[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 1751 through 1800 of 2775.

As if the funkjazztickle tricknology of sampledelia by Ninjatune's scratchtastic duo weren't enough, there's another cd-ROM of Coldcut at play here. The lp version doesn't include this, but the gatefold cover art is supercool.

A classic old Coldcut track gets the remix treatment by John McEntire (Tortoise), Kid Koala, Q-Bert, T-Power, and Kid Teeba, as well as Coldcut themselves. This is the cd version of two 12" releases, and you get a CD-Rom Quicktime video as a bonus track.

For fans of Coldcut (duh!), Primal Scream, Massive Attack, and those early '90s heady housey club allniters. Coldcut's latest album offers an eclectic selection of tracks that range from funky Euro hiphop ("Everything Is Under Control") to ultra smooth Seal-ish AOR soul ("Walk A Mile In My Shoes" with Robert Owens on vocals) to Tear Garden-esque richly rhythmic, dub-infused looming atmospherics ("Boogieman"). Actually Sound Mirrors quite effectively reflects the incredible breadth of this duo's stylistic pursuits and capabilities over the years.

MPEG stream: A Whistle And A Prayer
MPEG stream: True Skool

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SORRY. Think Section 25 meets Stereo MCs, or the Happy Mondays with a mild case of Chain Reactive heroin house addiction suffused with a bleak monochrome whine. For fans of Suicide, Kraftwerk, Joy Division and other moody new wave darkness.

Another killer release from Australian label Goatowarex, who also released the two amazing Urfaust records and the Planet Aids record reviewed elsewhere on this list. Coldness is ultra sick, ultra raw, ultra grim black metal. Guitars so raw each riff is like having a swath of flesh flayed off and set afire. Thrashy and midtempo, with stretches of doomy dirge as well as burts of overblown vocals and blasts of hyperspeed rrroaaarrrrrr. Insane vocals that go from raw demonic howls to paint peeling shrieks to inhuman squeals. This is some truly weird, super lo-fi black metal for sure. It's not just the music. The cd booklet lists the band "line-up" as "Coldness = Nocturnus Horrendus, Nocturnus Horrendus = one minus one." Huh? Then there are the messages printed throughout: "N.H. bows to P.B.C., alcohol and all the rest that contributes to make life harder to live but no doubt more interesting", and "Lick the joy out of my rotten essence", or "P.B.C. a poisoned gift / grant, a poisoned gift / demand." Huh, again? And then finally there's the photo collage inside the booklet of Nocturnus Horrendus masturbating into a wine glass, then cutting his arm and bleeding into the same glass, and then of course drinking it all down. Weird indeed. For fans of all things brutal and sick and grim and evil!!

MPEG stream: I Destroyed The I
MPEG stream: Living A Lie
MPEG stream: That Is All

While many would cry "over-rated flavor of the month Brit pop band!!", me thinks there's more to this band than the hype. They're certainly not bland, nor are they formulaic radio-fodder. Their last full length Parachutes was replete with a number of passionate, glistening'y poetic songs. Coldplay possess a knack for composing the loveliest of complex heartstring-pulling melodies and performing them in a lushly artistic, deluxo-produced fashion (check it out in headphones - nice!). Aww heck, its sounding good should just be a given these days - what with Capitol Records footing the bill! Most likely they had abundant access to the toppest notch recording technology, but obviously good production doesn't necessarily equal good record. Case in point, that damn Planet of the Apes movie remake. Looked amazing, but ugh, what a stinker! Alright alright, I digress, but lemme just say that's not the case with this album. It's more than a little bit folky and down to earth, laden with highly emotive lilting male vocals and subdued piano, just as their last album was. Very pretty and well-crafted. And also just as their last album did, I think A Rush Of Blood is gonna grow on me.

RealAudio clip: Clocks
RealAudio clip: In My Place
RealAudio clip: A Whisper

If you've worn thin your Rush Of Blood To The Head album, and are in dire need of more Coldplay, do not panic! Brothers And Sisters is their new domestic ep which contains three songs previously unreleased in the U.S. It originally came out in the UK back in 1999, and as can be expected it's an bit more spartan and less lush than their most recent works. Very nice nonetheless!

MPEG stream: Brothers & Sisters

Coldplay are a melding together of today's best! Radiohead, Pulp, and maybe some Red Hot Chili Peppers balladry (complete with falsetto) backed by lush piano and guitar melodies, a shuffling drumbeat, and the occasional loud guitar wash. All polished to a

9The latest release from that very very popular UK band for whom we've had a soft spot is a limited edition mini-album. Not sure just how limited it is though (especially on the major label scheme of things!), so keep in mind snooze = lose! Five new songs as epic and liltingly gorgeous as ever plus a head-scratching special guest appearance by Jay Z (???).

