[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 1 through 50 of 2079.

Pleasant, soundscapey abstract electronica from Soul Static head honcho Darryl "D" Moore (who we admire for his collaboration with To Rococo Rot). Nice, but a bit short for a purported "full-length": 5 tracks, 20 minutes.

The latest from Tokyo's PSF label isn't one of their usual offerings of free jazz, outsider improv folk, or garage psych... it's not even "Japanese noise". It's actually Chinese noise. Not that that sounds much different from the Japanese variety! The oddly named D!O!D!O!D! are a raucous n' rowdy guitar and drums duo hailing from Hangzhou, China. Guitarist Li-Jianhong and drummer Huang Jin lay it on thick here, freaking out with the best of 'em. Crashing, clattering drum battery versus scrabbling, feedback guitar overload. Non-stop madness. If loud n' noisy improv is your thing, if you dig Hijokaidan and Ascension and Rudolph Grey and Harry Pussy and suchlike skronk and skree, you'll be happy PSF hooked up with these two frenzied Chinese noisniks to bring you this disc. Includes liner notes in English translation.

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We thought the last few weeks of 2014 would be spent just compiling our year end best of lists and revisiting our favorite records of the year. Little did we know one of the best records of the year would be released in those final days of the year which grabbed us on first listen and has had us hooked ever since. It had been 14 years since his last album was released and while we knew he had started to play live again we didn't know when a new record would emerge. The timing for the release of Black Messiah couldn't have been more perfect and much needed. In the aftermath of the grand jury decision in Ferguson, and the choking death of Eric Garner, the nation and our collective psyche were in desperate need of some healing and deeply conscious music that could lift our spirits while being steadfast to its awareness of the reality of the times. Musically this is the most forward and left-field leaning of D'Angelo's releases. Psychedelic soul drenched in warmth, reverb, and unpredictable twists, turns, and instrumentation. This is one of those records that unites music lovers of all variations. Whether your a soul fanatic or a psych rock lover this is a record that breaks down barriers and digs into the skin with deep impact. There is so much to take in from the dense recording, so repeated listens become ever so rewarding. There's no doubt with Black Messiah, D'Angelo has created a musical masterpiece that will stand next to legendary works by folks like Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Prince, and Sly & The Family Stone.

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An improv duo from Brooklyn, New York. D'Angelo (who has several solo recordings to his credit) plays alto sax and bass clarinet, whilst Fennelly plays double-bass. But both guys also manipulate their acoustic sounds electronically. Doubtless they could stir

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Another slab of awesome eighties style electro new wave digital funk dreaminess, from a mysterious Canadian, released by the label that brought us Games and White Car. Layered synths, pulsing minimal beats, all drifting beneath reverbed soulful vox, a bit like a more electro/new wave How To Dress Well (a recent AQ Record Of The Week), the music leaning more toward the Goblin/Carpenter/Zombi axis, sort of futuristic retro sci-fi soundtracky, slipping from droning electronic psychedelia, to pounding big beat to almost '80s MTV style electronic pop, the vocals drawing it all together, and weirdly enough, reminding us quite a bit of Peter Gabriel, as if someone took those old classic Gabriel records, and time machined them into the body and soul of some modern music maker, who created the same music, but filtered through a slightly cracked, modern avant electronic music lens, the result a psychedelic electronic retro pop, equal parts new wave, old soul, eighties pop, synth wave and dream pop. Nice!

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PHTHALO 18. D84 is the work of local powerbook technician Blevin Blechtum (one half of Blechtum From Blechdom along with Kevin Blechdom... just to keep everything straight). For another non-CDr release from Phthalo (keep 'em comin' Dmitri!), D84 massproduces percolating electronic rhythmic inventions culled from lots of expressive sample manipulations. Layers of buzzing electrostatic droning flange nervously next to references to the stochatic electronics of academic circles (after all both Blechtum & Blechdom did go to Mills). Fans of Matmos are requested.

An impressive third album! The trio known as D. W. Holiday (yes, they're a band not an individual!) have been around since 1992. For well over a dozen years, they've been crafting their particular brew of darkly brooding spacey rock. Brings to mind a cross between the Flaming Lips, Pink Floyd and maybe Animal Collective too. A novel side note: there will soon (if not already) be two versions of this band -- one here in SF (the local roster currently includes former members of two other Bay Area bands, ex-Slow Poisoners drummer Chris and Ex-Bother bassist/guitarist Djuna) and one in Minneapolis -- with different lineups playing the same set of songs and everything. The reason? Band member Craig recently moved east, and simply didn't want to sever his longstanding musical ties.

