[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 2951 through 3000 of 3202.

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Nothing is more satisfying and pleasing to the ears then some totally great dub. Mind you, we aren't talking about mediocre dub or dub that "has its moments", we mean the kind of dub that you could totally listen to over and over and let its warmth and slow burn wash over you, the kind of dub you never ever grow tired of. Originally released on the great Wackie's imprint, Hardwax in 1979, we're so excited this is finally getting its well deserved reissue, as this is truly one of the finest dub albums to grace our stereo. Black World does have a few songs with subtle and tasteful vocals, but is for the most part instrumental, and is exactly the kind of record that will not only hit the spot for reggae obsessives, but even those who aren't usually so dub or reggae inclined. Not a bad track in the bunch, and some seriously cool magical moments that Bullwackies All Stars from the hordes of similar minded outfits. The track "Tribute To Studio One" sounds like it could have been the blueprint for modern day dub-loving bands like Tussle. For those that like a little (or a lot) of ganja this will soooooo hit the spot, but even if the weed is not your thing, Black World will for sure leave you feeling seriously content, laid back and feeling just the right vibes. So good!

MPEG stream: Morning Star
MPEG stream: Tribute To Studio One
MPEG stream: Recording Connection

An old favorite, that we just got a few (drilled, but cheap!) copies of in stock. B. Bumble & The Stingers were an early '60s combo composed of a bunch of talented studio veterans, who notched a few chart hits with their boogie woogie rock n' roll piano-led instrumentals, often versions of familiar classical and jazz themes. You know ELP's "Nutrocker"? Well The Stingers did it first, taking that Tchaikovsky chesnut to number 23 in '62. That's here, plus their "Bumble Boogie" (Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight Of The Bumble Bee"), Clarence "Pinetop" Smith's "Boogie Woogie", Duke Ellington's "Caravan", Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5" and others, often with a gimmick like the underwater-sounding "Nautilus" (with vocals, even) or the vaguely-Asiatic "Chicken Chow Mein". Sometimes frantic, sometimes slinky, certainly quaint but totally fun novelty stuff. Like we said, an old favorite.

RealAudio clip: Bumble Boogie
RealAudio clip: Nut Rocker

This late '70s, all-time disco classic and longtime crate diggers' obsession has been pretty impossible to find for years and years. Luckily it's finally been reissued on wax and what a great thing too, cuz this is one unique and outrageously fun record. Bumblebee Unlimited were a studio project conceived by legendary producers Gregory Carmichael (Phreek, Inner Life) and Patrick Adams (Musiq, Universal Robot Band, as well as producing countless classics, check out the Master Of The Masterpiece records that compile so many of the amazing songs he helped create). With Bumblebee Unlimited they made this awesome high energy bee-minded record highlighted by the infectious nearly nine minute lead off track "I Got A Big Bee". With sped up vocals, the song in any other hands would have just been a novelty, but with the gorgeous arrangements and rich grooves, it still remains a total dance floor classic. This record has so many of dance music's greatest hands all over it, besides Adams and Carmichael, it was also recorded at the legendary Blank Studios with Bob Blank controlling the board. Sting Like A Bee is all uptempo disco burners with those sped up vocals giving it a dizzying edge and moments on the record also foreshadow the sounds of the House scene that would blow up a few years later. Kind of like if the Jackson Five in the mid '70s got high on amyl nitrate and let all their inhibitions run free and wild. A must have for disco lovers!

Described as "cinemascopic big beat" but that's not to say that they sound like the tepid funk of the likes of Chemical Brothers--rather, Bump & Grind drop explosive 'Amen' drum & bass breaks as well as swing 4/4 drum kicks. Includes remix work by Third Eye Foundation and Scanner. Nice graphics too.

How many Tortoise drummers does it take to make a totally great breakbeat album? Nah this isn't the set up to some dumb post-rock joke, the answer is three. Dan Bitney, John Herndon and John McEntire in fact. These three use their percussive chops to make a killer record that showcases some awesome breaks from all over the map: funk, African, Brazilian, Latin music and more. Makes perfect sense too that this would be on Stones Throw and not Thrill Jockey... as a bunch of these are the kinds of breaks most of the groups on the Stones Throw roster would be drooling over and sampling left and right if they found 'em on some obscure piece of wax. In fact, we're quite excited to see if there will be plans for some sort of remix record where different folks like Madlib, Peanut Butter Wolf, and Four Tet take these breaks and make 'em into actual tracks. While we wouldn't want to hear just any three drummers these 23 short tracks get right to the point and bump so delicious.

