TRANSPARENT ILLUSION Still Human (Anna Logue) cd 17.98
Labels like Minimal Wave and Dark Entries had been chomping at the bit trying to reissue this long sought after slab of weird 'n' wonderful minimal synth pop circa 1981. But it's the German label, Anna Logue who get the prize, putting out Transparent Illusion's album at a time when its sounds are more relevant then ever.
A one man band, Roy Young used his synths and off kilter voice to create music that reminds us of a slightly drunk Gary Numan joining forces with R.L. Crutchfield during the early years of Dark Day. We also hear the blueprints of the sound that would make Mute one of the most successful labels of the '80s. But what makes Transparent Illusion so fucking cool is just how DIY it sounds and feels. This definitely also foreshadows the current wave of weirdo pop peddlers like John Maus, Genevieve Jacuzzi, and Gary War. Dark primitive synths injected with infectious melody and a sinister disposition that feels totally punk in spirit. Weird and fucking cool!
MPEG Stream: "Sections"
MPEG Stream: "Incubus"

TRANSPARENT ILLUSION Still Human (Anna Logue) lp 19.98
NOW ON VINYL!!!
Labels like Minimal Wave and Dark Entries had been chomping at the bit trying to reissue this long sought after slab of weird 'n' wonderful minimal synth pop circa 1981. But it's the German label, Anna Logue who get the prize, putting out Transparent Illusion's album at a time when its sounds are more relevant then ever.
A one man band, Roy Young used his synths and off kilter voice to create music that reminds us of a slightly drunk Gary Numan joining forces with R.L. Crutchfield during the early years of Dark Day. We also hear the blueprints of the sound that would make Mute one of the most successful labels of the '80s. But what makes Transparent Illusion so fucking cool is just how DIY it sounds and feels. This definitely also foreshadows the current wave of weirdo pop peddlers like John Maus, Genevieve Jacuzzi, and Gary War. Dark primitive synths injected with infectious melody and a sinister disposition that feels totally punk in spirit. Weird and fucking cool!
MPEG Stream: "Sections"
MPEG Stream: "Incubus"

TRAORE, ABDOULAYE s/t (Yaala Yaala) cd 14.98
Two new releases this week, from this relatively new world music label, whose past releases have totally blown us away, in particular, a collection of songs from legendary musician, Yoro Sibide, master of the ngoni, a traditional African stringed instrument, but almost more importantly, a donso, one of the traditional hunters of Mali, a mysterious group of men who live separated from the rest of society, the music of the donso, performed to inspire the other donsos for the hunt, epic tales of battles fought and won, lives lost, and worlds gone but not forgotten. Sibide is particularly relevant as both of these new releases on Yaala Yaala are records by student apprentices of the master Sibide, who spent years learning the way of the donsos, as well as of course, the music passed down from generation to generation.
Unlike Toba Seydou, featured on the other Yaala Yaala release on this list, who tracked down Sibide with the intention of becoming his apprentice, Abdoulaye Traore, learned to sing and play as a child, at the foot of his father, who eventually gave up music to return to farming, while Abdoulaye continued on, only to eventually be discovered during a performance, by Sibide, who was so impressed, he specifically requested that Abdoulaye become his apprentice. He studied for years and eventually become Sibide's main accompanist. This cd gathers up his first seven cassette releases, and again like Tora Seydou, Abdoulaye's music bears a striking resemblance to his master's, as well as to Tora Seydou's, the same sort of buzzing low strings, locked into repetitive grooves, looped sounding, repeated over and over, totally trance inducing, the vocals slipping from passionate wail, to hushed croon, the percussion super minimal, each track, a single riff, one part, the percussion and ngoni in perfect unison, in fact, in some ways, Abdoulaye' music is the most hypnotic of the three, the most stripped down and minimal, but equally as passionate and inspiring, spiritual and transcendent, these sounds, this music, is so magical, we could listen to this forever, even removed from its traditions, existing simply as notes and rhythms, these songs still retain the music's history, the blood and tears, the years of struggle and survival, of life and death, of birth and rebirth, imbuing the sound with an ineffable energy, a mysterious power, which is a rarity in most music for sure, and makes these sounds so special.
MPEG Stream: "Dankoro Lamagalen"
MPEG Stream: "Karamogo Ni Ko"

TRAORE, ROKIA Tchamantche (Tama / Nonesuch) cd 17.98

MPEG Stream: "Dounia"
MPEG Stream: "Aimer"
MPEG Stream: "Koronoko"

TRAORE, TOBA SEYDOU s/t (Yaala Yaala) cd 14.98
Two new releases this week, from this relatively new world music label, whose past releases have totally blown us away, in particular, a collection of songs from legendary musician, Yoro Sibide, master of the ngoni, a traditional African stringed instrument, but almost more importantly, a donso, one of the traditional hunters of Mali, a mysterious group of men who live separated from the rest of society, the music of the donso, performed to inspire the other donsos for the hunt, epic tales of battles fought and won, lives lost, and worlds gone but not forgotten. Sibide is particularly relevant as both of these new releases on Yaala Yaala are records by student apprentices of the master Sibide, who spent years learning the way of the donsos, as well as of course, the music passed down from generation to generation.
Tora Seydou Traore became obsessed with the music of the hunters as a child, so much so that when his father sent him out to care for the flock, he would build instruments from old junk and bicycle parts, and play music until his father would find him and beat him. And so it went until Traore went away to school, and then later decided to follow his destiny and track down Sibide, to learn from the master. Which he did, until he graduated five years late, and began to take on apprentices of his own. And of course it makes sense that Traore's music would bear such a strong resemblance to that of Sibide, warm and lush, dark and hypnotic, the buzzing strings locked into looping grooves, underpinned by simple percussion, with Traore's clear, strong powerful vocals, sometimes soaring dramatically, other times more subdued and crooned, often engaged in call and response with a chorus, the melodies spidery and minor key, the sound minimal and muted and so gorgeously trancelike, lots of layered buzz, warm whirling rumbles, minimal percussion, hand drums, shakers, unfurling clouds of sizzle and whir, a haunting cloud of soft washed out buzz wrapped around the tangled low end melodies, Traore's music, and the music of the donsos, so drone-y and minimal, so gorgeously haunting, utterly hypnotic, and so emotionally resonant, truly some of the most fantastic spiritual music we've heard...
MPEG Stream: "Koma Ma Son"
MPEG Stream: "Maransa"

