[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 51 through 100 of 2079.

Following the rabidly received reissue of the soundtrack for Jaromil Jires' early '70s treasure Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders, the folks at Finders Keepers keep the Czechoslovakian cinema adoration flowing. Here is the freshly reissued soundtrack to Cup's all-time favorite film -- Vera Chytilova's 1966 Czech New Wave masterpiece Daisies (aka Sedmikrasky)! It's an eye-popping work that incorporates an astoundingly broad variety of art styles Dada, absurdist, pop, cut-ups, collage, psychedelia, and so much more... all while delivering a potent commentary on the dark state of the world (which is as valid today as it ever was!). Genuinely radical and so ahead of its time, 'tis the Czech way that beneath a seemingly light-hearted, dreamy and charming exterior, lies a black wit and a mighty subversive heart. The Daisies soundtrack commences with the insistent, pinched sound of a high-pitched horn and militant snare drum introduction, then just like the two main characters, the music tumbles and frolics and raises a giddy ruckus in a Technicolor kaleidoscope of fleeting melodic vignettes. Along with traditional instrumentation -- brass, woodwinds, strings, vocals, etc -- keep an ear out for the musique concrete scissor snips and a conversation between a typewriter and reedy woodwinds. They are definitely two particular highlights of both the film and soundtrack. Accompanied by processional/funereal march formalities, jazzy escapades, classical choral geysers, dainty minuets, Stalling-esque cartoony themes, and rambunctious surfy shimmy pop, the two female leads kick up their tipsy heels in a supper club effectively disrupting a ragtime flapper dance number, play with their food and toy with stuffily suited elder gentlemen, leave suitors hanging on the telephone, cram themselves gleefully into the tight spaces of a dumbwaiter, and... oh we don't want to give any more away. Must see! Must see! Nevertheless, taken sans the film's visuals, this soundtrack makes for a deliriously delightful, discombobulating listen all on its own! Ultra artful and fun! Feverishly wonderful, and fervently recommended!

MPEG stream: Sedmikrasky
MPEG stream: The Juggler
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From the same label that brought us Badly Drawn Boy, comes the UK's next big thing, Dakota Oak. Really pretty, kind of meandering folky / jazzy electronica, a bizarre mix of the Beta Band, Calexico, shimmery late night jazz, and Vince Guaraldi (of Peanuts theme fame). Sounds like it could be bad, but it's actually pretty cool.

RealAudio clip: Da Wollen Wir Him
RealAudio clip: J Love Buses & Girls

Fela Kuti lovers take note! This is one of the best post-Fela Kuti inspired Afro beat records of the last decade for sure. Originally released in '98 just a year after Fela passed away, this was sadly the one and only album released by The Daktaris. Melding Afro beat, soul and funk with total perfection these are songs that make you walk with better posture and with total purpose. They pay homage to their heroes with amazing renditions of James Brown's "Give It Up Turnit Loose" as well as the aforementioned Fela Kuti's "Upside Down." Like Antibalas this was a group carrying the flame that Fela lit with total devotion and a commitment to his spirit. Polyrhythms that will make your body shake, your heart race, and you'll be smiling all over. Good stuff!

MPEG stream: Musicawa Silt
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NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!! Fela Kuti lovers take note! This is one of the best post-Fela Kuti inspired Afro beat records of the last decade for sure. Originally released in '98 just a year after Fela passed away, this was sadly the one and only album released by The Daktaris. Melding Afro beat, soul and funk with total perfection these are songs that make you walk with better posture and with total purpose. They pay homage to their heroes with amazing renditions of James Brown's "Give It Up Turnit Loose" as well as the aforementioned Fela Kuti's "Upside Down." Like Antibalas this was a group carrying the flame that Fela lit with total devotion and a commitment to his spirit. Polyrhythms that will make your body shake, your heart race, and you'll be smiling all over. Good stuff!

MPEG stream: Musicawa Silt
MPEG stream: Upside Down

48 page book. 10 animation DVD. 30 song soundtrack. Some of the dissidents: Melvins Grant Hart David Yow Jon Spencer

Tons of amazing hip-hop has come through here lately. We were all a-flutter over the most recent J. Dilla and El-P albums. And now we have the fourth album from Newark, NJ's Dalek. While not as mind blowing as either of those two, it's still a pretty cool disc. Minimalist rhythms follow the old-school bass/snare/bass-ba-bass/snare pattern and land Abandoned Language consistently somewhere between Tribe Called Quest and the Fugees in BPM's, but somehow the record fails to deliver the lyrical depth those groups thrived on. However, the aptly titled "Abandoned Language" is chock full of super interesting samples and strange scratching, at a speed perfect for contemplative head bobbing. This album definitely finds Dalek forging new sonic paths and we're curious to see where they'll lead next...

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It's been almost three years since we've had a full length release from Dalek, which is WAY too long. It's always refreshing to get some new hip hop in that doesn't follow the formulaic patterns that rigidly rule most hip hop releases. Absence is barely a hip hop album at all. Beginning with a 30 second a cappella from Dalek, we're quickly submerged into a wash of beautifully torrential guitar feedback drone and pounding almost metallic drums. From that point on Absence progresses as an album closer to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, or early Seefeel than to most hip hop albums. Not only in that Absence is lushly layered with droning feedback, keyboard sweeps and grinding blasts of noise, but Dalek's voice tends to get submerged -- way down in the churning murky mix, making his voice just another strange sound swirling and swooping amidst the chaos, and making this record a truly fucked up sort-of-hip-hop record!

