[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 2101 through 2150 of 2272.

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We've been wanting to review anything from either of these bands for ages, one from Australia, the other from the UK, both trafficking in ultra depressive, hauntingly beautiful suicidal doom-ed black metal, but each with a distinctly different approach. Austere are the Aussies, and have a black metal pedigree like you wouldn't believe (Funeral Mourning, Pestilential Shadows, Kinstrife & Blood, Nazxul to name a few). In their Austere incarnation, the duo of Sorrow and Desolate craft a dark swirling abyss of midtempo blackness, a mournful stretch of clean guitars and loping drums create a haunting moodiness, which morphs into something much more blackened and blown out, but no less ethereal and, well, austere. But it's the vocals that transcend here, an insane high pitched shriek, drifting in a cloud of reverb and delay, inhuman to say the least, occasionally growing into something much more growling and aggressive, but just as quickly becoming a disembodied wraith like shriek. All the while the music beneath drifts and lilts, reminding us of a way more washed out Katatonia, minor key and brooding, but strangely epic and expansive, and most definitely miserable and melancholy and darkly depressive. The UK's Lyrinx are a good match, their sound equally grim and sorrowful, but the drums are much more of a presence, the guitars too are less ethereal and more buzzy and raw, the arrangements are very post rocky, loping and meandering, very reminiscent of Slint, and by extension Ved Buens Ende. The vocals here too are harsh and anguished, but like the rest of the sound, more abrasive, more caustic and raw, weirdly complimenting the hypnotic churning drift beneath. And unlike the monochromatic crawl of Austere, Lyrinx definitely mix it up, slipping into frenzied black metal blast, the drums exploding in tangles of wild octopoidal fury, before slipping into haunting half time breakdowns, all lingering minor key chords and abstract rhythms, a resulting sound both woozy and weary and sorrowful, as well as intense and chaotic. Essential for the suicidal black metal hordes out there: Make A Change Kill Yourself, Hypothermia, Lutomysl, Silencer, I Shalt Become, Happy Days, Nortt, Holmgang, might as well add Lyrinx and Austere to the list...

MPEG stream: Towards The Great Unknown
MPEG stream: No Failure In Suicide

This is probably gonna sound like total sacrilege. And it is, we know it is, but it's all we can think when we're listening to these guys, quite possibly our favorite drum machine driven duo, is that yeah, they sound like Big Black, the super distorted guitar chug, the sung spoken vox, the thick floor shaking bass, the fucked up and funny lyrics, it's like Big Black, bit kind of, well, you know, BETTER. There we said it. And before you get your hate mail machine in motion, realize, that we revere Big Black, every single song, a fucking misanthropic masterpiece, but if you were to ask us, what could make BB better? Well, we would have said, let's see, you could make it heavier, make the songs more complex, add tons more dynamics, fuck it, the Austerity Program is just that, like a super charged, ultra heavy, way more complex Big Black, but they are so much more, they have taken that sound, that classic, timeless (to us at least) sound, and made it all their own. The super tense slow build of "Song 25", with its sprawling guitar buzz, and hushed spoken vocals, gradually growing more and more intense, the drum machine and buzzing bass soon joining in, a churning low slung dirge, the guitar doesn't even show up until a minute left in the song, but suddenly the track is transformed into a lurching metal machine prog blow out, with some awesomely weirdly clipped rhythms, chugging guitar, it's the sort of part most bands would (and should) stretch out for minutes, but the AP make it last seconds, cuz they know, they have way more up their sleeves. "Song 26" explodes in a throbbing downtuned crush, stopping, starting, stuttering, hiccupping, until things bliss out, and suddenly it's a shimmery whispered drift, only to lurch into a grinding metallic robotic pound, finally finishing off with more churn and crunch. "Song 27" starts off all distorted strum and more clipped drum machine, droney and tense and hypnotic, before splintering into a stop start stutter, that explodes into what sounds like "Jordan, Minnesota" at triple speed, and then back again, a fucking epic proto prog metal jam with some MIT worthy drum machine programming, and anguished ultra pissed vox. "Track 29" might be the weirdest, and perhaps the coolest of the bunch, a cloud of soaring guitars, a chugging bass, and another robotic looped rhythm, but the vocals are sung, sweetly, a lovely melodic counterpoint to the churn and chug beneath it, taking some subtle detours throughout, but always returning to that relentless crunch, another track, that seems way too brief at 5:30, epic and melodic and majestic and heavy and fucking awesome. We've listened to these 4 songs about 20 times, and we're bound to go 20 more, but they've got us really hoping there's a full length around the corner. And yeah, that means buy it, it RULES.

MPEG stream: Song 25
MPEG stream: Song 26

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SORRY. This latest chunk of mechanized Big Black-ian post metal crush from aQ faves is not only available as a super limited test pressing / needle cleaning kit version elsewhere on this list, it is now also available as this even more limited data dvd-r, which contains 24 bit .wav files of song mixdowns and all the seperate instrument tracks, as well as instructions and artwork files. Why you ask? Well, so you can customize the record how ever you want, ditch the vocals, crank the vocals, blow out the drums, remix it, add sitar, tuba, sing along yourself, you've got the parts, use 'em to make your very own and utterly unique version of Backsliders And Apostates Will Burn! Oh, and you can always still just listen to it, and you should, cuz it rules... This is probably gonna sound like total sacrilege. And it is, we know it is, but it's all we can think when we're listening to these guys, quite possibly our favorite drum machine driven duo, is that yeah, they sound like Big Black, the super distorted guitar chug, the sung spoken vox, the thick floor shaking bass, the fucked up and funny lyrics, it's like Big Black, bit kind of, well, you know, BETTER. There we said it. And before you get your hate mail machine in motion, realize, that we revere Big Black, every single song, a fucking misanthropic masterpiece, but if you were to ask us, what could make BB better? Well, we would have said, let's see, you could make it heavier, make the songs more complex, add tons more dynamics, fuck it, the Austerity Program is just that, like a super charged, ultra heavy, way more complex Big Black, but they are so much more, they have taken that sound, that classic, timeless (to us at least) sound, and made it all their own. The super tense slow build of "Song 25", with its sprawling guitar buzz, and hushed spoken vocals, gradually growing more and more intense, the drum machine and buzzing bass soon joining in, a churning low slung dirge, the guitar doesn't even show up until a minute left in the song, but suddenly the track is transformed into a lurching metal machine prog blow out, with some awesomely weirdly clipped rhythms, chugging guitar, it's the sort of part most bands would (and should) stretch out for minutes, but the AP make it last seconds, cuz they know, they have way more up their sleeves. "Song 26" explodes in a throbbing downtuned crush, stopping, starting, stuttering, hiccupping, until things bliss out, and suddenly it's a shimmery whispered drift, only to lurch into a grinding metallic robotic pound, finally finishing off with more churn and crunch. "Song 27" starts off all distorted strum and more clipped drum machine, droney and tense and hypnotic, before splintering into a stop start stutter, that explodes into what sounds like "Jordan, Minnesota" at triple speed, and then back again, a fucking epic proto prog metal jam with some MIT worthy drum machine programming, and anguished ultra pissed vox. "Track 29" might be the weirdest, and perhaps the coolest of the bunch, a cloud of soaring guitars, a chugging bass, and another robotic looped rhythm, but the vocals are sung, sweetly, a lovely melodic counterpoint to the churn and chug beneath it, taking some subtle detours throughout, but always returning to that relentless crunch, another track, that seems way too brief at 5:30, epic and melodic and majestic and heavy and fucking awesome. We've listened to these 4 songs about 20 times, and we're bound to go 20 more, but they've got us really hoping there's a full length around the corner. And yeah, that means buy it, it RULES.

