[ 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 2001 through 2050 of 2272.

Shinichi Atobe is probably best known (and weirdly, also least known) for releasing a single 12" on Basic Channel's Chain Reaction label, and consequently disappearing completely. That record became a bit of an obsession for some folks, including the Demdike Stare guys who eventually somehow tracked down Atobe, only to discover an entire record of unreleased archival material, which is this one right here. For fans of Demdike Stare AND Chain Reaction this is some seriously holy grail stuff, and it's easy to see what all the hubbub was (and is) about. The opener is a gorgeous stretch of glitchy digidub murk, distorted chordal swells weaving a dreamlike melodic backdrop beneath a skittery, skeletal groove, before the second track opens the sound up into some hazy house, a softly pulsing four on the floor beneath jazzy chords and fluttery faux Japanese flutes, a second rhythm swoops in eventually, adding a strange, psychedelic off kilter vibe, the mix too is quite strange, with some sounds swooping to the foreground, while others blur into the background murk. The rest of the record careens schizophrenically from grinding glitchiness, to strangely distorted samplescapes fusing more Japanese melodies with crumbling, sputtering squelches, to haunting carnivalesque soundscapes, all woozy synths and strange space-y FX, tripped out industrial dronescapes, with warped, throbbing, barely-there rhythms, all wound around fields of grey noise and blurts of wild chaotic noise. There are a handful of straight up Kompakt style Euro-house groovers too, but those tracks are plopped between softly swirling, looping stutterscapes and weirdly trippy, freeform electro-jazz jams, finishing off with a super psychedelic, beautifully noisy, ultra creepy outro, that's a jumble of distorted alien vox, chopped and looped into a lumbering rhythm, wreathed in wisps of dreamlike thrum, somehow impossible gristly and gauzy AND hauntingly hypnotic. Housed in a hand stamped, hand numbered, card stock sleeve.

MPEG stream: Free Access Zone 1
MPEG stream: Wasteland 1
MPEG stream: Free Access Zone 8

Newest record by everyone's favorite one man (and one machine!) band that sings exclusively about punk rock, and his friends, and the metric system and a bunch of other dorky crap! Yep. It's Atom and his Package. Not much has changed, except for some more Byram thinks it sounds like retarded They Might Be Giants. I think it sounds like Ween, if they were 15 years old, and listened to Slayer and straightedge. Either way, pretty funny, and pretty great. And some nifty Vermiform cover art.

RealAudio clip: Going To Georgia

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

SORRY. We've all been keeping a watchful eye on Mr. Atom Heart lately. Watching bemusedly as his relocation to Chile prompted him to reinvent himself as Senor Coconut, and listening, as his techno turned to mambo, and his obsession with the indigenous music of his new home seeped into every facet of his music making. The first Senor Coconut record (out of print, it seems) was a glorious mix of Perez Prado style mambos and Squarepusherish drum programming. The Senor Coconut we listed on the last AQ list took a bizarre turn no one could have predicted, consisting of all Kraftwerk covers done Chilean style, all mambo and rhumba, barely a hint of his former Atom Heart remained. On "XXX", Atom hooks up with Chilean rapper Tea Time, for a wickedly clever record of X rated rapping (in Spanish of course) and convuluted hip hop, complete with plenty of turntablist trickery and hard disc scratching. And it's practically perfect; funny and catchy and smooth and super wicked. Tea Time's got a super smooth flow (sounding a bit like MC Solaar) and the music is just completely bizarre, lots of hiccuping loops, low end rumble, crazy scratching, and bizarre hard disc editing, making for probably one of our favorite (albeit quite odd) hip hop (Latin American glitch-rap?) records of the year, and it's easily the best Atom Heart...er...Senor Coconut record yet.

RealAudio clip: Mis Chiquitas

There is a fine line between clever and peurile. Actually the line's not all that fine. Guess which side this falls on.

MPEG stream: Clicktrack
MPEG stream: Suck My Groove

Regardless of which alter ego he's embodying at the time (Senor Coconut, Datacide, Midisport, Lisa Carbon, Disk Orchestra, etc.), virtually all of Uwe Schmidt's releases have some obvious, fully realized concept behind them. Knowing that, it makes his latest Atom TM album a somewhat befuddling listen. Son Of A Glitch squishes together a seemingly random assortment of distinctly Schmidt-y IDM glitch-squidge, sample-delic outbursts and dialogue snippets. Really, we could be missing something, but it seems like his most unfocused work to date -- sounding like a grab bag of recordings of him just messing around in the studio. Still, if this is Uwe Schmidt just fuckin' around, it's still miles more entertaining and well executed than a lot of releases by his contemporaries.

