[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 2151 through 2200 of 3202.

Another old school hiphop collection, compiling the best of KRS-One and Scott La Rock's early BDP output, documenting the historic Bronx vs. Queens battle (on tracks like "The Bridge Is Over", the rebuttal to MC Shan's "The Bridge"). Also included: "South

Here's the Seattle band that we always confuse with Blood Of The Black Owl. I guess we need to learn to read. Anyway this is their second album, following up The Feast released on 20 Buck Spin two years ago. Again, it's a brootal, sludgey concoction of blackened 'metal of death' musick. 11 bombastically bulldozering tracks with some sort of anti-Christian, astrological agenda, or something. This is definite bad mood music, on the doomy side of death metal a la Incantation. Thick and crushing, with guttural DM vox, and much atmospheric gloom pervading the slower parts. The majestic, monstrous hell-belch that is BOBE's Horoskopus shows that these guys, several of whom used to be in a metalcore band called Teen Cthulhu, have matured into a full-grown Cthulhu! Wish we woulda seen 'em on their recent tour with Watain but we were busy working on the list that night...

MPEG stream: Death Of The Sun
MPEG stream: Horoskripture

MPEG stream: Weight Of The World
MPEG stream: Cross Contamination
MPEG stream: I See Demons

Blacker than black metal from 20 Buck Spin, the label best known for bringing forth a great deal of quality DOOOOOOOM to mankind from bands like Graves At Sea and Black Boned Angel. So you can imagine that any black metal they'd put out would be some heavy duty stuff... indeed as is the Book Of Black Earth, who hail from the frozen tundra of, uh, Seattle. The band features ex-members of the late, lamented Teen Cthulhu. They've shed any of the jocularity wrongly suggested by their old band's moniker, however, and have gotten even MORE brutal. It's double bass blasting death metal style aggression mixed with the grandiose, epic majesty (and keyboards) of Nordic black metal. The vocals are on the guttural, DM side of things, though with a BM rasp. And (as you might expect) some sludge-trudging doom riffs are wielded as well. Yes, it's supremely heavy, though there is a welcome amount of melody to be found amidst the screams, distortion, and drum-pummel. Yet another elite horde of warriors have joined the North American black metal army!!

MPEG stream: May Your God Deny You
MPEG stream: Cult Machinery

This new Vancouver foursome's self-titled debut is deeply inspired by the old and the new(er), equal parts '90s shoegazer and retro '60s style pop. Imagining Pulp hanging out with Swervedriver and The Jam will give you some idea of where they're comin' from. A minor distraction though that we could do without were the seemingly random vocal outbursts that pepper the second song. Yeah, it's probably supposed to be emotive, but instead it made us imagine that a sick cat had crept into the recording studio and mewed its dyspepsia into one of the microphones. Don't mean to sound harsh, but we had to press 'skip'. Apart from that one bump in the road though, there's much to dig here. The band has captured a cool balance of brood and bounce, jagged and jangle. While The Book Of Lists' debut album definitely leans heavily on the Brit rock side of things, they do inject a little unexpected New York glammy rock swagger on the album's fifth song "Moon Balloon" to good effect. Part of Vancouver's close-knit hip indie scene, The Book Of Lists' lineup features members of Radio Berlin and Destroyer, plus guests Joshua Wells and Josh Stevenson whose own resumes list participation in varied projects such as Pink Mountaintops, Jackie-O Motherfucker, and Black Mountain.

MPEG stream: Lost Weekend
MPEG stream: Stranger

First proper non cd-r release from this aQ beloved one man black metal band, makes sense that it would end up on Paradigms, whose list of releases reads like most aQ customers' record collections: Murmuure, The Angelic Process, Decrepit Spectre, Woburn House, Fog In The Shell, Gnaw Their Tongues, Hjarnidaudi, Mourner, Wraiths, Throne Of Katarsis, Titan, Utlagr... You might as well add Book Of Sand to that list. Before Book Of Sand, there was an atmospheric doom metal duo called Light, when Light ended, half of Light became Book Of Sand and released How Beautiful To Walk Free, a cd-r that we (and lots of you) went nuts for. Not your typical buzzing blackness, but something more abstract, a churning morass of warm black shimmer and blurred abstract riffage, a swirling sonic drift that was as much black metal as it was avant abstract metallic minimalism. Destruction, Not Reformation (one of TWO Book Of Sand releases on this week's list) takes that same atypical black metal sound and pushes it even further out, creating a sort of chamber music black metal, strings and piano augment the usual guitar buzz and drum blast, creating lush almost orchestral sounding swells of blackened buzz, soaring and majestic, and much like Liturgy, the frenzied tremolo picked riffage becomes something else entirely, mesmerizing symphonic squalls of blurred melody, and while that picking is lightning fast, it's set amidst a sound that is much slower, a heaving droney creep, lumbering and lurching, and wreathed in that frenzied black buzz, a sort of transcendental ur-drone, woven into the grim black fabric of these songs. Although grim and black only scratches the surface of the sounds found here, some of the tracks are like disembodied pop songs, shoegazey and impossibly melodic, just wrapped in buzzing swirls of blackness, while others sound like folk songs burned black, the strings so lyrical and soulful and the perfect balance for the brittle buzz, and yet even at its most intense and dense and buzzy and black, the sound is still washed out and woozy, blurred and smeared and gorgeously dreamlike, the is atmospheric, ethereal, melodic and mysterious black metal, the buzz is burnished into something much smoother, the howled vokills are buried beneath layers of sound, all bleeding into each other, a super saturated sprawl of sound, blackened and buzzy, but also breathlessly beautiful.

