[ aquarius records catalogue

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Showing results 1051 through 1100 of 1521.

As a companion piece to Four Tet's newest full length Pause, this 4-track EP is a nice bit of more of the same, which is to say it's a wonderful mix of electronica and organic sounds. Four Tet is the solo work of one Kieran Hebden, also of Fridge. Just one song in common with the full length Pause (which you should get before this). For fans of Mouse on Mars and Aphex Twin and Fridge.

RealAudio clip: Look After Your Mermaid
RealAudio clip: Flon

Kieran Hebden, Putney, London-based wunderkind, has released some lastingly beautiful records as part of Fridge (whose amazing Eph was Windy's #1 album of 1999). Four Tet is his solo project. A little more "electronic" than the post-rock Fridge, this is very

RealAudio clip: Twenty Three
RealAudio clip: Hilarious Movie of the 90's

From Kieran Hebden of Fridge comes a remix ep ("Paws") from his latest album ("Pause") under the moniker of Four Tet. Four tracks, including remixes by Konshik, Manitoba, and Boom Bip (who makes the most unpalatable song from Pause, that "No More Mosquitoes" song, actually listenable.)

Kieren Hebden keeps himself busy, and it's a good thing 'cause most of what he keeps himself busy doing results in some really incredible, inventive music. Besides making great Four Tet records, he's also slowly piecing together a new album with his old band Fridge, collaborating with free jazz legend Steve Reid and of course lending his imaginative remixing skills to the work of other artists. This 2-cd collection features one disc of remixes Hebden did, while the other disc is remixes Hebden had done TO his band. Both discs are awesome! Disc one features Hebden working his magic on tracks from Radiohead, Madvillain, His Name Is Alive, Aphex Twin, Rothko, Bloc Party, Pole, Beth Orton and more. While the bands chose to remix Hebden include Jay Dee, Manitoba, Battles, and Boom Bip among others.

This is the most minimal and repetitive sound we've heard from Four Tet and we are loving it! Taking inspiration from 20th Century composers as well as minimal techno, Ringer finds Kieren Hebden back in the saddle as one of the premier forces in all of electronic music. The ep seems to be the perfect format for Hebden to really dive in and explore a new direction as he does so perfectly on Ringer. The songs are long enough to really reel you in, yet once the record is over you want to press play again right away and get swept away into the melodic trance that Four Tet so effortlessly creates in these four songs. Imagine if someone gave glow sticks and ketamine to Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Hmmm? We've always been fans of Four Tet in the past and while we haven't been as absorbed by the last couple records, this one is making us jump right back on board as big time fans once again!

MPEG stream: Ringer
MPEG stream: Swimmer

The super pretty and stirring full length from Four Tet begins with what sounds like a muted irregular heartbeat, the track then gradually fans out into an airy mingling of drum beat shuffles, glinting wistful piano melodies, chimey sparkles, reedy (oboe?) bleets, an occasional groovy bassline and a smattering of odd buzzing jolts. Actually the latter which happens only early on in the album closely resembles that sound when you slip up while playing that old board game Operation, and they're what keep the listener from completely drifting off on the mesmerizing lake of Four Tet. No complaints though, this album is quite simply a delight - layer upon layer of shimmering goodness that draws a very warm response every time we've played it in the store.

MPEG stream: Unspoken
MPEG stream: As Serious As Your Life

Wow, we haven't been this impressed with a Four Tet full length in a long time, though truth be told it has been awhile since Kieran Hebden has released one. He has spent the greater parts of the last four or five years concentrating on remixes and with three solo collaborations with jazz drummer Steve Reid, leaving only one sole ep (Ringer) in between this release and his last, Everything Ecstatic. While that last record displayed an erratic and harder edged tendency to shake off the "folktronica" tag that has dogged him early on, it also seemed like he was trying too hard. On There is Love In You, Hebden is back to his strengths, keeping the compositions economic, but also beautiful, well-crafted and at moments truly sublime. Our excitement mounted when we heard the first single, "Love Cry", late last year. That nine minute minimal house opus as well as the awesome Joy Orbison remix was for some of us the single of the year! Though the bulk of the record is not as dancefloor oriented as the single, his masterful use of warmth, texture and editing make this an exciting listen all the way through, sounding at times like Cluster and Dif Juz filtered through Carl Craig and Flying Lotus. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Angel Echoes
MPEG stream: Love Cry
MPEG stream: Plastic People