MPEG stream: Dawn At Dawn
MPEG stream: Fun Injury
MPEG stream: A Safe Balm

Oh yeah. '70s Turkish FUZZ rock in effect here, big time!! Knowing how much AQ customers LOVE the psychedelic Turkish tunes of decades past, this is a no-brainer. Buy it. Now. That is, if you like Edip Akbayram and Erkin Koray and all the others we've gone gaga over as the stack of such reissues gradually grows... These guys actually have membership links to all sorts of Istanbul rock stars, from Koray to Mogollar to Cem Karaca (whose early band Kardaslar we'd love to get a reissue of...). They were a pretty important band in the scene, on an underground level anyway. The name Bunalim apparently means either Depression or Frustration in Turkish, fitting for a band hailing from a city, Istanbul, who defining mood is melancholy (according to Nobel Prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk). You can hear both the energy of frustration and the sadness of depression in their music, which consists of blistering, Iron-Butterfly-heavy hard rockers mixed up with the style of traditional Anatolian folk dances and songs. Ballsy bombast and beautiful balladry both. And we're not kidding about Iron Butterfly -- one of the tracks here is a Turkish language cover of "Get Out Of My Life, Woman", a song (originally by Allen Toussaint, actually) that appeared on Iron Butterfly's first album, Heavy. Definitely it's the IB version that inspired Bunalim's rendition! Why so much "Bunalim" with these guys? Well it wasn't easy being a long-haired, underground rocker in that conservative society in those days! Plus even in the West there was much to make the youth feel worried and oppressed. This disc collects their rare singles tracks (they never made an album) from 1970-'72, and captures them at their most raw and garagey, loud guitar rockin'. They definitely showcase a distinct, kick-ass Middle Eastern take on the acid rock sound of the day, and really what could sound better than that?? This cd reissue includes well-informed liner notes and lots of cool vintage photos in the cd booklet. Shadoks, keep 'em coming!

MPEG stream: Basak Saclim
MPEG stream: Tas Var Kopek Yok
MPEG stream: Bir Dunya da Bana Ver

"The Federation of German Programmers" has only one member, but one that has so many alter-egos as to comprise a small parliamentary body. That individual is Uwe Schmidt -- better known as Atom Heart and Senor Coconut, and also known as Lisa Carbon, Datacide, LB, and many others. "Stoffwechsel" is more seriously minded than much of his recent output. Complex bubbling electronic percolations -- like Schematic without the big post-hip hop breaks or Mille Plateaux's clickery with more of a groove. Intersperced between all of the electronic clicks/cuts, Schmidt drops in fragments of German spoken word, which give the whole album a sort of academic vibe.

What is wrong with the world today? The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, babies are coo-ing, breezes are blowing, waves are lapping, clouds are drifting happily across a bright blue sky, but all everybody wants to listen to is hateful evil grim brutal downtuned miserable soul crushing anguished slow motion funereal death drone ultra doom. Not that we're complaining, but it is curious. There's been recent renewed interest in slow motion metal masters Earth, as well as a growing obsession with self-admitted Earth worshippers Sunn 0))), the massive ambient-metal explorations of Japan's Corrupted, the stomping garage psych meets doom drone of the mighty Boris, and a constantly growing roster of similar sonic sickos: Esoteric, Khanate, Asva, Fleshpress, Dot [.], Marzuraan, Ox, Rigor Sardonicus, Sons Of Otis, UFOmammut, Skepticism, Whitehorse, Planet Aids and now Bunkur. We've been trying to track down this cd for ages, and somehow ended up listing and reviewing the Planet Aids cd, a Bunkur side project, before we had even received the Bunkur discs. Well, now they're here and you won't be sorry. This Dutch outfit traffics in massive, miserable, impossibly lugubrious doom metal. This is a single 65 minute track, drenched in reverb and crackling amp buzz, crumbling distorted guitars howled vocals, very loose and spread out, the riffs exist in huge expanses of SPACE, a blackened vacuum of buzz and echo and the occasional trailing off of a vocal growl or a slowly dissipating feedback vapor trial. The kicker here though, and the thing that makes Bunkur so weird (and cool) is the drumming, stumbling lo-fi tripped out rhythms, that drift from plodding caveman pound, to spacious barely there accents, but most surprisingly hover in some strange alternate world of dub. Yep, you heard us, DUB. The drums often demarcate wide open spaces with a strange dubbed out, instantly recognizable: BAP BAP Bap bap bap bp bp bp bp .... a single snare hit that repeats, stuttering into oblivion. Giving the whole thing a weird hellish doom-dub vibe. Like Khanate recording with Lee Perry maybe? Okay, maybe not quite as extreme as that, but the dub is definitely there, whether purposeful or not. And it's really cool. Fans of dismal doom death drone and all things slow and sick will find this absolutely essential. Packaged in super cryptic metallic grey and black packaging with extensive liner notes in a completely unreadable rune font!