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Of all the dark, drone-y, druggy synthiness that's been popping up lately (and believe us, it's a LOT), this lp from mysterious Los Angeles duo D.A. is most definitely our favorite. A heady collection of dark and dreary, lush and spaced out sci-fi synth creep that tapes into classic Goblin soundtrack music, the best John Carpenter scores, and mixes in plenty of modern lysergic lo-fi experimentation, conjuring up some of the most tense and dramatic and hypnotic sounds we've heard in ages. Like some strange mix of Zombi and Expo '70, but with a hint of new age-y drift that makes these songs sound like they could only be the music from some lost eighties film, only the visuals could never hope to match this haunting otherworldly music. Looped synths are looped into slow shifting swells, pulsing over a bed of softly swirling minor key tension, alien tones, blurred buzz and dense shimmery drones, shot through with moody melodies, laced with super spare abstract percussion and everything wrapped in a gauzy warmth, total kraut drone new age soundtrack bliss. The second side changes gear toward the end, evolving into a sound akin to Godspeed meets Zombi meets SUNNO))), a thick thick buzz wrapped around twisted looped melodies and all sorts of simulated haunted forest sound effects, growing ever more harrowing, ominous and dramatic, and surprisingly, yet subtly heavy. The flipside is much more minimal and abstract than the A side, but no less intense and mysterious. Reverbed piano is sent drifting into blackness, tons and tons of space, softly wheezing organs, deep muted tones, that distinctly eighties sounding bass pulse, long thick swirls of softly distorted synth buzz, tinkling high end tones, all of that gives way to another thick, and surprisingly heavy space synth drone, a starlit slow motion swirl, abstract, super space-y, dark and emotional, tense and INtense, it still boggles the mind that filmmakers aren't constantly on the lookout for groups like this, whose cinematic soundtrack ambience is way more compelling and original and ruling than 90 percent of the music that actually ends up in movies. But who needs the movies, best to just throw this on, close your eyes, and let these sounds ooze into your consciousness, creating a fantastical and unreal world all for you, populated with far out sights, worthy of these far out sounds. Incredible hand silk screened, ultra thick card stock sleeves, LIMITED TO 400 COPIES, each one hand numbered.

Deutsch Amerikansiche Freundschaft (German American Friendship) or better known as D.A.F. were one of those key early electronic groups that provided the missing link between Cold Wave Minimalism and German Industrial Techno. They, themselves called it EBM or Electronic Body Music. Formed in 1977, out of weirdo art music outfit, Der Plan, D.A.F. started out as a five piece group pioneering the new wave of German Industrial music two years before Einsturzende Neubauten. But after their first two albums, the group quickly slimmed themselves down into the efficient two man sequencer team of Robert Gorl and Gabi Delgado. Playing up themes of Nazi fetishization and hardcore homosexual sex, with the spare and sometimes brutal production of krautrock pioneer, Conny Plank, D.A.F.'s songs were massive underground club hits in the early eighties. If anyone remembers John Dwyer's shortlived "fauxmosexual" industrial-electro joke band, Zeigenbock Kopf, he pretty much ripped D.A.F. off wholesale, if somewhat poorly! This "best of" covers the three records D.A.F. made for Virgin between 1980-1982, Alles Ist Gut, Gold Und Liebe, and Fur Immer, altogether ignoring their Industrial beginnings (sadly), as well as their later 2006 incarnation (thankfully). But it is this fertile period that D.A.F. became famous for, and it's probably a more consistent listen as a whole than if all periods of the group were represented. Fans of groups like Cold Cave, Cut Copy or any of the coldwave / post-punk comps from Belgium, France and Germany, should definitely check this out!