Latest release from former Skater Spencer Clark, whose partner in the Skaters, James Ferraro, was recently awarded record of the year honors by UK music mag The Wire, but as much as we dig Ferraro's stuff, we have to say, we often find ourselves more partial to Clark's outings, especially his project Monopoly Child Star Searchers, especially those early cd-r's, twisted murky soundscapes woven from woozy looped rhythms and blurred samples, dense and dizzying and druggy and dreamy, so we're always excited when we discover a new record from Clark. Fourth World Magazine is in fact Clark's new project, and in some ways it finds his sound drifting toward that of his former bandmate, this high concept record based on something called the Spectacle Of Light, which happens in Salt Lake City and concerns UFO's, as does most of Clark's recordings we seem to remember, hard to tell if it's a put on, or if all this spiritual stuff is real (or at least real to Clark), but ultimately it hardly matters, cuz musically it's real, and whatever the twisted concept, it gets woven into Clark's sonic flights of fancy, this one in particular opening up with swirling new agey synths, what sound remarkably like the music from one of those late night star chart segments on cable access, and thus like much of Ferraro's recent work, but from there on out, Clark definitely mixes it up, beginning with garbled voices, weird tape manipulation, and more hazy synth shimmer, peppered with weird bird call like squawks, before transitioning into a collage of warped looped melodies, playful and sunshiney, almost like a snipped of fifties film music as envisioned (or reworked) by the Caretaker. Soon those new agey synths return, but now with murky muted rhythms, which somehow transform the sound into something more raga like, then adding more of the garbled vocals until we finally reach the final track, and epic nearly sidelong jam, that might be our favorite stuff here, definitely harkening back to the aforementioned Monopoly Child Star Searchers cd-r's, all lo-fi Casio melodies, chaotic looped rhythms, skittery tangles over woozy collaged layers, everything muddy and smeared and gloriously washed out, a fantastic chunk of outsider psychedelic rhythmic drift. This is the first release on Clark's Pacific City Sound Visions label, and comes in a full color 12 page 12" x 12" jacket/book, with fuzzy photos, and plenty of text explaining (sort of) the Spectacle Of Light, of which this music is dedicated to.

Not to be confused with the legendary krautrock band (notice the spelling, and the punctuation), Foust! is in fact Scott Foust, member of experimental soundmaking combo Idea Fire Company, who share a label and an aesthetic to a certain degree with the Shadow Ring. For Foust's first solo record, he's conjured up a nearly 80 minute soundscape of lo-fi loped rhythms and drones. The first 35+ minutes are slowly shifting, barely changing bit of stutter and thump, wreathed in hiss and set atop a soft bed of static, super mesmerizing and hypnotic, while the rhythm remains virtually unchanged, the sounds around it, softly and slowly shift, growing more and more murky, the tone and timbre gradually transforming until finally the rhythms drops out, leaving long shimmering tones, stretched out over what sounds like field recordings, the various tones are layered into almost-harmonies, the low tones thick and undulating in slow motion way up in the mix, higher tones way off in the distance, a soft tangle of warm languid dronemusic, until with about twenty minutes left, the drones fade out leaving mostly just ambient sounds, birdcalls, rainfall, running water, the crackle of leaves and branches, while way off in the distance, remnants of the first half of the record hang on until they too finally disappear, the sound building to a hiss until the track ends with the storm disappearing in a little swirl of effects. So nice. An awesome combination of soundscaping, dronemusic and field recordings, definitely for fans of all three!

MPEG stream: Jungle Fever (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Jungle Fever (excerpt 2)

The third and final installment in a series of short-form but jewel-like eps from this ethereal and esoteric collective project. Centered by Clodagh Simond's (Mellow Candle, Current 93) magisterial vocals and featuring a superstar roster of players, which this time around includes Robert Fripp, John Contreras, Steven Wilson, Michael Begg, and Percy Jones with overall production overseen by Colin Potter. Subtitled "Allure" (the first was "Bloom", the second "Huge"), the arrangements are still haunting and cathedral-like but at the start tethered in more traditional structures with harmonium, zither and strings setting up the mood before dissipating into the gossamer of treated guitars, tonal harmonics and ambient drones. The appearance of Robert Fripp's beguiling guitar theatrics on "Long Distance" nicely underscores Simond's climactic vocal incantations and treated bohdran percussive rhythms before settling into the third and final act, a beautifully charged and vocal-less epiphany of melancholy and fragility that like its title is neither spoken nor silent, but exists in that rarified space of being satisfyingly unsolved.

MPEG stream: Allure
MPEG stream: Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent

Fovea Hex is the brainchild of Clodagh Simonds, the Irish singer whose work in the early '70s with Mellow Candle earned her a solid reputation amongst avid fans of British folk music. Her recent work as Fovea Hex has found her collaborating with some serious heavyhitters in the electronic composition world including Brian Eno, Roger Eno, and Andrew M. McKenzie (aka The Hafler Trio) as well as film composer Carter Burwell. Simonds' voice is at the center of this shortened program, with many of her contributing cast singing spectral chorales around her emotionally charged siren songs which emerge as Irish folk hybrids of Marble Index period Nico. These are haunted, ancient sounding songs, with almost all of their arrangements stripped away, leaving behind spare fragments of desaturated piano, bass, and harmonium. It's no surprise that in very small type in the liner notes, there's a text that reads "all material lit from within by A.M. McKenzie," as the music itself has McKenzie's fingerprints all over it. Even the fact that this is this first part of trilogy and is an expensive short form ep of about 17 minutes is evidence of McKenzie's meddling. Nevertheless, Simonds remains steadfast in her control over the project, not allowing McKenzie to interfere with the beauty of her own voice.

