X The Best: Make The Music Go Bang! (Elektra) 2cd 24.00

X unclogged (Infidelity/Sunset Blvd) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is the acoustic set recorded last year at SF's Noe Valley Ministry.

X DEATHSTAR X The Triumph (Life Sentence) cd 13.98

X PLASTAZ Maasai Hip Hop (Out Here) cd 16.98
Included on the end of the Bongo Flava compilation (see AQL #216), X Plastaz are one of the biggest names in Tanzanian hip hop -- hence the release of this disc, a closer examination of their music. You'd never know to listen -- unless you can speak Swahili and Haya -- but the music of X Plastaz is steeped in social and political activism. Criticizing corrupt politicians, speaking out against violence, theft and unemployment. And while the Tanzanian hip hop scene in its infancy certainly owed much, if not imitated directly, the hip hop music coming out of the U.S., the Bongo Flava groups take just as many cues from dancehall, Indian film music and -- in X Plastaz case -- traditional Maasai chanting. The latter is what makes X Plastaz stand so far out from the Bongo Flava crowd: including in their crew a Maasai warrior on vocals. The Maasai are rural people, who still live in tight knit villages and follow age old traditions long since foresaken by the modernized urban Tanzanian population. Further, the Maasai are seen as backward by the urban Tanzanians. So along with being looked down upon by older, more conservative Tanzanians for partaking in this "degenerate" musical form, they stand apart from their young, urban counterparts. Pretty damn punk rock when you consider it. As a bonus, two videos of X Plastaz are included on the disc.
MPEG Stream: "Masimu Kwa Msimu"
MPEG Stream: "Ushanta"

X, RICHARD Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1 (Astralwerks) cd 16.98
Astralwerks is betting a considerable amount of money that the 'bootleg' phenomenon that raged during the summer of 2002 hasn't completely died out, as they have obviously invested a considerable amount of money for Richard X to license all of the samples that land on his debut album "Richard X Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1." The bootleg or 'mash-up' aesthetic was a seemingly simple one, as an artist would take the a capella track of some overplayed pop song and layer it on top of the instrumental track of an equally overplayed pop song. Done well, it's a wonderfully subversive play between appropriated texts. Done badly, it's clumsy ironic drivel. Given the overwhelming number of those bootlegs that were dreadful, this is an artform which demands much more panache than your average artschool ironist can muster. Hiding behind this enigmatic moniker as well as the semi-legit project the Sugarbabes, Richard X proved he was the best of the bootleggers, with his deadly perfect mash-up of "Being Boiled" by Human League and "No Scrubs" by TLC which gave the appearance that absolutely nothing was done to either track in order for the two melodies to come together.
With the crackdown from the RIAA on those evil pirates who download illegal music from the net (insert sarcastic facial gesture and eyerolling here), there is absolutely no way Richard X could get away with the schtick that got him his credibility. As a result "Richard X Presents His X-Factor Vol. 1" is something of a compromise record; however, it is a deranged pop masterpiece that is simultaneously a piss-take, a send-up, and a perfect homage to terminal fashion victims, electroclash trainspotters, and ravenous consumers of the mainstream entertainment industry. The album opens with a reprise of the "Being Boiled" mash-up; however, this time Richard commissioned the R&B group Liberty X for a rendition of the Chaka Khan classic "Ain't Nobody," and highlights include a very clever version of Burt Bacharach's "Walk On By" with Flying Lizards' vocalist Deborah Evans-Strickland offering the same deadpan vocal delivery she gave to the Lizards' new wave classic cover of "Money." Some of the references are a bit more obscure, delving into diva house territory with a pretty straight remake of Thelma Houston's "You Used To Hold Me So Tight." The one major dud on the album is the cornball crap track from electroclash dork Tiga, who breathily recites 'you better let me love you' at best sounding like a overly cologned playboy with only one sleazy pick up line, at worst like a date rapist. Overlook this one track, and you'll find that Richard X has done very well with the limitations set before him. It's certainly not the free world you might think it is.
MPEG Stream: "Being Nobody"
MPEG Stream: "Freak Like Me"

X-ECUTIONERS X-pressions (Asphodel) cd 15.98
Formerly known as the X-Men (name changed for obvious reasons), this Brooklyn quartet of world champion turntablists breaks out with first album. On their very own label, Audio Soul, a subsidiary of Asphodel.

X-RAY SPEX Germ Free Adolescents (Virgin) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

X-RAY SPEX Germ Free Adolescents - Expanded (Castle Music) cd 14.98
Woohoo! X-Ray Spex's punk rock classic Germ Free Adolescents album was first released on cd by Virgin Records. Then a couple of years ago Castle Music grabbed a hold of the baton and ran with it, releasing a (now out-of-print) double cd set called The Anthology which included the whole album along with the "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!" single and a heap of Spex rare odds'n'ends. Now sorta straddling the two previous releases, Germ Free resurfaces once more on a single disc, but mind you it's 'expanded'! Although it does include a bunch of extra stuff, it's not quite as definitive as The Anthology, but it does come pretty close. The eleven bonus tracks include their "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!" single along with seven tracks from their Peel Sessions (March 6, 1978 and November 13, 1978). Anyways, here's a summary of what former AQ owner Windy said about the 2cd version: In the last years of the '70s, X-Ray Spex, fronted by singer / songwriter Poly Styrene, were one of the most visible and artistically successful punk originals. Led by Poly Styrene who had charisma with a capital C, the British band's songs were super intense, noisy and ragged -- while simultaneously catchy, ridiculously melodic and hook-filled. Powerful, hundred-miles-an-hour drumming, wailing skronk saxophone, Poly's sandpaper yowl of a voice -- it all adds up. X-Ray Spex obviously influenced Sleater-Kinney (especially in the vocals -- if you're a SK fan you simply have to get this), as well as pretty much any grrl punk group you can think of, and, heck, a lot of male-led bands too. And along with the Raincoats and LiliPut, X-Ray Spex is THE foundation of the female vision of Punk.
Simply put, this is one of the best albums Punk ever produced (and one of Windy's all-time favorites). If you haven't already, you owe it to yourself to hear this record. YOU WILL LOVE IT.
MPEG Stream: "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!"
MPEG Stream: "Germ Free Adolescents (Peel Session)"

X-RAY SPEX Let's Submerge: The Anthology (Castle Music) 2cd 22.00
Again?!?! Whoa, in the last five years we've had triple deja vu where X-Ray Spex cds are concerned -- specifically these British punk pioneers' Germ Free Adolescents album which was originally released (on vinyl and cassette, we assume!) in 1978 by Blue Plate / Caroline.
Back in 2001 we carried the GFA cd which was released by Virgin Records. Then in 2002 a double cd titled The Anthology was released by Castle Music. It included the GFA album as well as a whole extra disc packed with rarities. In 2005, Castle Music couldn't leave well enough alone and shook things up again, issuing Germ Free Adolescents - Expanded which fit the GFA album and some extras onto a single cd. Now only a year later we get Let's Submerge: The Anthology, a slipcovered two disc set containing a total of fifty-two tracks (the GFA album, John Peel Sessions, live recordings, early demos, and more).
Anyway, one more time with feeling! Here's what former AQ owner Windy said about the previous 2cd version (it totally still hold true for this release!): In the last years of the '70s, X-Ray Spex, fronted by singer / songwriter Poly Styrene, were one of the most visible and artistically successful punk originals. Led by Poly Styrene who had charisma with a capital C, the British band's songs were super intense, noisy and ragged -- while simultaneously catchy, ridiculously melodic and hook-filled. Powerful, hundred-miles-an-hour drumming, wailing skronk saxophone, Poly's sandpaper yowl of a voice -- it all adds up. X-Ray Spex obviously influenced Sleater-Kinney (especially in the vocals -- if you're a SK fan you simply have to get this), as well as pretty much any grrl punk group you can think of, and, heck, a lot of male-led bands too. And along with the Raincoats and LiliPut, X-Ray Spex is THE foundation of the female vision of Punk.
Simply put, this is one of the best albums Punk ever produced (and one of Windy's all-time favorites). If you haven't already, you owe it to yourself to hear this record. YOU WILL LOVE IT.
MPEG Stream: "Identity"
MPEG Stream: "The Day The World Turned Day-Glo (Alt Mix)"

