[ aquarius records catalogue

IMPORTANT (Please read to avoid confusion): Some items below may be tagged with a bold, red, all-caps OUT OF PRINT/UNAVAILABLE notice. This does NOT mean that all other items not so tagged are, in fact, in stock — or for that matter, in print and available, though there's a good chance they are. Some folks get confused on this point, and we can see why, so please read this for further clarification and other important before-you-order information. Unlike some mailorder websites, we don't have an electronic inventory system linked to our site, so you can't be sure of what we actually have or don't have in stock at any given moment without asking us — please email our mailorder department for availability status — or better yet, just go ahead and place your order using our shopping cart function and we'll get back to you with the status of each item. If you have general non-mailorder questions, email the store.

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**SALE **SALE* *SALE**

Live performances by Andrew Chalk are incredibly rare. The man just doesn't seem to like to travel; but earlier in 2011, Chalk ventured to Paris for a collaborative concert with Timo Van Luijk, a likeminded Belgian composer crafting similarly spectral drones and impressionist soundscapes. While we were not so lucky to have been in Paris for that show, the collaboration between the two must have been fruitful, as they recorded this set of lilting instrumentals, hushed psychedelic ragas, and softened minimalism under the moniker Elodie. Echos Pastoraux seems to lean more towards Chalk's sound, especially after his recent push towards quietly rendered improvisations blossoming from his signature dronemuzik on Ghost Of Nakhodka and Violin By Night. Gentle plucks on a koto or an acoustic guitar meander through field recordings of birds and rain, giving way to more harmonic pieces of interwoven melody that sounds like french horn (or maybe an oboe, or maybe an analogue synth, or maybe a harmonium, or maybe some combination) whose overtones shimmer and flutter into quietly hypnotic clouds of soft buzz and thrum. Any number of these tracks could have been extracted from a private ritual performed by Chalk and Van Luijk; and while such could be said for any of the Jewelled Antler releases or any of the ancillary projects of Kemialliset Ystavat, Elodie's quiet drones, acoustic impression, smoke, shadow, and maudlin atmospheres are hardly anywhere near the 'freak folk' camp. This is much closer to what Akio Suzuki has done, although there are plenty of flourishes in the production that gives evidence of the hands of Andrew Chalk being at work. As a result, it's still spellbinding, like pretty much everything that Chalk has ever touched. Just 400 copies!

La Lumiere Parfumee marks the second collaboration between longtime aQ favorite Andrew Chalk and Timo Van Lujik as Elodie. Chalk's vocabulary of the evocative, arcane, and hypnotic drone has seduced many over the years; but recently Chalk has been pulling back the shroud of mystery that envelops much of his long-form pieces of impeccable minimalism (e.g. Sumac, East Of The Sun, Vega, etc.), revealing the instrumental backbone to his drone-supreme. While not a drone album in the slightest, La Lumiere Parfumee is covered with Chalk's fingerprints, as noted through the album's refined sense of reductionism and that achingly poetic melancholy which drips from every sustained note and hushed passage. Van Lujik and Chalk work with a wide assortment of instruments, although on any given track, there's only three or four quietly orbiting each other. Through the sparse, non-linear interplay of guitar, bass, gongs, flutes, clarinet, percussion, and electronics, Van Lujik and Chalk utter amorphous structures that occasionally flicker with the ghost of a muffled Movietone number or something from Circle's Miljard, both of which would have already been sun bleached and stoned to the point of radical abstraction. We're probably more smitten by the piano and electronic excursions, which lean towards a Satie-inspired ambience over the loping impressionism through bass and guitar, but all of this is played with a spellbinding sadness, accompanied by small tactile events that sound like hapless shuffling through fallen leaves or the rustling of century old newspapers. Very handsomely packaged in/with Andrew Chalk's always impressive, hand-fabricated artwork.

MPEG stream: Mirage
MPEG stream: La Voix Du Lac

Yeah! Here's another rad reissue of early '70s proto-metal. Of special interest to us, Elonkorjuu are Finnish, in fact hailing from the same town, Pori, that later gave us AQ faves Circle! Their ultra-collectable 1972 album Harvest Time is a heavy progressive gem, full of ripping guitar and wild organ... wailing English-language vocals, melodic moody parts, many mathy changes, and galloping riffage are also all elements of the sometimes complex Elonkorjuu equation. Although fairly heavy for the time, they also have a generally "happy" sound, one that's often hectic too, these guys obviously reveling in their music making prowess. Their fervor is infectious, this is great stuff for anyone who loves other early '70s prog-psych acts of this ilk like Trettioariga Kriget, Wishbone Ash, Cargo, Culpeper's Orchard, Murphy Blend, Steamhammer, Wind, Irish Coffee, Osage Tribe, Odmenn, Blues Addicts, Stonewall, Toad, Road, etc. While they only recorded one more album in the late '70s, the talent and exuberance displayed on Harvest Time earned 'em (and Finland) a spot in early, obscure hard rock history, for sure. Forever underground, they even title a song here "Praise To Our Basement", wherein these young long haired hippies first had first begun jamming back in '69...

MPEG stream: Unfeeling
MPEG stream: Future
MPEG stream: Old Man's Dream

YES! Sweden's Elope are back. One of our favorite discoveries of 2004, their No Name Album was Beatlesly (or Wingsy), Neil Youngish, sorta stonery, and maybe a little Stonesy, authentically retro '70s classic rock sounding, utterly entrancing, mostly mellow pure POP genius! So we're excited to hear their new one, 3WD (three wheel drive?? somebody clue us in... maybe now we understand why their first album was more or less untitled). And additionally excited to learn that this is only the first of two new Elope albums due out this year, this one supposedly being the more rockin' one, with another cd coming this fall entitled 9 Distilled Dreams that will focus on mellower, slower, quieter material. So how's 3WD? Well we couldn't be happier. It is on the uptempo side -- they even break out a boogie now and then -- but still has the wonderfully laidback vibe we loved about their debut. And their abilities in the pop songsmithery department haven't diminished at all. Elope's honeyed vocals and harmonies help give a gentle glow to the hard-rocking energy on display. Reference points, '60s/'70s retro and otherwise ('cause they sound modern too): The Pretty Things, Pink Floyd, Redd Kross (but not soo nyahh nyahh nyahh), and maybe even a little bit Elliott Smith if he had been more rockinger... And definitely If you like Dungen (especially the poppier side to their psych-pop equation) you should definitely be aware of their talented countrymen Elope. Totally recommended, and now we're impatiently awaiting the next one!!

