[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 951 through 1000 of 2272.

Australian avant-guitarist Oren Ambarchi wrangles with some Max / MSP patches to craft this single of looped mantras of chopped guitar buzz and dissonant noise drones.

Brand new 7" of delicate beauty and haunting songsmithery from Mr. Oren Ambarchi, who hasn't had much time lately for his own music making, as he seems to be a constant part of the Southern Lord / SUNNO))) axis, being a part of at least three groups we know of. But we've pretty much loved every one of Ambarchi's releases and this new single is no different. Using electric guitars, organ, bells, samples, percussion and motorized cymbal (!), Ambarchi has created to dramatically different pieces. The A side is a woozy, washed out underwater sounding loopscape, peppered with record crackle (unless that's coming from the record player, either way, it sounds great!), like a slightly jauntier, less melancholy Oval, major key melody, all softly sunshine-y, a dreamily hypnotic stretch of soft swirl that could go on forever. The B side is much darker, long streaks of shimmery low end beneath haunting slowed down vocals, mournful and mysterious, the vocals and the guitar drift and shift, all wound up in and around each other, throughout, bits of electronic glitchery, smears of muted buzz, snippets of conversation and dialogue, but all that stuff seems to be woven into an undulating backdrop for Ambarchi's ghostlike disembodied blues. As always, packaged in super striking thick matte sleeve with gorgeous photos and layout from Touch head honcho Jon Wozencroft.

This long time AQ fave now available on vinyl. A deluxe gatefold double lp, limited to 1000 copies, a handful of which are on purple vinyl, cross your fingers if you care and you might get lucky... Here's what we had to say about this amazing work: The notion of musicians hunkered over their laptops, sitting still in the glow of the screen, not moving at all except for their fingers, paints a rather dull performance picture of what is often sonically quite exciting. So when organic/real/live instruments are brought into the mix, it makes the whole thing that much more alive and approachable and personal. Especially when the computer is left out of the equation COMPLETELY. Thus our appreciation of guitar-wielding electronicists (and fellow Touch label recording artists) Christian Fennesz and especially Oren Ambarchi. Fennesz with his sun dappled, "Venice" California sunshine-y shimmer, and Oren Ambarchi with his less-is-more, minimalist pointalism. Both use the guitar, Fennesz to interact with the computer, Ambarchi just to SOUND like it's being run through a computer, whihc is what makes this disc so amazing. Where Fennesz paints lush dense soundscapes, of thick harmonies and dreamy buzz, Ambarchi takes a way more minimal approach on Grapes From The Estate, spreading notes out into lazy barely there melodies, and loose frameworks of subtle glitchery and gentle strum. Occasionally, drums enter the mix, but only as a shuffling afterthought, lending the sound a definite jazzy post rock vibe. Imagine Oval's glitchy and muffled underwater murmer, but played on a guitar instead of being assembled from skipping cds. There is that sort of hiccupping rhythmic element present, but it's much more an innate part of the song, and these are most definitely -songs-. Instead of long 'pieces', these tracks are structured like actual songs, melodies appear and disappear, recur and subtly shift throughout, there are almost-choruses, and some of the motifs are quite catchy (although subtly so). Most of the record is dark and glacial, stepping carefully through a vast expanse of space, except for the album's centerpiece "Remidios The Beauty", where the pace picks up just a bit, and Ambarchi's guitar / effects interface produces an almost bouncy melody, that while being slightly more upbeat, still retains all of its dreamy sleepiness. This is the perfect mix of Kompakt style pop ambient, minimalist post rock, and those dark and rumbling drones we all love so much.

MPEG stream: Girl With The Silver Eyes
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Space... tones... space. A bass note now and again, and whispering hissssss. A guitar string plucked, muffled by effects, droning into silence. And repeat. Doom paced (as per much on the Southern Lord label, home to SUNNO))) after all), but not "heavy" like doom metal. Talk about slooooooooooooooow though. Soporific this is, in a nice nice dreamy way. Warm and pretty and so, so sad sounding. There's three long tracks here that do indeed wrap you in their embrace, and proceed with the reassuring steadiness of a pendulum's swing. Aussie experimentalist Oren Ambarchi (known for many collaborations, projects, and solo albums, including 2004's wonderful Grapes From The Estate to which this is perhaps offered as sequel) utilizes sounds both fragile and foreboding, from instrumentation including glass harmonica, bells, piano, percussion, and of course guitars. The opening track "Fever, A Warm Poison" sleepwalks glacially, as per the first few sentences of this review. Ambarchi orchestrates the swell of strings, or what could be an accordion's wheeze, into this album's soundworld on the second track, "Inamorata". Utterly gentle & melancholic. As is the 17 minute finale, "Trailing Moss In Mystic Glow", which while blissfully relaxed, might be the "busiest" track of the disc on account of the presence of some quiet, spectral vocals, indistinct but still a suggestion of songiness towards the end of the piece. The guitar melodies are denser here, and there's a hint of glitch. It's gorgeous at any rate. This cd should appeal to fans of Earth's Hex, and Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, and even Boris's gentler moments, as if held under a microscope, volume hushed. Also this very list, we've reviewed the new release from another Ambarchi act, Sun. This could be that Sun album, left out to melt in the (actual) sun, to droop and drip, pooling into a limpid, low-key loveliness...