X-RAY SPEX The Anthology (Castle) 2cd 21.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In the last years of the seventies, X-Ray Spex, fronted by singer / songwriter Poly Styrene, were one of the most visible and artistically successful punk originals. Led by Poly Styrene who had charisma with a capital C, the British band's songs were super intense, noisy and ragged -- while simultaneously catchy, ridiculously melodic and hook-filled. Powerful, hundred-miles-an-hour drumming, wailing skronk saxophone, Poly's sandpaper yowl of a voice -- it all adds up. X-Ray Spex obviously influenced Sleater-Kinney (especially in the vocals -- if you're a SK fan you simply have to get this), as well as pretty much any grrl punk group you can think of, and, heck, a lot of male-led bands too. And along with the Raincoats and LiliPut, X-Ray Spex is THE foundation of the female vision of Punk.
Simply put, this is one of the best albums Punk ever produced (and one of Windy's all-time favorites). If you haven't already, you owe it to yourself to hear this record. YOU WILL LOVE IT.
That said, this here reissue just might turn out to be the definitive anthology of X-Ray Spex's career. There's the entirety of their Germ Free Adolescents album, and the "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!" single. And even if you have Germ Free Adolescents already, here are some plum reasons to get this double disc set: an additional ten tracks of rough mixes, instrumental versions, a song never before released, a fantastically energetic recording of their second live gig ever (1977 at the Roxy) where Poly's voice is so shot by the end of the concert that it's totally cracking (in a good way) all over "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!", and last but not least, three (quite good) songs from their 1995 reunion. Also lyrics, photos and some hard-to-read liner notes. I'm taking this home right now and seriously so should you.
RealAudio clip: "Art-I-Ficial (Rough Mix)"
RealAudio clip: "Oh Bondage! Up Yours! (live)"
RealAudio clip: "Germ Free Adolescents"
RealAudio clip: "Cigarettes"

XABEC Feuerstern (Drone) 7" 9.98
A whole mess of new releases from Germany's drone records, as always gorgeously packaged, super limited, and some of the deepest, darkest, loveliest and most mysterious dronemusik around.
This one comes from a group called XABEC, whose installment comes pressed on thick maroon vinyl, and housed in a gold embossed 7" cardboard box, with a printed cardstock insert. As always, it's a first edition and is thus limited to only 300 copies.
The A side begins as two simultaneous drones, one soft and shimmery and static, the other more buzzy and distorted, a hissing rumble, wrapping itself all around the main drone. Later on, creepy footstep-like percussion drifts in, and distant keening metallic melodies. Whirring distortion underpins bits of clatter, and various random sounds, all woven into a darkly undulating sonic tapestry.
The B side is a piece from a performance based on music and fireworks, and thus ends with field recordings, captured by Mnortham, the track opens with a flurry of fireworks a cloud of skittery pop, like an army of tiny machine guns, quickly giving way to a wash of deep resonant metallic drones, and a strange alien groove over the top, some sort of squeaky looped rhythm that sounds a bit like Drone meets Kompakt. Weird but quite cool.

XASTHUR A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors (Total Holocaust Records) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally the amazing debut from Malefic and his one man suicidal black metal outfit Xasthur gets reissued. Originally released as a super limited (100 copies!) cd-r edition, this re-release sees the original remixed, and reworked with a whole mess of bonus stuff from the same time period (2000-2001), demo tracks, extra tracks, covers (Mutiilation, Burzum). The sound on "...Bloodstained Mirrors" is as dark and grim and melancholy as it gets, Buzzing riffs, rumbling bass and pounding drums are all fused into one huge organic whole, a writhing, twisting black metal beast, that swings wildly from thrashing chaos, to waltzing minor key dirges, to creepy dark ambience. The vocals are so low in the mix they just sound like another layer of fuzz, adding to the swirling roiling madness. This is everything black metal is supposed to be, intensely personal, singular in vision, utterly bleak and crushingly dark, buzzing and throbbing, hypnotic and heavy as fuck. Lots of sonic weirdness and a bizarre, very lo-fi production (tape hiss, drop outs, etc...) just add to the overall madness.
MPEG Stream: "Moon Shrouded In Misery (Part 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Dwelling Beneath The Woods"

XASTHUR A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors (Hydra Head) 2cd 14.98
By now, Xasthur is practically a household name. Assuming your house is a cave, or painted black, or lit by torches, or painted black with the blood of your enemies, or filled with bones and skulls and a stereo pumping nothing but black metal. And actually, Xasthur, maybe more than any other one-man black metal outfit, has crossed over into the sort-of mainstream. His washed out blurred blackmetalscapes, definitely predicting the so-called "metalgaze" movement to come. His strange murky buzz, as blissed out as any of the current crop, albeit much more muddy and moody and subtly fucked up.
Finally, Xasthur's debut gets the deluxe reissue treatment, via the fine black souls at Hydra Head. Now repackaged in a spiffy deluxe gatefold, with all new artwork, improved sound, and most importantly, a whole bonus disc, the legendary Darkened Winter Promo 01, which almost no one we know has ever actually heard, which makes sense as it was limited to about ten cd-r's handed out to friends.
First the record itself. A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors was not in fact our introduction to Xasthur, that honor belongs to Nocturnal Poisoning, a record we still consider to be one of the all time greatest black metal records EVER. Released in 2002, that record was nearly perfect, a buzzing melancholy epic, as much about texture and timbre as songs and riffs. Atmospheric and intense and beautifully blackened.
A Gate Through Bloodstained Mirrors was in fact, the first full length Xasthur recording, never properly released until much later on Total Holocaust in 2004. And while it shares sonically a lot of what we love about Nocturnal Poisoning, it's much more raw and immediate. Less cohesive maybe, more chaotic, the recording lo-fi and way more murky, this is as dark and grim and melancholy as it gets, Buzzing riffs, rumbling bass and pounding drums are all fused into one huge organic whole, a writhing, twisting black metal beast, that swings wildly from thrashing chaos, to waltzing minor key dirges, to creepy dark ambience. The vocals are so low in the mix they just sound like another layer of fuzz, adding to the swirling roiling madness. This is everything black metal is supposed to be, intensely personal, singular in vision, utterly bleak and crushingly dark, buzzing and throbbing, hypnotic and heavy as fuck. Lots of sonic weirdness and a bizarre, very lo-fi production (tape hiss, drop outs, etc...) just add to the overall madness. The extra tracks on the THR reissue (not on the original demo) are included, demo tracks, extra tracks, covers (Mutiilation, Burzum). It would be worth it already, but then there's a whole extra disc...
The bonus disc, the Darkened Winter Promo 01, is a snapshot of Xasthur's early sound, as it was developing into the expansive epic miserable bleak beauty it would eventually become. And actually hearing this now, it's almost there, structure-wise, riff-wise, it's WAY more lo-fi, muted and muddy and smeared into blurred blackness, but all the things we love about Xasthur are already present, those mournful arpeggiated melodies, the warbly black ambience, the vocals buried in the mix, the songs heaving roiling seas of bleary black misery. The fifth track, sounds like it's from a different session, the guitars much louder, a lilting clean sound, the riffs effected, the drums a muted skitter beneath the cascading minor key chords. The final track is the heaviest, and most traditionally black sounding Xasthur recording we've heard. A definite practice space sound, the drums big and boomy (and real, not a drum machine!), the guitars crunchy and thick, the song swinging from midtempo plod to brutal black bursts, with stumbling blast beats, almost sounds like a blackened noise rock band. Almost like the Dead C covering Burzum.
What else is there to say, it's Xasthur, it's a black metal classic and there's a whole disc of unreleased material. Essential and fucking awesome.
MPEG Stream: "Moon Shrouded In Misery (Part 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Dwelling Beneath The Woods"

