[ 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 1401 through 1450 of 3202.

Joining our beloved Mission District neighbors Ray's Vast Basement and The Modular Set on SF label (and arts collective!) Howell's Transmitter are two fine new groups, Black Fiction and Michael Zapruder's Rain Of Frogs. Ghost Ride is Black Fiction's second full length (their self-titled debut came out last year). These curious popsters do their fair share of exploring and incorporating bits and bites of countless musical styles. When the dust settles and all the pieces settle, the outcome follows a similar patchwork-y path as Beck, Animal Collective and/or Elephant Six Collective (Olivia Tremor Control, Apples In Stereo, et al). Indeed, they might insert a tabla rhythm and a slice of soul here or a shufflin' hip hop beat there, but their sweet melodies and twee boy vocals reveal an indie pop core. Overall the album takes a laidback loping pace, however while that may be the case most of the time, occasionally it's as if a bright sunbeam comes along and stirs them into a minor frenzy of frolicking. Check out the ninth tune "Something Else" for an example of such an outburst. A delight.

MPEG stream: Something Else
MPEG stream: You Must Not Bury Someone

DVD version of "the only available" Black Flag video, captured live in 1984 on their UK tour, in Bradford, England. It's well shot (w/ multiple cameras), with much of the attention, unsurprisingly, on frontman Henry Rollins. The sound is ok, but the vocals are

Finally on cd after years in cassette-only purgatory, a totally rad Flag show from Frisco's The Stone back in the day. Loads of great Greg Ginn guitar strangulation and earnest hollerin' by Henry.

From the dark of the forest and the depths of the sea -- or more accurately from Rhode Island, although a lot of this was recorded on tour all across the US, live at various radio stations and other venues -- comes more minor-key melodies and drifting drones from this fine folk-psych outfit. Following up their sought-after (now out of print!) debut, Black Forest/Black Sea's second album sees them tinkering (but not much) with the same successful formula as their first. There's more tracks, and maybe more abstraction, but it's just as nice. Black Forest/Black Sea are nominally a duo but you'll hear from more than just two musicians here...proving themselves part of an underground free-folk family that stretches from SF to Philly to Finland, this disc features guests from Thuja and Charalambides, as well as samples taken from records by Fursaxa and Kemialliset Ystavat. Quite nice -- though we'd like to tell Bluesanct that next time they really should spring for more than a single thin square of paper for a cd insert, at least give us a four-page fold-over if not a full booklet...

MPEG stream: Nylon2
MPEG stream: These Things

Black Forest / Black Sea are one of those folky, psychedelic, improvisational bands who are probably *always* playing, in their home, with their friends, always just making music. If you looked in right now, you'd probably find their cello sawing away, with their guitar singing an improvised lullaby in a foreign tongue, omnichord and electronic junk sometimes flickering on in the background, as the band (there's two of 'em, plus likeminded souls drawn into their orbit) whiles away a summer night on the front porch or in the basement. Somesuch scenario seems likely anyway. And once in a while, recordings of bits and pieces of their musical life wind up on cd. Radiant Symmetry is their third, documenting some improv sessions and shows that have happened with the BF/BS duo not at home but on tour, traipsing the globe from the British Isles to Spain to Finland. Thereby insuring that friends like Daniel Padden and Alex Neilson and Markus Maki and Jan Anderzen, among others, make an appearance on this disc.

MPEG stream: track 2
MPEG stream: track 5

It seems the Last Visible Dog label can do no wrong of late, now bringing us this wonderful album of mellow, melancholy music full of folkish, creaky ambience from Black Forest/Black Sea. It's tailor-made for the Terrastock Nation, if you know what we mean. If you read Broken Face 'zine, or scarf up Jewelled Antler cdrs, or dig what the Wire calls "The New Weird America", or liked their track on the "Invisible Pyramid" compilation, well then this disc of psych-folk action ought to suit you like that shaggy beard suits Kawabata Makoto. Black Forest/Black Sea are the Providence, RI duo of Jeffery Alexander and Miriam Goldberg (is one the forest and one the sea? dunno). Jeffery plays guitar and Miriam plays cello, primarily, but there's more than just guitar and cello in the mix. We know a couple of their friends help out at times with some shortwave, sax, and general knob-twiddling. But these songs mostly start with melodic guitar picking, oftimes unaccompanied, that may then be joined by doleful cello drone, wavering electronic organ, or perhaps some slow, steady percussion rhythm -- even, on one track, primitive electronic beats from a Casio or something -- always stirring echoes of old world folk and underground '70s kraut jamming. Much of this is instrumental, with what vocals there are -- it must be Miriam singing -- being quite haunting, sometimes simply lurking in the background, wordlessly, melding with the glitchy reel-to-reel tape noises and other non-instrumental, extra-musical textural effects this band employs that add depth and mystery to their simple but effective songs. From spacious droning, possibly improvised passages to downright tuneful 'folky' hooks, this works and works well. We can't see how any of AQ's psych/folk fan customers would want to pass this up. Recommended.

