THOU Peasant (Level Plane) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now on Vinyl!
Another band of slow heavies from New Orleans, following in the deep muddy footprints of the original NOLA sludgelords Eyehategod, and while Thou do in fact share much sonically with their legendary forefathers, they inject way more melody into the proceedings, some stretches are downright pretty, still caked in filth and crust, but weirdly melodic and pretty.
In fact in some ways, Thou seem to be drawing on true UK doom for inspiration as much as their fellow NOLA noisemakers, Paradise Lost, old Cathedral, My Dying Bride, sure the vocals are harsh and throat shredding, the drums a lugubrious pound, the rhythm a lurching almost groove, but the melodies and the arrangements almost soar at times, the sound epic and massive, the melodies expanding what might otherwise be more of the same old sludge, in fact there are long stretches of undulating heaviness where the riff becomes a sprawl of near static buzz, and harmonies glisten and drift over the top, but it's never long before the band slip back into their grinding downtuned lumber and pummel.
Fans of the usual dooooooomy crawl will not be disappointed, if you love Moss, Monarch, Corrupted, Trees, Bunkur, you'll pretty much definitely dig this, but Thou mix it enough to maybe convince some of the more skeptical freaks out there, that there's more to sludge than just pummel and pound. Definitely recommended.
MPEG Stream: "The Work Ethic Myth"
MPEG Stream: "An Age Imprisoned"

THOU Summit (Gilead Media) cd 14.98
Full length number three from these Louisiana heavies, and it just might be their weirdest, most experimentally sprawling and prettiest release yet. It seems like we're in the age of post doom, or avant doom, with bands moving well beyond the sounds that have so far defined them. We recently featured The Body's latest record as our Record Of The Week, which at its core was a sludge/doom record, but incorporated a choir, multiple drummers, drum machines, strange editing and collages, horns, all adding to the whole, but never taking away from the band's sound, or the ultimate heft and heaviness of the music. A delicate balance for sure, one that Thou seem poised to strike as well, with Summit. But it's not like they weren't a weird band anyway, they definitely had their own take on the ubiquitous post metal / sludge metal thing, even transforming a classic Nirvana jam into their own gnarled and twisted chunk of downtuned crunch. The changes here though are not as dramatic as those undertaken by the Body, the band offer up some blackened blastbeats right at the beginning of the record, there's piano, viola, trombone, other horns, female vocals, but most of those are all contained in a single track, an interlude of sorts, a hazy bit of slow building jazzy warble and drift, wreathed in clouds of cymbal shimmer and peppered with muted percussion, a brief respite amidst the otherwise thunderous proceedings. Some of those elements do show up elsewhere, but they're super subtle, and easily overwhelmed by the surrounding heaviness.
No, the main change seems to be a shift toward melody, where as before the band veered most frequently into serious abject crust-sludge Eyehategod territory, here, they tend more toward the post metal / metallic post rock end of the spectrum, unfurling majestic slow building Isis / Pelican style epics, still dipping occasionally into some filthy dirgery, but mostly crafting gorgeously soaring downtuned almost symphonic sounding heaviness, sounding at times almost like a black metal Explosions In The Sky, and other times slowing things down, dialing back the chug and crush, and resembling some sort of extra heavy sludgy slowcore outfit. But it suits them for sure. Summit definitely plays out as the perfect mix of pretty heaviness and fierce brutality, with just a smidge of experimental weirdness thrown in for good measure.
Another fantastic record from a group who pretty much only make fantastic records, some seriously epic sludge and surprisingly listenable ultra heaviness, fans of all those post metal combos like Rosetta, Baroness, the Body, Grails, The Ocean, Angel Eyes, Tides, Souvenir's Young America, Mouth Of The Architect, Irepress, Indian, Conifer, who have yet to discover Thou, this is the record for you....
MPEG Stream: "By Endurance We Conquer"
MPEG Stream: "Grissecon"
MPEG Stream: "Prometheus"

THOU Summit (Southern Lord) lp 12.98
NOW ON VINYL, thanks to the doom mongers at Southers Lord!!
Full length number three from these Louisiana heavies, and it just might be their weirdest, most experimentally sprawling and prettiest release yet. It seems like we're in the age of post doom, or avant doom, with bands moving well beyond the sounds that have so far defined them. We recently featured The Body's latest record as our Record Of The Week, which at its core was a sludge/doom record, but incorporated a choir, multiple drummers, drum machines, strange editing and collages, horns, all adding to the whole, but never taking away from the band's sound, or the ultimate heft and heaviness of the music. A delicate balance for sure, one that Thou seem poised to strike as well, with Summit. But it's not like they weren't a weird band anyway, they definitely had their own take on the ubiquitous post metal / sludge metal thing, even transforming a classic Nirvana jam into their own gnarled and twisted chunk of downtuned crunch. The changes here though are not as dramatic as those undertaken by the Body, the band offer up some blackened blastbeats right at the beginning of the record, there's piano, viola, trombone, other horns, female vocals, but most of those are all contained in a single track, an interlude of sorts, a hazy bit of slow building jazzy warble and drift, wreathed in clouds of cymbal shimmer and peppered with muted percussion, a brief respite amidst the otherwise thunderous proceedings. Some of those elements do show up elsewhere, but they're super subtle, and easily overwhelmed by the surrounding heaviness.
No, the main change seems to be a shift toward melody, where as before the band veered most frequently into serious abject crust-sludge Eyehategod territory, here, they tend more toward the post metal / metallic post rock end of the spectrum, unfurling majestic slow building Isis / Pelican style epics, still dipping occasionally into some filthy dirgery, but mostly crafting gorgeously soaring downtuned almost symphonic sounding heaviness, sounding at times almost like a black metal Explosions In The Sky, and other times slowing things down, dialing back the chug and crush, and resembling some sort of extra heavy sludgy slowcore outfit. But it suits them for sure. Summit definitely plays out as the perfect mix of pretty heaviness and fierce brutality, with just a smidge of experimental weirdness thrown in for good measure.
Another fantastic record from a group who pretty much only make fantastic records, some seriously epic sludge and surprisingly listenable ultra heaviness, fans of all those post metal combos like Rosetta, Baroness, the Body, Grails, The Ocean, Angel Eyes, Tides, Souvenir's Young America, Mouth Of The Architect, Irepress, Indian, Conifer, who have yet to discover Thou, this is the record for you....
MPEG Stream: "By Endurance We Conquer"
MPEG Stream: "Grissecon"
MPEG Stream: "Prometheus"

THOU The Retaliation of the Immutable Force of Nature (Gilead Media) lp 12.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

THOU Tyrant (Gilead Media) cd 13.98
Slowly and oh so surely, more sludge oozes out... A couple weeks ago, we highlighted an album, Peasant, by this slow and low (and yet sometimes lovely) sludge-metal outfit from the swamps of Louisiana. Well, we had gotten THIS Thou in first, though, and after leapfrogging it to list the more recent Peasant we want to highlight Tyrant too. That's right, if you liked Peasant, you'll love Tyrant. Gilead Media is responsible for this cd, handsomely packaged in one of those miniature LP style gatefold sleeves, containing music originally released on (now out of print) vinyl last year by One Eye Records, plus two tracks that came as a tour-only bonus cd-r with that LP.
What we said about Peasant goes for its predecessor, too. Thou is ultra-doomic, super-gloomic all right, with crawling distorted riffage and wretched vokillz... they definitely share some DNA with neighboring NOLA sludgefathers Eyehategod, but there's also something warm and fuzzy about 'em too. Maybe that's not the intention (you wouldn't get that idea from their despairing, downer lyrics) but somehow their slabs of crunching, feedbacking heaviosity are infused with enough melody and softness and ambient quietude that the blanket of post-apocalyptic ash spewed by Thou is sorta snuggly, their brand of nuclear winter almost a cozy one. And that's what makes it such great doom, 'cause after all, what we're looking for in doom metal is the means to feel good about feeling bad. A pleasant fixin'-to-die dirge. Sharing the depression, rather than bottling it up, getting some kind of release even if it's the aural equivalent of slicing one's wrists and slowly bleeding away, or swallowing a bottle of pills and falling forever into deep deep sleep... doom metal is comfort metal, is one way of looking at it. Doom metal goes there so that you don't have to. Not that we're saying all doom metal fans are suicidally depressed, far from it. But we all have bummer days, and doom metal can take those feelings and turn 'em into something paradoxically positive. And that's what Thou do here, at least for us, with "life extinguishing elegance" as one of their songs puts it.
It's not just their sound, it's their songs. There's seven of 'em here, long ones, ranging from six and a half minutes to twice that long, lots of room for lots of interestin' twists and turns, albeit at a slow and steady pace. They fit plenty of post rock prettiness amidst their plodding and droning, along with faster parts and unexpectedly, trippingly melodic guitar lines. This is for fans of Jesu as much as Khanate, is what we're saying. Pelican and Isis too, but also Moss and Trees. And of course for all those who picked up Peasant from us already.
Best song title award of this list goes to track three here, "Fucking Chained To The Bottom Of The Ocean", by the way. And the song DOES live up to its title.
MPEG Stream: "Tyrant"
MPEG Stream: "With A Cold, Life Extinguishing Elegance"