XASTHUR Defective Epitaph (Daymare) 2cd 29.00
With music, as far as we're concerned, when it comes right down to it, it's all about the vocals and the drums. Sure bands have kick ass guitarists and amazing bass players, but the thing about singers and drummers, if they suck, they can drag down a band that is perfect in every other way, and if they are amazing, they can rescue an otherwise forgettable group. So many times, we've seen bands play live, only to have the drummer hit super soft, or play to slow or too fast or too sloppy, and remove any sort of energy or power the band would otherwise exude. Singers are worse. How often have you heard a band, and thought "Shit, this band is amazing" until the vocals come in and no matter how great the band was before, a shit vocalist makes all that moot.
In black metal, the vocals aren't as make or break, sure some folks prefer the classic demonic rasp, others the monstrous growl, still others the hysterical shriek, but for the most part, most BM vocalists fall somewhere between all three, and rare is the black metalhead who absolutely can't stand one of thoseŠ
Drums are a different matter. Black metal is all about the drums. As much as the buzzing riffage, it's the drums that define the sound, whether it's a the plodding beat of a midtempo Burzumic dirge or the blazing blast beats behind a burst of furious grimness. The strange thing is, at least around these parts, we have to redefine 'bad drummer' when we're talking about black metal. One man black metal bands are du rigeur these days, but its not uncommon to notice in the liner notes, that while that one man did everything else, some other person played the drums. That's because the guitar, the bass, those are related, synths and vocals are much easier to figure out or fake, but the drums, that black house of cards could easily tumble to the ground with terrible drumming as the foundation. But there are exceptions, and kudos to those one man bands who decide to tackle the drums themselves. In some cases it makes perfect sense, Leviathan for example, Wrest was a drummer first, so the drumming on Leviathan records is amazing. The more midtempo bands, well it's not nearly as hard to drum a simple 4/4 as it is some insanely complicated blast beat. But some groups, the drums struggle and stumble, the tempos waver, but as we mentioned above, in BM that's not always a bad thing, Graveland, WoodtempleŠthe sound of those bands for some reason is enhanced by the off kilter drumming, just like in some crazy artrock bands it's not about precision or perfection, it's about feel and emotion, and a drum part that is stumbling wildly is sometimes way more suitable than a super straight locked in rhythm.
So what the fuck does this all have to do with the new Xasthur record? Well, if you must know, it's that Defective Epitaph is the first Xasthur record to feature real drums. No more programmed drums, this is the sound of Malefic behind the kit, and while the sound is different, it's not half bad. In fact if anything it makes the sound more raw, more live, due in no small part to the murky lo-fi production. The drums definitely have that sort of rehearsal space quality to them, but they do suit Xasthur's murky muddy soundworld. And there's only one track that requires a serious blast beat and even then it's only briefly before the song reverts back to a loping dirge.
But beyond the drums, Defective Epitaph is just another step in Malefic's slowly evolving descent into darkness. All of the usual sounds are present. And a quick listen, you probably wouldn't be hard pressed to immediately pick this out as a Xasthur disc. But it's not just the drums, or the presence of real cello, also played by Malefic, the songs are generally slower, the chords more dissonant, sometimes to the point of sounding detuned. It's almost as if Xasthur is transforming from a black metal band into a funeral doom band. Which is definitely not a bad thing.
"Purgatory Spiral" on first listen was really atonal, and the most out of tune sounding of the batch, but repeated listens reveal some strange masterplan, the music becoming more twisted and gnarled, more woozy and sick than out of tune. The cello moaning way down in the mix, the drums a super simple plod. "Cemetery Of Shattered Masks" is more classically Xasthur sounding, but the recording is really strange, cavernous, very much like a rehearsal recording, not just the drums, as if everything was recorded on a single mic in the corner of the room. Once again, it's not bad, just strange, but like the rest of the disc, it grows on you, taking on a sort of washed out blurred vibe as if the record was recorded by Tim Hecker or something. Then there's "Malignant Prophecy", which launches out of the gate thick and distorted and corrosive, the guitars loud and crumbling, again slightly atonal, but heavy and thick, until about halfway through, where it reverts back to that booming practice space sound, as if two separate tracks were pasted together. Weird but still pretty cool. And actually a lot of the record sounds like that, as if maybe all the tracks were super raw and lo-fi, recorded with a few mics, but then some got guitar overdubs adding that super intense buzzing immediacy.
There are long stretches of near ambience, and moody murky interludes, and even bits of the song proper change in timbre and sound like haunting breakdowns, the cello, sounds less classical and more like an abrasive drone, but it suits the rawness of the overall sound.
This record has been pretty polarizing. Lots of folks have absolutely hated it, lots of folks love it. It seems hard to believe if you were a fan of Xasthur, that you could totally hate it, but it is weird, and definitely takes some warming up to. For us, since we're into the damaged and demented, the fucked and far out, well if anything, this Xasthur record is more of all of those things, so it's probably easier for us get into. But folks of a similar mind will most likely feel the same. Nocturnal Poisoning may still be our favorite Xasthur record ever. Subliminal Genocide might be a close second. But Defective Epitaph, while currently in third, is just fucked up and unique enough that it might move up to second any time nowŠ
We do carry the Hydra Head version, but the Daymare Japanese import version comes with an entire extra disc of unreleased tracks, nearly 40 minutes! So we figured anyone into Xasthur would probably want the extra disc as well. So here it is, five tracks, all unreleased, a couple alternate early versions of songs on the record proper, a couple untitled tracks, a pretty cool sort of coda to the record. From a long drawn out doomy synthscape, to a classic old school buzzing Burzumic dirge, complete with chanting monk like vocals and a killer overblown riff, to an epic buzzing black doom jam, that morphs from creepy crawl to blasting buzzŠIt's cool to hear some of the alternate versions, with the fucked up edits, and weird segues, all left in (hence the subtitles "First Attempt", "Second Attempt").
As with all Daymare releases, the packaging is gorgeous, a miniature lp style gatefold, Japanese obi, and a foldout insert with tons of liner notes (all in Japanese).
MPEG Stream: "Souless Elegy"
MPEG Stream: "Purgatory Spiral"
MPEG Stream: "Cemetary Of Shattered Masks"
MPEG Stream: "Unblessed Be..."

XASTHUR Nocturnal Poisoning (Blood Fire Death) cd 11.98
Xasthur is a one-man, home-recorded black metal outfit delving into the distortion-washed realm of Burzumic bliss, and is a favorite of both tUMULt's black metal master Leviathan *and* the Jewelled Antler/Thuja crew, so you know it's beautifully primitive and droney stuff, with majesty undying. The music is all shades of grey, like the packaging, with strains of melody obscured in mists of mostly mid-tempo metallic mayhem a la ancients like Darkthrone and Burzum, achieving, even at speed, a trance-inducing dirge quality. It's truly "A Walk Beyond Utter Blackness" in the "Forgotten Depths Of Nowhere", as per two of the song titles. If you like cultish black metal that verges on experimental drone (or vice versa), Xasthur should please you greatly, and offers more proof (along with Weakling and the aforementioned Leviathan) that even "sunny" California can produce black metal to rival that from Nordic climes. From the same label that just brought us that Lugubrum "De Totem" reissue we recommended recently, this has been a sleeper hit here at the store, and we're happy now to have enough in stock to give it a listing.
The guy behind Xasthur goes by the name Malefic, which leads to a little Andy Rooney question I've got: why do folks need to make up two names when one would do? why not call your band (ahem) Malefic? Although, his contact address is c/o "Scott" so we can see the need for at least one pseudonym in order to maintain the aura of grim darkness that his music deserves.
MPEG Stream: "Soul Abduction Ceremony"
MPEG Stream: "A Walk Beyond Utter Blackness"

XASTHUR Nocturnal Poisoning (Southern Lord) lp 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally the world is becoming more and more aware of the burgeoning West coast black metal scene (Leviathan. Draugar, Xasthur, Crebain, etc.) and thus Southern Lord has deigned to release this classic slab of fuzzed out blackness on VINYL!! Be aware this is VERY LIMITED!! Not sure how long we'll have these. Here's what we had to say about the cd:
Xasthur is a one-man, home-recorded black metal outfit delving into the distortion-washed realm of Burzumic bliss, and is a favorite of both tUMULt's black metal master Leviathan *and* the Jewelled Antler/Thuja crew, so you know it's beautifully primitive and droney stuff, with majesty undying. The music is all shades of grey, like the packaging, with strains of melody obscured in mists of mostly mid-tempo metallic mayhem a la ancients like Darkthrone and Burzum, achieving, even at speed, a trance-inducing dirge quality. It's truly "A Walk Beyond Utter Blackness" in the "Forgotten Depths Of Nowhere", as per two of the song titles. If you like cultish black metal that verges on experimental drone (or vice versa), Xasthur should please you greatly, and offers more proof (along with Weakling and the aforementioned Leviathan) that even "sunny" California can produce black metal to rival that from Nordic climes.
MPEG Stream: "Soul Abduction Ceremony"
MPEG Stream: "A Walk Beyond Utter Blackness"

XASTHUR s/t (Moribund) cd ep 10.98
Xasthur may have flown the Moribund coop and ended up roosting in the spiffier Hydra Head henhouse, having just released the mind meltingly brilliant black classic Subliminal Genocide a few months back, but it seems that Moribund have a few blackened odds and ends left over, some of which they've now seen fit to release as this self titled ep. Three tracks, 24 minutes, an instrumental, an unreleased track and a track from 2005, it does sort of smack of cashing in, but we'll be the first to say it, Xasthur castoffs are better than 90 percent of other black metal bands best material, and this disc pretty firmly drive that point home. The opener, titled simply "Instrumental" is a seven minute sprawl of arpeggiated minor key guitars, bursts of stumbling double kick, fuzzy layers of black guitar and a haunting refrain that sounds either like processed vocals or keyboards. Thick and fuzzy and gauzy and beautiful. Actually, it sounds remarkably like an instrumental version of one of the songs off Subliminal Genocide. Which might bug the guys at Hydra Head and Malefic himself, but is not such a bad thing for the listener. For those of you who like the sound of black metal, but can't get around the howling shrieks, this track could very well be your gateway to all things black and grim. Without the vocals, it sounds even more like a more evil M83! The second track, "Bubonic Plague" is classic Xasthur, muddy and murky, and so so so buzzy, the melodies are cold and mournful, the guitars snarl and drone, the vocals are so buried in the mix that they just sound like another guitar, buzzing right along side the riffs. The rhythm plods and lopes like a death march, in fact more than ever, this is Xasthur in his doom metal in black metal's clothing guise. Mournfully miserable and blackly bleak. The final track starts off as fierce as Xasthur ever gets, a gloriously blown out black buzz, vocals harsh and up in the mix, the guitars sharp and jagged, the whole thing a swirling chaotic blast of grim fury, but before long the song unwinds into a blackened waltz, with more fingerpicked guitars, distant double kick, and a wooozy hazy ambience, culminating in a stripped down clean guitar and drum coda. So good.
Killer artwork too, some monstrous looking cave formation on the front, a milky white dripping stone beast, and on the back a field of stalactites looking like some ancient torture chamber.
MPEG Stream: "Instrumental"
MPEG Stream: "Bubonic Plague"

