HUMAN LEAGUE, THE Golden Hour Of The Future (Black Melody) 12" 12.98

HUMAN QUENA ORCHESTRA A Natural History of Failure (Handmade Birds) lp 17.98
NOW ON VINYL VIA HANDMADE BIRDS!! Here's the review we wrote when the cd version came out on Utech...
Part three in the Human Quena Orchestra's ever evolving sonic mission to create what could possibly be the darkest, and most intense post industrial metallic blacknoise EVER. Not like there's a lot of competition, and having worked our way now through all three records, even if there were any other outfits foolhardy to have a go at HQO, they'd most likely be dispatched in short order. As anyone who's heard either Means Without Ends or The Politics Of The Irredeemable can attest to. Easily, two of the bleakest, most abject and miserable collections of hellish hymns and burntblack dronescapes ever committed to tape. HQO's modus operandi is a combination of caustic black buzz, of pounding machine like percussion and howling anguished shrieked vokills, all wound tight into throbbing, churning, nightmarish chunks of jagged black filth, and crusty musical misanthropy. Think the usual suspects, Khanate, diSEMBOWELMENT, Winter, Skepticism, Esoteric, even Swans, and then tune it further down, slow it further down, pile on layer after layer of suffocating buzz, of oozing soul crushing low-end, and let it fester, and rot, and crumble and decay, and you'll begin to get close to the strange and sick soundworld of HQO.
A Natural History Of Failure finds HQO mastermind Ryan Unks, joined by a handful of likeminded volunteers, each adding their own secret ingredients to Unks' noxious brew, and weirdly enough, if anything, more players has not resulted in more sound, or more accurately, the sound itself does seem MORE, more dense, heavier, thicker, more filthy and fraught with emotional peril, but the songs, the structures, somehow seem even more minimal. The opening track is more a thick, pulsing drone, a dense layered funereal creep, the sounds burnt and blown out, a single riff slowed down to near static, and left to churn and chug in slow motion, while more and more buzz and thrum and hiss is piled on top, a sound so heavy and so dense, it seems constantly on the verge of collapse. The second track two is more drone than crush or pummel, beginning as a hushed distant throb, an impossibly deep low end that drifts beneath ethereal streaks of grey melody, processed voices, and textured whirs, the sound builds to a furious roil, only to settle back down into what sounds like a symphony of warped SUNNO))) records, being played simultaneously with the needle stuck in the runoff grooves. And so it continues, a warped tarpit drift, vocals only show up in track three, and even then, so low in the mix, they just sound like jagged shards of static, nearly suffocated by the heaving rumbles above.
The whole first half of the record is constant low end punishment, but part 5 is where it changes, a processed voice, stretched into a perpetual moan, a looped bit of human bred sonic texture, over a lumbering bit bit of low-end, soon subsumed by a dense cloud of corrosive hiss, of swirling white noise, which leads directly into the most minimal track on the record, a hushed minimal pulse, warm and languid, but still subtly menacing, laced with high end shimmer, and blurred tinkling melodies, leading you gently into a truly ominous and monstrous plod, a robotic pound, trudging along a series of deep buzzing swells, being slowly torn apart by some sort of static driven industrial grey noise demon, the sound rendered and recontextualized into a slowly stuttery field of deep whirs and jagged shards of crumbling static, before finally finishing off with a brief bit of muted beauty, again, the sound impossibly thick and heavy, but blurred into something almost shoegazey, but still grim and gorgeously hopeless.
MPEG Stream: "II"
MPEG Stream: "III"
MPEG Stream: "IV"
MPEG Stream: "V"

HUMAN QUENA ORCHESTRA Means Without Ends (Daft Alliance) cd 12.98
Various permutations of this disc have been floating around for a while, each in various states of completeness, but every one we'd heard sounded even better than the last. But this is the one, the final, finished product. The long in the works Human Quena Orchestra, the work of Ryan Unks, formerly of techgrind combo Creation Is Crucifixion, but don't be expecting grind, or even technicality, this all the way on the other side of the spectrum. Abject, filthy, pummeling, slow motion noise drenched doom. A plodding sonic monster, guitars, not just distorted, but treated and twisted into harsh, skin scraping, caustic slabs of sinister sound, a low end so thick, it's like dunking your head in a cement mixer, insane sounding drums, each snare crack like the recording of a million breaking windows, each kick drum the sound of a slowed down car wreck. And beneath it all, thick swells of black ambience, drifting and slithering, pulsing and swelling. A lurching, stumbling blackened doom dirge behemoth.
Think Swans, Godflesh, Pitchshifter, that sort of machinelike apocalyptic industrial pound, mixed with some funereal ultra doom a la Moss, Bunkur, etc., but filtered through a druggy psychedelia, with a minimal shimmery drone bent, that ends up sounding like a way more brutal, way more harsh, tripped out, psychedelic, industrial version of Jesu, that sort of blissed out sun baked vibe, but as if played by some misanthropic black metal horde, harsh blackened vocals, shrieking hysterically and growling demonically over the relentless amp melting metallic trudge. Every track is rife with layer after layer of undulating low end. Like being tossed about on a stormy sea, but instead of water, it's an endless expanse of roiling black sound waves, rumbling drones, and thick snarled streaks of throbbing bass.
The magic Of Unks' Human Quena Orchestra though is that this hellish harshness is balanced with a nearly equal amount of meditative ambience, long stretches of deep shimmer, and even some of the harshest tracks are tempered by the swirling low end drift lurking beneath. So brutally gorgeous. Definitely essential listening for fans of all the above mentioned outfits, as well as Monarch, Nadja, the Angelic Process, Fear Falls Burning, Skullflower, Abruptum, Monument Of Urns, Trollmann, Khanate, The Body and all our favorite purveyors of crumbling downtuned beauty and dreamy damaged doom.
Packaged in a gorgeous hand screened multiple panel fold over sleeve with super striking ADD style microscopic super detailed artwork.
MPEG Stream: "The Ballad Of Ayn Rand"
MPEG Stream: "Believer"
MPEG Stream: "To Eat One's Way From The Inside Out"

HUMAN TEENAGER Animal Husbandry (Spectrum Spools) lp 22.00

HUMAN TELEVISION Orange (Soft Abuse) cd ep 6.98
This is a bit of a surprise. From our pal Chris at Soft Abuse, who was responsible for the Fransciscan Hobbies' Masks And Meanings and more recently the Old Bombs Audios cd, comes the release of this 3 song ep from Human Television, another in the new breed of eighties pop/new wave revivalists. Channelling the Smiths, Modern English, Wire, Pere Ubu and the like, Human Television, make a glorious din not unlike Interpol, Stellastar* or the Moving Units. Good stuff, when's the full-length?
MPEG Stream: "Tell Me What You Want"

HUMAN ZOO, THE s/t (Cicadelic) cd 14.98

HUMIDIFIER Nothing Changes (Link) cd 13.98
Superchunk and Spent members get back to their roots.