MPEG stream: Song 25
MPEG stream: Song 26

For as much as we love this band, we had never seen them play live until a few weeks ago, and our minds were blown big time. Not only did they have an entire music store's worth of gear, so many speakers it required renting a U-haul to get them to the club, and also required setting up on the floor since they wouldn't fit on the stage, they also sounded incredible. Two super unassuming guys, kicking out the sort of rib cage rattling heavy jams that would make most 'proper' metal bands seriously envious. All that, and they were funny as fuck too, playing to a strange backing track, that not only included their drum machine, but also a strange robotic woman, who sort of narrated, explaining the different songs, pimping out merchandise, and even arguing with the band members between songs. So genius. And it's no small feat to be funny, and not be a joke band. But these guys have it nailed. If you've ever seen their hilarious non-music videos, you'll know what we're talking about. But none of that would matter if they didn't rule, and they most certainly do. Definitely heavily beholden to the late great Big Black, with churning, super distorted bass lines, impossibly down tuned guitar chug, the sound angular, thick and corrosive, tranced out and HEAVY as fuck, then there's guitarist Justin Foley's hilarious vocals, that slip easily from sardonic spoken word, to wild bellowed yowl and back again. And if anything, not only is this new record heavier, and more focused, it's also way more melodic, with a much bigger focus on actual songcraft, not to mention some seriously tripped out production and unlikely sounds throughout. That crazy catchiness surfaces in the most unlikely places, the songs themselves, complex and intricate and downright proggy, a dense, relentless crushingly heavy, impossibly hooky noise-pop, industrial metal-prog that is so goddamn good, it baffles the mind that these guys were always the unsung / less popular weirdos on the Hydra Head roster. But hopefully, now that they've struck out on their own, this being the first release on their own label, folks will wake up and dig the crazy heaviness, and warped weirdo poppiness, these guys have (not so) quietly mastered over the last however many years. And yeah, it's definitely their best record yet. And no it's not all the same note (fuck you Justin). Definite contender for record of the year, so leave a space on that list, you won't be sorry... Available on cd, vinyl, and as a 1/4" reel to reel tape, for the super music mega nerds out there (the band, also uber nerds, suggest that version, as it sounds the best haha)!

MPEG stream: Song 31
MPEG stream: Song 30
MPEG stream: Song 39

It's hard to know exactly what to say about these guys, we have to fight our urge to just gush madly, and as you all probably realize by now, we can only put up so much of a fight... the last Austerity Program record was a bombastic homage to the drum machine fueled acerbic brutality of the late great Big Black, which we absolutely loved. But this record somehow manages to retain that sound (how could it not at least a little, especially considering the lineup is guitar, bass and drum machine?) while taking it so much further. Sure Big Black were amazing, as were the legion of drum machine driven behemoths that followed, but the Austerity Program are way more than the sum of their parts. Especially the drum machine part, which seems to define most bands that utilize one... The drum machine here doesn't always sound like a machine at all, which is the key, it's super tight, and precise, but could maybe be an actual drummer. Occasionally the band do take advantage of the machine's super human abilities, but for the most part, the drumming while crushing and brutal is also weirdly deft and subtle. The vocals also can't help but give a nod to Albini and Big Black, it's not a hellish howl or a guttural growl, it's more of an angry nerdy wail, a hyper literate, snarky rant delivered in a sung / spoken, regular guy shout. But the vocals are generally few and far between, which means it's mostly all about the bass and guitar... And fuck if these aren't some of the heaviest, and thickest guitar sounds ever. It helps that the riffs totally destroy, super catchy, weirdly melodic, soaring and epic as often as they are metallic and pummeling. Sometimes super affected, but just as often a straight forward chest caving crunch, the bass throbbing and pulsing right along, often offering up some super unlikely melodic counterpoint, never content to just be a low end presence, the bass grinds and growls as intensely as the guitars.� The overall sound ends up being some strange hybrid of Big Black (obviously), Harvey Milk, Jesu, a little bit of Fugazi and some hints here and there of black metal buzz, all tightly wound into an utterly intense crushing blast of beautiful brutality. From the first track, you'll be pretty much knocked the fuck out. It's a super complex mathy metallic workout, the guitars, swirl and soar, slither and shimmer, all the while pounding out some of the most bad ass riffs ever, and it's super dynamic, with the drums and guitar locked tight, stopping to emit little squalls of corrosive feedback before spiraling back into walls and washes of furious buzz. All the tracks are impossibly gorgeous and melodic, as well as being super ultra tight and clinical,�guitars are massive, roiling and thick, the riffs warm and dense, but jagged and razor sharp, and the arrangements are mindblowing, super complex, but not to the point of destroying the flow of the songs, just perfectly obtuse and tangled, so much so that it sounds like one of these guys must have gotten some sort of calculus degree just to program the drum machine. But it's not all pound and crush,�some tracks are slow and brooding, the guitars building and building, a haunting groovy�Fugazi like percussive chug, that eventually builds to a completely catchy, massive grinding guitar / pummeling percussion battle that manages to take the shape of a crazy catchy song at the same time.� We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the fact that these guys are also really fucking funny too. But in that all to rare way, where the music is absolutely NOT funny, the humor is subtle, and clever, and just a bit snarky, but it's all over the place, EVEN in the music, but subtly so. From the sticker and obi text on the outside, to the lyrics (especially the part where they scream�"Here is my favorite part" before, well, what just might be their favorite part), to some of the clever arrangements, some of the strangely almost recognizable melodies, right down to the WTF liner notes, a chunk of pseudo-scientific data analyzing the various songs on the album, based on things like "distinct drum patterns", "average tempo", "vocal references to death", "abrupt pauses" and more. There are graphs and charts, and lengthy descriptions of how the "Divergence Index Value" of each song was calculated. Even the cover art, various swaths of old lady plastic flowers... these guys just totally rule. They're heavy and ultra brutal, but don't take themselves too seriously, they're funny, but the music is not, the humor is smart and funny, and somehow perfectly compliments the sheer epic intensity of the music... They also had a contest celebrating the release of their new record with the grand prize being your very own customized song, and as if that weren't enough, have a peek at this amazing Austerity Program infomercial: http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=1WcsV7hQ1V4 As if it weren't already painfully obvious, absolutely essential, totally recommended, one of our favorite new records, and a no brainer for record of the week!

