[ 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 1601 through 1650 of 3202.

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

SORRY.

MPEG stream: Baphomet
MPEG stream: Under The Spell Of Black Moors

This is the stuff!!! Pure, grim, cult, frosty, necro, dirge-y, buzzing, midtempo, Burzumic and Mayhemic black metal from Russia! No keyboards, or corpse paint, or even long hair for that matter! Just simple, brutal, stripped down TRUE black metal. Swarming guitars, pounding drums, and anguished, tortured vocals (ala SF black metal legends Weakling) make up this nihilistic hellbrew of cacophonous brutality. Blackdeath are the brilliantly monickered duo of Para Bellum and Abysslooker, and Fucking Fullmoon Foundation will surely sate your unquenchable thirst for primitive grimness.

MPEG stream: Das Kriechende Chaos
MPEG stream: Unholy Church

The return of grim Russian black metal horde Blackdeath, the awesomely monickered brotherly duo of Abysslooker and Para Bellum, now joined by the much more simply named Maya, for this their most recent blast of glorious blackness. And glorious it is, and as fucked up and fantastically off kilter as past outings, the buzzing guitars in full effect, but the new drummer definitely pushing the sound into new and exciting directions. Intricate, and lush, but also raw and furious and weirdly prog, in fact, the vocals have always been super strange in Blackdeath, and this time around they're strange in a whole different way, loud, and dramatic, and crooned, way up in the mix, almost over the top, to the point that it almost sounds how we might imagine a black metal Circle might sound, the same sort of theatricality, proggy and operatic, a little bit like a black metal cabaret, and the music suits the new singing, not so frantic and frenzied as woozy and gnarled and twisted and atonal and abstract, the sound slipping from more traditional black buzz to this new tangled black squall, laced with organ, bits of warped ambience, surprisingly melodic leads, lumbering doomic plods rife with weird psychedelic spidery guitars, but still for the most part fuzzy and blackened and furious, blurred blasting, but the vibe completely altered by those incredible vocals. A little off putting for some most likely, but folks who like their black metal a bit bizarre, this batch of epic blasting black buzzery definitely fits the bill.

MPEG stream: Licht Ist Mein Tod
MPEG stream: Besessenheit Die Ich Brauche
MPEG stream: Die Verzweiflung Der Letzten Folter

Phobos is the 7th full length since 2001 from these Russian black metallers, who most folks probably know from their split with Leviathan, or longtime aQ list readers probably remember that Blackdeath feature two of our favorite named black metal musicians, Abysslooker and Para Bellum, not to mention that they also happen to have one of the few female drummers in black metal. And while in the early days, BD trafficked in super raw, grim black buzz, over the last few records, their sound has gotten weirder and weirder, coinciding seemingly with a sudden shift to the German language (which seemed odd for a Russian band). When we reviewed the last BD record, we mentioned that some of the parts sounded how we imagined a black metal Circle might sound, as well as pointing out the strange vocals, and the proggy arrangements, all of which are still present, in fact, if anything, the vocals have gotten even stranger, and the group's avant tendencies have definitely come to define their sound. The opener definitely hews closer to the classic Blackdeath grimnity of old, but as the song unfolds, it reveals itself to be a strangely technical, gnarled loopscape, with the main riff extremely cyclical, the sound churning and roiling, almost sing songy, which is accentuated when the leads come in, and follow along with the almost robotic riffing. And then the vocals go from black metal shriek, to dramatically howled, complete with lots of trilled 'r's, sounding, again, not unlike Mika from Circle, just way more metal. But the vibe is over the top, buzzy and black, but also twisted and a little avant. Which is actually how much of the rest of the record plays out, a sort of proggy black buzz, each track locked around a single riff, repeated trancelike, and more often than not, at some point splintering into something dizzyingly intricate, or warped and jagged. Unlike most bands whose weirdness stems from strange sounds, or unlikely sonic elements, the strangeness of Blackdeath is purely musical, working within a fairly well established set of sounds and tropes, they manage to twist those sounds all up, and arrange them in ways that are confusing, confounding, and manage to push both our grim black metal buttons, and our what the fuck, outsider black weirdness buttons at the same time. A rarity for sure. And while we could go through the record song by song, part by part, pointing out twisted little psychedelic filigrees here, damaged rhythms there, or the various warped textures, dizzying black prog arrangements, and super trippy melodies, that stuff is so well integrated, that it wouldn't make sense. It's quite a feat too, making all that weirdness sound like an inexorable part of the sound, all without taking ANYthing away from the pure grim black energy that oozes from pretty much every note here. Still one of our favorite black metal outfits around...

MPEG stream: Der Letzte Untergang
MPEG stream: Also Sprach Schopfer-Psychopath
MPEG stream: Lucifer Rising

MPEG stream: Satan Macht Mich Frei
MPEG stream: Unter Der Schwarzsonne

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

SORRY. While we're waiting to get restocked on the cd version of this killer split (in the next week or two!), which flew out of here after our last list, we managed to get 30 copies of the picture disc vinyl version. Unfortunately that's all we're ever gonna get, so as always, act fast! Hard to know what to say about Leviathan that we haven't said already. Quite possibly the most innovative outfit in black metal today. The man behind Leviathan, Wrest, has taken traditional black metal and turned it into something new and strange and completely out there, while somehow remaining totally grim and true to the black metal tradition. Here, he is teamed up with Russian black metal group Blackdeath, who specialize in extremely primitive buzzy and blurry black metal a la Burzum, Darkthrone and the like. The most remarkable thing about Blackdeath besides their simple droning fuzzed out riffs, and frosty atmosphere, is the vocals, a weird raspy warble, that slips from black metal shriek to weirdly anguished falsetto, reminding us a lot of SF BM legends Weakling. And the guitars are so thick and buzzy and blown out that you almost can't hear the drums, which lends the whole thing a super hypnotic drone quality that we LOVE. As if playing off of Blackdeath's primitive grimness, Leviathan hits right back with four tracks of his own full on grim buzz, but as with everything he does, no matter how true and grim the sound is, no matter how blasting the drums or buzzing the guitars are, there is always lots of stuff going on beneath the surface, or in the arrangements, not always easy to explain, just this intangible something that makes Leviathan's sound so unique and so much creepier and intense. Minor key melodies, weird stretches of industrial ambience, strangely affected vocals, haunting drones and bizarre soundscapes, all woven into the already twisted framework of Leviathan's uniquely hellish black metal. WE WERE ONLY ABLE TO GET 25 COPIES. ONCE THEY ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE FOR GOOD!!!

