[ 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 651 through 700 of 1521.

MPEG stream: The Abandoned Hospital Ship
MPEG stream: Psychiatric Explorations Of The Fetus With Needles
MPEG stream: This Here Giraffe

Part two in the comprehensive reissue of the Flaming Lips' early years. Now that the Lips are 'critical darlings' and 'alternative rock superstars' or whatever, people are obviously curious about all that stuff they were doing way back when nobody but a handful of punk rockers really cared. What they were doing was kicking out some ungodly jams. Loud and snotty and drug addled and psychedelic and spaced out and truly inspired. This 2 disc collection contains what is arguably their best pre-'pop' album In A Priest Driven Ambulance. The 'pop' is even closer to the surface than on their two previous records, Hear It Is and Oh My Gawd (recently reissued as the 3cd set Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid), but it's still buried safely under 16 tons of sludgy guitar, squealing feedback, splattery drums, straggly leads, bizarre religious imagery and ranting stream of conciousness lyrics. With the occasional Pink Floyd-ish existential acoustic epic. As far as the early stuff goes, if you're only exposure to the Lips is The Soft Bulletin or Yoshimi, this is probably their most 'accessible' album. And if you haven't already, pick up the three pre-Soft Bulletin albums: Hit To Death In The Future Head, Transmissions From The Sattelite Heart, and Clouds Taste Metallic to hear the amazing stuff that led up to their Soft Bulletin breakthrough!

RealAudio clip: Unconsiously Screamin'
RealAudio clip: Take Meta Mars

Following a wholly unique progression, from drug-addled psych rock jam band to off kilter pop geniuses, the Flaming Lips keep on stretching the boundaries of 'pop' music, never losing sight of the song. They seem to have a unique understanding of the absurdity of the music they produce. We're not talking about the garden variety, pedestrian pastiche efforts of so many of today's indie pop bands (i.e. avant garde = birdsounds or 'out there' segues). The Lips' weirdness isn't manufactured or forced, it seems rather to be the result of some sort of dropped-on-their-head childhood mishap or an unprecedented series of synaptic misfires. It comes as less of a surprise then that this band was dragged kicking and screaming into mainstream success by a catchy little pop song about masturbation. The Flaming Lips seem to be taking great advantage of their lofty position on a major label, doing their best to piss off the business minded folk of Warner, while at the same time managing to make truely amazing and creative records, like their last release 'Zaireeka', a 4 cd set composed to be listened to simultaneously on four separate cd players. While certainly not as labor-intensive for the listener as Zaireeka, The Soft Bulletin is another set of perfectly imperfect popsongs, albeit now accessible to the traditional one cd player household. It's hard to describe The Flaming Lips without providing a visual reference, take their live show at Slims a few years back. It began with a pathetic solitary spotlight illuminating the band huddled around their instruments and plucking fragile solitary notes. With the initial crack of the drums, a dizzying kaleidoscope of tens of thousands of Christmas lights burst to life and engulfed Slims, offereing a hallucinatory visual equal to the Lips' psychedelic pop dadaism. The Lips' disparate and patently un-pop elements; huge and fuzzy John Bonham-esque percussive bombast, ultra low frequency Moog oscillations, Wayne Coyne's still-getting-out-of-puberty voice crack, bizarre song struture, and an insane mastery of recording studio-as-instrument, come together more seamlessly than ever on The Soft Bulletin, making it our record of the week, and for some of us, record of the year. I'm kind of shocked that it's taken people so long to catch on, as the last 3 Flaming Lips albums are as essential as the new one, and currently in stock: Clouds Taste Metallic (1995), Transmissions From the Satellite Heart (1993), Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992).

MPEG stream: Race For The Prize
MPEG stream: Waitin' For Superman

FLAMING LIPS FANS!!! THE SOFT BULLETIN IS BACK!!! BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER!!! Okay, sorry for all the yelling, but we figured that this newly renovate cd/dvd edition of an AQ all-time favorite deserved a gigantic monster truck rally kind of (re)introduction, don't you? Now you can experience it in "Advanced Resolution Surround Sound". Oooooh, got yer bong loaded? The audio section of the dvd contains the full album presented in the abovementioned Advanced Resolution 5.1 Surround Sound (24bit 96kHz) as well as Advanced Resolution 2.0 Stereo (24bit 96kHz). The video section of the dvd includes what is descriptively named "Bleep-Blop Visualizations" with Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound (16bit 44.1kHz) and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (16bit 44.1kHz). Maybe more notably than that, there's also videos for "Waitin' For Superman" and "Race For The Prize", outtakes for "1000ft Hands", "The Captain" and "Satellite Of You", and finally, radio sessions of "Up Above The Daily Hum", The Switch That Turns Off The Universe", "We Can't Predict The Future" and "It Remains Unrealizable" (all Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo 16bit 44.1kHz). If you grow weary of all the high tech whachamacallits, there's also a so-called conventional cd for when you wanna rough it. Heh heh. In case your memory's a bit rusty or you've somehow yet to encounter Soft Bulletin, here's what we said about the album waaay back in 1999: Following a wholly unique progression, from drug-addled psych rock jam band to off kilter pop geniuses, the Flaming Lips keep on stretching the boundaries of 'pop' music, never losing sight of the song. They seem to have a unique understanding of the absurdity of the music they produce. We're not talking about the garden variety, pedestrian pastiche efforts of so many of today's indie pop bands (i.e. avant garde = birdsounds or 'out there' segues). The Lips' weirdness isn't manufactured or forced, it seems rather to be the result of some sort of dropped-on-their-head childhood mishap or an unprecedented series of synaptic misfires. It comes as less of a surprise then that this band was dragged kicking and screaming into mainstream success by a catchy little pop song about masturbation. The Flaming Lips seem to be taking great advantage of their lofty position on a major label, doing their best to piss off the business minded folk of Warner, while at the same time managing to make truly amazing and creative records, like their last release Zaireeka' a 4 cd set composed to be listened to simultaneously on four separate cd players. While certainly not as labor-intensive for the listener as Zaireeka, The Soft Bulletin is another set of perfectly imperfect popsongs, albeit now accessible to the traditional one cd player household. It's hard to describe The Flaming Lips without providing a visual reference, take their live show at Slims a few years back. It began with a pathetic solitary spotlight illuminating the band huddled around their instruments and plucking fragile solitary notes. With the initial crack of the drums, a dizzying kaleidoscope of tens of thousands of Christmas lights burst to life and engulfed Slims, offereing a hallucinatory visual equal to the Lips' psychedelic pop dadaism. The Lips' disparate and patently un-pop elements; huge and fuzzy John Bonham-esque percussive bombast, ultra low frequency Moog oscillations, Wayne Coyne's still-getting-out-of-puberty voice crack, bizarre song struture, and an insane mastery of recording studio-as-instrument, come together more seamlessly than ever on The Soft Bulletin, making it our record of the week, and for some of us, record of the year.

