[ aquarius records catalogue

IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

Showing results 1301 through 1350 of 2272.

Singer/songwriter Ned Oldham (brother of Palace's Will Oldham y'know) presents his band's third full-length.

We knew this would get reissued again, one day. It's just too good to not be. You hear about "lost classics" all the time but the Anonymous album definitely is one, a rare, super collectible record originally from 1977, that more people need to hear. We had it when it was reissued before, years and years ago by the Aether/OR label, but now even those reissues are expensive rarities themselves. So be sure not to miss it this time. Out of step with the times when it was first released, the Anonymous album sounds more '67 than '77, heavily influenced by the psych-pop sounds of the Byrds, the Beatles, Crosby Stills & Nash, the Mamas and Papas, etc. Lush 12-string guitarwork, unison male/female vocals, epic song structures, and a heavy California psych vibe permeate the music in a really good way. Very fresh and pretty. If these songs had come out in the late '60s, they could have been hits, no doubt. Instead, the Anonymous album languished in obscurity until the late '90s when a few lucky folks got to hear it thanks to the aforementioned reissues. Hopefully even more people will get to hear it now - if you're one of 'em you might find you have a new favorite '60s album that's not actually from the '60s. Highly recommended!!

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If you prefer vinyl, the Anonymous record is available here (although not with the J.Rider tracks which are on the *cd* reissue of it). Heavily influenced by the psychedelic sounds of the Byrds, the Beatles, Crosby Stills & Nash, Heart, the Mamas and Papas, etc. If this material had been released in the late '60s instead of '77, he would've had a hit on his hands, but instead the records languished in obscurity until being reissued this year. Lush 12-string guitarwork, unison male/female vocals, epic song structures and a heavy California psych vibe permeate the music in a really good way. Very fresh and pretty.

RealAudio clip: J. Rider
RealAudio clip: Who's Been Foolin

Two ridiculously-collectible albums ($600!) one on cd, ostensibly by the groups Anonymous and J. Rider, who were basically the same bands headed by Ron Matelic, who was heavily influenced by the psychedelic sounds of the Byrds, the Beatles, Crosby Stills &

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Anopheli are a new, sort of local outfit, featuring members of East Bay doom crust crushers Monuments Collapse (whose recent full length was a big hit around here, along with their split with Breag Naofa) teamed up with members of UK crust punk legends Fall Of Efrafa. The result is a dark, epically heavy slab of melodic, melancholic, string laden crusty doom! Huge, heaving riffage, infused with mournful melodies, churning atmospheric heaviness that explodes into furious D-beat blowouts, galloping and ferocious, but even then, rife with a haunting, wistful moodiness, due in no small part to the strings, which soar and shimmer, moan and keen throughout. Lush, brooding heaviness, all loping, lumbering doomic epicry, sounding a bit like Neurosis by way of Godspeed, especially with those strings, adding all sorts of pathos to the proceedings, and giving the sound a seriously cinematic vibe, the sounds flecked with cool samples as well. A Hunger Rarely Sated is the perfect mix of pummeling metallic crush, furious crust punk bombast, and dense, mathy, melodic, post rock majesty. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!! Includes a printed inner sleeve, and housed in a nice, heavy jacket.

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Once you get past the mildly problematic naked-little-girl album cover, and the STUPID band name, you'll discover probably one of the best black metal records of the year. Furious and relentless, amazingly aggressive, and FAST. With catchy riffs, fucked song

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

Another blackened jewel in Norma Evangelium Diaboli's elite black metal crown. Rapidly becoming the only label that really and truly matters in black metal, NED has unleashed upon the world, some of the best (and is some cases, only) recordings from Deathspell Omega, Funeral Mist, Katharsis and now French black horde Antaeus. Even way back in 2000, when they released their brilliant debut, appropriately titled Cut Your Flesh And Worship Satan, it was easy to tell there was something special (and strange) about these guys. At their core, they were pure black metal, very Mayhem influenced for sure, but that record was peppered with weird ambient interludes and fucked up not entirely black metal parts, they were true enough for the grim BM hordes, but their sound hinted at something much weirder, which of course hooked us. So here we are, nearly 7 years later, and Antaeus have embraced that weird fucked up side, and ended up positioned perfectly along side their black sonic brethren on NED. And it is a perfect fit. Not as weird and post rocky as Deathspell, not as harsh and buzzy as Katharsis, somewhere right in between, closest sonically probably to Funeral Mist, with their blend of ultra creepy ambience and ultra dense, impossibly fast and heavy buzz. And that's the thing, some of this stuff sounds IMPOSSIBLE! It's so fucking fast, but so intricate and complicated at the same time. Furious and thick and dense and incredibly lightning fast. Dizzying bursts of black buzz that constantly threaten to completely splinter into jagged black shards. All the while, within and between the blasts of bleak grimness and the soul shearing fury, are lots of awesome midtempo grooves, super catchy riffs that lope along all waltzy and seasick, super catchy and memorable, before exploding back into lightspeed motion. Also here and there are long stretches of processed guitars and black ambience, with creaking atmospheres, deep drones and strange keening harmonics. A super weird, super grim expanse of totally black brilliance. Could very well be one of THE black metal records of the year. Only a few weeks to discover something more heavy or more black. Seems unlikely. Gorgeous packaging too (as with all NED releases). Black digipak, with bloody hands reaching for the sky, the bands logo, some dripping blood and a crown of thorns sort of tangle, all printed over the top in a barely visible reflective varnish. Includes a big booklet, also gorgeously laid out, with lyrics, printed vellum, and some truly gruesome band photos.

