SEWER GODDESS Disciples Of Shit (Black Plague) cd 9.98
Sadly, rock has always been a bit of a boy's club. Sure most things are, but rock especially. And it only gets worse as you move toward the heavier and darker side of the sonic spectrum, metal, industrial, noise, women are few and far between. That's not to say there aren't woman making serious noise in those realms, there most definitely are, maybe none more fearsome than Sewer Goddess, aka Kristen Rose who traffics in some of the darkest, heaviest, filthiest sludge, blackened doom and abstract industrial we've heard, and whose particular brand of abject blackened noise is on full display here, a collection of various live performances over the years 2009-2010, and finds Rose, backed up by a full band, and engaging in some seriously harrowing soundmaking.
The opening track begins all thick bass buzz and keening feedback, soon industrial percussion emerges, and Rose's echo drenched wail, the bass buzz coalescing into sludgey dirgey riffage, while all around it guitars and samplers and effects fill the blackened sky with all manner of blackly psychedelic noise, the sound lumbers and lurches, before shifting gears in a flurry of horror movie shrieks, becoming more of a blackdrone, all layered hiss and skree and rumble, chaotic but weirdly hypnotic. The second track, the relatively brief "We Ate Their Eyes", introduces more of a groove, albeit just barely, more like a monstrous dirge, rhythmic and grimly propulsive, buried beneath an avalanche of shrieked vox and caustic low end crumble, before giving way to "Mother Agony" that channels Laibach and Throbbing Gristle and Einsturzende Neubauten into a Swans like creep, all hazy and washed out, the sound laced with streaks of high end, of sonar like pings, of gristly crunch and super distorted buzz, there's a definite Wolf Eyes vibe too, and then the vocals swoop back in, hysterical and terrifying, curdled with effects, it manages to be the most mesmerizingly hypnotic track here, while still retaining an unhinged mania.
The epic "Chained To The Cage Of Existence / A Lifeless Dreaming" seems to be the centerpiece here clocking in at 16+ minutes, and again begins as a blackened rumble, all buzz and blur, peppered with strange industrial clanks and clunks, before erupting into another grinding dirge, Rose's haunting deathlike vox adding a serious creep factor, the song a droned out rift, that seems like it might go on like that forever, until it splinters suddenly into a full on drum driven chunk of blackened noise metal crush, lurching, lumbering, shrieks and atonal riffage nestled amidst swells of black buzz and pounding rhythms and lots of feedback, before slipping right back into a sonic death march that continues until the end of the track, loping and minimal, laced with some cool metallic melodies, again slathered in feedback, and Rose's vox, that here remind us of the hysterical shrieks of black metal horde Bethlehem. And then finally, "Slavepiece" finishes things off, the most metal of the bunch, but sounding like it was recorded on a wax cylinder, the sound brittle and blown out, the band locked into a super in-the-red, feedback drenched riff heavy dirge, that sounds like an even more unhinged take on Brainbombs / No Balls. Fucking awesome, but most definitely only for the iron eared.
Fans of other blackened filth like Gnaw Their Tongues, Aderlating, Demonologists, Gorgontongue, and Hallowed Butchery as well as classic industrial / noise / blacknoise weirdness will be in heaven...
MPEG Stream: "Condemned Is The Unborn One"
MPEG Stream: "We Ate Their Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "Slavepiece"

SEWER GODDESS Verdigris (Baseborn) 7" 8.98
Elsewhere on this week's list (in fact, probably right above this review) you'll find the Disciples Of Shit cd, a collection of live recordings from blackened industrial noisescaper Sewer Goddess, aka Kristen Rose, a seriously brutal, but blackly beautiful collection of caustic live performances. Now that you know what Rose is capable of on stage, here's a glimpse of what she can do in the studio, and as you might expect, it's not to far removed, if anything, it's darker, heavier and LOUDER. But otherwise the same sort of droned out industrial crush, a bleak cinematic blackness that definitely reminds us of Gnaw Their Tongues, lots of industrial clank and clatter, a keening distant high end tone that seems to drift atop monstrous hissed vokills and streaks of blackened sound, the long stretches of buzz and crush infused with mysterious melodies.
The flipside is more riffy and dirgey, with some seriously creepy (and weirdly sexy) whispered vox, the buzz thick and corrosive, all tethered to a lurching mechanical rhythm, all within thick clouds of hiss and hum and whir, the vibe moody and murky and very soundtracky, but still bleak and menacing and seriously harrowing, shades of Wolf Eyes too, but the more we here from Sewer Goddess, the more we're beginning to think she really sounds like nobody else.
SUPER LIMITED, comes in a cool silkscreened jacket with a printed fold out insert.

SEX CHURCH Growing Over (Load) cd 16.98
When we first heard about a band called Sex Church on Load Records, we were pretty much expecting a wild costumed troupe spitting out gouts of speaker shredding cacophony and grinding metallic noise, and while there is a certain amount of noise and cacophony going on here, these guys traffic in something wholly different, a gloomy post punky sort of downer pop (much like Daily Life, who also had a record on Load), all clanging minor key chords, pounding dirgey rhythms and buzzing swirling synths, the opening track sounds like a slightly noisier take on some lost Joy Division live jam, or some classic goth group revved up and supercharged. And then when the vocals finally kick in, all deep and dramatic, wreathed in echo and delay, the mood grows dark and doomy, the drums pounding out a tribal rhythm, the bass lurching and lumbering in throbs and thrums, the sound building to explosive psychedelic crescendos before slipping back into slithery deathrock grooves or loping postpunk crunch. Fans of outfits like Naked On The Vague, Crystal Stilts, Total Control, Soft Moon and the like should go apeshit for these guys, and while they definitely borrow heavily from the gloom/goth classics, think Kommunity FK, the Mission UK, Birthday Party, Sisters Of Mercy, Wipers, Scientists, Bauhaus, Fields Of The Nephilim, once those sounds are filtered through a more noise rock / post punk aesthetic, it ends up pretty heavy, hooky, noisy, darkly poppy and sorta irresistible.
MPEG Stream: "Put Away"
MPEG Stream: "Waking Up"
MPEG Stream: "Dull Light"
MPEG Stream: "Bleed Me"