MPEG stream: Song 12
MPEG stream: Song 17B
MPEG stream: Song 19

A while back we made the debut full length from drum machine noise rock duo The Austerity Program our record of the week. And we still throw it on pretty regularly. Heavy, abrasive, hooky, a modern Big Black, but with a way better sense of humor. We've been waiting patiently for the band to release something else, and now the waiting has finally paid off. A brand new two track 7", featuring "Track 20" and the oh so illusive "Track 1". One of these days we'll figure out their modus operandi, do they just pick numbers at random to attach to songs? Or, as we hope, are they chronological, all written in a flurry of activity, and picked out haphazardly for various releases. Thus this 7" would contain one of their more recent tracks, and the very first one! It sort of sounds like it too, but more on that in a second. "Track 20" brings it all back, it starts out all slow and brooding, but soon launches into a surprisingly melodic blast of machinelike metal, of industrial noise rock indie pop, not sure what to call it, but it most definitely hits the spot. Super distorted guitars, Justin Foley's anguished howls, the drums as sharp and creatively programmed as ever. Part way through there's a killer mathy breakdown, the riffs splintering into space, complete with some swooping backwards high-hats, and a big finish where the drums get wild enough that it almost sounds like a real drummer. But the flip side, "Track 1", is KILLER, super dynamic stop / start arrangement, the riffing eventually locking into a seriously buzzy loop, the whole track turning a wee bit black metal in face, even the drums get turned up a notch with flurries of double kick drum, underpinning the instrumental crush above. In some ways, it almost sounds unfinished, like a sketch almost, but even in its sketch like form, it's most definitely one of our favorite AP tracks yet! SUPER LIMITED of course, packaged in a cool thick sleeve made out of some mysterious map, inside, a little sticker guiding you to a download of the two tracks!

The power of independent trucking indeed! This is some serious Big Black worship. Which is not a bad thing. I mean, if you're gonna find inspiration for your two-guys-and-a-drum-machine rock band, you can't really do better than the mighty 'Black. While no band can possibly hope to approach the ferocity and misanthropy of BB at their prime, The Austerity Program make a pretty good go of it, especially considering they are probably nice, respectable young men with not nearly as much opinion/pent-up anger/baggage as Big Black front man Steve Albini and thus have to work a bit harder to get ANGRY enough to make music this pissed. Screeching, clanging guitars, over machinelike rhythms, with half shouted/half sung vocals adding slight melody to the caustic, abrasive noisescapes. It's got a bit more of a post rock feel, but that's not a bad thing. It definitely helps make The Austerity Program sound a little more like themselves. Good stuff. MPEG Download: "Song 3" [/audio/austerityprogramsong3.mp3]

MPEG stream: Song 3

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MPEG stream: Pyre Without Flames
MPEG stream: The Banks Of The Shadow's River

Long gone are the days of Autechre albums like Incunabula, Amber, and LP5 where spiralling electronic melodies tumbled upon algorithmic breakbeats with ghostly allusions to hardcore techno and hip-hop. Over the past five records (LP5 being perhaps the last Autechre album to embrace the 'classic' IDM sound), abstraction for the sake of abstraction has been the order of the day. The atonal squiggling set upon a wooden breakbeat on "Treale" is about a close as (Oversteps) comes to a classic Autechre track, but much of this album seems to be wandering without much clear intention as to what might happen next. Just a fizzing sound here, and a blobby splutter of jazzy midi-synth there. That said, at least some of us have been digging this quite a bit, not for it's Autechre-ness, but rather for the fact, that much of the weird mopey rhythms and synthy splutter, remind us of all of those fucked up weirdo guitar synth bands we're so obsessed with: Xynfonica, Shevalreq, Thursar, Gluttony, somehow, and in some weird way, the less rhythmic, more ambient tracks on (Oversteps) sound like cleaned up, less obviously fucked up versions of that outsider weirdness, which to most ears might not be a plus, but to some of us, makes this Autechre pretty cool, and weird, and we definitely find ourselves drawn to it, listening to it more often that we might have expected...

MPEG stream: Pt2ph8
MPEG stream: Treale
MPEG stream: Os Veix3

This isn't even remotely new, but it does happen to be perhaps the best Autechre record to date. And as it is only now being released domestically and at a decent price (it was $20 until now) we figured it was time to give this record its due. Besides

RealAudio clip: Chiastic Slide 1
RealAudio clip: Chiastic Slide 2
RealAudio clip: Chiastic Slide 3

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SORRY. Their new, much-anticipated full length, also available as 2 separate 12"s for 8.98 each.

During the past few years, Autechre's work has come to mean much more than a personal aesthetic expression for Autechre themselves, as members of electronica's ivory tower (the IDM list in particular) have placed Autechre's work within a universally However, "Confield" is a drastically different record for Autechre, as they have become too self-involved in making experimental art for the sake of experimentation. All of their previous records have a trace element of hip hop, as if Autechre has taken the futurism of Afrika Bambaata and Grandmaster Flash to a logical extreme of dense cybernetic spaces and whirring binary clatter. Autechre may have been predicting that hip hop wouldn't catch on to this (if at all) for quite a long time; however, the angular hip hop productions of Destiny's Child or Ludacris have indeed developed similarities to Autechre's sound. I would postulate that these similarities rather than the imitators from their own camp are what pushed Autechre towards the more experimental / less accessible forms on "Confield." This album has almost completely done away with the bass heavy hip hop breakbeats. Instead, Autechre sublimates the rhythms to seasick fluctuations of timestretched glitches and phasing sequences. Similarly, the big romantic melodies which Autechre pioneered on their first album ("Incunabula") and revitalized on their last ("AE5") have gone missing. While the individual sounds are interesting, well-groomed pieces of digital errata, Autechre's micromanagement of the sound has made them lose sight of the bigger picture: making a good record, not just a good sound.

