[ aquarius records catalogue — E ]

Showing results 1101 through 1104 of 1104.

EYES LIKE SAUCERSStill Living In The Desert(Last Visible Dog)cd$ 13.98

Urdog was one of our favorite groups, a primitive psych folk ensemble, hypnotic and heavy and surprisingly prog, with a bit of space rock and a whole lot of drone. What was not to love?! The band called it a day a while back, but then a year or two later this little gem surfaced, a solo record from Eyes Like Saucers, which just so happens to be ex Urdog-er Jeff Knoch. But For ELS, Knoch has abandoned all the trappings of a proper rock band (ie drums, bass, guitar, etc), and he and his faithful canine companion took off in a VW van for the desert, armed only with an Indian harmonium, a toy piano, a glockenspiel, an oscillator, a Farfisa minicompact organ, a ukulele and presumably some sort of recording device. The results are much how you might imagine from the instrumentation, long warm, warbly whirring dronescapes, the organ(s) pulsing, and wheezing, the chords shifting subtly, dense and layered, and drifting slowly, contemplative and dreamlike. Super obscure reference: reminds us a bit of NZ outfit Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos, but blurred into something much more static and meditative. The record begins with a twinkling field of bells and chimes (the toy piano we're guessing) a playful high end field of plinks and plonks, melodies like sunlight through icicles, but then quickly the record gets slower and lower, transforming into a glorious shamanic drone record. Some of the tracks are rich and melodic, almost playful, jaunty, a bit like sea shanties (or desert shanties in this case), while others are lugubrious slow crawls, all whirring shimmer and blurred slow motion slither, some are peppered with the chiming toy piano percussion, or laced with Knoch's buried in the mix monotone vocals, others are left unadorned, just the notes and the melodies, the timbre and the tone, tangled into soft smears, drifting like a warm evening fog over the wide open sands of the desert. So great. And there's even a Robert Wyatt cover! Quite recommended.

EYES, THEThe Arrival Of The Eyes(Acme Gramophone / Lion)cd$ 16.98

Reissue label Lion Productions is doing their job right, bringing us this collection of the obscure but oh so killer material from The Eyes. Tough '60s garage rockin' here, from these Ealing, England mods. The disc starts off with the one-two punch of their 1965 debut single, "When The Night Falls" b/w "Rowed Out". A really raw, proto-freakbeat smasher all right, A and B sides both. Stinging guitar, primal beats, and equally raw vox. Catchy too! And there's more, plenty more to like here. What made The Eyes sound so great? Well, maybe their songwriting talent, maybe their edginess. You can get an idea of these snotty young punks' attitude from the title of the b-side of their second single: "My Degeneration". Which helped get them banned by the BBC for their subversive lyrics! Not that anyone today would likely find 'em terribly offensive... 'Tis true, though, that the lyrics to "My Degeneration" were subtly suggestive, moreso when you learn that the the word "coffee", mentioned many times in the song, was a mod euphemism for having sex. And mods liked actual coffee too. The last straw, according to the extensive liner notes (thanks Lion!), was when BBC suits saw 'em perform a song entitled "I Can't Get No Resurrection" complete with a crucifix stage prop. So, though somehow they did get to play with the likes of The Kinks, The Move, and The Action, and got some pirate radio play too, they were a BBC no-no and thus failed to have a hit single. With record sales just not happening (making their releases today quite rare and collectable!) they were forced into doing a "tribute" record to the Rolling Stones, under the name The Pupils, just to make a lousy 180 pounds. Thus tracks 17-28 included here, all covers of Stones songs (or covers of songs the Stones themselves had covered!). In another world, maybe the Stones would have been covering The Eyes... well maybe not but there are definitely enough bad ass '60s beat rockers here to make this a recommended purchase for any fan of garagey goodness.

EYESINWEASELWrinkled Thoughts(Wigwam)cd$ 14.98

You may not be aware of Andee's psychic precognitive abilities. He predicted that Eyesinweasel (which is fronted by Guided By Voices' Tobin Sprout) would sound like GBV but is not as good. Behold, Eyesinweasel sounds exactly as Andee said it would! Look out Uri Geller, there's a new kid on the telepathic circuit.

EZEETIGERs/t(Kimosciotic)cd$ 11.98

Lord knows we love us a one man band. Whether it's some shrouded figure who crafts grim black metal in a dim corner of a blackened cave or a goofy old man with a bass drum on his back and cymbals between his knees. Well, local one man band Ezeetiger falls somewhere right in the middle. Sort of. Clad in a big ol' furry bear suit and clutching a bear in one hand and a cigarette in the other, Ezeetiger aka Anthony, spews out a bit ol' thorny squall of splattery prog synths, cheesy wedding organs, squiggly spaced out melodies and surprisingly hooky pop, all buried in a murky sweaty musical knee to the crotch, and buffeted from all sides by ultra distorted garage rock scuzz, wildly careening overblown drums, and occasional bursts of buzzy, howled death metal crunch. Once in a while, the weirdness gets reined in and the clouds part, revealing, gentle, lilting vocals over gently strummed guitars or stretches of head nodding, fuzzed out Krautrock, but it's never long before gnarled drone-psych claws reach up from the abyss and haul the squirming struggling song back under!