MPEG stream: Der Absolute Bose
MPEG stream: Derision

Folks may not be able to pronounce Ithdabquth Qliphoth, and probably have no idea what it means, but that most definitely didn't keep the recent IQ disc from being a runaway hit around these parts. And heck, we sort of knew it would be, being heavy, noisy, blown out raw black metal from Russia, steeped in bizarre mythologies, the sound as fractured and fucked up as it is grim black and buzzing. So in the interest of digging deeper into the Qliphoth mythos, we managed to track down a handful of these splits, not new, released back in 2006, but until now we had given up hope of ever getting them for the store. But here they are, we have about 20, not sure if there are more to be had, so if we run out (when is probably more realistic), please be patient as we try to get our hands on more, cuz needless to say, fans of freaky black metal and weirdo outsider blackness, as well as ANYONE who bought that Qliphoth disc, will most likely want (NEED!) this too. Which is not to say that it sounds anything like Ithdabquth Qliphoth, because it doesn't really. The Hammer Ov Qliphoth here is wielded by Al-La-Sht-Orr, one half of the IQ duo, and his half of this split is a mournful, midtempo, doom drenched black metal. Minor key guitars, simple circular riffing, the vocals a murky growl, the drums simple and solid, the pace a glacial crawl, sometimes slipping into a slowish midtempo plod. Super evocative and atmospheric, morose and moody, probably more for folks into depressive miserbalist doooooom than black metal, but fear not, it's harsh and grim enough to retain much of its blackness. Three tracks, the first two loping dismal dirges, surprisingly melodic, the main riffs almost punky if they were faster, but slowed down, it almost sounds like Darkthrone at 16rpm, slightly dissonant, mesmerizingly repetitive, droney, the final track might be our favorite, a super sloooooow, spaced out plod, the vocals and guitars locked into a strange sea sick slow motion rhythm, tons of space, the bursts of crushing heaviness held together by spidery guitar melodies, the whole thing suffused with buzz and hum and grit, super distorted and in-the-red, but weirdly melodic and pretty. Worth it already for sure. But the other half of the split might be even better. It's definitely weirder, and way more twisted. Blackness hail from Belarus, and are a duo, which only stops making sense once you hear them, since they sound to these ears, like one guy, a guitar and a 4 track. Ultra raw, stripped down buzzing black metal, but just guitars and vocals, no drums, no keyboards, almost like some sort of black metal Jandek. Our listening to scratch tracks from some classic old school BM record. The riffs are awesome, brittle and grim and definitely lo-fi, the vocals harsh and WAY up in the mix so they totally overpower the guitar, a surprising amount of melody though, very harsh and haunting, but really cool, odds are you've probably never heard anything like this, and hell we're dying to hear more. LIMITED TO 280 COPIES. We have about 20. Might be the last copies we can get. Packaged in one of those oversized super jewel cases, with nice full color textured inserts, and each copy hand numbered.

MPEG stream: V.I.T.R.I.O.L.
MPEG stream: Hierogamy WIth Kali
MPEG stream: Monotheistic Supremecy
MPEG stream: Sepher Qliphoth

Polish beat-blues, pre-Breakout.

What this is, is a solo album from Carey Mercer, the singer/main songwriter of love-'em or hate-'em Canadian indie-rock weirdos Frog Eyes. And like so many a front man's solo album, it sounds just about exactly like his regular band! Maybe a little bit more subdued and intimate, but closer to Frog Eyes than anything else. In his case, there's a good, unavoidable reason for it: his unique, feverish Tom Waits-meets-Bjork-at-the-wrong-end-of-a-Victrola-horn vocals mean *everything* he does sounds like Frog Eyes, it's such a part of their/his sound. It probably should be called a Frog Eyes record (like Ego Scriptor, the acoustic album he did by himself not long ago)...but I'm sure he has his reasons for calling it Blackout Beach instead. You can scratch you head over that along with much else as you listen to this, as Corey pours his heart out through songs that sound somewhere betwixt nursery rhymes and a homeless guy talking to himself, but in a good way (we think). Kind of whispery and cryptic and surreal and emotive, all good things eh? Frog Eyes fans will want this, and it's not a bad place to start for anyone else intrigued by what we just said about Mercer's singing and songwriting. PS. in case you were wondering since sentence one, we love 'em!

MPEG stream: The Stuttered XXX Breeze XXX
MPEG stream: The Quiet Merchant Gets His Song Too

Frog Eyes related goodness.

We don't care what anyone tells us, you're never too old for emo. Especially emo made by guys our age! We were pretty bummed when the Get Up Kids called it a day a recently. They were responsible for one of our favorite records ever, Something To Write Home About, a totally kick ass collection of catchy, heavy raucous poprock emo anthems. Later GUK records didn't pack the same wallop, although a recent live record was pretty kick ass. Various band members moved on, starting other bands, side projects, solo records, all that, but none of them had the same sort of magic. This Town's Disaster is the debut release from Get Up Kids' guitarist Jim Suptic and is about as close as I think we're ever gonna get. And it's good enough for us. This is like a modern emo version of classic nineties college rock. You can hear the Replacements A LOT, jangly guitars, rough raspy melodic vocals, simple steady drumming. Killer hooks, lots of instantly catchy choruses, perfect headphone rock / mixtape material / breakup tuneage for sure. Been listening to this nonstop! Comes in a cool six panel digipack with killer cover art that looks like it was done by the same guy who did the equally cool art on Something To Write Home About.

MPEG stream: This Town's Disaster
MPEG stream: Blue Skies
MPEG stream: Empty Tank

Limited to 250 copies, 80 gram vinyl!!

This new SF trio whip out some down'n'dirty trash tunes with the rock'n'roll basics -- vocals, guitar, drums and tambourine. The vocals are delivered in a deliciously distressed, smeared sneer. Just imagine a female fronted piss'n'vinegar descendant of Jesus And Mary Chain, and you'll have some idea of where The Blacks are comin' from. We think they would fit great at a gig alongside fellow Bay Area hotties The Husbands and Von Iva.

MPEG stream: Raincoat
MPEG stream: The Flame

Latest from long time aQ fave, UK guitarist / composer James Blackshaw, and it's his most ambitious record yet, eight movements woven into a single sprawling piece, continuing in his constant evolution from one man, Fahey style neo-Appalachia finger picker, to full fledged composer and band leader. On All Is Falling, Blackshaw plays guitar, piano, glockenspiel, percussion and sings, and is accompanied by a handful of other musicians on violin, flute, saxophone, and cello, the results are stirring and dramatic, lush and totally gorgeous, drawing on classic folk music, modern chamber music, classical and the avant garde. Every movement here is a miniature epic, dense and layered and lush, evocative and emotional, from dark brooding piano pieces, wrapped in clouds of Lubomyr Melnyk like flurries, to folk flecked chamber music, spidery minor key guitar melodies, underpinned by swoonsome strings, evoking a lost time, another era, to warm swirling tangles of Appalachia, here set amidst lush swells and more soaring strings. The first five movements all flow seamlessly, a dark gorgeous timeless bit of cinematic chamber folk, which culminates in the final three movements, beginning with "Part 6", a complex looped bit of folky lilt, with powerful percussion, and what sounds like someone counting our the strange time signature, which leads right into the 12 minute "Part 7", beginning with a post rocky strand of looped guitar, which is soon mirrored by the strings, ratcheting up the tension, and the motion, a dizzying almost round, growing more and more dense, more and more complex, multiple melodies constantly shifting and intertwining, as the track seems to grow more atonal, as if it's slowly crumbling, detuning, eventually winding down completely, before the final movement comes in, a slow building, softly pulsing swell, a gorgeous hazy bit of layered drone music, the various overtones creating muted rhythms, and strange harmonies, lush and ominous and hauntingly lovely. A strangely and beautifully abstract ending to an otherwise deeply melodic and wonderfully lush bit of modern composition. Until the next list, the cd version of All is Falling will be on sale, $2 off the normal $14.98!!