XASTHUR Subliminal Genocide (Hydra Head) cd 12.98
What a long strange trip it's been for Malefic and Xasthur. What's even stranger it seems, is that he ended up finding a new home on the very hip indie label Hydra Head. Sure HH has released its share of dark heaviness, but black metal, especially of the ultra personal, cult and grim kind, is so concerned with staying true, and not selling out. So it's a bit of a coup that HH nabbed Xasthur. Especially after a whole mess of records on Moribund, Total Holocaust Blood Fire Death, Profound Lore and Southern Lord. There has apparently been a bit of a backlash in the true cult BM underground. But fuck 'em. Hydra Head is a killer label and Malefic probably just got tired of being screwed left and right. Plus, oh what a joy it is to watch the true grim warriors weep at the loss, their corpsepaint smearing in long grey streaks. But it really is their loss more than any one 'cuz damn if this isn't the best Xasthur record since Nocturnal Poisoning. And that's saying a whole lot considering how much we've loved pretty much everything he's ever done.
The thing With Nocturnal Poisoning is that it was this perfect mix of sorrowful melancholia and black buzz, the sound was murky and muddy and fuzzy, but above it, were delicate melodies, dreamlike minor key filigree over a bottomless black pit. It was that strange juxtaposition that made it so special. Take that pretty element away, and you're left with just another black disc of Burzum worship. It's a little like the oil paining on the cover. You could see the texture of the canvas and the individual brushstrokes beneath the art. And with the music, it was the same thing, you could see the various elements, feel their texture, see the thick grainy backdrop upon which Malefic placed all of his dreamlike melodies and murky anguished howls.
Every record after that contained similar elements, and amazing songs, but it seemed like the recordings got more brittle, lots of high end buzz, not so much of that glorious malefic murk.
Subliminal Genocide almost sounds like it was recorded right after Nocturnal Poisoning and shelved for the last few years. It's THAT heavy and dreamy and melancholy and murky and goddamn beautiful.
There's not a lot of black metal that you might consider truly beautiful, but the songs on Subliminal Genocide, aren't just blasting thrashing metal, they are gorgeous lilting laments, epic and majestic and minor key. Taken out of a black metal context, they'd sound like some sort of super emotional epic post rock, but as they are, buried under thick layers of blackened buzz and wrapped in huge swaths of fuzzy sonic fog, they become even darker and more desolate, lonely and mournful. Almost none of the record is faster than a loping midtempo, about half the tracks are slow motion dirges, downright doom, with the double kick coming in more as a thick black low end cloud than any sort of actual blast, and a handful of tracks are nothing but swirling whorls of sad black ambience.
And because of the fuzzy indistinct production, and the thick murky halo around every track, lots of Subliminal Genocide sounds like some bastardized black metal version of M83, or Tim Hecker, or a little like Jeck and Marclay spinning old scratched up Burzum lps slowed waaaaaay down.
This record is simultaneously so dark and depressed and utterly evil sounding, but also fuzzy and psychedelic and totally blissed out, it's sort of hard to imagine, especially listening to this right now, that there could ever possibly be a better combination.
MPEG Stream: "Prison Of Mirrors"
MPEG Stream: "Beauty Is Only Razor Deep"
MPEG Stream: "Trauma Will Always Linger"

XASTHUR Subliminal Genocide (Hydra Head) 2lp 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now available on vinyl. Ultra deluxe gatefold jackets, printed inner sleeves, new artwork, and super thick vinyl. And as with all these things, once these are gone we probably won't be able to get more...
What a long strange trip it's been for Malefic and Xasthur. What's even stranger it seems, is that he ended up finding a new home on the very hip indie label Hydra Head. Sure HH has released its share of dark heaviness, but black metal, especially of the ultra personal, cult and grim kind, is so concerned with staying true, and not selling out. So it's a bit of a coup that HH nabbed Xasthur. Especially after a whole mess of records on Moribund, Total Holocaust Blood Fire Death, Profound Lore and Southern Lord. There has apparently been a bit of a backlash in the true cult BM underground. But fuck 'em. Hydra Head is a killer label and Malefic probably just got tired of being screwed left and right. Plus, oh what a joy it is to watch the true grim warriors weep at the loss, their corpsepaint smearing in long grey streaks. But it really is their loss more than any one 'cuz damn if this isn't the best Xasthur record since Nocturnal Poisoning. And that's saying a whole lot considering how much we've loved pretty much everything he's ever done.
The thing With Nocturnal Poisoning is that it was this perfect mix of sorrowful melancholia and black buzz, the sound was murky and muddy and fuzzy, but above it, were delicate melodies, dreamlike minor key filigree over a bottomless black pit. It was that strange juxtaposition that made it so special. Take that pretty element away, and you're left with just another black disc of Burzum worship. It's a little like the oil paining on the cover. You could see the texture of the canvas and the individual brushstrokes beneath the art. And with the music, it was the same thing, you could see the various elements, feel their texture, see the thick grainy backdrop upon which Malefic placed all of his dreamlike melodies and murky anguished howls.
Every record after that contained similar elements, and amazing songs, but it seemed like the recordings got more brittle, lots of high end buzz, not so much of that glorious malefic murk.
Subliminal Genocide almost sounds like it was recorded right after Nocturnal Poisoning and shelved for the last few years. It's THAT heavy and dreamy and melancholy and murky and goddamn beautiful.
There's not a lot of black metal that you might consider truly beautiful, but the songs on Subliminal Genocide, aren't just blasting thrashing metal, they are gorgeous lilting laments, epic and majestic and minor key. Taken out of a black metal context, they'd sound like some sort of super emotional epic post rock, but as they are, buried under thick layers of blackened buzz and wrapped in huge swaths of fuzzy sonic fog, they become even darker and more desolate, lonely and mournful. Almost none of the record is faster than a loping midtempo, about half the tracks are slow motion dirges, downright doom, with the double kick coming in more as a thick black low end cloud than any sort of actual blast, and a handful of tracks are nothing but swirling whorls of sad black ambience.
And because of the fuzzy indistinct production, and the thick murky halo around every track, lots of Subliminal Genocide sounds like some bastardized black metal version of M83, or Tim Hecker, or a little like Jeck and Marclay spinning old scratched up Burzum lps slowed waaaaaay down.
This record is simultaneously so dark and depressed and utterly evil sounding, but also fuzzy and psychedelic and totally blissed out, it's sort of hard to imagine, especially listening to this right now, that there could ever possibly be a better combination.
MPEG Stream: "Prison Of Mirrors"
MPEG Stream: "Beauty Is Only Razor Deep"
MPEG Stream: "Trauma Will Always Linger"

XASTHUR Suicide In Dark Serenity (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Xasthur may just turn out to be the black metal Acid Mothers Temple. Seems like there's a new release every week. Of course, we're not complaining. Not at all. A world like ours needs as much bleak, suicidally depressive, magnificently brutal and buzzing, totally personal and painfully intimate black metal brilliance it can get. And Xasthur (along with his spiritual / sonic compatriots Leviathan, Draugar, etc.) is well up to the task. Suicide In Dark Serenity was previously released on vinyl in an extremely limited edition several years back and is now available on cd for the first time. And it's everything we've come to expect from Malefic, who is Xasthur. Epic tracks of dense, minor key metal misery: buzzing lightning speed blasts become mournful soul shearing blurs, sludgy midtempo dirges become musical death marches, fuzzed out guitars and anguished wails populate a barren, desolate landscape, grim and bitter. If that weren't enough to convince you that this is an essential purchase, then know this: there is a single bonus track, a totally immense, epic 16 minute rehearsal track from Xasthur's masterpiece Nocturnal Poisoning, that is almost worth the price of admission alone.
MPEG Stream: "With Hate Freezing My Veins"
MPEG Stream: "Storms Of Red Revenge"