MPEG stream: Don't These Windows Open?
MPEG stream: We Sleep You Bloom

The Second chapter of Clodagh Simonds experimental voice project trilogy continues to explore the tenuous boundaries of traditional songforms while collaborating with some heavyweight electronic composers such as Brian Eno, Andrew McKenzie (The Hafler Trio) and Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound). Simonds is best known for her early '70s work with British Folk outfit Mellow Candle (she also appears on Current 93's new record), and her voice here remains tethered as pulsating sounds of harmonium and glass instruments, trumpets, and electronics float like ghosts through the ether-like arrangements. Like the previous chapter, it's very short, clocking in about 19 minutes, which may call into question the expense. But this project is not about casual listening. Like reading an Emily Dickinson poem (as the sticker on the front compares this to), you are meant to ponder and drink in every nuance, turn of phrase and weight of breath. Put your player on repeat, and you will not hear the same song twice.

MPEG stream: Huge (The Joy of Trouble)
MPEG stream: While You're Away

With so many stories circulated about legendary LA-based weirdo (many, including the man himself, might say "asshole") Kim Fowley, it can be easy to overlook the reality that he was, if nothing else, ridiculously prolific as a songwriter and producer. The amount of songs Fowley is responsible for is staggering and quite impressive. He appears to be of that rare breed that could crank out songs with ease and completely forget their existence by the time he had moved on to the next project. Even while many of these songs were probably viewed by Fowley himself as disposable pop fodder and a quick paycheck, they are incredibly enjoyable pieces of quirky '60s pop, stupid in the best way and just plain fun. Nostalgic in the most snarky way possible, a good portion of the songs concern themselves with teenage '50s high school themes (like the outrageous "Memories Of A High School Bride" by The Players (Vol. II), a programmatic soap opera saga complete with a tape-manipulated gossip chorus!), or swingin' sixties turn on, tune in, drop out freekdom, tongue seemingly in cheek, like Althea And The Memories' "Worst Record Ever Made" (Vol. I). There's plenty of just plain WTF weirdness too, like Donnie And The Outkasts' "Big Fat Alaskan" (also Vol. I). A bunch of Fowley-sung numbers crop up, delivered with a snotty awareness that makes them among the best tunes on here. Looking at the pictures within, the gangly Fowley sticks out like a sore thumb among the wide eyed bands and, ahem, teenage girls, who probably felt they were going to make it all the way to the top. Little were they aware of the madness that would see them ending up on these awesome compilations so many years later. Good stuff, both volumes equally recommended, get 'em both!

MPEG stream: The Renegades - Geronimo
MPEG stream: Kim Fowley - Big Sur, Bear Mountain, Ciro's, Flip Side, Protest Song
MPEG stream: The Players - Memories Of A High School Bride

MPEG stream: Bruce And Jerry - I Saw Her First
MPEG stream: Patterns - Late Late Show
MPEG stream: The Rituals - This Is Paradise

Total slice and dice, chop and loop, skitter and stutter, bleep and bloop, head spinning, dancefloor destroying, 8-bit, video game. electro pop sonic mayhem, not that you'd be able to tell from the first couple tracks, a gently swirling bit of dreamy shimmer, with muted buried rhythms, slowly building to a poppy playful bit of processed skitter, that almost sounds like a Hello Kitty version of Venetian Snares. The same sort of rhythmic drill and bass, but way cuter and poppier, lots of video game sounds, little snippets of voices, bits of glitch and crunch, for all it's density and complexity, it's also pretty dang hooky, reminding us a lot of Aphex Twin's classic "Girl / Boy". The rest of the record is a non stop barrage of hyperspeed jungle beats, buzzing synths, woozy warped melodies, twisted samples, big beats, pounding techno rhythms, bits of throbbing dubstep, tangled electronic squiggles, all wound into super fun, and funky, booty shaking, rib cage rattling, high energy electro spazz groove. The record finishes the way it began, all washed out and dreamy, electronic ambient pop drift and shimmer, but between those two tranquil bookends, is a nonstop Technicolor explosion of tangled and twisted freaked out sounds and spastic beats!!

MPEG stream: Navigating Geography (Part 1)
MPEG stream: Rainbow Dolphins
MPEG stream: What Is Toot-Toot In French
MPEG stream: Martha's Mega-Meowssive
MPEG stream: Dub Poo-Lease RInse Out The Paddywagon

Invariably whenever we play this in the store, a customer will ask, "Is This Gary Numan?". We can understand the confusion. Both artists are synth-wave pioneers and share a Ballardian sense of imagery of fetish-ized car crashes and cold urban architecture. But ultimately it was Foxx's role in the first incarnation of Ultravox!, one of the first British bands in the mid-to late seventies to combine electronics and rock in a frigid form of post-punk romanticism, that makes him the true innovator of the genre. Foxx, who left that band after three albums and before they found mainstream success, ambitiously pursued a solo career in the early eighties and created an influential studio, The Garden, where many bands recorded (including Depeche Mode, Brian Eno, Trevor Horn, Bronski Beat, The Cure, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Tina Turner, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Tuxedomoon). Foxx, who has been having a revival lately touring with his new band John Foxx & the Maths, opening for OMD and recently doing a split 7" with The Soft Moon, might not have as well-known songs as Numan, Depeche Mode and his other contemporaries, but Foxx had decidedly more complex lyrics and a stronger sense of nuance when it comes to atmosphere and texture. This 2cd anthology is a great intro to his particular sound world, with both dystopian pop songs and Blade Runner-ish ambient themes. There are even solo recordings of some of the early Ultravox! material like "My Sex" and Dislocation". Not all of the material dates well, but as prolific as he was (this antholgy collects nearly 30 tracks), there are many more hits than misses.

