many years later... like a time capsule from the '80s.
The original cd release of this we never were able to get enough of to list, so it's nice to finally review it and on vinyl, too. Not cheap, but super swank and of course limited... as you may recall, earlier this year we blew through Buried By Time And Dust's vinyl reissue of Judgement Of The Dead (aka Vol. 1), PA's first album, all too quickly. This one may or may not stick around longer...and in any case it's just as recommended. Brilliant stuff any NWOBHM and/or doom lover who's got a pagan bone in their body ought to own. 180g vinyl, heavy gatefold sleeve with lyrics, and it also includes the 2 bonus tracks ("Witch's Pathway" and "Flight Of The Witchqueen") from the original limited vinyl pressing by Miskatonic in '05, not found on the cd version.
MPEG Stream: "The Lords Of Hypocrisy"
MPEG Stream: "Sentinels Of Hate"

PAGAN ALTAR The Time Lord (Shadow Kingdom) cd 13.98
In the past, we've listed a couple, now out of print limited vinyl reissues of stuff by this lost-in-time, doom-laden New Wave Of British Heavy Metal band, so we know some of you are already fans. And anyone into either Witchcraft or Witchfinder General, who hasn't yet heard Pagan Altar, should really check them out! They could be considered one of the NWOBHM's best kept secrets, seeing as how the songs they recorded back in the '80s weren't even released until many, many years later. Nowadays they're finally getting some attention, playing festivals like Roadburn, where Allan was lucky enough to see 'em, in 2010, and having more of their music finally see the light of day (or the full moon, as might be more appropriate).
While many of the releases in this band's somewhat curious discography, like 2004's Lords Of Hypocrisy and 2006's Mythical & Magical, consist of songs written (but not recorded) over 20 years earlier, what we have here REALLY goes back, way back, to the band's beginnings - these five songs are the earliest known Pagan Altar recordings to exist, actual demo tracks dating from 1978: "Highway Cavalier", "The Time Lord", "Judgement Of The Dead", "The Black Mass", and "Reincarnation". Some of course were redone on later releases. But they sound pretty darn good in their original demo form, tape hiss included. Total heavy riffing, epick rocking, infused with pagan Britfolk vibesÉ kinda like Sabbath meets Roky Erickson (on account of frontman Terry Jones's reedy Roky-like voice) meets the NWOBHM, all under the influence of Dr. Who; in other words, the Pagan Altar we know and love. Classic mystic misty majestic metal.
Pagan Altar, next to Manilla Road, are probably the top favorite band of the cult metal fetishists who run the Shadow Kingdom label, so we know they were thrilled to put this out on remastered cd (I Hate Records did a 12" vinyl version back in '04). We're stoked about it as well. AND they're gonna be doing domestic cd reissues of Pagan Altar's Judgement Of The Dead and Lords Of Hypocrisy albums soon, too!
MPEG Stream: "Highway Cavalier"
MPEG Stream: "The Time Lord"
MPEG Stream: "Reincarnation"

PAGAN HELLFIRE The Will Of Night (Tour De Garde) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

MPEG Stream: "From The Highest Halls"
MPEG Stream: "Isolation"

PAGANS Pink Album ... Plus! (Crypt) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From Cleveland, the land of Pere Ubu and The Electric Eels, comes the Pagans, totally essential, completely awesome late seventies scuzzed out punk rock. Noisy and sloppy and snotty and totally catchy. The lp includes 2 unreleased songs and two demos, one exclusive to the lp. The cd includes 3 unreleased tracks (as opposed to 4 on the vinyl) and tons of live stuff from 1979-1983 including tracks from their final tour and recordings. Also includes studio demos where the Pagans take on a handful of covers: Alice Cooper's 'Eighteen', Pere Ubu's 'Final Solution', Velvet UNderground's 'There She Goes Again'. Also contains a video! Nice.
RealAudio clip: "I'm Eighteen"
RealAudio clip: "Multiple Personalities"
RealAudio clip: "Nowhere To Run"

PAGANS Pink Album ... Plus! (Crypt) lp 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From Cleveland, the land of Pere Ubu and The Electric Eels, comes the Pagans, totally essential, completely awesome late seventies scuzzed out punk rock. Noisy and sloppy and snotty and totally catchy. The lp includes 2 unreleased songs and two demos, one exclusive to the lp. The cd includes 3 unreleased tracks (as opposed to 4 on the vinyl) and tons of live stuff from 1979-1983 including tracks from their final tour and recordings. Also includes studio demos where the Pagans take on a handful of covers: Alice Cooper's 'Eighteen', Pere Ubu's 'Final Solution', Velvet Underground's 'There She Goes Again'. Also contains a video! Nice.