MPEG stream: No Excuses For Fascist Sympathy
MPEG stream: Partaking Is Collaborating
MPEG stream: The Righteous Is The Enemy Of The Natural

After conjuring up three killer discs of home brewed lo-fi blackened ultra doom as Light, the band decided to call it quits, which isn't that surprising considering their album titles: A Million Dead Beneath The Ice, Life Is Meaningless & Goes On Forever, Worse Than Anyone Would Have Expected. C'mon, a band can only sustain that level of misery and misanthropy for so long. Thankfully, one half of Light has returned with his new project, Book Of Sand, a similarly moody and murky outfit, but with a sound much more raw and black, a sea of churning blurred riffage, of buried blast beats, and hysterical shrieked vocals, not as noisy as WOLD, or as chaotic as Portal, but some smeary bleary otherworld right in between. But it's not that simple to describe these guys, while the opener is a dizzying swirl of disembodied black metal drift, the second track sounds almost like Circle, a simple motorik beat, and locked and looped rhythm, eventually the drums shift to double kick, the guitar shift to something more atonal and minor key, the reverb drenched vokills grow more maniacal, but throughout, that krautrocky groove remains, turning the otherwise raw blackness into some sort of hypnoblack metal. The rest of the record is a blown out blur, but one that slips from in-the-red ferocity, with soaring Liturgy like trills, to total buzz drenched white noise blow out, to tangled gnarled buzzy weirdness, to weirdly minimal lo-fi muted thrum, finally finishing off with the nearly 14 minute "When We Are Gone, The World Will Be Awash With Light", a warped sprawl of slowly mutating black metal, that sounds like it's either slowing down, or melting, the various elements becoming less and less distinct, bleeding and oozing into each other, attaining at one point an almost shoe gaze-y bliss, albeit constructed from black buzz and shards of white noise. Fucking awesome. Just like the Light cd-r's, this one comes in a handcrafted, silkscreened sleeve, complete with Japanese style obi, but unlike the Light records, this one is a proper cd.

MPEG stream: Destruction, Not Reformation
MPEG stream: No Flags
MPEG stream: The Night And Day Will Pass Away

One of TWO new releases from Midwestern one man black metal band Book Of Sand, the other, a cd on Paradigms, is a gorgeous slab of washed out droney, avant droned out black metal blur, this one is a similarly abstract chunk of outsider blackness, a record made up entirely of covers, all of them old traditional folk songs, reimagined as buzzing blasting black metal songs, and as weird a concept as it may seem, it actually works quite well, the lilting melodies and sing song arrangements translate quite well, and the fact that the man behind Book Of Sand also plays violin/fiddle, it adds still another traditional folk element, mostly introducing the melody before the blackness and buzz come in, but sometimes carrying the melody throughout. Other than the songs, the sound itself is pure black metal, the guitars buzz and the drums pound and blast, the vocals are harsh and howled, the sound is washed out and blurry, buzzy and blackened, but in this context, playing these songs, the whole thing is transformed into something totally transcendent, something dark and mysterious and strangely super emotional, the songs themselves, one a 15th century French folk song, one a traditional Appalachian folk song, one a traditional African American lullaby from the South and so on, are already so powerful, and timeless, and are imbued with such power and energy, having been played and performed for generations, sometimes centuries, but when wedded to this powerful buzzing blackness, this intense and metallic sound, they somehow become even more intense. Other black metal bands have definitely dabbled with traditional folk musics, but something about these songs, and these versions, make this seem really extra special. Haunting, and heavy, and mysterious. Packaged in a brown yardstick sleeve, silkscreened with black ink, inside a printed cardstock insert, and a silkscreened patch, the whole thing wrapped up with twine, and yeah, VERY LIMITED!! ONLY 100 COPIES!!!

We've long been obsessed with this Midwestern one man black metal band, their twisted combination of bedroom black metal buzz and more abstract sonic experimentation, be it clean guitar drift, or violin, is exactly what we wanted to hear, there is no shortage of blasting and buzzing, and as much as we love that stuff, we also love hearing black metal pushed in new directions, and BoS definitely blazed, and continue to blaze, their own unique sonic path, so much so, that it's often been a struggle to get their records released. We were pretty thrilled when UK label Paradigms released the last Book Of Sand, and were in some way were not all that surprised to see it receive a zero percent rating on Metal Archives, cuz the music of BoS is not the sort of grim kvlt black metal that most metalheads want to hear, or would even understand if they did, and hell, this new one's not gonna further that cause at ALL. Which of course means we LOVE it. While some more familiar tropes of black metal are present, some buzzing guitars, and some shrieking vocals, in every other way, this is barely black metal, in fact, if we had to boil it down to just a few words, we might describe it as some sort of slo-mo blackened doom-jazz. Yep. There are strings, and horns, and what drums there are tend toward more of a shuffle and skitter, and while there are some furious buzzing guitars, they're pushed WAY toward the background, transforming any identifiable black metal riffage into something more like a droning atmospheric backdrop, while in the foreground, clean guitars unfurl woozy abstract melodies, wreathed in deep buzzing strings, and a hazy cloud of Jandekian reverby shimmer. The pace is glacial, the mood is melancholy, the vibe is haunting and otherworldly, and occasionally, when the vocals drop out, and you can hear those distant guitars, there's a distinctly black metal vibe, but it strangely muted, those fast picked guitars blurred and wedded to that slo-mo jazzy shuffle, bleating horns, it's pretty strange, but fantastic too, it's definitely unlike anything you've heard, (black) metal or otherwise, moody and mysterious and definitely way too whatthefuck for most metalheads, but if you're after something twisted and dark, buzzy and abstract, a little bit jazzy and atmospheric, but still in its own way dark and sinister and blackened, then you might just end up digging this as much as we do. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES!!! And yeah, they're real cds, not cd-r's!

MPEG stream: The Face Of The Waters
MPEG stream: The Waters Above And The Waters Below
MPEG stream: Falling Through The Firmament

As The Books third full length begins it immediately offers a darker, more somber atmosphere than its two quirky, playful predecessors. The first track drifts along with a seeming frailness as though there's barely enough energy to raise a finger to a guitar string. Single notes are struck and left to hang in the air, and the already brittle spoken-sung vocals strain to reach the audible level. From there things get a little more edgy and unstable with layers of processed vocals and insistent clickety-tappity typewriter-esque rhythms, but then it all promptly subside into a more typical post-rock infused pop breeziness for the very-Pinback-ish third song "Smells Like Content". The rest of the album continues in this slow, hazy contemplativeness with occasional outbursts of rounded propulsion. Actually, Lost And Safe sounds much like something you might imagine those Bedhead brothers Matt & Bubba Kadane composing for a road movie soundtrack (if you take their film score for the documentary Hellhouse as a jumping off point). Would probably make for a fine late night of thinking, driving album... that is if your vehicle was a quiet, dimly lit room.

