[ 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.

Showing results 601 through 650 of 1521.

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Barrelhouse piano, some delightfully cheesy drum machines and uptempo rhythms highlight the truly amazing Astrology Songs album. (For those who bought it when it was on Amarillo Records, note that this version has added back up vocals). There's one song for each sign, and I'll bet a dollar you will find yourself skipping ahead to your own sign within a minute of putting the record on... only to find that Harvey Sid has got you totally pegged. Each song is sung in the first person, and are as varied as moody lovesongs (like "Moonchild" -- so titled because Harvey Sid didn't want to use the word Cancer), and playful uptempo show tunes ("Talkin' 'bout the Taurus / talking 'bout the bully-bull-bull! / wooly bully / You be good I'll love you till the end / and you will have a lover you can count on as a friend / I like being rich and I like being well fed / I'm good in the kitchen and I'm good in bed"), and western-style epic ("Lib-Lib-a-Libra Lib-Lib-a-Libra / I'll flirt and conquer then withdraw / Lib-Lib-a-Libra Lib-Lib-a-Libra / then maybe might come back for more / In love with all of my heart / the act of love is more of an art / Irrational passion some will say / But uh-uh I'm no glutton more a love gourmet"). Listen to the soundclips below for the full Harvey Sid experience! Local customers might want your first Harvey Sid Fisher experience to be with the Astrology Songs *video*, which simply has to be seen to be believed. A tuxedoed Harvey sings while a modern dancer in leotards acts out the lyrics of each song. Un-fucking-believable. We have this video available for rent. Mailorder customers -- we can order this for you ($17.98).

RealAudio clip: Taurus
RealAudio clip: Libra
RealAudio clip: Scorpio

The Battle of the Sexes disc reminds us of the 60s-style folk-rock duets Lee Hazelwood performed with Ann Margaret, Suzy Jane Hokum, etc. Subtitled "Duets with couples fighting -- Putting the 'fun' back into dysfunctional". With subjects like money, communication, affairs, and sex, they are so so so funny. Here's some lyrics from "I Want Sex": Man: "I want sex / I want sex / You got me climbing up the wall" Woman: "You talk like I'm not giving you enough" M: "You ain't giving me any at all" W: "You know I've been busy / lots of work to do" M: "Oh please please please I work as hard as you" W: "You know I would if I could" M: "But you don't when you should!" W: "Well the fact of the matter is you're not that good!"

RealAudio clip: I Want Sex
RealAudio clip: Money
RealAudio clip: Control

Here's the debut full-length release from this Irish electronica artist, who you may already know from his appearance on Quatermass' recent "Personal Settings" cd alongside Pan American and Komet. Fisherofgold follows the currently cool

RealAudio clip: Weltschmerz
RealAudio clip: Ballad Of Nothing Important

My first year of college, stuck in the Northwest, I discovered an old Steve Fisk cassette in a small record store and bought it to listen to on the way home for X-mas on the Green Tortoise. Cruising down I-5, headphones on, I dug it instantly. Fisk not only had

RealAudio clip: My Head Popped
RealAudio clip: The Backwards Song

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SORRY. Soundtrack to one of my favorite Bruce Lee movies reissued on vinyl! Starts off with moody strings and shuffling snares, that are soon joined by soaring baritone vocals, sounding a whole lot like an old Morricone western. The entire rest of the soundtrack is mostly dialogue and the sounds of fighting from the movie, with a tiny bit of incidental music. Almost as if they had just recorded the movie off the TV. DJs will go apeshit over this.

The first we heard from Fistula was on a split with Bay Area sonic brutalizers Burmese, and as we mentioned then, it takes some pretty serious sonic balls to hold your own on a record with a band like Burmese, and these guys pulled it off big time. Unleashing a torrent of grinding downtuned doom drenched SLUDGE. So here's the latest from these Ohioan bruisers, a 5 song ep based on the story of Ohio serial killer Anthony Sowell (they found 11 decomposing bodies under his house!) a la Church Of Misery, complete with samples of news reports, but UNlike CoM, these guys are not about groove, just punishment and pummel, a thick, filthy, blackened crawl, Sabbath at 16rpm, howled demonic vox over caustic riffage and Neanderthal drumming, occasional bursts of frenzied crunch and thud, but always returning to that glacial grinding lumber. Think Eyehategod, Bongzilla, Thou, Cough, Moloch, that sort of thing, but also more classic sludge doom outfits like Winter, Autopsy, Frost, but all filtered through Fistula's twisted and cracked sonic lens, the result a furiously brutal collection of blown out, in-the-red, slow motion, ugly chugging grim dirgery, that definitely belong in the doom-sludge pantheon alongside the above mentioned sludgelords. Fucking awesome.

MPEG stream: Ohio Death Toll Rising
MPEG stream: One Chair And An Electrical Cord

These debut cd-r recordings from Bay Area band Fits sound like some long lost rural cousin of The Elephant 6 Collective (Olivia Tremor Control, Apples In Stereo, The Minders, et al). The seven members put their plethora of instruments to good use (in addition to the basic guitar-bass-drums, there's also various keyboards, pedal steel, synths, dobro, saw and lots of horns and strings). Each of the dozen tunes is an endearing folksy pop gem with vocals that reminded us of J Mascis.