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Been a little while since we've heard from either of these legendary black metal hordes, one French, one German, but who share much in common sonically, and if you're anything like us, you probably saw the names Katharsis and Antaeus on the same record and already decided this was essential and hurled it into your cart, and you know what? You would be RIGHT. Two new killer blasts of frenzied and gloriously fucked up blackness, both bands offer up something slightly different, but still plenty in keeping with their sound respective sounds. Up first is Katharsis, or at least that's the side we listened to first, and it DESTROYS!! A blurred expanse of relentlessly buzzing guitars and buried blast beats all murky and muted, a swirling sort of blackness, hovering beneath a creepy deep voice, intoning, testifying, speaking in tongues (?) before the band explodes into a super fast, ultra furious squall of swirling buzzing black metal fury, the vocals really loud and way up in the mix, gargling and growling and slipping into wild falsetto shrieks, doused in reverb and delay, there is also some super surprising poppiness that surfaces during the bridge, super melodic bits all tangled up with the thrashing flailing buzz beneath it, as well as some awesome crazed super shredding guitar leads. Definitely weird, but still completely amazing. Dying for a full length more than ever. Antaeus have been MIA even longer than Katharsis, and their track, while still pretty ruling, sounds like it could be a demo, or rehearsal, or outtake, but because of that, it gives the song a seriously fucked up and freaked out vibe. After a mysterious blackened industrial drone intro, the band launches into a super fast, almost looped sounding blast, the drums sounds like a machine, except for the strange flurry of fills, the guitars super brittle and buzzy and backed off in the mix, the flurries of lightning fast kick drums are WAY up in the mix, along with the vocals, so much so that it almost sounds like just vocals and drums, with a backdrop of swirling distant buzz. Not as epic and crushing as their records proper, but still plenty heavy and buzzy and black. Housed in a beautiful printed heavy cardstock sleeve, inside there's a fold out poster sized insert with artwork and liner notes, and the record itself is pressed on some of the thickest vinyl EVER. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT, so these are the last copies we'll likely be able to get!

Not downer slo-mo indie-rock as you might surmise from the band name and minimalist Seam/Codeine styled artwork, not at all. This is actually two discs of early '80s inspired synth/new-wave songsmithery, reminding us of Depeche Mode, Xymox, and especially New Order. No wonder the "kids" are clamoring for it. Well, I do wonder, but this is pretty well done, and at least a surprise.

Full length number two from this Canadian combo, and like on their oddly titled debut, Through The Cervix Of Hawaah, Antediluvian continue to hone their warped, damaged and demented blackened death metal, and based on the opening track here, have succeeded in sounding even more fantastically fucked up this time around. Their death metal still bordering on a mutant strain of black metal, the sound here sees the group moving sonically closer to outfits like Wold or Portal, a grinding, dense, chaotic churn of frenzied riffage, wild mathed out drumming, monstrous gurgling vocals, and dense blackened atmospheres. The aforementioned opener begins with what sounds like chanting, some old liturgical music, only to erupt seconds later into a dense, dizzying tangle of downtuned blackened metallic churn, a furious, frenetic tangle of sounds and parts, it's so wild and woolly and there's so much going on, it's nearly impossible to imagine this being actually composed, and to think of this as a song, as much as pure black sound, cuz the sound of it is more than enough to have us utterly mesmerized, a sort of blacknoise rendered in progged out chaotic death metal form. There are moments of doomy dirgery, and crusty thrashing, but it all seems to be woven into a bigger, more fractured and fucked up whole. We described the group's debut as being some of "thee most gnarled and twisted blackened heaviness" we'd heard, but that honor now seems to describe this new one even more, as it takes everything we loved about that first record, and pushes it even further, a dizzying. An utterly exhausting, exhilarating listen, total blackened tech-metal doom-death genius for sure, and like the first record, another roiling, churning, dizzying, mathed out blackdeath blowout. Fans of diSEMBOWELMENT, Wold, Winter, Abyssal, Gevurah and other weirdo death metal, rejoice!

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It's kinda tough to pin down these Canadian black/death metal crushers, their sound straddles a bunch of different metal subgenres, whether it's grim blasting blackness, or furious downtuned death, or even weird crusty gloomy mathiness, they weave all of those into a sick, primitive, raw heaviness that definitely pushes all of our buttons, regardless of classification. To these ears they're definitely closer to black metal than anything, most of the tracks are progged out super complex blasts of furious frenzied riffing and blasting drum pummel, the vocals though are distinctly death metal, an impossibly deep demonic gurgle croak, but, this is not all tranced out blackness, the band are super dynamic, the songs super intricate, dizzying so at times, with stuttering start/stop arrangements giving way to churning slo-mo ultra doom creeps, which give way to furious blurred blasts, all of which speaks to the band's death metal roots. Ultimately who really cares what we call it, the important thing is that this is some of thee most gnarled and twisted blackened heaviness that we've heard in ages, and amidst these squalls of detuned death and blown out blackness, lurk some crazy catchy riffs, and some surprising melodies, all blurred into a roiling, churning, dizzying, mathed out blackdeath blowout. Another Profound Lore winner.