THOU / HAARP split (Reincarnation Prayer / Mirror Universe / One Eye) 7" 9.98

THOU / HUMAN INTRUDER split (Dead Earth) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Latest from split release loving Baton Rouge heavies Thou, teaming up this time around with a similarly sludge minded outfit from Germany called Human Intruder, and as much as we love Thou, Human Intruder come damn close to stealing the show here.
Their track begins as an appropriately massive crushing detuned doom dirge, a lurching and lumbering creep, with tripped out, almost falsetto vox wailing off in the distance, but then things switch gears, a second vocal, a more harsh bellowed howl comes in, along side some unlikely piano, and maybe even strings, the sound transformed into something weirdly haunting and pretty, moody and super dramatic, the bellowed vox the only thing keeping this from turning into some sort of epic post rock. The guitars are super dynamic, the riffs dropping out completely, to reveal the hushed melody beneath, before dropping right back in again. The song eventually finishes off with a heavy, groovy, almost southern stoner sludge sounding outro. We have GOT to hear more from these guys.
Thou definitely hold their own, while not as weird as Human Intruder, their sound is still pretty sick, a murky, downtuned slithery doooooom, with harsh shrieked vox, the riffs warped and woozy, and way down in the mix, a seriously drum/vokill heavy mix, which suits the insane inhuman screeches, and crazy double kick drumming, pounding and howling away over a muted washed out downtuned churn, a sound way more Khanate than Eyehategod, finishing off a bang, that bang in this case being some punked out metallic noise rock crush. Fuck yeah.
Super swank packaging, a 6 panel fold out jacket, held shut by a Japanese style vellum obi. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES.
MPEG Stream: HUMAN INTRUDER "Fatal Alliance"
MPEG Stream: THOU "The Butcher's Bill"

THOU / LEECH We Pass Like Night, From Land To Land (Gilead Media) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Holy shit are we glad this thing finally got a much deserved reissue. Originally available as a super limited cassette, the two copies that managed to worm their way into the store were immediately snapped up by Andee and former aQuarian Cameron. Their gain was certainly the rest of the world's misfortune, because some of us couldn't stop listening to Cameron's copy before he jetted off to New York. For the longest time we could only conjure memories of these songs in our heads. Thou's contribution here, the four part epic "Abandoned", is some of the most majestic, beautiful, and psychedelic doom metal to emerge in quite some time. It also manages to be ugly as fuck. But damn, these songs just SOAR, everything is wrapped up in a blanket of ultra dense distortion with glacial drumming and some seriously unbelievable throat shredding goodness, the kind that makes mothers everywhere wonder what would make good boys want to do such things to their vocal chords. Storming out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Thou follow proudly in the tradition of their sludgey, thick as tar forefathers like Eyehategod, Crowbar, and the rest of the usual suspects, but there's definitely something about these guys that stands on its own, not to mention a pretty heavy black metal influence. While thankfully avoiding falling into an "indie" metal trap, Thou nonetheless successfully incorporates a blissed out melodicism that only a fool would deny.
Leech's contribution, an untitled 20+ minute monster of a track, is mighty impressive as well. The band hails from Salem, Oregon, and while we don't know anything about them other than this, it's pretty clear we have some research to do, because you all know how we love our Cascadian black metal. The song winds all over the place with super melodic guitar leads and some great basslines (which you can actually HEAR, unlike many black metal bands). The tortured vocals will definitely hit the spot for anyone digging Weakling, WITTR, you know, that kind of thing. The song is so melancholy, but it just sounds totally unstoppable and out for blood, we really hope to hear more from these guys soon.
The classy white record comes housed in a nice looking full color gatefold with a screenprinted poster, a crusty patch, and whaddya know, a free download card. And while it's great having this album available once again, it's still limited to a mere 750 copies with no plans for a cd release, so act fast!

THOU SHALT SUFFER Somnium (Candlelight) cd 17.98
Emperor guitarist/mastermind Ihsahn goes the sythestized-orchestra neo-classical route on this solo opus. Unlike his main band (or the former death-metal incarnation of the Thou Shalt Suffer project) there's no guitars. It's like the black metal of Emperor minus everything but the keyboards. And although he stumbles into "Peter and The Wolf" territory at times, there are moments of weird noise and chaos, where the lovely classical melodies are interrupted by electronic stutters and turntable fuckery!

THOUGHT BROADCAST s/t (Olde English Spelling Bee) lp 22.00
Quite the student of the obscure & forgotten histories of synth punk and industrial culture, Ravi Binning's Thought Broadcast firmly embraces the primitive technology and the vacated zeitgeist from 1979-1983. For Binning, the musical universe may have ceased to exist after SPK's major label dalliance on the unforgivably bad "Metal Dance," but he still carves out plenty of room to operate alongside The Units, Factrix, and Club Moral. As we heard last on the super limited Phaserprone 7" released earlier in 2012, Binning has at his disposal a collection of primitive monosynths and drum machines, possibly of vintage origin, possibly reverse engineered through modern technology, possibly new circuits designed to sound old. No matter what the means of production might be, his sound is decidedly primitive, with the simplest of minor-chord melodies, the most zombified of arpeggiations, and the tinniest of mechanical rhythms filtered from Conrad Schnitzler through TG and MB, all of it swamped with tape hiss and scabrous noise errors. How could Binning not record this on the shittiest of 4-tracks? Highly compressed, garbled vocals bark in distant monotone at erratic intervals, with crude tape-delay manipulation further obfuscating whatever apocalyptic, anti-social, damaged epithets Binning may be uttering. It's brilliant in its bleakness and its re-animatation of that peculiar hollowed-out industrial sound.
MPEG Stream: "Fortune Teller"

THOUGHT BROADCAST Up-Maker (Phaserprone) 7" 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Phaserprone returns with more of their bunker mentality for obscurant synth-punk noise and rhythms, here authored by Brooklyn's Thought Broadcast (although now living in SF), who had at least one release on the uber-hip Gel label. Phaserprone champions this release as a surefire trajectory out of the "rarified TB discography," which seems to be wholly enigmatic from what we can discern; not surprisingly, this is our first exposure to the project. Thought Broadcast offers up 4 short monosynth and rhythm box trax whose dark-minded minimalism splatter with the power-electronics vibe of the pre-Brighter Death Now project Lille Roger or some of Cabaret Voltaire's more zombified efforts circa 1978 and with a little bit of Dome thrown in for good measure through TB's effects scrambling vocals, blorping synth sequencing, and monotonous mechanoid plod exhumed from a tarpit of tape murk. Cut at 45, so you know we're also loving this at the wrong speed! Elegantly packaged with Phaserprone's heavily embossed letterpress artwork. Limited to just 175 copies!

THOUGHT CRIMINALS Chrono-Logical (Doublethink) 2cd 28.00

MPEG Stream: "I Won't Pay"
MPEG Stream: "Fun"
MPEG Stream: "More Suicides Please"

THOUGHTS OF IONESCO A Skin Historic (Makoto Recordings) cd 13.98
Metal/hardcore band, twisty like late Black Flag but heavier of course.

THOUSAND FOOT WHALE CLAW Dope Moons Volume One (Monofonus) lp 16.98
Tripped out sci-fi groove-rockers from Austin, Thousand Foot Whale Claw make their vinyl debut, and it's even better than we hoped it would be! We sold through a bunch of their Holodeck tape, Lost In Those Dunes, which was typical of their tape releases, two long sides of heady space rock drift, explosive cosmic psych expansiveness and ambient nuance. But for their vinyl debut, they really take their sound to the next level in the rhythm section, adding more bass and drum groove into tracks that enter an almost psych-rave territory, as if Spacemen 3 and Fuck Buttons gave birth to a baby in the bleak vacuum of space. Like local hypno-rockers, Lumerians, TFWC take advantage of an arsenal of psychedelic styles that propel the momentum, but keep the energy fresh, exciting and interestingly unpredictable. A tremendous debut that comes highly recommended!

THOUSAND FOOT WHALE CLAW Dope Moons Volume One (Holodeck) cassette 7.50
NOW AVAILABLE ON CASSETTE!
One of six new tapes from the always awesome Holodeck label out of Austin, Texas. Here's what we said about these Austin psych rockers when we first had this on vinyl:
Tripped out sci-fi groove-rockers from Austin, Thousand Foot Whale Claw make their debut, and it's even better than we hoped it would be! We sold through a bunch of their other releases, which were typical of their tape releases, long swaths of heady space rock drift, explosive cosmic psych expansiveness and ambient nuance. But for Dope Moons, they really take their sound to the next level in the rhythm section, adding more bass and drum groove into tracks that enter an almost psych-rave territory, as if Spacemen 3 and Fuck Buttons gave birth to a baby in the bleak vacuum of space. Like local hypno-rockers, Lumerians, TFWC take advantage of an arsenal of psychedelic styles that propel the momentum, but keep the energy fresh, exciting and interestingly unpredictable. A tremendous debut that comes highly recommended! Limited!