MPEG stream: Bludgeon (excerpt)

It's been 5 years since the last Bunkur record, the appropriately titled Bludgeon, possibly one of the slowest, heaviest sickest doomdronedirge discs EVER. Corrupted, Esoteric, Khanate, Asva, Rigor Sardonicous, Skepticism, Fleshpress, all heavy and slow, but it always seemed like Bunkur managed to push that sound a little further. And if anything, record number 2 from these guys, titled Nullify, might have thrown down the gauntlet, creating a single, sprawling, 77 minute cloud of oozing slow motion black hate. Until Corrupted come through with their rumored triple disc single song, Nullify might just rank as the one to beat. That is if by beat, you meant create a doom record, that was impossibly slow, with instruments tuned insanely low, a sprawling skeletal song structure that is so spare and sparse it seems essentially structureless, with vocals that sound like you're vomiting up your internal organs, drums that sound like they're playing to some subterranean deathmarch, and basslines that aren't really lines at all, more like subsonic tones emanating from some bottomless pit. Cuz that's what it would take to out-doom these Dutch destroyers. But hell, why bother, better to just sit back, and let Bunkur's filthy black tide wash over you. Slow, and epic, not really 'heavy' as much as dense, dark, deep and dismal, in fact Nullify almost sounds more ritualistic and abstract than doomy, like a heavier blacker Abruptum, lots of rumbling and groaning and howling and creeping and oozing, here and there the band do lock into something more propulsive, and by that we mean like 4 or 5 bpm, the drums offering up some chaotic fills, the bass swelling and undulating, but just as quickly whatever forward momentum is generated is dispelled and the band grinds back to a near static rumble. In a weird way, this is almost a drone record, strangely soothing in fact, a blurred smeared expanse of rumbling buzzing low end, the vocals and grinding riffage, so low and filthy and downtuned, that they just sound like more layers sound, but strap on some headphones, and it's like being sucked into hell, a harrowing sonic journey through the deepest pits of the underworld, every crushing thrum like the soul shattering footstep of some massive demon, every streak of hiss like a fiery blast of hellbreath, intense and brutal, massive and mysterious, punishing and pummeling, a gorgeously grim expanse of ultra, mega, multiple o'd, beyond funereal, kvltish hell doooooooooooom. And thus, gets our highest, or perhaps lowest, recommendation.

MPEG stream: Nullify - Excerpt I
MPEG stream: Nullify - Excerpt II

First heard on the seminal Killing Capitalism With Kindness compilation 7", this musical misanthrope from New Zealand unleashed his first proper album some 10 years later! Beautiful guitar plucks and muted trumpets amidst waves of buzz and hypnotic swirl, with occasional processed warbles of wisdom. Odd yet highly recommended by all the AQ-staff.

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SORRY. (1) It has been called to our attention that every record released on Jeremy Steckler's Now Sound label has a cover painted by his father, Len, and always features a *naked lady*. (2) Bunny Brains are great not only because of The Music They Make but also because they heckled Sean Penn so much at a recent show he was forced to leave.

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SORRY. You probably can't handle this. Hell, we can't really handle this, but somehow we still love the Bunny Brains to death. Massive 4 cd + 1 DVD collection of absolutely everything they've ever done, all or most of which until now has been vinyl only! So now here's your chance to hear the Bunny Brains all spiffy and digital. And believe you me, the Bunny Brains DO NOT clean up nicely. This is ultra damaged retard garage stomp with clumsy riffing, stumbling drumming, howled alley cat falsetto vocals and a recording that is 70 percent tape hiss! Third rate Stooges riffage battles confusional folk ineptitude that often erupts into weirdly inspired Ur-psych freak outs. And let's not forget their excessive use of parentheses in song titles! Yep. Imagine Happy Flowers meets Half Japanese meets Fushitsusha meets Faxed Head. That amazing. That stupid. That amazingly stupid. And yes, that stupidly amazing.... The DVD is really something else. A ramshackle mess of lo-fi guerilla widescale fuckery, live shows, bizarre shennanigans, backstage weirdness, lots of disturbing what-the-fuck moments, nudity, cable access and more. Surprisingly watchable. So much so that after I watched enough to review, my girlfriend made me leave it on, and she ended up watching it for about an hour. Which says something, since she is (thankfully) not a Bunny Brains kind of lady. Packaged in a cool multi panel fold out digipak with reproductions of all of their amazing album art.

MPEG stream: I Am Not Your Friend (I Am Your Destiny)
MPEG stream: Your A Stud
MPEG stream: Model Bitch (Runway Version)

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SORRY. This is a special version only for stores who order direct from Matador -- the album comes in a pastel pink plastic slipcover -- the kind you used to play colorforms© with as a kid, remember? Plus some distrubing genitalia-caught-in-mousetrap photos.

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SORRY.

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SORRY. The Bunny Brains' "Sin Gulls" is a singles collection of their scum noise rock that has some solipsistic pretentions of being "art." Although the Bunny Brains probably would deny that. These sloppy garage songs heaped with sludge distortion and unapologetic tone-deaf vocals sound like Jim "V-3 / Vertical Slits" Sheppard writings song for a Pere Ubu tribute band. Just when you thought it was safe to look in the bargain bin...seriously, we miss these guys.