PAGANS Shit Street (Crypt) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From Cleveland, the land of Pere Ubu and The Electric Eels, comes the Pagans, totally essential, completely awesome late seventies scuzzed out punk rock. Noisy and sloppy and snotty and totally catchy. The lp includes 3 unreleased tracks and 2 super rare tracks from 1979 including the studio demo of 'She's A Cadaver' which is only on the lp. The cd includes 4 extra studio tracks (as opposed to 5 on the vinyl) PLUS tons of live stuff, including 2 tracks featuring Cheetah Chrome and Jimmy Zero from the Dead Boys.

PAGANS Shit Street (Crypt) lp 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From Cleveland, the land of Pere Ubu and The Electric Eels, comes the Pagans, totally essential, completely awesome late seventies scuzzed out punk rock. Noisy and sloppy and snotty and totally catchy. The lp includes 3 unreleased tracks and 2 super rare tracks from 1979 including the studio demo of 'She's A Cadaver' which is only on the lp. The cd includes 4 extra studio tracks (as opposed to 5 on the vinyl) PLUS tons of live stuff, including 2 tracks featuring Cheetah Chrome and Jimmy Zero from the Dead Boys.

PAGE FRANCE Hello, Dear Wind (Suicide Squeeze) cd 14.98
Twee folkster Michael Nau has such an endearingly bleaty voice sort of a cross between Daniel Johnston and John Lennon (especially on songs like "Bush"). But his voice also has a cool scratchy raspy Paul Westerberg quality, that adds even more emotion, like he's always about to break into a top-of-his-lungs croon, or like his voice is always just on the verge of cracking.
The songs are simple, but surprisingly lush, rife with impossibly memorable hooks, and lots of little melodic flourishes and subtle instrumental embellishments. Musically Page France is like a latecomer to the Elephant Six set with a SERIOUS Neutral Milk Hotel influence, from the guitar / vocal interplay, to the clever turns of phrase, even down to the not so veiled religious subtext. Lots of songs about Jesus and love and salvation, although not always obviously so. This could almost be some early Jeff Mangum project, recorded right before his voice changed. It has the same wide eyed innocence, the strange surreal psychedelia and the eclectic kitchen sink instrumentation as NMH, there's horns, super simple shuffling percussion, chimes, vibes and Nau also finds his perfect female counterpoint in the childlike croon of Whitney McGraw. So catchy and dreamy. Neutral Milk Hotel fans do NOT want to miss out on this...
MPEG Stream: "Chariot"
MPEG Stream: "Jesus"
MPEG Stream: "Elephant"
MPEG Stream: "Bush"

PAGE FRANCE AND THE FAMILY TELEPHONE s/t (Suicide Squeeze) cd 14.98
Page France And The Family Telephone returns with another generous serving of twinkly twee pop! We liked his last album 2006's Hello Dear Wind very very much, so we welcome this new one with open arms. And it doesn't disappoint! Mainman Michael Nau's like a more child's view cousin of Destroyer or a prepubescent Flaming Lips. His toothsome storybook tales, singsong-y vocals and chiming melodies could easily have tumbled out of Mr. Rogers' Land Of Make Believe. Cute as a button!
MPEG Stream: "Wet Dog Afternoon"
MPEG Stream: "Mr. Violin And Dancing Bear"