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Ah-ha! The first D.A.F. record! And boy, was it quite a surprise to hear this one. D.A.F. began in 1978 as a post-krautrock outfit from Dusseldorf, with Robert Gorl, Kurt "Pyrolator" Dahlke, Wolfgang Spelmans, Michael Kemner, and Gabi Delgado originally calling themselves You; but with another German band snatching up the name and releasing the mighty fine album Electric Day in the same year, they decided upon Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft as the new name. A couple of band members were not all too pleased with Gabi Delgado's vocals and lyrics, and he was promptly sacked after their first attempt in the studio. Delgado returned to the band a year later when a few of his detractors left, and he became the iconic frontman for the stripped down D.A.F. with Robert Gorl. That incarnation of D.A.F. spawned an aggressive synth-punk sound that dominated the more abrasive side of new wave throughout the '80s; but this instrumental, motorik album is an entirely different beast. While electronics do make some interesting punctuations to the D.A.F. sound, they were fundamentally a damaged art-rock band with a rhythm section well versed in the classic Can, Neu!, and early Kraftwerk records from earlier in the decade, but they also exploded with slashing guitars, pummelling basslines, and an aggressive angularity that responded to the American contemporaries like DNA and Pere Ubu. Could this influence from American degenerate art-rock be an explanation for the name of the band? In any case, threads of this first D.A.F. record certainly look forward to the likes of Sonic Youth and Circle. The album is a collection of 22 untitled extracts from what seemed to be an exhausting recording session of constantly accelerating rhythmic marches with jagged-toothed guitar riffs that get pretty heavy and churning at times (even reminding us of instru-metallers Gore!), with plenty of interludes of amplifier feedback and spark-plug noise bursts. Part krautrock, part no-wave and new-wave, all rad. Not what we would have expected from their first album, but this is totally an excellent record!

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Back in 2004 D.W. Holiday released their third album Technical Difficulties, Under The Influence. At that time the core members Craig Clarke and Daniel Crowell made it known that they were going to become a two city musical entity with full bands performing under the same name in SF and Minneapolis. Now two years later they're ambitions carry on into the recorded realm with the gorgeous, shimmering, magical Fish And Flying Creatures. D.W. Holiday blossoms luminous like a deep sea jellyfish, bringing together sumptuous orchestral pop with slightly twee male vocals (a la Flaming Lips or Sparklehorse) and atmospheric shoegazerly guitar washes (like Spiritualized or Jesus And Mary Chain). So haunting and lovely! One thing though, while we're all for the insertion of incongruous elements, the odd IDM track that pops up halfway through the album seemed like a rather jarring interruption. Ah, but it is a minor bump in what is for the most part a languidly swirling shadowy affair.

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No one wanted to like Eminem, but we all sort of did, at least musically (definitely not lyrically/politically) and the same holds true for Eminem's 'band' D12. With all the hype and the controversy, you just sort of want to pretend they don't exist, but

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Please please do not be deterred (as we almost were) by the fact that this was released on Chicks On Speed's label. Although we're admittedly not the biggest fans of those gals' music, we've gotta give them props for good taste. Besides this sounds absolutely nothing like C.O.S.! Ana Da Silva was one of the original members of the seminal post-punk female band The Raincoats, and this is her first solo release. We're happy to report that although this is quite different and considerably more delicate music than that of her old band, some of those Raincoats angularities still linger. The subtly eccentric minimal folk pop of The Lighthouse comes across as sounding not unlike a wonderful hybrid of Bjork, Young Marble Giants and maybe even some early Residents too. This truly solo effort (she wrote, performed and produced it all herself) is comprised of vocal songs (standouts include "Running In The Rain" and the title track) and a beautiful instrumental titled "Hospital Window" (a video is included for this song too!) -- all of which she crafted on both acoustic and electronic soundmakers that flicker and flutter like moth wings near candlelight. If you've taken a liking to the recent avant-folk scene (Joanna Newsom, Vetiver, Devendra Banhart and many of the Jewelled Antler Collective) and/or find the abovementioned artists tickling your fancy, do yourself a favor and grab this now! Recommended!

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Every now and again, it's always healthy to rock out to some good, old fashion, trashy, hard hitting, fuzz drenched garage rock. All the better if the band is trashy as heck, we're talkin' Stooges meets the Misfits, or something like that. Either way, Da Willys is a garage punk machine, too cool for school with a KILLER female vocalist who sounds remarkably like to Danzig. YES! Pretty straight-forward stuff, guitar driven songs full of drunken swagger and bad boy (or girl) aggression and raw energy. Exactly how we like it.