THOUSAND FOOT WHALE CLAW Lost In Those Dunes (Holodeck) cassette 7.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We're pleased to present three inaugural cassette releases from new psych/noise label Holodeck, championing the exploding underground electronic experimental scene in Austin, Texas, with beautifully packaged and designed cassettes. Have a look elsewhere on this list for other releases by Lumens and Smokey Emery.
We've been hearing about Thousand Foot Whale Claw for quite awhile now. Their contribution to the Brainclub vinyl compilation we listed a while ago was one of our favorite tracks, a smoldering blast of psychedelic space-rock. Featuring members of Pure X, Silver Pines, and Troller, Thousand Foot Whale Claw strangely sounds nothing like any of those bands. Lost In Those Dunes is just two loooong sides, the first is the title track and it's a slow heavy drumless build of holistic psych drone and loping bass like a slow motion Spacemen 3, as if they were doing a cover of a Date Palms-like raga. "Fleshwave" is even heavier on the guitar feedback and cosmic expansiveness, a brain-melting tumult of acid squall over sheets of star-destroying synth drones. So good! And leaves us of course, wanting more! Limited to 100!
MPEG Stream: "Lost In Those Dunes"
MPEG Stream: "Fleshwave"

THOUSAND FOOT WHALE CLAW Time Brothers (Holodeck) cassette 7.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
One of five new tapes from the awesome Austin based experimental tape label, Holodeck. Largely documenting the growing and diverse Texas underground scene of synth conjurers, drone lords, psych meditators, and classical folk devotionalists, each tape conceived as a unique listening experience with beautifully designed minimalist packaging. We listed tapes by Lumens, Smokey Emery and Thousand Foot Whale Claw awhile back, and this time around we have another tape from Thousand Foot Whale Claw as well as tapes by Survive, Amasa Gana, M. Geddes Gengra, and Silent Land Time Machine.
Since we reviewed the last Thousand Foot Whale Claw tape, Lost In Those Dunes as well as their vinyl debut, Dope Moons Volume One, we've become huge fans of the group's long form exploratory psych excursions. Time Brothers is an artifact of the group's beginnings comprised of two 20+ minute tracks that are extended demo versions of songs from both the previous tape and the vinyl lp plus the shorter unreleased titular track from the Lost in Those Dunes sessions.These primodial demos showcase the more ambient side of this space-rock group. Employing psych waves of oceanic bliss that conjure up images of tranquil beaches on far-off planets, brewing acid guitars, synth washes and circular bass rhythms create elongated textures and build-ups that restrain themselves from full-on freak-outs and remain in an elongated holding pattern of raga-ish devotion. Limited to 100 copies!

THRALLDOM A Shaman Steering The Vessel Of Vastness (Profound Lore) cd 13.98
The third album (though the first we've listed -- we've wanted to review their others but they went out of print too quickly for us, slowpokes that we are) from New York's Thralldom, a very advanced, intelligent, and cult black metal outfit who just happen to be the alter-ego of equally amazing blackened doommongers Unearthly Trance! If you thought Unearthly Trance was a trip straight to the bowels of hell, well, Thralldom is the guided tour once you get there. What we've always liked about Thralldom is their lack of adherance to any generic black metal template. They're -definitely- black metal, but do things their own way, for their own reasons. One who dares to listen to A Shaman Steering The Vessel Of Vastness must navigate through dense, claustrophobic soundscapes, and struggle to decipher transmissions from some sinister inner realm, before more recognizably metal guitar/bass/drums structures become evident, almost beacons of normality, albeit swamped in filthy distortion. It can be a disturbing, punishing experience, but also almost trance-like, and difficult to escape willingly. With each track a nest of blackened riffs, field recordings, unknown samples, and ambient murk, not to mention various cosmic, anti-life lyrical concepts, Thralldom have created their own original, experimental variant of the black metal aesthetic.
Released by Profound Lore, who previously brought us the likes of WOLD and Portal, not to mention several Leviathan vinyls... and yes, the esoteric noise and subliminal insanity of Thralldom as displayed here certainly proves them to be a USBM horde as weird and arty and intense as the likes of Leviathan, Draugar or Xasthur.
MPEG Stream: "Only The Dead Speak The Truth"
MPEG Stream: "Ultra-Extinction"

THRALLDOM A Shaman Steering The Vessel Of Vastness (Paradigms) lp 22.00
Now on vinyl!!
The third album (though the first we've listed -- we've wanted to review their others but they went out of print too quickly for us, slowpokes that we are) from New York's Thralldom, a very advanced, intelligent, and cult black metal outfit who just happen to be the alter-ego of equally amazing blackened doommongers Unearthly Trance! If you thought Unearthly Trance was a trip straight to the bowels of hell, well, Thralldom is the guided tour once you get there. What we've always liked about Thralldom is their lack of adherance to any generic black metal template. They're -definitely- black metal, but do things their own way, for their own reasons. One who dares to listen to A Shaman Steering The Vessel Of Vastness must navigate through dense, claustrophobic soundscapes, and struggle to decipher transmissions from some sinister inner realm, before more recognizably metal guitar/bass/drums structures become evident, almost beacons of normality, albeit swamped in filthy distortion. It can be a disturbing, punishing experience, but also almost trance-like, and difficult to escape willingly. With each track a nest of blackened riffs, field recordings, unknown samples, and ambient murk, not to mention various cosmic, anti-life lyrical concepts, Thralldom have created their own original, experimental variant of the black metal aesthetic.
Released by Profound Lore, who previously brought us the likes of WOLD and Portal, not to mention several Leviathan vinyls... and yes, the esoteric noise and subliminal insanity of Thralldom as displayed here certainly proves them to be a USBM horde as weird and arty and intense as the likes of Leviathan, Draugar or Xasthur.
MPEG Stream: "Only The Dead Speak The Truth"
MPEG Stream: "Ultra-Extinction"

THRALLDOM The Seven Heads Of The Lion-Serpent (Deathstrike) 7" 6.98

THREE DAY BAND s/t (Important) cd 14.98
A John Fahey project!

THREE DAY STUBBLE Let Your Morsel Find Its Way (Nerd Rock Music) cd 13.98
This is the most challenging album yet from local love-'em-or-hate-'em self-proclaimed "nerd rock" outfit Three Day Stubble, who've been seriously puzzling audiences long before lead singer Donald the Nut's legendary Gong Show appearance in the late '80s. Sounds like a field recording of assorted little creatures talking to themselves while a band warms up in the background. There's a gets-under-your-skin-instantly creepy high-pitched voice that acts as daemon to Donald the Nut's already-weird-enough wail 'n growl, horns that teeter in the background, lonely banjo, swirling synth layers, and evocative room atmospherics that make it sound like some midget drama is being played out right in front of you. This is way too advanced for any of us to understand.
RealAudio clip: "The Environment Inside"

THREE DAY STUBBLE The Figshta Diaries! (Nerd Rock Music) cd 9.98
Those wacky SF nerd rockers are back. With, ahem, a rock opera. Three Day Stubble fans, you know who you are. If you're unfamiliar with this long-running local joke band, well, how do song titles like "Baby Butt Baby" and "Pee Pee Pee & Poo" grab you?

THREE GENIUSES, THE The Re-Death Of Psychedelia (Kapelovision) dvd 19.98
We were lucky enough to have the legendary Supreme Dicks play at our South By Southwest party earlier this year, and it was just as amazing as we had hoped, ramshackle and loose, the songs wild and psychedelic, and crazy catchy, and the performance itself was unexpected, with a woman sitting in front of the band, performing strange semaphore with various fruits, eventually eating the fruit and performing rituals with the peels. Then one member walked around the audience with a light activated theremin and a light up blinking child's toy. Afterwards, one of the The Dicks took us aside, and handed us this dvd, explaining that it was their psychedelic cable access show. We had no idea what to expect, and as insane as we might have imagined it would be, it's somehow even MORE! A two hour barrage of drugged out experimental imagery, with total ADD editing, the visuals the sort of thing that would possibly cause seizures, various goings on in the studio, and bizarre guests, overlaid with all manner of primitive digital effects, all set to a constantly shifting sonic collage of voices, and musical fragments, dizzying and confusional and nearly overwhelming in its sheer what-the-fuck-ness. We imagined that at some point the insanity would get dialed back so you could hear the guests, or maybe there would be a more straight ahead segment, but nope, you essentially never hear anything anyone says, unless it's doused in effects and tangled up with a million other voices. This is the sort of thing you can imagine some Butthole Surfers like band projecting while they perform, it's total eye popping, brain melting weirdness.
The LA Weekly called Three Geniuses "The most intentionally psychedelic show on cable", which we have to say is a massive understatement. If you can dig through all the psychedelic imagery, you might get a glimpse of a transvestite body builder with Tourettes Syndrome, or the drummer from the Germs, or any number of amazing and bizarre looking characters, the whole thing apparently performed / broadcast live, letting things develop organically, and often fall apart completely, but the planned parts are so fucked up, not sure if anyone could even tell when things went wrong. Although some would argue everything about this is so so so wrong. Which is precisely what makes it so mesmerizingly demented and impossibly awesome. Probably best to be viewed while high as a kite, but even stone cold sober, this is some deliriously psychedelic stuff.
Bonus jams include a live Three Geniuses performance at the AT&T center in 2009, in front of a very confused looking audience. And an Ariel Pink video directed by the Three Geniuses that basically looks like AP sounds!