MPEG stream: Blackbird On Gray Sky
MPEG stream: Banjo Song

Oh, that unmistakable voice and guitar sound! They haven't truly been heard since the early days of the Pixies, have they? Yessiree folks. the more mild tempered Frank Black has stepped aside for the time being. Perhaps more than a little bit amped and rejuvenated with the return of his mighty band, Black Francis is back. Conjuring the fiery spirit of The Pixies' heyday, Blue Finger's opening track "Captain Pasty" clears the cobwebs from all eardrums within throwing distance. He's even enlisted a female vocalist to accompany him, Ms Violet Clark. She's sure no Kim Deal, but Clark holds her own next to the formidable gent. From there he runs the gamut of his distinctly vigorous twang tinged rock goodness. It all sounds like someone or something has sparked a fire in his music makin' bones. Even when he slows things down on number such as "Discotheque 36", it's a bit less on the mark and a bit long-winded, but still a stimulating listen. The next tune, his cover of Herman Brood's "You Can't Break A Heart And Have It" kicks it all back into gear. Definitely an album highlight! A side note: an odd moment comes at the album's halfway point. Towards the end of "Angels Come To Comfort You" a sound materializes that we originally thought was a truck backing up, but then it became apparent that it was supposed to be an ambulance siren. Weird.

MPEG stream: Captain Pasty
MPEG stream: You Can't Break A Heart And Have It

We won't lie, the last several years have been pretty trying when keeping up with Frank Black's (aka Black Francis) releases. There have been some serious stinkers for sure, and some that were so middle of the road that it was hard to believe they came from the same man who led one of the quirkiest and most innovative and influential bands of the last twenty years. But we do have to give the man credit, you can tell in his post-Pixies life he's just been doing and recording exactly what he wanted. While the results have sometimes been less then riveting, his integrity has remained intact. And we knew in our Pixies loving hearts that it was just a matter of time before he would drop a record, probably without much publicity or fanfare, that would actually be really damn good -- and here it is! Maybe it's because it was recorded and mixed in just seven days, but there is an urgency and excitement to this record that we haven't heard from Mr. Francis in such a long time. The songs are short, stripped down and filled with that eccentric and quirky quality that had been missing from his more recent work. The record's opener, "The Seus", has a Pere Ubu like disposition and from there the record has no dull or throwaway moments at all. Seven songs that clock in at about 20 minutes and while it might be his shortest release in a while it's also his best in years!

MPEG stream: The Seus
MPEG stream: Seven Fingers
MPEG stream: Garbage Heap

We like to think we have pretty good taste in music, but lately we've discovered something pretty strange. Many of our favorite records we discovered, even pursued, after being told that they were terrible. Not sure what it is, but when a review of some record is so completely harsh, sometimes we think the reviewer just missed the point, or that the work being reviewed was just too strange to be properly described by the average review. In one instance, we read a review of a record by a black metal band we already really liked, and the reviewer gave it a ONE out of a possible TEN, going on at great length about why the record was so bad. But strangely, all of his complaints about the songs and sounds did nothing but make us more and more intrigued. After months of trying to track this record down (the label had folded and it was never properly released) we did finally get our hands on a cd-r copy, and you know what? It was absolutely amazing. Fucked up, sure. Retarded? Maybe. But by now, you know that's the sort of stuff we love (it was Old Forest if you must know, but we have had no luck tracking down the band or the label, and we'd be more than willing to put it out ourselves! Old Forest, if you're reading this get in touch!). A similar thing happened with this, the latest from USBM outfit Black Funeral. A review we read complained that their otherwise kick ass grim and cult black metal, had morphed into a noisy, almost industrial sound, a buzzy blurry blast that was apparently too weird and not really 'black metal' enough. We were immediately envisioning a band that sounded like Spektr or Blut Aus Nord. Which would be a very good thing for sure. Other reviews described Ordog as "tuneful white noise", "Nargaroth or Graveland combined with Einsturzende Neubaten", another compared them to Benighted Leams (!!!). But it was the review that described Ordog as sounding like an untuned AM radio that really pushed us over the edge. And you know what? It sounds a little like ALL of those things!! This is definitely black metal. Appropriately harsh and buzzy. But from there all bets are off. A disturbing exploration of some mysterious fog enshrouded pit of despair. The vocals are harsh and way up in the mix, over weirdly atonal riffing and machinelike programmed drums. The melodies drift and drone, some almost sound like the most melancholy Depeche Mode song bits transplanted into a way more creepy and harrowing black metal wasteland. But the path through each track is a meandering circuitous journey, one fraught with peril. Wide expanses of fuzzy haunted mansion keyboard, jagged shards of metallic what-the-fuck laid over monster like growls and thick drones, rippling sheets of warped black noise, and a gritty and dense wall of fuzz draped over EVERYTHING. You can definitely here Spektr, Blut Aus Nord, Benighted Leams, but the twisted and looped buzzdrone aspect really reminds us of Wold, but where Wold were more spacey and ambient, Black Funeral apply the same sonic approach to a more blackened buzz. So fucking awesome! The whole record is thematically based on the occult, Persian mythology, Satanism and especially vampirism, two tracks actually feature lyrics written by convicted serial killer / cannibal Nico Claur, to whom the record is also dedicated. Weird. And non-music related tidbit. Black Funeral is in fact 2/3 female, which is most definitely an anomaly in black metal (and the band photos inside definitely had the AQ metal boys swooning. Black Funeral's Lux Ferro and Dana Dark are some seriously ultrafoxy, gloomy, gothy raven haired black metal queens of the underworld!)

