TARWATER Spider Smile (Morr Music) cd 16.98
As we've said before, we've both loved and not-loved-quite-so-much past releases from the modern day kraut-tronica duo of Robert Lippok (To Rococo Rot) and Bernd Jestram. But overall we like 'em pretty well. So we're sorry we didn't get around to listing this disc when it came out... last year... since it's certainly a nice enough entry in the ever so textural Tarwater discography. We particularly dig the track that sounds like underwatery video game music, sonar pings in a soundscape of moodiness...
MPEG Stream: "A Marriage In Belmont"
MPEG Stream: "Lower Manhattan Pantoum"

TARWATER The Needle Was Travelling (Morr Music) cd 16.98
Tarwater, the German postrock/electronica duo featuring a member of To Rococo Rot, has had their ups and downs with their fans here at AQ. If you look back at our reviews of their several previous albums you'll find some we rave about and some we pan. Their last full-length, Dwellers On The Threshold, got a rave. So does that mean that this new one, their first for new label Morr Music, is bound for the downswing? Or are they at last on a steady upward trajectory with us? Well if you're a fan by now you've probably made up your own mind 'cause this has been out for a little while now. But for what it's worth, we like this one. The unique Tarwater charm -- the combination of bloodless vocals and mellow beats and instrumental textures -- does it for us again. Relaxed, pretty, downtempo stuff for the most part. With the aid of various guests, Tarwater's Robert Lippok and Bernd Jestram have come up with 14 songs that (as always) blend "live" instruments and singing and electronics into a variety of melodic, moody soundscapes and low-key synthpop tunes. There are some more upbeat numbers with percolating rhythms but the vocals are never upbeat! Indeed, the singing remains the thing that is either going to make or break this for most listeners. Depends if you like their style of gently spoken-sung, kinda soft and dreary, English-language vocals. Their unexcitable, deadpan delivery would be easy to parody. But Tarwater's intimate, rainy-day electro-acoustic symphonics give this album human warmth. The Needle Was Travelling is mysteriously groovy, whilst being laid-back and droney too. It's modern-day krautrock after all. Some might like it better in an instrumental version, but Lippok's vocal limitations are for better or worse a key part of the Tarwater sound that we enjoy.
MPEG Stream: "Across The Dial"
MPEG Stream: "Yeah!"

TAU EMERALD Travellers Two (Important Records) cd 14.98

TAYLOR BOW Thin Air (Youth Attack) lp 10.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Last time we were in New York, we managed to grab a single by this band, Taylor Bow, named for an infamous online porn site featuring videos posted by a disgruntled and spurned ex boyfriend, we heard it playing in a store, and had to buy it. An insanely furious and frenzied, blown out chunk of metallic punkness, or maybe punked out metal, either way, the speakers seemed to be melting and malfunctioning, spewing red hot daggers of sound, the vocals ultra distorted and in the red, the drums, total practice space boom and crunch, chaotic and unhinged, the guitars slipping from wild feedback soaked squalls, to churning Brainbombs-y sludge. So we of course tried to order a bunch, but it was the LAST copy.
So we waited and waited, and our patience was finally rewarded with this, the first full length from NYC hardcore noise metal weirdos Taylor Bow, fronted, you might not be surprised to discover by Dom Fernow, of Prurient, Vegas Martyrs and Ash Pool among others. Taylor Bow features the same sort of lo-fi metal-punk noise drenched crush, but instead of blasting blackly, or exploding into sheets of white noise, TB slip back and forth between freaked out on-the-verge-of-collapse hardcore and looped sounding sinister dirges, that totally push all our Brainbombs buttons. The sound is red hot, blown out, brittle and brutal, but still thick and heavy, the vocals are super intense, which sometimes makes Taylor Bow sound like a way more rocking Whitehouse, but there are definite nods to the current crop of stripped down raw black metal, Fernow's Ash Pool for sure, but also stuff like Akitsa and Bone Awl. But even with that metal edge, this stuff is way more filthy and punky, and we're loving it. Released on the same label that brought us Ancestors and that Hallow record, which makes perfect sense, just more fucked up freaked out heaviness that we can't seem to get enough of.
SUPER LIMITED of course, we may have the last few copies, so grab one while you can...

TAYLOR, MIKE QUARTET Pendulum (Sunbeam) cd 16.98
Sunbeam brings us a lost classic of '60s modern British jazz, the 1965 debut as leader from ill-fated pianist Mike Taylor, who, at the tragic end of a drug-induded downward slide, died (drowned in the River Thames) just four years later in 1969 at age 30, after making only one other album. As a result, not too many folks have heard of him, although he was a major young talent on the scene while he was alive. Reissued on cd for probably the first time, remastered and with new liner notes as well as vintage photos in the cd booklet, Pendulum is a both an historically important release to pique the interest of jazz buffs with its promise and originality, and also a thoroughly enjoyable, melodic and moody listen for more casual jazz fans as well. Taylor eases us into his personal sound-world by stocking all the first side with well-known standards, including pieces by Gershwin and Gillespie, adding to 'em a level of avant-garde abstraction that mirrors the way his sometimes saturnine original compositions, which occupy the entirely of side two, possess a certain foot-tapping familiarity.
MPEG Stream: "Pendulum"
MPEG Stream: "A Night In Tunisia"

TAYLOR, STEVE s/t (self-released) cd-r 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Five sunkissed, laidback pop songs make up this debut from this Bay Area singer/songwriter Mr. Steve Taylor. Very much along the lines of The Shins, Elliott Smith and Matthew Sweet... or the soft side of Sloan and The Posies... or perhaps actually reaching further back in the school of pop timeline there's a good deal of Big Star and '70s soft rock in there too.
MPEG Stream: "Trials"
MPEG Stream: "If The Summer Should Change To Winter"

TAZARTES, GHEDALIA Diasporas (Dais) lp 19.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ghedalia Tazartes' Diasporas might be most famous at this point for being included on the infamous Nurse With Wound list, a list of artists that was included with NWW's 1979 classic album Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella, and was basically a list of musicians and groups that NWW head honcho Steven Stapleton was influenced by. Looking at it now, it almost reads like an aQ list: Agitation Free, Algarnas Tradgard, Zweistein, Iannis Xenakis, Throbbing Gristle, This Heat, Igor Wakhevitch, Ya Ho Wha 13, Taj Mahal Travellers, Supersister, Der Plan, Sperm, Achim Reichel, Moolah, Magical Power Mako, Basil Kirchin, Jan Dukes De Grey, Exmagma, Cromagnon, Crass, Il Balletto Di Bronzo and so many more.
And Ghedalia Tazartes fits perfectly amidst such esteemed and such gloriously twisted company, a French ethno-experimentalist and composer, whose sound is a dizzying concoction of mysterious vocal chants, traditional gypsy folk music, bizarre sonic rituals, sound collages and tangled tape loops, his records playing out like alien field recordings, often layering multiple sound sources into twisted psychedelic freakouts. Diasporas, originally released in 1979 (recorded in 1977), is the perfect example of Tazartes' idiosyncratic sound, a thick layered stretch of multiple voices starts things off, his gypsy croon wailing over looped snippets of opera, as well as looped growls and, sampled strings, the sound building to a deafening crescendo, before settling into a strange bit of hypnodrone, with the operatic vocals relegated to a clipped pulse, the sampled strings creating a hauntingly repetitive melody, over which he mumbles and growls, the sound building and building until somehow it's just piano, and strangely processed voices stretched out into a swirling undulating drone.
And it continues on in a similar fashion, each track beginning like some field recording, simple percussion, strange vocals, like some abstract alien world music, those voices underpinned by drones and murky loops, which seem to become more pronounced as the tracks progress.
A few of the tracks to play out almost like straight folk music, but even then, there's something slightly off kilter, whether it's the production, the arrangement, or some subtle sonics lurking below the surface but it's never long before the sound returns to something much more twisted, be it some growled almost throat singing, blurred into a weird almost scat singing dronescape, or thick squalls of rumbling growls over which, samples are draped, and Tazartes' feral wail, or machine like loops and mechanical skitter wound around super passionate howls and looped baby talk.
It's definitely WAY out there, but there's a reason even back in 1979 Stapleton had this on his list, cuz it's one of the strangest, most hauntingly beautiful and fantastically disturbing listens EVER.
MPEG Stream: "Un Amour Si Grand Qu'il Nie Son Objet"
MPEG Stream: "La Vie Et La Mort Legendaire Du Spermatozoide Humuch Lardy"
MPEG Stream: "La Berlue Je T'Aime"
MPEG Stream: "Casimodo Tango"

TEAGARDEN, WARREN & THE GOOD GRIEF s/t (Meaningless Words) cd 12.98

MPEG Stream: "Black Sunday"
MPEG Stream: "Run Away"
MPEG Stream: "On The Walk To Crissy Field"

TEAGARDEN, WARREN & THE GOOD GRIEF s/t (Meaningless Words) lp 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Black Sunday"
MPEG Stream: "Run Away"
MPEG Stream: "On The Walk To Crissy Field"

TEAM DRESCH Personal Best (Chainsaw / Candy-Ass) cd 14.98
So very sadly defunct, Portland, Oregon's Team Dresch empowered young women everywhere back in '94. And continue to do so with this feistily fantastic album as a document of their inspiring greatness. Some extraordinarily right-on raging music including the awesome "Fake Fight". Super catchy, driving and emotive dyke punk for everyone. All salute Kaia, Donna, Marci and Jody. A co-release on Jody's label Candy-Ass and Kaia's Chainsaw Records. Is that enough superlatives for ya?