Having built their sound on cribbing Radiohead's abandoned early recordings, Coldplay's new release seemed poised to tackle U2's mantle of grandiose emotive narcissism. From mimiciking Bono's soaring-while-singing stance on a recent iTunes commercial to having Brian Eno produce their record, everything seems to scream, "We're taking it to the next level". But it's really the same old Coldplay. Contemporary wallpaper for mediocre television dramas and advertisments.

Don't hate them cuz they're beautiful... love 'em! Yes, this band is obscenely huge and popular, but for once it's deservingly so. Really, they've yet to disappoint. Coldplay make some of the most elegant, evocative music coming out of mainstream radio these days. It stands in such a contrast to the constant glut of blandness and mediocrity that floods the radio and video dials. The earnest emotional drench of Coldplay's music always verges on the sappy, but somehow never stumbles across the line. On X & Y all the pieces of Coldplay lock in magically -- catchy choruses, richly atmospheric layers of guitars, synths and piano, and of course those unmistakable vocals. Chris Martin has one of the most effortless swoop-up-to-falsetto voices around. Depending on what time of the year you're listening to this album, you might find many songs on X & Y capturing that end of the school year or end of summer romance wistful ache... which pretty much guarantees their inclusion in an upcoming teen movie soundtrack. However, the band continues to buck the obvious or easy routes. Take for instance the album's immediately engaging third song "White Shadows", it seems like it would've been the obvious pick for the first single instead of the less hooky seventh song "Speed Of Sound". Striking a balance between instant treats and more involving ones, this is a work that invites repeat listens, and we're happy to oblige. Grand and gorgeous.

MPEG stream: White Shadows
MPEG stream: X & Y

This mysterious gem was sent to us in the mail, and all it took was a quick listen to be totally smitten, and to know that probably lots of aQ folks would dig this as much as we did. So we got as many as we could, which was the last dozen or so copies of the super limited pressing of 150 copies, and here it is, the first we've heard from Coldstream, aka Daniel Mumford, four extended tracks of thick layered drone music, hazy shimmery drift, and mysterious minimal krautdrone ambience. The opening track is an almost static stretch of thick gnarled buzz, blurred into a slowly shifting expanse of dense drones, deep and mesmerizing, the sort of sound that we could listen to forever. The second track is much more melodic, spacious and abstract, with a cool skittery rhythm that surfaces about halfway through, epic and cinematic, super dramatic and ethereal, laced with muted buzz and soft sonic swells. The next track is also quite cinematic, like the soundtrack to some British nature documentary, hushed and dreamlike, fluttery flute like tones draped over undulating low end pulses, you can almost imagine time lapse images of clouds flitting across the sky, or plants blossoming and the closing up again, a musical dusk, all warm and wispy and dreamlike. Finally, the closing track smolders darkly, laced with minor key piano melodies, a brooding minimal drone ballad, again, haunting, and mysterious, and very very lovely. LIMITED TO 150 COPIES, these are the LAST ones, housed in a cool origami like cardstock sleeve, with a full color insert, each one hand numbered.

MPEG stream: South Island
MPEG stream: Golden Road

Although lots of folks consider death metal to be dead, and around these parts, it takes something pretty fucking mindblowing to get us all excited about death metal again, at least one of us (Jason) still thinks death metal is alive and kicking. Granted, we have to admit to the fact that a lot of so called death metal these days is mostly played by asymmetrical-haircut/eyeliner/women's jeans-wearing EMO dudes, and even though we do dig a lot of that stuff, it is NOT really death metal! Or even real metal for that matter. "Real" death metal still exists, but it takes a creative mind, a knack for original arrangements, as well as the ability to "shred", and those elements can be found in abundance on the debut album from former Nasum drummer Anders Jakobsons' new grindbeast Coldworker. Surrounding himself with a few more-than-capable young guns with riffs and chops to spare, the boys in Coldworker come right out of the gate at full throttle -- not quite a full blast-beating grind, but this is DEATH METAL first and foremost! The tempo stays pretty much at a breakneck pace throughout the entire CD, with the occasional thick breakdown and raging thrash blasts scattered throughout making the record not so monotonous and "same old-same old" that seems to be plague lots of metal records these days. You can tell that this is definitely "Nasum-influenced" -- Mr. Jakobson has a pretty unique and unmistakable signature sound, Coldworker still stands on its own. But if you need one of those "recommended if you like" things, it would probably be safe to that if you dig the brutal dirt-grindage of Brutal Truth or Hellchild mixed with classic Left Hand Path era Entombed (yes!), the precise riffing of Necrophagist and the off-kilter "quantum physics" and tortured throat roar of Converge or Coalesce, then this will definitely hit the spot. It's definitely the perfect music for packing mail order at 8:30 in the morning, so it should work for you as well, anytime! A killer debut for a band that we hope to see raise the bar for other bands attempting to blur the line between death/thrash/tech and grind metal. Good luck with that...