MPEG stream: Harbingers Of Pestilence
MPEG stream: Hymn To Ahriman
MPEG stream: Mummu Chaos

The last Black Funeral record, Ordog, was one of our favorite black metal records of last year. We already liked the band quite a bit previously, but with Ordog, the buzzing blackness was transformed into some sort of experimental black noise metal, reminding us of bands like Spektr and Blut Aus Nord and Phobos, a sort of processed industrial vibe, lots of drones and ambient interludes peppered with machine like riffing and all sorts of black atmosphere. We should be used to it by now, but while we were blown away, much of the BM community shied away, not at all digging Black Funeral's new damaged direction.� So we were pretty psyched to finally hear Waters of Weeping, the brand new record, to see where they took their black sounds next. And as much as we were secretly hoping they would do something super radical, WoW is actually more of a straight ahead black metal record, but then it's all relative. This is still plenty weird, just compared to Ordog, it's a bit more traditionally black and buzzy. The sound and the vibe are very reminiscent of Xasthur and Leviathan and the like, the new wave of depressive black buzz-ers, with long drawn out minor key dirges, dense clouds of washed out buzz, loping blackened dirges, dense convoluted song structures, lots of creeped out ambience, but thankfully, here and there lurk some of that crumbling industrial blackness left over from Ordog. In fact, those are probably our favorite moments, like track 4, "Sha'arimrath, The Eighth Hell � HOD (Smal/Adramalech) � Mercury", an almost Godflesh worthy ultradistorted industrial dirge, with strange processed alien growls and pounding percussion, all wrapped up in buzzing synths and FX drenched guitars. But then the next track is a classic, old school sounding slab of relentless black metal buzz. But before you know it, we're on to track 6, and back to Ordog territory, "Lord Of The Dead � Tiphereth (Belphegor/Paimon) Tagahrim" another slowed down, black industrial buzz drenched plod that is SO fucking dismal and bleak and amazing. The more we listen to this disc, the more it all sounds so perfect. More and more and more like some meticulously assembled black artifact. The buzzing blackness spilling into the industrial pound, long streaks of minor key dirge wrapping inky tendrils around bursts of relentless black blasts... It's hard to explain exactly, but any of these tracks, take on their own, sounds pretty dang great, but taken together, as a sort of hellish suite, an extended ritual, they mesh into a�grim and black, buzzy and blown out, haunting and soul wrenching sonic journey...

MPEG stream: Nehemoth � Malkuth (NAMVTh) - Earth
MPEG stream: Sha'arimrath, The Eighth Hell � HOD (Smal/Adramalech) � Mercury

Meanwhile, Back In The States... is the second release from The Black Furies, and it reveals a bit of a shift in direction. Tighter and punchier, their new sound borders on the cock rock party action of The Hives, The Hellacopters or even Turbonegro. Gooood times! So, the news that the band has recently signed to Gearhead Records makes total sense... much more so than if we'd heard the news following their last cd which was more of a straight forward punk rawk rally. They've sharpened their pop hooks, Turtle-waxed their guitars to a super gleam, and put a bit more imagination into their packaging to boot.

MPEG stream: Blacklist
MPEG stream: No Money Down

The Black Furies are a total no-frills band churning out straight-up beefy punk rawk. On this their debut album they come tearing outta the gates, seemingly ready to steamroll anyone and anything in their path. Their songs bring to mind the reckless energy of oldschoolers like the Stooges, D.O.A. and Black Flag or more recent brethren The Hellacopters and Turbonegro. Definitely the product of calloused fingers, bloodied knuckles and blistered vocal cords. Rad!

MPEG stream: Offer Resistance
MPEG stream: Let It Rock

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

SORRY. Soul/funk/wah soundtrack to this 1975 blaxploitation flick, reissued on vinyl complete with full size movie poster insert! That by itself may be the reason to get this. It's a pretty insane painting -- Black Power Nazis??! ...However we haven't cracked one open yet so 1) we can't vouch for the quality of the music and 2) we can't guarantee that their definition of "full size poster" is what you and I think it is... let's hope so!

We'd heard how awesome the soundtrack to this film was for years, so we were so psyched to discover that Soundway was finally giving it a proper reissue. The film was directed by one of Nigeria's most respected directors, Ola Balogun, and was shot on location in Brazil. Balogun recruited the musical mastermind and fellow Nigerian, Remi Kabaka, to score and produce the soundtrack to the film. Kabaka has played with a wide range of folks including Ginger Baker, Hugh Masekela, Paul Simon, and Paul McCartney, and for the soundtrack rounded up some of Nigeria's finest players and crafted a collection of songs filled with such a unique and left-of-center Afro-jazz sound. There's something so raw and mysterious about these tracks evoking all manner of sweat and suspense. We're totally feeling this, late summer, slow burner for sure!