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Dalek has always represented the flipside to glossy commercial mainstream hip-hop. In fact we remember first hearing them on their Gern Blandsten debut, a label best know in the 90's for releasing hardcore, and spazzy indie rock. It makes sense that Dalek have spent their career on labels that don't usually venture into that sort of sound (Ipecac, Tigerbeat 6, Hydra Head), as their brand of dark and brooding hip-hop has a lot in common with the world of underground rock and beyond. Their eerie and moody vibe borrows as much from psych and kraut as it does the grittier side of hip-hop. In fact they even collaborated with Faust a few years back for a record that's now sadly out of print. This is a great collection compiling a bunch of rarities, remixes and a few previously unreleased tracks. And unless you have hunted down all their 12"s in the past this will probably be the first time you've heard any of this stuff. One of those killer collections that really captures all the elements of what a group is all about. From moody instrumentals to the dark and intense lyrical flow, this serves as either the perfect introduction or a wonderful reminder of what a great and essential voice in the world of hip-hop Dalek represent.

MPEG stream: Desolant Peasants
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Not purely hip hop nor dub nor electronic, Dalek might be right at home on Mike Patton's similarly genre-leaping label Ipecac. You may have heard Dalek rapping on top of Techno Animal's "Dead Man's Curse" track, a big favorite of Windy's from 2001. This full length is ferocious and powerful, full of threatening silences and massive bursts of noise. I like it. Dalek's epic, incantatory vocal stylings are pushed right up against apocalyptic, doom-laden instrumentation: high pitched squealing feedback that sounds like air raid sirens, abandoned machine bleeps, paranoid dub-heavy beats, crashing cymbals and other live drumming, shimmering guitar. There's even a psychedelicky track called "Forever Close My Eyes" that's got staticky record hiss, tabla, ethereal organs, melancholy melodic guitar strumming, even (what sounds like) sitar. Very well done! There's comparisons to be made with the DefJux (El-P, Cannibal Ox, Company Flow) sound -- scary hip hop with lots of noisy bits -- so if you like DefJux you'll porobaby get into this. Also definitely for fans of Spectre, Sensational, Techno Animal. Look for an upcoming split with Kid606, and there's even a collaboration with krautrockers Faust that'll hopefully get released by someone.

RealAudio clip: Spiritual Healing
RealAudio clip: Forever Close My Eyes

These last few months have finally seen the arrival of the most recent batch of Latitudes releases, some that had been in the pipeline for months, maybe even years, first Gang Gang Dance and Gowns, then Nadja and Mount Eerie, and most recently the Master Musician of Bukkake, and now finally, this sprawling avant hip hop doomscape from Dalek, who already pushes the boundaries with his proper releases, but this one takes it even further, a massive 44 minute untitled sonic sprawl, epic and abstract, dark and ominous, lush and majestic, a slow burning dubbed out bass heavy intro lays the groundwork. Warped and warbly, a shimmery downtempo creep, laced with distant melodies, buried vox, folky guitars, there's some rapping, more like spoken word, but it fades out quickly as the surrounding sounds blossom and expand into a dark swirling dronescape, bits of twang and garbled voices drift on a sea of hiss and hum, of muted melody and crumbling textures, and then things get serious, the sounds is cranked up, the low end thick, the rhythms industrial and grinding, almost like some sort of hip-hopped SUNNO))) / Godspeed hybrid, the vocals buried in the mix, before it all winds down again, and then in come the tablas (!), wrapped in weird backwards swoops and heaving slabs of low end rumble, building again, this time into a lumbering string laden machine like trudge, doomy and dark, almost like a more blissed out Gnaw Their Tongues, orchestral and epic, and after about 27 minutes, a proper hip hop beats swoops in, still wreathed in caustic buzz, and surrounded by all manner of fractures sounds and effects, and suddenly it's like the hardest heaviest hip hop you've never heard, super distorted and blown out, a crushing chunk of post apocalyptic robo funk lope, which eventually fades out, leaving just a long stretch of hushed shimmer, and tangled steel string melody, all blurred and smeared into a hazy expanse of ominous minimal drift, and one final verse, delivered ominously over the tense droning whir beneath. Fucking KILLER. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, the covers the immediately recognizable brown and white origami style Latitudes sleeves, this one with a black and silver cover image glued to the front, and a full color insert inside.

MPEG stream: Untitled

After recently making two recent offerings on the Medical Records label into Records Of The Week (Axxess and Lou Champagne System), we figured we oughta review a couple other kick ass Medical releases that somehow slipped under our radar. There's the Guyer's Connection, reviewed elsewhere on this week's list, a collection of lost tracks from a Swiss teenage synth / electro-pop duo, and this one here, another oddly named outfit, called Dalek I, short for Dalek I Love You, a UK duo, whose equally oddly named debut, Compass Kumpass, was originally released in 1980, and is available again on vinyl for the first time in thirty years! If you need a quick thumbnail of Dalek I's sound, it might be easiest to list the bands that members of Dalek I would go on to play in, most notably, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and the Teardrop Explodes. Dalek I offer up a glorious world of classic new wave and gloomy moody electro pop, dramatic and a little bit gothy, with post punk flourishes here and there, hand clap rhythms, skittery programmed beats, warm fuzzy synths, indie pop guitar jangle some of the tracks here sounding like total classic old school eighties electro pop, like the opener "The World", which sounds like Tears For Fears or Icicle Works, while others do get darker, and more haunting, like the brooding, droney "A Suicide", but for every sonic shadow, there's something bouncy and playful and super melodic, just check out "The Kiss" which is the impossibly peppy track that comes right after "A Suicide". They even do a cool (and pretty far out) cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me", with a woozy echo drenched abstract intro, that leads into a super taut angular almost Devo-esque sounding version that we find ourselves playing over and over. For the most part, this stuff steers well clear of the whole Carpenter / Goblin side of the synth spectrum, in favor of something much poppier, a lot more twee, but at the same time, way catchier. If you dig OMD, Tears For Fears, Icicle Works, Talk Talk and other eighties indie poppers / electro-poppers, definitely give Dalek I a listen... Pressed on 180 gram hot pink vinyl, housed in super eighties looking new wave jackets, LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, each one hand numbered, and also includes a flexi-disc single, featuring two B-sides!