MPEG stream: A Little Longing Goes Away
MPEG stream: Smells Like Content

The follow-up to The Books' 2002 debut Thought For Food provides another dose of eclectic, playful, folky sound collages. Each track of the baker's dozen offered up on The Lemon Of Pink is a delightfully rumpled, snipped and reassembled sonic patchwork quilt of acoustic guitar, violin, banjo and lovingly embroidered samples. This time there's a distinct Asian feel to many of the tracks -- Japanese dialogue, koto-esque string plucks -- as well as more of a hushed spoken-sung vocal presence throughout than on their previous album (often very akin to Devendra Banhart). A highly enjoyable, loping, off-kilter journey.

MPEG stream: Tokyo
MPEG stream: There Is No There

After a half decade, The Books deliver their fourth full length and follow-up to Lost And Safe! Anticipation and expectations were high, and we wish we could report that our socks were knocked off, but we'll have to settle for our socks to be warmly comfy. The Way Out is definitely way more vibrant and lively than its comparatively moody predecessor. The lead-off track relies heavily on the quirkiness of vintage self-help hypnosis tape voiceovers to engage the listener, but remove those samples and you're left with a simply pleasant clitter-clatter toybox pop-tronic instrumental which would be very at home on the German Morr Music label alongside the likes of Lalipuna and Styrofoam. Moving onwards, in keeping with their unpredictable multi-genre gadabout nature, The Books then inject a welcome bit of funky juiciness and more random novelty into the proceedings, but it too seems to rely a lot on modern sound manipulation software to tweak the listeners' ears. Earlier in the decade, there weren't a whole lot of artists making this kind of music, and thus the group's patchworked quirkiness was somewhat distinct and engaging, but these days everyone and their dog has or at least knows about those programs and is making similarly spirited recordings. Simply, the mystique has faded a little, and it takes a bit more these days for folks to truly get beyond the "whoa, listen to these crazy, loopy, chopped up and processed sounds!" We don't mean to be too hard on The Books specifically, it's just an inescapable fact of modern music making. That said, if you dig that sound, and want more, this will most likely still hit the spot.

MPEG stream: Group Autogenics I
MPEG stream: I Didn't Know That
MPEG stream: A Cold Freezin' Night

From the very first few notes of Thoughts For Food, you get an inkling that The Books aren't going to take you on a straight ahead, sensible musical journey, and your inkling would be right! The Books may slightly puzzle with their stylistical and structural meanderings. Layering in dialogue samples and field recordings amid this laidback fray adds to the raw, roaming feel of this album. Much like their absurd titles (of the album itself as well as the songs), the music - a contorted, eccentric, folky blend based around acoustic guitars, fiddle, bass and some fragments of beats - twists, flips and folds back onto itself. Engagingly unpredictable, you never know what mood The Books will be in - solemn, frisky, or ??? Choosing excerpts for you to give you more of an idea of this release was difficult, so from the twelve songs you get a snippet from the first song (which is also the title track) and one from the tenth. If they pique your interest, well then you'll simply have to check out the complete cd to find out where they rambled to and fro in between those points.

RealAudio clip: Enjoy your worries, you may never have them again
RealAudio clip: Getting the done job

Boom Bip's third and best album to date. Hands down. Well, at least to me. Boom Bip (aka Bryan Hollan) seems to have learned from his explorations in hip-hop leaving a song-kraft that has transcended into a beautiful pop-bathed electronic wonderland. Synthy leads into songs. Composed and respected beats. Hints of analog instrumentation everywhere. It's great!

MPEG stream: Cimple
MPEG stream: Do's And Don'ts

Abstract hip hop maestro Boom Bip returns with a lengthy EP of new tracks as well as a handful of remixes from a bunch of AQ faves. The Five originals, including two Peel Session tracks, are all lush and funky, dark and moody, sort of like DJ Shadow meets Godspeed, with gorgeously hazy atmospheres over skittery shuffling rhythms and occasional block rocking beats. The remixers include Boards Of Canada, who make their track sound like it could have been a BoC original, with warm summery swoon and a loping down tempo beat; Venetian Snares adds some subtle (for him) drill and bass and turns Buck65's formerly smooth flow into a manic, distorted tirade; Clouddead, who takes the original and stretches it into a gauzy summer afternoon stroll through soft breezy drones and barely there beats; Lali Puna, who add a smooth and shiny electronic sheen to their track; and finally Mogwai who pull their track apart into a spare and minimal whisper, drones and chimes and fractured rhythms over a shadowy trace of the original track.

MPEG stream: Last Walk Around Mirror Lake (Boards Of Canada Remix)
MPEG stream: The Use Of Unacceptable Colours In Nature (Mogwai Remix)

Excellent! Now this is the sort of stuff Mo'Wax should be putting out, this is what those yuppie lounge bars should be playing instead of fuckin' Kruder and Dorfmeister. Boom Bip may be familiar to you through his Four Tet remix and collaborations with Dose One (Them, cloudDead), but you'd be forgiven for thinking he might be on Mo'Wax -- this record's got all the trademark spacious open wide sonic vistas, echoey breakbeats, movie dialog samples, hip hop reverence, and melody galore. A different take on the whole rock meets electronica thang that only a few bands can pull off well (Fridge, Tarwater, DJ Shadow when he's sampling guitars), Boom Bip mixes space rock with electronica absolutely perfectly, and grounds it with hip hop, lest the thing get too cerebral. There are slow breakbeats, sweet chamber strings, throbbing epic bass, dubby echo, unabashedly rock-based chord progressions, and eccentric scratching. Plus lots of dynamic changes -- the record never gets boring. There's even a finishing track that makes use of Felt-like or Durutti Column-ish tinny guitar. Now, it's not a "weird" record, not even ultra challenging, but it does what it does perfectly. I am very impressed! Oh, it must also be said that this disc has got artwork we're fairly wetting our pants over -- brown coffee cup stains on neutral cardboard, with gold foil pressed graffiti logo, and a die cut thru which shows the barcode. And then the insert incorporates the barcode stripes into all these pretty loops spelling out Boom Bip. Wow.