MPEG stream: Brothers + Sisters
MPEG stream: Black Goddess
MPEG stream: The Warrior

Record number two from this Seattle one man band, whose first release, a cd-r called Spectral Disorder on the Debacle label, was a huge hit around here. Spectral Disorder was a super psychedelic sprawl of blown out percussion, gristled rhythms, and swirling shimmering synths. There were definite moments of darkness, but it was definitely more prismatic and dreamily hazy. We made comparisons to Tim Hecker, lots of the record had the same sort of ethereal washed out pixelated quality. But this new one starts out way differently, a churning, grinding, gnarled industrial groove, that seems to meld the witchy avant beatscaping of modern outfits like Demdike Stare, with the more abject, greyed out rhythms of early eighties industrial outfits like Esplendor Geometrico and Le Syndicat. But listen close and you'll hear some playful blooping electro bass buried beneath the roiling rhythms, which gives the song a weird woozy twist. After a brief bit of kosmische, new age-y flutter, the record shifts gears, and slips back into a sound more in keeping with that first record. Ghostlike swaths of ethereal chordal thrum, drifting over a haze the evokes some sort of sun dappled pastoral landscape, the beats here, skeletal and spare, wrapped around looped melodies that sound like harps, underpinned by cricket like chirps, the vibe almost Boards Of Canada like, warm and lush and lovely, but still a little bit twisted. The rest of the record sort of splits the difference, flitting from chaotic blurred swaths of manic layered loops and cascading beats, bursts of tangled melodies and soft noise swirls, all churning hypnotically, to ultra minimal dronescapes, the sound like bleating horns, or weirdly processed synths, long tones that pulse and pulsate and undulate, unfurling all manner of overtones and sonic colorations, and finally to the dark, haunting techno closer, that takes that sound we've been digging so much lately, Silent Servant, Prurient, Shed and the like, and adds some twists, plenty of stutters and hiccups, disrupting what could otherwise be some serious driving, shadowy techno, and lacing it with all sorts of textures, and dynamics, caustic and crunchy one second, woozy, and muted and pulsing the next, finally finishing off in a flurry of sine wave swirl and skipping-cd skitter. Awesome! Includes a download code too!!

MPEG stream: Ashe
MPEG stream: Three Masks
MPEG stream: Jaune

Latest super limited cd-r release from the Debacle label, who in the past have supplied us with amazing jams from Cough Cool, Crystal Hell Pool, Expo 70, Kevin Gan Yuen & Demian Johnston, Megabats, The Slaves and more! That list of bands should definitely give you a rough idea of what to expect from Seattle one man band Black Hat whose Spectral Disorder is a gloriously psychedelic beatscape, all droned out tones and distorted percussion, the opener, unleashes an avalanche of tribal drumming, over a woozy drone, that gradually splinters into something much more gristly and staticky, the rhythm seeming to fade into the background, the drone driving the show, woozy, and constantly shifting in pitch, eventually, growing even noisier, the song transformed into a beat heavy chunk of avant industrial beat and buzz. The second track is a bit more blissed out, softly swirling synths, wreathed in clouds of hum and hiss, laced with tinkling chimes and thick, fuzzed out Tim Hecker like atmospheres, the sound growing more and more sinister, darkening into a weirdly pulsing sprawl of minimal beatscapery, all muted tones and softly stuttering rhythms, which leads directly into "Callas", which also begins as a swirling psychedelic synth drift, and dispenses with the beats completely, unfurling a tangled web of super distorted thrum and softly pulsating overtones. The title track is a glitched out barrage of sliced and diced beats and melodies, various sounds fragmented and layered, another murky blurry industrial soundscape, that sounds like it could have come of some old early Techno Animal record, or could even be the backing track to some obscure rapper on DHR, either way, it's good stuff, a warped production, that manages to be noisy, chaotic, but also weirdly groovy. which leads to the closer, a gorgeously dense sprawl of gristly ambience, driven by a slow metronomic pulse, and laced with shared of melody, the pulse, and those shards, soon coalesce into a groovy, lurching groove, a head nodding, stuttery lope, wreathed in sonic chaos and a bit of noisiness, that again sounds like the perfect backing track for someone like Sensational to rap over. Particular dig the lush, massive low end swell climax, and the resulting slow skitter fade out. Killer stuff. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!