TEAM SLEEP s/t (Maverick) cd 16.98

MPEG Stream: "Ataraxia"
MPEG Stream: "Your Skull Is Red"
MPEG Stream: "Princeton Review"

TEAMS VS. STAR SLINGER s/t (Mexican Summer) 12" 19.98

TEAR GARDEN To Be An Angel Blind, The Crippled Soul Divide (Nettwerk) cd 16.98
Combining the wonders of cEvin Key (of Skinny Puppy and Download to name but two of his many projects), Edward Ka-spel (of Legendary Pink Dots), Ryan Moore (aka Twilight Circus) and their cast of like-minded co-horts, it's Tear Garden. Rich, velvety, and hypnotic. Check out track 3 "In Search Of My Rose". If you like the more dub-tinged moments of the Pink Dots' album A Perfect Mystery (undoubtedly due to the bass and percussion presence of Mr. Moore), this earlier album is definitely for you. Gorgeous!

TEARDROP EXPLODES Kilimanjaro/Wilder (Universal) cd 15.98
The only two proper albums released by The Teardrop Explodes have finally been reissued on one handy cd. Kilimanjaro (1980) and Wilder (1981) were the products of pop eccentric Julian Cope and band. While Kilimanjaro features upbeat, but also very strange, pop tunes borne of Cope's love of Krautrock, they were written by the full band and are thus a lot more straightforward and conventional than those found on Wilder, whose songs were all written only by Cope and are more hushed, idiosyncratic and weird. I used to love Wilder, but have to admit, the record has not aged well. Give the soundclips a listen to see if it's as good as *you* remember it.
RealAudio clip: "Seven Views of Jerusalem"
RealAudio clip: "When I Dream"

TEATTERI MODERNI KANUUNA Oopperse Le Feti Le Grande Anaale (Fonal) cd 17.98
When I (Andee) visited Finland a couple years ago, I was picked up at the airport by Circle frontman Jussi and former Circle drummer Peltsi. I was hustled into the car and we sped off. Jussi apparently had a surprise for me. Two hours later, with me jetlagged and barely awake, we pulled up to the local community center, where Circle and most of the bands in their town practice, and where they just happen to have a theatre. My surprise was the opening night performance of Circle / Kuusumun Profeetta vocalist Mika Ratto's new play Le Grande Anaale (The Giant Ass), the tale of a man who builds a giant ass, through which all sorts of demons escape into the city. The townsfolk are so mad, that they build a giant cock, place the builder of the ass in the cock and stuff the cock in the giant ass, keeping the demons safely in the ass. Phew. Wow. Hard to say how good it was, as I had just spent 10 hours on a plane, and then 2 hours in a car. But boy was it weird. A HUGE paper mache ass, with cheeks that slid apart like a sliding glass door, all red and evil and lit up from inside, and then a giant paper mache phallus made from what appeared to be a wheelbarrel! And basically everyone I knew in Finland was in the play in fake beards and powdered wigs, wearing wings or false noses, fake moustaches and bizarre costumes. Those who weren't in the play, supplied the music, which was quite cool. Dark and percussive, dramatic and spooky, occasionally goofy and jaunty. So now, a couple years later, we ALL can at least experience the sounds of Le Grande Anaale if not the sights. Omnious and macabre one moment, cacophonous and crazed the next...overall very atmospheric and striking. A good "what the heck are you listening to?" album that unexpecting listeners (your partner, housemates) might end up liking. Imagine a sinister Carl Stalling making music for a cult religious ceremony, or Goblin meets J.A. Caesar in a madhouse. Haunting strings drone, wind howls, bells chime, excited actors declaim in incantory voices. Probably a good thing that it's all in Finnish, too! English speakers will never guess its all about a giant ass. Key players here include not only the Circle singer Mika Ratto, but also two members of Magyar Posse. Presented in the usual lovely Fonal non-jewel case cd packaging.
MPEG Stream: "Prologion Alkusaatelma Ennen Turmiota"
MPEG Stream: "Kylainneuvoston Kunnijasenet Po-la Ja Mir-Mi..."

TECHNO ANIMAL Ghosts (Pathological) cd 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We only have about a dozen of these, a lucky warehouse find at one of our distributors, the awesome 1991 debut from Techno Animal, aka Kevin Martin (the Bug) and Justin Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, etc.), a grinding feral chunk of early industrial pound and crunch, all mixed up with long stretches of swirling dark dronemusic, tripped out dubbiness, haunting ethereal shimmer, Einsturzende Neubauten style junkyard clatter and clang and caustic sheets of Merzbowian hiss. Programmed beats, howled vox, churning low fidelity loops, buzzing blown out bass, buried samples...
The first half of the record is pretty much what you might expect from an early nineties Godflesh sideproject, the heft and heaviness of Swans, but wrapped around strange machinelike beats, murky washed out ambience, old school samples and loops, but then around track five, "The Dream Forger" the record shifts gears, a sprawling drift of fluttery flute, a sort of new age-y soundscape all reverbed and blurred into gorgeous hazy streaks, only to explode back into churning lumbering industrial metallic crunch in the next track, a super blown out Skinny Puppy meets Cop Shoot Cop / Swans hybrid dirge, laced with wild skronky sax, only to lead directly into the misleadingly titled "God Vs Flesh", a 23+ minute expanse of deep tones, slow motion piano, distant tinkling chimes, a harrowing Lustmordian dronescape, that grows gradually more abrasive, but never erupts, instead remaining dark and drifty and menacing, before the punishing final track, "Spineless" a cloud of processed vocals, drenched in effects, layered and dense and weirdly and impossibly hypnotic.
Definitely grab one of these while you can, one per customer obviously. Definitely for fans of Godflesh, the Bug, God, Ice, 16-17, Curse Of The Golden Vampire, and that whole nineties avant industrial / Pathological Records sound, and if you need even more incentive to get one of these before they're gone, good grief there's one of these cds selling on Amazon right now for $700!! Not sure it's worth that much, but it's most definitely a steal for eight bucks...
MPEG Stream: "Burn"
MPEG Stream: "Walk Then Crawl"
MPEG Stream: "White Dog"

TEEN In Limbo (Carpark) cd 14.98
In Limbo is the debut full length from Kristina Lieberson, who plays keyboards in a band called Here We Go Magic (who we've never heard), but as Teen, Lieberson whips up a pretty sweet slab of indie pop post punk, heavy on new wavey swirliness, and minimal space out dreaminess. There's definitely a serious old school post punk vibe, but filtered through something more modern and psychedelic. Opener "Better" pairs Lieberson's strident vocals (that remind us a bit of Grass Widow) with primitive simple drum pound, and clouds of swirling synth shimmer, not to mention the occasional handclaps, the vocals layered into a dizzying round. Which leads right into "Come Back", with it's strange calypso percussion, and stripped down muted guitar chug, a weird match for the squiggly synths and hazy echo drenched vocals, but those disparate elements seem to mesh more and more as the song goes on, before slipping into a weird swirly psychedelic breakdown. "Charlie" slows things down into a woozy, trudging, synth heavy ballad, that sounds a bit like Best Coast on horse tranquilizers.
And the rest of the record unfurls similarly, like some weird Grass Widow / US Girls hybrid, taking a simple jangle pop garage rock core, mixed with some quirky new waviness, and adding some dirgey, murky post punk churn, not to mention some serious weirdness (the cool pinball sound effects on "Electric"), and some crazy catchy songs. In fact "Electric" might just be our favorite of the bunch, those aforementioned pinball sounds mixed with some M83 style electro glam bombast, some blown out synth buzz, and a chorus to die for.
MPEG Stream: "Electric"
MPEG Stream: "Better"
MPEG Stream: "Come Back"