XASTHUR Telepathic With The Deceased (Moribund) cd 14.98
The blackened California onslaught continues... When one looks at the state of metal today, you could be forgiven for thinking California was the last bastion of true, evil, completely fucked up black metal genius. Norway? Sweden? Pfah! The new Leviathan is easily one of the best black metal records of the year. The forthcoming Draugar threatens to be the weirdest. And then there's this, the excellently-titled Telepathic With The Deceased, the latest chapter in suicidal sonic blackness from Xasthur. Hailing from Southern California, Xasthur is Malefic, another tortured one man band, who unlike his blackened brethren, focuses less on 'shredding', strange song structures, or bizarre parts, and more on mood and ambience, which is why Xasthur more than anyone, comes closest to the simple fuzzy midtempo buzz of nordic legend Burzum. Where Leviathan rules some fiery pit, and Draugar is floating around a black star in the ether, Xasthur howls in agony from a damp and filthy, cramped basement, bitter memories and unknown horrors piled high around him, a four track the only outlet for his misery and anger. Sonically, Xasthur also stands apart in his unique and unlikely method of mixing/recording that somehow involves burning cd-r's of multiple tracks and re-recording the cd-r's back onto the 4 track! Lending the finished product a burned out, fuzzed out decayed veneer. Definitely one of the best black metal records of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Slaughtered Useless Beings In A Nihilistic Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Abysmal Depths Are Flooded"

XASTHUR Telepathic With The Deceased (From Beyond / Moribund) 2lp 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Now on gatefold double vinyl! And very limited of course. With three bonus tracks on Side D: two rehearsal recordings and a Judas Iscariot cover.
The blackened California onslaught continues... When one looks at the state of metal today, you could be forgiven for thinking California was the last bastion of true, evil, completely fucked up black metal genius. Norway? Sweden? Pfah! The new Leviathan is easily one of the best black metal records of the year. The forthcoming Draugar threatens to be the weirdest. And then there's this, the excellently-titled Telepathic With The Deceased, the latest chapter in suicidal sonic blackness from Xasthur. Hailing from Southern California, Xasthur is Malefic, another tortured one man band, who unlike his blackened brethren, focuses less on 'shredding', strange song structures, or bizarre parts, and more on mood and ambience, which is why Xasthur more than anyone, comes closest to the simple fuzzy midtempo buzz of nordic legend Burzum. Where Leviathan rules some fiery pit, and Draugar is floating around a black star in the ether, Xasthur howls in agony from a damp and filthy, cramped basement, bitter memories and unknown horrors piled high around him, a four track the only outlet for his misery and anger. Sonically, Xasthur also stands apart in his unique and unlikely method of mixing/recording that somehow involves burning cd-r's of multiple tracks and re-recording the cd-r's back onto the 4 track! Lending the finished product a burned out, fuzzed out decayed veneer. Definitely one of the best black metal records of the year!
MPEG Stream: "Slaughtered Useless Beings In A Nihilistic Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Abysmal Depths Are Flooded"

XASTHUR The Funeral of Being (Blood Fire Death) cd 14.98
We listed this last time, but we just managed to get a handful more, and thought we'd relist it alongside the Xasthur split with Acid Enema that's also on this week's list. Newest release from AQ black metal favorite Xasthur, who was responsible for the godlike Nocturnal Poisoning album a couple years ago which was a buzzy droning slab of Burzumic grimness that rivalled almost any black metal we had heard. Xasthur is just one man, a misanthrope called Malefic, who carves bleak crushing black metal buzz-scapes from sheer wells of blackness and despair. While Nocturnal Poisoning was a monochromatic wash of midtempo Norwegian style blur, with lots of sonic murk and low end rumble, The Funeral Of Being adds more uptempo numbers and a lot more treble. Yep, treble. Harkening back to ear shredding classics like Ulver's Nattens Madrigal and any old Darkthrone, this is a drill to the cranium of high end mosquito swarm guitars, splattery buried-in-the-mix drums, and barely audible anguised howls. In fact the production is really quite strange, considering how weirdly lush the first record was. It's as if Malefic thought that Nocturnal Poisoning was *over produced* and prurposefully set out to make this new recording as RAW as possible. And raw it is. Even the ghostly keyboard breakdowns are under a fuzzy layer of hiss. But the production only enhances the beautiful grimness of The Funeral Of Being. Rarely is an artists tortured soul so perfectly laid bare by the cacophonous sound of his instruments but then Xasthur is indeed a rarity.
MPEG Stream: "The Awakening To The Unknown Perception Of Evil"
MPEG Stream: "Tyrant Of Nightmares"

XASTHUR To Violate The Oblivious (Total Holocaust) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Finally, a new release from the mighty and mysterious black metal entity Xasthur. After a recent spate of reissues, all of them amazing and essential, Malefic, who alone IS Xasthur, has finally deigned to unleash this blackened beast into the world. And in a world like this, we definitely can't get enough music this abject and lonely and dark and personal. As always, Xasthur's world is a bleak and depressive one, pinned beneath a thick, smothering sonic blanket of Burzumic riffing, midtempo mournful melodies, insane double kick drumming and this time around, grand and melancholic keyboards, adding a much more epic and dramatic darkness to the proceeedings. We always end up comparing every Xasthur record to his debut masterpiece Nocturnal Posioning, for the obvious reason that it's one of the best black metal records ever, but thankfully, To Violate The Oblivious takes a lot of what we loved about that record and moves forward, instead of just making Nocturnal Poisoning part two. Present are the gut wrenchingly minor key melodies, the fuzzy wall of blackened riffs, the loping midtempo rhythms, but the keyboards somehow manage to make everything that much more mournful, and the songwriting is more introspective and melodic, making this almost a doom metal record in black metal clothing. It's depressingly glorious to listen to the blackend fruits of Xasthur's labor of love (hate?) as he sinks further into cultish oblivion and obsessive loneliness.
MPEG Stream: "Xasthur Within"
MPEG Stream: "Dreams Blacker Than Death"

XASTHUR / ACID ENEMA Split (Total Holocaust Records) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In addition to getting the brilliant new Xasthur full length back in (see elsewhere on this list), we finally managed to get copies of this amazing split (now out of print!) between AQ black metal fave Xasthur and the unknown to us and now defunct Acid Enema. Xasthur offers up more of his grim, bleak, depressive blackness: buzzing guitars churning in a murk of tape hiss and amplifier grit, barely audible anguished howls, relentless drumming, all weaving melancholy melodies and dark fugues into epic and harrowing soundscapes of abject misery and soul ripping hatred. Blasting Burzumic squalls give way to loping melodic breakdowns with finger picked guitars and mournful keyboards. So gorgeously grim. Seems everything Xasthur touches turns to black. The Acid Enema tracks take the buzz and dirge of Burzum and Darkthrone and add some industrial weirdness and damaged brutality. Razor sharp speaker shredding guitar tone and big boomy drums underpin some seriously demonic howls. A whirling, blood-red pool of sonic chaos, threatening to crush and blacken your ears and your heart and your soul. Some weird melodic ambience and then a DHR worthy industrial cover of Mayhem's "Deathcrush" with rigid hyper-distorted beats and punch-to-the-skull machine gun rhythms. Now out of print, so when these are gone, they're gone for good.
MPEG Stream: XASTHUR "Doomed By Howling Winds"
MPEG Stream: XASTHUR "The Eye Upon The Throne"
MPEG Stream: ACID ENEMA "Holocaust Reborn"

XASTHUR / ANGRA MAINYU Split (Total Holocaust Records) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While we all wait patiently for the new blackened masterpiece from Southern California's one man blackdoomkult Xasthur to drop, here we've got a little blast of suicidal bleakness to hold us over, on this split. The sound is HUGE. A massive wall of black gauzy haze, murky ambience, and blistering fuzz. Two new tracks that give us a glimpse of what to expect from the upcoming full length as well as an older tune "Funeral Of Being, a creepy, Goblin-esque, almost romantic, minor key ambient dirge! Xasthur finishes things off with a buzzing midtempo Wigrid cover, pretty true to the original, but just tweaked enough to sound like it's all his. And Germany's Angra Mainyu are the perfect foil for Xasthur, with a creeping, plodding, wintery blackened doom very reminiscent of old Burzum. Occasionally songs erupt into a wash of blazing and buzzing and blastbeats but the majority of their half of the split is spent trudging along through huge drifts of black thoughts and utter despair, wrapped in a swirling fog of impenetrable buzz and finger picked minor key guitars. So cold and dismal, dark and creepy. And so fucking good.
MPEG Stream: XASTHUR "A Sermon In The Name Of Death"
MPEG Stream: ANGRA MAINYU "Der Drang Zur Resignation"