TRAP OF THE TRAP Poppin' Street Jams (Radial Sesamoid) cassette 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This was another discovery after digging around through boxes in the back room of aQ, a little stash of tapes from this mysterious band called Trap Of The Trap. They were accompanied by a letter, saying that the band was done, and that the sender of the tapes was embarking on some sort of journey, and they just wanted to find homes for the remaining tapes. Well, somehow it took years for us to finally listen to these, but when we did, holy shit, we totally flipped. Andee played them on his radio show, and we set about trying to track down the band with the intention of getting more, or maybe even re-releasing these ourselves. As it is, we have about 6 copies of each tape, and regardless of future repressing/reissuing possibilities, these are the only copies left of the tape versions, which are all hand screened, and hand drawn, each one numbered, they're super DIY and look amazing, so if you're a tape nerd, you might want to grab one or both of these quick before they're gone, cuz this shit is AMAZING. And like all the coolest stuff, pretty hard to describe. They list a whole mess of instruments, pedals, guitars, monosynth, keyboards, turntables, drum machine, video camera (!), voices, accordion, harmonica, and more, all recorded onto a 3-track (the fourth track was busted), and all woven into a crazy collection of twisted sonic vignettes.
Reverse Mermaid, which is the first one we listened to, starts out with a hazy bit of Philip Jeck like looped swirl, all dreamy and drifty and woozy, which leads directly into "All Cages Open", which is the track that sealed the deal, a strange sort of minimal krautpsych, crafted from primitive rhythms, layered loops, groovy and mesmerizing, everything in a haze of crackle and static, we've probably listened to that track about 20 times. The rest of the tape is just as cool, slipping from Machinefabriek like melodic minimalism, to spaced out dreamfolk shimmer, and from garbled collaged psychedelia to weird outsider kosmische electronic drift, and lots of other strange stops in between.
Poppin' Street Jams, plays out more like fragments, and sketches, there's churning metallic crumbling crunch, there's hazy swirling cinematic post rock minimalism, blissed out gauzy psychedelic drones, primitive outsider electro, blown out melodic crumble, and again, especially on this record, a ton of other twisted fragments and fractured sonic experiments.
Here's hoping this stuff will resurface in some other form down the line, but for now, your tape deck is essentially worthless without one of these crammed in it. Our favorite new (very old) chunk of musical mystery for sure...
MPEG Stream: "Run Coward!"
MPEG Stream: "To Quiet The Living"
MPEG Stream: "I've Lost My Manners"

TRAP OF THE TRAP Reverse Mermaid (Radial Sesamoid) cassette 5.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This was another discovery after digging around through boxes in the back room of aQ, a little stash of tapes from this mysterious band called Trap Of The Trap. They were accompanied by a letter, saying that the band was done, and that the sender of the tapes was embarking on some sort of journey, and they just wanted to find homes for the remaining tapes. Well, somehow it took years for us to finally listen to these, but when we did, holy shit, we totally flipped. Andee played them on his radio show, and we set about trying to track down the band with the intention of getting more, or maybe even re-releasing these ourselves. As it is, we have about 6 copies of each tape, and regardless of future repressing/reissuing possibilities, these are the only copies left of the tape versions, which are all hand screened, and hand drawn, each one numbered, they're super DIY and look amazing, so if you're a tape nerd, you might want to grab one or both of these quick before they're gone, cuz this shit is AMAZING. And like all the coolest stuff, pretty hard to describe. They list a whole mess of instruments, pedals, guitars, monosynth, keyboards, turntables, drum machine, video camera (!), voices, accordion, harmonica, and more, all recorded onto a 3-track (the fourth track was busted), and all woven into a crazy collection of twisted sonic vignettes.
Reverse Mermaid, which is the first one we listened to, starts out with a hazy bit of Philip Jeck like looped swirl, all dreamy and drifty and woozy, which leads directly into "All Cages Open", which is the track that sealed the deal, a strange sort of minimal krautpsych, crafted from primitive rhythms, layered loops, groovy and mesmerizing, everything in a haze of crackle and static, we've probably listened to that track about 20 times. The rest of the tape is just as cool, slipping from Machinefabriek like melodic minimalism, to spaced out dreamfolk shimmer, and from garbled collaged psychedelia to weird outsider kosmische electronic drift, and lots of other strange stops in between.
Poppin' Street Jams, plays out more like fragments, and sketches, there's churning metallic crumbling crunch, there's hazy swirling cinematic post rock minimalism, blissed out gauzy psychedelic drones, primitive outsider electro, blown out melodic crumble, and again, especially on this record, a ton of other twisted fragments and fractured sonic experiments.
Here's hoping this stuff will resurface in some other form down the line, but for now, your tape deck is essentially worthless without one of these crammed in it. Our favorite new (very old) chunk of musical mystery for sure...
MPEG Stream: "One Hundred Million Babies"
MPEG Stream: "All Cages Open"
MPEG Stream: "Found In Fibers"

TRAP THEM Darker Handcraft (Prosthetic) cd 14.98
Trap Them are another band that seems to have slipped through the cracks for whatever, maybe it's inevitable with SO many bands and SO many records, but these guys are seriously kick ass, and definitely deserve some aQ love.
These New Hampshire heavies are a glorious grimy mix of grindcore, crust punk, death metal and dirgey Swans like crush, all woven into a blown out, in-the-red, sledgehammer to the skull. Folks constantly compare these guys to Entombed, Cursed, Converge (whose Kurt Ballou recorded this, and it sounds MASSIVE, impossibly heavy, maybe the heaviest record since that Dragged Into Sunlight we reviewed a few lists back), all of which make perfect sense, the sound here is vicious, punishing, brutal, relentless, a definite D-beat vibe going on, the guitars dense and gnarled, the drums pounding, the vocals a glass gargling howl, the songs slipping easily from frantic punkish blast, to twisted proggy weirdness, to doomy plod and back again, makes us actually think of a supercharged Tragedy or His Hero Is Gone, that sort of metallic punk but cranked way up, with a sound SO heavy and distorted, all the sounds seem a hair's breadth away from clipping, which helps make this stuff sound so fucking fierce. One of our new favorite metal records for sure...
Features some of our favorite Justin Bartlett art yet, not to mention a big booklet filled with solid black pages (!), the jewel case housed in a fancy slipcover, also adorned with some serious Bartlett visual sickness...
MPEG Stream: "Damage Prose"
MPEG Stream: "Slumcult & Gather"
MPEG Stream: "Every Walk A Quarantine"
MPEG Stream: "Scars Align"