MPEG stream: Race For The Prize
MPEG stream: Waitin' For Superman

We never really stopped digging the Flaming Lips. We'll always probably be partial to the early days, the chaotic, drug addled noise rock psych pop era of course, but even more so that transitional three album arc that marked the band's transition from fucked up underground legends to weirdo stadium rock popstars, Hit To Death In The Future Head, Transmissions From The Satellite Heart and Clouds Taste Metallic. With The Soft Bulletin, the band embraced their pop side, and it paid off, and we have to say we're pretty thrilled, that a band this weird, could end up being one of the most popular bands in the world. And it's pretty heartening, that even while they were crafting these crazy commercial records, they continued to be willfully difficult, and extremely experimental and unconventional. From crazy elaborate performances to bizarre limited releases (thumb drive in a human sized gummy skull!), they're essentially one of the only bands who never seemed to be corrupted by success, and who never let that success go to their heads, or really affect their music. In fact, if anything, the Lips seem to have peaked pop wise with the trilogy of The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and At War With The Mystics, and ever since, they seem to have been getting less and less commercial, like some sort of musical Benjamin Buttons. 2009's Embryonic was pretty weird, but The Terror trumps it big time. Originally rumored to be a return to the band's old sound, The Terror instead finds the band slipping into a sort of abstract experimental almost krautrock sounding psychedelia. The sounds are lush and layered, fantastically atmospheric, the vocals sparse and minimal, no proper pop songs to be found anywhere, instead, The Terror delivers long sprawling dream-psych jams that are some of the best songs we've heard from these guys in ages. The opening tracks set the scene, pulsing electronics, woozy looped synth melodies, skittery drums, hazy vocals, the opener "Look... The Sun Is Rising" maybe the closest to modern Flaming Lips, and actual pop song structure, but even here, there's lots of jagged angular crunch, droned out synths, shimmering layers, everything washed out and hazy, the song leading directly into "Be Free, A Way", which is like an even more abstract extension of the opener, with a woozy soporific hook that will stick in your head forEVER, all over a lush landscape of synths and electronics, and murky pulsing rhythms. "Try To Explain" continues on in that drifting ethereal ephemeral psychedelic dream pop style, laying vocals over a lush bed of electronic pulsations, soaring symphonic arrangements and weird sound effects. It's on "Your Lust" where the band seem to slough off the vestiges of pop that defined the opening few tracks, unfurling a heady sprawl of hypno rock electro-kraut grooviness, all sun dappled and woozy, eventually fading out into a lush and lovely coda of warble organ, and distorted chiming melodies. And while there are moments of poppiness popping up throughout the record's remaining five tracks, those tracks seem to bleed together into one gorgeously lysergic sprawling songsuite. The rhythms minimal and motorik, the vocals wispy and ethereal, the sound often bursting into weirdly corrosive crumbles, or densely swirling buzz, blossoming into blown out shoegaze heaviness, before settling back into a twisted bit of swirling sci-fi kraut-pop drift, or some stripped down Can like minimal mesmer, but all wreathed in a constantly shifting cloud of effects and textures and disembodied voices, at one point the band slip into some hushed electronic creep, with falsetto vox, and lots of glitch and buzz, sounding a bit like Thom Yorke's solo record The Eraser, but things here are much weirder, the sound exploding into a noise drenched buzz pop, before devolving into the gorgeously abstract weirdo noise-pop prog of the closer "Always There In Our Hearts", which manages to be both poppy and impossibly catchy, as well as dense and claustrophobic, intense and super dramatic. The whole record bleeds into one fantastic and lysergic whole, it's hard to pick out a single song, or even a single part. in fact we've yet to NOT listen to the whole record in a single sitting, the only thing that separates the songs for us is hearing a phrase, or part of a title, the record in many ways feels like one huge piece, an interconnected songsuite, and while with every listen, certain parts stick in our heads, certain melodies, specific sounds, even textures, or rhythms, we still just can't bring ourselves to not listen to the whole thing, all the way through, over and over and over. (By the way, we're still waiting for the vinyl version of this to arrive, we're now told next week, supposedly.)

MPEG stream: Look... The Sun Is Rising
MPEG stream: Be Free, A Way
MPEG stream: Your Lust
MPEG stream: The Terror
MPEG stream: You Are Alone

We love the Flaming Lips. We always have. From their ramshackle psychedelic drugfuck daze, to their modern orchestral bliss pop incarnation, they just totally and completely kick our ass. Musically AND visually. The thing that really set them apart, especially way back in the early days, was their visual presentation. Sure they were a sloppy chaotic stumbling drunken psych rock mess, but their visuals matched up perfectly, smoke machines, Xmas lights, bubble machines, strobe lights, crazy day glo thrift store clothes, dyed hair, and stages and record covers full of all sorts of crap. It was totally overwhelming, but it a good way. As they got more and more popular and their budget grew with them, their unique aesthetic remained the same, but was just a whole lot fancier. So here we have 13 years worth of videos, all of them in fact, and all of them amazing, visually stunning to different degrees, from big budget high concept to camcorder in the garage, it didn't really matter with the Lips, they just always knew how to make the most of what they had to work with. So every video here is a druggy psychedelic feast for the eyes, and they all fit strangely well together too from the oldest to the newest, a bit like the coolest weirdest video mix tape you've ever seen. Completely remixed in 5.1 surround sound with band optional band commentary, liner notes and a nifty sticker! ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just cut and paste the info into the comments area on the order form, or just email mailorder@aquariusrecords.org. AKIYAMA, MITCHELL "Mort Aux Vaches" (Staalplaat) cd 21.00 ALIAS "All Things Fixable" (Goodwithmoney) cd 14.98 BAD DUDES "s/t" (Brain Burger) cd 12.98 BANGO "s/t" (Normal Records) cd 15.98 BATTLETORN "Evil Chains" (Mega Blade) cd 13.98 BLOC PARTY "Silent Alarm Remixed" (Vice) 2cd 14.98 CAGE "Hell's Winter" (Definitive Jux) cd 16.98 CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (ORTOLANI, RIZ) "OST" (Red Stream) cd 11.98 CAVE-IN "Perfect Pitch Black" (Hydra Head) cd 12.98 CIRCULUS "The Lick On The Tip Of An Envelope Yet To Be Sent" (Candlelight) cd 14.98 COE, DAVID ALLAN "Penitentiary Blues" (Hack Tone) cd 16.98 COIL "...And The Ambulance Died In His Arms" (Threshold) cd 19.98 CURL UP AND DIE "The One Above All, The End Of All That Is" (Revelation) cd 13.98 DOUBLE, THE "Loose In The Air" (Matador) cd/lp 13.98/11.98 EDISON ELECTRIC BAND "Bless You Dr. Woodward" (Water) cd 15.98 EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER "Beyond The Beginning" (Sanctuary Records) dvd 27.00 GILMORE, JIMMIE DALE "Come On Back" (Rounder) cd 16.98 HAACK, BRUCE "The Electric Lucifer" (Columbia) lp 12.98 HAINO, KEIJI "Global Ancient Atmosphere" (PSF) cd 21.00 HELL, RICHARD "Spurts: The Richard Hell Story" (Rhino / Warner) cd 16.98 HOLY MCGRAIL "Collecting Earthquakes" (Head Heritage) cd 14.98 KUUPUU "Illusia" (Time-Lag) 7" 8.98 M83 "s/t" (Gooom) cd 15.98 MAGIC AUM GIGI "MMMM" (Sparkling Spare Wheel) lp 21.00 MT. EERIE "Singers" (P.W. Elverum & Sun) lp + cd 16.98 NADA SURF "The Weight Is A Gift" (Barsuk) 2cd 14.98 NANJO, ASAHITO "Greed" (Sparkling Spare Wheel) lp 21.00 NECKS, THE "Photosynthetic" (Long Arms) cd 15.98 NERVE NET NOISE "Radio Life" (Staalplaat) cd 19.98 NUMAN, GARY "Living Ornaments '79" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 10.98 NUMAN, GARY "Living Ornaments '80" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 10.98 NUMAN, GARY "Living Ornaments '81" (Beggars Banquet) 2cd 10.98 ONEIDA / PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE SOUND "split" (JagJaguwar) 12" 11.98 POSIES "Every Kind Of Light" (Ryko) cd 15.98 REID, TERRY "Superlungs" (Astralwerks) cd 15.98 RODEN, STEVE "Airforms" (Line) cd 14.98 SANHEDOLIN "Manjoicchi Wa Muko" (PSF) cd 21.00 SHE MOB "Not In My World" (She Mob) cd 9.98 SHEAVY "Republic?" (Candlelight) cd 14.98 STELLASTARR "Harmonies For The Haunted" (RCA) cd 12.98 STOLTZ, KELLEY "Crockodials" (Beautiful Happiness) cd 9.98 STOOGES, THE "Fun House Deluxe" (Elektra) 2cd 21.00 STOOGES, THE "Heavy Liquid" (Easy Action) 6cd 82.00 STOOGES, THE "Stooges" (Rhino) 2cd 21.00 TAAKE "Helnorsk Sbartmetall" (Karisma) cd 14.98 TIA CARRERA "The November Session" (Australian Cattle God) cd 12.98 TIMES NEW VIKING "Dig Yourself" (Siltbreeze) cd 13.98 TIVOL "Early Teeth" (Holy Mountain) lp 14.98 TOY DOLLS "Cheerio And Toodlepop! The Complete Singles" (Castle) 2cd 21.00 TRAFFIC SOUND "Yellow Sea Years" (Vampisoul) cd 21.00 V/A "Cambodian Rocks Vol. 4" (Khmer Rocks) cd 14.98 V/A "Speaking My Mind: New Rubble Volume 2" (Past & Present) cd 17.98 V/A "Welsh Rare Beat" (Finders Keepers) cd 21.00 WEST, KANYE "Late Registration" (Roc-A-Fella) cd 15.98 YA HO WHA 13 "Re-Visiting Father and the Source Family" (Swordfish) dvd 28.00