MPEG stream: #000000
MPEG stream: Northwest Passage
MPEG stream: Callas

First full-length lp from Nelson Bean, aka Black Hat, whose previous two releases blew our collective minds, and this new one is somehow even better. Bean traffics in a sort of psychedelic, dark cosmic electronica, that in the past, has touched on aQ faves like Demdike Stare, Tim Hecker, Techno Animal, DHR, even weirdo industrial like Esplendor Geometrico. On this new one, it seems that all of those influences/references have been distilled into something much more pure and organic sounding. Three sprawling tracks, the first, a hauntological skitterscape, that fuses slow-beat lope to heaving swells of pixelated crunch, a little bit witch house, a little bit IDM, but blurred and blackened, transformed into something more sinister, and more abstract, the opening 9+ minute track in constant flux, so much so, that it's nearly impossible to review without explicitly describing each iteration, and yet, over the course of the song, Bean manages to keep some sort of sonic narrative, the song not at all fragmented, and not sounding like a bunch of random ideas mashed together, instead, the sound blossoms and unwinds, from hazy, washed out skitter, to dense gristly thrum, rife with rib cage rattling bass pulsations, to claustrophobic minimal electro that sounds like it was plucked from some obscure cassette release on Hospital, to blown out industrial techno crunch, and that's just the first track. The second half of the A side is much more abstract, with gorgeous swirls of chordal thrum, drifting and shimmering, a sort of sinister new age, dense and cosmic, lush and layered, a sprawling landscape of overlapping tones, and buried melodies, the sounds unwinding in slow-motion, hazy, and washed out, bleary and blackened, but smeared into strangely prismatic streaks of sound, hauntingly hypnotic. The whole of the B side is taken up by the nearly 18 minute "Memory Triptych", and might be Bean's finest moment, an epic sprawl of hushed skitter, of murky loops, of keening, melancholic melody, all woven into something at once bleak and mysterious, but also warm and lovely, the sounds warbly and woozy, the beats more like constellations of crackle and pop, wound around soft swirls of static soaked shimmer, and strange alien pulsations, at one point, a melody surfaces, that sounds almost like humming/crooning, that 'vocal' is accompanied by a sonic shift, where the sounds begin to fracture, and become more agitated and aggressive, the vibe much more industrial, but fused to a sort of wistful pop ambience, a dizzying dream-drone dirge, driven by a strange rhythmic tangle buried beneath the surface, the sound gnarled and roiling, before about halfway through, like a storm breaking, the sounds shift dramatically, and become downright lovely, laced with what sounds like faux birdsong, the sounds suddenly warm and lush, softly soaring, all the grinding industrialism, now pushed into the background, smeared into a dense, churning backdrop, that adds a soft bit of shadow, to the otherwise, glimmering, gristly, glitchy dreaminess... Super swank packaging, heavy full color jacket, with printed insert, and download code!

MPEG stream: Imaginary Friends
MPEG stream: Memory Triptych

The somber musical beauty created by Pall Jenkins and Tobias Nathaniel (of Three Mile Pilot) Mario Rubalcaba, (of Thingy and Clikitat Ikatowi), and Jason Crane (trumpeteer for Back Off Cupid, Gogogo Airheart) is quite something to behold. Each song of their shadowy first album (yes, it was titled "1") slowly unfolded and enveloped the listener. And this their second album, is just as enchanting - if not more so. Steeped in deep melancholia, feel you heart grow heavy to mood-altering songs such as "Blue Tears" and "My Heart Might Stop". Simply gorgeous. Very recommended.

Sure, Black Heart Procession's three albums have all sounded more or less the same, but like bands such as Dirty Three, Pole, and Low, Black Heart do one thing but they do it IMPECCABLY. As the title suggests, this is the third album from this "moody" rock band, with former members of Three Mile Pilot as well as folks from Rocket From The Crypt and Blonde Redhead. Doleful piano sits next to mournful male vocals and dark strummed guitar. Fans of Red House Painters, Palace, and Radar Brothers will LOVE this record, don't delay!

RealAudio clip: Guess I'll Forget You

Following three remarkably similar albums (note: this is by no means a complaint 'cause each was a gorgeous richly hued work unto itself), Black Heart Procession have made a few shifts in direction and sound, and widened their scope considerably - the the first sign is the title (as opposed to its predecessors simply titled 1, 2 and 3). This album starts off with a slightly cocktail-hourish number that's anchored by a bossanova rhythm. Later songs encorporate old r&b / soul female backing vocal stylings ("A Cry For Love") as well as layered lead vocals with Pall singing in both his familiar mournful cry and a considerably deeper mannish tone a la Michael Gira or Mark Lanegan (at least I think that's Pall, I couldn't find mention of any other vocalists). Check out the somber, gorgeous final track "The One Who Has Disappeared". Much more diverse than past efforts, but still retaining their trademark languorous pace and mellifluous instrumentation.

RealAudio clip: Tropics Of Love
RealAudio clip: A Cry For Love
RealAudio clip: The One Who Has Disappeared

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

SORRY.

Another short ep from the Black Heart Procession, who could easily be the ill-spirited doppleganger of the Elephant 6 troupe. With former members of Three Mile Pilot, this is almost like the Birthday Party covering Neutral Milk Hotel songs. Nice.

Moving onward from their livelier (relatively speaking), bossanova infused last album Amor Del Tropico, AQ fave gloomies Black Heart Procession glide gracefully into even more expansive, haunting and cinematic territory. As serene, lush and gorgeous as ever, its only flaw might be its rather steep import price tag for a four-song ep. Nonetheless, Hearts And Tanks will undoubtably cause much fan swooning. What more can be said? BHP craft some of the finest somber splendor around.

MPEG stream: Weakness

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

SORRY. Those are the two songs on this new 7" from San Diego's low-key kings of melancholy. It's a picture disc, and we'll probably run out of 'em before you even get this list. Sorry.