MPEG stream: Glimmer
MPEG stream: No-one Driving
MPEG stream: Sunset Rising
MPEG stream: Cities of Light 5
MPEG stream: My Sex
MPEG stream: Burning Car
MPEG stream: Stepping Sideways

Yeah, Foxy Brown's a tough Brooklyn rapper, she makes sure we realize that. Unfortunately her new album is tedious and uninteresting with hardly any uplifting beauty to redeem it, except perhaps for a couple numbers where she finally sounds like she's having fun, especially the weirdly bouncy, weirdly great song "730."

RealAudio clip: 730

Hard to believe we've never listed this before, it's been reissued a bunch of times already, being a bit of a classic of underground USA '60s private press psych. Now it's out on cd again, with we're told a vinyl reissue upcoming on the Mexican Summer label too. So about time we gave it a write up, 'cause if you haven't heard it before and are at all into the 'early heavy' this is indeed one to check out! From LA, Fraction played druggy, Doorsy, psychedelic proto-proto-metal, loaded with loping, lumbering fuzz riffs. It's very sixties, hippy/biker garage heaviness, yet almost no longer dated, if Fraction were part of today's psych scene, they'd fit right in with Wooden Shjips, Sleepy Sun, Dead Meadow, and suchlike. Well, except we'd be a bit surprised by the deep growling Jim Morrison style vocal intonations, a gruff voice that sways and screams with utmost sincerity and conviction, and truly elevates Fraction into ultra cult classic status. The singer's cryptic lyrics are vaguely Christian-Apocalyptic, and Fraction manages to make heavy (in the "that's heavy, maaaan" pass-the-joint sense) music to match. Recommended If You Like: Blue Cheer, High Tide, Sam Gopal, Iron Butterfly, Negative Space, B.F. Trike...

MPEG stream: Come Out Of Her
MPEG stream: Eye Of The Hurricane

We listed another record by this French one man band a few lists back, sold out of them in a flash, so when we restocked, we managed to get the remaining copies of this second release, Towards The Surface, we got less than a dozen though, and once they're gone they are GONE for good, as it's out of print. We mentioned in that other review that Fragment. (the period IS part of the name) was mining a sound not all that removed from Jesu and Nadja, but listening to this now, it's really driving home just how much this stuff sounds EXACTLY like Jesu, it's almost criminal actually, but hell, if you're hankering for some heavy blissed out dreamy chugging shoegazey post metal, and can't wait for the next Jesu record, then heck, grab one of these. The sound is of course fantastic, epic and majestic and bleary eyed, a little bit more mellow and laid back than Jesu proper, but quite similar in most other respects, the industrial pound, the layered warm guitar shimmer, the muted metallic chug, the mumbled sad boy vocals, all woven into a gorgeously blown out drone drenched epic dream metal drift. Listening to it again right now, and it sounds so fantastic, it just also happens to sound so fantastically like Jesu. Cool packaging too, a cd sized dvd case with the full color artwork on a narrow strip along the center of the case, leaving the rest of the case transparent and the disc revealed.

MPEG stream: Towards The Surface...
MPEG stream: Burn (Version II)

Killer debut from this French one man post rock outfit, whose sound definitely leans toward Jesu and Nadja and that sort of fuzz drenched dirginess. From the first few second of the opening track, the 'band' launches into a blissed out hazy drift, programmed drums pound out a hypnotic beat, the guitars swirl, wreathed in thick crumbling fuzz, and then the vocals, holy cow, they sort of seal the deal as far as Jesu-ness is concerned, a dead ringer for Justin Broadrick's reverb drenched soft croon. If anything, imagine a more laid back, driftier dreamier Jesu, which sounds like a very good thing, and it is. The songs to get chunky and riffy launching into stretches of muscled metallic pound, and just as often the sound slips into super minimal drones, whether it's synths or guitars, it's difficult to tell, but the end result is the same, warm fuzzy rumbles and blissed out murky whir. Then the drums kick in, then the vocals, and the sound is squarely back in Jesu / Nadja territory. Folks looking for something totally original, that they've never ever heard before, might fight Fragment a little frustrating, but for anyone who loves THAT sound, the blissed out shoegazey metallic post rock shimmer of Jesu, or the distorted drenched dream doom of Nadja, and wants more more more, and might even like that sound even more if it were softer and prettier, well then Fragment will definitely hit the spot. A perfect collection of late night drifting-off soft metallic drift. LIMITED TO 100 COPIES. Probably the last copies we'll be able to get...

MPEG stream: Empire
MPEG stream: Ghost

We've been hearing about this release for some time now. It was supposed to be out last November, but somehow it took forever for our suppliers to carry it. Nils Frahm is a modern German pianist and composer who has been releasing piano and synth-based ambient music since 2005. But we hear it's his live performances that are truly compelling as he showcases an incredible sense of control and restraint while at the same time opening up to all kinds of musical experimentation through building of passages and filtering and electronic processing. Spaces is the result of such experiments combining two years of live recordings and weaving them into each other, building up from organically plaintive melodies into full range ambient fields of sound and back to cascading watery piano passages. Gorgeous stuff!