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

SORRY. Two, three song cd singles packaged together as a set. Track one on both is the radio edit of the Lips' heart rending "Waitin' For a Superman" from the Soft Bulletin. The other two tracks are from the now out of print Zaireeka and are, you guessed it, meant to be played simulatenously.

The Sgt. Peppers cover album!

One of SIX new Flaming Lips lps in the recently launched vinyl reissue program for everyone's favorite psychedelic weirdos turned mainstream indie rock heroes, 2002's Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, was the record that followed the group's massive breakthrough album, 1999's The Soft Bulletin. Yoshimi found the band returning with yet another gem which saw the band maturing, but seemingly only getting better with age. We used to think that about Tom Waits, Stereolab, and (some here think) Radiohead, but all those folks eventually released mediocre (perhaps bad?) records, whereas The Flaming Lips' career-long consistency through at the time 12 albums was pretty remarkable. Certainly many of their indie rock, pre-Warner fans abandoned the group well before this record, having soured on their current efforts, and probably just as many folks who discovered them via their hit "She Don't Use Jelly" (or possibly "Waitin' For A Superman") probably couldn't find much to enjoy in their early drug addled, psychedelic bombast. But with such a continually evolving yet uncompromising sound, they're bound to alienate some. There's a striking resemblance on Yoshimi to the recent works of Radiohead, but then again there's definitely much that parallels the Lips' career with that of our faves from across the Atlantic. Like Radiohead, The Flaming Lips have chosen ever more increasing studio experimentation, combining electronic music elements with lush arrangements and cohesive album-oriented productions. But more significant perhaps is that Yoshimi, a semi-concept album, shares a similar paranoid and alienated angst that Radiohead has been honing these last several albums. But where as Radiohead takes a decidedly maudlin, Orwellian approach in their song writing, the Flaming Lips work in an absurdist, comedic fashion more akin to Philip K. Dick. "One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21" could have been cut straight out of a P.K.D. story: "Unit three thousand twenty one is warming / makes a humming sound - when its circuits duplicate emotions - and a sense of coldness detaches as it tries to comfort your sadness..." All this arranged about as close to a Sade song as Coyne and the Lips can conceivably get (which we also see as a friendly jab at the sterile audiophile machinations of modern "soul".) The humanization of machines vs. humanity stripped of love and hate is the theme that's mulled over throughout. Most of the songs on the album are in direct reference to a painful breakup (either real or concocted) and the fictional battle between Yoshimi and the Pink Robots is more of a parable for struggling in the aftermath of having one's heart dashed to pieces. The two themes are intertwined on the album, but loosely enough so that you aren't forced into a Pink Floyd Wall of a concept album. While not as completely rife with hits as The Soft Bulletin, there's a lot to be warmed up to with Yoshimi. At first listen it seemed as though the Lips and Mercury Rev-ifier Dave Fridman had produced nothing but 45 minutes of studio wizardry and ear candy, but continual listens finds these songs opening up like a veritable flower blossom. "In the Morning of the Magicians" with its recurring, heart rending instrumental bridge will even bring a tear to the most desiccated of eyes. And "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" (Part 1, *not* part 2) will have you singing along in your best cracked falsetto soon enough. We imagine the bean counters at AOL/Time Warner had a hard time listening to this more than once, if at all, as they neglected to print up enough copies for the first run, and we're not sure of the significance or if the title and her appearance on this record are mere coincidences or -gasp- something more, but AQ fave/crushworthy drummer/vocalist Yoshimi of the mighty Boredoms was a musical guest!!

MPEG stream: In the Morning of the Magicians
MPEG stream: One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21
MPEG stream: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 1

Normally we scoff at the ongoing fleecing of music lovers by re-releasing albums with a DVD of bonus crap forcing fans to buy the album twice. And we're not sure why this Flaming Lips DVD couldn't have just been released by itself, but it wasn't, so once again, fans are faced with the choice of buying the record again, or missing out. Thankfully, the stuff on the DVD is actually pretty great, so it might be worth getting rid of your old Yoshimi and picking up this new one. The cd is virtually unchanged, and the full review is below. The DVD contains the full album, but mixed in 5.1 surround sound. Two different videos for "Do You Realize?", the making of "Do You Realize?", "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1" video, a making of the "Yoshimi" video, "Fight Test" video, "Phoebe Battles The Pink Robots" video, a trailer for the Flaming Lips upcoming Christmas On Mars movie (that looks deliciously low budget), and a making of this here DVD. Also there are two animated DVD-Rom tracks, and 6 unreleased tracks (4 alternate versions and two new tracks). There's also a weird sort of trippy video jukebox. Hard to know what was all on there because the DVD was sort of hard to navigate, but it's pretty jam packed with goodies that most Flaming Lips fans will not want to be without. Now here's what we had to say about the record itself: The Flaming Lips return with yet another gem and it's beginning to look as if they are only getting better with age. We used to think that about Tom Waits, Stereolab, and (some here think) Radiohead, but all those folks have released mediocre (perhaps bad?) records, whereas Flaming Lips' career-long consistency through 12 albums is pretty amazing. Certainly many of their indie rock, pre-Warner fans have long since abandoned their current efforts just as many who discovered them via their hit "She Don't Use Jelly" (or possibly more recently with "Waitin' For A Superman") probably don't find much to enjoy in their early drug addled, psychedleic bombast. But with such a continually evolving yet uncompromising sound, they're bound to alienate some. There's a striking resemblance on Yoshimi to the recent works of Radiohead, but then again there's definitely much that parallels the Lips' career with that of our faves from across the Atlantic. Like Radiohead, The Flaming Lips have chosen ever more increasing studio experimentation, combining electronic music elements with lush arrangements and cohesive album-oriented productions. But more significant perhaps is that Yoshimi, a semi-concept album, shares a similar paranoid and alienated angst that Radiohead has been honing these last several albums. But where as Radiohead takes a decidedly maudlin Orwellian-like approach in their song writing, the Flaming Lips work in an absurdist, comedic fashion more akin to Philip K. Dick. "One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21" could have been cut straight out of a P.K.D. story: "Unit three thousand twenty one is warming / makes a humming sound -- when its circuits duplicate emotions -- and a sense of coldness detaches as it tries to comfort your sadness..." All this arranged about as close to a Sade song as Coyne and the Lips can conceivably get (which I also see as a friendly jab at the sterile audiophile machinations of modern "soul".) The humanization of machines vs. humanity stripped of love and hate is the theme that's mulled over throughout. Most of the songs on the album are in direct reference to a painful breakup (either real or concocted) and the fictional battle between Yoshimi and the Pink Robots is more of a parable for struggling in the aftermath of having one's heart dashed to pieces. The two themes are intertwined on the album, but loosely enough so that you aren't forced into a Pink Floyd Wall of a concept album. While not as completely rife with hits as The Soft Bulletin, there's a lot to warm up to with Yoshimi. At first listen it seemed as though the Lips and Mercury Rev-ifier Dave Fridman had produced nothing but 45 minutes of studio wizardry and ear candy, but continual listens finds these songs opening up like a veritable flower blossom. "In the Morning of the Magicians" with its recurring, heart rending instrumental bridge will even bring a tear to the most desiccated of eyes. And "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" (Part 1, *not* part 2) will have you singing along in your best cracked falsetto soon enough. We're not sure of the significance or if the title and her appearance on this record are mere coincidences or -gasp- something more, but AQ fave/crushworthy drummer/vocalist Yoshimi of the mighty Boredoms is a musical guest!!