MPEG stream: Boots To The Sky
MPEG stream: Ball Of Twine

Reissue of strangely eclectic and genre-hopping British psych-folk record from 1970, combining country-rock, seventies harmonies, political satire, jazz and early electronic instrumental excursions. This is a mellow hodge-podge of aural recipes akin to the one off releases by United States of America and White Noise. While not every song hits, the album closer, "Opal Pyramid Drifting Over Time", an eight minute instrumental with washes of wah guitar, piano repetitions, jazzy drumming and chanting harmonies is definitely worth the price of admission.

MPEG stream: May Four
MPEG stream: Opal Pyramid Drifting Over Time

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Nexus is an earlier album from the ever prolific [S], the same Russian sound artist who recently blew our minds with his zombified tape smoldering noise under the name Radioson, and continues to work with the drone based projects Five Elements Music and Exit In Grey. While there clearly a difference from the operations of [S] as Radioson, the boundaries between Five Elements Music and Exit In Grey are far more porous. Environmental recordings, found object manipulation, and electronics are all common within these two bodies of work, accreting into hypnogogic drones and pools of deep ambience. Nexus dates back to 2008, but is one that we've not had the pleasure to delve into until now; and it like so much of the work by [S], is a gem. Here we have an almost literal transubstantiation of five elements (presumably earth, water, fire, air, and ether) into sound itself. There's an incredibly rich tactility that ebbs and flows throughout these two longform pieces, which seamlessly melds brittle fracturings of ice, infernal rumblings of burning embers, and murky clumps of sodden earth. Out of these textures, resonant and mesmerizing drones emerge. While not quite as intense as Small Cruel Party, Nexus easily parallels the luminous, environmental soundscaping of early BJ Nilsen, Jonathan Coleclough, and John Grzinich. Hard to say how many of these cd-rs are left in the world. Our guess, probably not many.

MPEG stream: Nexus 1
MPEG stream: Nexus 2

Yet another installment in the Mystery Sea label's ongoing series of "night-ocean drones", and none maybe more appropriate then this disc from Russian drone outfit Five Elements Music. Based on the Vedic concept of five elements air, fire, water earth and of course ether. Yup. However, here we're mostly concerned with water, as it seems that most, if not all the sounds on VarunaGhat are sourced from recordings of water. It's hard to tell at first, as the sounds is just a whispered glimmer, a shimmering high end glint way off in the distance, hovering like fireflies over a vast expanse of hushed ambience, long drawn out barely audible tones, ultra minimal but quite lovely. Eventually, the tones grow louder and more pronounced, melodies surface, and the sound of water solidifies, and suddenly the drones are drifting along side a burbling stream, or the lapping of water on the shore of a lake, slightly percussive, hissing and gently frothing, adding a whole other layer of sound to the already carefully arranged soundscape. Each track here follows a similar pattern, from barely there, to a tangible exploration of some water based soundworld. The second track begins with a microscopic rumble, but soon, we're wandering through a rain forest, the sound of rustling branches, rain on leaves, streams and gently running water, all suspended in a strange glacial swirl of near static shimmer and soft blurred drones. The final track is much more active, much more percussive, with the sounds processed into almost rhythms, dark and ominous, eventually building to what sounds like it could be the sound from some movie, leaves crunching underfoot, rain falling, foot steps, leaves and branches in the wind, all manner of water, splashing and dripping, again, all wrapped within a haunting smear of muted harmonics and deep rumbling whirs... Definitely one of the nicest in the series, and certainly the most evocative, perfect late night drifting off music, the sound of rain combined with deep dark shimmering drones, pretty impossible to resist. Like all Mystery Sea releases, strictly LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each disc numbered on the tray card, and gorgeously packaged with striking full color artwork.

MPEG stream: Untitled 1
MPEG stream: Untitled 2

Three drone-centric artists from three different parts of the world... Five Elements Music is a Russian isolationist / ambient project spawned by one of the members of the similarly minded Exit In Grey; Andrea Marutti is an Italian dark ambient practitioner with a number of occultish recordings under the moniker Amon; and Jim Haynes is a Bay Area artist who "rusts things" and also happens to work here at aQuarius. Both Marutti's and Haynes' compositions are responses to the piece made by Five Elements Music. A massive tectonic rumble emerges from the onset of the Russian track, as if the resonant echo from a meteor striking the heart of Siberia were captured through the felling of a million trees. Out of these frequencies, Five Elements Music evolves this sound into a growling dissonance more dialed into those rasping drones that Oren Ambarchi or Birchville Cat Motel might broadcast from time to time. Over the 23 minutes, this track becomes steadily more placid and inviting, eschewing the desolate horror at the beginning for something beautifully introspective. Marutti builds from the bleak horror where Five Elements Music began, producing cavernous hues of black and grey on amorphous clouds of mist and fog. Marutti's work parallels those blackened static movements of Yen Pox and Inade. For Haynes' part, the theatrical cloak and dagger of Thomas Koner's isolationism comes to mind in his response to the Five Elements Music track, albeit constructed from his distressed textures and fluttering shortwave radio manipulation. Easily the most dynamic piece of this triptych, Haynes deftly transitions pools of nocturnal drones into snarling crescendos of volatile motors, turbines, and Kevin Drumm-esque guitar dissonance which morph into an evocative movement of super-slow-motion heartbeat rhythm and radio frequencies detuned into sweeping, ghostly sinewaves, captured from within one of those WWII era bunkers that dot the California coast. Haynes presented a version of this at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in a collaborative, expanded cinema piece involving a massive diorama, lots of old scientific gear, a couple of surveillance cameras, and a toy train. Alas, there's little video documentation of that performance, but the audio here works amazingly well on its own. Limited to 400 copies (although some websites claim this to be limited to 300)...