MPEG stream: Dragonstone
MPEG stream: Friend Of Mine

At last!! AQ faves Elope from Sweden, the world's mellowest and most melodic "stoner rock" band, are back with their third album of timelost psych rock beauty, 9 Distilled Dreams. It's the relaxed companion to last year's more rockin' 3WD, bringing to the fore the dreamiest side of the Elope equation. First off, gotta mention that we're super flattered that the band was so appreciative of our reviews of their previous two albums that they wanted to thank us by putting a dedication "to Aquarius Records San Francisco" on this new album. Awww. We blush. Of course, that puts some pressure on us to come up with a worthy review of this their excellent third effort. We might have been able just to say something along the lines of: NEW ALBUM FROM ELOPE! IT'S AWESOME! GET IT! But though that's all very true, we feel we ought to rise to the occasion with something more in depth and, if possible, poetic. Ok... like the snow-dusted winter trees in front of bright blue sky depicted in the photo on the slipcase of this cd, 9 Distilled Dreams is a thing of sunblessed natural beauty. Ambling, amiable, a bit sad, sweet... tugging at the heart with yearning vocals and irresistible pop songcraft. Yep, this long haired trio -- Sebastian Aronsson, Tomas Eriksson, and Anders Person -- have done it again, just even slower and softer this time. A couple of the songs ("Elope & Fuge") make judicious use of keyboards for gentle prog caresses. Other tracks, like "Not Even Close (Closer)", work their magic with just voice and acoustic guitar. There's the usual '60s/'70s references we could make -- Beatlesy McCartneyesqe Neil Youngish Allman Brothersy bits in here and there. But for some more up-to-date citations, we're feeling the Cyann and Ben style layered three-note melodies. And are reminded of those Supergrass ballads... with that satisfying really good pop resolve. And in a weird way, with their harmonies and all, we're put in mind of old faves the Scud Mountain Boys, without the country slant.�Also, need we say, if you're one of Dungen's many fans and haven't yet heard their fellow countrymen Elope, this would be a good place to start. But hopefully, if you're a regular AQ customer, we've already turned you on to Elope and you like 'em as much as we do. If that's the case, then we probably can just say NEW ALBUM FROM ELOPE, etc.! Delicate, moody, gorgeous, and rather more like their debut The No Name Record than its intentionally uptempo-all-the-time predecessor. Happily recommended.

MPEG stream: Black Eyed Citizen
MPEG stream: No Don't
MPEG stream: The Core

We get A LOT of records coming through here, as you might imagine, many of them great -- but very few that I (Allan) have listened to as many times upon acquisition as this one. I just can't stop spinning it. It's one of those special cases, the new purchase that actually achieves "heavy rotation" in my home. The Elope trio hail from Sweden and are on the same label, Gravitation, that's been bringing us those lovely Bjorn Olsson albums. They're a current, contemporary band but you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise 'cause this record sure sounds like it was recorded no later than 1973, if it was yesterday. They've captured a long-ago, classic rock, heavily Beatles-influenced vibe, and written songs with pop brilliance to match. They're retro but not self-consciously, calculatedly so. I mean, the album cover suggests indie rock along the lines of Death Cab For Cutie or Modest Mouse or something like that, way more than it does what the band actually sounds like. Which is the Beatles, Neil Young (they cover his "Bad Fog Of Loneliness"), a little country-Stones, a little Pink Floyd, maybe the Pretty Things circa their Parachute LP, and some Wings (or more Beatles). More obscurely, I'd say a lot of this has the same magical effect on me as do the albums by early '70s Peruvian Paul McCartney worshippers We All Together. (Some of you might be familiar with those guys, we used to stock the reissues of their two albums when we could get 'em). Relaxed, super melodic, stick in your head songwriting. Another kinda obscure comparison would be to the quieter, acoustic side of heavy British '70s rockers Budgie (!) who also were devoted Paul McCartney fans I'm sure. And, additionally, this has a restrained-but-effective hard/psych rock side to it that also could relate to the riffing of Budgie (a lot of critics apparently say Cream, but I don't hear that as much). Like the guy from Budgie doing their more sensitive songs, the intimate, gentle vocals here have an air of wistful melancholy I always find hard to resist. Pretty, exquisitely crafted songs that are so very seventies but also evoke the current folky indie-pop of, say, Belle & Sebastian. I wasn't entirely surprised to find out that Elope apparently includes some member(s) of stoner rock band Lowrider. Indeed, Elope had a release (a split with a band called Backbiter) on the defunct Man's Ruin label some time ago, and have been called "possibly the mellowest stoner rock band ever", although they certainly are capable of rocking out, as on the track "Pride Approaching". They do it rarely but they do it well. But unlike a lot of 'stoner rock' bands, whatever inclinations they have towards psychedelic guitar jamming are balanced by the melodic/structural needs of the song at hand. So good. I know I'll keep spinning this for some time to come. Quite possibly top ten 2004 material as far as I'm concerned!

MPEG stream: Anyone
MPEG stream: Oh Patchouli

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

SORRY. SORRY. With the datapanic in year zero amounting to next to nothing (just a lot of government money spent), the countdown series by Raster / Noton to the year 2000 may seem a little anticlimatic... especially since the last disc arrived in the middle of January 2000. Fortunately, the musical content of the finale completes the brilliant and nearly perfect series on a rather bleak note. Coil's contribution to the countdown series is recorded under their Elph moniker, whose 1994 release "Worship The Glitch" was the metaphoric precursor to this series as well as such digital fuckery by Oval, Pan Sonic, Ryoji Ikeda, etc... Coil's menace, which was oddly lacking on the "Musick To Listen To In The Dark", returns as creepy lunar drones shift into an oppressive digital dirge and followed by a recombination of contemporary digital skitter with 1960's concrete / academic bleeping.

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

SORRY.

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

SORRY. [/cat/e12.html]

On Eltro's third album Past And Present Futurists, it's nice to find that their sound is still very very sweet and soothing, but they seem to have ventured out into slightly darker, more trippy and expansive territory. This is definitely no less pretty, but much more active than the comparatively even keeled gentle drone'n'pulse dream pop of their previous record Velodrome. During a spin here at AQ, a customer likened them to a more languid and lil' bit druggy Stereolab. This was particularly in reference to the album's fourth song "On One". While we can certainly hear what he meant and if comparisons are to be drawn, then this album as a whole seems to be much closer to the undulating grooviness of Laika and the quirky pop beats of Solex or Cibo Matto. Laidback female vocals, trumpet blasts, funky melodies, percolating rhythms, smooth'n'steady basslines? It's all here, presented in fine, smoky latenight fashion. A side note in the "maybe I'm crazy but was that...?" department: one thing that caught our ear in the third song "Fram" was a recurring melody that bore a striking resemblance to the Charlie's Angels theme. Odd!

MPEG stream: On One
MPEG stream: Fram

Absolutely Kosher traffics mostly in pop prettiness, and has discovered it in its many different shades and styles. A few examples? Well, the angular off kilter pop of PEE (r.i.p.), the complex lovliness of Optiganally Yours, the brooding melancholy of Telegraph Melts and more recently The Places and Jim Yoshi Pile-Up. Eltro is no exception. A glimmering, gliding earful. Actually

Last year's Temporary Residence debut from Eluvium aka Matthew Cooper, entitled Lambent Material, was an excellent ambient drone-drift record. For this follow-up, he's pared back his instrumental palette to *only* piano. An Accidental Memory In The Case Of Death is just Matthew sitting at his baby grand, letting his fingers play on the ivories, mellow and melodic. It's very relaxing and pretty, a bit Windham Hill-ish we have to admit, but nothing if not nice, quite nice!