MPEG stream: Fever, A Warm Poison
MPEG stream: Trailing Moss In Mystic Glow

Killer collection of unreleased, super limited, out of print tracks from the last 8 years, from guitarist and soundscaper Oren Ambarchi, who besides making incredible records on his own, has been spending lots of time contributing to SUNNO))) and various SUNNO)) related offshoots. But these 5 tracks, all of them looooong, find Ambarchi doing what he does best, transforming his guitar into utterly new shapes and sounds. "Intimidator" is the bonus track from the lp version of his In The Pendulum's Embrace album, and is a super minimal arrangement of tones and overtones, a gorgeous ethereal super abstract drone, subtly pulsing and throbbing, occasionally interrupted by an errant strum or bit of glitch, but for the most part, some serious Ikeda style clinical drone minimalism. "Iron Waves" is a remix of a Paul Duncan track, and finds Ambarchi adding guitar, bells and cymbals to the original, the result is a dark and meditative drift, that grows more and more lush, perfectly complimenting the soulful croon of the original, a dark, layered sound art ballad. "Moving Violation" is from a Touch Records comp, and is another gorgeous expanse of dark meditative guitar drift, laced with crackle and glitch, a strange textural patina over an otherwise serene and smooth expanse of muted tones. "The Strouhal Number" is from a live cd released in Australia, and is warm and washed out and beautiful, minus the crackle and distorted grit, this would almost be some super serene meditation music, chiming tones, lilting melodies, dreamlike and so so pretty. And finally, the 20 minute "A Final Kiss On Poisoned Cheeks" originally released on a clear silkscreened one sided 12" as part of Table Of The Elements Guitar series, still essentially a dronescape, A Final Kiss is rife with sonic activity, so much so that in lesser hands it would be more of a mess, a sort of pretty-ish noise record, but Ambarchi, takes all manner of buzz and glitch, of scrape and hum, and weaves it into a strangely lyrical arrangement. The core of the piece is a thick, undulating low end drone, a muted Niblockian shimmer, that seems not to change so much as shift, reflecting different colors and sounds depending on the angle. Over this nearly constant thrum, exist a veritable universe of strange sounds, streaks of feedback, cricket like electronic chitter, moaning throbbing swells of guitar rumble, brief blurs of warm soft focus fuzz, layers of crumbling distortion, all of the various elements constantly shifting and blossoming, collapsing and then blooming again, creating a super organic flow, another instance of leaving the instruments on the stage, guitars against amps, amps cranked, although here it seems the instruments have come to life, and we are glimpsing their secret lives, as the communicate musically, telling some sort of story, exchanging mysterious messages, which while indecipherable to human ears, still manage to sound magical. Guitardrone freaks will, well, freak! Subtly heavy, darkly drone-y, slightly noisy, rich and dense and textural. Really gorgeous. And totally recommended.

MPEG stream: Intimidator
MPEG stream: A Final Kiss On Poisoned Cheeks

A brand new two track 'album' from Australian guitarist / soundscaper Oren Ambarchi and it's a doozy. Two side long tracks, one composed for a Japanese dance troupe, the other recorded live, both gorgeous. The 'dance' track takes up all of side A and utilizes electric guitar, bowed instruments, samples, bells, cymbals and percussion. Deep drifts of buzzing sounds drift dreamlike from the speakers, cymbals sizzle like falling rain, bells twinkle like stars in a black sky, very drifty and otherworldly. It eventually builds to a throbbing fever pitch, but instead of getting heavier, it just gets thicker, and more dense and way more intense. Notes throb and pulse, reverberating and beating against one another, creating dense fields of rich overtones, the whole thing very liquid and organic sounding, constantly shifting and changing shape. Would have loved to see the dance that accompanied these sounds. The B side was recorded live, the instrumentation including electric guitars, cymbals and a motor (!). A much more delicate and haunting piece than the flipside, moody melodies drifting over pulsing buzzing drones, the melodies spaced out and spidery, over a fuzzy shimmery backdrop. About halfway through the track, the sound explodes and becomes a massive, grinding, buzz drenched wall of thick static guitar, layer upon layer, very trancelike and hypnotic, but incredibly fierce and intense, finally culminating in a dreamy fade out of muted tones and a barely there melody. Nice super textured cardstock, full color sleeves, incredibly thick vinyl, LIMITED TO 650 COPIES, each record hand numbered...

Recorded for the Dutch radio station VPRO and released as part of Staalplaat's acclaimed "Mort Aux Vaches" series, Oren Ambarchi's "Song of Separation" is a continuation of the ideas previously investigated on his "Suspension" album for Touch. Employing a

RealAudio clip: Song Of Separation Part 1

One of two new archival reissues from Australian avant guitarist and sometime member of SUNNO))), Oren Ambarchi. Persona was originally released as an ultra limited lp (only 300 copies) in 2000, which sold out quite quickly, but is finally available again, on cd. Ambarchi's sound is quite varied and fluid, capable of coaxing the sweetest sounds from his axe, as well as using it like some blood flecked weapon, hurling jagged shards of distorted crunch and spitting out thick swaths of viscous buzz. On Persona, the sound is minimal and delicate, droney in places, but also glitchy and spare. The opening track here, and the shortest of the three, is a warm looped low end drone, the guitar transformed into a pulse generator, the sound soothing and softly buzzy. The second track sounds like it could be on Raster-Noton, plenty of low end, but with processed clicks and whirs, clipped percussive thumps and machinelike murmurs, eventually becoming almost silent, leaving just bits of crackle and surface noise, so austere and abstract. The final track, and the longest at almost 19 minutes, is the prettiest of the bunch, a softly skittering soundscape of Oval like underwater shimmer, lightly laced with glitches and little electronic squelches, but all warm and washed out, and allowed to swirl and drift dreamily, super gorgeous stuff.