MPEG stream: An Aborted Beginning
MPEG stream: Says
MPEG stream: Over There, It's Raining

A friend of ours was telling us all about Frail, and the way he described it, we knew it was something we had to hear. Imagine a band that sounded exactly like the Cure, but with harsh black metal vokills!! Listening to it now he wasn't that far off the mark. This is some seriously strange stuff. Not heavy at all really, jangly, poppy, a little gothy and depressive, minor key, the drums simple and solid, soaring synths, guitar and bass locked into moody grooves, a little bit eighties new wave, all the while the vocalist howls his harsh demonic screech over the top, which turns it into something completely, well, fucked up really. But kind of genius. The music at times reminds us of Alcest or Amesoeurs but with all the metal removed, pretty and lilting and melancholy, drifting and jangling beneath those hellish howls. Not sure what else to say, if you're anything like us, you already added this to your cart, and it's going to fast become one of your favorite new records. Definitely an acquired taste, but then all the best tastes are... Absolutely one of Andee's new favorite black metal recordings!!

First things first, we'll be frank, young SF band The Frail almost received an immediate Gong Show gong from us on the opening track of their debut ep. Anyone who samples/butchers Erik Satie's gorgeous classical piano work "Gymnopedies" in such a wanton dance-fied fashion should be strung up by their fingernails! We bit our tongue and resisted the urge to hit the 'stop' button. Needless to say, not the best introduction! Anyways, get past that first awkward moment, and you'll find this new Bay Area pop-tronic duo combining the sweet and dreamy side of pop with the comparatively harder thump of electronic rock. Their gently persistent unwavering programmed beats and boyish vocals draws easy descriptions of The Faint meets Postal Service. Definitely for fans of those bands as well as the electro-pop bands on the German Morr Music label!

MPEG stream: Addicted
MPEG stream: Who Am I?

Here's a rare Afro funk/soul record, now officially reissued on vinyl, that lives up to the 'holy grail' hype, in part due to featuring a precocious, charming 7-year-old singer! That'd be Francis Mbarga, aka Francis The Great. Recorded in Paris in 1977, the album was produced by The Great's dad, and benefits from the presence of a bunch of talented French and Cameroonian musicians, backing up the boy with burbling soukous rhythms, trippy synth, and funky guitar. There's two side-long, 12 minute jams, "Ravissante Baby (Negro Phasing)" and "Look Up In The Sky (Negro Nature)", both headnoddingly hypnotic and irresistibly groovy - and the weird, extra X-factor of the little kid vocals (with some deep lyrics) gives this an even more special vibe.

MPEG stream: Look Up In The Sky (Negro Nature)

Sound artists like Matt Shoemaker, Loren Chasse, and Steve Roden are some of the very few who are successful in turning found objects and field recordings into thoroughly engaging compositions that don't rely upon the flashiness of techniques to make their work successful. Add New Zealand's Richard Francis to that gaggle as well. It's been a while since any solo work has been available from Francis, who has previously recorded under the moniker Eso Steel; and more recently, he's been entertaining many a collaboration with his fellow NZ noiseniks such as Campbell Kneale and Michael Morley. On Together Alone, Together Apart, Francis turns to the miniscule events of daily life whose peculiar sounds capture his imagination. It could be a crackle from rain falling or the distant surf of the Pacific Ocean or a creaking electric radiator or the hissing static from television snow. It's these small sounds which Francis has recorded and stretched into relatively longer compositions. These rattling, crackling streams of softened white noise move in a synchronous fashion, much like the way that a huge flock of starlings can gracefully circle in the sky without bumping into each other, all moving organically in three dimensions. Think Loren Chasse, as if he were reworking any of Bernhard Gunter's compositions, making them rougher, in line with Chasse's Hedge Of Nerves disc. Headphones are certainly recommended for this album, as the last track is awfully quiet... at least, it is when there's a record store full of people. Very well done!

MPEG stream: Track 1
MPEG stream: Track 2
MPEG stream: Track 3

The Franciscan Hobbies are one of the more anarchistic manifestations of the Jewelled Antler 'collective', The Hobbies themselves being a free-form, free-wheeling group of variable membership that turns idyllic nature excursions into documents of magical, improv folk psych. At The World's End comes by way of New Zealand cd-r label PseudoArcana, and this time around The Hobbies include 3 of the 4 members of Thuja, plus a bunch of their friends, including Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards), Greg Bianchini (The Muons), and Cole Palme (Factrix). However, whoever's present on this recording isn't all that important, as they meld into a very relaxed communal music-making clan. Furthermore, discussion of instruments and techniques would seemingly convey less of a sense of what the Hobbies sound like than more poetic allusions to damp moss and dry leaves. Imagine napping in the undergrowth of a forest, dreaming drones and fractured melodies. Theirs is a drifting, indirect music, more hints and haunts than songs per se. And, we ask, how can you not love a record with a track entitled "The Unicorn Murders"??