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Finally available on vinyl! A very welcomed reissue of this wonderful, incredibly obscure band's music from 1982. Although it's called Camino Del Sol (the title of their 5-song mini-lp debut), this cd includes lots of other material (compilation tracks and the like) as well as an additional three bonus tracks, swelling the total song count to fourteen swoonsome delights! Back in the day, when he first heard Antena's breezy Brazillian tropicalia styled tunes crafted with unexpected instrumentation (early puttering drum machines and analog synthesizers), former British music journalist / Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant tagged them 'electro-samba'. And the label suits them well, they even do a spaced-out, jazzy version of "Girl From Ipanema" (renamed "Boy From Ipanema" and produced by John Foxx). Imagine if seminal electro-punk duo Suicide were suddenly magically transformed into a light, airy female-sung group, and you'd have a pretty accurate picture of Antena's sound. Blending genres and instrumentations way ahead of the pack, the stylish trio can easily be seen as a French precursor to such groups as Stereolab. You can also hear where young Brit upstarts Electrelane probably got ample birdlike vocal inspiration on the song "To Climb The Cliff". Fans of the Gilberto family (Joao, Astrud and Bebel) will surely also want to check out Antena too. Really, this album sounds perfectly fresh today.

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Working with a huge arsenal of equipment (the press release lists guitars, the springs from an old reverb unit, shortwave static, VLF signals, closed circuit feedback loops, turntables, surface damaged CDs, etc.), Antenna Farm offers an album of grim collages

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

SORRY. About 10 years ago, Robert Hampson dissolved his incendiary psych-rock outfit Loop, and ever since has been gradually shedding the layers of his once volatile sound. Recorded under the moniker Main, the first experiments in Hampson's dismantling process succeeded through their swarming guitar drones and rolling basslines, and were heralded as the vanguard recordings for the early 90's Isolationist school. Since then, Hampson has continued to distance himself from the structuralism of rock, removing rhythm, melody, and anything that could be qualified as part of a song. Unfortunately, Main's recent output has merely sounded indifferent, rather than pensive or restrained. Perhaps he's realized this design flaw and has therefore been looking for inspiration by actively collaborating with a number of artists such as Organum, Janek Schaeffer, and now Antenna Farm. In all three instances, Hampson's previous success in creating dis-quiet and dis-ease through a sparse use of sound have once again returned. Hampson's collaboration with Antenna Farm (the duo of Alastair Leslie and David Howell, recently responsible for a very good album on Phthalo) marks the first release on Staalplaat's Brombrom series of collaborative works. "AF_M" originates from recordings of VLF crackle, shortwave modulations, and various domestic events, yet the three slowly pixillate these sounds into spiralling collages of smoldering electronics and muddled glitches. Quite nice.

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This is an odd release for Korm Plastics, a subsidiary of Staalplaat, who have, in the past, released some truely nasty pieces of electro-shock noise. Antenne is a Danish trip hop ensemble which completes rainy electronic grooves with bleary-eyed female vocals that sound an awful lot like Heidi Berry. The album opens with an cover of Nick Drake's "Black Eyed Dog." Strange.

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Hip hop remix. Rhythm = "I'm A Thug" (Trick Daddy).

We couldn't resist. What better time than now to list one of Allan and Andee's favorite metal records? Metalheads argue a lot. Which band is heavier. Which singer was the best. Who painted what album cover. Which bands are true metal. And one argument that rages on (at least around here) is which Anthrax singer was/is the best. While Allan and I both agree that current Anthrax throat John Bush (former Armored Saint frontman) is a great vocalist, we also both agree that he isn't very good in Anthrax. Allan tends to lean toward Neil Turbin, who sang on the first two, more decidedly thrash albums, and those records definitely contain some of Anthrax's finest moments. But it was Joey Belladonna who took Anthrax to the next level. His super high pitched wail added some melody to their thrash and opened a lot of people's ears to heavy music. And 'Spreading The Disease' is definitely the best of the Belladonna-era, pre baggy shorts and post 'new yawk hawdcoah'. Super heavy and surprisingly catchy, this record has stood the test of time far better than most eighties metal. A speed metal classic, highly recommended.

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All you basement-dwelling, drug-gobbling fuzzfiends, today's yer lucky day! Not only do we have the deluxe (and ULTRA deluxe) reissue of 2000's Everybody Knows We Got Nowhere by UK underground garage psych stoner masters The Heads, reviewed elsewhere on this list, but also this, a brand NEW album from the Heads side project with a raspberry of a name, Anthroprophh, a groop led by Heads guitar wrangler Paul Allen. This is already the 3rd lp we've had from 'em - the first, from 2012, was just Allen solo, but recently he enlisted the two guys from powerful Bristol noise rockers The Big Naturals, to make Anthroprophh a trio, as heard earlier this year on their already out of print Cardinal Fuzz lp. Their sound has expanded too, this is a big HEAVY album, going off in all sorts of psychedelic directions, you've got some of the percussive tribal krauty drift heard on their previous lps, but also lots of heads down, pedals smashed, FX dosed High Rise/Blue Cheer styled biker rock, tracks full of fuzzy, repetitive riffage, rife with distortion n' feedback! Opener "Returning" unleashes a lumbering attack of Amon Duul II inspired heavy hypno-rock, the exotic, extended jamming adorned by Allen's trippily effected, echoing frog-in-throat vocals. It's followed by the more Monster Magnet-y blacklight bashing of "Dead Man On The Scene", and then the desperation dirge of "2013 And She Told Me I Was Die", a super gnarly noisy march into oblivion. Man, those first three tracks had us at hello. Hell yeah. But wait, there's more - one of this album's several short ambient interludes, most of 'em around a minute long, is up next, and there's another after that, done with drones and noise and backwards voices. Then, more psychedelic shambolic rockin' follows (we're reminded at times of those obscure English '80 hippy punks Afflicted Man, that sort of Hendrix/Hawkwind headbang thing), as do bouts of acoustic guitar spookiness and zombie zoner ceremony, the album spinning further and further into weird realms of wasteoid rock (and not-so-rock, what with those atmospheric interludes), all of it awesome. Think Twink's Think Pink meets GNOD, and you'll get the rough idea. Freaking great freaky stuff! Some great song titles, too: "Crow With Sore Throat", "Space Box Zonk Machine", and the almost Haino-esque "Detached And In Its Own Mind Riding A Ghost Train Through A Fairground It Had Built Itself"!