HUNCHES Yes. No. Shut It. (In The Red) cd 13.98
Raw fucked up garage / punk by these Portland punks. Totally hectic and noisy. Their live shows are legendary for being wild and you can feel it when you listen to this. Draws comparison to Pussy Galore and the Saints. They even do a cover of the Electric Eels song "Accident", which is utter crazy noise. It's all total chaos. Not unlike their label mates The Horrors.
RealAudio clip: "Static Disaster"
RealAudio clip: "Explosion"

HUNDRED DOLLAR BAND Waves And Particles (Emperor Jones) cd 13.98

MPEG Stream: "Hope"
MPEG Stream: "Midnight Blue"

HUNDRED SIGHTS OF KOENJI (AKA KOENJIHYAKKEI) s/t (God Mountain) cd 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY. NOW AVAILABLE ON THE SKIN GRAFT LABEL DOMSTICALLY, THOUGH, SEE ELSEWHERE ON OUR SITE!
This amazing 1994 debut by Ruins side-project Koenjihyakkei (aka Hundred Sights of Koenji) is supposedly out of print, but miraculously back in stock! We're not sure if it's actually been repressed or if somebody just found a hidden cache of these in a warehouse somewhere, but either way we're happy (and suggest you get 'em while you can)!
If you're familiar with the Magma-obssessed Tokyo bass and drums duo Ruins, imagine them becoming EVEN MORE Magma-obsessed and adding female vocalist/keyboardist and a guitar player (actually, adding a bass player, as the Ruins bass player switched to guitar for this). This uber-Ruins quartet then wrote a bunch of insane, gorgeous prog rock tunes (or, in one case, adapted a traditional Bulgarian one) and play them to dazzling perfection. The French '70s prog band we keep mentioning (Magma) were insane, but not quite this heavy or hyper. If you like Ruins and/or Magma and/or weird prog music, you might want to get this if you haven't already. Probably the best of Koenjikhyakkei's three albums, which are all pretty cool ("II" being out of print still, though).
RealAudio clip: "Doi Doi"
RealAudio clip: "Yagonahh"
RealAudio clip: "Zhess"

HUNGRY GHOSTS Alone Alone (Smells Like) cd 13.98
A few lists back you might remember that we highlighted the elegant and moody solo 4-track recordings of J.P. Shilo. As we mentioned before, he had last been heard from in the late '90s with this group The Hungry Ghosts. Known as John Brooks during that time, he along with his two bandmates were responsible for one of the better and most overlooked records of the '90s. Sharing a similar sound and scope as their neighbors The Dirty Three, these are instrumentals that speak volumes about isolation, yearning, vastness and beauty. It makes you feel like you are out in an endless open field with Ennio Morricone carefully creating musical tension out on the horizon. The perfect late night driving record. Sweeping fender guitars, splashes of organ, fiddle, accordion and varied tuned percussion. A record that sounds just as Australian as it does like the old west or even Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian. Ten years later and Alone Alone still makes us freeze in our footsteps every time we hear it. Something so pure about its sadness, about its hope and about its beauty. Time has come for this record to get its well deserved moment in the spotlight!
MPEG Stream: "Alone Alone"
MPEG Stream: "Reading Your Mail"
MPEG Stream: "Interlude"

HUNTER, JANA Blank Unstaring Heirs Of Doom (Gnomonsong) cd 13.98
We caught a fleeting introductory glimpse of Ms Jana Hunter recently when she appeared on a split LP with Mr. Devendra Banhart. We were immediately struck by just how much her voice bore a striking resemblance to his. In fact, we had to double-check to make sure it was indeed her singing. Now on her own on this full length collection of her music from the past ten years (but still in the company of Banhart in other ways, this was released on the new label he runs with Andy Cabic of Vetiver), does that still hold true or was it simply a proximity issue? Well, we can say that although Ms Jana Hunter does occasionally affect a peculiarly familiar, charming lilt when she sings, she does sound quite a bit different (from both Banhart and herself on that split release), but not incongruously so. The first song "All The Best Wishes" has an aged recording sound that brings her closer to Jolie Holland in old tymey feel (this haunted, echo-y feel resurfaces later on in the tenth song "The Angle"), but her actual performance also recalls Cat Power's Chan Marshall in its achingly personal intimacy. Quite a first impression. Not at all unexpectedly, Blank Unstaring Heirs Of Doom nestles in well alongside the neo-folk works of Banhart, Holland, Vetiver, Cocorosie and Joanna Newsom... and Cat Power too. Be sure to stick around for the closing track "K". It's a casiotone-y sweetie!
MPEG Stream: "All The Best Wishes"
MPEG Stream: "K"

HUNTER, JANA Carrion (Gnomonsong) cd ep 8.98
A sweet little ep of three demo tracks from Jana Hunter's last full length, There Is No Home and three brand new tracks. It's nice to hear the older tracks in more stripped down and lo-fi form showcasing her agile songwriting abilities, while at the same time giving us a fix of new songs to pass the time before her next sure-to-be-wonderful full length.
MPEG Stream: "There's No Home (Demo)"
MPEG Stream: "Paint A Babe"

HUNTER, JANA Carrion (Woodsist) 12" 12.98
A sweet little ep of three demo tracks from Jana Hunter's last full length, There Is No Home and three brand new tracks. It's nice to hear the older tracks in more stripped down and lo-fi form showcasing her agile songwriting abilities, while at the same time giving us a fix of new songs to pass the time before her next sure-to-be-wonderful full length.
MPEG Stream: "There's No Home (Demo)"
MPEG Stream: "Paint A Babe"

HUNTER, JANA There's No Home (Gnomonsong) cd 13.98
This sophomore album for Gnomonsong shows Jana Hunter in fine form. Moving away from the folky 4-track recordings of her debut, the songs on There Is No Home have a catchier and more powerful indie rock feel to them yet without too much unnecessary polish. Sure the influence of older Cat Power (especially Dear Sir) and PJ Harvey is still evident, but it stills sounds fresh and maybe even better than what Cat Power is doing right now, so who can fault it. A lot of these wonderful songs stay stuck in our heads for days. Nice!
MPEG Stream: "Palms"
MPEG Stream: "Vultures"
MPEG Stream: "There's No Home"

HUNTER, JANA There's No Home (Gnomonsong) lp 13.98
This sophomore album for Gnomonsong shows Jana Hunter in fine form. Moving away from the folky 4-track recordings of her debut, the songs on There Is No Home have a catchier and more powerful indie rock feel to them yet without too much unnecessary polish. Sure the influence of older Cat Power (especially Dear Sir) and PJ Harvey is still evident, but it stills sounds fresh and maybe even better than what Cat Power is doing right now, so who can fault it. A lot of these wonderful songs stay stuck in our heads for days. Nice!
MPEG Stream: "Palms"
MPEG Stream: "Vultures"
MPEG Stream: "There's No Home"