MPEG stream: The Black Chimes
MPEG stream: Seekers In Darkness

Ah, the Jewelled Antler collective! The Franciscan Hobbies is yet another facet of the same opiated psych-improv collective that has evolved into a number of projects including Thuja, The Blithe Sons, The Birdtree, The Skygreen Leopards, The Child Readers, The Knit Separates, etc. Usual suspects Glenn Donaldson, Rob Reger, Loren Chasse, and Jason Honea all appear on this -- perhaps the largest and loosest of the Jewelled Antler projects -- alongside relative newcomers to the collective: Greg Bianchini (of SF folksters The Muons), Kerry McLaughlin, Buffy Vice Sick, Dylan Brock, Christine Boepple, and Aquarius' own Dungeon Master Jeremiah Allan Horrocks (singing into an electronic toy while lying on his back somewhere in Golden Gate Park one sunny day, he tells us, but bets you won't be able to pick that out while listening to this). In working with such a large citizenship, The Franciscan Hobbies wisely eschews structure, favoring the psych-improv equivalent of front porch noodling that ends up sounding like a more sedate version of Birchville Cat Motel, the Vibracathedral Orchestra, or the hillbilly minimalism of Henry Flynt. Yet the druggy, murky atmosphere that dominates so much of Thuja's recordings takes a backstage to the quiet sound of semi-strummed, semi-plucked banjos, ouds, guitars, and occasional Tom Waits-esque tossin' junk in the kitchen sink percussion. Beautiful and mysterious, "Caterpillars Of The Oak Beauty" makes for another very nice cd-r release from Jewelled Antler!

RealAudio clip: The Secret Forces
RealAudio clip: Festival Of Sticks And Grasses

Courtesy of new Florida-based label Soft Abuse, "Masks And Meanings" is the first full-length "real" cd from San Francisco's wonderfully dreamy improvisors The Franciscan Hobbies, following the "Caterpillars Of The Oak Beauty" cd-r on their own Jewelled Antler label. Featuring members of Thuja (Loren Chasse, Glenn Donaldson, Rob Reger) and others, including Greg Bianchini from SF folk troubadours The Muons, you can perhaps guess what this sounds like. Somewhere between the psychedelic forest drones of Thuja and the folkiness of Glenn and Loren's Blithe Sons project. Abstract, droney, relaxing. Gently plucked guitar strings, rattling and rustling noises of indeterminate origin, very organic and natural sounding. Field recordings and non-instrument sound making fill sonic spaces alongside what might be mellow kraut/hippy jams on guitars and percussion, if they weren't so damaged and sparse and loosely structured. It's music, like sunlight, filtering down through the leafy branches of the forest canopy, into a grassy nest the Hobbies have burrowed out and furnished with antiques. Afternoon light, and shadowed darkness and dust. Indeed, like most of the J.A. projects, The Hobbies often record out-of-doors, in meadows in Golden Gate Park for instance. They came up with their name, actually, from a piece of wood they randomly found on the site of one of their recording sessions, upon which the words "Franciscan Hobbies" were printed. Their music's mysterious yet oddly whimsical vibe is carried through the collage artwork and song titles ("Wasp Embodiment", "Plough Drawn By Toads"). Very nice. That some tracks end with abrupt edits would be about our only complaint... Definitely for fans of Tower Recordings, Kemialliset Ystavat, the whole Jewelled Antler "collective" and suchlike. You know who you are/what this is. MPEG Download: "A Preordained Sequence" [/audio/franciscanpreordained.mp3] MPEG Stream: "A Preordained Sequence" [/audio/franciscanpreordained.m3u]

MPEG stream: A Preordained Sequence
MPEG stream: The Matchless Phenomenon

Jewelled Antler picnic-party The Franciscan Hobbies are certainly the biggest and vaguest, most free-form collective in the "collective". The Hobbies' albums are where Thujans and Muons and Blithe Sons and Skygreen Leopards and Child Readers and Buried Civilizations and all of 'em go to let it hang loose...or looser than usual. Even moreso than the other "bands" found under the umbrella of the San Francisco experimental-improv-folk-psych Jewelled Antler family, The Franciscan Hobbies have a indeterminate, open-ended membership, and make suitably organic, sprawling, abstract music... much of it quite as lovely as anything in the Jewelled Antler canon: dark and dreamy, with noise-textures and fragmented melodies played on acoustic and electric instruments both drifting in and out of these pieces like nature-sounds in the forest, in a manner perhaps akin to their Finnish brethren and sistren (?) Kemialliset Ystavat and Avarus and Uton. This new Hobbies cd, their fourth disc, was recorded over the past three years in various places with various persons participating -- among those persons, members of all the aforementioned groups. And AQ's own Allan even shows up singing on "Goat With The Dolphin Face", recorded in a wooden teepee on a beach up in Point Reyes. (Not that you can tell that it's him...or in a teepee.) And that's also got nothing to do with why we're going to tell you that this is highly recommended, particularily to those of you for whom the more abstract edges of the Jewelled Antler thing appeal. Intimate, hushed and full of quiet clankings and fragile drones...meandering, mesmerizing guitar-plucked lullabies...bowed strings and rustling sticks...indistinct vocalizations...all carefully edited and mixed by Glenn Donaldson (the track "Satan Crystals" by Loren Chasse). So nice.