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Got a big ol' batch of new releases from UK psych label Cardinal Fuzz, and while we're one of the only places in the US to carry em, they're super limited so odds are they won't be around for long. This one is full length number two from Anthroprophh, aka Paul Allen, frontman of psychedelic space rockers The Heads, but the sounds here, like on the debut, are pretty well removed from the blown out heavy psych of The Heads, instead, Allen weaves long form kraut-psych sprawls, two side long epics this time around, the first, a woozy spaced out shimmer, draped over some motorik tribal rhythms, a tranced out drift that soon morphs into some seriously propulsive hypnorock, with muted guitar chug, softly swirling FX, and eventually, some wild Hendrixian guitar shred, blown out and wildly psychedelic, while in the background, that rhythm churns away, wreathed in billows of spaced out thrum. The flipside adds some creepy Carpenter vibe to the mix, another loping drum rhythm, this time laced with strange industrial clanks and clatter, over which snake charmer melodies buzz and warble, before the guitars swoop in, adding extra layers of riffy buzz and blistering arcs of distorto guitar, before gradually slipping back into a hazy drone-psych swirl, which stretches way out into an extended finale of woozy, drifty sonic mesmer. SUPER LIMITED, housed in cool black on green silkscreened sleeves, and NO download.

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Anthroprophh is a new solo project from Paul Allen, frontman for longtime aQ faves, psychedelic space rockers The Heads. Unlike another recent Heads offshoot project, Kandodo (from Allen's bandmate Simon Price), the sound of Anthroprophh is way less drifty and dreamy and really not all that far removed from the Heads mothership. It starts off with a bang, in the form of a dense cloud of psychedelic guitarnoise, swirling and roiling chaotically, before transforming into a driving, sprawl of motorik kraut-psych heaviness, the biggest difference, is the pounding drums of Heads jams here replaced with a sort of looped Muslimgauze like percussion, which gives it a seriously tranced out vibe. The sound soon shifts to something more stripped down and minimal, an echo drenched voice drifts over flanged swirls, the sound building back up to a squall of murky, churning percussion. The rest of the side unfurls similarly, after a brief acoustic interlude, the sound blossoms into a droned out electric flecked stretch of trance-y psychedelic drift, more minimal looped rhythms, swirls of shimmery ambience, all drifting beneath keening soaring streaks of guitar shred, before settling into some gauze-y ambience, dark whorls of blurred dreamlike sound, all hazy and dreamily washed out. The bulk of the flipside is taken up by a single epic psych jam, still more of that looped Muslimgauze like percussion, dense clouds of FX, glimmering electronics, long stretches of muted riffage and more wild squalls of guitarnoise, this jam more propulsive, a dense kraut-infused space rock mesmer, all wreathed in spidery guitar melodies and billowing clouds of cymbal shimmer. The final track is a brief coda, all clanging guitar chords and Hawkwind-ish riffy churn wreathed in swirls of effects and keening high end tones, all blurred into a fuzzy washed out smear of psychedelic shimmer. Imagine a more abstract, minimal Heads, which means this is obviously essential for Heads fans, but for folks into the psychedelic spaciness of Carlton Melton, 3 Leafs and the like, this will definitely hit the spot too. Super cool silver reflective jacket. Vinyl-only as far as we know. No download with it though.

Awesome return from these advanced rappers!!

Antibalas is a music cooperative out of Brooklyn, spearheaded by Martin Antibalas. The same group (more-or-less) was formerly known as The Daktaris, who you may recall as the modern-day '70s styled faux-African funk combo who cut an excellent disc for the

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Wow! There is no doubt that Antibalas have always been really good at what they do. One of the few bands carrying the torch of Afro-beat in honor of the late great Fela Kuti, and doing it better then pretty much anyone here in the states. But with this most recent release they have taken things a step further and expanded their sound from merely being capable clones to constructing one of the most lively and rich sounding soul/funk/afro-beat records we've heard in FOREVER. With John McEntire (Tortoise) manning the controls, this is the kind of fusion record all the post-rockers of the 90's wish they had the soul to create. Rich and dirty organs, wild horns, and killer breakbeats all coming together to ignite an undeniable groove. The opening track "Beaten Metal" is for sure one of our favorite songs of '07, but the entire album is pretty much just as mind blowing!