MPEG stream: MP3
MPEG stream: Being Human Boring

Proving that indie rock is still alive and kicking is this Chicago quartet. While other likeminded bands have faded from the college radio dial or reconfigured or changed musical directions, Atombombpocketknife (or ABPK for short) keep that catchy, mathy rock flag a-flying on this their third full length. They've been around since '98, but those years were also spent split between assorted day jobs (tour sound engineer for other bands, social worker, website boss) and side projects. With such full schedules it's a wonder they have time to hook up for music, and perhaps that's what's kept them from progressing. Don't be mistaken, they certainly do possess the solid chops to execute their rock mission, it's just not a very challenging one for themselves or their listeners. So although many of their songs are very much in a similar melodic, emotive, and slightly angular vein, they're probably not destined to don the indie rock crown recently vacated by the great Unwound. Which is unfortunate 'cause we catch glimpses of the skills and capabilities of rock victory, but overall they fall short and register ABPK as an also-ran.

Back in 2002 a fine instrumental cd appeared right around the time of year nearing the holiday season. 'Twas by the band Atomic 7, 'twas called Gowns By Edith Head, and 'twas a splendid, festive (yet not holiday specific) album packed with sparkling electric guitar magic courtesy of the sweet, bespectacled gent known as Brian Connelly (formerly of Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet and occasional guitarist for Neko Case -- you can hear him on her latest live album, The Tigers Have Spoken). Well, this Toronto based trio have returned with another lively goodie! En Hillbilly Caliente's almost as big as the 19-song-long 'Gowns, clocking in at seventeen wittily titled songs. Connelly truly works wonders with his ol' six string crafting frantic gallopin' rockabilly and surf numbers, swayin' tiki lounge swooners and creepin' villain-in-the-shadows mood pieces. All with equal ease and enthusiasm. Such a fun listen! Recommended.

MPEG stream: Bury My Foot At Wounded Mouth
MPEG stream: Devil's Mittens

Aaah, how I've yearned for the magic of the Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet. Y'know the fab Torontonian trio behind the insanely catchy theme song to Kids In The Hall? Not to mention their three amazing albums in the early '90s that melded the raw sounds of surf and punk music with a truly absurd wit. But wait, what's this I hear? Holy dewy drops of spring! This sounds remarkably like those Shadowy folks. Well, particularly that unmistakable, slinky yet blistering guitar of Mr. Brian Connelly. He's back with a new trio. A masterful guitarist with a wicked sense of humor, his sly quirks come through in each of these nineteen (!) songs. By the way, you might've also experienced his fine guitar stylings live and on record with AQ fave Ms Neko Case. Jumping genres with tireless finesse and flourish at the mere flick of guitar pick - campy tiki cocktail lounge, fiery rockabilly rave-ups, slowly smouldering western twang - Atomic 7 is where the good times are. This will undoubtably make for a great holiday party album without all those darn season-specific lyrics. Super festive. Recommended.

RealAudio clip: Her Sassy Kiss
RealAudio clip: Artistry In Nachos

So we really liked the last few Atomic Bitchwax records. Member of Monster Magnet busts out and does a record of guitar wanker stoner rock. Sounds good. So what's wrong with the new one? Not sure exactly. It's just sort of flat. Sort of pointless. And Does come with a bonus cd, pretty cool Meteor City label sampler, chock full of, you guessed it, stoner rock.

This is one awesomely confusing record. We weren't sure what to expect, but it definitely wasn't this. Bursts of grinding downtuned death metal give way to shuffling jazzy lounge music, mathy riffing morphs into prog rock workouts which give way to simple dreampop strumming. There's Super spacious slowcore, reverbed guitars and shuffling jazz drums, weird underwater melodies and funereal horns... and Pell Mell style instrumental almost surf rock with total "Wipeout" drums. It's all a little overwhelming, and confusing, but in a good way. And unlike a lot of genre jumping outfits, none of these disparate sounds, and impossible mash ups sound at all forced. In fact, the band has such a deft hand with arrangements, that when you're listening to Eleven Theaters, it's hard to imagine that any band would NOT combine all of these styles and genres. Lilting Appalachian folk, drifts and shimmers into some angular Amrep style dirge rock, tripped out dronelike shimmer, all glistening guitars and whirling ambience, gives way to ultra lush jazzy mope rock, complete with horn section and cymbal sizzle, huge pummeling sludge rock splinters into a completely noise drenched splattery free jazz drum freakout before breaking down into soft focus ambient drift only to explode into a monstrous dirge all over again. Maybe these guys are mostly a metal band... but it's really hard to tell. Especially after taking this all in. Definitely mind expanding, and certainly mostly for those with a very wide range of tastes, but like we said, it's hard not to love this record, every part of it, from the dreamy to the heavy, from the dark and dangerous to the goofy and absurd. Really cool.