TEEN In Limbo (Carpark) lp 21.00
In Limbo is the debut full length from Kristina Lieberson, who plays keyboards in a band called Here We Go Magic (who we've never heard), but as Teen, Lieberson whips up a pretty sweet slab of indie pop post punk, heavy on new wavey swirliness, and minimal space out dreaminess. There's definitely a serious old school post punk vibe, but filtered through something more modern and psychedelic. Opener "Better" pairs Lieberson's strident vocals (that remind us a bit of Grass Widow) with primitive simple drum pound, and clouds of swirling synth shimmer, not to mention the occasional handclaps, the vocals layered into a dizzying round. Which leads right into "Come Back", with it's strange calypso percussion, and stripped down muted guitar chug, a weird match for the squiggly synths and hazy echo drenched vocals, but those disparate elements seem to mesh more and more as the song goes on, before slipping into a weird swirly psychedelic breakdown. "Charlie" slows things down into a woozy, trudging, synth heavy ballad, that sounds a bit like Best Coast on horse tranquilizers.
And the rest of the record unfurls similarly, like some weird Grass Widow / US Girls hybrid, taking a simple jangle pop garage rock core, mixed with some quirky new waviness, and adding some dirgey, murky post punk churn, not to mention some serious weirdness (the cool pinball sound effects on "Electric"), and some crazy catchy songs. In fact "Electric" might just be our favorite of the bunch, those aforementioned pinball sounds mixed with some M83 style electro glam bombast, some blown out synth buzz, and a chorus to die for.
MPEG Stream: "Electric"
MPEG Stream: "Better"
MPEG Stream: "Come Back"

TEEN CTHULHU / WORMWOOD split (Accident Prone) 7" 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

TEENAGE FANCLUB Deep Fried Fanclub (Fire) cd 16.98
Anyone who somehow doesn't own any Teenage Fanclub records, should probably buy this, a pretty decent introduction to one of the best pop bands ever, but might as well also find copies of A Catholic Education and Bandwagonesque, their first two proper records. Equal parts Big Star / Byrds jangle, and wild psychedelic Neil Young guitars, Teenage Fanclub were born of the same Glasgow scene that would also give us Mogwai among others, and while they shares a proclivity for extended jams, their sound was way more rooted in classic pop, as was evidenced not only by their sound, but their choice of covers (Beatles, Beat Happening, Alex Chilton, Gerry Love). Their star shone pretty brightly during the nineties alt rock explosion, but a surprising number of folks missed out on these guys completely, which is a shame, especially considering all the pop bands of today, who owe much of their sound to these guys whether they know it or not.
Deep Fried Fanclub gathers up all the songs the band recorded during their brief stay on Paperhouse Records in the early nineties and also tacks on their K records single.
The opener "Everything Flows" is pretty much perfect, in a single song, demonstrating what makes them so great, perfect jangle pop, with big crunchy guitars, sweet vocals, incredible melodies, extended jam outro, so impossibly catchy, in a weird way like a way janglier poppier Swervedriver. "God Knows It's True" is another classic, big guitars, big hooks, heavy and poppy. There's some weird demos and some odd covers, their version of the Beatles "Ballad Of John And Yoko" sounds like Redd Kross / Tater Totz, but the K single finishes thing off pretty perfectly, a killer rendition of Alex Chilton's "Free Again", sounding weirdly like a way more rocking Partridge Family, and Beat Happening's "Bad Seed" reimagined as some sort of dirgey garage rock jam with a verse that almost sounds like the Suicidal Tendencies.
Still one of the best pop bands around, this collection is essential for fans, and anyone into heavy hooky pop, these guys could be your new (old) favorite band!
MPEG Stream: "Everything Flows"
MPEG Stream: "Primary Education"
MPEG Stream: "Speeder"
MPEG Stream: "The Ballad Of John & Yoko"

TEENAGE FANCLUB Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty Six (Jetset) cd 16.98
Damn! Such a great band! And what a fine way to remind us of this fact... a 21 song collection of their fab Scottish pop gems including eighteen that you might already be very familiar with, and three new ones! The oldies were culled from their five albums: Bandwagonesque, Thirteen, Songs From Northern Britain, Grand Prix, and Howdy! Certainly they wore their Big Star and Byrds influences proudly on their sleeves, but they did so in such splendidly blissful fashion -- the most infectious hooks, the most soaring boyish vocals harmonies, crunchy cool guitars -- and we're delighted to report that the new tunes totally stand as tall as their predecessors. Yaaaay! Listening to this makes us very very happy. Please note: a couple songs ("Star Sign" and "My Uptight Life") have been edited so that all twenty one would fit on a single cd.
MPEG Stream: "Radio"
MPEG Stream: "Empty Space"

TEENAGE FANCLUB Howdy! (Columbia) cd 19.98
The newest record from these Scottish popsters doesn't offer any new surprises. If you like their slow drift into lighter and lighter pop (almost Belle and Sebastian territory) then this record will hit the spot. If you hated the last couple records, and miss the rambuctious sort-of-rocking Teenage Fanclub of old, then you'll probably hate this one too.
UK import.

TEENAGE FANCLUB Man-Made (Merge) cd 14.98
Sometimes you need a great pop record. Not twee indie pop, not orchestral power pop. Juts pop. Perfect pop, and Teenage Fanclub are still kicking out the perfect pop jams even after all these years. In fact, this might just be their best since Bandwagonesque. A little bit Byrds, a little bit Big Star, plenty of jangly guitar, gorgeous harmony vocals, simple solid drumming, subtle but ridiculously infectious hooks, and perfect Perfect PERFECT songs. Catchy and hummable, rocking but laid back, just so goddamn good. One of our favorite pop records in forever!
MPEG Stream: "It's All In My Mind"
MPEG Stream: "Time Stops"
MPEG Stream: "Nowhere"

TEENAGE FANCLUB Shadows (Merge) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Sometimes I Don't Need To Believe In Anything"
MPEG Stream: "Baby Lee"

TEENAGE FANCLUB Shadows (Merge) cd 14.98

MPEG Stream: "Sometimes I Don't Need To Believe In Anything"
MPEG Stream: "Baby Lee"

TEENAGE FANCLUB & JAD FAIR Words of Wisdom (Alternative Tentacles) cd 14.98
Now here's a sure fire way of ensuring your album's spot in the bargain bin of record stores everywhere. As if Teenage Fanclub's popularity hadn't fallen off enough already, they decided to get rid of any remaining fans by teaming up with friggin' Jad Fair!! Good move, guys. But here's a good opportunity to bitch about Jad Fair. For the life of me I still can't understand how a guy could base an entire music career on pretending he's retarded. It's insulting. He's got to be in his what, late forties by now? But I guess you can't really feel too sorry for anyone who would choose to collaborate with Mr. Fair and his faux-naive drivel at this point.

TEENAGE FILMSTARS Buy Our Record, Support Our Sickness (Creation) cd 24.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Creation bands My Bloody Valentine, Oasis, Primal Scream, Ride, Slowdive, St.Etienne, etc. have been championed by fans around the globe, and have unfortunately overshadowed the brilliant trickery of the mysterious Teenage Filmstars. Working from the same influences of 60's British psychedelia as their fellow Creationists, the Teenage Filmstars succeed where others fail, in sending psychedelia to its most damaged and most hallucinatory end. With an innate understanding of how to write a near perfect pop song, Teenage Filmstars do their best to undermine the structures by creating them out of guitar lines and vocals literally _played backwards_ on top of the punchy rhythm section, to totally kick ass effect. From here, square wave generators, overdosed phase shifting, and explosive feedback enact the aural equivalent to an extremely excessive dose of acid. But that's only half of each Teenage Filmstar album; as they're filled out by odd kaleidoscopes of pseudo electronica, waivering sitars, and sedative-laiden drones resembling Can's trippy collages like 'Aumgn' from 'Tago Mago'. We've had some difficulty getting their material, and for now this album is all we have. Nevertheless, everything the Teenage Filmstars has released comes with Aquarius' highest recommendations!