MPEG stream: Genius And The Thieves
MPEG stream: The Well-Meaning Professor

Although it really really sounds like one, the new Eluvium album is not a film soundtrack. Copia breathes deeply with instrumental cinematic expanses. Much like what Rachel's and their label base Quarterstick did for chamber music back in the mid-'90s, Eluvium (aka Matthew Cooper) and his label home Temporary Residence are doing for ambient, new age and classical compositions, exposing it to a new audience, today's indie scene (even more so since he's hitting the road with Explosions In The Sky). Undeniably influenced deeply by genre patriarchs the sublime and venerable Phillip Glass and Brian Eno, Cooper's middle name just might be 'austerity'... well, with the exception of the muted cannon blasts in the final track. That said, we couldn't help but notice that the ninth track "Reciting The Airships" sounds more than a little like the intro to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing"! Nonetheless oh so very somber and beautiful.

MPEG stream: Reciting The Airships
MPEG stream: Repose In Blue

Lambent...ambient and gentle like a lamb? Actually the word means luminous, which is appropriate as well, for music this light and pretty, casting a soft glow. Wispy, but not wimpy. Eluvium is the work of Portland Oregon's Matthew Cooper, a post-rock bliss-out artist if there ever was one. His music, constructed of layers of guitar, piano melodies, and some distant voices perhaps, swells and falls, wrapping the listener in pale, gauzy colors and textures. On the fourth and longest (15 min.) piece, "Zerthis Was a Shivering Human Image" Eluvium gets nicely fuzzed, warm and deep and droning -- not so light but still pretty. Whoosh. There's five lovely tracks here total, all of which should appeal to fans of Stars Of The Lid, Brian Eno, Landing, Labradford, Sonna, P. Jeck, etc. We like. MPEG Download: "Under The Water It Glowed" [/audio/eluviumunder.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Under The Water It Glowed" [/audio/eluviumunder.m3u]

MPEG stream: Under The Water It Glowed
MPEG stream: Zerthis Was A Shivering Human Image

It's been three years since we last heard from Matthew Cooper, aka Eluvium, and that record, Similes, found Cooper mixing it up a bit, adding vocals, and transforming his Eno like shimmery drift into something more songlike, reminding us at the time of Black Heart Procession. But here on full length number seven, Cooper returns to the sound of his earlier records, like 2007's Copia, creating a lush, hushed landscape of cinematic ambience, minimal and melancholy, long sweeping expanses of synth shimmer floating ghostlike beneath stately piano chords, all wreathed in a wistful haze, but tempering this wistful drift with some seriously dark brood. The opener tugs at the heartstrings, and once again has us wondering why Cooper isn't in Hollywood scoring blockbusters, but then the tone shifts a bit, the follow up track adding some shadow, some sonic pathos, haunting, near symphonic swells, washed out and ethereal, as lovely as the opener, but slightly downcast, which leads directly into the brief dark sprawl of "By The Rails" which finds Cooper giving Stars Of The Lid a run for their money, unfurling a seriously dark bit of droned out thrum, rife with minor key melodies, and churning low end textures, all smeared into a blur of shadowy shimmer, and overlaid with soft sheets of static and distant keening melodies, fantastically murky and moving, an anomaly in Cooper's oeuvre maybe, but it had us hankering for more, and embracing the sonic shadows when they do surface. The rest of the first disc unwinds dreamily, long swaths of soft noise drift dissipates into a gorgeous stretch of solo piano, which gives way to another dreamlike expanse of crystalline piano, this time wreathed in muted rumbles, and slow shifting textures, again, super cinematic and moving. Finally the final track on the first disc adds some rhythmic static and some softly corrosive crunch to the proceedings, the whole thing building to an almost Godspeed-like coda. Disc two begins with a surprisingly noisy bit of ambience, delicate pointillist piano floats weightless in clouds of thick crumbling buzz, cascading sheets of distortion smoothed out into soft swirls of blurred blackened shimmer, the end result a dreamily noisy bit of dreamy drift. That noisiness seems to have bled into the rest of the record, at least a few tracks, with Cooper's usual haunting hush, augmented by thick sheets of shoegazey thrum, but still peppered with passages of delicate solo piano, or whisper like moody minimalism, the record closing with a brief bit of gristled soft noise, and then a sprawling stretch of stately dreaminess, warm fluid piano drifts atop long shimmering tones, and vocals surface for the first time, transforming the warm, wistful ambience, into a haunting dream-drone lullaby. Gorgeous.

MPEG stream: Don't Get Any Closer
MPEG stream: Warm
MPEG stream: Rain Gently
MPEG stream: Happiness

Oh man, is this gorgeous! Eluvium's follow-up to 2007's somber soundscape Copia continues along a similar solemn path, but embraces some new elements into the fold - namely male vocals and understated percussion. They add a fresh dimension that works perfectly. Actually at times Similes draws comparisons to the desolate beauty of early Black Heart Procession. We like very much! The withered murmurs from mainman Matthew Cooper melt into the enveloping reverbed sea of velvety organ drones and creeping piano melodies. A shimmering and glimmering journey into the shadows of the most heavy hearted.

MPEG stream: The Motion Makes Me Last
MPEG stream: Making Up Minds

Ambient music can really suck. Yeah sure, -all- music can really suck, but ambient music has a not so stellar history. The likelihood of music being actively touted as 'ambient' actually being closer to 'new age' is greater than we'd like to believe. We here at AQ have been a bit spoiled, since our idea of ambient music includes most things drone, and lord knows there is no shortage of amazing drone music. So when a specifically 'ambient' record comes our way (especially one that vehemently defends itself against the perceived stigma of being labeled ambient) we are pretty skeptical. No need with Eluvium, who over the course of several albums have demonstrated (like a select few before them) time and time again that ambient music need not be wimpy or boring, and in fact can be dark and deep and emotionally charged. The music of Eluvium on Talk Amongst The Trees has as much in common with Philip Jeck or William Basinski as it does Brian Eno or Tangerine Dream. Maybe more so. Slow, fuzzy melodies, constructed from processed guitars and pianos and voices, are stretched into blurry soundscapes, lazily looped into slowly shifting snapshots of long forgotten pasts, brief glimpses of barely there memories, stories told in smears of tonal color, emotions expressed in rumbles and reverberations. Eluvium manage to create a strangely luminous center to each song, a pulsing heart, whose glow suffuses the thick sonic sprawl around it, making the hazy and murky depths of each song breathe with hope and glow with a subtle warmth. So nice. A perfect late night drifting off record. Fans of Stars Of The Lid, Jeck, Basinski, Labradford, Eno, and other ambient luminaries should now add Eluvium to that list. If you haven't already.