RealAudio clip: Roads Must Roll
RealAudio clip: U R Here
RealAudio clip: Mannequin Hand Trapdoor I Reminder (featuring Dose One)

Last year's Them record was easily one of the coolest, weirdest and most creative hip hop records we'd heard in a while. Dose One (the main mc from Them) takes it a step further out on this one, hooking up with dj Boom Bip to come up with a sort of 'free-hip-hop' record, like a cross between a poetry slam gone bad, a handful of rap records playing at once, phones and buzzers and bells gone haywire, and a particularly disorienting acid trip. A mix of freeform spoken word, erratic and non-linear beats, bizarre samples (even Van Halen makes it into the mix), lots of low-in-the-mix mumbling and muttering, and Dose Ones whiny nasal white boy drawl make this one crazy, schizophrenic, sloppy and beautiful mess.

Yes it is for real - Pat Boone in leather and shades, riding a Harley, belting out a dozen heavy metal classics. The likes of Judas Priest, Metallica, Dio, Ozzy, Alice Cooper, etc. All cower trembling at the feet of Mr. Boone, who croons their tunes in amazingly hilarious and often quite catchy pop arrangements...You haven't lived until you've heard "Crazy Train" complete with swinging horns and the "choo-choos" of backing vocalists!

Bootblacks are a relatively new NYC outfit mining classic 1980's post-punk and no wave, creating dramatic songs that, in their best moments, evoke Depeche Mode as much as The Birthday Party. This self-titled lp captures the group early on in their career, on the cusp of a transformation into a really great live band, one we here on the Left Coast have only managed to see twice. Strange pyramids, ever-present smoke and psychedelic lights frame really loud songs that wear their influences like a runway model wears the latest designer frock: with pride and style. Bootblacks have found moderate success in Europe, through touring there multiple times, and on the East Coast where they play constantly. On the record itself, Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds are ever-present, especially on "Save Me Maria" which sounds, in the best possible way, like a B-side off Tender Prey. Jim Sclavunos (of the Bad Seeds / Grinderman) produced a few tracks, including one of the record's best, "The Flood". A tom-heavy beat stomps around a big fuzzy bassline and a clean vocal line. Layers of guitar lines slip in and out, building tension, until the chorus erupts with some weird backwards sounding laser-gun effects. The guitar playing throughout the entire record is excellent, full of skill and heart and hooks. Alli Pheteplace, musically the record's shining star, fluidly conjures the spirit of Rowland S. Howard and makes it her own. Melodies seem to fly effortlessly from her reverb-laden instrument. Her backing vocals on songs like "The Things We Did" and "The Flood" provide an almost sensual contrast to vocalist Ryan MacDonald's in-your-face sexual overtones. Pheteplace and MacDonald are both formerly of San Francisco's The Holy Kiss, another group that worshipped at the altar of The Birthday Party, albeit the swampier-blusier side of the band. The best track off the second half of the record is "Machina", a cacophonous rolling ride of a song. A repeating trumpet line and lyrics you can't quite understand play call and response until the chorus busts through with a perfectly complimentary marching snare beat. There's just enough noise to make the song sound fucked-up and interesting without distracting from its bass-and-drums guts. The record is housed in a nice silver and black jacket, with some kind of sliver sticker on the back. An obi proclaims the glories of Bootblacks and provides the only information available on the outside of the sleeve. Limited to 350 copies, each one hand numbered. Also includes an mp3 download card, as well as a silk-screened patch for all you punks out there.

MPEG stream: The Flood
MPEG stream: The Things We Did
MPEG stream: Machina

Latest chunk of electronic weirdness comes by way of 21 year old producer Boothroyd (aka Peter Boothroyd), and whose debut for Tri Angle is fantastically dreamy and druggy and sounds like some mutant strain of shoegaze grime. A dizzying collision of swirling psychedelic sampling, murky, loping beatscapery, spidery melodies, a hazy, lo-fi, almost witch house-y sprawl laced with industrial clatter, distorted swaths of crumbling noise, it's all super atmospheric, a bit cinematic, but also darkly propulsive, and in constant flux, the sound drifting through murky morasses, and into sun dappled expanses of crystalline shimmer, pelted throughout by all manner of glitched out noise, and fractured FX, in places buried voices writhe in garbled tangles beneath robotic beats that stutter and sputter, a sound laced with strange little squelches and squeaks. The production is super dubby too, lots of echo and reverb, the sound mutating from dense and dizzying to spare and hypnotic, often within seconds, crunching cascades of blow out beats dissolve into lush, layered ambience, warped grooves undulate over gristled glitches and cascading un-funky beats, while below, fragmented melodies, and all manner of sonic detritus flit and flutter, billowing clouds of soft noise, that coalesce into dreamy, heaving smears of chordal thrum, and sometimes just as quickly dissolve into confetti like sheets of decaying sonic crumble. A new favorite for sure, and one of the cooler, weirder Tri Angle releases in a while... Includes a huge, full color poster too!

MPEG stream: Born To Be Wild
MPEG stream: When I Buy My Wife
MPEG stream: Siki, Siki Baba

Our biggest Gui fan wasn't into it so much, sorry.

New tracks from one of our favorite colorful electronic music makers. His 12"s tend to be a bit more techno sounding then his proper albums, but still always good stuff.

We had almost given up on the current state of electronica when all of a sudden we started getting some pretty amazing electronic albums, of all different varieties in the last few months. Whether it's killer Dubstep from Boxcutter, the glitchy laptop stutter of Tuk, or Lindstrom's infectious Nordic beardo-disco, our electronic section has gotten a much needed face-lift and a serious boost of exciting energy! Now thanks to Kompakt (one of our all time favorite labels, home to the Pop Ambient series of course) we've got two more electronic gems to fall in love with. The Field's From Here We Go Sublime (also highlighted on this list) and this debut by Brazilian producer/sound architect Gui Boratto. Possessing a punch and vibrancy not usually associated with Kompakt, who are known more for their dreamy soundscapes and simple house-y pulses, Chromophobia is one of those records where the music inside matches the cover art perfectly. Rich bright colors in all sorts of pleasurable shapes, clean and smart and stylish. Proving that dance minded music doesn't need to be dumb, this has us thinking quite a bit of Double Figure era Plaid, or the perfect left-field microhouse of Isolee's We Are Monster. Throw in some rich sonic textures that had Andee thinking of Fridge for a moment, and the gorgeous sole vocal track "Beautiful Life" and you have all the right ingredients for one of the best electronic records of the year!