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Fantastic three song 12" from Australian guitarist Oren Ambarchi, a series of long form drones/ragas, the first a tribute to Henry Flynt, taking up all of side one, recorded live in Australia in 2009, and featuring just electric guitar and tamboura, both woven into a serious wall of sound. The tamboura unfurls a lush and lovely background shimmer, a softly undulating dronescape of thrum and rumble, over which Ambarchi lets loose his electric guitar, a wild, corroded, glitched out buzz, weirdly processed, seriously trippy, sounding almost like electronics, grinding and melodic, the sound dense and crumbling, slipping occasionally into a brittle noise drenched almost Appalachia, the whole thing noisy and caustic but that background drone somehow transforming the guitar noise into something hypnotic and tranced out. The flipside starts off with another gorgeous bit of ur-drone, this one performed on 12 string acoustic guitar and sine wave generator, the result a dense insect like buzz, a luxurious metallic hum, hazy and hypnotic, impossibly lush and layered, the sounds in constant motion, a dizzying swirl of sound that is utterly entrancing. The final track is just electric guitar, and finds Ambarchi totally transforming the guitar into something that sounds like an electric bagpipe, reminding us of a more psychedelic Amps For Christ, the sound rumbling, and then splintering into keening feedback, weird fractured melodies, cascading out of clouds of abstract soft noise, all of this draped over a barely there distant hum, a looped shimmer that grounds the guitarnoise, and like the A side turns it into something hypnotic and mesmerizing. Pressed at 45rpm, which sounds great, but dialed down to 33, it all sounds even more washed out and dronily murky.

Always interesting Aussie experimentalist Oren Ambarchi has been impressing us a lot lately, what with the excellent Audience Of One album on Touch we recently reviewed, and now this, another new solo disc via Editions Mego, which is also pretty fantastic, and different. What's Sagittarian Domain all about? Well, our customer and pal Gregg pretty much put it best, summing this up simply as "Oren Ambarchi's krautrock album". 'Nuff said for some of us, gotta get it, right? Oren is a one man band here, playing almost all the instruments. He's credited with guitars, Moog bass, drums, percussion, and voice. There's also a (processed?) string section of violin, viola and cello that makes some appearances as well. We're not sure about the genesis of this project, the sleeve states it was featured in some sort of stage production in Sydney. It it was for a dance, it was a long one; the disc is 33 minutes, 37 seconds minutes long, a single track. A single-minded track as well. "Sagittarian Domain" is a mesmeric exercise in the power of the "motorik" beat, as previously practiced by kosmiche krautrockers like Can, Faust, and Neu!. Ambarchi's role as drummer here comes first and foremost, his guitar and FX etc. then wandering darkly over the motorik beat, the track gradually building and morphing, always maintaining Teutonic discipline, controls set for the heart of the nearest black hole� Press play, and a tick-tick-ticking pulse emerges from the nothingness, its steady stutter joined by sudden fly-bys of keening electronic feedback and creaky drone-glitch. Then, a few minutes in, proper atmosphere established, Ambarchi goes into machine-like action on his drum kit, raising the volume and adding more crucial elements to the ominous rhythmic foundation of the piece, which continues its pulsating slow-build, crackling with electricity. With his syncopated and propulsive beats doing their thing, you're on your way into a hypno-zone where time has no meaning, your head nodding, eyelids heavy. The track becomes ever more primal and insistent, even dangerously sensuous, in a way (try this: start making out with your romantic partner when this disc starts, and see where that leads�). As it goes, and goes, and goes, it gets louder and heavier and noisier; the grinding droning of Ambarchi's guitar washes in waves over his non-stop rhythm. Krautrock fanciers who like the more extreme stuff will be in heaven. When the beat finally stops, that classical string section alone provides a gentle, soothing chill-out coda for a few lovely minutes at the very end. Damn good!! Which aQ pal Gregg also said. Cd comes in gatefold mini-lp style jacket.

MPEG stream: Sagittarian Domain excerpt 1
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One of two new archival reissues from Australian avant guitarist and sometime member of SUNNO))), Oren Ambarchi. Stacte.3 was originally released as an ultra limited lp (only 500 copies) in 2000, which of course went out of print relatively quickly, and remained unavailable until now, with this cd reissue. Ambarchi's sound is quite varied and fluid, capable of coaxing the sweetest sounds from his axe, as well as using it like some blood flecked weapon, hurling jagged shards of distorted crunch and spitting out thick swaths of viscous buzz. Stacte.3 is one 37 minute track, split into two parts, A and B. A, clocking in at 14 minutes, begins with a looped bit of chiming guitar harmonics, mesmerizing and music box like, that loop soon joined by all manner of swooping bloops and bleeps, a soft barrage of strange melodic fragments and electronic shards, a bit like some malfunctioning synthesizer let loose over that steady music box pulse, eventually, the higher tones drift off, leaving just a couple low tones to shimmer and warble, their overtones creating subtle patterns and pulsating fluctuations, which are eventually joined by some of the stray sounds from earlier on. The second longer track, begins all buzzing metallic shimmer, what sounds like a room full of bowed cymbals, all sorts of gorgeous overtones, a washed out muted bit of metallic crunch, which eventually dissipates, leaving the bloops and bleeps of part A to return for a playful bit of swooping and swirling, before again, the track slowly shifts into a more minimal phase, playing out in a drift of layered rumbles, dreamy whirs and soft melodic electronic pulses. Quite nice.

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While Christian Fennesz has been very active in working with a diverse group of musicians, few of his collaborators have exhibited the likemindedness found in Sydney's tinkering guitarist Oren Ambarchi. For both Ambarchi and Fennesz, the guitar is the

RealAudio clip: Vogler
RealAudio clip: This Evening So Soon
RealAudio clip: Gene

Yet another gorgeously packaged, impeccaby recorded piece of modern minimalism from Idea records. We raved about the now out of print COH double lp a few lists back, and this release is just as nice. This time it's Australian Oren Ambarchi, who's delicate, barely-there guitar improvisations are gorgeously wispy and ethereal and float dreamily from the speakers towards your ears taking thier own sweet time. Notes hang suspended in space shimmering and slowly fading, until another note comes to join it or move it on its way. Super thick gatefold sleeve in an extra thick plastic sleeve. Double lp on super heavy 220 gram vinyl. The copies we have also come with a 7" featuring two extended remixes by Tom Rechion of the Los Angeles Free Music Society. So nice.