PAGE FRANCE AND THE FAMILY TELEPHONE s/t (Suicide Squeeze) lp 14.98
Page France And The Family Telephone returns with another generous serving of twinkly twee pop! We liked his last album 2006's Hello Dear Wind very very much, so we welcome this new one with open arms. And it doesn't disappoint! Mainman Michael Nau's like a more child's view cousin of Destroyer or a prepubescent Flaming Lips. His toothsome storybook tales, singsong-y vocals and chiming melodies could easily have tumbled out of Mr. Rogers' Land Of Make Believe. Cute as a button!
MPEG Stream: "Wet Dog Afternoon"
MPEG Stream: "Mr. Violin And Dancing Bear"

PAGE NINETY NINE Document #8 (Robotic Empire) cd 13.98

MPEG Stream: "In Love With An Apparition"
MPEG Stream: "Your Face Is A Rape Scene"

PAIK Corridors (Beyonder) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For those of you who dug their recent Satin Black release, here's Paik's sophomore full length from 2001 on which they harnessed their crashing post-rock waves of guitars and cymbals into something considerably more moody and space-y than its predecessor, the very My Bloody Valentine-esque Hugo Strange. Corridors aligns them more with bands such as Mogwai (who they themselves were an aural amalgam of MBV and Slint).
MPEG Stream: "Spacer (2001)"
MPEG Stream: "The Longest Day"

PAIK Hugo Strange (Beyonder) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For those of you who dug their recent Satin Black release, here's Paik's debut album from 1998. Hugo Strange reveals that the band's beginnings were very much rooted in shoegazer territory. Upon reaching the center of the album you'll find the band applying some very noticeable My Bloody Valentine-isms -- lots of woozy, warped record guitar style effects. They stick in this hazy reverb and distortion drenched atmosphere for a few songs then take a turn into the land of post-rock fueled by a healthy dose of insistently down-strummed guitars.
MPEG Stream: "Waiting Patiently"
MPEG Stream: "E. Grim "

PAIK Monster Of The Absolute (Strange Attractors Audio House) cd 14.98
This instrumental space rock trio from Michigan has been smoking heaping bowlfuls of the same stuff Hawkwind used to burn up and is thus churning out some serious space rock with mighty results. Spacious and sweeping, chugging with propulsive groove, but without the quiet-loud dynamics of post-rock bands like Mogwai, nor the shoe-gazing drone burners of bands like Growing and Belong. More like a 120 mph road-trip through Death Valley at sunset and the acid just kicked in.
MPEG Stream: "SnakeFace"
MPEG Stream: "October"

PAIK Monster Of The Absolute (Strange Attractors Audio House) lp 14.98
Now on vinyl!
This instrumental space rock trio from Michigan has been smoking heaping bowlfuls of the same stuff Hawkwind used to burn up and is thus churning out some serious space rock with mighty results. Spacious and sweeping, chugging with propulsive groove, but without the quiet-loud dynamics of post-rock bands like Mogwai, nor the shoe-gazing drone burners of bands like Growing and Belong. More like a 120 mph road-trip through Death Valley at sunset and the acid just kicked in.
MPEG Stream: "SnakeFace"
MPEG Stream: "October"

PAIK Satin Black (Strange Attractors Audio House) cd 13.98
On their newest 'full length' (although the cd only has five tracks, they're all nice and looooooong), Paik once again unfurl the darker, heavier and more ominous side of shoegazerin'. This Michigan-based space rock band pour on layer after layer of guitar washes which along with the thundering drums and crashing cymbals build to a hypnotic roar. An occasional melodic element will seep out from the dense creeping haze. Trippy, atmospheric and very much for fans of Bardo Pond, Kinski, Growing, Landing and Mogwai.
MPEG Stream: "Jayne Field"
MPEG Stream: "Dirt For Driver"

PAIK The Orson Fader (Clairecords) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