MPEG stream: The World
MPEG stream: A Suicide
MPEG stream: The Kiss
MPEG stream: You Really Got Me

Got two new releases this week on the Ge-stell label, run by aQ pal Cameron, who before this also masterminded the Merzbild and Merz Tapes labels, one of which is this new 12" from Dalglish, aka Chris Douglas, formerly O.S.T., a big aQ fave back in the day, and whose last lp on Pan we reviewed not too long ago on list #442. Like that lp, Dorcha Aigeann continues to move away from the Douglas's old beat oriented sound, toward a more sound designed ambience and layered layered textural atmosphere, the opener here sounds like Oval, the same sort of orchestrated glitchery, but where Oval created smooth, almost liquid sounds, here, those glitches remain rough around the edges, a bristled, tangled landscape of keening longform tones an dense metallic shimmer. But the sound of Dorcha Aigeann is not so easily defined, stretches of grinding, sci-fi plunderphonia dissolves into cascades of crumbling static, and garbled alien transmissions, soft noise drift blossoms into haunting, field recording flecked dubbiness, sliced and diced into wild stuttery pulses, and clouds of truncated melodies, wound tight into ping ponging blurts and squelches, woozy kosmische thrum evolves into wild skitters across some alternate universe FM band, staticky squiggles and fractured samples, crumbling loops and malfunctioning FX, all woven into surreal, lysergic landscapes of damaged, disembodied electronica. Both sides also finish with some killer locked grooves, which, if you're not paying attention, you might find yourself listening to for quite a while before realizing they are in fact not a weirdly repetitive track proper... Pressed on 150 gram transparent vinyl, mastered by Rashad Becker, housed in a silkscreened PVC plastic cover, with die cut slit, along with a printed transparent insert.

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We'd been hearing about this new Dalglish for a while before we realized that Dalglish was in fact none other than Chris Douglas, formerly of San Francisco, and formerly known as O.S.T back in the day, who was responsible for some of our favorite weirdo electronica of that era, his sound falling somewhere between Autechre, Aphex Twin and Coil. But on Niaiw Ot Vile, his first for the Pan label, Douglas displays a much different sound than we remember, less about beats, and more about texture and ambience, displaying a deft hand for sound design, immediately evoking Ben Frost, or Roly Porter, a sort of twentieth century modern minimalism filtered through a cracked avant electronic filter. Sounds ooze and sprawl and drift, the opener almost sounds like a deconstructed Godspeed jam, languid guitars (at least they sound like guitars) unfurl amidst a sea of blackened shimmer, and muted melodic fragments, all suspended in a slow motion swirl. The following track adds some propulsion, but instead of straight ahead beatscaping, it's more a jumble of tangled anti-rhythms, a field of glitch and squelch, gristly and dizzying, all draped over a darkly melodic landscape of chordal swells, and moody minor key thrum, and so it goes, the whole record an homage to a friend of Douglas' who passed away, that sort of threnody vibe present throughout, shadowy and wistful, melancholic, but also strangely dreamy, and subtly academic, slipping easily from gristly crunch, to dreamy blurred ambience, to abstract fields of layered, textured dronemusic, to swirling flurries of Oval like organic shimmer. Pressed on 140 gram vinyl, mastered by Rashad Becker, and housed in a black and white sleeve wrapped in a super striking silk-screened PVC jacket, with the usual Pan style abstract geometric style artwork.

First we've heard from Mark Dall, aka Dalhous, who on his second record, delivers a gorgeous collection of wistful electronica, and darkly textured soundscapes of blurred samples and haunting synthesized sounds. We're immediately reminded of Boards Of Canada, but Dall's sound is even more human, and organic, just check out the one-two punch of opener "First Page From Justine", a hazy smear of hushed shimmer, and slow shifting melody, dreamy and drifty, and "A Communion With These People", which expands on that ethereal thrum, letting it blossom into something haunting and lovely, almost like a more IDM version of DJ Shadow, a simple beat, wreathed in crackle and hiss, all over a bed of minor key shimmer and swirl, soft slow-motion swells of sound, peppered with fragmented melodies, and lushly textured layers, one of those tracks that could have stretched out for two or three times its length, and we would have remained utterly mesmerized. "Function Curve" foregoes the rhythm, and instead unwinds a swirling skyful of kosmische glimmer, that sounds like stumbling upon the ruins of some old planetarium show, where impossibly, ghostly music plays on, even though the ceiling that once displayed projected stars and planets, has crumbled, the soundtrack now accompanying the actual cosmos. The whole record plays out like that, like sound out of time, music from another world, or another plane, the sound modern, but at the same time, reminiscent of so many sounds of the past, the best moments, when the sound seems to crumble and fall apart, the sonic decay present throughout, as if the record were constantly struggling against the ravages of time, and the fading of musical memories, hints of the Caretaker abound, as well as Pye Corner Audio, and even Demdike Stare in places, but the vibe is not nearly so dark, instead it's wistful and melancholy, the beats and rhythms, instead of the focal point of the record, almost seem like bridges between the ambience, rhythmic passages connecting the strange synthscapes and hushed shimmerscapes, sometimes sounding like a lost soundtrack, other times like vintage new age, and other times like the music from some strange educational filmstrip from the seventies, but throughout, it's gorgeous, fantastic, dreamy electronica that seems like it was brought here from somewhere, or some-when, far far away.