MPEG stream: New Animals From The Air
MPEG stream: Show Us Our Homes

Here's a new four-song ep from Eluvium aka solo instrumental soundscapist Matthew Cooper. When I Live By The Garden And The Sea is a slow-building stormfront of hazy distortion washes, gradually materializing contemplative note sequences and an occasional dialogue sample. This cd might be only four tracks long but they're quite lengthy -- plenty long enough for you to stretch out and sink into.

MPEG stream: I Will Not Forget That I Have Forgotten

More limited vinyl madness, this time in the form of the hotly anticipated vinyl only split between Justin Broadrick's Jesu, and US ambient drifter Eluvium. So the skinny is this, a split release between Temporary Residence Limited and Hydra Head, the copies we got are the TRL version. The TRL version is already out of print, but the folks at TRL let us have a big bunch (only about 50) and even cooler, a handful of them are the mailorder only colored vinyl version. So first 30 or so folks will get colored vinyl, the rest will get black, and please don't ask for colored vinyl, and don't order unless you'll be happy with black, it's first come, first served... Three new songs from Jesu, and as if we didn't already see Broadrick and Co. heading in this direction, they've almost entirely jettisoned the heaviness, in favor of a blissy new wave-t drift. Really! No massive sludge, no blissed out crunch, in fact, most of this sounds like Jesu doing the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, all drift and croon and no crunch and pummel, but it's really nice, and pretty, and still suitably Jesu-like. Imagine Simple Minds or the Cure but raised on Slowdive and Chapterhouse and Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine, doing the theme song for Sixteen Candles 2007 (which if our calculations are correct would be more like Thirty Nine Candles). The first song would be a massive hit, sort of melancholy and romantic, dark and dreamy, but still sort of catchy and hopeful, like sunbeams barely making it through grey storm clouds. The final track sounds like it could be from that last scene in Sixteen Candles 2007, the one where the boy and the girl finally make it to the dance after all of the crazy mishaps and misunderstandings and are finally sharing that slow dance... lugubrious and fuzzy, and soft focus and so great actually. It's weird, and a bit unexpected, but as much as we love the glacial crush of past Jesu discs, this new-wave-y drift really suits them.. The flip side features a side long three part epic from Eluvium, aka Matthew Cooper, whose usual stately dreamlike ambience, is here rendered even fuzzier and blurrier. The first part could be some long lost Tim Hecker or Basinski jam, all dense washes of keyboards and crumbling shimmer. The second and third parts feature Coopers doleful minor key piano, more recognizable than on the opener, but still takes those notes and smears them into glacial stretches of glistening murmur. The perfect sonic match up for Jesu's new, less heavy, more drift-y sound.

Early Ronnie James Dio band compilation! Fancy packaging too.

Back in stock. Might just be your final chance to pick one of these up!! When we first heard about this record, a split release between some unknown band and ultradoom AQ crushworthy sludgelords Monarch, whose track was an hour long, we wondered how the heck that was fair to the other band. We then discovered that the other band was in fact French grinders Elysium, whose songs average around the one minute mark (one song here clocks in at a whopping 8 seconds) it started to make sense. And what an awesome idea, what a great combo, the two extremes, blazing buzzing hyperspeed grindcore and slow motion sludge. Two great tastes... er, sounds... So here we have 4 tracks from Elysium, total time 5:55, and one track from the mighty Monarch, total time 58:27. Fucking awesome! So first up Elysium, fast and furious, guitars like squiggles of white hot lightning, the drums like rhythms being fired from a machine gun into your head at point blank range, vocals that screech and gurgle, everything a head spinning blur. Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Nasum, Rotten Sound, you might as well add Elysium to that elite list.� But they're just the warm up, the appetizer, Monarch's "Amplifire Death March" is why we're here, and they do not disappoint. So Monarch, for those who don't already know, are one of the slowest, heaviest bands in existence, whose artwork consists of weird Hello Kitty like crosses, skulls and burning churches, as is fronted by a very cute, non-tattooed, non-pierced, spikeless, leatherless, young lady in a sensible skirt and top, who howls like a banshee from the depths of hell and who write in the liner notes "Listen To Judas Priest"? How rad is that? RIDICULOUSLY RAD! And sure we'd be crushed out on Monarch just based on their lugubrious tarpit sonic sludge, we're just like that, but having an adorable frontperson just pushes it over the edge. So yes, this rules, and is suitably funereal, appropriately slow and somber, so slow in fact it makes Khanate sound like speed metal. Okay, maybe that's stretching� it a bit, but this is some seriously slow motion shit. The riffs stretch out for ages, the drum hits are MILES apart, the vocals a screech / howl / moan, a mouthful of dirt and broken glass, a voice so harsh and hatefilled it seems impossible that it could come from Monarch's diminutive sensibly dressed leader. There are huge stretches of near ambience where it's just the hum of the amplifier, some soft lilting chords, a pounding single drum rhythm, vocals screeched across wide expanses of space, draped across fading riffs like flayed skin before the next chunk of sludge drops.�It's almost as if some leather winged demon was flying above, soaring through the black night sky, hurling huge hundred ton chunks of sludge at the ground every few seconds, or few minutes, where they splinter into a million pieces, filling our ears with shards of searing sludge. A pounding ultra-dirge, a tempo well below 16rpm, the sort of creepy crawl that were it to slow down any more would be just a single tone, albeit a crushing pummeling one. So heavy, and so slow it's almost stops being sludge and simply becomes some abstract heaviness. By now you should know what we're getting at. This is doom, ultramegadoom, doom with a page full of 'o's, wallowing in the same murk as Moss, Rigor Sardonicous, Stumm, Catacombs, Esoteric, and all who bow before the power of dooooooooom. This is a split release between TEN labels (count 'em:�Shifty / Amanita / (((Parade))) / 213 / Throne / Amertume-Corruption #2 / Fidelio / Murder / Wee Wee / Solitude) which is kinda cool, but also kinda dumb, as each label only gets a handful of copies and therefore it goes out of print before you know it. We got 50 copies originally and those disappeared in a flash, and only now finally managed to get a handful more from one of the labels' secret stash! Probably the last copies ever.

MPEG stream: Amen Jesus Je T'Aime
MPEG stream: Menteurs
MPEG stream: Amplifire Death March (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Amplifire Death March (excerpt 2)

eM is the work of Michael Bentley, who also happens to run the local ambient label The Foundry. His own work is well entrenched within the proper definition of Ambient, or at least the aesthetics initially propagated by Brian Eno in the early '80s. "All the Stars Burning Bright" is conceptually a sci-fi album, with heavily processed sounds culled from NASA deep space recordings and

Conceptually following the "All the Stars Burning Bright" album, "Outward" by eM (aka Foundry label boss Michael Bentley) is an ambient excursion that begins here on earth with a series of digitally manipulated recordings of insects, animals, and earthquakes, moves out towards the far orbits of our planet with processed sounds of satellite telemetry, and arrives quite optimistically in the quasi-mystical pulsations of deep space, implying the "infinity that lies beyond what we have explored." Bentley's methods for the construction of his ambience are conventional mostly achieved by overloading synthesizers and digital samples with tons of reverb and nebulous swooshing sounds, complementing most of the spacemusic ambience often heard of the Hearts of Space radio programs.