Remember when the Black Heart Procession used to be good? Well, it's not hard because that time is NOW! After the universally acknowledged disappointment that was The Spell, TBHP has returned to form beautifully with Six. There's lots of piano and strings and organs and maracas and moodiness and drama and WAY less guitar. After the slow opening number "When You Finish Me", comprised mainly of the abovementioned piano and strings, there's "Wasteland", a catchy bass-and-vocals driven dirge. And although in their live shows it's obvious frontman Pall Jenkins' voice has not held up as well as one might have hoped, on record it still sounds great, especially in the slower, more spoken / less sung pieces. When the third song, "Witching Stone", opens with a catchy guitar riff and you think to yourself, "Oh no, not more guitar!" fear not, noble listeners, for once the guitar has served its purpose, it soon fades in the mix and is replaced by organs and extra percussion. On the whole, the tone of the record seems somewhere between Three and Amore del Tropico. Six is occasionally moody and sparse like Three, but usually full and flushed out like Amore. Flashes of Latin rhythms pop up like skeletons of old friends. Also, bass guitar is an essential element to almost every song, whereas TBHP used to rely more on the low end of the piano. Further on in the record we find "Suicide", probably the noisiest and most varied track on the record, one that definitely should be listened to on headphones. Building up in layers, a maraca here, an organ there, after a minute and a half, it explodes into a (gasp!) booty-shaking chorus filled with screaming synths and guitars that abruptly cuts off, only to be built back up again. Excellent. Where TBHP really shine, though, is in their slow songs; they master a certain space that few bands can even enter. One of the best songs on the record, "Drugs", is also the shortest: a concise yet mind-expanding piano-and-strings ballad about, you guessed it, drugs. The album comes on three formats, each slightly different from the others. The double lp comes on three-sided vinyl (the fourth side is etched artwork) and features different (and better) cover art than the cd. For you collectors, there is also a limited edition heart-shaped flash drive necklace that comes in a heart-shaped etched metal box. It contains the full album, a digital copy of the booklet & artwork and also a music video for the song "Witching Stone".

MPEG stream: Drugs
MPEG stream: When You Finish Me
MPEG stream: Rats

Oddly enough, we were just musing aloud about the whereabouts of these ol' AQ faves, and -Poof!- like magic, The Spell appeared before us. The last album by this San Diego band saw them taking a few detours from their trademark velvet-tapestried funereal march. The aptly titled Amor Del Tropico toyed with cocktail 'n' bossanova themes to good effect, but on The Spell they've found their way back into the shadowy folds. And we welcome them back with open arms 'cause while we certainly enjoyed Amor, it's been far too long without a full dose of the somber beauty that Pall Jenkins and Tobias Nathaniel do best. Once you've been bitten by that intoxicating old BHP (if you haven't already!) you'll know what we mean. Their bleakly despairing yet utterly beautiful second album, released in 1999 and simply titled 2, still succeeds in captivating virtually everyone within earshot. From the opening track "The Spell" offers a more straightforward rock feel with more prominent muscular electric guitars and hence a bit more momentum, but still maintains their trademark sense of utter desolation. Thumbs up on this downer!

MPEG stream: Tangled
MPEG stream: The Letter

The visual accompaniment to Black Heart Procession's wonderful Amor Del Tropico album is actually a murder mystery movie cowritten and directed by Pall Jenkins! Laced with elements of film noir, wit and the band's distinct somber eccentricities, Tropics of Love features no spoken dialogue, instead the story is told through the album's 15 songs which define the fifteen chapters. At times, very David Lynchesque! The dvd also includes trailers, deleted scenes, outtakes, and a handful of previously unreleased instrumentals.

This new installment in the Dutch label Konkurrent's collaboratory series features more gorgeous somberness from the wonderful Black Heart Procession. In fact, if the title didn't betray the presence of the lesser known Solbakken, you'd probably never guess that this wasn't solely a BHP release. The lead-off track is a beauty graced with irresistable breathy French female vocal, and the remaining five are top-notch too. Each is heavily laden with BHP's characteristic cascading piano drops and velvety strings. An excellent follow-up to BHP's glorious Amor Del Tropico album.

MPEG stream: Voiture En Rouge

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

SORRY.

Seefeel plus Slowdive plus Locust plus Mojave 3. That's the kind of musical math that should have most aQ customers freaking out just a bit. And what happens when you add all that up? You get the debut from Black Hearted Brother, which is in fact a trio featuring both Mark Van Hoen (Locust, Seefeel) and Neil Halstead (Slowdive, Mojave 3), along with Nick Holton (Opulent Oog, Coley Park), who together have crafted a dreamy bit of psychedelic shoegaze, equal parts motorik krautrock-style mesmer, distortion drenched noise pop bliss out, and shimmery electronic flecked indie pop, all in equal measure, depending on the track, often fusing all of that into something heady and fantastic. Just check out the opening title track, which blossoms slowly from drone-y synthscape, to softly pulsing slowcore, to full on psychedelic kraut-pop space out, the whole thing laced with hazy minor key melodies, warm swirls of soft focus chordal thrum, plenty of drones, and effects and subtle electronics, fans of Stereolab and the New Lines and other retro poppers will find much to love, although the sound is not necessarily strictly retro, it does harken back to certain sounds and groups of the past, a fabulous pastiche of old favorites and new sounds. But that opener is really just one side of the group's sound. "(I Don't Mean To) Wonder" is a very Flaming Lips sounding dream pop trip out, with heavily effected vocals, and some seriously crunchy guitars, while "This Is How It Feels" sounds like some lost Mercury Rev jam, epic and majestic, bombastic, and noise drenched, but perfectly poppy, rife with hooks and melodies, all obscured by clouds of fuzzed out sounds and soft little electronic flurries. And so it goes, from fuzzed out electro-pop ("Got Your Love"), to loping FX drenched minimal psychedelic slowcore balladry ("If I Was Here To Change Your Mind"), to soaring anthemic noise pop ("UFO"), to super experimental psychedelic blowouts, equal parts hushed strummy folk, and free form space jam ("Time In The Machine"), to woozy, warped, damaged downer pop weirdness ("Oh Crust"), to sweet shimmery electronic pop dreaminess ("Take Heart"). Fantastic stuff, definitely recommended for fans of any of the members' previous groups, as well as other modern more experimental pop groups like Phoenix, the Flaming Lips, etc...