MPEG stream: Tibetan Waves
MPEG stream: Revolving Doors On Inward Promenades
MPEG stream: Signal Mountain

Five Five 2000 is a duo from San Francisco, produding this very nice debut of dronologist electronica. Shortwave radio broadcasts of mechanized voices pinpointing time down to the second break up the freefloating, very dark washes of sound, and buried drum & bass skitter. Beautifully intense.

Five Or Six were a shortlived UK post-punk band from the early '80s with a revolving door of members, the most well known of which included Ashley Wells who later went to form Spring Hill Jack and David Knight who continues to work with Karl Blake in Shockheaded Peters. While Five Or Six never got into the avant-jazz electronica of Spring Hill Jack or the monstrous art-pop of Shockheaded Peters, the band was intent on pushing beyond the three chord punk attack. Given a dour demeanor and a penchant for moody atmospherics, their small catalogue of albums and singles rightly earned favorable comparisons to Joy Division and 154-era Wire. Tracks such as "Another Reason" and "The Trial" are grounded upon low-slung basslines grooved against percussive dirges, bleak electronic drones, and spindly guitar leads. This compilation is certainly the best place to start with the Five Or Six catalogue, as their albums could be hit and miss. David Knight admitted that the group somewhat cancelled out many of the strengths of the many members, leaving only a handful of great tracks. Fortunately, all of that great material is found here. So if the early 4AD / Factory Records post-punk dirge is your thing, this will certainly float your boat.

MPEG stream: Another Reason
MPEG stream: Lost Cause
MPEG stream: Sleepwalk

Sub Pop's answer to Tortoise--and they really must have really liked seeing Tortoise play as Tom Ze's backing band.

One of the most unsung midwest hardcore bands of the (very) early 80's, Lansing, Michigan's The Fix bludgeoned and bloodied every eardrum in earshot way back in those halcyon days when "Midwest Rules" was the credo amongst many of the early Touch & Go bands. As it turns out, The Fix records are some of the hardest (and priciest) to come across so as part of the recent 25th. anniversary Touch & Go celebration (congrats, btw) we see the reissue of this "hardcore 101 primer" compiling both 7"s, various comp singles, session outtakes and live tracks. Included are some swell "back in the day" liner notes from Byron Coley, Mr. Hank Rollins, Thurston Moore & Tesco Vee. Any band that has that foursome singing their praises has got to be pretty fucking fearsome. The Fix lasted less than two years, and a few of the members ended up starting an amazing band called Blight (a killer re-issue reviewed here a while back) who also burnt out pretty fast, but the legacy of these bands still occupies a unique niche in the history of American Hardcore. No band these days, no matter how 'punk', would ever be able to recreate these sorts of sounds and emotions, it was a special time, where emotional music wasn't just some Hot Topic Emo (TM) brand, but a lifestyle, full of real anger and frustration and desperation, the sounds of true, dead end, teenage angst.

MPEG stream: Cos The Elite
MPEG stream: Famous
MPEG stream: Rat Patrol

The newest release by Matt Wobensmith's A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. label -- following his last release by LA "gayngsta" rapper Deadlee. Matt: "You probably won't want to carry my latest release." AQ: "Why not?" Matt: "It's too R&B for you. It's not indie rock or experimental or a recording of elephants." AQ: "We like R&B." Matt: "It's not avant garde enough." AQ: "We could still carry it." Matt: "What if I lied and told you that -- instead of being a release by an amazing rapper who sounds like Q-Tip -- it was really a concept record built from samples of Lightning Bolt or the sound of earthworms burrowing to the surface of the earth or the sound of monkeys playing drones?" AQ: "We'd probably carry it." Matt: "Well, it's not. It's a straight-up R&B, Prince-influenced gay hip hop jam about gay marriage." AQ: "Just bring us some."

MPEG stream: Marry Me
MPEG stream: Fa Que

Miasmah debut (after a couple previous releases on the similar label Lampse) from this young Swedish composer, whose affecting, abstract cinematic soundscapes are part modern classical, part electro-acoustic ambience, hallucinatory and haunting. Reference has been made to Angelo Badalamenti and John Cage, Autechre and Jerry Goldsmith. If you're already a fan of Miasmah's marvelous, moody, murky output (Jacaszek, Elegi, FNS...) you should be eager to hear this. Likewise if you enjoy the likes of Leland Kirby and Indignant Senility. The eleven tracks here are rife with subtle electronic pulsations, Jeckian surface crackle, gentle chimes and shivering drones... all with sad, pretty melodies buried beneath. It's mysterious, quite lovely music. Fjellstrom's sounds conjure images of surf wracked, rain swept shores at dusk, ancient pianos and grandfather clocks crumbling slowly (and somehow rhythmically) into dust, and the sleeping forms quietly dreaming such things. Indeed, anyone making a dreamlike and slightly sinister film would be wise to consider Fjellstrom for the soundtrack (as some have already done, tracks 6-9 here, forming the "House Without A Door" suite, having originally being commissioned for a film of the same name).