RealAudio clip: Across The Milky Way

So in the latest issue of the Wire, David Keenan was on to something with his cultural study of what he's calling 'hypnogogic pop' to define connections between the likes of Emeralds, The Skaters, Ariel Pink, Zola Jesus, Pocahaunted, and others. He argues that these bands draw from a fictional reading of the late '70s and early '80s, that extracts an aura of that time period without a direct revisionism of any particular style. It would be a stretch to qualify Emaciator as 'pop' but certainly on this brilliant cassette self-released on Monorail Trespassing, Emaciator does fit within the hypnogogic definition of a half-awake / half-dreaming and half-remembering / half-forgetting sensibility. The psychic birthing place for this album would have been sometime in the late '70s and would stand as Jon Borges fictional historicism of what braintuning cassettes should have sounded like instead of insipid new age wishy-washy-ness. Sure, Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, and Harmonia had generated a like-minded ambience through mellotron and guitar; and minimalists like Roland Kayn, Yoshi Wada, and LaMonte Young deconstructed composition into an unrepentant drone; but the psychedelia of the former rarely melded with the rigor of the latter. And here is where Emaciator fills in the historical gap, producing these two linear shots of deep cosmic dronemusik. The first side gradually builds out of analogue synthesis with swelling pulses of low end frequencies bristling against a meandering melody which hovers like a mirage in the distance. The second side is even more meditative, with a steady arc of sound which emerges like an arctic sunrise in wintertime, peeking over the blackened horizon only to sink back as a sunset. Emaciator's work seems to be smoothing out more and more, leaving an increasing gap between this work and the noise alter-ego Pedestrian Deposit. Both are great projects and should be checked out! Appease is a limited edition 22 minute cassette in an edition of 125 copies. These will not last.

Defeat is set of recordings that date back to 2007, around the same time as the seminal Emaciator record Reflection which was transitioning from the blistered noise aggression of his earliest days to the more glacial drifts of his recent output. Jon Borges (the man behind Emaciator, Pedestrian Deposit, and the Monorail Trespassing empire) alluded to this as something like trance-goth noise; and that's pretty accurate. An overblown slab of MB / Broken Flag-ish hiss and distortion acts as the groundwork to the first side of this cassette, with a minor-key two-note melody from an equally overblown synth lilts beneath the surface of noise as if it were the sad remains of a small plant getting fried by the urban desert sun. The flip side retains the same hostile noise underbelly with an insistent squarewave arpeggiation that mechanically scrapes into the surface of that noise. Borges intertwines this throbbing noise with another round of downer melodies - rudimentary yes, but effectively cold bedroom noise hypnosis for sure. Defeat is a 35 minute program altogether and stands as another impressive outing for Emaciator. Oh yeah, it's limited to 125 copies.

Emaciator is the work of LA floorcore miserablist Jon Borges, who previously spat out gnarled cassettes galore as Pedestrian Deposit and Monorail Trespassing; and as Emaciator he's got a couple releases on Students Of Decay and Not Not Fun. But damn, this is the one for sure as Borges channels the psychic wasteland of Southern California through these four sides of vinyl for dour drones laced with ghostly melodies and grimly rendered distortion. The first side could be the logical extension of the shortened program that Emeralds gave us on Solar Bridge with an earthmoving hum emanating throughout the track amidst the linear movement of radioscopic static and a mournful loop of descending melodies. Throughout the track, these elements intertwine, build, fade, collapse, resurface, and self-immolate all at once. Quite stunning. Side B radiates with a fluorescent glow of simmering white noise softened just enough to take the edge off while uneasy rippled of low end frequencies push to the surface. The third side gets far more toxic in the blistering analog synth tones pushed through distortion boxes, but Borges still manages to push forward one of his urgent yet depressive phasing tones through the heavy wall of static. Very much on par with the classic Broken Flag sound. The fourth is a reprise of the first side (get it, the title is Reflection), with that looping melody at first appearing like a Basinski piece of hypnogogia, but gradually Borges suffocates that loop through at atomizing cascade of distortion. One of the most exhilarating if tragic pieces of noise+drone we've heard in quite a long time. Limited to a mere 300 copies!

Rough, raw and shambolic pop from midwest art rock / garage popsters the Embarassment. This is the perfect companion to the almost-comprehensive 'Heyday' compilation released a few years back. Live tracks and demos of some of their best (and for some reason unreleased / unrecorded) stuff.

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

SORRY. There's 42 songs here, which we think is their entire recorded output, but one of you embo experts should come in and set us straight.

Wow! While Brazil gets most of the attention in terms of creating some of the best South American psychedelic music, we've recently been checking out the left coast of the continent, namely Chile, and have been digging some amazing stuff. Perhaps it's the epic geographical relationship of mountains and coast in close proximity that inspires such transcendent music or perhaps it's the constant political unrest of the period that cultivated a longing for the more earthy populace-empowered past. Smooth romantic harmonies, ancient flutes and dreamy textures of jungle and nature sounds are all key variables in the sound of great Chilean psych bands El Congreso, Congregacion (also reviewed on this list), Kissing Spell (featured on the Love Peace and Poetry Latin America comp), and their later incarnation, Embrujo. While Kissing Spell was more of a mellow psych-pop confection singing songs in English as was the trend of Latin groups seeking to become more commercially viable, the decision to become Embrujo stemmed from a revolutionary stance possibly inspired by the Brazilian Tropicalia movement both politically and sonically, to write songs almost entirely in Spanish and create a dynamic sound on their own terms upping the ante on their songwriting craft and musicianship. What they add to the equation is Gr-ooo-ve, driven along by fuzzy organ, simmering guitar and funky drumming, building on the traditional Chilean sound with fluid changes, solid rhythms, and like Os Mutantes, occasional wackiness. Tight hook-laden arrangements, lyrical breaks and progressive interludes are what make this sole 1972 album fetch astronomical prices amongst collectors of private press recordings. This is its first CD reissue and seriously, we haven't stopped playing it since it arrived in the store a few weeks ago. Finally we have enough to share this with the rest of you. Embrujo means "bewitched" in Spanish, and we are positive you too will be captured by its spell! Recommended!