TEENAGE FILMSTARS Rocket Charms / Buy Our Record Support Our Sickness / Bring Back The Cartel: The Epiphany Triptych (Artpop! / Cherry Red) 2cd 24.00
We've been getting tons of orders for this recent Record Of The Week, and were out of stock for a little while, but now have a bunch back in...
Finally. Finally. FINALLY! If ever there was a more anticipated (around here at least) or a more criminally overdue reissue, it's this one right here. A mind blowing three-fer from should-have-been-massive blissed out fractured psych pop masters Teenage Filmstars, fronted by the inimitable Ed Ball, whom as we mentioned in our review of Star, TF's genius debut, was once described by My Bloody Valentine mainman Kevin Shields as "A sensitive soul from another planet. A modernist musical alchemist". Shield also had this to say about Ball: "Where other people struggle, Ed Ball plays what we're thinking." Which coming from the man behind My Bloody Valentine means a lot. Especially when considering Teenage Filmstars, who employ a sonic palette not all that far removed from MBV's. BUT, and a very big but at that, minus the explosive bursts of caustic noise, MBV hewed more to a traditional pop sensibility than Teenage Filmstars. Where as Loveless, even for all its amazing wall of guitar heaviness, and effects drenched dreaminess, was still anchored to a verse chorus verse framework, with Teenage Filmstars, those conventions are tossed aside, or at the very least, flipped over, doused in effects, chopped up and played backwards. Which is why once again, we must proclaim, that in the landscape of (not so) popular music, TEENAGE FILMSTARS ARE BETTER THAN MY BLOODY VALENTINE. And don't get us wrong, we LOVE LOVE LOVE My Bloody Valentine, but imagine an alternate universe MBV, where for some reason, Shields' guitars played backwards, effects boxes grew sentient and demanded as much space as the instruments and voices, imagine viewing all of those sounds, already twisted and skewed, through a fractured funhouse mirror, and then, if you can, imagine some musical wizard, who is able to reign in all of those sounds, and somehow shape them into some of the most perfect UNpop you've ever heard.
Which brings us to Rocket Charms, record number two from Teenage Filmstars, which finds all the sounds on Star, pushed even farther out, the backwards sounds are more backwards (and there are more of them), the guitars are crunchier and more crumbly, the melodies are more catchy, the murk and shimmer are both murkier and shimmerier, and the production, is even more hazy and spaced out and lysergic and psychedelic and fucking head spinning. And yet somehow, Rocket Charms is a pop record, hooky and catchy, lilting and melodic. Opener "Pressure" is an immediate 'hit' if there ever was one, processed falsetto vox over swooping backwards rhythms and washed out guitar haze, a sort of druggy backwards Beach Boys pop ambience. And it just goes on from there, every song, a gorgeous slab of outsider twisted pop, on the surface a whirling sonic dervish, but within drift all manner of classic pop tropes, in the able hands of Ed Ball, subverted and turned inside out, wreathed in hiss and sparkle, and rendered, well, Teenage.
But then amidst all this deconstructed shoegazey noise pop (or pop noise), comes the track "Alone", quite possible our favorite jam on Rocket Charms, a slow brooding dirge, all skittery Stone Roses-y drums, thick distorted bass, disembodied voices, swirling ominous dark ambience, and a main melody that just might be the catchiest bit on the record, sounding like a slowed down twisted take on the Cure's "Close To You", but via Pop Will Eat Itself or some other warped UK grebo combo.
The crazy thing is, Rocket Charms for being as fantastic and over the top and incredible, isn't even our favorite Teenage Filmstars record. That honor belongs to the awesomely titled Buy Our Record Support Our Sickness, which takes all of the songs and sounds from Rocket Charms and Star, and makes them WAY HEAVIER, WAY MORE FUCKED UP, the processed guitars and backwards guitars and vocals have gone haywire, the songs are less songs here and more fucked up fragmented pop experiments, but again, Ball has such a deft hand that he manages to take all these totally freaked out elements, and gets them to work, and sound like pop songs, albeit, totally dizzying and abstract, psychedelic and almost metallic at times. The record's defining moment is the opener "Physical Graffiti", not a Zeppelin cover, but hell, it sounds like it could be some sort of insane My Bloody Valentine / Led Zeppelin mash up maybe, but one that had been totally tweaked, chopped and screwed, then sped up and flipped reverse again, listening to it, it's hard to imagine how anyone could envision music like this, let alone actually make it. The guitars swoop all over the stereo field, stuttering, blurring into huge backwards swells, the drums are chaotic, the vocals sound backwards too, but not overtly, the melodies so memorable and catchy, at one point the whole track begins to stutter, almost as if your cd player is skipping, but it soon swoops back into the dreamlike psychedelic swirl.
Not all of Support Our Sickness is as heavy and crunchy, many of the tracks begin as classic sixties sounding pop, but as they progress, the effects seem to slowly take over, often one or more of the instruments flipping backwards and erupting into a squall of psychedelic freakout, but just as often, sprawling into a woozy almost balladic bit of slithery backwards slowcore. But even at its prettiest, the sounds are slightly tweaked, the vibe is subtly menacing, laced with bits of sunshiney jangle for sure, but this is some seriously drugged out dream pop damage, and remains to this day, one of the most amazing, and unlikely genius pop records EVER.
The first disc features 5 bonus tracks, two from the Support Our Sickness sessions, as well as three other unreleased jams, none quite as twisted, but still awesome, and in fact, they almost sound like they were rough drafts, just waiting to get the Ed Ball mad scientist backwards fucked up FX makeover. So that's it, BUY IT, you won't be sorry, this is easily some of the most forward thinking pop music ever, heavy and psychedelic, druggy and delirious, catchy and crazy and bafflingly brilliant.
But wait, what's this, a THIRD record? Teenage Filmstars final missive, and a pretty bizarre sonic sea change, in fact, it sounds like a totally different band. To be honest, we're not into it at all, Bring Back The Cartel found the band doing some sort of skittery smooth jazz electronic mood music, it makes very little sense that this one would get tacked on with the other two, when we first ordered this we actually thought it WAS just those other two, but maybe some folks will dig Bring Back The Cartel, there are some moments, here and there, but it doesn't at all approach the sheer brilliance of Rocket Charms or Buy Our Record Support Our Sickness, so our advice would be probably to just give it a spin, and if you dig it, cool, if not, just ignore it, pretend it's not there, and immerse yourself in those first two, let the sounds twist you inside out and carry you off, play it over and over and over and over, forever and ever and ever and ever. Totally fucking incredible, and not just worthy of Record Of The Week honors, definitely something more, like how about Record of FOREVER!?!?
MPEG Stream: "Pressure"
MPEG Stream: "Alone"
MPEG Stream: "Physical Graffiti"
MPEG Stream: "Guruprophecy"
MPEG Stream: "Feeding The Blue Jays"
MPEG Stream: "Whatever Happened To Richard Boon"

TEENAGE FILMSTARS Star (Art Pop!) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
By now, pretty much everyone knows who Kevin Shields is. He of shoegaze pioneers My Bloody Valentine. Who over the course of the last 20 years or so have released all of THREE records. But what about Ed Ball. A musical contemporary of Shields. A man Shields described as "A sensitive soul from another planet. A modernist musical alchemist", going on to say "Where other people struggle, Ed Ball plays what we're thinking." Ball, over the last 20 years, has released close to 40 records, a whole mess of amazing discs with UK mod popsters The Times, a handful under his own name, and a bunch with power poppers the Boo Radleys, among others. But what Ball is most famous for, at least around these parts, is releasing three of the most perfect, and perfectly fractured genius shoegaze blisspop records EVER, as Teenage Filmstars: Star, Rocket Charms and Buy our Record Support Our Sickness. Each a kaleidoscopic blurred and blown out avant pop fantasia of sound, mixing in gorgeous melodies, with all manner of found sounds, backwards loops, ethereal vocals, studio fuckery, with very little regard for form or function, for the rules of pop. Instead, seemingly feeling their way through a totally tactile world of sound, everything bristly or buzzy or fuzzy, smeared or blurred, wah guitars wrapped around roaring motorcycles, Spectorish wall of guitars spread over, skittery almost Stone Roses-y rhythms. The most obvious reference is My Bloody Valentine. And at the risk of receiving an avalanche of hate mail, Teenage Filmstars are better. They may not have invented the sound, and they definitely didn't perfect it, instead, they fucked it all up, twisted it and chopped it and doused it in FX, and flipped it backwards, and let it sprawl and spin out of control, wrapped tightly into perfect pop gems one second, then let loose in unhinged squalls of sonic whatthefuck meltdowns the next. Each of the three records growing continually more abrasive, more intense, heavier, more backwards, more fractured and freaked out, and somehow only getting better and better and better.
Star is the first proper release from Teenage Filmstars, and was released a year or two after MBV's epochal Loveless. Opener "Kiss Me" is TOTALLY cribbed from Loveless, but it sounds like it was recorded on a busted 4-track, the rhythm track supplied by a fluttery backwards loop, the guitars super distorted but also brittle, woozy and wavery, all wrapped round the main hook, a guitar / vocal harmony that is just incredible, soaring and wistful but sort of super rocking, the whole thing dripping in effects, Loveless filtered through DIY bedroom pop, and then filtered through the twisted musical mind of visionary sonic alchemist Ball. The track crumbles near the end, the guitars disappear, motorcycles zoom by, the drums all distorted, snippets of classical piano, the twitter of birds, disembodied voices, one intoning "this just might be the finest composition I ever wrote", which it might have been, if it weren't for the follow up "Loving", which follows a similar template as "Kiss Me", with the main hook, a hushed wordless vocals crooning along to a slithery guitar line, all over a looped tribal rhythm, and tripped out wah guitar all over the place. If this was just a single, "Kiss Me" / "Loving", A side B side, it would be hands down one of the greatest singles ever! But we've barely just begun. And it only gets weirder and weirder.
"Inner Space" predates the fuzzy gauzy drift of Fennesz and Jeck and Tim Hecker by 20 years, unfurling sweeping vistas of sound, intertwined with buried melancholy vocals, muted rhythmic skitter, and deep whirring strings. "Apple" is all sixties strum and whirling effects laden swoosh, simple pop stretched out and blurred and distorted into something slightly alien, a warm dreamlike missive from beyond the stars. "Flashes" is a strange sort of electronic calypso, with a subtle techno throb beneath divine female vocals, propulsive krauty drums, and of course loads of FX. "Kaleidoscope" returns to the more MBV style rocking of the openers, and does indeed sound like a shoegazing fuzzrock kaleidoscope, a swirling dizzying space pop jam, the sounds slipping from speaker to speaker, the drums relentless and hypnotic, the vocals buried, but the main guitar melody soaring over the wavery sonic swirl beneath.
Then comes a three song suite of tripped out avant weirdness, drifting fuzzy almost melodies, strange intercepted radio broadcasts, a super deconstructed version of "Kiss Me", looped and flipped backwards and transformed into something else entirely, deep whirling drones, weird voices, samples, deep black ambience, shot though with streaks of glimmering buzz, the sounds of engines, choir like vocals, damaged effects laden rhythmscapes, flange and chorus and delay and reverb all wrapped around little sonic events, laced into a delicate framework of tripped out sound. Until the closer, "Moon", a gorgeous explosion of distorted pop effulgence, thick warbly organs, epic melodies, the guitar so distorted they almost sound like white noise, almost proggy keyboards, the whole thing fracturing into a brief falling apart coda of drum freakout, and skipping lurching guitars. Holy Shit.
So maybe it's not that Teenage Filmstars are -better- than My Bloody Valentine. Just weirder, more fucked up, more spaced out, more fractured, more challenging, more out there, less like ANYTHING you've ever heard, more... oh fuck it, okay... BETTER!!! Bring on the hate mail!!
This reissue tacks on three bonus tracks, all good enough to have been on the record proper, but with way more of the backwards production that would come to define their sound on future records, blissed out fuzzy shoegazey power pop, but crumbling and often in reverse, and thus fantastic. Also included lengthy liner notes, as confusing and obfuscated as the music itself.
The other two Filmstars discs are getting reissued soon, and will definitely also be Records Of The Week, so immerse yourself in Star while you can, cuz it only gets better and weirder from here on out...
MPEG Stream: "Kiss Me"
MPEG Stream: "Loving"
MPEG Stream: "Inner Space"
MPEG Stream: "Apple"