Killer collab between Aussie experimental guitarist Oren Ambarchi and jack of all trades (although in this case those trades happen to be strings, synth and percussion) Jim O'Rourke, who have collaborated together in the past, always with other players though, so this is their first as a duo. And it's darkly lovely, a post minimal bit of synthscapery, liberally laced with mysterious percussion, and unlikely edits, all woven into a single track, separated into two movements/sides. The first of which begins with a bit of distorted crunch, which quickly gives way to a dreamy bit of chiming melody, and softly swirling synth, tinkling tones and washed out drift, still retaining some of the residual crunch, but in fragmented form, all over a deep shimmery thrum, peppered with muted heartbeat like pulses. As the piece progresses, gamelan like melodies surface, as do thick swaths of rumbling buzz, the sound a little bit glitchy, wreathed in warm swirls of soft focus feedback, all warm and drifty and dreamlike, lush swells washing over disembodied Appalachia, streaks of skree, strange bits of percussion, a softly swirling sea of overtones and sympathetic sounds, slipping from minimal abstraction to melodic dronemusic, all arranged with jagged edits that don't distract so much as add occasional texture. The second movement/side seems to add more tolling bells, more buzz and low end rumble, the sounds softly cacophonous, the tone more ominous and foreboding, but still hauntingly dreamy, and mysteriously lovely. Gorgeous stuff.

Feedback is as much about the context of recording as it is about musicians who set their guitars up against their amps while they step out for a bite to eat. Australia's Oren Ambarchi and Martin Ng have taken great care to find the right space to manufacture the lustrous feedback on Reconnaissance. The feedback here resists the urge to violently screech; rather it floats like the gentle

RealAudio clip: Procession
RealAudio clip: Surfacing

The latest (number six) in Audiosphere's "Invisible Architecture" series of super-sized-jewel-cased collaborative cds brings together up-and-coming Austrialian experimentalist Oren Ambarchi, the veteran Swiss "cracked everyday electronics" duo Voice Crack, and well-known improv percussion/electronics specialist Gunter Muller. Muller and Voice Crack have worked together before, and their aesthetic of mostly quiet, abstract chaos meshes well with Ambarchi's Fennesz-ish guitar and electronics. Not that you can really tell for sure exactly who is making what noises on this recording. Always dense and occasionally building in volume, there's a lot of interesting "microsounds" to catch here. Four tracks, 41 minutes of carefully crackling drone squeak buzz thwump brrr crzz whhhh. MPEG Download: "Walking Oysters" [/audio/ambarchiwalking.mp3]

MPEG stream: Walking Oysters

Pure drone bliss on offer here from the prolific Australian guitar experimentalist Oren Ambarchi (whom you may already know) and Swedish musician Johan Berthling (a less familiar name -- he's brother to Andreas Berthling, and with him a member of the field recordings group Tape, who are also to be found on Hapna). These two got together in a studio in Stockholm last year with the intent to drone, and drone they did, Ambarchi on electric guitar and Berthling playing the harmonium. They recorded what, with some editing, became this single track, thirty minute long cd release. "My Days Are Darker Than Your Nights" is a totally pleasant -- assuming that serious drones are yr cup of tea to begin with, that is -- shimmering, buzzing, faintly grinding drone piece. Ambarchi's guitar eventually, occasionally engages in some wavering tones, cyclic and repetitive in the vein of some '70s minimalist Reich/Riley thing, while Berthling's harmonium always pulsates mechanically, and ever so slightly melodically, in the background. The sound of both merges into a gorgeous whole. Good stuff, a strong n' steady drone release that really mesmerizes (though it's got a high end that might not allow peaceful sleep, a la some of Tony Conrad's drones). Is this sort of thing the religious music of the 21st century? Could be.... MPEG Download: "My Days Are Darker Than Your Nights" [/audio/ambarchiberthling.mp3]

MPEG stream: My Days Are Darker Than Your Nights

Another underground superstar collaboration. This time Aussie guitarist Oren Ambarchi, the Stephen O'Malley half of SUNNO))), as well as one of the Master Musicians Of Bukkake, Randall Dunn, got together to conjure up a gorgeously spooky alternative score to a film by Alexis Destoop called Kairos, as is often the case, we've yet to see the film, but the music on its own is pretty great. As you might imagine from the lineup, it's all shades of dark and ominous, sinister and menacing, haunting and atmospheric, from swirling flurries of glitchy electronics, to drowsy, twang flecked, Earth-like crawls, caked in gristle and grit, thrumming swells of industrial rumble, and dense billows of chordal shimmer, some moments dark and jazzy, others cosmic and dreamy, still others driving and droney. There are some heavy moments for sure, the second side/movement takes the skitter of the first and adds some rhythmic muscle, as well as some thick sheets of crumbling buzz, creating what almost sounds like a drone metal Necks, but laced with more psychedelia and some buried almost-Eastern sounding melodies, like a blurry, melting raga wrapped around some gristled/grizzled slow core. After that, the sound gets a bit more mystical and abstract, much like Dunn's Master Musicians, spaced out drifts, hushed and haunting, but only briefly, before blossoming into wild, percussion heavy psychedelic freakout. Japanese psych chanteuse Ai Aso contributes some dreamy vocals on the second half of side 3, transforming the sound into a hushed, psychedelic torch song, before returning to the drone and buzz for the sprawling final movement, gorgeous arcs of warm guitarbuzz and moaning, droning tones, layered and lush, drifting drowsily, almost like all the instruments are gradually detuning, the shimmery dreamlike drift, fading, darkening, and blackening into an almost SUNNO)))-like slo-mo finale.