SEX CHURCH Growing Over (Load) lp 16.98
When we first heard about a band called Sex Church on Load Records, we were pretty much expecting a wild costumed troupe spitting out gouts of speaker shredding cacophony and grinding metallic noise, and while there is a certain amount of noise and cacophony going on here, these guys traffic in something wholly different, a gloomy post punky sort of downer pop (much like Daily Life, who also had a record on Load), all clanging minor key chords, pounding dirgey rhythms and buzzing swirling synths, the opening track sounds like a slightly noisier take on some lost Joy Division live jam, or some classic goth group revved up and supercharged. And then when the vocals finally kick in, all deep and dramatic, wreathed in echo and delay, the mood grows dark and doomy, the drums pounding out a tribal rhythm, the bass lurching and lumbering in throbs and thrums, the sound building to explosive psychedelic crescendos before slipping back into slithery deathrock grooves or loping postpunk crunch. Fans of outfits like Naked On The Vague, Crystal Stilts, Total Control, Soft Moon and the like should go apeshit for these guys, and while they definitely borrow heavily from the gloom/goth classics, think Kommunity FK, the Mission UK, Birthday Party, Sisters Of Mercy, Wipers, Scientists, Bauhaus, Fields Of The Nephilim, once those sounds are filtered through a more noise rock / post punk aesthetic, it ends up pretty heavy, hooky, noisy, darkly poppy and sorta irresistible.
MPEG Stream: "Put Away"
MPEG Stream: "Waking Up"
MPEG Stream: "Dull Light"
MPEG Stream: "Bleed Me"

SEX PISTOLS Never Mind The Filthy Lucre, Here's The... (Suck My Filthy Dot Com...) cd 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"We Don't Care" The Sex Pistols in San Francisco Jan 14, 1978 a one hour special with highlights from the winterland concert (their final date) plus the KSAN Radio interview.
RealAudio clip: "Radio Interview"
RealAudio clip: "Pretty Vacant"

SEX WORKER The Labor Of Love (Not Not Fun) lp 14.98

SEX WORKER Waving Goodbye (Not Not Fun) lp 14.98
The best way we can think of to describe Sex Worker, the solo project of Daniel from Mi Ami, is like a lo-fi, lysergic pop Prince, the music is minimal and electronic, slipping from James Ferraro like warped tropical loopscapes, to super minimal dubbed out house, to eighties disco by way of Ariel Pink, to lo-fi 4-track electro, the perfect back up tracks for Daniel's sexy crooned falsetto vox, but there's more to Sex Worker than faux soul, shit gets pretty fucked up throughout.
Sure, much of the record is spent slithery sexily through dimly lit neon soaked eighties nightclubs, crooning in dark basement underground discos, and speeding along empty roads with tinted windows and the top down, but the sound definitely gets weirder than all that, brooding and ominous and almost sci-fi here and there, super distorted and blown out elsewhere, the vocals an anguished howl over buried beats and warped looped melodies, loopy squelchy playful electronic skitter butted up against, skittery, stuttering almost skipping sounding soundscapes of warped FX drenched buzz and warbly glitched out crunch, before finally settling back down for the final 10 minute workout, "Honeymoon Babylon", haunting and electronic and minimal, the beats crumbling and distorted, laced with ghost like melodies, and all sorts of creepy effects and twisted production, and after a brief bit of falsetto crooning, the song devolves into an awesomely fractured futuristic electro jam, all droney and woozy and seriously druggy and psychedelic.
MPEG Stream: "Tough Love"
MPEG Stream: "Rhythm Of The Night"

SEXSMITH, RON Blue Boy (Interscope / spinART) cd 15.98
If you have a particular penchant for balladry that has the power to move you to tears, please do yourself a favor and check out the wonderful Canadian singer/songwriter Ron Sexsmith! Highly lauded by critics and notable fellow songwriters - Elvis Costello, John Hiatt and Paul McCartney to name a few - but criminally underappreciated on this side of the border. Often sounding as though he's on the brink of being crushed under the weight of his melancholia, he's reached his fifth finely crafted album of brooding sincerity. This time around, he's got Steve Earle in the producer's seat. Now, don't get me wrong, this music isn't a complete downer. No, not so! Tempo-wise, he does perk things up a bit from time to time - heck, some of the melodies are positively bouyant - but his low, plaintive vocals remain an anchor to the wistful woes. Mr. Sexsmith's composing pen has also been busy co-writing songs with the likes of Neko Case and Glenn Tilbrook (of Squeeze), performing duets with Ms Case and Jules Shear, and he's even had a song covered by... Rod Stewart! As we've mentioned before, definitely for fans of quality songwriting particularly that of Nick Drake, Rufus Wainwright, Jeff Buckley and maybe even a tad of Roy Orbison and Chet Baker.
RealAudio clip: "Foolproof"
RealAudio clip: "Thumbelina Farewell"

SEXSMITH, RON s/t (Interscope) cd 12.98
Canadian loner Ron Sexsmith is a master of the melancholic. Beautiful, subdued songs that'll leave you with a lingering cloud of woe. You may already know his voice from the songs he co-wrote and sang with Neko Case on her 'Furnace Room Lullaby' album. Definitely for extra-downer fans of Rufus Wainwright, Nick Drake or Jeff Buckley.