MPEG stream: A Communion With These People
MPEG stream: Lovers Of the Highlands
MPEG stream: Her Mind Was A Blank
MPEG stream: Someone Secure

Relaxed and off-key in all the right ways, Untitled floats her beautiful airy voice over simple, repetitive piano, noisy guitar, and the occasional cello, violin, and viola. There's a stunning, sparse song sung in Russian, and the whole thing was engineered/produced by Jim O'Rourke & Tom Mallon. Bill Callahanof Smog makes a few appearances as well.

Commotus is the debut from Spanish songstress/soundscaper Lucrecia Dalt, and definitely positions her amongst some like minded soundmakers we love - Grouper, US Girls, Valet, Chelsea Wolfe. Dalt has the same sort of knack for weaving lustrous dark dreamscapes, mixing the gothic folk of Wolfe with the hazy soft focus psychedelic drift of Grouper, but adding her own twists, in the case of album opener it's a background of layered, pitch shifted voices, which forms the whole of the sonic backdrop, all harnessed to skittery, percolating rhythms, and laced with a surprising blurt of woozy wah guitar and an out of nowhere swell of bleating brass. The overall effect is ghostly, spectral, haunting and darkly lovely, and the rest of the record unfurls similarly. "Excopolamina" almost sounds like an extension of the opener, a bit more hazy and blurred, metallic riffs muted into a churning rhythm, the beats more skittery, the vocals even more ethereal. Then there's the playful synth solo, and what sounds like an old fashioned wurlitzer humming in the background. There's definitely a woozy, washed out sort of Caretaker vibe to the proceedings here, the sounds and songs faded and worn, transmissions from some mysterious shadowy otherworld, dark ballads that drift ominously, only to collide with tracks that are downright playful ("Conversa"), which almost sound like a slightly darker, gloomier Liminanas, before slipping right back into another sprawl of abstract shimmer, twang flecked, bass-bloop peppered minimal murkiness, or some wispy slo-mo space blues, or some tripped out doomfolk new wave dirgery. But whatever strain of Dalt's dark sonic DNA drifts to the fore, she renders it haunting and heavenly, mysterious and murky, whether it's propulsive and groovy, or blissed out and barely there, it's always dreamlike and otherworldly. Stick around for the 8+ minute closer "Batholith", which is fast becoming our favorite, a sprawling stretch of minimal country murk, woozy, ethereal, laced with whirring organs, panned sound swooping from speaker to speaker, and some near carnivalesque melodies, all woven into a strangely psychedelic spaced out bit of lysergic dream pop shimmer. So good.

MPEG stream: Saltacion
MPEG stream: Escopolamina
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Record number two from the mysterious Ms. Dalt, a Spanish chanteuse, whose newest record, like her last, conjures up a wildy witchy and hauntingly otherworldly sound that incorporates some of our favorite sonic elements. A gauzy ethereal drift a la Grouper, a brooding gothiness a la Chelsea Wolfe, as well as reminding us of a whole slew of other modern practitioners of that sort of blurred, washed out psychedelia we can't seem to get enough of (US Girls, Valet, Inca Ore, Juliana Barwick, Fursaxa, Noveller, etc.). But Dalt continues to push that sound and make it very much her own, adding a way more experimental / avant / electronic element that ends up defining her sound. Her vocals not the focal point at all, instead it's the darkly delicate soundscapes she creates, woozily percussive, swirly and totally dreamily druggy, the opener sets the tone with a flurry of arpeggiated melodies, what sounds like weirdly effected piano, then maybe xylophone, the cascades of notes layered into a warm undulating backdrop, driven by buried electronic pulses, deep bass swells, and strange shards of high end skree, wall wrapped around her breathy vox. Imagine a WAY more tripped out and ultra subdued Bjork and you'd be in the ballpark. The second track takes some darkly twangy guitar, and drapes that over an ominous synth tone, whispered vox, and distant cavernous reverb, not to mention a barely there Morricone melody, it all adds up to a warm and woozy, slow-core dream-dirge creep, that is so quiet at times it threatens to fade out completely, but strap on headphones and crank the volume, and the song reveals itself as something strange and lovely, and indeed very very mysterious. The rest of the record plays out similarly, the dynamics differing from track to track, some unfurling like primitive electronica, wrapped around pastoral folk ("Soliloquios"), others murky and atmospheric, warped and dementedly processed, but then sculpted into something dark and delicate and truly beguiling ("Vitti"), while others weave creaking, skeletal doom folk, from dubbed out percussion, Bernard Hermann strings, moaning cellos, reverbed industrial clatter, and insectoid clouds of electronics ("Volaverunt"), and some even edge into near techno territory ("Mirage"), but even then, it's a spare spaced out electronic sprawl of plink plonk pulses, lush lovely vocal harmonies, and fields of static charged tones and distant organ thrum. Fantastic stuff.

