[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 1001 through 1050 of 2272.

The soothing mellowness of American Analog Set is captured wonderfully on this collection of various singles and unreleased tracks (original sleeve artworks are reproduced in the liner notes). Conjuring lazy-summer-afternoon-in-a-hammock daydreams that bring to

RealAudio clip: High Fidelity Vs. Guy Fidelity
RealAudio clip: Magnificent Seventies

Well, one thing's for sure, American Analog Set sure like their crash cymbals loud... at least that's how it seems from the first track "Desert Eagle (All I Want For Christmas Mix)". Rattled me right outta my seat. Luckily that doesn't happen too often on this six-song EP. Packed with reworkings and remixes, it features two tracks by the band themselves (one a remix, one a cover of a Her Space Holiday song), two contributions from their seeming electronic counterparts Her Space Holiday (actually those particular tracks also sound like there was some input from The Faint camp too... hmmm). HSH first stretch an already glistening, mellow AmAnSet pop tune out into an even more laidback, shuffling number, then picking things up a bit with an almost funky groovin' remix. The last two tracks are the re-workings of Belgian's Styrofoam who gently break AmAnSet's melodies apart and apply their own light, sparkling electronics to the picture.

RealAudio clip: Desert Eagle (All I Want For Christmas Mix)
RealAudio clip: Know By Heart (Her Space Holiday Mix)
RealAudio clip: The Postman (Styrofoam's Just Like The Nineties Never Happened Mix)

Accounts of the music and sports worlds colliding should certainly have their own chapter in the rock history books - immediate visions of a putting Hootie and a soccerball-kickin' Robert Smith spring to mind - and oftentimes it seems a little questionable whether it was such a good idea. Case in point, this band's chosen moniker. Not to be confused with Death Cab For Cutie Ben Gibbard's side project All Time Quarterback! I admit I'm not aware of if the name has a story behind it or if they just thought it sounded good. All I imagine is them taking the stage with a "Hi, we're American Football!" But anyways, AF are a trio of lads namely Steve Holmes (on guitar), Steve Lamos (on drums and trumpet... just like in the movie "Waiting For Guffman" - well, sort of.) and vocalist Mike Kinsella (member of so many bands, we've lost count, some of which include Joan of Arc, Owls and Cap'n Jazz, not to mention his recent, lovely solo project Owen). It follows in very much the same path as all of Kinsella's other musical endeavours, that is, sensitive guy emo indie post-rock, with a bit of a jazzy feel. Pretty guitar melodies. Gentle, hushed vocals. Horns drifting in and out and all around. Quite nice, know what I mean? So, of course if you're a fan you won't be disappointed. Mike Kinsella completists: Collect 'em all just like baseball cards!

AMC's first 2 albums finally reissued on disc. This is Engine, the 2nd one. You still see Engine around in used LP bins, but Restless Stranger is really rare. I guess that's how Warner Bros justifies the price.

Hey, look what SF classic just resurfaced after many moons languishing in label limbo / out-of-print-ness. American Music Club's fifth full length Everclear! This album which was originally released fifteen years ago delivers Mark Eitzel and co. in fine form from the bittersweet heartache of "Why Won't You Stay" to the anthemic proportions of "Rise" to the hillbilly hilarity of "Crabwalk". Really makes you wonder how great albums like this could be allowed to go out of print in the first place. Don't blow it, grab one of these before they disappear again...

MPEG stream: Why Won't You Stay
MPEG stream: Crabwalk

American Music Club's Mark Eitzel and Vudi are back with some new bandmates in tow, rhythm section Steve Didelot and Sean Hoffman. Golden Age marks this veteran SF/LA band's ninth album and it is perhaps their most elaborate and expansive to date! With freshly stoked fires, it overflows with burnished, well crafted earthy country pop/rock songs. The lushness of the vocal harmonies and arrangements is remarkable and unheard of prior to this album. They complement Eitzel's dusky vocals and words. Perpetually overcast in mood with a fevered furrowed brow, he cuts right to the heart... and to the heart of the matter with lyrics both politically insightful and intimately poetic. Recommended.

MPEG stream: The Sleeping Beauty
MPEG stream: The Window On The World

It's been just shy of a decade since this beloved Bay Area band parted ways with members pursuing various solo endeavors (most notably mainman Mark Eitzel) but the legions of patient American Music Club fans will surely extend a warm welcome to this, the group's reunion album, and it doesn't disappoint. Love Songs For Patriots is a suitably somber, burnished work that smoothly picks up where the band left off back in 1995. That means you can expect a consistently high standard of songcraft and musicianship on par with the likes of Robyn Hitchcock, mid-career Elvis Costello, and Red House Painters' Mark Kozelek. Really, the only thing that seems a bit out of place is the first song. It has a smoky, almost cabaret feel, but after that things settle into more familiar AMC achingly earnest, downbeat kind of mood.

MPEG stream: Love Is
MPEG stream: Song Of The Rats Leaving The Sinking Ship

AMC's first 2 albums finally reissued on disc. This is Restless Stranger, the first one. You still see Engine around in used LP bins, but Restless Stranger is really rare. I guess that's how Warner Bros justifies the price.