MPEG stream: Voy Hacia El Sol
MPEG stream: Corre A Los Campos
MPEG stream: Petilu

The weird thing about this wonderfully weird collaboration, between NYC's premier avant free folk tribalists and legendary German progrock/krautrock combo Embryo, is that it doesn't sound all that different from what we might have expected a new NNCK record to sound like. Not sure what that says, either the two groups were absolutely perfectly in sync, or NNCK are masterful channellers of classic Krautrock jams, or NNCK stole everything they know from Embryo and their sonic brethren, or Embryo are the true masters, aligning themselves with the manic primal tribal sound of NNCK's percussive rituals. Hardly mattters, whichever way you slice it, this record is stunning. Dense and lush, and packed solid with strange and wonderfuls sounds, tribal rhythms, chimes, woodblocks, drum kit, hand drums, hand claps, all sorts of buzzing strings, what sounds like sitars and harpsichords and autoharps, woodwinds, flutes and recorders, and vocals, an impossible array of chanting and moaning, gargling, mumbling, humming, whistling and singing in tongues. Dreamy super melodic grooves give way to full on Wicker Man pagan insanity which further gives way to some clattery free jazz minimalism but always returning to that transcendental tribalism we just can't get enough of. If Embryo add anything to the mix, it's a warmth and melodicism that sometimes seems to be missing from a a lot of the more abstract NNNCK jams. Folks who dug NNCK's recent Qvaris will most certainly find this to their liking as it sounds like a much more dense, much more melodic, much more vibrant exploration and expansion of the songs on that record. And we LOVED that record, so that should tell you something! The more we listen to these songs, the more we think it might not be such a bad idea for this NNCK / Embryo hybrid to just BE the new NNCK, those No Neck guys ought to just ask those Embryo guys to join the band, what the hell, the more the merrier, and judging from this one time jam, the thought of these guys moving forward aas a single unit, and actively exploring the realms of inner and outer musical space, is almost too much for us to handle.

MPEG stream: Wieder Das Erste Mal
MPEG stream: After Marja's Cats

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

SORRY. Not that many of these on stock, we're afraid to say... and we will not be able to get any more of these once they're gone! The label tried to press a decent sized run of 300 copies, but less than half of those made their way into circulation for reasons that seemed to be lost in translation. This strange bit of record-release self-immolation is almost fitting for this strange piece of outsider audio collage. Embudagonn 108 is the work of the hermetic Wataru Kasahara, who smashes field recordings and subconsciously selected radio transitions together into a quivering mass of phased patterns that latch onto the antiquated, syrupy sentiment of forgotten big band arrangements and jitterbug jazz that Leyland Kirby might submerge within his hauntological ambience. But Kasahara punctures the mood with the deadpan delivery of newscasters, hurricane force drones, and unsettled screams. With everything roughly cut and spliced to and from cassettes, there's plenty of hiss to go around; but the effect is hardly the dreamtime din of a Phillip Jeck recording. It's much closer to the Dada discombobulation of Walter Ruttmann's 1930 radiophonic classic "Weekend." Kasahara describes the album thusly, "those tracks have flowed into and merged with the shit-cawing crimson shitbirds that circle endlessly around the mountain of shit on my skull peak." He's bundled the whole thing with a hand fabricated book with pornographic collages, scrawled drawings, and wood block prints. A disturbingly, visionary piece of work!

We reviewed an amazing album on the Dead-Cert label (the boutique subsidiary label of Finders Keepers and Demdike Stare) a while back by musical couple Kat Epple and Bob Stohl called Sanctu Spiritus, a proto-new age document of early recordings utilizing synthesizers and flute with tape-loops to be used in planetariums and space documentaries. That release is now sadly out of print, but that was just the beginning. Between 1978 and 1982, the couple would later form the group Emerald Web, a mixture of space and fantasy music with proggy new age leanings and release 5 recordings (1 lp and 4 cassettes) on their own imprint label Stargate from which the tracks here are compiled by the fine freaks at Finders Keepers/B-Music. Hailing from Florida, the duo recorded their music at night utilizing the studio they used for their day jobs as synth-programmers, music consultants for computer technology labs and TV and film soundtrack work. Named after a laser show formation and combining elements of dungeons and dragons fantasy and cosmic ambience, the group released their vinyl debut, Dragon Wings And Wizard Tales in 1979, a heady post-prog synth epic of tripped out soundscapes and ethereal female vocals that was recently featured on the Record Store Day compilation Monster Skies. The subsequent tape releases were less proggy and more spacey, filled with field recordings, dueling flutes, and ambient electronics that have more of a minimal composition focus than your typical new age music does. The couple would go on to record music for Carl Sagan's Cosmos series and hopefully that will get released soon as well. So great! There is an import lp version of this, but it's been very hard for us to track down, so for now we only have the cd.

MPEG stream: Flight of The Raven
MPEG stream: Nightsong
MPEG stream: Ars Nova
MPEG stream: Photonos

Of the three Emeralds releases we've heard so far (Solar Bridge, What Happened, and now Allegory Of Allergies), Allegory has to be the most removed from the scene these guys seem most linked to. Whether the connection is geographic, or sonic, or social, Emeralds for better or for worse have been a part of Wolf Eyes' considerably noisy orbit, as well as a constant presence amidst the No Fun noisemakers. But even since that first disc, these guys definitely stood out, eschewing abject noise and rough raw grit, for something much more drifty and spacey and dare we say new age-y. Klaus Schulze is and has been an obvious reference, and Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, thus Emeralds belong more to a modern strain of kosmiche krautrock than any sort of noise or drone rock scene. Never moreso than on Allegory. A sprawling double lp, the whole first side is filled with the billowy breathlessness of "Nereus (Spirits Over The Lake)", easily the groups, dreamiest offering to date, and the one that most taps into the sort of timeless new age drift we can't get enough of. Thick rounded tones, softly undulating, a gentle ebb and flow, melodies spread out over minutes, unfurling lazily, sun dappled, soft focus, we've already listened to side on 3 times in a row. So great, The B side is split into three tracks, but they play out more like 3 linked movements, the sound here is a bit more ominous, minor key, slightly foreboding, but still darkly delicate, the multiple synths creating softly fluttering layers of sound, that by the second track build into something much thicker and fuzzier. Long tones, the various overtones creating buried rhythms and fragmented melodies, pulsing and throbbing thickly, before the final movement dials back the buzz, but cranks up the bottomless low end, offering a vast expanse of deep subterranean rumbles, both intense and heavy, warm and enveloping. The other 2 sides are also side long epics, the first is about as corrosive as these guys get, layering sheets of buzz and fuzz and rumble into a heaving slab of washed out whir, that seems to breathe, growing thicker and thicker, the tones climbing gradually higher and higher in pitch, eventually locking into a soft focus Sunroof!-like divine ur-drone. The final side returns to the spare tranquility of the first side, all barely there drift, hushed shimmer, deep softly swirling tones. Those tones are slowly subsumed by what sounds like crackle or glitch, or maybe even field recordings of rainfall, until eventually it's just that crack and glitch and buzz, the tones fading to near silence, before returning, in an altogether reimagined form, thick, viscous, aggressive, intense, a buzzing, softly corrosive rumble, that eventually thins out leaving just shadowy traces. So gorgeous. Incredible packaging, super thick, full color gatefold sleeves, gold printed inner sleeves, pressed on nice heavy vinyl too! WAY RECOMMENDED!!