XASTHUR / LEVIATHAN split (Battle Kommand) cd 11.98
This kick ass record of the week from a few months ago is again back in stock:
We normally don't make "now available on cd" releases Record Of The Week. But there are plenty of reasons to do just that with this one! First off, C'MON! It's LEVIATHAN and XASTHUR! On the same disc! Two of the most important, and musically creative black metal one-man-hordes in the new wave of west coast black metal (NWOWCBM?) teamed up for the ultimate NWOWCBM one two punch. Singlehandedly (doublehandedly?) putting USBM back on the black metal map, and completely redefining the genre, grim and brutal and black for sure, but also totally bizarre and avant and experimental. Plus even you folks who picked up the vinyl versions will need this, as there are 4 bonus tracks, three of them are from Xasthur, a brand new unreleased track, a rehearsal track from 2004, and a Katatonia cover! The other bonus track is Leviathan's amazing version of Judas Iscariot's "Where The Winter Beals Incessant"! But even without the bonus tracks, this clash of the black titans is totally essential, some of the most beautifully blackened and furiously fucked up black metal you are ever likely to hear. Xasthur from Southern California and Leviathan from right here in SF are blackened brothers, both exploring similar themes of hate and misery, darkness and death, but coming at 'em from completely different sonic angles. Xasthur is more about mood and atmosphere, with thick swaths of fuzzy riffery, galloping drums, rumbling bass and agonised howls of despair, all dense and dark and claustrophobic. Leviathan is much more technical and a lot weirder, but no less moody, with ultra complex and bizarrely arranged parts, insane drumming, buzzing riffery, and hints of doom and progrock mixed into his bleak and blackened metalscapes. ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL!!
MPEG Stream: XASTHUR "The Eerie Bliss And Torture (Of Solitude)"
MPEG Stream: XASTHUR "Palace Of Frost (Katatonia cover)"
MPEG Stream: LEVIATHAN "Unfailing Fall Into Naught"

XASTHUR / LEVIATHAN Split (Profound Lore) lp 23.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The good news: we just got a handful more of these already out-of-print "vinyls" in stock! The bad news: they're more expensive, due to coming from a different supplier. But if you didn't get one already, get 'em now, 'cause they're just gonna be even more on eBay later...
It had to happen. It needed to happen. And now it finally has. Two of the most important, and musically creative black metal one-man-hordes in the new wave of west coast black metal (NWOWCBM?) team up for the ultimate NWOWCBM one two punch. Xasthur from Southern California and Leviathan from right here in SF are blackened brothers, both exploring similar themes of hate and misery, darkness and death, but coming at 'em from completely different sonic angles. Xasthur is more about mood and atmosphere, with thick swaths of fuzzy riffery, galloping drums, rumbling bass and agonised howls of despair, all dense and dark and claustrophobic. Leviathan is much more technical and a lot weirder, but no less moody, with ultra complex and bizarrely arranged parts, insane drumming, buzzing riffery, and hints of doom and progrock mixed into his bleak and blackened metalscapes. Obviousy absolutely essential!!
On clear vinyl only and housed in a printed inner sleeve!! And of course VERY VERY LIMITED!!

XBXRX Gop Ist Minee (5RC) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Mobile, Alabama's teen superstars are back with their second proper full length recorded in Chicago by Steve Albini. These five, fine young lads have been known to wreak havoc and make the young girls cry in their brilliant live shows: fireworks, costumes and wonderfully choreographed moves (complete with accompanying speedo-clad male dancer/cheerleader) to accompany a frantic, art-damaged garage rock stomp. Gop Ist Minee crams twelve untitled tracks in twenty blurringly scathing minutes, combining the raw energy of their live show with fucked electronic tweaking. Sci-fi b-movie r'n'r madness for your next no wave smackdown pajama party. If Arab On Radar or Six Finger Satellite tickle your funnybone, you might like this. Or you might not... Vinyl supposedly forthcoming.
RealAudio clip: "untitled (track4)"
RealAudio clip: "untitled (track 6)"

XBXRX Love Songs for the Blind (Anal Log) cd 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Mobile, Alabama, quintet of teenagers. The youngest is 15! Do you think he had to ask his mom if he could go on tour this summer? Donning plastic face masks and marching band pants, XBXRX literally spazz out all over the audience at their live shows, kissing, dancing, hugging, screaming and generally, like, breaking down that wall between audience and performer, duh. It's loud'n'nasty'n'fun garage punk with some synthy chords thrown in, it's snotty and weird and it's all over in a minute and a half. Excellent.

XBXRX s/t (Tapes) cd ep 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Another posthumous release from spastic Alabama dance maniacs/ kissing bandits XBXRX. The freaky harcore love is spread over 7 songs in 9 minutes, including an epic 3 minute track where XBXRX delve into (slightly) mellower, more melodic territory. Recorded by Ian Mackaye.
RealAudio clip: "2nd Song"
RealAudio clip: "4th Song"

XBXRX Wars (Polyvinyl) cd 14.98
XBXRX's latest album Wars comes armed with plenty of spit'n'spurt spazz rock. It's sorta the aural equivalent of a teenager's highschool binder -- all filled with rumpled doodles, math exercises, and those three-ring looseleaf holders that you inevitably get your finger clamped in when you snap it shut. Less bratty than we remember them being, but still quite full of good natured bite and youthful pissiness.
MPEG Stream: "Center Where Sight"
MPEG Stream: "Here To Ruin The Party"

XBXRX Wars (Polyvinyl) lp 14.98
XBXRX's latest album Wars comes armed with plenty of spit'n'spurt spazz rock. It's sorta the aural equivalent of a teenager's highschool binder -- all filled with rumpled doodles, math exercises, and those three-ring looseleaf holders that you inevitably get your finger clamped in when you snap it shut. Less bratty than we remember them being, but still quite full of good natured bite and youthful pissiness.
MPEG Stream: "Center Where Sight"
MPEG Stream: "Here To Ruin The Party"

XBXRX / MISS PUSSYCAT / QUINTRON Mardi Gras (Gold Standard Laboratories) 7" 4.50
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Sadly enough, the spaz-bot combo known as XBXRX is no longer with us, but before their demise they did this collaboration with Miss Pussycat and Quintron, New Orleans' reigning art royalty - creators of the Drum Buddy, amazing, twisted puppet shows, and crazy, rad, fucked-up music - an obvious 3-way match made in heaven.

XBXRX / TOTAL SHUTDOWN split (Rock Is Hell) 2 x 5" vinyl 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
LAST COPIES!!
We're not going to go into too much detail with this as it is limited to 612 copies worldwide of which we managed to get 10 or 15 and now we only have 5 or 6 left! Not sure we'll be able to get more. So act fast. A match made in heaven. Assuming heaven is packed with broken amps, detuned guitars, beat to shit drum kits, cheap beer, and all manner of freaked out smashstomp noise rock! And lots of us are praying to Jeebus it is!!! In one corner we've got SF's total destruction unit, Total Shutdown, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, harmonica and double sax!! In the opposing corner we've got the East Bay's (that means Oakland) new wave angular swat team XBXRX. Two 5" vinyls, one red, one blue, each vying for the noise rock crown, we're leaning towards a good ol' fashioned tie, the kind that after the post battle hug, once the opponents turn their back they each lurch back into action wielding flaming drumsticks and spiked axes (that means guitars). Dig in if you dare!
Utterly amazing packaging. A massive fold out, technicolor acid drenched cartoon freakout, all creatures and shapes and clouds and elves all on cool fuzzy paper, the inside is similar just with all the color sucked out, with little sleeves for each of the 5" vinyls. COOL!!!

XELA Bubble Hats In Summer (Type) 7" 6.98
Our first exposure to Xela, the musical outfit of Type label head honcho John Twells, was the most recent full length disc The Dead Sea, which took the sound of, well, The Dead C, and got it all tangled up with the blissy fuzz of the Gooom label, and the warm shimmer of Pop Ambient, all coalescing into some perfectly abstract dreamy off kilter pop flecked free noise. Buried amidst all of the other elements was some electronica skitter, but it was a tiny part of the bigger sound.
But as we've dug deeper into his past efforts, we've discovered, that Xela began as much more of an electronica / IDM sort of project. The recently reviewed reissue For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights was heavy on the beats, carving out a sonic niche somewhere between his later more abstract sound and the warm sun dappled electronic shuffle of Boards Of Canada. And this two song 7" definitely falls within the same sonic parameters. One side is all record crackle over murky thumps, bits of strange industrial clatter, and deep almost house music like swells, but with a HUGE low end that rumbles your ribcage and wraps its thick tendrils around everything. There are some stuttery rhythms, some chopped vocals, bits of looped melody all swirled into the mix, the result sounding like a way more abstract Boards Of Canada. Which is definitely a good thing.
The flipside is even more reminiscent of the Boards, with muted melodies, epic string swells, and all sorts of skittery shuffling Autechre-y rhythms. All amidst layer after layer of warm thick sound, dense and blissed out. Melodic and dramatic and melancholy, dreamy and so so nice.
SUPER LIMITED. Packaged in a plain white sleeve.