MPEG stream: In the Morning of the Magicians
MPEG stream: One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21
MPEG stream: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 1

The Flaming Lips return with yet another gem and it's beginning to look as if they are only getting better with age. We used to think that about Tom Waits, Stereolab, and (some here think) Radiohead, but all those folks have released mediocre (perhaps bad?) records, whereas Flaming Lips' career-long consistency through 12 albums is pretty amazing. Certainly many of their indie rock, pre-Warner fans have long since abandoned their current efforts just as many who discovered them via their hit "She Don't Use Jelly" (or possibly more recently with "Waitin' For A Superman") probably don't find much to enjoy in their early drug addled, psychedleic bombast. But with such a continually evolving yet uncompromising sound, they're bound to alienate some. There's a striking resemblance on Yoshimi to the recent works of Radiohead, but then again there's definitely much that parallels the Lips' career with that of our faves from across the Atlantic. Like Radiohead, The Flaming Lips have chosen ever more increasing studio experimentation, combining electronic music elements with lush arrangements and cohesive album-oriented productions. But more significant perhaps is that Yoshimi, a semi-concept album, shares a similar paranoid and alienated angst that Radiohead has been honing these last several albums. But where as Radiohead takes a decidedly maudlin Orwellian-like approach in their song writing, the Flaming Lips work in an absurdist, comedic fashion more akin to Philip K. Dick. "One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21" could have been cut straight out of a P.K.D. story: "Unit three thousand twenty one is warming / makes a humming sound -- when its circuits duplicate emotions -- and a sense of coldness detaches as it tries to comfort your sadness..." All this arranged about as close to a Sade song as Coyne and the Lips can conceivably get (which I also see as a friendly jab at the sterile audiophile machinations of modern "soul".) The humanization of machines vs. humanity stripped of love and hate is the theme that's mulled over throughout. Most of the songs on the album are in direct reference to a painful breakup (either real or concocted) and the fictional battle between Yoshimi and the Pink Robots is more of a parable for struggling in the aftermath of having one's heart dashed to pieces. The two themes are intertwined on the album, but loosely enough so that you aren't forced into a Pink Floyd Wall of a concept album. While not as completely rife with hits as The Soft Bulletin, there's a lot to be warmed up to with Yoshimi. At first listen it seemed as though the Lips and Mercury Rev-ifier Dave Fridman had produced nothing but 45 minutes of studio wizardry and ear candy, but continual listens finds these songs opening up like a veritable flower blossom. "In the Morning of the Magicians" with its recurring, heart rending instrumental bridge will even bring a tear to the most desiccated of eyes. And "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" (Part 1, *not* part 2) will have you singing along in your best cracked falsetto soon enough. I imagine the bean counters at AOL/Time Warner had a hard time listening to this more than once, if at all, as they neglected to print up enough copies in the first run and now we -- and stores everywhere I suppose -- are struggling to find a distributor with remaining copies on hand. And we're not sure of the significance or if the title and her appearance on this record are mere coincidences or -gasp- something more, but AQ fave/crushworthy drummer/vocalist Yoshimi of the mighty Boredoms is a musical guest!!

RealAudio clip: In the Morning of the Magicians
RealAudio clip: One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21
RealAudio clip: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 1

"Warning: This is a unique recording. These 8 compositions are to be played using as many as four compact disc players, and have synchronized start times. This recording also contains frequencies not normally heard on commercial recordings and on rare occasion has caused the listener to become disoriented." That's right, four cds meant to be played simultaneously, that nonetheless sound engrossing and interesting one by one. That Warner Bros saw fit to release this wonderful experiment in sonic collage is amazing. Then it went out of print for a while, so what's even MORE amazing is that Warner Bros. decided to repress it, again!! Buy this and conduct your own "boombox experiment"...

MPEG stream: Riding To Work In The Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)
MPEG stream: Thirty-Five Thousand Feet Of Despair
MPEG stream: Big Ol' Bug Is The New Baby Now

Wow. We mean WOW! Haven't watched the whole movie but from what we've seen already, HOLY CRAP! How many bands are lucky enough to have a next door neighbor / past pal who just happens to be an experimental film maker, and who just happens to have filmed everything for the last decade, videos, parties, shows, birthdays, EVERYTHING. This is a delirious travelogue through the strange life of the Flaming Lips, from their beginnings as a ramshackle psych noise band, to their re-invention as pop experimentalists to their Grammy and beyond! All filmed in that cool guerilla, fucked-with-film-stock, overexposed / underexposed, short attention span style we've come to equate with the Lips through their videos. Fear not though. There's plenty of intense emotional stuff going on beneath the visual fireworks. Highlights include a particularly brutal scene involving drummer Steven Drozd shooting up while he discusses his addiction (which the band chose to address together instead of kicking him out of the band), and another scene wherein main Lip Wayne visits his older brother who lives in the bad part of town and discusses his jailtime as well as his involvement in local crime. Plus loads of goofy fun, wild rocking and stuff that makes no sense at all but is fun nonetheless, like the scene in which Wayne and two kids re-enact a robbery at the Long John Silver's where Wayne used to work or the scene where Wayne helps his mom repair the rain gutters! Tons of amazing footage, old class photos, many many embarassing haircuts, loads of amazing music, all presented in a suitably tripped out psychedelic framework. Bonus features include live clips, slide shows, bloopers, deleted scenes, outtakes and really funny commentary from both the director and the band. Recommended, already.

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

SORRY.