Soundtrack to this great film about Harvey Pekar. Only two of the tracks here are what would be considered the "original score", composed by Mark Suozzo, the rest are the -- mostly -- jazz cuts featured throughout the film (undoubtedly some of Pekar's faves). Along with a couple tracks by close friend and collaborator Robert Crumb (with his Cheap Suit Serenaders) there are some rare and not-so-rare tracks by John Coltrane, Joe Maneri, Lester Young & Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Marvin Gaye and more. The collection is annotated with liner notes by Harvey himself -- how could it be otherwise, right? Also included on the disc, for those of you with computers (and I know one or two of you out there have one), is a collection of comic book covers, screen savers, instant messenger icons, desktop wallpaper, and an exclusive comic you can print out. Cool.

MPEG stream: Paniots Nine
MPEG stream: Time Passes Strangely

We had sort of given up on ever getting this in stock, which was killing us. One of our favorite records of last year (one of Andee's top 10), a record some of us listened to EVERY DAY, over and over. Heavy and buzzy, but so beautiful and relentlessly catchy. Sure we've had black metal records in the past that were 'pretty'. Catchy too. But those records took their hooks and their soaring melodies and wrapped them all up in spiky blackness, subtly catching our ear beneath all the buzz, the prettiness more a byproduct than a reason for being. But Amesoeurs are completely different. It's almost like some shoegazey, indie druggy drone rock band decided their blissed out indie jangle needed more, well, BLACKNESS, and thus enlisted a corpsepainted frontman, with a demonic banshee shriek, to wail and gnash his teeth over the band's nearly perfect buzzing pop. From the first notes of the opener "Bonheur Ampute" you're hooked. If you didn't know what was playing, you'd probably be thinking it was some lost Swervedriver track, or some modern band channeling My Bloody Valentine and Ride. The music is that gorgeous. The guitars are thick and heavy, a little buzzy, but they glisten and sparkle, and well, jangle. The opening riff is so impossibly catchy, sort of minor key, but only barely, this is simply perfect pop music wrapped in a thin layer of buzzing blackness. There's no denying it. A loping riff, underpinned by strummed acoustic guitar, while over the top guitars keen and soar, melodies intertwine, harmonies drift and shimmer, even the black metal shriek starts to transform into something less evil becoming more just another element of the blissy poppy buzz. Near the end of the first track, all the other instruments drop out leaving just the acoustic guitar, and when the band kicks back in, they go for it, transforming the track into some otherworldy buzzpop, that original riff ringing out, but over the top some gorgeously melodic underwater, blooping Pinback like bass lines and soaring angular guitar melodies. The second track begins with a haunting spidery Slinty guitar line, minor key and skeletal, hovering in a wide open expanse of dark shimmer, when the band lurches into action, the main riff sounds like some classic Maiden hook, transformed into a loping pop song, the band eventually ramp it up, the drums becoming a double kicking blast, the vocals shrieking, but the main melody remains and the song becomes a haunting emotional minor key buzz drenched slab of shoegazer black metal, complete with acoustic breakdowns and a mysterious percussive coda. The final track opens up with another gorgeous tangled bit of clean guitar, that turns into straight up clean ringing indie jangle, but surprises us with ethereal female vocals, which transform it into some nineties sounding dark pop like Velocity Girl or something. Eventually, a buzzing guitar joins the fray, and by the end, it's another swirling blackened slab of blissed out buzz. So fucking awesome. Black metal record of the year! Of forever! And that's assuming that this even counts as black metal... Either way, this is absolutely essential. Black metalheads don't be put off by the prettiness, we love us some Antaeus and Katharsis and Darkthrone and all that, but this is just so goddamn good. And all you indie rock mix tape makers, try blowing somebody's mind by slipping one of these tracks into your next mix, right there between Spoon and Pavement. The perfect black metal gateway drug... (And be sure to check out -- if you can find 'em -- Amesoeurs mainman Neige's other bands, Alcest, who take the blissed out pop thing even further, and Peste Noire, a more black, but equally strange and pretty outfit. We'll try to track them down for the store, but who knows...)