MPEG stream: The Creationist
MPEG stream: Wave Of Babies
MPEG stream: Apocalypse Dove Song

Talk about obsession! That's what produced this, a super deluxe collection of the fuzzed-out greatness that is Atomic Forest, the premier hard rock/psych act from India in the '70s (and the only one to make an album - in fact, they made two). Some of you may already be aware of Atomic Forest from their track on an international fuzz-psych comp called Obsession that came and went a while back (yep, that comp took both its title and its cover artwork from the Atomic Forest's debut lp, Obsession '77). More likely, you've heard the brilliant Deep Purple cover "Mary Long" that they contributed to the Psych Funk Sa-Re-Ga! compilation of vintage sub-continental grooviness, seeing as we made that particular item a Record Of The Week and sold a ton of 'em. Really, their name alone is almost reason enough to be obsessed with Atomic Forest. Also that their music is just so much fuzz-filled fun. So we're stoked that the Now-Again label, blessings be upon them, decided that it'd be cool to do a full-on Atomic Forest archival reissue, collecting ALL their extant recordings, from both their Obsession '77 album (recorded circa 1977, natch, but released in 1981) and their other one, Hit Movie Themes, recorded at the same time and also released in '81, under the name of bandleader/bassist Keith Kanga. Plus six previously unreleased bonus tracks (including an intense 7 minute live version of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady"), amounting to 17 tracks in total. Of those 17, there's lots of covers - a weird wide variety of 'em in fact, ranging from tracks by the disparate likes of The Beatles, Osibisa, the aforementioned Deep Purple, to such "hit movie themes" indeed as the "Theme From The Godfather" and "Windmills Of Your Mind"! And that's no surprise, 'cause like so many bands of the era, Atomic Forest earned their bread - and their rep - on the live circuit, where you had to play the hits... As well as playing gigs at hotel discotheques, the Atomic Rooster guys also honed their chops in an Indian production of Jesus Christ Superstar, by the way. So they were versatile, to say the least. And thus the material here ranges from the heavy (Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath", Atomic Forest's own "Obsession '77" in either fast or slow versions) to somewhat softer stuff - like, well, "Windmills Of Your Mind"! But ALL of it is super groovy, and dosed with killer fuzz guitar and distorted tabla beats, and sometimes wild theremin-like electronics. That it's all by the same band at first seems a bit unlikely but then it all begins to come together, Atomic Forest (a bit like Indonesia's badass AKA) as fluent at playing moody jazz-funk as they are kicking out heavy rock jams, and no slouches at catchy pop psych either. And while this collection consists of mostly covers, their originals fit right in alongside these better known tunes, including two takes of a track called "Butterfly" that's a bit of a riff on the riff from "Freddie's Dead" by Curtis Mayfield, but infused with freaky synth. This package represents the fruits of Now-Again head honcho Egon's obsessed quest to find out more about - and hear more of - Atomic Forest. And the packaging is deluxe, all right. Much like Now-Again's equally elaborate collection of Indonesian psych rarities, Those Shocking Shaking Days, where we first heard AKA, this comes slipcased, containing a thick, miniature-lp style sleeve holding the cd, tucked in there alongside a super thick, square bound 44 page booklet, its bright orange pages full of vintage newspaper clippings, rare photographs, and other ephemera - along with lengthy, extensively researched liner notes, discussing the history of the band and its members, the result of much diligent work tracking down the musicians and their relatives to share their stories. So this is really like getting a cd AND a book. The double vinyl version, likewise, is fancy, packaged with a similarly huge booklet in a sturdy sleeve. Nice!

MPEG stream: Obsession '77 (Slow)
MPEG stream: Locomotive Breath
MPEG stream: Theme From The Godfather

Vinyl reissue of this proto-metal classic. Limited to 500 copies on orange vinyl with poster. Here's what we said back when we wrote up a cd reissue: This album, from 1971 (natch), is probably Atomic Rooster's best and most significant (though their next lp, In Hearing Of is also up there too). Death Walks Behind You was the British band's second album, but their first with new drummer Paul Hammond and new guitarist John DuCann (aka John Cann), who had previously played in psych outfits Andromeda, The Attack, and others. He's best known though for his stint in Atomic Rooster - though we really wish there were decent reissues available of his and Hammond's post-AR band Hard Stuff for us to list, they're one of proto-metal's best kept secrets! But while DuCann brings a lot to this album with his guitar playing and singing, the real star of the show remains organist and main songwriter Vincent Crane, who had founded the band originally in 1969 with his former Crazy World Of Arthur Brown bandmate Carl Palmer (who split from Atomic Rooster after their debut to join up with Emerson and Lake, y'know). Vincent Crane's Hammer horror Hammond organ and piano playing has a lot to do with this record's doomy quality. Though they never took it to the extreme that Black Sabbath did, Atomic Rooster - and this album in particular, from its title and creepy William Blake cover painting to the gloomy, yet groovy music itself - certainly made good use of the spooky/dark/evil/occult vibe that later became a staple of the heavy metal genre. Eight bleak and bombastic tracks here, laced with lots of that good ol' "hairy funk" as DJ Andy Votel would put it. As far as heavy duty organ-based prog/psych goes, you've got to give it up to Atomic Rooster!!