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"Showroom Dummies" is the latest performance piece developed by the Grenoble, France dance company Groupe DACM. The acclaimed organization is known for its maverick and unorthodox approach in their use of new media and radical experimentation. Don't know too much about the full story behind "Showroom Dummies", the images accompanying the Mego packaging bring to mind a macabre Vanessa Beecroft performance. In conceptual essence, it places characters -- based on icons of fiction Wanda Von Sacher-Masoch and Yvonne, Princess Of Burgundy -- in situations of submission and resistance, studying the fine line between desire and disgust. In their attempt to complement the confrontational nature within these themes of repulsion and erotism, Groupe DACM had employed the notoriously abrasive (and confrontational in his own right!) Peter Rehberg aka Pita. Unlike the full on scathing aural tornado prevalent in his solo recordings and with Ramon Bauer, Rehberg splices snippets of his aural shrapnel into rhythmic repetitive patterns of subtlety. Perhaps the involvement of Japanese musician Noriko Tujiko in early constructions of the pieces could explain the reserved intensity. However, this release does not credit her for any part of the production, though she is given an acknowledgement of gratitude. Having said that, Rehberg is still extremely effective in his own attempt to exploit the dichotomy of harshness within a docile and inviting arrangement, the pieces here subversively insert a sense of intemperance in a "safe" habitat. Somewhat suspicious of his intent in creating linear cosmopolitan "dance music" under the guise of performance art, some of these pieces could very well be mistaken for fluid dancefloor rhythm tracks, aesthetically resembling a chance meeting between Pan Sonic and Merzbow (like that hasn't happened before). At least one track is an obviously deconstructed trance techno track, pummeled out of its own melody into another dimension. Ultimately, Rehberg regurgitates these consummations into his own beast child. Frigid and austere, yet wholly engaging and seemingly harmless on its surface, "Showroom Dummies" lures you into its web only to chew you up and spit you back out. Lovely.

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How can a country with a population as small as Australia produce so much heaviness?? Grey Daturas, Whitehorse, Fire Witch and now Dad They Broke Me, who just might be the heaviest of the bunch. Seriously blown out, black-hole-heavy doom dirge sludge, lurching, lumbering, pummeling, pounding, guitars thick and corrosive and black as pitch, tuned WAY down, the drums a crashing, rib cage rattling battery, the vocals, bile spewing demonic shrieks and guttural monstrous bellows, the songs dense and intricate, mathy and metal, proggy and convoluted, lots of stuttery start stop, bursts of feedback, churning chugging riffage, long stretches of rumbling buzz, think Eyehategod, Unsane, Khanate, Corrupted, Zeni Geva and the like, a glorious AmRep style noise rock / extreme doom / Southern sludge hybrid, but way more filthy and crusty and droned out and hypnotically brutal and bleak, with occasional bursts of murky muddy grind, and total tranced out downtuned dirgery, easily one of the meanest, heaviest discs in recent memory, and most definitely a new favorite amongst the aQ heavies. LIMITED TO 150 COPIES, housed in a folded cardstock sleeve, with a sticker cover front and back, a printed insert, each one hand numbered.

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For years, Darren Tate has made his way into Colin Potter's studio for help in reconstructing field recordings and improvised events for both the dronological investigations of Ora and Monos. Rarely would you find in those recordings much indication that Potter has amassed a huge battery of analogue synths, effects, and filters. This is the first document for the Potter / Tate project Dada Lives which focuses upon that collection of gear. The instrumentation has changed from manipulated field recordings to analogue synths, but the compositional tactics of slow hypnotic drones remains. Plastic bleeps fire through slow proccessions of aerated electronic sweeps, sounding a lot like the '70s era Conrad Schnitzler recordings. Limited to a whopping 50 copies.

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Reissued courtesy of the Dug Out label run by Mark Ernestus of Basic Channel and Mark Ainsley of Honest Jon's comes this beautiful 1974 work of reggae roots spiritual music unlike any we've ever heard. Deep and heady, slowly unfolding over four long tracks (most of them exceeding the 10 minute mark, and all melding into one another), it carries an earthy psychedelic vibe that unfurls like incense smoke over an expansive desert. With rolling bass, nyabinghi (ceremonial hand percussion), piano and spaced out guitar washes that weave around the central rhythm and vocalist Ras Michaels spiritual incantation like singing. We can see folks who are into bands like Om, Bright Black Morning Light, Sun Araw, or the hippie head trips of early Dr. John or Bruce Palmer getting way into this. Probably one of the most mystically stoned Jamaican head burners we've heard in a long time. Amazing!

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Aquarius Records is proud to present the newest in field recording fuckery: "Daddy's Curses". The disc is exactly as the title implies, a recording of someone's father cussing his brains out. Apparently, in 1987, someone by the name of Ethan Perry

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This collaboration between Howie B and Naked Funk is surprisingly good, reminding us of Two Lone Swordsmen-style melodic expansive electronica.