MPEG stream: Stars Are Our Home
MPEG stream: (I Don't Mean To) Wonder
MPEG stream: If I Was Here To Change Your Mind
MPEG stream: UFO

Upon first hearing the name "Black Hell", you can get at least a vague of idea of where this quartet lies on the sonic spectrum. Then you see the wordless album cover, a beautiful and clear image of a mighty desert rock formation haloed by a shock of pink light and surrounded by a series of optical cubes. Nice cover, for sure, but for some reason it conjures what you might expect from some experimental album or what have you. They say you can't always judge a book by its cover. And maybe that means something, somewhere... Because a few seconds into How The Rest Was Lost, everything clicks and it all makes sense: Oh, this is heavy as fuck cosmic STONER ROCK! From the deserts of Arizona, no less. So you can totally judge a book by its cover. Black Hell deal in, like we said, heavy as fuck cosmic stoner rock, emphasizing the groove and looking way beyond the stars. There is a good deal of melody too, sort of melancholy, and totally catchy, with absolutely huge sounding production to give you a nice dose of mountainous drumming and totally rifftastic guitars that sound loud enough to fill all the open space on the album cover. The vocals are cool, and somewhat atypical of the genre, maybe higher than what you sometimes get with heavier groups, but definitely not in a bad way. It's actually quite similar to the guy in The Sword. Not quite as high as the dude in Mammatus, and not as whiney as the guy in Kyuss - the singer's voice is clean and expressive, not guttural or booming or anything. With song titles like "Lunar Procession", "Storms of Jupiter", "Lycanthropy", "Planet Maker", and "Celestial Conquest" (that was all of them, they're just pretty fucking cool), you should know whether or not this is for you. We say bring it on.

MPEG stream: Lunar Procession
MPEG stream: Lycanthropy

This Italian band's sole album from 1985 is a tough one to figure out. An oddity all right. They're definitely a metal band at heart -- the fast-paced, pre-album demo track "Midnight Madman" included here as one of four bonus cuts is proof of that -- but on their album itself, they somehow created a much more unexpectedly PSYCHEDELIC and spacey, synthy sound. Totally dark and gothic in a metal way, yeah, but lost in space at the back of a black hole (of course), a slowed-down, doomed-out, dosed-with-cough-syrup vibe, splicing bits of Voivod with the likes of Jacula... in fact, the lurching music on this crackly disc (mastered directly from a none-too-pristine vinyl copy, the original reels having been lost to time, and sounding to us all the better for it!) could be AQ-faves Jacula given an '80s metal makeover... the church organ strains that open "Demoniac City" surely set that tone. Meanwhile, the title track cops a riff from Sabbath's "Electric Funeral", as if to give the nod to their biggest influence we're pretty sure. But the doomy compositions of vocalist/bassist/organist Robert Measles (great name!!) also derive from phantasms far beyond our plane, we're pretty sure of that as well. Those in the know about Italian '80s metal acts like Death SS, Paul Chain, Bulldozer and Dark Quarterer are aware that a bizarre, poverty-stricken sort of prog weirdness often infects the proceedings, and Black Hole are no exception. In their case, on this album, it makes for something really strange and special, creating a cultish legacy that led to this cd reissue. We're glad to get to hear it! Now it's time to burn the black candles and visit Black Hole's "Spectral World" ruled by "Blind Men And Occult Forces"...

MPEG stream: Land Of Mystery
MPEG stream: Blind Men And Occult Forces

From the same label that brought us the amazing Animus disc a while back, a gorgeously buzzy depressive melancholic chunk of emotional blissed out blackness, comes this, the debut from Black Hole Generator, a blackened supergroup of sorts, featuring members of Taake, Grimfist, Aeternus and others. Unlike the washed out dreamy buzziness of the Animus record, Black Karma is a furious frosty blast of ultra technical riffing, strange atmospheres, loping doomic passages, grand sweeping melodies, gnarled alien vocals and convoluted arrangements with plenty of weird stop/starts and confusional tempo changes.� We have to admit, we were a bit skeptical at first because of the band name. It made us think of some cheesy industrial black metal band, all programmed drums and recycled death metal riffing. But this is anything but. You can almost imagine some strange planet, floating in space, wreathed in ice and debris, blood red in the blackness of space, bizarre lights barely visible through the planet's hazy atmosphere, closer investigation though reveals that this is no planet, instead, it's some sort of aeons old machine, assembled by a mysterious ancient race, designed to create an endless series of black holes, which over time, will swallow up everything in the universe, enabling said race to begin anew, creating new worlds from the black void left by the Black Hole Generator. A black and barren universe designed to mirror their ancient home. Black Karma is the soundtrack, futuristic and furious, but grim and frosty and and subtly bizarre.� Each song a chapter of that epic tale, every chapter a maelstrom of�relentless buzzing riffage, so blown out they're nearly transformed into a furious black ambience. The rhythms careening from light speed blur to loping seasick groove, blast beats underpinning thick shards of jagged distorted grind, occasionally slipping into some strangely catchy hook, before being blown apart into another dense cloud of black buzz. The vocals crawl and slither everywhere, like weird eyeless alien beasts, emitting�guttural moans and weird strangled crooning that sounds a little like a throat singing Popeye. Here and there, the blackness recedes, revealing�stretches of super dreamy melodic black bliss, arpeggiated melancholy melodies hovering over churning metallic swirls, before the Black Hole Generator sputters to life once more, and Black Karma slips right back into staccato bursts of machine gun like rhythms and planet razing streaks of black metal brutality. Awesome.