XELA For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights (Type) cd 15.98
We loved the most recent Xela disc so much, last year's The Dead Sea, that we figured we oughta check out the one that came right before, For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights, an older Xela disc, that just so happened to have just now been reissued with bonus tracks.
Xela, the musical outfit of Type label head honcho John Twells, laps up all the glitchy fuzzy pop goodness that we can't seem to tire of and turns it into something all his own. Labels like Gooom and Lampse, groups like Machinefabriek, Jasper TX, Gultskra Artikler, are all redefining pop music, taking classically catchy songs, and using all manner of digital and organic manipulations to obscure them, to cloak them in distortion, to wreathe them in buzz and fuzz, to make the hook, the pop, less of the focal point and more of a hidden gem, the oft chewy center, something less obvious and hitting you over the head, a pop music that requires close listening, songs like dirty windows on old houses, they need to be peered into before the shapes and sights beneath the grime and murk reveal themselves.
For Frosty Mornings And Summer Nights finds Xela at an early stage, where the sound was based on beats as much as texture. A dreamy blissed out laid back electronica. Autchre-ish skitter woven into warm swells of sound, thick swaths of muted melody chopped up into shuffling hiccupping IDM shapes. Boards Of Canada are definitely a reference point. But Xela seems to have a bit of a hip hop vibe, as subtle as it is, the beats definitely sound influenced by hip hop, and the songs are laced with little vocal ticks, the ubiquitous "uh huh"s and "yeah"s, a la Timbaland, looped into the mix.
There is still plenty of glistening shimmer, lots of thick whirring drones, clouds of crackle and whir, soft expanses of blissed out ambience, but this disc is definitely about beats, even when they are muted and buried in the mix.
Fans of Boards Of Canada, Autechre, Chris Clark, B. Fleischmann will seriously dig this stuff. And all you Pop Ambient headz, and fuzzy pop kids, and buzzy, droney dream rockers, you might dig this too, as long as you're not averse to some serious beats. And if for some strange reason you are, check out Xela's The Dead Sea instead...
MPEG Stream: "Afraid Of Monsters"
MPEG Stream: "Under The Glow Of Streetlights"
MPEG Stream: "Japanese Whispers"

XELA In Bocca Al Lupo (Type) cd 15.98
Another gorgeous fuzzed out collection of washed out abstract dronescapes from aQ faves Xela, this one a four track, hour long sprawl of glistening, shimmering, crackle and hiss drenched drift. Type label head honcho John Twells, takes the sound of Xela, a sound we had previously described as "Dead C meets Pop Ambient meets Gooom" (Gooom the early home of M83, Abstrackt Keal Agram, Purple Confusion and others), even further out this time, letting the various sounds ring out, spread out, decay and space as much a part of the sound as the notes and arrangements. The amazing thing about Xela, is that it's almost not even music, it often sounds more like a manufactured field recording, sometimes recognizable - are those footsteps? the sound of running water?, the creaking of old machinery? - but just as often, a sound that is totally alien, is that the sound of strange creatures rustling below the surface of some barren asteroid? Is that a recording of magnetic fields, or of spirits or ghosts, or maybe even something there are no words for? Which is what makes the sound of Xela so magical, and mysterious.
In Bocca seems to be steeped in religious symbolism, with a mysterious sigil on the cover of the lp, Latin song titles, and even sonically, it's like a wander through the catacombs beneath some old abandoned church, as if envisioned by Tim Hecker and Philip Jeck, with plenty of loops, smears of hiss, muted buzz, fields of crackle, fragmented melodies, all drifting amidst and among all manner of sounds, footsteps, chiming bells, short wave interference, bits of guitar (?), warm chordal swirls, woven into an incredibly evocative soundscape, that most definitely brings to mind another time and place, a world of darkness and grey skies, of stone walls below the ground dripping with moisture, of dusty shafts of sunlight filtering through bent bars, painting the dirt floors blurred shades of black and brown.
The opening track is thick with distortion and buzz and crackle, its beauty sublimated by all the extraneous noise, but it's that noise that give the track its texture, that turns a drone, a drift, into something much more tactile, a sound that is felt as much as it is heard, but the second track, shrugs off all of that noise, at least in the beginning, leaving just the muted sounds of a carillon, drifting down from a crumbling tower, mournful and funereal, before from below, surfaces swirls of soft electronic buzz, which become more and more smooth and blurred, finally existing as a sheet of warm whir over the ever tolling bells.
All four tracks seem to exist as a single multi movement piece, each slipping smoothly into the next, in the third movement, the bells drift off, and over them are laid deep moaning tones, the buzz and crackle now merely a whisper, a haunting slow motion creep into a thick waterfall of pink noise, before distant drums (courtesy of the dude from Heavy Winged) announce the beginning of the final, and longest movement. Tribal, militaristic, but spare and still abstract, the drums unfurl a skeletal rhythm, while all around it, the sounds become more and more frenzied, feedback, squalls of amp buzz and hiss, cymbals explode like fireworks in a black sky, the background scribbled with electronic squiggles and jagged shards of distortion, growing more and more blown out, the drums growing wilder and wilder, buzzing synths emerging from the chaos, until the drums drop out and the track has been transformed into a spaced out synthscape, all layered and pulsing, buzzing and blissful, as if suddenly, the dank stone floor gave way, and the listener, the catacombs, and everything as we know it, collapsed inward, emerging in some otherworld, a neverending expanse of glimmering, glistening blackness, a slow motion swirl of mysterious voices and distant drones all stretched out along thick streaks of looped buzz stretching off into the void.
The cd is packaged in a normal jewel case, with quite striking, and bloody artwork, the 2lp is limited (of course) and comes in a thick chipboard brown jacket, adorned with a simple black symbol right in the center.
MPEG Stream: "Ut Nos Vivicaret"
MPEG Stream: "In Deo Salutari Meo"

XELA In Bocca Al Lupo (Type) 2lp 19.98
Another gorgeous fuzzed out collection of washed out abstract dronescapes from aQ faves Xela, this one a four track, hour long sprawl of glistening, shimmering, crackle and hiss drenched drift. Type label head honcho John Twells, takes the sound of Xela, a sound we had previously described as "Dead C meets Pop Ambient meets Gooom" (Gooom the early home of M83, Abstrackt Keal Agram, Purple Confusion and others), even further out this time, letting the various sounds ring out, spread out, decay and space as much a part of the sound as the notes and arrangements. The amazing thing about Xela, is that it's almost not even music, it often sounds more like a manufactured field recording, sometimes recognizable - are those footsteps? the sound of running water?, the creaking of old machinery? - but just as often, a sound that is totally alien, is that the sound of strange creatures rustling below the surface of some barren asteroid? Is that a recording of magnetic fields, or of spirits or ghosts, or maybe even something there are no words for? Which is what makes the sound of Xela so magical, and mysterious.
In Bocca seems to be steeped in religious symbolism, with a mysterious sigil on the cover of the lp, Latin song titles, and even sonically, it's like a wander through the catacombs beneath some old abandoned church, as if envisioned by Tim Hecker and Philip Jeck, with plenty of loops, smears of hiss, muted buzz, fields of crackle, fragmented melodies, all drifting amidst and among all manner of sounds, footsteps, chiming bells, short wave interference, bits of guitar (?), warm chordal swirls, woven into an incredibly evocative soundscape, that most definitely brings to mind another time and place, a world of darkness and grey skies, of stone walls below the ground dripping with moisture, of dusty shafts of sunlight filtering through bent bars, painting the dirt floors blurred shades of black and brown.
The opening track is thick with distortion and buzz and crackle, its beauty sublimated by all the extraneous noise, but it's that noise that give the track its texture, that turns a drone, a drift, into something much more tactile, a sound that is felt as much as it is heard, but the second track, shrugs off all of that noise, at least in the beginning, leaving just the muted sounds of a carillon, drifting down from a crumbling tower, mournful and funereal, before from below, surfaces swirls of soft electronic buzz, which become more and more smooth and blurred, finally existing as a sheet of warm whir over the ever tolling bells.
All four tracks seem to exist as a single multi movement piece, each slipping smoothly into the next, in the third movement, the bells drift off, and over them are laid deep moaning tones, the buzz and crackle now merely a whisper, a haunting slow motion creep into a thick waterfall of pink noise, before distant drums (courtesy of the dude from Heavy Winged) announce the beginning of the final, and longest movement. Tribal, militaristic, but spare and still abstract, the drums unfurl a skeletal rhythm, while all around it, the sounds become more and more frenzied, feedback, squalls of amp buzz and hiss, cymbals explode like fireworks in a black sky, the background scribbled with electronic squiggles and jagged shards of distortion, growing more and more blown out, the drums growing wilder and wilder, buzzing synths emerging from the chaos, until the drums drop out and the track has been transformed into a spaced out synthscape, all layered and pulsing, buzzing and blissful, as if suddenly, the dank stone floor gave way, and the listener, the catacombs, and everything as we know it, collapsed inward, emerging in some otherworld, a neverending expanse of glimmering, glistening blackness, a slow motion swirl of mysterious voices and distant drones all stretched out along thick streaks of looped buzz stretching off into the void.
The cd is packaged in a normal jewel case, with quite striking, and bloody artwork, the 2lp is limited (of course) and comes in a thick chipboard brown jacket, adorned with a simple black symbol right in the center.
MPEG Stream: "Ut Nos Vivicaret"
MPEG Stream: "In Deo Salutari Meo"