MPEG stream: Scene 1
MPEG stream: Mr. Decay
MPEG stream: Terminal

It's been a pretty great month for electronica here at the store with brand new releases from our favorite artists on Kompakt. Last list we raved about new outings by The Field and Walls, and this time we get to gush about the third album by Gui Boratto. It took us a couple listens, but we now can say we deeply dig this record so much, as Boratto really strikes such vivid moods and sounds on each track. His debut album, Chromophobia has become a total classic in our books, ranking as one of our favorite electronica albums of the last decade. While we for sure liked his follow up, we would be lying now if we said it was as great as that debut. And while III might not erase the fact that Chromophobia is still our favorite, we got to say that we are getting way more into this than the last outing and remembering why we fell so hard for Boratto in the first place. And lots of that is due to a single song, "The Drill", which first showed up on the recent Total 12 comp and has to be the best thing we've heard from him. A heavy bassy low slung groove, all fuzzy and distorted, with a weird woozy synth melody and some cool handclap snares, the drums wreathed in effects, a little bit of backwards whhhhoooo, and then suddenly the bass gets even more distorted sounding crumbling and fuzzy and almost metallic, and then it does it AGAIN, getting more weirdly effected and distorted, only to slip right back into the more muted groove, and so it goes, that super catchy bassline synthgroove, constantly changing tone and timbre, the sound following suit, slipping from groovy and slithery, to super blown out and crackly, distorted and in-in-the-red, and right back to that moody sorts of housey skitter. Someone needs to make us an hour long mix of just this song, cuz we'd set out cd player on repeat and listen to nothing else. But even beyond that track, the sounds Boratto creates have such bright colors and lush warmth, and at the same time he's also has really introduced a newfound tension into his songs, reminding us of the heyday of IDM, combining elements of folks like Plaid and Aphex Twin into something all his own!

MPEG stream: The Drill
MPEG stream: Stems From Hell
MPEG stream: Striker
MPEG stream: Flying Practice

Gui Boratto's debut Chromophobia helped us fall in love with electronica all over again a couple years back. It really marked a resurgence in quality and creative electronic sounds after several stagnant years. It's a record that some of us here have probably listened to more than almost any other electronic record since we first laid ears on it. The way he so effortlessly creates shapes and colors with his sounds made Chromophobia a record that kept unfolding on repeated listens, offering more and more as we fell deeper and deeper in love. The way Boratto is able to make melodic electronica sound so warm and bursting with color is exactly what had, and has, us so smitten. So here we are two years later and the follow up to that great debut, has finally landed, it's called Take My Breath Away, and of course our expectations were kind of crazy high. We have to say now, having listened to the record several times, Boratto has indeed created another total winner! On first listen, while it sounded pretty good, we weren't totally blown away, but then we remembered how Chromophobia took a little time to grow on us and truly sink in, but once it did, we were fully addicted and totally obsessed. The same is the case for Take My Breath Away. What makes Boratto so special is his keen sense of melody, that's probably why so many folks who aren't usually that into electronica end up asking what's playing when we have this on in the store. He's able to bring song structure and rich melody to the world of techno and minimal house. There are some moments on this outing that find him leaning towards a bit more traditional techno but luckily those moments are way outnumbered by his more imaginative explorations. Songs that find themselves as at home on the dance floor as much as on a twisty turny beautiful long road trip, the music energizing, and offering up a wide array of sonic color to help you stay alert as you soak it all in. Not many folks are able to make music that is so pleasurable for both the body and the mind but Gui Boratto has found a way, and we're tapping our toes and thinking all sorts of deep thoughts and dreamy dreams at the same time... Available as a cd, or on double vinyl packaged with the compact disc as well.

MPEG stream: Colors
MPEG stream: Take My Breath Away
MPEG stream: Les Enfants

Gui Boratto's full length Chromophobia came at such a perfect time. For a while we had been a bit unimpressed with the current state of electronica when it showed up. Along with records by The Field, Lindstrom and Burial, Chromophobia reminded us that there was in fact a renaissance of creative and rewarding electronica being created in a myriad of styles. But no doubt about it Chromophobia has become a unanimous AQ favorite, a record that we listen to in the store all the time. The fact that Boratto has a background in architecture sorta makes sense with all the in the amazing shapes and colors that his sounds and songs suggest. Teamed up with Martin Eyerer on this 12", the duo have a firm grasp on crafting unforgettable melodies within the music they make. Much more rich and bold than most minimal tech-house yet sharing nice parts of that sensibility. Nice to see the Brazilian Boratto and German Eyerer joining forces to show that a thread of forward minded electronic music runs across the globe.

Wow, Barbed Wire Maggots? Your filthiest black metal band would be proud of an album title like that. And this is from a record originally released back in 1983, the fourth long-player from what has become an outside/noise/skronk/free "jazz" institution, the one and only Borbetomagus! If you know Borbetomagus, you know what to expect: the frightening caterwaul of two saxophones and an electric guitar. Two long tracks (formerly vinyl sides) worth. Screeching and scratching and searing and sizzling. So it ain't black metal but it ain't easy listening either. No sirree. Imagine every "nasty" noise ever made by the horns of Coltrane or Ayler, times two, aided and abetted by a likeminded guitarist. Upset elephants and vaccum cleaners and rusty hinges and faulty connections have nothing on this. Unlike some of their later, even denser recordings, it's not always full-on cacophony but even the quieter, "jazzier" parts have a mood of menace, of impending mayhem. And if you've never heard Borbetomagus, but are curious, this cd reissue will provide a crash course in their brand of extreme improv. Not for everyone...