MPEG stream: Part 1
MPEG stream: Part 2
MPEG stream: Part 8

Sure, all you drone obsessives and out rock freaks can't get enough Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, an endless fount of whir and rumble and skree and grrr and rrroooaarrr. But this new record from James Blackshaw is a whole 'nother ball of... um.. steel strings apparently. Celeste is made up of two 15 minute tracks (one played in open C major tuning, the other in open C minor) of totally mesmerizing Appalachian raga folk, performed mainly on 12-string acoustic guitar with occasional farfisa organ and cymbals. Fans of John Fahey, Jack Rose, Matt Valentine and all things free folk will be completely blown away. There's still an element of drone in the repetitive raga-like riffing, but this is mainly and most definitely a weird and wonderful modern avant bluegrass / folk record. Lovely! SUPER LIMITED AS ALWAYS!! NOT SURE WE'LL BE ABLE TO GET MORE WHEN THESE ARE GONE!

MPEG stream: Celeste Pt. 1

Wow! To mark the centenary of Louis Feuillade's Fantomas silent film series, James Blackshaw was invited to perform a live score for the fifth and final film, Le Faux Magistrat in Paris on Halloween night of last year. The Fantomas film series, based on the popular character of French crime fiction, a symbol of terror and master of disguise, is an exciting match for Blackshaw who has evolved over the past few years from solo guitar work to full orchestral composition. The group assembled here includes Duane Pitre and Simon Scott from Slowdive as well as multi-instrumentalist Charlotte Glasson providing violin, vibraphone and various wind instruments. In a beautifully brooding score that at times channels David Shire's The Conversation soundtrack as one of several reccurring instrumental motifs, Blackshaw alternates between guitar and piano in a tense and moving score that while atmospheric, never seems to take rest. Fantastic!

MPEG stream: Part 2
MPEG stream: Part 3
MPEG stream: Part 8

NOW ON VINYL!! (Includes free cd of the album too!) So on his last album, Blackshaw stepped into new territory with some orchestral instrumentation, even laying down a few piano tracks. And even though we didn't think it was possible, he just might have outdone himself, yet again, with his most dynamic album to date, The Glass Bead Game, released on the infamous Young God Records. Most aQ costumers are well aware of the talent and mystery that surrounds Mr. Blackshaw and his twelve-string mastery. And while we've really dug all of his numerous past albums, it seems like Blackshaw has never sounded so confident in his mantra-like finger picking and ornate compositions. With the freedom to compose works for piano, strings, flute, clarinet and a choir, Blackshaw's vision has grown from a small sprout into a sea of blooming vines. It baffles us how cinematic this stuff is. These tracks all tell epic tales of being lost at sea, nighttime woodland campfires, sad goodbyes and lonely mornings, all without any lyrics. Sometimes there are these moments where Blackshaw will simply change chords and suddenly the piece takes on a whole new feel, a whole new sound, and you can't help but feel emotionally struck. His playing is so recognizable and distinguished from his solo-guitar peers, a perfect marriage of patients and skill, droning and droning on one chord only to build suspense and anticipation before suddenly revealing the next movement, so good! And there's something about his playing that is so European, so different from the Americana-type sound of other finger pickin' contemporaries. Blackshaw's pieces seem to shimmer with an ethereal haze that faintly glows like an old lantern in the woods, casting flickering light on faces of spirits in the night. The Glass Bead Games starts things off running with a lush harmonium drone and Blackshaw's quick, raga-esque finger picking soaring above. Gradually female vocals and strings creep in to blanket Blackshaw's guitar in a silky ambience, creating an almost dreamlike experience. We really love how the vocals have this Philip Glass or Steve Reich orchestral kind of vibe. Instead of long swells the voices are short, repetitive wordless ohs and ahs, kind of like some carousel organ or angelic harp. "Cross" builds and retreats in some cosmic ebb and flow, continually swirling with deep, melodic range and heartfelt emotion, all with the twelve string at its glowing core. "Bled", the second track, begins with a slow, contemplative mood. Notes plucked then left to dissipate into thin air. Somber and desolate, the piece only grows into a dark journey through Eastern ragas and into celestial radiance, only to return in the 9th minute to the opening, contemplative passage. �� The album comes to a gorgeous close with the 18 minute "Arc". With James on the piano, he builds from quiet contemplative drops of rain into huge waves of quickly flourishing arpeggios, not all that different sounding from his guitar picking. We totally love how his style and aesthetic remains intact, whether he's sitting at the piano or with a guitar on his knee, his close attention to detail and use of hypnotic, emotionally captivating melodies shines throughout. Notes flickering and shimmering about as overtones soar above like clouds. There's so much about this record that you can get fully wrapped up in, so much detail it would be impossible to absorb it all in just one listen. We've already been listening to Glass Bead Game for over a week, and still new details keep popping out of the woodwork. And to top it off, beautifully fitting, earth-toned artwork of various birds of prey perfectly adorns the album with some magical visual hex. By far our favorite Blackshaw album to date and quite possibly his best, highly and fully recommended!

MPEG stream: Cross
MPEG stream: Bled

Two new tracks clocking at right around twenty minutes, from one of our favorite 12-string guitar playing wonders, James Blackshaw. Perfect time of year too, for these meditative blissed out songs. So perfect for taking a much needed break and to step away from the madness of the holiday season that is just about upon us. Blackshaw has the ability to make music that not only seems to make the outside world fade away, but it's also so perfect for those intense moments when you are in the midst of soul searching and deep introspection and you need a soundtrack to help you make sense of it all. This 12" feels like a really nice nod to his earlier more sprawling and solo guitar recordings, though there are some nice subtle touches of clarinet, violin, and flute throughout these recordings. Just like the first time we listened to his records like O True Believers and Celeste, we are once again so swept away and transported to a place of total transcendence by these two beautiful songs. Essential fall/winter listening.