TEENAGE FILMSTARS Star (Cherry Red) lp 28.00
AN ALL TIME AQ FAVE AVAILABLE ON LP! For the first time in a long while... We made the cd reissue a Record Of The Week, that's how much we love this album.
By now, pretty much everyone knows who Kevin Shields is. He of shoegaze pioneers My Bloody Valentine. Who over the course of the last 20 years or so have released all of THREE records. But what about Ed Ball. A musical contemporary of Shields. A man Shields described as "A sensitive soul from another planet. A modernist musical alchemist", going on to say "Where other people struggle, Ed Ball plays what we're thinking." Ball, over the last 20 years, has released close to 40 records, a whole mess of amazing discs with UK mod popsters The Times, a handful under his own name, and a bunch with power poppers the Boo Radleys, among others. But what Ball is most famous for, at least around these parts, is releasing three of the most perfect, and perfectly fractured genius shoegaze blisspop records EVER, as Teenage Filmstars: Star, Rocket Charms and Buy our Record Support Our Sickness. Each a kaleidoscopic blurred and blown out avant pop fantasia of sound, mixing in gorgeous melodies, with all manner of found sounds, backwards loops, ethereal vocals, studio fuckery, with very little regard for form or function, for the rules of pop. Instead, seemingly feeling their way through a totally tactile world of sound, everything bristly or buzzy or fuzzy, smeared or blurred, wah guitars wrapped around roaring motorcycles, Spectorish wall of guitars spread over, skittery almost Stone Roses-y rhythms. The most obvious reference is My Bloody Valentine. And at the risk of receiving an avalanche of hate mail, Teenage Filmstars are better. They may not have invented the sound, and they definitely didn't perfect it, instead, they fucked it all up, twisted it and chopped it and doused it in FX, and flipped it backwards, and let it sprawl and spin out of control, wrapped tightly into perfect pop gems one second, then let loose in unhinged squalls of sonic whatthefuck meltdowns the next. Each of the three records growing continually more abrasive, more intense, heavier, more backwards, more fractured and freaked out, and somehow only getting better and better and better.
Star is the first proper release from Teenage Filmstars, and was released a year or two after MBV's epochal Loveless. Opener "Kiss Me" is TOTALLY cribbed from Loveless, but it sounds like it was recorded on a busted 4-track, the rhythm track supplied by a fluttery backwards loop, the guitars super distorted but also brittle, woozy and wavery, all wrapped round the main hook, a guitar / vocal harmony that is just incredible, soaring and wistful but sort of super rocking, the whole thing dripping in effects, Loveless filtered through DIY bedroom pop, and then filtered through the twisted musical mind of visionary sonic alchemist Ball. The track crumbles near the end, the guitars disappear, motorcycles zoom by, the drums all distorted, snippets of classical piano, the twitter of birds, disembodied voices, one intoning "this just might be the finest composition I ever wrote", which it might have been, if it weren't for the follow up "Loving", which follows a similar template as "Kiss Me", with the main hook, a hushed wordless vocals crooning along to a slithery guitar line, all over a looped tribal rhythm, and tripped out wah guitar all over the place. If this was just a single, "Kiss Me" / "Loving", A side B side, it would be hands down one of the greatest singles ever! But we've barely just begun. And it only gets weirder and weirder.
"Inner Space" predates the fuzzy gauzy drift of Fennesz and Jeck and Tim Hecker by 20 years, unfurling sweeping vistas of sound, intertwined with buried melancholy vocals, muted rhythmic skitter, and deep whirring strings. "Apple" is all sixties strum and whirling effects laden swoosh, simple pop stretched out and blurred and distorted into something slightly alien, a warm dreamlike missive from beyond the stars. "Flashes" is a strange sort of electronic calypso, with a subtle techno throb beneath divine female vocals, propulsive krauty drums, and of course loads of FX. "Kaleidoscope" returns to the more MBV style rocking of the openers, and does indeed sound like a shoegazing fuzzrock kaleidoscope, a swirling dizzying space pop jam, the sounds slipping from speaker to speaker, the drums relentless and hypnotic, the vocals buried, but the main guitar melody soaring over the wavery sonic swirl beneath.
Then comes a three song suite of tripped out avant weirdness, drifting fuzzy almost melodies, strange intercepted radio broadcasts, a super deconstructed version of "Kiss Me", looped and flipped backwards and transformed into something else entirely, deep whirling drones, weird voices, samples, deep black ambience, shot though with streaks of glimmering buzz, the sounds of engines, choir like vocals, damaged effects laden rhythmscapes, flange and chorus and delay and reverb all wrapped around little sonic events, laced into a delicate framework of tripped out sound. Until the closer, "Moon", a gorgeous explosion of distorted pop effulgence, thick warbly organs, epic melodies, the guitar so distorted they almost sound like white noise, almost proggy keyboards, the whole thing fracturing into a brief falling apart coda of drum freakout, and skipping lurching guitars. Holy Shit.
So maybe it's not that Teenage Filmstars are -better- than My Bloody Valentine. Just weirder, more fucked up, more spaced out, more fractured, more challenging, more out there, less like ANYTHING you've ever heard, more... oh fuck it, okay... BETTER!!! Bring on the hate mail!!
This reissue tacks on three bonus tracks, all good enough to have been on the record proper, but with way more of the backwards production that would come to define their sound on future records, blissed out fuzzy shoegazey power pop, but crumbling and often in reverse, and thus fantastic. Also included lengthy liner notes, as confusing and obfuscated as the music itself.
The other two Filmstars discs are getting reissued soon, and will definitely also be Records Of The Week, so immerse yourself in Star while you can, cuz it only gets better and weirder from here on out...
MPEG Stream: "Kiss Me"
MPEG Stream: "Loving"
MPEG Stream: "Inner Space"
MPEG Stream: "Apple"