SEXUAL CONFUSION Music For The Sexually Confused (Chaos Of The Stars) cassette 5.98
Here's a super obscure blast of long lost Southern garage punk caveman drug rock blooz stomp from a short lived band, who existed for a brief stretch way back in the late nineties, featuring members that would go on to play in aQ beloved weirdo avant black metal outfit the Mausoleums. But don't be expecting any tripped out black buzz or pop flecked post BM trippiness, this sound of Sexual Confusion was something else entirely, primal, and raw, primitive and fucking fierce, this dense squall of swampy, swaggery punk rock energy was written and recorded when the band members were just 17, and was originally released as a cd-r, limited to just 30 copies and sold at one of the few shows the band actually played, including several at Christian coffee houses, where they would wait 'til right before they played to announce the name of their band, and according to the scant info about these guys we could dig up, one of those shows was the Tampa Bay Oi! fest, where the skinheads were most definitely not amused.
Citing Black Flag, the Godz, the Germs, the Fugs, Teengenerate, the Stooges, 13th Floor Elevators and the like as influences, we also hear shades of Green River, the Lyres, Wipers, Aussie outfits like the Scientists, Feedtime, King Snake Roost, pretty heady stuff for a bunch of deep South teens, but these guys pulled it off big time, laying down a pretty convincing sprawl of filthy, furious, sweat soaked, bloody lipped, thud rock, all swaggery, heavily flanged guitars, murky caveman drum pound, whiny snarled vox, slipping easily from organ driven old school garage rock creep to stripped down, lo-fi dirge pop to full on punk rock, fist in the face, fuck you up and get high, skull caving pound. The tracks laced with wild psychedelic synth squiggles, churning swampy bass buzz harsh howled vocals, their debt to classic sixties garage rock jangle on display big time, but all fused to some serious furious punk rock energy, and further warped by the occasional stretch of druggy acoustic blues, tweaked and twisted tangles of angular, atonal psychedelia, brutal bursts of near hardcore pummel, super rad backwards guitar, spaced out sitar raga style buzz, and long droned out layers of undulating high end shimmer, but ultimately all of that weirdness is only window dressing for a pretty serious set of songs, that still sound pretty fucking bad ass more than a decade later.
In addition to the original album, this reissue tacks on a handful of demos, which in most cases we would expect to just be shittier versions of the proper songs, but here, the tracks sound possibly even better in demo form, super raw, even more lo-fi and blown out, wasted and murky, the sort of filthy drugged, out, busted up sonic filth these guys were made to wallow in.
MPEG Stream: "Come On Over"
MPEG Stream: "Hey Ladies"
MPEG Stream: "Farmer's Tan"
MPEG Stream: "Piece Of You"

SEXUAL CONFUSION Music For The Sexually Confused (Chaos Of The Stars) cd-r 7.98
Here's a super obscure blast of long lost Southern garage punk caveman drug rock blooz stomp from a short lived band, who existed for a brief stretch way back in the late nineties, featuring members that would go on to play in aQ beloved weirdo avant black metal outfit the Mausoleums. But don't be expecting any tripped out black buzz or pop flecked post BM trippiness, this sound of Sexual Confusion was something else entirely, primal, and raw, primitive and fucking fierce, this dense squall of swampy, swaggery punk rock energy was written and recorded when the band members were just 17, and was originally released as a cd-r, limited to just 30 copies and sold at one of the few shows the band actually played, including several at Christian coffee houses, where they would wait 'til right before they played to announce the name of their band, and according to the scant info about these guys we could dig up, one of those shows was the Tampa Bay Oi! fest, where the skinheads were most definitely not amused.
Citing Black Flag, the Godz, the Germs, the Fugs, Teengenerate, the Stooges, 13th Floor Elevators and the like as influences, we also hear shades of Green River, the Lyres, Wipers, Aussie outfits like the Scientists, Feedtime, King Snake Roost, pretty heady stuff for a bunch of deep South teens, but these guys pulled it off big time, laying down a pretty convincing sprawl of filthy, furious, sweat soaked, bloody lipped, thud rock, all swaggery, heavily flanged guitars, murky caveman drum pound, whiny snarled vox, slipping easily from organ driven old school garage rock creep to stripped down, lo-fi dirge pop to full on punk rock, fist in the face, fuck you up and get high, skull caving pound. The tracks laced with wild psychedelic synth squiggles, churning swampy bass buzz harsh howled vocals, their debt to classic sixties garage rock jangle on display big time, but all fused to some serious furious punk rock energy, and further warped by the occasional stretch of druggy acoustic blues, tweaked and twisted tangles of angular, atonal psychedelia, brutal bursts of near hardcore pummel, super rad backwards guitar, spaced out sitar raga style buzz, and long droned out layers of undulating high end shimmer, but ultimately all of that weirdness is only window dressing for a pretty serious set of songs, that still sound pretty fucking bad ass more than a decade later.
In addition to the original album, this reissue tacks on a handful of demos, which in most cases we would expect to just be shittier versions of the proper songs, but here, the tracks sound possibly even better in demo form, super raw, even more lo-fi and blown out, wasted and murky, the sort of filthy drugged, out, busted up sonic filth these guys were made to wallow in.
MPEG Stream: "Come On Over"
MPEG Stream: "Hey Ladies"
MPEG Stream: "Farmer's Tan"
MPEG Stream: "Piece Of You"

SF SEALS Truth Walks in Sleepy Shadows (Matador) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
New songs from Miss Barbara Manning and band. Features a Pretty Things and a Faust cover, plus Aquarius' own Cathy blowing bubbles on "Ladies of the Sea."