MPEG stream: Death Walks Behind You
MPEG stream: Tomorrow Night

OK, we recently dealt with the Frijid Pink, now here's another important example of early proto-heaviness for us to *finally* list on our site. And they too have a funny name - Atomic Rooster! This album, from 1971 (natch), is probably their best and most significant (though their next lp, In Hearing Of is also up there too). Death Walks Behind You was the band's second album, but their first with new drummer Paul Hammond and new guitarist John DuCann (aka John Cann), who had previously played in psych outfits Andromeda, The Attack, and others. He's best known though for his stint in Atomic Rooster - though we really wish there were decent reissues available of his and Hammond's post-AR band Hard Stuff for us to list, they're one of proto-metal's best kept secrets! But while DuCann brings a lot to this album with his guitar playing and singing, the real star of the show remains organist and main songwriter Vincent Crane, who had founded the band originally in 1969 with his former Crazy World Of Arthur Brown bandmate Carl Palmer (who split from Atomic Rooster after their debut to join up with Emerson and Lake, y'know). Vincent Crane's Hammer horror Hammond organ and piano playing has a lot to do with this record's doomy quality. Though they never took it to the extreme that Black Sabbath did, Atomic Rooster - and this album in particular, from its title and creepy William Blake cover painting to the gloomy, yet groovy music itself - certainly made good use of the spooky/dark/evil/occult vibe that later became a staple of the heavy metal genre. Eight bleak and bombastic tracks here, laced with lots of that good ol' "hairy funk" as DJ Andy Votel would put it. As far as heavy duty organ-based prog/psych goes, you've got to give it up to Atomic Rooster!! FYI, this expanded deluxe version is jewel-cased, in a slipcase, and includes six bonus tracks: b-sides, demos, and BBC radio sessions. So 14 tracks total. Yeah!

MPEG stream: Death Walks Behind You
MPEG stream: Tomorrow Night

Peter Andersson's name is not one that pops up here at Aquarius Records all that often; but his impact upon the Swedish electronic underground has been huge since the early '90s. He's been responsible for some of the more influential dark-ambient / esoteric electronic projects that made up the bulk of the early Cold Meat Industry catalogue with his pseudonyms being Raison D'Etre, Stratvm Terror, Necrophorous, and Atomine Elektrine. Strangely enough, there's another Peter Andersson who also graces Cold Meat Industry's catalogue; but wisely he adopted the moniker Lina Baby Doll to prevent any confusion when venturing into the bizarre, militant territories of Deutsch Nepal. Anyway. Atomine Elektrine is the formerly mentioned Peter Andersson, and this project nestles between kosmische electronica (e.g. Pop Ambient, Boards Of Canada, Omit, etc.) and deep-space isolationism (e.g. Lustmord, Thomas Koner, etc.). Nebulous is a remarkably well done album that doesn't seem to embrace any of the commonplace signifiers of electronica; maybe just a Chain Reaction synth pad here or there alongside the downtempo mechanoid breakbeats, constantly tumbling filter sweeps, and algorithimic arpeggiations cast in shadowy, metallic ambience.

MPEG stream: Transforming Space
MPEG stream: In-Between Spaces

Predictably, there's been beaucoup hype about this new super group / Radiohead offshoot, featuring Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, longtime Radiohead producer/engineer Nigel Godrich, and oddest of the bunch none other than Flea, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We were definitely curious what it would sound like, and while we were maybe expecting something pretty far out and experimental, Amok actually hews surprisingly close to recent Radiohead records and Yorke's solo record The Eraser. Which really shouldn't be all that surprising considering the lineup, and really is not a bad thing. In some ways, we wouldn't have been at all surprised if this had simply been released as a Yorke solo record (which essentially it kind of is?). Every time we play this in the store, someone inevitably asks us if this is Radiohead, which should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect. The tracks here are not so much songs, like much of Yorke's (and Radiohead's) material, eschewing for the most part the standard 'pop' song structure, and instead letting atmospheres drift, and rhythms percolate, Yorke's voice often spectral and wordless, syllables stretched way out, transformed into woozy spidery melodies, the beats looped and layered and skittery, the bass thick and sinewy, pulsing and trancey and hypnotic, the whole thing peppered with strange little electronic filigree, the occasional buried horns, the vibe haunting and melancholic, and darkly, mysteriously groovy. There's a definite late night vibe to most of the tracks, moody and chilled out, but then there's tracks like "Default", which is still moody, but super catchy, "Default" being the most Radiohead of the bunch, the first single, which makes sense, featuring a killer main melody that sounds like it was straight up lifted from some other Radiohead record, we just can't put our finger on which one, but you'll know it when you hear it. So yeah, if you already love Radiohead, you'll love this, and if you dug Yorke's Eraser, you'll REALLY dig Atoms For Peace, and while we maybe weren't blown away at first, we find ourselves listening to this more and more all the time.

MPEG stream: Before Your Very Eyes...
MPEG stream: Default
MPEG stream: Dropped

Third album from these rain-soaked, Pacific Northwest doom freaks. On their last album, they started carving out their own unique little genre space, mixing all sorts of dark stuff together - doom, black metal, goth rock, and post-punk, to name a few - and we think it's fair to say they've fully carved it out now. The overall template is still huge, crushing doom similar to fellow Oregonians Hell or Merkstave (must be something in water up there), but this one gets even deeper into the hole, with an atmosphere of bleakness that could stand toe-to-toe with early Swans releases. The first two tracks, "Entropy" and "Collapse" immediately hit you with a psyched out, shrieking wall of doom with vocals that could have came straight off an Incantation record. "Bereavement" might be the highlight here, kicking off with some blackened blasts that dissolve into doom-soaked madness before building up again (in case you got used to it). Throughout the whole record, you get moments of psychedelic dirge, deathrock gloominess, and even old school death metal heaviness. It should go without saying that we are fully on board with this record and whatever unending pathways these guys decide to trudge down. Highly recommended.