MPEG stream: Glosolalia
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No laments here about diminishing returns on archival releases, this new KD collection is a keeper! Delmore digs up another round of wonderful home recordings from one of our favorite folk singers and interpreters. Like a companion piece to their last great Karen Dalton collection, Green Rocky Road, 1966 feels more warm and intimate, focusing more on present day songs mostly from friends and then-contemporaries, Tim Hardin and Fred Neil with some jazz and traditional standards thrown in there too. While Green Rocky Road felt intimate in a sort of ghostly way, as the songs were largely British folk standards and sung with a haunting air that was beautiful yet slightly chilling in an out-of-time way. The recordings on 1966 feel more at ease, the kind that are easy to sing along with, especially Tim Hardin's songs, "Don't Make Promises" and "Reason To Believe". Not that those songs aren't without their melancholy, but perhaps it's the accompanying vocal and instrumental presence of Dalton's then partner, Richard Tucker on some of the tracks that give this set recorded by Carl Baron on his reel to reel recorder, such a naturally relaxed quality. There are also early versions of "Katie Cruel" and Neil's "Little Bit of Rain" plus a version of "God Bless The Child", that is sung like a true lullaby. Quite lovely indeed and highly recommended! The cd comes with a booklet containing rare photos and an essay written by Ben Edmonds of Mojo. The lp comes with a 4 page heavy insert, an exclusive color portrait and a download card.

MPEG stream: Reason To Believe
MPEG stream: Don't Make Promises
MPEG stream: While You're On Your Way
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We have been waiting with baited breath for this since we first heard rumor of its impending release. 2 cds of newly discovered and previously unreleased live recordings by enigmatic folk legend Karen Dalton! Recorded in 1962 by Joe Loop, a musician who owned and managed an influential night spot in Boulder, Colorado called "The Attic", these intimate recordings capture the raw talent of Dalton's smoky delivery and sparse 12-string guitar and banjo arrangements. While not as solid a set as her debut recording released 7 years later, these sessions offer us a feel of what it was like for traveling folk musicians during the heyday of the folk revival, who literally had to sing for their supper. Working out unique arrangements of tunes by Fred Neil ("Blues On The Ceiling" and "Red Are The Flowers"), Ray Charles ("It's Alright", "Blackjack") and traditional folk blues such as "In The Evening" and "Pallet On Your Floor", this is a shining example of an artist in her element, lost in the delicate emotive possibilities of performing songs so close to her heart. Includes a DVD of early film footage of Dalton performing, some of which was on the last import reissue of It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best, but in a friendlier format than before. It also includes home movie footage from when she lived in Summerville Colorado most likely around the same time these sessions were recorded. So Beautiful!

MPEG stream: Red Are The Flowers
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This is the one!! The beautiful, raw, and majestic lost Karen Dalton recordings we've all been waiting for. While we loved the recent release Cotton-Eyed Joe, it was mostly because we thought we'd never get to hear any other recordings, so we were happy with the below lo-fidelity and wavering performances (Dalton never liked performing live, so we don't think those recordings showcased her best side). Then these recordings showed up and have blown the others away. Recorded in 1962 at home on two track tape, played mostly on solo banjo, Green Rocky Road captures Dalton at her most intimate and unearthly. Like some old dusty recordings of lost Appalachian folk, Dalton's circular fingerpicking and warm wooly voice invokes a magical quality as she works through several interpretations of traditional folk songs including versions of "Katie Cruel", "If I Had A Ribbon Bow", and "In The Evening", which were featured on her studio albums. Other songs not previously featured are the British Folk classic "Nottamun Town", the ghostly "Little Margaret" and the famous cowboy song "Whoopee Ti Yi Yo". There's even a nice moment where you hear Dalton talking to her mother about going to dances. The quality of the recordings while still raw is so much greater in fidelity than Cotton Eyed-Joe, you'd think she was singing to herself in your home not realizing you were secretly standing behind her hanging on to every breath, praying that nothing breaks her transcendent spell. We can't recommend this enough!!!

MPEG stream: Green Rocky Road
MPEG stream: Little Margaret
MPEG stream: Whoopie Ti Yi Yo

Wow!! It wasn't just but three lists ago when we were lamenting that Karen Dalton's second album (and only other recording), In My Own Time had yet to be reissued, and now here we are reviewing it (thanks Light In the Attic!). And we have to say, it has never sounded better! Recorded in 1971 with a full band at Bearsville studio in Woodstock, In My Own Time has a much different feel then Dalton's spare and smoky first recording, It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You the Best. Since Dalton had so little recorded output, the differences between the two records has given In My Own Time, an unfairly maligned reputation over the years by folk purists and others due to its more contemporized feel and bluesy folk-rock arrangements. True, In My own Time, doesn't quite meet the folk majesty of It's So Hard To Tell, and there are a couple of song choices, such as the all too familiar "When A Man Loves A Woman", and the saccharine Motown stalwart, "How Sweet It Is", that we could probably do without (however, in Dalton's defense, if we had to hear either of those songs again, we would prefer her versions to anyone else's! Such is the strength of her musical interpretations.). But every other song is purest gold, from the heartbreaking opener by Dino Valenti, "Something's On Your Mind", to the traditional tunes "Katie Cruel" (covered recently both by Bert Jansch and White Magic) and "Same Old Man", where we get to hear her play her mighty 27 fret banjo. Produced by Harvey Brooks, who played bass on her first album, In My Own Time is right up there with the best folk and roots rock albums of the time put out by Dylan, The Band, The Byrds, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Featuring a 30-page booklet with lots of pictures and extensive liner notes by Lenny Kaye, Nick Cave and Devendra Banhart. Reissue of the year and of course absolutely essential!!!!