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Nearly 10 years after her long-awaited return to recording in 2005, Vashti Bunyan is back with what is reported to be her final recording. To be expected, It's a delicate uber-gentle and pastoral affair with highly personal songs about life and family. Her soft dulcet voice creating beautiful folk lullabies that are lovely and oh so sweet, marked by warm atmospherics and lilting waves of sound. A longtime influential figure of British folk, Bunyan's quietude may not initially bowl you over, and indeed Heartleap is nearly the antithesis of the weathered pain of the other newly revived folk legend on this list, Alice Gerrard. But Bunyan's music has a way of sticking with you subtly over time and its long relaxed gaze into an unfettered way of life and beauty can be delightfully spellbinding and magical. Also this is perfect for hip parents looking for music to play around newborns and young children (ahem, Allan!).

MPEG stream: Across The Water
MPEG stream: Here

This beloved 1970 folk album is back on its original format... VINYL LP! Plus this reissue comes with a bonus 7"! Hurrah! Here's what we said about the cd version: We're pretty damn excited that this album is now available again. Inspiration for this turn of events must certainly have something to do with Ms Bunyan turning up on Devendra Banhart's recordings recently. Without a doubt Vashti Bunyan has played a big influence on the young Banhart's song writing, and fans of Devendra should definitely take note. This record is so incredibly charming! Having been expelled from a London art school in 1964 for not narrowing her field of studies to either music or painting, Vashti Bunyan took to singing her songs on the streets of London. She eventually left the city, hitching up a cart and horse to journey across the countryside, heading for the remote Outer Hebrides islands. It wasn't long before fans tracked her down to record an album. The album was released in 1970 and disappeared in relative obscurity -- only later being sought out fanatically by record collectors. Featuring accompaniment by such notables as Robin Williamson (fiddle, mandolin, Irish Harp) of The Incredible String Band and Simon Nicol (banjo) of Fairport Convention, Robert Kirby (string and recorder arrangements) who played with Nick Drake, Vashti Bunyan's music is an exquisitely delicate folk music with melodies reminiscent of hornpipes and shanties. Her clear voice is so full of innocence, and she sings so earnestly about her horse and the countryside full of hayfields and waiting for love and the simple rewards, like nice tea, that await after a long day's journey. It's so beautiful, it makes me want to dress in peasant garb (like Vashti on the cover) and forget all about the 21st century.

MPEG stream: Diamond Day
MPEG stream: Glow Worms
MPEG stream: Where I Like To Stand

An absolutely timeless ageless folk music beauty! If you fell in love with Ms Bunyan's Just Another Day album from 1970 (reissued recently on cd and lp!) as we did, you've probably been tingling with anticipation over the news that over three decades later she'd returned to the recording studio. Really, it's almost as though she never left. It's almost spooky! We caught a brief, but oh-so-pleasing glimpse of the present-day Vashti when she did an unexpected collaboration with Animal Collective earlier this year (the resulting recordings were released as a cdep titled "Prospect Hummer"). Now we get a full album's worth of her wonderfulness and she's joined by some youngsters named Joanna and Devendra. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Lately
MPEG stream: Feet Of Clay

Teaser single from the recently reissued collection of early singles and demos of Vashti Bunyan. Waify Folk Pop loveliness!

MPEG stream: Some Things Just Stick In Your Head

It's been a long, strange journey from obscure British pop footnote to Elder Stateswoman of the modern Freak Folk scene for Vashti Bunyan. Her early lone album, Just Another Diamond Day, has charmed and bewildered many new fans since its reissue a few years ago and brought Bunyan out of obscurity and back to recording with the likes of Devendra Banhart, Animal Collective and a full length of brand new songs called Lookaftering. The reissue of Just Another Diamond Day had some bonus tracks from early 45's that barely hinted at her pop-star beginnings. Discovered by Andrew Loog Oldham, Bunyan came out of the wave of waifish pop-singers popularized by Marianne Faithfull and Francoise Hardy. While her songs had charm, her presence was too insecure to maintain a steady following. She recorded a string of singles, including the Jagger / Richards tune "Some Things Just Stick In Your Head, all but two singles remained unreleased. Until now that is. This 2 disc collection revives all of her early singles and demos, offering an almost bipolar spectrum of over-production and under-production. The singles are pleasantly arranged pop-gems yet marked by Bunyan's slightly uncomfortable (for her, that is, not us) vocal delivery. While the demos on the second disc are culled from home recordings that show Bunyan at her most intimate, vulnerable and lo-fi. Her guitar accompaniments barely register under her whisper like singing. While we always have mixed feelings about completist collections, this one works better than most with the singles being the more essential component and the demos the added bonus. At least it's priced accordingly! Lovely!!