TEENAGE JESUS AND THE JERKS Shut Up And Bleed (Cherry Red) lp 28.00
NOW ON VINYL!
Love her or hate her, Lydia Lunch will make an impression on you. Given her venomous poems, constant invectives, and perpetual bad attitude, it's pretty obvious that Lydia wants you to hate her. While she's not an artist without her charms, she'll probably hate you for loving her. She began a career of transgression and teeth-gnashing in the mid-'70s when she was a runaway teenager slumming around the crappiest parts of NYC and pissing off more people than not. Yet, she managed to sequester enough people to support her in Teenage Jesus and The Jerks - one of the seminal bands who defined No Wave. They were also one of the four bands who appeared on the highly influential No New York compilation, alongside James Chance & The Contortionists, Mars, and DNA. Teenage Jesus only lasted for three years, probably due to the fact that no one could tolerate the musical dictator that was Lydia Lunch. But the music itself probably did a fair share of damage upon the participants as Teenage Jesus produced hyper-abrasive, hyper-condensed songs through militant rhythmic stomps, screechingly atonal slide guitars, and Lydia's sharply barked vocals. James Chance was in fact one of the early members of the band, offering his blood-splattering sax as a suitable duet for Lydia's caterwauling.
While Teenage Jesus never managed a full album (well, they barely managed to clock in a 20 minute live set!), there have been a number of collections of Teenage Jesus tracks. This compilation, Shut Up And Bleed, pretty much has all of the tracks from the band that were recorded to tape. It should be noted that the cd version of the same name contained tracks from Beirut Slump, another early Lydia Lunch project; but none of those cuts appear on this Cherry Red vinyl reish.
MPEG Stream: TEENAGE JESUS & THE JERKS "Orphans"
MPEG Stream: TEENAGE JESUS & THE JERKS "Baby Doll"

TEENAGE JESUS AND THE JERKS / BEIRUT SLUMP Shut Up and Bleed (Atavistic) cd 16.98
Love her or hate her, Lydia Lunch will make an impression on you. Given her venomous poems, constant invectives, and perpetual bad attitude, it's pretty obvious that Lydia wants you to hate her. While she's not an artist without her charms, she'll probably hate you for loving her. She began a career of transgression and teeth-gnashing in the mid-'70s when she was a runaway teenager slumming around the crappiest parts of NYC and pissing off more people than not. Yet, she managed to sequester enough people to support her in Teenage Jesus and The Jerks - one of the seminal bands who defined No Wave. They were also one of the four bands who appeared on the highly influential No New York compilation, alongside James Chance & The Contortionists, Mars, and DNA. Teenage Jesus only lasted for three years, probably due to the fact that no one could tolerate the musical dictator that was Lydia Lunch. But the music itself probably did a fair share of damage upon the participants as Teenage Jesus produced hyper-abrasive, hyper-condensed songs through militant rhythmic stomps, screechingly atonal slide guitars, and Lydia's sharply barked vocals. James Chance was in fact one of the early members of the band, offering his blood-splattering sax as a suitable duet for Lydia's caterwauling.
While Teenage Jesus never managed a full-album (well, they barely managed to clock in a 20 minute live set!), there have been a number of collections of Teenage Jesus tracks. The 2008 compilation, Shut Up And Bleed, is unique by including tunes from Lydia Lunch's other band at the time Beirut Slump. Some of these tracks had appeared on another Lunch compendium, Hysterie, released way back in 1988, but they've never been on cd. In Beirut Slump, Lydia played the part of the lead guitarist, leaving the vocal rants to Bobby Berkowitz, whose growling and grunts were uncannily similar to those of Michael Gira on the early Swans records. With the dissonant organ stabs, scraped guitar noise, and jackbooted stomping, Beirut Slump must have been one of the unsung templates for Gira and Swans. Even 30 years later, this stuff is damn impressive.
MPEG Stream: TEENAGE JESUS & THE JERKS "Orphans"
MPEG Stream: TEENAGE JESUS & THE JERKS "Baby Doll"
MPEG Stream: BEIRUT SLUMP "See Pretty"
MPEG Stream: BEIRUT SLUMP "Case #14"

TEENAGE PANZERCORPS s/t (Captured Tracks) 7" 6.98
Latest blast of nihilistic Teutonic post punk from this Jewelled Antler offshoot, and while much of the TPK sound we've come to love is still present, in some ways the sound here is a whole different beast. Surprisingly poppy, lo-fi, and jangly, a little gloomy, yep, sounds right at home on a label that features Blank Dogs and Gary War. The music is all low slung and murky, not nearly as angular as other TPK records, instead, these guys whip up their own brand of lo-fi new wave pop, the main thing that still screams TPK are the vocals, an echo drenched Teutonic almost-shout, intense and booming, heavily accented, and in German as far as we can tell, a strange juxtaposition to the woozy bass heavy grooves underneath. The guitars are minor key and melodic, sometimes chiming and almost Cure-like, the combination makes this sound like it could be some last rarity reissued on Vinyl On Demand.
The side long B side is musically all washed out and dreamy, with a killer main riff, all fuzzy and doomy, the whole track laced with warbly organs, a sort of off kilter cold wave vibe, until those vocals swoop in and twist it all up. Awesome!

TEENAGE PANZERKORPS Games For Slaves (Siltbreeze) lp 15.98

TEENAGE PANZERKORPS Gleich Heilt Gleich (Skulltones) 7" 5.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on a super limited 7" (only 300 copies made!). This killer, long out of print slab of artrock originally released as a 3" cd-r on Pink Skulls, the label run by Glenn Donaldson of Jewelled Antler, rears its spiky helmeted head once again, bit only briefly, as we only got a handful of these!
Ahhh, the Teenage PanzerKorps, a band which actually features Glenn himself (under the name Edmund Xavier) in its ranks and doesn't sound at all like you might think, nothing like Thuja or Tomes or Dead Raven Choir or any of that Jewelled Antler stuff. It's raucous, droney, arty rawk with a German singer (a 40-year old punker going by the name Bunker Wolf here). Bunker and Xavier and joined by drummer "Catholic Pat" Toves and Boy True on bass (quite possibly actually Jason Honea, who's a member of the Knit Separates with Glenn). Loud (or at least distorted), not too fast, and Teutonically snotty: the whole thing clocks in at under 10 minutes, with titles like "Burma Crawl", "Chinese Machine Gun parts 1 and 2", and "Get Out Of My Shadow!". It references '80s downer artpunk (The Fall, Factory Records stuff I guess or maybe some of Savage Republic's tracks), '60s garage with fuzz organ, and the hardcore bands Boy True and Catholic Pat used to play in. Noisy breaks, abrupt edits, and poppy grooves are all important to Teenage Panzerkorps' sound, but it's Bunker Wolf's accent and delivery that stands out the most. No fake German here like Zeigenbock Kopf! Then there's Glenn. He proved in his old band Mirza's more loud, scree-filled moments that he can do the aggro guitar thing, yet his sensitive side is still in evidence here, so his 6 & 12 string guitar parts here betray an indie-pop influence as pretty as what he's come up with in such outfits as The Birdtree, The Knit Separates, Blithe Sons and even Thuja (with whom Teenage Panzerkorp at least share a partly improvised approach). An interesting blend of inspirations/expertise to be sure.
Limited to 300 copies, each one hand numbered in silver ink!
MPEG Stream: "Future Hygiene"
MPEG Stream: "Burma Crawl"

TEENAGE PANZERKORPS Gleich Heilt Gleich (Pink Skulls) 3" cd-r 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pink Skulls is a new cd-r label run by Glenn Donaldson of Jewelled Antler, for stuff that's too "punk" for Jewelled Antler to put out. A recent list's Record of the Week, Leaf Yard, was one of Pink Skulls' first releases (if you've heard that, you know that what Glenn means by "punk" sure ain't Green Day). Now comes the Teenage PanzerKorps, a band which actually features Glenn himself (under the name Edmund Xavier) in its ranks. This lil' 3" cdr looks a lot like the stuff in the on-going Jewelled Antler "Library" series, but sure doesn't sound like Thuja or Tomes or even Dead Raven Choir. It's raucous, droney, arty rawk with a German singer (a 40-year old punker going by the name Bunker Wolf here). Bunker and Xavier and joined by drummer "Catholic Pat" Toves and Boy True on bass (quite possibly actually Jason Honea, who's a member of the Knit Separates with Glenn). Loud (or at least distorted), not too fast, and Teutonically snotty: nine songs in as many minutes, with titles like "Burma Crawl", "Chinese Machine Gun parts 1 and 2", and "Get Out Of My Shadow!". It references '80s downer artpunk (The Fall, Factory Records stuff I guess or maybe some of Savage Republic's tracks), '60s garage with fuzz organ, and the hardcore bands Boy True and Catholic Pat used to play in. Noisy breaks, abrupt edits, and poppy grooves are all important to Teenage Panzerkorps' sound, but it's Bunker Wolf's accent and delivery that stands out the most. No fake German here like Zeigenbock Kopf! Then there's Glenn. He proved in his old band Mirza's more loud, scree-filled moments that he can do the aggro guitar thing, yet his sensitive side is still in evidence here, so his 6 & 12 string guitar parts here betray an indie-pop influence as pretty as what he's come up with in such outfits as The Birdtree, The Knit Separates, Blithe Sons and even Thuja (with whom Teenage Panzerkorp at least share a partly improvised approach). An interesting blend of inspirations/expertise to be sure. These guys recorded this for fun a couple years ago, and have finally found a proper outlet for it, which is cool 'cause it's pretty great.
MPEG Stream: "Future Hygiene"
MPEG Stream: "Burma Crawl"