Remixed by Daphni (aka Dan Snaith -- better known as Caribou)

Nearly every week, there seems to be another crop of Emeralds related works. The format does not matter to the band - cassette, vinyl, cd, and hell, we bet they'd release an 8-track if they could - and the three Emerald dudes are not averse to venturing into side projects and other collaborations. Hence, the growth of the band between what could be qualified as their major productions has been huge. On the 2008 release of Solar Bridge, Emeralds slumped upon synths and guitar pedals in the construction of two mighty fine arcs of cosmic zone-out. Through the next couple of larger releases (What Happened and their self-titled album), Emeralds honed their craft of interlocking arpeggiations from the multiple analogue synths matched with motorik guitar excursions. They alluded to forgotten futures that were forecast by the likes of Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel, Heldon, and Omit. With all of Emeralds' explorations and variations on these specific themes, it was inevitable that the band would only be improving, and that certainly shows on the 2010 release of Does It Look Like I'm Here. The biggest change that you'll notice between this album and everything that came before is the crystallization of the Emeralds sound into brief 4 to 5 minute chunks. It's hard to call these pieces 'pop songs,' but Emeralds are working with a greater economy than ever before. So much of what they had done seems to be the result of hanging out, turning on the tape machine, and seeing what happens... with amazing results. But, the shorter program speaks of the band working out particular compositions and tightening up the dynamics between the instruments. Don't worry, there will inevitably be another awesome Outer Space cassette or a Mark McGuire cd-r of the long-sprawling zoner-jams in the very near future! (In fact, likely on this very same list!) Warm bubbling synths and kaleidoscopic guitar chiming melts into a bittersweet mid-tempo number with a thread of end-of-summer melancholy running counter to all of the glistening synth tones on the album opener "Candy Shoppe." The track "Double Helix" is aptly named for its tight spiralling of bright percolations and overlapping sequences. "Genetic" embraces a baroque almost harpsichord set of synth tones, with soaring-into-the-heavens ambience, and an elegant display of glowing guitar workouts. Lovely, lovely stuff.

MPEG stream: Candy Shoppe
MPEG stream: Genetic
MPEG stream: Does It Look Like I'm Here?

Mark McGuire, John Elliott, and Steve Hauschildt - the talented trio of synthesizerists and guitarscapers collectively known as Emeralds - have taken a break from their own personal, prolific release schedules and other music-related activities like running labels and such, to enter Tangerine Sound Studios in Akron, Ohio and come up with this, their umpteenth (we have no idea really, what with all the limited cassettes and cd-r's as well as cds and lps!) album together, following 2010's Does It Look Like I'm Here? The instrumental shimmer of Just To Feel Anything carries on from that prior release, Emeralds' mix of motorik beats, majestic ambience, and "glowing guitar workouts" again being expressed in shorter form, more "song-like" compositions. After an opening track, "Before Your Eyes", which begins as a barely audible bliss-scape of subdued synth before building up into militant beats and soaring melodies, this new Emeralds opus keeps the old school drum machine beats going on the bright and energetic "Adrenochrome", which goes from kinda dancey to guitar-oriented by the end of its own epic trajectory. Emeralds are annexing some Zombi/Moore/Majeure territory there, or sounding like something by Trans Am. A sudden shift of mood brings us to "Through & Through", a pensive & romantic sounding piece for guitar� But the very next track, "Everything Is Inverted", gets us back to the late-night-driving, early '80s krautronica soundz that make us think Zombi (and Michael Rother). Gorgeous future-retro grooves. Then, "The Loser Keeps America Down" (which would be the start of side two, on the vinyl version of this that we expect will be out in the next few weeks) sees Emeralds embrace their not forgotten, more experimental side, its textural distorted crackle not unlike a burning fire of electronic origin. Following that, eerie Goblin-like tones open up the album's title track, which blossoms into probably our favorite cut here, encompassing all the attractive features of the current Emeralds program. 'Tis shimmering, burbling, propulsive, and ultimately emotionally stirring. The album then comes to a close, bookended by another beautiful bliss-out piece. Nice!

MPEG stream: Adrenochrome
MPEG stream: Everything Is Inverted
MPEG stream: Just To Feel Anything

For some mistaken reason, we thought this was gonna be really noisy. Maybe 'cause it's on Hanson (home to such earhole excruciators as Wolf Eyes, Metalux, Smegma, and Hair Police just to name a few of the noisniks on the label). But we were wrong wrong wrong. Instead, this is totally calm and lovely electronic space music in the 'kosmiche' vein of '70s and '80s Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream and Ashra and the like. It won't harsh your mellow at all, quite the opposite! This is bliss-out droney stuff produced by a Midwestern trio using the equation: analog synthesizers x 2 + (electric guitar + effects). Something like that. Earlier in their career (this is the cd debut after lots of limited cassette and cd-r action) they used to use only TV sets as sound sources! Glad they gave that up, as Solar Bridge wouldn't be nearly so soothing if there were, like, breaks for commercials. You'd have to Tivo it. Seriously, though, this is a droning delight. There's just two tracks here, but they are 'side-long' ones. The 12:34 "Magic" and the 14:14 "The Quaking Mess". It's almost New Age-y (as so much indie, experimental music is turning out to be, when you think about it) but not too too New Age-y. Though nicely mesmeric, it also has a quietly creepy edge to it, and a real grinding, full physicality at higher volumes. Emeralds create waves and layers of subtle, gently pulsating electronic gurble, but not in an overly wispy way. For instance, feedback whispers and glimmers through the cracks in the drone at the start of "The Quaking Mess", which then builds into more of a dense, fuzzy drone-sheen. The kind that radiates light, and that you want to wrap around yourself and your ears like a blanket. Definitely one of our faves from Hanson thus far, noisy or not!

MPEG stream: Magic
MPEG stream: The Quaking Mess

In their brief career beginning in 2006, the Ohio based trio Emeralds has associated themselves with the grit and rust-stained noise that has erupted in the mid-western underground, often sharing the stage with Aaron Dilloway, C Spencer Yeh, and Hive Mind. Their two major releases have come by way of Dilloway's Hanson Records and No Fun Productions, which typically rank as releasing some of the most aggressive and brutal pieces of noise of the contemporary era. While live performances have reportedly embraced the noise community's full-force fury of maximum volume, Emeralds instead favors a sound that harkens back to the era of Cluster, Manuel Gottsching, Fripp & Eno, and Klaus Schulze. Last year's Solar Bridge was a spectacular lazer blast of cosmic droning and inner-space meditation; but with that album clocking in less than 30 minutes, we were left wanting more. Fortunately, more is what Emeralds bring on What Happened. Collected from their seemingly non-stop sessions of improvisations for guitar, Moog, and Korg plus ample effects boxes, these 5 tracks spiral and snake around the same deep-space psychedelia found on Solar Bridge, pushing their sound beyond the two extended crescendos which populated that album. Monochord guitars pulse hypnotically against the overlapping tapestries of the sawtooth hum and modulating tones from the analogue synths. Throughout What Happened, Emeralds shift in mood from alien percolations of '60s sci-fi sound design to graceful swells of tonefloat majesty to purely physical vibrations which rip through the nervous system and strike numbly at the bone. There is beauty to be found here, but also a sublime unease that haunts these recordings. Yup, this one comes highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Up In The Air
MPEG stream: Living Room
MPEG stream: Disappearing Ink