With so much of San Francisco's music scene lately dominated by blown out garage rock and charming garage pop it's kind of refreshing to encounter a local band operating in a completely different orbit. Dadfag carry the spirit of dirty, sloppy and dangerous damaged punk. Like Lydia Lunch jamming with The Fall and Flipper or Pretty On The Inside era Hole. Scenic Abuse is filled with urgent and irreverent sounds that tap into the more warped and reckless side of artpunk glory. Like early Bikini Kill stripped of its righteousness and doused instead in danger and unpredictability. We love how within their uptempo, fully charged, fucked up sound there is still room for variety, as they show different sides to their sound throughout the record. We're also reminded a bit in spirit of the now defunct San Francisco relentless noise punk band So So Many White White Tigers. We're always stoked to see folks find a way to use the influence of punk in a way that doesn't feel tired or played out, and Dadfag have succeeded quite nicely in bringing their own energy and vision to a legacy that will always ring so loud and true.

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Daedelus has such great taste! From the cover art (a frame borrowed from Winsor McCay's classic Little Nemo In Slumberland comic strip) to the wide range of influences, you can these all shape his amazing and eclectic blend of uber smart and sharp post modern electronica/hip-hop. While some folks like Scott Herren (Prefuse 73, Savath & Savalas, etc) need many side projects to fit the needs of a particular sound & style they want to explore, Daedelus has mastered bringing it all together under one colorful umbrella. Brazilian mamba meets warped out glitches meets post rock momentum meets anything and everything. From start to finish this album has lifted us into the air and into a world where you keep moving and the colors keep changing and somehow it always makes perfect sense. This is for sure the most assured and coherent album in an already impressive back catalog. Daedelus has proven with this release that he is a creative musical mind fresh in his prime.

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L.A. native Alfred Weisberg-Roberts is Daedelus, and he apparently wasn't as sure about the success of this project as was Dimitri from the Phthalo label, who claims he had to pry this out of Weisberg-Roberts fingers in order to release it. "Her's Is> [sic]" is a dark electronic narrative riddled with strange answering machine recordings from a dosed-up raver girl who thinks she's a poet. Rapid rhythmic cuts and muddled electronic calliope melodies mutate into the harsh, almost industrial aesthetic of the early Rephlex catalogue. For an electronic record, this has the uncanny lo-fi feel, as if this album's originated on a 4-track rather than a computer. Odd to say the least. We haven't yet decided who (Alfred or Dimitri?) was right about the merits of this recording...

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SORRY. We all loved Donnie Darko. And apparently so did Boom Bip and Daedelus, who decided to get together and make a couple tracks inspired by and perhaps borrowing from the film. Boom Bip's side is a throbbing ambient wash, like listening to Crash Worship scoring a love scene from Sixteen Candles. Propulsive tribal drumming underpins huge shifting slabs of new wave-tinged ambience, minor key and melancholy. Sounds like it could have been lifted wholesale from the actual score! Daedelus' track is a skittery moody, down tempo late night electronica workout. Hip hop infused soundscapes, dreamy and dark with gorgeously mournful piano (sampled from the film) sounding like a track Shadow could've come up with in his prime. Limited to 2000 copies, never to be repressed.

This spartan new music / improvisation trio, made up of Durian founders Werner Dafeldecker and Uli Fussenegger, both on acoustic bass, and Dieter Kovacic adding curious soundtexts on slow moving turntables (much like Otomo Yoshihide's turntables at a turtle's pace) create an album that is more creaking textures and subtle tones, than musical passages.

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Bowed bass tones, sustained pipe organ chords. "Lichtgeschwindigkeit" is another attempt at attaining the drone supreme, and it's a good one, evocative of absolute darkness -or- blinding light, either way totally all-encompassing. This disc from Austrians Werner Dafeldecker (whom we've encountered before playing with the likes of Dean Roberts, Taku Sugimoto, Christian Fennesz, Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm and many others) and Klaus Lang (whom we haven't) is a slowly developing, moodily pulsating, hour-long dronescape broken into seven tracks. Blissful, yet haunting. Gently soothing, yet massively ominous. There's enough variation soundwise to hold one's interest for the full hour -- for instance, the foghorn sounds and whistling blips of track five stand apart from the depths-of-space hiss of track six. We're told this was recorded in a church, on a snowed-in winter night. That seems about right. Recommended to all drone/improv fans for sure!