MPEG stream: track 2

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

SORRY. Couldn't have an all-saxophones list (like we're doing this week) without Borbetomagus on it!! So we've found a couple copies of this out of print fave to review. Here's how we've described this New York noisejazz outfit before: Take any crazy, noisy free jazz you've heard (minus the drums, but with extra feedback), multiply it by a thousand, and voila. We dare you to turn it up. Saxophonists Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich lock horns (literally) while Donald Miller's guitar grinds away in the lower registers, the trio together manufacturing a dense wash of drone-skree that will pleasantly numb your brain, if you're partial to this kind of noise/jazz/noise. Beautiful. That's what we said about another album of theirs, but it applies to Buncha Hair That Long too, for sure. One of the first Borbetomagus discs to which we were first exposed, this 1992 release contains five long tracks of their dense n' intense squall, utterly enveloping and mesmerizing stuff. Two of the tracks were recorded at an art museum in Chattanooga, two of 'em in Cleveland, and the last one at CBGB's in NYC - and that one's a cover of Beatle George Harrison's "Blue Jay Way", believe it or not (and it's easy to not)! Includes liner notes by Peter Margasak of Butt Rag (remember that 'zine? One of our favorites ever!). Important note: this cd is out of print as far as we know, it's a warehouse find we dug up at one of our local distributors the other day. And we only found two, that's right, TWO copies. So, act fast if you want one - and list an alternate just in case!

MPEG stream: Friendly Fire
MPEG stream: Blue Jay Way

There's two types of people in this world. People who like Borbetomagus, and those who don't. Probably there's many more of the latter. But for the former, each and every Borbetomagus album is pretty much a must have. Kinda the same way with the likes of Merzbow and Jandek, many of whose fans are doubtless shared. So, for whom it may concern: here's a new album from the notorious New York wall of noise sax/sax/guitar improv trio! Well, not exactly new, this is actually a reissue (first time on cd) of a cassette originally released back in 1986, now including an entire bonus 22 minute second set, live in Allentown, Pennsylvania (home to renowned fantasy artist Boris Vallejo we just happened to randomly learn today as well). The usual Borbeto-trio of Sauter/Dietrich/Miller is augmented here by the bass of Adam Nodelman and the electronics of Scott Legrath, as if they needed more noise-making help! Apparently this was upon the occasion of a "3rd annual Halloween extravaganza" 10/29/86 and in the pictures everyone's wearing weird masks and stuff. The boasted-of "killer" sound is indeed pretty much so, every bit of sax blurt and guitar skree is ear-piercingly present and accounted for. Scary. As is the way with Borbetomagus, their squealing squall of sonic intensity shall soon send the appropriate sort of listener into rapturous trance. Stress on "appropriate" (see paragraph one).

MPEG stream: First Set
MPEG stream: Second Set

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

SORRY. On June 16th of last year, the noise-jazz gods Borbetomagus (sax, sax, guitar) taught Tokyo a lesson in skree, and here's the import cd to prove it. Another reason to buy this is if you have to have any album featuring a 43'45" track entitled "Pachinko Cadaver"...

MPEG stream: track 2

It's been a while, but Borbetomagus is back! This upstate New York sax/sax/guitar trio has been making ears bleed with their extreme free improv skronk for years, but haven't put out a record for a little while, so we all were eager to subject (what are now) our ear-nubs to this. Recorded live at The 13th Note in Glasgow and at The Spitz in London back in 1999, the three tracks on "Songs Our Mother Taught Us" are prime Borbeto. What do we mean? How 'bout the never-ending ecstatic death-cry of a million screaming meemies as they plunge into the abysssss...? Take any crazy, noisy free jazz you've heard (minus the drums, but with extra feedback), multiply it by a thousand, and voila. We dare you to turn it up. Saxophonists Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich lock horns (literally) while Donald Miller's guitar grinds away in the lower registers, the trio together manufacturing a dense wash of drone-skree that will pleasantly numb your brain, if you're partial to this kind of noise/jazz/noise. Beautiful. MPEG Download: "Aftershock" [/audio/borbetomagusaftershock.mp3]

MPEG stream: Aftershock

Look out, here's the latest onslaught from the long running free improv unit Borbetomagus! It should tell you something that we found it difficult to review this 'cause we basically can't play it in the store without running the risk of driving out any customers present. That's not to say, though, that we don't have customers who would enjoy experiencing this mayhem in the comfort of their own homes. The Borbetomagus trio (Donald Miller, electric guitar; Don Dietrich & Jim Sauter, saxophones) have been at it since the mid-to-late '70s, with their first album being released in 1980. This one, their 21st album if we're counting correctly, documents the final show of their 30th anniversary European tour, in Montreuil, France - hence the title - and proves that in 30 years, they haven't at all mellowed out! Play this loud at your own risk, a blanketing wall of sound consisting of distortion, noise, feedback, all in constant flux like writhing snakes of skree. One track, slightly over 46 minutes. A pleasant experience, once you've eased into it, like taking a hot bath. By the way, we noticed that the database iTunes uses to identify cds seems to think that this one is called "Meditation For Heath And Healing" by some other, presumably new agey, artist. NOT. Also, when we were (briefly) playing this in the store today, one AQ staffer came in and remarked, with irony: "What is this jubilant sound?" - meant in jest, but there IS a jubilant aspect to the noise of Borbetomagus. 30 more years!!!

MPEG stream: Trente Belles Annees

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

SORRY. Holy crap!!! Now that's a noise fest...