PAIK, NAM JUNE Works 1958-1979 (Sub Rosa) cd 16.98
Five compositions by video artist Nam June Paik. Long before he became famous for his work in the visual arts, Paik had travelled to both Japan and later to Germany (along side Karlheinz Stockhausen at the Westdeutsche Rundfunk's Studio For Electronic Music) to study composition. This cd is the first time these works have been released outside of extremely limited cassette and lp issues and date from as early as 1959 to as late as 1979. The tracks themselves are as varied as one might expect from such an extended period. The first piece "Prepared Piano For Merce Cunningham" (1977) is a solemn 28 minute improvisation on a detuned piano. This piece was originally released in an edited form but is presented here as it was recorded, in its entirety. Three of the pieces were unearthed in Paik's apartment in 1999 while searching through uncataloged films and videos. "Hommage A John Cage" (1959), "Simple" (1961), and "Etude For Pianoforte" (1960) are tape experiments using crude splicings of recorded music, Paik screaming, various recorded noises, all sped up, slowed down, scrambled and otherwise mutilated. "Duett" (1979) is a 25 minute improvised collaboration between Paik on piano and Takis on metal sculpture. Paik drifts between various baroque and classical themes before settling into a slow dirge while humming mournfully as Takis intermittently strikes on large chunks of metal. The piece has a beautifully melancholic yet absurd quality that approaches self-mockery but somehow remains sincere.
RealAudio clip: "Hommage A John Cage"
RealAudio clip: "Duett"

PAIN TEENS s/t (Charnel Music) cd 12.98
First time on cd for this, the very first (1988) and long out of print album by Austin's Painteens. Even then, this industrial/experimental rock outfit (featuring the core duo of vocalist Bliss Blood and guitarist Scott Ayers) were no slackers at noisemaking. Painteens is a brutalist hybrid of Rhythm & Noise with Coil, cooked up in a Texas psychedelic punk laboratory. This cd also includes additional material from their fantastic early cassette releases.

PAINE Zero to...666Paranormal (Kaari) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Finnish band Paine (which in their language means not Pain, but Pressure) features at least three ex-members of Circle...and you can tell. Like Circle, Paine construct tight, repetitive riffs and rhythms, mostly instrumental. Darker and scarier though, with bombastic grooves and distorted vocal snippets. It's a sort of mechanical brutality, like Circle gone Industrial. Paine march in endless, relentless circles in a sci-fi wasteland. Paine, pressure, pleasure. This six-song cd-r is actually a reissue (with 2 additional tracks and new, fancy oversized packaging -- a blue vellum envelope with acetate inserts) of a previous limited cd-r release. This one's limited too (there's 150 of 'em), we've only got what we've got -- 12 copies -- and that's it.
MPEG Stream: "Dioxidetunnel"
MPEG Stream: "Zero To..."

PAINE, ANDREW & RICHARD YOUNGS Mauve Dawn (Fusetron) lp 14.98

PAINFORGED / GNAW THEIR TONGUES A Confession Of Worshipping The Depraved And Perverse Human Psyche (Shadowgraph) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We won't go into too much detail with this one, it was limited to 100 copies, is already sold out, and we got a mere 10, sold 3 or 4, so by the time you read this we'll have 5 or 6 left, and will NOT be able to get more. Gnaw Their Tongues obsessives will NEED this, three new tracks of GTT's fucked up and brilliantly brutal industrial symphonic cinematic black doom, all buzzing guitars, crashing percussion, twisted strings, warped vocals, twisted samples, black ambience, all woven into something freaky and creepy and unlike anything else you've heard.
We had never heard Painforged before, but they are most definitely a worthy matchup for GTT, a similarly abject bit of abstract blacknoize and metallic ambience, processed sounds throb and skitter and pulse over monstrous vocals, strange samples laced with super spare programmed doom-ed drumcrush, swirling black ambience and thick swells of rumbling buzzing doomdronedirge low end, laced with deconstructed and decaying riffage, slowed down cookie monster vox, and spidery atonal guitar squiggles, all melted down into a noxious and black sonic stew.
Packaged in a dvd style case, nice printed covers, almost sold out, so cross your fingers and add to cart...
MPEG Stream: PAINFORGED "A Confession Of Worshipping The Depraved..."
MPEG Stream: GNAW THEIR TONGUES "Kaolo"

PAING ENSEMBLE, NAI HTAW Mon Music of Burma (Fire Museum) cd 13.98
There is something so thrilling about Burmese instrumentation. The Nai Htaw Paing Ensemble are regarded as masters of traditional Mon music. Using instruments like the Kyam (known as the crocodile zither, a 3-string zither with frets shaped like a crocodile), the Batt Kine, a row of around fourteen pitched gongs, and the Mon violin, a three-string fiddle that's played upright. While this isn't as damaged or fucked up as some of the music from Burma we've gotten our hands on in recent times (like the amazing Mandalay Marionette Music disc we listed at the end of last year), this is still pretty amazing. A really nice example of the more traditional yet still totally fascinating feel of Burmese music.
MPEG Stream: "Dosa Kyam (The King Crocodile's Anger)"
MPEG Stream: "Gwet-Done Glone"