MPEG stream: The Interloper
MPEG stream: D.E.A.D.
MPEG stream: An Unforgiving Season
MPEG stream: The Contaminated Void

We've been so focused on the Paysage D'Hiver reissues lately, that we've barely had time to dig into the other releases on Cold Dimensions and Kunsthall, but there are at least two that we definitely need to highlight, the latest Trist, which we'll review soon, and this one right here. Melancholie2, from German one man band Coldworld, quite possibly, one of the best depressive black metal records we've ever heard. Although defining Melancholie2 as a depressive BM record might be a bit reductive. It will make more sense, read on... A dizzying mix of lilting melancholia, furious blackened blasts, epic morose arrangements, awesome drumming (a definite shortcoming in most bands), kick ass and ridiculously catchy riffing, and most importantly, incredibly evocative atmosphere and ambience, even when a song is buzzing along frantically, beneath the surface there is always some sort of drifting crystalline melody, or whirring drone, or chant like vocal line, it sounds a bit confusing, but the mix is magical. The sound on Melancholie2 is so dynamic, so majestic and heavy, no lo-fi boom box recording here, the guitars are massive, thick and crunchy and buzzy, the vocals raw and primal, the keyboards and synths lush and shimmery, the drums somehow perfectly audible amidst all the buzz. And as with most black metal records, buzz is a key component, and here that buzz is all encompassing, warm and expansive, coating everything in its warm embrace. The slower tracks are definitely Burzumic, the lumbering riff, the plodding rhythm, underpinned by a gorgeous keyboard melody, the midtempo tracks are like a less weird Lifelover, the music hooky, and weirdly poppy, but still grim and black, slipping from melodic lilt to intense speaker shredding blowout, rare that a band, or man as the case may be is equally adept and crafting doomy dismal blackness AND intense blasting black metal. The ambient tracks are surprisingly effective, moving and lovely, most black metal bands use cheesy synth sounds, but here, those parts sound like antique music boxes, or the soundtrack to a soft snowfall in some forgotten forest, dark, and haunting, but definitely beautiful and breathtaking, only moreso when they lead directly into another intense burst of blackness. Some of the tracks are dangerously poppy, but the band manages to pull it off, channelling the sweeping sound of Katatonia, but adds some truly bizarre, almost robotic sounding vocals, which definitely sounds goofy, but in fact, the effect is anything but. It's more some sort of abstract alien doom, that is truly creepy and otherworldly. A few of the tracks are gorgeous sprawls of washed out sorrowful doom, but at least one shifts part way through into a strange pounding bit of minor key midtempo black metal, before slipping back into that depressive plod. It's really hard to do this music justice. It's at once so familiar, embodying so much of what we already love about this sort of music, at the same time, it manages to sound unlike anything we've heard before, every song manages to be both heavy and wistful, depressive, but weirdly rocking, as a whole it's an incredible, expansive song suite, culminating in the final track, a skittery glitched out ambient landscape, bits of static and hiss drift between simpler percussion, and a shuffling rhythm, moody minimal guitar, slightly twangy, all draped over a swoonsome bit of minor key drone, with a crunchy metallic middle, before slipping back into more skittery melancholic drift. So goddamn good. Quite possibly one of our new favorite records, black metal or otherwise!

MPEG stream: A Dream Of A Dead Sun
MPEG stream: Tortured By Solitude
MPEG stream: Winterreise

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We had a little bit of trouble making sense of this seemingly unlikely collaboration, at least conceptually, between legendary krautrocker Roedelius and Lloyd Cole. Yeah, THAT Lloyd Cole, as in '& The Commotions'. Apparently, Roedelius was a fan of Cole's music, and remixed one of his records, which he presented to Cole as a gift. Cole was so impressed, he suggested the two work on a proper record together, and voila, Selected Studies Volume 1 was the result. The sound definitely ends up landing closer to Roedelius than Cole, at least the Cole we remember - there are no vocals, the sound is blissy, playful, melodious, and sort of krautrocky definitely New Age-y. The opener "Pastoral" is just that, all percolating melodies, swirling shimmering ambience, soft swaths of chordal thrum, and chiming prismatic tones, dreamily glitchy, with a definite music box / lullaby vibe. Some tracks though are darker, and slightly more brooding, like "Selbstportrait-Reich", which wraps theremin-like minor key melodies around a looped, slo-mo Reichian backdrop, subtly tense, and a little cinematic, with a teensy bit of a futuristic / sci-fi vibe, but ultimately still quite lovely and ambient. "Wandelbar" adds some grit to a an amorphous swirl of droned out sound, the feel sort of Expo 70, all dark and kosmische, while "Still Life With Kannyu" sculpts tinkling pianos and blurts of analog synth into something washed out and tranquil that ends up not all that far removed from classic Eno ambience. And so it goes, a sprawling selection of dreamlike electronic experiments, ethereal ambient shimmer and spaced out soft focus psychedelic drift, most definitely rhythmic at times, always lush and textural, swirly and serene, hushed and haunting here and there, peppered with occasional bits of slightly sinister darkness, but tending toward a blissed out kosmische New Age dreaminess, albeit with at least one blast of surprisingly rambunctious, analog synth driven space aged grooviness. All in all, pretty cool stuff, and a surprising (at least to us) new side to Mr. Lloyd Cole!