MPEG stream: Entropy
MPEG stream: Bereavement

Hey, blackened doom dudes and dudettes, we know you're busy spinning your new Yob album 24-7, but if you don't want to wear Atma out, here's something else you might like, from the folks (Seventh Rule) who last brought us Batillus. Atriarch are an outfit from up in Portland, Oregon, and deal with the depression of living there (all the rain!) by making this bummer music, downer stuff for sure. And HEAVY. Though this is their debut, Atriarch aren't exactly newcomers to the underground sludge scene, their singer is from Trees, and also the bassist was in Graves At Sea. So they know what they're doing, and what they're doing is making some atmospherically arty, anguished ultra-doom!!! There's four songs, adding up to 36 minutes (this is obviously intended for two sides of vinyl, which Seventh Rule has released in quite handsome form, though we also have cds in different, handmade packaging, self-released by the band). It's kinda like one looooong song though, and we mean that in a good way... a depressive, occasionally violent journey into the realms of grim gothic darkness, Atriarch employing harsh vokills (and some use of mournful "clean" vocals too), droning synth, somber slow-mo drum pummel, soft-loud dynamics, sad melodies, and of course crushing distorted guitars, to convey their dire emotional message of the foreverness of the end. Should appeal to anyone who might dig a bleaker, blacker metal version of Cough, Atavist, the aforementioned Yob, etc.

MPEG stream: Plague
MPEG stream: Fracture

Record number two from this Portland black/doom horde, which finds their sound moving in a surprising new direction. The first record was classic blackened doom, loooooong songs, depressive and mournful, sonically similar to outfits like Yob, Atavist, Cough, and other masters of the slo-mo doom-ed creep, but on Ritual Of Passing they seem to have an almost death rock thing going on, the sound way more punk, the songs shorter, choppy and churning, the vocals the biggest change of all, a snarly yowl, a good match for the music certainly bit well removed from the vocals on the first record, harsh AND clean. And we have to say we're digging it a lot. It's kind of exciting to hear these guys attempt such a weird hybrid: black metal, doom, noise rock, goth, deathrock, it's all sorta tangled up into something pretty original sounding. The opening track "Parasite" kind covers all the bases, starting out all classic doom, creepy and funereal, but then instead of erupting into full on doooooom, the sound instead explodes into a chugging, swaggery, gloomy noise/death rock dirge, with cool minor key guitar melodies, pounding double kick drumming, a shouted, super catchy chorus, which the more we listen to, the more removed from metal it seems. Then there's the wild psychedelic black noise progged out chaotic outro. Pretty badass we have to say. And while the other tracks do tend more toward proper doom, those elements from the first track definitely find their way into the rest of the record, the vocals especially, which sound even cooler, when paired with woozy, dirgey doom, and soaring almost black metal guitars, and in places, the vocals get all croony and dramatic, the music following suit, slipping into a sort of churning post punk minimalism, and on one track, where the sound slooooows waaay doooooown, more of a weird goth-doom ballad, before exploding back into another stretch of weirdly mathy, metallic post punk, noise rock crush. Fans of the first record might be a bit thrown off, but we're digging this one WAY more than we ever did the first one, precisely cuz it's so different, and so far removed from the doom / death sound that's been done to, well, death!

MPEG stream: Parasite
MPEG stream: Altars
MPEG stream: Prayer
MPEG stream: Cursed

Ancient Hispanic-Moslem music from the Andalusian region of the Iberian peninsula, recreated with appropriately medieval atmosphere by Gregorio Paniagua's Atrium Musicae de Madrid -- the same outfit of ethno-historic musical explorers who recorded the marvellous "Musique de la Grece Antique" disc that we've sold so many of (the one where they speculatively imagined what the music of Ancient Greece was like). Detailed liner notes explain the history and structure of the music performed here, all of which is exquisite. This album was originally released on LP in 1977.