MPEG stream: Elijah The Stone
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Don't really know too much about this "Francisco". Looks to be a musical hippie guru something along the lines of a Father Yod / Ya Ho Wha 13 with some Santana thrown in? I suppose I could do some research on the ol' internet and find out more, doubtless there's many a record collector blabbing online about how rare and valuable the original vinyl of this is, and maybe one of 'em provides some the backstory. But y'know, I'd rather keep it a mystery. A "Cosmic Beam Experience" probably is best unexplained, just experienced. It's enough to marvel at the galactic magic of the cover artwork and know that this was recorded in Santa Monica, California in 1976 (in a cathedral!) and has a bunch of hippies involved. Tuning in, the first track "Heal Yourself" is a really groovy, soulful, entrancing jam that's a real spiritual, uplifting thang. Nice, but would you want to listen to a whole record like that you might ask yourself? But then, as if on cue, track two "Cosmic Beam Experience (Part 1)" takes a drastically different approach, being a lengthy soundscape of field recordings, ocean sounds... an ambient and eerie trip that takes up the entire remainder of the original LP's first side! Side two (beginning with track 3 here) starts off, like side one, with a trancey spiritual song, "Love Sweet Love", another groovy number. But the positive vibes chanted forth therein are again followed by the ever-more ominous dronescapes and tribal percussion of "Cosmic Beam Experience (Part 2)" and "Hey Mister Sun". A lot of darkness here to balance the hippy-dippy light. I mean, some of these tracks would fit in nicely in a John Carpenter film. So this ends up being a strange, mysterious, very evocative experience indeed! We ended up really digging it.

MPEG stream: Cosmic Beam Experience (Part Two)
MPEG stream: Heal Yourself

Oily drones be found on Hierophany, an album released on the Russian imprint Monochrome Vision, inspired by the ancient rites of Russian orthodoxy, and produced by a Belgian on a working holiday whilst touring to the east of his homeland. Over the years, Franck has worked with Pietro Piparbelli (aka K11) with the two of them collaborating on a project based on recordings from Aleister Crowley's Abbey of Thelema (yes, K11 has released at least three other albums drawn from Thelemic residues). Theological differences aside (which are obviously massive), Franck's interest in both Crowley and the Russian Orthodox church seems to find common ground in the gnostic mysticism of meditation rituals and their capacity to introduce the process of transcendence. The massively thrumming drones that Franck presents on Hierophany seem to be based on field recordings made within a cathedral during a service, with the bell tones and chants reflecting into a gray wall of steely reverb and delay. Elements of human speech sporadically bounce within his system of acoustic and processed sound, creating something of a feedback loop of particular sonorous frequencies, reinforced and thickened by Franck's sonic sensibilities. The album quickly hits a uniform plateau of saturated environmental and electronic din, slipping rather subtly from one complementary movement to another. Well executed work that conceptually and aesthetically may have more than a few similarities to Current 93's early tape collage days.

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

SORRY.

Wierd Records (home of Xeno & Oaklander, Martial Canterel, Led Er Est, and those great vinyl compilations) presents another fine reconstitution of '80s darkwave or, for the purposes of the French duo Frank (Just Frank), "Vague Froide Moderne". Well actually, they're half French, with one of the boys growing up in New Jersey before transplanting to Paris. Synths, guitar, bass, and drum machines are applied to the skeletal, if lush arrangements of Frank (Just Frank), with the lyrics mostly being handled in French. Much of the songs take their cues from The Cure's bassist Simon Gallup who, especially on Faith and Seventeen Seconds, guided those songs through his bouncy goth basslines. As such, the guitars for Frank (Just Frank) mostly chime and jangle while the the basslines lead the tunes, whose detached emotions are furthered through the atmospheric synths and pleading vocals. The Brutal Wave? Hmm. A bit of a stretch as a title for this album which is far more sanguine than the title suggests. Nevertheless, Frank (Just Frank) deliver what is expected of Wierd these days, with allusions to the likes of B-Movie, For Against, Eleven Pond, OMD, Siglo XX, and of course, The Cure. We like.

MPEG stream: Mr. Itagaki
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For fans of Plug and Two Lone Swordsmen, pleasant, bubbling, mellow neo-electro.

Light in the Attic has begun a deep investigation into the dusty corners of the stalwart Vanguard label to dig up some little-known folk gems. Vanguard was always the hippest of folk labels in the sixties and seventies with classic releases by Joan Baez, John Fahey, and Buffy Saint Marie just to name a few. Bob Frank wasn't as well known as his more famous labelmates, but this 1972 slice of southern-fried hippie folk is a rare unbridled diamond in the rough. Like a mixture of Dylan, Elvis and Johnny Cash, Frank's songs of outlaws, stoners and off-the grid burn-outs are candid and funny, a bit goofy at times, but with real world-weariness observed through a life of hard-living. A stoned country folk lost classic!