SF SEALS Truth Walks in Sleepy Shadows (Matador) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
New songs from Miss Barbara Manning and band. Features a Pretty Things and a Faust cover, plus Aquarius' own Cathy blowing bubbles on "Ladies of the Sea."

SFERIC EXPERIMENT Eight Miles (Drunken Fish) cd 13.98
Bruce Russell says: "What ought to bother you is that on the evidence of the microscopic pits in this piece of metal foil you all damn near missed out on a Free jiz/pus extravaganza of earth beating proportions. The Sferics didn't rock, they were rock... Theirs was a tenuous balance of incompatible elements and unworkable ingredients that for a brief time in the year of our lord 1989 teetered its way into a few ears and onto some dodgy old cassettes in some battered shoeboxes." Kiwi chaos lovingly reisuued by fellow chainsmoker Darren at Drunken Fish.

SHACKAMAXON s/t (Hp Cycle) lp 15.98
Repressed and available again for a limited time!!
Okay 'new weird America' obsessives, drone nerds and limited vinyl fetishists... on your mark, get set, go! Vinyl only. Limited of course. We only have a handful, you know the drill. Features members of the Double Leopards and the Magic Markers. And to top it all off, it's actually also pretty darn great. Slowly drifting, warm murky ambience, the drone-y haze barely obscuring the moaning of distant feeding back guitars, simple atonal strumming, machine like creaks and simple muted percussion. All smeared into one fuzzy indistinct whole. Blurry guitars stretch into vast expanses of ambience and found sounds, eventually getting more active, scraping and squeaking, never enough to disrupt the droning dreaminess, while the original guitar seems to thicken and distort into a pulsing and throbbing slab of super thick drone. Nice!

SHADOW RING Hold Onto Ld. (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A scatological display of detuned guitar, broken piano, and arrhythmic percussion. To call this an acoustic Nurse With Wound may not do it justice, but sheds some light on the psychosis of these Brits. Recommended for the abject!

SHADOW RING I'm Some Songs lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SHADOW RING Lighthouse (Swill Radio) 2lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
As with each Shadow Ring record, the sound (it's questionable to call them songs) presents itself with a smug difficulty. Piercing feedback, detuned guitars, and sputtering percussive elements strive to meet their free noise counterparts of the Dead C or Skullflower, but are drawn b

SHADOW RING Lindus (Anti Naturals) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SHADOW RING Wax-Work Echoes (Corpus Hermeticum) cd 16.98
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New Zealand import of this strange, delicate, noisy English band's debut cd.

SHADOW RING, THE Life Review (1993-2003) (KYE) 2cd 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Shadow Ring were a deliberately odd British trio, beginning in 1993, releasing a handful of improbably compelling records for Corpus Hermeticum, Siltbreeze, Swill Radio and their own Dry Leaf Discs, and then terminating the project a decade later for reasons unknown. So much of what The Shadow Ring offer just should not work: comedically sloppy lullabies played on toy instruments, atonal squeals from cheap electronics, and rhythms banged on tin cans and xylophones. Yet, their persistence at methodically fucking up the simplest of melodies not only became an instant signature sound, it also became a metaphor for a dour, anti-social discomfort which also featured heavily in the lyrics from alternating vocalists Graham Lambkin and Darren Harris. Lambkin's voice is somewhat musical in nature, wrapping around the tinny stringed melodies as a counterpoint; but Harris, on the other hand, employs a commanding bellow which he wields with the urgent rhetorical flourish of a BBC announcer reading off obituaries, but with a snide delivery as if he loathed each person who had died. While Lambkin may have been more of the musical anti-genius of the two, Harris has the voice that reaches out to grab you by the ears. Lyrically, the Shadow Ring coupled the abject and the mundane, with rats, bottom-feeding shrimp, lice, and wasps all playing heavily into the convoluted poetics of their very English dourness. Life Review is a retrospective culled from their eight albums, handful of singles, and archive of unreleased material, including one mighty odd re-interpretation of Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive." Revisting The Shadow Ring has been a very worthwhile experience for all of us here at Aquarius, conjuring thoughts of Jandek and The Shaggs working together through the Current 93 back catalogue. Brilliantly fucked up.
MPEG Stream: "Tiny Creatures"
MPEG Stream: "Horse Meat Cakes"
MPEG Stream: "Prawnography"
MPEG Stream: "Stella Drive (Live)"

SHADOWS Shadows Are Go! (Scamp) cd 14.98
'60s instrumental rock sensations. If you like the echoey guitar sound of Joe Meek (esp. as heard on "I Hear a New World") then you'll cream all over this record. Includes the "Thunderbirds Theme."

SHAGGS Philosophy of the World (RCA) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
I really love this album.
Championed by Lester Bangs, Terry Allen of NRBQ, and Frank Zappa, who famously claimed the Wiggins sisters to be "better than the Beatles."
Perhaps the ultimate "outsider music" album, there's the obvious element of "so-bad-it's-good" or, for some, "so-bad-it's-excruciating," but deeper listens to the Shaggs yield rewards beyond surface novelty. No, they couldn't play well- the girls felt they really needed more practice before recording an album- but the resulting sounds, existing in realms apart from any usual notions of tempo, rythm or melody- are bafflingly compelling in their expressiveness.