MPEG stream: Something On Your Mind
MPEG stream: In My Own Dream
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Wow, what a gem of an album that I (Windy) can't believe I never heard before. Doubtless some of you are already aware of Karen Dalton, but for those of you who, like me, are new to her, here's the story: The half-Irish, half-Cherokee Oklahoman moved to New York around 1960, where she immediately fell in with the Greenwich Village folk scene (there's an awesome photo here of her, Bob Dylan, and Fred Neil). Though Dalton didn't write her own songs, her interpretations of pieces by Fred Neil, Jelly Roll Morton, Tim Hardin, etc. are just lovely... And HER VOICE! It's this glowing, honeydripping voice -- a country-blues Billie Holiday kind of voice. It is *stunning*. The instrumentation includes Karen on 12-string guitar and banjo, and she's got a talented band backing her up, but her gorgeous voice is foregrounded clearly throughout. Includes lots of liner notes (written by Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders, Fugs, etc.) that appear to only scratch the surface of this amazing woman: she was a lifelong dumpster diver, for one thing, and also a single mom. She was reportedly so shy that only by sort of tricking her into a recording session were these songs ever laid down on tape! Most of them are first and only takes, recorded in one day: so fresh, so alive, so sweet. Enjoy.

RealAudio clip: Little Bit of Rain
RealAudio clip: How Did the Feeling Feel to You

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

SORRY.

Funk - It's a tricky thing. In the wrong hands it can be some of our least favorite music in the world (think cheesy bass slapping bro's in dorky outfits, you know that scene) but the few who really possess TRUE FUNK can move us like no others. Of course there is the old school pantheon of funk pioneers like Parliament-Funkadelic, The JB's, The Gap Band, The B.T. Express, Cameo, Betty Davis, Rick James, Zapp, Con Funk Shun, and Prince, but when it comes to modern day funk it's really rare to get the real deal. Folks either be faking the funk so hard it hurts, or they rely so heavily on being retro copy cats that they don't really bring any new flavor to the funk legacy they so want to be a part of. Which brings us to Dam-Funk, who has most definitely got the true funk special spirit running through his veins. We had heard his amazing mixes over the last couple years and knew the guy had talent but it wasn't until this proper full length of his own songs that we totally realized just how damn special and full of the real funk this man is. While of course taking inspiration from many of the above mentioned funk pioneers, Dam-Funk is no mere retro act, as he knows that one of the major defining forces of true funk is how it should always be injected with a sense of very modern/future minded vision that's always a bit left of center. While folks like Outkast, Sa-Ra, and Gnarls Barkley have gotten close to entering that realm, Dam-Funk really lives, breathes and exudes the true funk aesthetic. He's able to bring in his futuristic electronic stylings informed by everyone from Kraftwerk to Cybotron/Model 500 and inject such natural soul into his beats and grooves. Everything about this record kills, all the elements come together so perfectly, the production, the vocals, the actual songwriting, it's all there and it all just oozes real funk! There's also a second all instrumental disc, which helps keep Dam-Funk's amazing party of a record going on and on and on and we STILL really can't get enough. No joke, every single time we've played this in the store someone has bought a copy, and even if you're a bit funk-shy we think you should give this a chance! Funk jam of the year contender for sure!

MPEG stream: Let's Take Off (Far Away)
MPEG stream: Burn Straight Thru U
MPEG stream: Searchin' 4 Funk's Future
MPEG stream: Rollin'

We've long championed the work of Joel Phelps, an unsung hero of the indie underground, beginning with his stint in Silkworm - he was the group's secret weapon, with an aching, about to break voice that could soar into a powerful howl, his songs tense and intense, delicate balances of hushed brooding shimmer and explosive angular crunch, his wild guitar wrangling the perfect match for that utterly distinctive voice. Then came a clutch of solo records, all stunning, and almost all completely under the radar. And then, nothing. He seemed to have disappeared. Stopped making music. Until now. There's a new Phelps solo record, which is fantastic, and we'll review that one soon too, but this new project is something else entirely. We often talk about bands or records that seem custom made for aQuarius, and this definitely seems like one of those. Joel Phelps, teamed up with Stuart Dahlquist, of Burning Witch, Asva and SUNNO))), the result very much like you might imagine, and like we would have hoped, the best, creepiest, Silkworm songs, fused to the slow, droned out creep and crawl of Dahlquist's previous bands, ultra-doom torch songs, indie rock fused to Arvo Part, avant drone meets intimate songsmithery, a difficult combination for sure, but one that rewards patient and deep listening. Fans of either/both Phelps and Dahlquist will marvel at this haunting soundworld the two have conjured, from the brief opening, with Phelps, crooning over simpler percussion, and slow shifting layers of chordal shimmer, aching and heartfelt, bittersweet and melancholy, seemingly setting the stage for something much more like Phelps' previous works, but instead, the sound shifts, the second track "Stravinsky" unwinding as a dense layered drone, and when the vocals swoop in, they explode into strange harmonies, those harmonies woven into thick bass tones, the result some sort of alien chorale, downcast and stirring, even sans vocals, it would be a gorgeous sprawl of bass driven droned out dirgery, at once ethereal and atmospheric, dense and down tuned, but the song, like the whole record is rife with dramatic dynamics, long stretches of airy organ, drifting weightless, other movements bordering on avant doom, and still others dreamlike and choral, which is a sonic microcosm of the rest of the record. Dahlquist delivering some breathtaking sound design, field sod digital glitchery, wound around glimmering soft focus swirls of sound, heaving low end thrum, soundtrack like melodies, all wound into tense slow-builds, sometimes transforming into some hushed Phelps like downer slow core pop, othertimes blossoming into something even blacker. On tracks like "The Chant", simple percussion underpins Phelps' harrowing vocals, which are soon joined by keening organ drones, the vibe intense and sinister, until another cascade of thick bass buzz swoops in, and Phelps' vocals explode into incredible and alien harmonies, the sound mutating into drowsy, sun dappled doom, laced with twinkling electronics, and buried dreamlike melodies. And without going track by track, the rest of the record continues to expand, prismatically, slipping easily from strangely psychedelic indie pop, albeit fractured and flecked with weird steel drum like percussion, to field recording laced dronescapes, to quietly broody stretches of moody agent pop, psychedelic slowcore drift, to minimal, almost liturgical ambience. Dizzying in scope, stunning in execution, a practically perfect, and perfectly IM-perfect, hybrid of haunting avant indie rock and modern composition, brooding, downer folk minimalism and expansive sound designed dronescapery, dreamlike torch songmithery and outsider, cinematic ambient bliss.