RealAudio clip: Lentic Cathachresis
RealAudio clip: Sim Ajshel
RealAudio clip: VI Scose Poise

As nervous as the die-hard Star Wars fans had been about the second prequel "Attack of the Clones," the beleaguered contributors to the IDM list echoed a hushed anxiety about Autechre's seventh full album "Draft 7.30." Would it, like its predecessor, be "unlistenable noise?" Well, the answer may come as a disappointment to those who hold Autechre's "Chiastic Slide" or "Amber" as the pinnacles of contemporary electronica; but at the same time, "Draft 7.30" isn't nearly as problematic as "Confeld." During the past decade or so, Autechre had built the instantly recognizable trademark sound of fragmented breakbeats and melodic fragments that flicker between paranoia and melancholia. This sound sparked a huge number of imitators which certainly out-number the already large catalogue of work from both Autechre and their alter-ego Gescom. While it's difficult to prove their intent, it seems less and less a coincidence that Autechre would choose to abandon their trademark when so many others are replicating their ideas. While "Confeld" had been a radical departure for Autechre as a sea-sick collage of digi-static vibrations with only a modicum of success, Autechre has returned to one of their strengths on "Draft 7.30" in aligning constantly fluctating rhythms along a continuous structure. Thus, fractured electro breaks and obtuse techno ploddings spiral out from a consistent center amidst cascades of digital fuzz which is the obvious result of bending downpitched samples into the ugly parameters of digital distortion. Unfortunately, Autechre offers another mixed bag in the name of re-invention. MPEG Download: "Tapr" [/audio/autechretapr.mp3]

MPEG stream: Tapr

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Somewhere amidst the nervous clattery percussive goodness that is Autechre, melody resides. Intrepid listeners will hear timestretched vocals and pure tones behind the clickety clackety headlong rush to... well where *are* they going anyway? I'm not quite sure. Um, maybe it doesn't matter. This is more quintessential Autechre, impossibly chaotic but nothing new. It sounds good, though, especially the last track where the notes tumble out so manically, competing with each other for milliseconds of space that it just becomes one big melodic wash of texture, like sand turning into glass. Very nice. Twenty minutes, three tracks. The DVD version of this adds three video tracks, including one by the amazing Chris Cunningham for the track "Second Bad Vilbel," whose visuals can be read as one robot's nightmare of loneliness after we got to see it fall in love in the Cunningham-directed Bjork video "All is Full of Love." Staticky, color separated and full of interference, this video, along with the two others, is pretty good and makes the extra $5 worth it. Maybe.

RealAudio clip: Cap.IV

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This is Peel Sessions Volume 2 from the UKs masters of skitter and stutter. While not as brilliant as the last full length 'LP5' or the fantastic 'EP7' it is nonetheless pretty great. If you are new to this whole Autechre thing, start with the older 'Chiastic Slide', but if you're already a fan, this is just more of what you know (and probably love).

Yeah, somebody is probably going to tell you that Quarstice is brilliant, that this isn't like the last couple of records, which sorta sucked, and that they were wrong to try to convince you that the last couple of records were any good, but that *this* one IS really, really great. Don't be fooled. Autechre hasn't made a great album since 1998's AE5; and Quarstice again fails to live up to Autechre's potential. Here is a collection of 20 short tracks, which supposedly have some sort of revisionist take on the acid tracks and electro breaks that spawned Autechre nearly 20 years ago. Yet, there is nothing squelchy in the acid percolation, no punch to the breaks, no unsettled melodies which seemed to come out of nowhere, no passion. When there are grooves, they sound quite leaden, never venturing anyplace interesting or exciting. Unfortunately, a bit of a big yawn...

MPEG stream: Altibzz
MPEG stream: Tankakern
MPEG stream: Notwo

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Sorry to say, another disappointing album from the duo responsible for so many exceptional electronic records throughout the '90s. Incunabula? Chiastic Slide? AE5? Remember those records? All absolutely brilliant. Well, the brand new eponymous album from Autechre is not much like those albums and is sort of dull dull dull: a few half assed attempts at the melodies that once seemed second nature, and drum programming that sounds more like they're trying out a whole new set of drum kicks, snares, and time-stretched fizzes with little in the way of ecstatic complexity or groove-oriented dynamism. Autechre should have taken Aphex Twin's lead, who instead of treading musical water has fallen back on the sounds that bring him joy, the old school acid breaks of his ten EP Analord series.

MPEG stream: LCC
MPEG stream: Pro Radii

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SORRY. This new release from Autechre is available domestically on one cd, or split into two import-only vinyl 12"s. It's also somewhat misleadingly termed an "ep", seeing as the cd is actually pretty long. Since 1992, Autechre has been digitally redesiging the electro mainframe into terse fragmented breakbeats bearing little resemblance to the sounds of Afrika Bambaata. Hard disc skippings, flanging distortion, and other digital 'mistakes', which had been stumbled upon by all sorts of artists (Oval, Ryoji Ikeda, V/VM, etc...), have become the sources for Autechre's sound. Autechre's stuttering staccatic rhythms appear as the attempts to fuse the flesh and bone of Autechre's human bodies with their machines: blood flows as streaming digital pulses, neural synapses fire erratic distorted beats, and melody has been gradually dissolved perhaps as metaphor of the transformation of the 'human spirit' into its mechanical other. I will admit to being excessive in my analysis of all things Autechre...but this outfit is something really special and this ep is no exception.

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

SORRY. Ever since Autechre's stellar self titled album was released a few months back on Warp, we have heard rumors of Nothing releasing this stateside. But attempts to uncover information from Nothing was met with ignorance and belligerence. OK, Nothing might be really busy promoting the aforementioned Marilyn Manson record more so than these... after all he and Trent Reznor provide the hefty sums that purchase the UK rights for Autechre, Squarepusher, and Plaid... but does that give clueless Nothing the excuse to deny information to those who are genuinely interested? Regardless, if you haven't picked up this Autechre record by now, please do so. It may be the year's best electronica record!