THREE MAN ARMY s/t (Wounded Bird) cd 14.98
Early '70s proto-metal from ex-Gun members.

THREE MILE PILOT An Old Town We Once Knew (Headhunter) 2cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

THREE MILE PILOT Another Desert Another Sea (Headhunter) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The record that got this San Diego band dropped from Geffen! Lush, bass-heavy, piano driven epics, w/ definite Supertramp influence!

THREE MILE PILOT Na Vucca Do Lupu (Headhunter) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

THREE MILE PILOT Na Vucca Do Lupu (Hi-Speed Soul) lp 17.98
A lot of folks discovered defunct San Diego bass heavy post rockers Three Mile Pilot retroactively, having learned about them through either Pinback (which features 3MP bassist Zach Smith) and/or the Blackheart Procession (fronted by 3MP guitarist/vocalist Pall Jenkins), and while both of those bands are definitely informed by Three Mile Pilot, that band had such a distinctive and unique brooding dark beauty, that nothing since could really compare. In the nineties, Three Mile Pilot were one of a handful of bands (along with Heavy Vegetable and a handful of others) creating a super unique scene in San Diego, and in the process evoked a slavish devotion from their fans (two of which are now aQ employees), their shows so dramatic and intense and cathartic, which the band managed surprisingly to capture on record as well.
Na Vucca Do Lupu was their debut, originally released in 1991, and is probably our favorite, just bass, drum and vocals, the sound literally unlike anything we had ever heard, sparse and spare, a sort of slowcore, but one that built to some seriously aggressive and propulsive heft, the drums mathy and intricate, the bass impossibly complex, multiple melody lines, slipping from chiming and delicate to churning and buzzy, the vocals melodic, but just raspy and again super distinctive, just check out the sample for "One Step Ladder" which might just be our favorite 3MP song ever, totally epic, super varied, catchy as hell, impossibly lush and heavy for what was essentially a two piece, even now, twenty years later, and it still sounds better, and more original, that pretty much 99% of what's out there. The rest of the record is just as good, super rhythmic, the low end creating a dark droning vibe that runs throughout, so great. An all time favorite for sure.
MPEG Stream: "One Step Ladder"
MPEG Stream: "Sore Loser"

THREE MILE PILOT The Chief Assassin To the Sinister (Headhunter) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

THREE MILE PILOT The Chief Assassin To The Sinister (Hi-Speed Soul) lp 17.98
A lot of folks discovered defunct San Diego bass heavy post rockers Three Mile Pilot retroactively, having learned about them through either Pinback (which features 3MP bassist Zach Smith) and/or the Blackheart Procession (fronted by 3MP guitarist/vocalist Pall Jenkins), and while both of those bands are definitely informed by Three Mile Pilot, that band had such a distinctive and unique brooding dark beauty, that nothing since could really compare. In the nineties, Three Mile Pilot were one of a handful of bands (along with Heavy Vegetable and a handful of others) creating a super unique scene in San Diego, and in the process evoked a slavish devotion from their fans (two of which are now aQ employees), their shows so dramatic and intense and cathartic, which the band managed surprisingly to capture on record as well.
After the just bass and drums, stripped down sound of the band's debut Na Vucca Do Lupu, Chief Assassin To The Sinister, originally released in 1993, found the band expanding sonically a bit, with Jenkins now playing guitar, and although the guitar definitely added some color and texture, the core sound of the band remained the same, the driving intricate basslines, the propulsive drumming, the moody brooding songwriting, if anything, the sound got a bit heavier, just check out the sample for "Circumcised", which melds the band's early sound, bass heavy, dark and dramatic, with something way more rocking and driving, a pretty potent combination for sure, one that got the band noticed by the world at large, with this record eventually being picked up by Geffen who reissued this record a few years later. There are also a handful of tracks here than hint at Jenkins post 3MP outfit the Blackheart Procession, the sort of funeral piano driven balladry that would define that band.
And while that first record might be out favorite, this one is a VERY close second.
MPEG Stream: "Circumcised"
MPEG Stream: "Aqua-Magnetic"

THREE MILE PILOT The Inevitable Past Is The Future Forgotten (Temporary Residence Ltd.) cd 14.98
The Inevitable Past Is the Future Forgotten is the long-awaited new Three Mile Pilot record and it's definitely a keeper. Gone are the eight minute dirges, the post-apocalyptic imagery. In their place are concise, brilliant pop songs with sometimes intensely personal lyrics and catchy refrains. For those of you who have (somehow) never heard of Three Mile Pilot, a history lesson: San Diego in the '90s was a truly memorable place. So many genres and sub-genres of music spawned and died and were born again in some new bastardized form. One of the most influential and unique bands to emerge was Three Mile Pilot, a trio that originally relied only upon drums, vocals, exceptional bass playing and the occasional homemade horn built by Jim French. Their first two full-length records (Na Vuccu du Lupu and The Chief Assassin to the Sinister) are flat-out masterpieces: sprawling, epic landscapes that build walls of chaos and discordant harmony only to tear them down; lyrics and album art that evoke militaristic machinery and a glacial sincerity; bass melodies that seem impossible for one person with only ten fingers to play. On subsequent releases, the song structures were tightened, the band introduced guitar which gradually came up in the overall mix, and the edges were polished a bit, possibly due to the influence of the 3MP "side project" The Black Heart Procession. Like their last full-length Another Desert, Another Sea, The Inevitable Past features the piano and the guitar, for the most part, as melody-makers, though the bass takes center stage (as it should) on quite a few songs. The overall "feel" of the record is similar to Another Desert, Another Sea, though the new record adds a layer or two of subtle, sparkling synths that brighten and deepen the music. Possibly because of the influential nature of a band like Three Mile Pilot, there was a lot of anxiety floating around about how good this record was going to be. Without a doubt, though, this is an outstanding record that will not disappoint.
MPEG Stream: "Battle"
MPEG Stream: "Still Alive"
MPEG Stream: "Left in Vain"

THREE MILE PILOT The Inevitable Past Is The Future Forgotten (Temporary Residence Ltd.) lp 22.00
The Inevitable Past Is the Future Forgotten is the long-awaited new Three Mile Pilot record and it's definitely a keeper. Gone are the eight minute dirges, the post-apocalyptic imagery. In their place are concise, brilliant pop songs with sometimes intensely personal lyrics and catchy refrains. For those of you who have (somehow) never heard of Three Mile Pilot, a history lesson: San Diego in the '90s was a truly memorable place. So many genres and sub-genres of music spawned and died and were born again in some new bastardized form. One of the most influential and unique bands to emerge was Three Mile Pilot, a trio that originally relied only upon drums, vocals, exceptional bass playing and the occasional homemade horn built by Jim French. Their first two full-length records (Na Vuccu du Lupu and The Chief Assassin to the Sinister) are flat-out masterpieces: sprawling, epic landscapes that build walls of chaos and discordant harmony only to tear them down; lyrics and album art that evoke militaristic machinery and a glacial sincerity; bass melodies that seem impossible for one person with only ten fingers to play. On subsequent releases, the song structures were tightened, the band introduced guitar which gradually came up in the overall mix, and the edges were polished a bit, possibly due to the influence of the 3MP "side project" The Black Heart Procession. Like their last full-length Another Desert, Another Sea, The Inevitable Past features the piano and the guitar, for the most part, as melody-makers, though the bass takes center stage (as it should) on quite a few songs. The overall "feel" of the record is similar to Another Desert, Another Sea, though the new record adds a layer or two of subtle, sparkling synths that brighten and deepen the music. Possibly because of the influential nature of a band like Three Mile Pilot, there was a lot of anxiety floating around about how good this record was going to be. Without a doubt, though, this is an outstanding record that will not disappoint.
MPEG Stream: "Battle"
MPEG Stream: "Still Alive"
MPEG Stream: "Left in Vain"