MPEG stream: Moonshine And Lion
MPEG stream: Stravinsky
MPEG stream: Boy, Dock
MPEG stream: The Chant
MPEG stream: Thine

Second album from this Southern crust and doom metal outfit. Huge and droning and hypnotic and heavy and pretty weird, with a female vocalist that adds some surprising warmth and depth to the usually all too typical cookie monster metal vocals. Wicked cover art by Pushead (Metallica, Aerosmith, Septic Death, etc.)

We had been hearing about this for a while, John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees' 'electro synth pop' solo record, and while we were envisioning lots of things, it wasn't this. It's definitely electro pop, lots of synths, and programmed rhythms, but there's still plenty of the fuzzy, jangly garage pop of Thee Oh Sees, and Dwyer's songwriting is in fine form, so much so, that this is fast becoming our favorite set of Dwyer jams in ages. Listen to opener "Gloves For Garbage" and you'll know just what we mean. Ostensibly, it could really have been an Oh Sees song proper, just with more synths, but it reveals itself as something else entirely, a gorgeous chunk of gloomy pop, with some of the catchiest hooks we've yet heard from Dwyer, the vocals delivered in an uncharacteristically deep, dramatic croon, plenty of clean guitar jangle and simple drumming, surrounded by pulsing, fuzzy synths, not to mention an end of song breakdown where things crumble into a cool churning sprawl of motorik kosmische, Dwyer's vocals draped over the top, totally blissed out electro-gloom, goth pop that we can't stop listening to. So much so, that it took 4 or 5 listens before we even made it to the next song. And if you need more clues as to what Damaged Bug is all about, the most telling is probably the inclusion of a painting of Brian Eno included in the record's futuristic psych-ship cockpit cover art, cuz if you can imagine Eno as a SF garage rocker / synth wrangler, you wouldn't be that far off the mark. And the rest of the record, maybe unsurprisingly, is just as good. "Eggs At Night" sounds like a more lo-fi version of something you could hear on the radio. Instead of the swoonsome moody distorted vocals, you can almost imagine some overproduced diva, but instead, it remains a quirky little electro pop gem, with some mid-song synth swirl that transforms the song into some alternate universe John Hughes misunderstood-teen movie anthem. There's another side to Damaged Bug, which is a serious krautrock obsession, which first pops up via the unabashed Neu! / Kraftwerk worship of "SS Cassidinea", all motorik pulse and psych-kraut throb, but continues to surface throughout. There's plenty of Radiophonic Workshop style bloop and bleep, often wound around woozy primitive electro pop creep, the result strangely dark, all moody and broody, but that's balanced by plenty of spaced out, synth driven fuzz pop, with awesome swaths of thick, rib cage rattling low end, but before you know it, the sound swoops back into some warped electronic kraut-pop, complete with some weirdly effected vocals that sound almost Germanic, and remind us of a certain infamous Dwyer project of old, Zeigenbock Kopf, but this isn't nearly so leather-y and Teutonic, instead, Damaged Bug slips easily from billowy and dreamy in places, like on the super spaced out sonic fever dream of "1/2 An Airplane", to gurgly, rumbling synth-doom dirgery like on "Metal Hand", the dirge-y doominess somehow blossoming into another gorgeous tranced out sprawl of kraut-synth mesmer. And yeah, it's an electro pop record, so there are of course some vocodered vox, but they're usually all tangled up in sounds not so distinctly electro pop, whether it's spaced out rhythmic skitter, fuzzy, garage-y jangle, or shimmering, pulsing drones. The record finishes off with a heady, hypnotic blast of wild, chaotic, non-programmed, actual drumming, pounding away through fields of lazer zap squiggles and thick, fuzzy, squelches, almost like some free-synth freakout, but not noisy, just sorta swirly and psychedelic and totally hypnotic, and then the vocals come in, and the song quickly takes the shape of yet another practically perfect. dreamily dour electro pop gem, but only briefly, before disappearing in one final swirl of electronic starburst swirl...

MPEG stream: Gloves For Garbage
MPEG stream: Eggs At Night
MPEG stream: Hubba Bubba
MPEG stream: 1/2 An Airplane

Dame Satan's pace is a slow lysergic creep. You might've caught a glimpse of it on their split 7" record (with Two Sheds) we carried late last year. This Bay Area band is back with their second full length. Unlike many other artists of the seemingly similar southern psych-tinged folk ilk, Dame Satan's sound, though definitely dark and dirgey, is remarkably clean and free of swampy sludge. Beaches & Bridges starts out with the album's most heady gloom number "Downstream" and gets progressively more clear-eyed and straightforward. It's almost like the band was sobering up with each subsequent song... or gently wresting itself from the clutches of a fever dream.