MPEG stream: Holly
MPEG stream: Boo, Forever

With each new James Blackshaw release, we're always amazed at how someone who works within such a small musical framework can continuously exceed our expectations. Definitely a favorite among favorites of solo guitarists, Blackshaw has bulked up his arsenal of compositional approaches by introducing for the first time the use of piano as a key element. Bookending the album are two long form pieces of solo piano in a minimalist style that remind us of Charlemagne Palestine or Lubomyr Melnyk. When the twelve string is first heard on the second track, it's not before we're set up with a foundation of resonant timbres of violin and viola (played by Fran Bury) that give weight to the airy modal improvisations of the guitar. Adding subtle layers of richness and dynamics, the strings ground and support the ringing overtones of the 12 string creating complex harmonies to the pulsating melodies. We can't imagine we'll ever tire of hearing Blackshaw's shimmering textural pieces. Amazing how sound so deep, dark, damp and resonant can be so transcendentally uplifting.

MPEG stream: Gate of Ivory
MPEG stream: Past Has Not Passed
MPEG stream: Echo And Abyss

Of these three new James Blackshaw cd reissues of long out of print cd-r's, Lost Prayers & Motionless Dances is the only one of the three that we never managed to carry at all. We've long gone on and on about how records this good deserve to be heard by more than the 100 or 200 lucky folks who manage to get their hands on the limited cd-r's, and finally, someone (thanks Tompkins Square!) had the good sense to gussy these discs up and give them the actual proper cd reissue they so deserve. Originally released as a cd-r on Digitalis, limited to 200 copies in 2004, this one slipped right under our radar, which is a huge shame as it is just as good as Sunshrine or Celeste. But it's also quite different. Where as the other discs focus on Blackshaw's deft fingerpicking, and mastery of the steel string guitar, this disc is just as much about the drone and the ambience. Not to say, Blackshaw doesn't get to unleash dexterous little tangles of Appalachian filigree, but those stretches of strum and shimmer are set amidst thick harmonium drones and blissed out field recordings. The disc begins with a warm whirring drone, all thick wheezes and rich lustrous chords, Eastern melodies, drawn way out into long soft smears. Eventually the guitar joins in, but simple spare strums, soft chords, and gentle fingerpicking, nestled amidst the softly undulating harmonium in the background, the sounds of crickets chirping in the distance, bits of slippery sitar style squiggles. The sound gradually slips into something much more familiar, 'that' Blackshaw sound we love so much, a lot like the other reissued discs, until the guitar fades out, leaving a murky muted shimmer, which soon fades out as well, leaving nothing a strange high end hiss-scape of weird processed percussion and shortwave radio, peppered with bits of high end jangle and distant upper register guitar scrape and disembodied clatter, before the track finally shifts gears once again, filling the last few minutes with urgently strummed guitar, big chunky chords, moaning harmoniums, and billowing splashes of deep resonant cymbal shimmer, a glorious kinetic finish to a another gorgeous sprawling languorous guitardronedrift. Remastered and with new artwork.

MPEG stream: Lost Prayers & Motionless Dances

Of all the modern Appalachia-ists, James Blackshaw is definitely one of our favorites, playing solo guitar, he is most definitely a master, but he seems to have long abandoned that sort of playing in favor of something much more lush and composed, with each record seeming to push the sound, and Blackshaw's skills as a composer even further, this most recent one is no different, which once again finds him augmenting his guitar with grand piano, vibraphone and a Hammond B3 organ, and joined for this record by vocalist Genevieve Beaulieu. The opening three track songsuite doesn't veer to far from Blackshaw records past, intricately finger picked nylon string guitar, nested in soft chordal swells and laced with delicate vibraphone melodies, sounding classical one second, old time Appalachian folk the next, and brooding chamber music the next. His playing so fluid and graceful, the sound lush and vibrant. It's not until the fourth track, where Blackshaw is joined by Beaulieu, that the sound changes dramatically. That track, mostly piano, sounding like some old ballad, Beaulieu's voice rich and throaty and quite unique, but it definitely suits the sound, reminding us of scene from some old movie where the female lead is perched on a piano belting out a torch song, as the male lead observes from the shadows, the sound minor key, haunting and darkly melodic. The second half of the record, at least the two songs following that torch song, find Blackshaw back in Appalachia mode, and as always, his playing is stunning, impossibly intricate and liltingly melodic, his Appalachia infused with a bit of classic guitar it sounds like, and the result is stunning. And finally, the record finishes off with a gorgeous mostly solo piano piece, that sounds very cinematic, like some indie film soundtrack, wistful, melancholy, bittersweet, culminating in a super dramatic coda, the vibraphone adding a second melody, haunting and quite lovely.

MPEG stream: Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death
MPEG stream: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
MPEG stream: A Momentary Taste Of Being

We often lament the state of musical affairs that would render records that are as good as anything and everything we've heard by James Blackshaw to be so limited as to only be heard by a mere handful of people. But until now that has indeed been the case. Cd-r after gorgeous cd-r, limited to 200 copies, 100 copies, even less in some instances. But music this beautiful, this lush, this lovely definitely deserves a wider audience, even if its cd-r / underground / outsider / avant folk / new weird America cache suffers accordingly. Who cares? Who -can- care when faced with the sounds on O True Believers. Over the last few years, Blackshaw has found a home amongst free noise fellows and their fans (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon, Birchville Cat Motel, Rameses III, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof!, Avarus, etc.) even though his sound hewed much closer to Fahey and the like, a stark but sweet steel string Appalachia. Here, that sound is even more stark, more spare and oh so even sweeter. The opening two tracks will have you swooning, or drifting off, or swaying in some glorious mesmerized state or whatever it is you do when you find yourself submerged in some lush swirl of tonal dreaminess, 30 full minutes of guitar, mostly just guitar, spacious and grand, lilting and delicate, no whir or fuzz or rumble or any of the other sonic detritus that usually decorates most of the music like this we love -- no this is crystal clear and crystalline, shimmering and glistening, as if Blackshaw was some strange musical alchemist who discovered how to use a guitar to describe leaves covered in dew, green grass sparkling with morning frost, the sun reflecting on a placid pond, silvery streaks of sunlight filtered through the interwoven branches overhead. It's like wandering into a lost glade, laying in a thick soft patch of grass, and slowly sinking into the ground, until you BECOME the forest around you, sinking into a warm, wash of tranquil otherworldliness. Towards the end of track two, the guitars are joined by cymbalon, tamboura, and bells, and what was only moments earlier some sort of mysterious Appalachian folk, becomes a slow burning blissed out raga, steel strings buzz, each note smeared into warm drones, then sprinkled with delicate chimes and reverberating bells. Track three is equally as blissful, but is constructed quite differently, the guitar lines speed up and become intense and intricate tangles of notes, so snug that the melodies blur and stretch out melodic whirs, while lush major key swells, ebb and flow in the background, a swaying swooning sweetness. The final track is almost jubilant by comparison and 'rocks' as much as any foresty free folk Appalachia can be thought to rock, dense steel string strums, a simple percussive framework of cymbals and chimes, the whole thing wrapped in the wonderfully warm wheeze of a harmonium, adding a thick warm fuzzy patina to the sparkling steel shimmer beneath.