HUNTSVILLE For The Middle Class (Rune Grammofon) cd 16.98

HUNX Hairdresser Blues (Hardly Art) cd 12.98

HUNX Hairdresser Blues (Hardly Art) lp 13.98

HUNX & HIS PUNX Gay Singles (True Panther) lp 11.98
As hard as we tried, we were never able to get in all the 7" singles that Hunx & His Punx released on labels like Bachelor, Shattered House, True Panther and Bubbledum, since Hunx began recording with his Punx while his other band Gravy Train! was on an indefinite hiatus. So we were so psyched to find that True Panther was compiling all those 7"s on a single lp, and since they're are all pretty much already out of print, so this might be your only chance to get all those tracks. Appropriately titled Gay Singles, the cover features an eye popping close up of a zebra stripe jockey clad crotch.
Hot on the heels of a long tour he's just embarked on supporting Jay Reatard, we're so excited that Hunx & His Punx gets to spread his amazingly flamboyant and sexy spirit and pure garage pop and punk perfection to a wider audience. A total student/lover of all things popular culture, Seth Bogart (aka Hunx) has become such a master of infusing his songs with playful and seductive themes, crafting killer pop jams, displaying plenty of tongue in cheek lyrics and a whole lot of skin, yet this is not just some kind of joke rock, as there is a really great understanding of true pop music, girl group sound and power pop and Ramones style punk rock. So damn catchy and loaded with innuendo and sex appeal that's sure to create a party anywhere and anytime these punx perform (or even just get blasted on your boombox!). So damn fun!

HUNX & HIS PUNX Too Young To Be In Love (Sub Pop) cd 11.98
With all the great music they've put out it's easy to forget that Hunx & His Punx had still not put out a proper full length until now. With Too Young To Be In Love, Hunx shows he's not just good only for singles but that he can keep the momentum up and fun flowing for a whole full length record. His love of girl groups shines so bright in these songs as you can hear how the sounds of The Crystals, The Shangri Las, and The Ronettes are given such respect as they are channeled through a gay punk's point of view. With great back-up vocals from some fine ladies including Shannon from Shannon & The Clams, this is a record that gives you all the hand claps, high energy, and tales of heartbreak that you want in a great pop record. "The Curse Of Being Young" might just be Hunx's finest song yet as it for sure will be a contender for favorite pop song of the year, and luckily everything else on the album stands near that level of pop excellence.
MPEG Stream: "Lovers Lane"
MPEG Stream: "He's Coming Back"

HUNX & HIS PUNX Too Young To Be In Love (Sub Pop) lp 13.98
With all the great music they've put out it's easy to forget that Hunx & His Punx had still not put out a proper full length until now. With Too Young To Be In Love, Hunx shows he's not just good only for singles but that he can keep the momentum up and fun flowing for a whole full length record. His love of girl groups shines so bright in these songs as you can hear how the sounds of The Crystals, The Shangri Las, and The Ronettes are given such respect as they are channeled through a gay punk's point of view. With great back-up vocals from some fine ladies including Shannon from Shannon & The Clams, this is a record that gives you all the hand claps, high energy, and tales of heartbreak that you want in a great pop record. "The Curse Of Being Young" might just be Hunx's finest song yet as it for sure will be a contender for favorite pop song of the year, and luckily everything else on the album stands near that level of pop excellence.
MPEG Stream: "Lovers Lane"
MPEG Stream: "He's Coming Back"

HUNX & HIS PUNX Too Young To Be In Love (Burger) cassette 11.98
Hunx' recent Sub Pop release, now on... cassette!?!!? Yep.
With all the great music they've put out it's easy to forget that Hunx & His Punx had still not put out a proper full length until now. With Too Young To Be In Love, Hunx shows he's not just good only for singles but that he can keep the momentum up and fun flowing for a whole full length record. His love of girl groups shines so bright in these songs as you can hear how the sounds of The Crystals, The Shangri Las, and The Ronettes are given such respect as they are channeled through a gay punk's point of view. With great back-up vocals from some fine ladies including Shannon from Shannon & The Clams, this is a record that gives you all the hand claps, high energy, and tales of heartbreak that you want in a great pop record. "The Curse Of Being Young" might just be Hunx's finest song yet as it for sure will be a contender for favorite pop song of the year, and luckily everything else on the album stands near that level of pop excellence.
MPEG Stream: "Lovers Lane"
MPEG Stream: "He's Coming Back"

HUNX AND HIS PUNX Gay Singles (True Panther Sounds) cd 13.98
Yay! Now on cd, this previously vinyl-only collection from last year, here's what we wrote about that, then:
As hard as we tried, we were never able to get in all the 7" singles that Hunx & His Punx released on labels like Bachelor, Shattered House, True Panther and Bubbledum, since Hunx began recording with his Punx while his other band Gravy Train! was on an indefinite hiatus. So we were so psyched to find that True Panther was compiling all those 7"s on a single lp, and since they're are all pretty much already out of print, so this might be your only chance to get all those tracks. Appropriately titled Gay Singles, the cover features an eye popping close up of a zebra stripe jockey clad crotch.
Hot on the heels of a long tour he's just embarked on supporting Jay Reatard, we're so excited that Hunx & His Punx gets to spread his amazingly flamboyant and sexy spirit and pure garage pop and punk perfection to a wider audience. A total student/lover of all things popular culture, Seth Bogart (aka Hunx) has become such a master of infusing his songs with playful and seductive themes, crafting killer pop jams, displaying plenty of tongue in cheek lyrics and a whole lot of skin, yet this is not just some kind of joke rock, as there is a really great understanding of true pop music, girl group sound and power pop and Ramones style punk rock. So damn catchy and loaded with innuendo and sex appeal that's sure to create a party anywhere and anytime these punx perform (or even just get blasted on your boombox!). So damn fun!
MPEG Stream: "You Don't Like Rock N Roll"
MPEG Stream: "Cruising"
MPEG Stream: "Teardrops On My Telephone"

HUNX AND HIS PUNX Teardrops On My Telephone (Shattered Records) 7" 6.98
Oohh la la! Hunx made his first colorful and sassy splash as a member of ultra fun Kill Rock Stars outfit Gravy Train, but in fact he's been contributing to D.I.Y culture ever since he was a young teenager making some of the most amusing and amazing zines we've ever read (if you are ever lucky enough to find his zine about Applebees by all means grab it!).
While it seems that Gravy Train have gone on hiatus, that break has spawned two awesome offshoots as Chunx (Brontez) started his own scrappy garage pop project The Younger Lovers and Hunx has been blasting out saucy, catchy and irresistible bedroom garage pop gems of his own with his new project Hunx And His Punx. Taking inspiration from girl groups, John Waters films and a hot vintage queer aesthetic complete with unzipped black leather jackets and lots of skin, Hunx is truly one of the few out and proud folks making waves in what was until recently a really stale garage pop scene. But wow has that changed in the last year or two as folks like Brilliant Colors, Wavves, Ty Segall, Dum Dum Girls, and more have injected much needed heaps of fresh energy and wild vibes into the scene. Hunx And His Punx lean much more towards the bubble gum side of garage pop in the best way. Kind of like if a young Fred Schneider jammed out Ronettes covers. "Teardrops On My Telephone" could have been the perfect soundtrack to one of those early Kenneth Anger short films. While others who try to inject humor and sass into their pop usually fall so flat, Hunx has the ability to make songs that are as charmingly goofy as they are catchy.
We slept on the now way out of print and wonderfully scandalous scratch and sniff 7" so grab one of these before they too are gone for good.