MPEG stream: Some Things Just Stick In Your Head
MPEG stream: I Want To Be Alone
MPEG stream: If In Winter (Demo)

We can only listen to so much music in our lifetimes. That's a sad fact, one we all have to come to terms with. Or not. But if you're like us, and if you're reading this, you probably are, then much of your life is spent trying to do just that. Listen to as much amazing music as possible. And at some point, like us, you realize that your biggest fear about dying, is that there will be so much music you won't get to hear, well then, that's when you up your game, and decide to make every moment count, and listen to music ALL THE TIME. But even then, there's only so much time in the day, and the night, and you have to eat, and work, and maybe watch TV, hang out with your significant other, and yeah, most of that stuff you can do WHILE you listen to music, but odds are some music is gonna slip by you, no matter how insanely obsessive you are. So now, take the music you already own and want to listen to, and add to that a constant influx of new music to check out, which is what happens here, and while we LOVE that, so much amazing new music and so many fantastic discoveries, it really can end up being too much. We get overwhelmed, and well, we miss out on some stuff, which is exactly what happened with World, by Aussie shoegaze noise rockers the Bunyip Moon. We were cleaning up, and organizing, and going through boxes and drawers, and discovered this cd, and threw it on, and were immediately blown the fuck away. Struck by all sorts of feelings, feeling bad for taking so long to give it a listen, feeling like we COULD have been listening to this already for ages, but mostly feeling like we had to get this reviewed so all you folks out there could add one more amazing record to the stack of music already waiting to be listened to. But here's where we suggest you bump the Bunyip Moon to the front of the queue, cuz holy shit is this great. And great in that way that makes what it sounds like actually pretty tough to describe. The vibe is sorts of nineties, shoegaze-y for sure, but with a bit of a gloomy feel, deep dramatic vocals buried in the mix to the point of being nearly inaudible, everything buried beneath super distorted and blown out, crumbling and hiss drenched fuzz and buzz and thrum, total blissed out heart-of-the-sun noise-gaze dreaminess, and the drums, wow, the drums are super distorted too, bursts of wild tribal rhythms that almost sounds like swarms of bees, each song a churning jangle flecked squall of noise drenched indie rock / noise rock, at times we hear Crystal Stilts, at times Loop, at others Bailter Space, even a little Dinosaur Jr., lots of NZ Flying Nun, at least the weirder, heavier stuff, and of course all the Australian bands we love, Celibate Rifles, the Scientists, Lubricated Goat, etc, but here those influences are blurred into something fuzzy and washed out and gloriously and blissfully noisy, this IS one of those records, where we're tempted to just have a single sentence review that says "BUY THIS! It's so great, it's all we want to listen to, it's fuzzy and poppy and noisy and psychedelic, and it's one of the best things we've heard in ages, and we've been listening to it non-stop to make up for all the time it languished unlistened to." And we definitely traffic in hyperbole in our reviews, but believe us that nothing in this review is hyperbolic, this band, and this record is so goddamn good, their sound is exactly what we want to listen to, it's the sort of band we wish we played in, it's damn near perfect, warm and fuzzy, noisy and dreamy, the production is bizarre, but bizarrely perfect, it's druggy and psychedelic, and seriously heavy, twisted and experimental, laced with loops and bizarre effects, for every bit of distorto crunch, there's some super melodic jangle, more often then not, the two mashed together, there are long stretches of brooding moodiness, extended hypno-rock epics, short bursts of furious noise pop, and sprawling near-Godspeed slow builds, and even some gloomy almost new wave, and it all sounds so goddamn good. If these guys had popped up on Slumberland they'd be HUGE right now. They should be, and if all is right in the universe, WILL be, cuz really, this is easily some of the best jangle pop / noise rock / shoegaze we've ever heard.

MPEG stream: Kill Everything
MPEG stream: Gravity Sux
MPEG stream: Black Hole
MPEG stream: Take Down The Crucifix

Oh shit! These are some intensely sweaty and dancey jammers that are sure to be the soundtrack of any truly down and dirty party this summer, and probably for a long time to come. Hailing from Portugal, Buraka Som Sistema have become international ambassadors for the Kuduro scene, bringing this unique sound to people throughout the world. It makes perfect sense that M.I.A. lends her voice to the record's standout track, as the sounds on Black Diamond make a great companion to her latest record Kala. Incorporating elements of hip-hop, Baile funk and electronica, Black Diamond is all about being uptempo and making bodies sweat, move and shake and groove. This is one of those records that should appeal to all sots of music lovers, from fans of Konono No.1 seeking that same sort of intense all out energy to fans of Missy Elliott who want something pulsating and creative to move them on the dance floor. So damn good!

MPEG stream: Sound of Kuduro (feat. DJ Znobia, MIA, Saborosa, & Puto Prata)
MPEG stream: Aqui Para Voc�s (feat. Deize Tigrona)
MPEG stream: IC19

MPEG stream: Fragile
MPEG stream: Knuckles
MPEG stream: Stay One

New album from Paul Burch of Lambchop. Less bluegrass and more old timey than last year's "Blue Notes", the songs on "Last Of My Kind" were inspired by Tony Early's novel "Jim the Boy."