MPEG stream: Wino
MPEG stream: Memphis Jail

A sadly underrecognized American guitarist and singer who in the early '60s fell in with the incredibly fertile British folk scene, Jackson C. Frank released only a single album, which has been treasured by collectors ever since. The music is straightforward acoustic guitar folk with several minor key blues numbers peppered throughout. While many of the '60s folkies I find a bit too sweet, wispy and ethereal, straining their voices as if to sound like forest sprites, Frank's vocals are super earnest, plainspoken and in the middle range, with the same gravity as Lee Hazlewood. The guitar is strummed with confidence, the picking delicate, the effect impassioned but not too sweet. The 10 songs here from the selftitled album from 1965 (along with five bonus tracks -- previously unreleased material from 1975) are so yearningly pretty, yet his certifiable masterpiece is certainly the opening number 'Blues Run the Game', which has been covered by everyone from former girlfriend Sandy Denny, Simon & Garfunkel, Al Stewart, Bert Jansch (who still performs Frank's songs), Nick Drake (who covered two others as well!), and more. A few words should be said about Frank's life, although a whole book could be devoted to the subject. While a child he was badly burned in a horrible fire that killed many of his schoolmates. At the age of 21 he was awarded a $100,000 settlement from the accident, and set about spending it foolishly on travel and expensive cars, which brought him to England. He found compatriots in the local folk scene, folks like Jansch, Denny, Tom Paxton, John Martyn, etc. Paul Simon produced Frank's album but he was forced to go back to the US when his money ran out, and by the time he returned to the UK in '68 major depression had taken hold and he deteriorated quickly. Some years later his son died of cystic fibrosis, he ended up sleeping on NYC streets, and was shot in the eye. He spent his last years under the care of a kind fan in Woodstock. Heartbreaking! It happens too often that you hear about some legendary musician for years and years, and then you finally hear their music and you're left... underwhelmed. I was afraid this would happen with Jackson C. Frank, but it worked its magic on me eventually.

RealAudio clip: Blues Run the Game
RealAudio clip: My Name is Carnival
RealAudio clip: Relations

Bay Area label Three Ring Records expand their roster by a third with four impressive new releases by Rykarda Parasol, Scattered Pages, Tom Thumb & The Latter Day Saints and this lone gent Frankel. Three Ring has already got fine releases by the indie rock/pop likes of Elephone, Soltero, Ebb & Flow and D.W. Holiday and Scrabbel, but with this recent outpouring they bolster their country and folk branches. Frankel is a folksy pop singer/songwriter whose music can easily draw comparisons to Nick Drake and Elliott Smith, but his songs tread through a place far less dark and tormented. A most gentle, comforting listen.

MPEG stream: Don't Leave
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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. Good single! Danny Rankel is a famous percussionist who has played with eveyone from Lou Reed to Paul Motian to Michael Penn.

So this is the first time any Aretha Franklin record has been reviewed on the aQ list. And of course with some artists it's just kind of universally known how amazing they are and most of you probably don't need us to gush about the obvious. But we do know, that with certain larger then life artists who have been reduced to so many collections and best of's, its easy to sometimes miss out on the mind blowing actual albums that are in their back catalog. Young, Gifted And Black is an absolute essential album created in 1971, right in the heart of our favorite era of the queen of soul's undeniable prowess. This is one of those start to finish mind blowing records without any filler in the mix. While so much soul from this era was about singles, Aretha had the ability to craft such rich and full sounding records and this is really one of the most satisfying examples of her brilliance. All of us can remember the first time we heard "Rock Steady" as it's one of the most groove filled burners of all time. A song that still makes dance floors shake all these years later. But the record has so much range and is so dynamic, this is what true soul, gospel, and funk really sounds like. Named after the Nina Simone song which she also covers on the record, Young, Gifted And Black is the work of someone fully coming into their own and owning their moment with such fire and conviction. When we saw this was being reissued on vinyl at a really low price we knew we could finally gush about Aretha, and so now if you don't somehow own this record already, we really believe it's time you did!

BACK IN STOCK!!! Martin Franklin and Michael Northam began communicating in the early '90s, both engrossed with the realm of possibilities extant in the laboratory that was the experimental cassette culture. At the time, Northam was beginning a career of sound-art globetrotting by way of festivals, residencies, and the generosity of others, having emerged from the Austin, Texas sound community that spawned the likes of John Grzinich, Olivia Block, Rick Reed, and Seth Nehil. Martin Franklin had gone on to form the British ambient ensemble Tuu, with releases through Beyond, Hic Sunt Leones, and Amplexus. It seems that Franklin and Martin enjoyed a single three hour session back in 1991, and out of that session came the original set of recordings which made their way on to a cassette, released by Sounds For Consciousness Rape, and later onto cd by SDV Tontrager. As both the cd and the tape have been long out of print, we can't comment on the differences between the original recording and this 'recovered' remix of the original source material. Franklin and Northam settle organic textures from metal, dirt, and wood clattering against each other and building softened drones amidst the aggregated sounds. It makes perfect sense that Northam would later work with Darren Tate in one of the final Ora recordings, as these sodden ambient passages and quietly gritty noises share plenty of similarities. Northam had also brought to the session a cassette deck rewired to generate feedback systems, and Franklin had a handheld dictaphone with static and white noise broadcasting through the hypercompressed speakers. These elements give the recordings a rough hewn edge which counterpoint Franklin's sinewy ambience and ghostly half-melodies which are evidence of the contemporary remix work. Altogether, this redux has a darkly ritualized feel of isolationist drones divining something tactile out of the void, much like one would expect from the occluded sounds of the recent Drone Records catalog.

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Brand new album from Michael Franti -- ex-Beat Nigs, ex-Disposable Heroes of the Hiphoprisy -- and Spearhead.

[ aquarius records catalogue — F ]