TEENAGE PANZERKORPS Nations Are Insane (Pink Skulls) cd-r 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Bunker Wolf, Catholic Pat, Edmund Xavier and Boy True are back with some more of the aggro lo-fi Teutonic art punk attack that only they are capable in this day, age, and state. And leave it to the Teenage Panzerkorps to come up with an automatically classic title like Nations Are Insane. Doesn't that sound like the title of some critically-lauded, obscuro punk rarity? Y'know, a seminal album cited by bands years later? Well anyway I think it's a great title. And the tracks on here are great too! If you liked TPK's Gleich Heilt Gleich 3" cd-r previously issued by Jewelled Antler punk offshoot Pink Skulls, you'll slaver over this. Total '80s DIY worship, sounding like something that coulda been on one of those Hyped2Death comps. Arty, punky noise rock that's equally into the Germs and the Germans (like Neu! and Neubauten). And singer Bunker Wolf *is* German so it's very authentic in that regard. Eighteen tracks that clock in at under a half-hour of murky, shambolic, distorted, somewhat-poppy urgh-splurge. Featuring members of Grim Reality, The Nazi Dogs, Thuja, The Knit Separates, The Birdtree, Blithe Sons, Skygreen Leopards, etc...
MPEG Stream: "Destroy The Future"
MPEG Stream: "Destroy The Nations"

TEENAGE PANZERKORPS (DER TPK) German Reggae (Holidays) lp 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Ah, Teenage Panzerkorps. This confounding, transcontinental quartet has quite a punk / avant-rock pedigree. Edmund Xavier was born Glenn Donaldson, whose work within the forest-dwelling psychedelic collective Jewelled Antler spawned such projects as Thuja and the Blithe Sons, not to mention the paisley-pop project the Skygreen Leopards and Art Museums; and Boy True is the pseudonym for Jason Honea, who joined the leftist-punk band Social Unrest in the late '80s and Ten Bright Spikes in the '90s, before accompanying Donaldson and company on some of the more outre projects of Jewelled Antler. From the perspective of Jewelled Antler, the iconography of Teenage Panzerkorps makes a lot more sense, as a re-imagining of the childhood games playing with toy soldiers, where political and moral implications are lost within the wonder of play, all the while these childish ideals are smashed into the epiphany of hearing punk for the first time, with all of the social and political ramifications very much on the line. The Teutonic bark of vocalist Bunker Wolf and all of the militant iconography might give the impression of these guys being Nazi sympathizers, but this is hardly the case, as Der TPK's folding of symbols and metaphors is far more nuanced in its appropriation, pastiche, and parody.
German Reggae is album number four for Der TPK, and it exhibits lyWobble's thick punk-dub, and Bunker Wolf's delivery is a bit more understated, to which some have compared now to a Germanic Mark E. Smith. Even with these differences, Der TPK puts their collective head down for these propulsive, grimy post-punk numbers with plenty of references to the pre-Joy Division Warsaw recordings, Savage Republic, and Wire, not to mention contemporaries like The Soft Moon and Cult Of Youth.

TEENAGE PANZERKORPS (DER TPK) German Reggae (Campaign For Infinity) cassette 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now on cassette!!!
Ah, Teenage Panzerkorps. This confounding, transcontinental quartet has quite a punk / avant-rock pedigree. Edmund Xavier was born Glenn Donaldson, whose work within the forest-dwelling psychedelic collective Jewelled Antler spawned such projects as Thuja and the Blithe Sons, not to mention the paisley-pop project the Skygreen Leopards and Art Museums; and Boy True is the pseudonym for Jason Honea, who joined the leftist-punk band Social Unrest in the late '80s and Ten Bright Spikes in the '90s, before accompanying Donaldson and company on some of the more outre projects of Jewelled Antler. From the perspective of Jewelled Antler, the iconography of Teenage Panzerkorps makes a lot more sense, as a re-imagining of the childhood games playing with toy soldiers, where political and moral implications are lost within the wonder of play, all the while these childish ideals are smashed into the epiphany of hearing punk for the first time, with all of the social and political ramifications very much on the line. The Teutonic bark of vocalist Bunker Wolf and all of the militant iconography might give the impression of these guys being Nazi sympathizers, but this is hardly the case, as Der TPK's folding of symbols and metaphors is far more nuanced in its appropriation, pastiche, and parody.
German Reggae is album number four for Der TPK, and it exhibits some variation beyond the drone-punk propulsion which dominated their Games For Slaves and Nations Are Insane albums. Honea's basslines look back to the first couple of PiL records and Jah Wobble's thick punk-dub, and Bunker Wolf's delivery is a bit more understated, to which some have compared now to a Germanic Mark E. Smith. Even with these differences, Der TPK puts their collective head down for these propulsive, grimy post-punk numbers with plenty of references to the pre-Joy Division Warsaw recordings, Savage Republic, and Wire, not to mention contemporaries like The Soft Moon and Cult Of Youth.

TEENAGE PANZERKORPS (DER TPK) Kauf Nicht Von TPK (Holidays Records) lp 17.98
Kauf Nicht Von TPK is a collection of oddities from the Deutsche-Americanische punk outfit Teenage Panzerkorps. Spearheaded by San Franciscan out-rocker Glenn Donaldson, Der TPK sports a German giant of a vocalist in Bunker Wolf, plus grizzled American punks Jason Honea and Catholic Pat Toves. Their sound is one of a forgotten bleak punk as if belted from some shitty squat in the shadows of the Berlin Wall circa 1981. Not the Neue Deutsche Welle sound of synth-based crooners nor of the Geniale Dilletanten crowd of Neubauten, Sprung Aus Den Wolken, etc; but the very dirty and very pissed-off punk sound of a group that wouldn't ever consider recording on anything with higher quality than a second hand 4-track. Even knowing this about Der TPK, we were caught offguard by the trainwreck pace of the first few tracks, which crash through 4/4 rhythms as the jangling guitars and throbbing basslines struggle to keep pace. Even Bunker Wolf sounds like he's pitched up his baritone barking just a bit. These couple of numbers sound as if the turntable was set to 45 rpm when the record's supposed to spin at 33. The tracks tend to return to a more manageable pace throughout the rest of the album which is still quite brisk mind you, with cuts rarely exceeding the three minute mark. These dark-gritty punk numbers drone through guitar, bass, and drums with Bunker Wolf chanting his way through each of the tracks, rounded out by the aptly named "Degenerate Disco." A few of the tracks are different versions of tracks found on the Harmful Emotions lp and the Nations Are Insane cd-r, both of which are way out of print, with plenty of unreleased tracks to boot. Limited to 300 copies, Italian import.

TEETH OF THE HYDRA Greenland (Tee Pee) cd 16.98

TEETH OF THE SEA Hypnoticon (Rocket) lp 17.98

TEETH OF THE SEA Orphaned By The Ocean (Rocket) cd 17.98
This came out last year, but somehow it managed to slip right by us, which is a shame cuz holy smokes is this right up our alley, and yours we're guessing. The first proper release (we think) from this UK instrumental space psych combo, who craft sprawling, smoldering epics, total kosmische psychedelic bliss out, not heavy and heady like the Heads or White Hills (at least most of the time), instead, TOTS let their songs brew and steep, like on the opening track here, the band unfurling a long stretch of warm washed out guitar buzz, haunting mariachi like trumpet, deep bass thrum, swirling sci fi FX, all woven into a super cinematic stretch of ritualistic psychedelic ambience. The second track offers up more of the same, but pushing the sound in a more Godspeedy, slow build direction, a minimal muted shimmerscape, wound around spidery guitars and a thick gloomy basslines, tribal drumming drives things forward, brooding and hauntingly intense, it's not until the final minute that the song explodes in a glorious burst of psych noise chaos.
The rest of the record offers up a series of miniature epics, haunting soundtracky ambience, mariachi flecked spaghetti western style psychedelia, occultic space rock infused krautrock, and just full on psychedelic space rock, all in varying measures, from the creepy soundtracky sci fi electronics of "Coraniaid", to the deserty drone rock of "Swear Blind The Alsatian's Melting", that transforms into a sort of mathy space rock part way through, rife with haunting twang, and metallic buzz, eventually blasting off, for the heart of the sun, all pounding dynamic chug and churn, and soaring psychguitar freakout. "Dreadnaught" is another one that's all cinematic and sweeping, that trumpet adding a little mariachi vibe to every track it touches, this one a hazy slow burn, the horn adding layer of buzz and thrum, before a brief bit of shimmery glitched out jangle, before the final jam, "Sentimental Journey", which is all wheezing electronics, and minimal tribal drumming, harmonica, gauzy washed out melodies, a droning dirgey drift, that builds to a pulsing hypnorock dronekraut groove, all murky and motorik, and the sort of thing you wish would go on for ages longer, but instead here finishes off in decaying swirl of hazy harmonica flecked shimmer.
The perfect mix of spaced out psych and slow burning post rock epic, which means you can probably figure out if this is for you (it probably is!)...
MPEG Stream: "Only Fool On Horse"
MPEG Stream: "Latin Inches"
MPEG Stream: "Sentimental Journey"