MPEG stream: Pastoral
MPEG stream: Selbstportrait-Reich
MPEG stream: Wandelbar
MPEG stream: Fehmarn F/O

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SORRY. Coleclough's droning aesthetic was also heard on a collaboration done with Andrew Chalk last year, with an emphasis on surprisingly rich and beautiful tones emerging out of a very dark, quiet amplification. A clatter of distant pianos fades into bleak reverberations that hint at the catacomb recordings of Lustmord with field recordings filtering through. Coleclough's work seems to fall somewhere in between Organum's acoustic drones and Bernhard Gunter's requests for careful listening. Recommended drone work!

While the UK drone ensemble Ora dissolved a little over a year ago, its scattered members have been incredibly active with like-sounding projects: Andrew Chalk has been busy in Mirror, Darren Tate now works as Monos, Colin Potter has been collaborating

RealAudio clip: Cake 2 (excerpt 1)
RealAudio clip: Cake 2 (excerpt 2)

Another gorgeous release, both visually and sonically, from Idea records, this time from one of our favorite composers, Jonathan Coleclough. Coleclough has been responsible for some of the most beautiful drone records we have ever heard, and along with occasional partner Andrew Chalk produced one of Aquarius' all time favorite recordings, the breathtaking Sumac. Casino is the second entry in Idea Records series of unaltered field recordings and features two sidelong recordings, presented in their raw, unedited, and unprocessed form. Side one is a recording of a casino in Las Vegas and is a woozy, hypnotic wash of overlapping melodies swirled into a dense polyphony, the clicking and clattering of coins, the whir of slot machines and the rumble of muted conversations. While not necessarily soothing by themselves, all of those disparate elements blend into a dreamy, shimmery soporific whole. Side two is a recording of tree frogs in Antigua and displays a similar, albeit much simpler pattern as the Casino recordings, with a litany of high end squeaks over warbly lower pitched chirps all over a dense bed of shimmery distant scree. The accompanying cd further demonstrates the sonic similarities between the two recordings, by gradually mixing and crossfading the pleasing din of the casino into the latenight clamour of chirping and croaking frogs, and then eventually into the sound of crashing surf. The lp is on audiophile 220 gram vinyl, and the lp and cd are housed in a nice, thick gorgeously designed sleeve!

MPEG stream: Casino / Tree Frogs

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SORRY. After a number of beautifully designed albums (i.e. Period, Low Ground, Sumac, etc.), Jonathan Coleclough appears to have caught the same anti-packaging bug as fellow British drone artist David Jackman, by merely housing a CD in an empty case. Well at least, there's a touch of novelty to it, as he's used the same prest-o-matic plastic case with built-in ejector lever that Raster-Noton employed for the Cyclo collaboration between Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai. As clever as this device is, it nevertheless seems rather cheap. And some of us worry that it might scratch the cd although there has been no proof of that so far. If you look as the packing design as something which could unduly influence an interpretation of the music within, then design would be superfluous and unnecessary. I say bollocks to that! Give us something to look at while we drool over your music, Mr. Coleclough! And drool we did over the exquisite drones and atmospheres that Coleclough produced for Makruna. Tumbling through a langorous loop of deep piano notes entombed in thick washes of reverb, Makruna is a much darker album than what Coleclough typically produces. Throughout the pieces, Coleclough extracts fragments of those piano tones and elongates them into sympathetic harmonizations amidst additional textures of metallic scrapings and field recordings of bird choruses. Also featured on Makruna is the the entire Minya recording, which originally came out about five years ago as a super limited CDR. Featuring contributions from Colin Potter and Andrew Chalk, Minya is a worthy complement to the bleak isolationism of Makruna as shadowy drones flutter amongst subtle feedback vibrations and ominous low-end frequencies. The questionable packaging aside, this is another Coleclough record that comes highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Makruna
MPEG stream: Minya

Quite happy in releasing sporadic productions in painfully small pressings, Jonathan Coleclough has been one of Aquarius' favorite dronologist / deep listening composers and one who deserves a place in the experimental ambient pantheon that glorifies the work