Drifting backwards in time from the post-noise excursions into placid meditations for guitar and synth, Emeralds have become one of the favorites here at Aquarius; and for very good reason, everything they touch seems to turn to gold. Solar Bridge was a such a tease of an introduction for us, and probably was the same for many out there entering into the swirling concoctions of electronic drone; but it has been the two albums What Happened and Allegory of Allergies that really laid the foundation for their impending greatness. Not only do they have a strong grasp on the minimalist theatrics of the drone, but also Emeralds enjoys a selective memory of what made progressive electronics and progressive rock in the late '70s and early '80s great. The pastoral colorfields of Cluster, the alienated ethos of Heldon, and the insistent arpeggiations of Achim Reichel and Ash Ra Tempel all figure heavily into Emeralds sound. This vinyl-only, eponymous record seems to percolate and bubble with electronics, at times veering into the same Omni Magazine territory that Oneothrix Point Never has been mustering for the past year. It may not be a surprise that OPN and Emerald's guitarist Mark McGuire have collaborated in a project called Skyramps, which is as good as you might imagine. The three tracks on the first side wrangle squiggling rhythms, bleepity squelches, and bending sustained tones generated by Emeralds' two synth jockeys John Elliott and Steve Hauschildt, while McGuire dishes out his best Manuel Gottsching impression. The second side is one of the epochal, long form constructs that slows everything on the first side down to an elegant pace with watery field recordings laced throughout. Pretty fucking awesome. And no doubt somewhat limited...

We've wanted to list so many releases by mysterious super limited cd-r label Mystery Sea. In the past, they've released cd-r's from all sorts of AQ faves, like Aidan Baker, Ultrasound, Moljebka Pvlse, Troum, mnortham, Paul Bradley and even Coelacanth (our own Jim and his partner Loren Chasse). But as each disc is strictly limited to 100 copies, and each one meticulously designed and hand assembled, we were never able to get enough, and often we were unable to get any at all. Until now. We've finally managed to get enough to list of the latest Mystery Sea release, a gorgeous slab of minimal crawl by the group Emerge, who we first heard on a Drone Records 7" a while back. Which comes as no surprise, as Mystery Sea obviously takes its inspiration from the Drone label, but instead of vinyl, it's cd-r's. The label describes its music as "night-ocean drones" and Emerge's Immersion fits perfectly alongside previous subaquatic slabs of moody meandering abstraction. Every track is a dark dolorous deep listening experience, wide open stretches of murky moonlit shimmer, warm rippling rumbles, muted melodic mumbles, all swirling and whirling in soporific swells, barely visible somnambulant patterns, peppered with abstract rhythms, textural crackle and subtle sonic grit, distant pulses, smeary sonar ping and miles-below-the-surface throb. Some of the most gorgeous drone music we've heard. A dreamlike drift along the ocean floor, an abstract ambience floating weightlessly from your speakers. Normally we would balk at $17.98 for a cd-r, but wait until you see how gorgeous these are, the artwork is all the image of an oceanic panorama, with the colors tweaked and twisted into some sort of abstract water colored seascape, the booklet, only half as wide as a normal cd booklet, allows half of the disc face to be visible as well. So striking. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Each is numbered on the tray card. Once these are gone, they are gone for good.

MPEG stream: Immersion 1
MPEG stream: Immersion 2

A paranoiac aesthetic runs through the work of Emerge, a new dark ambient project from Germany discovered by Drone Records. Emerge's short psychodrama appears to be set within a bunker being heavily bombarded during a late-night bombing campaign. Distant shockwaves resonate through concrete walls, mechanical giants rumble overhead, megaphone voices bark orders many miles away, and an uneasy atmosphere settles upon the grim proceedings in that tightly enclosed space. Limited to 300 copies with each cover burned with cigarettes and the vinyl pressed on flamboyant yellow and black vinyl. Very limited so act fast.

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

SORRY. WOW. And do we mean WOW!! Fifteen classic free jazz records from the late sixties / early seventies, long out of print, finally getting the ULTRA deluxe reissue treatment. For some reason these are incredibly limited, so these have been a bit tough to get, so we're going to list a few at a time as we can get them. Emergency were a mysterious and unlikely group, even by the always seemingly esoteric standards of the world of free jazz, two African-Americans, two Japanese and one French gypsy. The most well known of the lot, Glenn Spearman, a protege of legendary ESP free jazz saxophonist Frank Wright, handled the soprano and tenor saxophones, while the group was rounded out by some lesser known, but incredibly skilled players who had done time with Peter Brotzman, Derek Bailey, Misha Mengelberg, Steve Lacy and Cecil Taylor among others: Takshi Kako on piano, Bob Reid on double bass, Sabu Toyozumi on drums, and guitar prodigy Boulou Ferret, who was only 21 when this session was recorded. The various members gravitated from their various homes toward Paris, the free jazz hub of the early seventies, and eventually found themselves jamming as Emergency. This performance, a live session from 1970, is a dense psychedelic jam, an acid rock free jazz fusion, swirls of abstract guitar, clattery shuffling tribal throb, flurries of piano sprinkled atop burbling slippery basslines, while horns soar and skronk and squeal above it all. Lots of tripped out guitar effects, occasional Art Ensemble-ish vocals, some stretches of doomy jazzy ambience, some super angular abstract freakouts, but it's ultimately Ferret's acid fired guitar that takes center stage, sometimes shrikeing and scraping, sending fiery strands of distorted wah into the stratosphere, sometimes, slow and smooth channelling a little Wes Montgomery, sometimes locked in heated battle, wildly butting heads with the other instruments, the musical equivelent to one of those cartoon clouds when a bunch of people are in a fight, a big wirling cloud of notes and rhythms, a horn poking out here, a drum stick there, just spinning wild and chaotic. So great. Comes in a gorgeous diecut fullcover three panel sleeve, with new artwork, as well as a huge booklet with the original album sleeve notes, new liner notes in french and english as well as a bunch of cool photos. So nice!

MPEG stream: People In Sorrow
MPEG stream: Infidels

This is an unexpected direction for Rhode Island cd-r label Last Visible Dog. Some sort of 20th century / chamber / avant / classical. Abstract, shimmering strings, soaring but leaving lots of space. With occasional bursts of percussive clatter that sounds like someone jumping in a giant pile of bubblewrap! Lots of pizzicato plucking and Bjork-ish howling, stuttered, non-sensical vocalisations, wild bowing/sawing on the strings, and percussive tapping/slapping on the instrument bodies. Wild and weird and truly out there.

RealAudio clip: E Motion

[ aquarius records catalogue — E ]