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It's been over 6 months since Daft Punk played in San Francisco but anyone who was there will never forget it. Daft Punk proved they are one of the greatest live experiences on the planet. From an immaculate trance inducing light show, to a futuristic pyramid shaped console that they were housed in and then of course the loud, supremely danceable songs that they blasted through the amphitheater as thousands of people grinning wildly, completely let themselves go, dancing with ecstasy and an adrenalized joy that we rarely ever get to experience. Alive 2007 captures that show (and that recent tour) perfectly. It's pretty much the same set they played here as they morph many of their songs into one new track which gives a new life to many of their already well known songs from their three albums. We're sure that at least one Daft Punk record has found its way into your subconscious (Discovery will always be our favorite!) as they are a duo who have discovered an amazing way to be accessible to such a wide range of people (ravers, metal heads, hip-hop kids, gay club scene, indie rockers, ordinary joes, etc) yet create music with such charged and creative energy. They manage to bring elements of disco, prog, house, psychedelia, funk and rock to a level of ecstatic heights rarely reached in popular music. Long live Daft Punk!!!

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Ha! Ha! Ha!!! It comes with a fucking credit card! A credit card, forsooth! What a bunch of scrubs.

Man, what is it about Daft Punk that makes me want to take my clothes off and freak out like a retarded art-school girl?! Actually, I kinda wish this record, their third, was as dynamic as their last album, Discovery. Some of the tracks on Human After All, however, quickly get into their perfectly produced ironirock/electro groove, then just kind of sit in em for a while, then it stops and a new song begins this process again. But whatever, HAA maintains that awesomely big, totally sexy, electrorockified sound. Robot Rock might be my fave, like a perfect blend of Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue and Def Leppard. Oui c'est bon!!!! Our French duo, Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo and Thomas Bangalter, obviously enjoy what they do and make music for the sake of making music, sorta like post-modern musical-pharmacists. So tune-in, turn-on and drop-out man.

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The future funk robots are back and they brought with them an arsenal of legendary guests: Electronic euro-disco king Giorgio Moroder, Phantom of the Paradise and AM Gold madman Paul Williams, and Chic's Nile Rodgers who reigns over what will definitely be THE summer jam this year, "Get Lucky" with Pharell. Panda Bear of Animal Collective and Julian Casablancas from The Strokes round out the special guest roster. In the eight years since their last effort, the duo decided to eschew the computer technology of today and instead recorded the whole album in analog direct to tape, rewiring modern dance music with a fresh prog-disco retro sheen. Basically, school's out kids, here's your candy. Bright, delicious, electric candy. Vinyl is 180 gram, includes digital download; the cd is not quite so thick and is its own digital download.

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It's kind of hard to review this objectively. As of right now, we're exactly 17 hours away from seeing a movie we've been waiting more than 20 years for, and we can barely write reviews, except for the fact that if we don't get the list done early, we won't get to go see TRON, and we know it's gonna be amazing. Some of us already have plans to see it 3 times, once in 3D, once in a normal theater, and once on the IMAX, the previews look incredible, and the music we'd heard sounded incredible. What a great idea, who better to do the music for the new Tron than a couple of guys who look like they just stepped straight out of the movie anyway. Helmeted and futuristic, makes sense that they play DJs in the movie as well. But we digress. We'd heard nothing but complaints and gripes about Daft Punk's score for Tron Legacy, most directed at the fact that it sounded more like a soundtrack than a Daft Punk record. Which makes sense, but that's just us. To be fair, much of the soundtrack, doesn't sound like Daft Punk at all, so for sure, folks after a Daft Punk record, you may just be disappointed. But Tron obsessives, well, shit, you either already bought this, or didn't even get this far cuz you already tossed it in your cart. For everyone else, Daft Punk have crafted a pretty excellent score, instead of Daft Punking all the music, they actually worked with a real orchestra, and tried to create a classic score, a la John Williams, or Hans Zimmer, and to these ears, it sounds pretty great, soaring and epic and lush and evocative, and there's plenty of electronics, sometimes melded to tense strings, othertimes wrapped around orchestral swells, and occasionally left alone to create John Carpenter like synthscapes. It's not until about halfway through that it gets remotely Daft Punky, "End Of Line" is a brooding, moody, bit of propulsive sci-fi synthery, "Derezzed" is THEE jam, the one that you've no doubt heard by now, and the only REAL Daft Punk sounding track, but it's killer. Can hardly wait to see what's going on in the movie during this song, and finally, the end titles, which sound like Daft Punk doing their best eighties straight to video sci-fi VHS video jam and it rules, but beyond that, it's way more soundtracky, than Daft Punky. We've been listening to this like crazy, and digging it big time, even removed from the movie, it sounds great, but more than anything, it has us DYING a little bit more every minute to finally see the movie! Comes in super futuristic reflective Tron style packaging!