XELA The Dead Sea (Type) cd 15.98
Remember the French label Gooom? The label that introduced us to the gauzy blissed out dreampop of M83. As well as similarly beautiful pop buzz from bands like Cyann & Ben, KG, Abstract Keal Agram, Montag, Mils., Purple Confusion and others. Well, while Gooom seem to have dropped off the map, Type has stepped up in their bid to be our new favorite label of blissy abstract wonder. While the two labels do share an aesthetic, a sort of blurry buzzy dreamy drift, each approaches the sound from dramatically different angles. Gooom bands are, at their core, simply pop bands, or slow core bands, or post rock bands, but bands nonetheless. Guitar, bass and drums. Choruses, verses, bridges, lyrics, but these seemingly normal elements are then twisted and distorted, blurred and fuzzed out, into the glorious sounds and shapes we fell in love with. Like hearing sweetly psychedelic pop music, filtered through a cracked funhouse mirror made out of amp buzz and fuzzy sheets of reverb. Type are obviously fans of the same sort of cracked sonic shimmer, all of their releases shimmery and ethereal, rife with lots of buzz and hiss, glitch and fuzz.
Such is the case with Xela, the debut release from Type label head honcho John Twells. His cracked pop vision fits perfectly alongside the other outfits on Type, Ryan Teague, Mountaineer, Machinefabriek, Goldmund, North Sea & Rameses III. Twells wanders through a strange world of abstract sound making, fuzzy dreamlike blurs, and manner of mechanical musics. Melodies are rendered indistinct, actual songs are turned into blurry fragments, everything is pulled apart into abstract skeletal soundscapes, like seeing buzzy dream pop from the inside, watching all the gears and bits and parts and machinations that make that sort of music so dang pretty on the outside. But the view from the inside is so gorgeously alien, grinds and clicks, disembodied melodies stretched over rhythmic skitter, it's almost like being shrunken down and exploring some huge music box. Or better yet, imagine the Dead C making a record for children, playfully noisy, subtly melodic, a disembodied dream folk bathed in dreamy static, murky record crackle, and tangled up with little bits of video game music, all stretched into a gauzy later afternoon soundscape. So great. When we first heard about this album, we read a description the label wrote that pretty much seemed intended to make us at AQ curious, as it cited both Italian horror soundtracks by Goblin, AND Jewelled Antler improv soundscapes as references for Xela's sound!! Amazingly enough, The Dead Sea lives up to the expectations thus generated, and we're hooked.
Amazingly creepy cover art. Black and white line drawings of people drowning and being attacked by some sort of underwater zombies. Cool!
MPEG Stream: "Linseed"
MPEG Stream: "Drunk On Salt Water"
MPEG Stream: "Wet Bones"

XELA The Illuminated (Digitalis) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A super limited missive from Xela, aka John Twells, head honcho of the super kick ass Type label. But his work as Xela is much darker than his label might lead you to believe. His is a world of doom. Not old school heavy metal doom. But truly ominous darkened worlds of doom. His is not a doom of huge riffs and pounding drums, but instead, rumbling sinister drones, and haunting ambience. Crumbling black landscapes of mysterious buzz and whispered menace. The A side of this tape is like a field recording of a rickety old dock, jutting out into the choppy waters of the River Styx, old rust chains rattle, rusty lanterns clang against one another, the rotted wood groans and creaks, the wind howls, the choppy water laps at the pilings, black birds circle overhead, an old boat tied up to the dock rocking wildly in the water, straining against the frayed rope, while in the distance, an ominous buzz permeates the air like the stink of decaying flesh, and somewhere, below the surface of the water, or hidden behind the black clouds overhead, some unspeakable beast growls, his ominous rumble like thunder filling the sky.
The B side takes up where the first side left off, that same dock, being lashed by a fierce storm, but instead of rain and lightning, it's decaying black buzz, and howled vocals, a stumbling, lurching doomy drone, recorded on an old tape, the sound dropping out, the speed shifting, slowing down and speeding up, as much a part of the sound as the obfuscated riffs, and the creeping mournful melodies. Fucking awesome.
Red cassettes with metallic gold sticker, in a cryptic printed black and white sleeve, photocopied insert. LIMITED TO 111 COPIES. Already out of print. We got the last batch so act fast.

XELA / AJILVSGA I Love Her Till I Die (Digitalis) cassette 8.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We always say "we only have a very few of these, so we won't go into too much detail" and then we pretty much always do. But not this time. Nope. Cuz we only have 8 copies of this. We got a bunch, but most sold before we could get them reviewed and listed.
So for a lucky few of you, here's a brand new, awesome split tape, LIMITED TO 99 COPIES and already out of print.
One side: Type records head honcho John Twells' ambient doom outfit, creating another haunting, crumbling, creepy world of doom-ed sound, epic and heavy, intense and soaring, layers upon layers of coruscating guitars, woven into moody moving droning beauty. The other side: new discovery Ajilvsga, another ambient doom outfit, a duo, one half of which is Digitalis overlord Brad Rose, their side is a thick viscous grinding sludge of blown out guitars, crumbling distortion, heaving slow motion glacial heaviness, that manages to imbue its buzzing creep with haunting melodies and strange blackened beauty.
Gorgeous full color covers printed on textured paper, each one hand numbered, gone before you know it...

XELA / NORTH SEA Electronic Music Vol.1 (Rite) lp 19.98
Couldn't really think of a much better match up. Xela, aka John Twells, who runs the Type label, and North Sea aka Brad Rose, who runs the Digitalis label, both explore similar sounds and sound making in their respective groups, as well as the various releases on their respective labels. This might be the first time these two have shared a record, but hopefully not the last. Perhaps the Volume 1 in the title does in fact hint at future volumes...
Xela gives us two track of his particular 'electronic music', and it sounds, thankfully, much like his more organic music, a bit more abstract perhaps, a lot less doomy, but just as mysterious and evocative, long sweeping soundscapes made up of sculpted hiss, and buried high pulses, ultra minimal but thick and layered, peppered with buried streaks of feedback, fragmented melodies, what sounds like manipulated samples from other songs, all manner of glitch and buzz, deftly woven into two movements, the first, noisy and staticky, powerful and intense, but still strangely pretty, the second, much more abstract, beginning as a whisper, a barely there drift of found sounds, before drifting forward, and accumulating various sounds as it goes, building to a strange and haunting piece of active ambience, very cinematic, haunting and again, in it's own difficult way, quite lovely.
The North Sea continues on in the same direction as the last few releases, ditching much of the folk and flutter, for churning low end crunch. At this point it does seem that perhaps the title Electronic Music was not necessarily meant literally, cuz at least to our ears this sounds like big heaving slabs of downtuned guitar, glacial doomdronedirge, roiling swirls of rumble and buzz, eventually breaking down to something much more ambient, an ominous blackened drift, rife with bits of electronic glitch and swirling space-y FX, before finally transforming into something much more blown out and blissful, a sort of static soft noise jam equal parts Tim Hecker and Aidan Baker, smeared and blurred into one smoldering expanse of soft focus heaviness. Quite gorgeous.
LIMITED TO 300 COPIES. Housed in plain white sleeves, hand stamped, the text mostly in Cyrillic.

XELA WITH GREG HAINES & DANNY SAUL The Late Chapel (Type) lp 14.98
WHOO-HOO! We found we had a (small) secret stash of these, so here's another chance to grab one. Ultra limited one sided vinyl only release from AQ faves Xela. Already out of print, we have the last copies anywhere.
A single long form composition, more classical and minimal sounding than the most recent Xela full length, beginning with gentle simple piano, tinkling chimes, distant whirs, folky steel string twang, subtle percussion, a subtle mixture of cello, piano, vocals, acoustic and electric guitars and effects, all woven into a lovely stretch of active ambience. Soon though this tranquil drift is enveloped in a thick sonic haze of blurred buzz, and the instruments all seem to be deeply effected by the change, the guitars begin to stutter and glitch, the piano detunes and becomes more atonal, throwing out dense little flurries of notes, steel strings scrape and creak and groan, becoming more and more intense, building to a lengthy drone, everything whipped into a frenzy, swirling whirring, intense and dense but still strangely melodic and quite lovely.
Pressed on thick vinyl, packaged in plain white sleeves, each one stamped and hand numbered, limited to 300 copies, and again, already out of print, these are the last copies ever...

XENAKIS, IANNIS Chamber Music 1955-1990 (Montaigne) cd 27.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

XENAKIS, IANNIS Electronic Music (EMF) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

XENAKIS, IANNIS Electronic Music 1: La Legende d'Eer (Mode) cd 16.98

XENAKIS, IANNIS Electronic Music 1: La Legende d'Eer (Mode) dvd 26.00

XENAKIS, IANNIS Kraanerg (Asphodel) cd 12.98
Asphodel, always adventurous, branches out further with two new releases, one "world music" (Min Xiao-Fen, below) and this 20th century classical item, a Xenakis piece performed by Xenakis-experts the ST-X Ensemble, with none other than Aphodel mascot DJ Spooky running the A-DAT machine. The music? Orchestra plus tapes = music that even the Wall St. Journal considers "terrifying masses of sound."