MPEG stream: The Disjointed
MPEG stream: Antichrist Architect Management
MPEG stream: Monolith And Bunker

Freshly reissued as part of the Dynamophone Folio series! Fjordne's The Last 3 Days Of Time album was previously released as part of the label's special Parcel series - each volume came packaged in a round metal tin. The Folio series comes in a full color single-fold cardboard sleeve. Just as lovely the second time around! Here's what we said about the release back in 2008... Wonderful! As is reflected in the icy blue cover art, this is a wintry album - contemplative and shimmering soundscapes populated by acoustic guitars, piano, fleeting vocal gasps and seemingly microscopic electronics. Imagine a not so distant Japanese cousin of the Diskont album by Germany's Oval. Yes, it's that good! Winding and unwinding like the delicate clockwork mechanics revealed amid the feathers of the diminutive birds on the cover, these ten tracks are simply gorgeous from start to finish... as has been pretty much everything released to date by this fine, young SF independent label. Needless to say, very recommended! A perfect fit for those who've also been enjoying the soothing immersion into the releases on labels such as A Room Forever and Mystery Sea.

MPEG stream: Dazing Off
MPEG stream: Everyone Has A Season

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

SORRY. Wonderful! As is reflected in the icy blue cover art, this is a wintry album - contemplative and shimmering soundscapes populated by acoustic guitars, piano, fleeting vocal gasps and seemingly microscopic electronics. Imagine a not so distant Japanese cousin of the Diskont album by Germany's Oval. Yes, it's that good! Winding and unwinding like the delicate clockwork mechanics revealed amid the feathers of the diminutive birds on the cover, these ten tracks are simply gorgeous from start to finish... as has been pretty much everything released to date by this fine, young SF independent label. Needless to say, very recommended! A perfect fit for those who've also been enjoying the soothing immersion into the releases on labels such as A Room Forever and Mystery Sea. Part of the Dynamophone Parcel series, the cdr comes beautifully packaged in a round metal tin with a ribbon attached inside to facilitate opening the tin and getting the disc out.

MPEG stream: Dazing Off
MPEG stream: Everyone Has A Season

This is Roberta Flack's debut from 1969 and it's not only one of the best soul debuts of all time but one of our all-time favorite records. Many of us didn't even know there had been a cd version of this, but were excited to discover there was considering we've worn out our cherished lp versions, which we've cherished and always kept close to our turntable, even amongst the piles of our ever growing record collections. But since there is indeed a cd version (not new or nothin') we had to take a moment to rave about it. First Take is an album brewing with such strong emotional weight, when Roberta sings it she means it, and while the word 'soul' has been reduced to a meaningless tag-name of a genre this reminds us what true soul is really all about. Elegant and moody string and horn arrangements by William Fischer, impeccable playing from a band that included the amazing Ron Carter on bass, and the stunning and often covered album opener "Compared To What" penned for Roberta by the enigmatic Gene (Eugene) McDaniels. First Take shares a special place next to records like Sam Cooke's Night Beat, Nina Simone's High Priestess Of Soul and Roy Orbison's In Dreams, another record that you can turn to time after time when you really need to check in with sounds that are filled with honesty and core conviction. There is no doubt that it's this record that has influenced everyone from Cat Power to Erykah Badu. First Take is as sexy as it is spiritual. Raw and unpolished yet so sensual and the closest thing you can get to trying to find any real peace of mind in this world. Absolutely recommended, a record that will always be close to our hearts!

MPEG stream: Compared To What
MPEG stream: Tryin' Time
MPEG stream: Angelitos Negros

First off, that's got to be one of the best band names ever, right? Seriously, how can a band called Flagitious Idiosyncrasy In The Dilapidation NOT be awesome? That's right. They can't. Not be awesome. So they are awesome. And, it gets better: they're four girls, playing grindcore, from Japan. Be still, our beating hearts! Not that by listening to this you could tell they're women, and they don't make a big deal of it image-wise, nor do they want to - in fact, at one point in their career they did have an American guy playing guitar for a while, and as he put it at the time: "If you just liked F.I.D. for being an all-female-Asian band, and don't like us now, then obviously the music comes second for you. So long, see ya, we'll keep on thrashing." Can't argue with that at all, good point, but people often have a way of liking stuff to come in neat conceptual little boxes, and those of us who have that failing will be pleased to know that F.I.D. are back to an all-girl, all-Japanese lineup, on this, only their 2nd full-length album even though they've been around for over ten years. And it's only about 24 minutes long, but of course this IS grind, so there's lots of tracks (17), each packed with brutal weird grinding insanity! From the lurching doomic atmospheres to galloping thrash bash, this runs the grind gamut, always infested with vicious vokills from singer Makiko, who constantly and very effectively trades off between a higher rasping wrraahahhhhh shriek and a low grunting grhwhoorrrrhhrggh growl. The band's music is a dizzying and dynamic match for Makiko's grunt-a-thon, replete with pummeling blasting, sudden stop/start shifts, and jagged chugging riffage galore. Pretty freaking awesome like we already said, and even if we found out they were actually all white guys like almost every other grind band we'd STILL like it. (But maybe not if they changed the name, that would be disappointing, not to mention dilapidating, flagitiously so.)