MPEG stream: Transient Life In Twilight
MPEG stream: Spiralling Skeleton Memorial

Albion's esteemed lord of achingly gorgeous acoustic 12-string instrumentalism returns to sun-dapple your fragile speakers, minds & lives once more with his painstakingly crystalline brand of tender fingerpicked loveliness. Aglow with guitar melodies that sparkle & xylophones that twinkle like campsite stars, throbbing church organs, fluttering flutes that dance around your head like little forest sprites, and the kind of mood that only seems to exist in dreams that you wake up wishing you could remember, Summoning Suns (which features a number of talented sidepersons, including Simon Scott of Slowdive) is James Blackshaw's twelfth (!) studio album by our reckoning, but only the first to feature his voice (with the exception of the occasional background breathing that could be picked up on some of his more sparse early acoustic tracks - seriously, listen for 'em!). What took so long?? The hushed patient sigh of Blackshaw's voice is a perfect accompaniment to his summery yet somber, bright yet bittersweet, lush yet longing compositions, at times recalling the pastoral Renaissance meadowland folk of Amazing Blondel and elsewhere the haunted bedroom whisper of Elliott Smith. Like much of Blackshaw's best work, Summoning Suns sublimely balances stately timeless beauty with faraway unnamable yearning, a faint sadness drifting beneath even the most glorious of melodies - a reminder that even the sunniest days only last until sundown - beautiful and fleeting, just like this record.

MPEG stream: Averoigne
MPEG stream: Confetti
MPEG stream: Failure's Flame

More gorgeously lush neo-Appalachia from James Blackshaw, finally released on a real cd instead of an ultralimited cd-r, which makes perfect sense as this is way too good to be so limited. Two tracks, the first an extended thirty minute epic, a lush and completely gorgeous steel string raga, huge dense sweeps of intricately finger picked guitar, dense with reverb, accompanied by sarod, harmonium, Farfisa organ, glockenspiel, bells and bowed cymbals. Overwhelmingly beautiful and impossibly otherworldly. Expressive and aggressive but completely delicate and introspective at the same time. The end of the track is especially powerful when the guitars fade out and all that is left is the thick wheezing drone of the harmonium and a cloud of tinkling bells. The final three minutes is a very Fahey-esque, steel string guitar workout, gorgeous folky twang, simple and so lovely. Packaged in a gold metallic paper sleeve with a small printed insert.

MPEG stream: Sunshrine (Excerpt)

A very limited (and very expensive) lp version (pressed on nice thick vinyl and housed in a gorgeous sleeve) of the two most recent releases from guitarist James Blackshaw (one a new cd reviewed elsewhere on this list, the other a cd-r release from earlier in 2005). We only got a handful of these and once they are gone, they are probably gone for good. Here's what we had to say about the Celeste cd-r: Celeste is made up of two 15 minute tracks (one played in open C major tuning, the other in open C minor) of totally mesmerizing Appalachian raga folk, performed mainly on 12-string acoustic guitar with occasional farfisa organ and cymbals. Fans of John Fahey, Jack Rose, Matt Valentine and all things free folk will be completely blown away. There's still an element of drone in the repetitive raga-like riffing, but this is mainly and most definitely a weird and wonderful modern avant bluegrass / folk record. Lovely! And here's what we have to say about Sunshrine: More gorgeously lush neo-Appalachia from James Blackshaw, finally released on a real cd instead of an ultralimited cd-r, which makes perfect sense as this is way too good to be so limited. Two tracks, the first an extended thirty minute epic, a lush and completely gorgeous steel string raga, huge dense sweeps of intricately finger picked guitar, dense with reverb, accompanied by sarod, harmonium, Farfisa organ, glockenspiel, bells and bowed cymbals. Overwhelmingly beautiful and impossibly otherworldly. Expressive and aggressive but completely delicate and introspective at the same time. The end of the track is especially powerful when the guitars fade out and all that is left is the thick wheezing drone of the harmonium and a cloud of tinkling bells. The final three minutes is a very Fahey-esque, steel string guitar workout, gorgeous folky twang, simple and so lovely.

MPEG stream: Sunshrine (Excerpt)
MPEG stream: Celeste Pt. 1

Like John Fahey's "Transcendental Waterfall", The UK's James Blackshaw can always be counted on for rich cascading 12-string rushes of beauty and mystique. Here are five dense and layered pieces that truly display Blackshaw's virtuous gifts, ones that seem to unearth new mysteries with each new release, and further carve his own distinct niche apart from his Takoma/Windham Hill progenitors. Here on some tracks, it sounds like he has some subtle string accompaniments that keep the vibrating natural harmonic overtones of Blackshaw's guitar in good company, without seeming to play it safe. And the sparsely plucked but gaseous third track, "Clouds Collapse" and final refrain of the last track, "Stained Glass Windows" show Blackshaw hasn't let go of his sonically experimental leanings. Quite mesmerizing!