Of all the hundreds of super limited Record Store Day releases this year, the double lp superstar collaboration from the Flaming Lips and their 'Fwends' was probably THEE most anticipated one of all, and as might have been expected, those sold out in a heartbeat. But now it's available again, this time as a less limited cd, with different cover art. And yeah, as the title suggests, this is indeed a collection of collaborations, but VERY unlikely ones, with all sorts of other musicians, very few of which we would imagine would normally end up in the same orbit as the Lips. But much has changed over the last couple decades, the band that was once a sloppy chaotic drug rock mess and who toured with bands like the Butthole Surfers, has become one of the biggest bands in the world, and thus, one might not be as surprised to see the list of collaborators: Ke$ha, Biz Markie, Bon Iver, Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros, Prefuse 73, Tame Impala, My Morning Jacket, Nick Cave, Lightning Bolt, Yoko Ono, Neon Indian, Erykah Badu, New Fumes, Chris Martin of Coldplay. Weird, huh? And as much as we want to hate on the modern version of the Lips, and doubt their relevance as a band, all it takes is an earful of their warped psychedelic pop, and we realize that maybe not so much has changed after all. Cuz goddamn if we're not sort of loving this record. The sounds are all over the map, but pretty much always sound like the Flaming Lips, from weird noise drenched electro-pop to drum machine driven psychedelia, from lush orchestral almost choral sounding dreamfolk to rad tripped out electronic skitter and squelch, from fuzzed out falsetto vocal-ed psychedelic dreaminess to super distorted doomy dirgey fuzzy noisepop and even some warm swirly synth heavy new wave. We had already heard their Lightning Bolt collab, and it's pretty much THEE jam here, heavy and heady, noisy and weird as fuck, the perfect mix of the two bands' sounds, dreamy and woozy one second, wild and drum heavy and chaotic the next, but then the Yoko Ono track is pretty rad too, trippy and abstract, tribal, with plenty of fuzz and buzz and crunch, weird effects, Ono mostly shouting "Do It" over the droned out psychedelic dirgery beneath, and Erykah Badu's Flaming Lips-ed version of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" becomes creepy and doomy and super haunting, and heck, even the Chris Martin track is pretty gorgeous too, elegiac, a haunting softly psychedelic ballad that sounds more like the Lips than Coldplay, but manages again to fuse the best of both bands. Needless to say, this is definitely recommended. For new fans and even skeptical old fans like us.

MPEG stream: I'm Working At NASA On Acid (With Lightning Bolt)
MPEG stream: Do It (With Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band)
MPEG stream: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (With Erykah Badu)

We had been holding off on reviewing this until someone here had actually watched the Flaming Lips movie, but it's been so busy around here we haven't had time. And since most Flaming Lips fans are gonna want this no matter what, and folks who have yet to discover the joys of the Lips, would most likely be better off starting a little further back in their catalog, we figured what the heck, let's review the record, the score to the movie, and give a brief synopsis of the movie, just so folks can actually buy it and check it out for themselves. So the record, is not a NEW Flaming Lips record, in fact it's not even a proper Flaming Lips record, as mentioned above it's the score to the film of the same name, the one the band has been working on for close to a decade. So there's no big drums, none of Wayne Coyne's wavery vocalizing, no lush popscapes or BIG hooks, but the thing is, with all of those critical Lips elements removed, the band manage to still make Christmas On Mars sound like a Flaming Lips record, albeit a stripped down sort of ambient one. But heck, remember Zaireeka? The 4 disc set that had the various tracks broken down and spread out over the various discs so to hear the complete songs you had to have 4 stereos and play them all simultaneously? Well, in some ways this almost sounds like ONE disc from Zaireeka, like the backgrounds for proper Lips pop songs. haunting disembodied voices, lush harps and zithers, faux strings, creepy orchestrations, strange sound effects, choirs, shimmering drones, but all shot through with a little bit of Christmas, be it a melody here, or an instrument there. Even removed from the visuals, this plays like some super avant, outsider Christmas record, which, it sort of is. So yeah, recommended for open minded fans of the band, and for folks into space-y (holiday) weirdness, or wonderfully creepy film scores like that Bernard Hermann Brave New World disc we listed awhile back. But that's not all. Both the cd and the lp version (which has a different name for some reason) contain a dvd containing the film Christmas On Mars, a sort of updated but still WAY low budget Plan 9 From Outerspace, starring the bands and lots of their friends. What little we've seen looks really fun, and pretty silly, and definitely demented, again, movie buffs might not love it (movie buffs into kitsch and so-bad-they're-good movies might though) but fans will go nuts for it. The trailer is amazing, super stylized and very very strange, definitely has us wanting to see it bad. One of these days. But for now, check it out. Lips fans, this is essential obviously, the rest of you, depends on how you feel about the band and their music, or how you feel about a green alien with antennae who saves Christmas. The lp, titled Once Beyond Hopelessness, not only contains the same music as the cd, and the movie on dvd, it also includes a BONUS 7" with exclusive music NOT on the cd!

MPEG stream: Once Beyond Hopelessness
MPEG stream: In Excelsior Vagianlistic
MPEG stream: Space Bible With Volume Lumps

Whenever a cover song (let alone a whole cover album!) comes through our doors, we ask, "Did this really need to be covered?" or perhaps more importantly, "Did this really need to be released?!" I mean, yeah, it's super fun to figure out and play someone else's awesome song, and can also be super fun to witness in the live setting like in an encore or something, but to actually commit it to tape or vinyl or cd? Hmmmm. That said, we know people will never stop doin' it, and some folks will for sure do it better than others. Well, in this particular case, can you really think of anyone more equipped to cover the ENTIRE Dark Side Of The Moon than the Flaming Lips?! Nope, we can't either. And apparently live this is some sort of fantastical spectacle, obviously. So yeah, a handful of these tracks sound right at home in the able hands of the Flaming Lips, just getting a bit more twisted and psychedelic, which of course we're totally not opposed to. Peaches and Henry Rollins guest on a few tracks, which we're not so keen on, but heck, it still sounds like it was a lot of fun. Those tracks that do work though are pretty dang incredible, wild and incendiary and heavy and moody and blissful and so so psychedelic... Lips fans will definitely want this, Pink Floyd fans MIGHT, everyone else should give the sound samples a listen and decide for themselves...

MPEG stream: Speak To Me / Breathe (feat. Peaches & Henry Rollins)
MPEG stream: Us And Them (feat. Henry Rollins)
MPEG stream: Any Color You Like

Listening to old Flaming Lips, it's nearly impossible to imagine them as the stadium rock, Miley & Ke$ha collaborating mainstream musical superstars they've become, cosidering they started life as a drugged out, cacophonous mess, on par with fellow psychedelic noise makers the Butthole Surfers. But even on those early records, there were hints of what was to come, and what the Lips were capable of. Over the years, the band got less noisy, less druggy, less fucked up, and popper, their songcraft developing by leaps and bounds, and somewhere right in the middle was the absolute sweet spot. Actually not somewhere, RIGHT HERE. Clouds Taste Metallic is the Lips finest moment, and that's in a career of mostly fine moments. It perfectly balances the unhinged noisemaking, with the impossibly catchy pop, wound up into quirky, psych pop perfection that unfurls and unravels fantastically. It's also a record swaddled in crazy, FX drenched guitar noise, and marks the final appearance of the man responsible for that noise, twisted axe wrangler Ronald Jones. How could a perfect record get any more perfect? Add two whole discs (Due To High Expectations...The Flaming Lips Are Providing Needles For Your Balloons/The King Bug Laughs, and Psychiatric Explorations Of The Fetus With Needles: Live In Seattle 1996), collecting pretty much every EP, every demo, live track, radio session and random recording from the era, a collection brimming with tons of unlikely gems. So worth it for the bonus stuff for fans, but if you've somehow never ever even heard Clouds Taste Metallic, you are about to have your mind, and eardrums BLOWN.

MPEG stream: Lightning Strikes The Postman
MPEG stream: Nobody Told Me
MPEG stream: Put The Waterbug In The Policeman's Ear (live)

Pink vinyl.

For their installment in Azuli Records' Late Night Tales series, Wayne Coyne & Co. have apparently rummaged through their personal record collections and picked out eighteen of their faves. It's somewhat perplexingly and a tiny bit disappointing though 'cause there aren't really any big surprises nor any odd obscurities. The biggest surprise is in just how safe a selection it is -- sorta like one of those old 'As Seen On TV! K-Tel Greatest Hits' compilations. Okay, maybe it's not *that* predictable or mainstream, but see for yourself... Bjork, Radiohead, Nick Drake, Sebadoh, Chemical Brothers, Chris Bell, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Psychedelic Furs, Chameleons, Love And Rockets, Roxy Music, Lush, Miles Davis, Mice Parade, Alfie, Faust and 10CC! While this comp does stir up fond memories of those good ol' songs, we might've expected the Lips' to take this opportunity to share some more off-the-radar listening treats by including a couple of challenging curve balls in the mix. In fact, the only things here that comes remotely close to curve balls are Faust's "It's A Bit Of A Pain" and 10CC's "I'm Not In Love". That said, 'Lips fans will surely welcome the band's own contribution to the lot which appears halfway through the album. It's their cover of The White Stripes' tune "Seven Nation Army" (apparently this is the exclusive release of this song on cd, but you might also be able to find it on an unrelated limited edition 7"). A final added bonus on this volume of the Late Night Tales series is the second of five clips from multi-faceted Scotsman David Shrigley's Bits And Bobs.