THREE O'CLOCK, THE Arrive Without Travelling / Ever After (Collector's Choice Music) cd 16.98
Hearing this re-issue of both the second and third album from The Three O'Clock combined on one disc sure took me back. A flood of high school memories. It seemed to have the same effect on a couple of customers too. One exclaimed, "Jet Fighter!" And while yes, that was an insanely infectious song by The Three O'Clock, it's not on this cd. Pssst, it can be found on their delectably sweet debut album Sixteen Tambourines. Nevertheless, these two albums really captured the buoyant, innocent sound of the paisley pop scene of the mid-'80s with its high male vocals and jingle jangle guitars.
RealAudio clip: "Her Heads Revolving"
RealAudio clip: "Knowing When You Smile"
RealAudio clip: "The Penny Girls "

THRENODY ENSEMBLE Timbre Hollow (New Albion ) cd 13.98
While two thirds of late great post rockers A Minor Forest (featuring AQ staffer Andee) continue to pursue all things droning and heavy as TICWAR, the other third of AMF joins forces with former AMF/current 33.3 cellist Dominique Davison and AQ pinup/voicemail genius Dave Cerf as The Threnody Ensemble! A new chamber group, somewhat pretentiously claiming to combine "conventional notions of chamber music with improvisation, rock sensibilities, and elements of non-western musical traditions." Definitely complex, very well played, and beautifully recorded in an old church by Brian Paulson, but for the most part, lacking any sort of warmth or emotion, and treading perilously a path between delicate 'post-rock' and over-sentimental soundtracky new age (due in no small part to somewhat cliched and weepy string arrangements). For fans of the Gastr del Sol/David Grubbs/Jim O'Rourke artrock axis (check out the very O'Rourke-ish out of place 30 second calypso surprise in the first track). On local new music/new age label New Albion.

THRESHOLD HOUSEBOYS CHOIR, THE Form Grows Rampant (Threshold House) cd+dvd 38.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Nope. It's not actually a choir, but rather the solo project of Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson, the enigmatic musician whose electronic sleights of hand steered the course for Throbbing Gristle and Coil as the charismatic frontmen for both ensembles proclaimed all things transgressive. Now that Sleazy has stepped into the spotlight on his own, it is apparent that his vocabularies for twisted nursery rhyme melodies, cross-pollinated electronic algorithms, and sinister soundscapes were as absolutely crucial to the development of Industrial Culture at large, with or without the presence of Genesis P-Orridge or Jhonn Balance. Nowadays, Christopherson resides in Thailand, far from his birthplace in Britain; but the sounds he crafts in Southeast Asia have all of the trappings of the English esoterica he's authored for nearly 30 years now. Christopherson digs into his bag of magical tricks for another fantastic album, which seamlessly follows from where Coil left off on their posthumous album The Ape Of Naples as well as The Remote Viewer and Black Antlers. Constantly ascending melodies mutate and fold on top of each other, fluid basslines counterpoint stochastic stabs of monotone arpeggiations, and the castrati boys who wailed at the conclusion of The Ape Of Naples return with their beatific innocence and darkly charged sexuality with their voices crooning over music box melodies playing just slightly faster than they are supposed to and thus appearing sharply atonal. While Christopherson has proven himself a deft engineer with all sorts of audio software, he intentionally gravitates towards the much simpler patterns generated by the Fairlight sampler, the machine which dominated so much of the early Coil records. These structurally evolving patterns and overlaid melodic repetitions result in a creeping hypnosis and seductively powerful atmosphere. It's no surprise that his Threshold Houseboys Choir successfully conjures the ghosts of Horse Rotovator, the masterful Coil album from 1986.
MPEG Stream: "Part 1 : "A Time of Happening""
MPEG Stream: "Part 4 : "So Free It Knows No End""

THRILLS N.A.F.I.T.C. : Original Boston Punk 1977-1981 (Dionysus) cd 14.98
Girl-sung garage punk pop from back in the day -- yeah, we're talkin' late seventies/early eighties trashy fun! Nothing fancy, just straight-up, low-slung three chord rockers with raw electric guitars, primal drumming and rudimentary bass. The vocals sound like the Thrills' singer Barb Kitson muscled Joey Ramone off the mic, and we'd guess the two bands of miscreants probably crossed paths at some point. No frills Thrills on the always stellar garage rawk haven Dionysus Records!
MPEG Stream: "Don't Come Back"
MPEG Stream: "When Ya Gonna Quit?"

THROBBING GRISTLE 20 Jazz Funk Greats (Mute) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

THROBBING GRISTLE 20 Jazz Funk Greats (Industrial Records) 2cd 23.00
The cover for Throbbing Gristle's 20 Jazz Funk Greats is a marvelous piece of subversive design. The four members of Throbbing Gristle look quite dapper, Genesis dolled up in a tailored white suit jacket, Cosey smiling happily in her pert miniskirt, and Chris & Sleazy both wearing rather conservative sweaters, but they had situated themselves on the cliffs of Beachy Head (a notorious suicide spot on the south coast of England) with a rented Range Rover in the distance and in a variation of this scene, a nude male body lies at their feet in the grass, presumably dead. This design (executed by Sleazy through his day job at Hipgnosis Design) was a sneering act of contempt for British society that failed to see the horrors and injustice which boiled just under the surfaces of congeniality and civility.
Both Second Annual Report and D.o.A. were ostensibly compilations of recontextualized material both from the studio and extracts from live recordings, but 20 Jazz Funk Greats - the third proper album from Throbbing Gristle - feels like a conceived album from beginning to end, even with all of its dead-ends and contradictions. The album opens with the title track, where a slow-motion drum machine and synthesized bass tones strut with a mechanical swagger with Cosey's discordant cornet blurts in the distance and predatorily whispered vocal extracts of what could be some smooth jazz DJ trying to set the mood - with that mood being a sickening, menacing threat. Such is also the case, with the lugubrious "Tanith" whose atonal rolling basslines churn against strange electronic blorp and tinkling chimes, which leads into "Convincing People" - whose metronomic synth sequencing became the signature for nearly every 'industrial' band that claimed TG as an influence. The detuned and distorted guitar from Cosey smears the mechanical edges while Genesis wailed through the lyrical repetitiveness which articulated to the effect that if you say it enough, people will start believing you. A hammer might help too. The minimalist club hit "Hot On The Heels Of Love" is one of the most memorable TG songs, and for very good reason as TG offered a much-imitated disco frugality through their insistent drum machine, squiggling sequencing, and Cosey's whispered vocals. Immediately following this is a nightmarish narration of the aftermath of a night of partying too much in "Persuasion", as disembodied female yelps of sexualized horror sporadically punctuate a slithering Genesis donning the role of a low-rent pornographer. "What A Day" is another 'industrial' template with a corrosive loop of cybernetic thumps forming the only backdrop to Genesis barking as loud as he can in a diabolical take on a footballer's chant. The finale "Six Six Sixties" finds Cosey's monochord guitar awfully prescient of Sonic Youth and Bailter Space in the drone intensity through distortion and rhythm, with Genesis reciting a suitably bleak monologue above, rounding out what is arguably the best of the Throbbing Gristle albums.
The cd version contains a bonus disc with live material extracted from the numerous live cassettes (and some of these versions apparently appear on the 24cd boxset of live TG material, although we've not cross referenced these facts yet). The two versions of "Discipline" (which were released as a 12" on Fetish Records in 1981) suitably conclude this disc, as that was the track that TG also performed at the end of their sets, with the heavy drum machines whipping the crowd into a frenzy and Genesis barking hysterically for some order. Such were the wonderful contradictions of Throbbing Gristle. About as a high a recommendation as we can give.
MPEG Stream: "20 Jazz Funk Greats"
MPEG Stream: "Persuasion"
MPEG Stream: "What A Day!"
MPEG Stream: "Discipline (Berlin)"