FINALLY BACK IN PRINT -- and still cheap! Now in a digipak. Here's Allan's old review of this AQ-favorite, originally released on LP in 1979, now in its 2nd or 3rd Harmonia Mundi cd incarnation: Some records come out (say, a reissue of some strange '70s psych) and there's all this anticipation because of reading about it for years, or at least seeing it in a catalog or something (kinda like AQ-list subscribers hear about a lot of new things), but many of our favorite albums were first heard (and appreciated) with no prior information or expectations. You know, the kind of thing that really grabs you partially because you DON'T know anything about it, like a thrift store LP you picked up just 'cause of the weird cover art or something (like, how some of us first encountered Bruce Haack's "Electric Lucifer" for instance). Now, this album we didn't originally find in a thrift store record bin, there wasn't even a cover associated with it: the story is, a friend had a tape of this in his car, it was obviously some sort of old recording (taped off a scratchy LP) of what our friend was told (by the person who'd given the tape to him) was traditional Greek music. But it was quite unlike any Greek music we'd heard before, sounding more like a soundtrack to a film featuring pagan rites, very ceremonial and mysterious in nature. Unlike any "real" recording of Greek music I could imagine. Eventually (last week) we decipered the handwritten info on the cassette and after only a few minutes of research on the sometimes miraculous internet, found out not only what it was but that it had been reissued on cd! And so now we have it here at Aquarius. Nice how that worked out! What we now know is that the concept of this recording is that it's a partially-imaginary reconstruction by an unusual Spanish world-music ensemble of what the music of ancient Greece MIGHT have sounded like, based on what little historical documentation is available regarding musical practices of the period. Each track references some papyrii or other (so the spoken and sung texts are supposedly historically accurate) and the music is played on what are assumed to be authentic types of instrumentation (including a reproduction of an hydraulic organ!). As we said, much of the music is ritual-sounding, with chanting and bells. It has quite an occult vibe. There's also tracks of beautiful, folky female vocals backed by plucks of the lyre. Add to that stirring horns, droning flutes, percussive crashes, eccentric vocal flourishes, and much more. Liner notes explain the Atrium Musicae's intentions and procedure in trying to recreate this lost music. There's a definite sense of drama, and of the weight of the ages upon those trying to bring the fragments of Greek music back to life. This disc is sometimes creepy, often lovely, always fascinating. Although I kind of wish that this cd had the scratchy surface noise found on our friend's tape of the LP, which gave it even more of a "lost treasure" vibe (as if some ancient Greek philosopher had invented some sort of anachronistic "marble cylinder" recording technology, recently unearthed by archeologists!) it's still totally amazing!

RealAudio clip: Anakrousis.Orestes Stasimo
RealAudio clip: Hymne a la Muse
RealAudio clip: Hymne a Nemesis
RealAudio clip: Pean.Papyrus Berlin 6870

The title of this disc should clue you in about what you're getting here from this relatively obscure '60s British band, known today mainly for its revolving door membership that gave 'em connections to the Marmalade, The Nice and Atomic Rooster. There's fifteen songs here, recorded for the Decca label 'round the years indicated, mostly mostly tracks from unissued singles and a few that did actually make it out (weirdly, a lot of the best tunes on here are the previously unreleased ones!). At their best, the Attack indeed attack with some excellent freakbeat -- psych with a hard edge, distorted and nicely fuzzed-out, with Kinks style proto-metal licks. At their worst, some of this is a bit on the generic side, trying for a hit. But there's something here for every lover of the '60s psych explosion, touching on twee, faux-Eastern, and the aformentioned heavier stuff. And some of the lyrics (like "Strange House") are so naively trippy they're quite amusing. As mentioned, The Attack featured in their ranks both former and future members of Marmelade and The Nice, but I'd heard of this band only 'cause they eventually turned into Five Day Week Straw People and thence Andromeda who then gave up guitarist John DuCann to Atomic Rooster...from which he eventually split to form Hard Stuff. Now, none of those bands have we ever listed or reviewed reissues of...but I guess we should. Atomic Rooster's Death Walks Behind You is a definite classic. And I love the two Hard Stuff albums, which we sometimes have on cd, but they're never reliably in stock. So, this we're listing for two sorts of folks: the ones who are into '60s psych and are familiar with of all the bands mentioned above and were waiting for The Attack tracks to someday appear on cd (here you go!). The other sort of person we're listing this for is someone who's happy to check out some obscure '60 UK hard psych reissue they're never heard of before just 'cause we say it's pretty cool (here you go, too!). The Attack IS pretty cool, at least about 50 percent of it anyway.

MPEG stream: Feel Like Flying
MPEG stream: Mr. Pinnodmy's Dilemma

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

SORRY.

Here's the eponymous debut from Portland's Au, whose multi-pronouncable name and jubilant freak-folk expressionism is authored by one Luke Wyland with a rotating crew of sodden musicians in tow. Like any self-respecting avant-freak-folk minstrel, Wyland incorporates everything and the kitchen sink into his recordings (guitars, mandolins, accordions, bongos, xylophones, and whatever was lying around for percussion), but his tunes enjoy a unique sensibility marked by his classical piano training with some hefty leanings towards Terry Riley. These bucolic songs balance between an Appalachian earnestness and Animal Collective's wide-eyed ramshackledness, all in part thanks to Wyland's pointilist clouds of charmed minimalism. With a voice that croons, cackles, and wails as the reincarnation of Brian Eno's 70s pop guise channeled into a post-Devenda Banhart persona, Wyland situates himself as the ringleader to Au's ecstatic escapades which wildly shift from rustic, pastoral atmospheres of cyclical piano flutter and saloon-swooning ditties into a frolicking bluster of cacophonic percussion, guitars, and Wyland's polydactyl piano. Rumor has it that Au's shambolic twang has caught the ear of One Little Indian, who had expressed considerable interest in signing the group. While things are probably look up for Au's future, things already look pretty damn good judging from this release.