Very quiet electronic wisps, distant rumblings, and hushed drones mark the beginning of the second collaboration between Autechre and The Hafler Trio. Again, The Hafler Trio's Andrew McKenzie houses his work in a beautiful, if fragile folio, much like his previous releases on Phonometrography, whom McKenzie has inexplicably ceased doing business with. Why you might ask? Has he ever needed a reason for his actions? At least, Autechre has remained on good terms with McKenzie enough to complete this twin set of recordings. After almost 16 minutes of shrouded-in-secrecy wash and whir, a short segment of randomly splattered fizzing electro-static gives evidence to one of the few sounds on either compilation that clearly hints at Autechre's signature sound, harkening to their most recent recordings Confield and Draft 7.30, but without any of Autechre's already dwindling appreciation for rhythm. In other words, you'd certainly be excused for thinking this a Mego release of laptop noise. The clicks and cuts gradually dissolve across a sea of low end acousmatic rumblings and stretches of inactivity, bringing disc one to a close. The second disc features a considerable increase in audibility, as dense reverberating swells of electric sound (e.g. h3o's Exactly As I Say) snaps to an equally beautiful passage of post-Ligetti electronic chorale music. If you're a fan of the Hafler Trio, it almost goes without saying that you'll want to pick this up; but it must be said that if you're looking for more in the way of Autechre, you won't find much of it here. As with all Hafler Trio releases, no sound samples can be made available.

MPEG stream: Turn (feat. Ed Thomas)

Last list we reviewed a dvd from a 'group' called Author & Punisher, a one man industrial doom band, whose sole member, Tristan Shone, designed and fabricated an incredible array of massive sound generators: a 300 pound spinning metal disc, a huge hydraulic handled chain driven (and seriously physical) drum machine, a motorized handled bass generator, a headgear with a multi mic'd mask, to transform vocals into different sounds and rhythms... We were mesmerized by the footage, the sound was amazing, heavy and crushing, totally intense, but watching this guy, physically create and trigger the sounds, is what sealed the deal, an brutal and exhausting 'performance', a sweat soaked, instrumental work out, way more interesting than the legion of boring floorcore laptoppers and effects jockeys. That said, most of us tend to not re-watch videos, whereas records we'll spin over and over again. So we figured it would definitely be worthwhile to track down a proper record from A&P, and here it is. The title says it all, Drone Machines, not to mention the front cover image of A&P maestro Shone, hunched over the huge spinning metal disc. So if you picked up the dvd, you know what sort of crushing sonic punishment you're in for, and if you missed out on that dvd completely somehow, then this is your chance to get introduced to A&P's churning, chugging, pummeling low end industrial doom crush. Purely sonically, these sounds could have been played by a band, or created on a computer, but just realizing that it's one guy, and his army of sound generators, definitely adds something to the listening experience. Plus there's also plenty of weird sonic manipulation that could NOT be played by a band, thick bass tones slow down like someone pressing their finger down on a record while it's playing, that would be that massive disc, the booming percussion, involves a slamming of the huge chain driven hydraulic handle, hearing this, picturing that, makes it sound that much heavier, but screw it, taken on music alone, the sound of Drone Machines is classic post industrial metal crunch, but twisted and a little warped, a more robotic and machine-like Godflesh maybe, the tone and timbre definitely owes much to Broadrick's industrial beast. But then the record will offer up some weird buzzing almost synthy sounding bass, and weird high end tangles, strange haunting melodies swirling around, a totally tripped out psychedelic swirl, and we're in some far out sonic sci-fi universe, before it gives way to another stretch of lurching lumbering Teutonic pound. The vocals, when there are vocals, are gruff and howled, again harkening back to Broadrick, and add some serious menace to the already sonically menacing proceedings. The best parts for us are the parts where the sound sources become obvious, or at least where you can tell something weird and special is going on, the swooping low end, constantly changing pitch, the various sounds becoming clipped or cut off, the grinding rumbling low end speeding up then slowing down, it makes the whole experience that much more warped and tripped out and psychedelic. The music becomes more than a chunk of industrial metal, it becomes a heaving metallic monster MADE from industrial metal, the various gears and servos emitting strange buzzes and whirrs, its thunderous footsteps the booming beat, the speaker rattling low end it's guttural growl, and the howling vox, the man that commands this beast, and instructs it to do his bidding, a futuristic steampunk, post industrial robotic doom metal dirge, that we just can't get enough of!

MPEG stream: Sand, Wind And Carcass
MPEG stream: Burrow Below
MPEG stream: Doppler
MPEG stream: Beginning Of End

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

SORRY. We really weren't sure what to expect from a band called Author & Punisher, or why they would merit a dvd (actually dvd-r) release. The label sent us a clip from the dvd, and we immediately understood. Author & Punisher is a guy called Tristan Shone, an engineer/artist who fabricates incredible noise making machines, huge metal MACHINES, gorgeous in their construction, a massive 300 pound rotating disc, a strange handheld chain driven slider, a control panel with big airplane like controllers, all of which do more than look impressive, they control sounds. HEAVY SOUNDS. The massive disc spins, and Shone, using both hands, changes the speed of the disc and thus the tone of the bass; the handle, with the chain, slides along two metal cylinders, and controls the rhythms, a super primitive, yet ultra advanced drum controller. The handles control yet MORE low end, with motors built into the handles so when Shone is pulling the levers, to trigger the bass, the harder he pulls, the more the levers resist, in order to FEEL the bass. And the thing is, it doesn't just LOOK cool, it sounds amazing, like some sort of SUNNO))) / Godflesh dirge, but more alien, the way the bass can be controlled, stuttering, slowing down almost like a turntable, and the rhythms, crushing and massive, when Shone locks into a groove, it out-heavies even the heaviest of proper-instrumented bands. Not to mention, that after seeing this guy with the giant disc and the weird tank-like chained handle, regular old guitars and amps, will just look and sound wimpy in comparison. It's hard to describe just how amazing this stuff is to see and hear, but if you're anything like us, you'll watch 30 seconds of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blXgFQxpTkc and be totally sold. So goddamn incredible. And it's not just the machines and the sound they make, it's that Shone uses them like a one-man band to make doom-drone pieces as good as any from our favorite full bands in the genre. There's a chance, A&P might be coming to San Francisco, in which case you can expect some serious sonic Author & Punisher punishment right here in the shop, but until then, grab one of these while you can. Limited to 50 copies. Each one numbered, we have a dozen or so, they come in super swank dvd styled, printed chipboard fold over sleeves, with printed vellum inserts (and if for some reason dvds aren't your thing, we'll be getting some A&P cds one of these days as well!).