SHAGRAT Pink Jackets Required (Get Back) cd 14.98
Another collection of '69/'70 material by Steve "Peregrine" Took's post-Tyrannosaurus Rex acid-folk-rock outfit, mined from the bottomless vaults of Shagrat drummer/co-conspirator Twink. Includes demo versions of songs previously released on the recent Shagrat "Lone Star" collection, and tracks from Twink's classic "Think Pink" album as well. Probably for completists only, or conversely, for those who don't have any of this stuff. It's just the tip of the Pink Fairies/Tyrannosaurus Rex/Hawkwind/etc. psychedelic iceberg.

SHAI HULUD + BOY SETS FIRE Crush Em' All (Undecided) 7" 3.99
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Yet another conceptual series, this time it's heavy, metalcore bands covering the godfathers of Bay Area thrash. The first installment is Boy Sets Fire and Shai Hulud doing 'Fade To Black' and 'Damage Inc.' respectively.
But man, the packaging. I'm not sure how to explain it. it's very minimal, die cut so it's like a jagged sash, just barely covering the 7", and unfolded it's like a big fish hook/lightning bolt. weird and cool

SHAKING RAY LEVIS Boss Witch (Shaking Ray Records) cd 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
At last, the SRLs release a follow-up to their great '92 debut on Derek Bailey's Incus label. Bob Stagner and Denis Palmer are Tennessee's (and the world's) most phenomenal "hillbilly" improv duo, utilizing primitive synthesizers, homemade percussion, and Dennis' glossalalic vocalizations. Very weird but catchy and fun, unlike a lot of the free improv scene. Kind of like as if outsider art magazine "Raw Vision" had a soundtrack. Guests include Steve Beresford, Davey Williams and Frank Pahl. Get this, and go see them live if you ever get the chance, they'll amaze you!

SHAKY HANDS, THE s/t (Holocene Music) cd 14.98
The Shaky Hands' romping indie pop debut grazes on the fresh pastures of current darlings Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade and Hidden Cameras. The influence of earlier college rock peculiarities Violent Femmes, Adrian Belew, Talking Heads is audible at every turn, along with the loosely woven, folksy, open-hearted emotiveness of Jeff Mangum. Catchy, bright and quirky.
MPEG Stream: "Whales Sing"
MPEG Stream: "Summer's Life"

SHALABI EFFECT Shalabi Effect (Alien8 Recordings) 2cd 17.98
Supposedly the Shalabi Effect were slated to do a split with Godspeed You Black Emperor (some of who's members appear here as guest musicians), but the project became so involved that they ended up passing the deadline and instead forged ahead to produce this double cd tour de force. The brainchild of Sam Shalabi, the Shalabi Effect can and have been compared to the likes of Acid Mother's Temple, No Neck Blues Band, Faust and even early "Umma Gumma" era Pink Floyd with their long, hypnotic songs which develop in and out of sparce psychedelic soundscapes and powerful droning jams (even breaking out and playing straight up Sudanese music!). The instrumentation is suitably varied: from standard rock guitar, bass, drums, to electronics, oud, tabla, flute, violin, you name it, it's probably on here. Definitely for fans of the "Constellation-label sound".

SHALABI EFFECT The Trial Of St. Orange (Alien8 Recordings) cd 14.98
Textural improv psychedelia, what we might term some kind of modern "international krautrock" (our new invented genre), from this group of Montreal outer-limits explorers lead by Sam Shalabi (Molasses, Detention, solo, etc.). This is a fine follow up to their sprawling double cd debut from 2 years ago. A blend of vintage electronics, ethnic instruments (there's lots of "world percussion" goin' on), prepared electric guitar, and more. At times driving and propulsive, at others epic and droning, Shalabi Effect have a very 'organic' sound -- they even use recordings of falling rain, birds, natural stuff like that. For fans of Thuja, Ghost, Acid Mothers Temple, and that whole rad Montreal scene (Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Silver Mt. Zion, etc.) of which these guys are a part.
RealAudio clip: "Sister Sleep"
RealAudio clip: "Mr. Titz (The Revelator)"
RealAudio clip: "A Glow In The Dark"

SHALABI EFFECT Unfortunately (Alien8 Recordings) cd 14.98

SHALABI, SAM On Hashish (Alien8 Recordings) cd 14.98
Montreal musician Shalabi (of his namesake Effect, Molasses and AQ-faves Silver Mt. Zion) tries his hand at (studio-aided) composition, getting a dozen local improv-oriented musicians to play with the tape rolling and then later assembling these pieces from the recordings. Inspired by the German psychedelic researcher Walter Benjamin (not the other, philosophical Walter Benjamin you may have heard about in college) and *his* inspiration, hashish, Shalabi turns out some dense, dark jazz/drone/glitch pieces for your (stoned?) indulgence.
RealAudio clip: "Soot"
RealAudio clip: "The Wherewithall"