MPEG stream: Running To The Ghost
MPEG stream: Clouds Collapse

So on his last album, Blackshaw stepped into new territory with some orchestral instrumentation, even laying down a few piano tracks. And even though we didn't think it was possible, he just might have outdone himself, yet again, with his most dynamic album to date, The Glass Bead Game, released on the infamous Young God Records. Most aQ costumers are well aware of the talent and mystery that surrounds Mr. Blackshaw and his twelve-string mastery. And while we've really dug all of his numerous past albums, it seems like Blackshaw has never sounded so confident in his mantra-like finger picking and ornate compositions. With the freedom to compose works for piano, strings, flute, clarinet and a choir, Blackshaw's vision has grown from a small sprout into a sea of blooming vines. It baffles us how cinematic this stuff is. These tracks all tell epic tales of being lost at sea, nighttime woodland campfires, sad goodbyes and lonely mornings, all without any lyrics. Sometimes there are these moments where Blackshaw will simply change chords and suddenly the piece takes on a whole new feel, a whole new sound, and you can't help but feel emotionally struck. His playing is so recognizable and distinguished from his solo-guitar peers, a perfect marriage of patients and skill, droning and droning on one chord only to build suspense and anticipation before suddenly revealing the next movement, so good! And there's something about his playing that is so European, so different from the Americana-type sound of other finger pickin' contemporaries. Blackshaw's pieces seem to shimmer with an ethereal haze that faintly glows like an old lantern in the woods, casting flickering light on faces of spirits in the night. The Glass Bead Games starts things off running with a lush harmonium drone and Blackshaw's quick, raga-esque finger picking soaring above. Gradually female vocals and strings creep in to blanket Blackshaw's guitar in a silky ambience, creating an almost dreamlike experience. We really love how the vocals have this Philip Glass or Steve Reich orchestral kind of vibe. Instead of long swells the voices are short, repetitive wordless ohs and ahs, kind of like some carousel organ or angelic harp. "Cross" builds and retreats in some cosmic ebb and flow, continually swirling with deep, melodic range and heartfelt emotion, all with the twelve string at its glowing core. "Bled", the second track, begins with a slow, contemplative mood. Notes plucked then left to dissipate into thin air. Somber and desolate, the piece only grows into a dark journey through Eastern ragas and into celestial radiance, only to return in the 9th minute to the opening, contemplative passage. �� The album comes to a gorgeous close with the 18 minute "Arc". With James on the piano, he builds from quiet contemplative drops of rain into huge waves of quickly flourishing arpeggios, not all that different sounding from his guitar picking. We totally love how his style and aesthetic remains intact, whether he's sitting at the piano or with a guitar on his knee, his close attention to detail and use of hypnotic, emotionally captivating melodies shines throughout. Notes flickering and shimmering about as overtones soar above like clouds. There's so much about this record that you can get fully wrapped up in, so much detail it would be impossible to absorb it all in just one listen. We've already been listening to Glass Bead Game for over a week, and still new details keep popping out of the woodwork. And to top it off, beautifully fitting, earth-toned artwork of various birds of prey perfectly adorns the album with some magical visual hex. By far our favorite Blackshaw album to date and quite possibly his best, highly and fully recommended!

MPEG stream: Cross
MPEG stream: Bled

Probably quite limited (Kning Discs are usually not long for this world!) live release from AQ fave UK guitarist James Blackshaw. Recorded in Goteborg, Sweden at the end of May this year, Blackshaw's live performance of the best of his catalog (Sunshrine, Celeste, and two songs from O True Believers) does not disappoint. For those who are not familiar with Blackshaw's majestic 12-string finger picking abilities (O True Believers was record of the week, a few lists back), this live document is a true testament to his amazing skills. Not a note is out of place and the sound quality is breathtaking. Don't miss out. We only have about 20 of these and may or may not be able to get any more when we run out, we don't know!

MPEG stream: Sunshrine
MPEG stream: Spiralling Skeleton Memorial

We're huge fans of pianist and composer Lubomyr Melnyk, his playing so distinctive, his Continuous Music System and the way he creates dense flurries of notes, and lush chordal cascades - it's transcendent, a sort of swirling, almost psychedelic modern classical / new age hybrid, the sound dreamlike but rife with melodic subtleties and tonal colorations that make his music prismatic and expansive and impossible to mistake for anybody else. We also love Blackshaw, in a field of modern minimal guitarists, mining classic Americana, we often find ourselves drawn to his interpretation, one that's not always so minimal, slipping easily from a Melnyk like style of whipping up clouds of swirling chords and notes, to weaving lush landscapes of dark dreamlike chamber music. Not sure whose idea it was to put these guys together, or if they were simply the sort of like minded artists who eventually find each other, but whatever the reason, or whoever is responsible, we're so grateful, and glad that this sonic summit took place. And it's just about as fantastic as you might hope. Four long form compositions, both Melnyk and Blackshaw effortlessly unfurling lush swaths of swirling melody, Blackshaw's guitar bathed in the reverb and overtones of Melnyk's piano, the sound sometimes so blurred it's hard to tell who's playing what, and that constant shift is part of what makes this so mesmerizing, the tracks hypnotic and tranced out, dreamy and melodic and woozily tranquil, but still sonically super active, each track is like a thick billowing cloud of dreamy melodic drift, the musical equivalent of a jar of fireflies, look away, and the world is lit by a soft warm glow, but look closely and that light is revealed as a dense whorl of tiny little lights, swooping and shimmering. The sound these two conjure up occasionally slips into something more folky, or more classical, but most often meets right in the middle, heavenly and hypnotic, rife with lilting melodies, and warm sonic swells. When things do slow down, the music settles into a moody melancholy shimmer, but those moments are fleeting, with the two tending to slowly add and build until the sound swirls and swoops and soars skyward, and blossoms once again into something truly transcendent. The vinyl version is limited to 500 copies.

MPEG stream: Tascheter
MPEG stream: Venant

Japanese label Doubtmusic is, a heart, a jazz label. But usually on the fringes. Outside stuff like reissues of Masayuki Takayanagi, and improv rock crossovers like that recent Nambajazz album featuring Seiichi Yamamoto, ex-Boredoms. And there's lots of Doubtmusic albums featuring the adventurous Otomo Yoshihide of course. But here's a Doubtmusic disc that's pretty much straight up jazz, definitely with a wild improv edge at times, but nice jazz nonetheless. From a trio of piano, baritone sax and trombone, all players no doubt noted in the Japanese underground jazz scene but not well known to us. 16-minute opener "Sky Clippings And Spinning Fragments" is lovely and lyrical, then skronky and squall-y, by turns. As is the rest of this disc. Their rhythms get pretty crazy too. If jazz gives you a headache, this is not the cure. But if you like jazz, with a sense of noirish danger and outright noisiness, this is quite enjoyable. Swank Doubtmusic packaging as usual, this time the digipack looking like an airmail letter.

MPEG stream: Sky Clippings And Spinning Fragments
MPEG stream: God's In His Heaven, All's Right With The World

CD reissue of the lone 1972 album from this German hard rock outfit with an English vocalist. This is the band that '70s-loving Swedish death-progressive metallers Opeth named their most recent opus after, leading us to think that it might be a weirdo