THROBBING GRISTLE 20 Jazz Funk Greats (Industrial Records) lp 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The cover for Throbbing Gristle's 20 Jazz Funk Greats is a marvelous piece of subversive design. The four members of Throbbing Gristle look quite dapper, Genesis dolled up in a tailored white suit jacket, Cosey smiling happily in her pert miniskirt, and Chris & Sleazy both wearing rather conservative sweaters, but they had situated themselves on the cliffs of Beachy Head (a notorious suicide spot on the south coast of England) with a rented Range Rover in the distance and in a variation of this scene, a nude male body lies at their feet in the grass, presumably dead. This design (executed by Sleazy through his day job at Hipgnosis Design) was a sneering act of contempt for British society that failed to see the horrors and injustice which boiled just under the surfaces of congeniality and civility.
Both Second Annual Report and D.o.A. were ostensibly compilations of recontextualized material both from the studio and extracts from live recordings, but 20 Jazz Funk Greats - the third proper album from Throbbing Gristle - feels like a conceived album from beginning to end, even with all of its dead-ends and contradictions. The album opens with the title track, where a slow-motion drum machine and synthesized bass tones strut with a mechanical swagger with Cosey's discordant cornet blurts in the distance and predatorily whispered vocal extracts of what could be some smooth jazz DJ trying to set the mood - with that mood being a sickening, menacing threat. Such is also the case, with the lugubrious "Tanith" whose atonal rolling basslines churn against strange electronic blorp and tinkling chimes, which leads into "Convincing People" - whose metronomic synth sequencing became the signature for nearly every 'industrial' band that claimed TG as an influence. The detuned and distorted guitar from Cosey smears the mechanical edges while Genesis wailed through the lyrical repetitiveness which articulated to the effect that if you say it enough, people will start believing you. A hammer might help too. The minimalist club hit "Hot On The Heels Of Love" is one of the most memorable TG songs, and for very good reason as TG offered a much-imitated disco frugality through their insistent drum machine, squiggling sequencing, and Cosey's whispered vocals. Immediately following this is a nightmarish narration of the aftermath of a night of partying too much in "Persuasion", as disembodied female yelps of sexualized horror sporadically punctuate a slithering Genesis donning the role of a low-rent pornographer. "What A Day" is another 'industrial' template with a corrosive loop of cybernetic thumps forming the only backdrop to Genesis barking as loud as he can in a diabolical take on a footballer's chant. The finale "Six Six Sixties" finds Cosey's monochord guitar awfully prescient of Sonic Youth and Bailter Space in the drone intensity through distortion and rhythm, with Genesis reciting a suitably bleak monologue above, rounding out what is arguably the best of the Throbbing Gristle albums.
The cd version contains a bonus disc with live material extracted from the numerous live cassettes (and some of these versions apparently appear on the 24cd boxset of live TG material, although we've not cross referenced these facts yet). The two versions of "Discipline" (which were released as a 12" on Fetish Records in 1981) suitably conclude this disc, as that was the track that TG also performed at the end of their sets, with the heavy drum machines whipping the crowd into a frenzy and Genesis barking hysterically for some order. Such were the wonderful contradictions of Throbbing Gristle. About as a high a recommendation as we can give.
The remastered vinyl version is limited to 2000 copies.
MPEG Stream: "20 Jazz Funk Greats"
MPEG Stream: "Persuasion"
MPEG Stream: "What A Day!"

THROBBING GRISTLE D.o.A. The Third And Final Report Of Throbbing Gristle (Industrial) 2cd 23.00
Neither the third nor the final album from Throbbing Gristle, D.o.A. marked the decided progression of a band that earlier produced the cauldron of sinister noise found on Second Annual Report and would lead to the subversive disco of "Hot On The Heels Of Love" on 20 Jazz Funk Greats. TG frames this album almost entirely upon the William S. Burroughs strategy of the cut-up, with found sounds being the inspiration for, counterpoint, or inclusion in the musical program. For both Burroughs and Genesis P-Orridge, the chance operation of overlapping seemingly unconnected elements offered the possibility of hidden, unconscious meanings in those 'texts' which could be pushed further through aesthetic means. What P-Orridge and the rest of Throbbing Gristle found in their aleatory combinations was a foreboding, societal malevolence, to which their sounds could be read as both response and antagonist.
The sounds which introduce the first track - "I.B.M" - might have been familiar to anyone with an early '70s era computer that used tapes for data storage, especially if that data-cassette found its way into an audio tape player. The blurting, flanged lurches of electronic noises speak a de-humanized language of the machine, one which TG augments with their own synthesized noise and atonal fragments as a seance attempting to make contact with the ghosts that may or may not live in those machines. The most infamous appropriated text found on D.o.A. is "Hamburger Lady" - a thoroughly creepy piece based on a letter written to the band about a woman who was suffering under the extreme pain from half of her skin being burnt off of her body. TG grinds a low-frequency VCO pulse upon a very slow throb, whilst an unsettled melody blurts through a fence of tremolo patterns, with P-Orridge reciting the text of that letter in the distance. Sickening doesn't even begin to describe how effective this track is even three decades after the fact. The track "Dead on Arrival" parallels what Conrad Schnitzler was producing at the same time on his darkened electronic album Ballet Statique with its mid-tempo drum machine, unsettled percolations, and angular jabs of dissonance. But the bulk of D.o.A. is filled with found-sound excepts including the self-evident found tape of "Death Threats" and the recording of mumbling children on "Hometime."
The cd version of this remastered reissue contains a bonus disc, mostly of live material ending with a single. Here, the live tracks cover much of what's found on the Live Volume 2 compilation, and the single in question is "Five Knuckle Shuffle / We Have You (Little Girls)", the former of which reprises the mechanical sequencing from "Dead on Arrival" with much vicious bass and guitar noise slashing throughout, and the latter being a screaming exorcism of vocals and electronics that must have planted the seed in William Bennett to make a whole career out of screaming at his audience above a painful squalor of noise.
MPEG Stream: "I.B.M."
MPEG Stream: "Dead on Arrival"
MPEG Stream: "Hamburger Lady"
MPEG Stream: "We Hate You (Little Girls)"

THROBBING GRISTLE D.o.A. The Third And Final Report Of Throbbing Gristle (Industrial) lp 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Neither the third nor the final album from Throbbing Gristle, D.o.A. marked the decided progression of a band that earlier produced the cauldron of sinister noise found on Second Annual Report and would lead to the subversive disco of "Hot On The Heels Of Love" on 20 Jazz Funk Greats. TG frames this album almost entirely upon the William S. Burroughs strategy of the cut-up, with found sounds being the inspiration for, counterpoint, or inclusion in the musical program. For both Burroughs and Genesis P-Orridge, the chance operation of overlapping seemingly unconnected elements offered the possibility of hidden, unconscious meanings in those 'texts' which could be pushed further through aesthetic means. What P-Orridge and the rest of Throbbing Gristle found in their aleatory combinations was a foreboding, societal malevolence, to which their sounds could be read as both response and antagonist.
The sounds which introduce the first track - "I.B.M" - might have been familiar to anyone with an early '70s era computer that used tapes for data storage, especially if that data-cassette found its way into an audio tape player. The blurting, flanged lurches of electronic noises speak a de-humanized language of the machine, one which TG augments with their own synthesized noise and atonal fragments as a seance attempting to make contact with the ghosts that may or may not live in those machines. The most infamous appropriated text found on D.o.A. is "Hamburger Lady" - a thoroughly creepy piece based on a letter written to the band about a woman who was suffering under the extreme pain from half of her skin being burnt off of her body. TG grinds a low-frequency VCO pulse upon a very slow throb, whilst an unsettled melody blurts through a fence of tremolo patterns, with P-Orridge reciting the text of that letter in the distance. Sickening doesn't even begin to describe how effective this track is even three decades after the fact. The track "Dead on Arrival" parallels what Conrad Schnitzler was producing at the same time on his darkened electronic album Ballet Statique with its mid-tempo drum machine, unsettled percolations, and angular jabs of dissonance. But the bulk of D.o.A. is filled with found-sound excepts including the self-evident found tape of "Death Threats" and the recording of mumbling children on "Hometime."
The cd version of this remastered reissue contains a bonus disc, mostly of live material ending with a single. Here, the live tracks cover much of what's found on the Live Volume 2 compilation, and the single in question is "Five Knuckle Shuffle / We Have You (Little Girls)", the former of which reprises the mechanical sequencing from "Dead on Arrival" with much vicious bass and guitar noise slashing throughout, and the latter being a screaming exorcism of vocals and electronics that must have planted the seed in William Bennett to make a whole career out of screaming at his audience above a painful squalor of noise.
The remastered vinyl version is limited to 2000 copies.
MPEG Stream: "I.B.M."
MPEG Stream: "Dead on Arrival"
MPEG Stream: "Hamburger Lady"

THROBBING GRISTLE D.O.A.: The Third And Final Report (Mute / Industrial Records) cd 11.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

THROBBING GRISTLE First Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle (Get Back) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For reasons unknown to us all, 1975's "First Annual Report" from Throbbing Gristle was deliberately held back by the band, thus positioning "Second Annual Report" as the first documentation from the legendary parents of Industrial Culture. This record has been reissued on several occasions, yet for this Get Back pressing, "First Annual Report" gets a proper remastering job as well. Vinyl only.