MPEG stream: Bonheur Ampute
MPEG stream: Ruines Humaines

Finally! After three, years, France's Amesoeurs release their debut full length. And it's pretty shocking when you think about all the fuss these guys (and gal) have stirred up, with only FOUR songs to their name. FOUR songs in THREE YEARS. And yet, people were obsessed with those four songs, ourselves included, but hell, those four songs were fantastic, magical, barely black metal to the point where we had trouble understanding why metalheads liked it at all, but that's the thing, it managed to transcend, the songwriting is amazing, the arrangements, the production, the riffs, and mood, the ambience, Amesoeurs really are something special. And it's not like they were doing nothing for the last three years, mainman Neige, managed to release records by his other bands, Peste Noire, Alcest, Forgotten Woods, Lantlos, in fact 3 of the four members of Amesoeurs also play in Peste Noire, but don't be expecting any of that gnarled raw black weirdness, no, Amesoeurs as most folks already know is all about melody, songcraft, it's more post rocky and shoegazey than buzzy and black, at least most of the time, and never more than on this new one. Vocalist and bassist Audrey Sylvain takes center stage here, singing most of the songs, helping Amesoeurs create a gorgeous lush sound that is so far removed from black metal, even blasts of buzz or furious riffing can't take away from its pure poppiness. Some of these songs sound like a band who should be on Slumberland not on Profound Lore. Anyway, Amesoeurs starts off with a blast, some Joy Division-y bass, some mathy angular post rocky guitar, simple stripped down drumming, very moody and tense, almost new wave sounding, distant strings swell, until the guitars explode and the whole track is infused with buzz, creating an impossible hybrid, gorgeously achingly melodic and epic, but so buzz drenched and blackened, if the whole record had played out like this nonstop, people would have been flipping their lids (even more than they already are), but then that would take away from what makes Amesoeurs baffling and brilliant. The second track, "Les Ruches Malades", shows no signs of blackness at all, the guitar has some bite, some crunch, but the main riff is more jangle than buzz, the bass throbs, the drums are super tight, and Audrey's vocals are front and center, this is one of those tracks that make it hard to believe metalheads get into this band at all. Then it's back to more epic emotional blackness, buzzing, thrashing, soaring, but still jam packed with melody and moodiness, suddenly shifting to some hard rocking shoegazey jangle pop, peppered with bursts of Katatonia-like groove, before slipping into more loping rainy day bliss pop. Musically, the follow up "Recueillement" is more of the same, but here Neige adds his own shrieked black metal vox, which sound really odd draped over the minor key jangle beneath, but it also sounds kind of cool, a bit jarring for sure, but in a good way. Blackened and emotional and intense. And so it goes, most of the record loping and jangling and shoegazing, occasionally offering up a bit of black buzz, and at least one track, "Trouble (Eveils Infames)" is pure blackness, all thrashing buzzing frenzied fury, no pop to be found, but that's the only real moment of grimninty to be found, the record is much more about melody and mood, the heaviest it gets is when Neige shrieks over some woozy melancholy jangle, and then there's the title track, that is SO new wave, straight up Cure worship, right down to the bass line and the chiming guitar parts, although Amesoeurs give it a cool twist at the end adding an awesomely jagged chugging riffy outro. The record closes with another Katatonia style chunk of melancholy doom pop, although again, Neige roughs it up a bit with his blackened vokills, and after a brief stretch of silence, the record closes with a secret track of distorted drum machined and blurred buried melody. Of course WE love it. C'mon! It's like if Black Tambourine were actually Black METAL Tambourine, plenty of Katatonia, Lifelover, all that off kilter blackened pop too, but it's obvious Neige and company are black metal masters (Alcest, Peste Noire, Forgotten Woods, Mortifera, right?) so even the poppiest moments are infused with a bit of blackness, no matter how subtle, and when the band do kick out the jams, like on the record opener, it's heavy and emotional in a way few other bands, black metal or otherwise, are capable of. It might take a few listens, for some folks here it still hasn't clicked, then again it might take just one, we were smitten halfway through the first song, but then that first ep is still probably one of our most listened to records of the last several years, and if you're really in need of some blasting blackness, obviously this might not be the place to look, thankfully you don't have to look far, Neige has at least one or two other bands that'll have you covered, but if you're looking for something, gorgeous and twisted and black and dreamy and poppy and heavy and mysterious, well then, this friends, is it.

MPEG stream: Gas In Veins
MPEG stream: Les Ruches Malades
MPEG stream: Recueillement
MPEG stream: Amesoeurs

Recently, we've been marveling at the fact, that otherwise troo, grim, cvlt metalheads, seem to be totally smitten with this new wave of blissed out dreamy, barely metal black metal. Most notably, Alcest, who are more My Bloody Valentine than Burzum, and Alcest mainman Neige's other not very metal project Amesoeurs. Sure that stuff is epic and sweeping and gorgeously gauzy, but it's barely metal, let alone BLACK metal. But here we are, anything from either of those outfits is like black gold to the black metalheads world wide. Well, if the most recent Alcest had you wondering about the above, then this single will definitely be the true test. We'd been waiting ages for a new Amesoeurs record, the last ep, was an all time favorite around here, still heavy, but also mathy, and post rocky, and pretty damn shoegazey all at once. Well this most recent single, one brand new song, jettisons all traces of metal entirely. The result is pretty great, but it's hard for us to imagine metalheads digging this much. More than metal, it sounds like nineties indie rock, college rock, the female vocals are way up in front, over a jangly guitar, and super sunshiney major key melodies, hard not to think of stuff like Jale, Helium and Scrawl, which is not a bad thing at all, just a not very metal thing. But it's a killer song, and back in the day, these guys would have been huge on Simple Machines or K or one of those labels. Can't wait to hear what they do with the next full length. The flipside features a band called Valfunde, which is essentially the exact same band, except with the addition of Peste Noire mainman Famine, and he brings a little bit of metal and a whole lot of what the fuck to the proceedings. The first Valfunde track begins much like the Amesoeurs track, strummed clean guitar, a bit of jangle, minor key, but over that, another guitar, super distorted and woozy, spills out a convoluted and stumbling sea sick melody, the sound is maniacal and druggy, almost like someone is constantly and randomly twisting the tuning pegs while the guitar is being played blindfolded. The result is a song that sounds a bit like a funhouse mirror sea shanty, dizzying and completely and awesomely fucked up. The second track is the only sort-of-metal thing going on here, with a midtempo Burzumy buzz, creepy haunted house organ, while the vocals are delivered in a raspy demonic shriek, eventually joined by soaring epic guitar leads, not as damaged as the first track, but still pretty freaky, in that distinctly Peste Noire way. Good stuff for sure, but metalheads be warned, everyone else, as long as you're up for some weird shit, this might just hit the spot...