TRAPIST Ballroom (Thrill Jockey) cd 14.98
We're currently quite enamored with the happenin' Vienna electro-acoustic improv scene -- especially when it involves the participation of two of the folks you'll find on this here Trapist album, Martin Siewart and Martin Brandlmayr. Recently we reviewed Too Beautiful To Burn, the album both Martins did together for the Erstwhile label, a simply gorgeous merging of live improv playing and electronic dronescape processing. Guitarist Siewart also appeared recently on B. Fleishmann's great "Welcome Tourist" album (contributing to that 2-cd set's second, dronier disc). In addition, drummer Brandlmayr you should know from the fractured propulsion he provides in the excellent glitch-rock instrumental outfit Radian. The Trapist trio is rounded out by Joe Williamson, an ex-pat Canadian bassist much in demand in Euro-improv circles these days.
So, what's going on here that's so great you ask? Well, maybe it's nothin' new to take live instruments and feed them into a computer, but both the playing (melodically blissful) and the editing (restrained, spacious) here are stellar. It's a sort of jazz-electronica, very lovely, with mellow moody drones and pretty details. All five tracks are quite wonderful, seemingly abstract yet focused. It's got a lot in common with Siewart & Brandlmayr's duo disc, but is much groovier, not so minimal. Like that record, the coloration of instruments like vibraphone and pedal steel bleed into an electronic, ambient field conjured by the group's synths and computer post-processing. This 2nd album from Trapist finds them on Thrill Jockey, who also put out the only US release by Radian, Rec.Intern, in 2002. There's similar musical methodology at work here -- fans of Radian will assuredly like this -- but Trapist is less 'post-rock'; more gentle, melodic, and electronica-like. Recommended!
MPEG Stream: "Time Axis Manipulation (part 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Observations Took Place"

TRASH Industrialsamplecoregouchbeat (Mille Plateaux) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We neglected list this record for a while because somebody had told me that it wasn't that great--well when I finally took a listen to it, I suppose with my expectations suitably lowered, I was surprised to find that this recent Mille Plateaux release was quite excellent. Kind of a combination of Squarepusherish drum'n'bass programming and Restgeraeuschian drone, this seems to be either a compilation or a collective that goes under the name of Trash, all participants hailing from Bristol, England and perhaps recording for a label called No Future--regardless, DJ Decay, Matt Yee-King, J. Lidell, H. Spymania (Spymania? hmmm) and the others credited here have crafted a rewarding listen.

TRASH TALK Awake (True Panther) 7" 8.98
Trash Talk are PUNK ROCK. And we mean punk rock like some howling feral mix of Fucked Up / Converge / Coalesce, that sort of churning almost metallic punk, the guitars MASSIVE and so heavy, the drums pummeling, and TT have killer dueling vox, one a frenzied almost shriek, the other a more melodic bellow, bit together they make the sound super distinctive. And did we mention CRAZY hooky, this is the sort of punk rock no one really makes anymore, the songs clocking in at around 90 seconds, the sort of stuff that would whip up a pit in seconds, but totally sing-along-able, the sound is epic, the production is kind of weird, but crazy LOUD, and the songs are all over the place, sort of proggy actually, some parts just popping up for a few seconds, others grinding away, the sound occasionally metal, sometimes total D-beat, but again, always impossibly hooky, relentless riffing, feedback everywhere, there's a reason folks are flipping out over these guys, we sort of are too, and odds are even though this single is on the short side, you'll find yourself spinning it over and over and over.
Packaged in super thick nice black and white sleeves, with a printed fold out poster / lyric sheet!

TRAUMA LE TRON Rainbow Venom (self-released) 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.

MPEG Stream: "Hollow Town "
MPEG Stream: "Invisible Thunder"

TRAUMA QUEENS The Malevolent Sounds of the... (Algebra II) cd ep 5.98

TRAVELING BELL Scatter Ways (Secret Eye) cd 13.98

TRAVELING WILBURYS Traveling Wilburys Collection (Rhino) 2cd+dvd 29.00

TRAVELLERS The Sound Of Travellers (PlusTapes) cassette 5.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
LAST FEW COPIES!!!!
Very few record labels attain the sort of iconic status usually reserved for artists, and those that do, often spend YEARS cultivating a roster, and developing a fanbase, made up of the sort of fans that will buy ANYTHING and everything on the label. In the past, Sub Pop, Touch And Go, Homestead, tUMULt (sez Andee!), but lately a couple labels have managed to make that leap in a matter of months rather than years. Mississippi of course. Reissuing all manner or blues, gospel and punk rock rarities on vinyl, and now Plus Tapes, who are doing the same, albeit with international sounds instead, and focusing on the cassette tape as the format of choice. Always limited, and always guaranteed to sell out in a heartbeat.
And this latest reissue from Plus Tapes will most likely be no different, aside from those folks who will buy ANYTHING, regardless of what it is, before they hear it or even know anything about it, this collection from Travellers, will be of great interest to fans of all the Sublime Frequencies releases for sure. From Singapore, Travellers, traffic in a sort of groovy jazzy surf pop, rife with Morricone-isms, plenty of twang, groovy Mariachi horns, fluttering flutes, simple shuffling drums, spidery guitar melodies, cheesy synthesizers and lots of reverby surf rock , occasional wild rock saxophone, all with a distinctly Eastern vibe.
Lots of this sounds like the soundtrack from some long lost Western or kung fu epic, surfy, jazzy, funky, folky, playful, slipping from minor key moodiness to fun sunshine-y poppiness, always dramatic and evocative and most definitely always groovy.
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! Already sold out at the label, we have the last copies, more than a third of the pressing came to aQ, but these still probably won't last long. Full color covers, hand numbered, green tapes, correspondingly numbered!
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "Excerpt 2"

TRAVIS, MERLE Strictly Guitar (Sundazed) cd 13.98

TRAX Reprint 2: Notterossa / Rednight (A Silent Place) 2cd 10.98

TREASURE HUNT Toys Unatic (Moon Glyph) cassette 4.98
Another batch of new tapes from now-local label Moon Glyph, brings us new sonic treasures, quite literally in this case, the latest from Treasure Hunt, a one man band from Texas, who offers up a blissed out serious of psychedelic collages, tinkling chimes, jazzy horns, all sorts of strange loops and field recordings, fractured melodies, a plunderphonic freakout, that almost sounds like a proper band, albeit one with maybe a hundred members. The vibe is most definitely free form and abstract, the opener delves into a sort of avant new age, while the follow up, unfurls a sort of heavily panned but of woozy droney murk, the panning downright dizzying, with the sounds swooping continuously from ear to ear and speaker to speaker. But that effect, along with the, looped melody, and the strange disembodied vocals, make for a heady bit of psychedelia.
The rest of the tape continues to explore a sort of avant free-jazz collage, plucked strings, what sounds like harp melodies, subtle shuffling rhythms, strange robotic clockwork creaks and groans, mournful strings, heavily effected acoustic guitars, birdsong, percussion, wheezing organs, buried voices, a sort of spectral chorale, strange bits of electronic glitchery, sampled voices, layers of hum and crackle, sliced and diced Christmas carols, wild squiggles of primitive electronics, the tracks occasionally bursting in top near chaos, but otherwise settling into something dark and dreamy. A super nice surprise, and one of our favorite Moon Glyph tapes yet!
MPEG Stream: "One Fungi"
MPEG Stream: "Six Is"
MPEG Stream: "Ate Her"