This is the seventh installment in the ongoing Frkwys series of recorded collaborations, a series that focuses on teaming up contemporary artists with artists that perhaps influenced them, or as we described it in another review the old guard and the new wave. Past installments have included Julianna Barwick and Ikue Mori, Excepter and Carter Tutti (ex Throbbing Gristle) and Foetus, and more recently Blues Control and Laraaji. This one actually came out earlier this year, BEFORE the Blues Control and Laraaji, but is most definitely another winner in the series. We were kinda cautious at first, though, as we were worried about the risk of too many cooks, all comfortable in very different kitchens, cuz really, what could you get when you cross James Ferraro (ex Skaters), David Borden (Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co.), Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never), Laurel Halo and Samuel Godin? Seems like it would probably be a crazy chaotic mess, but instead, they came up with something stunning, a gorgeous bit of soft focus new agey synth drift, long form dronemusic that manages to be both ethereal and dense, lushly layered and surprisingly ephemeral, kosmische for sure, but rooted is musics more terrestrial. The two part "People Of The Wind" is definitely the anchor of the record, the 12 minute opener a gorgeous hazy expanse of fluttering sun dappled drift, smoldering and softly shimmery, managing the impossible task of being serene and tranquil and hypnotic, but still in its own way, heavy, with a slightly dark edge. We would have been perfectly happy had they stretched that track out to be the whole album. They do revisit the track via part two, a much more brief exploration, with a slightly darker cast, melodically at least, it's also much less buzzy and dense, and more infused with gentle melodies, the vibe much more pastoral and dreamlike. The other tracks drift in similar directions, with a slightly altered palette, still evoking the same sort of sonic wonder, a hushed sonic haze, but with "Internet Gospel Pt. 1" flecked with fluttery almost Native American sounding melodies, and muted dubbed out super minimal percussion, while "Internet Gospel Pt. 2", stretches part one out into a swirly sprawl of sci-fi glimmer, with swooping bleeps and bloops, draped over a woozy carnivalesque organ, and a warm shower of swirling effects, the whole track a slow build, eventually attaining a nearly Sunroof! like raga style buzz/blur. "Twilight Pacific" is more cinematic, a lush story in sound, darkly futuristic, rife with thick warm swells, and softly soaring string like shimmer, as well as muted softened steaks of upper register skree, the sound like laying on your back on a hill and watching the night sky, and finally, the record finishes with "Just A Little Pollution", which starts off hushed and serene, but soon blossoms into an effects wreathed pulsating and propulsive synthscape, with vocals for the first time, super effected and draped in synth buzz and melodic swirl, the whole thing sounding like the soundtrack credit sequence from some eighties VHS tape, definitely hinting at the musics of some of the individual players. The vinyl version includes a full album download.

MPEG stream: People Of The Wind Pt. 1
MPEG stream: Internet Gospel Pt. 1

Electronic musical pioneer David Borden might not be as famous as a name as Robert Moog, or Don Buchla, but he was in all the same right places at the same right times, beta-testing Moog synthesizer prototypes, taking them apart, blowing them up and repairing them repeatedly in an effort to perfect patching techniques. He formed the first all synthesizer ensemble, Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company, in 1969, and headed the one of the first record labels devoted to New music and Minimalist composition, Earthquack, that inspired later more prodigious labels such as Lovely Music. Music for Amplified Keyboards is his 1981 unsung masterpiece made from solo recordings made in the late seventies after the ensemble had called it quits. Long unavailable and remastered from a once thought lost safety master recording, it is great to see this unheralded composer finally getting some recognition. The RVNG label had done a Freakways installment with Borden that included modern synth purveyors such as James Ferraro, Daniel Lopatin and Laurel Halo, but it's nice to hear his original compositions on their own. On par with the works of Michael Nyman, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich, the four long tracks on this release contain a minimalist repetition that is both fluid and continuous, but there is also a pastoral landscapular ennui that has touches of the romantic and human, chilly but not at all cold or distant. Incredibly performed and executed. Another fantastic archival release from Spectrum Spools!

MPEG stream: Esty Point, Summer 1978
MPEG stream: The Continuing Story Of Counterpoint, Part Nine
MPEG stream: Enfield In Winter

It's finally here! An audio / video document of the amazing 77 Boa Drum performance that took place in Brooklyn on July 7th, 2007. Originally filmed for a full length theatrical and dvd release, those plans were scrapped for some reason, so this right here is the only document of that fantastic and now legendary performance. Available only as a very pricey import, 77 Boa Drum contains 2cds, a full recording of the performance split into two halves, a dvd, featuring 20 minutes of video from the event, all housed in a massive and gorgeously designed green and gold hardcover book, packed with tons of photos, including a couple of our very own Andee, who was one of the 77, diagrams of the drum layout, various text and other imagery. It's really pretty fantastic, totally deluxe and elaborate. And beyond object as art, listening to the recordings, the sound is massive and powerful and beautiful, more than just a spectacle, it was a sprawling chunk or rhythmic organic sound, equally composed and improvised, the power of that many drummers, each contributing his or her own style, combined with the Boredoms three drummer attack, and Eye's homemade multi necked guitar and spaced out electronics. If you missed it, you might want to think about picking one of these up (cheaper than the plane ticket woulda been, right?). And even if you were there, that almost makes this even more essential, an amazing, over the top, keepsake of one of the most amazing performances we've ever seen or been a part of, and the very first Boa Drum. Needless to say, this is crazy limited, and we only have a few of these. When we run out, we'll hopefully be able to get more, but there's certainly no guarantee. So if you really want one, act fast.

These three Boredoms cds were last available in the States as Warner/Reprise releases -- yep, major label product! -- but they've been out of print for a few years now, not surprising considering that they are probably some of the most bizarre and fucked up sonic artifacts ever to come out on a US major. We can thank for that our pal Dave Katznelson, former Warners A&R, current Birdman bigwig. We can only imagine that his bosses at Warners were gripped by Lollapalooza fever in order to sign off on the signing of a crazy band like Japan's Boredoms! Anyway, those days are long gone. Fortunately for fans, the British label Very Friendly has at last licensed these three titles for reissue outside of Japan. (Now someone needs also to reissue their early masterpiece Soul Discharge and all will be right in the world.) So, here's one fan's assessment of these three examples of vintage Boredoms insanity, back when they were basically the Butthole Surfers of Japan. Boasting their ugliest cover (tho the colours are better on this reissue than they were on the previous US version) Chocolate Synthesizer may have been a bit overlooked on its release in 1994 (well, I know I found it to be kind of a 'more of the same' album and didn't really grow to really appreciate it until just recently). But it's a solid example of the Boredoms doing what they were/are best at: confounding the listener and rocking the heck out of the recording studio too. This has got all the tradmark Bore-moves. It's a take-no-prisoners onslaught of trumpet, surreal song structures, wacked-out electronic noises, and lots of gargly, nasal vocals. There's slow starts to most of the songs, always building into crescendos of chaos. This was the last hurrah of the 'classic' period Boredoms, before they made a left turn into the realm of Super Ae and reinvented themselves as a freaking amazing, sorta hippified "trance" outfit of massive proportions. Edwin Pouncey got it wrong in The Wire when he said this record foreshadowed that change, when it was really their Super Roots series which lead to the dense, krautrocky wonders of Super Ae and Vision Creation Newsun. Anyway, this one is way better than we remembered, a blast from the past that seems fresher now than it did then.