Already another release from Brian Sokel and Michael Parsell? Yes, hot on the heels of their March 2001 debut "Mutilate Us" comes "Getting Into Sinking" which reveals a much more dreamy, harmonious side to this duo. Just check out "And Then I Got To Thinking

RealAudio clip: And Then I Got To Thinking About Animals
RealAudio clip: Come Suck Down A Cloud

When I saw the cover of this cd (two clean-cut , young lads in front of a city skyline) I immediately thought "from Chicago, possibly post-rock", and I suppose I wasn't too far off on the first part at least. Finding their home on Danville, IL label

A couple of years ago these Icelandic faeries with gossamer Sigur Ros ties charmed us immensely with their first release, the Animamina cdep. Since then they've added another 'i' to their name, and now they've added another release to their young body of work. We're happy to report that their debut full length is just as lovely, if not more so, than their 2005 ep. To which we feel must be affixed the following warning: Do not use while operating heavy machinery, driving a vehicle nor participating in any other activity that requires alertness. Seriously, Kurr will lull you into a warm, inescapable, snuggly drowsiness. You might not even make it past the second song before you find yourself nodding off to their pure, gentle, chiming dreamscapes. Now, that's not a bad thing whatsoever if experienced in the appropriate, safe circumstances, right? On the cover, the four ladies are shown hand knitting what looks to be an enormous muted hued woolen scarf. A fitting image for their cozy album Kurr!

MPEG stream: Sogg
MPEG stream: Kolapot

We've been waiting oh so patiently for a full length from this delicate and beautiful Icelandic outfit ever since we were swept off our feet by their gorgeous debut ep a couple years back. Looks like there's more waiting to be done, as we wait for the soon to come full length, but at least for now, we have a brand new e.p. to keep us all warm & woozy until that fateful day finally arrives. Having spent the last few years opening for and playing with Sigur Ros, they've gradually managed to reach more and more ears, and that's a very good thing, as their lush and gorgeous, mostly instrumental and oh so melodic sound deserves a spot in all warm hearted record collections.

MPEG stream: Seoul
MPEG stream: Ugla

Amina is to Sigur Ros, as Silver Mt. Zion is to Godspeed! You Black Emperor. The four Icelandic women who comprise Amina have worked on the two more recent Sigur Ros albums, providing the additional strings to Sigur Ros' already symphonic ocean of sound. This short 4-track EP showcases their own compositions of lilting, romantic film-score music with heaving swells of violin, viola, and cello along with delicate notes upon piano, harpsichord, and small malleted instruments. Quite moody and wonderful!

MPEG stream: Skakka
MPEG stream: Fjarskanistan

Trains. Yup, this cassette is all about trains. The sound of locomotives rumbling through the urban landscape. The sound of toy trains clattering in an elliptical pattern. The sound of vintage records that captured the rolling thunder of a romanticized notion of locomotion. AMK is a one-man noise project out of Los Angeles, shruggingly active over the past three decades; and he also runs the highly prolific if not well distributed label Banned Productions with more than 200 titles in their catalog. Much of the Banned / AMK ethos is one of noise indifference, whereby the act of releasing / cataloging / documenting so much work could be seen as more important that the data held within a cassette or a business card cd-r. The amphetamine frenzied Fluxus of AMK / Banned is not without its transcendent moments though, and Spur N is one of those instances. Yeah, it is all about trains - field recordings of trains, contact mics on toy trains, and the vinyl cracked appropriation of thrift store vinyl about trains - but through this crosshatching of quietly collaged loops, AMK has created a beguiling, hypnotic mantra. Yeah, Neil Young digs the sound of trains, too. Look it up.