MPEG stream: Seven Nation Army
MPEG stream: It's A Bit Of A Pain

MPEG stream: Once Beyond Hopelessness
MPEG stream: In Excelsior Vagianlistic
MPEG stream: Space Bible With Volume Lumps

Blue vinyl.

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.

Alternative Tentacles brings the sounds of UK band Flaming Stars to this side of the Atlantic. They've been around for over five years with a handful of releases on Vinyl Japan, but nary a peep in the U.S. until now. Imagine a melding of the Tindersticks'

RealAudio clip: A Place In The Sun

The Flaming Stars' previous release on Alternative Tentacles, Ginmill Perfume: The Story So Far 1995-2000, received quite a warm response around these parts, and Named And Shamed seems destined for a similar welcome. While checking out the album's first few tunes, Andee and Cup agreed that lead singer Max Decharne's dark and deep voice brought to mind a cross between Nick Cave and Lou Reed. However, by the time the sixth song "The Parade's Gone By" came around, Allan had joined the listenin' party and commented that it sounded like Jonathan Richman. So... if you have a particular penchant for (or aversion to) those aforementioned singers you might wanna take appropriate action (i.e, get this right away, or, stay away). As for the rest of the Flaming Stars' sound, for the most part Descharne's keyboards stick with his vocals and Paul Dempsey's steady bass guitar in the lower register creating an overall low, simmering brood-mood. Joe Whitney's drumming and the dual post-punkish electric guitar attack of Huck Whitney and Mark Hosking occasionally jab and poke through the heavy shadows. The band saves the best song for last (at least in Cup's opinion) -- "Locked In Tight" is a somber late night heartbreaker.

MPEG stream: The Parade's Gone By
MPEG stream: Locked In Tight

Finally one of the legendary lost This Heat related recordings gets its first proper release! Originally released as a tape in 1985, recorded by This Heat's Gareth Williams and Mary Currie and friends, shortly after Williams left This Heat, Flaming Tunes is a gorgeous, quirky collection of lo-fi experimental moody textural avant pop, originally conceived as something totally removed from the much more abrasive and rhythmic music he made in This Heat. Unavailable ever since its original cassette release, minus a bootleg which included the tape in its entirety but described it as This Heat's final demo recordings, Flaming Tunes in some ways reminds us of Charles Hayward's Camberwell Now project, in that some of the sounds are familiar and still somewhat This Heat sounding, but the record is much more vocal based, and song oriented, resulting in a sound, that while appealing to This Heat obsessives, offered a whole new window into Williams' approach to sound and songwriting, and in that, a once removed glimpse of some of the elements that helped make This Heat what it was. The record opens with a looped piano wrapped in sizzling electronic buzz, peppered with strange bursts of sonic crunch, stuttery fragmented rhythms, not hard to see why folks believed this could be a blueprint for new This Heat material. But the second song is more of what Flaming Tunes is all about. Tunes. Sing songy weary vocals over plonked piano, squeaking horns, skittery percussion, lots of drones, plenty of tape hiss and amp buzz, definitely lo-fi, some cool synth melodies, the sound definitely reminiscent of the first two Brian Eno records or that classic Flying Nun sound, bands like the Tall Dwarfs or the Pin Group or This Kind Of Punishment or The Children's Hour or even the Dead C at their most poppy. And that's the sound that makes up most of Flaming Tunes, a hazy, gauzy, low fidelity (but strangely lush) bedroom pop, lots of piano, wreathed in reverb, warm warbly bass, occasional strings, programmed rhythms, detuned tangles of minor key guitar, plenty of jangle and chime, with intermittent forays into cool abstract experimentation, but even then, those tracks still sound a little song-y and don't at all disrupt the flow of the record. "Raindrops From Heaven", with a field recording of rainfall, insects, beneath some clattery, muted parlor skitter, or the brooding muddy piano drone of "It's Madness" with its disembodied vox and haunting creepy creaking Victorian vibe, with sampled strings and mysterious textures, before the record closes with a surprisingly Beatles-esque ballad called "Generous Moon", that sort of classic pop, rendered a little bit warped and woozy, the guitars twangy, and the background melodies a sea of whirring keyboards, locking into a looped dreamlike dirge before finally fading out. So nice. This Heat fanatics will flip for sure, and no doubt some have tapes or bootlegs of this already, but it sounds so much better now, and comes in a super deluxe digipak, with tons of photos, artwork and liner notes. And even if you've never heard This Heat (what the hell is wrong with you?), this will still appeal to folks into twisted dark lo-fi pop.

MPEG stream: Another Flaming Tune
MPEG stream: A To B
MPEG stream: Raindrops From Heaven

Holy smokin' haz-mat howdoyoudo's! This is the debut release from SF art-noise project Le Flange Du Mal... and quite an introduction it is. Despite their moniker, as far as we can tell none of the participants are French. A quick'n'dirty translation of their name is The Flange Of The Evil, but that's not quite as poetic, is it? Doesn't really slip as gracefully off the tongue. Anyways, the leader of Le Flange pack is Mr. Chris Rolls. He's the head honcho of the very varied SF indie label Kimosciotic Records (home to art-noisies Ezee Tiger and Crack W.A.R., electronic experimentalists Not Breathing, and hip hop lone wolf Unagi), and he's also been in the ranks of SF shit-disturbers Ziegenbock Kopf and Earwicker. He's joined by Chris Cones (also of Earwicker and Subarachnoid Space), Crack We Are Rock's Jason Stamberger and MurderMurder's Liz Allbee, and they make music that runs the gamut just as much as the artists whom he releases on his label. With their multi-barrelled toxic industrial-bootybass-sludge assault, they come careening right at you with their foot nowhere near the brakes, swerving woozily to avoid other vehicles in their path, cruising through the no wave and art rock zones, and through a musty gothy batcave (check out the track "Nightcrawler") too.

MPEG stream: Silent Cock
MPEG stream: Nightcrawler

We made the most recent record by Grouper record of the week a while back. A dizzying mix of Paart, Feldman, Skullflower, all rendered in washed out fuzz and indistinct shades of shimmer and whir. Here we have a new group called Flash Lights, which features Liz Harris aka Grouper along with sound sculptor Jorge Behringer. Harris offers up her angelic ghostlike vocals, ethereal and gauzy, sometimes so barely there, they just sound like instrument hum, while Behringer contributes the music, a heady swirl of found sounds, field recordings, dreamlike guitar, processed viola and all manner of electronics. The sound is dark and moody and glacial. Harris' vocals definitely act more as another layer in the overall soundfield, often just a steady reverberating hum, or a slowly modulating warble, drenched in reverb so the whole sound is like being lost in a dense musical fog. The final half hour track is a massive dronescape of fuzz and hiss and whir and rumble, like drifting on some alien sea, about halfway through a series of clattery creaking sonic happenings are introduced, almost like the rigging of the ship stretching and settling, very reminiscent of Nurse With Wound's Salt Marie Celeste. So haunting and creepy and captivatingingly lovely. Anyone who dug that grouper ABSOLUTELY needs this. Limited to 200 copies. Featuring cover art by Liz Harris.