We first discovered Author & Punisher via a super limited dvd, cuz really, as good as the music is, and it is amazing, you sort of have to see the music being made to understand just how fucking nuts this stuff, and this guy really is. A&P is one man, Tristan Shone, who builds his own instruments, which in and of itself is nothing new, but we're not talking cobbled together rickety speakers and Amps For Christ style plywood soundmachines (although we love that stuff), we're talking gorgeous, precision machined instruments, that look like modern art, huge smooth steel drums, strange handles that slide along metal rails, bizarre triggers and stainless steel mouthpieces fitted with multiple microphones, Author & Punisher's setup looks like some post modern Rube Goldbergian sonic mousetrap, all glimmering metals and smooth expanses of perfectly fitted machines, the live performance as physical as any normal instrumentalist if not more so, Shone spinning the huge metal; drum creating thick swells of rib cage rattling low end, slamming the strange handles along the steel rails producing booming bursts of percussion, the strange Cylon like microphone producing an inhuman alien bellow. Even sans sound, the performance is riveting. Mesmerizing. We were lucky enough to host an Author & Punisher instore, and besides being incredible to see up close, the sounds produced shook the old wooden building that houses aQ so hard, that our upstairs neighbors came down in a panic, explaining that the whole hose was vibrating, and things were falling off shelves and tables. Now imagine that sort of physical energy, converted into sound, but not just any sound, but totally mesmerizingly epic, crushing buzz drenched post industrial heaviness. A sound that falls somewhere between the industrial crush of Godflesh, and the blown out electronic buzz and glitch of Digital Hardcore, but all blurred into a sort of abject blackened industrial doom. All manner of low end pulsing and buzzing, rumbling and whirring, the beats skittery and stuttery one second, pounding and Teutonic the next, and then there's the bass generator, which we assume comes from that huge metal disc, cuz a sound that thick and intense should really come from a massive 300 pound hunk of spinning metal, that impossibly dense low end, weirdly woozy and almost liquid, the tones being adjusted on the fly, so much so that it sounds like the speed of the recording is being messed with, the sound warbly and woozy, warped and darkly damaged and druggy. While at the same time being heavy as fuck, and pretty much WAY more brutal that bands with real drummer and a phalanx of guitarists in front of rows of amps. It's amazing how much of the physicality is captured on the record, more so here than on past recordings, the sound managing the delicate balance between blown out amp destroying crush, and tightly wound, barely controlled chaos. The songs slipping from lumbering doomic lurch, to swoonsome skittery abstract dronemusic, from noisy metallic pummel, thick, sinewy digidub, and from thick almost metalgaze drift, to super spare haunting minimal skitter. Ursus Americanus is definitely the culmination of past recordings and live performances, managing the seemingly impossible task of creating something that stands on its own musically, but that captures a soundmaking method that you're unlikely to experience from anyone else. Totally incredible. And obviously, if you get the chance, see A&P live, and have your mind (and ears) blown.

MPEG stream: Terrorbird
MPEG stream: Lonely
MPEG stream: Mercy Dub

It's difficult to review records by Author & Punisher, cuz as longtime readers of the aQ list know, the music is only part of the equation. A&P is in fact Tristan Shone, who builds some of the most beautiful musical 'instruments' we've ever seen. Instruments that look more like pieces of art, or the guts of some super advanced aircraft, massive steel drums, weird science fiction style triggers attached to tracks, that slide along steel strips like some futuristic weapon. He sings through a mask that looks a little like that weird mouthpiece Bane wears in the Batman movies. And the act of making this music is extremely physical. Watching Shone play, he's spinning that massive metal drum, and slamming those weird triggers, sliding pieces of steel into other pieces of steel, there are huge dials and knobs, and chains, and cords, it's like he's in the cockpit of some alien spaceship, the act of flying said spaceship just so happens to produce the music of Author & Punisher, at least, that's how we envision it. And it's these gorgeous machines that while integral to the sound are inherently not present on the record. So if you've never seen the machines, or seen A&P play, then it's all about the music. Thankfully, the music is fucking awesome. Granted, it's a lot better listening to this stuff, and imagining those huge machines grinding away and spewing out these sounds, but even sans the visuals, this stuff kills. At times it's like an even more blown out, more machine like Godflesh. Although this time around, there's a lot more melody, which gives some parts a sort of dark gloomy rock vibe. We hear a little Deftones weirdly enough, and some of the post Godflesh outfits (Jesu, JK Flesh), there's definitely a serious dub vibe going on too, the vocals doused in effects, and looped and layered, the drums too, pretty dubby, and the bass, holy shit, the low end on this A&P record is unlike anything you've ever heard, like the rib cage rattling wobble of dubstep, but times ten, even more blown out and cranked up, noisy and thick, subsonic, corrosive and caustic. The sound will be heavy and churning, when suddenly, the bass drops, and it's like someone snuck in and spun your bass knob to ten. And cranked up the volume too. We can vouch for the extreme bassiness. We were lucky enough to host an Author & Punisher instore a while back, and one song in, our upstairs neighbors came rushing downstairs to see what the hell was going on, as EVERYTHING in their apartments was shaking and vibrating and sliding off shelves. THAT part of the A&P sound is pretty accurately represented here, the sound MASSIVE, and thick, and dense, and utterly CRUSHING. This time around Shone seems to have honed everything he was going for on past records. The production is huge, the bass is punishing, the arrangements are dense and intricate, the sound is equal parts dubbed out and electronic, super dynamic too, with long stretches of more skittery minimalism, the heaving slabs of skull smashing heaviness more spaced out, plenty of gothy and gloomy passages, the vocals slipping easily from effects heavy clean croon, to demonic distorted bellow, the beats flit from skittery to devastating pound and back again, the overall sound is more textural, more fully realized, heavy, and rhythmic, mesmerizing and seriously fucking brutal. Anyone into Godflesh, Necro Deathmort, JK Flesh, old Digital Hardcore, heavy dub, blown out beatscapery, and of course alien robotic metal-dub, this shit is unbeatable! Cool small world aQ crossover postscript: Longtime readers of the aQ list are no doubt familiar with the comic Wuvable Oaf, we've reviewed several issues, and raved about it like crazy, our very own Andee even appeared in one issue, as did aQ, lots of big hairy dudes, cats, strange sex and plenty of METAL. Anyway, one of the imaginary bands featured in the comic, Ejaculoid, who is in fact a 'real' imaginary band (featuring some aQ beloved hardcore luminaries!), were given the 'real' remix treatment by a handful of actual real bands, one of which was Author & Punisher, whose Ejaculoid remix is included here!