MPEG stream: N Gauge

Earlier this year, we reviewed two volumes of dreamy psychedelic sitar improvisations from multi instrumentalist Erik Amlee. Two discs, both absolutely gorgeous, so gorgeous in fact that we could barely keep them in stock. So we were super excited to get our hands on this, the newest release from Amlee, an actual cd, not a cd-r, another set of improvisations, this time performed on both sitar and acoustic guitar, and again so lovely and tranquil, blissy and dreamy. Deep swells of buzzing strings drift lazily, the acoustic guitar strumming along in the background, adding yet another layer of steel string buzz. Some of the tracks are totally loose and abstract, druggy expanses of slippery psychedelic sound, murky and fuzzy, like the jammiest spaciest parts of Spacemen 3 and Hawkwind stripped down into weird stoner acoustic ragas, all drone and shimmer, a buzzing swirl of warm drug den ambience and sunny afternoon sparkle, a seemingly impossible mix that sounds pretty much perfect together. Some of the other tracks are much more structured and guitar based, gorgeous little chunks of neo-Appalachia, but with all sorts of extra buzz, all nestled within a billowy fog of spacey FX. And still others are a glorious mix of the two, a dreamy collision of Eastern Raga and Western twang, a slithering squirming drone that buzzes and builds into thick squalls of resonating strings and swirling ambient hiss, all wrapped in a blown out, super distorted, reverb heavy sound thanks to some post-recording production. So great. The perfect balance of freaked out psychedelic raga bliss and shimmery lilting buzz and twang. SO RECOMMENDED!!

MPEG stream: Pulse Quickens
MPEG stream: Entering The Mist

We've been trying to list these Amlee discs for ages but we can never seem to keep enough in stock. Everytime we play them in the store, someone, sometimes several someones, always buys 'em. That's usually the truest barmoeter for how good a record is. And these discs are soooo good. Both of these discs feature Erik Amlee on sitar, the fact that Amlee is not a trained sitar player is part of what makes these discs so cool. The other being the totally bad ass drone and buzz of the sitar. We're beginning to think the sitar is the coolest instrument there is. It's like a guitar, but with way more buzzing and vibrating and droning. We can totally picture the heaviest metal band in the world with no guitars, just with electrified, amplified sitars. That's the same metal band that would have to have a Tuvan throat singer on lead vocals, but we digress. These lengthy improvisations are dense with buzzing overtones, haunting melodies, still very Eastern, as that's the nature of the instrument and its tuning, but also kind of spacey and blissed out, druggy and psychedelic. The whole thing is thick and soft and swoonsome, longform subtly shifting ragas, drowsy and fuzzy, all sepia toned and sun baked, rife with dizzyingly buzzy melodies and simple subtle percussion, and occasionaly electronic glitchery, but not so it's noticable, just adding more texture. And the recording is super casual and a bit lo-fi, you can hear shuffling feet, instrument buzz, every little nuance is just sort of captured and woven into the blurry dreamy sweetly torpid soundscape. So totally captivating. These records make the perfect late night listening, all thick and drifty and suffused with a soft rich glow that just sort of washes over you. Both volumes are equally amazing, and they're cheap too so there's no reason not to pick up the set!

MPEG stream: Awakening
MPEG stream: Too Far Gone

MPEG stream: Baptized In Lotus Wine
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British free improv pioneers AMM were recorded live in August 1972 at a festival in London called the International Carnival of Experimental Sound (its theme: Myth, Magic, Madness and Mysticism!). Now, over thirty years later, their set has been released for the first time ever as the debut in a cd series documenting the festival recordings! As ICES '72 featured over 300 performers from over 21 countries, we're bound to be in for some interesting surprises as this cd series unfolds. Starting off with AMM is a good solid choice, as they've certainly met the test of time, active and excellent even today. At this '72 show they consisted of just percussionist Eddie Prevost and saxophonist Lou Gare, along with what the press release accurately terms "their famous AMM silences". When not silent, they're VERY not silent however. Definitely more overtly "free jazz" than some of AMM's other, more meditative drone efforts. 47 minutes, one track.

MPEG stream: The Sound Of Indifference (excerpt)

AMM emerged from the first generation of UK free jazz musicians in the mid-60s, taking the notion of spontaneous improvisation well beyond any of the kind of restrictions that would locate their music within the realms of jazz, minimalism, rock, or

RealAudio clip: Part One
RealAudio clip: Part Six

The guys from the seminal UK "free improv" group AMM, whose pioneering and still unique sounds first turned people's heads way back in 1965, are of course still very much in the, um, avantgarde of avantgarde music making, both as individuals and as the

RealAudio clip: Tune Four

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

SORRY. The latest in this high profile series of split 12"s. Merzbow is at his most melodic, coming up with an almost hummable bit of white noise. The AMM side is all rhythm, primarily beautifully meandering chimes and bells.

The New York duo Amman / Josh (aka Josh Varnedore and Amman Abbasi) have composed these five soundscapes from the kind of richly resonant tones you wish would ring on endlessly. These compositions took shape in New York, Arkansas and... Iceland! There definitely is a distinct sound to music created in the latter locale, and Places most certainly is quite reminiscent to the music of artists such as Sigur Ros and Mum who call that country home. Totally shimmering and mesmerizing. The third track "Leawood" will have you totally drifting off in daydreaminess. So it may come as a brief sad moment when it ends somewhat abruptly instead of gently fading out like the other tracks do. Fortunately the fourth number "Bayshore" will quickly sweep you away once more. This ep's 20 minute running time is all to fleeting, but fortunately Amman / Josh do have a full length in the works as we write this! By the way, you might recognize one fellow in this pair from his other lovely Dynamophone label release - The Abbasi Brothers' Something Like Nostalgia. As with that album, Places is steeped in the teachings of ambient masters Eno and Glass. Very nice, indeed!