HURDY GURDY s/t (Akarma) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This trio of Danish freaks delved into the psychedelic, progressive styles of the day (1971) to produce this underground hard rock artifact, now reissued via Akarma in one of their trademark gatefold cd sleeves, like a minature version of the original vinyl packaging. Hurdy Gurdy were a "heavy" band, in the '60s sense -- there's more Hendrix than Black Sabbath here. Their repertoire is quite varied/inconsistent, from catchy vocal numbers to convoluted hard rockin' instrumentals. One track is a great, folky sitar-driven rock raga a la the Incredible String Band, but others are Cream-y electric blues numbers. All boast suitably far-out lyrix. File with Captain Beyond, Toad, High Tide, and similar hard rock obscurities of the era.
RealAudio clip: "The Giant"
RealAudio clip: "Peaceful Open Space"

HURL We Are Quite In This Room (My Pal God) cd 11.98
Intricate imploded almost-emo from Pittsburg.

HURL We Are Quite In This Room (My Pal God) lp 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Intricate imploded almost-emo from Pittsburg.

HURLEY, MICHAEL Fatboy Spring (Mississippi) lp 14.98

HURLEY, MICHAEL Have Moicy! (Light In The Attic) lp 21.00

HUSBANDS Daniel b/w You Need Hands (Blue Bus) 7" 3.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Stompin', rockin' new 45 rpm blast of grit and groove from the fabulous trio of Sarah, Sadie, and Nikki aka The Husbands, San Francisco's latest and most successful export in the marketplace of hot female retro garage bands that like to party with vampire zombies. Sides A & B are both raucous originals, fast and fun ones that you'll be flippin' over and over again.

HUSBANDS, THE Introducing the Sounds of... (Swami) cd 14.98
Finally! The debut album from local garage rock trio The Husbands -- a band that just happens to feature AQ's beloved Sadie Shaw on guitar, maracas and backup vocals. In fact it's all girls on this record, though they've got a boy playing added percussion on stage with 'em now. In addition to Sadie's fabulousness there's the authentic, so-appropriate voice of Sarah Reed -- sexily raspy from whiskey and cigarettes, but she still hits the notes, the girl can sing; and then there's the rhythmic pound of drummer Nikki Sloate. This fierce, all-attitude band is really into rockin', with a deep love for and knowledge of their '60s inspirations / source material. Half the songs are well chosen covers that get the rough 'n raw Husbands treatment -- tunes by Half Pint and the Fifths, The Barbarians, Carole King, even a punk-energized version of Bo Diddley's "Cadillac". Definitely a super-fun live band (go see 'em if you get the chance, which you probably will 'cause they're so hard workin') who've managed to capture their energy and attitude on this lil' round disc.
MPEG Stream: "Orphan Boy"
MPEG Stream: "Dirty Mouth"

HUSBANDS, THE Introducing the Sounds of... (Swami) lp 10.98
Finally! The debut album from local garage rock trio The Husbands -- a band that just happens to feature AQ's beloved Sadie Shaw on guitar, maracas and backup vocals. In fact it's all girls on this record, though they've got a boy playing added percussion on stage with 'em now. In addition to Sadie's fabulousness there's the authentic, so-appropriate voice of Sarah Reed -- sexily raspy from whiskey and cigarettes, but she still hits the notes, the girl can sing; and then there's the rhythmic pound of drummer Nikki Sloate. This fierce, all-attitude band is really into rockin', with a deep love for and knowledge of their '60s inspirations / source material. Half the songs are well chosen covers that get the rough 'n raw Husbands treatment -- tunes by Half Pint and the Fifths, The Barbarians, Carole King, even a punk-energized version of Bo Diddley's "Cadillac". Definitely a super-fun live band (go see 'em if you get the chance, which you probably will 'cause they're so hard workin') who've managed to capture their energy and attitude on this lil' round disc.

HUSBANDS, THE There's Nothing I'd Like More Than To See You Dead (Swami) cd 14.98
Wow, what a difference a few years make! Since their debut album in 2003, The Husbands have endured a seemingly non-stop revolving door on the drummer seat, finally lockin' in with Ms Casey Ward (of Weakling and The Lies) for this album. In that time the gals also spent a stretch expanding their vocal repertoire with awesome sassy results. The results are a much tighter, tuneful Husbands. Most notable is the occasionally very '60s girl group style singing which serves as a nice counterpart to their former predominantly snarky vocal cord shredding fury. That by no means is any indication that this SF garage rock trio has softened up. Sadie, Sarah and Casey will still kick your ass 'round the block with their music (and we'd bet they'd do so literally too if you wrong 'em!). All members share in multiple instrument duties and are joined by such guests as Dan Sartain, Russell Quan (of countless garage rawk combos), and Trans Am's Phil Manley. Seventeen short'n'sweet party-ready tunes (only one of which exceeds the three minute mark!).
MPEG Stream: "Tell Me Your Love Is Only Mine"
MPEG Stream: "Cut Me Loose"

HUSH ARBORS s/t (Ecstatic Peace) cd 11.98
In the past Keith Wood has released all kinds of material under the Hush Arbors moniker, so we had no idea what to expect from this new record on Ecstatic Peace. Turns out it's a seriously awesome album of psych folk psychosis! It really grew on us, the perfect album to play in the store. With a simple charm that totally hinges on catchy, rootsy guitar licks and soft, falsetto vocals that are ever-so effective in completely captivating. Slipping between quietly sung finger picked ballads and rowdy full-band jammers, these are the kind of songs that stay in your head longer than you'd like, but you don't mind because they're awesome. Wood and his partner, Leon Dufficy, have conjured a magical release that falls somewhere between a forested acoustic ritual and a boozed up, barn burning hoedown. Wood's somber songwriting is clever and touching, combining the tenderness of Neil Young with the atmospheric obscurity of Six Organs (Ben Chasny even makes an appearance on the second track!). Very cool! Complete with a beautifully collaged cover featuring a picture of the man himself. Needless to say, don't miss out, this is highly recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Follow Closely"
MPEG Stream: "Rue Hollow"

HUSH ARBORS Since We Have Fallen (Harvest Recordings) lp 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Back in stock for a split second. Managed to get a few more copies...
Quite possibly one of the nicest lp packages we have seen. Definitely top 10. Hard to even know how to describe it. You sort of have to hold int and unfold it and feel the texture and the heft. Wow. Thick textured cardstock, fastened all over with black rivets, the whole thing embossed and letterpressed with black ink, abstract designs and very classy looking calligraphy, the back is die cut about half way down, so it opens like a barn door, split down the middle, held shut by black string, once opened, it reveals the 180 gram lp nestled inside as well as still more embossed design and text. So gorgeous.
And the music is definitely deserving of such over the top extra attention. A reissue of a long out of print cd-r, Hush Arbors explore a dark murky side of their soul, a drifting cloudy otherworld of soft freefolk bliss, flecked with all manner of detuned guitars, warped melodies, creaking percussive clatter, shimmery effervescence, but with a definite ominous edge, a lo-fi Third eye Foundation recording for Siltbreeze maybe? But with more twang, and more shuffle, and more delicate dreaminess. So nice.
An essential dreamfolk / free folk / folknoise / dronetwang artifact beautifully preserved and offered up again for a very limited time.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES. Each copy hand numbered, we got a bunch but these definitely won't last.