Utterly delightful new project from Paul Burch of Lambchop. Country music with lyrics and vocals reminiscent of Arlo Guthrie or Bob Dylan, Country Jazz musical influences a la Doc Watson or Bob Wills and shades of bluegrass and barroom balladry. Though I felt a bit squeamish at first listening to this album, I must say it has an infectiousness and honesty to it that's quite refreshing. All the faster numbers are wonderfully "live" sounding without being murky - lots of deep, booming upright bass that makes you feel as though you're at the Freight & Salvage (for those out of town, that's the East Bay's best venue for country & bluegrass).

The second full length from Burd Early (aka James Angelos from New York)! The follow-up to last year's Magnet Mountain continues very much along the same lines. And that's fine with us! If you're fond of earthy, brooding and deeply personal Americana, this might be for you. The MM album drew more than a few comparisons to Smog, Silver Jews, and Dieselhed. This time around however, fans of Dirty Three, Giant Sand or Black Heart Procession might also be lured into the Burd Early den with its slow, somber songs like the violin-laden "Here We Go Again". So pretty.

RealAudio clip: Here We Go Again
RealAudio clip: Deeper Breath

Burd Early strikes us as being very Silver Jews-esque. Perhaps a bit Smog, Dieselhed, and Leonard Cohen-ish too. The liner notes offer precious little information on the mysterious figure who goes by the name Burd Early, and further investigation (i.e. a

RealAudio clip: Tire

Burd Early's third full length offers up more of his dusky somber twang, seeming slightly scaled back in lushness from his last album (the excellent Leveller), but certainly no less fine. His voice brings to mind a cross between the deep, beleaguered tones of Howe Gelb and the sensitive ache of Lou Barlow. That said (and as we've mentioned in our past BE reviews), if you dig M. Ward, Dieselhed, Smog, Mark Kozelek and/or Silver Jews, Burd Early might be for you too! At any rate, you should certainly check out the third song "Blackdot" as well as the one that follows it called "Undoing The Day". They're definitely two of the album's highlights. The latter is a bittersweet duet with Rosario Garicia-Montero.

MPEG stream: Blackdot
MPEG stream: Undoing The Day

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SORRY. More ultra suave pop from this smooth French gent who really should consider writing a few chapters in the how-to book of euro-flair. A most highly regarded and highly influential man of many hats in the hip lounge jet set, Monsieur Burgalat certainly has taught those Air boys a thing or two. But who is A.S Dragon and what happens when he meets them? Well, that's simply the name of the band backing him up on this record (who even have their own theme!), and actually it seems things get spiced up a bit. Less cocktail space age pad, and much more upbeat, swingin', guitar-driven retro-poppiness. Full of his handsome smooth vocals, but do keep an ear out for the occasional odd deep vocal turn here and there though. Still very groovy and dance-y though with its funky bass and organ lines. A perfect rocked up accompaniment to the recent Danger Diabolik soundtrack. Aaah, and it all comes complete with an adoring, applauding audience to boot. On his very own label.

RealAudio clip: Sugar
RealAudio clip: A.S Dragon
RealAudio clip: Tears Of A Clown

The euro-pop sounds of composer / solo crooner Monsieur Bertand Burgalat pleases many ears around the globe. Swirling strings, funky guitar and basslines, playful keyboards, horns, woodwinds, swooning male and female choruses -- it's charming in oh so many ways, elaborate and suave but not without levity and wit. If we have any complaints about Portrait-Robot, it would be that when on occasion Burgalat opts for programmed drum beats (versus live acoustic ones) such as on the song "Ripples" they're a bit... well, clunkily robotic and too upfront in the mix. When you take into consideration the album's title, you wonder if maybe be that was his intention, but it's oddly jarring when you take in the rest of the carefully crafted and composed smooth operatin' affair. The album features 19 lounge-ready songs, plus 2 bonus tracks and a video for "Spring Isn't Fair".

MPEG stream: Ripples
MPEG stream: Spring Isn't Fair

Paying homage to French lounge pop maestro Bertrand Burgalat are such jaunty hipsters as April March, Louis Philippe, Etienne Charry, Mick Harvey, and Nick Cave. This is a compilation very much for the swoonsome, euro-cocktail set. Fans of such labels as Burgalat's own Tricatel or Le Magistery (home to Momus and Kahimi Karie), and of artists such as Air (who also contribute a track here), Pizzicato Five, and Charles Wilp...what are you waiting for? Ultra-stylish and playful music to spin in your swingin' space age pad.