MPEG stream: Leawood
MPEG stream: Melting the Frozen Sea Within Us

Wow! What an amazing discovery by the soul archivists at Stones Throw who obviously knew the world needed to hear this amazing early seventies Indianapolis funk band. Amnesty employ tasty vocal harmonies, horns that would make Antibalas drool, and a raw & gritty vibe that has had us listening to this over and over ever since we got our hands on it. A killer collection of mostly previously unreleased tracks, the socially conscious and physically addictive sounds of true soul. Think Parliament/Funkadelic and the finest moments of Roy Ayers with touches of Afrobeat, giving these songs a strength and resonance that has our ears ringing with perfect delight. So good!

MPEG stream: Mr President
MPEG stream: Lord Help Me
MPEG stream: Free Your Mind

The first thing that struck us about this debut release from Amocoma, a mysterious black metal horde from right here in San Francisco, was the cover art, a child-like pen and ink drawing of a pile of heads, but instead of being bloody or gory or horrific, they're sort of more cartoonish, like a whole slew of stick figures were decapitated, their heads tossed in a huge pile, beneath the scrawled band logo, wreathed in clouds of smeared ink. We were definitely intrigued. And�if anything, once inside, we were even moreso... Amocoma traffic in an ultra lo-fi, muddy murky blackness. It's definitely black metal, there is plenty of buzz and blast and howled vocals, but at the same time it's sort of stumbling and noise rocky, it's probably a little of both, but it's all rendered nearly indistinct by the incredibly FX drenched lo-fi production.� Beginning with dreamy swirls of soft focus harmonics and distant rumbles, it doesn't take long for the band to lurch into action, a simple hypnotic riff, looped over and�over, almost sounding more like a bass than a guitar, and not so heavy as it is trancelike. The drums are mechanical and repetitive, the vocals are howled and swathed in reverb, spread out over the proceedings like a black cloud, so much so that at times they just sound like another layer of buzz. And the more you listen, the more pretty it sounds, sure it's raw and harsh, but the melody is so hypnotic, and the swirling clouds of distortion and reverb give everything a sort of soft focus shimmer.� We're definitely reminded of WOLD, in the sense that these little fragmented pop songs, are rendered black and buzzy by the application of super saturated distortion, tape hiss and amp buzz, reverb and delay, so even at its heaviest, it's washed out and abstract, and downright dreamy. The drone element is through the roof, and it's impossible not to hear Tim Hecker or Machinefabriek or any one of those masters of smeary dreamlike sound. At some points things get super psychedelic, like halfway through "Small Dark Sea That Was A Body" where the guitar drops out, leaving just the drums, to sort of pulse and putter in a wide open expanse of soft swirl, while drifting above are all manner of glistening guitar harmonics, spacey FX sparkles, and warm warbly melodic hum.� Damaged and dreamy, freaked out and fucked, one of our new favorite slabs of black beauty for sure...�

MPEG stream: Cowards Live Forever
MPEG stream: Small Dark Sea That Was A Body
MPEG stream: These Are Your Chocies / ...Darkness

Skwidchy, fluttering, minimal breakbeats that keep going and going and going... from Italy. Go on, give those glo-sticks a workout. Eight tracks o'techno, two of which are live sets.

It had to happen. That's right, someone naming a band Amon Dude. And it probably had to happen in Finland. Which it did. This one man band just so happens to be one of the guys from Avarus, so we were sort of expecting some damaged foresty krautrock what with the name and all, but nothing could be further from the truth. This is some super psychedelic, ultra freaked out, dense and damaged cartoonish splattery improvised noise rock weirdness. And that barely does this stuff justice. A cacophony or heavily affected percussion, damaged electronics, primitive vocal experiments, a swirling sonic chaos, clattery and explosive, jagged and head spinning, a totally mind blowing brain melting WHAT-THE-FUCK freakout. Hard to even describe what's going on, as it changes pretty much every few seconds. Imagine Carl Stalling orchestrating the No Neck Blues Band after an all night crystal meth binge, or the soundtrack to a Bollywood movie played by Violent Onsen Geisha, or a Perrey And Kingsley recording session after having taken WAY too many drugs and having some sort of musical mental breakdown or maybe even Casiotone For the Painfully Demented and Damaged. Whatever you call it, this is one weird and wacked and WAY OUT record. Fans of the weirdest of musics from the Finnish fringe will definitely want one of these, as will those of you looking for a party clearer, head spinner, lease breaker, or sonic palate cleanser. SUPER LIMITED CD-R!!! We got a handful but they will probably be gone pretty fast, and once they are, that's it...