MPEG stream: Downstream
MPEG stream: Oregon Trail

A long lost Krautrock artifact? Perhaps not, as the distributor we got this from nudgingly noted that this had an April 1st release date. Actually the story (which itself may be suspect) is that this is a cd reissue (with 'bonus tracks') of a LP hoax originally perpetrated upon the record collectors of the world in 1989 by members of German experimentalists HNAS. And while the amazing collage cover art looks convincing, did they really think their false beards in the band photos were going to fool anyone? Plus the production doesn't really sound like something recorded back in 1971. But just 'cause it's fake Krautrock (actually, if it's HNAS its technically still is Krautrock in a way...) doesn't mean it's bad. In fact, this is a pretty cool record, full of freaked out sounds -- spacey, scary orgel, synthi, gitarre and effekte. Pretend or authentic, it doesn't really matter, it's still a droning psychedelic bad trip (with some nice droning pretty parts too) that krautheads and those into krautrock's modern equivalents will definitely enjoy. File this with the likes of German Oak, No Neck, Brainticket, Reynols, Sand, Angelblood, Acid Mothers Temple, those suspicious PsiFi "Unknown Deutschland" bands, and Tangerine Dream's "Electronic Meditation"... MPEG Download: "Innovative Schwingungen" [/audio/damenbartinnovative.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Innovative Schwingungen" [/audio/damenbartinnovative.m3u]

MPEG stream: Innovative Schwingungen
MPEG stream: Bring Uns Den Frieden

Okay, odds are most aQ list readers aren't gonna be interested in this. But in the spirit of aQuarius, and the sort of open mindedness we try to engender here, hopefully a few folks will give this a chance, cuz it's actually pretty great. The math sounds bizarre and it most definitely is, take two parts Fallout Boy, two parts Anthrax, and one part Every Time I Die (literally, it's members of those bands!), and this is what you get, a bombastic blast of super heavy, ultra melodic, catchy as hell classic eighties style hard rocking heaviness. Big riffs, wild leads, pounding drummage, some super epic clean vocals, classic metal guitar harmonies, all wound into super hooky heavy jams that kick tons of ass. "We've Got A Situation Here" is THEE one here, a pretty much perfect pop song rendered in shades of chug and crunch and wail and blast and pound. The guitars crunchy and heavy, the vocals throaty and what you might expect from the dude from ETID, but with a chorus most bands would kill for, not to mention some seriously heavy breakdowns, one in particular that seriously swings and sounds almost like Pantera or Down. And the rest of the songs are pretty much just as good, born from a shared love of Thin Lizzy, it's got that kind of classic rock vibe, some songs sounding a little like Kiss, others more like Queens Of The Stoneage or Foo Fighters, but the Damned Things, definitely temper their poppiness with some serious heaviness, and some killer songs. Scoff if you must, but some of us (mostly Andee) have been listening to this like crazy!

MPEG stream: We've Got A Situation Here
MPEG stream: Handbook For The Recently Deceased
MPEG stream: Bad Blood

All the Damned you will ever want or need on 3 cds. Damn!

Recorded live in Seattle, WA, last October near the end of an all too brief west coast tour, this is an artfully packaged double cd of improv conjured by former Can vocalist Damo Suzuki, his former Can-mate Michael Karoli, Mandjau Fati, Thomas Hopf, and Alex Schonert. Additional sounds and textures created by Mark Spybey (Zoviet France, Dead Voices on Air, Download) and Dustin Donaldson (I Am Spoonbender). Nine lengthy tracks including a version of CAN's "Mother Sky".

This is definitely the week of former Galaxie 500ers, isn't it? Let's take a peek at where two of the three are at these days (for the other third, check out the Luna review this AQ list), shall we? We've not heard from them since their 2000 collaboration album

RealAudio clip: Song To The Siren
RealAudio clip: Love

Intimate. Beautiful. Inspired. Damon & Naomi! The Earth Is Blue features 10 tracks, recorded in their home studio with special guest guitarist, Michio Kurihara, of Japan's psych-folk great ones Ghost. Also contributing are Greg Kelley and Bhob Rainey. Eight original tracks feature harmonic delicacies and melodic intricacies. In the same vein, interpretations of George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and Caetano Veloso's "Araca Azul" resound sweetly on this release. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Beautiful Close Double
MPEG stream: Araca Azul

MPEG stream: Eulogy To Lenny Bruce
MPEG stream: I'm Yours
MPEG stream: Eye Of The Storm
MPEG stream: The Great Wall

The retail/press info sheet for this goes on and on about what a boundary-crossing, genre-defying acid folk milestone this 'inevitable' collaboration between D & N and Japanese space-folk collective Ghost is. Too bad that's so far from the truth. 'Cause maybe if Damon and Naomi's sound wasn't so apparently inalterable and they did indeed plan on *actually* collaborating, this could have really been something amazing. But instead, it's your basic dreamy, reverby, 80's college radio space/folk pop. Truth be told, three tracks into this cd, we barely noticed Ghost's presence at all. It was as if they were...oh never mind. This is basically your standard Damon and Naomi record (essentially, Galaxie 500 with more ethereal vocals and less catchy songs) with Ghost acting as their 'house band'. So if you like Damon and Naomi already, then you will probably need this record. But, if you were waiting for some new Ghost, keep waiting.

[ aquarius records catalogue — D ]