HUSH ARBORS Under Bent Limb Trees (Digitalis) cd 11.98

MPEG Stream: "The Forest We've Been"
MPEG Stream: "Wooded Reel"

HUSH ARBORS Yankee Reality (Ecstatic Peace) cd 10.98
On their second outing as a fully realized band (as distinguished from Keith Wood's solo foresty folk experimentalism of their earlier Digitalis releases), Hush Arbors are quickly becoming the band to watch! Produced by J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., their combination of bucolic psych-rock and strong rootsy songs tread a similar path to many of the bands currently on the Sub Pop roster but thankfully avoid all the sensitive dude pitfalls many of those bands suffer. Mascis's presence is definitely felt in the shoegazey guitar work of the final track, "Devil Made You High" but it's Wood's strong falsetto delivery that moves the songs into all the right places. Like a more driving Six Organs, Yankee Reality is just as satisfying as their last self-titled release for Ecstatic Peace. Keep 'em coming!
MPEG Stream: "Day Before"
MPEG Stream: "Fast Asleep"
MPEG Stream: "Devil Made You High"

HUSH ARBORS / ARBOURETUM Aureola (Thrill Jockey) cd 15.98

HUSH ARBORS / ARBOURETUM Aureola (Thrill Jockey) lp 15.98

HUXTABLES, THE s/t (self-released) cdr + dvdr + zine 5.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Back in stock!
A synopsis of this self-titled debut by The Huxtables themselves: "In the beginning, there were two sweaters, a drum sweater and a guitar sweater. We attempted to win but lost a battle of the bands at our high school. At that point, we finally became a real family. Of course the guitar and drums are the parents and the drawings, video, bass and keyboards are the kids, uncles and aunts. On this recording, half of its songs are from a small concrete closet in Washington DC. At one point the closet was storage space for an up-right bass. We finished the album in a kitchen in Boston while in a tussle with the police. What they did to us in that kitchen forced us to become a collective notion and stop being a band. New songs are being worked out and the collective's future album will be called The Mere Pressure Of My Hand." The Huxtables are two 17 year old boys from New York who make art and music that's noisy, naive, raw and a little bit silly. But awesome and fun!
MPEG Stream: "Dragonfly Society"
MPEG Stream: "Nothing Can Stop Us Now"

HWYL NOFIO Hounded By Fury (Hwyl Nofio) cd 15.98
There are always gonna be special bands, the ones that hold a unique place in your heart. That band you heard when you were on a trip. The band you have loved since the first time you heard them. The band whose songs featured heavily on that mix tape. And then any variation of the 'first' band, the band whose show you were at the first time you got drunk, laid, high, the night you met 'the one', then there's the band whose songs are always stuck in your head, the first -any genre here- band you ever liked, the band that helped you make it through that breakup / rehab / depression / that tough time in your life. But then there's the sort of band you have that weird protective proprietary selfish love for. The band only you like. The band you don't want everyone else listening to. The band you discovered and only you truly love. You know what we mean. It's a rare band that can inspire that sort of love and dedication. Well, we're a little embarrassed to admit it, but we sort of felt that way about Hwyl Nofio. A friend in the UK turned us on to them years back, and from the moment we first laid ears on them, we were smitten, obsessed even. This mysterious outfit crafting these dark and ominous worlds of strange and beautiful sound. It was hard to not keep it all to ourselves, this dark cave of sound that we could explore and call our own. But we like to think we've outgrown that sort of stuff, since we get as much satisfaction from turning other folks on to new music as we do discovering it for ourselves. More so in most cases. But it definitely speaks to the power of Hwyl Nofio, and the effect of their murky and mysterious music has on our ears, and brains, and hearts and souls.
Hounded By Fury is record number four from this UK drone outfit. The band is mostly the work of one man, Steve Parry, who handles the bulk of the sound making, utilizing all manner of guitars: strummed, plucked, bowed, adapted and otherwise, ukulele, piano, organs: church and otherwise, viola, bass and electronics, while a series of guests add their two cents with saxophone, Chinese guzheng, acoustic guitar processing, imagined banjo (?) and midi fractal image converter (!). Recorded at various locations including an old church Hounded By Fury is a definitely a drone record at its heart, but it's what the band do with those drones that makes Hwyl Nofio so special.
The sound this time around is a bit more ominous than on past outings. There's more scraping and scrabbling steel strings, a sort of grinding industrial screech that surfaces in some form or another on many of the tracks, sometimes right up front, a keening high end wail, sometimes just another element in a multilayered droneworld, subtly blended into a slow sleepy swirl with thee rest of the sounds.
The opening track is the former, with steel strings singing as they are scraped and scratched, a shrill screech stretched taut over a warm reverberant low end, strange tinkling wooden chimes and twinkling music box melodies, while in the background a moaning mournful melody, strummed softly so that the strums blend together. From that point on, it's a slow journey through a nighttime world of slow burn jazz minimalism a la Bohren, buzzing raga like rumble, and abstract ambient flutter. Layers of bowed strings sit atop minimal pulsing rhythms, a minimal throb usually constructed from one or two notes, long sustaining tones are stretched out side by side, the overtones shimmering and shifting, the resulting soundfield like drifting along some alien river, staring at a sky full of different stars, a head full of strange and unrecognizable sounds. Bizarre disembodied jangle is stripped of melody, until it's just a warm ridged texture, atonal Jandekian guitar figures warped and twisted, slowed down and sped up, sprinkled with cymbal sizzle and muted reverb ricochets, all stretched and twisted into various forms of drone.
One of the most intense tracks is "Child Woman", a choral sounding minor key lament, deep dark strings and mournful melodies, almost traditional settled as it is amidst an album of abstract experimental drone music., but very emotional and cinematic. It seems like a turning point for the record too as the next few tracks sound downright sunny, bright colors replace the dark, guitars twang, a trippy tangled slow motion free folk, the melodies not so dour, but the sunshine soon dims as black clouds fill the sky and timestretched metallic reverberations fill our ears like a million alarm clocks going off at once and then slowed down into a wall of alien trills, the mood shift is further enforced by some super sharp atonal guitars, swooping dizzily about, sounding a bit like the guitars on the Butthole Surfers' Hairway To Steven record, sort of damaged and deranged. But then the record's coda brings us back to Hwyl's soft shimmer, the delicate drone, a haunting ghostlike swoon, fuzzy and gauzey, obscured by falling rain, a dreamy drift into the void, a slow sad slide into the bright white, the pitch black left far behind.
MPEG Stream: "Living In Shadows"
MPEG Stream: "Sanctify"
MPEG Stream: "Riding The Echoes Of A Strange Situation"