This highly influential, euro-lounge-pop producer, composer, arranger, label owner (Tricatel) and performer extraordinaire finally sees the U.S. release of his solo debut (with three bonus tracks unavailable on the European version). Playful '60s flair

RealAudio clip: Tsom

The label tells us: "The hypnotic sounds of 'Las Vegas are the products of a running collabortaion between Mike ink (Love Inc., Gas, Vinyl COuntdown, and the Profan and Studio Eins labels) and Jorg Burger (The Modernist, Bionaut, Burger Industries, the Eat Raw label), the two prominent figures of the burgeoning Cologne techno underground. Neither have dated Jerry Hall." Minimalist, subtle electronica. We're glad Matador is releasing good electronica, especially the forthcoming Boards of Canada record, which will please Aphex Twin fans everywhere.

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY.

Whether or not we'll ever see a new full length from this mysterious producer, the arrival of a new single is still cause for anxious excitement. And this one is beautifully sad and heavy, with three long gorgeous tracks. At 12 minutes on the A side, "Kindred" is laid out like a dystopic symphonic requiem that morphs through a slow-motion roughshodden landscape. Lonely remote vocals spliced and polished into barely discernible words pitter-patter over record crackle, far-off doomy atmospheres and clanging minimal garage rhythms propel forward and then drop out at irregular intervals. On the B side, "Loner" steps it up with arpeggiated synths and an anxious pace with a cinematic car chase theme feel and r&b-ish vocal shadows buried underneath a layer of sonic grit and asphalt that freefalls into a strange haunted ambiance. "Ashtray Wasp" show a bit more light and hope at first. The vocals culled from cell phone recordings give a broader sense of actual song structure with sped up minimalist Phillip Glass-like orchestrations wrapping the song in a dramatically understated fury, eventually disintegrating into an extended oceanic womb of crackling unease. The final salvo turning into a lyrical filigree of piano, cascading vocal swatches and waves of radio static that fades like the night into the stratosphere. Chilling!

A reissued 12" from one of this list's Record of the Week artists, Burial, who unleashes a lurching, shuffling, deep and dense mix of murky grimy dubstep. Equal parts minimal dub, slowed down grime, and super slow motion jungle. This 12", originally released last year, features what sounds like an alternate version of one of the album tracks, sort of slowed down and more blissed out. The other track is WAY more drum and bass, a mumbled 16 rpm jungle stutter, with a definite grime vibe and a super dense chaotic rhythmic coda! So cool.

The first new music from Burial in 4+ years, this one hardly needs a review at all, the master of dark moody soul inflected minimal dubstep does it again, with the murky melancholy "Street Halo", which ditches some of the more overt dubsteppiness of past records, for something a bit more techno flecked, the beat a muted four on the floor pulse, while the surrounding sounds remain appropriately washed out and dreamlike, some spectral soulful female vox just add to the vibe. We actually spun this at 33 the first few times, and holy shit, not sure if it's just us, but might sound even better that way, syrupy and witch house-y, total slo-mo cough syrup blackened dub electro drag. But even at the right speed of 45, it's pretty dang perfect, only a slight swerve from the dubbed out soul of Untrue. "NYC" slows it way down, lacing some electro skitter and shuffling techno with a seriously dubbed out production and some sped up soul samples, spare and skeletal, wreathed in a late night, winding down, chill out haze. And finally "Stolen Dog" is a dubby downtempo electro soul ballad, with a super hooky main melody, warm swirling low end swells, a skittery beat buried in the mix, and still more vocal soul. So good. Could be kinda limited, we're not sure, and the copies we got in this week have been going fast, so when/if we run out, be prepared. Hopefully we can get more sometime soon though.

Like the title suggests, this is the cd version of Burial's last two 12"s. 6 tracks, almost an hour long, complete with obi 'cause it's a Japanese import. Both 12"s are pretty much out of print, so if you missed them, you gotta get this! Street Halo was the first new music we had heard from Burial in 4+ years, and hardly needed a review at all (then or now), needless to say, the master of dark moody soul inflected minimal dubstep does it again, just check out the murky melancholy "Street Halo", which ditches some of the more overt dubsteppiness of past records, for something a bit more techno flecked, the beat a muted four on the floor pulse, while the surrounding sounds remain appropriately washed out and dreamlike, some spectral soulful female vox just add to the vibe. We actually spun the vinyl version of this at 33 the first few times, and holy shit, not sure if it's just us, but might sound even better that way, syrupy and witch house-y, total slomo cough syrup blackened dub electro drag. Too bad you can't easily slow down a cd, but even at the right speed of 45, it's pretty dang perfect, only a slight swerve from the dubbed out soul of Untrue. "NYC" slows things way down, lacing some electro skitter and shuffling techno with a seriously dubbed out production and some sped up soul samples, still spare and skeletal, wreathed in a late night, winding down, chill out haze. And finally "Stolen Dog" is a dubby downtempo electro soul ballad, with a super hooky main melody, warm swirling low end swells, a skittery beat buried in the mix, and still more vocal soul. So good! Beautifully sad and heavy, "Kindred" is laid out like a dystopic symphonic requiem that morphs through a slow-motion roughshodden landscape. Lonely remote vocals spliced and polished into barely discernible words pitter-patter over record crackle, and far-off doomy atmospheres as clanging minimal garage rhythms propel forward and then drop out at irregular intervals. "Loner" steps it up with arpeggiated synths and an anxious pace with a cinematic car chase theme feel and RnB-ish vocal shadows buried underneath a layer of sonic grit and asphalt that freefalls into a strange haunted ambiance. "Ashtray Wasp" show a bit more light and hope at first. The vocals culled from cell phone recordings give a broader sense of actual song structure with sped up minimalist Phillip Glass-like orchestrations wrapping the song in a dramatically understated fury, eventually disintegrating into an extended oceanic womb of crackling unease. The final salvo turning into a lyrical filigree of piano, cascading vocal swatches and waves of radio static that fades like the night into the stratosphere. Chilling!