SHALABI, SAM Osama (Alien8 Recordings) cd 14.98

SHALLOW NORTH DAKOTA Mob Wheel (Six Foot Foam Skull) 2lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The thing about sloooooow bands, is that their slowness tends to permeate every facet of their lives. Including sending records. So now we finally have another small batch of this massive slab of sludgy doom. This new batch comes with a cd-r of the music that's on the 2lp, making it much eassier to get this vinyl onto your iPod or whatever...
Gooey crunchy sludge from the Great White North.
67 minutes of what sounds like the sonic equivalent of your head dunked in RobitussinÉ
Gorgeous packaging: a double LP on nice thick vinyl, an ULTRA LIMITED edition of 300, all hand-screened (inside and out) printed on brown heavy cardstock that folds like a big envelope.
Which is perfect, you need a cover this thick to contain the downtuned blobs of almost unbearable heaviness that these guys ooze.
And we mean that in a good wayÉ Mob Wheel is a delightfully skull caving mix of Dopethrone-era Electric Wizard and some Floor or later Cavity. Maybe even some early Unsane. All that with a giant dose of Bullhead-era Melvins crush and just a smidge of early Eyehategod. Tuneful? A bit. Melodic? A bit. Heavy? Let's see, imagine a dumptruck full of gold bricks, dipped in tar and dropped from a plane. That's sort of heavy. Now imagine that dumptruck MADE out of solid gold and filled with black holes, and fired from a cannon, in space, directly at your earhole. Now you're getting closer.
Yeah, you definitely need this: the gooey, sticky, sludgy, icky stuff we can't get enough of! Like someone took the record, threw it in a pot to boil, then dumped it over your head.
Fans of the "new sludge" (Boris, Corrupted, SUNNO))), Earth) will be in heaven (or hell I guess depending on your preference)!
Featuring a former member of doom-dirge lords Sons of Otis and a current member or metalcore heros Cursed, Shallow N.D. has been a mainstay in the Ontario scene since 1992.
Unfortunately the band have recently hung up their touring boots and put the van up on blocks, so we'll just have to imagine what it would be like see these guys conjure up this dissonant crunch and thud on stage!
MPEG Stream: "With My Pitchfork"
MPEG Stream: "Dead Man Has A Memo"

SHANKAR, ANANDA s/t (Collector's Choice) cd 14.98
Kitschy sitar / Moog classic from 1970, featuring a great cover and some amusing covers ("Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Light My Fire") alongside Shankar's own Indian music meets Western pop experiments...pretty cool. Finally reissued legit.

SHANKAR, ANANDA s/t (Rhino / Scorpio) lp 16.98
Kitschy sitar / Moog classic from 1970, featuring a great cover and some amusing covers ("Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Light My Fire") alongside Shankar's own Indian music meets Western pop experiments...pretty cool. Finally reissued legit.

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS I Wanna Go Home (1-2-3-4 GO! Records) cd 13.98
After totally loving their 7" from last year we were so excited to get a full serving of this Oakland band's awesome, raw, reverb soaked garage pop. And as much as we did dig that 7", this full length is really taking it to new levels with greater urgency and intensity. I Wanna Go Home definitely demonstrates that Shannon And The Clams possess the ability to inject so many damn hooks in to a smoking brew of haunted and infectious down and dirty garage pop. At times the vocal delivery makes us think of the first Strokes album if it was stripped of its major label polish and doused with the magical aura of Billy Childish/Thee Headcoatees. Or like if Wanda Jackson somehow magically collaborated with The Cramps or The Crystals, and was the covered by The Gits. Shannon And The Clams perfectly meld their love of old school rock 'n' roll / RnB and girl groups with their appreciation of crustier punk and garage rock influences, and the result is so kick ass. Makes perfect sense that they often play with Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall, cuz while they don't sound exactly like those other bands, they do share the same undeniably true sonic soul that makes the great garage sound makers stick out from the legion of dabblers. None of those wannabees have the true punch and fire in their sound to pull it off like Shannon And The Clams do. So damn good!
MPEG Stream: "Troublemaker"
MPEG Stream: "You Can Come Over"
MPEG Stream: "I Wanna Go Home"

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS Hunk Hunt (Weird Hug) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
San Francisco has a rich history when it comes to raw garage punk rock. But we have to say so much of that scene in the past had a bit too much of a dudes n' beer n' bar vibe for us. It's not until the last few years with a whole new new wave of garage peddlers that we've really been swept up in the raw and rocking fun of a scene that seems to have evolved for the better.
Shannon And The Clams have been making quite a name for themselves here in the Bay with their super fun live shows where they usually play on bills with their pals like Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall and Hunx and His Punx. The four songs on Hunk Hunt really show off the range of their sound. From '50s inspired girl group classics corrupted by angular art punk to a more rocking garage sound more in the tradition of The Headcoats/Headcoatees or what The Husbands might have sounded like drenched in more of a Cramps influence. If you live in town or they come to yours by all means see this group live, but for now, this 7" serves as a pretty awesome introduction to their world.

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS Paddy's Birthday (South Paw) 7" 7.98
Oakland's Shannon And The Clams are quickly becoming one of our favorite Bay Area bands. Their live shows are so fun filled and thrilling and their full length debut totally won us over the way it channeled old school rock n' roll, girl groups, garage rock, and RnB, all wrapped into a singular charismatic punk rock aesthetic. Recently Shannon joined the live incarnation of Hunx & His Punx or as they call it now Hunx & His Punkettes, and when you see them live you realize how much Shannon's vocals and playing really help make Hunx's live shows so much more satisfying.
Paddy's Birthday continues to show us why we love this group so much. Shannon is possessed with one of the strongest and moving voices of any vocalist around, she really owns every single note and word she sings. Like some awesome combination of Etta James, The Shirelles, and The Gits, this is a 7" that shows off a band that really is creating their own sound and doing it so damn well.