MPEG stream: Boute
MPEG stream: Sum
MPEG stream: Death

Nice 200 gram vinyl reissue of the 1981 debut from this British post-punk quartet that reminds us of a Pylon/Pretenders hybrid with sharper teeth. Smashing the power politics of sexual relationships with biting critique, this two female, two male foursome deliver cleverly disaffected songwriting with an urgent rhythmic energy. The band only put out two records and this one is their best, with infectious hooks and a bracing cynicsm that remains razor-sharp. They even pull off the rare David Bowie cover that far surpasses the original with "Repetition", a creepily banal look into the mind of an abusive spouse. For fans of Gang of Four, Delta 5, Xmal Deutchland, The Slits, Mo-dettes and the bands mentioned above. Recommended!!

MPEG stream: Dear John
MPEG stream: Come Again
MPEG stream: Repetition

The world's been totally overwhelmed lately by modern practicioners of "classic new wave", with loads of groups aping Gang Of Four, A Certain Ratio, and all that, as well as less creative bands who don't even manage to extend their influences that far, instead trying to be the next Interpol or Rapture. While we've most certainly been digging Interpol, and the Rapture, and the Moving Units, if there's one thing we've learned, it's that no matter how good these bands are, the originals were so much better. In terms of songs and sound and originality and everything. One group that was a big part of the original sound but hasn't gotten nearly the attention they deserve is Au Pairs. Kurt Kobain was a huge fan, as are Greil Marcus and John Peel. And now so are we! This reissue is a couple years old, but the recent vinyl reissue reminded us that we let this slip through the cracks, and we figured some of you might be as psyched as we were to discover this amazing slab of dark and danceable new wave. Better late than never. This is the second album from Au Pairs and definitely their best, sonically referencing Gang Of Four, Mekons, Television, and even the Talking Heads. Au Pairs was one of the first groups who practiced what they preached, especially in terms of sexual equality, with a half male and half female lineup, and no obvious "front person". Featuring baffling (for the time at least) cover art adapted from a Russian minimalist and lyrics about domestic violence, menstruation, terrorism, drug addiction and all sorts of 'heavy' subjects, Au Pairs were quite the anomaly, which perhaps explains their marginal status. The music is fantastic though, lots of reverb and ambient jangle, some almost disco moments (Allan thought it sounded like Frankie Goes To Hollywood at times), angular guitars, jazzy horns, throbbing, bouncing basslines, tribal percussion and funky rhythms, with both male and female vocals. The male vocals bear an uncanny resemblance to The Alarm's Mike Peters and are the perfect foil for Lesley Woods' throaty wail. Not sure what it is about this record, but we've been listening to it nonstop. Fans of all the above mentioned bands should definitely pick this up!

MPEG stream: Stepping Out Of Line
MPEG stream: Sex Without Stress

Brand new 7" from one of our favorite soundmakers, Japan's Aube, whose modus operandi involves utilizing a single sound source for each record. In the past he's used water, fire, even pages being torn from a bible! This time it's not so easy to discern what the source material is. Not that it is really normally. But often the title or the artwork will hint at it, but here it's not so clear. A field of holes on a purple and red background. A drain? It sure sounds like that could be it, as the music is a muted burbling, a distant gurgle smeared into something softly percussive, a haunting underwater field of percolations and glitchy hum, going from barely there whisper to intense frenzy, to then what sounds like an airplane passing through the sky way off in the distance. A bit of research reveals that the source material here is actually some vintage synth, but even as obvious as that sounds, in the world of Aube it sounds more like processed field recordings of a drain than an actual synthesizer! The flipside betrays the sound source a bit more, as after a hushed start, the track transforms into a glitched out tangle of analog electronics, squiggly and chaotic, a flurry of bleeps and bloops and buzzes, glitch and hum, but all of that quickly fades into something much more tranquil, a warm static drone, bathed in an electronic rainfall, the preceding squall relegated to a place off in the distance, like sitting on an old rickety porch and watching a lighting storm dance in the sky. Nice. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, we only have a handful. Pressed on clear vinyl in full color sleeves...

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Yes, metal chains make the sound. Limited edition, might be gone by the time you read this sorry...

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SORRY. Two new recordings from one of Japan's best noise artists (Marc's favorite). Akifumi Nakajima uses a single sound source to craft his bizarre soundscapes, heartbeats in the case of "Cardiac Strain" and florescent lamps for "Dazzle Reflexion." The textures range from ambient drones to harsh noise, and are never as random-seeming as the work of many of his contemporaries.

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SORRY. More Good Alchemy - very extreme sounds from one of Japan's best, most conceptual noise artists.

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SORRY. The newest Aube project, this time using only a copy of The Bible as sound source material! Blasphemous crinklings and tearings? Yes, and he's mangaged to coax a sort of mechanical heartbeat out of it as well, among other noises. Of course without knowing already one could never guess that those sounds were coming from a book, let alone from the pages of The Greatest Story Ever Told--but that knowledge is an added bonus to this enjoyable listen.