MPEG stream: track 5
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Not sure what it is, but a lot of the new wave of post-hardcore improvised jazz leaves us really cold. Naysayers and squares have always described free jazz as just a bunch of noise, a bunch of honking skronking non-music. And as much as we fancy ourselves lovers of free jazz AND diggers of all manner of noise, we have occasionally lamentedly found ourselves playing that role, you know, the grumpy and bitter old music man, reflecting on the glory of the good ol' days, admonishing the younguns "That's nothing but noise, give that dangnabbit rackit a rest!" Or something appropriately crotchety like that. But every once in a while, for whatever reason, one of those records sneaks through and kicks our ass. This is one of those records. It helps that Corsano and Flaherty have been honing their improvisational mind melds for years now. Their interplay is fluid and fierce, a free jazz freakout as sublime as it is pummeling. Corsano (who also does time in free folk weirdos Sunburned Hand Of The Man) and Flaherty (a legend amongst free jazz fiends) spar and weave, Flaherty's sax spewing thick gushes of corrosive sound, a downright Borbetomagusian cascade of shreiks and groans, sputters and wheezes, but it's Corsano who holds it all together, an incredible gush of dense and delirious drumming, from impossibly subtle shuffle and skitter to an avalanche of percussion pummel unrivalled. Holy shit! So massive and emotionally charged, freaked out and wild and free. But Corsano and Flaherty manage to imbue each white hot burst with strangely soothing atonal melodies and rhythms that manage to be downright catchy, so much so that on repeated listens we find ourselves almost humming along to Corsano's solo stretches. Amazing stuff!

MPEG stream: The Great Pine Tar Scandal
MPEG stream: A Lean And Tortured Heart

MPEG stream: We Have To Check Your Equipment For Bombs
MPEG stream: Do You Have Any Prurient Releases?

We've been doing this long enough to know that there's certain types of AQ customers we can rely upon. One catagory being those into the weird, obscure '70s prog-psych stuff. Folks who know what the Nurse With Wound list is (heck maybe even have it memorized), and can't help but be more excited about lost treasures from 30 years ago being reissued on cd than they are about the latest indie-rock or electronica gem (though chances are you might dig those too). Well if you're one of those folks, or maybe just feel especially sonically adventurous today, we've got another reissue for ya: Flamen Dialis. Which is, we're told, the ancient Roman name for the high priest of Jupiter, and is a suitably archaic name for an quite arcane sounding band. Like Magma (and some of our favorite previous MIO reissues, Jean-Cohen Solal and Birge-Gorge-Shirac) this group hailed from France, and indeed this has a bit of that cosmic Magma vibe to it. They released this now very rare record, their sole album, in 1979, and there's also a 7" Flamen Dialis single from 1978 included on this cd reissue too. The music they made was progressive and psychedelic, but not exactly rock. It's weird and atmospheric, soundtracky stuff, very ritualistic and repetitive in nature. With chants and whispers, martial drums and zinging synths, vibraphone and Mellotron, flutes and even some brief blues guitar licks and what sounds like a rhythm machine, this is quite otherwordly and dreamlike -- not exactly dreamy (or nightmarish either) just strange. Both eerie and a little goofy too... Like a soundtrack (or a dream), themes are revisted, and the album drifts smoothly from Medieval European to Eastern sounding exoticism. We're reminded a bit of that Musique de la Grece Antique album of pseudo-ancient Greek music by the Atrium Musicae de Madrid (an AQ perennial) and Igor Wakhevitch and Franco Battiato and Magical Power Mako and, well, if you're with us this far you *are* one of the AQ customers mentioned above and maybe should just trust us when we say you ought to check this out!

MPEG stream: Dernier Croisade
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We managed to get, like, 5 copies of this mysterious cd reissue someplace. So act fast if you want one, as we won't be getting any more. Wish we could though, 'cause this is thee best doomy DIY black metal album recorded in 1987 in the basement of a YMCA building in Iceland we've EVER heard!! So lo-fi and raw and fucked up it's amazing, with tons of cult '80s atmosphere (a la Hellhammer) and truly bizarre vocal stylings, as on the chugging, erupting "Evil". What strange wretched howlings and absurd rasping shrieks! Like, Tim Baker of Cirith Ungol with more than one frog in his throat. Musically this both shreds and sludges, in both cases clogged with lo-fi production (not helped by this reissue's dodgy mastering from what sounds like a crackly vinyl original) and off kilter outsider aesthetics. But that's all part of the charm. It has to be heard to be believed. If you liked, say, some of the other eccentric '80s metal artifacts like Black Hole or Dark Quarterer that we've reviewed, and want to hear the "Venom" version of a band like that, this is for you.

MPEG stream: Evil
MPEG stream: Flames Of Hell

**SALE **SALE* *SALE**

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. I guess you could call this a 'best of' collection of tracks from 1984 - 1990 from the Flaming Lips, but most of the tracks are such odd choices as to qualify for such a title (not that they aren't good). Nonetheless, more of the weird post-Butthole Surfers psychedelia and lysergic pop one has grown to expect from the.