TREE PEOPLE, THE Human Voices (Guerssen) cd 17.98

MPEG Stream: "Human Voices"
MPEG Stream: "Grandfather"
MPEG Stream: "Opus II"

TREE PEOPLE, THE s/t (Tiliqua) cd 24.00
Not to be confused with Doug Martsch's amazing nineties outfit, the Treepeople, -these- Tree People are equally amazing, but are a whole different proposition.
This disc was originally released as a super limited lp way back in 1979 and managed to quietly disappear. Now, here we are nearly three decades later, and whattaya know? There's a whole movement of modern free folk, 'freak' folk and the like, and if you didn't know better, pretty sure we could pass this off as some strange super limited cd-r by some modern folk revivalists. But keen ears would certainly be able to tell. This is so entirely original (especially for the time) and genuine sounding. Mostly acoustic guitars, flute and vocals, the Tree People had two distinct sounds, the first, a lilting melancholy moonlit folk, like Cat Stevens or Van Morrison, a gorgeous lazy drawl, rich and lustrous, over simple folk and fluttering flutes, dreamy and gorgeous, sounding like some lost folk classic one minute, a strange "Girl From Ipanema" style shuffle the next. But even at its sweetest and softest, the record seems to always have a hint of melancholy, sometimes even a trace of ominous foreboding. Which definitely gives the songs a subtly dark undercurrent. The majority of the record however is spent in full on hippy jam mode. Very Comus-like at times (especially on track two, "Sliding"), wild steel string excursions, dense tangles of fingerpicked melodies and aggressive strummed riffs, with a definite raga like vibe, all over a smattering of hand drums and tablas, a glorious drifting buzzing steel string dronefolk, that just sounds so incredibly timeless. Elsewhere, the same jams evolve into more tranquil acoustic dreaminess, with the flutes floating over sweet lilting melodies, but even then, the songs will be peppered with sudden bursts of buzzing slide guitar, or brief squalls of atonal fingerpicking. SO cool. And considering the current love of all things freaky and folky, it's sort of amazing that stuff like this was already being made 27 years ago!
Obviously, fans of the current crop of modern folk troubadours will find this absolutely essential, Devandra, Vetiver, Espers, Newsom, whatever your particular poison, the Tree People will fit in frighteningly well. Hard to say whether it speaks to the prescience of the Tree People, or just to how much these modern bands have actually been 'borrowing'. Either way, this is absolutely essential.
Packaged in a super deluxe Japanese miniature gatefold style cd sleeve, with a printed obi, and extensive liner notes in English and Japanese!
MPEG Stream: "Sliding"
MPEG Stream: "Stranger"
MPEG Stream: "Opus"

TREE PEOPLE, THE s/t (Guerssen) lp 30.00
Now a vinyl version!! Here's our review of the cd reissue that Tiliqua put out in 2006:
Not to be confused with Doug Martsch's amazing nineties outfit, the Treepeople, -these- Tree People are equally amazing, but are a whole different proposition.
This disc was originally released as a super limited lp way back in 1979 and managed to quietly disappear. Now, here we are nearly three decades later, and whattaya know? There's a whole movement of modern free folk, 'freak' folk and the like, and if you didn't know better, pretty sure we could pass this off as some strange super limited cd-r by some modern folk revivalists. But keen ears would certainly be able to tell. This is so entirely original (especially for the time) and genuine sounding. Mostly acoustic guitars, flute and vocals, the Tree People had two distinct sounds, the first, a lilting melancholy moonlit folk, like Cat Stevens or Van Morrison, a gorgeous lazy drawl, rich and lustrous, over simple folk and fluttering flutes, dreamy and gorgeous, sounding like some lost folk classic one minute, a strange "Girl From Ipanema" style shuffle the next. But even at it's sweetest and softest, the record seems to always have a hint of melancholy, sometimes even a trace of ominous foreboding. Which definitely gives the songs a subtly dark undercurrent. The majority of the record however is spent in full on hippy jam mode. Very Comus-like at times (especially on track two, "Sliding"), wild steel string excursions, dense tangles of fingerpicked melodies and aggressive strummed riffs, with a definite raga like vibe, all over a smattering of hand drums and tablas, a glorious drifting buzzing steel string dronefolk, that just sounds so incredibly timeless. Elsewhere, the same jams evolve into more tranquil acoustic dreaminess, with the flutes floating over sweet lilting melodies, but even then, the songs will be peppered with sudden bursts of buzzing slide guitar, or brief squalls of atonal fingerpicking. SO cool. And considering the current love of all things freaky and folky, it's sort of amazing that stuff like this was already being made 27 years ago!
Obviously, fans of the current crop of modern folk troubadours will find this absolutely essential, Devandra, Vetiver, Espers, Newsom, whatever your particular poison, the Tree People will fit in frighteningly well. Hard to say whether it speaks to the prescience of the Tree People, or just to how much these modern bands have actually been 'borrowing'. Either way, this is absolutely essential.
MPEG Stream: "Sliding"
MPEG Stream: "Stranger"
MPEG Stream: "Opus"

TREE, CHRISTOPHER Spontaneous Sound (Quakebasket) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From hidden in some dusty vault (we imagine) for lo these past thirty years, Quakebasket -- the label reponsible for that great ongoing series of archival Angus Maclise vinyl-only documents -- has exhumed this beautiful recording by another sixties era musical mystic, the mysterious multi-instrumentalist Christopher Tree. Unfamiliar with Tree until now, we're quite grateful this has finally been released. Recorded live back in 1970 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, "Spontaneous Sound" features the long-haired, bearded Tree as a one-man improvising orchestra, utilizing gongs, cymbals, chant, chimes, bells, tympanis, horns, and some other rather more unusual instruments designed for him by none other than the legendary Harry Bertoia. Apparently, Tree played for children, although this is hardly kids stuff (unfortunately there's no liner notes, but there is a charming children's drawing of Tree and his instruments in action). Tree's music evokes a higher-mind, darkly cosmic spirituality of sound similar to that of AQ-fave '70s Japanese psychedelic experimentalists the Taj Mahal Travellers. We're also reminded of the excellent recent "Solaris" disc by contemporary sonic drone artists Mirror, and of other work from the Andrew Chalk/Christoph Heemann/Jonathan Coleclough/Colin Potter/etc. axis. The cd (or lp) package's rather wonderful photos of Tree surrounded by his battery of instruments -- which fill the stage -- might lead you to expect some sort of percussion frenzy, but that's far from the case. No, this is calm and contemplative, yet powerful. Almost magically, Tree conjures an ancient, droning soundworld of gently melodic, drifting woodwinds, oceanic cymbal washes, and deep gong reverberations...really fantastic. Imagine a more intimate, softer side to Hermann Nitsch's droneworks, equally medieval but not so malevolent. And, to top it off, the guy's name is Tree! We're in love.
RealAudio clip: "Spontaneous Sound excerpt 1"
RealAudio clip: "Spontaneous Sound excerpt 2"