Reissue of the debut cd from this atmospheric local group, that uses classical chamber music instrumentation to create dark, beautiful sounds akin to a black metal Rachel's. Black metal? Well, this was originally released this by Elfenblut, an imprint of now defunct British label Misanthropy, famous as the home of Burzum! And, for further "heavy" credentials, we should mention that band leader Kris Force has played with both Neurosis and the Swans. This was previously only an import, and now boasts three bonus tracks exclusive to this new version!

Originally released as a super limited 10", local moody metallic chamber ensemble Amber Asylum's latest Garden Of Love is now available on cd, again limited, this time to 750 copies, packaged in a mini lp style sleeve wrapped in a hand stamped brown paper outer sleeve, and includes the previously unreleased bonus track "Serenade" available only on this here cd. Four brand new tracks that take Amber Asylum's gothic strings and vocals sound even further out, having now expanded their lineup to include former members of The Gault and SF black metal legends Weakling. The opening track is quite possibly the best thing we've heard from them, a brooding dramatic soundscape of intensely moody strings, and anguished melodies. Locked in by simple almost programmed sounding rhythms with haunting operatic vocals drifting ghostlike through the mix. Sounds a bit like Skepticism with a string section, and you know that is a very good thing. The second track heads into almost Goblin territory at points with super aggressive pizzicato strings, bows sawing away at the strings emitting truly ominous melodies. The rest of the record is far more tranquil, expansive, romantic, epic, melancholic yet hopeful, with delicate crystalline piano figures, very subtle strings and sweetly plaintive vocals. So nice.

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MPEG stream: Autonomy Suite

First we've heard from local moody metallic chamber ensemble Amber Asylum in quite some time. Rumor is there have been label problems, but you'd never know it from this amazing self released 10" (other than it being, um, self released). Three brand new tracks that take Amber Asylum's gothic strings and vocals soun even further out, having now expanded their lineup to include former members of the Gault and SF black metal legends Weakling. The opening track is quite possibly the best thing we've heard from them, a brooding dramatic soundscape of intensely moody strings, and anguished melodies. Locked in by simple almost programmed sounding rhythms with haunting operatic vocals drifting ghostlike through the mix. Sounds a bit like Skepticism with a string section, and you know that is a very good thing. The second track heads into almost Goblin territory at points with super aggressive pizzicato strings, bows sawing away at the strings emitting truly ominous melodies. Side B clocks in at a little over 12 minutes, and is far more tranquil, an expansive, romantic epic, melancholic yet hopeful, with delicate crystalline piano figures, very subtle strings and sweetly plaintive vocals. So nice. Available only on limited edition 10" vinyl!

Ignore the new age blurbs on the back of this cd, this is a beautiful piece of Morricone-style dark cinematic bliss from San Francisco violinist/vocalist Kris Force, featuring a revolving cast of guests, including John from A Minor Forest.

Esteemed chamber music goddess Kris Force returns with what is quite possibly her most stark compositions to date. She's joined by some of the Bay Area's finest and most beloved of the indie metal and rock community including John Cobbett (Hammers Of Misfortune, Ludicra), Jackie Perez-Gratz (Grayceon), Tim Green (The Fucking Champs, Concentrick), Lorraine Rath (The Gault), and Sarah Schaffer (The Gault, Weakling). Still Point begins with three songs that slowly drift in on droning strings (violin, viola and cello) and ghostly choral vocals. From there the gothic proceedings build gradually with the entrance of minimal piano, guitar, flute, trumpet and percussion. As always, absolutely haunting and stunningly gorgeous!

MPEG stream: In The Still Point He Remains
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2nd album (and domestic full-length debut) of atmospheric chamber music from this acclaimed San Francisco band, sort of the goth-metal answer to Rachel's. Not that this sounds metal at all, it just seems to be the eerie classical music thing that appeals equally to Satanic Black Metallers, "dark ambient" aficianados, and so forth - and the group's association with Neurosis adds to their metal cred.

Fourth album from this popular local chamber-rock outfit. Somewhere between Dead Can Dance, Godspeed You Black Emperor, and In Extremo (the more RenFaire parts). Gothic atmospheres created with cello, violin, drums, and wispy female vocals. Mournful instrumental acoustic string-drone embellished with electronic effects: a beautiful, depressive sound. The album concludes with their surprisingly straightforward cello-metal version of "Black Sabbath" (complete with rain and thunder intro). That cover, which seemed so suitable, is a bit disappointing, but the rest of the disc is quite nice and mood-inducing.

It's been a while since we've heard from the Magik Markers, but the way we remember MM frontwoman Elisa Ambrogio is as some kind of wild whirling dervish, screeching and caterwauling, crawling into the crowd, a disheveled demonic presence and most certainly the main musical motivator behind MM's sloppy, chaotic noise rock. More recent MM records found the group drifting toward a more polished, almost poppy sound; but that sound remained plenty wild and dissonant, which makes Ambrogio's first solo record that much more of a surprise, just check out opener "Superstitious", which sounds like Best Coast, or the Dum Dum Girls, a hazy, softly swirling, psychedelic gloom pop torch song, rife with classic melodies, gorgeous vocals, echo drenched piano, a pulsing minimal rhythm. A darkly dreamy slab of minimal garage pop beholden to sixties girl groups way more than the noise rock that spawned the Magik Markers. And while at first we thought maybe that first song was an anomaly, steeling ourselves for the onslaught of noisy chaos, it never really comes. The Immoralist is a dark-psych pop confection all the way through. Woozy harmonies drift amidst skeletal arrangements, some fuzzy guitar glides weightless over plodding beats and moaning sinister strings. It's all wound up in a grainy, gauzy production, rife with dubbed out FX, reverb and echo, those FX sometimes billowing into clouds of granular distortion, but again, instead of making it noisier, it just adds even more of a lysergic vibe, the record unwinding languorously, a gloriously dreamy dark pop that will definitely appeal to fans of all the Girl bands (i.e. Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls, U.S. Girls, Girls At Dawn), as well as other psychedelic dream pop combos like Beach House, Brilliant Colors, Best Coast, etc.