THROBBING GRISTLE Greatest Hits (Industrial ) 2cd 23.00
Throbbing Gristle could hardly be confused for a hit-making machine; but in their repertoire of ghastly noise cohabitating with mechanoid rhythms, there are certainly some tracks which stand out more than others. Subtitled "Entertainment Through Pain," Throbbing Gristle's Greatest Hits delivers everything that it sets out to, and it also compiled some of the singles which had never appeared on one of TG's proper records. The most obvious 'hit' would be the minimalist yet sultry disco number "Hot On The Heels Of Love," with all of the other tracks being much more obvious in their subversion of the song through transgressive lyrics, subliminal horrors, corrosive electronics, and / or aleatoric appropriation. The sickening, psychoacoustic track "Hamburger Lady" opens this album of hits, with the lumbering electronic oscillations setting the stage for a gross-out spoken text from a letter about a woman languishing in a hospital burn unit. Of the singles featured on Greatest Hits, you'll find the blood-curdling scream of a track in "Subhuman" and the angular perkiness of the Kraftwerkish tracks "United" and "Adrenalin." But everything else comes from the earlier records, including the stellar churned cybernetics on "Six Six Sixties" and "What A Day," the woozy blurt of "20 Jazz Funk Greats" as well as a 'backwards' rendition of one the many recordings of "Slug Bait" recast as "Tiab Guls."
The bonus disc of Greatest Hits doesn't follow suit with the other four cd reissues; as the program does not include live material, but a continuing program of 'greatest hits,' including the B side stunning synth burble on "Distant Dreams (Part Two)" which is one of the high-points for the Chris Carter facade from TG's production. There's also a studio version of "The Old Man Smiled" found on Heathen Earth - a track that uses the same arrangement from "Six Six Sixties" with different lyrics, and an alternate mix of the revved-up step sequencing on "AB/7A." But aside from those, the other 'greatest hits' include "Persuasion," "Five Knuckle Shuffle," "Dead On Arrival," and a few more.
And like the other TG reissues, the lp does not include the bonus disc, and is limited to 1000 copies.
MPEG Stream: "20 Jazz Funk Greats"
MPEG Stream: "What A Day!"
MPEG Stream: "Hamburger Lady"
MPEG Stream: "Persuasion"
MPEG Stream: "Distant Dreams (Part Two)"

THROBBING GRISTLE Greatest Hits (Industrial ) lp 29.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Throbbing Gristle could hardly be confused for a hit-making machine; but in their repertoire of ghastly noise cohabitating with mechanoid rhythms, there are certainly some tracks which stand out more than others. Subtitled "Entertainment Through Pain," Throbbing Gristle's Greatest Hits delivers everything that it sets out to, and it also compiled some of the singles which had never appeared on one of TG's proper records. The most obvious 'hit' would be the minimalist yet sultry disco number "Hot On The Heels Of Love," with all of the other tracks being much more obvious in their subversion of the song through transgressive lyrics, subliminal horrors, corrosive electronics, and / or aleatoric appropriation. The sickening, psychoacoustic track "Hamburger Lady" opens this album of hits, with the lumbering electronic oscillations setting the stage for a gross-out spoken text from a letter about a woman languishing in a hospital burn unit. Of the singles featured on Greatest Hits, you'll find the blood-curdling scream of a track in "Subhuman" and the angular perkiness of the Kraftwerkish tracks "United" and "Adrenalin." But everything else comes from the earlier records, including the stellar churned cybernetics on "Six Six Sixties" and "What A Day," the woozy blurt of "20 Jazz Funk Greats" as well as a 'backwards' rendition of one the many recordings of "Slug Bait" recast as "Tiab Guls."
The bonus disc of Greatest Hits doesn't follow suit with the other four cd reissues; as the program does not include live material, but a continuing program of 'greatest hits,' including the B side stunning synth burble on "Distant Dreams (Part Two)" which is one of the high-points for the Chris Carter facade from TG's production. There's also a studio version of "The Old Man Smiled" found on Heathen Earth - a track that uses the same arrangement from "Six Six Sixties" with different lyrics, and an alternate mix of the revved-up step sequencing on "AB/7A." But aside from those, the other 'greatest hits' include "Persuasion," "Five Knuckle Shuffle," "Dead On Arrival," and a few more.
And like the other TG reissues, the lp does not include the bonus disc, and is limited to 1000 copies.
MPEG Stream: "20 Jazz Funk Greats"
MPEG Stream: "What A Day!"
MPEG Stream: "Hamburger Lady"

THROBBING GRISTLE Gristleism (Black) (Throbbing Gristle) battery operated soundbox 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, the long rumored Gristleism soundbox from Throbbing Gristle is here, and it's just about as cool as we hoped. Regardless of your feelings on Throbbing Gristle as a band, Gristleism is another must have for music obsessives and weird gadget freaks, like FM3's Buddha Machine, Gristleism is a small compact battery powered soundbox that plays loops, it has a volume and a pitch control, and a button to switch between loops, but UNlike the Buddha Machine, which until recently came in the generic Asian packaging that all similar machines came packaged in (originally these boxes contained prayers and were used for mediation), and finally got a minimal but stylish upgrade, the Gristleism box is all about the packaging, in fact, we balked at the price before we saw these, but now that we've seen one and held one, WOW. Totally worth it.
The outside sleeve is gorgeously printed shiny on matte on one side, elaborately diecut on the other, that immediately recognizable TG pattern, the bottom is printed in metallic silver ink. But that's just the outer slipcover. Once that is removed, the inside cover is revealed, again, shiny ink on matte paper, some of the details in shiny metallic silver, the credits, the tracklisting, then inside that is a small printed insert, on thick reflective paper, and then finally the soundbox itself, which even has the Throbbing Gristle logo pressed into the plastic. As an object, this thing is breathtaking, totally striking and even if you never listened to it, would look smashing on your shelf. But you WILL want to listen to it.
Thirteen TG loops, the bulk of which seem to harken from the classic late '70s period of Throbbing Gristle, before the project split into Psychic TV, Chris & Cosey, and Coil.
The low synthetic dirge of "Persuasion" (from 20 Jazz Funk Greats) is the first loop on the box, complete with those unsettling female vocalisations which may be screams of fear, ecstacy, horror, or somewhere in between. The seasick distorted swells and atonal melodica trilled with tremolo come next, culled from the TG classic "Hamburger Lady" (from D.o.A. The Third and Final Report), all that's needed is for you to fill in Genesis' vocals about encountering a charred human body still alive in a hospital ward. Similarly effective is the alien slow-motion grooviess of the title track from 20 Jazz Funk Greats, with Cosey's bleating trumpet hanging in the distance. The windswept eeriness and foghorn blurts on "Thank You Brian" seem to be a loop that's unique to the box, or at least we're not sure where it might have come from. But the proto-acid squiggliness and disembodied vocals of "Maggot Death" reprise a particularly great snippet from TG's Second Annual Report. The "Wimpy Bar" loop doesn't seem to come from one of TG's records either but is one that sounds really familiar with Cosey's knife-on-the-guitar-strings scraping and squiggled electronics, perhaps from one of the many live cassettes? The tenth loop reprises the darkly hallucinatory echoes and atonal blurts from "Heathen Earth". The shepherd tone crustiness of the "Industrial Intro" could have been an experiment that Chris and Sleazey worked out for Second Annual Report. Everything actually sounds pretty awesomely crappy through the little speaker, apparently the band worked quite hard to enhance the sound of these little boxes, according to their website, Gristleism has almost twice the frequency range of the original Buddha Machines, but it's definitely a pretty perfect encapsulation of the TG aesthetic. Low brow high art. We would have liked to have seen a chunk from United or the rhythm from Discipline added into the box, but hey save those for the next one. Please?
The one bummer is that there's no output / headphone jack, so there's really no way to hook this up to an amp or your stereo. Unless... you go to the band's website, where they provide specs for certain mods, insert a jack, do a little circuit bending, so you can add your own twist to TG's Gristleism box.
Needless to say, odds are you're probably gonna want one of these. Or two. If you loved the Buddha Machine, or the recent Black Box variation, then this one's gonna blow your mind. Available in black, red, and chrome (although, as of this moment, the chrome version is not available yet, it should be in a couple weeks). And be warned, these are super limited, we have a bunch, but we may not be able to get more, or if we can, it might not be all that many...