MPEG stream: One
MPEG stream: Two

Lal Lal Lal sent us these, though technically it's private release not on that tiny Finnish label, the reason they had 'em being that Nuslux is a project of Roope from Lal Lal Lal, who's also in Maniacs Dream, Pylon, and Avarus. Meanwhile the Amon Dude (haha) is Arttu, also from Avarus, Anaksimandros, etc. It's limited, it's weird, it's vinyl, and it's Finnish. We only have a handful. What else need we say? Oh, what's it sound like? Well the Dude's side, "In Full Flight", is a live recording of their distorted, danceable (?) electronic shenanigans, while Nuslux jam on the flip, using mostly self-built analog instruments to make their "good-humored and chilled out" electronic minimalism. Basically if you liked that Lal Lal Lal festival cassette we listed not long ago, this is for you too.

Horrendously expensive new vinyl reissue of this krautrock semi-classic... Originally released back in 1971, Tanz Der Lemminge was the third album from the second incarnation of Amon Duul. Where the first incarnations of Amon Duul (along with Amon Duul I, there was supposedly an Amon Duul 0 from the mid-'60s) had much more of a anarchist / socio-political bent, Amon Duul II was the vehicle for the more musically minded folk from the collective, fully embracing the sonic potential of psychedelia. Oftentimes under-appreciated in comparison to the Krautrock triumvirate of Neu!, Can, and Faust, Amon Duul II had more than a fair share of moments that could rival the works of those three! That said, Tanz Der Lemminge may be one of the lesser works from Amon Duul II, but is still better than most of their Krautrock comtemporaries. This album is a sprawling psychedelic mess of free-form songs that filter early-Pink Floyd space-folk wispiness through some occasionally heavy prog leanings. Of particular note is the epic improv track "The Marilyn Monroe-Memorial-Church" as a meandering freakout with lots of organs, pianos, and phasing guitars that will make fans of Acid Mother's Temple very happy. "anz Der Lemminge is recommended only after you've fallen in love with Yeti and Phallus Dei, which totally kick ass.

There's at least one good song on this mid-'70s AD album, but it's more of a soft folky pop number that you wouldn't guess was these guys.

Split apart from the more politicized fraction known as Amon Duul I (Psychedelic Underground, etc.), Amon Duul II emerged in 1969 when they released this fantastic debut album. It's a masterwork of drug-dazed guitar psych, long tracks, middle eastern

RealAudio clip: Phallus Dei (excerpt 1)
RealAudio clip: Phallus Dei (excerpt 2)
RealAudio clip: Freak Out Requiem II

Seminal Krautrockers Amon Duul II are captured here on film doing what the title says, playing their debut (and perhaps 2nd best, next to their masterpiece Yeti) album. It's about a half-hour long, a psychedelic transmission from a far off time and place: Munich, Germany 1968. Fans probably need this, but we should give you a little more info. First off, it's more of an art film (Wim Wenders was one of the cinematographers!) than a live-in-concert document. In fact, while the soundtrack is very definitely a live performance of the mind-blowing hippie hoedown that Phallus Dei is, it's not exactly synched to what you see the band doing on the screen -- they're two different performances of the same material. Apparently the reason the audio and visual don't match up is because the band refused to stop playing, or do anything over, even when some of the cameras malfunctioned. So edits were necessary. But in a way it doesn't matter -- the weird disconnect just makes this all the more psychedelic, as you hear the violin before the musican starts playing it, or the bongos continue even when the drummer stops to get his hair out of his face. Not that this needs much help to be super psychedelic -- the colorful light show alone will trip you out, superimposed as it is over the long haired hippies in the band grooving out. Messing with your mind still further, the first part of the film (after a lovely opening sequence of the rising sun, later mirrored by shots of the sunset) is a fairly close up shot of just the band's two singers, and remains fixed on them even during a largely instrumental portion of the song. Renate Knaup looks bored (but sexy), while Shrat does his best to freak out on a tamborine which you can't hear. Then there's the portions of the film that show scenes of an artifically blue-toned German countryside as the camera drives past, that's fairly mesmerizing. The overall effect is enhanced by the scratches and spots on the time-worn film -- freeze-frame the opening sunrise sequence with your DVD pause button and you'll find many wonderful abstract compositions. Anyway, it's a historical musical document as well as an intriguing art flick -- when it screened at the 1969 Edinburgh Film Festival, American director Samuel Fuller (Shock Corridor) was quoted as saying "It's rough, it's vicious, it's drama". And here's what that festival's program guide had to say, to put you in the mood: "This film will be shown without titles or credits. It is in colour and you will see the German rock group Amon Duul II -- which, apart from Amon Duul I, is the only true progressive and outstanding group from Germany -- on stage with their celebrated light show...Their sound is very heavy, weird, and wild. Imagine a cross between Hapshash, Spooky Tooth, Dr. John and Jethro Tull." As a sort of bonus, this dvd also features a slide-show style discography featuring album artwork and snippets of songs from each of their umpteen releases. There's nothing else in the way of special features except for the surround sound in place of original mono option.