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Awesome reissue of this seminal crust classic. Heavy and noisy and brilliant. Includes 2 bonus tracks!

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

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When we first got this in, we were convinced it was some reissued lost psychedelic gem from the sixties or seventies. From the blurry red and black cover, the dearth of information, and heck it's on Locust, a label well known for killer reissues. So we threw it on, and we were still convinced, although we were blown away by its raw feral blown out psychedelic poppiness. Were there really bands making this sort of inspired and drug fueled racket 30 or 40 years ago? Perhaps, but Amen Dunes wasn't one of them. No, Amen Dunes is apparently the work of one man, a guy called Damon McMahon, who spent an extended stretch holed up in his house in the Catskills (although apparently now, he's holed up in his new house, in CHINA!) channeling some serious demons, and creating a brain melting, warped and distorted, fucked up and freaked out psychedelic classic. There are definitely hints of the new wave of noise rock, all that shit gaze stuff, and lo-fi garage, Eat Skull, Psychedelic Horseshit, Wavves, Oh Sees, etc, but Amen Dunes' sound is much more old school, going all the way back to drugged out sonic visionaries like Roky Erickson and George Brigman and the like. Super distorted, everything doused in reverb and delay and distortion, the recording super lo-fi, tape hiss all over the place, murky and muddy, and gloriously fuggy, the vocals slipping from feral shriek, to swoonsome moan, to almost Beach Boys like croon, but even at their most melodic, they remain a bit off kilter, slightly ominous, the rantings of some inspired lunatic right on the edge. The music is rough and raw, but catchy as hell, guitars buzz and jangle, detuned into bizarre Eastern sounding modalities or whipped up into a frenzied squall of Hendrixian freakout. The bass is a huge part of the sound too, rubbery and warm, thick and undulating, sometimes just offering up a layer of deep rumble, other times creating some truly haunting melodic counterpoint. The drums are simple and sporadic, a shuffling pound, a minimal skitter, a loose rickety framework for the Dunes' constantly-on-the-verge-of-collapse echo drenched drone pop, a sort of chilled out Dead C vibe permeates the proceedings as well, a way more damaged and even more druggy Velvets vibe too, all of this shit through with some old timey folkiness, it's a bit of a hodge podge, but it works. The fractured looped psych drone weirdness of "Fleshless Esta Mira Wife Of Spades" is followed by the almost countryish "Patagonian Domes", before the woozy atonal Supreme Dicks worship of "By The Bridal", with some serious shades of Neutral Milk Hotel (we kid you not). The rest of the record is equally as tripped out and all over the place, while managing to sound like an actual record, not just a collection of songs. "White Lace" is a gorgeous chunk of softly strummed murk, with super catchy vocals, layers of hiss and buzz, and a smattering of strange electronics, "Castles" is total Laurel Canyon country folk, but infused with just a little more pathos, the vocals a super gorgeous, on the verge of cracking wail, the hand claps, shakers and simple strumming underpinned by a warm wheezing organ. A handful of the songs sound almost Beatles-esque, super classic jangly pop, just barely psychedelic, with the guitars subtly warped, but the killer hooks totally intact, and then the record closes with "Breaker", maybe one of the most moving and intense tracks on the record, the musical accompaniment, minimal, simple softly strummed guitar, and some soft organ shimmer, but the vocals, so impassioned and emotional, raw and way up front, melodic and intense, howling and wailing, with multiple voices multitracked into a gorgeous wavery, fractured two part harmony, that ends up sounding like some sort of outsider gospel music. Totally inspirational, mind blowing, rocking, catchy, darkly mysterious... Easily one of our favorite records of the year so far!!

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MPEG stream: Miami Beach
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This is one of those records that seems custom made for aQ. Outsider psychedelic folk troubador Amen Dunes covers three super obscure Ethiopian pop songs, and it's not just the concept that's so perfect, the execution too is incredible. The originals transformed into something much more psychedelic and tripped out, but not so much that they don't still sound like Ethiopian pop songs. The guitars are a bit more buzzy, wreathed in effects, the rhythms murky and buried in the mix, the vocals doused in reverb, a gorgeous soaring emotive trill, that to these ears sound like he really is singing in the language of the original (Amharic? Tigrinya?), loping and dreamy, some heartfelt dark balladry that somehow sounds even cooler all roughed up and psyched out. Imagine some obscure Ethiopiques comp with a focus on lo-fi seventies Ethiopian psychedelia. If only there was such a thing. But until there is, get lots in these three gorgeous jams. SO recommended.

Previous records from Amen Dunes, aka Damon McMahon, have been twisted collections of avant outsider folk, the skeletal songsmithery balanced by an experimental streak a mile wide. Even the prettiest songs on those records were buried in sonic murk, and consequently, hushed, delicately strummed ballads were generally stretched way out into spacey sprawls of abstract sound and wreathed in musique concrete filigree. On Love, however, McMahon seems to have ditched much of that weirdness in favor of crafting some straight up, almost baroque sounding, extremely lush and lovely folk/pop, that on first listen was almost too straight ahead, but gradually, with repeated listens, revealed itself as something much more, a truly and subtly dark little gem. The almost orchestral opener "White Child" combines simple strummed guitars, and achingly crooned vocals, all over a lustrous, undulating backdrop of moaning horns and woozy strings. While at first blush, it seemed that there's much unabashed Dylan worship going on, the record quickly blossoms into something much more mysterious, the production reverby and echo drenched, McMahon's super distinctive vocals sounding better than ever, the music too, deceivingly simplistic sounding, but rich with subtle nuance, and lushly layered, a softly swirling morass of psychedelic shimmer, and slow crawl dream pop balladry, blurred into a subtly mutated strain of spaced out, haunting and otherworldly alternative universe psych folk drift.