HYLOZOISTS Fin Du Monde (Boompa) cd 14.98
We weren't really sure to expect from this band. We were sort of taking a chance on the cool name, the striking cover and the sticker that explained that Hylozoists were in fact a 10 piece ensemble including vibraphones, double drums, organ, piano, strings, glockenspiel, flugelhorn, brass, pedal steel and more... Wow. How could we not be smitten already? Without even having heard it. Thankfully, it's just as cool as we hoped. Obvious points of reference are Stereolab, the Coctails, Neu!, Japancakes, Rachel's. Calexico, even Godspeed! You Black Emperor. Lilting dreamy chamber pop, lush and languorous, a little bit cocktail jazz, a little exotica, some krautrock groove, a bit of twang, some slow burning moodiness, some spaghetti Western campiness, some effervescent pop. A glorious and playful, propulsive indie-chamber-pop chamber epic postrock record for sure. Some sweet female vocals surface in the middle of the record, but for the most part this is all instrumental, and all dreamy and divine.
Featuring members of the Weakerthans, Broken Social Scene, Fembots and Final Fantasy.
MPEG Stream: "The Fifty Minute Hour"
MPEG Stream: "Elementary Particles"

HYPE WILLIAMS One Nation (Hippos In Tanks) lp 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
New mysterious lp from the equally mysterious duo, Hype Williams. Housed in a blank white 12" sleeve with a blank white label and white vinyl and no identifying information whatsoever, except for a sticker on the shrink wrap. Hell, it took us awhile to even figure out what speed it's supposed to play at and we're still not really sure. Crackly and hollowed out synth washes and bouncy but distant drum machines play in deceptively basic minimal-funk pitch-shifted arrangements that slowly wooze and morph into dreamy soul refractions. Hazy and murky like their witch-house contemporaries would be good descriptors, but it's much more of a hot muddled electro mess than spindly goth horror daydream. Dam-Funk on Nyquil, perhaps? Supposedly these songs have titles, but there is no listing, maybe if we slavishly followed the blogs, we might have a clue, but it's hard to tell where one track ends and another one starts. We don't even know which is side one or two. Hype Williams may revel in their particular brand of confounding prankishness and seem not to care if you are in on their joke or not, but if their output wasn't so curiously intriguing, we might have not given this a second thought. Truth be told, we can't stop trying to wrap our heads around it, so that's gotta be something, right?

HYPOMANIE A City In Mono (Sun & Moon / Valse Sinistre) cd 13.98
Here's another band for all those folks freaking over the blissed out post black metal jangle pop of groups like Alcest, Amesoeurs, Les Discrets, Sleeping Peonies and all the rest. This Dutch one man band began life as something much more black and grim, but gradually shed all of that as the sound drifted toward something way more shoegazey and poppy.
And that's essentially what this is, a shoegaze record, a fuzzed out dream pop record, albeit one with buzzing brittle guitars, occasional squalls of frenzied fast picking, and once-in-a-while blast beats, and any of the elements that would normally go toward creating a grim black buzz, are transformed into a prismatic psychedelic shimmer, a fuzzy, a blissed out shoegaze buzz equal parts super sunny jangle pop and slow building instrumental crystalline post rock, soaring and epic and emotional, oozing with glistening melodic shimmer, wreathed in warm sonic swirls. If we had to pick one band to compare Hypomanie to, it would probably be Slowdive, a sort of blackened post rock Slowdive, but that same sort of wistful melancholia, and epic shoegazey swells, not to mention the occasional sweeping string like synths. There's also a huge Jesu vibe in the guitar tone and the epic crescendos (which also remind us of M83), and there's a strange looped vibe to many of the tracks, as if the songs were constructed and assembled, which gives the whole thing a dizzying, alien feel, which certainly suits the strange dreamlike sounds. And throughout the record, there are definitely some subtle hints of Hypomanie's black metal roots, in the buzzing guitars, the tremelo picking, the strange production, and here and there, the sound does actually explode into some serious black metal, like the closing bit of the opening track, which bursts into some furious soaring frenzied buzzing, anchored to some double kick driven blast beats, but even then it's all kaleidoscopic and dreamy, the blasting drums buried in the lush sonic swirl, a sound so epic and cinematic and fantastically grandiose. Gorgeous stuff for sure, and ANYone into the post black metal jangle pop usual suspects (mentioned above), will definitely dig this big time.
MPEG Stream: "You Never Gazed At The Clouds"
MPEG Stream: "She Couldn't Find A Flower, But There Was Snow"

HYPOMANIE Calm Down, You Weren't Set On Fire (Valse Sinistre) cd 13.98
The latest from this Dutch one man shoegaze black metal band, whose A City In Mono record was a big hit around here, with it's fuzzed out dream poppiness and weirdly looped sounding construction. Well if anything, on Calm Down, You Weren't Set On Fire it's gotten even harder to refer to Hypomanie as a black metal band, no matter how much you qualify it, any black buzz here is wreathed in prismatic swaths of sun dappled shimmer, the soaring guitars are processed to the point that they almost sound like horns and the programmed drums aren't driving as much as they are textural. Utterly blissed out and airy, fuzzy and dreamily soft focus, even when the sound is in fact blasting, the blast seems to be floating heavenward, in a cloud of blurred chordal thrum and majestic bleary eyed shimmer. But the band spend relatively little time bliss-blasting, instead unfurling long expanses of jangly shimmer, and post rocky dream poppy lope. And on tracks like "Alissa Loves Perfume", while the band do rock, all driving and intense, with the guitars super distorted to the point that they seem to crumble, it doesn't make it sound heavy at all, just fantastically produced and poppy, making us think of a more home brewed M83, which is not a bad thing at all, in fact, we've been listening to this like crazy. It's just that for all intents and purposes, Hypomanie are not a metal band, they are instead a heavy shoegaze dream pop band, and a really good one, the songs here super catchy, and almost soundtracky at times, the sort of jams you can imagine would be on the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, if he was making Sixteen Candles in 2012. Fans of M83, Phoenix, Craft Spells, Beach House, and yeah okay, Alcest, Amesoeurs, Les Discrets and the like.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!!
MPEG Stream: "19 Stars And The Sweet Smell Of Cinnamon"
MPEG Stream: "Alissa Loves Perfume"
MPEG Stream: "Pale Blue"