One of Aquarius's favorite drone compositions, Jonathan Coleclough's "Period" was originally released early in 2001 as a limited edition piece of vinyl on Anomalous Records and has now been reissued with an extended mix of the title track that is better suited to the CD format. Coleclough began collecting field recordings and transforming them into emphathic dronescapes back in 1989, around the same time he began corresponding with Colin Potter about his ICR cassette projects. Since then, Potter and Coleclough have worked closely on a number of projects starting with Andrew Chalk and Darren Tate in Ora, and culminating more recently with their well-received "Low Ground" collaboration. "Period" again finds Coleclough employing the production / engineering talents of Potter (who has also been working quite intently with Steven Stapleton in Nurse With Wound). Throughout his career, Coleclough has defined himself as a sound organizer, modifying acoustic events and field recordings to enhance the emotional resonance that he finds in those sounds. Here on "Period," Coleclough draws all of his sounds from a Bluthner grand piano, surrounding the spartanly placed clusters of impressionistic notes with a complementary set of delicately fluctuating drones. Coleclough does well to accentuate the sublime reverberant decay that follows the piano's sustained tones. Furthermore, Potter offered his interpretation of the source material entitled "Periodic" which effectively erases the obvious references to the piano and leaves behind a densely tangled web of calm reverberations. As a whole "Period" stands as an amazingly rich and balanced piece of work on par with Brian Eno's "Thursday Afternoon" and the Cindytalk piano improvisations. Aquarius has also gotten in a limited number of the double CD sets of "Period" which features a third mix of "Period" by both Coleclough and Potter, and a gorgeous track called "Summand," which is a re-working of some of the source material that Coleclough brought to the "Sumac" sessions with Andrew Chalk. There's only 300 of those double CDs in print. Don't blame us when they sell out!

RealAudio clip: Period
RealAudio clip: Periodicity (with Colin Potter)
RealAudio clip: Summand

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SORRY. Jonathan Coleclough has become AQ's favorite newly discovered sound sculptor with three outstanding releases "Cake", "Sumac" (in collaboration with Andrew Chalk), and now "Windlass". In the end, it's probably irrelavant that the source material for "Windlass" is a slow moving crank which controls water flow on a dam, as Coleclough's metamorphosis of the original sound results in a deep sturnum rumbling bass drone paired with field recordings of distant twittering birds (a la Messaien). Swells of slowly churning resonance may be the only sonic reference to the metallic cycling of the source material. Highly recommended!!!

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SORRY. Released a few years back as a one-sided piece of vinyl, Jonathan Coleclough and Andrew Chalk's "Sumac" has been one of those hidden gems within the deep listening realms of music that has continuously amazing us. Fortunately, "Sumac" has re-emerged from obscurity with this lengthy 70 minute cd version. Andrew Chalk is a veteran of the noise / drone scene who has recorded with Organum, Ora, and Feral Confine. Working with upstart dronologist Jonathan Coleclough, Chalk has conjured a breathtaking memser of bowed metal wires, cymbals, and other pieces of metal with shifting chunks of backward masked slow aerated sound. "Sumac," shrouded in a glistening darkness, is one of the all-time great drone records.

Jonathan Colecough sure does like his collaborations! (And so do we.) We were first transfixed by his luminous dronescaping on the masterful Sumac album (currently unavailable) which paired his talents with Andrew Chalk who later went on to found the equally epochal drone ensemble Mirror. Since then, Coleclough has worked with Colin Potter on numerous ventures, Bass Communion, Tim Hill, and now with Japanese improviser Kuwayama Kiyoharu (aka Lethe). Kiyoharu is best known for his duets with violinist Kijima Rina in which the two respond to the reverberations and environmental ambience of warehouse spaces, highway underpasses, and other industrial zones. As Lethe, Kiyoharu's work concentrates more on the spatialization of actionist gestures in which he scrapes, shuffles, and bristles found objects in various locations and proximations to his microphones. Together, their work operates on a fairly simple trajectory as Coleclough sets forth an underlying drone upon which Kuwayama overlays his clamourous gestures. Starting off with a lulling isolationist tone, Coleclough's subtle shifts settle upon a lumbering sea of low frequencies; Kuwayama quietly introduces his scrabblings. Together, they add more and more sounds upon each other, as Coleclough offers some ring modulated electric frequencies not unlike Klaus Schulze's classic '70s desolation and as Kuwayama increases the density of his aggregate sounds. This builds up to a dramatic climax of clanging metals against concrete floors and psychoacoustically agitated drones that come to an abrupt halt. Afterwards, Coleclough sends the rest of the piece along a steady fluctuation of twin tones, and Kuwayama presents a delicate foray of acoustic clicks. It all makes for a wonderful album!