TREE, CHRISTOPHER Spontaneous Sound (Quakebasket) lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
From hidden in some dusty vault (we imagine) for lo these past thirty years, Quakebasket -- the label reponsible for that great ongoing series of archival Angus Maclise vinyl-only documents -- has exhumed this beautiful recording by another sixties era musical mystic, the mysterious multi-instrumentalist Christopher Tree. Unfamiliar with Tree until now, we're quite grateful this has finally been released. Recorded live back in 1970 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, "Spontaneous Sound" features the long-haired, bearded Tree as a one-man improvising orchestra, utilizing gongs, cymbals, chant, chimes, bells, tympanis, horns, and some other rather more unusual instruments designed for him by none other than the legendary Harry Bertoia. Apparently, Tree played for children, although this is hardly kids stuff (unfortunately there's no liner notes, but there is a charming children's drawing of Tree and his instruments in action). Tree's music evokes a higher-mind, darkly cosmic spirituality of sound similar to that of AQ-fave '70s Japanese psychedelic experimentalists the Taj Mahal Travellers. We're also reminded of the excellent recent "Solaris" disc by contemporary sonic drone artists Mirror, and of other work from the Andrew Chalk/Christoph Heemann/Jonathan Coleclough/Colin Potter/etc. axis. The cd (or lp) package's rather wonderful photos of Tree surrounded by his battery of instruments -- which fill the stage -- might lead you to expect some sort of percussion frenzy, but that's far from the case. No, this is calm and contemplative, yet powerful. Almost magically, Tree conjures an ancient, droning soundworld of gently melodic, drifting woodwinds, oceanic cymbal washes, and deep gong reverberations...really fantastic. Imagine a more intimate, softer side to Herman Hermann Nitsch's droneworks, equally medieval but not so malevolent. And, to top it off, the guy's name is Tree! We're in love.

TREEPEOPLE Guilt Regret Embarrassment (K) cd 15.98
The genius of Mr. Doug Martsch recorded pre-Built To Spill/Dub Narcotic. Kick-ass hook-laden pop rocks from 1991. Harder and much more angstful than BTS. Plus a cover of David Bowie's "Andy Warhol". Awesome.

TREES Freed Of The Flesh (Crucial Blast) cd 10.98
Another grim, blackened, abject slab of crushing ultramega doom from these Northwest doomlords, and like their last one, Lights Bane, Freed Of The Flesh is another gloriously miserable exercise in slow motion pummel and grinding glacial creep.
Moss, Monarch, Bunkur, Khanate, Habsyll, The Body, Salome, Fleshpress, Atavist, Marzuraan, if any or all of those names sound familiar to you, then you'll no doubt understand what's in store for the listener here.
Two extended doomscapes, a black cacophony of downtuned pound, the drums a barely there skeletal support to a heaving crumbling beastly buzz, riffs ring out and slowly decay, the vocals an inhuman shriek, shards of feedback shoot through the smoldering rumble of slowly decaying chords, note pulled apart, riffs blurred into near drones, a sprawling tarpit crawl, hypnotic and mesmerizing, and so so so heavy.
The second track begins all stately and melodic and majestic, a glorious doom epic, surprisingly melodic, like a more metal Harvey Milk almost, you can practically imagine those strange bellowed HM vocals coming in at any minute, but instead, the track creeps along, and finally the actual vocals do come in, more hellish screeches, the perfect foil for the minor key funereal dirge beneath them, the guitars again layered and stretched into black blurs, the track growing subtly more chaotic, near the end, but never moving beyond a creep or crawl, slowly, very slowly, unwinding into pitch black emptiness.
Fucking awesome. Essential ultra doom, grim listening for the slow and low legions...
MPEG Stream: "Hollow"
MPEG Stream: "Ashes"

TREES Lights Bane (Crucial Blast) cd 14.98
Every single time we play this, someone either asks us if we're listening to Monarch. Or Khanate. Every time. That should give you enough to go on right off the bat. And indeed, Trees are a dead ringer for both. Maybe a perfect mix of the two. They don't write songs so much, as put together slow moving arrangements of buzz and howl, throb and skree, crush and chunk, much of the two loooooong tracks here are spent in long drawn out slowly decaying drones, huge chords almost melting before our very ears, feedback and downtuned buzz crumbling to pieces, tones beating against each other, slipping into shrieking streaks of feedback. The long stretches are of course peppered with huge jagged shards of drum pound and demonic vocals, these spaced out blasts somehow arranged to form some sort of skeletal song structure, but it's much more of an exercise in tension and atmosphere, dynamics and drone, and ultra slow motion heaviness.
They do introduce some of their own flavor into the mix, little flurries of double kick, skittering snare drums, some strange strangled mewlings, haunting complex chords, some monklike chants, and some intense abstract soundscapery, so almost-pretty it threatens to slip into some serious black ambience, and at some points, they even -almost- rock, slipping into Eyehategod territory, but it's in the swirling black morass these guys feel most at home, and thankfully, for the dronedirgedoom obsessed, that's precisely where they spend most of Lights Bane. Needless to say, you dig Monarch, Khanate, Moss, Bunkur, etc., you will dig Trees.
Fancy mini-lp style gatefold sleeve with super striking, dense tangled red ink cover art.
MPEG Stream: "Nothing"

TREES Lights Bane (20 Buck Spin) lp 15.98
Now available on vinyl!!
Every single time we play this, someone either asks us if we're listening to Monarch. Or Khanate. Every time. That should give you enough to go on right off the bat. And indeed, Trees are a dead ringer for both. Maybe a perfect mix of the two. They don't write songs so much, as put together slow moving arrangements of buzz and howl, throb and skree, crush and chunk, much of the two loooooong tracks here are spent in long drawn out slowly decaying drones, huge chords almost melting before our very ears, feedback and downtuned buzz crumbling to pieces, tones beating against each other, slipping into shrieking streaks of feedback. The long stretches are of course peppered with huge jagged shards of drum pound and demonic vocals, these spaced out blasts somehow arranged to form some sort of skeletal song structure, but it's much more of an exercise in tension and atmosphere, dynamics and drone, and ultra slow motion heaviness.
They do introduce some of their own flavor into the mix, little flurries of double kick, skittering snare drums, some strange strangled mewlings, haunting complex chords, some monklike chants, and some intense abstract soundscapery, so almost-pretty it threatens to slip into some serious black ambience, and at some points, they even -almost- rock, slipping into Eyehategod territory, but it's in the swirling black morass these guys feel most at home, and thankfully, for the dronedirgedoom obsessed, that's precisely where they spend most of Lights Bane. Needless to say, you dig Monarch, Khanate, Moss, Bunkur, etc., you will dig Trees.
Fancy mini-lp style gatefold sleeve with super striking, dense tangled red ink cover art.
MPEG Stream: "Nothing"