MPEG stream: The Age Of Anxiety
MPEG stream: When Hell Is Full The Dead Shall Walk The Earth
MPEG stream: The Screaming Skull

We had never heard of this eighties art punk / weirdo industrial SF outfit, but HOLY SHIT, this is some seriously fucked up psychedelic noise drenched punk weirdness/radness. Initially released in a run of 1000 lps, each one hand painted with thick gobs of paint and whatever the band members could find around the house (feathers, dirt, trash, flyers, etc.), it's now been reissued by a new local label Superior Viaduct, and what a record to announce your arrival, a creeping, dirgey, occasionally drum machine driven collection of noisy chaotic stumbling ferocity, with loping low slung basslines, jagged, crumbling guitars, a vocalist whose caterwaul is a dead ringer for Kurt Kobain at his most ravaged, his feral yowl tortured and anguished, everything tangled up into a head spinning barrage of post punk stomps, gloomy industrial lumbers, moody murky creeps, dizzying spoken word freakouts and tripped out collaged whatthefuck weirdness. Just check out the opener, "Undancing In The Dirt", a lumbering creep, gloomy and harrowing, the guitars in a constant state of chaos, the drum machine and woozy bass locked tight beneath a death march pound, not to mention the weird break in the middle with the sound of tolling bells and what sounds like some sort of machinery, the rest of the record careens wildly between similarly woozy outsider industrial creeps and more frenetic artpunk mouth breathing thudrock, most definitely beholden to other local groups of the time like Flipper and Factrix, but also displaying hints of what was going on in Cleveland at the time (Electric Eels, the Pagans, etc.). And on top of that, peppered throughout are some seriously unhinged experiments, weird tape manipulation, free noise fuckery, chaotic clatter and dark droned out minimalism, culminating in "KILL THEM!!!" an almost Negativland worthy mash up of spoken word sloganeering, a serious message presented as some conservative / poseur button pushing, super intense and bizarre, funny and fucked up. Love God - Love One Another is a seriously twisted slab of SF punk rock history, and easily one of our favorite reissues in recent memory! Packaged with the original unused cover art, a super striking image of Ronald Reagan holding a cross in front of an American flag with swastikas where the stars normally are, the inside also adorned with a swastika made out of crutches. Comes with two inserts, including new liner notes, the original lp liner notes (explaining the charge imagery and the inspiration for each song), and the Maximum Rock N Roll review that first got them noticed, as well as offending some of the more sensitive punks, one of which has their angry letter reprinted here, along with the response from the original reviewer, in defense of said review.

MPEG stream: Undancing In The Dirt
MPEG stream: I Should've Let Him DIE!!!
MPEG stream: KILL THEM!!!

It's been a while since we've heard from the OTHER half of defunct noise duo the Skaters, after a slew of releases from James Ferraro comes this latest blast of rhythmic cosmic bliss from Ferraro's former partner, Spencer Clark in his latest guise as the Black Joker. Originally released as a super limited (80 copies!) cassette in Europe, this hazy gem is now available on vinyl, and still super limited... Whereas Ferraro channels his eighties afterschool special cop show theme synthscapes through a bank of effects and a warm whirl of hiss and fuzz, Clark is more about the rhythm, two sidelong jams, each wrapped around a motorik groove, sounding like it was cobbled together from a junkyard gamelan, an amplified thumb piano (a la Konono No.1) and some bongos, locked into an endless loop, the rhythm is sent loping into swirling clouds of wheezing tones and tangled melodies, a soundscape of constantly shifting, spinning, twisting, contorting and expanding sounds, effects galore, sputtering synths, crumbling layers, all wreathed in soft noise, a blown out space psych ur-drone krautrock from another dimension. Hazy, glistening, sun baked and lysergic, mesmerizing and hypnotic, and so so good.

Gary Floyd (Sister Double Happiness, The Dicks) revisits punk rock roots with this ragin' disc. Lynn Perko (Sister Double Happiness) guests on vocals.

Now on lp!!! With a cd version included! Doesn't feel like we need to say too much about this one as everyone's been freaking out about this record, and it seems to be the album that is going to push The Black Keys to the next level of fame (they are on the cover of Rolling Stone this month). We're totally down with bands who get famous and actually get to make a good living on making music, and the Black Keys are cool, and have worked their asses off, but at this point we can think of so many other bands that deserve this sort of success just as much. We actually dug their last outing quite a bit, but this new one seems to be pushing them in a new direction, one that seems potentially less exciting for long time fans, and more geared for new fans, festivals, and big stadiums...

MPEG stream: Lonely Boy
MPEG stream: Money Maker

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

SORRY.

[ aquarius records catalogue — B ]