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS Ruin Christmas (1-2-3-4 Go! ) 7" 6.98
The holidays are behind us (or way in front of us) but we couldn't just ignore this great Christmas 7" from Oakland's Shannon & The Clams, showing they aren't too cool to have a soft spot for the holidays. Covering four of their favorite holiday tracks by a range of folks including Paul 'Fat Daddy' Johnson and Mariah Carey. The A side features the more punkish garage-y Cramps like side of the band, while the B side shows off Shannon's awesome vocals and much more of their affinity for girl groups and early rock n' roll music. Never too late for a little stocking stuffer.

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS Sleep Talk (1-2-3-4 Go!) cd 14.98
Hot damn, this band just keeps getting better and better. While their name and image can sometimes lead you to believe Shannon And The Clams are just a campy band who wanna have fun, the real truth is that they are some of the best songwriters to emerge out of the great garage pop scene in San Francisco over the last few years. Channeling the best elements of girl groups, haunting punk rock, fired up garage rock, and early rock n' roll, Shannon and her Clams fit right at home alongside local pals like Ty Segall, Hunx & His Punx, and Thee Oh Sees.
There is something totally unique about how they are able to merge all of their different sides and styles and influences into a cohesive force that grabs your attention and never lets go. Imagine The Cramps covering Richie Valens or Ronnie Spector covering The Gun Club. We've dug everything they have released so far, but this new full length is maybe their finest moment yet!
MPEG Stream: "Baby Don't Do It"
MPEG Stream: "Done With You"
MPEG Stream: "Half Rat"

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS Sleep Talk (1-2-3-4 Go!) lp 14.98
Hot damn, this band just keeps getting better and better. While their name and image can sometimes lead you to believe Shannon And The Clams are just a campy band who wanna have fun, the real truth is that they are some of the best songwriters to emerge out of the great garage pop scene in San Francisco over the last few years. Channeling the best elements of girl groups, haunting punk rock, fired up garage rock, and early rock n' roll, Shannon and her Clams fit right at home alongside local pals like Ty Segall, Hunx & His Punx, and Thee Oh Sees.
There is something totally unique about how they are able to merge all of their different sides and styles and influences into a cohesive force that grabs your attention and never lets go. Imagine The Cramps covering Richie Valens or Ronnie Spector covering The Gun Club. We've dug everything they have released so far, but this new full length is maybe their finest moment yet!
MPEG Stream: "Baby Don't Do It"
MPEG Stream: "Done With You"
MPEG Stream: "Half Rat"

SHANNON, SARAH City Morning Song (Minty Fresh) cd 13.98
Whoa, how many reviews do you think have already been written about this release that make some dorky statement like "hey, this former Velocity Girl's all grown up!" Ahem, guess you can add this one to the bunch. The former lead singer for that above mentioned beloved '90s indie pop band, Ms Sarah Shannon has slipped into something a little less immediately comfortable... a little more adult contemporary to be exact. Drawing ample influences from '70s AM radio soft jazz pop a la Burt Bacharach, City Morning Song swoons with dulcet arrangements of Fender Rhodes electric piano, Hammond organ, flugelhorn, and strings, but along the way the affair loses its fizz just a bit. Shannon's voice is sweet and clear all right, but it doesn't possess the expressive body of the genre's foremothers Carly Simon and Carole King. Likewise as a performer she lacks the personality of those ladies, relying heavily on the very well performed instrumental backdrop to carry the proceedings. A faceless vanilla disappointment.
MPEG Stream: "City Morning Song"
MPEG Stream: "Hey Heartache"

SHAPES AND SIZES Split Lips, Winning Hips, A Shiner (Asthmatic Kitty) cd 14.98
Okay folks, bear with us for these first few sentences, but we really need to get it out of our system. This album just happened to be the straw that broke this camel's back...
We really gotta wonder if the world's finally run out of good band names -- with monikers like Shapes And Sizes and Parts And Labor? What's next? Gluestick And The Mighty Tapegun? No wait, is that a good one?! And what's with all the (mostly Canadian) young pop bands lately sounding like they're yodellers-in-training up on the Swiss Alps? Don't know about you, but our fill of yelping puppy vocals is getting pretty close to overload.
Whoa, first impressions can be pretty powerful, can't they? What a way to get off to a less than good start, huh? Gave 'em what amounts to a verbal shiner! FORTUNATELY, once the second song kicked in our second impression took a remarkable turn for the better! Sooo... some may quickly call this band quirky, but that adjective might sell them short. This is an adventure playground of loopy, dizzying eccentric sugary pop twists... that deserves a better moniker than Shapes And Sizes! Ahh, but we digress. The female vocal melodies soar and swoop like a bird in flight -- reminiscent of fellow Canadian veteran artist Jane Siberry's wistful, imaginative vision. The boy sung eighth song slips into the well-schooled pop path of Pinback, Modest Mouse, Built To Spill, and Destroyer. Done very well all right, but personally we lean more in favour of the female sung tunes though, as they're much more distinct and sparklingly engaging. So after a downright awkward introduction, Split Lips, Winning Hips, A Shiner ended up injury-free smooth sailing the rest of the way.
MPEG Stream: "Head Movin'"
MPEG Stream: "Can't Stop That (Sinking) Feeling"

SHAPES AND SIZES / THE WEIRD WEEDS Unusual Animals Vol. 1 (Asthmatic Kitty) 7" 4.50
Back room find! Discovered a few more of these little gems...
Continuing their eastward migration, former Victoria, BC natives Shapes And Sizes make a bigger leap from Vancouver to Montreal, and have a new split 7" with their Austin, TX buddies Weird Weeds to boot. The charming Canadian foursome offer up the peculiarly titled, mildly eccentric and invigorating "Junker / That Fat Hand", while WW presents a more low-key, stripped down and subtly uneasy art-folk number "Hold In The Light". Kewl!