MPEG stream: Acid Police
MPEG stream: Tomato Synthesizer

Yeah, we know that this Japanese import dvd+cd set isn't cheap, unfortunately. But we also know that a few of you are died-in-the-wool Boredoms fans who are gonna want it regardless. And it IS pretty cool of course. The dvd portion (NTSC, all-region, 65 minutes) features a full show filmed live in San Francisco, we mean Sun Flancisco, at The Independent back in May of 2005. Several of us here attended that show and this DVD lives up to our cherished memories of that night, a fantastic display of the Boredoms' current psychedelic, rhythmic power. If you haven't seen 'em lately, the lineup here is bandleader/vocalist Eye Yamataka on various electronics and weirdness, alongside not one, not two, but three drummers (ATR, Yoshimi, and Yochan), pounding away. Andee, who participated in the Boredom's 77 drummer Boredrum extravaganza in Brooklyn last summer, says this is a similar piece to the one they played then, minus 74 drummers, but still pretty much the bomb. The DVD starts off backstage, actually, with the Boredoms, friends, and kids hanging out, then moves to the show itself. At first it's all dark but for some blurry, colorful, moving light-spots and initially we wondered, is this what the whole thing is gonna look like? We wouldn't put it past 'em. But after about five minutes the scene comes into focus, the show having begun with Eye doing a bizarre ritualistic dance with intense sound-making electric "lighting balls" held in each hand. And then it's off to the races, as the drummers attack their kits and do their best to send the Boredoms' special vibrations to the far ends of the cosmos. The other disc found in this lavishly designed, bright orange package is an audio cd. It's only about twelve minutes long, but what a great 12 minutes (11:40 to be precise)!! Billed as "Yamataka Eye Original Breakbeats" there's two new tracks here, "U-bus" and "Relerer" and both are definite percussive party-pleasers... if your party digs the freaky Bore-tronics, that is!

MPEG stream: Relerer

These three Boredoms cds were last available in the States as Warner/Reprise releases -- yep, major label product! -- but they've been out of print for a few years now, not surprising considering that they are probably some of the most bizarre and fucked up sonic artifacts ever to come out on a US major. We can thank for that our pal Dave Katznelson, former Warners A&R, current Birdman bigwig. We can only imagine that his bosses at Warners were gripped by Lollapalooza fever in order to sign off on the signing of a crazy band like Japan's Boredoms! Anyway, those days are long gone. Fortunately for fans, the British label Very Friendly has at last licensed these three titles for reissue outside of Japan. (Now someone needs also to reissue their early masterpiece Soul Discharge and all will be right in the world.) So, here's one fan's assessment of these three examples of vintage Boredoms insanity, back when they were basically the Butthole Surfers of Japan. Onanie Bomb Meets The Sex Pistols is the one that's been going for the most $$$ on eBay, probably 'cause it's simply the hardest to find and contains some of their earliest material circa 1986-1988 -- including not only their debut LP originally entitled Osozeran No Stooges Kyo but also their first single Anal By Anal, one aggravating slice of noise-punk fuckery for sure. This disc represents a formative step in the career of Eye and co., and is perhaps the Boredoms disc best used as a lease-breaker. And that's saying a lot. If yr in the mood for some Japanese noise that's punk rock too, here's the ticket. Fun, juvenile Bore-carnage. Definitely some songs on here that rank with their best...Andee says that this sounds like wild geese skronkery billowing cramtappery. I don't know what the heck he means exactly, but his description still seems appropriate. Essential to any true Boredoms fan.

MPEG stream: Boredom, vs, SDI
MPEG stream: God From Anal

These three Boredoms cds were last available in the States as Warner/Reprise releases -- yep, major label product! -- but they've been out of print for a few years now, not surprising considering that they are probably some of the most bizarre and fucked up sonic artifacts ever to come out on a US major. We can thank for that our pal Dave Katznelson, former Warners A&R, current Birdman bigwig. We can only imagine that his bosses at Warners were gripped by Lollapalooza fever in order to sign off on the signing of a crazy band like Japan's Boredoms! Anyway, those days are long gone. Fortunately for fans, the British label Very Friendly has at last licensed these three titles for reissue outside of Japan. (Now someone needs also to reissue their early masterpiece Soul Discharge and all will be right in the world.) So, here's one fan's (Allan's) assessment of these three examples of vintage Boredoms insanity, back when they were basically the Butthole Surfers of Japan. 1993's Pop Tatari has always been one of my favorites, following up their astonishing Soul Discharge and Wow2 releases (and thereby the third Boredoms record I ever heard, one that was eagerly anticipated as I recall...I believe I mail-ordered an import copy from Japan when it came out). And it was very nearly as good as Soul Discharge. It's classic Boredoms at their best, mashing up genres from punk to funk to reggae to metal to noise -- there's references in the songtitles to both the Ramones and the Grateful Dead (and to themselves, of course). Yet Pop Tatari is far from a chaotic mess. Applied listening to this record will really reveal that there's a method to their madness. It's kinda like the same way if you saw them play live more than once, you'd realize that their seemingly improvised, acrobatic, spazzed-out stage act was actually carefully, amazingly choreographed! Mayhem that's totally retarded and totally advanced at the same time. Yamamoto's guitar skronk is lashed to the massive groove of the band's two drummers, while the crashing waves of distorted riffola that anchor many of these 18 tracks are surfed by the unique, extreme vocals of Eye and cohorts. Every detour into whatever sort of weirdness is perfectly timed, these ADD arrangements are the work of pros. Definitely a Boredoms album not to be without, my personal pick of the three Very Friendly reissues (though all are worthy). Very Friendly has reinstated the original song titles and tracklist that were altered for the US edition.

MPEG stream: I Am Cola
MPEG stream: Poy (Mockin' Fuzz 1)

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