Two disc set of remixes of Aube's 1999 disc "Pages From The Book", whose source material was solely an amplified Bible! Remixers of the Greatest Story Ever Told vary in extremes from the brutal aural assaults of Merzbow, Brume, Princess Dragonmom (Warn

Japanese noise / experimentalist Aube (aka Akifumi Nakajima) has made his career out of manipulating a single source material into swelling collages of textural sound and droning noise. Light bulbs, water, voice, voltage controlled oscillators, steel wires, his own somatic elements (brain waves, heart beats, and lungs), and here on "Seton", stone is the source material used. At first,

RealAudio clip: No Set

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SORRY. Continuing his single source material aesthetic, Aube pulls out a staple from his bag of tricks... glass. Looping samples culled from taps, cracks, and scrapes form a solid structuralist frame for closely amplified striations of glass. For the most part, Aube has left these sounds (aside from the sampled looping) alone, allowing the signature sound of glass to speak without too much external processing. Packaged in an oversized 6" x 9" paper envelope.

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SORRY. Voltage Control Oscillator is the answer to the question ("what is the source of the sounds on this new Aube disc?"). Aube's stuff is always less noisy and more soundscape-y than some of his fellow Japanese noise copatriots (Mezbow, Masonna, Incapacitants, etc.) and this is no exception. Drones and tones (some quite piercing, but placed in such a way as to make the resumption of the drones all that much more soothing). Nice.

Wow! An exceptional release from Akifumi Nakajima aka Aube! While most recordings by this highly prolific artist utilize unique sound sources (water, fluorescent lamps, heartbeat, or most notoriously - an amplified Bible!), "Timemind" is a more rhythmic, one

RealAudio clip: III

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SORRY. A Dutch import limited to 500 copies, this piece is constructed from recordings made of the 18 foot long corridor of the Chio-In Temple in Kyoto that squeeks when walked upon. The squeeking is supposed to prevent unexpected intrusions.

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SORRY. One of Japan's best (and most prolific) sound-sculptors, Aube here collects 20 tracks from various compilations and tapes, mostly on the noiser side of his ouevre. On the British label that last brought us Szeki Kurva.

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SORRY. More Good Alchemy - very extreme sounds from one of Japan's best, most conceptual noise artists.

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SORRY. This self-evident project come by way of the Swiss-born sound artist now living in Berlin, whose backyards, alleyways, and enclosed gardens are the source material for this extended acousmatic collage of environmental recordings. Much of Aubry's composition settles upon the grey din that is ubiquitous in any urban environment, but he take great care to extract various details out of those environments and amplify them with dynamic swells and repetitive phrasing. Aubry slowly moves through his reconstituted Berlin backyard, listening to the hum of ventilators, the rattle of a misaligned cooling duct, the rumble of a diesel engine, and the drips of rain splatting on cold concrete. For all of the man-made sources to Aubry's sound, there's very little intrusion of living people into his environment, with the occasional crank of car's engine and some clanging objects, rendering his backyard spaces virtually empty. For fans of Francisco Lopez, M. Behrens, Tarab, Jean-Francois Laporte, and Eric La Casa. Very nicely done.

MPEG stream: track 1
MPEG stream: track 5
MPEG stream: track 7

We've never carried anything from Winds Measure Recordings before now; but that will certainly be changing, as this is a label with an excellent ear for the finer points of dronesmear sound-art and an equally excellent eye for letterpressed packaging. And we'll start with the stellar manipulated field recording work from the Swiss-born / Berlin-based sound artist Gilles Aubry, who seems to have run a space in Berlin dedicated to experimental music called Stralau 68. The space had unfortunately closed in 2007, but it seemed to have been a nexus of activity for noise, aktionism, avant-rock, live-wire electronics, and whatnot. Perhaps as a final act within the emptied space, Aubry recorded the resonance of the room, capturing all sorts of resonant drones, tones, hums, and buzzes intrinsic to the space outside of its former use as a performance venue. The first of three pieces on this album centers on the rasping frequencies from the industrial air vents matching wind-blown recordings from within what sounds like a huge concrete structure. Here Aubry's work attains the acousmatic aesthetic that the finest Francisco Lopez pieces of minimalism seek. The second piece is far more dynamic, with thrumming rumble grounding an interwoven drone of pierced frequencies and jarring movements from creaking metal doors, bellowing hisses of infernal air, and scrabbling textures. It's unsettled and ominous, something of a hybrid between the end-times collages of Tarab and the late period bleakness of Lustmord. The final piece continues with the scraped abrasions and elongated drones of toxic environmental frequencies. Absolutely brilliant stuff! As we mentioned, Winds Measure's packaging is a thing of beauty, here with an elegant folio of letterpressed text on thick white paper with a set of abstracted smears printed precisely in a pale pale grey. Some of the finer letterpressed work we've seen! Put it all together in a small edition of just about 300 copies. Highly recommended!

[ aquarius records catalogue — A ]