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Here at AQ we try as often as possible to review records without quoting or paraphrasing from the press releases (and when we do it makes us feel kind of dirty). But in the case of New York-based Antibalas, their self-written bio says it better than I can: "Antibalas (Spanish for "Bulletproof" literally "Anti-bullets") is the next generation of afrobeat in the tradition of the Black President, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. This fourteen-plus piece band hits hard with the left and the right -- monstrous horns and bass layered over funky polyrhythmic beats and breaks coupled with furious lyrics challenging and attacking the dehumanizing capitalist system and inciting insurrection in English, Yoruba, and Spanish. Antibalas formed in May 1998 of members of Desco Records' Soul Providers and Daktaris. This union of Latinos, whites, Afro-Americans, Africans and Asian-Americans resides in New York, spread out over Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx." So, if you don't already have some Fela albums, by all means get one or two or twenty before you acquire Antibalas. But if you're already familiar with Fela's Afrobeat sound, how wonderful is it that a modern band can replicate the sound so joyously and exactly. This group must be *amazing* to see live.

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These excellent Afrobeat merchants from Brooklyn are back, with their third album of booty-shaking, politically-minded jams in the vital tradition of the late great Fela Kuti. They haven't lost a step since their last disc Talkatif. A mixed race, very muliticultural group with all the ingredients: hot horn section, polyrhythmic percussion, groovy keyboards, socially conscious singing and chanting. Even the longest tracks (up to 20 minutes) are packed with an excess of energy. Even the angriest anti-Bush rhetoric on here still sounds like a party. Weirdly jazzy, funkifed good times. Funk and Fela fans will want both this record and a ticket to Antibalas' next concert (and they are great live, as this and their other discs would lead you to imagine).

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East Bay hip hop crew Anticon continue to impress with their wordy, staccato raps, so speedy that they sound like when you run your finger up piano keys really quick. They're really into the texture of the vocals as well as the lyrics, and as always there's

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Another warehouse find, a small handful of this killer split, 6 songs, in less than 15 minutes, you probably know what that means, GRIND! And killer grind to boot, two bands the grindheads around here love, but for whatever reason have never made it onto the aQ list. Which is a bummer, cuz both groups most definitely destroy. Antigama, who are from Poland and would later find a home on metal behemoth Relapse, start things off with a blast, a whirlwind of frantic riffing, and avalanche of octopoidal drumming, and some seriously sick vokills, a furious slab of frenetic fast core, mathy and intricate, with a killer lumbering doomy breakdown midway through the track's 90 seconds. "Gift" is more of a grinding chunk of hardcore, furious and blasting, still heavy and intense for sure, but it's Antigama's final track that makes this whole record worth owning, a super intricate ultra dynamic 2 minute workout, that flits from lightning speed blast, to stop start chug, to a stretch of twisted harmonics and strange percussion, before lurching into full on black hole crush, only to finish off with some impossibly proggy grind metal mathiness. Antigama are teamed up here with some Americans, Southerners to be exact, hailing from Virginia, a veritable grind hotbed, they offer up their own unique brand of grind that sounds more like a grindcore Black Flag, with gnarled atonal riffage, midtempo rhythms, yowled vox, which eventually explode into some serious face melting grindage, continually slipping back and forth, and that's just the first track. The final track "Phantom" is a dizzying bass heavy doom grind mash up, that almost sounds like the Melvins or Man Is The Bastard gone grind, but before you get to that, you get DoF's own mini masterpiece, a twisted bit of full on grind prog called "Memoranda" complete with synths, faux strings, weird tribal drumming, strange percussion, chant like vocals, and a surprising amount of groove, sounding almost like Ruins side project Hundred Sights Of Koenji. Forgot how good (and weird this was). Too bad we only have a tiny handful. Needless to say, well worth grabbing before it's gone.

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We went kinda nuts for the first record from these Pacific Northwestern psychedelic shoegaze doom drifters, who were friends of some other aQ faves, Megaton Leviathan (which is how we found out about them in the first place), both groups seems to be sort of doom metal, but each takes that doom and makes it their own, in both cases, rendering it less metal and more sort of blissed out and almost shoegazy, a sort of soft doom psych, or maybe psychedelic doomgaze, regardless of what you call it, we were super psyched to have the band show up at aQ out of the blue, and drop off a brand new record! Fans of the first one will not be disappointed, but might need some time to adjust to a few things, the sound is still spacey, and psychedelic, heavy and doom, but if anything, it's a whole lot poppier, the opener kicks off with the sort of sound that if all the pieces fell together perfectly, it wouldn't be hard to imagine these guys playing with Queens Of The Stone Age or Alice In Chains! Not that they sound like those bands (but here they sorta do), but they have the same sort of heavy psychedelic hard rocking vibe, with actual singing, soaring choruses, they'd be like "that weird, noisy, tripped out band" that played with so and so. Which is usually the band we end up digging the most anyway. And we have to say, we're loving this, heavy and hooky, like Nadja crossed with Mastodon, but with some Hydrahead style noise rock heft. Hard to explain, but it's one case, where we're happy to sacrifice some of the blown out trippiness for some actual heavy rocking. But fear not, these guys haven't sold out, the second track is a slithery, piano laced near ambient doomfolk creep, all strummed steel strings, deep chantlike vocals, swirling atmospheres, creepy piano melodies, dark and ominous and dramatically brooding. And then we come to "Altars Before The Unsees", and suddenly we're thinking, maybe these guys DID sell out! Only kidding, but it does push the sound of the opening track even further, brooding, stripped down, synths over clean guitars, driving drums, chugging and churning, but measured and muted, it's almost like a meaner, more lo-fi, more experimental and noisy Tool, which is not a bad thing at all, but again, positions these guys at a place where there days of touring in a van, and silkscreening self released cd-rs might be limited, cuz tracks like this definitely have the potential for some serious crossover, and these guys pull it off, without losing what it is that made us dig em in the first place. But it is seriously catchy, and hooky, and it's just a great goddamn song. As is 19 minute closer "Leviathan Smiles", a dark moody brooder as well, but super slow and spare, lots of space, a drowsy softly psychedelic dirge, and again, the raspy voices doomfolk gradually builds into some epic heavy psychedelic rock, that sounds like it might be right at home on a label like Neurot, especially when it explodes partway through into some swirling soaring guitar skree, and chugging mathed out psych metal, but only to slip right back into more loping strummy drift, the last stretch of which almost sounds like some lost Nirvana B side, which is never a bad thing. Killer stuff, a definitely stylistic shift for sure, but one that was definitely hinted at on their first record, and one we're digging BIG time! The packaging is super DIY fancy, at least the cd-r version, a printed cd-r in a jewel case tray, accompanied by a printed booklet (it's essentially like a cd, minus the case, and the tray card), all housed in a super cool, hand screened sewn canvas pouch, silver ink on black, super striking. And while the tape packaging is no great shakes, Antikythera makes up for it by tacking on a whole extra side of dark ambient atmospheric bonus material, NOT on the cd-r, and as you might imagine, both the cd-r AND the tapes are pretty limited, and when we run out, we won't be able to get more 'til the band is back from tour (when we'll also hopefully get more of their 1st album) so grab one quick!