HYUN, SHIN JOONG Beautiful Rivers And Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound Of South Korea's Shin Joong Hyun 1958-1974 (Light In The Attic) cd 15.98
Wow, we've been waiting for someone to tell the definitive story behind one of Korea's most influential but sadly obscure guitarists and bandleaders. How influential? Well, Fender Guitars has recently made the 72 year old psych-rock veteran his own Custom Shop Tribute Series Guitar - the sixth one ever, after Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen. How obscure?
Well, every past review in which we've ever mentioned him, his name has had a slightly different spelling. We couldn't find much written about him except that he was considered the "Godfather of Korean Rock". His signature song, the 18 minute epic, "Beautiful Rivers And Mountains" has been featured on two other releases we reviewed but with different titles and lengths. An edited version closed the Asian installment of the Love, Peace and Poetry series under the title, "Korean Title A2" by Jung Hyun and The Men, and the Shin Jung Hyun and The Men cd we listed in the past, credits the song as "Beautiful Country", at least that one had the full length version.
The edited 10 minute version is featured here too, but it's understandable given that this is a compilation that highlights how multifaceted his career has been through this fertile 16-year period, often playing behind singers who got top billing (Kim Sun, Kim Jung Mi, Jang Hyun and Lee Jung Hwa) or in a variety of Ga-yo (pop-rock) groups (Golden Grapes, ADD4, Bloozetet, Club Date, The Donkeys, etc.), But Shin Joong Hyun's signature guitar style, moody and soulful, but with a fuzzy, distorted grooviness, is evident throughout. What's even more amazing is Hyun's arranging skills, often augmenting his guitar sound with trippy psych organ and big booming drum tones (check out the opening break on "The Man Who Must Leave" to see what we mean).
Hyun got his start in the late fifties when he found lucrative work playing on American army bases after the Korean War. The opening track "Moon Watching" is from that period. It also afforded him the opportunity to stretch out stylistically away from the Korean traditional pop sound, into more western influenced pop, R&B and psychedelic styles. But while Hyun's songwriting and arranging is often hook-inflected and groovy, there is a serious soulfulness to the songs that give them a powerful melancholic quality. For instance, Kim Jung Mi's "The Sun" sounds like a song Galaxie 500 might have ripped off and made their own (maybe they did?). Jang Hyun's "Sunset" could have easily been featured on that Forge Your Own Chains comp of Heavy Dirges we raved about recently too (Oops, that's because it is on there, under the name "Twilight"!). As Hyun's career hit the seventies, he was more interested in expanding his guitar sound with his band and moving away from the shorter poppier numbers of his sixties past. "'J' Blues 72" is the longest track on here at 15 minutes and it's all just fuzzy acid-groove freakout.
But it's the title track here that takes the prize for most amazing song. One of our favorite Asian psych tracks ever, it's really interesting to hear the incredible story behind it, as it was sadly the song that led to Hyun's professional undoing and to the beginning of a seven year forced musical exile. It turns out a representative of the corrupt leader of South Korea, Park Jung-hee, called upon Hyun to write a song about him, but he refused. The leader than asked him to write a song about the government and Hyun refused again. So perplexed and understandably, a bit paranoid about the exchange, Hyun retreated and wrote his own song about his feelings toward his country and brought it to his band to record. Since it was an eighteen minute song recorded live, the process of recording was unusually grueling, because if any mistakes were made, the band had to start over. Getting it onto a release was difficult as well because of its length but was eventually added to the B side of the singer Jang Hyun's album, originally called Jang Hyun and The Men which Shin Hyun later renamed Shin Jung Hyun and The Men (which is why we figure there have been many different names of the song and credits). Finally having it recorded, Hyun had the opportunity to perform it on TV. The song, with its simple depictions of how Korea is made up of beautiful nature and people, angered the leader and led to a subsequent country-wide musical ban, and years of interrogation, probation and oppression, until the leader's eventual assassination in 1979. Shin Joong Hyun's return to music after this period has been slow and much more low-key.
Light In The Attic has done a tremendous job compiling these tracks and doing the research into Hyun's topsy-turvy life and career, even getting the man himself to annotate all the recordings with his own personal stories of how they came to be made. With a 40 page full color booklet with photos of record covers and all of the great pop acts Hyun worked with over the period. This is not just a great document of an amazing musician, but a great view into the sixties and seventies pop-world of a little documented region of Asian music. Fans of other old and new Asian psych we love like He 6, San Ul Lim, Korean Black Eyes, Mops, Acid Mothers Temple, Up-Tight, Onna, and Satoshi Sonoda will find much to love here. Highest Recommendation!
MPEG Stream: "Beautiful Rivers And Mountains"
MPEG Stream: " Sunset"
MPEG Stream: "The Sun"
MPEG Stream: "The Man Who Must Leave"
MPEG Stream: "I've Got Nothing To Say"