TREES On The Shore (Columbia) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
1970, England. Imagine a rock band that's equally into the sort of psychedelic electric guitar excursions you'd have heard back then wafting from London's hippy ballrooms, as well as ballads and jigs derived from British folk song tradition. With lovely, pure, delicately bird-like female vocals a la Anne Briggs and Sandy Denny... Yes, Trees were quite a bit like Fairport Convention, but rather more obscure. And now, at long last, we've managed to get a hold of these UK import-only cd reissues of their two albums. Gorgeous stuff indeed, utterly magical, definitely for fans of early Fairport, Shirley Collins, Pentangle, and the whole Brit-folk-rock thing.
Both of Trees' records ("The Garden of Jane Delawney" and "On The Shore") are from 1970 and come equally recommended (they may as well be two volumes of the same album). Both of 'em feature the vocals of Celia Humphris, along with both traditional acoustic instruments (dulcimer, mandolin) and electric guitars, and blend original songs and adaptations of traditional folk material.
"The Garden..." boasts a rather strange cover painting, and Windy's favorite Trees track, "Nothing Special", whose sublimely pretty guitar strumming prefigured a whole movement of jangle pop bands (e.g. REM). Of their two albums perhaps *slightly* the more rock-based and produced, "On The Shore" features the song "Sally Free And Easy" which in recent years, you may recall, was covered by Flying Saucer Attack on a Drag City ep of that title, and also comes with lengthy liner notes telling the story of the band.
RealAudio clip: "Murdoch"
RealAudio clip: "Streets Of Derry"

TREES On The Shore (Sunbeam) 2lp 34.00
Now available on vinyl!!!
1970, England. Imagine a rock band that's equally into the sort of psychedelic electric guitar excursions you'd have heard back then wafting from London's hippy ballrooms, as well as ballads and jigs derived from British folk song tradition. With lovely, pure, delicately bird-like female vocals a la Anne Briggs and Sandy Denny... Yes, Trees were quite a bit like Fairport Convention, but rather more obscure. And now, at long last, both of their essential records are availble again on vinyl! Gorgeous stuff indeed, utterly magical, definitely for fans of early Fairport, Shirley Collins, Pentangle, and the whole Brit-folk-rock thing.
Both of Trees' records ("The Garden of Jane Delawney" and "On The Shore") are from 1970 and come equally recommended (they may as well be two volumes of the same album). Both of 'em feature the vocals of Celia Humphris, along with both traditional acoustic instruments (dulcimer, mandolin) and electric guitars, and blend original songs and adaptations of traditional folk material.
"The Garden..." boasts a rather strange cover painting, and one of our favorite Trees track, "Nothing Special", whose sublimely pretty guitar strumming prefigured a whole movement of jangle pop bands (e.g. REM). Of their two albums perhaps *slightly* the more rock-based and produced, "On The Shore" features one of the best versions of "Sally Free And Easy" which has also been covered by Marianne Faithful, Magic Hour, Pentangle and of course Flying Saucer Attack, and also comes with lengthy liner notes telling the story of the band.

TREES Sickness In (Crucial Blast) cd 13.98
BACK IN STOCK!
Another missive from these Northwestern musical miscreants, and another sprawling black-doom ultra-sludge, grim-dirge epic, two tracks, nearly 30 minutes, opening with a haunting expanse of creepy droned out ambience, like the score that might play over the credits to some super arty horror film, all ominous ritualistic percussion, black sonic swirls and heaving low end rumbles, all of which are soon subsumed by dense squalls of keening feedback, building to a furious frenzy, before the hammer falls, and the song proper lurches into aktion, a monstrous, lumbering, slo-mo tarpit creep, all spaced out drum crashes, 10 seconds a part, avalanches of chordal crush, that ring out endlessly, wreathed in shards of feedback, the vokills a sick demonic rasp, the tempo glacial, total abject blackened ultra-dooooooooooom heaviness of the highest order. Well within the sonic realms of fellow doomlords like Moss, Monarch, Bunkur, Corrupted, Khanate, The Body, Fleshpress and the like. Trees don't necessarily add anything brand new to the equation, but they do craft a pretty gorgeous sprawl of droning doomic miserablism, which toward the end of the first track, begins to blur and smear into something much more psychedelic and abstract.
Which perfectly leads into the second track, which begins all feedbacky and freeform, all swirling keening feedback, chanted vox buried in the mix, and abstract drum splatter, before, like the first track, the sounds coalesce into another grim doooooom creep, this one even more spaced out, the notes further apart, the chords left to ring out and fade even more gradually, the timbre of their crumbling decay as much a part of the sound as the notes themselves, maybe even moreso, a slow, trudging, downtuned tranced out chunk of mesmerizing hypno-doom mesmer, that ends way too soon, even at close to 15 minutes...
MPEG Stream: "Cover Your Mouth"
MPEG Stream: "Perish"

TREES Sickness In (The Flenser) lp 14.98
AND NOW ON VINYL TOO, VIA THE FLENSER!
Another missive from these Northwestern musical miscreants, and another sprawling black-doom ultra-sludge, grim-dirge epic, two tracks, nearly 30 minutes, opening with a haunting expanse of creepy droned out ambience, like the score that might play over the credits to some super arty horror film, all ominous ritualistic percussion, black sonic swirls and heaving low end rumbles, all of which are soon subsumed by dense squalls of keening feedback, building to a furious frenzy, before the hammer falls, and the song proper lurches into aktion, a monstrous, lumbering, slo-mo tarpit creep, all spaced out drum crashes, 10 seconds a part, avalanches of chordal crush, that ring out endlessly, wreathed in shards of feedback, the vokills a sick demonic rasp, the tempo glacial, total abject blackened ultra-dooooooooooom heaviness of the highest order. Well within the sonic realms of fellow doomlords like Moss, Monarch, Bunkur, Corrupted, Khanate, The Body, Fleshpress and the like. Trees don't necessarily add anything brand new to the equation, but they do craft a pretty gorgeous sprawl of droning doomic miserablism, which toward the end of the first track, begins to blur and smear into something much more psychedelic and abstract.
Which perfectly leads into the second track, which begins all feedbacky and freeform, all swirling keening feedback, chanted vox buried in the mix, and abstract drum splatter, before, like the first track, the sounds coalesce into another grim doooooom creep, this one even more spaced out, the notes further apart, the chords left to ring out and fade even more gradually, the timbre of their crumbling decay as much a part of the sound as the notes themselves, maybe even moreso, a slow, trudging, downtuned tranced out chunk of mesmerizing hypno-doom mesmer, that ends way too soon, even at close to 15 minutes...
MPEG Stream: "Cover Your Mouth"
MPEG Stream: "Perish"