MPEG stream: Asylums Sophia
MPEG stream: Leviathan Smiles

Another outfit from the Pacific Northwest, trafficking in a sort of psychedelic doomy drift, who are friends of aQ faves Megaton Leviathan, which makes sense, the two groups occupying a similar space, but each most definitely carving out their own distinct sonic niche. The first track here is a slowly swirling sprawl of pulled apart riffs and layered chordal crunch, crumbling distortion, and softly shimmering textures, starting out almost formless, but gradually coalescing into a churning slo-mo dirge, that manages to infuse its metallic creep with plenty of melodic jangle, the sounds chiming and keening, almost like a more riffy Sunroof!, it's not until nearly the end of the track before the drums kick in, and when they do, it's not so much propulsive or rhythmic as it is abstract and textural, the billowing clouds of psychedelic buzz wrapped around this skeletal doom drum dirge, the sound never really darkening, instead, remaining sort of blissed out, the guitars becoming more jagged and riffy, but the whole thing remaining pretty drifty. The second track is where things get properly doomy, or as properly doomy as these guys get, the sound immediately exploding into a woozy, lumbering creep, replete with thick buzzing distortion, deep dramatic sung/spoken vox, and plenty of melody, tranced out and mesmeric, sounding a bit like OM with LOTS of guitars, a slow burn psych-doom epic, that slithers swaggers and gradually builds to soaring squalls of tangled psych guitar freakout, slipping from metallic dirge, to parts almost poppy and back again, hooks galore, but buried beneath the crumbling buzz, the song laced with occasional bursts of mathed out chaos, and often locking into tarpit hypno-rock grooves, the whole thing totally epic and majestic, but more psych than doom, more noise/post rock than metal, but with enough of doom AND metal to keep metalheads satisfied. That said, while these guys are self professed psychedelic doom gazers, we could easily imagine folks discovering this from a whole different angle, instead of psychedelic doom, something more like heavy, doomy psych. Maybe there's not much difference, but to our ears, this definitely falls further in the realm of heavy psych, the doominess just adding some serious heft. Case in point, the 14 minute closer "An Unnatural Light", which takes a sort of Sabbathy almost stoner doom riff, and stretches it way out, repeating it over and over, the track totally tranced out, that riff, all clean guitar, swathed in clouds of cymbal shimmer, and squiggly swirls of psych guitar filigree. It's almost 5 minutes before the song really kicks in, and even then, the guitars remain clean, and almost jangly, a little bit angular, wreathed in FX, the bass sinewy and super melodic, the vocals slipping from deep monk-like chant, to full on wail. Then a few minutes later, the distortion swoops in, and finally, it begins to sound truly metallic, churning, heaving heaviness, but somehow, still sort of warped and tripped out. There's a long stretch where the guitar drops out, leaving mostly bass and drums, which reminds us a lot of Three Mile Pilot, dark and post rocky, from there on out, it's a slow build to an FX drenched, blown out psych guitar finale, all swirls of heavily flanged riffage and pounding dense drumming. Way recommended for fans of Megaton Leviathan obviously, but really, anyone into heavy psych and psychedelic doom will flip for sure!

MPEG stream: Earth Speaks To Me
MPEG stream: An Unnatural Light

Antimatter is the work of Bay Area sound artist Xopher Davidson, whose intense, psychoacoustically challenging compositions earn noble comparisons to fellow Northern Californians like Scott Arford, R.H.Y. Yau, Michael Gendreau, and Joe Colley. Furthermore, Davidson has worked extensively with Zbigniew Karkowski, generating gnarled maelstroms of digital grit and volcanic noise on a handful of albums and live performances. Reset is Antimatter's first album in close to 6 years, after he released a couple of albums on the now defunct Asphodel label. It begins with a nasty low-end throb from phased oscillators, obsolete synthesizers, and integral-logic feedback systems, whose generative tension is heightened through metallic slashes and electrical bursts of white noise static. The vigor of Davidson's grim electronics dissolves on the curiously beautiful ambient construction "Sea Of Tranquility," whose vaporous atmospherics recall more of the mesmerism of Tim Hecker and Leyland Kirby emerging out of queasy sick tones and vibrational splutter. The next track "Sverdlovsk-45" was named for a Soviet secret city that enriched uranium throughout the Cold War, and it has all of the claustrophobic industrial metaphors one would expect through the belching hiss and churning centrifuge actions. The crumbling noises glow once again with a spectral beauty found on the aforementioned "Sea Of Tranquility" by the end of the record. Even so, this album is one for those keen on The Hafler Trio and John Duncan, especially since neither of those two have released anything in quite a while.