MPEG stream: Street Halo
MPEG stream: Stolen Dog
MPEG stream: Kindred

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

SORRY.

Record of the year, 2007. As far as some of us are concerned, there's no question. Burial's first album was an eponymous release on Kode 9's Hyperdub imprint and really came out of nowhere. Here was this amalgamation of British dance tropes (e.g. dubstep, 2-step garage, darkcore drum & bass, etc.) into a magnificent exercise in mood engineering. Even though an urban malaise echoes through the whollop bass-bin rattle of most dubstep, that first Burial record mined a melancholy whose dramatic power has never been heard in dubstep, and rarely matched even by such downbeat experts as Massive Attack, Boards of Canada, Slowdive, or even Joy Division. So with his second album Untrue, the aesthetic framework for Burial remains intact; yet the anonymous figure behind Burial has admitted that he was seeking a "downcast euphoria." You know what, he fucking nailed it. All of the sounds retain the first album's urban dourness reverberating through each electron and washed drone. The hovering basslines which once stalked the darkest of jungle's rhythms are ghostly presences flickering around Burial's atypical drum programming, which by his own admission is done by hand without the aid of a sequencer. The clipped, 2-step breakbeats always appear as the cocking of a gun; but it doesn't seem like Burial is taking aim at his audience. Rather, it's metaphor for the cold, inhumane existence in the grimy parts of London, where violence is just another thing to shrug at and move beyond. All of these sounds are clearly present in Burial's debut album, but the "euphoric" part of Untrue's intention is found in Burial's use of voice. Taking a cappella tunes sung by his friends (sometimes, left as a voice mail on his cellphone), Burial has crafted an eerie cast of disembodied vocals, twisted into cybernetic R&B croons, all clipped and compressed in the same manner as his pistol-whipped snare cracks. It's as if the human voice alone can transcend the dire circumstances of our earthly confines, even when the songs reflected broken dreams and a dwindling hope. Burial seeks out the fleeting moments of beauty and raw emotion, codifying it through his impeccable craft on this very impressive and soon to be iconic recording. If you're not hearing it from us, you'll hear from somebody else: Burial's Untrue is the best record of 2007.

MPEG stream: Archangel
MPEG stream: Ghost Hardware
MPEG stream: Untrue

This record has totally knocked us for a loop. An impossible mix of grimy dubstep, murky triphop, and minimal spaced out dub. When we first threw this on we were immediately transported back to when we first heard Massive Attack, or Portishead, and a whole new world suddenly opened up to us. A creepy, muted world of barebones beats and haunting atmospheres that would go on to inform our musical tastes forever. This is the first release on Hyperdub, a label run by grime/dubstep DJ Kode9, and we expected a blasting barrage of grimy beats, but instead, were sucked into a swirling vortex of late night groove and midnight stutter. Think those Rhythm And Sound Burial Mix eps, mixed with some Pole-like glitched out dub, and some slow burning Portishead smolder. Creepy and crawly, mysterious and moody. Beats suspended in a black shimmering fog, snippets of vocals, crooning, toasting, drenched in reverb, chopped up and let loose to drift over super dark, muffled dubscapes. Huge rumbling bass lines, like distant foghorns, dreamy ambience sort of drifting and ethereal but so so ominous. Tiny sonic sparkles glimmer like some alien sonar, drifting dreamily through fuzzy darkness. Drowned and submerged grooves, all muffled muted melody and shuffling minimal beats. Suffocating atmospheres of low end thrum, record crackle and shortwave interference. Some sort of slithering slinky dubstep shuffle slowed waaaaaaaaay down, into a blackened glacial dub jam. So fucking awesome. Our newest every night late night listen. A record of perfect dark and damaged dubbed out lullabies.

MPEG stream: Distant Lights
MPEG stream: Spaceape
MPEG stream: Wounder

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

SORRY.

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 ]