RealAudio clip: One's Life

They had us at Blackwolfgoat, pretty much! We had to check it out. And it lives up to the name, in fact, surpasses it, 'cause that moniker, while suggestive of darkness and evil, is just a bit silly too, ain't it? Silly isn't how we'd describe Blackwolfgoat's droned-out heavy psych guitar hypnosis, though. Somnambulant, spacey, sinister, solitary, but not silly. Still we like the name. Also, this comes to us via the reliable stoner rock label Small Stone, a good mark of quality heaviness. And this is stoner all right, but not quite rock, falling on the more abstract and experimental, drone-dirgery side of things than Small Stone's usual fare, the shadowy psychedelic nature of this music coming closest to the label's left-fielders like Tia Carrera and Los Natas, but with a vibe that's blacker, bleaker, yet still beautiful. The half dozen tracks here, almost all built up of looping layers of blown out guitar grind, are what sound like minimalist one-man-and-amp instrumentals, playing riffs so slow and sludgey and slidey that they're often more like waves of distortion sometimes adorned with electronic feedbacky blips... it's not just swampy, it's SwampTHINGy. It's like this Blackwolfgoat guy (we're assuming it's a guy) is just jamming out, doing his thing that maybe you too, if you're a guitar player could do, but are you? No. And maybe you shoulda. 'Cause it's pretty cool. But do you share this psychedelic hermit's black void vision? There's enough variety across these six tracks to keep it interesting, if you're in danger of utterly nodding off then wham, what about the primitive percussive "Aspirin Forever", with crinkly noise and clanky beats, a brief interlude of weirdly rhythmic, out of nowhere WTF?-ness that threw us for a loop (or loops). That's followed by the lovely album ender "Hotel Anhedonia", a super relaxed, druggy, jangly (if something this thick can jangle), kinda poppy, mantric meandering 10+ minute solo, the cleanest guitar on here so far, as the track slowly fades out and Blackwolfgoat rides off into the the glowing sunset. Reminds us of / possibly influenced by, the likes of Earth, SUNNO))), Barn Owl, Boris, Sleep, Davis Redford Triad, Ulaan Khol.... but (we'll repeat) especially Earth, particularly circa Phase III: Thrones And Dominions, or the Hendrix-worship of parts of Pentastar: In The Style Of Demons. Oh, and we just checked the credits, it IS just one guy, who furthermore recorded all "songs/sounds" on this album live in the studio, with no overdubs at all.

MPEG stream: Death Of A Lifer
MPEG stream: The Goat
MPEG stream: Hotel Anhedonia

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

SORRY. We all kinda flipped when we discovered Blackwolfgoat, and proceeded to gush about BWG's Dragonwizardsleeve record back on list #369, an album that definitely threw us for a loop, cuz with a name like Blackwolfgoat, and on a mostly stoner rock label, we were expecting some sort of crust metal or retro thrash or stoner doom, but instead, BWG, aka guitarist Darryl Shepard, offered up a gorgeous droned out, heavily layered solo guitar record, definitely heavy, at least in places, but more mesmerizing and cyclical, droney and psychedelic, slipping from SUNNO))) like dronesludge to almost krautrocky hypnodrift. So we were super excited to discover there was a new album - only to discover it was a cd-r, and had been limited to just 100 copies, waah. We basically gave up on ever getting copies for the store, when lo and behold, Mr. Blackwolfgoat himself got in touch and offered us his last copies! So of course we said hell yeah, and now submit to you, Dronolith, another disc of churning repetition, and cosmic looped mesmer that should most definitely appeal to all you aQ headz into drone/metal/psych/kraut, but be warned, we have about 10 copies and then that's it! The first track starts things off with a gorgeously murky stoner rock riff, that instead of launching into a song proper, just repeats, trancelike, while Shepard layers spidery melodies, and psychedelic streaks over the top, the track drifting closer and closer to heart of the sun spacerock. The next track is all clean guitar, and sounds a little like a sketch for a Circle song, but gradually blossoms into a hazy sprawl of sun dappled psychedelia. There are some moments of extreme distortion, and creeping slo-mo riff sludge, but those moments are brief, with Shepard instead focusing on motorik krautdrone, woozy, gauzy cosmic buzz, and dreamy druggy atmospheric drift. Even the title track which had is imagining Sleep in their prime, begins all shimmery and swirly, but does fulfill the promise of the title by exploding into full on amp melting supersludge, oozing tarpit riffage that splinters into a full on blacknoise blowout. Fucking AWESOME. Such a shame that it's so limited (ONLY 100 COPIES!). But it is, so grab one quick. They come in nice printed full color jackets, and each copy is hand numbered.

MPEG stream: Building Buildings
MPEG stream: Ruane
MPEG stream: Dronolith

Arguably the definitive blaxploitation horror film (though William Girdler's Abby from1974 is definitely a close second!), the soundtrack to William Crain's Blacula (1972) finally gets the reissue treatment. Scored by Gene Page who arranged many hits for Barry White as well as being the pop genius behind Syd and Marty Kroft's Puff N'Stuff and The Banana Splits, you know this is gonna be all kinds of cheesy awesomeness! From the disco funk of the opening title "Blacula (The Stalkwalk)" to the pensive creepiness of the finale "Wakeeli (Swahili Farewell)", this is the sordid tale of an 18th century African Prince, cursed and held captive for centuries by Dracula, seeking his revenge on 1970's Los Angeles. Page has all the classic blaxploitation musical cues down: the lilting love theme, the frenetically groovy chase theme, spine-tingling harpsichords and noirish horns. With vocal help from his brother, Billy Page (who sings the sexy/sleazy "Main Chance" which for some reason reminds us of "Dracula The Rock Opera" from Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and The Hues Corporation, years before their hit "Rock The Boat", Blacula is a highly thrilling and amusingly nutty soundtrack, but what else would you possibly expect?

MPEG stream: Firebombs
MPEG stream: Main Chance
MPEG stream: Wakeeli (Swahili Farewell)

Not long ago we reviewed a bunch of cd ep's in the cult metal label Stormspell's Jewels Of Gwalhur series, that quite a few of you seemed to dig, all of 'em demos by young present day bands bringing back the truest sounds of traditional '80s metal. Another one of Stormspell's recent releases is this, a 4 song cd ep by a new band from LA. Not sure why they didn't just include it as a volume in the Jewels Of Gwalhur series, perhaps, we guess, technically 'cause it's not a demo but a debut ep, but what's really the difference in this day and age? Anyway these guys (and gal, they've got a female bass player) could easily have fit in with Wildhunt, Vigilance and the other Jewels bands for sure. What you get here are four tracks of NWOBHM influenced old school heavy metal, a la Judas Priest and early Maiden. Real meat and potatoes old school metal for sure, with songs that rage and riff, soar and shred. Blade Killer acquit themselves well, the singer yowling with a rasp to his voice that at times gives us a nice hint of ye olde Paul Di'Anno, his lyrics pertaining to such subjects as, well, blade killers, and being made of steel, and not holding back, and raising your fist and going on the attack, y'know, basic stuff like that. And sometimes that hits the spot; like we said, meat and potatoes, plenty filling for an ep. But when they do a full-length, meal deal, well then hopefully they'll add a veggie or two.