MPEG stream: Cloud Of Possibility
MPEG stream: Sea Of Tranquility
MPEG stream: Sverdlovsk-45
MPEG stream: Time Projection Chamber

A one sided vinyl monster. Grinding splattery chaos. Super distorted rhythms beneath thick slabs of ultra distorted hiss and waves of crumbling crunch. That is the sound of Australia's Antipan, a fourpiece that traffics in spaced out aggressive free rock ambience. Or Neu! metal minimalism. Either way it's a gloriously unholy racket. Echoey guitars and streaks of feedback, all tangled up into a dense wall of krautrocky chaos, with buried vocals, and dense squalls of acid fried guitar malfunction and jagged melodic fragments. Those harsher moments are balanced by long stretches of distorted drone and glitchy throb, very reminiscent of their equally noisy countrymen Aufgehoben and Shit And Shine. Pressed on SUPER thick bubblegum pink vinyl, one sided, the other side features an etching by Rizili from the Menstruation Sisters. Includes a dayglo pink insert, packaged in a hand screened, individually numbered pink on black sleeve. LIMITED TO 275 COPIES. We only got eight, so you do the math...

Seems like this would be the perfect AQ hip hop record. Minimal stream-of-conciousness rappers Antipop Consortium rapping over modern/free jazz courtesy of AQ fave Matthew Shipp. Initially we thought/hoped it would be some sort of live improv/jam thing, which would seem ideal as far as tapping into both groups' strengths. But Antipop simply sample Shipp tunes. While it is cool and few groups sample 'modern' jazz, rap songs based on chopped and looped jazz tunes are really nothing new. And the result just doesn't sound as inspired as we had hoped, with the rapping sounding sort of tossed off and stilted, and the 'jazz' sounding a little too lite, ala dinner jazz. Fans of both will may find something to like, but I think maybe we just had our sights set too high. MPEG Download: "Staph" [/audio/antipopshippstaph.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Staph" [/audio/antipopshippstaph.m3u]

MPEG stream: Staph
MPEG stream: Slow Horn

First new full length since the waaay expensive Japanese import 'Shopping Carts Crashing' which we also carry, and it's a good one. With every release, the NY avant hip hop crew of rapper/producers Beans, M Sayyid and High Priest along with engineer

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

SORRY. Anti-Pop has been one of my favorite hip hop groups almost from the first time I heard them, melding an old school, deadpan sort-of tongue-tied De La Soul flow, over unlikely loops and strange samples, with bizarre and confusingly brilliant lyrics that occasionally move beyond bragging and boasting. The deal was sealed when I got to see the ultimate soundclash: Alec Empire spinning rafter-rattling, hyper-distorted beats, Merzbow spitting out shrieking, hissing white noise, and the Anti Pop Consortium, somehow rapping over the whole mess, and fitting perfectly. 'Shopping Carts Crashing' is a Japanese-only release that came out last year, but we only just now got enough to list it. And it's worth the wait. Sparse and dark loop-scapes under a landslide of rapid fire rhyming, boasting on a level so beyond mere mortal rappers that those dissed will very likely not even realise it, instead, scratching their chins, confused, and reaching for their dictionaries. Awesome production, with soaring strings (plucked and bowed), buzzing electrical interference, woofer-rattling synths, old 606 and 909 drum programming, vocoder, space echo, and of course...shopping carts crashing, literally. But the MCs are the main attraction, spitting out rhyme after rhyme of verbose lyrical fuckery, free flowing non-sequiters, mutated metaphors and straight up old fashioned bad ass mouthing off! So so good. Worth the import price tag! And I like it even more since I discovered that one of the guys in the Anti-Pop Consortium is the same guy who is always mean to me whenever I visit a certain 'other' record store.

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY. The Anti-Pop Consortium's strategic positioning outside of the mainstream of hip-hop landed them a 10" on New York dub label WordSound a few months back, as well as a notorious gig rapping alongside a live noise battle between Merzbow and Alec Empire! Their fluid verbal stylings, recalling the historically charged old school delivery of The Last Poets, are matched with the minimal production techniques often used by the WordSound crew (though without the stoner/darkcore references).

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

SORRY.

Rarely does a band make it to its third or fourth record, especially when the band plays sloppy, trashy, violent, totally uncommercial punk rock. But here it is, the year 2000, and Antiseen are still carving their messy, bloody swath across the punk underground, 15 years and counting. Especially amazing considering that frontman Jeff Clayton has been abusing his body in true rock and roll style, ending every show in a bloody disheveled heap on the floor. This is a collection of 7"s, compilation tracks, weird out of print stuff and some unreleased songs, as well as a bunch of covers (Roky Erickson, Screaming Lord Sutch, Troggs, Stooges) showcasing Antiseen at their trashy, fucked up, southern-fried best.

North Carolina's kings of southern sludge, and the South's answer to GG Allin (due mostly to lead singer Jeff Clayton's penchant for violence, to himself and the crowd) return with a collection of covers culled from a handful of splits and compilations.