MPEG stream: Excerpt 1
MPEG stream: Excerpt 2

It's been nearly a year and a half since the venerable British drone composer Jonathan Coleclough has offered us something new; and this collaboration between Coleclough and Murmer (aka Patrick McGinley) is well worth the wait! The two met a couple years back after contributing works to the same compilation. Soon after, Coleclough began making regular contributions to McGinley's weekly radio series Framework for Resonance FM in London; and their continued communication sparked the interest for a collaboration. Much of the music found on Husk originated from semi-improvised sessions whereby the two processed various field recordings, small tactile events, and other electronic devices -- gradually developing beyond the gestural and into a monumental sprawling album which is in the running for best drone album of 2006. The two had cited their source material as refrigerators, thunderstorms, sheep, car horns, ferryboats, windblown sand, and crackling charcoal; and it's a crap shoot to discern which of these electrically blurred drones hails from an overheating kitchen appliance or from farm animals. Not that any of that really matters, as the art of Coleclough and McGinley is in their alchemy, transforming the commonplace into the celestial (albeit, a very dark and very cold heavenly body). Throbbing drones of low end harmonics are joined by secondary sustained timbres which undulate as polyamorous tangles, spreading rhizomes, and slippery knots bristling with tactility and spotted with plenty of hints of the organic. Each of the four tracks proposes a variation on glassine drones counterpointed by rasping textures, at times hedging for the subdued drama of smoldering crescendos and others the sublime stare at glacial immobility. Coleclough's work has always been exceptional, and his collaboration with Murmer is no different! Highly recommended.

MPEG stream: Husk
MPEG stream: Fieldwork
MPEG stream: Germ

Of all of the drone artists that Aquarius has championed, Jonathan Coleclough is one of our (and our customers') favorites. "Beech for John and Miho," another collaboration for Coleclough with saxophonist Tim Hill, does nothing to change our high opinion of this composer, and we highly recommend everybody who has been interested in Coleclough to pick this one up! Coleclough was originally commissioned to construct a short piece for a private wedding CD compilation alongside Joe Weismann, If Thousands, Jliat, and Space Machine. From what I can gather, there were a few copies of that compilation circulating around eBay at extremely high prices; thus, the release of "Beech" at this normal price should be a welcome relief for die-hard collectors. Furthermore, Coleclough has unravelled the original 15 minutes of sound into an epic 74 minutes, a time frame much better suited to the material at hand. Despite the lack of information about this composition, the sounds that Coleclough and Hill have been able to muster resemble those found on their previous collaborative album with Nurse With Wound's engineer Colin Potter entitled "Low Ground," opening up the possibility that the sources for "Beech" are saxophone and cello. Regardless of origin, Coleclough has stretched out the source material's intrinsic tonalities into a Phill Niblock-meets-Organum piece of maximalism. Coleclough presents a steady flux of sustained drones that may have been doubled, tripled, and quadrupled from a bow rippling across the strings of a cello. It's a beautiful hum that waxes and wanes on top of a constant background field of rapidly streaming glistens, shimmers, and miniature ruptures. This undercurrent of sound clangs like a distant school bell that rattles indefinitely, but situates itself as a transcendent, environmental complement rather than a toxic abrasion. "Beech" ultimately is an exceptional piece of dronemusic that is as good as Coleclough's universally acclaimed collaboration "Sumac" with Andrew Chalk.

MPEG stream: Beech For John and Miho (excerpt)

Much like the entire back catalogue of John Duncan, British avant-drone artist Jonathan Coleclough has often buttressed his work through an ongoing set of collaborations, each of which push his work into interesting territories while maintaining that essence of Coleclough that makes all of his albums so enthralling. His 2006 collaboration with Murmer was easily one of the best drone albums of that year, twisting field recordings and quiet sessions with electric objects into a gauzy, crepuscular blur that even made those at Artforum perk up their ears and listen. Torch Songs came to fruition when both Coleclough and Liles performed in Preston (probably at the request of the ever-charming Colin Potter) in 2005. In fact, much of the source material for Torch Songs originated from Coleclough's performance to which Liles went on to "add, subtract, multiply, and divide" further. The fundamentals of Torch Songs are primarily Coleclough's signature moves: swelling, resonant drones manipulated from acoustic sources and distilled into tonally vibrant beams of pure sound. Yet, Liles (who in and of himself is a fine technician of sonic alchemy to the point where he has often graced the stage alongside Steve Stapleton, Colin Potter, and Matt Waldron in Nurse With Wound) interjects his own sidereal gestures with wooden creaks, digital time stretching, radiant eruptions of dissonant couplings with Coleclough's drones, and occasional jaunts of heavily filtered tin-can and rubber-band rhythms that parallel much of the output from Liles' recent 12 part Vortex series. Yet for all of Liles' baroque flares for the sonically surreal, it is Coleclough who authors the strongest material on Torch Songs through his sublime use of the drone. The first 300 copies of Torch Songs comes with a bonus CD that documents Coleclough's aforementioned Preston performance back in 2005.