How do you make a record after releasing two of the best records of the last decade? Back to back amazing albums that will stand the test of time. How do you follow up that feat?? Well instead of making something quite as monumental and epic as those records the Lips just decided to make another damn good album. At war with the powers that be and those on the other side who get it all so wrong in their fanatical ways. Somehow The Flaming Lips have managed to become a voice of reason in these all too weird times. With some nods to their Clouds Taste Metallic past and for sure many of the same reach for the sky dream-on elements of The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Some of the all out fun moments on this record prove once again that no one knows joy better then Wayne Coyne does. "Haven't Got A Clue" will be right up there with one of our favorite songs of the year. The Flaming Lips still got their endearing spirit and creative minds in full swing. We're pretty damn happy that they keep on keeping on.

MPEG stream: Haven't Got A Clue
MPEG stream: Vein Of Stars
MPEG stream: The W.A.N.D.

This whole reissuing records months or years after they come out, even when the original is still available and working out for everybody just fine, is getting way out of hand. You buy a record, and a few months later, you gotta buy it again if you want the bonus tracks and the making of DVD. But what can you do? When it's a band you love, you kind of just have to suck it up. Thankfully, the Flaming Lips have gone to great lengths to make this reissue well worth buying all over again. It's a little pricey, but it is so jam packed with extra goodies it's pretty dang hard to resist. The normal record is included of course as a remastered 2.0 stereo version (we're not even sure what that means but it sounds good!). The bonus DVD is where all the action is. First, a 5.1 surround sound version of the record, 5 outtakes, in 2.0 stereo, as well as their version of "Bohemian Rhapsody", in 5.1 surround sound of course! 8 tracks from different radio sessions, also presented in hi res 2.0 stereo. Phew. But wait, that's just the DVD-AUDIO portion. There are also three videos, all of the extra tracks presented in Dolby digital 2.0 stereo and Wayne Coyne giving the commencement speech at Classen High. Holy crap. That's a lot of extras. But just in case you forgot what the record even sounds like, here's what we had to say about it the first time around: How do you make a record after releasing two of the best records of the last decade? Back to back amazing albums that will stand the test of time. How do you follow up that feat?? Well instead of making something quite as monumental and epic as those records the Lips just decided to make another damn good album. At war with the powers that be and those on the other side who get it all so wrong in their fanatical ways. Somehow The Flaming Lips have managed to become a voice of reason in these all too weird times. With some nods to their Clouds Taste Metallic past and for sure many of the same reach for the sky dream-on elements of The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Some of the all out fun moments on this record prove once again that no one knows joy better then Wayne Coyne does. "Haven't Got A Clue" will be right up there with one of our favorite songs of the year. The Flaming Lips still got their endearing spirit and creative minds in full swing. We're pretty damn happy that they keep on keeping on.

MPEG stream: Haven't Got A Clue
MPEG stream: Vein Of Stars
MPEG stream: The W.A.N.D.

Not counting their four disc anomaly known as Zaireeka, this was the album that preceded Flaming Lips' super smash hit of gigantonormous proportions, The Soft Bulletin. 'Tis very very excellent in its own psych-pop-addled ways!!

MPEG stream: This Here Giraffe
MPEG stream: Christmas At The Zoo

A new EP from AQ fave the Flaming Lips with 4 brand new songs as good as anything on their most recent full length Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (re-listed and reviewed again elsewhere on this list). The opener "Assassination Of The Sun" is one of the best Lips songs in a while. Wonder how it managed to get left off Yoshimi. Gorgeous sweeping strings, an unbelievably catchy hook, and Wayne's sweetly cracked falsetto. So good. This is gonna be on mixtapes everywhere befor you know it. The second track "I'm A Fly In A Sunbeam" is a dreamy instrumental slab of fuzzy, waltzy Lawrence-Welk-on-LSD sentimental sweetness. Which smoothly segues into the classic Lips epic dream-pop of "Sunship Balloons". Our advice is to skip the next three tracks, totally LAME house/disco/dance remixes that just suck. Maybe their recent foray onto the dancefloor with their tweaked cover of that Kylie Minogue song made them think they should givee it another try. They were wrong. But the finale redeems them, as it's a Christmas song, and if there's any band who should be allowed to do a Christmas song, it's the Flaming Lips, since most of their songs sound like Christmas songs anyway, all chimes and strings and fuzzy snowy harmonies. That and the fact that they have a full length film coming out this Christmas called Christmas On Mars. So definitely pick this up, but stay away from the dancefloor. You have been warned.