TEETH OF THE SEA Your Mercury (Rocket) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
NOW ON CD!!
This is the second record from UK psychedelic instrumental space rockers Teeth Of The Sea, their third record over all, and another twisted batch of heavy twisted psych, it makes sense that it would be on Rocket, home to other aQ fave space rock heavies like The Heads and Gnod, and these guys traffic in a similar sound, but one that is most definitely all their own, just check out opener "The Ambassador", one of THEE heaviest, trippiest slabs of space psych we've ever heard, thick low slung bassline, weird burbling electronics, tripped out processed vox, all hazy and buzzy and gristly, it sounds like a spaced out dirge rock Butthole Surfers almost, the guitars thick and distorted, the song a lugubrious crawl, until a second guitar swoops in, playing a slithery stoner riff, and the horns, the HORNS, bleating out a dark funereal drone, those freaky voices making everything way more druggy and demented, the drums come pounding in, it's not until about halfway through, that the guitars unwind wild peals of psychedelic leads, the drums grow more tribal, and yet, it never full explodes into conventional space rock, this is something else entirely, the song blisses out part way through, weird sci-fi squelches and more horns drifting in an expanse of distant guitar shimmer, and muted rhythms, everything gradually fading out leaving just tabla like drumming, subtle organs and swirls of electronic bloops and bleeps, and hell if that's not the way to start a record...
And the rest of the record, defies convention still by never quite settling down into anything even resembling proper space rock or psych rock, even compared to their last record we reviewed, this is as about far out as it gets. The next track is all drum machine, weird industrial electronics, processed voices, swirling synths, almost like some heavier take on Goblin / Carpenter soundtrack stuff. The title is all horn flecked slow burn drift, a gradual build to a more post rock crunch, building to a sort of Godspeed climax, but one that's all super high end guitar tangles draped over the otherwise seemingly sedate sonic background, dramatic and tense and surprisingly cinematic. The rest of the record continues to take the concept of psychedelic space rock and twist it all up, from pulsing kosmische synths, to almost cheesy, eighties sounding soundtrack music, like a more metal Beverly Hills Cop or Miami Vice (!), to murky hazy washed out ambience, all muted processed guitars and blurred gauzy melodies, to a weird final track that's a hazy shoegazey soundscape of minimal drumming, chiming guitars, and lots and lots of horns, again very haunting and cinematic, and really quite gorgeous.
Weird these guys seems to still lurk so beneath the radar, might be cuz they're just to far out and freaky for the psych/space rock crowd, which is a shame really, cuz this is some of the coolest stuff we've heard in ages.
MPEG Stream: "The Ambassador"
MPEG Stream: "You're Mercury"
MPEG Stream: "Midas Rex"

TEETH OF THE SEA Your Mercury (Rocket) lp 22.00
RESTOCKED!!
This is the second lp from UK psychedelic instrumental space rockers Teeth Of The Sea, their third record over all, and another twisted batch of heavy twisted psych, it makes sense that it would be on Rocket, home to other aQ fave space rock heavies like The Heads and Gnod, and these guys traffic in a similar sound, but one that is most definitely all their own, just check out opener "The Ambassador", one of THEE heaviest, trippiest slabs of space psych we've ever heard, thick low slung bassline, weird burbling electronics, tripped out processed vox, all hazy and buzzy and gristly, it sounds like a spaced out dirge rock Butthole Surfers almost, the guitars thick and distorted, the song a lugubrious crawl, until a second guitar swoops in, playing a slithery stoner riff, and the horns, the HORNS, bleating out a dark funereal drone, those freaky voices making everything way more druggy and demented, the drums come pounding in, it's not until about halfway through, that the guitars unwind wild peals of psychedelic leads, the drums grow more tribal, and yet, it never full explodes into conventional space rock, this is something else entirely, the song blisses out part way through, weird sci-fi squelches and more horns drifting in an expanse of distant guitar shimmer, and muted rhythms, everything gradually fading out leaving just tabla like drumming, subtle organs and swirls of electronic bloops and bleeps, and hell if that's not the way to start a record...
And the rest of the record, defies convention still by never quite settling down into anything even resembling proper space rock or psych rock, even compared to their last record we reviewed, this is as about far out as it gets. The next track is all drum machine, weird industrial electronics, processed voices, swirling synths, almost like some heavier take on Goblin / Carpenter soundtrack stuff. The title is all horn flecked slow burn drift, a gradual build to a more post rock crunch, building to a sort of Godspeed climax, but one that's all super high end guitar tangles draped over the otherwise seemingly sedate sonic background, dramatic and tense and surprisingly cinematic. The rest of the record continues to take the concept of psychedelic space rock and twist it all up, from pulsing kosmische synths, to almost cheesy, eighties sounding soundtrack music, like a more metal Beverly Hills Cop or Miami Vice (!), to murky hazy washed out ambience, all muted processed guitars and blurred gauzy melodies, to a weird final track that's a hazy shoegazey soundscape of minimal drumming, chiming guitars, and lots and lots of horns, again very haunting and cinematic, and really quite gorgeous.
Weird these guys seems to still lurk so beneath the radar, might be cuz they're just to far out and freaky for the psych/space rock crowd, which is a shame really, cuz this is some of the coolest stuff we've heard in ages.
MPEG Stream: "The Ambassador"
MPEG Stream: "You're Mercury"
MPEG Stream: "Midas Rex"

TEGAN AND SARA Sainthood (Sire) cd 14.98
The Canadian twins' sixth full length! With each album they've gotten progressively sleeker and more styled. As a result, not surprisingly their music has definitely lost some of the gals' defining quirky personality, but they still have a knack for writing smart pop songs with catchy hooks and feisty vocal interplay. So, if you don't mind your punk-pop being a bit over-glossy, Sainthood may still hit the spot...

TEGAN AND SARA So Jealous (Vapor) cd 15.98
First things first, we're sure he won't mind us tellin' ya that this album comes with a hearty thumbs up from our pal Adam Pfahler (Jawbreaker, Lost Weekend Video). In a better world, these gals would be the ones sitting atop the Canadian teen pop throne currently occupied by Avril. Tegan and Sara have always exuded a remarkable level of confidence, composure and songcraft (particularly in their vocal arrangements) for their age, but now on their third full length, it's matched by more fully fleshed out instrumentation and production. Overall, So Jealous is quite a striking departure from their past earthier folk-focused releases. At times it's downright sleek, punchy pop -- imagine if Gwen Stefani had twin younger sisters... well, sorta! Co-produced by Tegan, Sara, New Pornographer John Collins and his JC/DC Studio partner Dave Carswell.
MPEG Stream: "You Wouldn't Like Me"
MPEG Stream: "We Didn't Do It"

TEGAN AND SARA The Con (Vapor / Sire) cd 16.98
Girl power! Sister power! Twin power! Yay for the Quins! They've kept both the fans and fires stoked from their last album So Jealous with their fifth full length, the super confident and composed The Con. Their dynamic dual vocals are in top form, drawing comparisons to a young Stevie Nicks or those punchy '90s college rock gals Veruca Salt ("Volcano Girls"). And they've proven themselves to be no slouches in the heartstring-plucking lyric and songwriting department too. So many tunes here are irresistibly hummable and singalongable. Strangely appealing to all walks of life -- pop kids, hipsters. tough metal dudes, moms and pops.
FYI: This time around they chose to record outside of their homeland, travelling to the distant climes of Portland, OR where they were assisted in their mission by The Rentals' Matt Sharp, Hunter from AFI, and Death Cab's Jason McGerr and Chris Walla.
MPEG Stream: "Relief Next To Me"
MPEG Stream: "The Con"

TELE.S.THERION s/t (Paradigms) cd-r 11.98

TELE:FUNKEN A Collection of Ice Cream Vans Vol. 2 (Domino) cd 19.98
Tele:funken's second full-length is a follow-up to his collaboration with flying Saucer Attack a few years ago. This record reflects its title in that it seems roughly based on twinkly children's tunes with intermittent space-invaders sprinkles.