MPEG stream: Live at St. Peters (Extract)

Despite our allegiance to all things produced by British drone masters Jonathan Coleclough and Colin Potter, this double disc co-produced with Bass Communion (the solo project of No-Man's Steven Wilson) made us wince at the possibility that Coleclough and Potter had unwittingly stumbled down the path of New Age banality. To be fair to Bass Communion, our only previous encounter with him was a subpar remix album he did for Muslimgauze; providing a lasting impression of Bass Communion as something of a droll ambient contemporary of The Orb. Perhaps we were wrong, as the sprawling collaborations and mixes found here don't exhibit the fluffiness of New Age; but at the same time, some of the source materials do seem quizzically thin, with just a couple of woefully obvious synth tones looping indefinitely through a few eq filters. However, Bass Communion's mix of work by Potter and Coleclough is one of the stronger pieces, with a glacial pall settling upon fluctuating drones and downpitched miasma. Coleclough's first of two mixes is another of the album's highlights, with frozen elements chattering amidst a set of deep, dark ambient passages that would make Lustmord and Thomas Koner jealous. Andee's new favorite going-to-sleep album.

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Through his exceptional career that spans work in Ora, a handful of fantastic solo projects, and the AQ-favorite "Sumac" collaboration with Andrew Chalk, Jonathan Coleclough has mastered the harder-than-it-looks art of disguising how he constructs his epic droneworks. His recordings have always been marked by a vigilantly maintained resonance of acoustic phenomena, which appear not as ephemeral sonorities but rather as epochal, monumental tones. "Low Ground" -- recorded in collaboration with engineer extraodinaire Colin Potter (also of Nurse With Wound fame) and saxophonist Tim Hill -- is no exception to the Coleclough blueprints. That said, Coleclough has been slowly moving away from the Ora / Chalk purity of sound, with an increased interest in digitizing his drones. Under most circumstances, the presence of a saxophone on a drone album would make me cringe in agony; but thankfully, Coleclough's alchemy is so complete that you would be hard pressed to hear anything remotely sounding like a saxophone on "Low Ground." Instead, beautiful slowly aerated pulsations of ringing tones open this album, recalling the strangely comfortable sounds of a radiator pushing hot steam through archaic pipes on a cold winter eveneing. Coleclough and Potter gradually treat these sounds with some DSP actions (mostly timestreching and EQ-filtering) that pixelate into digital buzzings. "Low Ground" shifts from these sedate, transcendent metaphors into far more malevolent sci-fi scores, with the introduction of deep, menacingly low-end frequencies smattered with natural events of snapping twigs and trickling water. As the album draws to a close, Coleclough and Potter twist tiny slashes from the dark, slightly wavering drone into a majestic coda of those digitized radiator wheezes which opened the record. As wonderful as anything else that Coleclough has done. Very highly recommended.

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NEW ON MISSISSIPPI RECORDS. Just thought we'd get that out of the way, since it seems like folks want anything and everything this tiny Portland label releases, and for good reason, they have amazing taste for one, their records look and sound fantastic, and probably most importantly, most of their releases have never been available on vinyl before. Originally released on Arhoolie in 1969 (and still available from them on cd!), this lp features the collected wildness, weirdness and wisdom of one George Coleman, also known as Bongo Joe, on vinyl for the first time in AGES (you may remember Bongo Joe was on the bonus 7"s that originally came with the first pressing of the Mississippi release Life Is A Problem!) George Coleman is not called Bongo Joe because he plays the bongos, it's because, well no one is sure exactly, but he does play the drums, or more specifically, the giant oil barrel. Modified of course. Coleman's instrument of choice is a 55 gallon oil drum, its sound customized by dents and bulges and tears created with a small axe. He beats this oil drum with hammer handles, the bottom of the barrel filled with sand and buckshot to create a sort of rattle. And while that might be amazing on its own, it's Coleman's singing, or rapping, or whatever it is, probably somewhere right in between that really seals the deal. When former aQ staffer Byram worked here this was his FAVORITE record and he played it incessantly, and we all eventually grew to love it, a totally wacked stripped down freaky funky sort-of-steel-drum rhythm and blues, Coleman calls it "fundamental beat music", as played by a crazy Texas street musician, who has plenty to say about pretty much everything, and does so quite eloquently, and a bit confusionally, a wild unhinged delivery that some folks around here have likened to Wesley Willis, but we think it's way more soulful, like James Brown crossed with Screamin' Jay Hawkins, imagine one of those guys jamming with Moondog, and voila! Bongo Joe played all over Texas, once with Dizzy Gillespie, for presidents, for Muhammad Ali, in front of the Alamo, he eventually ended up in San Antonio after a retirement community complained about the racket he was making outside. And at one point he shot a man who he thought was going to rob him while he was performing. Woah. But none of that matters as much as the music, and the music is amazing. Far out and funky, rhythmic and stripped down, wild and strange and beautiful and pretty much unlike anything else you'll ever hear. [Fair warning, Mississippi is a pretty DIY operation, so very often the lps are not in absolutely perfect condition, the records themselves are immaculate, but sometimes the sleeves have slightly bent corners or something similar, all very minor, but super vinyl collector nerds beware]