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Doth our ears deceive us? Have we been hurtled screaming backwards across the astral plane to the mythical hard rock glory age? To a time spoken of only in forgotten whispers and ancient half recalled prophecy?? An age mortal man knows only as... 1978??? Well, if track 6 on this mystical Swedish rocker of an album is anything to go by, which is LITERALLY called "1978" and references the album titles of at least 11 classic hard rock lp that came out that same year (sample line: "We wanted blood, and we got it for sure / Alive and dangerous, coming back for more!"), then yeah I think it's safe to say aQ HQ has been transformed into some sort of space-time hopping heavy metal Tardis. But let's back up a bit here. Who are these Nordic axe warriors, striding forth from the mists in their flared jeans and denim shirts embroidered with moons and stars (we assume anyway)? Well, surprisingly The Dagger is a Swedish death metal supergroup of sorts! Featuring past and present members of such grave gurgling stalwarts as Grave, Dismember and Nifelheim. But instead of decrepit blast beats & grinding death dirges, this album is chockfull of the kind of late '70s / early '80s hard rockin' heavy metal that we absolutely eat up here at aQuarius. It's pretty heavy on the homage to be sure, but it's done so well and with such genuine joy and enthusiasm that we don't mind one bit. Not to mention The Dagger's reference points build on a hard rock legacy that seldom gets its due from modern bands. As much we love doom metal around here, we'll be the first to admit it can be sort of hard to get excited about a band regurgitating the same Black Sabbath riffs and Ozzy aping vox unless it's done really exceptionally well. But when a band like The Dagger shows up instead sounding almost exactly like some sort of mash up of NWOBHM, early Scorpions, '80s Sabbath, solo Dio and especially '70s Deep Purple/Rainbow (there's even a song called "Skygazer"... hmm... more than a little similar to Rainbow's "Stargazer", eh?!), we're gonna immediately stand up and take notice! This is thing is bursting with Blackmore-ian minstrel harmonies and Uli-esque mystical swaying grooves. Vocalist Jani Kataja is almost a dead ringer for Ian Gillan (which is no small feat!), his strained, bluesy wail lending the songs a serious timeless world weariness, even at the most up tempo of times of which there are plenty. There's swirling Hammond organ, there's talk of "dark gypsy women", there's boogie-woogie numbers, there's Judas Priest style fist pumpers, there's crumbling doomy groovers, hell there's even a Quartz cover, "Mainline Riders"! In short, it's a rusted cauldron bubbling over with everything great about '70s dragon rock. Is it terribly original? Maybe not. But are you gonna find another band that sounds like The Dagger any time soon? Not from this decade you ain't. Recommended.

MPEG stream: Ahead Of You All
MPEG stream: Ballad Of An Old Man
MPEG stream: 1978

Last list (#249) we reviewed the quite lovely Hundloka, Flockblomstriga 1 cd on Hapna by this Swedish sound artiste... in which we mentioned another release of his, devoted entirely to FAKE field recordings of nature sounds. That is, what sound remarkably like real bird calls and frog croakings and insect buzzings but are totally artificial constructs made by Dahl himself. No actual creatures involved. That's this 36 minute disc, Habitat. And it's fantastic, if you (like us) revel in the organic textures of outdoorsy soundscapes. Knowing how it was made -- at home with computer, electronics, accordion, recorder, speakers, toys, etc. -- is an interesting twist, but concept aside it's just a really nice listen. And (almost) totally convincing. If you didn't know better you'd imagine Dahl stalking critters in the wild with his microphone...but there'd be something strange, sorta plastic and brightly, wrongly colored about the landscape, enhanced with CGI animation perhaps. Very pleasant and somehow peculiar... This cd-r release is limited to 100 numbered copies, of which we got the last ten of 'em!! The label is sold out, we won't be getting any more...

MPEG stream: Habitat (excerpt)

Sweet! Hundloka (named for a flowering weed known in English as Cow Parsley) is another wonderful, textural, abstract release on Sweden's Hapna label, the first for field recordist/sound manipulator/visual artist Anders Dahl of Sweden, who is quite at home there (on Hapna, we mean, though he's also Swedish), alongside such artists as Tape, 3/4hadbeeneliminated, and Giuseppe Ielasi. At home in a realm of dreamy, twilit soundscapery full of snap, crackle, and drone. The three untitled tracks here, all but the middle one quite long (19:45, 6:22, and 12:37 respectively) are all performed (improvised? composed?) on stringed and wind instruments like guitar, bouzouki, violin, and recorder, also with the use on one track of computer and on another of "prepared speakers", plus percussion by Henrik Olsson. Yet the mysterious buzzingness of this sounds a lot like Dahl has woven in some field recording tapes as well. However, since he's apparently constructed *fake* nature sound recordings (digital birds!) in the past, we suspect that it's all Dahl here, no help from swarming insects or twittering birds or frolicking woodland creatures... It's all very gorgeous and glitchy, with guitar pluckings and gentle electronic hums, quiet and calm but for some moments of drone drama and surprise percussive attack.