Originally released back in 1971, "Tanz Der Lemminge" was the third album from the second incarnation of Amon Duul. Where the first incarnations of Amon Duul (along with Amon Duul I, there was supposedly an Amon Duul 0 from the mid-'60s) had much more of a

RealAudio clip: Telephonecomplex
RealAudio clip: Overheated Tiara
RealAudio clip: The Marilyn Monroe-Memorial-Church

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

SORRY.

Soon after Munich's hippie commune krautrockers Amon Duul formed in the late '60s, some of the more musically inclined formed Amon Duul II whose early releases include the masterpieces Yeti (1970), Tanz der Lemminge (1971), etc. Wolf City is just their fifth album, recorded in 1972, and it's fucking fantastic and I can't believe I never heard it before. It's a little bit less experimental than earlier projects, a little more song oriented, but that may be a good thing if prog-flavored German psychedelia is a new cuppa tea for ya. (My co-worker Byram, in fact, found Wolf City a little too Yes-y for his taste -- so listen to the soundclips before buying.) There are seven tracks here, and each one shifts mood slightly -- from the epic masterpiece opener to a single gentle instrumental to spacerock jams, all the arrangements totally unpredictable and interesting. There's heavy prog-style guitar, pleasantly jangly (what sounds like 12-string?) guitar, screeching violin, deep declamatory bass, sweetly macabre piano and organ, plus all manner of weird chuckles, grunts and choir-like ahhhhs. So good! Wolf City is as epic, hummably memorable, kickass, and heavy as Pink Floyd & Genesis, more chaotic and messy than Can, more accessible and full-sounding than Cluster. If you've never heard Amon Duul II before, this is a fine place to start, as are any of the abovementioned albums. Strongly recommended! Windy's new favorite album. In a tie with Goblin's equally prog-gy Il Viaggio del Bagarazzo Mark for hands down Best Reissue in my 2002 year end tops list.

RealAudio clip: Surrounded By Stars
RealAudio clip: Sleepwalker's Timeless Bridge

The absolute hardest albums to write about are those we hold in the highest esteem and though we have an aversion to the general notion of a "desert island selection", this Amon Duul II disc is one of those albums that we could see as an definite inclusion on

RealAudio clip: Soap Shop Rock (excerpt 1)
RealAudio clip: Soap Shop Rock (excerpt 2)
RealAudio clip: Archangels Thunderbird

Last Rites is the debut full length from this moody instrumental post rock combo from San Jose, and it's awesome. The band dropped off copies ages ago, and we're kicking ourselves for taking so long to listen, cuz it's pretty much everything we love about this kind of stuff, soaring and majestic, epic and moody and emotional. Definitely beholden to another time, their sound reminiscent of the nineties, and the whole instrumental math/post rock scene that flourished then, it was an era of music we love and miss, and we wish there were more bands today doing something similar. Amonie take that nineties post rock, and give it a modern makeover, fusing it to a more brooding slow build Godspeed style, and definitely adding their own twist, the opener here "King Of Prussia" is a near pitch perfect 8+ minutes of brooding, smoldering, epic post rock heaviness, slipping easily from intricate loping melodic mesmer, to churning, stormy noisy heaviness, rife with explosive climaxes, soaring tangled guitar melodies, powerful drumming, super intense and cinematic, peppered with hushed expanses of muted minimal thrum, and string laced melancholic shimmer, all leading up to an explosive finale. That first track definitely lays out the template for the rest of the record, a classic sort of epic post rock arrangement, but Amonie mix things up, especially on the shorter tracks, some dense and mathy and proggy, others, glistening and almost cosmic sounding, foregoing the blown out coda, at least until the very last minute or two, still others, chiming and minimal, bookended by fierce heaviness. The record closed with two longform epics, the first, maybe the most hushed and delicate of the bunch, a woozy, dreamy drift of glistening guitar shimmer, and lush layered tones, with a near metallic final movement, and the closer, 13+ minutes, the first 5 of which sound almost like some sort of modern minimal chamber music, until the drums kick in, and the band lurch into a woozy washed out lope, before a brief bit of distorted crunch, only to unfurl in a dreamily palindromic drift for the remainder of the song. Awesome stuff. Fans of Godspeed, Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky and other epic post rockers will flip for these guys. Includes a download coupon as well!

MPEG stream: King Of Prussia
MPEG stream: You're Moving Too Fast For Me, Take Me Back To Yours (David Beckham)
MPEG stream: Motocross 3

Kicking things off with a bizarrely animated turn into what might be described as a Man Or Astro-man? surfy motif that almost had me lighting up my tiki torch, is... hmmm, I think this is Amor Belhom Duo. Ah yes, the second track - an early version of

RealAudio clip: Introduction
RealAudio clip: Jambe En L'Air

The Amor Belhom Duo are "avant-french pop from Paris, France via Tucson, AZ" -- so sayeth their press kit -- however that tag may prove to be far too limiting for their sonic endeavours. They've collaborated with such artists as Valerie Leulliot of Autour De Lucie, French filmmaker Marianne Dissard (who pens a great deal of their lyrics) and the very likeminded Calexico. Wonderfully

RealAudio clip: A Little Less Of Us
RealAudio clip: The Closer

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