For being a band that's scary as shit to see live, and who may be the only practitioner of the long lost art of GG Allin style entertainment (one show had the singer leap from the PA onto a table covered with tacks, and all shows have him ending up covered in blood), Antiseen sure sound wimpier and wimpier with every record. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, just kind of weird.

The return of our favorite classic hard rocking, shit kicking, wild eyed Southern rock band. Okay so, there's not a whole lot of them left, but that's exactly why we gotta love the ones we got. There's Raging Slab of course. Our love for them is eternal. There's new kids on the block, Black Stone Cherry, who are cool, but get a little close to mainstream MTV Nickelback territory. Then there's Antler. Who we originally thought were indie rock kids taking the piss. But their debut was just too fucking good. And too fucking genuine to be anything but. Allan and Andee saw them live at CMJ, in front of a slightly confused crowd, who were obviously unprepared to the cowboy boots, the cowboy hats, the Southern boogie, the twang and the killer classic Southern rock that was exactly what we were there to see. Record number two finds the band in fine form. Still channeling Lynrd Skynrd, the Allman Brothers, the Outlaws, Blackfoot, but adding some extra stomp, some more crunchy guitar, but staying true to their Southern rock roots. It's perplexing why these guys were on Indie meta label Tortuga and are now part of Small Stone's stoner rock stable. These guys should be HUGE. On some major label. Playing stadiums, touring the Midwest and the South, showing rednecks worldwide that real Southern rock and roll is not dead. These guys should be wrapped in Confederate flags and showered with whiskey and weed, a harem of pretty little trailer trash girls, a private jet with a big set of antlers painted on the tail. That's what this sounds like. Kids who were 15 and 16 when Skynrd's Pronounced... came out, were getting high, getting drunk, and blasting shit like this in their Dad's pick up, parking by the lake and trying to get to second base with their second cousin. Maybe one of these days, some label bigwig will figure out what the hell is going on, wine and dine these motherfuckers, hustle them into some penthouse office, ply them with booze and drugs, have them sign in blood on the dotted line, shove them in a tour bus and set them free to rule the rock and roll world like the boogie born Southern Rock scions they truly are!

MPEG stream: The Gentle Butcher
MPEG stream: Deep In A Hole
MPEG stream: A Little Goes A Long Way

When we first got this we were so psyched. Totally gorgeous layout / design courtesy of Hydra Head Honcho Aaron Turner, all silver metallic filligree on what looks like tooled leather. Cool band name, properly tough and mysterious. It's on Hydra Head sub label Tortuga, home to Old Man Gloom, 5ive, Tusk and other like minded metallic dronesters. So when we actually got around to listening to it we were a little confused. Actually a lot confused. We were convinced it had to be a joke. Or at least some HH/Tortuga heavy band's tongue in cheek side project. Straight up MTV country tinged rock. Full on fist in the air, beer in one hand, American (or Confederate!) flag in the other, epic arrangements and super throaty Eddie Vedder / Layne Staley / that-guy-from-Creed vocals, wailing guitar leads, heartfelt ballads, songs about cigarettes, and tombstones, and blood and battles and love and soulful, belted out lyrics like "It ain't right..." and " All I know...." and "I believe in you..." We absolutely hated it. I mean why wouldn't we? But then something happened. I don't know what it was. I just decided to like it. There it is. Not sure why. No idea. I just did. And now I do like it. A lot! I love it actually. And I've been listening to it like crazy. It's just plain old super kick ass rock! It's sort of like Nickelback for the metalhead indie rock hipster set. That may not sound all that good, but it is. Trust me. I mean, c'mon, why should MTV watching lemmings get all the majestic arena cockrock, slide guitars, lighters held aloft and all that? It's not fair. So Antler is here to settle the score. And settle it they do. Hard to say if this is tongue in cheek or totally genuine, but it's not really funny, or cheesy enough to be a joke (unless it's the most subtle joke ever), it's just totally commercial and radio ready. But in a good way. Just regular old stadium rock. But with that sort of glam western edge that was so popular a decade ago. Definitely makes me feel 17 again. Tooling around in my crappy 4 cylinder Mustang, feathered hair, ripped jeans, glam rock cowboy hat, blasting the first Bon Jovi record. Or maybe the Hangmen record. Yep. Just like that. Allan and Elliott think the ballads sound like the Red Hot Chili Peppers at their most melodic and commercial, you know like that "Under The Bridge" song. But if you've been paying attention to the AQ list, you know how much Allan likes the RHCP so no matter how much he denies it, that can only be an endorsement coming from him!

MPEG stream: Tombstones And Cigarettes
MPEG stream: 1975
MPEG stream: I Got Lost

The lead off track on this cd is so wintry you can almost see your breath while it's playing! Branches is the new album from Oregon band Antlerand, and it's a fine introduction. While they initially appear to be treading shimmering sonic ground that's already been well worn by the post rock likes of Mogwai and Sigur Ros, it soon becomes apparent that they're combining it with intelligent pop sensibilities akin to sensitive, smart pop folks Bright Eyes, Arcade Fire and Destroyer... and they're doing it exceptionally well. Chamber strings and horns join the sinewy electric guitars that just might send chills down your spine. Piano, stuttery electronics and chimes pretty things up, as do the sweet female vocals on songs such as "Maybe We're Still Running" and "Make Nothing Happen" which further the comparisons to Bright Eyes when Jenny Lewis is accompanying Conor Oberst. This is simply lovely!

MPEG stream: Rows Of Unbending Lines
MPEG stream: Maybe We're Still Running

[ aquarius records catalogue — A ]