PAINKILLER Collected Works (Tzadik) 4cd 44.00
4 cds collecting the almost-complete works (plus some previously unreleased pieces) of the collaboration among 3 of the biggest egos in contemporary music: John Zorn, Mick Harris, and big bad Bill Laswell. Nicely presented, with all the original (banned-in-England in one instance) artwork. Includes "Guts Of A Virgin," "Buried Secrets," and "Execution Ground" (with the bonus live in Osaka disc from the import Japanese version, featuring guest Eye Yamantaka of Boredoms). And then there's the previously unreleased track with Keiji Haino on guitar (doing a Jacks cover!). Makigami Koichi also guests on vocals.

PAINKILLER John Zorn's 50th Birthday Celebration Vol. 12 (Tzadik) cd 16.98
JZ's 50th was/is a never-ending party it seems. The cds just keep on coming. We haven't managed to keep up at all with 'em all. But we did have to take a moment to check out this, a new Painkiller document! Painkiller being one of our favorite John Zorn ensembles, wherein he teamed up with grindcore drummer Mick Harris (Napalm Death/Scorn) and ubiquitous bassist Bill Laswell for several extreme explorations of heavy-duty, jazz metal improvcore back in the early '90s. The "Collected Works" four-cd box set on Tzadik remains quite recommended (especially for the band's best work, the dubby death ambient double disc set called Execution Ground), and includes guest appearances from the likes of Eye Yamantaka and Keiji Haino.
So what's the deal with this live, September 2003 birthday Painkiller reunion, then? Well, first off, although Laswell is (of course) on board, Mick Harris isn't. Does he even still play drums? His replacement is Chicago jazz percussionist Hamid Drake. And, the special guest at this show was Mike Patton, always a suitable stand-in for Eye. So this isn't quite the same Painkiller, being rather, um, "funkier" than we remember 'em being. It's also certainly exuberantly noisy. Well, maybe the darkest Painkiller stuff wouldn't really be right for a birthday party, after all! The three tracks here, two of 'em quite lengthy, were all composed and/or improvised by the Zorn/Drake/Laswell/Patton unit. Patton contributes plenty of distorted screams and jib-jabbery glitched out electonics n' vocals, while the Laswell/Drake rhythm section generally grooves along, and Zorn switches back and forth between both camps, blowing like crazy to keep Patton company or playing "jazzier" stuff to swing with Laswell and Drake. Zorn, Patton and yes indeed old Painkiller fans will all find this of interest. It's not quite the Painkiller of the Mick Harris days, but there's still plenty of dubby, mayhemic skronk here that's at least really "Painkillerish".
MPEG Stream: "Your Inviolable Freedoms"
MPEG Stream: "DPM"

PAINKILLER Talisman: Live In Nagoya (Tzadik) cd 15.98
It's been a while since we've heard from this band, the infamous John Zorn / Mick Harris / Bill Laswell sax, drums and bass trio called Painkiller. No, they're not playing again, but they've dug up some old recordings for first-time release on this disc. Hopefully you're familiar with the evil ambience of their masterpiece "Execution Ground" or their earlier death-jazz outings like "Guts Of A Virgin" (all still available as part of their 4 cd "Collected Works" box on Tzadik). Total avant-jazz heavy dub darkness! Like some of the other past projects these guys have been involved with (Naked City, Massacre, Napalm Death, Scorn, Last Exit, to name a few) this is intense and original music, and that's certainly demonstrated on this archival release, a live recording from their 1994 tour of Japan. The monstrous first track, the 35-minute improv "Batrachophrenoboocosmocachina" (good grief!) encapsulates (at length) Painkiller's strengths: the shrieking (and sometimes lyricism) of Zorn's alto sax, the energy of Harris' drumming, and the burbling droning bass backdrop offered by Laswell. All these strong voices urge one another on, downwards into the dense black pit of their collective musical imagination. A welcome, and essential, release for fans, and not a bad place to start if you're not ready to jump in with that four-disc collection!!
RealAudio clip: "Ahamkara"

PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART Belong (Slumberland) cd 13.98
Not many pop groups have won us over so utterly and completely as Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Their blissed out debut from a couple years back tapped into the best bits of '80s dream-pop and Sarah records glory, and the group created such infectious and fresh sounding songs that we've blasted so loud and so many times by now. With their follow up full length they return with an album that's a bit more meaty and fleshed out, featuring a much slicker production. Don't get us wrong the dreamy and breezy elements are still there, but they are accompanied by a more '90s sounding guitar rock vibe a la Smashing Pumpkins circa Siamese Dream, The Swirlies or Swervedriver. But under the ringing of the guitars is still that breeze and ease that makes POBPAH such the perfect band to listen to when you're cruising in a car on a sunny windy afternoon, or laying in the park with friends as you take a break from the harsh realities of the day to day. Carefree and rocking in such delightful ways.
MPEG Stream: "Belong"
MPEG Stream: "Heart In Your Heartbreak"
MPEG Stream: "My Terrible Friend"

PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART Belong (Slumberland) lp 18.98
Not many pop groups have won us over so utterly and completely as Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Their blissed out debut from a couple years back tapped into the best bits of '80s dream-pop and Sarah records glory, and the group created such infectious and fresh sounding songs that we've blasted so loud and so many times by now. With their follow up full length they return with an album that's a bit more meaty and fleshed out, featuring a much slicker production. Don't get us wrong the dreamy and breezy elements are still there, but they are accompanied by a more '90s sounding guitar rock vibe a la Smashing Pumpkins circa Siamese Dream, The Swirlies or Swervedriver. But under the ringing of the guitars is still that breeze and ease that makes POBPAH such the perfect band to listen to when you're cruising in a car on a sunny windy afternoon, or laying in the park with friends as you take a break from the harsh realities of the day to day. Carefree and rocking in such delightful ways.
MPEG Stream: "Belong"
MPEG Stream: "Heart In Your Heartbreak"
MPEG Stream: "My Terrible Friend"

PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART Come Saturday (Slumberland) 7" 3.98

PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART Higher Than The Stars (Slumberland) cd ep 8.98
Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are responsible for one of our favorite albums of the year! Their debut full length which came out right at the beginning of 2009, was the sort of refreshing slab of pure pop bliss that we had been so starved for. It's a record that we still listen to with as much excitement and frequency as we did all those months ago. The way they are able to tap into that great dreamy '80s state of pop while still sounding so fresh and original has made it a record that's going to be on many of our year end favorite lists for sure.
So of course we were super excited to get a new ep from the Pains, they really are one of those rare bands that have made such an impact on us that just getting a handful of new songs from them is so damn exciting. What's even more exciting is that these songs are some of the best and most infectious they have written so far.
Influenced by that Sara records sound, Pains create songs that soar with such ease reminding you of being in the backseat of your best friends car with the window's down as you heard The Smiths playing for the first time. With the recent passing of John Hughes, these are the kind of songs you know he would have wanted to be on the soundtrack for a movie like The Breakfast Club or Pretty In Pink if they they been made today. So romantic and yearning and with a distinctly daydream spirit we've already fallen head over heels for. Another amazing set of songs from one of our favorite new bands!
The cd version comes with an extra track not on the vinyl which is a really cool remix of the title track by Saint Etienne.
MPEG Stream: "Higher Than The Stars"
MPEG Stream: "Falling Over"

PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART Higher Than The Stars (Slumberland) 12" 8.98
Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are responsible for one of our favorite albums of the year! Their debut full length which came out right at the beginning of 2009, was the sort of refreshing slab of pure pop bliss that we had been so starved for. It's a record that we still listen to with as much excitement and frequency as we did all those months ago. The way they are able to tap into that great dreamy '80s state of pop while still sounding so fresh and original has made it a record that's going to be on many of our year end favorite lists for sure.
So of course we were super excited to get a new ep from the Pains, they really are one of those rare bands that have made such an impact on us that just getting a handful of new songs from them is so damn exciting. What's even more exciting is that these songs are some of the best and most infectious they have written so far.
Influenced by that Sara records sound, Pains create songs that soar with such ease reminding you of being in the backseat of your best friends car with the window's down as you heard The Smiths playing for the first time. With the recent passing of John Hughes, these are the kind of songs you know he would have wanted to be on the soundtrack for a movie like The Breakfast Club or Pretty In Pink if they they been made today. So romantic and yearning and with a distinctly daydream spirit we've already fallen head over heels for. Another amazing set of songs from one of our favorite new bands!

MPEG Stream: "Higher Than The Stars"
MPEG Stream: "Falling Over"

PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART Jeremy / My Life Is Wrong (Slumberland) 7" 6.98
We were super excited when we first heard about this single, assuming of course that it was gonna be a cover of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy", but once we got over our initial disappointment (or not), we were still pretty psyched to discover, that it was in fact still a cover, but a Magnetic Fields cover, and as you might imagine, the song suits TPOBPAH's sound perfectly, so much so, that had we not been familiar with the original, we would not have doubted for a second that it could have been an Pains original. Jangly, and propulsive, bouncy and hooky as hell, the vox here are handled by one of the boys in Pains, even though the cover apparently has deep meaning for Pains vocalist Peggy Wang, who found solace as a teenager in the music of the Magnetic Fields.
The flipside is another cover, this one originally by East River Pipe, and another perfect choice, supercharging the original, wreathing it in wild swaths of distorted guitar, and sheets of feedback, a heavy heady chunk of shoegazey jangle pop, that definitely finds Pains at their most rocking, and also had us thinking we should dig out our old East River Pipes, which is precisely what the best covers should do...
MPEG Stream: "My Life Is Wrong"

PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART, THE Heart In Your Heartbreak (Slumberland) 7" 5.98
This gets us so excited for a new full length from Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, which we're hoping will grace our ears sometime MUCH sooner than later. These two songs are for sure up there with the band's most satisfying and addictive slabs of sweeping dream pop glory! "Heart In Your Heartbreak" sounds like a classic even the first time you hear it. Like the best of their songs it takes you to this place of carefree bliss, yet evokes memories filled with crashing waves, epic sunsets, and car-rides you hoped would last forever. The B side "The One", starts off with a rad Superchunk-like guitar riff and then mutates into a Creation records sort of sound which they have totally perfected and somehow made their very own.
Comes in a nice sturdy sleeve with beautiful cover art by Winston Chmielinski that was so immediately striking, it sent us in search of more of his work, realizing we had just discovered one of our new favorite artists!

PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART, THE s/t (Slumberland / Fortuna Pop) cd 12.98
Hey Slumberland, where have you been? It turns out that the Oakland label didn't disappear after a lengthy hiatus from 2000 to 2007; and we'll admit that we didn't take too much notice of what these indie-rock tastemakers had been doing as of late until they released the Crystal Stilts masterpiece Alight The Night. And, after that ecstatic burst of noise & bliss pop on the Crystal Stilts disc, Slumberland delivers another great record that, well, sounds exactly like a Slumberland record should. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart hail from Brooklyn, but they could have easily been any number of the bands spawned by the C86 revolution of indie-pop around the likes of the Pastels, Heavenly, and of course My Bloody Valentine (circa Ecstasy & Wine, mind you). Within the not-quite-shoegazing wall of sound, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart craft a brightly jangling set of tunes, some of which get anthemic and punchy with all of the panache of a great power pop number with boy/girl vocals crooning all sorts of "oooohs" and "aaahs", and others smacking of a sugary '60s bubblegum jingle with all of the softened edges that Alan McGee wanted in every Creation band around 1990. For all of the British references that make their way into the Pains, they really sound a hell of lot like so many of those bands that made Slumberland so great to begin with: The Lilys, Velocity Girl, and Black Tambourine. We're not complaining one bit!
MPEG Stream: "Contender"
MPEG Stream: "Come Saturday"
MPEG Stream: "Young Adult Friction"