TREES The Garden of Jane Delawney (Columbia) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
1970, England. Imagine a rock band that's equally into the sort of psychedelic electric guitar excursions you'd have heard back then wafting from London's hippy ballrooms, as well as ballads and jigs derived from British folk song tradition. With lovely, pure, delicately bird-like female vocals a la Anne Briggs and Sandy Denny... Yes, Trees were quite a bit like Fairport Convention, but rather more obscure. And now, at long last, we've managed to get a hold of these UK import-only cd reissues of their two albums. Gorgeous stuff indeed, utterly magical, definitely for fans of early Fairport, Shirley Collins, Pentangle, and the whole Brit-folk-rock thing.
Both of Trees' records ("The Garden of Jane Delawney" and "On The Shore") are from 1970 and come equally recommended (they may as well be two volumes of the same album). Both of 'em feature the vocals of Celia Humphris, along with both traditional acoustic instruments (dulcimer, mandolin) and electric guitars, and blend original songs and adaptations of traditional folk material.
"The Garden..." boasts a rather strange cover painting, and Windy's favorite Tree's track, "Nothing Special", whose sublimely pretty guitar strumming prefigured a whole movement of jangle pop bands (e.g. REM). Of their two albums perhaps *slightly* the more rock-based and produced, "On The Shore" features the song "Sally Free And Easy" which in recent years, you may recall, was covered by Flying Saucer Attack on a Drag City ep of that title, and also comes with lengthy liner notes telling the story of the band.
RealAudio clip: "Nothing Special"
RealAudio clip: "Glasgerion"

TREES The Garden of Jane Delawney (Sunbeam) 2lp 34.00
Now available on vinyl!!!
1970, England. Imagine a rock band that's equally into the sort of psychedelic electric guitar excursions you'd have heard back then wafting from London's hippy ballrooms, as well as ballads and jigs derived from British folk song tradition. With lovely, pure, delicately bird-like female vocals a la Anne Briggs and Sandy Denny... Yes, Trees were quite a bit like Fairport Convention, but rather more obscure. And now, at long last, both of their essential records are availble again on vinyl! Gorgeous stuff indeed, utterly magical, definitely for fans of early Fairport, Shirley Collins, Pentangle, and the whole Brit-folk-rock thing.
Both of Trees' records ("The Garden of Jane Delawney" and "On The Shore") are from 1970 and come equally recommended (they may as well be two volumes of the same album). Both of 'em feature the vocals of Celia Humphris, along with both traditional acoustic instruments (dulcimer, mandolin) and electric guitars, and blend original songs and adaptations of traditional folk material.
"The Garden..." boasts a rather strange cover painting, and one of our favorite Trees track, "Nothing Special", whose sublimely pretty guitar strumming prefigured a whole movement of jangle pop bands (e.g. REM). Of their two albums perhaps *slightly* the more rock-based and produced, "On The Shore" features one of the best versions of "Sally Free And Easy" which has also been covered by Marianne Faithful, Magic Hour, Pentangle and of course Flying Saucer Attack, and also comes with lengthy liner notes telling the story of the band.

TREES COMMUNITY, THE The Christ Tree (Regular Edition) (Hand/Eye) cd 14.98
It's no secret that we have a soft spot for uncommon Christian music especially when it dwells on the fringe such as the "white metal" of the E.E.E. recordings label or the earnest out-pop of groups like The Shaggs and New Creation. Another fringe arena is in liturgical hippie folk with bands like Simaril, Parchment, and this beautiful reissue of the Trees Community first album, The Christ Tree. We had this previously only as a box set, which grouped their first album with 3 other cds of later live material. Not the most ideal way to ease yourself into their uniquely arcane and highly reverential sound. So it's nice to have this single disc reissue that adds several bonus tracks to the original album. If you are fans of wyrd minstrely acid-folk groups like Comus, Ougenwiede, Springuns, and Extradition, you will definitely dig this, a collective of male and female musical performers from New York who played traditional acoustic and eastern instruments such as sitar, folk harp, pump organ, flute, koto, tamboura and Chinese gong in long raga-like hymns with pretty male and female vocal harmonies and strangely mystical and spacious passages. Christ Tree was the their first album and it's a live recording of a performance at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1975. Oddly beautiful!
MPEG Stream: "Psalm 42"
MPEG Stream: "I Will Not Leave You Comfortless"
MPEG Stream: "Baptism"

TRELLDOM Til Et Annet (Karmageddon Media) cd 21.00

MPEG Stream: "Vender Meg Mot Ett Kommende"
MPEG Stream: "Slave Til En Kommende Natt"

TREMBLING BELLS Carbeth (Honest Jon's) cd 17.98

TREMBLING BELLS Carbeth (Honest Jon's) lp 17.98

TREMBLING BELLS (WITH BONNIE PRINCE BILLY/MIKE HERON) New Year's Eve's The Loneliest Night Of The Year (Honest Jon's) 7" 9.98

TREMBLING BLUE STARS Alive to Every Smile (Sub Pop) cd 15.98
Simply lovely! Warm and strummy. Positively dreamy. Trembling Blue Stars make splendid Brit-space-pop. At times, reminded me of Ride or mid-to-late period Cure. Very laid-back boy lead vocals, sparklingly sweet female backing vocals, swirling chorus-y guitars and a chorus of seraphim sounds. Need we say more?
RealAudio clip: "Under Lock And Key"

TREMBLING BLUE STARS Broken By Whispers (Sub Pop) cd 15.98
Aaah, could it be... the return of the shoegazer? Definite shades of early Stone Roses. A little twee and precious, but pretty, mellow, and easy-going with some lovely lush cello and a little bit of simultaneous English-French male-female vocalising to subtly spice things up. The first track absolutely destroys me, which may be due to me missing all this sort of stuff as a high school hessian.

TREMBLING BLUE STARS She Just Couldn't Stay (Shinkansen) cd 8.98
Trembling Blue Stars take on the shoegazer aesthetics of the early 90s Creation sound (Ride, Blind Mr. Jones, The Telescopes) and the reverb soaked revivalism of 60s UK beat jangle. The title track of this EP was on their "Broken By Whispers" album on Sub Pop.