HYUN, SHIN JOONG Beautiful Rivers And Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound Of South Korea's Shin Joong Hyun 1958-1974 (Light In The Attic) 2lp 26.00
Wow, we've been waiting for someone to tell the definitive story behind one of Korea's most influential but sadly obscure guitarists and bandleaders. How influential? Well, Fender Guitars has recently made the 72 year old psych-rock veteran his own Custom Shop Tribute Series Guitar - the sixth one ever, after Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen. How obscure?
Well, every past review in which we've ever mentioned him, his name has had a slightly different spelling. We couldn't find much written about him except that he was considered the "Godfather of Korean Rock". His signature song, the 18 minute epic, "Beautiful Rivers And Mountains" has been featured on two other releases we reviewed but with different titles and lengths. An edited version closed the Asian installment of the Love, Peace and Poetry series under the title, "Korean Title A2" by Jung Hyun and The Men, and the Shin Jung Hyun and The Men cd we listed in the past, credits the song as "Beautiful Country", at least that one had the full length version.
The edited 10 minute version is featured here too, but it's understandable given that this is a compilation that highlights how multifaceted his career has been through this fertile 16-year period, often playing behind singers who got top billing (Kim Sun, Kim Jung Mi, Jang Hyun and Lee Jung Hwa) or in a variety of Ga-yo (pop-rock) groups (Golden Grapes, ADD4, Bloozetet, Club Date, The Donkeys, etc.), But Shin Joong Hyun's signature guitar style, moody and soulful, but with a fuzzy, distorted grooviness, is evident throughout. What's even more amazing is Hyun's arranging skills, often augmenting his guitar sound with trippy psych organ and big booming drum tones (check out the opening break on "The Man Who Must Leave" to see what we mean).
Hyun got his start in the late fifties when he found lucrative work playing on American army bases after the Korean War. The opening track "Moon Watching" is from that period. It also afforded him the opportunity to stretch out stylistically away from the Korean traditional pop sound, into more western influenced pop, R&B and psychedelic styles. But while Hyun's songwriting and arranging is often hook-inflected and groovy, there is a serious soulfulness to the songs that give them a powerful melancholic quality. For instance, Kim Jung Mi's "The Sun" sounds like a song Galaxie 500 might have ripped off and made their own (maybe they did?). Jang Hyun's "Sunset" could have easily been featured on that Forge Your Own Chains comp of Heavy Dirges we raved about recently too (Oops, that's because it is on there, under the name "Twilight"!). As Hyun's career hit the seventies, he was more interested in expanding his guitar sound with his band and moving away from the shorter poppier numbers of his sixties past. "'J' Blues 72" is the longest track on here at 15 minutes and it's all just fuzzy acid-groove freakout.
But it's the title track here that takes the prize for most amazing song. One of our favorite Asian psych tracks ever, it's really interesting to hear the incredible story behind it, as it was sadly the song that led to Hyun's professional undoing and to the beginning of a seven year forced musical exile. It turns out a representative of the corrupt leader of South Korea, Park Jung-hee, called upon Hyun to write a song about him, but he refused. The leader than asked him to write a song about the government and Hyun refused again. So perplexed and understandably, a bit paranoid about the exchange, Hyun retreated and wrote his own song about his feelings toward his country and brought it to his band to record. Since it was an eighteen minute song recorded live, the process of recording was unusually grueling, because if any mistakes were made, the band had to start over. Getting it onto a release was difficult as well because of its length but was eventually added to the B side of the singer Jang Hyun's album, originally called Jang Hyun and The Men which Shin Hyun later renamed Shin Jung Hyun and The Men (which is why we figure there have been many different names of the song and credits). Finally having it recorded, Hyun had the opportunity to perform it on TV. The song, with its simple depictions of how Korea is made up of beautiful nature and people, angered the leader and led to a subsequent country-wide musical ban, and years of interrogation, probation and oppression, until the leader's eventual assassination in 1979. Shin Joong Hyun's return to music after this period has been slow and much more low-key.
Light In The Attic has done a tremendous job compiling these tracks and doing the research into Hyun's topsy-turvy life and career, even getting the man himself to annotate all the recordings with his own personal stories of how they came to be made. With a 40 page full color booklet with photos of record covers and all of the great pop acts Hyun worked with over the period. This is not just a great document of an amazing musician, but a great view into the sixties and seventies pop-world of a little documented region of Asian music. Fans of other old and new Asian psych we love like He 6, San Ul Lim, Korean Black Eyes, Mops, Acid Mothers Temple, Up-Tight, Onna, and Satoshi Sonoda will find much to love here. Highest Recommendation!
MPEG Stream: "Beautiful Rivers And Mountains"
MPEG Stream: " Sunset"
MPEG Stream: "The Sun"
MPEG Stream: "The Man Who Must Leave"
MPEG Stream: "I've Got Nothing To Say"

HYUN, SHIN JOONG & YUP JUNS s/t (Lion) cd 14.98
A while back we made the Shin Joong Hyun anthology Beautiful Rivers And Mountains put out by the Light In The Attic label a Record Of The Week, and it was deservedly very popular. So hopefully you already know all about this legendary Korean rock n' roller, but if you don't, you could go read that lengthy review for a lot more information. He certainly has had an interesting life and career, with lots of ups and some serious downs; he began playing rock music back in the '50s for the G.I.'s on American military bases, saw a lot of success in the '60s writing hits for an assortment of singers, by the '70s his rebellious rock n' roll attitude landed him on the conservative South Korean government's shitlist, he wound up getting busted for pot and was tortured in an insane asylum and blacklisted, but eventually things changed for the better and his work resumed, though not the same as before, and he still makes music to this day.
What we have here is a 1974 album, the debut from a three-piece unit Shin formed called the Yup Juns ('brass coins'). None of the songs here appear on that Light In The Attic compilation except for one, there in an alternate recording that was used on a film soundtrack. But if you liked what we described in that review as the guitarist's signature style of being "moody and soulful, but with a fuzzy, distorted grooviness" then this album is full of that - awesome Korean '70s poppy psych action that's VERY GROOVY indeed, with an exotic, Asiatic flair. Halfway through the album, the track "I Love You" seems to channel some traditional Buddhist chant, with bells and percussion in lieu of Shin's guitar, a placid interlude amidst the other songs which look to get heads bopping and hips swivelling out on the dancefloor.
The compact disc version of this comes in a miniature-lp-style sleeve, and includes a thick 20 page booklet with extensive liner notes, lyrics and photos, which are also included with the 180 gram vinyl version. And it's an official release, in cooperation with Shin Joong Hyun himself. Nicely done, so happy to have this.
This week we happen to be listing another reissue from 1974 by another international psych guitar great, Erkin Koray. What Erkin Koray is to Turkey, we suppose you could say Shin Joong Hyun is to South Korea. We recommend getting both albums, while they draw from totally different cultures and traditions (well, except for rock n' roll), they're both great and it'd be tough to decide between the two...
MPEG Stream: "Beautiful Woman"
MPEG Stream: "Think"
MPEG Stream: "Long, Long Night"

HYUN, SHIN JOONG & YUP JUNS s/t (Lion) lp 21.00
A while back we made the Shin Joong Hyun anthology Beautiful Rivers And Mountains put out by the Light In The Attic label a Record Of The Week, and it was deservedly very popular. So hopefully you already know all about this legendary Korean rock n' roller, but if you don't, you could go read that lengthy review for a lot more information. He certainly has had an interesting life and career, with lots of ups and some serious downs; he began playing rock music back in the '50s for the G.I.'s on American military bases, saw a lot of success in the '60s writing hits for an assortment of singers, by the '70s his rebellious rock n' roll attitude landed him on the conservative South Korean government's shitlist, he wound up getting busted for pot and was tortured in an insane asylum and blacklisted, but eventually things changed for the better and his work resumed, though not the same as before, and he still makes music to this day.
What we have here is a 1974 album, the debut from a three-piece unit Shin formed called the Yup Juns ('brass coins'). None of the songs here appear on that Light In The Attic compilation except for one, there in an alternate recording that was used on a film soundtrack. But if you liked what we described in that review as the guitarist's signature style of being "moody and soulful, but with a fuzzy, distorted grooviness" then this album is full of that - awesome Korean '70s poppy psych action that's VERY GROOVY indeed, with an exotic, Asiatic flair. Halfway through the album, the track "I Love You" seems to channel some traditional Buddhist chant, with bells and percussion in lieu of Shin's guitar, a placid interlude amidst the other songs which look to get heads bopping and hips swivelling out on the dancefloor.
The compact disc version of this comes in a miniature-lp-style sleeve, and includes a thick 20 page booklet with extensive liner notes, lyrics and photos, which are also included with the 180 gram vinyl version. And it's an official release, in cooperation with Shin Joong Hyun himself. Nicely done, so happy to have this.
This week we happen to be listing another reissue from 1974 by another international psych guitar great, Erkin Koray. What Erkin Koray is to Turkey, we suppose you could say Shin Joong Hyun is to South Korea. We recommend getting both albums, while they draw from totally different cultures and traditions (well, except for rock n' roll), they're both great and it'd be tough to decide between the two...
MPEG Stream: "Beautiful Woman"
MPEG Stream: "Think"
MPEG Stream: "Long, Long Night"