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When we first discovered the timeless otherworldly space drone psych folk of Amen Dunes, we couldn't shake the feeling that it had to be old, some lost psych holy grail. For all its fuzz and warble and crunch, it had this strange timeless quality, at once personal and intimate, as if, like many small private pressings, the actual pressing was just going through the motions, a sort of validation that meant very little to the creator, but for the listener, the fact that these sounds were captured, it was perhaps as important as the creation itself. We of course eventually accepted the fact that Amen Dunes was not in fact some strange guru-like mystic, white bearded and black robed, living in a cave somewhere (somewhere that just so happened to have recording capabilities of course) and was in fact, a young guy, a music maker, band dude, who just so happened to be able to channel the spirit of some lost time, be it the sixties, seventies, eighties... the sound of Amen Dunes, was, and is, a soft cacophony of jangle and buzz, laced with elements of raga and drone, folk and country, all woven into an idiosyncratic whole, that somehow sounds like all of those and none of those. Ever since that record, which of course we made a Record Of The Week, we had been dying for more. With the release of Murder Dull Mind, the reason for no new recordings is made obvious, as the man behind Amen Dunes, Damon McMahon, was in fact living in China for the last few years, where this ep was recorded in his apartment. Mostly improvised, these songs manage to capture the same spirit as the debut, but definitely takes the Amen Dunes sound in a new, more hushed and intimate direction. That sound is still ritualistic and psychedelic, beginning with a strange incantation, alien vocal harmonies, sounding a bit like a more ominous Beach Boys vocal track, wound around deep synth thrum and mysterious flickering electronics, before giving way to spare skeletal acoustic guitars, all reverby and hazy, wrapped in tangled psychedelic filigree, echo drenched vocals, and some soaring distorted and blown out choruses. It's like some sort of woozy Eastern tinged raga psych-folk, a bit like the first record, but more stripped down, occasionally abstract and buzzy, but just as often downright poppy. While elsewhere, simple snare drum skitter shuffles beneath urgently strummed steel string guitar, the sound almost Latin, way blown out vox, also suggestive of seventies acid folk. The A-side finishes off with a caustic noise jam, a swirling squall of chaotic psych guitar noise, buried voices and gnarled string buzz collide with buried percussive stutter and howling Haino-ish freakouts. The B-side features 3 tracks of soft spacious almost country sounding reverby folk, strange vocals drift amidst hazy streaks of washed out sound, atmospheric and weirdly lush, very rainy day sounding (in fact, on one of the tracks, you can hear what almost sounds like rain in the background), the whole thing simple and stripped down, personal and emotional, yet still somehow subtly lysergic and psychedelic, a gorgeous intimate sonic missive, a fervent fever dream in sound. So good.

A super limited new release from Amen Dunes, aka Damon McMahon, released on his own Perfect Lives label, and limited to just 300 copies. And it's awesome, and awesomely weird, a sort of avant deconstructed take on the old Amen Dunes sound, the vibe is super dark, a sort of bedroom loner folk or maybe a demented mad scientist Appalachia, whatever it is, it's woozy and off kilter and deeply and darkly psychedelic. Here's a track by track play by play: 1) Creepy droney murk drifts beneath drowsy piano, wreathed in psychedelic shimmer, distant chant like vocals hover above subtle little melodic trills, the whole thing sort of Caretakery. 2) Dreamy Spanish guitar draped over a woozy varispeed backdrop, a murky reverb drenched slo-mo Appalachia. 3) Weird musique concrete, looped sampled breathing, skittery effected percussion and growled vocalizations, hauntingly abstract. 4) Fuzz guitar over warped and warbly vocals, detuned melodies and churning rhythmic skitter, the whole thing dubbed out and druggy. 5) Eighties echoey drumbeats suspended over muddy vocal loops, tripped out and darkly psychedelic. 6) An ominous Jandekian dirge, thick distorted guitar, and an almost Elvis sounding croon. 7) A dreamy melodic coda that almost sounds like some obscure Christmas carol, albeit one thoroughly deconstructed, all shimmering high end, clouds of cymbal shimmer and free jazz drum splatter. 8) A weird, lonely piano lament, with alien speaking-in-tongues vocals, all tangled up into woozy nonsense, all set to a haunting plaintive piano. Cool, weird stuff. And again, we have VERY limited copies, so if you want one, order quick before they're gone, cuz they'll probably go fast...