MPEG stream: One
MPEG stream: Three

Twenty three bucks for a magazine? Well it's an import, full-color throughout, and runs to 208 pages, A4 sized - quite hefty!! Plus it's packed with a tonne of fascinating content if you're into ye olde psych rock, prog, and folk - stuff about Blossom Toes, Culpeper's Orchard, Arcadium, Fairport Convention, and a 1970 interview with Robert Plant, among other things. All super in depth and well-researched, obsessive journalism by music obsessives... Includes the late psychedelic expert Patrick Lundborg's last ever article, "Introducing Esoterica". Also, a guide to the 50 European rock albums "everybody should have". Um, well it'd be really weird if EVERYBODY had these, but we do like their picks!

Quite hefty (208 pages!) debut issue of this new magazine out of the UK, dealing in "psych, prog, jazz, folk, blues & beyond". It's a heck of a lot like Shindig! magazine, really, A4 sized, glossy cover, colorful interior, and covers the same territory, pretty much. San Francisco '60s acid rock act Mad River make the cover, also there's pieces on producer David Axelrod, Linda Hoyle of Affinity, all-girl rockers Fanny, 'folk wizards' Hunter Muskett, and more, including a Richie Unterberger piece delving into the so-called 'Vinyl Renaissance', and an investigation of '50s (not '60s) psych. And, sure to cause arguments, there's an annotated list of the 100 top 'under-rated' guitarists of the '60s and '70s. Plus all the usual magazine things you'd expect, including plenty of REVIEWS!

Who are the Flashing Lights? Well, first perhaps a little Canadian pop history lesson for you. The Superfriendz were a great Halifax-based power pop group of the mid-90s. Full of maddeningly catchy hooks and vocal harmonies, not to mention plenty of youthful vim and vigor. Although they were often lumped in with and overshadowed by fellow Nova Scotians, Canadian pop superstars Sloan, Matt Murphy -- an excellent songwriter in his own right -- and company drew a strong, loyal following across the country. After the Superfriendz' demise a couple of years ago, Matt decided to start anew. Voila! The Flashing Lights. The result? A super summertime record if I've ever heard one. And one that is very much a sweet buoyant continuation to those of his former band. Mr. Murphy just might be the only person who can name a song "Talk To The Hand" and not be beaten to a pulp. Note: this cd was first released in Canada on Matt's own label, but here re-issued on SpinArt, it boasts two bonus tracks.

Another UNblack gem, this from one of the mainstays of the scene, Flaskavsae. Celestial, originally recorded in 2005, and finally released in 2007, then out of print, only now getting reissued (albeit in another way too limited run). But holy crap, another disc of totally wacked, bizarrely produced unblack madness. Grim and buzzing and primitive, the drumming super straight ahead, not blasting as much as a sort of relentless Dbeat pound, but the guitars, they sound ghostly and alien, and whatever effect they're running through, renders them all blurred and pixilated and makes them sort of stutter in this super hypnotic blissed out way. This predates the whole new-gaze craze by years, but somehow, however it happened, this record is total dreamlike noise drenched UNblack metalgaze. At first the sound was so blown out and buzzy that it has us thinking of Canadian black metal weirdos WOLD, but as the record progressed, the sounds seemed to soften and blur, the guitar parts crazy catchy and weirdly melodic, the vocals a strange rumbling gurgle, that really do sound like just another layer of buzz. That effect infuses every bit of the record, the whole thing seems to shimmer and shuffle and vibrate, almost like the sonic version of a strobe light, sending strange vibrations from the speaker into your bones. A few tracks are doomy crawls, with that impossible fucked up guitar beautifully damaged, unfurling in gorgeously stuttery loops, the bass thick and even more melodic than the guitar, pulsing beneath the swirls and whirls of FX and guitar fuzz. But the final track is the ultimate, a furious black blast, so densely effected that the whole track seems to pulse in time with the drumming, it has some crazy effect on your ears as you listen, and your body as you feel the vibrations, like a black metal dream machine, the vocals a hissing insectoid whisper, the drums chaotic and stumbling, but it's that effect, we can't explain it, but it just freaks us out, in a really good way, it turns Flaskavsae's grim buzz into something totally and inexplicably transcendent.

MPEG stream: Rock Of Celestiia
MPEG stream: Without War
MPEG stream: Raised By Fire

Super raw, lo-fi black metal brutal, buzzing US un-BM....

MPEG stream: Head First Into Oblivion
MPEG stream: Wars Developed From Ignorance

Another blast of unblack metal, from the heartland, the Midwest, where it seems most of these unblack hordes reside. A glowing white beacon of buzzing brutality, amidst a sea of evil and blackness. This is the first full length from the one man band Flaskavsae, and like much of the unblack stuff we've been obsessed with, it's not so much about just making black metal Christian, as it is totally twisting the sounds of black metal into something entirely new. And so far, Flaskavsae, the man and the band, have pushed this unblack sound to it's furthest reaches.� Where many of the other bands, particularly Light Shall Prevail, demonstrate a similarly varied, and gorgeously obscured sonic palette, it often seems that those particularly obfuscated sounds are more a result or recording limitations than an actual sonic vision. Of course, it's obvious that those other bands embrace the strange production and all over the map sonics, but Flaskavsae seems more like a daring sonic adventurer, using black metal merely as a jumping off point. Like Wold for instance, the root sounds are buzzing guitars, and blasting drums, but it's how those sounds are twisted and colored that make all the difference.� From the first track, it's easy to tell this is so much more than (un)black metal. A dense, roiling staticky wash of crumbling downtuned guitars, and drifting mournful melodies, buried beneath layers of hiss and fuzz, with all sorts of tape dropouts and recording inconsistencies that make it sounds like some black metal Basinski piece, constantly throbbing and changing pitch, cutting out and warbling unsteadily, all the while weaving a super dark and emotional landscape of sound. This is the sort of black metal that fans of Tim Hecker and Philip Jeck and Basinski could easily get into.� On some tracks, the drums are more pronounced, and thus, the sound is slightly more traditionally (un)black, but even then, the buzz and pummel is bombarded on all sides by thick swaths of fuzzed out sound, hissy static like the sound of some sonic downpour, while way back in the distance, streaks of high end drift by, offering brief glimpses of the mournful melodies underneath. This may be heavy, and brutal and grim or whatever, but it's hard to tell as everything is just dripping with tons of FX and wrapped in dense clouds of swirling murk and blurred shimmer, which ends up making it sound dark and sad and so so beautiful instead.

MPEG stream: Twilight Reminiscent Of Slumber
MPEG stream: Parallels To Nothing
MPEG stream: Eating Light