MPEG stream: Assassination Of The Sun
MPEG stream: Do You Realize (T.P.S. Remix)

Okay, we love the Flaming Lips. We have for ages. We recently revisited In A Priest Driven Ambulance, Oh My Gawd!, Telepathic Surgery, and Hear It Is, and we were struck by just how awesome those records still sound, and how amazingly and brilliantly fucked up that band was, and basically still are. Every record, we were just waiting, dying to see what the band would do next, what kind of skewed pop brilliance they would cook up, or what sort of deafening noise weirdness they might smother perfect pop songs with. Live was even better. One of their early shows here, involved more Christmas lights than we had ever seen, then there was the whole Zaireeka unmixed 4cd set meant to be played simultaneously. Who would have thought that a band like that would achieve mainstream success. Who would headline Lollapalooza, Treasure Island, that they would be the kind of band your PARENTS WOULD LIKE. But they did, and we were cool with it. The Soft Bulletin was a genius record, and with the release of that record, they moved up and on. And everything they got they deserved and THEN SOME. But then a weird thing happened, they stopped experimenting so much. Sure they had strings, and unique production techniques, and live they had the big plastic ball and people in furry suits, but the records began to run together and sound the same. Still great, and by modern pop standards, plenty strange, but by FLAMING LIPS standards, they were getting closer and closer to becoming one of those bands that required the word 'old' when describing them as a band you dug. "Yeah, I was pretty into OLD Flaming Lips". So we weren't all that hopeful about this new record, even when we heard rumblings of how weird it was, we figured it was just mainstream pop weird, not Flaming Lips weird. But whattayaknow? It is weird. FLAMING LIPS WEIRD! And wonderful, and twisted, still poppy and sort of catchy, but way more NOT. In some ways, it seems like commercial suicide. A band that popular, purposefully making a record, that most normal festival goers would NEVER blast in their SUV on the way to Whole Foods. But fuck it, if anyone can pull it off, and come out the other side smelling like roses, it's the Lips. Listening to Embryonic, it's exciting to think about these obtuse fractured jams blasting through the same PA as Kanye or Lady GaGa. And obtuse and fractured they are. Tripped out, druggy, psychedelic, rhythmic and layered. effects everywhere, sounds careening all over the stereo field, vocals distorted, guitars twisted and mangled, chiming and screaming and buzzing, the vocals more mantra like than ever. Sure it's not like the old OLD record, but hell c'mon, these guys are in their 40s and 50s, and their making some seriously challenging freaky avant space rock drone pop what-the-fuck. But don't get us wrong, there's plenty of prettiness, lovely melodies, lilting vocals, warm whirring instrumentation, but it's surrounded on all sides, by strange samples, fuzzed out bass lines, warbly synths, long stretches of staticky drift, super distorted drums, wild psychedelic guitar freakouts, it's the kind of record, that will most likely deter plenty of casual listeners, but those who dig deep. let the sounds wash over them, who get lost with the band, in whatever fucked up mysterious world music like this exists in, well, then, those folks are the chosen ones, and will discover something magical, melodic and fucking genius.

MPEG stream: The Sparrow Looks Up At The Machine
MPEG stream: Aquarius Sabotage
MPEG stream: Powerless
MPEG stream: Worm Mountain
MPEG stream: Watching The Planets

A nice little ep from the Flaming Lips, whose last 2 records we have raved about (hell, we've loved everything they've ever done) and who continue to be one of the only major label bands that does everything right (taking full advantage of being bankrolled by a massive corporation), freaky videos, performing via radio signal to an audience all wearing receivers, boombox parking lot concerts, a quadruple disc to be played back on 4 cd players, a forthcoming movie about Christmas on Mars, and now this Flight Test ep. The best part of this release is that it had been selling for close to $50 on eBay as recently as a couple months ago. So unless you were one of the few folks who could afford a $50 radio promo cdep, now is the time to snap this up for only ten bucks! The main reason to pick this up is the covers, a gorgeously faithful version of Radiohead's Knives Out as well as Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out Of My Head, realised here as a lugubrious, slow motion pop song, all warbling vocals and ominous strings, a nice change from the hi-energy house music of the original. Also features some different versions of tracks from Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, their most recent full length, as well as a few new songs: The Strange Design Of Conscience and the brilliantly titled Thank You Jack White (For The Fiver-Optic Jesus That You Gave Me). MPEG Download: "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" [/audio/flaminglipscantget.mp3] MPEG Stream: "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" [/audio/flaminglipscantget.m3u]

MPEG stream: Can't Get You Out Of My Head
MPEG stream: Knives Out

I think it's kinda funny that people have been buying/playing this collection incessantly. Why you ask? Well, you'll find none of the off kilter grandiose baroque pop of the Soft Bulletin, none of the surreal noise-pop epics of Clouds Taste Metallic, in fact if they weren't told this was the Flaming Lips, I'm guessing the majority of folks would have no idea. And I can see a lot of Soft Bulletin fans being WAY not into this. Not to say this is bad, because it's not. It's amazing! But it's also sloppy and ramshackle and noisy and chaotic and occasionally tuneless with EXTENDED freak out jams and yelped and howled vocals. This stuff is the very earliest Lips material, some of it from before Wayne even started singing (and the vocals were handled (rather poorly) by his little brother) and it shows. Definite eighties / college radio / Homestead records / Butthole Surfers / Scratch Acid vibe, which makes sense, since that's the scene that spawned the 'Lips. There are hints of what was to come, perfect little melodies, super catchy hooks, but most of the time they're buried under drug addled, spaced out RAWK, with squealing guitars and splattery drumming. Reminiscent of the Replacements in the way that something so messy and noisy and chaotic can manage to be so catchy and practically perfect at the same time. This three disc set compiles the first Flaming Lips ep, the Hear It Is album, the Oh MY Gawd!!! album, the Telepathic Surgery album and TONS of bonus tracks!! Features some of their earliest classics: Jesus Shootin' Heroin, One Million Billionth Of A Millisecond On A Sunday Morning, Drug Machine In Heaven and lots more. Andee says completely essential!!! But not if you're only Lips experience is The Soft Bulletin. Fans of freaked out, fucked up, spaced out psychedelic drug rock, will find LOTS to like here.