Newest record from Damon McMahon, aka Amen Dunes. His first record, Dia, we made a Record Of The Week, describing it as sounding like some lost psychedelic gem from the Sixties, and the second Amen Dunes record, Murder Dull Mind, was more of the same, gloriously haunting, outsider bedroom psych, channeling the spirit of Syd Barrett and Skip Spence, a mysterious otherworldly folk-pop artifact steeped in druggy atmosphere and loosed from traditional folk music tropes, resulting in haunting sonic ritualism that seemed to exist out of time. This latest record is a logical extension of its two predecessors, and if anything, it seems to be the poppiest of the bunch. Right from the start, "Baba Yaga" had us expecting something WAY more far out, but instead, it's a gorgeous slab of soaring folk pop, all sun dappled and dreamy, with some surprisingly powerful vocals, all wound up in blurry shimmer, and what sounds like tangled strings or heavily effected harmonicas, either way, it might be the best proper 'song' McMahon has come up with yet. And much of the record follows suit, taking the early Pink Floydisms and mixing those up with some Byrds-y twang, some Grateful Dead jamminess, all blurred into a hazy chunk of lost Sixties folk pop. We can even hear some early Bee Gees, some Zombies, some truly gleefully twisted classic pop moments mixed in (check out "Not A Slave", which sounds like it could have been some alternate universe hit), which makes Through Donkey Jaw a surprisingly catchy record. And we have to say it definitely suits them (him?). Not sure if it was a conscious decision, or a natural progression, but this record is most definitely about songs first, that said, the sounds those songs are created with, are pretty impressive, a dead ringer for records of the era, but here and there some strange synth, or some odd bit of production will give it away as something more modern that it purports to be. And there's still plenty of experimentalism going on, it's just more subtle, either whole non-song-tracks, or subtly woven in amidst the hooks and weirdly proper verse chorus verse arrangements. The vocals are woozy and laid back, wreathed in soft effects, but still much more of a driving force than on past records, the sound shifting easily from jangle pop to gloom folk, tripped out psychedelia to jammy psych rock without batting an eye, and managing to make it all hang together like a proper record. The final track (a bonus track) is titled "Tomorrow Never Knows". Is it a cover of THAT song? It's actually hard to tell, but what we do know is that it's one of the most gloriously far out moments on the record, a dark brooding bit of rhythmic propulsive krautrock, laced with pounding piano, swirls of distorted guitar crunch, bleating horns, shards of feedback, wild tribal freakouts, after the otherwise song oriented psychedelic folk pop of the preceding thirteen tracks, it's a pretty unexpected, fantastic, and sonically unhinged finale.

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Somehow this is the first record we've reviewed from these Belgian heavies, even though this is their fourth full length, but they've definitely found the perfect home for their epic, sprawling riffscapes, as their aesthetic is quite similar to Neurosis', huge heaving riffage, churning slow burn heaviness, pounding tribal percussion, anguished vocals, imagine Neurosis via Godspeed with a serious experimental bent, and you'd be close to approximating Amenra. Four tracks here, the shortest a little over nine minutes, the longest thirteen, the band weaving blackened expanses of doom-prog heaviness, streaks of feedback swirling around Teutonic riffage, lots of space, long stretches of minimal drift, of hypno rock lope, and doomic lumber, spaced out droned out mesmer, and psych-trance drift, all of which is touched on in opener "Dearborn And Buried". That track pretty much sets the template for Amenra's smoldering slow build bombast, the Godspeed comparison no more apt than on the second track "Boden", the opening few minutes a brooding murky churn, laced with soft focus melodies and strange scraped percussion, slowly ratcheting up the tension, before exploding into a seriously epic avalanche of majestic metallic crush, worshippers of Isis, Neurosis, Pelican and all the rest, who have yet to discover these guys are in for a revelation, their skull crushing riff heavy heave tempered with soaring spidery melodies, before breaking down into a stretch of softly psychedelic drift before another final salvo, all swirling, soaring heaviness. And so it goes, the band engaged in a constant sonic battle between light and dark, a push and pull between black hole heaviness and heavenly light melody, never more fully laid out than on the 13 minute "A Mon Ame", which displays a surprisingly light touch, the band smearing soft chords into dreamlike swells, adding layer upon layer of washed out riffage, of droning melodies, of lush layered texture, clouds of cymbal shimmer, even when the drums kick in, the sound remains restrained, a tense post rock churn, replete with crooned, almost chant-like clean vocals, building to a brief bit of explosive crush, before quickly settling back into a hushed psychedelic drift, eventually building to a final heaving climax, all shrieked vox, roiling distorted guitars and concussive drum bombast. Fans of Neur-Isis-y heaviness and epic post rock flecked doom, bow down!

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Not your laptop processing from Mille Plateaux or 12K, Amenti Suncrown prefer the increasingly antiquated arsenal of multiple keyboards, samplers, and color flashing gadgets to achieve their dark ambient / electronic soundscapes. Aptly released by World Serpent, Amenti Suncrown reflects a number of the same ideas held by World Serpent staples Coil and Nurse With Wound, with an

Following last year's wonderful compilation of this Austin, TX gentle pop combo's miscellaneous singles and unreleased tracks 'Through The '90s' and their warm'n'breezy album from '99 'The Golden Band' is 'Know By Heart' their fourth full length. Another batch of the lovely, hushed tunes for which the A.A.S. are well known and loved. Plentiful chiming organ tones, lightly strummed

RealAudio clip: Like Foxes Through Fences
RealAudio clip: Choir Vandals

Starting things off with lengthy cycle of a lil' drum beat and an off kilter organ melody, this new American Analog Set album sounds not unlike an indie, lo-fi Stereolab. Add some soft male and female vocals, a tambourine along with some electric guitars and the familiar AAS sound comes a little bit more into focus. However the next song stirs thoughts of Pinback and Portastatic. Perhaps it's because Promise Of Love is definitely one of AAS's most fleshed out albums. No great departures from past efforts, just positively brimming with mellow lushness. So pretty pretty pretty!

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Wistful, blissful and oh so dreamy. The occasionally self-abbreviated AmAnSet hone their post-rock shaded indie pop stylings just a little bit more on Set Free. With their murmurred sleepy-boy vocals, smooth chiming tones and warm guitar interplay, they once again nestle in nicely right amongst the gentle likes of Sea & Cake, Low, Pinback and the slow Ira-sung songs of Yo La Tengo. Includes a suitably drowsy cover of Codeine's "Jr". Ahhh, no sharp edges here, just such soothing sweetness!

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Dark and slow post rock; warm, laid back and a little bit fuzzy. Fans of The Sea and Cake: this is right up your alley. Breezy.

[ aquarius records catalogue — A ]