MPEG stream: Women & Children
MPEG stream: In Remorse
MPEG stream: Melee
MPEG stream: Fearce

First off, if you don't know the comic Wuvable Oaf, go track down whatever you can. Right now. There's a forthcoming compendium, which should gather up most everything, but the individual issues (some of which we still have in stock, just ask) come with all kinds of extras, hand drawn covers, scratch and sniff pages, guitar picks, stickers, paper dolls and even records! By the imaginary bands in the comic!! basically, it's all about a big hairy guy named Oaf, his failed attempts at finding love, his crazy cats, and his weirdo friends, the comic is silly, and funny, and clever, and hairy and pretty gay, and has lots of music stuff in it too (our own Andee is featured in one issue, as is "Aquarium Records"!!) One of the bands in the comic is the awesomely monikered Ejaculoid, and we're obviously not the only ones a little bit obsessed with Ejaculoid, as two aQ faves, LA black metal trio Harassor and mad scientist industrial metal instrument builder Author & Punisher, have stepped up to offer their own takes on the Ejaculoid classic "Fearce" (recorded by members of Limp Wrist!), which originally accompanied the Oafanthology collection, but now available on its own... Author & Punisher transform it into what is essentially an A&P track, a churning industrial pound, processed vocals, thick, grinding rib cage rattling bass, sounding like some weird hybrid of Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and robotic gabber, but slowed down into something malevolent, maniacal and darkly doomy. While Harassor turn the track into a lo-fi grim blast of grunted black buzz, furious blast beats and insectoid riffing, laced with some weird electronic squiggles, and breaking down part way through into a swaggery doomic stomp. So rad! On maroon/grey swirled vinyl, with bad ass Ed Luce artwork, includes a download!

MPEG stream: Fearce
MPEG stream: Fearce

Rabid punk obsessives and collectors are probably already familiar with this eighties Stockton punk rock band, having been featured on the legendary first volume of the Killed By Death series and having released an almost 'classic' single called "I Hate Cops" (of course), and we have to admit, when we first got this reissue in, we immediately recognized the iconic cover photo, with a big dog licking the face of a policeman, but we have never actually heard them until now. Turns out, "I Hate Cops" is a killer jam, with the guitar simulating the siren at the beginning, and a wicked anthemic chorus (and don't let that first line throw you off, they say that all cops are "piggers"). The flipside "Radiationmasturbation" is pretty awesome too with some of thee most ridiculous lyrics ever. Poppy and hooky, punk as fuck, killer riffs, some wild shredding lead guitars, a killer vocalist, and some seriously kick ass songs, hard to believe these guys managed to stay so far under the radar for so long. This comp collects pretty much everything the group ever recorded, 14 songs, 22 minutes, all of it ruling! Includes a big booklet with lyrics and liner notes.

MPEG stream: Godhead
MPEG stream: Slam The Ham
MPEG stream: Between The Thighs
MPEG stream: Your Life

Our first thoughts on finding out just who was in this new band Autistic Daughters were that it was our dream of a glitch-drone rock supergroup! Yup, we're pretty keen the line-up of Autistic Daughters on their debut release for Kranky (LP on Staubgold): New Zealand's Dean Roberts + Viennese improv scenesters Werner Dafeldecker and Martin Brandlmayr. Guitarist Roberts we know from his old bands Thela and White Winged Moth, not to mention his fine solo recordings like Be Mine Tonight (also on Kranky) and And The Black Moths Play The Grand Cinema (recently reissued on Staubgold, and raved about here a few weeks ago!). Meanwhile drummer and vibraphonist Martin Brandlmayr has been an integral part of several AQ-fave recordings, playing in various post-rock/glitch/jazz groupings, among them Radian and Trapist. Bassist Dafeldecker we've also encountered playing in numerous interesting situations. So what have they all got up to together here? Again, the common thread of all three members previous projects is the combination of live playing with electronics and processing in the studio, and that's the modus operandi here. Like the Roberts records mention above, this is in a slow-moving, mopey, mellow vein, full of hazy, droning textures, fragmented melodies, and shuffling, sorta This Heat-ish percussion. Roberts sings (and, in addition to guitar, plays harmonium and harmonica), and his gentle vocals guide this towards being a sort of indie-pop Radian, something fans of, say, Village Of Savoonga will probably like. And there's a Kinks cover: "Rainy Day In June", that fits right in and goes some way to suggest that Roberts and co. see what they're doing as much in the rock/pop tradition as being about electro-acoustic experimention. Quite nice!

MPEG stream: The Glasshouse and the Gift-Horse
MPEG stream: Spend It On The Enemy (While It Was Raining)

Teeter-tottering betwixt morose indie-rock songishness and purely textural, experimental soundscapery, this avant garde and all together moody international trio, consisting of Dean Roberts (Thela, White Winged Moth), Werner Dafeldecker and Martin Brandlmayr (Radian, Trapist) brings us their second album for Kranky, following up 2004's Jealousy & Diamond. Slow and steady and suffused with low-key drama, Uneasy Flowers should satisfy anyone's yen for (again) an uneasy-feeling yet smoothly executed mix of New Zealand indie-murk free noise and European glitch-drone laptoppery. The album is pleasingly bathed in a glow of wavering distortion/feedback (shortwave static style), scattered with This Heatish percussive patterns (from Brandlmayr) and fragile vocals (from Roberts). Nice!!

MPEG stream: Uneasy Flowers
MPEG stream: Liquid And Starch

Female fronted primitive psych-folk... melancholic, mysterious, melodic. Could be from a Finnish forest, but is actually related to LA's Amps For Christ (specifically, singer Tara Tavi). Henry Barnes of AFC guests on guitar on one track too.

Apparently Sergej Auto holds down a day job composing cartoon music in the Czech Republic. For his debut release "Auto", he's put together 13 tracks that starts out with some quaint pop-electronica a la Mouse On Mars / Jimi Tenor that eventually becomes Chain Reaction / Mike Ink style dub-house / click-hop / filter-tech / (fill in your own cute adjective for what Force Inc does). Like most stuff from the Germanic techno genre, Sergej Auto is not super innovative... but certainly effective in the deep groove department.