Boston thereminist James Coleman comes from the very spartan school of improvisational "new music" alongside John Wall, Phil Durrant, and the Durian label. Coleman's spartan wisps of tones from the theremin (that early electronic instrument played without touching it, rather by manipulating the electrical waves emitting from it) accompany a number of guest musicians including Greg

Reissued mid-'70s Ornette album, featuring an ensemble consisting of, among others, Bern Nix, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and the Master Musicians of Jajouka! Important music from a jazz pioneer. Includes a previously unreleased bonus track (an alternate take of "Midnight Sunrise).

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Originally released in 1961, this is the first domestic cd issue of Ornette Coleman's This is Our Music! As many fans of experimental jazz already know, alto saxophonist Coleman pioneered a particular brand of improvisation, giving equal weight to

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Not sure why, but we never really paid much attention to Louisville sluggers Coliseum, they maybe seemed too punk, or something, whatever it was, we're sort of kicking ourselves now, cuz this new one, their third, is a serious barnburner, although from what we hear their sound has changed quite a bit, still punk for sure, but super melodic, a bit metallic, and catchy as all get out. Maybe somewhere between the pop sludge of Torche, the muscly cock rock of Turbonegro and the post Kyuss hard rock of Queens Of The Stoneage, big chugging churning guitars, crushing powerhouse drums, killer hooks, thick fuzzed out bass, and the vocals, probably the most distinctive element, a harsh raspy howl that manages to be fierce and melodic, rough and raw, super intense and emotional, perfectly paired up with the throb and crush of the music pounding away beneath. The more we listen to this, the more these songs get stuck in our heads, and the more we dig 'em! Features guest spots from Bonnie Prince Billy and members of Jawbox, Rodan, Squirrel Bait, Shipping News and Rachels, a sort of who's who of Louisville underground rock...

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Holy shit these guys just keep getting better and better. Record number four finds this Louisville trio about as melodic as they've ever sounded, but still pretty goddamn heavy, and a lot more punk than last time around actually, with a massive production courtesy of Jawbox's J. Robbins, which perfectly suits their sound, giving even the poppiest jams some serious heft, and making the whole record sound equal parts classic nineties math/noise rock, chugging post punk and sludge pop heaviness a la Torche. In our review of the last Coliseum, we compared their sounds as being a strange mix of Torche, Turbonegro and Queens Of The Stone Age, which might still apply a bit, but to these ears, the new Coliseum has definitely shifted to something much more punk, managing to fuse their new found poppiness, with the urgent, punk fury of their earlier records, and while not as overtly and immediately catchy, it's a sound that suits them, the crunchy guitars, the gruff yowled vocals, the dense, hard hitting drumming, the thick buzzing bass, and the songs, super reminiscent of another era, the nineties, a sound/era/scene that we (and they) seem still pretty connected too. Not hard to imagine this record coming out on Homestead or Touch And Go back in the day, there's lots of brooding gloominess going on too (check out "Love Under Will"), lots of low slung bass driven groovery, and chugging churning punkiness, it's the sort of sound we often lament doesn't really exist anymore, and when bands do try to channel it, they often fail spectacularly, but these guys kill, and are out of time masters of that sound, a sound we love now as much as we did then. Like their last record, Coliseum called in all sorts of favors so the guest roll call is a serious indie who's who, Wata from Boris, Jason Loewenstein from Sebadoh, Jason Farrell from Swiz and Bluetip, and Elizabeth Elmore from Sarge - her contribution maybe our favorite, her vox a good balance for Ryan Patterson's gruff bellow, almost wish she sang with him on all the tracks...

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

SORRY.

Here's the debut from this French dreami-tronica artist aka Cecile Schott. Ultra blissed out and lovely compositions crafted from an array of keyboards, music boxes, glockenspiels and guitars. Nice!

Golden Morning Breaks is the second album from Parisian electronic-folk abstractionist Colleen (alias Ms. Ceclie Schott). Her first record -- Everyone Alive Wants Answers -- made use of a plethora of keyboards, music boxes, glockenspiels and guitars, astounding many a listener with her playful if occasionally dark constructions of post-Harold Budd / Brian Eno ambience. Golden Morning Breaks picks up where that earlier album left off with gentle music box-y electronica that depending on your state of mind can be thought of as light'n'summery or creepily unsettling a la '70s Italian horror movie soundtracks. Regardless, this is lovely stuff.

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[ aquarius records catalogue — C ]