MPEG stream: On The Attack
MPEG stream: Raise Your Fist

Sure, spelling errors and grammatical mishaps may (and most likely do) pop up all the time on the aQ website; but we can be certain that we have correctly transcribed the name of Wayne Grim's art-prog project Blakcpullet Grimoire. Admittedly, this is one of the first projects that's come our way from Mr. Grim even though he's been very active in the Bay Area avant-garde scoring films, building installations, performing in countless guises, and appearing in this production or that. There are a ton of musical ideas splattered throughout Eating Whole Villages, beginning with a heavy, chugging guitar set against the old-school noise a dial-up modem generates, giving the album a Melvins / Mike Patton vibe from the get go. This is followed by a hissing track of noise and static aerations, muddling a delay saturated lecture from Buckminster Fuller captured on cassette. Then, you'll find electronic yawnings of bassbin rattling frequencies, bleeping glitches, and floorscraped noises barely coalescing upon their sparse structure countered by snippets from Kurt Schwitters' seminal sound poem Ursonate. These perpetual detours from track to track continue through the album, which really opens up after the rather claustrophobic beginning into some lovely stripped down acoustic guitar plucking and continues through an expanded passage of stereo-phased amplifier distortion ruptured with controlled attacks on a drum kit. Frippertronic styled guitar drones cascade out of the speakers later on as if they were from No Pussyfooting. Contemplative and enveloping, it's hard to imagine this as the same record, the end so far removed from the opening corroded heavy sounds. Confounding yes, but certainly rewarding!

MPEG stream: Overture (Repugnance)
MPEG stream: Dancer Listening To Organ Music...
MPEG stream: Tripartite

While some bands' reunions can leave you cringing, wishing they'd let your warm sonic memories of them glow on unscathed, the return of the Blake Babies does no such thing. They haven't fallen into the unfortunate reunion traps of trying too hard to

James Blake is a curious case. We wonder if he had some standard folk guitar or piano backing to his frigid soul songs, would we be into this that much? But Blake's songs are far from standard, and despite the mainstream pop and RnB vocabulary he borrows heavily from (Auto-Tune, guest rapper stints, the gospel-tinged vocalizations), he creates something quite unpredictable and beautifully unique in the strange fractured arrangements. Like Nina Simone in reservedly dramatic avant-electronica mode, Blake keeps his songwriting emotionally effective while keeping enough distance so as not to become vocally overwrought or musically anthemic. The chilled production evokes an atmosphere of dreamy spaciousness, pillowy clouds of piano, filtered samples, bass pulses and far away post-dubstep rhythms. Blake is as close as we're probably going to get to Arthur Russell and Burial having a beautiful musical child together.

MPEG stream: Retrograde
MPEG stream: Voyeur
MPEG stream: Take A Fall For Me (featuring RZA)

There never seems to be any shortage of hype going around the music world. These days more than ever. And all too often those being hyped so much in the blogosphere world just never really deliver the goods to warrant all the hoopla. But every now and then a record comes along that totally does deserve all that attention, such is the case with this amazing album by James Blake. Immediately it reminds us of some amazing combination of several of our favorite records ever. Radiohead's Kid A, Burial's Untrue, Arthur Russell's Calling Out Of Context, and Antony & The Johnsons if they made a record produced by Massive Attack and Swarms. Warm rushes of dubstep inspired backbeats meet gospel like vocal delivery, often auto-tuned but in such a moody and satisfying way. One of our customers who was going through a hard day when we had this playing in the store, came up to the counter and said "This is massaging my mind in ways I needed so badly." We can totally see where he was coming from. This is the kind of record made for melting, floating, and coming down softly.

MPEG stream: Unluck
MPEG stream: Limit To Your Love
MPEG stream: I Mind

This would have been a perfect entry on last week's "Ragadelic" in-between list, the debut solo recording from Guy Blakeslee, who most folks know as the man behind The Entrance Band. This is super limited, only 50 copies made, so we won't go into too much detail about it except that it is utterly amazing! Five long-form solo guitar excursions that cover Fahey-ish odes ("Oh Johnnie") to more raga-style workouts (check the Fahey-inspired titles like "Solitary Ecstasy Holiday Smile Prayer"). The last song, "The Night They Came From The Sky", is a 17 minute mind-expanding stew of looping reverse-delayed riffs that wind and coil in infinite meditative patterns. Rumor has it more volumes are in the works. A fantastic set. Get it while you can!

MPEG stream: Solitary Ecstasy Holiday Smile Prayer
MPEG stream: Mirror Of A Mirror Of A Mirror
MPEG stream: The Night They Came From The Sky

We flipped for the first installment in Guy Blakeslee's Thirdeye Memories cd-r series, which we described on the last list in our review of Volume 1 as falling somewhere between Fahey-like devotional Appalachia and more droned out abstract looped and layered psychedelic ragas, and for those of you (like us) who felt like one volume just wasn't enough, well, you might want to grab one of these before they're gone, cuz like the first one it's limited to just FIFTY copies (and we do have a tiny handful left of volume 1 if you missed out). Blakeslee is the frontman for psych rockers The Entrance Band, but for these solo excursions, the sound is much more intimate, and delicate and lovely, the opener here is a glistening sprawl of dreamlike guitar melodies, super fluid finger picking, the vibe almost carol-like, a warm glowing swirl of lovely Appalachian folk. But it doesn't take long for the disc to drift into far trippier realms, "Digital Sage" takes the sound of the opener and turns it inside out, flips it backwards, adding gloriously slippery reverse melodies and woozy shimmery FX blur, it's the sort of dreamy sonic trip out we could get lost in forever. And so it goes, the whole record unfurling in a washed out kosmische dream folk haze, slipping from crystalline beauty to dreamily dizzying trippy psych swirl, and back again, perfectly balancing sweet melodies, with something a bit more shadowy and lysergic. Like the first volume, fantastic! And like the first volume, packaged in a simple screen printed origami style sleeve, LIMITED TO 50 COPIES, each one hand numbered!

MPEG stream: Amandita
MPEG stream: Digital Sage

People have been after this record for ages, we have to admit though we were a bit skeptical, not cuz we don't dig the Black Keys, but just cuz it seemed like a recipe for disaster, two white dudes, blues rockers to boot, as a back up band for a bunch of killer rappers. But hell, we're happy to admit when we were wrong, we have been convinced, this stuff is pretty bad ass, the Black Keys laying down super stripped down beats and grooves, which isn't all that different really than a DJ just sort of playing those same grooves maybe, but it's cool to hear a live band rocking behind these rappers, and wow, what a stellar bunch, the first track features Ol' Dirty Bastard ferchrissakes!! Teamed up with Ludacris to boot! Mos Def, Pharoahe Monch, RZA, Raekwon, Noe, Jim Jones, Q-Tip, as well as a soul singer named Nicole Wray. The Wu-Tang tracks rule, RZA and Raekwon don't disappoint, ODB kills, pretty much everyone delivers some seriously killer flows, and the Black Keys are definitely up to the task, and actually, if you didn't know better, and just heard one of these jams on the radio, you'd probably never know...

MPEG stream: On The Vista (Feat. Mos Def)
MPEG stream: Dollaz & Sense (Feat. RZA + Pharoahe Monch)
MPEG stream: Stay Off The Fuckin' Flowers

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 ]