RealAudio clip: With You
RealAudio clip: Jesus Shootin' Heroin
RealAudio clip: Everything's Explodin'
RealAudio clip: One Million Billionth of a Millisecond on a Sunday Morning

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

SORRY.

As much as we love the later, lush psychedelic experimental pop of the Flaming Lips, and the grungy, drug addled noise rock whatthefuck weirdness of those early records, we have to say our hearts truly belong to the three records that fall right in between, a fantastic trilogy of noisy psychedelic pop and twisted noise rock experimentalism, that chronicled the group's shift from the underground to the mainstream, and capturing them when they had a foot firmly in both. That shift started with this, 1992's Hit To Death In The Future Head, and continued on through 1993's Transmissions From The Satellite Heart and 1995's The Clouds Taste Metallic. All of these have been reissued on vinyl, and hopefully we'll list them all, but it makes sense to start here. Cuz before Hit To Death, while the band were definitely pop savvy, they were also still punks, and antagonistic and naturally sonically subversive, they tossed off bits of pop like it was nothing, often tossing that pop into the midst of a 10 minute drugged out psych jam, or some warped garbled noisiness, Hit To Death, while not devoid of that stuff, was the first time where the band seeming went for it, happy to play a pop song without dousing it in noise or pulling it a part after the first chorus. That said, for a pop record, even one as tangentially 'pop' as this one, it's weird as fuck. The awesomely titled opener "Talkin' 'Bout The Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues (Everyone Wants To Live Forever)" is a super rocking noise pop classic, hooky as hell, but still rife with weird processed vox and wild psychedelic guitars, no amount of which could disguise just how good these guys were at whipping up some crazy catchiness. "Hit Me Like You Did The First Time" explodes out of the gate with a killer superdistorted processed psych guitar melody, draped over acoustic guitar strum, swoonsome strings, and weird rubbery bass, and then when the song kicks in proper, it's another chunk of sunshiney acid drenched psych pop. It is the Flaming Lips though, so there is plenty of weirdness, fucked up sounds, bizarre production, it's only really slightly removed from their previous record In A Priest Driven Ambulance, but for every blast of psychedelic noisiness there's a strummy jangly chunk of indie pop like "Gingerale Afternoon (The Astrology Of A Saturday)" or a gorgeous plaintive psych pop classic like "Halloween On The Barbary Coast", which still ranks as one of the band's best. And that's really only scratching the surface, every track on Hit To Death is so great, hooky, heavy, tripped out, dreamy, super rocking, hypnotic and mesmerizing, anyone paying attention when Hit To Death came out, knew these guys were destined for bigger things, and even now, nearly 20 years later, it sounds as fresh and creative as ever, and still pretty much like nothing else out there.

MPEG stream: Talkin' 'Bout The Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues (Everyone Wants To Live Forever)
MPEG stream: Hit Me Like You Did The First Time
MPEG stream: Halloween On The Barbary Coast

On this release for this year's Back To Black Friday Record Store Day (a sort of mini second part to April's big RSD extravaganza), the Flaming Lips offer up their song from the Ender's Game soundtrack, and it's classic Flaming Lips, at least the more modern iteration, bombastic, cotton candy megawatt orchestral psych pop, swirling FX, martial drumming, lots of shimmering synths, keening vocals, aching harmonies, lilting melodies, twisted sci-fi production, everything gauzy and reverby and prismatic. The rest of the tracks get a bit weirder, but unlike past B side excursions, they don't drift to far from the polished sympho-pop of the title track, there's the broody, pulsing sci-fi synthiness of "If They Move, Shoot 'Em", that eventually blossoms into some weird horn driven future pop bliss out, the aching heartfelt ballad that is "Is The Black At The End Good", that sounds like it could have been plucked right off their Yoshimi record, the minor key synth swirl cosmic ballad "Think Like A Machine, Not A Boy", and the loping, prog-pop of "Wolf Children, which is maybe the darkest and most dramatic of the bunch, until finally, the record winds down with the sprawling 10 minute closer, "Assassin Beetle - The Dream Is Ending", which starts off sounding like their recent full length the Terror, sort of krauty and spacey and creepy, before gradually morphing into a strange bit of orchestral exotica/cosmica, swirling faux strings, skittery, stuttery rhythms, robotic synth blurts, the vibe super cinematic and epic, building to a wild, noisy, grinding, distorted psychedelic coda, and more than the title track, sounding like music that could have accompanied one of the big battle scenes in the aforementioned big budget sci-fi blockbuster... Very few copies left, and it was meant to be a Black Friday / Record Store Day release, so when we run out, we may not be able to get more...

MPEG stream: Peace Sword (Open Your Heart)
MPEG stream: Wolf Children
MPEG stream: Assassin Beetle - The Dream Is Ending

[ aquarius records catalogue — F ]