TREMBLING BLUE STARS The Last Holy Writer (Elefant) cd 21.00
Wow, does this one push all our shoegaze buttons, a sound we've been craving like crazy lately. There was a time when shoegaze was everywhere, but as of late there's been a serious paucity of classic sounding music in that inimitable style. Luckily there's a brand new one from AQ faves Trembling Blue Stars, who while not always necessarily shoegaze-y, manage to fill that void so perfectly with The Last Holy Writer. Less jangly then their last outing, The Last Holy Writer has everything we've loved about this band on display and in full affect. With a guitar sound that echoes the sound of Curve, introspective lyrics and wry delivery of vocalist Bob Wratten and the bittersweet voice of other vocalist Beth Arzy. It's the perfect combination of breezy and moody, reflective and heartbreaking. So nice to see a group so far into a long career make such a challenging and envelope pushing record. In fact this might even be our favorite Trembling Blue Stars outing yet. The perfect laying around on your bed, holed up in your room, window open, cool breeze soundtrack for heartfelt longing and bittersweet ache. So lovely!
MPEG Stream: "By False Lights"
MPEG Stream: "This Once Was An Island"
MPEG Stream: "Idyllwyld"

TREMBLING BLUE STARS The Seven Autumn Flowers (Bar None) cd 16.98
This is the fifth wistfully wonderful album from Trembling Blue Stars. If you're a fan you'll perhaps find it comforting to know that there's no vast departures from that which has come before. Their songs continue to be the musical equivalent of a big down-filled duvet. Each one is ever so soft and warm and very much in the swirlingly dreamy, melancholic shoegazer tradition. The rounded bass guitar lines provides the slowly weaving bed on which mainman Bobby Wratton and Beth Arzy's hushed vocals as well as the gently effected guitars, delicate percussion and occasional strings rest their drowsy heads. This cd includes four bonus tracks bringing the song count to a generous total of sixteen.
Psst, if you dig these poignant, pretty Brit sounds you might also wanna check out the recent reissues of three Field Mice albums, Wratten's pre-Trembling Blue Stars band, not quite as mellowly blissed out, a tad harder, weirder and more rocking, but TBS fans will still most likely dig 'em quite a bit!
MPEG Stream: "Moonlight On Snow"
MPEG Stream: "Further To Fall"

TREN BROTHERS EP (Drag City) cdep 8.98
Tren Brothers are Mick and James are the guitar/drums team from Australian instrumental trio Dirty Three. STOP! If your first impression is that you'd miss Warren's violin, you'd be wrong. This is a lovely, quiet but intense record; the violin isn't missed at all. Pretty, not light, but lovely. Mick in particular adds delicate guitar flourishes that on a D3 record would have been subsumed and absorbed by the violin's overwhelming painful emotiveness. A worthwhile listen.

TREN BROTHERS The Swimmer (Western Vinyl) cd ep 11.98
Perhaps you've been boggled by the appearance of the name Jim White all over the place lately (as we have). Who is this guy? He's everywhere! But it makes a little more sense when you discover that there's two particular, prolific musical fellows with that name who currently have fine releases. The Jim White of the south (Florida to be exact) is the man responsible for the stellar soundtrack to Searching For The Wrong-Eyed Jesus film. The Jim White of further south (way down in Australia) is the man playing some of the drums on the New Buffalo album as well as the last couple of Smog albums, and yes lest we forget his card carrying membership in Dirty Three. Here he teams up with his Dirty Three bandmate (and no musical slouch himself) Mick Turner as the non-blood related instrumental duo the Tren Brothers.
Their latest release The Swimmer (as far as we know, no relation to our favorite Burt Lancaster movie) features a scant four songs, but their evocative wash of pastoral sounds suggest that this is just a mere glimpse of a moody expansiveness that extends far beyond the ep's fifteen minutes. This is their contribution to the Western Vinyl label's portrait series.
MPEG Stream: "Crow #3"
MPEG Stream: "Seagull"

TREN BROTHERS & SISTER Swing Pts. 1 & 2 (Chapter) 7" 4.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Those "Brothers" Tren whom you may be more familiar with as two parts of the moody, melancholic Dirty Three (yup, Mick Turner and James White on guitar, harmonica and drums) are joined on this record by their "sister" violinist Jessica Billey. These two improvs performed at KPRO Radio in Amsterdam very closely resembles the fellows' main group. As we've come to expect: very somber and lovely.

TRENCH HELL Southern Cross Ripper (Hells Headbangers) cd ep 10.98
They had us at "Trench Hell". (Could do without the rape-themed cover art though.) Anyway as you might guess from the band name, album title, and record label, this is raw thrashing metal from Down Under, old school in the early '80s style of Venom and Hellhammer. And boy howdy, do these youngsters do it well. Trench Hell ROCKS. We gotta describe 'em the same way we'd have done for Venom back in the day - they take the speed demon, white line fever rock n' roll of Motorhead and jack it up, making it extra evil and filthy sounding in the process.
Buzzsaw guitar riffage, echoey blown out production, violent battery, throat ripped vox (with lots of Tom G. Warrior style ugghs), backing screams of utter damnation... what's not to like? If you're into the old school extreme, that is. You'll be spinning this six song ep again and again in a frenzy of headbanging lust. Even if you don't spin it again, at least you were briefly a cool, badass metal dude (or dudette) for the 22 minutes you had it on.
MPEG Stream: "Southern Cross Ripper"
MPEG Stream: "Last Rites"

TRENIERS, THE They Rock! They Roll! They Swing! (Collectables) cd 14.98
What we've got here might just be the first-ever rock n' roll band. The Treniers, a black R&B combo led by twins Claude and Clifford, got their start in the 1940s with their music soon evolving from jump blues to an equally jumpin' new fangled sound they liked to call rock n' roll. By the early '50s when the tracks on this cd anthology were recorded for the OKeh label, they could certainly say (and sing) "Rockin' Is Our Business". And check out their other subject matter: drugs and sex! Sure, they couldn't indulge in the explict language of today's rock and rap acts. But you could get away with a lot nonetheless, as their classic side "Poon-tang!" suggests. With such risque lyrics and a hard-rockin' stage act, they inspired more than the bland Bill Haley that's for sure. Any history-minded rock fan oughta have room in their collection for the real old school. This is actually a reissue of a cd issued on Epic/Legacy in '95. Sadly this Collectables version has got crappier, colorized cover graphics, and inexplicably does away with the original disc's liner notes, but it does tack nine bonus tracks onto the twenty found on the earlier disc. Wild stuff from over fifty years ago!
MPEG Stream: "It Rocks! It Rolls! It Swings!"
MPEG Stream: "Hadacole (That's All)"

TRENIERS, THE This Is It! (Rev-Ola) cd 15.98
The ORIGINAL rock n' roll band.