SHAPESHIFTER Reticulum Flux (Schematic) cd 13.98

SHARK MOVE Ghede Chokra's (Shadoks Music) cd 15.98
Reissues of pretty good obscure '70s prog-psych albums, while not a dime a dozen, aren't exactly hard to find (at a shop like ours, anyway). But when the band's from Jakarta, Indonesia, and they're called SHARK MOVE we get extra excited. Just look at the colorful mythology of the cover art. How could this not be cool? And it is. Originally released in 1970, the sole album from Shark Move is a treat for anyone into the long-haired hippy prog excesses of the day, spiced with an extra special something due to being from a non-Western land, where these guys were REALLY freaks for making this music... UK prog stylings derived from the likes of Genesis and Deep Purple are mixed with some more traditional Indonesian musical motifs, and not all the lyrics are in English. Also the results are further warped away from normalcy by the third-world production quality, which we'd say is a good thing.
With serious songs, complex arrangements (keyboards, flute!), and melodramatic doses of both thee gently melodic and thee instrumentally bombastic, Shark Move were certainly musically ambitious. A trait perhaps best exemplified by the sweeping nine-minute opener "My Life". Meanwhile, the fuzz-heavy shambolic riff-tumble of "Evil War" with its exotic coloration via keyboard and guitar soling is another of Shark Move's selling points. The sweeter stuff (often on the tracks sung in their native tongue) is nice too, and definitely sets them apart from their European and American contemporaries.
Thanks to Shadoks we get to hear this, which has been remastered and has new liner notes for this reissue, all done with the participation of Shark Move's leader, founder, and only surviving member, Benny Soebardja (lead guitar/vocals). Shortly after recording this album, the band's keyboardist was tragically killed in a traffic accident, and Shark Move came to an end, although Benny has continued to rock on with some other groups, including one called Giant Step that may also get a Shadoks reissue we're told.
MPEG Stream: "My Life"
MPEG Stream: "Evil War"

SHARK QUEST Gods And Devils (Merge) cd 14.98
Shark Quest -- nope, that's not one of those big animated movies coming out this fall for which you've probably seen a preview. It's the instrumental band from Chapel Hill whose third album Gods And Devils is under review here. Although, apparently a bunch of the music on this disc was recorded to accompany an indie animation project. But no visuals are needed to enjoy this quite delightful album. Shark Quest's music is evocative and intricate and eclectic, blending the Western Spaghetti-scapes of Calexico with Eastern atmospheres, touching on such genres as lounge and surf and chamber prog, balancing the light and snazzy with the more intense or melancholic. Nicely woven. Now featuring a member of Idyll Swords, by the way.
MPEG Stream: "The Rosetta Barrage"
MPEG Stream: "Furies On Fire"

SHARK QUEST Man on Stilts (Merge) cd 14.98
New instrumental record on Merge (home of Superchunk and Magnetic Fields), equal parts chamber ensemble and surf outfit -- drenched in southern twang (read: banjo). For fans of Rex's "C".

SHARKBAIT Feed Our Frenzy (Gladys Pearce) cassette 3.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Some of you who were living in San Francisco a while back, might just remember these guys. Sharkbait. It's been a long time since we'd heard, or even really thought about these guys. The way we remember it, was they were a sort of industrial post punk rock band, maybe like a West Coast version of Cop Shoot Cop, all junkyard percussion, howled vocals, crunchy guitars, skeletal, noisy and slightly funky. And the truth is pretty close to that.
So a customer of ours discovered a box of Sharkbait tapes, still sealed, stashed and covered in dust, and thought that since folks were digging cassettes so much lately around here, and that Sharkbait were a seminal eighties SF outfit, that he would bequeath them to us, so we could disseminate them to hungry ears that might want a little taste of what the SF scene was like back in 1988. For some of us, it was all about funk metal, bands like Mordred tearing it up, or thrash, but there was a whole 'nother thing going on in the underground. Bands like Bomb, Tragic Mulatto, the Skatenigs, and of course Sharkbait. And Sharkbait were indeed a sort of proto industrial punk rock band. Lots of samples. Lots of tribal percussion, some Crash Worship going on here and there, throbbing basslines, crunchy guitars, and howled sloganeering vocals, sort of political, definitely punk rock. It sounds dated sure, but it still sounds pretty cool. There's some art of Noise percussion, some weird spoken word, slabs of feedback, droning ambience, but all wrapped up in a pounding churning post punk caterwaul.

SHARKS KEEP MOVING Pause And Clause (Status) cd 9.98
I've listened to this a few times, and each time all I've been left with is... zzzzzzzzzzz! Sounds like so-so, mellow post rock to me a la Tortoise, Tristeza, etc. It's well-performed and all, but it just fails to break any new ground in an already over-crowded field. I don't know, am I missing something? What!? What!?!? I've wondered if there happen to be some notable members from other bands on the Sharks' roster, but then realize that knowing that wouldn't make this any more appealing, and it might even make things worse. There's only three tracks on this cd, but as per the post rock tradition of long jams, they're lengthy ones as their combined running time totals 22 minutes.
RealAudio clip: "Pause And Clause"