THROBBING GRISTLE Gristleism (Chrome) (Throbbing Gristle) battery operated soundbox 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
First black, then red, now CHROME (ok, chrome colored plastic)! Ooh, shiny!
Finally, the long rumored Gristleism soundbox from Throbbing Gristle is here, and it's just about as cool as we hoped. Regardless of your feelings on Throbbing Gristle as a band, Gristleism is another must have for music obsessives and weird gadget freaks, like FM3's Buddha Machine, Gristleism is a small compact battery powered soundbox that plays loops, it has a volume and a pitch control, and a button to switch between loops, but UNlike the Buddha Machine, which until recently came in the generic Asian packaging that all similar machines came packaged in (originally these boxes contained prayers and were used for mediation), and finally got a minimal but stylish upgrade, the Gristleism box is all about the packaging, in fact, we balked at the price before we saw these, but now that we've seen one and held one, WOW. Totally worth it.
The outside sleeve is shiny chrome, gorgeously embossed, or debossed, on one side, elaborately diecut on the other, that immediately recognizable TG pattern, the bottom lettering is debossed into the silver, with the word Gristleism printed in black. But that's just the outer slipcover. Once that is removed, the inside cover is revealed, again, shiny chrome, the credits, the tracklisting, debossed into the silver then inside that is a small printed insert, black ink on thick black paper, and then finally the soundbox itself, which even has the Throbbing Gristle logo pressed into the shiny reflective chrome finished plastic. As an object, this thing is breathtaking, totally striking and even if you never listened to it, would look smashing on your shelf. But you WILL want to listen to it.
Thirteen TG loops, the bulk of which seem to harken from the classic late '70s period of Throbbing Gristle, before the project split into Psychic TV, Chris & Cosey, and Coil.
The low synthetic dirge of "Persuasion" (from 20 Jazz Funk Greats) is the first loop on the box, complete with those unsettling female vocalisations which may be screams of fear, ecstasy, horror, or somewhere in between. The seasick distorted swells and atonal melodica trilled with tremolo come next, culled from the TG classic "Hamburger Lady" (from D.o.A. The Third and Final Report), all that's needed is for you to fill in Genesis' vocals about encountering a charred human body still alive in a hospital ward. Similarly effective is the alien slow-motion grooviess of the title track from 20 Jazz Funk Greats, with Cosey's bleating trumpet hanging in the distance. The windswept eeriness and foghorn blurts on "Thank You Brian" seem to be a loop that's unique to the box, or at least we're not sure where it might have come from. But the proto-acid squiggliness and disembodied vocals of "Maggot Death" reprise a particularly great snippet from TG's Second Annual Report. The "Wimpy Bar" loop doesn't seem to come from one of TG's records either but is one that sounds really familiar with Cosey's knife-on-the-guitar-strings scraping and squiggled electronics, perhaps from one of the many live cassettes? The tenth loop reprises the darkly hallucinatory echoes and atonal blurts from "Heathen Earth". The shepherd tone crustiness of the "Industrial Intro" could have been an experiment that Chris and Sleazey worked out for Second Annual Report. Everything actually sounds pretty awesomely crappy through the little speaker, apparently the band worked quite hard to enhance the sound of these little boxes, according to their website, Gristleism has almost twice the frequency range of the original Buddha Machines, but it's definitely a pretty perfect encapsulation of the TG aesthetic. Low brow high art. We would have liked to have seen a chunk from United or the rhythm from Discipline added into the box, but hey save those for the next one. Please?
The one bummer is that there's no output / headphone jack, so there's really no way to hook this up to an amp or your stereo. Unless... you go to the band's website, where they provide specs for certain mods, insert a jack, do a little circuit bending, so you can add your own twist to TG's Gristleism box.
Needless to say, odds are you're probably gonna want one of these. Or two. If you loved the Buddha Machine, or the recent Black Box variation, then this one's gonna blow your mind. Available in black, red, and now chrome. And be warned, these are super limited, we have a bunch, but we may not be able to get more, or if we can, it might not be all that many...

THROBBING GRISTLE Gristleism (Red) (Throbbing Gristle) battery operated soundbox 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, the long rumored Gristleism soundbox from Throbbing Gristle is here, and it's just about as cool as we hoped. Regardless of your feelings on Throbbing Gristle as a band, Gristleism is another must have for music obsessives and weird gadget freaks, like FM3's Buddha Machine, Gristleism is a small compact battery powered soundbox that plays loops, it has a volume and a pitch control, and a button to switch between loops, but UNlike the Buddha Machine, which until recently came in the generic Asian packaging that all similar machines came packaged in (originally these boxes contained prayers and were used for mediation), and finally got a minimal but stylish upgrade, the Gristleism box is all about the packaging, in fact, we balked at the price before we saw these, but now that we've seen one and held one, WOW. Totally worth it.
The outside sleeve is gorgeously printed shiny on matte on one side, elaborately diecut on the other, that immediately recognizable TG pattern, the bottom is printed in shiny black ink. But that's just the outer slipcover. Once that is removed, the inside cover is revealed, again, shiny ink on matte paper, some of the details in shiny black ink, the credits, the tracklisting, then inside that is a small printed insert, on thick reflective paper, and then finally the soundbox itself, which even has the Throbbing Gristle logo pressed into the plastic. As an object, this thing is breathtaking, totally striking and even if you never listened to it, would look smashing on your shelf. But you WILL want to listen to it.
Thirteen TG loops, the bulk of which seem to harken from the classic late '70s period of Throbbing Gristle, before the project split into Psychic TV, Chris & Cosey, and Coil.
The low synthetic dirge of "Persuasion" (from 20 Jazz Funk Greats) is the first loop on the box, complete with those unsettling female vocalisations which may be screams of fear, ecstasy, horror, or somewhere in between. The seasick distorted swells and atonal melodica trilled with tremolo come next, culled from the TG classic "Hamburger Lady" (from D.o.A. The Third and Final Report), all that's needed is for you to fill in Genesis' vocals about encountering a charred human body still alive in a hospital ward. Similarly effective is the alien slow-motion grooviess of the title track from 20 Jazz Funk Greats, with Cosey's bleating trumpet hanging in the distance. The windswept eeriness and foghorn blurts on "Thank You Brian" seem to be a loop that's unique to the box, or at least we're not sure where it might have come from. But the proto-acid squiggliness and disembodied vocals of "Maggot Death" reprise a particularly great snippet from TG's Second Annual Report. The "Wimpy Bar" loop doesn't seem to come from one of TG's records either but is one that sounds really familiar with Cosey's knife-on-the-guitar-strings scraping and squiggled electronics, perhaps from one of the many live cassettes? The tenth loop reprises the darkly hallucinatory echoes and atonal blurts from "Heathen Earth". The shepherd tone crustiness of the "Industrial Intro" could have been an experiment that Chris and Sleazey worked out for Second Annual Report. Everything actually sounds pretty awesomely crappy through the little speaker, apparently the band worked quite hard to enhance the sound of these little boxes, according to their website, Gristleism has almost twice the frequency range of the original Buddha Machines, but it's definitely a pretty perfect encapsulation of the TG aesthetic. Low brow high art. We would have liked to have seen a chunk from United or the rhythm from Discipline added into the box, but hey save those for the next one. Please?
The one bummer is that there's no output / headphone jack, so there's really no way to hook this up to an amp or your stereo. Unless... you go to the band's website, where they provide specs for certain mods, insert a jack, do a little circuit bending, so you can add your own twist to TG's Gristleism box.
Needless to say, odds are you're probably gonna want one of these. Or two. If you loved the Buddha Machine, or the recent Black Box variation, then this one's gonna blow your mind. Available in black, red, and chrome (although, as of this moment, the chrome version is not available yet). And be warned, these are super limited, we have a bunch, but we may not be able to get more, or if we can, it might not be all that many...

THROBBING GRISTLE Heathen Earth: The Live Sound Of Throbbing Gristle (Industrial) 2cd 23.00
While cataloged as the 'fourth and final' studio recording of Throbbing Gristle, Heathen Earth documents TG in a live context, as TG invited a couple dozen friends and hangers-on into the Industrial Records studio to witness the band in an intimate setting, while recording the proceedings to 8-track tape. Much of the slashing noise, atonal cornet blurts, and discordant oscillations from TG's live persona is front and center, but such brute noises are thrust against the clarity of sound from TG's step sequencing and electronic rhythms. Throbbing Gristle rework some tracks from the back catalogue, as the apocalyptic guitar drone of "Six Six Sixties" becomes all the more distorted and menacing in its new guise "The Old Man Smiled;" and some of that self same sequencing that went into the Schniztler-esque track "Dead On Arrival" re-emerges on "The Worlds Is A War Film." Presumably, a version of "After Cease to Exist" surfaces in the morass of murky noise that TG delves into, but it's hard to tell where that emerges as this track was such a gnarled abstraction to begin with. The cold electronic rhythms of "Don't Do As Your Told, Do As You Think" mirrors the jackbooted intensity that TG produced in their live-only cut "Discipline."
As with all of the other remastered versions of the cd, Heathen Earth comes with a bonus disc of live materials with a single at the end. Strangely enough, a track entitled "Heathen Earth" is featured in the live material, but was not included in the "live-in-the-studio" album. It's quite an incendiary number with pounding heartbeat drum machine grounding Genesis' tortured vocals and piercing feedback tones. A subterranean creepiness befits the track "Auschwitz" with bellowing cornet and distant drone sound design, prescient of pretty much every dark ambient / death industrial act to follow over the next three decades. The live material follows this trend up to the finale in the utterly haunting "We Said No," rounding out what is probably the best live material that TG has presented in this series of reissues. The finale seven inch is "Subhuman / Adrenalin" - the former being a throat-burning tirade from Genesis above a smoldering backdrop of electric noise, while the latter centers on the mechanoid sequencing of Sleazy and Chris Carter.
The vinyl version comes sans bonus disc, and is limited to 2000 copies!
MPEG Stream: "The Old Man Smiled"
MPEG Stream: "Don't Do As You're Told, Do As You Think"
MPEG Stream: "Heathen Earth"
MPEG Stream: "We Said No"