Features occasional members of Dymaxion, as well as Sheila McCarthy whose sister happens to be Dawn McCarthy of Faun Fables! Much mischievous eccentricities are unfurled on their self-titled album. A whole nineteen tracks worth! truly bizarre and strange a la Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa.

MPEG stream: Speake
MPEG stream: Dark Side Of The Room

Autodigest might be best known around these parts for their confusing, and amusing, and to many wholly irritating record A Compressed History of Everything Ever Recorded, Vol. 2: Ubiquitous Eternal Live, which was essentially an entire record of applause, the cheering and clapping and whooping and hollering, from before and after various performances, all woven into an hour long 'piece'. In some weird way, the concept did actually become something almost listenable, a sort of strangely textured and dynamic bit of weirdo dronemusic. So we were pretty excited to hear this latest in Autodigest's Compressed History series, this one purporting to contain "Every Bootleg Ever Recorded"! The liner notes on the tape elaborates: "The Music on this cassette spans over 40 years and was originally recorded on analogue and digital equipment. We have attempted to distance ourselves as much as possible from the sound of the original recordings. Autodigest Volume 4 is an attempt to reveal all limitations of the source tapes." And so what we initially imagined as some insane plunderphonic cacophony of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Bob Seger and the Doobie Brothers and Hall & Oates reveals itself as something more akin to their applause record, or even more appropriately, Reynols' Blank Tapes record. As Autodigest have collected what sounds like the leaders, and the almost blank spaces between songs, the left over tape at the end of recordings, and woven them into a swirling abstract wash of hiss and whir, laced with little fragments of actual music, buried voices, muffled melodies, layered barely there rhythms, everything seems to be way off in the distance, and while there does seem to be full on rocking going on here and there, it's rendered nearly unrecognizable, buried beneath a haze of crackle and buzz, layer after layer after layer of tape hiss. The 'music' in this Compressed History definitely benefits from headphones. In the store or on the stereo, these sounds might tend to bleed and dissipate, blend into the sounds of daily life, but with headphones, it's a total minimal psychedelic abstract spectral sound headtrip, until the very end of side one, when the murky sonic clouds clear and a voice calls out from the stage "Awwww, for fuck's sake, stop letting off fireworks and shouting and screaming, I'm trying to sing a song..." The flip side begins with a flurry of shouting, and caterwauling from the stage, which begins crystal clear but quickly dissolves into another hissy buzzy swirl of abstraction and absence, a gorgeously textured sprawl consisting of the sounds that lurk between the sounds, not just tape hiss this time, recordings of muted muffled rocking, recorded from what sounds like the dressing room beneath the stage, the B-side much more dense and dark and noisy, like some fucked up field recording (which it pretty much is), but still shot through with random voices, shards of music, bits of sirens, distant shouts, and all the other mostly non musical detritus of a surreptitiously captured live recording. Quite cool, if not entirely musical enough for most folks, but most aQuarians into far out found sounds will definitely dig this. For some reason this one is limited to ONLY 100 COPIES!!! So grab one while you can...

Applause. And clapping. And...um cheering. Some whooping. And some stomping too. And, well that's basically it. In AQ's rich history of presenting you with unlikely sounds: hot rod races, life support machines, melting ice, barking dogs, frogs, zambonis, we can now add to the list crowds. Yep. One full hour of crowds, before thes songs start, after they finish, ovations, the whole deal, all seamlessly edited into one hour of cheering. There is some meta-interpretation and of course some uber concept, but ultimately this is nothing but clapping. Which is not to say we don't like it. We do. Although we've only made it all the way through once. On closer listening however, about halfway through, the crowd sounds are joined by an ominous whir / drone way way down in the mix, that unless you are listening really close or on headphones you might not even notice. And it seem to serve no real purpose except to perhaps help the crowd sounds blur into a fuzzy whole that is of course obviously the sounds of cheering, but at the same time indistinct enough that it becomes a weird scratchy, very un-smooth drone. Sort of. A little like when you say the same word over and over until it starts to sound like a made up word with no meaning. Interpret away, or just sit back and let the adulation roll over you, congratulating you with an hour long ovation, for everything you accomplished today!

MPEG stream: A Compressed History of Everything Ever Recorded, Vol. 2: Ubiquitous Eternal Live

Of the four new Tapeworm tapes on this week's list, this might just be the weirdest. The label describes this recording very graphically, as a post coital nude woman draped over a piano, languidly brushing her hands on the keys, but in reality, it sounds more like many hands pounding wildly on a wooden box, contact mic'ed and submerged in water. Woozy and percussive, wreathed in a thick cloud of tape hiss, and a super lo-fi production, it's easier to imagine a strange assemblage of automatons, running on rubber bands and rusty springs, each set before a mysterious box, then wound and let loose, their flailing implements producing an erratic, but strangely mesmerizing tattoo of thumps and thwacks, ever one trailing a strange bit of FX drenched static behind it, sound at times like blunted, blurred, muted firecrackers, and at other like some primitive monochromatic drum circle. The flipside is a whole 'nother thing altogether, but again about as far as you can get from the nude woman on the piano, instead, it's a slow building swell of crumbling caustic noise, that builds to thick billowing blackened clouds, before sprawling out into a darkly hypnotic expanse of blunted blacknoise shimmer, still wrapped in a gauzy layer of crunch and buzz, but the near melodic thrum beneath transforming it into something haunting and hypnotic, but still plenty noisy and distorted. The liner notes also offer a special thanks to "a loud, short, fat, hairy-assed, umbrella-carrying American", which doesn't clear up any of the tape's mystery, at all.

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

SORRY. With a title such as that you know the music is ferociously cool. Local boy and frequent Mo'Wax engineer/remix-savant Dan Nakamura recently broke out with this exciting ep. He says it pushes OUTward the boundaries of (american) hip hop, a very good thing to do, no? If you dig the Dr. Octagon record, then you'll like this one -- Dan along with Kool Keith are the principals on both albums.

Dan Nakamura's Automator release A Better Tomorrow gets re-issued with several more tracks to finally make this ep an lp - hence the addition of the word "much" in the title. For all you Kool Keith heads out there, there are some previously unreleased Dr Octagon tracks on here as well - not to mention some bonus scratching from Q-Bert. This stuff is so much better than much of the recent Kool Keith offerings. Highly recommended. Apparently the Automator is selling just the previously-unreleased stuff for those folks who already bought "A Better Tomorrow", we'll try to scare up some copies...

[ aquarius records catalogue — A ]