MPEG stream: track 2
MPEG stream: track 1

We just love solo percussion albums. Stomu Yamash'ta, Toshiaki Ishizuka, Glen Velez, Milford Graves, Christopher Tree, Keiji Haino, Christian Vander, Janne Tuomi.... We're suckers for 'em. Something about a drummer saying, "hey, I'm more than just the timekeeper, you other guys, with your guitars and stuff, I don't need you, get lost, I'm doing this all myself my own way", is just cool, and often quite creative. So already we were interested in this debut solo album from this hitherto unknown to us (but apparently prolific) Norwegian jazz drummer, Erland Dahlen. And then there's the title, Rolling Bomber. Sound heavy, right? We're already thinking martial drum rolls, and, uh, Motorhead's Bomber. But, the title actually comes from the name of Dahlen's drum kit, it's a vintage Slingerland "Rollingbomber" model, from the '40s, mostly made of wood 'cause of wartime metal shortages. So this isn't heavy - aside from the thump of the bass drum upon occasion - it's more of an atmospheric, textural soundscape thing. Besides the Rollingbomber kit, Dahlen makes use of multiple other percussion instruments (gongs, logdrum, timpani, maracas, kalimba, temple blocks, bells, etc.), also electronics, and some custom built gadgets, and a "monkey drummer with battery"... AND, also close to our hearts here at aQ, he plays the musical saw! That's where a lot of the (eerie) melody comes from. Not a percussion instrument per se, but cool. So, the seven tracks here are all quite moody, dramatic, and rhythmically interesting (naturally). The grand finale, "Germany", gets kinda krautrocky, thus the title perhaps, with the beats more insistent, and the musical saw used effectively, it's an energetic culmination to this fine album.

MPEG stream: Flower Power
MPEG stream: Monkey
MPEG stream: Germany

When you hear the words Load Records, and then 'duo from Providence', you probably think of a certain sort of sound, blown out and super heavy, chaotic and noisy, the sort of sound that would be coming from a couple dudes rocking out wildly amidst a heaving sweat soaked crowd, and there could possibly be costumes involved, but odds are you wouldn't have thought of this - dark, brooding, moody, synthy coldwave, but that's precisely what you get with Daily Life, whose debut Necessary And Pathetic is indeed a Load anomaly, and we're digging it quite a bit! Skeletal beats underpin crumbling distorted synths and lush chordal swells, the vocals deep and moody, weird processed whispery wraithlike vocals swirl around soaring melodramatic melodies, chiming guitars, strange glitchy crunches swoop from speaker to speaker, organs whir and warble, lovely female vocals offer melodic counterpoint, lots of metallic buzzing, deep bassy rumblings, all manner of keyboard and synth textures, electronic pulses, super dark and dreamy, surprisingly poppy and melodic, and all very lush and dense and really pretty great. For fans of Blessure Grave, Interpol, Cold Cave, Silk Flowers, and all that sort of stuff.

MPEG stream: Rogue Fate
MPEG stream: My Time
MPEG stream: Hall Of Mirrors

The third in Sacred Bones' ongoing series of 12"s comes from Chicago's Daily Void, who take eighties crusty punk (a la Rudimentary Peni, Crass, etc.) and give it a Sacred Bones, lo-fi new wave weirdo garage rock makeover, and the result is pretty bad ass, easily the heaviest most rockingest release on SB so far. Pounding crusty darkwave infused garage rock crunch, all swirling distorto guitars, pounding chaotic drummage, new wave vocals that slip from Nik Blinko to Jello Biafra, but usually hover somewhere right in between, spidery minor key melodies and urgent guitar crunch, wrapped around depraved tales of stabbing, strangulation, face ripping and all sorts of harsh grim weirdness, at one point a howl of "SIX SIX SIX" gets drenched in distortion and sent spinning into a glorious cacophony, the whole record an exercise in cold wave thrash, crusty garage punk and revamped noise rock anarcho wave radness, retro for sure, but looking back to a way different past than most of the Sacred Bones stable, and we're digging it big time.

[ aquarius records catalogue — D ]