It's take a couple years and about a million cd-r's, but here it is, the first proper actual cd (not cd-r) release from both of these groups, two of our favorite UN-black metal bands. And for those out of the loop, un-black is another name for white metal, which is another name for Christian black metal, which does indeed seem like an oxymoron, but avid readers of the list by now are well familiar with the sound, and the groups, Glaciial, Agathothodion, Drommer, Elgibbor, Offerblod, Njiqahdda, and of course Flaskavsae and Light Shall Prevail. LSP is the work of EEE records head honcho W.S. and prolificacy is so extreme, he fronts or is a member of at least 5 different outfits. LSP seems to be his main one and is definitely one of our favorites. Like on past releases, the sound here is a mix of classic grim black metal, and all sorts of fucked up lo-fi production, the core being a relentless buzzing riff, and furious blasting beats, but the sound is wrapped in strange sheets of hiss, and layers of murk and mire, the drum machine is strangely processed, the cymbals unleashing sprawling clouds of hiss, the guitars always buried in varying degrees of fucked up buzz or fuzz, turning riffs into streaks of blurred sound. The first LSP track here offers up a super strange, arpeggiated melody, very sing songy and major key, right in the middle of a roiling sea of blast and buzz. Ends up sounding quite mysterious and haunting. The big change this time around are the vocals, that are a dead ringer for Wrest from Leviathan's hellish corrosive howl, but within LSP, those vokills are simply another layer in the droning hypnotic buzzscapes, and that weird sing songy melodic element resurfaces throughout the other three tracks as well, culminating in the 15 minute closer, a sprawling, woozy and warped black metal, the guitars super blown out and washed out, the sound more of a blurred drone than black metal, even the drums are so static and relentless that they evoke a sense of mesmer as well. Flaskavsae (a one man band, whose one man plays in Glaciial with Mr. LSP) are a perfect match, a similarly twisted take on (un-)black metal, but instead of speed and aggression, offer up something more depressive and midtempo, the guitars warbly and the distortion crumbling, the drums buried in the mix, except for the cymbals, that like LSP offer up sizzling streaks of hissy sibilance. Even when the songs launch into more furious tempos, something about the sound still manages to remain lugubrious and druggy, the riffs, less insectoid, and more blackened melting psychedelic. The final Flaskavsae track, begins with a creepy almost classical sounding circusy melody, over a lurching almost industrial sounding rhythm, before the blackness and buzz seeps up from below, transforming the track into a weird droned out black buzzscape. Packaged in a super glossy full color digipak.

MPEG stream: Hymns Of Praise
MPEG stream: Epicism

Thought we'd list this, 'cause we've had one copy for a while that's been sitting up behind/above the counter, alone and unlooked-at, alongside the our other box sets like that ZZ Top "barbeque shack" thing Allan said he'd buy if we didn't sell it by January 1st 2004 (hmm, it's still here...Allan?). Flasket Brinner were a psychedelic, proggy, symphonic, very jazzy ensemble that featured key members of the '70s Swedish underground rock/jazz scene, and were known for their live performances (being what today might be called a "jam band" I guess). Thus a four-cd box set like this one, collecting their live radio sessions from the early '70s, is quite an appropriate release, presumably long-awaited by fans of the band. Perhaps of special note to AQ-customers is that you'll find featured on about half of this set, the Hammond organ of Bo Hansson! Indeed, these discs include several medleys of material drawn from Hansson's Lord Of The Rings album, plus other Hansson compositions. But Flasket Brinner's collective mood was wide-ranging, from Hansson's Middle Earth vibes to Ennio Morricone to traditional Turkish music to tongue-in-cheek covers of rock staples like "Wild Thing". Bewarned: you've gotta like extended jamming, and flutes and sax, to get into this. The box includes a big booklet full of photos and text, with notes on each session and song, along with a history of the band and an exhaustive discography of recordings by the various band members that makes it seem likely that Flasket Brinner alumni played on almost every cool record released in Sweden in the '70s, including LPs by such AQ faves as Algarnas Tradgard and Turid.

MPEG stream: Gunnars Dilemma
MPEG stream: Lothlorien

Legendary premiere recording of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely & Butch Hancock from 1972, now on cd.

If the names Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock, and Joe Ely mean anything to you, then heads up. The three respected singer songwriters came together in the early '70s, in Lubbock TX, and made a completely underrecognized record as The Flatlanders. It was incandescently glowing country music with a twang, a musical saw, and the pure, otherwordly voice of Jimmie Dale Gilmore. In the years hence all three musicians have made names for themselves as solo artists with cult followings, and for those of us who hadn't heard them before 1990, that year saw a reissue of The Flatlanders album on disc, with extra tracks, that turned a lot of folks on to the Lubbock sound. If you don't already have that amazing first Flatlanders album, with its classic, breathtakingly gorgeous lead track "Dallas", then get that first. In fact, get it now... you'll be glad! Besides a couple sporadic appearances in the ensuing years (a track for "The Horse Whisperer" soundtrack, a live reunion concert, etc), this disc is the first time in 20 years that the three guys have come together to write songs and record a brand new album. It is very nice, altho' not quite as good as what they did in the '70s (maybe that's cos I like '70s country a lot more than '02 country in general. Ahem.) Anyway, 12 of the 14 songs represented here were collectively written by the three, plus there's a Hancock-penned song and the lead off track is by Utah Phillips (I think it's the best on the whole album). The personalities of the three musicians are a bit more distinct than on the '73 record. The legend is back. Enjoy.

RealAudio clip: Going Away
RealAudio clip: Now It's Now Again

A wonderful early Flatlanders performance from back in '72. Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock and Joe Ely were in top form for this Austin, TX concert. Classic downhome country twang with multi-part vocals by those unmistakable voices plus a little musical saw to boot. So good! We'd expect more audience response than the smattering of applause and handful of hoots 'n' hollers that follow each of sixteen songs. Maybe you can add your own!

MPEG stream: Honky Tonk Blues
MPEG stream: I Know You

Holodeck strikes again! The Austin-based electronic label has brought us all kinds of neat stuff, most recently releases by Marie Davidson and Boan, and this one's another cool catch. The two synth maniacs in Flatliner play, as the label puts it, what sounds like horror soundtrack music, produced like club anthems. Best of both worlds, right? Rave the night away, and indulge in the suspenseful atmospherics too. Eerie & ominous yet get-down groovy! Mostly instrumental, but for some gloomy vocodered vocals on the coldwave-ish "City Lights Receding", this four track ep is a driving, detailed celebration of the duo's synth gear collecting obsession and finely-tuned production skills. They utilize a ton of equipment, both analog and digital, from the latest tech to some rare vintage gizmos. Heck they list some of it, for those of you who wanna know: Roland TR-808, SC Pro-One, Juno-6, Crumar Orchestrator, Ensoniq SQ-80, Oberheim Matrix 6, Emu Emax, Ensoniq ASR 10, Studio Electronics SE-1X, MFOS Modular, Dave Smith Mono Evolver, Doepfer Dark Energy, Sherman Filterbank. In any case, for the gear-heads or not, some quite enjoyable 'dance' music. 45rpm, includes download! Limited to 500 copies.

MPEG stream: Blasted Highway
MPEG stream: PC Corporation

If only Flav woulda put out a solo record back in, say, '91 or so... before he did that Surreal Life show.

It took us a while to be won over. But once we were, we couldn't get enough. We've been anxiously awaiting this new Fleet Foxes for ages, and it's everything we hoped it would be. An utterly gorgeous collection of dark shimmery folk, of harmony-heavy country (indie) rock. Like their debut, Helplessness Blues is just simply beautiful and timeless twangy pop. All the stuff we loved about the first record remains, and if anything, the band have stretched out even further. The Beach Boys harmonies, the warm hushed, reverby production, the seventies Laurel Canyon vibe, but this time around, there are horns, the drums seem to play a bigger part, some of the tracks downright bombastic, the sound is way more varied, from hushed whispery drift to wild skronky free jazz freakouts, from strummy, hazy, psychedelic folk to lush, almost cabaret sounding pop. And the vocals, as incredible as before, Robin Pecknold's croon crystalline and clear, and the harmonies impossibly rich and lush, the vocals bathed in echo and reverb, making every track sound like it was recorded in some dusty old dancehall, exactly as they should. And the songs, like most second records, not as immediately catchy as the first, but upon repeated listens, blossoming and revealing themselves as the perfect pop songs they truly are. The sound is still equal parts Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Beach Boys, the Eagles, Simon And Garfunkel, and still those sounds are filtered though more modern influences like Animal Collective, as displayed by the record's lush layers and dense vocal arrangements, but Helplessness Blues is not just more of the same, the sound, the songs, the arrangements, everything this time around is somehow more, and better, and we can't seem to stop listening.

MPEG stream: Montezuma
MPEG stream: Bedouin Dress
MPEG stream: Sim Sala Bim

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